MikeL

Are you sure? What about all that stuff about Zeno's paradox with the ball breaking the window? I thought the consensus at the time was the continuous...

Hi t0m, yes you are on a similar track of thought to mine. The interminable nature of real numbers certainly fits in. Eventually to get a reportable v...

Thanks for your input SophistiCat. I do understand the importance of using a standard unit to obtain consistent measurements, and I have no problem wi...

Semiotics it seems is becoming an explanation for the mind as well as our understanding of the world. I really don't have any problem with the asserti...

Hi Jupiter Jess, I agree that invoking even a pre-sentient awareness is panpsychic. It would be the only concievable workaround for the Piercean inter...

Hi fdrake, I have to admit I find this kind of language tough going so a lot of this response will be clarification and assumed meaning. While I think...

Future and past are immaterial, but what of the present? It must also be immaterial, and yet it contains materiality -- space-time. Is the future not ...

You could, but you would be then annihilating the whole premise of signalling and interpretation and replacing it with cause and effect. But where is ...

I think what you have with Pierce is a mind model of the universe. The need for an interpretant makes its so. When we look at the bacteria you mention...

I agree, all types of free will are constrained. It's a relative term. I have the free will to fly, but not really.

"It does happen" isn't plucked randomly from the air Rich. It is based on reflection that cellular aging theories involve the accumulation of cellular...

Hmmm, I think their might be, although I find the mind a little boring. Firstly and most obviously the perception and assignment of meaning occurs in ...

Is your assertion that the future does not exist? If it does then it must be determined. If it does not, then we open up a new direction in the discus...

I think the solution to the question of why life having drifted into order doesn't drift into disorder is simple. It does happen. The pattern can't ho...

Mention? It's the entire OP minus some implications, although you did do a good job at rewording it. Personally I've tried to present my writing to be...

So the future does not exist?

It's a pity you can't understand what my OP is saying. You're arguing semantics with me and can't abandon Pierce for love or money. There is more than...

I like the idea that we are a small cloud putting through a fog of unknown or dissipating past and future, but I can still insist on determinism even ...

There are a lot of claims here but a lot of interesting ideas too. I like the idea of critical instability. I will need a good while to turn it over b...

I quite enjoy your outlook Janus. Let's see though, would it be fair to extrapolate from what you've said that time does not exist in the linear sense...

That fact that it exists is proof of its determination. It was formed through choices, sure, but is was formed one specific way and the timeline has r...

I don't see how it could be naive realism. We agree that a single path was walked. Looking back, that path took a very specific route, whether we know...

I am saying two things. Firstly atoms forming biological machines is an absurd notion, but one that does occur, suggesting that even at this level som...

Even if we invoke a Multiple Worlds interpretation of paths. For each timeline, a single path was walked and can therefore be said to be determined.

I think I see your argument. That things are essentially unknowable and therefore cannot be said to be determined (known). The counter though would be...

That's a good point. I guess he would have to be watching from the beginning to know all the path. But yet path there was and it was only the single p...

I think we've already covered the vent scenario. It was good up to a point, but it does not bridge the gap. Definitely there must be a connection betw...

See the comment directly above your last post.

If you want to understand more about the nature of nature my advice would be that you start playing palor games. Rigidity of thought is the antithesis...

Your issue is not with determinism. It's with time travel.

I'll be honest. I had to look coterminous up. Good word: having the same boundaries or extent in space, time, or meaning. I'm not really thinking in t...

"" Yet powered by energy, microscopic molecular machines—the ratchets of the title—work autonomously to create order out of the chaos. Life, Hoffmann ...

And if staying silent is not an option, there is vagueness. Does Kant say anything about the specificity of the truth? You don't have to say the poten...

The counter that could be made to take the sting of absolutism out of determinism is to suggest that while our path is determined, it cannot be predic...

As the semiotic, or just as the observer?

That's okay, in Australia we try to screw in candles.

Q: How many Americans does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: One, so long as its T Clark.

Perhaps an important conceptual point to consider is that probability does have an outcome. As the cast dice slow their angular momentum, the probabil...

The initial conditions that created the path were probabilistic, but the single path was created through time nonetheless. By changing our position in...

If I stand at a craps table and watch the thrower roll the dice in his hand, blow on them, get his girlfriend to blow on them, whisper a short prayer ...

You make it sound like I'm scrambling. I find the whole thing quite straight forward. Maybe the crater is one I have created in your thinking and you ...

The person can always choose to say nothing to the would be murderer, and then everyone is happy.

So it's not a case of not being to truly know everything, its a case of not being able to truly know anything.

Yes, that about sums it up. It has meaning, but only in context. It is not a universal meaning. It is only when we pop out of our local level we see t...

I don't think that, and I'm not saying that mcdoodle. I have stated that this happens and have not suggested they should not understand their local la...

If the shapes fit into the holes, Rich, then there's nothing wrong with putting them in.

So when you went to the shops yesterday, that wasn't a choice? I can see that you did it. The path is written and it happened only once, so it was det...

It's an interesting dilemma. I agree that in a democratic society free speech rights should be protected, but I would envisage an early stage Martian ...

I don't think you are arguing against me so much as don't understand me. We seem to be talking past each other and repeating ourselves. You are labori...

I thought I did a pretty good job explaining it, but I will go again from a slightly different angle. Please also feel free to read my radio analogy a...