You are viewing the historical archive of The Philosophy Forum.
For current discussions, visit the live forum.
Go to live forum

Wayfarer

Comments

Many thanks, and welcome to Philosophy Forum. Of course! That's why in our age of technological marvels, it's easy to see why philosophy is thought of...
December 31, 2019 at 22:59
Which means, in effect, that nothing happens that science cannot explain in principle. That's how it works out.
December 31, 2019 at 22:28
It's an inevitability of human existence. Newborn infants have no such conception and it is one of the broad parameters that is developed in the first...
December 31, 2019 at 20:55
OF COURSE. Global warming is based on the fact that pouring hundreds of billions of tons into the atmosphere will change the atmosphere and cause glob...
December 31, 2019 at 11:10
Gosh that’s clever. I wonder why no one here thought of that.
December 31, 2019 at 10:12
Here in Australia we’re getting a real clobbering from bushfires and drought this summer. Just today many homes lost and more deaths (at least three)....
December 31, 2019 at 07:00
December 31, 2019 at 05:02
Read it in 2010, an important book. Review here with links to other reviews. Also see What's Wrong with Ockham. There's also a movement coming out of ...
December 31, 2019 at 02:39
In: Why x=x ?  — view comment
What 'the unconditioned' is, is a very hard thing to articulate in the modern philosophical lexicon. But I think that whole question of what you're co...
December 31, 2019 at 01:38
Sounds a fascinating read. Is that one of his articles for 'The Monist'? He published a lot of his more mystical stuff there, and it's a really intere...
December 30, 2019 at 07:10
I think maybe you don't have a lot of experience with internet forums. I looked at your homepage and am quite well-disposed to your general philosophy...
December 30, 2019 at 07:00
Welcome. Interesting bio! Do a search for username Apokrisis. He posted here for a few years, was a Peirce and biosemiotics specialist. I learned a lo...
December 29, 2019 at 23:10
In: Why x=x ?  — view comment
I'm not going to engage with you if you keep slinging schoolyard insults.
December 29, 2019 at 21:31
In: Why x=x ?  — view comment
Not at all. Numbers are not real as ‘electrochemical dynamics’. Here you’re mistaking an event for a representation. Neural dynamics don’t ‘represent’...
December 29, 2019 at 19:22
In: Why x=x ?  — view comment
Nowhere in Buddhism itself is Nirv??a described as 'a state of mind' but a psychologized and subjective interpretation is popular in the West. I think...
December 29, 2019 at 11:02
In: Why x=x ?  — view comment
To get the conversation back on track - the problem here is that metaphysics, generally, is the discipline of reckoning 'what must be the case' in ord...
December 29, 2019 at 01:42
In: Why x=x ?  — view comment
Because, Western philosophy has no equivalent to Nirv??a, clearly.
December 29, 2019 at 01:40
Incidentally, there's a Wikipedia article about the Trump-Ukraine scandal. Useful digest, summary, timeline and links.
December 29, 2019 at 01:39
Nos constantly recirculates Alt-right conspiracy theories. There's an entire media landscape out there that does the same. It would the same tactic: s...
December 29, 2019 at 01:24
I think you'd be interested in some media studies. As you note, the world depicted by the media has taken on a life of its own - this has been the sub...
December 29, 2019 at 00:50
Berllinksi is allied with (actually a senior fellow of) the Discovery Institute which is the central ID organisation in the states so his disavowal of...
December 28, 2019 at 22:18
In: Why x=x ?  — view comment
It's interesting to reflect on Buddhism in this regard. Buddhism famously says that everything is anicca, impermanent, and that there is no permanent ...
December 28, 2019 at 10:19
In: Why x=x ?  — view comment
Of course. You're modern.
December 28, 2019 at 10:10
What is good for you is not necessarily what you want.
December 28, 2019 at 10:10
In: Why x=x ?  — view comment
Necessary truths are not ‘in time’. I think you're making the mistake of believing they're real in an objective sense, when they're actually transcend...
December 28, 2019 at 05:37
In: Why x=x ?  — view comment
A note from the Wikipedia entry on the Russian philosopher, said to be an influence on Tolstoy and Nietszche, by the name of Afrikan Spir. I mention i...
December 27, 2019 at 23:21
In today's culture atheism is generally conditioned in response to the kind of religious doctrines and practices that it has rejected, and continue to...
December 27, 2019 at 22:11
To ask to understand how to do what is right, or to attain inner peace, is not the same as seeking a benefit - rain, crops, children, wealth and so on...
December 27, 2019 at 21:53
There are many contributors on this forum who write from an assumption of the foolishness of religious faith, and then, from that perspective, imagine...
December 27, 2019 at 21:42
Not at all. That is specifically called ‘petitionary prayer’ and comprises asking for something or seeking a benefit. Human nature being what it is, p...
December 27, 2019 at 21:11
Perfectly agree. War brings out both the most noble and the most evil in people.
December 27, 2019 at 08:35
As a newbie to this conversation, and probably also the topic, I'll ask a newbie question: what if language can't be fully rationalised in evolutionar...
December 27, 2019 at 07:58
There are no grounds whatever to call Schiff as a witness, he's a serving member of Congress, and the only reason for his involvement is to prosecute ...
December 27, 2019 at 07:57
I've never read up on it. A quick glance at the Wikipedia article shows that the assault was retrospectively justified by the Allied forces on the gro...
December 27, 2019 at 07:53
I’m inclined to viewing that as a war crime. The great difficulty is dealing with ‘degrees of evil’. It would seem to me the only way to avoid partici...
December 27, 2019 at 03:37
I think he would have said that the decision was made to avoid a greater evil. Interesting, and thanks for the correction, but even as a hypothetical ...
December 27, 2019 at 02:54
From the Atlantic article you link to (published July 2017): (Hey, he's talking about you.) Anyway, it then goes on to wonder, could the same kind of ...
December 26, 2019 at 22:07
The Democrats have deployed the impeachment proceedings in exactly the manner, and for exactly the reasons, that the articles were written into the Co...
December 26, 2019 at 21:39
Incidentally, and apropos Pugliucci's essay, I note this passage quoted from Searle: I think a much better argument is the inescapable presence of mea...
December 26, 2019 at 10:08
A recent Aeon publication by Prof. Piggliuci, Consciousness is Real. (I lost interest at mention of Dennett.) I do get that. Oftentimes I feel the sam...
December 26, 2019 at 09:53
If you want to study the subject, which is not necessarily the same as developing a personal philosophy, I strongly recommend studying it historically...
December 26, 2019 at 09:29
Apropos your original question, there's a movement or discipline or something called 'general semantics' which was popular during the 60's, and actual...
December 26, 2019 at 05:13
In: Why x=x ?  — view comment
The ability to recognise that ‘x’ is ‘x’, is essential to the ability to ask ‘why’ in any general sense. If you couldn’t recognise and abstract likene...
December 25, 2019 at 10:32
I've been interested in American politics since a child. I used to read Time magazine when quite young. I was part of the anti-vietnam movement. I rea...
December 25, 2019 at 00:53
Just to make clear: everything Trump has said about the impeachment enquiry is a lie. The Republican Party has been completely taken over by Trump and...
December 24, 2019 at 23:45
Referring to the request to 'keep the email quiet', this mirrors the movement of the original Call Transcript to a top-secret server immediately after...
December 24, 2019 at 01:38
The deliberately vague nature of the description of impeachment in the Constitution is attributable to the fact that the framers couldn't, and knew th...
December 23, 2019 at 21:01
I can’t help but be reminded of the famous story of Winston Churchill not ordering the evacuation of (I think it was) Manchester prior to a major bomb...
December 23, 2019 at 10:56
:up: Eloquently said. If it were Kazakhstan or Outer Dingbat, then it would still be regrettable, but not so alarming. But it’s America :cry:
December 23, 2019 at 10:39
There are thousands of pages, and many hours, of witness testimony, which attest in enormous detail to Trump’s attempt to extort a foreign power by wi...
December 23, 2019 at 04:30