Dichotomy
Division of a whole into two parts. a.1.a spec. in Logic, etc.: Division of a class or genus into two lower mutually exclusive classes or genera; binary classification. [OED]
If they are non-overlapping, as you imply, they are “mutually exclusive”. If they “cover the whole spectrum”, then they are a division of the “whole”. QED.
This is also confirmed by your endless repetition of your FALSE principle “reason cannot come from unreason”.
All endless disengenuous whinning about “dichotomy” will therefore be stricken.
It would help Lee, if you quoted the passage you were referring to. A search reveals that I have not used the word “outdated” on this thread. When you falsely suggested that I was using an Aristotelian framework, stated that I reject that framework. I may also have implied that I find that framework to be archaic or outdated. I doubt I stated that I reject it because it is archaic or outdated – let alone that this was my sole reason – my main reason for rejection being that I find the framework to be clunky and not particularly useful.
And I’m fairly certain I have not made this claim.
The list of things that invalidate your reasoning is already vast Lee. We do not have to add to it claims about it that have not in fact been made.
A strawman that exists only in your head.
-
I HAVE NOT THE SLIGHTEST CLUE what statement of yours you are referring to Lee. This is particularly true as (i) you are replying to a post I made seven days ago and (ii) you have posted 285 times in the past month. I have no interest in “looking for a needle in a haystack”.
-
This is not a “discussion” Lee. On your part, it is an endless sealioning flow of verbal diarrhea – assertions, vague hearsay, misrepresentations, bullshit and outright falsehoods. On my part, it has been an attempt to correct a few of your more BLATANT falsehoods.
-
As I have said repeatedly Lee, I don’t give a rat’s arse what you “say” or “said” – only about what you can demonstrate with actual evidence (as opposed to the endless list of non-evidence you misrepresent as evidence).
I was not “taking refuge in” anything Lee. I was pointing out that your claim (highlighted above) was fallacious.
No Lee, they are not – AS A MATTER OF DEFINITION!
No Lee, you cannot – because I was not stating a “belief”. Beliefs are not evidence BY DEFINITION!
Evidence is:
facts tending to prove or disprove any conclusion. [OED]
Evidence are facts. Beliefs are not facts. Therefore Beliefs are not evidence. More evidence that:
Lee Merrill does not understqand what evidence is.
This is not evidence that reason CANNOT come out of unreason. Examples cannot show that counterexamples cannot exist. Therefore examples cannot be evidence of the impossibility of a contrary possibility. Pointing to white swans is not evidence that black swans are impossible – by the same principle.
Which belief? The paranoid schizophrenic is likely to have many beliefs – not all of which are necessarily paranoid or irrational. Your “example” is garbled.
And neither argumentum ad nauseam, nor bad examples, are evidence of anything.
Again, given you have given no indication what specifically you are referring to, “please” take a long walk off a short plan.
Yes, but as you have failed to reconcile your agreement with your endless claims that “reason cannot come out of unreason”, your agreement is as worthless as everything else you say.
Stricken, per above.
Stricken, per above.
Not in a court it doesn’t! I would be utter astounded if anybody was ever asked, in a court, to affirm or deny (let alone “defend”) that they are in fact wholly constituted by the sum of their cells.
They may not “ascribe” it, unpressed. But then I rather doubt that, unpressed, they would state that they are “agents” in this sense, at all. But when pressed I would be very much surprised if most did not admit that their brains had a part to play in their decision-making process, and thus their ‘agency’.
None of this feeble babble in any way justifies your idiotic ‘claim my brain made me do it in court’ argument.
We are simply wandering further and further down a rabbit-hole. At this point I say “enough”. Your original argument was silly and incoherent. Your further attempts to buttress it are just making it worse.
More moronic sealioning.
If you “need to see some of this ‘mountain of evidence’” – then go to Amazon and buy a neuroscience textbook!
I am sick to death of your silly grandstanding.
Nor do people “believe there is a [brain] somehow distinct from them, that is the real agent, that causes them to do stuff.”. Hence why your “my brain cells made me do it” is a silly argument.
You have yet to present a “problem”. Courts don’t distinguish between “you” and “your braincells”.
It is not clear how this supports your non-overlapping “reasoning causes” and “unreasoning causes” contention.
Argumentum ad nauseam does not prove anything Lee.
@Tim points to Lee’s original psychiatrist claim, which contained not “even a shred of evidence in support” of it:
Stricken, per above.
Then how can you claim a(n insurmountable) boundary between what you term “reason” and “unreason”?
No. It means that you may be, at least temporarily, moving beyond trying to ram everything into your “reasoning cause” and “unreasoning cause” buckets.
The general consensus on these threads is that you’ve failed.
Possibly because what you have saying has not been particularly coherent.
That DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS your repeated claim that “reason cannot come from unreason”.
If you admit that, then your original assertion collapses, and there’s little to argue about.
Because it does not demarcate which forms of imperfect reason you consider to be “reason” or “unreason”. The definitions only define the extremes, it does not demarcate the middle ground. Therefore, it is not applicable you your challenge.
A delusion is a “fixed belief”. A hallucination is a sensory experience. They are two very different things. And you seem to be arguing just for the sake of argument.
Delirium … is a specific state of acute confusion attributable to the direct physiological consequence of a medical condition, effects of a psychoactive substance, or multiple causes, which usually develops over the course of hours to days.
It is not at all clear what this would have to do with hallucinating snakes. And as hallucinations are sensory, it is not clear that this has any relevance to cognition (although somebody who was hallucinating might well also be experiencing cognitive difficulties).
Your “point” appears to be muddled to the point of pointlessness – possibly because you appear to have no understanding of either psychiatry, or its terminology.
Then you need to reconcile a person suffering from dementia being able to have, at times, rational thoughts, with your repeated claims that “reason cannot come from unreason”.
“False”, in what way? How unreliable does imperfect reasoning need to be to be an “unreasoning cause” in your schema? Reliable 90% of the time? 50%? 10%? 1%? No reasoning is either perfectly reliable or perfectly unreliable. Where are YOU claiming to draw the line?
More nuance than simply lumping an outcome due to the label you give its “cause”.
I made no mention of “brain” in that claim. It holds whether you deem the ‘font’ of your reason to to be your brain, your soul, or your spleen.
But not that the “leap” at them, let alone that they leap at the voice of complete strangers. Nor is it clear the extent to which it is genuine recognition.
I don’t care if there was one census, two, or a hundred – there is no credible reason why the Roman authorities would send the inhabitants of a province to the town associated with his purported thousand-year-before ancestor. Why would the Romans care about that town?
“Scholars” or apologists?
No, I didn’t that is in fact the exact opposite of what I said.
I was dismissing the activity – NOT THE “CAUSE” of this activity (which I did not even mention – let alone “point to”).
How many times have you blathered on about “cause” in this thread Lee? Just in this post:
… and caused by unreasoning cause … is certainly pointing to an unreasoning cause! … relying on unreasoning causes … that causes them to do stuff .. reasoning can have unreasoning causes … as in unreasoning causes, causes of thoughts .. Or “unreasoning causes for conclusions”, if you like. … It’s an unreasoning cause. … But I was pointing to unreasoning causes … unreasoning causes when in operation … Unreasoning causes therefore, are not partly reasoning. Though they nay cause reasonable actions! … Dismissing some conclusion, by pointing to the cause.
Every time you bleat on endlessly about “cause” you are “trotting out Aristotle”. It is a framework I do not find useful – and therefore do not use. It is also a framework that very few people outside apologetics and theology are even aware of – therefore it cannot provide the basis for a widely-accepted “general principle”.
Lewis’ blind rejection of any ideas since before the Renaissance, could best be summarised by this epigram from Martial (written nearly 2000 years ago):
You admire, Vacerra, only the ancients, and praise no poets but those who are dead. I beg your pardon, Vacerra, but I think death is too high a price to pay for your praise.
