So what is everyone's idea of debate

My idea of debate is for different opinions to be discussed . I enjoy debating religion , evolution , fun and jokes , news items .

Vicar Of Dibley wrote:My idea of debate is for different opinions to be discussed . I enjoy debating religion , evolution , fun and jokes , news items .

debate should involve people with different opinions, it doesn't make for much of debate if everyone simply agrees with everyone else..

debate should be done without insult ideally..

I agree with that HF , but you know me if someone calls me twat i will call them one back i won't sit back and let people insult me

Vicar Of Dibley wrote:I agree with that HF , but you know me if someone calls me twat i will call them one back i won't sit back and let people insult me

why should you... if they cannot be civil why should they expect others to be civil...

heavenlyfatheryetagain wrote:

Vicar Of Dibley wrote:I agree with that HF , but you know me if someone calls me twat i will call them one back i won't sit back and let people insult me

why should you... if they cannot be civil why should they expect others to be civil...

Exactly. We think in metaphors...while most people envision the ideal as the metaphor of rational problem solving, in fact they pursue the metaphor of war.

Honest and open is best, not one that is confined to pc parameters.

Debate should be civil, people should back up their arguments with logic and evidence, and sometimes even when you've been insulted, you're far better off being the dignified one.

The debate should be about the ideas presented rather than the person presenting them, no topic should be taboo, and it's unwise to debate a topic you don't really understand.

and the occasional screaming match doesnt hurt, (depending on the participants)

Debates need to be founded in logic, reason and Facts.

It is not a debate when people make Completely false claims, like Allah being a Indian moon god, Catholicism not being Christian etc

If People say things like that they are not debating that are being FUCKING IDIOTS that should not be humored by allowing such patent untruths to go unchallenged.



Opinions are like arseholes, everyone's got one and most are full of shit

...says the biggest arsehole...

Tommy Monk wrote:...says the biggest arsehole...

Invest in one of these:

Tommy Monk wrote:...says the biggest arsehole...

At least i can back my statements and don't just make up stuff that can be easily shown to be lies.

BUT I do Say I am An Asshole (Particularly to IDIOTS.)
i don't know about biggest .... didge, victor and yourself would give me a run for that title.


You don't feel the need to be nice to everyone why should I?
At least I decide based on the actions and words of the individual.
not colour of skin and which dumb fairytales they follow.

I think people should be free to post their opinion without being howled down by abuse calling them twats and questioning their education etc

Nems wrote:I think people should be free to post their opinion without being howled down by abuse calling them twats and questioning their education etc

The ones who do that are living the 'argument is war' metaphor.  They've got to 'win', or at least 'defeat' the 'other side'.  If they have enough 'ammunition' they can 'beat back' the 'salvos' from the 'opponent'. But they've got to avoid being 'outflanked'.

victorismyhero wrote:and the occasional screaming match doesnt hurt, (depending on the participants)

Screaming matches are great if you can have fantastic make-up sex afterwards

Debate should always be civil and I absolutely abide by my rule of "answer the post and not the poster"
If everyone did that, there wouldn't be silly grudges held and debate would flow more freely.

veya_victaous wrote:Debates need to be founded in logic, reason and Facts.

It is not a debate when people make Completely false claims, like Allah being a Indian moon god, Catholicism not being Christian etc

If People say things like that they are not debating that are being FUCKING IDIOTS that should not be humored by allowing such patent untruths to go unchallenged.



Opinions are like arseholes, everyone's got one and most are full of shit

It is debate it's just that you think you're right all the time you haven't grown up yet .

Nems wrote:I think people should be free to post their opinion without being howled down by abuse calling them twats and questioning their education etc

That was a stupid and idiotic thing to say..... you uneducated twat

NO VOD
there is stuff called facts
maybe if you learned some basic stuff
like how to COUNT You could stop spouting BULLSHIT

there is No opinions when you start talking about Measurable things. And Your husband Just posts Complete LIES, it is not Valid Opinion It is straight up a Lie.
Liars SHOULD BE DESPISED Should be Isolated and Excluded from good company

Nems wrote:I think people should be free to post their opinion without being howled down by abuse calling them twats and questioning their education etc

If you have an opinion you cant back then you are a moron.
If you don't have a basic founding in a topic the you should STFU.
the problem with the world is to many people with opinions and no education or even desire to research their opinion..

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:...says the biggest arsehole...

Invest in one of these:

-- The wicked Queen would stand before her talking
mirror to inquire, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s
the fairest of them all?”
Each time, the mirror would respond, “Thou, O Queen, art
the fairest in the land.”



The lefties mirror!!!


Only what they want to see and hear is allowed... the truth is hated!!!

now now Tommy
if we never pushed you you'd still be posting crap the originated on Stormfront

look at you now
You actually get the correct figures on Immigration to support your point.



Don't worry You are not included in the above post, i may disagree with you a lot but at least you make some effort to support your opinion.

You idiots haven't pushed me anywhere!!!


It is me who has pulled you kicking and screaming into accepting some truth and reality about things!!!


And I have always backed up my opinions and arguments with solid and undeniable evidence!!!


Although you lefties STILL try to waffle off the truth as being some kind of unmentionable evil and something that must not be heard!!!


If only you lefties would actually start supporting your opinions with evidence and facts rather than lies and spin...!?



Then you might start to stand up to legitimate scrutiny and debate...!!!

Debates are just a formal way of arguing.

No conclusions are ever reached. Opinions may change. But it's more about resolutions than conclusions. Usually practiced in the form of a concensus such as voting or compromise.

Used properly, debates can be a great tool for finding the middle ground.

Tommy Monk wrote:

You idiots haven't pushed me anywhere!!!


It is me who has pulled you kicking and screaming into accepting some truth and reality about things!!!


And I have always backed up my opinions and arguments with solid and undeniable evidence!!!


Although you lefties STILL try to waffle off the truth as being some kind of unmentionable evil and something that must not be heard!!!


If only you lefties would actually start supporting your opinions with evidence and facts rather than lies and spin...!?



Then you might start to stand up to legitimate scrutiny and debate...!!!

the fact you pee'd your pants when you heard a funny accent is not really evidence.

And no I clearly remember you posting 'facts' that were shown to originate on stormfront years earlier and had been circulation the internet for a while(you were treating it like it was new) with the associated snope entries showing that it all originated with stormfront website. and often trotted out by racists that don't bother to search the source that it claimed the statistics came from.

Fuzzy Zack wrote:Debates are just a formal way of arguing.

No conclusions are ever reached. Opinions may change. But it's more about resolutions than conclusions. Usually practiced in the form of a concensus such as voting or compromise.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2012/dec/04/dinosaurs-fossils

There really are scientific debates out there and they can be most fascinating and full of drama. They can inspire researchers to new heights of originality and insight to develop methods and data that could solve the problem. To diminish this very essence of scientific process and collaboration (collect data, analyse, deduce) by conflating it with vastly exaggerated or fundamentally false claims of disagreement (often promoted by those with no interest in the truth, only their version of it) the media are regularly giving a very false impression of scientific research and the opinions of the scientific community. There is no need to dramatise and exaggerate every slight disagreement or blip as a huge crisis or blow-up, not least when there's plenty that would provide an interesting narrative of real disagreement and joint discovery. That this use of language then plays into the hands of those wishing to promote their unsubstantiated or flatly disproved 'science' as being on an equal footing to these real discussions and of relevance to the scientific process only makes matters worse. The media when covering science should be presenting an honest view of the issues, not opening the door for pseudoscience to give itself false credibility.

Not every disagreement in science is a scientific debate, and a tiny but vocal minority should not be given parity without a parity of data and evidence.

Debate is to find the TRUTH it is only of consensus building if people accept the 'truth' as proven to the best of man kinds abilities. debate is only possible if people are presenting equally plausible ideas as soon as one has been disproved it should be given up. it no longer has a place in the debate.

There are debatable topics where we do not have sufficient data to disprove or prove. (it is much easier to disprove because one measurement out and it is wrong, to prove requires all relevant data)

veya_victaous wrote:NO VOD
there is stuff called facts
maybe if you learned some basic stuff
like how to COUNT You could stop spouting BULLSHIT

there is No opinions when you start talking about Measurable things. And Your husband Just posts Complete LIES, it is not Valid Opinion It is straight up a Lie.
Liars SHOULD BE DESPISED Should be Isolated and Excluded from good company

That's not quite right.  To be sure, there is an objective world, but only with discrete objects known through experience.  There is no absolute reality.  As Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors we Live By, note:

Lakoff & Johnson wrote:"We agree with objectivists on one major point: that things in the world do play a role in constraining our conceptual system. But they play this role only through our experience of them. Our experiences will (1) differ from culture to culture and (2) may depend on our understanding one kind of experience in terms of another, that is, our experiences may be metaphorical in nature. Such experiences determine the categories of our conceptual system. And properties and similarities, we maintain, exist and can be experienced only relative to a conceptual system. Thus, the only kind of similarities relevant to metaphors are experiential, not objective, similarities."
http://piggydb.jp/example/d/119

This is, in large part, the difference between liberals and conservatives.  They have different conceptual systems.  My beef with conservatives is that they attached their wagon to a 300-year old theory, and then shut off their brain cells.

If you don't have a prerecorded ideology, you exercise your brain, like any body part.  It remains healthy and replenishes.  But, if you snooze you lose.  Conservatives eventually reduce themselves to mere mouthpieces for jargon and hackneyed ideas, because the are not used to original thinking.  With a little practice, they could stay in the conversation and even be interesting.

They still would not be able to run the world, because they have no answers, and thus what is wrong never gets fixed.  After all, they are conservatives, and to conserve means to stand pat and do nothing.  Still, they would know it, whereas nowadays they generally have the self-awareness of a paramecium.  Lol.

quill the quote is about personal experience not measurable things

"there is No opinions when you start talking about Measurable things" a.k.a the basis of Scientific methodology. all that is proven is measurable and repeatable.


Also that is why Maths is the universal language.
it matters not if you are man, squirrel or bird
if you have 3 pieces of food(for example) and eat one you will have 2 left
it matters not what word/symbol you used for 3 or word/symbol you used for 2 the equation will be the same. the numeracy will be the same the amount of object in each phase will be the same.


http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/why-math-is-the-language-of-the-universe/

mathematics becomes the language of the universe simply because it has to be. There is no simpler, more fundamental way of expressing the universe than through the basic ideas of equality and inequality, which in turn lead to the concept of quantification, which lead to the concept of value and numbers (to expressed levels of inequality), and once we have numbers, the rest of mathematics seems to bloom from all around us

eddie wrote:

Nems wrote:I think people should be free to post their opinion without being howled down by abuse calling them twats and questioning their education etc

That was a stupid and idiotic  thing to say..... you uneducated twat

Poo head

veya_victaous wrote:

Nems wrote:I think people should be free to post their opinion without being howled down by abuse calling them twats and questioning their education etc

If you have an opinion you cant back then you are a moron.
If you don't have a basic founding in a topic the you should STFU.
the problem with the world is to many people with opinions and no education or even desire to research their opinion..

Don't be silly Veya, its my opinion that you are rude and ruled by a colonial mentality.
research that fuckface

Well said Nems, the mans an out and out racist twat!

veya_victaous wrote:

Fuzzy Zack wrote:Debates are just a formal way of arguing.

No conclusions are ever reached. Opinions may change. But it's more about resolutions than conclusions. Usually practiced in the form of a concensus such as voting or compromise.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2012/dec/04/dinosaurs-fossils

There really are scientific debates out there and they can be most fascinating and full of drama. They can inspire researchers to new heights of originality and insight to develop methods and data that could solve the problem. To diminish this very essence of scientific process and collaboration (collect data, analyse, deduce) by conflating it with vastly exaggerated or fundamentally false claims of disagreement (often promoted by those with no interest in the truth, only their version of it) the media are regularly giving a very false impression of scientific research and the opinions of the scientific community. There is no need to dramatise and exaggerate every slight disagreement or blip as a huge crisis or blow-up, not least when there's plenty that would provide an interesting narrative of real disagreement and joint discovery. That this use of language then plays into the hands of those wishing to promote their unsubstantiated or flatly disproved 'science' as being on an equal footing to these real discussions and of relevance to the scientific process only makes matters worse. The media when covering science should be presenting an honest view of the issues, not opening the door for pseudoscience to give itself false credibility.

Not every disagreement in science is a scientific debate, and a tiny but vocal minority should not be given parity without a parity of data and evidence.

Debate is to find the TRUTH it is only of consensus building if people accept the 'truth' as proven to the best of man kinds abilities. debate is only possible if people are presenting equally plausible ideas as soon as one has been disproved it should be given up. it no longer has a place in the debate.

There are debatable topics where we do not have sufficient data to disprove or prove. (it is much easier to disprove because one measurement out and it is wrong, to prove requires all relevant data)

Debates rarely prove anything.

Even in Science. Look at all the debates Stephen Hawkings has. Nothing is proved until the proof/truth is discovered. That's where the debate ends but not by its own means.

Veya... I have never been on stormfront so you are talking absolute shit yet again!!!



And as for hearing a foreign accent... here in London and elsewhere in the UK, there are places where all you do hear are foreign accents!!!


The whole country and systems are creaking under the strain of hundreds of thousands of foreigners arriving every year!!!


But you being the idiot you are, cannot differentiate between genuine concerns about things and racism...

veya_victaous wrote:NO VOD
there is stuff called facts
maybe if you learned some basic stuff
like how to COUNT You could stop spouting BULLSHIT

there is No opinions when you start talking about Measurable things. And Your husband Just posts Complete LIES, it is not Valid Opinion It is straight up a Lie.
Liars SHOULD BE DESPISED Should be Isolated and Excluded from good company

Wrong again if i believe something such as seeing a miracle or receiving a healing becaus of my faith you cannot prove it didn't happen so you're wrong , I would exclude a lot of human beings from good company but we don't always get what we wish for do we .

Nems wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:

If you have an opinion you cant back then you are a moron.
If you don't have a basic founding in a topic the you should STFU.
the problem with the world is to many people with opinions and no education or even desire to research their opinion..

Don't be silly Veya, its my opinion that you are rude and ruled by a colonial mentality.
research that fuckface

bloody well said nems couldn't have said it any better

VEYA wrote:quill the quote is about personal experience not measurable things

No, that's not true, veya.  By "measurable things" you are trying to attach a numerical significance to the objective world, as if that makes it more real.

Measurement is like any other modifier: it is a human-made construct that doesn't really exist, in the same way that math doesn't really exist.  It's in our minds.

What is real is that if we jump off a cliff, we will experience death.  It is the experience that teaches us that there is an objective reality out there--phenomenology and existentialism notwithstanding.

Experience is the only way we know the world, mathematics and abstractions--the visions we use to interpret our experience--come after, in our minds.  Most of our framing of concepts comes from metaphors that we build in our minds.  Most arguments come from framing.

The facts we use in arguments, are thus ideational in nature.

Fuzzy Zack wrote:Used properly, debates can be a great tool for finding the middle ground.

Your know zack, I quite agree with a lot of what you say.
Your last three posts on this thread are spot on

Original Quill wrote:

VEYA wrote:quill the quote is about personal experience not measurable things

No, that's not true, veya.  By "measurable things" you are trying to attach a numerical significance to the objective world, as if that makes it more real.

Measurement is like any other modifier: it is a human-made construct that doesn't really exist, in the same way that math doesn't really exist.  It's in our minds.

What is real is that if we jump off a cliff, we will experience death.  It is the experience that teaches us that there is an objective reality out there--phenomenology and existentialism notwithstanding.

Experience is the only way we know the world, mathematics and abstractions--the visions we use to interpret our experience--come after, in our minds.  Most of our framing of concepts comes from metaphors that we build in our minds.  Most arguments come from framing.

The facts we use in arguments, are thus ideational in nature.

If that was true there woudl be no science

Experience is entirely personal.
Tommy's Experience is that the UK is being over run by Foreigners, Didge says it is not. that are Both experiences.
but there is only one reality
which is it?

the Entire BASIS of Scientific methodology is to measure it and get the NUMBER. Science will then say that is the reality.
that is being objective, you are looking at the emotive world which is immeasurable.

Vicar Of Dibley wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:NO VOD
there is stuff called facts
maybe if you learned some basic stuff
like how to COUNT You could stop spouting BULLSHIT

there is No opinions when you start talking about Measurable things. And Your husband Just posts Complete LIES, it is not Valid Opinion It is straight up a Lie.
Liars SHOULD BE DESPISED Should be Isolated and Excluded from good company

Wrong again if i believe something such as seeing a miracle or receiving a healing becaus of my faith you cannot prove it didn't happen so you're wrong , I would exclude a lot of human beings from good company but we don't always get what we wish for do we .

who's talking about miracles?

your husbands claims are way more base than that. like English bible that is over a thousand years younger in more Christian than the Latin bible it was translated from.

Now if he lies about something so easy to check and confirm as untrue, how could anyone possible believe him when he says "miracle, but I have no proof"

Nems wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:

Nems wrote:I think people should be free to post their opinion without being howled down by abuse calling them twats and questioning their education etc

If you have an opinion you cant back then you are a moron.
If you don't have a basic founding in a topic the you should STFU.
the problem with the world is to many people with opinions and no education or even desire to research their opinion..

Don't be silly Veya, its my opinion that you are rude and ruled by a colonial mentality.
research that fuckface

I am rude, i don't think i am ruled by a colonial mentality, you lot are all just insulated from reality that you don't rule the world anymore and are stuffed full of propaganda that you actually believe.

And research done.
From what Phil says Liverpool gurls like you know all about being fucked in the face

Tommy Monk wrote:Veya... I have never been on stormfront so you are talking absolute shit yet again!!!

And as for hearing a foreign accent... here in London and elsewhere in the UK, there are places where all you do hear are foreign accents!!!

The whole country and systems are creaking under the strain of hundreds of thousands of foreigners arriving every year!!!

But you being the idiot you are, cannot differentiate between genuine concerns about things and racism...

This is how i feel reading some of your genuine concerns

eddie wrote:

Fuzzy Zack wrote:Used properly, debates can be a great tool for finding the middle ground.

Your know zack, I quite agree with a lot of what you say.
Your last three posts on this thread are spot on

sums up my opinion of what people like Nems and VOD want


expect people to be nice to them and make excuses for their stupidity, yet behave in racist/prejudice manner towards others.

Fuzzy Zack wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:



Debate is to find the TRUTH it is only of consensus building if people accept the 'truth' as proven to the best of man kinds abilities. debate is only possible if people are presenting equally plausible ideas as soon as one has been disproved it should be given up. it no longer has a place in the debate.

There are debatable topics where we do not have sufficient data to disprove or prove. (it is much easier to disprove because one measurement out and it is wrong, to prove requires all relevant data)

Debates rarely prove anything.

Even in Science. Look at all the debates Stephen Hawkings has. Nothing is proved until the proof/truth is discovered. That's where the debate ends but not by its own means.

Of course you are going to say that because when religious people debate scientists they end up looking idiots.
The fact is religious people try to debate against facts, so debates are fundementally important in some aspects when people hold beliefs compared to facts. They are also important in polictics where sound reasoning based off facts are vital.
So debates are a very good tool in many aspects from philosophy to social aspects, as debates help solve many problems.
Debates have brought around ending clavery for example in this country, where they have helped shaped humanity with sound reasoning. They have brought women the vote and better rights. They have abolished the death penalty. Brought education to all children So to claim debates rarely prove anything is mistaken, because they prove that humanity can progress, where we can aplly methods like equality. Even more so show up how ridiculous certain beliefs are where even more it is beliefs that damage society. That is why more and more society has become secular, as its based on sound reasoning and not hocus pocus.

veya_victaous wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

No, that's not true, veya.  By "measurable things" you are trying to attach a numerical significance to the objective world, as if that makes it more real.

Measurement is like any other modifier: it is a human-made construct that doesn't really exist, in the same way that math doesn't really exist.  It's in our minds.

What is real is that if we jump off a cliff, we will experience death.  It is the experience that teaches us that there is an objective reality out there--phenomenology and existentialism notwithstanding.

Experience is the only way we know the world, mathematics and abstractions--the visions we use to interpret our experience--come after, in our minds.  Most of our framing of concepts comes from metaphors that we build in our minds.  Most arguments come from framing.

The facts we use in arguments, are thus ideational in nature.

If that was true there woudl be no science

Not true.  Science is not dependent upon measurement.  Science is dependent upon experiencing, as in "ex-per-i-ment: a test, trial, or tentative procedure; an act or operation for the purpose of discovering something unknown or of testing a principle, supposition.

veya_victaous wrote:Experience is entirely personal.
Tommy's Experience is that the UK is being over run by Foreigners, Didge says it is not. that are Both experiences.
but there is only one reality
which is it?

Unless it is a shared experience.  You are going the way of denying objectivity, and resorting to a phenomenology view:

Wiki wrote:Phenomenology is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view. The central structure of an experience is its intentionality, its being directed toward something, as it is an experience of or about some object.

Citing tommy and didge proves my point.  The two differ on framing (and probably a little fabrication...Lol), not on subjectivity grounds.  They are communicating, after all.  Tommy's framing is out of fear that the refugees are, in fact, ISIL.  Didge's framing sees them as victims.  But objectively, the two are observing (i.e., experiencing) the same thing.  

What you are talking about is solipsism, the view that the self is all that can be known to exist.  There, you've gotta picture a bearded old man, sitting on a Tibetan mountain top all alone. Lol

veya_victaous wrote:the Entire BASIS of Scientific methodology is to measure it and get the NUMBER. Science will then say that is the reality.
that is being objective, you are looking at the emotive world which is immeasurable.

No.  The entire basis of scientific methodology is observation. and get the finding or result:

Merriam-Webster wrote:science
     noun sci·ence \ˈsī-ən(t)s\
: knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation

: a particular area of scientific study (such as biology, physics, or chemistry) : a particular branch of science

: a subject that is formally studied in a college, university, etc.

Quantification is valuable in some sorts of scientific studies.  It is particularly valuable in a repeated series study.  But it is not necessary.  

Case studies, for example, are a valid form of science.  Even a repeated series of case studies is not so valuable because of the number, but because the inter-case confirmation.  The number would only provide the significance of the confirmation.

For example, a physician may observe a case of a patient being bitten by a mosquito, and subsequently coming down with malaria.  He only needs the one case to conclude the observation.  The repeated observation only provides the significance of the finding.  If he wants to find out more, he needs to observe the penetration and fluid transfers in the individual study...elements of the case, and not the quantity.

http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~mmalacho/ScientificMethod.html

Qualities of good science:

   Not based on authority
   Testable
   Repeatable
   Universal
  Measurable (Tangible)
   Observable
   Narrow (Occam's razor)/Simple

It has to measurable to be good science

It is not experience at all, the purpose of it being repeatable and observable is that Is cannot be reliant on experience. any one with the resource should be able to repeat the experiments

The scientific method is a system that attempts to separate the bias of being an observer from the observation — letting ‘reality’ show itself in the simplest possible way. The primary steps of which are: systematic and repeatable observation, exact measurements, experiments, and the invention of and repeated (ideally, nearly endless) testing of theories.

http://scienceheathen.com/2014/05/21/scientific-method-definition-criticisms-steps/

Science is Entirely reliant on Measurements to reach its conclusion that is what makes it different than 'making stuff up' or religion.





Mr Causey says
http://mrcauseysworld.com/biology/limits.html

Always remember what science is and is not. Good science is based on the scientific method.
"Good science is observable, measurable and repeatable. Everything else is junk!"

@quill
A book for you
The Story of Us Humans, from Atoms to Today's Civilization By Robert Dalling


First sentence of the 2nd paragraph

Veya wrote:It has to measurable to be good science

No, what is said is it must be 'tangible' in the sense of substantial, corporeal, solid and/or concrete.

veya wrote:It is not experience at all, the purpose of it being repeatable and observable is that Is cannot be reliant on experience. any one with the resource should be able to repeat the experiments

You are going full-tilt to solipsism. Are you willing to say that there is no one else in your world? Are you willing to say that there is no other object but yourself?

veya wrote:systematic and repeatable observation, exact measurements, experiments, and the invention of and repeated (ideally, nearly endless) testing of theories.

You are misreading your own source. It is not saying that science is dependent on numbers, but that the tangible and corporeal aspect must be described. Numeralism is a language, not an internal component (what does a number look like?).

veya wrote:Science is Entirely reliant on Measurements to reach its conclusion that is what makes it different than 'making stuff up' or religion.

Measurement, as you are using it, is numeric analysis. Numeric analysis is a tool, invented by the mind to help us describe things. It is an 'orientation metaphor', like up-down, in-out, on-off or backwards-forwards. Orientation metaphors are the most basic grounding for meaning.

Number is the experience of more-than-one, or singular-plural, and numeric analysis is any utilization of that metaphor.

Your definition does not say that something has to have numbers, and hence measurement. It simply says that where it does have numbers, they must be measured to adequately describe the object. Again, the idea of numbers, and hence measurement, is not an inherent property of an object. It is an inherent property of thought about an object.

veya_victaous wrote:@quill
A book for you
The Story of Us Humans, from Atoms to Today's Civilization By Robert Dalling


First sentence of the 2nd paragraph  

Yes, repeatibility is a component of the scientific methodology.  But measurability is merely another way of saying describability.  Of course, everything must be described: color, texture, and number of arms and fingers, plus measurements thereof.  

But the measurement is a part of the description, not a necessity of the scientific method.  A blob, for example, may have no measurable dimension.  It may even increase and decrease in mass (inexplicably), but you can't say that it doesn't exist because it cannot be measured.  It still has color, texture and any other quality that is derived from observation. Science takes that into account, even if it can't be measured.

I appreciate your literature tip, but I wrote a PhD dissertation on atomism.  Your book reads a little too 'introduction-to-science' for use here.