Arrr! Ive a piracy question for ya maties.....

**peter_g** · June 16th, 2005, 11:51 PM

Originally posted by miker:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by jb.:
Miker, it is logically impossible to prove a negative.

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Think about it.

Improbable, but not impossible.<hr /></blockquote>David Hume would disagree. Some contemporary thinkers would concur. Is it impossible to prove that this circle is not square shaped?

black20circle

jb: A 370% increase in sales is impressive, regardless of Jackson?s starting from a low base.

Jackson isn't broke because of this trial; he is broke because he has had an extravagant lifestyle well beyond his means for years. In relative terms, the expense of this trial is small change. I'm not arguing that the trial didn't harm Jackson, I'm merely saying that for artists, publicity generally equates to money in the bank.

Can we please not talk about Michael Jackson?

**jb_617** · June 17th, 2005, 12:17 PM

I would say that if Jackson had previously sold 3 albums and then sold 12 (400% increase) that it is not impressive.

Miker, it is not "improbable" it really is impossible. That is the foundation of all modern science. Follow the example below:

With regards to the circle question. Since we define a circle as a curve where all points along it are equidistant from the centre. We can show that it is a circle by mathematical proof. Since being a circle and being a square are two mutually exclusive states of being, we can say that it is impossible for the shape to be a square since we have proved it to be a circle. However, we could not say that it isn't a square to start with without proving that it is something else. This is where the layman often stumbles when dealing with rational thought, the second qualifier is regularly omitted from "pop" science and philosophy books. Perhaps a remedial course in the philosophy of science is required.

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Classes start Monday. Bring a pen.

**miker** · June 17th, 2005, 01:17 PM

Modern science does not have all the answers, leaving a probability (howsoever small) that we got it all, or some of it, wrong.

As for proving a negative, I think a context needs to be defined. How 'negative' equates to 'bad' (as in bad publicity) is another fundamental flaw in Greek dualist thinking.

And quite how all this relates to piracy (which I thought jb regarded as negative, thus proving a negative in his own perception) I do not know.

Many things throughout history have been thought to be "impossible" only to make it to reality.

**jb_617** · June 17th, 2005, 02:07 PM

No Miker, you are misunderstanding the meaning of negative. I do not mean negative in the pejorative sense. I mean it in the sense of something that is not. I wrote that it is impossible to prove a negative in response to your post saying that Michael Jackson had been "proved innocent". Innocent in this case being the negative, i.e. nothing had occoured, no crime had been committed. This is not the underlying philosophy of the legal system. the prosecutor must prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that he is guilty. In this case, guilty would be the positive, an event had occoured. Since no compelling eveidence was given, he is not guilty. That is why they say "Not Guilty" as opposed to "Innocent" in court.

In science, we never set out to prove a hypothesis correct. We simply eliminate every possibility of what it cannot be.

As for your stumbling through this line of thought:

And quite how all this relates to piracy (which I thought jb regarded as negative, thus proving a negative in his own perception) I do not know.

I think you are overstretching yourself there.

Let's take another example of a negative that, on the surface, seems easy to prove. Consider the statement:

"Five is not equal to four."

This seems self evident. Clearly, we know that five is not equal to four. So it looks as though you can prove a negative. But, as I said earlier, you actually cannot say that five is not equal to four without defining what five and four are.. This is what we do as scientists when we say that we have "proved" something.

As to your assertation that there is a posibility that modern science got "all, or some of it wrong." That just demonstrates your lack of understanding when it comes to scientific thought. We do not deal in right or wrong answers, we never have. We look for the best explanation that fits the facts. Mostly, at a later date and with more information, the explanation is refined, or disgarded and replaced with another one. And you really shouldn't say "we" got it wrong, because the overwhelming majority of people are not scientists. I am, and a damn good one at that.

And there are no "fundamental flaws" in Greek Dualistic thinking. You clearly do not know what it is if you think that. The whole tennant of Dualistic thinking is to seperate ideas into "form" and "matter". Form being the absolute undeniable truth, and matter being the more malleable realm of ideas. How this, in your mind, relates to defining a context is beyone me. That would be more in the realm of dialectic thinking, and even then only tenuously.

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We do have all the answers, we just don't know what they are yet.

**twister!** · June 17th, 2005, 02:54 PM

Hmmmm... thank god it's Friday!

**miker** · June 17th, 2005, 04:27 PM

I wrote that it is impossible to prove a negative in response to your post saying that Michael Jackson had been "proved innocent"

Do all scientists lack a sense of humour and irony?

As to my request for context, you supplied it:

The whole tennant of Dualistic thinking is to seperate ideas into "form" and "matter". Form being the absolute undeniable truth, and matter being the more malleable realm of ideas. How this, in your mind, relates to defining a context is beyone me.

The context of what you believe is true as opposed to my perception of what I believe is true. With a common definition up-front it is easier to have meaningful debate. That provides the context to go forward. And, correct, the link to piracy is tenuous at best, I'm glad you finally noticed that.

**Matty2phatty** · June 19th, 2005, 06:40 AM

So, in conclusion... pirating films is a bad thing. [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

**jb_617** · June 19th, 2005, 01:12 PM

Miker: nice backtrack on the Jackson thing. No, I don't have a lack of sense of humour or irony, just a very low threshold for incorrect statements with a claim to being based in science.

Peter: interesting points. Allow me to address them.

Firstly, before we go the Popper route, we need to clarify what we're talking about. Perhaps my initial statement was a little clouded. It should probably have read "It is impossible to prove a negative statement." I do not propose to enter into a debate as to what constitutes negative or positive outside of that. As to your assertion that offering direct proof and offering proof by inspection:

"...is meaningless. They are one and the same.

I hope to God you never have to write a scientific paper.

So, onto the matter at hand:

Hegel's dialectical methodology has no meaning in this debate. I was talking about formal logic, not colloquial speech or dialectical methodology. Also, I do not beleive at any point that I mentioned Hegel's theory, or Karl Marx, or any of the other exponents of this type of thought. We're not discussing a difference between thought and action, we are talking about logic. That id why in my initial statement I wrote "logically impossible". The definition of negative with respect to dialectical methodology is somewhat looser and more problematic than it needs to be for the purposes of this discussion.

And please don't tell me that I have no understanding of these things, I have a wall full of certificates in my office that shows that I do. The Philosophy of Science was a subject that I studied as part of my degree for three years, and I studied it seriously. I do not practice "pseudo-intellectual Jedi mind tricks", I practice concrete science, thank you.

The problem here seems, to me at least, that there is a lack of division between formal locical thinking and colloquial speech. It is very simple to say: "There are no married bachelors." or any of the other statements that people trot out to show that "You can prove a negative". In formal logic, we say that we cannot prove the negative case because we cannot test it in every event. Michael Jackson could not logically prove that he did not abuse that child because the possibility exits that he could have. But similarly, the prosecution could not prove that he did. Stalemate. The difference here is that the statement is not deliberatly set out to be impossible.

Finally, I do not get my understanding of the basis for modern science from television shows (I do not think I have ever seen the programme you mentioned). The developing of the idea that proving a negative is logically impossible seems to have been lost to us. I can give you no one person that ever wrote it down (but of course I can't prove that [img]wink.gif[/img] ). However, one person working today that still believes it to be true is Professor Behe:

"I see problems in them similar to McDonald's problems. Perhaps the more interesting question that you raised is that why don't I prove that no Darwinian pathway could ever possibly give rise to an irreducibly complex system. Well that's easy, because it's impossible to prove that. That is trying to prove a negative. In science one simply cannot prove anything. No theory starts out to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that all of its rivals are impossible. But nonetheless, I think that is not necessary, either."

If you still want to discuss this stuff, why don't we move it to another thread?

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Piracy = bad, discuss.

**peter_g** · June 19th, 2005, 03:19 PM

Jb, you truly are a conniving bullshit artist (and I mean that in the nicest possible way).

I will now proceed to prove a negative (that is, that jb is not right). As is always the case when proving a negative, I will simultaneously prove a positive (in this case, that jb is wrong). Incidentally jb, every negative entails a positive, and, conversely, every positive a negative. Thus, the distinction between proving that the circle is not square shaped by proving that it is a circle and proving it ?directly? is meaningless. They are one and the same. Now, granted, it is impossible to prove a negative statement using negative statements only (or a positive statement using negative statements only, as a truely negative statement can only serve to negate an earlier statement), but that doesn?t matter in the slightest.

Originally posted by jb.:
Perhaps a remedial course in the philosophy of science is required.

I strongly agree. A central tenet of philosophy of science, and cornerstone of scientific thought, is empirical falsification as espoused by Karl Popper:

In order to be useful, or even scientific at all, a scientific statement must be falsifiable (that is to say, it is not inherently impossible to prove as negative)

Not only is it possible to prove a negative, but one the main prerequisites to a scientific theory?s wide spread acceptance by the scientific community is that it is possible to falsify it. This is bread and butter philosophy of science, and one of the few things in the world of philosophy of science that there is absolute, controversy-free assent on.

Examples of Negatives that are probably impossible to prove
<ul type="square">[*]God does not exist[*]Fairies do not exist[*]Physic powers, tarot, etcetera don?t work[/list] Examples of Negatives that are possible to prove <ul type="square">[*]That a man did not rape a woman when the man reveals that he lacks the ability to rape her, having been born with an extremely small penis (I read about this on dailyrotten.com)[*]That a circle is not square shaped[/list]As Miker said, it is improbable, not impossible to prove a negative. It is certainly a lot easier to prove a positive, which is why the burden of proof rests with the prosecution in criminal litigation. The defendant does not have to prove that he didn?t commit the crime; he just has to prove that the prosecution can?t prove that he committed the crime. If, however, he can prove that he did not commit the crime, then so much the better for him.

Originally posted by jb.:
This is where the layman often stumbles when dealing with rational thought, the second qualifier is regularly omitted from "pop" science and philosophy books.

I find that extremely ironic and really quite funny, given that you seem to have gotten this ?foundation of all modern science? from an episode of "Law and order: criminal intent" that you were only half paying attention to. You make a silly statement, and in order to avoid capitulating you talk about things like Hegel's dialectical methodology as if they were something you actually understood, so that normal people think they lack the faculty to understand what is in fact obvious: That you are wrong. This pseudo-intellectual?s Jedi mind trick, this doublethink is incredibly effective. Tell me, if ?it is impossible to prove a negative? is such an elementary principle of philosophy of science, what scholar came up with it? Where did you read about it?

The reason I did not point these facts out in my last post is because I wanted to see what ad hoc rationalisation you would conjure up.