Is the statement "Claims demand evidence" always true?

[bennyboy]

No, I wouldn't...because my use of the term truth isn't as malleable as your own, like I keep telling you, over and over again.  I don;t have to wonder whether or not there are a great many ways that creatures can experience.  That much is well evidenced just in the small set of creatures here, on earth.  Truth, however, is the product of a well defined system, so unless your bats and worms and possible beings are manufacturing logical statements..............

I've looked through many pages of this text, and while I've found you oft quibbling about my use of the word, I can't find where you clearly defined it. I do have some selective learning disabilities, though, so maybe to spare me the pain of rereading the whole thread several times, you would be so kind as to define "truth" in say 50 words or less?

It seems to me that all the "equivocations" you claim I've made come down to the use of conditional statement or axioms. If I say "Where X, Y, and where not X, (possibly) not Y," is this illogical? Can truth as you define it not be expressed in this way?

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Propositions are generated by thinking up whatever the hell we like.  Sound propositions are generated by a search for and assessment of evidence.  One is useful in determining truth, the other is not.

It's like you WANT the semantics to keep spinning into the void forever and ever.  Let me guess, "evidence" is "that which allows us to reach sound propositions," amirite? At some point, could we please talk about some claims about the real world, some real evidence, and arrive at the point where you take a clear position on something?

[The Grand Nudger]

I've described what I mean by truth, and by evidence, more than enough times in this thread.   Equivocations always boil down to the same things, it's by that similarity that we describe them as such.   The point, Benny, of insisting on uniform usage of terms and of demanding sound propositions is to -keep- reason from spinning off into the void, semantic or otherwise.

[emjay]

Just to say, after consulting a dictionary, equivocation doesn't mean quite what I thought it meant; I thought it just meant conflating terms, but the dictionary implies that equivocation is when it is done deliberately in a willful attempt to mislead. So I'm sorry about that Benny, I didn't mean that; I just thought you were conflating terms like I tend to do when I talk about neurons.

[The Grand Nudger]

In my experience, when people equivocate, they don't do so intentionally.  They honestly don't understand or see that they are conflating separate concepts called, by some or by them, by the same term. Leading to the inevitable "No I'm not!" response to having their comments identified as such.

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You're probably better off checking sources specific to philosophy to understand the meaning of a fallacy, as the dictionary is, nine of ten times, giving you the conversational connotations.

1. The fallacy of equivocation is an argument which exploits the ambiguity of a term or phrase which has occurred at least twice in an argument, such that on the first occurrence it has one meaning and on the second another meaning.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies/ 

It's the first fallacy listed, and for good reason, lol. An example from this thread would include questions as to whether "I" am sitting in my chair gaming..or "I" am pieing the corner with an AWP about to hs a noob near a statue. "I" has been equivocated upon. One of them is true, the other is not - not even "true in context"...it's not even accurate. This is why using the two examples to establish varying truths in context, or simultaneously true but contradictory statements (paradox) fails. If we agree upon the subject of I (is it me, or my ingame avatar) what may seem to be a disparity vanishes...and if we examine the phenomenon of a video game, we find that there is no corner, no statue, just arrays of lit bits. A more comprehensive refutation of a conflation between the two can hardly be imagined. Not only is the equivocation invalid, as all equivocations are, it also rests on unsound premises.

[bennyboy]

I've described what I mean by truth, and by evidence, more than enough times in this thread.   

I'm asking you to distill it down.  Please stop saying you've done it, and humor me by doing it once more, simply and. . . unequivocally.  I'm not saying you haven't, I'm saying I can't find it, and I'd like you to dumb it down for me.

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Just to say, after consulting a dictionary, equivocation doesn't mean quite what I thought it meant; I thought it just meant conflating terms, but the dictionary implies that equivocation is when it is done deliberately in a willful attempt to mislead. So I'm sorry about that Benny, I didn't mean that; I just thought you were conflating terms like I tend to do when I talk about neurons.

I assume you've found an example on your own, but I'll give one just to be very clear.  Christians might say something like, "Well. . . we know  there are physical laws, nobody debates that.  But maybe we should talk about who the law-MAKER was."  It's obvious to us that the laws of physics aren't meant to be viewed as those kinds of laws, but very much less obvious to the Christians-- I'm pretty sure that WLC had explicitly used that argument, actually.

To be fair to Rhythm, I have used some words in different ways.  That's because it's a long thread and I'm turning over a few different ideas in my head.  But using different definitions is only really an equivocation fallacy if it's a deliberate attempt to redirect the outcome of a discussion.  Sometimes using "true" to mean that a statement is accurate, or sometimes using it to say that is logically coherent, isn't really an equivocation fallacy.

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It's the first fallacy listed, and for good reason, lol.  An example from this thread would include questions as to whether "I" am sitting in my chair gaming..or "I" am pieing the corner with an AWP about to hs a noob near a statue.  "I" has been equivocated upon.  One of them is true, the other is not - not even "true in context"...it's not even accurate.  This is why using the two examples to establish varying truths in context, or simultaneously true but contradictory statements (paradox) fails.  If we agree upon the subject of I (is it me, or my ingame avatar) what may seem to be a disparity vanishes...and if we examine the phenomenon of a video game, we find that there is no corner, no statue, just arrays of lit bits.  A more comprehensive refutation of a conflation between the two can hardly be imagined.  Not only is the equivocation invalid, as all equivocations are, it also rests on unsound premises.

This really isn't an equivocation. In both cases, I'm using the word "I" to talk about an experiencing agent experiencing stuff. I do in fact experience a dragon-- you will argue since it's not really really a real dragon, it doesn't count as a dragon at all. But nevertheless, there it is, and I can see smoke coming out of its mouth.

You seem to think there's the "real" I and the game avatar. That's fine, but I can pretty easily demonstrate that your "real" life is a virtual experience as well. There is, for example, no color in the universe. Apples are, in fact, not "red." We convert signals from various receptors in our eyes to chemical-electrical signals, process them, and finally, at the end of a chain of billions of discrete physical events, say, "Aha! I see something red!" Do you think there is so much difference between photons coming from a high-definition monitor and those coming from say a star?

No. The difference is that you think one particular input into your brain represents something really, really, real, and one doesn't. But therein lies the rub-- as many times as you claim I'm equivocating, you are special pleading. You are insisting on taking your metaphysical view as THE context, rather than A context, and filtering everything through that worldview, despite having no philosophical, evidential or other means to prove that your view is right. (I'd say "true" but I don't feel like another golden shower right now)

[emjay]

In my experience, when people equivocate, they don't do so intentionally.  They honestly don't understand or see that they are conflating separate concepts called, by some or by them, by the same term. Leading to the inevitable "No I'm not!" response to having their comments identified as such.

---

You're probably better off checking sources specific to philosophy to understand the meaning of a fallacy, as the dictionary is, nine of ten times, giving you the conversational connotations.

1. The fallacy of equivocation is an argument which exploits the ambiguity of a term or phrase which has occurred at least twice in an argument, such that on the first occurrence it has one meaning and on the second another meaning.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies/ 

It's the first fallacy listed, and for good reason, lol. An example from this thread would include questions as to whether "I" am sitting in my chair gaming..or "I" am pieing the corner with an AWP about to hs a noob near a statue. "I" has been equivocated upon. One of them is true, the other is not - not even "true in context"...it's not even accurate. This is why using the two examples to establish varying truths in context, or simultaneously true but contradictory statements (paradox) fails. If we agree upon the subject of I (is it me, or my ingame avatar) what may seem to be a disparity vanishes...and if we examine the phenomenon of a video game, we find that there is no corner, no statue, just arrays of lit bits. A more comprehensive refutation of a conflation between the two can hardly be imagined. Not only is the equivocation invalid, as all equivocations are, it also rests on unsound premises.

My definition was:

"equivocate To make a statement that is capable of being taken in more than one way, with the aim of exploiting the ambiguity."

From the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford Quick Reference), by Simon Blackburn, published: Feb 25, 2016 [Kindle]

So it was a philosophical source but which, when comparing to the length of your definition, only tells me I need to get a better philosophical dictionary

Anyway, the statue example was a tricky one for me because it appears to contain two (sets of?) uses of the word "I", one which is (arguably) valid and one which is ambiguous. The first use, the apparently valid one, is referring to personal experience in the moment, in which case you can indeed, in one moment, see the game as just pixels on a screen when you're in a grounded, objective frame of mind (or otherwise outside that context), but in another moment be so immersed in the game (or book, or film, or dream etc... as per my first post in this thread) that it becomes true and real to you in the moment... so much that you can say to someone who interrupts you "hang on a minute, I'm just about to get killed! [in the game]" and pretty much mean it. So arguably that usage is fine, provided it's in the moment. But the ambiguity for me comes from the second usage, when it's no longer in the moment as is the case when talking past tense about it or otherwise from a perspective outside the immediate context, such as in this thread. In that case, the common way to refer to an experience in another context is to qualify a statement with details about that context... such as 'I was dreaming and I saw such and such' rather than just 'I saw such and such'. And if you leave that context information out you can reasonably expect someone to ask you to provide it if they are unclear what you mean, again that being the usual/common response.

So if equivocation/conflation is defined as an undefined/unexplained deviation from the generally accepted (ie usual/common) use of a term - in this case how out of context information is usually referred to - and which leads to confusion and ambiguity because it differs from the accepted use of a term (ie most people's assumptions about how the term should be used), then that's why I concluded that Benny's statue argument was equivocation/conflation on the second usage of "I" but not (arguably) the first.

[emjay]

Just to say, after consulting a dictionary, equivocation doesn't mean quite what I thought it meant; I thought it just meant conflating terms, but the dictionary implies that equivocation is when it is done deliberately in a willful attempt to mislead. So I'm sorry about that Benny, I didn't mean that; I just thought you were conflating terms like I tend to do when I talk about neurons.

I assume you've found an example on your own, but I'll give one just to be very clear.  Christians might say something like, "Well. . . we know  there are physical laws, nobody debates that.  But maybe we should talk about who the law-MAKER was."  It's obvious to us that the laws of physics aren't meant to be viewed as those kinds of laws, but very much less obvious to the Christians-- I'm pretty sure that WLC had explicitly used that argument, actually.

To be fair to Rhythm, I have used some words in different ways.  That's because it's a long thread and I'm turning over a few different ideas in my head.  But using different definitions is only really an equivocation fallacy if it's a deliberate attempt to redirect the outcome of a discussion.  Sometimes using "true" to mean that a statement is accurate, or sometimes using it to say that is logically coherent, isn't really an equivocation fallacy.

I hope it's clear by now that that's not what I meant nor did Rhythm (Note: bring back Rhythm... and bring back fucking Mario (literally )! /protest ) if his post to me about it usually being unintentional is anything to go by.

And arguably even with such an extreme example as the one you've given it's not necessarily intentional on the part of a theist, just ignorant. Unless of course, they follow the letter of their law (ie do not [explicitly] lie) rather than the spirit (do not be dishonest/deceive; explicitly or by omission)... in which case it could be deliberate but just rationalised away on the grounds that 'it wasn't really lying... I just didn't correct anyone's assumptions... so it's their fault for not asking questions, not mine'. In other words in that scenario they tell the truth, but not 'the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth [so help them God ]'.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm asking you to distill it down.  Please stop saying you've done it, and humor me by doing it once more, simply and. . . unequivocally.  I'm not saying you haven't, I'm saying I can't find it, and I'd like you to dumb it down for me.

The product of valid arguments supplied with sound propositions.  

This really isn't an equivocation.

It really is.  

In both cases, I'm using the word "I" to talk about an experiencing agent experiencing stuff.  I do in fact experience a dragon-- you will argue since it's not really really a real dragon, it doesn't count as a dragon at all.  But nevertheless, there it is, and I can see smoke coming out of its mouth.  You seem to think there's the "real" I and the game avatar.

I seem to think that, because there is a "real" you, and an avatar in a video game.

That's fine, but I can pretty easily demonstrate that your "real" life is a virtual experience as well.

Which would be pointless, because it doesn't make me the ingame avatar in question even if true.  You may be an avatar in your own internal game (I certainly think that you are..but I can't prove that, I can't call it true), but that won't make you the avatar in Skyrim.

 There is, for example, no color in the universe.  Apples are, in fact, not "red."  We convert signals from various receptors in our eyes to chemical-electrical signals, process them, and finally, at the end of a chain of billions of discrete physical events, say, "Aha!  I see something red!"  Do you think there is so much difference between photons coming from a high-definition monitor and those coming from say a star?

Red is a wavelength of light.  If a high definition monitor is putting off light in the range of blue and a star is putting off light in the range of red - there's at least that difference between them, regardless of similarity, regardless of the fact that light is made of photons. To put it a simpler way (since you lose your shit when talking about light and photons), cookies and cakes are both made with flour, sugar and eggs...and yet......

No.  The difference is that you think one particular input into your brain represents something really, really, real, and one doesn't.

LOL, I actually think that they both represent something real, but that you're horrible at both rational thought and accurate descriptions....leading to posts like these.

But therein lies the rub-- as many times as you claim I'm equivocating, you are special pleading.  You are insisting on taking your metaphysical view as THE context, rather than A context, and filtering everything through that worldview, despite having no philosophical, evidential or other means to prove that your view is right.  (I'd say "true" but I don't feel like another golden shower right now)

Oh ffs Benny.  "No I'm not, you are!" It doesn't -matter- whether or not my metaphysical views are right. I understand that you'd like to bicker about that, and that's fine, but bring something other than sloppy descriptions and equivocations to do so...that's all I ask. I ask that, because, supposing it were wrong, we won't exactly figure that out by reference to the sorts of things you keep foisting in thread. We won't figure -anything- out that way. That's why I avoid providing you with the means to bicker. It's uninformative and frustrating. Here we arrive at the part where I inform you that this defense of equivocation as context, too, is entirely fallacious. An appeal to hypocrisy. If it were true, you wouldn't exactly have rescued any statement you made.

[bennyboy]

I'm asking you to distill it down.  Please stop saying you've done it, and humor me by doing it once more, simply and. . . unequivocally.  I'm not saying you haven't, I'm saying I can't find it, and I'd like you to dumb it down for me.

The product of valid arguments supplied with sound propositions.  

Okay, you've taken one step. Why don't you explain what arguments are valid, and what propositions are sound? How do you know which are valid and sound?

I seem to think that, because there is a "real" you, and an avatar in a video game.

This is philosophically debatable. In both cases, it's just an agent of the senses sensing stuff. It's not even that important, because that was one example of context, and there are very many others.

Which would be pointless, because it doesn't make me the ingame avatar in question even if true.  You may be an avatar in your own internal game (I certainly think that you are..but I can't prove that, I can't call it true), but that won't make you the avatar in Skyrim.

See, you've focused on this "I" while skipping the point of that example. You can say, "I" and "my avatar" if you want, it really doesn't matter. Go ahead and say, "In the context defined by pretending an on-screen avatar is a real person, the dragon is real." You can say it's not really really real, but there is the dragon-- smoke coming out of its nose, a jingling sound as it move around atop its pile of gold, etc.

The same goes for dreams. And in dreams, at least sometimes, you are not aware that you're dreaming, and may not even be Khemikal but might think you're some guy named Rhythm for some reason. In that context, you are having a direct subjective experience of "dragon." Now, you can argue it's not really really really real, cuz you know stuff about reality. And I'd respond that you really don't-- unless you have access to a layer of metaphysical truth to which you clearly do not have access.

All of material monism is truth-in-context: "In the context of the Universe as I understand it, bodies in space are drawn together by a mysterious force called 'gravity.'" Or "In the context of a blind organism, color doesn't exist."-- because we know that color is a representative experience, not a physical reality.

Red is a wavelength of light.

The hell it is. You are conflating correlates with their subjective counterparts again. Yes, you can find out that "red" light is x nano-meters wavelength or whatever, but that's only because the human brain processes light of that frequency as red-- just like the flatness of a table or the beauty of a symphony, neither of which exists outside a subjective agent's experience of it. By the time your moment is assembled into a compound idea including redness, it has long (I mean billions and billions of logical operations) ceased to have anything to do with that frequency of light.

This is very easily proven by the fact that we can dream in color. Do you think in any part of the brain whatsoever, there's a record of the "wavelength of light"? No way, dude, I can't imagine even you would say that.

LOL, I actually think that they both represent something real, but that you're horrible at both rational thought and accurate descriptions....leading to posts like these.

That's because you aren't aware that by "rational" you mean "according to my world view," and that your world view is one based on arbitrary assumptions, not rational conclusions based on evidence as you like to claim and apparently to believe. You feel things are a certain way, and so you assert that they are, and beg the question constantly in doing so.

Oh ffs Benny.  "No I'm not, you are!"  It doesn't -matter- whether or not my metaphysical views are right.  I understand that you'd like to bicker about that, and that's fine, but bring something other than sloppy descriptions and equivocations to do so...that's all I ask.  I ask that, because, supposing it were wrong, we won't exactly figure that out by reference to the sorts of things you keep foisting in thread.  We won't figure -anything- out that way.  That's why I avoid providing you with the means to bicker.  It's uninformative and frustrating.  Here we arrive at the part where I inform you that this defense of equivocation as context, too, is entirely fallacious.  An appeal to hypocrisy.  If it were true, you wouldn't exactly have rescued any statement you made.

You like to take anything that bothers you, and make it sound debatey, by calling it "appeal to X." Well, your appeal to utility is duly noted and discarded as irrelevant to the idea of "truth," under any definition.

[The Grand Nudger]

Perhaps you should investigate valid argument structures yourself, and save everyone alot of heartache?  If I tell you "you can't phrase the statement that way, it's fallacy "x" it has nothing to do with my worldview (or whether it's accurate or inaccurate, true or false), or something that I personally disagree with.  That's just how the system is arranged.  

No amount of bickering about my worldview will change the rules of that system.  That, too, is described by the system and given a classification as a fallacy.