Sounds like the story of an ancient philosopher, who while walking & thinking, and looking up at the sky, fell down a well. Onlookers laughed, but it ...
Occult Mysticism and Explicit Science are two different perspectives on the same world. Holistic Mystics tend to view the world metaphorically (poetic...
I view the recurrent "clashes" between Religion and Science as an example of Hegel's Historical Dialectic. It's how Evolution works : ups & downs, but...
The Matrix may have touched on the verification problem indirectly, when someone notices a cat's movement replaying. Such "reality" defects indicate t...
Since the theory of Collective Unconscious is vaguely defined, and not amenable to scientific verification, it serves mainly as a cautionary "myth" ab...
Yes. For most animals, their "creativity" is learned by long evolutionary development, and passed-on genetically. So their "art" tends to be repetitiv...
Probably both. She looks at Biology and Physics, not as separate realms (scales & levels) of reality, but as different ways of looking at the same wor...
The Puffer-fish boudoir looks like a creative work of art. So, it might be an example of the creativity of Evolution, as discussed in the Purposes of ...
Creativity in humans may be merely a more highly developed form of evolutionary Adaptability, which allows animals to survive and reproduce. If so, it...
Since the advent of modern empirical and experimental Science, new Knowledge (What? & How?) is fairly easy to come by. But the Wisdom (Why? & Why Not?...
There won't be a detente between Science's Materialists and Religion's Spiritualists until they find some kind of common ground. For me, that common d...
The Matrix movies illustrate that philosophical quandary : how can we distinguish between the illusion and reality? Maybe that's the job of empirical ...
Oh, no, you are not alone in the middle range of worldviews. Unfortunately, that middle is a muddle, with no single moderate belief system dominating....
I've been watching some videos on YouTube : Journey to the MicroCosmos. And the minuscule single-cell organisms, swimming freely and nosing about, see...
It's true that Aristotle had nothing to say about Semiotics, or Semiosis, or Semiology in his Metaphysics. But he also had nothing to say about Quantu...
Meaningful patterns are indeed one aspect of Generic (universal ; all-encompassing) Information. But there are many more forms of Information (the pow...
Yes. That's why I define and expand-upon the many meanings of Information in my thesis and blog. :smile: Information, what is it? : http://bothandblog...
There is one significant difference between forming images on a light-sensitive Surface, and forming images in a meaning-sensitive Mind. The mental Im...
Panpsychism is also an ancient explanation for Life and Mind in the world. But my modern myth of creation involves what you could call : "Pan-Informat...
Sara Imari Walker is a theoretical physicist and astrobiologist, who is exploring the dark space between physics and biology. She is an editor, and on...
Yes. Dennett's term of derision (illusion) seems to be an indirect dismissal of Consciousness, because of its association with the religious term "Sou...
Yes. For discussions of "Consciousness", I prefer Spinoza's Substance Monism, in which the "universal substance" is Generic (all-inclusive) Informatio...
Apparently, Dennett doesn't value that mushy sentimental illusion we call "the Self", simply because it doesn't "matter", literally. :smile: Matter : ...
Good question! If the illusion of consciousness is what you experience as awareness, then for you it's your window to reality. But apparently, Dennett...
That sounds like the ancient Greek notion of Atoms & Void, something and nothing. Without void, matter could not move. Do you think somebody created t...
So, you're saying that the universe consists of the duality of, a> what exists, and b> what doesn't exist? What form does that non-existent stuff take...
Another way to look at the dualistic competition of Nature is in Hegel's notion of historical Dialectic, which has three prongs : Thesis + Antithesis ...
What does that "incompleteness" (shortcoming, fallibility) have to do with "modes of existence". The fact that humans are not omniscient, does not det...
Ha! I guess you really dislike philosophy forums, which are mostly wrangling about Semantics. Maybe you can teach us to think in terms of Semiology (s...
In my Enformationism thesis, the common denominator between Energy & Consciousness is Information. As noted in the quote from Bergson, "the elementary...
A paradox is also a relationship to external factors : truth and falsity. It asserts that a statement is True, when it is conventionally known to be F...
I explain how in the Enformationism thesis, and hundreds of blog posts. Modern physics has now shown that both Matter & Energy are forms of mathematic...
I was referring to Mental quality, not a different kind, or value, of Life.The metaphysical distinction I was making is a Qualitative difference -- a ...
I don't know what the point of such a statement might be. What is he really trying to say? That there is no such thing as a paradox? I sometimes say t...
I suspect that Deacon views the evolution of Information as a directional process. "To Intend" means to be inclined or directed-toward some goal or en...
Do you disagree with the qualitative difference, or the out-dated notion of a god-given Soul? If the latter, then we may be somewhat in agreement. :sm...
I would say that Humanity is "metaphysically divided" from animals as an Aristotelian ten-fold conceptual category. Perhaps number (3) Quality. Christ...
That is the point of my Enformationism thesis. It's not just dumb Information all the way down. Instead, it's the upward evolution of Information over...
Yes. Most of the higher animals have some form of culture, including ants & bees. But I wouldn't put them in the same category with human culture. I'm...
Yes. But the categorical difference between our own and chimp/dolphin consciousness, is that human self-awareness has created a whole new form of Evol...
The Stoic worldview quoted above is similar to my own Enformationism thesis, which is based on modern science, rather than ancient philosophical specu...
This open question reminds me of Quantum Theory. It began as a reductive search for the philosophical Atom. But, at this moment, it ends with ellipsis...
I suspect that a major difference between our worldviews is our jargon. My Enformationism thesis is primarily derived from Physics, and is only second...
Yes. The Europeans may have been less committed to the doctrine of Materialism, and more familiar with philosophical Metaphysics. Around the beginning...
In my Enformationism thesis, that "underlying something" is mundane Information. But not just the uncertain (entropy) Information that Shannon made fa...
In my Enformationism thesis, I get around that apparent dilemma, by using a more modern understanding of the fundamental element of both Mind and Matt...
Yes. Deacon is trying to maintain his credentials as a scientist, even as he crosses the Cartesian line between Soul & Body. But the Matter/Mind "line...
Philosophy is indeed a mind-game or personal pastime. And some scientists call philosophers "feckless", because their introverted activities typically...
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