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Metaphysician Undercover

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That is precisely the issue. To have meaning is not the same as to have a definition. There are some members here at tpf who would restrict the meanin...
July 15, 2019 at 11:22
The deficiency in the thesis is that co-operation is not opposed to evil. That's what I tried to bring out in my post, evil people may co-operate, and...
July 15, 2019 at 10:59
Co-operative evil, i.e. conspiracy, has a much worse effect than non-co-operative, you might say it is a greater evil. So as the evil-doers become mor...
July 15, 2019 at 02:02
But if you think of "meaning" in this way, as something which is attributed to words, you would have to accept that we can use words without knowing t...
July 15, 2019 at 00:34
No I don't think that this is the case, because a proposition is a type of statement, and one can hold an assumption without stating it. But I don't t...
July 14, 2019 at 14:52
There is an undisclosed assumption here which disguises the real issue. The assumption is that there is a real, undisputable, boundary or principle, s...
July 13, 2019 at 11:33
If Kornelius changes the meaning of "same" from how it is properly expressed in the law of identity, to prove that the law of identity is logically va...
July 12, 2019 at 11:08
The problem is that the formulation of the law of identity, which Kornelius used in the proof that the law of identity is a valid logical conclusion, ...
July 11, 2019 at 11:33
Clearly, agency is warranted, as there is purposeful action, and you've regressed back to your gratuitous assertions.. If you think that the activity ...
July 11, 2019 at 11:06
If our understanding of time, and the universe, are open to revision, then how is it inappropriate to question the age of the universe? Unless we ques...
July 11, 2019 at 01:41
The point I was making, is that the logical conclusion is only as good as the premises. But it may be as you say, that people believe that logical dec...
July 11, 2019 at 01:31
Isn't it obvious? Not one of the three fundamental laws of logic is a valid logical conclusion. For example, suppose there are rules which must be fol...
July 11, 2019 at 01:18
The goal of that activity, which is commonly called DNA replication, is to produce two sets of DNA from one. Is that not obvious to you? There is acti...
July 10, 2019 at 19:00
Right, I see your reference supports my description very well. The introduction provides an almost exact rendition of what I said:. Notice, the "very ...
July 10, 2019 at 11:13
I think that what is the case is that we tend to take this skill, the skill of determining the truth, for granted. When we take it for granted, we bel...
July 10, 2019 at 02:15
Until you say what you think "agency" is, then your use of the term in any argument is not warranted. I said what agency is, and distinguished two for...
July 10, 2019 at 01:48
What seduces us is the logic itself, as well as the premises. We tend to think that if it's logical then it's true. But we forget about checking the p...
July 10, 2019 at 01:38
The appeal to logic is an extremely useful advertising tool, far more effective than the appeal to emotions and sentiments, because logic is more univ...
July 09, 2019 at 10:59
The point being, if you propose that there is a special sort of thing, called "agency", which only beings with complex thought/belief have, i.e. that ...
July 09, 2019 at 10:41
Yes, many premises are assumptions. And since you have yet to provide any support for that premise, it appears I am most likely correct in calling it ...
July 09, 2019 at 02:08
You're right, it doesn't make the description wrong. But a description which doesn't help us to understand the thing being described is generally not ...
July 08, 2019 at 11:06
That's a vicious circle. If one truly has a desire to understand acts, and the causes of acts, which is integral to philosophy, then one would very qu...
July 08, 2019 at 01:50
As I said, there is good reason not to support old flags. But I never said that any flag was a symbol of racism.
July 08, 2019 at 01:44
How does "looping" provide the illusion of free will? For that matter, how is free will any more of an illusion than any supposed relationship that an...
July 08, 2019 at 01:36
I'm still waiting for the argument to demonstrate that this claim, "agency requires complex thought/belief", is a conclusion rather than a gratuitous ...
July 08, 2019 at 01:18
This is false, there is agency in inanimate activity. It appears like you are attempting to create an unwarranted boundary between the "agency" of com...
July 07, 2019 at 11:32
The claim I objected to was this: Show me your argument to support the claim that agency is not warranted in DNA replication. Something is establishin...
July 07, 2019 at 01:08
That is an important point. We produce the idea of a world, a universe, the world existing for a year, ten years, a thousand years, a billion years, e...
July 06, 2019 at 10:32
I see, a conclusion without an argument. "Gratuitous assertions won't do."
July 06, 2019 at 09:54
In: Hello!  — view comment
Hi, andreiachim, welcome to the game. The history of video game titles?
July 06, 2019 at 01:28
I agree with Harry. To create a controversy is one of the oldest publicity tricks in the book. And, since the negative feedback was from an insider, t...
July 06, 2019 at 01:21
What people do is activities. There is meaning in activities, but actions are not meaning. I don't believe that you believe this. I'm sure you must se...
July 06, 2019 at 00:50
As I said, if you plan to argue that there is no agent involved in the correlation between replicated DNA, I think you have a very silly argument on y...
July 05, 2019 at 10:49
The example was set by the present day American president, except the polls were being watched rather than the stock market (not much difference there...
July 05, 2019 at 10:36
The issue is "meaning". I think there is far more meaning in two extremely complex things like DNA which happen to match, than there is in the correla...
July 05, 2019 at 01:17
That's the point, the law of identity is a metaphysical assumption, so of course it's not logically valid. No, the law of identity is not held as a la...
July 05, 2019 at 01:01
There was a civil war (whatever that means), and there were reasons for that war. The flag is a symbol of the political state, and there are many degr...
July 04, 2019 at 11:02
Argument? If you do not believe that there's a correlation between the two distinct instances of DNA, when DNA replicates, then just say so. But I thi...
July 04, 2019 at 10:30
The word "fascism" is actually derived from that Latin bundle word, "fasces", as is "fascine" which is a type of faggot. But the English, "fasten", is...
July 04, 2019 at 02:50
Do you not recognize the difference between "a thing", and "all things"? The law of identity states that a thing is the same as itself. What justifies...
July 04, 2019 at 01:01
Doesn't "whole", as a complete unity, signify to you, an independent thing?
July 04, 2019 at 00:54
When DNA replicates, it's quite clear that something is making a correlation between distinct things. If there was no correlation, it would not be a r...
July 04, 2019 at 00:51
What are you saying, that information is meaning with causal power? But you wanted to remove agency, that's what I objected to. Meaning cannot be caus...
July 03, 2019 at 11:01
You haven't justified your assumption of a "whole". Just because things interact doesn't mean that there is a whole. You proceed from the observation ...
July 03, 2019 at 10:48
Actually, in relation to "the eternal", what Aristotle argued is that anything eternal must be actual. So the infinite is argued to be potential, and ...
July 03, 2019 at 01:03
Actually, agency is warranted. How do you think DNA could replicate without agency?
July 03, 2019 at 00:48
The law of identity states that a thing is the same as itself. That is our point of disagreement. My claim is that the law of identity is not a law of...
July 02, 2019 at 10:56
At this point, we need to recognize and respect the difference between learning an order (memorizing it), and applying a principle to create an order ...
July 01, 2019 at 12:29
This definition of "information" just begs the question. Certainty is subjective (of the subject), so a change to the degree of certainty, "informatio...
July 01, 2019 at 12:00