as I tried doing for many previous pages on the topic of remakes is that you really cannot follow anyone else's argument but your own.
I don't remember much of it right now, but I vividly remember how you couldn't follow my music analogy.
I explained why saying a pencil will fall to the floor when dropped is not a fact (its merely a prediction). Your rebuttal consisted of saying, 'well you know what I really meant, like in a everyday conversational sense and how dare you be intellectual about it!'
Whether you could follow it or not, when I said it, here's the thing:
What you did was needless hairsplitting. A worthy discussion to be having in some other context, but pretty useless here.
My equivalent with opinions, however isn't. One kind of opinion is completely subjective and doesn't describe a factual circumstance - the other does, and is merely less certain than, well, certain knowledge. It was an important distinction in this context.
Why? Well...
If I get accused of fighting someone's opinion as if it were a fact, I wanna know which kind of opinion it was to begin with.
Because the dichotomy you're apparently basing these accusations on, namely that it's either an opinion, or debunkable, is a false dichotomy.
This leads me to believe that maybe if you're saying I'm debunking an opinion as if it were a fact, I wasn't really treating it as a fact, I was merely treating it as a wrong or fallacious judgment, which a judgment, i.e. the "second" kind of opinion... CAN be.
So instead of treating an opinion as fact... I'm treating a debunkable opinion as a debunkable opinion.
That's just one example demonstrating how making the distinctions I'm making, is essential.
Yours, however?
Fact, prediction. Shmediction. It's a DEMONSTRABLE CERTAINTY, period.
This argument is about opinions vs. facts, i.e. subjective statements being confused with objective ones, and unsupported claims with supported claims.
Whether we're talking about facts of history, of current world events, or of how the universe works at all times, doesn't matter an iota here.
Factual statements can be less, or more certain. If they're uncertain enough, they're called "opinions". If they're pretty damn certain, they're called "facts".
Predictions can be less, or more certain. If uncertain enough, they're called opinions. If they're pretty damn certain... how are they called?
Is it "facts"? Or something else? Maybe just "certain prediction"?
I honestly don't know, because I've always thought that certain predictions were called "facts", too.
Not the predictions themselves, but the FACT that if you do something under given circumstances, something WILL happen, as a universal law.
At any rate, I don't see how this has to do with the "topic".
But the question at hand was your misuse of the term fact, which you resist admitting to by calling me out for being "intellectual."
I said "intellectual masturbation", which isn't the same thing.
There's a difference between "intellectual" and "smartass" - the former understands what needs to be said, the latter randomly spews out smart things they know that have nothing to do with the topic at hand, like that a pen would only fall if there's gravity.
All you really contributed was that there's a difference between a factual circumstance and a prediction (which has nothing to do with anything here), and that some particular thing I called a certainty, is maybe just a little bit less certain.
Ok... so what? There are things that are more certain than dying from falling from the 10th floor. Like burning in the atmosphere if you fall naked from a lot higher. There are things less certain, like getting infection from a wound.
When you've reached a low enough level of certainy, you've got "opinion". Which was my point to begin with.
So the possibilities are not mentioned that would prove your statement false, so they're assumed to not be there, so that you can be correct.
What? No.... no... Jesus, no.
Here again for the slow ones:
Everyday life: "If you do X, you'll cause Y to happen. (Thinking: Now technically it may not happen if Z or Z1 happens, but that's preposterous, and what the hell, we're not some fucking nerds.)"
Precise nerd language: "If you do X, you'll cause Y, unless Z Z1 Z2 Z3 Z4, all of which together would have the probability of 0.1%. We have to mention it aloud, because we're precise nerds."
At the end of the day, when you strip away all the whens and buts, you've still got... A CERTAIN PREDICTION, about a FACT that WILL happen if you cause another FACT to happen.
Or is it event, not fact?
...
Tell me, how big is the possibility that, if I hold an Oxford dictionary in my hand, at home, with closed windows, and let it go, and it starts falling to the ground, and no one catches it.. it won't fall on the floor?
How big is the possibility that some well-documented fact you know from the media, or friends, or papers, is actually 50% inaccurate, or completely false, due to some elaborated hoax? Is it non-existent? No, but how big?
So if you argue against me calling the former a fact, because it's not certain enough, then how many "facts" can you really call "facts"?
The puppy is black. But maybe your brain is hallucinating, and it's actually pink, and everyone else says it's pink, but your brain hears black?
So seems like nothing is a fact after all, eh?
So what is it then? Opinion? Hell no. How about I say "almost fact", and we just treat it as a fact?
That a pencil will fall to the ground when you drop it is a prediction based on that fact, but not a fact itself.
If it's a fact that the universe works in a way that will make the pencil drop (account for both gravity, and all other factors that may prevent it from falling, whatever they may be), then it's a fact that it will drop.
Having that, I'll gladly give you the distinction between prediction and fact.
This discussion is still about degrees of certainty vs. subjective mental states, not this.
___________________________
So you admit you have no knowledge of the basis for this discussion after being involved in it for a couple pages.
Wow, the irony in that is just hair-raising...
Yea, and you know why? Because, as you can surely notice if you look back at page 4, I DIDN'T START IT.
Red5 and a couple others started ACCUSING ME of confusing facts with opinions, without providing a single actual example, or even defining what kind of "opinion" they mean (and in order to do that, you first need to understand that there can be different kinds).
Please do yourself a fucking favor, and look up "burden of proof".
I'm not the one who's supposed to "know" what others are trying to convey. They are.
In reality it's a matter of the apparent futility of arguing with you when you admit you have no idea what the basis of discussion is
Lol.
It's all a bunch of sophist (said it again) nonsense.
Pointing out how it wouldn't drop in space without gravity, is sophist nonsense.
claiming ignorance of the basis of the argument
Let's be clear here, the basis of the argument is that so far, I seem to be the only one who understands that opinion doesn't just mean taste.
I've never claimed ignorance of that, all I said was that I don't know where I committed the crime, because no one told me yet.
I said it because I believe that you hold that view. So it was a perspicacious observation
Yes, with the clear implication that this view was inaccurate. The irony was in the fact that actually, it was accurate :P
OR IS IT???
But hey, enough of that already.
Can we just pin this down to the core?
"Opinion":
1. A factual statement not sufficiently supported by evidence and/or logic. OR:
2. A statement about a subjective mental state. Often dressed as a claim about the external world (i.e. this sunset IS beautiful), but what really happens is that the person's BRAIN finds it beautiful.
One word, two completely different meanings.
Same in German and Russian.
So how can we agree on that, please? Or would you argue that?
Thanks.
