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Isaac

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I didn't claim the state of the weather was dependent on anyone's beliefs about it. I said that the state of the weather can only be understood in ter...
August 05, 2020 at 10:36
This is the issue. How can something be false regarding the weather absent of anyone's beliefs about it. The state of the weather can only be understo...
August 05, 2020 at 10:31
Sort of. I actually hold to Ramsey's solution that truth dissolves to the success of beliefs, so I think the paradox has been solved, but I agree ther...
August 05, 2020 at 10:22
I don't understand why you're having such trouble with this concept. Uncertainty in one approach is not a reason to adopt an alternative approach unle...
August 05, 2020 at 10:14
Only on the assumption that "P is true" means "I believe that P is true, or I wish to give the impression I believe P is true". That's the origin of t...
August 05, 2020 at 10:07
It does. It says that a healthy left inferior frontal gyrus is required to grasp that particular bit of it. Which is all I'm saying about using fMRI s...
August 05, 2020 at 09:50
Something about which propositions can be formed. Edit - I'm not saying I agree with Wittgenstein here. I'm just saying that standard interpretations ...
August 05, 2020 at 09:44
Right. But we're not necessarily talking about simultaneously believing both, not yet. All with have are two propositions with two different truth-mak...
August 05, 2020 at 09:06
As ever, a lack of certainty in the sciences is not a reason to accept even less certain conclusions from just 'having a bit if a think' about it. How...
August 05, 2020 at 08:55
Right. So now you have to ask yourself why this is the case. Why is it that "It is raining outside" - when and if if spoken sincerely - is spoken by a...
August 05, 2020 at 08:28
Everyone is going to put up with that whatever happens, otherwise it wouldn't be 'power' would it? People in power are going to use their gut to make ...
August 05, 2020 at 07:23
Indeed. Moore's question was “Why is it absurd for me to say something true about myself?”. My answer is that it isn't absurd at all, as can be seen f...
August 05, 2020 at 07:18
It leaves accepting that we're a social species and not everything can be resolved by having an argument. If a young offender from a poor gang-dominat...
August 05, 2020 at 07:09
Classic. You do realise the irony? "No matter how intractable our differences seem to be we have no better choice than to just try to resolve them thr...
August 05, 2020 at 06:30
Narrating a film or book in the present tense is not a misuse of tense it's an accepted narrative device, even though it's understood the portrayed ev...
August 05, 2020 at 06:19
Sorry, didn't notice the double negative. Seems like an odd point to make in the light of the discussion (like you'd have to explain to anyone here wh...
August 05, 2020 at 06:18
Macintosh watches a video his third friend made of the evening showing himself and the window behind him, he exclaims - perfectly coherently - "Look a...
August 04, 2020 at 17:00
What I'm struggling to understand is the means by which you're distinguishing how people want others to see them from the way they really think. Isn't...
August 04, 2020 at 13:13
Anything. A somewhat idiosyncratic use of 'points'. I don't think you quite mean by it the same thing as others do. To say 'points to' seems ti me to ...
August 04, 2020 at 13:10
How is the 'social mask' not part of what people really think?
August 04, 2020 at 12:59
I don't understand what you're having trouble with. We associate certain areas of the brain with certain types of mental activity because they consist...
August 04, 2020 at 12:53
I don't think this thread has a point as such (it's just a poll), so I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this. This seems at odds with Is it th...
August 04, 2020 at 12:44
Sums up your entire arguments in all of your most recent posts. Your confusion about the fact that what seems to you to be the case has no bearing at ...
August 04, 2020 at 07:23
Why 'must' there? Why, contrary to all the psychological and neurological evidence, do you keep insisting that their feelings that these are good reas...
August 04, 2020 at 07:05
Non-profit making companies are not allowed to make a profit to give something back to their investors. That's the whole point. Otherwise they'd be a ...
August 04, 2020 at 06:22
No, that's not all you're saying at all, if it were, I'd have no problem with it. You're saying that they should continue to figure out why they still...
August 04, 2020 at 06:12
That's the method I'm talking about. You keep referring to this 'accounting for', or here 'appeal to' without specifying how such activities are suppo...
August 03, 2020 at 20:30
Fair enough. A rhetorical whimsy on my part. Really? If you think your method is literally all that's left after discarding those two options then you...
August 03, 2020 at 18:17
It's difficult to say. Largely because of the caveats about moral statements being somewhat definitional. "Hitting babies is morally wrong" can be tru...
August 03, 2020 at 13:26
Imagine everyone in the world has a chip implanted in their brain which generates a random number and a strong feeling that this is the 'right' number...
August 03, 2020 at 08:42
Dodging the point. The point was that people do not do the accounting method you're suggesting we should do and yet do not end up in some kind of mora...
August 03, 2020 at 08:23
Agreed. What practice? You've still yet to provide the details. Scientific 'accounting' method = theory, controlled trial, statistical analysis, quali...
August 03, 2020 at 07:50
Don't take any notice of the "everyone not an objectivist is a moral nihilist" rhetoric. It's just a lazy way of poisoning the alternative arguments l...
August 03, 2020 at 07:02
I'm not quite sure how to fulfil this request, I've quite a lot of papers on file covering this (more than 50) as it's a sort of 'proof by exception'....
August 03, 2020 at 06:38
Yes, I can sympathise with that, but I think if one were to avoid using words whose definition consisted of loose, fuzzy collections of properties one...
August 02, 2020 at 17:28
I'll dig out a few papers tomorrow when I'm at my computer. Basically, we use the word 'moral' to describe a wide range of decisions (behaviours to ch...
August 02, 2020 at 17:23
Understood. It was a comment about Pfhorrest's systemetising, but applies equally to any "I can work out what is morally right"type of algorithm which...
August 02, 2020 at 17:07
The question wasn't about what they usually intend. It was about what it was necessary for them to aim for.
August 02, 2020 at 16:31
But that leads us back to the fact that not-for-profit companies exist and are not bankrupt. So if a company is not required to make a profit by it's ...
August 02, 2020 at 16:12
But the issue is whether some category of legal entity needs to make a profit. There can only be two possibilities 1) Making a profit is part of the r...
August 02, 2020 at 15:48
Right. So what were you talking about when you said... That's now like listing reasons why a bachelor needs to remain unmarried.
August 02, 2020 at 15:36
What defines a businesses then?
August 02, 2020 at 15:20
This doesn't seem to make sense. In the first part you say that a business which doesn't make profits is in trouble. In the second you say there are o...
August 02, 2020 at 13:28
The community of language users using the word 'word' for a shared reason. How? If I say "duck!" just because I've learnt to say that word when a golf...
August 02, 2020 at 13:04
Phewee! Ugh! What have you been eating?
August 02, 2020 at 12:45
Exactly. We've yet to be graced with any details on this 'accounting' process, which sounds suspiciously like providing some post hoc rationalisation ...
August 02, 2020 at 07:59
Subtly biased? I'd hate to read anything of his that was not subtle then. Perhaps he wrote a piece entitled "Everything is absolutely fine, please don...
August 02, 2020 at 07:18
Well then they do exist, don't they?
August 02, 2020 at 06:29
Sounds are not 'made into' words, they are sometimes referenced by words, sometimes even byt eh word 'word', but I can't make any sense of them being ...
August 02, 2020 at 06:19
Yes, it seems that way to me too, especially when, as I was trying to show with my Pavlovian trigger examples, we end up that way having something whi...
August 01, 2020 at 06:28