The only reason why we can't describe experience in terms of determinism is because we haven't found a straight-forward way to describe them with the language of the physical at this point.
I think we can quite easily explain experience in plain english from a subjective non-empirical but still...
Well imagine this then, as speculation. Humans develop a language of symbols to represent the world in their minds, kind of like a more advanced version of animals knowing what their prey is or seeing and hearing things through their senses from the external world. The animals need to develop...
I really enjoyed this post. The first thing that comes to mind (especially regarding the superset/subset question) is that it would seem logical that by abstracting reality into shapes these abstractions in the mind would in fact be a superset. If they would be a subset it implies to me that...
Just thinking about this and I will say I do not know anything about cosmology or physics beyond what is common, but my question is, could the laws of physics, specifically how particles interact/behave, have evolved right after the big bang so that it started out with a simpler set of laws and...
Well, I think that most philosophical ideas have been discussed by some major recognized philosopher and that most new ideas most likely are not rooted in something that can be debated without ending up on one of those philosophers. Thus I think it is a good thing that the thread creation...
I think that first we would not be able to keep up the creation of millions of products and goods wasting natural resources of which people with money buy only to throw away later, and much of it isn't even recycled. Second I would think as apeiron said that having a fair opportunity for all is...
To say that the world is in perfect equilibrium is one of the most absurd statements I've heard in awhile, and I don't mean that as a personal attack. But seriously, there are billions who are starving and living off a couple dollars a day, many do not have clean water, and the west is highly...
But isn't the collective whole of all the macroscopic systems actually one big deterministic one at the lowest level? Seems to me it becomes a matter of scope and not an inherent non determinism in the system as a whole. Also just for hypothesizing; wouldn't the universe during the big bang...
I think empathy is pretty immediate and that it is more basic response to when someone is in pain or distress, but I think humans in general have a hard time feeling this empathy when victims are far away. Combine this with a lack of information, problems in their own lives and a society that...
Well I could ask the same of you... How did you deduce that I deduced marcus was trying to define infinity? He said in an earlier post that the Op hadn't made an argument against an infinite universe, so I was wondering how one can argue for or against an infinite universe.
I agree with Joe about the conscious/unconscious dichotomy. I think there is a problem of what awareness and sensory stimuli (qualia) is, but I also think there is a whole lot of confusion as to what a conscious action is, how humans make a choice, and just what it means to be able to think but...
marcus, how do you define infinite and how does it change the theories about the universe or the origins of the universe? Is it a catch all term to state everything we don't know or is it a physical definition? It seems strange to me since by definition something which is infinite can never be...
There's a difference between how an act may be perceived by others and what the actual intent of the act is. My point was I had a hard time coming to a rational explanation for Dexter's behavior, especially since we know a lot about him through his thoughts/narration in the show, and how he...