Janus

Yes, none of that is a given at all and what has been left out is "according to my favourite interpretation". I would not presume to have a favorite i...

Sure, but what makes some better and happier may make others worse and unhappier. How can we justify saying that some philosophies are "superior" tout...

And I think that's a simplistic and egregious generalization. The common aspiration of all philosophy is to understand, and if that were all that was ...

This is a an example of simplistic thinking at its worst. Philosophy today is not just one thing. There are many, many streams. The more important str...

No, I mean it is impossible to think anything complex, anything involving symbols,anything that involves more than simple sensory-motor images, withou...

Exactly, thoughts cannot be understood except as they are expressed in language. Is it meaningful to conceive of a thought as being a contentless "abs...

Yes, each individual is unique; and has their own unique set of variations on the universal themes (some more interesting than others, of course)..

Of course; we have words for the numbers one to seven, for example. If I have seven objects in front of me and remove one then the number left will be...

But then the set is not merely a collection of objects, but a particular arrangement. It depends on how you stipulate it: the set of even numbers is s...

An apple is a structure, sets or collections are not structures; the elements may be arranged in any order without changing the set. Isn't that shown ...

We know there is an idea of mind, and we can stipulate that if there are ideas, there must be minds to "have" them, but since there is no mind to be f...

"The mind" is not an empirical object, to be sure, but it is also not determinably anything more than a concept. If we were going to study a purported...

So, we don't study the mind? Or we don't rule out introspection? Note the claim in the paper is that Kant did rule out introspection, And this relates...

:fire: Keepin' the flame alive...

The science tells us that life first appeared on the Earth about 3.8 billion years ago. But since it is believed most of the stars were formed billion...

I'm not so sure this is true. I mean, you're talking most specifically here about whether people subscribe to determinism or free will, I'm guessing. ...

Yes, it depends on how much it changes. Our faces are changing all the time, but I might still recognize someone I haven't seen for twenty years.

I did read that paper at the time it was linked, and I'd have to go back to it to be sure, for which I don't have time right now, but from memory Zaha...

:up: Important inclusion of the naive realists, since the presumption that things should be just as they seem or are imagined to be is held in common ...

Note I did say "proto-behaviorist", not "behaviorist" and certainly not "radical behaviorist" (viz. Skinner). In any case in that paper it is asserted...

Interesting paper, I was particularly struck by this: To see the contrast, we need to return to a work mentioned earlier, Anthropology from a Pragmati...

It sounds right that both are different varieties of direct perception, but the naive view is a (direct) conception of directness, whereas the "hidden...

That would just be profoundly unethical, regardless of the fact that you don't know whether when it collapses anyone will be injured. It is unethical ...

No, it's not tautologous: what we perceive is experienced as being perceived immediately, or do you experience some time lag between turning to look a...

I get it that we don't always see what's there, In fact most of what is in the visual, auditory, olfactory and somato-sensory fields is generally not ...

I't's not a possibly real dilemma, so why would there be any need to "deal with it"?

Thanks. I'll need to think some more on this and undergo some digestion before replying. So, when I have more time...

I'm not entirely sure what you are referring to. By "optical illusions" do you mean things like sticks appearing bent when they are part in and part o...

It's always seemed to me that they are arrived at on account of looking at the situation form different perspectives. So, the scientific understanding...

Interesting passages, thanks. I need a bit more time than I have right now to read them closely and respond.

All of your replies are based on the accepted usages within cognitive science. But this is not a cognitive science thread, and I would not presume to ...

I gave or at least implied arguments for all of these. 1, There is a clear distinction between knowledge and belief. If I know where the pub is that i...

We're are all "nobodies" here; there are no authoritative sources for ideas about the evolution of language. As to whether it is logically correct to ...

Yes, it is childish. How could you possibly know where a town will flourish in two hundred years? Some people want to reproduce, others don't. There i...

No, I'm not familiar with i, but I'm interested. Can you suggest a work that presents it?

It's just a different way of talking, as I see it. In ordinary parlance to say that something does not exist is to say it is not real, but imaginary. ...

If you stipulate that the usage of "exist" should only apply to determinate beings, then of course you're going to be right that it should not be used...

There is no point questioning memory as such; if we have no faith at all in memory, then we can have no faith in any knowledge at all. Memory is the f...

If you are the body is it not, along with the chair, a hidden state (or as I would prefer to say hidden process)? Of course we can name them, but it s...

Yes that seems to be one conception of philosophy. I think its more in the domain of art, literature, music and religion. But then there is a long phi...

I dont see how it could be answered from any "level", since it cannot be answered from our experience, by stipulation. We only know what others experi...

Yes, we do, and nothing that appears in our investigations is hidden. It is only that we can ask the question as to what that which appears to us is i...

That makes sense. Relativity theory is another example, where non-Euclidean geometry played a seminal part in its genesis. Evolutionary theory is an e...

The hidden state or better, processes, that cause us to see the cup are the whole set of conditions: environment, distance, position, cup, lighting an...

But it's obvious they are seeing different colours; that is already given in the example, and it can readily be explained by pointing to differences i...

I don't think it's in accordance with common usage to say they are seeing different things. They are both seeing a dress, and presumably of the same s...

By the same kind of reasoning if your sensation presents the Earth as being flat, when it is in fact spherical, then the sensation constitutes an illu...

If the effects of events take time, the information about events takes time, to reach the perceiver who will naturally perceive the event as occurring...

Huge anuses don't get sore Fartracks. And they don't attempt to engage with imaginary arguments either.

Neither deserved nor undeserved. When it comes to misfortune it's a category error to think in those terms. It is only in the context that punishment ...