Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kaleon Moonshae" data-source="post: 1606231" data-attributes="member: 12147">Actually you miss the entire point of logical paradoxes and the like, such as the very one you cite about the mountain and god. The point is not that they make sense or not, the point is to get your mind working and thinking through different avenues. If you do not like that and think it is pedantic or trivial, or logically invalid then ok, but actually they have good logical basis. The example I gave is an edited version of a real logical puzzle used in eastern philosophy. The point is not to pick it apart as "unrealistic" but instead to let your mind work within the paradigm. I hate to tell you this but society is not logical. Another good example used in eastern philosophy, this time by Lao Tzu, is about the mule in the road. I won't bore you with it because I understand your dislike for them. There are many ways to answer the question if you ignore the parameters it sets. The idea is to work within the parameters and answer the question. The question is not a real life problem, it is an exercise in thinking. Those are two completely different things. For the record, your comment on the town of women and children is actually lax in a number of ways. Look at the historical accounts of small villages during the crusades. Many towns were left with only women, children and the elderly, as all the able bodied men (and male boys of 13 or older) were conscripted ito the war effort. They did not flee to another town because someone still had to tend the crops and the livestock, life goes on. In addition, I never said the demon wararch was attacking the town, in fact I specifically worded it so that they were two completely different things, hence the question fo which to do. Also five miles seems to be a laughable distance to you. It is not nearly so laughable if say the town is five miles away, 3 of those miles is behind enemy lines, the time of year is winter and the town's animals have all been used as food (a very real situation in places like russia, china and 12th century japan, just replacing the demon army with human one).  Also, gaining prestige in demonic courts is not always a matter of intelligence, where many of the chaotic-evil demons (note i did not say devils) are of low intelligence and mainly blundering warmongers. Also, how do we know that the demonic general was not just being ordered to do it on the whim of his superior, or he was expected to lose so that he was no longer a threat to anyone?The point is that you can find holes or justification for anything you wish. As for it being parascientific I think you need to relook at the definition and maybe change words. Parascientific means 'going beyond science' by definition. I am not sure how that is supposed to imply what you obviously intended. As for it being a paradox, it is; intentionally so. Paradoxes are well respected as provoking thought and are used in most disciplines of philosophy but also in logic, math, physics, and even medicine. Denouncing something because it is a paradox seems to close to what some people say about 'theory.' One of my college math teacher's favorite 'thinking problem' was what do you get when you subtract zero from zero? It has an answer, yes, but it is meant to get you thinking about *possibilities.*I hope I did not come across as catty, it was not meant to be, I am just sleepy and found that it seemed to me that you took something you did not like and threw it out solely because you did not like it. You can dislike it if you wish, and I respect that, but at least just say "I do not like your question" instead of trying to say it is unintelligent, which is what it sounded as though you were saying. If that was not your intention then I apologize. I am enjoying this thread greatly because people like Basilisk are taking it seriously and putting thought into it. I hope you continue to post with things that engender conversation and thought instead of just dismiss someone else's theories (as you have noticed, I have not. I may not agree with basilisk, but I respect his stand and meet him half way, as I tried to do with you by saying it is your choice to not like my idea and you are welcome to that position.)Have a wonderful night, I'm off to bedKal</blockquote>

Verification