I'll try another phrasing of what I mean: unconditional love can't be unconditional, but love, that is unconditional, can be unconditional.

If the giving does not happen, then the condition is not met and the love is not unconditional. — John Days

An example of what I mean: that's a condition of the love being unconditional, not a condition of love.

What I wrote doesn't imply that such a condition necessarily always exist, so it's not excluded. The text is only definition of condition as it's a homonym in English language. I mean condition as in a condition for something to happen, which is what unconditional in the context means.

That's not what unconditional or condition means in the context. Condition for love towards something means that there is love towards something if the condition C is met, → ¬C→¬love. The love being unconditional is not a condition for love.

Thinking the mirror test would be a half decent indicator of self awareness, consciousness or sentience was always such a stupid idea. How it went on so unquestioned for so long in the first place was... weird.

Well, if you have evidence that entails that things are the way the they seem, then I think it's very plausible to call it knowledge. — Fafner

First, what even is this evidence you could have of things being as they seem? Second, knowledge in this context means 100% certain with absolutely no possibility of it being false in any hypothetical or theoretical situations, no matter how inplausible. So no, unless you can distinguish any deception or illusion, the claim is not palusible.

But what if cases of illusion or deception are not actually possible, given the state the I'm right now in? (i.e., of not dreaming but being awake) — Fafner

This seems like circular reasoning. You're awake because there can't be the illusion of you being asleep because you'd know it because you're awake.

Surely my not being able to recognize all cases of dreaming, don't prove that I'm actually dreaming right now! — Fafner

No, but that's not the point. It proves that it's a possibility, even if the odds of that are one in infinity, and that there's no absolute proof of you being awake.

Now if having a waking experience defined as a state such that things necessarily match the way they appear to me, then if I'm having a waking experience I'm in a state which entails the presence of whatever that I perceive — Fafner

But how do you know how things are? You can't know that, you can only ever know how they appear to you. Same question here:

The trick here is in treating "waking experience" and "dreaming experience" as two different kinds of state, and this distinction is epistemically relevant because having a waking experience is by its very nature to perceive reliably how things are in the world, which is not the case with dreams. — Fafner

Your arguments seem to be built around the premise that you have an external and reliable source of information of how things really are, that you can compare your perceptions to.

There's no reason to assume that whenever I know something, then I must be able to recognize all possible cases of deception or illusion. — Fafner

How so? If you are not, then it's possible that case of deception or illusion is true, and so you can't be sure things are how you think they're instead of you being deceived, ie. you don't know for sure.

And how does it logically prove that I don't know that I'm having a veridical experience from the fact that I can't recognize such a feature? — Fafner

If you can't recognize it, how do you claim you know it?

The perceptual evidence, via which you'd be able to distinguish between the two. I'll rephrase my comment:

Being in a state that is logically inconsistent with being asleep and dreaming does not imply there is perceptual evidence of being in any state, because the inconsistency does not stem from the difference in the mental state or perceived reality but from the fact whether one is awake or asleep. — BlueBanana

I'll also quote another part of your post:

But if this is the case, then contra the skeptic, being in the one state as opposed to the other does after all entail information about how the external world actually is, because the way things appear to you when you are awake usually matches very closely the way they really are – something which is plainly not the case (at least most of the time) when one is dreaming. — Fafner

There is a hypothetical scenario where the other state does not entail that information, of which you'd be completely unaware of because it's your only source of how the things are.

because what does it mean to be awake if not to be in a state which is logically inconsistent with having a dream? — Fafner

Being in a state that is logically inconsistent with being asleep and dreaming does not imply that one can distinguish the two states, because the inconsistency does not stem from the difference in the mental state but from the fact whether one is awake or asleep.

So how do you solve the paradox?

I came here with the intention of throwing a couple of grenades myself in the name of liberalism, but was instead converted by the mods. Just to be sure, if the post's message was "hey, I found this disturbing study, any thoughts?" instead of "this study confirms the inferiority of niggers", it wouldn't have been deleted?

Well that's the point, it's a misleading use of the word. We commonly think that "survive" means to stay alive. But in "survival of the fittest" it means something different, it refers to successful procreation. So the discontinuity of life, the fact that there is a separation between parent and offspring, is glossed over, and hidden by that misleading use of "survival". — Metaphysician Undercover

So the survival of the fittest is incorrect because it's incorrectly named?

However, the humanity of feminists does not seem to ever be questioned--not even by anti-feminists--no matter what they do. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Every feminist source I encounter is oblivious to men suffering as men. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I think those quotes summarize your bias on the matter.

The examples above suggest non-numerical comparisons and in these instances, I think, qualitative infinity can be found. — TheMadFool

Do they? The comparison suggests they can be measured so the infinity is quantitative.

Good one!

and I don't mean TED — Rich

Sure you do ;)

I won't elaborate more because I'd like it to be answered in all the ways you can think of without being affected by anything I say, or maybe other people's comments. — Cynical Eye

Haha, good try. This world is lacking your personal opinion on the matter!

Or are you defining survival as successful reproduction? Having children is not my idea of surviving. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's what the word means in the context of the survival of the fittest though.

The problem is anything can be quantified. Find something that can't, and when we define it as infinite, voilà.

The difference would be that science could never link a deliberate intent between the firing of the bullet and the death of the baker. — MikeL

That could is the key word. Would, but could not. That doesn't mean they're claiming the opposite. And that's only natural sciences, psychology (for example) does make that link.

So you believe that scientific approach is the same thing as hard determinism?

There is no story of no-mind. It's either believed that mind exsts but is caused by chemicals in our brain, or that while mind can't be explained by those, the functioning of the rest of our bodies and physical world can.

Science does not claim that there's no intent, nor does it claim there is. It only proves that the butcher did shoot the baker, and describes in detail how it happened, regardless of whether there was intent or not.

1) They aren't stories because they are descriptions, not explanations, and based on either our observations or common sense.
2) None of them contradicts the existence of mind.
3) Isn't a magical, unexplained existence of mind a miracle in itself?
4) When you look at how wonderful and beautiful life is, does it not feel miraculous to you?

It just happens. Denying scientific truths because they are too messy and chaotic or don't reveal a big reason and explanation behind everything is disturbingly close to creationism and conspiracy theories.

Materialism does not allow for a mind. — Rich

Let's say I agree. How about any non-creative evolutionist view? And to get back to the track, is there any scenario the spaghetti bowl doesn't explain, or is the only reason for denying it that it's a bowl of spaghetti?

Of course the mind is there, but why not the materialistic or even any non-creative evolutionist interpretation of mind?

This is all 100% irrelevant and just semantics. Do you agree on that memories exist as electric signals in the brain and are transformed into memories as we perceive them by the brain?

I am familiar with how a computer works. What we're disagreeing on whether it's the image anymore if it's coded as 0s and 1s. The image is information and as that information is there, the image is there as information.

Back to the subject, why can't memories exist as electric signals in the brain and be transformed into memories as we perceive them by the brain?

It is the mind that forms the image. The computer like the TV set like the brain are receiving/transmission tools, but the brain is living and this can adapt. — Rich

If the computer is the receiver, what sends the image? Nothing, it exists in the computer, just in another form.

There are no images in a computer anywhere. Just on-off states. — Rich

That form the image. With TV you had a point because the images aren't stored in the TV but they come from outside it. Why couldn't the mind, images or memories be stored in the brain as electric signals or chemicals?

I have no idea what you will observe. However, in life, developing skills in observation, curiosity, and questioning (skepticism) can be very rewarding and helpful. — Rich

So if you din't know that I'll observe an answer to my question, why the advice? Could you give the answer?

I had friends who will because they could no longer stomach it. — Rich

Ask those friends whether a movement of a signal in a nerve can be explained by the chemicals interacting with each other or whether there's a need for a force that isn't explained by science.

The problem is that science had become goal seeking, that is anything but the mind. The Church Inquisitor use to use the same tactics in order to preserve its dogma. Science no longer just observes and reports, now markets and creates theories for funding purposes. NGOs operate in the same way. This is euphemistically referred to as research bias. — Rich

Do you have any actual first hand experience on microbiology research? Afaik we know how living organisms work and there are no gaps that élan vital would fill.

Observe the brain. There are no images. There is no memory. There are no thoughts. There are no colors or sounds. There is no instinct for survival. — Rich

If I was to continue further into the materialistic direction, I'd argue that yes there is. Look into a computer, can you see the images? No, but they're still within the computer. We already know how memories are in the brain.

Instead I'll rule the brain and consciousness out of the discussion both because they haven't been explained by materialists yet and because I don't think they can be. How about plants? From what you've said I've gotten the picture that according to you, mind exists in all living things and parts of our body, not only brain. What is that based on?

It's what you observe, not what I observe. Everyone observes differently depending upon their history (memory). — Rich

So how do you know I'll observe a proof to your opinion? What were your observations and how do they imply that the difference in mind causes differences in evolution?

This makes me think that maybe you are from a country that does not respect women; it is sexist and the fluidity tapers off toward the end of this quote. — MPen89

I completely second this, and as a radical liberalist it takes a lot to make me say you shouldn't say an opinion out loud.

On the topic of the opposite of love, if two feelings are the opposites you can't feel them simultaneously. I can't think of any feeling that you can't feel towards something you love. Envy might be the closest one though.

Just because there are electronics interacting in a TV set does not mean that the source of the pictures is inside the electronics. — Rich

Furthermore, this can be easily proven by opening up the TV and inspecting its parts and how they work because of how advanced our technology is. We can do the same with living organisms or cells for example.

Just observe the vast varieties of an species - say dogs. — Rich

And what observations should I make from them?

What is spaghetti is the jumble of scientific theories of biological evolution which is continuously growing, changing, and morphing into new theories — Rich

It's not any more complex than the nature it's trying to describe, which is pretty damn complex. That's because those theories are there to describe, not to explain. Any of the selected few explaining theories are very simple and neat.

as a consequence --- that the modern, to the extent they're based on the ancient, are error-ridden. — tim wood

This conclusion seems like a hasty one to make. Maybe the ancient one is the incorrect one.

That's all it is. The mind is creatively adapting to changing circumstances, the mind operating at all instances of life. There is nothing more to the Elan vital. — Rich

What you're saying is that you have a mind that is creative and tries to adapt, and therefore there's a mind operating at all instances of life that is also creatively adapting, which explains the evolution. Élan vital means all the three sentences, I (and majority of the people, I think) only buy the first one.