Tate

A description is 'what', an explanation is 'why'. A description is knowledge. You don't know you'll eat lunch in a few hours. How many ounces of fat a...

It's not just description, it's also explanations. You can't describe the future because you haven't seen it. Explanations allow you to predict, but a...

Like Brownian motion? Ok. I'll get on it. Nobel here I come!

If someone needs an idea for a story, I had this idea of aliens who look just like us, but they never fart. They start trying to infiltrate the human ...

The CGL is for working with pressurized gas. It is wonderfully predictive. :smile:

I see what you mean. But think of the combined gas law. It works. What's the concept behind it? It has to do with kinetic vs potential energy. Maybe t...

We are part of the universe, Josh. Everything we do is the universe doing what it does.

Waging war has worked well for him in the past. It would seem reasonable that he would turn to that same tool again. But I've also thought about the r...

I think some of us are offering explanations prior to understanding what abstract objects actually are. An abstract object is like a tree in that I ca...

I'm familiar with that weirdness. :grin:

I think of awareness as usually being like a flashlight in a dark room. I just meant that physicalism, to the extent that it's monistic, has to accept...

If you're a physicalist, you probably accept that in some sense the universe is aware of itself, so I don't know if it's more plausible. It's just the...

I agree. We just encounter this and that, categorize it to fit our needs, and we proceed without filling in the blanks. You don't wait until physics i...

The truthmaker for physicalism (as a proposition) would be physicalism (as a state of affairs). Same with idealism.

The grey strawberry illusion for reference:. :grin: https://www.illusionsindex.org/images/illusions/grey-strawberries/greystrawberriesmainimage.png

A set is an abstract object.

That seems like a recipe for suspect metaphysical shenanigans, though. Do they faithfully adhere to the limits of pragmatism?

That's what the Europeans who come here tell me, although they're mostly German, so maybe they don't know much about France. Good luck with your endea...

That's just where expertise in self sufficiency would be most easily and safely available to you. You can always move to Siberia instead. :rofl:

Your best bet might be to move to the US and find a commune devoted to self sufficiency. Few are suited to living off grid alone. Plus that's a danger...

That is the prevailing view in philosophy of math.

Truthmakers are components of the correspondence theory of truth. A truthmaker is not evidence. It's a state of affairs. The proposition that idealism...

Just keep in mind that if you find that your analysis of abstract objects contains the very thing you're trying to analyze (such as 'things we do', wh...

No, it's that a certain critical population level is required for the existence of a priestly, educated class. In Rome, just maintaining the populatio...

I see. Thank you!

You just make up some numbers and turn it back in?

The relationship between a circle's diameter and circumference doesn't exist? And RMS doesn't exist! Those crazy engineers, using non-existent items t...

Yes.

They aren't mental objects. I don't know. Did you know Pythagoras didn't invent the Pythagorean theorem? It was known for ages before him by the Babyl...

Abstract objects don't "exist" in any particular mind. Pi is an abstract object. It's not a resident of my mind in the way my grocery list is. I can't...

https://cdn.britannica.com/82/203482-050-E2ABDA79/People-fireworks.jpg?q=60https://unsplash.com/photos/c5_eQi4rrjA

We can't really do without either of them, so skepticism is just a fun pastime.

Say the black hole in the middle of the Milky Way is a baby universe and there are people in there. Is their time separate from ours somehow? Or how d...

I already understand the deep abiding hatred you have for the millions of Americans you've never met, so you can leave that part out if you want to. :...

Affirmative action essentially forces social change by giving minority individuals the chance to start their own dynasties. Just as installing the fir...

I think if you look at Thurgood Marshall's comments on affirmative action, you'll see that he didn't think it was supposed to last forever. It's not r...

Affirmative action is a tool for social engineering. It's from a bygone age which I associate with the civil rights movement. I'm sad because it seems...

Do you understand the theory that we might be in a black hole?

That makes sense. They have less cholesterol, so I eat them for that reason.

Pasture raised eggs are better for you than the regular kind.

I agree.

Yes. The pendulum swings back and forth between conservative and liberal. Both outlooks are valuable and they both have dark sides. Give it time. It w...

You're referring here to what he said about Christians. That tells me all I need to know about you.

I assumed he was in the middle of a crisis because the last time I felt that way, I was.

This was educational. Some of you put up with him because he expressed what you yourselves felt. Wow. I had no idea so many people are like that.

I didn't get to see the intelligent part. All I saw was one cringy post after another.

The coach initially prayed alone on the field after the game. Over time people from both teams would join him. For reasons you might not understand, I...

No. The motive is to maintain peaceful relations between different religious groups. If one denomination is allowed to take public funds or use govern...

No. He didn't.

I read that they've looked for a mutation that would explain what happened to our species 50 to 60 thousand years ago. They haven't found one yet. Tha...