Wayfarer

Perception of the tree is an activity of the (embodied) brain which receives the sensory stimuli, and synthesises them into judgement 'tree'. But the ...

Actually, I have found a quote from Dennett, which I think exemplifies the kind of approach you want to take. It is in a discussion of the nature of i...

I have many other things I want to study plus am starting a new job Monday. And this particular text deserves undivided attention.

Actually I am going to bow out.

I was mainly trying to situate the discussion historically - how metaphysics was traditionally understood, and why it fell from favour. Looking at you...

As it happens, I did a term paper on Lucretius, and got an HD for it (from Keith Campbell.) But it's often forgotten what problem the atomists set out...

Well, here's some metaphysics for you: Nobody knows what anything really is. That is what philosophical scepticism really means. Our situation as inte...

I think the right understanding of the nature of evil is that it comprises the 'privation of the good'. In other words, evil does not actually exist -...

Do you think you might be a bit out of your depth?

From my meagre understanding of 'big bang' cosmology, there's a few things that can be said. First of all, the theory was first published by a Belgian...

Well, I don't see how you can avoid the notion of very general ideas and of meaningful abstraction in language. My belief is, thought and language are...

I agree! I think the issue of the nature of universals is still a really important issue, and unsolved to this day. My reading is that the Platonist/A...

The first three were quite philosophically sophisticated thinkers. Not that Einstein wasn’t also, but Heisenberg gently accused him of ‘dogmatic reali...

I would be interested to know if it is 'geist' that is translated as 'spirit', and also if the 'science' that Hegel is referring to, could be understo...

I recall reading that original article and the responses to it a few years back. I like Paul Davies' books. But I don't know if I agree with his centr...

That's all for now.

Which systems are not created by human observers? This point is addressed in various places in Davies' text - there are those who argue that if you se...

I'm referring to the units of measurement. Of course the geological time scale is concerned with the age of the earth. But the units in which it is me...

I've never denied it. I've said already a number of times, I don't assert that the world "exists in the mind". What I argue is that all knowledge has ...

there's a joke I learned on philosophy forums. It's about an interview between a University Vice-Chancellor and the Budget Committee about funding. Th...

Well, according to the definition: --- Thanks, that's very instructive, but I think it's an artificial distinction. It glosses over most of what I fin...

What about applied maths, and what Eugene Wigner calls the 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences'? On a really basic leve...

An indirect reference via Aquinas: From http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/cognitn.html Underline added. This is consistent with the medieval princip...

Profound saying. There's an ancient tradition in philosophy of 'man as microcosm' which is not too far removed from that insight. Right! Actually when...

:up: :up: The point I'm trying to make, is that there is an inextricably subjective pole or aspect of all experience. This applies even to //when we a...

I don’t think so. If primes formed a pattern then there would be a way of predicting the next prime, and I don’t believe there is - it has to be calcu...

What about the sequence of prime numbers? Is that a pattern? There is a theory of maths as pattern recognition. What I'm wary of, is the sense we have...

Interesting. What discipline is this from? Computer science?

Actually I'm inclined to agree with Fresco, but I do understand how weird it seems. But when we imagine the Earth before h. sapiens evolved, say, we'r...

But it's not. You can't explain mathematics in terms of patterns, because patterns are by their very nature regular and repeatable. Reason and rationa...

Well, there seems to be some fundamental disconnect here between how you and I understand this issue. So I'll go back to this comment: What is at issu...

You must mean unknowable, right? Otherwise your post reads very oddly. (Which I realised after starting to respond to it.)

that most people live in a state of false consciousness, i.e. assuming they know things they don't, and attributing reality to things that are not rea...

I think as a culture, we're finding that out. I daresay if you dug into the academic journals of sociology and sexuality, there would be a lot of data...

Interesting question! The idea of forms is intimately connected with the idea of universals, which in turn underwrite a theory of meaning. But it is h...

Umm, there's this thing called 'science'..... :yikes:

I think a legitimate distinction can be made. Indeed in the thread this was copied from, I noted this quotation: I agree that '5' is a symbol, but wha...

The problem is that I think this is a false dichotomy. I don't think abstractions such as language and number exist each in an hermetically-sealed rea...

I've taken the liberty of starting a new thread for this discussion here, as it's tangential to DFPolis' discussion.

The question I have is, if language objects have nothing to do with 'the physical world', then how come instructions, specifications, formulas, recipe...

Don't loose sight of the fact that religions are ultimately about 'how to live'. They're not, or shouldn't be, theories of anything in the modern scie...

My Christmas wish for the last two years has been - Brexit is abandoned, Trump is impeached. Both votes were unmitigated disasters, but my wish doesn'...

Try 'the pursuit of endless variety and limitless consumption of extreme sexual arousal and gratification'. That would be close. I'm at a loss to see ...

Well, first of all I was reacting to: What I tried to get at is that almost everything about the technology we're using every day (or minute!) relies ...

I’m not overall in agreement with the OP, BUT I think this claim is deeply questionable. Yes, science has made progress in some respects - certainly i...

I don’t think you ought to appeal to Buddhism for support of this kind of argument. Buddhists only generally address the existence of God in order to ...

:rofl:

Thank you very much for your comments. Informed criticism such as yours is invaluable and hard to come by. (Although I will also acknowledge that what...

I'm contemplating the idea that scientific theories have, or ought to have, a left-hand side and a right-hand side, separated by an "=" sign. On the l...