If we can easily recreate the conditions that gave rise to the militaristic, hyper-nationalist Nazis, doesn't that say something about the power of duty to country and leader? — ToothyMaw

This thinking resembles what authors do when they produce fictitious narratives, borrow from their real life experience and make up fantasy tales with no intention of claiming that they are talking about real life events. This type of philosophical thinking is doing the same, but with the delusional attempt in trying to potentially say something of the world we live in. — Richard B

Wittgenstein's "On Certainty" said it best, "505. It is always by favor of Nature that one knows something." — Richard B

That's why I, not Nagel, suggested that animals probably share the human ability to create analogies & metaphors
— Gnomon

That is a very big claim. It obviously can't be proved, but what aspects of animal behaviour make you think that is plausible? I believe that analogical thinking is uniquely human, because no other species produces symbolic artefacts or behaves in ways indicating such abstraction. Am I wrong here? I'd be interested to know. — Christopher Burke

...Threatening a public official is a felony... — NOS4A2

I don't think they're paying attention to me. — T Clark

Simply, if the scientist showed that it is physically impossible to have a functional BIV, BIV is not possible. — Richard B

You are saying that a BiV brain is different than a real brain, I think. But then tell me this, is BiV perception the same as real perception? — NotAristotle

All right then, do you understand that a "wave" consists of an interaction of the particles which make up the substance which is the medium? — Metaphysician Undercover

I've studied enough physics to know that a wave is an activity of a substance. That's simply what a wave is, and all waves are understood through modeling the movement of the particles within that substance. That's what a wave is, a specific type of activity of a substance which involves an interaction of its particles. Therefore a wave in empty space is simply impossible because there would be no particles there to make the wave. Yet we know from observation, rainbows, and other refractions, that light must consist of waves, therefore there must be a substance there which is waving. — Metaphysician Undercover

Since there is no ether identified as the medium within which the waves exist, the only substance which this concept is grounded in is the body which the field is a property of. Establishing the correct relationship between body and field is problematic in current conceptualizations. If the ether which is logically required to support the real existence of waves, was identified such that its real properties could be tested, this would allow us to conceptualize independent existence of the waves, enabling us to properly conceive of the waves as prior in time to the body, and therefore the appearance of a body (particles, atoms, molecules, etc.) as property of the waves. But this implies a conception of the waves which would be completely distinct from the current "field". — Metaphysician Undercover

I disagree. When one demonstrates that BIV is physically impossible, scenarios 2 or 4 were never a logical possibility. What was conceptualize from actual functional brains was demonstrated to be false.

Just because one can say or imagine something does not make it possible.

But as a fictitious narrative, one does not need to worry about the support of empirical evidence. — Richard B

I was not meaning to imply that the evidence against one's intuitions must come from beyond oneself; as I agree that one should be actively trying to "attack" their own intuitions. — Bob Ross

Your assertion is not very convincing wonderer1. I've read a fair bit of material authored by Richard Feynman, much is available on the net. And, he is very explicit in saying that the flow of current is not in the body of the conducting material, because the electrons are freed from the atoms, and the flow is therefore in the field — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure. Intuitively it might seem so, but this is a domain that is far far away from that where our intuitions were formed. God may or may not ultimately play dice with the universe, how can we say? — hypericin

Obviously it is of more interest than the foot, and people spend a great deal on it, but should that be the case? I’m not so sure. For instance, the question of where the brain ends and the rest of the body begins is in my mind insoluble. The carotid arteries, the spine, the endocrine system—all are intimately connected, and are therefor one thing. Removing the rest of the body from a theory of mind is a huge but fairly common mistake. — NOS4A2

Why then does electrical energy travel through the field around copper wires, instead of traveling through the copper wires, where the electron particles are supposedly located? Or do you think that particles of the wire, the electrons are actually outside the wire?

However, electrical energy does not travel though the wire as sound travels through air but instead always travels in the space outside of the wires. This is because electric energy is composed of electric and magnetic fields which are created by the moving electrons, but which exist in the space surrounding the wires.
— http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=3199 — Metaphysician Undercover

This commonsense notion doesn't happen at the micro scale, so that part is strictly speaking impossible. — hypericin

I think it is fair to say that human beings are more than brains, and that any brain is so interconnected to the rest of the body that to separate one from the other is to end the human being. — NOS4A2

The forum does not work well for manifestos. If you want things to work out, focusing on a relatively narrow subject is usually necessary. — T Clark

This is an excerpt of an interview of Robert Sapolski... — Truth Seeker

1. Intuitions (i.e., intellectual seemings): one ought to take as true what intellectual strikes them as being the case unless sufficient evidence has been prevented that demonstrates the invalidity of it.
— Bob Ross

Obviously your intuitions may be wrong but it also seems to be that I could apply the opposite rule and it wouldn't necessarily have an effect on how well I gather knowledge. — Apustimelogist

That said, arguments about selection on the basis of form, defined broadly as "developing echolocation," or "developing the ability to fly" do seem fairly controversial. At least part of the fear here is that it introduces too much teleology in to biology, making it seem like purposeful development. — Count Timothy von Icarus

In metaphysics, however, logical analysis allows us to produce a formal proof that all other philosophies and philosophical positions are logically absurd, — FrancisRay

My question is, has anyone come across ways this is explored as a fractal process? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Panpsychism has always been a problem for physicalism because it seems to be decidedly not what physicalists want to posit, but at the same time it is in no way ruled out by mainstream physicalism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Partly because no physicalism that precludes panpsychism has been developed that doesn't seem to spawn massive problems for the theorist. — Count Timothy von Icarus

To be honest, it's really weird to me how physicalism is the most popular ontology writ large, but in the context of metaphysics as a specialty it's like a battleship that's taken direct multiple direct torpedo hits, is listing to one side, its magazine blew, and it looks liable to break in half. — Count Timothy von Icarus

...Howell wrote in a 57-page opinion ruling.

“Donning a cloak of victimization may play well on a public stage to certain audiences, but in a court of law, , this performance has served only to subvert the normal process of discovery in a straightforward defamation case, with the concomitant necessity of repeated court intervention."

Physically we are all able to get access to any degree of wisdom, we are all humans. — Angelo Cannata

Actually, if there is strong emergence, it's counterproductive to try to define touch in terms of EM fields, but the question of emergence is an open one. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think the act of pointing has a place in the definition of "slab!", for the initiate. — Moliere

In order to pick out a screwdriver you need to know what it is, and in order to know what it is you need to have an internalized definition of it. That's what a definition is. An understanding or concept of what something is. If you claim to know what something is then you have at least a nominal definition of it, and if you have a definition then you claim to know what it is. — Leontiskos

Well, all I can say is I disagree then. I think the photograph metaphor seems a coherent analogy of the view and that I think it is consistent with someone being a physicalist. — Apustimelogist

Nor can we conclude that there is an real, external, physical world. — Metaphysician Undercover

External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?
Accept or lean toward: non-skeptical realism 760 / 931 (81.6%)
Other 86 / 931 (9.2%)
Accept or lean toward: skepticism 45 / 931 (4.8%)
Accept or lean toward: idealism 40 / 931 (4.3%)

The sun is in the sky... physical.

The sun is not in the sky... non-physical.

Physical and non-physical are embedded in our mental realities. — Mark Nyquist

It is a mistake for a physicalist to excuse the non-physical. The ones that include it will get it right. — Mark Nyquist

Yes, that does help. Thank you for the clear explanation. — Agree to Disagree

I had read that climate scientists said that a certain amount of global warming was "locked in" even if we stopped emissions today. — Agree to Disagree

Sure, but in that case you are not "trusting AI," which is a central premise of my argument. If we fact-check AI every time it says something then the conundrum will never arise. I don't think we will do that. It would defeat the whole purpose of these technologies. — Leontiskos

Last week, OpenAI announced it had given ChatGPT users the option to turn off their chat history. ChatGPT is a "generative AI", a machine learning algorithm that can understand language and generate written responses. Users can interact with it by asking questions, and the conversations users have with it are in turn stored by OpenAI so they can be used to train its machine learning models. This new control feature allows users to choose which conversations to use to train OpenAI models.

The point is, that to be two beings there must be something which distinguishes them as one different from the other. If what distinguishes them one from the other, is "being in different possible words" then we cannot say that the difference between the two worlds is of negligible relevance, because we've already propositioned that this difference is what distinguishes them one from the other. Since being two distinct things rather than one and the same thing is fundamentally a significant difference, then it's necessarily of very significant relevance. — Metaphysician Undercover

Isn't it contrary to the law of identity to speak of "two" physical occurrences which are in every way alike. If they are in every way alike, they are necessarily one and the same, not "two". So the whole premise of this thought experiment, the assumption of two distinct physical occurrences which are exactly alike, is fundamentally flawed making that thought experiment pointless. — Metaphysician Undercover