• US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    Addendum to
    ↪180 Proof
    :victory: :mask:

    "The Coming Biden Blowout"
    by David Frum

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/gop-republicans-2024-election-biden-trump/673856/
  • What are you listening to right now?

    "What's Going On" (3:53)
    What's Going On, 1971
    writers A. Cleveland, R. Benson & M. Gaye, 1970
    performer Marvin Gaye
  • Deconstructing our intuitions of consciousness
    What is an example of something non-empirical and natural? — Lionino
    (Some) Mathematical structures.
  • Deconstructing our intuitions of consciousness
    Do you think that could be done from some perspective outside of consciousness? — Wayfarer
    I'm a p-naturalist¹ and thereby speculatively assume that aspects of nature are only explained within – immanently to – nature itself by using other aspects of nature, which includes "consciousness" as an attribute of at least one natural species. Atomic structures, genomic evoluntion and human brains, for instance, are each scientifically studied publicly, or "from outside any one conscious perspective", within the horizon – limits – of culture (e.g. ordinary / narrative & formal languages) that is, again, an attribute of at least one natural species. IMO, Wayfarer, whatever else (individual) "consciousness" may be, it seems to function as a lower-information phenomena always situated within higher-information systems of culture which likewise is always conditioned by the unbounded-information 'strange-looping, fractal-like' structure of nature that I compare analogously to 1-d lines imbedded on surfaces of 2-d planes imbedded in 3-d objects / an N-d manifold, etc.


    ¹Whatever else reality might consist in, nature is the only aspect of reality with which we natural beings, who are inseparable from – encompassed by – nature and therefore constrained by our natural capabilities, or attributes, can only finitely observe and thereby asymptotically explain nature itself. (re: Epicurus, Spinoza, Peirce-Dewey, Zapffe-Camus, D. Parfit, P. Foot et al)
  • New Year's Eve celebrations
    When I'd seen 2010 in theatrical release back in the 80s I thought it was okay too but rewatching it again several years ago I really didn't like it. Same with A.C. Clarke's three sequel novels – for me, they diminished, or cheapened, the original. With few exceptions, I tend not to like sequels (or series) in any medium though.

    How was your TNG marathon? How many episodes did you watch? Which season/s? I'm a diehard TOS trekkie so for me "canon" ends with the Star Trek: The Animated Series (though I do enjoy rewatching the movies ST II & ST VI). While my nephews were growing up in the early 2000s, I'd watched quite a few episodes of TNG (& DS9) with them. They were huge Patrick Stewart fans from his role in the X-Men movies and I suspect that somehow lead them to TNG. Well I remain stuck in the 60s era of the franchise; must be childhood nostalgia from watching all those "reruns". :nerd: \\//_ "LLAP"
  • Deconstructing our intuitions of consciousness
    Is anything "non-empirical" supernatural? — Skalidris
    No.

    And if by empirical you mean scientific, well this is a philosophy forum, not a scientific one.
    'Empirical' is also a philosophical term (e.g. Kant) so it's not synonymous with "scientific".

    If science is the only field that is allowed to deal with the topic of consciousness, should it be banned from this forum?
    No. :roll:
  • Best Arguments for Physicalism
    And this is where I find myself in some agreement with Wayfarer. — Banno
    :gasp:
  • Best Arguments for Physicalism
    Here's a thought: why not use different sorts of explanations for different things. — Banno
    :up:

    This is why I say 'aspects of nature' and not 'everything'. Epistemological pluralism (e.g. N. Goodman's irrealism) makes the most sense to me.
  • Deconstructing our intuitions of consciousness
    What do you think of this reasoning? — Skalidris
    Too reliant on folk psychology and seemingly not informed enough by contemporary cognitive neuroscience. "Consciousness" is an empirical problem yet to be solved (i.e. testably explained) and not merely, or even principally, a speculative question ... unless by "consciousness" one means a 'supernatural' or non-empirical entity. :chin:
  • Best Arguments for Physicalism
    All the advances in science are consistent with idealism. — RogueAI
    What do you mean by "idealism – which flavor of it?" Why does this "consistency" with "advances in science" matter?

    Science doesn't do metaphysics.
    "Science doesn't do" poetry or sports either, so what's your point, Rogue? And how are "all the advances in science", as you say, "consistent" with a metaphysics like "idealism" if "science doesn't do metaphysics"?

    If you are a physicalist, what convinced you? — frank
    To paraphrase W. Churchill:

    IME I've found that physicalism is the worst methological paradigm for explaining – modeling – aspects of the natural world except for all those other non-physical or anti-physical paradigms tried from time to time.
  • Bannings
    Certainly, in the Platonic-Aristotlean tradition, politics & ethics are complementary faces of the philosophical coin. Not all participants in political discussions are 'dispassionate' (or thoughtful) enough to forgo their unwarranted/uninformed opinions for the sake of dialectic or argument. Political controversies attract trolls like flies to turds so Mods have to weed-out the incorrigible ones from time to time. Same as any other topics.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Great legal (& political) minds think alike! Truth hurts MAGAts, doesn't it? :victory: :mask:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    re: Criminal Defendent/Fraudster/Loser-1:

    2023 was the Year of Felony Indictments. :cool:

    2024 is the Year of Convictions (& Bankruptcy).     :fire:

    *Happy New Fear, MAGAts!*

    (Don't drop dead, Donnie, before 20Jan2025.) :sweat:
  • TPF Quote Cabinet
    For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. — T.S. Elliot


    01.01.24
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    I never called it [Gaza] a concentration camp but nice to know you [@schopenhauer1] feel obligated to defend that crime by pointing out it isn't as bad as an actual one. — Benkei
    :up:
  • Bob's Normative Ethical Theory
    Apologies for this delayed response.

    If something is solely a means to an end, then it can’t be an end itself because it is just a means towards some other end. If it is also an end then it is not just a means towards an end. — Bob Ross
    Repeating your definition doesn't make it more substantive than just a definition.

    .The argument for FET is as follows:

    P1: If something is solely a means towards an end, then it is not an end in itself.

    P2: Minds are ends in themselves.

    [ ... ]     — Bob Ross
    Again, an arbitrary posit.

    P2 notes that minds are ends in themselves, and this is because minds are the only beings with the nature such that they are their own end—i.e., they are an absolute end
    Circular to the point of being tautological.

    Minds are the only beings capable of setting out contextual ends for the sake of themselves (as the final, absolute end) and are thusly ends in themselves.
    :roll:

    C: One should not treat a mind as solely a means towards an end, but always as (at least) simultaneously an end in themselves.
    Again, this conclusion does not follow validly from your mere 'definitions' (& otherwise 'hidden premises' e.g. what is conceptually meant by "minds").

    Reason's Greetings & Happy New Year, Bob! :sparkle:
  • African Americans still wearing Covid-19 masks.
    ↪Vera Mont
    :up: :up:
  • New Year's Eve celebrations
    Just under six hours to go to 2024 on the US Pacific coast and we're about to sit down to dinner. Later I will watch 2001: A Space Odyssey again as I've done ritually almost every New Year's Eve since the early 1970s. :nerd:
  • Best Arguments for Physicalism
    I'm a methological physicalist – I exclude 'non-physical' (i.e. stop-gap / fudge factor) concepts and entities from models, or explanations, of aspects of nature – who thinks 'metaphysical physicalism ' (re: SEP article) is superfluously reductive.
  • Bannings
    ↪hypericin
    :up:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    you Hamas symps
    — Merkwurdichliebe
    Cite where I "sympathize with Hamas" or retract your slander.     — 180 Proof
    Banned ... another "Israeli war crimes" apologist.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    you Hamas symps — Merkwurdichliebe
    Cite where I "sympathize with Hamas" or retract your slander.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪Merkwurdichliebe
    Apparently, you've not been paying attention ...
  • Would you live out your life in a simulation?
    ↪Vera Mont
    :up: :up: :up:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪tim wood
    Please, sir, STFU. Much appreciated.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    [H]amas played their hand, fuck 'em — Merkwurdichliebe
    And Bibi's regime took the bait, so fuck 'em too.

    But their choice is commitment to murder - not what I think but what they in every way make explicitly clear year after year after year after year.
    — tim wood

    Israel or Hamas? Since the IDF are far more effective terrorists, I’ll assume you mean them.     — Mikie
    :mask: :up:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪tim wood
    "The question itself is" simple minded (e.g. ahistorical). :brow:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪tim wood
    :roll: :shade: For decades Bibi has supplied matches & gasoline to Hamas and now firebombs Gaza in retaliation for Hamas setting one of Bibi's houses ablaze. You're an effin' war crimes apologist, tim wood.

    ↪Mikie
    :up:
  • James Webb Telescope
    White hole (instead of "Big Bang"):
  • What if the big bang singularity is not the "beginning" of existence?
    White hole (instead of "Big Bang"):
  • Would you live out your life in a simulation?
    Stop accepting new input from the universe in favour of my own fantasies? That's a pretty unimaginative and unchallenging way to spend the rest of my life. — Pantagruel
    :up:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪tim wood
    I guess you don't like my answer so you deny I've given it a few times already. How about this, tim: I would not have supported the jihadist Hamas party over PA-affiliated, secular parties in Gaza and not have promoted the violent settler land-grabs in the West Bank, etc in order for both policies to sabotage all prospects of a "Two-State Solution" as Bibi's governments have done since 2004; thus, no October 7th atrocities and retaliatory mass murdering by the IDF today. Asking me what I would do in Netanyahu's current, self-inflicted catastrophe is disingenous on your part, tim, because my anti-zionist/anti-Bibi position has been stated repeatedly on this and other threads for about four years (since I became active again on TPF). Anyway, asked and answered. You've got no response but apologetic zionist "talking points" now like you've always had, which are vapidly ahistorical and morally shameful. :shade:
  • Would you live out your life in a simulation?
    ↪hypericin
    Habituation to stimuli (e.g. dopamine-on-demand) sets in and eventually it's all "dull, undifferentiated pleasure" (just ask any (rich) junkie ... they never complain about that).

    ... knowing that your existence was a lie?
    The truth is I exist both before and after I stick my head into a permanent brain prosthetic. The only "lie" would be not to remember, or deny, that I'm now "living for the rest of my non-simulated life in a simulation".

    ↪Vera Mont
    :up:
  • Would you live out your life in a simulation?
    ↪hypericin
    No. No.

    A "fully-immersive simulation" prosthesis (with no off-switch / exit) = a lobotomy plus continuous 24/7 morphine drip.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    It's all on you, 180: what do you do? — tim wood
    Asked and answered over two years ago ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/650650
  • What are you listening to right now?
    Reason's Greetings (bye-bye 2023!)

    Hear me ringin'
    big bell tolls
    Hear me singin'
    soft and low
    I've been beggin'
    on my knees
    I've been kickin',
    help me, please

    "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" (7:15)
    Sticky Fingers, 1971
    writers Jagger-Richards
    performers The Rolling Stones

    :yum:

    "Y'all got – cocaine eyes!
    (ah, the good ol' days :party: )
  • Why is the Hard Problem of Consciousness so hard?
    What we do know is that there is no evidence of consciousness existing anywhere apart from biological organisms, so we really have zero reason to think that consciousness can exist apart from biological organisms, and every reason to think it cannot. — Janus
    :100:

    If by "we don't know" you mean that it hasn't been proven, then I agree; nothing in science has been proven. — Janus
    :up: :up:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    And to be sure, as I react to your post, it - you -would seem to say that maybe better if the Arabs had won in '67 or '48. Is that antisemitism that's showing? — tim wood
    Not at all; just my anti-settler-colonizer/anti-zionism that I share with
    (e.g.) R. Luxemburg, S. Freud, A. Einstein, E. Fromm, P. Levi, Marek Edelman, I. Asimov, H. Arendt, I.F. Stone, N. Chomsky, H. Siegman, M. Lerner, R. Falk, T. Judt ... — 180 Proof
    and Israeli conscientious objectors like Tal Mitnick. Clearly, it's apologists for zionist mass murder like you, tim wood, who are among the actual antisemites (contra Israeli and Palestinian children) in this historical context. :shade:
  • Why is the Hard Problem of Consciousness so hard?
    I think [Gnomon's] fundamentally wrong because he has m = matter instead of m = mass, the correct equivalence. — ucarr
    Obviously you are correct.

    I've been criticizing him from the standpoint of execution of his argumentation. I've characterized it as being slapdash and error-laden.
    You're being generous, ucarr. @Gnomon spouts his own warlock's brew of woo-woo nonsense which he rationalizes with pseudo-scientific sophistry. Have you read any of his personal blog on "EnFormationism"? A good laugh that quickly becomes a tedious slog ... yet insightful as to what he's really up to: substituting a deistic prime mover (i.e. universal programmer aka "The EnFormer") for "the creator god of Abraham". If you search my posts using "Gnomon" as a keyword you'll find that since 2020 I've challenged him hundreds of times to be more rigorously clear and accurate with the science and the philosophy he espouses, but to no avail. Maybe you will have better luck than I've had, ucarr ...

    If firstly we picture Einstein sitting at his desk writing out the equations for special relativity, and then secondly we read his paper published in 1905, can we next conjoin these two events via memory to the effect that we can claim them public and therefore physical?
    If I understand you correctly, "memory" in the brain is physical but without corroborating evidence its content is not public.

    You're saying physicalism is rooted in the scientific method's demand that scientifically measurable things be public?
    No. I'm saying that, IMO, physicalism excludes non-physical concepts (e.g. X-of-the-gaps supernaturalia) from explanations of aspects of (i.e. transformations in) the physical world ... such that, reversing your terms, "the scientific method is rooted in" (a) physicalist paradigm.

    Is metacognitive, within your context, higher-order cognition, i.e., cognition of cognition?
    More or less. Read the article I linked in the post you're referring to for an elaboration on the context within which I use the adjective "metacognitive".
  • Why is the Hard Problem of Consciousness so hard?
    ↪ucarr
    Why include me in your reply to Gnomon?
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