Great comments on new #namethetrait video

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DrSinger
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Re: Great comments on new #namethetrait video

Post by DrSinger »

Nightcell001 wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 5:27 pm
DrSinger wrote:line 13 because line 5 has a biconditional whereas line 12 has a conditional
No problem, decompose the equivalence with two conditionals. (actually more work is to be done to verify if the elimination is valid)
DrSinger wrote:line 16 what do I call that?
Implication elimination(Modus ponens) + implication elimination + implication introduction.( granted you transform the equivalence to implication )
How about now?
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Re: Great comments on new #namethetrait video

Post by Nightcell001 »

DrSinger wrote:How about now?
Line 17 is incorrect. Actually this rule is not correct : ¬(p ∧ q) ⇔ ¬p ∨ ¬q.
It should be ¬(p ∧ q) ⇔ (¬p ∨ ¬q). You dropped a set of parenthesis that lead you to use associativity of ∧ instead of distributivity.
Your applications of Modus ponens and transitivity of implication are correct.
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Re: Great comments on new #namethetrait video

Post by Nightcell001 »

Hello Daz !
I wanted to interject a little bit to provide more support on the thesis that NTT doesn't lead to logical contradiction. I haven't read everything you wrote and I do not know your background in logic so please excuse my little text if it comes across as oversimplification.

It may seems that BrimestoneSalad is being too pedantic for no reason on the issue of logical contradiction and double standard, but this is perfectly justified in our context. See in mathematics for example, all theorems, lemmas and more specifically corollary are specified with informal maths. But this is ok, as long as your peers agree with you. If one of your peer is not happy with your "proof", you need to convince him by splitting the result in smaller parts until agreement. Now let's say you did this exercice with someone and you release your split up result in your PhD, thesis or memoir. Most of your peer will come at you as being too pedantic for the work at hand. That is exactly what you are doing to BrimestoneSalad right now.

There is a point of contention and we are splitting things up to demonstrate why NTT doesn't lead to a logical contradiction, so in this case it is justified to be pedantic. It is in fact required.

Now why is it important to differentiate between logical contradiction and double standard ? After all, you said it, if someone hold those double standard it is pretty ridiculous and most of the people won't agree in living alongside a person holding such standards. And I agree with you on one hand. On the other hand let's do a little analogy with a game of Monopoly ( or any other game of your choice ).

Logic is a game, it has rules that needs to be followed. Just like in monopoly. Now you may not agree with the already set rules. You can define your own and that's fine. The problem with this is that let's say the game of monopoly has been refined throughout the years and is able to cure many mental diseases just by playing it. If you change the rules, you understand that the effect on the diseases might not be the same and you may not be able to cure those same diseases.

Now to bring the analogy home, logic has some set of rules that has been refined throughout the years and is able to solve many many problems ( some really important one that you don't even know change your life ). If you decide to change one of the rule ( let's say your definition of logical contradiction ), it is your job of re-proving all of the previous results if you want to stay within the frame of logical reasoning as we know it. This is a hard thing to do ! Actually most of the work done nowadays is to modify slightly rules to overcome problems while making sure we do not broke others results. Fo example the elimination of the law of excluded middle ( a sentence is either true or false ), lead to the development of a completely different system of mathematics where some proof are easier and some are much much harder. And this is just by changing one rule ! ( see intuitionist logic ).

I hope I was able to clarify things. NTT as it stands right now doesn't lead to logical contradictions. And AskYourself if failing to provide a natural derivation of his argument ( or any other deduction system ). He thinks by using English he can demonstrate contradictions and this is wrong at many levels (see below * ). I think most of the people in this forum ( BrimestoneSalad, DrSinger to name just two ) have done too much work to refute this argument where in fact AskYourself should've provide a proof of his argument to begin with. If I say there is a monkey in the center of the earth playing with subatomic particles without proving it, I will be easily dismissed by my peers. Now take this to the level of informally acceptable argument and you will get NTT with blind followers believing your argument is valid.

*. To give you a little example why using English is limiting and not suitable in a logical system consider the sentence : "This sentence is false". Now is this sentence true or false in your opinion ? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
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Re: Great comments on new #namethetrait video

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Nightcell001 wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 10:41 am
DrSinger wrote:How about now?
Line 17 is incorrect. Actually this rule is not correct : ¬(p ∧ q) ⇔ ¬p ∨ ¬q.
It should be ¬(p ∧ q) ⇔ (¬p ∨ ¬q). You dropped a set of parenthesis that lead you to use associativity of ∧ instead of distributivity.
Your applications of Modus ponens and transitivity of implication are correct.
Thanks for spotting that, I've fixed it up now. Let me know if I've made any other mistakes

I think the most obvious way to show why NTT fails is by asking, is this valid?
P1 - Humans are of moral value
P2 - There is no eye colour absent in cows which if absent in humans would cause us to deem ourselves valueless.
C - Therefore without establishing the absence of such an eye colour in cows, we contradict ourselves by deeming cows valueless
It has the same logical form as NTT, so if NTT is valid this should also be valid.

It would be a problem if the invalidity of NTT was 'called out' by a bigger carnist youtuber. It's easy to just add the extra premises, it should not be a big deal to do so if any sane person would accept them. I also agree with PV, if you state the premises people have to explicitly reject them, which will make them look silly.
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Re: Great comments on new #namethetrait video

Post by Margaret Hayek »

DrSinger wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 11:46 am
Nightcell001 wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 10:41 am
DrSinger wrote:How about now?
Line 17 is incorrect. Actually this rule is not correct : ¬(p ∧ q) ⇔ ¬p ∨ ¬q.
It should be ¬(p ∧ q) ⇔ (¬p ∨ ¬q). You dropped a set of parenthesis that lead you to use associativity of ∧ instead of distributivity.
Your applications of Modus ponens and transitivity of implication are correct.
Thanks for spotting that, I've fixed it up now. Let me know if I've made any other mistakes
The proof looks basically good to me!

I guess it depends on what derived rules everyone is happy with, but some people might want to see a sub-derivation to get you from lines 22 & 25 to line 26, a compressed form (which omits pedantic repetition of premises from the main derivation) of which would go:

25.1. SNAb Assumption
25.2. Pbs Modus Ponens, 22, 25.1
25.3. Rb Modus Ponens, 25, 25.2

Then you discharge the assumption of line 25.1 to get line 26:

26. SNAb ⇒ Rb Conditional introduction, 25.1-25.3

But if everyone is happy with transitivity of the conditional then I see no need for this.
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Re: Great comments on new #namethetrait video

Post by DrSinger »

Great! I imagine most people would be perfectly fine with the transitivity inference rule.

Feel free to add to the other sections, I would like it to be a useful tool for people who like NTT and find it to be effective.

Also, P4 seems to be missing in this article

http://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/index.php/Less_Able_Humans
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Re: Great comments on new #namethetrait video

Post by Daz »

Nightcell001 wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 11:15 am Hello Daz !
I wanted to interject a little bit to provide more support on the thesis that NTT doesn't lead to logical contradiction. I haven't read everything you wrote and I do not know your background in logic so please excuse my little text if it comes across as oversimplification.

It may seems that BrimestoneSalad is being too pedantic for no reason on the issue of logical contradiction and double standard, but this is perfectly justified in our context. See in mathematics for example, all theorems, lemmas and more specifically corollary are specified with informal maths. But this is ok, as long as your peers agree with you. If one of your peer is not happy with your "proof", you need to convince him by splitting the result in smaller parts until agreement. Now let's say you did this exercice with someone and you release your split up result in your PhD, thesis or memoir. Most of your peer will come at you as being too pedantic for the work at hand. That is exactly what you are doing to BrimestoneSalad right now.

There is a point of contention and we are splitting things up to demonstrate why NTT doesn't lead to a logical contradiction, so in this case it is justified to be pedantic. It is in fact required.

Now why is it important to differentiate between logical contradiction and double standard ? After all, you said it, if someone hold those double standard it is pretty ridiculous and most of the people won't agree in living alongside a person holding such standards. And I agree with you on one hand. On the other hand let's do a little analogy with a game of Monopoly ( or any other game of your choice ).

Logic is a game, it has rules that needs to be followed. Just like in monopoly. Now you may not agree with the already set rules. You can define your own and that's fine. The problem with this is that let's say the game of monopoly has been refined throughout the years and is able to cure many mental diseases just by playing it. If you change the rules, you understand that the effect on the diseases might not be the same and you may not be able to cure those same diseases.

Now to bring the analogy home, logic has some set of rules that has been refined throughout the years and is able to solve many many problems ( some really important one that you don't even know change your life ). If you decide to change one of the rule ( let's say your definition of logical contradiction ), it is your job of re-proving all of the previous results if you want to stay within the frame of logical reasoning as we know it. This is a hard thing to do ! Actually most of the work done nowadays is to modify slightly rules to overcome problems while making sure we do not broke others results. Fo example the elimination of the law of excluded middle ( a sentence is either true or false ), lead to the development of a completely different system of mathematics where some proof are easier and some are much much harder. And this is just by changing one rule ! ( see intuitionist logic ).

I hope I was able to clarify things. NTT as it stands right now doesn't lead to logical contradictions. And AskYourself if failing to provide a natural derivation of his argument ( or any other deduction system ). He thinks by using English he can demonstrate contradictions and this is wrong at many levels (see below * ). I think most of the people in this forum ( BrimestoneSalad, DrSinger to name just two ) have done too much work to refute this argument where in fact AskYourself should've provide a proof of his argument to begin with. If I say there is a monkey in the center of the earth playing with subatomic particles without proving it, I will be easily dismissed by my peers. Now take this to the level of informally acceptable argument and you will get NTT with blind followers believing your argument is valid.

*. To give you a little example why using English is limiting and not suitable in a logical system consider the sentence : "This sentence is false". Now is this sentence true or false in your opinion ? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
Hi Nightcell001,
I completely understand what you and the others are attempting to do by picking apart all the details of the argument. Couple of things with what you said though in regard to the specific topic...
Noone is trying to change any rules. We are merely talking about what is being deemed "assumed premises" or "hidden premises". If these assumed premises are correctly assumed, the logic is completely valid and sound. Now, of course, if you are analying things from a strict logical sense, put all the premises in that are necessary.. Or If for some reason someone doesn't agree with these so called assumed or hidden premises, they can be simply explained in everyday terms. But it would be the equivalent of explaining to someone that they shouldn't abuse or molest a baby for fun, and all the "assumed premises" that lie within that explanation. Or a rapist shouldn't rape, and all the "assumed premises" that lie there in. Or someone shouldn't beat a dog over the head with a baseball bat for fun, and all the "hidden premises" therein.. There is no floor in the logic, if anything there is merely a lack of detail that is (for good reason) deemed unnecessary. Now, if one finds oneself debating with either an intellectually dishonest person (such as friended) or a psychopath, then yes, it may be necessary to point out in detail all of the assumed (and therefore "hidden") premises (assumed because we assume people are of sane mind and body, not psychos and not intellectually dishonest)... But sure, if it is necessary, highlight as many embedded, hidden and assumed premises as you feel the need. Thats it.
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Re: Great comments on new #namethetrait video

Post by Nightcell001 »

Hello Daz.
Thanks for your response.
Here are my comments :
Daz wrote:Noone is trying to change any rules. We are merely talking about what is being deemed "assumed premises" or "hidden premises". If these assumed premises are correctly assumed, the logic is completely valid and sound
I'm sorry if I understood incorrectly. I thought you were claiming the same as AskYourself which was that AY's argument demonstrate logical contradictions which is not. If by adding permises that are safely "assumed" as you said, the argument becomes valid, I would like to see the totality of the argument laid out to be able to analyze it Thoroughly. For the soundness part I am a bit doubtful. Is P1 altered in the final argument ? because as it stand right now I have doubts anyone will agree with it.
Daz wrote: But it would be the equivalent of explaining to someone that they shouldn't abuse or molest a baby for fun, and all the "assumed premises" that lie within that explanation. Or a rapist shouldn't rape, and all the "assumed premises" that lie there in. Or someone shouldn't beat a dog over the head with a baseball bat for fun, and all the "hidden premises" therein..
When people argue against a rapist, or against molesting a baby for fun, they are not claiming their argument is logically valid. If they do claim that, it is not unless all assumed permises are laid out. Informal arguments are great because the layman can understand them and be aware of a specific situation. Logical argument are a completely different category.
Daz wrote:There is no floor in the logic, if anything there is merely a lack of detail that is (for good reason) deemed unnecessary
There are gray areas which require to examine the logic under the informal argument. (eg. non-reproductive incest). Lack of detail doesn't help you here.
Daz wrote:But sure, if it is necessary, highlight as many embedded, hidden and assumed premises as you feel the need. Thats it.
Again, you don't have to if dealing with an informal argument. Hidden permises can flow during the conversation. But we are talking here about an argument that AY thinks is valid. Which is not.

I started getting interested in AY's argument through Vegan gains. Indeed I actually like the scientific approach vegan gains is using when dealing with nutrition and fitness. When I discovered AY argument, I was interested to see a logical formulation of veganism. After working a few minutes on it, it appeared to me that the argument is incredibly weak. I was working for a few days on a modification of the argument that would resolve the non sequitur without using "hidden premises" like other forum member have done. I failed on this task. If you could send us the final version of the argument so we can look at it maybe ? And if most people agree with it maybe send it to AY for review ( even though I highly doubt he will accept it seeing the treatment he gave to Philosophical Vegan ).
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Re: Great comments on new #namethetrait video

Post by Daz »

Nightcell001 wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2017 3:40 am I started getting interested in AY's argument through Vegan gains. Indeed I actually like the scientific approach vegan gains is using when dealing with nutrition and fitness. When I discovered AY argument, I was interested to see a logical formulation of veganism. After working a few minutes on it, it appeared to me that the argument is incredibly weak. I was working for a few days on a modification of the argument that would resolve the non sequitur without using "hidden premises" like other forum member have done. I failed on this task. If you could send us the final version of the argument so we can look at it maybe ? And if most people agree with it maybe send it to AY for review ( even though I highly doubt he will accept it seeing the treatment he gave to Philosophical Vegan ).
Hi Nightcell,

In my understanding it is really quite simple. If you really need to in the context of a strict logical argument (generally not necessary for discussion with most people for this would already be accepted if they understand morals and the importance of consistency), throw in a premise that says something like the following:

P: Double standards and hypocrisy are unacceptable as part of a consistent and robust moral and ethical framework.

It's that simple. I mean is there any context you can think of that someone wouldn't accept this premise (particularly in relation to humans)? And if they accept it in relation to humans then when this premise forms part of the rest of the NTT argument, not extending it to animals will result in a logical inconsistency. Does this make sense to you?
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Re: Great comments on new #namethetrait video

Post by mkm »

Daz wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2018 6:51 am In my understanding it is really quite simple. If you really need to in the context of a strict logical argument (generally not necessary for discussion with most people for this would already be accepted if they understand morals and the importance of consistency), throw in a premise that says something like the following:

P: Double standards and hypocrisy are unacceptable as part of a consistent and robust moral and ethical framework.

It's that simple. I mean is there any context you can think of that someone wouldn't accept this premise (particularly in relation to humans)? And if they accept it in relation to humans then when this premise forms part of the rest of the NTT argument, not extending it to animals will result in a logical inconsistency. Does this make sense to you?
The whole fuss is basicly about the fact that AY not only haven't recognnized the necessity of adding premises of that sort to complete the arguement, he claim(s?)ed that the argument holds as is only based on logic, without other premises, which is obviously not true.
And yeah, adding a premise that prohibits double standards is a good idea ;)

Sorry for interrupting :D
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