Agent Smith

Pinocchio the puppet did become a real boy, eventually.

Trump was (going to be) the best thing that happened to Vladimir Putin! :snicker: Putin had Trump wrapped around his finger. Birds Dictators of a feat...

Siamese twin conundrum: You can't let one in/throw one out without letting the other one in/throwing the other one out too.

The asymmetry that needs to be exposed: Roe vs. Wade permitted abortion, but it didn't make it mandatory i.e. pro-life women could bear children and n...

:rofl:

Temere bonum (random acts of kindness). Zinloos geweld (senseless violence). Good acts are deserved & undeserved and so are foul deeds. The apotheosis...

~K(p & ~Kp) \to ?~K(p & ~Kp) \to ~?K(p & ~Kp) \to ~\existsp(p & ~Kp) \to \forallp(p \to Kp) Knowability principle (modal logic variant): p \to ?Kp Non...

Religion in Politics Plus: Ethics will get the attention it deserves. Minus: Most religious ethics are grotesque.

Yours is an argument by example which, if memory serves, is a fallacy. Nevertheless, your thesis is an intriguing one to say the least. It, however, i...

So, you're saying an evolutionary explanation for rationality is of the debunking kind i.e. that we're rational doesn't mean there are reasons (for be...

What are your thoughts on my view that though, at times, it might be to our advantage to believe falsehoods (e.g. belief in god), evolutionary success...

I believe you mentioned this in your OP, since there are infinite natural numbers {1, 2, 3,...}, numbers can grant us that uniqueness some may wish fo...

Oh! So, you mean to say that just because we have the faculty of reason it doesn't necessarily follow that there are any real reasons (to believe anyt...

Let's look at this from a human perspective. The possibilities are: 1. We're in a simulation, meaning there's the real world + the simulation we're a ...

You have a rather colorful life, Jack Cummins. You live in a big city then; I'm a small town boy myself - a frog in a small pond. In case you're inter...

This form of duality presents a serious problem - a dilemma which, much to our disappointment, isn't a false dichotomy fallacy. The only reasonable re...

Triad of possibilities 1. Happiness 2. Suffering 3. Neither happiness nor suffering aka contentment A 3 sided die, roll it; life is after all a gamble...

Like how non-life (Mars rovers) looks for (signs of) life.

where we can see 'em! Before us, as opposed to behind us or to our sides, above our heads or under our feet, obscured from view, outside our field of ...

There is "something" greater than "that than which nothing greater can be conceived (God)" viz. nothing! and we all know that nothing doesn't exist! C...

It's lamentable that some of us havta be sacrificial lambs in order to get anything done. This is a waste of valuable (human) resource in my humble op...

There is an unknow truth: p & ~Kp That there's an unknown truth can be known = K(p & ~Kp) Because K(r & s) \to Kr & Ks, we can say that Kp & K~Kp Asid...

The radices of religion. :chin: Off the top of my head: 1. The hunger for explanations (storm gods, fire gods, etc.). 2. The desire for control over o...

Kp & ~Kp Kp 1. p is true AND 2. Someone believes p AND 3. p is justified ~Kp 1. p is false AND/OR 2. No one believes p AND/OR 3. p isn't justified Is ...

@OP, You mean like Star Wars, technologically advanced but still in the grips of medieval thinking - (jedi) knights, (light)sabers, emperors, and so o...

When we say we don't know then we mean, for a proposition p, p v ~p ( p or not p). An unknown truth: p is true but we don't know p is true = p & ~K(p ...

Great OP! Our brains look like they've adapted to something and that something is an external world. Ergo, there is an external world. Why would our b...

There is an unknown truth \neq p & ~Kp for the simple reason that ~Kp means we can't assert p for to assert p implies Kp. 1. p & ~Kp (assume for reduc...

Good question! This is the paradox: We look for the meaning of life in God, but we believe in human arguments that life is meaningless. That's like lo...

I was simply pointing out the basis on which each one of us can claim to be unique and how the fact that there are only a finite number of possible pe...

I must apologize, I've lost the plot. Nonetheless, quite an interesting post. Danke.

Let's discuss the point further. You say that a simulation is part of (some) real world. I concur. However, this hypothesis entails the existence of 2...

There is reality and then there is the simulation. I count two "entities"; how many do you see? It's true that the simulation is part of reality, with...

I humbly disagree. A simulation’s an additional entity over and above reality.

:chin:

Principles: Knowability: p \to Kp Non-O: \existsp(p \land ~Kp) Rules: A. Kp \to p B. ?~p \to ~?p C. \vdashp \to \vdash ?p D. K(p & q) \to Kp & Kq p & ...

Why? Some propositions are provable (e.g. Fermat's last theorem) and others not (e.g. the theory of relativity).

Two categories of propositions then: 1. p's that are provable, belief-apt, and true e.g. Biden is POTUS 2. p's that are unprovable though belief-apt a...

False, a given observational dataset is compatible with multiple hypotheses. There's no way of knowing which one is the true hypothesis even when one ...

Don't you worry Bartricks, at some point in the future, having children is going to be a crime punishable by death! Either that or cannibalism. :screa...

:up:

Muchas gracias señor Jamal. G'day.

I should've minded my own business. Lesson learned. Danke and au revoir monsieur.

Maths to the rescue. It is quite obvious that the number of possible permutations/combinations of relevant factors/qualities (how to think, psychology...

If it has disappeared, good that it has. Let's close this chapter.

Vis-à-vis art, Technique: A way of painting, sculpting, writing, composing music, etc. Skill: Mastery of a technique, sometimes adding a personal touc...

Explanations, from a scientific point of view, aren't truth-apt. For any observed pattern, there are n number of explanations. Ergo, suss out the patt...

I quite like physicalism. The mind is either matter or energy and we all know that neither matter nor energy can be created/destroyed! If the mind is ...

Just so that we can kill 'em again! :snicker: