But they just don't see anything non-physical about Reality. For them, Ideas are merely neurological states. That's like saying the Function of an automobile is a steel structure. — Gnomon

But where are such rascals hiding ? Will anyone here defend that claim? It's so loopy to see nothing 'non-physical' in reality that misunderstanding is far more likely than your straw man with a vacuum tube for as hole.

Like Lack A. Toss told Fire A. Bent: Nut Anni Thing, ghost! — EugeneW

Yes, slur. Lag a toe shed to fire ah bend knot over thong goose.

This is fun! — EugeneW

Agreed.

Where in the chemistry do we find the history of the past married to expectations about the future as represented in some DNA strand's choice of particular proteins to be making? — apokrisis

Nice!

I very much appreciate the kind and encouraging words. Till necks time, friend.

Sure, but it sometimes leads to nice postings... Straight from the hurt! — EugeneW

Ha. To be sure, conflict has its germs.

Thanks! Old Wet-gun-sign talked about a philosophy made of jokes, and I think word play can just maybe show wet cannot be sad.

To be frank and fair, I've enjoyed posts by both of you, so the misunderstanding seems unfortunate and is hopefully temporary.

But I couldn't help laughing at

He indeed goes onanon! — EugeneW

Pure math, and all other forms of signification, once uncoupled from empirical experience, become unintelligible.

Numbers, uncoupled from interrelated material objects, become random, unable to signify anything intelligible.

Abstract thought is non-specific WRT our material world; it is not uncoupled from our material world. — ucarr

I think the bolded statement is correct and important.

The first statement might admit some exceptions, but one must allow for the ineluctable ambiguity of the smoke signals we are trading here. (You mentioned 'Wet-gloom-shine' in the OP. I think he generalized his discovery about math to 'lung wrench' in general. But 'every talk has its stay.') — ucarr

onanonanate! — EugeneW

Beautiful word, friend. You squeezed 'anon' in there, which makes 'beating the gross off with a stink' even creakier. There's also an 'on and on I' hiding in there. Well done.

Can anyone think of a solution out of the "second time problem?" — Raymond Rider

Gott could arguable decide that there was no best time and that the decision was of no importance. Perhaps he used an informagical going flip to decide.

Joyce's Book of the Dark : Finnegans Wake
John Bishop

Strong start so far, different emphasis than my other books on FW.

James Joyce
Richard Ellman

'Read' it many years ago when too young (too much a Stephen then, not enough of a Poldy). Excellent and helpful for understanding the works.

We have to have something to kvetch about. Otherwise, what’s the point? — Wayfarer

Critics of the game are still players, no? It's the game of getting beyond mirror games. The future isn't what it youth to be.

Tanquam ex ungue leonem ? 'The goes was mud of words.' Hamlet's paw was poisoned through the ere (promise creamed.)

And what would that be? — magritte

Contrast whatever it is with the false epistemological modesty of a camouflaged evangelist who 'nose wets' at the End and not the And of inquiry.

Critical analysis of truth claims is the primary tool of Philosophy. — Gnomon

Don't forget the forging of and the foraging for such claims. Consider your own claim above.

That true/false hostility to intangibles is probably due to the intrinsic monistic Materialism of modern science. — Gnomon

Such 'Materialism' looks like a bogyman to me. A few are still gettable who'll put on the cape and horns for a laugh or in a fit of sentimental nostalgia, but methinks those days are otherwise behind us (though certainly they hound us). The 'math' (or the 'mop') is not the territory. Atoms are no more 'Real' than apples. Or (returning to 'semantic pragmatism') it snot worth the wind to say so. We need knot wiggle the wand.

A typical attitude of antagonistic posters is this : "Since ‘metaphysical’ realities have no discernible impact on anything whatsoever, it’s completely unimportant whether they ‘exist’ or not. " — Gnomon

Is it not wise to abandon the muck of a dialogue made mostly obsolete precisely by and within that 'wary' dialogue? The 'soak' puppet battle of 'mound' and 'mutter' (or 'mine' and 'mother') is behind us now, or behind those of us who continued with that dialogue until it caught its own tale.

Yet, since I use taboo terms, like "metaphysics" & "holism", apparently you have jumped to the conclusion that I'm some kind of religious wacko-nut. — Gnomon

Greetings. I do not think you are nutty, sir. A bit knotty perhaps. The 'informagical' barb was lobbed not at old time religion but at a more sophisticated mutterphysics that abandons the more embarrassing superstitions to 'sniff clue.'

But I remain an open-minded Agnostic, not a "negative" Atheist. You could say that, philosophically, I'm a William James "melioristic skeptic". Pleased to meet you! :smile: — Gnomon

Hopefully we're all 'open-minded skeptics' here. Those who come off as 'negative' atheists are perhaps just more stringent or prefer a more angular style. 'Agnostic' is a fish of a handshake for my mummy.

At the end some people can't except that there is nothing more than matter and what our senses tell us. I consider myself one of them.Not sure if there is that "more" indeed though, but i can't give up my lust for it. — dimosthenis9

I try and these days mostly succeed at finding the sacred in the dear dirty daily details. If we can't have (or deny ourselves the pleasure of having imaginary) 'skyhooks,' we can at least build 'cranes.' Personally I also deny 'matter,' at least when conceived as some sort of ultimate stuff. It's turtles all the way down (and all the way up), or might as well be for creatures like us.

Anyone who uses possible assumes an existence-accommodating context of some sort. — ucarr

Possibly. (I see what you are getting at, but I've learned (with difficulty) to be wary of dragging in foggy grammatical habit as ethereally hyper-logical necessity.)

Doesn't the utilitarianism (and thus locality) folded into my quote protect it against Platonic Idealism? — ucarr

You seem to have one foot on the station and the other on the train. If 'reality' has only the foggiest referent (or more plausibly a dizzying infinity of unique context-dependent referents), the game loses its charm. 'No matter, never mind.'

Materialism on the other hand, is merely based on facts,and that's why has an "advantage" on that fight. — dimosthenis9

The materialist is the guy who doesn't think he will win the lottery just because he bought a ticket. To the materialist, the (religious) idealist is often just rationalizing a hope with which it is easy to empathize but more difficult to share.

Idealism is the hope for something Transcedental. — dimosthenis9

I think you are correct and that your capitalization is appropriate. Idealism is (often) a continuation of religion through increased abstraction. The visceral stories of yesteryear become esoteric ciphertexts. Instead of demons and angels, one learns to be satisfied with the ghost in the machine and its wonderful qualities.

Even elementary particles need other particles to gain identity. Add to this the bare fact that the internal identity of those basic structures of nature can never be known apart from assimilating them to our own internal reality, and it becomes clear, like a shape in the fog rising above it in the bright blue moonlight, that both the ideal and the material, through interaction, are mutually shape-shifting. — EugeneW

Affirmative. Ten four. And also our words and various well-worn, inherited dichotomies are both semantically interdependent and mobile, a fog of the blob of our blab.

s it that the focus given to physicalism is due because it is truly central to philosophical discourse, or is it just an accident that occurred by coincidence due to the interests of the forum's userbase? — Kuro

Half the time it seems to be about religion and anti-religion. The other half of the time it seems to be about either taking a side in a venerable if tired game or trying to dissolve that game in a vat of semantic acid (itself an old hoarse).

The problem seems to be that sophistry is always something they do.

We of course are rational and clean and nice and good.

If a thing has many uses within the real world, is that proof of its reality? — ucarr

Does 'reality' have an exact, context-independent meaning? Is such a situation even possible? (And what exactly do I mean by 'possible'?)

The mind is a terrible thing to chase.

Just wondering how many forum members are prepared to say there are no thoughts. — ZzzoneiroCosm

The path with flowers on it is that of the rejection of the existence of thoughts. This is not the rejection of language, which would be even more offensively absurd. Nor is it strictly a denial. It is rather a trial, in which the stuff of the final ghost sorry (go story) is found guilty.

Metaphysical speculators are merely harmless drudges . . . No? — Gnomon

Genuine speculation is less annoying and perhaps less common than hawking the next flavor of informagical kool-aid.

Defenders of the Scientism "faith" are quick to question the intelligence, education, & motives of those who dare to openly discuss such taboo topics as Metaphysics & Mental States, without giving due obeisance to the canon scriptures of "Science", envisioned as a centralized authoritative institution. — Gnomon

Perhaps you project, sir. There are approximately 450 to 500 million nonbelievers worldwide, including both positive and negative atheists, or roughly 7 per cent of the global population. The 'black tide' is very much still in, as always.