Ha! Indeed, these nesting levels do get fairly obscure.
On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 10:49 AM, John Mikes <jami...@gmail.com> wrote: > Dear Rex, > I tried to paraphrase your next to last par. of this post. > It was: > "As if we could do otherwise. If we assume physicalism, then our > constituent particles are doing all the work. Given the universe's > initial conditions and causal laws (which may be probabilistic), they > could behave other than they do. In this view, the emotion we feel > would seem to be an irrelevant non-causal side-effect at best. Maybe > even an illusion?" I made a typo there that kind of spoiled the point I was trying to make: > Given the universe's > initial conditions and causal laws (which may be probabilistic), they > could behave other than they do. SHOULD HAVE BEEN: > Given the universe's > initial conditions and causal laws (which may be probabilistic), they > could ****NOT**** behave other than they do. Sorry about that! > > In my paraphrasing: > > As if we could think otherwise. If we assume physicalism, then our assumed > constituent particles are assigned to "do all the work". Assuming the > universe's initial conditions and the conventional 'causal' laws (which may > be part of the believe system) they could be assumed to behave other than we > presume 'them' to do. In such view the emotion we feel would seem to be an > irrelevant (non causal? secondary?) side-effect at best. > Maybe even an illusion (if we assign an adequate meaning to this term). > So you've taken my ontological statement and translated it into it's epistemological equivalent? Are you saying that ontological speculation is pointless? If so, I tend to agree. But of course, in unguarded moments we inevitably slip back into ontological speculation anyway. BUT, taking your epistemological equivalent and then adding the belief that ontological speculation is ultimately pointless - and then translating *that* back into ontology gives us Kant's transcendental idealism (or maybe just pure idealism), not physicalism. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
