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Metaphysician Undercover

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I know. So if Unenlightened's account is accurate, the article suffers the problems Unenlightened has demonstrated.
February 12, 2020 at 11:55
Well you've really lost me now. I haven't the foggiest clue of what you're trying to say. I suppose you succeed with "I am not going to discuss any of...
February 12, 2020 at 01:32
I don't see any reason to restrict "pretending" so as it only may refer when there is conscious deceit. Actors in a play will pretend, that's what act...
February 11, 2020 at 13:41
There is a reason why we have the law of identity. It was established to prevent the faulty arguments of sophistry. If you think my definition of "tho...
February 11, 2020 at 12:52
Right, and that's exactly why the phrase is ambiguous. We don't know who weighed you, how they weighed you, when they weighed you, and so the phrase i...
February 11, 2020 at 12:33
Give the man a parable and send him on his way. At least that's better than giving him a counterfactual.
February 11, 2020 at 12:19
Sorry, sometimes I don't see what appears obvious to others. That's why I ask for explanations. I don't think it's related to smartness, I think it's ...
February 11, 2020 at 12:03
Why does one state "it is not profitable for us at present to do moral philosophy", and then proceed to do moral philosophy? Do you apprehend the pret...
February 11, 2020 at 02:29
Symbols, and word of mouth do not transmit thoughts from one person to another. It's you who is speaking nonsense. When I write this symbol "A", do yo...
February 11, 2020 at 01:36
Actually Aristotle is the one who first explained the failings of the LEM. Sophists at the time could produce absurd conclusions by adhering to the la...
February 10, 2020 at 14:05
Not quite, the readers produce new thoughts, within a new context. So if thoughts are existent things, the old thoughts of the author are different th...
February 10, 2020 at 13:39
What's the point then? Isn't this just like saying "let's discuss morality, but I have no respect for your opinion, I just want to discuss my opinion"...
February 10, 2020 at 13:11
The LEM only applies when the two terms are properly opposed, or form a dichotomy. It's quite clear that "male" is not a proper opposite of "female", ...
February 10, 2020 at 03:30
I think this is right, the statements are meant to educate. There is a wide variety of reasons for the statements, whether it's to introduce children ...
February 10, 2020 at 03:04
I agree that we enter the future ass first, because we are looking at things which we have seen and remembered, and that is past. ,However, a past eve...
February 10, 2020 at 01:57
That's not a logical conclusion. Furthermore, I actually agree with a lot that Peirce has said. in particular his very coherent method of laying out p...
February 09, 2020 at 15:09
It seems you didn't read my earlier posts Right, the symbols on the paper, and on this page have existence. The thoughts which were used to produce th...
February 09, 2020 at 14:55
Morality is just as much about judging possible future actions as it is about judging actual past actions. Authority puts an end to the infinite regre...
February 09, 2020 at 14:49
I don't see how this is a problem. Human actions, by their very nature are means, they are never ends in themselves. All we have, as evidence, to judg...
February 08, 2020 at 14:49
I think "foundation" refers to principles which "the acceptable accumulated knowledge and practises" are based in, built upon. So Weiersfass and Cauch...
February 08, 2020 at 13:15
Why are the "in-betweens" so hard to find? The vast majority of human beings are either male or female, and there's very few in-between. There's a sim...
February 08, 2020 at 03:13
It doesn't work though, because it doesn't explain how I'm here when no one's looking. So my real, true existence, is not supported by that fiction. T...
February 08, 2020 at 02:27
Right, how could a thing which is composed of parts which do not exist, itself exist? This doesn't mean nothing exists, only those things composed of ...
February 08, 2020 at 01:58
Actually history has not demonstrated that. You and Fishfry have simply made the assertion that history has demonstrated this. I demonstrated how that...
February 08, 2020 at 01:42
"Risk" here means the possibility of a law suit against the engineering firm. Real risk contains unknown factors which cannot be assessed. What we rea...
February 07, 2020 at 22:13
We stipulate what is the character, or nature, of a bad act. It is harmful to another, or it infringes on another's rights, something like that. A vir...
February 07, 2020 at 21:19
Well, I thought I'd add my two cents worth to your thread. As expected, you've deemed it not worth two cents. You owe me nothing though, because I off...
February 07, 2020 at 19:17
The claim was that math precedes foundations. But math consists of concepts, and concepts require foundations, so it is impossible that math is prior ...
February 07, 2020 at 18:35
The problem is, as I demonstrated, the concept of "empty set" is self-contradicting. Sure, a contradictory concept is functional and purposeful, but t...
February 07, 2020 at 14:56
It's not a terror at all, it's a respect for the reality of it. Infinite regress is an unintelligibility which is repugnant to a rational mind. A heal...
February 06, 2020 at 20:56
The problem with virtue ethics is the appearance of infinite regress. Plato introduced "the good", which Aristotle described as "that for the sake of ...
February 06, 2020 at 14:36
Trying to change the subject to distract from the fact that you're wrong? If so, you're unsuccessful because you're still wrong. The critics determine...
February 06, 2020 at 12:53
Right, I'm not even in the same ballpark as Zelebg. You and I might have some things in common Yes, I would think so. Free will only requires an agent...
February 06, 2020 at 03:43
I hope you see the problem with this. You're saying, if we (mathematicians) agree that it exists then it exists, without any definition of what it mea...
February 06, 2020 at 03:27
(1a) would be better stated as, "if" two sets have elements in common this must be a set. There is no reason to interpret a situation where two sets h...
February 06, 2020 at 03:03
I do not believe that "agent" requires self-consciousness. For example there are conscious agents which are not self-conscious. The point is that one ...
February 06, 2020 at 02:18
The point is that I do not accept your argument. You seem to be proceeding from the false assumption that only a self-conscious being can act freely. ...
February 05, 2020 at 13:43
What do you think "rule" signifies?
February 05, 2020 at 13:22
What I said, or at least meant, is that I refuse to play chess because I find it irrelevant to my endeavours, so it's a waste of time. What could you ...
February 05, 2020 at 13:19
I went through this already. You cannot use the logic derived from the axioms to judge the axioms of the system, because valid logic will not allow on...
February 05, 2020 at 12:43
I wouldn't say that this robot has free will, it is determined to act according to the parameters of your program. This is an age old problem for theo...
February 04, 2020 at 12:52
Mephist seems to have no rebuttal to the arguments which demonstrate that the "empty set" is a contradictory concept, and unlike you, seems about read...
February 04, 2020 at 12:22
Thanks for the compliments. The biggest stumbling block between us is your concept of "mathematical existence". The proof that something has mathemati...
February 04, 2020 at 12:03
What this means is that zero is a very strange type of number, unique and different from the other numbers. So we ought to be careful in the way that ...
February 03, 2020 at 13:11
No, a description which contains contradiction is inept.
February 03, 2020 at 03:45
Yes, I would say it is a trick of sophistry. To say of an attribute that it is "null", is to say that the attribute is non-existence. So to say that t...
February 03, 2020 at 03:42
Right, the universe does not consult with our laws of logic, but we must follow these laws if we wish to make a coherent description of the universe, ...
February 03, 2020 at 01:28
Let's look at it this way. The "line" introduces a new property which the preceding "point" has not, "length". The "surface" introduces a property whi...
February 02, 2020 at 16:51
[q No I don't see any contradiction here. There is nothing to imply that a point is a line without length. That would be contradictory when #2 says th...
February 02, 2020 at 15:24
I appreciate your efforts to make sense of this for me. I am not just trolling. I recognize that is not the proper definition, I wrote something simpl...
February 02, 2020 at 14:54