Any prove cables make a difference? - Page 14  

I just got the fourth season on DVD. Great show. Even if I don't agree with them, I still think they know what they're talking about and are intellectually honest. That's more than I can say for Michael Moore.

See ya
Steve

Perhaps "idiots" is too strong a word. "Fools" is probably a better one, and I've edited my previous comment accordingly. You may not agree with that comment either, but that's my opinion.

Anyway, back to the original topic.

You're still very hard to follow, but in any event, I'm growing weary of our dialogue. How about if I say that you win and I cannot prove anything to you, and you can declare victory.

Same speakers... same room. Same basic sound. I proved this to an audiophile by patching my diskman into his system and playing the same CD he was playing on his 300 pound gorilla of a CD player. When I switched back and forth and asked him which was which, he couldn't tell the difference between it and his fancy player. Just like you, he didn't like the results.

See ya
Steve

What you say here is reasonable and yet your application of it has not been. When I gave clear examples of positive claims that would require positive proof your rejoinder was always "wrong."

Yes, in the case of criminal court in the US the default assumption is innocence. It is up to the prosecutor to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a) that a crime took place b) that the defendant committed that crime. Court cases often hinge on evidence known through university studies to be un-reliable, like photo line ups.

Many of the errors in perception that can affect criminal trials can affect subjective audio claims, including the suggestibility of witnesses and the mutability of memory.

Er? Here you've just admitted that the claimant has an "argumentative obligation' which he may choose to ignore if he isn't interested in people believing him.

This simply isn't possible in many cases. If I, as the claimant, say my "quantum super-conducting tri-axial nano cables" improve the openness of any sound system it isn't possible for challengers to get my $10,000 dollar cables and disprove my claim. This is just one reason why positive claims are the responsibility of the claimant to prove. Your "argument from apathy" is not a sound basis for the reversal of this standard of argumentation and proof.

This is the wrong path to go down if you want to argue that positive claimants don't have to provide proof. In science the default position is that you have to not only provide proof but that your theory must be testable and repeatable--not "I heard a difference"

Yes, because the proof exist already in the form of a well argued, peer reviewed scientific paper with testable, repeatable findings!!!!! The burden of proof is still on the positive claimant! In your example, the positive claimant had already provided positive support for his claim and the scientist could refer "some guy" to his detailed, well reasoned, peer-reviewed, testable paper. Your whole argument has been a shaggy dog story of a contrived situation that, in the end, actually contradicts the point you were trying to make.

A vague statement anyone can make because it says nothing and yet have you have fully failed to prove it.

Your point about absolutes being to rigid was correct but your attempt to disprove that the burden of proof rests with the positive claimant is wholly insufficient and, ironically, does not meet the burden of proof.

Right, but it is perfectly possible for them to simply not buy those cables, can't they? Of course they can also choose to write in forums and argue endlessly on a subject that hasn't been settled yet. It's all about choices.

Well, I disagree and will say something similar: your attempt to convince me of your point of view / claims has been whole insufficient too.

Indeed, your more recent posts, reano, have been at least a little bit easier to follow thanks to the use of separate paragraphs.

Generally one learns to ignore huge rambling swaths of text that do not have paragraph breaks. People who write that way haven't organized their thoughts well which makes their point, if any, hard to follow.

Indeed, there are many choices to be made. But as to merely "not buying" products with untested claims...making false claims about a product is, in many circumstances, called "fraud." It is legally up to the seller not to make fraudulent claims, not up to the buyer to have to spot them. "Buyer Beware" is a practical saying, not a legal philosophy.

Well, there is something we can agree on!

Nope, read my words twice, he may choose to ignore if he isn't interested in that challenger accepting his claims or agreeing with him.

I read your words once. That was enough. JK.

Actually I did read your words several times. Your writing wasn't especially clear and couldn't believe, at first, the huge gap in your logic and the opening you gave me. I understood the "argument from apathy," that a claimant may "choose" not to advocate to specific people. However, you also chose to refer to the positive claimants obligation as "the argumentative obligation to support his claim" which he can choose to ignore. Ignoring it doesn't remove the obligation, it just means the obligation is being ignored. You are the one who chose to acknowledge the obligation by calling it such.

You may regret your choice of words and say you didn't mean them but you can't legitimately argue that they support your position.

Boy i never in my wildest dreams could have thought of "well its obviously a fake, they put different kinds of water in the bottles, but showed him using all the same water! FAKE FAKE!!!". I was thinking something along the lines of "well clearly the water was in the bottles longer that were served later, so the taste of the water bottle interfered with the taste of the water! INCONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE!".

I bet it was their personal agenda to try and rob the water companies of all their money! people will stop buying bottled water once they produced this show that was a mockery of bottled water! They obviously had something to gain out of showing that people were easily swayed by the pretty bottles.

Its not like penn and teller have had dozens and dozens of credible people on their shows, we all know they have always hired fake actors to support their claims!

To say it is a fake is a substantial claim and im surprised you had the gall to say it when it is so false.

No I don't regret my choice of words. You seem to have also overlooked the fact that I agreed that, in general, the claimant is certainly obliged to provide support for his claim, precisely for example in scientific contexts or even in legal courts situations. My whole point hasn't been to prove anything, just to show exceptions to your dogmatical "Claimant must (always) hold the burden of proof". I simply elaborated on the fact that such "obligation to support a claim" in practice can be ignored or overriden with very reasonable causes.

One other point I could argue about is the fact that you mention theories have to be "repeatable":
Theories are not to be repeatable, it's the experiments in support of theories the ones that should to be repeatable, the tests, not the theories.

One other thing, theories are not necessarily "proved". The words "proof" and "to prove" has been used quite carelessly in this thread, even by you, in spite of your attempts to appear careful in your arguments. Proofs within science apply mostly to mathematics. In most other scientific domains it is rare to find proof of explanations to phenomena, mostly it's experiments or models or findings that are consistent with the theory, or that explain it better than previous attempts. That doesn't mean such experiments "prove" the theory, just make it stronger.

Anyway, we seem to enjoy the sport of prolonging an argument for the sake of it, but it's also a choice to continue arguing or not when things start getting pointless.

Maybe they should? It is a matter of "measure" it or it ain't there but "detect" with your senses it in a way that compensates for the psychology of human judgement and perception or it ain't there.

If the wine forums were all about magnetic flavor improvers and $3,000 "wine-conditioning" crystal glasses that reduce the "harshness" of the wine then such questions might well be legitimate. I, personally, like to put my money where it makes the most difference so I have an interest in separating what is from what seems like it is.

There was a fun test where a tv program gave fancy wine and 2 Buck Chuck (Charles Shaw) wine to culinary arts students. The 2 Buck Chuck earned high marks and they were surprised to find that out. Like sound, trained pallets can tell more than untrained ones--professional wine tasters didn't give the 2 Buck Chuck marks that were quite as high. However, all people are still subject to the same perceptual and judgement errors as ordinary people at near threshold of detection.

High end audio and high end wine have a lot in common. They are both expensive and subjective. The primary difference is that sound and the electrical signals that generate sound are electronically measurable and quantifiable in ways that flavor isn't. On the other hand, both wine and sound can be systematically tested subjectively by actual people in a way that compensates for the psychology of human judgment and perception. Both wine drinkers and audiophiles benefit from knowing what they can and can't actually tell the difference from.