Not to just dump a link without discussion, but this blog post by philosopher Alexander Pruss may be interesting to some of you, and is somewhat a propos of the current discussion.

https://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2010/06/could-something-made-of-gears-be-person.html

And the mechanical is defined by its insensitivity to entropic reality. — apokrisis

:confused: So why aren't there perpetual motion machines?

What does it even mean to "simulate" subjective, first-person experience? As Descartes pointed out so long ago, it doesn't even seem possible that I be deceived about such things. So, even in this simulation, there are some "real" things when it comes to phenomenal consciousness.

I think it's more accurate in this case to say that merely because a person is smart in their areas of expertise, that doesn't imply that they're smart in all areas.

Identity politics. I think you misread the word, or I wrote the wrong term. — DiegoT

I was responding to point #2 in your above post wherein you implored Democrats to provide an alternative which doesn't rely on tribalism/identity politics or populism. I took this to mean that you were claiming that Democrats promulgate populism.

Trump is there becouse Hillary was worse, so bad in fact that even Dems didn´t like her. — DiegoT

And yet she still won more votes than Trump. Guess the electorate really didn't like him, then.

And did I read you right that Democrats are leaning too heavily on populist politics? I can't begin to understand where you formed that impression. Trump and his ilk are the populists, not the Democrats. However, I agree that Democrats perhaps lean a bit too heavily on identity politics, but let's not confuse "Democrats" and "the American Left." Democrats aren't even all that Left these days.

Trump is basically a reality TV President focused on his appearance. The only policies he has pushed through are the tax cuts for the rich and also he has been successfull in choosing SCOTUS judges. That's basically all. And even those policies have been basically pushed by the GOP. Everything else has been more a public show. Yet in our age his supporters can be in their safe space echo chamber of Breitbart and Fox News and believe that Trump has done a lot. And that Trump basically won the midterms. — ssu

Those are his legislative accomplishments and judicial appointments, but he's done more via Executive Order, including ordering the relocation of the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and enacting a travel ban from particular Muslim-majority countries (though that demographic fact is purely coincidental...), which has been upheld by SCOTUS, and imposing tariffs on certain goods exported by our trading partners. (I only loosely describe these as "accomplishments.")

Like virtually every other philosophical thesis, no observation really can count for or against idealism, and so we're left with endless a priori speculation and debate which ultimately goes nowhere.

Et voila, a get out of jail free card for racists, sexists, homophobes and miscellaneous verbal abusers everywhere. After all, they are the real victims just exercising their right to free speech while their targets are the real culprits with all this passive-aggressive being offended! — Baden

It's always a bizarre non-sequitur to me when people conflate a legal or constitutional right to free speech with the "right" to not have said speech criticized (which, ironically, would thereby limit the free speech of their critics - free speech for me and not for thee, in other words).

Don't worry: the next time the NAACP and I meet to update our agreement wherein I am empowered to be the white guy who speaks for black people the world over, I will remind them that their name is a bit outdated.

You do realize that the NAACP was formed over 100 years ago, don't you?

Go tell that to the NAACP.

Are you black? If not, then why are you speaking for all of them (making a generalization), as if they ALL would be offended by the term, "colored people"? How racist. — Harry Hindu

No, I'm not black, but rest assured that black people (f/k/a "colored people" or "negroes") have empowered me to speak blackly on their behalf on all matters relating to blackness, including on the proper use of descriptive terms pertaining thereto. Glad we cleared that up.

Perhaps I misunderstood you, but you implored the opposition to be more "ruthless" and to abandon decorum. If your definition of "decorum" is merely something like "failing to stridently condemn GOP voter suppression and fight it by all legal means," then, yes, I agree that "decorum" should be abandoned.

However, if you are calling on the opposition to likewise in engage in such dirty tricks, then I would vehemently disagree for the reasons I've already stated.

I agree. The thing is, people don't seem to mind when it benefits them, American institutions be damned. Perhaps were the roles reversed, Democrats would be equally blase (or even approving) of voter suppression tactics like those promulgated by the GOP, but the fact is, that the GOP is currently the overwhelming beneficiary of "voter ID" laws, gerrymandering, and the like. They can't win clean, so they cheat. So sad.

(BTW, you may to start linking to people's comments when you respond to them so that the indicator appears.)

If the only way to salvage American democracy is to abandon it, then the fight is already lost, and further struggle will avail us nothing. We may as well act like some post-colonial African nation or banana republic and just engage in outright warfare to see who ascends to power.

I think that getting down in the muck with the GOP only makes both of you dirty, and will do even more lasting damage to the country's institutions.

I agree with MindForged, that just the effect of these laws having a disproportionate impact on minorities who typically vote Democrat is evidence of voter suppression. Requiring Indians who live on a reservation to have ID with a specific street address on it, when the people who passed that law knew damn well reservations where Indians live do not typically have street names? Like who would be surprised that such a law would prevent Indians from voting, and the facts are that they overwhelmingly voted Democrat during the past congressional election in North Dakota. That's un-American voter suppression, and it's disgusting as hell, and calls our entire system into question. Every American citizen's right to vote should be protected. — LD Saunders

Yes, for a party which proclaims to "love this country," the GOP is surely fond of shitting on its democratic institutions. The incident with the Native American voter ID kerfuffle is the just the latest in a line of targeted voter suppression the GOP engages in to keep certain minority groups from voting.

The fact is that in-person voter fraud is a virtually non-existent problem, and yet GOP-led legislatures are falling over themselves to enact voter ID laws in order to solve this "problem." They can't win people over on the basis of ideas, and so they try to keep them from the polls. Win at any cost, democracy be damned. Pathetic.

Plenty of other people seem to think such things are important, including those on the Left, who are seemingly obsessed with identity politics-related issues. Checking one box rather than another in the "Race/Ethnicity" section of a college application (a trait which tracks with skin color) could mean the difference between going to Harvard and going to a lesser school.

While I likewise deplore Trump's and the GOP's race-baiting rhetoric (I can't even properly call them "dog whistles" because they're so blatant), let's not pretend that the Right is the only political demographic which attends to race and ethnicity.

Arkady: I am an American, and disagree that mentioning colored people is in any way insulting. It is rather inclusive of all non-white groups, from Blacks, Hispanics, Chinese, etc. It's certainly much easier to write colored people than to reference all of the various non-white ethnic groups in the USA to make a point. I also don't believe races actually exist biologically, so I don't like using the word race. — LD Saunders

Suit yourself. I agree that it's a quirk of our language that "people of color" is somehow acceptable, but "colored people" is antiquated; I'm just saying that using such a bygone phrase might distract from your more substantive points, and also make you sound as if you stepped out of a time machine from 1965.

I don't know if you are an American yourself, but "colored people" is a somewhat antiquated term to refer to certain ethnic minorities (especially blacks/African-Americans). It doesn't appear as if you meant anything pejorative by it, but it still strikes one as being a bit "off."

In respect of current speculative physics, the critics of string theory are saying that no conceivable result could falsify the theory, as the ‘strings’ themselves are forever out of scope for empirical investigation, and if there are other universes, then so too are they. — Wayfarer

Not to quibble, but I'm not sure it's correct to say that no conceivable result could falsify (or verify) string theory: it's just that the energy levels needed to test the theory may well be forever out of reach of practical implementation. So, string theory may be unfalsifiable in practice, though not in principle.

Having said that, nothing in my post should be construed as a defense or condemnation of the content of string theory or any variant thereof, which I take no position on, mostly because I'm grossly unqualified to do so. I just wanted to point out that there's a relevant distinction between a theory's being untestable in (current) practice and untestable in principle. The latter seems a much more dire state of affairs for an ostensibly scientific theory.

[Deleted comment, as it's duplicative.]

I'm not sure I follow this. This seems a circuitous way of affirming what I'm claiming, which is that certain sciences, e.g. paleontology do make ontological claims, insofar as their respective theories assert the existence of particular entities (and does not merely regard them as mathematical abstractions or what have you). No doubt paleontologists are generally confident (rightly or wrongly) in the rationality of their views, but it doesn't follow that they aren't asserting the existence of particular entities in particular times and places.

I don't intend to wade too far into this swamp, but I will just say that, while science generally adheres to methodological naturalism, that stance does not imply that all scientists (or the practice of science generally) exemplify ontological naturalism.

At least some supernatural claims can be, and have been, investigated scientifically. For instance, the Society for Psychical Research carried out scientific examinations of purportedly psychical phenomena, psychiatrist Ian Stevenson investigated reports of "past lives," studies have been done on the medical efficacy of intercessory prayer, tests for out-of-body experiences have been performed in operating rooms, and so forth.

Whether or not paleontological theories rely on a "temporal theory", they make claims about what does, or at least what has existed, ergo, they make ontological claims.

You are conflating what it means to exist, with what it means to say that something has existed. The paleontologist makes no ontological claims (claims about what it means to exist). If it claims that certain things "existed", it assumes an ontological meaning of "exists" as a given, or as taken for granted. — Metaphysician Undercover

No: my understanding of the use of the term "ontological" is in line with the very first sentence of the OP:

"I understand an ontological claim to mean, roughly, a claim about what exists in and of itself."

Paleontologists make claims about what exists (or did exist, anyway), not on the nature of the existence itself, hence they make ontological claims.

The US voted against the resolution because of concerns that it contains language which may condemn the death penalty generally, a position the US (which still carries out judicial executions, making it an outlier in the developed world) is reticent to take.

Trump Administration spokespeople (including Nikki Haley) stated that they unequivocally oppose the death penalty for homosexuality.

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/following-backlash-us-clarifies-un-vote-death-penalty-gays-n807151

As in many discussions of this sort, you pose a question about the philosophy of science, and then seamlessly slip into discussing physics (and only physics). Not all science is as abstract or heavily mathematized as is physics. Does, paleontology, for instance, make ontological claims? I would say almost certainly so: theories in that field postulate the existence of long-dead creatures who lived and interacted in a world every bit as "real" as ours.

Do you have something against "alternative facts"?

Zillions of untruths come out of his mouth, but I wonder how many of them are actually cases where he knows the truth but chooses to tell something else. — Relativist

It's hard to quantify, but quite a lot, probably. It's at the point where he is clearly shown on video saying something unambiguous, then backpedals when faced with criticism to say what he "actually" meant.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/24-hours-later-trump-claims-he-misspoke-helsinki-meant-say-n892166

And yes, there are things he simply pulls out of his arse, such as that US pays for 90% of NATO. Most likely, in such instances, he simply has some sense that the US is getting fleeced by NATO allies (and there are legitimate concerns about certain allies not spending the target percentage of GDP), and just makes something up to put a number on it.

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/jul/12/donald-trump/donald-trump-misleads-us-defense-spending-nato-bud/

Even when we confronted her claims that "At least, Trump is always honest, even when he is saying stuff you don't like" with the tonne of lies that spread from his mouth, she would not acknowledge how clearly counterfactual her beliefs are. — Akanthinos

Someone actually claimed that Trump is always honest? Wow: we are truly through the looking glass now. (For what it's worth, I do think that the "child separation" issue is perhaps a bit more nuanced than has been presented in most media stories about it, but that's for another time. I'm no expert on immigration policy or enforcement, in any event.)

I only recently learned about the QAnon conspiracy subculture when it was reported that someone was at a Trump rally holding a "We are Q" sign. The conspiracy theory apparently posits something about Mueller and Trump actually secretly being in league together, and the world being controlled by an Illuminati-like cabal (always coming back to George Soros, of course, that focus of right-wing obsessive hostility from here to Hungary)? Is there any bullshit too insane for the American right to swallow? How much longer before the country is simply rent asunder by its own insanity?

Of course. What won't his supporters explain away or ignore? How many of his supporters on this forum, for instance, have criticized anything he's done?

"The globalist Koch Brothers, who have become a total joke in real Republican circles, are against Strong Borders and Powerful Trade. I never sought their support because I don’t need their money or bad ideas. They love my Tax & Regulation Cuts, Judicial picks & more. I made." — Rank Amateur

Perhaps most disturbing (not really) about Trump to me is that he apparently has no idea how capitalization in the English language works. Why in the name of all that's holy would one capitalize, for instance, "Strong Borders"? I understand the point of doing all caps for those items you want to emphasize (as annoying and childish such a thing is, I at least understand the point of it). But "Judicial picks"? WTF is that? POTUS has a grasp of capitalization on par with that of a second grader.

When we are asking questions about the nature of reason, and indeed the nature of consciousness, they are very different kinds of questions as to those about neurology and cognitive sciences. In fact those kinds of questions are what Chalmers calls 'the easy questions' - not because they're not technically very demanding, but because they're amenable to objective description and analysis. They concern factors which can be quantified and measured. Whereas questioning the nature of reason, is questioning the very faculty which makes 'questioning' possible! That is why there is an issue of reflexivity, or recursion, involved in such questions, which is what makes them intractable from a scientific point of view. In other words, that is why they're philosophical, rather than scientific, questions. — Wayfarer

I agree with most of what you're saying, but the "easy question" pertains to consciousness. I agree that first-person, subjective experience is not something to be captured in a brain scanner, but it doesn't follow that the study of consciousness is ruled out tout court. Science can, and does, study consciousness.

Sorry, but none of this explains why one cannot use one ruler to measure another. Yes, measurement standards are arbitrary, but once selected, it is not arbitrary as to whether or not a given artifact conforms to said standard.

We cannot even determine what a person is thinking about by interpreting what they are saying, so how could you determine what a person is thinking about by using brain imaging? — Metaphysician Undercover

We cannot even determine what someone is thinking about by interpreting what they are saying? I'm going to stop this farce right here, because this is just such a wad of nonsense that it beggars belief. The very fact that we're having a conversation falsifies that spurious claim.

As Wayfarer explained, the circularity is only avoided by turning to first person experience. From this perspective we can ask questions such as "what is an assumption?", or "what does it mean to make an assumption?". Do you see a difference between determining the meaning of an assumption, and making an assumption? — Metaphysician Undercover

Sorry, but you totally lost me here. I have no idea what you're getting at.

I think this passage indicates that you do not apprehend "meaning" at all. That you think "meaning" may be expressed as "propositional content" betrays this. Do you not recognize that what a given proposition means to me is not the same as what it means to you? That this is the case indicates that it is impossible to express meaning as propositional content. Consider, that what Wayfarer sees as circular, you do not see as circular. Therefore the propositions involved have a different meaning for Wayfarer than they do for you.

Firstly, it's not necessarily the case that "what a given proposition means to me is not the same as what it means to you:" different people may well glean the same meaning from the same proposition. If you wish to attribute some sort of extreme relativism to "meaning," wherein no two agents can possibly have the same understanding of a given proposition, speech act, or artifact's "meaning," then I don't even see how communication between agents would be possible. People disagree on occasion, yes, but it doesn't follow that said disagreement isn't sometimes just due to linguistic confusion on the part of one or both parties.

You seem to hold "meaning" in some sort of quasi-religious reverence. My point with regard to the brain scanning technologies discussed here was only that investigators can, with a certain degree of reliability under highly controlled experimental conditions, determine what a subject is thinking about using brain imaging. If you find it more "satisfying" to drop talk of "meaning" from any of this, then feel free to do so: I have no special affinity for the term.

I don't know what you mean by "the study of reason". Nor do I know what you mean by "the study of reasoning". I've revisited your posts in an attempt to understand this distinction, but I haven't found it explained. Perhaps you could provide me with a description?

Philosophy does the "thinking about thinking." Questions such as what reason is, which sorts of arguments and beliefs are reasonable or rational, etc. fall in the purview of philosophy. How agents reason, how the cognitive and neural mechanisms operate in their brain (and other relevant systems) when they're thinking is in the purview of cognitive science, neuroscience, and other allied fields.

I would like to have a serious debate about Atlantis, but so far, my discussions have been deleted . — Plato'sView

That Caribbean resort? I heard that place is a ripoff. This time of year, it's probably teeming with spring breakers, anyway.

The circularity in using a ruler to measure a ruler is that the standard is arbitrary. The official 1 metre ruler has been picked as the standard, but there is no reason why any other object might not have been chosen to be the standard for '1 metre'. It is 1 metre not because we have measured it, but because we say it is. Nor is it exactly the case that the official 1 metre ruler is the same as 1 metre. The 1 metre is abstract, it is pure length, a single dimension. — Londoner

And how does measuring a ruler with a ruler assume what is to be proven or demonstrated, which is the definition of circular reasoning?

Again, if this process is so viciously circular, how do ruler manufacturers perform quality checks on their products if not by some measuring implement which has been calibrated in accordance with the standard of measurement?

The inept Trump who basically wants to be the classic playboy and Putin are quite different. — ssu

I don't know about that. Classic playboys don't generally seek to be the leader of the free world. Trump clearly had larger plans. He has been vocal about politics for some time.

First, Trump has no true ideological otherwise that he would want everybody to like him and be as great as he says he is. Ideologies don't matter to this basically stupid and most ignorant person.

Putin's trauma is the collapse of the Soviet Union. This has been the objective behind all of his policies: stop Russia from plunging into chaos something like during the Time of Troubles and get Russia to be a Great Power. I assume that Putin has hoarded his wealth in order to be able to fight any oligarchs that have independent agendas of their own concering political power in Russia.

When you just listen to the speeches of the leaders, Putin has understanding and objectives, Trump is just an ignorant idiot.

If referring to Trump's "ideology" imputes too much intellectual credit to the man for your liking, then feel free to substitute something else ("mindset," or "worldview," perhaps). I find it doubtful that historians will ever refer to the "Trump Doctrine," in discussing foreign policy.

My point was that I think that Trump has authoritarian tendencies and inclinations, as does Putin, and that, were Trump unconstrained by the checks and balances of American democracy, he would govern much more in the style of a Putin (though perhaps not quite as odious as that) more than in the style of a small-d democrat or classic liberal.

In barely more than one year in office, Trump has already waged war on the free press, dismissing inconvenient facts as "fake news" (a rhetorical tact subsequently adopted by other strongmen or abusive regimes), expressed admiration for authoritarian rulers such as Rodrigo Duterte and Abdel el-Sisi, flirted with the idea of taking away broadcast networks' operating licenses when their news divisions push stories he doesn't like, "joked" that lawmakers who show him insufficient adulation at State of the Union addresses might possibly be branded as treasonous, has taken steps to militarize the southern border, has openly threatened nuclear war with North Korea, has personally demonized judges whose rulings displease him, and on and on. Not to mention that, as a candidate, he encouraged the violent removal of protesters from at least one of his rallies.