Why is there no forum for (insert field here)?

[Phi for All]

1 minute ago, MSC said:

My petulance? What about Swansonts petulance yesterday in the general philosophy section? Takes one to know one.

My friend, your signal to noise ratio is WAAAAY off. I think you need to take a break for a while, and think about your behavior towards a volunteer staff of people looking to share science knowledge. Your behavior behind the scenes is equally appalling. Please, everyone is frazzled at the present, and nobody needs you adding to the stress load. 

[MSC]

3 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

My friend, your signal to noise ratio is WAAAAY off. I think you need to take a break for a while, and think about your behavior towards a volunteer staff of people looking to share science knowledge. Your behavior behind the scenes is equally appalling. Please, everyone is frazzled at the present, and nobody needs you adding to the stress load. 

Yeah, my behaviour is clearly the problem. Only asking for my field to not be denigrated and insulted. Clearly I'm bang out of order. 

Projections are a pound a piece here it seems. It's not like I'm not also stressed. 

Edited October 13, 2020 by MSC

[Phi for All]

4 minutes ago, MSC said:

Projections are a pound a piece here it seems. It's not like I'm not also stressed. 

Yes, but the rest of us understand how being harsh while trying to persuade is a failed tactic.

[swansont]

On 10/8/2020 at 10:28 PM, iNow said:

Not enough members probably care. Philosophy forum itself is pretty quiet overall. Further breakdowns may be logical in terms of classification, but likely aren’t necessary 

To follow up on this, the philosophy section has just under 29,000 posts. Physics, chemistry, biology, medical science and mathematics all have more. By a lot, in most cases. That’s one of the reasons they are broken down.

Also because we’re a science discussion forum. We include philosophy (and other topics) because there is a natural spill-over in discussions. But the primary focus is science.

[MSC]

1 minute ago, swansont said:

To follow up on this, the philosophy section has just under 29,000 posts. Physics, chemistry, biology, medical science and mathematics all have more. By a lot, in most cases. That’s one of the reasons they are broken down.

Also because we’re a science discussion forum. We include philosophy (and other topics) because there is a natural spill-over in discussions. But the primary focus is science.

The primary focus can't be science if there is no logic. Without logic, no science. 

3 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Yes, but the rest of us understand how being harsh while trying to persuade is a failed tactic

Tell that to Swansont.

Edited October 13, 2020 by MSC

[swansont]

13 minutes ago, MSC said:

The primary focus can't be science if there is no logic. Without logic, no science. 

Nobody is claiming that the site is free of the use of logic. Logic is not a required topic of discussion when discussing science. Feel free to peruse the science threads and see how many of them do not go into discussions of the finer points of logic. IOW, no logic ≠ no logic section

But hey, nice strawman.

[iNow]

21 minutes ago, MSC said:

The primary focus can't be science if there is no logic. Without logic, no science. 

You can action this all you want when you start your own forum. For now, you're doing more harm than good by continuing to comment as you are. Logic dictates that you shouldn't act abrasively toward those from whom you need help to get what you want. 

[MSC]

9 minutes ago, iNow said:

You can action this all you want when you start your own forum. For now, you're doing more harm than good by continuing to comment as you are. Logic dictates that you shouldn't act abrasively toward those from whom you need help to get what you want. 

Hume would disagree but then whether or not something is "abrasive" is subjective. Some undergrads find compatabilism "Abrasive" to their beliefs in free will. 

12 minutes ago, swansont said:

Nobody is claiming that the site is free of the use of logic. Logic is not a required topic of discussion when discussing science. Feel free to peruse the science threads and see how many of them do not go into discussions of the finer points of logic. IOW, no logic ≠ no logic section

But hey, nice strawman.

No but it is a requirement to do science well. God forbid any premise to any scientific argument is missing or wrong.

Not a strawman. 

Learn some manners and respect when people go out of their way to do the same for you. You're easily the most "Abrasive" moderator here.

No one is going to convince me that I'm in the wrong here without first learning how to speak respectfully to others. Your comments to me yesterday were uncalled for and they were off-topic to the discussion and you put words in my mouth. Philosophy birthed your entire field as it is today. Show it some respect.

If you'd climb down off your pedestal and apologise, like I did yesterday for upsetting you, just for stating some facts about science and philosophy, then maybe we can have an adult conversation instead of a pissing contest.

Next time you want to talk about fallacies in logic, like strawmen. Do so in the appropriate logic forum.. Oh, wait

 

[swansont]

8 minutes ago, MSC said:

No but it is a requirement to do science well. God forbid any premise to any scientific argument is missing or wrong.

My work colleagues and I manage to do quite a lot of quality science without having discussions that would be put into a “logic” section. What happens when you get a contradiction of the premise in a logical argument?

[MSC]

8 minutes ago, swansont said:

What happens when you get a contradiction of the premise in a logical argument?

Depends on the type of argument, but it usually casts doubt on the validity of your conclusion.

An example: 

We can't be sure of anything

Therefore we know nothing. 

 

If the premise is true, then we do know something. We know that premise. So the conclusion is immediately falsifiable if we believe the premise. 

A premise is contradictory if it both asserts and denies the conclusion.

Another example would be to say something like; 

God can do anything

So god can make a stone so heavy that even he cannot lift it.

But then he can't do anything if he can't lift the stone.

 

That only covers contradictory premises in logical arguments though. Not incorrect premises or missing ones.

For example: until recently we were missing dark matter as a premise in the models we made. 

We can now try to make logical arguments about the nature of the universe a little bit more accurately now that we have found that premise. The problem, what is dark matter? If we get it wrong, any conclusion we make is thrown into doubt. The conclusion should be different depending on how we answer the question of "what is dark matter?" 

 

You and your colleagues can do quality science with low quality logic. You can have a conclusion that is probable, even if the premises it took to get there are in some way wrong or contradictory. It would just mean you were lucky or intuiting premises without mentioning or being consciously aware of them. It would also mean you'd have an explanatory gap between a true conclusion and the why it is true. 

The danger of saying something (not an argument) is illogical, doesn't mean it isn't logical. It means you don't understand the logic or how it is being used.

 

I'm going to leave it here now. My partner pointed out that I've been in a somewhat manic state for a few weeks and now I'm falling into a depression. I still want a logic section added, but I'm sorry for getting so worked up about it. That's not how I want to be or how I want to present myself. This stuff, science and philosophy means a lot to me and it provides me a lot of relief from the meaninglessness of my current existence. I feel like I haven't contributed enough to society, but I don't know how to get anyone interested in even allowing me to contribute anything. 

I'm going to take a long break from here for awhile. You'd probably be able to help with that by applying a temporary ban for a month. I'd be able to be less obsessed with this place and focus on my Dostoyevsky book.

 

[iNow]

[Phi for All]

53 minutes ago, MSC said:

It would just mean you were lucky or intuiting premises without mentioning or being consciously aware of them.

That's the way I always think of the USNO, a bunch of lucky physicists intuiting premises without awareness. Four leaf clovers, rabbits feet, and atomic clocks. We're lucky GPS works.

1 hour ago, MSC said:

I'm going to take a long break from here for awhile. You'd probably be able to help with that by applying a temporary ban for a month.

!

Moderator Note

Happy to help.

 

[swansont]

If MSC chooses to return (with perhaps a slightly thicker skin), then perhaps they will be willing to do a little legwork to prove that we should have a these suggested subsections inside of philosophy by providing us with some statistics of how many e.g. logic threads exist already. Maybe going back a year. Along with some examples so we can check the data.

In addition, they could also tag their thread titles (e.g. Some title [logic])  so we can track what happens. With that and other suggested subsections (Meta-ethics, Metaphysics, Epistemology, logic, aesthetics and Phenomenology)

 

14 hours ago, MSC said:

 You and your colleagues can do quality science with low quality logic. You can have a conclusion that is probable, even if the premises it took to get there are in some way wrong or contradictory. It would just mean you were lucky or intuiting premises without mentioning or being consciously aware of them. It would also mean you'd have an explanatory gap between a true conclusion and the why it is true. 

You seem to be missing the point. I didn't say we don't apply logic, or that we don't understand logic. I didn't say you don't need to understand logic to do science. I'm saying we don't have to have discussions about logic in order to do good science, which is the kind of discussion you would expect in a logic subsection.

You can say the same for math. Physics uses a lot of math But you can have physics discussions independent of the math section, because you don't need to contemplate the purely math considerations. You are using the math, but you are not discussing the math. You can say you need to integrate the force dotted with displacement to get the work — that's a physics question — but that's not a discussion about what a dot product is, or what an integral is, which is what you might discuss in mathematics. IOW, we don't have a mathematics section because you need it to discuss physics. We have a mathematics section because there is a lot of traffic in people discussing mathematics.

Which is why "Without logic, no science" is a non-sequitur for making the case of having a logic subforum. 

 

 

[Eise]

Just to add my 2 cents: as a philosopher, I of course am aware of the many topics in philosophy. However, even philosophers should also be firmly rooted in practical life. And, as said, the philosophy forum is not the most busy one. If MSCs proposal would be implemented, I assume most of the subfora would stay empty, and indeed, the administrators would get the extra job to see if something is ethics or meta-ethics, social philosophy or philosophical anthropology, logic or meta-logic, cognitive philosophy or philosophy of science etc. etc.

I am perfectly happy with the present categorisation, pure for practical reasons.

On the other side, having a subforum in 'The Lounge' on Sculptures made of almonds is perfectly justified. 😋

[iNow]

Lol. I forgot about that one 

[Eise]

26 minutes ago, iNow said:

Lol. I forgot about that one 

What!? It was made for you! 

[hypervalent_iodine]

Sometimes I think about removing it, but I just can't bring myself to pull the trigger. 

[iNow]

It still cracks me up when I see it

[swansont]

3 hours ago, Eise said:

I assume most of the subfora would stay empty, and indeed, the administrators would get the extra job to see if something is ethics or meta-ethics, social philosophy or philosophical anthropology, logic or meta-logic, cognitive philosophy or philosophy of science etc. 

Which is something we point out now and again. If you’re going to make a suggestion, you need to take care not to add undue burden to the staff, who would prefer to spend their time here in discussion rather than moderation duties. IOW, one should avoid being cavalier with someone else’s time.

“add subforums” is extra work. Without making a case for why that’s better for staff, it’s a nonstarter.

[CharonY]

2 hours ago, swansont said:

Without making a case for why that’s better for staff, it’s a nonstarter.

Or for users. How likely is it that someone is specifically looking for a discussion on met-ethics but really does not want to encounter social philosophy on the way? Since we are a low activity forum we do not have that many active topics at any given point, so organizing them just to have a proper classification just does not make any sense.

[iNow]

There's also the counter-argument that trying to navigate someone else's folder structure makes using the site LESS enjoyable and convenient. I, for one, hate trying to find a file in a folder hierarchy someone else created... I waste more time than I would if everything were just dumped into a single catch-all bucket en masse

[CharonY]

7 minutes ago, iNow said:

There's also the counter-argument that trying to navigate someone else's folder structure makes using the site LESS enjoyable and convenient. I, for one, hate trying to find a file in a folder hierarchy someone else created... I waste more time than I would if everything were just dumped into a single catch-all bucket en masse

Yep, have tried both extremes for mass data storage. As a whole I found swansont's suggestion regarding tags with shallow folder structure most efficient.

[MigL]

I don't care; I still want a History forum.
I ( and CharonY ) are constantly having to sneak in historical tidbits into other forums.

Please, please, please.please, ...

[Phi for All]

22 hours ago, MigL said:

I don't care; I still want a History forum.

There's a section in Forum Announcements called Banned/Suspended Users. All the banned ones are history. 😁

[MSC]

On 10/14/2020 at 5:57 AM, swansont said:

If MSC chooses to return (with perhaps a slightly thicker skin), then perhaps they will be willing to do a little legwork to prove that we should have a these suggested subsections inside of philosophy by providing us with some statistics of how many e.g. logic threads exist already. Maybe going back a year. Along with some examples so we can check the data.

In addition, they could also tag their thread titles (e.g. Some title [logic])  so we can track what happens. With that and other suggested subsections (Meta-ethics, Metaphysics, Epistemology, logic, aesthetics and Phenomenology)

 

You seem to be missing the point. I didn't say we don't apply logic, or that we don't understand logic. I didn't say you don't need to understand logic to do science. I'm saying we don't have to have discussions about logic in order to do good science, which is the kind of discussion you would expect in a logic subsection.

You can say the same for math. Physics uses a lot of math But you can have physics discussions independent of the math section, because you don't need to contemplate the purely math considerations. You are using the math, but you are not discussing the math. You can say you need to integrate the force dotted with displacement to get the work — that's a physics question — but that's not a discussion about what a dot product is, or what an integral is, which is what you might discuss in mathematics. IOW, we don't have a mathematics section because you need it to discuss physics. We have a mathematics section because there is a lot of traffic in people discussing mathematics.

Which is why "Without logic, no science" is a non-sequitur for making the case of having a logic subforum. 

 

 

My skin is thicker, or I should say the environment is no longer thinning my skin. I had a lot going on personally last month and I sincerely apologise to you and the other moderators for taking out those frustrations on this forum and causing offense. I hope I can earn your forgiveness by displaying a more relaxed attitude within this space, that you all do an excellent job of overseeing, despite the fact that it is voluntary within your own time. 

I'd also like to thank you for not having a knee jerk reactions to my criticisms of this space and not banning me outright, thank you for allowing me to come back.

I do see your points, I did do some checks on logic threads, I also did a check on individual comments alone. While there are certainly a few instances of individuals who display a lack of understanding of what logic is, the traffic is low and the context of those dialogues usually either leads to someone correcting the logic anyway or it just not being touched with a ten foot barge pole.

Should the traffic for any of these things increase, I'll make a politer petition at that time and won't make it a hill to die on. 

That being said; Aesthetics and History.

The Sculptures made of Almonds, with a few rule tweaks could also be an area where aesthetics can feature. I think it could not only be enjoyable for users, but moderators too. If we use a broad definition of art. Music, TV, Movies, Paintings, Almond Sculptures obviously, theatre, paintings, who the fuck is banksy? Etc. You don't even have to change the name of the thread. It can just be like an inside art joke on comedy. 

I do also like the idea if a history section as it is such a catch all. Every field has it's history after all! It's also one of those subjects where if it was there, I think a lot of traffic would naturally flow into it more than if it wasn't there. A good analogy might be to say that a History thread would be like a new highway, as opposed to a Logic thread, which is just new footpaths.

One thing that I should highlight for everyone who would want a history section and an aesthetics section; How should they be moderated and what should the rules and guidelines be for those new forums? What does a good thread and a bad thread look like in those forums? 

 

On 10/15/2020 at 2:55 PM, MigL said:

I don't care; I still want a History forum.
I ( and CharonY ) are constantly having to sneak in historical tidbits into other forums.

Please, please, please.please, ...

Hi MigL! Hope you are well! Can you give an example of a thread you would post in a history section? Me personally; I would use it to ask questions about history for things that I don't know but am curious about. Things like, Who built this? How did this war start? What turned this dictator into such an asshole? That sort of thing. But only if I had a hard time finding information on those things myself or conflicting accounts.

As for Aesthetics; I'd probably just post things about movies, video games, the occasional painting, artists, books, music. With questions about those like, What is the moral of this story? What does this song mean? 

As for how they would be moderated and what the rules for these new forums should be.. *Shrugs*