dialectic

retardicus actually told retard maximus that the world is flat and that she has seen it with her own eyes. is this epistomology?

I would say Yes because epistemology means the study of knowledge and her conclusion was based on knowledge gleaned from a (supposedly) trustworthy source, namely, her own eyes.

I'm not actually sure what dialectic means but in Hegelian thought the fusion of thesis and antithesis results in synthesis. This is his inherent logical methodology.

thank you do you have any examples of synthesis? Should we abandon this topic since I choose the wrong word?

No! Dialectic and synthesis are among the hardest terms to fully understand in philosophy (I believe dialectic is the method of creating synthesis from thesis and antithesis). A good example of the dialectic would be:

Thesis: People like to keep cats for pets.
Antithesis: People like to have pet dogs.
Synthesis: Some people like to keep pet cats and others pet dogs (and by inference some both and others neither).

The is space and time were on a continuum
so that
when you looked into the distance you could in fact see the past,
would there be a missing quantity of mass?
Would this quantity be the synthesis, dialectic, or something else?
Thanks again for the good e.g.
--:surrender:oops .. me not so good at it

Is your argument:

1. Space and time are on a continuum, such that:
2. When you look into the distance, you see the past,
3. And therefore there is a missing quantity of mass?

That's not exactly a dialectic. It doesn't have an antithesis or the synthesis forming from it. A good example of a dialectic is:

1. Space and time are on a continuum, such that what appears to be the distance is in fact the past, and therefore there is missing mass. (thesis)
2. Space ... past, but there can be no missing mass. (antithesis)
3. What we perceive to be missing mass could be mass that we simply have yet to detect. (synthesis)

If I may note, mysterystar, your second premise is quite right. It takes time for light to bounce off a particular object and reach our eyes. In fact, what we perceive is what happened several milliseconds in the past. What we perceive the Sun to be doing right now is what it was doing approximately eight minutes ago. The fact that light exhibits this behavior leads to the creation of what physicists call "light cones." Since we use light to detect stuff, whatever lies outside our light cone is inherently undetectable. Therefore, there is mass we cannot dectect, and we can perceive it as "missing mass." Thus, your argument, while poorly worded, seems to be quite right :bigsmile:.

But you guys are only looking at the dialectic from the Hegelian perspective, which came 2000 years after the ancient Greek philosophers. I cannot remember which specific philosopher said it, but the dialectic is making connections between ideas. By looking at things from different perspectives links between ideas are found.

Theaetetus, I do that all the time-- ~hammer

Most of the dilema<sp> for me is adding what we know to what I see. I seem to toggle back and forth from thesis to antithesis. Are you able to adjust your consciousness to these other facts, such that you are conscious of them during perception?

Oh, I just mean that I always make connections between ideas from different parts of my knowledge all the time. It's a part of the way my brain works.

What I've been discussing with you, mysterystar, is the formal form of dialectic popularized by Hegel. Thaeatetus was making a remark about the history of the dialectic--it'd be nice if he shared some of it with us--and I just replied with a glib remark.