Dialogue

[Frank 013]

Frank:
"Unless Thomas starts bringing up credible, non-biased material for consideration I see absolutely no reason to trust anything he says as factual."

Interbane
That's not going to happen without critical thinking skills. I don't think Thomas knows what the word bias means.

Thomas wears his ignorance in this matter as a badge of honor… it is a stupid stance to take at best, harmful at worst… but because of this you are probably correct… and that is a sad truth.

Poor little troll…

Later

[Frank 013]

Chris
Oh shit. We're about to argue over the definition of bias.

LOL!!!

[Thomas Hood]

TH: "How many corpses do you require, Interbane?"

Was this your attempt to win "debate points"? By throwing in an emotionally loaded rhetorical question?

I am trying, Interbane, to indicate the importance and seriousness of this topic. If you think the question is emotional, you should have the experience of being opposed by obtuse persons in matters of life and death.

Yet there's a problem with your classification of intuition, it's not knowledge, as you're claiming.

I am sure you misunderstand me. Intuitive knowledge is knowledge through iconic signs. The sign has the qualities of the thing signified. A fingerprint is iconic with respect to a finger. Think how difficult it would be to fake a fingerprint on the spur of the moment. Not only would a complex pattern of ridges have to be faked, oils and fluids that are transferred in making the print would have to be faked also. DNA may be stolen and planted at a crime scene, but the capacity to fake another's DNA does not now exist. For this reason, iconic signs are trustworthy.

When I experienced the aforementioned laugh as being cruel, I mean that cruelty was inherent in the laugh. In English, a sardonic laugh. Most anyone can come to recognize through subjective respose such malicious laughter, but it has not been described in purely objective terms that would permit machine recognition.

Many of life's important matters hinge on character expressed iconically. My objection to the theist--atheist spectrum is that the spectrum is a narrowing of attention that excludes iconic expression of character.

Tom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconicity

[Frank 013]

TH
I am trying, Interbane, to indicate the importance and seriousness of this topic. If you think the question is emotional, you should have the experience of being opposed by obtuse persons in matters of life and death.

Thomas are you trying to say that you intuitively know when someone is dangerously unstable and get bad feelings when people are going to make decisions that will put their lives in danger?

Are you saying that this intuition is regular and accurate?

Not only do I not believe you… (Unless you would like to provide some credible evidence to support your position) I think you suffer from a misplaced and overinflated feeling of self importance.

Later

[Thomas Hood]

Thomas, why on earth should we believe anything you say at this point?

You should not believe me, Frank. The challenge to your prejudices would create stress in you life. In addition, your atheistic and critical thinking friends would gang up on you, call you names, and question your credibility. I think you are happy enough in the hole you are in now, and my intuition tells me you should not seek another.

Tom

[Frank 013]

TH
You should not believe me, Frank.

Thanks for confirming to everyone that you are not trustworthy.

TH
The challenging to your prejudices would create stress in you life. In addition, your atheistic and critical thinking friends would gang up on you, call you names, and question your credibility.

Actually, it is interesting that you would bring up prejudices and credibility… especially since your credibility is shot due to your prejudice.

TH
I think you are happy enough in the hole you are in now, and my intuition tells me you should not seek another.

Would you care to explain which hole I am in?

I think your intuition is on the fritz again… as usual it seems.

I am not the one here who uses bias and misleading arguments which have led to credibility issues… unlike you.

Later

[Aussie_Lifter]

A little bit of debate is healthy, but this critical thinking rubbish has been going for waay too long.

The posts are just petty now, obviously there's going to be no resolution and I think it's about time we focused on something else.

[Interbane]

TH: "Most anyone can come to recognize through subjective respose such malicious laughter, but it has not been described in purely objective terms that would permit machine recognition."

This is the only part of your post that's relevant. When you say most anyone can come to recognize a sardonic laugh through subjective repose, that's precisely what you did. Since it was done on an unconscious level, however, you weren't aware of this until the aha! moment at dinner two weeks later. There's nothing magical about intuition Thomas. This anecdote is also in no way evidence of your intuitive infallibility.

The rest of you post isn't relevant, but I'll try to untangle the conceptual mess you've woven, just for fun. First of all, iconicity from the Wikipedia article you linked refers to the similarity between a form of a sign and it's meaning. Neither the cruel laugh nor fingerprints have anything to do with any of the three principles of iconicity. I'm not sure what your point in mentioning them was.

You say intuitive knowledge is knowledge through iconic signs. This is false. Intuitive knowledge was proposed by Locke as a mode of knowledge most in tune with direct truth. Over three centuries later, philosophy has distilled what Locke was trying to get at. His intuitive knowledge is now known as analytic propositions, which are propositions whose predicate concepts are contained in it's subject concepts. There's nothing magical or metaphysical here, it's simply the repetition of meaning. An example here is sugar is sweet. This is an analytic proposition. That knowledge of a spirit is divined intuitively by Gnostics is a synthetic proposition and therefore isn't "self-verifying".

Modern philosophy and cognitive science has also given us understanding of what intuition is, and I've repeated it many times. Still, you cling to some archaic understanding of the concept which is outdated and patently false.

TH: "I am trying, Interbane, to indicate the importance and seriousness of this topic. If you think the question is emotional, you should have the experience of being opposed by obtuse persons in matters of life and death."

If this truly is a matter of life and death, rather than a discussion where the subject of death is mentioned, then there must be someone who is currently being held hostage about to be murdered unless you convince me you're correct. Otherwise, it's not a matter of life and death, but a discussion. Instead of realizing this, you take things a step further and hope to win more corny 'debate points' by mentioning death to try and gain the moral high ground. Your deceit in this matter has dug you a moral ditch.

[Thomas Hood]

You say intuitive knowledge is knowledge through iconic signs. This is false.

You think it's false because you do not understand iconicity. But that's OK. It's hard to understand. Concrete examples:

1. Unique features of a typewriter's type are impressed on the paper during typing -- wear on the type, spacing, chips, a blurring accumulation of ink, etc. The machine (transducer) may be identified by its iconic modification of its output.

2. Fist in telegraphy is the inadvertent modification of a transmission by the telegrapher. Recognition of fist was important in WWII anti-submarine warfare. Fist is iconic.

3. Vocabulary use correlates with the education level of the speaker.

Note that in these cases iconic interpretation is irrelevant to content. It doesn't matter what was typed, transmitted or spoken. To experience iconicity, one must ignore what and focus on how. Religion and art are an iconic interpretation of experience.

Tom

[Interbane]

The nuances of modes of communication are not intuitive knowledge. Instances of this concept may be more readily picked up on by intuition, but it does not equate to intuition. Intuition can also apply to patterns in your environment, introspection, and bio-mechanics. If you believe iconicity applies to all these areas, you're broadening the scope of this subjective lens beyond utility.