[ExI] A Simulation Argument

[Kevin H]

On 1/6/08, Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
>
> If you actually looked up the terms "vacuous truth", "counterfactual
> conditional", "begging the question" and "circular logic", you would see
> what is flawed in his premise.


Enough with the patronizing, I know what those terms mean.

  You are correct that a hypothetical premise
> can be used to test potential logical consequences.  But not if the
> premise
> presumes the conclusion, as is the case here.  Then the hypothetical does
> not derive any conclusions not already assumed, and does not test
> anything.


But that's all deductive reasoning can do.  You can't introduce new terms in
the argument that aren't contained in the premises, you can only follow
valid forms of entailment.

Look, this syllogism has been criticized:

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

By your standards, this syllogism too is begging the question.  If that
bothers you then stay away from deduction.  Myself, I see a role that
deduction plays in overall inquiry, but it can't establish the truth of it's
own premises, that's its nature.

And I thought I'd even do what you ask, just to be amicable, and found an
article here (
http://actionskeptics.blogspot.com/2006/09/circular-reasoning.html).  I
suggest you take a look at it too as it brings up the same issue I'm
raising: that deduction itself can be seen as circular.  I think he tries to
distinguish between circular reasoning and deduction, but I'll leave it to
you to decide if you think he's successful.

One way to produce a counterargument would be to show me a deductive
argument that you don't consider circular, explain why it isn't circular and
maybe I'll see what you're saying too and agree with it.

Kevin
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20080106/66bbbd07/attachment.html>