BC

It is true that good work, good relationships, good housing, good food, or a good death are not guaranteed in this life, and it is also true that noth...

That is the question about authenticity, isn't it. A "mask" is a role or a style we adapt to suit--or discomfit--others. It is a false front (which pe...

IF in the real world you were to force a woman to appear naked or to expose various sexual parts in a dramatic production of some kind (like in a 30 m...

No digital character suffered in making or playing Witcher 3. The claim that the game is a "realistic" medieval-era dark fantasy" is absurd. It most a...

I am a friendly, talkative, philosophically minded, arrogant, enlightened snob.

I consider taking off one's masks a "key" to being authentic. Some people wear many masks, some wear only a few. Being authentic is being who we actua...

No. If life is sufficiently unsatisfactory that it is better to not be born, technology does not rescue life. Life with technology is different than l...

Absolutely. The agenda is hidden from some, crystal clear to others. Why does Google provide such an invaluable service as SEARCH? What does Facebook ...

It might be helpful to take a longer-range view of technology than the last 150 years (1870 to the present) because we are very much in the middle of ...

Seems to me that giving up on systems and finding ways to enjoy life w/o a system might be highly therapeutic for some people. My operating system is ...

There is a black and a white, but in social affairs those extreme states are separated by many standard deviations of subtle grayscale. "Personal boun...

When I first read the thread title, I thought maybe yet another philosophy graduate had returned to selling used cars or Amway products... Glad that's...

Indeed people do want to enjoy what they are doing, to see themselves a productive, and to find that their work is an integral part of their lives. Bu...

Obligation? For most of the history of capitalist society, this mutual 'obligation' has amounted to wage slavery. ("Slavery" references the imbalance ...

We have extensive choices in all of this ONLY if we happen to have been born into great wealth. Otherwise, group norms and obligations apply with forc...

Agape or (among other definitions) "unconditional love" does not require reciprocation in the way that eros does. It does not seek reciprocation in a ...

is a dubious proposition. When conditioning an animal (like, when you are training your children to behave properly) it is well known that positive re...

You've heard of the Anna Karenina principle? The novel opens with the sentence... Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its...

We seem to have guidelines that guarantee hubris will happen. Donald Trump as businessman is probably no more hubristic than any other tycoon type. As...

Hubris is excessive over-reaching--not just mere pride, but really grandiose ambition. Hubris (serious over-reaching) is a moral flaw because the prou...

Nobody thinks we are playing God when we look for cancer treatments and new antibiotics — Bitter Crank Figuratively, nobody. Even fundamentalist evang...

True enough, they are not. But science is driven by more than the curiosity of inquisitive scientists. It is also driven by funders who have a variety...

Trump: bump, clump, crump, dump, frump, grump, hump, jump, lump, pump, rump, thump, slump, sump, ump.

Emotion may temper our perceptions. Person A, who feels very angry, aggressive, hostile... -- which some people do a good share of the time -- is goin...

And whose fault is that?

Sound ecology. Actually, if the bears would eat more illegal aliens, the bears would flourish. And, BTW, bear-eaten-illegal-aliens would not be availa...

All eight terms are collectivities (like, all the understandings of physics, all the incidences of bear attacks, all the aliens occupying high office ...

I have always thought that the idea of never dying was horrible. I'm 70; and am planning on living another 15 years (based on parental longevity and c...

Utopia. There have been some utopian efforts that worked out pretty well, at least for a while --10, 20, 100, even 200 years. 1600 years if you count ...

I understand. I have been in a totally, unreasonably, wonderful mood for maybe 5 years, but for a couple of decades I was pretty much in one long foul...

I doubt that it is possible, but I also hope that it never happens. The "perfect society" must, of necessity, be a dead end, and a likely rigid, oppre...

Thanks for these. Tolkien's Middle Earth was a thoroughly sacralized place until the end of the Third Age, with the final defeat of a particular Evil,...

How do "innate ideas" get into the brain? Genes? Genes organize the brain and with that organization we can learn language. Likewise certain rules abo...

Forget about the hidden realm beyond time and thought. What is sacred, if anything is sacred (and I hope something can still be sacred) it is in this ...

Laying brain size aside, there are other factors which are likely to determine our estimation of how smart somebody is without any other indication of...

Stanford Neuroscience Graduate Student 'Kendra' says: Whales and elephants have much bigger brains than humans We have about the same brain-to-body ma...

Your formulation "beyond the field of thinking, because of the limits of thinking ... takes place in time ... is beyond time and thought" leaves you (...

We didn't ask to have the world secularized, but we've been on a secularization track for quite a few years, at least since the Enlightenment. The Ind...

Oops, a failure to communicate on my part. Calling you a "troublemaker" was meant as a salute, not a criticism. I took your post quite seriously. And ...

In a secular -- desacralized -- world, nothing is sacred. Not Mecca, not Jerusalem, not Eleusis, not the Black Hills in South Dakota, not the Bible or...

You are a troublemaker. Your question stirs up a lot of old debris and clouds of dust, but to what end? We can dispense with your objection about mere...

The first place to start is what comes to most people's minds first: What are my interests, what are the interests of my family, my closest friends? I...

I have experienced a lot of sturm and drang in my life, lots of strife and conflict. I admit it. My main regret is that I was not more successful in d...

If Pessimism in Philosophy means a belief that this world is as bad as it could be or that evil will ultimately prevail over good. and Optimism in Phi...

How deep is the dichotomy here? Not too deep. The pessimist's view of the world is not more accurate than the optimist's. Take global warming: The pes...

and others... So, what do you expect to happen in your life (job, housing, cost of living, etc.) as a result of Brexit, assuming that the exit is nego...

Republicans in Congress tried very hard to nail Clinton for something illegal, and haven't been successful. Perhaps the lady is inconveniently innocen...

Propaganda, I expect, but it shouldn't be presented as "fact". "Unfair" is a bit vague. What is fair and foul? What Nixon & company did was not merely...

Yes, that's right. The party-political system is rigged, and the rigging covers both parties pretty much head to toe.

Don't regret too much. Old apple trees are best replaced by fresh stock, even if the varieties are excellent. TPF is a refreshed cutting of PF; the va...