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Metaphysician Undercover

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Right, judge for yourself. Am I an honest voter, or a troll? Why didn't you vote idealist then? Model-dependent realism, as a manifestation of Platoni...
February 22, 2023 at 12:05
No, if the gravitational field is the cause of the tides, it predate the tides, not necessarily the oceans. No, that is illogical, cause and effect ar...
February 22, 2023 at 11:39
There. Happy now?
February 22, 2023 at 03:10
As I explained already, this does not give a true representation of "final cause" because it provides no real basis for a distinction between conseque...
February 22, 2023 at 02:59
Let me try again. As I explained earlier in the thread, the conventional conception of time bases the passing of time in physical (material) activity....
February 22, 2023 at 01:59
Yes, I went through this logic already. We know through observation and induction that each and every material thing has a cause. The cause of a mater...
February 22, 2023 at 01:36
In: Bannings  — view comment
I sometimes (but more often not) enjoyed interaction with Agent Smith. I completely agree that flagrantly causing extra work for the moderators is int...
February 21, 2023 at 13:17
If this is true, it's proof that there is no formalized definition of "cause". And, since there are two distinct principal types of causation, efficie...
February 21, 2023 at 13:05
You don't seem to understand causation sime. There is no scientific definition of cause. Cause is a philosophical concept.
February 21, 2023 at 02:16
No, not at all. A cause, as I painstakingly explained, cannot be outside of time. No, not at all. As I explained, the idea that time is physical is wh...
February 21, 2023 at 02:08
No, that's what I describe as incoherent. "Cause" implies temporality, it is a temporal concept where a cause is understood to be prior in time to the...
February 20, 2023 at 13:34
I think that's right, that "Revolution" came along with the rejection of Aristotelian philosophy. It started when Galileo and others demonstrated faul...
February 20, 2023 at 13:14
Right, and I think that is actually quite important. The reason I said Marx is so insightful, is the same reason why his materialism is so similar to ...
February 20, 2023 at 12:33
Thanks Tom. It's an oversimplification which I believe to be somewhat accurate.
February 20, 2023 at 02:04
Look at it this way. The "variable" in the model described is a freely chosen act. But from the perspective of the agent, the chosen act is not a vari...
February 20, 2023 at 02:01
I'll see if I can state succinctly what I believe to be the important point. The difference between Hegel and Marx is the difference between idealism ...
February 20, 2023 at 01:28
I believe that Marx provided a very unique and informative approach (in the form of basic assumptions) toward the interactions between things, both an...
February 19, 2023 at 13:16
When Aristotle addressed being qua being, in his Metaphysics, this he said was the fundamental question, why is a thing what it is, rather than someth...
February 19, 2023 at 13:03
I don't know, I can't imagine the possibility of anything uncaused, so probably. But God is noy well understood by me so I can't make any firm judgeme...
February 19, 2023 at 11:57
Are they following rules when they play then?
February 19, 2023 at 01:45
I agree, and I see a problem with the determinist attitude. Describing activity in the physical world in terms of efficient causation has been a very ...
February 19, 2023 at 01:39
So the innovators don't make rules at all. They just play. The ones wo study the innovators are the ones who make the rules.
February 19, 2023 at 01:22
A material object consists of matter and form. And, material objects are also said to be substance. So it cannot be correct to say that substance is m...
February 19, 2023 at 01:17
It is not directly perceived though, that's the point. I do not sense space, it's conceptual. But if you're quite sure that you are sensing space I se...
February 19, 2023 at 01:03
Ok, I'm stuck on this point because you seem to be incredibly wrong to me. I see some stars very far away. There is obviously an intermediary between ...
February 18, 2023 at 18:42
We might combine these two questions, to ask what does it mean to say that potential is real. The best way to look at this, in my opinion, is in respe...
February 18, 2023 at 13:54
You seem to be stuck on this point, which is incorrect. We hear things which are far away, therefore there is an intermediary. We see things which are...
February 18, 2023 at 13:02
Why have you replaced my word, "matter" with "substance"? There is nothing to prevent the conception of substance without matter, such as the concepti...
February 18, 2023 at 04:35
I think I explained this. I guess not satisfactorily. Let me try again, in a different way. What is conceptualized is a bunch of relations between con...
February 17, 2023 at 15:20
The real problem here is with the notion of "the present universe". What Einstein reveals with the relativity of simultaneity is that "the present" is...
February 17, 2023 at 12:15
This where I think you have it backward. The form of the sensed object inheres within the thing itself, as indicated by Aristotle's law of identity. W...
February 16, 2023 at 13:49
The mind would abstract from the information received through sensation. Remember, I am portraying the senses as tools of the mind in its creations. Y...
February 16, 2023 at 13:32
A quick reply in response to reading the first couple lines. The particular is never conceptualized. That is why there is a distinction between the th...
February 16, 2023 at 13:08
But "God" is one of the greatest mysteries of human existence. So if a philosopher seeks wisdom, then knowing about God would be a high priority. It's...
February 16, 2023 at 12:49
That itself is a matter in need of interpretation. What quantum mechanics predicts is probabilities, not what is actually the case. That's exactly the...
February 16, 2023 at 03:02
Try this: Sorry noAxioms, but we're just too far apart in terminology to carry on any meaningful discussion. I spend all my time just having to show y...
February 16, 2023 at 02:31
That might be true, but under the Aristotelian conceptual structure matter has no existence without form. Matter without form is an unintelligible and...
February 16, 2023 at 02:13
Thanks Mww. It's difficult to do. It's easy to take what another says and disagree with it because it's somehow counterintuitive, so it doesn't make s...
February 16, 2023 at 01:53
The base of the problem is found in Zeno's paradoxes, and manifests in the way that calculus resolves the issue with the concept of approaching the li...
February 15, 2023 at 13:14
The problem though, is that mathematics really does not give a "clear-cut account of what is going on". The uncertainty principle is produced by the a...
February 15, 2023 at 12:12
Every material object has a cause. The cause is prior in time to the object. Therefore the cause of the first material object is not material. This im...
February 15, 2023 at 11:42
I don't quite understand this, so let me put an example to you. Suppose I look around me. What I perceive with my eyes is a bunch of different colours...
February 14, 2023 at 14:06
That's the way poetry rolls. There's no need to follow any particular rules. And if certain styles become conventional, often it's stretching the boun...
February 14, 2023 at 00:33
Should have got the one that does a quintillion cuts per second, instantaneous blending.
February 14, 2023 at 00:14
This is the problem with telling people it is "a game". Then the psychology of game play, competition and all sorts of things, enters the picture. And...
February 13, 2023 at 13:14
Tell that Chat bot poetry composer that "how" and "know" do not rhyme. Neither do "stars" and "ours" for that matter. Where does that thing get its se...
February 13, 2023 at 12:29
OK, so this is how you lost me. "Cognition" for you, does not include imagination, judgement, or relating concepts. But isn't "cognition" generally us...
February 13, 2023 at 02:22
Some people don't respect the claims that others make. That does not mean that the person is wrong. So if the slaver does not respect the claim of the...
February 13, 2023 at 01:04
As i said, I am not very familiar with Schopenhauer.
February 12, 2023 at 13:33
This is an incorrect representation of "rights". A right is an equality, therefore a balance. You portray it as something which is completely dependen...
February 12, 2023 at 13:33