"The universe has a cause" — Magnus

False or unprovable.

"The universe began to exist" — Magnus

False.

The abolition of slavery was fantasy. — NOS4A2

Please explain.

Has your experience of being a biped changed? — ZzzoneiroCosm

no

Imagine: Tomorrow when you wake up you look at the political leaders of your country and it's all quadrupeds. Tomorrow when you wake up you turn on the nightly news to listen to pundits preach and teach and it's all quadrupeds.

Has your experience of being a biped changed? — ZzzoneiroCosm

The fallacy is that my experience is determined by the way others see me.

(I don't know where on Earth you live. I can make these questions better if you tell me where you live.)

1. When I look at the political leaders of my country do I see preponderantly bipeds who are white and male? Or do I see preponderantly quadrapeds who are black and female?

2. When I turn on the nightly news to listen to pundits preach and teach, do I see preponderantly bipeds who are white and male? Or do I see preponderantly quadrapeds who are black and female? — ZzzoneiroCosm

I do not see your point.

Do not write sentences so long they become paragraphs. — jgill

Kant writes paragraph long sentences. At the end you can't remember what the point was.

Take your reader by the hand and imagine her/him to be a friend. Once in a while address him/her as "dear reader". Make them part of the story, let them feel the cold, see the colors, understand the theories you use, meet the gods you describe, feel the struggle, and experience the storm and lightning. Give them a book that absorbs them and leaves left of the.a puddle of water only. — Hillary

I've seen writing manual mention that. Tell the reader where the argument is and where it is going.

I thought we were talking about moral relativism. — Joshs

Okay, I should not comment anymore.

Heidegger and Derrida are the main two I’ve come across. Both use several pages to say something they could’ve said in one. I can kind of forgive Derrida though as he is actively looking at this very thing in his writing. I still think he did himself moe harm than good by purposefully trying to be obscure. — I like sushi

Derrida has some good ideas, but his writing and explication can be tedious.

How do I avoid gobbledygook writing? What are some examples of famous philosophers with gobbledygook writing? I would like to know because my writing tends to come across that way.

Another point of discussion is: what is the most effective way to write possible? — Joseph Walsh

Kant is a terrible writer. Hume and Descartes are good writers. Bertrand Russell is a good writer.

Laissez-faire: not only hasn’t existed but cannot exist. An idiotic ideal fabricated to justify plutocracy.

What believers in laissez-faire ultimately are is anti-democracy. Look no further than the way these deluded proponents defend corporate governance (zero democracy) while attacking political governance (some democracy) — all while throwing around words like “liberty.” — Xtrix

Well said, agree. Capitalism for the masses. Socialism for the wealthy.

You just did it again. Saying someone stabs someone else for fun is interpreting their behavior as willfully immoral. — Joshs

What is positive side of killing someone for fun? Nothing to do with moral or immoral. Why would any society want people to do it?

Are you asking if a culture believes doing immoral things is moral? — Joshs

No. Just what I said. Stabbing people for fun. What culture thinks that is good?

postmodernists argue that all morality is culture -relative. — Joshs

Would not agree with that assertion. Does any culture believe stabbing and murdering people is acceptable (outside of war!)?

there is no argument showing God impossible. — SpaceDweller

Perhaps. But who guides their life by what is not impossible?

Without reason life is meaningless. It has to have evolved for some intelligible reason. Only if eternal heavenly intelligences have created the universe's basics, life has a reason why it evolved. The eternal heavenly intelligences don't need no reason. — Hillary

ok

The value of art accordingly consists not in providing mere delight for us, but in the totality of experience for which aesthetic contemplation stands. The feeling of pleasure is, no doubt, there, but only as an aspect of that experience. — skyblack

Agree with that.

What then is the reason people exist? — Hillary

Why does there have to be a reason?

He was criticized for failing to be Hegelian and he admitted it. — frank

Who criticized him and for what? Marx called himself a materialist and differed only on what he called Hegel's idealism.

Maybe a little around the edges. — frank

Seems to me at the core. Marx thought of himself as Hegelian.

There is no reason for many things, but this does not imply nonexistence, people do exist, and dark mater does exist. — SpaceDweller

Every reason has another reason behind it. At some point we just have to accept that we are here and the world exists.

Today’s neural models make use of complexity systems approaches.
If you look at the model of a complex dynamical
system it is essentially a dialectical movement. Temporary states of equilibrium in a living system are followed by a disequilibrating event , and then restabilize at a higher state of organization, like a spiral. — Joshs

Thanks. I don't have the knowledge about this, something to learn about.

Marx wasn't particularly Hegelian, though. The community around him was. — frank

Marx was Hegelian--the concept of history as dialectical

If one were to poll those at the leading edge of the field of A.I., one would find very few embracing Hayak’s brand of libertarianism , but most would align themselves with one post-Hegelian philosophy or another. This is no coincidence. Each eta of technology is made possible by a specific philosophical ground, with its own implications for political theory . — Joshs

This interests me. Can you say more about the Hegelian influence on AI?

Why was neoliberalism so devastatingly successful? — frank

Because it is capitalism.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

― Epicurus — ArmChairPhilosopher

Cannot argue with that.

He was anti-right. — SpaceDweller

ok

Isn't left and right born out of WW2?

Hitler: far right
Stalin: far left

Ideologies are dead ofc. my point is that since then left and right changed but mention of right\left started with WW2 and cold war narrative. — SpaceDweller

What actions of Stalin makes him a leftist?

Not because they are "laws" but because physical laws exist.
physical laws could not have caused them self.

It doesn't make sense physical laws are self-caused out of no physical laws.
What ever must have caused physical laws to start existing, that is, to manifest them self, to be observable. — SpaceDweller

Physical laws are just behaviors within boundaries.

Science was struggling for any answers prior to the big bang. Now, science
or some scientist says correctly that space preceded the big bang. Science can never arrive at the question of God; it is beyond the paradigm. — val p miranda

Space did not precede the Big Bang.

"Not to be born is, beyond all estimation, best; but when a man has seen the light of day, this is next best by far, that with utmost speed he should go back from where he came.' (Sophocles)

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0190%3Acard%3D1225#:~:text=%5B1225%5D%20Not%20to%20be%20born,back%20from%20where%20he%20came.

Yes, this is actually a fallacy. I don't know the name -- maybe false equivalence. But yes, close to circular reasoning.

The correct way to put that argument is to put the subject, the person, in two different situations and argue that one situation fosters happiness, while the other does not. The incorrect way is the one you pointed out -- cancelling the subject altogether in one situation. — L'éléphant

The idea that it is better to exist than not exist seems to be purely a value statement. It is usually made by Christian theologians to justify their belief in God.

It’s interesting, because in some ways I think the progressive left would actually consider (Neo)-Nazis to be an oppressed group and an underrepresented minority. — Paulm12

No one on the left would say such a foolish thing.

1. You didn't answer my question.

2. Do you? Or are they more likely to ask back "which one"? Referring to a specific god as "God" at least propagates confusion. I will use the proper names of the gods I'm talking about, Odin, Zeus or YHVH when I mean a specific god. I will use "god" and "it" when I refer to the diffuse concept of godhood. — ArmChairPhilosopher

Okay, got it.

When you travel to another country, lets say Sweden, does your name change into "Hansson"? — ArmChairPhilosopher

Another travel example. When you travel to India and ask a Hindu if they believe in God, do you think they will refer to the Christian God?

"God" is not the name of any god, it is more like a title. Monotheists often forget that fact as their only god is identical to all titular gods they believe in. The gods of the Bible have names, El and YHVH (which got retconned into one when Judaism switched from henotheism to monotheism) specifically. — ArmChairPhilosopher

"God" is a proper name. In a Christian culture everyone know it refers to God in that tradition.

Brain fart when typing — I like sushi

Got it, thanks!

Laws of physics are just regularities. The concept of law is rather odd since we usually think of a law as needing enforcement.

By the same logic how about someone you is a nazi. That’s diversity! — I like sushi

I have no idea what that meant.