Banno

How do you measure "the scope of what is considered to constitute an organism"?

Indeed; any given attempt at a definition must be left extensible, for just this sort of reason. But if an essence is understood to be the necessary a...

What difference is there between claiming that a virus is alive, and claiming otherwise? What will we measure?

And yet you previously claimed: So from where do you derive whatever you call the "essence"?

How do you deter min that you have collected all the "essential features of all the many different instances of usage" in order to show that you have ...

...again, there need be no essential features.

What difference does it make?

Sure; if it makes a difference.

An individual's height varies by about a centimetre each day. One is taller in the morning than in the evening, and the compression of the spine chang...

More than just a sliding scale; the scale needs to be extendable as well, and not just in one dimension. Edit: Indeed, you seem to accept this in your...

Snowflakes and other crystals build on their "recorded" shape. It's not a bad definition, but I don't think it gets there. And that's the point I want...

Indeed.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/7400430-3x2-700x467.jpg Kick like a girl.

One more time: If the issue is body mass, then segregate sport on the basis of body mass. Example: Boxing; it already segregates based on body mass. S...

not only cannot, but also need not,and indeed should not. Need not because we get by without them; and should not because doing so leads on to hold to...

Not "Do undo others before they undo you"?

Here's the issue: Gender is not about muscle mass. If you want to segregate based on muscle mass, do so; stop pretending that it has to do with the da...

What benefit accrues in extending the definition of 'life' to encompass artificial intelligence? I don't see why we could not extend intelligence, con...

It's all going swimmingly, isn't it!

...for the next exciting episode.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflationary_theory_of_truth#Tarski_and_deflationary_theories

Details? The Wiki pages have long been a convolute mess with regard to this.

I wrote my last before reading your post about Tarski. We may be thinking along the same lines. But What did Tarski say about redundancy?

For all the pretence of adhering to formal logic hereabouts, there has been little mention of the common definition of truth in formal logic in terms ...

Indeed; as if there were no difference between P and ~P except thinking makes it so. Such folk do not live in the real world, and are pretty much not ...

This would only work is intelligent were better understood than life. It isn't. My point here is not to assist in deriving a suitable definition; that...

The redundancy view is simply the observation that "P" and "it is true that:P" have the same truth value. That is, one will be true if, and only if, t...

It's too vague to be understood.

Fire is not just energy; it is a process in which organic matter oxidises rapidly.

No, I am not.

That does not appear to meet with my understanding of anomalous monism, nor with for example, IEP.

Of course not. There is no essence to compare my use to. All there is, is the use to which others put the word.

Long ago I did some work, following Neils Brunsson, on why organisations are irrational. The idea is that an organisation is set up for a particular t...

That's just not true. We all use words correctly without ever setting out exact definitions. I don't know if the tree fern outside my window is actual...

But it is not a metaphysical distinction. The correct use of "Metaphysician Undercover" is not a reference to the essence of Metaphysician Undercover.

"Whereof one cannot speak..." was never so true as in theology. Anything said about god is wrong.

Exactly right, Hanover. Any statement setting out a definition of truth will be flawed. But what can not be said can be shown. We might have three dis...

https://theconversation.com/snout-sniff-and-sneeze-the-language-of-the-nose-76043

I remember when that book came out. I had a country mate who saw the title and dismissed it with "Real men eat what they bloody well like."

Fire fits this list.

You are quite right to enter into this discussion, Meta; this is exactly the issue I have with your approach to philosophy, and seems to me to be the ...

All right, I will up the anti and claim that it is often impossible to identify an essence. I have in mind here the commonplace rejection of the notio...

Thanks for giving my potshot such a thoughtful reply. If I understand you, you are pointing out that ethical value depends on context. Your example is...

The difference is that at any one time one experiences only the experiences for that time.

Sure.

Sure. I'm just drawing attention to the fact that "p implies p" is true in any interpretation.

Not sure about this. For example, it's clear that disease is bad; that's not something that is only accepted as a result of cultural indoctrination......

This supposed problem is trivially resolved. The transience of a statement can be resolved with a few indexicals - "it is raining" becomes "it is rain...

God has a cold??

Hm. A noble goal, but in modern logic truth is defined in terms of satisfaction. What you appear to have done is provide three sorts of statements, an...