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Michael

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I don't understand this. You said that words don't have meanings on their own. I provided an example of a word that has meaning on its own. Your respo...
November 13, 2015 at 22:20
They can be called whatever you like. But why depart from established linguistic terminology? It seems to me that if you want to call that word "a sen...
November 13, 2015 at 22:00
And how does this work with polysynthetic languages?
November 13, 2015 at 21:36
Yes. It's a minor (word) sentence and sentence word.
November 13, 2015 at 15:19
Well, I'm not sure about a metaphysical distinction between language and non-language, but I'd still make a distinction between them, even if the latt...
November 12, 2015 at 17:17
Well, I think our disagreement stems from a different interpretation of the ambiguous phrase "language-use". On the one hand it might refer to the act...
November 12, 2015 at 16:41
From my reading (of both of you), I think you misunderstood @"StreetlightX". He's not saying that there's more to meaning than language use and that m...
November 12, 2015 at 16:27
Well, if your target is semantic anti-realism then perhaps my comment was misdirected. I assumed the target was the type of anti-realism that would in...
November 12, 2015 at 15:20
Probably best. After all, consider the question "what's this?". Clearly to fully understand the question (or, rather, the (thing referred to by) "this...
November 12, 2015 at 13:52
And Davidson theory on truth isn't about other elements of language.
November 11, 2015 at 15:22
Evolution is a successful partial theory. It explains the development of biological organisms but not astronomical bodies.
November 11, 2015 at 15:19
The "many other names" link is just an anchor to further down the same article. The "official" rules, as stated here, are: Clicking on the first non-p...
November 11, 2015 at 13:24
I get 3 (if you skip the anchor link).
November 11, 2015 at 13:13
I get 13.
November 11, 2015 at 13:12
There is no aware-conscious loop. The first link in consciousness is quality which then goes to philosophy.
November 10, 2015 at 23:44
Yeah, it's picking up the italicized cultura in Literature.
November 10, 2015 at 19:08
Plank is 14, Murder is 23, and Sam Harris is 10. See WikiLoopr.
November 10, 2015 at 16:29
Although, as @"jamalrob" says, he's wrong. Consciousness is 2 clicks and Awareness is 3 clicks.
November 10, 2015 at 15:42
Aha. Joke ? Punch line ? Joke. The joke's on xkcd.
November 10, 2015 at 14:20
Philosophy is 4 clicks.
November 10, 2015 at 13:55
I think it highlights the fundamental problem in trying to find a formal theory to comprehensively explain a natural language.
November 09, 2015 at 12:23
If an armed society is a polite society then the implication is that if you're impolite you're likely to be shot. Doesn't that strike you as absurd? D...
November 08, 2015 at 15:01
Alright, I won't. :) Although as an aside, I didn't mean to suggest verificationism (in the sense that a thing is true if it is verified); I meant to ...
November 08, 2015 at 12:08
As far as I'm aware, there's nothing controversial about indirect realism. It's the accepted view of perception in the natural sciences. The claim tha...
November 08, 2015 at 12:02
I don't think it's a philosophical issue. I think it's scientific. If colours are objective features of the world then they should be (capable of bein...
November 08, 2015 at 11:55
True, but then that's why I asked for evidence. If colours were objective then, like other objective things, they should be susceptible to experimenta...
November 08, 2015 at 11:47
You might want to change point 4 on the Useful Hints and Tips page to explain this.
November 08, 2015 at 11:37
Well, I also think that the non-existence of Yahweh is obvious, and the prevalence of Christianity doesn't change my mind about that.
November 08, 2015 at 11:30
So then it's the light that's red, not the apple? Furthermore, this is consistent with indirect realism. The indirect realist says that the red colour...
November 08, 2015 at 11:23
@"jamalrob" said here that "every instance of an experience is one that is in principle indistinguishable between the two types you've mentioned ".
November 08, 2015 at 01:28
How it's known is irrelevant to the discussion. The question is whether or not redness is present when nobody observes it in the same way that electro...
November 08, 2015 at 01:23
What other usage is there? What is redness when not the experience? Are you using it to (also) refer to the state of having a structure that reflects ...
November 08, 2015 at 01:17
What "two senses" are there to colours, smells, and tastes? There's just the one sense; the types of experience (which are mental representations of t...
November 08, 2015 at 01:02
The problem is that redness isn't a mind-independent feature. Electromagnetic radiation is a mind-independent feature. Redness is the type of experien...
November 08, 2015 at 01:01
Again, that they will not taste the same (when tasted) is not that they do not taste the same (when not tasted). This is conflation, as shown by your ...
November 08, 2015 at 00:42
And different animals (or even different persons) might have different receptors that are affected by such light in a different way and so see a diffe...
November 08, 2015 at 00:25
No, they may not. There is no colour red without any experience. Redness is an experience. It's not a mind-independent feature of the world.
November 08, 2015 at 00:17
And it can't taste like something when it's not being tasted.
November 08, 2015 at 00:12
Yes, it has. This is indirect realism.
November 08, 2015 at 00:12
No, the direct realist argues that the taste and smell and feel of an apple are present even when not being tasted, smelled, and felt. There's nothing...
November 08, 2015 at 00:08
What is the taste of the apple? Is the taste of the apple identical to the chemicals which stimulate the taste receptors? It must if direct realism is...
November 08, 2015 at 00:07
Sure, but it doesn't then follow that the "normal" taste (for a human) is an inherent feature of the apple when not being tasted. Why? Why must an org...
November 08, 2015 at 00:04
And the direct realist's claim is that the properties of colour and smell and taste are present even when they're not being experienced. So the above ...
November 07, 2015 at 23:51
We can experimentally show that certain things exist even though we can't see those things. That's how science works. So if colours are objective then...
November 07, 2015 at 23:49
No, it doesn't. The knife doesn't contain the property of painfulness when not being used to stab someone. The pain is only ever in the experience. It...
November 07, 2015 at 23:43
By "visible" do you mean "capable of being seen"? If so, I'd agree. So for the analogy to work "tasty" must mean "capable of being considered tasty wh...
November 07, 2015 at 23:40
Such a perception would only show that your body reacts differently to most people to the same sensory stimulus. In everyday language we might say tha...
November 07, 2015 at 23:35
It makes no more sense than saying that there is a painful knife when not being used to stab someone. It's only painful once it's experienced a certai...
November 07, 2015 at 23:29
They're not making a metaphysical claim, though. They're just telling you that you'll like the taste when you eat them (or, rather, they're just tryin...
November 07, 2015 at 23:22
But that's what realism argues: "The realist view is that we perceive objects as they really are. They are composed of matter, occupy space and have p...
November 07, 2015 at 23:21