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Given the timeframe involved, I think it's likely we were typing at the same time...
You are quite free to do so, unless you pick the definition of law which is exclusively legal, which is the abuse of language that this argument depends on. If you choose a definition of law under which natural laws or mathematical laws can be counted, then the first premise is indeed false (in a materialist framework anyway).
When you change the definition of law to the legal one, the second premise becomes nonsense.
Regardless of which you pick, any reasoned inference which respects the language involved will generally lead to one premise being true and the other false. Essentially, a materialist can arbitrarily decide which is the true premise and which is the false premise (provided a particular definition has not been made clear beforehand).
I don't know if there is a common definition of law which could make both premises false.
Besides, I didn't mention this because it was a good argument. I mentioned it because it is a shockingly bad argument that I have seen people take seriously.
I got the impression that Dave was asking what is the response that you get if you simply say "I reject the premise that all laws are constructed by some intelligence?". Was that not the case?
Explain?
Sorry. I probably should have linked happy and sexy. I was saying that the "happy" component fit well with the topic. Sexy was just an added bonus.
To summarize:
If you take a number, sum the squares of its digits to make a new number, then do the same with the next number and it eventually reaches one through that process, it is a "happy" number. "Happy prime" just refers to those prime numbers which are happy.
Demonstration: 3^2+1^2=10 and 1^2+0^2=1
a sexy prime differs from another prime by 6 (in this case; 37).
I'm saddened that it's no longer prime.
Upvoting to 31, which is quite a fantastic number, since it is both (aptly) a "happy" prime, as well as a "sexy" prime.
One way of answering might be to say that there is no separate "belief" that beliefs should be grounded. But i'm not sure.
All I know is that the question annoys me, but I can't quite put my finger on it. It reminds me of questions like (1) the accusation that you can't justify the use of logic logically, or (2) the accusation that tolerance is actually intolerant - because it's intolerant of intolerance. There might be a level distinction that needs to be made here, as in (2) - and maybe in (1) though I think that's different.
(1) has come out of my mouth on a few occasions, albeit not in those exact words. It's normally after a few beers and I feel like playing the extreme skeptic a la David Hume, just to annoy everyone. I think the best way around it is to resort to the empirical argument and say that, in our experience, it is always right: Essentially the same thing Yudkowsky does with PA arithmetic here. Trying to find an argument against it which is truly "rationalist" in the continental sense has been a dead end in my experience.
(2) sort of depends on the pragmatics and what "tolerance" actually means to the persons involved in a given context. If you define tolerance as simply being tolerant of other viewpoints, then you can still be tolerant of the intolerant viewpoints. However, if you define it as freedom from bigotry, then that could indeed be called "intolerant" by the standards of the first definition.
I hope I'm making sense here.
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Data accumulated using the scientific method perhaps? Once you have the data, you can make inferences to the best explanation. If the theory held to be the best explanation is falsified, that becomes part of the data. It then ceases to be the be the best explanation.
Really? It does seem useful to communicate with the liberal-minded without feeling personally insulted or thinking they're going way overboard on political correctness. But only liberals and those who think like them seem prone to thinking "Everyone is full of EVIL PREJUDICE except my tribe".
But only liberals and those who think like them seem prone to thinking "Everyone is full of EVIL PREJUDICE except my tribe"
When I saw this, I could not help but think what an apt demonstration it was of a green accusing the blues of holding a uniquely prejudiced point of view because they are blues, while he, being a green, is of course immune to any such sentiment.
Science was weaker in these days
Could you elaborate on this? What do you mean by Science? (reasoning? knowledge?)
The thing whose weakness seems relevant to me is a cultural tradition of doubting religion. Also, prerequisites which I have trouble articulating because they are so deeply buried: perhaps a changing notion of benevolence.
I'll take a wild stab in the dark and say that he probably meant that the method of reasoning was not as sophisticated back then. You could call the Aristotelean method of reasoning from empirical observation a "strengthening" of science. Nevertheless you could still say that "science" was much weaker back then compared to Popper's critical rationalism, with its emphasis on falsification.
Nevertheless, I'm sure I will be informed if this interpretation is wrong, which will hopefully help me be less wrong in the future.
"Just as language and auditory centers must work together to understand the significance of speech sounds, so both deductive and inductive centers must work together to construct and evaluate complex inferences".
I have to ask. Am I the only one who really liked this footnote?
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(Just going to note that I wholly disapprove of this line of conversation.)
It is not as though I did not try to find a source, damnit. Though on closer inspection I see it highlights some invisible text, so that counts as good evidence it's real.
The full entry for November 8th is shown on pages 120-123 here. The real entry is much longer than that small excerpt would suggest.
Edit: But the quote is there alright. Clear as day (page 123).