You are viewing the historical archive of The Philosophy Forum.
For current discussions, visit the live forum.
Go to live forum

Gnomon

Comments

Of course it is. Because the principle was observed from the perspective of humans. Everything people do is anthropocentric. What else would you expec...
May 17, 2021 at 18:14
That is a common short-hand assumption, but it simply ignores the "artificial" in Artificial Intelligence. The artist, whose intelligence is imparted ...
May 17, 2021 at 17:43
So who makes the "selection" -- mindless Nature? A Selection is a voluntary Choice between alternatives, based on a value system. The "no mind behind ...
May 17, 2021 at 17:26
The main problem with my thesis of an intentionally created universe is this : why? And why leave us, the apex creatures, in the dark about where & wh...
May 16, 2021 at 17:48
Sounds like Atheist = God. :joke: I think that the crux of the Creation question is that ultimately something must have been self-created in order for...
May 15, 2021 at 17:52
Are you suggesting that humans can do what the bible-god couldn't : create a system that gradually evolves toward a more perfect world? I'm not a card...
May 15, 2021 at 17:45
That's exactly why Pantheists and PanEnDeists equate G*D with Nature. As Spinoza concluded, "god sive nature" : god or nature, same thing -- no distin...
May 15, 2021 at 17:10
Maybe. But are they predictable? And what does that have to do with the OP? Regarding Non-linear Dynamic Systems, neuroscientist Terrence Deacon discu...
May 15, 2021 at 17:00
That's a fact, Jack! And, as Banno said : "Natural selection is not random, nor chance". The Greeks vaguely understood that Nature was characterized b...
May 14, 2021 at 23:50
Scientists used to focus on the Random Mutation element of Darwinian Evolution, probably because it eliminated any notion of divine creation. But, esp...
May 14, 2021 at 21:58
Scientists used to focus on the Random Mutation element of Darwinian Evolution, probably because it eliminated any notion of divine creation. But, esp...
May 14, 2021 at 17:53
My personal worldview is based on the Enformationism thesis, which postulates that Generic Information (generates all forms) is the "Universal Substan...
May 12, 2021 at 16:55
As far back as the Egyptians, people have analyzed their "being" into various categories : Emotions, Personality, Essence, and Life Force. But Descart...
May 10, 2021 at 17:38
I'd like to say that. But the popularity of Donald Trump's ongoing "make America great again" crusade, seems to have revived some feelings of American...
May 09, 2021 at 17:02
I suspect that, after WWII, national cohesion and jingoist patriotism began to wane. Now, former empires and sovereign nations seem to be fragmenting ...
May 08, 2021 at 17:30
My general worlview agrees with (1) in that it is finite and knowable. But since the advent of Quantum Theory, (2) randomness is also characteristic o...
May 08, 2021 at 17:20
I'm not an Egyptologist, but my impression is that they didn't have a concept of abstract "Mind", in the modern sense, as associated with the brain. T...
May 08, 2021 at 16:40
The ancient Egyptians, who taught the Greeks a lot about spirituality and magic, associated the Soul with the human Heart, not the brain. They had no ...
May 07, 2021 at 17:14
The notion of "having" a mind, reminded me of Peter Pan, who "had" a shadow. Unfortunately, like some Souls, it kept wandering away from his body. So ...
May 05, 2021 at 17:15
It's difficult for humans to approach any momentous question "neutrally". Instead, most of us -- myself included -- rely on Motivated Reasoning in ord...
May 04, 2021 at 16:59
For me, the purpose of Philosophy (quest for wisdom) is to figure out what's wrong-with-the-world, in order to do something about it. Mis-using Nature...
May 03, 2021 at 16:54
My personal experience with "accounts" of life-after-death was the Christian doctrine of Resurrection. It had the same general effect as Reincarnation...
May 03, 2021 at 16:36
You are probably correct that the historical origin of the Reincarnation hypothesis arose in some of the older civilizations. The Egyptians, and later...
May 02, 2021 at 17:33
I doubt that the conscious Mind is literally an electro-magnetic field. If it was, we could easily learn how to read minds, just as we tune our radios...
May 02, 2021 at 02:10
I'm not well read on the topic of Reincarnation, but I do have a general hypothesis for why the theory of body-hopping souls arose among philosophers ...
May 01, 2021 at 18:28
I suspect that scientist's "hostility" to the notion of a Mind Field, that might extend beyond the brain or body, is due to its similarity to New Age ...
April 27, 2021 at 17:43
Apparently you missed the point of my post. I said Tim Wood's Physical worldview was "neat & tidy". So the implication was that your Metaphysical view...
April 26, 2021 at 17:55
Like a breath of fresh air, after the stifling atmosphere of circular philosophical argumentation, I enjoy the clear-eyed views of Tim Wood's terse, a...
April 25, 2021 at 18:05
My own personal philosophical worldview, Enformationism, is intended to be naturalistic, except that it requires a conscious First Cause, which existe...
April 25, 2021 at 17:03
I suspect that the reviews you referred to were negative, due to the slightly New-Agey tone of his book. New Age guru, Deepak Chopra, was much more po...
April 22, 2021 at 17:42
That equation of Real and Illusory may be true in one sense, but it seems to be based on a loose use of terminology. I prefer to make a comparison bet...
April 21, 2021 at 17:06
My characterization of Entropy as Energy's weak point, was not concerned with Time. Instead, it was based on their opposite "reciprocal" roles in Evol...
April 19, 2021 at 17:58
Yes. Although I am not religious, I would hope that scientists could come-up with something better than the Multiverse theory --- which doesn't attemp...
April 18, 2021 at 17:44
In my personal philosophical worldview, Enformationism, I do focus on the ubiquitous role of Energy as the active agency that is constantly enforming ...
April 18, 2021 at 17:03
If I understand what you are implying, I must whole-heartedly agree. In my own theory of Creation via Evolution, our world has grown from a tiny fetus...
April 16, 2021 at 17:49
Hmmm. Interesting concept. But, it sounds like the "self-simulation problem" raised by computer science. Obviously, a computer or brain can create a m...
April 14, 2021 at 23:20
In: Pantheism  — view comment
My philosophical worldview PanEnDeism, is historically related to PanTheism. However, due to its secular mindset, mine is not a traditional religious ...
April 13, 2021 at 18:29
OK. I bow to your authority on Spinoza's written beliefs. But, for the purpose of my own "quixotic metaphysics", I'll still consider him to be an hono...
April 07, 2021 at 22:43
As I said in my previous reply, I'm not really familiar with Schopenhauer's philosophy. But I just read an article that mentioned his concept of The W...
April 07, 2021 at 17:25
I agree, that if the "substance" of our world was infinite & eternal, it would be God per se, as in Pantheism. However, since we have discovered, long...
April 06, 2021 at 17:28
I have no formal philosophical training, and I've never read any of Schopenhauer's works. But my guess is that his notion of "Cosmic Will" is more lik...
April 06, 2021 at 16:49
See my reply to above.
April 06, 2021 at 01:01
I had never heard of Acosmism before. It seems that almost every philosopher, who tries to pigeonhole Spinoza's novel belief system, comes up with a n...
April 06, 2021 at 00:54
Spinoza's worldview is often equated to PanPsychism, but I think PanTheism or PanDeism or even PanEnDeism (PED) are more accurate labels. PanPsychism ...
April 04, 2021 at 17:44
That sounds OK intuitively. But it's not how a physicist would describe it. What we experience as a pulling or squishing Force, according to Einstein,...
April 04, 2021 at 03:20
Gravity is a strange property of "curved" space. Perhaps gravitational waves are merely regular short "curves" propagating through space. Unfortunatel...
April 03, 2021 at 22:11
When light impacts matter it usually transfers some of its energy to the impactee. But a reflective surface, like a mirror, seems to act like rubber t...
April 03, 2021 at 22:07
The concept of recording historical information in waves of Photons, sounds similar to the notion of information "imprinted" upon gravitational waves ...
April 03, 2021 at 17:59
Like any other quantum particles, Photons can become entangled. But I don't know if that coupled state can be used to record arbitrary information, be...
April 03, 2021 at 17:37
You may be led astray by some interpretations of PanPsychism, in which every particle in the world has "experiences". But, I'm afraid that a lonely ph...
April 02, 2021 at 22:11