No. Life is short. Don't think of this sort of writing as an attempt at communication at all. Like a lot of bullshit, it's an attempt to assert domina...
It's the obvious ones, really. I'll give you one, but only the definition: biological theory everyone thinks they understand. I'm not hiding anything....
What we have here is the unholy union of several styles of philosophy that are tricky on their own but dangerous junk when mixed. (1) The oracular sty...
By the way, it's your model so I don't know what to do with this, but it might be worth bearing in mind that something that is invariably unarticulate...
Yes, yes, we all know there is another framework. What you need to argue for is exclusivity. I think your position is that naturalism itself makes an ...
Haven't read all the recent back and forth here, but I think the usual examples of conditional probability do not apply. If you want a closer analogy ...
One thing that strikes me as a little odd is that descriptions can be faithful without being exhaustive, and, knowing that, we expect there to be many...
Right, right. Some of us tend to quote Ockham's with a little emphasis on the necessity. That was Quine's read, I'd say: anything your theory needs to...
Btw, me neither, I think, but it's been years since I looked at that essay. It's just part of the culture now. For instance, it's why 538's mascot is ...
Which is almost identical to the original Ockham's, entities should not be multiplied without necessity. (And the simplified version: all else being e...
So what's the deal with lesion studies, anesthesia, all the usual things people point to where changes in the brain affect a person's thinking and emo...
I think everything you posted is right, and comports with what I understand of the two systems model; thus we can continue to use the word intuition j...
In this case, words means variations. And yes, with the limited time available, a player might not be able to produce all the variations that justify ...
There are lots of things where I think that's true, where it's even obviously true, but actually I don't think chess is one of them. Chess has no hidd...
I think scientists instinctively talk this way -- "When the light from this object passes through your retina and strikes these cones, blah blah blah"...
If I put three cupcakes on a table otherwise devoid of cupcakes, I have caused an odd number of cupcakes to be on the table. Which one is that, physic...
Then what are we talking about? How do you feel about neuroscientists saying things like "the self is an illusion"? --- Before answering, note that no...
It's a different framework, sure. The question is why you think the existence and utility of this framework, our everyday understanding of mentality, ...
(How can I not quote that?) Imagine a bygone era when social roles for the sexes were more sharply distinguished. There are some paradoxes. Most house...
I promise. Not always. I suppose in a way I approach my own thoughts the same as I approach the thoughts of others, curious about what's really behind...
Well, as I said, we work pretty hard to get opposing theories to make claims or predictions that compete directly, but that doesn't make those yes-no ...
I remember years ago hearing a theory that competition plays less of a role in market economies than people think. When it comes to commodities of com...
I can relate. I've tried to read The Catcher in the Rye a couple times and could barely get 10 or 20 pages in. I think I might have loved it at 15, bu...
It used to be commonly said by serious chess players and trainers that you need to take a break from the game sometimes and wait until "chess hunger" ...
I mean, there's some stuff in there that's kinda okay, or at least a start on something that might be interesting, but the style in which it is writte...
I would say right off this has happened regularly, but it might be more accurate to say that my ideal is not having positions, and now and then I mana...
Sure. No less a personage than Ezra Pound once said I don't feel bad either reinventing the wheel or repeating another's thoughts. Honestly I don't fe...
Ah. Goes like this: we all have some bias or style or temperament or whatever; you might not recognize that you do and deny it, act defensively, all t...
I think there's a lot to the idea of philosophical temperaments. (Been reading William James.) You missed an option though, which I guess maybe is sha...
The inventor of my name. Well there's a whole thing about being respectable that's crap, of course. SF may be "the dreams our stuff is made of" now (b...
Theodore Sturgeon is often credited with pushing sf in a more literary direction from the early 50s onward. Later, there's Bester. And LeGuin. And lat...
Jolly. I withdraw the phrasing. I can't help but think the only real option is oscillating between the two, what I was gesturing at with the word 'dia...
Alright. It's been years since I read it though, and often can't convince myself to reread things just for class. But you know I'm always up for talki...
Probably the sort of thing I had in mind as science. I don't understand this exchange. Is there something we disagree about? Could you tell me what it...
I wouldn't try to convince you guys that Ubik is a great novel. I'm not sure he wrote a great novel, really. But all the work I've read is of a piece,...
It was picturesque. I only mean that science seeks generality, else it's stamp collecting. Do trees have a common structure? How do they differ from o...
Here's a classic statement, from Raymond Chandler's "The Simple Art of Murder," published in The Atlantic in 1944, a defense of hard-boiled detective ...
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