jrs

When all other methods are exhausted, I guess at one of the values. First, I use the "How am I doing?" button to verify that I have made no mistakes so far and to establish a base-line. Then I select a cell which can only have two values (if possible) and put one of them into it. Then I develop all the consequences of that guess. If it leads to a solution, fine. If it leads to a contradiction, then I press control-Z (undo) repeatedly until I get back to the base-line (undo will not take you further back); and then put in the other value and proceed from there. Sometimes I get stuck again before I reach either a solution or a contradiction. This may indicate a poor choice of which value to guess -- in which case one might try going back with control-Z to the base-line and making a guess for a different cell. Or one can do what I usually do, which is assume that everything is OK; and try this method again using the current situation as the new base-line.

I view the conflict as one long war with intermittent flare-ups. Each side justifies its acts of war or terrorism by claiming that they are just retaliating for acts by the other side. So to evaluate the situation today, it is necessary to go back to the beginning. Israel has continuously engaged in collective punishment of the Palestinians (the non-Jewish population). You yourself have advocated "carpet bombing" them. Why are you so conscious of the violent acts of one side and not those of the other side? If this is true, it is irrelevant. A majority of Jews in Israel has no more right to establish a Jewish theocracy than the majority of Muslims in Iran have to establish a Muslim theocracy. They were reduced to second-class citizens (if even that) in their own home-land with different identity cards and license plates. And many of them did lose their property holdings as individuals, families, and communities simply because of their ethnic or religious identity, not as punishment for any crime of which they had been convicted. I am not an expert on history, so I cannot comment on whether the Philistines (= Palestinians) ever ruled that land. But it was being held by the British after World War I as "Palestine", i.e. the British Mandate. Why were the Israelis not satisfied to live in that? Why were equal rights not enough? No state should be founded on religious discrimination. Israel should give up its identity as a Jewish state and become a secular state. Their avowed "goal" is not the point. The question is whether they attacked innocents. Thus the Irgun confessed to terrorism.

No. The Israelis started the war. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration%2C_1917 The establishment of a specifically Jewish state within the land of Palestine was a violation of the understanding that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine". And it was contrary to fundamental principles of religious freedom and equal rights. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel/History Various Israeli terrorist groups operated against the British and the Arabs from the beginning of the conflict. So while many Palestinians today are as bad as you-all say they are, the Israelis are just as guilty in my opinion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun http://www.etzel.org.il/english/index.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_gang

I suggest that we use this thread to air our pet peeves about spelling and grammar with emphasis on the errors which occur frequently in this forum. For example, members frequently confuse "there" and "their". "There" is used to indicate existence or to refer to some other place. "Their" is the possessive case of the third-person plural pronoun -- a substitute for "they's" or "them's" (as "his" is a substitute for "he's" or "him's"). There must be a better example of the use of "there" in a sentence, but I cannot think of it right now. John lives over there (pointing at John's house). When the Joneses learned that their property had been vandalized, their wrath was unleashed.

I do not think that Sharon was trying to appease the Palestinians. He recognized that they were not a reliable partner for peace negotiations; and decided to impose a peace settlement unilaterally. That is what he did in Gaza and I think that he was going to do it next on the West Bank. Building the wall of separation and removing indefensible outposts was part of his plan. The only other way do it unilaterally would have been to drive out or exterminate the Palestinians which would be Genocide and unacceptable to the International community and also to many Israelis.

I think that "biological milestone" could mean anything, including any of the other options. So I would discard it as ambiguous. I would add "implantation" -- (if and) when the embryo attaches itself to the uterus and starts to form the placenta. If implantation does not occur, then the embryo is excreted and dies. So the list would become: conception, implantation, viability, birth, or afterward (?). I do not see why one should distinguish between an ethical line and a legal line. But there are two lines: when a third party (not acting as an agent of the mother) may not ethically harm the child; and when the mother (or her agent) may not ethically harm the child (in self-defense). I would put the former at conception and the latter at birth.

In proper English, a double negative is a positive. However, it may not mean the same thing as one would get by just dropping both negations. As in this case, the double negation is often weaker than a straight-forward positive. I am not claiming to have specific evidence that the variations in intelligence (for example) are caused, even partially, by any genetic difference between whites and blacks. I am just saying that differences of that nature are to be expected on general principles. See the writings of Thomas Sowell. There probably is a difference in the average intelligence of redheads and blonds; although I would not venture a guess as to which is more intelligent. However, because blonds and redheads are probably more related to each other on the average than blacks are to whites, the difference is probably less in the former case. Also, the same gene sometimes affects more than one visible attribute. So attributes which appear to be unrelated can be highly correlated. But they probably DO vary between Irish redheads and Californians.

What is perhaps more significant in terms of offending the religionists is the related fact that all living things are descended from a common ancestor. And our distant ancestors were not human; nor will our distant descendants (if any) be human. I meant "expected" in the sense of probability theory -- an average over possible outcomes weighted by the probabilities. My point is that evolution IS philosophically obvious. All the objections to evolution are based on philosophical absurdities which contradict the axioms. E.g. assuming that things which are clearly changing will not change. If we correctly reach a generalization by induction from life-as-we-know-it, then according to Objectivism that generalization remains true CONTEXTUALLY even if we subsequently discover other kinds of life.

Each person should be judged as an individual, not because of his membership in a race. However, it is wrong to say that races do not exist or that no important genetic differences exist between groups. It is obvious to any rational person that groups differ in frequencies of genetically determined characteristics such as: skin color, eye color, hair color, curliness of hair, length of nose, thickness of lips, bone structure, etc.. There is no reason to think that this variation does not also affect genes which contribute to intelligence, creativity, aggressiveness, and other mental attributes. Yes, there is substantial mixing of the races. But contrary to what most people think, natural selection operates very quickly. It does not take thousands of generations to make a significant change in the frequencies of genes, but only a few (sometimes only one). So different selective pressures can overwhelm the leveling effects of mixing.

GO is quite interesting. I also like the Manga about it -- "Hikaru no GO". However, I should point out two problems that I have experienced: 1. To become really good at GO, you must start as a child and study it constantly. It is significantly more complex than chess. 2. Like any competitive sport, to enjoy it you must have a "killer instinct". That is, you must not be deterred by compassion for your opponents; and you must enjoy winning more than you fear losing. I am much slower than that, so far, although I am speeding up. I usually play at the "Hard" level.

If you do move them back up, please take care to avoid an old problem. It used to be that the longer quotes sometimes overlapped the options: "Blogs Live Chat Help Search Members Calendar". When they did, the options covered up could not be used.

I think that the following websites are more useful for learning Sudoku: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudoku http://www.websudoku.com I find it fascinating myself.

So you are talking about the opposite of a "second-hander", i.e. a first-hander. To be truly independent, you should also not allow others to parasitize you intellectually. That is, you should not tell them how to live their lives, even if they beg you to do so. (Oops! Am I being self-exclusionary -- defining myself as non-independent by giving you a definition of independent?) This makes no sense to me. Could you clarify it? It sounds like you are saying that you should not respect other persons' rights. But I am sure that you would not mean that.

Darwinian evolution has two parts: 1. Living things have inheritable characteristics (genes) which occasionally change (mutation aka variation). 2. Those inheritable characteristics which increase the organism's expected number of offspring (sharing those characteristics) under present circumstances tend to become more common than those which do not. I.e. that which causes reproduction causes reproduction, i.e. A is A.

I did NOT say that a non-Objectivist must approve of it. What I said was "(2) it must not be an example of another fallacy, so it must appear to be a valid step to non-Objectivists;". The second clause was intended to try to make sure that the first clause was clear by repeating it in other language. I did not say that you had to get the approval of a non-Objectivist. I was saying that if you (like a non-Objectivist) ignored the FSC, it would seem to be valid. In any case, each person, whether Objectivist or not, must judge the example for himself, if and when it is presented. That is not the definition of a fallacy. Before evaluating another person's argument, you should translate it from his language into your own language. There is no reason to think that the person making the statement you mentioned intended to deprive "immoral" of its pejorative meaning. And even if he did, no attribute of "Candidate X" could validate or invalidate his arguments. But that is just a side issue. The more important point here is that you are accepting that (once translated) the words in a person's argument have an objective meaning independent of his character or intentions. So the meaning of "reality" and "illusion" in "All reality, including my existence, is but an illusion." cannot be compromised by the fact that the person has asserted that sentence. dondigitalia gave an counter-example in Post #18: So if one takes "Faith is not a means of obtaining knowledge." on faith, then one has made "a true statement which subsumes a concept which it is denying". Right? The devil is in the details which you are ignoring. A "form of argument" may not be the same as the justification of a step which could be either valid or fallacious. If you want to make your case, you MUST get more specific about the arguments which you use as examples. I did NOT say that "I [RationalCop] do not exist." was false BECAUSE it is a non sequitur. To show that it is false, I would have to make a different argument: 1. RationalCop posted "I do not exist.". (observation) 2. Every action is the action of an entity. (corollary to the axiom of identity) 3. RationalCop is an entity. (apply 2 to 1) 4. Every entity exists. (corollary to definition of entity) 5. RationalCop exists. (apply 4 to 3) 6. "I [RationalCop] do not exist." is false. (apply definition of false to 5) No one has volunteered to be the exclusive proponent of FSC, so we are just continuing the general free-for-all from the older thread.

Yes, I forgot definition of "arbitrary". "I [RationalCop] do not exist." is not arbitrary; it is false. But it is still a non sequitur; which is the fallacy of not providing a justification or providing a justification which does not fit the case. "reality", "existence", "illusion" and the other words in that sentence are all meaningful words -- they stand for valid concepts. That someone utters or believes the sentence does not change that fact. So no definitional fallacy has occurred. The sentence is false. So the assertion of it implies that some fallacy has occurred. Which fallacy depends on the circumstances. You have described some of the circumstances -- the ones which you think are sufficient for the fallacy, FSC, to have occurred. But you have not said what is the genus of FSC. Nor have you shown that it is actually a fallacy, i.e. that it introduces a falsehood (or meaninglessness) which would not otherwise exist. Once a CONTRADICTION has been identified in some OTHER person's argument, one may reasonably choose to ignore the argument. But if you arrive at a contradiction in your own thinking (or if you have already internalized another person argument which reaches a contradiction), then you NEED to find out what your error was so that you can avoid repeating it in the future. This means determining for each step: whether its justification is valid or fallacious, and whether the step is true or false. Please give an example of a case where "knowing" that something is FSC has helped you more than just knowing that a contradiction has occurred.

To show how you could give a proper example of the "fallacy of the stolen concept", if it existed, I give the following example of "begging the question" (aka "petitio principii" or "circular argument"): 1. If one person is married to another, then the latter is married to the former. (premise) 2. If Bill Clinton is married to Laura Bush, then Laura Bush is married to Bill Clinton. (instantiate 1) 3. Laura Bush is married to Bill Clinton. (modus ponens: detach 5 from 2) [fallacy] 4. If Laura Bush is married to Bill Clinton, then Bill Clinton is married to Laura Bush. (instantiate 1) 5. Bill Clinton is married to Laura Bush. (modus ponens: detach 3 from 4) [false conclusion] The premise, #1, is true. #2 and #4 are true vacuously. #3 and #5 are false. Modus ponens may be valid, but in the case of #3, its minor premise, #5, is a subsequent step which is not allowed. This makes it an instance of "begging the question". #5 is a valid application of modus ponens; and it is also the false conclusion caused by the fallacy at #3. I previously dismissed this example. But as I was working up the above example of "begging the question", I realized that I could modify this to give an example which satisfies my requirements and is much closer to what I think Ayn Rand was getting at than any of the examples I have seen so far. 1. For any X, if Ayn Rand says X, then the dogmatist feels X. (premise) 2. Ayn Rand says that feelings are not a source of knowledge. (premise) 3. If Ayn Rand says that feelings are not a source of knowledge, then the dogmatist feels that feelings are not a source of knowledge. (instantiate 1) 4. The dogmatist feels that feelings are not a source of knowledge. (modus ponens: detach 2 from 3) 5. Feelings are a source of knowledge. (because this is the negation of step 6) [fallacy] 6. Feelings are not a source of knowledge. (apply 5 to 4) 7. Feelings are a source of knowledge. (reiterate 5) [false conclusion] #1, #2, #3, #4, and #6 are true. #5 and #7 are false. Notice that the justification for the fallacious step is truly bizarre -- "because this is the negation of" a subsequent step. I have never heard of anyone justifying something this way. But this is what one would have to have in order to qualify FSC as a real and distinct deductive fallacy. Usually, in the cases which are alleged to be FSC, the real fallacy at that step, if it is at that step, is non sequitur or "using an undefined concept" or "argument from authority". Is this example FSC or another "straw-man"? If she was thinking of what I showed in the last example, then you are correct that it is not a reductio ad absurdum. So what is your position on "stolen concepts", Hal? Without any justification being offered for it, it is an arbitrary assertion, i.e. a non sequitur.

If you are on someone's property when this universal hatred of you develops, can he force you off of his property? None of the immediate neighbors will allow you onto their property. So it would appear that he is stuck with you.

AisA: What kind of fallacy do you believe that "stolen concept" is? Deductive, definitional, inductive, propositional, or other? Since I explained the requirements for a good example of a deductive fallacy in my Post #25, do you now accept that they are not "wholly arbitrary and preposterous"? I was not using that as an argument against the existence of such a fallacy in general. I was saying that Proudhon may not have been committing it because he might have had a definition of "theft" which does not depend on "property". So instead, you might accuse him of having a nonstandard and inappropriate definition of "theft". Since the argument being challenged is Proudhon's own argument, it is reasonable to try to understand it as he meant it rather than giving it some other meaning that you made up. After all, you would not dismiss his argument as meaningless because it was in French rather than in our language, English; would you? This is not a repudiation of objectivity. The meaning of words is not fixed by the laws of physics, but by the intentions of the author. Thinking that you have found the root cause of the contradiction (when you have not) will tempt you to stop looking further; which would cause you to miss the actual cause, the real fallacy. Now *you* are pretending to read my mind. I was trying to understand her position by asking a question about whether it is the particular units used in forming the concept which are decisive or the distinguishing characteristics. JMeganSnow believes that changing a definition is what the "fallacy of the stolen concept" is, last I heard. I was saying that FSC is something else; and thus that her argument does not rescue it. Maybe that is not important to you, but it would matter to her. Suppose someone who accepts FSC makes a mistake in his thinking which leads him to some false conclusion. And another person points out that this conclusion contradicts a result that the second person has established. The first person is able to label the second person's argument as fallacious on the ground that it contains FSC, even if there is actually nothing wrong with it. If the first person combined the two arguments together to get a "proof" of a contradiction, he would probably regard his own contribution as more fundamental. So the contradiction would be attributed to a FSC in the second person's part. If you put on a blind-fold, does that deterministically force you to not see what is in front of you? You are free to take the blind-fold off at any time. But you are not free to see while you have it on. As long as you blame contradictions on the wrong step in your thinking (as FSC does), you are not free to identify the actual fallacy and fix it.

Peanuts are seeds in a seed-case. In this they are like other nuts. Peanuts grow underground rather than on branches in the air. In this they are unlike other nuts. Why do you say that they are not nuts? What is the "scientific" definition of a "nut"?

(I am not an expert, but this is my understanding.) 1. It is not the animals which are "missing", it is their fossils. The fossil record has many gaps in it for a number of reasons, including: some organisms' remains do not fossilize well (too soft or wrong chemistry); they may have been destroyed (by predators or scavengers or bacteria) or dispersed (so that no reconstruction can be done); the stratum in which the fossils were deposited may have been eroded away or subducted into the mantle or melted or otherwise destroyed; the stratum may be buried where we cannot find it; the fossils may not have yet been recognized for what they are; or the intermediate forms may have evolved so rapidly that they left too few remains to be discovered. 2. Actually there are many transitional forms in the fossils. It is just not a complete continuum. The existence of the many which do exist is evidence of evolution. But it is also true that we can watch evolution taking place around us in our documented history. Many species, like the Dodo bird, have gone extinct. Species have invaded new habitats and begun to diversify into new forms. We also have evidence from DNA and other biological chemicals that all known species are related to each other to varying degrees, i.e. they all have a common ancestor. 3. NO! See: http://www.fossilmuseum.net

See the comments after the linked article by A.R.Wallace. I used "survival of the fittest" because according to John Reiss that was Wallace's preferred term. Wallace was co-discoverer of "Darwinian" evolution and does not get as much credit as he deserves. What is the nature of your reservation about "survival of the fittest"?

It is not your demand for reasons which is insulting. It is your questioning of my motives and your assumption that they are malicious. Yes. My squirming was caused by the fact that at that time I was trying to carry the burden of proving a negative. Now, I see that that is futile. You must first make clear what this alleged fallacy is by providing evidence for it, then I can agree with it or rip it apart. That is all I have time for now. I will try to address the other issues after Christmas. Merry Saturnalia to all.

I agree with this. The rights of the person making a telephone call or sending/receiving an e-mail are not being violated by the surveillance. But it may violate the rights of the telephone company or service provider.

Why do you feel that it is necessary to be insulting? Is it because you have no rational arguments? My position is true, not because I say so, but for the reasons which I have tried, at enormous length, to explain in these two threads. If you are determined to find an ulterior motive for my actions, it is this -- I want to save you-all from destroying your minds by accepting this notion (that there is a fallacy of the "stolen concept") which tends to prevent you from correcting the errors in your thinking. Nothing would make me happier than if Objectivism were 100% true; but it is just not so. No. I asked myself what would someone like Aristotle have to do to determine whether some syllogism (or other type of argument) was fallacious or valid. I concluded that he would have to presume that the method was valid unless he could find a counter-example. A counter-example would consist of a case where the method led to a clearly false result when given clearly true data, because that is what it means for the method to be fallacious. These requirements are just an attempt to spell out clearly what that counter-example would look like in this case. 1. I am concerned here about whether "stolen concept" is a distinct deductive fallacy; it would not be a problem if it were a definitional fallacy. So I put the counter-example in the context of a deductive argument, i.e. a sequence of steps. The other steps (if any) are required to be valid because, if they were fallacious, they would obscure the case since they might then be the cause of the false conclusion. 2. If the step in question was some other known fallacy, then that could be the reason for the false conclusion rather than because it is a "stolen concept". So it is required not be another known fallacy. 3. If a premise were false, then that could be the cause of the false conclusion. So they are all required to be true. 4. The conclusion must be false because the ability of the "stolen concept" to produce a false conclusion is the defining characteristic of a fallacy. If and when an example is presented which purportedly meets these requirement, each of us can and will judge for himself whether it actually does so. I am not trying to prevent you from making an independent and objective decision on that. You can check the standard lists of fallacies (relative to requirement #2) just as well as I can. I was ALLOWING multiple steps, not requiring them. If you can show that a proposition which is normally a postulate becomes false when it is a "stolen concept", then please do so. I am not deciding it arbitrarily, as you suggest. I was trying to help you by explaining what I think would work, if "stolen concept" were truly a fallacy. If you can discover another method of carrying the burden, then please explain what it is. Fine. Go ahead. Just do not abuse the concept of "fallacy" by calling it that.