If people had just "taken it", carried on as usual and not bothered about shaving a few points off the demographics, things would be merrily steaming ...
If you can't be mistaken about something, doesn't that entail certainty? Sure, but nobody's come up with anything since Descartes. I think he's right ...
Several reasons: 1. Preservation of the species. No species is going to keep all their eggs in one basket, if they can avoid it. The universe is full ...
You can't be mistaken that you're conscious and have a mind. You could be wrong about the properties of your own mind, or about what, exactly, conscio...
OK, any species that has evolved in this universe will prioritize self-preservation and the survival of the species above practically all else, and wi...
The only thing we know for certain is there is at least one conscious mind. Everything else is speculation with no justifiable foundation. The reality...
I think we've seen enough now to conclude it's probably just us. If advanced alien life existed even in tiny numbers, the universe is old enough for t...
You think a mind that can't be conscious can exist? That would be far different from what we commonly think of when we refer to minds. What would the ...
Before we get any further, we have a fundamental disagreement here. You think mental state(s) aren't a necessary condition for knowledge? How would th...
Yes, I know it wasn't Chalmers. Zombie Mary might have the same reaction, but I don't see how that affects the anti-physicalist conclusions people oft...
I like Chalmers. I think Mary's Room is an excellent thought experiment. It seems so obvious to me that Mary learns something new through the experien...
Except that I believe you exist. I just don't think you're made of matter. That doesn't make you immune from being wrong, or stop from me having an op...
It's impossible to know if other minds exist, of course. But I assume they do, because solipsism would be depressing. I certainly have no evidence aga...
I don't need to be a materialist to have an opinion about an absurdity contained within it. I have opinions on lots of irrational things contained wit...
The existence of conscious minds is the most surprising thing about this universe, I think. It needs an explanation and science is failing spectacular...
It's more like: how can you not see the absurdity. But I guess you can't. I'm sorry, I don't remember this question. I bailed on this thread awhile ba...
A theory that allows for the possibility that a universe of conscious beings could be simulated by moving physical rocks around is a theory that is lu...
No, it's an explanation: Why do we see no aliens or evidence of them? There aren't any. We're in a simulation. It would take too much computing power....
The Rare Earth hypothesis doesn't have to do with US being special, it has to do with the conditions and/or planet that made us possible being special...
Reductio ad absurdum is a valid move in philosophy. If materialism entails that consciousness can arise from people passing notes around with 1's and ...
Yes, the odds of this particular me existing are very remote. Everything had to work out right. But this particular me is pretty "average" and "medioc...
The habitable conditions here aren't "average" in any sense. If they were, the universe would be teeming with advanced intelligent life. Either the co...
There are other explanations for that. For the rare earth hypothesis to work, life like us would have to be vanishingly rare. That requires an extreme...
One of the reasons our rivers don't catch on fire anymore is because of government environmental regulations. Also, look up the Montreal Protocol. And...
No, the need for government, particularly a centralized world government with actual authority, is stronger than ever. There are existential global th...
Absolute truth: there is at least one mind that is conscious. That's one of the reasons I'm an idealist. We know absolutely mind(s) and ideas exist. W...
You said That sure sounds like you're lumping orbiting tea pots and alien life together, since both have zero evidence. Anyway, it sounds like you adm...
No I'm not, you were talking about things for which we have zero evidence...so was I. Yes, you are. There are things we have zero evidence for that ar...
You're making a category error. The possibility of teapots orbiting planets isn't in the same category as the possibility of advanced alien life or si...
I don't think directed/managed panspermia leads to an infinite regress. An alien race could have taken a much different evolutionary path that avoids ...
The chain of logic is fairly straight-forward: given all the planets in the galaxy, it's pretty likely some alien life exists. From that, it follows t...
No, but if we're going to take seriously the hypothesis that advanced aliens exist, we're going to have to take seriously the idea that ID might have ...
Correlation is not causation. Neuroscience is great at finding neural correlates. But as to the causal explanation of why/how brains are conscious, we...
You're making some assumptions here. That there is a "sensed world" (I take it you mean "external world"?), that there are other people, and that we h...
Good post. Conscious experience is the most immediate primal thing we have. There is nothing nebulous about stubbing your toe or an orgasm. The materi...
There IS a prima facia problem there. The NY Times and New Yorker have been covering it for about a year now. But you seem to have missed the point: W...
By Ukranians??? Uh, no. America is perfectly capable of investigating it's people. Trump wasn't asking for Ukranian help in an ongoing U.S. investigat...
I don't know. Maybe they would be that craven. I have my doubts, though. I think a lot of these Republican Senators are at the end of their rope when ...
It's being alleged by the the Wall Street Journal (and others) that Trump "pressured" (their word) Ukraine eight times to investigate Joe Biden's son....
But the story on causation hasn't move an inch. There is no coherent story. Materialism hits a brick wall when it tries to explain how interacting mat...
Comments