debate

[tyranim]

since there arent any sections dedicated to the ever-enjoyable sport of debate, i felt one should be posted. i felt philosophy is a nice home for it too. so without further ado, lets start things off.

i feel that absolutely believing something is true is foolish.
any retorts or personal elaborations?

[furballdn]

i feel that absolutely believing something is true is foolish.
any retorts or personal elaborations?

I doubt that.

[Nepycros]

I believe that is false. We need to wholly adhere to this presupposition:
I exist.
The above statement must be regarded true at every moment, else a person is literally deadlocked in the inability to perceive reality, epistemologically speaking.

This is a lazy argument I threw together based on what I've heard, but I hope the point got across.

[Rutarete]

i feel that absolutely believing something is true is foolish.
any retorts or personal elaborations?

I agree.

I feel people (me included) assume too much. I could go on, but it would be mostly an off-topic tangent, so I leave it at that

[tyranim]

i feel that absolutely believing something is true is foolish.
any retorts or personal elaborations?

I agree.

I feel people (me included) assume too much. I could go on, but it would be mostly an off-topic tangent, so I leave it at that

off topic tangents are good! they make more stuff to debate about

[Pineapple]

i feel that absolutely believing something is true is foolish.
any retorts or personal elaborations?

1. Assume proposition P: "I will place all my faith into believing 'something' is true until evidence is given for believing 'something' is false," and its complement, ~P: "I will doubt that 'something' is true until evidence is given for believing 'something' is false."
2. According to Aristotle's "Law of Excluded Middle", ~(P^~P). In other words, "Before evidence is given for believing 'something' is false, it is impossible to completely believe that 'something' is true and doubt that 'something' is true at the same time."
3. , So, it is true that ~(P^~P) and, from DeMorgan's, it is true that ~PvP. Switch things around and you get the XOR operator (Pv~P)^~(P^~P). In other words, "While no evidence is given for believing 'something' is false, I must choose to completely believe 'something' is true or doubt that 'something' is true."
4. Obviously, in this case, "Therefore, P is true," would be a stronger argument than "Therefore, ~P is true."

Therefore, when no evidence has been given to disprove "something" (be it Gravity or God), it is not foolish to "absolutely [believe] something is true." Rather, it is foolish to do the opposite without sound logical basis.

[RootRanger]

Oops, posted my reply in the old forum. Bringing it over here.

In your example, Pineapple, I do not think ~PvP is always true. There is a third proposition, that could be called Q, which states, "I will not place all of my faith into believing something is true, and I will not place all my faith into believing something is false." What would actually be true is ~PvPvQ. This means that, while no evidence is given, I must either believe that 'something' is true, doubt that 'something' is true, or not place all of my faith into either of the two previous options. However, there is almost always, if not always, the possibility that there will be evidence that suggests either truth value of 'something.' For example, gravity might not actually exist, and every memory I thought I had of gravity was a fake creation of my brain. Extremely unlikely, but certainly possible.

[Pineapple]

Oops, posted my reply in the old forum. Bringing it over here.

In your example, Pineapple, I do not think ~PvP is always true. There is a third proposition, that could be called Q, which states, "I will not place all of my faith into believing something is true, and I will not place all my faith into believing something is false." What would actually be true is ~PvPvQ. This means that, while no evidence is given, I must either believe that 'something' is true, doubt that 'something' is true, or not place all of my faith into either of the two previous options. However, there is almost always, if not always, the possibility that there will be evidence that suggests either truth value of 'something.' For example, gravity might not actually exist, and every memory I thought I had of gravity was a fake creation of my brain. Extremely unlikely, but certainly possible.

Well, by "doubt that 'something' is true", I mean "not place all my faith into the [believing] that 'something' is true", which means that Q is contained in ~P.
For your example, since there is no evidence that shows that gravity is just a creation of my brain, it is not foolish to go about life assuming gravity is real.

[RootRanger]

Well, by "doubt that 'something' is true", I mean "not place all my faith into the [believing] that 'something' is true", which means that Q is contained in ~P.

Alright, that's fair. However, I don't understand the reasoning behind the following:

In other words, "While no evidence is given for believing 'something' is false, I must choose to completely believe 'something' is true or doubt that 'something' is true."
4. Obviously, in this case, "Therefore, P is true," would be a stronger argument than "Therefore, ~P is true."

I don't see why the stronger argument would be something that has the possibility of being proven false if more evidence is introduced in the future. I think the stronger argument would be to not place all faith into believing that 'something' is true because this argument accepts the fact that 'something' can be proven false in the future.

For your example, since there is no evidence that shows that gravity is just a creation of my brain, it is not foolish to go about life assuming gravity is real.

The truth value of 'something' is not necessarily related to the ideal perception of that truth value. In my opinion, the ideal perception of the truth value of 'something' would be the one that does the best job of satisfying the goals of one's life, such as happiness. Basically, if believing Q makes someone very happy, and believing ~Q makes someone very unhappy, that person should go about life believing Q. However, this does not necessarily make Q true.

Let's rename "I will place all my faith into believing that gravity is real." to R. Its complement, ~R, would be "I will not place all my faith into believing that gravity is real." The idea that completely believing in R is the best way to live life does not count as evidence that R is true.

[OldTrees]

Observing for now.

However have this gift:
Positive statements can be True (P) or not true (~P)
Evidence against P can be possible (AP) or impossible (~AP)
Evidence against ~P can be possible (A~P) or impossible (~A~P)
Evidence for P can be possible (FP) or impossible (~FP)
Evidence for ~P can be possible (F~P) or impossible (~F~P)

Most discussion on this topic (though not necessarily in this thread) presumes:
(P -> ~AP ^ A~P ^ FP ^ ~F~P) & (~P -> ~AP ^ ~A~P ^ ~FP ^ ~F~P)

I would like to propose that 2^4 to 2^8 types of positive statements exist. A common type of positive statement treated like type 1 is:
(P -> ~AP ^ ~A~P ^ ~FP ^ ~F~P) & (~P -> ~AP ^ ~A~P ^ ~FP ^ ~F~P)

[dreadwoe]

since there arent any sections dedicated to the ever-enjoyable sport of debate, i felt one should be posted. i felt philosophy is a nice home for it too. so without further ado, lets start things off.

i feel that absolutely believing something is true is foolish.
any retorts or personal elaborations?

You "feel" this way, is that right?  Well do you absolutely believe that you feel this way?  Or are you unsure of position on the matter, rendering the fact of your belief a half-truth, which can not be evaluated as it's meaning is determined by the speaker,whose mind we cannot fathom.

[Cheesy111]

since there arent any sections dedicated to the ever-enjoyable sport of debate, i felt one should be posted. i felt philosophy is a nice home for it too. so without further ado, lets start things off.

i feel that absolutely believing something is true is foolish.
any retorts or personal elaborations?

You "feel" this way, is that right?  Well do you absolutely believe that you feel this way?  Or are you unsure of position on the matter, rendering the fact of your belief a half-truth, which can not be evaluated as it's meaning is determined by the speaker,whose mind we cannot fathom.

This is derp.  The verb "to feel" is used here as slang for "to believe".  By posting for debates in philosophy, unit is obviously not unsure of his position on the matter.  And even if unit was unsure of his position on the matter, it wouldn't render anything a half-truth.  He would simply be unsure of his position on the matter, and that would be the truth.  One does not have to believe in one side of an argument or another for the fact of one's belief to be true.