Concerning reductionism, Fodor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Fodor) offers an argument called Special Sciences (http://www.uab.edu/philosophy/faculty/ross/PHL%20470%20FODOR.htm) which suggests that each science (eg. physics, chemistry, biology, psychology) is an investigation of certain features of reality which have merit and and of themselves. Analogously, on the question of 'what a tree is', I could have a 'science' of color and a science of texture, and even though the latter is universal to the tree (as physics is to reality), it does not mean that the former is reducible to the latter.
Concerning cosmology, I'm sympathetic to the sorts of radical monistic/holistic theories which seem to begin with Parmenides (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmenides).
Then, I see 'special sciences' as but different investigations by the mind into the holism, and do not grant physicalism any special status among them.
"Chalmers appears to be a proponent of Strong AI..."
Yeah, I part ways with him here as well. Although I agree with him that Orch-OR don't address the hard problem of qualia; but, like you suggested, this doesn't mean it's a fruitless area of research.
"Yes, unfortunately when we make distinctions using language, the human mind tends to..."
Bohm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm) invented a language structure called rheomode (http://130.192.70.9/files/research/exystence/brain/stamenov.pdf) to address this... I understand he had some school classes actually speaking it, and later discovered it had some similarity to certain aboriginal languages.
"Some of the Gnostics were definitely dualists..."
Yeah... I'm learning also that there are added complications in terms of sorting out monist/dualist cosmology versus monist/dualist soteriology, and so on.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2004-06-29 04:51 pm (UTC)Concerning cosmology, I'm sympathetic to the sorts of radical monistic/holistic theories which seem to begin with Parmenides (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmenides).
Then, I see 'special sciences' as but different investigations by the mind into the holism, and do not grant physicalism any special status among them.
"Chalmers appears to be a proponent of Strong AI..."
Yeah, I part ways with him here as well. Although I agree with him that Orch-OR don't address the hard problem of qualia; but, like you suggested, this doesn't mean it's a fruitless area of research.
"Yes, unfortunately when we make distinctions using language, the human mind tends to..."
Bohm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm) invented a language structure called rheomode (http://130.192.70.9/files/research/exystence/brain/stamenov.pdf) to address this... I understand he had some school classes actually speaking it, and later discovered it had some similarity to certain aboriginal languages.
"Some of the Gnostics were definitely dualists..."
Yeah... I'm learning also that there are added complications in terms of sorting out monist/dualist cosmology versus monist/dualist soteriology, and so on.