T_Clark

I read somewhere that untreated tetanus can make you gay.

As I've said many times before, white people as a group don't like or trust black people as a group. Claiming the solution is to just treat people lik...

I think this is a good example of one of the reasons paying reparations is a bad idea. There are enough people out there who feel as you do that it wi...

Pardon my skepticism. Reconciling quantum mechanics and relativity is one of the most difficult issues in physics right now. It seems unlikely that th...

I think that's optimistic. I hope not. What do you mean you don't trust them? What obligation do they have to use the money to benefit people in the f...

As I noted in another post in this thread:

This is another one of those presumptuous, condescending statements we were talking about. You can't set yourself up as a spokesperson for black peopl...

I understand what you were trying to say, but I stand by my judgment it is insulting and demeaning. As I said, it won't work and it'll make things wor...

Engineers are allowed to have a defeatist attitude, we're just supposed to justify it rationally, which I think I've done.

My original statement was. That's all I was trying to say, not that I personally thought it undermined mathematics, just that some mathematicians thin...

It's not that they've been screwed from day one, it's that they are being screwed right now. Well, it hasn't worked so far and recently the government...

I strongly disagree. For the record, I am a 72 year-old, white, liberal American. Am I correct in assuming you are also white? Presumptuous - how are ...

This is an interesting way of looking at it, but I think many would say if we don't determine our will, we don't have free will. You've defined the pr...

This is certainly nowhere near my area of expertise, so I'll punt: Also, this is from an article that describes a more radical interpretation.

If I remember correctly, Russell, Wittgenstein, and others.

Alas.

As I noted, I don't see how the fact that word meanings are matters of convention, symbols, is relevant in this context.

Sure. But this is true of everything - everything expressible as a concept. I'm not sure how this fits into this discussion, but there is a physical p...

I don't understand you metaphor of words as mirrors. The liars statement is a grammatically correct proposition with a very clear meaning. Our difficu...

Our thoughts are us, although there's more to us than just that,

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The question of free will usually arises when we talk about determinism - if everything is determined by the motio...

Welcome. Now I'll give you the T Clark metaphysics quiz - Have you read "An Essay on Metaphysics" by R.G. Collingwood. No one but Collingwood, I, and ...

I don't know much about stoicism, but I thought this might be of interest. It's from "The Principles of Art" by R.G. Collingwood.

Yes, that's all ironic and self-referential and stuff.

Yes, I think that's it. It's happened to me a bunch of times.

Despair.

Well, they call me King Turd up here on Shit Mountain If you want it, you can have the crown “You can have the crown” by Sturgill Simpson - I love cou...

As I noted, if you want to start a new thread, I will participate.

This is an odd argument. We're not talking about how "poetry" was used was 2,500 years ago, we're talking about how it is used now. I don't think poet...

I think you're trying too hard to make Rorty not look like a putz. I'm not a poetry snob at all, but I can see that poetry does something different th...

I think Rorty's explanation of poetry shows he has no real grasp of how it works or what it does. As I noted, he seems like he wants to be open-minded...

I knew you don't have much interest in poetry, which is why I was surprised by your comment. Rorty's explication of poetry reminds me of an atheist tr...

I agree. Many times I've been steered in new philosophical and scientific directions by posts on that thread.

Not to be unkind to Mr. Rorty - or you - but his explication is very far from my thoughts about, or experience of, poetry.

Lorenz describes animals' "cognitive" capabilities, starting from the most basic, e.g. irritability, kinesis, phobic response, topic response. These f...

A few weeks ago, I discussed an article I read by Konrad Lorenz, "Kant's Doctrine of the A Priori in the Light of Contemporary Biology." It was a disc...

It is a question that has been argued many times here on the forum. I've made my arguments so many times, it's hard to work up any enthusiasm to do it...

You and I understand metaphysics differently. It's not that we haven't found proof that free will exists or doesn't exist, it's that it is not a quest...

Yes. It's all about the stories we tell rather than what happened. I'm 72. Looking back over the things I've done and that have happened to me, there ...

William James, Konrad Lorenz, and even Sigmund Freud still have a lot to tell us, just to name a few. The methods and technology for study have change...

The phrase "the road less travelled" is from a poem by Robert Frost - "The Road Not Taken." It is ironic that the Peck used this quote because Frost m...

Yes, although, whenever I watch it, I'm disappointed I can't see any girls or women whose hair is dark and eyes are blue.

Written by an American. Here's a version sung by the City of Galway. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNs0vKDvs0g

No, it's not. "Offense" means "Annoyance or resentment brought about by a perceived insult to or disregard for oneself or one's standards or principle...

As I noted, I felt like that for a while. I just haven't been able to care. That seems to be changing now and I'm enjoying it. At least you've got foo...

I haven't watched movies or TV much in about 15 years. I've just found them unsatisfying. I find myself quitting in the middle when someone does somet...

Of course. Both Wilder and Depp were creepy, but Wilder was good creepy and Depp was creepy creepy.

I'm old. You'll have to make allowances.

In another thread I recently had a similar discussion where I got all hard-ass and philosophical about what a belief really is. Now I've started down ...