GENIUS FORUMS

Article The article discusses autistic savants (it would be a real stretch to call them "geniuses," as the article sometimes does). What piques my curiosity is not their extraordinary abilities but their personalities that allow these abilities to flourish -- specifically, their disregard...

I know. I wasn't referring to Gamm as a genius, but as a self-made savant. I don't consider savants geniuses but rather extremely talented.

"Some people can instantly solve mathematical conundrums that leave even their most intelligent colleagues floundering. New research suggests that such genius is made, not born. You could even be one yourself. In fact, there are probably more gifted souls around than you think. Look out for wai...

With enough convoluted explanation, one can make just about anything seem to have "unique" mathematical properties.

The only meaningful definition of free will I've ever seen is that we have free will if no other conscious beings physically restrain us or "weight" our choices in such a way that not taking a certain path would be extremely stupid (such as if a criminal held a gun to one's head). Some peo...

Dave : When stripped of all the confusing elements, what this ends up saying is that: Knowing our memories are reliable involves acts of reliable memory. The problem lies in the fact that one cannot know which memories are reliable and which unreliable. If one could always pick out all of the unrel...

If a great many people were enlightened (in the sense that Kevin uses the term), then they would certainly have large amounts of free time, since they would care little for the social and consumptive behaviors that occupy a lot of time in other people's lives. Also, they would not believe that the w...

What about ethical arguments?

I don't think that the determinism / indeterminism issue really matters (in regard to free will) at all. Neither one makes the concept of "free will" any more coherent or possible.

What do you mean by "pushing atheism to the extreme," David? Do you mean progressively realizing that all things are ultimately temporal or groundless?

I encountered that objection on another board as well. The only answer I have is that even in a very short proof or theorem (such as Pythagoras's) we grasp the different elements in a sequential order that depends on the passage of time. Perhaps that isn't correct, though.

I'm not sure what you mean by "places." Which steps do you find fault with?

The possibility of faulty memories may make it impossible to distinguish good arguments from bad ones: 1) We cannot know that our memories are reliable, since checking our memory involves acts that require memory (circular justification). 2) If we cannot know that an argument is based on a proper ch...