Janus

I think the claim is supported logically by the fact that no purely logical reason for considering races to be inferior or superior seem to be possibl...

What restrictions do you find on your opinions in New Zealand. What opinions would you wish to express and yet find yourself increasingly unable to do...

Since I have not a major interest in politics I've refrained from commenting on liberalism understood as a social/political praxis. I have read along ...

I don't want to take the thread off-course, but I just want to say that I cannot see how metaphysical speculations can be either empirically or logica...

1. It certainly seems that life is the source of all value—no life, no value. Value is experienced, felt, and without life there is no experience or f...

It's easy to say you are not afraid of death when your life is under no threat. I doubt that if you suddenly found you had a terminal illness you woul...

Yes, it is only humans who can say that life is the source of all value both good and bad. but animals also have purposes and value things, probably w...

Right, 'rational' is not strictly definable. You could say a rational argument is an argument consistent with its premises, in other words a valid arg...

'Rapture' is an emotionally charged word, a word that signifies intense emotion. Perhaps that is relatively rare. I think it's fair to say, though, th...

You have to admit, though, that survival, that is life, is the ultimate—without it there are no other goals, which makes other goals secondary insofar...

You've ignored this: . It seems reasonable to think that when an organism dies the ways in which the particles that constitute the body are combined c...

Interesting question! Let's take racism; if someone thinks a person is to be shunned, dismissed as inferior or even vilified on account of their skin ...

No, and I think the examples you gave of the kinds of attitudes which you say are deemed to be beyond the pale are generally attitudes which are not r...

Is it rational to give air to assertions which are not rationally justifiable?

This leaves me wondering what the numinous, which you apparently don't find yourself having a sense of. means to you. It must mean something, have som...

I don't see the numinous as excluding the darkness and the suffering and the tragedy of living and dying. It doesn't overcome the mystery, and it has ...

But apparently not the same relations with one another.

I've watched about 30 of those lectures, but quite a while ago now, and I agree with you that they are kind of nebulous and they do become repetitive....

It's worth noting the relation between the terms 'sophisticated' and 'sophistry'; to sophisticate may be to make sophistical, if the elaboration does ...

I agree with the idea that organisms, at least complex organisms, such as us and the so-called "higher animals' cannot be understood comprehensively i...

OK, so we know matter can experience, as we and the other animals are material beings and we know they and we experience things. Other emergent proper...

Sure, and as I said I have no argument with people's faiths—provide they don't think it is more than that. When that happens, they start expecting oth...

Surely the ideas themselves have their own beauty. Why would we need to believe they are literally true to enjoy that beauty? To claim that would be t...

Some people confuse materialism as a philosophical view with materialism in the sense of consumerism—a sad misleading conflation!

I could just as well ask what the account of 'god as transcendence' gives us. At least god as immanence is more comprehensible. According to some acco...

I can't see that you're saying anything that means anything.

The notion of a subjective experience of a particle makes no sense. Why not just use 'consciousness' to denote subjective experience? There is no "col...

Okay, then perhaps try legal microdosing with psilocybin or cannabis if available. Or cognitive behavior therapy. I don't know what else to suggest. T...

I don't think the evidence shows that at all. Quite the contrary. My own experience has also showed me this: years ago, I experimented for a while wit...

Yes, that's the problem. All the emphasis these days is on economic performance, neither party will propose anything that will obviously negatively af...

Were they not Christians? Why not just return to Spinoza? I think his theology is more sophisticated than any Christian theology, including ideas such...

And vice versa, and so on with all other emergent properties. I wonder, though, why you keep speaking about human consciousness, as though humans were...

I agree with this, except I would just say "consciousness" and drop the "human". So what is the difference between consciousness and "proto-consciousn...

We can feel depressed due to dopamine or serotonin deficiency or depletion, and this can lead to the kinds of thoughts you seem to be having. On the o...

You're still missing the point. You argue that microphysical particles must be conscious because consciousness is always found in certain configuratio...

You haven't answered the question. I'm asking about atoms not molecules. I could be asking about what properties of electrons, protons and neutrons or...

What is the explanation of wetness in the properties of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms?

It seems you're claiming that particles must be conscious because some aggregates of particles are conscious. That seems like saying that particles mu...

What is DNA if not chemical combinations? Of course not all chemical complexes are conscious...it doesn't follow that none are, or that consciousness ...

Perhaps it's more like "some, or even most, kinds of physical connections aren't enough".

You contradict yourself, so nothing more need be said.

:cool:

:up:

I can't imagine what the weak sense of the word would be in this connection...'seems most plausible given the evidence we do have perhaps'...?

What do you mean by "substantiated" if not proven? Scientific theories, much less philosophical claims, cannot be proven. Your apparent demand for abs...

Nothing can ever be proved either way. proofs are obtainable only in the domain of math and logic. The best we can do is investigate empirically as mu...

I'm not denying that what things seem are part of it. As I said earlier in this thread (I think) I count experiences of things as being as real or obj...

If by "wetware" you mean neural activity, I'd say individual thoughts just are neural processes, and that the brain provides the conditions under whic...

There is a distinction, as is well known, between causation and correlation. If two things are necessarily correlated I don't think it necessarily fol...