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Wayfarer

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However I would think that the emergence of h. sapiens was quite an abrupt transformation, relative to the timescales generally associated with evolut...
October 26, 2016 at 22:30
Good for you, but it doesn't constitute a philosophical argument as such. If you could develop an argument against those of Dawkins, informed by your ...
October 26, 2016 at 22:11
In: Qualia  — view comment
I've been arguing that to equate a 'brain state' with a concept, requires conceptual analysis, and so must involve a circular argument. You can't say ...
October 26, 2016 at 21:40
I think what you're attempting to articulate is a non-dualist perspective. The difficulty is that such expressions are situated within a particular 'd...
October 26, 2016 at 10:06
Sign on the door says 'philosophy forum'.
October 26, 2016 at 09:24
Because it doesn't make any difference if it's true.
October 26, 2016 at 08:36
I hate to be blunt but the OP is nonsensical. The proposal that endless universes are created randomly is meaningless nonsense.
October 26, 2016 at 08:19
In: Qualia  — view comment
The nature of the first person perspective is somewhat similar to a blind spot. The first person perspective is never the object of experience, for th...
October 26, 2016 at 01:36
In: Qualia  — view comment
Rejecting the qualitiative difference between the first and third person perspective is the nub of the entire debate. Denett grants that first-person ...
October 26, 2016 at 01:20
(Y) Now you're speaking my language....
October 25, 2016 at 23:57
"A just machine to make big decisions Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision We'll be clean when their work is done We'll be eternally free ...
October 25, 2016 at 23:55
OK then, I meant 'simplistic'.
October 25, 2016 at 21:57
In: Qualia  — view comment
And I'm saying you can't make that claim without invoking the very thing you're trying to explain. If for instance you did an fMRI study of 'brain sta...
October 25, 2016 at 21:34
That is why I think the remedy has to be counter-cultural and why environmentalism and alternative spirituality are intrinsic to the solution. (But to...
October 25, 2016 at 21:25
In: Qualia  — view comment
That's I meant by 'awkwardly worded on my part'. What I'm saying is that relations of identity i.e. that 'neural events' are the same as 'the act of t...
October 25, 2016 at 20:49
Not at all! That is of great interest to me, also. I have been pursuing such ideas all my life. Here's a few resources: Science and Nonduality Closer ...
October 25, 2016 at 20:40
In: Qualia  — view comment
That was awkwardly worded on my part. Have a listen to 2 minutes of this talk by Loyd Gerson, for a very brief Aristotelean argument as to why, if mat...
October 25, 2016 at 11:12
In: Qualia  — view comment
Whenever you say that something 'is really' something else, you're denoting a relationship of equivalence - that 'this' means 'that', or that 'this' (...
October 25, 2016 at 10:20
You have to walk the walk, and I don't think you're doing it.
October 25, 2016 at 10:17
In: Qualia  — view comment
Well that provides a perfect intro for one of my very favourite quotes on this exact topic. — René Descartes Discourse on Method in Discourse on Metho...
October 25, 2016 at 08:37
In: Qualia  — view comment
I agree with you but the reason I provided all of those details, is because it is the likes of Dennett, et al, who have the arguments about 'qualia' a...
October 25, 2016 at 07:32
Fair while. Used to spend hours doing it.
October 25, 2016 at 06:26
I used to be able to skip a rock across water 14 times. So I guess that proves I can count.
October 25, 2016 at 06:22
Basically your post says 'hey, all we need to do is define 'ideas' and 'knowledge'! - and then you proceed to do that, as if you can compose a forum p...
October 25, 2016 at 03:06
I'm not 'conflating' anything. Without the ability to organise sensations, then what kind of ideas could you form of anything? It's not simply a quest...
October 25, 2016 at 01:07
That is because your on the path!
October 25, 2016 at 01:04
They were taught it, but some of them were mathematical prodigies, i.e. they were able to grasp mathematical ideas with far greater ability than other...
October 25, 2016 at 00:51
I understand - like 'practicing the Presence'. But that assumes you are a believer already, whereas I think the OP is asking for reasons why one ought...
October 25, 2016 at 00:41
There have been notable blind mathematicians. In fact last time this came up, I think I discovered some notable deaf-mute mathematicians. But regardle...
October 25, 2016 at 00:38
In: Qualia  — view comment
Here are excerpts from last section of the Wikipedia article on Dennett's book Consciousness Explained, which explicitly argues that first-person expe...
October 24, 2016 at 23:27
In: Qualia  — view comment
The term 'eliminative materialism' refers to a school of thought, of which Daniel Dennett is a prominent advocate (others including the husband and wi...
October 24, 2016 at 23:12
I was reading an essay by a Catholic philosopher of science, who noted that: Retelling the Story of Science Note however that the world is not thereby...
October 24, 2016 at 22:36
I think that sense of 'desacralized' or 'demystified' is very typical of the secular age in which we live. Some people (for example, Terrapin Station)...
October 24, 2016 at 22:30
@Thorongil - I've tracked down that attribution of Vajrayana as 'the third turning' - it gives this page as a citation, which doesn't say anything of ...
October 24, 2016 at 21:23
Personally I have always found the sensation of mathematics difficult.
October 24, 2016 at 20:45
People are no more a blank slate than is a new iPhone. Yes, I think Kant's critique of empiricism is conclusive.
October 24, 2016 at 10:02
But humans have an innate ability to learn language. They may not be born with a vocabulary, but unlike other primates, are born with the capacity for...
October 24, 2016 at 03:52
I think John Locke's 'tabula rasa' is one of the unfortunate dogmas of the age. I have Steve Pinker's book on that topic and, aside from my disagreeme...
October 24, 2016 at 02:26
In: Qualia  — view comment
But I'm simply arguing that logic is the relationship of ideas. Logic can be represented physically, but it is not in itself physical. (And besides - ...
October 24, 2016 at 01:32
In: Qualia  — view comment
But Dennett is an eliminative materialist, which Wittgenstein never was. Dennett's view is that what we take to be qualia, what appears to us as first...
October 24, 2016 at 01:22
In: Qualia  — view comment
Without brain states ideas are not possible. I think what you're thinking is that you can provide an account of ideas with reference to brain-states -...
October 24, 2016 at 00:45
In: Qualia  — view comment
There's a relevant quote in the Wikipedia article, from the first mention of the term in the literature: Clarence Irving Lewis, Mind and the World Ord...
October 23, 2016 at 23:18
In: Qualia  — view comment
OK forgive the sarcasm. But the thread is about a specific topic, namely, qualia, which I've already noted, is a clunky piece of philosophical jargon ...
October 23, 2016 at 22:27
In: Qualia  — view comment
You must send me some photos from your planet some day.
October 23, 2016 at 22:21
In: Qualia  — view comment
The nature of qualia is such that they are, by definition, a first-person experience, or rather, they are intrinsic to the nature of first-person expe...
October 23, 2016 at 21:52
Work is not faith. You can say you have to have faith to do the work, but from the viewpoint of praxis, 'work' is 'performing the service' or 'turning...
October 23, 2016 at 10:52
Quick! Another Berdyaev quote! As I observed before, we're all citizens of free societies and in that sense free in economic, social and political ter...
October 23, 2016 at 08:55
In: Qualia  — view comment
thanks! Warms the quale of my heart >:O
October 23, 2016 at 05:38
In: Qualia  — view comment
I think its existence is incontestable. It is a known fact that one's mental processes are in part directed by sub-processes of which one is not consc...
October 23, 2016 at 00:03
I've posted a question about it on the Dharmawheel forum.
October 22, 2016 at 23:56