Terrapin Station

Wait, some people are reading it as a question whether one will succeed at the goal. That's not what he asked. He asked if you can know that some spec...

Why don't you concentrate on mastering the basics of reading prior to worrying about how you can stick phrases like "pithy retorts" in a sentence? It'...

I mean, that's not even shitty reading comprehension. It's simply a complete inability to read. "Doesn't work via thinking in some combined way" doesn...

There's a sense of "exist," as well as a sense of "real," senses that were historically popular and that are still commonly found in philosophical tal...

Communication doesn't work via thinking in some combined way. And it's not solipsism. People don't breathe in a combined way, either. Whether you thin...

Focus on requiring criticial thinking, logic and philosophy courses for high school and university undergraduate students.

Again, your values can be (and will be to some extent) influenced by your culture, but they can't literally be given to you by your culture. You have ...

Whether you want that or not, it's all you can get. Don't confuse that people can be influenced by expressed moral stances with morality itself. Each ...

I'm going to go with "no." Say that you've never literally written the word "cat" in a sentence before, and your goal is to do so the next time you're...

Sure, there is a common pattern of planets orbiting stars, whether single or double, etc., for example. There's no evidence at all for an "orderer" fo...

They're potentials for particular mental content. It seems to me that mentality would be akin to "precipitation states" on a mountain, say. The mounta...

I don't think I'm attached to the idea of "intellectual honesty" or anything like that. I just have certain dispositions that lead me to believe or no...

If you're not trolling, it's inexplicable that you got as far as you did studying philosophy while having basically zero understanding of the idea of ...

"Is it our duty as members of society to confine ourselves to its standards?" How would the notion that you might have such a duty even occur to you?

A meaning of a statement is simply the mental associations you make with the statement, which includes representations, referents you take it to pick ...

It depends on whether people are thinking about as a metaphorical human (at least in that respect). Sure, it's just not literally a decision, or it wo...

No it isn't. No one reasons that people are responsible for something just because it's ordered. That's only based on familiarity with the sorts of th...

It is if people are thinking of it as a metaphor for humans making decisions. That's fine to say, but it doesn't make a metaphor not a metaphor. Oh. W...

We can just say that people who are unusually anal/Aspie-like may not have voted because of this.

Yes, it's certainly possible. Happiness is just a (set of dynamic) mental state(s), which is just a (set of dynamic) brain state(s). Theoretically, we...

Moral judgments aren't valid or not. And yes, someone considered a terrorist by some may consider himself a freedom fighter. That's a fact and you can...

Mind-independently it's baseless, yes. People don't think "combined." They think individually. That's not to say that people can't be influenced by th...

I don't see any reason to believe that there is a source, especially because that wouldn't answer the question, it would just push it back another ste...

It's not affirming the consequent. It's an association fallacy. Re the formal argument you provide, "If there's order, then there's an orderer" is a f...

It only makes sense to infer that due to empirical evidence that people do things like arrange rocks on beaches. You're making an abductive inference ...

I kind of agree with this (and your comments below it), but (a) as I noted in the other post, I think that "investment" is often not warranted for it,...

I'm using "event" so that it's the same as "state of affairs." I know you think that, but I just don't know why you do . . . I'm guessing that it's so...

Ah, I agree with that. "Pre-rational investment" didn't convey that for me, partially because "investment" suggests something more active than I'd say...

I wouldn't say that it's not possible, but that (a) it's not justified, and (b) it's not how people actually reason. People infer makers for watches e...

Okay--his (1) you mean. What about his (2)?

Nothing(ness) only obtains relationally, in relation and contradistinction to (the extension of) matter. It's mistaken, of course, to think of it as a...

It's merely compliance with what?

Okay, well, pretending to not know what watches and similar artifacts are and how they are made, I'd make no assumptions about where it must have come...

I don't see design/coincidence as a legitimate choice.

That's a statement of what you'd be assuming.

What in the world does that have to do with why you'd be assuming a "designed or coincidence" dichotomy?

When I ask you a simple yes or no question, why can't you answer yes or no? C'mon. You're making this way more difficult and laborious than it has to ...

Right. So why would you think that things would have to be coincidences if not designed? Why couldn't they be the result of something like physical la...

What?? I don't think you understood my question. Are you saying that on your view, there are just two choices--either things are designed or they're c...

So are you saying that on your view either things are designed or they're coincidences?

But you'd have to assume that it doesn't require work to make the universe tidy.

Again, do you want me to answer where I'd pretend to not know what watches are and how they're made? (Or artifacts of that sort?)

That would be misleading if it were all x.

Why would you need another term if it's art?

What really crosses my mind is, "Hmm, this isn't my room." But that's not what you're asking, of course. Do you want me to answer in the context of me...

Why not?

Right. And you simply got silly when I asked you why you were talking about coincidences. Could you seriously answer why you're bringing up that term ...

Why would ordered/disordered be flipped there?

That's fine, but it's different than what art is. You could just as well say that for anything to make sense, we need a planet that could have support...

Back to the idea? You wouldn't say where the idea was coming from in the first place.