180 Proof

Not sure I follow you. My point was / is 'don't forget that maps (ideas (e.g. metaphysical speculations)) are not the territory (reality)', even thoug...

:roll:

IIRC, Socrates seems to have been a (shamanic / daimonic) animist, maybe even a pantheist in the manner of later Stoics, but not an atheist in the sec...

"NDE" is not the (existential) death-state itself so it's not informative about life after life. If it were death, then (A) it's irreversible brain de...

:up: Well done.

At / below Planck scales causality, distance, duration are immeasurable, or exceed current theoretical models and scientific understanding. Philosophy...

Interesting but I'm inclined to disagree. I think instead "the essence of philosophy" is pattern-less (pattern-loss) recognition within "pattern recog...

More authoritarian for whom? in which way/s? with what methods of repression being used? compared to which other developed (or just G7) nations? This ...

You didn't do any scientific research (using "the Web" no less :rofl:) on a scientific problem in order to make your unwarranted statement about what ...

Interesting. I don't agree with you about Popper (though I'm sympathetic to both Feyerabend's & Lakatos' works that move the philosophy of science pas...

(1) Did you ask @"TheMadFool" if he had perceived my reply to him as "disrespectful" and that he told you so? His reply to my reply, which I have quot...

I agree but that's not what you wrote previously.

How do you figure that? (Airplanes don't make bird's wings unnecessary.) Examples of 'minds' without brains (CNS) please.

I'm a functionalist so I agree 'self-aware phenomenal cognition' (mind) is in principle substrate-independent.

By "independent", in this context, I meant independent of human use and ontologically independent. I guess 'reading in context' isn't your thing?

Yeah, "you" are an idea generated by a brain interacting with its environment.

I don't waste time with random stuff pulled off of the internet – as you admitted "I made a small research in the Web" – especially in a domain of kno...

Would it be, in your opinion, more appropiate or agreeable to say 'bullshitting' than "peddling woo"? Speaking for myself, I object emphatically to an...

No. Successful people, like kings and emperors, throughout history have been notoriously miserable or dissatisfied people. "Socioeconomic success" is ...

TBD. I assume that if biology can produce thinking organisms, then nature does not constrain a sufficiently advanced thinking organism from, at least ...

Explain how you know this. Explain why you assume that "the human being as a whole" is something other, or more, than "a body".

You tell me. I didn't claim or imply that. If they coincide, then cool; I just don't see what "socioeconomic success" has to do with "wisdom". :up:

Since when is greed, piracy & missionary colonizations indices of "wiseness"?

Yeah, but like waves on the ocean, "voluntary thinking" is very much the exception to the rule of – just the rippling surface of the deep – involuntar...

:up: (Previous post edited for clarity.)

Precisely. 'The metaphysical' is not real, rather an idea / ideal is a speculative tool by which we attempt to orient ourselves with respect to the (e...

False. Neuroscientists, for instance, routinely use 'probes' in specific sites of a human subject's neocortex in order to elicit or inhibit thoughts a...

Reification fallacy I think (or is it misplaced concreteness?). Prescription lenses*, for instance, are just pieces of 'glass' independent of us. 'Ide...

Whence logical positivism? 'Verificationism' is not self-consistent enough to verify itself (i.e. "only empirical statements are meaningful" is not an...

:up: Rather: With ideas we can change our reality, so we must be real.

Thinking (occasionally) happens; "who one is" is a thought entertained recursively and then (mis)attributed ex post facto as the "cause" of thinking. ...

Not exhaustively, the basics (IMO): Christianity, 1st / 5th century CE > suffering is good (i.e. idolize a Roman execution-by-torture instrument) > ta...

:fire:

:gasp: Ouch! That one's below belt ...

Ask TheMadFool since my remark was in reply to his post. He then replied to me in turn: So a (small) contribution provoking more clarity of purposes, ...

Quite a few other long-time members (and from the prior incarnation of this site) can attest to how often Wayfarer disrespects the discussion and his ...

:up: (Quoted so those who need to get this point notice it.)

Excellent point! I'll be sure to use this formulation of "origins" (or their current lack of theoretical explanation) in further discussions to clarif...

EXACTLY. "Ad hominem" is a mental crutch like "fuck no" which is a conspicuous tell by people who don't have any cards in their hand to play and recog...

:100:

Im not talking about or to any particular agnostic. The question is addressed to any agnostic who agrees with the OP.

True, corroborated, statements are not ad hominems.

"Expert"? He coined the damned term in the context of modern chemistry. As I said, Dalton's "atom" was a premature misnomer, and had he been an "exper...

Unlike you, I don't just regurgitate something I read or parrot whatever I heard; I translate as much jargon as I can into my own words or phraseology...

Wayfarer's pedantic dishonesty and smug evasiveness are as shameless as they are legendary. Warranted observation, not an "ad hominem", W. :eyes:

@OP :chin:

'Time' is a metric of asymmetric change (i.e. irreversible physical transformations). In the absence of any asymmetry (i.e. no orientation whatsoever)...

:roll: Read Critique of Pure Nonsense.

I'm only having trouble with a very simple-minded questioner who either cannot recognize I've already answered his trivial questions or is just trolli...

I prefer the parsimony of Witty's statement This reminds me of Democritus' atoms & void. However, what scientists mean by "world" or "universe" are si...