t0m

Good point. We always find ourselves already within a meaningful, intelligible, information-rich environment. Afterwards we can imagine "pure sensory ...

First, fascinating issue! Good OP. I agree that it's indeed not easy to sell information as physical. I think that this information you ask about is s...

I agree. Some atheists might deny that preference or irrationality is involved in their position, but not all of them do. (I would be called an atheis...

I think you're tilting at windmills. Your "getting to the point" is just a repetition of dogma, a mantra. You love Bergson. Cool. I like Bergson, too....

The alternative to what you call 'long paragraphs' is dogmatic assertion. I prefer to make a case for my ideas. Whatever Hegel's failings, he was writ...

Cool. I may read the one you have, too. I've heard good things. I think it's something like the lecture being the ur-B&T, the longer book being the "f...

I hope you got the lecture as opposed to another text by H of the same name. I say this because it'd be nice to discuss/unpack it together. Is it a th...

Yes, deeply. (Wo)man is the (incarnate or sense-feeling knowhow laden) Concept is Time. That sort of thing. I know you're a fan of Heidegger. I've bee...

I actually understand. I don't think a person can love philosophy without also hating it. No one hates (bad) philosophy like a (good) philosopher. As ...

I think this is very true. Such ideas are the cultural or spiritual "bodies" of individuals. We have to face the "death" of these crystallizations of ...

Good point. That's also very Hegelian. The "Concept" is a self-othering little fellow. Making distinctions enriches our conceptual picture or story of...

That's why Popper is so great. He includes the "irrational"/creative source of hypotheses. Science is a criterion for these hypotheses than can comfor...

We might say that it has (we have) an unstable essence. Man is still a work-in-progress. The idea that man is essentially otherwise essenceless is arg...

Absolutely. I was, of course, sure that you were aware of know-how. It's very Taoist, isn't it? This know-how? Mastery is making a process unconscious...

For me we have something like a total experience. In this total experience I can open up a physics book and understand the kitchen table that I am rea...

I like "we can't be, must become until death." This issue is whether this endless becoming is bad, good, or indifferent in some universal or "transper...

Sorry if I offended you. I didn't mean to be rude, but I think I was, after all, an A-hole. This is a good theme for discussion. It's not new, but it ...

The "alternative" is not that much of an alternative. If God is a brute fact interpreting itself, then "everything just happened" and keeps happening....

This is the kind of "cutesy" game-playing that puts me off. If you have an idea to share, then share it. My guess is that you're a poet or a metaphysi...

It's plausible that the worldy institutions of science are imperfect. It's also plausible that money is involved in this imperfection. But hating on s...

I like this. Since I'm studying Heidegger at the moment, I'd add "know-how" to the stories. I suggest that theoretical knowledge is "stories," while "...

Good question. For me, we participate in or even are in our totality what might be called "God." We might even say "Christ," to stress our existence a...

I pretty deeply agree with you here. We can't live one another's lives. What "being-towards-death" or mortality means to me is the radical "mineness" ...

Thanks for the directness. I'll even say that we ourselves are certainly describable as "creative force," the "mind," and so on. I'll even say that so...

Hi, Rich. I can't help but point out that this looks like slapping the name "God" on brute fact. He is that "for which no reason can be given." How ma...

Respectfully, I think you betray yourself here. Who said anything about physical science being at an end? I'm more or less an instrumentalist. I trust...

I share your concerns about that side of Kojeve. I'm also a fan of Sartre and Heidegger without being a fan of their politics. I am (far more than mos...

Kojeve's famous lectures on Hegel are not at all only political. Kojeve is an "existentialized" Hegel. He takes the concepts of existential time ("thr...

Ever read Ariel? I recently picked up The Concept of Time. This is the short lecture. I think there's a longer text with the same name. The last two t...

For me the real proof of science is in the pudding, in the tech that works. Human vanity is massive and ubiquitous. How do I separate the charlatans f...

In my view, all this cause-seeking is secondary to the "raw experience" of desire itself. My first-person experience of desire is an "absorption" in t...

I overlooked replying to this earlier. Yes, those are great lines. I've read the same Mitchell translation. I was just looking it over again, here: ht...

"If you are wrong, you were right." To me this is a pretty good way to communicate the beauty of science. You can only be wrong in the present if you ...

We can drop the "smart" theme. That's fine. As far as I can tell, you've mostly described in vague generality how philosophy should be done. I think i...

This absurdity is (from a certain perspective) part of the charm. My current view is that existence is (globally) a brute fact. As Witt put it, It is ...

Indeed. I remember the struggle to embrace my "thrown-ness." We are always given these parents, this face, this situation (class, gender, race) --as t...

This touches on a fascinating problem. To what degree is our intuition of continuity "real"? The real number system of pure math does a pretty good jo...

If no one is smarter than anyone else, then why would you need to tell me this? Why would you need to explain to me, an equally smart person, what phi...

I love Emerson, too. "They set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought." I suppose that I've been seduced by tho...

The "why something rather than everything" is a nice twist. I'm glad that you agree, though, that "all metaphysics must arrive at brute fact." It's no...

I see now that you are thinking of a related issue, the idea that any actual measurement has only finite accuracy. Yes, that's a good point also. It's...

Hi, apo. I generally like your thermodynamic theory to the degree that I understand it. It's fresh. It has a dark beauty. Now to my question. Why this...

This is a good point. I've reflected on this myself. What you are talking about (as I see it) is the real numbers. "Most" real numbers are not rationa...

It's all great, but I especially like that part. Yes, back and back to those beautiful old truths in their newness.

We probably mean about the same thing. Maybe the word "revere" doesn't get the tone right. For example, there's a certain kind of man that I especiall...

I think so to. But let's say we somehow find an alien or species of aliens who created humanity. Will we worship them? The only God worth worshiping, ...

Thanks for the kind words, my friend. I look forward to your thoughts.

Just to be clear, what I mean by groundless is not the equal "reasonableness" of beliefs. What I have in mind is that authenticity is a risky venture....

I'm inclined to agree, though that is of course just my opinion. There is both stupid and profound religion out there, as I see it.

Thanks for the kind words. I also enjoy discussions with you. My vision of god is also metaphysics. Roughly speaking, the universe is brute fact that ...