I don't communicate via Facebook, but I wasn't writing about myself. That Facebook plays an outsize role on the Internet for just some "social media s...
Just want to add that Facebook is not just one website among many, one product offering among many. In some parts Facebook is pretty much synonymous w...
Now that you guys have figured out how to make a subsection less visible, I would suggest adding another one besides The Lounge. Right now The Lounge ...
If there is a problem, it is an overall quality of discussion across topics. There are some specialized topics that have a certain knowledge barrier f...
It is an empirical fact. You are going at it backwards. The first thing you need to do is to ask: What is free will? And think very carefully about ho...
You are not "free" in one narrow sense, but that sense has little relevance to what we usually think of as exercising free will. Case in point - your ...
You gave one possible answer in your preceding paragraph: That is indeed the line pursued by some libertarians. You control your choices in virtue of ...
It is widely recognized that there are two main aspects to free will: alternative possibilities and agent control. Most of those who affirm free will ...
Your proposal to go to war over fake news suggests the knee-jerk reaction of a right-wing authoritarian. The priority is not so much to deal with the ...
Be ware that MU's "definitions" are his own. If for some reason you want to know what MU thinks about mathematics (or anything else for that matter), ...
You proposal would benefit from some examples, followed by an argument to the effect that such instances are the norm. Right now I don't see that at a...
I personally wouldn't use Nietzsche, Freud, and Jung as authorities on consciousness; I put more trust into more modern psychology and cognitive scien...
That's a Russian propaganda term, which in practice means any word or action by an outside actor or an opposition figure that rubs the Russian leaders...
Oh sure. There's no problem that a little hot war won't fix. It's been working out great up to now, so why not do it more often? We all like to moan a...
I wonder who would say such a thing. Where did you read this? Yeah, you missed, or rather forgot, your own argument showing that some measures just ar...
Yes, he is saying that we are not ultimately responsible. But Strawson's ultimate responsibility is not the same as what we usually think of as moral ...
I disagree. Good philosophical analysis should be relevant to its subject. This is why I think Galen Strawson's analysis fails: ostensibly, it is abou...
Our cranky and inarticulate friend has a point in that there is a difference between a conceptual definition of a number, which describes the properti...
This is also what Strawson Jr. is arguing. But my question is - so what? If that's how you define "absolutely free will," then, obviously, that's how ...
I am afraid it wasn't very clear what question you were raising, and so unfortunately the discussion has been derailed into the perennial argument abo...
Some difference in the brain is necessary for a change in the mental processes and Any change in mental processes necessitate changes in the brain mea...
Well, the title of the paper is kind of a giveaway... But not really. Strawson talks about "ultimate" moral responsibility (he uses half a dozen more ...
Crack open any textbook on calculus. The concept of the limit is one of the first things that is covered in a typical calculus course, right after the...
Strawson takes the conventional approach of closely linking free will with moral responsibility, so when he attempts to undermine (his) idea of moral ...
No. Look up the definition of the limit in any modern textbook or online reference. Do not assume that what a mathematical notation "looks like" is wh...
Suit yourself. Only why would I bother to read what you have to say, whether in a book or in a forum post, given that you don't know what you are talk...
I don't think that is quite right either. I am actually more in agreement with what Strawson Strawson's dad wrote in his earlier essay Freedom and Res...
Instead of relying on someone's summary of a Youtube video, you should read some of Strawson's papers, such as The impossibility of moral responsibili...
There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between ...
I am sure that people have said this about television, radio, moving pictures, newsprint, printed books, hand-written books, letters, even writing its...
Yes, after I posted that, I realized that I overreached a bit. There are indeed "regular" systems that nevertheless cannot be simulated to arbitrary p...
"Self-awareness" is a rather broad rubric, which includes awareness of one's location, for instance. We are talking more specifically about "thinking ...
If Mike Tyson is about to punch you in the face, the only thing you should be thinking is: "Run away!" And no, you wouldn't have time to think "I am t...
Trump's point was that climate change was not to blame (he is still in denial), and making that point was probably the only reason why he spoke out on...
They say that lightning doesn't strike the same spot twice, which is the opposite of true. An old wartime superstition says that a shell doesn't strik...
And if you do it with Lego blocks it will be less accurate still (funnier though). But I am not sure what your point is. Do you suppose that computers...
You need enormous probabilistic resources in order to realize a Boltzmann brain. AFAIK, according to mainstream science, our cosmic neighborhood is no...
Christianity initially developed as a marginalized and persecuted cult, and that is reflected in the tone of the scriptures, which is alternately gran...
In classical logic implication p->q is a given, so yes, it is a valid method by definition. It is defined as a truth function f(p, q) with a known tru...
Well, yes, you do need a world even for a single mind - assuming you are simulating the mind of a human being, rather than a Boltzmann brain, which st...
If you mean traditional logic, aka "laws of thought," there are different ways to axiomatize it. But modus ponens, for example, can simply be proven f...
Heh, that's a good point. I suppose that if you were only simulating one mind, you could make your simulation domain smaller than if you were, say, si...
Ugh... I wouldn't want to make moral training the business of the state - any state. I have been on the receiving end of such "moral training" (enforc...
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