The whole problem with the 'p-zombie' is the implausibility of creating such a device. If you asked it a question which involved how it felt about som...
This thread is called 'post-truth'. Recall why that neologism was chosen as 'word of the year': Now, we have two presidential spokespersons telling bl...
Russia celebrated Trump's win, for the obvious reason that it weakens America and also might undermine NATO and the European Union. There are many 'pr...
This slanging match between 'the media' and the odious troll who is Drumpf's 'media hack' regarding the size of the inauguration crowd, is a perfect e...
I think the first sentence is OK, but I that there are issues with many of these phrases: Is that the role of government, or of culture? Such catch-ph...
As an 'argument against design' it fails, because a cup is a designed artefact, and there can be no broken cup without there having been a cup, which ...
It has been said that quantum chromodynamics is able to measure the distance between New York and Los Angeles within the width of a human hair. So tha...
The religious wars of Europe were never said to be about 'which God' but about the form of the Church, and all of the social and political consequence...
Right. So what you're saying is that the Universe itself must exist, before there can be any 'causality'? That if space-time and causality are aspects...
But I'm really suspicious of the actual motivation behind these efforts. I really do think they're an unconscious attempt to 'play God' by, in effect,...
Right. Which is why a computer is essentially a highly powerful, miniturised abacus. It's a box of switches, which outputs electrical signals. But I s...
How is the algorithm realised? i.e. turned into physical form? It requires an intepreter - otherwise it is just marks on paper. What device does that?...
Note the following: There has to have been a cup for the broken pieces to have existed in the first place. Imagine if 'broken piece of crockery' was f...
'In the brain' is a cognitive model. You will never find anything of the kind you mention 'in the brain'. You're writing as it what you're asserting i...
Fair comment. But from my perspective what I'm describing as 'materialism' is a quasi-religion in our technological culture, and I think most of us ar...
A drama consists of the script, production, sets, actors, performance, transmission, and the rest - which is an analogy for the issue at hand. If you ...
The problem the atomists set out to solve was that posed by Parmenides - how 'that which is', which was never changing, could account for the realm of...
Sounds awfully like Liebniz' 'windowless monads' to me. Languages are shared conventions, and so is much else. We learn from those around us; 'mirror ...
As you're no doubt aware, the term 'metaphysica' was coined by an editor of Aristotle's works, who gave that name to the volume 'after Physics' in the...
what should I do when my neighbor is in need? Pray, tell, what I should do when my neighbor is a murderer? What's the best course of action when my ne...
Specifically, problems that are amenable to quantitative analysis. Indeed not. The attempt to reduce everything to quantifiable questions is broadly s...
Have a look at the Wikipedia article on Substance (philosophy) and this article http://www.iep.utm.edu/substanc/ Instead of the question 'how many kin...
Right! Which is why I am of the view that physics has torpedoed materialism. As for Buddhism - what it means to me is a practical philosophy and way, ...
Have you considered that it's possible you don't understand it very well? Those sources are plainly polemical. Plenty of people hate Buddhism. Anyway,...
Without a functioning brain, a human can't form concepts, that is true. But the 'furniture of reason' - concepts, numbers, and the like - are no more ...
This is the 'first cause' or 'uncaused cause'. I was, coincidentally, just reading a definition of Nirv??a in The Buddhist Dictionary, to whit: 'Nirv?...
All you're saying there is that it must be spatially located. But that doesn't apply to numbers, laws, concepts, grammar, and the like. Where is '7'? ...
That is certainly true. Well, that's not true, and secondly, I was not speaking of Buddhism per se. I was referring to the general idea of the 'higher...
'The transcendent' here is a cypher for 'the most excellent state of being'. In traditional philosophy, attainment of that state was the summum bonum,...
That was always noted by the researches on the subject. Ian Stevenson once remarked that in India and China, people thought it was silly to research t...
From what? The truth is obvious to everyone. That is what you keep saying. So, why doesn't it follow that everyone simply recognises this fact and act...
I have always felt drawn to that idea. Musical prodigy, for instance. There are children who can learn piano without any effort at all. Mozart was abl...
Of course! That explains why there is really no need for a criminal code, or police for that matter, or the army, come to think of it. There is really...
That is an 'urban myth' based on a misreading. It is used by lots of pseudo-gurus to sell new-age books. We plainly understand the word differently. I...
In the Buddhist context, 'the Buddha' is one released from the cycle of birth, decay and death. That is what his 'awakening' consists of. Even though ...
It was 'project Nim' I was remembering. The sequence with Kanzi is interesting, he definitely seems to 'get it'. I think apes definitely have some rud...
I can't see too much wrong with it, 'Whatever remains after Will has vanished must seem to those who are still filled by it nothing. But to the man in...
In practice, quite different, but as I said, I don't hold that against Schopenhauer, I don't think he ever would have had the opportunity to meet any ...
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