Track your comments

You post a comment on a blog. How do you know if anyone responded? You read an interesting post. How do you know when there are new comments?

Use co.mments to bookmark posts you want to follow. It tracks new comments for you, so you don't miss out. You can see all the new comments from your tracking page, or subscribe to the feed.

To get started, just grab yourself a bookmarklet and start tracking. Click here to get an account.

Conversations for Tgjorgoski

Tip: Don't have an account? Get one, it only takes a few seconds. (Why?)

The Splintered Mind: Defining "Consciousness"

[Source: http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com]

Added May 19, 2008. Blog this Email this

7 comments in conversation. Last comment found 10 mins ago.
Last 5 comments:
1. Anibal said...
  
  What if we provide an evolutionary view to define consciousness.
  
  As Searle did with his "biological naturalism" paradigm and more recently Ravenssuo with his "biological realism" perhaps consciousness its a biological adpatation and has real survival value.
  
  In this sense we can define the distinct states of animal conciousness in its evolutionary path or philogenetics (including human conciousness)and find for biological markers of what consist to be conscious.
  
  Neverthless, i recognize that because conciousness is the default background for meaning, a definition of consciousness is trap in logical problems
  
  Tue May 20, 05:04:00 AM PDT
2. Arnold said...
  
  Here's my candidate definition:
  
  Consciousness is a transparent phenomenal experience of the world from a privileged egocentric perspective.
  
  What are the problems with this definition?
  
  Tue May 20, 08:18:00 AM PDT
3. MT said...
  
  But rabbits are instantially defined, aren't they? With rabbits and birds and even people ("for what is a man?") at least some philosophers would say we're talking about kinds. If consciousness(es) too is(are) just a kind of thing--and why not?--then what's wrong or necessarily incomplete about its instances? If you want to think biologically, I suppose you'd want a definition that entailed an anatomy, so that we could compare consciousneses across species. An anatomical analysis is extremely special, but does it yield what's essential (like cutting open the cadaver of your best friend)? And what about the problem of anatomical diversity? When breeders use artificial selection to give rabbits floppy ears, they're still rabbits, arguably at least. It's hard to know what anatomy is essential to rabbithood, and we might expect consciousness anatomy to present the same problem. Maybe a definition has fulfilled its duty if it only tells us to what a word refers. Why expect it to tell us the anatomy of the thing or things referred to, and to provide the understandings this sort of information can yield? How rabbits' physiology means to where they live is little like what a word means in a poem, or in a phrase calculated to make a friend cry. There's a lot more meaning out there in the world with regard to rabbits and particular words, and we expect a definition only to allow them all, not to specify them.
  
  Tue May 20, 09:07:00 AM PDT
4. Eric Schwitzgebel said...
  
  Thanks for all the comments, folks!
  
  Tanasije: It's an interesting thought that consciousness is defined negatively -- for example, it's what's going on with you when you see color, if you don't assume the external world exists. But I don't think that's how I'm thinking of it. For example, emotional experience and pain don't seem negatively definable in quite the same way; and it's not straightforward how a non-dualist would carve off the "external world" -- does that include the brain, or some parts of it?
  
  Justin: Yeah, I think I know it when I see* it, too -- like jazz!
  
  Anibal: What I'm worried about here is that if we define consciousness in terms of evolutionary function, we beg questions about its causal significance, questions that are now open. Of course, if we can establish that consciousness, defined less contentiously, does play a certain evolutionary role, then maybe we can redefine it (perhaps more precisely) evolutionarily; but I don't see the argument there yet. I'm not convinced that Searle's view, for example, is entirely coherent.
  
  Arnold: My feeling is that the problem with your definition is the word "phenomenal", which I take as a synonym for "conscious"; so the definition is circular (and also everything else in the definition apart from that word is needless).
  
  MT: I agree with you, and I think the instantial definition is the best hope. In fact, I think it probably works. But here's the problem: If all your examples of non-rabbits are also non-mammals, how do we know whether the term "rabbit" refers to rabbits or to mammals? Similarly, if all your examples of consciousness are of focal consciousness, how do we know whether (to put it in terms of the rich view, according to which we have constant tactile experience of our feet in our shoes, etc.) the word "consciousness" refers to all conscious experience or only to focal consciousness?
  
  Tue May 20, 10:31:00 AM PDT
5. Tanasije Gjorgoski said...
  
  Let me first say that when I said 'defined negatively', I didn't use 'definition' not in a formal way, where when one gives a definition, it is supposed to pick out all instances of the phenomenon in question, and only instances of the phenomenon in question. I was more thinking, of how what philosophers usually mean by 'consciousness' is connected to such negative approach of distinguishing those phenomena (related to subjects) from the phenomena of the world as described by sciences.
  
  Further, I'm not saying that emotions, or pain, or intentionality, etc... don't have nature of their own separate from the world-phenomena, but that we put all those into one kind of 'consciousness phenomena', because of the mentioned negative approach.
  
  I mentioned that if one takes naive-realistic view on colors, and says that they are in the world, one would be inclined to remove them from "conscious phenomena". The same case is for pains, if we take naive-realistic take on pain (e.g. that the pains are where we feel them, and that they could be there even we don't notice them) we would also be inclined to remove them from "consciousness phenomena" group. Or let's say if one is externalist about concepts, one will remove concepts from "phenomena of consciousness", and see them in the world (while internalist would consider them phenomena of consciousness), and so on...
  
  You are right that externalist would not carve the external world in same way, and that is I guess a part of what I'm saying...
  
  That is, I think that we don't have some one specific natural phenomenon of which we "directly" aware of, and so that people might disagree on theories about it, while agreeing that they are speaking of the same thing. Instead I think we tend to group different phenomena under this notion, and that as such it is a kind of theoretical gerrymandered notion.
  
  Tue May 20, 11:53:00 AM PDT
Time as Space

Posted on May 17, 2008 Filed Under Philosophy, Science | OK, this one I just had to make a comment on beyond adding it to the sideblog. Over at Developing Intelligence Chris Chathan has a post on reversing time by crossing your hands. The paper discussed shows that the perception of temporal order may be reversed if you cross your hands. The theory... [Source: http://www.libertypages.com]

Added May 18, 2008. Blog this Email this

5 comments in conversation. Last comment found 20 hours ago.
Last 5 comments:
1. Tanasije Gjorgoski
2. Ponder Stibbons
3. Clark
4. Tanasije Gjorgoski
5. Clark
Alexander Pruss's Blog: Livers, brains, conscious computation and teleology

[Source: http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com]

Added May 16, 2008. Blog this Email this

3 comments in conversation. Last comment found Friday.
Last 3 comments:
1. Anonymous said...
  
  I hate to break it to you, but you aren't aware of what is going on in most of your mind, with or without a conscious liver.
  
  May 15, 2008 6:26 PM
2. Tanasije Gjorgoski said...
  
  The problem I guess is that once we want to equate "me" with the body (and talk about 'brain' as part of myself), and on other side we are inclined to discuss this "conscious me" as a product of (or being identical with) the brain. So, there is a tension between those two.
  
  But seems to me naturalists, can just say that there are two senses of "me" that we should distinguish: me-body and me-consciousness , and say that me-consciousness is what is product of (or identical with) the brain, but that me-consciousness wrongly treats me-body as identical to itself.
  
  So naturalist can say, that if you are talking about me-consciousness when using "me", it is simply wrong to say that brain is part of me. But if by "me" we are talking about our body (which we consistently can claim to be "ours" not in terms of identity, but in terms of ownership), brain IS part of me.
  
  May 16, 2008 4:13 AM
3. Alexander R Pruss said...
  
  TG:
  
  One problem is that for ethical applications, we need to hold on to both intuitions together. Certain actions done to my body have the moral character they do because both the body is at least a part of me, and I am a person. (These actions do not have the same character when done to a body that is merely owned by me--say, the body of my dog--nor do they have the same character when done to a body that is at least a part of a non-person.) And it is crucial for this that the "me" and the "I" be the same.
  
  If we abandon the naturalism and accept hylomorphic dualism, we can hold on to both intuitions. We can, though less well, hold on to both if we accept Cartesian dualism but manage somehow to resist the identification of the self with the soul, instead identifying the self with the soul-body whole.
  
  May 16, 2008 7:55 AM
Alexander Pruss's Blog: Knowledge of the future

[Source: http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com]

Added May 14, 2008. Blog this Email this

10 comments in conversation. Last comment found Thursday.
Last 5 comments:
1. Anonymous said...
  
  "by retrodiction we can know the position of the planets on January 7, 399 BC."
  
  This is different from predicting the future. It is a difference in kind. We can reason that if the planets hadn't been in that position at that time, they wouldn't be in the position they are now. We can check on where they are now. We can also reason that the sun rose yesterday, since we see that the earth still exists, as normal today. These aren't certain proofs, but good enough to qualify as knowledge.
  
  It's a different thing to predict where the planets will be tomorrow. We can calculate carefully, we can be absolutely sure of what will happen, but that is a different sort of thing from direct knowledge of past events (through direct experience and memory of them) or deductions about past events (baesd on reports or scientific inverstigation or whatever).
  
  It's an excellent distinction to keep intact. Verifiability is an important part of that.
  
  As far as being in a room and asking God, I think this is a false thought experiment. Our knowledge of things is different in kind from God's knowledge of things. We use the same word, but we actually have no way to even discuss God's knowledge, to understand it on any level. it is not relevant to a discussion of human knowledge.
  
  May 14, 2008 12:06 PM
2. Tanasije Gjorgoski said...
  
  Yeah, that's true about mathematical and other metaphysically necessary truths, that's why I specified that some might buy into causal requirement for knowledge of contingent truths. While I tend to agree with you that causal connection as you described is good enough, I was just saying that some people might find it intuitively right to include a requirement for direct causal relation between the fact and mental state in the meaning of 'knowledge' (of contingent truths). (for example. as Anon does, they might think that for those other cases we might properly use the word 'prediction')
  
  May 14, 2008 12:41 PM
3. Beancan Tatterpants said...
  
  @ Alex
  
  Spot on. The issue and your hypotheses seem right.
  
  I would add that there's a biological bias - the way our brains perceive time. Perhaps if we were Tramalfadorian we'd give equal deference to the past and future, but time seems to only move in one direction for us.
  
  May 14, 2008 2:18 PM
4. Chad McIntosh said...
  
  "A causal requirement for knowledge makes mathematical and moral knowledge problematic."
  
  Assuming, of course, such candidates for knowledge are external to us (platonic entities, say). If they are internal or already mind-dependent, then the causal requirement is unproblematic. It seems to me that even the nuanced version of the causal requirement you note seems problematic for mathematical and moral knowledge if platonic. Consider the following argument, where O is some object of knowledge (say, an abstract object or moral principle), the argument can be summarized:
  
  1. If O is external to S, S can have knowledge of O only if there is some causal relation R between S and O
  
  2. O is such that it cannot enter R
  
  3. If platonism is true, then O is external to S
  
  4. Therefore if platonism is true, then S cannot have knowledge of O
  
  5. But S has knowledge of O
  
  6. Therefore, platonism is false
  
  Do you think the above argument is sound?
  
  May 15, 2008 12:02 AM
5. Alexander R Pruss said...
  
  Actually, I myself deny (2). :-) But that's not a very common view. (But it makes sense if mathematical entities are ideas in the mind of God.)
  
  May 15, 2008 12:05 AM
SELBSTTATIGKEIT: is self-perception a form of self-consciousness?

[Source: http://selbsttatigkeit.blogspot.com]

Added May 06, 2008. Blog this Email this

4 comments in conversation. Last comment found May 09.
Last 4 comments:
1. Tanasije Gjorgoski said...
  
  Hi JMC, can you please explain premise 3 little more? Some example you had on mind maybe?
  
  May 6, 2008 2:07 PM
2. j. m. c. dow said...
  
  good question, Tanas. here's what i had in mind. first, there is no possibility of misidentification where there is no grounds for identification. also, one way to discuss self-perception is proprioception defined as perception of what is proper to oneself, or one's body. so, the examples that often drives the claim that one can misidentify one's body in which one's proprioception is hooked up to another individual's body. in this case, one is engaging in self-perception, except that the possibility of error has been provided for. it seems this is both logically possible and nomologically possible, so self-perception is not immune to error through misidentification...
  
  May 7, 2008 8:10 AM
3. Tanasije Gjorgoski said...
  
  Thanks for the explanation. Hope you won't mind another question, as it seems to me that the argument points to very interesting issues.
  
  You say "there is no possibility of misidentification where there is no grounds for identification".
  
  Would that mean, that self-consciousness isn't a kind of conceptual awareness?
  
  Here is what I'm thinking of:
  
  1.If we are aware of something *as something* (or conceptually), wouldn't that mean that there is some kind of identification (of a concrete thing falling under a concept(X being Y)).
  
  2.From 1, every kind of conceptual awareness has possibility for misidentification
  
  3.From 2 and from your argument, self-consciousness isn't (or doesn't involve) conceptual awareness.
  
  May 9, 2008 1:38 AM
4. j. m. c. dow said...
  
  thank you for your response again. i find your below argument interesting. but, i think the question about whether a content is conceptual or non-conceptual is very difficult. in my work on perception, via McDowell and Evans, i tend towards conceptualism, definitely in the context of knowledge, cognition, or otherwise judgments about such and such. however, i think there are contexts in which the debates about some content's being conceptual or nonconceptual are sorta beside the point. here's what i have in mind: we might describe the content of say the ability of an organism to distinguish between itself and the world without attributing anything but behavioral dispositions to an organism. well, if that ability is a type of self-consciousness, which i think it is, and if behavioral dispositions are non-conceptual, which they probably are, then yes, that type of self-consciousness is non-conceptual. but, if that means thoughts about oneself are not involved in that type of self-world differentiation, then that's just to say thoughts are not involved, not that it is non-conceptual or conceptual... to put my cards on the table, i think there are at least three types of non-conceptual self-consciousness in the literature (my terms are in parens). people speak about self-world distinction (self-discrimination), perception of one's body (self-presentation) and perspectival self-consciousness (self-synthesis), all of which does not require thought about oneself. that however, does not mean that these levels do not require conceptual forms or structures...
  
  to your argument, though.
  
  the inference from 2 to 3 requires accepting the first premise of the original argument, correct? and, although my original post raises a question, i am more inclined to reject 1 than reject 2 or 3. and, maybe i can reject one with the following argument:
  
  i definitely agree with premise 1, rephrased as "if one is aware of x as x, then awareness of x requires Ix" where x is an individual ("concrete thing") and I is an identifying representation (e.g., in this argument, a self-image). the ordinary language way to say this is: if one is to be aware of something as that very thing, then one must know(pssst!) which thing it is. (where 'pssst!' functions to make you think knowledge is very weak, i.e., not JTB.) (identification constraint).
  
  original premise 2: self-perception is a form of self-consciousness.
  
  new premise: self-perception requires meeting the above identification constraint, since the content of proprioception is awareness of oneself as one's body.
  
  Premise 3: self-perception is not immune to error through misidentification, via the armstrong case, e.g., that my proprioception can be hooked up to another body.
  
  Conclusion: Self-consciousness is not IETM.
  
  There are definitely issues with this argument. Is proprioception conceptual or non-conceptual? Is awareness of one's body awareness of oneself? What type of modality is involved in "the possibility of error has been provided for" in LW's Blue Book account of IETM?
  
  Thanks, Tanas.
  
  May 9, 2008 6:51 AM
Zombies: The Movie

FADE IN around a serious-looking group of uniformed military officers. At the head of the table, a senior, heavy-set man, GENERAL FRED, speaks. GENERAL FRED: The reports are confirmed. New York has been overrun... by zombies. COLONEL TODD: Again? But we just had a zombie invasion 28 days ago! GENERAL FRED: These zombies... are different. They're...... [Source: http://www.overcomingbias.com]

Added Apr 20, 2008. Blog this Email this

1 comment in conversation. Last comment found April 28.
Last comment:
1. I think there is an equivocation being made between the various usages of 'philosophy', primarily between a type of thought and a profession, and my observation is that those who are professionals supposedly dedicated to that type of thought rarely even try to engage in it, and when they do they're not very good at it. If 'philosophy' is 'what philosophers do', I hold that philosophy is useless in every sense. If 'philosophers' are 'those that practice philosophy', the professionals are almost universally undeserving of that title. In that light:
  
  Yes to #1, YES to #2, no to #3, yes to #4.
  
  Posted by: Caledonian | April 28, 2008 at 02:20 PM
Descartes on Atheism

As anyone with anything more than a passing acquaintance with early modern philosophy knows, René Descartes rather famously enlisted the help of God to guarantee the validity of his perceptions (for God would not be so cruel as to deceive us). But did you ever consider what the consequences of this solution would be for non-believers? Obviously, th... [Source: http://www.philosophicalmisadventures.com]

Added Apr 14, 2008. Blog this Email this

4 comments in conversation. Last comment found April 14.
Last 4 comments:
1. Tanasije Gjorgoski on April 14, 2008 6:06 am
  
  You almost got me with the parallelogram question! That was very funny.
2. Tanasije Gjorgoski on April 14, 2008 6:30 am
  
  BTW, Maybe there is something to the Descartes point (OK, not much, but still…), because lot of naturalists will accept Quinean thesis that anything is revisable (even principle of non-contradiction) in the light of new experiences.
3. Chris Mathews on April 14, 2008 6:43 am
  
  Sure, laugh it up! Meanwhile, I'm lost in the dark with an imperilled soul, not knowing an isosceles from my assh….
4. Samuel Skinner on April 14, 2008 6:32 pm
  
  "God wouldn't decieve us!"
  
  "What about crazy people? Or the blind? Or…"
  
  I have no idea why Decartes thought it was such a good answer. Maybe he just got payed by the church and had to come up with yet another reason to be a theist…
Keith's Philosophy Blog: Disjunctivism

[Source: http://www.keithwilson.org.uk]

Added Apr 11, 2008. Blog this Email this

No comments in conversation.
The Splintered Mind: Experiential Blanks

[Source: http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com]

Added Apr 10, 2008. Blog this Email this

11 comments in conversation. Last comment found May 04.
Last 5 comments:
1. Eric Schwitzgebel said...
  
  Hi Badda! I'm not sure I understand your comment, since "consciousness" and "experience" sound pretty synonymous to me (at least in the senses I mean to be using them). I'm on board, though, with the last suggestion in your post -- maybe the implicit assumptions behind my finding the report hard to believe need to be jettisoned!
  
  Fri Apr 18, 06:45:00 AM PDT
2. Badda Being said...
  
  I thought you understood them differently because you also used the phrase "conscious experience." If "consciousness" and "experience" are synonymous to you, then I don't see why you would use consciousness as a modifier of experience. It would be like referring to visual sight.
  
  But let's say then that "conscious experience" is just loose talk and that "consciousness" and "experience" really are synonymous. I have this vague sense that you further equate consciousness with being awake. Or do you rather think that consciousness may obtain even during sleep? It does seem normal after all to say that we experience things during sleep, at least while dreaming, but then again, to say that we may therefore be conscious during sleep might seem unconventional if not downright contradictory.
  
  If "consciousness"/"experience" is synonymous with "wakefulness," then it's just obvious that we can't have waking moments with no experiences whatsoever, in precisely the same way that it's just obvious that we can't have vision with no sight whatsoever. This is probably not the most charitable way to understand you, though, given your sense of the insolubility of the "rich or thin" question: by this understanding, consciousness/experience obviously would be rich.
  
  But if "consciousness"/"experience" is not synonymous with "wakefulness," then try substituting "wakefulness" for every instance of "consciousness" in my first comment and see if that helps you understand the point I was trying to make there.
  
  Sat Apr 19, 12:35:00 AM PDT
3. Badda Being said...
  
  How about this: if "consciousness" and "experience" are synonymous, then experiential blanks are nothing more than moments of unconsciousness, in which case consciousness/experience is rich by definition, whereas the thin view would be that you can be conscious (have experiences) and unconscious (not have experiences) at the same time.
  
  Sat Apr 19, 02:24:00 PM PDT
4. Eric Schwitzgebel said...
  
  Thanks, Badda, that helps me see the source of some of our miscommunication!
  
  Taking consciousness/experience synonymously and as not the same as wakefulness, I at least don't see it as obvious that we do sometimes lack consciousness while awake. Maybe others (you?) do think it obvious that people frequently have moments of pure experiential blankness when awake. But how do we resolve this? Therein lies the methodological difficulty at the heart of consciousness studies!
  
  Sun Apr 20, 04:19:00 PM PDT
5. Badda Being said...
  
  What do you find incredible about waking moments with no experience whatsoever if, for you, wakefulness is distinct from consciousness?
  
  Or, more to the point, how does your incredulity even bear upon the "rich or thin" question if you regard consciousness and wakefulness as distinct? For you do seem to think that it has some bearing based on this paragraph:
  
  Now I confess that I incline toward a rich view of experience -- according to which we generally have constant visual experience, constant auditory experience, constant tactile experience of our feet in our shoes (though peripherally and faintly, of course!), and much else going on with us experientially at any one time. I'm not at all sure that this view is right, but to think that we have waking moments with no experience whatsoever...!
  
  * * * *
  
  I think that resolving the problem of apparently conflicting testimony is a matter of clarifying your terms.
  
  If "consciousness" and "experience" are synonymous, then experiential blankness, or the absence of experience, is the same as the absence of consciousness, in which case, again, consciousness is rich by definition.
  
  If "consciousness" and "experience" are synonymous, then, during moments of experiential blankness, there is no consciousness anyway to which the "rich or thin" question could even apply.
  
  But the very fact that you put forth the "rich or thin" question suggests that you regard consciousness and experience as distinct, or at least that you are asking about Consciousness (or conscousness-sub-one) which may or or may not be traversed by consciousness (or consciousness-sub-two) all the way through, that may nor may not be punctuated with moments of unconsciousness.
  
  So it's no wonder that you get conflicting testimony: you're very solicitation sends confusing messages.
  
  There is nothing to resolve but the meaning of your terms.
  
  Sun May 04, 02:11:00 PM PDT
What part of "self-explanatory" don't you understand?

If someone felt compelled to provide illustrations of so-called "self-illustrating phenomena", would that be a tacit admission that their labeling anything "self-illustrating" was self-defeating? Anyway, the following link is to my new favorite powerpoint presentation: "Self-Illustrating Phenomena". It is really cool. This entry was posted on Monda... [Source: http://www.petemandik.com]

Added Apr 08, 2008. Blog this Email this

1 comment in conversation. Last comment found April 08.
Last comment:
1. Tanasije Gjorgoski Says:
  
  April 8th, 2008 at 12:36 am
  
  Half serious…
  
  Wouldn't self-explanatory be even more radical version of Given? Not just that the phenomenon is given to us qua that phenomenon, but also the explanation for it!
Language, Philosophy, and Terms

Posted on April 6, 2008 Filed Under Philosophy | One thing about the langugage turn in philosophy (on both continents) is that it tended to obscure certain differences that ought be made. I'm not saying that the language turn was bad. In a certain sense it was inevitable and a good thing. However I think sometimes it obscures some things. Consider ... [Source: http://www.libertypages.com]

Added Apr 07, 2008. Blog this Email this

10 comments in conversation. Last comment found April 09.
Last 5 comments:
1. Clark
2. Clark
3. Clark
4. April 9th, 2008 1:20 am
5. Clark
The operating system: definitions

A few definitions of the operating system in a computer, courtesy of Irv Englander: The operating system acts as a system manager, controlling both hardware and software and acting as an interface between the user and the system." (Englander, 2003) The operating system may be defined as a collection of computer programs that integrate the hardware ... [Source: http://theory.typepad.com]

Added Apr 04, 2008. Blog this Email this

1 comment in conversation. Last comment found April 04.
Last comment:
1. With all respect to those dictionaries, I think that something like "Operating System creates and adds new level of abstraction which includes new types of entities and operations on them, and gives ability to the user and other programs to handle those entities." would be closer. The example would be giving to the user such things as "files", "desktop", "icon", "window", "command line", "command", "parameters" etc...
  
  I'm not sure I understand the conclusion you draw from the quoted definitions, but I guess it goes also in the direction of instructions to be executed on abstract level, which are not dependent on exactly the same hardware operations?
  
  Posted by: Tanasije Gjorgoski | 04/04/2008 at 04:18 AM
"in judging upon a single instance of the impressions red, orange and yellow, that the qualitative d...

(Johnson's Logic, Part II, 1964:193, my emphasis) Is this a respectable and unique kind of reasoning? Instinctively, something suspicious is going on here. But I can't put my finger on it. This isn't obviously enumerative induction, and nor is it obviously either deduction or abduction. So is it really an original and distinct kind of reasoning? Tr... [Source: http://alsnotepad.com]

Added Apr 03, 2008. Blog this Email this

3 comments in conversation. Last comment found April 04.
Last 3 comments:
1. It seems to me as a normal a
  
  Submitted by Tanasije Gjorgoski (not verified) on Thu, 03/04/2008 - 13:20.
  
  It seems to me as a normal a priori judgment, with the addition of the Berkeley's idea that we can't think of such things as Abstracts, we always think of concrete things, just that we see that some specifics are not important for relation, so the relation we see as holding will hold generally, and not for the individual thing.
  
  reply
2. Would this be an
  
  Submitted by Al on Fri, 04/04/2008 - 06:36.
  
  Would this be another way of phrasing your point?:
  
  Whilst Johnson talks as though we are here generalising across many instances, this is actually false. Rather, we are making a judgement about a universal, of which there is only one (there is only one red).
  
  Thanks for the comment,
  
  Al
  
  reply
3. I think actually that
  
  Submitted by Tanasije Gjorgoski (not verified) on Fri, 04/04/2008 - 11:38.
  
  I think actually that Johnson phrasing is pretty straightforward (at least from what I can understand without the context).
  
  Berkeley's idea (afaik) is to deny that there is such thing as universal, but that we: a)make a judgment about the particular instance and b)comprehend that this judgment is independent from some specifics of that particular instance, and hence, comprehend that the same judgment would hold for anything which shares just some of the specifics of this particular instance, and hence we are coming to a general judgment about all such situations.
  
  An example with the triangle would be - we take a concrete triangle, see through some proof that the sum of the angles is 180 degrees, and see that the proof doesn't mention lengths, particular angles, etc.., so we figure out that it will hold generally for all triangles. (so we make general judgment which holds for all triangles, based on analyzing a concrete instance).
  
  Not sure though, if it could work for the color example exactly the same way. The analogy would be that in the concrete case of colors, there are abstract properties (like 'being red', 'being orange' and 'being yellow') which are contained in the concrete case, on base of which we do the judgment, and we see that the exact red, orange and yellow don't matter, so our judgment can hold generally for all yellow, red, and orange colors.
  
  reply
Mele Part II

Posted on April 2, 2008 Filed Under Philosophy | This is Mele Part II otherwise known as the post where I take back nearly everything I said only a couple of days ago. You may remember from my last post that I characterized Mele as missing the point. Indeed I basically painted him as a nominalist. Now that I've thought about that chapter for a few ... [Source: http://www.libertypages.com]

Added Apr 03, 2008. Blog this Email this

8 comments in conversation. Last comment found April 14.
Last 5 comments:
1. Clark
2. April 4th, 2008 11:26 pm
3. Clark
4. Tanasije Gjorgoski
5. Clark
A Short Argument that There is No God

Filed under: Is there a God? - Richard Brown @ 3:57 pm I was thinking about Mackie and Plantinga on the problem of evil today and I thought of the following short argument that, I think, captures the spirit of Mackie's point and avoids Plantinga appeal to transworld depravity. I would be interested to know what people thought of it. 1. If there is ... [Source: http://onemorebrown.wordpress.com]

Added Mar 31, 2008. Blog this Email this

39 comments in conversation. Last comment found May 06.
Last 5 comments:
1. Richard Brown Says:
  
  May 2, 2008 at 3:44 pm
  
  Wow, Smitty Dinkle, you are a real asshole (and wrong). Don't post here again unless you are prepared to back up your claims without the insults. Shesh…I don't what they teach you at EMU but 'round here, we mind our fucking manners.
  
  GNZ,
  
  "it would seem likely to be immoral for him to reduce that creation (putting aside 'preventing suffering' for the moment) or for that matter to fail to also 'create' anything that is almost identical (i.e. 'you' or 'you+1′)."
  
  So, god must create an infinite number of 'you'?
2. GNZ Says:
  
  May 2, 2008 at 7:27 pm
  
  Yes
  
  (Although it may not actually be infinite, since you may be able to count every unique you with an very large finite number.)
3. Smitty Dinkle Says:
  
  May 5, 2008 at 11:04 am
  
  ROFL, wow. And while yes I may have been an asshole, no I am not wrong please go look up the definitions of the terms I used. I am actually doing a project on reconstructing arguments and this one is as bad as the ones I've seen for creationism, if not worse. He makes several conclusions/premises which are not backed up by any other premise, making this argument invalid, if he intended for this argument to be forceful then he has failed again seeing as the probability of his overall conclusion being wrong is greater than that of being right based on the premises provided.
  
  P1)If P then Q
  
  ______________
  
  C1/P2) If Q then Q is possible
  
  P3) If Q is possible then P would make everything Q
  
  ____________________
  
  C2/P4) We are not in Q, and if P and not Q then there is no P
  
  first of all the amount of assumptions present in this argument is mind boggling
  
  The Missing P1) P would only make Q
  
  The Missing P2) If Q then P (this one might be seen in P3 but does not appear to be conditional to me)
  
  And Richard, at EMU I am taught by emu's. And my name is Smitty Dinkle. lololololololololololololololololol
4. Smitty Dinkle Says:
  
  May 5, 2008 at 11:14 am
  
  ooooo I forgot how silly of me
  
  C3) There is no P
5. Richard Brown Says:
  
  May 6, 2008 at 3:30 pm
  
  That's better Smitty…but you're still wrong. The way you symbolize the argument is incorrect. Here's what it really looks like.
  
  1. If G then M
  
  2. Thus, if G then it is possible that M
  
  3. If it is possible that M then, if C then W
  
  4. But not W and if we assume C, then
  
  5. It is not possible that M
  
  6. So, not G
  
  Now, as we have seen, we can argue over the soundness of this argument, I think it is sound, others do not, but there is no question that it is valid…
There Might Not Be Any Numbers

Filed under: Philosophy of mathematics - Richard Brown @ 6:00 pm I was re-reading an old post where I expressed doubt that there are any necessary existents at all, not even numbers, and I saw Richard Chapell's comment, I'd expect the ontological status of numbers to be non-contingent - after all, what in the world could they be contingent on? Abst... [Source: http://onemorebrown.wordpress.com]

Added Mar 31, 2008. Blog this Email this

7 comments in conversation. Last comment found April 01.
Last 5 comments:
1. I would think that numbers 'transcend' all possible worlds. Seems weird to say that they are located "in" those possible worlds.
  
  After all, the whole "possible world" semantics wouldn't be possible if abstracta are located within the worlds, no?
  
  Comment by Tanasije Gjorgoski - March 31, 2008 @ 9:08 am
2. I'm not sure I follow, Tanasije. All of the things that exist do so actually. Possible worlds are (complete) descriptions of 'ways things might have been/will be' Any complete description of the way things are/might have been/will be will have to include a pronouncement about what exists.
  
  Comment by Richard Brown - March 31, 2008 @ 8:03 pm
3. Richard,
  
  I'm thinking of e.g. quantifying over possible worlds, or saying "in half of the possible worlds" or "in two possible worlds" , etc…
  
  If the very possibility to use the possible world semantics depends on those, I'm not sure how can we imagine them as "inside" possible worlds.
  
  Comment by Tanasije Gjorgoski - March 31, 2008 @ 8:08 pm
4. Oops, "those" = set theory, numbers, and other abstracts.
  
  Comment by Tanasije Gjorgoski - March 31, 2008 @ 8:09 pm
5. Yeah but we say that stuff outside any possible world, in the actual world. A possible world is just a complete description of how the actual world might have been/will be (they may be abstract objects themselves if one goes infor that sort of thing…Kripke does, others don't). To say that the description is complete is to say that any statement p is either true or false (and not both) 'according to that description' or 'in that possible world'. So there is at least one complete description of the way things are which includes in it a commitment to the existence of numbers and other abstract objects. If the actual world turns out to be a world in which numbers do not exist it will because of that possible world (that could have been actual but is not) that we will get true counter-factual statements like 'If there were numbers, 2+2=4″, we could in fact give a detailed account of the rules which would govern these things as for instance by postulating that 'if there were numbers, they would be goverened by things like Peano's axioms'. In that way we could reason 'as if' numbers existed in the actual world. Feild's claim is that this is all that we need in order to do science and talk about abstract objects.
  
  Comment by Richard Brown - April 1, 2008 @ 6:47 am
Precedents of Pan-x-ism

I'm no fan of panpsychism, but I'm not going to let that stop me from posting on it. I'd like to raise questions about theories of which panpsychism is but one instance. Call such theories "pan-x-isms". My main question is whether there are any non-controversial examples in which a pan-x-ism turned out to be a good idea. One of the main problems th... [Source: http://www.petemandik.com]

Added Mar 13, 2008. Blog this Email this

No comments in conversation.
Progress in Philosophy? Well, I Never!

Filed under: Skepticism, The a priori - Richard Brown @ 3:57 pm I finally got around to looking at the recent Philosophers' Carnival and I was struck by Richard Chappell's post at Philosophy, etc where he lists what he takes as 'examples of solved philosophy'. He offers these up as counter-examples to claims made, by people like me, that there are ... [Source: http://onemorebrown.wordpress.com]

Added Mar 08, 2008. Blog this Email this

11 comments in conversation. Last comment found April 14.
Last 5 comments:
1. That last one is my, my chess blogger identity. :O
  
  Comment by Eric Thomson - March 10, 2008 @ 10:56 am
2. Hey Josh, isn't a lot of scientific knowledge of that sort too?
  
  Hi ChrissySnow,
  
  Yeah that is the 'traditional story' (due to Russell). My problem with that is that I see science as just a kind of philosophy (natural philosophy) and, besides which, there are no 'solved' problems in science either…
  
  Hey Eric, nice pseudoname
  
  Yes there are such people, and I wouldn't say they are 'fringy' (but even if they were why would that matter? Every theory starts off as 'fringy' even such established ones as the heliocentric model of the solar system.
  
  One way to avoid the reductio is to do the extension with respect to possible worlds. So, 'vertabrates' and 'creatures with a kidney' are co-extensive here but they are not necessarily co-extensive and so they do have different extensions.
  
  Another strategy (a la Quine) is to reject the very idea of intension altogether.
  
  Comment by Richard Brown - March 10, 2008 @ 4:23 pm
3. No, I don't think science is like that. While it is true that some of the established truths of science are of this sort (e.g. ether and phlogiston would be part of failed hypotheses similiar to Chappell's philosophical examples), many others, such as the discovery of the table of elements, the theory of evolution, or our understanding of human anatomy would count as positive theses about the world that are established scientific knowledge.
  
  Comment by Joshua Livingston - March 10, 2008 @ 8:12 pm
4. Well, point taken, if by 'established scientific knowledge' you mean what I meant above by 'solved scientific issues'…
  
  Comment by Richard Brown - March 12, 2008 @ 5:01 pm
5. The Inconcievability of Zombies « Philosophy Sucks! Says:
  
  April 6, 2008 at 9:51 am
  
  [...] back in the '90's; but I suppose that's what I get for forgetting that there aren't any solved problems in philosophy, and it is in the nature of zombies to come back from the dead so I suppose I shouldn't be [...]
Reconciling Direct Realism?

Sometimes I sit in class and think about the nature of perception and reality. That sounds cliche, but I often find myself wondering whether I am really perceiving the professor as they give a lecture. What am I looking at? Am I merely perceiving representations, or ideas, in my head, or am I really looking at the external world? How can I reconcil... [Source: http://philosophyandpsychology.wordpress.com]

Added Mar 08, 2008. Blog this Email this

4 comments in conversation. Last comment found March 17.
Last 4 comments:
1. Tanasije Gjorgoski Says:
  
  March 8, 2008 at 9:04 am
  
  Hi Gary,
  
  In my thinking about those things, I've concluded two things:
  
  1.There is nothing problematic in saying that 'we can see the tree'. Whatever is included in the process, like photons bouncing off the tree, the sensory organs registering them, the processing going on in the brain, and EVEN if there is sense-data or something, those would be just parts of the "seeing the tree". So, I think there is no important distinction there to draw between 'direct' and 'indirect' realism, and that both can happily agree that "we see the tree (directly)". (Basically to say that what we see is sense-datum or representation, is to misuse the word 'see'.)
  
  2.So where would be the distinction between the direct realism and indirect one? How to pin down what is direct realism them? I've been thinking about it, and I think it is this… Direct realism denies (or should deny) that there is such thing as phenomenal experience. It should say that using 'experience' in such sense is nothing but product of philosophers' theory, and that in proper sense 'experience' is used to refer to the events in the world, in which we take part, in which we are aware of those events (or parts of them), and from which we are affected somehow, or from which we learn something.
  
  So, basically I think that the direct realism vs. representationalism issue can't be framed in the terms of 'direct' or 'indirect' seeing something, but if those accept or deny that such thing as 'phenomenal experience' (or 'conscious experience') exist.
2. Gary Williams Says:
  
  March 8, 2008 at 1:04 pm
  
  To address your first point, I agree there is nothing problematic about saying "we can see the tree", but that doesn't address whether or not we can *perceive* the tree. Seeing is one thing, a linguistic construct, but I feel like perception is another thing altogether. Perception gets at another question: is the perceptual world out there or inside the mind?That is what indirect vs direct realism really gets at. Trying to cross the subjective divide.
  
  I kind of think you are on to something with your second point, and I think Gibson, amongst others, probably Heidegger, would agree with you. Perception is merely a brain/body/world event. There is no subjective locus of experience for direct realism. There are merely physical events and I suspect it is our language that constructs the narrative for us to talk about "subjectivity" and "phenomenal experience".
3. Tanasije Gjorgoski Says:
  
  March 8, 2008 at 4:06 pm
  
  But what is "perceive" if not general term that covers seeing, hearing, feeling by touch and so on? I have feeling that one of the problems that direct realists have in distinguishing their view is actually expressing in what way their view differs from the representationalism, given that representationalist can agree that we see, hear, touch, and in general perceive *the actual thing*. I think that so called 'transparency of phenomenal experience' is widely accepted by proponents of representationalism, so given the transparency it is hard for direct realists to even *express* the difference they have in mind.
  
  That's why I think that the what direct realist actually negates is the sensibility of phenomenal/conscious/visual or experience taken as something which a)represents the world (veridically or not) and b)which has what it is likeness (qualitative) characteristic to it.
  
  Also, I want to point is that the issue is not directly related with the issue if one is physicalist or not. I'm inclined for example towards direct realism and denying such thing as phenomenal experience, but I am not physicalist. I think that "I see an apple" is describing a situation to which one can give further physical predicates, but that "seeing an apple" predicate of a situation is not reducible to the physical predicates. That is, I agree that when we give predicate "I am seeing an apple" to a situation, we can also give predicate "photons are bouncing off off the surface of the apple, getting focused by the lenses of my eyes, fall on the retina, etc..", but I don't think that those predicates are equivalent. So, just wanted to say that one can be direct realist, and not be physicalist.
4. gabe Says:
  
  March 17, 2008 at 8:01 am
  
  Direct realism is presumably just the negation of indirect realism; the thesis that we perceive things such as the tree in virtue of perceiving other things. So direct realism is the thesis that we perceive things such as the tree not in virtue of perceiving anything distinct from them.
  
  I don't think the sense-datum theorist can claim to be a direct realist; the arguments for sense-data usually establish that we perceive sense-data. Also, the term 'sense-data' itself just means 'what is given to the senses'. Representationalism, however, is consistent with direct realism, as one need not see the representations [it may also be consistent with sense-data views: indirect realist sense-data views used to occasionally be called representational views, because the sense-data themselves represents).
  
  A view which does oppose representationalism is naive realism; that construes experience as a relational state; one being in which requires one be related to the elements of the sense that one perceive. Representationalism denies this; representations do not require the existence of what they represent. Is that the dispute you're getting at?
How do I know I'm not a brain in a vat?

Yesterday I read Putnam's own account of his "brain in a vat" thought experiment. His presentation of it is rather sympathetic- the point was to insist that we have no access to a divine perspective by which we can judge our own knowledge. Still, as everyone knows, the power of the brain in the vat argument is not found in the subtle revelations it... [Source: http://thomism.wordpress.com]

Added Feb 29, 2008. Blog this Email this

13 comments in conversation. Last comment found April 14.
Last 5 comments:
1. On February 29, 2008 at 5:21 am the.pilgrim Said:
  
  The point of the BIV argument, as I see it, is not that we should be skeptics because we can't be sure we aren't in a vat. The point is that a person in such a vat would have the same phenomenal experience as us, but wouldn't know anything. It invites the question, what's different about us? Well, we are in a environment which is conducive to the proper function of our belief producing cognitive faculties aimed at the truth. The fellow in the vat isn't in such an environment. So we are furnished with knowledge, while he isn't.
  
  Of course we don't have to know that we are in such an environment to have knowledge. We just have to be in that kind of environment.
2. On February 29, 2008 at 5:28 am Peter Said:
  
  Thomist,
  
  Not only is Descartes' "evil demon" very similar to this, but also the "dream argument."
  
  The aristotelian Peter Simpson wrote an interesting (and short) essay on it in which he draws similar points: "…for what matters here is not the degree of force the argument has but what its structure is meant to be. Descartes clearly intends its structure to be such that it establishes at least the *possibility* of the conclusion, and hence that it *allows one to assume them.*"
  
  It's worth looking at:
  
  http://www.aristotelophile.com/Books/Articles/TheDreamArgumentandDescartesFirstMeditation.pdf
3. On February 29, 2008 at 6:44 am a thomist Said:
  
  Pligrim,
  
  I really like that reading! But again, the BIV argument admits of many different interpretations. The skeptical reading, however, is the first reading that people tend to have, and with good reason. Taken in this way, it is a serious argument that deserves a response, and I haven't seen the response given here anywhere else. After we refute the skeptical take on the argument, we can still use it to show other things, as you do.
4. On February 29, 2008 at 11:32 am the.pilgrim Said:
  
  As I see it, the skeptical reading turns on this: that unless you know you are not a BIV, then you can't know anything via your perceptual faculties.
  
  Of course, I disagree. My response is that what counts is that you are in fact not a BIV, whether or not you know it. That is, I'm an externalist. You don't have to know that you know in order to know.
5. On March 31, 2008 at 7:05 pm Kohl Said:
  
  Please excuse the unacademic presentation of my thoughts on this, Im not very academic in philosophy. More of an art-guy really. And sorry but this goes on for a while.
  
  The only thing I can know to exist is my own mind.
  
  Regardless of the reality I am a part of, all realities necessarily require creatures to have their own private experience. Meaning, the only thing a creature can know to exist is its own mind, whichever postulated universe it is a part of. Therefore, this argument applies to this reality, and any other reality that may be over-arching us if we were BIVs.
  
  The natural way of things, indicates that all other living creatures definately have minds as real as mine. (for example, microcosm, macrocosm…as below, so above…gravity is the most powerful of all forces…)
  
  The BIV hypothesis takes the concept of hypothesised advanced technology, and states that it is 'scientifically possible,' while clumsily avoiding the conceptually larger or 'more potent' issues, that point to the fact that it isn't at all possible.
  
  Although I believe that yes, it is, in a way scientifically possible (in a causally disconnected bubble - the realm of imagination that you mention) to take a brain and manipulate it in a vat to such subtlety and mastery that the world it is in is almost indistinguishable from reality, I would argue on the contrary in terms of this notions practicality, that it is not possible given all other humanistic issues. While a particular scientific theory argues that anything can happen within a long enough period of time, the short existence of the human race, and all sentient races, simply wouldn't be sufficient to realise the BIV system. It would undo the natural law of things if it were true. What im saying, is that being a BIV its possible in its details, but we can realise (even from deductive, sceptical reasoning) that its not possible in the bigger picture. And what is the biggest picture? That everything is unfolding in the way that it should. Why else would you exist in the first place?
  
  The universe is inherently dotted with life, just as it is dotted with matter.
  
  Life conforms to the same principles of matter - paticularly gravity. (see Carl Jungs collective unconcious, it sort of fits in here)
  
  The BIV theory would separate life from matter.
  
  This is impossible.
  
  So bottom line is, claiming that one day science will be able to (or already has managed to) create a BIV system, is like saying 'anything can happen in a long enough period of time…my lifetime is very long, so I must eventually be able to grow my own spiders from my nostrils and shoot them out at things!!
  
  Hope this has made sense
A Random Thought about the Oscars

Filed under: Applied Ethics, Misc BS - Richard Brown @ 1:21 pm So, I was watching the Oscars last night and I was struck by the fact that there is a separate prize for best actor and best actress (in both lead and supporting categories). It seems to me that there is no reason to have separate awards for these, I mean we do not have separate racial ... [Source: http://onemorebrown.wordpress.com]

Added Feb 26, 2008. Blog this Email this
DuckRabbit: Postmodern captain

[Source: http://duckrabbit.blogspot.com]

Added Feb 25, 2008. Blog this Email this

9 comments in conversation. Last comment found April 06.
Last 5 comments:
1. Phritz said...
  
  Ah the secret life of plants! How qualephiliatic. Maybe there's still time for a CPA............
  
  Wed Feb 20, 08:11:00 PM EST
2. Tanasije Gjorgoski said...
  
  Hi Dave,
  
  I may be wrong, but I find the whole issue quite simple, and can't see the problem in saying that we are not thinking only "in" language.
  
  What does it even mean to think in language? That in our minds we juggle words when we are thinking? When while taking long trip, I'm wondering how much more road is there before I get to my destination, and I wish not much as I'm really bored, does it mean that I'm juggling with words 'how', 'much', etc... Or that to wonder that, I have to pronounce the sentence in myself?
  
  I don't see that we are thinking in anything. We are thinking about things. In the situation described, I think about the trip I'm undertaking, about my mental situation, about the time it will take for the trip to finish, and so on. I don't think about language, nor I can see why should we say that we think in language.
  
  Can I become aware of my boredom, only if I have a word for it maybe? How do people even get to name those phenomena, if they don't become aware of them before having words? Do people started feeling bored only once someone invented the word 'boredom'. Did we become aware of rabbits, just only once somebody invented (for no particular reason) the word 'rabbit'?
  
  You get into the discussion of the relation of specific and universal, but while I agree with certain points, I don't see how those points are supposed to defend the position that we think in language.
  
  BTW, I would also distinguish the relation between thinking and language, and thoughts and language. As I said, I don't see any problem in saying that we aren't thinking in language. On contrary.
  
  However as I don't believe there are 'thoughts' literally in our minds, but that those are used to refer to something that we were thinking about, and that we can, or did express in language, I think that the term 'thought' is tightly connected to the notion of language, and that there can't be non-linguistic thoughts.
  
  So, my position - we don't think in language, but there are no non-linguistic thoughts.
  
  Mon Feb 25, 07:48:00 PM EST
3. Duck said...
  
  we don't think in language, but there are no non-linguistic thoughts.
  
  That's what I'm saying (perhaps not clearly enough!). My point was that Stephen starts to say the first thing, but ends up saying the second as well (plus some other stuff too).
  
  How do people even get to name those phenomena, if they don't become aware of them before having words?
  
  Again, I agree with your general point here; still, we must be careful. There's a difference between a linguistic creature not (yet) having a word for something, on the one hand, and a prelinguistic creature on the other, not having words at all. In the terms of your own post, I'm happy to attribute, to prelinguistic infants, (let's call it) awareness of there being distinct items behind a screen; but I feel strange attributing prelinguistic knowledge that [as they will later put it] 1 + 1 = 2.
  
  But quasi-knowers like infants and animals are always hard to talk about.
  
  Tue Feb 26, 03:55:00 PM EST
4. Tanasije Gjorgoski said...
  
  Yeah, I wouldn't claim that infants realize that whenever there are two things, there is one and one more thing.
  
  But that there, in that particular case, they are aware of there being pair qua pair, after seeing one and one more thing being hidden behind the screen. So, I would point to the ability of infants to become aware of a pair qua pair, (and not merely *this one* and *that one* which can't be kept together in thought)
  
  This awareness, in this particular case, I think, is the base of what we express by "whenever there are two things there is one and one more thing".
  
  I don't (going with Berkeley) believe that we get to those kind of general truths by considering abstractions. I think that we see (become aware of) them always in particulars, but ignoring the specific things of those particulars. For example, we won't be able to become aware of the truth of Pythagorean theorem, without becoming aware of the truth in the case of some particular triangle, THOUGH in that awareness we will see that some specific properties of that triangle are not important for the truth, and hence the theorem will hold for any triangle. (Which is exactly how the usual geometrical proofs for Pythagorean theorem go)
  
  That's additional reason why I think that the awareness that infants have in particular case, can be the same one that we express for being true in general case, with one addition - the realization that we can abstract from the type of the things we have in the situation. We as grown up, realize that the type of things is not important, so we come to the more general expression.
  
  Hope I succeeded to make more clear what I was saying in that post.
  
  Wed Feb 27, 05:15:00 AM EST
5. Tanasije Gjorgoski said...
  
  Oops, for any right triangle.
  
  Wed Feb 27, 05:21:00 AM EST
Methods of Projection: Grice and Strawson's "In Defense of a Dogma"

[Source: http://methodsofprojection.blogspot.com]

Added Feb 14, 2008. Blog this Email this
Reductionism or Holism? MU!

This picture was drawn by Douglas Hofstadter for his classic dialogue "Prelude…Ant fugue" in his masterful Godel, Escher, and Bach. In the dialogue he asked a simple, yet highly illuminating question: what does the picture say? On the top level, it says "MU", alluding to the Zen parable of Joshu and the dog. In this parable, a monk asks Joshu "does... [Source: http://philosophyandpsychology.wordpress.com]

Added Feb 14, 2008. Blog this Email this
ScienceDebate '08 (Redux)

Category: Politics Posted on: February 12, 2008 12:54 PM, by Chris Looks like a couple of my fellow SBers have managed to get a date and location for their presidential debate on science, and have invited the candidates (Clinton, Obama, Huckabee, and McCain). I still think this is an absolutely terrible idea on so many levels, but I'm comforted by ... [Source: http://scienceblogs.com]

Added Feb 12, 2008. Blog this Email this

1 2 Older »

Track your comments

Conversations for Tgjorgoski

Last 5 comments:

Last 5 comments:

Last 3 comments:

Last 5 comments:

Last 4 comments:

Last comment:

Last 4 comments:

Last 5 comments:

Last comment:

Last 5 comments:

Last comment:

Last 3 comments:

Last 5 comments:

Last 5 comments:

Last 5 comments:

Last 5 comments:

Last 4 comments:

Last 5 comments:

Last 5 comments: