metadigital

I wasn't "gone to another tangent", I was giving further evidence of faulty logic. I answered your query against my comment by saying that it was both faulty premise AND faulty logic. You may think that circular logic is not a fallacy, but it is. It doesn't "prove" anything, except that which was assumed to be correct in the first place. (This cannot avoid confirmation bias.) In other words, it's superfluous to the process: you might as well use "proof" as a synonym for "assumption", for all the service it provides in this definition. You are polluting the meaning of "proof". This is why scientific method (see also logical positivism) is all about DISPROVING a hypothesis ... failure to be able to disprove that a force acts on two objects proportional to their masses and inversely as the square of their distance apart means that we accept that this is true (and call it something nifty, like gravity); the fact that we cannot disprove it no matter how many times we try, with bodies of all sizes, anywhere, means that it stands up to scientific rigour. To illustrate, at enormously large scales, there is a small fraction of a percent that isn't explained by Newton's law ... this has been corrected by implementing Quantum Gravity, which can explain satisfactorily the tiny imprecision at large scales (super massive black holes with singularities the size of the diameter of the solar system, for example, and their warping effect on space-time). Hence, science does not defend Newton just because he was a great thinker. Neither does his idea get special protection, just because of precedence, or because we are comfortable with the notion. That's the point of science: it seeks truth, not comfort. Your neat little deductions are proceeding fallaciously. Why does Q imply P? That is an assumption. You are defining that Q follows P. There isn't even any observable data! You are just re-stating assumptions in a different order. P = Dragons exist Q = People play DnD 1) P > Q 2) Q ∴P See? It's pointless. And definitely not logical. I didn't think it was worth refuting a posteriori arguments, typified by Thomas Aquinas (The Unmoved Mover, The Uncaused Cause, The Cosmological Argument: all of which rely on the idea of infinite regress, and use God to terminate it, assuming that God is immune to it, by definition, then further assuming that this terminator has other properties like omniscience and omnipotence ... those paradoxes notwithstanding, usually manifested with arguments about free will and the problem of evil); nor a priori arguments (i.e. not requiring any real-world data) typified by St Anselm's Ontological Argument, which arbitrarily decides that existence is "more perfect" than not existing, then uses this assumption to prove that God must exist, because s/he is the most perfect thing. Faulty premises AND faulty logic.

Good, because I don't want to have to buy a new ear horn.

What I found fascinating is that, because of the wobble in the Earth's axis of rotation (called precession), which has an 22,000 year circular cycle, the seasons move about the calendar, so that Winter would be six months away from where it is now in about 11,000 years' time. In other words, back in classical Greek times, the seasons were about a month or so away from where they are now.

Just finished The God Delusion. Dawkins is less than tactful, though his logic is undeniable. It's actually a good read, even if a little transparent (though he admits that he is trying to convert people away from religion: the first clue is in the title ).

I bet it's too loud.

By "ultimate proof"/"notion" I assume you speak of people trying to argue for/prove the existence of God (very broadly speaking be it Prime Mover or Personal). If not, my sorry. If so, I don't understand how you can say that these proofs/arguments (I speak of well known ones that have been rehashed through the years by different people with different words) have "enormous logical fallacies" which have since been debunked, when these proofs are undeniably deductively valid and therefore rigorous under rubric of formal logic. Now of course, individual premises of the argument are contested, but that has no bearing on logicality and not agreeing with premise or thinking it false or truth value does not make premise a fallacy (indeed, scientific reasoning relies on very contentious premises as well; think uniform nature, external world, so on; not to mention delving into abduction or inductive reasoning and that problems). Most arguments/proofs are not matter of logic (though many people like to say words like 'illogical' or 'fallacy' [not calling your out my friend, just what I've seen very often in the past] for rhetoric flair) but rather about agreeing with premise (which is why debating usually very pointless, hehe). The short answer is both; faulty premise and bad logic. For example, the Catholic Encyclopedia mentions the "proof" of purgatory, to wit: if the dead simply went to heaven or hell on the basis of their sins while on Earth, there would be no point in praying for them. The circular conclusion is that, because we pray for the dead, purgatory must exist (otherwise our prayers would be pointless ...).

He would have been more impressive if I could understand even a single word of what he said.

google page

I would box it up, then send it back to the manufacturer. Then you've got a better chance at getting your money back.

the links are still there, they just aren't underlined in this current style ... I mentioned it to the Guildmaster ... maybe it will return.

For what purpose are you splitting this hair? The codex of knowledge has resulted from a shift of emphasis from accepting what a cleric says has been divinely revealed to them, and is unquestionable, to a desire to only accept what can be independently asserted through experiment, and thus provide predictable (and hence useful) descriptions of our world. I have a counter-proposal; I will agree with your statement if you agree that humanity does not get its ethical guidance from religion. I know it is rare, but sometimes my posting may not be perfectly spelled and adhere to grammatical convention, if only because I type on a laptop, which necessitates that I correct a lot of my touch typing, some of which I might occassionally be missed (deliberately, to see if people are reading what I write, of course ); I won't stoop to remarking just how often I need to correct your spelling when I reply. Oh, Scientific American Digital finally fixed the link to the full debate.

Except doesn't that open next week? I finally got out to see Oceans Thirteen yesterday afternoon. Ended up in the theatre with just my parents and my little brother and an elderly couple that walked in just as the previews were starting. Overall a very enjoyable movie. I haven't seen the second one so I can't compare to that. The plans didn't seem as neat as the heist they pulled in the first movie, but I can live with that. I just watched Ocean's Twelve. The narrative wasn't as focused as the first film, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, and they introduced Catherine Zeta-Jones as a new (presumably continuing) character. The bits that weren't explained (like why the old guy doesn't participate and then does) were odd, considering the film bends over backwards to explain the "big heist". The bit with Julia Roberts was pulled off quite successfully, too. I didn't think the film was as enjoyable as the first, though. The Sting is a much better film, all in all.

It's a discussion forum ... if people didn't have anything to say, then there wouldn't be much discussion, now, would there.

Chinese foreign policy in a nutshell.

You think Jolee is mentally stable? are you insane?! No, but he's funny.

I seem to recall the Bandon fight being more difficult than it should have been ... probably because I had to take the little droid, who wasn't much of a fighter at that stage.

The poll should be about force users ... then I could make some snide comment about the chieftain on the last planet.

That's a band, right?

Yes, but no battery charger.

Cheque?

I crossed the streams ...

Not available online ... it's in this month's Custom PC (UK).

What is "good"? There is no maximum charge for a "good" anything. The problem with psychology degrees is that the demand is fall less than supply. Usually it takes about ten years of commercial experience (doing HR in a big company, typically) before a graduate can earn anything over a non-graduate wage. But the best of the best always do better / well.

That artifact has happened to me when I have been playing a game for a long time ... memory fragged and heat troubles. A shutdown (and a cup of tea before rebooting) tends to help.

Infiniti have just released a 650W PSU for