Terrapin Station

There is none. The notion of an objective benefit is a category error.

Universal acceptance isn't objective at any rate. By the way, I'm still waiting for you to give an example of ontology that isn't making a factual cla...

Causes are physically deterministic forces, where, if A is the cause of B, B must follow A, ceteris paribus.

. . . that's just evidence of not understanding how I use the word "cause."

?? Seeing something via using your senses IS using your mind. Maybe you're referring instead to putting the difference into words or "intellectualizin...

Why wouldn't your argument work for something like the sun, or Mount Olympus?

This isn't an epistemic argument: "1. The ability to make choices is a necessary condition for the evaluation of evidence." That's saying that if we c...

The only way it makes sense for you to wonder what makes one different from the other is if you can't distinguish them. Otherwise you'd know what make...

I like to tackle small nuggets at a time, of course: In my view, meaning (or "meaning" rather) doesn't work so that something clearly has the same mea...

You can't really make enough money writing philosophy to make it a career. You can make some money with it if you're lucky--Daniel Dennett has made so...

There are jobs that are kind of philosophy related like being a medical ethicist. Or there are some jobs with "ontology" and "semantics" in the title....

You could, although "this could happen" doesn't equate to "life is full of suffering" does it? And it's not as if everyone with those statuses sees th...

Neither science nor knowledge in general are about proof.

First, your experience would be no different than it is now. You'd be compelled to believe that evidence x supports hypothesis H where it seems to you...

Without addressing my comment above, here again you're asking about "sure" foundations.

The ideas behind both, which I'm not endorsing--I'm just reporting the idea of them, is that one has a belief either that there is or is not a god, bu...

First, note that I buy that we have free will. So in the comment below, I'm not arguing that we do not. However: How are you arriving at that premise?

Are you honestly asking this? Your mind works so that you can't make out any distinction between memories of things that happened and imagining what m...

Although the only way such laws change is via people in the society in question not agreeing with them.

That's my view. (Not that I'm the person you had the discussion with.) And indeed it is. No idea where you're getting that notion from. (Assuming it e...

:up:

First I'm hearing of it, so :confused:

I wouldn't say that my life is full of suffering. I understand if you don't want to share personal info, but what suffering is your life full of?

Why don't we just concentrate on trying to get someone better elected, someone who'll actually make practical changes that have a positive impact on f...

:smirk:

Holy moley.

What I wrote is "we can't say there's not the phenomenon of an oasis." Are you saying there's not the phenomenon of an oasis?

Sure. So what's an example of ontology that isn't making a factual claim (re objective facts) in your opinion?

If there are changes/motion that happened, versus changes/motion that are happening, versus changes/motions that have yet to happen as an illusion, it...

Um . . . I'm skeptical of that unless there's a good reason to believe it. It seems silly to me to say that "almost nothing can be shown to be a fact"...

What would one of your exceptions be?

I said I wouldn't make that illegal.

That would only be the case if nothing can shown to be a fact. But I wouldn't say that.

It seems like you're not literally asking what science is founded on, but what provable claims is it founded on. A core tenet of science methodology i...

"Metaphysics" in the "what goes beyond physics" sorta supernatural/mysticism sense gained a lot of traction in the latter half of the 19th century thr...

Well, a lot of people think a lot of incoherent shit like thinking that their consciousness is something separate from the physical world, they think ...

There has to be ontological randomness involved for it to be free will. Again, the point of bringing up that some choices are epistemically random abo...

If we have a universe with just two particles, and particle A strikes particle B, then either particle B is causally determined to react with a certai...

Okay, but that's what ontological freedom/indeterminism is. It's (not necessarily equiprobable) randomness. The only other option, logically, would be...

Are you one of those people who has a problem with synonyms?

Yes, of course. Freedom necessarily involves randomness. Just not necessarily equiprobable randomness.

Are you asking for a literal time, or is that a way of asking "in what circumstances"? If the latter, it's simply a term for phenomena (occurrences) t...

People often choose what they do because they have more justification (stronger/better reasons, in their opinion, for choosing something) for it. This...

Will is a brain function. Freedom can occur anywhere, including brains.

Sorry, what? ;-) That second sentence doesn't make sense to me.

Yelling "bomb"? Yes, I'd not have that be illegal.

I'm a libertarian in many ways, although a socialist in other ways (mostly economic/social structure centered on economic concerns, etc.) . . . so tha...

No, not at all. Dennett arguably claims that consciousness is an "illusion" (ignoring whether that claim makes any sense).

Yes, of course. "S could pick B" is about whether it's ontologically possible to pick B. Justification has to do with WHY someone picked a choice that...

Yes, it does. You're asking a question about the implications for justification for whether there are real choices. The two have nothing at all to do ...