• US threatens cyber attack on Russia


    That's a great movie. I suppose one could relate it to a contemporary situation in which soliders are immersed in hacking, living in more or less sealed environments, where delusions thrive and inspire crazy action.
  • Philosophy vs. Science
    Although philosophy is love of wisdom it doesn't follow that philosophers would be wise.
  • So who deleted the pomo posts?

    I like Austin, and I know postmodernists use satire, irony, or absurd humour about others.
  • So who deleted the pomo posts?
    Postmodernists are just too "advanced" to be made fun of.
  • The 'Postmoderns'
    Some of those writers have arguably fueled a kind of anti-intellectualism in the humanities, where the study of canons or the truths of reasoned arguments have been replaced by seditious "discourse" about power, or cliquish bullying because of an assumed absence of decisive conclusions.

    In academic architecture, for instance, Deleuze & Guattari's work attracted interest. But I don't understand what for beside the fact that their approach is reminiscent of artistic work, and seemingly open for arbitrary interpretations. It's easier to make into what you want it to be than, say, the work of APs or the great philosophers of old.
  • A Theory about Everything
    It ain't that simple, your report of pain is not the pain. And although pain is sufficient for awareness of pain, awareness of pain is not necessarily pain.
  • A Theory about Everything

    Sure, in some sense the pain is the object of its awareness. But the word 'awareness' is ambiguous here, for, as I tried to explain, there are two different senses in which you can be aware of pain: 1) as a belief about the state you're in, and 2) as the state you're in.

    Beliefs are not perceptions, and therefore it is possible to believe sincerely, that you feel pain, and behave as if you were in pain, regardless of what you perceive, or even evoke and sustain pains by the belief or entrenched behaviour from past experiences of pains etc
  • A Theory about Everything


    My head does not somehow appear in a headache. It does, however, appear in experiences characterized by intentionality, such as seeing or touching.
  • A Theory about Everything
    I suppose when I experience pain there is still the awareness of pain as an object of experience; ...Wayfarer

    I don't think one's awareness could appear as an object in any experience.

    Being aware of having pain is not identical to having pain although in both cases there is awareness of pain. The former is a belif about the state you're in (and as such possibly true or false) while the latter is the state you're in: the fact.
  • A Theory about Everything


    How could, for example, 'having a headache' be transitive? Some experiences are not about anything.
  • Bob Dylan, Nobel Laureate. Really?
    it just doesn't happen to be in one of the 5 categories the Nobel traditionally makes awards in.Bitter Crank

    Right, but neither was the prize in economics, which is sponsored by a bank, not Alfred Nobel's will.
  • Bob Dylan, Nobel Laureate. Really?
    Well, a literature prize seems more appropriate for Dylan than a prize for musicianship. His fans must be tone deaf.
  • A Theory about Everything
    Putnam’s understanding of meaning assumes dualism: there are internal experiences, and external things that they mean. I reject dualism and so, I suppose, I reject Putnam’s understanding of meaning.Dominic Osborn

    Dualism? Putnam's argument for semantic externalism has little to do with dualism. Its conclusion is that the meanings of words (or thoughts) are causally constrained by speakers' encounters and interaction with the things that they speak or think of, and a division of their meanings by speech. An alleged solipsist has no sufficient reason to think of anything, for nothing comes from nothing.
  • An analysis of emotion
    it projects outwards a response to an internal conditionunenlightened

    What constitutes the response if not the internal condition? Perhaps I misunderstand, but I'd say anger is the internal condition expressed. It can be a response to other internal conditions or external events, or instantiate/emerge without being about anything in particular.
  • A Theory about Everything
    Or one has to remain silent, maybe.Πετροκότσυφας

    Right, a solipsist doesn't publish.
  • A Theory about Everything
    I cannot know that there is something other than my experience.Dominic Osborn

    On purely semantic grounds, you can know that there is something other than your experience.
    Meanings just ain't in the headPutnam
  • How do we know the objective world isn't just subjective?
    Sloppy use of language won't make the world subjective or objective; being referred to does not amount to being.
  • How do we know the objective world isn't just subjective?


    We can know this, for example, by investigating what's wrong with the question.

    Objective and subjective are categories used for how knowledge is acquired. Our knowledge can be subjective or objective, but to ask whether the things of which we acquire knowledge are subjective or objective is a category error, it makes no sense to ask whether the world is subjective or objective. It is neither.
  • Has social acceptance become too important in human society?
    But the question was not whether being social has become too important but whether social acceptance has. There is environmental pressure on individuals to be "socially acceptable", but this can mean many different things, from learning the language to adapting to oppressive habits (e.g. racist, nationalist, ideological) dictated by power in a conformist society.
  • What is wrong with binary logic?

    Unlike the world thoughts have the disjoint syntax of our language, they are easily detachable, and dependent on a network of things to think about etc The world, however, is continuous, non-detachable, and the whole of all things that exist independently of our thoughts about them.
  • How to Recognize and Deal with a Philosophical Bigot?
    People don't usually enjoy having their beliefs proved wrong, but some people hate it so much that they simply refuse to accept it, regardless of the proof. It might then seem liberating for them to assume that everyone has just their own opinion, that no-one is more right than any other, and that those who believe that some beliefs are right would be bigots. But who is the bigot? Hardly the one who accepts the risk of being proved wrong.
  • What is wrong with binary logic?


    Do you mean 'bivalent logic'? There is also multivalent and paraconsistent logics.

    Thoughts can be composed in many ways, and we can think about worlds composed in many ways, but they would be thoughts, not worlds.
  • Is the absurdity of existence an argument for god?
    Or is this just an appeal to emotions and ignorance?darthbarracuda

    The absurdity of existence is an argument for comedy :)
  • Does The Hard Problem defeat Cogito Ergo Sum?
    Is that clever? . . .intrapersona
    A solipsist doesn't publish, but you do. Therefore, you're not a solipsist. The existence of a speaker is not questioned by his/her speech but silence.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    One might add that experiences have a hierarchical structure which goes all the way from what fundamental physics describes to the objects and states of affairs that we see, hear etc..

    We can't experience each and every part of it, only those that an organism can detect, such as the presence of photons and the objects which emit or reflect photons into the visual field and system of the organism. But we can identify other parts dervivatively, and deduce that without this structure there would be neither objects and states of affairs, nor visual experiences of them.
    .
  • Does The Hard Problem defeat Cogito Ergo Sum?
    You can not think about anything at all and still existintrapersona

    Only if you'd be a solipsist, but a solipsist does not publish.
  • The Difficulty In Getting Affordable Housing - How Can It Be Resolved?
    It is not difficult to build affordable housing, the problem emerged with a financialization that
    . . has developed over the decades between 1980 and 2010, in which financial leverage tended to override capital (equity), and financial markets tended to dominate over the traditional industrial economy and agricultural economics.Wikipedia
    A home is no longer a place to live in but a market commodity, hence the silly property shows on TV etc. The overwhelming influence of the limited interests of economists and marketers has become destructive for our societies.
  • How would you describe consciousness?
    One difference between a manipulative statement and a lie is that the former can be true (e.g. selective and misleading), whereas a lie is never true. Perhaps the dog was truly feeling cold despite the temperature...
  • "Architectonic"
    ...a mysterious architecture.wuliheron
    The tectonics of Kant's epistemology is not so mysterious, it can be credited a collection of basic concepts and their logical relations to each other, which forms and controls the structure and properties of his epistemology. Likewise, the tectonics of a building can be credited its elements and materials and how they have been put together, which forms and controls the structure and properties of the building.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    Little prevents us from sharing epistemologically objective knowledge about our ontologically subjective experiences. We live in this objective reality, which we experience subjectively, but we talk about experiences and reality objectively (or "intersubjectively").
  • "Life is but a dream."
    Skepticism regarding perception thrives on the ambiguous use of words such as 'see' or 'experience'. It makes thinkers incorrectly believe that a mirage would be the object that one sees instead of the behaviour of light bent by air humidity, smog etc.. Or that in a hallucination one would actually see the things experienced instead of having one's perceptual system messed up by a drug or a disease or fatigue etc.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    Really? Too bad. I think it is fairly clear that there is a difference between seeing something and having an experience of it, such as when remembering it without seeing it. I think the experience that one has in a dream is of the latter kind, when nothing is seen. After all one is usually asleep during a dream, with eyelids closed etc.., and there are many qualitative differences between "seeing" something in a dream and seeing something with your eyes.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    Oh, but how could you see a dream banana? Didn't you rather dream the seeing of a banana? What satisfies the possibility that in the dream you saw a banana rather than just had an experience such as that of a described banana which is not seen?
  • "Life is but a dream."
    Under what conditions could you see rather than just experience a banana in the dream?
  • "Life is but a dream."
    Hence my question. What conditions satisfy the possibility that P?
  • "Architectonic"
    Maybe it's an artifact of German-translated-into-English?Bitter Crank

    I think the word makes sense also in English, at least via the Greek words 'archi' for 'prime' or 'chief', and 'tectonic' for 'what controls structure and properties', or something like that.

    For example, the tectonics of plates in the Earth's crust control the structure and properties of continental drift, the formation of continents, the sea bed, mountains and so on.

    In architecture the tectonics of elements and materials control the structure and properties of a building and its components.

    In Kant's philosophy it is the tectonics of his conceptual scheme which controls the structure and properties of a systematic study of possible knowledge.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    But is it true? What conditions satisfy the possibility to see bananas in dreams?