unenlightened

You heard wrong, unfortunately; there is heap plenty suffering in the East. But anyway, you don't get to choose your theory any more than you get to c...

We have had various theories of matter, and the current theories seem to work better than the old theory of the four elements (Earth, Air, Fire and Wa...

Values based on evidence eh? I'm not sure that is a good idea...

It is rare in the course of discussion to achieve a sudden new insight. What is difficult about the more abstract discussions though is to understand ...

Alas I know that story too.

And there was me thinking it referred to the Cool-Aid Acid Test.

Read Brave New World.

You heard it there first.

I'm very interested in identity, but I'm not too fond of video philosophy, so I headed off after a few minutes to find some text on Lionel Trilling. h...

You and me both. From the bridge to N. Ireland to the floating wall in the Channel to stop the migrants, the fantasies pour out with Trumpean brazenne...

If that its your project, you have started poorly. Start with the idea that we really do know some things, and then see how far you can extend these t...

So you can imagine a circumstance where what I have claimed we know, could be untrue. I might be a robot, for instance. Or you might be hallucinating ...

The Savage Mind.

"We"? 1. You have written a post. 2. In English. 3. That appears superficially to make sense. 4. We know how to read and write English. I wonder if th...

Horse eats frog by mistake Poetry as bricolage.

It's easy peasy Odd numbers are auspicious Lucky it's easy. The first line sets out what the next develops The last transforms all.

It won't annoy the dead, or the self-righteous living, but it annoys me now that I cannot trust what I am told, and but expect to be told "told you so...

Not the first, obviously, but still interesting... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jantar_Mantar,_Jaipur

Sometimes the work of the invisible hand looks a bit like a conspiracy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpWluQXKTZk

A vote for Boris has never conceivably been a vote for consistency. We like the cut of his jib, without having the least clue what a jib is or how it ...

Belief systems tend to have high priests, and here are a couple for you. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-vaccin...

If you consult The Golden Bough, or better yet, The White Goddess, you will hear of an ancient normality of matrilineal descent - there is no question...

The utter irrelevance of other people, envious or pitying is the essence of Narcissus. Self -concern and self-love, writ large, would be envied by tho...

Man created god in his own image?

There used to be a thread for these things (out of context member quotes.) but where has it gone? In the meantime, I do assure you this makes perfect ...

Narcissus is the archetype of the addict. Echo of the unthinking enthusiast for whatever propaganda, religious, commercial or political, happens to be...

Who promoted God to beyond His competence? The Peter principle applies to hierarchical structures; but not a statue, nor a painting ever gets promoted...

I would certainly like to agree, but there is a problem: propaganda, deception, misrepresentation, manipulation, are uses. You cannot avoid in human a...

I'd say Graves' "The White Goddess" gives a fairly thorough philosophy of poetry from metaphysics to politics.

Personally, my instinct was always to be harder on mean than on stupid; but there is a volume of anything that becomes spam, the same way that series ...

That would explain the ubiquity of puzzles. I believe mental stimulation is recommended...

Ah. Now that is a trial. And I cannot advise, because at some point you may have to choose in the practice of life, because one cannot be in two place...

That works too, but it's less present to hand.

More so by communicating via the internet: bouncing the signal my words are transformed into around the world and collecting them into an equivalent i...

Elsewhere, god be thanked!

With other people, not you.

But you left out the rest of the question. Are you saying that computers and enzymes have perceptions and memories? I'm not clear either, but it is to...

I'm tempted to suggest that you are imposing your own pattern on things here, but the children would get over-excited. :wink: I'm just reminding folks...

But let's get back on topic. How does pattern recognition happen? How does the immune system recognise the breakdown products of cell death? How does ...

A row is a relation between ducks, just as a beach is a relation between pebbles. They do not require the say so of a philosopher. But if, as you clai...

What are these turns made of?

There are no such things! You can always tell us about them. That's doing something! It might work; it might change the world, or change us or change ...

So what does it mean? But alas, I am banging my fingers on these keys in what I think is a meaningful pattern and you discern nothing of it, but impos...

Yawn. The presumption behind this question is that substance is the only real. But take an example "some ducks in a row". And you doubt that this row ...

Alas yes, practice does not conform to my theory, but that is exactly where I wanted to get to. One recognises a pattern, and another pattern, and one...

If I sort some pebbles by size, and put big ones here and little ones there I am imposing a pattern. However, the pebbles on Chesil Beach have had a p...

As do we all. (he recites) This is true, but I think it is more to do with the deep culture of China, I suspect, than anything else. They got a lot mo...

You'll find a deal of sympathy here for the notion that religion is all talk; but I would suggest that it is primarily a social (and occasionally unso...

A little harsh. There are words that politicians like to claim, that one does not have to agree that they deserve. "Democratic" is claimed by many a t...

Rather than try and arrive at a particular answer or series of answers, which would be at best misleading, I tend to have recourse to a crib sheet, ak...