Wayfarer

Perhaps that is how you would like it to be. X-)

Try overthrowing the law that the most basic law is physics. Good luck with that.

Yes, that is reductionist, in the sense that it appeals to the laws of physics, and hence physicalism, as being the ultimate ground real nature of wha...

I said, I'm not discussing politics any more with @Thorongil. Doesn't mean I think you're correct about any of it, but I meant it.

And the reason that is never silly, is because God's Laws have now been replaced by The Laws of Physics, and God has become a ghost in his own machine...

That's a response? It has been subject to literallly thousands of pages of newsprint, thousands of hours of media analysis. No, news reader. Every sin...

I'm reasonably conversant with American politics. There are US conservatives that I have respect for - the traditional conservatives who believe in ha...

(Y)

Why not? When I tackled you on Trump's obvious incompetence and possible malfeasance, you said 'oh I don't actually like Trump.' Yet you pop up on all...

The country was taken far closer to bankruptcy by W's budget mismanagement than by healthcare. If T has his way on further tax cuts the deficit will b...

If you persisted for 5+ years, maybe you were being helped.

Well, in some cases it leads to beliefs in intinite parallel worlds in which billions of replica selves are having nearly-identical debates - which I ...

You might actually be suffering from a psychological malady, such as depersonalisation disorder, or anhedonia. Might be more beneficial to engage a co...

I think the 'government is evil' meme, which is strongly associated with libertarian movements, like the Tea Party, and now the Heritage Foundation, i...

Fair enough, that's pretty close to what I said also, but it was hard to tell the intention from the way it was written. -- I have a put in a word for...

The answer is complicated. God could not be 'something that exists' - because everything that exists has the possibility of not existing. Everything y...

Buddhism is not founded on the existence of God or gods. There are many polemical passages in Buddhist commentarial literature, showing how belief in ...

Do you think Islam is facist?

I didn't have anything that specific in mind, but that would be one way of approaching it. That was the idea behind Australia's 'Citizenship Test'. Ve...

i am saying that civil rights and freedoms depend on acceptance of a framework of laws and conventions which I don't think are compatible with the Isl...

I'm not asking for anyone's rights to be removed. The question I'm asking is: how far should a pluralistic,secular political order go to accomodate an...

'Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little: it is only its mathematical properties t...

It is not in the least incoherent. It's a question of political philosophy and governance. Why can't such a question even be raised without the implic...

Incidentally, this looks an interesting report, although from 2011 - Fear, Inc: The Roots of the Islamophobic Network They're not quotations, but para...

I would be interested to see some examples. I really don't recall any Biblical texts urging the faithful to slay non-believers, but I could be mistake...

There's a Pakistani cleric who created a massive Fatwa on Terrorism about 10 years ago. It is said to be definitive, and to show with absolute certain...

You're reacting to an ancient religious teaching as if it were intended to be a modern, politically correct bromide. 'Come along children, let's all w...

Fair enough.

It's plausible, but La Perouse didn't arrive until after that date 1, and there are no other known candidates. (Having been told flat out that such an...

I think Aletheist is correct, he's simply pointing out the Christian doctrine of 'original sin'. You're free not to accept it of course, but that is w...

Welcome to the Forum. ON that specific idea, I would recommend Tao Te Ching. As I'm not a Chinese speaker, I can only read translations, and there are...

Found the passage Moorehead refers to: At least good to know I wasn't actually whistling dixie. It was the underlined passage that struck me, but it w...

According to Alan Moorehead, Banks simply logged that when the Endeavour anchored, the natives didn't appear to notice. Later, when they sent a small ...

I have posted this previously, but I think it's relevant to the discussion. According to evolutionary biology, homo sapiens is the result of millions ...

Sure Banno. You were there, hiding in the bushes, with your binoculars. Besides, you know Joseph Banks to be an habitual confabulator, right? Which is...

The 'questionairre' looks bogus to me. If you google Trump + Facisim, you will find many articles, for and against. My view is that Trump has tendenci...

You mean, the world as it is not perceived? Seems like an opportunity to mention Donald Hoffman.

There are some anedotes I learned in anthropology which are interesting in this regard. The first was the diary note of Joseph Banks, who was the bota...

We invariably interpret experience and sensory perception in terms of what we know already. How could it be otherwise? If we see something we don't un...

Sheldrake writes: That was written in 1987 - whether there have been developments, I don't know. Here is Sheldrake's reply to the question 'what is co...

We ought not to forget the significance of the unconditioned. If mental constructs are socially-conditioned aggregations of ideas and attitudes, then ...

I'm sure if he meant to say that, he would have said it.

Well, a riverbed doesn't signify a river, unless there's an observer who makes that interpretation ('see that? It's a riverbed. Means that water must ...

What about mental arithmetic? or mental operations of any kind? And even if symbols are physical, the physical material they're made out of, is differ...

Just backing up a bit to this exchange on the page before this one. What is the 'materiality of symbols'? A symbol is effective (I had thought) becaus...

That is less egregious then your earlier 'everything is acceptable'. That attitude is just the kind of relativism or nihilism that is warned against b...

Is there anything of interest in this so-called 'third way' of evolutionary theory that I've started to notice? I was reading about the eels that live...

Well, yes, but you also have to acknowledge that there is a self-reinforcing tendency even amongst the intelligentsia. In the video interview I mentio...

Sheldrake's description of morphic resonance: Morphic fields can't be detected through the same instruments that detect electromagnetic effects becaus...

I am aware of Consciousness and the Brain, it has a very good reputation from what I can ascertain. I didn't have that in mind, it was more the Church...