No. That would be a use of the word 'cause'. When being careful, I generally avoid uses of the word 'cause' (as opposed to references to the word, of ...
You appear to be asserting, without any detectable supporting argument, that somehow 'cause' is an inextricable part of the explanation, even though t...
'Purpose' raises more dilemmas too. I have yet to work out whether finding a 'purpose' for one's life is the same as finding a 'meaning' of one's life...
I haven't seen it put the way you put it before. It sounds like you are saying that Aristotle's aim was to distinguish the different ways in which peo...
Newton wonders 'why does the apple fall from the tree?'. He comes up with his gravity theory that there is a gravitational force F on the apple, whose...
It looks to me like he's made Russia have the worst of both worlds. With the Soviet Union, once Stalin had died and his after-effects had dissipated, ...
It is the interpretation that asserts that embodiment, not the theory. In its purest form, the theory is a bunch of equations. There's nothing wrong w...
Yes indeed. And the same applies to the things to which people typically apply the term 'cause'. Hence I think 'enabling condition' is a better term -...
References to efficient causes are absent from most science I have read, and the parts where authors have referred to them would, IMHO, be better off ...
It's closer to that than the other. But saying it's a 'mistaken' concept is a bit too strong. I see 'cause' as a vague term that can be perfectly safe...
In my work and in my play I have occasion to do many regressions - statistical analyses of the association between observed phenomena. In that context...
In a climate model it's going to be more like - at step 4,983, approximately 500 million things happen - at step 4.984, approximately 500 million diff...
I don't agree with either of those points, but the key seems to be that we have different notions of clarity. Some philosophers like Aristotle's writi...
I'm afraid I can't see what this account gives us that we don't already have with a simple physical theory that describes a scenario in which a hammer...
Certainly not ignoring. I went looking for them, quite determinedly, and was surprised that I could not find them. My presupposition was that they wer...
The correlation vs causation dichotomy is one that has occupied my mind a fair bit over the last couple of years. I used to think there was a clear di...
I'd say they are different in that the predictive claim is clear whereas the causal claim is capable of many different interpretations. Just think of ...
'Will writing from person X appear on their screen if they don't touch the keyboard and ?' Probably not. I thought I'd already given that answer but i...
I like that way of putting it. I think in that case, probably no letters will appear on the screen. That's a prediction, which is based on a theory. T...
You keep on telling me what I think and what I'd say. Yet every time you do that, you get it wrong. It might be time to stop making assumptions about ...
No, we don't. What we may be able to agree on is that you thought to yourself that if you pushed the keys you would expect some letters to appear and,...
No. Failure to assent to sentence S is not equivalent to assenting to its negation. That you feel that is what most interests me here. What sort of be...
It was a bit loose of me to say there's no point in it. I think there's no philosophical point in it. The point for me of such discussions is that the...
Yes we can all use the word. But one need only look at a litigation or an inquest to observe that we (all of us, not just philosophers) do not know wh...
I think it was just Dawkins waxing lyrical in an attempt to defy claims from religious critics that his worldview is bleak and soulless. I agree with ...
This venture seems a bit circular to me. At least, it does if a 'way of approaching causality' includes a definition. If it does then one cannot under...
I don't disagree. I wasn't saying there's a moral obligation to comply with someone's wishes to use a particular set of sexed words in relation to the...
I can't see anything intrinsically wrong with society's tradition of identifying people by their sex. I think a moral dimension enters when somebody w...
I was going to reply citing books like Speeches that changed the world, but then I heard about an upcoming book release 'PowerPoint Presentations that...
Damn, from the title I thought this thread was going to be a deep dive into the subtleties, mind-blowing incomprehensibility, and yet fundamental feel...
The way I make moral decisions is broadly in line with your principle. I want to point out though that it is by no means a clear decision-making tool....
Based on Jorndoe's post, it appears one can get displaystyle by using the same delimiters and . and then using the standard latex delimiters for displ...
Right-clicking on a piece of latex code brings up a MathJax context menu that includes useful items like Show Math As > (choose between mathml and Lat...
While looking for a podcast of a radio show I overheard with an Indian giving his view on Hinduism, I came across the podcast of the discussion I ment...
You are conflating belief with content. Even if one accepted that belief is not a significant part of liberal Christianity, that would not make it con...
I don't agree with that unsupported claim either. I didn't note that at all. I presume your mistake comes from too hasty a reading, as I imagine you u...
Point 1 is a truism, but does not apply to liberal Christianity. There are plenty of flourishing liberal Christian congregations. I don't agree with c...
This is a topic that has taken my interest in the last week, after I heard a discussion between a liberal and an Evangelical Christian on ABC Radio Na...
How do you imagine it being useful to ask questions about it, and what questions would you like to ask? The questions asked to date have been things l...
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