It's true, that Reductionism is a primary intellectual tool of modern Science -- ever since the Enlightenment rebellion against Theological Science. W...
That's an interesting example of the Reductive vs Holistic approach to problems. It reminded me of New Orleans before & after hurricane Katrina. After...
In philosophical arguments, Reductionism & Holism are typically presented as contrasting worldviews or belief systems. But in reality, they are comple...
Yes. Classical macro Time is intuitive, hence easy to understand. It's just the measure of cycles that are meaningful to humans : day/night ; moon pha...
Actually, one definition of Entropy is "the arrow of time". Time is a measure of Change, and Entropy is the direction of Change (e.g.from hot to cold)...
Yes. Some plants, such as touch-me-not & venus flytrap, are "sentient" in a very limited sense. They sense and react to touch. But we don't usually th...
Ha! Philosophy has no "settled questions", and philosophers are not content with mechanical "operational principles". So, the OP goal of encapsulating...
Consciousness and Sentience are sometimes used interchangeably. But "sentience" literally refers to sensing the environment. And AI can already to tha...
Your question hinges on your philosophical or technical definition of "Consciousness". Literally, the "-ness" suffix implies that the reference is to ...
One novel idea of Christianity that may have appealed to the upper classes as well as the downtrodden classes, was the hope for divine justice in an a...
1. A practical "difficulty" arises when a holistic (general) Philosophical question is expected to be answered in terms of reductive Scientific mechan...
I have repeatedly responded to 180's demands for empirical evidence to support the Enformationism thesis by pointing out the obvious : it's not a scie...
My personal argument in favor of Limited Free Will is based on Evolution. Like a linear clock, it continues to click in a single direction (arrow of t...
Skepticism is essential for both Science and Philosophy. But practitioners must be careful not to hobble their reasoning with self-doubt. It's a balan...
That's OK. Apparently, you prefer the self-imposed restrictions of pragmatic Science to the free-exploration of idealistic Philosophy. I don't have to...
Of course, Science Fiction explores the philosophical implications of scientific innovations, but without the self-imposed restrictions of the Scienti...
I assume that the "such things" you refer to is Kant's notion that we humans do not (cannot) know Reality directly. Instead, what we know is our own s...
The Enformationism thesis is indeed "exotic" and "non-standard". But that's only because it is on the cutting-edge of Information science & philosophy...
Cybernetics is about purposeful control and self-regulation. But it works by directing Causality (energy) into specific directions (channels) to produ...
I wouldn't worry about that assertion in the context of physical laws. The "Argument From Illusion" is a philosophical quibble, that physicists are no...
My Enformationism thesis expands the meaning of "information" beyond the "standard" bare facts, or the "technical" application of Shannon. For example...
Apparently, you missed their point. Like Energy, abstract Information does not have "feelings", but it can cause a sentient being to "feel", to experi...
Yes. From my Enformationism perspective, I interpret Plato's "Chaos" and "Form" as a wellspring of Potential from which Actual things emerge. The hypo...
Attributing a hypothetical Mind to the Big Bang, is a logical extrapolation from the cutting-edge of Information Theory. Claude Shannon removed Mind &...
My personal philosophical worldview, Enformationism, is an attempt to answer that pertinent question. It traces the lawful order of the physical world...
Biblical morality assumes that the world was created perfect, with ideal laws, but was corrupted by a couple of freed nature-slaves, who learned how t...
I find Hoffman's notion that we don't see Reality-as-ding-an-sich plausible. However, I was referring to the useful, yet imperfect, mental ability to ...
I think this description of Natural Laws makes an important point. The rational human mind "discovers" the logical functions of Nature, in part by ana...
My BothAnd worldview, based in-part on Information Theory, implies that the answer is "yes". The physical universe came into existence with "laws" bui...
Sorry! I didn't mean to offend you. Although long threads tend to inevitably stray off-topic, that was not my intention. The OP didn't explain why the...
Yes. But a materialist might disagree with the label of "presupposition", and insist that it is just an "absolute truth" or "known fact". Assuming you...
I know. But the basic idea of Cognitive Bias goes back to Socrates & Plato. It seems to be the fundamental problem in Philosophy : the root of erroneo...
I wasn't familiar with RGC, but his notion of "absolute presumptions" is interesting. In metaphysical discussions on this forum certain "presumptions"...
You must not live in the Bible Belt. The particular prejudice I referred to is not innate, but cultural --- specifically religious indoctrination. :sm...
Cognitive bias is a philosophical theory to explain why supposedly rational people make errors in judgment. But, in practice, those with different opi...
Yes. I doubt that Aristotle thought in terms of total opposition between Subjective (ideal) & Objective (real), in the modern sense. But, he seems to ...
If it was unclear, what I was implying was that your "First Principles" interpretation is one of many. So, I submitted some alternative versions of Ar...
Yes. I'm aware that Aristotle's purpose in writing the second volume of his encyclopedia on Nature, has been interpreted in various ways at various ti...
When I engage in a discussion on "metaphysics" on this forum, I begin by trying to "unburden" that venerable term from it's Catholic Scholastic baggag...
I think I understand what you are getting at : there's more than one way of looking at "Reality" : to look outward or to look inward. For example, a h...
I don't know if Fredkin & Wolfram took their proposals of a Computer Universe literally, but the obvious determinism of the Cellular Automata notion m...
That's OK. The one-eyed man fails to see in perspective, but gets by with a 2D image of the world. On this forum, we don't discriminate against the ha...
1. The path to that connection is a long story. And it's best understood by following the logic of the original thesis, as described in the Enformatio...
The primary difference between Classical and Quantum physics is that on the sub-sensory level (e.g sub-atomic) your physical senses can't detect objec...
Many of the pioneers of Quantum Theory -- (cat-killer) Schrodinger ; (buddha) Heisenberg ; Pauli ; Bohr ; Bohm ; Wigner ; Capra ; Seife ; etc. -- were...
I find that the terms "potential" and "actual" make more sense to me, as a layman, than "superposition" and "collapse". From that perspective, an unme...
Probably, no one was keeping written records of their prophecies. Yet, people tend to remember the "hits" and forget the "misses" (confirmation bias)....
Actually, there is not much money to be made in asking "why" questions. That's a philosophical query, and Philosophy is traditionally a low-income pro...
I won't comment on Pantheism. But in PanEnDeism, the difference between God & Thing is the distinction between Whole & Part, between Creator & Creatur...
Poo-Poo of Woo-Woo, also works for you, as a Pan-put-down. One answer for all philosophical conjectures beyond the self-imposed limits of Materialism....
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