Detecting design or intent in nature

[The Grand Nudger]

This continues to show that you don't understand the difference between the two forms of reasoning since you apply the same criterion for both. I rest my case here. It could also be the case that you are not putting forward what you mean in a manner that I can understand clearly.

No worries, let me attempt this again. Regardless of whether we use deductive or inductive logic in order to reach our conclusion we will be leveraging the same principles. We're doing logic - in either case. Ignoring deduction, for a moment, since you seem to be hung up on that, I'll only comment on the strength of an inductive argument for the next few moments.

When you make an inductive argument, you are claiming that there is a particular sort of implicational relationship between the statements. Or, to put it another way...your way, that the statements made are reason to accept that the conclusion -might be- true. This, is sufficient condition. I'm suggesting (more like flat out declaring) that this relationship does not actually exist between the statements you chose to leverage.

We are free to make the statements you've made and call it an inductive argument. However, the -strength- of that argument still rests on the implicational relationship between the statements, condition. It's not irrelevant, it's the only remaining relevant thing after having excused ourselves on all other counts. If we cannot meet that bar, after having thrown out all other requirements, "strong" isn't exactly a word I'd use to describe our argument.

Follow?

I have goals or I do not have goals
Many of my shits have come into existence
Many of my shits have since been flushed
Flushing has no purpose
Therefore I have no goals.

This is a straw man if there ever was one.

That term does not mean what you think it means. I offered you -my own- argument, I am not misrepresenting -your argument-.

I bet I don't need to tell you what a straw man is. First up your fourth premise is wrong because flushing does in fact have a purpose.

Obvious bait is obvious. Don't you think?

We flush toilets to eradicate excrement. Well maybe in your part of the world flushing doesn't have a purpose so your premise may be right after all. But in the civilised world it does.

The reasons that you, or anyone else in the world might flush a toilet have nothing to do with me. Perhaps I do it out of habit, perhaps I'm compelled to do it, but none of that matters - because I'm trying to help you understand mechanics, not proposing the truth value of the statement or even the conclusion.

If this were true - if there were some tribe of savages (of which I am a member) out there who flush toilets only by compulsion or through habit - would this give you any more reason to trust my conclusion than you had before? Is their a sufficient implicational relationship between the statements to determine that on the basis of the purposelessness of my flush - I have no goals?

You would need to come up with evidence or an argument to support that extinction does have a purpose.

"Prove me wrong" says the man who thinks he's lecturing me in logic. Apologetics 101 is that way, I'm uninterested, because proving this wrong won't actually make your conclusion any more or less true........and neither will proving it right do so. There is no such requirement on my end. In case you've missed it, all of the times I've said it...I agree with you, that extinction is purposeless. I' simply hoping that I can explain to you why this does not have the ability to inform us as to whether or not -nature- is purposeless.

Another area where your straw man fails is that shitting is largely involuntary.

Again, it isn't a strawman...but lay that aside, isn't extinction "largely involuntary"? Jesus...fucking...christ......

Therefore, it is irrelevant to the whole argument in analysing whether you act with purpose or not. Purpose implies voluntary action. My extinction argument is framed in a way that the premises can be reasonably assigned to an action of nature (creation). This is linked to how I defined nature as the reason why things are.

You have a habit of declaring any disagreement with you irrelevant and letting the statement hang as though it demonstrated itself. I don't think that you're going to be able to successfully employ logic until you get over that. You're now referring to mystery arguments that you haven't made as further strength of an argument that you -have- made? Pretty sure it doesn't work like that. My argument is framed in an identical manner to your own. As an inductive argument, assume for a moment that my statements are true, that we live in a universe where they are true. Would those statements lead you to my conclusion? I doubt it, and the truth value of the statements isn't the operative factor at all, not in my argument, and not in yours.

I'm not trying to dispute your statements (notice that I have assumed them in each and every case), I'm tring to show you why, even if those statement's -were true- (which, again...I think they are) you still would not have a strong argument.

I'm not sure why you found it necessary to include this. If it makes you feel better I did struggle at first. The exercises were boring writing exercise. The stuff you hear on youtube debates only came 7 chapters in. That was fun but not the reason I too the course. I did it to improve my problem solving skills. Anyway I ended up maintaining a B average. Still not an A but this was just a voluntary thing. I did not need this for degree purposes.

Then you should understand why repeatedly calling me a dum-dum rather than addressing my statements didn't hold any water either. Here I am, trying to help you further improve your problem solving skills. Take it or leave it. Again, we have valid -deductive- means by which to establish that nature has no purpose, so no wishy washy inductive shit is required. This is an exercise in craft, not me trying to prove you wrong, that nature -does- have a purpose. The long and short of this, if I can only get one thing acrossed, is that the difference in mechanics between induction and deduction is one of condition. Deductive arguments require necessity (which is why we consider them to be stronger than inductive arguments), inductive arguments will settle for sufficiency......but that implicational relationship - that sufficient condition...-must be present-...the relevance of this is not in dispute, and it's the rock upon which your argument (and my argument above) has scuttled itself. It actually doesn't matter whether or not the statements either of us made are true, we cannot trust our conclusions. If those conclusions are true (and in the case of your conclusions regarding natures purpose, and more appropriately the lack there-of, we both think that they are), they are not made so by the statements we offered, but some other (undiscovered, unknown, or undeclared) reason.