Terrapin Station

Yeah, definitely not. That's why I said "without having to retool . . ."--folks want to avoid that.

I always feel like I'm dealing with children (well, or teens/people with a teen mentality) who are trying to find creative ways to be "difficult," and...

It wasted my time. I'm still looking for an honest, straightorward conversation with someone who won't resort to bullshit tactics.

Just as an instrumental way to try to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity without having to retool physics and/or mathematics, sure. Bu...

How would you even attempt to formalize it? You've got a bunch of terms like "noting similarities" that have no standard formalization.

I just pointed out the problems with it. If you want to just ignore that, I guess you can. That would suck from any sort of conversational or philosop...

If it's supposed to be someone noting the similarities of the brain states from a third-person observational perspective, then we could specify that e...

"You note the similarities between T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5 " -- it can't be the person who had the conscious thoughts at T2, T3, etc. noting similaritie...

So you're incapable of specifying any sort of similarity we could be noting?

The scenario doesn't make any sense without specifying some sort of similarities we're noting. First off, "x is similar to y" is a judgment that an in...

So what similarities is someone noting, and who is the someone?

"The next problem" should cue you in to the fact that that's something I take issue with. We're not going to add that you have reading comprehension p...

My question is the next thing I take issue with. "You're saying something about similarities, but you're not saying what's supposed to be similar. "

The next problem: what similarities are we noting? You're saying something about similarities, but you're not saying what's supposed to be similar. Si...

There's going to be some state as long as there's a brain, sure. What are we using for evidence of the state in question, and what does it have to do ...

Noting that there's an ontological difference between A and B is irrelevant to whether the analogy works. It's stupid to suggest that it's relevant. A...

There's no reason to say that there's a brainstate X at T1 if you're not conscious of X at T1.

Yeah, that's pretty stupid. You don't have an analogy if A and B are identical.

Yes. They're not cognitive.

So if we make an analogy between A and B, if anything is different ontologically when it comes to A and B, there's a problem with the analogy?

I edited that quickly after I wrote it, by the way. There are no unconscious cognitive structures.

How would this be different, by the way, than saying: On occasions 1, 2, 3 and 4, when I shook Joe's car, the alarm went off. On occasion 5, I shook J...

It's correlated with it if it's present sure. Okay, so at another time, where X isn't consciously present, we're saying that it was unconsciously pres...

It was conscious at those times? Okay. And we're saying that to that person's mind, at those times, they acted in such and such way because of thought...

Okay, we can do this instead: That's a claim. What is the evidence for the claim?

So if you're defining "personality" conventionally, this: =================================== To this: Through self-examination I discover that at T2,...

How are you defining "personality" then, because that doesn't seem to resemble any conventional definition of it.

First, what does "the continuity of personality" even refer to, exactly, in terms of observables?

Wouldn't an important part of that be semantics?

I have no idea why that would seem to be an explanation to them.

What are the criteria for explanations in that scenario?

The way it's defended is that there's zero evidence of y being present at T1. There would need to be some evidence of it being present at T1 in order ...

Sure. so how would you finish this sentence: "Socialization mediates biological identity by ________"?

They're not going to learn something like, "I did x because I think y," where at the time they did x, T1, there was no thought like y present to their...

What would be the merit of that? It just seems like an arbitrary fantasy notion.

You're seeing the brain and the subjective world of self as two different things--you're at least assuming some sort of epiphenomenalism if you're not...

I don't see how that's not basically just making up arbitrary SciFi-like crap.

Hard--and maybe impossible--for me to relate to thinking that everything is an idea or that it would seem to someone like it has been created from a t...

This is a good example of why this forum can be so frustrating. I'm interested in the claim you're making, but it's not clear to me. So I ask for clar...

Don't get pissy with other people just because you can't articulate your ideas well. Work on yourself instead.

So no. You're not capable of clarifying the claim you're making. Maybe work on being able to articulate your ideas better. Try writing (and try publis...

You made a claim: "Society mediates biological identity." That claim is not at all clear to me. I'm asking you to clarify the claim. Are you not capab...

In what way do you see society as involved in this?

(1) would need to be clarified (and justified if dubious after the clarification).

On my view, what people are doing in that situation is making up a reason to "explain" why they did the behavior they did, because they have a belief ...

I don't buy determinism, either, but at any rate, non-mental reasons for something aren't "criteria for kindness." Criteria for kindness would refer t...

! Yes, I disagree. I think everything is physical, and I don't deny thoughts or anything psychological, so I think psychological phenomena are physica...

I'm a physicalist. I don't think anything about mind is nonphysical. I'm not "leaping to the physical." I think the idea of nonphysical >>whatevers<< ...

It wasn't an exhaustive list. And sure, memories are an example. Again, there's no reason to believe that there are unconscious memories. Most people ...

You'd have nonmental potentials, which amount to specific brain states (structures and processes that can respond in specific dynamic ways), that can ...