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Wayfarer

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In: Brexit  — view comment
/uploads/files/hl/9b27fhfjj1onnanv.png Hell hath no fury like a senior adviser scorned. And more to the point of the OP Brexit has been ‘big success’ ...
January 31, 2022 at 21:27
I think the distinction that modern philosophy has lost is between what exists and what is real. They are after all regarded as synonymous in the mode...
January 31, 2022 at 21:22
In: Brexit  — view comment
How can he go on? Surely every possible excuse has just been incinerated by this report. The writing must be on the wall. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/med...
January 31, 2022 at 21:05
Ought not to be forgotten that the Greek philosophers thought we were something other than, or more than, other creatures. ('Creatures' means 'created...
January 31, 2022 at 21:01
My wife's family are devout members of a small Christian sect. At funerals (there have been a few, we've been married a long time) they often sing a h...
January 31, 2022 at 20:56
Hey seeing as you guys know computer science, answer me this question. I posted a lnk to a documentary about Claude Shannon a few weeks back. Shannon ...
January 31, 2022 at 20:49
Very wise. If you think about what you have to do before doing it, it can become an insurmountable problem as you imagine all of the ways in which it ...
January 31, 2022 at 09:17
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January 31, 2022 at 09:04
:yikes: You’re beacon of sanity in a very confused world.
January 31, 2022 at 07:50
If it walks like a duck….
January 31, 2022 at 07:49
which is strictly positivist. 'Positivism - a philosophical system recognizing only that which can be scientifically verified or which is capable of l...
January 31, 2022 at 05:52
As I said - I think physicalism is the default for the educated, secular intelligentsia. It is what remains, when the superstious babble of religion h...
January 31, 2022 at 04:02
What I'm interested in is 'higher consciousness', which actually has a wiki entry - not brilliant, but still. But it is nothing at all like: https://s...
January 31, 2022 at 02:52
I could explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
January 31, 2022 at 02:23
I'm not railing against anything. I am expressing a view on subject of the thread. Yes, the eliminative materialists, like Daniel Dennett, express the...
January 31, 2022 at 01:35
Never saw Armstrong as a father figure. I thought him a dork. (My actual father was Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.) What's wanting is any un...
January 31, 2022 at 00:22
thank heavens for small mercies. Totally reject that, by the way. Materialism is only one way of 'understanding the physical world', and it's a defici...
January 30, 2022 at 23:52
It is a live subject in culture and philosophy. If you don't find it interesting, then why barge in with inane commentary? that's Alan Watts' The Book...
January 30, 2022 at 23:24
I think the 'whole is more than the sum of its parts' is quite a compelling argument actually, with a long pedigree. It's based on the observation tha...
January 30, 2022 at 22:57
The reason being that 'scientific materialism' is what is left of the 'western tradition' of philosophy, post the Death of God. The picture it paints,...
January 30, 2022 at 22:33
Nonsense, absolute balderdash. Scientific materialism and/or physicalism is the mainstream orthodoxy of the secular academy. It isn't often spelled ou...
January 30, 2022 at 22:25
Why thanks! Kind of you to say so.
January 30, 2022 at 22:18
Not with the physical world, but with materialism, although it gets tiresome having to explain that all the time.
January 30, 2022 at 22:16
I'm a technical writer and though nominally at retirement age, I intend to keep working for a few years as I find it interesting (especially since the...
January 30, 2022 at 21:45
Agree with you on that. My 'naturalistic' intepretation is that the emergence of life just is the emergence of intentional consciousness, albeit in ru...
January 30, 2022 at 21:39
:pray: Appreciate that. As I've said, I'm drawn to Orthodox spirituality, along with the mystical stream in Christianity generally. I've long had an i...
January 30, 2022 at 21:31
I suppose, as Russia has been insisting all along that it isn't preparing for an invasion, if there is no invasion it will be able to say 'See? Wester...
January 30, 2022 at 21:08
My proposal is to differentiate ‘what is real’ from ‘what exists’, with the latter as a subset of the former.
January 30, 2022 at 08:12
of course. You mightn't like it, but I think it says something interesting in the context.
January 30, 2022 at 07:49
I don't much care for Augustine's interpretation of that, but then, neither do the Orthodox churches, although there needs to be a secular equivalent ...
January 30, 2022 at 07:18
Emoticons and ad homs. How can I deal with such rhetorical firepower? I don't expect anyone to believe it, but if that's an allusion to Jesus Christ, ...
January 30, 2022 at 07:03
Didn't say anything about it. I'm not 'strawmanning' or entering 'non sequiturs' except for in your highly idiosyncratic interpretation. Again, a very...
January 30, 2022 at 06:49
Also, explain to me what is a non sequitur about this statement: An encyclopedia definition of materialist theory of mind: Is that also a non sequitur...
January 30, 2022 at 06:27
Whenever I say something you don’t understand, which happens a lot, you call it a ‘non sequitur’. Is thinking reducible to neural matter, or is it not...
January 30, 2022 at 06:21
I have the idea that the equals sign represents something uniquely powerful about the ability to reason, and furthermore that it is often taken for gr...
January 30, 2022 at 06:17
But if something can be reduced to matter, then matter is all that is real, right? If thinking really is the output of neurotransmitters, as materiali...
January 30, 2022 at 06:10
It's no straw man. How is saying 'whatever exists is based on matter' different from saying 'nothing exists beside matter'? If something is based on m...
January 30, 2022 at 05:31
I constantly quote from other sources. This is to relate what I'm saying to what others say, and also to provide sources of information that other rea...
January 30, 2022 at 04:57
You have a long memory….
January 30, 2022 at 04:33
My reckoning is that Putin was preparing for an invasion but underestimated the reaction from the West. So he is now caught in a situation where he do...
January 30, 2022 at 03:49
Apropos of some of the ideas discussed this thread, if not of Chomsky in particular, I've found an intriguing chapter by Neal Stephenson, well known a...
January 30, 2022 at 02:35
January 29, 2022 at 21:55
Yeah I wonder if Lockheed Martin built the missile that shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.
January 29, 2022 at 08:00
The book I’m referring to is Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki who founded the San Francisco Zen Centre. He’s a S?t? Zen teacher. S?t? is b...
January 29, 2022 at 07:29
I agree with your analysis but I’d really like to think that is not a driver.
January 29, 2022 at 03:31
Generally I agree with a lot of that. That’s what drew me to comparative religion and also the perennial ist/traditionalist schools. I’ve explained th...
January 29, 2022 at 00:43
One point I sometimes think about is that the Christian concept of spiritual illumination is very much tied to a specific narrative, namely, that of t...
January 28, 2022 at 23:24
My view is that the Western philosophical and intellectual tradition was originally idealist or dualist in nature, grounded in the platonist tradition...
January 28, 2022 at 21:53
Russia's covert online ops teams are also active in propogating false narratives about Western democracies through social media, and amplifying memes ...
January 28, 2022 at 21:25
me too, but I can't say I blame you, it's very dicey.
January 28, 2022 at 05:03