Wayfarer

There is indeed, but please let's not consider 'fitness' in Darwinian terms, and instead contemplate the fact that philosophy qua philosophy is not co...

Well, one factor is historical - in a very short time-frame all of the diverse cultural and ethical systems are jostling one another in the global vil...

I think you’ve put that well.

I think it is an ‘awareness training and personal development’ type of movement. The map not being the territory is, I think, aimed at loosening the g...

I had thought that in ancient texts Melancholia was what we might now call 'depression', although I could be wrong. But I has also rather thought that...

hey don't flatter yourself ;-)

I suppose. But Dennett does call himself an 'anti-philosopher': As a matter a fact, I agree that the notion of mind as 'substance' is completely mista...

Well if it helps, I’m sure you wouldn’t loose your intellectual acuity if you shaved your head.

can't differ with anything said in that piece, but you’re right in guessing I’m not a Sam Harris fan. Those are aspects of the ‘secular Buddhism’ deba...

I think it’s regarded as a bit fringe - regrettably. I only encountered him through references by others, notably Alan Watts. I looked at the General ...

I would have thought that the law of identity, a=a, is central to logic and meaning. 'a' is not similar to 'a', it is the same. That's what '=' means....

It means the stamp of authority, and is used colloquially to denote that ‘so and so approves of such and such’.

RIght. Well it has to have the imprimatur of Darwinism otherwise nobody will take it seriously.

You bet. Actually the nature of re-birth is highly contentious on Buddhist forums itself, threads about it often get locked. I don't think anyone real...

'Meta-philosophy' refers to your 'philosophy about philosophy' - what are the proper bounds of the subject, the domain of discourse, if you like. Denn...

I think 'effortless gracelessness' would be a suitable title for this week's episodes. How To Insult Almost Everyone Whilst Saying You're The Best At ...

I would query that view, it is negative and defeatist. It would be better to consider what ethical systems have in common - which is actually quite a ...

There was a good essay on this question in the NY Times by philosopher Richard Polt, called Anything But Human: The issue is, evolution carries the pr...

The best argument against the mind being brain-function, is that the mind can change brain function. That is one of the key findings of neuro-plastici...

Here's something I heard on a news bulletin today that *might* be relevant. It concerned the fact that Australia is one of the only countries where th...

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I'm not into Foucault (or many other modern philosophers). All I meant is, the desire to make philosophy 'useful' or 'practical' misunderstands its ai...

Right - with the caveat that the individual can't, and ought not, to try and re-invent the whole of philosophy de novo. I mean, people turn up on foru...

My thoughts exactly (although I don't see how Buddhism fits in the picture). That's because Dawkins' materialism is actually a direct descendant of ph...

Your claims are certainly not fantastic or metaphysical; they’re naturalistic, and, as such, perfectly sane. However it might be worth considering the...

One gets the distinct impression that Dawkins can't conceive of anything more wonderful than Darwin's Tangled Bank. That is the acme of human achievem...

Just seen Blade Runner 2049, which is big on these issues. (I thought it brilliant, by the way, despite some flaws.) He's too hard for me. I read the ...

Still not 'objective' so much as 'inter-subjective'; we discover and symbolise all of those aspects of experience which we as a culture and as a speci...

It’s not embodied cognition I wish to avoid - it is ‘neuro-reductionism’. ‘Oh, that’s just your brain’s way of keeping your genomes alive’. Remember, ...

True, but 'transcendental' is more polite. I don't see how what is 'material' could be 'primal'. In the Western philosophical tradition the 'primal' w...

There is a 'there anyway' world, but the reflexive and uncritical acceptance of its reality signifies the absence of philosophical reflection 1. The n...

This forum is much less of a ‘cult’ than many academic philosophy departments. What you’re referring to is ‘meta-philosophy’, one’s attitude towards w...

Actually that claim is ‘transcendental realism’, in philosophy speak. 1 Despite the fancy title, it’s what most folks believe. It’s the belief in the ...

Where do ‘species’ fit in? Surely they rate a mention at least as ‘nodes’ in the network?

It is medieval.

I don't know if you're correct, although I'm probably not well equipped to argue. However, there is a essay I know from Heisenberg, which is relevant:...

Hey I thought your questions were pretty good!

I think, possibly, there is a similarity with what the ancients meant by divine illumination, and the 'enlightenment' of Buddhists, even though the tw...

You're assuming 'transcendental realism' - that there is a world out there, independent of anyone's apprehension of it. I take a generally Kantian vie...

Yes, I got that - tychism, as he called it. That is why, it is said, he would have no trouble with uncertainty in quantum mechanics. That also came fr...

Incidentally, by way of footnote, I have noticed there's a philosophical argument about the very topic of the 'indispensability of mathematics'. Why, ...

Begs the question. But this is not so - Plato inherited mathematical idealism from the Pythagoreans; he was frequently referred to by Aristotle as bei...

Yes, I think I would agree. Perhaps it's the case that 'the cosmos' now occupies the place formerly assigned to Deity. 'Cosmos is all there is and eve...

Have a look at the SEP entry on Divine Illumination. It starts with a Socratic account.

I was thinking more in terms of the traditional sense that the Universe was intelligible, that reason or rationality was an animating force and realit...

Thanks, very interesting. And I tend to think the ‘immateriality of information’ has tended to show up in physics, also. I don’t know if you noticed t...

I don’t think philosophy ought to be productive - the wish to make it so, is part of the whole instrumentalisation of reason. It can be a waste of tim...

Probably because of atheism - not yours, in particular, but in the sense of ours being a post-death-of-God culture. That has comprised a gradual disma...

Sure - I could give you a false treasure map, you would have no way of knowing from the map itself. You would have to go and dig. DO forms carry quali...

Footnote: I was listening to a lecture on Christian Platonism today and learned from it that it was St Bonaventure who first said that ‘everything is ...