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Manuel

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Thank you.
April 21, 2024 at 22:40
@"Jamal" I misplaced my thread on Dennett and put it in the Lounge instead of General, if you or any mod can fix this please, it would be appreciated.
April 21, 2024 at 22:24
They have and there are several ways to interpret that section. But the main point is that when we try to "catch" the self in real time, we never quit...
April 18, 2024 at 14:00
Do dogs have limits? Apes? Fish? Tigers or Elephants? Are we a part of nature or are we an exception to nature, not subject to its whims? Since I take...
April 17, 2024 at 13:50
May be a cop-out but Hume's famous phrase here merits a mention: "For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble ...
April 15, 2024 at 13:55
And in speaking about such non-linguistic thoughts, only the linguistic portions get communicated. If someone could attempt to describe in some manner...
April 10, 2024 at 23:02
Yes, these are expressions of thought - they form a crucial part of it - that part that connects to the quite obscure aspect of non-linguistic thought...
April 10, 2024 at 03:58
I don't recall saying that thoughts are statements. Statements are an expression of thought, it's the only kind of thought we have acquaintance with, ...
April 10, 2024 at 00:45
Maybe it is not for you. I consider the ability to form sentences to express whatever it is that goes on in my head to be a direct process. I can't ma...
April 09, 2024 at 21:09
I don't think it is. I see why you may want to say that and the reasons for it aren't bad, but I also don't see any evident benefits from saying that ...
April 09, 2024 at 20:34
Yeah sure, but if we want to make something clear to us or to others, we use language, if we don't articulate to ourselves what we are thinking, we ca...
April 09, 2024 at 16:48
What terms? Do you mean being inside another person's head? If so, then I would caution the point I made previously, we are "inside" our heads, but co...
April 09, 2024 at 02:18
I suppose what is noteworthy here would be to ascertain just how well you "got" what the other person was thinking. One thing is to have a general ind...
April 08, 2024 at 23:53
You may be a good mind-reader. Or you have special powers! We have to give a good account of telepathy before saying something is or is not like it. I...
April 08, 2024 at 22:49
Really? That's a bit surprising. It's been my experience that if you know someone for some length of time, it can happen that you can tell what they a...
April 08, 2024 at 12:44
It's an interesting case, though I think we should keep in check that brains are assumed to be very complex objects with an extremely rich - and large...
April 08, 2024 at 02:00
How would this follow? I think we have good reasons to give that show that our waking life is not the same as a dream, at least, a great deal of the t...
April 07, 2024 at 23:47
Once upon a time everything was philosophy. After all, it didn't make much sense to say that separate things existed as several disciplines, logic, po...
April 06, 2024 at 23:04
The issue is that "belief" is rather an English locution, which carries with it strong connotations of "absent evidence", related to the religious use...
April 06, 2024 at 15:59
In a certain sense, perhaps. But it's also part of being in this field. To try to contextualize (not mere) words, but concepts associated with the wor...
March 25, 2024 at 05:01
Wayyy too late. You hath been judged :razz:
March 22, 2024 at 15:25
Is there a unified language for science? You can say there is a unified language for physics or biology or some other sub-field, but there is no uniqu...
March 19, 2024 at 16:24
Stressing about Skepticism is futile, agreed. If Hume cannot overcome it and Kant cannot defeat it, what hope do mere mortals have? Still, it's worth ...
March 18, 2024 at 16:16
:up: That's a good approach, among others. Skepticism can't be defeated merely kept in check occasionally.
March 18, 2024 at 15:23
If we play the game of skepticism, then we will not go anywhere, for there is nothing which is 100% certain in the empirical world. If we loosen our r...
March 18, 2024 at 14:48
They do, many beliefs (not all of them, I don't think) will change the world to some degree, some more than others. The issue is, how can we accommoda...
March 16, 2024 at 04:15
Sure, and I think this applies quite widely. Part of the issue, which is far from trivial, is that we can't exactly say what "rational" is. We all ass...
March 14, 2024 at 15:01
Not so much that it shouldn't be brought up, after all I am bringing it up here. What I want to convey is that if one believes in such things literall...
March 13, 2024 at 21:51
I mean I see the intuitive appeal but, are we then going to say: ghosts are real and so are trees and rocks? You can take that stance. The issue here ...
March 13, 2024 at 14:25
I stole it from Donald Hoffman. ;)
March 12, 2024 at 23:14
Let me rephrase, for someone interested in philosophy, I think it would be a mistake to postulate things such as ghosts, unless that person accepts su...
March 12, 2024 at 23:07
Really? I think there are triggers for hallucinations, sometimes these triggers can be external, sometimes internal, but I agree that the word can be ...
March 12, 2024 at 21:10
That's a very good way to frame it, I think. You do have people who outright think such claims are completely silly and meaningless. And while one can...
March 12, 2024 at 15:29
That's a good point. I did not consider that arguments alone could cause people to anguish over sexual preference to the point of harm, so sure, there...
March 12, 2024 at 12:21
I suppose one can see it as a kind of technological God substitute, maybe something less powerful but mysterious and elusive, having powers that we ca...
March 12, 2024 at 01:18
Yes, I think so too. It appears to be the case that there is something about the mind which we intuitively feel is qualitatively different from matter...
March 11, 2024 at 23:15
That type of approach can be seen as a particularly speculative branch of sociology, but I don't think that as stated in that essay, is specifically p...
March 11, 2024 at 21:50
But I am not drunk today?
March 11, 2024 at 20:16
That's not a bad way to put it actually. It does sound strange though to say, "I thought I saw a ghost, but I actually saw some strange lights in huma...
March 11, 2024 at 20:13
True, there is that tendency among people who wish to maintain that they are uniquely unique, in this experiential respect. I'd only quibble that I th...
March 11, 2024 at 19:44
What, sunk cost fallacy for people who have become accustomed to believe in such things and now see evidence showing them they are wrong? In that case...
March 11, 2024 at 19:34
That's true and it would be pretty strong evidence if we saw Jesus figures consistently appear in Buddhists temples, or the other way around. These te...
March 11, 2024 at 19:25
That's pretty much the issue, one can't say that what a person experiences is false, for they experienced it. Of course the ontology of such a situati...
March 11, 2024 at 19:14
I don't disagree. What I do want to explore is the belief in such a state of mind and how it is that otherwise rational people could fall into believi...
March 11, 2024 at 11:07
Quite often, absolutely. That's interesting, yes, there is a strong connection between an old historical event, often a murder or some other horrible ...
March 11, 2024 at 10:56
An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears
March 11, 2024 at 01:53
There's a lot to unpack in that, and I think there's very much legitimate issues pertaining to the politization of science, which was off the wall wit...
March 10, 2024 at 04:17
That sounds like a very sensible distinction. Well, not that you have mentioned this, but let's put prayer to the side and take a common observation: ...
March 09, 2024 at 22:20
Very much so. And perhaps and argument can be given that we are quite superstitious today, we simply aren't aware of it or we have modified ancient be...
March 09, 2024 at 21:24
I don't recall him making that distinction either. Though I do find his mystical stuff to verge on something close to such a distinction, but my inter...
March 08, 2024 at 20:38