I think that is right. I was enrolled as an undergrad at UniSyd when he was head of ‘Traditional and Modern’ - in those days, the Philosophy departmen...
Oh, I’m pretty sure it is. That general idea is called mind-brain identity theory, I think. It says that thinking might be ‘supervenient’ on neural ac...
I would have thought if a materialist agreed there were non-physical things then they would be abandoning materialism, wouldn’t they? Materialism mean...
I read Isaacson's book on Einstein, and I recommend it. I didn't say it was adequate for me. It's a philosophical discussion. But, for argument's sake...
The point about scientific objectivity is that it averages and quantifies experiences across subjects, and so reaches 'inter-subjective certainty' wit...
There’s a ‘meta-consideration’ to take into account with Descartes’ argument. It is that Descartes wishes to ground knowledge in reason. His ‘clear an...
Nothing surprises me. Trump has spouted a mixture of lies, confabulation and half-truths since the moment he appeared onstage, and anyone who is on hi...
Further to the above - there’s a very good WIkipedia article on Einstein’s religious views. Overall, I don’t agree with everything he says about the m...
Walter Isaacson’s biography, Einstein’s Universe, has a chapter devoted to the topic of Einstein’s God. It shows prettty conclusively that Einstein wa...
One thing to consider, is that numbers and other symbols are not actually things or phenomenal objects. They're meanings which are assigned to a parti...
It ought not to be forgotten that ‘the human potential movement’ has a spiritual side which goes back to the New Thought movements of the earlier 20th...
I drove out there with my younger son last September and met him. He was very friendly and welcoming. Hoping to go back. Possibly this year, if the ch...
I have struck up a relationship with a bona-fide Zen teacher on DharmaWheel - hoping one day to participate in a sesshin at his centre in Wisconsin - ...
Well, it was pretty early for me. OK, maybe it wasn't still legal but it was around the late sixties - early 70's. As I said from the outset it was ab...
Must have been late 60's or possibly 1970-72, I have the idea that that last time was around 1975-6. After that, I decided that 'the only way out is t...
As you might be able to glean from my comments, I am loathe to say anything on a public forum which could be construed as advice or encouragement to c...
Buddhism obviously doesn’t condone intoxicant use, which is against the precepts. But recall that Buddhism began as one of the ‘forest-dwelling’ relig...
And which, we are continually assured, only His Excellency Professor de Brun has any comprehension of, whilst us hoi polloi writhe about in various st...
That's a good thing to believe and I wouldn't want to say anything to encourage illicit drug use. (I should add that at the time that I had such exper...
Leary was a rascal, but Ram Dass is a different matter. But, what was distinctive and culturally significant about the psychedelic movement (or is tha...
It's interesting that psychedelics have made a comeback, but you have to be careful what you say. In my case, the point was to discover an alternative...
Going back to The Matrix - as I commented, when I saw the film I thought it was clever, but it annoyed me, because it was almost a parody of the idea ...
I don't know if you're familiar with the writings of Emile Durkheim, but he was sociologist and theorist whose writings on religion, culture and socie...
I long ago felt I had taken ‘the red pill’. But I was really annoyed by the movie itself, because I found the presentation sacreligious, in a way. It ...
OK then - but from your previous response, I thought that is what you were saying: Actually I had drafted a long response, but then I thought better o...
Sure, I absolutely respect that, and from everything you write, you seem to be a good person to be around! But the thread is asking a pretty specific ...
The problem I have with this (and mine is an unpopular view), is that it invariably reduces morality to survival. After all, the only criterion for su...
My thoughts on the wedding - as a media event, has to be 10/10. The architecture, setting, artefacts, vehicles, ornamentation, guests, and weather wer...
Welcome to the Philosophy Forum. Those are important questions, and a well-written OP. My attitude has always been that of moral realism, which, I hav...
Kind of you to say so, and while it’s true I have an interest in Buddhist philosophy and also philosophy of math, I skipped undergrad Formal Logic so ...
You could, but it wouldn't be funny. (I would be instantly dismissive of attempts to 'explain' humour as a kind of adaptive trait, in biological terms...
That’s JC, who said that. ‘Blessed are those who mourn, because they will be comforted’. . The inner interpretation - they’re ‘blessed’ because they a...
Justly so. I think we ought to recall the sense of awe with which the ancients treated mathematics and reason. After all, at that point in civilisatio...
By way of a footnote, the discovery and acceptance of the concept of zero was resisted by Western mathematicians for a long period of time, for religi...
You say that, as if it simply a verbal formula - which is what has generally been reduced to , which is why it doesn’t mean anything, which is what ha...
Comments