Comments for Clear Language, Clear Mind

Comment on Do u want kids with bad eyes? by Emil Kirkegaard

Emil Kirkegaard — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:41:13 +0000

Hi Daniel,

I sometimes experiment with alternative orthographies. See e.g. www.spellingsociety.org/. I think the one used here is some inconsistent mix of Cut Spelling and New Spelling. For New Spelling, see here: emilkirkegaard.dk/en/?p=2676

Regards,
Emil

Comment on Do u want kids with bad eyes? by Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 07:03:04 +0000

Being a optometrist I enjoyed your paper. I wonder why do you use this kind of strange (for me) spelling of the english language? Is it some kind of standardization ? thanks! Daniel

Comment on Constructing truth tables – Filling in the wff's by Emil Kirkegaard

Emil Kirkegaard — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 21:24:42 +0000

What is SHMORG?

Comment on Constructing truth tables – Filling in the wff's by Kate

Kate — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 05:22:52 +0000

I understand the basics of truth tables but I was completely floored with this and similar questions. Maybe you can clarify for me. I will write out the question as exactly.

Q Suppose you had to fill in the rightmost column of the following truth table:

p q r SHMORG(p,q) SHMORG(r, SHMORG(p, q))

T T T
T T F
T F T
T F F
F T T
F T F
F F T
F F F

I don’t understand how to read question to answer as there has never been one example of this format.

Comment on Pyrrho on selfishness by Zetherin

Zetherin — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 06:23:56 +0000

It could be argued that some people are not in their right mind when they decide to commit suicide and that this fact is what makes this matter relevant to the humanitarian. One can come to the decision to commit suicide rationally, but one can also come to the decision irrationally, and I think the latter are those we have a responsible to treat if at all possible.

Comment on Pyrrho on selfishness by Pyrrho

Pyrrho — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 18:30:21 +0000

Suicide is one of those interesting topics in which most people, at least in countries that are or have been traditionally predominantly Christian, have difficulty addressing in a logical manner. There is a tendency to an automatic rejection of it as a reasonable option, that is highly emotional and without any rational basis. One can see this in the thread to which you have provided a link, as the rationalizations that are typically given against suicide are not followed for other things. In other words, the principles cited as a justification for suicide being bad are not followed in other matters, and consequently they themselves reject the principles that they claim justify the rejection of suicide. Inconsistency is a hallmark of people being irrational about something, though, of course, people tend to react badly to having this pointed out.

What you quoted is an example involving people giving false reasons for their actions when their real motives are less noble. Most people who have children are not doing it for some noble cause. It is usually either because they want children, or their chosen method of birth control failed. Neither of those motives has any nobility in them at all. And yet they often pretend that there is something noble and good in what they have done. Of course, once they are parents, they may be good and noble parents, but that is a separate issue from the decision (if it was not simply failed birth control) to become parents.

Some good essays on suicide:

oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=704&chapter=137575&layout=html&Itemid=27

en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_70

en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_77

Comment on Ebook: Chris Swoyer – Critical Reasoning A User’s Manual by Maria Matias

Maria Matias — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 17:47:09 +0000

Thank you.

Blessings

Comment on Infallible knowledge, the modal fallacy and modal collapse by Emil Kirkegaard

Emil Kirkegaard — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 09:47:44 +0000

I wrote down the inferences above, so it’s not too difficult to follow. You can challenge any of them you want, but they seem valid to me. I just went through them again. I had to because I wrote this post 3 years ago! I suppose I could spend an hour or so proving it with proof trees, but I rather not.

I don’t understand what you mean by “metaphysical possibility” or “mathematical possibility”. The first seems like nonsense, and the second seems to be the same as logical possibility, which makes the second name redundant.

Comment on "The allegory of the trolley problem paradox" by Emil Kirkegaard

Emil Kirkegaard — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 09:37:26 +0000

I’ll look into it.

I also fixed the dead link. :)

Comment on "The allegory of the trolley problem paradox" by Franziska

Franziska — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 08:16:28 +0000

Hello just wanted to give you a quick heads up.
The text in your content seem to be running off the screen in
Safari. I’m not sure if this is a formatting issue or something to do with browser compatibility but I thought I’d post to let you know.
The design look great though! Hope you get the issue fixed soon.
Cheers