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Gnomon

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I agree that most of the argumentation on this forum is futile, because we have two different definitions of Free Will. Some black & white thinkers as...
December 19, 2021 at 18:56
My personal worldview is not reality, but a mental model of what's out there. So you could call it "pretense" or "nonsense", but that label will also ...
December 19, 2021 at 18:37
Yes. That's how Cypher inferred a juicy steak, when he rejected the Hadean underworld of harsh reality to the comforting illusion of normality in the ...
December 19, 2021 at 18:16
Who is this "Will" you speak of? Do I know him? Can I introduce him to my Will? Actually, he calls himself "Me". And his screenname is "Gnomon the gna...
December 19, 2021 at 02:05
Not all anti-vaxxers are Fatalistic. Some exercised their "Free Won't", to rely on God instead of fallible doctors. That's Faith, not Fatalism. OK . ....
December 19, 2021 at 00:34
I don't personally feel a visceral need for pessimism-confirming doomsday, or dystopian post-apocalytic, scenarios. We get enough of that in popular m...
December 19, 2021 at 00:25
So you had no choice but to remain in illusory ignorance of reality. The "blue pill" is the default choice to avoid learning the hard truth of Existen...
December 18, 2021 at 19:03
Ouch! That sounds like cynical Fatalism. Whatever happened to the romantic Fatalism of the Greeks? :gasp:
December 18, 2021 at 18:44
I don't have enough personal experience with Jewish theology to answer that. But it's clear that Orthodox Jews and Muslims are dogmatically opposed to...
December 18, 2021 at 18:32
Yes. Trinity seems to be a common mystical metaphor for unity within multiplicity. But, I prefer the concept of Unity as Holism. :smile: How Ancient T...
December 18, 2021 at 01:01
So, you are a Drone controlled by Fate, or a Cyborg doing the Will of the hive? And your Artistry and Poetry are done un-consciously by an AI program....
December 18, 2021 at 00:46
Yes. I call it "FreeWill within Determinism". Free Will versus Free Won't : Since the question of conscious choice is integral to the notion of morali...
December 17, 2021 at 18:50
Yes. Physicsts must believe in a non-empirical invisible Field that is the essence of empirical Reality. Note -- just kidding. Since I believe that in...
December 17, 2021 at 18:18
Oh, I see. It's a miracle! The blind now see. The question remains though : see what? Did you take the red pill, or the blue? :cool: https://memegener...
December 17, 2021 at 18:04
That 3-in-1 doctrine was a rationalization of a logical contradiction. It was thought necessary to resolve some arguments among early Christians from ...
December 17, 2021 at 01:18
Again, my coinage of a new spelling for an old concept goes right over the reductive head. Since, by "Meta-Physical" I mean the non-physical (e.g. men...
December 17, 2021 at 00:47
Oh, I see. You put the apple of a FreeWill vs Determinism context together with the mention of a "meta-physical" orange, and concluded "metaphysical d...
December 16, 2021 at 22:39
Where did I say anything about "metaphysical determinism"? I had never heard that label until you brought it up. Apparently, you are labeling my apple...
December 16, 2021 at 18:11
Yes! But, unlike material stuff, mathematical "stuff" is a conventional idea, that only mathematicians can fully appreciate. The rest of us just have ...
December 16, 2021 at 02:29
What caused you to become a compatiblist? Did you have the option to reach a different conclusion? Can you trace an unbroken chain of causation beck t...
December 16, 2021 at 00:45
I was using the colloquial term "spooky" in the same sense as Einstein's "spooky action at a distance". He wasn't denying that something physical was ...
December 15, 2021 at 18:00
Thanks. I saved it for future reading. :smile:
December 15, 2021 at 17:32
I agree. But I also use another term to describe the relation of Mind to Brain : it's the meta-physical "Function" of the Brain's physical mechanism. ...
December 15, 2021 at 00:25
In the book I'm currently reading, The Single Simple Question . . ., the author Peter Carter says, "Although scientists no longer use the term, it tur...
December 14, 2021 at 19:14
Yes. Right now, the primary ethical regulator of major social media is the court of public opinion, led by investigative journalists. But that still l...
December 14, 2021 at 18:29
Hey! I didn't mean to offend you with my non-comprehension of your "via negativa" speculations. That approach is just as valid as my "via positiva" fo...
December 13, 2021 at 23:13
My problem with Sherlock's eliminative method is that, to be as certain as he seemed to be, you must begin negating from a position of Omniscience. Ot...
December 12, 2021 at 18:47
I get the feeling that you are talking down to me, but not dumbing-it-down enough. I'm not a Pro, merely an amateur cogitator. I have no formal traini...
December 12, 2021 at 01:58
Obviously your are not swallowing what I poke at you, and vice-versa. So, what might cause two intelligent people to have a "failure to communicate"? ...
December 12, 2021 at 01:41
Good questions! I don't pretend to know the answer to those un-verifiable metaphysical conundra. All I know is that an Aristotelian First Cause is log...
December 12, 2021 at 01:28
"Space" and "Infinity" are not physical things that can be stretched or compressed or divided. Instead, both are ideas about things (i.e. their relati...
December 11, 2021 at 01:17
FWIW, I'm guessing that Consciousness -- a Meta-Physical effect of brain processes -- does not directly affect the brain that produces it. Instead, we...
December 11, 2021 at 01:00
I apologize, if I misinterpreted your intention. I didn't intend to the un-charitable, but I was shooting in the dark, so I might have missed what I w...
December 10, 2021 at 19:31
I'm not likely to start a thread on such a broad topic, and one that is outside my limited range of expertise. But I'm happy to discuss specific examp...
December 10, 2021 at 18:35
Yes. But my thesis is based on 21st century science, with strange concepts that didn't exist eons ago. Which necessitates the use of novel tech terms,...
December 10, 2021 at 01:41
Oh yes! My head is "bloody but unbowed", as a result of encounters with anti-religionistas. But my thesis necessarily crosses the line, because tradit...
December 10, 2021 at 01:07
Surprise! I have already written an essay on that very topic. I get blow-back from lazy posters who don't care enough about philosophy to learn new id...
December 10, 2021 at 00:34
I got the implicit dismissive message of "negative metaphysics" : apparently it's intended to ban Metaphysics (i.e. anything non-physical) from philos...
December 09, 2021 at 23:50
As Wayfarer noted, I explicitly differentiate between the common definitions, and my peculiar information-based usage of that traditional philosophica...
December 09, 2021 at 00:52
I still don't grok your alternative method of "negative metaphysics", nor the assertion of "Impossiblism" or "immanentism". So, I'll reply by comparin...
December 09, 2021 at 00:38
Your idea of "meta-physics" may have value in philosophical discussions, but it isn't "metaphysics" as we normally use the word. We've been through al...
December 08, 2021 at 01:50
Sorry, Aristotle gave a definition of "soul", so perhaps I mis-spoke. Anyway, his notion of Entelechy sounds like another word for the motivating anim...
December 08, 2021 at 01:29
"genetic information" and "entelechy". I have referred to both of those ideas in my thesis. For example, I describe what Plato called Ideal FORM, in t...
December 08, 2021 at 00:21
Did you meet Elon Musk out there? I was pleasantly surprised to see how much enthusiasm there is on the forum for this contentious topic. Especially a...
December 07, 2021 at 23:12
Which includes those imaginary Quarks and Gluons, and all invisible Forces for that matter. But hey, icky & gummy crap can be used to stick & glue thi...
December 07, 2021 at 19:22
I must have missed your explication of that method. Can you summarize it for me? In what sense is it beyond physical"? Do you have a name for it? My "...
December 07, 2021 at 19:13
Close only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades. A Quark is invisible and un-measurable, so in scientific terms it's only a theory (information) in ...
December 07, 2021 at 02:18
It is imagined that two photons colliding is like a standing wave in a continuous Field of mathematical "substance". No one has ever observed such a c...
December 07, 2021 at 02:05
I agree. I am not a Cartesian Dualist. but an Information Monist. :smile: Information already has this monist/dualist BothAnd property, which could ex...
December 07, 2021 at 01:39
Now, you're just getting nasty. So, I'll back-off the stinky word "Metaphysics", and present my aromatic turkey dinner in the form of Karl Popper's no...
December 07, 2021 at 01:22