Question #2 for Atheists.?

Question

Imagine a triangle. What concepts are implicitly needed for you to do this?

You have to have knowledge of a side before you can have knowledge of a triangle. This isn't necessarily "before" in time--in fact, a child might grasp both at the same time--but "before" in the sense of a prerequisite. You don't need the knowledge of a triangle to have knowledge of a side, but the opposite is not true.

Do you agree?

My point is that you need to know some things before you can know other things. You need to have at least an implicit knowledge of a side and 1-dimensional space (even if you have no working definition of these things) in order to visualize a geometrical figure.

I am nowhere near the point where I begin talking about God.

Link to question #1: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=An.rJ4OGhcYqhtt.xZwtyHvsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071015072127AABa2eU

knyghtze...that is very interesting. I will need to think about that further. Of course, you've reversed the order of prerequisites, but you still acknowledge an order, which was (and is) my point. The question is made more difficult from the fact that triangles, strictly speaking, don't exists except as beings of reason, and as inhering in things other than themselves--you don't see one-dimensional geometric concepts wandering around in the fields.

Yeow Teng K...you need the knowledge of what a turtle is (as abstracted from any particular turtle, so you can recognize your phantasm as a turtle) and you need at least some vague knowledge of the aesthetics of the ninja arts.

Elliot...I plan to use no analogies. Before we can answer the question "Does God exist?" we must answer the question, "What to it mean that something exists?" That is what I am driving at right now; I've not yet gotten to the point where I can begin talking about the possibility of divinity.

Answer 1

I don't know that's necessarily true. In fact, I think it very likely is not. It seems logical that it would be true - but there are a LOT of things that seem logical but are in fact utterly false.

This is an empirical question - to be settled through research - not something I'm willing to just pull out of my hat.

Answer 2

Uh, one of the problems with what you're doing here is that you're putting most of what you have to say in the Additional Details fields. Those aren't visible in this Answer screen I'm in while I type. So I read it all, but can't see it here, or remember everything I read in that first screen.

Again, I think you need to find a site on the web that's set up for the kind of thing you're trying to do.

Now you're in the field of cognitive psychology, in a sense, though, yes, in a way it's logic, too (though not religion or spirituality).

Although there's a sense in which "side" is a more basic concept than "triangle" there's also a sense in which it's derivative. That is, we grasp shapes, and generalize ourselves into grasping "the side" and "the number of sides."

On the one hand, you are talking in chronological terms, yet point out that you aren't.

I bet that small children "get" 'triangle' before they "get" the more abstract term 'side.' I also bet that we have modules for identifying abstract shapes. That is, it's a thing we do -- as we have a module for recognizing human faces. You're looking at this as an armchair philosopher would, that is, someone who's ignoring all we know about how the mind actually works.

Uh, by definition, triangles are 2-dimensional.

A 1 dimensional "thing" is a line or segment of no width (since you're now getting into mathematics).

I don't remember what else you discussed in the Additionals, see paragraph the first.

Answer 3

Question for you .....

Imagine a Turtle that can do ninja skills. What concepts are implicitly needed for you to do this?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ...... that is what god is, an imagination that is absolutely nothing.

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Not necassery, had you seen a ghost or a dragon or any mythical creature before, yet, there are so many artistic abstract of these things. A ninja Turtle might not look like a turtle, what gives you the idea a Ninja Turtle looks like a turtle? Is it because you had read about it and think it should look like a turtle and turtle has that specific look?

It is the same with people who are indoctrinated with things like "god". They will have the concept of what this "god" will be based on their book. It takes great willpower to jump out of it.


By the way, you do not need to know how a triangle looks like to draw a triangle. A description of someone's imagination can draw a triangle.

Do this experiment. Draw three straight line with closed angles. What do you call it?

Answer 4

You don't need full understanding of the concept of a side, only an understanding of how sides relate to the structure of triangles. One may be able to imagine a triangle without understanding how sides function on their own, or how sides appear when curved, or how sides function in quadrilaterals, or three-dimensional objects.

Incidentally if you've got a point you might want to try just telling us. You obviously aren't really interested in triangles, and the further you get from what you're really talking about the more likely it is that your series of questions will collapse into a false analogy.

Answer 5

3, line and vertex.


Edit
"You don't need the knowledge of a triangle to have knowledge of a side, but the opposite is not true"
False, the concept of side requires a figure for it to be part of(and the triangle is the simplest polygon), therefore with the concept of triangle you can get the concept of side, and with the concept of side you can deduce the existence of a triangle.

Edit
"Of course, you've reversed the order of prerequisites, but you still acknowledge an order"
the fact that the prerequisites can be inversed, implies that the concept comes from circular logic, which is perfectly valid(if all links of the chain are true)
For example
a triangle have 3 sides
a side is the line that exist between two vertex in a figure
this figure have 3 lines that exist between two vertex
this figure have 3 sides
this figure is a triangle
a triangle have 3 sides
etc

Answer 6

I'll tell you what concept isn't needed: There does not need to be a Form of a Triangle.

In fact, the only ontological commitments I need to imagine a triangle are the properties of being three-sided (or three angled) and planar. I do NOT need a priori knowledge of a triangle.

Answer 7

You need the concept of shape naming conventions. That is pretty much it. You could be clueless about sides or anything else and only know to associate the image of a triangle with the word formed by the letter t r i a n g l e.

Answer 8

Knowledge of the shape of the triangle. Not just the "here, this is a triangle" but rather the "look at this shape, we call it triangle for its three corners (points at corners), it has three angles also (points at angles), therefore the etymology of the word triangle reflects the attributes of the shape being described" sort of thing.

Is this one of those atheists test things like the banana and coca-cola?

Answer 9

As a tender little one, I believed the Bible was once to not be taken actually, that there was once no evidence that the Old Testament variation of God ever existed (and He appeared form of imply as well). And although I had been a vegetarian due to the fact that I was once three, I had no hindrance taking communion on account that I knew that it didn't honestly emerge as Christ's frame and blood. So I might say I began wondering the Catholic religion at an excessively early age- or possibly I was once Buddhist lengthy earlier than I known as myself Buddhist.

Answer 10

You're trying to make a fallacious argument comparing apples and oranges.

Triangles are part of the proved, factual, mathematical discipline of geometry. There is no imagination required.

Since you posed this question to atheists, we already know where you're trying to go with this.