Wayfarer

Did a term paper on it, as part of Keith Campbell's Philosophy of Matter course.

Behavourism eschews any consideration of the mind whatever, so it's not likely!

It's a reference to the idea that living beings are intrinsic to the Universe, and not simply the 'accidental outcome of the collocation of atoms' (Be...

I found that Predictive Processing paper a couple of weeks ago, by chance. There's a scholar (might be mentioned therein) by the name of Andrew Brooks...

Yes, but it's a basic fact that postmodernism rejects meta-narratives, so that tends to consign a great deal of what has been made of it in the past t...

There's a discernable idealist tendency in a lot of recent physics. (I have many stock examples available on request.) But it's an inconvenient truth ...

Only rational argument, which apparently doesn't cut it.

I hadn't really noticed that question till this comment. And I say it makes an important difference. Consider the widely-accepted paradigm, that life ...

..by removing it almost completely from the lexicon of philosophy as such and discussing it as far as possible through the metaphors of science and en...

In philosophy there is space for 'the unconditioned', although I will grant you that most of today's academic philosophy show no grasp of the idea nor...

'Quantum physics is a law of thought' ~ Chris Fuchs I'll have a go at that. First, it's by no means 'all scientists' - you can't stereotype scientists...

Glad you noticed it. My comments on it got a bit of attention from Joshs, but seemed to go by most people. Good book, in my opinion. 'Nous' is the wor...

OP on how Joe Manchin has single-handedly torpedoed Biden's attempts to tackle climate change. NY Times

Hey, big of you to say so! You know that Hoffman is one of the academic advisors on the board of Kastrup's 'Essentia Foundation'? In my view, they rep...

Yes - humans know that they know. They ask how they know and what they know, and wonder who or what they are. 'Wisdom begins in wonder'. No coincidenc...

They're intimately linked. -- Quite. Which is why I'm highly sceptical of the 'pan-semiosis' ploy. Life and mind are one thing, rivers and sand dunes ...

Fair point, in the sense that there are kinds of things that are difficult to define. I’ll have a think about that. The Heisenberg article explicitly ...

Hey thanks for clearing that up, then. I've launched a new thread on this question.

But obviously they have objective consequences. Almost all modern technology - no, not 'almost' - relies on the predictive and descriptive accuracy of...

Its nature is indeterminate. And so it can't be said to exist, because what exists is determinate (i.e. it is 'this' or 'that'.)

I’m aware of that but it is discussed in The Embodied Mind, which draws on cognitive science, phenomenology and Buddhist abhidharma. So they talk abou...

How are maths and logic accomodated by this theory? I think phenomenalism is basically an arcane textbook entry in the history of philosophy. It has, ...

Ladies and gentlemen: the elephant is no longer in the room.

I hope you’re right but there’s a lot going against it. Even if everyone was in agreement it would still be very hard.

The question can't be answered from the level on which it posed. Which is why it

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/climate/biden-inflation-climate-manchin.html In hindsight, about ten years from now, this will be recognised as one...

In one sense, we obviously do, but go back to the origins of phenomenology (speaking of which, the first entry in Pinter's voluminous bibliography is ...

Wikipedia is a perfectly respectable source of information, I have contributed to it, and I donate monthly. Speaking of ‘ignorance’, did you manage to...

So no matter what Putin does, the fault is with the West?

So do you think Putin's war is justified? That Ukraine should just give up the fight and allow Russia to annex their country? What do you reckon would...

I only comment in this thread to register my sense of outrage at what is being done by Putin. That is all. As to what can be done, none of the options...

Cruise missiles fired from a nuclear submarine directly into a residential area. It is as Zelensky says state terrorism, no question.

Yeah this thread is a real trolling magnet. Strange how the internet brings out the worst, I’m gong to stick to obscure philosophical arguments in fut...

Because Putin has no warrant, no mandate, no cause whatever. He’s acting completely outside international law, he’s responsible for the deaths of mill...

:up: my hope, and belief, also.

I think this is a mangled version of the well-known elephant analogy, in which a group of blind men are told to go and touch an elephant and report on...

I'd be very interested if you can produce any reference for that, I think it's bogus.

Don't know why you're giving oxygen to Russian propaganda. The story of day is surely the residential apartments and offices in the non-combatant city...

First let me say I really appreciate the care you've taken to raise those points. I don't think Pinter juxtaposes a real, physical world, with a world...

Interesting, but I wouldn’t judge Pinter’s book on the few excerpts I have provided alone. He doesn’t say anything about Wigner’s essay (although he d...

We see them as teacups, because our culture drinks tea. Another culture might have similarly-shaped object that is called by a different name and is u...

Notice in your own question the assumption of there really being an internal and external world. The question I'm grappling with is related to the que...

Doesn't physicalism/materialism say that objects possess inherent reality, that they're real irrespective of your or my observation? And isn't that as...

There's some truth in that, but there are better sources for those kinds of ideas. Look at the first paragraph of Schopenhauer's World as Will and Ide...

Don't agree. I'm an adherent of 'spaceship Earth' theory - that we have the only spaceship we're ever going to get, capable of supporting billions of ...

that's the only kind of payload, as far as interstellar travel is concerned. You're never going to get carbon-based lifeforms to another star system, ...

Have a look at Yuri Milner's Breakthrough Starshot. I love the ambition, and the vision, but I'm dubious about the reality.

I've only read that Quanta interview I mentioned but it makes a lot of sense - knowledge of physics notwithstanding. It's not so much that there's no ...

Are you familiar with quantum bayesianism? It aligns near enough to all practical purposes, but they're still subjective, to some degree.

Question de jour: were Leon Musk’s parents dyslexic?