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Metaphysician Undercover

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Any task requires time. Even with an infinite number of monkeys it is not guaranteed that one of them would type any particular thing at first try. Th...
March 30, 2022 at 12:12
Consider Lamark's use of "orgasm" as the fundamental, and defining feature of life.
March 30, 2022 at 11:51
March 30, 2022 at 11:22
You know the infinite monkey theorem is a feature of an infinite amount of time.
March 30, 2022 at 11:16
In: Sophistry  — view comment
Yes, if it is unintelligible to one's own mode of interpretation, it ought to be rejected for that reason. "Consistent with the truth" is a judgement ...
March 30, 2022 at 07:10
In: Sophistry  — view comment
There' a saying, 'better safe than sorry'. It's safer to say that conclusions cannot be drawn, due to inconsistency, then to assume consistency and dr...
March 29, 2022 at 23:35
What you describe is not seeing order where there is none, it is a misinterpretation of the order which is there, and that is very common. A piece of ...
March 29, 2022 at 23:14
In: Sophistry  — view comment
As I said, I provided the support in an in depth way in the other thread, and outlined it in my last post. That book is clearly inconsistent with work...
March 29, 2022 at 13:35
Order means have things in their right place. So any sort of pattern is an order. If each part of the pattern were not in the place required to make t...
March 28, 2022 at 21:40
Sure, it's not at all surprising to find order in the universe, we ourselves are organized beings, so it would be very surprising, actually false, if ...
March 28, 2022 at 16:47
That would be required for your claim that Russia has fulfilled all its goals. As of yet, I see no indication that Ukraine is ready to give up Crimea,...
March 28, 2022 at 16:35
Such assessments are rather pointless without reference to an outcome in the dispute over Crimea. As far as I know, Ukraine has insisted on sovereignt...
March 28, 2022 at 12:00
I think that this is the right way of looking at things. In this sense, all empirical evidence supports God, and we can know that God is the truth, st...
March 28, 2022 at 11:23
This is Platonic realism. "Fundamental particles" are nothing but mathematical equations made to represent observations. When we claim that these math...
March 27, 2022 at 16:03
I don't agree with this. Concepts are composed of parts, and the parts are "traits", only in a slightly different way from the way that physical objec...
March 27, 2022 at 13:41
In: Sophistry  — view comment
I thoroughly demonstrated the inconsistency in that other thread. In De Anima Bk 1 Ch 3 he explains why the soul is not an unmoved mover, it is not an...
March 27, 2022 at 12:34
In: Sophistry  — view comment
I think the issue here is that predication is of a subject. If we want to make a relation into a subject and make a predication of that subject, we lo...
March 26, 2022 at 22:40
This is not contracting time, it is expanding it. Think about it. If task A normally takes two hours, and you find a way to make task A take two secon...
March 26, 2022 at 12:16
Drastic measures. I sit on the edge of my chair, waiting, what could be next? The problem is not with the "cheerleader" portrayal as such. I think the...
March 26, 2022 at 12:05
In: Sophistry  — view comment
That's why most people give up on trying to understand Plato, it requires a lifetime of effort to even get close. They cannot read it in a week and fi...
March 26, 2022 at 11:17
In: Sophistry  — view comment
I've been asking you to justify this claim, because I really cannot understand it. I can't see how anything other than thinking that something is good...
March 26, 2022 at 00:29
In: Sophistry  — view comment
I keep asking you to justify this claim, but you do not. If there is some simple, clear and distinct principle, other than "thinking something is good...
March 25, 2022 at 12:27
The temporal analogy holds quite well for this idea of "we're a body", or more precisely "I'm a body" ("we're a body" contains a further problem of un...
March 25, 2022 at 11:41
The body is between the inside and the outside, just like the present is between the future and the past. We can claim directions "toward the inside",...
March 24, 2022 at 12:24
In: Sophistry  — view comment
You obviously haven't read Plato. It is clear that things are not pursued because they are thought to be good, as "the good" escapes the grasp of reas...
March 24, 2022 at 12:12
In: Sophistry  — view comment
Well, obviously there are many different kinds. So this "good" must be specific to the kind. Now how do you make this compatible with what you said ea...
March 24, 2022 at 01:50
Sure, but the point is that the standards as to what constitutes "support" for a formal system cannot itself be a formal system. So it's wrong to char...
March 24, 2022 at 00:57
In: Sophistry  — view comment
What I argued with Apollodorus in the other thread, is that "the good" itself is not properly a Form. The key to understanding this is that the good e...
March 23, 2022 at 12:56
This is not really true. Time is a constraint in thermodynamics, but thermodynamics is clearly not the ground for time, because time is an unknown fea...
March 23, 2022 at 11:54
In: Sophistry  — view comment
Pursuit of "the good" as one individual object, the One, is a mistaken venture, and that is the obvious reason why pursuit of the good is extremely di...
March 22, 2022 at 13:03
I think you have things a little backward here. Substance in the primary sense, is the most basic, common, and truest sense of the word. This is what ...
March 22, 2022 at 12:12
Why? How would replacing "mysterious tendencies" with "entropic gradients" improve one's understanding? I think this would be a step backward, because...
March 22, 2022 at 11:14
In: Sophistry  — view comment
Yes it does, unless one states that we pursue something other than the good as well as pursuing the good, the inverse holds. No qualification is state...
March 22, 2022 at 01:10
Incidentally, I believe what I described is why the observations of quantum mechanics are so difficult to interpret. Because relativity principles are...
March 21, 2022 at 12:33
Yes, that's the way we look at it, as the laity, but it's not the way that the principles of relativity theory dictate that we look at it. By relativi...
March 21, 2022 at 02:14
Both models are useful. So if usefulness is the basis for judgement of correctness, then both are correct. But the point is, what this example provide...
March 20, 2022 at 23:20
If living beings have evolved, and the universe has evolved, then why not believe that the laws have evolved as well? The Copernican revolution did a ...
March 20, 2022 at 11:59
In: Sophistry  — view comment
How is this a problem? We ere talking about "the good", not "just" or "unjust". You never moved to establish a relation between these. And I still do ...
March 20, 2022 at 02:24
Essence is "substance" in the secondary sense, notice "universal", "genus", "subject". That is how secondary substance is defined. In the primary sens...
March 20, 2022 at 01:15
The conclusion is not so simple, because the argument you presented must be taken within the proper context. Notice that the paragraph closes with a c...
March 19, 2022 at 15:28
In: Sophistry  — view comment
No, I am demonstrating Plato's use of "the good". You use "good" in a way which demonstrates that you do not understand Plato, so I am trying to help ...
March 19, 2022 at 13:48
Primary substance, as defined by Aristotle is the individual, the particular, such as the individual man, or individual horse. Secondary substance is ...
March 19, 2022 at 13:20
In: Sophistry  — view comment
The problem is to distinguish the one from the other. If your relationship with Marilyn Monroe is only to see her on the screen, then this relationshi...
March 19, 2022 at 11:46
And: While I'm at it, I'll add this:
March 19, 2022 at 11:40
Yes, sure why not? These are all fields of study along with physics, mathematics, biology and metaphysics, requiring effort and learning of principles...
March 19, 2022 at 02:28
In: Sophistry  — view comment
Yes it does mean that everything we do is good, unless you move to judge "good" by some other principle. What principle would you propose? "Sin" is a ...
March 19, 2022 at 02:18
This is actually untrue. Those who are well educated in traditional metaphysics have very little, if any problem understanding such criticisms, and te...
March 18, 2022 at 21:11
In: Sophistry  — view comment
But everything we do is for a good. As I explained in a post above, every act is inherently good. I don't know if you read that post, but this is fund...
March 18, 2022 at 20:27
Yes, Wittgenstein can be very misleading. He ought to be discussed in the thread on sophistry. Read the thread on hinge propositions. There I argued t...
March 18, 2022 at 20:09
Mind is logically prior to language. So such a "switch" is a move in the wrong direction. and will only mislead you, as 180 Proof is obviously mislead...
March 18, 2022 at 11:13