Philosophy Now Forum

But for Trixie's benefit, we should say that the 'Brain in a Vat' idea is nothing to do with relative morality.

Science works in as far as it restricts itself within a framework, which it does not question. But the friend in the OP has become oblivious to the framework. It is the friend who has a religious-type belief, since for him science has become a metaphysical construct. Science describes very little. I...

You are unlucky in that you have picked a silly illustration and explanation of the subject. The problem is that the same image is used to discuss two different philosophical questions. Most go for that of skepticism. How can we know that our perceptions correspond to an external world? In other wor...

Science describes colors using wavelengths etc. just fine. But the wavelengths do not have the property of being coloured. We only say that particular wavelengths are coloured because they fall in the visible spectrum, but that is a fact about us humans, not the wavelengths. If we had different eye...

How can there be 1. a color, and 2. a scientific description of that color, without a Hard problem arising? There can be no scientific description of colour, not if colour is understood as qualia. How could we decide a dispute about colour? Suppose I said that what I had once seen as red now appear...

I think Dennett redifines "qualia" to refer to the things that can be studied by science, and then shows that these problems can all be solved one by one (obviously). And because of that, he claims that the Hard problem is solved. So by redefining "qualia" this way, he has esent...

May I suggest that atheists stick to the logic at hand, rather than attempting to divert the logic into a debate regarding whether one is schizophrenic. When I stated 'coincidence' consider it another word to consider - as in coin side ence. Flip a coin 10 times as to whether I am a sap or a sage. ...

Materialists and idealists have no chance of solving the Hard problem. But even among them Dennett is a Special Case. Ha takes stance number 1 in my original comment, entirely denying qualia. That is probably the single most ridiculous and self-defeating philosophical stance in the history of human...

To believe the below is all mere coincidence is irrational. I'd say those sorts of things are like a Rorschach test, or word association, or a crystal ball. I suspect we all make connections of this type, like seeing hidden meanings in shapes and words, but we generally suppress them as irrational....

Well in that case the choice to percieve the world with disctinctions is far more religious, as nothing known to science indicates that these exist. I do not know what you understand by 'exist'. But science certainly does use distinctions; if it didn't we couldn't assert anything. For example, we c...

It is somewhat fuzzy so I made it clear that I'm talking about its essence, thinking without divisions, percieving the world without divisions. That doesn't mean that my stance doesn't exist. Nor was I talking about anything religious, you are just making these things up now. We can't solve the Har...

I made it as clear as I could. You claimed to have great knowledge of philosophy so I assumed you came across the nondualist stance before. Or if not, you would look it up. And what you find is: Nondualism is a fuzzy concept, for which many definitions can be found. I was unaware that this was stri...

Is the cosmos the result of a one time chance or are there eternally existing entities (usually God)? Time Let's assume that Cosmic reality does have a beginning in time. Then, in that case, there must have been a preceding time in which no reality existed i.e . an empty time. Now, no coming to be ...

Am I wrong that ever since Descartes at least, 'substance' is the standard frame and lexicon for academic ontology? I have never heard of any philosopher who talks about ontology, theories of existence, without implying substance. But the different theories of existence would have different notions...

Standard terminology for theories of existence. Wittgenstein on private language is about language and society not a theory of existence. Oh No! Now I find myself on Atla's side! We could only have a standard terminology if we already had agreement. I cannot be clear what the meaning of words like ...