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Gnomon

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Since humans are primarily visual creatures, our metaphors tend to emphasize imagination. But we also have some limited sense of "natural rhythm". So,...
April 18, 2023 at 16:49
Yes. It seems likely that functional brain structure may establish the basic categories into which we catalog our sensory experience. But a quick Goog...
April 18, 2023 at 16:08
Yes. Aristotle studied both Physics and Metaphysics as different aspects of comprehensive "Nature". Today, empirical scientists claim the royal realm ...
April 17, 2023 at 21:44
Yes, but Mysterianism takes the "know nothing" approach only for very select few questions, such as "God" & "Consciousness". Which are mystifying simp...
April 17, 2023 at 16:34
That's a surprising position on a philosophy forum. As Descartes concluded, Personal Consciousness is the only thing we know for sure. Everything else...
April 16, 2023 at 17:12
Thanks, but. Since I'm not educated in the technicalities of academic philosophy, for me, "Realism" means naive realism. In the Enformationism thesis,...
April 15, 2023 at 16:53
I see a need to clarify what I mean by the general label for topics related to enigmas like Consciousness. For some modern philosophers, Metaphysics h...
April 15, 2023 at 16:48
I'm not an expert on Kastrup's neo-idealism, but it makes sense to me --- because I don't interpret his position as contradictory Idealism versus Real...
April 14, 2023 at 16:49
Actually, there is one substance in the world with the consistent property of causing change. That universal Substance (Aristotle's essence)*1 functio...
April 14, 2023 at 16:16
Ha! What would philosophers do with their free time, if "metaphysical speculation" was not permitted by the truth censors? :smile:
April 14, 2023 at 15:01
Sorry, It wasn't meant to be personal. I was referring to the "christian apologist" argument as "guilt by association". To wit : anything postulated b...
April 13, 2023 at 21:52
Guilt by association may be emotionally persuasive, but it's not a good logical argument. Your implication of nefarious motives for the Christian reje...
April 13, 2023 at 17:21
I had to back-up to find your casual use of the phrase "fear of religion", that provoked some prickly reaction. In response, you gave a link to Nagel'...
April 13, 2023 at 00:01
As a concept, "God" plays many roles, and has many definitions. By some definitions, Satan is a god, and some envision a cloven-footed creature runnin...
April 11, 2023 at 17:56
It's not so much the particular wording of a definition that is mandatory for communication, but differentiation between various versions of the idea ...
April 11, 2023 at 17:20
The dogs in the videos are obviously using pre-recorded human language to express their limited doggie thoughts. But they seem to know the meaning of ...
April 11, 2023 at 17:11
Apparently, the majority of humans do not "fear religion". It's mostly god-fearing intellectuals & liberals who are not attracted to mysterious & auth...
April 11, 2023 at 16:53
Dogs don't have fingers to operate laptops, but the notion of them learning button-pushing communication is not far-fetched. Amazon has several models...
April 11, 2023 at 15:57
Yes. but my comment was not a "scientific framework"; just a comment on a philosophy forum, about one of the long-running mysteries of the world. I'm ...
April 10, 2023 at 22:17
Why stop at a transition? Energy is the universal Cause of change. Why not see where it goes after brain states are energized? What "breathes fire" in...
April 10, 2023 at 17:11
Design Intent is not an object to be demonstrated empirically. But the designer's unique signature patterns (e.g. characteristic brush strokes by Mich...
April 10, 2023 at 16:58
may be onto something in his Energy is Matter is Mind extrapolation. The article below*1 is way over my head, but it seems to connect abstract "Quantu...
April 10, 2023 at 16:23
I agree that the ability to conceptualize -- to form abstract representations of real phenomena -- is a major factor in human consciousness. But I'd s...
April 09, 2023 at 22:04
The substance fitting that definition is Information. According to Spinoza, everything that exists is either a substance or a mode. Causal Information...
April 09, 2023 at 17:52
I suspect that the extra-sensory sense you refer to, is Reason (ability to infer wholes from parts). A tree is a system of many parts, but treeness is...
April 09, 2023 at 17:44
Be careful how you speak openly of Consciousness & Matter in the same breath. Some people may think you are Mad. :joke: Personally, I don't think Matt...
April 08, 2023 at 22:07
I have only a superficial knowledge of the New Mysterian appellation. So I'll let you argue with the Wiki editors, and Dr. Owen Flanagan about what na...
April 08, 2023 at 17:32
Apparently, quite a few deep thinkers have concluded that human Consciousness is an impenetrable mystery. David Chalmers famously called it the "Hard ...
April 07, 2023 at 22:09
Sorry if I was bringing "coals to Newcastle". I wasn't sure that the American football idiom would have the same meaning for those who are not allowed...
April 07, 2023 at 16:55
I never thought of my EnFormAction principle as a "non-Newtonian fluid" (like Oobleck or Flubber), but it is defined as the ability to transform from ...
April 06, 2023 at 16:51
I didn't give wave-particle duality the label : "paradox". That what the scientists trying to understand the evidence of their experiments called it, ...
April 06, 2023 at 16:30
Normally, in cases of clarity, that might seem be true. But when uncertainty is inherent, a compromise between competing opinions becomes necessary*1....
April 06, 2023 at 01:18
Hoffman's Interface theory is based on the mechanism of Darwinian adaptation. But I just came across a similar notion in Fire In The Mind, an overview...
April 05, 2023 at 16:43
A prescient thought! About 15 years ago, I had a similar idea --- based, not on philosophical or religious treatises, but on Quantum & Information the...
April 04, 2023 at 22:31
The current issue of Philosophy Now magazine has an article by columnist Raymond Tallis that is critical of Hoffman's theory. He accuses Hoffman of "D...
April 04, 2023 at 17:43
Arguments for or against Idealism are complicated by the several definitions of the term, and variations within those definitions*1 *2. Since I have n...
April 03, 2023 at 22:34
I won't attempt to give a scientific answer to what is essentially a metaphysical question. But I do think the form of an answer will necessarily have...
April 03, 2023 at 18:11
If, by "Idealism" you mean the rejection of Realism, all Either/Or logical arguments will go round in circles. You can't have overhead mental Ideality...
April 02, 2023 at 17:52
Yes. Philosophy shouldn't be pinned-down to a narrow job description. Socrates may have hoped to fix the political problems of Athens, but he focused ...
April 02, 2023 at 16:39
I too have been disappointed with much of Modern Philosophical Posturing, as compared to Ancient Wisdom Seeking. Especially the linguistic nit-picking...
April 01, 2023 at 21:31
"Infinity" defined as a quantitative measure is a common stumbling block for philosophical forays into transcendent topics. If the context is a space-...
April 01, 2023 at 17:31
I appreciate the clarification. It allows for philosophical dialog, without getting into political posturing. I too have constructed an alternative go...
March 31, 2023 at 18:22
The "space" that contains the program "world" is the mind of the "programmer". It's a dual-aspect Monism. No distinctions, no information, no meaning,...
March 31, 2023 at 15:31
Enformationism may not be a formal Monism*1 as you are used to it. It's primarily based on scientific concepts, instead of academic philosophy. So it ...
March 30, 2023 at 22:37
The Enformationism thesis may be "quasi-Kantian", but it is not Dualistic. It is instead Monistic, with Information being the universal Single Substan...
March 30, 2023 at 17:11
Sorry! I didn't mean to imply that there's something unreal, spooky, or fatalistic about Reality. Instead, sensory experience, including vision, is ou...
March 30, 2023 at 00:11
Yes. As noted, I suspect that Hoffman is leaning toward some form of Idealism. But, I try to cover both bases -- material Realism and mental Idealism ...
March 29, 2023 at 16:56
Yes. That's why the homunculus theory doesn't explain Sentience. It's a same-thing-all-the-way-down theory. But, what's missing is Transformation from...
March 29, 2023 at 16:41
Yes. As I understand the thesis, Hoffman is not saying there is no material reality out there, but that all we know about that presumptive*1 reality i...
March 28, 2023 at 22:03
To the contrary, I explicitly stated that my non-theist god-quest was provoked by the god-gap problem in Big Bang cosmology*1. My Enformer or Programm...
March 28, 2023 at 18:32