Comments

  • All the moral theories are correct as descriptive ones (especially the normative ones)
    Maybe this is a bit boring of a thought, but I find it interesting that there are no mentions of classifying these theories of normative ethics as descriptive ones (unless I just made an obvious and huge mistake somewhere there?).BlueBanana

    I've had exactly your thought a few times and I haven't seen it expressed anywhere else. Not that I read any philosophy these days.
  • Should Persons With Mental Disabilities Be Allowed to Vote
    Isn't it mental capacity that distinguishes the child from the adult and therefore limits the child's right to vote?Hanover

    i don't think so. An incapacitous 35 year old is not a child.

    The UNCRPD section 12 distinguishes mental capacity from legal capacity, saying (in other words) that the lack of mental capacity shall not be grounds to remove legal capacity. So far only the Republic of Ireland is fully compliant with section 12 (in Europe anyway, not sure about elsewhere).

    Th acquisition of legal capacity is a recognition of adulthood, regardless of how well people understand the world they live in. Being non-disabled is no bar to being an ignorant vote-savaging twat in any case. I'd happily be ruled by a bunch of bipolar people.
  • Do you believe in a deity? Either way, what is your reasoning?
    'Theism' as it is used in Philosophy of Religion is the view that there is one supreme, perfect being who exists separately from the world, who is the creator and sustainor of the universe, who is conscious to the degree of being all-knowing; who is all-powerful, all and ever present, eternal, unchanging, existing necessarily, dependent of nothing else. In addition, Theism maintains that this being, who is called "God", loves and is concerned about humanity.Mitchell

    Panpsychism can result in more or less this view. Substance, if sentient (as some versions of panpsychism hold) entails a kind of omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence. Substance, in so far as it is not its modes, is unchanging and eternal and dependent on nothing else. The trouble is then separating this view from all the nasty baggage that unfortunately often comes with a religious view. Sprigge said he wanted to take the superstition out of religion and I concur.

    EDIT: The big difference, of course, is that substance obviously is not separate from the world. If theism has that in its definition then I'm not a theist.
  • Do you believe in a deity? Either way, what is your reasoning?
    Panpsychism is one philosophical route to a kind of theism. I consider myself a theist but I don't follow any particular religion in a recognisable way. I think substance is personal, aware, wilful,intentional and demonstrably so, not that many agree with me. That's close enough to a god to merit calling it theism, perhaps.
  • Family matter, help?
    Ask if your neighbour has a spare room. :)
  • Sociological Critique
    That was superb, thank you for the link. Very relevant to my work.
  • Nagel's 'Mind and Cosmos'
    But it’s not until those activities are integrated into a meaningful unity, that it becomes an experience; and the faculty that performs that integration is not known to science. That is not hyperbole - it’s an aspect of the neural binding problem.Wayfarer

    Yes, I think this is a good reason to think that consciousness is not a property of anything by virtue of its differentiated structure. I think the binding problem is a strong reason to think consciousness is a property of reality-as-continuum.
  • Nagel's 'Mind and Cosmos'
    So drill down to the root of being and - if existence is pure individuation - then the ur-stuff is the radically unindividuated. The Apeiron.apokrisis

    I'm a panpsychist who agrees with this conception of substance. If I understand you, of course, which I probably don't.
  • Quarterly Fundraiser 2
    I'd really like to know if Hanover managed to make a paypal payment. I'm already stressed and tired and it would be one thing off my mind.
  • Are women generally submissive to men?
    I'd hazard that most philosophers tend towards submissiveness.
  • Are women generally submissive to men?
    I care about what women generally are or aren't.

    EDIT: Well, I care much more about what particular women are or aren't, but general information is still interesting and perhaps useful.
  • Parenting...
    Have you talked with her about you taking a parental role? Would she want that? The tricky thing is, however in need she might be of some parents, you aren't one. But you might be able to be something else, legally, like a guardian or support worker or something. I don't know what the social care setup is where you live, but maybe you could even get paid for taking some responsibility. When does she become responsible for herself? When she's 18? Who are the legal guardians at the moment? Are you able to talk to her social worker? Is she a ward of the state? Is the arrangement of living with you an informal one? Whatever the case it sounds to me like you might be her best option if you can hack it.
  • In defence of weak naturalism
    A great example is the idea of "God" or "supernatural". Those ideas have so many implications that most people ignore that they end up having an inconsistent world view, and if your world view is inconsistent, and you don't give a damn that it's inconsistent, then what is the point of discussing anything with you?Harry Hindu

    Could you give an example of someone having a belief in something supernatural that leads them to an inconsistency with other beliefs that you think they would probably have?
  • In defence of weak naturalism
    It's generally taken for granted that physical things exist and everything else has to prove its existence.The Great Whatever

    Yes, I think that's about right. But I'm not sure what physicalists think non-physical things are, except the set of things that don't exist. I suspect that when the existence of a non-physical thing (like a ghost or a number or a law) is 'proven' (by some standard) it is declared to be physical after all. Which is fine but that just renders physicalism a non-interesting all-encompassing monism.

    In the context of philosophy of mind, I think physicalism is emergentism. That consciousness is dependent on complex structure and function, and that non-conscious structure and function exists (ontologically and temporally) prior to consciousness. Emergentism is a better word as it better captures what I think physicalists want to claim.
  • 'Panpsychism is crazy, but it’s also most probably true'
    If it could know it is in a particular state, then what stops it knowing anything?tom

    I don't know. It's not necessary to know one is having an experience in order to have an experience is it?

    Do dogs experience hunger do you think?
  • 'Panpsychism is crazy, but it’s also most probably true'
    There is no evidence, nor reason to suppose animals have consciousness.tom

    I usually attribute some kind of feeling akin to excitement or pleasure to a dog when it wags its tail and jumps around in circles. Do you think that is unreasonable?

    Single celled organisms? Awareness?tom

    What is your explanation of the behaviour of, say, an amoeba?
  • Transgenderism and identity
    Has anyone ever reported being a dolphin in a human body to the extent that they want surgery? If someone actually did, and we respected that, s/he wouldn't be eligible for the Olympics because s/he would be a dolphin.
  • 'Panpsychism is crazy, but it’s also most probably true'
    Panpsychics have no clue how the subjectivity imputed to individual fundamental particles might combine to form the unified subjectivity of a person.tom

    It's certainly a good question. I do think there are possible answers though. I do not agree with the IIT theory of consciousness, but it might be a very good theory of what determines the complexity of a conscious individual, and also determines what separates one individual from another. A theory of mental identity, I guess. So the answer would be that there is only one consciousness, as there is only one substance (and one version of panpsychism is that substance is conscious) but mental individuals are distinguished by what they are aware of, and this is determined by the local differences in how much information is integrated in different parts of the universe. I probably haven't explained that very well, I'm in a hurry.
  • I fell in love with my neighbors wife.
    I feel so guilty after I know myself that I have to do it again for punishment. After a while it becomes a very slippery slope.
  • I fell in love with my neighbors wife.
    How did you form your maybe just maybe opinion Hanover?
  • I fell in love with my neighbors wife.
    I am well aware of what a Ds relationship can look like and I said "IF" he was craving/looking for in a sexual experience not that he WAS craving/looking for a sexual experience.ArguingWAristotleTiff

    Well, I'm jolly glad we understand each other. :)
  • I fell in love with my neighbors wife.
    This is the best plan of action or non action that I have read you say in this whole thread. Hanover's guidance is priceless, listen to what he is saying. My feeling is that if dominance is something you are craving/looking for in a sexual experience, which is very normal, then hire it for yourself.ArguingWAristotleTiff

    Nah, his advice isn't very good. Better not to hire if you don't need to, and not all DS relationships involve sex.
  • Zeno's paradox
    Plank's LengthBanno

    Indeed. I do not see the relevance of being 5'11", unless as part of an argument to say that Max Planck was infinitely tall or something, or couldn't grow, and was born fully formed.
  • I fell in love with my neighbors wife.
    Some of you scare me and wonder what philosophy has taught you.Question

    One thing that philosophy has taught me is that we only start to think when we stop getting what we want.
  • I fell in love with my neighbors wife.


    I identify with you I think. But you know your situation better than I do. I suppose I partly want to give you permission to do what you want. Sometimes that's what people are looking for, even from a stranger.
  • I fell in love with my neighbors wife.
    "Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires." William Blake - The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

    Dominant women are rare. Let her have a go on you. I was toyed with by a dominant woman for a while. It was great. Didn't come to anything unfortunately. You might be luckier. :)

    EDIT: I'd like to add that this was one of the most profound, formative and important experiences of my life.
  • What is consciousness?
    I could, I suppose, list the various differences between plants and people in order to point out how the former lacks the behavioral manifestations of consciousness, but I'd not be proving anything that isn't already fully accepted, and I don't feel like performing a mindless academic task.Hanover

    I actually think this would be an interesting exercise. I struggle to maintain the distinction that apparently seems so clear to you, namely between behaviour which is evidence of consciousness and behaviour which is not. I'd be very interested in your method for placing a behaviour in one category or the other.
  • Philosophyforums.com refugees
    There be dragons.jamalrob

    Dragons with victim mentalities
  • This forum should use a like option
    What andrewk said. A post is less ambiguous. A downvote could mean a number of different things: 'badly written', 'I don't like you', 'I disagree with what you say but I like you anyway', 'you're a cunt', 'I downvote all your posts as a matter of policy because you are Mars Man' (I plead guilty to this one), 'I don't understand what you are trying to say', 'I am offended by this but don't understand that I should be reporting it as offensive rather than downvoting it' etc etc...
  • What are you playing right now?
    Pillars of Eternity is what I'm playing now. Very good it is.

    Other fave games:
    Baldur's Gate
    Master of Orion 2
    Battle for Wesnoth
    Total Annihilation
  • Body, baby, body, body
    I'd be Bitter Crank in that case instead.Terrapin Station

    So you could be Bitter Crank, at least logically, or perhaps grammatically. You've just said so.
  • Body, baby, body, body
    Is your body YOU?
    — Bitter Crank

    Yes.

    If only all questions were that easy to answer.
    Terrapin Station

    But couldn't you be a different one? Why aren't you Bitter Crank?
  • Are pantheistic/panpsychistic views in contradicition with laws of physics?
    What about time?tom

    I think time is more about reality-as-discontinuum. In time one thing happens after another, change and differentiation is essential for time. By contrast with space, I can't make sense of the idea of time as the experiencer.
  • Are pantheistic/panpsychistic views in contradicition with laws of physics?
    What does "reality-as-contunuum" mean?tom

    Intuitively, space is the nearest physical concept I have. I'm not sure but perhaps quantum field or some other concept like that would do just as well or better. I'm happy to use the philosophical concept of substance as well but I know many don't like that concept. I share the OP's intuition that only something indivisible or continuous can be conscious. It seems to me to simply follow from the phenomenology. Any experience involves the unification of a number of different elements. And when I look in nature for something that can accomplish this binding of the various elements of an experience, it is immediately obvious that any appeal to a complex entity (such as a brain) begs the question because that entity itself is constituted of parts. So when I think about what relates all the parts of a brain together, again I fairly quickly see that ultimately it is the space that the brain occupies, or the field that it is a behaviour of, or the substance that it is a modification of, that unifies all its elements. And so when looking for the correct place for consciousness in nature, it must be at this very fundamental level of the unifying continuum.
  • Are pantheistic/panpsychistic views in contradicition with laws of physics?
    Hi Weeknd

    I'm a panpsychist and you raise some interesting points in your OP. However I'm not clear from your OP how exactly panpsychism seems in contradiction with the laws of physics. Please could you spell it out? I tried to put it in my own words (the bit about indivisibility of consciousness) from your OP but couldn't.

    So what really is our soul, if you assume the panpsychist view?Weeknd

    From my panpsychist point of view it is reality-as-continuum (as opposed to reality as plurality of discrete bits) that is the experiencer.
  • Are we conscious when we are dreaming?
    Is there something it is like to have a dream? Of course. So we are conscious at least in that sense.
  • Currently Reading
    Loud Hands, a collection of bits and pieces by autistic self-advocates, including the famous one by Jim Sinclair Don't Mourn for Us
  • What breaks your heart?
    It's heartbreaking because the kid is cute. Forget about the kid and people you can't help. Find some obnoxious shit who needs to learn some lessons about compassion, like me for instance, who you have a real relationship with, and help him instead.
  • On materialistic reductionism
    If by apt you mean the most irreparably destructive and philosophically regressive force of the last 2000 years, then sure. Hiding a noxious resentment of reality - generally coupled with a healthy hatred for the body, manual labour, temporality, and women (whatever doesn't reek with the stench of socio-economic privilege really) - behind a slogan doesn't make it any less venomous.StreetlightX

    Blimey!