Terrapin Station

All your friend needed to say is, "Hypothetically, there is a god, but his view is that everyone who isn't gay will burn in Hell for eternity." (Also,...

Something wouldn't have to add to trust in order for it to not diminish trust. It can simply be neutral. Polite lies are usually performed for the emo...

I wouldn't want to just turn it into yet another idealism vs realism thread, though. We've got enough of those already.

Even if we go with all of that, how would a lie like "Pleased to meet you" (when the person doesn't actually feel like being social at all at the mome...

I didn't mean to imply people necessarily cogitating. "Deduction" was emphasized in the initial post, too.

Common definitions of "being" include simply "the quality or state of having existence" or "something that actually exists."

I know a lot of people think that, but I can't say I understand why (outside of possibly it being decreed by their religion . . . but then why did the...

Sure, I think you can "get reality right" via deduction. Re the quantificational questions ("how much"/"are they equal"), it doesn't really seem plaus...

I know it's going to seem like I'm just trying to be disagreeable :grin: but I strongly disagree with comments in this vein. (Re being disagreeable, I...

"Normative" in this usage is another word for "shoulds." It's not denoting statistical norms. "People should ideally agree with things that are true o...

Re this topic, if you enjoy comedy films. if you don't mind something with a prominent atheism bias, and you haven't seen it yet, check out the Ricky ...

I wouldn't say it can't work to divvy up the terms that way, but it's very different than the definitions I use. (And it's very different than some co...

You often respond obliquely--which I think is at least partially on purpose as a defense mechanism, often ignore stuff (I know I do, too, but I do it ...

The idea is that physicalism isn't "latched on" to physics, and basically subservient to it, so that it's something like the "marketing team for physi...

All this is really doing is saying that there's no first cause after all.

Yeah, I'm aware of those misguided folks ;-), but I was just pointing out that not all physicalists think that.

Lol, no I'm not doing it purposefully. I think we maybe have extremely different paradigms that we're working with. Why would "this triangle" in your ...

First, keep in mind that I use the subjective/objective distinction simply to refer to whether something is mental or extramental, by which I simply m...

The distinction you're trying to make here makes no sense to me. "Just in case x is illegal, then x is immoral" is the view we're proposing. You're sa...

It should be open-ended, and should include logical argumentation.

So you're saying "this triangle" as "this concept I'm thinking of"? I would normally expect someone to being referring to something like: This triangl...

Yes. Otherwise his comment/argument wouldn't make sense. If determinism implies that we can't know x, then one has to be saying that freedom is necess...

Again, I think that people are always doing this with respect to foundational moral stances, and I think there have to be foundational moral stances. ...

Everything that anyone does or experiences is natural in my view. So yes, it's natural to experience fear of the unknown. There are people who experie...

I'd say that the mistake you're making here is that you're thinking of spatial extension as a "construction consisting of possible positions for parti...

Just curious what definition of "information" you're using.

Not this physicalist. Descriptions/explanations and whether they're sufficient etc. are about language, and as language, a large part of that is about...

The rest of the post in question already answered why not.

Wait, one thing at a time because this is a complete mess. Okay, re the above, yet you say that you're not talking about the word itself. That makes n...

Why isn't it obvious to people that those are horrible arguments, though? First off, materialism doesn't entail determinism. Secondly, Haldane is just...

Right. I fully recognize that someone might have something like "It is wrong to initiate nonconsensual violence" as a foundational moral stance, and t...

I don't see free will as necessary for culpability. I see it as similar to say, a cliff over a roadway that tends to have rockslides. The rocks aren't...

Maybe we're misunderstanding each other then. You're not saying that any stance doesn't ultimately rest on moral intuitions/feelings, and I'm not sayi...

An example of relying on logic and reason to take a moral stance not directly following from the “feelings” foundation. An example of a moral stance t...

I'm not a moral realist, but I don't buy this first premise. I'd change it to "If there is no supporting evidence for the existence of x, then there's...

Could you give an example?

It's not at all erroneous, though. That's the foundational approach everyone uses. I'm just not spelling out the full details via a couple paragraphs ...

Because I'm morally against rape. That's a foundational stance for me. Not a stance built on another moral stance. What you're looking for re "an idea...

I already think that the idea of human intelligence quantification is dubious, forget about intelligence quantification for other animals.

Yeah, I mean re how they feel about foundational ethical stances, and then they can reason on top of that, etc.--I'm just not going to spell all of th...

First, "This triangle" isn't a concept, it's a particular. ("Triangle" is going to be a concept, but "this triangle" conventionally refers to a partic...

Yes. I'd say it's relative to individuals (as well as cultures re statistical cultural norms).

Of course. "That's just the way he feels about interpersonal behavior." That's certainly true, but my feeling about it wouldn't be based on the rapist...

I think you're confusing yourself. This line from the Wikipedia entry about the distinction should help you keep them straight: "The literal translati...

Why are you putting "de re" after "in his mind" and "de dicto" after "in fact"?

Sure. Different people think that different things are ridiculous (obviously). I would tell them my view. Telling someone a moral view doesn't give th...

I don't agree with that about de dicto claims. Think about this, by the way: "Someone is a spy" in the de re sense, so that Ralph says it with his nei...

"The lottery" refers to an actual situation though (in the de re version)--the Powerball drawing on October 31, 2018, the ticket I bought from the del...

I would say that would be de dicto or de re depending on whether you're thinking about just hitting the lottery in general versus thinking about hitti...

As far as I recall it is counterfactual. I'm a pretty big Holmes/Doyle fan, by the way. If I remember correctly, Doyle was heavily inspired by Poe's C...