Pattern-chaser

Given that AR is the only 'reality' we have access to, we all must make some assumptions and move on. But I find, for reasons of mental hygiene, nothi...

...and if you are a brain in a vat? Would you not then be modelling the 'reality' the vat-maintainers send to you? :chin:

In absolute terms, this is - must be - true. But if you are a brain in a vat, your connection to OR is less direct than you think it is. I challenge y...

My so-called model of OR is that we - all humans, past, present and future - know nothing of it, other than that it exists. Not really worthy of the t...

My point (as it applies to these words) is that one can't.

Are you saying that scientists simply filter out the lesser contributors to cause so that they can focus on just the one (even if it is the biggest on...

@"Janus", @"T Clark", @"Wayfarer": thanks all for your opinions on causality. Interesting ideas; food for further thought. I wish they'd come up in th...

I think the Planck time is the time it takes for something travelling at the speed of light to traverse the Planck length. From this we reason that no...

Nicely put! Thank you for expressing it in that way, which I hadn't thought of. :up:

Nice post! :smile:

OK. To start, even though the whole thing is a waste of time, I accept the absolute definition of "Objective". That is: Something Objective correspond...

When discussing human behaviour, we cannot expect precise, logical and repeatable behaviour. Or we can expect it, but we'd be disappointed. Different ...

:up:

It's not all about you. :wink: I told you a fact about the real world.

We know, confirmed by empirical observation, that any utterance telling someone to murder someone else sometimes causes someone to murder someone else...

No I'm not. Those who defend unconstrained free speech must allow hate speech. Hate speech incites others to violence. An (admittedly extreme) example...

A general consensus, I think. Maybe not. I don't know the factual answer to your question, sorry. I find it hard to understand why anyone would wish t...

Conflating? No, I don't think so. I'm connecting the two. Causally-connecting.

OK, I think we've already agreed that there is no universal understanding of what "metaphysics" actually is, so I can't (and won't) dispute what you s...

No, I'm a person who believes that those who support, nurture and encourage hatred and hate speech, must realise that their actions incite violence. A...

So I imagine you support the (sometime) consequences too? Rape, queer-bashing, black-lynching, Jew-bashing, .... :sad:

Interesting. How do you think this might be achieved? :chin:

Axioms are just assumptions by another name. Some of them might be metaphysical, others not. If it was able to be confirmed empirically, it wasn't a m...

Then I have nothing further to say to you.

This is degenerating into silliness. You know quite well the points I have made. You wiggle and squirm around to avoid my points with petty objections...

P.S. why do you focus only on the victims? :chin: Why have you not (also) said "I believe we have free will and that we can or at least should have th...

Your "ought" is that we "should have the power to stop ourselves from becoming violent". But the corresponding "is" is that we can't. The empirical ev...

Please don't dilute the offending concept to make it look like something innocuous. We aren't talking about banning the discussion of uncomfortable su...

Aren't you confusing ought with is here? :chin: Empirical evidence demonstrates clearly and unambiguously that your expectation is not met by real hum...

Yes, there is. I think that's where we get 'freedom of speech' from - we (most of us) think it's a good idea. There's something very American about th...

No, I don't think any of those things. We are human. Humans can be provoked beyond endurance. If Messrs Spock and Data behave otherwise, fair enough, ...

I'll be here. :wink: :smile:

I see what you're saying, and I sympathise. But human languages are what they are, and these things arise from time to time. We don't actually disagre...

I disagree. Science studies the apparent reality that our senses and perception delivers pictures of. Philosophically, we have no way to know if those...

If we use only science - and it isn't clear that that's what you're suggesting, but it looks that way - then our understanding is going to be less tha...

I'm sorry, I know what you say here is perfectly plausible, but all I can see is an attempt to re-label metaphysics as "science". Thus, science makes ...

I see what you're getting at, but if I had written what you just did, I would have written "philosophical" every time you wrote "metaphysical". In fai...

Simpler than that, I think. Either the insults prove unendurable, and the target attacks the speaker, or the words empower and provoke others to commi...

It does cause violence, albeit indirectly.

Now you're being provocative for the sake of it. You know what is meant. I will not rehearse a well-known argument just to amuse you. :up:

I think part of this issue is the relationship between science and philosophy, in general, and between science and metaphysics, in particular. For mys...

There's one reality, but many possible explanations? These explanations are not "equally right" ... or at least they may not be. The significant fact ...

:smile: :up:

Violence, for one example. Maybe the most significant example.

I think it's just like this forum. We avoid ad hominem attacks, but otherwise speak (write) freely. That's all this is about: hate speech is an ad hom...

Because hate speech has consequences, as everything does. But in the case of hate speech, all of the consequences are negative and undesirable. It sho...

:up: Me too. I just think the philosophy we call "metaphysics" is different from this. Even Wikipedia's example mentions "truth", which is not really ...

Americans, in particular, consider freedom of speech to be their freedom to insult. They believe they can say anything at all to anyone, without any k...

I still think these two subjects, while both are 'philosophy', are quite distinct. The philosophy of science belongs with science, I agree. It conside...