Metaphysician Undercover

I think the best example is "virtual particles". The issue I believe arises from the the practise of positioning mass as a "centre of mass". Interacti...

My OED says of "extend", "lengthen or make larger in space or time". The problem is, as I explained, that "matter" does not require any spatial extens...

Yes, to be plunged into the dark ages was a very good thing. The problem is that when the principles of a culture are untrue, corrupted by falsity, or...

Trashing that shit and corruption was for the good of humanity. Look at how much further we are ahead today, in our knowledge, than if we would have k...

I don't think I'd agree with this, because I don't think that "extension" is a well defined term. In a sense, it means to be extended in a specific wa...

I think you need to separate "matter" from "stuff". Experientially, stuff is prior, as what we experience. Then we understand that the concepts space ...

Matter is what maintains its spatial presence as time passes. That's why its principal properties are inertia and mass. Density is another can of worm...

The song writer picks up a phrase, from who knows where, and being a talented artist, intuitively apprehends the phrase's potential. And through the s...

I know an old lady, who swallowed a fly I don't know why she swallowed a fly.

I have no idea what you mean by "type levels". Yes, that is exactly why it is my will to reject. My will is to reject because you have not justified y...

Kick em when they're up, Kick em when they're down, Kick em when they're stiff, Kick em all around.

Seems around the same time as Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry". In that song, to air dirty laundry is to go public with another's misfortunes, or perhaps ...

The issue brought up in the Hoffman quote is the same as the true vs. useful issue. It is the fundamental problem of empiricism. So long as scientific...

I think my criticism holds. Let me spell it out in another way. Your formula, I > E > S, is itself an instance of S. My will, being an instance of I, ...

That's one smart cat. Many human beings wouldn't make that jump with a safety net below; you'd have to push them or throw them.

I think there is confusion in this thread between what is "essential" to being human, and what distinguishes human beings from other beings. What is "...

That's how a cat can jump out a three story window without injury, and they are said to have nine lives, they are above the laws of physics.

These two are obviously inconsistent, or contradictory. If, it is wrong to give priority to material things over human persons, then how can it also b...

If the idea is to transport heat from the depths to the surface, then water/steam is probably the most feasible. If the idea is to convert the heat to...

I would think that the fact that water boils, therefore greatly expands, at a relatively low temperature, would be a great benefit, even though such e...

Water is an efficient way to move energy through the ground.

Iceland already receives a large portion of its energy from geothermal sources. Wikipedia says: "Five major geothermal power plants exist in Iceland, ...

I don't see where you get this idea. (1) states very explicitly "We live in an ordered universe that can be understood by humans.". It does not say 's...

I'm a philosopher too, and I consider myself a peon. So no insult was intended. Philosophers with grand ideas are not given much esteem in our society...

What can I say? One's exciting, the other's boring.

Vasilevskiy can be beat.

So is the Rangers/Lightning game.

Very inciteful! No, that's not what I meant. I meant insightful.

This is ridiculous Apollodorus. There is a big difference between an organization like NATO expanding because other countries are willfully joining, a...

This all depends on you criteria for "adequate". Some of us seem to have far have higher standards than others.

It appears you're not very well informed as to how democratic governments proceed. Everything must be discussed, studied, debated, studied again, disc...

Dispensing with all underlying metaphysical assumptions is not the issue though. The issue is the consequences of science proceeding from false metaph...

The problem is, that ideas such as this, "there is an infinite number of points between any two points", are very useful principles, which are not tru...

The pivotal concept here is "laziness". As we get older we get set in our ways, happy to relax, live off our investments, and just sort of enjoy the l...

The way to the bottom is not the bottom. And until one arrives at the bottom, any specified "way" may prove to be faulty. Any philosopher knows this, ...

Isn't there supposed to be an infinite number of points between any two points? Why would you state it as "at least one"? It seems like the incoherenc...

I don't agree that those authors claim to have reached the irreducible basis of things. In general, they each describe an approach, a method, but they...

I don't think I've read any philosopher who believed oneself to have "reached the irreducible basis of things and has stripped thought of superstitiou...

Sounds like you haven't read very much philosophy.

That's right, that's what I've been arguing. The appearance of "an object" is something created by the subconscious system. What this appearance, or "...

This is exactly what I rejected, for the reasons I explained.

If the universe is natural then it must have a cause. If all natural things are within the universe, then the cause of the universe, not being within ...

Wait, aren't the ones fighting, the "evils"? You call them "poor sods", but they're fighting an evil war, so I think that makes them evil. If it's a c...

You mean like a coincidence? I am not talking about whether nature cares, I'm talking about whether human beings care. But the problem is the people w...

Clearly, the Nazis which Putin desires to remove are supported by the present Ukrainian government, so Nazism must go to the top. I think Putin's goal...

Now we're getting somewhere. Both sides are evil. So, what's wrong with evil fighting evil in a contained battlefield? It would appear like the only o...

I think that what he have to consider, is that in our experience, observation, and evidence, what we call "the natural", is observed to consist of thi...

But we do not have a thorough knowledge of the rules by which understanding works, therefore we cannot come up with the thorough understanding of the ...

The trick of modern physics, energy has inertia, without mass. But we need to be careful not to confuse the inertia pf energy with the inertia of mass...

This is the problem with the physicalist approach. When adhered to, it leads to some form of panpsychism by logical necessity, because ultimately, mat...