A priori synthetic statements

[Kevin_Lowe]

I have already provided my proof.

a) Consciousness is utterly characteristically different from any other physical thing (you saying that my avatar appears to be different from 0's and 1's too, I just refuted).

You did no such thing. Denial is not refutation. Just because you happen to think that consciousness is utterly characteristically different from any other physical thing it does not follow that it is.

b) Consciousness cannot possibly be accommodated by any scientific theory because science only deals with the causes and effects which is not what consciousness is.

Transparent question-begging. You are assuming what you need to prove about the nature of consciousness.

He has?

Yes.

 

[Interesting Ian]

I think it may well turn out in the future that blueness will be physically defineable in terms of how the brain encodes and decodes it, just as the way a computer encodes and decodes colour now is physically defineable.
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II
The word colour here shifts in its meaning. In your second use of the word you're referring to the physical events in the external world which eventually enables us to see a colour. In the 1st instance you're talking about actual colour (eg blueness as in a quale).

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That's only a problem if you can demonstrate that a quale is not, when you get right down to it, a physical event in the brain. You keep begging the same damn question, Ian.

If you assume it's a physical event in the brain at the outset, then obviously it may well turn out in the future that blueness will be physically defineable in terms of how the brain encodes and decodes it!

It is not me begging the question, it is you. If you take as a premise materialism is correct, then nothing at all follows from this. Least of all does it get to grips with my refutation!

 

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
I have already provided my proof.

a) Consciousness is utterly characteristically different from any other physical thing (you saying that my avatar appears to be different from 0's and 1's too, I just refuted).

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You did no such thing. Denial is not refutation.

You are a liar. I provided my refutation, now it's up to you to specify any error in my proof.

Just because you happen to think that consciousness is utterly characteristically different from any other physical thing it does not follow that it is.

But I have already given you my argument! What is wrong with you?? Here it is again.

There is consciousness defined by its subjective qualitative feel, and there are tables and all other physical objects in the Universe which are certainly not defined in such a manner.

In addition physical objects and processes have to be defined exclusively by their causal role in the world. If there is anything other to physical objects/processes than their causal power, then we, by definition, could not know about them because, lacking causal power, those aspects could not make their presence known to us, not ever.

On the other hand consciousness is not defined exclusively by their causal role in the world -- consciousness is defined by its subjective qualitative feel. It may have causal powers (and I believe it does), but it is not constituted by such causal powers.

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b) Consciousness cannot possibly be accommodated by any scientific theory because science only deals with the causes and effects which is not what consciousness is.

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Transparent question-begging. You are assuming what you need to prove about the nature of consciousness.

As I keep saying, if you think consciousness is constituted by causes and effects i.e consciousness is causes and effects, then you are denying consciousness as I define it. Since I know with incorrigible certainty that I am conscious, this means you're flat out wrong.

And I'm pig sick of explaining this to you time after time after time.

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He has?

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Yes.

And you are a liar. Prove me wrong by pasting his argument demonstrating my definition of consciousness is incoherent. I can't be bothered to address the whole of his post he made earlier on today. Like you he's saying nothing which get to grips with my arguments.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:
On the other hand consciousness is not defined exclusively by their causal role in the world -- consciousness is defined by its subjective qualitative feel. It may have causal powers (and I believe it does), but it is not constituted by such causal powers.

Its "subjective qualitative feel" is a result of its causal role in your brain. Whatever pile of feelings we define as consciousness need be nothing more than brain function.

If you want to demonstrate that consciousness is separate from brain function, you need to find an instance of it that is separate from a brain.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Paul

Wow. You just defined psi phenomena to necessarily entail nonphysical processes.

I'm not sure I did, actually. I said "control and information flow" - I didn't say "process". But maybe if you want to expand the definition of "process" to mean these things then you could call it a non-physical process. But is quantum entanglement a "process"? I'm not sure that this is the correct word for it. One of the pair instantly affects the other, but we see no process. All we see is the effect.

quote:
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The whole thing that makes PSI unusual is that it requires some sort of non-physical causality or non-physical information transfer.
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Holy begging the question cow.

More rhetoric. I am not begging any questions, Paul. The thing which makes PSI seem wierd is that things are happening which make things appear to be connected together in ways that don't appear to be physical. How can physicalism allow for someone's beliefs altering some of the details of the behaviour of physical reality from their perspective? I don't see how it can.

quote:
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Both of these are possible if physicalism is false and some other model is true, because there is another "route" open for the information and control mechanism i.e. in idealism it is direct via the metamind.
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And you know that the metamind is not relativistically limited because ... ?

Because there's no reason why it should be?

Because you get to imagine idealism any old way you want to.

No. I have refered to you many times to Peter Lloyd, but you clearly don't know who he is or what he wrote. Basically, I don't think you know what has been written on this subject. In his case it is two books, one making a very detailed version of the sort of arguments you hear from Ian, explaining precisely why Lloyd thinks physicalism is false and why Berkeleyanism solves the problems. Then he describes some of the required features of a Berkeleyan model which solves the problems. The second book examines the various serious collections of reports of PSI phenomena, including the work of Jacques Vallee, and explains how these reports map on to the Berkeleyan model.

The criticisms you are throwing at me now are completely unfounded and based on total ignorance on your part. You have no idea how or why Lloyd came to his particular version of idealism. I can guarantee you it wasn't by "imagining it any old way he wanted to". That is nothing but pure rhetoric based on your own preconceptions.

On top of all that, I am not even a frickin' idealist. I am a neutral monist. And my beliefs about the existence and nature of PSI phenomena are based upon a great deal more than just "making up whatever I wanted to". They are based partly on personal experiences of my own, and regardless of whether you think I went mad or think I was deluded at the time, I guess that even you accept that I wasn't deliberately inventing stuff. Put it this way - for someone who was inventing stuff I was putting on a damned good act of not being in control of what was happening to me. And they are partly based upon reading vast amounts of the material which is available and relevant, both from the histories of philosophy and western mysticism, and from what has been written by people who collect anecdotal evidence about this (like Vallee). There's all sorts of sources of information if you aren't scared of having to wade through large piles of rubbish in order to find what you are looking for. Of particular relevance to me are the writings of the psychologist-philosopher and "guerilla ontologist" Robert Anton Wilson.

Why am I being made to feel like I have to defend these views as if I were a deviant? Why so much rhetoric? Why am I in the dock?

The truth is that I am not in the business of going around expecting other people to believe what I believe. That's what lifegazer does. But to a lesser extent, so do you - and people like Kevin. It's not enough that you are materialists/naturalists and I have a much more flexible view. There is apparently a need for people like you to make sure that people like me are regularly ridiculed for believing what we believe. It cannot be allowed to stand that a seemingly intelligent and reasonable and educated person could believe in PSI. It is a neccesary part of your own belief system that all other reasonable people should reject PSI like you do. Why?

All of the above is of course rhetorical itself, since I used to be the same as you. I thought that the world would be a better place if the human race just evolved past its evolutionarily redundant attachment to belief in religion and paranormal weird stuff, and I knew, KNEW, that all religions were bunk and paranormal weird stuff simply didn't happen.

Geoff

 

[Interesting Ian]

Its "subjective qualitative feel" is a result of its causal role in your brain.

What does "its" stand for here?? Obviously not subjective qualitative feel. You must mean brain processes. But the fact that consciousness might be caused by brain processes doesn't make it physical.

Whatever pile of feelings we define as consciousness need be nothing more than brain function.

You're just confused. Brain function is physical processes. Saying consciousness is nothing more than physical processes is literally without meaning. Physical processes are physical processes. Physical processes are never anything more than physical processes unless you introduce an extra ingredient.

I really don't know how simple I can make this.

Look, physical processes might give rise to consciousness. But don't you see you cannot say they are physical processes. There are physical processes and there is consciousness. But consciousness is defined as the subjective qualitative aspect. I am not interested in people denying my definition and saying that consciousness is physical processes.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

davidsmith,

Can you give a brief argument why we should accept premise 3?

Absolutely.

If there where properties of consciousness which you are aware of, but which don't affect your brain or behavior in any way, then there would be stuff which you are aware of, but which you cannot act on.

For example, let's imagine that the experience 'A' has different non-physical properties than experience 'B'. I then ask you "did those two experiences have different non-physical properties?". How would you answer?

If you are actually capable of honestly answering "yes", then clearly those supposedly non-physical properties have had some affect on your brain. Without any such effects, the truth of the fact that they had different non-physical properties could not possibly have influenced your behavior of saying that they do.

You would end up with the quite ridiculous situation of knowing that they have different non-physical properties, but nevertheless finding that your body responds that you do not!

And let's face it, this simply isn't what happens. For example, here you and Ian are going on and on about how you know your consciousness has these non-physical properties, but even if that where true, your bodies would not be talking about it.

The fact is that these properties which you are aware of, but for some reason believe do not affect anything physical, have quite clearly affected your behavior, as evidenced by the fact that your body is talking about them.


Ian,

I already explained how it addresses it. You argued that consciousness is not physical because there is something more to it than its physical effects. But since there cannot be any aspects of consciousness which you are not aware of, and all of those aspects which you are aware of have physical effects, this is impossible.

No it isn't. Even if we accept that all aspects of consciousness has physical effects this simply doesn't follow at all.

It directly follows from it. Saying that there is something more to it than its physical effects is exactly the same as saying that it has which do not have any physical effects.

Premise 1: Consciousness has some non-physical property 'x'.

No, consciousness itself is non-physical.

I don't understand your objection. If it does not have any non-physical properties, then what possible meaning could "it is non-physical" have?

Conclusion 1: Property 'x' does not affect your brain in any way. This follows directly from the fact that it is non-physical.

Conclusion 1 is flat out wrong. Consciousness does affect the brain and it is non-physical. This is necessarily true (ie its non-physicality) therefore conclusion 1 is necessarily false.

I thought I made it clear that I was using my definition of physical, which as you know is defined in terms of interactions. If you like, replace every place I said "physical" with "interacts with the brain", and every place I said "non-physical" with "does not interact with the brain".


Now, would you care to reply to what I said again, or are you just going to use this misinterpretation as an excuse to avoid addressing my actual argument?


Dr. Stupid

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Geoff said:
More rhetoric. I am not begging any questions, Paul. The thing which makes PSI seem wierd is that things are happening which make things appear to be connected together in ways that don't appear to be physical. How can physicalism allow for someone's beliefs altering some of the details of the behaviour of physical reality from their perspective? I don't see how it can.

A person's beliefs alter the behavior of physical reality all the time. The operative phrase in your statement is "... don't appear to be physical."

Because there's no reason why it should be?

Please. There is no reason to believe the metamind exists at all, let alone any reason to believe you have a clue how it works.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:
What does "its" stand for here?? Obviously not subjective qualitative feel. You must mean brain processes. But the fact that consciousness might be caused by brain processes doesn't make it physical.

Not a physical object, no. But consciousness might be an emergent property of brain processes. I'll amend my statement:

Whatever pile of feelings we define as consciousness need be nothing more than the result of brain function.

~~ Paul

 

[Interesting Ian]

Conclusion 1: Property 'x' does not affect your brain in any way. This follows directly from the fact that it is non-physical.
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Conclusion 1 is flat out wrong. Consciousness does affect the brain and it is non-physical. This is necessarily true (ie its non-physicality) therefore conclusion 1 is necessarily false.
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I thought I made it clear that I was using my definition of physical, which as you know is defined in terms of interactions. If you like, replace every place I said "physical" with "interacts with the brain", and every place I said "non-physical" with "does not interact with the brain".


Now, would you care to reply to what I said again, or are you just going to use this misinterpretation as an excuse to avoid addressing my actual argument?

I remind you of the begiining of this particular sub-topic. I said:

II
if consciousness is not the same as brain processes, but nevertheless affects such processes, then such consciousness would not be physical because the causal power of consciousness does not equate to consciousness itself.

Note the words if consciousness is not the same as brain processes but nevertheless affects such processes.

But then your argument ignores this and indeed assumes it's false. So you haven't got an argument. If you say that anything which has a causal influence on the physical is by definition physical, then it follows that consciousness is physical and materialism is necessarily correct.

So what are you actually arguing for?? You can't be arguiong for the correctness of your own position because your premises assume the correctness of your position. Nor can you be arguing against my position because you're taking it as an axiom that my position is wrong.

So what precisely are you arguing for Dr Cat?

 

[Interesting Ian]

Now you've explained it I'm going to look at your proof again. Thus I am using your definition of physical.

To put it formally:

Premise 1: Consciousness has some non-physical property 'x'.

I would deny this. If we consider something like a quale, I think it is causally efficacious. Therefore it is physical. So what properties of consciousness are non-physical??

Premise 2: All properties of your consciousness are properties which you are aware of.

Yes. Although note that this wouldn't be true if you instead had said mind or self.

Premise 3: All properties of consciousness which you are aware of affect your brain in some way.

No. Let's look at your justification addressed to David Smith.

Dr Cat
If there where properties of consciousness which you are aware of, but which don't affect your brain or behavior in any way, then there would be stuff which you are aware of, but which you cannot act on.

For example, let's imagine that the experience 'A' has different non-physical properties than experience 'B'. I then ask you "did those two experiences have different non-physical properties?". How would you answer?

If you are actually capable of honestly answering "yes", then clearly those supposedly non-physical properties have had some affect on your brain.

But supposing David doesn't answer?? David could be aware of some aspect of his consciousness but remain motionless. Indeed in the course of remaining absolutely still, David could become aware of some particular aspect of his consciousness and yet not react in any manner whatsoever. Of course it is certainly possible it affects David's brain, and indeed I believe it would do. Still, this does not amount to a proof

Conclusion 1: Property 'x' does not affect your brain in any way. This follows directly from the fact that it is non-physical.

This isn't a conclusion. Your premise is that the non-physical does not affect the brain.

Conclusion 2: You are not aware that your consciousness has property 'x'. This follows directly from conclusion 1 and premise 3.

For a kick off no one on here subscribes to property x. Epiphenomenalists do, but there are none of them on here. Also premise 3 is dodgy in any case.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Not a physical object, no. But consciousness might be an emergent property of brain processes. I'll amend my statement:

Whatever pile of feelings we define as consciousness need be nothing more than the result of brain function.

~~ Paul

OK

 

[UndercoverElephant]

A person's beliefs alter the behavior of physical reality all the time. The operative phrase in your statement is "... don't appear to be physical."

I wasn't expecting you to say this. What do you mean by this? I suspect you don't mean what Marilyn Schlitz means.

Please. There is no reason to believe the metamind exists at all, let alone any reason to believe you have a clue how it works.

I think it is time to agree to disagree.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

You are a liar. I provided my refutation, now it's up to you to specify any error in my proof.

It is simply this: it does not prove what it must prove, that the impression we get of something cannot be radically characteristically different to what that something is in terms of atoms (or whatever).

But I have already given you my argument! What is wrong with you?? Here it is again.

There is consciousness defined by its subjective qualitative feel, and there are tables and all other physical objects in the Universe which are certainly not defined in such a manner.

If by defined by you mean "pointed at", sure. We agree that consciousness refers to that unreliable perception going on between our ears.

What you keep trying to do is beg the question by arbitrarily defining consciousness as spooky, and everything else as non-spooky, so you can act like you have discovered a genuine problem when you cry "But how can spookiness arise from non-spookiness? I have defined myself into a paradox!". I reject your definition of consciousness as spooky.

In addition physical objects and processes have to be defined exclusively by their causal role in the world. If there is anything other to physical objects/processes than their causal power, then we, by definition, could not know about them because, lacking causal power, those aspects could not make their presence known to us, not ever.

On the other hand consciousness is not defined exclusively by their causal role in the world -- consciousness is defined by its subjective qualitative feel. It may have causal powers (and I believe it does), but it is not constituted by such causal powers.

See, you did it again. There is simply no legitimate means to bridge the gap between your word games ("I define consciousness thus") and reality ("consciousness really is/ thus"). What consciousness is is supremely indifferent to any word games you choose to play.

As I keep saying, if you think consciousness is constituted by causes and effects i.e consciousness is causes and effects, then you are denying consciousness as I define it. Since I know with incorrigible certainty that I am conscious, this means you're flat out wrong.

Believing you are conscious is fine and it would take a very radical skeptic indeed to doubt it. But what you do next is totally unsupportable - you tack a totally made-up quality on to consciousness, spooky immaterialism, by a process of word games, and then decide that you are as entitled to this tacked-on property you made up as you are to the belief in consciousness itself.

And I'm pig sick of explaining this to you time after time after time.

And you are a liar. Prove me wrong by pasting his argument demonstrating my definition of consciousness is incoherent. I can't be bothered to address the whole of his post he made earlier on today. Like you he's saying nothing which get to grips with my arguments.

Since you have been discussing precisely this with him since I wrote that, I will leave you to it.

 

[davidsmith73]

What you keep trying to do is beg the question by arbitrarily defining consciousness as spooky, and everything else as non-spooky, so you can act like you have discovered a genuine problem when you cry "But how can spookiness arise from non-spookiness? I have defined myself into a paradox!". I reject your definition of consciousness as spooky.

It has nothing to do with "spookyness". It is merely the observation that relational definitions cannot be applied to certain aspects of our experience.

 

[davidsmith73]

No it doesn't.

erm, yes it does. If experience is not definable by logical relationships then science cannot get off the ground in providing an explanation because scientific explanation depends upon relational definitions. I suspect you have the notion that you require evidence for the fact that experience in not definable by logical relationships, but that is impossible.

In the same way that the Mona Lisa is "first and foremost" a collection of atoms, sure.

You've completely missed the point. I asked if you believe that "blueness" is initially identified by physical relationships. "The Mona Lisa" is only said to be a collection of atoms if you define "the Mona Lisa" in terms of physical relationships. Of course the term "the Mona Lisa" can also refer to experiential aspects, for example the experience of "browness" that represents her skin. So do you really believe that "browness" is first and foremost an entailment of physical relationships?

I've examined it and discarded it, please give me that much credit. What would it take to make me take it seriously? Evidence of non-physical stuff that does stuff,

So far we have not progressed beyond people repeating, in increasingly obfuscated ways, that they intuit that their consciousness partakes of immaterialism in some form. What you intuit is at best a starting point for a search for evidence, not reason to hold that intuition as truth.

Why is it an intuition?

Yes. Yes. No. It is what we refer to as blueness, what more do you want? They were talking about blueness in the same way that people talked about the Mona Lisa before they knew it was a collection of atoms. It was defined as that colour you see when you look at the blue thing I am pointing at.

So you agree that blueness is not defined by logical relationships then! It is the colour you see. Excellent, I think we're on for a breakthrough

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

erm, yes it does. If experience is not definable by logical relationships then science cannot get off the ground in providing an explanation because scientific explanation depends upon relational definitions. I suspect you have the notion that you require evidence for the fact that experience in not definable by logical relationships, but that is impossible.

Actually I have the notion that you have made no progress towards showing reason to believe that experience is not perfectly susceptible to scientific study, just like any other set of atoms going about their business.

You have to give us reason to think that this is impossible before you are entitled to use arguments that assume it to be impossible.

You've completely missed the point. I asked if you believe that "blueness" is initially identified by physical relationships. "The Mona Lisa" is only said to be a collection of atoms if you define "the Mona Lisa" in terms of physical relationships. Of course the term "the Mona Lisa" can also refer to experiential aspects, for example the experience of "browness" that represents her skin. So do you really believe that "browness" is first and foremost an entailment of physical relationships?

I did not miss the point. Brownness, blueness, pinkness, love, hate, ennui, the sensation of a kick in the backside, yes, I think it highly likely that they are all a matter of atoms going about their business. Your intuitions otherwise are contradicted by the available evidence.

Why is it an intuition?

Because you claim to know it immediately, rather than via logic or experience.

So you agree that blueness is not defined by logical relationships then! It is the colour you see. Excellent, I think we're on for a breakthrough.

I think it rather more likely that you are playing the same game Ian plays, which is to illegitmately bolt a ridiculous claim ("blue is a spooky immaterial thing") to a much stronger claim ("we both see blue") and call this bolting-on "how we define blue". It is, obviously enough, not how I define blue and it is in no way entailed by the fact that we both can see blue. So if that's the road you plan to go down, knock it off now. Or come up with a better argument to justify bolting spooky properties on to sense impressions which can be explained perfectly well as atoms in the brain doing their thing.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Ian,

I remind you of the begiining of this particular sub-topic. I said:

quote:
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II
if consciousness is not the same as brain processes, but nevertheless affects such processes, then such consciousness would not be physical because the causal power of consciousness does not equate to consciousness itself.
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Note the words if consciousness is not the same as brain processes but nevertheless affects such processes.

But then your argument ignores this and indeed assumes it's false. So you haven't got an argument.

I did not ignore it at all. I directly addressed it. The point of the argument is to show that consciousness cannot have any non-physical aspects (meaning aspects which do not affect the brain). And when I say that consciousness is physical, that is all I mean: That it has no non-physical aspects. All of its properties are physical properties.

If you say that anything which has a causal influence on the physical is by definition physical, then it follows that consciousness is physical and materialism is necessarily correct.

Not quite. You could claim that it is a compound thing, which has both physical and non-physical aspects. Indeed, that is precisely what you are claiming when you say that the causal power of consciousness does not equate to consciousness itself. You are claiming that it has non-physical aspects in addition to its physical aspects (causal power).

So what are you actually arguing for?? You can't be arguiong for the correctness of your own position because your premises assume the correctness of your position. Nor can you be arguing against my position because you're taking it as an axiom that my position is wrong.

So what precisely are you arguing for Dr Cat?

I am arguing that if you accept that the word "consciousness" refers only to aspects which you are actually aware of having, then it necessarily refers to something which has only physical properties. When you simultaneously claim that "consciousness" refers only to aspects which you are aware of, and also claim that "consciousness" refers to something with non-physical properties, you are logically contradicting yourself.

Premise 1: Consciousness has some non-physical property 'x'.

I would deny this. If we consider something like a quale, I think it is causally efficacious. Therefore it is physical. So what properties of consciousness are non-physical??

If you agree that consciousness has only physical properties, then what could it possibly mean to say that it is not exhausted by those properties? What does it mean to say that this set of properties does not equate to consciousness itself? What properties of consciousness are you saying that science cannot explain when you claim that consciousness cannot be studied or explained scientifically?

Indeed, how does such a position differ at all from what I am claiming. When I say that there is no non-physical aspect of consciousness, all I mean is that it has only physical properties.

Premise 2: All properties of your consciousness are properties which you are aware of.

Yes. Although note that this wouldn't be true if you instead had said mind or self.

It also would not be true if I had instead said "liver". What's your point? We are discussing consciousness, not mind or self.

Premise 3: All properties of consciousness which you are aware of affect your brain in some way.

No. Let's look at your justification addressed to David Smith.

quote:
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Dr Cat
If there where properties of consciousness which you are aware of, but which don't affect your brain or behavior in any way, then there would be stuff which you are aware of, but which you cannot act on.

For example, let's imagine that the experience 'A' has different non-physical properties than experience 'B'. I then ask you "did those two experiences have different non-physical properties?". How would you answer?

If you are actually capable of honestly answering "yes", then clearly those supposedly non-physical properties have had some affect on your brain.
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But supposing David doesn't answer?? David could be aware of some aspect of his consciousness but remain motionless. Indeed in the course of remaining absolutely still, David could become aware of some particular aspect of his consciousness and yet not react in any manner whatsoever. Of course it is certainly possible it affects David's brain, and indeed I believe it would do. Still, this does not amount to a proof

Irrelevent. In such a case it would still be possible for him to react. My point is that if it were truly causally inefficacious, it would be impossible for him to react.

And of course, you are again completely ignoring the role which the brain plays in the processes of thinking and remembering. Even if he does not choose to overtly react, simply thinking about the difference between the two supposedly non-physical differences would constitute physical behavior which was influenced by those differences. Your scenario would only work if the brain was not involved in these things. For example, memories are stored physically in the brain. If the difference between those non-physical properties did not affect your brain, then by the time I got around to asking the question, you would not even remember that there was a difference between then, or even that they were there at all!

Conclusion 1: Property 'x' does not affect your brain in any way. This follows directly from the fact that it is non-physical.

This isn't a conclusion. Your premise is that the non-physical does not affect the brain.

You appear to be confused about the nature of analytic proofs. In such proofs conclusions are always just restatments of the premises. The whole point is that the conclusion is logically implied by the premises. The only reason for showing any steps at all is because it may not be obvious that it is implied by the premises. I was just trying to be as clear as possible.


Dr.Stupid

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Geoff said:
I wasn't expecting you to say this. What do you mean by this? I suspect you don't mean what Marilyn Schlitz means.

I mean that behavior alters the external world. I do not mean that behavior can alter physical law. If that's what Schlitz means then she is just being silly.

~~ Paul

 

[Hellbound]

I have a 3 and a half year old at home.

He often walks up while I'm on the computer.

The conversation often goes like this:

Son: What game are you playing?

Me: A fnatasy game.

Son: What kind of fantasy game?

Me: It's called Wizardry 8.

Son: What kind of fantasy game called Wizardry 8?

Me: Um, it's just called Wizardry 8, there's no more kinds.

Son: But what kind?

Maybe it's just me, but I see an analogy in this argument.