Tom Storm

Yep. Obviously you have already corrected the false idea that Hitler was a Prottie. It is very popular to call Nazis godless but Martin Luther's writi...

I don't think there are any debates on the translation as such and I think the language is important. Actually there are several quotes in the novel t...

This quote does not actually appear in the book (Karamazov). An actual quote, close to this is - But what will become of men then?' I asked him, 'with...

That's very interesting, Manuel. Can you tease this out? What appealed then and what do you think happened to that connection? I never bothered.

I have certainly heard this expressed by fundamentalist Muslims. Democracy is how the evil West spreads its 'poisonous ideas' of equality for women an...

:100: Not to mention the ongoing conspiracy of Christianity in its sexual abuse of children - committed by clergy and covered up by clergy at the high...

The economic system and how business is conducted is probably more responsible for that. Well, it is the legitimate function of an entertainment indus...

That is certainly a commonly held view. I am not so sure it works. One of the problems with religion is that it doesn't offer a moral foundation. What...

I agree. I've been vaguely interested in self-refuting arguments and the evolutionary argument against naturalism is a nice one. My favorite is probab...

My response to this is probably shallow but I agree with you about the overuse and misplaced use of evolution/Darwinism. I also include neuroscience i...

I see what you mean but I suspect all terms will become worn out. Soon we will need to parse what counts as understanding. Then we might choose the wo...

That's for sure.

Yep, that's the point.

I am not saying it is. I don't think you are able to or want to understand the point and you were way off to begin with. I think this is fruitless and...

I doubt it and I personally would not want to be fascinated by everything. Life is too short. and my guiding principle is quality not quantity. I thin...

You are too concrete. He was making the fair point that above and beyond anything it was a huge media event, with the sanitised gloss of a video game....

Good call. I think it might be interesting to differentiate between kinds of reading. In most cases reading philosophy is not effortless or breezy, li...

Goodness. Do you find you have really absorbed and understood this many books in one week? What is your memory of them some time later?

Yep - I have worked in the area of mental health and addictions for 30 years. Apathy/anhedonia and social withdrawal are classic negative symptoms ass...

That is intriguing. I have heard people say this occasionally about fiction writers (never philosophy) but I always assumed it was hyperbole. I've enj...

Morality is a lot of things and is approached from many difference angles. Generally a more helpful formulation for me would be: morality is the intui...

I thought Obama was celebrated mainly by the cultural left who didn't really pay much attention to politics and economics and just enjoyed 'their guy'...

Interesting.

Big question. I am no authority on this. I find it hard to read these days - I get bored easily and I am too old for hard work. Plus I am not really l...

Yes, it does create a lop-sided education. The effects this has on the reader will vary. I'm not sure may people aspire towards an open mind. I also s...

I used to ponder this a lot. In my view much of this depends on your memory and ability to process information and to recall what you read and use it....

Just out of interest, do you identify as a Buddhist?

There's a lot of antinatalist stuff here already exploring why it is morally wrong to have children. Why not check that stuff out? It's a thing.

Fair enough. I should have been more precise. A scientific instrument telling you the temperature. That's all I ever go by. But I live in a warm part ...

How dare you! Definitive proof that the holly-roller, huckster Christian ethos of fuckin' over thy neighbour and feeling smug, has no place in our bod...

The thermometer is a scientific justification; looking out the window for clues is an inference. Note, the passerby dressed outside might have a menta...

It sometimes seem to me that trying to parse the idea of consciousness is like trying to understand what Spinoza meant by God.

Interesting topic. I've noticed that people make changes when their life becomes so unbearable or painful that a new one is (often desperately) sought...

I'm curious what Anand-Haqq thinks.

You didn't say why at all; you just listed a few vague claims that without substance. Are yours? You still haven't provided the source for the Nietzsc...

:cheer:

Lots of people make these kinds of claims about Nietzsche (Freud, for instance), as they do about any number of writers. But what is his actual contri...

I've rarely known a time when clarifying a term wasn't useful to someone. People often take consciousness for granted - might be useful to kick it aro...

:up:

I think some call this phenomenal consciousness or 'what is it like to be consciousness' per Nagel/Chalmers.

:joke:

This seems to be a rewrite of your last thread. Same argument. Does the mind have the properties the soul is alleged to have - is it immortal and imma...

:wink:

That's true but he didn't mean this as a literal statement. He took the line from a French play - The Trojan War Did Not Take Place (Giraudoux). B did...

Evidence for your defensiveness right here. You used an anti-Semitic trope 'cabal of bankers' and I asked for clarification. Your response is that you...

Kind of. But there is a difference. These folk aren't relativists and they don't deny truth - it just doesn't matter to them.

Labyrinthine?

Maybe. In life the interesting question regarding beliefs is who really believes what they say they believe and who is holding the belief for other re...

Your defensiveness is interesting. Clarifying means asking questions - it's what we do here. No need to be suspicious, A.

I am not objecting, I am clarifying. Sometimes people like to spray around the Protocols to the Elders of Zion type stuff, which is all about a cabal ...