Random Thoughts Thread

[Rhyfelwyr]

So my brother just had an emergency surgery to get his appendix removed because it was inflamed. Being the loving brother I am, I tore the appendix out of a book and brought it over to him with this zinger. "I heard that you lost your appendix, so I brought you a new one." ~:P

He must have been in stitches.

[Montmorency]

this is not our experience, and experience has been the test of reality.

There is a difference between empiricism and phenomenologism.

What our "experience" shows is that our experience is worthless without cognitive prostheses such as instrumental science.

In fact, what empirical science has precisely been showing us over the past millennia is that our first-order ontological intuitions - based on 'what we feel like' - are invariably and thoroughly mistaken.

[Fragony]

Expensive restaurants are fine of course, but there still nothing as satisfying as a portion of fried fish and a salted herring with onions.

[Montmorency]

Two of the most deeply-misunderstood logical fallacies are the "Ad Hominem" and the "No True Scotsman".


1. Ad Hominem

Calling someone a name does not automatically have any bearing whatsoever on one's arguments. Unless one explicitly predicates those arguments on some individual possessing some (presumably bad) trait(s), in which case the user is open to attack just in case it can be shown that the ad hominem is actually false or invalid.

You are a killer, therefore the political views you hold must be wrong.

Fallacy?

You are a killer, therefore you must hold wrong political views.

Fallacy?

You are a killer, therefore you love Hitler

Fallacy?

It is perfectly possible, though likely false, that membership in the set of killers should in itself entail membership in the set of Hitler-lovers. Thus the statement is not fallacious by the Ad Hominem.

Bonus: The same standards of relevance and possibility apply to the "Tu Quoque" fallacy, another oft-misunderstood fallacy.


2. No True Scotsman

This fallacy is one of equivocal or circular post-hoc reasoning. It does not comprehensively invalidate statements of the form "No 'legitimate' X..." or "An entity A can not be of Set X if it is a member of Set Y".

A: Is he a Scotsman? No Scotsman can jump.

B: He is a Scotsman based on multiple independent criteria, yet he can jump.

A: In that case those independent criteria must be wrong or irrelevant, as no true Scotsman can jump.

Fallacy?

A: Is he a Scotsman? No Scotsman can jump.

B: Yes, and he can jump.

A: In that case, he can't be a true Scotsman, as no true Scotsman can jump.

Fallacy?

In this case, the burden is on B to elucidate other factors that determine or preclude membership in the set of Scotsmen. Otherwise, all we have is B's unsupported affirmation of some entity's membership in both the set of Scotsmen and the set of people who can jump.

To make it even clearer, here's a fallacious argument obviously based on equivocation:

A: Is he a Scotsman? No Scotsman can jump.

B: Yes, and he can jump.

A: But he just beat that black guy in basketball, so clearly he can jump, and therefore is not a true Scotsman.

Ultimately, it would probably be best if in almost-all cases people just stopped referencing fallacies in their discussions at all.

[Fragony]

Awesome, just heard that my mate's daughther is going to the thai-boxing world championship. Next year she will have a much harder time because of her age, but this she could just haul in.

[Beskar]

Two of the most deeply-misunderstood logical fallacies are the "Ad Hominem" and the "No True Scotsman"...

I had a good understanding of the concepts, then I read your post. Now I am confused.

[Montmorency]

That's sig-worthy.

[A Nerd]

I think one of my cats has a cavity. Off to the vet with she today. Hooray! Well, not really, but what must get done shall.

[Husar]

Ultimately, it would probably be best if in almost-all cases people just stopped referencing fallacies in their discussions at all.

I don't remember coming across any of those fallacies in the Germosphere/Germanosphere. It might be because I'm not discussing philosophy and politics as much in German, but I think I mostly saw these here on the .org, which is part of the Anglosphere.
Therefore this despicable behavior must be yet another trait of the imperialistic Anglo-man.

[Crandar]

Seems that the 2013 Modding Awards are up in Total War Center. Nice to see abit less categories than the competition of 2012, as some of them were so obscure that the victor was dependent on his connections.
Anyway, can't say I have played many of the mods listed, except for the DarthMod, which has provided me with a breath-taking experience, considering the awfully broken AI of Napoleon and Empire, so the guy has definiteley my vote.
Actually, the greatest problem of those games was that the retarded AI had migrated to other, mediocre mods, like TGW, making them rather annoying to play, unfortunately, despite their over-ambitious planning.

[A Nerd]

I brought my cat in to the vet. Apparently she has gingivitis. I tried to tell her to brush and floss regularly but she apparently didn't. Anyway, the vet did some blood work and she told me my cat might have feline AIDS which can cause gingivitis. She was fixed when I adopted her several years ago so I don't know where she could have picked that disease up if indeed she does posess it. I am going to have her teeth pulled to cure the gingivitis but I don't know what else is required for her good health. Quite the ordeal.

[Brandy Blue]

Poor kitty.

[A Nerd]

Poor kitty indeed. She is hungry and I am at a loss as to what to feed her. I have tried several different things in hopes that she will eat it and suffer little pain, but nothing works. The vet hospital is taking too long to give me a quote for surgery. Then I can make the appointment. What she eats after that I don't know.

[Fragony]

Have you tried cat-milk? They can survive on that alone it's really nutricious.

[A Nerd]

No I haven't. As of late however, I think her hunger is getting to her. I unfortunately ran out of cat food, but have been feeding her some tuna I had in the cabinet. She seems to enjoy that and I mash it up such that it doesn't cause her too much pain and she is eating. Now all I have to do is wait for the vet to call me back and it's surgery time. I just am preparing myself to cringe at the price. But no matter what it is, I will have it done. To have her put to sleep over this would be way out of the question in my opinion.

Thanks for the advice Fragony. :)

[Hooahguy]

Just found out that I did not get accepted to the program I applied to in Norway. Ah well, was expecting to not get in though.

[TheElusiveSniper]

Just found out that I did not get accepted to the program I applied to in Norway. Ah well, was expecting to not get in though.

Bad luck Hooah :(

Random thought: Makes me kinda sad that this place seems dead now. Yet I keep seeing long term users. Is it this place or just total war?

At least the emoticons are cool

[Montmorency]

At least the emoticons are cool

Came for the game, stayed for the faces.

[Hooahguy]

Bad luck Hooah :(

Random thought: Makes me kinda sad that this place seems dead now. Yet I keep seeing long term users. Is it this place or just total war?

At least the emoticons are cool

Thanks, I kinda expected to not get in, the place was very, very selective when it comes to international students, almost as selective as the Ivy League schools.

Anyways, the TW community is bustling, its just here which is failing. A lack of a mod scene here plus the spectacular launch failure that was Rome 2 really hurt us.

[TheElusiveSniper]

I would have put it further back than Rome's launch. Though I don't really remember that far back, was Rome's launch that bad?

I remember Empire was pretty bad.

Still sad you didn't get in, you're a good guy Hooah :)

[Crandar]

Anyways, the TW community is bustling, its just here which is failing. A lack of a mod scene here plus the spectacular launch failure that was Rome 2 really hurt us.

Wasn't .org the most popular fan-forum about TW? What happened and it was surpassed by twcenter?

[Hooahguy]

Wasn't .org the most popular fan-forum about TW? What happened and it was surpassed by twcenter?

Yup, in the Rome 1 and Medieval 2 days we were neck and neck with the TWC with activity. But then ETW came out and the modders just did not come to us, Im not really sure why, but they stayed at the TWC and no mods really came here. So thus started our long decline. We werent getting new members, and as members moved on in their lives, our population declined. To be fair, at first we were not so hospitable to new members, forcing them to post a certain number of times in the entry forum before they could join the rest of the forum. This drove away a lot of new members unfortunately.

EDIT: I would say the biggest blow from Rome 2 was that it was being trumped as our big return on these boards, and we were really hoping to bring back old players who got interested again in the games, but they were quickly driven away due to how bad the release was.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Constant anxiety and depression sucks.

[Fragony]

Constant anxiety and depression sucks.

Get boxing lessons, a friend of mine gives them to troubled people and it really helps.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Constant anxiety and depression sucks.

Do something to address it now, because you can wreck your body if you don't. I've learned that the hard way.

[Beskar]

I suggest reading the guides in my signature.

[Hooahguy]

I don't think I will ever understand why the music video for Kiss From a Rose is about Batman.

[Fragony]

Awesome, my mate's daughter won the Muy-Thai world-championship. It's kinda funny, she is a really shy and softspoken girl, but she sure can hold her own in the ring.

[A Nerd]

I have been jogging through the woods again. The forest has a very ethereal feel to it. That plus the exercise makes for a great span of time.

[A Nerd]

I jogged today. And much to my surprise I came across three fair young ladies who were jogging in the opposite direction who were quite pleasant and friendly. It capped the run perfectly, well, I was walking at the time because my stamina had given out much earlier along the trail. I was quite surprised to meet such pleasantries, it isn't always the case for me. (Being such the nice person I am and all) you my fellow orgahs might be surprised at this post.