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This Message Does Not Exist

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Re: This Message Does Not Exist

#251

Post by djur »

skyechurch wrote: post #209
goatlover wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably haven't thought deeply about the problems. Usually they expose some issue with our concepts or assumptions. Things we take to be obvious and simple aren't always on careful reflection.

I was being glib, of course. Presumably there's some legitimate technical philosophical issue, and actual philosophers are capable of using answering machines and even landline telephones without having all their assumptions about reality collapse around them like a PKD novel (those born prior to 1980, anyway). But, like Jay Z, I've got problems of a more pressing nature, and legitimately don't see how this matters.…

The implication here seems to be that people can't think about and discuss philosophical problems and also take care of more immediate physical concerns at the same time. Do you feel that way about other intellectual endeavors without immediate applications, like "pure" science and mathematics?

Re: This Message Does Not Exist

#252

Post by djur »

vsuperpower2020 wrote: post #199
goatlover wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably haven't thought deeply about the problems. Usually they expose some issue with our concepts or assumptions. Things we take to be obvious and simple aren't always on careful reflection.

This may be true, but if it is the canadian journal of philosophy is doing their reputation no favors by publishing the "answering machine paradox". Paradox. Paradox. That's a funny word, isn't it? Paradox.

A paradox is just a statement that is self-contradictory. It doesn't mean a difficult or mind-bending problem as it is sometimes used colloquially.

Re: This Message Does Not Exist

#253

Post by earth-adventure »

rayval wrote: post #214
runlaszlorun wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely off topic, but does remind me of a Mexican movie ‘I Am No Longer Here’ that I’d seen not long ago was astonishingly good for something I hadn’t heard of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_No_Longer_Here

By the way, that is a great movie. Or do I say "was"?

Thats a great movie, if you are just making that statement.

That was a great movie, if you've just finished watching it.

Re: This Message Does Not Exist

#254

Post by graycat »

One relatively simple but informal description of the problem is that the statement is self-referencing.

Related is the Bertrand Russell paradox:

X = {z | z is not an element of z}

So, X is an element of X if and only if it is not -- a contradiction.

The usual solution was to have two steps:

(1) Over here, say, on the left, we have everything we want to regard as elements.

(2) On the right, we have everything we want to regard as sets. The sets consist only of elements.

That's a good fix.

For more, there is the elegant, long popular, P. Halmos Naive Set Theory, now available in PDF, LaTeX, etc.

For more there is the appendix to J. Kelley, General Topology.

For more there is P. Suppes, Axiomatic Set Theory.

For more, sure you want more????

Re: This Message Does Not Exist

#255

Post by ryukoposting »

tadala wrote: post #234
ryukoposting wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call myself a philosphy expert by any means (love me some Epicurus) but I think the previous commenter is right. As far as philosophical dilemmas go, the answering machine problem is contrived at best. It relies on a pretty obvious mischaracterization of the situation at hand - there isn't a person saying "I am not here" at all, it's a machine playing a recording. With the necessary context, the dilemma be…

On the other hand, the other response to OP's comment is a perfect display of what he means. A lot of tech bro hubris/idiocy.

In that case, let me go a step further: although I wouldn't respond the way some other folks have, I get why they would. Many of my most memorable and most intellectually stimulating classes were those that weren't related to my engineering degree. The philosophy classes, though, never even approached "intellectually stimulating" status. I wrote a good 80-100 pages of pseudointellectual drivel about half-baked analogies like the "answering machine paradox," and accrued thousands in debt in the process.

Another thing: The great thing about Philosophy is that there are no wrong answers. But, the bad thing about philosophy classes is there are wrong answers. Open-endedness and free thinking don't scale to 150-seat lecture halls, indifferent TAs, and PhD-candidate "professors" doing the bare minimum to get a diploma.

Re: This Message Does Not Exist

#257

Post by sethammons »

b112 wrote: post #228
andybak wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rest my case.

Your case was "that made up 'science' is real, and you can't say no because you haven't studied it for years". I don't need to study astrology for years, to know it's nonsense in about 10 minutes. Yet I've hear a lot more philosophical blather than that, and so yes, I have enough data to make a determination. There's an inner logic to tarot cards, books and books on it, but that doesn't make it useful or valuable.

> I don't need to study astrology for years, to know it's nonsense in about 10 minutes.

Copernicus deniers didn't need years of study either as their source material said differently.

I'm not saying anything either way on philosophy, I'm simply pointing out that your presented logic there is flawed

Re: This Message Does Not Exist

#258

Post by necovek »

tjoff wrote: post #186
phantomathkg wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web app have storage. It is only because the app you use doesn’t use it properly. Even gmail has offline mode.

But it can't trust the storage. Maybe you are in incognito. Maybe you are not using your own computer etc. Not particularly likely it will ever sync again.

You are setting different goals: a client (non-web) app running on a different computer would not have access to local storage for another computer where that same app was running locally. FWIW, even on the same computer, you can frequently run the same client using a different profile, user account or similar, and it wouldn't have access to another instance of that same client.

Browser does have local storage and you can assume it keeps the local storage.

The main difference is that browsers tend to be "OSes" for multiple apps.

Re: This Message Does Not Exist

#259

Post by b112 »

Ma8ee wrote: post #242
b112 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your argument, is that one must spend years studying nonsense, to have an opinion on its worth? I've already clarified why this is not so. Thus, your main, true disagreement is that you do not agree with my assessment.

No, my argument is that you lack even a rudimentary understanding what it is all about. You only need some curiosity and an open mind to get that. I’m certain there are something in Wikipedia that can help.

I'm sorry my friend, but Wikipedia cannot help philosophy. Nothing can.

Re: This Message Does Not Exist

#260

Post by sentientslug »

nuancebydefault wrote: post #239
galaxyLogic wrote: post #116

The problem is that the message does not speak the truth. If you can read a message it clearly must exist because you cannot read non-existent messages, can you? Can anyone? CAN ANYONE HERE READ NON-EXISTENT MESSAGES? The message should have said "This message is not saved on the server. If you close this window without copying and saving its text you cannot retrieve it from the server ever again.

You might argue that 'not existing' in general does not even exist. It reminds me of the ted ex talk where a man states that the universe does not exist because it is everything and if we would make a list of everything, the list would not be included as a topic of the list.

I think you’re describing something akin to Cantor’s diagonal argument
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