My point is that EVERYTHING IS RELATIVE! Facts are correlations to other fact which are correlations to other facts which are correlations to NOTHING!

That is solipsism. As you have discovered, it isn't a useful viewpoint.

My original theory correlates to many preexisting facts and therefore is very likely to be fact. However, it is still theory simply because there are not enough correlations and the correlations which do exist are subject to possible unforeseen factors.[/quote]
Your original theory correlates to 5-6 very specific statistics. The theory of gravity holds in the case of every objective experiment performed in the last 350 years

You tell me which one is fact, and which one is just a hastily concocted idea.

Since it's kinda in the area of this discussion, does anybody have a word that could be used for an idea, thought, or concept but the word doesn't necessarily suggest a dependance on a mind? I'm wondering because such a thing would play a pivotal part in my own interpretation of existence and it'd be nice to have a word that's already in accepted use.

[quote name='SteveDeFacto' timestamp='1330102553' post='4916253']
My point is that EVERYTHING IS RELATIVE! Facts are correlations to other fact which are correlations to other facts which are correlations to NOTHING!

That is solipsism. As you have discovered, it isn't a useful viewpoint.

My original theory correlates to many preexisting facts and therefore is very likely to be fact. However, it is still theory simply because there are not enough correlations and the correlations which do exist are subject to possible unforeseen factors.[/quote]
Your original theory correlates to 5-6 very specific statistics. The theory of gravity holds in the case of every objective experiment performed in the last 350 years

You tell me which one is fact, and which one is just a hastily concocted idea.
[/quote]

Neither is "fact" as you see it. The human concept of a fact being true of false cannot exist in reality. Facts are neither black nor white but different shades of grey.

[quote name='SteveDeFacto' timestamp='1329940583' post='4915624']
To me the correlation between my theory and all of the studies I've read is unquestionable!

The first thing any budding armchair philosopher should learn, is the complete lack of any link between correlation and causation.

I hold a degree in Philosophy, and I have to say that it pains me to attempt a discussion with most 'armchair philosophers'. Because a) they don't know what the **** they are talking about, and b) they don't know that they don't know what the *** they are talking about.

If you are only going to read one philosophical text, make it Plato/Socrates on the subject of wisdom...
[/quote]
Uhm, no..All (presumed) empirical knowledge is pure and unadulterated correlation, when you break it down.

There are various degrees of correlation, and various degrees of complexity by which things can be related, leading to wildly diverging standards of proof. Not in the least also because the value we place on false positives or false negatives depend immensely on context. Not all correlations are sufficient to lead us to draw conclusions about causation, but surprisingly little is needed to make people draw causual inferences. Eat the same berries twice and shit your guts out, and see how quickly you are to draw conclusions about causation. Or perhaps you wont, but there is little doubt as to whom is the more adaptively wired neural network in that situation.

Question: Assuming you know nothing about celestial mechanics, who is the wiser: those who are convinced the sun rises in the east in the morning, based on nothing but correlation and extrapolation, or those who insist there is nothing to be learned from that mere correlation of events?

Or at the other extreme: how do you know that electrons that drop in energy level emit photons?

If you are going to read one modern philosopher, make it Quine.

Since it's kinda in the area of this discussion, does anybody have a word that could be used for an idea, thought, or concept but the word doesn't necessarily suggest a dependance on a mind? I'm wondering because such a thing would play a pivotal part in my own interpretation of existence and it'd be nice to have a word that's already in accepted use.

How about "Model"?

The human concept of a fact being true of false cannot exist in reality. Facts are neither black nor white but different shades of grey.

How is 1+1=2 not a fact given the axioms formed in basic math? Likewise on clouds, we can observe that clouds form from water vapor condensing into small water droplets. We can observe that these droplets condense together and eventually become to heavy to stay airborne when they fall as rain. These are observable, and, without moving into the realm of existential skepticism, are facts. This is what happens in clouds observed repeatedly. There is no question of whether rain causes clouds or clouds causing rain. At this level of detail, there is nothing gray about it.

Stop arguing like this because it's making you look like a stubborn idiot. You know you're wrong otherwise you wouldn't have changed your argument from men being biologically better at math to rain causing clouds to solipsism. Be humbled and learn your lesson on the detriments of being stubborn now, on an internet forum, before you are humbled in a venue that is more permanently attachable to your person and will impact the rest of your life.

[quote name='SteveDeFacto' timestamp='1330104324' post='4916260']
The human concept of a fact being true of false cannot exist in reality. Facts are neither black nor white but different shades of grey.

How is 1+1=2 not a fact given the axioms formed in basic math? Likewise on clouds, we can observe that clouds form from water vapor condensing into small water droplets. We can observe that these droplets condense together and eventually become to heavy to stay airborne when they fall as rain. These are observable, and, without moving into the realm of existential skepticism, are facts. This is what happens in clouds observed repeatedly. There is no question of whether rain causes clouds or clouds causing rain. At this level of detail, there is nothing gray about it.

Stop arguing like this because it's making you look like a stubborn idiot. You know you're wrong otherwise you wouldn't have changed your argument from men being biologically better at math to rain causing clouds to solipsism. Be humbled and learn your lesson on the detriments of being stubborn now, on an internet forum, before you are humbled in a venue that is more permanently attachable to your person and will impact the rest of your life.
[/quote]

I was not the one who changed the topic neither was that my original theory. However, I am right about men generally being better at math and have made a very convincing argument. The problem is that your agenda, way2lazy2care, is to put me in my place and you are blind to evidence I present.

[quote name='swiftcoder' timestamp='1329944041' post='4915646']
The first thing any budding armchair philosopher should learn, is the complete lack of any link between correlation and causation.

Uhm, no..All (presumed) empirical knowledge is pure and unadulterated correlation, when you break it down.[/quote]
Perhaps I overstated that a littke. But when you come down to it, you cannot just interpret correlation as causation.

A correlation backed by a significant body of supporting evidence, and for which a diligent search has found no counter examples, sure - but that's not what SDF is demonstrating here.

If you are going to read one modern philosopher, make it Quine.[/quote]
Wittgenstein, Kripke, Quine... They are all pretty interesting, but they are still in that damnable scepticism tailspin that Hume launched. I'd honestly recommend Jacques Derrida (of whose deconstructionism Quine was a great detractor), over Quine.

I was not the one who changed the topic neither was that my original theory. However, I am right about men generally being better at math and have made a very convincing argument.

The only thing you've convinced me of is that you're exactly the kind of sexist/misogynist asshole who discourages women from positively contributing and participating in mathematics, science, and engineering. You're a walking, talking moronic personification of the cultural biases that lead to the observed differences in performance based on gender, and your attempts to blame it on biological differences is absolutely offensive.

Please, please do us all a favor and stay out of professional engineering. Go into trucking or something, or better yet invent a time machine and send yourself back to the 1950s where this kind of attitude belongs.

P.S. You're a terrible philosopher too. And try to avoid doing any science.

The problem is that your agenda, way2lazy2care, is to put me in my place and you are blind to evidence I present.

No. The problem is your stubbornness is blinding you to the valid counter arguments of your peers. Rather than rethinking your original premise to fit reality you continue to try to conform reality to your argument.

You posited a square to fit into a hole. When the reality of the hole's roundness was brought up, you argue that the hole is actually square rather than finding a circle to fill it. No matter how hard you try to push the square into the hole, it will never become square. It may be any of these, not necessarily the counter proposed circles; one thing is certain, that your square does not fit the peer reviewed round hole.

This is putting aside the fact that you've been arguing sociology and meteorology for 4 pages in a philosophy thread.