Wayfarer

But the challenge is, how can any kind of 'either/or' thinking or logical argument, in general, be explained in terms of the kinds of physical causati...

I actually offered an argument, not an 'intuitive preconception'. If you would like to address the argument, then I might respond.

The wave particle duality may well be an heuristic device, but anyway, doesn’t have any bearing.

‘House Rules Committee voted to clear the way for a debate on the plan on Wednesday,’ - NY Times. First hurdle cleared.

@"Fooloso4" - you have said there are no immaterial minds - how would you even go about looking for such a mind (I hesitate to say 'phenomenon')? We h...

The Freedom Caucus are vowing to torpedo it - have a listen to the video in this NYT article. I knew there'd be calls for McCarthy's head. Hakeem Jeff...

Not what I had in mind. The philosophical question is, how could you account for propostional content in terms of brain-states. The brain-mind identit...

What about the computer you're writing this on? The house you're sitting in while writing it? The products you use every moment of every day? How were...

Agree. I also think that rationality is often deprecated by modern philosophy, due to the animosity towards the idea of innate abilities on the part o...

I agree, with the caveat that ‘truth’ ought to be replaced with ‘objective fact’ or ‘measurable outcome’ as the sole arbiter of reality. However I als...

Pretty darned close. I first learned about Kant in a 1955 book, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism, T R V Murti, which draws many comparisons between ...

Yes, I do see the point. Kind of a placeholder for when nobody’s around, as the limerick says. But I don't think you need to introduce a spooky mind-a...

Yes, well what ‘everything’ do you have in mind when you say that?

Such ideas are not remote in principle from various formulations of panentheism or the kinds of cosmo-psychism found in Advaita Vedanta and is also no...

The brain is undoubtedly the most complex phenomenon known to science - but that is not the point. The point is, there are philosophical objections to...

But that is reductive physicalism, which I'm constitutionally averse to. The argument against it is that it somehow has to posit that these neuologica...

However, the rational intellect is capable of grasping purely abstract ideas, and even using them to construct novel inventions, such as computers.

I don't agree with others here that information can be thought of as the raw material of existence, because the word itself is polysemic - it has many...

The quote I provided summarises his view - which is why I provided it. I know it seems incredible, but there it is. It is the view that David Chalmer'...

That is the whole point of the thought-experiment. It's an argument against reductive physicalism. Compare it to this statement: So Dennett is arguing...

There is a factual difference between 'data' and 'information'. 'Data is an individual unit that contains raw materials which do not carry any specifi...

Data is not built, it is the raw material. What is built is interpretation, what the data means - that is the difference between data and information....

the answer I was looking for was: you can’t find it, because it’s not there. The perspective is always outside.

Ah, and follow-up question - where, in the objective data, is ‘the perspective’?

You win the lucky door prize (or you would, if I had one to give out :yikes: )

There is something that ‘the observer‘ brings to bear, without which it is meaningless to talk of distance, duration or scale. And without distance, d...

There is something that the observer brings to bear, without which it is meaningless to talk of distance, duration or scale. And without those it is a...

But the point of the hard problem of consciousness argument is precisely that no amount of objective analysis can capture the first-person experience....

That the meaning could be separated from the symbolic form, on the basis that the same number can be represented in many symbolic forms.

Update - agreement reached, sent to Congress https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/27/us/politics/debt-limit-deal.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSourc...

Still no agreement. McCarthy is making noises about ‘progress’ and ‘optimism’ but the hardliners in the GOP back-office are still holding out. I would...

Daniel Dennett is Chalmer’s foil. He puts it like this: ’ The objection to Dennett remains that no third-person account of even something as simple as...

Glad someone noticed it! As you may recall, I myself have disputed the necessity of positing mind-at-large. The way I put it is simply that, if you ar...

I think some formulation of Aristotelian matter-form dualism might be quite in keeping with anything that science turns up. Remember, it doesn’t posit...

I’ve found this précis to be quite accurate: Further to that, scientific method embodies a great many axioms, at least some of which are metaphysical,...

Subjective and relative.

Isn’t Aristotle (and his teacher) one of the main reasons the ‘scientific revolution’ happened in Europe and not India or China? (Excellent undergrad ...

Unless they turn out to be fallacious. Ideas have consequences.

I got that. It should be added that while speculation about the next life was never encouraged, it was also understood that, should one not practice o...

It’s not a defense if common-sense realism. It’s an admonition that speculative views are not conducive to living the holy life, which is the aim of t...

It's a precis of a chapter in Philosophy as a Way of Life. N?g?rjuna said that all spiritual teachings are like a stick you use to poke the fire. When...

Your background understanding of the nature of the world will have a bearing on your practice. If you accept the materialist attitude that the Univers...

Right. See https://www.jstor.org/stable/3654247

Of course not, but it has been widely observed that his ideas were precursor to the discovery of both evolutionary theory and DNA.

Try googling Aristotle and DNA....you may be surprised....

:up: Yes, that was an eye-opening excerpt, but not surprising. The military-industrial complex has Washington on a string. The thought has often occur...

I tried making the point earlier in this thread that the 'idea of the One' in Greek philosophy is not something that is amenable to discursive analysi...

No object without subject. That’s my final offer. :wink: Pinter goes on to make the case that without subjects, there are no facts. Facts are not self...