First order predicate logic is needed because different domains are forwarded and their variables need to be quantified. For example, when stating, I value something, two separate variables share a relation to the predicate value:1. If moral values are my values, then if I value something necessarily it is morally valuable (if P, then Q)
2. If I value something it is not necessarily morally valuable (not Q)
3. Therefore moral values are not my values (therefore not P)
That argument is valid and sound. You can run it again with yourself mentioned in premise 1 and 2 rather than me and it will remain valid and sound. — Bartricks
Thank you everyone for your responses. I would only like to know how Newton knew his laws are true. What were the experiments he performed? — Fernando Rios
Heraclitus was a great philosopher but it appears Parmenides did more research and gave more thought on the matter.
What say you? — TheMadFool
High marks to you my friend!! I could not agree more with your analysis! — 3017amen
Bullseye on the etiological myths. — Brainglitch
Are there any good modern refutations to Global Antinatalism? — OP
Yeah, I must admit that my info is possibly from five years ago. I forget that these telescopes are updated periodically.The expansion rate of the universe has slowed in the past (end of inflation), it could slow again and maybe reverse. I think the astronomers are not too sure on the actual expansion rate: — Devans99
I agree with this, theoretically speaking.But the Big Rip does not explain the Big Bang in a neat and tidy way like the Big Crunch does. — Devans99
Measurements so far have density equal to the critical density(mass needed to stop the expansion) which should eventually slow the expansion down gradually to a flat, infinite universe. This being contingent on the observable universe being at the range of the entire universeThe only topology that fits this requirement is a closed loop - circular time. — Devans99
To me, mind is a form of matter and it is actually due to physicality, being what it is, that we get these mistaken views such as idealism, dualism or soul belief. The experiencer is not substantively evident to the experience due to things being physical such that it is physically impossible for me to turn inward on myself. We are like prisoners of our own physicality and I find it amazing and awesome that we can come to agreements on many matters and indeed disagreements also. Agreements and disagreements we are behooved to make to due to being physical, sensitive creatures living in a physical world. (I was going to use the word material but I didn't want to come off sounding like Madonna! :joke:)We can even postulate that the distinction between 'mind' and 'matter' is necessarily ambiguous, precisely because 'mind' is entangled in 'matter.' --or also note that the distinction is already a metaphysical axiom that obscures how we actually live in or even as meaning-matter. — sign
You can imply that I have misread Berkeley all you want but it still remains that if you buy into Berkeley's immaterialism then you should accept that deity itself is but a perception also and not of any actual substance. If you don't then it's a case of special pleading. Berkeley's immaterialism is preposterous due to this simple inconsistency. And you can replace deity with whatever, because at the end of the day, they too are all just ideas.I think you're in a bit of a tangle here with what Berkeley is really saying. — Wayfarer
My mum likes those inspirational quotes/biblical verses on prints (tea-towels, cushions etc.) I might get her those words printed for a xmas present!There is the well-known and oft-quoted limerick which might have already been posted in this very thread, but it's such a gem it can hardly be repeated too often: — Wayfarer
Maybe that term as such but ancient man did conceive of gods and other fantastical creatures very much part of the natural world with Plato being apart from the norm in contemporary Greek thinking.And what you’re calling ‘objective realism’ is a very recent arrival! — Wayfarer
There is only one context pertinent here; ontology!I would not define a term like that, because it has too many different uses in different contexts. — Metaphysician Undercover
:brow: It was you that brought up these principles. I'm starting to think that you really don't know what's real or not! But in your defense, you're not the only one! :up:I can't say that I have an answer to this question because I do not understand the context. — Metaphysician Undercover
Sorry I can't stay around and chat, have to get out early to avoid the xmas shopping rush, But I promise I will mull over your posts and hopefully have something interesting to say later!You're too kind. Thanks! — sign
Boring?!! Never!!Fair enough! I'm happy to have at least not been boring. — sign
I'll try! :up:Ha. Well, I'd love to see what else you have to say about the issue. — sign
You've given me some food for thought here, I'm going to have to come back to you on this one.No doubt we can imagine (in some problematic way) that 'matter' (whatever it is exactly supposed to me) was here first and be here after. If we identify the actual with durability, then matter becomes tempting as the actual. On the other hand, this whole line of thought exists as meaning. Perhaps the materialist forgets the ideal nature of matter (itself an abstraction in some views from a stream of sensation), and the idealist forgets the entanglement of meaning in its other. We can even postulate that the distinction between 'mind' and 'matter' is necessarily ambiguous, precisely because 'mind' is entangled in 'matter.' --or rather because the distinction is already metaphysical axiom that obscures how we actually live in or even as meaning-matter. — sign
Damn sign, you just made my brain hurt! Am I not being open-minded by declaring metaphysical ignorance as axiomatic?! :joke:I am interested though in precisely this metaphysical ignorance as a metaphysical axiom. — sign
Yeah, it does seem that Berkeley proposes an epistemological idealism.Berkeley says the world is real and therefore physical, the physical things in his world are not made of matter. Matter can exist independently and ideas cannot. — Jamesk
It does seem like Berkeley is writing to atheist intellectuals rather than common folk. Much in the way Pascal did earlier, but whereas Pascal uses pragmatism, Berkeley uses scepticism.In Berkeley's time atheism was in it's early stages, the vast majority of the western world believed in a God whom they were scared of. God was much more taken for granted then than now. I think that this may explain his glossing over of the subject because people had a much stronger idea of God than they do today. — Jamesk
Would you not say that Plato's theory of the forms informed idealism also?Idealism was born out of Melebranche's occasionalism which had God destroying and recreating the world on a second to second basis, thus being present in all of our lives. Berkeley say's why would God make such massive and destructive efforts just to prove his existence when he could do the whole thing mentally — Jamesk
Interesting thought. Makes me think that somewhere, really advanced aliens are sharing snapshots of each others' histories!Travel, no. Looking, yes. By looking at the Andromeda galaxy you are seeing it as it was 2.5 million years ago. By traveling closer to the Andromeda galaxy it's change would accelerate "forward" in time until you get to it and see it in its near-present state. — Harry Hindu
I remember seeing a Red Dwarf episode in which the crew land on an anomalous planet where time travelled backward to the crews', and our point of view. This seemed like it was normal to them and our past is their future and vice-versa!If time is circular, then travelling forward in time would eventually lead to retro-time travel. — Devans99
Wayfarer forwarded the idea that we are not in error in what we perceive, it's our judgements that are in error about what we perceive. And as I've now read the Dialogues, this does seem consistent in what the Philonous character states. And furthermore, when we pull the oar out of the water, we see that the oar is straight. Sight and touch converge to the actuality of the oar, the convergence due to God of course!Berkeley is a proper empiricist, all the laws of nature are preserved, real and empirically knowable. With everything being an idea of God causation is also explained. There is no necessary connection between events except Gods will, event A precedes event B because God makes it this way. God is the ultimate causal force in the universe, being finite spirits ourselves we also have some minor causal efficacy but none whatsoever exists in objects. — Jamesk
Yes Berkeley does state as such in that we have volitional cause but God is the prime causer, so to speak. But as you see from my answer to JamesK above, all we are left with is faith because deity himself (or spiritual realm) is shy about such things.I should clarify that will only defend Berkeley up to a point. I think his fundamental intuition is sound, but the way that I interpret it is in the sense that it reminds us that we are participants in reality, and not just observers of it; — Wayfarer
Whatever metaphysical axioms are afoot, we all have metaphysical ignorance so saying what is or isn't seems to me something we can't be sure of. I don't presume that objective reality is right and subjective reality is wrong, just that objective reality, i.e. physicalism, is a story well told in my view. Granted that physicalism is by no means an epistemic done deal but I prefer it's uncertainty to any other metaphysical notions' uncertainty.The problem resides in taking the methodological attitude of ‘objectivity’ as a metaphysical axiom, which it isn’t; — Wayfarer
And this is why we have metaphysical ignorance.because reality is not actually something we are outside of or apart from — Wayfarer
So wait a minute, you have forwarded a statement that illusions are erroneous judgements and now you're saying that enlightened people who endorse a theory of the forms can only know what's real? So not-real (i.e. illusion) is erroneous judgement and real is correct judgement so long as you buy into anything that isn't objective realism? It all seems wishy-washy to me in its so-long-it's-not objective-realism attitude.So ‘the real’ can only properly be known by the sage or philosopher who, in the Western philosophical tradition at least, ascends by the use of reason to the ‘vision of the One’ (which is the meaning of the allegory of the Cave). — Wayfarer
Okay, so again you've just stated in different words that you don't think real is absolutely being. What is your definition of real?I would not define "real" in a way so as to exclude relations from being real, such that only absolutes are real. — Metaphysician Undercover
So what are these principles?So if we assume this distinction between real and not real, we would need some principles to differentiate one from the other in this context. — Metaphysician Undercover
Say we see an oar in water, Hylas says, and it appears bent to us. We then lift it out and see that it is really straight; the bent appearance was an illusion caused by the water's refraction. On Philonous' view, though, we cannot say that we were wrong about the initial judgement; if we perceived the stick as bent then the stick had to have been bent. ... Philonous has an answer to this worry. While we cannot be wrong about the particular idea, he explains, we can still be wrong in our judgement. Ideas occur in regular patterns, and it is these coherent and regular sensations that make up real things, not just the independent ideas of each isolated sensation. The bent stick can be called an illusion, therefore, because that sensation is not coherently and regularly connected to the others. If we pull the stick out of the water, or we reach down and touch the stick, we will get a sensation of a straight stick. It is this coherent pattern of sensations that makes the stick. If we judge that the stick is bent, therefore, then we have made the wrong judgement, because we have judged incorrectly about what sensation we will have when we touch the stick or when we remove it from the water.
What was confusing about it? I may be wrong about it but I thought what I typed was pretty clear! Relationships do exist, there is no denying this, as do illusions, so what is your definition of real?To me, what you have said here appears very confused. Why does something have to be absolute to be real? Are relations not real? — Metaphysician Undercover
We shall see! :wink:In it he pretty much uncovers every possible objection to his theory and overcomes them — Jamesk
Berkeley addresses and answers this objection in the Dialogues. Optics was actually his best subject, his book on it did much better than immaterialism. — Jamesk
I have, I've read all posts. I guess that I'm not included when it comes to principles of charity! :worry:Please read all of his posts before commenting. — Jamesk
Thanks :up:Thank you, illuminating comment. I hope you stick around :smile: — Wayfarer
TS claimed that a tree is matter in the same way that the song called Kashmir is music. This statement is only true and sound if universals are real. — Metaphysician Undercover
So asking people to ignore someone who doesn't hold your views and doesn't conform to how you think a philosophy discussion ought to be is doing philosophy?I suggest that we just stop answering this Terrapin until he starts doing some philosophy. — Jamesk
All is quantifying all instances (not universals :wink:) of the predication of existing with the predication of being particulars. In predicate logic form: ∀x(Ex→Px).The statement 'all that exists are particulars' is a general statement. So if 'all' denotes anything, then the word 'all' must be general, which means the statement is false. because ‘all’ is an existing word; and if it doesn't denote anything, then the statement is meaningless. — Wayfarer