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Metaphysician Undercover

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It appears like neither one of us is understanding anything which the other is saying at this point. Break time.
December 18, 2024 at 12:43
As I explained, I believe this is exactly what "a problem" is. And, this is what decision making is all about, resolving conflicting inclinations. If ...
December 18, 2024 at 02:28
I suppose one's attitude toward migrants depends, somewhat, on the attitude of the migrants. If the migrants arrive with the attitude of conquer and r...
December 17, 2024 at 12:04
What has been revealed now, is why there is such a huge difference between you and I as to what it means to "understand" one's choice. I believe that ...
December 17, 2024 at 01:32
You are changing the description to suit your purpose. I am talking about deliberation, the desire to eat cake versus the desire to not eat cake. Ther...
December 16, 2024 at 13:42
This really depends on how one would interpret the statement. If you interpret it as a value judgement, then it is making a subjective normative state...
December 16, 2024 at 02:11
Pizza and beer delivery to your backyard pool party?
December 15, 2024 at 22:59
I don't think this addresses the problems I mentioned. Things like war and climate change result in loss of housing, and loss of inhabitable land in s...
December 15, 2024 at 19:51
I just assumed "treat migrants with care" is a principle we all take for granted. Since the capacity to do this requires that we give up a handful of ...
December 15, 2024 at 11:44
Migration has many causes, overpopulation, war, even bad weather. As climate change ramps up, so does the surge of migrants. The US will need to accep...
December 14, 2024 at 23:02
I believe you are conflating "descriptive rules" with "prescriptive rules". A universal, descriptive rule, such as "we ought to do what is good", does...
December 14, 2024 at 14:42
I think that the important point here is that we notice the difference between these two types of "things". Notice that by categorizing them with the ...
December 14, 2024 at 12:57
You are not getting it Dan. The subject matter here, the issue which the example exposes, is the relevance of particular circumstances. The nature of ...
December 13, 2024 at 01:41
I don't think so. As you state, the rare condition "causes drug X to be lethal". The act of administering the drug is not a lethal act, as indicated b...
December 11, 2024 at 13:12
There is nothing in this example to indicate that the wrong choice was made. There is only indication that the right choice was made. Therefore we oug...
December 10, 2024 at 14:46
I disagree, we always want doctors to be aware of possible negative effects of any drugs they prescribe. Telling doctors this drug usually saves lives...
December 10, 2024 at 03:51
To justify this would require demonstrating a causal relation between the proposed cause, praising the wrong, and the effect, future right ones. In th...
December 09, 2024 at 14:26
Obviously then, you are not praising the "same act" which was judged as wrong, you are praising, and promoting, what you clearly describe as "similar"...
December 09, 2024 at 02:13
OK, you and I have different ideas about what constitutes "expertise". That's not surprising. So you accept my demonstration of how your use of words ...
December 08, 2024 at 22:01
As I explained, "be an expert" really has no meaning in the context of this discussion. What we are talking about is "being judged as an expert". So w...
December 07, 2024 at 14:50
You stated, and I quote you: "That's not Dan's problem." So I asked you, quote: "Well then what is Dan's problem?" Do you have an answer for me? That ...
December 07, 2024 at 03:20
Recognizing the general principle, "no one is perfect", therefore acknowledging that someone who appears to have impeccable understanding must still h...
December 05, 2024 at 13:18
Well then what is Dan's problem? He's been fruitlessly working on the same problem for almost ten years. If it isn't the case that he's trying to unit...
December 05, 2024 at 03:13
Ok, I suggest the misunderstanding lies within ambiguity in these terms, "field", and "expert". So "field" can be used to refer to anything from "scie...
December 04, 2024 at 13:53
The problem with "presentation", as with "appearance", is that this denies us any intelligible relation to the independent reality. In fact, without s...
December 04, 2024 at 03:06
I don't know what you are talking about. A "field" is not something broad like "science". When we say that a person is an expert in one's field, we me...
December 04, 2024 at 02:22
Representation: an instance of standing for, or corresponding with, something else. Appearance: a form as perceived. The difference therefore, is that...
December 04, 2024 at 01:28
For me, the world is not a miserable place, I quite enjoy it. That some see it as miserable is strong evidence against what Janus says, that we all se...
December 03, 2024 at 12:50
I think your reply is ill-formed, irrelevant, and unintelligible. First, "the appearance" and "thing that appears" seem to refer to one and the same t...
December 03, 2024 at 03:03
I am asking in what way might the representation (the visual image) resemble the thing being represented (the independent reality)? And, I am answerin...
December 03, 2024 at 02:25
Common usage would not say that the doctor's action was wrong, yet we ought to encourage others to act this way because it was also right. Nor would c...
December 03, 2024 at 01:50
That is not the issue. I don't think anyone here is questioning the existence of the independent reality. The question is whether that independent rea...
December 03, 2024 at 00:13
I don't see your point. We all evolved from the same source according to evolutionary theory. Most our DNA is the same as the dog's. Human beings and ...
December 02, 2024 at 22:15
If we go further, and posit the capacity to choose as the fundamental property of the soul, therefore final cause as the basic act of the soul, this i...
December 02, 2024 at 13:30
Newtonian laws are deterministic, and they still play a large role in modern physics, especially when mass (matter) is being dealt with.
December 02, 2024 at 01:50
Speak for yourself then. If I knew that a particular person misunderstood some elements, or even one element, of a specific field, I would never call ...
December 02, 2024 at 01:40
It's not a stipulation. What I explained is that it is the result of, a conclusion drawn from understanding the concept of matter. The concept of matt...
December 02, 2024 at 00:59
That's not true. As I explained, "matter" signifies the reason why perceived things maintain similarity, from prior time to posterior time, as time pa...
December 01, 2024 at 22:41
I can explain how "matter" is merely a conception. It is something that is assumed to underlie the reality of sensible objects, which accounts for the...
December 01, 2024 at 22:08
We're getting nowhere. This is a sloppy use of words designed to cover up or veil the incoherence in your belief. You use "field" which has a very bro...
December 01, 2024 at 14:07
As Berkeley keenly demonstrated, materialism is swiftly reduced to idealism. This is due to the fact that matter, or energy, whatever term you choose,...
December 01, 2024 at 13:20
That's incoherent. "Misunderstanding" explicitly indicates the incorrectness of one's assumed understanding. It does not signify an incompleteness of ...
November 30, 2024 at 19:05
You have not used "understand" in a precise way at all. In fact, you complained about my request for precision in meaning when we discussed what it me...
November 30, 2024 at 02:58
Sure, someone can use "square" in a way which does not exclude a circle from being a type of square, and assert "this is the way I choose to use that ...
November 29, 2024 at 13:30
The digression has helped me to understand why you've spent the better part of a decade trying to do something which I quickly apprehended as impossib...
November 29, 2024 at 12:49
For Thanksgiving? How could you even think of such a thing? No, follow convention, as a respectable citizen of the mobocracy, and eat a turkey.
November 29, 2024 at 02:24
Welcome Hanover! I see a place for you in my world. Come with me, we'll take on the mathemagicians in some "infinity" thread. The problem, you'll find...
November 28, 2024 at 11:59
In my understanding, there is two distinct senses of "implied". One means what is indicated by evidence, the other means what is indicated by logic. T...
November 28, 2024 at 03:38
It doesn't follow, for you, because you didn't follow the argument. That is evident from this misrepresentation. Allow me to restate it please. The ar...
November 27, 2024 at 12:13
OK, It looks like we finally have some agreement on something. Understanding of human actions "implies some understanding of time". From this, we can ...
November 26, 2024 at 12:57