Pantagruel

I think being mindful of this fact of simultaneous uniting and surpassing is indeed key. But is it non-rational, or simply not bound by or limited to ...

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And this argument undoubtedly has merit. As I just posted on my thread on "motivated belief": "It may well be, for example, that there is some kind of...

Religion's are at the core of many cultures, so are vital if you want to develop a more expansive understanding of the human experience.

Yes, this does touch the heart of the matter. What can be firmly believed? Who is to say what the universe says to each of us? Isaac Newton heard the ...

Well, that's not what I was suggesting.

I don't think that's the best possible description though. Mind and matter are both elements of some overarching system maybe.

No argument from me.

I'm not confusing them, I'm providing a phenomenological description that I personally find consistent with the fundamental experience of consciousnes...

Maybe. Or maybe belief aligns with intentionality at a level that is fundamental to what consciousness is. Thinking is always thinking "about" and the...

If you need definitions then you could read a few books. Or start another thread. Has nothing to do with my post about motivated belief. I'm more inte...

I am quite certain that I understand the different descriptive contexts. To quote one of Anthony Trollope's characters, "I know my own mind well enoug...

Pretty sure I'm not. Pretty sure that I was and am talking about consciousness. I'm "conscious" of the fact that I am.

I have found that one valuable principle of self-cultivation is to challenge yourself to work on your own weaknesses. Where you are naturally gifted, ...

Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope

Of course that is an analogy too.....

Well, the possibility at least exists that there are such causal schemas, perhaps only partially overlapping the boundaries of the world we inhabit wi...

Well, any magic I have ever heard about has involved performing some non-arbitrary action or ritual in order to engender a result. What you have descr...

Interesting that those are all anthropocentric examples. Perhaps the stars and quarks do spell out those messages, but we have not yet learned the lan...

A lot of speculative inference, but so far hangs together, and seems plausible.

Says the thinking being.....

Simmel definitely had his ups and downs, but overall very stimulating. Next up, for a larf, Yuval Noah Harari's history and prophecy of humanity: Sapi...

Yes. It teaches you how to start over from scratch.

Is it though? Moving from the quantum to the macroscopic world is essentially just a type of phase-transition. Quantum biology seems a solid field of ...

The whole concept of God doesn't need to be philosophically justified. Historically it has been something that humanity needs both psychologically and...

If it's irreducible then the same applies to the physical portion. So either way we are then talking about a mental-physical hybrid which is irreducib...

Information, for example, exists independently of its physical instantiation. Exactly the same information can be held by a variety of physical media....

Well, that's the whole question, is physicality equivalent with existence? I see no reason to assume there aren't more all-encompassing categories tha...

No it isn't, you just defined it that way now!

Using knowledge is possessing knowledge.

You don't have to be able to define knowledge in order to possess knowledge. Everyone on the planet knows a lot of things (which usually correlates to...

One of my favourites.

Yeah, I guess certain peoples' claims need to be considered in context....Hmmm.

Oh, you mean it was all a scam?

Not sure how this example applies. Sexual predators rape indiscriminately, especially in prison.

Quite. Language should determine its own usage.

:up: In fact, most of the PC issues smack of this kind of self-involvement. I think that choosing your own pronoun is like choosing your own name and ...

The features of reality of which we are aware are pragmatically determined. You can play a completely novel tone to a cat such that its brain does not...

This I think says it all. We admire reason and logic and try to live up to them as standards, but they don't capture everything. I would say not just ...

Yes, I believe that there is some kind of strong underlying motivation which often relates to the consciousness or feeling of being faced with some ki...

If accepting as true what you want so badly to believe is true is the definition of faith it seems a poor accomplishment....almost like signing a fals...

Yes, I had never heard of Pascal's wager until I read it on here a while ago. It figures in my own philosophy as what I call "the ontological gamble";...

My comments are about the ones I personally have interacted with including on here, which I qualified elsewhere. I admitted that the one's who don't p...

Think about it. When you "actually" understand something, then you establish a link between your mind and whatever minds set the precedent for your th...

Suppose, just for a second, that what you are, as a cognizant, thinking being, is in some way materially contingent on information transferred forward...

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I hear you. But I still think that there should be freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

The do say "love is blind".....

The whole concept of the devil is another thing altogether. However elsewhere I've discussed how the universe seems to be propelled by the dynamism of...