116
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 ...
- 1,224
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 — ...
- 21.3k
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 ...
- 4,020
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 ...
- 30.4k
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 ...
- 24.5k
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 ...
- 4,157
17
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 ...
- 384
17
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 '...
- 27.5k
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 ...
- 1,586
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 ...
- 3,084
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 ...
- 14.3k
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 ...
- 2,194
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 ...
- 34.8k
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 ...
- 11k
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.
- 4,409
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 ...
- 29.2k
10
votes
What does Kant mean by "Existence is not a predicate"?
Mathematical logic, and the associated notion of the existential quantifier, were invented only after Kant's time. Kant used other, more traditional concepts.
The ontological proof (or at least the ...
- 7,421
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 ...
- 1,920
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.
...
- 10.9k
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 ...
- 43.4k
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 ...
- 601
9
votes
Fundamental idea on proving God's existence with science
First, I agree with the claim stated in the currently most upvoted answer that the natural sciences do not prove things in the way that the formal sciences, like logic, math, and computer science, ...
- 2,719
9
votes
Is there any philosophical theory behind the concept of object in computer science?
If you are asking whether ontology had an influence on what are called objects in computer science, then the answer is probably "no". I was reasonably familiar with the literature from the ...
- 10.9k
9
votes
What are the arguments for or against the wavefunction being a subjective vs an objective entity?
In practice the wave function is a mathematical model which we can use to calculate certain properties of systems, subject to a variety of approximations. What the wave function is modelling (ie what ...
- 24.5k
9
votes
Is there anything more fundamental than quantification?
What is most fundamental to a logic is the set of mechanical procedures by which we may derive theorems in the logic; the inference rules. These procedures are not specified within the logic. The ...
- 14.8k
8
votes
What does "physical" mean to philosophers?
This question seems to be a companion to How can something non-physical exist? Some preliminary thoughts: acknowledging the existence of empirical, or even confining physical to empirical, does not ...
- 43.4k
8
votes
Accepted
What is put on what (the mayo or the eggs) and why?
Narrowly construed the OP question is easy to answer and is not really philosophical, it concerns the colloquial semantics of "put X on Y". According to which, whatever goes on top or on the surface ...
- 43.4k
8
votes
Are we living in a simulation? The evidence
Of course it is possible that you are "living" in a simulation right now!
I'd say it is about 50% chance. we call it dreaming and it happens every night.
Well, you might say, that is pure ...
- 4,997
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible