Pantagruel

I've have never yet encountered an atheist who did not treat atheism like a substitute religion, which is the ultimate irony, as I said. Yes, my comme...

Hardly. You are trying to figure out how many angels fit on the head of a pin. Like I said, if you define god as "the most advanced sentient being in ...

The idea of putting the conflict between realist and antirealist approaches to science aside is also a recurring theme in some accounts of pragmatism,...

So, I am a dyed-in-the-wool pragmatist and the whole realism/anti-realism debate really doesn't apply. If you can couch your dilemma outside of those ...

I had absolutely zero religious training and I'm not even slightly inclined to atheism. My sense of incredulity at the magnificent complexity of the u...

Ok, but I won't be able to give this my full attention during work hours. I'll read it more thoroughly and get back to you later in the day.

I think the Atheist has specific reasons for disbelieving in god. Probably some deep psychological trauma where they feel they were let down and aband...

For example, man may not be the center of the universe. However man may represent one of the most highly evolved physical systems in the universe. Exa...

I'm not aware of any criterion of 'proximal truth' that would invalidate what I'm saying. I think I made it quite clear that and how all beliefs are s...

Just because someone believes in something under a flawed description doesn't mean the belief is ultimately wrong, only a poor approximation. Scientif...

People once believed in "phlogiston," which does not exist. However the phenomena in question did have an explanation. So just because the specificall...

Sure. Here's my take. Atheism isn't so much a logical argument as it is a social position. If I don't believe in god, there's an end of it. But atheis...

It seems to me that the reason people decide to argue against god isn't to contradict the idea of god so much as it is to contradict a whole set of "a...

No, this is actually an instance of the fallacy of the excluded middle. While it may be true that either god exists or doesn't it is not true that eit...

Quite.

I have Einstein's Special and General Relativity, I've been meaning to re-read it and your post reinforces that....

Yes, the entire process contributes to the "informational outcome" is the abstract level takeaway I guess... :)

On Individuality and Social Forms by Georg Simmel Arendt was excellent, albeit a dense read. More concept-driven than thesis-oriented, which suits me ...

We ratify our beliefs constantly because everything that we can perceive and can formulate and plan is ultimately dependent on what we allow ourselves...

Yes, it definitely resonates with me also. I was referring also to his idea of the "metaphysical research program" which guides and shapes scientific ...

And yet do you not find he has a very keen respect for metaphysics?

Exactly. :up: If you ask what something is, then you are asking how it is actually instantiated in the world (ie. this is a question of empirical ethi...

After reading Popper's Postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery trilogy two years ago my lifelong "orientation" of idealism changed to scientif...

Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais

I don't think wisdom is captured so much by what you say as by what you do, per Apollodorus' reply.

The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt

I have always summed it up this way to myself: is it more unlikely that matter gives rise to consciousness, or that consciousness gives rise to matter...

No more than minority standards lead to elitism and exclusivity. Philosophy is not the exclusive domain of academics and should be friendly to a diver...

There was nothing superficial about my reading. You are attempting to impose your idea of a rule on the moderators and the forum. That isn't how the f...

It's highly speculative, I'll admit. Nevertheless, I don't think it can be specifically disproved. The ubiquity of fractals in natural systems in my m...

Yes, this does look like a 'hard stop' to everything. Unless perhaps there is an "information dimension"?

I think the key counter-argument involves the condition "where all traces are removed" - this is not what happens in reality. In reality, every event ...

It isn't the role of members to "oust" other members (that's cliquey and elitist) it's the job of the moderators. Anyone can censor an annoying post j...

Here's how I conceptualize this apparent paradox. Think of the universe as a set of particles subject to a very basic physics, like a computer simulat...

As in all things, I endorse the individual's right to choose. Medical science - all science - is inherently imperfect, as the history of science abund...

:up:

Yes, and I think there are different kinds intersubjective agreement as well. There is agreement of consensus (we agree that we agree) and there is ag...

I think that your understanding of reality is your reality. Interaction with the universe is not optional. So people exist in the state of understandi...

Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Habermas' theory of communicative action is much more anthropological.

Habermas calls such "steering media" - money and power for example: which bypass consensus-oriented communication with a 'symbolic generalisation of r...

I think our whole notion of land-ownership has led us to the brink of catastrophe. Nobody owns the land. We human beings share it with myriad other li...

Post it up! You can always start a new thread.

I created a thread on false beliefs, or should I say, "false believing," a little while ago. What you are talking about has been central to my persona...

I have. What we learn must be something new, but not entirely unforeseen. It must either fill a gap in an already existing coherent structure of thoug...

You've already mentioned "collective teleonomy" - I think that the actual results of our teleonomic endeavours are a product of our evolved capacities...

:up: As I mentioned in your other thread, i think your gloss of the is-ought relationship in terms of the ethics of meaning is excellent. I was going ...

I believe that rationality is a capacity. But as thinking beings, we also have another capacity for self-deception. This is where philosophy (for me) ...

Well, there is the fundamental divide, Buddhists believe that the material world is an illusion, the spiritual real; whereas most of the western world...

Don't get me wrong, your style is clear, and I see lots of excellent assumptions. "Meaning, in an important sense, is always determined by what an exp...