The prophecy must be specific enough to only apply to the event prophesied. it must be unambiguous enough that it could not apply to any other event, or eventuality. — BBQueue
But you just said that consciousness can be identified in philosophy by presuming the experiences of others are the same as ours, that's how we can talk to each other about the topic. So why can't science presume that when people say they're experiencing something, they are experiencing what we experience, and call the same thing? If science can't make that presumption (and still claim to be investigating 'consciousness'), then how can philosophy claim to be talking about 'consciousness with other philosophers without having the same identification problem? — Isaac
Yes, but "so far haven't" doesn't even make sense here either. What I'm asking is how can there possibly be coherently a concept which we presume is there but can't properly identify. On what grounds do we presume it's there other than having identified some pattern which we wanted to give a name to? — Isaac
I agree, but where I disagree is in saying that if some pattern in reality exists but we can only identify it by it's relation with other patterns, not by its structure, then it's relationship with other patterns is all it is. That is what we've identified and given a name to, so that is what the name refers to and nothing more. It doesn't then go on to refer to some imagined structure which we simply presume is the way we imagine it to be. — Isaac
Right. So if all that can be taken as a presumption for further philosophical investigation without even mentioning the caveat, why is it then considered such a massive error when scientific investigation presumes the same starting point? — Isaac
Yes. That is how I see things too. So for there to be a thing in our realm of concepts which we believe to be part of reality, it can only be so on the basis of some such pattern and nothing else. This makes the idea of there being some real phenomena, but one which we can't identify, incoherent. — Isaac
You'll need to be more clear about this, I don't understand the metaphor (obviously you don't mean observation literally - seeing with our eyes) but I'm not sure here what sense or detection it is standing in for. — Isaac
Really? That's your experience of the philosophical debate around consciousness? Form people like Dennet and Hood considering it to be little more than an illusion, through the pan-psychics, to the Berkeleian idealists considering it to be the essence of the whole of reality in the mind of God. You think people are all using the word consistently? — Isaac
Anti-Trumpist mental gymnastics on full display. — NOS4A2
As many of the Amazon reviews noted, it seems like he could present his ideas in a 10-page article. — T Clark
Take 'choose' out of it, and this becomes a tautology: "We are never able to do... other than what we actually do". — StreetlightX
But what would it mean to do otherwise than what we do? Say doing otherwise were 'possible'. And then you did otherwise. But then, you could not have done otherwise than that. — StreetlightX
So, no, obviously, you can't have done otherwise than what you did, or do. — StreetlightX
Mathematics does not make any claim as to usefulness or meaningfulness. That is so by design. — alcontali
or it is the name we give to the way we, and only we, feel. Which, being entirely subjective cannot be discussed at all. How would you even know my 'consciousness' was the same as yours when we use the term in an exchange of sentences. — Isaac
I don't see how (insofar as 'real' means something like 'outside of subjective artifice). — Isaac
Exactly. So how does the concept of a thing called 'consciousness' which we cannot properly identify/do not understand, make any sense at all. If we cannot identify it, it doesn't exist, things only exist because we've identified some pattern in reality which we think deserves a name. If we cannot understand what it is, then what is it we are we giving a name to?
If we look at empirical knowledge, when we say we don't 'understand' some force, we mean something like that we can see x causes y, but we don't know how. What's being argued here is that there exists some thing 'consciousness', but we cannot identify it such that we can correlate its presence with brain states. That seems to me putting the cart before the horse. If we cannot identify it, how do we know there is even anything there to be named? — Isaac
Yes. That is exactly the alternative. The world is seamless sea of atoms (or waves, whatever) along what lines it is carved up into individual things is entirely arbitrary human invention. — Isaac
But the ability to print the words 'I am conscious' isn't one of the things we ask patients to report, so why would that be indicative. I've already explained, we ask them to report the logging to memory of responses to sensory stimuli. — Isaac
If no such set of phenomena existed we wouldn't have a word for it would we? — Isaac
That's just not how language works, concepts don't pre-exist language, there isn't a whole set of fully formed real concepts out there which we gradually find and give names to. — Isaac
Most neuroscientists in the field detect consciousness by patient reports — Isaac
print("I am conscious")
But that's not how language and concepts work. We first experience a thing which we determine, entirely subjectively, to be separate enough from other things to have its own name. We then call that thing "self-awareness". So the question "why are we self-aware? " makes no sense at all. We are "self-aware" because 'self-aware' is the word we decided to give to the thing we are. — Isaac
It's also one of the reasons people laugh at philosophy. — T Clark
As Lincoln wrote - of the average Joes, for the average Joes, and by the average Joes. — T Clark
I do not do believing.
I do guessing and estimating and supposing and things like that.
But I do not do "believing." — Frank Apisa
No it isn't. — Frank Apisa
No, not necessarily. If everyone realised that the answers that science provides are better, then that possible consequence would make sense. But sadly countless people do not realise this. — S
It isn't supposed to, is it? I was making a like for like comparison. That's like saying that a hand saw isn't very good at drilling holes into wood. — S
God could not have created time just like God could not have created itself. It is something that is eternal. — Harry Hindu
What use is creating a narrative for an omniscient being? — Harry Hindu
Sure it is. An omniscient being can't be indecisive. — Harry Hindu
It could just be aliens. — Harry Hindu
As Darwin was very clear that this integral component of the natural selection processes was without direction, progression or anything of that flavor, and if that is not true, then Darwinian natural selection is not true. — Jeremiah
But a metaphysics built on abstract-facts, such as abstract implications, is the unparsimonious metaphiysics, because it doesn't assume or claim the "existence" (whatever that would mean) of anything describable. — Michael Ossipoff
Why should I call an indecisive being a "god"? — Harry Hindu
You are wrong, Darwin meant without direction, it was a major contributing factor to his loss of faith in God. — Jeremiah
He kept seeing imperfections in nature, like beetles with wings trapped under their shell, which made him doubt a divine influence on the process. — Jeremiah
it was met with much resistance, because humans can't accept the idea that human existence is not special and instead is just the result of aimless mutation. — Jeremiah
However, without the mutations being aimless — Jeremiah
Furthermore there are no laws in physics that says these mutations have intent — Jeremiah
and there are no laws in physics that shows god is directing evolution — Jeremiah
and in this instant by random I mean without aim, without direction, without method. — Jeremiah
Did you are me make that claim? — Jeremiah
In fact it was you who made such a claim. — Jeremiah
Evolution happens according to the laws of physics — BlueBanana
All of them. — BlueBanana
Sure it does. It shows that God would be indecisive or inconsistent. — Harry Hindu
it is not evolution if it includes some type of design or direction — Jeremiah
I wasn't being satcastic. — Harry Hindu
So, from the POV of God, there's no reason to NOT compare us to animals. — BlueBanana
So, from the POV of God, there's no reason to compare us to animals. — BlueBanana
Parties, one-night-stands, rented rooms are dull in comparison. — unenlightened