bert1

That sounds interesting, but I don't understand it.

Why can't all these emergences happen in the dark? Why is consciousness a necessary consequence of all this?

It is. But it needs to be considered on a case by case basis. Most stories about emergence are perfectly plausible. But some bugger the mind. For exam...

The idea is that if consciousness does not admit of degree, then it becomes very hard to find a point at which it can plausibly emerge. We'd have to f...

I don't think that's right. Could you give an example? This doesn't seem right tome either, and a number of other philosophers also think that conscio...

Sure. The formulation of the hard problem does not strictly assume emergence, I was being a bit glib. But I think it springs from naturally emergentis...

The hard problem is hard because it assumes emergence.

I'd like to ask him about his critique of panpsychism. I'll figure out a question in the next few days. https://platofootnote.wordpress.com/2016/09/20...

I don't think any deep thought is required is there? It's easier. Les power, less responsibility, less hassle.

The will to develop the potential of someone or something. That's one kind of love I think and covers quite a lot.

I'm doubtful if the framework has a metaphysical concept of soul. It has a moral, and functional one. The soul plays a role in our mortal and immortal...

I don't see how Aragorn's fictional broken sword is going to help Tim.

I like the analytical style, but I think most analytical philosophers are wankers. If I knew any continental philosophy I'm sure I think they were wan...

I'm a panspychist too and I agree with some of this. This is intuitively plausible but could do with more elaboration and argument, if you have time. ...

No need to apologise Chris. I definitely am racist. I don't like it. I don't like to say 'we're all racist', because that might make me feel better ab...

I am ashamed Chris.

I'm racist, but not because of the language I use. I try to avoid talking about any racial issues for fear of revealing how racist I am.

What are the options again? Are there more than two?

Yep. The whole lot.

I think it's all real jorndoe.

5 - there is no evil from God's point of view

If that's right then they didn't understand the concepts. It follows from God's omnipotence that everything is good from God's point of view. It can s...

Yes, indeed.

There is the phenomenal character of me lying in the bath with the bubbles of my farts trickling between my thighs. There was something it was like fo...

= quale = 'what it's like' language I'm not keen on the word 'quale', but that's all it's supposed to mean in anything I've read that features the wor...

I think the IIT theory might be a very good theory of identity - every system that integrates information is a conscious individual. But as a theory o...

Nobody experiences the pain, because the person who would have experienced the pain does not exist while the body is anaesthetised. To put it another ...

I just mean that perhaps you disappeared, rather then your consciousness disappeared. I don't mean that you body vanished, obviously. I mean that the ...

How do you know it is consciousness that is switched off, rather than unitary identity that is disrupted?

I agree with a good deal of that. I'm a panpsychist and have been for a while. I don't think consciousness comes in units, I think identity does - and...

!

Voluntarism To begin with, there can be no discrimination.

I think the natural language use and techincal use (if there is such a distinction) intersect in, for example, the following reasonably natural exchan...

Yeah, I wasn't making a metaphysical claim, these were just examples of language use. It was a statement about language. I was pointing out an equatio...

But you can make the same metaphysical point without 'what it's like' language. For example: one might assert that "It is impossible to derive experie...

Should we stop saying 'it's raining'?

Because they are different questions. The first is about consciousness, the second is about the definition of 'bat'.

We see what it is like from our point of view: presumably a messy and pointless exercise. The point of using 'something it is like' is to try to focus...

Only in the sense that there would be nothing it is like for Roger the Robot to eat the cake.

Yes, although in a human the two would nearly always occur together. I mean, it is theoretically possible to separate them. You could somehow feed cak...

It's just a turn of phrase which some people find helpful. X has first person experiences = there is something it is like to be X There is something i...

OK

Are you making a distinction between reducible in principle and reducible in practice?

I don't think my comment warranted any kind of answer, let alone a considered one, so thanks for that.

I mean that philosophical positions are untrue not by virtue of why they come about (the genetic fallacy) by virtue of their (lack of) coherence or co...

Because this is a philosophy forum, and I'm a cunt. And I don't want people to keep pointing out that I'm a cunt when I'm trying to discuss philosophy...

I've never taken supervenience to be reductive. It's a statement about a relation between two different things which is agnostic about that relation b...

Maybe. Human nature, definitely. Human failings as causes of philosophical error seems like an unproductive irrelevance to me.

But what if you're with more than one person and they have conflicting needs?

Fortunately this is a philosophy forum, so this psychological issue will never arise.