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Wayfarer

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He doesn’t say that perceptions are hallucinations per se. See this interview. As I’ve said above, Hoffman’s is really an argument against cognitive r...
August 10, 2024 at 22:04
But notice here the assumed perspective that our perception is limited to that of being an ‘organism’. It’s inherently reductionist, as if a biologica...
August 09, 2024 at 22:11
‘Learning to use’ is not quite the same as ‘inventing’. Was the law of the excluded middle invented by us, or was it discerned? Would it be something ...
August 09, 2024 at 04:13
What Hoffman is calling into question is the mind-independence of the objects of cognition. That objects are real independently of his or your or my m...
August 08, 2024 at 22:13
:clap: Well said! Better than I could have said it myself. It could be said that this simply characterises the outlook of post-modern nihilism. Strawb...
August 08, 2024 at 21:51
Such as…? It sounds like the agenda of the ‘radical right’ in the USA, but if my intuition is correct, they’re going to get a shellacking in the forth...
August 08, 2024 at 06:39
Also I recall an earlier thread from a year ago on the same topic. It might not be too late to merge this thread into that one, as many of the same ar...
August 08, 2024 at 05:53
What do you think 'natural causation' comprises, and how might it be related to reason? It's actually quite a deep question, explored in part in this ...
August 08, 2024 at 05:42
Probably probably because it's irrelevant.
August 08, 2024 at 03:13
When he published his paper on the evolutionary argument against naturalism, a number of scholars responded critically to it, but, so far as I know, n...
August 08, 2024 at 02:01
There's an expression encountered from time to time in perennialist circles, 'the good that has no opposite'. It is distinguished from the our convent...
August 07, 2024 at 23:29
I think biological determinism remains a potent force in contemporary thought. The whole of naturalised epistemology would seek to ground reason in te...
August 07, 2024 at 23:08
The common view that Donald Hoffman seeks to challenge is our belief that objects continue to exist independently of our perception of them when they’...
August 07, 2024 at 22:04
We watched the very chilling Civil War movie the other week. The most chilling scene in that disturbing movie was when the group of journalists who we...
August 07, 2024 at 21:33
One thing Tim Walz immediately brings to the campaign is JOY! He just looks so darned happy to be there. He radiates joy. As opposed to The Other Guy,...
August 07, 2024 at 05:59
But I think you lean towards a physicalist interpretation of the inherent ambiguity implicit in the ‘epistemic cut’, so as to avoid the suggestion of ...
August 07, 2024 at 01:33
I made that remark a long time ago, but I really didn't think at the time you understood what I meant. When I say there is no evidence for physicalism...
August 07, 2024 at 00:46
I think it's more that the physical sciences offer pseudo-solutions to a problem that their modus operandi can't accomodate.
August 07, 2024 at 00:19
Inclluding purges of the civil service and intelligence agencies, a plan already outlined in detail in the Project 2025 manifesto. So now we can add u...
August 07, 2024 at 00:13
No, it's more like a handy kind of gap-filler, which can be assigned roles in many different contexts. Regarding the 'epistemic cut', I noticed this p...
August 06, 2024 at 23:57
By accident means 'for no reason'. There's the nub of the issue right there. But here, are you imputing intentionality, which is the specific attribut...
August 06, 2024 at 22:58
No, Donald Hoffman, but as you've dropped the name.....
August 06, 2024 at 22:20
Well, if you need any inside info on a pond vacuum cleaner, don't hesitate......
August 06, 2024 at 22:17
As soon as you’re talking about ‘the sense in which the spoon “exists”’ then you’re already in the territory of philosophy, you’re qualifying its exis...
August 06, 2024 at 21:45
In this case, I would favour N?g?rjuna over Buddhaghosa, but this is not the forum for Buddhist doctrinal disputes. But, long and short is, realising ...
August 06, 2024 at 09:44
Deepak Chopra :scream: And not even any need to argue!
August 06, 2024 at 08:40
All of those types of objections are addressed in the book, with references to papers that make such arguments. Besides, saying that we don’t perceive...
August 06, 2024 at 05:52
:rofl: A quote from Chapter 4 - the Interface Theory of Perception (ITP), which compares our perception of objects to the icons on a computer interfac...
August 06, 2024 at 03:30
It's called 'scepticism'.
August 06, 2024 at 03:22
In his mind ;-)
August 06, 2024 at 02:34
In Chapter 3, Hoffman discusses the background to his ideas, including his apprenticeship under Francis Crick among others. He also introduces the Fit...
August 06, 2024 at 02:33
(By way of footnote - the question of what is eternal and/or persists in Buddhism is a very interesting one, against the background assumption of the ...
August 06, 2024 at 01:07
I think at stake is Capital T Truth. There's not much consideration for that in philosophy today. 'Whatever works' becomes the measure.
August 05, 2024 at 23:32
Based on Buddhist studies readings, I see a convergence between Hoffman's views and the Buddhist principle of ??nyat? (emptiness). In Buddhism, ??nyat...
August 05, 2024 at 22:46
His 'theorem' - and there are objections to his use of that term in this context - is precisely that 'fitness beats truth'. It is that natural selecti...
August 05, 2024 at 22:17
I’m also very interested in the whole apparent convergence between cognitivism and philosophical idealism. Hoffman is on the board of Kastrup’s Essent...
August 05, 2024 at 21:54
I’m reading the Case Against Reality at the moment, although finding it a little difficult to maintain interest. I’ve also listened to some of his pan...
August 05, 2024 at 21:52
The Phenomenon of Life: Towards a Philosophy of Biology (1961), Hans Jonas.
August 05, 2024 at 01:18
I will review it but the over-arching question is teleological. (I guess the micro tubules referred to in that video are the same as those that Penros...
August 04, 2024 at 06:09
You say that but I’m inherently distrustful of mechanistic metaphors past a certain point. I can see how the analogy works but I can’t see how it acco...
August 04, 2024 at 06:00
:up: Will read with interest.
August 04, 2024 at 05:03
What Wigner found baffling was not that maths was so effective, but why it was. And also the way mathematics developed in one context proved effective...
August 04, 2024 at 04:32
Thank you. Myself, less so, although I'm always very interested in what you and the other contributors have to say on it.
August 03, 2024 at 23:25
An important distinction. My observation is that biosemiotics is not strictly physicalist in orientation, based as it is on the principles of signs an...
August 03, 2024 at 23:01
August 03, 2024 at 10:26
I was musing on the well-known saying of 'thinking outside the box'. As is common knowledge the origin of this expression is a cognitive test wherein ...
August 03, 2024 at 01:27
But isn't there something deficient about Wittgenstein's apodictic religion? After all, he was claimed as the emblem of the vociferously anti-religiou...
August 02, 2024 at 23:06
Very much. His main claim to fame was a lecture series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. He's pretty wide-ranging but tries to stay within the bounds...
August 02, 2024 at 21:36
I've been reading that he has two campaign managers, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, who have been trying to domesticate him and get him to stick to t...
August 02, 2024 at 21:24
There's a rather awkward neologism I've heard several times of late, 'transjective - transcending the distinction between subjective and objective, or...
August 02, 2024 at 07:38