If there is a 10 CM ruler and someone ask you how long is that. The answer should be 10CM. If there is a 5 CM ruler and someone ask you how long is that. The answer should be 5CM. Now, If there isn't any ruler and someone ask you how long is that. I should answer 0 or "N/A"? In this case, does 0 and "N/A" have the same meaning?

Hello, I am asking this question after reading Richard Heck's answer to the question: 'Can God make a rock both big and small?'. It's more a terminological, really: What is the name of the philosophical approach that asserts logic is a universal law that cannot be broken (not even by God)? Thanks, Amit.

My question deals with consciousness. I believe I understand what it means for me to be conscious of what is occurring around me, but I have the feeling that a lot of this depends on what I believe to be the consciousness of what is occurring (perhaps in an abstract form) around me or a result of something that is or had been conscious in some manner at one time. As am example of what I am attempting to describe, would I even take note of a person in my line of sight if something about that person (could be a very simple thing such as a glance from that person in my direction, the shoes he or she is wearing, or the waves of the ocean) that was somewhere along the line a conscious act of that person or of nature. And then could this be projected to a building or a tree since the tree is a living thing and the building was constructed by people. I know there is a certain vagueness about this question but I do not know how to put it in a more definite form.

A question on translation- is translation at all possible? If I take a poem, and compare it with any translation of the poem, is the poem still the same poem just in another language? Or did the translator create a new poem (with the creative input of reading the original poem). What does translation then mean? What is the work of a translator and how can you educate/teach "translation"? What gets lost in a translation, the essence of the words? What is a translated poem then- words without their essence? I wonder if there is something like "translation" at all. I believe a translator is in the same sense an artist than the poet itself.

I read somewhere that an ostensive definition is a definition that does not rely (only) on words, but (also) on a gesture of pointing. As far as I can see, however, a gesture of pointing is also a word. It is word in a sign language, or in a language that includes sounds and gestures. Isn't it?

Friedrich Nietzsche introduced the idea of eternal recurrence based on the supposition that if there is only a finite amount of matter in the universe, there are only a finite number of arrangements of that matter, so if time is infinite, each arrangement of matter will be repeated an infinite number of times. Is this argument logically sound? Thanks, kal

Is it inconsistent to assert that we should withhold judgment on people who act immorally (because we don't know the specifics of their situation) and also that we should praise people who act righteously (even though we don't know much about their situation either).

Why does it seem that everything that I read in philosophy always uses "she" or "her" instead of "his" or "he"?

Society A believes that morally right to sacrifice children to their god. Society B believes that this belief is morally wrong. On what basis can I say that Society B is morally superior to society A?

There seem to be two major assertions about how an artwork comes into existence: the first one considers the artist to have some kind of access to the "essence of truth" or something like that; the artist receives the idea in an inspirational moment and consequently creates the artwork on that foundation afterwards. The second assertion considers art to be the product of a huge mental or bodily effort. The second one is undermined by the statements of many artists. But what do you think about the first assertion? I'm not sure about refusing it right away.