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offline Ezkerraldean from the lowest common denominator (United Kingdom) on 2006-06-11 07:22 [#01917681]
Points: 5733 Status: Addict | Followup to Drunken Mastah: #01917680



college is after high school, before university for
16-18yrolds (usually)
university is afterwards



 

offline Drunken Mastah from OPPERKLASSESVIN!!! (Norway) on 2006-06-11 07:26 [#01917685]
Points: 35867 Status: Lurker | Followup to Ezkerraldean: #01917681 | Show recordbag



oh.. I always thought colleges were the same level as
universities, but with silly class-oriented lectures and
tasks...


 

offline Drunken Mastah from OPPERKLASSESVIN!!! (Norway) on 2006-06-11 07:31 [#01917686]
Points: 35867 Status: Lurker | Followup to goDel: #01917675 | Show recordbag



quality-assurance is always counter-productive...


 

offline Indeksical from Phobiazero Damage Control (United Kingdom) on 2006-06-11 07:37 [#01917689]
Points: 10671 Status: Regular | Followup to Ezkerraldean: #01917681 | Show recordbag



what do you study ezkerraldean


 

offline SValx from United Kingdom on 2006-06-11 07:54 [#01917698]
Points: 2586 Status: Regular



I just explained why it is a tautology... it passes the test
of intersubstitutionality which means that it is a tautology
by definition. Maybe you misunderstand the word tautology.
What you just presented about the world just doubling in
size is not a tautology. Something is in a tautologous
relationship with something else when it means exactly the
same thing as something else. For example. A bachelor is
tautologous to an unmarried man. This is because they mean
exactly the same thing as each other. If you understand the
word tautology, I think you'll understand why the
verification principle for significance is a tautology.

Emotive significance is different from literal significance
because of the reasons I stated before... emotive
significance is non-propoositional, whereas literal
significance is propositional. That means that things that
are literally significant are EV or T whereas things that
are emotively significant are not.

Ayer does not say that we should not talk about metaphysical
things at all, he just says that we cannot talk about them
in any significant way. Here he draws a distinction between
a poet and a metaphysician. He has no problems with poets,
because they talk emotively and realise that all they are
doing is playing with flowery words and merely showing
emotions, whereas mataphysicians are different. They
actually think that they are saying something significant,
when they are not. We can talk about metaphysics as long as
we accept that we are not actually saying anything.

I'm still having trouble understanding your example. I think
you mean that you can't decide whether something is or is
not empirically verifiable unless you understand the
sentence, yet that you cannot understand it unless it is
empirically verifiable.. I'm not sure what makes you say
this though. If I say "A blobble tob tabs" I don't
understand it, and I do not need to understand it to say
that it is meaningless and cannot empirically verify it. I
think you're misunderstanding my distinction between


 

offline SValx from United Kingdom on 2006-06-11 07:58 [#01917704]
Points: 2586 Status: Regular



significant and meaningful again. If something is meaningful
to one person, it does not make it literally significant.

What makes you say that to decide if something is
empirically verifiable we have to understand it? All we have
to know is whether we can concieve of any tests that we
would carry out to empirically verify something, or if it is
a tautology. If we cannot understand a sentence, such as "A
bobble tob tabs" we would never be able to think of any
tests to carry out to verify its significance empirically.
We do not first need to understand this sentence to know
that we could not do any tests. The very fact that we do not
understand it, is reason enough to know that it is not
empirically verifiable


 

offline Ezkerraldean from the lowest common denominator (United Kingdom) on 2006-06-11 07:59 [#01917706]
Points: 5733 Status: Addict | Followup to Indeksical: #01917689



maths, physics, geography, geology, and yes i am going to
uni


 

offline SValx from United Kingdom on 2006-06-11 08:10 [#01917712]
Points: 2586 Status: Regular



Yeah, you're damn right it's not always the case. Last year
I studied Maths, Physics, French and Philosophy. You're no
better than me.


 

offline Ezkerraldean from the lowest common denominator (United Kingdom) on 2006-06-11 08:14 [#01917715]
Points: 5733 Status: Addict | Followup to SValx: #01917712



when did i say i was?


 

offline SValx from United Kingdom on 2006-06-11 08:16 [#01917717]
Points: 2586 Status: Regular



You said that people who study philosophy are people who are
too crap to do anything else. You study other subjects, and
so you were insinuating you were better than people who
study philosophy.


 

offline Ezkerraldean from the lowest common denominator (United Kingdom) on 2006-06-11 08:18 [#01917718]
Points: 5733 Status: Addict



i was just ranting about the people round here, specifically
at my college. its the same with psychology here. probably
the teachers


 

offline Raz0rBlade_uk on 2006-06-11 08:19 [#01917719]
Points: 12540 Status: Addict | Show recordbag






Attached picture

 

offline SValx from United Kingdom on 2006-06-11 08:20 [#01917720]
Points: 2586 Status: Regular



Well I'm going to study philosophy and psychology (two times
as crap!) Where do you live? Maybe you go to a shit college


 

offline SValx from United Kingdom on 2006-06-11 08:21 [#01917722]
Points: 2586 Status: Regular | Followup to Raz0rBlade_uk: #01917719



ha, genius


 

offline Ezkerraldean from the lowest common denominator (United Kingdom) on 2006-06-11 08:22 [#01917723]
Points: 5733 Status: Addict | Followup to SValx: #01917720



yes, i do. i hate the place.


 

offline SValx from United Kingdom on 2006-06-11 08:24 [#01917725]
Points: 2586 Status: Regular



Well then, that explains a lot doesn't it? My old college
has an incredible Philosophy department. We're apparently
working beyond degree level.
Where is it that you live that's full of scummers and
there's nothing to do at night except play in fields?


 

offline Ezkerraldean from the lowest common denominator (United Kingdom) on 2006-06-11 08:26 [#01917726]
Points: 5733 Status: Addict



here!!!!!!

theres nothing to do because...............the only thing
here is a postbox.


 

offline Drunken Mastah from OPPERKLASSESVIN!!! (Norway) on 2006-06-11 08:28 [#01917727]
Points: 35867 Status: Lurker | Followup to SValx: #01917698 | Show recordbag



eh.. it seems english and norwegian terminology differs.. or
I've had too much logics... a tautology is what you have
when you have a sentence that is always true, like "Either P
or not P"; whether P is true or not, the sentence is true.

we call such things as "a bachelor is an unmarried man"
analytical truths and they have nothing to do with
synonymity.

however, I do still not believe the verification principle
to be a tautology by your definition; "This is a very
significant discovery" isn't the same as "this is a
discovery we can test empirically." Significance implies
that something makes an impact.. also, I'm not quite sure
about your distinction between significance and meaning as
it seems Ayers was talking about meaning, but just
used the word significance...

"They actually think that they are saying something
significant,
when they are not. We can talk about metaphysics as long as
we accept that we are not actually saying anything. "

Not saying anything is the same as that what we're saying
isn't meaningful.. ever heard of a meaningful nothing?

my example is still about the original verification
theory of meaning, which says that something isn't
meaningful unless you can test it empirically. One of the
major problems for the theory is that the sentence
"everything just doubled in size" isn't meaningful, but the
verificationist who looks at the sentence understands what
it means and he must to be able to say "this sentence cannot
be checked empirically; there are no possible experiences
that allow us to check whether or not everything just
doubled size, and it is therefore meaningless, but he
obviously understood the sentence. As you say, that's not
how meaning works.. a meaningful sentence is meaningful if
someone understands it while gibberish sentences like your
"A blobble tob tabs" or "Sirok kf3¤ 6kd" aren't meaningful
to anyone.


 

offline fleetmouse from Horny for Truth on 2006-06-11 08:34 [#01917728]
Points: 18042 Status: Lurker



"...and then after Nietzsche cuts Hegel's head off, his
sperm flies across the stage into Heidegger's mouth."

"Wow! What do you call your act?"

"The Philosophers!"


 

offline Ezkerraldean from the lowest common denominator (United Kingdom) on 2006-06-11 08:40 [#01917729]
Points: 5733 Status: Addict | Followup to fleetmouse: #01917728



fleetmouse, are you on the IIDB ?


 

offline SValx from United Kingdom on 2006-06-11 08:53 [#01917732]
Points: 2586 Status: Regular | Followup to Drunken Mastah: #01917727



"x" is in a tautologous relationship with "y" when they mean
exactly the same thing. Tautologies produce analytic
truths.
That example doesn't work because you are mixing up the
philosophical meaning of significant and the ordinary
meaning of significant. There are many words which have this
problem, for example, fact in the philosophical sense, is
completely oposite to fact in the normal sense. Normally if
somebody said that something was a fact, we would take it to
mean that it was certian. In philosophy, if somebody says
something is a fact about the world, it is empirical and can
therefore only ever be at most highly probable, by
definition.

Your example is of the ordinary meaning of significance. In
philosophy significant means something else. It means that
it is ermm sort of meaningful and sensical. If something is
insignificant, it means that it tells you nothing
synthetically or analytically and therefore is telling you
nothing, as there are only two types of truths, analytic and
synthetic. If something gives neither of these truths it is
telling us nothing. It is non sensical and
non-propositional, with no truth value. This is why
metaphysics is insignificant, because it tells us nothing
synthetically nor analytically, as it is not empirically
verifiable nor a tautology.

If we now understand the difference between important
significance, and philosophical significance, we can see how
the verification principle is a tautology.
"It is significant to say that Sophie has brown hair"; "I
can use either a tautology (which is not the case here) or
sense data to empirically verify that Sophie has brown
hair"

Ayer did mean meaningful when he said significant, but not
meaningful as in "important to that particular person" or
"each word made sense" but meaningful as in it actually
meant something, it was not non-sensical. It would be
meaningless and non-sensical to talk about metaphysics as it
does not fulfill the verification principle's criteria and
doesnt give synthetic or analytic truth


 

offline SValx from United Kingdom on 2006-06-11 08:54 [#01917734]
Points: 2586 Status: Regular | Followup to Ezkerraldean: #01917726



Shame.. can't you drive?


 

offline fleetmouse from Horny for Truth on 2006-06-11 08:55 [#01917735]
Points: 18042 Status: Lurker | Followup to Ezkerraldean: #01917729



Yes, once in a while.


 

offline Ezkerraldean from the lowest common denominator (United Kingdom) on 2006-06-11 08:55 [#01917736]
Points: 5733 Status: Addict | Followup to SValx: #01917734



not yet, my parents will not help me learn, and living so
far away from anywhere i cant get enough time at work to
earn the money for lessons, let alone a car +tax +insurance.
annoying, isnt it?


 

offline SValx from United Kingdom on 2006-06-11 09:01 [#01917739]
Points: 2586 Status: Regular



Just get a scooter. Where are you going to uni?


 

offline Falito from Balenciaga on 2006-06-11 09:02 [#01917740]
Points: 3974 Status: Lurker | Show recordbag



idont think,enjoy not to drive
to live where you do is more stimulating...uh?


 

offline Falito from Balenciaga on 2006-06-11 09:03 [#01917741]
Points: 3974 Status: Lurker | Show recordbag



and yeah..a scooter would be nice
to enjoy rural roads


 

offline Ezkerraldean from the lowest common denominator (United Kingdom) on 2006-06-11 09:04 [#01917742]
Points: 5733 Status: Addict | Followup to SValx: #01917739



scooter, on roads with potholes a foot deep? i dont think
so!

leicester uni. i will be driving by then.


 

offline SValx from United Kingdom on 2006-06-11 09:05 [#01917743]
Points: 2586 Status: Regular



no, I was only joking about the scooter. You're not tridenti


 

offline SValx from United Kingdom on 2006-06-11 09:05 [#01917744]
Points: 2586 Status: Regular



You won't need to drive at uni


 

offline Ezkerraldean from the lowest common denominator (United Kingdom) on 2006-06-11 09:07 [#01917745]
Points: 5733 Status: Addict | Followup to Falito: #01917740



although its so annoyingly remote, its really pretty out
here. i love it. i havent lived here all that long, and when
i lived in the town i always thought about how shit it would
be living somewhere out in the country (many of my friends
do). but now i am out here, the actual place is quite
pretty. i definately do appreciate the view out here. it
does make up for the remoteness, in a way


 

offline Falito from Balenciaga on 2006-06-11 09:07 [#01917746]
Points: 3974 Status: Lurker | Show recordbag



then you live in deep forest uh?
i also live in town but got roads in good shape and ride
is cute...


 

offline Ezkerraldean from the lowest common denominator (United Kingdom) on 2006-06-11 09:08 [#01917747]
Points: 5733 Status: Addict | Followup to SValx: #01917743



lol

problem is, if i cant drive, i cant actually get there to
start with!

well, theres public transport of course, but i would have to
drive 30 miles anyway to get to a train station.


 

offline goDel from ɐpʎǝx (Seychelles) on 2006-06-11 09:09 [#01917748]
Points: 10225 Status: Lurker | Followup to Drunken Mastah: #01917686



...but always beneficial


 

offline SValx from United Kingdom on 2006-06-11 09:11 [#01917749]
Points: 2586 Status: Regular



Now that's just silly. I'm sure you could find a lift
somehow or even get a bus or a taxi to the station. It'd be
completely pointless to get a car and pay for tax and
insurance and lessons just to drive to uni and back every
term.


 

offline Falito from Balenciaga on 2006-06-11 09:16 [#01917751]
Points: 3974 Status: Lurker | Show recordbag



-(yo man,hope to to hurts you that
deep selfphotoshoportrait.my intention was to spoke
about the meaning of this mboard.love from my place)-


 

offline Ezkerraldean from the lowest common denominator (United Kingdom) on 2006-06-11 09:17 [#01917752]
Points: 5733 Status: Addict | Followup to SValx: #01917749



i suppose
i might not be going to uni this year anyway, i might be
doing an apprenticeship in rugby which will probably require
driving.

and, for when i am not in uni (term breaks etc.) i would
probably come home, and i definately want to be able to
drive then. i cant stay out here all the time!
sharing a car with one of my parents would be helpful,
insurance would be cheaper. problem is they drive posh
yuppie cars (freelanders) and would not let me touch them if
their lives depended on it!


 

offline Drunken Mastah from OPPERKLASSESVIN!!! (Norway) on 2006-06-11 17:43 [#01917992]
Points: 35867 Status: Lurker | Show recordbag



ok.. I don't know where you got your philosophy education,
but we need to get a few things straight to be on common
ground... I can't believe england would be so different from
norway in terminology.. or maybe Ayer tried manipulating
language to somehow save the verification principle..?

a tautology is a sentence that is always true
in formal logics like the sentence "P [or] notP" (see
picture). Now, for Ayer to get his verification principle
(for a sentence, A, to be meaningful is for it to be
verifiable through sense data or for it to be an analytical
truth) to become meaningful by its own criteria, he seems to
perform a rather weak attempt at saying it is an analytical
truth, but it doesn't become so just because he says so;
when someone says meaningful, that is not the same as saying
that it is empirically verifiable or analytical: Meaning is
something you understand or grasp whenever you percieve
something meaningful and there aren't several types of
meaningfulness (that may not be a word); you either
understand something or you don't. In the first case it is
meaningful in the second it isn't (to anyone; if someone
can understand something, it is meaningful).
That is analytical and also a quite redundant
sentence.

Now, for something to have significance, both in philosophy
and elsewhere, is for it to make a difference or impact;
significance is force. Significance isn't the same as
meaning either, but the logical positivist may have used
significance as a criterium of meaning in that they meant
that something had to make a difference to our future
experiences to be meaningful, which is kind of the same as
saying that something has to be significant to be
meaningful, but this again renders lots of meaningful
sentences (sentences you understand) nonsense sentences.

will continue.


Attached picture

 

offline Taffmonster from dog_belch (Japan) on 2006-06-11 17:45 [#01917994]
Points: 6196 Status: Lurker | Followup to Drunken Mastah: #01917992



i missed this one but it looks heavy for late night reading!


 

offline Taffmonster from dog_belch (Japan) on 2006-06-11 17:47 [#01917995]
Points: 6196 Status: Lurker | Followup to Drunken Mastah: #01917992



btw isn't a tautology something like a triangle has three
sides.... something that simple states its self like "all
bachalors are unmarried men" thats what i was taut a
tautology was. btw i ahvent read anything in this post so
please feel free to ignore me!


 

offline Drunken Mastah from OPPERKLASSESVIN!!! (Norway) on 2006-06-11 17:56 [#01918001]
Points: 35867 Status: Lurker | Show recordbag



"If something is insignificant, it means that it tells
you nothing
"

no, that is when something isn't meaningful. A string
that tells you nothing is something like "35kfl Gl bk,m
s.mew.d0+\" while something insignificant can be something
like if I tell you "I can't really feel every single hair on
my body"; knowing that won't really affect you in any way,
but it doesn't make the sentence not meaningful.

"Ayer did mean meaningful when he said significant, but
not meaningful as in "important to that particular person"
or "each word made sense" but meaningful as in it actually
meant something, it was not non-sensical. It would be
meaningless and non-sensical to talk about metaphysics as it
does not fulfill the verification principle's criteria and
doesnt give synthetic or analytic truth
"

what is it to actually mean something? according to
verificationism, there aren't many meaningful sentences, and
if we were to keep to discussing what would be considered
meaningful according to the verification principle, we
wouldn't get very far; it's hard to prove even to a
satisfying extent that any experience really is an
experience.

I bet Ayer was pissed about Heideggers "wie steht es um
dieses nichts?"


 

offline Drunken Mastah from OPPERKLASSESVIN!!! (Norway) on 2006-06-11 17:57 [#01918005]
Points: 35867 Status: Lurker | Followup to Taffmonster: #01917995 | Show recordbag



nah, the bachelor sentence is a prime example of an
analytical truth.. a sentence that is true just because it
says that something is what it is or something like that.


 

offline Taffmonster from dog_belch (Japan) on 2006-06-11 17:58 [#01918006]
Points: 6196 Status: Lurker | Followup to Drunken Mastah: #01918005



but its still a tautology... isn't it? shame my philosophy
dictionary is in teh attic. hehe


 

offline Drunken Mastah from OPPERKLASSESVIN!!! (Norway) on 2006-06-11 18:14 [#01918022]
Points: 35867 Status: Lurker | Followup to Taffmonster: #01918006 | Show recordbag



well.. the only way I can see that is if you use some sort
of "=" logical operator like P <--> P, but the problem is
that even with logical structure, if you want to capture
the meaning of the sentence, you'd need to use a different
letter to signify the second condition.. and if something is
a tautology in logics, it isn't the same as it being true;
"if humans are to live forever, we have to drink other
peoples blood or not drink other peoples blood" is a
tautology, but it isn't really true. There have also
been people who have denied the existence of analytical
truths... I think Quine may be one of them...


 

offline fleetmouse from Horny for Truth on 2006-06-11 19:19 [#01918064]
Points: 18042 Status: Lurker



So many posts in this thread yet not one of you has managed
to produce the philosopher's stone.

CHOP CHOP PEOPLE LET'S SEE SOME ACTION


 

offline SValx from United Kingdom on 2006-06-12 03:26 [#01918164]
Points: 2586 Status: Regular



Drunken Mastah. Please read this. I am positive that I am
correct on the definition of the word tautology. You're
still misunderstanding the word significant as well. I have
got my definitions from my philosophy tutor and from every
philosophical writing that I have ever read. To emphasise my
point, I've done some research on the difinition of the word
tautology. I just picked 3 different sources at random. A
normal dictionary, an online dictionary and an online guide
to the meanings of philosophical words. I didn't see
anywhere your definition of the word.

dictionary.co.uk- "the unnecessary and usually unintentional
use of two words to express one meaning"

Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English-
"The saying of the same thing again in different ways
without making one's meaning clearer or more forceful;
needless repetition"

http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/ix3.htm#t-
"Logical truth. A statement which is necessarily true
because, by virtue of its logical form, it cannot be used to
make a false assertion."

I hope that this is enough evidence for you that a tautology
is what I say it is. It gives analytic truths, which by
their definition cannot ever be wrong. If not, please feel
free to do more research on ENGLISH websites. Ayer was an
English philosopher and so I think it is almost certain that
he was using the English philosophical meanings of the
words.

We cannot carry on this discussion until you understand the
language that I am using.


 

offline DirtyPriest from Copenhagen (Denmark) on 2006-06-12 03:31 [#01918168]
Points: 5499 Status: Lurker | Followup to SValx: #01918164



Difinition? What language is that?


 

offline SValx from United Kingdom on 2006-06-12 03:34 [#01918170]
Points: 2586 Status: Regular



What? I said definition..


 

offline DirtyPriest from Copenhagen (Denmark) on 2006-06-12 03:38 [#01918173]
Points: 5499 Status: Lurker | Followup to SValx: #01918170



One of the times, yes.


 

offline SValx from United Kingdom on 2006-06-12 03:41 [#01918174]
Points: 2586 Status: Regular



oh DEAR! I showed that I knew how to spell the word another
4 times in that same post yet made one typo. Well.. my point
can pretty much be ignored now :D


 


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