Wayfarer

Young earth creationists have no evidence, obviously. Here’s a hypothetical: Dawkins always proclaims he would change his mind in the event of evidenc...

https://youtu.be/KCdKBHdPz30 Are you familiar with the replication crisis? How do you reckon that would play out in respect of this question?

Actually I didn’t post this for a philosophical debate, really - my bad. I just posted it as a really interesting documentary on an interesting topic ...

So do I, that was the point!

You cherry picked that quote: I said ‘for this kind of thinking, science is a religion’. I don’t think that most people see it like that, but it’s a s...

I did mention that: But do read the passage I quoted from Barbieri again, he makes a great point about the ontological distinction between life and no...

Sorry- that last line was cynical. But this is what I mean has been 'lost in the wash'. Alfred Russel Wallace, who is credited as the co-discoverer of...

But it seeks answers that naturalism cannot. That's where the division really lies. According to naturalism, h. sapiens is another species, a natural ...

You're aware of the phrase 'the hermeneutics of suspicion'? What if the motivation of this criticism arises not from science per se, but from the 'Enl...

In regards to this: I question the conclusion. I think 'scientific realism' is a useful stance in asking scientific questions. But 'the nature of our ...

The notion of the subjective and objective being ‘poles of experience’ is one I have often referred to in the past. There is a saying in modern Buddhi...

I’ll leave it for another thread. It is the Wikipedia article on Nous (Philosophy). I think the browser automatically parsed the URL for a mobile devi...

Have a geez at the Wikipedia entry on nous https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nous#Aristotle. I’m sure there’s something in this - something that has bee...

panspermia ought not to be counted out, either. https://www.panspermia.org/intro.htm

Against which the ancient argument was, if a thing had no dimensions, it had no sides, and if it had no sides, nothing could come into contact with it...

I know mine is a minority view. :up: totally agree. You gotta walk the walk. To me it’s a matter of trying to find that source, the ‘wellspring in the...

I would have thought that if atoms really are excitations in a field, then it's already looking pretty dim for materialism. You want some kind of mate...

Isn't the issue that Democritean atomism allows only a binary choice between atom (existing, 1) and the void (non-existing, 0). Whereas quantum theory...

I see it in terms of cultural dynamics. Secular culture wants to believe the whole matter is settled, that God is not only dead, but buried. It's a ne...

I think atomistic materialism became unfeasible with the discovery of quantum mechanics. The idea of there being discrete point-particles which are th...

‘Methodological naturalism’ excludes what can't be accounted for or conceived of in scientific (objective, quantifiable) terms. It is a perfectly soun...

Well, it's a great question, would take a very long answer. What I'm saying is that something important has been lost in the wash. If I criticize Dani...

When you speak of 'evidence' you're already assuming an empirical stance, when the nature of the question may be such that it can't be adjuticated by ...

Well I'm pushing buttons here, as it's a philosophy forum, best to ask yourself why.

Yet one of those those who made that voyage became an alcoholic, the other had a life-changing epiphany.

Did I say that? And 'criticism' is not 'denigration', the fact that you read like that, that you immediately leap to both those conclusions - that say...

But we’re talking about something unmeasurable in principle. I mean, all kinds of things are objectively measurable about species - distribution, aver...

The difference between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ is not a margin. Recap: the issue is, the nature of the subject experience of organisms, and whether that is som...

OK, I'll go back to your question. No - you haven't measured it. You will simply have to take my word for it. And that is what gives rise to those deb...

You're doubtless aware of 'eliminative materialism', right? in fact, you'd be one of the advocates of this school on this site, right? So what is it t...

A position known as ‘instrumentalism’, I believe.

I think there's a genuine sense in which what we are capable of seeing and knowing is deeply conditioned by the kinds of people we are. And the people...

I've come to realise that I accept the divinity of Jesus, although I know many don't, and I wouldn't try and persuade anyone. But didn’t Jesus himself...

I've read on good authority is that a particle is now viewed as the local excitation of a field.

In this translation of The Gospel of Thomas, 'the all' appears five times in three of the 'sayings': How this expression is interpreted is obviously t...

I was going to mention Pagels’s book Beyond Belief. Important book on this subject.

In Buddhism, 'the all' is the net sum of the psycho-physical constituents of being. It is everything we see, touch, feel, hear and think. 'Ruling over...

They can learn. As I said, I don’t think they’re capable of conscious intention or abstract ideation, but both ‘will’ and ‘intentionality’ have broade...

Yes, I do. Of course, a bacterium doesn't *think* anything, or say 'oh shit I'm in trouble'. It's not a conscious being, or reflective, or intelligent...

Would I be right in guessing that is the sum total of your knowledge of that book ;-)

But again - the ability to survive, the will to survive, are not present in inorganic nature. There is nothing with a will to survive on Mars, unless ...

I think that is a well-formulated question. The problem it articulates is that of intention - that life, even the very simplest forms of life, seem to...

One of the questions to ask, is if the origin of life occurs naturally as a result of the concatenation of favourable circumstances, why doesn't it co...

Those would be a great starting point. I’m commenting more on the widespread idea that science ‘knows’ or ‘proves’ or ‘shows’ that the Universe is pur...

That’s why monasteries/viharas/ashrams exist.

Splendid, sir. Exactly what it would mean.

We know life is 'self-organising' - right? That principle is what is called homeostasis or autopoesis (after Maturana). But from the perspective of Ch...

Very simple. Science has discovered fundamental principles from which we benefit - no question. But it doesn’t say why f=ma. Nor does it need to. You ...

In light of the current state of physics, that is quite an ironic statement. Physical theories produce many practical consequences, not least of which...

No, I don't agree with that. I've come to accept that there is such a thing as religious revelation. When Buddha said that he 'saw through the house-b...