Very interesting questions. I think the naturalist response is that there is no need to introduce anything like the philosophical a priori to account ...
But a physicalist doesn't say that. A physicalist says that experience can be described wholly and solely in physical terms. To that extent, yours is ...
There was a segment on last night's Media Watch about a respected Australian journalist, Ross Coulthart, who has gone all-in on the testimony of a UFO...
Tell you a big difference between physical and biological processes. Physical processes don't rely on context. The equations of physics treat objects ...
From Bernardo Kastrup: This analogy can be extended to all manner of experiences. So every experience is, in some sense, a wave of neural activity, an...
But your whole OP actually questions reductionism. You ask: Isn't that just what reductionism is arguing for? It's physicalism which argues that exper...
The reputation that someone who has risen to President of the United States is supposed to have.Trump has already brought disgrace to the office, and ...
I think it’s pretty obvious that the way Trump exploits the charges against him for political gain is morally abhorrent. I mean, here he is, facing ve...
You seen Contact? That's one pretty amazing attempt to explain what it would be like. Geez, even Close Encounters, and 2001: Space Odyssey have a go a...
'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic' ~ Arthur C Clarke - especially true of the application of quantum physics, beca...
I'm sure. I mean, we'll never know, but how would someone transported between two completely different epochs respond? I don't think they would be abl...
Nobody would have been able to guess what, say, quantum theory would turn out like, prior to the pioneers actually doing the investigations and devisi...
Which country/government are you referring to? Here in Australia, the Government would never tell you what to think. It might be different in China or...
although it's probably worth mentioning another initiative Avi Loeb is involved with - the Breakthrough Starshot project founded by Yuri Milner. The S...
I've watched a few scientifically-informed presentations on interstellar travel, and the figures involved - the amount of energy that has to be used, ...
Although, thinking about it some more, I would concede that there may well be Government efforts to conceal facts from the public, under the guise of ...
My interpretation of the meaning of Kant's philosophy, in this respect, is that space and time (or extension and duration) have an inextricably subjec...
I’ve set a Google alert for ‘Avi Loeb Spherules’. I’m genuinely interested in finding out if the analysis proves they’re of extra-terrestrial, manufac...
Hi Tim - here's a rather good video presentation on the topic by Jim Baggott, whom I think is a respectable physics author and commentator. This was t...
I don’t buy any of that conspiracy theory stuff. Governments can barely organise the quotidian things they’re supposed to organise, let alone conspira...
One of the uncanny things about the various pilot reports on UAPs is the way they accelerate from nothing to extremely fast in an instant without leav...
I think the secret is, with philosophy, to find a golden thread through the labyrinth - some over-arching theme which you can follow through all the v...
My take has always been that if there are interstellar visitors, they can’t have gotten here by any known physical means. They would have to be able t...
But notice, that is an argument I’ve put forward - there’s nothing directly corresponding to such a conjecture in Davidson’s paper or the articles on ...
Isn’t much of scientific exploration built around reasoned conjecture of that kind? Using a discovery made about some subject to infer that, if we do ...
The point I have not found in the discussion of 'mental states' or 'mental events' is the status of reason. Quiz anyone about almost anything they are...
That's pretty well it. I'm not specifically aligned with Thomism, but, on the other hand, I think the case can be made that Aristotelian Thomism is a ...
(You'll find here a critique of Davidson's anomalous monism from a A-T perspective by Edward Feser. He puts the kind of criticism I had in mind like t...
A follow-up to this thread. The NY Times has published a very long piece on Avi Loeb, for which I provide here a gift link. It's a balanced piece, the...
More philosophical jargon: (Rather surprised, reading that paper, to note mention of Noosa Heads as an hypothetical example of a place name. Did Donal...
I confess never to having gotten through the entire volume. I find most of what resonates with me in the very first sections, but I'm pressing ahead. ...
It happens sometimes, it’s a sporadic bug. You'll still generally see them on your Mentions page. My take is that the term ‘supervenience’ has been us...
But that demographic is on the wane. The reason Republicans are frantically trying to gerrymander everything is because they know their electoral base...
It’s true that Schopenhauer’s philosophy is described as pessimistic, but he never said those things. And he did say that there could be freedom from ...
A suit has been filed by a lawyer in Florida, to disqualify Trump from the ballot on the grounds of the 14th Amendment. Read more here https://thehill...
thanks. I’m definitely sympathetic to ‘reasons as causes’. I remember an anecdote, can’t remember who by, in answer to the question ‘why is the water ...
Thanks. You might help me unpack this paragraph: What kinds of 'law' do you think this is referring to here? I presume the laws which govern causal re...
But do you think I’m barking up the wrong tree? //Actually I see that Davidson has an article called Reasons, Actions and Causes - I suppose I should ...
Because if the mental act of grasping a logical truth supervenes on a physical state, then there is a causal relationship between the former and the l...
How much do you reckon Trump has done to attract additional undecideds and swing voters? (as distinct from making his rusted-on followers even more vo...
We've discussed the relationship between physical causation and logical necessity. I think the consensus is that these are different in kind. But if y...
As the whole discussion about 'supervenience' centres the argument that 'mental states supervene on physical states', then it is at least germane to s...
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