The Philosophy Discussion Forum

AFAIK, scientists haven't worked out all the details, but isn't matter more or less a condensed form energy of the big bang? There are great many steps between the big bang and consciousness. Here is my attempt at listing some of them: Big Bang -> atomic particles -> hydrogen -> suns -> carbon atoms...

Wallace, for all his undoubted merits, was not a grammarian. I would not take Webster's word on evolution as definitive - would you?

It may be that 19th century dictionaries and grammars allow 'specie' (although I doubt it), but I defy you to find a modern reference that does not deprecate it.

It's one species, two specieses. (THIS IS NOT A WORD AT ALL) Just my crude attempt at a facetious closure to a dull topic. I would view the appearance of the occasional 'specie' as a singular for 'species' is an indication of how easy it is for even educated people to make this mistake, rather than...

I think the cases of fiction and non-fiction are clearly different. I think it goes without saying that if you are writing non-fiction then you should not 'alter reality' - otherwise you are writing the worst sort of propaganda. I can't think of any defence for altering reality if what you are writi...

There is a good physical reason HOW this happens. But there is no reason WHY. I remember a debate about 'how' and 'why'... It's a nice illusion, but I don't see it as quite as amazing as all that. What we have evolved is the quite amazing ability to construct an internal model of the external world...

The gist of the quote is clear enough, even if the word 'alter' was not a perfect choice. Reading the wiki entry on HST, his style was to blur the distinction between reality and imagination, so what he wrote was "Reality, but altered", presumably altered to suit his purpose. He could have...

I don't think there is any dictionary that gives 'specie' as the correct singular of 'species' in the biological sense. The ones I have looked up indicate 'specie' is most definitely incorrect in that context. The title of this thread should be "When Will Our Species Die Out?", unless, per...

'Specie' is another word for 'coin' and has nothing to do with 'species'.

No, not really. I just didn't make it clear that it was the cardinality of the stripes that is not teleological. Having the goal of accurately representing the number of states using stripes there had to be 13 of them, that number being fixed by a pre-existing state of affairs, not a goal or aspirat...

No, it's definitely the right end. Perhaps I should have made it clearer at the beginning - I wrote: "Why are there 13 stripes on the American flag?" is a perfectly valid question, and the answer does not rely on those stripes having a teleological purpose. The reason why there are 13 stri...

Huh. If Newton was clever he would have realised that the apple didn't so much fall as space was being curved. What a dickhead.

lose, not loose. Well, if you insist, I would say that the number of stripes on Old Glory is not teleological because the intent was not to create a future in which there are thirteen original states. It may have a sort of teleological purpose in reminding people in the future that there were 13 ori...

I like to make predictions ,
At some point in the future ,
I believe they will drop the bbt , and replace it with a LBT .

One of the safest predictions you can make is that any scientific theory you care to name will need to be at least modified in the future.

I really wish auk would write 'hanged' rather than hung... but that is beside the point. My argument against a Friday hanging is that I am interpreting 'surprised' to mean that the prisoner would not know ahead of time, and more over that 'know' includes 'logically infer'. The fact is that a minute ...