What doesn't exist?

[!Kaggen]

This is a question from my 5 year old daughter tonight.
How should I answer without bringing up Bertrand Russel :D

[RenaissanceBiker]

Nothing.

[caniswalensis]

Everything.

[Professor Yaffle]

The colour spingwhiffle doesn't exist. It is a pigment of my imagination.

[Olowkow]

Why do you ask, young lady?

[!Kaggen]

Oh this to

and how's my body made ?:o

[I Am The Scum]

Any gods.

[Cainkane1]

This is a question from my 5 year old daughter tonight.
How should I answer without bringing up Bertrand Russel :D
Tell her anything you can't see, hear, touch, smell or taste doesn't exist unless theres evidence that it does.

[Cainkane1]

Oh this to

and how's my body made ?:o
tell her what its made of and show her pictures of fetal developement. Skip the obvious thing until later.

[Simon39759]

tell her what its made of and show her pictures of fetal developement. Skip the obvious thing until later.

It's made of millions and millions (that means: a lot) of tiny thing called 'cells' that are working together... Here, let's grab my trusty microscope and this onion skin and look at some other cells.
Then I'll explain to you how human cells are smaller than that; for some reason (especially if the microscope is not powerful enough to see these).

[Fnord]

"Master, what is the meaning of non-existence?"

"The sound of one hand clapping."

"I do not understand."

"Move closer..."

(The disciple moves closer to the master)

"... See? You do understand."

:confused:

[djnrempel]

Tell her that's a great question and ask her what she means or why she's asking that.

[RenaissanceBiker]

and how's my body made ?:o

Beautifully.

[!Kaggen]

I think its got to do with us just finishing reading Alice in Wonderland together.
Its got her thinking about whats real and whats not.
Fantasy has its place in education it seems.

[RenaissanceBiker]

Of course it does. It allows you to imagine what is possible. It should be encouraged.

I thought of a better answer to "How's my body made?" Say, "You feed it the right food and it makes itself. You use it right and it grows strong. You train it right and it gets smart. I'm here to help, but you seem to be doing a pretty good job so far."

[steve s]

What doesn't exist?

The love child of Natalie Portman and me.

Steve S

[Soapy Sam]

An honest politician.

[the PC apeman]

Worthwhile ontology.

[yomero]

A convincing argument for the existence of god.

[Aitch]

The other side of the rainbow?

[The Platypus]

What's so complex? There are lots of things that don't exist that humans just conjure up out their imagination.

[!Kaggen]

What's so complex? There are lots of things that don't exist that humans just conjure up out their imagination.

Something like this?

I tell her: " Unicorns do not exist and neither does God"
She asks me: " whats the difference between unicorns and God?"
I say : "ones a horse with one straight horn on its forehead and the others an old man who had a son and made the world"
She replies: "how can they be different if they don't exist?"

[Skeptic Ginger]

Something like this?

I tell her: " Unicorns do not exist and neither does God"
She asks me: " whats the difference between unicorns and God?"
I say : "ones a horse with one straight horn on its forehead and the others an old man who had a son and made the world"
She replies: "how can they be different if they don't exist?"You left out some key adjectives.

"ones an imaginary horse with one straight horn on its forehead and the other's an imaginary old man who had a son and made the world"


Kids at 5 are typically concrete thinkers (http://www.projectlearnet.org/tutorials/concrete_vs_abstract_thinking.html). It helps to understand a bit about the developing brain when answering such questions.

[jasonpatterson]

The idea of god and the idea of unicorns are real, even though they represent things which are imaginary.

[Fnord]

Something like this?

I tell her: " Unicorns do not exist and neither does God"
She asks me: " whats the difference between unicorns and God?"
I say : "ones a horse with one straight horn on its forehead and the others an old man who had a son and made the world"
She replies: "how can they be different if they don't exist?"

"How can any two things be different if neither one of them exists?"

Seems to me that your offspring would be well on her way to enlightenment ... she's inventing her own koans.

[Skeptic Ginger]

The idea of god and the idea of unicorns are real, even though they represent things which are imaginary.Not many 5 year olds understand abstract concepts like this one.

[SezMe]

Uncontroversial forum moderation.

[Darth Rotor]

Uncontroversial forum moderation.

Worthwhile ontology.

An honest politician.

My heroes! :)

[Orphia Nay]

I think a 5 year old might be after these answers:

Santa Claus.
The Tooth Fairy.
The Easter Bunny.

(Or is that too obvious?)

[SusanB-M1]

Tell her that's a great question and ask her what she means or why she's asking that.
Best answer! one often finds that the reason children are asking a question is completely different from what an adult might think it to be.

[Towlie]

Best answer! one often finds that the reason children are asking a question is completely different from what an adult might think it to be.That's a good point! Remember the story about the young child who asked "where did I come from?"

After the parent reluctantly explained sex and reproduction to the child, who really wasn't quite old enough for that yet, the child replied, "Oh. I was just wondering because Johnny next door came from Minnesota."

[Skeptic Ginger]

That's a good point! Remember the story about the young child who asked "where did I come from?"

After the parent reluctantly explained sex and reproduction to the child, who really wasn't quite old enough for that yet, the child replied, "Oh. I was just wondering because Johnny next door came from Minnesota."
:D

[Dr.Sid]

Santa Claus does not exist. But she's too young to hear that. And that is what you should answer :-D

[Tricky]

I think a 5 year old might be after these answers:

Santa Claus.
The Tooth Fairy.
The Easter Bunny.

(Or is that too obvious?)
I'd say maybe ghosts, werewolves and vampires. When I was a kid, those were the sorts of things I was most glad didn't exist.

[kuroyume0161]

"Master, what is the meaning of non-existence?"

"The sound of one hand clapping."

"I do not understand."

"Move closer..."

(The disciple moves closer to the master)

"... See? You do understand."

:confused:

Thank you, master, for the laugh!!! :D

[Ron_Tomkins]

This is a question from my 5 year old daughter tonight.
How should I answer without bringing up Bertrand Russel :D

Don't worry. Bertrand Russel doesn't exist anyway... Not anymore.

[HansMustermann]

Kids at 5 are typically concrete thinkers (http://www.projectlearnet.org/tutorials/concrete_vs_abstract_thinking.html). It helps to understand a bit about the developing brain when answering such questions.

TBH, I'm not sure that that simplification is entirely true by 5. Notice how even that site says 2-3 years old, not 5.

I'm pretty sure that by 5 I could understand stuff like "momy said I shouldn't talk to strangers" without needing to understand it as applying to only one particular stranger, or "mommy said I should look left and right before crossing the street" without it meaning only for one specific street or just certain types of car or anything. So do most kids, actually. I'm also pretty sure by 5 almost everyone understand that time and place are different things, since they use that example there. And so on.

Yes, the brain does evolve in time, but 5 is fairly late along that line. Most synapses and the myelin sheath are complete by 3 actually, and basically you start learning stuff pretty fast from there. Granted, you won't have much reason or base to think about deeply philosophical issues like world peace or the meaning of 'on' at that point, but by 5 you should be able to use "a dog" vs "this dog" pretty well.

And, at any rate, a question boiling down basically to "How can two things be different if neither one of them exists?" would indicate a bit deeper thinking than that.

Basically I don't think children that age are either as smart as their parents think, nor as dumb as most of the rest of the world likes to theoretise. The answer is a lot more in between and dependent on the actual age and the actual kid.

[Malkuth]

Tell her anything you can't see, hear, touch, smell or taste doesn't exist unless theres evidence that it does.

I have a problem with this explanation, since the things we can see, hear, touch, smell and taste only comprise a tiny fraction of the universe.

It leaves out the things that exist out there that we are either as yet unable to, or simply haven't collected any evidence for yet.

Elephant poo flavored toothpaste, however, does not exist.

[Skeptic Ginger]

TBH, I'm not sure that that simplification is entirely true by 5. Notice how even that site says 2-3 years old, not 5.....It's not a matter of intelligence, it's a matter of brain organization. And of course the change to abstract thinking is gradual, not some sudden moment at the age of 4 when everything changes.

Piaget's stages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaget's_theory_of_cognitive_development) can give one an idea of how a 5 year old's thinking differs from that of an adult.Between the ages of 2-7....An example is an experiment performed by Piaget and Barbel Inhelder.[5] Three views of a mountain are shown and the child is asked what a traveling doll would see at the various angles; the child picks their own view compared to the actual view of the doll....
... In Piaget's most famous task, a child is presented with two identical beakers containing the same amount of liquid.[5] The child usually notes that the beakers have the same amount of liquid.[5] When one of the beakers is poured into a taller and thinner container, children who are typically younger than 7 or 8 years old say that the two beakers now contain a different amount of liquid.[5] The child simply focuses on the height and width of the container compared to the general concept.[5] Piaget believes that if a child fails the conservation-of-liquid task, it is a sign that they are at the preoperational stage of cognitive development.[5] The child also fails to show conservation of number, matter, length, volume, and area as well.[5] Another example is when a child is shown 7 dogs and 3 cats and asked if there are more dogs than cats. The child would respond positively. However when asked if there are more dogs than animals, the child would once again respond positively. Such fundamental errors in logic show the transition between intuitiveness in solving problems and true logical reasoning acquired in later years when the child grows up.

[HansMustermann]

I would argue though that that's also a matter of education. Liquids being basically incompressible (not really, but very very close to it) is something that isn't necessarily obvious even to an adult who didn't learn it somewhere.

As a trivial example, take The Hulk. (And She Hulk, and most other derivatives.) Even most adults don't instinctively realize that when he puffs up, it's now the same mass in over twice the volume, i.e., basically he'd be blown off even by a mild wind and generally not very scary. The instinctive assumption -- again, even in adults -- is that he now also became heavier. Effectively even adults failed that conservation of matter in the _same_ _way_ as those pre-schoolers.

Or even adult wargamers don't instinctively grasp that between a 75 ton tank and a 75 ton 30ft tall battlemech, the latter is actually crap. You have the tall and thin beaker situation all over again, only with solids. The armour on such a mech would be so thinly spread that even a rifle would penetrate it. But it's not instinctively clear at all, even if you tell them it's the same 75 tons of metal. The instinctive reaction is to just look at the size and assume that there is proportionally more metal in it, even when told explicitly that it weighs the same. Again, it's a situation where even adults fail in the same way.

(ETA: actually going by strictly FASA specs, you're actually told that the weight of the actual armour is less in a mech than on, say, an M1A1. So that instinctive reaction is even farther off the mark. But for the sake of a simplified example for non-geeks, let's stick with the simplified version.)

ETA: or as another example in the opposite direction than the Hulk, but which was done by adults for thousands of years, take lycanthropy. It seemed anything but obvious to humanity for thousands of years that a transformation from human to wolf fails the conservation of mass or volume of liquid in an EPIC FAIL kind of way.

Plus, if I'm to be a barstard, I would argue that if you go by volume, and liquids being not completely incompressible, now the two beakers _do_ contain different volumes of liquid. Not by much, granted, but the higher pressure in the taller one does compress it a little more. Of course, I'm not saying that's what a kid would apply, but as an example of where you're technically wrong even as an adult, even if in different ways. And how, really, it doesn't as much matter whether you have an adult brain or a child brain, all that matters is what you've learned on the topic.

You're basically judging a child to have a different brain structure, just because they don't do a wrong assumption than you do. (Or Piaget does.) But there is nothing that says that that assumption is somehow hard-wired in the adult brain structure. In reality, not making an assumption about something you don't really know for sure, is actually the correct thing to do at any age.

[Skeptic Ginger]

I would argue though that that's also a matter of education....I'm afraid the evidence says you are wrong. It is not a matter of learning. It is a matter of brain development. Learning has been ruled out as the cause.


As a trivial example, take The Hulk. (And She Hulk, and most other derivatives.) Even most adults don't instinctively realize that when he puffs up, ...Sorry, the Hulk is not a valid example. A cartoon is what it is, not some example of a physics concept. OTOH, the fact some adults lack basic physics knowledge doesn't change what is happening in a 5 yr old's brain that is not a simple matter of learning.


Or even adult wargamers don't instinctively grasp that between a 75 ton tank and a 75 ton 30ft tall battlemech, .....Goodness, you may need to get out more. ;)

...really, it doesn't as much matter whether you have an adult brain or a child brain, all that matters is what you've learned on the topic.

You're basically judging a child to have a different brain structure, just because they don't do a wrong assumption than you do. (Or Piaget does.) But there is nothing that says that that assumption is somehow hard-wired in the adult brain structure. In reality, not making an assumption about something you don't really know for sure, is actually the correct thing to do at any age.No, I'm judging a child by the evidence which is very extensive. Piaget's theories have well stood the test of time and scientific scrutiny by very thorough researchers who would have been looking to rule out simple learning as the issue.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Here, try this link which discusses the qualitative and the quantitative differences together:

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development (http://alevelpsychology.co.uk/a2-psychology-aqa-a/unit-3/cognition-development/cognitive-development/piaget-s-theory-of-cognitive-development.html)There is a quantitative difference because adults have more knowledge of the world and there is a qualitative difference because children do not use the same logic in their thinking as adults do. Children's logic changes as they develop though the four stages (see below).

[Skeptic Ginger]

This page might also be helpful:

PIAGET’S MODEL OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT (http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/d/d_09/d_09_p/d_09_p_dev/d_09_p_dev.html)the basic answer he provided is that thought develops in stages. Whenever a developing individual reaches a new stage, it results in the rebuilding of the entire edifice of knowledge that he or she had acquired up to that point.

From his experiments, Piaget deduced that there are four main stages of development, each of which comprises several subdivisions....

...Still used today in various forms, this approach focuses not so much on the child’s answers as on the reasoning that underlies them. When children gave incorrect answers, Piaget found that they always provided far more insight into the workings of the children’s mind than correct answers would have.

Here is an example of a typical dialogue, between Piaget and a 5-year-old girl named Julia.

Piaget: What makes the wind?

Julia: The trees.

P: How do you know?

J: I saw them moving their branches.

P: How does that make the wind?

J: Like this (waving her hands in front of her face). Only the branches are bigger. And there are lots of trees.

[HansMustermann]

You do realize that that's just a correlation taken for causation the wrong way, and adults do the same every day, right?

E.g., just look at politicians turning a correlation between schizophrenia and drug use into a clear case of "drugs cause schizophrenia" instead of "self-medication".

But wind itself, the Babylonians believed it was caused by the beating of wings of great birds, which is _exactly_ the same kind of false reasoning that Piaget ascribes to children only. You'll find the same explanation in some norse sagas too. A lot of cultures believed that it was the breath of some great big beings. E.g., some Innuit, but also in one Chinese creation myth Pangu's breath became the wind.

A lot believed it was even connected to the breaths of humans. E.g., a remnant of it is a myth that persisted incredibly long that the winds are made of or carry the spirits of the dead. The spirit being a derivative of breath, as in, final breath. To a lot of adults it seemed quite natural that a lot of people exhaling their final breath at once could cause a gale.

Others get even quainter in different ways, such as the polynesian wind myth which has basically holes in the sky at the horizon line, through which the winds blow. (And hence the shaman could cause wind from the desired direction by ceremonially opening the correct window in a representation of it and closing all others. Which also shows the child-like lack of thought that they didn't think where would that air go. Leaving only the western aperture open so wind can blow IN from the west, didn't require opening anything else so all that extra air can also go OUT in the end.)

Etc.

Basically, seriously, just because you know about pressure differences and children make up some silly explanation instead, doesn't mean much. Adults who didn't know the physics behind it _also_ created explanations that were every bit as puerile. And I don't mean as just fanciful tales to laugh at around a camp fire, but as their honest-to-the-ancient-spirits religion and explanation of the universe.

ETA: and generally, I see that kind of puerile thinking in middle-aged people at work every day. And we're talking programmers and admins who are supposed to be smart people. Some guy who should have known better notices that X started to happen at the same time as Y, and builds a whole BS theory about how X is because of Y, or even goes and promises the boss that he'll solve X by solving Y. I'm not going to go into the actual nerdy details, but let's say that some are every bit on par for silliness with thinking the wind is caused by the trees. But that's really what the brain does. It learns by noticing correlations and taking a running leap to conclusions.

[Sharklauncher]

"Plato's Beard" ;)

[Skeptic Ginger]

You do realize that that's just a correlation taken for causation the wrong way, and adults do the same every day, right?....Hans. you do realize you are arguing futilely against a subject you don't appear to be knowledgeable in, right?

I would debate this with you if you had made any effort to actually understand the science you are arguing against. But as this discussion has gone so far, you're dismissing decades of science on the developing brain in exchange for your imagined to be informed 'logic'.

It's not my personal opinion vs yours here. It's the entire field of child development science vs your personal opinion.

[HansMustermann]

Got it. Appeal to authority.

ETA:

Look, don't get me wrong, if you don't want to debate it, don't. But the whole "OMG it's a whole field and so many years against you" shtick really doesn't prove or disprove anything.

E.g., alchemy was a respected field studied by many of the smartest people in history (Newton included) for at least two millenia, and it still turned out to be wrong. E.g., Freud's BS is _still_ applied by people who should know better, even after it turned out that it was entirely made up, and that his examples of patients who recovered by acknowledging their fears fall squarely in one of the following two categories: (A) sockpuppets for his own fears and dreams, and (B) the occasional person who actually ended up in a mental institution, although Freud proclaimed him/her cured by his method, and he even actually knew he's lying about their recovery. E.g., the phlogiston theory had almost as much time and again some very smart people, and it was fundamentally wrong. Ditto for homunculus theory, astrology (again, even Newton studied that proper science and part of any educated gentleman's well-rounded education), animal magnetism, etc. Heck, even Lyssenkoism had a couple of decades of some of the smartest people in the USSR studying it (at least as in: smart enough not to tick off the secret police by supporting genetics instead), and it is Marx brothers kind of absurd. Etc.

I'm not saying a priori that Piaget's work is bunk, but if you do want to argue it, you get to support it better than basically "OMG those guys knew more than you." Give me one example of child logic which is actually different from what I see adults do every day. It's not that unreasonable a request, is it? Of course, again, if you don't want to argue it, that's also entirely ok.

[manxman]

A funny American.

[!Kaggen]

Here, try this link which discusses the qualitative and the quantitative differences together:

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development (http://alevelpsychology.co.uk/a2-psychology-aqa-a/unit-3/cognition-development/cognitive-development/piaget-s-theory-of-cognitive-development.html)

Skeptic Ginger

Thanks for your posts.
I was wondering if you've read any of Alison Gopnik's work.

http://www.alisongopnik.com/

Gopnik does appear to point out that some of Piaget's theories have been found to be incorrect.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/40062949

[welshdean]

Intelligent creationists

Honest psychics

Sylvia's spirit guide

JVP's integrity

Gillian McKeith's PhD

Randi's $1m ;)

[Skeptic Ginger]

Skeptic Ginger

Thanks for your posts.
I was wondering if you've read any of Alison Gopnik's work.

http://www.alisongopnik.com/

Gopnik does appear to point out that some of Piaget's theories have been found to be incorrect.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/40062949I'm not supporting Piaget as the end all and be all authority here. That a child's brain has distinct development stages, however, is supported by overwhelming evidence both in biology and in psycho-social sciences.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Got it. Appeal to authority.Baloney. Educate yourself in the basics of biology and child development instead of arguing from the seat of your pants then get back to me.

Look, don't get me wrong, if you don't want to debate it, don't. But the whole "OMG it's a whole field and so many years against you" shtick really doesn't prove or disprove anything. So I should post a college dissertation for you or pages of citations and quotes to demonstrate you are arguing from a position of ignorance?

You have not supported your position with a single scientific paper. You are challenging basic biology of brain development and fully established child development theory with an uninformed claim the difference between a child's and an adult's brain is purely quantitative and you are dismissing all the evidence of the qualitative differences because you personally with no expertise believe the entire scientific community in this case is wrong.

...I'm not saying a priori that Piaget's work is bunk, but if you do want to argue it, you get to support it better than basically "OMG those guys knew more than you." Give me one example of child logic which is actually different from what I see adults do every day. It's not that unreasonable a request, is it? Of course, again, if you don't want to argue it, that's also entirely ok.More baloney. I posted citations you just dismissed them out of hand.

The problem here is, OMG you are arguing from a position of such ignorance I don't know where to start. But it is disingenuous to claim I didn't at least try before throwing my hands up and saying I don't have time to bring you up to snuff if you aren't the least bit interested in the evidence.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Alison Gopnik interview: (http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/to_be_a_baby/)AG: Both Piaget and Freud thought that the reason children produced so much fantastic, unreal play was that they couldn’t tell the difference between imagination and reality. But a lot of the more recent work in children’s theory of mind has shown quite the contrary. Children have a very good idea of how to distinguish between fantasies and realities. It’s just they are equally interested in exploring both. The picture we used to have of children was that they spent all of this time doing pretend play because they had these very limited minds, but in fact what we’ve now discovered is that children have more powerful learning abilities than we do as adults. A lot of their characteristic traits, like their pretend play, are signs of how powerful their imaginative abilities are.This is not the piece of Piaget's theories I have been citing. In other words, this doesn't contradict what I've said about concrete thinking at all.

[Robin]

Oh this to

and how's my body made ?:o
I asked my Dad that when I was a kid. His answer was to remind me of where we kept the encyclopedia.

I thought it was a bit rough as I was only seven at the time.

[!Kaggen]

I asked my Dad that when I was a kid. His answer was to remind me of where we kept the encyclopedia.

I thought it was a bit rough as I was only seven at the time.

Reminds me of my 17 year old niece asking me to help a few years ago with a school science project and I referred her to wiki.
I felt bad later as I realized she not only wanted some info, but also some emotional interaction.
I think kids need emotional attention at any age not just information.
That might just apply to adults too.....

[H'ethetheth]

Or even adult wargamers don't instinctively grasp that between a 75 ton tank and a 75 ton 30ft tall battlemech, the latter is actually crap. You have the tall and thin beaker situation all over again, only with solids. The armour on such a mech would be so thinly spread that even a rifle would penetrate it. Good points, and I agree completely with the gist of your post, however, the example of a 30 ft battlemech is a bit unfortunate, seeing how it would be roughly the same size as a 75 tonne tank.

[HansMustermann]

Baloney. Educate yourself in the basics of biology and child development instead of arguing from the seat of your pants then get back to me.

Ok, ad hominem too. Duly noted. Going for collecting the full set, eh? :p

So I should post a college dissertation for you or pages of citations and quotes to demonstrate you are arguing from a position of ignorance?

No, but if you do wish to support a claim, then basically support it. Just claiming that it's just because you know more, is no different from what the fundies or Limbo do in their threads.

Look, in any other domain it would be trivial to at least provide an example. E.g., if I challenged, say, Sol Invictus about GR existed, he could simply point out at the measurable difference in gravitational lensing. It's hard to argue that it's Newtonian when it's a factor two difference in effect. E.g., if I challenged dark matter, he could point at that galaxy collision where the bulk of the lensing effect was actually moving ahead of the galaxy.

Only here I'm apparently supposed to believe it just because you or Piaget are smarter than me. Heh.

You have not supported your position with a single scientific paper.

Got it. You don't understand how this newfangled burden of proof works, either. Short version: if you claim that there is a measurable difference there, it's your burden to show it exists.

Plus, I'm not publishing a scientific paper. I don't remember you publishing a peer reviewed paper for every position you've supported or challenged in a thread.

We're having a talk. Your choice whether you want to continue or not. But spare me the BS act if you do.

You are challenging basic biology of brain development and fully established child development theory with an uninformed claim the difference between a child's and an adult's brain is purely quantitative and you are dismissing all the evidence of the qualitative differences because you personally with no expertise believe the entire scientific community in this case is wrong.

No, I'm dismissing some thoroughly BS examples. I'm guessing that discipline must have some better ones, because otherwise it would be freaking sad.

But again, the fact that it's a whole established theory didn't prevent such stuff as repressed memory recovery (memory doesn't actually work that way, it turns out), or alchemy, or the whole edifice of "evolutionary psychology" BS, or whatever.

But basically I still don't care to what authority you can appeal to, or how good can you do an appeal to ridicule act.

More baloney. I posted citations you just dismissed them out of hand.

Right. If I don't agree to your claims, it's dismissing out of hand. Silly me, here I thought I had written whole pages of what's false about those handwaving exercises.

Lame. SRSLY.

The problem here is, OMG you are arguing from a position of such ignorance I don't know where to start. But it is disingenuous to claim I didn't at least try before throwing my hands up and saying I don't have time to bring you up to snuff if you aren't the least bit interested in the evidence.

If you don't know where to start explaining it right, then probably you shouldn't argue it in the first place.

But yes, I _am_ interested in the evidence. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered answering to such lengths. But yeah, let's pretend there must be some lack of interest on my part if I don't blindly believe it just for coming from your highness ;)

[epix]

This is a question from my 5 year old daughter tonight.
How should I answer without bringing up Bertrand Russel :D
Hey, Bert, my kid asked me that question what doesn't exist --you know kids -- smart as hell . . .

Well, ehm . . . Things that don't exist are all those things that people never mention, coz they don't know how to call them.

[HansMustermann]

Good points, and I agree completely with the gist of your post, however, the example of a 30 ft battlemech is a bit unfortunate, seeing how it would be roughly the same size as a 75 tonne tank.

Sort of. I wasn't just thinking of size, though, but about how you'd actually stretch that armour to withstand similar weapons as the tank. The tank has most of its armour over the narrow patch that is the front glacis, and on the front of the turret. The top and bottom are actually covered in very thin stuff. If you expect a mech to still walk after taking a Soviet 125mm sabot round, like an M1A1 Abrams does (and at that point I'm generous enough to only ask that the 75 ton mech is comparable to a 60 ton tank), you have to essentially make the whole front side of that mech as thick as the glacis of an M1A1. (And again I'm generous enough to pretend not to notice the issue of the armour slope on the M1A1.) At that point you _are_ essentially stretching steel.

But we're probably scaring everyone else away with that kind of geeking out about FASA mechs :p

[H'ethetheth]

Sort of. I wasn't just thinking of size, though, but about how you'd actually stretch that armour to withstand similar weapons as the tank. The tank has most of its armour over the narrow patch that is the front glacis, and on the front of the turret. The top and bottom are actually covered in very thin stuff. If you expect a mech to still walk after taking a Soviet 125mm sabot round, like an M1A1 Abrams does (and at that point I'm generous enough to only ask that the 75 ton mech is comparable to a 60 ton tank), you have to essentially make the whole front side of that mech as thick as the glacis of an M1A1. (And again I'm generous enough to pretend not to notice the issue of the armour slope on the M1A1.) At that point you _are_ essentially stretching steel.

But we're probably scaring everyone else away with that kind of geeking out about FASA mechs :pWell, you could slope the armour on a mech as well, and make it relatively thin limbed. And also, why would this scare people away? We're talking in depth about things that do not exist. :D

[Skeptic Ginger]

Hans, the fact you don't know what you don't know has led to not only misreading my posts as including ad homs, when they included specific criticisms, but also to you ignoring the links I did provide you regarding brain development.

I'd be happy to provide more links, but not when you ignore the links I have already posted.

How about you provide some evidence not just your personal logic that contradicts the stages of child development? So far I've provided links, you've provided none while you falsely accuse me of not supporting my position.

[HansMustermann]

Just to make it clear, nobody accused you of not posting stuff. Yes, you've posted links and examples. What I was saying is just basically that those still don't particularly support the conclusion, IMHO.

Same as I don't instantly throw in the towel either when Kathy or Baby Nemesis carpet-bomb with links to and copy-and-paste excerpts from bible apology sites. Quantity of quotes doesn't automatically qualify as actually supporting the conclusion. Otherwise someone could prove that Hobbits exist by just posting 1000 quotes from LOTR :p

But, yes, if there ever was any doubt, let me dispell it by acknowledging that you obviously did put some effort into it. I'm still not convinced of the conclusion, but as Bob is my witless, I wouldn't even dream of saying you haven't posted links and quotes :p

Also, I'm sorry, but you don't get to tell me not to use my personal logic, nor to select who's the only group who is allowed to use logic there.

And yes, I have at least skimmed the links, still didn't convince me, and even there there seem to be plenty of good objections quoted to Piaget's theories. Are _those_ people good enough for you and allowed to use their logic? :p

[welshdean]

Hans and Ginger
I'd love to follow your debate, any chance of a thread?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Just to make it clear, nobody accused you of not posting stuff. Yes, you've posted links and examples. What I was saying is just basically that those still don't particularly support the conclusion, IMHO.And yet you posted nothing but personal opinion supporting your position which goes against the established science of child development and claimed my pointing that out was an argument from authority.


Same as I don't instantly throw in the towel either when Kathy or Baby Nemesis carpet-bomb with links to and copy-and-paste excerpts from bible apology sites. Quantity of quotes doesn't automatically qualify as actually supporting the conclusion. Otherwise someone could prove that Hobbits exist by just posting 1000 quotes from LOTR :pPut up or shut up. Do you have any evidence my links were not from valid sources? Or do you just dismiss anything that doesn't support your established beliefs? Surprise, researchers find (http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/) facts don't often result in people changing their opinions.

Did you make any effort to verify the validity of the links I posted or are you just going to put your foot further into your mouth by rationalizing your mistake with this false charge against the quality of the links I posted?


Also, I'm sorry, but you don't get to tell me not to use my personal logic, nor to select who's the only group who is allowed to use logic there.I said, factually, that all you presented as your argument was unsupported opinion. You supported your opinion with nothing more than a declaration you know what you are talking about.

And yes, I have at least skimmed the links, still didn't convince me, and even there there seem to be plenty of good objections quoted to Piaget's theories. Are _those_ people good enough for you and allowed to use their logic? :pObjections to Piaget's work that were unrelated to the discussion: more evidence your 'skimming' was a mistake on your part.



Stop being defensive and continuing to argue from ignorance. Take a few minutes on Google to see if you can find anything that supports your postion on child development:
You claim the only difference in a young child's thinking and an adult's is quantity learned and you deny there is a qualitative difference resulting from the stages of brain development that occur as children go from birth to a mature brain. Do you have anything at all that supports this position?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Hans and Ginger
I'd love to follow your debate, any chance of a thread?The reason I'm frustrated is akin to the times one gives up arguing with an anti-vaxer or a Creationist when you recognize that their knowledge of science is so poor it is going to take pages and pages of posting basic science they would then have to absorb to even reach a point of having an informed discussion.

Sometimes one is up for the challenge, other times, one just doesn't have the patience or energy to spoon feed a basic science education to someone who doesn't know what they don't know.

I'm sure Hans is an intelligent guy. But in this case he's unfortunately stuck his foot in his mouth and is having a hard time admitting it.

[HansMustermann]

And yet you posted nothing but personal opinion supporting your position which goes against the established science of child development and claimed my pointing that out was an argument from authority.

Yes, you telling me to just trust some authority is the very definition of an appeal to authority. And the whole rhetoric about how basically I'm not good enough to have an opinion is the very definition of an ad hominem.

If you want to convince me, please properly support the actual claim. This kind of sophistry didn't particularly impress me when it came from the fundies, and it still doesn't impress me much when it comes from you.

Put up or shut up.

Hmm? You still don't get "burden of proof"? It's not me who has to do anything there. If you claim a measurable difference, it's your job to prove it. Mine _is_ just to poke holes in the logic.

Basically: _you_ put up or shut up already.

Do you have any evidence my links were not from valid sources?

"Valid" sources is just more of an appeal to authority. The question is whether the conclusion is well supported, not what the source is.

Don't get me wrong, though. You can choose to believe what or who you wish, based on whatever criteria you wish. Nobody named me the High Inquisitor or anything. (Well, not inquisitor anyway. Some still have doubts about the other part;)) But you don't get to tell me to believe something just because you find the source awesome, any more than the fundies can tell me I should believe Aquinas and Anselm were clearly smart guys and did lots of research and were totally peer reviewed by the church at the time and for centuries afterwards.

Or do you just dismiss anything that doesn't support your established beliefs?

Appeal to motive duly noted, but it's still a fallacy. Are you going to actually support your claims, or just do more sophistry about what's wrong with Hans if he doesn't believe you?

Surprise, researchers find (http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/) facts don't often result in people changing their opinions.

Ah, right, another ad-hominem fallacy. Silly me hoping otherwise.

Not to mention that now you're quoting a study without actually understanding what it said, based on some random vague summary. It was actually about corrections inside a news article. Heh.

Did you make any effort to verify the validity of the links I posted or are you just going to put your foot further into your mouth by rationalizing your mistake with this false charge against the quality of the links I posted?

And more of the same sophistry...

I said, factually, that all you presented as your argument was unsupported opinion. You supported your opinion with nothing more than a declaration you know what you are talking about.

Objections to Piaget's work that were unrelated to the discussion: more evidence your 'skimming' was a mistake on your part.

... and more sophistry instead of actually addressing the claim...

Stop being defensive and continuing to argue from ignorance.

Got it, you don't know what "argument from ignorance" means either :p

Take a few minutes on Google to see if you can find anything that supports your postion on child development:
You claim the only difference in a young child's thinking and an adult's is quantity learned and you deny there is a qualitative difference resulting from the stages of brain development that occur as children go from birth to a mature brain. Do you have anything at all that supports this position?

And you still don't get burden of proof. If you claim that there is a measurable difference, it's your burden to support it in a way that supports that conclusion, not mine to preempt any possible thing you might be thinking of.

The reason I'm frustrated is akin to the times one gives up arguing with an anti-vaxer or a Creationist when you recognize that their knowledge of science is so poor it is going to take pages and pages of posting basic science they would then have to absorb to even reach a point of having an informed discussion.

And more ad hominem sophistry...

Sometimes one is up for the challenge, other times, one just doesn't have the patience or energy to spoon feed a basic science education to someone who doesn't know what they don't know.

Yet you had the time, patience and energy to post several pages of fallacies on the topic of basically "here's what's wrong with Hans."

I'm sure Hans is an intelligent guy. But in this case he's unfortunately stuck his foot in his mouth and is having a hard time admitting it.

And another appeal to motives fallacy to round up the list...

Sorry, I'm still not impressed. That's an impressive collection of fallacies, seldom seen outside of fundie threads, to be sure. Not Aquinas-level collection, but still someting to be proud of ;) But it failed to, you know, actually provide any actual support for the claim you're selling me. Which is kinda the crucial part.

Look, seriously, you're wasting your breath. I've been called far worse before, and I've yet to feel an urge along the lines of "I must immediately align myself to what X is preaching, or OMG he/she'll think less of me." What matters is basically if the supporting arguments can be laid end to end to actually reach that conclusion or not. Exactly how ignorant or stubborn you think I am, or whatever motives you can postulate about me, don't even start to count as properly supporting any claim.

Explaining exactly what is the actual mistake I'm making in refuting those claims, for example, now that would go a _much_ farther way than just telling me about how I'm not qualified to do them or how I should just believe some figure of authority. I mean, especially since you just spent a page or so just proclaiming how much more you know than me, and how you'd even be qualified to educate me on the basic science of it, it's weird that you avoid doing exactly that. If you actually know and understand exactly what is different between your examples and the same modes of thinking I pointed out in adults, why not post that instead of the above content-free sophistry?

Of course, that is assuming that you are actually trying to convince me. If you spent all this time and energy just to hear yourself say how much more you know than Hans, by all means, please don't let me interrupt a good statue-polishing exercise ;)

[Skeptic Ginger]

I don't see any supporting evidence links there, Hans.

[!Kaggen]

Not that its relevant, but just for interest sakes.
Hans and Skeptic Ginger, are you parents?

[HansMustermann]

I don't see any supporting evidence links there, Hans.

It's still not my burden of proof there, SG. Keeping repeating the same thing one more time won't make it a legitimate request or true. We're not in The Hunting Of The Snark.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Not that its relevant, but just for interest sakes.
Hans and Skeptic Ginger, are you parents?I'm a parent, and I'm a nurse practitioner. I've studied child development and was a pediatric nurse for a number of my 35 years of broad nursing experience.

[Skeptic Ginger]

It's still not my burden of proof there, SG. Keeping repeating the same thing one more time won't make it a legitimate request or true. We're not in The Hunting Of The Snark.Hans, the bruden of proof falls on your taking a position that goes against the established science. And I did support the claim my position is consistent with the established field of child development science.

You are just hiding behind a phony claim of where the burden of proof lies here because you cannot support your naive assertion.

[!Kaggen]

I'm a parent, and I'm a nurse practitioner. I've studied child development and was a pediatric nurse for a number of my 35 years of broad nursing experience.

Cool, lucky kids :)

[HansMustermann]

Hans, the bruden of proof falls on your taking a position that goes against the established science. And I did support the claim my position is consistent with the established field of child development science.

You are just hiding behind a phony claim of where the burden of proof lies here because you cannot support your naive assertion.

1. That field is hardly as unified and established as you seem to claim. Even in your links there are opinions which question exactly the same things I did, and at least one addresses exactly one of the examples you've used.

E.g., Margaret Donaldson criticized exactly the mountain view experiment as simply not relating to a child's every day experience. I.e., that basically what is really missing is the data to base that judgment on. It's exactly the same objection I'm making.

It addresses exactly your example, yet you handwave it away as irrelevant. Why?

And that's just picking on stuff that's on the very page you linked to. So spare me the pretense that there's complete some scientific consensus and the only ones who doubt it are some lone nutters.

2. Nevertheless it is the very definition of an appeal to authority. Equally someone could, say, ask you to just believe the Catholic dogma, because who are you to go against a whole two millenia of established, accepted and peer-reviewed christology? But it just doesn't work that way. A position's being true or false has nothing to do with how many people believe it, nor how much agree with each other, nor how established it is, nor anything else than whether it can be objectively supported or not.

3. Nevertheless, look up positive vs negative claim. The burden of proof is nevertheless yours, since you are making the claim of a measurable difference. The criterion for whose burden it is, is very clear.

Now nobody says you have to do that if you don't want to, but then essentially it boils down to: you can choose not to support that claim. It's not some failure of someone else if they don't meet your plain ol' wrong expectations. I.e., spare me the pretense that you can reverse the burden of proof just because you say so.

It has nothing to do with who's going against what, or what positions of authority are involved, or anything. It's really that simple.

If it sounds lopsided, it is. But it's there for a reason: proving a negative is a disproportionately harder task, as basically you just passed someone the task of proving that none of the straws in the proverbial haystack is a needle. If you claim that such a change in brain structure exists, it's your task to show the "where" and "how", not someone else's to disprove every imaginable kind of brain change that may or may not be relevant.

[HansMustermann]

Not that its relevant, but just for interest sakes.
Hans and Skeptic Ginger, are you parents?

So far, nope.

[Skeptic Ginger]

1. ...[snipped unsupported assertions and sidetrack]Still no supporting links, Hans?

[PDoug]

Tell her anything you can't see, hear, touch, smell or taste doesn't exist unless theres evidence that it does.


You mean the same why microscopic organisms didn't exist until we developed microscopes; and the same way electromagnetic radiation beyond visible light did no exist until we were able to indirectly perceive them using instruments? There is a big difference between reality and the perception of reality. Just because a blind man cannot perceive the clouds moving above him, does not mean the clouds do not exist.

[PDoug]

This is a question from my 5 year old daughter tonight.
How should I answer without bringing up Bertrand Russel :D


Tell her, something that doesn't exist, is that which does not last forever. Otherwise everything that can be conceived in thought, exists in one form or another.

[HansMustermann]

Still no supporting links, Hans?

Still no clue how "burden of proof" works? :p

SRSLY. Just repeating the same proof of not understanding logic, still won't change how it works. And insisting to set the rules of what logic is acceptable is still as laughably BS as the first time.

But I tire of this. Wake me up if you learn how this newfangled logic works. Otherwise, just hearing another deluded person postulate how he/she is right unless proven wrong, and only if done by the rules he/she sets, is just as silly as it was the first time.

If you feel the need to repeat that BS request instead of supporting your claims, consider that this is the repeated answer. I see no point in typing it yet again.

[PDoug]

Oh this to

and how's my body made ?:o


The human body bears the mark of being made by remarkable intelligence, therefore it was created by intelligent beings. Tell your daughter not to believe in the tale called Evolution. It is a story dressed up in science to give it credibility. The bottom line is that Evolution cannot be proved, making it no more credible than folk tales about the development of man found in many cultures - which also cannot be proved. Also Evolution is seen to violate many observable universal laws, underscoring its illegitimacy.

[HansMustermann]

Oh gee, PDoug. Even skipping past the fact that it's the same tired unsupported ID bullcrap, it doesn't even start to bear any bearing to the actual quesion of "what doesn't exist?"

[PDoug]

Oh gee, PDoug. Even skipping past the fact that it's the same tired unsupported ID bullcrap, it doesn't even start to bear any bearing to the actual quesion of "what doesn't exist?"


I answered the question at the beginning of this thread here (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6136565&postcount=77).

[Skeptic Ginger]

Oh gee, PDoug. Even skipping past the fact that it's the same tired unsupported ID bullcrap, it doesn't even start to bear any bearing to the actual quesion of "what doesn't exist?"This is really sad. You are criticizing someone else for the very thing you are guilty of in this thread: unsupported assertions.

[Skeptic Ginger]

....Gopnik does appear to point out that some of Piaget's theories have been found to be incorrect.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/40062949I found this discussion of the issues with Piaget's work that should shed a bit more light on the aspect of challenges to his work.

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development (http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cogsys/piaget.html)Piaget's research methods were based primarily on case studies [they were descriptive]. While some of his ideas have been supported through more correlational and experimental methodologies, others have not. For example, Piaget believed that biological development drives the movement from one cognitive stage to the next. Data from cross-sectional studies of children in a variety of western cultures seem to support this assertion for the stages of sensorimotor, preoperational, and concrete operations ( Renner, Stafford, Lawson, McKinnon, Friot & Kellogg, 1976).

However, data from similar cross-sectional studies of adolescents do not support the assertion that all individuals will automatically move to the next cognitive stage as they biologically mature. Data from adolescent populations indicates only 30 to 35% of high school seniors attain the cognitive development stage of formal operations (Kuhn, Langer, Kohlberg & Haan, 1977). For formal operations, it appears that maturation establishes the basis, but a special environment is required for most adolescents and adults to attain this stage.

There's a graph in the article of the ages by which kids move in and out of the stages that indicates Piaget merely got it wrong that the stages were fixed by age. Instead, the stages are more individualized with some kids moving in and out earlier than other kids.

Piaget was also criticized for his research method which was to study his own children. This of course is a bit too close to anecdotal data for today's scientists. But Piaget's basic concepts that there is a qualitative and not just a quantitative difference in how children think has stood the test of time. Piaget's theories have merely been fine tuned, not rejected, unlike Freud for example, whose ideas are largely rejected now in favor of more biological models of mental illness.

[HansMustermann]

"Stood the test of time" is a textbook form of the Appeal To Tradition (http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-tradition.html) fallacy.

The reason being that basically having been believed for X years is not much of an indication of anything.

Since you mention Freud, that's in itself a good example: his theories "stood the test of time" for about a century, which is actually more years than Piaget's theories. In fact Piaget was just getting _born_ in the year when his father's death gave Freud the idea to attribute just about everything and the kitchen sinks to memories of his childhood and relationship with his parents. If there's a magical X years deadline after which something becomes truth, sad to say, Freud is the perfect example that it might be a bit longer than that.

But of course, that all pales in comparison to alchemy and astrology which stood the test of time for several millennia, and were espoused and endorsed and peer-reviewed by some of the brightest minds in the western world's academia. With a honourable mention also going to the Aristotelian system which was _the_ science and something no educated man would not agree to, for more than half a millennium in the catholic universities alone, until this obviously ignorant little troll called Galileo started seeing satellites around Jupiter although anyone with a proper scientific education could have told him that there can be no such thing ;)

[Skeptic Ginger]

Wow Hans, you are a study in digging one's heels in with the foot in one's mouth. Your post also demonstrates that no matter what evidence you are presented with, you are going to reject it and claim your challenge has not been answered.

Standing the test of time in the context I used it means the same research result was repeatedly found by subsequent researchers. I'm not sure why you've manufactured some other bizarre meaning of my statement.

Did you notice the link I posted had direct observational confirmation of the cognitive stages of operation:Data from cross-sectional studies of children in a variety of western cultures seem to support this assertion for the stages of sensorimotor, preoperational, and concrete operations ( Renner, Stafford, Lawson, McKinnon, Friot & Kellogg, 1976).

Here's another study measuring the ages at which OBSERVED children were in the Concrete stage (and the other stages) in Piaget's theory.

Brain Stages - BRAIN AND MIND EFFECTS IN SCHOOLING (http://www.brainstages.net/brained2.htm)The long time needed for such one-on-one testing led to quite a few attempts to create an equivalent pencil and paper test that could be administered to hundreds or thousands of children at the same time. The most accurate of these was created by Shayer and Adey [1981]. They proceeded to test 2,000 children et each age from 10 through 16 and another 1,000 about ages 17 and 18. To get an idea of the cognitive level data at earlier ages, the literature was searched for experiments which could be interpreted as giving reasonable estimates of the cognitive levels at those earlier ages. These estimates have been incorporated into the cognitive level table below. The data for adults were taken from a study by Renner et al [1976]....
...To relate the table data to the information given earlier, note that between ages 5 and 7 the percentage of children reaching the concrete operations level increased from 15 to 65 percent; this is a manifestation of the results of Piaget presented above. In the 10-12 year period, the percentage at the concrete level decreased while 12% of the children began to manifest abstract reasoning abilities. Thus, during brain growth spurts, there were correlated spurts in cognitive levels.Again the chart shows the children's brain development stage by age.

(emphasis mine in both quotes)

[!Kaggen]

I tried another experiment last night, using the ideas from Lewis Carrol "Through the Looking Glass" which we are reading now.
I held a doll in each hand, one smaller than the other and asked my 5yr old daughter to first identify which hand held the bigger doll looking in a mirror with me standing behind her and then close her eyes and turn around and choose which hand held the bigger doll.
I did the same with mom.
Mom got it right and could thoughtfully explain why the hands changed, whilst my daughter always choose the wrong hand based on her sensory experience of looking "through" the mirror.
The 5yr old trusted her senses whilst the adult trusted her thoughts.
Perhaps this gives some clues to the context of her original question?

[HansMustermann]

Standing the test of time in the context I used it means the same research result was repeatedly found by subsequent researchers. I'm not sure why you've manufactured some other bizarre meaning of my statement.

Standing the test of time meant exactly the same thing for Freud, alchemy, astrology, dream interpretation, or the geocentric model. There was certainly no shortage of people adding their own illustrations about how some patient's schizophrenia was because of some repressed memory of the relationship with her mother, and how talking about it made everything better. Nor a shortage of very educated scholars of astrology all through middle ages (and some to this day) who could testify that in the cases they studied, Mars rising in the Aquarius really did have this or that effect on personality or fate. Alchemy too didn't have a shortage of people who checked at least that adding mercury to _something_ does produce gold (if that something is gold ore: that's how they extracted it), hence there's nothing wrong with the metal transmutation theory.

That said, I have nothing against quoting a study. It's just phrases like basically "stood the test of time, unlike Freud" which strike me as not just the fallacy the first part is, but really funny as support for something which is beaten hands down by Freud for years it stood. At any rate, if something is adequately supported -- and you're telling me it is, right? -- then that's what matters, not the number of years it stood.

But I'm not sure what bizarre meaning you see there, since it all was very clear. The only thing that could be misinterpreted was the name of the "appeal to tradition" fallacy, but I'm sure you knew the formal names of the fallacies already, and the link explained it perfectly clear too, so probably that's not it either. So exactly what bizarre meaning do you see there?

[HansMustermann]

I tried another experiment last night, using the ideas from Lewis Carrol "Through the Looking Glass" which we are reading now.
I held a doll in each hand, one smaller than the other and asked my 5yr old daughter to first identify which hand held the bigger doll looking in a mirror with me standing behind her and then close her eyes and turn around and choose which hand held the bigger doll.
I did the same with mom.
Mom got it right and could thoughtfully explain why the hands changed, whilst my daughter always choose the wrong hand based on her sensory experience of looking "through" the mirror.
The 5yr old trusted her senses whilst the adult trusted her thoughts.
Perhaps this gives some clues to the context of her original question?

I'm not sure how that would be context, but then you know her better than anyone else can.

She clearly hasn't figured out mirrors yet, but I doubt that even for adults you can take something X said on day B as an indication of what they were thinking when they asked something else on day A. Thoughts come and go all the time.

Even time seems to go differently at earlier ages. IIRC in one study the younger the child, basically the more off was their estimation of a time interval. And I mean very much off in any case. An hour is a long time, and a day is half an eternity. Someone holding the same question in mind for a couple of days would be like you contemplating something for two weeks. It can happen, but you can't take it for a given that yesterday she was still curious about the same thing as today.

Plus, for better or worse, the world of childhood does seem to be one of more immediate concerns. Someone being curious about a mirror will tend to ask about the mirror, rather than "what doesn't exist?" even if they did figure out that the world behind the mirror doesn't exist. Same as if you saw a fridge for the first time, the first questions would probably be the more immediate ones like "what does it do?" or "how does it work?" rather than the more abstract ones like "what is the nature of the refrigeration concept?" The philosophical stuff tends to come after you've finished learning the simpler stuff about something.

Though even having figured out that the world behind the mirror is non-existent isn't a given. Even adults world wide believed all sorts of nonsense about what you see in a mirror and why it's different. E.g., a common myth is that you actually see someone's soul in a mirror. (Hence the myth about the undead having no reflection: they already have no soul.) Or that breaking a mirror will actually harm the soul of anyone seeing their reflection in it, because, see, if you see that soul in pieces, it really is in pieces. (Now that's a mode of thinking you wouldn't expect in adults, eh?;)) Or for that matter that leaving a mirror uncovered in a room with a deceased person could cause their soul to become trapped in the mirror. It's a tradition actually still believed and observed in the rural areas of some countries. And I mean in Europe, not some primitive island.

In effect, trying to look _through_ the mirror instead of taking it for a reflection, is pretty much the default mode even for adults if they don't know it's a reflection. (And if you thought about the 3d space objection and that obviously one would see there's nothing behind the mirror, tell that to Egyptians and their spirit doors. That you could manufacture and arbitrarily place a plane that is a boundary between two universes, rather than just between front and back in the 3d space it's in, was very much what every adult believed.) They may already know to invert left and right for the world behind the mirror, but it's actually rather common to try to look through it to something that does exist, as opposed to an illustration of something that doesn't exist.

At any rate, I figure, whether one has figured out that what you see is simply what's in front of the mirror, or really thinks there's some other world behind, IMHO it doesn't tie very well to the concept of "doesn't exist" either way. Neither of the versions really means seeing something that doesn't exist.

[!Kaggen]

I'm not sure how that would be context, but then you know her better than anyone else can.

She clearly hasn't figured out mirrors yet, but I doubt that even for adults you can take something X said on day B as an indication of what they were thinking when they asked something else on day A. Thoughts come and go all the time.

Even time seems to go differently at earlier ages. IIRC in one study the younger the child, basically the more off was their estimation of a time interval. And I mean very much off in any case. An hour is a long time, and a day is half an eternity. Someone holding the same question in mind for a couple of days would be like you contemplating something for two weeks. It can happen, but you can't take it for a given that yesterday she was still curious about the same thing as today.

Plus, for better or worse, the world of childhood does seem to be one of more immediate concerns. Someone being curious about a mirror will tend to ask about the mirror, rather than "what doesn't exist?" even if they did figure out that the world behind the mirror doesn't exist. Same as if you saw a fridge for the first time, the first questions would probably be the more immediate ones like "what does it do?" or "how does it work?" rather than the more abstract ones like "what is the nature of the refrigeration concept?" The philosophical stuff tends to come after you've finished learning the simpler stuff about something.

Though even having figured out that the world behind the mirror is non-existent isn't a given. Even adults world wide believed all sorts of nonsense about what you see in a mirror and why it's different. E.g., a common myth is that you actually see someone's soul in a mirror. (Hence the myth about the undead having no reflection: they already have no soul.) Or that breaking a mirror will actually harm the soul of anyone seeing their reflection in it, because, see, if you see that soul in pieces, it really is in pieces. (Now that's a mode of thinking you wouldn't expect in adults, eh?;)) Or for that matter that leaving a mirror uncovered in a room with a deceased person could cause their soul to become trapped in the mirror. It's a tradition actually still believed and observed in the rural areas of some countries. And I mean in Europe, not some primitive island.

In effect, trying to look _through_ the mirror instead of taking it for a reflection, is pretty much the default mode even for adults if they don't know it's a reflection. (And if you thought about the 3d space objection and that obviously one would see there's nothing behind the mirror, tell that to Egyptians and their spirit doors. That you could manufacture and arbitrarily place a plane that is a boundary between two universes, rather than just between front and back in the 3d space it's in, was very much what every adult believed.) They may already know to invert left and right for the world behind the mirror, but it's actually rather common to try to look through it to something that does exist, as opposed to an illustration of something that doesn't exist.

At any rate, I figure, whether one has figured out that what you see is simply what's in front of the mirror, or really thinks there's some other world behind, IMHO it doesn't tie very well to the concept of "doesn't exist" either way. Neither of the versions really means seeing something that doesn't exist.

I see what you mean, but I was thinking more about her realization that perhaps what was correct for her senses was not correct in reality and therefore the question about what does not exist.

She has asked a couple of other questions recently, such as why are we still in South Africa when we get in the car and drive to another town.

It seems to me that she is grappling with the idea of abstract thought (that which is not immediately experienced by the senses) as a way of describing reality.

Using Haeckal's biogenetic law- that ontogeny is a re-capitulation of phylogeny- my daughter is at the Greek phase of human civilization :D

[HansMustermann]

Or basically an attempt at categorizing the world. When trying to figure out attribute or property X, "what isn't X?" is actually quite useful in providing a thing or two without it to compare to.

The thing about South Africa sounds to me like trying to figure out exactly what South Africa is. It may sound obvious to someone who knows geography that the other town is in South Africa too, but to someone who only knows it as basically "we're in South Africa" or "this place here is South Africa", it may not be obvious at all exactly up to where does it extend.

I've actually heard some version or another of both questions when teaching a couple of non-gamer adults to play WoW and a couple of other MMOs, for example. "Are we still in Azeroth?" after flying to another city (of course, since that's the name of the whole world) has actually happened.

At any rate, she sounds like quite the inquisitive young lady, and figuring out abstract concepts sounds spot on for that kind of questions.

But exactly what triggered it, and whether one is context for the other, or even if they are in the same context, I couldn't tell. As I was saying, you know her better than anyone else. If even you don't know what gave her those ideas, I'm not going to even try to guess.

[!Kaggen]

Or basically an attempt at categorizing the world. When trying to figure out attribute or property X, "what isn't X?" is actually quite useful in providing a thing or two without it to compare to.

The thing about South Africa sounds to me like trying to figure out exactly what South Africa is. It may sound obvious to someone who knows geography that the other town is in South Africa too, but to someone who only knows it as basically "we're in South Africa" or "this place here is South Africa", it may not be obvious at all exactly up to where does it extend.

I've actually heard some version or another of both questions when teaching a couple of non-gamer adults to play WoW and a couple of other MMOs, for example. "Are we still in Azeroth?" after flying to another city (of course, since that's the name of the whole world) has actually happened.

At any rate, she sounds like quite the inquisitive young lady, and figuring out abstract concepts sounds spot on for that kind of questions.

But exactly what triggered it, and whether one is context for the other, or even if they are in the same context, I couldn't tell. As I was saying, you know her better than anyone else. If even you don't know what gave her those ideas, I'm not going to even try to guess.

As adults, especially those with a lot of practice, we move so easily back and forth from our abstract thoughts to what we are physically experiencing that we can forget others don't "see" our thoughts.......

[tiktokman]

"You can't have nothing isn't!"

[fuelair]

Worthwhile ontology.

Ontology recapitulates physiognomy. And the obverse.:)

[fuelair]

The human body bears the mark of being made by remarkable intelligence, therefore it was created by intelligent beings. Tell your daughter not to believe in the tale called Evolution. It is a story dressed up in science to give it credibility. The bottom line is that Evolution cannot be proved, making it no more credible than folk tales about the development of man found in many cultures - which also cannot be proved. Also Evolution is seen to violate many observable universal laws, underscoring its illegitimacy.

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:jaw-dropp:D:D:D

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

"Master, what is the meaning of non-existence?"

"The sound of one hand clapping."

"I do not understand."

"Move closer..."

(The disciple moves closer to the master)

"... See? You do understand."

:confused:

To clear to be seen with the thinking process ;) it is just matter of SEEING reality, beyond concepts

[Skeptic Ginger]

Standing the test of time meant exactly the same thing for Freud, alchemy, astrology, dream interpretation, or the geocentric model.That is just ludicrous, Hans. Not one of those examples has stood the test of time or any other test for that matter.

I see you are trying to change the subject altogether now.

[HansMustermann]

Nope, the subject of that particular derail still is "use proper logic or take a hike" :p

And the problem is that I see you're treating the present as some magical moment, but still don't seem to understand the basic problem with something boiling down to "it's true because it survived for X years." If you asked someone in 1980 or even 1990 if Freud stood the test of time, the answer would have been a resounding "yes". In fact, you'd get considered a CT-er if you doubted that one can recover genuine repressed memories and that one's whole behaviour and any mental problems are centered around it. If you asked someone in Newton's time if alchemy has stood the test of time, again you'd get a resounding "yes!" Etc.

The present isn't any more magical than those moments. Something isn't automatically true because it survived up to "now", regardless of whether that "now" moment is 2010 or 1980 or 1600. There isn't something more magical about something surviving X years until 2010 than its surviving X years until 1600. Those X years just don't prove anything in any case.