Comments

  • The Diagonal or Staircase Paradox
    I don't think computers can fully handle these questions because they deal with uncoutable infinities instead of countable ones
  • Schopenhauer's theory of Salvation.
    Does truth trump paradox?3017amen

    No, but paradox is type of truth. At the bottom of the series might be a paradox, or it might be turtles all the way down and a paradox to consider them all
  • Schopenhauer's theory of Salvation.
    1. There exists at least one true proposition (is it true or false?).3017amen

    Truth trumps error
  • Unstructured Conversation about Hegel
    Hegel purveys the fantasy in its undiluted form of being the supreme know-it-all, God Himself incarnated not as a carpenter but as a dude that reads a lot.ff0

    Would you say this about Buddhist or Hindu monks?

    I'd say the atonement tradition of Christians is far more likely to be "Satanic" than Hegel. The Cross theology has God "cleaning" sinners who don't deserve it just because some other dude died ("someone better feel pain over this, ah!"). It's a theology made by sinners to make sinners feel better about not changing their lives.

    And it's not just about what Hegel said, but the powerful method he used to bring the mind to an infinite state. He was as great as Buddha.

    That said, the Britannica encyclopedia says that towards the end of his life he was going to give a talk about the "proofs for God" and had written out what he wanted to say. Has this survived history?
  • Abortion and Preference Utilitarianism
    Embryos have a full set of DNA and are turning into a mature human. That is enough to say abortion is murder in our communities. Anyone can argue that you are fair game for hunting until you can think abstractly at 6, or that everyone under 18 is fair game for abortionist behavior. "They are not existentially a human yet!!" some might shout someday. I've never talked to a pro-choice person who is willing to think about this rationally. I feel like that just don't want to have sexual responsibility and don't want to face consequences. It's sad.
  • The Diagonal or Staircase Paradox


    Maybe the staircase times infinity equals the straight line exactly
  • Abortion and Preference Utilitarianism
    This is called "The Philosophy Forum," not the "opinion forum,"tim wood

    Everything you can think of is opinion. It's about the best way to live in society. Abortion nowadays is like slavery in the Civil War, except worse. Same lame arguments used: "They're different"
  • Abortion and Preference Utilitarianism
    After the birth, the woman's no longer pregnant, nor is an abortion possible. Try again, but before you answer, try to understand the question: what makes a woman's pregnancy any one else's business but hers and her doctor's?tim wood

    I understand the question and it's stupid as dirt with shit in it. Saying you can kill them before birth but not after is completely arbitrary. It's no different from a Nazi saying the configuration of a Jews genes means they are not human and can be killed
  • Abortion and Preference Utilitarianism
    what makes a woman's pregnancy any one else's business but hers and her doctor's?tim wood

    Can the doctor and the mother kill the child one hour after birth? Who is to say it's human? DNA? A fetus has that
  • Schopenhauer's theory of Salvation.
    A much more reasonably priced book is Nishida's The Logic of the Place of Nothingness and the Religious Worldview. I really like Schopenhauer though because he's a Westerner who directly speaks of the Buddha. I need to read more of him

    Also, wiki:

    "Some authors have pointed to similarities between the Buddhist conception of nothingness and the ideas of Martin Heidegger and existentialists like Sartre... The other kind is ĂȘtre-pour-soi which is consciousness. Sartre claims that this second kind of being is 'nothing' since consciousness cannot be an object of consciousness and can possess no essence. Sartre, and even more so, Jaques Lacan, use this conception of nothing as the foundation of their atheist philosophy. Equating nothingness with being leads to creation from nothing."

    I would agree with consciousness coming from both the brain and from the Nothing
  • Thought vs Matter/Energy
    If compatabilism is true, than determinism can be victorious. There could never be a random selection of anything. Philosophy, victorious over science (at that point)
  • The Diagonal or Staircase Paradox


    I thought not. I thought it's indefinite because it's multiplied by an irrational numbers. I don't see how a length can be indefinite though. Is it legit to round it to 1?
  • Schopenhauer's theory of Salvation.
    There is a book on Amazon titled Nothingness in Asian Philosophy, 1st Edition by Jeeloo Liu (Editor) and Douglas Berger (Editor). It's pricey though
  • Schopenhauer's theory of Salvation.
    1. Explain what you mean by "nothingness is necessary" .

    2. Explain what you mean by " we can enter into the necessary by following our Will."
    3017amen

    If everything is contingent, it's harder to believe in objective truth. I've been moving away from materialistic relativism into Buddhism recently. Buddha and his religion speak of an eternal light, but also call it nothing. Maybe they speak a different language than us. But I believe we have translated it properly and can get a glimpse of this philosophically. I personally dont meditate, but am trying to be as Buddhistic as I can as I continue to read Being and Time by Heidegger. So truth is not a substance like for Plato, or a person(s) like for Augustine or Aquinas (or the New Testament actually). Saying nothingness is special and even holy rings a religious bell for me. I don't think it's in eternity like a substance though. It would be in something like the aevum (or aeviternity): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aevum
  • Abortion and Preference Utilitarianism
    That's the point. Your thinking does not constitute an argument. I think, you think, he/she thinks, we, you they think. You need to do better than that.tim wood

    There is only opinion of these matters. It's really about the best way to live and handle this. From your pro-choice perspective, I dont see you having any case against someone who says we can kill children until they are of the age of reason
  • The bijection problem the natural numbers and the even numbers
    I've yet to see anyone justify the maneuver of moving the odd numbers over to "line up" with the naturals.
  • The bijection problem the natural numbers and the even numbers
    Density and cardinality are different concepts.Daz

    I think density is the true cardinality, and when you double the density in order to get the cardinality of the odd to equal that of the naturals you've made an invalid move
  • Schopenhauer's theory of Salvation.
    Is nothingness, or is somethingness, logically necessary?3017amen

    Amazing question.. I believe I'd say that nothingness is necessary and the world contingent, but the contingent has solidity, so if a stick hits my head there seems to be a necessity there in feeling pain. Ultimately though the world is not necessary and we can enter into the necessary by following our Will. Buddha refused to answer if the world was eternal or finite, maybe because it was the wrong question. How long we can measure the world into the past is irrelevant. When ask if there was a God or, he again answer "no" by his silence, knowing nevertheless that there was the truth in the question: that is, the godliness of buddhahood
  • The Diagonal or Staircase Paradox
    What about a segment with a definite length that is then made into a circle, which suddenly has an irrational number as a factor? Putting the segment into a circle shouldn't alter it's length in the least
  • Schopenhauer's theory of Salvation.
    Of course, here's the classic contradiction of temporal time versus eternal time (timelessness)3017amen

    Nothingness is neither eternal nor temporal.
  • The bijection problem the natural numbers and the even numbers


    Doubling the density of the odd numbers in order to get a cardinality equal to the naturals.
  • The bijection problem the natural numbers and the even numbers


    I disagree. Imagine (literally imagine) the dense set of odd numbers lined up in normal fashion with the natural numbers. The latter is greater. You can put 3 next to 2 from the odd the the naturals, and do that to infinity. But how does this not distort the infinity of the odd numbers? We already said it has half the density
  • What does ultimate truth consist of?
    The world has existence, but in what sense does it have truth?
  • Schopenhauer's theory of Salvation.
    Or, perhaps the effect is greater than the cause. Of course, we might could try to define 'greater'.3017amen



    A Schopenhauer thread is a good place to talk about this. Can the genie make a greater genie? If would seem that he could only make an equal or less, unless he combined his power with something else. My theory of everything is that time is only a measure in our heads, and that there is simply a finite number of motions that go back to the first pull of gravity. Nothing is behind it because there is just no motion. And why did the first motion happen then instead of before? Well again, time doesn't exist imo. Nothingness encases and encloses the world with it's sacrality. But I'm not married to any position on any subject. Back to the genie: maybe he has two powers within him that he can't combine unto himself but can use to combine outside himself, creating something greater than himself. It's almost like 1=2 though in that cause
  • Abortion and Preference Utilitarianism
    Those who want to overturn Roe labor in the grip of irrational want and not reason. As a test, consider their grounds or axioms for their arguments.

    Or start simple: how is the issue of an abortion anyone else's business than the woman's and her doctor's?
    tim wood

    Because a doctor is supposed to save lives and a mother is not supposed to kill her kids. I think we should respect fetuses, chimps, Neanderthals, homo Erecti, and all which fall within that continuum. I don't think there is a gray area on that. Perhaps there never was nor will be an organism that is not clearly within or without "the limit" of what a primate is. At least, we should act suchly
  • Abortion and Preference Utilitarianism
    I don't think science or philosophy will ever be able to say when it becomes a person. Best to error on the side of caution
  • Mind cannot be reduced to brain


    I'd answer your question in saying that the Buddha was right. Nothingness is holy, the root of matter. Positing spiritual entities makes things worse
  • Schopenhauer's theory of Salvation.
    An interesting discussion would be about whether there is "random meaming". Necessity might not exist in anything
  • Schopenhauer's theory of Salvation.
    I have tried to subordinate reason to will. Is there a next step after that? I realized tonight that everything must have a meaning. Even why this particular snail by the door looks that way. Nothingness produced the world. The cause is greater than the effect.
  • Einstein
    Einstein was a mystic. I don't know how he got the predictions right, maybe he was a natural prophet and saw into the future. Aleister Crowley said white magic could do very strange things. But I'm saying that Einstein theories are even weirder. He said we live in a world where size is in the eye of the beholder. Extension is subjective for him. I think objects have to actually look a certain way, although you can't get to close or to far from the Christmas tree to perceive that. I think there are noises when nobody hears it
  • Einstein


    Well he thought time was tangible. Nonetheless, 1) he didn't prove he discovered a new substance. 2) clocks can slow without time even existing outside our minds. It's possible motion exists on its own without the fourth "dimension of time"
  • Einstein
    I just wanted to add that Einstein told Henri Bergson at a conference in France that "the Time of the philosophers is dead", so I am not 5'2 objectively he would argue. I am that height to my perception
  • Mind cannot be reduced to brain
    If we are defined as material objects, who is to say the universe is not one object. You might just be the universe's kidney
  • Mathematics is 75% Invented, 25% Discovered
    What good is that? You couldn't count beans with it. So, I'll grant you that 2 = 9. Now what?fishfry

    Well in my very first post on this forum I tried an argument against science itself. I supposed two objects that are materially identical to each and asked what distinguished them. Well, individuality of course! But maybe individuality counts for more than science is willing to grant. Being "over there" instead of "here" might make more of a difference in doinig science than science wants to grant. More recently I applied this to numbers and wondered if 1 and 1 really are so similar, and than whether 2 and 9 are really so dissimilar.

    But I see your point, I think. IF numbers work as they did when we all first learned math (rigidly), then normal mathematics is objectively true. I think maybe that refutes the relativism I keep getting in. I'm not dumb and I admit when I am wrong. Thanks fishfry
  • Schopenhauer's theory of Salvation.
    I remember reading about a Catholic saint who was so passive the account said "it seemed he had no will of his own". Buddhists aren't the only ones who know this
  • Schopenhauer's theory of Salvation.
    Cognition? Or reason?tim wood

    Cognition is prior, no? "An insane man is not he who has lost his reason, but he who has lost everything except his reason." Chesterton again
  • Mathematics is 75% Invented, 25% Discovered
    In math, numbers are absolute.fishfry

    I appreciate this. In my opinion, though, a number is an idea that is rubbery. You can say 9 is the same as 2 in my mind. Maybe we need to just step back and accept that others have their own truth
  • Mathematics is 75% Invented, 25% Discovered
    Hume found doubtwithin mathematics:

    "No priestly dogmas, invented on purpose to tame and subdue the rebellious reason of mankind, ever shocked common sense more than the doctrine of the infinite divisibility of extension, with its consequences; as they are pompously displayed by all geometricians and metaphysicians, with a kind of triumph and exultation. A real quantity, infinitely less than any finite quantity, contained quantities infinitely less than itself, and so on in infinitum [uncountable]; this is an edifice so bold and prodigious that it is too weighty for any pretended demonstration to support, because it shocks the clearest and most natural principles of human reason. But what renders the matter more extraordinary, is, that these seemingly absurd opinions are supported by a chain of reasoning, the clearest and most natural".

    "Yet still reason must remain restless, and unquiet, even with regard to that skepticism, to which she is driven". (Hume)

    Heidegger would have asked: "What is the wisest way to live in the world, with doubt or with faith? Which makes us live in the world best and, most importantly, helps us to die?"

    Skeptical questions "admit of no answer and produce no conviction. Their only effect is to cause that momentary amazement and irresolution and confusion" says Hume. Is this amazement pleasurable? And is it useful?

    If physically 2 feet can somehow by the laws of physics (even if in another dimension) equal 3 feet, than physics has prove that you can do whatever you like with numbers. 2=3