He could have just made all the kids redo a year in a years time so that way teachers have a year to plan the additional students and request help from the government as needed — Tiberiusmoon

I have been giving classes online for over a year now. It is hard work, but it is possible to do it. What I cannot understand is why they have not been able to organize the schools to work that way.

Sorry mate, all I see is file names.

Why did you think it significant then? — Bartricks

I find no significance at all in it. I don't think that there is an agent behind anything so it makes no difference at all to me.
But as you are the one claiming that evolution cannot be responsible I would presume that you have an answer.

I have been arguing in this thread that mental states with representative contents require a representer. That is, absent a representer - an agent of some kind - the mental states in question will lack representative contents, no matter how much they may seem to us to have them. And thus, as perceiving the world requires us to be in such states, perceiving the world is not possible if the relevant mental states are the creation of blind evolutionary forces alone. — Bartricks

You are beginning to repeat yourself,. No sorry, you have been repeating yourself for most of the thread.
Maybe if I stated what you you appear to be saying in plain English you would understand what the problem is.

"We cannot believe what our senses tell us about the world because it is not presented to us by an agent.
If we accepted that there is an agent that is purposely sending the information then we can believe it."

No, I am using reasoned argument to show that perception is incompatible with our faculties being the product of blind evolutionary forces. — Bartricks

OK, let's try something else.
Define perception.
What are our faculties?

What on earth are you on about? Good riddance to the little shits. — Bartricks

So you are having trouble creating the mental state then. Difficult to do that if you have never really perceived them.

Are you, perhaps, thinking that if I can't say who is responsible, then somehow that'll magically mean that blind evolutionary forces can create mental states with representative contents? — Bartricks

Never said that, so it must be a thought of your own. I don't think magic has much use in this world either. But the fact that your theory needs an agent but you don't have one does very little to disprove that evolution is responsible. Which I presume is your objective.

Here's us at a crime scene:

Detective Bartricks: well, the axe lodged in the back of her head and 'die, you bloody bugger!' written in her blood on the wall makes me think she was probably murdered. — Bartricks

Point 1. why would anyone write "die, you bloody bugger" on the wall in a dead person's blood. Surely if the supposed murderer was using her blood she must have been dead already.
Point 2. seeing the evidence only made you think it was murder, you have not stated it as a fact. Is the mental state the scene caused not true because there is no agent to make it true?

Sir Fit of Ignorance: Who murdered her? — Bartricks

I doubt anyone except the writer of absolutely pathetic writers of pseudo philosophical examples would actually think of asking that question. Something along the lines of "Any idea who might have done it?" might be a more common question.

Detective Bartricks: I don't know - I've just arrived at the scene. I'm establishing that she has, in fact, been murdered. We'll try and figure out who later. — Bartricks

So it is still not established, you obviously are having doubts about the whole idea.

Sir Fit of Ignorance: So all this time you've been banging on about how she's been murdered and yet you haven't got a clue who did it!! — Bartricks

Of course you don't have a clue who did it, you still have not made up your mind if it was murder or not. Again, after being told that you only think it is murder a sane person would not even waste their time asking such a silly question. It might be a good idea to ask if you are ware of anyone with a reason to kill her.

Back to the drawing board everyone - how did she die? — Bartricks

I thought you already knew the she had an axe in her head.

[/quote]She wasn't murdered until we find someone who murdered her. But until then she wasn't murdered. So, we're not looking for a murderer, because we don't yet know how she died.[/quote]

The only crime scene here is your attempt to use bullshit to try to convince people that they are wrong.


.

An agent that designs the world is a description of God — Gregory

That is not what I asked you to point me to.

Aw, that's no fun. You haven't seen any bears recently then, eh? — Nils Loc

Lesson #1, Never make quick comments on TPF from your mobile if you are dyslexic.
Lesson #2, Turn the freaking auto correct off.

I thought I had written SITE, not sight.

They are blocked where I live, I have never been able to see anything on that sight.

Bartricks is saying we can know an agent is behind the world. But God is unknowable. Bartricks is saying we need to believe in God in a literal obnoxious way but people who are open to possibilities will say they are atheists and don't believe in proof of God but could possibly be true believers of whatever is beyond thought. Who can say for sure whether they are believers or not — Gregory

Could you point me to where he said that please, I must have missed this gem.

It is not in dispute that we perceive things by way of mental states with representative contents. — Bartricks

Sorry to tell you, but there is quite a bit of dispute about how and what we perceive.
Most people would probably agree that mental states come about because of perception. Try building a mental state about how sorry you are that the Trescian Water Mole is extinct.

Maybe you could finally explain why Banno's red cup is red.

An agent. Do you mean who? Not sure. God probably. — Bartricks

So all through the thread you have been telling us that the information that we have been perceiving is sent from an agent, but you have no idea what that agent is!

He is ruled by society, they elected him. He has to try and keep them happy.

But all over the world things went pretty much the same.

If they had closed all borders around the world for 4 months in January, then looked everyone up until June, they would have had a chance to get things beck to normal in six months. But no one wanted to do that.

Do you know what a 'state with representative contents' is? — Bartricks

Yes.

Perception happens by means of them. — Bartricks

Are you sure about that, or is that just the information we perceive through our senses. The theory you present is, if no agent is sending us the information then we are not perceiving anything.

So it all comes down to one thing, if it is not evolution that has made it possible for us to perceive, what is the agent that is sending it to us?

Thinking higher thoughts (not focusing on chemicals for example) is good is it leads to character building. But nobody really knowns what "God" is so atheists can sometimes be the greatest believers of them all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch-DliKSGu0 — Gregory

Maybe you could take the time to explain exactly what this has to do with the discussion.

Yeah people are idiots and our PM is a mass murderer.
Where do you live? — Tiberiusmoon

I thought the guy was a clown, but now I find he has a dark side.

I live in Honduras, Central America. And if you think your PM is a bad guy you would probably love to meet our president. Mass murderer, drug lord, psychopathic/ sociopathic would be dictator, corrupt son of a bitch. And that is on the good days.

UK — Tiberiusmoon

When I lived there the only way outstanding was used negatively was when someone was called outstandingly stupid. Glad I left 45 years ago, things seem to have gone downhill since then.

I am arguing that if our faculties are a product of unguided evolution, then they do 'not' provide us with any awareness of the pie in the oven. — Bartricks

So basically if humans are a product of evolution, then we cannot perceive. If we were created then we can. Is that what you mean?

I argued this by showing how the lack of agential guidance would mean that our situation is that of someone having an accurate dream about a pie. — Bartricks

But the problem here is that if no one tells me that there is a pie in the oven I will not know. So how will I ever know that there is a pie in the oven?

I am somewhat puzzled, then, that you should ask me to show you the connection given that the entire OP is devoted to doing precisely that. — Bartricks

Actually it is not. It is devoted to explaining that you think we are blind without the hand of a god guiding us.

If by saying that our sense could not work if they are a product of evolution you think that you have explained, sorry but you failed to explain anything.
With either created eyes or evolved eyes I can still see the pie in the oven if it is there.

So in this regard you can use outstanding to describe something negative that stands out like: This pack of cookies has an outstanding cookie because it is broken unlike the rest. — Tiberiusmoon

Never in my life have I herd that used in that way. Where do you live?

Why this is important in philosophy is so that we can reduce misinterpritations/misunderstandings in the philosophies we read/write or discuss. — Tiberiusmoon

That is why it is always advisable to specify while writing your posts here which of the meanings of a word you have intended.

Admit it. Consensus is your enemy. Smugness is your friend. — schopenhauer1

Who cares? Or is that being snug? :wink:

1. If our faculties of awareness are wholly the product of unguided evolutionary forces, then they do not give us an awareness of anything — Bartricks

You have failed to address how being aware of a pie being in the oven is connected to evolution. Surely when humans began their development there were no pies nor ovens. But the early humans did look at the clouds for messages.

And what does awareness have to do with knowledge. What we are aware of is not allows truth, that is a fact. But if we are not aware of something, then it cannot be knowledge.

Who can discern your sincerity! — Nils Loc

Err. you have my word as a gentleman on it.

You must sit quietly and observe your breath, the bellows rhythm of your respiration — Nils Loc

It's 9pm, and about 30 degrees, I can only observe my breath that if I sit in the refrigerator. Bollocks to that.

Know that you are one with the dancing bear. — Nils Loc

Hope he can do better than me, I have not been able to dance for many years.

An innocent mind must be properly conditioned to listen in order to perform for the benefit of other innocent minds. — Nils Loc

But would a conditioned mind still be innocent?

Maybe it would be wiser to spend the time showing the wankers the error of their ways instead of trying to work out if they should be allowed to stay or not.

Not sure which ones. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Maybe we should start a support group, I don't even remember which ones I miss most. :worry:

That's right buzz off. :roll:

Who are you shushing? I have a fly swat here, be careful. :lol:

And as the saying goes, "ya can't ave one widout de udder"

:lol:

Sucks, as much as god.

Then I would have to say that Emmanuelle would easily top that and leave you a little hot under the collar.

You could be right about that, I suppose. — thewonder

But then again, who's to say that Barbarella is not better than both.

But Raiders of the Lost Ark is no were near as good Back to the Future. And I doubt that anyone can dispute this claim. :wink:

Reflection of self is 3 words.

But the phrase could mean many things.
The thing I see in the mirror.
The way I believe myself to be as opposed to the way others see me.
The way I think about me.

I guess the instructor beat out the implicit learning xD — Tiberiusmoon

Maybe, but I still would like to thank him for training people properly.

Do you think learning something implicitly and using said thing so oftern it can become an assumed common knowledge? — Tiberiusmoon

When I studied engineering, we had an instructor that almost beat it into us that the machines might all look the same and do the same thing but there are some differences. He told us to learn how to do the job but that we should always rely on the manuals for the details.
During a workshop one of the guys broke a finger when the torque wrench slipped off a broken bolt. Before the guy could be taken to the hospital he got a roasting for not looking up the correct torque for the bolt because he assumed it was just like the ones he was used to working with everyday.

I still blame that guy because I cannot remember phone numbers. "Look the numbers up in the book" he would tell us every time we started a job.

There is no definition.
Women are women, just accept it.

The same as there are no definitions for a real man.

Trying to state that this, that, and the other are the components of a real or normal person would leave no one fulfilling the role.
Try this book, Normal Sucks by Jonathan Mooney. It actually uses the ideal of a normal woman as one of the examples he gives.

Normal Sucks by Jonathan Mooney
The Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson
English History Made Brief, Irreverent, and Pleasurable by Lacey Baldwin Smith
How not to get rich, The Financial Misadventures of Mark Twain by Alan Crawford

The good old days when it was not necessary to sing about sex or wear almost nothing to be famous.

I got married to the widow next door. She's been married seven times before — T Clark

I think I heard the song. And it was famous.

Try "Sophie's World." — T Clark

A few more along that line.

Breakfast with Socrates, Robert Rowland Smith was a good read.

Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington, Thomas Cathcart, Daniel Klein ,
and
Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar, Thomas Cathcart. Both were worth reading just for the laughs, but are thought provoking as well.

Plato at the Googleplex, Rebecca Goldstein Definitely worth reading.

And the question is?

Just for a laugh, from when I was a kid and this was kind of risque.

When I listen to a lecture series where someone has mined through the works and explains them clearly, I can latch on and understand. However, when I engage with the works directly myself, I struggle to pull clear systematic information together. — Mark Sparks

That is the best way to get started, reading and listening to other experienced people's summaries and explanations. Then analyze and form your opinion about the work. Then try reading the work itself.

Personally I would recommend starting with ethics or aesthetics if you have a choice about it. Then logic.