From: Mark Walker (mdwalker@quickclic.net)
Date: Mon Dec 16 2002 - 09:02:09 MST
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kai M. Becker" <kmb@kai-m-becker.de>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
>
> As you state correctly, there are many more possible answers. But simple
> deductive logic is not appropriate until one knows all N possible
> answers and has negative proofs for N-1 of them. Therefore, your logic
> is faulty.
>
>
I don't think this is a very generous reading of what Mitch was saying. I
took him to be saying there are only three "live" or "worthy" hypotheses to
consider here. You need to show that there is at least one other hypothesis
here to fault his reasoning. If you are simply making the pedantic point
that there are other logical possibilities, here then the method you
describe will never work. A human probably has no chance of ever stating all
the possible answers--some of the possible answers here might be too complex
for our little pea brains to even contemplate. (For details see noetic and
alethic skepticism in http://www.sorites.org/Issue_14/walker.htm ). Only a
Hegelian would have the hubris to think that we could contemplate all the
logically possible alternatives here. ; )
Best,
Mark
Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Trinity College, University of Toronto
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Evolution and Technology www.jetpress.com
Editor-in-Chief, Transhumanity, www.transhumanism.com
www.markalanwalker.com
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