I think I follow your astrophysics analogy (although I disagree with the professor--more in a moment)...you are saying that knowledge is like Legos; you can attach more blocks without altering the ones you've already assembled.

So, in case of a creator diety, you can add or remove that concept from what we perceive as reality without altering the rest of our perceptions.

I have to disagree on that point, though, if I am understanding it correctly; knowledge seems interactive to me--that is, each addition or subtraction affects everything else. This seems so to me because I don't think anything can be said to exist in isolation from anything else; the ability to, say, add a Lego without changing the Legos you've already assembled presupposes the separate, individual existence of the Lego you added...which does not feel possible to me (I can give you a logical demonstration of this if you like).



Anyhoo, we've danced the distance between metaphysics and epistemology twice so far, so it may be possible that we are simply misinterpreting each other (sometimes it seems like the whole of academic philosophy revolves around groups of people who just don't realize that they actually agree); I don't have any qualms with your definitions of truth and reality...I worked with 'sempiternal omniscience' as a concession to the language you seemed comfortable using (I admit that my own terminology is unique to me except save by accident); the original reservation I had over the connotation of omniscient was that it implied a kind of human consciousness to reality.

(I assume that you will ask me to back up my assertion that two things cannot actually have a separate existence from each other, but in case you don't...)

Maybe we can talk science, too...

It's odd that you mentioned dark matter and dark energy, because I was actually just thinking of them a few days ago.

Take 'dark energy'. It's called dark because it cannot be directly detected. It is believed to exist because the expansion of the cosmos is observed to be accellerating rather than decellerating. Our understanding of gravitation predicts decelleration. Because we observe accelleration, however, we postulate that there is a repulsive force, and we call it dark energy--a kind of innate repulsion between all things that is weaker than gravity, but that does not fall off as rapidly over distance, so that past a certain distance it will become stronger than gravity (explaning large-scale accelleration), but within a certain distance it will be weaker (explaining all other observation).

This is really remarkably convenient, but it is an entirely unnecessary addition. You can account for the accelleration with...heh, you guessed it...proper metaphysics!:

The most plausible model of the universe is what is known as a 'closed' model. Basically, it is like a 4-dimensional sphere of finite size; travel far enough in any direction and you come back to where you started. Distant mass is observed as accelerating 'away' from us because it has traveled far enough to begin to feel the gravitational effect of the mass that started off going in the opposite direction...they are now 'coming round the corner' of each other and the mutual gravitation is causing the acceleration.

No new forces added, explanation given.



EDIT: OH! My signature! I've been trying to figure out where sempiternal omniscience came from if it wasn't your native terminology. Did you tender 'sempiternal omniscience' because of my signature? Although it has been appropriated by Christianity, it was said by Seneca; he is referring to the Stoic logos. I'm fond of it because I have a somewhat paradoxical view of free-will and determinism that it encapsulates nicely.

I don't know a thing about dark energy beyond Wikipedia. If the lovely lady chooses to comment, she'll comment. I personally am going to leave it alone. I also don't think that the shape of the universe is an issue of metaphysics. I think it's an issue of science. Theoretical physicists are insane enough to think in unperceived extra dimensions. I'll let them.

Anyways, aside from details so minor that I wouldn't nitpick them on my most pedantic days, looks like we're working from a common base. This is a good thing. Before I go to work, though...expound on your Lego analogy a little more. I think that removing things that interact with each other impacts the remaining parties in the relationship. If you take a piece out of a Lego castle, the castle doesn't look the same. I don't think that there's any free-willed creator diety still murkying up the physical waters, though. If there's a Lego castle in a room, it doesn't matter if it came that way from the factory or a kid built it like that. The castle will look the same. It doesn't matter if the kid is still in the room or not. It doesn't matter if it's an in-factory display or a toy room masterpiece. What does matter is if the kid is still building the castle, and that's something that impacts our observations. Our kid has moved on to bigger and better things.

EDIT: "Sempiternal omniscience" isn't really a Christian term. They talk about the soul as being sempiternal, but omniscient is out of the question. As far as I know, it's not a term used by anyone. It's how I was reading your definition of truth.

I agree with you here that removing an element of an interacting system impacts the entire whole. I had brought up the Lego analogy as a paraphrase to this below to check my comprehension:



As far as that goes, in order for one thing to have no bearing on another thing (as I interpreted the professor to imply), they would have to be completely separate and non-interacting.

This is what I had issue with, because it seems to me impossible for anything to be separate from anything else; reality must constitute a single whole.

Does that seem right? I had expected you to ask me to back that up, but it sounds like we may both be assuming that characteristic of reality.

EDIT: Oh, regarding metaphysics and science...if you take metaphysics to represent independent reality, then any assertion about 'how things are' (such as the existence of dark matter) constitutes a metaphysical statement. We may be bumping heads on this because I don't see a difference of kind between science and philosophy, so I tend to exchange terms and concepts between them.

It's an analogy. All analogies break down somewhere. Of course it impacts the Big Picture, whether there's a phantom vaccuum machine at the extremities of the universe or everything is about to circle the universe and impact on the other side. On the other hand, you can hold a very thorough conversation on Mark Twain's writing without knowing anything about cell mitosis, even though cell mitosis is essential to Mark Twain having written anything at all.

Aye, indeed. A 'perfect' analogy would necessarily be the thing itself it was meant to represent, which would sort of defeat the purpose of the analogy--simplification for clarity.

Anyhoo, do we agree on a single, unified reality rather than one made of constituent parts? I almost hope we don't, since this is such a fun one to work with...

Are you going to be disappointed if I say that I find the distinction to be semantic?

You should PM me or steal the contact information from my profile so that we don't scare everyone away from this thread.

Too late

You are reminding me of a few blogs I used to read.

But I do think there is a good point that people probably don't assume free speech anymore save for some notion of tradition, and the word "free" always sounds good to people. I am also increasingly convinced, that people seem afraid of using their pattern recognition abilities to draw lines and separate issues.

Like I was saying before, too many people can't see the difference between a student wearing a shirt that reads "Legalize Marijuana" and a student wearing a shirt with a picture of a marijuana leaf on it. Personally, I am all for sending the second student home, while I would be against sending the first student home.

I guess. Hmm, okay, on topic...

I don't think I've ever actually encountered a valid defense of censorship. Does anyone know one? If not, then you can just assume the right to freedom of speech and information by default, since the burden of proof is always on whatever seeks to act rather than be acted upon--in this case, whatever is acting to restrict a behavior.

I should qualify, though, that by speech I mean only discussion and argument; community already implies restriction of internal hostilities between its members, such as malicious language. This is justified by being a precondition to the formation of any community--to deny it is, in essence, to deny membership in the community. In such a case, it becomes irrelevant to consider the restrictions or hardships imposed on such an individual, since justice exists only in relation to an overarching structure, here assumed to be the community in question.

This just makes me soooooo angry....


http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2007-0...us_N.htm?csp=34


I don't even think the forums would censor someone who used the phrase "nappy-headed hos", if I didn't know better, I would think he was referring to Ashteru!

Oh, so government censorship is okay, but you get angry when a private enterprise doesn't want to be associated with some offensive redneck?

Again, your stupidity overwhelms me.

1. Not a redneck

2. What upsets me is the public, not the people who fired him.

3. Nothing he said incited other people to any activity what so ever. He made a comment about sweaty hair, and used a term common in rap music.

4. Private vs Government isn't an issue at all, its all the same. Since this was a response to public outcry, if the government was involved, it probably would have been more drastic.

Isn't it nice to be able to reply with personal attacks with impunity? And you probably sleep just great at night knowing you're an amazing hypocrite.
Sorry for not being particularly cognisant of American sports commentators; I've spent my time on better things than silly sports involving overweight men hitting stuff with sticks.

The public has a right to be offended. Sure they're idiots, sure it's bull, but this isn't the same as censorship.
So what? CBS has the right to decide what it wants on its airwaves. If it does not want the word "hos" in its sports programming, then that's their business; you can watch some other network if you think their sports coverage isn't gangsta enough.

No, you moron, it is. The Government has an obligation to support and defend freedom of speech; private enterprises aren't obligated to transmit speech they don't agree with.

Sorry Verithrax, but you are obviously commenting on something you know nothing about. That makes you ignorant or stupid on the subject, take your pick.

So why comment on something you know nothing about, and make attacks and stupid statements in the process? And then get offended by it? Sorry but thats the actions of stupidity.

Learn the difference between attacks on an action and attacks on a person.

1. Imus is not a sports commentator. 2. Public officials and politicians were the ones who pushed this to the state it is, that somebody is getting fired over a comment made by the very music that is played on the air later.

1. Meaningless to the argument at hand.

2. Sponsors pulled support from Imus; that happens all the time. Just this time it's happened to some bloke whose voice you fancy, so you blame the government.

Again, please stop displaying your ignorance, it ruins conversation completely.

I have never once in my life listed to Imus in the morning. The only time I have even heard of Imus was in the Howard Stern movie where he makes fun of him.

However, before I posted, I happened to read the Wiki article, and 3 other news articles on the matter, and those articles and the comments attached to them, is what made me post the article here.

Do some reading, learn some facts, then join in the conversation.

If you didn't act like such a prick, I guess there might have been a chance for conversation, but you've completely destroyed that possibility now.

Thank you.

I would just like to point out that you made 3 - 4 personal attacks about me, all assumptions, posts, all of which are false and all of which were irrelevant to the article posted.

Go find a new forum to troll, perhaps one where you actually play the game the forum is related to.

You assume I had any intention of having a conversation with the likes of you that didn't consist of me abusing you verbally. I don't really; I'm getting too old for that crap.

Since his sig has shrunk, I can safely say, though quite regretfully, that I do, in general, agree with Daganev. May the gods have mercy on my soul.

In general, mind you. The public outcry about this is ludicrous; if you have a problem with it, don't listen to him. Oh, right, the media is having a goddamn field day with this, so it's hard to miss. Maybe we should just stop freaking caring about stupid crap like this and they wouldn't go nuts whenever it happens.

I really liked the comment from the guy on the article (digiti.com) I linked, who showed how the media is more racist than any of these people by making it a white vs black issue, when in reality he feels its "a good excuse" to get rid of a guy they wanted to get rid of anyways. If only he was correct.

When Al Sharpton gets involved, it always because a big issue because Sharpton seemingly can't do anything without calling for a press conference first. Its bad for his business or something.

"Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham said the magazine's staffers would no longer appear on Imus' show. Meacham, Jonathan Alter, Evan Thomas, Howard Fineman and Michael Isikoff from Newsweek have been frequent guests."

That quote makes me the most upset. You would think the press would have better standards than that.