bert1

OK, of course, they could theoretically be a zombie, reporting an experience that they're not having because they don't have experiences. We can only ...

Thank you for being more conscientious than I can be bothered to be. :) I've had lengthy conversations with both of them on this.

These are perfectly good definitions of one sense of consciousness. but not the sense involved in the hard problem. They are two different concepts. Y...

Isaac, I'm very sympathetic to your response. It's exactly what I would say in your position. Lets take the hearing voices example. The analogy is not...

I think it is possible to precisely define, but not using words that don't already contain the concept. The definition is ostensive. Ostensive definit...

180 never takes responsibility for the clarity of his own posts.

I think it might be because many of the issues are conceptual and not empirical.

Is that the point of ethics? I don't know. If so, it has always seemed to me to be a misguided pursuit. Suppose I work out, by a consideration of ethi...

Oh come on Banno. The same thing can be both good an not good depending on the point of view. From my point of view rape is bad. From the rapist's poi...

Sure I can. Rape isn't good. Which just means I don't want to do it nor do I want other people to.

I can't conceive of a good that is good from nobody's point of view, that isn't willed by someone. There can be contradictory goods in a world with mu...

I like it. So X is good iff it is three of advantageous, pleasant, helpful and accommodating. These are interesting. Advantageous, helpful and accommo...

That which is willed

If two things are present at all points in space, aren't they the same thing? I guess they can be separated conceptually, one kind of effect can be di...

Intuitively I agree. The answer to the question "Why can't all that happen without consciousness?" is rarely forthcoming. Yet that is what is needed f...

Maybe. But not for this reason: Presumably there is a lot more you could say to substantiate this. By itself this is not enough.

You seem certain of this. Is this an article of faith? Or do you have evidence for this? Is that evidence conclusive?

The points about identifying as a different gender from your birth sex is that it is a) pretty common and b) isn't voluntary, and c) the test for it i...

I'd like to see more high quality content, but like Jamal I don't manage to offer it much myself at the moment. I have fairly narrow interests, mainly...

I find both the Tarot and astrology interesting as providing a kind of vocabulary or system for thinking about aspects of human experience and persona...

That's an invitation to dialogue it seems to me.

I'll address the preoccupation with skin. Rather than a thick skin, I'd like a thick oily fur like a seal's. Then I could live outside, in or out of w...

Wrong question

I like these questions. 1) Joel, Barney and Ilsa. Unfortunately you've asked a panpsychist. 2) Nothing, the north pole defines what is north. 3) In my...

But there's no logic to 'wrong question'. Questions aren't the kind of things that can be wrong. None of the examples offered have shown that they are...

Yup

That's a great example. In trying to discuss this, metaphysical positions are elucidated. It's interesting that the question makes sense to some peopl...

Oh I wish. I rarely get past the interview stage regarding the latter.

Sure that's fair enough when it happens. And this is an expression of my apoplexy, not really a comment on moderation policy which I have no problem w...

It's a peer group I struggle to find in normal life. Nor would I want it in everyday life necessarily. A remote forum allows for a lot of control, you...

Essential to something, I'm sure it is, yes. Integrity perhaps. By 'moral compass' do you mean values that determine behaviour in a wide variety of si...

I have no view on the subject as I haven't looked at any of the evidence. It may be that evidence supports a number of interpretations.

I recently purchased the Generic Self Help Book by A. Twat. In it it said that we have plenty of work to do becoming what we are, never mind becoming ...

The correct half

Half of the the experts have given us a reliable conclusion, and the other half haven't.

Depends what we mean by 'conclusive' I guess. I don't think it entails agreement. I can find something to conclusively be the case. But someone else m...

Because the solution in question is the most reasonable of the options.

The results are conclusive. Many philosophical problems have been correctly solved. It's just we can't agree on which ones and in what way, because th...

On the contrary, this is just to say that philosophy isn't science, and isn't supposed to be. However there can be rigor in the conceptual analysis, e...

It's these senses of 'solid' that Watchmaker is thinking of, I suspect: "a. Not hollowed out: a solid block of wood. b. Being the same substance or co...

My take on this is that philosophical questions may well have been correctly answered already. But we don't have a way of settling the dispute easily....

What Cuthbert said.

I don't know about a category error, but maybe. I think of it as a redefinition usually, a hijacking of the dictionary. When pressed, functionalists h...

Sort of, yes. It's like asking "Well, why do subatomic particles have spin?" The answer is, "Well, they just do. We've gone a low as we can go in term...

Correct!

A function is something that a system does. In computing terms (I'm winging it here), you put an input in, the system does something to the input, and...

Yes, I think so.

No, you're wrong. Functionalists, wrongly, identify consciousness with a function. It's not a correlation, it's an identity. If it were a correlation,...

That is an option. It's one Chalmers considers in terms of strong emergentism. I think panpsychism is far more plausible.

Yes it is. For example: before matter models its environment and makes a prediction, it isn't conscious. After it does, it is. That's a putative expan...