Wayfarer

We have in our culture a very rigid barrier between natural and supernatural. It is mainly constructed due to the cultural dynamics surrounding early ...

Whereas, the general consensus on this forum is that any claims of religious revelation or accounts of the divine arising from religious or mystical t...

The majority will never accept that there is the kind of state of self-realisation or higher knowledge that the Advaitins are speaking of, as it has n...

:up:

I've noticed that the term is only ever used in discussions connected to a particular clique of American academic philosophers - the usual suspects of...

I've been attending a couple of online Q&A's by Evan Thompson, who's a philosopher and phenomenologist, one of the co-authors of the influential book ...

I can see that being a real rabbit hole. I'm no AI sceptic, I've followed it on this forum and on the Internet, but when you introduce ideas such as '...

This starts with the very first organism, doesn't it? I mean, it won't *know* that in the sense that humans do (not having a brain) - but the differen...

The self is the ground of experience, but it has no objective reality. Buddhist philosophy is well known for denying the reality of self, which is the...

To me, that is the major subject of philosophy. It is the domain of the a priori, but it's not as if there's evidence for them, so much as that we rel...

Practically speaking, realists are those who believe realpolitik and scientific rationalism. That's nearer to what I'm on about. Note the convergences...

I do find it compelling. I first came across Vedanta when I was about 20, a share house I was in had a pamphlet on the teaching of Ramana Maharishi, w...

It's more that, the approach of saying there is some vital truth presented in something like Advaita Vedanta - let's take that as scientific fact, lea...

Plainly.

I think Wittgenstein was nominalist, through and through. In other words, universals could have, for him, no reality aside from their usage in languag...

Carefree, I would say.

Hegel always says too much.

Hi Katiee, and welcome to the Forum. I would say, honest doubt and wrestling with doubt is an integral part of any mature faith. If you're at all fami...

The whole problem arises from the sense of 'otherness', the barely articulated sense of the separation of the self and the world. That is an inevitabl...

in the world i.e. constituents of reality. 'The ligatures of reason', is how I put it.

Not only 'our doings'. This is why I convinced of the reality of universals. But no, comes the invariable response, they're the products of the mind, ...

I would question that. I think the attempt to distill this kind of understanding outside the philosophical-religious frameworks in which it was articu...

Up until quite recently, 'realism' in philosophy meant 'realism with respect to universals' i.e. some form of Platonic or Aristotelian realism. Today'...

You will find nearly all these accounts presented in the context of religious cultures. There is a tradition of 'the uncreated light' in Eastern Ortho...

Why not indeed? Have you encountered that book, Incomplete Nature? It's been discussed here a bit over the years. Cheatsheet here. Next on my list.

Like numbers, and natural laws.

:up: Thank you.

Interesting, I hadn't thought of it like that. But I'm not really reading it as an attempt to convert. The context is Nagel's observation about how th...

Agree with your analysis and glad you found that essay worthwhile. The bottom line is naturalism is essentially defined against what it denies: most o...

The point he’s trying to make is that while cognitive science is adequate for the explanation of the various functions of consciousness, it can’t show...

This debate is one of the fronts in the culture wars. On the one side, scientific materialism says that humans are gene machines or moist robots, that...

Not at all. Neither does David Chalmers. Remember, Daniel Dennett is not a cognitive scientist, or actually a scientist at all. He's a philosopher who...

Are they common where you live? (I know it's completely disconnected to the thread, but anyway....)

I first noticed them when I was still living at home with my folks. An invasive species in Australia. They’re super-smart, real scrappers, aggressive,...

Send me a test message, I have it enabled. (Oh, and by the way, I hate Indian Mynahs :rage:

Um, that was March 9 this year, and it is very much happening just as they predicted. They pointed to the many recent studies about the deleterious co...

You said that you would create a questionnaire, consult students, and so on. I expect groups like Pew Research might have surveys on such questions (l...

I've been following this thread, off and on - it's a fascinating exploration. Still, that particular presentation really throws into relief some of th...

Cherry-picking a single remark doesn't convey the gist of a 5000 word essay, which I think makes many an important point over and above the oft-quoted...

The conclusion is a call to action, and as you're an influencer, I feel it might have particular significance for you. They really impressed on me the...

I started a thread on Descartes and animal cruelty. I will add that during the course of the ensuing debate, I did some more digging, and found that D...

Hi Pierre-Normand - just been watching a pretty fascinating/scary analysis on youtube The AI Dilemma - worth the time, I think https://www.youtube.com...

I don't think your depiction of it is mistaken, but it's not the whole story. Recall a salient passage from the original paper: What I think Chalmers ...

My objection to neuro-reductionism is that what it is seeking to explain is something which is different in kind to other topics of scientific analysi...

I've started this, about 20 minutes in as I write this. Insightful and important video, I think a must watch.

If you read the remainder you might get Nagel's point.

Interesting current Aeon essay on this topic Meaning Beyond Definition.

The poster you're referring to is knowledgeable and articulate, and is making sound criticisms. Take this as a warning - keep it up and you'll be susp...

You are free to make any arguments you like, but please refrain from ad hominem attacks and insults ('I don't know under which rock you have been livi...