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In class, our professor discussed the impossibility of time travel. He stated that if in the future, machines are made to travel back into time, then we would be seeing people from the future right now. His argument ended there but would this be true? Is this a valid argument to disprove the possibility of time traveling in the future?
Allen Stairs
August 27, 2008
(changed August 27, 2008)
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I hope your professor was just trying to provoke you, because it's a terrible argument. For one thing, it's not clear why he's so sure that we aren't already seeing people from the future, who've traveled back to this time zone, as it were, and are doing a good job of blending in. And in any c... Read more
Women bring up the issue about having the right to choose to abort the fetus.It takes two to tango and it also takes two to conceive a child. Shouldn't the guy have some sort of say when it comes to abortion?
Lorraine Besser...
August 27, 2008
(changed August 27, 2008)
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It is true that abortion debates rarely, if ever, take into account the man’s perspective. People who oppose abortion believe that aborting a fetus is wrong regardless of whether the man (or woman) is in support of so doing. Most people who believe that abortion is morally permissible be... Read more
If I had a device that could manipulate people's wants (like make them want to give me free money for no reason) would that take away their free will?
Peter Smith
August 27, 2008
(changed August 27, 2008)
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A footnote to Eddy Nahmias's very helpful answer. What should we learn from all the complexities of the debates which he touches on?
We could say: The ins and outs of the debates just go to show that our concept of "free will" is a very complicated and sophisticated one, although one of which... Read more
I attend a weekly "Philosophy" class which teaches us that this life is a dream and that following re-incarnations (until we are "realized") we will end up in an eternity of bliss. This philosophy is being taught by an organization which runs a junior and secondary school and is presumably teaching this same philosophy to the students. My children do not attend these schools nor would I want them to as I am especially opposed to the theory of karma and the idea that a person who suffers misfortune in this life is paying for past misdeeds. I feel that it is wrong for the school to be teaching these ideas under the guise of "philosophy" as I feel that the school in in fact teaching a religion. Am I right or wrong to be suspicious?
Peter Smith
August 26, 2008
(changed August 26, 2008)
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You are quite right to be suspicious. This has nothing to do with philosophy. In fact you should be more than suspicious. Peddling dingbat fantasies to children according to which "a person who suffers misfortune in this life is paying for past misdeeds" is simply child-abuse.... Read more
What determines how a religion/religious organization differs from a religious cult?
Peter Smith
August 26, 2008
(changed August 26, 2008)
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I practice a proper religion; you, poor misguided soul, belong to a sect; and those weird people down the road belong to a cult.
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A friend argues that if a perfect God creates something different from himself, then it's necessarily imperfect, because, if perfect, it would still be God. So the universe implicitly entails evil and our universe is, if not exactly the best of all worlds, the least evil of all worlds. But then I ask: "Why did God create anything at all?" and my friend replies it's not his responsibility to answer that question and we end in deadlock. Is there any way to break the deadlock?
Allen Stairs
August 25, 2008
(changed August 25, 2008)
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A further thought here: I think part of the issue has to do with the phrase "something perfect." Assuming it makes sense, to talk, for example, about a perfect piccolo (keys work flawlessly, correctly placed to produce notes that are in tune, etc...) Then I'd certainly agree with Oliver: nothi... Read more
Since one's own reasoning is a basically set of rules of inference operating on a set of axiomatic beliefs, can one reliably prove one's own reasoning to be logically consistent from within one's own reasoning? Might not such reasoning itself be inconsistent? If our own reasoning were inconsistent, might not the logical consistency (validity) of such "proofs" as those of Godel's Incompleteness Theorems, be merely a mirage? How could we ever hope to prove otherwise? How could we ever trust our own "perception" of "implication" or even of "self-contradiction"?
Peter Smith
August 23, 2008
(changed August 23, 2008)
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This question raises a number of issues it is worth disentangling.
It is far from clear that we should think of our reasoning as "operating on a set of axiomatic beliefs". That makes it sound as if there's a foundational level of beliefs (which are kept fixed as "axioms"), and then our other b... Read more
This site is a wonderful idea. Some of the questions seem to ask for moral advice, and I wonder whether the study of moral philosophy alone puts one in the position to give responsible advice. Wouldn't one have to know the person, the circumstances, and so on. And even then, in contrast to many kind of decision, moral decisions seem so personal as to rule out a right and wrong answer, which is not to say some actions and ways of living may be terribly wrong. What do you think?
Allen Stairs
August 21, 2008
(changed August 21, 2008)
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I recall someone describing one of his colleagues, a well-know proponent of "rule utilitarianism," as "right in principle, wrong in practice." And more generally, I think you're right: being a capable ethical theorist doesn't make someone able to give good moral advice. I dare say every membe... Read more
As far as I am aware most if not all religions promise the possibility of eternal happiness in the next life. However the concept of eternal happiness is impossible to understand. How could we be happy without our negative emotions - don't we enjoy our negative emotions sometimes (watching a sad or scary film)? Aren't our negative emotions a release? People who are happy for extended periods, e.g. people in-love or people suffering from mania cannot keep up being happy because it is exhausting and also people in these states become irrational. So why do we buy into the concept of eternal happiness in the next life so easily?
Allen Stairs
August 21, 2008
(changed August 21, 2008)
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It's a nice question, and one that' s been discussed before in various versions. You've put particular emphasis on the idea that without negative emotions, we couldn't really be happy.
Let's suppose you're right. As your own way of putting things suggests, it doesn't follow that there couldn'... Read more
HERE IS QUITE A CONUNDRUM: Can we meaningfully speak of the "infinity-th" and "infinity+1-th" term of the sequence of natural numbers? If not, then what do we in fact mean by "all" (as distinct from "any" or "each") when applied to an "infinite" set? Given that a real number constructed via the diagonal construction on a F I N I T E set, of n reals, can always be added to the list at position n+1 to give a list of n+1 reals, why couldn't a real number constructed via the diagonal construction simply be included in the "infinite" list of reals at "position" "infinity+1" ??? (Which is to say that, in the "infinite" case, no real could be constructed outside the infinite list of reals at all!) Also, in the case of the natural numbers, if a number m, is defined as the sum from 1 to n of the first n natural numbers, then m is a natural number that is not in the list of the first n natural numbers. If you make this construction on the "entire" set of "all" natural numbers, then by construction, there is always a natural number m that is not counted in the set, but this surely does not imply that the set of natural numbers is uncountable. (Or does it?) Why then is this argument considered valid in the case of reals? is it not equally fallacious in both cases?
Jasper Reid
August 21, 2008
(changed August 21, 2008)
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No, mathematicians haven't defined any meaning for expressions like "infinity-th" or "infinity+1-th". (The fact that they're so awkward to write should be something of a giveaway!). It's important to appreciate that infinity is not a number. Don't be misled by the fact that we can say things li... Read more