Wayfarer

If you can’t see how the hypothetical I provided constitutes the kind of observational evidence you say is necessary, then there’s no point in proceed...

Suppose there was a scenario whereby a subject is undergoing brain surgery while conscious. This is possible as the brain is insensitive to pain. The ...

So what would you expect to see? How would you test for it?

If ‘the idea’ had been injected, or ingested, as a physical substance, which caused changes to the brain, then I would agree. But the suggestion is, i...

A piano is physical. The idea of a piano is not. Of course, you might then say that ideas are neuroconfigurations, and here’s where the basic problem ...

Well, first, in response to 'intentional actions changing neural configurations', that was a reference to a famous experiment whereby measurable chang...

They're not in doubt, but they have limited explanatory scope. According to materialism, everything is reducible to physical laws, so it rejects 'top-...

Incidentally there’s a critique of Dennett that I consider pretty good here. If you read the credits, yes, it’s by a conservative, probably Christian,...

That is what is at issue. It’s precisely what eliminative and reductive materialism declare. There is only one kind of ‘substance’ (philosophical not ...

I tried to address a few of those in the thread you started on it. But as far as I can see, the arguments are only ‘air-tight’ because you’re predispo...

does feel like that sometimes, but the internet can be like that. I’ve had furious flame wars in the past but I guess I’m well insulated by the result...

Well, they’r considered ‘bad guys’ by me, for the reasons I’ve given. I can’t speak for others here, it’s a very diverse community. Advocates register...

It’s not that. The point about materialist philosophy of mind is that it is self-refuting, in that it reduces the power of reason to something like en...

In your case, you opened with a strong appeal to ‘materialist theory of mind’, a la Dennett/Churchlands/Rosenberg. A lot of people find that a pretty ...

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partially it’s cultural appropriation - Buddhism is seen as a ‘cool’ tradition without all the pushy dogmatism of Christianity. Very popular in new-ag...

It’s the natural human instinct to explore, but I also think it is sometimes the sublimated longing for Heaven. I think the main argument against the ...

One of my all time favourite books is The Intelligent Universe by Fred Hoyle & Chandra Wickramasingha. It argues for panspermia, which is the theory t...

It would be one if the all-time great discoveries. Great achievement by NASA to get the lander down too.

:rofl:

My thoughts too. That article was the first I'd heard of him, but his ideas resonated with me.

The GOP Is Now the Party of Thugs, Terrorists, Racists and Dopes And the lunatics really have taken control of the asylum.

Trivial pursuit question: where did the phrase 'the devil's advocate' originate?

Right! And for everything else, there's Mastercard.

I hear you. I'm going through something similar. I even did an MA in Buddhist Studies 2011-12 but now finding it increasingly difficult to relate to. ...

I feel for you, Jack. Sounds a tough situation. Especially as I believe you're in the UK? and things are very tough there also. Here in Australia we s...

And https://satyagraha.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/pitirim-sorkin-crisis-of-modernity/

Well - I think it has to be very much around down-sizing and sustainable economics and a philosophical shift that recognises the importance of this. T...

If you read that article carefully, you will see that the Vatican is highly skeptical of 'miracle cures' and takes many steps to ensure that bogus or ...

It's an enormous question in political philosophy, one which would require volumes to address properly. A theme I have been contemplating is the role ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/opinion/pondering-miracles-medical-and-religious.html?referringSource=articleShare That is exactly the point I made...

I don’t think biological evolution is perceptible over the timescales you’re discussing. Speciation works over very large time scales. We’re genetical...

Trump has just put out a press release which says that Mitch McConnell is a ‘dour, sullen, unsmiling political hack’. This seems perfectly accurate to...

but you can just as easily argue, from top-down effects, that the higher level, namely, intentionality and mind, re-configures the material substrate....

No. I tried to explain the rationale behind constructivism which was condescendingly dismissed as ‘a testimonial’, so I’ve done my bit.

Misinterprets subjectivity as solipsism.

The brain or the mind? That remains an outstanding question.

Through language, mathematics, conventions of all kinds, we share common understandings. If I ask you a question, ask you for something, give you some...

I didn't get it, because it's obviously very confused. And I'm happy to leave you alone.

I think the way you pose the question is problematical. As has been pointed out above, you carve up the territory in a certain way, which conforms to ...

...otherwise known as 'cosmos'.... But Hume didn't propose any such idea. He is famous for framing the very is/ought, fact/value dichotomy that is beh...

I am trying to understand what you're saying, but the parts don't all fit together. You say So here, you're appealing to a naturalistic basis for mora...

That is true. That is evolutionary rationalism, applied to the human condition. Hermenuetics, as you may not be familiar with it, is 'the branch of kn...

What is that, by the way? I googled the term, nothing comes up. Also 'scrumping' - that yields: scrump /skr?mp/ verbINFORMAL•BRITISH gerund or present...

I would have thought, according to you, that such ‘proof’ could only consist of blows. If you are offended by reasoned argument, then I’m sure there’s...

It is indeed true that one of the things dissolved in the acid of Darwin’s dangerous idea, is philosophy itself. Unfortunately, the same acid it takes...

If you knew what it meant, you wouldn’t ask such questions.

I hear you, but the way you've posed the question provides an opportunity to frame responses. Do you know what 'hermenuetics' means?

You can only be objective with respect to topics which can be framed in terms of subject-object relations. To say this doesn't undermine objectivity, ...

Fair enough too. :up: