Tom Storm

I only said 'so?' because you didn't explain your comment. Now you have explained it. :wink: That's a good line. But does this imply that Rorty has po...

So? I don't share Rorty's views and, as I have said elsewhere, I have little interest in poetry. But I am interested in what others think, particularl...

I tend to find them more interesting threads - they explore, more or less in practice, the nature of politics, value, truth and social policy. I get l...

Fair enough. Of those, the only ones I liked/enjoyed were Leon; Natural Born Killers; Pulp Fiction. :wink:

No, I never crossed paths with Sagan or Clairvision.

Fin de siècle aside, I'm not especially keen on 1999's flicks. I don't have a favourite year, but my favourite decade is the 1970's. Most of those fil...

Yep, Melbourne. They used to be in a really coool 1920's building which was sadly demolished a couple of years ago. Now they're around the corner in F...

Lots of people attempt this move. As you probably know, Sam Harris wrote a book on secular morality based around the principle of wellbeing (The Moral...

Are you particularly concerned by what we use as an external guide? Isn't this itself arbitrary too? We can pick secular humanism, a political ideolog...

The people were 'bad' but I regret nothing. Of course - and if I argued that I'd be making a fallacy. I make no claim about higher consciousness as an...

There's a kind of companion quote which I prefer and it comes from Pascal - “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a ...

:up: Glad Viz is remembered.

Thanks for the considered reply and interesting comments. I was connected the New Age movement and the Theosophical Society through the 1980's and int...

Cool Kant mini-primer... :wink:

While I find this quite interesting, I wonder to what extent we should care about the second truth or the reality beyond our own. There may well be a ...

Yes, I read Pagels back in the 1980's when Gnosticism was briefly trendy.

Thank you.

That’s so interesting. Are you able to say something about how her work helped?

I would have to agree. People can certainly live in a 'reality' of false beliefs and often do so and these can come crashing down.

Sounds like a fairly conservative take on good. I am uncertain what 'good' means and how it can be identified. The only thing I can say is that to cau...

I think you mean Karen Armstrong's, A History fo God. Armstrong is a former nun. She is also one of the world's most popular writers on comparative re...

I wouldn't say that myself, but you might be right. I find the left to be mostly a conga-line of hectoring fuck-sticks. And we certainly stole some of...

Indeed. We call them trams and they run all over my city. There are 10 routes within 50 meters of my home. In my city, there are around 1,700 tram sto...

Thanks for clarifying. I’m certainly familiar with the art movement.

What does it mean to say ideas are surreal? I haven't really been able to work out what you are asking exactly. Maybe I've missed something. I'm not s...

:up: I hear you, Brother.

:up:

I think this is often the case. I certainly see this argument. And many people don't even get the distraction of the minutia, the quips, the empty ach...

Which is why I prefer not to throw more wood on the fire... :wink:

Was going to say something similar. Do we really need to rehash CP Snow all these years later?

I can see how this is one obvious answer to the question, but philosophy certainly allows for different solutions. I know where you sit on this, but I...

Agree. I'll take that. I agree. My language is probably sloppy - when I said nature of the world I meant the nature of things in it.

I'm not sure. Then again, we can't really disprove hard solipsism either. The real quesion is what does it matter either way?

Isn't this a bit loose? What exactly does an 'objective way' entail? Even Hoffman and most idealists would say there is an objective world. Isn't the ...

I suspect our nations would make many demands upon us if only we listened. Love is one of those words, isn't it? I can 'love' Siamese cats, pizza and ...

Countries can very different- customs, values, geography, religions - there's no end to the potential diversity. A lot depends, I suspect, upon how mu...

Isn't it conventional wisdom that this is the case and that culture has increasingly desensitised us to the suffering of others? And not just via arme...

Thanks. I've often thought this was the case, didn't know there was even a word for it. When all you have is a car, everything looks like a road... I ...

That made me laugh. I appreciate the analogies.

Not Spanish - it's an international issue. Kids who live at home into their late 20's early 30's is a concern in Australia too. I left home at 18 so I...

Philosophy in a nutshell. :wink:

Regardless of the plans of a ruling class, regardless of any strictures imposed by authoritarian governments, people always find work arounds and reco...

Your response here is one of the more arresting things I have read here for a while. And yet people feel they can't start again because they are on a ...

Sorry. Yes, I think what you outline holds water pretty well. I find this particularly interesting. How this might work. I've often thought that a key...

We disagree on this.

Fair enough. A comprehensive series of accounts. Boredom seems as good a reason as any. Perhaps a desire to share boredom and to see what ridiculous t...

Yes, I've often wondered why too. I guess if your definition of god holds that god is necessarily the foundational source of all that is good then the...

:up: Nice.

What did Milan Kundera say? You create a utopia and pretty soon you’ll need to build a small concentration camp. Part of the problem with utopian visi...

Fairness and justice are, after all, the values which animate most people's political and social thinking. Even the most unphilosophical and irreligio...