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Janus

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On second perusal I thought it worthwhile to address this. I don't believe scientists generally have a delusion of absolute knowledge. In fact it seem...
June 13, 2019 at 07:39
Right, so in accordance with what I said about different kinds of existence, I would say that unicorns have a fictional or imagined, as opposed to a p...
June 13, 2019 at 07:06
Firstly I don't think any non-linguistic idea could be rightly thought of as an abstract idea. You might say that prior to language thinking is "priva...
June 13, 2019 at 07:04
Well, I want to be even more difficult and say that there is nothing which does not exist or has not existed in some sense. Of course, if you don't ag...
June 13, 2019 at 06:41
Is a presupposition not an idea? This is all very vague. You haven't made clear what you think the "mistaken assumptions" might be or what we might be...
June 13, 2019 at 06:32
And yet you said this, which seems inconsistent with your later avowal of disagreement. On the face of it I imagine that the kind of existential depen...
June 13, 2019 at 05:53
So, you agree that the idea of existence predates language. The idea of different kinds of existence may also predate language. That's fine, but the s...
June 13, 2019 at 05:29
Yeah, run away as usual, rather than engaging in argument. I really don't know why you bother with this site, Wayfarer; it seems that all you want to ...
June 13, 2019 at 05:09
You are merely pointing at vague possibilities. Even if it were true (which we could never definitely know to be true) that human desires somehow infl...
June 13, 2019 at 05:04
Reframe the argument then without using the terms exist, existence or existential. In any case even if you can do it, it remains the case that the ide...
June 13, 2019 at 05:00
What the fuck does that have to do with whether we share common ancestors with chimpanzees? To say that we do is not necessarily to embrace a "materia...
June 13, 2019 at 04:35
And yet we share more DNA with chimpanzees, about 99 % if memory serves, than we do with any other animal. All the available evidence seems to suggest...
June 13, 2019 at 04:29
No, I asked how the observer could be included in the observations in, for example, biology, chemistry or geology. If you can imagine how, then explai...
June 13, 2019 at 04:24
Right, so it is not an empty concept, that adds nothing to our understanding of things, at all.
June 13, 2019 at 04:02
I think you're being a bit slippery here. The term 'existential' demarcates a kind of dependency which is understood in terms of existence, not of som...
June 13, 2019 at 04:00
It seems to be implicit in the article that physicalism and objectivism are rife in the scientific community and that this is a problem. It also seems...
June 13, 2019 at 03:52
You are talking in such terms, though. The term 'existential' is an adjective pertaining to the noun 'existence'. So when you talk of existential depe...
June 13, 2019 at 03:32
Yes, but the fact that science is (fairly obviously) an aspect of human experience; a story told by humans, is not something that any sensible scienti...
June 13, 2019 at 03:19
I think there is some truth to the claim that some reductive views of science have had a negative effect on human understanding, including the ways in...
June 13, 2019 at 02:45
So for you the semantic content in a book is not identical from one copy to the next? That question aside for the moment, if the viewer can get out of...
June 13, 2019 at 01:26
OK, thanks, no problem, perhaps I misunderstood... So, you asked the above question regarding my statement about the different kinds of existence we c...
June 13, 2019 at 00:03
So, there is no implied insult in your "Oh, is that all."? It's certainly seems to be an attempted dismissal or belittlement instead of a charitably m...
June 12, 2019 at 23:49
It seems this thread has amply demonstrated where the BLIND SPOT really lies.
June 12, 2019 at 23:42
Yes that is all; though more than is imagined in Banno's sadly circumscribed world apparently! :cry:
June 12, 2019 at 23:30
How do you know it would be "so different that you can't imagine", if you can't imagine how it would be different? Sure what we do affects the climate...
June 12, 2019 at 23:27
Physical existence, fictional existence, conceptual existence, possible existence, desired existence.
June 12, 2019 at 23:01
How could they ever do that if, as you often claim, there are no shared meanings?
June 12, 2019 at 22:56
Science has becomes more wholistic, more systems-based. That this may not have sunk into the general public's ways of thinking should not be all that ...
June 12, 2019 at 22:49
You can imagine character traits in terms of kinds of thought, feeling and behavior. Of course that would require imagination. Or you could just choos...
June 12, 2019 at 22:34
Yes, but you are talking about the existence of things both dependent and depending; that is the point. You can say that something depends on somethin...
June 12, 2019 at 22:29
What you're missing here is the analysis of the different kinds of existence we can conceive of.
June 12, 2019 at 22:21
Yes, physics is concerned with the micro-physical, and some of what is observed there seems counter-intuitive, even paradoxical, to our ways of thinki...
June 12, 2019 at 22:18
You mean in the sense that it makes the invariant patterns of experience explicit?
June 12, 2019 at 22:10
Interesting, thanks; yes, I've never been a fan of literal interpretations.
June 12, 2019 at 22:03
No, wrong again. Perhaps if you were to lay out the reasoning that you want to claim leads inexorably from what I have said to what you claim here I t...
June 11, 2019 at 21:10
Did you not read the first of the two posts above where I mention the observer problem in QM? BUT, in any case, that is the one and only science, natu...
June 11, 2019 at 08:23
That's just not true, since existence is the one attribute all things, however diverse, share. It is the most general attribute. Also it is common to ...
June 11, 2019 at 07:49
I feel I have been deprived: where can I find such fascinating competitions? :razz: Seriously, though, andrew, I quite agree with what you say there; ...
June 11, 2019 at 05:11
I read the article and couldn't see much point to it. It seems obvious to me that the various sciences are phenomenological insofar as they deal with ...
June 11, 2019 at 04:56
Yes, looked at in physical. chemical and biological terms there are environmentally and genetically mediated energy relations, exchanges and interacti...
June 11, 2019 at 01:07
For me that kind of imagining is automatic. When I read a (good) novel I am immersed in the imagined world the novel evokes for me; the characters, th...
June 11, 2019 at 00:43
We distinguish between hallucinated or imagined trees and actual trees on the basis that the latter can physically act upon us. The corollary of that ...
June 11, 2019 at 00:26
Yes, the question as to whether there is anything independent of human or animal experience is a reasonable question about absolute existence. If ther...
June 11, 2019 at 00:04
If it is possible to hallucinate or imagine a tree, then there is a logical distinction between existent and non-existent (hallucinated or imagined) t...
June 10, 2019 at 23:53
Yes, that too! The Serbian panel beater from Adelaide who used the term, also extended its use to other areas. "Where are Steve and Shirley"? "They ar...
June 10, 2019 at 23:43
'Splonk' is a term (perhaps no longer) used in the automotive body repair industry (in Adelaide at least) to refer to the two part body fillers that a...
June 10, 2019 at 23:30
How do we become convinced that facts are facts? Even if we accept that we are under a rational obligation to believe facts, that still leaves open th...
June 10, 2019 at 22:24
Description involves linguistically mediated thought, and imagination involves thinking in terms of sensory patterns; visual, aural, olfactory, tactil...
June 10, 2019 at 22:09
You still haven't told me just what studies you are referring to.
June 10, 2019 at 21:59
What, to find out what kind of data you were referring to? Or what particular studies you had in mind when you commented?
June 10, 2019 at 09:43