Janus

The post of mine you responded to was about morphic resonance in nature, not about the formation of habits by conscious creatures.

I couldn't see any relevance at all in what you linked. But then I was only able to view the synopsis. Perhaps you could explain the guts of it briefl...

I have long practiced several of the arts myself (and a few crafts as well), so you're not telling me anything I am not already well familiar with. It...

You haven't explicated any authentic account of, or argument for, the ideas that you want to facilely denigrate. You rail against "intellectual dishon...

The "reach of a viewpoint" is what it is possible to conceive from within the viewpoint. That is analogous to any actual situation where what it is po...

Yet I wonder whether our ability to model things mathematically is not one of our faculties and an integral part of our experience.

And yet, strangely, and in counterpoint to what you are suggesting, Kant, in claiming that our notion of time cannot be applicable to the noumenal or ...

And yet you haven't explained at all why it once did, and now doesn't.

Is the question as to whether we can "get outside" our conceptual schemes meant in the sense of 'outside all possible conceptual schemes' or 'outside ...

So, God develops new habits and then incorporates then into His practice?

I understand the idea of morphic resonance. I read Presence of the Past more than 20 years ago and it is still on my shelves somewhere. I thought it i...

Wow! The Dark Knight battles through a sea of blood?

I just returned to look at this forgotten thread. Some nice images Mongrel, I particularly like the weird tree one and the McDonalds drink container o...

If they cannot be known via empirical means then how could we ever decide that they are "forces and fields"? We would be in the position of being unab...

How can true certainty be produced by doubting? Thinking that one knows is not knowing. If we know anything at all we know it with absolute certainty....

I think the sense of the question is whether we can get outside of conceptual schemas per se. I would say the obvious answer to that is 'no'.

I guess it could make for some interesting discussion. I haven't enough available time to commit to participating in a thread to the degree that the o...

Yes, but they are not unknowable in principle. It is not logically impossible (i.e. involves no contradiction) that we could somehow get there, and wh...

OK, I am not denying that we must think there is change outside of our experience, but it seems to remain the case that all the change we are aware of...

I'm not sure whether you mean my response or yours was 'perhaps more clearly stated"; but in any case that doesn't matter. :) We seem to have returned...

Great...whatever. This is where it always seem to end up with you.

What do you think could possibly be understood philosophically speaking about mind, matter or life that is not informed by the various sciences? This ...

All change (at least what we can be aware of) occurs within our experience, doesn't it? To anticipate an objection, I am including all future change w...

The physical sciences deal with the physical; i.e. matter. The life sciences (biology for example) deal with life, and the sciences of the mind (neuro...

With the experience of doubting them one will never know which ones are mistaken. Knowing is not something that can be warranted by some other criteri...

Are life and mind any more "mysterious" than matter? The problem with the idea of 'mystery', is that it suggests something hidden, something occult, t...

OK, but I don't believe Kant would disagree that we get outside of our capacities in this sense that they are changed by something greater. This is a ...

I can't see how the fact that we must think our faculties are affected by influences outside them, entails that we "get outside our faculties" in in o...

Things learned remain 'within our faculties, though, don't they? As far as I am aware, Kant never denies that there are "outside influences shaping ou...

Really? And what could it mean for us to "get outside our faculties"? I think it's far more likely that you are just confused about Kant, than that Ka...

Yeah but it wasn't dismissed because "such things can't happen"; that is a distortion. Rather it was questioned/critiqued because, even it were accept...

The difference is that you cannot "take out the formal and empirical parts of your enquiry" except in abstracto. And it is the in concreto that really...

I acknowledge there is a difference between doing science in a self-consciously philosophical way and "shutting up and calculating". My point is only ...

Equations must be interpreted, and experiments conducted, by homo philosophicus. There is no getting around that fact.

Sure, but a scientist will necessarily have a self-understanding that determines, at least in part, the way they work as a scientist. There are no abs...

I am not aware of alternative well-formulated understandings. If you know of any, please give account of them. This is nothing more than an appeal to ...

Science is not tied necessarily to any particular philosophy. One can be a Young Earth Creationist and still practice science as effectively as anyone...

If the influence of your life extends via your influence during life on those you share it with beyond your life then why should "hedonism and the que...

And yet you give no account of it nor of why you find it so compelling. Also, I asked three salient questions in my last response; and you have not at...

Yes, I was just wanting to emphasize that karma-as-causation is not in keeping with the modern understanding of causation. We cannot formulate any ade...

Where are these cases documented apart from Stevenson's? In any case they are one-off instances; which could reasonably be written off to coincidence,...

The ethical realtionship between belief, logic and evidence; which is to say the ethical relationship between both faith and reason, and reason and th...

Let's be clear here; I don't believe documented anecdotal evidence is ever good evidence for anything, unless the same anecdotal evidence is independe...

I don't think that section was there when I responded, but I might be mistaken. In any case I don't see how such events if they are veridical would be...

Now you are just being obscure.

No, it's not because if you cannot understand an infinite intentionality then you cannot attribute anything to it.

If we have no scientific, logical or experiential reason to believe it, then it is, for us at least, superstition. I believe that would be a fair defi...

It isn't really. It allows that material causation is the only mode of activity for bodies. When it comes to thought, the mode of activity would be re...

This is simply incorrect. Their idea of the operation of karma is most certainly a superstitious one. There may be non-superstitious understandings of...

This is obviously a modern concessional interpretation of the understanding of Karma and is not in accord with the folk understanding of it. This read...