Only if it leads to false beliefs. Most of the time, correlation is "close enough for government work". But technically, in logic and statistics, conf...
Well, technically, Deduction from data*1 is just one way to understand Change in the world. It begins with observation of a general principle ((transf...
I can see why Hawking's spherical universe "conjecture" fits your Immanent belief system better than the Big Bang theory's exploding pin-point (Singul...
I think you missed the point of my philosophical distinction between inferred Belief (certitude) in a Cause, and a scientifically-proven Fact of the A...
David Hume addressed the philosophical Causation Problem by noting that, in Physics there is no Causation, only Change*1. Yet, the human mind attribut...
OK. I'll let you speak for yourself. Contrary to my interpretation, you're saying that "there can be something outside of spacetime?" Yes or No? After...
In his smirking reply to my post above --- "possibilities that go beyond space-time" --- indicates his prejudicial opinion that there can be nothing o...
Thanks. Speaking of philosophical aisles : is much more knowledgeable of Philosophy than I am. But his worldview & belief system (Immanentism ; p-Natu...
I think you are sincerely trying to grasp an Idealistic worldview*1 that is radically different from your own Materialistic worldview*2. {pardon the p...
Ha! Gnomon is not conspiring with to get our "story" straight. We just happen to view the First Cause postulate as a plausible philosophical explanati...
I could agree with that statement, except that the "eternal" adjectives could be mis-interpreted. AFAIK the "causal chain" is spatial & temporal, not ...
Yes. My understanding of a logically necessary First Cause is a philosophical conjecture, not a scientific observation. So there is no "whereness" to ...
I must answer yes, but . . . . the imbalance seems to be mostly due to top-heavy technological power of humans over the rest of the world. When humans...
Basically, there are only two types of Faith : Familial Trust or Rational Belief. All of us take certain things for granted, based on either a> repeat...
As others have noted, a philosophical discussion of Consciousness needs to be more narrowly defined than just basic chemical or neural Sentience. For ...
I'm guessing that 's response to Hannah Arendt's quote is just prior to my post above : "The way to transcend our mundane and fictional selves, the tr...
My Poolshooter analogy was intended to illustrate that the Initial Cause was a separate sub-System outside the sub-system affected. Not necessarily ou...
From your description, it sounds like the implicit "excess" for humans is Self-Consciousness --- over & above basic consciousness. Without that talent...
That summation should put an end to this thread. But of course, we can argue about the pertinent meaning of each word in the last sentence. The short ...
That's a good summary of the quantum quandary. The arcane math accurately predicts the results of chemical processes, but the "reality", of both the i...
The lucid dreams recounted in my previous post were pragmatic and intentional, because I had been consciously trying to solve the obstacles to flying ...
That's a good question. From our perspective as subjects to the Law, the physical regularities of Nature are Necessities*1 --- "gravity always wins". ...
Quotes from this thread above : OK. But, if your reply above is not a "causal" explanation, how does it explain --- increase understanding of --- how ...
Obviously, the "demon" was a metaphor that Maxwell used to illustrate a physical phenomenon --- work without a worker --- that had no better explanati...
I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing. My post referred to "Russell's statistical argument to explain Nature's regularities". Then I asked ...
I just Googled Bertrand Russell's statistical argument*1 to explain Nature's regularities, without recourse to a supernatural lawmaker. At first it se...
That's what I suspected. But some critics seem to think Kant was talking about a supernatural Heavenly Realm, instead of a Hypothetical or Metaphorica...
I'm not a Kant scholar, and have never read any of his works. But, "Transcendence" is inherently a debatable term, since it is based on subjective ima...
I'm not a Kant scholar. But my understanding of his Transcendental Idealism*1 is that it's merely an admonition to idea-mongering philosophers, not to...
Many thinkers have pondered "what causes the difference" between Classical (deterministic) Mechanics and Quantum (probabilistic) Statistics? The Quora...
I don't interpret Kant as implying that human observers create the laws of nature. What we do is to mathematically define the apparent necessities*1 o...
I've skimmed the thread, and most of it is over my little pointy head. But one sticking point seems to be confusing a logical First Cause (of some res...
Yes. That's why the quantum pioneers concluded that the conscious mind doing the sub-atomic measuring may have deterministic physical effects*1. Not d...
Yes, but when I accuse them of holding a belief in authoritative Scientism, they don't seem to see what's wrong with that. Instead, they appear to thi...
I agree that Aristotle was concerned with Reality in general, and included Mental phenomena under the heading of Phusis (nature). But, since modern em...
The paradoxical thought experiment was intended to illustrate the apparent absurdity of Quantum Superposition (wave/particle duality). Which required ...
There's a lot of "quantum non-sense" out there, because --- as Einstein objected --- some of it's key features are literally non-sensical, and contrar...
Yes, it is a "game changer". But is not interested in changing the traditional Materialistic rules of the game*1. He seems to like it just the way it ...
It might be instructive to ask 180 about his attitude toward Deacon's "radical" Incomplete Nature, and Absential theories. In view of his scathing rem...
Yes. "Supervenience" is a technical logical term, and does not necessarily entail "downward causation". But some thinkers have used the notion of logi...
For the record, I am not a scientist. So, I don't pretend to be doing science on this forum. That's why 's cartoon of Gnomon, as a New Age nut, toutin...
I agree that much of modern linguistic discussion is like a "what if" word-game played with abstruse terminology that wouldn't mean much to us mere mo...
Are you suggesting that metaphysical speculation is a mental illness similar to the hallucinations of psychosis? If so, how could we tell the differen...
Yes, Metaphysical speculation is "fun" for those who have time & inclination to explore the big questions that have haunted humanity for eons. It's li...
Those are good practical definitions of a term that is too often dismissed as religious superstitions. Metaphysical prowling is a uniquely human endea...
Actually, the perspective of Holism does not deny Reductionism, it just offers a different (complementary)*1 way of looking at the world. Some scienti...
This sounds like a description of Holism, as a metaphysical concept relevant to physical things & processes. But you didn't use that controversial ter...
In another thread on this forum*1, we have been discussing Deacon's seminal concept of Constitutive or Causal Absence, as it relates to a Materialisti...
Cognitive & computer scientist Douglas Hofstadter, in Godel, Escher, Bach. argued that the fortuitous evolutionary emergence of Life & Mind was due to...
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