Mal: Okay. She won't be winning any beauty contests anytime soon. But she is solid. Ship like this, be with ya 'til the day you die. Zoe: 'Cause it's a deathtrap.

'Out Of Gas'


Natter .38 Special  

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


Jessica - Aug 23, 2005 12:33:42 pm PDT #596 of 10002
And then Ortus came and said "It's Ortin' time" and they all Orted off into the sunset

Oh, and I love philosophy. Just not when it's about proving the existance of God.


Nutty - Aug 23, 2005 12:34:14 pm PDT #597 of 10002
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."

No, no, no. Proctologists look at prostates, so that they may prescribe unbelieveably expensive radiation and/or medication treatments, and take a cut thereby. Unlike psychiatry, I bet there isn't much in the way of inherent fascination drawing those particular specialists.

Wait: ita will turn out to be a proctologist in her spare time, and say, "My dad died of anal prolapse, and that is what got me started in medicine, you unfeeling turd!!"


erikaj - Aug 23, 2005 12:35:02 pm PDT #598 of 10002
Always Anti-fascist!

Guess I'm gonna have to go...maybe if I charge enough for fanfic...


bon bon - Aug 23, 2005 12:35:08 pm PDT #599 of 10002
It's five thousand for kissing, ten thousand for snuggling... End of list.

Supposably he is answering all your questions now, although I am at work and can't look over his shoulder. By the end of this you will all be theists.

That is a joke.


tommyrot - Aug 23, 2005 12:36:30 pm PDT #600 of 10002
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.

No, no, no. Proctologists look at prostates,

Oh.

I hope I haven't offended any proctologists.


Emily - Aug 23, 2005 12:36:33 pm PDT #601 of 10002
"In the equation E = mc⬧, c⬧ is a pretty big honking number." - Scola

Urology is good for those who suffer from urologic diseases, e.g. If your peter is a-burnin' I bet you're glad of the existence of urology.

Yes, this was rather my point.


Gudanov - Aug 23, 2005 12:36:54 pm PDT #602 of 10002
Coding and Sleeping

This is like the joke about the elephant twins conjoined at the trunk, right? When one sneezes, the other one's head gets blown up real big?

I've heard it as a spherical cow. When asked to describe a cow the ecologist explains the cow's function in the ecosystem, the biologist talks about the organs of the cow and how they function together, the engineer describes how the cow's digestive tract works like valves and vats, the phyicist assumes the cow is a sphere.


Nutty - Aug 23, 2005 12:37:36 pm PDT #603 of 10002
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."

By the end of this you will all be theists.

Or possibly proctologists.


NoiseDesign - Aug 23, 2005 12:39:32 pm PDT #604 of 10002
Our wings are not tired

Either way we can make asses of ourselves.


Bob Bob - Aug 23, 2005 12:39:46 pm PDT #605 of 10002

Okay, I'm going to start responding to some of these posts.

First, Nutty writes,

This confirms to me that philosopher must test for crackpottery before they admit new members to their guild.<

Just for the record, we don't intentionally test for crackpottery; it's all accidental.

Also, I am thinking, you can start any proof with "Assume for a moment that the Underpants Gnomes have rearranged your dining room furniture without your knowing it..."<

Indeed, you can start any proof like that. And now would be a good time to talk about how philosophers use the word, "proof". By "proof", philosophers don't usually mean "an argument such that if you understand it, you have to accept it on pain of irrationality." Unless you get into logic, philosophers mean something like, "arriving at a fairly controversial conclusion using fairly uncontroversial premises". That is, something closer to what we call an inductive proof--i.e., something where the conclusion is, at best, probable--rather than a deductive proof--i.e., where the conclusion is necessary.

But, that's a huge assumption to make! Why on earth would I assume that? You've got to start with assumptions that people will accept, you know? There's "framing the debate", and then there is totally pulling stuff out of your butt and making like it's true just because you put it into the subordinate clause of an introductory sentence.<

You might assume it (i.e., "God exists") if (1) you're a theist; (2) you're an agnostic; or (3) you want to have some fun. There are all sorts of other reasons to assume things, too, like (4) someone has a gun to my head, which he threatens to fire unless I assume for the sake of argument that God exists; or (5) I get to rap with Jay-Z if I make the assumption, etc. Philosophy is fun!

But what about your claim, "You've got to start with assumptions that people will accept, you know?"? Let me ask you: What is your argument for that claim? What are the assumptions you have in the background that leads you to assume that you have to start with assumptions that people will accept? Because I doubt very much that I accept those assumptions.

I'm not just being persnickety, either (well, not just persnickety); most philosophers have abandoned the view of argument where you have to start with assumptions that everyone accepts in order to arrive at interesting conclusions. The fact is, for every assumption, there's almost always at least one intelligent, well-informed person who doesn't accept it. So we've scaled back our ambitions a bit.

Was that post too long?