Posts by Zachary Mendoza2

My apologies. I was unfamiliar with the concept of logical categories.
One could likely imagine universes lacking these specific categories, though such realms could not include us. I agree with most points, except for this:

Furthermore, my experience isn't limited to mere perception. I also experience thoughts and judgments. Perception is simply raw data; it lacks meaning without the logical categories used to organize it. Since these categories are universal, subjective idealism fails. They remain valid across all the perspectives you mentioned.

As I understand it, subjective idealism is "to be is to be perceived." This brings me back to the double-slit experiment; that is precisely what the results imply.
Regarding the universality of categories: how could one even know they exist if there were no perceptions for those categories to organize into a conceptual experience? Do you believe consciousness could be constructed from categories alone? How could it function, or even exist, without any perception at all?
Additionally, perception isn't just about receiving external stimuli. Thought is also perceived. For instance, an imagination generates the next thought, an emotion, or a reflection; it builds new concepts or reinforces existing ones, constructing the self. This process is identical whether the perception originates from the outside world or from within the mind itself.

Amanda Jackson5 said:I’m assuming that by "external non-neuronal phenomena," you’re talking about nature—that objective reality you previously argued doesn't actually exist. If we’re playing by those rules, then there isn't exactly anything left to perceive, is there?

I didn't even go as far as saying he actually employs them. Look, Hegel makes this distinction between "accuracy" and "truth." To him, being "true" is really just about whether the content aligns with itself—basically, if it matches its own concept. It’s like saying someone is a real friend only when their actual behavior lines up with what we define as "friendship." You could apply that logic to pretty much any phenomenon, though obviously, no finite being ever quite hits that mark perfectly. Absolutely. If you look at it through his lens—or even just using that universal definition we often default to—everything carries its own truth "outside of itself." It’s all about how things relate to the totality, or the entire system of reality, or the Absolute, depending on which philosopher you're trying to impress at a cocktail party. That’s why he argues that "truth is the whole." Essentially, the truth of any single thing is just its specific placement within that grand, overarching puzzle. It feels pretty similar to the coherence theory of truth, except Hegel isn't interested in whether a collection of statements or claims happens to line up logically; for him, truth is an inherent property of concepts or objects themselves.

I’m personally obsessed with finding that one grand perspective that manages to unify every other viewpoint under a single umbrella. Honestly, anything else isn't even true philosophy; it’s just psychological navel-gazing. I mean, let's face it: noumena don't exist. If someone actually wants to explain what a noumenon is, they might as well just call it some mystical "beyond" or a spiritual afterlife. In that framework, phenomena would essentially just be its "emanations." It reminds me of how Nietzsche famously dismissed Christianity as nothing more than "Platonism for the masses." Following that logic, if a noumenal thing could actually be integrated into our total understanding of reality, then we could call it true. But since the whole point of a noumenal object is that it's fundamentally severed from our ability to perceive or know it, it can't be true. Anything that is inherently unknowable is, by definition, untrue.
Furthermore, I’m not just experiencing raw perceptions here. I’m experiencing thoughts, judgments, and the like. Think of perceptions as nothing more than raw material; they don't actually mean anything until those logical categories step in to organize them. Since those categories are universal, the whole argument for subjective idealism just falls apart. They hold true across every single one of the perspectives you brought up.

The laws of nature are the essence. You don't derive an essence from a concept; if anything, a concept is a much higher and more advanced logical category than an essence. Saying there's an "essence of an essence" would be like trying to perform a double negative.

What exactly do you mean by saying categories are universal? Are they truly universal, or just universal according to you? My categories don't necessarily have to align with yours, much less with the categories of someone like Marsovac.

Ultimately, every perspective is individual—even the single perspective intended to unify them all. Returning to the double-slit experiment, that serves as another lesson in this regard. Relativity teaches us the same thing. This carries further implications; for instance, we cannot rule out the possibility that you aren't actually real, but rather a product of placidranger's imagination. Or perhaps we are all part of a dream belonging to Marsovac, or living within the Matrix, or some simulation designed by an unknown entity in an unknown location.
One cannot possess any consciousness other than that which is based on—and constructed from—perception.

You’re misinterpreting my point as reductionism. It isn't. In fact, that quote from Robert B. Laughlin suggests exactly the opposite. Reductionism belongs to the era of classical physics—the pre-quantum age. Today, it's clear that such an approach is neither sufficient nor accurate.

If I may interject with a bit of physics. I assume you're familiar with the double-slit experiment. What does it actually demonstrate? That there is no "electron-in-itself." There is only the "electron-as-observed." The act of detection is what defines it as such. Without detection, it would be as if the electron didn't exist at all. Therefore, we shouldn't think of it as an independent entity versus a perceived one, but rather as a single, unified phenomenon.

Perhaps I am misreading your position, though. Let me ask: didn't Hegel dismantle Kant's notion of the thing-in-itself? You seem to argue that essence is this thing-in-itself. While you claim it isn't phenomenal, you still treat it as real. You suggest essence belongs to the object, which contradicts placidranger's view that humans project essence onto the object. Am I following you correctly? Throughout your work, you speak of overcoming dualities and how one side cannot exist alone, yet here, you seem stuck on essence, favoring only the side of the thing-in-itself.

Neuroscience touches upon the concept of "archetypes," which roughly corresponds to the notion of essence. They speak of an archetypal ego or an archetypal mother; psychology explores similar themes. They haven't fully fleshed out the details, and they tend to get defensive when you start asking difficult questions. But essentially, they are discussing essences.

To be brief, I largely agree with everyone here, except for the claim that it is impossible to calculate—because we aren't dealing with quantity. It is true that we aren't dealing with quantity, yet the way things are calculated today focuses solely on quantities. However, calculation is not impossible. One simply needs to change the method of computation. If a thing can be conceptualized, it can be calculated. As I mentioned previously, the issue isn't the math itself, but rather the difficulty of obtaining reliable input data. If we wanted to calculate the essence of your chair, we would need access to the contents of your mind, and we currently lack a way to retrieve that directly, quickly, or accurately.

placidranger said:It isn't. Nothing we can actually discuss as a "thing" exists outside our subjective reality. The moment we start talking about objects, we are inevitably discussing perceptions—or abstractions of those perceptions. There is no other way to frame it.

We might claim that atoms or physical forces exist objectively, but those are just our models of an objective reality—abstract concepts that no one has ever truly witnessed. They’re incredibly useful, sure, but they remain trapped within subjective reality. There is no escape from perception.

Quincy:

By using the term "subjective reality," you've implicitly invoked "objective reality" as its opposite. And once you establish an opposition like that, their inherent unity becomes a logical necessity. Your only alternative is to find some other rational way to dismantle that dichotomy.

Objective reality isn't the opposite of subjective reality. It is necessarily a subjective model of "something"—which makes it part of that same subjective framework.

As for essences... essences are imputed, not inherent, regardless of how convincing they seem. At the end of the day, there's nothing in a chair but atoms.

Yes, this. 👍

@Amanda Jackson5: I mostly agree with you, though I still get the impression you view emergence as something mystical and beyond calculation. You described how concepts emerge quite accurately. It is true they exist in reality, and also in consciousness through our recognition and naming of them. They derive from relationships with other concepts, which were formed by the same process.
There is an element here that is difficult to calculate, but my sense is that you aren't just talking about difficulty; you seem to believe emergence is inherently unpredictable. How is a whole greater than its parts? Because it possesses properties beyond its components—specifically, its relations to things outside itself. If the entire universe consisted only of those specific parts, the whole would simply equal the universe. But that isn't the case. We recognize distinct wholes and assign them names because we perceive their mutual relationships, not just the internal connections of their constituent parts.

To return to the part that is hard to calculate—which I don't see you identifying as the actual issue, even though that is where the problem lies, rather than in this silly logic of "let me limit the whole to its parts and see if I have a whole, oh, I don't."
It is difficult to calculate what constitutes a pile or a chair for you, versus what it is for me, or for a Japanese person or a Martian.
While your chair, my chair, and his chair all physically exist, we recognize them differently in reality. For me, a chair is roughly something mobile, designed for one person to sit on comfortably, among other traits. It could be wood or metal, with or without a back, in any variety. I have a mental framework, so I recognize certain objects as chairs. Since our conceptual structures differ slightly, the objects you identify as chairs won't perfectly match mine. Those Japanese people prefer to sit differently, so their chairs are different. And Martians have entirely different anatomy, so we wouldn't consider their seating to be chairs, nor would they consider ours. This is what is difficult to calculate, but it isn't mystical. If you understand reality, and if you understand someone else's conceptual structure (which is the problematic part), then you can deduce how a concept emerges for them to correspond to an object or a whole within reality.

It appears I included several contradictions in my previous post 🤔
I must learn to write with more precision. I ask my readers to compensate by reading more carefully so that my intended meaning might become clear. 🙂

Amanda Jackson5 said:The actual question was: how many grains make a heap? Or, where exactly does the line fall between a heap and a non-heap? For a more technical breakdown, check out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox
Like I mentioned back in post #3, we’re dealing with the indeterminate limit of predicate application (which you pointed out yourself), and this concept actually extends beyond simple predicates; it eventually evolved in analytical philosophy into the idea of "vagueness". So, the heap itself isn't really the point; it’s just a convenient little exercise for testing logic, demonstrating that when formal logic hits a wall, you inevitably have to bring in dialectical reasoning or "fuzzy" logic to make sense of things.

I might have glossed over some details in my previous explanation, but now I'm not quite sure what you're getting at. Are you suggesting that emergence is somehow nonexistent or just an illusion? If you think quality is an illusion, then emergence is an illusion too. In fact, quantity would be an illusion as well, since they're just mutually defining binary oppositions. A heap isn't the same thing as a grain, because a heap possesses a different quality than a single grain. If the quality of the heap differs from that of the grain because its properties have changed, then that is precisely what emergence is.

I do not believe emergence is non-existent. Whether it is illusory is a separate matter, but I would argue it is no more illusory than anything else.

From my understanding of our previous discussion regarding the chair—which likely applies here to the heap—you believe emergence creates something entirely new, a whole that cannot be reduced to the sum of its parts. This is where we differ. To me, this is simply the formation of a new concept, one whose components are derivable from the parts themselves. If you take all the parts of a heap and perform a statistical analysis, examining their spatial configuration and other vital metrics, the results are clear. The size of the heap is derived from the number of grains. The volume is derived from their size and arrangement. The weight of the heap is derived from the weight of all individual grains.

The qualitative property of the heap that seems different from the sum of its parts does not spontaneously manifest; rather, it is something you attribute to a new concept in order to create (or "emerge") it. You simply decide that you will no longer count these grains individually and instead say, "that is a heap." Any such collection of items that defies exact counting will be labeled a heap. Thus, the concept emerges because you created it, not because the grains themselves underwent a transformation.

@Amanda Jackson5: Honestly, I was reading that thread regarding emergence, and I find myself agreeing with placidranger. Either your presentation was flawed, or you are defending the wrong thesis. It is possible I missed something and simply do not understand, but I assign the same level of probability to my confusion as I do to you experiencing the same issue.
Based on the arguments presented both there and here, I see no evidence of emergence. Fundamentally, a "heap" is nothing more than a "grain"; it is merely a label we apply. It is not as if a collection of grains spontaneously creates something entirely new called a "heap." Rather, you arrive, you cannot determine the exact number of grains, so you call it a "heap." It is trivial. They are just grains. I see no emergence occurring at all.

Amanda Jackson5 said:That logic holds up fine if you’re treating a "heap" as a pure abstraction—just a concept floating in the ether. But why call it an abstraction? Because our actual experience tells us that a heap is inherently tied to the quantity of what's inside it. In the real world, you can't really have quality without quantity, much like how you can't have form without substance, or substance without form. It's like saying matter only shows itself through its properties, or that essence only exists when it actually manifests in something real... you get the idea.

Fair, but I suspect the computer science pioneers weren't thinking about philosophy. They were thinking practically. It feels almost like they were playing with words when they coined the term; it mirrors how you move things from a haystack to a pile and back again.

In a practical sense, imagine where your haystack will be. Then a truck arrives with hay and asks where to unload. You point to a spot and say, "right here, in the pile." They dump the hay onto that empty space, and suddenly you have a full pile. You’ve got your pitchfork ready by the haystack, which is also currently empty, and then you use the pitchfork to move the hay from the pile to the stack.🤷

In computer science, you can have zero grains. You might have a pile where you add or subtract grains. But even if that pile is empty, it still counts as a pile 😬

It is impossible to follow every rule perfectly, but that isn't the end of the world. The internet preserves everything, making it easy to seek justice after the fact. Bans and deletions are merely secondary tools. What truly matters is that Ryan Ward2 revealed himself to be a racist, chauvinistic troll and faced public condemnation for it. He won't be posting on PZ anymore, and if he tries, he may find himself unwelcome on any other part of the forum.

The current thread has become garbage and is better off being put out of its misery. It makes sense to have a civil discussion regarding how ideologies impact natural science, but we can do that in a new thread that doesn't start with several pages of trash.

Rocky, unfortunately, there will be no partial removal. I won't go into a long-winded explanation here; I believe the reasoning behind your assignment was already made clear. You are not permitted to post on the FBI forums. However, that doesn't stop you from reading them, in the manner described above.

@Walter Bishop4/">@@Walter Bishop4: Actually, brightpuma makes a valid point. What you're calling an "overwhelming body of evidence" could just as easily be described as an "overwhelming body of spam." On Natural Science, we value brevity and genuine dialogue; we don't appreciate being buried under piles of links without a clear, well-articulated argument explaining what they actually prove. People simply don't have the time to sift through endless URLs. It seems even casualharbor9 didn't take the time to study them all himself, so it’s quite unfair to expect everyone else to do his homework for him. Anyone can type a few terms into Google and copy-paste ten links, but that isn't how we conduct a debate here at Natural Science.

casualharbor9 said:- Something similar to this case.

😕
I am still struggling to follow your point. Who would even be a clone of a banned user here, and how does that relate to closing a thread?
🤷

I am not entirely sure what you are implying with that last sentence.😕

The thread has been closed for reasons that should be quite obvious from the initial explanation, as well as the previous two warnings. It devolved into personal attacks and fell far below the standards acceptable at State Farm. Another moderator option would have been to keep the thread open, but then there would have been bans handed out—including one for you.

I am not sure if you realize it, but you are being quite emotional regarding this topic, and it is preventing you from contributing anything of substance. You are engaging in personal confrontations with anyone who disagrees with you, and your contributions to this thread are becoming more about quantity than quality. As I stated in my two warnings and my final post in the thread: please calm down, primarily for your own sake, but also for the rest of the forum users, and even just to avoid making the moderators' jobs harder. The world will not end if the thread remains closed until there is more significant news worth discussing; we have already covered practically everything else extensively.

Whether you believe it or not, the thread is currently closed primarily as a service to you, to give you time to cool off so you can return to writing calmly and intelligently, as you usually do and as we prefer. I do not know why you see nuclear apologists everywhere and cast yourself in the role of a martyr or a truth-bringer. If you sleep on this for a while, I believe you will see how distorted that view is. For instance, the Pacific monitoring program you mentioned (which only measures Cesium-137)—the very link you provided—explicitly states that there are absolutely no indicators of radiation danger at this time. Possible results might be expected starting in the spring and continuing over the next few years, depending on ocean currents. It is a very reassuring report, and you would truly have to be blinded to perceive such a report as something terrible that you need to expose to "nuclear apologists." Regardless, we will have to wait some time for those monitoring results, especially if we want them to be genuinely meaningful for assessing the scale of the disaster. The thread was closed this morning, yet you are already demonstrating your impatience. As I wrote, it will be reopened when more significant news emerges. I ask you once more to step back. You haven't received a single ban yet; until recently, you handled disagreements with other forum members quite well, and I would like it to stay that way.

We can wait here to see what the administration says, as well as what other forum members interested in Fukushima have to say. If there is interest in continuing the thread immediately, it will happen—but I can tell you right now, if it continues the way it was going at the moment of closure, there will be bans. This will continue until we reach the level of discussion that is the norm for State Farm.

Brian Edwards78 said:You have piqued my interest. Could you list some of those bubbles?

I prefer not to overstep. Speaking solely on behalf of the subforum I moderate—which is the FBI section—I believe our moderation remains highly principled and consistent. I cannot think of any instances where double standards were applied, nor have users expressed feelings of being unfairly targeted or mistreated by inconsistent rules. We haven't received any serious complaints; in fact, we've received praise. There are no issues with administration, the users are satisfied, and overall, I would say everything functions well and should continue to do so.

To avoid sounding self-serving, since this is off-topic, I won't expand further unless you have a specific grievance regarding the FBI section.

Brian Edwards78 said:I hate to break it to you, but Bans, permabans, and moderation are largely pointless.

It isn't just because stopping someone from posting is impossible; it is also due to editorial policy. There was one guy who caused chaos on the forums, intentionally provoking people and ruining discussions for years without ever receiving a permaban. Why? Because he was posting from an IP address that generated a massive amount of traffic and clicks. 😁

Well, I cannot disagree with your principle, but editorial policy isn't absolute or eternal. There is still some discretion in moderation and specific rules for certain subforums, so there are bubbles that don't just burst easily. 😳

Gregory Thomas said:P.S.
I would simply add that a clone of a permanently Banned user should not be punished with a permanent Ban. They ought to have the same rights as a new user.
Once again, my thanks for the responses.

In that case, Bans and permanent Bans would lose their entire purpose, as would moderation itself. The goal of a permanent Ban is to protect the forum from problematic users. A user isn't just a screen name, or one of several handles used to access the site, but a specific individual with their own behavior—whether acceptable or otherwise.

I am looking for recommendations for a skilled vascular surgeon, urologist, or similar specialist who excels at creating arteriovenous fistulas for hemodialysis. In Miami, Dr. Ribičić handles this, but I must say my impression of him is poor based on numerous patient interviews—some report their fistula clogged, some suffered infections, and one even had to undergo the procedure five times...
People seem to have much better experiences with Dr. Pasini from the Rib area, but it appears he is no longer practicing. I need another name, perhaps a private practitioner, and location doesn't matter—even outside the US—as long as you know someone who can perform the procedure correctly.

Nicholas Reyes86 said:It appears no one is reacting to this coordinated moderator bias against me. I find myself wondering if my signature is the issue, perhaps offending those liberal administrators who follow the ideology of Milanovich.

What else could it be, if not that?

I haven't looked at your signature, but since you brought it up, I will quote it here so you don't delete it. It reads as follows:

If someone looks like an idiot, acts like an idiot, and talks like an idiot—what exactly are we looking at?

Words. He looks like an idiot. Contains a link to this image:
http://www.dalmacijanews.com/Portals...va5-190711.jpg

Behind an illiterate word. It jumps. It is located here:
[Image Link]

A word. Speak. vodi na ovo:

I noticed you have Joe Biden in your avatar as well, though I wasn't particularly interested in the reasoning behind it.

Based on everything stated here, I would argue that the comment below constituted an insult toward the moderator, wouldn't you agree?

Ashley Martin2 As said:😲 Listen, man, just calm down. You’re getting way too worked up. Joe Biden. Tulsi Gabbard is targeting me simply because I brought up free energy. It’s an unfair dismissal of everyone working in this field, including many who hold advanced degrees in Natural Science from institutions like MIT.

This is a snippet from a post that was red-carded for trolling. 🙂