The same way that I know the meaning of any common words by being taught by teachers, and observing usage. I was taught that one more than one is two, and that's how I know what it means. — Metaphysician Undercover

I told you, 2 means one more than one. Do you think that two has some other mysterious meaning different from this? — Metaphysician Undercover

I see all sorts of people sitting in coffee shops with a screen in front of them, but they don't socialize. It strikes me as dysfunctional. It's a way of being "less alone" I suppose. — Bitter Crank

had access to the 2017 internet — Bitter Crank

However, I do think the will precedes reason; but, the amount of work and effort that reason applies in polishing and making a goal a reality is certainly underappreciated in my opinion. — Question

Chicken or egg? Is Stoicism all just a rationalization for, as you say, my personal social ineptitude or has my social ineptitude resulted from my Stoic attitude (as if!). — Question

Maybe not directly to happiness; but, certainly less unhappiness. — Question

This is fundamentally flawed. The success of therapy and psychology along with specific elements of it, like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, attest against this interpretation of reason only being a slave to passions. — Question

whether you are intentionally and rationally denying yourself opportunity or whether the complexities of initiating a relationship have simply been too great for you to overcome, so you've rationalized your disengagement as being a decision of a higher order, as opposed to admitting to and attempting to correct social ineptitude. — Hanover

I believe in two personal virtues, ambition and discipline — Emptyheady

But surely that hypothesis about the computer is just some sort of vague metaphor, right, like I already suggested? If it's not a metaphor, then, like I've already said, that's some really shitty antrhopomorphization to imagine some actual massive computer brain creating the world we know. So, taking it as metaphor, a metaphorical super computer projecting a "hologram" which is the world has parallel's to the idea of God creating the world through a process of spirit becoming objectified. In other words, if you're talking about a metaphorical supercomputer creating the world, you're basically talking about God. It's just a crappy metaphor. — Noble Dust

I admit I haven't studied that hypothesis enough to know if or why they wouldn't be similar. I just imagine a "computer projecting a hologram which is the physical world" as a crappy metaphor for the physical world as spirit objectified. They seem like parallel concepts to me. Although I guess the physical world as spirit objectified isn't really classical theology. — Noble Dust

Why is this inaccurate? — Noble Dust

I did not say that manners were more important than morals. I said "I generally favor morals over manners". In the judgement of people who value manners very highly, however, "discretion is the better part of valor" as Falstaff says to King Henry IV in the eponymously named play. In the past as in the present, those with lots of power and wealth to control their PR could get away with more than you could, for example. The associates of the rich and powerful almost always had a good deal to gain by (almost always) valuing decorum above legal proceedings. — Bitter Crank

As for your cheating on your wife, especially considering everything you have said about adultery, you would be so very, very guilty of sin that possibly your burning at the stake would not be too severe. But I digress. — Bitter Crank

Sins, crimes, and wrong-doing not discovered are still sins, crimes, and wrong-doing whether anybody knows about it or not. That said, the consequences of sins, crimes, and wrong-doing might be greatly lessened for everyone concerned IF nobody new about it. — Bitter Crank

If a child is found to have had sex with the child next door (lets say they are 8 and 10), the worse thing that can happen for the two children is for the 4 parents to go berserk on the two children that had an unauthorized sexual encounter — Bitter Crank

I don't intend to do the good by typing on a keyboard, no. It's about as amoral an action you can get. — Heister Eggcart

Fine, it's my observation that you're wrong. We good, now? — Heister Eggcart

How do you know that he's not? — Heister Eggcart

The same faculties that brought you to the conclusion that we only seek the good, >:O — Heister Eggcart

Fucking bitches is not factually wrong. — Heister Eggcart

And if you'd like to judge whether it's morally wrong, then what do you have to use in order to do that? Reason. — Heister Eggcart

The same thing that governs why someone may think the complete opposite. — Heister Eggcart

Typing on a keyboard is not a good, or any other amoral action. — Heister Eggcart

Casanova might have said and done the same thing. He was having sex because he judged that it was the good. — Heister Eggcart

Yep, you may be wrong. You also may be wrong about your judgement of the good always being sought, regardless of wrong judgments! — Heister Eggcart

Goodness is not rationality, however. — Heister Eggcart

One may be rational without striving for the good. — Heister Eggcart

If you contest that, okay, but then what will you, and I, use in order to best find the truth to our disagreement? Ah yes,reason. — Heister Eggcart

Sounds like a good excuse to fuck bitches since we're aimed at "God" regardless of what we do. — Heister Eggcart

As I said before, you have judged that we all pursue the good, which means that such a judgement cannot be true because you've already said that "logic doesn't determine which judgement is right." — Heister Eggcart

And an unintelligible one at that. — Heister Eggcart

There is also a slew of results that refute hidden-variable theories of any kind, not least the Free Will Theorem. — tom

Do you literally think articles like this are "aimed" at that goal? — Noble Dust

I just mean literally in the sense that they are very purposively aimed at the goal of idiotification, presumably with malicious intent. — Noble Dust

Yeah, those 4 myths, and Hamilton's ridiculous idea of aliens creating us as an experiment aren't even really worth addressing. I posted the article more because it's a general topic of interest to me. I figured some reactions here might be worthwhile. — Noble Dust

"That said, one interesting feature of current discourse is a growing openness among some scientifically minded people to the possibility that our world has a purpose that was imparted by an intelligent being. I’m referring to “simulation” scenarios, which hold that our seemingly tangible world is actually a kind of projection emanating from some sort of mind-blowingly powerful computer; and the history of our universe, including evolution on this planet, is the unfolding of a computer algorithm whose author must be pretty bright...You may scoff, but in 2003 the philosopher Nick Bostrom of Oxford University published a paper laying out reasons to think that we are pretty likely to be living in a simulation...If you walked up to the same people who gave Bostrom a respectful hearing and told them there is a transcendent God, many would dismiss the idea out of hand. Yet the simulation hypothesis is a God hypothesis: An intelligence of awe-inspiring power created our universe for reasons we can speculate about but can’t entirely fathom. And, assuming this intelligence still exists, it is in some sense outside of our reality — beyond the reach of our senses — and yet, presumably, it has the power to intervene in our world. Theology has entered “secular” discourse under another name." — Noble Dust

As I've said elsewhere, I'm a sucker for teleology. What more do I need? I need to know the secret to the whole thing; I need to know where this thing is going. That preoccupies my philosophical interests more than anything else. — Noble Dust

"This shows the interpretation, while being causal is not strictly deterministic. [Bohm's italics]. Indeed in the next chapter it will be shown that the possibility is opened for creativity to operate within a causal framework." — Rich

De Broglie's views — Rich

That's the motivation for Many Worlds — Marchesk

I did not learn to count this way, and I bet that you didn't either. I learned that two comes after one and three comes after two, and so on. I very quickly learned how to count to ten, and then to one hundred. There was no putting objects together when I learned to count. — Metaphysician Undercover

What is described is the relation between these symbols, nothing more. It is order, pure and simple, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.. That is why mathematics is so useful, these symbols do not describe anything in particular, they have a position within a created order, and as long as the order is maintained there will be no mistake. So the symbols don't describe anything at all, that's why we have a zero, but they can be applied to anything, and that's why they're so useful. — Metaphysician Undercover

Why do you say that this relation can't be invented? — Metaphysician Undercover

It's called counting, start with one, add another one, and you get two. — Metaphysician Undercover

To me that reads more like a question of ignoring the behaviour or not raising it, rather than it being beyond discovery. A society which pretends nothing is going on for social decorum, where manners are more important than recognising or stopping abuse. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Manners might rule that discrete infidelity without messy entanglements (like inconvenient offspring) is socially acceptable. — Bitter Crank

I've basically given up on the Philosophy Now board. Its too difficult to have a serious discussion there, and it's otherwise way too slow to be entertaining. There are also a number of people there who have kind of an anti-intellectual bent, where they're hostile towards the idea of studying academic philosophy or communicating in that vein . . . which is kind of weird for a philosophy board. — Terrapin Station

The current association is simply the result of about 90 years of business propaganda. Interestingly however, many modern businesses do seem to lean towards social liberalism at least as a PR move — Maw

Most Jews, for example, lean liberal. — Maw

Kruse delineates the emergence of Conservative Christianity as a form of propaganda orchestrated by the business class during the 1930s in order to vilify and vitiate FDRs New Deal, which the business class saw as a threat towards Capitalism. — Maw

Mathematics is simply an invented language for thinking about relations abstractly. — Terrapin Station

All things? Nope. — Heister Eggcart

So drawn to "Goodness" that you'd rather please your penis than live a still life among monks — Heister Eggcart

Just how you think having children is good. — Heister Eggcart

So who judges his judgement to be wrong? You? If so, who judges your judgement of his judgement? — Heister Eggcart

This doesn't follow at all. — Heister Eggcart

How'd you figure this out? — Heister Eggcart

I can say the same of your own judgement, that marital sex in fact propagates suffering and pain. According to your wonky logic, my judgement is as right as yours. — Heister Eggcart

Has? So God's supposed Being is as much a quality as our own being...interesting...... — Heister Eggcart

sheer vulgarity — StreetlightX

It is unproductive, off-putting, and makes the forum a worse place for discussion — StreetlightX

The point is Agustino that it's not my moderation that's the problem, it's that someone should even think of moderating your posts that you object to and that provokes this hysterical reaction — Baden