Wayfarer

File this under ‘it could only happen in America’: It mentions that these congregants identify the lethal AR-15 assault rifle with the ‘rod of iron’ d...

Damn right. I got given a Cheesehead T-shirt by my now-relatives in Wisconsin. (I don't actually wear it, but still....)

I think you're possible over-valuing objectivity. The point I would make is that mathematics is not necessarily objective, because it's purely inferen...

Sorry, I took that to be what you were driving at with the statement that I was responding to. But I agree, we're probably not that far apart. (I was ...

Just by way of a footnote to this thread: The entry on 'cultural marxism' in Rational Wiki begins as follows:

And the problem with that is....? Peterson came to my attention last Christmas, when my two young nephews, both somewhat lost boys (IMO) whispered his...

That's a valid point, but judges should, and generally do, take an offenders' circumstances into account when judging a case. That is often found to b...

Good call.

Even if I wanted to agree with you, too much vitriol. There's a difference between debating and brawling.

Didn't like the latter at all, I was disappointed with it. But I liked the first, because of it's emphasis on taking responsibility for yourself. It w...

I agree with the Peter Harrison review of Pinker’s book, as I think Pinker’s obvious and non-self-critical ‘scientism’ is generally mistaken, and I ge...

There is a confusion in modern cultur,e owing to the prestige accorded to scientific objectivity. According to some, only what can be objectively vali...

No particular meaning. If humans don’t freely act as agents by making decisions and carrying them out, then they’re not responsible for their actions....

I was just watching a news broadcast which involved a crime for which the alleged offender is to plead ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’. If, however...

There was a popular psychological self-help book that was on the NYT Best Seller list for years, that I found very helpful in dealing with this kind o...

It suggests it, but you have to decide whether it’s true. But then, if is true, your decision to accept it is immaterial.

In 1958, Schrödinger, inspired by Schopenhauer from youth, published his lectures Mind and Matter. Here he argued that there is a difference between m...

The reality of the subject is a different matter to that of the self. Whilst it might be true, as Hume opined, that when you seek for a self, you can ...

I refer again to the news item Quantum Mysteries Dissappear if Possibilities are Realities Which is related to what I argued for in the OP of this thr...

Also I note in his favour, this paragraph from the review you linked: The review ends: :groan:

Have a browse of Our World in Data. (Read about this in a great editorial piece by Nicholas Krystal, ‘Why 2017 was the Best Year in Human History’, al...

The fact that whenever talking about this theory that ‘worlds’ or ‘universes’ have to be enclosed in quote marks is a warning, in my view. In my opini...

I don't think you've responded to anything in the OP, and I can't see anything in any of what you say that amounts to anything more than basic scienti...

No, it’s not anything complicated. I just think Sam Harris is a phony. The question of whether neuroscience has anything remotely relevant to say abou...

It is nevertheless a fact that Sam Harris has never worked as a neuroscientist, but as a pop philosopher - and that’s not an ad hominem but a statemen...

Well, my physics is crappy, but my English is excellent - and ‘many’ means ‘more than one’ ;-) But, thanks for taking the time to spell that out.

You’re mistaken there. It is called ‘many worlds’, because that’s what it says. Read the excerpt above again, on how John Wheeler redacted Everett’s f...

Also, note from the review linked above: My bolds. Make no mistake - ‘many worlds’ means exactly what it says. And all to avoid the embarrassment of c...

Also, let it just be noted here, that Sam Harris’ purported expertise in neuroscience is based on his completion of a questionable PhD thesis written ...

Thanks, Andrew, but that response doesn’t really cast any light. It came to be called ‘the many worlds theory’ because according to it there are an in...

I grasp it alright, I just say it is muddled. It is such a melange of mixed metaphors and misunderstood ideas that it’s not worth spending more time o...

Well, perhaps the Wikipedia entry on the topic needs to be updated, because it begins: So - this is all wrong?

Well, that's true. If you read Plotinus, you will discover he is very similar to the Advaitin sages, like Ramana Maharishi who died in 1950, and who h...

I take it this is an attempt to solve the ‘is/ought’ problem by declaring that one ought not to say ‘ought’. But then: I should know better than to ta...

For those with the eyes to see it (god bless ‘em :-) )

Yes that bloke who used to chalk Eternity on the footpath is long gone. Mind you they show it during the NYE Fireworlks now, but only for a few moment...

Well, the topic is ‘American Transcendentalism’. As much as I admire Lawson - out of a kind of patriotic duty as much as anything - I fail to detect t...

You mean, Henry Lawson? I don’t know how he’s even comparable, let alone ‘better’. I felt about Emerson that he wrote the kinds of essay which are bes...

I’ve asked this question before, but it’s worth asking again. What problem is the Many Worlds Theory of Hugh Everett a solution to? In other words, wh...

I know what really happened. The thread had explosives wired into the superstructure.

And also, there is a real absence of anyone corresponding to the American Transcendentalists in what passes for ‘culture’ here in the Antipodes.

I know, sickening, isn’t it (the post above your last). My grand-child, only an infant, lives in the US, so I now have family there. My family there i...

Well, me too. (Although I have plenty of time for Chinese culture, and Chinese people, but the Chinese Communist Party is another matter.)

India- chaos. China - knock on the door at midnight. The Yanks are going through a bad patch but they’re still Yanks.

What BC said. It formed an important part of American culture, or rather, the counter-culture. By its very nature it was never going to be a mass move...

Which is why discussion is pointless - because if that is true then there is no means of ‘persuasion by rational argument’. You can’t change someone’s...

In neither Plotinus nor Advaita is physical death understood in terms of non-existence or non-being. What it does mean however is obviously not going ...

If you’re going to quote the Churchlands and Sam Harris as authorities, then we really have nothing to discuss. But, thanks for engaging.

Thanks, well put. This is an OP I often refer to in respect of this question.

Such as...? Such as...? Right, so I suggest you desist. I was reading about John Stuart Mill recently. He was concerned with 'the tyranny of the mob'.