Tom Storm

Aren't all philosophical systems ultimately grounded on a metaphysical model?

This is nice.

Isn't the snake the only being which talks truth in Genesis? One wonders how the snake knew what the fruit could do?

Indeed. Another dimension to all of this. Thanks. Thinking back, I'm fairly sure I was taught that god brought order and goodness to chaos and did not...

Plenty of Christians I have met think original sin is baloney. Bishop Shelby Spong, who was an American Episcopalian said, “Original sin is a lie agai...

As a layperson, I'm inclined to hold a similar perspective to this. The problem for someone like me is that in the absence of a theorized philosophy, ...

I prefer believers as critics rather than atheist converts. But I like Ehrman - he is fairly respectful of Christians. The reason I prefer believers i...

Whenever I hear this kind of argument I generally respond that we can demonstrate the existence of one's mother and best friend and we can also identi...

Reason comes in several flavors. We talk about reason being the process of drawing logical inferences. We talk about reason as being the 'antidote' to...

:up: I guess he's describing a fallibilistic approach. Possibly what I was getting at when I said that reason can be better understood in the context ...

I struggle to see how it wouldn't if we're exploring reason as a practice to guide human behaviour and choices. I'm not sure how we understand the rat...

Probably right. It might even be instructive to identify that which is irrational. If belief in god is rational (and not everyone agrees) is belief th...

I think @"joshs" would see Pinker as part of an old problem in his fairly traditional notion of and advocacy of reason. I am happy with Pinker's defin...

Bingo. Thanks.

The definition is Steven Pinker's - HAVARD GAZETTE: Can you define rationality in a sentence? PINKER: I define it as the use of knowledge to attain a ...

Is he talking consciousness or metacognition?

And this makes it interesting to me. How is a standard of reasonableness determined if superstition and magic are your compass points? I remember sitt...

That's a great question and I know it's directed at @"T Clark". If rationality is using knowledge to achieve goals, then probably. But there is always...

I have always had a soft spot for this. It starts very softly and builds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmkC_leNM7M

I think that would be an interesting thread, I'd like to see this too.

Something being rational does not make it ipso facto good. In essence, reason is using knowledge to achieve gaols (S. Pinker) and this can be in the s...

We're repeating ourselves. Maybe we can talk another time. Take care.

:up: :

Goodness. Thank you. This sounds incomprehensible (to me). But I do understand an aesthetic experience - let's just say they are the same so we can fe...

Actually, I never eat breakfast. I have rocks for lunch.

I wasn't aware there was good pizza until you said this. Or, are you saying all pizza is shit but that one example was appalling even for pizza?

I understand that - I know he isn't an idealist or solipsist. But the tentative nature of what he thinks we can demonstrate kind of belies his certain...

Very interesting. Thanks.

Which is curious given his certainty about truth - right and wrong - in geopolitics. I hear you.

Can you explain this simply? What's an example of metaphysical intuition?

They're fundamentally culturally attached, don't you know anything! :razz: I guess it could be argued that one informs the other, surely? May there no...

Indeed. And I think it demonstrates how readily someone's equilibrium can be undermined by dwelling on a specificity.

As someone who finds this discussion somewhat lifeless, can you tell me why this matters? What are the practical consequences or implications of 'real...

I had a colleague who used to work as a mortuary technician - preparing bodies for autopsy. It got to be that he was unable to look at people or exper...

Fancy encountering a set of foundational values like these through a system of groundlessness. Surely values can only be 'accessed' if you put them th...

I think we're just repeating ourselves and playing with language. And as far as physics and neuroscience goes, we are both out of our depth. And I alr...

Hmm. These questions keep getting asked and 'answered' on this forum. My own take is maths is an abstraction, a product of human minds. Minds appear t...

If the real is so elusive, so difficult to establish, then many of us will continue to be seduced by the glib certainties of extremists, carpetbaggers...

Sounds like we're fucked then and to a large extent doomed to be the playthings of the likes of Osama bin Laden and Trump. :wink:

How do we determine what counts as fictional and what does not? Is Allah fictional... Jesus?

Consider yourself lucky. When you wrote this - I thought you were heading down a Kantian noumena/phenomena model of reality that's all. Good. I though...

Got you. I thought you might have been suggesting something more exotic, like idealism and the problem of ‘real’.

I agree with this. I just have an issue with unnecessarily labyrinthine and contrived 'case studies' drawn from fiction. Just as I dislike the ridicul...

Sure, which for me makes it a problematic example for any hypothetical testing of 'the real'. Sure, there are dugs for any old thing. But is it not th...

Supernatural subtext of King's novel aside (are ghosts real?), is the contrary not Jack's recovered sanity (possibly via antipsychotic medication)? I'...

I think that's likely. Even here in Australia many older heroin users I've met have cited Trainspotting, William Burroughs novels and Velvet Undergrou...

Yes. My mum used to say something like you can't reason someone out of a position that wasn't arrived at through reason. Is there much point in debate...

That could work too. :wink:

Yes, and it has often struck me that theists are not conceptualizing the same thing when they allegedly share this belief. The notion of god seems inc...

Yes, it's a response to - I hold the view that people's professed beliefs often reflect personal context rather than logic.