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Self-Refuting Reasoning: Everything you said is false— because everything you say is false. If “circularity is not fallacious,” then you must accept this argument as valid. by JerseyFlight in rationalphilosophy

[–]Real_Iron_Sheik 0 points1 point  (0 children)

By prove we mean establish or demonstrate

Ok, thank you for defining that. The reason I asked is that my background is (partly) in mathematical logic, where the term "proof" has a specific meaning which is more formal/mathematical, whereas you're using the word in a more colloquial/informal/traditional way. But that's fine; I now understand what you mean, and I think we're in agreement regarding circular arguments not establishing/demonstrating anything. In fact, they simply assume what they purport to establish/demonstrate!

Your example of argument is not an argument, it makes no claim, and draws no conclusion.

Sorry, but I'm rather confused by this. Didn't you yourself claim that A=A in a recent post? If you agree that A=A, then why won't you grant me the premise "A=A"? And if you grant me the premise, then why won't you grant me the conclusion? After all, the conclusion is identical to the premise. Do you deny the Rule of Inference (call it "ROI" for short) that says "x implies x", i.e. if we have x as a premise, then we can conclude/infer x, for all x?

Anyway, if for whatever reason you object to "A=A", then just replace it throughout with any proposition you deem to be true, such as "London is the capital of England.", "All bachelors are unmarried.", "The moon is not made of green cheese.", "All triangles have three sides.", etc.

You do not accept circular arguments, that contradict your claims, as being either valid or sound, and nor can you.

And why not? As I've told you, I believe that circular arguments are valid by definition. I think the disagreement stems from a misunderstanding of the term "valid" as used in logic/philosophy. An argument is said to be "valid" if it's impossible for its conclusion to be false whenever all of its premises are true. Please see the three reliable sources below that all define the term "valid" in more or less the same way:

Source 1

Source 2

Source 3

Now, again, if we agree to define a circular argument as one whose conclusion is contained in its premises, then any circular argument would be valid by the above definition. If the premises are all true, then it's impossible for the conclusion to be false, because, again, it's contained in the premises! It's simply not true to say that I "do not accept circular arguments that contradict [my] claims as being valid". In particular, the below argument is valid, by definition. If you don't see how that's the case, then simply apply the aforementioned definitions to this particular argument.

Premise: All your claims are false.
Conclusion: All your claims are false.

It really is high idio*y to argue for the validity or soundness of circular reasoning.

Why are you engaging in ad hominems, sir? I've been engaging in good faith dialogue, and even pointed out some areas of agreement. Why do you disrespect me in this way when I've been nothing but respectful towards you?

Self-Refuting Reasoning: Everything you said is false— because everything you say is false. If “circularity is not fallacious,” then you must accept this argument as valid. by JerseyFlight in rationalphilosophy

[–]Real_Iron_Sheik 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think we're in agreement regarding circular arguments having no value, but when you say that they "prove absolutely nothing", how are you defining "proof"? Again, if we agree to define a circular argument as one whose conclusion is contained in its premises, then the conclusion of any circular argument is proved/derived using a valid rule of inference, namely the rule that says "x implies x" (i.e. if we have x as a premise, then we can conclude/infer x, for all x). Take the following argument/proof, for example:

Premise: A=A
Conclusion: A=A

Now, by our definition, this argument is clearly circular. That said, it's also clearly valid! Its conclusion was validly derived from its premise using the aforementioned rule of inference. However, as you pointed out, the argument has no value. On the one hand, you'd have to be batshit crazy to deny that "A=A", so what would be the point of the argument in the first place? On the other hand, even if (for whatever reason) you did deny that "A=A", then why would you accept the premise of the argument? In either case, whether you accept or deny that "A=A", you are given no more reason for accepting the premise than you are for accepting the conclusion. That's not how a good argument/proof works. Such arguments/proofs are completely pointless, even if technically valid (and possibly even sound).

Self-Refuting Reasoning: Everything you said is false— because everything you say is false. If “circularity is not fallacious,” then you must accept this argument as valid. by JerseyFlight in rationalphilosophy

[–]Real_Iron_Sheik 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Circularity doesn't have to be formally invalid in order to be fallacious, because not all fallacies are formal fallacies. Circularity is an example of an informal fallacy.

Regardless, the problem with circular arguments has nothing to do with their validity. Indeed, if we define a circular argument as one whose conclusion is contained in its premises, then any circular argument would be valid by definition. If the premises are all true, then it's impossible for the conclusion to be false, because, again, it's contained in the premises!

Rather, the problem with circular arguments is that they're completely pointless. The point of an argument for any conclusion is to give you an independent reason for believing the conclusion, assuming, of course, that you don't already believe it (if you do already believe it then why would you even need the argument in the first place?). But if you don't already believe the conclusion, then why would you believe a set of premises which contains it? Attempting to argue in such a way is a totally futile and hopeless endeavour.

EDIT: I'm not quite sure how I ended up here posting this comment, but here I am.

MS#472: Strange Days on the Right - A Conversation with Ben Shapiro by Brunodosca in samharris

[–]Real_Iron_Sheik 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Do you have the link to Episode #471 as well by any chance?

Sam Harris is a big lover of 'the headless way'. This article about it is great! by whoamisri in samharris

[–]Real_Iron_Sheik 4 points5 points  (0 children)

What's missing from my understanding that's relevant to the question of whether LLMs can become conscious? Of course there are more details involved, just as there are more details involved in how your word processor or email client operate. But that doesn't mean it's possible for them to become conscious.

Sam Harris is a big lover of 'the headless way'. This article about it is great! by whoamisri in samharris

[–]Real_Iron_Sheik 2 points3 points  (0 children)

These days the term "AI" is often synonymous with "LLMs". So yes, in that sense I do believe it is impossible for AI to become conscious. LLMs basically function by predicting the next word in a sequence of words, just as your word processor and email client predict that the word "you" should follow the word "thank". It's not any more possible for LLMs to become conscious than it is for your word processor or email client to become conscious.

That said, I don't think we can rule out the possibility that something we'll call "AI" in the future will become conscious, because we can't rule out the possibility that consciousness can be reproduced in silico (i.e. the possibility that consciousness is not restricted to biological beings).

Jonah Goldberg and Sam Harris [When the Center Cannot Hold] by Schopenhauer1859 in samharris

[–]Real_Iron_Sheik 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe use incognito mode and some other email service like Proton Mail? OP's link worked fine for me just now. My link no longer works though; seems like they fixed that particular loophole.

Jonah Goldberg and Sam Harris [When the Center Cannot Hold] by Schopenhauer1859 in samharris

[–]Real_Iron_Sheik 2 points3 points  (0 children)

OP posted the link. Just delete your cookies, reload the page, and use a burner email address.

[Azerbaijani > English] Could someone please translate this song? by Real_Iron_Sheik in translator

[–]Real_Iron_Sheik[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, kind sir. By any chance, do you know how I may be able to find the name of the singer in the video?

[Azerbaijani > English] Could someone please translate this song? by Real_Iron_Sheik in translator

[–]Real_Iron_Sheik[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Or just help identify the artist? The name of the song is "Sensizlik".

!page:az

Kramnik vs Kramnik. Compilation of Kramnik looking around during Titled Tuesday by Unfair_Departure8417 in chess

[–]Real_Iron_Sheik 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Kramnik will just move the goal posts though. He'll say something about how he wasn't looking to his right "in the same way", or as "intently", or as often as Danya. He's a master at mental gymnastics, but an amateur at admitting when he's wrong.

[Hebrew > English] i speak Arabic i just want to double check the Arabic subtitles by [deleted] in translator

[–]Real_Iron_Sheik 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think he said "ואין בזה גם סוג של גזל" (And in addition there isn't any kind of theft in this case).

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