litewave

Anything that is consistently defined and thus identical to itself. It is useful to sort out the way things are in our world from the way things are i...

That it is a collection, rather than a property. I don't think that a property is a collection. Redness is not the collection of all red things but so...

Assuming that it is really "me" who lives in different possible worlds (which I don't think is a correct definition of "me", since my consciousness is...

The smallest parts, empty sets, are obviously "simples" in the sense that they have no parts. But any collection is also a "simple" in the sense that ...

A contradictory proposition affirms that something has and does not have the same property. But a proposition that affirms that something looks like a...

Logically inconsistently defined objects. Objects that are not what they are. Objects that have properties they don't have. It may not be obvious whet...

Yeah.

As I said, I think that all possible worlds are just as real as our world because I don't see any ontological difference between possible and real wor...

Every consistent description of a world corresponds to a real world.

Interaction is possible only in worlds that contain a time dimension. Worlds without time seem to be possible (logically consistent) too, and since I ...

I understand, I just meant to point out that if all possible (logically consistent/coherent) universes are equally real as the one we live in, corresp...

By a concrete object I mean any collection, so an empty collection would be the simplest concrete object. I know that sets (collections) are often reg...

By 'non-composite concrete objects' I mean empty sets, which have no parts by definition. No amount of empirical evidence can prove than an empty set ...

Even though many descriptions of a universe by mathematicians don't correspond to our universe, they correspond to other possible universes. And what ...

No, atoms in physics are obviously not non-composite things.

I don't claim that truths of propositions that are joined into a longer proposition are necessarily independent from each other. To logically prove wh...

Yes, the hydrogen atom is a thing with relations to other things, notably to its proton and electron and to the spacetime of which it is a part. Due t...

Reality consists of things and relations between them. By "thing" I mean something that is not a relation, nor a structure of relations, so "thing" is...

Mathematics corresponds to the structure of reality (and omits the qualities that fill the structure).

If emptiness is understood as the content of an empty set, then it is nothing. However, the empty set itself is not nothing but an object, a non-compo...

If by "ultimate reality" you mean the most general property, that is, the property possessed by every something, it is the property called variously i...

If nothing existed, there would be the fact that nothing exists, but a fact is something. Or, in other words, there would be the property of "there be...

Ok, but the apple would still fall down every time we drop it, no? So the regularity would still exist even if we took our blinders off and the questi...

So if our sciences didn't do this, we would not experience the apple as falling down every time we drop it?

I usually understand "explanation" as a derivation of something particular from something more general. Like, why does the apple fall down? Because of...

Yes. I wonder why Solomonoff's solution to the problem of induction is not mentioned in that article.

In other words, better general descriptions from which more detailed descriptions can be derived. This is possible when there is an even more general/...

I guess physicists have a lot of evidence that points to the stability of the known laws?

We don't know what is going on in these special cases but outside of them the regularities seem stable.

Right. But apparently the regularities of the world have not changed much, if at all. Scientists just found more accurate descriptions of them.

But apparently the known laws of physics (regularities) have been stable for billions of years.

Smolin has a theory of cosmological natural selection in which the laws or constants may change when a new universe is born from a black hole in the p...

Still, the apple falls down on Earth, similarly like it did 2000 years ago. Do you expect that once we understand dark matter the apple will stop fall...

It only makes sense to invoke the anthropic principle for properties that are necessary for the existence of human life and that vary across a collect...

Nah, it's probably you that has changed, not the law of gravity.

Ultimately, the reason for anything to exist is the same: that it is possible (logically consistent). But some properties are simpler and therefore mo...

I am not sure we can view it this way. If the structure of a world is random instead of deterministic does it mean that the world is not being "left a...

Still, all these theories describe a stable phenomenon of objects falling down (rather than up or in random directions), although later theories give ...

That seems explained by the anthropic principle: we could have evolved only in a world where the laws have been stable for a long time. Solomonoff ind...

I agree that theories supported by sensory evidence are more convincing and useful than theories supported by logic alone but one might also ask wheth...

Yet in your example with objects falling down, all the historical theories from Aristotle to Einstein say that objects consistently fall down rather t...

Sounds like false vacuum decay, an event very unlikely in our universe, considering it hasn't happened here for billions of years. https://en.m.wikipe...

So far no one has found a better fix than taxes. And it's not completely against your will because taxation is influenced by your voting in elections....

The problem with common/public goods and services like street lights, police or army is that anyone can freely benefit from them. It is practically im...

So what's your alternative? Your vote overriding those who want taxes? Voluntary payment for goods that are given for free? Anything else is denial of...

Because that's how we vote on stuff like taxes, but you see taxation as a denial of your liberty.

Well, you can vote for political parties that propose less common goods and less taxes to finance them but I guess you see democracy as a threat to yo...

Yeah, because economy works when stuff is given for free and people pay for it voluntarily.

Who should pay for street lights when anybody can freely benefit from them?

On the other hand, Nordic countries have high taxes and their HDIs are in Top 10 or so. Tax havens attract foreign capital which can boost the country...