Wayfarer

They're not usually given the chance - up till now. We'll see how this one goes. By not taking myself too seriously, and by knowing we're all in the s...

Reductionism, to put it bluntly, is 'nothing but-ism'. You may think you're a human being, endowed with inalienable rights, but in actual fact you're ...

Well, I don't think I've been particularly hyperbolic about it. What I said was the Trump fits the definition of 'demagogue', and nobody has taken iss...

Trump Senior Policy Advisor, Stephen Miller: “We have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become in many cases a supreme branch of gover...

Thank you. :-*

But again this is reductionist to the extent that you're treating the subject - namely the human - in a biologistic way - explaining human nature in t...

I generally vote Labour, which is centre-left, but sometimes Liberal, which is centre-right. I believe in public education, public health, social equi...

This has some relationship with the famous Libet experiments, doesn't it? They showed that the body moves before the subject is aware that they want t...

The problem with 'mind as software' is that it surely is an analogy. It isn't literally the case, because software is code that is executed on electro...

You need to calculate the load capacity of a bridge; thrust required for take-off; amount required to settle your tax bill; flour required for your ca...

You and I both know all that, but apparently there's a substantial number of folks that don't. All I'm saying is, despite all the rationalisations, I'...

Here in Oz, there's a minor party that admires Trump, and stands on a platform basically comprising conservative politics PLUS avowed hatred of Islam ...

Aha! A Trump Troll. Like flies to a..... Never mind.

I did read it, and I don't think you're an idiot. But my view is that, if anything, Kant is underrated.

Just as well for me.

The idea that a Descartes or a Kant can be dismissed with a couple of facile slogans is beyond laughable. Here's a really nice one-pager on the contin...

Actually, Descartes mainly gets blame as 'the first of the moderns'. Ed Feser writes a lot (and very well) on the problems that were introduced by, an...

You've given no reasons for anything you've said in this thread, beyond bald assertions, starting with: Which is what I think ought to be considered '...

When argument fails, resort to hyperbole. It's not 'laughable' that philosophers before Kant didn't deeply analyse the processes of reason. You simply...

Especially compared to all the geniuses on PF. Kant responded to, and bettered, all of their work. And why? Because unlike them, he deeply analysed th...

such as?

Declaring this thread derailed.

Descartes was my first unit of philosophy, in the course Modern Philosophy. He was 'the first of the moderns and the last of the medievals', and I thi...

In Buddhist philosophy (now that we seem to have arrived there) it is said that the thinker cannot exist without thoughts, that thought and thinker ar...

Topic number three. I like Vallicella except for his reactionary politics and that he's a gun nut. Note the final paragraph of Bill's article: With re...

Actually my first example is incorrect. The existence of psychosomatic effects doesn't say anything about the natural/supernatural divide as such.

So, you mean, all of the huge debates about the philosophical implications of the uncertainty principle have been misconstrued?

I can see the introduction of 'top-down' has introduced a lot of confusion. Some of those points have been addressed in the posts above. But what this...

It isn't silly, nor it it an 'alternative fact', and I would rather not be accused of trading in such. 'A free neutron will decay with a half-life of ...

Look, questions about 'neurological involvement' and the nervous system is not metaphysics at all. 'Begging the question is 'assuming what is to be pr...

This statement is generally taken as the paradigmatic statement of blind faith. However, I would say what it means is that: any person who is aware of...

Hi, welcome Hugh. I think methodological naturalism is perfectly OK, but I also think what you're proposing as 'weak naturalism' is still essentially ...

By 'culture wars' I'm referring to the perceived conflict, widespread since the Enlightenment, between science and religion, and the sense that scienc...

'The Copenhagen Interpretation' is not a scientific hypothesis, and accordingly was never conceived as something to which the criterion of 'falsifiabi...

This begs the question. But then, explaining free will in terms of neurological events is the essence of the very 'physicalist principles' which you t...

If nature were not animate, we would not be in a position to ask the question. But neither does semiosis doesn't make any sense in the absence of mind...

I don't know how that meme has managed to get hold of someone so intelligent, articulate and concerned, but the fact that it has is one of the scary t...

Physicists are generally deficient in irony. X-)

Incidentally Michel Bitbol is a delight. I'm vastly enjoying his Pure Experience from Zen to Phenomenology.

I would have thought 'the placebo effect' provides a cogent example of top-down causation.

What is the significance of 'finite' here? Where does it start, then?

I can relate to that.

well, kinda sorta, but it's really a question of geology and applied science rather than physics per se. And also 'energy policy' is nowadays a highly...

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the story of Nilolai Tesla - I watched the Netflix doco on his life recently - but it showed that his invention o...

They are very prickly over there, I have participated in a few conversations, but they're very strict on enforcing guidelines. But in your case, that ...

Strange. But as you can see, I can message you on that forum, and you received the message, so I think you ought to ping one of the mods and see what'...

I think it makes the case for 'top-down' causation very eloquently. Were you a classical atomist, who believed that the fundmental constituents of the...

What grounds did they give for banning you? Any? //ps// your member profile on Physics Forum doesn't give an indication that you're banned.

The thread doesn't say that you were banned. It finishes with Are you saying, they closed the thread, AND banned you? What grounds did they provide fo...

A neutron when separated from an atom has a half-life of about eleven and a half minutes. It decays into a proton, an electron and a neutrino. However...