Isaac

I can't see how you square... ...with... ...? It's not like literally every analyst thinks Ukraine are going to survive long-term now. Some do, some d...

A word can't be defined as a thing. That's the whole point of Wittgenstein's argument against reference. We use the word pain, it does a job, it's not...

Agreed. If Russia won any territory here, the only way one could invoke the threat of nuclear weapons as a factor would be in keeping US involvement a...

No. It argues that "If nuclear threats or the actual use of nuclear weapons leads to the defeat of Ukraine..." It offers no argument at all suggesting...

OK, I'm interested in the idea of a compassionate, caring individualist. There's over a million children in Yemen right now on the brink of starvation...

Well then that's to do, not with the distribution, but the power of the participants to freely negotiate. Coming up with a 'right' way to distribute p...

I've literally said that people could be grouped by any means (used dog owners as an example, if I recall). Owning a dog is not an opinion. We're not ...

There's also PlosOne's rather poor record on peer review... Nonetheless. I think an explanation without taking social influence into account is ridicu...

So... Is of no use to anyone since you're a 'Westerner' and so "don't have any frame of reference for understanding what happened in the USSR". Or are...

It's relevant only insofar as the majority decision in some place carries only a pragmatic weight, not a moral one. Majorities are not just automatica...

Yes, that's why I referred to any such grouping. I have no idea what this means, I'm afraid. Everyone is in a place, so we could include that place in...

'Pain' is a word. Yet... ...is a direct claim about existence resulting from the use of a word. Exactly. "If..." The existence is not given by the use...

Not really, but the question is whether the social change is allowing undiagnosed cases to come forward or actually creating cases. The problem I have...

Agreed, as to the difference, and also the significance of that difference. I suppose I'm less trusting of pharmaceuticals, we can agree to differ on ...

From the article... Exactly the same as the challenge I'm using.

Because the word 'doubt' has no meaning in that context. Doubt is used when the data is lacking, but the data can't be lacking about pain because we t...

In my view, it's the essence of the confusion here. We use words 'consciousness', 'I', 'thinking', 'redness', 'experience'... And there's an expectati...

In what way? I'm trying to get how a fact about reality is supposed to be implied by a fact about language. The word 'doubt' is used in such a way as ...

I don't see the point you're making. Wittgenstein here seems to be supporting anomalous monism if anything. He's pointing out what it "makes sense" to...

4) Anomalous Monism

'Thinking' is not only known to be practised by these certain entities. we didn't discover 'thinking' and then look around for anything which had it. ...

I'm afraid incredulity isn't an argument. Doubt is quite a complex state of mind, I think, but it usually seems to come from a having less data about ...

I didn't say there was no answer, I said there was no moral weight to it. There's no way it ought to be done. There are, of course, multiple ways it c...

It's not that there's no polities. One could create any such grouping - {all dog owners} - for example. It's... 1) a border does not create such a gro...

Except... 1990 — Namibia gets independence from occupying South Africa. 1991, May 18 — Somaliland declares independence from Somalia but is not recogn...

This, I think, is "I(I) have a doubt (D)" in Russell's notation. \exists x(Ix \wedge \forall y(Iy \to y = x) \wedge Dx) I see the existence of 'I' bei...

I think possibly the counterargument being made here is that the distribution of profits doesn't have a moral component - in other words, there's no a...

What? If I have doubts that proves that having doubt implies a thinking being? How? What is the process of logical implication?

Where have I declared any such thing? This is pointless if you you're just going to make up stuff I said. If you ever feel like engaging with what I w...

Good, so we're agreed then that keeping borders where they are is neither a guarantor of peace, nor necessary to ensure it.

Well they set it out. Set out the logical implication in one of the standard forms of logical notation so we can check its validity.

No. Not 'in other words' at all. What I've said about the lack of cultural natural groups and the issue of unified common goals are totally separate. ...

Right. so... ...is patently false. The question was whether it should (as the USSR wanted (the Chechen-Ingush ASSR) or shouldn't. There's no 'right' a...

It's generally been the report of the clinicians involved There was a swathe of resignations form Tavistock before it was closed and most cited an env...

That's true, to a point. But as I said. The Mermaids campaign slogan is not "things are fine just as they are, but let's not let them get worse". If t...

Absolutely. Which is why the way forward is not to be found in company organisation, but rather in progressive taxation. The population and future pop...

Weird how those most dogmatic about the unquestionable 'truth' of sciences known full well to be biased are the same ones adamant about the bias in sc...

No. We're not in a world where Russia are going to withdraw from eastern Ukraine either. Why the sudden burst of pragmatism? The topic was the motives...

I'm not. Not once have I 'demanded evidence' for phenomenal consciousness' If you can't follow a simple argument there's little point continuing. try ...

Yes. I wouldn't want to deny a Bishop moves diagonally in chess either. Doesn't mean there's a scientific explanation lacking for why. Human cultures ...

Sure, but same goes for a load of people getting together to do anything. Run a marathon. Clear mines. Save lives in wars zones. There's nothing uniqu...

Where have I said that?

How's that working out for the citizens of Iraq? Libya? I suppose the ethnic violence in Rwanda was just a bit of high jinx. Somalia? Sudan? Myanmar? ...

Shh!

You are. Your only evidence Dir the existence of an entity/event in need of explanation is that we use the word 'experience'. Other than that, you can...

Phew! That's good to hear. Global climate change is sorted then.

'Aiming' is not a measure, it's political rhetoric. And the argument was supposed to be supporting the notion that Europe considered itself under grow...

... You haven't done anything yet.

Classic.

Exactly. And also true of foreign policy in general. No efforts were put in place to significantly reduce reliance on Russian exports, no efforts were...