Louis
Posts: 6436
Joined: Jan. 2006
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Lenny,
No I am not missing the point at all. Like I said before simply stringing words together in question form does not a question make.
Again, just so you get it, I'll try AGAIN. I don't need to redefine the question or change it, I am asking what you mean by the question. Why do I ask this? Because as I said earlier, the question is vague. Quite deliberately so actually (IMO) since you are STILL playing rhetorical silly buggers. I'll dissect it again for you a different way:
Are blondes hotter than brunettes?
What do you mean by "are"?
What do you mean by "blondes"?
What do you mean by "hotter"?
What do you mean by "than"?
What do you mean by "brunettes"?
Each of those words has a meaning (or otherwise it's merely empty noise and can be discarded as the ravings of a lunatic.), they form a coherent phrase together which is intended to pose a question about some "thing" (to use a deliberately vague term). A question is a phrase designed to not merely get a response but to get some kind of information. If the question is phrased in such a way that it is incoherent then the phrase is no longer a question because by virtue of its incoherence it cannot be used to get information.
I can reel off incoherent questions until the end of time, of the vast set of potential questions that exists (an infinite set some might say) only a fraction of them are coherent. Unless the terms in the question are defined, unless the meanings of the words used in the questions are clearly stated and unless the terms used in the question fit together in terms of their meanings (i.e. they refer to related concepts) then the question is incoherent and cannot be answered by ANY means at all.
The reason incoherent questions cannot be answered by any means is because an incoherent question can be answered with anything. If any answer is applicable to a question no information has been gained by answering it, thus the very purpose of framing a question in the first place (gaining information) is defeated. To retreat from this ismple fact is to retreat to one of a variety of solipsist or nihilist positions where nothing at all is knowable to any extent. Incidentally this is a fundamentally dishonest position to occupy because the person occupying it is communicating using words etc, claiming some form of knowledge, participating in a discussion using the rigours and modes of reason and then when it suits them denying that this works by the very process they are using to deny it! It's rankest hypocrisy and it's also the silliest and oldest rhetorical game in the book. Frequently used by theists, if they only knew it.
So as I have said before, the question can either be framed in such a way as to get information (i.e. one defines what one means by those terms in it, no change on my part is necessary) or it is left undefined and as such is meaningless, incoherent and utterly unanswerable by any means.
So Lenny, you are AGAIN, quite wrong. You, like Skeptic are declaring by assertion that reason cannot answer certain questions. You are also (quite wrongly incidentally) accusing me of trying to turn science/reason into a worldview as if this is a conflict of biases. You do so in both cases either by virtue of your own lack of intellectual ability or by virtue of the quite standard dishonesty exhibited by people incapable of "losing" an argument. I'm singularly unimpressed with the pair of you. The fact that you more eloquently restate your case than Skeptic is not a point in your favour, you are performing exactly the same nonsense he is: i.e. mere assertion as opposed to demonstration.
You are "outside" logic are you? Really? How are you communicating then? How are you arguing your case if not by the use of common definitions of words set by reason and observation? How are you attempting to defeat my argument if not by logical and reasoned reference yourself? You can't answer that and you know it, the reason being is you are doing PRECISELY what I am saying: answering by use of reason. As I have said before: insofar as a question is answerable, it is answerable by reason alone. Disagree? Great! Show me a question that can be answered by means other than reason, and show me its answer. The simple fact is that you haven't done this (and cannot, which is why you evade it everytime). Smug little rhetorical games don't constitute proof Lenny. So sorry chum but you are NOT outside logic and reason, you are using them precisely as I have predicted you would. Your hypocrisy and denial regarding that fact is not my problem but it's pretty bloody starkly obvious.
Your question about blondes whether it is objective or subjective is a question open to answering by reason insofar as it is a question at all. The reason you keep restating it as vaguely as you do and refusing to define your terms is because you know the very second you define them you prove what I have been saying correct. Hence you keep the phrase vague and reassert your original claim that reason cannot answer it. Then (since this is now the third time at least I have pointed this out) you ignore the fact that the question is a non sequitur and is unanswerable by any means. After that you go on to ignore the question I have posed you and Skeptic and had not even been responded to let alone answered (incidentally I consider this evasion to be the pinnacle of dishonesty, and I DID expect a lot better from you at least): if the question can be answered by any means show me what those means are and what that answer is.
So I'll try AGAIN to get you to answer a simple question, one that I have been trying to get you and Skeptic to answer and yet you both seem curiously incapable of doing so.
Show me a pair of phrases, one question and its corresponding answer, that have not been in any way answered by reason and are not answerable by reason.
Don't like that? Ok then show me one piece of knowledge, one tiny fleck of epistemologically unique data, obtained by non rational, non-reason based means.
Incidentally I KNOW you will run away from this question AGAIN because I KNOW and you KNOW that you cannot answer it. That's the fundamental hypocrisy at the core of your argument: you are using reason to defend unreason and you know it.
Louis
P.S. Erasmus, in your chain of logic you have also missed the key point. I don't need to REdefine the question to answer it, I need it to be defined by the person asking it. No change is needed by me at all. All I am arguing is that insofar as any question is answerable it is answerable by reason. And to date, unless someone shows up with a different way of knowing, that it is answerable by reason alone. This is a MASSIVE distinction between what I am ACTUALLY saying, and the straw version of what I am saying that Lenny and Skeptic keep playing with.
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Bye.
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