Isaac

Within this quote is all that I fear about idealism. Note how every instantiation of idealism is also a tool of power. It creates, in each instance, a...

This seems related to the question I posed @"Wayfarer" yesterday... It seems to me that if 'real' is not to mean something like 'made of physical matt...

Yes, but it will be a commonality of function, not neural pattern. Each neural cluster involved will tend to fire toward clusters which might help for...

Well then America's shite because they're all still around.

It's more than a little annoying that you keep saying our discussion is over and then respond to one of my posts a few hours later. Would you mind dec...

You might get a better sense of that sentence if you read it in context. I mean, it's not even buried in some dense prose, the context is literally th...

Yes, I think so. It's recognising that we must 'slice up' what is, in fact, a continuous process involving the mind and the environment. Not only are ...

That's very clear, thank you. I don't agree (obviously) but I think I can now see what it is about materialism and physicalism that you object to. I t...

Not sure I fully understand, but I will take the words of caution on advisory.

Yes, that's also my understanding. We might be able to say there's a brain state which temporarily corresponds with your tendency to go to the pub, bu...

That's a great summary, thanks. I was getting mired. What I was trying to draw out is that I could not see a way idealism, as @"Wayfarer" presented it...

Yes. Some doubt, but more certainty. 10% doubt and 90% certainty to be precise. No. Just one single position. If it's easier for you, I'm almost exact...

Where? Yes. Consciousness (in the sense of self-awareness it's being used here) is the process of logging to memory higher order inferences. When you ...

You reminded me of that very thing not two posts back. Perhaps your memory is not so good afterall.

So what about the afternoon? You're ruling out "I believe it's afternoon" because I don't feel certain. We can rule out "I doubt it's afternoon" becau...

But that's just not the meaning of the word at all. If I'm 90% sure it's afternoon, no one in their right mind would describe that situation as me "do...

Consciousness is an event. When we talk about the cause of an event, we often refer to the combination of latent potential and a trigger of some sort....

That's not what you asked. You said... We were talking about measures of likeness, not of qualification. The question is what it is about a brain whic...

Yes. That's right. I suppose it would be more accurate to have said that the presence of such logging functional components plus the inputs cause cons...

'We' do not believe that. You do. Personally, I believe memory logging of higher order Bayesian (or Bayesian-like) inferences is what causes conscious...

And how do you decide which two objects are identical? What property corresponds to what % loss of identicalness? Take a computer which is on and a co...

Uh huh, so I wasn't wrong the first time then.

As far as I can tell, you're the only one who has even mentioned solipsism.

So your argument has deteriorated into "I'm right therefore any contrary position must be merely ludic"... It takes a rare ego to be so convinced of o...

I engaged in good faith in a perfectly reasonable line of enquiry in our earlier conversation which you ignored. To me, ignoring someone who is engage...

This is just not true. You have no data at all on which to assess probability. Unless you know what property of our brains causes sentience, you don't...

So your idealism is not incompatible with materialism then. You could have just said so right at the beginning.

Pathetic. You ignore my line of argument that idealism (as you present it) doesn't oppose materialism, then you respond to @"Banno" making much the sa...

Similar in what way? Because I could make the argument that a sophisticated AI was more similar in function to my brain than, say, the brain of an inf...

Again, you're making ungrounded assumptions about the properties which count as 'similar'. A similar colour? A similar weight? What level of 'similari...

Yes. I think that process of erosion is more in one's control than is immediately apparent perhaps. One can lose faith st every setback, or one can re...

I'm not claiming it's good. I'm claiming there's no better. Providing proofs and 'proving' are not the same thing. For clarity we could say 'evidence'...

As above...

"It seems sentient." It's the very highest proof possible for sentience since there are no other agreed measures.

Yeah, it may be. And if it is, or he's gone mad, or is lying, or was on drugs or whatever, then any of those situations would constitute evidence that...

I don't think so. The SEP gives us... So experience, not necessarily matter, defines empiricism. That we experience matter (ie all of our experiences ...

My question was about how you'd know. I mean, it's not as if Frodo had a party throughout the book. His journey was, if I recall correctly, pretty muc...

Not to you. To Lemione it does. That's the point. You're talking about your personal judgement of an ineffable factor and simply declaring that to be ...

I don't believe I said anything about a lack of evidence, only a lack of proof, the evidence does not compel us to choose. What we take to be evidence...

It seems to me that the most common argument for various forms of idealism goes something like "materialism is flawed, therefore this..." The flaws in...

Again, appeals to empiricism are perfectly warranted. It's a very convincing form of evidence. Evidence and theory are, however, two very different th...

Just wanted to add some clarity to my earlier response to this. If we were speculating as to the contents of a sealed box, it's right to say that we c...

Yes. That's right. It's just a model I find most convincing, that's all. Just like Catholics and God. That sounds to me like it exactly following. Say...

It was a descriptive term, not an ascriptive one. Belief in exceptionalism of humans originates from religion, ie it is a religious belief. It doesn't...

And what is 'conscious activity'? Lemione is giving us a reason. You dismiss it as most likely a hoax, then say that there no reasons to consider whet...

I agree. But you've switched again from saying mental events are caused by physical matter to saying mental events can be understood that way. It's pe...

Indeed. What I'm trying to unpick is why the claim that the causes of our mental events are material must have any bearing whatsoever on how we treat ...

'Primary' as in most fundamental is a different meaning to 'primary' as in most important. We're talking here about the causes of our mental events. M...

Agreed. Whether or not we encourage/allow facilities to reduce/increase desensitisation is, I think, a far cry from thought crimes though. Exactly. To...

It would. Although we'd normally then go on to discuss the relative merits and problems with those papers, but I understand philosophy is different......