Janus

It depends on your libido I guess. (Also, for the sake of humour I was perhaps exaggerating—a little). :wink:

That's never been my experience. The only times I have resorted to porn were times when I had no sexual partners or was in an unsatisfactory relations...

OK, but where I have used "natural" you have substituted "physical". I'm not sure whether you draw a distinction between them, but as far as I underst...

What you seem to be missing is the realization that the idea that human decision making is determined by natural forces is a groundless assumption. Ho...

I think you have it utterly arse about, but I have no further interest in discussing it with you, since all I get is the same misunderstandings of wha...

Maybe so in the academic sphere; I use it to denote rigid or exhaustive determinism. If there is a random element in nature, which allows for an open ...

If hard determinism were the case, then all acts and events would be predetermined, in which case it seems obvious there would be no freedom. If indet...

It's not so black and white. Antecedent events may influence events, not necessarily exhaustively determine them. The idea of freedom is logically inc...

And I'm saying you're kidding yourself if you think the "ontological distinction between mind and brain" is independent of language..

This is exactly right. Spiritual disciplines are not about coming to see something objectively true for oneself. Adherents may believe, while imaging ...

I'm not advocating dualism, but semantic pluralism. You don't seem to be able to get out of your own dualistic framework of thinking in order to under...

There's presumably a neural difference between all different thought processes, so what you've said explains nothing. To count as an exexplanation you...

You are imputing thoughts to me I haven't expressed or even suggested. Logical entailment is simply what seems self-evident to us. You say it is an in...

I agree with you; I also believe that science informs us about the nature of the physical world. I believe that because I see no good reason not to be...

I agree. The problem I see with Platonic realism is that if it is not taken to be claiming that there is a separate realm where the Ideas, universals ...

The difference is that there is a clear conceptual difference between physical and conceptual processes. Think about logical entailment, for example: ...

Physical states (or better, processes) like digestion do not necessarily involve conceptual thought, whereas mental processes just are conceptual thou...

Thought is a conceptual as well as a physical process. Digestion is just a physical process. My reasoning is that I've never seen a narrative explaine...

Digestion, respiration, tendonitis, etc.,etc.,: the list is endless, Right, in order to understand the self; eliminate it just as I said. That sounds ...

It's because there is a conceptual element there that is lacking in non-mental bodily states. So, it could be said that they are also bodily states, b...

I think it's more a case of you not understanding, or not wanting to accept, the critique. This seems to be the stock response you have for all critiq...

Yes, but the difference is that in the first case you have commonly precisely identifiable phenomena to study and in the latter you don't. I don't see...

Regarding the narrative component of human life: it is obviously all-pervading. We are what we think we are; our selves are the stories we tell about ...

I think of a person as having both body and mind. I agree that mental states are body states, but I also think they are more than that; narrative come...

Right, so a mind can be understood as the capacity to experience, feel, remember, question, consider, understand, judge and so on? I agree that those ...

The difference is that the behavior and responses of physical substances, biological organisms such as trees, bacteria, fungi and even animals is inva...

'Mental states', as the term is ordinarily used, refers to states of a person. I have no idea what you think big toes and pubic hair have to do with i...

I'm just responding to this without reading the rest of the thread so apologies in advance if I reiterate anything already said by others. Firstly men...

I don't have any idea how a phenomenon could be part epiphenomenal. If a colour blind person cannot see yellow, then they can have no experience of ye...

To take every individual into account is impossible, even if possible in principle. Strange that you should say that, since it seems to be you who is ...

That is ideally what the experts are doing. There are many who are skeptical about the degree to which the practice meets the ideal. Having said that,...

I wouldn't cal it "self and world" but rather 'self and other'. Even animals arguably have this sense. But it is this very sense and acknowledgement o...

Good correction: that makes sense to me.

That kind of dualistic thinking does seem to be "natural". I would rather more simply say there is a distinction between what exists and is what it is...

I don't think there is a clear enough distinction between invented and discovered in this context. Objects, places, substances and so on in the world ...

What do you mean by "invented"? Invented as opposed to what?

...it's not an illusion, it's not imaginary, it's not a fiction. It's attributes are not a matter of opinion.

I don't think there is any problem with saying that numbers exist in logical space just as objects exist in 'physical' space. Numbers react with "like...

What more could be said about the ontological status of abstracts other than that they are real abstracts? Analogously what more could be said about r...

It seems to me that number is obviously real. There is a real concrete difference between two apples and three apples. Numerals also are obviously rea...

We don't, and can't, do that at all for most of what counts as scientific knowledge; we simply accept or do not accept science on the basis that we tr...

I don't think that's possible in any way analogous with scientific investigations. What you are talking about is just psychology, and it is only akin ...

OK, I wasn't saying that you had suggested they were "doomed", so there must be some misunderstanding here. It seems obvious that if everything had to...

The is/ought divide is artificial so there is nothing there that needs to be overcome. In practice what is is always already value laden. Of course we...

Problem is if mediation is a general problem for our understanding, then our understanding of the mediation is no less mediated, and hence no less pro...

What, you have documentation for everything you own?

Not much! A truly great person perhaps?

It's mutual I would say.

Doesn't sound like you have much experience with dogs.

Dogs are obviously capable of differentiating between things in the environment. So they see things as serving different purposes; the steps for runni...