POLL 4 on a very simple argument specially designed for DBT and Koyaanisqatsi

[Speakpigeon]

This is a poll on a very simple logical argument.

You can all vote, not just Koyaanisqatsi and DBT.

Here is the argument:

x may be some part of B;
y is some part of B;
Therefore, x may be y.

Is this argument valid?

Thank you to vote before posting any comment.
EB

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

That’s not a proper syllogism. All you’re doing is pondering whether or not X may be something. But “may” is not a truth claim that needs testing in logical terms. You are perfectly free any time you wish to ponder non-trivial shit with “it may be X or it may be Y or it may be the fucking moon in the sky.”

Iow, your conclusion does not need to be derived. You can simply state “X may be Y” all in its own right.

For it to be an argument (or, rather, a non-trivial test of a positive truth claim, which is what syllogisms are for) you need to remove the “may” part:

P1: X is some part of B;
P2: Y is some part of B;
C: X is Y.

As you can now clearly see, that is non-sequitur.

 

[Speakpigeon]

You haven't voted so clearly you can't tell whether the argument is valid or not. And you pretend o be able to discuss my argument on the Conscious Mind and what DBT understands of it?!

Please, register yourself in a nursing home.

That’s not a proper syllogism.

Irrelevant chicken shit. The argument is not presented as a syllogism.

If you want to discuss syllogisms, please start your own thread and see what happens.

If you want to claim this argument isn't a logical argument, go on, there's a whole branch of logic which is called modal logic and is precisely about arguments involving modals like "may". So, good luck.

All you’re doing is pondering whether or not X may be something. But “may” is not a truth claim that needs testing in logical terms.

So, Koyaanisqatsi thinks reality may not exist.

Yeah, makes sense.

You are perfectly free any time you wish to ponder non-trivial shit with “it may be X or it may be Y or it may be the fucking moon in the sky.”

So, presumably, you're prepared to say that you yourself may not exist, or that it is not true that you may exist?!

Iow, your conclusion does not need to be derived. You can simply state “X may be Y” all in its own right.

The question here is not soundness but validity. Whether the conclusion needs to be derived or not is irrelevant.

And DBT is the very example of why logic matters. He doesn't accept the conclusion of an argument which is valid and that has premises he accepts as true. Obviously, you've demonstrated you can't understand that, it's probably too subtle for you, if you even understand my French English to begin with.
EB

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

You haven't voted so clearly you can't tell whether the argument is valid or not.

No better example of your inability to properly apply logic is needed.

 

[Speakpigeon]

You haven't voted so clearly you can't tell whether the argument is valid or not.

No better example of your inability to properly apply logic is needed.

Have a good day, too.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

OK, for now we have 100% who voted "valid" (not me, I recused myself).

So, we're just waiting to see if DBT can get his acts together and visit us here and vote.
EB

 

[DBT]

A waste of time, really. You didn't get it the first time, or any time since, so what hope is there?

It's not the structure of the argument that is necessarily the problem (apart from your hedging), but your conclusion in relation to the terms of your premises.

The issue is relationship between the terms of your premises and conclusion, which should not be difficult to grasp.

However, yet again....the problem with your first argument is a matter of brain/mind relationship.

As what a person thinks and does is inseparable from 'the state of a bunch of neurons' (premises), ultimate agency must necessarily rest with 'the state of a bunch of neurons' and not conscious mind (which is the state of a bunch a bunch of neurons), which makes your conclusion; ''what somebody does may be determined by the conscious mind of this person'' a false conclusion (everything thought, decided and done being determined by the state of a bunch of neurons) as explained numerous times. So this argument fails

The correction goes like this;

Premise 1 - For all we know, somebody's conscious mind may be the state of a group of neurons in this person's brain;
Premise 2 - What somebody does is determined by the state of a group of neurons in this person's brain;
Conclusion - Therefore both somebody's conscious mind and what somebody does is determined by the state of a group of neurons in this person's brain.

Your second draft describes a different relationship, waves acting upon a float, which is a separate object being acted upon by ocean waves.....which can indeed determine what the float does, so your conclusion does follow from your premises, making this version a valid argument.

 

[Speakpigeon]

A waste of time, really. You didn't get it the first time, or any time since, so what hope is there?

It's not the structure of the argument that is necessarily the problem (apart from your hedging), but your conclusion in relation to the terms of your premises.

The issue is relationship between the terms of your premises and conclusion, which should not be difficult to grasp.

However, yet again....the problem with your first argument is a matter of brain/mind relationship.

As what a person thinks and does is inseparable from 'the state of a bunch of neurons' (premises), ultimate agency must necessarily rest with 'the state of a bunch of neurons' and not conscious mind (which is the state of a bunch a bunch of neurons), which makes your conclusion; ''what somebody does may be determined by the conscious mind of this person'' a false conclusion (everything thought, decided and done being determined by the state of a bunch of neurons) as explained numerous times. So this argument fails

The correction goes like this;

Premise 1 - For all we know, somebody's conscious mind may be the state of a group of neurons in this person's brain;
Premise 2 - What somebody does is determined by the state of a group of neurons in this person's brain;
Conclusion - Therefore both somebody's conscious mind and what somebody does is determined by the state of a group of neurons in this person's brain.

Your second draft describes a different relationship, waves acting upon a float, which is a separate object being acted upon by ocean waves.....which can indeed determine what the float does, so your conclusion does follow from your premises, making this version a valid argument.

So, the argument is valid (validity is not the problem)
The premises are true (yes, I said it several times)
But, hey, your conclusion is still wrong!

I guess I can leave to Koyaanisqatsi to help us understand why DBT is right and Speakpigeon can only be wrong.

I sure hope Trump isn't as bad a case as these two.

Hey, they can't even get themselves to vote.

What? too busy?! Possibly infectious?!
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Here are the ten people who visited this thread without voting:

Bomb#20
untermensche
ruby sparks
IanSYK
none
James Brown
Tharmas
DBT
Koyaanisqatsi
Torin

What?!

Are you getting so near the ground now that you can't cast your vote? Too high for you?

Intellectual honesty, anyone?

Thanks to bigfield, by the way.
EB

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

So, the argument is valid (validity is not the problem)

It is not a legitimate argument. All you have done is assert "X may be Y." No syllogism required. You don't need to derive that, you just need to assert it.

What you are labeling a "conclusion" is in fact the start of a legitimate argument. You want to find out--i.e., test a truth claim--whether or not X may in fact be Y. So you need to test for that by asserting that X is Y and see whether or not that is true; whether or not you can derive that conclusion.

How the fuck can't you comprehend that?

 

[Bomb#20]

This is a poll on a very simple logical argument.

You can all vote, not just Koyaanisqatsi and DBT.

Here is the argument:

x may be some part of B;
y is some part of B;
Therefore, x may be y.

Is this argument valid?

Thank you to vote before posting any comment.
EB

No and no.

The shard of windshield glass found ten meters from the crash site may be some part of the northbound vehicle.
The engine block with the VIN number on it is some part of the northbound vehicle.
Therefore, the shard of windshield glass may be the engine block.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Here's the problem. For a syllogism to be valid, one of two conditions must be met:

1. its conclusion necessarily follows from its premises;
2. it is impossible for its premises all to be true while the conclusion is false.

1 has already been shown. 2 hinges on a "true" premise, but a premise that uses "may" cannot be said to be true or false. It's conditional. It may be true, but then again, it may not be true.

Thus, anyway you slice it, not valid.

 

[Speakpigeon]

This is a poll on a very simple logical argument.

You can all vote, not just Koyaanisqatsi and DBT.

Here is the argument:

x may be some part of B;
y is some part of B;
Therefore, x may be y.

Is this argument valid?

Thank you to vote before posting any comment.
EB

No and no.

The shard of windshield glass found ten meters from the crash site may be some part of the northbound vehicle.
The engine block with the VIN number on it is some part of the northbound vehicle.
Therefore, the shard of windshield glass may be the engine block.

You gave an example where the two parts are necessarily different. You could indeed contrive an infinity of such examples.

Yet, that's not what the original argument says. There's nothing in the original argument implying that x and y are necessarily different. I hope you agree with that.

So, in effect, you've rewritten the argument to add one premise, as follows:

x may be some part of B;
y is some part of B;
x is different from y;
Therefore, x may be y.

Which obviously is not valid.

As you framed it, the additional premise is left implicit, relying on the semantic of the English lexical terms you use, "shard of windshield" and "engine block". I take it you understand that.

However, the validity of syllogisms is assessed on form only. So, you have to disregard implicit semantic connections and assess validity on form only. That's a well-known bias.

The situation is different with soundness, because the truth of the premises has to be assessed on the basis of what the premises mean and of empirical reality.

But we're only interested in validity, here.

So, your "counterexample" is smart but flawed.

Can you reply to that?
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

So, the argument is valid (validity is not the problem)

It is not a legitimate argument. All you have done is assert "X may be Y." No syllogism required. You don't need to derive that, you just need to assert it.

What you are labeling a "conclusion" is in fact the start of a legitimate argument. You want to find out--i.e., test a truth claim--whether or not X may in fact be Y. So you need to test for that by asserting that X is Y and see whether or not that is true; whether or not you can derive that conclusion.

How the fuck can't you comprehend that?

I understand what you claim. And don't justify your claim.

It's a fact there's an argument. It's a logical argument since its validity can be assessed. This is because there are only formal connections between the premises and te conclusion, and form is all you need to assess validity. It's a modal argument, relying on the notion of possibility, which we are all supposed to understand.

If you don't understand it, why assert it's not valid?
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

2 hinges on a "true" premise, but a premise that uses "may" cannot be said to be true or false.

So, when a scientist says that there may be planets with purple trees, yellow trees, and red trees, you think it's neither true nor false that there may be planets with purple trees, yellow trees, red trees?!

So, if I say that I may be French, you think it's neither true nor false that I may be French?!

Whoa.

It's conditional. It may be true, but then again, it may not be true.

LOL. That's definitely not what is called a "conditional". May is a modal verb signalling possibility. I limit myself to epistemological possibility, the rest seeming meaningless to me. Something is possible if we don't know that it's not true. And, obviously, it's either true or false that we don't know that something is not true. I grant you it's a bit of a twister, but you should try it.
EB

- - - Updated - - -

That’s not a proper syllogism.

It is.
EB

 

[Bomb#20]

No and no.

The shard of windshield glass found ten meters from the crash site may be some part of the northbound vehicle.
The engine block with the VIN number on it is some part of the northbound vehicle.
Therefore, the shard of windshield glass may be the engine block.

You gave an example where the two parts are necessarily different. You could indeed contrive an infinity of such examples.

Yes, but it only takes one. Your beautiful theory is slain by an ugly fact.

Yet, that's not what the original argument says. There's nothing in the original argument implying that x and y are necessarily different. I hope you agree with that.

So? Every counterexample to every claimed inference rule adds some detail to the original argument. Surely you aren't going to claim that disproof by counterexample is an illogical procedure.

So, in effect, you've rewritten the argument to add one premise, as follows:

x may be some part of B;
y is some part of B;
x is different from y;
Therefore, x may be y.

Which obviously is not valid.

Huh? Where the heck did you see me say a shard of glass is different from an engine block? My counterexample followed your proposed rule form perfectly. You're the one who filled in "x is different from y", with your own background knowledge. Your own background knowledge is sufficient to show your argument is invalid.

Look at it this way. If some argument "P1. P2. Therefore C." is valid, then how the heck do you imagine adding a third premise could ever turn it invalid? If a conclusion follows from premises, it still follows from any expanded list of premises. It's not as though an argument is even required to use every one of its premises. (Recall in the example in your other thread that the conclusion followed from premises 2 through 5, and never used premise 1.) You can't have a "P1. P2. P3. Therefore C." that's an invalid argument when "P1. P2. Therefore C." is a valid argument -- validly drawn conclusions do not magically go away just because you add premises. But, as you say, when you add the third premise the argument is obviously not valid. Therefore, the argument with only two premises is obviously not valid.

As you framed it, the additional premise is left implicit, relying on the semantic of the English lexical terms you use, "shard of windshield" and "engine block". I take it you understand that.

It's not an implicit additional premise; it's simply a detail of the counterexample. I take it you don't understand that distinction, and that's your problem, not mine; but even if it were an additional premise that wouldn't help your case, for the reason I just explained.

However, the validity of syllogisms is assessed on form only. So, you have to disregard implicit semantic connections and assess validity on form only. That's a well-known bias.

And since it is assessed on form only, that means for the rule to be valid it must have no counterexamples. There must be nothing you can plug into the variables that makes the premises true and the conclusion false. That's why counterexamples kill syllogism claims. When one is claiming a rule is valid based on assessment of its form only, "Your example has such-and-such a property" is not a substantive defense. "You gave an example where the two parts are necessarily different." is not a substantive defense. Your proposed syllogism is dead on arrival. If your rule gives right answers when the two parts are not necessarily different, but wrong answers when they are necessarily different, its conclusion depends on semantic connections, not just on form only! Why are you having a problem with this?

The situation is different with soundness, because the truth of the premises has to be assessed on the basis of what the premises mean and of empirical reality.

But we're only interested in validity, here.

Well, if I were only showing unsoundness and not invalidity, then that would mean that since the conclusion in my example is clearly false, the premises must be false. I.e., your rule would prove that either the glass shard didn't come from the northbound car or the engine block didn't. How clever of your rule to draw an empirical conclusion from a priori reasoning.

So, your "counterexample" is smart but flawed.

Can you reply to that?
EB

No flaw in the counterexample, just a flaw in your proposed syllogism.

 

[fast]

x may be some part of B;
y is some part of B;
Therefore, x may be y.

The lost boy may be a member of the Boy Scouts.
Bobby is a member of the Boy Scouts;
Therefore, the lost boy may be Bobby.

 

[DBT]

A waste of time, really. You didn't get it the first time, or any time since, so what hope is there?

It's not the structure of the argument that is necessarily the problem (apart from your hedging), but your conclusion in relation to the terms of your premises.

The issue is relationship between the terms of your premises and conclusion, which should not be difficult to grasp.

However, yet again....the problem with your first argument is a matter of brain/mind relationship.

As what a person thinks and does is inseparable from 'the state of a bunch of neurons' (premises), ultimate agency must necessarily rest with 'the state of a bunch of neurons' and not conscious mind (which is the state of a bunch a bunch of neurons), which makes your conclusion; ''what somebody does may be determined by the conscious mind of this person'' a false conclusion (everything thought, decided and done being determined by the state of a bunch of neurons) as explained numerous times. So this argument fails

The correction goes like this;

Premise 1 - For all we know, somebody's conscious mind may be the state of a group of neurons in this person's brain;
Premise 2 - What somebody does is determined by the state of a group of neurons in this person's brain;
Conclusion - Therefore both somebody's conscious mind and what somebody does is determined by the state of a group of neurons in this person's brain.

Your second draft describes a different relationship, waves acting upon a float, which is a separate object being acted upon by ocean waves.....which can indeed determine what the float does, so your conclusion does follow from your premises, making this version a valid argument.

So, the argument is valid (validity is not the problem)
The premises are true (yes, I said it several times)
But, hey, your conclusion is still wrong!

I guess I can leave to Koyaanisqatsi to help us understand why DBT is right and Speakpigeon can only be wrong.

I sure hope Trump isn't as bad a case as these two.

Hey, they can't even get themselves to vote.

What? too busy?! Possibly infectious?!
EB

Strange that you appear to be unable grasp the simple concept of a conclusion that that does not follow from a given set of premises.

It's a simple thing, it's not an issue of the validity of Syllogisms or formal argument, just whether or not the conclusion relates to and follows from the terms of the premises.

That's all.

Not difficult.

The conclusion of your first argument do not follow from the terms of your premises because of the inseparable nature conscious mind in relation to the state of neurons, while your second draft, due to the different relationship between the float and the wave, is correct, for the given reasons.

If you can't understand this, as simple as it is, it's obvious that I cannot help you.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

So, the argument is valid (validity is not the problem)

It is not a legitimate argument. All you have done is assert "X may be Y." No syllogism required. You don't need to derive that, you just need to assert it.

What you are labeling a "conclusion" is in fact the start of a legitimate argument. You want to find out--i.e., test a truth claim--whether or not X may in fact be Y. So you need to test for that by asserting that X is Y and see whether or not that is true; whether or not you can derive that conclusion.

How the fuck can't you comprehend that?

I understand what you claim. And don't justify your claim.

I just did and you quoted it. That is exactly what all those words are above.

It's a fact there's an argument.

No, there isn't. There is an assertion that X may be Y. That is the beginning of an argument, perhaps, but not an argument unto itself. Here, I'll prove it: The moon may be green cheese. That's an assertion; a possibility. So the positive truth claim that an argument would be formed around in order to test would be: The moon is green cheese. That is a positive truth claim that requires proof.

"May" is not a truth claim. Cars may be cows. Trees may be the earth's hair. Water may be maple syrup. Or not.

You can literally claim anything "may be" anything else all fucking day long. None of them are conclusions.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

So, when a scientist says that there may be planets with purple trees, yellow trees, and red trees, you think it's neither true nor false that there may be planets with purple trees, yellow trees, red trees?!

Yes, because the scientist hasn't proved that there are in fact such things. He's simply stated a condition of uncertainty. There may be those trees, but then again, there may not.

So, if I say that I may be French, you think it's neither true nor false that I may be French?!

Just because you claim you may be French does not axiomatically mean that you are, in fact, French. I may be Russian. Does that mean I am, in fact, Russian?

That's definitely not what is called a "conditional". May is a modal verb signalling possibility.

Ffs. It's a conditional sentence using a modal verb. Clear now?

I limit myself to epistemological possibility, the rest seeming meaningless to me.

Bully for you.

Something is possible if we don't know that it's not true.

Double negative. What you just said was, "something is possible, if we know that it's true." Well, no shit.

That’s not a proper syllogism.

It is.

It is not in the sense of a syllogism's intended use; to test a truth claim. Once again, you don't need to derive a conditional sentence like: X may be Y. You can simply state: X may be Y. The question a syllogism is intended to address is whether or not X is Y.

Nobody gives a flying fuck if you want to dance around saying shit like, "The chair may be a toilet" and "The couch may be an astronaut" or "The street may be an ocean" or the like. The only time a syllogism would be necessary is if someone came up to you and challenged your conditional by saying, "Prove that a chair is a toilet or a couch is an astronaut or the street is an ocean."

Do you understand? There is no need for a syllogism when making a conditional claim in and of itself. X may be Y. Sure. Just as it may be Z, or A, B, C, D, E, F...It may be anything or nothing. It MAY be anything at all.

The only thing that matters in regard to testing is whether or not you're claiming that X is Y.