Names and faces to bikes

nice!

dat's about right 8^)

hahah brilliant

Pot Noodles don't contain near enough sugar and fat.. but I do like bums in leather.. mmm... mmm...

leeww [quote][cite]You write that as if it is a fact...? :)

Not sure why it appears as fact to you ? I think facts are the preserve of the inerrant religious/supernatural thinkers, it is simply my opinion, it is something I believe to be true.[/quote]

Just appeared to me to be like you were :)

Hmm... I don't think I agree with you about facts being the preserve of religious/supernatural thinkers. I need to think about it a bit more to argue it, and I don't know if I can really be bothered :P

[quote][cite]Some philosophers like Daniel Dennett argue that the concept of mental states like thoughts and emotions do not really exist. It's called eliminative materialism.

I love Dennett, great bloke :)[/quote]

Yeah, I found his work quite interesting. I studied philosophy of mind in my Philosophy A-level, and he briefly came up. I read a bit more about his ideas and I quite like them. Probably because I'm primarily a science student.

Epiphenomenalism does not contradict the idea that thoughts and emotions do not really exist - of course for this to meaningful we would have to define 'exist'.

I am a materialist (the philosophical understanding of the word that is !! - I don't collect ipods ! :) )

Me too. Although I do have two iPods! In my philosophy class I was pretty much the only materialist student, the rest were still convinced that there was something like an immaterial soul, but they didn't have any reason for it. Just the "inkling" inside.

[cite]
I suspect you might of heard of it though since you referred to epiphenomenalism.

Indeed I have ![/quote]

Ahhh it's to late in the evening to be thinking about philosophy after a long day at work!

I vote for more:

BEER

BIKES

I'm going to get a beer.

eeehhhh I don't think I agree with you about facts being the preserve of religious/supernatural thinkers.

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eeehhhh In my philosophy class I was pretty much the only materialist student, the rest were still convinced that there was something like an immaterial soul, but they didn't have any reason for it. Just the "inkling" inside.

Here is my 'interpretation' (picking my words carefully now !)

These students were convinced of some kind of immaterial 'soul' (whatever that may be).

When someone is convinced, that is: when a notion is held with certainty, that it is indisputably the case, we label it as 'fact'.

The belief in an immaterial 'soul' is a religious/supernatural conceit.

Therefore: I think facts are the preserve of the inerrant religious/supernatural thinkers.

.
.

Hope that makes sense !?

Yeah, I see what you're saying.

For me and I suspect others too, though, it takes a lot more evidence and/or reasoning for something to be classified as a fact. And, well, I suppose it is impossible to prove anything to beyond any doubt.

I think what I would say instead is that dogma is the preserve of the inerrant religious/supernatural thinkers.

ok

eeehhhh Yeah, I see what you're saying.

For me and I suspect others too, though, it takes a lot more evidence and/or reasoning for something to be classified as a fact.

I think it takes evidence and/or reasoning for something to be considered evidenced or reasonable, but a 'fact' ? Perhaps we are drifting into semantics here !

eeehhhh I think what I would say instead is that dogma is the preserve of the inerrant religious/supernatural thinkers.

Dogma: 'a principle or set of principles held as incontrovertibly true'

. . . sounds a lot like 'facts' to me ! ;)

maybe there should be a philosophy discussion topic?

i may be wrong but isnt this for peoples bikes and faces?

leeww
When someone is convinced, that is: when a notion is held with certainty, that it is indisputably the case, we label it as 'fact'.

then you're saying that whether or not something is a 'fact' depends on the mental state of the believer - but people are fallible and can be guilty of faulty reasoning, people can hold certain beliefs with absolute conviction which would commonly be labelled as 'incorrect'. For example, I could be absolutely 100% sure that the Earth is flat but that would hardly make it a fact.

For a statement about the physical world to be a fact, it would have to have the status, essentially, of an extremely well verified theory, where there was such a weight of supporting evidence, possibly including the everyday experiences of millions of people, that it would be extremely unlikely that the 'fact' could ever be contradicted. The other way for something to be a fact is for it to be a formal statement which is basically
incapable of being wrong because it concerns things whose definitions we create, the best example being
mathematical statements like 'a square has 4 sides' or '5 is a prime number'.

The idea that 'facts are the preserve of the inerrant religious/supernatural thinkers' refers, I think, to the first type of 'fact' (the ones which rely on evidence and are essentially theories) since strictly speaking, they can never be proved absolutely incontravertably correct - like scientific theories, they can be proved incorrect
(by a single experiment) but never proved correct. So, if you hold some notion about the physical world to absolutely correct, then you are guilty of faulty reasoning. But for many practical purposes, the difference between 99.99999... % sure and 100% sure is negligible so we may as well carry on calling such notions 'facts' in everyday life (if not in cycling forum philosophy discussions...)

d/p !

natureboy
then you're saying that whether or not something is a 'fact' depends on the mental state of the believer

No, I did not say:

*When someone is convinced, that is: when a notion is held with certainty, that it is indisputably the case, it is a 'fact'.*

What I did say was:

*When someone is convinced, that is: when a notion is held with certainty, that it is indisputably the case, we label it as 'fact'.*

natureboy
For a statement about the physical world to be a fact, it would have to have the status, essentially, of an extremely well verified theory, where there was such a weight of supporting evidence, possibly including the everyday experiences of millions of people, that it would be extremely unlikely that the 'fact' could ever be contradicted.

Like I said earlier we may be drifting into semantics - but, to me at least, something with the status of an extremely well verified theory is just that, an extremely well verified theory, I feel no need to artificially promote an extremely well verified theory to 'fact' status.

Also "the everyday experiences of millions of people" has no bearing on what is or what is not 'fact', I refer you to your own point about a flat earth, there was a time when all of mankind believed the earth to be flat, as you correctly point out: that would hardly make it a fact.

natureboy
The other way for something to be a fact is for it to be a formal statement which is basically incapable of being wrong because it concerns things whose definitions we create, the best example being mathematical statements like 'a square has 4 sides' or '5 is a prime number'.

True, mathematics generates proofs, but mathematics are not statements about the physical world, only representations.

And with the level of my own mathematical abilities, hardly even representations !! :)

natureboy
The idea that 'facts are the preserve of the inerrant religious/supernatural thinkers' refers, I think, to the first type of 'fact' (the ones which rely on evidence and are essentially theories) since strictly speaking, they can never be proved absolutely incontravertably correct - like scientific theories, they can be proved incorrect (by a single experiment) but never proved correct.

Yes! 'facts' about reality - 'truth claims', these are what I refer to with the statement 'facts are the preserve of the inerrant religious/supernatural thinkers'.

natureboy
So, if you hold some notion about the physical world to [be] absolutely correct, then you are guilty of faulty reasoning.

Yes !

natureboy
But for many practical purposes, the difference between 99.99999... % sure and 100% sure is negligible so we may as well carry on calling such notions 'facts' in everyday life (if not in cycling forum philosophy discussions...)

Indeed, I am sure no one here gets involved in exacting and precise epistemological punch ups every time someone presents something entirely 'reasonable' as a 'fact'.

But . . .

I shall stand by my comment that the overwhelming majority of us understand that most of our ideas are at best simply well reasoned notions and can be changed with sufficient evidence, it tends only to be the minds of the religious/supernatural thinkers that 'know' with unquestioning certainty that their inerrant knowledge is fact.

joe_b maybe there should be a philosophy discussion topic?

i may be wrong but isnt this for peoples bikes and faces?

What is a 'bike' ?

And this concept 'face' you speak of, what might that be !?

;)

Here is a picture of a nice bike:

Shit ! It was there when I posted the picture.

nah,

you just thought it was there...

wayne_f14 nah,

you just thought it was there...

Maybe it still is ?

Shit, looks like I posted at the wrong time here. I do do philosopelysophising elsewhere tho. but i don't need to copy and paste the whole conversation onto my post, I just say it. Takes up too much space, bad for the environment.

peewee ok it's pretty much ready - just got to put my protons back on

Hey Pee Wee,
what are you doing here? Aren't you one of fixie haters? I think you might be lost....
but hey, maybe you're over your fixie slander
I like the Raleigh. Pretty.

Pretty.
Heh, a bike's a bike's a bike. If you've got it flaunt it I always say. You've either got it or you 'aint.
How's it looking stateside? You gonna join the army?

peewee

peewee? :)

The bike looks nicer in the flesh. Oh..wait.. can i make these pics go like big and stuff?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ep8InJFmiM

looks like we're safe from philosophy class now?
let's get back to gear inches...

that's a lovely finish on the raleigh peewee!

Yeah I decided to stop talking it and let it get back on topic. :)

peewee ok it's pretty much ready - just got to put my protons back on

That is looking very nice.