Janus

Do you mean 'knowing it (really) is bad' or 'knowing almost everyone else thinks it is bad'?

Damn, that looks like Hyde Park!

Note the testicular chin.

I doubt we can simultaneously be aware of, as well as aware of our awareness of, anything. I seem to be able to switch instantaneously from one to the...

What if change from one state to another is instantaneous? Do you have an argument for why it could not be so? Then we can just say instead "It is X, ...

Yeah, OK, I think we are agreeing, but in any case, Merry Christmas to ye!

As a theory 'Evolution' is a theory of change. It includes both the micro level individual changes that produce advantages that are selected for, the ...

What you call the computer's "being aware of context" would seem to be merely an algorithm though, not a true awareness, and much less a self-consciou...

A process is a series, or better, a nexus of causes and effects, though; it does not cause anything. Put it another way: change is the result of causa...

Between two contiguous determinate states of being of any entity there is a seamless transition which does not consist in a determinate state of being...

From what you have written here I take it that you think 'existence' is a broader conception that includes both 'being' and 'becoming', and that the m...

I can't tell if you are drunk from here, but as the great philosopher-walrus, John Lennon, once said:“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream...

There is no denying that numbers have a different kind of existence than spatio-temporal objects. But there are many things apart from number that don...

Special variation is evolution.

You might be God, but you are not all of God. Likewise God might be you, but you are not all God is.

The problem with what Marcel writes in the above quoted passage is twofold: He does not give a coherent account of the difference between existence an...

>:O

Yes, that was the book. I believe I may still have it on my shelves somewhere.

I remember one of his books vaguely, maybe titled What is Philosophy which is associated in my mind with E F Schumaker's Guide for the Perplexed from ...

If such threats of punishment exist in all religions and ideologies then it would seem that they all have their evils, which was my original point.

But you have to have faith in their spiritual wisdom, and they have to have faith in their own wisdom, in order for them to hold such a role. Also, pr...

If someone experiences God and you say that could be an instance of "higher knowledge" which proves that God is real, that begs the question as to how...

If your own subjectivity has an existence which is not merely merely imaginary then it has in that sense an objective existence. Obviously the same go...

Sorry for delayed response, I just saw this. For sure there are more or less radical transformations of style and content (if not form and harmony), f...

That doesn't answer the question; it just deflects it. You don't believe in God yourself, in any case; according to your own testimony. Actually, I re...

I think the sense of 'objective' Sam refers to is not the sense of 'empirical object' but is in the sense of 'intersubjective'. If the reality of God ...

I agree. So, when I said " faith they give rise to" it would have been better to say "the faith they sustain". Faith, affective insight, and intuition...

The kinds of knowledge (In the Biblical sense of familiarity captured in the Biblical expression for sexual intercourse: "a man knows his wife") I was...

The first two are not widespread enough to cause significant evil, and in any case are not ideologies, but spiritual and/ or ethical practices, as are...

There are two points for you to consider. First, in saying that there was nothing further to be said it's possible that I was simply expressing my fee...

True!

Not true; all ideologies come with their share of evils. Socialism, Nazism, Neo-Liberal Democratism, or whatever; people do evil things in the names o...

I agree that mystical experiences do not yield knowledge in any 'ordinary' discursive sense; and that goes for works of revelation also. But I would a...

OK, for 'multiplicity' Oxford has:A large number or variety For ;collection': A group of things or people I can see where you are coming from insofar ...

Don't be coy. What's point would you like to make about those ?

Well. I guess there's nothing more to say then, since I don't interpret those terms the way you apparently do.

I cannot see any reason why you would think "collection" implies "one whole", whereas "multiplicity" does not. For example take the collection ( in th...

Would they not then be taking the mystical experiences of others on faith; and yet not having faith in their own mystical experiences (assuming that t...

So, you see the first camp as denying the possibility of mystical knowledge and/or revelation? Is this a denial just of gnostic experience? I've never...

A very quick answer: I'm not sure about this distinction, because I see the non-discursive knowledge of the mystic to be in the form of intuitive feel...

I don't have much time this morning, so this'll have to be quick. I agree that for Spinoza every extension has a corresponding idea. This, it seems to...

I disagree with this. An arbitrary collection of disparate, unrelated things is a multiplicity, but then so is a collective of functionally interrelat...

I agree, idealism seems to be the favored metaphysics for most of the religious. Whether idealism is the other pole of materialism or of realism is a ...

Is it necessarily pessimistic to say that the essence of life is a blind, purposeless will? For some the idea that the essence of life is a conscious ...

Yes, I agree; I don't read Nietzsche as either a nihilist or a pessimist. On the contrary, Nietzsche sees nihilism as inherent in Christianity.

Is it a subtlety you can, or care to, explain?

I don't see why you think it is stereotyping. Both Christ and Buddha warned against the snares of philosophy. Philosophy is inevitably a function of t...

Where I disagree is that recognition of "the pessimistic point" (by which I take you to mean something like a recognition that there is no overarching...

These are flexible 'average' definitions, though. Someone could be irrational, mute, incredibly hairy and born without thumbs, and yet still be human....

Yes, but that the author actually meant what you say he must have meant is merely your interpretation. I think I have shown that it is open to a wider...