• TPF Quote Cabinet
    To trust life or to take it into your own hands is a hard decision. Do you trust the wind or do you want to be the tornado? — Some guy on Quora
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    When it comes to pressup and transcendental arguments, I have seen this reply:
    The problem is that transcendental arguments only work if you grant intelligibility on the front end because a transcendental argument is an argument for the necessary preconditions for the intelligibility of experience. But this presents a problem for him [the pressup], if he doesn’t grant intelligibility he can’t reason transcendentally but if he grants intelligibility he grants autonomous reasoning which is an implicit denial of his conception of the Christian worldview.

    Relevant and funny clip:

  • The Thomas Riker argument for body-soul dualism
    ↪Walter
    Quite the trendy topic. I quote myself from this thread:

    This topic has been discussed in this The Necessity of Genetic Components in Personal Identity and Reasons for believing in the permanence of the soul threads. I would recommend taking a look and then editing your OP so the discussion does not start from 0 again. :grin: — Lionino

    Also this Possible solution to the personal identity problem thread has relevant posts.

    Your thread seems to be more about permance of self rather than mind-body dualism.

    But it should, in principle, be possible to make a complete copy (à la Thomas Riker), who feels, thinks.. exactly the same as Will Riker.
    But suppose that right after the copy is made, I kill Will Riker. Did I really kill him of is he still alive as Thomas Riker?     — Walter

    They would be distinct in any metaphysical theory except for those of the likes of open individualism or Spinozism (maybe). In dualism, once you clone them, either one of them is soulless (possibly a p-zombie), or some spare soul in haven enters the soulless body. In physicalism, as soon as you clone them, they are distinct spatio-temporally, so they are distinct.
  • Human Essence
    I have a friend who works for one of the biggest tech companies in the world. And, they want to know what his essence is. He tells me they have regular meeting about how him and his staff feel about themselves and the company. Are they asking if the essence of the company is alligning to the essence of the employee? He thinks they are. This companies mission statment is, the essence of the company. And employees are expected to not just agree with it, but to own the same essence to correctly align themselves to their priorities. — Rob J Kennedy

    Just another example of marketing and HR middle managers not knowing how to use words — (good) semantics is actually quite the exclusive skill. What they are trying to talk about is the company's and the person's values. The HR department simply had this aesthetic feeling that the word 'essence' is prettier than 'value' and chose to go with it, without any regard for meaning.
    It is typical corporate talk as most of us know, and most of most of us (so less than 1 most) know that the employees give 0 f*cks about it, they are just trying to make it through the month, irrespective of inclusivity or team-mindedness or fliggity-diggity.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    Why would a rational God present us with the Bible - especially the Old Testament - as its book? I could go on, but it might become monotonous and repetitive. — Ludwig V

    The thing about presuppositionalists is that they don't talk about religion or Jesus, they are only desirous of bullying into you that atheism is irrational and that agnosticism is impossible.
    What theists usually do is (try to) prove that God exists, and then go for the historical reasons why their religion is truer than Islam or Buddhism — which is always a stopping point, as the evidence surrounding Christianity is more detrimental than it is corroborative.
    Presuppositionalism is performative, not philosophical.

    Though aren't some experiences - "bad trips" - paranoid fantasies, which may be life-changing, but not in a good way — Ludwig V

    Surely, some people even go crazy after taking LSD.

    Mainly because, as you say, they're ingenious. Quite a stunt to take reason (the skeptic's prized tool against 'superstition') and use the very possibility of rationality as proof for god. But they can also be monotonous and repetitive. — Tom Storm

    Alex Malpass is a public figure and philosopher who has dealt with presups several times. There are a few articles of his that touch on the topic, on the presup tag of his website.
  • Nietzsche is the Only Important Philosopher
    but he really did say something when he noticed that he existed — Fire Ologist

    Though he did say it best, it was far from being an original thought. I wrote about it, here it is translated to English:

    The first example is St Augustine's si fallor, explained in "Monologues", "The Trinity" and "The City of God":
    "If he doubts, he understands that he doubts; if he doubts, he wants to be certain; if he doubts, he thinks; if he doubts, he knows that he doesn't know; if he doubts, he thinks that he shouldn't agree rashly. Even if you doubt other things, you shouldn't doubt that you doubt. Since if it didn't exist, it would be impossible to doubt anything," — Saint Augustine
    which Descartes discusses in a letter to Andreas Colvius:
    Vous m'avez obligé de m'avertir du passage de saint Augustin, auquel mon Je pense, donc je suis a quelque rapport; je l’ay esté lire aujourd’huy en la Biblioteque de cette Ville, et je trouve veritablement qu’il s’en sert pour prouver la certitude de nostre estre, et en suite pour faire voir qu’il y a en nous quelque image de La Trinité, en ce que nous sommes, nous sçavons que nous sommes, et nous aymons cét estre et cette science qui est en nous; au lieu que je m’en sers pour faire connoistre que ce moy, qui pense, est une substance immaterielle, et qui n’a rien de corporel; qui sont deux choses fort differentes. Et c’est une chose qui de soy est si simple et si naturelle à inferer, qu’on est, de ce qu’on doute, qu’elle auroit pû tomber sous la plume de qui que ce soit; mais je ne laisse pas d’estre bien aise d’avoir rencontré avec saint Augustin, quand ce ne seroit que pour fermer la bouche aux petits esprits qui ont tasché de regabeler sur ce principe. — Descartes to Colvius

    Although Avicenna mentions consciousness and the separation of body and mind, he doesn't establish thought as proof of existence.

    Although some claim that the "Upanishad Mandukya" is about the cogito, this is not quite true.

    Also, in "Nicomachean Ethics", Aristotle mentions consciousness of consciousness as consciousness of existence, but based on the definition that thought or perception are existence.

    Goméz Pereira in "Antoniana Margarita" also presents consciousness as proof of existence, as well as some other parallels with Descartes.

    Thomas Aquinas says in "De Veritate": "No one can assent to the thought that he does not exist. For in thinking something, he realises that it exists"; resembling Aristotle's argument.
  • Best Arguments for Physicalism
    Very simply, can you imagine a scenario where you have evidence for X being true, while unbeknownst to you, X is actually false? Can you imagine any scenario at all like that? If yes, what is it? — flannel jesus

    Gettier case?
  • Absolute nothingness is only impossible from the perspective of something
    ↪Gregory
    You seem to be referring to the problem of induction. By that account, I guess we should say science refutes Hume, as science keeps working despite any skepticism towards regularity, and that radical empiricism is not a common view any longer.
    And {the claim that Plato refuted science, which is a method and not a philosophy, centuries before the scientific method was even put in philosophical terms} is a weird one, to say the least.
  • All that matters in society is appearance
    Unfortunately for your opinion, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, alas. — LuckyR

    Your Hitchens debato-bro phraseology unfortunately does not make sense. No claim of matters-of-fact have been made, only claims of personal experience, which is not an "extraordinary" claim, whatever that means.

    The replies here validate my belief. By pointing out the relationship between outter beauty and inner beauty, the ugly ones retaliate — despite never being personally named — by, ironicaly, showing their inner ugliness. Perhaps greasy skin and unkept hair reveal a greasy character and unkept spirit.
  • Manifest Destiny Syndrome
    Those numbers have exponentially increased in recent years as Biden has opened the borders to human trafficking, drugs and more guns. — Steven P Clum

    Don't forget that his son is a crack-addict and a kid-toucher, and Joe Biden covers up for him. It is revealing of the family's ethics, and consequently of people who support that whole circus.
  • How Different Are Theism and Atheism as a Starting Point for Philosophy and Ethics?
    ↪Jack Cummins
    For theism as a starting-point, you could check presuppositionalism. It is not philosophy exactly, and its defendants are far from being good philosophers, but it relates to what you are asking about.

    In any case, are either atheism or theism the epistemological starting points of any philosophical view? Surely many philosophies have god as an important element, Spinoza, Neo-Platonism, etc. But does it start with God? I don't recall so.
  • Absolute nothingness is only impossible from the perspective of something
    cience on the other hand was refuted by Hume and Plato long before this forum started. — Gregory

    Oh, really? Where?
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    Then, they both(Bob and the dumb kids) know what a butterfly is, and the other pieces of information (in one case, it's appearance, in the other, its origin) don't seem to bear on the respective knowledge claims. It doesn't seem to follow that the opposite (in each case) is required to bring the information to the level of 'knowledge'.

    I don't think that's a counter as much as a parallel. They both know what a butterfly is under different criteria.     — AmadeusD

    In that case what Bob and the kids "know" as "butterfly" are different things. For Bob,
    "butterfly" is the same thing as "the thing that comes out of the cocoon". When Bob thinks of a butterfly he does not have the same mental content as the kids.
    Your argument seem to be either that both parties have a mental content at all for the word "butterfly" regardless of whether those contents are alike, or that there is some essential property of "butterfly" you didn't specify that both parties know of regardless of the accidents (shape colour etc) of a butterfly.

    Bob knows merely that a butterfly comes from a cocoon — AmadeusD

    By the mental content of butterfly to Bob, that would be redundant. The thing that comes from a cocoon comes from a cocoon.

    This seems to go the President example pretty squarely - I'm of the view that we can know Bob will become President, regardless of whether we know what a President is. — AmadeusD

    What we understand by president is a set of official duties and privileges. If Bob does not understand anything at all by the word "president", I believe that we will end up with a non-proposition, "Bob will become ∅", and belief in the context of knowledge must be propositional.
  • All that matters in society is appearance
    ↪Vaskane


    Does Nietzsche teach us how to shave a patchy beard?
  • All that matters in society is appearance
    I was just testing out my hypothesis, that you really didn't know what you were talking about when you said: — wonderer1

    If you had attended school in a civilised nation and developed reading skills, you would know that is not a case of "knowing what you are talking about", but rather a case of me completely forgetting about you and your complete lack of philosophical knowledge to contribute.

    Thanks for playing. :lol: — wonderer1

    A fellow gamer?! Does your wife's boyfriend also let you play Nintendo Switch past midnight?
  • All that matters in society is appearance
    ↪wonderer1
    No, I am 188cm tall with a five pack, the top two blocks of my abs fuse into one. Sorry for posting a picture of one of your flatmates.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    Even for those people, the butterfly is the thing that comes out of the cocoon — AmadeusD

    Counterexample, (dumb) kids know what a butterfly is without knowing it is the thing that comes out of the cocoon.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    the result is called, by tradition (or perhaps he knows the etymology, but not to what it refers), a butterfly, — AmadeusD

    Then, for him, a butterfly is that which comes out of the cocoon. He may not know what shape, colour, or smell the butterfly is, but for him butterfly means the thing that comes out of the cocoon, so he knows what a butterfly is for him, just not what a butterfly is for people who go outside.

    but i have no idea what the person drew — AmadeusD

    You know that it was a non-triangle, hence your conclusion.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    I dont think one needs to know what a President is before being told Bob will become one/it to know that Bob will become one/it. — AmadeusD

    I think that president is a troublesome word, so let's switch to something more concrete: butterflies.

    Does Bob need to know what a butterfly is to know that the caterpillar is going to become one? Let's say that he believes the caterpillar will become a butterfly, that it is true it will become a butterfly, and that he is justified in thinking it will become one because the caterpillar just made a cocoon. It seems that he knows it. If there is one troublesome component is that "he believes the caterpillar will become a butterfly". How could it be that Bob believes that, if he has no mental content of what a butterfly is?
  • Is this image racist? I talked to someone who thought so.
    Someone is telling the black guy to be more pacific, but black men are violent, so, instead of being pacific, he disappears. That is how it is racist. Of course, the person who claimed it to be racist happens to be from a corner of the world where geography is not taught, so the body of water called Pacific Ocean does not come to mind when the sea shows up.
    Nothing to do with ebonics.
  • Absential Materialism
    Where the term 'cause' carries a completely different meaning to physical causation..... — Wayfarer

    I am talking about neurological causation exactly. Fuzzy chemicals in the brain producing other chemicals in the brain.
    The ink that shows 'elephant' reflects light to my eyes, causing nervous impulses. Due to pattern-recognition, those nervous impulses cause my brain to generate the impulses that generate the image of an elephant.
    I don't see anything lacking with this chain of reactions.
  • All that matters in society is appearance
    E4Bi24jUUAEaBtG?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

    Antifa mugshots. It seems that outside ugliness does seem to motivate inside ugliness — I don't see how the inverse is so much the case, especially when so many of these people are deformed.
  • Absential Materialism
    Interesting point. Why do you think mind is same substance as matter? — Corvus

    I don't hold that position positively, I am just pointing out the interaction problem that arises with any dualistic philosophy.
    This problem in fact arises with ANY non-physicalist philosophy, including matemathical platonism, or any kind of platonism.

    Purely physical processes do not inherently possess meaning or reference, and so can't account for the intentional nature of mental acts. — Wayfarer

    Of course it can, when I program that a = 2, a always references 2, and if I command a*2 it gives me 4.

    That the brain is able to invoke a meaning, a concept, from a symbol is trivial. In a deterministic universe, the symbol is the cause for the thought of the concept.
  • Absolute nothingness is only impossible from the perspective of something
    ↪Corvus
    I know, that is what I was referencing.
  • Absential Materialism
    Mind causes matter to change, move and work. A simple evidence? I am typing this text with my hands caused by my mind. If my mind didn't cause the hands to type, then this text would have not been typed at all. — Corvus

    That does not imply that mind is not matter. On the contrary, the fact that it is able to interact with matter points towards the fact that it is also of the same substance.
  • Metaphysically impossible but logically possible?
    Well, this reply has been catching dust in my drafts, so I will just post it anyway:

    I think in this case, we reach a basal point where we simply differ in opinion, which is the semantics of the adverb ‘metaphysically’.
    I believe that “metaphysically” so far does not imply any modality automatically that we know of, as there are no laws of metaphysics. I then believe that a statement needs to explicitly reference a theory for it to be called "metaphysically impossible", because when we say "metaphysically", it does not mean "epiphenomenalistically" or "counterfactually”. As an example, saying "souls are physicalistically impossible" or "bodies are idealistically impossible" is fine, but that "souls are metaphysically impossible" is incorrect. Of course, you think that “souls are metaphysically impossible relative to physicalism”.
    You may then raise the issue that the same could be the said about physical impossibility. But when we say “physically”, we are automatically invoking the modality known as the laws of physics.
    All in all, my argument is exactly that “metaphysically” does not invoke any laws like “physicalistically” or "dualistically" does. The adverb "metaphysically" is semantically empty until we find universal laws of metaphysics.

    You, on the other hand, believe that the adverb “metaphysically” implicitly references a modality through the justification “Znot” part of “!(z ^ Znot) ^ Znot”, as you said previously I am conflating the proposition being metaphysically impossible with its justification.
    For me, “relative to” is not meaningful, and the justification needs to be part of the argument, otherwise “z is metaphysically impossible” is not informative as it is not mentioning any specific modality, and “z is metaphysically impossible relative to M” is both trying to evoke a modality and not affirm it at the same time.

    Saying ‘Z ^ Znot’ is metaphysically impossible shifts the focus to a different proposition, X, which would have to be evaluated relative to a specified metaphysical theory, N. — Bob Ross

    That also ultimately depends on whether “relative to” is a meaningful thing to say.
  • What is a strong argument against the concievability of philosophical zombies?
    It has “knowledge” only in the sense that LLM’s have “knowledge”. It isn’t conscious. It is simply capable of processing input and reacting accordingly, whether that be with movement or speech. — Michael

    I have been trying to explain that for two pages now, without success.

    Still seems to accommodate unconscious beliefs. — hypericin

    Unfortunately there is ambiguity in the word conscious(ness). It is not important whether a belief is at the forefront of our minds in a given moment (subconscious or otherwise), or whether we are awaken. Something without mind has no belief.

    I mean it to refer to the information processing capacity of the brain — hypericin

    What does information mean? Is it abstract concepts summoned by the mind? P-zombies can't do that, and under physicalism nobody can. Is it nervous impulses? Then it is neurological.
  • Absential Materialism
    because there are clear evidences that it is not — Corvus

    What evidence is that?
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    It's you that said one is more relevant than the other, not me. I'd say "relevance" of a definition comes down to popularity and history. — Hallucinogen

    Relevance of something comes down to whether it is related to the topic at hand. Dictionaries of philosophy seem more relevant than the book of fables and words.

    As a way of debunking what the OP is aimed at debunking - the idea that definitions prove what things are. — Hallucinogen

    No clue what that means. Definitions give us what a word (symbol) refers to. Nobody claims that definitions have magical access to the noumenal realm.

    The only thing your OP supposedly debunks is whether the definition for atheism given somewhere is accurate or contradictory or whatnot.
  • Absolute nothingness is only impossible from the perspective of something
    All you've succeeded in doing is making the grammatical point that if there is something then there is not nothing. — Banno

    :up:

    Especifically, if we take existence to be synonymous with instantiated, like a black dog is instantiated but a blue one does not, it is obvious by definition that nothing cannot ever be instantiated.

    Hume wrote in his Treaties, “If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.” — Corvus

    I like the fragment, but I don't see how it connects with absolute nothingness being an empty concept (something I agree with too).
  • Is Philosophy still Relevant?
    I know I was being facetiou — Vaskane

    I know, I like to be facetious by seriously replying to facetious comments. You see, it is quite meta.

    I'm sorry that polysemy is proving such a challenge — Pantagruel

    Well, naturally, if word X can mean A, B or C, and nothing about the context specifies which, and you make a sentence with several words like this, how do I know whether you mean Aβw or Bγz or Cαy?
    I don't know what you mean by dimension, formalises the abstration process (itself being an abstract), comprehensively reality, and skeptically self-aware. These don't seem to be specific jargon of a philosophical tradition I am ignorant of; only semantically lax words that mean little.
    When I say "The bike is going left" the meaning is more than clear, because we know what bike means and that left here means a direction, not a political affiliation.

    To suppose that one word, in whatever context it appears, ought to mean one thing and no more, argues not an exceptionally high standard of logical accuracy but an exceptional ignorance as to the nature of language — Pantagruel

    Well, he does not strike me as a linguist. This is clearly calling for ambiguity.

    The phenomena which form the basis of the operations of science — Pantagruel

    What are these phenomenons?

    exceed the dimensions — Pantagruel

    What are the dimensions of these phenomenons? Surely you don't mean length and width and depth, which is the typical meaning of dimesnion.

    scientific study — Pantagruel

    I am guessing that this is not supposed to mean anything different than just "science"?

    It's a similar argument to Nietzsche's — Vaskane

    You refer to "Truth and lies in a non-moral sense"?
  • I am the Ubermensch, and I can prove it
    ↪Vera Mont
    Tru.
  • Is Philosophy still Relevant?
    ↪Lionino Well, I guess be careful not to reference yourself then? :sweat: — Vaskane

    I guess that is kind of the point. When I reference myself, I am not truly referencing myself, which includes the act of reference, but "myself" from the past, which is a static entity, as opposed to the present self that is ever changing.

    Not like this has much to do with the thread anyway.

    More to the point, science investigates that with respect to the chosen dimensions of the change, which was what I was emphasizing. Science is always an abstract and in some sense restricted perspective on what it knows (since it formalizes the abstraction process) to be a more comprehensive reality. So science should always be skeptically self-aware (at which point it becomes history, and finally philosophy, if you follow Collingwood's reasoning). — Pantagruel

    Honestly, I can't make sense of what is written here. We have several polysemic words strung together in three sentences, so there are potentially several meanings in what you said, and I can't tell which one it is that you intended.
    If you recommend me a reading (that is not a whole book chapter), I would be able to understand it better.
  • Is Philosophy still Relevant?
    ↪Vaskane
    They do. But I am not sure how much of that obvious warrants the claim that "science studies itself".
    As for me, I am really not a fan of self-reference. Quite the hater, even.
  • Is Philosophy still Relevant?
    ↪Pantagruel
    That seems to be a moot point then. Obviously, whenever we see, touch, or hear anything, we are interacting with it. That seems to evoke some modification of concepts like the noumenon X phenomenon distinction, Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty, and "if a tree falls in a forest". Naturally, everything we investigate is changed by us in the process of doing so, but, besides the change, the effect we investigate also has a cause in the outside world. Science investigates that cause too. If we make a ball collides with another and model its behaviour, we can (and do) predict whenever it happens in nature.
  • A question for Christians
    My point is simply that the Crusades were holy wars waged in the name of God, like jihad, and the crusaders were promised heaven if they died while waging war, as it seems jihadists are promised. — Ciceronianus

    Your point is inaccurate, and you ignored everything I said. Here.
  • Is Philosophy still Relevant?
    Scientists study the effects that they are able to cause. — Pantagruel

    When scientists measure the acceleration of gravity by letting a ball fall, did they cause that effect?
  • A question for Christians
    Urban II called for the freeing of the Holy Sepulchre from the infidels, and offered the remission of sins to those who died while partipating in the Crusades. That sounds rather like a holy war to me. — Ciceronianus

    Yes, a holy war because of what? That is the issue with you bringing up the crusades as if they were any negative.
    "Oh no, people want to defend themselves against foreign death cultists coming to enslave and kill infidels? What a bunch of Nazis."

    No doubt other factors played a part in fostering the crusades But if you think jihad is motivated solely by the desire to kill Christians, I think you're mistaken. — Ciceronianus

    No such claim was ever made.

    Not bandits, but the entire army of the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople instead of proceeding to Jeusalem, together with the fleet of Venice. Those Crusaders backed a rival of the emperor ruling at that time, who it was hoped would be more cooperative and would pay a large sum to the Crusading army. It was also hoped that the Eastern Church would acknowledge the Pope as the head of the Christian Church. Payment wasn't forthcoming and there was no unification of the Churches.The sack was so violent and destructive Constantinople never recovered, and was eventually conquered by the Ottomans. — Ciceronianus

    I know the history of the Fourth Crusade, a tragedy. The corruption of an effort for political reasons has nothing to do with its original goal. The goal of the crusades is clear for anyone who has studied it. Your implication is that the Crusades are somehow comparable to the jihad. Jesus, the crusades were the DEFENSE against the jihad. The crusades were noble and good, at least supposed to be. Obviously, after 100 years of frustration, things don't stay the same. The jihad on the other hand is the direct effort of people to impose a worldview that justifies oppressing women and child marriage — it is an attack, not self-defense.
  • What Are You Watching Right Now?
    Car crashes.
  • The automobile is an unintended evil
    Yes, Europe definitely has a better transportation system — schopenhauer1

    Some (many) European cities. It is hard to generalise even countries. Portugal goes from complete public transport to no transport besides one bus route every hour.
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