It's useful to have some idea or orientation in mind, while being aware that in some crucial respects some of our ideas will be way off the mark in re...
Yes. In matters of politics it's often a brute fact, the more you theorize about a specific problem, the less reality-as-other-people-see-it will acco...
Yes. Žižek gives interesting examples of this. But these things can and are pointed out by journalists or teachers. Philosophers can play a role, but ...
Yes. Others too, such as the Anthropologist David Graeber have also pointed this out. I get it, if we are to live in a large society, we need some kin...
Janus has a point in so far as no one asked anyone I know if they wanted to be part of any contract. Not implying that social benefits aren't most wel...
It's hard to say, absent seeing polls. My impression is that you tend to get both, though maybe not in equal amounts. That is to say some people think...
Not necessarily. People just buy the myth and carry on, but when things go to shit, then we start questioning fundamentals such as the 2008 market cra...
The social contract has its limits. I'm currently not seeing a big state showing something different on a large scale. There may be scattered examples...
It's hard. I mean, I think that the central point is true, we as a society only need philosophy when things go bad or things don't work anymore. It's ...
Isn't this the thought that comes to mind when someone tries to think about how it was before birth for each of us? Speaking for myself, when I try to...
I assume that what happens is what appeared to happen prior to birth, it disappears. Unless someone can give me good reasons to suspect that the state...
It was one suggested by Bryan Magee in relation with Kant's idealism, but it could apply to almost any strand of innatism. He did not say this exactly...
The Nature of the Physical World by Arthur Eddington The Aosawa Murders by Riku Onda I know they may not be as urgent, but I have a feeling that novel...
:up: Or attempting to give structure to our stupidity= it's not that wisdom grows, it's that one's ignorance is more clearly seen the more you discove...
The case with Socrates is illuminating, he denied he was the wisest man in Athens, maintaining that all he knew was that he knew nothing. Obviously it...
Maybe the people at Oxfam are propagandists on Hamas' pay role. I'd have my doubts: https://www.oxfam.org/en/failing-gaza-undrinkable-water-no-access-...
Tough question. Personally I don't think thinking about who is wise has been particularly helpful in my personal experience. I suppose there may have ...
What's the meaning of autonomy if they don't have running water, they have restrictions on caloric intake, they can't fish as they wish on there shore...
Yes, this is likely true. And in a way, it makes sense. A good deal of philosophy deals with questions for which we have no answers for. To account fo...
The reason for mixing them up is the same reason why Israel is often mixed up with being Jewish, it's a way to criticize Arabs or Jews, without naming...
One last question: Sure. But I mean, there's a bound to what can and cannot happen, right? It's not as if an elephant will pop in to existence. Maybe ...
Very interesting and many thanks for the detail and the visualization aspect, helps a bunch. I recall reading some of this in Hand's Cosmosapiens, but...
Well take the Evangelicals. Or parts of the far right, like that guy from Norway, Breijvik. The idea is we don't like these Jews, but we like these Ar...
I mean, there's everything. There are anti-Semitic people who praise Israeli and those who do not. And there are those who criticize Israel with no id...
Yes. That's the evangelical dimension to Israel. Likely the most anti-Semitic people in the world are those who "support" Israel. Quite ironic. And Tr...
The history of the bombings in Japan are quite interesting, and horrifying. There maybe could be some kind of argument that could be made about using ...
Sorry if this question sounds stupid, but when it comes to math, I'm really mentally challenged. This type of system you are describing, it's a kind o...
Thanks for the info, some clarification: So empty space contracted into the big bang? Is this connected to some of these cyclic big bang theories in w...
We can tell stories about it, but I don't think we have a clue. We can psychoanalyze them or say that when we dream our brains are at the deepest stat...
Sure. Just trying to use words to try and make some minimal sense of the things "out there", well aware of the myriad of complications attached to doi...
And others like Smolin say time is emergent. If Smolin is correct, it's very hard - if even possible - to think of anything "before" the emergence of ...
:clap: Yes. Also had a bit over half a decade of such experience, powerful ones at that. The only thing they taught is how powerful the mind/brain is,...
If the Big Bang is true and complete, how can we speak of time before that? It would be analogous to saying what's a feature of Earth that is higher t...
I'm not sure I follow completely, I may be, but I may not be. I think that part of the problem may be that there's our innate conceptions of space and...
I'm aware that you used Kant in the discussion. I'm more interested in the thought experiment itself of time going "back" infinitely. It's been in the...
I think it was Nagel who argued somewhere that experience was a net positive. It's an interesting idea and perhaps quite plausible. On one hand, all e...
:up: Sure and it's probably impossible to get out of the intellectual context in which one lives and see things "objectively", standing atop the highe...
We'd only be left with the equations that lead us to believe particles exist and behave in such a manner. So mathematics would be exempt from illusion...
How do particles resemble how they appear? Or DNA? But this raises more questions, what has a "stable reality"? It looks to me as if we should be thin...
Most of my body is non-conscious. We can argue about chairs having or not having experience, but I don't see good reasons to think chairs have experie...
That premise rests on the assumption that mental states aren't physical states. There is no reason to believe that physical stuff isn't mental stuff. ...
Excellent topic. It's a bit hard to answer. I mean besides saying "love of wisdom", defining what philosophy is, can be quite difficult. I think we ou...
:roll: I assume that "lobbying" in Australia isn't as transparent as it is in the US, essentially legal bribery, out in the open. Nevertheless, those ...
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