Seems to me you have made your position very clear, too. For you, mind is a different substance to the other things around us. That leaves wide open the problem of how mind interacts with those other substances - the basic problem for dualism.
The alternative is that mind is not a substance, but something that substance does. — Banno
What's curious is that there is I think a much greater difference in between how we think things are than what we think ought be done. — Banno
I would disagree with the assertion that mind is a different substance to the other things around us. I would agree with the assertion that the way the other things appear via the mind is not how they are - substance-wise. They appear as solid, physical, material objects, but that is just how they are modeled. The model is not solid, physical or material. It is informational. — Harry Hindu
The physicalist atheist and the dedicated Jesuit often share first principles about how we should treat others. I think this is why I have avoided philosophy in the past as I am temperamentally inclined towards action over contemplation — Tom Storm
No, it's not a muddled question, it is crystal clear to me. Just because you don't think in such terms, doesn't mean that it's a muddled question. — Wayfarer
If you are going to talk about something's being fundamental, you have to be clear about what it is you are doing. What is fundamental when designing bridges is not what is fundamental when planning birthday parties, nor to what is fundamental to doing paraconsistent logic. — Banno
I'll note again that I do agree with Wayfarer that physics is not capable of explaining everything. I'm no keener on scientism than he is. — Banno
From my side, Banno's main influences are Wittgenstein, Davidson, Austin et al, who are influential in analytical philosophy. You could say they're the mainstream. My influences are more counter-cultural and (I think) more existential. — Wayfarer
A facile dismissal of the entire issue, then. Isn't there more at stake? Doesn't it really count whether you're an aggregation of physical forces, or something more than that, or other than that? — Wayfarer
What I was asking is where is the initial point where your respective approaches separate from each other? — Tom Storm
As I keep saying, I'm questioning the culturally-normative sense of scientific realism. As one of the authors I like writes, 'The main problem with our usual understanding of secularity is that it is taken-for-granted, so we are not aware that it is a worldview. It is an ideology that pretends to be the everyday world we live in. Most of us assume that it is simply the way the world really is, once superstitious beliefs about it have been removed.' So it's a real basic disagreement about what is real. — Wayfarer
What I was asking is where is the initial point where your respective approaches separate from each other? — Tom Storm
you've not even answered my very simple question from pages back about what criteria you're using to judge when something is real. — Isaac
When you look at the apple, your brain constructs a model of the apple. But that model is not what you see; it is you seeing. — Banno
Wayfarer would discuss a spiritual aspect of the world, which seems to me an impossible task. It's not that I deny this sublime aspect of reality, but taking seriously that it is ineffable, and hence beyond discussion. Hence it becomes a place of disagreement. — Banno
I see it as distinctly different tasks within the world. It's about direction of fit, about the difference between how things are and how we want them to be, rather than metaphysics. — Banno
The answer can only be, 'it depends'. — Wayfarer
The answer can only be, 'it depends'. — Wayfarer
So what length is it really? — Wayfarer
The differences in observations are a product of how reality works — Real Gone Cat
Such facts are not relative to the observer. — Banno
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