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prothero

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Well, yes, people use different terms to try to avoid the confusion which goes with using "consciousness". I am not sure what you mean by the term "ph...
March 26, 2023 at 21:04
Well if one is to discuss whether god "exists" or not, it would be good to start with a discussion of what one means by "God". The source of much talk...
March 26, 2023 at 20:48
Yes, I think that is precisely correct. They use different terms to avoid precisely that confusion and if reading the various posts about consciousnes...
March 26, 2023 at 20:42
I think the distinction between self and other is pretty fundamental to human cognition and psychology. Although I would agree we are embedded in and ...
March 26, 2023 at 20:39
Solipsism is a rabbit hole and once you go down, it can be difficult to find your way out. Solipsism is an extreme form of skepticism. A little skepti...
March 26, 2023 at 19:44
I do not think that was the argument; It was more we don't see everything not we do not see anything. Yes sense perception has a direct causal link to...
March 26, 2023 at 18:54
If that's your definition of direct realism then the distinction between direct and indirect disappears but I do not think that definition is the one ...
March 26, 2023 at 18:49
Quite the contrary IMV, direct and indirect realism are questions about perception not about scientific instrumentation. Furthermore what makes you th...
March 26, 2023 at 18:18
Well there is faith in the scientific method and faith in religious propositions, but I am not sure we are really talking about the same methodology i...
March 26, 2023 at 18:15
I have never been able to fanthom the "direct realism" argument. Our senses (body and mind) filter, organize and present information (data) from the e...
March 26, 2023 at 17:57
Here again, at a fundamental level I would take issue with your distinction between mind and matter. As Whitehead would say “the jellyfish advances an...
March 26, 2023 at 17:46
As is usual in these types of discussions we would be starting from very different ontologic assumptions. I think the distinction between living and n...
March 26, 2023 at 17:06
Well let us see a little of what Penrose has to say: “But there is one thing that I do believe in relation to this problem , and that is that it is a ...
March 26, 2023 at 04:25
The all knowing all seeing invisible god once again escapes detection and destruction. It seems unlikely the argument will convince.
August 08, 2021 at 23:27
From Wikipedia Throughout its history, Hermeticism was closely associated with the idea of a primeval, divine wisdom, revealed only to the most ancien...
August 08, 2021 at 23:19
600,000 thousand and counting dead in the U.S. from the virus or complications. How many deaths from the vaccine? What long term deleterious effects a...
August 08, 2021 at 23:06
The philosophical problem is to construct a system of thought, ideas or concepts which accommodates religion, science, experience and reason. No easy ...
August 08, 2021 at 23:04
Maybe private morality, but public behavior or morality may be a different thing? consenting adults in the privacy of their own dwelling and all that....
August 08, 2021 at 23:01
Personally I think if two adult mentally competent individuals want to engage in BDSM of any of a number of other private personnel behaviors it is no...
August 08, 2021 at 22:57
Well, you know, you get quotes: "God is too big to be put in a box", "God is too big for one religion" that is all fine. One can state why one ascribe...
August 08, 2021 at 22:50
What is the purpose of religion as you see it? What is the purpose of studying the philosophy of religion? Religious philosophy is speculative philoso...
August 08, 2021 at 22:15
Time and chance happens to us all. I always question the first premise all knowing, all seeing, all powerful as giving intractable problems with free ...
August 08, 2021 at 21:41
It is not clear to me what you wish to discuss? Things like: What are more common or useful notions? Immanence vs Transcendence Supernatural Theism (m...
August 08, 2021 at 21:33
I do not have nearly as much to say about "God" as you. I am always skeptical of too many and too detailed claims about the divine reality. If there i...
August 08, 2021 at 21:25
If there is going to be a section on philosophy or religion it would seem some discussion of various religious conceptions and the role they play in h...
August 08, 2021 at 21:13
If our only choices are God as defined above and your conclusion, I have to agree. It just seems traditional theism and atheism should not be the only...
August 07, 2021 at 22:49
Being that this is a philosophy forum maybe we should try a little philosophical theism and dispense with preconditions or presumptions which cause us...
August 07, 2021 at 21:32
From the Article in the Opening Post: It is a very detailed article and a nice review of the physics and physiology of color perception including vari...
August 07, 2021 at 21:22
It all comes back to the problem of treating the observer, the experiencer, the perceiver as though they were not part of reality itself. As though th...
August 07, 2021 at 16:13
If you ask the wrong question you will inevitably get the wrong answer. Other than wishful thinking and human anthropomorphism there is absolutely no ...
August 07, 2021 at 16:09
Generally one has to combine omnipotence with omnibenevolence for natural disasters and suffering to create a theological conundrum. The question is (...
August 07, 2021 at 14:08
The notion that consciousness can arise from particular arrangements of entirely non experiential matter seems a particularly difficult metaphysical b...
August 07, 2021 at 01:33
I do understand your point of view. I am familiar with Nagel's "What it is like to be a bat" and with his suggested definition of consciousness "somet...
August 07, 2021 at 01:26
No nothing wrong with that statement at all. Actually we do not talk about moods ordinarily in terms of neurotransmitters (scientists, psychologists a...
August 07, 2021 at 01:00
When you state it this way it causes problems. One correlation is not causation. Two correlation is not identity. So "moods" are correlated (loosely I...
August 06, 2021 at 22:57
Well that might be because I come from the scientific/medical background. By your definition comatose patients would still be "conscious" and jelly fi...
August 06, 2021 at 22:47
Yes, what is the nature of ordinary "matter" when looked at in detail. Quantum events, Quantum fields?
August 06, 2021 at 21:50
Well that is part of what "moods" are but certainly not the entire story. Limits of both language and scientific description probably apply.
August 06, 2021 at 21:48
There is the notion that most of the worlds experience is not "conscious" and the confusion engendered by the anthropomorphic nature of language. Most...
August 06, 2021 at 21:19
Yes, it is the form often called panexperientialism but it arises from process philosophy notion of process (becoming) as the essential feature of the...
August 06, 2021 at 20:31
Depends on the particular type of "neutral monism" one might ascribe to. I favor the process philosophy view that the fundamental unit of nature is "a...
August 06, 2021 at 20:11
Well, time and chance happens to us all. The universe, however, with its self organizing process does not seem entirely like random chaos at all.
August 06, 2021 at 19:59
To paraphrase Whitehead, physics is a dull, lifeless, souless affair without taste, color, sound or feel. Too much physics can infect your worldview a...
August 06, 2021 at 19:47
This starts into the area of so called hard core intuitions. The correctness of the chain causal efficacy and the interaction with a "real" external w...
August 06, 2021 at 19:36
The problem is in trying to make "color" the fixed property of an "object". It is not. Color is the result of a process of interaction in the world bu...
August 06, 2021 at 19:31
A further comment on this is what you mean is we are not "consciously aware" of the underlying chain of causal efficacy. The body (the organism) is aw...
August 06, 2021 at 19:25
This is what Whitehead refers to as "the artificial bifurcation of nature". The artificial division of the "world or reality" into so called primary q...
August 06, 2021 at 19:20
It seems to me that color (perception in general) is a process, a verb, not a thing or a noun. There is a direct chain of causal efficacy involved in ...
August 06, 2021 at 18:01
That does not seem to help."knows the existence of". After all, I can just reframe the same questions using "what does it mean to know the existence o...
August 06, 2021 at 15:20
What does it mean to be aware of? Are plants aware of the direction of the sun when they turn to capture its radiant energy? Are jellyfish aware of cu...
August 06, 2021 at 01:01