Wayfarer

Maybe God/The Universe wanted to get up late one morning, stroll down to the mall and enjoy a lemon gelato. 'To execute, first, create exploding star....

Australian - my fervent hope is that it falls through, that Brexit is cancelled. (My last years Christmas wish was Brexit cancelled, Trump impeached -...

That is similar to the 'cosmic anthropic principle'. It was not originally proposed by theologians but by physicists who noticed that there are a smal...

Is anything?

The nature of the wave-function collapse is one of the major philosophical problems coming out of modern science. It has by no means been resolved, an...

The initial referendum was improperly framed and run. For a change of this magnitude, it ought to have required a super-majority (i.e. 66%), and at le...

I don't see how Brexit can happen on 31 Oct, though. No-deal is about to become banned by law, May's deal was voted down three times, and Johnson does...

Don't know 'bout you but from Aus, this Rees-Mogg looks a right twat. I now read his stunt of reclining on the parliamentary benches whilst affecting ...

In one sense, the question only makes sense in a 'community of discourse'. And that community of discourse no longer exists, or rather, culture and so...

There's a great website called Early Modern Texts which contains a trove of writings by the early modern philosophers (of which Berkeley is one) updat...

If only the Republicans had stood up to Trump the way the Conservatives stood up to Johnson.

bluff and bluster and a busted flush.

Yes, but if this law is passed, Johnson will not be able to leave with no agreement. It’s all bluff and bluster.

What I'm reading is that the House of Lords is going to expedite the passage of the 'no-deal-Brexit-ban' meaning that by law, neither Johnson nor anyo...

Brutal takedown in the Daily Beast - serves to remind us of Boris' history of mendacity (in which respect he is very like....never mind....)

The problem with this is that physics has definitively shown that at bottom there is no objective entity, thing, atom, whatever, that exists independe...

Interesting. I'd never heard that expression before. Actually I have begun to make sense out of dualism, but it takes a ton of reading to understand i...

And the reason that the philosophical argument of the ‘hard problem’ seems absurd or meaningless to you is because you don’t understand it, and any at...

There’s a sample.

Well, he always said 'do or die'.... I reckon the odds favour the latter right now.

How very interesting. I had read about this before but not had it explained so clearly. :

:up: Interesting - I knew it was something like that, but not the specifics.

What do you call a Greek skydiver?

So, who has been ‘shortest serving PM in British Parliamentary history’? Any chance Bo Jo could assume that role? Google tells me George Canning, whos...

Human beings exist. The nature of human existence, the kinds of problems we experience, the meaning of existence, the meaning of experience - these ar...

Other taxpayers - you know, you, me, whoever it is who originates 'the stuff' that Labour 'gives'. Anyway - off topic, that's political philosophy. I ...

I think J S Bach actually brought the 12-tone scale to its modern form.

Other people’s stuff....

Well, from what I've been reading today - again, I'm in Aus, so a bit ahead in terms of timezone - Britain's Tuesday-Wednesday look like being momento...

Because it's a philosophical discussion of the relationship of mind and matter. Of course there is 'psychiatry' - but some psychiatrist might be a mat...

There's nothing I have said that can remotely justify this claim, although why you think that is interesting.

Not relevant to the issue at hand. Remember what we're discussing: Patricia Churchland (and her husband, Paul) are both advocates of strict materialis...

I think the central claim is a matter of common knowledge: that at the formation of modern science, a conception of nature was formed that excluded fr...

the press coverage here in Aus has been generally critical. He's been depicted as being 'too far to the left to be electable'. And Blair has been hype...

Too bad I'm dogmatically slumbering, then. :razz:

Perhaps reading the book, or the remainder of the column from which the argument was summarized, might answer that question. Do you agree with the cla...

Davies is one of my favourites. Thoroughly scientifically literate but without the atheist ax to grind that Dennett has. By the way. it might amuse yo...

You really ought to drop that word 'qualia'. The only place it occurs in literature, is in the writings of an influential but seriously misguided grou...

the other really confusing thing is that it's not going to be a poll on Brexit per se. I mean, it's not a matter of voting for one side that supports ...

When it comes to an understanding of 'the nature of being', Nagel's argument, in brief, is as follows: 1. Science has given rise to extraordinary prog...

I’m not saying anything good about Boris, I think he’s a phony. But he’s clever in a way Trump isn’t. But I’ve always thought Brexit a disaster.

tell you what, people have been comparing Johnson to Trump, but Johnson is a hellava lot smarter than Trump (not that it says much). But he's machivel...

Welll, it's a short abstract from an entire book, but the ground-and-consequent nature of the argument ought to be clear. It was a controversial book,...

Thanks! Revealing comment. I have high regard for Plato as a seminal figure in the foundation of Western culture and indeed science itself, although i...

It might! That's one of Nagel's points in Mind and Cosmos. Heard of the 'third way' movement in evolutionary theory? (https://www.thethirdwayofevoluti...

Not fair. In this case, and in other cases, I'm taking issue with posts that exhibit the very point of the 'blind spot' argument. There was another po...

So - this is a basically physicalist account, is it not? Would you agree with it? The objections I brought up were based on David Chalmer's 'Hard Prob...

In this thread, I have been responding to a position which says that. You're only reading half the conversation. Read what I was responding to. The to...

I will add one further point - that the argument about 'ignoring consciousness' mainly arises in the context of eliminative materialism, which I was d...

I do make an effort to answer your questions. Broadly speaking, I'm referring to the 'blind spot' argument, which I think has been amply illustrated i...