• Forrester's Paradox / The Paradox of Gentle Murder
    M = You murder
    G = You are gentle

    M & G = You murder & You are gentle = You murder gently

    True (M & G) M [If you murder gently then it follows that you must murder]
  • The time lag argument for idealism
    In idealism there can be no time delay between events/objects and their perception because there's no object/event outside of perception to cause such a delay.

    If light speed were infinite you wouldn't be able to know which is true, idealism or materialism. Time doesn't exist for light: according to some scientists though it takes 8 minutes for light to travel from the sun to the earth, for light it happens instantaneously.
  • Faster than light travel.
    ↪jgill
    I feel like an hourglass - old, very old indeed! New state of matter!!! Caramaba!
  • Climate change denial
    ↪Benkei

    It seems we're getting ever closer to the real cause of all our problems viz. ourselves; some call it human nature I believe.

    A bad workman blames his tools (machines)

    The key to our salvation then is the clichéd judicious use of carbon-fuelled machines!

    Copy that! Merci!
  • What Are the Philosophical Implications of the Concept of "Uncertainty' in Life?
    Nope. Blame it on my twelve years of working-class, Roman Catholic education. By the time I'd opted out of mandatory religion classes for my first philosophy class during 12th grade, my instinct was that the alternative to dogmatism was definitely not relativism — 180 Proof

    Oh! Perhaps relativism is the wrong concept to describe my views then. I value objectivity (a lot). At the very least it promises the truth, it keeps it real so to speak. However, I can't shake off the feeling that there's a dark side to objectivity - it takes us directly to the doorsteps of dogmatism of the kind that, in a way, worships absolutism, the position that some propositions are true no matter what. I sense a great danger in not being permitted to or prohibited from rejecting/disagreeing with beliefs even if they're based on rock-solid foundations. There'a a lot we might have to sacrifice for objectivity & truth. For the same reasons I have serious misgivings about mathematics for once something's demonstrated mathematically, we all havta fall in line - my way or the f**kin' highway is not my idea of a fun situation to be in.
  • Evolution, creationism, etc?
    Theistic Evolution — Paulm12

    The term I was lookin' for! :up: Danke!

    Time plays a big role in evolution. If it were possible to prove that our scientific dating methods ( :grin: ) were flawed and/or the earth is proven to be only tens of thousands of years, evolution which occurs over millions-billions of years would end up in the trash can!
  • What Are the Philosophical Implications of the Concept of "Uncertainty' in Life?
    Of course philosophy is "about truths", but that doesn't mean "truth is the goal" – truths are "attainable" means to philosophy's end. I'm (mostly) a(n anti-idealist, anti-essentialist, anti-supernaturalist) fallibilist freethinker for whom "relativism", like nihilism and deconstructionism, is self-refuting sophistry. :wink: — 180 Proof

    Well, did you ever, in your philosophical journey, go through a phase where you thought relativism true prudent?
  • The Largest Number We Will Ever Need
    But the problem with setting a largest number is that it rules out irrational numbers such as pi, sq-root 2 etc because they cannot continue to infinity as decimals and therefore become expressible as ratios — unenlightened

    This gets more and more interesting by the minute.

    Take the irrational number . To what decimal place of accuracy must we calculate it to construct the dome of the Hagia Sophia (google for details)? I read a book that relates how the engineer used a rational approximation instead of the actual value of .

    Remember high school when was ? We could use rational approximations that are accurate to an arbitrary number of decimal places for and other irrational numbers and I think modern calculators do exactly that.

    The same logic is true in this case too - replace the infinite decimal part with a finite one using a rational approximation. My guesstimate is we won't be needing the actual value of ever; a rational approximation accurate to the required number of decimals will be just fine.

    Likewise, infinity, no need! A very large but finite number will suffice. If memory serves the Greeks did just that - they used arbitrarily large numbers in place of infinity.
  • What Are the Philosophical Implications of the Concept of "Uncertainty' in Life?
    Truth was never the goal of philosophy. 'Love of wisdom', not love of truth, Smith. Stop kicking up sand and then complaining you can't see. :mask: Btw, there's no controversy about "find truth" e.g. A = A; you were not born before your parents; there are more real numbers than integers; etc ... — 180 Proof

    So, we agree then, philosophy ain't about truths. Truths send chills down my spine - they've been associated with objectivity for thousands of years and I instinctively recoil from things I'm not allowed to disagree with although, you
    would've realized from my posting habits, I value consensus/agreement/conformity in re people (objective) truths. Isn't it far better that everybody's right (in their own way) than that only one/few are (in one and only one way). I guess that makes me a relativist when it comes to truth; it's wiser to be one in my humble opinion.
  • Climate change denial
    ↪Wayfarer
    :groan:
  • What Are the Philosophical Implications of the Concept of "Uncertainty' in Life?
    ↪180 Proof


    It's quite a riddle this. Given any investigation terminates on one/more undedicables, truth is impossible to get hold of. The only option then is to change the destination of philosophical journeys to something other than verum but the catch is any such alternative target is meaningless without truth. We're in a tight spot, oui monsieur? We know truth is beyond our ken, but the problem is nothing is meaningful then. We may imagine/speculate/give different perspectives though. We must learn to learn to live with IF p since to KNOW p is ~◇.
  • The Largest Number We Will Ever Need
    But the Lorentz factor is always positive, so how can that be? :chin: — jgill

    You, as a mathematician, are better equipped to answer that most intriguing question.

    Nevertheless, you're on an amazing roll. :clap: — jgill

    You jest!
  • Understanding the Law of Identity
    "is the son of" : violates all 3 properties — Real Gone Cat

    The Son/Father is the father/son of The Son/Father!

    "is the sibling of" : violates Reflexive only (assuming sibling means sharing the same mother and father) — Real Gone Cat

    The Father/Son is the sibling of The Son/Father!

    Sancta Trinitas Unus Deus :pray: :pray: :pray:
  • The Largest Number We Will Ever Need
    You could show us how that works with the Lorentz factor. :cool: — jgill

    When v = c,
  • Evolution, creationism, etc?
    An amalgamation/mash up of the two has been proposed - God got evolution going! That's the low hanging fruit and everyone zeroed in on it effortlessly! :yawn:
  • What Are the Philosophical Implications of the Concept of "Uncertainty' in Life?
    ↪Jack Cummins
    Well, yep, when people are presented with different perspectives as happens when cultures/religions/ideologies/etc. interact, there usually is a stage where they're thrown into doubt and confusion. Which view is the right one? Which culture/person/group has got it right? It's vital to note that different perspectives are each correct in their own way i.e. a given weltanschauung has a constellation of beliefs/attitudes/etc. that accompany it.

    In other words, to critique/analyze a point of view, one must examine the worldview that generates it. For example, a person whose ontology includes spirits/ghosts/demons/etc. will think/speak/act in a way different from a person who's scientifically inclined.

    My hunch is that sooner or later the investigation terminates on one/more undecidables which are basically propositions whose truth is either not known (as of the moment) or, horror of horrors, can't be known at all. The Greeks called this aporia (bewilderment/bafflement) and Greek skeptics recommended epoché (suspend judgement, refuse to take sides because to do so is unjustifiable).

    Nevertheless, speaking for myself, since we've come to the conclusion, via reasoning, that we can't justify/know anything with 100% certainty, truth loses its value, its importance. This should immediately prompt us to overhaul our priorities. If truth is unattainable, it would be madness/foolishness to seek it, oui monsieur? What, in your opinion, then should take the place of truth as the be all and end all of philosophy, in life?

    N.B. Truth as in the correspondence theory of truth.
  • Understanding the Law of Identity
    ↪noAxioms
    A good question by all accounts. If the question had been about billiard balls on a billiard table, it would be an easy answer because we can see the balls bouncing off of each other and then moving in the direction opposite to their initial trajectory.

    Electrons however can't be observed like billiard balls above. Nobody knows whether two electrons simply pass through each other without any interaction or behave exactly like billiard balls as described above. In other words, after two electrons, call 'em A and B, have been put on a collision course and they occupy the same spatial region (collision occurs in case of billiard balls), we can't identify which is A and which is B. However, this isn't exactly a counterexample to Leibniz's identity of indiscernibles rule as the electrons can be identified if we get our hands on all the information we need.
  • Does Consequentialism give us any Practical Guidance?
    I'm thinking Thanos! In one story Thanos saves a young girl from being run over by a bus. Everyone is jubilant at this and so is the girl who, in Star Wars terms, now owes a life debt to Thanos. It turns out that Thanos' saved the girl because she would grow up to be the one who destroys the world, no scratch that, the whole friggin' universe! So much for consequentialism, eh?
  • Agnosticism, sensu amplo
    ↪180 Proof


    In my humble opinion, a thing and its anti-thing should also be included in yin-yang à la Hegelian dialectics. E.g. radical doubt ends up in absolute certainty (re Descartes' cogito ergo sum). Likewise, absolute certainty leads to (hyper)skepticism (re Agrippa's/Münchhausen trilemma). Too good and you're bad and too bad and you're good. Emphasis on the too (re aureum mediocritas).
  • Agnosticism, sensu amplo
    ↪180 Proof
    Will comply (for now)!

    I just find Gnomon's thesis interesting, that's all. From what I can gather s/he seems to have done his/her homework. Gnomon gives me the impression of a well-read scholar. Note, this ain't a bromance - his Matrix analogy ain't the reason that Agent Smith likes his ideas.

    I wanna run something by you, it's about yin-yang. You seem to be aware that yin-yang is ambiguous in that it stands for both annihilatory pairs like atheism-theism (both can't exist, one of 'em hasta go) and also complementary pairs (both can exist; each completes the other as it were) e.g. man and woman (family) or geometry and arithmetic (coordinate geometry).

    Do you have anything to say regarding this?
  • The Ultimate Question of Metaphysics
    Consider my questions koans to ponder. :sparkle: — 180 Proof

    Aye! See ya around homo viator!
  • The Ultimate Question of Metaphysics
    As Hume points out: "causal relations" (i.e. sufficient reasons) are only inferred "habits of association" (inductions) and not observed. — 180 Proof

    In my humble opinion, the idea of causation has evolved since Hume made his claim, that it's simlply the constant conjunction of one event and another. Nowadays there's also the mechanism of causation to consider - correlation which Hume is all about just won't cut it these days. Take for instance the correlation between alcohol, the cause, and its effects on the brain. Scientists go down to the molecular level to explain how C2H5OH produces its neurological effects. In short Hume's take on causation is hopelessly outdated/obsolete.

    So 'the cause of causality' doesn't precipitate an infinite regress, Smith, or beg the question?

    Is it your position that randomness is explained as the effect of a cause?

    Or that reality is explained, even if only in principle, by some 'reason beyond reality?'     — 180 Proof

    Can I get back to you later. I'm in a bit off a jam right now! Cops! :rofl: Au revoir wise one!
  • Phenomenalism
    Phenomenalism is, in a sense, a study of mental images (of things i.e. processed sense data) how things appear to us instead of what things really are. Those who reject the idea would call it an illicit affair with Maya (illusion).
  • Trouble with Impositions
    I'm sure people will have some objections to my school-example, but intuitively it seems so. — Tzeentch

    Situation analysis:

    Fictional entities don't have moral status. You can't make Sherlock Holmes glad/sad and so ethics is moot, morality is N/A, a category error that is.

    This above idea has been adapted to the unborn - they're being likened to fictional characters in a book/play/movie.

    However, 180 Proof got it right, the unborn are possible persons i.e. if permitted they become actual people and this is the difference that makes the difference - fictional people are devoid of potential to become an actual person.

    If so, ethics/morality becomes applicable to the unborn.
  • Trouble with Impositions
    Clearly, the only way out of this bottle (re Wittgenstein) is to assume that nonexistent people do have moral status i.e. they can be harmed/helped.

    The other option is to say that people do exist before they're born (on earth as a human).

    These two options come with their own metaphysical baggage though, but at least we achieve some semblance of symmetry which is vital to the issue.

    If not then the problem of natalism-antinatalism gets bogged down by the metaphysics of nonexistence. Why complicate the issue (unnecessarily)?
  • Agnosticism, sensu amplo
    It's not something to believe, but something to think — Gnomon

    :fire:

    Both are neither True nor False, but merely a different way to look at Reality : a proposed new Paradigm. — Gnomon

    :fire:

    We've been too long under the spell of so-called truth.
  • Climate change denial
    The solution to man-made climate change seems rather simple when viewed in a general sense: Delink the economy from carbon.

    However, when we get down to specifics, we hit a wall - our technology, the engine of the global economy, is 100% carbon-based.

    This, in my humble opinion, is the Gordian knot humanity is faced with!

    What is needed is a bloody technological revolution! Can we do it? Necessity is the mother of invention.

    It may not be necessary or even possible to give up carbon; we could at least try to reduce our carbon footprint to manageable levels ad interim.
  • Agnosticism, sensu amplo
    Your usual non-answer. That's a tell, sir. :yawn: — 180 Proof

    Do you realize that by disagreeing (with Gnomon), you're actually agreeing (with him/her)? [Re his/her yin-yang (BothAnd concept)].
  • The Ultimate Question of Metaphysics
    And the sufficient reason for the PSR? — 180 Proof

    Two way to answer that question:

    1. Everything we claim hasta have a reason (logic, surely you don't object to that), every event has a perfectly good explanation (science), and last but not the least, every entity that exists has a cause that brought it into existence (no data collected so far is an exception to this rule unless you believe magicians do really pull rabbits outta their hats).

    2. An analogy: If someone tells me that I have a red pen in my right trouser pocket, I check my pocket to find out. What am I actually doing? Assuming there is a red pen in my pocket & testing that hypothesis.

    Likewise if I ever want to prove the PSR wrong, I have to assume it is true; in other words the PSR is a supposition you'll always havta make, even if it is to disprove it.
  • The Ultimate Question of Metaphysics
    Why? :roll: — 180 Proof

    The question answers itself! You won't rest until I prove the PSR and that's exactly what the PSR is - there's always a reason/cause/explanation for things.
  • What Are the Philosophical Implications of the Concept of "Uncertainty' in Life?
    Expressions I call to the witness box:

    1. May be, could be, perhaps, likely, unlikely, hard to say, possibly, probably, who knows? I guess so, etc.[Possibility + Probability (mathematization of possibility)]

    2. Definitely, sure, obviously, without doubt, clearly, most assuredly, certainly, etc. [Certainty]

    Obviously, the existence of these expressions is an indicator of a complex world that boasts an entire spectrum/range of probabilities from 0% (impossible) to 100% (certain).

    I guess we're discussin' skepticism here and I'd like to refer the reader to Pyrrho the skeptic who, as the story goes, had to be pulled to safety because, he claimed, he wasn't sure if the wagon barrelling down the street really existed or not and so continued to walk towards it. :snicker:

    Cute paradoxes result which, to my reckoning, seems rather general and not specific to the doubting Thomas club:

    The only thing that's certain is that we can't be certain. — :cool:

    That's all she wrote!
  • A way to put existential ethics
    I think it could be, in that "the pricking of conscience" is a common way people make ethical decisions -- you mentioning murder makes me think of Raskolnikov, who was clearly overly bothered by the existential situation and took it to an extreme -- I wonder if the fear holds up? If there is no God, is everything permitted? Did Raskolnikov actually demonstrate our freedom to murder, or did he demonstrate the opposite? It's not like he lived a happy life — Moliere

    I thought I was off-topic. Anyway, if you'd like to pursue the general idea contained in my previous post, here's an amusing short story:

    The Twelve Fools

    Once there lived twelve fools in a village. One day they started on a journey in search of job to a distant town. On their way they came across a river. There was no bridge or boat so they had to swam and crossed the river. After landing on the bank of the river they counted themselves, but each of them did not count himself. So they counted only eleven instead of twelve. They thought one of their companions was missing so they began to cry. Meantime a traveller came near by and asked about their problem. They told him about the matter and he agreed to produce the lost man. The traveller told them to stand in a line, started to count and gave each of them a blow and counted twelve. After that the fools were very happy, thanked him for finding out their lost companion and went their way in search of jobs.

    I didn't do it. No one saw me do it. You can't prove anything. — Bart Simpson

    :snicker:
  • Agnosticism, sensu amplo
    ↪Gnomon
    :up:

    Since your idea has, as a component, the yin-yang duality of opposites, you surely expect it to be critiqued/opposed/attacked. That's exactly how it should be then, in accordance to your BothAnd concept, oui?

    How would you respond to this comment?
  • Foundational Metaphysics
    Zero is powerful because it is infinity’s twin. They are equal and opposite, yin and yang. They are equally paradoxical and troubling. The biggest questions in science and religion are about nothingness and eternity, the void and the infinite, zero and infinity. The clashes over zero were the battles that shook the foundations of philosophy, of science, of mathematics, and of religion. Underneath every revolution lay a zero – and an infinity. — Charles Seife
  • Trouble with Impositions
    Thanks. I usually attack head on. But it is obvious that TPF is oversaturated with evasive tactics, so I feel the need to work on my evasive tactics so that I...can...fit...in!. :halo: — Merkwurdichliebe

    You're great! :up:
  • The Ultimate Question of Metaphysics
    ↪Agent Smith
    It strikes me that the question, as stated, should never arise. Why assume that "something" requires an explanation because it exists rather than or instead of nothing?
    — Ciceronianus     — 180 Proof

    Possibilities: Something/Nothing
    Actuality: Something
    Why (is there something rather than nothing)?

    PSR (the principle sufficient reason): If x then there's got to be a reason1/cause2/explanation3 for x.
  • A Newbie Questions about Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
    The world is the totality of facts, not of things. — Art48

    Epistemic twist on the usual, humdrum, senses & their extension based definition of reality. Knowledge is perhaps the only real stuff the world is made of. @Gnomon's information-based EnFormAction thesis come's to mind (the world as information - from head to toe in a manner of speaking).

    I recall vaguely that Wittgenstein subscribed to the correspondence theory of truth. What conclusions follow? Hard to say, hard to say.
  • On whether what exists is determinate
    Random question.

    If particles are just ideas or more idea than rocks are, why don't we see particles that fail the gold standard test of materialism viz. nothing (material) can travel faster than light. In other words why are ideas behaving like matter? It just doesn't add up!
  • Understanding the Christian Trinity
    The Father = F
    The Son = S
    The Holy Spirit = H

    There was, I guess, a felt need to violate two of the laws of thought:

    1. The law of identity [F = S = H and F S H and so F F, S S, and H H]


    2. The law of noncontradiction (LNC) [F = S & F S; S = H & S H; F = H & F H]

    If so the last of the 3 laws of thought - the law of the excluded middle - is also blown to bits (rejecting the LNC implies that).

    Put simply the very foundation of classical logic has been demolished by the Triune God.

    Anticipates or hints at a revolution in logic! Hasn't happened yet! Waiting...patiently...oh no! :death:

    No wonder Newton was anti-Trinitarian. He knew!
  • Understanding the Christian Trinity
    I'm too dumb to catch half of those references, sorry. All I'm saying is the trinity is bullocks. :pray: [prayer emoji] — Noble Dust

    I see. I'm dumb too. Join the club!

    The Trinity isn't nonsense in my humble opinion because religion was never about rationality. Were it so, why all the logical boo-boos in religious texts. The objective of religion, if there's one at all, isn't to make sense to classical logicians and their fans viz. philosophers!

    Did you know, the law of contradiction is considered sacrosanct only because it would trivialize truth, not because there's anything wrong with saying stuff like: I'm here & I'm not here. This is a riddle I don't have the wherewithal to examine in the right way. Random thinking gets you nowhere.
Home » Agent Smith