Patterner

What alternative impresses you more?

I was thinking about this yesterday. From a panpsychism point of view. Think of consciousness like we think of height. I don't think height evolved. I...

The Church had issue with its followers handling money in various ways. The Jews didn't have that prohibition. Consequently, Jews loaned money to Chri...

Is my response to X ... how to word it ... the biological equivalent of the robot's mechanical/electronic response to X? And is it possible, at least ...

Well yeah. I resurrected this thread after 2 years to say I think they're inconceivable. But you said this:After several exchanges, I believe you're s...

Thanks. That's about what I was thinking you meant with the word. I'm entirely on board with your second paragraph. Our language doesn't differentiate...

More important, their catcher for a career that included three MVPs and ten World Series rings. "Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is ...

I agree. Which is why I think mental illness is the only way.

A person who doesn't believe anything would not believe in eating, life, hunger, pleasure, other people, themself, words, effects, or understanding. I...

I agree with most of your post. Yes, maybe real, maybe not. But, as you say, don't step in front of a bus. "If you can't tell the difference, what dif...

Thank you!

I really don’t know how you mean this. It sounds like you’re saying we shouldn’t acknowledge them. That they don’t exist. I don’t know much about onto...

Music is vibrations in the air, over some period of time. Certainly an action. How do you know under which circumstances actions are nouns?

I sang a song. I went for a run. I had a thought. Are song, run, or thought nouns in those sentences?

What is physicalism, if not everything coming from physics?

That’s my point. They can’t possibly exist. Exactly.

I freely admit that I am not well-versed in a lot of the things I’m trying to talk about. The definition of the word conceivability, for example. Let ...

As I said, “My understanding is…” In our universe, I don’t see the possibility of p-zombies, regardless of the nature of consciousness, in the same wa...

Hmm. I started to read this thread, but too much bickering. So hopefully I’m not repeating. My understanding is the test subjects were told they were ...

My understanding is that a p-zombie, despite not having subjective experience/being conscious, would act exactly like a person who does have subjectiv...

Are Boltzman brains more likely than Boltzman anthing else? Automobiles, trees, pencils, boulders that look like octopi, buckets filled with water, bu...

We are conscious, not all causes are physical, and consciousness evolved by natural selection. Which I’m surprised is currently leading. What about yo...

Indeed. I’ve been familiar with the Tao Te Ching for many years, and was glad to see the quote at the beginning of Chapter 1.

I love this book. I started reading it a few months before I found this thread. Unfortunately, I’m not educated enough in a lot of things to be able t...

Maybe it's not so much not believing the truth that you can't deny as it is not caring. The Architect told Neo that the Oracle "stumbled upon a soluti...

Holy cow, what a difference between you and me. This is one of the many books I've started, and am soon in over my head. I keep going as best I can fo...

Thank you very much. I'll try these kindle version. Possibly no ebook of Davis. We'll see what happens.

Ok, I guess that's not referring to itself. Maybe, "This sentence is referring to itself." Or, in a more informative way, "This sentence has five word...

That's easy. Our language allows for sentences to refer to themselves, as Hofstadter demonstrated: '“Is white” is white.' '"Preceded by itself in quot...

It is, indeed, a great read. At least the few hundred pages I managed to read many years ago.

Why is this a reasonable idea? I can assign numbers to anything. "Leaves" is 3. "Are" is 4. "Green" is 5. "Leaves are green" is 3 4 5. Now apply those...

Thank you very much for your effort. I'll read that many times, and see if I can understand. But, honestly, the very first step makes no sense to me. ...

Thanks for everyone’s words. I’ll check out Peter Smith if it comes out in e-format. I already have a couple, as well as Hofstadter’s I An a Strange L...

Thanks. But at least you understand what we're talking about. I need to find a professor of mathematics to sit down with me and help me understand it....

Sadly, the whole thing seems beyond me. I've tried different books and sites, but just don't have any idea what he's doing. I get lost at the very fir...

Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad. (Can’t believe it took three pages for someone to say that.)

Thanks

Thank you very much. I don’t have a clue about what I don’t know about the topic. For example, I don’t have any idea what symmetry has to do with it. ...

Because we can. Why do we walk when we could crawl all our lives? Why do we go to the moon? Why do we write string quartets, novels, and poetry? Becau...

Sadly, I know nothing about any of this, so I’m already lost. But I thought it fit the topic nicely.

I was just watching The Bit Player, which is about Claude Shannon, who I’m learning is a pretty important person. (Literally never heard of him until ...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/meaning/ I’m told this is a good site to start on this topic.

Not sure why anyone worries about teleology. The universe has certain characteristics. It has structure. That structure seems more conducive to certai...

That's the only book on Complexity I've looked at.

In At Home in the Universe, a book about self-organization, Stuart Kauffman wrote: Mathematician Eddie Woo showed photos of a river delta, tree, light...

Not your fault. I didn’t explain.

To me, too. I'm just stating the case for the other side, and asking how it works. (I sent you a message the other day. Don’t know if you were aware. ...

As, uh, Flannel Jesus (lol) said, we still have the question of subjective experience. Everything you wrote is regarding physical processes. And those...

I gotcha. But I would argue that the opposite also happens. Many say there is no question that materialism is the answer. With no hint of physical pro...

Thanks! I am LOATHE, (LOATHE I tell you), to buy physical books. But this is not available as an e. It should be delivered Tuesday. I'll point out, ho...