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Janus

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True, simplistic analyses are easy.
March 02, 2020 at 04:33
I haven't said it is a cataclysmic event, but it could well be thought of as one if it becomes established as a seasonal virus with both an infection ...
March 02, 2020 at 02:36
I can't see why it is fraught. All I meant by anything having "further existence" is existence beyond merely human experience or perception of the thi...
March 02, 2020 at 01:38
OK, so I had said that I think basic beliefs (in order to count as basic) must be pre-linguistically formed and may or may not be articulated. You see...
March 02, 2020 at 01:34
It is obviously reasonable to think that such perceptions exist because their existence is inter-subjectively corroborated in the sense that everyone ...
March 02, 2020 at 00:10
Properly basic beliefs can be given linguistic form, but they cannot be dependent on language use. The difficulty then is to explain how the jump is m...
March 02, 2020 at 00:08
Justifications for beliefs or for what one thinks (about what one perceives, for example) are only relevant in an inter-subjective context. Such justi...
March 02, 2020 at 00:00
Perceptions of beauty, belief in values, perceptions of oases, mirages and rainbows, the ideas of one's own and others' minds all obviously exist, as ...
March 01, 2020 at 23:55
What does this mean? Of course it is different than anything humanity has previously been through; if only because what humanity has previously been t...
March 01, 2020 at 23:41
:up: The above statement: is it a belief, a judgement, a guess, an assessment, a stipulation or something else? Whatever you may call it, is it subjec...
March 01, 2020 at 23:33
Epistemological justifications require inter-subjective corroboration. The existence of a tree can easily be so corroborated. Can the existence of God...
March 01, 2020 at 19:59
Are those two "guesses" themselves subject to change?
March 01, 2020 at 19:40
Oddly enough children don't seem to be affected much by this virus.
March 01, 2020 at 19:38
Perhaps...hopefully...but I have no doubt humans have been through cataclysmic events in the past, and also no doubt that once life became more or les...
March 01, 2020 at 19:34
I'm not pessimistic about humanity's survival. I think human beings will be around (in vastly diminished numbers) for as long as the planet remains hu...
March 01, 2020 at 19:29
Right, and also the assumption that we will ever have the energy resources and technological means to send anyone, much less significant numbers of pe...
March 01, 2020 at 02:40
That has not been established; estimates currently range between .7% and 3 %. The mortality rate outside China has been, so far, much lower than China...
March 01, 2020 at 01:42
Yes, it's ambiguous at least.
March 01, 2020 at 00:00
And if there are various usages of the one term?
February 29, 2020 at 23:19
Are your "guesses, suppositions, estimates and the like" unshakeable? Is your attitude against the idea of belief unshakeable? Or are you merely "payi...
February 29, 2020 at 23:14
WHO is it that is unable to attain unshakeable belief?
February 29, 2020 at 23:10
Take a look at the top two statistics (comparing deaths this year from Covid-19 and seasonal influenza) on this site
February 29, 2020 at 22:58
Catch 22. Shutting of borders will lead to economic depression if not collapse, shortages of not just cheap consumer items that might be thought to be...
February 29, 2020 at 22:52
In: Truth  — view comment
The different locution is only to emphasize that we are not warranted in assuming the naive realist view that there are real things, absent us, that a...
February 26, 2020 at 23:02
In: Truth  — view comment
No, I would say that actualities abound absent the human. It would take a human or equivalent to say what any actuality is, though. So, in a sense 'th...
February 26, 2020 at 00:00
In: Truth  — view comment
Right and all we're talking about here is the inherent logic in the human understanding of truth. I say that the primary feature of that logic is the ...
February 24, 2020 at 23:39
In: Truth  — view comment
I wasn't suggesting there were no dinosaurs prior to the advent of humanity. There being dinosaurs would be an actuality, not a truth (in a context wh...
February 24, 2020 at 23:32
You haven't told me anything yet.
February 24, 2020 at 08:16
So you assert a difference but are apparently unable to say what it is...
February 24, 2020 at 04:15
Nothing you've said provides any reason why we should think there cannot be a-historical, as well as historical, truths or facts. I was only referring...
February 23, 2020 at 22:49
You haven't responded to the point which was the lack of substantive semantic distinction between the two common phrases. If you think there is such a...
February 23, 2020 at 05:28
Is there any such thing as a future truth? "It is true that..." and "It is a fact that..." seem to be semantically equivalent. They are grammatically ...
February 22, 2020 at 21:33
Aren't you really just asking what it means "to know"?
February 22, 2020 at 01:13
If some event or purported event is not apprehensible to our senses then it may or my not be a fact; we could never know for sure, even if we think we...
February 22, 2020 at 01:07
In: Shame  — view comment
No, never. Annoyed by it, by the rapid escalation of entropy and the hassles that entails, perhaps. If I were to feel ashamed by it, I think the respo...
February 21, 2020 at 06:44
In: Shame  — view comment
I think the hurt, the shame, comes with a feeling of unworthiness, of not counting, even of worthlessness. This feeling does not seem to be the same a...
February 20, 2020 at 04:43
Don't be silly. :up:
February 17, 2020 at 03:37
A rational argument should (ideally) be free of appeals which are merely based on sentiment.
February 16, 2020 at 23:50
You are trying to mount a rational argument, no?
February 16, 2020 at 23:47
Omnibenevolent action, as opposed to simply omnibenevolent wishing, is obviously not possible unless one is both omniscient and omnipotent.
February 16, 2020 at 23:46
Only because of our human sentimentality. The different is not a rational, but an emotional, appeal.
February 16, 2020 at 23:43
To be ominbenevolent would be to wish no harm or suffering on any being. To be omnipotent and omniscient would be to be able to create a world whose b...
February 16, 2020 at 23:42
Why a fawn? Why not a cockroach, a hyena, a warthog, a snake, a crocodile?
February 16, 2020 at 23:30
You could say the notion is quasi-spiritual; but the salient point is that only the purely rational is (in principle at least) free of prejudice or bi...
February 14, 2020 at 23:18
My point was more that space could have been layered, and that our so-called a priori intuitions are based on prior experience. In other words, they w...
February 13, 2020 at 22:30
I agree. Not sure what you are driving at here. There are two issues in what you say in the post the above is quoted from First, there is your stateme...
February 13, 2020 at 22:17
In: Truth  — view comment
This assumes that there is a reality to be perceived or not perceived directly, no?
February 13, 2020 at 22:09
In: Truth  — view comment
Apologies if my wording is not clear to you. The name for the "other attitude" is 'acknowledgement that my belief could be wrong if it happens not to ...
February 13, 2020 at 22:04
To have beneficent concern for others is to consider what they want or need; not to project one's own wants or needs onto others.
February 13, 2020 at 05:57
What "more" would you say it takes?
February 13, 2020 at 05:40