Wayfarer

And I stand by it. If the claim is Then part of what will be explained is the faculty that provides the capacity to explain.

Indeed they do. Without that, we'd be living in a very different world, and there's no certainty that it would be a better one.

That's not what I said. I said And what I'm saying is that, in order to do that, you need to employ judgement. You have to judge what the data means, ...

and without reference to neuroscience, which is the point. Do you believe in God, or is that a software glitch?

By applying analytical skills. The passage I quoted from Russell was one of his famous early essays, published turn of the century. It’s a very vivid ...

Yeah I always thought that. Years ago when I drove a cab, I picked up this dude from a conference, who struck me as a cool Californian guy, and casual...

The next master stroke of Putin is to revive the Russian car manufacturing industry and the much-ridiculed Moskvich sedan. Lessons in how to re-animat...

The philosophical argument is simply this. ‘Rational inference’, which neuroscientists, materialists, and everyone else rely on whenever they use the ...

‘To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do, you will sink and drown. Instead,...

Neuroscientists, and neuroseurgons, need to understand the workings of the brain, but that tells us nothing about the problems of philosophy. So, yes,...

No. There's a real difference between nihilism and idealism. So equating the passage from Bertrand Russell's A Free Man's Worship with Bernardo Kastru...

But it's pointless. That's the point! But if you don't see the point, then there's no point.

How about grammar? Syntax? Semantics? Do you think they will be explained in terms of neuroscience? Actually one of the well-worn Einstein sayings com...

The point is, for the nihilist, it doesn't make any difference. Put another way, for the nihilist, 'creative vision and personal transformation' are e...

Very different indeed, although I sense it is probably not useful to try and explain why.

any comment on the Russell passage I quoted? Do you think this is true? What are the implications?

No, I don't think so. It's not a 'ready-to-wear belief system' that I'm referring to - that is something of a caricature. There will be those who can ...

Replied in another thread.

Let's say that Christianity is founded on an unequivocal 'is' - the belief that God exists. Christian culture absorbed (some would say appropriated) a...

If I lived in the US, I might also, considering the obnoxious nature of a lot of American civil religion, specifically Conservative evangelicalism. BU...

I encountered the Kyoto School during Buddhist Studies. They sure are difficult scholars to read, as they were all steeped in classical Japanese thoug...

Ever encountered the 'freedom from religion foundation'? https://ffrf.org/ First line of their charter: 'The history of Western civilization shows us ...

Originally, 'secular' referred to an order of time, and then to a calendar. The 'secular order' was maintained for the purposes of mundane (worldly) a...

I certainly get the point of the 'secular state', if the alternative is officially-mandated belief. The point of the secular state is to provide a fra...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/01/santa-monica-nativity-scene-atheist there are many other examples (although admittedly, the Santa Monica...

that is true, but when it comes to well-funded lobby groups taking legal action to prohibit displays of religious iconography in store windows then it...

I would question that. I think the expectation is that government acts within the bounds defined by law and political custom. The problem with moral v...

There's a resemblance, you know. The medieval debate was whether two immaterial intellects could occupy the same space. Nowadays the debate is about t...

Leaving aside the inane suggestion regarding extraterrestrials, there is an interesting point about Anselm's ontological argument that I feel is often...

Keep looking for that Boltzmann brain, Smith. It'll really help. :love: I've been dining on some faux meat products from the supermarket - a mince pro...

Valiant attempt, but I don't think it fits. To be sure, the nature of the Forms or Ideas in Plato is a very difficult subject, but suffice to say that...

I’ve read some excerpts from that book, published as essays in various places. He’s scathing about the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics. ...

You have to understand something in order to criticize it.

Acute observation and an excellent analysis. I suppose trade what are called ‘financial derivatives’ exemplifies and underpins this kind of abstractif...

well, the last paragraph in the post basically refers to philosophical theism, to which I'm positively disposed. Nothing to do with 'generic informati...

Instinct is too blunt an instrument to account for human capabilities.

I can meet you part-way at least.

Generic: characteristic of or relating to a class or group of things; not specific. "chèvre is a generic term for all goat's milk cheese" The reason i...

But instinct is sharply differentiated from reason by most. Describing reason as an instinct was highly controversial in its day and it's hardly elabo...

But without those basic principles already in the mind, it would not be possible to make any inferences. They are what allow us to marshall and organi...

I’m disputing that the term ‘generic information’ means anything, or that it’s a substance, in the philosophical sense. As I said bear in mind the ori...

Yeah, what *is* the source of order in the universe? :chin:

That’s a valid caution, but in this context, the confusion between the philosophical and everyday meaning of the term ‘substance’ is significant. I’m ...

I said ‘in the philosophical sense’. Go and google ‘substance in philosophy’. Here’s the thing - substance in ordinary parlance means ‘material with u...

The answer to the question ‘what is information?’ Is another question: ‘what information are you referring to?’ It is not a substance - in the philoso...

Stick around a while, it’ll become clear :-)

As is established, Shannon set out to solve a specific problem, namely, the transmission of information through electronic media, and everyone acknowl...

'Precise' could not possibly be a definition of 'information' in the general sense. Why? Because you can have very precise information, or very badly ...

Norbert Wiener famously wrote that 'The mechanical brain does not secrete thought "as the liver does bile," as the earlier materialists claimed, nor d...

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