Wayfarer

Re-visiting this thread because the book I've just read, Mind and the Cosmic Order, has provided a new interpretive model for 'the noumenal'. This is ...

Interesting comment in the Brittanica entry: That is the reason why many 19th and 20th century Buddhist advocates would claim that Buddhism is 'scient...

It's amazing how twisted up you can get over the concept that all intentional actions have consequences.

One of the important lessons I’ve learned here is when to walk away from an argument without having to have the final word.

Incorrect. In the Buddha's day, meritorious karma was accrued by performing the appropriate ritual sacrifices, and for the laity by supporting the Bra...

Yes indeed, Burmese buddhist nationalism has been a pretty horrible stain on the religion. So to the involvement of Japanese Zen Buddhists in World Wa...

Responded in this thread.

There is a difference but broadly speaking Aristotle is part of the platonist tradition. (That's why Gerson wrote a book called Aristotle and Other Pl...

I think - not sure - he voluntarily requested account deletion. He banned the forum, not vice versa. As far as I know.

Careful what you wish for!

Too much vituperative speech. Shame but there it is.

I agree with the some elements of your post, but you could detach it from Heidegger and it would work just as well. There's also a distinction that ca...

We've discussed that a lot, and no, I haven't missed it. As I just said, which you seem to have missed, I am quite persuaded by platonic realism - by ...

No, it’s a fair definition. Reductionism definitely has its uses. It is used to break down complex systems into their simplest components and understa...

Karma is not determinism. It generates tendencies and likely outcomes. There’s lots of mythology about it. It should also be pointed out that Buddhism...

Putnam is yet another gap in my philosophical education, but found a paper with this abstract: which seems a good approach and one I would agree with ...

Have a glance at this article about one of the originators of the idea of holism in philosophy. Not really. Holistic is mostly encountered in the fiel...

The discussion of 'the real cup' - that, if the perception of the cup is neural activity, then what is the 'real cup'? - is premissed on a misundersta...

He’s really f***ed this time. I know, I know, it’s been said before, but there’s no coming back from this.

Cheer up Tate. At least we have the Internet. :party:

I blame John Locke. :grimace:

Because we’re all part of the same species/culture/language group etc. - as Janus put it. But you can find many counter-examples. One of those I remem...

No fantasy involved. And the cupboard is just the same.

The point is, the 'physical cup' exists - but it is not what we see. Our seeing of it is the overlay generated by our fantastically powerful VR-genera...

Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order (p. 81). Springer International Publishing. Kindle Edition.

You see! This is why eliminativism claims that consciousness can't be real. Capiche? Those 'sensations and inner experiences' actually comprise the wo...

Neither. There is an external reality, according to Pinter, but the way (or the sense) in which it exists is incomprehensible to us. It can be modelle...

You're only approving that because the subject of the discussion has returned to cups. If we now introduce cupboards, you will feel that all is comple...

It should be recalled that here 'the cup' is a token for 'the object of perception'. It is supposed to represent a generic 'thing', anything that can ...

Admirable effort and I can see what you're getting at. My response would be to notice that your approach is indeed instrumentalist - that it takes an ...

I should've stopped there. :wink:

You forget that Kant lectured in science, and that his nebular theory (modified by LaPlace) is still part of current science. Bishop Berkeley wrote a ...

They're not an object of consciousness, but if you're asking, what is the world 'constructed from' then it's an answer. Sure, it's not the kind of exp...

Buddhist philosophy denies the existence of substance in the philosophical sense, and also of the transcendental subject (?tman). But it still has an ...

I've answered numerous times already. This resembles Kant's distinction between phenomena, what appears to us, and what the universe is in itself. Tra...

Reading an essay on mathematical realism. Discussing 'rigid properties', the author says 'objects exist prior to humans thinking about them, and they ...

The body is an object as far as our personal cognition is concerned. I suppose you could say this dual aspect is represented symbolically by the 'desc...

Good! Do that. Recall Descartes. You may doubt the existence of anything, but not that you are doubting.

I don’t actually regard that last post as speculative. I’m interested in Jung but I think it’s a digression.

I think that is a fair depiction but I never tire of pointing out that whatever this form of mind might be, it's not an object of experience. That is ...

Yes indeed it is. Actually reading it again - probably should have done that before now - I think the OP advances a weak argument for idealism. I thin...

'Doctor', to us. (Actually, he has two doctorates.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnaHybw6CBI&t=15s Idealism vs materialism is not actually the same...

Even given a consistent idealist ontology, that the fundamental constituents of knowledge are not objects but ideas and sensations, this doesn't mean ...

So, how did that happen? There's nothing in evolutionary biology which accounts for the existence of DNA, as the theory pre-supposes the existence the...

That's why I keep a copy of Thomas Nagel's essay, Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion, on my profile page. It really is worth reading. (N...

Maybe but at least it explains the reference.

See this

I never said that. Plainly from the perspective of a subject, myself, other beings appear in some sense as objects, but we do not regard other beings ...

The question never seems to occur to the poor. I guess they’re too busy to worry about it. But I suppose a less flippant answer might reference Karl D...

‘Oh, the same one that gives you a Command-Z in real life.’