Philosophy Now Forum

?Why should the entire universe be custom-made for one subspecies of terrestrial ape? "Why should it" in the sense of is it plausible, I don't think so. The moral "should" is not at issue because this is not something human agency can change. In the "would it be greater value sense" I would think s...

It also seems to me peculiar that so many atheists think that such a purposeful universe would not enlarge meaning at all. I hope (hope being the theme of my book) for a larger meaning, without thinking that Russell was wrong in his view that both individual human lives and the career of the human ...

Of course many things are certain in the way that we ordinarily use the word “certain.” It is certain that you are reading this now, that you do not have five heads, that 2 + 2 = 4. I argue, however, that in a more demanding sense, the sense that should be applied when we are evaluating the effect ...

The world would be yet more meaningful were it a purposeful creation, Meaningful to whom? The puppet-master or the puppets? Continuing your quote of my post might have suggested the answer: it could be meaningful for both the creator and the creatures, especially if the creatures were, in fact, cre...

Do you, yourself, have no certainties, Lawrence? Is your conciousness not a certainty, as I've stated, ala Descartes, from whence to build a philosophy? And what do you think the implications are of that? I am certain of many things in the ordinary way we use "certain," including 2 + 2 = 4 and the ...

Using such phrases as "absolutely nothing" may as a matter of our usual sensitivities to rhetorical excess suggest dogmatism, and the dogmatists are typically certain of everything. There is, however, no implication here. Consider, "I tentatively believe that absolutely all double primes have succes...

From a book that I have not succeeded in bringing to the light of day: Love, happiness, pleasures, creativity, and the perception of beauty are all real whether they are purely human or tie into something bigger. Human beings are a quite wonderful feature of the universe, even if there is nothing mo...

For Bayesian subjective probabilities, Cromwell's Rule has it that a prior probability x, is in the range 0 < x < 1. However Lindley, who gets credit for enunciating the rule and providing its name, of colorful history, made an exception for logical and mathematical propositions. These he permitted ...

I'm absolutely certain I've suffered, and felt pain on stubbing my toe. I'm absolutely certain I will be at least mildly peeved if you suggest otherwise. Btw, the title can't be true, as it entails a certainty. "Nothing is certain" does not entail that anything is certain. The fact that it is asser...

Of course many things are certain in the way that we ordinarily use the word “certain.” It is certain that you are reading this now, that you do not have five heads, that 2 + 2 = 4. I argue, however, that in a more demanding sense, the sense that should be applied when we are evaluating the effect o...

Does the election of Pope Francis require the liberal atheist to revise upward her (very low) estimate of the probability of God's existing? Does it require the conservative Catholic to revise his downward? Yes. Assuming that she thinks that if there were a Holy Spirit to intervene that would have i...

Lawrence,I can't interpret where you stand. Are you supporting ultimate laws? Against them? It is possible that there are fundamental laws of physics, i.e. that reality works on a basis that could in principle be described in a way that would seem to us to be explanatory very much as we have tradit...

Laws are merely observed patterns of observed behavior. . As an an account of the nature of propositions in a scientific theory, this Hume-ish formula has a little too much the flavor of simple inductivism for my taste. We have a good deal more than a handful of observed cases (out of the astronomi...

Could there be no ultimate laws of nature? It is easy to imagine that there might be no ultimate, general laws of nature. All laws might be local, say to specific galaxies or specific times. Astronomy does not suggest this so far, but there is no conceptual problem. Could there be no ultimate laws o...

Dennett sometimes sounds as if he has a “disappearance” theory of consciousness, and this does, no doubt, come from the PR advantage, and the pleasure, of saying things that shock. Insofar as he denies qualia, however, I don’t think he is denying that he has an experience like you do in seeing a yel...