If I am immortal, then I will soon die

[PyramidHead]

Well, tell me how or why an argument and a conditional are different from a logical perspective.

Are you saying that the statement in the OP is intended to be an argument, rather than just a conditional? If so, what are the premises, what is the conclusion, and what logical rule justifies the conclusion given the premises?

I didn't say it was an argument. It is a conditional.

And I asked whether the implication was valid, not whether the argument was valid.
EB

Then it isn't. It's missing premises that would connect the antecedent to the consequent.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Wow. I spell it out and you find a new item to introduce. I chose to use the example in the definition which was the faculty of audition. We can argue to what extent perception, usually a level of processing making sense of information produced by sense faculties. I will agree that memory is a faculty that can provide objective material measures. But I specifically provided three articles explaining intuition and introspection are not measurable nor brain system associated. Why do you keep attaching your unverified 'faculty' by way of associating it with an actual faculty. Intuition is not a faculty because it is mentioned in the same sentence as audition or memory which are faculties even by uninformed admission. Saying is no longer adequate to qualify something you think people do as a faculty. Again saying intuition is our perception of the part , unidentified, where logic has been integrated, unverified. Something works like hell fire by you fall far short of describing or even modelling it. I understand workload which degrades with task complexity and time on task and improves when chunking elements to be processed are used in everybody. But I don't understand intuition which is seen by some but never found measureable by anyone and is only accessible by introspection. Don't play with your philosophical illusionary things. Try to make use of experimental philosophy by building a language that actually can yield results. IMHO that failure looks like why several attempts to begin an experimental philosophy has thus far failed every time it has been initiated. Look. In audition we gave up on finding processes across languages that produced the possibility of machine language. Presently we settle for a few simple start stop rules and a huge barge of reference to produce multiple languages via one machine. So much for Chomsky. Yeah, he pisses me off. Just as Gould did in evolutionary theory.

What do you expect me to do? I see a tree in my garden and you're saying science can't measure that tree.

Well, we disagree. The hell we disagree. Scientists can't measure intuition but I can. I do it every day of my life and other people report the same. It works.

But first, prove to me we are talking about the same thing.

You say "intuition", scientists say "intuition", so what? You are using the word "intuition" to talk about something that doesn't exist.

Tarski agrees with me. Mathematicians routinely refer to "our intuitive notions" of this and that. I certainly understand what they mean. Do you? No, you can't.

Look again at the definition. I think your brain doesn't quite register what it says.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

If something is proven, it is taken to be true.

Sure, but it is not because we routinely believe other people have a mind that other people a have mind.

We are logical being and logic in itself doesn't prove anything true. What it does is prove that IF premises are true, then the conclusion is true. And how do we know that the premises are true? All we can do is make up another set of premises to prove the first ones. And we thereby go into infinite regress. This is why we don't know the material world. We can only believe on the basis of the premises we happen to believe, i.e. our perception. This is the same in mathematics. People keep saying I know this, I know that, of course they will, if they didn't they wouldn't get a job or a flirt or the bowl of beans. We are good pretenders and we all do it.
EB

If the premises and their conclusion are proven to be sound and beyond reasonable doubt, the article, the thing being taken to be be true and factual is - by default - true beyond reasonable doubt because the premise and their conclusion are inseparable.

But then it is just a case of you assuming the premises as true, which is fine. But it is still not a case of the reasoning proving something true on its own. You need both the valid reasoning and the premises together. If you think the premises are true, fine, you will believe the conclusion. And whether you believe the premises are true beyond any reasonable doubt is irrelevant. This is still a belief and you should know that history of mankind is full of the junkyard of our beyond-any-doubt beliefs. Think of dark matter and dark energy if you've forgotten the rest.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Then it isn't. It's missing premises that would connect the antecedent to the consequent.

OK, it is your position.

Please note that logicians admit that arguments missing a premise may be valid. That is, logically valid. Not formally valid, but valid.

The idea is that we take into account what the words mean in the language by default, which is normally everyday language. Thus, immortal means not mortal, and not mortal means will never die.

Thus, if someone is immortal, we can normally infer that he will never die. Thus, immortal implies never dies. The idea is that, given the definitions of the vocabulary in everyday English, it is true that if Joe is immortal, then Joe will never die.

This makes sense since our everyday conversations in English are based on this principle that we assume the English dictionary applies. You do it to and you will inevitably yourself imply what people mean from what they say on the basis of your interpretation of what they say based on the assumption that the English dictionary applies.

We can put the conditional in the form of an enthymeme, like this:

Joe is immortal;
Therefore, Joe will never die.​

This sort of argument is usually considered valid by logicians.It was called by Aristotle himself an enthymeme, that is, an incomplete syllogism that we are able to complete to make it valid.

And we can complete it:

Joe is immortal;
All immortals never die.
Therefore, Joe will never die.​

Your answer is based on formal considerations, not the semantics of the conditional.

And, I didn't ask whether the implication was formally valid. I asked whether it was valid.

My implication is not valid but not because of any missing premises, unless you want to talk formal validity.

I don't ask about formal validity because I am interested in the intuition people have about arguments.

Intuition here simply means that you understand what the implication is and whether you "feel" it is correct, i.e. valid.

But you decided to answer on formal validity instead.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

What do you expect me to do? I see a tree in my garden and you're saying science can't measure that tree.

Well, we disagree. The hell we disagree. Scientists can't measure intuition but I can. I do it every day of my life and other people report the same. It works.

But first, prove to me we are talking about the same thing.

You say "intuition", scientists say "intuition", so what? You are using the word "intuition" to talk about something that doesn't exist.

Tarski agrees with me. Mathematicians routinely refer to "our intuitive notions" of this and that. I certainly understand what they mean. Do you? No, you can't.

Look again at the definition. I think your brain doesn't quite register what it says.
EB

Why do you persist? Trees have been measured, are being measured, will be measured. Intuition has't been measured, is not being measured, probably won't be measured. You keep appending your unmeasured thing with measured things and say see? I say see what. Can you describe it beyond personal impression? Of course not. Is it measurable, traceable to anything beyond a personal testimony? Nope. Yet the things you tie it to are all measurable. There is  Memory Memory,

Memory is the faculty of the brain by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed.

We've cataloged it by chemistry and neural function as sensory, short term and long term. There are types of memory such as place, path, spatial, facial, etc.

By comparison here's the piece on  Intuition

ntuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning.^[2][3] Different writers give the word "intuition" a great variety of different meanings, ranging from direct access to unconscious knowledge, unconscious cognition, inner sensing, inner insight to unconscious pattern-recognition and the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning

Theen there is a short section on intuition according to Freud and Jung. No data just speculations. That is followed by a segment from Modern Psychology where some data

Intuitive abilities were quantitatively tested at Yale University in the 1970s. While studying nonverbal communication, researchers noted that some subjects were able to read nonverbal facial cues before reinforcement occurred.^[33] In employing a similar design, they noted that highly intuitive subjects made decisions quickly but could not identify their rationale. Their level of accuracy, however, did not differ from that of non-intuitive subjects.

Which reads to me like what a well trained pilots would do and say after receiving extended practice on a suite of control and management tasks in the cockpit. We call that overtraining effects and we can substantiate that claim with measurement and data.

The Columbia gang could not because they took observers off the street without benefit of history in types of tasks performed. No comment on what they meant by saying 'highly intuitive'. Seems to me its experiment with no control for relevant context experience. Just sayin'

As an aside we had problems getting pilots to perform in informally observed fashion when being tested as a group with a strong performer as their lead. It's call the golden arm problem. Following what individual pilots believe to be best practices generally comes down to following methods of the golden arm which makes design of A/C systems for combat very difficult.

Yes I'm very familiar with issues such as intuition.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Yes I'm very familiar with issues such as intuition.

Prove to me we are talking about the same thing.
EB

 

[PyramidHead]

Then it isn't. It's missing premises that would connect the antecedent to the consequent.

OK, it is your position.

Please note that logicians admit that arguments missing a premise may be valid. That is, logically valid. Not formally valid, but valid.

The idea is that we take into account what the words mean in the language by default, which is normally everyday language. Thus, immortal means not mortal, and not mortal means will never die.

Thus, if someone is immortal, we can normally infer that he will never die. Thus, immortal implies never dies. The idea is that, given the definitions of the vocabulary in everyday English, it is true that if Joe is immortal, then Joe will never die.

This makes sense since our everyday conversations in English are based on this principle that we assume the English dictionary applies. You do it to and you will inevitably yourself imply what people mean from what they say on the basis of your interpretation of what they say based on the assumption that the English dictionary applies.

We can put the conditional in the form of an enthymeme, like this:

Joe is immortal;
Therefore, Joe will never die.​

This sort of argument is usually considered valid by logicians.It was called by Aristotle himself an enthymeme, that is, an incomplete syllogism that we are able to complete to make it valid.

And we can complete it:

Joe is immortal;
All immortals never die.
Therefore, Joe will never die.​

Your answer is based on formal considerations, not the semantics of the conditional.

And, I didn't ask whether the implication was formally valid. I asked whether it was valid.

My implication is not valid but not because of any missing premises, unless you want to talk formal validity.

I don't ask about formal validity because I am interested in the intuition people have about arguments.

Intuition here simply means that you understand what the implication is and whether you "feel" it is correct, i.e. valid.

But you decided to answer on formal validity instead.
EB

But it's the same answer in both cases, right? It's either invalid because it lacks formal justification, or it's invalid because the conclusion wouldn't follow from the premises even if it did have formal justification (since being immortal precludes soon dying, by the ordinary definition you provided).

 

[Speakpigeon]

But it's the same answer in both cases, right? It's either invalid because it lacks formal justification, or it's invalid because the conclusion wouldn't follow from the premises even if it did have formal justification (since being immortal precludes soon dying, by the ordinary definition you provided).

Ah, both not valid but not really at all the same thing. And this is a crucial point. Validity is not the same thing as formal validity. An enthymeme may be valid but by definition won't be formally valid since it is an incomplete argument in form.

There is mostly just one validity since most people would agree that being immortal implies you never die. Our judgement that it is valid or not is essentially a function of our intuition. This is at least what happens most of the time in ordinary conversations. On a forum, people may want to think about it and won't follow their intuition because they won't even hear it. And so you did and so you replied on formal validity, not on validity.

Formal validity is inevitably dependent on formal rules and therefore on the formal method you favour. If we had a formal method that was a correct model of human deductive logic, we would all mostly agree with it, by definition, so to speak. As it is, we don't have such a method. All we have are various methods that are all more or less bad approximations and each method will have its own rules.

Aristotle's syllogistic works, however. It is limited to formulaic arguments but does cover a large part of our statements that have a logic value. It applies to our immortal example.
EB

 

[steve_bank]

Yes I'm very familiar with issues such as intuition.

Prove to me we are talking about the same thing.
EB

And that is classical philosophy and those exercises are anachronistic and obsolete.. Nothing ever gets resolved. Frmderinside represents is the modern scientific approach. modern scientific approaches.

Can you prove to us you know what you are talking about and are not as illogical as all yurt threads make you out to be?

 

[DBT]

If the premises and their conclusion are proven to be sound and beyond reasonable doubt, the article, the thing being taken to be be true and factual is - by default - true beyond reasonable doubt because the premise and their conclusion are inseparable.

But then it is just a case of you assuming the premises as true, which is fine. But it is still not a case of the reasoning proving something true on its own. You need both the valid reasoning and the premises together. If you think the premises are true, fine, you will believe the conclusion. And whether you believe the premises are true beyond any reasonable doubt is irrelevant. This is still a belief and you should know that history of mankind is full of the junkyard of our beyond-any-doubt beliefs. Think of dark matter and dark energy if you've forgotten the rest.
EB

Why are the premises assumed to be true? Are the premises not to be tested and established or rejected in the overall process of sorting fact from fiction?

 

[fromderinside]

Yes I'm very familiar with issues such as intuition.

Prove to me we are talking about the same thing.
EB

Can't. There is no prior behavioral history for those who conclude intuition is thus and so because .... All I point out is that exceptional behavior when controlled for experience and training elicit similar behaviors by and responses from exceptional individuals. They have capacities and histories which can be shown to be different from the so called average combat trained pilot. For instance exceptional pilots learn to reach for controls in the most economical way anticipating their next move while run of the mill fighter pilots continue to re-initiate for the second logical task. Some learn to see and operate on processes rather than tasks.

I see nothing unusual here. Both habits are common but one is enhanced because it permits predictive behavior to be integrated with task behavior. It turns out that tasks are always necessary for process completion but those following the golden arm try to add process to task - that is he switches from task one to task two operations within the task one exercise - while the golden arm actually integrates some of the second task, actually slowing down task one performance while not eliminating what was added from task one in task two. into the completion of the first task by modifying the task one process to include elements which permit prepartation for task two minimizing effort on the second task.

So if we design tasks to include task two predictive elements the run of the mill combat pilot degrades his performance while the golden arm sees no change since he has already found behaivior to do just that. Really if we follow the golden arm only a few pilots will be able to execute processes.

But if we see the whole range of behaviors of individual pilots tasks and processes will be designed for best overall performance from combat pilots. That is why elimination of dependence of good arm mimicry is essential to good operational design.

I also pointed out that engineers tend to come from environments where tinkering - using what one has on hand to solve problems - is greatest, that is from those raised on farms where it is commonplace.

 

[Speakpigeon]

If the premises and their conclusion are proven to be sound and beyond reasonable doubt, the article, the thing being taken to be be true and factual is - by default - true beyond reasonable doubt because the premise and their conclusion are inseparable.

But then it is just a case of you assuming the premises as true, which is fine. But it is still not a case of the reasoning proving something true on its own. You need both the valid reasoning and the premises together. If you think the premises are true, fine, you will believe the conclusion. And whether you believe the premises are true beyond any reasonable doubt is irrelevant. This is still a belief and you should know that history of mankind is full of the junkyard of our beyond-any-doubt beliefs. Think of dark matter and dark energy if you've forgotten the rest.
EB

Why are the premises assumed to be true? Are the premises not to be tested and established or rejected in the overall process of sorting fact from fiction?

We can try to do that. Whether we succeed is something we can only believe we do.

For example, we may want to explain all the materials we find in nature in terms of atoms. The theorised properties of atoms become the premises that we assume, and we can then prove logically that materials made from these atoms, as we would assume them, would have a number of properties. And then, we could compare the properties so inferred from our premises to the properties we observe the materials found in nature to have. This is of course gross simplification of the actual story but this is the logical backbone.

So, we did that. However, what does that prove? This proves only that if atoms exist as we theorised them, they would nicely explain all our observations of the materials found in nature. But merely finding that the properties of materials predicted because inferred from our hypothetical atoms coincide with the properties we observe the materials to have in nature isn't proof that atoms really exist.as theorised. And as long as we cannot prove these theorised atoms are all there is, we cannot be certain that materials in nature don't have other properties, not yet observed, which could then be a big surprise in store. In effect, we cannot prove the existence of atoms as theorised.

Of course, we went further, explaining atoms in terms of elementary particles, but the situation remains the same from a logical perspective. The difference is between observed properties and unobserved reality. Our models are models of properties because we can observe various properties in nature. Observing properties doesn't prove the reality that causes the properties. Another way to say it is to say that finding n properties doesn't guaranty there is not in fact n +1 properties. And as long as we don't know all the properties there are in nature, whatever our theories, we may end up with a big surprise at absolutely any time. Again, think of dark matter and dark energy.

Still, of course, you can believe rationally that science proves atoms exist, or elementary particles exist. This is all we have, so it is the rational attitude. But rationality is based on what we believe we know, not on what we know.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Yes I'm very familiar with issues such as intuition.

Prove to me we are talking about the same thing.
EB

Can't. There is no prior behavioral history for those who conclude intuition is thus and so because .... All I point out is that exceptional behavior when controlled for experience and training elicit similar behaviors by and responses from exceptional individuals. They have capacities and histories which can be shown to be different from the so called average combat trained pilot. For instance exceptional pilots learn to reach for controls in the most economical way anticipating their next move while run of the mill fighter pilots continue to re-initiate for the second logical task. Some learn to see and operate on processes rather than tasks.

I see nothing unusual here. Both habits are common but one is enhanced because it permits predictive behavior to be integrated with task behavior. It turns out that tasks are always necessary for process completion but those following the golden arm try to add process to task - that is he switches from task one to task two operations within the task one exercise - while the golden arm actually integrates some of the second task, actually slowing down task one performance while not eliminating what was added from task one in task two. into the completion of the first task by modifying the task one process to include elements which permit prepartation for task two minimizing effort on the second task.

So if we design tasks to include task two predictive elements the run of the mill combat pilot degrades his performance while the golden arm sees no change since he has already found behaivior to do just that. Really if we follow the golden arm only a few pilots will be able to execute processes.

But if we see the whole range of behaviors of individual pilots tasks and processes will be designed for best overall performance from combat pilots. That is why elimination of dependence of good arm mimicry is essential to good operational design.

I also pointed out that engineers tend to come from environments where tinkering - using what one has on hand to solve problems - is greatest, that is from those raised on farms where it is commonplace.

What's your point?
EB

 

[fromderinside]

We're talking about the same thing.

 

[Speakpigeon]

We're talking about the same thing.

Yes? So you trust your intuition on that?
EB

 

[steve_bank]

To me intuition is distilled knowledge and experience. One sees a solution without a clear linear chain of logic.

A non technical manager approached me on a problem. I gave him the solution and he asked for the logical steps I went throgh to the solution. I could not beaus I did not go through a logical process.

It pissed him off, he thought I was fucking with him.

In Star Trek Spock, Kirk, and Mcoy represented the emotional, intuitive, and logical.

Kirk would listen to logic and emotion and intuit a solution based on his experience. To me a very real reflection of human reasoning.

Reasoning is not just logic. As depicted in the show, Spock's linear logic could lead to the wrong conclusion.

 

[DBT]

Why are the premises assumed to be true? Are the premises not to be tested and established or rejected in the overall process of sorting fact from fiction?

We can try to do that. Whether we succeed is something we can only believe we do.

For example, we may want to explain all the materials we find in nature in terms of atoms. The theorised properties of atoms become the premises that we assume, and we can then prove logically that materials made from these atoms, as we would assume them, would have a number of properties. And then, we could compare the properties so inferred from our premises to the properties we observe the materials found in nature to have. This is of course gross simplification of the actual story but this is the logical backbone.

So, we did that. However, what does that prove? This proves only that if atoms exist as we theorised them, they would nicely explain all our observations of the materials found in nature. But merely finding that the properties of materials predicted because inferred from our hypothetical atoms coincide with the properties we observe the materials to have in nature isn't proof that atoms really exist.as theorised. And as long as we cannot prove these theorised atoms are all there is, we cannot be certain that materials in nature don't have other properties, not yet observed, which could then be a big surprise in store. In effect, we cannot prove the existence of atoms as theorised.

Of course, we went further, explaining atoms in terms of elementary particles, but the situation remains the same from a logical perspective. The difference is between observed properties and unobserved reality. Our models are models of properties because we can observe various properties in nature. Observing properties doesn't prove the reality that causes the properties. Another way to say it is to say that finding n properties doesn't guaranty there is not in fact n +1 properties. And as long as we don't know all the properties there are in nature, whatever our theories, we may end up with a big surprise at absolutely any time. Again, think of dark matter and dark energy.

Still, of course, you can believe rationally that science proves atoms exist, or elementary particles exist. This is all we have, so it is the rational attitude. But rationality is based on what we believe we know, not on what we know.
EB

If it is proven that something exists, something that we label as atoms, probability waves, energy or whatever, then it's a case of knowing that something, what we call atoms, waves, energy or whatever, exists.

We don't believe we know that, we actually know it.

Our very state of awareness and knowing proves that there is something rather than nothing because without one the other is not possible.

 

[fromderinside]

We're talking about the same thing.

Yes? So you trust your intuition on that?
EB

No. Too many uncontrolled variables for that.

 

[fromderinside]

To me intuition is distilled knowledge and experience. One sees a solution without a clear linear chain of logic.

A non technical manager approached me on a problem. I gave him the solution and he asked for the logical steps I went throgh to the solution. I could not beaus I did not go through a logical process.

It pissed him off, he thought I was fucking with him.

In Star Trek Spock, Kirk, and Mcoy represented the emotional, intuitive, and logical.

Kirk would listen to logic and emotion and intuit a solution based on his experience. To me a very real reflection of human reasoning.

Reasoning is not just logic. As depicted in the show, Spock's linear logic could lead to the wrong conclusion.

Do you bring party favors with thinking like that? All one has to do is choose what appears to be believable nouns after 'because'.

 

[Speakpigeon]

If it is proven that something exists, something that we label as atoms, probability waves, energy or whatever, then it's a case of knowing that something, what we call atoms, waves, energy or whatever, exists.

prove
a. To establish the truth or validity of (something) by the presentation of argument or evidence

Establish
3. To cause to be recognised and accepted: a discovery that established his reputation.

recognise
1. formally acknowledged or accepted as valid
2. widely accepted as being true

Thus, proof that atoms exist only results in the existence of atoms being widely accepted as true.

This is of course very different from us knowing that atoms exist, since it may be false even if we all accept it as true.

We don't believe we know that, we actually know it.

Prove it.

Our very state of awareness and knowing proves that there is something rather than nothing because without one the other is not possible.

We are unable to prove that we are in a "state of knowing" that atoms exist.

There is something, we know that, but we don't know what it is beyond the appearance of it.
EB