Survival also depends on what sustains us (food, water, keeping warm...), and enables us to procreate. I'm referring to beliefs that are approximation...
I gave you a definition. I explained that it is consistent with QM. Metaphysical theories generally are not falsiable in a scientific sense. All we ca...
Special relativity shows that time is relative to a reference frame. That a sort of subjectivity, but you seem to be suggesting it's mind-dependent. O...
It's a false dichotomy that a scientific model is either literally true, or it is merely empirically valid. Structural realism is a middle ground. Rea...
Sure, but then you have some loose epistemic probability in mind, and a more precise statement of your belief would identify this. So it is not strict...
The "intuitions" in question are relevant to survival. If there is a world external to ourself, it would be necessary to have a functionally accurate ...
Constructive Empiricism seems to me to go to far, by denying that science tells us anything about reality. I'm more aligned with Structural Realism: ....
It's not confrontational. The term "defeater" is just standard epistemology. A defeater=a reason to give up a belief. It's shorthand for what I've pre...
Physicalism being false does not entail non-solipsistic idealism being true. It just means idealism is logically possible. I already acknowledge it is...
But there IS this unresolved gap in our physics. We really don't know. Therefore one can't claim it's inconsistent with physicalism. Besides this, not...
No. You expressing your judgement is not a reason for me, even with a vague allusion to some questionable assumption that it seems based on. I may agr...
You are mistaken. Hillary Clinton conceded defeat and never attempted to overturn the election. To some degree, she was being a sore loser when she la...
OK, I think I understand. But as I said before: When I say "independent of minds", I mean that the world at large exists irrespective of the presence ...
You're proposing a sufficient condition, but not a necessary one. I reject this as a sufficient condition: we could theoretically produce multiple hum...
This is a tangent. I have no problem with identifying an individual identity as a series of causally-connected spatiotemporal stages. The objection I ...
How can an external world exist independently of human minds AND be contingent upon human minds? Being contingent upon entails a dependence, does it n...
Provide your complete principium individuationis. My issue is that there is no such thing because "individual human being" is a concept with vague bou...
It seems uncontroversial to stipulate that the objects of our ordinary experiences are physical. It seems most reasonable to treat the component parts...
Identical twins begin with the same genetic material, they lack this uniqueness you mention. So unique genetics can't be the basis for identifying an ...
Why would we have these intuitions, if they aren't consistent with reality (i.e. true within the scope of our perceptions). Why think our abstractions...
Physicalism = the thesis that everything that exists is physical. It is false only if there exists something non-physical. It depends only on this bei...
Absolutely! The fact that we (i.e..Einstein) developed a theory that transcends the "human perspective" of time is a testimony to our ability to trans...
The fact that models makes successful predictions demonstrates that we know something about the nature of physical reality, and that's really the basi...
The very notion of a perspective entails having a mind. We are sufficiently aware that we can recognize the fact we even have a perspective. We obviou...
You're ignoring my point: a zygote is not identical with an individual human being. Rather, they are a material that have the potential for developing...
That doesn't address the issue I raised. I believe there exists a world (AKA "reality") independent of minds. I also believe nearly everyone agrees wi...
If you think the idea of a mind-independent reality is incoherent, then you can't believe there exists a mind-independent reality. I believe there is....
I don't understand why you say that. Please elaborate. These two clauses seem to be contradictory. If there is an objective world external to ourselve...
No, you don't have to be an essentialist to say "beard versus clean-shaven" or "individual human person" or not. As you've noted elsewhere, essentiali...
No, it doesn't. Hurricane behavior is not best understood in terms of particle physics, but there's no reason to doubt that it is fundamentally due to...
Quantum fields can be considered ontological, although you aren't compelled to do so. Quantum effects have an impact on the macroscopic world, so it c...
"Supposedly" a mind-independent reality?! Do you really doubt there exists a mind-independent reality? I read the following statement as indicating yo...
What is the subject of "The universe exists"? You acknowldge that we can discover objective facts about the universe. Isn't "the universe exists" an o...
Trump has leveraged the perception that US society is "failing" by permitting things like same-sex marriage, sensitivity to LGBTQ concerns, and ostens...
My objection to an infinite past is not based on cosmology. Rather, I am persuaded that an infinite past is logically impossible. I first came to this...
This makes perfect sense. But the following does not: This seems to contradict the bolded portion of the first quote. I could grant that a subjective ...
Thanks. I'll read it, and respond in that thread. I read some addition reviews. This one says, "Armstrong is not presenting a case for God in the sens...
What do you mean by"refute"? Do you simply mean the objectivist claim hasn't been proven logically impossible? That would be an unreasonable standard....
This doesn't undercut anything I said. The state of affairs didn't "start to exist", because it exists at all points of time. Rather, time begins as t...
That's not entirely true. Consider position and momentum: it is not that they lack a value at all, it is that the they don't have a precise value. Pos...
First of all, it is incorrect to suggest that an initial state entails "spontaneous generation". "Spontaneous generation" connotes coming into existen...
My point is that the set of properties that emerge are objectively present, as is the fact that they emerge when measured, and that the set of measure...
My point is that there's nothing about the application of logic that is inconsistent with physical mechanism, so the mere fact that we can apply logic...
You acknowledge the concept is fuzzy, and yet you think it should be possible to identify a point at which a human life begins. Consider another fuzzy...
Exceptions demonstrate the problem with a rule. Suppose we establish the rule (as a law) that a 6-month fetus is a human being. There are instances wh...
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