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Metaphysician Undercover

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But convention does not make truth, it makes "right". It may turn out later that the convention needs to be changed, like in the case of the planet na...
May 29, 2023 at 01:25
I'm not arguing a "first cause", I am arguing a cause of material existence. This is an actuality which is prior to material existence, as cause of ma...
May 29, 2023 at 00:54
I never intended to argue against nature providing support for our conceptualizations. The point was that distance is not the type of thing which has ...
May 29, 2023 at 00:16
Right, (2) is an ontological principle while (1) is epistemological. (2) is not derived from (1), and you might question whether (1) provides "any" su...
May 28, 2023 at 17:18
Essentially yes, I am saying that it's not measured until it's measured. But the important thing is the meaning here, and the implication it has on th...
May 28, 2023 at 12:16
The infinite regress is the result of the materialist/monist perspective which requires that a material form is always the cause of another material f...
May 28, 2023 at 11:17
Sure the form is not fixed. The point is that the form comes from a prior form. And if each is a material form, then there is an infinite regress of m...
May 28, 2023 at 02:24
But the issue is, that the form is always "somewhere else", prior to being in the material object which bears it. So if we postulate a chain of materi...
May 28, 2023 at 02:06
So you say, but where are the premises which prove this? The distance between here and the moon is indeterminate until it's measured. This means that ...
May 28, 2023 at 01:53
Well, then what did you mean when you said you don't buy that idea. Obviously you accept as a reality, that the form comes from somewhere else, prior ...
May 28, 2023 at 01:30
You seem to be wrong here jorndoe. Miles, km, etc., all those terms you used to express the distance refer to something invented, not discovered. It s...
May 28, 2023 at 01:01
What Aristotle shows is that there necessarily is a form (actuality) which is prior to the potential (matter) of the acorn. This would be the prior oa...
May 27, 2023 at 12:05
I told you, Metaphysics Bk 7, Ch 7. I even gave a brief quote. The form of the artificial thing comes from within the artist. This is not a reproducti...
May 26, 2023 at 11:36
The source of activity in "actual existence" is a deep ontological question. We can get a glimpse of it through introspection, and understanding the w...
May 26, 2023 at 11:20
As I said, in Aristotle there are two senses of "form". Someone might say one or the other is "first and foremost" but what would one base that judgem...
May 26, 2023 at 01:59
The issue I tried to point to was the difference between an object and a property. We tend to differentiate between a thing and a property of the thin...
May 26, 2023 at 01:52
I think the central issue here is in how we separate objects from their environment. Understanding things as existing separate from their surroundings...
May 25, 2023 at 10:59
As I said, I don't see much point in quoting passages. Read carefully Metaphysics Bk 7, though, that might help you. You ought to find that in Ch 7 he...
May 25, 2023 at 10:24
If you won't take my word for it, I think it's best if you do your own reading. Otherwise I might just use Fooloso4's technique of taking quotes out o...
May 25, 2023 at 01:22
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May 25, 2023 at 00:48
But space is conceptual. We do not sense space we think it. It might be the way that we make sense of, or understand our sensations as sensations of o...
May 25, 2023 at 00:46
There are two senses of "form" in Aristotle, one is the formula, abstract pattern or design, the other is the form of the individual, particular objec...
May 24, 2023 at 11:11
So you describe two distinct categories, the physical/mental and the independent, then you conclude monism. That doesn't make any sense. How can you c...
May 24, 2023 at 10:32
As having "extension in space" is simply how we represent objects, conceptually. "Space" is conceptual, or intuitive, as a tool of representation, it ...
May 24, 2023 at 02:10
Right, I still do not understand, because as I've told you, your attempts to explain are incoherent. Unlike a child though, I am quite able to demonst...
May 24, 2023 at 01:56
"Shape", or as having a "shape", or being "shaped", is how we represent things. The "shape", in appearance, as an image, or phenomenon, is itself a re...
May 23, 2023 at 10:48
This is a false distinction. All values are derived from subjects, therefore fundamentally subjective. There is no base difference here, that's why th...
May 23, 2023 at 02:58
This is exactly why dualism is called for. All is not one mind. My mind is separate from yours, as your ideas are separate from mine. So we need to as...
May 22, 2023 at 11:25
This is similar to the problem which I see with Christoffer's approach to bias. Christoffer sees that critical thinking can be very effective for dete...
May 21, 2023 at 11:44
To understand that angels must move faster, you need to consider the relative nature of motions in relation to your premise that time is slower at the...
May 21, 2023 at 11:12
This is when the private language pays off.
May 21, 2023 at 02:04
So the short answer is that in the levels close to God, the beings move faster, or time moves slower. These angel beings are sort of like computers th...
May 21, 2023 at 01:55
Clearly it's you who's acting stupid. Gravity is not "a rock falling". We might say gravity is the cause of the rock falling, but since it always caus...
May 21, 2023 at 01:43
That's what I was telling Christoffer, they are what we enter the logical process with, the premises. I suppose that's a fairly accurate description o...
May 20, 2023 at 11:29
You are not getting it Christoffer. You recognize that bias is a natural, inherent and essential part of any thinking, yet you insist that there is a ...
May 20, 2023 at 00:59
I believe that you approach a very significant and important ontological subject here. If gnosticism turns one inward in a spiritual quest, this activ...
May 19, 2023 at 12:04
If you say that biases are bad for rational thinking, you are saying that biases are bad in that respect. I used that premise, that there are bad bias...
May 19, 2023 at 02:33
The mother takes care of the baby. There is no need for the baby to have a mental model of the world to survive.
May 18, 2023 at 12:38
As I explained, it was your premise that biases are bad, undesirable, or whatever words you used in your anti-bias rhetoric. From this premise I produ...
May 18, 2023 at 12:26
I think this opinion is wrong. The desire to believe, to know, and understand, is not based in what is needed to survive. Simple single-celled organis...
May 17, 2023 at 10:53
Yes, this is exactly the issue, how are we to determine good biases from bad. You were talking as if all biases are bad, but now you appear to accept ...
May 17, 2023 at 02:19
So the answer to @"Andrew4Handel" 's question is more like one of the "or" options, such as social control, rather than an answer of whether or not th...
May 16, 2023 at 11:26
Now the point is that gravitating towards what is comfortable is not necessarily gravitating toward what is good. But people can be trained through go...
May 16, 2023 at 02:27
I think you ought to distance yourself from this concept of "preferable", and take a look at the way you use it. The word is a relative term, so it on...
May 15, 2023 at 10:48
The Pythagoreans, also known as the Divine Brotherhood of Pythagoras, are another good example of a secret society. Plato drew a lot of material from ...
May 15, 2023 at 00:34
This capacity, to create, to construct, through the application of mathematics and geometry is what gave the Freemasons a unique position in relation ...
May 14, 2023 at 11:56
To openly speak against the Creed, or any firmly held dogma for that matter, can be compared to suicide (Socrates, Jesus for example). In the case of ...
May 14, 2023 at 01:59
Are you saying that happenings are not beings, and science only treats of beings?
May 14, 2023 at 01:27
Intuition is a feature of the subject, and I think it is the basis for one's ontology. Isn't statistics and probability the science of accidents? Or w...
May 14, 2023 at 01:14
The important concept here, which is often overlooked, is the "gap". In order to understand objects as individuals, or to understand activities which ...
May 13, 2023 at 12:02