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Metaphysician Undercover

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The problem I see, is that you are attributing life-like features, terms used to describe the characteristics of living beings, properties which are o...
May 02, 2017 at 00:19
Sorry, my mistake, it's Anaxagoras who assumed Nous. The Nous is the mind which orders all the parts of the cosmos to behave in an orderly fashion. Th...
May 01, 2017 at 12:58
Not familiar with "Nous"? How could that be the case when, from your writing, it appears to be your first principle of metaphysics?
May 01, 2017 at 12:25
The op indicates a logical problem with referring to "the same tree", when being observed from different perspectives. If you think that it is "more o...
May 01, 2017 at 12:22
But the tree does change, with each passing moment of time it is a little different. And since it is impossible for you to hold perspective A and pers...
May 01, 2017 at 12:12
I believe "certitude" is a double edged sword. When an individual feels certain of the right things, that feeling is the confidence required to carry ...
May 01, 2017 at 11:48
That's what I think, to say that a tornado rages across the land with the desire to destroy is simply metaphoric. And to do honest metaphysics by assi...
May 01, 2017 at 11:32
Relationships and similarities are not at all the same. Meaning is built on associations, relationships, not similarities. To say that similarity is w...
May 01, 2017 at 02:17
Eh?
May 01, 2017 at 02:03
That's the point though, nothing can be said to be related to anything else, except through how we identify them. So if I think that one thing is rela...
May 01, 2017 at 01:47
I've described what the laws are, inductive conclusions, which are used as tools, by human beings in their activities. Whether or not some of these la...
May 01, 2017 at 01:25
This is not a good example of noise without context, because you have already stipulated the context as a baby monitor. Remove that context and who kn...
May 01, 2017 at 01:03
Right, the laws don't reflect nature, they reflect the inductive conclusions of human beings, therefore the correct interpretation is that human being...
May 01, 2017 at 00:35
So the point I'm making, is that if it is a faculty of the mind which is creating a unified whole, being referred to as "the tree" here, we are not ju...
May 01, 2017 at 00:07
This, to "concede the existence of matter", is what I refer to in my post above, as an assumption. The existence of matter is assumed, it is not "know...
April 30, 2017 at 13:41
Why would you want to practise metaphysics by modeling the physical world as a mind? With such an unreasonable starting point you have very little hop...
April 30, 2017 at 12:47
Necessity is the tool of reason. You say that what is necessary could be a fantasy, a fiction. This renders reason impotent. Now you say that mankind ...
April 30, 2017 at 12:33
I think you should go back and read my first post on this thread, because I didn't say anything like that. And what is this that I've demonstrated "fo...
April 30, 2017 at 12:07
Be truthful now ernestm. What you call "undeniable", I would say is extremely doubtful.
April 30, 2017 at 01:57
The first, obviously. Clearly there is a distinction between living and non-living, and being good philosophers, we have a desire to determine this di...
April 30, 2017 at 01:52
But what people want, and what is actually the case, are two distinct things. What is actually the case is that knowledge progresses through the devol...
April 30, 2017 at 01:42
This is a good point. Why do we think that the tree is the same tree, from one moment to the next? We know that the tree is undergoing small changes w...
April 30, 2017 at 01:26
Nice piece ernestm, very down to earth and real.
April 30, 2017 at 01:11
Yes, effective communication is possible (and therefore NOT NECESSARY) under those circumstances, but there is a high probability of misunderstanding....
April 30, 2017 at 00:36
I think that definition of "cell" is outdated, and maybe based in misunderstanding. Isn't there many smaller active units within the cell? Yes, so you...
April 30, 2017 at 00:20
If you take language away from the metaphysician, how is the metaphysician going to do metaphysics? I assume by the claim that this is "therapy", that...
April 29, 2017 at 12:39
No offence Robert, but I found your extraordinarily long and convoluted sentences exceedingly difficult to understand. Lol. Le Francais en simplicitud...
April 29, 2017 at 12:24
How is it possible that something which is necessary could be a fantasy? Can this be rationalized?
April 29, 2017 at 12:03
Why do you think that a cell is the simplest possible living thing? Why would you think that a fire metabolizes? Metabolism is clearly defined as what...
April 29, 2017 at 11:52
Hi Fred, do you not recognize a distinction between animate and inanimate things?
April 29, 2017 at 01:16
What I assert is that it is wrong to say that matter follows laws, because "follows" implies that one is prior to the other. In this case it is implie...
April 29, 2017 at 00:56
Honesty must be considered in relation to the attitude of the interpreter as well as the attitude of the speaker. This encompasses what is sometimes c...
April 29, 2017 at 00:46
No I don't equivocate. As I explained, only human beings "follow laws" whether they are following governing laws, or following laws of physics. I stro...
April 28, 2017 at 22:00
Clearly this is an unacceptable use of the word "govern". That's why I am trying to keep things clear here, to avoid such ambiguity. There is consiste...
April 28, 2017 at 12:47
Maybe the posting just mysteriously disappeared into the abyss.
April 27, 2017 at 15:53
This all depends on how one defines "time". If time is defined by physical change, then physical change is essential to time, physical change is neces...
April 27, 2017 at 12:43
The accuracy of prediction is not what is at issue here. The claim was made that matter follows rules, and this is what allows for the apparent self-o...
April 27, 2017 at 12:04
This has to do with the way that we individuate things in the world, and refer to them as individual objects, separate from other individual objects. ...
April 27, 2017 at 11:41
We are not talking about "gravity" we are talking about "the laws of gravity". The former refers to a physical property of the world, the latter to a ...
April 27, 2017 at 11:16
This really doesn't make sense. Laws of physics, such as "the laws of gravity" are all man-made laws. They are generalities produced by logic, which d...
April 27, 2017 at 10:55
That wasn't hard. But that's because you're a very reasonable and open-minded person with respect to this type of question.
April 27, 2017 at 01:54
I have great difficulty with this. Matter does not follow rules. We have laws of physics which describe the way that matter behaves, these are descrip...
April 26, 2017 at 23:51
It's all use. You are mistakenly attempting to separate token from use, as if it is not a form of use.
April 26, 2017 at 23:42
The fact that a concept is "given" in terms of physical things does not necessitate that the concept is "of" a physical thing. Quite the opposite is a...
April 26, 2017 at 13:37
Perhaps you were not looking for an uncaused cause, but that's what you described. When you introduce "a basic set of simple and well defined rules", ...
April 26, 2017 at 12:07
No, I haven't decided that. Concepts are not necessarily "of" physical things. But if you want to posit the existence of a non-physical thing, which i...
April 26, 2017 at 02:34
Can you explain to me what exactly you refer to with the word "information"? The reason I ask is that there are generally two ways of apprehending thi...
April 26, 2017 at 02:15
So what would this so-called "truth" consist of, which is independent from all concepts? Is it a physical thing? If not, then how does it differ from ...
April 26, 2017 at 01:46
I think that maybe you've been looking in the wrong place for "truth". You've now exposed "truth" as "attitudes held by more or less rational beings",...
April 25, 2017 at 21:42
Yeah, I got that in my notification. The fact is, that Banno's claimed "examination of language use" is very selective. There is a refusal to examine ...
April 25, 2017 at 12:59