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Metaphysician Undercover

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Well, I see billions and billions of different living beings, and I don't see this "one organism", I think it's an unsubstantiated assumption. If I th...
September 16, 2017 at 12:31
Well that's the point, it's a misleading use of the word. We commonly think that "survive" means to stay alive. But in "survival of the fittest" it me...
September 15, 2017 at 10:34
We all die. No one survives, that's the point. Some breed some don't. Or are you defining survival as successful reproduction? Having children is not ...
September 15, 2017 at 02:20
Maybe this is why deception is easier to identify than honesty, because acting deceptively is often what comes naturally. It is a selfish behaviour wh...
September 15, 2017 at 02:14
That's easy for you to say, "mind persists and is continuous", but I cannot say that I have the same mind as you, nor is my mind the same as my mother...
September 14, 2017 at 19:22
I think there are too many subtleties and unknown factors to judge the honesty of your mother in that particular situation. As I said, I think that ev...
September 14, 2017 at 19:17
There is a fundamental difference between survival and creativity with respect to temporal continuity. "Survival" implies a thing, an organism or bein...
September 14, 2017 at 18:48
I don't think that this is correct to say that ideas rarely happen in the inner-world. We spend some time talking and we spend some time thinking, but...
September 14, 2017 at 01:57
I believe that all premises must be reasoned, most come from inductive reason. If a "first principle" is not reasoned, then it is most likely random a...
September 13, 2017 at 10:44
Yes, that's quite correct because the one you've provided is false. We should dismiss yours and examine mine to see if perhaps it is right. If not, we...
September 13, 2017 at 01:54
Well sure, to conceive of desire in this way, as if it were a thing in itself, simply "desire", without recognizing the fact that desire always involv...
September 13, 2017 at 01:50
There appears to be something incorrect in this description. If there is an inner void, then it is impossible that desire is pointed inward, because t...
September 12, 2017 at 10:45
Fee fie fo fum I smeel the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive or be he dead I'll grind his bones to make my bread. See, the stories that the parents ...
September 12, 2017 at 01:35
Right, so that's why we need to dismiss block time, and the hypotheses which give rise to it, and start from scratch. Starting from scratch we have co...
September 12, 2017 at 01:08
Yes, I do agree with that. But just like we can speak contradictions, we can also talk about other things which are impossible, like infinite, unlimit...
September 12, 2017 at 00:04
Yeah I agree with Mariner, that's why I was arguing that point. To have order is to have form, and form corresponds with actual existence. In Aristote...
September 11, 2017 at 10:46
That's quite the post. Let me see if I can, in some way, understand what you are trying to say. The space-less point would not have a boundary itself,...
September 11, 2017 at 00:32
As I said, just because it doesn't fulfill the structural conditions for being music, doesn't mean that any noise chaos. Would you say that the noise ...
September 10, 2017 at 21:29
You are only trying saying that non-musical sound is "chaotic" in relation to the structured sounds of music. It doesn't have the required structure t...
September 10, 2017 at 19:08
Music is the subject. In relation to this subject, pure noise may be the potential for music. How is there any actual music in pure noise? All you are...
September 10, 2017 at 16:32
Where does honesty lie in this approach? For example, here at tpf, I hide behind a username. The people I commune with probably don't interact with me...
September 10, 2017 at 14:12
I think I brought up creativity. I use it in what I believe is the normal way. It means to bring something into existence, to cause the existence of s...
September 10, 2017 at 13:21
The "immanent purpose of naturalism". I've never heard that before. Care to explain? I thought naturalism, by definition, excludes purpose. Are you ju...
September 10, 2017 at 04:05
The mention was of a "transcendent purpose", and the point I made was that this idea doesn't really make sense. Purpose always seems to inhere within ...
September 09, 2017 at 20:57
Here's another example of why I say your ontology is backward. You look outward for purpose. But clearly we must look inward to find purpose, and purp...
September 09, 2017 at 11:18
We have two opposing directions, one toward the inside, the other toward the outside. I say we proceed toward the inside. You say we proceed toward th...
September 09, 2017 at 02:01
Thanks, any time I'm told that I have a special gift (which is exceedingly rare), I will not hesitate to take that as a compliment.
September 09, 2017 at 01:40
Do any of the billiard balls have a mind of their own, and the capacity to move one's own body in the way it wants? If not, then your "ecosystem" is n...
September 09, 2017 at 01:36
I don't think I would call that difference "fundamental". What is fundamental, is that we and other animals are all animals. So when I said to apokris...
September 09, 2017 at 01:23
I'm an animal, aren't you?
September 08, 2017 at 01:27
Quite true, if you believe in the idea of language games. But it's quite obvious that we can think and act without using any language. So the mind is ...
September 08, 2017 at 01:10
Then pragmatism cannot provide the basis for any serious ontology because it does not give mind its proper priority with respect to reality. I don't t...
September 08, 2017 at 01:00
The problem is that "the world", "complexities", and "systems" are all things created by the mind. Now you're trying to turn this around, and claim th...
September 08, 2017 at 00:38
I don't see your point. The choices you have made have lead you to believe that I have a keyboard. The fact that you haven't the will to go back and a...
September 07, 2017 at 11:04
It is not a matter of wishing, it is a matter of believing, that is what conceptualization consists of, deciding what is. If you believe that I have n...
September 07, 2017 at 02:42
I agree with szardosszemagad we pay our taxes voluntarily. Income tax is based in what is called an honour system, you voluntarily declare your income...
September 07, 2017 at 02:25
Objects are themselves conceptual, so they are a product of, created by the complex dynamical system of conscious agents. Then we have no agreement. I...
September 07, 2017 at 02:13
OK, here is one way of looking at this: "The object has momentum". Here is another way of looking at this: "The object has kinetic energy". Each of th...
September 07, 2017 at 02:02
It's really not that difficult. We are conscious, we are active, therefore we are conscious agents. The conscious agent decides, chooses; one's own ac...
September 07, 2017 at 01:44
Let me put this in Newtonian terms so that I can understand. To begin with, it is not energy which acts on the object, it is force. The amount of forc...
September 06, 2017 at 10:31
That's to be expected, the ones who hate the government the most are going to give the least and take the most.
September 06, 2017 at 01:33
At least they said they were sorry, instead of finding something to charge you for.
September 06, 2017 at 01:30
What I meant by "context", is the context in which the statement was used, the bible, not the context of your personal example. I have no doubt that y...
September 06, 2017 at 01:16
Well that's the thing about ancient writings, you can interpret them in many different ways. If you are trying to assert a specific interpretation as ...
September 05, 2017 at 10:41
Unless you can explain to me how the waves in the ocean can exist other than as an activity of the water molecules, it is pointless for you to ask me ...
September 05, 2017 at 01:45
The point being that if there is no separation between molecules then a wave is impossible. Clearly the separation has not been obliterated or else wa...
September 05, 2017 at 00:44
Looks like a molecule of water to me. How is that not a particle? The separation is between one molecule and another, and it is this separation which ...
September 05, 2017 at 00:18
The realm of possibility is the future. The difference between a real possibility and an unreal possibility (something said to be possible but actuall...
September 05, 2017 at 00:09
The image is of electron density. Do you not understand that the vast majority of the mass of a molecule is found in the protons and neutrons, not the...
September 04, 2017 at 23:50
I checked the reference, the depiction is of the "electron density" of a particular molecule, not a depiction of the molecule itself. I don't think yo...
September 04, 2017 at 23:39