Wayfarer

What's 'an entity'? The definition is 'a thing with distinct and independent existence.' But the mind is not a thing, not an entity, not an object of ...

You have a complex about religion. It's really out-of-scope for discussion as far as I'm concerned.

Strange article. On one hand, he says: Something I firmly believe. But then he goes on: So, in the Wild West of inter-planetary space, genetic re-engi...

:clap: Nice story just popped up on the ABC Newsfeed. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-02/vietnam-war-veteran-zen-buddhist-monk/100731206

He's challenging to read for the non-specialist. He's the leading professor of Platonist Studies and so his writings are situated in the context of cl...

As far as 'the problem of interaction' is concerned, those problems are unique to Cartesian and post-Cartesian dualism. That arises from the problemat...

I think the question ought to be, what is rational thinking, because by introducing reason you have at least some common ground to start with. Otherwi...

An important distinction. However, percepts however require concepts. A small infant doesn't see distinct objects, only senses its mother's presence o...

There are points of convergence between Heidegger and Eastern nondualist philosophy. There's an apocryphal tale that one of his colleagues came across...

No, I don't buy that. The subjective unity of experience refers to the way that all of the disparate elements of experience are present as a unified w...

Buddhists make a distinction between realisation and experience. It's rather hard to articulate, but there's an article on it here (might be paywalled...

I'm sceptical about their dismissive attitude, as I think that the subjective unity of experience is an elemental constituent of self-knowledge; our e...

RIght! That makes sense, I can see how that would be important. As said, I only glossed the intro video I watched on Curiosity Stream. I will try and ...

You tell us.

Thanks. However the journal article I referred to (which is here) is a peer-reviewed article that draws on contemporary neuroscience. So I'd be intere...

What I meant.

I think it has to do with maintaining a stable orbit and an invariant orientation with one side always towards the sun. It's a point where's it's grav...

This line has a tag 'sub'. 'Sub' means 'subscript' and produces smaller text output. 'Sup' means superscript, can be used for footnotes if required li...

The reality of numbers can't simply be confined to the minds of those who think. If another planet were to evolve and sentient beings were to evolve, ...

I think that psychopathic personalities exhibit something near to solipsism. For them, others don't exist, or aren't real. That is why psychopathic ki...

So, would you claim that Aquinas does not accept the immortality of the soul? This would put him in rather a tricky position as a Doctor of the Church...

You don't. That is exactly the kind of thing I mean when I said: Accordingly, I've lost interest, more fool me for trying.

First, define 'physical world'.

The primitive rules of arithmetic are self-explanatory. It's not 'narrative' although it can serve to underpin any number of narratives. Numbers and t...

You asked a simple question, and got a simple answer. It says nothing about intentionality, because the scope of the question is such that it doesn't ...

How it is that humans raise their arms. It’s very simple, unless of course they’re quadriplegic or unconscious.

I answered the question. Anything else?

Humans are capable of intentional actions, as are animals.

Where is the domain of natural numbers? Where do physical and scientific principles exist?

You have to understand something to flatten it. You can't flatten anything by incomprehension. By the way, there's an excellent repository of argument...

It doesn't make any difference to the point whether the rationality is 'a power of the soul' or 'rationality is a power'. Of course it is! That is the...

Banno's method is to drag all of these debates into the realm of the banal by repeated use of innappopriate metaphors, cliches and over-simplification...

Those ideals don't fit with liberal individualism. As soon as you name them, the question comes back, 'whose truth?'

A snippet from a Catholic philosopher: ' close connection between moral and intellectual virtue. Our minds do not – contrary to many views currently p...

I don't agree with Freud's diagnosis, because of his scientific materialist outlook. Protestantism generally rejects Christian Platonism. There are ex...

No. Aristotle says the rational soul is a power unique to the human which enables her to speak and think. You can write another 10,000 words of circum...

Mostly have been. There's not much to report on at this stage, other than that it seems to be proceeding smoothly so far, but following it with intere...

the solution to solipsism is empathy, i.e. the realisation that all beings are the same as you.

The soul, according to Aristotle, is the animating principle of all living things (hence the name of the text 'De Anima'). The soul is the principle t...

I don't know how much of a difference there is ultimately. You go back to the Aristotelian understanding of 'nous' as being 'that which sees what is r...

That’s an interesting article. I wonder how much of that re-focussing on theosis is a consequence of the emergence of similar strains of thought in al...

...In contrast to the unsurpassable brilliance of Duck-Rabbit.

Please extend the courtesy of refraining from condescension. Pseudo-dionysius is the Christian Platonist par excellence. He is hardly representative o...

From a Guardian discussion of this question: The issue of free will is really one of agency - whether persons are responsible agents, or they are acti...

There's an oft-quoted sutta of the 'luminous mind': This text is often said to be the foundation of the later 'Buddha-nature' sutras. Marvellous passa...

Thanks for those passages from Descartes. I often note that the notion of 'substance' in philosophy is very different from that used in everyday life,...

It's 'handrail materialism'. It gives you something to cling to when you feel the ground beneath you falling away.

This meme is based on the way Cartesian dualism was misinterpreted to be a literal hypothesis. As if Descartes had posited an actual 'immaterial think...

You can feel the fear in that article.

That’s what begins to happen with the emergence of life. Living creatures are capable of intentional action. On planets where there is no life - most ...