tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post4460085482360954958..comments2024-02-29T03:34:23.190-05:00Comments on Who Were the Sea Peoples?: The Grey Lady Grows Senilegcallahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10065877215969589482noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-1046746208559677882014-10-26T11:23:04.774-04:002014-10-26T11:23:04.774-04:00There is a splinter of fact in the petrified fores...There is a splinter of fact in the petrified forest of nonsense, in that we don't necessarily see an object's true color, but a reflection of light on a surface that is interpreted by our eyes as a certain type of color. That's amusing fodder for dorm room BS sessions, but hardly the basis for a rational philosophy.<br /><br />Because if we are being tricked by our brains into perceiving something as true when it is, in fact, not, then that mechanism is one of the most perfect in existence. Imagine a world in which gravity is an illusion, yet works perfectly. Where physics is an illusion, yet we can build rockets that can carry astronauts to what we think of as "the moon." Create drugs that consistently react to our bodies to relieve headaches and diseases. And color the sky to a range of hues that do not shock us with unfortunate color combinations. We who number in the trillions throughout the whole of recorded history, have not seen one instance of inconsistency. And yet, it's all an illusion, processed through billions of, for lack of anything else to call it, minds.<br /><br />Wow.Bill Peschelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15257587479467531187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-5163399918872879422014-10-18T23:04:05.223-04:002014-10-18T23:04:05.223-04:00The two seem to go hand in hand.The two seem to go hand in hand.Samson Corwellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10148822362930969284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-54564496686035084272014-10-17T14:28:00.143-04:002014-10-17T14:28:00.143-04:00This isn't about the thread but I wanted to dr...This isn't about the thread but I wanted to drop it somewhere you and the readers here can see it, and savor it. Where better than a post on gibberish?<br /><br />http://cafehayek.com/2014/10/quotation-of-the-day-1144.html<br /><br />Doesn't this imply Wat Tyler should have loved his liege lord? <br />Ken Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08207803092348071005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-49548918665731410362014-10-16T09:53:27.206-04:002014-10-16T09:53:27.206-04:00It's hard to tell from an excerpt, especially ...It's hard to tell from an excerpt, especially a convoluted one, but I think I see the point he aiming at. There is some evidence that the conscious awareness of events sometimes happens measurably later than the event which stimulates it. This really isn't surprising. Of course it takes time for nerve signals to get to the brain and then be processed. (And so sometimes we can sense events in the wrong order even.) So it seems that sometimes when we introspect we do indeed get time sequences wrong. A classic example is pulling your hand off a hot plate. So maybe indeed we do confabulate ex post explanations. So indeed introspection can make errors about surprising things like that. Good to know. But he leaps from that to something wild, or seems to. Or perhaps the emphasis should be "on the way we think we do". Hard to tell since, as you say, his elaboration is hand waving. Ken Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08207803092348071005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-85910811412319622392014-10-14T21:33:20.282-04:002014-10-14T21:33:20.282-04:00Gene and Josiah, I like you guys so much better wh...Gene and Josiah, I like you guys so much better when you're bashing materialism rather than anarchism.Bob Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04001108408649311528noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-37921153082602697642014-10-14T21:27:36.997-04:002014-10-14T21:27:36.997-04:00"The brain has arrived at a conclusion that i...<i>"The brain has arrived at a conclusion that is not correct. When we introspect and seem to find that ghostly thing — awareness, consciousness, the way green looks or pain feels — our cognitive machinery is accessing internal models and those models are providing information that is wrong. ["Providing it" to whom?] The machinery is computing an elaborate story about a magical-seeming property. [Who is being told this "story"?] And there is no way for the brain to determine through introspection that the story is wrong, because introspection always accesses the same incorrect information."</i><br /><br />If you can't dazzle them brilliance, then baffle them with bullshit, maybe.Samson Corwellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10148822362930969284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-12707577515330012242014-10-14T21:18:29.342-04:002014-10-14T21:18:29.342-04:00"This was a dive from middlebrow tedium into ..."This was a dive from middlebrow tedium into the utter depths of stupidity!"<br /><br />I got a good laugh from this. I'd normally say "heights of stupidity", though. I wonder which one is more common.<br /><br />"The basic problem Graziano hasn't faced up to is this: if I can be mistaken about the fact that I feel an itch right at this moment, then there is nothing whatsoever that I can't be mistaken about, including every single observation upon which all of science is based."<br /><br />I think I get you here. Since thought is experience, then there is no way you could not be experiencing what you think…I think. Did I get that right?Samson Corwellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10148822362930969284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-24938337379555379732014-10-14T18:09:06.907-04:002014-10-14T18:09:06.907-04:00I'd just assumed that column was written by a ...I'd just assumed that column was written by a computer program. The alternative was too horrifying to contemplate. Josiah Neeleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04408537831149151396noreply@blogger.com