Wayfarer

At the 'heart of Zen' is a breakthrough generally designated Prajñ?. Prajñ? is definitely 'knowing' and knowing a particular way. The problem in inter...

I think this attitude is culturally conditioned. We have carved up the territory in such a way that we deem such subjects matters of faith and feeling...

It might interest you to know that Sir Isaac Newton considered his work to be philosophy.

Well, now it has.

gnosis hasn’t come up yet.

Plenty of workers available, I dare say :grin:

another one of his pamphlets has been sent to the printers, according to the news.

No he isn't.

I guess. Hey I'm a grand-dad now, don't want to corrupt the youth. Ah yes, well spotted.

As do I. But the rhetorical point I was making is that this is how ‘God’ is often depicted by atheism.

Hey I’m trying to be discrete. :yikes:

Explain why playing card games has helped with your swimming.

You see what you’ve done here, right? You’ve assumed the very ‘presumptive authority’ that I was talking about, without even realising. ‘Nothing has a...

With justification, because it isn't!

No, you've *claimed* I'm arguing from a fallacy, and I have *refuted* your claim. it's not 'an argument from ignorance' - I'm saying, science can't, i...

It's not 'an argument from ignorance', it's an argument from a matter of principle. As a matter of principle, science has nothing to say on 'first cau...

Not so. Neither of you are seeing the point - science cannot explain the order of nature. Given the order of nature, then science can explain many thi...

What is at stake is whether 'science explains how the universe is'. And you're the one claiming that science is the sole criterion for determining the...

Science can't explain the 'order of nature' which underwrites the principles that it discovers and then utilises in order to proceed. Newton discovere...

But one of the hallmarks of modern scientific method is to 'bracket out the subject' and concentrate exclusively on what can be measured/quantified. S...

I think such criteria can be found in various 'domains of discourse and practice'. For example in Zen Buddhism, there are means by which teachers asce...

The verse, 'I AM THAT I AM', was frequently cited by the Vedanta guru, Sri Ramana Maharishi, to indicate the essential unity of the Biblical teaching ...

It is an exceedingly hubristic lecture by Hawking. One of the things that stands out: What this is blind to, in my opinion, is that the objective scie...

You might appreciate this thread and the essay it points to. Actually, there's a book from a couple of years back on a similar theme, The Blind Spot: ...

curiously, however, you will notice that the default stance on forums such as this is that 'miracles never occur'. This is usually said on the basis t...

I never would claim that science is omniscient and I myself am a critic of scientism. But it's implausible to deny the fact of scientific discoveries ...

But that is empty sophistry. There are a lot of people who join here and ask questions like 'how do we know reality exists?' Unfortunately life is too...

This is really a fundamental point. What you're arguing is British empiricism, per Locke and Hume. But does sensory apprehension qualify as 'revealed ...

Fictional characters self-awareness is likewise fictional whereas that of sentient beings is fundamental.

:up: They could say it doesn’t change the overall meaning. It's a question of interpretation. The conflict is between literalism or fundamentalism, on...

Sorry - didn't see your response until just now. In answer to your question - it is a vexed question as it is central to the abortion debate, which I ...

Actually the Genesis creation mythology has little direct connection with Christian metaphysics which was mainly adapted from Greek philosophy. And un...

Agree on the whole. But the so-called 'conflict thesis' between science and religion was very influential in the late 19th century and has spilled ove...

Thanks for a very thoughtful response. As you said discussions of this topic can become very lengthy so I will try and limit my reply to a few of what...

a footnote - the root of the word 'idiot' is someone who speaks in a way that nobody else can understand - from latin'idios', own or private; (c.f. 'i...

I have downloaded a copy of the book I mentioned, but it is a pretty substantial text and I haven't made a lot of headway with it yet. But one thing t...

I’m sure your depiction of the contrast between them on the question exaggerates the difference, but I really need to hone in on some writing about it...

Well, condolences, if they are due, but then family lore has it that my own mother miscarried five times before I was conceived, so it’s not the end. ...

If an election was called, and I was anti-Brett Conservative (of whom there are many) - who could I vote for? Johnson is a clown, Farage a jackal, and...

But there's a subtle recursion in this understanding, because it presumes we can attain a perspective where 'mental judgements' can be compared with r...

The very thing which got me into philosophy forums was the notion that 'numbers are real but not material'. They are the same for all who can count, b...

Well, what a total shock. Who would have thought. Perhaps Kant saw things differently. He was after all a polymath, someone who lectured in science an...

I think a key term is 'incommensurability'. In other words, the differences between the secular~scientific worldview and a non-materialist worldview a...

but the difference with number is that it's predictive. Through maths, I can discover many things I couldn't otherwise know, including the //technolog...

It all depends on what you mean by ‘real’. Note the implicit presumption in declaring it ‘would be’ an important discovery. :smile:

But so much of what we use every day - every minute! - depends on maths, and without maths it wouldn’t exist. Take the device you’re reading and reply...

I still find that impossible to reconcile with engineering which relies heavily on the application of mathematics to the physical world. What am I not...

Apophasis (/??p?f?s?s/; Greek: ???????? from ??????? apophemi, "to say no") is a rhetorical device wherein the speaker or writer brings up a subject b...

I really hope so also. But it's unbelievable that it's come this far (or fallen this far, more like it.) One consolation is that I'm sure that there's...