Janus

Fragile? :rofl: What an idiotic inference; what makes you think I care about some random ad hominem projections beyond making the effort to call them ...

:up: :up: Yes, that is the only conceivably good way forward...

That may be a general trend, but I think you should be wary of too much generalization. The biosphere is the pressing concern, regardless of whether i...

I allowed that traditions and organized religions may be necessary for many. Nonetheless, they are hindrances to others. It is false to claim that tho...

An excellent OP! I think we all seek the good. We either adopt what is socio-culturally set before us, or we embark on a dialectical search for what i...

This kind of response leaves me only with the hope that you might grow up. Your argumentation, and what seems to motivate it, is of such a low quality...

:roll: Weasel words!

I think it is still possible to have teachers in a secular context, because what they would be teaching are psychological and physical techniques for ...

Insight or experience? There seems to be no doubt that mystical experiences are universal inasmuch as they occur in every culture. Are the attendant i...

Are there other ways in which perennialist thinking tries to "flatten everything out"? As to the focus on "ineffable experience", I think it is necess...

Right, if I made a promise, I made a promise regardless of documentation. Even if I fail to remember making the promise, that doesn't change the fact ...

One may have to apply more effort because they are less talented. That has no bearing on the argument. If we all drive as best we can within the limit...

I think that's right—the cosmos was understood to be centred on humans and was thus understood in anthropomorphic terms just as it was understood in a...

Thanks, but nothing there is unfamiliar or controversial to my way of thinking. I amend my statement to make it clearer: Of course, I don't deny that ...

No, how can you do better than paying attention, driving within the speed limit and so on, which I outlined? Explain to me how you could do better tha...

You're ignoring context. There is no reason to strive to do better in a task when the circumstances don't require it. How are you going to do better t...

How do you define "doing your best"? I would define it as doing what the situation or task at hand requires so as to avoid negative outcomes. If you a...

:up:

I'd say "awareness of God" is the (or a possible) interpretation of the experience, not the experience itself.

You may be right—that is it may be possible to bridge the gap between explanations in the conceptual paradigm of physical causes and conditions, and e...

If neural activity just is mental activity, if the two are one thing seen from two different (and conceptually incompatible) perspectives, then there ...

That would be the explanation from within experience. On the other hand, choosing to do things, finding them pleasant etc., are also neural activity. ...

There have been a few great paradigmatic changes in science, but that does not guarantee that there will be such great changes in the future. I think ...

I imagine there may be unknown factors in play that we may later come to know about. Will there always be more unknown factors to discover? It seems p...

Yes, that is the problem. What if the ideology of modern consumerism has a lot to do with that? A change of paradigm might help.

Are you familiar with Spinoza? He solved this conundrum, Descartes "interaction problem" centuries ago. As I have no doubt you know Descartes proposed...

We care about those we naturally care about in a "visceral" way, but we can also learn to care for those we are not familiar with in an intellectual w...

Can you fill out your argument here? I'm not sure what you mean by "mechanism". As far as I know modern understanding in biology is organistic, not me...

I don't think that will help, because I can't see how saying the Universe has an overarching purpose makes any sense at all without positing a purpose...

Since you didn't understand it, how could you possibly know what is required to understand it? As usual you are treating this discussion in "schoolyar...

Your lack of nuanced understanding is again in evidence— I guess if you are a black and white thinker then of course everything will appear to you as ...

There cannot be an intersubjectively valid metaphysics worth rational consideration which is not consistent with, and coherent within, the terms of sc...

As I see it, the only goodness we can know is the goodness of human intentionality. It seems we find it very difficult not to anthropomorphize.

I don't think this is right. First because it is a matter of language usage—it simply makes no logical sense to say there is a purpose if there is no ...

Such asking of why is inappropriate in that it presupposes there must be a reason. Such asking generates pseudo-mystery. Real mystery exists when ther...

It could be if it was planned, but not otherwise.

Entropy is perhaps (that is, as far as we can tell) a global tendency, not a purpose. The idea that the Cosmos is governed by some overarching (transc...

1. I'd say there are no moral facts as such, because the idea is a kind of category error. On the other hand I'd say there are human facts, facts abou...

By some accounts he is a flawed character. Some reports say he is autistic, on the spectrum and so on. The way I see it we don't rightly judge people ...

Scrutiny of governments and their cover-ups is not the same as scrutiny of individuals—trying to get dirt on them—a game very familiar in politics. Wh...

Cheers mate, I'll have a read...

I also have read and like Camus' essays. although many years ago. The part I question there is whether there is a definitive and general answer to the...

OK, I see...and fair enough.

So yours is a kind of 'virtue ethics' argument? I think it comes down to what people care about, though, and addressing an argument that one should pu...

I believe Assange was well aware of the risks he was taking. I think what he did deserves admiration for the courage it must have taken to do what he ...

Given that we certainly do not know what happens to us after we die, whereas it seems most plausible to think that nothing at all happens, it would se...

Pure rationality is a matter of form, not of content. An opinion can be rational in the sense of being logically valid and yet wrong.

Doesn't matter, you need evidence in order to prosecute. It's not really a matter of that. I agree that publishing information that puts people's live...

True that!

The claim that the publishing of personal details of many operatives put them at significant risk is weakened by the fact that apparently none of them...