Janus

:up: Taking life seriously...good ideas!

Sure, but the idea is to free oneself from forms of attachment which enslave, not from those which liberate. Can't you tell the difference?

I'm with TMF; in this example there is no problem for JTB. The belief that there is a cow on his field is not specific enough. It's a fudge; what the ...

:up: That is a better translation. I have the Penguin Classics edition on my shelves translated by Hollingsdale (I think), but I kind of remembered th...

You know they were talking about patience, not attachment, right?

:up: The thing you are asking about: not being notified of responses happens to me sometimes too.

I agree, and the further problem is that people do things for reasons, which is a whole different ball game than what is involved in studying events, ...

But quantum theory and particle physics is consistent with chemical theory, and chemical theory is consistent with geology, cosmology and biology. I s...

But it is a predictive theory, The theory is that is you remember and confront past emotional traumas that have been repressed because they were too d...

I think it's actually a very ordinary problem with a very ordinary solution; but there are so many distractions. The trick is that you have to want a ...

I was thinking along the lines that psychoanalysis is believed to help people work through their mental problems. So you could do case studies to see ...

Persistence is a valuable trait.

I can't make much sense of the idea that information is ontologcally basic. at least not exclusively. Information informs; what is it informing and wh...

I think the examples you give: psychoanalysis and communism are tested by observing their results. Such testing is empirical but it cannot be as defin...

Only premises that are descriptions of physical things or the behavior of observable things can be tested, though. Descriptions of how logic works are...

Oh god, yes, may they shine a light like the darkest night!

Logic, though, doesn't tell us anything about an inference other than whether it is consistent with its premises (validity); it cannot tell us whether...

Yes, I've read a fair bit of Popper's work many years ago. He introduced the criterion of falsifiability, as a corrective to the Logical Positivists i...

This issue has been substantially dealt with in Eastern (and some Western) spiritual practices. The "effort of non-effort" and all that. It only seems...

I agree that some metaphysical ideas certainly seem more plausible than others; but then what one finds plausible will depend on one's culturally incu...

I think this is a mistake. The idea is not to harness "It", but to harness the ego that occludes "it".

I see that as entirely consistent with the idea of non-attachment. Attachment to things is slavery; non-attachment is freedom. Is freedom not more won...

It wouldn't be. It wasn't even for the Zen masters according to the canonical texts.

:up:

It may seem that an idea is definitely non-physical and yet causal (this is Descartes' problem). As Spinoza, solving this problem, would have it, I th...

That may be true; but then in light of my last reply to MU, why couldn't we say that anything that is testable is a physical, not a metaphysical, hypo...

How could a non-physical explanation ever be tested?

I'm not against imaginative speculation in the metaphysical way; all I'm saying that such speculation cannot be shown to be anything more than an exer...

If the explanation you are considering is a physical one then there is nothing wrong with it, Even if we can create life in the lab, showing that some...

Well, what does it say apart from ? If we want to say something about how life arose, then we would need to investigate what were the physical conditi...

As I already said the idea of "pure chance" is incoherent. If there is an explanation of the origin of life it will be in lawlike terms. To say someth...

If all you want to say is that the "terminus of explanation" is then this doesn't amount to saying anything much. It may have possible poetic value, b...

So that's the extent of your attempt to critique what Nietzsche writes in that passage? Just a few supercilious characterizations? Nietzsche, if I am ...

You're ignoring the fact that without an environment the body is sensitive to there is no sensation. Try a sensory deprivation chamber for a while. Th...

Since it obviously can't be done, that makes metaphysics, conceived that traditional way, pointless, No doubt that is why Gautama refused to answer me...

Now you're just being stupidly perverse. You know that was not what I was talking about. Go troll somewhere else.

Wittgenstein did not, as far as I am aware advocate asking questions about why the laws of nature, or better conditions, are as they are. As I already...

I would say conditions determine what happens, how things change.

:up: Good! We wouldn't want that; the Bard might turn over in his grave... I agree. And any explanation only brings forth more that needs explaining (...

That's an interesting, evocative, even if counter-intuitive, phrasing!

Amen! How boring would it be if it wasn't? I think we generally do adopt metaphysics we feel good about. That said, I think we should adopt metaphysic...

I never found the "million monkeys' idea compelling. In any case if life is inevitable then it is not by chance. That doesn't have to mean it was plan...

I think this is a good idea. If I remember rightly from long ago reading Peirce spoke this way. Hume point out there is no deductively valid reasoning...

Perhaps Wittgenstein thinks it is an illusion because the laws of nature are not explanations but descriptions of natural order. I mean even if you ta...

I think scientific laws are formulated to describe observed invariant phenomena. So, for example, minimally,the law of gravity is just the observed in...

Yep, it is a bit like that!

No, I was just indulging in a little alliteration. In any case, even if it were true it would only be "rough on me" if I was bothered by it.

Accompanied, I imagine, by a snooty snort.

The one you posted is probably more "Zen". :cool:

I am in total agreement with that aim; not so much with the "making room for faith" part though (which I am not claiming you are advocating). This is ...