General Philosophy

I just came across the following intriguing passage in Elliott Sober's "The Nature of Selection" (page 175): The first claim -- "the theory [of natural selection] makes the existence of imperfect, though serviceable, adaptations comprehensible" -- seems perfectly sensible to me. The second -- "the doctrine of special, divine creation does not [make the existence of imperfect, though serviceable, adaptations comprehensible]" -- is less obviously tenable. But first a parable... The Chinese word for contradiction or paradox is mao-dun (矛盾). The former character (矛 - "mao") means spear; the latter (盾 - "dun") means shield. The story goe…

There is a question that bother's me a lot, and that why are here? But I think there is no answer for it... But what do you think?

Elon musk was saying something, that we are living in computer simulation in 2016, than there were some counter arguments and i read some article from 2017, that current scientific knowledge and studies disputed it. I mean if we lived in computer simulation how we could ever know ? Why it would have to be computer simulation in the first place ? What if someone in laboratory was poking in your brain and what you are experiencing isn't even real. Even bill nye said, it would be to complex to detect. I think if we live in some sorf of simulation, there is no way for us to detect it, unless our creators allowed it, or made some mistakes. It is like software on computer, can …

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/einstein-philscience/ "Einstein's Philosophy of Science" " 1. Introduction: Was Einstein an Epistemological “Opportunist”? Late in 1944, Albert Einstein received a letter from Robert Thornton, a young African-American philosopher of science who had just finished his Ph.D. under Herbert Feigl at Minnesota and was beginning a new job teaching physics at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez. He had written to solicit from Einstein a few supportive words on behalf of his efforts to introduce “as much of the philosophy of science as possible” into the modern physics course that he was to teach the follow…

Maybe somebody could explain this to me; I read somewhere that the generally accepted opposite of the emotion 'love' is 'indifference', But this makes absolutely no sense to me. To me, the clear-cut opposite of love is hate. And that makes perfect sense. Indifference cannot be the opposite of love because indifference by definition means that you don't feel anything for the person, you neither love nor hate the person. This means that in effect, indifference is simply the lack of both love and hate. A simple analogy would be to let the number 1 represent love; this means that if you take away the emotion, you're left with indifference, which would be represented b…

What is existence? For example, we might say that a unicorn exists; therefore, in our understanding of the nature of existence; the unicorn has mass, has dimensions, has color. But unicorns do not exist (as far as we know), so they do not have mass, dimensions or color. However, consider a fictional universe. We might say that in... Harry Potter for example, unicorns exist (which they do) The unicorn would have mass, dimensions and color in the H.P.U. But does it exist? It exists as an idea, but can an idea contain physical properties? Please, discuss calmly.

Swansont addressed the following comment to me in my thread on "The Scientific Method" which now appears to be locked. "But they [unicorns] exist as a concept, and you have just agreed that concepts are part of reality, so I do not grant that they don't exist. And neither do you, apparently." The concept of a unicorn is not a unicorn, any more than the concept of redness is red, or a painting of a unicorn is a unicorn.

The scientific method (hereafter TSM) has been traditionally defined as a single, timeless, invariant set of rules governing empirical inquiry, at least since the time of the so-called Scientific Revolution of around 400 years ago. If real, TSM would be precious indeed: it would serve to unify all the prima facie disconnected scientific disciplines (after all, it's far from obvious that anything links the activities of subatomic physicists with economists, say), it would act as the demarcation criterion to distinguish bona fide science from pseudoscience or non-science in general, and it could be appealed to in order to explain the undeniable success of the scientific ent…

Rap along with music in general can develop people and affect them to change their perspective, and their personalities. My question for you is, Why is rap considered one of the most influential music genres to affect people compared to other genres in this world? I know that personally I have had a lot of influence from rap music specifically and it has changed the way I act, speak, and even see the world.

I have been reading articles about rumination and was wanting to hear whether it is possible to have positive effects from rumination. I definitely like to mull over the negative until it is all I can see, but socially I have been very successful thanks to this. Thoughts?

I'm writing a paper for philosophy and have been looking into where humanity as a whole is headed and where we might be headed I've been questioning the credibility of government, and want to know other peoples opinions, on what they think is the ultimate goal for humanity, or should be the ultimate goal?

They are a central part of relativity and banish the notion of absolute time (in a way that has been verified and has had countless applications) I have a simple question ,borne out of curiosity. What was the impact of this amazing finding on the philosophical disciplines at the time? Is it still reverberating?

At present time every scientificly interested person is facing a gigantic sophisticated ready-to-immerse body of knowledge - happy times for all inquisitives. Unfortunately, there is a huge terminological problem around, namely that a relevant amount of natural phenomena or scientific laws are foolishly named after people's names, instead of been well classified into a solid consistent terminology of their respective area of science. At least in my view, depicted situation massivly hinders people to get right into adequate conceptual thinking about nature on a deep scale. If one like to think deeply about molecular biology, common rules of motion, bl…

Fear is poison. It has, however, with remarkable consistency and perseverance helped us and our distant genetic cousins throughout our evolutionary past to survive and procreate. Summarized and simplified: Those who were more often afraid were more often responsive to threats and hence more often had grandchildren. It’s understandable. It’s logical. It’s supported by fact and evidence But now fear is... more often than not getting in our way. Stopping us. Impeding progress. Dividing us; creating too many dehumanized thems. Too many malleable us’s... Never. Ever. Be afraid. Have no fear. End program. What are the flaws with this approach? Pleas…

I just have been feeling very unsure about my place in life. I have never been tested for any mental illnesses but believe I might have some. I experience constant negative emotions towards life in general; including my obligations in the military, my music, and school. I would like to see how others validate their life in terms of worth, and ability.

All the details somehow connect to the big picture so that is all they care about. What is this persons downfall?

"I think, therefore I am" Is that a the foundation of all knowledge, knowledge of one's own existence?

Hello! I posted this here a few days ago but it seems to have vanished before I received any replies...not sure why. Trying again! I could use some help in defending the methodology and nature of natural science as a broad discipline from some arguments made by an acquaintance at college. I hope you folks can help me: I’m a biology undergrad debating with a philosophy undergrad, and he’s making it a bit hard for me to defend the very basis of my field, a fact of which I admit I’m ashamed. He says: “the God of the Gaps argument does not asses that God cannot be inferred because it is not empirical as you say, but that the God explanation is a way to explain the unexplaine…

Hello, I'm 17 years old and I live in Upstate New York.. I have one younger brother who is 2 years younger than me and i have my parents who don't really know English so English is not my first language. My situation right now is horrible and i have no idea how to get all things together.. i would like to explain in little briefly i have never really expressed myself to anyone other then my family.. i really need help figure out what am i suppose to do and make this all work.. so i basically moved to US in 2016 from other country when i was in 10th grade..i was living alone without parents for 3 months because i came at the end of the year and school refused for my trans…

Hello, i am curious, are there any physicists, which would agree with compatibilism, i found only and mostly philosophers, or neurologists, which support compatibilism. In physics seems most favorable is indeterminism, because it is first condition for free will and because determinism cannot be tested and what cannot be tested is pointless to even do, you could stop doing experiments right here, because which experiment you choose to do and what varables you will set is already determined. Most of physicists deny free will completely, or at least they are incompabilists, or can yet support indeterminism. I personaly don't think compatibilism al…

So, this is new for me. Recently I have been thinking on something that bugs me a tiny bit, and I suppose it has just gotten my gears turning to the point where I'd even want to coin a paradox of it. The "Veer" Paradox, if you will. This is somewhat hard to compose in a manner for you as a reader to understand. Let me try this though. 13.8 Billion years back, let's say we are at the point of the Big Bang, moments before it's grand eruption. What made the very fabric of Space Time? What happened before this point? What happened before that point? What about before that point? This sounds stupendously simple, however, I have spent entire nights elaborating, just trying to s…

Sometimes people commit suicide b/c they see no solution to a problem (granted it's not incurable terminal cancer). In reality this problem is merely temporary and can be resolved. One could say to them, "Don't worry, this will pass and everything will be ok". Then the suicidee says, "No, its too much, theres no 'positive' part of life right now" Based on the suicidee premise, shouldn't everyone kill themselves, as we will all encounter a negative part of life, and to avoid the pain should just do ourselves in? This I believe reveals out how pointless suicide is using the premise, "its bad for me right now". I dunno is this just rambling o…

I am wondering if anyone here has an opinion as to whether such a thing as "the creative impulse" could be rigorously defined. Is a third party (the first two parties being the creator of the object and the object itself) essential to the process ? My own view is that the meaning of the term cannot be tied down but I also wonder can anything at all integral to the process be stated with a degree of certainty... Is there anything about a creative act or thought that definitively sets it apart from other such actions or thoughts?

false hope+false hope+false hope = hope -1

For a long time now I have found many things about ancient languages, the dawn of language itself and of course, modern language. The tenets of modern language are based on merging older words together to form new words. This is where someone with authority seeks to compress phrases into one word, to allow for a shorter message. Modern language is not based on nature, as is ancient languages, but instead on a hybrid generic system of term compression. As for ancient languages, well, they led to basic languages, where the ancient languages were based on body language. This is where the tribe would try to infer a message, and then make a sound to symbolize the message…