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Metaphysician Undercover

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Let me see if I follow you. A threat against one's freedom to act constitutes a restriction to one's freedom of choice, but a threat concerning anythi...
August 01, 2024 at 02:51
I think you already knew that. You are framing things to suit your purpose. There was many factors involved in the population explosion,, medicine, an...
July 31, 2024 at 02:15
OK, so your principle is that freedom of choice is restricted by threats, because a threat is an act of coercion. It appears to me, like restricting o...
July 31, 2024 at 02:04
That... is highly doubtful. Definitely not a map I would follow. First principle for the mapmaker to acknowledge, as the essential aspect of making a ...
July 31, 2024 at 01:06
In: Infinity  — view comment
... I am correctly stating these two are distinct views, one may be a formalist without being a platonist and vice-versa. The question then, is how do...
July 30, 2024 at 11:39
In: Infinity  — view comment
I think we've gotten beyond this talk of "objects". We've moved on to "rules", because rules are what formalism takes for granted. Platonism takes mat...
July 30, 2024 at 02:19
Why do you say that not knowing a specific option doesn't restrict your freedom to choose it? I don't understand what you think freedom is. Do you thi...
July 30, 2024 at 02:01
It's a lot more than simply not thinking about something, it's knowledge not held, information not available to that thinking mind. An observer might ...
July 29, 2024 at 11:18
But that is exactly the case with Dan's perspective. Dan thinks laws, and the threat of punishment are restrictions. But these do not prevent one from...
July 29, 2024 at 11:14
I explained why the person's choice is restricted by habit. The habit prevents the person from properly considering other options. This is a very real...
July 29, 2024 at 01:10
I think that when anxiety is directed toward a specific thing it is understandable, and therefore generally not in itself disconcerting. Depending on ...
July 29, 2024 at 00:45
A threat to one's freedom is not an actual restriction of one's freedom. So we're right back to square one. Coercion restricts one's freedom by having...
July 28, 2024 at 14:53
In: Infinity  — view comment
For anyone who doesn't understand what the number 1 is, it makes perfect sense to ask: "What kind of thing is the number 1. The answer, for a platonis...
July 28, 2024 at 11:41
Endless growth is the idea which I said we should give up on. It's like the idea of endless life, impossible and inherently selfish. My point was that...
July 28, 2024 at 10:53
I don't see how you can say that growth doesn't have to end, then go on to list the restrictions which will necessitate an end to growth. Maybe we hav...
July 28, 2024 at 01:57
You know, there is always reasons behind one's choices, whether it's a threat, a deadline, love, friendship, hate, revenge, or one of a myriad of pers...
July 28, 2024 at 01:45
Yes, i believe the doldrums is where Jamal longs to be. Better known as the intertropical convergence zone, it's where the northeast trade winds and s...
July 28, 2024 at 01:14
No, I think we need to consider this difference between internal change and external change when developing policy. Growth is inherently selfish as in...
July 28, 2024 at 00:45
I think you ought to consider that there are two distinct types of change, change of form (internal change) and change of place (change in external re...
July 27, 2024 at 11:44
I really do not think that this could suffice for a foundation of "moral value". It requires a determination, or judgement as to what qualifies as "on...
July 27, 2024 at 01:53
In: Infinity  — view comment
OK, I was unaware of that convention. We are definitely not talking about Plato, but modern day platonism (my spell check does not like the lower case...
July 27, 2024 at 01:17
In: Infinity  — view comment
So truth for you is pragmatic then? I don't see how one could ever distinguish between these two. When an idea is said to be an "object" this is Plato...
July 26, 2024 at 11:48
In: Infinity  — view comment
It appears like you are confusing descriptive rules with prescriptive rules. This is why we need a good definition of what a rule is. The laws of phys...
July 26, 2024 at 11:12
No, no, no, this is not true at all. The most morally valuable choices we make are concerning others, when we help them, or choose to hurt them. You k...
July 26, 2024 at 02:31
The Red Green Show, a classic https://www.youtube.com/c/redgreentv
July 26, 2024 at 02:11
In: Infinity  — view comment
Yes, I think this is the issue, why would some rules get special status, and if they do, how could we know which ones deserve that special status. For...
July 26, 2024 at 01:50
Now you've lost me. You appear to equivocate with "belong". Your car belongs to you. A choice which I freely make has no moral value because it does n...
July 25, 2024 at 11:38
Confession is the road to redemption. Nice start!
July 25, 2024 at 10:51
So says you, but I say you do not understand freedom and the true nature of its restrictions. When you say "morally speaking" you imply that I ought n...
July 25, 2024 at 01:42
In: Infinity  — view comment
The ontological status of rules. If rules are real, then they have some form of existence. Ontology is the study of what there is, and the possibility...
July 25, 2024 at 00:55
So, the law is a threat to restrict one's freedom, the habit is an actual restriction of one's freedom. What is the principle you are claiming here? P...
July 24, 2024 at 11:13
The point though, is that the way that laws work is through social conformity and habit. It doesn't make sense to say that laws are a restriction, but...
July 24, 2024 at 02:37
Mental constraints are just as much a restriction to one's freedom as physical constraints are. Mental constraints of habit are how social conformity ...
July 23, 2024 at 02:39
In: Infinity  — view comment
However you frame it, rules are an essential aspect of formalism. So the ontology of rules needs to be addressed if we want to determine whether forma...
July 22, 2024 at 01:56
Right, this is truth, determinacy is a constraint on freedom. Why try to deny it? Nothing I said makes choice impossible. It's just a matter of recogn...
July 22, 2024 at 01:36
You have a completely different understanding of "morally relevant" from what I have. A habit inclines one to act in a specific way, and if that way i...
July 21, 2024 at 13:17
Yes, that's exactly what I am saying. You are constrained by the situation you are in. If you are not presently doing anything than you have more free...
July 21, 2024 at 11:45
In: Infinity  — view comment
If logic is following rules, as formalists seem to think, then to say that rules are derived from logic is circular. That's the issue with formalism t...
July 21, 2024 at 01:00
I thought you pay Google to get your site on top.
July 21, 2024 at 00:52
I took the meaning of "freedom" directly from your article. Check it out: As I said, not choosing, rather than choosing, provides the most freedom, be...
July 21, 2024 at 00:47
Hi Dan, I believe there's a very simple answer to this problem. Because you contextualize "value" in relation to freedom, freedom must be your highest...
July 20, 2024 at 12:22
OMG, the cat grabbed my hand. I meant to say "nothing to be ashamed of".
July 20, 2024 at 02:07
A premature ejaculate, nothing to be ash
July 20, 2024 at 02:06
In: Infinity  — view comment
Back to the question of formalism... How does a formalist typically account for the ontology of rules? What kind of existence do rules have? Consider ...
July 20, 2024 at 02:02
In: Infinity  — view comment
I don't know, but there are lots of US/Brit differences, the common one being the "o/ou", which most are familiar with. I'm Canadian so I'm stuck in b...
July 19, 2024 at 11:09
I believe efficient cause refers to the source of motion, the moving thing which acts as a force to cause change. The ngnb could be portrayed as effic...
July 19, 2024 at 10:55
The fact that it has leveragability in the material world, means that there is something more to it than "it just is". It is useful. The explanation n...
July 19, 2024 at 10:31
I see it all as final cause. Where does efficient cause fit in?
July 19, 2024 at 01:56
In: Infinity  — view comment
No, I'd say "it has five fingers" is an attribute of your hand. An easy way to think of attributes, is as what something has, a property. So ask yours...
July 19, 2024 at 01:45
Then the matter at issue is what constitutes a distinct individual, in order that we say that there is five of them. And this is a product of the way ...
July 18, 2024 at 21:58