Cowboy

Robert4170 Free

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  1. 25 minutes ago on Calvin and Hobbes

    And I’ll be “rude” (what nonsense to claim that pointing out someone’s poor reasoning is such a thing) yet again by pointing out your circular reasoning:

    “Anything and everything Calvin perceives is real and possible. I know that anything and everything Calvin perceives is real and possible because he perceives it”.

  2. about 1 hour ago on Calvin and Hobbes

    “Whenever I have accused you of having an obsession with washing machines, it is because I have already answered your question.”

    No, it’s an attempt on your part to use a red herring fallacy to evade the LOGIC of my argument. As I said, washing machines are NOT IMPORTANT PER SE. What IS important is the LOGIC the machine strips demonstrate, ie the following syllogism: “If A cannot fit in space C, and B is larger than A, then B cannot fit in space C”.

    It is YOU who claim that Hobbes is “really” a five foot tall, solid living animal (as I said, you are a liar if you deny that you said so). Five feet is LARGER than KNOWN adult humans for whom it is IMPOSSIBLE to fit in a top loading washing machine. Obvious logic (see the syllogism) tells us that if THEY can’t fit in the machine, then the LARGER Hobbes (the Hobbes YOU claim is “real”) can’t either. But he does fit in it. THAT IS A CONTRADICTION. Whenever you have a contradiction, it means that your premise is FALSE. The premise that is false is YOUR claim that Hobbes is “really” a five foot tall living tiger.

    This argument isn’t based on Calvin’s perception at all, but on YOUR premise, logic, and what we observe in the strip. You can’t explain how your “real” animal whom YOU claim is LARGER than KNOWN adult humans for whom it is IMPOSSIBLE to fit in a certain space DOES fit in that space. Your response of “a five foot tall animal can ‘really’ fit in that space because Calvin sees him doing so” holds no water, because his perception is a physical impossibility. For you to assume that anything and everything Calvin perceives must be real and possible is a begging the question fallacy. Calvin perceived himself flying and growing to the size of a galaxy. Does that mean he can “really” do so? In fact, you’ve already admitted that Calvin doesn’t always perceive reality when you admitted that he imagined Hobbes being large enough to put him in his mouth. Gee, how “rude” of me to show how your response holds no water.

  3. about 1 hour ago on Calvin and Hobbes

    “You accuse me of personally attacking you to avoid the issue. You seem to be doing exactly that to me and to Richard S Russell and sometimes to Bill Watterson whom you have accused of contradicting himself and of being misanthropic.”

    That’s an apples and oranges comparison. It’s not an ad hominem attack to point out the contradictions or flaws in a person’s ARGUMENT, which is exactly what I’m doing now with you. Neither is it a “personal attack” to make a factual statement about a person that is not a response to his argument, which is what I did. If you deny Watterson’s misanthropic tendencies, he CONTRADICTS you (oh you poor thing, how “rude” of me to point this out):

    WATTERSON: “I think the way they relate to Calvin is more a reflection of my misanthropic tendencies than any literary concern.”

    So Watterson himself admits his misanthropy.

  4. about 2 hours ago on Calvin and Hobbes

    “Of course, people have arguments with themselves”

    Then you acknowledge that Calvin can argue with an imaginary Hobbes, a Hobbes who is the product of his mind.

    “This is not accepting that another character is stronger than him – as is the case with Hobbes – it is pretending that he can become stronger than he is.”

    Your claim that Calvin doesn’t see Stupendous Man as a different, stronger character than himself is false. In fact, he made exactly that claim to his teacher in front of the class: “It wasn’t me! It was Stupendous Man!”

    “We never actually see Calvin attempt to fight Hobbes when Calvin is Stupendous Man.”

    So what? It doesn’t mean that Calvin doesn’t see Stupendous Man as a separate character from himself. Does Calvin believe he can move the earth? No. Does he believe Stupendous Man can move the earth? Yes.

    “In that particular story arc, Calvin was obviously trying to show off to his class by pretending to have a superhero friend but everyone recognized Stupendous Man as Calvin acting even weirder than usual but Calvin did not realize that everyone knew that.”

    The point is that it contradicts your claim that Calvin would never imagine doing something that makes him look foolish in front of the class, even if he doesn’t want to admit the foolishness.

  5. about 12 hours ago on Calvin and Hobbes

    You’re evading the point. You claim that a rainy day is a non rainy day, because they’re both days. Do you not understand what an adjective is? The logic of what you said is that a Ferrari is a Pinto, because they’re both cars. It’s not absurd to say “sometimes a car is a Pinto, but sometimes it’s a Ferrari”. But it is absurd to say “A Ferrari is a Ferrari, but sometimes a Ferrari is a Pinto”, every bit as absurd as saying “Hobbes is a real thing, but sometimes the real Hobbes is nonreal”, which is what YOU claim. You’re attempting to violate the fundamental law of identity, “A is A”. As I said, you don’t understand logic.

  6. about 15 hours ago on Calvin and Hobbes

    “Sometimes it’s raining. Sometimes it’s not. You see this kind of observation as a fundamental flaw in logic?”

    You just confirmed that you don’t understand fundamental logic. The A in your example is rain. It’s an absurdity to say “Rain is rain, but sometimes rain is not rain”. It’s also absurd to say “a real thing (Hobbes) is a real thing, but that real thing is sometimes not a real thing.” Both are forms of “A is A, but sometimes A is not A”. That is not the same thing as saying “A day is sometimes A, (a sunny day), but sometimes it’s B (a rainy day), which is not an absurdity.

  7. about 20 hours ago on Calvin and Hobbes

    “You cite Watterson as being unable to resolve the issue and then cite evidence which you claim shows that he did.”

    “Not so”

    Yes so. In the SAME post, you quoted Watterson saying “The matter of Hobbes’s reality is of no interest to me and each story arc goes out of its way to avoid resolving the issue”. You then said “I later read Bill Watterson quoted as saying “I suspect he’s more real than any kid would make up” and – as I have said – I felt that this confirmed my suspicion I felt that this confirmed my suspicion that he wasn’t trying to limit Hobbes to Calvin’s imagination.”. That’s you citing evidence that Watterson “confirmed” that Hobbes is real (of course, Watterson did no such thing, since he invalidated the assumption that his “suspicion” was based on).

    “I knew that it was possible for Calvin to imagine Hobbes on his own”

    That’s an admission on your part that Hobbes being alone is NOT proof that he’s real, even though you pretend otherwise.

  8. about 20 hours ago on Calvin and Hobbes

    “I keep reminding you that Calvin still sees Hobbes as the same size that he usually sees him when Hobbes is in the washing machine.”

    First of all, THE ONLY thing that Calvin sees is Hobbes’ head sticking OUT of the washing machine. He does NOT see the size of Hobbes’ body while it is in the machine.

    Second, you’re still trying to evade the logic by solely focusing on what Calvin perceives. YOU have stated that Hobbes is “really” a FIVE FOOT TALL LIVING TIGER, a solid, living animal (you are lying if you deny you did claim this). Five feet is LARGER than KNOWN adult humans for whom it is IMPOSSIBLE to fit in a top loading washing machine. Obvious logic (see the syllogism) tells us that if THEY can’t fit in the machine, then the LARGER Hobbes (the Hobbes YOU claim is “real”) can’t either. But he does fit in it (this is an OBJECTIVE fact). We see Calvin’s mom put him in it. THAT IS A CONTRADICTION. Whenever you have a contradiction, it means that your premise is FALSE (I’ve given the example of n/0 = 0, where n is a non-zero number. It leads to a contradiction). The premise that is false is YOUR claim that Hobbes is “really” a five foot tall living tiger. This logical proof doesn’t even mention Calvin’s perception. You KNOW it’s valid, because you resorted to citing Watterson admitting that what Hobbes “is” is “blurred”, meaning he has no definite reality, in an attempt to explain it. That is what you keep trying to evade.

  9. about 21 hours ago on Calvin and Hobbes

    “I still don’t understand your obsession with washing machines.”

    What I understand is that your attempt to label my logical proof an “obsession with washing machines” is an attempted diversion on your part, a red herring:

    “The red herring fallacy is an attempt to reroute a discussion from its original topic and focus on something unrelated.”

    It’s also a type of ad hominem attack:

    “Ad hominem fallacy (or ad hominem) is an attempt to discredit someone’s argument by personally attacking them. Instead of discussing the argument itself, criticism is directed toward the opponent’s character, which is irrelevant to the discussion.”

    In this case, you attempt to fabricate me “obsessing over washing machines”. Washing machines are not important PER SE. What IS important is the LOGIC the machine strips demonstrate, ie the following syllogism: “If A cannot fit in space C, and B is larger than A, then B cannot fit in space C”. No rational person can dispute the logic of this. Your red herring response is the equivalent of responding to that syllogism by saying “you’re obsessed with the letters A , B, and C”. Such a response is a red herring fallacy and a form of ad hominem fallacy.

  10. about 21 hours ago on Calvin and Hobbes

    “Yes, I do acknowledge that people sometimes choose friends who are superior to them in some way. That can be to your advantage. A friend who makes up for the qualities that you lack.”

    Calvin makes up a friend who does that for him.

    “It amuses Calvin to ‘lose’ to his imaginary creation, just as it amuses him to think he’s weaker than Stupendous Man.” On the contrary, Calvin keeps trying to prove that he is superior to Hobbes but usually proves the opposite. He often gets mad with Hobbes over this as he is a bad loser.”

    This is no different than Calvin “getting mad” at his imagined “good self”, who was really just Calvin pretending to be good. Do you claim that people don’t have internal arguments with themselves or say to themselves, “boy, what I did was stupid!”? Of course they do.

    “It does not amuse him to think that he is weaker than Stupendous Man.”

    Of course it does. If he didn’t think he was weaker than Stupendous Man, why would he even bother to pretend to become him? You claim he doesn’t think highly of the hero with superhuman strength he pretends to change into? That’s nonsense.

    “He imagines himself as a superhero and once pretended to be a superhero in front of the class thinking that he was fooling them into believing he had a superhero friend who was doing his history test for him. Of course, everyone recognized Calvin”

    Of course, this disproves your assertion that Calvin wouldn’t allow his imagination to make himself look foolish in front of other people. But that’s exactly what he did.