Wednesday, March 22, 2006

The sore losers club

John W. Loftus said:

“After looking at Steve's response and seeing that it is futile to try to reason with the folks at Tripupblogue, I deleted my post and placed it where it belonged--in your Blog, just under your initial criticisms of exbeliever.”

In other words, he lost the argument, and so he did what all sore losers do, which is to stomp off in a big indignant huff.

So sorry to hurt your poor wittle feewings, Johnny.

“You just don't deserve space on our Blog.”

The T-bloggers have set up a twenty-four hour rotation so that we can cry our eyes out.

“Travis, I cannot believe you are a Philosophy student. You belong here. I did not try to refute Idealism, idiot. But the fact is that although Idealism held sway on the Continent for about 100 years, it was the advance of science that pushed it aside.”

The advance of science can do nothing to discredit idealism, idiot.

Idealism is a metascientific thesis, idiot.

“You see Travis, it's one thing to say there is no material universe, but it's quite another thing to do open heart surgery to save a human life. If there isn't a material universe why bother with the sense data of organs inside our bodies? Why not just have us all as shells? And why correlate heart surgery with the prolonging of life?”

Travis and I don’t subscribe to idealism. That is not how it functions in our argument, idiot.

“Oh, and by the way, in case you failed to understand for a second time, I didn't try to refute Idealism here, either. Idealism may well be irrefutable, even though it's extremely implausible, living as we do in a modern world.”

I agree that idealism is extremely implausible, although living as we do in the modern world is irrelevant to its plausibility or lack thereof, idiot.

We also find materialism extremely implausible. Indeed, downright impossible.

And while idealism may be implausible, it has more philosophical merit than materialism.

“Travis, so, in order to show I'm wrong, you appeal to Idealism? LOL Do you accept Idealism as a stance to critique what I'm saying, or not? And if not, why not? Why critique me from a stance you do not accept? I could do likewise with you on practically any issue.”

i) Thought-experiments are standard fare in philosophy of mind, idiot.

ii) We accept idealism for the sake of argument because idealism and materialism are on an epistemic par as far as Exbeliever’s reasoning was concerned, idiot.

“I said it can be shown that the brain is clearly and demonstrably responsible for some aspects of a person's identity, personality, and behavior. It can be, based upon the normal methods of science.”

The normal methods of science may eventually explain the brain. The normal methods of science can never explain consciousness since science only deals with phenomena which admit a public, third-person description whereas consciousness is irreducibly subjective and private, idiot.

2 comments:

  1. I very much appreciate you bringing in Loftus and his buds to deal w/ here on the T-blog. I love you guys.
    May I suggest that you, rather than repeating "idiot" all the time, instead boldface the ad hominems in his arguments and demur from responding in kind? There is something to be said for a little more kindness even if the other side refuses to reciprocate.
    Respectfully,
    ALAN

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  2. Hi Alan,

    You have to realize that I only use "idiot" as a term of affection.

    Seriously, you may be right. However, I think it's sometimes useful to give an abusive individual a dose of his own medicine, even if I wouldn't make that a regular practice.

    ReplyDelete