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Wayfarer

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There's what looks like a significant story broken today in the ABC, Dutton failing to declare financial interest in a profitable family trust involve...
April 28, 2025 at 05:02
It's true that that particular integer has no special significance, but the role of integers is significant in the overall scheme of quantum mechanics...
April 28, 2025 at 00:47
You're welcome. Note the link to the author profile. He has many published scientific papers in his speciality, rheumatology. I don't know if he publi...
April 27, 2025 at 22:29
In: The Forms  — view comment
I’m differentiating the sense in which particulars exist from the sense in which universals are real. Particulars exist in a phenomenal sense, but uni...
April 27, 2025 at 04:04
Trump is notorious for echoing what the last person who impressed him has said. Obviously, Zelenskyy impressed something on him in that impromptu meet...
April 26, 2025 at 23:52
@"substantivalism" @"apokrisis" New theory of entanglement - Persistence Theory, Bill Gianokopoulos (Profile) Spooky Action at a Distance, Reversed: E...
April 26, 2025 at 23:20
It seems possible that Trump will support a peace plan that heavily favours Russia; that Zelenskyy and the Europeans will reject it as unfair (Trump h...
April 26, 2025 at 05:35
This is mostly the handiwork of Stephen Miller, Trump’s Secretary for Xenophobia.
April 26, 2025 at 05:16
In: The Forms  — view comment
*
April 26, 2025 at 03:35
In: The Forms  — view comment
Words can only be general because they denote universals. But universals are not things that exist. They are not objects as such. Designating them as ...
April 26, 2025 at 01:57
In: The Forms  — view comment
Why is the concept of a plane bounded by three sides 'mystic'? I say the problem is in trying to come to grips with the sense in which such concepts e...
April 25, 2025 at 22:24
:100:
April 25, 2025 at 21:32
In: The Forms  — view comment
If the forms (ideas, eidos) are understood as principles rather than as ghostly templates in a mysterious realm then they continue to make sense.
April 25, 2025 at 21:14
Yes, the image of God as a loving parent is a recurring motif in Christian scripture. But it’s meant analogically, not literally. Divine love isn’t th...
April 25, 2025 at 12:59
Not the point at issue, if you read the post I responded to.
April 25, 2025 at 11:35
‘The hand that cannot grasp itself’
April 25, 2025 at 09:47
Acknowledged. I had associated the word with general discussion of the problem of evil not realising that it was usually intended as a apologetic in t...
April 25, 2025 at 06:09
Specifically, the Old Testament. And bearing in mind, the OT texts preserved in the Bible originated in the late Bronze age, amongst agrarian tribes, ...
April 25, 2025 at 03:22
Weren't all of these measures simply Trump lashing out at a Government that he hates, using 'waste and fraud' as a pretext? Similar to how he is havin...
April 25, 2025 at 03:08
But regardless, one being amongst others - apparently with extraordinary powers and longevity but a being nonetheless. This is why Paul Tillich says t...
April 25, 2025 at 00:34
I'm sorry, I still don't think that is a fair assessment. It's a very Dawkins style depiction, God as a kind of cosmic film director, staging all of t...
April 24, 2025 at 23:54
Ah. They like them. The Buddhist creation myth has it that sentient beings were originally composed entirely of light. At the beginning of each kalpa ...
April 24, 2025 at 23:50
But it's already been said that Which to me suggests the question, does the perversity and cruelty of existence negate its worth altogether. Which aga...
April 24, 2025 at 22:24
Again - how could existence be free from suffering? Predation is fundamental to organic life, disease inevitable, even before intelligent life develop...
April 24, 2025 at 21:03
In: The Forms  — view comment
Well, sure, nowadays physics has metaphysics which has not much to do with divinity, although that is rather an old-fashioned word. And yes, that is a...
April 24, 2025 at 12:11
I recommend a read of The Supreme Identity, Alan Watts. He spells it out in considerably more detail than I am able to reproduce in a forum thread.
April 24, 2025 at 08:47
In some senses, it's an adventure. According to the Alan Watts book I mentioned, and without wanting to sound flippant about a serious topic, God play...
April 24, 2025 at 07:16
While the term 'theodicy' usually refers to attempts to justify God’s goodness in the face of evil, my use of the phrase Hotel Manager Theodicy was de...
April 24, 2025 at 06:58
In: The Forms  — view comment
According to legend, the Pythagoreans—followers of the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras—believed that all things could be explained through whole ...
April 24, 2025 at 05:17
In: The Forms  — view comment
I think a case can be made that the forms are nearer to what we would call principles. Have a read of the chapter on Plato in this .pdf book, it will ...
April 24, 2025 at 05:13
To good effect, considering what happened next. That’s a fair challenge, and I agree it raises one of the most serious theological tensions in the Abr...
April 24, 2025 at 04:15
You don’t. My family were from an anglican backround but were not religious. They were ‘crying out’ to the Lord, but actually talking to Moses, weren’...
April 24, 2025 at 00:42
*
April 23, 2025 at 11:27
The David Bentley Hart passage that @"Count Timothy von Icarus" quotes, explicitly criticizes the 'greater purpose' view. As to why evil is possible a...
April 23, 2025 at 10:47
Many are :pray: for exactly that.
April 23, 2025 at 10:29
As I mention in the OP, that life is suffering is the foundational truth of Buddhism. But that is not the end of life, indeed it is the first of the '...
April 23, 2025 at 10:23
I didn't intend this as an essay in religious apologetics, and I didn't (and generally don't) quote scripture. It's an essay in philosophy of religion...
April 23, 2025 at 10:01
'Dragging Trump out of the White House' won't happen, but there's a lot of protest movements starting to appear. The judges are holding firm (the Boas...
April 23, 2025 at 09:41
There's a story today about a Venezualan immigrant, Ricardo Prada Vásquez, (whether documented or not, it doesn't say) who mistakenly crossed the brid...
April 23, 2025 at 08:11
You mean, not created the world? It's one answer, although suffering that is inflicted, or intentionally brought about, is generally regarded as evil ...
April 23, 2025 at 07:33
I believe that this is where philosophy started, but that it's not necessarily where it has remained. But one of the things I liked about John Vervaek...
April 22, 2025 at 23:07
It's a thorny issue and one which I've by no means resolved. But I appreciate the opportunity to try and spell it out in response to your perceptive r...
April 22, 2025 at 22:51
Yes, you've put your finger on the core of the issue. It's not that I dispute the necessity of individual conscience in matters of value and meaning—o...
April 22, 2025 at 21:54
That's fair. It might be that my criticism is more of modern culture. For instance that provided in 'The Blind Spot of Science, by Thompson, Frank and...
April 22, 2025 at 05:11
That can't be assumed. A subject might arrive illegally seeking refuge from threat of death or starvation. That's why they have to be assessed. Agree ...
April 22, 2025 at 04:47
But they do! That’s the whole point. It’s the same in Australia. It also precipitated a political crisis about ten - fifteen years ago when boats kept...
April 22, 2025 at 04:20
But notice that embodied unstated realist assumptions about 'what the world is like'. And as Sabine Hossenfelder points out in Lost in Math, there's t...
April 22, 2025 at 01:18
The Hegseth issue continues to fester, as he's plainly, utterly incompetent for the role of CEO of the largest organisation in the world. But, hey, si...
April 22, 2025 at 01:03
Yes - but the salient question is, why does the interference pattern occur, when light is emitted at the rate of one particle at a time? How can that ...
April 22, 2025 at 00:48