Strange

Because someone claimed that philosophy solves problems. The conclusion seems to be that it only solves problems created by philosophy, rather than real problems.

Sorry, I was being brief due to lack of time and because I couldn't think of a good example. But, for example, many people would say "killing someone is wrong"; a clear moral statement. But then if you start testing various cases, it is clear that it is not so clear cut. Is it OK to kill in self defence? Is it OK to kill someone who is suffering from an incurable disease? If it is wrong to kill someone, then is capital punishment OK? If you have a choice of deliberately killing someone in order to save the lives of 2 other people, should you do it? What if it is 100 people? Or a million? What if it is a choice between killing an old man to save two babies? Or killing a baby to save two old men? I don't think philosophy can provide answers to any of these, but I think it requires some knowledge of philosophy to test the ideas.

Hearing voices can be a symptom of many different things. Some serious, some less so. If it happens again, see a doctor. And try and get a better attitude towards mental illness!

I have to admit, I don't really understand much of that. Are you saying that the answer is that there is no answer? (All theories are wrong.) Edit: And I am not even sure what problem is being solved by this approach ... Oh well.

Excellent points, very well made. The only thing I might take issue with: I agree that people know what they think when faced with a single issue. What they might not have thought through is the wider implications of a particular decision in one case when applied to other cases. This is where philosophy can really help: knowing what questions to ask.

Well, I was hoping to hear about philosophy solving real world problems. But go ahead, anyway...

I can see that philosophy and philosophers can contribute to solving problems, perhaps by clarifying what the problem is. For example, ethics committees in research labs or hospitals might use philosophers to help them work through all the issues around an ethical decision.

I though this was interesting enough to have its own thread ... (I am also from industry and have spent my career solving problems. Which is perhaps why I don't know what problems philosophy solves. )

How did they talk about these ramps and other slopes for the thousands of years of prehistory if they didn't have a word for them? "Hey, I'm just going to walk up this, er, you know, thingy ... "

How is that relevant? You claimed that no one lives or travels in "the desert". Given the subject of the thread, I assumed that you meant the Sahara. I could have found references to people living in and travelling through all sorts of deserts but I focussed on the one you are talking about. Once again a load of waffle and bluster, rather than admit you were wrong. This behaviour is just silly. But as you ask... http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/236545/Gobi/47956/Plant-life#toc47958 (Which is obviously not "nobody"). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley And all this waffle is irrelevant to refuting your claim that no one lives there or travels across it. Er, it is exactly that. Because you said that they don't because of "common sense". I am just trying to help you learn that every random "fact" that pops in to your head is not automatically true because you thought of it. Of course it isn't. It uses the scientific method. That makes it a science. What is that supposed to mean? I would suggest a course in historical linguistics. Unfortunately, it would destroy all your fantasies about the way language works. (You know what they say about people not accepting new ideas...)

Oh, good grief. And on a science forum. You may not have noticed that common sense is frequently wrong. That is one of the reasons for the scientific method. And in this case you are, once again, trivially wrong. Of course people live in deserts and of course people travel through them. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/516375/Sahara/37016/The-people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedouin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Saharan_trade No this is your claim. I am impressed (not) by your ability to waffle on without addressing the point. As you are unable to provide a citation to support your claim, I will assume that there is no Egyptologist who claims to know everything. Again, good grief. Linguistics is a science. Of course they won't "swear" to it. You are setting ridiculous standards. However, they could, of course, provide you with a large pile of evidence for the existence of the words for ramp or slope in prehistory.

Then maybe "boat" is not the appropriate English translation. It is not as if there is a one-to-one mapping between words. Translators have to choose the word(s) that best express the meaning, not just pick a single definition for all cases. I would like to see some evidence to support that claim. Sounds like another of your made-up "factoids". Citation needed. The fact it isn't attested doesn't mean it didn't exist. From historical linguistics (which is a science, rather than your Tower of Babel fantasy) the existence of unattested forms can be determined with some certainty.

Even if that is true (debatable) the converse is not true: not all crackpots are great thinkers. Most of them are just crackpots.

As these facts and the sophisticated astronomy, mathematics and engineering skills are well known, it would seem to contradict your claim that "people don't appreciate the sophistication of the builders". Their sophistication is well understood. After all, they developed the writing system that is the ancestor of almost all scripts in use today (including this one).

What alternatives? I know little or nothing about pyramid construction so all I have said about that is that there does appear to be evidence of ramps but that no one insists that this is the one and only answer. And that the word for "ramp" did exist. And a few other factual errors. I am not presenting any alternative. As for the language issue. Yes, it could easily be shown (not proved) that cladking's theories are baseless. Just do a course in historical linguistics. (To draw an analogy with your comment about quadratic equations; if someone didn't believe the correct solution, the best suggestion is for them to study maths.) My "alternative" in this respect is that Egyptian is clearly a member of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages that have origins going back long before the 2000BC "tower of babel" he proposes. I am not an expert in Afro-Asiatic languages so I would have to do a lot of research to put together a case demonstrating this and I don't see any point wasting my time on it. (And nothing is "proved" in science.)

Indeed. Objective observation and measurement. I don't reject these at all. I can't imagine what gave you that idea. However, eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable. As has been demonstrated by scientific experiments. Anyone who suggests you should "believe your own eyes" is mistaken and ignorant of the facts.

Linguistics is not a very soft science. It relies heavily on data and mathematical analysis. "The evidence of your eyes" is about the worst sort of evidence available. I think it is more likely because your ideas are "not even wrong" so they don't even know how to begin explaining that it is nonsense. Imagine going to a car dealer and asking how many fairies are needed to make the engine go round. That is similar to what you are saying. Anyway, I actually came back to the thread to pass on an article I thought you might find interesting, on the relationship between "mind" and "heart", i.e. cognition and emotion, in Chinese: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=14807

Linguistics is a science. Linguistics contradicts your idea.

Sorry, this doesn't wash. This is a typical argument used by crackpots: "you are rejecting my theory based on existing science, but this is new science". Basically, this is begging the question: "my theory is correct, therefore your objections are invalid, therefore my theory is correct". I think I will put you on ignore before I tell you what I really think, and regret it.

I didn't say it did. It seems your ability to understand language is as limited as your ability to use it effectively. There are so many serious problems with this hypothesis, it is hard to know where to start. We can skip over the total lack of evidence, the mountain of contradictory evidence and your apparent ignorance of historical linguistics... And that is a fatal objection. If you start off with a single language that fragments (especially one with a small vocabulary, as you claim) then you will end up with a group of obviously related languages. This is seen repeatedly. For example, we see this with Latin splitting into the modern Romance languages (a process that started during the time of the Empire). We see it in the Afro-Asiatic languages (of which Egyptian was a member). We see it in the Sino-Tibetan and Dravidian languages. We see it in all language families. What we don't see, ever, is a language splitting into totally unrelated languages. And yet this is what you propose. If all the languages on Earth sprang from a common ancestor, then why are they split into unrelated families. The rest of the idea is just too stupid to comment on. (But I am sure you will blame that opinion on "modern language" rather than it being the judgement of someone who has studied linguistics.)

I missed this before as it was tacked on as an apparent non-sequitur. You seem to be describing some sort of literal Tower of Babel story. Is that correct? Are you claiming that there was one language throughout the world? And that at some point people started speaking a different language? And, presumably, not just a different language but multiple different languages? What do you mean by "based on different formatting"? Do you mean grammar? And what caused this event? And over what period of time did this change take place? And how did the hundreds of new languages spring into being with apparent historical relationships? (This is the same problem that creationists face - why the family tree if they were all created de novo?

Is that supposed to be an answer to someone's question?

Things like your repeated claim that is is impossible to see anything knew. Or that the meanings of Egyptian hieroglyphs are unknown. Or that there is no physical evidence for ramps. Or that there is no word for ramp. Or ... Oh just reread all your threads. You are repeatedly shown to be talking nonsense. Irrelevant (n): A fact that contradicts a dearly held belief.

So we can add "science" and "evidence" to the words that you have your own personal definition of. Maybe you should publish a bilingual English-Cladkingese dictionary. Evidence (n): A cake made of bananas. Science (n): The house where ghosts live. Scalar question (n): A type of motorised water vehicle. Visceral knowledge (n): The pleasure found in scratching a scab. Egypt (n): A mythical planet inhabited by giant spiders. Alphabet (n): Indecipherable marks on paper. Language (n): A flexible material related to rubber. And so on.

I think you mean, "opinion after opinion" It has been repeatedly demonstrated that many of your opinions are factually incorrect. And yet you keep repeating them.