I'm, quite honestly, sickened that people could just stand idly by while a young, thoughtful lady killed herself. — NKBJ

What are you suggesting they should have done, that they did not already do? Force-fed her?

It would be crazier to ignore the literally of hundreds of other cites simply because Fox reported the same thing too. — Hanover

Since nobody has suggested we do that, I can't see the relevance of this comment.

they all use the term "euthanize." — Hanover

No they don't. In fact the Independent's report is quite explicit about the uncertainty over whether the suicide was assisted.

Assuming the facts reported are accurate — Hanover

Given the source is Fox News, that is way too big an assumption for me!

Here is a reported from a news source that has some credibility:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/euthanasia-clinic-suicide-depression-rape-anorexia-netherlands-teenager-noa-pothoven-a8944356.html

The Independent article may or may not say essentially the same things as the Fox one - I didn't check - but it would be crazy to base any assessment of an important issue of social policy on a report from Fox News.

So, Quine's statement "To be is to be the value of a bound variable" stands in direct conflict with basic knowledge regarding what logical notation is existentially dependent upon.

I'm assuming Quine is advocating for predicate logic. I'm also working under the assumption that his aim is to target the superfluous nature of the term "existence" and other abstract 'objects'. — creativesoul

I think when Quine refers to a bound variable he is not referring solely to a variable referenced in a formal, symbolic logic expression, but that he is including all natural language expressions that mean essentially the same thing.

Limiting the interpretation to formal logical expressions would make the statement nonsensical. It would mean that Quine did not recognise the statement "Look, there's a wombat!" as taking account of existence.

I'm also working under the assumption that his aim is to target the superfluous nature of the term "existence" — creativesoul

I think you might be right about that. An appealing (to me) interpretation is that he's just pointing out the futility of ontology. I would expect devoted ontologists to disagree. Fortunately, philosophy is a broad church, and can accommodate us all.

To be the value of any variable, bound or otherwise, is to be taken account of within some framework of logical notation.

Is there no difference between being taken account of and existing prior to that account? — creativesoul

There is no difference that can be identified in language, because by speaking about entities that are not taken account of, we are taking account of them.

The best one can do is feel - if one so wishes - that there is more to this than taking account of things, but you cannot articulate that feeling in any known language, or in any language I can imagine.

It depends on what the objection is. Without the crucial 'bound' qualifier, one might object that Quine's statement means we cannot say that any dinosaur existed other than one we can refer to individually, for instance because we are looking at the fossil of its skeleton. That would be a strange position because although we are confident that millions of dinosaurs inhabited the Earth, we can only recognise the existence of a few hundred of them. Hence, the misreported Quine definition becomes a partial dinosaur denial.

What the 'bound' qualifier does is allow us to refer to all dinosaurs (eg 'all dinosaurs had hearts'), and also to particular dinosaurs whose identity we do not know (eg 'the tallest dinosaur that ever lived'). Those dinosaurs meet Quine's criterion for existence. We can thus see that Quine was not a dinosaur-denier to even the slightest degree..

I found the following article, about the video in which 11-year old Kaylee gives a lesson on surviving an 'active shooter', mesmerising:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-01/two-australians-made-a-viral-gun-control-video/11118340

But even that won't change a single mind in the 'guns=freedom' crowd.

I would look towards someone with a bit more positive of a worldview than Schopenhauer. Thomas Paine was who I had in mind, or indeed any of the number of high-profile deists that were around the end of the eighteenth century. Thomas Jefferson was another.

Further, as far as I can understand what I've read, Siddhartha Gautama was not a theist.

Agreed, but I would add that

atheistic =/= irreligious

(notwithstanding the attempts of some pop atheist celebrities to argue otherwise).

Certainly in some readings of Zen - ‘Chop wood, draw water’ - there’s a sense of finding the transcendent in the round of everyday life. But there’s still a transcendent dimension. That is what is explicitly rejected in Camus. — Wayfarer

You may be right. I'm still not sure. Camus could have just said that Sisyphus remained brave, that he didn't complain, that he learned to cope with his fate. But he goes beyond that, saying we must imagine Sisyphus happy (heureux - also interpreted as 'fortunate').

You're right that it was the 'chop wood, draw water' image I had in mind, along with that of raking pebbles. I recognise they are Zen images, although I was not thinking specifically of Zen but of Buddhism more generally.

I don't see Camus's atheism as a barrier to his having Buddhist influences or parallels, since a deity is not a necessary part of Buddhism.

However, I admit to not having read Camus's essay - only excerpts - , so i had better go and do that, in order to be better informed about the topic.

Don't you feel there's a bit of a Buddhist angle there? Sisyphus achieves ultimate acceptance. If we can learn to fully accept and not judge, can we be happy in any situation?

Read again the post in response to which you posted those links - more carefully this time. It was not about schools expelling. It was about the system expelling them - ie ceasing to have any responsibility for their education. There is a huge difference.

For your convenience, here is the item you need to counter:

I have never heard of a public school system that can expel students. — andrewk

Read the section entitled "What programs and supports are offered when students are expelled?"

The public education system continues its attempts to provide an education. Does that happen in the Catholic system, or any private system.

Secondly, look at the reasons for expulsion, and compare them with the reasons Catholic schools can use for expulsion.

Now, what pray tell is a "pom"? — Bitter Crank

Old Australian slang for visitor or immigrant from England. The etymology is lost in the mists of time. Two explanations I have heard are:

1. It used to be POME, and the E was later dropped. POME was an acronym for 'Prisoner Of Mother England', written on the identity documents of the transported convicts that were the majority of the original european settlers (invaders) of the Australian continent.

2. Refers to pomegranate, a red fruit, as a joke about the fact that English visitors get sunburned and go bright red under the Australian sun, which they are not used to. Not so relevant since supercheap air travel made sunny Spain a major holiday destination for Brits of almost all classes.

I like the pomeranian idea. That sounds as plausible as the others. It is well known to students of history that the British are soulmates of the Germans, and are unified against the real traditional enemy - the French. The two wars in the 20th century were a curious aberration.

I also want to apologise to @jamalrob for triggering one of his pet hates, making generalisations about all inhabitants of the British Isles, as if they were monolithic. I acknowledge that those islands are one of the most linguistically diverse regions in the world. I was aware that Scottish, Irish and some regional dialects of England (West Country perhaps. Certainly not Cockney or RP though) are rhotic. I should have said English English, which would have been closer to correct, although still with some exceptions.

I think that distinction should be easier to spot for Americans than for other British speakers, because most varieties of American English are 'rhotic', meaning they pronounce terminal 'r's, whereas British and Australian English do not, instead pronouncing the ends of words ending in 'er' as 'ah' or 'uh'. So that distinction between the conditionally permissible, and the impermissible form of the word is lost on we Poms and Aussies.

I don't know whether AAVE is rhotic. I have a feeling it may not be.

What word was that? Cospic? Crutle? Cuckoo? Confus? Christ? Caudal? — Bitter Crank

It's a French word. Two syllables. First syllable is the Italian word for 'with'. Second syllable is a Cockney adjectival word for a person being tough, aggressive and not slow to violence. As always in Cockney, you drop the initial 'h'.

I find use of the word appalling and would never do it in any situation. What I find hard to understand is the feeling of many Americans that the word should never be mentioned either. So far as I know, it is the only word in the English language that is considered improper to mention. I can't help wondering how court cases are managed in the US when, in questioning a witness about what was said in the lead-up to a crime, that word is part of a sentence that was important to the evidence. I don't know of any words in any other language that get this treatment, although I do remember feeling that I had overstepped a mark when I once tried to discuss the exact meaning and use of the seven-letter C-word with a French person.

So far as I can see, the refusal to mention is a strictly American phenomenon, whereas horror at its use is worldwide. The no-mention phenomenon in some cases makes inroads into other cultures simply by dint of the huge exposure they have to US culture generally, just like sometimes people in other countries will think the emergency number is 911.

Out of deference for their deeply-held feelings and beliefs, I will never mention the word when Americans are around - as is the case here. I would also avoid both using and mentioning the three-letter G word when talking to ultra-orthodox Jews. But when talking to people from my own culture, I have no in-principle objection to mentioning the word or hearing it mentioned, although just like scatalogical, reproductive, sexist, homophobic or other racist obscenities, I avoid mentioning it as much as possible, and always slightly wince.

No, it was about a minute. The thread was resurrected by Mr Spock.

With regard to some 100 amazing innovations in 2018 alone, see: https://www.popsci.com/best-of-whats-new-2018. — Hanover

I was going to point out that, if we have to go to a list in some obscure corner of the internet to find out about these inventions that have purportedly changed our lives so much for the better, then they haven't.

But @Baden's response based on actually following the link was much better.

Why? They can expel as well and if the person from the private or catholic system does not tow their line, the public system will expel him or her as well. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

What is your evidence for that claim? Have you researched it?

I have never heard of a public school system that can expel students. They can be suspended but that is only temporary.

If you have any hard evidence that the Canadian public school system can permanently expel students, I would be interested to see it.

I like your multi-dimensional geometrical interpretation!

I don't usually watch videos posted online, but that is inspiring. The guest, Leon Castillo, was absolutely brilliant - so gentle, thoughtful and respectful. I wish he were the US president. The conservatives: Buckley and Meyer, were also civilised, polite and deferential. The mood was one of trying to jointly work towards a solution, rather than trying to score points off one another, which is what modern political discourse in the media so commonly is.

I know for a fact that expulsions do occur. The reasons would likely vary.
I do not think it is a systematic culling of any kind though. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Whether it is systematic is irrelevant. If the Catholic system, or any private school, expels disruptive students, who then end up in the public system, then of course the task for the public system is more difficult. Any 'comparison' of efficiency that fails to take that into account is meaningless.

Yet private schools continue to trot out bogus statistics showing their 'efficiency', based on such misleading measures.

I’d rather suffer the consequences and force myself to write more carefully. — I like sushi

I don't understand that sentence. Are you sure it's what you meant to write?

If that sort of posing is against muslim women's religion — creativesoul

My understanding is that at least part of the point is that it is not against islam, only against certain extremist interpretations of islam such as wahabi. So it sends a message that it is possible to be a good muslim without being a joy-killing wahabi.

What BC said. C'mon people, spelling matters! (and grammar matters even more) Wars have started over less. Read over your posts before clicking on 'Post Comment'.

Are you confident that Catholic schools never expel students in Canada? I went to Catholic schools in Australia and we had many students expelled, and not even for real problems like being disruptive. I have not read about schools in Canada but I have read of many other countries, and expulsion is always an option, except for in government schools. So that's where the expelled students end up.

the Catholic board, unfortunately to both of our views, is producing better results than the public system. I admit to not knowing why. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

One possibility is that the Catholic system may be able to reject difficult students from its system, whereas the public system does not. In many countries that is a common source of misleading statistics that suggest private education is better. Inevitably a public system will get worse results if it accepts (as it should) students rejected by all the private schools.

When this topic is discussed, it is usually about the hijab for Muslims and crosses on neck chains or badges for Christians.

I would be interested to know what the French position is on outwardly visible signs by other religions that are not in the front line of the current global tensions, in particular:

• wrist bangles and turbans or long hair for Sikhs. I think there are three other symbols they wear, but they are not usually visible to others
• tassels and skullcaps for orthodox jews.

For some symbols, it is unclear to what extent they are religious vs cultural, like the red mark on the forehead for Hindus.

Then there are symbols that are only worn at certain times, like the ash mark on the forehead for RCs on Ash Wednesday.

I can see some good points in the French approach, but it must get especially difficult around the boundary.

I still maintain that infinity is unmeasurable so has no size - that is the real cause of most of the paradoxes of infinity. — Devans99

It's fine for you to do that. But realise that most people do not share your opinion, so their beliefs will differ from yours. From what I have seen of your posts on infinity, the paradoxes you think you see stem from that belief, so they are not paradoxes for other people.

Clearly the set of all sets does exist — Devans99

Beware the words 'clearly' and 'obviously'. When used, they are nearly always wrong. That is the case here. If you think otherwise, try to prove that a set of all sets exists!

Was the picture something like this?

I just remembered, or at least I think I remember, that I owe you an apology. — creativesoul

Thanks. No worries at all. That thread was a minefield!

That is still contentious for some it seems. — creativesoul

I was not aware of that. Is that scientific contention, involving criticism of whether the experiment was definitive, or is it philosophical, along the lines of what constitutes an 'observation'.

I wonder whether Quine would say that the Higgs Boson is the value of a bound variable.

We directly detect our own consciousness. There is no supposition going on there.

The supposition first starts when we use the observation that other humans seem to be very similar organisms to ourselves, to assume that they also have consciousness. We take a further step to do that with various non-human animals, based on shared characteristics that are deemed to be relevant, such as a brain and nervous system. That sounds pretty reasonable to me, although it is well-understood that the presence of consciousness in others cannot be proven.

So I don't think we do describe other humans and animals only in terms of their bodies. We also assume they have consciousness. I suspect we spend more time talking and thinking about the conscious feelings and beliefs of other humans and non-human animals than we do about the activities of their bodies.

being taken account of is clearly not necessary for existence, otherwise there could be no such thing as discovery — creativesoul

Beware the use of 'clearly'. Things are rarely if ever as clear as one first thinks. The truth of the proposition in question is far from clear to me.

'Taking account of' is a woolly term, which can mean whatever one wants it to mean. Was the Higgs Boson not taken account of before they finally detected (discovered) one, decades after it was predicted?

I have panpsychic leanings, so am inclined to agree with your conclusion that if all humans are conscious then everything is conscious.

However there is no logical problem with believing, as Descartes did, that only humans are conscious. Descartes believed that a human was made of a body - atoms as you describe it - and a spirit, which we do not have the means to detect. It is the spirit that gives consciousness, and he believed the spirit was injected into the body by God.

There are also non-theistic hypotheses about consciousness, such as Emergence - when atoms achieve a certain special arrangement, consciousness arises.

Part of the problem in the OP comes from taking a reductive approach to life - saying that describing the atoms that make up a living organism is exhaustive.

My recollection of the saying is different: 'To be is to be the value of a bound variable'. What the bolded word adds is that the variable is quantified, either by 'there exists' or 'for all'. So it is not necessary to refer to the object individually. One need only assert its existence by an existential quantifier (as we do for dinosaurs that occurred long before any human could observe them, or stars that are too far away for anybody to observe), or comment on its attributes by a universal quantifier.

With that correction, the objection - so far as I understand it - seems to disappear.

If time is infinite, the universe should go through all possible states eventually. — Devans99

For the theorem to apply, the system must have constant volume. That rules out infinite universes and finite universes with changing volumes, which are the only types predicted by current cosmological theories.

Also, note that equilibrium states are only asymptotically approached, never attained. So it is not possible that an equilibrium state will be fully attained and the universe will remain in that state forever. It is however expected that the universe will asymptotically approach 'heat death' which can be thought of as an equilibrium state to any pre-defined degree of approximation.

.

Yes, it is a poor choice of word.
Rather than:
'the hanging will be a surprise to the prisoner'
Better to say:
'prisoner will not be able to deduce the time of hanging' — Devans99

If we take that approach then the statement of the judge is false because whatever day it occurs, the prisoner will be able to prove it must happen on that day, because the system is inconsistent. Here's why:

We take the judge's statement as an axiom, and then go through the process that for each day we can deduce that the hanging does not occur on that day. From that we deduce that the hanging does not occur. We put that together with the axiom stated by the judge and, using AND elimination, we get the deduced statement:

'The hanging will occur next week and it will not occur next week'.

which is a perfect contradiction.

By the principle of explosion, from a contradiction, any well-formed proposition can be deduced. So for every day X we can deduce the proposition:

'The hanging will occur on day X'

Hence, on whatever day the hanging occurs, it could be deduced beforehand that it would occur on that day (as well as on every other day!).

That then forces us back to reading 'surprise' as surprise, rather than as 'could not have been deduced beforehand'. But in that case it's simply a statement about the prisoner's state of mind, and that could be anything. Even if it happens on Friday it can be a surprise, as the prisoner may by then believe that the judge was mistaken and it will not happen at all.

I believe that fiat money gets its ultimate value by the issuing government's promise to accept it in payment of a debt. There will always be lots of people with debts to a government, tax being the most obvious example. Those people will be happy to accept money for goods or services, because that money allows them to pay their debt to the government. The effect of this promise propagates throughout the economy, as trades for money can occur between two people neither of which has a debt to the government, because they both know they could use the money to buy goods and services from somebody that does have a debt to the government.