respectable fictional analogy?

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by DaveC426913, Apr 13, 2016.

  1. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    I'm putting this here because I don't see that it really belongs anywhere else. Mods may move it if necessary, though I do not feel it belongs in one of the religion fora, because it is not really discussing religion.

    Please, let's keep it on-topic and respectful. (On-topic == about analogies, not about the existence of said things. Plenty of other thread for that.)

    I often find myself engaged in discussions about things which have yet to be accepted by mainstream. Sometimes it is about God, sometimes it is about ghosts, sometimes it is about UFOs. I find I need to draw an analogy to other similar speculative ideas to make a point.

    The analogy I am looking for is to something that we all know and grant is fictional.

    This is the latest incident where this has come up, though it applies to many other speculative ideas - including on other fora.

    http://www.sciforums.com/threads/proof-there-is-a-god.152686/page-42#post-3373774

    (In this example, I'm attempting to show that the things we all grant as fictional do not need to be laboriously described in order to conclude they're fiction.
    You don't need to know what colour boots Santa wears, or the eye colour of Casper The Friendly Ghost, or the length of a unicorn's horn in order to reach the reasonable conclusion that they are fictional. I edited it to remove Casper and add Russell's Teapot)

    Problem is, these are easily interpreted to be mocking the opponent. I do not wish to do that; I wish to make the case on its merits, without polluting it with a perceived slur.

    So, what I'm looking for is a example of an idea we all (but particularly my opponent) grant is fictional, while remaining respectful when making my case.

    Best I've come up with is Russell's Teapot. We don't need to know what colour Russell's teapot is to move ahead with our lives, confident it likely does not exist. Problem is, it isn't an immediately-grokked household-name idea that I'd wish for to make a succinct point. I don't want readers to gloss over it, or have to go off to look it up.

    Nor do I want one so dry as 'an even prime number greater than 2'.

    Sagan's invisible garage-bound dragon falls sort of in-between, though it's still fairly mocking.



    Suggestions?
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2016
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  3. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    If someone were to point out to you two figures a hundred yards away animatedly waving and apparently yelling loudly at each other, and told you that it was a Wise Man arguing with a Fool...could you discern which was the Fool?

    So...why is it a good idea NOT to engage in an argument with a Fool?
    Simple answer... because he may be doing exactly the same...
     
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  5. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Could you not use a well-known character from fiction? Hergé's Tintin, for example. Or Beatrix Potter's Mr MacGregor. Or Capt. Kirk from Star Trek.
    "You don't need to know Captain Kirk's inside leg measurement to know he is a fictitious character". Does that work?

    (But, looking at the thread in which you used the teapot, the problem is you were discussing God, which not everyone does grant is a fictional concept, so I am not sure how this helps. I'd have thought the right track would be Ockham's Razor: anyone proposing God needs to show the need for the concept. Plenty of people will say they have subjective experience, emotions, feelings etc that show this need - to them, personally - but nobody will be able to provide objective evidence, of the type that would be admissible for God to be part of science. But perhaps you have in mind a different way to use this entity that is universally accepted to be fictional.)
     
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  7. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Yeah, that could work.

    No, that's the case I'm making with the analogy.

    Hypothetical debate:
    Opponent's assertion: "You cannot dismiss God's existence without first describing what you think God is (otherwise, it's a straw man)."
    My refutation: "That is tantamount saying I cannot dismiss the existence of unicorns without first describing the length of their horns."

    Sure, but that's a different argument.

    The opponent in my example makes the assertion as in the hypothetical example above. It is that that I am addressing.
     
  8. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    A perfect example of the very thing I am trying to avoid.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    I do not treat my opponents a priori as fools. Just because we disagree does not make my opponent foolish. As long as they are civil and attempt a rational dialogue, I'll try to remain respectful.

    And your corollary hopefully holds true as well; my opponent may disagree with me, but as long as I remain respectful, I presume they will not treat me like a fool. That's the entire point of this thread.
     
  9. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    Slow your roll there, DaveC426913.
    You asked for a fictional analogy, that is what I provided...

    I provided a fictional Scenario - of a Wise Man and a Fool arguing over a subject that can never and will never be settled - simply because the argument entails Beliefs.

    DaveC426913, as long as exercise due discipline and "remain respectful", you will have no choice but to Respect the other persons Beliefs.

    Respect is a two-way street - you get what you give...

    What you seem to have missed is that arguing about God, Ghosts or UFO's (and possibly also Politics!) are arguments that can never and will never be settled.

    As far as : "A perfect example of the very thing I am trying to avoid."...
    How is it possible to have a "rational dialogue" when you "treat" your "opponents" deeply held Beliefs -" a priori " - as "Fictional"?
    Be it God, or ghosts, or UFO's the best and easiest way to remain Respectful of others Beliefs, and to have them remain Respectful of yours is to exercise your inalienable right to Smile and move along...
     
  10. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    An analogy that explicitly invokes a wise man and a fool is about as far from what I'm asking for as it is possible to get. It casts one of the two debaters on the role of fool. Not what I'm looking to do.

    False. A debate in which someone expresses their views ... is one in which they have offered their views for debate. If one did not want their views debated, one would not put them on the table.

    It is possible to disagree, and even challenge someone's assertions, while being respectful.
    What would not be respectful would be to challenge those views when they had not offered them for discussion.

    That is entirely my point.

    I have not missed this. I appreciate the opinion, but it's not really on-topic.

    As before, if one offers up one's beliefs for debate, then one has given permission to debate them.
     
    exchemist likes this.
  11. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Yes I see what you are doing. I must say it strikes me as inherently ridiculous of your interlocutor to demand that a person who denies the need for a hypothesis must define the hypothesis he sees no need for. The burden is self-evidently the other way round. But that's by the way.

    I do think you will still run into the difficulty of offending, if you use the analogy of something acknowledged to be fictional, because you will be taken to mean that you assert "God is fictitious", whereas what you really want to establish is how one should present the argument, one way or the other.
     
  12. mtf Banned Banned

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    Your opponent is right. Your analogy doesn't hold.

    Unless you actually specify what you mean by a certain word (name), you can't cogently say said thing either exists or doesn't exist.

    "You cannot dismiss x's existence without first describing what you think x is." -- this is true in all cases.

    If you don't say what it is that you are actually talking about, or if you don't even know what you're talking about -- then you can't cogently talk about it.


    Note how in the example with the unicorns, you are most likely working with a distinct idea of what exactly a unicorn is (and you have an idea, however vague, about the length of their horns).
     
  13. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    It's up to the people claiming that X exists to define what X is, not the person refuting it.
     
  14. mtf Banned Banned

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    Everyone is responsible for the words they use.

    If you say something, even if it is response to somebody else's claim, then you presumably mean something by the words you use.
     
  15. The God Valued Senior Member

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    God is the matter of faith and that by definition cannot be subjected to any kind of objective evidence. Applying any kind of scientific methodology about God's existence is useless and ridiculous. Fight between theist and atheist on this matter will never be settled, insistence will result into abuses only.
     
  16. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    This thread probably should be in the 'Comparative Religion' forum, up in the Science section. It addresses an important topic in the philosophy of religion. Or it should be in 'General Philosophy' since how it is that we talk about non-existent objects is a classic issue in metaphysics and the philosophy of language.

    I think that asking people what they mean when they use the word 'God' (or 'ufo' or 'ghost') is a legitimate and even an important question.

    That's why when we are discussing views about God, I always try to explain that my metaphysical views about the universe's first cause, the reason why there is something rather than nothing, or the source of the universe's order are rather different than my views about the Yahweh of the Bible, the Allah of the Quran or the Krishna of the Gita. I'm a strong agnostic regarding the metaphysical questions. (I don't have a clue what the answers are, and what's more, I don't think that anyone does.) But I'm simultaneously an atheist regarding the highly personalized deities of the religious traditions. (I don't believe that any of them literally exist, let alone that the Bible (or the Quran or the Gita) contains credible answers to the metaphysical questions.) The point I'm making is that my views about God vary a great deal according to how one defines 'God'.

    In order to communicate, we still need to have some common idea what the words 'Santa' or 'ghost' or 'unicorn' mean. That's usually established either ostensively by physically establishing reference ('That's a unicorn' while pointing at one) or by use of definitions ("a unicorn is a white horse with a large straight horn growing naturally in the middle of its forehead"). Obviously the ostensive method of establishing reference by pointing at an example won't work when we are talking about non-existent objects. So the definition route would seem to be the way to go in those kind of cases. (There's lots of philosophical argument about reference to non-existent objects and about how it is possible to state any truths about them at all.)


     
    Last edited: Jul 31, 2016
  17. mtf Banned Banned

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    How do you know that?
     
  18. mtf Banned Banned

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    On a general note: When talking to someone, chances are that the participants have vastly different ideas about what is going on: for some, it is a debate; for others, it is a discussion; for the third, it is a lecture; for the fourth, it is a monologue. There may be more.

    In my experience, especially when talking to religious people, while I think I am having a discussion with the religious person, it eventually turns out that the religious person believes I am rudely and disrespectfully interrupting their lecture.

    Chances are that esp. when talking to a religious person, just because they have stated their views, doesn't mean they are ready to have them discussed (what to speak of having them debated).
     

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