All Activity

SL, I may have a general idea for a device I'll work on inventing that merely takes heat from the devices' surrounding environment such as air and generates electricity flowing out from wires from the device. That is possibility. It may be something lying within the potentials of materials and their configurations or not, so far as I know as I continue to try particular ways of making the device. Then one day I notice that such a device would be a "perfect refrigerator" that we learn about in thermodynamics, which is a violation of the second law of thermodynamics. Then I know that the possibi

What distinguishes such an existent from something purely imagined (as a thought) in the mind? If it currently exists out there ... what can you say about its existence now other than it was/is/will be a potential, and it is nonactual? In other words, what distinguishes between nonactual existents and non existents? (for that matter what makes some existents actual and others non actual)

There is no part outside the whole, if by whole we mean existence. The question doesn't make sense. You know that the other parts are part of the same hole because there is something that unites or integrates them - a universal (the integration is a mental act, so the thing that does the uniting is epistemic). At the very least, everything that exists is part of the whole because, well, they exist, meaning they have identity.

SL, I'd cease thinking of what exists as only what is actual, and I'd distinguish between existents that are actual and existents that are potential. So that even potentials that were attached to the actuals of yesterday and did not become actual would nonetheless be part of the totality of existence yesterday. And since I think of past existence as part of the totality of existence, I'd count unactualized potentials of yesterday as part of existence. So it was a potential in the total situation yesterday that I would yesterday water the one indoor plant we have. But midnight passed, and I nev

A whole is its parts. So if there might be an outside of the parts, that means there might be an outside of some part of the whole. How would you differentiate between a part whose outside is outside the whole versus a part whose outside is inside the whole?

Perhaps the reductionist materialist model assumes too much. Helen Steward believes so as she explains in A Metaphysics for Freedom. I have some blogposts about this book. See especially #6 and #7.

How do you distinguish between a first material situation (configuration function space time) which exists (in reality) and a second material situation which potentially could exist (and perhaps will in future) but which does not (yet) exist, and in what sense does the potential exist (as ... what?) while the first material situation actually exists and the second does not?

The reductionistic materialist model says metaphysical reality and causal efficacy exists only at the level of fundamental particles, it cannot "emerge" through composition. This would be a contradiction, only be an illusion produced by the composition of particles (again, see Conway's game of life). To make the claim that higher level objects have identity and causal efficacy of their own, "emergence" from composition is not enough. Either some additional foreign element would have to be added, which cannot itself be again merely more compositions of particles but must be some fundamenta

1. Is the relation between an existent and nonexistence nothing? That is, is there no such relationship outside of cognitive operations? 2. Is the relation between an actual situation and a possible (potential) situation the same as the relation between an existent and nonexistence? If we say Yes to the first question and No to the second, it seems we have not precluded that empty space—the void—is an existent, a kind of existent. If we say Yes to the first question and Yes to the second, then the void would seem to be nothing, and there is no distance between the walls of Greg’

By the time of Descartes, many thinkers had come round to conjecturing matter to be composed of atoms with empty space between them. And they often thought there to be empty space in the farther reaches, beyond the material Creation. In his mature thought, Descartes came to think the idea of vacuum space to be incoherent. From his view that the essence of body is extension, he moved to the conclusion that extension (space) cannot be empty of matter. Then too, from the fact that extension must be extension of something—not of nothing, which has no properties—he moved to the conclusion that spac

The value of the court system is that if you trust it, you can trust that the evidence has been considered sufficiently. Of course you can know things before the court case, but a court goes through the evidence to prove the allegations. But you know this. You just don't trust the US government for anything. Q is one of those people, but he uses that power for good, right? Don't trust the courts, trust Q!

I don't have any conviction in that, Jon. What matters for the longer term is that the handover, when it comes, is acted with self-restraint, casts the Republicans and Trump supporters in a more decently dignified light than what those others have been doing.

Get it through your head: your QAnon nonsense is not taken seriously. It's not like I can even talk about it, because your wildest beliefs here are premised on what Q says.

@Jon Letendre, is not the time I've allocated to you this far sufficient?

I am confident you have dispensed with much evidence in like manner.

No, I've not been sold on the value said video would add to my life. The parallel it brings to mind is with Jane Fonda. Veterans, not limited to nor wholly inclusive of the Vietnam war have mustered ample evidence to build a case of treason regarding her aid and support of the enemy. It does fall short of rallying a posse to serve as a lynch mob. This is like a Jane Fonda club with a more diverse cast of characters. All can sit back knowing that the office of the presidency, in particular to this claim, is honorable, but the currently appointed steward-to-be is not worthy of the tas

Why do you say emergence is magical?

Before any punishments may rightfully ensue, court convictions are required. But court findings are not the cognitive end-all for you, right? You can know a thing is so before a court tells you? Certainly the people who can read our texts and emails and turn the microphones on our phones on at will can know things before a court tells them, and I was talking about those people. Biden has openly admitted much. At a Council on Foreign Relations meeting he publicly explained how he had a Ukrainian prosecutor fired. He explained he held up one thousand million dollars in aid $ until they fire

Chin up, Tony. President Trump will be sworn into his second term in two months. That is the only possible outcome, for we won a long time ago and have the legislatures and Supreme Court. Try to relax and enjoy this *literal* show. None of this is truly "live action" but only post-triumph exposure of the bad guys for the sake of the many people who still don't get it. They were closely monitored and allowed to cheat massively. You are about to witness the dead in its tracks takedown you alluded to. Enjoy.

But this is at the heart of the disagreement, misunderstanding, or whatever this is. Metaphysical entities go by certain rules, one of which is the non existence of contradictions. But I go back to the key area that is clear. The concept "nothing". Is this inherent in the nature of reality? Or is reality that which exists? In your world, existence and non existence ... exist in the same world meaning they exist at the same time/place in the same way. Existence and non-existence exist. As in A is NOT A. I would argue that you acknowledge that you believe in a supernatural explanation

Suppose: Every material "entity" has associated with it at least one position in space-time, i.e. something of it must somewhere be and at some time. Suppose: Where and when (space x and time t) are are attributes of entities and relative attributes, their consequences on reality are real and independent of an observer's state of mind. Suppose: Any entity, at least in its relevant part Q of which it is somewhere (x) and at some time (t), can be described as Q(x,t). Claim: Where and when, as such, (call them X and T) do not themselves po

I agree that this is the implication, but I would say it's a correct conclusion. "Within" only implies that there are parts of a whole. There might be an outside of the parts, but not of the whole. I don't see why you would think within implies that there is an outside. A totality where all the pieces have an impact on every other piece. I don't know you mean a "whole what", especially since you listened to the lecture. The question is answered repeatedly over and over in different ways. Can you ask your question in a different way? I think it's fine to say that sp

Proven? Under which legally recognized venue did this alleged proof transpire?

I never understood the desire to predicate location of abstractions. If you wanted to be poetical about it you could say they are "ideas in the mind of God". But to put it another way, they are inherent in the nature of reality itself, all the way down at the lowest level. For example a materialist might say, at the lowest possible level, what the nature of reality defines is the simple, universal, mathematical laws of the fundamental particles in physics, and everything else we see around us is composed of these particles carrying out their basic behaviors (a la Conway's game of lif

A Metaphysics for Freedom #7