Wayfarer

'Survival of the fittest' was coined by Herbert Spencer, who was the Dawkins of his day (albeit more philosophically savvy IMO). But it is very close ...

Even though I too am very sceptical about this aspect of Darwinian thinking, I don't know if you have characterised the role of 'chance' correctly. I ...

Where you find the idea of 'nescience' is as a translation of the Indian 'avidya', where 'a-' is the negative particle, and 'vidya' is knowledge.. How...

I don't see Krishnamurti as a charlatan at all, but I reached a point a long while ago when I realised that I had learned what it was I was going to l...

Hey that's a fantastic reply, very illuminating, and thanks for it. Can't find anything to differ with.

I think Krishnamurti frequently enters a state which is known to classical yoga literature as 'nirvikalpa samadhi' ('contentless consciousness'). Ther...

It seems obvious to me (although plainly it's not obvious to a lot of people) that this vision is based on a deep-rooted sense of estrangement or alie...

Indeed! An encounter with an enlightened sage is called in India a 'darshan', a 'seeing' of the guru, which in and of itself is spiritually efficaciou...

I was an enthusiastic reader of Krishnamurti for quite a while, read everything by and about him I could get my hands on. But ultimately my answer to ...

The 'perennial philosophy' is an expression, coined by Liebniz, referring to the idea that there is a core mystical and philosophical vision of which ...

Oh, so this is Zappfe I don't agree at all with 'antinatalism' except for in the case of those who propose it (by which time, of course, it is too lat...

The issue you're commenting on is related to the fact (in my view) that science is not all-knowing (which is the meaning of 'ominscient'). Scientific ...

Right! Now I get you. I was responding more to your point about the 'impossibility of communication to other people'. But I do see what you mean.

It is practically axiomatic that the philosophers in the Aristotelean-Thomist tradition are Catholic. Other prominent advocates include Jacques Marita...

Before, when I have called out Pierce's leanings towards idealism, or Hegel's idea of the 'world spirit', or Aristotle's acceptance of the 'uncaused c...

Yet although you can draw on Hegel and Pierce for elements of naturalism, I think both were actually 'romantic dualists' in some respects (at least, a...

But what about communities of faith, discourse and practice? For example monastic and ecclesiastical movements and organisations. These provide the me...

'Drugs' is a generalisation and in the context a pejorative. Different 'drugs' do many different things, obviously. Hallucinogenic agents, specificall...

There's an old expression, called 'the moral compass'. It's an intuition, something like 'conscience'. Sits somewhat uneasily with evolutionary thinki...

Darwinian rationalism.

From Alduous Huxley's Doors of Perception If you've never watched Jill Bolte Taylor's famous TED talk, 'My Stroke of Insight', then have a listen to t...

Well, all due respect, everything in the animal kingdom - everything in nature! - ends up dead. It was in respect of this that the Renaissance Platoni...

OK, then. I agree - dogs and some other mammals, and birds. But they're not usually referred to as 'beings'. There is some sense to the term 'being' i...

Thanks Paul. I had guessed there was a lot of customisation due to all the tweaks you had made but you would know better! It's a shame they've let it ...

What I said was, there is a difference in kind between beings that use language, science, technology and so on, and animals, who don't. I can't see wh...

I did attempt! Language, mythology, story-telling, not to mention, science, civilization, technology, space travel, computers, the periodic table -thi...

I don't see any evidence they do, although I think they certainly communicate. (Read the touching story of Nim Chimpsky). But I certainly don't believ...

That's exactly how I see it.

Philosophy is full of terms which aren't amenable to definition and which resist precise explanation. Sorry if I can't be more clear. I just pointed o...

I see it as an ontological difference, and I don't think there are that many of them. 'Ontological' means 'pertaining to the meaning of Being' - it's ...

Again - who knows that? Only h. sapiens.

I should expand on that. When h. sapiens reached the stage of the capacity for language, representation, abstract thought, story-telling, and so on, t...

Well, could you discuss such a question with your dog? Or a chimp? Or with SIRI? Forgive me if I'm being facetious, but I think the answer is 'no'. I ...

I expect that at the front of the book which was thrown on the fire were some illustrations of tethered oxen, so that aspirants might ponder their tas...

'Universal' is not a reference to "universal truths'.

That is the name of a chapter in Magee's book on Schopenhauer.

I would have thought that 'objectification' in the above sense is really pretty recent, isn't it?

Hi Punshhhh glad to see you! That is from the Sathipattana sutta, I believe.

It is very non-politically-correct nowadays to assert any difference in kind between h. sapiens and other species. This is because Darwinism is though...

John Fowles, the novelist, published an excellent book of philosophical aphorisms, called The Arisotos, largely inspired by Heraclitus. The Road Less ...

See Heisenberg's essay The Debate between Plato and Democritus. If logic wasn't universal, then you would never be able to prove an inference, or to s...

Computers aren't intelligent. They can model aspects of intelligence, but they're devices, they're not beings; they're large arrays of switches. A com...

Point of order - Plato was indeed a mystic. The dictionary definition of the term is 'initiate into the mystery religions', and Plato, an Orphic, was ...

— René Descartes Discourse on Method in Discourse on Method and Related Writings (1637). See the mirror test. True, it might not indicate 'awareness o...

Losing yourself is going beyond ego. Easy to say but very hard to enact, especially in a culture which puts ego at the centre of everything.

But it's not, actually. Why do you think Christians say that Christ died for sinners? Why do Mahayana Buddhist vow not to enter Nirv??a until all sent...

'transcendent' in the Kantian sense, not in the sense of being 'beyond', but in the sense of being 'that which constitutes experience but is not itsel...

Quantum Physics And The Need For A New Paradigm Ruth Kastner:

Aha! So there's the 'implicit mind' in semiotics. Knew it was there somewhere. ;) I think this has a counterpart in the idea of 'making manifest'. Up ...

There is a strong link between Asian Buddhism and martial arts, quite aside from the Bushido culture and the incorporation of Zen into Japanese milita...