macrosoft

Mostly because we use 'real' in all kinds of ways. 'Now that was a real smile.' Or 'here is a real scoop.' Or 'let's get real.' Or 'is this money real...

Thanks for saying so. That makes sense, but I would add that the feel of the conception is essential here. I'd say that our grasp of ourselves is only...

I pretty much agree. I'd just say that this is existential aspect of the basic scientific worldview. Nature is a machine that doesn't care about us. I...

A note on 'continental' versus 'analytic' philosophy, which invites a reply from anyone: First these categories are already cartoons. But even the rou...

I know you're joking, but really the continentals are the good stuff, the exciting stuff. Yes, some of them are ridiculous at time. Yes, they encourag...

Ha. Well I understand your frustration. Some of Hegel doesn't seem worth the candle. On the other hand, his actual lectures (which were hugely popular...

If you feel like expanding on that first idea, I'm all ears. I do think the arche-fossil argument is valuable, and I agree that it doesn't make sense ...

Thanks for the reply. Yes, it is difficult, isn't it? And then existence is always underway, unfinished, further clarifying itself, including the how ...

I agree. Well said. While I don't think physicists (in general) want us to believe that, I do think the modern vision of nature as a blind machine tha...

Come now. Do you like Patti Smith's album Horses? I think she and her band were there. The written word alone can get there too: Then there's the stat...

Thanks!

A beautiful book, but hardly the last word. I think Meillassoux is subject to some of the criticisms above. Have you looked into his other work? He in...

I am recontextualizing some nice passages from Hegel for my own purpose (not the best way to understand Hegel the person, but a nice way to read the o...

Thanks. Yes, this is closer. But more specifically I mean that individual words have very little signifying power. Nevertheless it seems fairly common...

This is closer to my concern, and it doesn't only concern science. One of the things that IMO philosophy works against is an unsophisticated sense of ...

No disagreements on your post except its misunderstanding of the themes I'm exploring. The opposite of holism as I understand it is taking a piece of ...

I like direct realism, actually. 'I see the tree.' That captures it well enough for me. But I know what others mean by other expressions. The pragmati...

Isn't the OP directly tangled in those themes? 'Irrefutable.' And don't we have to explore what is even meant before we can get out the old logic mach...

I think this is a great post. It puts everything in the proper human context. That said, you just described my objection to what I'd call scientism. I...

Exactly, and well said. I'd even extend this to saying that the 'how' is again and again lost in the 'whether.' Whether something exists or not is onl...

I'm paraphrasing the context of such statements as I am familiar with them. Sure, people can just be stupid sometimes. But with philosophers it's mayb...

Let's look at the context and see if I can at least illuminate why a smart person would say something so apparently ridiculous. Note that we are talki...

Well said.

No, I wouldn't put it that way at all. But I see what is being driven at. In my view it's more like a figure 8. The world-for-us depends on the 'mater...

I understand your question, but that is the question of a particular mood. When we are joyfully immersed in some form of love (from flirting to constr...

The world as it 'was' before consciousness is like the thing-in-itself. I put 'was' in quotes because this is already a human concept and already an a...

Yes, I understand that. Perhaps I should have been clearer. Idealists are realists in the sense that they believe in some world outside themselves, an...

What I had in mind is that we are giving up a certain amount of complexity or detail as we categorize. For instance, we don't switch between our theor...

Oh, if we are mixing the two ideas, then I'm sure I would get bored of being a philosophy professor in a century or two. Maybe I'd become a virtuoso o...

I guess we could make the question more difficult by only offering total immortality or nothing at all. Then I really don't know what I'd choose. I ma...

For me the question is whether people believe in the existence of other people who share a world with them. The answer is: of course we do ! We just a...

Indeed, and sometimes that is a good thing ---if, for instance, human beings are understood as property or if homosexuality is considered evil. We don...

Yeah I agree. My only concern is that not being able to die (say after one million years) could be maddening. Or maybe not. But anything endless deser...

That's a good point. Sleep is beautiful and in some sense death is nothing to fear. It's only the living who can lust for more time to play. But we do...

Maybe you are young enough to not viscerally feel the finiteness of time. Or maybe you are just asking me to expand as if you are clicking on a hyperl...

Hi, Posty. I'd like the option for living as long as I like, hopefully in a body no older than this one, preferably in the one that I had at 17. Why? ...

That's true. And really sometimes life is hell. I think hope and fear keep us hanging on through those hellish times. As far as 'the poetic' being abs...

I like Camus. I hope the old boy is indeed smiling down (surprised to still be conscious, if so.)

I'd say look beyond categorization and try to remember some of the best moments of your life with people, or some of your best moments this last week ...

Dead Poet's Society. Applied science is how we live, and what poetry addresses is why. In one word, love. We love what's on this side of the grave, ev...

I like the creativity of your post. It's a fun idea. As I think others implied, we would still have to address the decision to 'run' your algorithm in...

I like the flexibility of the relation R. It responds to issue-appropriate uses of the word 'true.' While you gave a few good examples, I suppose we c...

OK, sounds good. And I should actually do some work that pays the bills.

Fair enough. I'm not big on normative either. Or at least I like putting one my amoral theorist hat and talking about what is. There are more than eno...

Maybe not. I probably had the wrong kind of materialist in mind and am derailing your point. I think I see what you mean, and I agree. I guess my focu...

Thanks for clarifying. That seems very reasonable. Perhaps we can explore this idea: clearly we use some of our subjectivity to mode objectivity or mi...

It's a cute thought. I've enjoyed it before myself. As an answer to your question, I'd say that if you set the bar for proof impossibly high, then no ...

OK. I agree. From my point of view you are making a similar distinction in a different terminology. So your idea about ideas 'being' brain states woul...

It seems to me that the real issue is the thing that can make opinions not just opinions. When people argue whether there is matter, they clearly are ...

I guess what you mention is common enough. Perhaps we both noticed one of two or more common games being played.