I see you took some inspiration from me here ;)

Sure did. But if you read my debates you'll know the subject is nothing new to me.

it's not a position I take

Got a reason why?

So when we say "God", how do we know we are correct in our usage?

Oh dear you'll have to get to know someone deeply and personally, and who wants to do that when stereotyping them is so much easier!

Testing "Clarify" Feature .

I seriously think that we're arguing from different point of view.

I think you might be on to something...WE ARE different people!

Suffering is beneficial in that it helps us to avoid allowing harmful behavior to continue. I don't think of it as a complicated philosophical realization.

Here..I stole this quote and I'm giving it to you for free!

“Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike; each has their suffering. Some suffer too much, others too little.” ~ Buddha

~laughs~ I wrote that.....silly person !

Our last best chance to mature enough philosophically that we don't annihilate ourselves.

Oh I found Friedrich Nietzsche said essentially the same thing with

“There are no facts, only interpretations.”

Do you think that ideas require perceiving minds for their very existence?

No, I do not. :) Things exist without humanity. They did before and they will when we are dead.

Of course "things" exist without humanity. But I was talking about specific kinds of things. Namely Ideas.

If you really think that an idea can exist without a mind, I'd like to hear what you think the difference is between a thought and an idea. And btw I don't think humans are the only creatures that can think or have ideas.

Look here.. It appears that we disagree on the meaning of truth!

I have a question for you. Do you think that ideas require perceiving minds for their very existence?

"...to agreement with fact or reality in particular".

truth always improves an individual's awareness of reality. Truth is necessarily related to individual awareness.

We cannot be free of deceit to know reality. Proceeding from that, we cannot even know anything, because knowing anything would require the truth of it... Truth and Knowledge go hand in hand.

So you must be agnostic :)

While a single truth can't remove all obstructions to a clear undistorted view of reality it can remove some. Truth is not that which makes our view of reality flawless but that which enables us to identify flaws.

Truth = That which improves awareness of reality.

Truth is often used as a synonym for objective reality. I find that to be a confused use of the term.

I thought of a way to logically approach proving the statement. It would however require the opponent to concede that "ideas require perceiving minds to exist."

"The violent eye

can never see a defeat

without injury" ~atypican

I already explain the differences above.

I remain unsatisfied.

You might want to read more before making comment sir. Please read through my comment above before another question.

Your presumption that I haven't considered your comments is unwarranted.

If its unclear, you can ask me to expand on any fuzzy issue.

No thanks. I am not into one sided conversations where I am expected to be open to having my thinking challenged and you won't be open in the same way. I am not your pupil.

You are confusing yourself not knowing the differences between Lacking of desire and contentment. Many people made this mistake.

Ok. Help me out then. Explain the difference.

Because you come across as way too confident in yourself. Its just a touch annoying. Makes us wish to dispute you..

I was trying to provoke a dispute.

Thats to say, under your terms, in a court case, a man is accused of rape. Because the woman who is supposedly the victim declares him to be the perpetrator and the state proves that the man was there that night because his fingerprints were there and his shoes were recently covered in oil but the defense has no evidence whatsoever, The man is "Proven" to be a rapist by the court. Is this what you refer to? For that seems, again, FAR too broad an inclusion for some sort of Proof.

The point is that the accused can be proven guilty despite the truth of the matter.

I personally Think Zombee is more right than you are. But hey, thats me.

I invited her to offer her perspective at this debate because I think she makes convincing arguments.

Well I'm not sure about that last sentence. I am putting this argument here to even out the votes.

Well there's our disagreement. You think that proof exists independently of the opinion of the entity to which X has been sufficiently proven. The perceived does not exist without the perceiver.

Sorry about that. That post was supposed to be for another debate. My stance is that fingerprint evidence CAN be faked. I don't think it's wise to think of any evidence as absolutely irrefutable. We should always keep in mind that no one is immune to being deluded, fooled tricked or gravely mistaken.

You can define the words however you like as long as you recognize that this is not actually what proof and evidence really are, and that the scientific community has come to a general consensus on this.

I am glad I have your permission to challenge what I think is indeed a consensus, albeit not one general to "the scientific community" as I understand it. Just the gawkers outside.

It's good advice (even for scientists) to realize they might be wrong. Their measurements and calculations based on them may be unreliable.

just because one is not convinced by the anecdotes does not make them nonexistent

Who would think such a silly thing anyway?

It makes them feeble evidence.

Maybe were getting somewhere. Evidence must have a whom to be evident to no?

There is no way for numbers to suddenly scramble themselves around or begin unpredictably representing random and varying quantities, ie: the integer 2 sometimes represents 3 and other times represents 17, 4 becomes larger in quantity than 4000, etc.

Numbers are used for measurements. Measurements are based on more or less arbitrarily established standards. Imaginary numbers may not "suddenly scramble themselves" but in cases where we don't know all the appropriate factors to take into account, they may as well.

A right angle will always be 90 degrees.

Then no angle is really a right angle, it's always at least slightly off. If we haven't perfect precision instruments we can't show otherwise.

Length will never influence the angle of a line

A line is imaginary. Supposed

Triangles will always have three sides.

Show me something with only 3 sides. Again imaginary.

This is why proofs are irrefutable; it is inconceivable that new knowledge could come to light that would invalidate a proof.

That sums up the style of thinking I argue against pretty good.

I probably should have waited for a new post or an addendum to the old one. Sorry, I got ahead of myself.

Its cool. Sometime you get crappy answer from me cause tired or rushed.

TLW?

I could refute the concept of equality itself. I have never observed two identical things (in the real world) that couldn't be demonstrated to have difference.

I could refute the concept of equality itself as I have never observed two identical things (in the real world) that couldn't be demonstrated to have difference.

I could refute the concept of equality itself as I have never observed two identical things (in the real world) that couldn't be demonstrated to have difference.

The certainty of proof is always 100% regardless of what you are after.

I would want to leave room for doubt on most things actually. That's a philosophical inclination of mine. Regarding serious matters however, I would agree that it's better not to be full of doubt.

So, back to our question, regardless of what you are using this proof for (court case etc.), is your fingerprint proof that your finger touched the subject?

In the interest of plainly answering your question:

Yes a fingerprint on an object is GENERALLY regarded as reliable proof that someone touched an object.

Does this translate to: "A fingerprint on an object Unquestionably and in all conceivable cases proves the object was touched" ? Any time I read the term irrefutable my mind inserts the word yet

you later show again that you do not understand the difference between evidence and proof,

I favor a different way of explaining my understanding of the words than you do.. A body of evidence is called proof only when it convinces.

being convincing is not a defining characteristic of evidence.

That's false on it's face. Sure, it's not the evidence that does the actual convincing, but the individual interpretation of evidence. If it isn't thought to support or refute a claim then it's not regarded as evidence.

proofs are irrefutable

Don't you think irrefutable is the same thing as yet to be refuted?

I am still checking out your fine links. I 'll muster a response in a bit...

Thanks for the challenge.

Thank you for introducing a very interesting subject.

Your welcome. Some people like Aveskde read the title and think to themselves "Congratulations! you've stated the obvious"

The statement at the top is obviously not so obvious to everyone.

Is your fingerprint "proof" that your finger touched the subject where your fingerprint was found?

It depends on the level of certainty I was after.

Your debate is merely a tautology disguised through synonym. You may as well have stated "Effectiveness consists merely of that which is capable."

It's meant to highlight the misconception that there is such a thing as irrefutable proof.

People generally speak of proof IMO in too absolute of a sense, as if once something has been proven that it somehow becomes irrefutable.

What's weird is that there's already consensus here in this debate that proof in the absolute sense is unachievable. Check out the opposing arguments. YOU agree with me that "proof" and "what is convincing" are synonymous. So perhaps you could help explain this to Zombee .

What do you think of her responses to this debate? Why do you think she disagrees with us that "proof" and "what is convincing" are synonymous?

Why would someone resist admitting that the lead statement of this debate is true?

This debate prompted me to try to better understand what constitutes a proof.

Thats cool.

Your responses seem well thought out. But my feeling is that your strong tendency to be contrarian is preventing you from noticing that the statement I started this debate with posits not a single thing out of line with your explained understanding. I find this very strange.

It happens often enough that contentious conversations occur even though there is no substantial underlying disagreement. For an opponent to interject with NO NO NO then proceed to explain the identical understanding in a different way (with different terms) is common in my experience.

I'll get on with the rest of your post.

If A is greater than B, and B is greater than C, then A is greater than C.

Logically, there is no way it cannot be true, therefor it is a proof.

Is that so?Ok so lets say the above logical preposition is about 3 water ponds, labeled A, B, and C

A is 10'X10' and a foot deep

B is 5'X10' and 2' deep

C is 2.5'X10' and 4' deep

Only If we're discussing surface area is your logical statement valid. To describe something as greater than requires that we refer to something measurable and agreed upon standard.

evidence is not proof and it never will be.

Evidence is called proof once it is thought of as conclusive. In other words if it's convincing. If we're talking about proof, we are inescapably talking about evidence and whether or not it's REGARDED as conclusive.

proofs are more than convincing, as I said earlier, they are irrefutable. If it is refutable, it is not a proof.

What can you present that's irrefutable?

I don't think there was anything standing out to me about Zombee's posts that I disagree with either. What I don't see is how the points she's brought up are construed to be refuting anything about my statement

science makes a clear distinction between evidence and proofs.

I'd like to read a clear explanation of that distinction.

No, because evidence =/= proof. Ever. Even if every piece of available evidence seamlessly supports a particular theory, it can never honestly be said that that theory has been proven.

I agree with that.....ironically I don't see how this (valid IMO) statement of yours refutes mine. As I understand it both our perspectives are based on what I see as a philosophically agnostic outlook.

When people ask for proof of a claim, they are actually asking for supporting evidence, because claims do not have proof, only evidence.

I agree.

Would you agree with:

Evidence is just evidence until it becomes convincing, then it's called proof.

it is always completely unfalsifiable.

I remain a skeptic of absolutist claims like that. They're involved in all sorts of excessive trust related problems.

Evidence will never amount to a proof, but different pieces of evidence may accumulate into a whole that is convincing.

I think that statement is evidence that you agree with the debate title/statement

Can I be credited with introducing this maxim? Or will someone put me in my place and tell me who has beat me to the punch?

No one wants to touch this one.......

No one wants to admit that the statement is truthful. No one can muster a challenging response.

This is serving to prove that my thinking is rather correct on the matter. :)

This is the way I see it. Religion (like it or not) affects our personality. It plays a key role in the development of a person's (or group's) value system. It has a profound effect on what we are curious about. Also what we are passionate about.

I am not inclined to study the context of the quote, but I believe it is unrealistic to discuss science and religion as being mutually excludable.

Religion influences what we study, Science consists of the most useful theories we have developed by applying the scientific method to those studies.

It can be I agree. But to say that is just what it is I will disagree. Religion is the ties you have to whatever/whomever you are devoted to. It is our ideological and thereby traditional culture. It can imprison the mind or set it free. If it is good religion it is sought out not advertised.

I think it is best, especially since most people agree that we don't know, to behave as if this was our only stretch. We need to make the best of the one life we are certain about.

"competition by definition must cause some degree of harm to the losers."

That is not true. I compete as often as I can. I gain more from losses than I do wins.

Buddhist philosophy is worthy of respect. However like all philosophical/religious constructs it is due criticism.

Here are my thoughts (starting with the four noble? truths?)

#1.Suffering and uneasiness can be beneficial. I don't think the avoidance of suffering is a goal that should be at the forefront of "enlightened" philosophy.

#2. I am not convinced that craving or attachment is the sole or even main cause of suffering. Certainly it is a component of many problems. I would say wisdom is in large measure the ability to let go AND hold on when appropriate.

#3. Right!? Don't desire anything and you will be freed from suffering. Enlightened Buddhists shouldn't swim under water then because while trying to conquer their desire for a breath of air they may drown. LOL

I have desires, areas of discontent, ie hopes. I am motivated to action by them.

My curiosity, my favored form of discontent which I cherish, would "enlightenment" quench? I hope not.

In my opinion they (desires) like everything else can get out of hand if left un-moderated or obsessed upon.

I think a better target for elimination (instead of desire) would be obsessiveness in general. But then there are even times where obsessing could be beneficial.

#4. I would say... Don't seek a teacher....ask yourself solemnly realistically and regularly...What do I want to make of my life? AKA What are my priorities

Now to the noble eightfold path (Buddhists have somewhat of an attachment to these no?)

#1. Understand that you CAN be deceived is how I would put it. Trust but don't take it too far you/they/it may fail - This would fall under the humility category

I am happy if the statement provokes deeper examination of things beyond initial appearances but I'm irritated by the wording in that it implies that we can completely avoid delusion. I think we must necessarily battle it.

#2. Isn't intention much the same as desire? If you intend to renounce as much as you can I sure wouldn't leave any of my valuables under your care. And intending freedom and harmlessness? I agree with those

#3. #4. #5. #6. Well I agree with that but that's not at all unique to Buddhism

#7. Blah Blah Blah

#8. I would not give a recipe for meditation and expect the recipe to work for anyone and everyone. The shoe that fits one pinches another.

Can you believe that Buddhism is one of my favorites? LOL