Philosophical Speculations

OK sorry I probably misunderstood the first time. I don't really follow now either. Does the above mean the question of Ground vs. no Ground is meaningless or that the concept of "no Ground" is meaningless, or something else? Apologies for the delay in responding. I felt it would be wise ...

We have discussed this concept of "no qualia presence" in relation to many different topics on this forum, so I won't rehash all of the philosophical issues for now, but I will just say that this concept should disappear under the weight of the fact that all experience has meaning . When ...

We have discussed this concept of "no qualia presence" in relation to many different topics on this forum, so I won't rehash all of the philosophical issues for now, but I will just say that this concept should disappear under the weight of the fact that all experience has meaning . When w...

I don't know if I would consider him secular. He literally works at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture whose main focus is promoting intelligent design. He also wrote a book that promoted astrology. He's not someone I would use to support the claim of many scientists being naiv...

Honestly I don't know why we have to choose between mental or physical. I've been partial to a neutral monism similar to what Michael Silberstein proposes where the ontological primitive is "presence". He goes into lengths describing what that presence is but I guess I'd describe it as a s...

And then, of course, there is the problem that you point at: how does the brain create this illusion? I don't think there is any scientific theory that can even begin to explain that. It's just a philosophical position, based on an anti-spiritual ideology. It has no base in science, and it radicall...

Friston is a leading contemporary neuroscientist whose free-energy principle is an elegant, empirically-informed model of how the brain works. Huxley was a brilliant author and philosopher but not a neuroscientist. The reducing valve idea is quite nice as a metaphor but I think people take it too l...

I can imagine an idealist world where there is no "free will" so to speak. Either way we're still dealing with causation moving us towards certain things. I'm pretty much agnostic on free will and don't consider it to be a terribly interesting debate. The conclusion I've basicallly come to...

I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language. Werner Heisenberg It's honestly interesting how many o...

I felt JV came across as noncommittal, and if anything more of a dual-aspect monist, or Whiteheadian process leaning, while never pinning down what the ontic fundamental actually is. I'm not sure he is so much ruling out BKs premise, just challenging BK to account for what he perceives to be its ow...