Talking to myself.

[marklutes]

If a man starts a thread in forest, and there's nobody around to read it...


I'm just curious if anyone else is reading anything here. Hit reply and leave at least one word if you're reading this.

Mark

[tiberius]

one

[tiberius]

I check TruthAddict all the time. I am more of a lurker than a poster. I find myself checking MCSELive twice a day at least. I enjoy a lot of the posts but, I get caught up in some threads that turn into rants and they become unproductive.

I think the TruthAddict is a great idea but, I'm a little too cynical to say anything constructive. I guess I will have to make it a point to be positive.

By the way, sorry about the one comment.

[marklutes]

I thought the "one" comment was kinda funny. I expected a few other "one word" replies though.

I know what you mean about feeling too cynical to be constructive. But I post anyway. :)

Thanks for the reply. I check TA several times a day to see if any new posts have come in, and lately all I've seen are several forums where my name is listed as the last post, and then some other aging forums. I really like the idea of this place, but I wish we could get some more traffic. Orin and Jon and I have argued amongst ourselves for several years now, so we pretty much know how we're all going to go on any given issue. I'm pretty much always going to take a small government/pro business stance, Orin's pretty much always going to argue against the increasing power corporations are gaining (especially American corporations), and Jon will be somewhat conservative on economic issues and somewhat more "progressive" on social issues.

An infusion of new opinions would be great!

Mark

[Orin]

Blah Blah American Corporate Interests!!!! Blah ;-)

Oops this is a thirteen word reply.

[Holdstrong]

So is truth addict strictly a place for MCSE peeps to blow steam and talk out issues, or is it open to others?

Just wondering since most of the posters (all?) seem to be from MCSE - errr, i mean certtutor.

I think this is a great idea - if participation is high. I dont now jack about promoting and recruiting posters to participate, but thats my two cents.

[tiberius]

I think it would add something to have people of a non-technical background participate; it would infuse new ideas and opinions that we haven't heard before.

[mirty12]

I used to check here once a day... but seemed like not a lot of activity going on. I guess some of the topics are not that compelling to me, though I do enjoy reading many of the posts.

[Orin]

This place isn't restricted to MCSELIVE geeks - though they certainly form 95% of the Audience.

Also - it is more difficult for people to post here because there is often the expectation of having to provide some sort of cogent argument. You can't simply say "Corporations Suck!!!!!" - you've generally got to put into words part of the reason that you are making a particular argument.

A lot of people are either to tired to do that on a regular basis - or simply aren't able to do that on a regular basis. High Signal/Noise Virtual Communities are much more difficult to grow than low Signal/Noise Virtual Communities because the barrier to entry is much higher.

[tiberius]

Why can't you say"Corporations Suck!!!!!" You are right when you say "A lot of people are either to tired to do that on a regular basis - or simply aren't able to do that on a regular basis." People don't want to read novellas in forums. they want to talk about things on their minds and events that effect there life. Some of these threads if you don't catch them at the beginnig take 20 or 30 minutes to to get throught with all the replys and basically all there saiding is " Corporations Suck!!!!!" or " Bush Sucks" or "something or someone sucks".

You have 85 members and 854 posts with the majority of the posts by Jonb, marklutes, WWillis and yourself. I know from reading your posts for the last couple of years that the major contributors to this forum are decent people trying to help make changes to make this a better world and at MCSELive they always have a kind word for the person who is struggling to get their first mcp or passed their first test What you need is more of the intellectually challenged like myself to spice up this forum and make it more interesting to the masses. I'm not talking about being rude, just having people with a different perspective post more.

[Orin]

Because, on TA, there is an expectation of elucidation, unless someone is writing particularly badly - there will be more to the argument than "Corporations Suck".

Mark and I, for example, are quite different politically - but both of us here try to present our arguments in a way that at least the other can "see where we are coming from".

Much of the internet has degenerated into simply the statement of simplistic opinion. As more and more people get a voice "online" it becomes clearer and clearer that many are unable, or unwilling to construct an argument to support their opinions.

Part of my take on Truthaddict is the question "why do you believe that?".

Many people get offended and defensive when they are asked why they believe a particular proposition to be true. But it is always a good question to ask. Often people don't have very good evidence for believing what they do - a great book on this has been written recently by Psychologist Robin Dawes called Everyday Irrationality. Dawes, and other psychologists, have in the last 30 years presented good evidence that people often make an intuitive judgement about something before their rational faculties could have time to come to terms with it. Rational faculties are used to rationalize the intuitive judgement rather than to reach the judgment in the first place.

There are several thought experiments around that demonstrate this rather well - one of the most famous is the Monty Hall problem that I talked about on MCSELIVE about 2 years ago. The majority of people, when asked to solve this problem, simply get it wrong. The only time people don't regularly get it wrong is when they are forced to draw it all out on paper first.

Things get very interesting when you have a person who has answered incorrectly try to explain the answer to another person - because their explanation forms a rationalization of the incorrect answer - rather than the process via which they reached that answer (which, if they'd done it logically - they wouldn't have arrived at). It isn't that these people are dumb, many are extremely intelligent, it is just that people tend to leap to conclusions first, then gather evidence that supports those conclusions and ignore evidence which goes against them.

Truthaddict's top four posters are pretty diverse, so it isn't as though there is a "party line" around here other than to keep the dialogue reasonable. Some days, you aren't going to feel like reading the "novellas" - but the novellas are sort of necessary - because complicated arguments, whatever we are told by the media, can't be reduced to soundbites. To show someone who would probably disagree with you how you got from A to B takes time and words - it isn't something that can be summed up quickly.

Mark might never agree with me about my irritation at the excesses of Corporatism - but he can sort of see how I got there - just as I can see how he got to objecting to the Campaign Finance Reform Bill. That simply isn't something that you can do in a soundbite.

[mirty12]

Orin,

Are you saying that there is no validity to beliefs that are based on faith rather than reason?

[Orin]

I have always had trouble accepting arguments based strictly on faith as most people present them.

However, having said that - all assumptions rely somewhat on faith. An assumption is ultimately an unprovable assertion.

When I've talked about "understanding where you've come from" what I'm looking for is understanding your assumptions - and how you've got from your assumptions to your conclusions.

When people state a complex conclusion and justify it simply on "faith" - then I don't tend to be particularly persuaded by an argument. Maybe other people do - I don't know. The more complex the assumption - the more trouble people will generally have with accepting it. That is because complex assumptions bring with them a stack of corollaries.

A corollary is something that naturally follows on - it is not something you need more evidence to prove. When you assume something complex as true - you are assuming as true all the constituent premesis that have led to that complex conclusion as true - however, you are also implicitly assuming that all OTHER conclusions led to by those constituent premises are true as well.

(for example)

ComplexPremiseZ is assumed.

Complex premise Z contains simple premiseA, premiseB .... premiseH - which are assumed to be True also by assuming ComplexPremiseZ

But when you assume all those other minor premises to be true - the conclusions also become true

So if CP(Z) = True = pA+pB+pC+pD+pE+pF+pG+pH

Then all combinations of p(A...H)+p(A...H)=True

That's not the best representation of this idea - but hopefully you can see where I'm going - the more complex the premise you assume to be true - the higher number of corollary premises you are also assuming as true.

----

Generally when we argue in a forum like TA, we state the conclusion first - and then perhaps do a little bit of illuminating of how we got there. Arguing purely on faith is difficult because there is no way to illuminate the "how we got there". Then it doesn't become an argument anymore - because there is no rational response that can be made to:

Complex Proposition X is true because I have faith it is true.

----

Does that speak to anything about "validity"? I don't know - I tend to assess an argument's validity by its logical consistency - I also prefer assumptions to be simple and "obviously true". That is that most reasonable people would not disagree with the assumption being made. If a reasonable person would disagree - then you should go some way to proving that assumption to maintain that assumption as "valid".

----

That's not saying that this is what people should be doing on Truthaddict of course - but it is something that they should be mindful of in making an argument. Present an argument so that someone who might disagree with you can at least understand how you have reached the conclusion you have. Presenting it as a Fait-a-compli (or a Faith-A-Compli) won't enable those that might disagree with your conclusions any room to manaeuver.

----

The meaning of the name of this board - TruthAddict - is open to interpretation. Ultimately I don't think too many would disagree that we are searching for truth. What is truth?

To me truth is something independent of the observer. It is reality, independant of the observer. (I realise that the quantum effects of observation pose some issues here - but that is for another time)

Valid is an "observation laden" word. It can mean from "do you find this acceptable" to "do you find it true". Does faith lead to truth? Does faith lead to a reality independant of the observer? For that matter - does reason lead to a reality independant of the observer?

[marklutes]

I need to lie down now.

[tiberius]

Mark, I have some aspirin if you need it.

Orin, you need to slow down on the big words, I can’t thumb through my dictionary fast enough to figure out what the heck you are trying to say.

[mirty12]

OK... I'll offer a few more thoughts here...

There are certainly many cases when I would be more persuaded by logical argument than by faith. For instance, if I'm trying to determine whether a T1 leased line or a wireless network would be more suitable to join two worksites -- I would not react well if someone said, "I have faith in Wireless!!". :)

That said, when I read up on more serious issues, I find myself more persuaded by those who base their views on a strong moral and religious conviction. I don't mean just my own religious convictions. For instance, here at TruthAddict and a MSCELive, one of my favorite contributers is Will Willis. He is Christian and clearly bases many of his opinions on his faith. I find that a powerful foundation for thought, even though I am NOT Christian.

I may not be expressing this right, but it seems to me, you can start reasoning from almost any point. If you do not have a faith-based premise from which to begin, your premises are based on your own observations and opinions. Now we know observation is never truly objective, and opinion certainly is not.

My own views are, for the most part, grounded in the beliefs and ethics of Judaism. In starting from this point, I feel strengthened by the wisdom of generations that have gone before me.

I don't mean to say it's always "faith vs. reason" -- they actually co-exist very, very well. I'm not blinded by faith, but I do use it as a compass to point me in the right direction.

All right, 'nuff said... . ;)

[Holdstrong]

I find it a bit odd that faith doesn't cut it when you need a concrete answer about wireless networking but it IS good enough when you have to decide something that is a bit more important. Don't you want the same standard of assurance for 'serious' things as yu demand of not so serious things? And if, not why not.

I do think you are right that you can start reasoning from any point, Ben Franklin once said (paraphrasing) that the problem with the human mind is that it can rationalize anything.

I personally find that the best foundations for thought are those things that apply to everyone and transcend arbitrary things such as opinion and faith.

As Orin mentioned, 'truth' should be something that is independant of the observer. Something that is true should be just as true for the Jew as it is the Christian and the Muslim and the atheist and the scientist. True for the racist and the pacifist and the child and the adult etc etc etc

I also do not think that generations of people thinking the same way necessarily equates to wisdom.

[marklutes]

Originally posted by tiberius
Orin, you need to slow down on the big words, I can’t thumb through my dictionary fast enough to figure out what the heck you are trying to say.

Dude, you're lucky you're only having to read it. He actually *TALKS* that way too -- except with a Steve-Irwin-meets-Crocodile-Dundee accent that twists words into art and adds vowel sounds where the English language didn't intend there to be any. So try listening to someone with that accent meshing a highly intellectual blend of philosophy and politics while munching on a chimichanga in a noisy Mexican restaurant. And now imagine doing that in Texas where we have our own native mixture of English and colloquial twang.

You can't even imagine how many times he had to repeat himself to get the waiter to understand he was trying to order "Coke" to drink... :)

Mark

p.s. What is "Coyeeaoke" anyway, Orin?

[DarkHorseSki]

Word.

:p

[tripwire45]

"As Orin mentioned, 'truth' should be something that is independant of the observer. Something that is true should be just as true for the Jew as it is the Christian and the Muslim and the atheist and the scientist. True for the racist and the pacifist and the child and the adult etc etc etc"

Yes, but would we recognize it as "truth". If truth is independant of the observer, how would we "observe" it? "Truth" would be defined as an objective event or standard independant of what we "think" it is or what we'd like it to be. It would transcend all our theories, opinions, and beliefs. If, for example, the nature and character of G-d is "truth", what keeps us from recognizing it except our inability to recognize "truth". Let's say, for example, that the Ten Commandments, originially written by the "finger of G-d" at Sinai represented "truth" since they were created by a being whose nature is "truth". Why then, do we insist on interpeting said-truth into the many and varied interpetations we have today?

[enrious]

Translations tripwire, translations.

Plus a tendancy to reinterpert to fit a particular ideology.