Wayfarer

Returning to Descartes' Metaphysical Meditation #3 which the OP started with. I have come to the view that it contains an egregious equivocation which...

Again I'll refer to Buddhist philosophy here, as it is one that I have some familiarity with, and secondly, because of the Buddhist principle of anatt...

Still and all, must warm the cockles of the heart, even if just a little. (I think I wrote or edited a topic on harmony in jazz chords, although haven...

What I meant was, if there really is more to life than physical birth and death - if there were future consequences of actions taken in this life - th...

Didn’t I explain that already? :roll:

Religions are often depicted in terms of 'carrot and stick' in our secular age, although I think it's a caricature. I understand the goal of Eastern r...

Aside from whatever the OP's response might be, I would think that, if one were to believe that there was indeed a judgement at the time of death, and...

That doesn’t surprise me. I’ve been prompted ‘hey, Google it’ to some queries I’ve posted to ChatGPT. But it’s been quite amazing in many of the dialo...

That is what universals set out to solve. That specific hammer is an instance of the tool of type 'hammer'. Hence the role of universals in predicatio...

Does it have to be, to qualify as 'an agent'? Something can change continually and still maintain an identity, can't it? In fact, isn't that what ever...

This is also one of the primary sources of Descartes' ontological argument, is it not? That because he is able to conceive of such a perfect being as ...

Is this (.pdf) the one you're referring to? In particular, this passage:

Sure, 100%, but I think it has bearing on the question posed in the OP.

I think that's a few years off, although Boston Dynamics continues to impress. I would hope that they're embedded with something like Asimov's 'laws o...

I remember a key phrase from one of the first Zen books I read, Zen Mind Beginner's Mind. That is to practise meditation with 'no gaining idea'. It's ...

I put the Jack-O'-Lantern question to ChatGPT myself, and got a somewhat different response, which can be reviewed here. Notice I asked the additional...

Please to note that thus far (beginning of Part One) Allias' interpretation is fully compatible with the one I offer in 'Mind-Created World'.

So there are no blind mathematicians? The distinction between rational and sensible is not one you are able to overturn

FYI I've located that essay I mentioned, it is from Werner Heisenberg's 1952 book Physics and Beyond. Herewith the relevant chapter, in PDF format, Po...

Seems an exemplary book, thanks for the tip :clap:

Damned with faint praise? I am reminded of the famous (maybe apocryphal) encounter between Alexander the Great and Diogenes of Sinope. He approached t...

How so? ‘Sensible’ objects are those perceived by sense. Numbers are not perceived by sense.

‘The world’ is just shorthand for ‘everything that is’. Although I think the question ‘does the world exist?’ is a nonsense question.

I think that's a little misleading. A priori truths are those you know by dint of reason alone, 'prior to' or not requiring validation by experience (...

I agree. But I was responding to an OP which was basically dismissing the whole idea on the basis of it being unreal. I'm well aware of the challenges...

CNN commentary on the comparative mortality rates in Australia v Florida as of September 2021 'peak pandemic'. Australia and Florida have roughly simi...

Yes, I got that, and I concur.

I believe the first documented instance of Pi is from Babylonian sources, but never mind, the basic point stands.

A splendid juxtaposition. Says much with few words. Do you think a further distinction can be made between real and unreal abstractions? Would you agr...

I've heard this said elsewhere but I don't think that's an accurate description. I take Kant to be pointing out that the mind is an active agent which...

You’re right, of course, I mis-spoke there, I intended the opposite of what I wrote.

Decide for yourself.

Facts can be measured whereas principles can only be observed.

Perhaps something unsaid in your question is that facts rely upon measurement in order to ascertain objectivity. After all, if we all agree that a the...

Interesting question. But is the Pythagorean theorem subject to perspectives? In other words, how would an individual perspective or opinion be releva...

Isn't it because of the influence of materialism? That was the philosophical view which sought to understand the Universe as aggregations of physical ...

Here's a good essay on it, Quantum mystery: Do things only exist once we interact with them?, Marcelo Gleiser, Big Think. Part of a series, A Brief Hi...

Stephen Hawking said 'whenever I hear of Schrodinger's cat, I reach for my gun.' My take on that thought-experiment is that it was a rather sarcastic ...

It's more that it's very easy to misunderstand and misrepresent the facts of the matter. There is a lot of loose talk and outright nonsense talked and...

Isn't the philosophical difficulty implicit in quantum physics the ambiguous nature of sub-atomic objects prior to their being measured? And that ambi...

I don’t know if there such a thing as ‘the property of uncertainty’. It is the properties (of momentum and velocity) that are uncertain prior to measu...

You say: But Greene's quote seems to question that, doesn't it? It's more the fact that prior to the measurement, you can't say what actually exists. ...

I listened to the Michael Levin video. Clearly an influential biologist. But there's no warrant in anything he is saying for the claim that organizati...

Some scientists may make such a claim, but it’s a far cry from established fact. I’ve started watching the Michael Levin video posted….there’s no ment...

Not at all. Neils Bohr was highly critical of logical positivism. Heisenberg relates in his book Physics and Beyond that the Vienna Circle positivists...

If. Very big 'if'. This is a very careless argument. It starts from an apparently-reasonable premise, namely the obvious threat of climate change, and...

Note the 'iron rods' of observation in the caption of the figure above. There is an element that is imagined, but also an element that is given, and t...

Having said that, I might add this second graphic from the same John Wheeler article, Law without Law, about the inter-relationship of theory and obse...

I do have an account on physicsforum.com and post there from time to time, generally to ask questions. They're a very professional forum with high pos...

It's not that hard to sort the wheat from the chaff with a bit of reading. Writing off the whole subject on that account just turns out to be a dodge ...