Date: Mon, 03 Jun 1996 08:40:53 -0400
To: Athena Discuss 
Subject: Re: Age of Sphinx (5)

On second thought, I'll respond just to one point:

Thomas Anderson wrote:

> ST also replied:
> >This thought had occurred to me, which is why I pointedly put into
> >quotes the references to society of "requisite" complexity.  I asked
> >myself, how many people did it take to carve the faces on Mt.
> >Rushmore? I truly have no idea, but I rather doubt that it was the
> >armies certainly required to build, say, the great pyramid.  Take away
> >that premise, and the modus tollendo tollens to which I objected
> >has even less force.  Thank you.  You finally see the light, and
> >defeat your own argument.
> 
> TA answers:
> Come on now, I speculated that this might be possible, and now you are
> telling me that this speculation defeats my arguments.  No, it does not
> work that way.  Speculation remains just that. 

The issue is the modus tollendo tollens (method of denying
the consequent) of which I spoke earlier. For it to work, it is
necessary to assert "not-AE", in the notation of that earlier
post.  It is bad enough to attempt to assert non-existence
when at best what you have is "not-yet-found", but when it is
that you don't even known what constitutes the AE that you
are supposedly looking for, it is hard even to assert 
"not-yet-found".  You might already have it, and not know.
That is what defeats completely the attempted modus tollendo
tollens.


> 
> Tom

Regards,

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