Marchesk

That tends to happen naturally anyway. Are you just promoting meritocracy? Flesh that out for other aspects of life in addition to work. How is the su...

Amazon produced the first season of a tv series based on a Ray Bradbury short story where the Axis won WW2. It's called 'The Man in the High Castle', ...

I will agree with Augistino in one sense. Societies do determine what the fundamental values are. I happen to grow in a society where equality, justic...

I don't know. Seems like the tech billionaires did alright for themselves. Bill Gates was the richest person in the world for how long? How influentia...

But in most societies it's already the case that people can find all sorts of ways to end up better off than others financially, in terms of status qu...

So you think people should be required to socialize with you even if they can't stand your views? I think people should be free to socialize with whom...

Better than others in what way, though? Athletically, intellectually, better at making money, better at exploiting and manipulating, being more beauti...

Being treated equally means that you can express your opinion freely without legal consequence. Some people might not like you for that, but they are ...

I don't think a coherent philosophical argument can be made for the objective existence of inherent rights. The best anyone can do is invoke God, and ...

There isn't any such thing, except as we decide there are intrinsic rights. My opinion is that deciding there are makes for a better world for everyon...

He just has strong opinions, particularly when it comes to politics, and calling him a "Commie", even in jest, is a conservative meme that will be see...

This well end well. *Pulls up chair, waits on Landru to join discussion.*

So what the hell does it mean to live well then? We might live moment by moment, but we're constantly thinking about the past and the future, and we m...

I just think the kind of rhetoric you're using is very divisive. The other side using the same tactic. The result is to polarize people. But hey, if i...

Jesus man, this is not promoting a healthy democracy. I get it that the other side decided to play mean and dirty in their interest of power, but this...

No, I'm arguing that you call them that for the same reason conservatives call you evil.

Ah, so a controversial issue and it's entire history can be boiled down to just one thing. By best, you mean the scholarship that boils it down to one...

Energy use is expected to double by 2050, so renewables would have to do more than replace the current demand. They would also have to meet the demand...

And it's also good for making the opposition look bad. If we're on the side of righteousness and those evil, selfish, greedy bastards are out to drink...

Does it? How has the Supreme Court and constitutional scholars traditionally understood the issue? You make it sound like it was well understood to ju...

It is useful, and I was wondering how universals might play a role in the debate over scientific realism. It sounds like Kantianism is a strong versio...

I understand that you accept that facts, and that theories have to be formulated by minds. Nevertheless, the theories that have been formulated state ...

I'm not saying he wasn't, but you stated that the view from nowhere is impossible for us, and yet science posits deep time in which there were no huma...

Are you trying to say that people who disagree with your position are evil?

Well, I can almost always be having more pleasure or pain than I currently am. So I don't understand what hedonism is supposed to accomplish ethically...

If it's anti-scientific, then why do scientists posit such things? If you don't think they do, then go ask a physicists if GR or QM applies to the ent...

What good does making statements like that do except preach to the choir? For that matter, what good does it do to state that Americans like murder wh...

What makes it disgusting? GR and QM are said to apply to the entire cosmos. It is an inference that can be shown incorrect, but the problem of univers...

I tried to explain, but it's been considered a problem in philosophy since the Ancient Greeks.

It's not a problem if one accepts the reality of universals. It is if one doesn't. Then you need to account for laws of nature some other way. To say ...

Yes, but it's saying more than that. It's saying that it's true for the entire cosmos, which is impossible to test. We have an expectation that when w...

Well, Some philosophers don't think that universities are real. Does this imply a kind of strong emergence for universals then? Could you have predict...

The contradiction comes from stating that we can't get outside our perspective to say what the world is like without us, and yet very important and su...

I may have made a mistake here in my characterization of the problem. It's not just that particulars have similarities. It's that we universalize over...

Lakoff and Johnson would say so. In their Philosophy in the Flesh book, they traced Plato's forms to utilization of the kind metaphor. I don't think t...

Realism in this debate means there are universals in addition to particulars, either in the particulars themselves, or some other realm. Maybe there a...

I stated that universals are an explanation for similarities, and that if one wishes to dispense with universals, then particulars must play the role ...

There is that. I recall reading where some physicists have speculated that the fundamental constants vary over time. But I don't know if there is any ...

If that's the case, then how does our universalizing work at all? How is it that we can categorize anything, or notice relationships between any parti...

Maybe so? If tropes can do the work, then there is no need for universals in one's philosophy. The question is can they? I take it that's an ongoing d...

It is accounting for the similarities that is problematic. We experience similarities among particulars. How is that? What is going on? For one thing,...

To put the problem as simply as possible, particulars are particulars because they are unique. And yet these unique particulars seem to have attribute...

The problem is that we're able to successfully compare particulars. If all there are is particulars in the world, then where does the comparison come ...

Even though Kantians make a strong argument, the big problem with it is that our best scientific theories say something very different. They describe ...

The essential problem of universals is that we experience a world of particulars, yet our language is full of properties, relations, and kinds. That's...

Why do we describe all neutrinos using the same predicates? Has the problem been addressed by using different words?

So are you arguing for conceptualism here? I'm not quite clear what you're saying. Are you saying that it is necessary for any mind to understand the ...

Okay, I can agree with this. Can we then say that science requires the utilization of universal concepts to build its theories? Now If science isn't a...

It is a problematic notion, but the alternative is to explain all our universalizing in terms of particulars only. Because if the particulars can't do...

I don't know. Can particulars be and not be X? If not, then is the law of excluded middle an observation derived from that fact?