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This story is an urban myth, no one actually did that because he would have failed spectacularly...

I remember getting told the exact same story when i was 14...It was in Graphic Communication class and the teache was a lady called Miss Walker who a year later died at the gym, true story...anyway.

This exam story however is not true.

My job would be a hell of a lot easier if it was true!

Of course, using this logic, I could say the entire universe is in my imagination, and that everything that occurs is simply a product of my mind. There's no way to prove or disprove it, so you can't say it's impossible.

There's no way to PROVE that something doesn't exist, but you can convince someone of it. I suppose this ties in with...uh...can't think of the term, Object Permanece I think? Anyways, it's when at a young age, babies think that when something leaves their field of view, it's gone from existance completely, and when that object is seen again, it's a completely new one. You technically could use this to answer the question with something like...

"You can't see me sitting in a chair, so I'm not sitting in one."

Or you could just mess around with the instructor (as I imagine the "What chair?" person was doing) and say something like "You're grading this paper, and I'm not even sitting in a chair right now, so tehre isn't a chair for me to prove nonexistant." Which I suppose is just "What chair?" over elaborated.

i would probably answer it as "it exists as much as this exam paper does.."

I thought it was impossible to prove a negative. I remember something from Derrens Brown book where he says its impossible to prove that a giant teapot IS NOT orbiting the Earth

lozey wrote:I thought it was impossible to prove a negative. I remember something from Derrens Brown book where he says its impossible to prove that a giant teapot IS NOT orbiting the Earth

Ah, Bertrand Russell's China Teapot.

The idea is to prove by showing where it is not, that no such teapot is in orbit around the sun. Russell used to use this idea to demonstrate how much work is involved. The problem is that so many people who want to argue for the existence of something they dearly want to believe exists will use negative logic of the form "Ah, but prove it doesn't exist. You can't can you," knowing that this is very difficult without recourse to heuristics and (God forbid) common sense, whereas the onus is actually on them to prove demonstrably that it does - repeatedly and reliably. They're much more interested in claiming that this has already happened using anecdotal evidence. So they demand rigour but only from the other "side". Odd, that.

speaking of God, i do find it amusing that us atheists still use phrases such as "for the love of god", "jesus..", and a favourite of mine "sweet lord.."

we love a bit of blasphemy..."for the love of the big bang" it should be..i love a...nah, lets leave it at that...language is a funny old game...

abraxus wrote:speaking of God, i do find it amusing that us atheists still use phrases such as "for the love of god", "jesus..", and a favourite of mine "sweet lord.."

we love a bit of blasphemy..."for the love of the big bang" it should be..i love a...nah, lets leave it at that...language is a funny old game...

Christ on a bike

Markdini wrote:Christ on a bike

Wey hey! Christ on a Bike deck!

I knew he would say that!

Phylosophy...asks more questions than it answers...pffffft!


...fun though! Also good for wasting time and putting off the inevitable!

Why, if we talk to God, we are said to be praying, but if God talks to us, we are said to be schitzophrenic (sp?)?

Thats also one of the reasons im very unreligious.