Adam Hilstad

Thanks all for the answers, very helpful.

A thing and its opposite are not necessarily symmetrical. Symmetry is spatial—you may be talking about balance. And yes, balance is essential in ethic...

They are all over this forum—I think there are a lot of people on here with interesting views about what reality fundamentally is about. This in itsel...

But surely there is ethical value in finding beauty in people, and in producing things that people will find beautiful—is there not? I don’t mean to s...

This is an interesting idea, but I think there are many other equally interesting ways of framing reality. The question is, which frame wins in the lo...

I’d probably agree with that. I think we’re more or less on the same page.

I tend to think panentheism is a more versatile concept, and a bridge to everything from atheism (figurative panentheism) to polytheism to theism. It’...

Thanks! When you say that the teleonomy element bears scrutiny, do you mean you believe that our fundamental ethical motivations are utilitarian rathe...

Thanks! When you say that the teleonomy element bears scrutiny, do you mean you believe that our fundamental ethical motivations are utilitarian rathe...

TheMadFool, I don’t see it as a cosmic duel between beauty and ugliness—it just pertains to art. And in art, beauty just properly wins—where it doesn’...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder—very good point. At the same time however, there is a certain convergence in many cases. This is why some artists...

Very true.

Thanks Pantagruel. I suppose I believe that we are truly rational animals. I believe Aristotle was right about that. I believe that the ideas that “pe...

Interesting. I think it’s safe to say that for most if not all of my adulthood, I’ve been driven by a desire to look past my own biases on some level....

Fair enough, SophistiCat. As indicated in my last post, I believe this has primarily to do with teleonomy and how we react to it. There is no cosmic r...

I have great respect for Hume, but I think what we perceive is not a ‘metaphysic of value’, but simply a fact of collective teleonomy—that we collecti...

(Which is ethically right.)

TheMadFool, I suspect that what you perceive as a balance between beauty and ugliness is in fact beauty winning out over ugliness (see my previous pos...

The word ‘appropriate’ was added out of caution, as there do seem to be certain cases where finding beauty is seemingly inappropriate. For example, WW...

Thanks for reading, Possibility. I actually disagree, in that I believe it is irrationally cynical to deny that we are naturally motivated by rational...

It seems to me that the problem of induction is properly mitigated rather than solved. In order for us to even comprehend the problem to begin with, w...

Physicalism in a practical sense seems very sensible to me; however, in a strict and technical philosophical sense it doesn’t seem to fit. The fact th...

I agree that the mind is not information, but to say it is biological is not an argument against this—biology is simply a naturalistic angle from whic...

I think it’s also possible to be interested in politics while remaining apolitical to some degree. It’s about an interest in finding an equitable solu...

Hi Possibility, thanks for the comment. In my mind, the idea that the non-normalized is more natural, at least in the context of human understanding, ...

I feel as though you’re manufacturing disagreement where there is none. I will say, that there isn’t any way to completely abstract experience is an a...

Belief in the importance of abstraction/generality is a belief of a higher logical order, and therefore by nature it assists in building bridges betwe...

Pamtagruel, a big part of the takeaway of my philosophy is that what is natural and what is artificial is contextual, and the direction of that contex...

Thanks very much, Joshs. I’m actually not very familiar with Levinas, although I just read up on him a bit and I can see why you might think we share ...

Thanks for taking a look Pantagruel. Fair question/comment. In the context of database normalization, yes, I suppose you might be able to say data is ...

Thanks for taking a look Pantagruel. Fair question/comment. In the context of database normalization, yes, I suppose you might be able to say data is ...

Thanks Amity. I’m engaging with the philosophy community again, which means I’m recovering.

Hi Amity, in my own case I felt I was being told that the meaning or purpose of my life was invalid, or even wrong in some way. This led to feelings o...

Free will is impossible to prove directly, in the same way that we cannot prove that we are not all ‘philosophical zombies’ without consciousness. Fre...

Acting out of emotion does not necessitate consciously acting with motivation. However, we take other actions prior to this which do affect the outcom...

I probably agree with the previous answer, at least in large part. But I’d also add that what we often call self-interest, our fundamental motivations...

I believe the solution to the is/ought dichotomy is that it is a false dichotomy—‘ought’ entails ‘is’, for what is the case is what ought to be the ca...

My own thought is that one’s own consciousness is perhaps defined by being that which includes everything else explicitly or directly implicitly (e.g....

I expect that if equipped with the right conceptual tools, an equitable society is, to some degree, an inevitability. We will never completely get the...

The fundamentally tessellating nature of the understanding disproves solipsism—once we hit the edge of solipsistic understanding, we’re warped directl...

There is no good reason why in theory the individual and responsibility, or the individual and solidarity, ought not to coincide. These are entirely c...

I suspect that apathy is usually if not always the result of subtle forms of spiritual oppression that someone has endured for a long period of time. ...

Philosophical problems are to be collectively negotiated—that’s how we reach a collectively intuitive solution.

It’s very easy to see the solution, but very difficult to convince others of it. Proof is supposed to do that. The problem is, in philosophy it doesn’...