Philosophy Now Forum

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2025/11/being-too-nice-online-is-a-dead-giveaway-for-ai-bots-study-suggests/ (actual paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.04195) When prompted to generate replies to real social media posts from actual users, the AI models struggled to match the level of c...

Waterworks wrote: ↑Tue Nov 04, 2025 9:16 pm ...

So the wrong psychological operating system led you to say/conclude this?

So again, what is this "evidence" that Idealism is capable of explaining better than the alternatives? If it's not at least better, then it's not a real objection to anything at all, is it? Well, clearly it hasn't sunk in that the evidence for two or more underdetermined hypotheses is exa...

The best argument for the continued use of AI is that it annoys people like FlashDangerDork. For me AI is a useful search engine tool, an annoying poison that aggressively autofills VSCode, and sometimes a quick way to get a summary to help me remember which author I am attempting to paraphrase. But...

Realism claims that scientific theories describe the world as it truly is, including both observable and unobservable things. Constructive empiricism, on the other hand, teaches that the real aim of science is empirical adequacy—that a theory should fit what can be observed, not necessarily what ex...

You could have, but you didn't. There is a finite sum of parts in Energy. One day, in a distant future, we will come to the last unexperienced experience. In that moment, we will experience Everything that exists. To continue, we will start by repeating some of our past experiences in circles. Afte...

If creating is not possible, the creator can not exist. This law is universal and applies to all Existence. It can't be "universal". It starts with an "IF". Universals aren't conditional. Your "universal law" is just a conditional claim dependent on an unproven premise...

Numbers can be infinite in theory, but not in practice. There is an end to counting them. The last one is the last the counter will be able to count. That's precisely what "infinite" means in practice! Even if you stop counting at N, you could've counted to N+1. For ANY N! I use the terms...

Numbers are part of the Energy part of Existence; they are eternal, the same as Existence. That means that they can't be created or destroyed. OK. Numbers can't be created or destroyed. And they are infinite. I use the term "constant" in the meaning of "always the same", non-cha...

I realized that god can't exist based on the 1. law of thermodynamics. That's faulty reasoning. Why should the laws of the creation apply to the creator? Even if we use your framework - why should the laws of this universe apply to Existence with all of its multiverses? Later, I figured out that th...

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Tue Oct 28, 2025 11:23 am

Skepdick wrote: ↑Tue Oct 28, 2025 10:06 am

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Tue Oct 28, 2025 10:03 am Descartes failed to prove anything other than that there is thought.

How did he prove that there is a thought?

By having one.

Like having hands?

Descartes failed to prove anything other than that there is thought. How did he prove that there is a thought? It may be, as idealists believe, that is all there is, which has an elegant parsimony, and is irrefutable, which, to be clear, doesn't make it true. There is no such burden of proof. Scept...

Energy can't be created or destroyed. Can numbers be created or destroyed? That means that there is a constant amount of Energy. That means that there is a constant amount of numbers. That means that it is not infinite. Non-sequitur. Constant doesn't imply non-infinite. Nor does it imply finite. It...

I have a body. Which I believe, but prove it. If you specify the methodology via which you proved (to yourself) that you "cogito" you could trivially extend it to "here's one hand. And here's another". Even if solipsism is true - you still have hands. Relocate them to whatever o...

Existence as a whole is not infinite because that is not possible. Maybe it's possible. Maybe it's not. Anything you can't exhaust is effectively infinite. You can't be sure it's finite until you get to the end of it. Energy, a part of Existence, is finite. How do you know that? Have you exhausted ...