TheMadFool

We can always depend on the fact that we're all human and though there are individual differences, there's something generic about being human - this ...

When encountering "S" I don't actually experience the sensation "S" refers to and therein lies the rub. No?

This might help the case for some version of idealism (non-materialism). This maybe the stumbling block for idealism (non-materialism). Even if we wer...

1. If irrational numbers don't "exist" I shouldn't be able to create a number that doesn't have a repetend 2. I can create a number that lacks a repet...

Art as escapism. Well, it's quite undeniable that given the right conditions - a certain personality type, the right kind of art, and so on - a person...

Math ain't my cup of tea and I'm dangerously close to, as Neil deGrasse Tyson puts it, "...the perimeter of my ignorance...". I suppose I should know ...

Self-imposed isolation is what you're getting at I suppose. This may come off as weird but I like to look at it from a causal perspective. Every singl...

The Tao is... e pluribus unum /e? ?pl??r?b?s ?ju?n?m/ noun out of many, one (the motto of the US).

Yet real numbers and "imaginary" numbers aren't exactly like each other. I can easily express any real number with the numerals, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ...

Sound advice. :up:

Good job Daniel, my good man. The first step to a solution is recognizing that there's a problem. More importantly, are the findings (of the experimen...

@"Wayfarer" Corrigendum. By the way, if imaginary numbers exist, what is the square root of -1? I know the square root of 4 is 2, a number; I know the...

The paradox, people of a given country will cheat, torture, rape, and kill each other but will, with the slightest of provocations, rally under their ...

A loaded gun's muzzle pushed against the temple can be very convincing, so convincing in fact that the owner of the temple may be convinced of faer ow...

Qualia seems to refer to that ineffable, unwordable, aspect of consciousness. To say that it's not real would mean that everything about consciousness...

Well, what exactly does "real" in "numbers are real" mean? I'm no mathematician but I can say with some degree of confidence that numbers are, at the ...

Oh and I forgot to mention, thanks, as always.

I think a well-designed study should settle the issue once and for all. That aside, the notion pessimism bias works only if we know that things aren't...

What really boggles the mind is that two mutually contradictory points of view (pessimism & optimism) are to be found in the same environment (this wo...

I didn't mean to say you didn't know this stuff but what I want to bring up is there are certain areas in physics where math, as they claim, "breaks d...

The justification of oughts can be found in the system of values one chooses. It's no secret that this is exactly where moral theorists are facing pro...

I maybe mistaken of course but Hume's issue is with how an ought can't be inferred from an is and justifiably so if there were no reasons/explanations...

Well, for what it's worth, turbulence Math, not as effective as Eugene Wigner thought, eh? The Unreasonable Ineffectiveness Of Math

Sorry for replying twice to your concerns regarding the is/ought problem but it seems necessary to evaluate the matter further. It appears that Hume's...

Is/ought problem Hume's is is a bit nuanced in my humble opinion. It doesn't include our impressions/feelings of/about the facts of nature and only re...

It looks like the great Hume goofed up since there's no is/ought gap at all. Consider the arguments below. Argument 1. Premise (is): Murder occurs qui...

Well, I consider the absence/lack of a definitive, clear idea about humanity in the sense how we should conduct ourselves? a sign of complexity rather...

It may look as if pessimism's roots can be found in unpleasant personal experiences but @"180 Proof" said, not too long ago, that given that there are...

To reiterate myself with some eloquence I suppose, an exclusvie pessimist will live but will want to die and an exclusive optimist will die but will w...

I'm quitting the discussion until I can think of something substantive but I'll leave you with a joke: What's greater than god, more evil than the dev...

The Big Bang is the best theory we have of our universe's origin and the equations we use to study it are only good to about some billionths of a seco...

First, the royals make a great show of welcoming Megan Markle into the family and in just a couple of years wants to expel her from the same. Why on e...

I see. What explains our innate susceptibility to deception of the kind that involves some degree of self-aggrandizement which I interpret as a, proba...

I love paradoxes and there seems to be one lurking in the background of all that's happening in the spotlight. Typically, success is seen/projected as...

I don't know how far this is relevant or true or reasonable but looking as math as "in the mind" as opposed to the world "out there" seems to be a mis...

Prove the following proposition, a necessity for your worldview: 1. All truths cause happiness As counterexamples: disease, murder, apathy, corruption...

Wise words there. I just realized that, although right now my mind draws a blank, there possibly are non-mathematical questions we can ask about the w...

This squares with a paradox of nothing I discovered about 6 months ago. Definition: Nothing is not anything. Question: Is nothing "something" that we ...

The way it seems to me, we need to unpack happiness/suffering to get to the heart of utilitatrianism - what is it actually about? Let's survey some th...

I fully agree that moderation is/should be a permanent fixture in all human affairs - the golden mean and madhyama pratipada make complete sense - but...

Truth is bitter. Why say that?

Intersubjectivity is simply the convergence of, sharing, broadly speaking, mental content shaped by particular worldviews that paint the world as of a...

I wonder why? I've always been bothered by the fact that happiness and truth are not linked in a way we would've wanted. The truth usually makes us sa...

Perhaps Wittgenstein is the go to person here. Moral intuitions, their variety and seeming incompatibility, is probably due to the fluidity of the con...

I'm not sure if I catch your drift but if you're referrring to what can be summed up with the notions of heaven and hell - the carrot of happiness (he...

Yes, these are few among many other elements that need to be incorporated into hedonism simpliciter for it to link up with ethics.

I don't see how it could be otherwise.

Where do I begin? It seems Hedonism, in the Epicurean sense, is all about pleasure and pain, no strings attached, call this pure hedonism. The summum ...

Great but "Barrels" spoils the show in a manner of speaking.

I don't see why a symbol must have "some predetermined meaning". The algorithms for assigning meaning to a symbol and vice versa is as follows: Algori...