We have an exceptional imagination, combined with an inflated self-image. Other animals live in the world as they find it. We want the world to be org...
Subjective experience, yes. We all have this. It's sufficient to convince us - to the point of basing all our institutions on it. We cannot do otherwi...
Doesn't that seem circular to you? The proof for free will is in the institutions predicated on the presumption of free will. Yes, we feel, think and ...
Good and successful ones as well as bad. And everyone else's. There is no advantage to be gained. The motivation is an irresistible human drive to ask...
Among other things. There is all that previous cause-and-affect stuff threading through the universe since its inception - bang or whimper, who knows?...
Well, there's other stuff at play. Stupidity and ignorance limit the range of freedom to choose. So do physical constraints and emotional entanglement...
Aha. It also oscillates backward and forward in time. Well, why not? Of course, I don't know what self-organizing means in any global context, nor how...
Sure events are rewritten in partisan histories, time travel stories and human memories. I've never seen it in a chemical reaction; thus remain unsway...
How many of those have you committed in the past second? Each of your reasoned decisions can only result in one action. Prove it. We simply cannot kno...
In any given situation, you are, quite literally limited to only one act. Thinking you 'could have' acted differently is natural: if the act turned ou...
Denial or acceptance doesn't change anything. If you believe in free will, you can rationalize and justify your actions; if you don't, you can excuse ...
Consider him considered. Plus Paul the fake apostle. That's two, I suppose you can add Socrates and Darrell Standing - still not a universal condition...
That's a nice position to take outside a prison cell. Of course you're not wrong. If you believe it, you experience it and it's true for you. The fact...
By the fact your conscious awareness, which is only in the top 10% of the brain, doesn't know all the processes that lead to a decision, only the fina...
Yes, but it's an illusion. Your body and brain make the decisions a split second before you're actually aware of them. But it doesn't matter: You expe...
Metabolism and alcohol tolerance varies widely. Some heavy drinkers are able to stop when they decide it's enough; some social drinkers nobody would c...
It is if you're entirely devoid of sensibility and scruples. You can 'believe in' honour simply by throwing a few pennies at a minstrel to sing about ...
You mean we left some with their heads still on? A serious oversight, that. Everyone should be a well-off foreign man in a non-democratic, patriarchal...
For some.... If you've been in a position to owe - and fail to pay - taxes, to cheat on your wife and rape someone. Not if you're the imported serf wh...
Nothing. There are no such countries. In theory, if all cultures and ethnicities were considered equal, without animosities, long-standing rivalries o...
What the voters want is a fair and free election. With the rigid two-party system, the electoral college, campaign financing, voter suppression, disin...
Fair and free... If T***p is fairly and freely elected, he'll declare himself emperor and have his name in huge neon letters affixed to the White hous...
There used to be three layers: the upper - burghers, bankers, owners of enterprise, traders; the middle - professionals, salaried executives, shopkeep...
Generals, yes. Yes, some of them became upper middle class, and a few were gentry. What is? Besides, you seem to be concerned only with Europe. The ri...
No, it was doing fine, as clerics, crafters and army officers. it declined for a short time. But local trade continued, and soon international commerc...
It started long before Reagan. Try 4000BCE. And, no, the middle does not disappear; it usually prospers. Gets bigger and smaller, mostly due to the vo...
Yes, it could benefit from thoughtful editing. (I admit a bias here.) Some of the ideas are overstated, repeated, described too much. And I'm certainl...
That's because it's a rephrasing of the 'why' question. The 'how' question is more practical. "How are rain and clouds related?" "How do clouds affect...
The key, in this as elsewhere, is balance. Doing what is 'correct' (?) goes only so far to ensure a fulfilling life. Achieving goals has its reward. S...
I think you're attributing a separate consciousness and thought process to feelings. There is no 'emotional thinking', but emotions do prompt thought ...
They're not judgments at all; they're primitive mental responses to sensory input from the environment and the body. It takes reason to name and descr...
No, I wasn't. But then, I'm not opposing emotion to reason on principle. In fact, that's more or less what I've been arguing: that someone can make a ...
I have no argument with your reasoning; I just don't see it applied in real-world situations. Different perspectives here: I've worked in health care,...
No, actually. It was an unfortunate choice of the critical word in the OP: I failed to consider all the ways it might be interpreted. Entirely my faul...
Conclusion: What you don't know can't exist. To one who demands that everything have a meaning that he can understand, and doesn't know the reason for...
Unknown. Judging the unknown irrational and meaningless is irrational. We can only apply reason to that which we know, or think we know. According to ...
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