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Wayfarer

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I don't. Bitter and sarcastic. (Just took my dog to the dog wash.)
January 14, 2017 at 01:48
That's why it has to be interpreted carefully! If you read the early texts, the unique station of the Buddha is precisely transcendence of samsara, me...
January 14, 2017 at 00:33
I am very familiar with Zen literature, but it is often quoted out of context, as it was greatly popularised by the Beat generation and their successo...
January 14, 2017 at 00:06
There was one quote presented, I looked up the origin of the quote, I read the entry. On that basis, not the kind of writer I'm going to study. Life's...
January 13, 2017 at 23:29
It says he is nihilist which is all I need to know. It also comes through in that quotation. And I have noticed that discussions with 'Agostino' quick...
January 13, 2017 at 23:22
There was a really poignant story published about 4 years ago, about some high-flying academic who adopted a chimp and raised it as a human, convinced...
January 13, 2017 at 22:40
The quote from Cioran - I'm not familiar with that writer - is a meditation on the meaning of the 'myth of the fall'. It says that: 'the fall - emblem...
January 13, 2017 at 22:36
that is the precise meaning of 'the fall of man' IMO.
January 13, 2017 at 20:55
Sure, well that's plausible. Higher animals - elephants, some birds, dogs, cats, primates - are 'beings', although again, they're not human beings. Bu...
January 13, 2017 at 20:45
Schopenhauer described himself as atheist, and is usually taken to be one, however I think what he meant by that is his rejection of orthodox Christia...
January 13, 2017 at 20:43
There was an interesting and touching story from 2012, when a man called Lawrence Anthony died in South Africa. He had been an elephant conservationis...
January 13, 2017 at 20:34
Good luck to him. If he can succeed as an author, publishing that kind of book, then half his luck! (Although, of course, a stoic ought to remain unmo...
January 13, 2017 at 03:40
Right! It works from the viewpoint of a sociological description, but maybe not as a means to set the moral compass.
January 12, 2017 at 23:22
Pity there's nobody around to benefit.
January 12, 2017 at 09:57
I like what Ram Dass said about it - he didn't deny the efficaciousness of hallucinogens in glimpsing higher states - how could he have, considering h...
January 12, 2017 at 09:49
You're not alone. I would simply make the point that 'the Copenhagen Interpretation' is not a scientific hypothesis. It is only a description of the k...
January 12, 2017 at 09:44
As I understand it, which may be not very well, the probability wave really is a distribution of probabilities - nothing more than that. So it's not a...
January 12, 2017 at 02:18
Well that's the whole measurement problem in a nutshell. All the big arguments are about this very point. Realists want to insist that there is a real...
January 12, 2017 at 00:57
There are no particles as such prior to the act of measurement. Literally all there is is the possibility of there being one. It is the measurement wh...
January 11, 2017 at 21:38
i don't support the death penalty as a matter of principle but this was a heinous crime.
January 11, 2017 at 10:29
You've picked a great handle.
January 11, 2017 at 10:13
Are you sure that's not simply because you don't want to contemplate the idea that someone could be so willingly evil? He answered all of the question...
January 11, 2017 at 09:03
From what little I read about this case, Roof strikes me as competent within the legal definition of that term. Certainly he might be psychopathic, bu...
January 11, 2017 at 03:24
there's your answer.
January 11, 2017 at 02:46
I think that's where the problem lies. Evolution is a biological theory, and insofar as we are biological subjects, then it explains much about us - r...
January 11, 2017 at 02:24
Nevertheless it's worth remembering the original meaning of scepticism.
January 10, 2017 at 20:33
Most assuredly, as do you.
January 10, 2017 at 20:27
Incidentally I don't think the 'Copenhagen Intepretation' ever was intended as a scientific theory. It's more a meta-scientific commentary.
January 10, 2017 at 09:33
You didn't address the point. Putting it another way - the evidence for 'other worlds' can only ever be indirect. So it's an example of 'abductive inf...
January 10, 2017 at 09:25
I don't concur with that definition. If that was the meaning of 'absolute reality' then it would refer to something absolutely unknowable. In any case...
January 10, 2017 at 07:45
You're aware that Bohm's reputation in US academia had already been permanently affected by his early association with communism? He was actually forc...
January 09, 2017 at 21:32
from the article: That is the nub of the reductionist argument. Whenever discussion turns to such things as 'purpose', unless in the strictly function...
January 09, 2017 at 21:15
So everything hunans do is ultimately in the service of finding the very fastest route to the heat-death of the universe.
January 09, 2017 at 20:13
Basically, that calls into question the whole 'uncertainty principle' discovered by Heisenberg. Einstein wanted desperately to believe something simil...
January 09, 2017 at 10:07
When you say 'MWI is a testable prediction', what you mean is that the results are compatible with the many worlds explanation; the results appear to ...
January 09, 2017 at 09:42
Bingo. Do your ears not hear what your mouth has spoken? As always, a total waste of time conversing. You contradict yourself in every post you write.
January 03, 2017 at 22:10
The contents of your post basically amounts to: be good. Interestingly, there is an anecdote in Chinese Buddhism, wherein an emperor asks a Buddhist m...
January 03, 2017 at 21:45
As I noted, those wishing to present a naturalistic interpretation of Buddhism would say it is metaphorical, but traditionally 'world-transcending' do...
January 03, 2017 at 20:39
And what, according to Spinoza, was the acme, the highest point, of the philosopher's life? SEP The Indo-European pantheon are an ubiquitous presence ...
January 03, 2017 at 05:30
On the other forum, Mariner often used to remind us that 'metaphysical' and 'supernatural' are basically synonymous, the first derived from Greek, the...
January 03, 2017 at 03:24
Not if it means nothing to you. I think the question is, what can possibly rationalise or provide the motivation for that? I don't believe it is. I re...
January 03, 2017 at 01:23
I'm not biased, I'm presenting a philosophical argument. Actually, it's a meta-philosophical argument. I have many meta-philosophical differences with...
January 03, 2017 at 00:38
I don't see the point of the question. The answer would depend on a lot of factors. There are plenty of people who have apparently fantastic lives but...
January 03, 2017 at 00:07
Strangely, I thought we were in a philosophy forum. I don't know where you think you are.
January 02, 2017 at 23:44
What 'guarantees' do you think I have been offering? I too work, run a household, and the rest. And, yes, my ability to all of those has been improved...
January 02, 2017 at 23:42
Well, I really have to differ with you on that. It's not a matter of 'having an experience' - I'm referring to the meta-cognitive change that is calle...
January 02, 2017 at 23:14
Which is why I employed the analogy of 'breaking out of the game'. The 'beatific vision' is not 'a temporary state', but a transition to an entirely n...
January 02, 2017 at 23:03
Because the term 'objective' is problematic in relation to this question. Are you familiar with David Hume's statement of the 'is/ought' problem? (Quo...
January 02, 2017 at 22:57
you give the impression of not being interested in either the question, or the proposed solution, so I responded accordingly.
January 02, 2017 at 22:54