Tom Storm

It means life just happens and that's the point, while plans are kind of futile. Not sure what you mean - I live and enjoy the rough and the smooth. W...

I understand your point but I'm not in agreement. I take the view life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. The conceit of expecting l...

Actually, you may be trivializing things by turning life into a shallow assessment of 'not worth starting' or 'worth starting' - which from my perspec...

Same thing.

No, it's just that we don't all see the world in simplistic 'worth living' or 'not worth living' arbitrary categories, nor do we all see a clear way i...

That fact is arbitrary. What sensibility you have and what you are drawn to is an arbitrary fate of subjective experience. It's not consciousness - it...

It's been done.

I would hate for there to be agreement as to what constitutes good art. Art is simply what people put on display and call art. Whether it is good or n...

That did help. I'm trying to navigate these tricky or is that pesky (?) realms of philosophy. Cheers - TS

That's useful. On a tangent - is it your understanding of phenomenology that the notion of 'what is true' is understood as an intersubjective understa...

Yes. Part of the challenge with this word 'fact' is that 'facts' are often conceptualized as a kind of ammunition to be used against those who hold to...

Why should it matter to anyone what art is? Personally, my hunch is that art is not the object itself but the culture around it.

Game rules.

Have you ever noticed how sad so many happy people are?

Excellent. Thank you. I'm not good at this stuff.

Hmmm - what does that even mean? Aphorisms are amusing but are they anything more than glib provocations?

Don't know. My preoccupation is how do we determine a fact is a true statement? It still seems to be about correspondence, but I take the point that c...

This. :wink:

Funny - I was going to ask the same question. We've had some strong hints here. I can imagine some arguing that a fact is an intersubjective agreement...

Can you say a little more about this point? Are you saying people aim at the same moral end? Also, how do you locate this continuum of rationality in ...

I am not philosopher and have not privileged this subject in my life. I'm not sure that I am looking for anything in particular. Probably to gain a se...

Well, yes, probably my clarity - I was talking about every tree leaf in my home state - this is an area of 141327.149 square miles. We're not even abl...

Show me how.

It's physically impossible.

This has always struck me. How many leaves are there on the trees in my state right now? There is an exact figure but we cannot access this.

My guess is that it expresses a person's emotional need to underscore their certainty and has rhetorical use.

Got ya. Yes, it surprises me how frequently people come on here with proposed 'answers' or looking for answers when their questions are muddled, assum...

Yeah... I can't get past premise one. What's a good life? What's a bad life? Also I'm not trying to be a dick but what does 'worth living' mean? Do yo...

Is that a fact?

Ik hep niks to klagen - COVID is een probleem voor ons allemaal. :death: Het is hier half elf - lunch in een uurtje. Let's talk English or we might ge...

Hoe gaat het? Tijd niet gezien. Alles goed?

He's banned.

A tip to remember names and dates? Apart from writing down notes and re-reading them and writing essays, no. Some people are blessed with exceptional ...

I often wondered about this. I imagine there are various approaches and they don't all work for everyone. Sometimes it can help to start with themes i...

Well, as they say, progress is not inevitable... :wink:

That is a key question. I have met many Christians (progressives, obviously) who believe Jesus to have been a mortal caught up in Roman deific marketi...

I got the reference. Do I take this as a compliment or an insult?

Prove it.

Got ya. If life is about anything at all it seems to be about versions of truth. Yep. Agree. Matter of fact, I tend to do everything by blundering thr...

Well the issue is not so much how we feel about the issue but what the evidence is. Do we have any reliable evidence of minds existing without bodies?...

I'm inclined to agree. I've had significant contact with a range of religious faiths - churches, temples and synagogues and running alongside ethnocen...

"To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost." Gustave Flaubert

I hear you. It's a tough scenario. Sorry, by the way, I should have been clearer this is a hypothetical (like the golf example but more's at stake) my...

Not trying to be a dick but how about this? My daughter has a one year old son. She has embraced an Evangelical form of Christianity and believes vacc...

There's a guy wearing a wristwatch in the chariot race. And no, that's not a euphemism...

Thank you for that very considered response. I agree, it often does seem to boil down to this. That may be the nub of it. In the West we often argue t...

Thanks. Boy, that Aeon piece did stir the possum around here.

That's a given.

I was referring more to the work of people like Evan Thompson and Michel Bitbol and the fabled 'blind spot' or observer problem - we seem not to see t...

That's helpful, thanks. I was asking exactly this - both. I'm assuming you mean the geopolitics of oligarchical capitalism? Fair point. So in the unli...