Janus

Look, I get that such things are logically possible, and they might even be physically possible; but then again they might not be. The physical is eit...

That's really not helpful.

The logic that seems to govern the formation of the elements, and the combination of elements to form compounds, seems to be very strictly invariant. ...

What must be explained: particular universals or universals in general?

It's obvious that automatic association cannot properly be called 'thinking'. I'm not going to waste any more time replying to false accusations of co...

And you've lost me in uncharitable interpretation: it should have been obvious by the way that I qualified what I wrote that I meant to say something ...

No, even if it is actually impossible for you to turn yourself into a tiger either because you just don't know how, or because the laws of nature simp...

How could you possibly know that? Why would it not be possible that the nature of things is such that it is really and incontrovertibly impossible for...

Don't worry, it might have been more than you were giving me credit for, but I was giving myself credit for it from the start; that is precisely what ...

Of course there are actual possibilities. It is an actual possibility that you will respond to this post, Of course it is also a logical possibility. ...

I think you're both conflating the notion of logical possibility with the notion of actual possibility here. ;)

Yes, but for all intents and purposes the origin must be thought to be necessary since it cannot be thought as being dependent on anything that we cou...

If earlier states exhaustively and rigidly determine later states, then the later states are, by definition, necessary given the earlier states. But a...

Unfortunately, or fortunately, guilt s not an effective motivator for me. I have little enough time and utility for myself as it is; what with wasting...

But you have acknowledged that moral acts are motivated by compassion and not by reason; and now you seem to be trying to stipulate by reason how, and...

From this it would then seem to follow that the typical person is a good moral agent; in which case, what's the problem?

Well. I was speaking about motivation, not really about intention. The difference is simply between being motivated to do harm, and not being motivate...

You are ignoring the part where I suggested that what we might call "thinking illogical thoughts" is really nothing more than associating concepts or ...

I don't see that at all. To do harm, deliberately at least, one must be motivated by a feeling or thought that causes us to harm and to want to harm; ...

There is a coherent distinction between thoughts, thinking and logic; the inherent 'something' that determines how we think and which we formulate as ...

The problem I see here is that you have not actually said why, it is wrong not to help others. You have said that those who are not pyschopaths etc,, ...

That's an interestingly weird result, since it is the very homunculus itself which is meant to be the self in the first place. Does qualia "belong to ...

This seems to speak to the distinction I wanted to make earlier between identity and identification. Being a planet does not seem to consist in any on...

It could be either I guess. If I developed a brain tumour, or endocrinal imbalance or some LSD was slipped into my soup, my behavior could change more...

Yes, I think I see what you mean, you seem to want to say that it is an essential part of my identity that I have the parents that I have, but not an ...

You assume your own conclusion that logic is dependent on mind, by saying that logic is a process of thinking or reasoning. Logic is what inherently c...

What if an individual holds a value that is at variance with "the dominant behaviours and beliefs of... ...society or... group"? I think it is probabl...

Yes, and I do appreciate that Paris is not the capital of France, in a 'fully' analytic sense, that is strictly by definition, inasmuch as the word 'P...

Yes, the kinds of basic constraints you are referring to here seem to be analogous to the kinds of constraints operating in visual art practice I spok...

Whitehead was not a panpsychist, but a pan-experientialist; a distinction which Whitehead himself was at pains to emphasize.

Do we? Might it not be the other way around: that minds are logic dependent?

I have heard of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, but I can't remember where from or what their music sounds like. I must admit that when I listen to music...

Yeah, attachment to pleasure is fine, until you become addicted to it, until you can't get it, or you tire of what pleasures you, or you kill someone ...

I wasn't trying anything as ambitious as you are suggesting here. I was just pointing out that the knowledge that Paris is capital of France is known ...

I don't know: I don't agree thinking as such is facile. There is facile thinking and thinking with nuance. I'd say the same about philosophy.

Do I detect a hint of sarcasm? Actually I think there is nothing wrong with pleasure, per se; but that the problem lies with attachment to pleasure, a...

No, he won't be famous, because everyone does it, cannot escape doing it, every day, including you. The fact that a "tends to" cannot be deductively d...

I think the idea of "absolute meaning" is a category error. The meaning of anything is always in relation to something else and never absolute. The ve...

Yes, perhaps I was a little too conservative there :) .

Actually, that's a good point andrew. Some of the most unconventional Jazz improvisation (Ornette Colemn, for one, springs to mind but I could be wron...

The difference you are still failing to see is that the fact that the sun is shining is directly observable; whereas the fact that Paris is the capita...

To me it seems that there's your problem, right there ; you haven't been able to specify what are the essential and what are the inessential "respects...

Well, I didn't guess that you are a musician, but I take your point about key signature; there does usually need to be a kind of 'home' key from which...

So then, what can a country be numerically identical with? If the so-called alternative France did not have the same history, did not begin in exactly...

The point was that it is lack of meaning that purportedly causes suffering; and I proposed that lack of meaning is a pseudo-problem...because there is...

Yes, I agree Camus' rebellion is a pseudo-solution...to a pseudo-problem...which seems appropriate enough... What makes life already meaningful is the...

I had a look but couldn't easily find a free version (and I aint going to pay to read Zappfe). In any case, I have read some of his work before, and w...

But the view that life cannot offer the meaning that is sought for is one-sided. Apparently Zapffe thinks life does not have what he is looking for, b...

Yes, I have a view about what is and has been right for me regarding the question of procreation, and I don't think any view, one way or the other, re...

But, it's not that at all. Many people don't want children and don't have them; I for one don't and haven't; and I'm glad for that. "Why would one opt...