Janus

If there were life on millions or billions of planets and we were somehow able to study the evolution of life on all those planets, would we even then...

If the population grows must not the economy grow with it if prosperity is to be maintained? If current consumption was evenly distributed how much of...

I agree. We can all immediately recognize a small number of whatevers. Larger numbers of things we can count, and there is no room for disagreement. E...

I wonder what you mean when you say that numbers are real. Can you explain?

I do understand your perspective. I don't think there is any determinate fact of the matter to be discovered. Our scientific theories tell us the Univ...

I doubt many scientists think in terms of a grand scheme, since as I already pointed out, the idea implies the existence of a grand schemer. So, I agr...

Thanks it seems I misunderstood the Kantian idea of intuition. :up:

:up: Far be it for me to tell someone they shouldn't spend time on something interesting to them. The time-wasting part would be thinking about someth...

Do you count anything which does not stand out as being perceived? Per the question I asked you above, everything perceptible in your external environ...

From my post above: But again, if you want to use "perception" in a different way, then your point might stand. However, I could ask as to how anythin...

See my post above yours. We agree that the bear does not conceive of the cave as cave, It may in some pre or proto-conceptual thinking of it as a plac...

I think that's right. But it might not be the only way to use the term, and this can result in confusion. Can we say that a percipient has perceived s...

:up: :100: I like the idea that things stand out from their surroundings for percipients as gestalts. The question is what drives gestalting? I think ...

Why is it "duty and also law"? I would say it is because we conceive it as such or because it is simply the way things work best. If animals instincti...

Perceiving something-you-know-not-what that might turn out to be a tree in the yard does not require perceiving it as a tree. Perceiving the tree in t...

I have to say I find this questionable to say the least. Animals can recognize this as food, that as shelter or a source of warmth and so on. They can...

Since the idea of the natural order is an idea of the intellect by definition as are all other ideas, it is hard to see how it would not, as an idea, ...

I agree with you that we are justified in believing that things must have significance (meaning) for other animals, simply on the grounds that we can ...

According to our current understanding the rest of the galaxy is so far away that it would have very little effect on our solar system and our solar s...

I think it's easy enough to make sense of Aristotle's notion of the way in which beings when flourishing do so by actualizing their specific potential...

:up:

Well, yes, but you had already more or less said or implied the possibility that if the universe had a mind it was more likely to be "cold, mean and i...

Totally agree—unfettered capitalism would be a disaster for all but the few. As do I. I am no fan of Churchill, but I tend to agree with the statement...

Right, I agree the identity of anything is as difficult to grasp as our own and I haven't suggested the self is not real either—as I said before we ha...

If the universe has a mind of its own, might that mind not be vaster, more capacious, more compassionate than our own. If it were aware of our poetry ...

Are you suggesting that perhaps the Universe absent any and all percipients might not be blind and might even be intelligent? In that case would that ...

If these "hypotheses" are untestable then not only can they not be proven, but even their likelihood cannot be established, so of what possible signif...

Chet, if consistent, would have to be the first to admit that. Which should leave us wondering as to what purpose he thinks his taking at all serves. ...

That is one way to think about it. The other is that absent minds the Universe is 'blind'—there is nothing that can experience anything—there is no be...

This is a way of looking at human consciousness and intelligence, but it doesn't mean much since we are such a tiny fraction of the cosmos, Animals to...

If causal determinism based on the invariances we refer to as laws of nature were the actuality, then life would be an inevitable part of the unfoldin...

I don't think it matters what you focus on, or what thoughts or feelings you have that motivate you to make a conscious decision, a commitment, not to...

I guess it depends on the business, but in the building and home improvement trades, there is licensing, ongoing training requirements, quality assura...

Well, I should have said "capacities and circumstances"—by " capacities" I really meant to include circumstances. I don't know how it is in the US, bu...

I wasn't implying that under communism or capitalism people wouldn't try to play the system. I have no doubt there is criminal activity, for example, ...

Yes, it's either that or it is imposed by the authority of power, and that goes for any society, whether capitalist or communist. Under a capitalist s...

Who decides what the needs of each are? Perhaps the same question could be asked of abilities.

William Blake said "He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence."

I've encountered different senses of 'nihilism'. It's a while since I read Nietzsche, but I seem to recall that he classed Christianity and other beli...

Yes, if we think of reality as mind-independnt dualism is a given—in our thinking. But then our thinking is inevitably dualistic anyway. I think it fo...

I don't see how we could, but I realize others disagree. The law allows for mitigating circumstances, but it seems impossible to determine where to dr...

:cool:

I don't know, perhaps I didn't read you closely enough, but to the extent that it seemed to me that you were indulging what I see as Chet's self-indul...

No problem and no need to apologize, When I spoke of it being boring, tedious, vacuous I was referring specifically to Chet's unargued pontifications,...

I'm using the "know" of familiarity. I see my hands, feel my hands, use my hands, know my hands. I'm not justifying any belief, simply reporting the e...

I don't need to believe anything when I can simply see what the case is. I don't say all knowledge is not reliant on belief. So-called propositional k...

This continues to be a pointless exchange.

You present a whole paragraph of seemingly irrelevant or incoherent questions, and then when I ask what you think the relevance to the issue is in wha...

So, you're just trolling then?

I have no idea what relevance you think what you wrote has to the issue. Do you know anyone, or know how to do anything? When you are out and about, d...