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Michael

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Savages? What have they got to do with it?
February 14, 2017 at 12:18
Me too (from page 20). Your "traditions" are actually progressive. How dare you redefine marriage as being between a man and a woman only?!
February 14, 2017 at 12:15
I don't know what you mean here. The point is that even before any scientific enquiry we were able to distinguish water from other things like trees a...
February 14, 2017 at 10:12
I'm sure it would have been correct to say that even before any scientific enquiry we knew what water and trees were. An understanding of particle phy...
February 14, 2017 at 09:55
The argument is that if there are more simulated worlds than there are non-simulated worlds then you're more likely to be in a simulated world than a ...
February 14, 2017 at 09:22
Which just means that living things have intentions, not that life qua life has a purpose. I don't know what you mean by this being a purpose. It's ju...
February 13, 2017 at 18:34
What kind of evidence suggests that there's a purpose? Presumably if there is some then a simulation-universe would differ empirically from a non-simu...
February 13, 2017 at 09:44
What do you think of Bostrom's trilemma? 1. The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage (that is, one capable of running hi...
February 13, 2017 at 09:41
He's just saying that the universe we find ourselves to live in is a simulation. He's not saying that there isn't a real non-simulation universe in wh...
February 13, 2017 at 09:36
And the problem is that random choices might not actually be possible (e.g. hard determinism) or that random choices aren't actually choices but thing...
February 10, 2017 at 16:03
I'm not tied to the notion that naive realists believe this. I'm just suggesting that there are likely people who do. It seems like a perfectly unders...
February 10, 2017 at 15:37
I haven't read enough of the paper to know what Sellars' thoughts are on the matter. But I doubt he picked the definition out of thin air. Presumably ...
February 10, 2017 at 15:27
Then I guess the "red" in "the dress is red" is different to the "red" in "the dress looks red", as the "red" in "the dress looks red" is sense-data b...
February 10, 2017 at 15:13
And what about in the dress (which is said to "really" be blue and black)?
February 10, 2017 at 14:21
So the black and blue sense-data is in the image file? Or is the black and blue in the image file not sense-data?
February 10, 2017 at 14:10
Center of the neck /uploads/resized/files/qw/gz2m11b1vtui2bs8.png Center of the left lapel /uploads/resized/files/gi/a9tozvmzc2ds33o9.png
February 10, 2017 at 14:05
That's interesting. The dress is actually blue and black, the colour in the image is actually gold and white (well, a bluish silver really), and some ...
February 10, 2017 at 14:00
Except we say that the dress really is blue and black even though I see it as white and gold. So is the blueness and the blackness that the dress real...
February 10, 2017 at 13:58
I see white and gold, but I'm told that it's actually blue and black. As such, one might say that my experience isn't veridical. I'm not really sure t...
February 10, 2017 at 13:49
You keep missing the point. Given that it has to pick either a) or b), how does it actually make the random decision to pick one over the other? And i...
February 10, 2017 at 12:06
I think the claim is that if something looks red in the veridical case then it is red (i.e. the object itself has the property of being red). Therefor...
February 10, 2017 at 10:43
The premise is that there isn't anything about either that provides for a rational preference – or at least nothing that the ass is aware of. So, assu...
February 10, 2017 at 09:11
I think this misses the point. Obviously the two stacks of hay are different in that they're two stacks of hay, located in different places and being ...
February 10, 2017 at 09:04
The difficulty here is that you haven't explained how the ass can choose a) over b) or b) over a). You've only explained how the ass has a rational re...
February 10, 2017 at 07:40
That it's rational to choose a) or b) over c) is not that the random decision to choose a) over b) or b) over a) is rational. And if it's impossible t...
February 09, 2017 at 16:43
Of course this choice is relevant to the problem. This choice is the problem. The problem isn't the choice between eating or not eating or the choice ...
February 09, 2017 at 16:08
You've only explained that it has a reason to pick either a) or b) over c). You haven't explained that it has a reason to pick a) over b) or b) over a...
February 09, 2017 at 15:22
All you've explained here is that when given the three options of a) eat the hay on the left, b) eat the hay on the right, and c) do nothing, we have ...
February 09, 2017 at 15:01
Yes, but there are two ways to avoid death, and no reason to pick one over the other. That's where the decision-making halts. Simply knowing that you ...
February 09, 2017 at 14:40
I don't think this really addresses the problem, which is that the decision to choose one over the other isn't a rational decision. Although there mig...
February 09, 2017 at 14:32
I assume there were offending posts that have since been deleted? In one of your posts you say "I appreciate the moderators allowing me to post here d...
February 08, 2017 at 19:48
I reject the truth of this.
February 08, 2017 at 18:16
Going back to my previous suggestion, I'm going to approach the problem by replacing "true" and false" with more meaningful alternatives, but I'm goin...
February 08, 2017 at 17:11
Sure I did. Disbelief is not the same as lack of belief, hence the definition of atheism given being "disbelief or lack of belief...". If I disbelieve...
February 08, 2017 at 16:08
You seem to have switched gears. First you were saying that "this sentence is false" and "this sentence is neither true nor false" are logically equiv...
February 08, 2017 at 12:20
Another seemingly paradoxical statement, much like "this statement is false" and "this statement is not true".
February 08, 2017 at 11:04
Consider the sentences "how old are you?" and "what is your name?". Both are neither true nor false but they are not logically equivalent. For two sen...
February 08, 2017 at 09:07
No, what we're saying is that A. "this sentence is false" and B. "this sentence is neither true nor false" are not logically equivalent. They're diffe...
February 08, 2017 at 07:37
Because the fundamentals are, by definition, fundamental. You might want to say that these laws-as-habits are fundamental (else I guess you'll have to...
February 07, 2017 at 20:11
Whatever is the fundamental behaviour is fundamental. What I'm saying is that it's a mistake to think of laws of nature as being something that isn't ...
February 07, 2017 at 20:08
Sure it does. What else would it mean? Lack of belief? Then the definition above would be "lack of belief or lack of belief in the existence of God". ...
February 07, 2017 at 20:06
The fundamental behaviour of things is, by definition, fundamental. There is no further explanation. As I said in my first post, there is just the beh...
February 07, 2017 at 19:43
The irony is that it tells someone to learn to read but the author didn't read the first word in the definition: disbelief, i.e. the belief that somet...
February 07, 2017 at 19:38
It's true because things in such situations behave in such ways. I don't know why this is supposed to entail laws-as-habits. I'm not the one saying th...
February 07, 2017 at 19:15
I don't see how a counterfactual can be considered a physical-law-as-habit. Seems like reifying.
February 07, 2017 at 19:07
I haven't suggested otherwise?
February 07, 2017 at 19:05
I'd say it's the bending of space-time (or the moving of bodies with mass towards each other as a result; I'm not sure). I don't even know what it wou...
February 07, 2017 at 18:52
Seems to be what I've being saying (albeit more formal)?
February 07, 2017 at 18:41
I'm not, but it seems that others do. I'm questioning this distinction.
February 07, 2017 at 18:39
I also said that the law could just be the actual behaviour. What I'm questioning is the notion of the law as some third thing. So it's not that there...
February 07, 2017 at 18:25