Olivier5

The Abbassid were one single dynasty, not two dozen dynasties like in the case of Egypt, so the comparison is biased. But yeah, the Egyptians did real...

Ok, so you went looking for it in India, thus proving your total lack of bias... or clue perhaps. I meant the Abbasid caliphate, as you must know. The...

Maybe you are not looking in the right place... Note that you can't see an Indian civilization in Arabia either.

I let you to your jerking.

Lots of folks show up in jirgas. It is innacurate to characterize them as a form of oligarchy. Of course only men talk.

Meaning?

I happen to think that what was missing was Afghan own governance traditions, and in particular their reliance on communal decision making through ins...

Sure. My point was that the US could dispense from looking for new enemies all the time. The books are now closed on Afghanistan, thanks to Biden. Tha...

I guess you're right: they seem to be interested in keeping channels open with the rest of the world. Good sign, I guess. As for enemies... The Americ...

Nobody said Pakistanis were Arab. I just said that there was once a brilliant Arab civilization. I don't think this is in dispute by any serious histo...

Great piece, please do thank your rabbi for it. :-)

Okay, the Russians and Chinese have some satisfaction seeing NATO leave the neighbourhood. Fair enough.

There is room for more than one understanding of science, but even a sociological account would be grounded in some sort of metaphysics or another. On...

Correct, although the changes were not that significant in my view, mere adaptations of the same basic empirico-rationalist framework. It's not a 'tra...

Nope, they are not. The Chinese were very happy with NATO troops keeping the peace in Afghanistan. The Taliban could get pro-Uighur, you see? The Russ...

You definitely have a bias. As I said, it's very common: the history you go by was written by Christians and Jews who had the same bias. You should tr...

It seems to me that everyone operates or rather thinks based on certain assumptions, whether they are conscious about it or not, and that being consci...

That is what I am talking about: a dismissive, almost racist attitude towards them. It's very common in some corners of the 'west', unfortunately.

It's complicated alright. But there's no reason to systematically dismiss the Arabs. It was once a great civilization, until the sack of Baghdad at th...

I agree entirely. ISIS is a common enemy of the US and Taliban. I expect some collaboration on this front at least. The CIA and co. are pragmatic folk...

I agree it is speculative but do think that metaphysics affect us. I think of it as the axiomatics of our thoughts: the core, fundamental principles a...

I studied those clues and found them strong and consistent, not 'barely discernible' at all. The scientific case for anthropic climate change is extre...

As someone noted already, this depends on how you define success. If their goal is to maintain age-old traditions unaffected by foreign influences, th...

No offense, but I seriously doubt that neuroscience can prove that tables are illusions. This is a platitude but everything, including neuroscience, i...

Personally, I am fact-based. So if something in front of me looks like a table, feels like a table, and can be used like a table, then it is true that...

That is way too dismissive of the early Muslim genius. The early Muslim conquerors were committed to science, equality between races, and freedom of t...

As far as the Taliban are concerned, that the invading NATO armies are out of the country is already a success. And for a majority of Afghans, it's a ...

Agreed.

I hope they got good money for it...

Junk indeed, all paid for by big oil no doubt.

I am not certain that 'what is mainstream today in philosophy of science' means anything, but the fact that the debate has moved on may simply indicat...

Yes, that's a keeper.

Philosophy is all about flow. :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcHKOC64KnE

Logical positivism was too anal-retentive. That's why it faded away. One needs to losen up once in a while.

Too anal.

That would be because materialism is logically and objectively self-contradictory, as we all know. Reason for which there's no need for aggravation: w...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gfbJCzaEdps

Without the idea of 'fire', you couldn't burn anything for heat.

Science deals with the way natural things happen to behave and evolve. At best it can say what is known about natural things and their behavior. That'...

Not a clue. I find it tiresome.

You need to notice that calling other folks’ philosophy « woo » is disrespectful, condescending and useless.

Truth is small.

Yes, reductionists believe that small things cause and explain big things, but never vice versa. I never really understood why.

There must be a reason why blasphemous jokes are funny... ? In Afghanistan, the only jokes in circulation are about a certain Mollah Nasruddin.

Sorry.

A lot of that happened. The Afghans have a nickname for all these expats who came back to Kabul to govern them after the US invasion: sag shui. It mea...

I don't know that there is only one correct or normative version of compatibilism. What's your version?

It means that determinism is neither here nor there. It makes no difference to the issue of free will. It doesn't matter.

Compatibilism is perfectly fine and logical. There's nothing obviously false about it that I can see. In fact I see it as more logically coherent than...

By and large Murdoch is to blame, because he is the singular reason why anglo-saxons in general and Americans in particular are so ignorant about clim...