Hopefully, semi-sentient but heartless AI will be able to scan your words, and summarize them, without a personal agenda, to warp your intended meanin...
Personally, I have a very parochial view of the world. Except for four years in the navy, my body, with its sensory organs, has seldom experienced the...
I too, have no training as a philosopher, and most of my relevant reading prior to retirement has been in the empirical sciences : especially Quantum ...
Obviously, the human mind is doing the measuring in terms of locally conventional increments. But the point is that the physical universe existed long...
Yes, according to modern cosmology, the physical universe existed for about 10 billion years without any animation or "cognition" : just malleable mat...
I think your Epistemological approach is more appropriate for a philosophy forum, than the Empirical methods that some advocate. Besides, the Uncertai...
As the dictionary noted, Philosophy is the "study" of Nature, including human nature. And it has produced many "theories" for thinking about the probl...
I'm not very well-versed in Phenomenology. But it points to a key difference in worldviews upon which many of the contentious posts on this forum pivo...
FWIW, one kind of Mental Causation is defined in the science of Cybernetics : "Cybernetics is the study of goal directed systems that receive feedback...
Like Deacon, I try to stay close to the scientific evidence in order to avoid picturing the Cosmic Cause as a Biblical Creator, magically producing a ...
I just came across a quote in physicist James Glattfelder's 2025 book on The Emergence of Information, Consciousness, and Meaning. After discussing En...
Yes. Enformationism*1 is similar in some ways to ancient World Soul and Panpsychism worldviews. But it's based on modern science, specifically Quantum...
That is indeed "the problem" for explaining Purpose & Emergence in reductive physical terms. Which is why philosophers use holistic Meta-Physical term...
A "weak"*1 scientific interpretation of evolution from simple to complex is specifically formulated to avoid any metaphysical (teleological or theolog...
The myth of god/human sacrifice probably made more sense back in the day, when animal sacrifices were mandatory for many official religions. And the o...
I guess that myth-makers create their god-stories for the same reason parents tell their own children about the tooth fairy : to get compliance withou...
The Materialist explanation for the evolutionary emergence of animated & motivated matter is based on random accidents : that if you roll the dice oft...
I live in a conservative Southern state, so even city-dwellers tend toward the right-wing. But mainly what I meant by that remark was that the country...
Same in the US. See map below. Aesop's fables (500BC) enshrined that political polarization in the story of the liberal City Mouse and the conservativ...
Since Philosophy is primarily the study of Metaphysics (meaning), its practitioners are more likely to focus on the subject than the object on any top...
Some Utopian sci-fi stories envision such a global, or solar-system-wide, or multi-galaxy foundation based on some form of representative or direct de...
The electro-magnetic Potential of an AA battery is "found" in the order (organization ; structure : chemistry) of the metals & bases within. But scien...
Seems to prefer the "how?" questions of Physical Science to the "why?" questions of Meta-Physical Philosophy. Ironically, some "how?" thinkers will ad...
My worldview imagines that the world is on "auto-pilot", and that internal control-system, Natural Law, seems to be functioning properly to keep the c...
That is the problem with our current socio-economic system : money & power have become separated from political responsibility. The Oligarchs only hav...
Imagine that you could look inside a computer, to observe the micron-scale transistors blinking on & off, processing billions of bits of meaningless 1...
Yes. My information-theoretic thesis says that human Consciousness is just one of many forms of Energy-transfer and Information-sharing. Atoms are kno...
In the OP, the economic math revealed invisible structures within the complexities of the world economic systems : One example is Ownership Networks :...
No. I'm making broad philosophical/metaphorical associations, and using modern terminology to describe ancient hierarchical organizations. The point i...
Yes. I was using the term "democracy" loosely. That's why I referred to Communism as "an extreme form of representative Democracy" where the party sym...
I can see why you might think that. But Properties*1 are not Laws. Laws are limitations on change. And they are known only by rational inference from ...
For my philosophical purposes, I further define Consciousness as human subjective experience. That's the only type of awareness we forum posters have ...
I assume you are talking about the difference between a material Brain (noun) and its mental Functions (verb). Actions have consequences, but no physi...
The "distinction" is between the physical Brain and its meta-physical function : Minding is what a Brain does. When I refer to Mind as "Meta-Physical"...
My own Enformationism thesis, coming from a different background --- quantum physics & information theory --- reaches a similar conclusion : that ther...
How then, do you define Consciousness? Sentience*1 applies to most living creatures, but Consciousness*2, in the sense of self-awareness, seems limite...
I agree with the intent, but interpret the words differently. Based in part on scientific Quantum & Information theories, I have come to believe that ...
In the Judeo-Christian-Muslim traditions, God is wholly other*1 (Holy), so to equate oneself with God would be blasphemy. Therefore, Christian Mystics...
Kudos for clearly & concisely summarizing a vexing question of modern philosophy. Ancient people, with their worldview limited by the range of human s...
Since my First Cause, Prime Mover, G*D is imagined as both transcendent and immanent, the only rmanifestation of G*D is the living Cosmos itself. Henc...
Partly due to my austere non-mystical fundamentalist Christian religious up-bringing, and partly due to my rational pragmatic personality, I have neve...
I am aware of how Mysticism is supposed to work. But I am not a mystic, by religious training, or by natural inclination, and I've never taken Psyched...
Yes. I'm aware that Mysticism has always been on the periphery of official Catholicism. But if mystics want to remain on good terms with officialdom, ...
I wasn't familiar with those technical terms, so I Googled Theistic Personalism*1. And that is definitely not anything like my own god-model, which is...
From the OP reference to Classical Theism*1, I assumed that you wanted to revisit Catholic Scholasticism from the 12th to 16th centuries CE --- before...
I suppose you mean a Functionalist*1, as opposed to a Behaviorist or Materialist or some other theory of Consciousness. Technically, a Function is the...
Since you opened the door to alternative concepts of God, I'll mention a chapter in the book --- by James B. Glattfelder (physicist turned quantitativ...
The OP topic sounds like a reference to intellectual debates between two opposite standpoints : Theism (God is) vs Atheism (no god). Did you intend to...
I'll let Aristotle experts argue about what he means by "pure from all admixture". Maybe he was thinking of Mind/Soul as the Ideal Form (actualizing p...
I get the irony of both sides of the God Argument claiming human Reason as their agent to prove or disprove the existence of our modern invisible inta...
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