baker

It is sometimes said that learning how to pay attention appropriately is central to the Buddhist practice. The key term is "appropriately". There is a...

Then why do you think that you can believe that, and still successfully practice Stoicism??

Darling, there's isn't much to read from the cannon. How do you function without texts? By ignoring the fact that you read them in the past?

That's because you don't actually believe the Stoic tenets. Can you honestly say that you believe that "the divine logos is guiding us all, men and wo...

How do you figure? Because she's not obedient?

That's putting it mildly.

During the entire covid situation, I have bought/ordered exactly one single thing online, and that was car insurance, which is time sensitive. Even th...

The one that afforded you this: You sat on a podium and all that, no?

To what end?

You're not practicing Stoicism anyway. You might as well ditch the pretense.

And one thing that could happen is that that future person might live a more dignified life than you, and certainly a more dignified life than you ima...

If a function of the body is impaired somehow, we can get some ideas about how it works or how it could work through the way we try to overcome the im...

Neither optimism nor hope can defeat facts.

Oh, but the ego, the ego, the hurt to the ego!! To say nothing of the logistic nightmare that would result due to downsizing, saving etc. What could h...

It's Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion. If you plan x time for doing something, it will take x time (and then...

For starters, let's wait until your next tootache, or gastrointestinal viral infection.

If you formulate it in terms of virtue epistemology, then it makes more sense. The basic idea is that it takes virtue in order to know something. Roug...

A natural function of the human body. There is a point from which on explaining the natural functions of the body becomes impossible or meaningless, a...

Exactly. The concern for the diginity of those who will never be makes for a nonexistent concern for diginity. It's like caring about the dignity of a...

What you seem to be talking about is "bare attention". A very popular term in popular "Eastern" spirituality, but highly controversial within the actu...

What do you mean? By having no texts immediately in front of you? It's impossible to have "no texts". Leaving aside the special case of those who were...

Prospective lawyers.

I love reading your posts just for the syntax. :starstruck:

Are you still a child? You seem to have a very general understanding of "personal".

No. It's not clear it has to do with camouflage. The idea that religious/spiritual people would knowingly pose and try to present themselves as more r...

"It takes one to know one" means that in order to recognize an enlightened person, one must be enlightened as well. Only an arahant can recognize anot...

I'll put it this way: I don't think that having children can solve one's existential problems. It can and often does make them worse; other times, it ...

But conversion doesn't apply with people who were born and raised into a religion (which makes for the majority of religious people). They never forma...

But why did you take that promise or threat seriously (assuming you did)? And how personally was that promise or threat made? To you, by your name, or...

Every reductionist has his favorite analogy from modern science. It is most unlikely that any of these unrelated examples of successful reduction will...

Phenomenology can be a stepping stone toward Buddhism. If you search https://pathpress.org/ by the keywords phenomenology, phenomenological, Heidegger...

But that's just it: Ordinary people have no trouble imagining and taking for granted what it is like to be this or that. (It's what usually passes for...

Yes. With negligence, there is no issue of permissibility; negligence "just happens". We wish it wouldn't happen, but it does. It is, of course, possi...

You'll need to be more specific.

In some religions/spiritualities, the standard answer to the above is "It takes one to know one". The enlightened ones can recognize eachother. And th...

I never had that. My approach to religion/spirituality was all about finding The Truth, the How Things Really Are (and at first, my quest was conceptu...

Just reread the conversation.

In hindsight, I think where I was most different from the religious/spiritual people is that they were authoritarian to the core, while I was not. Spe...

Why are you calling it philosophy? Can you explain?

How dare you! :death:

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Several have told me that I lacked faith. I actually used to hope that they would teach me how to have faith -- but no, they didn't.

They are the core of the vegetarian diet, for proteins. I love beans! If you cook them correctly, you don't get gases from them. It's important to soa...

How could I possibly tell you if I don't have it?

Oh, I still think there's a secret. I've just mostly given up on it.

Well, one usually needs to learn to cook if one's food habits are to change successfully. A vegetarian (or mostly vegetarian) diet can be affordable e...

There are two trends within individualism: expansive/entitled individualism, and defensive individualism. The former is in roundabout what you describ...

Or not. Consider virtue epistemology: It was popular with the ancients. Then it pretty much died out. And then it resurfaced again in the early 2000's...

I used to be a "seeker" (god, I hate the word). I looked into several major and minor religions. I was always told, in more or less (usually less) pol...