Wayfarer

(Y)

You joined here sometime back with the same question, it was absurd then, it's absurd now. It's not a philosophical issue you're dealing with. Over an...

Of course there is. If you do doubt, then you are doubting. If you are not, then there is no doubt, and you have nothing to discuss. Not possible. Dou...

Two excellent posts with a huge amount to consider in both. I will reply later.

you can’t doubt that you doubt. There’s nothing to add.

actually I admit that sarcasm is unbecoming although in this case I used it for a valid polemical point.

For the simple reason that ‘doubt’ is a transitive verb, i.e. it requires an object. Someone must doubt something, prolixity notwithstanding. If you’r...

They’re only realised or instantiated in the phenomenal world, but they’re the perfect archetypes towards which particulars are striving. I am trying ...

You might say that 'stealing' is simply a metaphor for what is actually copying. Anyway, I don't want to keep rehashing the arguments in this thread. ...

Actually that phrase I just coined has made me realise the entire problem: it’s ‘philosophical Darwinism’. Because: there is no such thing. The theory...

But that's mainly because of the 'if you're not with us, you're against us' attitude that is typical of 'philosophical Darwinism'. You know that when ...

No kidding! :D My feeling has always been that the Christian mystics often skirt (or commit) heresy because they teach ‘the truth within’ - which, by ...

The point is, materialism, or physicalism (which for these purposes are the same) is an all-or-nothing proposition. It is the idea that ‘everything re...

..which is similar to what nominalism says, although it speaks about it in terms of concepts or names - hence, ‘nominalism’ - not necessarily a defici...

not gun related deaths, the murder rate. But mass shootings (4 or more killed or wounded) are at an all time high. More than 377 so far this year.

Different personality types/archetypes/enneagrams etc. I'm a tech writer by profession, and an arts grad; bad with mathematics, don't know how to prog...

Here’s an archtypal instance from the early Buddhist texts: Source In this passage, ‘the Wanderer Vachagotta’ is a wandering ascetic, who asks the Bud...

I understand your perplexity. The dualism of body and mind - the idea that these are separable - goes back to Descartes. He depicted the human as a co...

I always felt some sympathy for poor Madame Guyon. I recall reading that there was a similar case concerning a Spanish priest who fell foul of the fea...

I thought it was the idea that had the German populace been armed, then they might have overthrown the Nazis. But it was a single sentence, and was pa...

The gaps keep getting bigger, if you ask me. :-d

Pretty complcated issue, I imagine. There’s a suicide epidemic in the US due to many reasons, economic and social among them. That argument about ‘gun...

There's an analysis in the NY Times today which shows that the reason for the large number of mass shootings in the US is obvious: As far as mental he...

Sure. Far be it from me to argue for the existence of God based on science. But if you wanted a slam-dunk case for the non-existence of God based on s...

For the reasons I provided. Obviously, there is a brain. The philosophical question is, whether experience, and mind, can be understood as a product o...

hey no apologies needed. It’s an interesting conversation.

That’s where faith plays a role. And no, ‘faith’ is not ‘clinging to a belief in propositions for which there is no evidence’, as a Dawkins would desc...

You decide.

1. Ask him/her what’s up. 2. Try to remain calm. 3. Don’t get involved. In practical terms, practicing meditation - like, sitting still for a period o...

Sure I do. My ‘meta-philosophical’ project is based on the idea of there being spiritual enlightenment. It sounds cliched to express it in those terms...

But that is a tendentious argument. There is always an aspect of a religious philosophy that is beyond empirical evidence but ‘transcendent’ is not th...

The influence of evolutionary biology on ethical philosophy: everything reduced to ‘what aids survival.’

This leads me to believe you haven’t understood what I’ve been saying.

Assault rifles, which are the weapons of choice for these heinous acts, are specifically made to kill human beings as efficiently as possible. They're...

'While having no argument with the Lemaître theory (later confirmed by Edwin Hubble's observations) that the universe was expanding, Hoyle disagreed o...

That’s not how I read it at all. Actually I think the very idea of the Big Bang is extremely mystical. When LeMaitre first published his theory, it wa...

Careful now. Long after LeMaitre’s theory was published, the then-Pope learned about it and formed the view that it was compatible with Catholic doctr...

The clear implication being, anyone who makes such arguments is hypocritical. I am hard-pressed to understand how a philosophy - any philosophy - cann...

“Two years ago there was an American president stricken by the horror and his powerlessness to do the obvious to protect his people. Now there is an A...

That’s the sense in which this whole issue has become a vicious circle. A truly vicious circle.

Actually, minor correction to that - according to legend, the inspiration for Yoda was a Tibetan Buddhist monk, Tzenzhab Serkong Rinpoche. But Lucas p...

Actually I disagree with Sime’s analysis, as it’s based only on evolutionary biology. For a very concise account of what I see as the problem, please ...

For the very simple reason that experience requires a subject, and ‘the subject’ can’t be an object of perception. When you look at fMRI data, you don...

You just answered the question you asked above that quote. And Hume is one of the main perpetrators in the story that needs to be told. But to explain...

Hey they all beat being 'a dissipative structure', if you ask me ;-)

This is exactly what is referred to as ‘the hard problem of consciousness’.

Well, it's become a pattern of behaviour, it's a kind of recognised form of action - 'get gun, kill as many people as possible, then self.' It gets a ...

'Realise'? I don't see any need to accept that; science may never solve these issues. I'm pretty certain that they won't in my lifetime; the gaps are ...

I don’t think that’s the issue. Look again at @sime’s comment: reward and punishment. But that governs the behaviour of the slime mound - or indeed, a...

That is not the point. It ought to give pause to any form of physicalism that such questions are still so wide open. This comment would definitely win...