[Serious] The Good

[Angrboda]

As for your assertion that "...Aristotle's conception of being and existence as in itself good.  In that, Aristotle is simply wrong.  There is no objective reason to prefer existence to non-existence, only subjective ones." I look forward for your argument on this. But please address the actual argument made by these people, and not your own subjective feeling.

I'm not responsible for any argument pointing out that Aristotle is wrong until it is established that Aristotle is correct. If you want to argue that Aristotle is correct, by all means make your case. Remember, you're the one defending Aristotle's ideas as a necessary prerequisite to your argument about function, therefore you carry the burden of proof in showing Aristotle to be correct. Where have I used my own subjective feeling instead of engaging in actual argument? Now you're the one that's being insulting.

As to your first point, if final causes don't exist in the thing itself then final causes don't exist. If final causes are determined by the contingent facts which exist apart from the thing itself, then final causes don't exist in the things in and of themselves. Final causes are determined by the contingent facts which exist apart from the thing itself. Therefore, final causes do not exist. QED.

Now, as to whether what I said was insulting or a lecture, it is arguments which back things up, not that other people say them. As noted, the paragraph you quoted didn't even engage the arguments I made. If your only point in quoting others is to show that your ideas are "backed up" then indeed you are making an argument from authority and my complaint is fully acquitted. My point was not to insult you but to suggest that you are not engaging what I am actually writing and instead just lobbing canned ideas at me. Your response seems to rather suggest I was correct. If I had simply suggested that you were not thinking, and that was all that I said, that indeed would be insulting, but that is not at all what I said. I said that you were not engaging my actual points and I attributed that to your not doing any actual thinking. I may have been mistaken, but it was not an insult. Your interpreting it as something else is purely your own folly.