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Relativist

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"I" refers to a single, specific identity - I am an individual with this unique identity, distinct from all other identities. I have perceptions and e...
November 27, 2025 at 23:38
One can justifiably believe there are non-earthly minds elsewhere in the universe, based on naturalism being true - which implies abiogenesis occurred...
November 26, 2025 at 18:54
You can't justify your view on the sole basis that physicalism is false*. However I am an objective existent. I engage in mental activities; I experie...
November 26, 2025 at 17:38
It seems reasonable to believe there's a great deal we don't know. But what use can be made of this fact? Does it lead anywhere? Regarding other "mind...
November 26, 2025 at 15:54
I covered that by referencing "anything inferred to exist by analysis of the universe", which means via accepted theory. I intentionally leave out mer...
November 26, 2025 at 13:10
The notion of something "between us and reality" is self-contradictory. Perhaps you mean "between us and the rest of reality". My problem here is that...
November 25, 2025 at 20:19
What hole do you have in mind? That's tricky. Our knowledge of the world is in our heads, and that is (in a sense) made up - even though it correspond...
November 25, 2025 at 15:44
Most of our knowledge of the universe comes from science, but there are potential additional sources of knowledge- such as knowledge derived from conc...
November 25, 2025 at 15:35
It's essential to the naturalistic metaphysics I know and defend, but one could instead depend on Humean regularities (each causal action is unique). ...
November 25, 2025 at 15:32
Trump got nothing out of it, that I can see. GOP had been trying to paint Mandami as a "Communist" and claim this is the direction Democrats are takin...
November 25, 2025 at 04:32
I'll give you my definition: The natural= That which exists (has existed, or will exist) starting with oneself, everything that is causally connected ...
November 24, 2025 at 22:58
Withholding judgement is perfectly reasonable. Nevertheless, it is not UNreasonable to make a judgement. My judgement is that naturalism is the infere...
November 24, 2025 at 21:13
. My initial statement on the issue said it all: Beyond that, I was just explaining what I meant.
November 24, 2025 at 20:52
No. It's a property of the material. I'm referring to the intrinsic properties of existents. Everything that exists has intrinsic properties. Clarity ...
November 24, 2025 at 15:17
Neuron firings, changes to action potentials, release of chemicals, other bodily activities. Of course, none of these measures apply to what we consid...
November 24, 2025 at 03:18
In terms of ontology, things have properties, processes do not have properties. You may have meant it in a de dicto sense. Regardless, we agree consci...
November 24, 2025 at 00:45
You seem to be assuming consciousness is a thing. Physicalism does not require that; it may be that consciousness is produced by the physical in a man...
November 23, 2025 at 19:32
You assert the mind is not an object, and therefore "not in the frame". And yet, it is a fact that I exist, I am an observer, a subject, and I engage ...
November 23, 2025 at 16:18
Are you referring to physics, as a scientific discipline? It's possible that feelings depend on some aspect of physical reality that only manifests in...
November 23, 2025 at 05:09
Do you regard Inference to Best Explanation as "scientific method"? That's all I've done. I do not "defer to physics". Physics provides a set of facts...
November 23, 2025 at 04:56
Good point, but it means your Turing machine question doesn't further the analysis. A Turing machine could produce feelings if (and only if) the machi...
November 22, 2025 at 20:16
Why do you believe that? What's your justification? What you describe sounds like dualism - is that indeed your position? Are you familiar with the in...
November 22, 2025 at 17:35
Then you misunderstood. I was open to an alternative that might be a better explanation for the "hard problem", but you didn't offer one. That's why I...
November 22, 2025 at 17:27
Yes, I'm aware that you believe the mind is not physical, and therefore not on par with physics and chemistry. But the extent of what you told me you ...
November 22, 2025 at 05:05
I hadn't seem this post when I gave my prior reply. I mostly agree with it, but have a problem with the terminology. Regarding a definition, I recall ...
November 22, 2025 at 04:31
Not merely "likely" - it's a certainty, given the right conditions. As I said, an "ought" is a belief/disposition. Believing that you ought to pay for...
November 22, 2025 at 04:27
There's much I agree with in your op, but I don't see anything in it that suggests the qualia "redness" or "pain" could be created through computation...
November 22, 2025 at 03:22
This is an outdated objection to physicalism. Here's the boilerplate response: "Oughts", intentions, and beliefs are dispositions. Being disposed to d...
November 22, 2025 at 01:23
:100:
November 21, 2025 at 15:46
I've been discussing the role of feelings - the qualia that zombies lack. My position is that this is the only serious problem for physicalism, but al...
November 21, 2025 at 14:52
I am a physicalist, but I see no reason to believe feelings could be programmed into a turing machine, unless we treat feelings as illusions: a belief...
November 21, 2025 at 04:25
Your response expresses a judgement, but fails to specify what you think I failed to do. Your burden is to show that some aspect of mental processing ...
November 21, 2025 at 04:14
Sure, but logic is semantics - it is not some aspect of the world. It applies to statements, not to things. Truths are statements that correspond to r...
November 20, 2025 at 21:08
I don't insist you depend on science, but rather that you develop and utilize hypotheses with some epistemic justification in mind. For example, if yo...
November 20, 2025 at 17:03
You have established that you have no rational basis to claim physicalism is falsfied. All you've done is to to reify an abstraction ("logic") and ass...
November 20, 2025 at 16:41
I beg to differ. The position that "conscious activity cannot be reduced to neural correlates" is a strong claim- it implies impossibility. My positio...
November 20, 2025 at 02:51
You're reading that into it. Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins have said something along these lines, but they aren't philosophers. I have not asked...
November 20, 2025 at 02:32
And yet, some people seriously entertain solipsism and idealism - because they are not provably impossible. This is the sort of thing I'm complaining ...
November 20, 2025 at 00:36
His FRAMING of universals isn't consistent with physicalism. The issue would be: what facts of the world are explainable with one's definition, and wh...
November 19, 2025 at 23:15
The problem I have with this is that there are infinitely many possibilities. There needs to be a reason to pluck one from the infinite set of possibi...
November 19, 2025 at 16:14
Knowledge of X entails belief of X. Who is defending THAT? I've simply suggested that to hold a rational belief X, that one needs (at minimum) somethi...
November 19, 2025 at 05:29
Then you don't understand what a belief is. In the strictest sense of the term, "knowledge" is true, adequately justified belief ("adequate" = suffici...
November 19, 2025 at 01:34
Tye's theory what what this property is, is pretty vague. He refers to it as "consciousness*" (with the asterisk) to distinguish it from "consciousnes...
November 19, 2025 at 00:46
Not to pure mathematics. I'm discussing the justified beliefs we can derive about the actual world. Beliefs derived from science have a good justifica...
November 18, 2025 at 19:49
I agree that physicalism does not have a good answer for qualia, but I'm just arguing that qualia is the only serious problem with physicalism. I rece...
November 18, 2025 at 17:21
It was you who said: And you seem somewhat dismissive of science, and yet you're now suggesting that science can indeed give us some insight into "the...
November 18, 2025 at 16:27
I am suggesting that the "feeling of self awareness" is decomposible into feelings (qualia, including pain, pleasure, joy, sensory perceptions.) + tho...
November 18, 2025 at 16:20
But acknowlegement of the fact that we are dependent on our cognitive structure leads to no additional insights about the world: it's impossible to es...
November 18, 2025 at 04:15
My point was: 1) that most aspects of consciousness can be described algorithmically- this is what materialist philosophers of mind do. There isn't ev...
November 18, 2025 at 03:13
If you mean this literally, it's absurd because it assumes the actual, external world depends on (human?) consciousness. If you believe that, I doubt ...
November 17, 2025 at 20:25