Philosophy Now Forum

So you have found yourself at Stalingrad when the Nazis are bombing and invading the city. The morning has been mostly quiet, until a large explosion suddenly goes off nearby. The lieutenant in your company grabs your shirt by the collar and yells into your face: "They are hitting us with artillery! GET BEHIND THAT WALL OR YOU WILL BE TORN TO SHREDS!"

Fortunately, you are a philosopher. Your education affords you many options here that are not available to most people.

What would you do next?

1. Take cover behind the concrete wall.
2. Declare that your body is not composed of mere molecules, and that anyone who claims that is just engaging in silly "Reductivist Scientism".
3. Remind the Lieutenant that he "cannot explain quantum mechanics". Then stand there with a smug smile on your face.
4. Say that David Chalmers showed that your consciousness cannot be reduced to mere brain functions. Then question the Lieutenant's education level.

Kuznetzova wrote:So you have found yourself at Stalingrad when the Nazis are bombing and invading the city. The morning has been mostly quiet, until a large explosion suddenly goes off nearby. The lieutenant in your company grabs your shirt by the collar and yells into your face: "They are hitting us with artillery! GET BEHIND THAT WALL OR YOU WILL BE TORN TO SHREDS!"

Fortunately, you are a philosopher. Your education affords you many options here that are not available to most people.

What would you do next?

1. Take cover behind the concrete wall.
2. Declare that your body is not composed of mere molecules, and that anyone who claims that is just engaging in silly "Reductivist Scientism".
3. Remind the Lieutenant that he "cannot explain quantum mechanics". Then stand there with a smug smile on your face.
4. Say that David Chalmers showed that your consciousness cannot be reduced to mere brain functions. Then question the Lieutenant's education level.

There are no atheists in foxholes when under attack.

HA!

In the context of K's (questionable) question, your post, G, makes no freakin' sense.

Ginkgo.

There are academic philosophers swimming around this forum. They have not responded to this thread. I believe I may have stumped them.

Kuznetzova wrote:Ginkgo.

There are academic philosophers swimming around this forum. They have not responded to this thread. I believe I may have stumped them.

But, you only just posted it. There have only been two responses.

"There have only been two responses."

There were more....a whack of 'em have been deleted.

-----

Oops! My mistake...there've been no deletions...I was a'thinkin' on another thread.

henry quirk wrote:HA!

In the context of K's (questionable) question, your post, G, makes no freakin' sense.

As K says, my education offers me many options. If this is the case then my response to K's question is not limited to the options he provides. My options are far more broad than that. K's is a loaded question. I am not going to answer a loaded question by choosing a,b,c,or d. I don't think anyone should.

HA!

K's question is to poke fun at academics.

You've made yourself the butt of his joke.

Kuznetzova wrote:Ginkgo.
There are academic philosophers swimming around this forum. They have not responded to this thread. I believe I may have stumped them.

More likely your post is so inconsequential, they just don't care what a ped. posts.

You really have an ego problem, in that you think that just because you post something everyone is going to rush to respond. As far as your OP, there's nothing of substance.

henry quirk wrote:HA!

K's question is to poke fun at academics.

You've made yourself the butt of his joke.

This will remain to be seen. K has started a number of threads on a similar theme. I have responded to all of his threads with an explanation as to why physicalism is not the complete picture. K has not responded to any of my comments, except to start a new thread on the same topic. You seem rather keen to discredit me so early on.

Let us wait and see if K is going to develop a response to my postings before we jump to any conclusions.

Yes. Ginkgo posted a few irrelevant sentences in recent threads I started. In one of them he apparently was contending that disembodied Cartesian mind-substances are MORE REASONABLE because of some squirrely point he was attempting to make about quantum mechanics.

Here is the actual post:

I don't think we can reject quantum mechanics as nothing compared to something. I think quantum mechanics has a lot to say about the nature of consciousness in general.

However, if we want to view the "thing-in-itself" in quantum terms then things that exist within themselves can only be reconciled and recorded if there is a conscious mind to make the observations. From the "thing-in-itself" to "things-for-us," If there is no conscious mind then there is only mathematical probability that exists as a set of equations waiting for an observer to discover in terms of causing an event to happen.

Again. There was a clear, coherent question in that thread. "Which one of these scenarios is more reasonable?" Ginkgo did not commit to an answer. The same way he refuses to commit to answering the question in this thread.



So we basically know now, without a shadow of a doubt, that Ginkgo is the local Quantum-Consciousness-Mystic on this forum. He is indicted himself as a woo-woo peddler and now he has even pronounced himself as one:

I have responded to all of his threads with an explanation as to why physicalism is not the complete picture.

I think quantum mechanics has a lot to say about the nature of consciousness in general.

He won't answer the question because deep down he knows that artillery shells would tear his body into pieces. He would be wetting himself to get behind that concrete wall. He cannot openly admit to this--- because then he would have to admit his body is made out molecules. And that cannot be said by him because it would upset his woo-woo peddling. He needs to play his rhetorical run-around game instead. Meaning his implied answer is (D). He would stand there and give a lecture about dualism in David Chalmers. Then he would deride his lieutenant for "not developing a response to my postings".

nuke Berlin

-Imp

Kuznetzova wrote:Yes. Ginkgo posted a few irrelevant sentences in recent threads I started. In one of them he apparently was contending that disembodied Cartesian mind-substances are MORE REASONABLE because of some squirrely point he was attempting to make about quantum mechanics.

Here is the actual post:

I don't think we can reject quantum mechanics as nothing compared to something. I think quantum mechanics has a lot to say about the nature of consciousness in general.

However, if we want to view the "thing-in-itself" in quantum terms then things that exist within themselves can only be reconciled and recorded if there is a conscious mind to make the observations. From the "thing-in-itself" to "things-for-us," If there is no conscious mind then there is only mathematical probability that exists as a set of equations waiting for an observer to discover in terms of causing an event to happen.

Again. There was a clear, coherent question in that thread. "Which one of these scenarios is more reasonable?" Ginkgo did not commit to an answer. The same way he refuses to commit to answering the question in this thread.



So we basically know now, without a shadow of a doubt, that Ginkgo is the local Quantum-Consciousness-Mystic on this forum. He is indicted himself as a woo-woo peddler and now he has even pronounced himself as one:

I have responded to all of his threads with an explanation as to why physicalism is not the complete picture.

I think quantum mechanics has a lot to say about the nature of consciousness in general.

He won't answer the question because deep down he knows that artillery shells would tear his body into pieces. He would be wetting himself to get behind that concrete wall. He cannot openly admit to this--- because then he would have to admit his body is made out molecules. And that cannot be said by him because it would upset his woo-woo peddling. He needs to play his rhetorical run-around game instead. Meaning his implied answer is (D). He would stand there and give a lecture about dualism in David Chalmers. Then he would deride his lieutenant for "not developing a response to my postings".

You have proposed a fallacy in the form of a loaded question. In other words, you are soliciting replies to fit your agenda. If you framed the question in a suitable manner then I would attempt to answer it. I don't answer loaded question, nor do I pose any.

Yes, I make no bones about it. I am a woo-woo peddler at the moment. Quantum woo-woo to be exact. I don't see a problem with that in a philosophical forum. I don't think this is strictly a classical science forum. Do you?

This would also explain why so many college students find it hard to get a job these days!

To answer the thead start - the only reason I can see NOT to jump behind the concrete wall (which I probably would do, I don't know how I would react after 6 months in a warzone) is just the picture you seem to sketch up. We are all just little robots trying to survive as good as we can, just going about until death exterminates us all. Why not get it done with, as Gary Gilmore said.