Comments

  • Philoso-psychiatry
    I found it humorous that in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the evil antagonists were the Psychiatristsintrobert
    Maybe you won't find don't find it humorous, if you consider the reason for that. Psychiatrists appear as enemies of humanity in other novels too.
    Indeed, Douglas Adams's novel was a masteripiece, maybe the funniest novel I have ever read, but a lot of novels and films that picture psychiatrists and psychiatry as enemies of the world, as e.g. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "The Silence of the Lambs", "Battlefield Earth". And of course, dozens of books written against psychiatry. There's no other medical field or profession that has been so much accused for human abuse as psychiatry.

    Psychiatric abuse: 195 million results in Google

    Anti-psychiatry - 217.000.000 results in Google

    Psychiatrists are behind every massive human abuse. Psychiatry during the Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (from the Stalinic period and after) are the two most characteristic examples. Until these days, patients are abused in a most horrible way by psychiatry. And they don't damage people with ETC, lobotomy and other horrible procedures, they do it with drugs, damaging people's lives, based on DSM, psychiatry's bible, listing over 300 mental disorders, most of them actually imaginary (nonexistent), based on which and a psychiatrist's opinion unconstitutional coercive retention takes place.

    ect-documentary-trailer_2min_en.jpg
  • A Just God Cannot Exist
    It is necessary, in order to keep the established elite in power, for the rank and file to hold a rigid sense of their own rightnessVera Mont
    Right. I/we have talked about that.

    Thus the RC vs Jews and heretics; the Anglican kings vs the papists; the Stalin regime vs reactionaries; the Repub... well, you know.Vera Mont
    Right. But hereses within a any system should not be tolerated. Otherwise, the system falls apart. However, in my country, the Orthodox Church calls "heresies" even Buddhists (!) and every significant minor religion that has nothing to do with Christianity. Aren't they totally nuts? I believe they have to call them as such, i.e. as if they are Christian schemes that deviate from the orthodox scheme (!), otherwise itm would seem as if they are provoking a religious war with every other religion!
    I have seen a very long list of heresies compiled by the Greek Othhodox Church in the past ... It included even Yoga! :grin:
    (Fortunately though, The Church is separated from the State in Greece a few years. This has reduced the power of the Church a great deal.)

    ...the triumphs of science and rational thoughtVera Mont
    Yes, at last! The war lasted for too long!
  • A Just God Cannot Exist
    I don't have much use for deities, either. But I would not turn against them, nor deny access to them to people who need a spiritual reference in their livesVera Mont
    Certainly. This is the healthy way to address the subject. Religious freedom is very important. Ironically though, the Churches and the people belonging to dogmatic religions, are intolerant to other beliefs. Very bad. I would say that they have got it very wrong, if they had not adopted this attitude for political and other reasons irrelevant to religion! (Think for instance of religious wars, even within a same country, e.g. the Bosnian war in the end of the previous century.)
  • A Just God Cannot Exist
    I think at the end of the day it doesn't matter what religion one pursues (if they wish to even coin themselves by any dogma at all) because beneath all religions or spiritualities seems to be a common ground.Benj96
    I fully agree on and support religious freedom. Even if some people chose to "belong" to a religious denomination for other reasons than actually following it.
    However, not all religions are dogmatic. E.g. Buddhism is a practical, philosophical, non-dogmatic religion. Dogmatic religions are mainly the gig ones, such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, which are centered on their own image of God or deities. (Buddhism is also a big religion, but it does not belong in this category.)

    I believe Buddha reached his nirvana, his true inner peace, by letting go of his suffering, guilt and shame. By forgiving those who wronged him and by forgiving himself for what wrong he did against others knowing he didn't understand the true way to be, and thus allowing himself the chance to begin anew. Probably as jesus did. And Muhammad.Benj96
    Nicely said!
  • A Just God Cannot Exist
    But he chose to channel benevolenceBenj96
    Yes, this is true. Buddha had chosen compassion. Quite similar. But I prefer Buddha's approach. Very "human", simple, direct, practical, no gods or even deities, etc. Christ, and the whole New Testament are very mystical and allow for a lot of interpretations, let aside the self-contraditions and other illogical elements it contains.

    he would reveal truth and understanding to others, and they would love him for it, and he would naturally gain popularity and tip the balance of power in his favour.Benj96
    These looks like attributes of a revolutionary and politically-oriented person. I have read in the (very) past a few texts with these views in mind. Even that he belonged to Zealots, who I think were also amed!

    Of course the courts and governments of the time would be raging at such a person being offered authority and power that had previously been offered to them.Benj96
    This is a view that may indeed well be more factual than the one presented in the New Testament. But, honestly, I don't care much! :smile:

    He had pure faith from the beginning because the truth of the matter made sense to him. It was logical and ethical."
    True.
    Benj96
  • Is there any difference between a universal and a resemblance relation?
    For example, what is a universal circle? It doesn't look like a particular circle because every particular circle is continuous in space and around a particular point in space but a universal circle is not supposed to be located in any continuous area of space. A universal circle looks like certain deviations from any particular circle and thus more like a resemblance relation among particular circles.litewave
    Well, that's nice and inspiring, yet it is still too theoretical. I mean, not quite tanglible. I, personally, cannot even imagine how it would look like.
    Anyway, it's OK.
  • A Just God Cannot Exist
    He's been a wonderfully effective lever to move masses of gullible people into calamitous wars, as well as craven obedience.Vera Mont
    Yes, this is the other side of the story, which is more important, since it refers to the majority of people. My "uselessness" refers to the those who are not affected, who are the minority.
  • A Just God Cannot Exist
    Where does this composite image of the god or God come from?Vera Mont
    Us! :smile:
    More precisely, those who have written the Old Testament --actually the Hebrew Bible-- which then was adopted by Judeo-Christians and the story has survived to our days as fairy tales have.

    (As for the rest of your post, I have already responded.)
  • A Just God Cannot Exist
    The God of Genesis wasn't omniscient or particularly fair, and didn't pretend to be.Vera Mont
    I believe so. I have not retained many details from my religion courses at school. I had to learn the material in order to pass the course! :grin: What I remember was that I had a lot of questions but didn't dare to as the teacher for fear of being punished! But by the time I entered adulthood and was free to have my own opinion, I had no questions any more! All that just dind't fit, for dozens of reasons. So, I have forgotten about the Genesis and the whole Old Testament, because it simply didn't make sense. And it was a useless subject.There were many more interesting subjects to get interested in.

    To the hugely inflated Creator of the whole now-known universe, with all his later add-on superpowers, no logic can applyVera Mont
    Exactly. To "no logic" I will add "no usefulness".
  • A Just God Cannot Exist
    We can make every act we do serve truth if we want to.Benj96
    This is true. In fact, we should be just and true to each other. Besides, we all belong to the same race. We should therefore support and help each other. That is, we should be all perfectly rational beings, because we have this potential.. Yet, we are far from somthing like that. Because it is in your nature to be as rational as irrational; metally healthy as as mentally ill. And we also have to fight against physical sickness, and attacks from other species and all kinf of living organism. This is far from persection and justice, isn't it?

    Tell me if you were God for a day ...Benj96
    BruceAlmighty_poster.jpg

    Would you spread your knowledge, your truth of truths, with the intent to save strangers that you have never met?[/img]
    Of course I would. But this is the ideal scene. The actual scene is the opposite: a God that can and does punish us. Just listen to the priests as well as the devotional, God-fearing people. Imagine that you create a puppet --because this is supposedly the relation of God to Man-- and then you get angry and throw it down, insult it, etc. And, as a puppet it doesn't undestand why you do that. Yet, it is you who created it. Isn't that ironical if not insane?
    Benj96
    In all honesty if you aren't prepared to face injustice alone, to carry that burden for others, then you do not practice the truth, you would not know it nor possess its true power/authority.Benj96
    Isn't this what Chirst did? If so, it means that he saw that there injustice in the world, which means he believed that His Father (as Son of God) was responsible for that injustice, did he? Because who created everything, including Man with a potential not only to be injust but also to kill his congeners?
    Carrying the sins of humanity on one's shoulders is carrying all the injustice and imperfections created by God.

    I do not believe, of course, in such a God.
  • A Just God Cannot Exist

    We create a God ourselves, and then we realize that He is not just and then compalin about that.

    Ironically, however, the Judeo-Christian God is vengeful and punitive, which implies justice. Only that this kind of justice is meant for oneself, as one gudges and pleases (see Bible). And yet, this is the God that the Judeo-Christians have created. Why then do they complain that Himself or the world that He created is unjust?
  • Is there any difference between a universal and a resemblance relation?

    Too theoretical and insubstantial. Please give examples.
  • Philosophical Chess Pieces

    OK,. I accept your analogy. I don't want to spoil it more! :smile:
  • Philosophical Chess Pieces

    OK. BTW, I love both. :smile:

    As for their similarity, I can't find anything that connects these two in a special way. You say, e.g. "thinking ahead in anticipation of how my argument or idea will be countered by an opponent." Well, this applies to most two-player board games, but also to sports (tennis, box ... you name it. It applies even in courts between defence and prosecution. In fact, it applies to most confrontations between two opponents.

    But most of all, chess resembles to war. It's actually a "war" game. And I believe it is based on war, since all chessmen are war characters or elements. So, if philosophy resembles to chess, as you say, it certainly also resembles to war. Which sounds too weird.
  • How do we develop our conciousness and self-awareness?
    What is consciousness? What is self-awareness?Universal Student
    Can you think of the tones of ink that have been spilled on this subject since eons and that we still lack a detailed description that is acceptable by most "thinkers" --letting scientists aside-- and the only we can read or hear on the subject is personal views, most of them unsubstantiated or unfounded?
    Well, this is a long question but it is ony a rhetorical one! :smile:
    But it begs for a real question: What do you expect to receive as responses and get as a product from this discussion?
  • Philosophical Chess Pieces
    I do not have much attention for chess because I find it uninteresting.introbert
    You find it "uninteresting", and yet not only you seem to appreciate it a lot, but you have created a topic with a title based on an allegory connecting Phiosophy with Chess! :smile:
  • Sentient AI and black boxes
    What are your views on reflex (action)?Agent Smith
    A reflex, in physiology, is an involuntary response/reaction to a stimulus. This is not debatable. But in general, a reflex is a reaction/response to a stimulus. It is usually used reference to time.
    On a physical level, it means moving fast or slow in response to external stimuli, esp. threat. E.g. boxers must have good refelexes otherwise they can't defend themselves well, e.g. by repelling instantly a punch. This holds for a lot of other sports, an in general for anything that requires immediate confrontation of an opponent.
    However. one can extend the term "reflex" on a mental level to mean "responsivness", which refers to thinking fast or slow in response to a problem, challenge, etc. E.g. we say about someone that they are too "slow" when they cannot undestand immediately something that normally does not require much thought. Exams and tests are based on such "reflexes", i.e., responses, since one has a restricted amount of time to answer questions.

    This is what I can think of right now.

    There's more to simple reflexes than meets the eye, si señor/señorita?Agent Smith
    Like what?
  • Nature of the Philosophical Project
    What would a philosophy of reading or cooking look like?apokrisis
    You must have noticed that I used "philosophy" within quotation marks. This indicates "philosophy-like" or "pseudo-philosophy" or even "actually, not a philosophy". And this because the word "philosophy" (quotation marks have a different meaning here) is quite abused. You just have to think how often you hear or read "My philosophy of/on/for this and that is ..." referring not to life, but to trivial things in life. And I just gave some examples of such trivial things.
    So, you don't have to dig philosophical views out of them. Instead, you can just replace the word "philosophy" in these cases with "view", "system", "method", "attitude", etc. whatever fits the case better.
    :smile:
  • Sentient AI and black boxes
    conditioned behavior does not require self-awareness or high cognitive functions.Real Gone Cat
    I have never talked about "self-awareness" (I think it's the third time you bring this up) or "high cognitive functions". These are for humans only. I said specifically "Consciousness exists in all forms of life, however elementary it is." I also said "How could these viruses travel in the organism and expand if theiy didn't have an ability to perceive (be aware of) and respond to their surroundings?"

    Simple machines react to stimuli from their environment. Consider the thermostat.Real Gone Cat
    A machine is a mechanism, not an organism. Machines are dead objects, so they lack the drive to survive (instict of life), which is a characteristic of all organisms.
    The instinct to survive (live) of the organisms requires that they are furnished with senses so that they can perceive and respond to their surroundings.
    Sensors, on the other hand, are mechanical devices that receive and transmit signals. Like the brain. They don't perceive things. So, your thermostat receives temperature signals and transmits its own signals to indicate change in temperature. On the other hand, an organism has senses and thus it can perceive. Receiving signals is a reaction. Perceiving is an action. The two processes are totally different.
    But yes, highly developed machines, like humanoid robots, can simulate human behavior that looks like real.
  • Sentient AI and black boxes
    Not so sure I'd include plants and bacteria though.Real Gone Cat
    Before citing articles, I used simple logic. But it seems it was not enough ...
  • Nature of the Philosophical Project
    you are a little bit hung up on finding citations for terminology ... maybe it is because English is not your first language, or because you are new to the field.Pantagruel
    English is my second language and I am a professional translator. I have also graduated from an American college.

    But you miss the point here. It's not so the language itself the issue here --and in most cases in these discussions-- but the way one talks, arguments, describes a subject, uses terms, presents a point and so on. In short, it's more about how one thinks.

    As for "new to the field", I don't know what "field" do you mean, but if it is philosophy in general, well, I started getting involved in it most probably before you were even born.

    So, don't rush into conclusions so easily.

    ***

    And, as for terminology, I advise you to also "get hung" on dictionaries because only then you will know what you --and also the others with whom you communicate-- are really talking about.

    As for citations, they are sometimes necessary when one needs to explain terms, expressions and notions, esp. when one is asked for, without having to make long descriptions and also show that it is not something one has just got out of one's own head. For instance, about your "Philosophy Project". A description of which, BTW, never came, although I asked for it 3 times. So I have to conclude --and I'm sorry for that-- that you don't know yourself.
  • Sentient AI and black boxes
    So life is conscious, all else is not. Based on what evidence? Plants? Amoebas? Bacteria? What besides personal prejudice proves consciousness?Real Gone Cat
    I have explained that shortly: "Every living organism, even bacteria, receives stimuli from the environment and reacts to them."
    You must not think of consciousness only in human terms. One of the definitions of "consciousness" from the Oxford Reading Dictionary "The state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings." This also appeared in the former Oxford LEXICO, which was the official dictionary that Google were using. This exact definition appers also in a lot of other references. And, as you can undestand, it applies even to bacteria and viruses, including our damned coronavirus. How could these viruses travel in the organism and expand if theiy didn't have an ability to perceive (be aware of) and respond to their surroundings?

    References on plant consciousness:

    "Plants possess a highly developed, conscious root brain that works much as ours does to analyze incoming data and generate sophisticated responses." (Plant Consciousness: The Fascinating Evidence Showing Plants Have Human Level Intelligence, Feelings, Pain and More - http://www.esalq.usp.br/lepse/imgs/conteudo_thumb/Plant-Consciousness---The-Fascinating-Evidence-Showing-Plants-Have-Human-Level-Intelligence--Feelings--Pain-and-More.pdf)

    "Plants are able to think by perceiving their environment and making decided changes in order to thrive." (Can Plants Think? - https://www.goldbio.com/articles/article/Can-Plants-Think)Etc.

    etc.

    About bacteria and consciousness:

    Bacteria and the cellular basis of consciousnes -https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1152&context=animsent)

    Why microbes are smarter than you thought - https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17390-why-microbes-are-smarter-than-you-thought/

    etc.

    So, in fact, the prejudice you are talking about is that there's only human consciousness! :smile:
  • Nature of the Philosophical Project
    Yes, but philosophy, likewise, is an overarching field. Every field has its "philosophy" - philosophical anthropology, philosophy of science, etc.Pantagruel
    This is true. There are all kinds of "philosophies": a "philosophy" of reading and a "philosophy" of cooking. There are also personal "philosophies": e.g. a programmer's "philosophy" of programming. In fact, you can add anything you can think of to "'philosophy of".
    Then, after being confused of all that you can read in Wikipedia and other encyclopedias, what they have to say about the subject of philosophy: e.g. the kinds, categories, etc. of philosophy. You can also take as an exempley what all known philosophers from the past to this day --well, maybe with some exceptions-- what subjects are treating under the umbrella of philosophy. Science was connected to it until the 19th centure, when it has separated from it.

    Similarly, I personally feel that the subdisciplines of philosophy ultimately accrue to metaphysical questions at the limits of knowledge.Pantagruel
    BTW, I just checked "subdisciplines of philosophy" --not a very popular subject in itself-- and I read: "the core subdisciplines of philosophy: epistemology (the theory of knowledge), metaphysics (the theory of being), logic (the theory of reason and inference), value theory (including ethics, politics and aesthetics) and the history of philosophy." (https://philosophy.ubc.ca/undergraduate/ba-philosophy/major/)
    Metaphysics, which you mentioned, is only one of the subdisciplines, so they cannot all "accrue to metaphysical questions". Besides, I can't see how does all this apply to our subject. Which, we must not forget, talks about the "Philosophical Project", and which is something that remains still unexplained ...
  • Sentient AI and black boxes
    we all assume that other humans share the trait we call consciousness - and we deny this trait to non-human entities (sorry panpsychists).Real Gone Cat
    Not all. At least not me. :smile: Consciousness exists in all forms of life, however elementary it is. Every living organism, even bacteria, receives stimuli from the environment and reacts to them. Our consciousness is simply more complex.

    it's nearly impossible to explain whyReal Gone Cat
    Unfortunately, yes.

    What will we do if we someday meet a space-faring race of lizard men?Real Gone Cat
    I'll leave this to science-fiction. Regarding philosophy, I beliebeve this is an unfounded and/or useless hypothesis. (As well as the assumption that follows.)

    Bit what about massively parallel, mutable computing systems with multiple feedback loops?Real Gone Cat
    What's the difference betwee one and many, from the moment that possibility of consciousness in any computer system is rejected? (To be precise, it's not about "computer systems" but "computer programming".)

    Stevan Harnad points out that Turing wished to change the question from "Can machines think?" to "Can machines do what we (as thinking entities) can do?".Real Gone Cat
    Better that he finally didn't! :grin:
    (Machines thinking --at least in a creative and autonomous way, not a mechanical one-- is already out of question.)
  • Nature of the Philosophical Project

    Well, I referred to your saying "I try to cover as much ground as humanly possible, philosophy, science, anthropology, sociology, political theory. To what end?" Why do you try do do all that? Esp. in so many different fields? You cannot get specialized in all of them, can you?

    Look what happens to this place (TPF): it accepts all of the above and more. It's a garden cake. It lacks "personality". That's why there's chaos in here. This site should treat only philosophical subjects.
    Besides, you mentioned that yourself: you included "philosophy" as a separate field in your list of your fields of interest. This is what TPF should do too.
  • Sentient AI and black boxes
    Therefore if an AI passes the Turing test (over a very large number of conversations), it is likely that the AI can be considered to be a "brain-like system", and therefore conscious.tom111
    Well, well, well! You passed from simple computing systems to consiousness!!
    I would call that "too ambitious", if it wasn't a blatantly wrong conclusion.

    So, although your whole description of the Turing test, etc. was excellent, you finally burried everything under the lava an exploded volcano: a huge generalization. You used observations about a sample to come to a conclusion about the source it came from. If a monkey can drink water from a glass like I do, can shoot the ball like I do, can wera a hat like I do, etc., it means that the monkey's behavior in general can be considered similar to mine.
  • Nature of the Philosophical Project
    My hypothesis is that the philosophical project as such is, at its heart, metaphysical.Pantagruel
    What is the "philosophical project" you are talking about? I wonder esp. because you are not using title capitals, and therefore it doesn't look a known subject or a work (study, book, etc.) by someone. I have found, e.g., "The Philosophical Project of Carnap and Quine" (book), "Descartes and Husserl: The Philosophical Project of Radical Beginnings" (book) and a lot of other "The Philosophical Project of ..."

    I try to cover as much ground as humanly possible, philosophy, science, anthropology, sociology, political theory. To what end?Pantagruel
    If you think that there's no purpose in doings all this or you are not sure about it, why do you keep doing it? Would you run towards something if there's no reason for doing it? Would you start learning Mandarin if you have no use of it any reason for doing it?
    So, I have to assume that you know the reason that you are doing this and that "To what end?" is only a rhetorical question. Right?

    So, I would like to know why are you doing all that, which requires an enormous and never-ending work. A Sisyphian task!
  • Is there an objective/subjective spectrum?
    But isn't subjectiveness basically the filtering of an objective reality?TiredThinker
    There is no objective reality. It there were, who would be able to tell? It would be their own view (reality), wouldn't it?
    There's nothing out there, outside us, that we can call "reality". Reality is created. We create our own reality, our own view of the world.

    Isn't the difference between objective and subjective just how well we can know anything absolutely?TiredThinker
    There's no absolute knowledge. "Objectiveness" means not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice. It means based on facts, unbiased. That is what we can do at best: try not to be influenced by those factors. But still, our knowledge is based on our reality, which is subjective, as I described above. We can't do better than that. So, what we call "objective" is actually subjective! :smile:
  • Pre-science and scientific mentality
    "... consciousness is a product of and located in the brain."
    -- Alkis Piskas
    If not the brain, where is it?
    GLEN willows
    Oh, thought you knoew that it is not in the brain ...
    Well, this is is a topic by itself. Talking about it would start a new thread and I think we are already talking off-topic

    "there is an empirical explanation: Consciousness can only be experienced."
    -- Alkis Piskas
    And you know this...how?
    GLEN willows
    By experiencing it! You are experiencing it, too! But most probably you just have never thought that you do! :smile:
    There are a lot of things we are experience and never think about them. Mainly because we take them as granted!

    can you name a scientists that says he can PROVE consciousness is a material substance?GLEN willows
    No, I can't. Because no one has PROVED it. And this was my point!

    You missed my point - consciousness cannot be solved by philosophers OR scientists.GLEN willows
    I sad I know that. I didn't say that anyone has or even can solved it. Yet, and I also said this too, it is a philosophical rather a scientific subject. That is why my motto is "Consciousness can be only experienced".

    "There are still people asking "if we evolved from apes...why are there still apes around?" Right?"
    -- GLEN willows
    ... it's not a good question. It's a stupid question.
    GLEN willows
    OK. I was mistaken about your intention regarding this question. Nevertheless, I believe it's a plausible question. For one thing, I have thought it myself! :grin:

    But, no more about evolution, please ...

    And I think it's time to stop being off topic. Agree?
  • Pre-science and scientific mentality
    They don't.GLEN willows
    I know. I'm just being polite. :smile:

    consciousness is the hard problem, and hasn't been explained by philosophy or science.GLEN willows
    I know that too. This is often my answer to those who believe --some of them are quite certain-- that consciousness is a product of and ilocated in the brain.

    When/if they find an empirical explanation for it ...GLEN willows
    Well, there is an empirical explanation: Consciousness can only be experienced.
    It is not something physical that can be studied by science in a laboratory!
    But this cannot be teached in a school. It is a philosophical subject. Otherwise, in psychology course that I took in college, I remember that they talk about consciousness as something given, and of course, it is assumed that it occurs in the brain, at least they believed until then (1974).

    There are still people asking "if we evolved from apes...why are there still apes around?" Right?GLEN willows
    :up: Good question. I have thought about this too. But I give it a slack, because there's a possibility, that --according to evolutionists always-- we have been evolved from a specific, more advanced race of apes. Yet, this remains to be proved. As do hundreds of other things regarding humans!
  • Pre-science and scientific mentality
    Holists disagree, saying there's moreAgent Smith
    I'm not sure where are you referring to with "holists" --medicine or philosophy-- but there's a very large part of people in the West and almost the whole East who disagree.

    Bring in evolution and we're further ... reducedAgent Smith
    I feel squeezed by just reading this! :grimace: ... :grin:
  • Pre-science and scientific mentality
    video on chemistry is called “the Hidden chemistry of everything” so that sums up his stance. Sure, we are a bag of chemistry,GLEN willows
    I watched parts of this video. All 3 participants look quite brilliant, esp. Kate. So, posted the following comment:
    "Excellent and very enjoyable video, with brilliant participants. So, I have a question for them, but also for everyone else here: Do you believe that we are just "chemistry"? If that is so, why don't they teach, in chemistry classes, that human thought, logic, imagination, memory and all human attributes as well as consciousness are all produced by chemical reactions and how? Or do they?"
    The question is also for you who claims that "we are a bag of chemistry" and you too @Agent Smith, who first brought up this subject.
  • Pre-science and scientific mentality
    So we're just bags of chemistry?
    can you source this quote for me?
    GLEN willows
    Why don't you ask @Agent Smith who brought up this quote? :smile:
  • Augmented Reality - The Uses and Misuses of
    At what point does information overload hinder our decision making?Deus
    I suppose you mean what Wikipedia calls "Information overload (also known as infobesity, infoxication, information anxiety, and information explosion is the difficulty in understanding an issue and effectively making decisions when one has too much information (TMI) about that issue".

    I had never heard this term before or thought that it could consist a serious problem, despite of being an IT person! :smile:

    Data (information) can be and sometimes need to be processed, esp. filtered based on one's needs, i.e. how is one to use of the information. It might have to be evaluated based mainly on two things: usefulness and validity (in that order). And this process depends on mainly two factors: knowledge (acquaintance with data) and logic (reasoning about data). Analysis and evaluation may be also involved in the process.

    This process, in simple cases, can be easily done and is actually done by everyone and on a constant and everyday basis. In complicated cases, e.g. in business decisions, a rigorous process may be necessary, involving special analysis and evaluation tools, testing, sampling (statistics), etc.

    The complexity of the methods used in processing information decision making depend on the complexity of the case and the purpose of collecting information (its use or uses).

    A last point: It's not always logic that prevails in decision making. Personal preferences and emotional factors may be equally strong "deciders". Indeed, as a rule, consumers buy goods according to personal preferences or emotional factors, in contrast to businesses, for which buying is based primary on logic. This simplifies greatly the processing of information in decision making.
  • Forum visual aides?

    Since you got me interested --for use by myself-- I checked the Web s little more. What I found out is that whiteboard animations cost from low to high. And it's usually per month.
    Animation Studio (https://animationstudio.io/special/ ) has the lowest price I found: $47 paid once
    But still, I'm not sure if it is this that you are looking for.
  • Listening to arguments rather than people
    Perhaps it’s more the norm in philosophy, but I’m talking about the rest of the world. Why don’t they in politics?Cartesian trigger-puppets
    I already said that to @ChatteringMonkey: Arguments are impersonal. Logic has no face, identity, color or smell. Which means that whoever makes a stetement --a philosopher or a layman, an intelligent or unintelligent person, etc.-- it can be judged solely based on rules of logic, sound reasoning, critical thinking and, of course, facts. A layman can make a perfectly interesting and valid statement about "existence" at any time. Only that the chances and frequency of this happening are much less than for a philosopher who knows the subject of "existence" much better and has been involved in it much longer and often. And on the contrary, they can both make invalid statements based on faulty logic and/or lack of knowledge (facts). They can be both measured with the same stick.
  • Listening to arguments rather than people
    Someone's making a choice in why one wants to make a particular argument and not make others.ChatteringMonkey
    I see what you mean here. But this doesn't match the statement of your topic "Listening to arguments rather than people".

    Anyway, I accept what you are saying here. so everything is OK.