117
votes
Accepted
Fundamental idea on proving God's existence with science
I think part of the problem is: Science doesn't prove anything. Science, at its core, is simply a method of generating testable hypothesis that explain events, which are valued because of their use ...
- 1,234
30
votes
Why can't numbers be 'used up'?
Does a song get 'used up' when we sing it? Does a story get 'used up' when we read it? Does a path get 'used up' when we walk it?
Forgive the computer science analogy here, but all of these things — ...
- 24.1k
29
votes
Accepted
What separates numbers from other mathematical objects and what justifies e.g. the quaternions to be called a number system?
Y'know how when people say "there's no such thing as a fish", by which they mean that as biologists have learned more about how different types of animals are and aren't related, there hasn'...
- 865
27
votes
Are we living in a simulation? The evidence
I would like to argue that the topic (especially the search for proof for it) is rather useless. With a search for evidence, this topic is very similar to the topic of the search for evidence that God ...
- 4,144
21
votes
Accepted
If morality is real and has causal power, could science detect the moment the "moral ontology" causes a measurable effect on the physical world?
Yes, but...
Chairs are real, and yet there is no "chair force" that produces measurable effects on the universe.
To choose something slightly less tangible, the federal interest rate is real,...
- 18.9k
20
votes
Why can't numbers be 'used up'?
Actually, your young student friend may be contemplating an astoundingly subtle notion. Linear logic (invented (or is it discovered?) by Jean-Yves Girard) is a substructural logic that's resource-...
- 585
19
votes
How many Platonic ideals are there?
Although Plato's Theory of Forms presents as a consistent, "scientific" system of metaphysics, it doesn't really hold up under scrutiny, and there's a strong tradition of thought that it was ...
- 30.7k
19
votes
Accepted
What does "everything" mean?
Just extend the painter analogy. There is a set of things that need a painter, and the painter is excluded from that set. Likewise there is a set of things that need an ultimate creator and the ...
- 26.3k
18
votes
Fundamental idea on proving God's existence with science
Attempts to show that God exists by looking at nature such as the Kalam Cosmological Argument can only assert "generic theism", as you rightly point out. If the argument holds, then how ...
- 4,177
18
votes
Is knowledge non-physical?
"Knowledge" is an abstract concept. It is a convenient label, generally considered to apply to true beliefs (with considerable wiggle around what exactly that means, and how one might know ...
- 394
18
votes
Is there a category even more general than "thing"?
What you regard as the most general category depends on your preferred understanding of epistemology and metaphysics. For Berkeley and Hume, 'idea' is the most general category. For Leibniz it is '...
- 31.5k
18
votes
Question about word (relationship between language and thought)
Your question is an empirical question about whether unsymbolized thinking happens. Any consensus among philosophers is of no import to this question; what matters is what neuroscience has revealed.
...
- 5,451
16
votes
Accepted
Does the current “ruling ontology” deny any possibility of a social causation of mental illness?
Suppose (without loss of too much generality) that I am anxious. There are two conceptualizations I could consider. First, the one given by the "ruling ontology":
I suffer because I am ...
- 1,670
15
votes
Are we living in a simulation? The evidence
I propose that we cannot know whether we are living in a simulation.
One of the ways to detect a simulation supposedly is to detect errors from the inside. But there is no reason whatsoever to ...
- 3,710
15
votes
What essential properties make us human?
Introductory remarks
This is subject to debate and there is no definite answer. The general consensus is that no definite set of properties can possibly be given and if it is done, these sets are ...
- 14.8k
15
votes
Accepted
Does Mitosis division break the Leibniz law of Identity?
They differ in that they are in different position, just as the two copied files differ by being in different locations. Position is a property and therefore they are not identical.
In fact, the ...
- 2,316
15
votes
Does the universe include everything, or merely everything that exists?
The universe is defined as all that exists. "Unicorn" is a fictitious animal. It is a name without a referent.
The name and the concept of a unicorn exist in the universe, but a ...
- 42.3k
12
votes
Physical reality of physics properties
The force of a tractor pulling a plow or a shed pushing down on the Earth isn't one physically real thing (strictly speaking). It's a simplified model of a collection of the interactions of many, many ...
- 13.6k
11
votes
Does omniscience necessarily entail omnipotence?
It may be impossible to save oneself. An omniscient being would know that. So omniscient and yet not omnipotent.
- 5,460
11
votes
Accepted
What is the definition of real?
There is no one canonical and privileged definition of 'real'. However, in the most intuitive sense, it is anything that is independent of us and our existence and immediately apprehensible. This is ...
- 35.5k
11
votes
Accepted
Is a thing just a class with only one member?
The 1991 book "Parts of classes" by David Lewis is about set theory and mereology. Lewis says his "Main Thesis" is the following proposal: The parts of a class are all and only its ...
- 547
11
votes
What separates numbers from other mathematical objects and what justifies e.g. the quaternions to be called a number system?
The real numbers have been around since Simon Stevin already in the 16th century. He pioneered the viewpoint of specifying a number by its unending decimal expansion (though his notation for it was ...
- 4,015
11
votes
Does Occam's Razor favor metaphysical solipsism?
You ask:
Does Occam's Razor favor metaphysical solipsism?
No. The problem with metaphysical solipsism is it's a poor tool for explaining one's experiences in life which in direct comparison to ...
- 35.5k
10
votes
Fundamental idea on proving God's existence with science
Trying to prove, scientifically, that God exists is probably a bit pointless but it's not necessarily absurd.
As with most of science. there's no requirement to try to find a theory of everything in ...
- 1,828
10
votes
Accepted
Sum ergo cogito?
Does thinking imply existing? Descartes argues yes: it is impossible for anything to think which does not exist.
Does existing imply thinking? Most people would say no. Most would say that a rock ...
- 1,930
10
votes
Term of art for ontological evasion
This technique is called abstraction in computer science. We say that the programming language implements an abstraction on top of the hardware, and that the abstraction is a higher-level language.
...
- 13.1k
10
votes
Is The Knowledge of Zero Qualitatively Different From The Knowledge of Infinity?
Form an historical point of view, there is a difference.
The zero number is a quite peculiar concept.
If originally humans introduced counting numbers to count objects into bags, flocks,armies... the ...
- 41.1k
10
votes
Can we know we exist without knowing what we are, or what existence is?
Can someone know he has a glass of water in his hand without knowing that water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen? Can someone know he is looking at the Morning Star without knowing that the ...
- 13.1k
9
votes
What are the counterexamples to Kant's argument that existence is not a predicate?
There are no counterexamples to Kant's "argument" because it is not an argument. It is a view of predication under which being/existence is not a "real" predicate discussed in ...
- 44.2k
9
votes
Are we living in a simulation? The evidence
To focus on the title of the question, there is rather little active research being done around this question, but I'll share what I know.
First is a paper from 2012, Constraints on the Universe as a ...
- 609
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