My comment omitted an important qualifier. It should have said "but not enough to be found legally guilty". So yes, legal responsibility requires obje...
Yes. But then, the "God" question is the ultimate philosophical game. Science asks relatively soft "how" questions that are amenable to hard evidence....
Ironically, Deacon's notion of Purposeful or "Causal Absence" sounds a lot like the ancient notion of "Invisible Spirits" (Animism), which caused real...
The author of the referenced book seems to agree with you. The existence of anything invisible & intangible must be inferred from circumstantial evide...
I don't accept the Bible as the "word of God". That's why I was interested in an argument that uses Mathematics, instead of Scripture, as evidence for...
I have now. Or at least, the linked synopsis. Ironically, I assume that Nominalists take the fourth method as their guide. But they interpret the inte...
Since it declined into name-calling at the end, I resurrect this thread with trepidation, simply to add my two-cents-worth on the question of gambling...
That question is subject to debate, depending on various personal moralities. And that's what a philosophical forum is for. But, I will note, that in ...
I assume that the "meaning" of your comments was to go on record that, as a layman, you doubt the opinion of of an "expert" on a topic that he studies...
Some people use "perception" and "conception" interchangeably. But dictionaries make a key distinction : "Conception" is a mental interpretation of ra...
Yes. Humans can imagine functions for things unseen. That is why we create new tools for purposes that are not yet doable. :smile: Tools : A tool is a...
And how do you account for our greater "perception"? I suspect that you meant "conception". Human perception is widely acknowledged to be inferior to ...
Sorry to interrupt your exit. Maybe, like a stage performer, you can take a second and third bow. :joke: OK. I'll bite. In what sense are mental Abstr...
I don't think YOU have to worry about experiencing Block Time. In Eternity & Infinity there is no Change, no Time or Space, to be experienced. Our sen...
Yes. Deacon provides many illustrations of meaningful "Absence" in the world. Our understanding of the number "Zero" was long delayed, because the not...
Can you elaborate? I'm not very familiar with Pierce's writing. What little I've tried to read is way over my head. But I too, make a distinction betw...
Note that I mentioned both our Brain Size (quantity) and our Brain Complexity (quality) as partial explanations for human dominance in the world. If y...
The tendency to prejudge individuals and groups seems to be innate for humans, in part because quick categorizations proved advantageous for survival ...
The founders of modern materialistic Science deliberately limited their investigations to Specific and Reductive elements of reality. In doing so, the...
Yes. That seems to be the meaning of Deacon's term "Absence" ; the pull of the future, so to speak. Apparently, only humans can imagine a non-existent...
Yes. Materialistic Science has learned a lot about human physiology, much of which which we share with our ape cousins, who are quite clever as animal...
The human mind instinctively looks for common features (general traits) in its environment, as an aid to categorizing the relationships of parts to wh...
Are you familiar with the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico? It's a think-tank and research center for Complex Adaptive Systems. And that includes huma...
Actually, in Physics there are many disparate definitions of fundamental Particles. And the bottom line is that "we don't know" what they are. "We" do...
Of course, Human Nature doesn't "exist" in a materialistic concrete sense. It's a generalization, and an abstraction. So, it's not a testable empirica...
Thanks, but I wasn't biting anyway. :wink: Do virtual particles actually physically exist? : Thus virtual particles exist only in the mathematics of t...
No. That's not even close to what I said. I'm simply offering my opinion : that the phenomena ancient sages explained in terms of "Spirit" is now expl...
Ouch! It hurts when you throw my words back in my face. But, I cannot deny that I wrote those words. So, I stand by them. :joke: However, where in tho...
You probably got depressed because you were trying to view the space-time universe from a hypothetical eternal-infinite God's perspective, outside of ...
Ironically, something similar to "Ectoplasm" and "Spiritual Energy" has been detected and analyzed, not in chemical or biological labs, but in modern ...
How did you get those medieval notions from my definitions of Meta-Physics? I suspect that's your definition, and you are ignoring mine. I understand ...
Power of Absence : And I view his “Absence” as a religiously neutral term for what used to be known as incorporeal “Spirit”. http://bothandblog4.enfor...
After all his astute reasoning on "Consciousness", he concluded that it is an "introspective illusion". But even "illusions" are mental states, and "i...
Yes. He was like those who deny the existence of immaterial Minds, even as they use their abstract reasoning to produce imaginary reasons why there is...
No. Intention as the cause of goal-oriented human behavior was defined long before the anti-religious hyper-materialism emerged to disentangle Science...
Do you think it's "objectionable" for a philosopher to disambiguate an ancient term with centuries of misleading accretions? I doubt that precision-of...
Isn't that how philosophy is done : first define your terms, then make your argument? I was forced to define the concept of "non-physical" or "virtual...
I have no training in Physics, beyond 101 courses, and 50 years of reading science. So, I am aware that, officially, the science of Physics does not c...
Which do you prefer : the simple vernacular definition of MP, or the various abstruse mathematical definitions? I post links to the definitions used b...
Newton's gravity was imagined as a pulling force, that was different from all other forces, which push. Einstein's gravity is not a "force", so you ca...
No. The common vernacular definition of "metaphysics" is "supernatural". But that is not the philosophical definition, nor how I use the term in my th...
Yes. As indicated in some my links above, modern Quantum Physics has crossed the line between absolute Newtonian physics, and relative Einsteinian phy...
I'm not so sure that the "Patristic Fathers" made more sense than later Theologians. But, since the "early founders" lived prior to the Imperial Roman...
Solipsism and the Problem of Other Minds : A modern philosopher cannot evade solipsism under the Cartesian picture of consciousness without accepting ...
"Time" is real, in the sense that the concept exists in human imagination, within the context of Reality. But Time is not out-there in physical 3D spa...
Physics asks "how" Nature works, and does not attempt to answer "why" questions. That is the purview of Metaphysics and Philosophy. So, the study of p...
Yes. Even theologians are uncomfortable with irrational "blind faith" as the only evidence for their deity of choice. So, eight centuries later, some ...
How's this for logic? Prejudice blocks our minds from "an area we have yet to consider." :cool: Of Superposition and Solipsism : Indeed, an answer to ...
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