Terrapin Station

Essence is simply a way of thinking about things--it's what an individual considers necessary features to apply a concept term as they've formulated t...

Not that "physical" is defined by "what we can sense," but you can't sense that something is, say, a meter to the left of something else? How do you f...

The conceptual mistake that people make is that they think about it as "starting from us," where they think of us as a goal. And then they think, "Wel...

The anthropic principle is simply a specific version of this general truth; For all x, in order for x to obtain, the universe must meet the range of p...

The standard analysis of knowledge in philosophy is that knowledge is a type of belief.

Knowing something doesn't imply certainty though.

For one, Stevenson used a translator, and Stevenson's publisher at first backed out because of accusations that the translator was dishonest. Stevenso...

Focusing on certainty, as if it is or should be a goal, as if we need it to claim things, etc. is a big mistake in my opinion.

It's referring to the relation of the threads--the way they're situated with respect to each other extensionally (or we could more conventionally say ...

This. It's not intended as a literal ontological claim.

Okay, but what does that have to do with being able to choose between two things by whim?

This sucks because now I'm having to rehash really straightforward stuff that I already typed. I didn't type and I'm not saying anything even remotely...

I don't believe there are any good reasons to buy the notion of subconscious or unconscious mental content. ?? What would reasoning have to do with th...

Actions that people decide to take can be influenced by language and can be negative. That's not the language's fault, however. The people in question...

Do you just mean that you believe that being in control does imply reasoning? Why would you believe that? You're conflating cause and determinism--whi...

Speech can't be causal as in physical forcing anyone to do anything. So no.

Not necessarily. Again, there's often a correlation, but there isn't always.

Belief (and opinion) and action are often correlated, but often there's little connection between the two, too.

Are any opinions immoral to hold? No, not in my view. It's not immoral to have any beliefs, any opinions, or to express anything.

You're bringing up whether someone is conscious or not. We're not talking about an example where someone isn't conscious. We're talking about an examp...

That certainly has nothing to do with what you just quoted from me above it, does it? Was I even specifically talking about consciousness there? You b...

Confusing how experience works with what's experienced. I'm guessing, by the way, that you just now looked up the first person/third person distinctio...

No properties can be detached from the material stuff/relations/processes in question. That was the point. Properties are simply identical to some par...

Wow. No. Didn't they teach you this distinction in school? First person is when you are the thing in question. Third person is when it's something oth...

CDs aren't different than the physical item that you slot into your computer. So you're confusing yourself by not having that part clear.

You're confusing observing something first-person with observing it third-person. Which is why I just pointed out the distinction. We observe someone ...

That blunder being?

You observe it from a third-person perspective, exactly as you observe every single other thing in the world that's not yourself.

It's the whole nut of what philosophy is. What were you thinking philosophy is?

I'm curious about what the world is like factually.

?? Say that you think, "I'm going to either listen to Led Zeppelin III or Yes' Relayer." You decide to choose which one by whim. You have to do someth...

The point is that I'm looking at philosophy to try to "improve myself." In my view philosophy has nothing whatsoever to do with that . . . at least no...

Whose or "what's" whim is it? Who or what is doing something by whim?

It's controlled by you, since you're choosing it by whim.

Depends on the scenario. It's not as if it's just one way that we choose things, and sometimes we basically do it by whim or "randomly."

Just the same way we know any and everything we know. Based on observation of the world.

It's going to rise again, but it's not going to have anything to do with you as a person. You as a person cease to exist at death. They don't in the s...

Positively negative?

Does this model dress in a similar way at the beach/when swimming because she chooses to? That's all we need to know. I can see questioning it if the ...

The only "improvement" I expect from any philosophy is a more accurate view of what's the case.

You're causing it ultimately, yes, where that's not deterministic.

Yes. ;-) You don't exist as a person, as something conscious, etc. prior to conception, by the way.

The pattern is simply the arrangement of colored threads as they comprise the shirt, the relations of them to each other.

If you can bias the odds, you're controlling them, and as we make a decision, we'd push the bias to 100% (at the point of decision).

There are always so many problems to address in these long posts . . . so just one thing at a time. This fact would in no way contradict that beauty i...

So the point I was making immediately above is that you read my initial comment to be about possibility rather than what's contingently the case.

There's a difference between "it's not possible for there to be any x" and "there happen to be no x (but it's not impossible)"

First, this is such a basic thing to get wrong. If we say, "There is no such thing as x," are we saying, "X is impossible"?

You've got to be joking.

No such thing as "parallel universes" except for SciFi (which too many scientists unfortunately like to engage in as if it's science). So that's not g...