Nancy Pelosi thinks that Trump is guilty until proven innocent. Trolling in this Movie is getting good!
(media.greatawakening.win)
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (32)
sorted by:
Is that not still proof? Must "proof" be something you can hold or see or point to? That is surely one form, and a strong one at that, of proof. But I don't discount logical extrapolation as a form of proof.
The evidence that an event didn't happen, would be inherently tied in as an extension of the evidence of what did happen.
Logically, of course it makes sense that if you were in another country you couldn't have robbed a store in a country you weren't even in, that's why I said you are thinking about it in the wrong terms. The point you are missing is that you cannot point to a "non event", something not happening, in the same way that you can point at an "event", something that did happen. Sure, you can logically deduce you didn't do something, but you aren't going to have a photo of you not doing something. You can have a photo of you doing an infinite number of other things, and from that logically conclude you didn't do this other thing, but you cannot point at you "not doing" a thing in the same way you can if you had done something.
It is for this reason that you don't make someone prove their innocence, because outside of them presenting evidence that they were doing something else, by definition, they didn't the thing they are accused of, so there isn't going to be footprints, photographs, video evidence of this not happening, only something else having happened. Otherwise anyone could accuse you of anything without any proof and you would be screwed unless you film yourself 24/7. On the flip side, if you are accusing someone of having done something, well, there should be some type of evidence that something occurred, thus the burden of proof is on the person making the accusation, not the person who didn't do something.
When someone says you can't prove a negative they don't mean can you logically get someone to agree with your statement, they are referring to the fact that outside of talking about it you cannot present any evidence of a negative, a non event, something not happening, because whatever you present will be a positive, an actual event, something real. You can only think about something that doesn't exist, you can't point to it in the same way as something that does exist.
This is pretty much exactly my point. I don't really disagree with anything you've said other than the semantics of the whole thing.
I think others have it in the wrong terms. As I said, my definition of "proof" expands past what you can see or point to.
The way I see it, when someone says you can't prove a negative, they are simply wrong. Doesn't mean people should start having to prove their innocence in court, but it's still a very narrow view of the topic, I think, to say a negative can't be proven.
What's the functional difference between proving a negative, and proving a positive that necessarily excludes something which asserts the negative.
As with my original example, for all intents and purposes the negative that proof was requested for was proven. Or whatever word you want to use to describe the fact that what was being asked for was received and satisfied. Again, proving innocence is unjust, but you can certainly apply this principle in other areas.
By negative they mean a "non event" or "nothing happening" and by "proof" they are referring to real physical evidence, not a logical deduction. You cannot do anything outside of think about the idea of nothing, you cannot hold nothing in your hand, otherwise you would be holding something. This is the principle people are referring to by the statement "you cannot prove a negative", they do not mean that you cannot logically think about the idea of nothing happening, they mean that there is no physical reality represented by the word "nothing" or something "not happening" in the same way that there is if you were to accuse someone of "doing something". The burden of proof must lie on the accuser because if something happened, logically it follows there should be evidence, if something didn't happen then logically you can only have evidence of something else happening and deduce from that something not happening, obviously having actual evidence is stronger than a mere logical deduction, thus the reason for not needing to prove your innocence, prove that an event didn't happen, prove a "non event", a "non happening", or as a lot of people put it, "you can't prove a negative". That is the meaning of the statement, that is what I've been trying to get you to see, it has nothing to do with what you are able to logically think about, hence I am saying you are thinking about this in the wrong terms, because you are.
Yes, I am aware. Hence why I said I think people's definition of what constitutes "proof" is too narrow. Hence my original statement.
Again, I know what people mean and don't disagree with really anything you have said. I just don't think "proof" is as narrow as you and other people make it out to be. In my opinion, the common view of "proof" is overly naturalistic and materialistic and discounts other, perfectly valid modes of thinking that can be used to come to rational, valid conclusions on events that have taken place, among other things.