Terrapin Station

Why would we believe that the mental activity in question isn't from the perceivable brain activity, though? In other words, the person medically dies...

How would there be a first-person account of a near-death experience without perceivable brain activity? The person would have to have perceivable bra...

You're saying that you use "soul" metaphorically? For the metaphor, you're non-literally talking about what in terms of what?

If you're saying that souls are fictional, that's fine. You're not thinking that I'd disagree with that, are you? Hmm, okay.

We just call that the ability to empathize. No need to make up nonsense like a "soul" for it.

I meant with respect to the first part: "I was speculating. I admitted that. I entertain all kinds of beliefs to see how they could fit into the big p...

Well, or fantasizing, basically. I like doing that, too, but I don't take it to be something other than fantasizing.

That couldn't be more off the mark in my case. It also has nothing to do with the comments I was making.

I'm confused as to what that has to do with my comment and with the conversation we were having in general.

So bringing up that we haven't excluded some possibility is irrelevant. It's a red herring.

The answer is that they're not. Precluding possibilities is only relevant to proofs. Empirical claims are not provable. Precluding possibilities is ir...

Sure. So, are empirical claims provable?

You're not following: You said, "Lack of evidence doesn’t preclude the possibility." So we have the idea of precluding possibilities, right? If we wer...

If we've precluded all possibilities but one, then that one thing can't be wrong, no?

Excluding possibilities would amount to proving something, right?

Died already? What are you talking about. It's clearly the case due to every bit of scientific evidence about consciousness, including all medical dat...

That's not at all the case. Consciousness is very clearly a subset of brain function.

I definitely do not choose any stance because I like it. In fact, I'd often prefer that other things were true. I choose stances based on what's the c...

Sure. Do you understand the difference between whether we're talking about someone who can normally grant or withhold consent or not?

Explain why it's shoddy in your view rather than just making the accusation. What does this have to do with whether they're suffering, harmed, etc.?

Read a lot, and read increasingly challenging things. Write a lot. Make sure you get feedback on your writing and don't just be defensive about it. It...

The unconscious person is normally capable of granting or withholding consent. A "non-existent person"--in quotation marks because there is no such th...

The problem is that you want me to be having conversations about antinatalism in general, partially because you want to be able to keep repeating your...

My policy on actions performed on an entity that is currently not capable or granting or withholding consent, but that will likely survive as a consen...

No it doesn't. It doesn't meet any criterion of consent. Babies are not creatures normally capable of granting or withholding consent, I don't even co...

Empirical claims aren't provable period--that's science methodology/phil of science 101. And wrong in a moral sense is necessarily subjective.

Oy vey. In other words, I'm asking you because there's no way that you can know that a baby experiences pain at childbirth. Having a working brain doe...

Which you know via?

It's not even clear to me what open or closed-minded would amount to in a context like this.

What would be the epistemic basis for childbirth causing severe pain to babies?

I would hope that people aren't choosing philosophical stances based on whether they like them.

There can definitely be benefits to church/religion-based social life, especially if you live in particular locations where that dominates the way tha...

At least you can learn, which is more than we can say for 90+ percent of the folks around here. ;-)

No, I asked you to give the specific causal chain for one example. Because that's going to require that you rule out environmental factors, free will ...

No realist would disagree with that. Notions, knowledge, experiences, meaning, mattering are all things that people do. It's just that that's irreleva...

Yes, physical forces. I'm a physicalist. (However, I'm not also a determinist. I buy that we have free will.) Lying in court doesn't cause anyone to b...

So yes, my comment was about epistemology and it was saying something pro or con the content of your response?

Someone has been reading Copenhagen Interpretation stuff (while probably misunderstanding its senses of "observer" and "measurement") while basically ...

Exactly. Probably most folks posting here have thought about the stuff they're saying for years. It's going on 45+ years for me (based on when I first...

Could you explain what this has to do with the comment of mine it's a response to? Was my comment about epistemology, or somehow saying anything pro o...

We can deal with whether we can have knowledge of them later. I'm asking if you believe that there are properties of things sans conscious observers. ...

something that's in motion or capable of motion.

Do you believe that there are properties of things without conscious observers?

Why would you believe that properties require a conscious observer?

The idea that energy, force or potentiality could be the (sole or primary)"basic substance" is incoherent, though.

No, not at all--at least not in the sense that you're thinking about it, so that we're referring to a conscious observer. The idea is simply that ther...

Why would lead you to believe that it would look any different than when perceived (re the way it looks at that particular point of reference)?

Because you believe that God precedes all else, right? If one didn't believe in God, you could see how "consciousness is the structuring element or su...

Okay but there is a limit in that being is some ways and not others. We've already gone over and agreed that it's some ways and not others. The ways i...

I don't really know enough about object-oriented ontology, and the Heidegger it grew out of makes little sense to me, so it's difficult for me to comm...