T_Clark

Sure. I have no problem with that as long as you recognize that that particular way of breaking things up is not the only way of looking at it. It’s a...

I think you’re right, I should have been clearer about what was caused and what wasn’t. On the other hand, that’s sort of the point. Here is the salt ...

From what I've read in your posts, Aristotle's four causes are a major organizing principle of your metaphysics. I must admit I don't get it. I think ...

Alas, I will register as Republican tomorrow. To think it would ever come to this. Will I have to meet Donald Trump Jr.?

I was aware of the implications of what I wrote when I wrote it. Given your understanding of my political leanings, you might interpret this as irony.

Sometimes I think life is just that period beginning right after your father ejaculates and ending when some weird kid in Utah shoots you. Also rodeos...

Wait, I thought of a better one. Is that the copulating lips thingy again?

Is that the ellipsis thingy again?

Straw Man fallacy—where someone distorts, exaggerates, or misrepresents another person's original argument to make it easier to attack.

I get to be Newton.

What you call “faith communities” I call “metaphysical positions.” They are unavoidable and, as I’ve noted many times, cannot be proven or falsified.

It’s a feeling I get when I read poetry or fiction. My primary aesthetic medium is the written word. I like music and visual arts, but my relationship...

Amazingly, this is almost exactly what I wrote. This is you doing that fancy lawyer talk again, isn’t it.

As I noted, both are acceptable, but “different from” is preferred. BC’s example is not relevant.

I was not referring to comparisons in general. I was talking about two specific phrases—“different from” and “different than.” Your example—bigger tha...

The situation you describe is no different in principle from the one I described about the LIGO system. You can claim that everything in the universe ...

The point of my OP is that thinking about things that way is not necessarily useful and can be misleading.

This surprises me. I think of you as intellectually committed to a holistic approach. As I see it, reductionism and causality go hand-in-hand. As a ci...

Although there seems to be some disagreement, “different than” and “different from” are both acceptable, but “different from” seems to be preferred.

What are the efficient causes of evolution? I don’t get that. It’s certainly different than my understanding of final cause.

Do distant galaxies influence everyday activities here on earth? Sure, recent studies of gravity waves show they can have an influence from billions o...

I call causality a metaphysical principle. Is that what you mean by "epistemic construct?"

Again--but sometimes the concept of causality is just not a useful one.

I think you're talking about the same thing I was when I discussed the idea of cause only being useful when we can separate the events in question fro...

Causality is practical, useful, to scientists sometimes. Sometimes not. Physicists more often than biologists. I don't see how the kinds of issues I'm...

It seems to me that the cause people are talking about when they talk about everything having a cause is efficient cause. Do you disagree? Maybe I sho...

We forever debate everything without progress.

We should go back to the emdash and endash. Jamal will perhaps be pleased to know that I’ve started using the emdash instead of hyphen. I still can’t ...

Are maples native to Australia? Have they been transplanted there?

Around my house, squash soup usually means acorn squash, which I am not particularly fond of.

Didn’t Roosevelt become president when McKinley was killed? I could look that up, but I’m not going to.

All pumpkins are squashes, but not all squashes are pumpkins.

I just received an email from Medicare. That’s something that happens often when you get to be my age here in the US. This time, though it came direct...

I don’t understand.

But seriously, don’t you ever read a legal argument or decision that you think is beautiful, wonderful? I do.

I tripped across this on the web. It’s the clearest definition of statistical mechanics that I’ve found.

For what it’s worth, I’ve also found beauty in well thought out and well written legal decisions.

That’s the number of posts you’ve made that don’t include the word “pomegranate”

https://www.tkm.kit.edu/downloads/TKM1_2011_more_is_different_PWA.pdf

I have made the argument that there is beauty in a set of construction specifications.

I must admit it was just a passing fancy and I haven’t put much thought in it. I guess that means I don’t know. Hard to pick just one. For poetry I’ll...

Two words I like: Erstwhile — it means “former,” but its meaning is difficult to pick up from context so it is often misused as meaning something like...

Congratulations.

The article doesn’t say anything about humans being seeded by aliens. It says that some of the components for life might have been transported to eart...

This is simple. Murders are generally discussed as local news, which is appropriate. When you expand the discussion beyond that, you’ve already made a...

The definition of “substance” I was using refers to a physical material. The word has several other meanings, but they don’t seem applicable to this c...

The Boston school system has addressed this problem by requiring all students to study Spanish.

After this whole discussion started, I went doing a little research on Google and in the SEP. What I found is consistent with what you’re writing. The...

There’s a great deal of skepticism, even hostility, here on the forum to the idea that introspection, self-awareness, and intuition are fundamental to...

I’m aware that it’s controversial, but that wasn’t my main point. I was just trying to show that it is unreasonable to assume that language is necessa...