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SophistiCat

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I wonder what you mean by "higher-dimensional quantum interfacing of electromagnetic fields and biochemical matter" here? Space in mathematical modeli...
November 21, 2019 at 20:58
Arguments of this sort stand or fall on the elaboration and defense of their premises. Are you familiar with any such works? Are you prepared to discu...
November 21, 2019 at 17:32
In: Hey mods  — view comment
Very nice guidelines. The only thing I would contest is that I think one doesn't have to have a position on an issue and defend it in an OP; instead, ...
November 20, 2019 at 14:57
You are putting the cart before the horse. Before we can speculate about how future "quantum biology" is going to solve the mind-body problem, we have...
November 19, 2019 at 20:54
Most of the time, we don't have to worry about quantum mechanics at scales much larger than subatomic: we use more coarse-grained, classical models, s...
November 18, 2019 at 16:56
And everyone has been at pains to explain to you that sets with the same cardinality are just that - sets with the same cardinality. They are not (nec...
November 18, 2019 at 16:00
No, that's not how your argument is structured. You don't argue that the proposition is meaningless.Your argument says that the realist proposition is...
November 18, 2019 at 07:19
I think I will contribute with a listing of existent animals: Those that belong to the emperor Embalmed ones Those that are trained Suckling pigs Merm...
November 15, 2019 at 20:37
Again you are making the same mistake. That a proposition isn't certain is not a reason to assume its negation.
November 14, 2019 at 05:54
In: Hong Kong  — view comment
That sentiment might have had some plausibility twenty years and six months ago.
November 13, 2019 at 16:54
The initial argument is null and void because, as others have pointed out, the realist does not have to accept your burden of proof. All you did was f...
November 13, 2019 at 16:37
No, you still don't understand. Suppose the die already landed and came to rest, but you can't see it - it rolled under a couch. The outcome is not ju...
November 13, 2019 at 11:21
You are attempting to explain why people have consciousness from the evolutionary psychology standpoint. That's not the "hard problem of consciousness...
November 12, 2019 at 21:15
Exhibit is the keyword here. What is exhibited is in the eye of the beholder - it is not just an objective property of a system. A system may hypothet...
November 12, 2019 at 17:46
My observation is that the only threads that may not generate discussion are those with a very narrow focus, such as concerning a specific philosophic...
November 12, 2019 at 14:45
You could say the same thing about discussions elsewhere on the forum, with the same justification. Oh right, just as I thought. Your own recent threa...
November 12, 2019 at 06:52
Make up your mind: are you talking about physics or mathematics? Physics, even mathematical physics, is about something - something over which we have...
November 11, 2019 at 20:48
There's nothing mysterious here. Logic and math are our constructs, and as ideas that we entertain our minds, write down and communicate to each other...
November 11, 2019 at 16:35
I just said, didn't I? (Assuming you are replying to me.)
November 10, 2019 at 09:20
Hume's problem of induction is not just about certainty. It's about plausibility as well - any kind of empirical inference. And it's a problem, if Hum...
November 09, 2019 at 12:54
That's an interesting question, but I suppose that the answer will depend on one's thinking about ethics. A lot, probably most people, think of ethics...
November 08, 2019 at 11:40
Ignore the troll. Why is it so hard?
November 08, 2019 at 11:20
Why does it seem so to you? And by ethics do you mean people's actual moral/ethical outlooks, or the study of ethics, or what?
November 08, 2019 at 11:19
You and the other responders are right to pick on the first premise, but I think before or instead of trying to correct it with what we think is a mor...
November 07, 2019 at 17:39
They are not doing theology, they are taking a philosophy of religion class, and apparently their prof offered them a credit for posting on a philosop...
November 03, 2019 at 07:54
It's just a bunch of freshman philosophy students fulfilling a requirement for a credit. You'll notice that they usually make one post that tries to p...
November 03, 2019 at 07:35
November 02, 2019 at 09:17
No, from the fact that the universe is in some way* sensitive to variations in certain physical constants doesn't follow that the universe "is an extr...
November 01, 2019 at 08:17
Oh, that's where the sudden influx of phil. of religion posts comes from? Are you guys all taking the same class?
November 01, 2019 at 07:44
The origin and development of language is a subject that has been extensively studied by linguists. Do you have any familiarity with that field, or ar...
October 29, 2019 at 20:42
Logic, as pure reason or as a mathematical theory, says literally nothing about free will or any empirical matters. But if you mean to say that your p...
October 28, 2019 at 20:52
It seems that you are not aware that causal mechanisms behind decision-making have been an active area of cognitive science research for decades. You ...
October 28, 2019 at 11:51
What you have here is an attempt to guess the neurochemical mechanism of decision-making, made by someone with no knowledge of neuroscience. We can do...
October 28, 2019 at 07:21
No, we don't. Um, I think you got lost in your metaphors here. Stomping on an optimism butterfly is supposed to accomplish what? Extinguish optimism? ...
October 27, 2019 at 08:46
As an outsider, I get a perhaps distorted impression that much of academic philosophy is indeed more of a philology - a study, interpretation and anal...
October 26, 2019 at 15:21
I am open to possibilities, but possibilities are endless, and without a shred of justification there is no reason to take any particular possibility ...
October 22, 2019 at 17:45
The only intelligence that we know is human-like (or animal-like, if you want to broaden the notion a bit). This is where the word gets its meaning. I...
October 22, 2019 at 17:05
But why set up such a dichotomy: either chaos or human-like agency (aka "intelligent design")? Aren't you missing the simplest, most obvious alternati...
October 21, 2019 at 15:54
Hah, I can't believe I am the only one so far to have owned up to possessing no philosophical education. Of course, if this counts as education...
October 20, 2019 at 17:21
The religious demographics are such that most atheists don't live in the US and don't have backgrounds similar to yours. But more to the point, I beli...
October 20, 2019 at 17:13
If you want to engage people on this forum with your ideas, don't post a link to a video with a message that amounts to "go watch my video." There's a...
October 19, 2019 at 10:35
I was tempted at first to pick this option, that is to say that my atheism is a consequence of my philosophical positions. But this suggests a causal ...
October 16, 2019 at 17:51
...in the US (but it's not like there's anything outside the US, right? - not anything that matters, anyway.) Why are people of color in the US on ave...
October 10, 2019 at 17:06
You can expand and strengthen your contact and interaction with the rest of the world by augmenting your natural senses with technology (something tha...
October 10, 2019 at 16:48
Hah, that's an interesting choice. Nowadays the book is probably more name-checked than actually read, but I thought it was a well-written novella in ...
October 08, 2019 at 17:50
In: Bannings  — view comment
I have a vague memory of S as Sapientia on the old forum. I eventually put him on ignore, but if memory serves, that was on account of high-volume ina...
October 08, 2019 at 12:05
Gaussian curvature Curved Space
October 06, 2019 at 10:51
Be careful with Wolfram, I think he is a bit of a crank. At best, he is the proverbial man with a hammer who sees nails everywhere. I would rather rec...
September 29, 2019 at 10:57
Yes, but not just any condemnation. One can, for example, condemn a decision on moral grounds without judging it irrational. Rationality is an epistem...
September 27, 2019 at 07:14
Yes, of course, I was only engaging 'rationality' in the stripped-down sense in which @"Rufoid" seemed to be using the word, as nothing more than rule...
September 26, 2019 at 21:20