ciphergoth: (Default)
[personal profile] ciphergoth
I never post, so here's a rant written in IM I want to preserve. Edited somewhat.

here's how it seems to me
there's an argument for the singularity that goes like this
"A, B, C, D, and E all seem likely"
"E says that A + B + C + D = Singularity"
and then people say "No, the singularity is rubbish"
and we say "do you disagree with A, B, C, D, or E?"
and they say "You're all a bunch of wild-eyed dreamers"
and we say "Err, so is that C you disagree with?"
and they say "It's religion for geeks, man!"
and we say "Err, but..."
and ... they just DON'T FUCKING ENGAGE AT ALL.
That's why I keep pointing at http://ciphergoth.dreamwidth.org/357313.html
it takes the contrapositive, and says "If not singularity, then either ¬A or ¬B or ¬C or ¬D or ¬E"
No-one said "oh wait, you forgot F"
but none of ¬A or ¬B or ¬C or ¬D or ¬E got a lot of support.

I am willing to accept that this misrepresents singularity critics horribly - you certainly don't all call us names for example! But I hope the broad form of my frustration is clear and if I'm confused I hope it makes it easier for you to clear up my confusion :-)

Date: 2012-02-21 05:23 pm (UTC)
simont: A picture of me in 2016 (Default)
From: [personal profile] simont
Indeed. And you'd also hope that the argument and counterargument can be played off against each other to find the place where (the latter claims that) the former fails.

(The analogy which suggested my original comment was that of a maths teacher faced with a complicated and fiddly 'proof' by a student of a result the teacher knows to be false for some unarguable reason like having a clear counterexample. The teacher can be confident of the falsity of the result without actually having to find the faulty step in the student's proof – but of course they probably have the annoying job of finding the flaw anyway, and will be aided in this by actually using the counterexample they have in mind and seeing where the proof stops making true statements about it.)

Date: 2012-03-30 09:32 am (UTC)
reddragdiva: (Default)
From: [personal profile] reddragdiva
Yes: it's easy to make bad arguments that are hard to take apart well enough to convince the person who made the bad argument. (I'm working on this Gish gallop this week, for example. I'm only bothering because there are ex-YECs who have said the reply article would have actually helped them.)

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Paul Crowley

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