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Gnomon

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Of course. Where else would they come from? And I can only assume that G*D is conscious in some sense, since "feeling/consciousness" exists in He/r cr...
March 27, 2020 at 21:37
I suspect the higher evaluation of Actual compared to Potential is similar to the proverb that "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush". On the o...
March 27, 2020 at 18:03
For a more complete understanding of that analogy you'd have to be familiar with my Enformationism worldview. Ultimately, everything in this world is ...
March 27, 2020 at 17:29
I again believe in G*D, but not in any particular religion or theology. Because I can "explain feelings/consciousness" with "spiritually sounding expl...
March 26, 2020 at 22:22
Ancient humans, in a natural world "red in tooth and claw", and animated with spooky invisible forces, probably felt more vulnerable than us sophistic...
March 26, 2020 at 17:28
When someone is called an "intellectual", the reference is usually not to invisible IQ, but to overt behavior. The most obvious difference between Int...
March 25, 2020 at 17:27
I think you may have confused the pain-reliever technology Neuralace, with the man-machine interface Neurolink. Neither is intended to treat mental is...
March 24, 2020 at 17:35
It seems that Post-Enlightenment Science gradually but deliberately abandoned the philosophical search for moral truths, in order to focus on facts th...
March 23, 2020 at 17:42
Perhaps the original quote was saying something like Hume's ironic assessment : "Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions". Dostoevsky...
March 23, 2020 at 00:49
Of course, each culture has its own local myths of death and afterlife. Some, such as Egyptians, originally viewed death as final, except for kings & ...
March 23, 2020 at 00:21
A Borg-like future for humanity may be possible, but not inevitable. It's an option that could be accepted or rejected based on communal values. Unles...
March 22, 2020 at 17:51
According to the Wiki article linked below, the Hebrew word "Sheol" may have been derived from the Akkadian (Mesopotamian) word "shuwala". Both cultur...
March 22, 2020 at 17:26
Yes. I read it in Cuneiform. Just kidding, I'm not that old. My original interest in the epic was because it seemed to backup the Genesis account of a...
March 22, 2020 at 03:36
FWIW : These are just a few personal opinions on the brain/mind paradox : # The brain is not caused by the mind. The brain causes the mind. The causal...
March 21, 2020 at 18:03
Amen, brother! In my worldview, our space-time existence is due neither to A> random spontaneity, nor to B> linear divine command & response, but to a...
March 21, 2020 at 00:05
Would you like to contribute a different metaphor for Cosmic or Human Teleology that is more useful than a step-by-step-process directed toward a spec...
March 20, 2020 at 21:45
Apparently, the term "mechanism" violates your understanding of mental processes. Functionally, a mechanism is just a specialized process or procedure...
March 20, 2020 at 17:07
This was my definition of the "mechanism" of logical Inference : "Inferences are the product of a metaphorical step-by-step logical "mechanism", not a...
March 19, 2020 at 23:20
Yes. I am both a Monist (the universal "substance" is Information), and a Dualist (in the real world Information exists in both physical and metaphysi...
March 19, 2020 at 17:32
I don't know what you're talking about. Please explain "intrinsic teleology and extrinsic teleology". Are these distinctions necessitated by some spec...
March 18, 2020 at 03:07
Who said it wasn't? Inferences are the product of a metaphorical step-by-step logical "mechanism", not a physical mechanism. Who said anything about "...
March 18, 2020 at 02:51
Sounds like "raising consciousness" by "opening the third eye". Does that kind of dimensional "enlightenment" come from deep mindless meditation, or c...
March 17, 2020 at 18:00
"Subjectively relate to possibilities" sounds like extrasensory perception, or simple imagination. If the "evidence" is invisible --- "But they are no...
March 17, 2020 at 17:54
The human brain certainly has the necessary "mechanism" for inference : for putting 2 and 2 together and inferring 4. But even many animals have that ...
March 17, 2020 at 17:38
???Does not compute. If I don't observe a thing or event, how could I perceive any potential that is relevant to those non-entities? By extrasensory p...
March 16, 2020 at 17:48
Whoa! Curb your enthusiasm for Humanistic Naturalism. I doubt that Piaget made such an absolute equation of Nature & Nurture. His opinion was more of ...
March 15, 2020 at 21:58
OK. But that spherical reference went right over my pointy head. :razz: If the "dimensional awareness" is not an "entity", what is it, a phenomenon? I...
March 15, 2020 at 17:54
Come on, "-billi-"! Don't complicate my simple mundane analogy with cubic possi-bili-ties. :grin: If the "relational structures" that cause the appear...
March 15, 2020 at 03:00
Intuition is sub-conscious inference. It's sometimes described as "the brain on autopilot". It's how we do most of of our routine everyday thinking. I...
March 14, 2020 at 18:11
If the Output is equal to the Input, there is no sign of Purpose, only Function. The distinction between "Function" and "Purpose" lies in what happens...
March 12, 2020 at 23:27
Thanks. That is exactly what I have in mind, when I bow to necessity for a First Cause that set Nature on its current course. The law-guided program o...
March 12, 2020 at 17:39
The forceful wording was tongue-in-cheek, because I'm aware that some people view humans as a cancer on the natural world. So those "trigger words" mi...
March 12, 2020 at 17:15
Well put! Humans collectively are the apex Witnesses, Weavers, and Workers of the World. Our job, our role in the evolving universe, is to know & appr...
March 11, 2020 at 17:39
I would make a distinction between the mechanical function of a body part, and the teleological purpose of the whole person. Function is simply a cons...
March 10, 2020 at 17:34
I enjoyed the opportunity to respond to skeptical questions about a topic that is important to me (existence; ontology), and which is not addressed by...
March 05, 2020 at 17:59
Aristotle wrote the book on humor in the Poetics : contrasting Tragedy with Comedy. Everything since has been footnotes to Aristotle. In his discussio...
March 05, 2020 at 00:57
It's based on the same assumption that Plato and Aristotle made. In my thesis, I refer to the necessity of a First Cause as an Axiom (self-evidently t...
March 05, 2020 at 00:44
By simple Logic. If the First Cause is prior-to and has the power to create a process of Natural Causation, it is by definition superior to Nature, he...
March 04, 2020 at 18:16
For some Theists, scientific evidence is irrelevant. But for Intelligent Design advocates, the discovery that the expanding universe can be traced bac...
March 04, 2020 at 04:08
Google search on "cosmologist big bang instant" to see where scientists use the term "instant" in reference to the sudden beginning of the universe. T...
March 03, 2020 at 17:19
There is a specific reason to think the universe was created. Before the Big Bang theory, scientists could just assume that the physical world was ete...
March 03, 2020 at 02:15
If you accept one "miracle claim" in an ancient text, on what basis could you reject other claims? We may be "free to choose" randomly, but that's not...
February 29, 2020 at 18:10
"A group of people guessing at random" would require millions of guesses to get close to the correct answer. But a small group of experts, who are pre...
February 29, 2020 at 17:37
Obviously, the usual motive of Old Testament prophets was not to dispassionately record history, or to predict events thousands of years later. Instea...
February 27, 2020 at 19:06
No. Actually, I do believe that many people sincerely believe in such things, because they have experiences that they interpret as supernatural or par...
February 26, 2020 at 18:46
Unfortunately, another man's subjective experiences are not proofs, but assertions to be taken on faith. Yet it's undeniable that people who strongly ...
February 25, 2020 at 18:18
Yes. That's why I refer to the presumed Creator of space-time as BEING. Not a creature, but the unlimited potential for creation of creatures. BEING i...
February 25, 2020 at 17:56
Our experiences of "reality" are quite different. My world is boringly normal & natural compared to yours. I can only explain your dream-like worldvie...
February 24, 2020 at 17:46
The link to "Grandiosity" was a reference to Caesar-wannabe Presidents and Anthropomorphic Gods who require regular ego-pumps to keep their self-image...
February 24, 2020 at 17:37
For an eternal entity, it's true that anything is possible, but only that which is temporal and physical is actual. So, for our actualized world, G*D ...
February 23, 2020 at 19:18