The difference between a statement and an argument.

First, a statement. Typically, it is when a person makes an assertion about something where the truth of the assertion is implied in the seriousness with which that statement is made. An example might be,

‘The moon is made of roasted turnips. In fact, those who say that the moon is not made of roasted turnips is an enemy of the moon’.

An even better example of a statement is here, in this official US government document about the Islamic State. (Please note paragraph 3)

ISIL does not represent Islam and Islam does not condone or honor such depravity. In fact, these actions are a reminder that ISIL is an enemy of Islam. The international community and religious leaders of all faiths have strongly and repeatedly condemned ISIL’s horrific acts; we urge them to reiterate their commitment by condemning in the strongest possible terms the commodification of women and children as spoils of war, including through their subjection to horrific physical and sexual violence, intimidation, and deprivation of liberty.

A statement does not even do one the courtesy of what I think of as a kind of ‘logical reach around’ of a tautology. For example a napkin that says:

“This Napkin is god. I know this is true because it says so right here on this napkin”

With the above tautology, the statement is self referential and made correct almost exactly like the koran does, by twigging back to the initial statement as authoritative and true.

The government statements, both by the UK and US, typically do not even attempt that bit of logical contortion and content themselves that the mere statement. “This napkin is god”  is enough for them.

Now an argument:

Basically an argument is where an assertion is explained by way of evidence laid out in accordance with the rules of logic.

“A tree is a type of plant. A plant has all these defining attributes, each one of which trees share, and trees have no other attributes that would differentiate them from the broader category of plants, and therefore, a tree is a kind of plant”

This would be an argument which can be detailed and verified, studied and most importantly, can be falsified. If an argument cannot be falsified, it is not an argument at all. It is likely a statement or a tautology.

There have now been many arguments made which refute the statements of the US and UK governments concerning the Islamic State and the nature of Islam. My favorite ones are made by the Islamic State themselves as they clearly cite Islamic scripture in context and Islamic history etc. with each action they make.

I will post below the video we made with Robert Spencer, Bill Warner, Geert Wilders, Christian Zeitz and others which make an actual falsifiable argument on the nature of the Islamic State and its relationship to Islam.

(Many regular readers will have seen this video before. We first published it September 10 2014)

The US Government must know that their assertions are false and therefore are likely part of a larger strategy. Whatever it is, it isn’t working in the interests of the peoples of the Western World and we should be fighting it with truth at every possible opportunity, even if it is meant to be helpful. One seldom solves a problem by lying about it as a long term solution. In fact when people discover that authorities are lying to them, it often drives them to harsh and violent reactions. Especially when the deceptions come from trusted authorities.

I wonder if this could have something to do with the number of young cultural Muslims who, upon learning that all the leaders of the free world are utterly lying to them about the nature of Islam, its history, its scripture and so on, become so angry at the lies that it pushes them into religiosity. Imagine if you were a teenaged male and the government had been making loud and unsupported statements about your heritage, and upon even a cursory glance to verify the truth of it, discovered you were being lied to in every conceivable aspect of it. By both the government, and the ‘official state sponsored clergy’.

Would that make you mad? It would make me furious. Frankly I would argue that government lies about the nature of Islam are far more likely to ‘radicalize’ (make a more or less indifferent person religious) than people opposing the genuine nature of Islam. At least we in the counter jihad, even the harshest critics and koran burners such as Rev. Jones, have enough respect for Islam to actually say what it is.

 

Eeyore for VladTepesBlog

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

17 Replies to “The difference between a statement and an argument.”

  1. You are in luck Eeyor.

    There is ongoing research to identify the ‘dick-heads’ and ‘neg-heads’: The one’s with Father God and the ones with Mother Gaia on their sleeves. If their findings get out – Muslims and Socialist leaders will no longer have a playground of gullible and blind-sided victims. Where will Anjam Choudary and Tony Blair make a living?

    “The aim of the work I would undertake while at Stellenbosch would be to complete the argument of a new book, whose title is The Porcupine is a Monkey. The title comes from an ingenious experiment undertaken by the eminent Anglo-American neuroscientist Marcel Kinsbourne. He and a colleague investigated the difference between the cerebral hemispheres, specifically in how they view the nature of truth. Each experimental subject was asked to assess the truth of a conclusion drawn from a syllogism (which takes two statements about reality (premises) and draws a conclusion from putting them together).

    In the experiment, however, all the syllogisms incorporated a twist: the major premise was true, but the minor premise was false. Thus:

    All monkeys climb trees (true);
    The porcupine is a monkey (false);
    The porcupine climbs trees.
    The question for each subject was simply whether the conclusion was true or not. But there was a catch. Each was asked to do so on three separate occasions: once in the normal, intact, state; then with the left hemisphere isolated; and then with the right hemisphere isolated. The findings were in themselves fascinating, but also remarkable for their consistency across subjects and across examples.

    At the outset of their experiment, when the intact individual is asked ‘Does the porcupine climb trees?’, she replies (using, of course, both hemispheres) that the statement is false: ‘It does not climb, the porcupine runs on the ground; it’s prickly, it’s not a monkey.’ During experimental temporary hemisphere inactivation, the left hemisphere of the very same individual (with the right hemisphere inactivated) replies that the conclusion is true: ‘the porcupine climbs trees since it is a monkey’. When the experimenter asks, ‘But is the porcupine a monkey?’, she replies that she knows it is not. When the syllogism is presented again, however, she is a little nonplussed, but insists it is true, since ‘That’s what is written on the card.’ When the right hemisphere of the same individual (with the left hemisphere inactivated) is asked if the syllogism is true, she replies: ‘How can it climb trees – it’s not a monkey, it’s wrong here!’ If the experimenter points out that the conclusion must follow from the premises stated, she replies indignantly: ‘But the porcupine is not a monkey!’ In other words, the right hemisphere enables us to check out our theoretical construct against our experience of the real world, and sees truth as corresponding with the fruits of experience; while the left hemisphere privileges what it says ‘on this piece of paper’, with truth being seen as self-consistency within a system shut off from real-word experience – ‘what it says on this piece of paper’.

    That is the major import of the title The Porcupine is a Monkey: that we live in a world where our theory about what life is like blinds us to what accumulated experience tells us it is like. We prioritise the consistency of our theory over what we know from experience. We take porcupines for monkeys because that is what our theory tells us they are.

    This leads us to a series of paradoxes, in which we believe we are setting out to achieve a certain aim – say, increasing global security by military intervention in the Gulf, or maximising market stability by employing ingenious programs that predict its movement – but end by achieving the precise opposite. The experience of doctors, teachers, politicians, and people in all walks of life amply attests to a host of systematic interventions that have had consequences unpredicted by their instigators. In every case, I believe, one can identify a conflict between theory and experience, between a left hemisphere model of the world as it is ‘on this piece of paper’ and the right hemisphere’s knowledge of the world based on experience. When we encounter these problems, our usual reaction is to assume that we did not go far enough in the direction we were going, not that we need to change direction. We tinker and refine, anything rather than try a different model. My suggestion is that we need a whole new way of thinking about the nature of reality, one that understanding the way our brain works can help us achieve.”

    http://stias.ac.za/research/projects/the-porcupine-is-a-monkey/

    Reason save us!

    Or else we use Islamic Brutality (any linked article on Vlad Tepes blog here), or electroconvulsive therapy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroconvulsive_therapy in a Communist Healing Center.

    • OK, then work with the premise:


      “ISIL does not represent Islam and Islam does not condone or honor such depravity.”

      We know the Taliban are joining up and soon the Moderates are going to -when their repressed fantasy-fears become real and they all start ‘coming out’ after the merest of backed-up intimidation, after the practiced week-in and week-out posturing rhetoric, from their imams.

      “In fact, these actions are a reminder that ISIL is an enemy of Islam.”

      Still in gaga-land – after ISIS’ behavior is totally in concordance with the koran – (but we are in right-brain territory, so actions do not have to match, because Muhammad has been sold to them as a perfect Saint, a Jesus).

      “The international community and religious leaders of all faiths have strongly and repeatedly condemned ISIL’s horrific acts; “

      There we go – “The Porcupine in a Monkey” Islam is not a religion. It does not climb trees. There is no ascention to avatar or seer; but the path of the LBGTQM, to a total pig, the most violent and virulant being praised.

      The half-brain hemispheres diverge to serve their entitlement masters chuckling at the gullibility of their flock of sheeple.

      The Left Brain memorizes Holy Scripture and follows it to the letter so they won’t get pulped. A priest always at hand to steer you back.
      The Right-Brain wants the People to be happy so they won’t get pulped. A Collectivist Party Member is there.

      Nameste greeting means ‘I bow to the divine in you’
      As-salamu alaykum greeting means ‘May the peace and mercy of Allah be with you’

      One greeting is ‘Christ is in you’ the other is ‘believe or The Christ will kill you’.

      Combine the greeting. “Christ is in you and will kill you if you don’t believe”

      Now you have the Golden Rule. Impossible until you know you can hold the two as one and see each is the imposter.

      Islam is the punch in the face by an older boy and the promise of no more pain if they punch in the faces of smaller boys and girls. A Muhammadan Peace.

      “we urge them to reiterate their commitment…

      Commitment even more?!! Piling on like say, more restrictive Communism on to Socialism once it caused total poverty? Yes, that’s exactly it. That’s their right half-brain method.

      And this generation of Americans are fighting ISIS.

      “…by condemning in the strongest possible terms the commodification of women and children as spoils of war, including through their subjection to horrific physical and sexual violence, intimidation, and deprivation of liberty.”

      Commodification is the Socialist’s watchword. Preferential Discrimination the weapon of destruction of the host, planted by the Soviets. The traitors within.

      • A solution? The Jesus by the Muslims about to stone an adulterer by plying them with Greek philosophy of reflection of ‘doing unto others’?

        No chance. Not when their blood is up, and the adulterer will ruin the whole economy, with millions of welfare housing dependant as their bastard offspring screwing up the schools to prevent indigenous populations from growing and a death knell of trillions of sheikles in debt to the Communists who do deals to buy up land and businesses. That is, the whore, ‘The Whore of The West’ and 50% of American Black women with sexual herpes, they can see. These Muslims have clarity, and the Liberal writing in the sand, is next.

        The weight of justice has to be balanced, and for the feel-good Princess ‘Do you desire me’ nature tugging her animal-brain, would be the weak-actions of men. Men look at women lustfully (Muslims, check), men fantasise as dominated submissives, (Muslims, check), men seek weak females and boys to prove themselves, (Muslims,check), men look at animals in a sexual way, (Muslims, check), men are as weak as bitches. (Muslims to a tee, even screaming like them).

        The truth sets you free. Not love from a Greek Hindu.

        IMHO.

      • So, you have to business with the half-brained. Speak their language.

        They have truth? Your truth is deeper because it is universal.
        They have love? Your love is finer because it is not conditional.

        Therefore want to speak to Muslims? Show them you know what a real family is. On every point, reveal them something better than theirs.

        They once knew a generation of British in the British Empire who were worthy of respect, and the whole Arab world copied them. Now they can’t get enough of their young British slutty girls from broken homes now miraculously called ‘single parent families’. What person would come out with that phrase until you realize their fatherless Obama-Brains live on fear and anxiety for approval to the point of narcissism.

        Jesus said, ‘be more righteous than the Pharisees’, and the reason is, one: be solid as a rock; and two: the most moral always wins.

        So at the moment ISIS is winning because they are the most moral. If not, there would be no people leaving the enriched countries of Multiculturalism. The Preferential Minority Muslim obviously does not like his Socialist Status of Welfare and Job-Positive discrimination. They want God to work through the inspired Imams – to lead them to the Promised Land. They are living the dream. And they are clearing it in ISIL. Plowing whatever their right hand possesses.

        Should I then draw my finger in the sand and declare, “he who is without sin cast the first stone,”and the oldest look down and sees “lied about missing prayers” and the white bearded fellow says “yep, that’s me” and walks off; or is it better he read Vlad Tepes, and see not hatred, but a window to his soul and the spirit that he has shut out.

  2. I’m a porcupine and I climb trees.

    Well, I speak for one, and he climbs trees.

    In reality, porcupines do climb trees. I’ve seen it. Lots of people have seen it.

    The syllogism has a false minor premise but the conclusion is true anyway.

    Thus, for example:

    x is different from y
    y is equal to z
    therefore x is different from z.

    Good syllogism if the two premises are correct. But now suppose x=1, y=2, and z=3.

    Z is still different from x, but not as a consequence of the logical chain advanced in support of the claim that z is different.

    And your argument about porcupines is defective because it holds, wrongly, that porcupines don’t climb trees. See any reference book, or if you don’t care to work that hard at it, just visit the Wikipedia article about porcupines.

    • Thank you Porcupine,

      I read the book The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Iain McGilchrist and in it he explains the authors of this experiment and their subjects did not know porcupines could climb trees.

      As you have pointed out therefore, ignorance and half-brain heminisity are a lethal combination …. that which I postulate has happened for the children raised in Islam and Socialism. The Pseudo father and the Absent father homes respectively. This inhibited brain-development and cultural rationalization to walk together either clockwise or aniticlockwise makes disturbed human beings.

      “The syllogism has a false minor premise but the conclusion is true anyway”

      This was not the point. It took exclusively the right-brain to pick out the false statment. The left brain could not. “Allah is Merciful,” is a false statement. It takes the woman, a natural right-brain thinker, to point out the falseness of Islam by its fruit. Because for all the real Muslims poetry and music is banned and thus their right-brain, (associated with women and femininity) is seared.

      Therefore, if women were equal in Islam, the little prick Mohammad would be the laughing stock of all the ladies in the world. The Hadiths explain his fumbling and fornicating and marrying a six year old aged over 50. But because he terrorized and insulted all womankind, and then turned them into concubines for his gang, they are forced to keep their heads down.

      Now the perfect storm brewing is that in The West the Communists, (after the War traumatized democracies of losing so many men), have used the Homosexuals, Feminists, and Useful Idiots to make men keep their heads down with the memes of White Privilege, Male Oppression and Christian Socialism, of literally give your shirt over to those who envied your jacket.

      Islam today, for the first time in over 70 years, has found its pride back, because it is vastly superior to Socialism. And men and women feel they get at least some form of sanity and family back. But living by submission is still only a beast of burden for Allah, whereas it was going to be a wage-slave for Man.

      Why not unshackle both tyrants of Priests and Politician and be free indeed?

      All I am asking is people get their two brains back together again. To love Allah with your heart mind and soul and love the kufar as yourself. Once this happens, the illusion will fall away and you will be in bondage to neither tract.

  3. Generous teachers say that there are no “stupid” questions; my question might prove that to be wrong:

    “…If an argument cannot be falsified, it is not an argument at all. …”

    Not being a native English speaker, and not having a single scientific bone in my vocabulary, I never understood the word “falsify” in this context. Does it mean “proven to be wrong”?

    As to telling the truth/lies. I heard the following yesterday on your outstanding Radioprogram: “a lie can run around the globe before the truth has time to bind her shoe laces”.

  4. Thanks Rita. The quote is from Mark Twain.

    Falsifiable in this case means that it can be proven false. In other words, that it can be attacked. That is has walls and a roof that can be be examined for holes and inconsistencies. That is is not magical thinking typical of self referencing ideas typical of religion etc.

    If an argument is logically made, one can examine it using logic and check its integrity. You can see that taking place exactly in this comment thread above in fact, about the porcupine.

    An argument typically has components like an axiom or premise upon which arguments are made and at the end of it, using the same system of logic used to build the argument, one can attack it. This means it is falsifiable. Not necessarily that it is wrong. But science itself is a long chain of reasoning and arguments built on the ashes or the shoulders of the previous ones.

    Without the ability to falsify an argument you do not get progress. This is why cultures which are derived from the Greeks are sending rockets to asteroids and developing technology which has become almost boring despite being miraculous in its capability only a few years ago, while theocracies which abhor reasoning desperately try and tunnel their way back to a pre-Greek past using the only tools available to them. Their willingness to use excessive cruelty, violence and death and our reluctance to use those same tools.

  5. Hey Eeore,
    Thanks! this explanation works for me – although I still dont like the word “falsify” for what is really a POSITIVE challenge.

    Your last paragraph reminds me (somewhat tangentially) of a tweet by an Israeli soldier during Israel’s last defence against HAMAS rockets in response to some anti-Jewish tweet. It went (from memory) something like this: “Yes, we might have a colony on Mars yet, you know we build rockets for different reasons than you do”. (he said it better).

  6. First, a statement. Typically, it is when a person makes an assertion about something where the truth of the assertion is implied in the seriousness with which that statement is made.

    That the statement takes on a personality selectively held by the hearer.

    That statement ‘comes from knowing God’s Will’ and suddenly the fear induces belief.
    Or that statement ‘come from protecting The People’ and suddenly the fear induces belief.

    These are the two brains. If you split them apart, you will have two separate living personalities. Fact.

    I just argue that Islam and Communism are world views sustained by ego faiths of the oppositely half-brained. The intimidated. And will come in many guises time and time again. Dividing, and dividing upon every focus they come upon. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PFJPtVRlI64

    • So, the left-brain is beaten so that all sense of self is lost, of past-present-future into the immediate command of the antagonist. Their right-brain yearning for the Promised Land, The Judeans beaten as slaves yearning to leave for Paradise. The Muslims given Paradise as Reward. The Hell-bound Christians given Paradise by belief.

      This Right-Brain given a construction. And how vast it is.

      And yet, when you ask them what they are going to do there, they are puzzled for time-stands-still…. as if Paradise is only a nano-thick painting on a wall.

      Not being familiar Jewish-Heaven I don’t know, except it might mean a place a person is guilt-free. For a Christian it is orgasmic-adoration. For a Muslim orgasmic-screwing.

      Their soul never going there.

      Imagine then, a blind, right-brained person… how could one paint a picture they can traverse along? When they can’t get the sequence of events in order, (much like the Koran), which makes them achieve nothing and only gain a sense fulfilment when rocking back and forth on their haunches repeating all they had memorized.

      Any thoughts to guide this person out? A map for the blind to follow.

      • It is easy to give a person back their left-brain, if they still have it.
        An African told me his story today. He said he came to this continent and he could not sleep, (his right-brain hyperstimulated). His MD gave him strong medication he said, and told him he would have mental breakdown in two years time.
        He said after taking them and finding himself being drowsy during the days that he decided he would stop and call on his Father in Heaven, and so threw them away.
        That single-minded focus on his personal Father saved him. After two days he said he was cured. (This is John The Baptist’s Prayer describe in Luke 11.1 and not Mathew’s Gay Prayer of The Ego).
        If you are connected to The Singularity, you will be master of yourself. If you are connected to The Paradise where God/Jehovah/Allah lives as a Person – you’re Catholic, and getting through that Two-Dimensional Mural and escapism that never-is. God on your sleeve saves no one.

        If you want a deep untroubled sleep, don’t leave the TV on, which is designed to stimulate your right-brain to keep your attention. And don’t listen to the radio with programmes like Info-Wars which is designed to do the same so you stick with the adverts. Listen to men who stimulate your left-brain, either reading a bedtime story to their children, or reading the reality of the world like Pat Condell, David Carroll, Roy Masters, Bill Whittle, Vlad Tepes and Don Laird. They will put you to sleep, sure and safe the world is going to be alright while they are in it fighting the femen.

        • And then… Two Suicide Bombers arrived at Paradise, that atomically thin expanse before them, and through the opaque transparancy they could see shapely buttocks of boys and girls, not knowing which gender they were because they were Mohammad’s Favorite, and they imagined what he had in life they could have in Heaven.

          And two Christians arrived at their Wall, painted on with the Pearly Gates and there was St Paul who rushed towards them crying out “show me how to get in! I killed the baby for one God and kissed the baby for the other!” (This is why he is always found there).
          The Christians were bemused and looked through the wisps of clouds at the figure that they could just make out was Jesus, looking and smiling at them. But they couldn’t get any closer, trying as hard as they might.

          This Figure they so desperately wanted to meet, greet and adore could not be reached for eternity. If only they had put on Jesus shoes, could they stand in the same place beyond that line. And the Muslims likewise put themselves in Aisha’s shoes as see her suffering, feel her terror, could they they could join the running little children in unselfconsciousness once again.

          They had followed their Books to the letter and been deceived. They follow the way to the truth-as-taught-by-rote into the Kingdom of Death – and they got there by worrying about their After Life and not a care for the present Gift of Life.

          They loved themselves, and not their neighbor who they could use to get advance-points in their wellbeing and making them weak or in their destruction.

          The souless looking to pick up their souls in Heaven do not get a pass.

  7. To heal them is to make them whole again. To become wholey.

    Their leaders have the ruling to kill the apostate or dissident.

    That should be evidence enough they do not have the truth.

    • Thus, free speech is crucial to a sane society.

      Free speech does not advocate the truth, for that may takes eons to discover; free speech prevents the witless taking ascendency. And they know it, (don’t you Socialists, Communists and Fascists).

      • The three things necessary for a free society, Free Speech, Freedom of Religion and the right to own and carry weapons. Remove anyone of the three and the society is no longer free, right now the left is trying to remove all three from the US.