T_Clark

Although I think what you say is true, it's not exactly the point I was trying to make. I wasn't even arguing against what I called "social control." ...

I'm not talking about nirvana or nothingness. Application of will is not the only way to act in the world. Looking at my own behavior, I can see that ...

I was trying to say something stronger than that. "Formal systems of morality," what I called social control, are not really morality at all. They rul...

I agree with all of this.

You say science, but science is just a formalization of how people go about knowing the world - I guess one would say "reason." It is a common underst...

Good point. I guess "phenomenon" is just another word for "thing," which makes the argument circular. Let's try this - a thing is an aspect of the wor...

I guess it comes down to that - if we name it, which is a matter of convention, it is real and it is a thing.

I disagree. Consciousness can be studied just as much as oranges can. And oranges can be experienced subjectively. I don't agree. There are often prob...

Sorry, you lost me. You recognize the objective study of something is not the same as the thing itself. So, why can't I objectively study consciousnes...

Yes, we do agree. I have a strong interest in Taoist philosophy as expressed in the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu. This is from Stephen Mitchell's trans...

You seem to be arguing with someone who doesn't exist. I don't know of anyone who believes that studying human consciousness and experience using psyc...

Humans can name, make an object or thing out of, anything. There is no such thing as a random swarm of unrecognizable gunk if it holds any interest fo...

Is love real? The United States of America? One of my dreams? Is anything that's real an object?

So, perhaps a tree is an object. Is a forest?

How about a microorganism that recognizes it's prey by chemical signals, then moves in that direction and engulfs it. Does it have intent? Does it rec...

You say no "real" objects, but for most of us, reality is also just how our brains carve things up too. The idea of objective reality is a much a huma...

I suppose it seemed like a good idea at the time. My wife's family is a bunch of boneheads.

Yes, that's true.

Perhaps I've mentioned it before - my brother in law ran a farm on Mull back in the early 1980s. After that, he thought it would be a good idea to go ...

Yes.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/download/2705/YGID%20small.png

I disagree, but I don't think I can make a good argument for my position right now. I'll have to think about it some more. Thanks for the provocation.

As I'm sure you know by now, metaphysics is important to me. Of all the people here on the forum, I think your way of seeing it is closest to mine, bu...

Here are some possible alternative or supplemental explanations. Christopher Lasch was a social critic who died in 1994. In 1978, he wrote an influent...

R.G. Collingwood wrote, and I agree, that metaphysics is the study of the (conscious or unconscious) underlying assumptions, what he calls absolute pr...

Hmmm. Is that what I mean? Maybe I would say that metaphysics is conceptual simplicity for a particular role/purpose. I'm not sure I understand what y...

I really like the way you've put this.

You're right. I just wanted to clarify that values do not come from any kind of moral code or principle. They come, as you note, as products of our be...

I thought this was interesting. /uploads/resized/files/67/ggxrza9v8pebc8q1.png The data covers from March through July 2020.

The only thing wrong with your plan is that it will never work. Oh, wait, another thing - opening up the possibility of a limited nuclear war makes it...

Is that "will" as in "the faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action," or as in "a legal document containing instructions as to what sh...

As I just noted in a response to Javi, you should have saved this for a poetry submittal. It's better than all but one that I've read here on the foru...

After reading your post I thought to myself, Javi, no. Don't use this here. Save it for a short story submittal. It's only 109 words, so I guess you'd...

This is a good way of putting it and I agree. This is something I've thought about a lot, which is made harder because I often struggle with quantum m...

To start, I agree that a legitimate morality is not concerned with principle. For me it's more personal, human than that. As for the rest of your posi...

An interesting, well-made video. You've covered many of the bases that need to be covered. I do have one disagreement. Materialism is metaphysics, a p...

Nonsense. We, and all the other animals, seek territory and food to address hunger and security, basic animal impulses, i.e. instincts. Humans and per...

This from the Wikipedia article on tychism.

Sure, but we do everything based on imaginary stories in our minds.

The web says that's 1957, when I was 6. I didn't know they still made 78s then. The web says they still made them until the early 1960s. Looks like yo...

There's a reasonable chance that you and I are old.

Thank you. Great example.

I think humans evolved to be acting, problem solving creatures. I guess all living organisms have. That is at the center of our nature. Without that, ...

If I understand it correctly, "Great Britain" refers to the main island, not the country. Did you hear that Trump called the UK "a terrible country, w...

Not sure about that. I guess it also depends on how you define "large." Not sure about that. I'm also not sure it makes sense to talk about the US eve...

Aw, shucks. Down here in Oz we're just country folks. We don't cotton to no pencil-necked, highfalutin, namby-pamby, fast-talkin ijits who like to spo...

That's always struck me as a pretty good definition.

Agreed, but it's more than 7, more than 70, more than 700, more than 7,000, more than 70,000, more than 700,000, more than 7,000,000, and maybe more t...

Yes, I think you're right.

Yes, I think so.