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I've learned that Lewis is generally credited with introducing the term, although Peirce had anticipated it. But the modern problem of qualia took sha...
July 29, 2025 at 01:52
Do you know in which philosophical esay or book the term was introduced, and why? Quite aside from the difficulties you seem to be having in grasping ...
July 29, 2025 at 01:36
Of course. But then, I recall you discussing Deacon's Incomplete Nature. He also is very interested in teleonomic (as distinct from teleological) phen...
July 29, 2025 at 01:18
It’s not a digital computer, but it’s a device used for calculations. But the rhetorical point, was simply that computers no more intend than does the...
July 29, 2025 at 00:27
What thing would that be? Incidentally a nice Australian Broadcasting Corp feature on the 100 year anniversary of Heisenberg's famous paper https://ww...
July 29, 2025 at 00:26
I think that’s a rather deflationary way of putting it. The 'non-computable' aspect of decision-making isn’t some hidden magic, but the fact that our ...
July 28, 2025 at 23:40
Let's go back to the source. The whole 'problem' is intended to demonstrate the sense in which objective, third-party descriptions, the basic currency...
July 28, 2025 at 23:29
Yes, would need all of that - but the point being, computers are still physical systems. The point is they are qualities of experience and therefore p...
July 28, 2025 at 23:17
Yes, it is reasonable: but the point is, there was not! What I'm arguing against is the idea that our picture of the world, as we imagine it to be wit...
July 28, 2025 at 22:55
I think the onus is on you to show why it's in question.
July 28, 2025 at 22:21
An abacus can be used to process information - it's a primitive computer. There's no real difference in principle between the abacus and a computer. T...
July 28, 2025 at 22:07
Yes. How is it not? It is measurable with a physical instrument, and observable in the effects it has on matter.
July 28, 2025 at 22:00
How is it not? How did the fall in temperature not cause the water to freeze, or the corrosion of the main support beam not cause the bridge to fall? ...
July 28, 2025 at 21:56
From a reader review of Tam Hunt’s (author of cited article) book: Sounds like my kind of writer
July 28, 2025 at 09:41
Beats listening to Trump!s lies. I’d trust any mainstream journo over that. Not that facts ever matter to MAGA.
July 28, 2025 at 06:22
Nope. I dispute that. To say what it is, to name it, you have to bring it to mind. If you are considering what it would be, sans any observer, you're ...
July 28, 2025 at 05:10
What might an abacus be conscious of?
July 28, 2025 at 04:46
So I take it that you're not seeing the point of the argument, then.
July 28, 2025 at 03:46
The meaning of qualia is the quality of experience - what it like, as the literature has it. The experienced sensation of it. And the whole point of t...
July 28, 2025 at 03:32
MU, this is going to be my last word on the topic. You're confusing distinct Aristotelian categories by treating formal and final cause as though they...
July 28, 2025 at 02:47
I think we’re talking past each other at this point. My view, following O’Callaghan (and by extension, Aquinas and Aristotle), is that top-down causat...
July 28, 2025 at 01:34
It's more likely I'm seeing something that you don't. But that your eyes have to adjust.
July 28, 2025 at 00:39
I will say this, Banno, you're expert at dragging the carkeys back under the streetlight. :wink:
July 28, 2025 at 00:15
Right. So, would the rules of the game be somewhat analogous to a form in the Platonic sense? There are very impressive displays of this kind of abili...
July 28, 2025 at 00:11
Another of Karl Popper's promissory notes, I'm afraid. But it's informative, and slightly scary, the ease with which it is assumed that consciousness ...
July 27, 2025 at 23:58
Expert chess players are able to play with no physical board. Grand masters, for instance, will play against 10 opponents simultaneously, sometimes wh...
July 27, 2025 at 23:07
Gets my vote. I think the insuperable obstacle to such an idea is that the nature of life and of mind are inneffable, and, as such, it can't be define...
July 27, 2025 at 22:58
Top-down causation doesn't mean external coercion or denial of agency—quite the opposite. It refers to the way the organization or unity of a system c...
July 27, 2025 at 22:47
I have no reason to doubt the media reports on it. As for you, you want to believe it, as one who has spent the last 8 years defending and supporting ...
July 27, 2025 at 21:46
Perhaps you’re something other than a collection of material components. You possess something that instruments don’t, namely, organic unity.
July 27, 2025 at 21:42
What is an example of such an idea? Who holds that there is such a thing? As for mental causation, what if I were to write something that caused you t...
July 27, 2025 at 11:50
Not at all! I very much appreciate the careful and constructive comments on The Mind-Created World. They show genuine engagement, and I welcome the th...
July 27, 2025 at 09:34
From here. Again, thanks for your comments on the OP. Here I would like to clarify the key points where my claim goes further than a cautiously realis...
July 27, 2025 at 09:33
For Deutsch, the wavefunction never collapses; instead, all possible outcomes of a quantum event occur in a vast, branching multiverse. This preserves...
July 27, 2025 at 05:07
Because, so far as we know, consciousness is an attribute of sentient beings. And there’s no reason to believe that any collection of material compone...
July 27, 2025 at 04:45
I question whether computer systems possess any element of consciousness whatever. Organic life, for instance, is organic on every level, right down t...
July 27, 2025 at 04:37
Good essay and very carefully composed. Overall, I find it congenial, although I’m not as disposed to consider the theological elements. But this conc...
July 27, 2025 at 04:30
I’ll pass on your regards.
July 27, 2025 at 03:56
I think the issue here, is that what classical texts mean by 'thinks' is not what we normally intend by it. I read in The Embodied Mind, that prior to...
July 27, 2025 at 01:34
Shame you can't lower yourselves to our level, but I suppose we'll have to get by, somehow.
July 27, 2025 at 01:25
In this case, “is” doesn’t mean numerical identity (as in "Clark Kent is Superman") but rather participation in a common essence. The Father is God, t...
July 27, 2025 at 01:21
I've read that it looks like a contradiction if you assume “is” means numerical identity. In Trinitarian theology, “is God” means shares the same divi...
July 27, 2025 at 01:10
How so? Could you unpack that for me?
July 27, 2025 at 01:05
A visiting theologian once presented this diagrammatic representation of the Trinity which I, at least, found useful in understanding the idea: https:...
July 27, 2025 at 00:55
You’re not seeing the point. No depiction of pain, no matter how extraordinarily detailed, is pain. Pain is an experience, and experiences are undergo...
July 27, 2025 at 00:33
Why, thanks! Will read carefully.
July 26, 2025 at 23:55
:100: The universe that most believe would be there in the absence of any observer would not have any form, as form is discovered by the mind (per Cha...
July 26, 2025 at 23:31
The general consensus in this thread is that Sabine got it wrong.
July 26, 2025 at 22:46
addendum:
July 26, 2025 at 22:18
But then, you're willing to trust Tulsi Gabbard's rewriting of history, over the unambiguous findings of the bi-partisan committee that investigated t...
July 26, 2025 at 22:14