GENIUS FORUMS

guest_of_logic: Do you agree that duration can be quantified? David: Yes, it is a convenient tool for practical purposes, keeping in mind that it is a conceptual contrivance which doesn't reflect the reality of Nature's seamlessness. Ataraxia: I just felt that first line summed up the issue. I get ...

I've spent a lot of my life being very disappointed. Disappointed in my fellow humans. Disappointed in much that they have created and believed - large parts of culture, religion, belief. Because of this, I have developed a tendency to be extremely skeptical and often downright aggressively dismiss...

Put down the Thomas Metzinger, mate. It's doing you no good. ;) You may have a point there, but I don't limit myself to neurophilosophy, I study a lot of different lines of reasoning, and my reasoning here is not exclusively derived from Metzinger. However, Metzinger's conceptual models are some of...

Put down the Thomas Metzinger, mate. It's doing you no good. ;)

Oh I'm on my way, I know I am, somewhere not so far from here All I know is all I feel right now, I feel the power growing in my hair Sitting on my own not by myself, everybody's here with me I don't need to touch your face to know, and I don't need to use my eyes to see I keep on wondering if I sle...

Not at all. Laird was asking questions, so they required separate answers.

I just felt that first line summed up the issue. I get the impression Laird sees time as a "thing-itself" rather than what it really is: an arbitrary measuring tool used by man to (hopefully) make predictions.

I'll ask you a few more specific questions to see if we can get to the heart of things: 1. Do you agree that duration can be quantified? 2. If so, do you agree that duration can be quantified without theoretical problem? 3. If not, please describe all problems of which you are aware. 4. Do you agre...

Unfortunately, both the Churchlands are sending philosophy of mind in exactly the wrong direction, IMHO. Can you elaborate on that? They are attempting to turn Philosophy of Mind into a evolutionary and/or neuroscience. Rather than doing philosophy, they spend most of their time 'special pleading' ...

Animus wrote:If I had to name a woman whom I thought was most masculine.... it would be Patricia S. Churchland.

Unfortunately, both the Churchlands are sending philosophy of mind in exactly the wrong direction, IMHO.

"I always tell the truth. Even when I lie." - Tony Montanna

Haha, well put, David.

A natural New Year to you, sir.

Tomas wrote:

Ataraxia wrote:Because the meek shall inherit the earth, apparently.

For me, eternal life is this life. No beginning, no end. This is it. Wallah.

For me too, brother.

Because the meek shall inherit the earth, apparently.

They would both be true statements, wouldn't you say, Laird?

Ten or so years ago Deepak was the hottest thing. I guess, like many 'wisdom' authors, he said all he knew in the books he wrote (and on Oprah), and now he's just about obscure. A lot of the hot wisdom books do not become classics, I guess. I'm thinking Ekhart Tolle is on top of that heap at the mo...

Cycling back, it seems I'm here again. "Behold," I continued, "this moment! From this gateway, Moment, along, eternal lane leads backward: behind us lies an eternity. Must not whatever can walk have walked on this lane before? Must not whatever can happen have happened, have been don...

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:

jupiviv wrote:A container is that which contains something. There is no specification about whether it must itself be bounded or not.

A definition defines something but there's nothing "there" outside or inside that definition, nothing "in itself".

Well put.

Dan Rowden wrote:

Rafael T.M wrote:

Uhm.. any of you know the "American nihilist underground society"? What do you think of their thoughts and texts?

I've not heard of them - though their acronym is oddly familiar :) T

Haha

One hopes it was intentional. Kinda witty for Nihilists, actually.

Take colours – they actually occur as a result of different speeds of light reaching our eyes. Our eyes transfer these speed differences into linear data streams using the same basic dots and dashes method as Morse code, but a million times more detailed. Via the various combinations of “short amou...

The free man is not enslaved because he cannot feel himself to be other than what he is. He is neither free nor bound. Interesting notion. But as would be helpful with alot of the discussion here, could you cite some real-life examples (either living or dead)? Or is it just a theoretical ideal? It ...

Good questions. I can think of two possible responses that a believer in divinely maintained perfect justice and mercy might give: firstly, that God is the final individual arbiter, who is uniquely qualified for setting the standards being that He created everything that is not Himself, and that &q...

Diebert van Rhijn wrote: How did Israel secure this power? .

by applying slave morality.

Not sure about the idea that evolution would somehow work towards order in a chaotic world. A crystal is rather ordered compared to an organic cell. Some mathematical formulas can create amazing patterns as well as total chaos. There seems no way of knowing if life's evolving is just a lark, an odd...

Hi Turambar, I have two questions for you. Firstly, how do you reconcile perfect justice (which entails always applying the deserved penalty) with perfect mercy (which entails applying a penalty less than that which was deserved)? The concept of perfect Justice, or perfect mercy, seems unfathomable...

Hi ataraxia, You are surely not saying that no follower of Theravada has ever become enlightened? Well I wonder if these hypothetical people didn't become enlightened despite following a particular religion rather than because of it.That is not to say there are no useful concepts in Theravada, or f...