WISDOMfromPO-MO

I don't know about where anybody else lives, but what I observe in my social environment is people spending almost all of their free time and energy b...

Here's a statement: "Chicago is the capital of Illinois". One person could say that the statement is true and must be accepted by everybody as true. A...

I doubt that 1,000 years from now Dr. Phil will be considered part of the same class as Spinoza, Hume, Nietzsche, Chomsky, etc.

An intellectual: One who greatly contributes to collective intellectual life and is concerned about the truth so much that 1,000 years from now his/he...

Please Understand Me: Character and Temperament Types, by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates.

I heard that if somebody on Earth walks in a straight line he will end up back at the point he started. I thought that if you were to walk in a straig...

Right now may be the best opportunity ever that people have had to think geograpically. The internet is full of tons of geographic material/resources ...

How could a simulation or part of a simulation know that it is a simulation or part of a simulation?

I think that you are framing the whole situation the wrong way. Comparing people hundreds of years ago denying the facts of geometry and people today ...

What has ruled out the existence of souls? Some people say that the existence of deities can never be proven true or false. Theism and atheism are the...

Evidence does not just tell us what is true/real, it tells us that everything else is not true/real. In a murder investigation if it is known that the...

It wasn't really planned, but after I reported that I read that plants can sense gravity someone insisted that he can sense gravity. You are sensing t...

The graph could reflect the process of evidence gathering rather than observers' marginal confidence in the evidence. Kind of like assembling a jigsaw...

Could the peak at the right red mark and the leveling to its right be the soil where a Kuhnian paradigm shift is planted?

Then your post itself is like a rock falling to the ground under the pull of gravity. What I a writing right now is an effect of antecedent causes and...

I would argue that ideas and systems of ideas--religions, for relating to the sacred/divine; intellectual traditions such as philosophy and science, f...

Evidence for or against misanthropy would have to be things universally found in Homo sapiens sapiens. Therefore, hierarchies, sexism, inequality, etc...

Unless you have a specific career path in mind, such as practicing clinical psychology, you should study what interests you intellectually and what yo...

Against: 1.) That it is not universally desired or desirable. Read Grassroots Post-Modernism: Remaking the Soil of Cultures, by Gustavo Esteva and Mad...

That is why I said that I would look for ways. I did not say that anything is fundamentally the right way to lead or govern. I said that I would be lo...

Existing is an essential property of God, or existing at all times is an essential property of God, which is it?

1.) What makes an act a political act is that it is done through the institutions, procedures, people, etc. where authority has been placed in a socie...

I said that it can be a form of ignorance and/or denial. Therefore, that would be a reason to not want it. If a culture puts happiness on a pedestal a...

Do any religions really say that anything causes anything, or is causation an extra-religious concept that people are projecting onto religious belief...

Among other potential problems, happiness can be a form of ignorance and/or denial. Being scapegoated for problems that people are denying or cloaking...

You are doing what Tallis says here: "At any rate, physical reality is seamless and law-governed, (possibly) unfolding over time, not a chain or netwo...

It would be a means to an end, not an ideal to be realized or maintained. The desired end is what matters and what dictates the appropriate action. If...

Person A: Did you hear about the man who named his cat Aristotle? Person B: No. Person A: Somebody asked him why he would name his cat Aristotle. "Bec...

"At any rate, physical reality is seamless and law-governed, (possibly) unfolding over time, not a chain or network of discrete events that have someh...

Two points: 1.) We do not observe causation. 2.) The existence of causation is in doubt: "It is easy to sympathise with those philosophers who have co...

For several years now I have not understood why God "must" exist. There is no evidence for the existence of God, some people assert. Well, even if it ...

I only do it when I quote somebody. I like my words clearly separated? from others' words. "Clearly" is subjective, but I guess for my eyes it means a...

Fortunately, if city government offices are spending money on printer paper that is not necessary for doing business that expense could be eliminated ...

The thread that this thread is a spin-off of.

Luc Ferry says in A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living that it is all because, unlike other life forms, humans are conscious of...

Therefore, serial killers, rapists, child molesters, genocidal regimes, polluters, etc. are acting according to the purpose of life, and they should b...

The question is if categorical non-existence is possible. If it is possible, and if omnipotence is the ability to do all things possible, and if God i...

I think that it is well-documented that in the U.S. at least it is big business to manufacture, prescribe and dispense prescription anti-depressants t...

I have been a death penalty opponent as far back as I can remember. The reasons that people give for opposing the death penalty are numerous, ranging ...

Until a person can recognize that he/she is unhappy, own it, and look for the causes, probably nothing can be changed. Heaping guilt, shame, economic ...

"It is the main argument of this book that emotional and psychological distress is often brought about through the operation of social-environmental p...

I believe that what David Smail calls "psychological distress" is a more useful concept than "unhappiness". And the way that I understand the work of ...

Some people choose not to. And not because they are antinatalist. It probably varies with the individual (see above about how some people choose not t...

As the last item listed in the same sentence after "life" and "liberty". I would argue that the notion that some people in the population simply lacki...

Very few individuals, if any, can build a network of roads on their own. The overwhelming majority of individuals can purchase an insurance policy on ...

Can you illustrate that? What is a concrete example of a conservative and liberal then being closer than a liberal then and a liberal today? New Natio...

Doing good financial housekeeping and eliminating unnecessary expenses is not the same thing as saying that discretionary spending over a certain % of...

It does not seem very secure at the moment, let alone the distant future. Either "get help" (pharmacies are stocked with Prozac; not very difficult ge...

I wouldn't say, "This administration wants to reduce gang violence in the community. Therefore, business, we are going to tax you more so that we can ...

So serial killers are sustaining the continuation of life? Rapists? Polluters? Genocidal regimes? All of those are sustaining the continuation of life...