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TheMadFool

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If there's a button that a bored simulation coder can press to unleash hell on earth, I believe we humans are at the means by which that button will b...
January 13, 2021 at 14:51
In logic the emphasis is on how to think about anything not just reality. The title of your thread is "Logic is the world of possibilities..." and tha...
January 13, 2021 at 10:21
On the face of it, your argument makes sense. We have two materially identical people but each one is a different person in the two worlds. So, in the...
January 13, 2021 at 01:19
First of all, we've to come to terms with a simple fact - we are the nastiest lifeforms the planet earth has. We have a poor track record when it come...
January 12, 2021 at 17:28
The OP seems to be concerned about whether your philosopher's prescription above is the right medicine for what ails us. For my money, I'd say our und...
January 12, 2021 at 17:12
An apology is in order then. Sorry. I must've gotten carried away by certain suggestive statements in your post. Well, speaking from an evolutionary s...
January 12, 2021 at 14:15
:rofl: Reminds me of the joke about how a priest talks to his congregation about god first creating Adam, the first man, and then Eve, the first woman...
January 12, 2021 at 10:44
You're approaching the issue from an academic perspective; wisdom is being looked upon as a course you can choose in a college curriculum just like ma...
January 12, 2021 at 08:23
We wouldn't have known that one choice that's available to us is we "...eventually have to settle for axioms..." if the skeptics hadn't asked the ques...
January 11, 2021 at 20:06
Let's face it. We're predators. Some even go so far as to say we're apex predators. If that's true do we have a choice in the matter? Methinks we're m...
January 11, 2021 at 18:26
It's just skepticism doing what it does best - cast doubt on everything whenever and wherever possible. The fact is, and that's the gist of the skepti...
January 11, 2021 at 13:02
I don't think there are experts of such caliber that they possess 100% or total knowledge of their respective fields. Add to this the inherent uncerta...
January 11, 2021 at 08:16
Well, if I were to offer an option it would have to do with the intuition that actions can't be moral just because god commands it. There's a reflexiv...
January 10, 2021 at 10:39
"...that are supernatural forces that make moral realism true..." is just a variation on the theme of divine morality. You're deferring moral authorit...
January 10, 2021 at 09:16
I thought Euthypro's dilemma had decisively undermined the relationship between morality and god. Either god is or isn't the authority on morality. If...
January 10, 2021 at 07:24
More or less, yes. The reigning consensus on what a wise person is seems to be that of a go-to person for answers and solutions to our questions and p...
January 10, 2021 at 04:04
A telling point. :up: Is the universe itself left-wing or right-wing? Does mother nature provide the right environment for "...freedom, equality, frat...
January 09, 2021 at 14:33
I couldn't have put it better. Wisdom exists only in an environment of imperfection, imperfections of knowledge (varying levels of ignorance), imperfe...
January 08, 2021 at 13:06
No problem. G'day
January 08, 2021 at 12:53
Well, at least Hume wasn't correct that causation is "out of habit".
January 08, 2021 at 12:34
So, the coronavirus that cause the ongoing pandemic is "out of habit"? That we can treat tuberculosis with the specific drugs that kill the causative ...
January 08, 2021 at 12:24
Point to note, Aristotle's first cause is simply a cause that got the ball rolling which led to the creation of the universe and that cause was god fo...
January 08, 2021 at 11:25
@"Wayfarer" So, there has to be someone who causes the goal whether by chance or not. Similarly, there has to be something that causes the universe wh...
January 08, 2021 at 09:46
What do you mean it's a "figure of speech"? Do you mean that when I say "the universe was created by chance" I mean something other than the literal m...
January 08, 2021 at 08:43
Teleology isn't necessarily an attribute of a god-created universe. God is seen as the cause that made what is a possible universe (ours) a reality wh...
January 08, 2021 at 08:03
Which meaning of "chance" makes sense in the sentence "the universe came into existence by chance"?
January 08, 2021 at 07:38
To both of you Well, "chance" is the wrong word if you want to talk about the absence of teleology because chance is an aspect of the teleological too...
January 08, 2021 at 05:56
I'm not suggesting intelligent design is the only other choice for us. All I'm saying is that chance offered as an alternative to a creator-god doesn'...
January 07, 2021 at 11:18
My worry is that determinism could be masquerading as will-power. The top result when you do a google search for "will-power" says that it's strong de...
January 07, 2021 at 04:16
But you don't get it. The fact that you consider our existing condition as just one in which we have to deal with, as you said, "the limits of our fre...
January 07, 2021 at 02:25
To do as we want is freedom.
January 07, 2021 at 02:15
My hunch, for what it's worth, is that all this talk of "life is an outcome of chance" by scientists and their ilk is, far from being even half an exp...
January 07, 2021 at 02:13
A cursory read of the Wikipedia entry on Wittgenstein's private language informs me that Wittgenstein or his band of followers, as the case may be, is...
January 06, 2021 at 13:36
Oh! Sorry. Didn't see it. Damn! My humble apologies. I see. I provided you with an inside view - the internal workings of X's and Y' minds - and so, t...
January 06, 2021 at 12:38
This is exactly what I've been grappling with for quite some time. We say that cars and elephants exist but that unicorns and god do not. Isn't that w...
January 06, 2021 at 12:29
:ok: :up:
January 06, 2021 at 12:19
You didn't answer the questions
January 06, 2021 at 12:16
:ok: Will-power. I'm having trouble understanding will-power. What is it exactly? There are two ways of looking at will-power: 1. It's an ability, a "...
January 06, 2021 at 11:38
Is life a fluke? I remember an a senior in college once telling me that the evidence for god is the order that's apparent in the universe. I was young...
January 06, 2021 at 10:58
A fresh perspective to an old issue. If it were up to me i.e. if I were the coder I would want the simulated people to possess real, objective liberti...
January 06, 2021 at 10:46
In what sense aren't we "equally constrained" or "equally free"?
January 06, 2021 at 10:22
You're trying to reconcile the intentions behind actions and the consequences of actions because they happen to be in opposing camps in the scenario y...
January 06, 2021 at 08:34
One critique of private language, perhaps its a variation of Wittgenstein's own original, is that there's no possible means to ensure consistency, an ...
January 06, 2021 at 08:21
You're talking of knowledge in a narrow sense - a particular speciality like nuclear physics is knowledge alright but it isn't the kind of knowledge w...
January 06, 2021 at 08:11
:up: :ok: Thanks for the video link. Will watch it later
January 06, 2021 at 08:04
Interesting! How much "insulation" does the brain have I wonder.
January 06, 2021 at 08:01
Google definition of "freedom": the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants. Freedom is precisely how it's been defined but the actual sit...
January 06, 2021 at 07:48
:rofl: Good one!
January 06, 2021 at 07:10
Well, what I've noticed is gender-identity assumes a definite form - I'm male/female as the case may be - at a very young age, much too young for soci...
January 05, 2021 at 14:01
Mind male = someone who thinks "I'm a male". Mind female = someone who thinks "I'm a female". Mind ambiguous = someone who thinks "I'm male AND female...
January 05, 2021 at 12:30