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[quote user="Jack Roberts"]The laws of thermodynamics are logical truths that exist irrespective of conscious observation.[/quote] If we grant this, then in what sense do these "logical truths" actually "exist"? We can't measure them empirically, so how does a naturalist ontologically incorporate them into "real"
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[quote user="vive la resurreciton"]Right like saying things evolve "imperfectly" - which makes no sense [/quote] Not what I said.
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Or, to rephrase it once more: in a universe of randomly-colliding, mindless particles, how does necessary logical truth come to exist and be acknowledged?
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If you accept necessary truths (in modal logic, what is true in all possible worlds), then I would enjoy hearing a fully naturalistic account of how such truths are attainable in a fully physical universe.
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Rationality can be used as an argument against naturalism. Here's how: natural selection evolved biological systems that reason imperfectly ; according to conventional neo-Darwinian theory, we only reason at all because it is adaptive to do so (i.e., it increases reproductive fitness)--for example, identifying causal relationships between a season
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If you epistemologically accept rationalism (truths applicable to all possible worlds that are available a priori without sensory input), what implications does it hold? Anti-naturalism? Theism? Evidence that natural selection is insufficient to explain rational creatures?
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304259304576375491103635726.html [quote user="Stephen Moore"]Ms. Bachmann is best known for her conservative activism on issues like abortion, but what I want to talk about today is economics. When I ask who she reads on the subject, she responds that she admires the late Milton Friedman as well
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Contrary to what I wrote above, when I am actively doubtful of my naturalistic suppositions and pestered by questions like, "Where do the laws of logic come from?" then I tend toward a theistic, Platonistic world overgrown with objective values and truths accessible via a rationalist epistemology. "The universe shows us two aspects: on
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1. Supernatural: atheism 2. Philosophy of Mind: eliminative materialism 3. Causality: determinism (compatibilist in regard to the issue of "free will") 4. Meta-Ethics: moral fictionalism 5. Political: anarchism 6. Epistemology: anti-foundational naturalistic empiricism; coherentism
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[quote user="liberty student"]The title of President, and the office it derives its power from is a delusion. Avoid a fallacy of composition.[/quote] Can you explain how the office of Presidency is symptomatic of the "fallacy of composition"?