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There are actually quite a few religious scientists; Wikipedia has a list. Of course it's true that science challenges some forms of religious belief,...
April 22, 2018 at 21:27
But insofar as they're physical processes then they're not different in principle. When you examine brain-scans, you're interpreting graphical images,...
April 22, 2018 at 21:08
The tension between idealism and materialism is a dialectic. As you say, each side needs the Other in terms of which, or against which, it defines its...
April 22, 2018 at 10:02
Feser is a neo-Thomist . I’m myself am not, but In the spirit of ‘the enemy of the enemy being a friend’, I have found his critiques and polemics agai...
April 22, 2018 at 09:03
Only if the conflict thesis is fundamentally true.
April 22, 2018 at 08:28
For a time, I was severely disillusioned by the Monica Furlong bio of Watts, and by his alcoholism, but over time I reconciled myself with it. That bo...
April 22, 2018 at 03:11
Love your list. Shame we're so geographically remote, it makes me want to meet you. (re 23 - my mnemonic for the colors spectrum was 'rotten old yacs ...
April 22, 2018 at 00:26
You nailed it.
April 21, 2018 at 23:45
There is an expression in esoteric philosophy, The Eye of the Heart. It refers to a different kind or level of 'seeing' that is associated with spirit...
April 21, 2018 at 22:23
Fair enough, I didn’t read it either, but from what I read about it, he is someone I feel an affinity with. That PDF that is linked in the OP ought to...
April 21, 2018 at 21:31
Straw god, in this case. They abound on the Web.
April 21, 2018 at 10:06
The answer is, read his book.
April 21, 2018 at 09:00
You do understand that this is basic materialism, right? If you actually believe that everything is simply matter in motion, then there's no need for ...
April 21, 2018 at 05:01
The wise understand that good and bad are co-arising. To pursue hedonistic pleasure is to be a hamster on a wheel. You've been posting the same idea h...
April 21, 2018 at 01:25
DNC files suit alleging that Trump campaign officials conspired with the Russian government and its military spy agency against Democratic presidentia...
April 21, 2018 at 01:14
I think your problem is, you're seeking a naturalistic answer to a metaphysical plight. It is true that humans are perplexed and terrified by the pros...
April 19, 2018 at 06:31
In Buddhist cultures, there is the belief that being born in the human realm is advantageous because it's the only opportunity to hear and follow the ...
April 19, 2018 at 05:11
I ran across Mcgilchrist some time ago, I think through these forums (either this one or the previous). Makes sense to me. Ain't that Steve Pinker to ...
April 19, 2018 at 04:36
For who? Who is pulling the strings? The meta-meta identity? You know the word 'person' is from the mask used in classical dramas, the 'persona'. But ...
April 19, 2018 at 00:46
I understand it as referring to the idea that the act of thinking is personal or subjective, but by 'thought contents' in such cases as number, he is ...
April 18, 2018 at 23:21
Thank you Michael, an indispensable clarification. Note especially the ‘in this trifling matter’ - redolent with irony, and indeed, wisdom.
April 18, 2018 at 09:38
It’s a misquote to begin with. The fact that ‘sentence’ is spelled wrongly straight after it should be a clue.
April 18, 2018 at 08:24
Look up, not down.
April 18, 2018 at 00:15
Have a read of What Is and Isn't Yog?c?ra (which is another name for the Vijñ?nav?da school.) This is by a Western scholar of Buddhism and compares th...
April 17, 2018 at 23:55
I don't know about that. If you go back to the early tradition, the relationship between abstract universals and particulars was a major theme. The wh...
April 17, 2018 at 23:10
If you propagate - i.e. if your sperm cells win - then you outwit it. You personally will die but your line will live on. Beyond that, there is no ‘wh...
April 17, 2018 at 09:50
The meaning of 'eternal' is what I suspect is being lost in translation ;-)
April 17, 2018 at 05:09
I hope I can illustrate a slightly different perspective on this question for you. I take the sense of 'domains' when applied to this question to be i...
April 16, 2018 at 22:05
One of the interesting topics I studied as an undegrad was Max Müller's 'linguistic archeology'. Müller (1823-1900) was one of the first European scho...
April 16, 2018 at 21:47
So - you’re not actually saying that prisoners ought to be euthanised instead of being rehabilitated? Or, if you mean that the community has to find a...
April 16, 2018 at 08:56
This thread was opened over 6 months ago, and all of these issues have been canvassed in depth. However, and I'm not going to argue the point beyond t...
April 15, 2018 at 22:53
Assuming that you must exist in order to argue, is not 'begging anything' and is not 'bias'. It's a simple statement of fact and not a matter for deba...
April 15, 2018 at 21:08
The fact that the question can be asked rules out the possibility of there not being simply nothing. There could be no empirical anything if there wer...
April 15, 2018 at 07:49
‘How many objects there are’ is a given; what number and language provide is a common way of counting and measuring said objects. This is why numerica...
April 15, 2018 at 00:19
But isn't the whole point of mathematics and standard units of measurement and shared meanings to facilitate this? Isn't that what culture and languag...
April 14, 2018 at 22:28
It is often said that the Buddha rejects belief in the soul but this has to be interpreted in context. The Latin-Greek-Christian notion of 'soul' is n...
April 14, 2018 at 04:58
But I think that still assumes that there is thought 'in here' which corresponds with something 'out there' - that thought is one thing, and the objec...
April 14, 2018 at 02:16
Incidentally a comment from Kastrup's blog: Bernardo KastrupFriday, October 30, 2015 1:41:00 PM Hi Matthew, I explore more of this in an upcoming book...
April 13, 2018 at 23:46
...However, I can't see how there can't be a kind of 'pre-established harmony' between all the individual subjects who are measuring the same thing. E...
April 13, 2018 at 23:37
Again, have a read of this article.. This is not fringe or alternative science - Fuchs is a physics academic. His one-liner is that “Quantum mechanics...
April 13, 2018 at 23:34
Thanks! I really appreciate the feedback. The Becker book is definitely being added to my 'to read' list.
April 13, 2018 at 23:11
I did two years of undergraduate philosophy including units on early modern philosophy, David Hume, logical positivism, and philosophy of science. At ...
April 13, 2018 at 22:01
As is well known, one afternoon whilst walking in the woods in the 1920's, Einstein suddenly stopped and asked his friend Michele Besso, 'does the moo...
April 13, 2018 at 06:17
I think the Manjit Kumar book lies out in some detail why it could be considered 'idealist'. Leave out 'consciousness' and leave out 'idealism' - the ...
April 13, 2018 at 05:05
Hey, StreetlightX, as you're one of Then I deem your contributions unworthy of further response. I'm sure you'll understand.
April 13, 2018 at 04:26
The hypothetical question 'if a tree falls in the forest' is another way of posing the question and is often used to stimulate discussion on this very...
April 13, 2018 at 04:09
The role of observation in determining an outcome - not by 'interfering with' or physically causing an effect, but simply observing. It seems to impli...
April 13, 2018 at 01:26
Thanks! I'll look into it. Notice the first sentences of the jacket blurb: Ain't that the truth! :grin:
April 12, 2018 at 22:30
Not being a physics graduate, I am restricted to reading popular books on the topic, the two most recent being Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great ...
April 12, 2018 at 21:12
The whole import of the ‘delayed choice experiment’ seems anti-realist. At issue, is the very meaning of the word ‘physical’. The difficulty is that t...
April 12, 2018 at 20:22