Janus

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I voted 'yes' because I believe personal wisdom is a thing. It is a disposition, a way of being. If it becomes confused and considers itself to be kno...

How do you think it is problematic? I can say that when I write or speak 'gronk' I mean or refer to horse. Of course that would be of no importance to...

Here's my take on what you're wondering about: The correct use of words is a matter of convention which may change over time. The only sense I can mak...

Shit, I always thought he was a fuckin' genius; and now I'm confused. :yikes:

Yes, both banal and arbitrary I'd say.

:up: I can relate to that!

I would have said so. In general I think it's better to do your own thinking and worse to let others do it for you. Although just to be inconsistent, ...

Does the perpetually nodding imbecile there have a high IQ?

Most likely that and the well above average level of complacency and corruption in those classes. That said, I guess complacency and corruption could ...

:up: I have, but I know little about him. I think I have a book by or about him somewhere on my shelves, but I haven't read it.

I've always felt it's counterintuitive that one person in fifty would have a genius level IQ.

:up: There's also something to be said for the process of arriving at such realizations yourself; regardless of whether others already have. It's not ...

True, and pragmatists (or at least pragmatacists) certainly valorize the community of inquirers.

I think you could have the idea without ever having encountered it elsewhere; but chances are that someone else already had it, and perhaps even 2000 ...

That is probably true, although we cannot get them to do a test. I have read that Einstein's IQ was "only" about 160, but I don't know if he was teste...

True, and being in the world intelligently would certainly seem to be a prerequisite for genius. But no doubt there are many different ways.

That's one side of the polemic. As usual both sides have their truths.

Of course this is Kafka's original thought not T Clark's. I wonder why Kafka thought that. Was he recommending avoidance of literature? Seeing is one ...

Not everyone can; it takes imagination, which the regurgitators commonly lack.

I scored very high on IQ tests in school and I didn't even really try; parents were told near genius. I've done online tests and scored between 140- 1...

Much more pertinent to the empirical fields of inquiry than it is to philosophy (unless you mean academic philosophy, of course). I do agree that it a...

I've read a few of the "greats"; it's sometimes like peering into an over-stimulated, obscenely fertile, profligate mind teeming with insights and ass...

Which is just what I've been arguing and you've been disagreeing with: that "those people" (if they even exist which we have no way of knowing since w...

I'm suggesting that we in the developed nations should scrap cars, in the third world there are not nearly so many, and many people use bicycles, smal...

I haven't read the whole conversation between you and Luke. If you've been through it already, then you've come out the other side no wiser. it seems....

What I meant was more along the lines of if you were interested in phenomenology then you might find they do have something interesting to contribute....

Then why is he promoting battery-powered cars? If batteries are charged using fossil fuel derived energy they would be, due to efficiency losses at ev...

That seems absurd to me. Say last week I had a headache, and now today I have a headache. They are two different occasions or instances of having a he...

Perhaps I should have said that an elaborate metaphysics can be an article of faith? I think your reference to intuition is appropriate; it seems natu...

That's right, an elaborate metaphysics may be a faith, but it is not knowledge.

The spectres of predictive text...

Of course there is a spoon. It's the implications of there being a spoon that phenomenologists and metaphysicians are interested in. You don't have to...

I think you're working with an impoverished notion of faith. Faith can consist in an elaborate metaphysics as much as it can consist in simply accepti...

There seem to be many other ways of thinking about the "big questions", but no other way but science that seems to have any chance of delivering any d...

Is there not a different instance of pain each time you hit your hand with the hammer?

OK, thanks. I.m happy to take your word for it, anyway.

That's an interesting possibility! You make some good points; I'm no fan of scientism. but I haven't read Pinker so I can't comment on whether his arg...

I am not your "massa", nor anybody else's, nor would I want to be. I don't have sufficient energy to continue; you're too "high maintenance".

I find nothing to disagree with in what you say here; which is bad news for discussion. :wink: :smile:

I don't know how it is viable, but I do know continued growth is not. Hopefully a solution will present itself. Burning more coal and gas is indeed th...

It does not follow from something being desirable, that it is therefore viable.

Yes, I agree that politicization of the whole issue of covid (not to mention any other domains similarly affected) has considerably muddied the waters...

Gs written in most fonts are still recognizable as a particular configuration or pattern.

All those have to be in place before there can be any use. But sure, use is obviously important; we, like all other species, are basically pragmatists...

I didn't say most economists ignore resources, I said they ignore ecology; the reality of limited resources and the cost, both to the environment and ...

Everything you say here ignores, as so many economists do, the reality of limited resources. I don't think you understand how ecology (of which econom...

I don't say anyone has to. Personal faith is fine, as I've said all along. But some people want to claim that some kinds of faith constitute knowledge...

Perhaps, but on the other hand if numeracy can be explained by recognizing similarity, difference, repetition and pattern if real objects, then there ...

All I meant by saying that religious experiences, or any experiences for that matter, are real is that they really were experienced by the experiencer...