TheMadFool

Here's the deal. The whole point of Descartes' cogito ergo sum is to prove the existence of a something that's conscious from consciousness. The probl...

To the extent I'm aware religion is, at its core, a moral system and being so it must function as a source of, sustain, and judge, reward and punish f...

If I understand correclty, the author of the article(?) is claiming that what we identify as cause and effect, both, must exist independently of each ...

There's a lot of freedom that comes with association for it can be and is personalized - the stuff I associate with the word "god" maybe completely di...

I suppose Ned Block wants to say that just because our best thinkers think a certain AI thinks, it doesn't mean that particular AI actually thinks. Ho...

The case for karma to me is much simpler than your conceptualization of it. It follows directly from the Principle Of Sufficient Reason: 1. For every ...

I'm under the impression that science doesn't deal with that kinda questions. If the universe had an author, science is in the business of finding out...

@"Wayfarer" I was offering a Buddhist perspective on the issue, it being in line with your thoughts that life is suffering and the only way to avoid/e...

That, in itself, is a contradiction. If god's omnipotent (he can do anything. Contradictions? Bah!), he can very well create beings who never choose e...

This is privileged information - no mind is accessible to another mind. However, that doesn't mean we can't create a high fidelity reconstruction of r...

The title, the analogy of life as a torture - death by a thousand cuts - speaks volumes. An antinatalist, which I presume this thread revolves around,...

Thanks for the post. It's a mine of information - from heavy metal music to heavy mental work. I couldn't connect as much as I'd like with what you sa...

What do you mean by "the sun is identical to itself"? Is there a danger/risk that it won't be identical to itself? Surely, the reason for formulating ...

:ok: :up: Thanks

I discovered, a day ago, that meaning or purpose (seen as a role of cosmic proportions i.e. you matter to the very existence/functioning/even destruct...

This reminds me of the Buddha...a man struck by an arrow lying in the Buddha's arms and the Buddha desperately trying to focus on treating the wound a...

:clap: :up: A vague suspicion of mine. I like where this is going. :up: You always have the right quote for the right occasion! :up: We see eye to eye...

I was always unsure about the difference between evidence and proof. My current stance on this issue is that proofs are whole arguments that demonstra...

Is there a difference, a distinction, between youre behavior (in the jungle) and the rat Y's behavior (in the scenario described in the OP) in terms o...

Me too! I should've stopped at "silence is golden" but I kept on writing, essentially contradicting myself but, in my defense, there's not an iota of ...

I'm deeply intrigued by this claim. Can you edify me on this most fascinating idea of "neither rational nor irrational"?

Freedom, our desire, our yearning, for it, its irresistible allure, its captivating charm, leads us all, if not in actuality then at least in our imag...

I'm afraid not. Although we can't look inside the minds of cats and rats, we can draw reasonable inferences from their behavior, one being that they b...

Having the ability to decide - to choose (freely) - is, in and of itself, power, the most coveted of all powers.

The problem then would be if it's changed its tune. :lol:

A macabre choice to make but it'll do the trick...I guess.

Not necessarily but definitely a possibility. This leads me to another topic on God, God as a necessary being which I tend to think of as saying that ...

How?

Indeed there is and thank you for pointing that out but what's its relevance to the topic? What about ear plugs and closing one's eyes or blindfolds?

Here's what think. From a set theoretic perspective: Consider the following set: List A: {>}, {zero}, {dog} List B: {a, %}, {9, cat} List C: {living m...

Point! I'll get back to the issues you raised here but this just in on my news channel :smile: How would an anti-theist make sense of the ontological ...

:up: :ok: The crux of Descartes' argument is that if an action is being performed then, for him, necessarily the existence of a thing performing that ...

Well, as I see it, the English translation of cogito ergo sum viz. I think. Therefore, I am, is slightly inaccurate. My research, for what it's worth,...

Thanks for your comment. If I catch your drift, your claim is that God isn't good because "...a human person is worth more than bacteria" and the deat...

Well, you threw me off with the statement: Come to think of it, even if "aware" is an adjective - a state of being - you still must rely on the premis...

Isn't the eye a just a fancy light-detector? I share your sentiments on the issue. The mind seems to have an agenda, probably because of it's driven t...

@"David Cleo" Short and sweet. Just the kinda thing I was looking for. Thanks a million. Is it fair to say then that the naive realist would simply co...

Hi Harry Hindu. There's something that I want to run by you. It's got to do with the "color" black. I don't how to put this into the right words but I...

Well said. I've always wanted to, when and If I get the time and provided I still feel as enthusiastic as I was on the day the idea popped into my min...

Well, it appears that the people running the show have finally come to their senses. Given our relatively short lifespans and the fact that no matter ...

Imagine a world, Zor, with beings that do possess free will. Is it possible for God to predict the actions and hence the future of Zor and Zorians? If...

I'm in a bit of a mess right now. Can't seem to wrap my head around something in another thread. Thanks for the comment. Take care and Good day.

For what it's worth, my two cents... I remember, vaguely, a forum member stating not that human nature exists/doesn't exist but that the very notion d...

@"TheQuestioner" Firstly, it would be very disheartening if we don't have free will. Secondly, you claim that the current state of our world is inevit...

Nothing springs to mind! A rose by any other name smells as sweet. For what it's worth here's how I see it... The Law Of Identity: A = A. In my book, ...

You've made an inference from "...are aware..." to "...aware beings." For this to work you need the premise 1. All doings are things that have doers t...

The OA hasn't been refuted in a way that silences its proponents or satisfies its opponents.

While I gave attempted to give a linguistic twist to Descartes reasoning it seems only incidental to the tale I'm weaving. The crux of the issue is, i...

What bothers me is that, to reiterate in fewer words than the OP, the inference from action to actor - doing, doer beer ( :joke: ) ] - is abstracted f...

Another issue regarding nothing is that in our discussion I made the remark that zero is the quantitative property of nothing. That just doesn't feel ...