andrewk

Let's take the many-worlds interpretation as an example. In that interpretation, if the universe is in quantum state S at time t, and it would be cons...

I find it hard to imagine that either Feser or Aristotle meant anything quantum by 'potential' since, to the best of my knowledge, neither of them has...

Thanks for making the attempt. Unfortunately that passage is all about 'actual' rather than 'potential'. I don't find the concept of 'actual' nebulous...

Not possible. You are either kidding yourself or you are not. The 'almost certainly' is an estimate that the majority of people who think they believe...

I've felt this discussion is lacking a Thomist to defend, or at least elaborate on, the argument. Perhaps you are such a Thomist? If so, you will be p...

Say rather, they need to do a better job of catching dangerous criminals. Since the US has the highest proportion of its population in jail, it's almo...

I don't accept 2 and, while I have no strong objection to 1, I do not accept the vehemence with which it is asserted. As usual with these metaphysical...

Really? For all religions, or just some? What think you of the metaphysical basis for Scientology? Is a Christian that denies the metaphysical basis o...

No, I don't agree to that at all. One can be the world's most spiritual person and yet regard all the world's organised religions as a load of bunk th...

Perhaps you were prejudiced against it by reading that review, which as I said is very low quality (and more like a sermon than a review). When Dennet...

Huh? I asked for evidence for your accusation that 'Breaking the Spell' is scientistic and reductionist, and you provide a quote from a completely dif...

That's simplistic and dismissive. Where has your principle of charity gone? I don't think you could describe anybody's life work as 'scientistic and r...

I'm intrigued that Leon W should have taken such a dislike to Dennett's 'Breaking the Spell' book. I borrowed it from the library a few years back and...

Multiculturalism is about being open to having multiple cultures within the nation, and celebrating the diversity that those cultures provide. It's ab...

You didn't show that, you claimed it. There's a big difference. But I think you're right that no resolution is going to be obtained between you and th...

You've changed your argument. OK, let's consider the new one. On review, I find that if the last statement means you have the right to some adequate a...

Your defence is not a proof, it's pure rhetoric. Here it is: There is no logical argument there to be engaged. The statement doesn't even make sense. ...

If you really don't understand that the onus of proof is on the one making the claim - which in the case of both the premises is you - then a construc...

It's your argument, and you're making the positive claim - that a person has a right to own any object that can be used to protect themself. The onus ...

Logic stops at the premise. A premise, by definition, is a claim that is accepted without proof, or not, according to how it feels to the reader. If t...

No, I don't own anything that has anything like the lethal potential of a gun. If that's the point of the argument, then it doesn't work. No. I've poi...

It affects it in that many people (most people, and certainly most lawmakers, at least outside the US) would not accept your premise 2, as it does not...

You mean this? It's impossibly woolly. What does 'proper means' mean? Does it exclude means that create a danger to the rest of the community, because...

Since you have not provided any evidence of that unassailability, there is nothing to prove wrong. It's just an opinion, and one you're entitled to.

It is relativism: Meta-ethical Moral Relativism, to be precise. What the rationale does is provide a robust, compelling reason for not drifting into N...

Your failure to provide a single detail makes that seem a very doubtful claim. But if you consider the argument 'There's a robust defence of my claim,...

I used to worry about this sort of thing. What solved it for me was realising that it's not about my values being superior but about how important the...

Are you able to tell us what any of these immediately-available yet securely locked away gun storage options are that are beyond my imagination?

Back to the playground then. OK.

Here's the entirety of the 'rebuttal': Quite a few options - but none worth mentioning apparently.

Rebut, if you can, his point that a gun is either locked away, in which case it provides no protection against an intruder in the bedroom, or it is av...

You must think the word 'insult' has a different definition from what the rest of us do.

Sorry, I thought this was supposed to be a philosophical discussion. If I'd known it was supposed to involve playground insults I'd have stayed out, b...

Your point being?

It would probably be the same burglar as the one the NRA thinks would wait for a responsible gun owner to retrieve the gun from their child-proof gun ...

Wasn't that U2? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDwB2dLnf2o

The claims of hypocrisy don't even use the word correctly. A hypocrite is somebody who says that people should do (or not do) X and does not do (or do...

I have read and loved many Heinlein books. Sometimes he could be enigmatic. This is one of those occasions. I have no idea what he is trying to convey...

I'm not a fan of common sense but in this instance, both my common sense and my explicit ethical analysis tell me that what Fallon said to Leadsom was...

I'm reluctant to label any opinion I hold as wisdom, but some benefits that perhaps emanate from my Emotivist opinion are If I have a moral dilemma, i...

My meta-ethical framework is roughly Emotivist, and my ethical framework is roughly Utilitarian, but not rigidly so. In theory it can be over-ridden i...

Sure. And Darwin did not espouse it. So please don't call it Darwinism, philosophical or otherwise. Be as rude as you like about radical reductionists...

Perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me, but I thought that the main source of negative reviews of Nagel's book was that in it he gave credence to s...

What makes you think I'm an atheist?

'atheistic'?!? Were you aware that the big bang theory was developed by Georges Lemaitre: a Roman Catholic priest?

That is a statement of a dogma, not an argument. You believe it. I don't. Except for where you say that I am morally no better nor worse than anybody ...

I don't know much about Coyne, but I like and agree with some of Dennett's work, and ditto for Pinker - particularly 'The Better Angels of Our Nature'...

I loved Nagel's 'What is it like to be a bat' and, as a mystically-inclined non-materialist, I have no objection to Nagel criticising neo-darwinist ma...

You cannot know this. The only way to know it is for it to happen and for you to know that it happened. But it didn't happen, so you can't know it. Al...

Now there's a topic that can generate a whole 'nother discussion. I considered 'discover' and discarded it in favour of 'invented', knowing full well ...