Wayfarer

The fact that 'what we take to be real has an irreducibly subjective element' is not mere assertion, it builds on the argument in this thread. In any ...

No, it isn't. It is exactly what you've been arguing. It's not a pejorative comparison. I would say the vast majority of people agree with Johnson. 'B...

All appearance depend on perception. I can see where our disagreement is. You're simply saying, look, I close my eyes, or die, or whatever, and the wh...

What I suggested was not 'self-contradictory' but the direct implication of the statement that the bee and the human see 'the same thing'. In order to...

Where this particular disagreement started was: to which I responded, in part: That was what was described as 'nonsensical' and 'not addressing the po...

Don't sweat it. Sorry for being such a pain. But, to respond to your point: what this particular debate is about is 'transcendental realism'. You're a...

Well, it is now, because of developments such as semiotics in biology (and also developments in physics). But if you suggested to many typical scienti...

A criticism is not a 'complaint'. It's a criticism. >:o

I agree and have often said it: what is missing is mind. Science as it is now practiced is constitutionally incapable of incorporating mind, having go...

Starting a post like that disinclines me to respond further, so, pass.

Before wading fully into the murky swamps of metaphysics, just recall what the discussion was about in the first place: that the sensory impressions w...

Thank you, I shall look into that some more.

Here is where Kant says that the transcendental idealist may be an empirical realist. Most people are by instinct 'transcendental realists', whereas I...

But I'm really not intending to do that. I am arguing against naturalism, which is bound to be confronting. I'm not 'distorting' what you're saying, I...

And furthermore, that 'pet tangent' is what I have been arguing coherently for, since first joining Internet forums in 2009.

Well, judging by the time between my posting and your responding, and the comparative depth of the two posts, I would suggest you're the one who didn'...

Interesting - and indubitably true, in my opinion. A great recent book on that is The Theological Origins of Modernity. That's 'representative realism...

Both Neil De Grasse Tyson and Lawrence Krauss are poster-boy scientific materialists. You really ought to have a look at David Albert's review of Lawr...

...In which she criticuzes the limitations of mere language as inadequate to the tasks of biologists.

Maybe one approach would be to ask, instead of the cause of why something happens, ask for the reason that it happens. They're sometimes the same, but...

Fair enough. That's a very difficult question indeed.

Do you think that this might constitute an anti-semitic slur? Do you know Einstein's theories were deprecated as 'Jewish scientists' by the Nazis? The...

Are you sure it's not more a matter of your desperately trying to avoid its conclusions? ;-)

I think you're appealing to realism - the 'really existing' objects of perception. My current working hypothesis is that what is perceived by humans a...

well, animals can certainly see and respond to objects and their environment, and I daresay many of the basic subroutines are common between us and th...

I'm old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis - I was (let's see) 11 then. Couldn't form much of an idea but my parents were scared and the news...

Welcome Fred The idea of the fundamental status of energy was one outcome of Einstein's discovery of matter-energy equivalence, which was expressed in...

There's a bunch of what in the computer world would be called 'daemons' - cognitive sub-routines - which stitch together all the various perspectives ...

(Y)

It's not maths, per se, but 'the reign of quantity' - that only what is quantifiable is to be considered. And the placing of mind among the 'secondary...

There's no way I can match your knowledge of the science, so let's get that out of the way. I'm looking at the question from a different perspective. ...

nails it.

I see what you mean, but I had the impression that there were many very large conceptual problems already with the standard model and what if anything...

One of my bits of folk wisdom is that 'the order of nature' is one thing, but 'the nature of order' another question altogether. In other words, scien...

Hi Oysteroid, good to see you've joined! (Y)

I think these kinds of questions can benefit considerably from the perspectives of comparative religion and cultural history. For example in Vedanta, ...

I do indeed see the problem - it is reductionism, pure and simple. But, as Apokrisis has shown in great length and detail, you can;t get from physical...

The point which nobody ever mentions in connection to the 'right to bear arms' is the first part of the sentence in which that phrase appears - the ne...

That is true, and a consequence of the use of the term 'laws', as discussed in Nancy Cartwright's paper No God, No Laws. But nevertheless it is the ca...

Can't go along with that. Gravity was around long before anyone was there to describe it. Sure, the description is a human invention, but not the fact...

None whatever. Every human being that is born enjoys a perfectly stable and secure family relationship, in well-appointed dwellings with ample nourish...

Independent, in what sense? We have sensory organs that are adapted to a particular range of stimuli, and intellectual capacities that we are told now...

I think the fact of their difference really is a ontological distinction - 'ontological' meaning 'belonging to a different order'. That concepts or id...

The particular point at issue, however, was whether 'concepts are physical'. That is what I am taking issue with, from something like a dualist positi...

They're a sign to you, because you know that they signify. Generally, the only two places where sign-like functionality seems to be fundamental is in ...

That is materialism, and the point at issue. What does 'ontological' mean to you?

But you say on one hand: That is a canonical statement of philosophical materialism, in that it reduces mind to neural activity. When I studied at Uni...

I understand, as I said, I have to be blunt. We have reached this exact point in a number of different threads, and I sincerely think there's somethin...

I have to be very blunt at this point: this is what you have to get past. Nothing is really or purely material, and the brain is certainly not only a ...

Nice. I learned that there is also a popular sunglasses line of the same name. That means complete relativism - that everything is simply a matter of ...