Recent Responses
It seems to me that one of the things that philosophy does, at least for me, a beginner, is to expose mysteries where I thought there were none. Do any of you feel the same way, do you like that chill up your spine when you realize what you thought was self-evident might not be? Is the feeling that you have solved the problem more exciting than the feeling of wonder?
Amy Kind
October 8, 2005
(changed October 8, 2005)
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I think this feeling of wonder is common among philosophers. It's one of the things that attracted me to philosophy in the first place. And many philosophers have commented on this phenomenon -- e.g., William James in Some Problems of Philosophy:
Philosophy, beginning in wonder ... is able to f... Read more
If we built a computer that could analyse our minds, and it figured out how they work and explained it to us, would we be able to understand?
Alexander George
October 8, 2005
(changed October 8, 2005)
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The great Austrian logician, Kurt Gödel, proved a remarkable theorem in 1931 that he thought was relevant to this question. His theorem wasn't about minds, but with a bit of license, it could be taken to have some implications about them. For instance, this one: Assume our minds are like... Read more
Can Non-Being and Being occupy the same space at the same time or does Being displace Non-Being? Or Does Non-Being displace Being? Does Non-Being even exist?
Alexander George
October 7, 2005
(changed October 7, 2005)
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How many hands do you have? Two? Or do you havethree? Your left hand, your right hand, and the non-existent third handthat's attached to your head? Obviously, that last "hand" shouldn'tcount. To say that you don't have a third hand isn't to say that youhave a hand that possesses the partic... Read more
Does the future exist in any knowable fashion? If so, can it be known in any absolute way? If not, why do so many of us believe it can?
Peter Lipton
October 7, 2005
(changed October 7, 2005)
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On one view of time, the future is as real now as the present or the past, much as other places are as real as the place you happen to be; on another view the future is not yet real but will be. Either way, many philosophers would say that we can know some things about it, though Hume's great... Read more
I am trying to understand what nominalism is?
Peter Lipton
October 7, 2005
(changed October 7, 2005)
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Nominalism is the view that everything that exists is particular. Thus there is no property of being red that all red things share (though there is the word 'red' that we apply to various things).
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Why does anything exist? Wouldn't it be more believable if nothing existed?
Alexander George
October 7, 2005
(changed October 7, 2005)
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Whenever anyone would raise this question, my much missed teacher, thelate Sidney Morgenbesser, used to say: "And if there were nothing,you're the kind of person who would ask 'Why isn't there something?'!"
You might also consider looking at Robert Nozick's discussion of thisquestion in hi... Read more
Why does anything exist? Wouldn't it be more believable if nothing existed?
Alexander George
October 7, 2005
(changed October 7, 2005)
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Whenever anyone would raise this question, my much missed teacher, thelate Sidney Morgenbesser, used to say: "And if there were nothing,you're the kind of person who would ask 'Why isn't there something?'!"
You might also consider looking at Robert Nozick's discussion of thisquestion in hi... Read more
Why should I believe you?
Jyl Gentzler
October 11, 2005
(changed October 11, 2005)
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Fair enough, Alan. Based on my experience of human beings, the more sociableand cheerful attitude that you suggest seems appropriate as ageneral day-to-day attitude toward others. I’m generally not worriedthat people are lying to me.
But I understood the question differently– not as direc... Read more
What, if anything, can you boil one's self down to, outside any notion of soul or essence?
Jay L. Garfield
October 7, 2005
(changed October 7, 2005)
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Many philosophers, especially those in the Buddhist tradition (Nagasena, Candrakirti, Santideva,or see Hume for a Western sympathiser), have argued that there is nothing that one can "boil oneself down to," that is, that the self has no existence independent of convention. Others have argu... Read more
Is it true that time has no end?
Jay L. Garfield
October 7, 2005
(changed October 7, 2005)
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This is an open question, and one that will be decided in the branch of physics known as cosmology. Since time is best conceived as a dimension of the universe, and as we do not now know the long-term future of the universe, this cannot be answered at present.
Log in t... Read more