More real than reality translates to more real than what there is. What's more real than what there is? You'd need a new approach to make this questio...
:cry: This is clearly one place in which @"Joshs" is at home and can teach us many things (agree with him or not) as he usually does. My simple-minded...
Yeah, mathematics refers somehow to the world. They're probably symbols, but obviously no paper is needed, for blind people can do math, they interpre...
It's unclear is this example would hold, but perhaps mathematics. Or, consider the following thought experiment: suppose a baby is put in a complete s...
Hmm, I'll take another stab at this topic. It's (thoughts) related to the term "mental", it's hard to given a definition of what thought is, without u...
I thought they did not even know where he was buried. He died completely neglected. It's fair that know he's recognized for all he did, which was quit...
Ah. Gotcha. Yeah, that's true actually about "internal" and "external" word use. Having granted that, I think that we can mislead ourselves, when thin...
Reminds me of Goodman's "irrealism" and his talks of versions. I mean, we can do that, yes, but the thing is attributing the least things possible to ...
I actually don't mind labels much. As in, you can be a total idealist and say that we create the world with our minds. Or you can be a metaphysical du...
Yeah but "over here" and "over there" are just as much mental attributions as colours are. A different thing, in that it likely applies to the externa...
Well, it's tricky. I believe they are external to me, that is something which existed prior to me, or human beings in fact. We get into problems when ...
I think a big part of the problem here is in the use of the world "external". "External" means, not belonging to me (or us) and thus, extra mental. Th...
Well, depends on the type of optimism. If it's Leibniz optimism "We live in the best of all possible worlds", then yeah, that's quite stupid. Even gen...
I suppose a very simple species would avoid pain sensations. An ingrained habit from evolution. Unless one would postulate a cognition from the most b...
Yep, I agree. If it seems you are looking at a red apple or listening to a piece of music, you are looking at a red apple or listening to music. But t...
I guess. I mean, it personally doesn't cause me difficulties, but then again, I rarely use the word because of all a sudden conversations like these p...
Funny that you say that, I recently finished re-reading C.I. Lewis' Mind and World Order. He was the person that introduced "qualia" into the philosop...
Mr. Mww, nice seeing you puzzled for a change. :cool: No explanatory gap in sensibility? Well the senses themselves don't cogitate. So there's no puzz...
Fully agree. I was remembering a nice line from Cudworth saying "it's as if these objects taunt us", which they kind of do. I mean, we began this jour...
By the way, I was arguing with everybody/nobody not meaning to pick on you or anything, just to avoid any misunderstandings. It's just that this topic...
Representations in the Kantian or Schopenhauerian sense. We do re-present what directly hits our eyes and ears into an intelligible image that we can ...
Perhaps. But with distance comes time. Time is not with us. What you say makes sense. The thing is, who would front the money? You'd have to have a hi...
I mean, the only evidence we have of intelligent life is here, with us being the only creatures capable of explicit reflexive consciousness. So if the...
Well, I mean, I know of some guy around here, like to throw knowledge around. I'd say that one can try to experiment living in space for a long time f...
:up: A and D look to me as the least problematic or most attainable for a short term project, D in so far as shielding technology is concerned. The Ja...
I said that a colony on Mars might not be the best medium term goal for space exploration, because of several quite severe complications associated wi...
Everyone who says that we should focus on Earth is correct. It is not controversial and is evident. What I'd like to point out, that does bother me qu...
Isn't that person dependent? I mean, we may want to be consistent on all areas of knowledge we know a little about but there may be no way of reconcil...
Very interesting breakdown. I'll have to get around to Schelling and Fichte especially, someday. Now I have a vague notion of what they're arguing for...
He does talk about it, but it is out of the custom that has arisen in philosophy, it's not as if he loves the use of the term. Not implying that you a...
Well, these things are inescapable. One thing is to claim neutrality from bias, another thing is to not have any, which is likely not possible. It mak...
Paris is spatial. So is the sentence. You can't say "Capital of France" absent space. You need a world with people who speak to each other and can und...
The thing is that properties of objects are spatial. You may try to highlight a property, but it includes space, you can't take it out. Changes can oc...
Yes, you can find consistency and some scientists like to be able to think in terms of reduction. The thing is, almost all physicists would agree that...
Science is a way to organize experience in a repeatable manner, such that we have some confidence in the mind-independence of some phenomena. Of cours...
The short answer is that we don't know. A longer answer is that the term "identical" isn't useful here, a brain is not like experience. We in fact can...
To the extent that you don't share or speak about your idea at all, then they belong solely to you. As soon as you express it though and another perso...
Well, in a sense. I mean, everybody has a metaphysics, scientists included. They just don't have a particularly good metaphysics. So take a scientists...
Absent evidence, we resort to reasons. Someone can give you a reason for thinking that idealism is better than panpsychism, you weigh those reasons ba...
Yes. Then again, we don't know much about creativity at all and we can say it's as real as anything else. I mean, we all have it to an extent and it l...
Jeez man. I suppose we are only left with the option that "metaphysics" means, whatever anyone chooses it to mean. I don't know if this obscurity is d...
As I see it, insisting on JTB forces an unnecessary constraint on what knowledge is. It can lead us to conclude that people who study ancient Mytholog...
Yes, a fine balancing act indeed. The problem is finding arguments against what I believe, say, a Cudworthian innate-ism - I won't go into the details...
Yes, Peirce and Hume are correct. For all we know, tomorrow gravity could work differently, unlikely to happen, but not impossible. If we take multive...
I wonder if much of these discussions about science being this or that could be alleviated by speaking of "habits", rather than "laws", as this latter...
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