Huh? Maybe I should ask you to describe my colleague. If you're conflating ontology and epistemology, then you'll conclude there's no such colleague. ...
Well I'm not trying to be exhaustively accurate with error-free certainty, just chatting about the Moon. If you'd written "the Moon is a regular tetra...
, you introduced "smooth-edged orb"; "a spheroid within some margin of variation" is a bit better. Not that it matters much, though. Would you prefer ...
Emphasis added. In this context, the term round is how we already characterize the Moon, along with whatever other things. It's not a definition of th...
Here "round" doesn't mean (x - x_0)^2 + (y - y_0)^2 + (z - z_0)^2 = r^2 The shape of the Moon is largely a result of gravity and composition and whate...
Depends? If I observe "I'm in a great mood", then that fact is observer-dependent. If I observe "The Moon is round", then that fact is independent of ...
Doesn't logic tend to start with self-identity (the 1st law)? Something like ... x = x (ontological, anything that exists is itself and nothing else) ...
... strikes me as a textbook example of wishful thinking, appeal to consequence. Do you think an emotional existential crisis somehow makes this yearn...
Not by definition. You exist, I exist, my coffee cup exists ?, heck even my dreams exist, you're walking on it, your walking exists (when occurring), ...
Well that gave me a good chuckle. :D NPR Tweeted Declaration Of Independence, And Trump Supporters Flipped Out They didn't recognize the words and tho...
If they want to define existence in terms of something else, then that something else cannot exist. But it's rather trivial to exemplify, can't miss i...
So, @"Agustino", you're basically anti-news/communication, anti-science, anti-philosophy, anti a few other things, and a conspiracy theorist...? :D (l...
Along with this older article (among a few others), there seems to be a trend of sorts: Peter’s Choice Rick Perlstein, Feb 2017 Mother Jones A kind of...
A related inquiry: Suppose in a few centuries no living person has ever encountered the Harry Potter stories. It's a thought experiment. All that rema...
This writer seems to have lived it and had enough: Fundamentalism, racism, fear and propaganda: An insider explains why rural, Christian white America...
But fictions, fantasies, hallucinations, dreams and such do exist. Yet, if anything significant differentiates fictions/fantasies/hallucinations/dream...
Strange. Maybe not quite coherent? New Theory Nixes "Dark Energy": Says Time is Disappearing from the Universe Jose Senovilla via The Daily Galaxy Sep...
Wait, @"Bitter Crank", except according to some theologians, their deity can do the impossible, creatio ex nihilo. So much for the old metaphysical th...
:D 1. No, "nothing" is the missing complement of everything. 2. No, of course not. Nothing (Wikipedia) Nothingness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosoph...
@"Wayfarer", anything other than endless 3-dimensional space is difficult to imagine for a universe, isn't it? :) A simpleton universe could just be '...
Weird. For a bit I've had this showing up when logging in: /uploads/files/di/uviztpqzzetd186e.jpg But there isn't anything new in the Inbox. What give...
@"Wayfarer", I was thinking in terms of ontological self-identity, consistency. Your 'one' doesn't seem contradictory to me, not "impossible to concei...
How so? In reference to the further comments, of course it's impossible to observe anything if you're absent. You mean you can't imagine something you...
I tend towards realism (or anti-idealism) as well; alternatives just don't stack up. But of course the conundrums you brought up still apply. Who does...
Seems vaguely like modal realism? Well, it would have to be infinite in all possible aspects, at least, wouldn't it? Even then, I'm not quite convince...
@"Sam26", haven't you ever wondered why these NDE experiences tend to be visual (with the eyes safely situated in the body), and audio (with the eardr...
Sufficient reason can't apply to existence, the lot, everything, without circularity (e.g. existence is self-explanatory). Thus, if you want to apply ...
Sure, @"Harry Hindu", well, you could just hand me a dictionary/encyclopedia, those have plenty good definitions. But, there are no running elephants ...
Apropos, it seems we spoke past each other. :D (Too few definitions?) Here's another expression of my inquiry regarding existential claims: Is x somet...
I've come to depreciate definitions over time, in this context, not because they're useless or anything, but because their employment can be misleadin...
• MathJax basic tutorial and quick reference (2016) • LATEX Tutorials A PRIMER (2003) • Getting Started with LaTeX (1995) » Mathematical Symbols Note,...
We just watched "The Monster Among Us" (2008) on the Documentary channel. It's somewhat related to Islam, in part due to the unfortunate Israeli-Palen...
Among fundamentalists, extremists and fanatics, it so happens that religious scriptures can be interpreted either way. That's not limited to the Quran...
Thankye for the comments. I wasn't going for Platonism in particular, though Plato is the first articulation of such thinking I know of. There are a f...
Maybe it's easier to differentiate with examples. Gravity, rubble in the driveway, and many other things we encounter daily, we label physical. I'm gu...
Why not generalize the different kinds of stances/attitudes, or absence thereof, towards any proposition? In this case the proposition would then come...
If something can possess existence, then does that mean there can be something that possesses non-existence? What was the something then? Something th...
Nifty reasoning, @"Samuel Lacrampe". Well, of course Platonism implies Platonism. It looks like the term "eternal" is hitching a ride with proposition...
@"Samuel Lacrampe", doesn't that make the kalam/cosmological argument into an argument for Platonism instead, sort of...? It's commonly said that Plat...
For one, I think the "Whatever" part needs to be delineated. Otherwise we might just replace it with, well, whatever. What about causation then, all c...
Comments