Comments

  • Is Logic Empirical?
    That’s because the photon doesn’t go through A1 OR A2, it goes through A1 AND A2.Pfhorrest

    Or perhaps in the sense that the photon goes through neither A1 nor A2 because there is never any particle photon at any instant. A wave version follows all paths but can only be realized as a photon particle hit in one of the patterns seen on the detector?
  • Coronavirus
    Guess we're in for another round of mismanagement and downplaying.fdrake

    To see the future, compare the GB chart to France which is perhaps a month ahead in development.
  • Coronavirus
    covid [...] there are hints that it may do permanent damage to the lungs and other organs in significant numbers of survivors.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-53356593
    unenlightened

    Most early deaths of the elderly were probably due to COVID followed by a secondary bacterial infection which drew strong immune response from the patients' system which killed damaged and too many undamaged lung cells. Younger, much more active people have greater lung capacity to work with, helping to outlast the infection.
  • What is "proof?"
    In general what is the value behind saying that something was proved?TiredThinker

    Proof can be positive or negative. In science, as @aporiap already said above, no positive proof is possible but it can be proven that something is logically false or shown that something does not work.
  • Coronavirus
    The statistics for COVID coming from various countries are not directly comparable because collection and reporting of data depend on the cooperation of the population, the facilities, and the politicians.

    However, charts coming from Western Europe a coarser indicator of mostly reliable data suggest that COVID is here to stay for generations, just as many other viruses that regularly afflict mankind.

    One can hope that some protective measures can be discovered but that has not worked for other corona viruses like SARS. Then again, we've never had a president before who could will prevention and cure to any disease just prior to election.
  • What do you think? 8 questions on the universe
    Minimally, the potential of evolving time space and some initial laws of physics had to be possible, even if only with an infinitesimal probability. Nothing else can be said.
  • Is space/vacuum a substance?
    In all ways, I am always absolutely here now.
  • What is "real?"
    These are just word gamesBanno

    That's philosophy in a nutshell
  • Does Everything Really Flow? Is Becoming an Illusion?
    We have heard the philosophy that everything flows [eg, Heraclitus]. But, when 'this' becomes 'that,' it traverses something in between, such as when the color yellow becomes red it traverses orangeSaugB

    Everything flows sounds like a metaphor for denying stasis in a dynamic world. All is change would probably be a more useful modern catch phrase. Change encompasses movement and avoids being tied to a continuous model of the world.

    In what you say, the colors are fixed point objects with names. There is really no logical way to go from yellow to orange to red. If you go with physical wavelengths instead, then you can move up and down well beyond what can be seen and the color labels become obviously arbitrary.
  • Is Kant justified in positing the existence of the noumenal world?
    Thank you. Being a newbie I did not want to bust into your conversation.
  • Is Kant justified in positing the existence of the noumenal world?
    Sorry, I should not have addressed you. Now we have to look at haystack.

    My point was purely philosophical:
    The scientific noumenal world of the noted theoretical physicist Kant is to be distinguished from noumenal objects or things-in-themselves.

    Kantian noumenal objects are not real in an Aristotelian sense of being discrete. Noumenal objects are indeterminate sources of complex personal sense-perception possibly leading to logical judgment.

    As is typical for him, Kant plants himself in the middle as the arbitrator, drawing on the strengths of the extreme points of view. There is something out there, but it is not real until judgment says so.
  • Is Kant justified in positing the existence of the noumenal world?
    Kant was a phenomenologist? — Gregory
    Yes. It's been quoted by other philosophers that he was considered one of the first from his particular era...
    3017amen
    Sort of, maybe? Wasn't Kant recruited by both camps?

    Isn't the heart of the issue is that while some noumenal world is indisputable, noumenal objects fade in and out of existence depending on the reader? Are those objects fully out there, somewhat out there, or only in the public eye?
  • Coherentism
    The idea of coherency only exists if there are prior observations of the phenomenaPinprick

    In science or in philosophy?
  • Is Kant justified in positing the existence of the noumenal world?
    Kant argues that ... We apply metaphysical concepts to the world in order to make experience possible at all. In other words, synthetic a priori metaphysical concepts are the pre-conditions of all experience. Hence, Kant distinguishes between the world as [we] experience it (the world as it is experienced given the application of said concepts) and the world as it is independent of our experience.philosophy

    As Kant well understood, there is personal private experience and then there is public instrumental scientific experience. For science, it can be taken for granted that the whole purpose is to investigate a noumenal world that otherwise is a complete mystery.

    The preconditions and mechanics of personal experience are a complex, as a glass seen through darkly. We cannot easily tell whether the world we recreate in our imagination when awake, or dreaming, is even close to overcoming biological and psychological limitations.

    In either case, there is no reasonable alternative to some form of independent noumenal world that's out there around us.
  • Coherentism
    However, we tend to believe that there is a reality, beyond the propositions, which is represented by themMetaphysician Undercover

    Propositions are merely a formality of dictionary words bundled through a simple manageable logic. They are a useful tool for the practice of formal philosophy. In and of themselves propositions represent nothing whatsoever just as mathematical symbols represent nothing beyond their own formalism.

    To also add that philosophical formalisms correspond to a matching real, even material world is quite a stretch, when you think about it. It could be so, maybe or maybe not. But philosophy is in no position to then circularly derive its own primitive premises.

    To justify such theories and many more speculations of its own is what science is for. Science has over the past millennium shown that nature is quite different than what the naive imagination suggests. If it wasn't so, there would be no need for science at all -- we could just ask each other how the world is and get true answers.
  • Anti-Realism
    An antirealist is "a person who denies the existence of an objective reality". It sees "no access to a mind-independent reality, even if it exists".Michael McMahon
    Given those two choices, I can't even imagine anyone actually being an antirealist.

    Realism is a useful but unnecessary philosophical fantasy. A non-philosopher can just ignore all philosophical theories and go on with their life. A philosopher can work on their own ideas without concern for such a logically restricting possible universe. There are plenty of others waiting for an unfettered fertile imagination to explore.
  • Why is there something rather than nothing?
    I've got plenty of nothing.

    I've just checked and there's nothing in my pocket. Now, I have nothing to say, nothing to show, nothing to think about, nothing to do. Good thing it's a holiday here.