Jake Tarragon

OK, so personal growth ain't everything.

I dunno - the rich and leisured life gets boring very quickly without personal growth. There would be a market for educators of all sorts, that's for ...

In practical terms, I think it is possible to promote , contrive even, a sense of happiness or contentment, without any strong reasons, but a raft of ...

And education for personal growth, hopefully!

Which is why the argument for being able to obtain some drugs from legalised sources would be a very useful way of minimising harm is a powerful one. ...

Better thinking is slowly catching on around the world it seems, but there is still much progress to make. Cannabinoids, MDMA and hallucinogens are th...

I saw Solaris as a teenager and loved it. I still do. It's such a haunting and thoughtful film, and beautifully shot and composed. (Reminds me of Seco...

Your professor is still lazy!

I don't have a hidden agenda about supporting the use of recreational drugs because I have clearly stated that I do support such use. I am quite happy...

Well let's see if the result could be absurd. Suppose you answer "yes, I would accept the use of a drug if I was convinced it was safe". Then I would ...

And it's not reasonable to pose a hypothetical question?

"What ifs" are a fundamental tool of philosophy.

How long is lengthy? What if a drug was produced, and the evidence convinced you that it was not harmful - would you accept its use?

Benefits, such as cerebral, perceptual, developmental, social, hedonistic, intellectual, creative etc etc accrue to people without any particular ment...

Thanks for your reply - I can see that safety issues are paramount in your thinking. However, in order to gain a complete picture, I think you need to...

It is quite easy because the "whys and wherefores" I mentioned were "whys and wherefores" of specific drugs. Some people are against the notion - in p...

As this is a philosophy forum, can I suggest that the most fundamental discussion about recreational drugs is not the whys and wherefores of drugs tha...

I think your anecdote illustrates how "education" can be transformative when it has an agenda fully aimed at taking individuals as they are, and "impr...

It is not uncommon for people to feel that they are "better", and more caring while stoned,and that this feeds back into sober life.

Summerhill gets wheeled out a lot in these sort of discussions, I find. That's probably because it's such a rare institution. But if you delve into it...

Best worldy option? To what ends? Well maybe life wouldn't be so tedious if the education system didn't condition people to accept tedium so readily. ...

Well OK, but are you saying that a traditional "liberal arts" degree is tedious? I thought you were singing its praises....

Yes,it's crazy pedagogically. The only explanation is that the institutions of education, their traditions, their vested interest groups, are all that...

Goals, at the very highest level, are irrational - I think we are agreeing on that. Rationality has to serve irrationality, Irrationality stops the re...

You were fortunate in that you had the aptitude to program. Spare a thought for the teeming thousands of entrants to computer science degrees who only...

Then surely intelligence and aptitude tests would serve the same function? Chuck in an extended essay task to be sure, if you like. Job done - in a da...

My definition of rationalism as "weighing up the evidence" (actually Bertie Russell's) needs expansion, of course. For a start, in order to be rationa...

Sure, but few cases are so clear cut medically. I guess they are useful in illustrating that guilt maybe not as black and white as some think.

Since when did definitions require evidence??!!

The weighing up of evidence.

I think philosophical pragmatism is an option only when there is no scope for rationalism however. So its use is very limited indeed.

Emotionally I don't care whether that is true or not. It makes no difference to *my* life whether it is true or not. Simples! Intellectually, I am unc...

Perhaps "true zeroness" is unobtainable in the sense that any exact point on the number line is unobtainable materially. I feel that such a transposit...

Yes I know what you mean, even though I have never tried to express that thought in words as you have done above. Isn't it strange that such thoughts ...

I actually read an interesting stab at a scientific-ish explanation of the "why" in the letters page of New Scientist recently. The writer proposed th...

He is a wonderful science writer for sure. But I think he might possibly have a somewhat negative attitude towards philosophy that has unfortunately s...

Well I have quite a few ideas for a political program that would cut across left and right divides, so I eagerly await :)

On the video you get to see a protein instantiation called John - with legs! Wouldn't it be cool if when we unravel the quantum level there's assembli...

One can be as rational as possible, even though the information is fuzzy.

Sorry for not being clear here. .... he observed that politics of the day always invoked some sort of enemy or opposing group . He wasn't advocating i...

Actually Kepler that is not what I am saying (sorry for not being clearer :) ) because I don't believe in punishment per se, except as a societally us...

I don't see what's wrong with technology and consumerism if they are in a balanced environment. I don't think such a thing has existed for quite some ...

Logic needs WFFs (well formed formulas) to operate in a water tight fashion and real life is unlikely to yield many, apart from rather weak syllogisms...

One big problem in these discussions is making one's meaning clear and actually explaining one's axioms. I think to do the job properly takes a lot of...

IMO, most people have pet foibles of opinion lurking in the background which they either are not fully aware of, or that they won't reconsider, even h...

Well, quite! People often find it easier to be aggressive than tender I guess, even in play/quasi play. If ever I come across such a work I think I wi...

Humans are crafty SOBs.

interesting ... I wonder how different the results would be if the artist's mother was seated alongside, or an actor dressed as a cop was stood nearby...

Certainly at least, the audience/accomplices felt they had a certain amount of license to be sensational given the presence of a loaded gun, razor bla...

But perhaps formal authority is simply a marker for internal justification, and it is the latter which ultimately drives the outcome of these experime...