Pattern-chaser

:smile: :up: Nit-pick: PERSECUTED minorities. Billionaires are in a minority.... :wink:

:up: :rofl:

Yes I have noticed that: sciencists want everyone to use science exclusively for any and every example of considered investigation or thought... ...so...

Best not, eh? :wink: :rofl:

I think you may have missed @"unenlightened"'s point, which was not about belief but the standards of discussion in certain cases. :chin:

Thanks for that!Excellent. :smile:

Are you some kind of scientific literalist? Your arithmetic example is true by definition, if we first accept a raft of axioms and number-related math...

If the system auto-prunes doubled trailing spaces, then that's that. We might as well consider whether we're brains in vats. We are discussing an issu...

I repeat: I'm not all that interested to hear your judgements on this forum, or its members. I inhabit this place because I want to, but I'm not force...

A surprising decision on your part. :gasp: The prefix "a-" means not or without. The implication seems to be that any word you choose can be converted...

So I was right. :sad: You are here to express your intolerance of discussions that you feel are without merit. What of those who choose to take part i...

Then don't read them? :chin: In fairness, most of the threads you refer to aim at interesting aspects of religion and religious belief. That they ofte...

I can't disagree. The aim of this topic is laudable, I think, but quite possibly unattainable, as you suggest. :smile:

Then we're done here. :up:

A doctor may be scientifically-trained, but her methods are not those of a scientist. There is good reason for this. Her subjects are humans, so there...

I think it's a misleading statement. A door is a door. It allows passage, or it allows access to a passage, but it is not in itself a passage. Having ...

If we allow that philosopher(s) can examine themselves, their own minds and consciousness, as well, then they can achieve more than science can by the...

I don't understand why people sometimes respond like this. If you suggest the possibility that the world our senses show us pictures of ... might not ...

Consider a room, with a door that connects the room to a corridor. The door marks the border between the room and the corridor. But the door is not th...

Yes ... which is also the answer to @"Terrapin Station"'s post. :smile:

:smile:

Yes, there is a certain amount that a third party can see from the outside, but there is more that can only be appreciated by doing it: by being a con...

Now that's an interesting question. I know of no reason to subdivide Life, the Universe and Everything, except that it's too much for a human mind to ...

Oops! Is this topic about religious belief? :yikes:

Belief is not a virtue, but a necessity. There are so many things we cannot know (objectively), but feel we need to know, that we guess, and we guess ...

I was intrigued by this: I've nothing against cybernetics, but I'm more of a tree-hugger than a roboticist. :wink: An "organismic" approach is always ...

Or perhaps that neuroscience can't really study the mind at all? :chin: No, not "at all". But I can see difficulties....

Nice. :up: Two views of consciousness: one which Mr Data (or any external observer) might gain from long-term and in-depth (but passive: non-participa...

INTJ. A designer; a chaser of patterns.

Only a tiny amount, in response to your post. It looks interesting, but too focussed on maths for my tastes. It has the appearance of something Object...

I don't care to get immersed in the arguments for or against IQ testing, but I offer the simple observation that there is a great deal more to a perso...

All of them, I think. :chin: Edited to add: This is probably the important bit. The bit we're not conscious/aware of. Current understanding is that un...

<rant> Oh my, a heretic! :scream: English is the language spoken by the English people, who live in England. The lingua franca of the Western World is...

So is there a way to show all current threads? And which threads are missing when you click on "Forum"? Is it only the lounge?

It seems to me that a door marks a border, to cross-fertilise two current threads. A door is not a passage, but one end of a passage. A door, like a p...

You are human, as most of us are. You are mostly conscious, as most of us are. Having experienced consciousness for yourself, you have an understandin...

This is my understanding of how things are in the USA, but I'm not from there, and so I may have misunderstood. Am I right or wrong? :chin:

Autists like me spend their lives amazed at the communications complications that NTs (NeuroTypicals) indulge in. Questions that aren't questions, as ...

Many things are possible.... :smile:

I'm not sure, but don't we have to learn such things? I wonder if intuition (rational or otherwise) alone is enough to result in that realisation? Is ...

If the ability to hear an expanded range of frequencies conferred a survival advantage, I imagine we could evolve to hear more than we do now. But tha...

:up: By all means! :smile:

In this case, "to be familiar with how it feels to be" "a conscious human being", as I said.

I can't disagree, but we don't always understand our subject matter. Perhaps because we're still learning about it? Nevertheless, I think we all accep...

I think I meant the one that any accomplished English speaker would understand from my words, unless we alerted them to look for hidden alternative in...

There are borders that exist only because we recognise them. But surely there are also borders that exist because they lie between different things, l...

Well, you see that piece of grass, immediately to the right of the sign...? :wink:

...and if there are no "analogous cases"? That was what I was trying to get at. :chin:

Not as far as I'm concerned, but if we go too far out from the 'mainstream', if there is one, that won't take us in the direction of a general descrip...

And when reason says nothing...? Just interested to see what you make of such things. :chin: