Leo's Blog Discussion Mega-Thread

[Thought Art]

@zurew I am reading through your guys conversation.

I went through and checked I understood the definitions of the philosophical terms. I read what you wrote, and I read what Leo wrote. I am left thinking Leo is correct on his points. Not because he is Leo but his points make sense. Especially, the point made that logic only holds up through empirical observation of reality which requires consciousness and intelligence at the end of the day. Computers and AI are only extensions of This because humans have applied their empirical observations to their logic, and the design of computers and algorithms.

 

It seems you’re both coming at the conversation from different angles. You want something from the conversation Leo isn’t interested in.
 

 

You also seem to be projecting bad faith onto his responses which is unfortunate. The terms and ideas you are discussing are rather basic philosophy. Leo isn’t really engaging with you and then you are projecting all this stuff onto the situation. I think your attitude it combative and not coming from a place of neutral, open and contemplative philosophical discussion which is why Leo makes comments on your attitude here. 
 

That is my interpretation right now as I read through. 

Edited May 15 by Thought Art

[integral]

@zurew I agree that it’s annoying that the word empirical is reinvented lol 

When mathematicians discover imaginary numbers that are then used to create quantum computers. All of that mathematics was discovered logically not empirically.

The issue is all of that discovery did not happen in a vacuum of closed system of axioms independent of mind.

it is not independent of mind because It is happening in our mind because it is modelling a mind.

Mathematics is modelling the mind and you are discovering yourself. It is the creative unfolding of mind understanding itself.

You experience ‘1 + 1 = 2’ in your Mind, not in the world. And that experience is direct, just like seeing red or feeling pain. Making it empirical.

If I count 2 oranges on a table or I visualize 2 oranges and count them in my mind, they’re both empirical. Higher forms of mathematics that are not mapped one to one to an external world like much of the mathematics used in quantum mechanics or non-Euclidean geometry, so they must all be verified empirically through your own mind. 

Edited May 15 by integral

[Thought Art]

@integral An empirical aspect of mind, but not external reality, or the realities of a given field which is an interesting nuance. 

[Nemra]

6 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

If you weren’t conscious how would you give a computer anything?

We should consider that there is only one's experience in which logic can be understood, which means that logic does not exist independently in the world, waiting to be discovered outside of one's experience.

[zurew]

4 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

If you weren’t conscious how would you give a computer anything?

Thats not the point, the point is that the rules can be applied without any need for being conscious.

You can have an unconscious thing applying rules of inference and showing some of the implications (doesnt say anything about whats necessary to gather the rules, it only makes a claim about whats necessary to apply the rules) - thats the point.

But this is all besides the main point because 1) this doesn't engage with the original topic at hand  2) You can believe that there is no distinction like Leo without taking any position on this particular thing  (about what is needed to check entailments).

 

Here is one thing Leo completely fails to track - if he uses the term empirical in a way 'anything that you do when you are conscious, including thinking', and if people who take the aprori position use empirical like 'observing the world, doing experiments in the world, getting sense data from the world', then you can see that the same term is used in 2 completely different ways, and there might not be even any substantial disagreement between the two position - because an apriori person could believe that thinking requires consciousness and say that thinking is non empirical given his definition  , and Leo can say that thinking requires consciousness but given his unique definition of 'empirical', thinking would be categorized as an empirical thing.

Substantially the two positions would be exactly the same, the label that would be put on the position would be the only different thing.

 

 

And this is again not even interesting this is just semantics garbage that needs to be done, because otherwise equivocation is what happens.

[Thought Art]

@zurew Some thoughts and questions. 

Can you define what “an Apriori person” is? Someone who believes knowledge is independent of experience? 
 

Is your main point regarding inference that a computer can be programmed to use the logic? And, because a computer isn’t conscious therefore logic doesn’t require consciousness?  I will look 👀.
 

Okay, perhaps I don’t know the original topic but I thought it had to do with consciousness and logic. Can you state the original topic?

With regards to entailments, wouldn’t you agree with Leo that those can only be proven to be valid through empirical observation. I would say many logical entailments actually fail under empirical scrutiny. 
 

 

 

Edited May 15 by Thought Art

[Thought Art]

21 minutes ago, zurew said:

Here is one thing Leo completely fails to track - if he uses the term empirical in a way 'anything that you do when you are conscious, including thinking', and if people who take the aprori position use empirical like 'observing the world, doing experiments in the world, getting sense data from the world', then you can see that the same term is used in 2 completely different ways, and there might not be even any substantial disagreement between the two position - because an apriori person could believe that thinking requires consciousness and say that thinking is non empirical given his definition  , and Leo can say that thinking requires consciousness but given his unique definition of 'empirical', thinking would be categorized as an empirical thing.

 

This feels jumbled and unclear I’m not sure what you are saying. Could you clarify?

Wouldn’t that be 2 types of empirical observation? One of mind and one of the world?

Edited May 15 by Thought Art

[Thought Art]

On 2025-05-14 at 11:21 AM, zurew said:

You don't need to do any experiment and you don't need to observe anything in the world in order for those rules to hold up.

 

The problem I have with this is that… your logic can simply be wrong. This is well established by Greek skepticism and may be worth studying how logic can be wrong, and its limitations. 
 

My view is that human logic is a conceptual construction in our minds, and are tools used to understand, categorize, and predict reality. But, reality itself is king at the end of the day. Human logic requires empirical observation and feedback for it to be valid.  Logic alone without empirical data is logic without foundation or reality. That’s sort of what science is doing.

Induction is a type of logic produced through empirical observation as well. Though, it’s an assumption or guess based on previous observations not a truth.

I think you take for granted how much of human logic is actually founded on emperical observation, consciousness, survival and intelligence. 
 

A flat earther is very logical. But is it true?
 

— Without consciousness there isn’t much to be logical about though. Without an observer… 

Edited May 15 by Thought Art

[Nemra]

Saying "unconscious thing" is already problematic, because there isn't a thing existing separate from your experience.

Edited May 15 by Nemra

[integral]

21 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

The problem I have with this is that… your logic can simply be wrong.

1 + 1= 1

1 distinction + 1 distinction = 1 distinction

When you merge 2 distinctions within consciousness you get another distinction.  
😅

[Thought Art]

@integral what is your point? With that particular statement with that emoji?

Edited May 15 by Thought Art

[integral]

14 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

@integral what is your point? With that particular statement with that emoji?

The entire domain of mathematics governing experience that no one bothered discovering.

What’s the mathematics of interpretation?

Edited May 15 by integral

[Thought Art]

@integral Okay so just a tangent from the above conversation 

[Vynce]

8 hours ago, zurew said:

Thats fine, I can say the same thing - you failed to demonstrate that you have a basic understanding of logic and how the terms and semantics are used. You lack so much on this, that you dont have the basic language to point to particular things about a given logic or an operation, and your mind cant make particular distinctions and categorizations, because you lack all of those concepts in this field.

We did this play with Gödel's incompleteness theorem as well ,where you inferred a bunch of things about metaphysics that don't really apply or we don't have any good reason to think they have any connection to metaphysics the way you outlined it under scrutiny , and once you were challenged on it (it became clear that own source disagreed with you). So yes, I have good reason to think that your confidence doesn't match with the level of research you do on any of the topics surrounding math and logic.

 

And to be clear to others, there are people who deny the apriori-aposteriori and synthetic - analytic distinctions, who also have a very good understanding of logic, and not just classical logic ,but other logics as well. They know what an implication is, what an entailment is, what a truth-table is, what the limitations of a given logic is, how proofs work , what the problem of induction is, what the rules of inference is and how to check whether they hold up or not, they know about different types of reasonings and the limitation of each and so on.

There are ways to go to challenge apriori-aposteriori distinction without ever needing to equivocate.

Here is my insight:

Stop being annoying.

Edited May 15 by Vynce

[zurew]

19 minutes ago, Vynce said:

Here is my insight:

Stop being annoying.

Thank you for that valuable input Vynce, you might be able to earn more of his approval now.

One of your life goals is achieved , I guess?

Essential advice: The next part is you saying how right he is and how profound everything he says and you will be able to progress further.

Edited May 15 by zurew

[Thought Art]

@Vynce You need not post if you are not adding anything of substance. 

@zurew Stop assuming bad faith or, that we are pandering to Leo

Are we not interested in philosophy? Combatting each other makes it harder for us to grow and learn. 

Edited May 15 by Thought Art

[Vynce]

26 minutes ago, zurew said:

Thank you for that valuable input Vynce, you might be able to earn more of his approval now.

One of your life goals is achieved , I guess?

Essential advice: The next part is you saying how right he is and how profound everything he says and you will be able to progress further.

Actually, I’m sorry. It was unnecessary for me to say that. 
 

I‘m often just irritated by these super advanced academic statements flying around in a forum, that is mostly used by pretty average dudes, who have yet to proof that they are intelligent or strong. And fancy forum posts are not proof. At least not for me.

But you can just forget what I said, if you want. 

Edited May 15 by Vynce

[zurew]

5 hours ago, Thought Art said:

Human logic requires empirical observation and feedback for it to be valid.

It doesn't, all of the logic terms like 'implication' , 'validity', 'soundness' are all technical definitions with a very specific narrow meaning. No empirical observation is needed for validity to hold up in the technical sense it is defined. 

5 hours ago, Thought Art said:

Is your main point regarding inference that a computer can be programmed to use the logic? And, because a computer isn’t conscious therefore logic doesn’t require consciousness?

One main point is about figuring out what can undermine or establish a given rule (for example how do you check whether the rules of inference is true and what it even means for it to be true)?

The other main point is the claim that there are rules that no empirical fact can undermine (they might be true by definition or they might be true because of its axioms or for other reasons)

There are a bunch of rules and phrases and inferences where there is no empirical referent (it doesn't make any claim about the world) - in those cases how do you check whether they are true or not?

Look up the problem of induction and look up propositional logic and more specifically what soundness and validity is. 

Edited May 15 by zurew

[zurew]

15 minutes ago, Vynce said:

But you can just forget what I said, if you want. 

Its fine

[Thought Art]

10 minutes ago, zurew said:

It doesn't, all of the logic terms like 'implication' , 'validity', 'soundness' are all technical definitions with a very specific narrow meaning. No empirical observation is needed for validity to hold up in the technical sense it is defined. 

 

Yeah, but are you getting caught up in these definitions? 
 

This is begging the question for the logic’s epistemology because none of this could have been created without empirical observation. Because without it, how would the logic ever be established, how would these definitions be created? Without observing reality these logical constructs couldn’t have been established. So, I think it’s a mistake to take logic a priori as first order in how reality works. Logic, is a conceptual overlay. 

Edited May 15 by Thought Art