Gnomon

He doesn't. It's a metaphor.

I don't pretend to know what Socrates meant by that assertion, but I don't take it literally. Perhaps he was referring to the metaphor that man is a m...

That's why philosophers are forever defining and redefining terms. :smile:

By "logical" I meant "rational", in the sense of : defined by ratios and proportions. That definition includes emotions and human values, since in Enf...

I'm only superficially familiar with Simulated World theories, and mostly with those of Tegmark's Mathematical Universe and the Matrix movie. But I no...

That's probably why you are unhappy. Your black & white belief makes happiness impossible. Philosophical optimism does not deny the duality of reality...

I have no idea what Pierce meant by "negation". But there is an important distinction between NOT (contradiction) and NOT (absence), The latter is an ...

That's understandable, because field theory crosses the line from material Physics into immaterial Metaphysics. The "field" is just a hypothetical "pl...

Apparently, when you say "structural" relationship, you are actually referring to an immaterial "logical" or mathematical relationship : this is relat...

Apparently, I misunderstood your intention for this thread as similar to my own usage of the term "Field" to denote the distinction between Realism an...

Hoffman has responded to many of the objections raised against his earlier presentations in his latest book : The Case Against Reality. I recently pos...

Do you mean that I don't make a clear distinction between them? If so, that's probably because my BothAnd philosophy is Holistic, and looks for common...

I agree. But, in my reply to Trooper, I was referring to the typical non-scientist's acceptance of the materialist worldview --- as it relates to Scie...

I didn't feel disrespected --- just misunderstood; in that you think I'm ignoring Science. Your knowledge of my thesis may be limited to the few posts...

I use my own coined terms (neologisms) specifically because of the broad range and technical complexity of the subject. Enformationism is Science, Rel...

The book doesn't say who wrote the book about a Jewish prophet. What makes you think it was written by a Babylonian king? How would you prove it eithe...

If that materialistic worldview gives you a feeling of contentment, join the club. It's the default worldview of most simple-minded humans since time ...

Exactly. That's why Aristotle didn't make a hard distinction between the topic of Nature (physics), and the topic of Human Nature (metaphysics). It wa...

If the term "Information" can refer to both topics, why not use a term that combines them into a single concept? My BothAnd philosophy is similar to t...

I'll quibble with your equation of "science" with "physics". Actually, the general term "science" simply refers to knowledge. And that knowledge can b...

For a modern prophecy to be verified is relatively easy. For example, Herbert W. Armstrong claimed to to be a prophet, and he predicted (in writing) t...

On my blog, I just posted a book review of Donald Hoffman's, The Case Against Reality, which makes an attempt to explain human consciousness in a mann...

In my personal worldview, Enformationism, I place all the various fields postulated by quantum theorists under the heading of a general Information Fi...

FWIW, here's a link to the book review on my blog : http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page21.html

I wasn't referring to the Logicism of Analytic philosophy, but to the Greek notion that there is some absolute Truth, equivalent to Ideal Proportions,...

I'm afraid I won't be of much help in developing the detailed aspects of your game. Russell and Whitehead began their Universe of Discourse with Set T...

See my response to Mapping the Medium. Yes. In the infancy of humanity, the concept of an immaterial Soul was a serious philosophical explanation for ...

Thoughts, presented in Enformationism terms, inspired by your comments : That reasoning is how ancient people constructed the notion of an immortal So...

The notion that quantum queerness has something to do with the "hard problem" of Consciousness has recently become almost mainstream in Science. But t...

You are probably correct that we tend to end-up near where we started out. The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree. But it's in the details where we ...

Probably both. It's the old Nature vs Nurture conundrum. I have seen many scientific observations which imply that our basic physicality and personali...

Most philosophical and religious traditions assume that each human individual has a unique essence (a Soul) that defines him and distinguishes him fro...

I assume we make an exception to the rule of binary genders for people like Ellen, because we realize they are not talking about objective morphology,...

Biological science does indeed assume two fundamental genders. But it also has found genes that don't fit neatly into the simple binary assumption. Be...

As I said before, Berlinski seems to be a contrarian by nature --- it's the essence of his personality. In the book, he describes his younger self as ...

Yes. Years ago I intuitively realized that the evolving world seemed to be directed by some kind of "active agency", rather than by random accidents. ...

If you are talking about the "essence" of a human person in the sense of a distinctive Self or Soul, I suspect that Berlinski would disagree. But sinc...

Apparently, Berlinski believes that mainstream biologists are biased in favor of atheistic interpretations of the genetic evidence. Hence, not to be t...

I'm reading the book, Human Nature, in order to get a different perspective on Essentialism from the usual Darwinian concept of continuous evolution, ...

I'm still reading the book by David Berlinsky, Human Nature, so I've come to realize that he's not primarily concerned with most of the sex/gender top...

Good point. The argument between Conservatives (religious & political) and Progressives seems to be about the scientific deconstruction of what one si...

Actually, Google is all-knowing. What would you like to know? What would you like to say? I'm listening. :smile:

I'm not a Spiritualist in the sense you intend. Instead, I am an Enformationist, in the sense that reality is not haunted by spooky spirits, but cause...

Aristotle asserted that physical objects are compounds of Matter and Form. My understanding is that he was making a distinction between the physical p...

That's also why I am a Deist. All religions of the world are based on philosophical attempts to explain both the regularities and the vagaries of Natu...

I knew that Aristotle had some vague concept of a Soul, but was not aware of the term "active intellect" or "agent intellect". I can see that these te...

So you're saying that the regularities of Nature, that Science depends on, are not universal laws, but merely conditional habits? I suspect that posit...

Please give me a reference to one of those examples. I'm not concerned with the religious implications; just the philosophical reasoning. Actually, I ...

Don't overthink it. The intended goal may be general, but the final outcome will be specific. That's the case in any learning endeavor. You begin with...

Following the Socratic method I assume. :smile: You may have misinterpreted my use of "normative". What I had in mind is that in Evolution, natural la...