Wayfarer

Question, then: is it not possible that humans are under-determined by evolution? This would mean that, while certainly not denying the facts of evolu...

He clearly states it. The fact that we all share many common elements of experience is not an argument against constructivism, because it simply means...

I don’t think the passage I quoted considers that question. The key point for me was his objection to treating consciousness as part of the domain of ...

Is aporia a paradox? I recall in Theatetus that it was more a question to which there were several possible answers and no way to tell which is right....

:roll:

I don't think of God as being like a kind of super-engineer, a cosmic designer who literally oversees all the details of the cellular biology and orga...

You might be interested to know that this book got a savage review in the New York Times from David Albert, who is a professor of physics and expert i...

And there's the rub. If the individual conscience is the sole arbiter of virtue, then who's to say that's not good? Suffice to say that St Augustine h...

The former. The 'world-knot'. My feeling is that due to the 'instinctive naturalism' that Husserl calls out in the post above, we've not only lost the...

So, there's two parts to your observation. One being agreement with the general idea of cognitivism or constructivism, but the second being about 'tot...

The emergence of organic life marks the beginning of a rudimentary form of awareness. Unlike inanimate matter, living organisms actively maintain them...

It was really rather a stray thought. The question was raised about how you would know if you really did momentarily experience the existence of anoth...

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic...

Oh, sorry, my bad. Yes I had McGinn's books in mind. Also Evelyn Underhill and Dean Inge, although they're a bit dated.

When I was still at school, I had the peculiar idea that if I suddenly swapped consciousness with the person walking towards me, AND I also instantly ...

That's the spirit, and really not that remote from what I want to convey. That seems like one of the antinomies of reason, doesn’t it? In a practical ...

Notice the connection between aporia and epoch?. Something I've learned to feel comfortable with.

That's the point Cartwright makes in No God, No Laws. It's also discernable from the whole heritage of Western science, where until the modern period,...

I don't know if that's an answerable queston. I think that's rather simplistic. Consider as an analogy, a major life-event, either a positive or negat...

That's what Colin McGinn says, 'mysterianism'. Which conflicts with the fundamental dictum of Socratic philosophy, 'know thyself'.

I think the Platonist tradition naturally tended to understand laws as the doings of the demiurge laid down at the foundations of time. That still res...

:pray: I found validation of sorts when I picked up a small pamphlet on the Teaching of Ramana Maharishi. He was a famous spiritual guru, passed away ...

From the original essay The footnote reference is to the problem of the subjective unity of experience, part of the neural binding problem. That probl...

OK, I've gone back and looked at your response to when I first linked that article. You said you can't see any point to it at the time, whereas I stil...

If you can't be bothered trying to understand it, I can’t be bothered trying to explain it to you. But it’s absolutely nothing to do with ‘the afterli...

'There already' is a concept.

You've been telling me you don't understand it, ever since I first posted an OP on it, linked to the Aeon essay in 2019. Maybe you should review the e...

Something which can obviously ever be known once it has been discovered. Once it has been discovered, you will know it was there already, but not up u...

I've been reading from Schopenhauer again. Something he says struck me with particular force, of late, which is this: My bolds. There is a volume of l...

Just come off a chat about the possible connections and conflicts between Kantian metaphysics and the classical tradition, in light of 'analytic thomi...

This is why I keep referring to the recent essay and book on the blind spot of science. The blind spot essentially arises from the emphasis on objecti...

My search, as it were, began one winter afternoon in the local park, by myself, about to head home for dinner, aged late childhood. At that moment, I ...

Thanks. Further to which: Bolds added. Points to note - even though Schopenhauer and Kant are categorised as idealist philosophers, therefore 'anti-re...

Quite! And very pleased to have established some rapport.

You're on the mark with the observation about it having been 'corraled into religion'. That is why there is a taboo about this subject. But then, for ...

There are dogmatists on both sides, although I think the overall atmosphere has changed since the early 2000's and the heyday of New Atheism. As for M...

Which, recall, originated in the discussion about whether and in what sense philosophy can be considered "higher" (and why the scare quotes around the...

Appreciate that. It's extraordinary how influential that one paper has been.

Oh, and I very much appreciate that and thank you for it. (Incidentally made that rather frustrated comment on it before it started attracting any att...

I have thought again about your objections since you raised them again recently. I don't believe they actually refute the points made in the original ...

Thanks. As it happens, I googled Feinberg and Mallatt The first hit was a review of their book by Stephen Rose which concludes: So they seem to be hew...

Yes, how? Do tell!

Well, likewise with me, but I don't remember that point, but looking at the précis, it seems an obvious source for McIntyre. Actually looks like a cla...

You're inviting scorn quoting Discovery Institute entries on this site, most people won't even look at them. I'm wary of them also, even though I agre...

I quite agree. But I think the fact that this happens, in relation to this topic, speaks to the topic. Recall that in After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre...

Curious then that murder charges apply only to the killing of humans. Although that may be an inadvertent illustration of the consequences of a flatte...

Perhaps you could articulate your objection with reference to the main article, Facing Up to the Problem of Consiousness, David Chalmers.

I have read that the original meaning was to be an initiate of the mystery religions. If Plato was indeed an initiate it makes him a textbook example....

I'll take that as a cue. As is well-known, Einstein paused on one of his afternoon walks, and asked his walking companion, Abraham Pais, 'does the moo...

:chin: