Tom Storm

How do you know today isn't the first day of your life and all your memories are implants? The potential disruptive questioning one can pose regarding...

Interesting and odd way of looking at it from my perspective. You say 'intentionally omitted' as though I made a sinister choice. Is that what you int...

Much of the other stuff based on Mark, which is still decades after the supposed events. The gospels are anonymous documents which are copies of trans...

No. The idea is that physical sensation or matter is how consciousness seems when viewed from a particular perspective - it's like a dashboard or illu...

It's kind of ironic because as far as we know there are no records of Yeshua ben Yosef words or whoever the first century figure/s was who may have in...

In steel-manning most idealism I've encountered, it seems to me the argument is that all human beings exist - in as much as they are separate instanti...

Nice.

I don't disagree. But if idealism is true then surely this too is independent of what one believes about it? I am not an idealist - as you probably kn...

How does this play out in your appreciation of the Tao Te Ching?

The issue is that this is based upon personal perspectives and choices about language, intent, mood, culture. Translators do not always agree on how t...

But idealism doesn't say there are no risks in what we call the 'physical world'. The physical world is seen as a kid of dashboard of readings which m...

Wayfarer left TPF three months ago.

This seems like a reductio ad absurdum argument. What citation can you provide to substantiate that this is how nihilism functions in practice? I thin...

I never expect translations to be the same as an original. They are their own thing. It felt right to the translator but it is clearly a contemporisat...

Nice. Yeah, I see it as bittersweet. There is something grand yet bleak about the end of the third stanza, almost a heroic loneliness. It's always int...

No need to be rude. We have a difference of opinion and suggesting mine is naïve/ignorant/contrarian because it doesn't match yours is not manners, ri...

I enjoyed his veil-of-ignorance.

That is a key question for me. In this view I often query 'useful' to what end? I can choose a screwdriver to usefully repair something. But what if t...

Thanks for clarifying. I hear you now. There are hard and soft nihilists. A hard nihilist might just choose suicide if the nihilism brings with it des...

Is there a coherent account of pragmatism?

Not sure what you are arguing but if you are saying that nihilism may be difficult for some people, you're right. What are societal values? I didn't t...

Pallet cleanser? I have a thing for bittersweet. Day in Autum BY RAINER MARIA RILKE TRANSLATED BY MARY KINZIE After the summer's yield, Lord, it is ti...

Didn't take it that way. I first encountered this poem 30 years ago and it enlarged my thinking. I am not an anti-natalist or a pessimist. I'm not eve...

I see it retains its power to provoke and rankle.

Something for our antinatalist/pessimist friends. This Be The Verse By Philip Larkin They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but the...

There's some thematic overlap but I think they are different. In the first instance we are (ethics aside) selecting people to add value to society (su...

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Nicely put. I think Camus still makes sense. I don't pretend to understand every nuance, but the notion that humans toil impotently to create or find ...

I don't look for certainty and place this notion alongside 'absolute truth' as a mythic construction. I generally look for reasonable confidence in my...

I'm not trying to be a smart arse, it's a genuine question - can you provide an example of something in life that has been illuminated or enhanced by ...

Thanks. Always good to hear from people about practical experiences. I've been reading the Tao Te Ching thanks to you and although I don't know what i...

It's well known that The Spuds are in control of world liquor. I've read The Protocols to the Elders of Ethanol.

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Sorry, not trying to be a pain in the arse, but I'm no clearer. What is conceptualizing a goal-state? Outside of an abstract, can you provide an examp...

Interesting. Thanks. I kind of missed any exposure to science too, so there's no hope for me.

And have they opened up? Can you share an example?

As someone who is here mainly to see what he may have missed in not reading philosophy what do you think you have gained from all this reading? What w...

I was just observing that your opinion comports with the standard assessment of these films - not that you were copying others. There's a reason the f...

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I wonder why you need to respond with invective, Frank. Watching too many gangster films?

I hear you. You left out the biggest thug and gangster: Yahweh. It's just personal taste, for me. Generally I don't find movie and TV gangsters intere...

Indeed and that's different question. So is the question, why are some people still dissatisfied when wealthy? Owning stuff is central to the human ex...

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Sure. People love The Godfather and Goodfellas - that's the standard view.

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Not referring to Coppola, I'm referring to the audience's endless fascination for stylized Mafia thugs and criminals. :wink:

Indeed, but I'll venture there are many ways of not understanding something - ignorance is not all equal, take Socrates. Don't disagree and you're pro...

I saw Godfather 3 in 1991. Didn't much like it but I found all the Godfather movies turgid and rather dull. The fetishization of 'mafia' people has ne...

It makes perfect sense to me. As physical beings our survival, comfort and enjoyment of life is enabled or augmented by physical objects like warm clo...

Interesting. Is this right? Could we not say that the physicist Sean Carroll (for instance) is in a better position to answer whether QM has metaphysi...