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Gnomon

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It may be amusing to you because you have seen images of Earth from above the Firmament, and no God in the picture. That's because God was standing be...
August 13, 2024 at 20:12
Yes. I'm aware that Spinoza's 17th century worldview predated both 19th century Darwinian Evolution, and 20th century Big Bang theory. So I have updat...
August 13, 2024 at 16:50
That is of interest to me. Especially because, on this forum, the harshest critic of my personal worldview, Enformationism, also claims to be a Spinoz...
August 12, 2024 at 16:51
I too, am surprised at the mississippi river length, and off-topic delta, that the OP's yes or no question has prompted. I suppose its a sign that Fai...
August 11, 2024 at 20:33
I was not familiar with Spinoza's concept of a "Sage". Apparently it's a human who "participates" in the divine nature. Is that something like the "wi...
August 11, 2024 at 16:55
That may be the implication raised in the article that motivated me to start this thread. But I didn't express it so succinctly. Some Theists seem to ...
August 10, 2024 at 21:17
Hmmm. That sounds like Fatalism --- or as Spinoza might put it : Necessitarianism. If so, did he also deny that introspective rational philosophical h...
August 10, 2024 at 17:08
No. The term "moral crusade" sounds like a militant Christian concept, not a peaceful Philosophical quest for an ethical society. The bloody medieval ...
August 10, 2024 at 16:09
Yes, but : us space-time creatures can only imagine essential timelessness, by analogy with the contingent & ever-changing world of matter & energy. S...
August 09, 2024 at 17:22
I agree that Spinoza's notion of "Eternity" is not to be interpreted in a space-time sense. But modern interpreters might conclude that a transcendent...
August 07, 2024 at 16:51
That sounds like a statement of metaphysical Materialistic belief*1 . But Kant was a philosopher. He was not talking about the world we "live in" (obj...
August 07, 2024 at 16:12
Obviously, Spinoza's identification of God with Nature, sounds like both Pantheism and Immanentism. But, I interpret his deus sive natura as more like...
August 05, 2024 at 17:04
You may have taken his metaphorical language too literally. Hoffman makes no attempt to "refute" Reality or Evolution. Instead, he takes Darwinian Evo...
August 05, 2024 at 16:26
I'm not very familiar with Parmenides or Advaita, so my own terminology would characterize the "two ways of seeing the world" as Holistic (Philosophy ...
August 03, 2024 at 16:11
Understandably, the Catholic Church labeled Immanentism as a heresy. Which may add to its appeal for anti-catholic Immanentists. What was the "element...
August 02, 2024 at 16:44
I was referring to electronic computer processing of information. In principle the registers could use any voltage, but in practice the voltage is ide...
August 02, 2024 at 15:50
Shannon's "bits" were basic to his theory, but can't be absolutely fundamental, because they are composed of two elements (1 & 0) plus the relationshi...
August 01, 2024 at 17:28
No, the subtly denigrating term "moral crusade" --- implying a holy mission? --- characterization of 's posts, was yours, not mine. I said he was just...
August 01, 2024 at 00:10
That's not my experience on TPF. Although the few zealots for philosophical materialistic Scientism may just be more vocal and quick to attack any Ide...
July 31, 2024 at 23:40
I'm not the one that raised the question of ambiguity in this thread. So, it should be incumbent upon the raiser to give examples. However, for a star...
July 31, 2024 at 16:46
Thanks for your blessing. I don't see many empirical "facts" presented on this philosophical forum. However, I do see quite a few unfounded assumption...
July 31, 2024 at 16:20
Wow! Where did you get that off-the-wall idea from an assertion about the relationship between Information and Logic? What then, is the truth about th...
July 31, 2024 at 16:14
When was the last time you saw a philosopher present an idea that was not ambiguous to someone? Empirical observations can be unambiguous when the phy...
July 30, 2024 at 22:03
Would you prefer to believe that Random Evolution "gave" some higher animals the "mechanism" of Reasoning? For philosophers, rationality is not a mate...
July 30, 2024 at 21:25
Sorry to butt in again. But your disparagement of "mere speculation"*1 is a knock on theoretical Science and Philosophy, and not appropriate for a pos...
July 30, 2024 at 17:25
Are you demanding a "clear position" expressed in Materialistic terminology? I can't speak for , but I suspect that he "cannot or will not do that", b...
July 30, 2024 at 16:21
I don't follow Santa Fe Institute in general, because my interest is primarily in their work on "dynamics regulated by Information" as you put it. Her...
July 30, 2024 at 15:59
One of the most common replies on this forum is : "I don't understand what you are saying". Yet sometimes not phrased so politely. I've seen such resp...
July 29, 2024 at 21:57
My "account" is not Physics, not "wishful thinking", it's speculative Philosophy ; on a Philosophy forum, not a Physics forum. Do you see some spooky ...
July 29, 2024 at 16:42
You continue to post snarky put-downs, without any relevant reasons. Do you think the Santa Fe Institute is a bunch of amateurs? Maybe even astrobiolo...
July 29, 2024 at 16:05
The title of this thread is not a "claim", but a question. In the OP, I did make one positive statement : "Although I'm not comforted by scriptural as...
July 28, 2024 at 22:20
What difference does that make? Do you imagine that astrobiologists are ignorant of Negentropy? Why are you trying to put-down this "new law" with nit...
July 28, 2024 at 17:22
I apologize for my ignorance and leaky memory. As I've mentioned before, I had no formal training in Philosophy in college, and I only began to get so...
July 27, 2024 at 22:18
No. Where did you get that idea? One implication of this New Law of Evolution is that its progression of increasing complexity & creative novelty even...
July 27, 2024 at 16:48
So, you were underwhelmed by this revelation of Causal Information as the key to universal progressive & creative Evolution from almost nothing to eve...
July 27, 2024 at 16:25
What does NASA playing politics/ecomomics have to do with a scientific theory developed by Cornell University scientists? Do you think they choose to ...
July 27, 2024 at 15:53
Ha! You got something against the science of Astrobiology*1? Do you think Carl Sagan was looking through his telescope for little green men? Do you th...
July 26, 2024 at 17:08
Has been explaining his alternative form of idealism on this forum, and in magazine articles, for years. But his Buddhist-based metaphors & analogies ...
July 25, 2024 at 17:38
's article seems to agree with your assessment, that a superhuman eye-in-the-sky worldview would be materially meaningless, but insists that the abstr...
July 25, 2024 at 00:03
seems to frequently criticize posts on the basis of incoherence. Which could mean that various statements & assertions in the post don't add-up to the...
July 24, 2024 at 16:41
In my last two posts on this thread, I responded to 's and 's challenges for you to state a firm either/or (cake or eat) position on the multi-faceted...
July 22, 2024 at 22:02
Your use of the Cake metaphor sounds like you think it's a bad (magical?) idea to try to have it both ways ; perhaps like Jesus multiplying five loave...
July 22, 2024 at 17:08
Way off-topic : As usual, 's discussion is over my head. But it may not be over yours. I had to Google A> "cognition as epistemic method"*1 to learn h...
July 21, 2024 at 17:04
This thread has strayed away from the relatively simple yes/no/maybe question of a Just World --- where your opinion is just as valid as mine --- onto...
July 20, 2024 at 17:08
Off-topic : I'm generally familiar with all those Observer World theories, but I'm not clear on one point. It should be obvious that observation of a ...
July 18, 2024 at 22:19
That is also my commonsense assumption, for all practical purposes. But, for philosophical purposes, I make a distinction between empirical Real world...
July 18, 2024 at 00:10
Yes. The physical world is unbiased ; neither Just nor Unjust ; but its variety affords chances for both kinds of effects. That's why I call my worldv...
July 17, 2024 at 16:16
My philosophical repertoire is limited, since I have no formal training in Philosophy or Physics. So a lot of 's discussion (and your replies) are ove...
July 17, 2024 at 15:49
Off Topic: Thanks for the clarification. But I like to take the dichotomous HyloMorph theory one step farther back in evolution. Even Aristotle seemed...
July 16, 2024 at 21:17
Would you agree that Scientific Laws and Philosophical Principles are only "approximations" of Universal Essences? Obviously those "Ideals" are not re...
July 15, 2024 at 21:57