Americans! :gasp: Guns aren't the answer to everything! Thinking about it, guns aren't the answer to anything. Seriously: can you offer some sort of r...
The problem with assumptions (guesses) is that they become invisible, which is mostly our fault. Perhaps we don't like the idea of our thinking being ...
The Christians were not the first to have a triple God, and they probably won't be the last. Just consider the Trinity to be a three-person representa...
Basically, it's From each according to their means; to each according to their needs. It's a communal insurance policy. Some of us are better able to ...
Yes, and sadly we betrayed the values that we promoted, and we consumed and consumed as no previous generation had! Humans had been destroying the wor...
Don't you think it's a little bit, er, tawdry to imply that I offered only half of the picture, when I already said what you said? I took the trouble ...
Do you not see me distinguishing between that which is community-based - or "social", as I originally wrote - and that which is based on the individua...
Yes, we can "discover many real principles and properties" using maths to help, but that does not show maths to be discovered, only the "principles an...
Imagine it's 100 or so years ago, before Einstein released his findings concerning relativity and the like. And imagine you, saying "I would ask that ...
Huh? These laws are passed and accepted by communities, and if we break them (and we're caught), there is a penalty to pay. Zero obligation? I think n...
The conscious mind is able to decide some things, and to take some actions. For sure, the rest-of-the-mind (often called the unconscious mind) is heav...
Unnecessary? Yes, I suppose. We managed without one. But, even if they're unnecessary, perhaps having a conscious mind is beneficial, compared with no...
As I said: ...and some are one or the other. It depends on the law. If the law echoes morality (as it would in an ideal world), then it would be illeg...
Of course there is. Morality is personal. Laws, properly drafted, are communal; social. Laws, at their best, reflect the consensus morality of the com...
Maths is indispensable because it's a good and well-crafted tool. It's useful. Also in its predictive power, as you say. For those without satnavs, (r...
And where does this map exist? Where is the 'place' where this map is stored and retained, ready for later use? The only thing I know of that can stor...
I meant to say that we humans have not always had what we call our conscious minds. Before that, we had minds, of course, but were mainly instinctive,...
"We can" - "we are able to". Yes, mostly, or at least often, we are. But often we are not. Rationality is not something we always can, or do, do. ... ...
Personally, I use "believe" to describe anything I think is true. I use "know" to describe things that I'm a lot more sure about. But this seems to be...
Yes, once we have accepted the axioms and theorems of set theory, number theory and arithmetic, we find that "1 + 1 = 2" is defined to be true. It can...
As a general point, it is neither moral nor immoral to break the law. But sadly, the reasoning behind this is trivial. A criminal breaks the law; her ...
They did? When was this? I do not suggest we don't do these things, or that we don't do lots of other things too. But I do wonder if we still do a lot...
I just looked back, to the topic title: "Is it immoral to do illegal drugs?" A little thought leads me to the (simplistic?) conclusion that this is ea...
The brain is physical, while consciousness is not. Confusing the two will only lead to confusion, I suspect. For this to make sense, you need first to...
But the learning you describe relies on memory, the memory that fire gave rise to pain in the past, and therefore might do so again, if we get close e...
...and maybe some deities care about all life. Maybe their purpose is to nurture life, not to nurture humans at the expense of all other life? Wouldn'...
I cannot help but admire your ambition. :smile: You have renamed our map as a plan, something made beforehand to describe what will be made, instead o...
Yes, some bits of maths are interesting, and most of it is useful too. But this topic asks whether maths is invented or discovered. To believe that ma...
No, I think it's already just a little too precise. I think it should be something like this: The axiomatization of mathematical ideas is invented, bu...
Well we do seem to need some degree of understanding of human and animal cognition, as you ask us to... The simple answer to that is: I don't have a c...
As we look at animal cognition, we see all kinds of similarities to humans, similarities that we humans didn't expect. It would be foolish to state th...
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