Robert, Sorry if I am being otiose here, but I am genuinely confused.
Everything I read leads me to the belief that IF one can prove an absurdity from a set of assumptions,then something about the set must be wrong. So the procedure is to assume the truth of a suspect proposition and show that proposition, manipulated correctly by the rules of logic, leads to an absurd conclusion... you know, 2 equals 3, for instance. Now a category error is simply attibuting properties to an entity ... a thingy of some sort ... that are inviolation of the basic definitions of that entity. In a sense, a category error .... is already a contrary to the logical system that defines it. So I am quite serious when I say that one can detect an error by checking the assertions concerning theoretical entities in a system of thought to see if any of them contradict fundamental assumptions of the system. I cannot imagine that we could disagree there. You might (but you havent yet)challanged my implication that the category errors identified by Ryle and his ilk fit this pattern. To speak of minds as causing material events might be a category error, on my account, if somewhere "above" in the argument somebody had asserted that all material events are caused by material causes. But has anybody EVER done anything that dumb? I kinda doubt it, and therefore my argument, though correct, has no useful referents. At that point, we could agree that there is a method for detecting category errors, but nobody has used it yet. Or at least, I have been unable to come up with an example. Doesnt that make more sense??? Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University ([EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: Robert Holmes To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: friam Sent: 7/15/2008 4:33:55 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Mentalism and Calculus Nick - all you are doing is shouting "Absurd!" in an ever louder voice. Link me to a methodology for assessing the existence/non-existence of a category error and I'll happily have a go at applying it for you - Robert On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 9:58 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: My reference is to that eminent logician, nthompson, who wrote. that in logic, Once you have said in your definitions, "A point has neither extension nor direction" you cannot start talking about a point's direction or movement with out going back to your definitions and starting over. consider the following syllogism (1) All swans are white (2) Well, except the odd black one. (3) This bird is black. (4) This bird is a swan. "Absurd" in this case means what it means in a reductio argument. Violates the must fundament precepts of logic. QED Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) ----- Original Message ----- From: Robert Holmes To: [EMAIL PROTECTED];FRIAM Sent: 7/15/2008 9:40:34 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Mentalism and Calculus Hey Nick, I'm not talking about points. I don't care about points. All I'm doing is using the existence of a disagreement about points (you think one thing, I think another) and our inability to resolve it to illustrate my claim that one cannot objectively identify category errors. So identifying supposed category errors in calculus (or anything else for that matter) is probably a fruitless endeavour. Here's what you need to do to show I'm wrong: find someone who has a well-accepted methodology for identifying category errors apply it to our point argument to show that there is/is not a category error. I confidently predict that you'll not get past item #1. Ryle tried it, but his argument reduces to the one you are making: saying "It's absurd!" in ever louder tones. IMHO, that just doesn't cut it. So send me a link to the author and his/her methodology for identifying category errors Robert On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 9:35 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > No, Robert. You have gone a bridge to far, unless you are willing to > rewrite the role of definitions in axiom systems. > > In a system in which a definition is, "a point is a position in space > lacking dimension" > > you cannot have a proposition that contradicts the definition. > > You just cant. > > You can REWRITE your definitions, add or subtract axioms, etc, but until you > do that, you are just stuck with that Euclidean definition of a point. > > I assume that some mathematician is going to write me in a milllisecond and > say, "Yeah, yeah. In effect, calculus changed the definition of a point. > That is how progress is made, you rigid boob!" But then I want to continue > to wonder (for perhaps a few more days) what implications this might have > for the concept of mind. My New Realist mentors taught me to think of > consciousness as a point of view. It is a place from which the world is > viewed, or at b > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Robert Holmes > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED];FRIAM > Sent: 7/12/2008 6:47:34 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Mentalism and Calculus > Nick - the snippet below illustrates the key problem with invoking category > errors. I think giving the infinitesimal point speed and direction makes > sense and you do not. You see a category error and I do not. So how do we> a > djudicate? We can't: there's no objective methodology for saying if a > category error exists. (BTW, appeals to 'common sense' have as much > objectivity as Ryle's invocation of absurdity: not much). > > So if there's no remotely objective way of even saying whether we have a > category error, then it seems pointless to try and analyse calculus in terms > of its category errors. Why use a tool when all the evidence suggests that > the tool is broken? > > Robert > > > > On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Nicholas Thompson > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> <snip> >> >> If one defines a point as having no extension in space and time, one >> CANNOT in common sense give it speed and direction in the next sentence >> >> <snip> >> >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >> Clark University ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) >>
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