Philosophy of Science Thread
Wittgenstein Thread
AI and robots
Metaphor (see Tree of Knowledge [#182] and Dog [#185], #203, #233 in the Wittgenstein thread)
see #309-#339 dealing with metaphor in the Wittgenstein threadThe human mind as a machine (see origins of this in Metaphor)
#439 Re: All is Metaphor (Bill Doxey) "Thing in itself" doesn't register with me
#360 mind, machines, design, souls II (Schmidt) Another meaning of the word "design"#356 Re: Human mind as machine (Saicho) "machines always less smart than their designers?"
#367 Re: mind, machines, design, souls II (Angie) "currently acceptable definition of 'machine'?"
#370 J.R. Lucas, Hofstadter, Dennett (Schmidt) Turing + problem of defining "machine"
#380 Re: J.R. Lucas, Hofstadter, Dennett (Angie) criticisms on Lucas' argument
#386 Re: mind, machines, design, souls II (Robert Parr) Godel's Theorem in Focus, S.G. Shanker, editor
#392 Re: mind, machines, design, souls II (Angie) "That's one I haven't looked at yet"
#361 mind, machines, design, souls III (Schmidt) at the molecular level, the human brain is a "logical device"#358 Re: Human mind as machine (Saicho) "Dividing the mind into empathetic and sympathetic [see #357] compartments of activity is a western concept"
#363 mind, machines, design, souls IV (Schmidt) robots will need something to provide them with "motivation", the functional equivalents of pain and pleasure.#359 mind, machines, design, souls (Schmidt) "robots will take charge of their own future development"
#368 RE: Design (Mark Brown) the goal for life -- to keep on livingPlato rears his ugly head
#369 The Puppet Talks Back (Schmidt) "Organization without a plan is offensive to the sensibilities of left-brain dominated philosophers, but it is how the universe works."
#371 Talking Back to the Puppet (Mark Brown) Organization...is inherent to the evolutionary process.
#388 Re: Talking Back to the Puppet (Robert Parr) information, exformation, consciousness
#394 Information and Organization "Tor Norretranders seems to follow the physics of Freud"
#406 Re: Information and Organization (Robert Parr) No (to #394), to talk of Freudian physics is to denigrate the book
#420 On Freud (JMC) "rather than metaphor, Freud constructs the realm of the symbolic"
#421 Re: Information and Organization (JMC) Meaning is a function of complexity?
#426 Re: Information and Organization (Charles Hobbs) this kind of model is often referred to as the Shannon/Wiener theory
#431 Re: On Freud (Robert Parr) "I've found a world of clarity and humanity in Wittgenstein and I won't be going back to Freud, except perhaps to note to Platonic dualisms that I suspect are there."
#437 Re: On Freud (Schmidt) Freud, metaphor, Wittgenstein, PHILOSOPHY IN THE FLESHReturn to the Wittgenstein Thread with: #438 magic decoder ring
#468 Re: On Freud (Robert Parr) I prefer the neuroscience of William H. Calvin......
you seem to want to read Wittgenstein as much as I want to read HegelFollow below in the Philosophy of Mind Thread with: #489
#434 Re: Information and Organization (Robert Parr) Meaning is a function of complexity.
#441 one more lash of the whip (Schmidt) My favorite book about this topic is The Origins of Order by Stuart Kauffman
#448 Am Freud(e) (JMC) it [is] interesting to see how models--system theories if you will--play themselves out historically
#479 Re: Am Freud(e) (Robert Parr) Freud as science? I remain a (healthy) skeptic.
#455 Re: One Idea, Fifeteen Minutes of Fame (Bill Doxey) why do humans experience boredom?
#458 Re: One Idea, Fifeteen Minutes of Fame (Charles Hobbs) humans experience boredom because they choose it
#459 Re: One Idea, Fifeteen Minutes of Fame (Saicho) there exists no compelling need or desire to do anything.
#461 the evolution of boredom (Schmidt)
#470 Boredom Because They Choose It (JMC) "Out of boredom, a compelling senselessness, a sense of
compulsion--what Poe calls the spirit of perversity."
#482 Re: One Idea, Fifeteen Minutes of Fame (Robert Parr) required for life: stimulation
#488 Territorial Imperative (JMC) Are you referring to the ideas in the book THE NAKED APE by Morris?
#511 Re: Territorial Imperative (Robert Parr) No, but he was a contemporary
#375 The Dead Hand of Plato (Schmidt) anti-Platonic efforts of Ernst Mayr and Antonio Damasio. Who [else has] worked to counter the Dead Hand of Plato?#373 Re: bunch of stuff about minds, etc. (Saicho) reductionism, human characteristics, teleology, pragmatism, subjectivity/objectivity
#378 Re: Human mind as machine (Saicho) "our deepest understanding is actually non-rational"
#381 Re: The Dead Hand of Plato (Traxler) I found the most fascinating treatment of this subject in the book "A History of God."
Wittgenstein vs. Plato
#401 Re: The Dead Hand of Plato (Robert Parr) "Wittgenstein cut Plato off at the knees"
science/religion off-shoot
#384 Re: The Dead Hand of Plato (Saicho) "What is the face of the science-god?"
#390 looking for answers (Schmidt) Carl Sagan and the struggle between rationality and revelation
#395 Re: looking for answers (Saicho) rational awareness of natural laws... this too is faith.
#396 Re: looking for answers (Traxler) defining the spheres within which science and spirituality operate
#397 Re: looking for answers (Saicho) somewhere down the road [science and spirituality] will merge
#398 Re: looking for answers (Traxler) I'm a bit wary of merging science and spirituality
#399 Re: looking for answers (Saicho) "somewhere in the psyche of the scientist -- the drive for understanding the world is really the search for the first cause."
#402 A Speculation on Picture Religion (JMC) "science and religion compete for the authority to represent the truth."
#405 Re: looking for answers:To Saicho and Traxler (Robert Parr) What is Faith, by Anthony Kenny
#407 Re: looking for answers: To Saicho and Traxler (Dawn Williams) more Anthony Kenny
#408 dealing with "the facts" (Schmidt) E. O. Wilson has handed us a road map to the continuing battle between science and religion
#409 Re: dealing with "the facts" (Saicho) "science and religion....are attempts to understand the world"
#410 Re: The Dead Hand of Plato (Mark Brown) without the control of religion, will everyone continue to show up for work Monday morning?
#415 Re: looking for answers:To Saicho and Traxler (Traxler) if there is one drop of truth to what the world religions are saying about existence, I don't want my nose to be so far up in the air that I miss it.
#423 On Faith - was: looking for answers (David Cloutman) "everything we believe as truth ultimately reduces to faith"
#424 to split or to lump? (Schmidt) "what is the point in saying that Boeing is building airplane 35,934 on 'faith' that Bernouli's Principle is true?
#427 Re: On Faith - was: looking for answers (Charles Hobbs) "to have 'faith' to have something be true for you" James in THE WILL TO BELIEVE
#432 Re: looking for answers:To Saicho and Traxler (Robert Parr) "we can't take the future existence of a pluralistic society for granted"
#435 Re: looking for answers: To Saicho and Traxler (Robert Parr) A Brief History of Western Philosophy
#447 Re: On Faith - was: looking for answers:To Saicho (Robert Parr) Kenny: "The special nature of belief that is faith is that it is a belief in something revealed by GodReturn to the Wittgenstein Thread with: #464 and meta-language
#451 on the meaning of 'belief' (Christopher Furlong) what is involved is the assent to the truth of a proposition
#480 Re: on the meaning of 'belief' (Robert Parr) the giving of credentials in the process of justifying claims to knowledge
#374 Re: bunch of stuff about minds, etc. (Mark Brown) teleology, subjectivity/objectivitysubjectivity/objectivity discussion
#376 logic in the mother load (Schmidt) "logical components can organize to produce unpredictable behavior, unpredictable components can also organize to produce logical behavior"
#377 Re: logic in the mother load (Saicho) free will..... I'd like to see a definition of it.
#379 Re: Objective/subjective (Saicho) "the human mind is an integral part of whatever the outcome [of an experiment] is."
#382 Re: Human mind as machine (Sueko Sakai) "I'm trying to get at Keyes' notion of cosmic consciousness"
#383 pragmatism v. romanticism (Mark Brown) "Some would say realism/idealism."
#385 Re: Human mind as machine (Saicho) comments on the mindfulness practice in Buddhism
#389 A Robot Ontology (JMC) teleology and Popper
#391 Re: A Robot Ontology (Saicho) Popper on the topic of design
#393 Poe (JMC) someone who combines both Romanticism and Pragmatism
#400 Re: logic in the mother load (Robert Parr) two kinds of motives: in-order-to motives and because motives
#403 Teleology, Natural Selection, and Popper (JMC) Popper, as an indeterminist, believes that to have free choice, selection itself cannot be strictly random though the choices it involves can be.
#418 Re: Several topics (Saicho) Popper, determinism, consciousness, order/disorder, repeatability
#422 Popper Stopper (JMC) your thinking in relationship to his On the repeatability of experience, Henri Bergson is fascinating.
#429 Re: Popper Stopper (Saicho) the similarity of my method to that of Heidegger?
#430 Popper Stopper and Heidegger (JMC) "Heidegger places Dasein (being there) at the center"
#436 Re: Popper Stopper and Heidegger (Saicho) "I do not agree with some of what he says regarding language"
Follow #437 back to the Wittgenstein Thread
#449 The Funny Thing About the "Letter on Humanism" (JMC) watching Heidegger attempt a conversation
#477 Being There (JMC) Heidegger creates his language in order to make you read/understand in a certain way.
#493 Re: Being There (Saicho) how limiting the traditional concept of humanism really is
#413 repeatability, objectivity, progress (Schmidt) I am usually less impressed by repeatability than I am by results that can be reached by several independent approaches.More on brain/mind from the Wittgenstein Thread.
#416 Re: repeatability, objectivity, progress (Traxler) If that meaning is anywhere, its within ourselves, and is that place, that crucially important place, not a place beyond the limits of scientific inquiry?
#417 repeatability vs. spritual experience (Schmidt) There can be a science of spiritual experiences.