Metaphysician Undercover

Being moral requires self-control. No, you don't agree? Do you think that we are caused to be moral by others, not ourselves? If so, then wouldn't you...

I don't see anything like "so that nothing is left" in my dictionary definition. I think that's impossible and ridiculous, rendering "annihilation" a ...

I would need to see some proof of that. I have a hard time believing that the movements of electrons, which have a very tiny fraction of the mass of a...

I'm not talking about the electron cloud. I recognize that it is somewhat unstable. I'm talking about the distance between my fridge and my stove. Tha...

So you think that you could observe the distance between my fridge and stove changing from one minute to the next? Are you sure this wouldn't qualify ...

What, you think that a casual observer would notice that the distance between my stove and fridge changes from one minute to the next, when I can't ev...

If this were true, then how do you explain the fact that the layout of things in my kitchen is the same still as it was ten years ago? Everything is i...

Perceiving, and giving words to what is being perceived are tied together in an act of interpretation. So if I see something at a distance and perceiv...

I believe that the earth is moving, but that fact is irrelevant to the fact that the layout of my kitchen remains the same. That's the point, we have ...

This appears to be a commonly expressed opinion now. Especially with the rise of religious fanaticalism, there are many people who openly state, and m...

You can't reduce something to nothing, I believe that's impossible. By your logic there is no such thing as annihilation, because you say it's not ann...

If that's not an example of my experience of duration then I don't know what you are asking. To me it's an example of my experience of duration. What ...

I don't understand how a metaphor is a better means for understanding the nature of nature than a description is. OK, this is how I describe duration....

When something is destroyed we can say that it is annihilated. The drinking glass no longer exists, it has been broken, destroyed, therefore I say it ...

Then what is that continuous thing you are always referring to as a continuum, which you are attempting to understand with mathematics?

Isn't that what we're talking about here, global catastrophe? Have you ever tried harvesting garden crops off a piece of land for decades with out put...

What I said early, is that identity in the sense of the temporal continuity of an object, is something which is simply assumed. It has never been prov...

Isn't it possible to make subjective claims about experience? So I wouldn't go so far as to say "you can't make any claims about it". That conclusion ...

I know it's news to mathematicians, that's what we've been arguing. Many mathematicians believe in the contradiction of an infinitely divisible contin...

Now what I've been trying to explain, is that dealing with continuity is not an issue of developing different, or better, mathematical principles, it ...

But we've already determined that mathematics refers to discrete units. So as soon as you describe something as a continuum we are not dealing with ma...

If arbitrary means without reason, then I don't believe there is any truly arbitrary convention, as human beings always act with intention in there so...

If we assume that two descriptions describe the very same thing, then there is an assumed continuity between those two descriptions provided for by th...

To describe a thing, and to describe the activity of a thing, is two distinct description. So I am bewildered at how you do not recognize this. To des...

I'm not talking about energy here, I'm talking about the physical things in the room. Clearly something must be staying the same, as I can describe th...

I disagree. I can look around my room and describe the positioning of the objects, and this will stay the same until it is changed, therefore it is a ...

OK, I agree very few conventions, if any are purely arbitrary. So even in the symbols, 1 and 2, etc., there are some reasons why these are the symbols...

The problem is, that according to the laws of logic, when the description changes the continuity which was described, ends, and a new continuity begin...

Of course there's a loss of continuity. The description of the wave as one wave applies no longer, and the description of two waves applies. Therefore...

I think I explained this. Identity, based on continuity of existence, is an assumption only. As such there are no real objective standards for assigni...

It is my opinion that the effects which human activity have had, and continue to have, on atmospheric ozone, has a far greater influence on climate ch...

I don't think I agree with this part of your statement. An object, as a whole, is something specific. The wholeness, the unity of the object, is somet...

Perhaps it could make sense to me, but to say that a part is indefinite would be to say that this part is unintelligible, it cannot be known. Unless i...

Exactly the point, yours and Peirce's concept of true continuum is incoherent and will never be understood. As I said, Peirce was proceeding in the pr...

No, if something is known to contain no definite parts, the logical conclusion is that it contains no parts. That it contains "indefinite parts" is il...

Aletheist, notice that Peirce claims the act of defining the parts breaks a continuity, but the continuity somehow consists of indefinite parts. Remem...

It all depends on how you describe the act of dismantling and assembling. If this is described as a continuity of existence of the object, then it bec...

Actually, from your quoted passage, Peirce is dismissing infinite divisibility as the defining characteristic of continuity, and that's why I said ear...

Our posts seem to have gotten long and convoluted,. So I'm going to get right to the point of where I think our difference of opinion lies, and if you...

This is philosophy, it is common, and accepted practise to refer to particular abstracted properties as things. We take a concept such as "blue", "inf...

Is a contrived example sufficient to demonstrate exclusivity, or is it a case of deception?

They are different, but unless you contrive them, they are probably not exclusive.

No it is the scientific definition which is exclusive. It reduces "seeing red" to a particular sort of seeing red, whereas the common understanding of...

No, as I explained, I don't agree. Why would you think that completely annihilating an object, and then completely rebuilding a copy of the original o...

... about your daughter’s missing teeth?

Then it's probably not the case that one is right and the other is wrong, there is just a difference. Since these are two very distinct ways of using ...

What may be indicated here is that the "science of colour" is inconsistent with "colour" as we commonly use the word. If the scientist says that "red"...

In the vast majority of instances of perceiving colour, what is perceived is a combination of different wavelengths, not a single restricted range of ...

But you have two very distinct descriptions of A. You have the original ship, and you have a later ship which is built out of salvaged materials. The ...

The principal difference between panpsychism and substance dualism is how they each attribute the source of activity of living creatures. Biology unde...