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Metaphysician Undercover

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As I pointed out "free" here has no meaning. One's will is by your description causally responsible for one's actions. Whether one's will is free rela...
January 04, 2018 at 04:08
Now I think understand. You, and your will, are always the cause of your actions. But this is irrelevant to morality. Whether you are morally responsi...
January 04, 2018 at 00:13
That's irrelevant, logic is what justifies.
January 03, 2018 at 22:59
In: Desire  — view comment
I don't see your point here. How does the study of psychology disprove my claim that desires are rooted in physical needs? You know we are all very si...
January 03, 2018 at 22:56
I would not say that Smith is justified in believing B, because his reason for believing B is A, that Jones will get the job. And Jones is not getting...
January 03, 2018 at 22:28
I've studied quite a bit of philosophy, especially metaphysics, and I've come to realize that the same principles which make reality intelligible are ...
January 03, 2018 at 21:53
I don't understand. You seem to have a double standard of responsibility. In the one case you said: "One can have a will but it might not be responsib...
January 03, 2018 at 21:24
You said that in the case when one's will is not free, that individual is not responsible for one's actions. You are now saying that one's will is alw...
January 03, 2018 at 15:39
If one's will is always determined by external influence, how can one ever be responsible for one's acts?
January 03, 2018 at 15:31
OK, so a person has a free will sometimes, but not all of the time. Sometimes the person's will is free, sometimes it is determined. We still don't ha...
January 03, 2018 at 15:05
I agree that in seeking knowledge we assume that there is such a thing as what you call "the real universal". The point I made earlier in the thread, ...
January 03, 2018 at 14:42
Your definition states what it means to have "will". It doesn't state what it means for that will to be free. It just states that if one's will is res...
January 03, 2018 at 14:04
You could very well have a look into your own head Banno, to find the truth about that. But that would not be justification, and that's why there is a...
January 03, 2018 at 13:57
Because I believe in free will, and for the reasons discussed already, I believe free will is incompatible with determinism. To say that one's actions...
January 03, 2018 at 13:22
The issue though, is that "the stuff in the head" is very real, just like the thing in the box is very real. We can call the thing in the head a Belie...
January 03, 2018 at 03:51
Actually, I think it's the other way around. Once we realize that determinism is wrong, this puts us on the right track toward understanding the unive...
January 03, 2018 at 03:01
In: Desire  — view comment
I understand what you're saying, but how is "the way you construe the world" any more constraining than the forces around you? I can't choose to think...
January 03, 2018 at 02:56
In: Desire  — view comment
It's quite obvious that what we can do is constrained by the forces around us. I don't think I can jump to the moon for example, and if I break the la...
January 03, 2018 at 01:12
This is false, there is no legal definition of "free will", it is a philosophical term. And philosophical terms often have a meaning in common vernacu...
January 03, 2018 at 01:06
In: Desire  — view comment
This is where I disagree with you. I think that my desires are rooted in my physical being, physical needs, instinct and such. not the templates which...
January 03, 2018 at 00:35
In: Desire  — view comment
Yes of course I am making that assumption. It appears blatantly obvious to me, that my personal desires are completely distinct from society as a whol...
January 02, 2018 at 16:04
To be aware of many different things is distinct from focusing on one particular thing. To focus on one particular thing requires a conscious decision...
January 02, 2018 at 15:32
In: Desire  — view comment
I don't see how my want for something can be interpreted as a template given to me by society. Let's say that I desire sexual pleasure, how is this a ...
January 02, 2018 at 14:28
It seems to me, like I am always consciously aware of many things at the same time. I hear many different things going on around the room, I look arou...
January 02, 2018 at 13:17
In: Desire  — view comment
I don't know what you mean by this. As far as I understand, I do not operate on a template. Care to explain yourself?
January 02, 2018 at 12:55
Just as libertarian free will is incoherent, and therefore an illusion, to the compatibilist, so moral responsibility follows into the same category. ...
January 02, 2018 at 01:03
No, I'm talking about the number of different objects around us which we can be consciously aware of at the same time. This is what you call holding i...
January 02, 2018 at 00:48
In: Desire  — view comment
Good reply. However, we are creatures of free will and therefore despite what society gives us to form our habits of desire, we ultimately still choos...
January 01, 2018 at 23:20
I think that the average person is aware of about six objects at once, without having to count them. So this premise is incorrect, we are focally cons...
January 01, 2018 at 22:55
There are different levels, or degrees of consciousness. The soul uses the brain to obtain higher degrees of consciousness. When a person is knocked "...
January 01, 2018 at 22:47
Right, the compatibilist redefines "free will" such that what "free will" signifies is something which is compatible with determinism. All that this i...
January 01, 2018 at 22:37
You are misrepresenting Manzotti's position. The word is an "external object" which is "encountered". Therefore it must exist prior to the thought whi...
January 01, 2018 at 22:12
The "thing thought about" is in the future. We have a distinction between the act of thinking, which is in the present, and the "thing thought about"....
January 01, 2018 at 16:41
When I think about something I will do tomorrow, that, "what I will do" is a thing in my mind, and it is a future thing. In the example, he is thinkin...
January 01, 2018 at 15:40
It's relevant because of Manzotti's claim that mental activity is a rearranging of past things. But it is clear that in the mind there is future thing...
December 31, 2017 at 22:16
After reading through the interview, I would say that my original criticism still holds. Manzotti does not adequately distinguish between past and fut...
December 31, 2017 at 17:59
Oh sorry Augustino. I missed the whole interview. I read the first part, thought it was the end of the article, and lost interest. I'll read the rest ...
December 31, 2017 at 17:21
Damn, I liked that vulture. I thought it represented the new (and improved?) you.
December 31, 2017 at 15:58
That's not at al what the article actually says: Notice in particular the phrases "language inside our heads", and "we call this thinking". This is ac...
December 31, 2017 at 15:55
I don't really see the point. Words in the mind are representations of the physical things. This makes them memories. If the question is where are mem...
December 31, 2017 at 13:45
If two different things experience time in two different ways, this does not mean that one of them does not experience time at all. If we know that di...
December 31, 2017 at 12:43
No, I mean why wouldn't you think that a rock could experience duration but not be able to tell you about that experience? We would think that other a...
December 31, 2017 at 04:37
What about that vulturing image of you? That's pretty dank.
December 31, 2017 at 04:33
Why would you have to be able to communicate to experience duration?
December 31, 2017 at 04:24
Yes, this is a problem isn't it? There is wholesale rejection of religion, and along with that, a rejection of the spirituality and metaphysics which ...
December 31, 2017 at 04:17
To the average person, (that is unless one starts to think about exploding elephants and things like that), the concept of matter has no relevance. If...
December 30, 2017 at 22:21
Matter is actually quite well defined in Aristotelian physics, as the underlying thing which persists through time, when change occurs. It allows that...
December 30, 2017 at 17:02
This is exactly the problem, how is matter scaled? By its defining terms, it cannot be scaled because an object's form is always what is measured. As ...
December 30, 2017 at 15:16
My opinion is that what is at issue here is the nature of matter. It is not properly an issue of form, though it may be best described as an issue of ...
December 30, 2017 at 14:52
I think there is something wrong with this premise. You are describing "human" as something evolved. But then you are suggesting that there is definab...
December 30, 2017 at 13:27