Olivier5

Atheists don't agree among themselves about much. They (we) have no positive identity, no credo, by definition. I personally think that religion is fi...

That sounds oddly religious... You want an atheist inquisition?

A number is simply a concept. There's no difficulty that I can see here. That sounds both defeatist and strangely preposterous.

Apparently it records CPU usage but not each binary step.

Descartes, Leibniz, Giordano Bruno, Gassendi, Averroes, Avicenna... Ari-fuckin-stotle.

It doesn't give you a run down of the detail of its calculations though. To do that, the CPU would need to know what it is calculating while it is cal...

A lot of people: us all. We all do it, including you. You are here for a reason.

Your metaphor depends on it, but is that a fact? Can computers describe their own calculations in detail, bit by bit? Or do they only report the resul...

Okay, point well taken. True that. Roger. My mistake.

So you think scientists invented science, huh? Logic, anyone?

Scientists, as a loose collection, would not even exist in the first place if philosophers had not first carved up a safe space for freedom of inquiry...

I haven't read Collingwood so can't comment much on this thread. All I want to say is that the term "belief" summons something consciously assumed tru...

I like the term '"idden assumption". It's better than "belief" imo because these are not really positive beliefs, that we adhere to consciously and de...

Of course, Popper was influenced by scientists, mainly by QM. I happen to think he should have paid more attention to biologists.

Meaning?

Intersubjectivity. Some scientists read Popper, argue with Popper, discuss Popper between themselves. The idea of falsifiability (and others) makes it...

Popper defined the boundaries of modern science based on a fairly robust synthesis of Hume's empiricism and Kantian idealism, to simplify a bit. Scien...

Or so the gospel of John says (but not the other three canonical ones). I've read in a book on christian gnostics -- could dig the source if anyone is...

Popper, you mean? Only half a joke, since Popper was Kantian and had an undeniable, modern influence on epistemology and philosophy of science.

Their beliefs and worldviews might have been influenced by Kant, unbeknown to them. Scientist do not live outside of society and they are influenced b...

I would wish that more philosophers stop hiding behind language, and seek and defend truth against all the lies. That's BS of course, meaning never di...

... Let me rephrase. You are, among other things, an information management system, as all living creature, which is precisely why you need reliable i...

Okay so you are arguing from a position of ignorance, saying in essence "I don't know therefore nobody will ever know".

And does your theory explain the origin of RNA, pray tell?

But there is plenty of that. DNA and their proteinic maintenance machinery has be used to make computers. We come across new mechanisms everyday and w...

You haven't addressed the RNA world hypothesis, though...

Homologous recombination does not break any rule. Rather, it creates a new rule, which is that diploid organisms -- those having two genomes instead o...

That's confused verbiage. Give me an actual example or reference text.

A lot of measurement is done on the genetic code, eg one can compute the genetic distance between two organisms and derive from that a crude estimate ...

Maybe you mean when he says that life = matter + energy + information. This implies that biology has some exclusivity on information, which is incorre...

(emphasis added) Not sure Barbieri goes there. You have a quote? To me, a determinist universe could not engender life, because nothing really new hap...

Okay so you are retracting your earlier wild claim that "these molecules do seem to break known principles that we apply to Matter/Energy." Macromolec...

Excellent primer. I struggle to find anything I would disagree with in this text, though if I may, I also don't find it so original and new. It sounds...

I try to be open minded and certainly do not define myself as a materialist, but the above is just incorrect. Nothing in biochemistry breaks the laws ...

Among the real neuroscientists, I find Damasio very inspiring. https://www.ted.com/talks/antonio_damasio_the_quest_to_understand_consciousness/transcr...

Me too actually... Better become aware of a prejudice than remain unaware though.

An old French stand up, on racism. Hey! I'm not a fool, I'm a customs officer... I don't like foreigners, they come to eat the bread of the French ......

Yours. There may be unconscious thoughts, if you believe Freud. But the interesting point is that for a thought to be perceivable, you need some mecha...

Indeed, just three narratives of the same effect. And therefore they must have some effect on something, if only our self. To be able to consider a th...

If some stuff has not effect on anything, it cannot be sensed, because we could not notice any perturbation in the world that we could trace to that s...

The point is: if our thoughts were epiphenomena, we would have no way of noticing them, by definition of what an epiphenomenon is supposed to be: some...

That's not my question. I asked: if an epiphenomenon existed out there, how would we know of it? How does one notices an epiphenomenon, if by definiti...

Traveling helps, being exposed to other forms of prejudice than the one at home, which we tend to internalize and be blind to. When I lived in the US,...

How would you be able to notice an epiphenomenon?

It would make no sense for the brain to generate such a virtual mental space, if that space was not the locus for some vitally important mechanisms.

The duality of matter and form, perhaps, but not that of two different substances. It ought to be obvious to all, that minds exist for a reason, becau...

I am not saying they are man-made symbols but biological signs.

Not necessarily. The causal explanation could include the causality of the mental over the neuronal. The relationship between the mind and the body is...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hMl5Ni7s6uc

Yes, I interpret colors as biological signs (like the genetic code is a set of biological signs). Colors code not exactly for wavelength in fact, more...