T_Clark

How about complex IQ. What's your IQ? 117 + 6i.

I can. No.

That can be your new catchphrase. Mine is "Nuff said." Nuff said.

In 1912, Bertrand Russell wrote "On the Notion of Cause" in which he makes the argument that causation is not a useful way of thinking about the world...

People used to think that there must be a luminiferous aether because they thought that electromagnetic waves had to have a medium to propagate throug...

Yes. Science is all about finding out situations where our intuition is wrong. Intuition doesn't come from the great beyond, it can be changed by expe...

If this is true, and I think it is, why can't spacetime bend? Everything put into language is a reification of something. Every word is reification. R...

Seems to me, most ideas refer back, or at least originally referred back, to something at human scale. That certainly makes sense with "space." Of cou...

I think that Zeno's arrow paradox and performative contradictions, a term I hadn't heard before, are examples of what we call paradoxes. I agree they ...

Unless I've misunderstood what your trying to say, this: is a good example of this: Or is that your point?

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81-UmB4v46L._AC_UL480_FMwebp_QL65_.jpg

Given that you and I are reasonable people, does that mean there are some subjects we should not be able to talk about? That doesn't make sense to me.

Yes. My point is that the term "reasonable" can apply to arguments but not to subjects.

I laid out what I see as the requirements for being a philosopher. The people I listed all met those requirements. My point was to show that my set of...

I had a thought that I think we both can agree is a good one. I plan to avoid discussions with you in the future.

I'm still lost. I don't see what this has to do with causation or creation.

As I said, if I fail, criticize me for my failure, as I am criticizing you for yours. Are you proposing these as standards by which philosophical argu...

I'm willing to be judged by that standard. When I fail to meet them, and I sometimes do, I deserve criticism. Have at it.

Epistemology is the study of how we know things. I'm confused by the way you're using the word. Sorry, I'm lost. What flocking birds and the cells of ...

Just to make sure I've got this right. Requiring arguments based on knowledge and reason rather than prejudice is setting the bar too high. Is that co...

That is my understanding of the whole purpose of science.

I think you've broadened the definition of the words "causation" and "creation" to the point where they've lost their meaning. If you look at definiti...

But that's really the problem for me. Except in the very simplest situations we can't trace events back very far. When we can, we find that there are ...

My comment was not intended as criticism against you. I was just being wittily self-deprecatory. Or self-deprecatorily witty. Or something like that.

I don't endorse religion, I endorse arguments based on knowledge and reason rather than prejudice. I don't see what more needs to be said. Your questi...

I don't agree. "Philosopher" is a good name for what Aristotle, Plato, Russell, Wittgenstein, and all those other guys are. It's a useful term.

@"Angelo Cannata" provided clear, plausible, documented evidence that your interpretation of the change from polytheism to monotheism is not correct. ...

This is just about the most pitiful, lame argument I've seen since being on the forum, and that's saying a lot. You should be ashamed. You're lucky th...

Your explanation seems like a plausible one. I did check, and you're right. There the consensus seems to be that it was a social and cultural movement...

When I took the test, it said I was "purty smart."

https://i-6uf0utvje8gy-cdn.plushcontent.com/uploads/resized/files/6q/yxc3uvvq4sujt8vu.png

If that were true, it would completely devalue what calling someone a philosopher signifies. It would become meaningless. If you and I are philosopher...

I was trying to remember what Pinker wrote about sign language in "The Language Instinct." When I looked on the web, I came up with this about deaf ch...

Interesting. Thanks.

Chomsky, Pinker, et. al. claim that children do not learn grammar, they invent it new every time. If you talk to them in grammarless pidgin, they will...

I am multi-semi-lingual.

My brother and I went to Europe together in 2014. He had lived in France for three years and is fluent. As I wrote, I took one year of German in 1971 ...

I think you're probably right, but I was looking for a little more. I took German as a freshman in college and immediately felt at home in the languag...

Sure. There are lots of bad engineers, but they're still engineers. Ditto doctors, butchers, elephant trainers, Presidents of the United States.

I know they are from the same language group. That has always fascinated me. I was asking whether @"god must be atheist" could recognize similarities.

I don't think it's a figure of speech at all. It's just one of the usages allowed by the definition of the word "see." From Merriam Webster:

You're Hungarian, isn't that right? Do you see any similarities between the Finnish and Hungarian languages?

I was only talking about what I thought you needed to do to call yourself a philosopher, not necessarily what you need to do in order to be a good phi...

You'll just have to wait to see.

I'm kind of lost. Tired Thinker asked "What is a philosopher?" I gave my answer. It seems a pretty straightforward answer to a straightforward questio...

The question is "What is a philosopher?" That's the question I intended to answer. Seems like you want to know how to do philosophy. Not a bad questio...

Given that the career path for a philosopher is much less well defined than that for an engineer, I thought I spelled it out fairly clearly.

I don't mean professional as in academic and I don't think you necessarily would need to have any specific education. I committed my life to being an ...

More time, attention, effort, discipline. More risk associated with failure; e.g. loss of money, status, reputation. Just like any other profession.

Let's think of philosophy as a profession. What do other professions require? I was an engineer for 30 years. What standard did I meet? Appropriate ed...