Kenosha Kid

It's not even one guy atm. The above is what you've been asked to evidence. You're not doing that. From a scientist's standpoint, the claim of a scien...

I think this is somewhat overly linear thinking. The brain, the unconscious side of it, is teachable. It's not a blank slate, but it can relearn prior...

That's also incoherent. "alive" is a word with a definition. What you're admitting here is that the definition of "alive" excludes viruses, but viruse...

With an article that I think you didn't read. The pro argument isn't saying viruses are alive according to current definition of life. Okay, this is a...

Fairy nuff, thanks.

Right, which also holds for quantum theory, a thoroughly logical, mathematical theory but that is intractable for macroscopic systems, hence why a) pe...

Again, the photon is described by a time-dependent wavefunction, which will disperse both in real and reciprocal space thermodynamically. It's still t...

I don't know what you're trying to say (and I have read on). What is the difference here between a "photon" and a "photon field configuration"? If the...

Iirc Dennett's description here is meant to be disparaging. Good post though, I enjoyed it a lot.

:up:

Bold claim alert. Please back this up. The article you cite is a debate between a person saying that viruses don't adhere to the definition of the wor...

Or rather ought to say nothing. Conserved quantities themselves are in fact just statements about the apparent behaviour of the world (empiricism). Qu...

The quark model (and it is just a model) is based on empiricism, not belief. Believing the model to be a high-fidelity representation of reality is, y...

You certainly stated its artificiality as a counterargument. If you're backtracking on that, good. Oh, not just me. In fact you're the only person I'v...

I don't find it weird, I find it incoherent. If being man-made precludes will, it should do so whether alive or not. If it does not, it never should. ...

I'll agree that there are hierarchies of ontology. I don't _believe_ in quarks the way I believe in houses. But it's not just a case of wanting. By th...

Well now we're in a realm where words don't really mean anything. Is it your belief that all organic molecules are themselves alive? Therefore being m...

I understand your post in and if itself, but have no idea how it relates to order being good and chaos being evil. A mass grave of Jewish corpses in a...

So: is irrelevant? I'm inclined to agree. So earlier we established that it isn't the living (or life-modifying) individual that demonstrates will, bu...

Easy. The desired outcome was: discuss philosophy with people more knowledgeable about it than me. The chosen course of action -- to visit a philosoph...

And I can argue all day against comparison to the evolution of virus DNA, or any other competence without comprehension. So are you saying that a viru...

I see what you're saying, but it's not like a hydrogen atom is figuring out the frequency it should oscillate at: it is constrained to aim toward a pa...

Follow the same procedure. Ask them what their options and restrictions where, what factors were overwhelming at the time, how they justified choosing...

It's difficult to imagine it. Whatever the initial conditions, whatever the strength of gravity, if you have a partioned box with gas in one side and ...

Sorry Raymond, I didn't give you a very comprehensive response. Let me separate that into two parts because a puppeteer is not only controling the pup...

Determinism isn't an event though. Effects need prior causes. Determinism doesn't. It fits more into the role of characteristic of nature (although se...

True. I cede the point intended. Although we're all slaves of, and none of us masters to, causality! :scream: Fatuous but technically on-topic :rofl:

Determinism doesn't verify anything at all, it's not in assurance. Or something very like them, along with general relativity or something very like i...

By definition, no. Determinism covers deterministic process only. Ah okay,I misunderstood sorry. Is it? The slave might seem to depend on the master f...

Yeah, you misunderstand Occam's razor. It's not saying "go with what's easiest for you personally to grasp". It says "go with the theory with the fewe...

Just checking your arithmetic here. (2) consists of two things. (1) just one thing. To clarify, you're going on record that two things is simpler than...

No, state is an example of information, reproduction an example of transmission. But none of that requires a will. Your computer does this well enough...

I'm not going to get drawn in to antiscientific new age guff about disorder being evil. The basis for the argument in your OP was a scientific one: th...

No, it's funded by the second law of thermodynamics. You can choose to be ignorant about something (or do your own research in contemporary parlance),...

It's common to use terminology like this as a shorthand or metaphor even among scientists, especially scientific communicators. But one shouldn't take...

I'm pretty sure if you fire a human from a trebuchet, they will follow the path given by the principle of least action. So in an example that is equiv...

T Clark nailed it as usual. One subtle but important point: mutations occur between generations, not within an individual's lifetime. Will is persuant...

Which now I've described it I realise is Qanon.

In what sense, when you argue for racial inequality, are you not a racist? That's what racism is. In what sense, when you argue for gender inequality,...

I think the only extent to which that is done rightly is the extent to which it's preferable to base one's values on objective reality rather than fan...

:up: Guilty, but that's characteristic of a) only having the experience to work with, not it's causes, b) being largely ignorant of the nature of thos...

When you're asking a question about the nature of qualia, you're really talking theory. Qualia _seem_ to happen whatever our theories about them. Ther...

Yes, it's interesting, I think about it quite a lot. Personal view, I think faith is a necessary pragmatism. It's all well and good dithering on a phi...

So, in a crowded nutshell, what you're saying is that perception, as you understand it, is the end-to-end of the nervous system from stimulation of ne...

But also rigour. If you go in with the view that the answer to any sum is 5, you'll make a crappy calculator. The call to commit to the objective real...

It would be a useful start. If there are other sources of our experiences (and there are, not just dreams and hallucinations, but biases, errors, and ...

Indeed, I suggested sensation, but that's not right either. The issue is what the word 'perception' means, and it means the organisation of sensory in...

It's pretty easy, you just don't cherry-pick reality. There's lots of famous examples.

Why is that confusing? Otherwise you end up pulling in every theory when you wanted to talk about just one. It's not the molecules in the brain. When ...

Is the life of a slave much the same as the life of Leonardo DiCaprio then? There is the fact that if you give a miserable man a winning lottery ticke...