If it exists it has a position. We ought to be able to point to it. — NOS4A2
I’m afraid I’m terrible at math. What would the Markov blanket be in biological terms? — NOS4A2
As for materialism, I reject it on these grounds: — Wayfarer
From the Scientific Revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries onward, Materialism has steadily grown into the dominant worldview of Western civilization. — Peter Sas, Critique of Pure Interest (Blog)
Materialism has exerted an enormous – and very harmful – influence in our culture. — Peter Sas, Critique of Pure Interest (Blog)
The most important cultural consequence of scientific Materialism has undoubtedly been modern individualism — Peter Sas, Critique of Pure Interest (Blog)
egoism, greed, exploitation, feelings of inferiority, hatred, abuse, violence… These are all thoughts, feelings and behavioral patterns that originate in the conviction that I – as this person, with this body and this mind – am nothing more than this individual being — Peter Sas, Critique of Pure Interest (Blog)
Less formally the impulse is that if idealism is true, and hence only minds and mental phenomena exist, then all that can be true must be apparent to a conscious mind. — Banno
Less formally the impulse is that if idealism is true, and hence only minds and mental phenomena exist, then all that can be true must be apparent to a conscious mind. — Banno
I think it more accurate to say that if idealism is true then all true statements of the form "p exists" is apparent to a conscious mind, which doesn't require Fitch's paradox to show as it seems to be quite explicit in the idealist's position. — Michael
This makes no sense at all. You’re saying that some third thing is required for the two apples to be separated. Then what separates the two apples from this third thing? — Michael
Edit: I am having difficulty locating our disagreement, apart from your insistence on separating a material and spiritual world. — Banno
That's because you're still criticizing a strawman version of idealism. — Wayfarer
But Wayfarer has presented converse arguments such that those who espouse materialism are afraid less they be obliged to face the reality of a spiritual or transcendent world - they refuse to countenance such things out of fear of having their world overturned. And I think this is probably right, too, in many cases. — Banno
However, something must separate the two things from each other, or else they would be only one thing. And, the logic of mathematics would be rendered useless in that way, as well. As I explained above, that which separates them cannot be a third thing. Therefore we need to employ a dualism to understand the existence of independent things. Aristotle resolved this type of logical dilemma with hylomorphism, a type of dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover
we must accept ... dualism — Metaphysician Undercover
Release your fear of God, and accept Him — Metaphysician Undercover
Derrida appears to be saying that there are rules of interpretation that apply to his work. I could make up a different rule of interpretation "All works mean exactly what the author says they mean and nothing else". As a rule, it couldn't be clearer. So why do we not apply that?
Or worse — Isaac
"All works should be read backwards and the sense of them taken from whatever meaning remains in the reversed text". Again, crystal clear as a rule, no one would be in any doubt as to how to follow it, yet it's a rule which apparently Derrida thinks is wrong. So on what ground are some rules right and others wrong? — Isaac
"All works should be read backwards and the sense of them taken from whatever meaning remains in the reversed text". Again, crystal clear as a rule, no one would be in any doubt as to how to follow it, yet it's a rule which apparently Derrida thinks is wrong. — Isaac
So your experience doesn't exist? Or are you saying it does have a position?
Markov blankets are not necessarily spatially extensive membranes; they are just a set of states that separates internal and external states.
And it stands to reason that the subject is first-person when referred to in the first person (you and I). The point being that a subject is an object - a person. The perspective from which one refers to a subject does not matter at all. I just don't understand your issue of reification of the subject when you are the one that has defined a subject as an object, or a thing.The subject is third-person when referred to in the third person. — Wayfarer
Well, you are the one that linked the subject (an object as a person) with experience. I thought you had an idea of what you were talking about when using the term, "experience". If you don't know what it is then how can you say that it implies the subject for whom it occurs?What is an experience? Would it be fair to define experience as the information of the subject/object/person relative to the world?
— Harry Hindu
I don't know if it can be defined as that, but certainly experience implies the subject for whom, or to whom, it occurs. — Wayfarer
There are discursive contexts which are more or less stable , more or less consistent. Thus an event as experienced by someone can be more or less ‘true’ to a given context. — Joshs
But what does intention, as meaning to say, ‘do’? — Joshs
He is simply trying to show that when we look closely enough within the terms’ of an intended meaning that is ‘crystal clear’ we may notice that it’s crystal clarity continues to be the same differently , not just in terms of how it is interpreted by those other than the creator of the rule , but also by the rule-creator. To mean a rule is to mean something slightly other, more, different than what we meant to legislate, in the very act of intending it. This doesn’t destroy the rule. It is its condition of possibility. — Joshs
So your experience doesn't exist? Or are you saying it does have a position?
I’m saying if it exists it has a position. You told me it exists but where it is doesn’t matter. — NOS4A2
The epidermis, then. The epidermis is in direct contact with the tea cup. — NOS4A2
Of course. I think it is quite evident. My experence with dozens of discussions I have had related to the the material/physical vs immaterial/non-physical world, as well as a poll and a couple of discussions I have launched in this medium, show that "materialism" wins by 5:1 (80%)! And, consider that this occurs in the philosophical community (taken as a whole). One has to also add the almost 99% materialistic scientific community in the equation ...From the Scientific Revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries onward, Materialism has steadily grown into the dominant worldview of Western civilization. — Peter Sas, Critique of Pure Interest (Blog)
Is this a kind of preaching?Release your fear of God, and accept Him — Metaphysician Undercover
He's saying that the world is such that rules cannot be made without meaning something slightly other than we meant to rule on. A fact about the way the world is. I'm quite content with Derrida's claim here, but it is clearly a claim about the way the world is. a normal everyday factual claim. — "Isaac
Yes. But your experienced tea cup (the one you act on, talk about, point to, describe, remember, locate, plan about, name, reach for... The one you just referred to with the words "tea cup") does not cause the responses in your epidermis. Something else does. If this weren't the case it would be impossible to be wrong. It's not impossible to be wrong, therefore your construction (no matter how generally accurate) cannot actually be one and the same as the causes of the data from which it is constructed.
Therefore there are, by necessity, at least two nodes to consider. The tea cup of your experience (and mine, and the rest of the world - we construct these things together), and the hidden states which such a construction is an attempt to model, predict and modify.
I exist. I dream. Do dreams exist?I exist. I experience. But it doesn’t follow that something called “experience” exists. — NOS4A2
I just don't understand your issue of reification of the subject when you are the one that has defined a subject as an object, or a thing. — Harry Hindu
Most forms of idealism do not deny the reality of matter, they simply affirm that matter is logically dependent on mind. This is the real issue of modern metaphysics. The laity tend to place matter as first, assuming that mind evolved through some form of emergence. But this illogical position renders the entire universe as unintelligible (cosmological argument being the ultimate demonstration), so the higher educated tend to adopt some form of idealism. You'll see idealism as the most common perspective of physicists, placing the wave function (ideal) as prior to the material object (particle). — Metaphysician Undercover
Is this a kind of preaching?
This is a philosophical medium, not a religious one. And the above statement does not sound at all like a philosophical one or belonging to any kind of philosophy, including Philosophy of Religion, i.e. Theology. — Alkis Piskas
But Wayfarer has presented converse arguments such that those who espouse materialism are afraid less they be obliged to face the reality of a spiritual or transcendent world - they refuse to countenance such things out of fear of having their world overturned. — Banno
having to face the reality of the spiritual world. — Metaphysician Undercover
fear of having to face the reality of the spiritual world... — Metaphysician Undercover
The thought that the relation between mind and the world is something fundamental makes many people in this day and age nervous. I believe this is one manifestation of a fear of religion which has large and often pernicious consequences for modern intellectual life. — Thomas Nagel
Interesting. Does idealism in your view necessitate the reality of a spiritual world (as opposed to a reality where mentation is everything)? I can see how it might support some forms of spiritual belief, with suppositions and additional work - what kind of spiritual world does idealism establish as real? — Tom Storm
The thought that the relation between mind and the world is something fundamental makes many people in this day and age nervous. I believe this is one manifestation of a fear of religion which has large and often pernicious consequences for modern intellectual life. — Thomas Nagel
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