I think most of us pick this up from context. But never mind. :wink: I wonder if it's the way you're choosing to look at it? Because I can't make sens...
That is the whole issue, encapsulated. :up: :smile: Whatever gender I identify as, it does you no harm, so please respect my preference and address me...
I am confused. First you agree that reductionism cannot properly investigate something whose function is primarily related to the connections between ...
First, it is not clear to me that "experiences lacking in conscious awareness" are "simpler". Do you offer any justification for this assumption? is o...
And I understand why you think so. But I'm still bothered, not specifically by you, but by our (i.e. humans) general tendency to use vocabulary that, ...
You say this like it's accepted wisdom, tested and proven over millennia. But it looks to me like an unjustified assertion, an implication of knowledg...
One problem with a 'diluted' definition of objectivity is that you can say we have reached objective truth via science, and you mean that we have reac...
We do? Why is that, do you think? Is a mild definition of objectivity really that useful, when it helps to convince us that there are certainties, whe...
Yes, I see what you're getting at. :smile: :up: On the one hand, it is convenient and useful to know things that are consistent and reliable about the...
I disagree with this ... but my disagreement is unimportant. You mean something much less objective than I do when I use the term. I'm a (so-called) s...
The problem is that "Zen" is "Zen Buddhism", so it's a bit difficult to filter out the "Buddhism" bit. :wink: Zen is a mixture of Buddhism and Taoism....
First, you do realise, don't you, that "A is doing B" and "B is being done by A" are identical, and probably not what you meant to say? If you reverse...
You suggest that consensus, where we all agree, but we could all be wrong, is the same as objective, which offers a sort of guarantee that something i...
I don't think so. It's about whether science and its laws control reality, or describe it. It's about whether reality is human-independent, which is w...
No, the analogy is that, as civil laws order behaviour, natural behaviour orders human laws. :up: No, there is no admission of laws, and no fortuity e...
Omnipresent? Present everywhere? Who mentioned location? :chin: A law is created by humans. Gravity is a feature of the universe, and was not created ...
I think you might mean something quite mild when you say "objective", maybe "unbiased"? Even then, there is a difference between that and consensus. T...
I think I understand you quite well. You seek to confuse a human invention - the 'law' of gravity - with an attribute of the universe - gravity. You a...
You seem to be struggling to accept my point. On the one hand, your words seem to acknowledge what I'm saying, but your syntax appears to have been cr...
Our biases and experience don't cloud our judgement, they form and guide our beliefs. We are emotionally-driven creatures. Emotions are central and fu...
Well yes, but isn't a human-formulated 'law' an opinion? Such a law can't be human-independent, can it? After all, the universe will continue to behav...
I'm just not getting this. Probably my fault. :blush: There's a process of desiring? It feels to me like desire is an emotion, or something pretty sim...
There are many such guns. There's climate change, chemical and biological weapons (much worse than nuclear in terms of their effects on us and on our ...
They differ because one is a simple description, while the other is formulated as a 'law'. Gravity is what it is, and does what it does. It achieves t...
To my mind, it's yes and no. :wink: My bottom line here is: do we need a special word to describe desires about desires? Human desires are hard enough...
Erm, (3) is only valid if (1) and (2) are valid. Logic did not predict the election of Trump or the selection of Brexit. There are contexts where logi...
I don't think people voted for or against a European super-state. On the whole, they voted for the return of the British Empire, and to expel all thos...
Surely the laws of physics are laws of nature? The contrast, I think, is with human laws, which bind our behaviour, or are supposed to. :wink: They ha...
Good question! I tentatively submit that Nature has no intention. It just does what it does by being what it is. It is bound by no law or principle. I...
Your thesis, that you have repeated a number of times, is that the human mind, or consciousness, can be reduced to neural activity. I do not dispute y...
This is about discrimination, I think. Things like racism, sexism, and so forth, are all examples of discrimination. People who like to discriminate p...
I don't feel politically alienated. I feel that there are no politicians with whom I am in sufficient agreement that I would be happy to cast my vote ...
No, I would say the opposite, that all of the experiences you describe are valid experiences. All of them. ... Oh, wait. I see what you're getting at....
I never thought it impossible to describe, I thought (and still think) it impossible-to-describe-adequately-and-usefully. By this I mean to be clear: ...
You may not. This seems to be the central point of this thread, and it's the point you wish to dismiss. That's something of a shame, isn't it? :confus...
You talk much of firmware, and I wonder if you mean the same by it as I do, having spent 32 years designing and building firmware. Do you just mean "s...
I think it makes sense, but I think this is the wrong question. I think the question should be "is it useful?", not "does it make sense to ask this?"....
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