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1500 questions
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5 answers
What is intelligence?
I am interested in studying AI, and I thought it would be a good idea to study the nature of intelligence before stepping into the field. I googled "books to read about intelligence", but it gave me a useless list of books that makes people…
James C
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8
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How might science (particularly theoretical physics) be able to approach god?
I've searched over the internet but I've found no satisfactory answer so far , How might science (Particularly theoretical physics) be able to approach god? If we make the assumption that a super-intelligent force that created the whole universe…
Physicsstudent
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8
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1 answer
Quine and the Myth of the Given
To give you some background details about myself: I have a deep interest in Quine's work and Naturalism in Philosophy; I have been independently studying and reading Quine's work and his relation to other philosophers, in particular the relation…
Leucippus
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8
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What is the term for an argument where denial of the proposition can be used as evidence of the proposition's truthfulness?
I've seen this used enough times that there's probably a formal name for it, but I don't know what it is. For example, from Catch-22:
"I think I'm going crazy."
"Only a sane person is capable of doubting their own sanity. Therefore, you're just…
Mason Wheeler
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4 answers
A distinction between knowledge of laws of physics and the actual laws
What exactly is a law of physics? Suppose, for an hypothetical example, that high-energy light travels ever-so-faster than low-energy light. Then it would turn out that in fact light does not always travel in the same speed in a vacuum, so that…
user107952
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8
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3 answers
Does postmodernism in art criticism collapse into relativism? What's its merit?
Postmodernism rejects the idea of a universal truth and in context of literary art criticism it shifts the focus from the writer or the author to the audience and from constant meaning to unstable one - but then, what tools of art criticism does it…
Luna
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What is this fallacy: “Expecting something to continue just because it has never stopped”
For example:
Technology will keep advancing in terms of innovation purely because it has not stopped advancing.
Is there a fallacy for this?
henryomahoney
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4 answers
Can we do without Necessity?
It appears that necessity is a dead idea that, unfortunately, only philosophers still gush over. The association of epistemological and logical necessity with ontological necessity ran its course from Aristotle up to the mid-nineteenth century. …
Paradox Lost
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2 answers
Does the so-called "Copenhagen interpretation of ethics" have a formal name in moral philosophy?
I was recently introduced to the term Copenhagen interpretation of ethics in an interesting blog post that defined it thusly:
The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics says that when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be…
Akshat Mahajan
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8
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2 answers
Was Nietzsche influenced by Machiavelli?
I've been reading Machiavelli and I've noticed that his is very critical of Christianity in a way that reminds me of Nietzsche's Master-Slave morality; he does so by comparing the focus on 'heroic achievements' that the religions of Ancient Greece…
Ben
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8
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10 answers
Why scientific approach can't fully describe our reality?
As I know, one of the ideas of postmodernism is
Science is not enough for a complete understanding of our reality
Which arguments are used to reinforce such statements?
Maybe there are some concrete examples of the incompleteness of the scientific…
Nikita
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1 answer
Does an English translation of "Logica ‘ingredientibus’" by Peter Abelard exist?
Pretty much the title, first time I'm having trouble finding anything.
Materia Gravis
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1 answer
What does "synthetic unity of the manifold" mean for Kant?
What does Kant mean when he says "synthetic unity of the manifold"?
Here are some quotations of the critique of pure reason where Kant uses the term "synthetic unity of the manifold":
"combination is the representation of the synthetic unity of the…
Kantian
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3 answers
Answers to the ethics dilemmas of web comic artists
From a modern and relatively impersonal perspective, the grounding for intuitive ethics (and much formal ethics) appears to be very shaky indeed, as the Zorblaxian alien explains here (from SMBC by Zack Weiner, full comic here):
When viewed from an…
Rex Kerr
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4 answers
When/How does an issue become "Philosophical" in nature?
I find this site very interesting, because the questions and answers span such a wide range of issues.
However, I often struggle to see how some of the matters discussed fit into the category of "Philosophy".
For example: How should the fair…
Vector
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