Philosophy Now Forum

huphuphup123 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 9:20 pm How does nothing turn into something

That's only a problem for those that posit it, typically in naivete.

dean shows Schrödinger's cat thought experiment is meaningless as he cant tell us what dead is what alive is One thing I notice is several topics started, then abandoned. Post some controversial title and walk away. This is actually typical for many members here, so I have a hard time saying it's o...

a tree has a moral obligation? As I defined it, yes. if it doesn't meet the obligation, it is subject to the penalty. That makes it an obligation of sorts. It it a moral one? That's a harder sell, since morality seems to be a social contract, and there exists only a loose social contract between me...

which is it? "I can choose good path, or bad path with calculable risk of consequences ...." or " responsibility has nothing to do with there actually being a choice in the matter or not." It's both, but the 2nd is improperly worded. The first says that there is choice. Were tha...

if there is no free will, there can be no moral responsibility Nonsense. I can choose good path, or bad path with calculable risk of consequences. Moral responsibility is simply the enforcement of the consequences in the case of poor choices. Determinism or any lack of free will in no way prevents ...

if we take Newton’s law of gravitation F = G(m1m2)/R2. Thus when we move object A it effects the other two objects B and C But when objects B and C move that effects object A Well, change at time 1 affects other objects at a later time. The circularity you indicate is not there. Yes, mass anywhere ...

I know this topic is old and sort of ran itself out after 3 weeks ... Couple months this time. I guess I don't check back on this site very often, partly due to the site logging me out 6 times during composing of this post, but mostly due to the absence of moderation. So apologies for the delay. Ho...

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Wed Jan 03, 2024 2:28 pm Here ya go; some of you will find this fun:

Some of us don'\t have 100 minutes to spare to see if the topic is worth discussing.
Can you summarize what you think it says?

My entire post was removed by the short timeout. Sigh... Trying again. and yet many people already settled with the view that we are headed for the Big Rip. Who is 'many people''? The consensus view is the Hubble constant settling down to a fairly constant value of around 55 km/sec/mpc, which is exp...

Are you sure about that? Superposition is part of quantum calculations. Any counterfactual interpretation (De-Broglie-Bohm in particular) says there is but the one state, no superposition. Hence you get stuff like pilot wave physics where the particle is in but one state, but the pilot waves guide ...

From what little was provided in the OP: Why exactly is the quantum world so weird? ... Our quantum columnist Karmela Padavic-Callaghan explains why /By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan/ --- "... quantum physics is the most mysterious type of physics, full of particles that exist in two places at once...

You need to post more often Ben. 9 posts in 3+ years is too little, and this forum needs a better percentage of the educated. You can make a cross section of an apple through time, or through any of it's other dimensions. Cross sections of an apple along it's y axis are different than each other, as...

Long story short, Parmenides's maxim can be reduced to 'something exists'. Descartes's 'I think, therefore I am' can be boiled down to 'experience exists'. Do either of them define 'exists'? I ask because as worded, I don't accept the premises that they do, hence I conclude nothing of the kind. The...

If these aliens would ever visit us, I have heard famous scientists say that we are too locked-in on aliens being similar to earthly beings and that we should be open to the possibility that otherworldly organic life looks very different from ourselves. 1) Aliens existing is indeed mathematically l...

As the great Bill Murray said: “It's hard to win an argument with a smart person. It's damn near impossible to win an argument with a stupid person.” That may have evolved from some quotes attributed to Mark Twain: "Never argue with a fool, it might be hard to tell which is which" Certain...