TheMadFool

I don't know if people realize this or whether it's being forced down our throats by countless media representations but zombies aren't considered per...

Exactly, knowledge can be used for good and it appears its the most powerful tool that anyone can have at his/her disposal toward that end. Thus, if o...

Consider the following three scenarios: 1. I'm the evil genius, call me X, who's got everybody as brains in vats in my lab. I visit my lab everyday an...

So you stand by the Buddhist notion of avidya with its moral implications. I don't see the necessary connection between knowledge and morality. I gues...

I'm not saying that just because there's no good reason to think X it's ok to think Y or not X. All I'm saying is there's no good reason to think X.

Thanks for your post. The idea of memes as information following the same principles of biological evolution - replicating, morphing, going extinct - ...

How about this then: The stone paradox basically pits god against himself, right? Imagine now this universe is a game of chess and you're god - the Gr...

I suppose you're right but reason is not so easily made to play second fiddle for the very idea that somethings may assume higher priority than it - f...

This makes sense (or so it seems). I'm not that sure but tell me this: in what sense is god omnipotent if not in a relative sense? We have a to-do lis...

That's sweeping the problem under the rug. You haven't dealt with the problem but decided to ignore it. Firstly, I don't think we can pin down a proba...

I don't think we can for the reason that there must exist, as @"Metaphysician Undercover" posited, a being, call it X, that gets its hands on the info...

I agree. I think @"Pfhorrest" made that amply clear and even @"Metaphysician Undercover"'s thoughts align with this sentiment. However, Descartes' and...

Reason is that faculty that discovers, isolates, and prescribes methods/ways of thinking that are either guaranteed to lead you to the truth or, at th...

Ok. There's this person, call him X, who you say can discern whether we are brains in vats or actual human beings. However, it's still possible that X...

I'm applying Leibniz to Descartes. There's nothing wrong with that, right? Imagine a being discerns whether we're brains in vats or actual humans. Ima...

Yeah. On the one hand we have this mental image of the ideal debate and on the other hand we have reality.

This suggestion, advice, actually an injunction, is to be found in every basic course in logic: focus on the argument, not on the person. Not doing so...

Well, how does the mind take part in creating, sustaining or swapping, illusions? Proclivities, biases, prejudices, etc. come to mind. In a nutshell, ...

What do you mean?

@"180 Proof" How about this? You correctly pointed to the fact that science evolves - its theories adapt as more and more disparate observations are m...

I know. :up:

But my sentences are not as convoluted as the above. L = This sentence is false (liar sentence) P = L is a proposition Nothing can done to the liar se...

I see. Is there any other way to deal with Pyrrhonian skepticism but to keep "the content of consciousness" at arm's length? Perhaps, philosophy is li...

Why? Shouldn't you we? God is not like a human? Is that what you mean? Yet, given God exists, he seems to have given us some abilities e.g. rationalit...

My bad. It's probably because I don't get you. Anyway, here's what I think: To believe that we can assign a truth value to the liar sentence, it must ...

:up: Whatever the noumena or phenomena are, the final stage of the our mind's interaction with reality involves judgements made by the mind i.e. the m...

Not relevant :chin: ? Then why is it relevant to Descartes' demon and brain in a vat thought experiments? You'd have to say that these thought experim...

But there's no need for anything meta, right? L = This sentence is false (the liar sentence) P = L is a proposition To tell you the truth, I fielded P...

To each his own but that's just a side issue. Thanks. Yes, they are but the idea behind the thought doesn't seem to be that reality = illusion (that w...

Yes, I get what you mean - "a being with superior capacities" could discern what to us, all of us, is indiscernible. Firstly, what would the structure...

Beetle In A Box but that would mean, as Martin Ssempa once said, confusion of the highest order.

I'm probably not qualified to comment but the liar paradox looks like this to me: L = Liar sentence = This sentence is false P = L is a proposition (i...

Wow! :clap: :up: One question: If God did exist and he did create the universe and us, do you think he would've considered it a moral priority to best...

Given that the theism I'm familiar with is the kind where a person in serious trouble screams at the top of his lungs, "Oh God! Please help me!", I fe...

Methinks the issue of honorable death arises in times of war and what brings a tear to my eyes is that the enemy is bent on giving you as dishonorable...

:ok:

I suppose you could say that but language is nothing apart from semantics - concepts - and being so, paradoxes must be about flawed or inappropriate c...

Right! It serves a critical purpose in the knowledge business and yet, on the matter where it seems it's most needed - god, his existence, religion in...

You mean to say the omnipotence paradox is off in some way then for all I did was use its form.

I wonder if there's anything in our universe that can't be mathematically described or anything whose mathematical aspect is just incidental. What abo...

The omnipotence paradox reminds me of Paradox of Euathlus It depends on your point of view.

Ok. Good to know you've invested time on the topic. All the more reason for me to seek your views on the matter. :smile: Firstly, we can't deny the fa...

I admitted to the fact that a reductionist approach may not be the right way to tackle the issue. However, you said even a non-reductionist perspectiv...

How about this? The dilemma is simple: S = God can create a stone that he can't lift O = God is omnipotent 1. S v ~S.....premise 2. S -> ~O.....premis...

You're mistaken. Read the links. Descartes conclusion isn't that our senses are fallible but that reality could be an illusion (from senses beimg fall...

:chin: The brain in a vat thought experiment is to show that reality could be a simulation based on the fact that our senses are unreliable. I think y...

Can I not say that the ability to doubt is "useful" in seeking truth but seeking truth for its own sake?

That's a contradiction. I think you need to give another look at the issue. That is known - we're a brain in a vat What's crucial is that we can't rel...

Is the idea of utility so intimately tied to evolutionary biology that we can't think of one without the other? Of course, philosophers are human but ...