Banno

It's a simple enough point. Explicit physics uses equations in terms of mass, time, energy and so on, not in terms of causes. I don't see a point of d...

Hmm. What is it you are disagreeing with? What I did was to suggest that we could simplify the issue of what "physicalism" is by sticking to physics. ...

These are methodological rather than ontic issues, to my eye. So if you are doing physics, you don't do seances. Physicists look only for physical exp...

More like ...removing the unnecessary emergent stuff. Physics does not make substantive use of the notion of substance... (see what I did there?)

Maybe. It's not that there are no causes, but that the way folk talk about them oversimplifies what they are and what they do. Oh, there's . It may be...

Cool. I don't think this is at odds with your characterisation, here: Idealism denies the first premise, which is what several folk here are doing. I'...

Well, there is that bit... I'm guessing that the way the brain works when someone stops at a traffic light is not the same as the way a dog salivates ...

How? Show your working. In terms only found in physics.

The simplest and cleanest way to understand physicalism is as the idea that only the stuff described in physics texts is true. Physicalism can't expla...

Oooh. Goodby, qualia. I ran a thread once in which I argued that adding qualia to the discussion was detrimental; that we ought talk instead of colour...

Ch. V is pretty much the same point I was making in 's recent thread, which is not surprising since I stole it from Midgley and Anscombe and co, who p...

Yeah, IV didn't bite.

Well, what I'm relating is pretty much standard OLP of the Oxbridge variety, a bit archaic, but perhaps a background for current ideas in analytic phi...

Chapter Five is most amusing; and pertinent to several recent threads.

Me too. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14613/philosophical-jargon-supervenience/

And a good thread it was, too. But perhaps inconclusive. And certainly folk hereabouts missed it.

Except for the traffic lights. And so finally we arrive at supervenience. Now it might get interesting.

Oh, very good. Ignoring the idealists, this brings it down to how we fill out (2).

It was @"apokrisis" I had in mind. But you may have made a similar error. Because contemplation is passive. Measuring and spending are not passive.

They still lurk, but haven't posted in months. It might be better to think of inches and dollars as something we do rather than something we contempla...

SO the play has begun, the teams have taken their place, and the only game in town is now physicalism vs idealism. Which is a shame.

Thanks. I don't use math often enough to have an app for it, so I type it manually or steal it from somewhere else - which is why I had a \delta x whe...

, Again, given that you have been unable to distinguish A=A from A??A, you'll have to also forgive me for setting aside your opinion on issues metaphy...

And yet you hide when one is presented to you on a silver plate: So be it.

...and even worse for those trained in philosophy. I'm taking as a rule of thumb that the physical is the stuff they talk about in physics books. Chee...

Your intervention is welcome - I wasn't much enjoying myself. Yes, \Delta x is clearer than \delta x. A formatting question - sometimes I get a line f...

Minds responding to other minds acting in the world perhaps. Maybe you can be 's foil in a game of Socratic irony? I suppose he wants to construct a r...

Answering a question with a question is answering... It's your argument. I'll not put it together for you.

Are you going to argue that traffic laws are physical? Wouldn't that be a category error? Can you point to a physics text that shows how to derive "st...

Yeah, we have. Traffic laws.

Again, given your views on instantaneous velocity and 0.\dot 9 = 1, you'll have to forgive me for setting aside your opinion on issues mathematical an...

At some point it becomes worthless to continue such discussion.

The example I gave was the height of a hill with regard to distance from the peak. The height changes over distance, not over time. I don't know how t...

I'm not asking about the symbols "\frac{\delta x}{\delta y}", but about the mathematics, or better, if we take x and y as displacement, the change in ...

Yes. You ought be employing your talents elsewhere. Shame.

Yep.

Ok. What is passed off as physics around here is dreadful. But not quite as bad as what is supposed dot pass for philosophical insight. I'll agree wit...

yeah, I was a bit distracted. Perhaps if I describe what I think is happening. There is a metaphysical view that holds that causation and time are ine...

I'm not sure to which "issue" you refer. So, by way of an instance, we can count, but there is no purely physical explanation of how or what counting ...

I think I've presented enough stuff on truth over the years not to need to do so again here. T-sentences and deflation. No. But if you insist that in ...

Ok. I think it mush the same as the intentionality argument, actually. Numbers and abstracta are something we do. Bits of grammar. Otherwise, Plato wa...

Yeah, I know.

I thought as much. What will be fun to watch here is the pragmatists who will insist on there being only one explanation. The most annoying thing here...

Here's a thought: why not use different sorts of explanations for different things. There's a hidden assumption that there can be only one sort of exp...

My toaster popped, so I missed the emoji. See 's considered post. So many different ideas that need to be teased out in order to make sense of what is...

:yikes: So the only choice is between the irrationalism of physicalism and the irrationalism of mysticism and fundamentalists? i don't think so.

I'll give a physical account where it is appropriate; but not if they are asking about why folk stop at red traffic lights. Edit: Oh, and Hempel's par...

:wink: I think it will add a few pages to your thread.

Yep. pointed out physicalism is at best a methodological imperative. contemporary physics cannot provide an adequate description of the function of a ...

Sorry, Frank - I've flipped the thread to "what is the best argument against physicalism"... Oops. I'm just giving a concrete example of Hemple's dile...