Janus

:ok:

Maybe there won't be one.

:cool: I've replied in the other thread

When you said it's not a ghost in the machine its freakin' software, I thought you were making an analogy between humans and computers. If not, then I...

You seem to be saying that rationailty drives the brain, rather than the brain drives rationality. What if the ability to be rational is embodied in n...

The reason I don't think it is a good analogy is that software is installed, can be replaced holus bolus and a particular software yields exactly the ...

All I'm saying is that the body is conscious. You can lose parts of the body and it will be conscious. Lose an indispensable part of the brain and the...

:cool:

From the article: So, if bots can reason, according to this their reasoning would be confined to deductive and inductive reasoning, and they are incap...

So, the emergent level of our rational decisions is not determined at all by neuronal activity? Or are you making a Spinozan point that the rational d...

Do you see our having reasons to do things itself being caused by neuronal activity? Because if it is then that would be "bottom up", no?

I don't find thinking from computer analogies at all convincing. Why can we not say I am the body and the (living) body is conscious?

Yes, firstly Spinoza did not say the world is God, but that nature is, and it's not clear that he meant both manifest nature and the nature that manif...

Are you familiar with Markus Gabriel's ideas? What you say above reminds me of his philosophy. I am somewhat partial to his notion of "fields of sense...

I agree it can be more than that, but I don't think it's inevitable, or even common. Thinking about how to live is a prerequisite for learning how to ...

:up: Good point, but does Stoicism not have something to say to the intellectually unsophisticated if they are at least thoughtful?

Firstly, I would have thought both of those are of significance to the people. And secondly, I think philosophy, if it is not about how to live, is ju...

:lol: "Compostmoderns" ...the incontinental tradition vs the anals; both have produced a lot of shit and fostered normative correctness in their diffe...

A vision of an intellectual utopia, or dystopia, depending on your perspective.

Only if he did write Hamlet would that be a part of the definite description of Shakespeare. It's not necessarily true that he did write Hamlet, no ma...

I thought you were looking at it from the outside because you seemed to be counting behavior as paramount. What I wanted to counterpose was the idea t...

The self is a sense; I think we are imbued with a sense of self, as are animals. It is a sense of continuity and grows to become an idea of unity and ...

Sure, but you're looking at the life in question from the outside. We all live our lives from the inside; what's important to the indivdual is the qua...

I think the point you are referring to is the idea of rational intuition. That idea is very much out of favour among contemporary philosophers, but th...

I agree with this, that all concepts are more or less fuzzy, polysemous, historically and culturally evolved and evolving, so there cannot be one univ...

What you're not seeing is that any such argument will be based upon premises that cannot themselves be demonstrated rationally without relying on furt...

Okay, you say that the god who created the world must be beyond good and evil; is that because you see the world as being beyond good and evil or just...

I get what you're saying and yet I don't see how is a given. It's a possible, even reasonable, attitude, but other attitudes are also possible and rea...

Perhaps. or alternatively we might come here to test them, or to quell them...but it doesn't always work. :sweat:

I don't know what point you are trying to make, so you don't need me to render it as fog. If you are saying that religion is bad and should be critici...

Yes, I agree that most of those we consider the greatest philosophers have found flaws in their predecessors, only to have their own ideas overturned ...

Ir's not a matter of logic. If what you said were true we could find the whole of science or mathematics to be flawed. Traditions tend to have their o...

I'm not sure if this is meant to be approval or disapproval. I agree this is true in regard to the collective representation we refer to as 'the pheno...

I was responding to this: Questioning a tradition does not equate to not accepting it. Questioning some ideas within a tradition involves accepting th...

As I already said I'm no fan of ideology, religious or otherwise. I have nowhere claimed that religious belief only leads to benign actions. If you th...

I'm reasonably familiar with the arguments in support of rationalism. The problem for me is that reason by itself tells us nothing, it is really just ...

I'm quite the opposite; I would love to think that there can be purely rational intuition of reality. There have been many, many moments in my life wh...

For what it's worth that seems like an accurate characterization of Banno's general approach to me, and I've said much the same on quite a few occasio...

:up: Well, I don't see how you would get a better insight into the relation between two traditions by rejecting one of them. Rejecting a whole traditi...

This is only true of philosophy as very narrowly conceived. I get that that is the only approach of personal interest to you, but what could you hope ...

Do we ever see productive discussions between those who don't share definitions and assumptions? In a discussion of phenomenology's relationship with ...

That's true but doesn't augur well for discussion between those who do not share basic assumptions or definitions. For example say someone starts a di...

Sure, and any questioning is always done on the basis of other assumptions, which are in turn open to question, and so on. So, int absence of empirica...

Any argument will have its grounding assumptions or premises. A premise that asserts that such and such is so will be based on a particular definition...

The idea that the self is illusory is itself illusory, or at least elusive, ambiguous. The claim that it is illusory seems to stem from the fact that ...

You seem to be painting a picture of an individual conscience that compels one to stand up against oppressors, even at great personal risk. This seems...

What, do you mean go to church? I thought you were referring to the moral quality of actions; if not that what would it matter? Of course some religio...

I don't think people's metaphysical views are generally good predictors of their actions (apart from what they might say, if you want to count that as...

:cool:

I'm reminded of Billy Bob Thornton...sad banter...