General Philosophy

A couple of recent threads, I've commented in, suggests the answer to this question is not obvious, so Let's discuss...

I searched everywhere on the Internet but couldn't find a conclusive answer. My question is: Do mathematical entities (like numbers or probability distributions for example) really exist in the universe or are mathematical entities just a human invention? In other words, is mathematics really out there in the universe or is mathematics just a tool that humans invented in order to describe the universe?

There have been a couple good threads recently which deal with awareness and consciousness which has gotten me thinking a bit about the function of consciousness and what it actually does and doesn't do. I consciously reason and make choices in life but only after I have unconciously interpreted things. I know instantaneously without any thought what I do and don't want or how I feel about everything. My consciousness chooses an action but the action chosen seldom ever changes what I want or feel. Simply examples of this happen all day everyday. While walking down the street I see a jacket in a store window and immediately am aware that I want it. The desire to have i…

Little Johnny's Mother told him that it was bad to tell a lie -- that it was wrong. Little Sarah's Mother told her that it was bad to tell a lie -- that it was wrong. As they grew, Johnny and Sarah learned that sometimes it is good and right to tell a lie, because the truth could hurt people. These are called "little white lies". When they matured, they learned that some bad and wrong things can be good and right. Like killing people is bad, except when it isn't and you get a medal for it. Fighting is bad, except when you have to. And stealing from people is wrong and bad, except when you call it taxes, or maybe insurance, or maybe even stocks. So in my opi…

I agree.

In numerous threads ranging from ethics regarding animal treatment to religion and general philisophy discussions about the mind I seeing what appears to be a fairly popular position repeated that animals other than humans operate on instinct alone rather than conscious thought. That even when a domesticated animal apears sentient it is just imitation or a trick of our own human projection. If animals truly operate without consciousness how does their behavior come to be and evolve? To me the implication of a purely instinctive mind vaguely implies all animals are programmed. If true what is responsible for determining that program some sort of natural god proxy; it seems…

Of course, here I must chime in... The definition of free will you use here implies that 'consciousness' must have the lead, if it is supposed to be genuine free will. But that is a definition that stems from (bad...) Christian theology. Most modern concepts of free will got rid of this inheritance, but obviously neurologists still haven't noticed. 'Free will' means that somebody recognises that he can act according his own reasons, and is not forced to go against them by somebody else. But 'according to' does not mean 'caused by'. You are (unconsciously?) using following argumentative strategy: Use a single, and outdated, heavily metaphysically loaden con…

I have noticed in discussions of theories and God, that there is a reluctance to give the holder of the theory, if it is not "us" holding the theory, the benefit of the doubt. The tendency to put the same idea in a good light when described concerning the first person, a neutral light concerning the second person, and a negative light with the third person, seems evident, and probably has some basis, in terms of how we are "set up" as humans. I am thinking it may have to do with what rules "we" go by. The topic title was written by TAR2 (me), who is an Atheist. The order of Reality,Theory,God might be God, Reality, Theory to a Theist, or Theory, Reality, G…

We can't actually see light, but to understand this, you need to understand the subjective human experience of vision. Physics tries to seperate from subjective experiences, so to physics, detection of light is seeing. Neurologically however, detecting light is merely one aspect of the visual process which results in seeing. When our eyes detect light, they send electrochemical impulses to our brains visual cortex. Here our brain creates visual representations of the objects from which the light originates. So we don't see an actual object. We see our brains representation of the object. We definitely don't see light. Light is a noumenal phenomenon. Brightness, colours an…

I'm always trying to reconcile consciousness and physics. This is a thought experiment that scrutinises the relationship between our experience of the universe and the idea that consciousness is just neurons firing in a predicatable way due to their position in space (and their connection to each other). Disclaimer: I don't know if this is an old thought experiment or if it just sounds naive and stupid, I am here to discuss the idea and make some progress with what to me seems like a bit of a conundrum. Imagine we create a replicator. With the recent advances of 3D printing it's not completely implausable to think that we might one day have a device that could sca…

(This is going to be rambly, i have always had a hard time putting my thoughts down in a concise manner and i apologize in advance) For the longest time all ive cared about is the truth, and no matter what i cannot lie to myself as it is impossible for me to do so. I am not sure if this is a flaw or an attribute, but it has shaped the way i am today for better or worse. Everything i do focuses on truth, i get super upset with people when they get even the smallest things wrong, but here i would like to focus on the truth of our universe and how it (and we) came to be. Like many i have always had the big questions like why are we here, how did the universe come to be,…

Every physical entity present a certain level of information. Information exist beyond the observable physical reality (metaphysical values as consciousness, intelligence, knowledge, personality etc) Does/should physical descriptions count with the presence of information? Can/should we count information as physical entity?

Do you guys believe that if everyone goes Vegan or Vegetarian that world hunger can be solved? I read a lot of articles online saying that the grain that animals in factory farms eat can be fed to starving children across the globe instead. But what is happening is we are taking harvest and feeding it to pigs, cows and chickens so that the rich people can have their bacon and steak. To be honest, this makes me feel bad about eating meat. Sometimes, I just wish I am blinded from the truth so I can eat and just enjoy my food with no guilt.

Okay, so I’m new here. Hi everyone. So I’m not sure why this is affecting me this severely, but I recently discovered the whole “free will vs. determinism” question, and I’ve realized quickly that I should’ve never been introduced to this idea, because I’m finding it almost impossible to deal with the notion of not having free will. It has sent my mind into this state of extreme shock, agony, and despair that almost seems insurmountable. It’s like my whole world and everything I believed has been flipped on its head. I’m serious in saying that this has sent me into a straight panic and shock. I feel like I’m having this nervous breakdown. It’s an overwhelming feeling…

Einstein supposedly said this. What do you think about this statement? I don't think it makes much sense. 'religion' should be replaced with 'philosophy'.

I'm testing my first poll today. I've scanned for similar topics but wasn't able to find collocations "good philosophy" or "bad philosophy". Especially if your option is the third one, I'm very interested in your criteria, exceptions, and so on. Thank you very much.

all copy pasted from here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

I just came from the chat room with an attempt to get people to exchange thoughts with me about God as the first cause; then suddenly my words did not come out anymore, and I tried to post the same words again, and they did not come out anymore -- and I could not send anymore words for they don't appear anymore in the chat room when I press 'Enter'. So I left the chat room, feeling that perhaps there is some trouble or the chat room of sfn does not allow my kind of thoughts to come out, namely about God as the first cause of everything in the universe that is not God Himself. I am now here in the general philosophy board, and I hope that it is all right to start a…

Maybe somebody could explain this to me; I read somewhere that the generally accepted opposite of the emotion 'love' is 'indifference', But this makes absolutely no sense to me. To me, the clear-cut opposite of love is hate. And that makes perfect sense. Indifference cannot be the opposite of love because indifference by definition means that you don't feel anything for the person, you neither love nor hate the person. This means that in effect, indifference is simply the lack of both love and hate. A simple analogy would be to let the number 1 represent love; this means that if you take away the emotion, you're left with indifference, which would be represented b…

There is, in my estimation a requirement that one holds reality in an imaginary model of it, that one then compares against the input of the senses to judge change. In this internalization process the model is judged against the model and an analogous version of the universe is judged against an analogous version of the universe. The space in the brain, and the time it takes signals to reach from one area to another, allow for the a priori understanding of space and time. Comparisons and analogies are built up from these already understood concepts, and from the synthesis of various thusly built up understandings, one can visualize and comprehend the table of judgm…

Just saw this article posted in a Facebook philosophy group I'm a member of, and I wanted some feedback on it from more thoughtful atheists. This seems to be the place for that, so here goes. https://rightsmarts.com/atheism/ A strong case is made that atheism is dead as an intellectual endeavor, with some bold claims about science. A few brief claims: Science has shown the universe is designed. Science has shown life is designed. Abstract concepts like logic, morality, and mathematics has shown that there's more to existence than the physical. God believers built science. There's a lot more, but those are some of the bolder claims off th…

Science and Objectivity Note: I have consulted forum guidelines and believe the following to be compliant! ____________________________________________________________________________________ Does true objectivity exist in science? Apparently, the pure form of it does not, certainly not in the form of 2+2=4 as would some have us believe. I have tried to be as objective as possible on this topic by consulting many references on the matter. To my surprise, none seem to claim that “view from nowhere” objectivity truly exists. Even in physics, it is not pure. But, is objectivity sufficiently objective to give us a general appreciation of reality, m…

Consciousness Always Exists Part I: Let us consider the following statements: A. No situation exists. B. Statement A is true. C. A situation exists in which statement B is true. D. A situation exists.(1) E. Consciousness exists. F. Statement A can never be true. *** I claim that statement F is true. *** Proof: If A is true, B is true. If B is true, C is true.(2) If C is true, D is true. If D is true, A is false. Therefore, if A is true, A is false! (Contradiction!) Clearly, A can never be true.(3) Since A can never be true, it follows that F is true. *** If A is never true, A is a…

Greetings all, My intention here is to challenge the celebration currently under way in regards to the discovery of the Higgs Boson. Although I'm using the Higgs as an example case, my purpose really is to ask larger questions about our relationship with knowledge. I hope you might find these questions interesting and engage them, whatever your position. The global celebration of the Higgs discovery, and the seeming lack of a counter view, seems to shine a light on a culture wide consensus that more knowledge is better, almost no matter what, even if the knowledge was very expensive to obtain, and seems to have little defined benefit. I propo…

I just came across the following intriguing passage in Elliott Sober's "The Nature of Selection" (page 175): The first claim -- "the theory [of natural selection] makes the existence of imperfect, though serviceable, adaptations comprehensible" -- seems perfectly sensible to me. The second -- "the doctrine of special, divine creation does not [make the existence of imperfect, though serviceable, adaptations comprehensible]" -- is less obviously tenable. But first a parable... The Chinese word for contradiction or paradox is mao-dun (矛盾). The former character (矛 - "mao") means spear; the latter (盾 - "dun") means shield. The story goe…