Correct. Correct. If there wasn't one, when you stopped thinking you'd cease to exist. I am often accused by the mindfullness group leader whose group...
In Buddhism - certainly the Zen type that I favour, you are not discouraged from trying to change the world, so that's a misconception. You are encour...
A computer can create, just as a monkey can, but is what it creates art? Art is virtually impossible to define as it's so subjective, but it is usuall...
The fact of your nationality (and age) is irrelevent as regards your chance of winning a lottery, so this statement is wrong. The chance that the winn...
To say we have a right to an ego is meaningless. Bentham called rights 'Nonsense on stilts'. Where is that 'right' enshrined? You could say we have a ...
So why did you (or whoever made the decision) hire them? I'm guessing you trust them to do a competent job most of the time - if not a perfect job all...
That means you do trust them! Unless of course you're duplicating their work behind the scenes, so as to cover over their failures when they arise.. I...
Of course, nothing is black and white: If I say I believe in black holes - or that I trust that they exist because scientists say so, does that mean t...
These are interesting. I think they both depend on being factors of 9. Going through the multiples of 3: The digits of 3, 6 and 9 are 3, 6 and 9 - cle...
We can trust nature I think, but the question refers to whether we must trust other people. We trust that scientists are telling us the truth about th...
Aren't you over-complicating it? The square of any even number is infact an even number multiplied by itself (ie another even number). And that multip...
The The key is your mentioning religion. I'd guess that virtually everyone who doesnt believe evolution believes in fundamentalist religous doctrine; ...
The only way it is possbile to live without trusting anyone is to become totally self-sufficient, which at any advanced standard of living is impossib...
I agree. Unfortunately, about 45% of the UK public don't. (I'm allowing 5-10% more for law-of-the-jungle capitalists). The problem is to refute the si...
The Irish border problem can, and in the end probably will, be solved by the UK staying in the EU Customs Union. I've yet to hear a good reason for no...
In Orwell's 1984, one of the totalitarian state's means of enslaving the populace was to outlaw many of the subtlties of language, and by restricting ...
According to Wikipedia: "Intelligence has been defined in many ways, including: the capacity for logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emoti...
Surely our acceptance of the idea that information cannot exceed the speed of light is not the result of pure induction, it is the prediction of Einst...
It's your subconscious either directly, or more subtly (via emotional triggers) influencing your conscious mind's thoughts. Your mind is like an icebe...
Yes, that's it. You will have heard of mindfullness, this is much the same thing without the philosophical baggage if that's more to your taste. Medit...
The voice is your mind (whether consciously or subconciously prompted) 'thinking' out loud. The listener is your awareness, which is separate. The lab...
Agreed. In trumpeting the importance of the education of the voter so as to 'improve' the outcome of elections we miss the point that ordinary people ...
I think this again is a circular argument. The past and the future may exist as concepts within that of time in our minds, but they have no concrete r...
Yes. An act must be judged moral or immoral by its consequences, not by universal tropes like 'lying is wrong'. The core of morality surely is that we...
Lets consider if information is lost when going from 3 dimensions to 2. Can a printed map accurately represent the earth's surface? Surely the answer ...
I agree. The concept of 'now' presupposes that time exists; and now separates the past from the future - two more meaningless concepts without that of...
If you suddenly see a car crash close by you feel an emotion (or two) - maybe shock, fear, concern - whatever. You don't consciously decide to have th...
I think this is a question of psychology rather than philosophy. Emotional reactions to events come from the subconscious mind. But the subconscious m...
I don't think these are issues of morality, but simply of tactful behaviour with regard to personal relationships. The answers one comes to will depen...
Keats said: "Truth is beauty, beauty truth. That's all ye know on Earth and all ye need to know." I think he was right, although he couldn't know why....
There is no such thing as certainty. Can we be certain the sun will rise tomorrow? No. You have to live life based on probability. Most of your fears ...
Those of us who are slaves to consumerism are constantly in a state of wanting because like any addiction, it offers no long-term satisfaction, only a...
In Darwinist terms, and for an advanced society like ours, life is good, death is evil. As pain tends to towards death it is bad; and happiness, being...
"All art is quite useless," as Oscar Wilde said. So, 'art' must justify its existance despite this. A work of art shows us something exceptional of th...
My aim for this discussion was the genesis of consciousness: And clearly one of the problems with discussing consciousness is in defining what exactly...
"I agree with @Harry Hindu in that language is just ascribed to what we already believe and know. Language is just a way to express the ideas and conc...
I'm an atheist, and I have a moral/ethical code. I think it comes partly from education and social acceptance, but partly through our genetic inherita...
The question 'Do numbers exist?' needs to be made more precise. I take it that by 'exist' we mean exist in the natural world, outside of man's imagina...
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