Well, can the existence of others be used to prove my non-existence? Can my existence be used to prove your non-existence? The only person that exists is the one that does not know other people exist? — Eric Souza
I have a direct experience, that's an ultimate proof. Anything trying to prove it more or deny it it's simply a waste of time. — Eugen
All of them with some success for the easy problem and 0 success on the hard problem. Again, the hard problem has been avoided and even denied, but ultimately it has remained untouched by materialism. — Eugen
And why were they tolerated before and not anymore? — ssu
I feel this is a good litmus test for whether they're genuinely interested in understanding it or are really just protecting some subscribed-to or private belief in magic. — Kenosha Kid
But, to construct this post, you assumed an ontology and its epistemology. So, you are more primary and before those concepts. — Clay Stablein
I take no issue with the cogito. — Kenosha Kid
Returning to Wittgenstein's beetle in a box, none of the people in this scenario can be in error about there being something in the box - this somethingness is what the word "consciousness" refers to. As such "consciousness", the word, lacks details necessary to enable a precise conception of what it actually is. — TheMadFool
Do you find this "public" definition of consciousness deficient/incorrect/misleading — TheMadFool
I'm fascinated by the fact he predicted anti-matter because it 'fell out of the equations' but that its existence was only confirmed much later. That, to me, again, is more evidence of the power of reason, and it's certainly not simply a matter of language, seems to me. — Wayfarer
The problem is, that doesn't allow for anything other than language - no referent, nothing beyond words. — Wayfarer
So I guess, at the end of the day, I'm still on the religious side of the ledger, although I rather hope more towards the gnostic end of that scale. — Wayfarer
This is one of the insights that Barfield is known for. — Wayfarer
they're only perceptible to reason, but they're real. — Wayfarer
The point of the essay was, in short, that what we refer to or think of when we use that name, is nearly always a social convention or collective idea comprising layers of meaning that have been built up over centuries. — Wayfarer
if we make an effort to avoid the point of view that leads to solipsisim and confine ourselves to common sense, there is little doubt — TheMadFool
The mind/consciousness, the common sense take on it, is what's missing in rocks and other non-sentient objects. — TheMadFool
I don't see how words can be evidence of mind/consciousness. — TheMadFool
But why? Why have any consistency to anything? Why not have a gravitational force that changes constantly or a conservation law that works "most" of the time. — Benj96
There's no reason to think our limited model is the real thing. — fishfry
There's a forest somewhere, and in that forest are trees, and one of those trees has branches and leaves, and on one of those leaves there's a caterpillar. The caterpillar knows when it's night and when it's day. It knows to go toward what it likes to eat; and away from what likes to eat it. It knows, deep in its DNA, that someday it will ascend to become a beautiful butterfly.
In short: That caterpillar has a metaphysics. — fishfry
One, there could be higher levels of awareness and intelligence out there that are to us as we are to a caterpillar on a leaf. — fishfry
...all constructs of our humanity, a superior platform of existence that has interwoven morality into existence, tossing aside the most primal hedonistic natures... — Roberto
There was a thread recently about AI generated poetry, and the point I made there is that poems are generally designed to evoke feelings and/or experiences. — Janus
The difficulty here, for William James, is that, unlike the body, used here as a stand-in for the physical aspect of life, the mind/consciousness doesn't leave behind a footprint à la fossils which [mind] archaeologists can dig up , study, and prove William James right.
Now that I think of it, do fossils of ancient life, specifically those known to be truly primitive as in representing the first batch of living organisms to appear on earth, show any evidence of mental phenomena? — TheMadFool
Sure, go ahead. — Noble Dust
Eh I feel like you're trying to play into me saying I'm a poet. — Noble Dust
I don't know what it means that "they are interpretations of us having (in some ways) separate bodies". — Noble Dust
It's not poetic to say that subjects, egos, or minds, or poets are poems themselves. — Noble Dust
Not sure what you mean. — Noble Dust
Interesting. Do you connect Λόγος to the concept of "Kairos" at all? — Noble Dust
My philosopher's god would be philosophy itself, — Pfhorrest
but it would be bad philosophy to call philosophy itself God, and I wouldn't abuse my god that way, so... — Pfhorrest
Do you mean a mystic god is poetry, metaphor, etc? I may be misreading you. — Noble Dust
It's debatable whether there's an outer physical world. It's not debatable there's an "inner" mental world that is composed of sensations and noemata. — RogueAI
Now, are you going to say this inner/mental world isn't part of "the world"? — RogueAI
It seems to me that critical thinking is generally supposed to be grounded on experience that we can all agree upon. — Janus
critical thinking is generally supposed to be grounded onexperiencethat we can all agree upon. — Janus
They are 'mortal' - perishable, imperfect, and transient. Whereas the archetypal forms subsist in the One and are apprehended by Nous: while they do not exist they provide the basis for all existing things by creating the pattern, the ratio, whereby particular things are formed (which is made explicit in Plotinus). They are real, above and beyond the existence of wordly things; but they don't actually exist. They don't need to exist; things do the hard work of existence. — Wayfarer
Hence why I bring up those embarrasing discussions about 'mathematical fictionalism' and 'the indispensability argument for mathematics'. The reality of number is an inconvenient truth for naturalism. — Wayfarer
I am not of the opinion that science cannot explain consciousness: the exact opposite....
Consciousness is a good example. Lumping materialists and physicalists together for the sake of argument, the conflict is between consciousness being a physical state or process and it being unphysical, i.e. undetectable and not a "thing" existing in space. The justification for the latter is typically the above fallacy: science has not explained consciousness --> science cannot explain consciousness --> consciousness is unphysical. — Kenosha Kid
My sensation awareness and memory are not invisible to me. — Kenosha Kid
That this reassuring consensus requires words, it does not follow that I needed the words to 'not be spoken to by God'. — Kenosha Kid
I do not contest that I need language about sensation to understand your sensations. I contest that I do not need it to have my own. — Kenosha Kid