65
votes
Are we all ‘atheist’ or 'agnostic in a pandemic'?
I think you have a false premise.
Your premise seems to be "Devout believers/adherents of the religion Islam believe that humans need not make any effort in their survival in the natural world." I ...
- 566
31
votes
Are we all ‘atheist’ or 'agnostic in a pandemic'?
There's a good joke about this.
The Mississippi floods, but this guy stays put and says "God will save me". A policeman comes past and says "Better be going" but our guy says "God will save me". The ...
- 1,604
29
votes
Accepted
Does True Randomness actually exist?
Like you, I think most uses of the terms 'probable' and 'random' are just epistemic, i.e. they relate to how much information we have. We say of a toss of a coin that it is random, and that there is a ...
- 22.2k
22
votes
Why is the complex number an integral part of physical reality?
The short answer: Your premise is not correct. Quantum Mechanics is not necessarily complex-valued. Here is a primer from Physics.SE if you are solid on the math.
An explanation that is light on math:...
- 756
19
votes
Accepted
What are some arguments against the brain-in-a-vat thought experiment?
Your question is about metaphysical realism and skepticism. There are indeed radical sceptic arguments against realism such as Descartes's demon, brain in a vat or the idea that one is actually ...
- 5,830
19
votes
Are we all ‘atheist’ or 'agnostic in a pandemic'?
There are some religious groups --I'm thinking here of "prosperity" churches --that promote the message that nothing but good things will ever happen to the truly faithful. But these are definitely ...
- 25.8k
16
votes
Accepted
What makes things real?
tl;dr- Depends on a person's level of mental development. The truth's crazy complicated, but we go through stages of understanding.
Stage 1: Realism.
The simplest way to understand reality is ...
- 1,930
16
votes
Accepted
Can someone identify this school of thought?
The first sentence expresses relativism, and then the rest makes clear that it makes everything relative to the individual subject. That position is called solipsism. Solipsism makes the individual ...
- 5,498
9
votes
Accepted
Philosophical implications of entangled states (and the 2022 physics nobel prize)
In the high-level summary and explanation I've read/watched… this means or confirms that everything… is probabilistic.
This is wrong. Bell's Theorem and the experiments that won this years Nobel ...
- 803
8
votes
Did David Deutsch really disprove the Simulation Hypothesis?
To be honest, I couldn't exactly follow your construction. But I can say that Deutsch is definitely not using an impossible scenario. He is actually adapting the Cantor Diagonalisation Argument which ...
7
votes
What are some arguments against the brain-in-a-vat thought experiment?
In my opinion, the best response to ontological uncertainty is to strive to live in a way that is meaningful regardless of the true nature of reality. While it may seem implausible, it may be less so ...
- 25.8k
7
votes
Why is the complex number an integral part of physical reality?
In my opinion you are mixing up different points:
Physics does not use complex numbers to count entities. It is sufficient to count mangos by non-negative rational numbers, i.e. 1 mango, 1.5 mangos, ...
- 20.8k
7
votes
Is symmetry real?
Here is the question:
So did we discover symmetry, or do we impose it? (like numbers) And why do we need it?
David John Baker describes symmetries (page 2):
...symmetries of a theory are ...
- 19.2k
6
votes
Accepted
A second indubitable axiom
You have actually anticipated Descartes himself in this question. After he established his own existence, as a mind, a thinking being, with the Cogito (I think therefore I am) he proceeded to ask ...
- 7,291
6
votes
Why is the complex number an integral part of physical reality?
Complex numbers are ordered pairs of numbers that have an extended definition of multiplication that is useful for representing circular motion in two-dimensions. (The definition of multiplication ...
- 1,836
6
votes
What makes things real?
Reality is objective, not subjective. Therefore, you can remove the subjective part of "So for him, does anything even exist?" and make it: "Does anything even exist?" The obvious answer is yes. If ...
- 255
6
votes
Accepted
Wanted references to the Phillip K Dick Total Recall (1990) paradox
In this piece which talks about similar questions about the nature of reality and his own quasi-mystical experiences, he mentions a number of pre-socratic philosophers (Heraclitus, Parmenides, ...
- 2,837
5
votes
What is the philosophical difference between "Reality" and "Truth"?
In Western thinking a big difference exists between reality and truth.
Reality is difficult to define. Reality denotes the world outside and its facts. As Wittgenstein states in Tractatus Logico-...
- 20.8k
5
votes
Is there something to theory as theory is practice?
The correct answer is: practice.
Praxis is to theoria as theoria is to praxis. Theory is inferred from practice, and practice confirms theory. This is the basic hypothetico-deductive model of science,...
- 13.3k
5
votes
Does Einstein's local realism in quantum mechanics imply superdeterminism?
You are right that Bell's inequalities do not rule out "superdeterminism" (Bell's term), as he himself acknowledged:"...if our measurements are not independently variable as we supposed...even if ...
- 42.3k
5
votes
Can anyone ever know for sure that other people are also conscious?
According to the argument from analogy, I infer the existence of mental states in other people, by analogy with myself. Just as I observe a correlation of my own behavior with my mental states, so I ...
- 365
5
votes
Postmodernism advocates are Right-wing or just can't see its effects against the Left?
I admittedly lack a solid grounding in philosophy and likely some problems with postmodernist thought escape me. I am however one of those leftists who has no huge, general problem with all of ...
- 547
5
votes
Why is the complex number an integral part of physical reality?
Are we answering the right question?
You touch upon an interesting point, but I have the feeling that your question isn't specific enough yet to reach a proper resolutions. Others have argued that '...
- 307
5
votes
Why is the complex number an integral part of physical reality?
You have several fundamental misunderstandings.
Physics does not define reality. Physics defines a model that approximates reality in a testable fashion. Reality can—and, going by experience,...
- 151
5
votes
Did David Deutsch really disprove the Simulation Hypothesis?
Deutsch is restating some well known results in the theory of computation discovered by Godel and Turing. The result explains that not all functions can be calculated by a computer. This is not a ...
- 7,305
5
votes
How can we be certain that we cannot be certain?
Paradox
'Nothing is certain' is a proposition. If it is true, then no proposition is immune from error. But that's problematic since 'Nothing is certain' is a proposition which refutingly applies to ...
- 35.3k
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