I already answered this. Re contracts, it's not any sort of speech restriction. It's not stopping anyone from saying anything they want to say. It's just that I'd enforce contracts--if you promise A in exchange for B and do not deliver, there would be legal repercussions. — Terrapin Station

No law literally and physically stops speech, but all speech regulation, whether it be anti-defamation law or contractual law, imposes legal repercussions when violated. You've not presented a meaningful distinction between the two.

I don't need a method to know I have a headache. — Banno

Interesting response. As noted in my listing of the scientific method steps above, all of the data gathered in step 2 ("Gather information and resources (observe)") would be accepted without formal method. You'd just have the phenomenal state and accept it as true, making phenomenal states foundational.

Possibly the scientific method provides a basis for why we have these phenomenal states, but does not provide a basis to determine whether phenomenal states accurately reflect reality. That issue is within the purview of metaphysics, and just like that of morality, is not addressable through the scientific method.

I might be a bit old fashioned, but in my day the first step in the scientific method was observation, and that was the the way to discover the truth of things. — unenlightened

Per Wiki, the steps of the scientific method:

Define a question
Gather information and resources (observe)
Form an explanatory hypothesis
Test the hypothesis by performing an experiment and collecting data in a reproducible manner
Analyze the data
Interpret the data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
Publish results
Retest (frequently done by other scientists)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

Do any members know of any other tool or method that we have available to provide support or not for the truth of anything. — Scribble

The question relates to "anything," so as it applies to questions of morality, purpose, and meaning of life, those are matters we don't rely upon the scientific method for. Our method for arriving at such things is rationality, intuition, and reliance upon tradition (to name a few).

If you can't offer a reasonable response to the question of why your position allows enforcement of contractual speech acts, despite your claim that no speech can be regulated, then just say so. To divert on this path about the definition of "proper" isn't interesting or clever, but just obviously evasive, and possibly (although I can't perfectly read your intent) trollish.

If you were to ask me if moral stances have anything to do with what's "proper," I'd say "No." — Terrapin Station

But that's not what I asked. Are you now going to start posing random questions to yourself and answering them?

If you asked me what kind of shirt I was wearing, I'd say red.

But I didn't use the word "proper" anywhere, and that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying what I am/am not in favor of (well, and what I'd do "if I were king"). — Terrapin Station

Nor did I quote you as having said "proper," so I'm not sure what you're defending yourself against, nor am I even sure you know what you're defending yourself against. If you think I have in substance misstated something you've said, then point that out. At this point, your response is a silly quibble over form, arguing that a particular word in my post didn't appear in your post so it must be an inaccurate account of what you said.

The portion of your post beginning with the word "and" is entirely unresponsive to anything discussed, and suggests I thought something other than the views you were expressing were someone other than your own.

You're saying that it's improper to regulate free speech generally, but that it's proper to regulate contracts specifically.
— Hanover

Where am I saying that? — Terrapin Station

As to where you're saying its improper to regulate free speech generally:

I'm a free speech absolutist. I don't agree that any speech can be harmful, at least not in a manner that suggests control of speech. — Terrapin Station

As to where you're saying it is proper to regulate contracts specifically:

'd not allow contractual fraud, but that's an issue of contractual law, not a speech issue — Terrapin Station

Do you not have a similar ability to scroll up and see what you've previously said? I was giving you the benefit of the doubt with regard to whether you were truly trying to alleviate confusion as opposed to being purposefully evasive. I'm thinking I was being too generous

Properly? What sort of question is that? I'm not saying anything about "properly." — Terrapin Station

Yes you are. You're saying that it's improper to regulate free speech generally, but that it's proper to regulate contracts specifically. Since contracts are a form of speech, I'm asking why the general category is not properly regulated but why a subcategory of that same class is properly regulated.

Contracts are formal agreements that each party is going to offer something in exchange for something else. — Terrapin Station

I said that in my post, so I'm not sure why you're repeating it. The question I asked was what makes dishonest contractual utterances properly subject to regulation but not non-contractual utterances. You felt compensation for damages were not appropriate for utterances generally, but you've now asserted a contracts exception and I'm asking why. Is there something in principle different about them, or is this just an ad hoc correction to your general anarchist rule related to free speech?

I'd not allow contractual fraud, but that's an issue of contractual law, not a speech issue. — Terrapin Station

What is the distinction, that one is uttered and one written? What of oral contracts? Why should I be expected to trust a statement that meets the definition of a contract (offer, acceptance, and consideration) as opposed to a statement that is missing one of those elements? It seems that if a more trustworthy populous is forged by allowing lying with impunity, we should allow lying in contracts, which are really just a particular type of speech act.

orrect. What there should be instead is a culture that doesn't believe things just because someone claims them. When you're officially prohibited from saying such things, then people tend to believe claims like that whether they're true or not. When we instead have a milieu where anyone is allowed to say whatever they like, then people don't believe things when all there is to them is a claim. That's bad news for religions, sleazy salespeople, con men, slanderers, false accusers, politicians, etc.--and even for people claiming what's essentially nonsense in the name of philosophy, science, etc. (which happens all the time, including right here in River City), and that's good news for us as a culture. — Terrapin Station

This is a dubious empirical claim. You're saying that if we allow people to lie with impunity, we will have a more dependable society because the heightened level of distrust will result in a more cautious populous. If everyone lives in fear of fraud, no one will be defrauded is your argument. As we know there are certainly societies where there are insufficient defamation laws or they do have them and there is limited enforcement of them, so you will need to produce the data supportive of your claim, which I've noted is an empirical claim, not simply a thought experiment.

All of this assumes, of course, that the reason that everyone's trust level is artificially high is because of the anti-defamation laws and such. That is, you have to buy into the also dubious suggestion that I, for example, am able to dupe people because they think to themselves, "Well, Hanover won't lie because he knows there's a defamation suit on the horizon for him." What I suspect is that most don't actually know what the defamation laws say. The real reason people don't lie, cheat, and steal, has less to do with government rules than personal morality, and regardless of what the laws say, fraud will continue to exist because some people will always be trustful based upon the assumption that others feel similarly morally bound.

And, while I may be beating this one to death, I'll also point out that your position goes far beyond simply permitting otherwise actionable defamation, but you seem to allow any and all types of false statements to be made without there being any form of relief available for the person lied to. That would abolish not only defamation suits, but also contractual suits, meaning that we could no longer contract with one another for anything with any expectation the other person would uphold his end of the bargain. The consequence of that would not be the ironically more honest society you envision, but it would be that no business transaction could be expected to occur.

I'm a free speech absolutist. I don't agree that any speech can be harmful, at least not in a manner that suggests control of speech. — Terrapin Station

So let's say you run a restaurant in town and I'm your competitor, so I send out mailings and publish advertisements saying that you serve dog meat, you molest children, and you use all your profits to fund terrorists groups. You go bankrupt, your kids get thrown out all their sports programs, you can't find any other job, and you and your family are shunned.

There should be no right of recovery and no right for me to stop this behavior?

In the public domain, can we trust the government to censor "harmful" speech? — Purple Pond

No. The law is well developed in the area of slander and defamation related to private causes of action against private harm. As to whether the government would have the right to stop offensive speech generally (like advocating Nazism), in the US they don't. It's protected free speech.

In the private domain, do you agree that what can be said is the owner's pejorative prerogative? — Purple Pond

Yes. Considering I have the right to even deny you entry into my home, it'd be a strange rule requiring me to let you stay there after you insult my family under a "once you're there, you're there" rule.

But there can be differences between worlds; so while my cat is all black in this world, in another possible world it might be all white; yet in no possible world is my cat both all black and all white. — Banno

How could your cat not be black in another possible world? I get how you might have adopted a white cat in this world had you so chosen, but I don't understand how you maintain your identity across worlds where you can have cats in each world of varying colors.

So being yellow is not a necessary characteristic of gold. — Banno

This strikes me as a slippery slope into essentialism, where you're going to have to now identify what is a necessary characteristic of gold, if not its color. I don't follow why its color cannot be part of its arbitrary definition if we so choose. Does gold cease being gold under a red lamp? Sure, if we say so.

In response to @MindForged you stated

That just looks like an invalid marriage to me. I don't see a philosophical issue here, just a legal one — Banno

It would seem he was getting at what I was saying above. Things are whatever we say they are.

At any rate, doesn't your acceptance of the the logical necessity of analytic truths jettison Quine's well known objections?. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic%E2%80%93synthetic_distinction#Quine's_criticisms.

It seems to me that Kant presupposes that there exists a world which, by virtue of its being independent of our experience, is unknowable, yet nevertheless is the cause of our experience. — DiegoT

Point me to where Kant says this. I think you're making Kant an indirect realist here, suggesting that we experience phenomena that in some how relate to an unknown reality (noumena) but we simply don't know to what extent. I don't think Kant offers any attribute to noumena, including it being causative of phenomenon.

My writing tends to degenerate into absurd perversion, slowly reducing its appeal until I'm the only one interested, at which point I know I've won.

The argument, from memory, is something like that while Hesperus is Phosphorus, and that's a fact about Venus, "Hesperus" is not "Phosphorus" - the names are quite distinct. — Banno

Lecture I, page 28. I was just reading that part. I'm behind, catching up.

Prevention is often better than a cure. But the best thing is, like life the vegetation will grow back more resistant than ever. Making it harder to burn until eventually, if a bushfire occurred the forest would stand a higher chance of surviving. — Mattiesse

Are you saying that burning creates a tolerance to future generations of vegetation until one day there will be burn resistant vegetation? If that were true, why do things still burn after all these millions of years?

You kill the fleas by giving the pets those pills that make their blood flea poison and your animals then become flea killing machines. That's what I did.

I'm not sure how you can use Dawn to kill fleas in your apartment unless you scrub down every carpet and couch, and then you'd be left with a big sudsy apartment which would be far worse than just having fleas.

I have these gnats in my kitchen that I think were brought in with a house plant If you put apple cider vinegar mixed with dish soap in a coffee mug and let it sit out, the gnats all fly into there and die. It works pretty well, but it makes the vinegar taste terrible.

I think of this amazing quote.
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present. — Mattiesse

I think this is an amazing quote: Today is a gift and yesterday is past. That's why we call it a past present.

I got another one. Time has passed since yesterday and could not have been better, and all the tensions and stresses of yesterday have been left behind in those past days. It's for that reason that we call it the passed past perfect tense.

So time (in the v term) determines mass. — Devans99

This makes sense in light of my quotes above. The past particles are always used when speaking of the perfect past.

Nothing like grammatical humor.

Orthogonal vs. perspective, which is correct and why? — Banno

I'm not sure what you're arguing here, but it seems to be that reality is just a matter of perspective, perhaps denying an objective reality. You'll have to clarify that.

In the context of our discussion, you rhetorically asked what there was we didn't know about time, suggesting that we all have this complete and intuitive grasp about time so that a conversation wasn't even worthy of being had. I'm not sure why time stands out as the instantly knowable and undefinable term, but that seemed to be your thesis. To the extent physicists attempt to better understand the meaning of time, is that a waste of time, considering they are studying what they already fully know?

We have words for all those things too, they just contain more letters.

What is it you don’t know about time? — Banno

Presentism versus eternalism, which is correct and why?

According to the website, in December 2020, the cheap power becomes available for purchase. I'll go ahead and prepay for mine by sending my money to the world headquarters in Estonia.

A lot of haters here. Your assignment is reasonable, interesting, and doable. I'd start by Googling your topic ("Nietzche's influence on Hitler" - a lot of good stuff there; I just Googled it) and go from there. Wiki's a good place to start in understanding Nietzsche. This is an introductory class after all. To the extent you must speculate as to whether Hitler came up with his ideas independently or whether he actually relied on his perverted views on Nietzsche, just say that you're speculating to some degree. If at the end of the day you better understand Nietzsche and you've informed the class, you've accomplished your goal.

No, not necessarily. If everyone realised that the answers that science provides are better, then that possible consequence would make sense. But sadly countless people do not realise this. — S

Answers to what is the question though. Religion doesn't provide better answers to the question of what the earth was like a million years ago, but it does provide better answers to the question of how one should live one's life.

It isn't supposed to, is it? I was making a like for like comparison. That's like saying that a hand saw isn't very good at drilling holes into wood. — S

But you did say:

The Scientific Revolution was about 500 years ago. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Long live science. — S

So it would seem you weren't offering any role for religion and were celebrating its death.

Yeah, but when I was talking about answers, that's not what I meant. It might have "utility" for some people to believe that 1 + 1 = 3, but we don't consider 3 to be the right answer. — S

We must now define "right," which is a terribly nebulous concept, asking what is truth and what is not. I think of utility as the better way to assess that. For example, is the smell of decaying flesh really foul, or do we just perceive it that way out of utility to save us from eating rotten poisonous food?

I agree that science has much more utility in explaining how the physical world works than does religion, and I find those who rely on the Bible or other ancient texts to explain our physical origins to be pretty ridiculous. It's be equally ridiculous to use science to try to figure out how to live a virtuous life, and we'd all agree there is no reasonable empirical study you'd conduct to determine that. Since the question of virtue is one of significance, and science offers us no solutions in that regard, there then is a logical basis for keeping God on life support.

We later found out that science provides better answers. — S

If that were the case, then religion would no longer exist, yet it persists. Science provides all sorts of information about how the world works but provides us little guidance on how we ought to live in the world. Even if all religious thought is factually incorrect, it might still have utility.

Who holds Ezekiel to be the inerrant word of God, though? That claim is usually limited to the 5 books of Moses, and even then, few sects even allow for that.

No man hath seen God at any time". John 1:18, 1 John 4:12

The Lord talked with you [the people of Israel] face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire. Deuteronomy" 5:4 — Andrew4Handel

That's not a contradiction. Just because God was all up in someone's face doesn't mean they saw him.

Not having a heart full of love I suppose, I read yours as a tale of irresponsibility, self indulgence, ironic arrogance (which still persists), and addiction, which led you to such epiphanies as you should be grateful, humble, sober, and you should care for your children. In your quest to save the world, as far as I can tell, you partied and annoyed people and now you share with us the wisdom of your journey.

I could have told you your train was going to derail from the get go, and I'm guessing a bunch of others told you that over and over and over and now you're here, letting us know they were right.

Do you have a job and are you up to date on your child support?

How would you define "useless erection"? — Metaphysician Undercover

An example of a useless erection is when you awake and gather the morning wood for the fire, erect that morning wood so it will rage when lit, but others have no immediate interest in it, so instead of it casting copiuos emissions, it just wanes, sputters, and sits uselessly.

My prediction is the none of these calendar proposals will be adopted and that next year we'll still be using the same sort of calendars we always have.

It made me cry inside. — Michael

This morning I awoke to what I thought were the sounds of an angel weeping, then I read your post and thought perhaps it was you I was hearing from afar, but then I realized it was just your mother's wheezing emphysema from her meth burned lungs waking me up.

Are you sarcastic, Hanover? — ssu

Not at all. You're consistent only in your negativity toward America, but inconsistent in this debate. Your position was that an American charitable giving evaluation had to account for the selfish withholding of money from public healthcare. The problem with that argument is that American healthcare isn't cheap and doesn't provide Americans extra money to spend on charity. Your discussion of the inefficiencies of American healthcare was entirely off point of the OP, but directly on point to your anti-American theme.

Are your universities also free? In fact only the UK is comparable in tuitions to the US. — ssu

I pay $4,000 total tuition per year for 2 kids both at major research universities (that's $1,000 per semester for each child). That's easily paid for with a part time job. The world fills our universities, they are open to all levels of achievement, and are the envy of the world.

I will keep a job. — S

Don't sell out. You be you.

I blame my brother for reminding me of how much fun I was having years ago. — Michael

The good old days never were. In 10 years you'll be thinking about today convinced things were so wonderful.

I think it's high time to enjoy some festivities at the sea. — Wallows

Don't drink any water so that you'll have only dry heaves. Nurse the dehydration headache by squinting directly into the sun and aggressively rubbing your temples while repeatedly muttering "Jesus" to yourself.

I'm going to try to discourage people.

This is as close to a public forum, or space, as some of us will get. Trump has apparently tweeted, "No wall, no government." To me this is a crystal clear violation of his oath of office. — tim wood

The oath of the President is: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Where does it say that the President has to agree to the budget submitted by Congress?

The oath of all congressmen and Senators states: "“I, AB, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

Does that oath require Congress to provide a budget to the President that he'll agree to sign?

It seems if two parties can't come to terms, there's equal blame from both. Does everyone get impeached when there's an impasse?

I think what might actually be occurring here is that you think Trump is an idiot and that his border wall idea will be a a multi-billion dollar moron useless erection and you think that Congress shouldn't have their arm twisted into agreeing to something that stupid. It's for that reason that you don't want to impeach Congress for not cooperating, but you do want to impeach Trump. All of this is to say that none of this has anything to do with violations of oaths, dereliction of duty, or pissing on the Constitution. It has to do with your continued disappointment that Hillary lost. The remedy is not in litigating your way into having the guy you want in office, but it's in winning the next election.