Conscious inaction; an action in itself?

[aperson]

Re: Conscious inaction; an action in itself?

Do you have an actual criticism, or do you just find something repulsive about the amount of effort you believe I put into the last response?

Well, either way I'm going to bed. I'll either hear more argument/whining tommorow, V~

I don't do something
event x occurs

I do something
event y occurs

Why put so much special exclusivity on to negative cases

Did you see how many commas and subordinate clauses it took you to try to get to something that wasn't causal. It should've taken you an infinite number more because you still didn't get there and you never will.

[jewpinthethird]

Re: Conscious inaction; an action in itself?

Sure, just not an action of any stripe which would allow you to hold someone responsible for something that occurred externally to them.

So, by this logic, a doctor can deny a patient life saving treatment by deciding not to administer it and not be guilty of allowing the patient to die.

Better yet, say a person is driving and down the road is a child in the middle of the street. The child isn't moving out of the way and the person decides not to brake or swerve out of the way. The person hits the child and the child dies. By your logic, the person is not guilty of killing the child.

[devonin]

Re: Conscious inaction; an action in itself?

Ah but see, he claims that his logic applies only in cases where somehow magically going back in time and removing you from the situation could happen without any change in effect. Like...if you went back and removed the driver from that situation the child woudln't die, thus the person did in fact have a casual effect on what happened.

However, such a thing is impossible, and I still see a case where you had the action of changing course, and the inaction of not changing course, both of which carry consequences for which you are at least somewhat responsible.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Backhanded!

Does "Damning with faint praise" count as a logical fallacy?

No. Back-handed compliments are more of a literary device anyways.

If, for example, a government decides to maintain a standing law, they are viewed as having made an -active- -responsible- decision...that has no direct causal effect on the way things had been previously. The law existed, they elected to not remove it, but they are held responsible for the consequences of the upholding of that law.

Every example you can think of is going to rely on the fact that other people think the same way. There's no example you can provide external to human perception, so there's no example I would readily accept. Now, my thoughts are a matter of perception as well, but again they at least pretend a distinction between the real and the ideal, and subsequently they at least pretend a basis which your thoughts are incapable of providing.

Being the 1 in 6 billion unique person that you are, you'll no doubt point out that there are all kinds of trivial laws on the books since days of yore which have never been removed, but which people simply acknowledge as being non-entities as far as considering them or paying them heed is concerned, but since your stance is one that says there is -never- a case as described in which your belief fails to apply, even if you appeal to millions of cases where you are correct, I need have only one where I am.

Too bad you don't. Unless of course we're back to arguing duty rather than consequentialism. If government has a duty to make all laws fair, then leaving an unfair law on the books is wrong. Leaving an unfair law on the books is not wrong based purely on consequentialism.

This leads back to where you openly criticized me for having vague and ambiguous terms. Well, your stance is one of 'zero' and my stance is one of 'non-zero' as any mathematician will tell you, the actual size of the non-zero is completely irellevant when just comparing 0 and !0.

...

So...because your belief says "Emotional language is invalid" my use of emotional language causes you to dismiss my point...okay, please provide varifiable, objective universal proof that emotional language is -always- invalid in this case ie. other than "Because I believe it isn't"

I couldn't provide universal, verifiable, objective proof that gold is yellow, and neither could you. What I can say, in the proper scientific fashion, is that if something is always observed then it is likely always true. What I can also say, in a mathematical sense, is that if a model is more elegant, even if it describes the same thing, it should be the one adopted. Using "bad character" synonymously with "responsibility for evil" strikes me as inelegant. If I recognized your ability to use emotional language in a superior way, then perhaps I wouldn't condemn it. It's largely the central role I'm wary of.

Ought we to call you Friedrich from here on out? I can practically hear your will powering.

Um. Thanks?

As soon as you can provide proof for your negative (Since disproving one is inherently impossible, and thus the burden of proof is yours) namely, that you have the aforementioned provable, universal truth that in absolutely no case, ever, does emotion have a necessary function in ones worldview, I guess we can continue.

I never said that. To be honest I doubt there is a necessary function in a worldview. However, firstly your inability to discard your prejudices is responsible for your continued equivocation, in my perception, and secondly since skepticism is more useful in my experience than faith in constructing models, I don't need to disprove a negative, I assume the negative until it is proven otherwise. "innocent until proven guilty" "null hypothesis" "Black swan occurrence" whichever.

Well, isn't that consoling.

I'm not particularly sure the part of you that's aching should be consoled, but all the same the whole of you is forgiven.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Conscious inaction; an action in itself?

I don't do something
event x occurs

I do something
event y occurs

Why put so much special exclusivity on to negative cases

Because it applies.

Did you see how many commas and subordinate clauses it took you to try to get to something that wasn't causal. It should've taken you an infinite number more because you still didn't get there and you never will.

Um, that's nice. Nice but wrong.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Conscious inaction; an action in itself?

So, by this logic, a doctor can deny a patient life saving treatment by deciding not to administer it and not be guilty of allowing the patient to die.

Yep.

Better yet, say a person is driving and down the road is a child in the middle of the street. The child isn't moving out of the way and the person decides not to brake or swerve out of the way. The person hits the child and the child dies. By your logic, the person is not guilty of killing the child.

Not quite, we can trace the cause of the cars motion back to the person operating it, even if they weren't operating it at a given time. Thus if we consider the cause of the childs death as the car, the car was effected by the driver at some point, so following a syllogism, and noting that each part contains a causal element, we can blame the person for killing the child. Although technically we could put the child at fault as easily as the driver, but of course we wouldn't do that because that just feels wrong. No, if two parties are equally responsible for something the criminal is determined based on who suffered or lost more, even though this doesn't necessarily make sense.

The death could be considered either suicide or manslaughter, but we all know what it will be considered, don't we?

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Conscious inaction; an action in itself?

However, such a thing is impossible, and I still see a case where you had the action of changing course, and the inaction of not changing course, both of which carry consequences for which you are at least somewhat responsible.

You're entitled to be wrong, but at least you understand my position to some level.

[aperson]

Re: Conscious inaction; an action in itself?

Because it applies.



Um, that's nice. Nice but wrong.

No, negative cases to you are positive cases to another person; the concepts of actions are all relevant notions that pivot around your cognitive biases. You can't even define what inaction is because of this, and your failure to do that shows when you start trying to jump circles around Jewpin's point. Quit trying to back up your arguments with a bunch of junk philosophy that 'big men' like Kant have thrown around, too. It makes you look like a sophist when you apply their reasoning without even having a firm substrate.

Since you aren't grasping the depth of what I'm saying, you can't come up with anything better than some canned response like "Because it applies." No it doesn't, and I've shown you three times over now why it doesn't. But instead, you've chosen to stick your fingers in your ears and shout the same stuff over and over as loudly as you can.

As human beings, we are woven together in a beautifully intricate network of causality. Everything we do affects others with infinite magnitude, but our computational and perceptual limitations keep us from ever recognizing this (just like a butterfly flapping its wings...). Quit pigeonholing yourself into the most basic grasps at causality by arguing like you are; you're never going to see the beauty of the big picture if you do. Instead, you're making a threshold argument; you're saying that somewhere along the gradient of perceived causal manipulability, things slip from a semantic label of 'action' to one of 'inaction.' I'm fine with this concept, but for god's sake, at least be aware that you're doing this. Posts like your response to my "What isn't causal?" question demonstrate just how blind to what you're doing you actually are. You're seeing things in black in white instead of a spectrum. Stop.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Conscious inaction; an action in itself?

No, negative cases to you are positive cases to another person; the concepts of actions are all relevant notions that pivot around your cognitive biases. You can't even define what inaction is because of this, and your failure to do that shows when you start trying to jump circles around Jewpin's point. Quit trying to back up your arguments with a bunch of junk philosophy that 'big men' like Kant have thrown around, too. It makes you look like a sophist when you apply their reasoning without even having a firm substrate.

I'm sorry, but pointing out the dead-end nature of perspectivism isn't a refutation.

Since you aren't grasping the depth of what I'm saying, you can't come up with anything better than some canned response like "Because it applies." No it doesn't, and I've shown you three times over now why it doesn't. But instead, you've chosen to stick your fingers in your ears and shout the same stuff over and over as loudly as you can.

There is no depth to what you're saying. It's post-modern nonsense.

As human beings, we are woven together in a beautifully intricate network of causality. Everything we do affects others with infinite magnitude, but our computational and perceptual limitations keep us from ever recognizing this (just like a butterfly flapping its wings...). Quit pigeonholing yourself into the most basic grasps at causality by arguing like you are; you're never going to see the beauty of the big picture if you do. Instead, you're making a threshold argument; you're saying that somewhere along the gradient of perceived causal manipulability, things slip from a semantic label of 'action' to one of 'inaction.' I'm fine with this concept, but for god's sake, at least be aware that you're doing this. Posts like your response to my "What isn't causal?" question demonstrate just how blind to what you're doing you actually are. You're seeing things in black in white instead of a spectrum. Stop.

You know what the great thing is about this? I can dismiss it by saying it's just your perspective. That's not why I dismiss it though, I dismiss it because ultimately it's meaningless. So, you argue that our ability to perceive causality is far beneath our ability to see all causality? That's great, but it doesn't mean anything because any conjecture on the causal or non-causal nature of reality beyond that threshold is untestable. Now, again since skepticism is more useful in critical epistemology than faith, I assume there is no causal link beyond our ability to perceive or otherwise deduce. Keep in mind that quantum physics doesn't count because quantum physics are within the realm of human perception. Also, I'm not sure how a butterfly flapping its wings is related to thoughts somehow permeating through reality to effect every event, but even if it were it has no practical application. You can't hold a person morally responsible for their thoughts being connected to a given action through a chain of millions of other events any more than you can hold a butterfly responsible, meaning there's no purpose in this conjecture.

Or, to simplify how Montaigne put it, "A man can only be held accountable within the limits of his means."

Thoughts are within the realm of means. At the same time, means can only be determined as an absolute based on whether or not any given action was taken, meaning if someone doesn't take a given action there's no way to prove that action was within their means.

[aperson]

Re: Conscious inaction; an action in itself?

I'm sorry, but pointing out the dead-end nature of perspectivism isn't a refutation.

No, then you can't say that other's cognitive biases lead to fallacious modes of thought like you did above. Oops. You've fallen into a postmodern pit too. Nice one.

You're right, it isn't a refutation but it dismembers most of your pathetic arguments above.

There is no depth to what you're saying. It's post-modern nonsense.

Mind pointing out why or how? Oh wait you can't you just like throwing blanket labels on things and casting them aside; get some substance or get the hell out. Haha how postmodern. Haha how perspectivist. Haha how consequentialist. Hold on let me namedrop some Nietzsche be right back.

You know what the great thing is about this? I can dismiss it by saying it's just your perspective. That's not why I dismiss it though

So basically you just dug yourself a postmodern pit and jumped out right before you buried yourself in it. Nice save.

I dismiss it because ultimately it's meaningless.

Oops nevermind, you buried yourself.

So, you argue that our ability to perceive causality is far beneath our ability to see all causality? That's great, but it doesn't mean anything because any conjecture on the causal or non-causal nature of reality beyond that threshold is untestable. Now, again since skepticism is more useful in critical epistemology than faith, I assume there is no causal link beyond our ability to perceive or otherwise deduce.

And why wouldn't it be just as skeptical to say "Now, again since skepticism is more useful in critical epistemology then faith, I assume that there is no evidence of inherent action beyond our ability to perceive or otherwise deduce."

Well I'll be damned, there's the negation of your claim worded as a similar positive. Funny how that works. Wrench your brain really, really hard with some far transfer skills and maybe you can fathom how this applies to my original arguments. Hold on, I'll probably have to make it black and white for you:

Here's a direct example of the relativity of positive and negative I was talking about earlier. Haha jesus christ, you said this and can't even notice what is going on. Also, it's hilarious as hell that you're arguing against causality with scientific empricism when every single bit of scientific discovery ever made pretty much underlies the notion that events occur as causal phenomenon. You should really listen to some of the crap you're saying some time.

And beyond that, your argument boils down to some thought process analogous to the thought an ostrich makes when it runs away from fear by sticking its head in a hole; well if I can't see it, it can't be there: "That's great, but it doesn't mean anything because any conjecture on the causal or non-causal nature of reality beyond that threshold is untestable."

Nice one, you call my stance empty postmodernism then do the exact same thing. You're brilliant, man. This is A+ sophistry right here.

Keep in mind that quantum physics doesn't count because quantum physics are within the realm of human perception. Also, I'm not sure how a butterfly flapping its wings is related to thoughts somehow permeating through reality to effect every event, but even if it were it has no practical application.

It's an example of the subtlety of causality. If you can't understand this then you're just dense.

You can't hold a person morally responsible for their thoughts being connected to a given action through a chain of millions of other events any more than you can hold a butterfly responsible, meaning there's no purpose in this conjecture.

Oh wait you do understand it. You just feigned ignorance above to wrap around my last point and then magically got the picture when you started arguing against moral repsonsibility here. Man that's neat.

But you know what, YOU'RE RIGHT! Now maybe you can understand that you are making an arbitrary threshold argument. You're trying to set a JND (I'm namedropping psychology terms now) on where intentful causality occurs. And you're setting this threshold through some nonsensical view based on your cognitive biases on what denotes a positive action versus a negative (I mean this in the sense of A and ~A, not in the sense of good and bad).

Or, to simplify how Montaigne put it, "A man can only be held accountable within the limits of his means."

Okay and isn't one of his means to choose not to act? Oops glaring contradiction in your entire argument. Maybe you should think more before you choose to namedrop yet more people.

Thoughts are within the realm of means. At the same time, means can only be determined as an absolute based on whether or not any given action was taken, meaning if someone doesn't take a given action there's no way to prove that action was within their means.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Conscious inaction; an action in itself?

No, then you can't say that other's cognitive biases lead to fallacious modes of thought like you did above. Oops. You've fallen into a postmodern pit too. Nice one.

You're right, it isn't a refutation but it dismembers most of your pathetic arguments above.

Right. Because calling all perspectives into equal doubt and then building another perspective on top of the rubble isn't hypocritical. Or, if it really isn't why bother deconstructing a perspective in the first place?

Mind pointing out why or how? Oh wait you can't you just like throwing blanket labels on things and casting them aside; get some substance or get the hell out. Haha how postmodern. Haha how perspectivist. Haha how consequentialist. Hold on let me namedrop some Nietzsche be right back.

That's interesting. No really it is. Apparently language is incapable of having semantic value now. I'm intigued. How do you manage to carry on a conversation without meaning?

So basically you just dug yourself a postmodern pit and jumped out right before you buried yourself in it. Nice save.

At least I didn't bury the world in it and pretend I'm the only one still above ground.

And why wouldn't it be just as skeptical to say "Now, again since skepticism is more useful in critical epistemology then faith, I assume that there is no evidence of inherent action beyond our ability to perceive or otherwise deduce."

I suppose there wouldn't be. In fact this would be more skeptical. However, it would also be taking skepticism beyond the point where it is useful in constructing perspectives. I prefer rejecting a perspective because there is no hypothesis which can test it, rather than rejecting a perspective because I reject the concept of a hypothesis in the first place. Is this purely preference? Maybe. The truth is I don't care. I don't have a taste for self-castration, amputation, and lobotomization. Perhaps you do.

Well I'll be damned, there's the negation of your claim worded as a similar positive. Funny how that works. Wrench your brain really, really hard with some far transfer skills and maybe you can fathom how this applies to my original arguments.

Why don't you do it yourself, you're the one arguing the issue.

Here's a direct example of the relativity of positive and negative I was talking about earlier. Haha jesus christ, you said this and can't even notice what is going on. Also, it's hilarious as hell that you're arguing against causality with scientific empricism when every single bit of scientific discovery ever made pretty much underlies the notion that events occur as causal phenomenon. You should really listen to some of the crap you're saying some time.

Actually, you should listen to it, then maybe you would be able to address it rather than talking around it. I never argued against causality, just against singularity of causality. Of course things seem relative when you pretend they're all made of the same element. But then, if everything causes everything, which is the endpoint of your position, once again causation becomes meaningless. The perfect interconnection of all actions makes any sense of consequentialist morality meaningless. Congratulations, you've stripped a language of all meaning. Please, go ahead and do this to all language. Pragmatic language, deontological language, utilitarian language, perspectivist langauge. Oh wait, those are all just words. Words in a language. Darn.

And beyond that, your argument boils down to some thought process analogous to the thought an ostrich makes when it runs away from fear by sticking its head in a hole; well if I can't see it, it can't be there

This doesn't mean anything to me.

"That's great, but it doesn't mean anything because any conjecture on the causal or non-causal nature of reality beyond that threshold is untestable."

How is this ostrich-like? Doubt isn't the same as rejection because, after all, you can't prove a negative. Assuming the negative when you're in the dark isn't retreatist, it's sensible. It's a limitation of language to constructing meanings around that which can actually be observed.

Nice one, you call my stance empty postmodernism then do the exact same thing. You're brilliant, man. This is A+ sophistry right here.

That's nice. Nice but wrong. Actually at this point I wonder why you're bothering to argue at all, if you want to make it clear that I'm capable of being wrong, I understand that. It you want to actually argue in a manner that supports your position you don't have the tools in your possession to actually do it, you've resigned yourself to deconstructing meaning so any act of attempting to affirm meaning is blatant unsupported hypocrisy.

Oh wait you do understand it. You just feigned ignorance above to wrap around my last point and then magically got the picture when you started arguing against moral repsonsibility here. Man that's neat.

Isn't it though? Language has meaning precisely because it has a function within a larger language. Independently of context, language doesn't have meaning. Your example of causality had no meaning. Now it does.

But you know what, YOU'RE RIGHT! Now maybe you can understand that you are making an arbitrary threshold argument.

Well then, if both of us are making arbitrary arguments, perhaps neither of us should be conversing.

You're trying to set a JND (I'm namedropping psychology terms now) on where intentful causality occurs. And you're setting this threshold through some nonsensical view based on your cognitive biases on what denotes a positive action versus a negative (I mean this in the sense of A and ~A, not in the sense of good and bad).

So you reject formal logic now. Ok. Well I really don't know what the hell to do now because apparently there's no language acceptable to you in which to convey a concept. Oh, except yours, of course, and that's not a language used for communication.

Okay and isn't one of his means to choose not to act? Oops glaring contradiction in your entire argument. Maybe you should think more before you choose to namedrop yet more people.

I haven't done any namedropping. And how about you? Bringing up Kant for no reason, bringing up others? No, this stopped being a conversation as soon as you started talking, you had no intention for an exchange of information to occur. One of his means is to choose not to act, but this makes him responsible of bad character not of causation. So how about that, things of the same property

AREN'T ALWAYS CONNECTED!



[img]Highly meaningful response. Absolutely stunning refutation. Especially noteworthy because of clear understanding of concept to which it was responding[/QUOTE]

No really, learn to recognize distinctions. I don't care if you think they're entirely language based and not real, but if you're just going to keep conjoining 6 or seven different concepts and some emotion into a hypocritical mutation of reason I'm not even going to bother.

And you call me a sophist.

[aperson]

Re: Conscious inaction; an action in itself?

When you're smart enough to actually understand what I'm saying, then you can get back to me with points. Until then, try not saying anything.

Here, let me bring out an example of how absolutely fucking retarded you are so maybe you (or everyone else) can understand how much of a brain you lack.

Well then, if both of us are making arbitrary arguments, perhaps neither of us should be conversing.

In response to

But you know what, YOU'RE RIGHT! Now maybe you can understand that you are making an arbitrary threshold argument.

You broke apart the sentence as arbitrary(threshold + argument). If you would have took the time to actually sit back and read what I said, using this wonderful tool called 'context' you seem to be so excited about, you would've understood that the word "arbitrary" was modifying the word threshold, and not the whole phrase threshold argument, like such: [arbitrary(threshold)(argument)]. Maybe if you would've took the time to look up what the phrase JND meant (because I had to look up what a bunch of your dumbfuck terminology meant), you would've had the contextual mettle to pull off this stunning feat of decoding. But obviously, you took so little time to sit back and read what I said before you started jacking off all over your keyboard that you didn't even get the context of what I was saying and chose to fall back onto some LOL POSTMODERNISM argument instead. Your brain has descended to a hunt and find mission where you look for words like arbitrary or meaningless and immediately think that obviously I'm making some argument that nothing has meaning.

So I've got an idea for you, shut the fuck up and actually understand the points I make before you start rattling out some halfassed comeback to my responses, because it's hard to debate a point with someone when they aren't even debating what I said.


And for those few times you actually do understand what I'm saying, let's try not to contort what I said into such a disfigured shape that it has no bearing to what I originally said any more:

That's interesting. No really it is. Apparently language is incapable of having semantic value now. I'm intigued. How do you manage to carry on a conversation without meaning?

In reponse to

Mind pointing out why or how? Oh wait you can't you just like throwing blanket labels on things and casting them aside; get some substance or get the hell out. Haha how postmodern. Haha how perspectivist. Haha how consequentialist. Hold on let me namedrop some Nietzsche be right back.

You know as well as I do that I was telling you to actually back up your statement with ideas of substance instead of just namedropping philosophies. For every philosophy there's a counter philosophy and a counter-counter philosophy ad nausea, I don't give a fuck that you know who Nietzsche is. If you don't provide any substance to your arguments through actually expanding on these terms in any reasonable manner, then yeah, they are just empty semantic labels.


Oh, and probably the funniest example of how fucking stupid you are:

I said

Well I'll be damned, there's the negation of your claim worded as a similar positive. Funny how that works. Wrench your brain really, really hard with some far transfer skills and maybe you can fathom how this applies to my original arguments.

And you responded with

Why don't you do it yourself, you're the one arguing the issue.

Well if you hadn't had your panties in such a bunch that you wanted to give a line by line breakdown of stupid sophist ranting without reading my whole post first you would've read the VERY NEXT LINE where I said

"Hold on, I'll probably have to make it black and white for you:"

and then went on to explain it in the next paragraph where you responded with more keyboard jacking off:

"Here's a direct example of the relativity of positive and negative I was talking about earlier. Haha jesus christ, you said this and can't even notice what is going on. Also, it's hilarious as hell that you're arguing against causality with scientific empricism when every single bit of scientific discovery ever made pretty much underlies the notion that events occur as causal phenomenon. You should really listen to some of the crap you're saying some time."


Seriously, use your fucking brain, not just the stem.


Edit: One more since I couldn't resist. Especially since you're saying this to someone whose had 2 years of symbolic logic.

So you reject formal logic now. Ok. Well I really don't know what the hell to do now because apparently there's no language acceptable to you in which to convey a concept. Oh, except yours, of course, and that's not a language used for communication.

LET'S TAKE A MYSTICAL JOURNEY THROUGH THE LAND OF SECOND ORDER LOGIC.

Let's assume that in our universal domain, there exists at least some property that A that holds for some object in the domain
(∃A)(∃x)[Ax]

Hold on, watch out, I'm about to do something really mystical here. I'm going to define another predicate that represents ~Ax BUT DOESN'T REQUIRE NEGATION TO SAY SO.
(∃B)(∀x) (~Ax -> Bx)

So Bx says that x does not have property A all the while not using negation to make the claim.

Oh my god, my claim certainly brought the world of formal logic onto it's knees yessiree.
But wait, I hear, you're going to gloss over this and respond "BUT APERSON I STILL SEE A ~ YOU ARE LYING THERE IS NEGATION DUMMY."
To which, I will elegantly respond,
"Okay, then we can define our predicate B as:

(∃C)(∀x) Cx
(∃B)(∀x) [Cx -> Ax] xor Bx
"

Q.E.D.

[talisman]

Re: Conscious inaction; an action in itself?

somehow I knew this topic would escalate into something like this.

[devonin]

Re: Conscious inaction; an action in itself?

Well we can't all be penguins.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Conscious inaction; an action in itself?

I give up. Half of the conversation has moved beyond my ability to address and the other half is based on misinterpretation. So...

When you're smart enough to actually understand what I'm saying, then you can get back to me with points. Until then, try not saying anything.

So I've got an idea for you, shut the **** up and actually understand the points I make before you start rattling out some halfassed comeback to my responses, because it's hard to debate a point with someone when they aren't even debating what I said.

And for those few times you actually do understand what I'm saying, let's try not to contort what I said into such a disfigured shape that it has no bearing to what I originally said any more

The feeling's mutual.