frank

Apparently there is reason to disbelieve: Indeterminacy of translation

It looks like we agree. How would you determine that we really do think the same things? As opposed to just appearing to?

I think it was John Fowles who said Great Expectations sums up the main points of Christianity. I agree.

"Gnosticism" is a term that religion experts came up with to group together a collection of early Christian sects. A common feature is a divinity call...

Probably, but they wouldn't stay long if they didn't want to change that.

I don't think so. I think you really are missing the point of unenlightened's post. Questions about divinity and Christianity aren't as simple as you'...

In a similar spirit to the OP: how do people end up on a philosophy forum without knowing anything about their own ideological heritage?

For the reasons already presented in this thread. Essential features of your worldview emerged from Christianity, things like the emphasis on ultimate...

Why do people always talk like things are getting worse? No they aren't. They're as fucked up as they ever were. Enjoy it!

Exactly.

I think what he means is that all human endeavor comes to nothing, it helps nothing, and it ultimately means nothing. Therefore snarl at your neighbor...

What I was getting at is that your age is part of the now as it relates to a point in the past. That aspect of the now is emphasized on your birthday,...

:up:

It's just a logical problem. "I think, therefore I am you" as Feuerbach said.

Wow. Mine is a quote from the back of a Somerset Maugham novel: "...an autobiographical novel in which fact and fiction are inextricably intertwined."...

Yea, or maybe you're like a dark cloud that says it's going to rain. You're both up on the stage speaking, and in the audience listening to yourself, ...

So that offers another way to answer the OP: a true statement, in the abstract, is what we think the world would say if it could talk.

Right. It even extended to creativity. There was a god who gave humans paper, another god who invented iron smelting, as if the human psyche was turne...

I really think there's something to that. :grin: :up:

People used to think conscious divinities coursed through the world causing storms and crop failures. Schopenhauer focused on how that way of understa...

So the model is a black box. I think it is for neuroscience as well. It's just that some organisms behave as if there is a model, so science posits on...

I think you just replaced beliefs that are just sitting there, to a model that's just sitting there. What sort of thing is this model?

Thanks! It's not bad at all.

Blinkin says Ukraine has already taken back 50% of the land Russia seized. Woot woot! Go Ukraine!!!

I think most of what I would call identity politics, you would say is not. What would an example of identity politics be then? They really aren't that...

Right, but times change. Notice in the article I linked, it explains that DeSantis is a pain in the GOP's ass at this time because they want to court ...

Nah. He was whistling to racists.

I'm not sure I understand how leftism is really any part of it other than a historic association. As you said, people who are opposed to racism might ...

He's a politician. It's totally appropriate to ask why he's asserting P at time T. What do you think his motive is?

I'm sure he'd appreciate that.

I think that's the primary goal of supporting an identity. Whatever DeSantis' goals may be, I think the effect of his brand of politics is acceptance ...

I think they usually do. My point is that in the present political climate, specific identities are under attack by what's quickly becoming mainstream...

I haven't seen that. They just talk like humans for the most part. But just today a woman said that the last time she gave birth she told the doctor s...

You're right. It's like left and right, up and down, big and small. If you could delete one side from human thought, the other side would also disappe...

60-80% of Ashkenazi Jews are lactose intolerant. Moses invented ice cream so he could fart on demand.

And pacifists usually have some sort of otherworldly faith. The nasty, belligerent pacifist doesn't exist.

I think this is the main reason women might be expected to present themselves as childish. I'm thinking more about Japanese culture where women are si...

:up:

Curvature is always measured relative to straight lines, and straightness is the negation of curved. It's two sides to one coin. You can't have one wi...

We could sit down with Putin and just have a heart to heart. I think he might come around.

We decided the limits of the world are the limits of language. :smile:

Yay Fred!

I read that the Russian military is building prisons to detain and torture Ukrainians. It's insane.

Isaac is having a nervous breakdown because nobody wants to do land for peace. :smirk:

And this is an important point. It's unseasonably cool where I am. That's El Nino: it makes it cooler in some places. Likewise, climate change hasn't ...

Invisible gun to forehead. Boof!

Cool, thank you!

Tipping points aren't necessarily abrupt, it just means it's not as easy to go back to the previous state, sometimes because a positive feedback loop ...

There was an Einstein chicken with a brain the size of a butter bean.

I think they have a brain the size of one of those little styrofoam balls that you get if you start crumbling up styrofoam.