Dfpolis

While Hume's model of universalization though association is clearly inadequate, we need not invoke a priori knowledge to remedy this. As I pointed ou...

While they describe the same process, they describe different aspects of that process. The physical description deals with the actualization of sensib...

No, they are hypothetical. Your Wikipedia reference says "The grandmother cell, sometimes called the "Jennifer Aniston neuron," is a hypothetical neur...

This is fails on two counts. The first has to do with the fact that that every instance of sensory awareness has a twofold object, violating your assu...

Kant's assumption that we have a priori knowledge is inadequate grounds for calling Hume's position an error. While I am a determinist in physics, I a...

I'm unsure what I said that led to this interpretation. It does not reflect my view. Concepts, whether of intentions or of physical objects, are inten...

The whole point of physics is to learn as much as we can about the laws of nature by studying their actual operation. Experimentally, we know that the...

I assume the quote is from Kant. Note that he contradicts himself saying "did not distinguish these two kinds of judgements, as he ought to have done....

To avoid any confusion, let us distinguish the laws of nature, which are operative in nature, and the laws of physics, which are approximate human des...

Hume showed that we could not know that there was any intrinsic necessity to time-ordered causal sequences. This was not a new discovery, as Ibn Sina ...

Because, as Aristotle points out in De Anima iii, in the act of coming to know sensible objects, the knower acts as an agent, while the known is a pat...

Because he do not understand the Fundamental Abstraction of natural science and its implications. Yes. I am not saying that we cannot understand consc...

Data are the given that we seek to understand. As given they are irreducible and so fundamental. Since things a given when we interact with them they ...

It is Moderate Realism, which sees universal concepts grounded in the objective character of their actual and potential instances rather than in Plato...

Yes, they do, but that only supports my point that intent is logically prior to expression. They have meaning only because they express their authors ...

The word is indeed evoked by the idea in the author of a locution, but it must evoke the idea in the recipient if the locution is to communicate. If I...

You are welcome. I thank you for your thoughtful consideration and wish you and yours a joyful Christmas. The basis for logically distinct concepts ne...

I am sorry, I do not understand this, as it seems to me that symmetry is as much a datum as asymmetry. A priori, we could have either.

Thank you.

If that were so, we could not define them in terms of more fundamental concepts, but I think we agree that we can.

To express an idea is to instantiate a sign capable of evoking it. So, "unicorn" is an expression because can evoke <unicorn>. Still, it is not a symb...

Yes, there is more to semantic communication than the accurate reception of the physical message. That reception is only a preliminary step in a compl...

That is not my claim. While mathematical physics only considers objective physical reality as measurable, philosophy spans all reality. We can look at...

In the course of the thread, I have explained what each of these terms means. You did not ask for further clarification when I did so. However, even i...

I think I was by arguing from the bit-by-bit reception of the message instead of from its meaning. Nonetheless, I was not entirely satisfied with my r...

Shannon wrote: Shannon then gives three reasons for using logarithms of the number of possible messages to measure information. So, it is clear that S...

I meant the general resurrection. The idea being that the end of man cannot result in an incomplete realization of human nature. I sent you a message ...

I think you're missing the point, but that may be because I was insufficiently clear. The thesis I am rebutting is that physics has the potential to e...

Thanks for the reference.

Which is the same thing. Nothing can act (cause) unless it exists and any putative thing incapable of acting in some way is indistinguishable from not...

Okay, thanks. "This triangle" does refer to the triangle we're looking at. It is just that for our communication to work, my words need to express my ...

There is a conflict between the requirements of scientific and philosophical definition. As I am addressing a naturalistic or physicalistic position, ...

Yes, Christians accept the immortality of the (rational) soul. Aristotle wrote of vegetative, animal and rational souls, not as substances, but as men...

Yes, I did. I called it "vague" because when I read David Papineau's SEP article "Naturalism," that is how he characterized it. Even the present versi...

No. I imagined we were both looking at the same triangle. My idea <this triangle> referenced it. My words, "this triangle" expressed my idea, and so, ...

Things do not have overlapping definitions because they both exist. The basis of definition is not existence, for we can define things with no existen...

"Formal sign" here is a term of art opposed to "instrumental sign." I explained the distinction, which is from John of St. Thomas' Ars Logica, earlier...

Yes, I was insufficiently careful. I should have said "fully specified." Obviously, we have no exhaustive understanding of reality. The possibility of...

I am not sure why you think that, but OK. I agree to the extent that neural encoding does not work like any other kind of sign. It is not an instrumen...

Of course this depends on how you define "thought." If you define thought as conceptual ratiocination, as following a chain of well-defined steps, the...

Because it is fully exhausted by its physical description. It is not "about" something else in the sense of Brentano. Our awareness of the state, on t...

It is not a universal concept. It is a particular concept. It is not the thing itself, but a formal sign referring to a specific thing. Call it an "id...

Signs exist, and so are beings, but the problem is that merely potential realities, such as intelligibility, have no actual existence. So, it can't be...

I did not notice this. There is no reason to think that everything with causal power is material in any commonly accepted sense. The laws of nature ar...

Neurons encode data in their firing rates. Neural nets are systems of connections that develop to favor or inhibit successful responses, allowing them...

Denigrating what I say because I am a theist is an instance of the genetic fallacy, verging on ad hominem. I have sound reasons for my judgement, elab...

When we judge that A is B, it is because what evokes the concept <A> is identically what evokes the concept <B>. For example, when we judge <This tria...

Then he does not understand how predication works.

We can each define terms to suit ourselves. So, Joe can define "explanation" in his way and Frank in his. That seems to be what is happening here. Ass...

OK. Now I understand. For "F=ma" to be the explanation involves a lot of indirection. The string/proposition "F=ma" points to/elicits the mental judge...