baker

This is what it is like when you think you mean something, but you can't quite find the words. And you can put it into words!

Effanineffable! The Naming of Cats T. S. Eliot The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, It isn’t just one of your holiday games; You may think at fir...

I can't imagine anything more pleasurable than the truth. I can't imagine that other people could be different in this regard.

My point is that many pleasures are actually learned, they don't come naturally, contrary to your earlier claim. You, too, probably had to learn to en...

And yet there are so many sense pleasures we need to learn to enjoy. Think about enjoying to drink coffee or smoking: those "pleasures" are learned. A...

You're just playing coy. And everyone needs to figure out on their own what that authority is, right.

Aww, you mean other people should sacrifice themselves for you?

Early Buddhism, which in effect also promotes AN, has a context to its AN and an alternative to "life as it is usually lived". Your AN has no such thi...

How did you get to that from what I was saying? No, but it seems to be one of the few venues where the divisive effects of political conversations see...

Before I set out to bake something, I need to think it though. As such, thinking is instrumental.

Do you think that the Nazis didn't feel good about themselves and their ideas of what counts as virtue? That they didn't feel rewarded by what they co...

But why in this place? Artistic license isn't a matter of whim.

A distinction that is close to trivial. If life isn't worth living, it's not worth living, full stop, with nukes.

And in the process of doing so, the person gets designated as "abnormal". "Wrong". "Defective". "Inferior". Once such qualifiers are introduced, we're...

And how can you know what is true and what is a lie, given that you, too, are, as a human, emotionally attached to your beliefs and resent it if other...

Some ancient peoples thought of it as an element, not further analyzable, e.g. here from Pali: dh?tu: Element; property, impersonal condition. The fou...

But is it really forgiveness, or is it superiority and contempt? I find that often, when people say they have forgiven, what they actually did is that...

Holding you to it!

No, what "holds a philosophy discussion forum together" is a measure of commitment by its members to a very specific tradition of discussing things in...

Not in this case. I'm sure there's a name for this fallacy, but I can't be bothered to look it up. But you're evading the point. I'm saying that your ...

I'm saying you can't deliberately (!) get from A to B if you don't know how to get from A to B. Further, you can't deliberately (!) get from A to B if...

So what if their position is proven wrong? Will they poof out of existence? What's in it for you if you prove someone else's position wrong? Remember,...

Freedom from what? Freedom to do what?

Like I said: nation states are the default, as such, they are neutral. Fretting about nationalism (insofar as it has to do with nation states) is like...

Such as?

If arguments would indeed have the power you speak of earlier, then how do you explain that there's plenty of people who aren't swayed by arguments?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B8uYl4ZCUAE6spM.jpg:large

In order to change things, you need to start with how they actually are.

False. Consideration can be motivated by other things than just empathy and compassion. Habit, pathological altruism, pride or the desire to look good...

Not at all, given that two people can be presented with the same argument, and one feels forced to accept it (because he thinks it's so irresistibly g...

*sigh* Talk about consumer philosophy ... life as a matter of consumption ...

Grammatically, why does it say "Do not go gentle into that good night", when there should be an adverb there, "gently"?

But one cannot replicate others' experiences. For example, I don't drink coffee, because it makes me sleepy. Many people drink coffee in the morning s...

It's not clear how this is the case. Up until stream-entry, such discernment is impossible anyway.

What started off this tangent was this: And we're back to the problem of who gets to be the arbiter of what is virtue and what isn't. I think that dep...

Probably because countries around the world tend to be conceived of as nation states, not as race states. For example, prior to the influx of immigran...

Which is not incompatible with considering the intellect to be a sense. Why should there be a problem with considering the intellect to be a sense? (N...

The belief that everyone else "has it all figured out" and I'm the one who doesn't, and that I need to keep up.

Of course. Thinking is a means to an end.

Developing a moral theory as a "pipedream, unlimited" ...

Yay, for you're the one who is despaired!!

But people at a forum like this typically are not friends or family. We're not a community. Discussing issues in a philosophical-ish manner is not con...

I would like you to explicate those assumptions. Like I said: "There are several assumptions in "putting things aside" and "moving on". If these assum...

Humans also have a social dimension; they are epistemically dependent on other humans; they have internalized and have access to knowledge accumulated...

But your moral objectivism amounts to the same thing.

In Early Buddhism, they speak of the six senses, with the intellect being the sixth. And if you look at the suttas, they talk about taking pleasure in...

Who decides whether a person is male, female, or whatever?

Exactly. There are ways to make oneself seem special and thus demand to be given special status and to be allowed not to play by society's norms. In a...

*sigh* I suppose US culture is different. Here, we have reverse isms. Such as reverse racism, where there is the trend to think of people of other rac...

Well, this explains everything then. Empathy and moral objectivism are mutually exclusive.