Things I can write about include updates on my reading of Scaruffi’s, or my television watching, including the latest episode of The Walking Dead, or a couple of movies I’d overdosed myself. The list of movies included at least: In Time, I Am Gabriel, Grabbers, Good Deeds, Fire With Fire (maybe even more! but I think! that that is it!). I plan to just start randomly and without too...
Paul-Henri Thiry (Baron) d’Holbach Read the SEP entry on Holbach, per which I base the following: Biography: This Frenchman (1723-1789) has been categorized as a materialist and atheist, and was known in his time for his “parties” (for want of a word, although they are described in terms of their guests who were famous intellectuals of all sorts). Despite the revolutionary...
Readings in Scaruffi So I’ve been reading the third chapter of Scaruffi’s book on consciousness, concerning (quote-unquote) machine intelligence. More than the previous chapter, I feel like I’m being presented with a list of relevant facts upon which a narrative is being implied but not explicitly argued. Instead of re-stating a summary of the chapter, I’ll attempt a...
Be Normal.
At least to your own values.
Epiphenomenalism: The thorn of dualism is to bridge two things that have been defined in opposition. Recognized approaches towards tackling this gap include interactionism (there is a third thing that unites), supervenience (mind manifests from matter), and epiphenomenalism (mind exists as an effect of matter without being a cause itself). Epiphenomenalism is the least intuitive of this triad, as...
Meta: I have written about epiphenomenalism on the 28-29th October, and will continue to do so here in parallel with my reading of the IEP article on the subject (beginning at section 4 therein). The 18-19th centuries assumed dualism and scientific naturalism, but given the observation that there was no need (for instance) to postulate the mental in order to explain neurophysiology (i.e. material...
Epiphenomenalism[I] is a brand of dualism in which mind and matter are two different manifestations of existence, but holding mind to be ontologically inferior to matter, and there is some form of logical flow – not necessarily causality per se – from matter to mind. The term as used in the late 19th century provides another analogy through its definition: a secondary symptom of a...
The following is inspired by my notes beginning in chapter 2 of Scaruffi’s book. In the tradition of philosophy, there have been different attitudes and relations to the issue of consciousness. For the most part, consciousness was something incorporated into the architectonic of a particular philosopher; this allows for an impressive array of contexts and perspectives. For instance, there...
The first question is, “What is the mind”. I agree with Socrates that to begin we need to understand the question. “Mind” is a loose term that includes different phenomenon that are (seemingly) associated. I am not discarding this paltry scrapheap of words because at least it includes a reasonable philosophical strategy, and that is in itself worthy of further application...
Time and space are the changing acting on the unchanging
(I wonder if this is the difference between mind and matter).
