Wayfarer

Good of you to say so. When I first started reading these things I was very negative about mainstream religion, and believed that Eastern spirituality...

I very much agree, but the complicating fact with Trump is not simply that he lies but that he’s got no conception of the truth. Facts only exist to b...

noted.

It seems to me that Trump doesn’t understand what the Mueller report is about, or what’s in it. The kind of invective he is tweeting indicates no real...

:up: No doubt, it will come up again. ;-)

Thanks for taking the time to make such a detailed reply. I note also on DharmaWheel where I am a mod, that there’s often an indifferent response to m...

You make that abundantly clear at every possible opportunity, which can be tiresome, but I guess I'm asking for it. :sad:

Well, that was my interpretation of the kinds of things you say, such as Perhaps I misunderstood?

I get that. This is where the distinction between dharma and religion is useful. The two words have overlapping meanings but they're not exactly the s...

That's an interesting essay, but I think one that would benefit from more contextualisation in terms of historical philosophy. What I mean is, illustr...

It's not a general statement, but an observation based on what you say. OK, maybe 'hate' might be too strong a word but you generally express a very s...

I get that you hate religion. I'm not so much 'enthusiastic' about it, as wanting to retrieve from it what made it meaningful in the first place. It s...

I blame the Americans for that. It’s primarily due to the corruption of politics by business. And then of course they exert so much influence through ...

On reflection - Mueller held the press conference to say one thing. And that was, that his report did not exonerate Trump. He was setting the record s...

Illusion only has meaning in relation to reality. Even in Hinduism and Buddhism, where 'the world' is considered maya, illusion, it is illusory from t...

‘There would be no fools’ gold, were there no gold’ ~ Rumi

Maybe it’s already metastasised. One thing Mueller said today: ‘the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally...

Right! Glad to hear your agreement. There’s a book I read in my teen years which really stayed with me, Eric Fromm’s Fear of Freedom, which covers a l...

Actually sometimes I wonder about whether individualism and ‘identity politics’ was actually based in the Christian sense of the intrinsic worth of th...

Let me qualify that by saying I value democratic liberalism - especially compared with alternatives, like the Chinese Communist Party. But Western cul...

:ok:

But it's indisputable that Trump is lying about the Mueller report. The whole report was about whether Trump lied, and when it came out, he lied about...

I had thought that, but I've changed my mind. As Trump said long ago, he could shoot someone dead on Fifth Ave, and his supporters would applaud. Evid...

So, Mueller says plainly that the only reason he didn’t charge Trump with obstruction is that he couldn’t, under a convention that doesn’t allow indic...

It's the spirit of the age, the zeitgeist. Meaninglessness is the shadow of democratic liberalism. Philosophy can help understand that and see through...

How Is “partially corrupt” even possible? The Trump campaign connived with Russian operatives for electoral advantage, and Trump then sought to cover ...

"Mastermind"?? Forgive me, but the irony is almost unbearable - as if there's some actual master strategy or over-riding vision in the fiasco of Trump...

I don't know what point you're trying to make, but as I'm interested in both comparative religion and mysticism, I feel I should respond. I think you'...

Yes, you’re right. I overlooked that mention.

Although it doesn't actually contain the word ‘brain’....

James Comey has come out with an important OP, saying Trump's lies about treason and conspiracy have to be called out. He points out that, had there b...

Because, speaking colloquially, 'we're all of the same mind'. In other words, members of a culture (and species, come to think of it) will inhabit a d...

'Hallucination' is an unfortunate term. What is needed is the notion that there are degrees or domains of reality; which means that you can assign the...

Notice which columnist the thread is pointing to: Bernardo Kastrup, who is, if you like, a scientific idealist. He was discussed in this thread a whil...

You got a lot mileage out of one sentence :smile:

I think rather than a definition of ‘life’ as a phenomenon, think about a definition of ‘being’ and then whether computers (no matter how complex) can...

You’re conflating ‘created’ and ‘manufactured’ here. But then, it’s a distinction modern culture doesn’t recognise - hence, the thread.

Built by whom, is the obvious question. And, it’s question begging to refer to robots as ‘beings’. On that note, why are we called ‘beings’? What othe...

If you physically damaged a computer, do you think it would be owed an apology?

But it's not. As you note, there is an element of uncertainty, and so indeterminacy, at the fundamental levels of the Universe. It isn't set in stone,...

I studied Freud's essays on culture and civilization as an undergraduate, such as Civilisation and its Discontents. But there's a lot of literature pu...

Regarding the ‘noble lie’ - I am reminded of the Buddha’s ‘Parable of the Raft’. This parable compares the Buddha’s teaching to a raft, pulled togethe...

Obituary for Murray Gell-Man, discoverer of the quark.

I wasn’t trying to cherry-pick, I selected it because I wanted to discuss that particular point. Mostly me. It’s a form of the argument from reason, a...

Today's snippet - Trump Trusts Chairman Kim More than his own Staff. Why, oh why, do people keep standing by this guy when it routinely betrays them? ...

:up: Can't access that section of the book, but I think there is something in the argument.

Notice the implicit suggestion that reason can be understood through the perspective of evolutionary naturalism. After all it is only natural to assum...

Introduction to Plato: Selections. I think this makes the important point that Plato was not, and didn't claim to be, a systematic philosopher, especi...

Relevant.

I think it’s a mistake to think that maths or logic is something that can be explained. The same goes for scientific laws. All of these are the consti...