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Wayfarer

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I think I understand the politics OK. I think the straw that broke the camels back was actually Polish tradesmen (so to speak).
November 24, 2016 at 09:10
I don't think that does justice to what Plato is after, which is knowledge of the real. The theme in many passages is, how do you know what you think ...
November 24, 2016 at 09:09
Granted, I'm not in the UK and most of the media I read were in the 'remain' camp. But I think the proof will be in the actual figures - employment, e...
November 24, 2016 at 08:43
thanks BC, that's my view also.
November 24, 2016 at 05:53
Well, deciding whether to leave the common market is a considerably more complex matter than tying one's own shoes. I'm not actually dissing the worki...
November 24, 2016 at 05:42
Right! That is roughly the difference between 'coherence' and 'correspondence' in respect of truth-values. Correspondence sounds like common sense, un...
November 24, 2016 at 05:40
It's a bit broader than that - I wasn't referring to the specific bureaucrats involved in just those issues, but all of the financial, goverment and t...
November 24, 2016 at 05:26
I think Trump is already showing signs of living down to expectations, by refusing to put his interests in a blind trust, cronyism with family members...
November 24, 2016 at 04:03
If you look at the British situation - those who now have to implement the extremely difficult task of effecting separation from the EU, are mainly th...
November 24, 2016 at 02:37
Powerful speech against Trump from the floor of the House. https://youtu.be/GHhmHkZhPu8
November 24, 2016 at 00:16
The story doing the rounds this morning is that the current estimate of the cost of the UK leaving the EU is being estimated at £58.7 billion. So much...
November 23, 2016 at 23:33
This is a bit tangential to the topic, but isn't the idea of DNA as language somewhat analogical - DNA is language-like, rather than language per se. ...
November 23, 2016 at 22:37
Progress is never-ending, but guaranteed. All problems are soluble. Don't know how you can possibly believe that when there are so many conceptual gap...
November 23, 2016 at 22:28
How can it be otherwise? Propositions don't float around in the ether, they are not natural forms, but only exist in the minds of rational beings who ...
November 23, 2016 at 11:16
The hierarchical order is an idea which was represented as 'the great chain of being', the title of a 1936 book by an Arthur Lovejoy. The import is th...
November 23, 2016 at 10:49
(Y) Do you get to make the facts up or do you have to report them? Well, biography (and history, for that matter) requires the telling of a story, in ...
November 23, 2016 at 05:22
Big subject! I think the sense of self-consciousness, of being individual subjects in a domain of objects, forces and people, is actually one of the d...
November 23, 2016 at 04:10
Yeah, I was forgetting. Philosophy relies on scientific inaccuracy. :-} From the perspective of 'the natural sciences', then you have to account for p...
November 23, 2016 at 03:53
But that also sees life as being just a way that the Universe 'dissipates energy', culminating in 'maximum entropy', i.e. the 'heat death' of the Univ...
November 23, 2016 at 03:09
It's more than Hegel. Since Descartes' time, the world was divided into 'matter' and 'spirit', abstractions that were subsequently reified (for which ...
November 23, 2016 at 02:25
That is true, within the domain of discursive reason, but there is also a domain beyond reason, which is what I would think 'spirit' is supposed to de...
November 23, 2016 at 01:42
Apologies if that was an ad hominem. Sorry about that, I got carried away by my own rhetoric. I will refrain from such remarks in future.
November 22, 2016 at 22:26
I actually might have triggered that debate in an aside that came up in that thread. My view: truth is mind-dependent, because it is the predicate of ...
November 22, 2016 at 21:38
It won't make any difference. The point that always comes up is the fact that Everett's metaphysic implies that the universe 'splits', that each separ...
November 22, 2016 at 21:20
Or, Everett got it wrong because the 'wave collapse' actually occurs.
November 22, 2016 at 15:10
Remainers (left holding the Brexit baby after the Leavers… left) “WTF?” Leavers “We voted Brexit, now You Remainers need to implement it” Remainers “B...
November 22, 2016 at 10:36
New Scientist on how everything arises from nothing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV0Crm6xFsU
November 22, 2016 at 01:16
This is the guts of it. The interpretive hang-ups arise because there is this feeling that physicalist ontology must make a sharp distinction between ...
November 22, 2016 at 01:05
I think you're wanting to avoid the responsibility that comes with being. After all, you're designated 'a being'. And that carries with it many unknow...
November 22, 2016 at 00:56
But again, quantum mechanics is not claiming the situation to be (classically) physical. But, at least some interpretations are claiming exactly that....
November 21, 2016 at 23:46
It's a hard question. If it was an easy question, why do you think the two greatest scientists of the 20th Century could never come to terms over it! ...
November 21, 2016 at 23:07
I think what I'm saying is not in contradiction to what you're saying, but it's just looking at one particular aspect of it. Or I would hope, anyway. ...
November 21, 2016 at 22:18
One of the comments on the above blog posts is: Now, notice there that "real" and "physical" are assumed to be equivalent. This figures, because all t...
November 21, 2016 at 22:15
Of course, but what determines the pattern is not the consequence of things being arranged by physical forces, but as a consequence of the emergence o...
November 21, 2016 at 22:08
the post on Sean Carroll's blog was dated 2011, and refers to the 'PSR paper', which argues that the the probability wave is physical. You may recall ...
November 21, 2016 at 20:49
who is saying time is a factor in the sense that multiple events need to accumulate for there to be quantum interference? The question is, what causes...
November 21, 2016 at 20:46
However, if you replicated the 'single photon' type of trial in a water tank, it would mean that you would release one 'quantum' of energy at a time i...
November 21, 2016 at 10:15
The point that interests me about 'rate dependence' is this - what is varied if the same amount of energy is released one photon at a time versus bein...
November 21, 2016 at 10:14
I've got nothing against 'systems theorists' at all, but I think you're drawing a long bow; I don't think you will find anything like 'islands of stab...
November 21, 2016 at 08:13
but rather there are temporary orders precipitated from the interactions of unstable forces. An early systems theorist? I'm sure they would like that,...
November 21, 2016 at 07:58
I'm not declaring anything, I'm exploring a question. Here is the relevant exchange from the Physics Forum: afcsimoes: "So, if we made a first double ...
November 21, 2016 at 06:48
Rather than telling me I must be a crackpot, please consider the point. I didn't say anything of the kind. What I was told on Physics Forum, is whethe...
November 21, 2016 at 04:20
I really hoped for something other than sarcasm and dismissiveness. Maybe my expectations were misplaced.
November 21, 2016 at 02:08
The point of the second quote is the rejection of any order at all. The very idea of order is anthropomorphic, the world is 'in all eternity chaos'. I...
November 21, 2016 at 02:05
He is therefore, on this reading, not ruling out creative spiritual ideas of subjective transcendental truth or order, which may contribute to the flo...
November 21, 2016 at 01:29
The pattern is dictated by the wave function. That will be so regardless of which apparatus or set-up you're using. The equation which describes the d...
November 21, 2016 at 00:30
I do get that. Note these quotes. And is that the wave that is described by the Schrodinger equation? But I'm thinking, it can't be a product. The fac...
November 20, 2016 at 22:54
I can't see how it's possible to admire both Nietszche and Plato, and I admire Plato.
November 20, 2016 at 21:46
I should stick to my self-imposed rule of never discussing Nietzsche.
November 20, 2016 at 21:41
Hang on Woz, I think you've crossed threads.
November 20, 2016 at 21:36