• Implications of evolution
    Good. You've caught on to the fact that Skepticism is about hypothetical "if-then" s. Congratulations — Michael Ossipoff

    It is a very open ended my metaphysics. If you can state and IF ... Then, then it is approved. Such a metaphysics will pretty much envelop all existing metaphysical ideas. It is wonderfully accepting.
  • Implications of evolution
    the whole that is the animal. — Michael Ossipoff

    Really Michael, your philosophy is simply an endless stream of IF statements, which are debatable, followed by even more debatable THEN statements. There are so many, it is difficult To know where to begin. I was simply wondering if you realized it.     — Michael Ossipoff
  • Implications of evolution
    ↪Michael Ossipoff
    Basically that is all that it is.

    You have your IF statements (and there are tons of them in your posts, as I said they are ceaseless), and then you have your Then statements which are in almost all cases arguable.

    Everyone does this, but the more you have the less parsimonious is your philosophy. It's all OK, I am just not sure whether you recognize the plethora of brute facts in your philosophy.

    Here are a couple examples from one sentence.

    "I’m saying that “Consciousness” and “Mind” are unnecessary fictions, "

    "the whole that is the animal."
  • Implications of evolution
    Recognizing that conciousness is ontologically primary requires a very robust amount of philosophical and mental work. — Noble Dust

    It is the obvious and most natural starting point. It is what we experience all the time.
  • The Unconscious
    Humans are superhuman? Isn't that contradictory? — Metaphysician Undercover

    Not according to this famous neuroscientist. It's "complicated" but they are most definitely "superhuman".

    Basically, all neuroscience is doing is anthropomorphizing neurons. He talks about neurons as if they are little humans. They can do this, and they can do that, and they are amazing! - but complicated.
  • The Unconscious
    For those who wish to get a very in-depth understanding of neuroscience's explanations of the brain, I invite you to watch the TV show Superhuman, in which the neuroscientist each week gives an explanation for all of the explainable human abilities, in a manner that goes something along the lines like this:

    Well, humans have a whole bunch of neurons that think very fast like a computer, and well, he or she is doing it very, very fast, in parallel, and well it's definitely superhuman, and very complicated.

    And so it happens.
  • Implications of evolution
    We could choose to call you a Consciousness, but what are you in that story? — Michael Ossipoff

    Creative, learning, and evolving.

    The story is about that animal’s experience. — Michael Ossipoff

    You learn or are taught that you are an animal. Experientially, one just exists and is evolving by exploring and creating in memory.

    Most animals have no awareness of having or being a Consciousness. — Michael Ossipoff

    On the contrary, all of life is exploring, learning, and creating in it's own way. It's called evolution. Different but the same.

    You’re positing an abstract thing, a Consciousness, that has a body, and is the experiencer. That’s positing a contrived entity, and an artificial dissection. — Michael Ossipoff

    No duality or dissection required. They are one and the same. The differences are in substantially. It is the continuum that exists from quanta wave form to the atom (which is largely empty) to solid.

    Michael, I'm not sure you are aware of this, but your metaphysics probably is the antithesis of what you are seeking. It is one brute fact after another and there seems to be an endless steam of them to support your view of life. Maybe, if you are interested in a parsimonious philosophy, you might want exam your posts, and as an exercise number each of your brute facts and then trying to limit them somehow?
  • Reality: for real? Or is it all interpretation?
    If it's all interpretation, how do you know? — tim wood

    You have to begin by dropping the ideas that the brain is some sort of computer that is magically coming up with all of this stuff and you have to drop the idea that it is all emerging from the brain. If you don't, you'll be perpetually asking the same questions. This is precisely the process of understanding that I went through. The scientific explanation leads you down a dead end path.

    One has to begin by looking at life as one holistic, entangled process with mind as a creative, learning force.
  • Do people have the right to be unhappy?
    Happiness and unhappiness come and go in cycles. They just happen. Often, great happiness is followed by a great unhappiness. As for myself, I don't seek big highs so I don't have to deal with the big lows.
  • How to understand healthcare?
    The government first decides what we should buy (decided by the lobbyists for the medical who bribe to the hilt) and then the government tells us we have to buy it. No wonder they Democratic Party is in shambles. Just a bunch of Wall Street a__ kissers.
  • Philosopical criticisms of the Einstein thought experiment - do they exist?
    Interesting choice of quotes to attach to that response.
    So you're saying that the round Earth model is just a convenience for scientific problems, not corresponding the real flat world as we experience it in life.
    Not absurd, but pretty idealist. Not sure if FreeEmotion is asking about this.     — noAxioms

    Not what I said or meant.
  • Purpose of life! But why do we choose to continue it?
    ↪ThinkingMatt
    Some sort of spiritualism must re-enter into one's existence in order to feel meaning again. It is the life force within is that gives birth to our ability to imagine and create. The most straightforward way to understand this is via any of the arts. I practice dance, piano, drawing, Tai Chi/Qigong, and singing - as well as philosophy!
  • Purpose of life! But why do we choose to continue it?
    ↪ThinkingMatt
    Some sort of spiritualism must re-enter into one's existence in order to feel meaning again. It is the life force within is that gives birth to our ability to imagine and create. The most straightforward way to understand this is via any of the arts. I practice dance, piano, drawing, Tai Chi/Qigong, and singing - as well as philosophy!
  • Purpose of life! But why do we choose to continue it?
    Logically everything must start from one point. Unless you believe in closed loop paradoxes. Where the begging of syestem is started by the ending of the same system which makes it circular. — ThinkingMatt

    Here one must become spiritual. The Daoist simply say the beginning is the Dao that spirals (not circles) into a wave of creative energy. This would be the equivalent of Bergson's Elan vital.
  • Reality: for real? Or is it all interpretation?
    There is something out there. We are entangled within it, just as TV set is entangled within TV transmissions.

    Our minds reveal what is out there, as a holographic reconstruction wave reveals a light pattern which becomes memory. Our life is constructed out of memory. The memory is described by by us and others via discourse and education, and we agree to give it a name. Do we all see exactly the same thing? No. Everyone perceives something different (but close enough in most cases) because the reconstructive wave is different and memories are different, but via new perception and new discourse those memories evolve and via acts of will new things out there evolve.

    There is something real, there are memories (interpretations) being formed, there is a constant evolution occurring, and yes, new creations are being formed all of the time out there in memory field of the universe.
  • Purpose of life! But why do we choose to continue it?
    Okay for the sake of the discussion let's say the purpose of life is the continuation of motion. Why does the continuation of motion need to occur? — ThinkingMatt

    Motion is creation of something new.
  • Purpose of life! But why do we choose to continue it?
    I think an intriguing point about all of this is that now evolutionary biology has been accepted as the kind of secular/scientific equivalent of 'a creation myth', that it carries with it many often unstated connotations and assumptions. — Wayfarer

    Agree. The Big Bang, Natural Laws, Natural Selection are just words and phrases that are used to create a concept that replaces God. It is its own form of religion. Such concepts transfer the human ability to choose to an outside supernatural force that guides them.

    The French philosophers (e.g. Bergson, Foucault) understand the process. This transfer of power creates social control. In this particular case, control is a tug-of-war between the Church, which interprets the Laws of God, and Science which interprets and uses the Laws of Nature. It is subtle but quite pervasive and real with very real consequences.

    The most fundamental consequence is loss so meaning in life. If one is just a puppet of outside forces, then why should one continue to exist? What is the motivation? If one takes back choice and admits to one's ability to create via intuition, then new meaning enters into one's life. Camus created great stories and great ideas. Sisyphus was half-way there. The meaning is in life but he should be thinking of new ways to roll that boulder up that mountain. Repetition (habit) is boring. Practice creative intuition.
  • The Unconscious
    Cognitive Psychology has long recognised the dual aspect of semantic information processing, whether it be termed:
    1) Horizontal and Vertical
    2) Controlled and Automatic
    3) Slow and Fast
    4) Serial and Parallel, or
    5) Explicit and Implicit, etc.

    Descriptions of consciousness and semi-consciousness correspond with descriptions of controlled and automatic processing, respectively. The nature and extent of the relations between types of consciousness and psychological functions remain to be fully discovered and explained.     — Galuchat

    This only describes one aspect of consciousness, the willful part. It does not describe the creative aspect (intuition) nor does it describe the habitual aspect. The former being by far the most important since it is fundamental to existence, to create. The willful aspect provides the ability to create. Habits, allow the body to persist and extend throughout the body.
  • I have found the meaning of life.
    I don't disagree with your premis that continuing the cycle of life is to better understand the universe from humankind - my question is what's the objective in doing so? — ThinkingMatt

    The premise doesn't lead one anywhere and does not describe the lives of many who choose not to procreate (we have the choice).

    In my view we are here to create and continue to evolve through our creations. We are doing this throughout our lives in different ways and forms. Philosophy is just one form of creating.
  • Philosopical criticisms of the Einstein thought experiment - do they exist?
    ↪noAxioms
    Intuitive yes, but if we went by that, the world would still be flat — noAxioms
    Yes, Minkowski time, which is gridlike, is a convenience for scientific problems. It is not real time/duration as we experience it in life.
  • Purpose of life! But why do we choose to continue it?
    Tons of stuff people do that has nothing to do with the continuation of life. How about a good movie it the Super Bowl?
  • I have found the meaning of life.
    ↪Ciceronianus the White
    Now, aren't you glad I asked?
  • I have found the meaning of life.
    ↪Mongrel
    Lots of petty bullies online.
  • I have found the meaning of life.
    ↪Nils Loc
    No what you were just trying very hard to be an obnoxious bully. You were successful.
  • I have found the meaning of life.
    ↪Mongrel
    His post was obnoxious. Your post is nothing more than cheap online bullying.
  • I have found the meaning of life.
    Some people might be happier in the long run with their personal grand narratives, and so long as they cause no harm, why should I rebuke them? (ironically they're still living long happy and love filled lives, so they check my existential boxes; why not let them check their own imaginary boxes too?)... — VagabondSpectre

    Agreed, to thine own self be true. Enjoy life and enjoy still-expression.
  • I have found the meaning of life.
    ↪Ciceronianus the White
    No, you seem to have something you want to say. If love to hear it. Thanks.
  • How to understand healthcare?
    ↪Michael
    We were talking about the Benevolent Government who was going to take care of everyone's health.
  • How to understand healthcare?
    Of course they want them. That's why they push for equality and against discrimination. That's why they're by-and-large pro-choice rather than pro-life. — Michael

    Right. And the benevolent Government ruled by the top 1% is going to give it all to them - for free nonetheless. Notice any changes lately or is all empty talk? Let's just say it is very easy to con people, especially those who think they are way too intelligent to be conned.

    The largest transfer of wealth, by far, from the middle class to the top 1% occurred under Obama and now he gets $400,000 for a one hour speech from Goldman (which pretty much controls currency in the U.S. Clinton got her $180 million from Wall Street. And the middle class? Totally obliterated. What did the a Left get in return? Oh, some promises of equality-I guess in the poor house and the feeling that they did so much good for those who aren't as smart as them.

    The Benevolent Government.
  • How to understand healthcare?
    ↪Michael
    No fallacy. It is happening in real time and the Left is promoting more and more if it.
  • How to understand healthcare?
    ↪Michael
    Yep, and we are sliding down that slope into total Government intervention and control of our lives. It is all happening in a very short period of time. The Left wants But Brother, and they got one.
  • How to understand healthcare?
    ↪Michael
    With cart insurance, one had the choice to buy a car. One does not have a choice about living. That the government can now force citizens to purchase services from private industry brings us one step closer to government totally ruling our lives. Orwell was correct in ascertaining that Totalitarianism will be a product of Leftist thinking. People just don't know when to stop. They literally want a Big Brother. What irony?

    No wonder Democrats don't care about losing more and more liberties under Obama. They don't want them and don't understand why others might. Is it now more understandable that Russians like Totalitarianism?
  • I have found the meaning of life.
    ↪TheMadFool
    For me, life is about creative experimentation and learning from this experimentation. A child playing with blocks would be a microcosm of this experience. As I have related elsewhere, this experience is not necessarily lost, t may be persistent characterized as inherited traits or prodigy-like skills.

    A bat may simply be more evolved and does not need to share its experiences in the way humans do. We can't know the truth. We can only speculate about our beliefs which is part of the process of exploring, experimenting and learning.
  • I have found the meaning of life.
    The human mind is unique in that respect. We're the only animals with a well developed mind that enables to examine everything in the universe. We hold the magic mirror and we reflect the universe and all its contents on it. No other animal can do what we do.

    I'm not saying other animals aren't unique but I am saying that their uniqueness doesn't allow them to examine the world like we can.     — TheMadFool

    The assumption here is that writing books is evolutionary more advanced. Maybe bats are more advanced because they don't need books? Maybe bats actually have a much more evolved awareness?
  • I have found the meaning of life.
    I agree the meaning of life can change over time but right now, the meaning I described seems to be the best fit. — TheMadFool

    Yes, for yourself. As for myself, it does not apply for a variety of reasons.
  • Philosopical criticisms of the Einstein thought experiment - do they exist?
    Are you claiming there would be an experiential difference between the views? — noAxioms

    Indeed, explicit within Relativity, two observers are experiencing events differently. To Bergson, time (duree), is precisely what we experience as life. Memory is continuously evolving and sometimes it feels as time is moving very slowly and sometimes very quickly depending upon what we are experiencing. This is the duree of life, what Bergson called real time. Thomas Mann (and other modernist writers) attempted to express this experience in their novels, such as Mann's Magic Mountain.

    What Bergson, in his critique, attempted to express was that life as experienced is different than life as science views it, science addressing the issue of determining simultaneity of events.

    Intuitive yes, but if we went by that, the world would still be flat with the sun being carried overhead each day. Very few scientific advancements in the last couple centuries would qualify as intuitive findings. — noAxioms

    Our way of looking at things change as we share actual experiences, and in almost all cases, some creative intuition is involved whether it be ocean travel around the Earth or in a laboratory. It is in the laboratory, where creative experiments are first designed and implemented, that new discoveries are found. I would like to emphasize that it is the creative mind of the applied scientist in the laboratory that encourages evolutionary change. Theorists most frequently react to surprising new developments (Kuhn) that disrupt. Bohm writes quite eloquently about the nature of creative intuition in the advancement of scientific understanding.

    On another front, Daoists, Greeks, and Muslims, developed a very concrete and effective view of health and medicine based upon experience and intuition. Creative intuition is the heart of evolution, not natural selection
  • I have found the meaning of life.
    ↪TheMadFool
    The question relates to providing meaning to life. It is a question relating to an inner feeling one may have. Not everyone poses this question to themselves, but those who do find different answers which tend to change over time.
  • Philosopical criticisms of the Einstein thought experiment - do they exist?
    Bergson's claim was religious based, claiming that the immaterial mind somehow can detect what no clock or other physical device can — noAxioms

    Not a religious argument, but more an experiential and intuitive one based upon Bergson's studies of biology, mathematics, and education. Time (durée), as it is experienced, is heterogeneous and continuous. This is the opposite of scientific time which is homogenous and discontinuous. These differences provide a completely different view if the nature of experience and the mind that is experiencing. Bergson's series of books and papers on this subject provide a steady development of this point of view and metaphysics. The key components of the metaphysics are Durée, Memory (the experience of mind), and Elan vital (the creative impetus).
  • Prometheus Paradox
    ↪TheMadFool
    The issues with modern biology are discussed in great depth in Rupert Sheldrake's books. Here is a quick peek of his perspective. There are videos on YouTube that go deeper into his theory of Morphogenesis (distributed mind in a field). He was influenced by Bergson.

    https://youtu.be/1TerTgDEgUE
  • Philosopical criticisms of the Einstein thought experiment - do they exist?
    ↪Wayfarer
    Thanks. The article points out the issue of elevating scientific mathematical equations to an ontology.

    Probably the best discussion of the philosophical issues appear in these two videos by Stephen Robbins:

    https://youtu.be/mcMnn5TpqT0

    https://youtu.be/RjQg8on4yS0

    Ontologically, Relativity is quite a mess especially if one tries to bounce between time as used in Special vs. General and then attempting to use both interchangeably. For those who are interested in the"experience" of life, this subject is well worth studying.
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