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Gnomon

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At least you are open-minded on the question of origins. Some posters on TPF are self-labeled Absurdists*1. For them, asking about Origins & Causes is...
May 08, 2024 at 23:21
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May 07, 2024 at 21:47
I don't know that Laplace "missed the point". Perhaps, in order to keep his metaphor simple, he avoided getting into the open-ended question : "is for...
May 07, 2024 at 21:39
Yes. That's why Laplace postulated a preternatural "demon" instead of a natural scientist, to keep track of all positions and motions in the world, fr...
May 06, 2024 at 20:52
Would you agree that an omniscient entity is preternatural? Non-omniscient human observers of quantum events cannot be as objective & well-informed as...
May 06, 2024 at 17:11
OFF-TOPIC : non-random evolution As I was developing my own personal philosophical worldview, I was prejudiced against Intelligent Design arguments by...
May 06, 2024 at 16:48
By definition a metaphorical demon is not part of the real world, hence super-natural. It "interacts" only in hypothetical worlds. Hence, its predicti...
May 05, 2024 at 17:01
Sorry, I misspoke. According to the opinion below, Infinity is not a natural or real number, hence the rational vs irrational labels do not apply. Doe...
May 05, 2024 at 16:41
Actually, the "other minds" I referred to are the perspectives of physically & mentally different people, who presumably have their own peculiar Solip...
May 05, 2024 at 16:31
Paradoxically, Empirical Science "facts" are believed to be true to the extent that they are reducible to mathematical ratios, or other incorporeal ab...
May 04, 2024 at 20:42
I understand your qualification of acceptance regarding absolute Subjectivism*1, which would be essentially Solipsism. We moderns avoid the slippery s...
May 04, 2024 at 16:41
Not necessarily. One interpretation of Deism is that G*D is the universe*1. For example, G*D may exist eternally as a disembodied spirit, but occasion...
May 03, 2024 at 21:19
FWIW, I just embedded a whole (non-short) YouTube link in a post by clicking the "Share" button at the top of the video, and then right-click the "Sha...
May 02, 2024 at 21:43
The self-referencing models sound reminiscent of Douglas Hofstadter's nested feedback loops espoused in his 1979 book, Gödel, Escher, Bach, and elabor...
May 02, 2024 at 20:45
Yes, it was that "Realist Attitude" that I was referring to in my post above : "Yet, the general scientific attitude toward Nature is that nothing is ...
May 02, 2024 at 17:23
Historically, Luck does play a role in scientific discoveries. But, I assume the pragmatic scientists don't like (metaphysical attitude) to depend on ...
May 02, 2024 at 00:05
Although I assumed I knew what you were referring to in the OP, I also think has a good point. Perhaps most of the never-ending argumentation on this ...
May 01, 2024 at 23:23
Yes. Pierce seemed to be comfortable with flexible fundamental Chance, working in opposition to mechanical cause/effect Necessity*1. Yet, the general ...
May 01, 2024 at 16:35
Both of you may be correct. You're just focusing on different aspects of the Uncertainty problem. seems to be assuming that the world itself is fundam...
April 30, 2024 at 21:14
Meat-eating humans were never a threat to the natural ecosystem, until modern science/technology began to work contrary to evolutionary selection : a>...
April 30, 2024 at 17:09
I'm not sure what prompted you to make such an emphatic assertion. David Hume threw a monkey wrench into ancient confident causal assumptions with his...
April 29, 2024 at 17:07
You seem to be describing the role of Philosophy in a world of divided opinions. Modern Science has found that the job is easier if you focus only on ...
April 28, 2024 at 16:20
As I was developing my personal philosophical worldview, I didn't intentionally seek to cast hard science into softer poetic forms. But Quantum Physic...
April 27, 2024 at 16:17
Perhaps 17th century "classical" physics did initiate a clean break from its predecessor --- Christian theology --- by insisting on "hard" (orthodox ;...
April 26, 2024 at 17:06
I've heard it said that Zen Buddhism is a "practice" not a religion. But it is a "practice" with specific beliefs and group requirements or expectatio...
April 24, 2024 at 16:24
Apparently, the Buddha's "emptiness" is supposed to be taken metaphorically instead of literally. The Bhikkhu quote describes it as a "mode of percept...
April 23, 2024 at 17:02
I've never attempted to read Kant's "difficult" works, so I only know the Wikipedia version. But I have read Pinter's Mind and the Cosmic Order. Both ...
April 22, 2024 at 16:59
The Gnomon quote is how I understand the phrase "a mind-created world". But the Wayfarer quote seems to imply that my individual ego-driven Soul/Self/...
April 21, 2024 at 21:36
The "blind faith" was snuck into the book only in the final chapter, after many chapters of "rational argumentation" against commonsense Materialism, ...
April 20, 2024 at 22:13
I was not referring to "this passage" but to "the deeply religious attitude" in general. I don't think Kastrup is promoting any particular traditional...
April 18, 2024 at 16:26
Although my personal philosophical worldview assumes, as an unprovable axiom, an original universal First Cause of some kind, I don't go so far as to ...
April 17, 2024 at 23:32
Sorry, if I came on a bit strong in that previous post. All through Kastrup's book, I was nodding in agreement, since it sounded like rational philoso...
April 17, 2024 at 17:09
That's a plausible hypothesis, and somewhat similar to my own emerging worldview, both of which are unprovable in any objective sense, and moot for an...
April 16, 2024 at 21:51
I don't doubt that the Cosmic Unity or Oceanic*1 experience seems real. But I remain skeptical of the philosophical/religious doctrines associated wit...
April 15, 2024 at 17:06
For practical purposes, I will admit to being a subject/object dualist. But for philosophical reasons, I am a substance monist : Causation/Information...
April 14, 2024 at 17:02
I don't have much to add to this long-running discussion of Mental vs Physical priority. So, I'll just post a few thoughts stimulated by the OP. BTW, ...
April 13, 2024 at 21:29
As I said before, I'm not qualified to comment on your theory in a technical sense. So, I'll just mention some possible parallels with an article in t...
April 12, 2024 at 21:36
Yes*1. Physical substances are made of Matter, but what is matter made of?*2 Einstein postulated that mathematical Mass (the essence of matter) is a f...
April 11, 2024 at 21:41
Thanks for the link. https://aeon.co/essays/how-blindsight-answers-the-hard-problem-of-consciousness The article is interesting, and it may offer some...
April 11, 2024 at 16:43
I'm not competent to critique your theory, much less to "roast" it. So, I'll just mention a few other attempts at computer analogies to human sentienc...
April 09, 2024 at 22:00
I have come to think of human-constructed Mathematics as our synthetic imitation of the natural Logic of the universe. By that I mean, chemistry/physi...
April 09, 2024 at 16:48
Your ambiguity (uncertainty) about Deacon's novel notion of Information as Absence is understandable, because Shannon defined his kind of Information*...
April 08, 2024 at 21:42
I had to Google "logical causation". What I found was not very enlightening*1. Apparently, Logical Causation is what Hume said was "unprovable"*2, per...
April 08, 2024 at 16:16
FWIW, I just came across the excerpt below from a reply to you on the Absential Materialism thread. "In a marginal note of Incomplete Nature, I summar...
April 07, 2024 at 21:52
I doubt that Deacon is a fan of Idealism, whether Analytical or Metaphysical. He's a traditional academic scientist who, following the evidence, has s...
April 07, 2024 at 17:10
The examples you give are not abstract True/False beliefs, but internal mental states (memories ; representations) that we rely on to make our way in ...
April 07, 2024 at 16:47
No, Shannon was not concerned with the metaphysical aspects of Information. He was focused on physically communicated Data, not metaphysically (semiot...
April 07, 2024 at 16:29
That common mis-understanding of Information theory is indeed counterintuitive, because we know from experience that randomness is the antithesis of m...
April 06, 2024 at 21:57
Stick with it. Incompleteness in reading leaves an ignorance Absence. Taken as a philosophical worldview, Deacon's theory of Creative Absence is a par...
April 06, 2024 at 17:03
It's true that Shannon's Information (data) is always specific, since it is used for communication engineering purposes. But Terrence Deacon is "redef...
April 06, 2024 at 16:35