Galuchat

The foundational question is: what is a person? It's an important question because personhood has social and legal implications. All human beings have...

I agree with your thoughts on subjectivity. With regard to Dennett's levels of psychological explanation, he assigns an ontological status only to his...

What does he say, and what do you think, minds and experiences are?

In Dennett's case, no mental experience may be a fact.

Or, in psychological terms, cognition (knowing condition). Or cognisance (mental experience of knowing), part of being aware; the other part being per...

Much has been considered and written in the field of semiotics since John Poinsot's Tractatus de Signis. Why have you recommended this work over those...

Yes. I would define a mental representation as a cognitive symbol (a type of sign).

Absolutely. It is the use of the word “representation” to describe phenomena such as neural conditions and signals that I object to, because none of i...

Thanks very much for your feedback. I will need to wait until tomorrow to consider it in detail.

Fair enough. I would say that phenomena (physical actualities) are perceived, not encoded in neural representations. Perception being the experience c...

I define awareness as a perceptive and cognisant condition. So, rather than "becoming aware of neurally encoded intelligibility", I think it is more a...

I would rather say that Applied (Practical) Science is a litmus test of the truth of scientific theory per Negative Pragmatism. "What 'works' pragmati...

You will recall that this discussion was precipitated by your assertion that: In contrast to Einstein's thoughts on the subject: Einstein, A. (1933). ...

How does one use an unknown concept?

Fair enough. How would you use universal numbers to solve the problems and make the decisions in the situation I described above (abstracting all part...

If after deliberative cogitation, you have no description for an abstract universal called "number", it would be reasonable to conclude that you've ne...

Symbols are objects having intersubjective meaning. In this case, they are graphical or written code for mental representations of multitude, magnitud...

That's a good case in point, actually. H2O specifies a molecule of water. H2O specifies H squared times O. So, what universal does “2” denote?

That's great. Thanks for the clarifications.

I see in this scheme: constraint and freedom, determinism and indeterminism.

The Laws of Nature are immaterial, transcendent and immanent, principles which act (operating, controlling). So, they are independent of, and determin...

I like equating intentionality with logical propagation (carrying information forward in time) because it renders unnecessary the use of undesirable p...

I have downloaded, and am happy to read your article, "Mind or Randomness in Evolution", however; my interest in biology is only incidental to my inte...

Thanks for mentioning your article, "A New Reading of Aristotle's Hyle". I found it to be clear, enlightening with regard to explaining the difference...

All human beings practise psychology (the study of mind) when they attribute mental predicates to subjects (e.g., awareness and rationality) on the ba...

What is rationality? I think that: 1) Rationality is the possession of reason (a mental faculty). 2) A human being is a body/mind unity. 3) Human biol...

That is rather the whole point: unbelief was the point of departure, so belief is the only point of return.

From here: To here: If your understanding is not contradictory, your explanations certainly are. And to @"apokrisis" here: In my opinion, you have bee...

If the soul (mind+form of the body) is the source of intentional activity, and we must look to something other than the mind as the source of intentio...

As previously noted here: The intellect (mind) and soul (form of the living body) of the human being are united as one (according to Aquinas, not Aris...

Continuing with the SEP article (2. The Four Causes): "Moreover, a teleological explanation of the type sketched above does not crucially depend upon ...

It definitely is as far as the vast majority of people are concerned; which is its own vindication.

Can purpose refer to function or reason instead of intent, and thereby to a strictly physical (as opposed to mental, or non-physical) process? For exa...

A mind condition (mode of being). Examples: 1) Consciousness (mass noun) 2) Altered States of Consciousness (noun) 3) Personality (Affect Correlation)...

Well said. The reason I dislike Bateson's definition of information so much is because it only pertains to information created by a mind. Types of inf...

Does mathematical incommensurability entail epistemological (as opposed to ontological) emergence per Michel Bitbol?

I agree. I've not read it, but it appears to be highly relevant. Also, @"Wayfarer" would be a good source of information, since he studied Comparative...

The latter.

Drawing a distinction between religious (or better, spiritual) experiences, and religious (or better, theological) concepts, and religion itself; reli...

At this point, one can only invoke the Fourth Law of Holes.

I agree that a triadic formulation of human substance is more complicated than a dyadic one. Whether or not it's necessary depends on the relevant sci...

I like the basic Platonic and Aristotelian framework of Forms, because it involves the process of information (which provides a direct link to modern ...

Thanks for your clarification. I find it unfortunate that Aquinas conflated soul (form) and mind, because it is: 1) Theologically unnecessary. Other t...

"Aquinas, capitalising on Aristotle's obscure remarks about the active intellect, argued that 'the intellectual principle which is called the mind or ...

With reference to gene expression, both. What is your concept of the relations between Form, Matter, and Mind? Hopefully, it is not based on an Aristo...

This would appear to be our fundamental point of disagreement.

So, an agent may be a: human being, dog, volcano, tornado, force, wave, phase transition, biochemical signal or reaction, fertilized egg (zygote), tel...

My bad. @"Read Parfit" referred to "a conscious host", and you replied: "...something (an agent) who is practising semiosis", here. So, I assumed you ...

Biosemioticians would say that only life (not conscious agency) is required for semiotic relationships to obtain. In the case of gene expression, is i...

And yet, systems (or better, mental representations) are part of the human psyche. If Nietzsche had been a systematic theologian, he probably would ha...