Zeus' Ethics Quiz

Too easy. If you did not exist you could not ask your question:
To ask a question implies some thing to do the asking, and that thing must necessarily exist in order for the question to have been asked. The question was asked, therefore the questioner exists.

That's not even beyond a reasonable doubt, it's deductively certain:
1. A question cannot be asked without the existence of a questioner. (Non-existence cannot create existence.)
2. A question has been asked.
3. A questioner exists.


Further, any counter-argument you make will reinforce it further (I.e. you must exist in order to put forth a counter-argument.)


To elaborate, let's go to the great Ayn Rand; the smoky goddess of rationalist philosophy:

 

I don't want your money rsaccountrader, but come reply all the same.

 

And I did prove you exit, irrefutably. Or more specifically, you proved you exist and I pointed to that proof.

If you are a figment of my imagination, then you still exist. You exist as a figment of my imagination. A question cannot be raised without some thing to raise it.


More about this:
If you suppose that the world is a figment of your imagination then there is no point to having a debate, or asking a question. You would have to hold two contradictory ideas at once and believe them both 100% in order to have a debate with yourself. But if you can do this then there is no logic and there can be no debate. Hence the second you assume that a debate is possible, you have already assumed a whole plethora of things about the ontology and metaphysics of the universe. And you will find naturally that attempting to refute these primaries (existence, consciousness, identity) will only result in performative contradiction.

The questioner is simply defined as the thing asking a question. If that is part of your brain, then it still exists. The principle point is that something which exists (i.e. the question) cannot come from something that does not. Therefore the act of asking a question definitively proves the existence of the thing doing the asking.

Ha! Firstly this is an appeal to authority and secondly I don't think you've read philosophy very widely if you honestly believe this sophist drivel is still unresolved after 4000 years of debating it.

 

Still waiting for an rsaccounttrader response here.

 

Moving the goal posts fallacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts#Logical_fallacy

And in order to engage in a debate you first need to assume you are talking to an independent, conscious entity. I've already gone over why this is.

All I need to do is point at the fact you are debating and the matter is settled: --

Independence: To debate with a figment of one's own imagination is impossible, as this requires you to believe two contradictory positions completely. But if you are able to hold two contradictory positions completely then debate and logic are impossible. Hence if you are engaged in debating then you are independent of your opponent. If you are not independent then you cannot be debating.

Consciousness: To engage in debate one must possess the faculty of awareness; awareness of one's self and one's opponent, and of the arguments being transmitted to and from. A corpse, a rock, or a grain of dust have no faculty of awareness and thus cannot engage in debate.

You are debating, therefore you are independent and conscious. As soon as you attempt to refute this you will validate it further. It is a performative contradiction to argue that you are not conscious or independent. The putting forward of an argument requires that you are both. (More on this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_contradiction )

And they are all terrible. Go read some proper rationalist philosophy. Start with Ayn Rand and work your way from there.

 

Lol you already have a privatized justice system. Just its owned by the same crooks that run the government. Same ones that say "pay or go to jail at the point of a gun" whenever they need money from you; whether its to build roads, pay your neighbour to be a meth addict, invade foreign countries and slaughter civilians, run a huge centralized heathcare ponzi scheme, or bailout countless insolvent banks, it's always the same: Pay or you go to jail. Sometimes they even change the tone: "come to war and kill people, or you go to jail."

Look at what happened to Aaron Swartz, Kim Dotcom, Julian Assange and the Pirate-Bay guys, and tell me you think the "justice system" (more like "just us") is run neutrally for the profit of all.

 

Le bump. Rsaccountrader...

 

I'm sorry, but who are you disagreeing with? The act of disagreeing presupposes someone to disagree with.

Again you contradict yourself by action. The act of disagreement requires someone to disagree with (independence) and something to disagree about (and therefore a consciousness to be conscious of that something).

Thus you must already accept independence and consciousness on both ends in order to put forward a disagreement.

Again you are getting caught in performative contradictions: It's like you called me up to tell me the phones don't work. If the phones didn't work then your message would never be delivered, if they do work then your message is false. The exact same logic works here too.


This time read the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_contradiction


I must also say that I don't think you have a very great deal of respect for reason if you allow yourself to be cut-off at the knees by accepting easily refutable contradictions (like "nothing can be proven to exist") as basic tenets of philosophy.

 

If you start with a logical contradiction (as a premise) then all I have to do is focus on that to refute your argument. I don't need to consider anything else.

I still don't think you understand.

It's not a debate if you're talking to yourself. In order to debate you have to be talking to someone else.

You contradict yourself as soon as you disagree. Either you are disagreeing with yourself = contradiction, or you are disagreeing with someone else = contradiction. You don't seem to get that both sides of your argument lead to logical contradiction.

Let me elaborate:

If you are a figment of my imagination then every argument you put forward is a logical contradiction, because in order to disagree with me, you are requiring that I hold two opposing logical arguments and believe both of them at the same time -- if this is possible, then logic is not possible.

You cannot successfully argue that logic is a valid means of acquiring knowledge AND that you are a figment of my imagination. It is one or the other. If you are a figment of my imagination then you cannot use logic to prove it (see above.) If you are not a figment of my imagination then arguing that you are is a falsehood. Either way your statement is necessarily false.

Performative contradictions are a tricky concept but you will get them eventually.

You've asked me to logically prove you exist and are conscious. I've done that by pointing out that you are debating, and in order for a debate to be possible you must exist and be conscious. You then attempt to argue that you do not exist or that you are the same entity as myself. But I only need to point out that if logic is possible then you must be independent. If logic is not possible then nothing can be proved, and it doesn't make sense to ask for proof.

In this case your entire philosophy is based on floating abstractions linked to nothing. You have no primaries, no principles, no coherent chain of reasoning back to concretes. All you are doing is symbol manipulation and pointless noodling.

It's not an assumption. It is axiomatically certain. I'll post it again:

-Ayn Rand


If you refuse to accept basic axioms (i.e. irrefutable statements) like existence exists then you inevitably base your entire chain or reasoning on fallacies.

Axiom: