Pattern-chaser

As I reread my text, I wonder why you can't see we're in almost exact agreement over this. :wink:

That's a shame. It's utility lies in its ambiguity and inexactitude. :up: I don't think so. I think it derives from the norm, and means typical or ave...

Robots and (some) animals can detect electromagnetic radiation whose wavelength is around 700 nm; only humans can see the redness of the snooker ball.

OK ... for a start, the relationship between a cause and its consequent effect is known as, and defined as, a cause-effect relationship. Of course, ca...

This wasn't directed at me, and I may have it all wrong, but I think this is meant to refer to the nonconscious mind, and how it (very) often makes th...

It is? It looks to me like the Hard Problem of (misapplied) science. For good reasons (that we don't really want to investigate here), science reduces...

So we use words to "refer to (communicate)" the non-words in our minds? :chin: Perhaps. But I think you're not. I commented because you claimed the wo...

Assignment of meaning (to tree rings) by humans is pretty arbitrary from a tree's point of view. :grin: The use to which we put tree rings - measuring...

Not even if you're a tree? :wink:

Put into your terms, the cause is (as you say) an idea in someone else's head, and the effect is an idea in yours. The spoken words are merely transpo...

I think it means adopting philosophy as one's belief system, and choosing to live by it. Just like some people might adopt a religion, or a political ...

I know of no evidence that 'red' exists in the scientifically-described space-time universe, do you? Do you even know of a theory that describes how '...

Huh? :chin: Actually is just an amplifier, to make the intended sense doubly clear. "That which actually is" is shorthand for something having Objecti...

This is misdirective trivia. Sound exists outside of our heads. Written words exist outside of our heads. You are surely aware that sound and words ca...

In your mind, where your consciousness lives? :wink:

Makes sense to me. :up: :grin: I was only confused because most people mean something less when they write universe.

That was me broadening the context considerably, and commenting on the ravage and plunder that humans have perpetrated on the world we live in, which ...

If "objectively" is being used in its hardest and most absolute sense, then it refers to that which actually is, which is something more than merely t...

I've thought. When most people refer to the universe, especially on philosophy forums ( :wink: ) they mean to refer (exclusively) to the space-time un...

Yes, but I was equating each school of philosophy with a single tool, and philosophy as a whole as all of the tools, packed together into a toolbox. I...

Really? Sherlock Holmes or Harry Potter? Ignoring the trivial matter of their 'existing' in physical books, they have no existence in 'physical' space...

Yes, but the meaning is in your head (mind) and mine. It has no existence in the scientific space-time universe (outside of our heads), and it has no ...

Yes, I can back you up. :grin: That's more or less how it was. :grin:

OK, I'll phrase more carefully: Tree-rings have no intrinsic meaning. Meaning is assigned arbitrarily to them by humans. Even using tree rings to dete...

We use drugs for all kinds of reasons, some therapeutic, some merely for the pleasure of the experience. The main problem I see with drugs (albeit not...

I meant that it has no meaning. Not to a tree, and not to a human. As I said, the age of a tree can be determined by examining its rings. But this is ...

I declined nothing. You own a car that isn't made of quarks, it seems. What do I deny? :roll:

Although the age of a tree can be measured by tree rings, this isn't what they mean. I submit that they have no meaning at all. Clouds have no meaning...

Anthropomorphism? I don't understand your intended meaning. Did you intend anthropocentric, to which I happily admit? I prefer philosophy that is usef...

I'm sorry, I'm not convinced. For a start, I note that most schools of philosophy do not overlap significantly. They consider different areas of think...

I regret that the conceptual gap between your understanding and mine is too large to bridge. Shame. Oh well.

Although you use terms like specialisation and generalisation, aren't you just discussing abstraction here? (I mean "abstraction" in the sense that a ...

Yes, seeing 'that which is', exactly as it is, is Objectivity, I think. It is something only God can or could do. The only useful part of this - and i...

I am disappointed to discover that 32 years of designing and building programs did not leave me with a proper understanding of what they are. But, as ...

I've always thought that. I must admit I come at it from the opposite direction: it has always seemed to me that the right-wing approach to capitalism...

Thanks for that. I don't really have a response, because I see nothing to challenge or argue with. :wink: But I'm learning, and you're helping. Thanks...

Thank you. I didn't realise that schools of philosophy overlap so often. I thought they considered distinct areas of thought. This being the case, I o...

Indeed it is. But I wonder why anyone would deny themselves the whole toolbox to choose from? Each person, for each problem (or problem type) might ch...

Any computer program can be correctly and accurately described as a collection of bytes, but it doesn't matter. Addressing the details of my analogy i...

I think a scientific treatment of consciousness is premature, at the least. The distance between the concepts of brain and mind is just too large at t...

This is true, but completely useless nonetheless. :wink: To describe Microsoft Word as a collection of bytes is true. Winword.exe is just that. And ye...

Isn't that a very particular definition of "meaning"? One which violates the Principle of Least Surprise, I would say? :chin: Merriam-Webster says thi...

Taoism was originally written down in the form of instructions on how to govern. I'm not sure of the details, but that's the essence of it. Which is w...

Ancient Greek subject-object metaphysics divides (life, the universe and) Everything into subject and object as its first cut (as Pirsig puts it). The...

Yes, she is. Because she is certain to be woken on Monday. So you could say "It's more likely that I am called Srap Tasmaner than that Beauty will be ...

Two of the three awakenings always happen. Only one is variable. And it depends on the coin toss. Beauty can only guess, regardless of when she is awo...

I think this is usually called consensus, not objectivity. :chin: Objectivity, at least in its most absolute sense, is unchallengeably correct. A cons...

I don't want to disrupt your thread, but I observe that you are deploying exclusively scientific tools to address these issues. Sociology tells us wha...

If the amnesia-inducing drug is effective, Beauty cannot know how many times she was woken, or even if she was woken. Beauty is reduced to guessing, u...

I think that's a good way of putting it. And I would contrast the meaning of "subjective" (as I have most often seen it used) as how someone (you or m...