Well, animals seem to not have this problem of self-awareness. — schopenhauer1

Either do machines. — schopenhauer1

Another problem would be that people would rather not be either of those, now that we've experienced our Promethean situation. — schopenhauer1

The error written in our code is that self-awareness leads to understanding of systemic futility. — schopenhauer1

Well, Rutherford discovered quite a few things about atoms in fairly short order, because he assumed there was order and structure to the universe, and to the atoms which make up the universe. I like that. It takes nothing away from the world to know that matter is ordered and structured. — Bitter Crank

Isn't this inconsistent; that is, these two conditions can't both possibly be true? — jancanc

The universe revolves around me, so should I not exist, it'd stop revolving. Yes, a revolving universe. That's what I said. — Hanover

I wasn't, but I am an ageing hippy, so they probably read my mind. — unenlightened

Education is an indoctrination into a world that forbids creativity, individuality, and promotes conformity through competition and measurement of 'progress'. It is the industrial production of adults depressed into compliance with a vacuous and self-destructive world of production/consumption. — unenlightened

I only stated that it cannot be answered by referring to empirical evidence, experiment, math or logic. If the question can be answered by such tactics, then the question is either an empirical one, like involving history, or a scientific one, which can be addressed by science, or a math problem or a problem in logic. — LD Saunders

The case is the same with moral as with physical ill. It cannot reasonably be supposed, that those remote considerations, which are found of so little efficacy with regard to one, will have a more powerful influence with regard to the other. The mind of man is so formed by nature that, upon the appearance of certain characters, dispositions, and actions, it immediately feels the sentiment of approbation or blame; nor are there any emotions more essential to its frame and constitution.

How can we distinguish philosophical question from other types of questions? What are the distinctive features of a philosophical question? — Pacem

Holism has already beaten reductionism at the level of metaphysical generality. — apokrisis

To a reductionist, or an idealist, these are the same thing. — Dominic Osborn

But words like 'Absolutism' and 'Relativism' are just words, nominations. What does it matter if you call something 'absolutism' or 'relativism'? You haven't specified the difference these differences make. — StreetlightX

As for the cat, what about it? Again, what's the relavence? I think it would be more helpful if you elaborated the stakes involved in invoking these things. — StreetlightX

"The main fallacy in this kind of thinking is that the reductionist hypothesis does not by any means imply a 'constructionist' one: The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe. In fact, the more elementary particle physicists tell us about the nature of the fundamental laws, the less relevance they seem to have to the very real problems of the science, much less to those of societies". (Anderson, "More Is Different"). — StreetlightX

This 'inability to reconstruct the universe' from first principles is, I think, the exact corollary of understanding reductionism as context-invarience: it means that there is no one-way street, and that explanation (of any phenomenon) needs to be (at least) 'two way' - context matters. — StreetlightX

If we all speak different languages, then that logically implies that there is a global language that comes before words, ie: we don't think in words. — Gary McKinnon

In fact, the oddest thing about such reductionist programs is that, taken to their logical conclusion, the ability to reconstruct the universe from first principles is idealism in it's most extreme form; they literally 'vacate the world of its content' as it were, giving up empiricism - the very loadstone of science - for ideality. Yet this almost entirely antiscientific POV is what is almost universally associated with so-called 'hard core science'. It's both bizarre and saddening.

The only definition of complexity with rigour that I know of is Robert Rosen's, which 'relativizes' complexity to our ability to model a particular system, — StreetlightX

Creative's opponent in debate must pretend that this is all some kind of sham, and that we in fact don't know shit? — Sapientia

Again, if you actually read the whole post rather than just picking a fight, — Pseudonym

This 'inability to reconstruct the universe' from first principles is, I think, the exact corollary of understanding reductionism as context-invarience: it means that there is no one-way street, and that explanation (of any phenomenon) needs to be (at least) 'two way' - context matters. — StreetlightX

Where's this line of questioning going? It seems a bit random, some insight into where you're heading might help. — Pseudonym

"science, and only science, describes the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective" — Pseudonym

My senses, translated into thoughts by my brain. — Pseudonym

The world; and I didn’t articulate it because I hadn't learned how to talk. — Pseudonym

that science is useful and powerful, but it's not inherently meaningful in an existential sense. — Wayfarer

The one we experience. Why would we have any cause to describe any other? — Pseudonym

for example Hilary Putnam's definition, the belief that "science, and only science, describes the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective" — Pseudonym

This is a bit unclear, do you want to expand? — schopenhauer1

exactly my point as well. Regardless of how you want to consider the origins, if you admit morality is a real thing, and that it determines what is right and wrong, an absolute claim on morality is an absolute moral claim. Its like drinking milk, talking about what you think of it, and denying its existence simultaneously, while admitting what you have in your hand and enjoy to drink and talk about is called milk. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Neo-Schopenhauerean — schopenhauer1

The repetitious and systemic futility of life (what I call structural suffering), and the contingent harms of a particular life with its set of circumstances, etc. It has similar themes and conclusions and even can accept Will as a principle of sorts of nature and certainly in the human psyche, but perhaps without the Platonic forms, or his seemingly static, non-evolutionary metaphysics. — schopenhauer1

Yes, but it is not absolute or existing outside of physical reality and it is a social construct. I never suggested that there was no such thing as morality. — René Descartes

These parts interact with each other. This means that there is one process which tells you the state of the system, motion of all particles. This means that there should be one consciousness if consciousness is the result of motion of particles. — bahman

morality is very much a social construction — Cavacava

I completely agree — René Descartes