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If God is the creator of the universe and all the living and non living things , Can he create or recreate himself ?
Because I think it's seld
Stephen Maitzen
August 3, 2016
(changed August 3, 2016)
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Because I think it's self-contradictory to say that God could literally create or re-create himself, I think believers in a Creator God must say this: God created all of the created things in the universe, but those things exclude God himself (and also Platonic a... Read more
JM Keynes wrote on fundamental uncertainty that for some events in the future (such as whether or not there would be another European war or the interest rates 20 years from), we simply do not know what will happen. This is to say that there is no probability distribution at all - just complete uncertainty. Is this a coherent statement? It seems that there is always a probability for any given scenario (even if it the variables are extremely complicated). Chaos theory also seems to tell us that in a deterministic world there are some events that are too complex to predict. Are these not just a result of a lack of data or, perhaps, mathematical technique?
It depends on what you think
Allen Stairs
July 28, 2016
(changed July 28, 2016)
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It depends on what you think probability is, but even then the answer is probably (heh!) no.
Nothing in the mathematical theory of probability requires that all events have probabilities. Probability theory simply imposes coherence conditions on any probability assignme... Read more
In my amateur philosophy club, my friend told me that modal ontological argument is false because its premise, It's possible that a perfect being exists, doesn't make sense. He argued that it is logically equivalent to say "it is possible that it is necessary", which means 'there exists at least one possible world in which all possible worlds have this objects in them.' So, according to his analysis, that premise make possible worlds in a possible world, which is absurd and makes a danger of infinite regress. But I think he misunderstood the argument. I think what actually that premise says is "there is at least one possible world that has a object which is in every possible world." I think this is implied when the argument says that "if something possibly necessarily exists, then it necessarily exists." Am I wrong?
Excellent question. It's
Stephen Maitzen
July 28, 2016
(changed July 28, 2016)
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Excellent question. It's great to hear that you belong to a philosophy club.
As I see it, if the modal-ontological argument fails, it's not because the locution "It is possible that it is necessary" is absurd or ill-formed or meaningless. The opening premise of the... Read more
In physics, do all particles have a particle-wave duality? And if so, what determines whether they behave as a wave, or become a one-dimensional point in space? I'm familiar with the electron double slit experiment, and it's my understanding that when it's not observed, an electron acts as a wave. But when it's looked at, it acts like a single particle. How about hadrons, like protons and neutrons, that are made of quarks. Even though the are composite objects, can they also behave as waves, while containing their constituents? If the act of being observed has no influence on particle-wave duality, then what causes this property? And how does it ultimately effect our perception of reality?
There's no simple
Allen Stairs
July 22, 2016
(changed July 22, 2016)
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There's no simple uncontroversial answer to your question, but perhaps a couple of points will be at least somewhat helpful.
"Wave-particle duality" is ultimately too narrow a way to think about what you're interested in. The things that get described as illustrating "wave-pa... Read more
Hi! I like to know how a philosopher comes to conclusion that a particular thing has an Instrumental value or an Intrinsic value. I read in Wikipedia, in Swedish section, that ice cream has an instrumental value, that there is no end in itself to eat ice cream, but it is good and makes me feel good. Feeling good has an intrinsic value. Is it a matter of on's preference to arrive at that kind of conclusion? Is it possible to say that any thing that is made by human has an Instrumental value.? Thank you for your help! Best regards Alan
The notion of intrinsic value
Michael Cholbi
July 21, 2016
(changed July 21, 2016)
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The notion of intrinsic value is important to many debates in philosophical ethics. Very roughly, to say that something has intrinsic value (or is intrinsically valuable) is to say that it is good or desirable as such or for its own sake. On classical views, what has... Read more
Some people define some things (which they truly may be or are) Impossible. 'Impossible' has a humane meaning in itself. But... If 'something' is really impossible... then why can you think that? If something is impossible... then why did the neurons in your brain have that thought? It must've been impossible for them to think of something which is not possible.
I'll assume, just for
Stephen Maitzen
July 21, 2016
(changed July 21, 2016)
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I'll assume, just for simplicity, that by a "thought" you mean a belief and by "something impossible" you mean a proposition that cannot possibly be true. I hope my assumptions aren't off the mark. (I'm not a neuroscientist, so I'll say nothing about how neurons work.)... Read more
Is it possible to employ a truth predicate or truth set (set of all true propositions) in ordinary first order logic?
To my knowledge, no. Ordinary
Stephen Maitzen
July 21, 2016
(changed September 5, 2016)
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To my knowledge, no. Ordinary first-order logic quantifies only over individuals (none of which are literally true) rather than over truth-valued things such as sentences or propositions. Thus there's nothing in first-order logic to which the predicate "is true"... Read more
If humans are just a bunch of extremely complicated gears working together, how can we have self-awareness?
Short answer: Because some
Stephen Maitzen
July 21, 2016
(changed July 21, 2016)
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Short answer: Because some bunches of extremely complicated gears are capable of self-awareness.
Longer answer: We need to ask whether the reductive term "just" in your question makes the question tendentious (i.e., biased). To the question "If humans are just like the... Read more
I want to define something which I'll call object X. I have to come up with a sentence, but how can I tell that the sentence will be right? I can't compare my attempt with the definition of X of course, because there is no definition of X - the definition of X is the very thing I'm trying to find out. It seems I have to know what X is in order to find out what X is - paradox?
I'm not quite feeling the
Allen Stairs
July 19, 2016
(changed July 20, 2016)
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I'm not convinced that there's really a paradox here. Let's consider various cases.
1) You want to coin a new term, perhaps "snurp" which you define as the sound a half-empty balloon makes when cut with scissors. No paradox here. You wanted a word to refer to this sou... Read more
I once asked a physics Q&A site, "Is physical reality possible without an observer?" They told me it was to broad of a question, and I got no answer. But from a philosophical or metaphysical stand point, is there an answer? I'm aware of the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM, and it's requirement of observation and measurement for existence of macroscopic structure to be. If, in philosophy, an observer is needed, then how did galaxies, stars, planets, and the Universe itself, come into being? Also, can other organisms other than human beings, make a measurement, and thereby effect their ambient reality? Sun Flowers, for instance, follow the moving sun as it traverses across the sky, via heliotropism. Can this be considered making a measurement?
You're quite right to be
Allen Stairs
July 15, 2016
(changed July 17, 2016)
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You're quite right to be skeptical of the idea that physical reality needs observers to exist. But very few people who work in foundations of quantum mechanics would disagree. Bohr never claimed otherwise. What he insisted is that in describing quantum experiments, we... Read more