Janus

O, the infinitely evil Buddhists; all destined for eternal damnation! :rofl:

Yes. I made the same point many pages ago. It's remarkable how some threads can motor on needlessly fueled mostly by misunderstanding.

It seems circular to me; there is only a problem of the equations "coming out at zero" because there is already an observer to produce the equations. ...

As I understood it he refers to it as a possibility that ought to be explored. The problem is that no indication of how it could be explored is forthc...

Linde seems to be saying the opposite; that spacetime is independently real.

I guess it's possible. Although I have to say I am skeptical because to my way of thinking the idea of qualia is just the notion of how things "feel",...

I agree, and I think there certainly seem to be real "levels" of being and interaction. There is the atomic level, below that the "quark" level, and a...

I touched on this earlier; I think Kant's idea makes sense if we consider it from the human point of view. So from that perspective empirical objects ...

:up: I was really into Whitehead a few years ago, and I generally agree with a process approach, as the idea of static entities seems to be merely a f...

I see physics as being a heavy duty reduction. How can we describe time and material change on that most basic abstracted level of interactive forces?...

Say a prehistoric animal is thirsty and remembers where it last drank. Then it starts moving in the direction of the water. Is it not expecting the wa...

I have no doubt that other animals see the same things we do. They recognize the same things as food, water, trees, and so on. You don't see birds try...

I agree that our discussions have always been pleasant (and mine with @"Mww" as well). I am never quite sure with you too whether we are actually disa...

I agree that the function of such things as buildings, roads and so on would be lost if there were no sentient beings capable of grasping it. But that...

Whether life is more suffering than joy is up to you. In any case it is impossible to quantify, so such a judgement is down to disposition.

Whether or not anyone would be around is not relevant to the cogency of the question, just as what was around prior to the advent of humanity is not a...

You are assuming that the existence of things depends on our positing their existence; I don't make that assumption. I also don't follow Peirce in ass...

I don't see any reason to think that buildings, roads and so on would not remain if all humans were gone. What about remains of previous cultures whic...

Why not? Houses, bridges, cars, doors, steps, parks, roads, sidewalks etc, etc.

Say humanity was instantly and totally wiped out somehow; you don't think all the buildings, roads, furniture, cars and so on would remain?

On that assumption what remains to be explained is how it is that we all see the same things in the same locations.

True without percipents there would be no conceptualization. But conceptualization requires perception and perception require percipients and somethin...

Sure, what else would we have to go on?

I haven't failed to see the point, Wayfarer; I actually agree with what you said above, it is you who fails to see what I am saying and are thus argui...

I don't think it's surprising, Given the shifting notions of religion and metaphysics. It's Schopenhauer the metaphysician whose arguments I see as fa...

:up:

But as I have acknowledged ad nauseum, I have no argument with what seems to me to be the obvious fact that the way we are constituted affects the way...

I don't believe idealism or realism can be defeated; they just represent the two imaginable metaphysical possibilities. I do think it is pretty dising...

I think the argument that the world must be mind-dependent because a world cannot be imagined except by a mind is specious. The fact is that we can im...

David Lewis said "Let there be shite" and then there was this thread.

You see only what you want to see it seems. Saying that I don't understand those arguments is pretty rich coming from you, given that when I first sta...

That is a trivially true and irrelevant. Of course what I say is being said and what I think is being thought. The point is that your statement that a...

This is not true: Proxima Centauri is further away from Earth than the moon is from all possible perspectives.

I would say everything bar percipients and their perceptions. Perhaps I'm thick, but I didn't understand what you were trying to convey in your first ...

If the physical world occurs independently of any and all individual psyches, then why would there be no such thing as a world in the absence of all a...

OK, but I can't see how pan-psychism would help. I see no reason to think it is impossible for physical things like planets and stars to exist absent ...

If we believe the science it tells us that the universe did indeed exist before any organisms appeared on the scene.

So, you believe that if you as an observer ceased to exist, the world would go with you?

Maybe so with ancient and medieval philosophy, but in today's terms a very narrow, anachronistic conception of philosophy, corrected by Kant 240 years...

:roll:

Is your disagreement with @"Banno" only that you take him to be claiming that all beliefs are in propositional form, as opposed to claiming that all b...

But so what? He's not saying humans are mindless or without meaning. If humans are mindful and meangful what would it matter if matter were not? I kno...

Oh, have you read the actual work? Can you cite some text from it to support your contention? What does "intrinsic" mean there? Does it make the quest...

How is Dennett's philosophy "corrosive"? If holding such a philosophy hasn't turned him into an unfeeling robot, or someone with no enjoyment in life,...

I had an argument with another poster on a different philosophy forum long ago, which I think ties in with the question here. The poster in question c...

:up:

That's one I've quoted myself on these forums more than a few times. I'm a fan of Dogen, even though I don;t agree with everything he says. That one I...

Do you really believe Dennett doesn't enjoy his life, doesn't enjoy music, nature, poetry and whatever? If he does enjoy life, then what is he missing...

I don't agree. Why would you say that? Do you really believe Dennett would deny that being awake and being asleep are different states? He's not so st...

Not merely a tautology; two different states of being.