praxis

According to Hippyhead, philosophy is "the application of disciplined thought to the advancement of human welfare," so that kinda-sorta answers what t...

Philosophy pros are irrational because they don’t focus enough on existential threats.

The Rolling Stone article also says that Trump claimed for the seventh times over the last several years that he received Michigan’s ‘Man of the Year’...

A stoic slave would indeed have very little control over their life. They would have control of their virtue, however. If a stoic slave were ordered t...

Bimble drinks dragonwell green tea, a habit he developed from serving it to his master every day while in training, but that’s another story... One da...

http://designpraxis.biz/img/bimble.png Bimble is the son of a Swedish midwife and an only child. He never knew his father. Whenever Bimble asked his m...

No doubt many do, with warmth and perhaps some boisterous rodomontade.

I don't see how a finite or everlasting existence differs in this respect. A static afterlife would be dead and meaningless, as I see it.

I prefer tropical seascapes as well but I'm stuck with semi-arid for the time being. Tropical seascapes can be gray, by the way, on a cloudy day, like...

A milestone that a woman of color was chosen for such a high position. That’s all good.

Not sure what you mean by "when given to an object of the imagination." The 'sensation of fear' is inextricably tied to the body and therefore is not ...

Good point, nostalgias link to our personal narrative would make it more core and meaningful, I would think.

Right, emotions respond (hopefully adaptively) to experience or situations. A brain in a vat could be feed sense data (raw experience) which could inc...

If there’s no life after the afterlife can we assume the afterlife has no meaning? If there’s no life after the afterafterlife can we assume the after...

The sense data of the ocean, a turntable, or an ice cream shop may contribute to the feeling of nostalgia, which may be better described as a socially...

Does a morning of studying a gray seascape make the afternoon more beautiful?

Mucho plaudits, that word’s a keeper. I’ll have to concoct a repast this evening that is conducive to the production of tittynopes just so that I can ...

I’m in the middle of an entertaining tome about an entitled Mr. Vertigo. At least I assume that’s the case, it’s full of twists and turns and it’s har...

Heart accounting is both impossible, because you can’t twist an abacus into the shape of a heart, and incredibly easy because the heart cannot lie. It...

Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster A Handbook for New Stoics by Massimo Pigliucci

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus Sunset Park by Paul Auster

There’s no accounting for esurient hearts.

You can thank @"TheMadFool" who was using it to argue that the mind isn’t physical, somehow.

I woke up last night in the middle of a dream. I was chitchating with an attractive woman while waiting for an impromptu salsa dance competition to st...

For one thing, self-awareness isn't missing in REM sleep. When I'm flying in a dream, for instance, I know that it's me flying. The same neurons for s...

Pareidolia https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/FaceOnMoonSouthPole.png/220px-FaceOnMoonSouthPole.png

I thought your concern was the matter of the mind being physical or not. I don't see the connection to dream sleep and being awake. Have you heard of ...

I think all you need to do is show how a mind can exist independently of anything physical.

https://twitter.com/axios/status/1290497186489348096?s=20 Maybe he’ll sign an executive order disallowing talking about death as a proportion of popul...

Steven Pinker makes a pretty convincing argument in Enlightenment Now. In any case, your definition is still foggy and how wise is it to aim for an un...

Love his writing. I've read Timbuktu and the Book of Illusions. Have to read more.

How do you define human flourishing? Sorry if I’ve missed it, the topic is long. In the materialistic sense it could be said that Americans, for examp...

Interesting, thanks! I understand Pigliucci's presentation of the dichotomy of control to be similar to Eastern philosophy in that what we have no con...

We just had our first harvest of zucchini, crookneck squash, eggplant, and tomatoes the other day. I made a ratatouille that turned out rather well, i...

Absentee mail-in voting good, universal mail-in voting bad, supposedly because absentee follows a stricter process, but it doesn't.

In the absence of an explanation for the significance of a belief in a deity, I will assume that it has to do with spirituality/transcendence. I can f...

You’re good with little bones. They say that if you stick with what you know you’ll be successful.

After witnessing the last three and a half years I have to say that I don’t share your faith in humanity.

I've only read Pigliucci so am curious how God fits into a Divine Stoicism. If I remember correctly, Pigliucci claims that it can coexist with just ab...

Apparently Trump isn't doing well with suburban housewives so we'll probably be seeing more of this sort of thing. Fuck the poor! https://twitter.com/...

It’ll be interesting to see what happens if Biden wins, if he’ll try to make inroads with the opposition party or if it will be all Tea Party gone wil...

I bring genes into it in order to help understand the foundation of all morality. I don’t believe that it’s human flourishing because if it were then ...

Religious followers are not free to develop the ethical code being offered. If they do then they’ll no longer be considered part of the tradition. Dev...

Traditional, in a word, or emphasizing the moral senses of sacredness or purity, loyalty, and authority/subversion (to ultimate authority).

No. Religious moral values are not about developing virtue, they’re about binding a group with a common creed, values, purpose, and so on. There is no...

Every day you breathe in and out, over and over again, but eventually you’ll stop and that will be the end of breathing. Is realizing the ultimate fut...

They seek to reproduce genes that are most like themselves and that’s why the term ‘selfish’ is used. They do not seek to reproduce genes that are unl...

:yikes: I neglected to realize that the Clinton administration was in the 90’s, two decades after you say term ‘identity politics’ was coined, and two...

Closer to home and therefore more likely to share genes. This indicates that the foundation of morality is ‘selfish genes’ and the intuitions and mora...

On the other end of life, things aren’t looking good for eldercare, with the working class losing ground in recent decades and entitlements or “free t...