You are viewing the historical archive of The Philosophy Forum.
For current discussions, visit the live forum.
Go to live forum

Isaac

Comments

This is the essence of the problem we started with. You're making one huge assumption here - that our 'experience' delivers us a single, time-consiste...
October 30, 2019 at 08:38
The second paper may be more in line with what you're looking for than the first, but when attending, I should make it clear that I'm not really "invo...
October 30, 2019 at 08:28
Really? You're going to quote the part of the report which outlines the reason why the experiments are being studied as if it were the conclusion?
October 30, 2019 at 08:00
For me, a belief is a predisposition to act as if some state of affairs were the case in one's model of the external world (external to oneself). In n...
October 30, 2019 at 07:57
Here. And just for Janus who seems to be of the impression that scientists just produce experiments, randomly guess some possible answer and then just...
October 30, 2019 at 07:29
Yep. Never ceases to amaze me the lack of respect for scientists we read about here. Not science itself, the people conducting the experiments. Yes, e...
October 30, 2019 at 07:21
Final thought on this matter before I retire for the evening. In a striking coincidence, I remember reading about some experiments with monkeys (or po...
October 29, 2019 at 18:33
Yeah, I think it might be what you're looking for. Now I've got to try and get my head round what you and @"StreetlightX" are talking about wrt concep...
October 29, 2019 at 18:19
Yeah, I think the idea goes way back to Geoffrey Hinton in the early 90s. It also explains the self/other divide (which we know to be spurious) becaus...
October 29, 2019 at 17:52
Nah, Chimpanzees also favour fair (50:50 split) offers in Ultimatum Game experiments to unfair ones (80:20 split), even when the unfair split is in fa...
October 29, 2019 at 08:35
I don't see how they can be distinguished. When a chimpanzee rejects a previously gratefully accepted cucumber as reward on the grounds that the other...
October 29, 2019 at 08:22
Yes. The great thing about the free-energy approach is that it gives both a mechanism and an evolutionary story to the Bayesian modelling system which...
October 29, 2019 at 08:19
As I mentioned in my other response. The problem is when your actions toward 'making it better' are the very things the next generation finds constitu...
October 29, 2019 at 07:49
The trouble is, there's potential solutions and there's actual solutions. The problem of climate change has been caused almost in its entirety by what...
October 29, 2019 at 07:47
I'm not talking about any specific goal, I'm talking about the having of goal, something which is common to every intentional creature. The argument i...
October 29, 2019 at 07:24
Two different 'that' s. I thought that might be clear from the context. All I mean is that some seemingly abstract concepts like the law of non-contra...
October 27, 2019 at 14:46
Did you read the linked papers? The positive scenarios were perfectly realistic. It just seems that people who are optimistic seem to be less strongly...
October 27, 2019 at 14:35
Define 'made it through'. What criteria are you using to determine that we've 'made it' - mere survival of the species (I expect that's going to happe...
October 27, 2019 at 07:59
Why is it unhelpful to have an understanding of conceptual architecture which does not distinguish us as well from animals? Or conversely, what is it ...
October 27, 2019 at 07:36
You haven't 'explained', you've asserted. There's a difference. - Why not? You haven't explained your main objection. Why is utility not a justificati...
October 27, 2019 at 07:32
Whether an argument is 'well-supported' or not is no less questionable a framework than the philosophical positions you could not bear the humanities ...
October 27, 2019 at 07:16
Logical contingency (in this context) might be A=B (when C). I'm no logician so I'm sure there's a more accurate way of putting it. In the brain we co...
October 26, 2019 at 17:06
Absolutely. This is exactly the kind of unification (or rather avoiding an artificial divide) between action and the concepts that dispose one to it. ...
October 26, 2019 at 16:27
That's interesting. Contrast that with the work of free-educationalists like Sugata Mitra or Peter Gray. I'm not so sure the initial indoctrination is...
October 26, 2019 at 16:22
For me, a combination of neuroscience and psychology, but I don't suppose that's the only way. Concepts, for me, are just dispositions to behave, I do...
October 26, 2019 at 16:17
What do you mean by "mere rule". Isn't a contingent just as powerful as a law. Isn't a contingent just a law that describes a necessary function - if-...
October 26, 2019 at 14:15
Yes, I think of concepts arising in one of three ways (mostly based on standard child development work). There are clearly concepts we're born with (s...
October 26, 2019 at 13:58
How so? We can't continue to justify a system by logical measures (like non-contradiction). At some point it's just a faith and the justification is u...
October 26, 2019 at 13:14
I just don't see conversations like that really taking place through, or doing what you think they're doing. When I talk about intuition, I'm not talk...
October 26, 2019 at 13:09
Yeah, that's why I linked the number of posters (20 odd) to the number of voters (31). I was presuming that most people who voted also commented, but ...
October 26, 2019 at 08:43
Whether it works. Whether you think it helps you achieve whatever it is you're trying to achieve with it (prediction usually, but also justification, ...
October 26, 2019 at 08:40
Yeah, I think a lot of people confuse philosophy (small p) with Philosophy (capital P). You can train in both, but you can only really claim authority...
October 26, 2019 at 08:18
What about the entire pragmatism movement?
October 26, 2019 at 08:08
Right, so this is where the Bayseian Brain feedback stuff comes in (that I gave you the link to in PM). I think your model is right, but the conceptua...
October 26, 2019 at 08:02
I've only got five minutes so don't want to fully get into this right now, but whilst this is fresh. The two points you've just raised seem to me to b...
October 25, 2019 at 17:33
No, I think most atheists subscribe to some social, psychological and even economic models which they reference in rational thinking. "X will likely l...
October 25, 2019 at 10:46
True, but I count about 20 or so people involved in this discussion and 31 polled, so most who polled also contributed some comments about it. Few of ...
October 25, 2019 at 10:36
Good question, I hope not so wide as to end up saying nothing useful at all. I'd agree that it has to be first habituated, but it does seem to be stro...
October 25, 2019 at 10:35
Yes, I've lost count of the number of times in this topic I've wanted to actually use the expression "what it's like" despite disagreeing that it mean...
October 25, 2019 at 09:53
The question (one that I think virtue ethics tackles) is whether the flaws in these calculatory systems are not so massive as to render them less usef...
October 25, 2019 at 09:34
I didn't ask what you were opposed to. I pointed out that an emotional judgement is a necessary requirement to accept (and continue to accept) that la...
October 25, 2019 at 09:24
Yeah, I get what you mean now. The expectation of red informs the perception in some way unique to 'red'. 'Red' I can definitely do. 'Redness' I think...
October 25, 2019 at 09:12
Not sure about this. I think 'redness' as a concept, enters much later than actually informing perception. I seriously wonder how much people do descr...
October 25, 2019 at 08:11
No one said anything about demanding such evidence "within" the system. Your error is in presuming there's no wider system of which religious texts ar...
October 25, 2019 at 07:49
Reason is not necessarily a 'rational' influence though. I think 2000 years of debate have pretty firmly established that reason does not deliver one ...
October 25, 2019 at 07:46
You're making several basic errors in your fanaticism. 1. Morality is not necessarily rational in it's objectives, it is rational in its method for ac...
October 25, 2019 at 07:30
I don't know if this is where you were going anyway, but I wanted to raise this angle now just in case it wasn't. What you've said here speaks to the ...
October 24, 2019 at 19:10
What measures 'real'? And you might try to actually answer the other questions you dodged too. None of which has any bearing whatsoever on the fact th...
October 24, 2019 at 16:10
Anyone who shows such blatant disregard for the welfare of others as you show by your endorsement of a justice system which serves only the wealthy is...
October 24, 2019 at 12:26
I don't give a shit how it's working out for you, this is a philosophy forum, not a tour guide for sociopaths. The point was a moral one. And yes, we ...
October 24, 2019 at 11:18