T_Clark

Facts are the content of knowledge. If not, what is the relationship between the two? This is at JTB spiral I was talking about. Have you never partic...

The world is the world. It doesn’t have and it doesn’t need any underpinnings. Metaphysics is the underpinnings of how we think about the world. This ...

Metaphysics is just a bunch of stories we tell ourselves. And by "we" I mean philosophers. And by "tell ourselves" I mean make up. Then we pretend wha...

Alas.

Here’s what Stephen J. Gould had to say -

Yes, I believe that is Dawkins’ book on this subject. I haven’t read it. I’ve only read what other people say about it. He certainly knows a lot more ...

Richard Dawkins has claimed that reproduction is just a way for genes to replicate themselves. I think that’s a question of perspective and not defini...

This is from Verse Two of Gia-Fu Fengs translation of the Tao Te Ching - Difficult and easy are playing the same game. Front and back are playing the ...

Oops, my answer is “no.”

My answer is “no.” I think they’re both exactly the same except that one is much more complex than the other. In addition, the DNA reaction ends up pr...

I think if it like two football teams. They’re playing in opposition to each other, but they’re both playing the same game by the same rules.

My position throughout this discussion has been that teleology does not mean just that one event leads, through a chain of events, to another event. H...

It’s pretty clear that human actions often have goals and purposes. By my reading, the OP raises a broader question of teleology as it applies to the ...

I looked at a few definitions of “intention” on the web. They fell into two groupings 1) as a near synonym for goal or purpose 2) as a mental state. T...

Beige salad.

Looks more like a baked Hallucigenia. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/H._sparsa.jpg/330px-H._sparsa.jpg

Beyond that, what matters to me isn’t necessarily the same thing that matters to you. I see this as a really personal question, at least for me. Yes, ...

As I said to Pierre-Normand, there’s no way you and I are going to come to a common understanding on this.

Agreed.

Not sure what you mean by this.

Because it’s useful to me - intellectually or practically.

Sorry, it was my second post on this thread.

Did you read my first post in this thread? Maybe you don’t want to call what I’ve described “intuition,” although I think that’s a good word for it. I...

This would be fine if he were presenting this as philosophy or spiritualism, but he’s presenting it as science.

I think I explained what I meant by intuition pretty clearly in my first post.

This looks like a great paper. Thanks.

Agreed, but I would say only where there is intention. I guess that means human or other outside intervention.

That’s not it. I don’t want to discuss it any further here because this whole discussion grows out of the fact that we’re using the word teleology in ...

No. We are clearly not going to get any further with this discussion. Your understanding of teleology makes the whole thing trivial. Of course the hea...

I think you’re right, but my original response was to the OP, which appeared to describe a more general form of teleology. If I’m wrong about that, @"...

I left out something I had planned to say. In science at least, there's a difference between where an idea comes from and how it has to be presented a...

That's certainly true in some cases. This is a quote of Kepler by E.A. Burtt in "The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science." Burtt describes Kepl...

Thermostats, sure. They are designed by people for a particular purpose. People have goals, e.g. I'm saving money so my children can go to college. Do...

This is what Wikipedia says about teleology: I think it’s perfectly accurate to describe that the way I did - as the future, reaching back to influenc...

In my case, I am sure that the conceptual model of the world I carry around with me is based on experience, including formal learning, and innate fact...

No naturally occurring sequence of events happens this way and only the extremely simplest artificial ones do, e.g. billiard balls. Nothing real is ev...

I think my answer to that is pretty idiosyncratic. I've talked about it on the forum before. I carry a model of the world around inside me, in my mind...

My reaction to philosophy is not aesthetic at all. It might matter to me whether something is well written, but that’s mostly just so it’s easier to u...

A statement that can’t be verified or falsified, even in theory, does not have a truth value. Metaphysical statements can’t be verified or falsified.

I’m not bothered by the politics, I’m bothered by the misuse of language.

I think the term doesn’t really make any sense in any situation I can think of. Most countries have multiparty political systems. Even in the US, ther...

I was thinking the same thing. From a Taoist perspective, time ends when naming ends.

Enough. I’m done.

Show us. At least provide references.

You haven’t provided any evidence for this fundamental reworking of everything anybody knows about physics and cosmology. You don’t show in any fashio...

From my point of view, this is the right way to think about it. Assuming there is no way, even in theory, to determine what happens at the end of time...

To put things in perspective, it’s estimated at 50 million people were killed in World War II. Just prior to the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, t...

There's a gift I give people for Christmas from time to time. I take a Christmas tree ornament, take a picture of it, and then break it. I put the bro...

Yeah, what's up with that? Here are the three formulations. Act only according to that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it becom...

I don’t think this is nitpicking - rather than “why” I would say “how.” How do I know what to do next without reference to conventional morality or ex...