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Michael

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How can it be incomplete it it allows all brown and blue to leave knowing their eye colour?
July 26, 2025 at 15:26
The one with 3 brown, 3 blue, and 1 green
July 26, 2025 at 15:24
I demonstrated it in the example above.
July 26, 2025 at 15:19
And yet every blue-eyed person leaves knowing they have blue eyes and every brown-eyed person leaves knowing they have brown eyes. So what do you mean...
July 26, 2025 at 15:15
I’m not sure, but my reasoning does allow all brown and all blue to leave knowing their eye colour, so either it’s sound or it’s a very lucky coincide...
July 26, 2025 at 15:08
I don’t think that’s a comparable scenario. I think a minimal example requires 3 blue, 3 brown, and 1 green. Each blue reasons: green sees blue, and s...
July 26, 2025 at 14:53
She doesn’t need to say anything for perfect logicians to be in a synchronised state. At every moment they are in a synchronised state and will apply ...
July 26, 2025 at 13:53
And if in this scenario I have brown eyes then the Guru wouldn’t say “I see someone with blue eyes”, and yet we are allowed for the sake of argument t...
July 26, 2025 at 13:49
I’m not stipulating random things, as shown by the fact that if the people on the island were to apply my reasoning then they would all correctly dedu...
July 26, 2025 at 13:38
In practice, perhaps, but the logic doesn't require that the Guru say anything. The logic only requires that I know that the Guru sees at least one bl...
July 26, 2025 at 13:28
I see 100 people with blue eyes and (unknown to me) I have brown eyes. The Guru says "I see at least one blue-eyed person". Now I imagine a scenario w...
July 26, 2025 at 13:21
Every person on the island already knows that the Guru sees at least one person with blue eyes and one person with brown eyes, whether or not she says...
July 26, 2025 at 13:13
The reasoning is: if the Guru sees at least one person with blue eyes and if I don't see anybody with blue eyes then I have blue eyes.
July 26, 2025 at 13:05
No it doesn't. It only depends on "the Guru sees at least one blue-eyed person" being true. It doesn't depend on her saying so.
July 26, 2025 at 13:00
It's the same. Here are unenlightened's exact and complete words: If there was only 1 person w. blue eyes, that person would see no blue eyes and ther...
July 26, 2025 at 12:58
The first step in the reasoning is "the Guru sees at least one person with brown eyes". She doesn't need to say "I see at least one person with brown ...
July 26, 2025 at 12:56
That's the red herring; it doesn't. Everyone already knows that she sees at least one brown-eyed person, so her expressing this fact verbally provides...
July 26, 2025 at 12:51
Why do you think that? Imagine the Guru were to have said "I see at least one blue-eyed person and at least one brown-eyed person". But as I said to f...
July 26, 2025 at 12:45
The Guru doesn't need to say it. Him saying it is a red herring. As perfect logicians, every blue-eyed person already knows that the Guru sees at leas...
July 26, 2025 at 12:36
The same, just change "blue" for "brown".
July 26, 2025 at 12:34
If they're perfect logicians then on the first day that they arrived on the island, even before the Guru speaks: 1. The Guru knows that 100 blue-eyed ...
July 26, 2025 at 12:19
this is hidden this is hidden
July 26, 2025 at 11:07
And they probably would have already stopped the sale of guns and ammunition anyway.
July 25, 2025 at 19:39
It doesn't.
July 25, 2025 at 18:06
It isn't. That was an aside, not directed specifically at you but at any attempt to defend the right to own guns on the need to prevent a tyrannical g...
July 25, 2025 at 16:41
I don't really understand your request. It's a simple statement of fact: given that governments already have a "monopoly of coercion" even without str...
July 25, 2025 at 14:50
Noted. The USA should introduce stricter gun control. I suspect that it will save many lives. The benefits outweigh the cost.
July 24, 2025 at 17:36
The government has a lot more than guns at their disposable, so this seems to be a moot point unless you think every Tom, Dick, and Harry should be al...
July 24, 2025 at 17:04
That’s what normative ethics is? Should we not criticise the Russian invasion of Ukraine or the criminalisation of homosexual relationships in Brunei?
July 24, 2025 at 12:12
He did specifically refer to weapons and not just deadly tools is general, which would cover most things as we’re quite squishy. I could kill you with...
July 23, 2025 at 18:27
Hunting and defence.
July 23, 2025 at 18:22
Whether machine, plant, or human, the involuntary behaviour of any sense receptor is causally influenced by external stimuli according to the laws of ...
July 23, 2025 at 17:49
I've about reached my limit.
July 22, 2025 at 16:21
Because this is how you defined autonomy: Other than your use of the term "spontaneously", which I didn't take to be literal given that you previously...
July 22, 2025 at 16:11
Again, it is both the case that head trauma from the fall is the cause of death and the case that I killed him by pushing him off a cliff. If I murder...
July 21, 2025 at 15:56
Strawman. I didn’t say it was. I said that I can kill someone by pushing them off a cliff, which is true. Deflection. I assume because you recognise t...
July 21, 2025 at 15:19
Well, they're not mutually exclusive. By analogy, both me typing on the keyboard and the computer are causally responsible for the words appearing on ...
July 21, 2025 at 13:42
In: Assertion  — view comment
I don't think I am. I'm sure many philosophers of language will say that sentences have truth values even if not asserted.
July 20, 2025 at 17:10
That’s the impasse. I say that I can kill someone by pushing them off a cliff, and so therefore there is more to causation than just the immediate tra...
July 20, 2025 at 16:46
In: Assertion  — view comment
Then it is still as I said from the start. The phrases "the cat is on the mat" and "I assert that the cat is on the mat" mean different things and hav...
July 19, 2025 at 21:44
In: Assertion  — view comment
I'm not. You told me that we were talking about assertions, and asked me about two such assertions:
July 19, 2025 at 19:51
You seem to be confused about what I have been arguing, so I'll spell it out more clearly: There are three independent arguments: Argument 1 There is ...
July 19, 2025 at 19:29
In: Assertion  — view comment
I don't think it's mutually exclusive. A malapropism, by definition, is a term used to mean something it doesn't normally mean. The "normal meaning" i...
July 19, 2025 at 11:07
In: Assertion  — view comment
The grammar here is confusing. I am claiming these things: 1. The assertions "the cat is on the mat" and "I assert that the cat is on the mat" mean di...
July 19, 2025 at 11:00
In: Assertion  — view comment
They are asserting that the cat is on the mat. And they're speaking English. But just as "the cat is on the mat" doesn't mean "I am speaking English",...
July 18, 2025 at 18:38
And you think that these are mutually exclusive? So? It's still the case that I can boil the water by turning on the stove, turn on the lights by flic...
July 18, 2025 at 17:42
In: Assertion  — view comment
I’m a little confused. If malapropisms “by their very nature run contrary to the conventions of language” then there are conventions of language. So t...
July 18, 2025 at 13:03
I didn't say that. I said that there is more to causation than just the immediate transfer of kinetic energy. All of your examples are examples of cau...
July 18, 2025 at 10:11
In: Assertion  — view comment
Quoting from here: Assuming that this is an accurate summary, it seems to me that Davidson believes both that words and phrases have conventional mean...
July 17, 2025 at 19:30
In: Assertion  — view comment
They mean different things and have different truth conditions. (a) is true if and only if the cat is on the mat (b) is true if and only if I assert t...
July 17, 2025 at 19:10