Wayfarer

Hah! Interesting. That I did not know. But the Scottish educational system is one of wonders of the modern world, according to some (e.g. How the Scot...

What they lack is the ability to consider themselves as subjects, i.e. they're absent rational self-awareness. Yes some can pass the mirror test, but ...

Worth reflecting that Charles Darwin was greatly influenced by 'the Scottish Enlightenment'. 'The Scottish Enlightenment was a period of cultural, int...

'Vitalism' is a reference to Henri Bergson's 'élan vital' - conceived as a 'vital force or impetus'. It is generally said to have been completely disc...

I would have checked 'idealism' but for the fact that I think the usual notion of what it means is mistaken in such a way that is basically incorrigib...

That is not 'an idea outside established science'. It is what is described as physicalism, reductionism or materialism. Some scientists adhere to it, ...

Gee where would I look in my chemistry and physics texts for the description of that state?

:up: I think the whole idea of final causation was a casuality of the Scientific Revolution and the rejection of scholastic/Aristotelian ideas of caus...

I've very briefly perused something of the history of the synthesis of Greek and Hebrew thought which characterised the early Christian era. It is a d...

Very illuminating, thank you. Also has relevance in quantum physics, I would think. I'll let MU answer for himself, but I had thought the Aristotelian...

'Belief' from the perspective of atheism is invariably portrayed as 'acceptance with no evidence', but 'belief' in this sense can also be seen to be i...

As I suggested above, I think rules might be introduced to deprecate self-referential text by these systems. In other words, that prevent them from re...

And also the Google engineer discussed earlier in this thread, Blake LeMoine who was sacked mid 2022 for saying that his bot had ‘attained sentience’ ...

It's an interesting and valid area of research for sure, but not at the cost of obfuscating fundemental ontological distinctions. There's also a deep ...

Nevertheless it has to be acknowledged that the Turing Test has been consigned to history which a pile of years ago I thought would never happen

Same here - but at least you know those books are being written and that there’s an alternative to the bleak SOF ideology.

Fair point and I’m not trying to offend, but I can’t help but notice the constant return to quotidian objects - spoons, trees, coffee cups - from whic...

I’ve just read the Searle article, I agree with it in some ways but I think his characterisation of ‘the bad arguments’ of philosophy and philosophy o...

I think it can be coherently argued that the principle problem of philosophy is precisely learning to perceive truly. This does not only apply to the ...

After Herbert Spencer first used the phrase, Darwin responded positively to Alfred Russel Wallace's suggestion of using it as an alternative to "natur...

So you think his self-categorization as transcendental idealist was erroneous? His refutation of idealism was intended to differentiate his Critique f...

You may like Survival of Friendliest It’s a kind of revisionist or alternative view of evolutionary history - recommended to me by a friend although I...

Not so. It was coined by Herbert Spencer but Darwin approved it and included it in later editions of OoS - as OP says.

:up: I quite agree. This is the core of an article I’ve frequently referred to that argues that there is a category of ‘res potentia’: I think it’s th...

A decision moves a hand intentionally, as we are capable of intentional action, and intoxication affects your judgement and also your motor skills. An...

Would 'anomalous monism' mean 'naturalism with ad hoc changes as required for the various bits that it can't actually accomodate'?

If America has one universal defining trait, it's 'trigger-happy'.

Exactly as I would have predicted. Allied to some version of naturalism and/or physicalism. It's the zeitgeist.

I think that was discernible in the mid-terms.

I think it falls under the heading of 'apperception': how the mind organises incoming data into categories and reacts to it. "Act of the mind by which...

The Dominion Lawsuit hearings have shown that Fox Media associates all knew that Trump's lie was in fact a lie, but they kept spouting it anyway, out ...

Very good. Might I also add the element of judgement, i.e. the naming of it, what it is.

:lol: I think you'll find D'Espagnat a pretty hard slog, I took it out of the library but I must confess it defeated me, although I wanted to like it.

Excellent question. And the fact that this causes us to ask 'what we mean by "real"' is central to the whole matter. As you say, Kant is usually said ...

I think abiogenesis is compelling because it blurs a fundamental distinction: that between life and non-life, or at least, makes it appear less fundam...

:lol:

I would have thought that was botany. Or forestry.

Amateur balloonist group from Illinois says small balloon last reported over Alaska ‘missing in action’ https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/politics/illino...

Right. It has to be able to forget itself completely to make it a game worth playing. (No peeking now!)

Memorialized in song by Donovan, of course.

Intriguing thought. I could easily get on board with that (from the bleachers, not that I’m a voter.)

The New Advent Encyclopedia entry is a starting point. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09328a.htm

I've been reading some recent news stories about Alexa, which I use on a couple of devices. Apparently it's one of Bezos' core products, but they've s...

I'm afraid you'll need to pass through the gateless gate. (I assume as a matter of course that all here are at the 'before' stage, myself included of ...

I don't see that. It's a statement based on his knowledge of neural modelling, and supported by an important vein in philosophy, not least Kant's. I q...

Somewhere between 'zero' and 'Buckleys' would be my estimate. She has a much better shot at that than the Presidency.

You'd think it wouldn't be that hard to script the bots not to talk about themselves at all. Even without detailed knowledge of the technical foundati...

goes for a lot of folks, don't make it right ;-)

One point about the evolutionary rationale for judgement is that the vast majority of creatures, other than h.sapiens, get along perfectly well in the...