tom

From the (true) gene-centred perspective, an individual is a conjecture, one of a population of variants, that is tested against reality.

I think you are missing the point of Neo-Darwinism, but yes, genes don't have eyes. Again, you are missing the point of Neo-Darwinism, but yes memes d...

But if our known fundamental laws were deterministic, and they had been tested to destruction, then might we be advised to take what they say about re...

You said the you "use holographic theory". How do you use it?

What is the difference between holographic theory and quantum theory?

Unknown by choice. That is, if you believe in choice.

Pseudo-random number generators are just algorithms. Given the seed(s) and the algorithm, you will know the outcome. In fact, pseudo-random number gen...

But it is still a gene-centred view of what life actually is - it is the genes that are the subject of variation and selection, and the phenotype is p...

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the knowledge required to predict the outcome is not employed?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't nearly all interpretations of quantum mechanics deterministic? Courting controversy as usual, one could argue that...

Animals are p-zombies.

It has been proved that under the laws of physics (minus gravity) that a universal computer can simulate any finite physical system to arbitrary accur...

But we do have a big clue as to where reason comes from: the property of the laws of physics that permits universal computers to abstract and simulate...

So your definition of happiness is killing and raping without consequence?

An every time Rand is mentioned, I expect slurs and misrepresentations, and am never disappointed.

Coin-flipping is a deterministic system, so there is no "chance" of landing heads-or-tails, the coin will land in a particular way depending on the in...

Error correction is the only known way to make progress towards what is true.

It's the one we are left with after falsifying or refuting all other ideas.

Creativity and sentience may be the same thing or mutually necessary. One difference between a p-zombie and a human is that the p-zombie would not be ...

I see, you seek to apportion blame. Accepting that everything obeys the laws of physics, and that there is no place for causality in these laws, does ...

And it would be a mistake to refer to "cause" in your reasoning if there is none. There is none.

But the point is the laws of physics say otherwise, and somehow scientists are able to discover them and reason about them and use them. The laws of p...

If there is no cause, then how can there be a first cause, absent religion?

I see, it's philosophy and physics vs your religious prejudices.

Why could neither Hume nor Russell could find causality anywhere in Reality? What did they miss?

You mean like night follows day follows night? Which one is the cause of the other?

It is simply not possible to program consciousness prior to understanding it. It will be known that an algorithm is conscious because the principles i...

Pencil and paper coupled to a hand?

It's not the hardware, it's the software, and all computationally universal hardware is equivalent - i.e. irrelevant. Pencil and paper is not computat...

It's not the brain, it's the software running on the brain that has the experience.

What else could it be?

Does any of them give an account of what exists, how it behaves and why?

I think I could spot a p-zombie. Every creature has to follow an algorithm of some sort, and if the algorithm did not include consciousness, then I su...

Which metaphysical view explains subjectivity? Actually, which other metaphysical view offers an explanation for anything? According to physicalism, s...

Is a meteor shower computationally universal?

I doubt that the science which will deal with the abstractions that are conscious will be neuroscience. When the philosophical breakthrough is achieve...

Do physicalists think consciousness is "explainable" in physical terms? Life isn't even explained in physical terms, but rather in terms of abstractio...

There exists a proof. No! What is required is to demonstrate that any finite physical system can be simulated to arbitrary accuracy by finite means on...

There are a great many practical difficulties in encouraging 1 billion people to cooperate in cranking out an algorithm. What makes you think 1 billio...

The only assumption is that the marbles are well-mixed.

I gave a formula earlier for the density of occurrences of jars of a single colour. By definition, when this happens, it is well outside many standard...

What would constitute something happening "outside the normal distribution"?

All universal computers are equivalent. What you need to argue is that a billion Chinese human computers, cranking out an algorithm, constitutes a com...

Because animals are exquisitely engineered robots! Animals must have certain brain-abilities in order to function as they do, and one of those seems t...

Perhaps you could extend some sympathy to those poor souls, lacking your deep statistical intuition, who are condemned to think abstractly about such ...

Yes, we want physicalism to provide an explanation of qualia, but why don't we demand explanations from the other metaphysical positions? According to...

To get anywhere, you've got to decide whether "intentionality" is a property of a mind, or whether "intentionality" can be exhibited by mindless objec...

Really, how?

Might you be conflating "intention" with the quale of having intention? There are robots on mars that have been programmed to behave in a certain way,...

The issue here is modelling a deterministic physical system as a stochastic process. If we agree that randomness is an appropriate model, then the pro...