Janus

I don't read a lot of fiction nowadays, but Steppenwolf, Narcissus and Goldmund and The Glass Bead Game by Hesse, Forbidden Colours and Death in Midsu...

I think the best fiction and poetry can provide a wise feel for or understanding of the human condition or the natural world: we can learn much from i...

Yep, I think that's pretty much the way of it.

Of course, you are right that this sometimes happens, and that some of us vote for, and defend military action and spending on "defense". But I think ...

The difference is that scientific theories are testable by seeing if the phenomena they predict obtain. Of course, that doesn't prove they are true. A...

I'm not defending the right of such aberrations to exist, but they will exist nonetheless, and all kinds of horrors driven by ideologies, not to menti...

I'm with you on that, not being a believer myself. But I think it's fair to say that the majority of believers have never been asked to do those terri...

I don't think that is what metaphysics is, I think it is a purely speculative exercise of the imagination; that is it consists in what we are capable ...

They really want to believe all that, but perhaps even the least critical of us have trouble really convincing ourselves of that for which there can b...

But you acknowledge all this is groundless speculation, right? There are no experiments we can do to confirm whether phenomena predicted by this conje...

As I said earlier there is no faith without doubt (or at least it is extremely rare).

Excellent point! I defend the right of individuals to hold any religious faith that suits them, and to congregate and commune with like-minded individ...

The interesting thing is that that is an untestable speculative explanation just as the idea that there are real mind-independent physical/ energetic ...

I haven't claimed that phenomenology and metaphysical speculation is without value; the problem is we have no means to confirm any of it unless and un...

I don't deny the possibility, but I don't think the evidence, even for the likelihood, is before us now.

That's why all that remains in the realm of groundless speculation and faith. I'm with you in thinking that this will always be an important part of h...

Nice analysis Mr Apokrisis!

:up: Lots of possibilities and hopefully not too many downsides...I haven't found myself attracted to using them much as yet...I wonder if I will

Yes, AI sentience, not to mention sapience, is a contentious issue. Where in the animal kingdom does sentience begin? I find it plausible to think it ...

I don't find it at all plausible to think that a "creature" that looked exactly like a human, but had no internal self-model, would act like a human.

There is more nuance than some would like to admit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations_affirming_LGBT_people And the thing ...

Most people are afraid to die. Also, I think for some of those who yearn for eternal life, the only negative thing about this life is pain and dying. ...

I agree, if by salvation you mean securing a place in heaven (or at least believing you have). Your list of social benefits is well thought out.

Have it your own way then; I'm not going to waste any more time.

Again, that's a simplistic assessment, as though there are no other political and economic factors in play which could determine which are the happies...

Yes, that is the terrible, childish, absurd, anti-life side of religion; which is not to say that that is all religion can be, but those kinds of atti...

:halo:

Can you cite some sociological studies that show that religion has been a net negative for society? What leads you to think your unargued opinions are...

:up: :100: :up: This is too simplistic. Organized religion is inevitably political, that is, concerned with control, like any collective ideology. I b...

So, if our brains are representations like anything else, then how can consciousness be said to reside there? If the brain is a representation, then t...

:clap:

Yes but that speaks to our thinking, not to what-is. We already know that thinking in terms of causes and thinking in terms of reasons cannot be made ...

Right, it seems that both sides of the argument, both positions, are promissory. People adopt them on account of what seems most plausible to them, bu...

Well, it can't if the nature of our thinking makes it impossible to explain. It does not follow that because we cannot explain it, it must be impossib...

That neural states are causality-driven and/ or exclusively causality driven is an assumption which cannot be tested empirically, and that also does n...

If you point me to the argument, I'll be glad to address it, even though "might respond" does not sound very promising, and I dislike expending effort...

It has a bearing because things can actually be, counter intuitively, two things that seem incompatible. Do you think your intuitive preconceptions ab...

I said "evidence", I didn't say 'proof'. For example, say I lost my well-worn copy of Crime and Punishment twenty years ago, just before my son was bo...

If microphysical entities can be both particle and wave why could not neurological states be both physical and semantic. Perhaps your unexamined preco...

If everything is a representation in our heads, are our heads also representations...in our heads?

It is obvious that we don't know with absolute certainty that objects persist when unobserved, but all the evidence of human experience, including obs...

You misunderstand. If you had read my posts more closely you would know that all I'm claiming is that unobserved objects persist, and that I'm making ...

This is a misrepresentation; Astrazeneca has been discontinued in Australia due to other vaccines being found to be more effective against new variant...

Can you name a few of those axioms you think are indispensable to modern science? :up: I think the basic axiom of science is that nature is intelligib...

You're projecting again. Firstly, citation is needed. And in any case, whether novel ideas in physics are cutting edge or not is something that gets w...

Right, but that wasn't my point. If the constraints had been different a different cosmos may have formed or no cosmos at all. Or perhaps the constrai...

The phenomena we experience are views of things, not the things themselves; we never experience whole objects, rather we think them, which collectivel...

No. I'm not saying existence is an attribute, but something cannot have real attributes if it doesn't exist. I'm saying that the existence of a thing ...

I didn't mean to say that I can imagine, as in visualize, an object as it is unobserved. My initial statements may have given that impression, but I c...

I'm talking about the unobserved aspect of rocks, regardless of whether they are observed or not: it makes no difference. They appear to us, and we pr...