Drugs, seem like a distraction — Shawn

... perhaps addictive intoxication (i.e. escape, distraction, self-anaesthetization) is the religion¹ of the masses. — 180 Proof

 an impoverished spiritual life — Shawn

Marx could have been right about the substitution of drugs for religion...

i don't have to abide by your theory that only certain groups (ashkis, white) can be racist. — BitconnectCarlos

Humans don't fight over territory and food. They fight over imaginary stories in their minds. — Yuval Noah Harari

Did you know that the lighter skinned blacks discriminate against the darker skinned ones? They oppress them and treat them as lower. — BitconnectCarlos

Jews are one family.
— BitconnectCarlos

:roll: Tell that to the non-Ashkenazim of color (Mizrani Jews, Sephardic Jews, Ethopian Jews, Indian Jews) in Israel who are racially discriminated against and treated as second-class Israelis:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Israel — 180 Proof

Say you're being executed, what would you order for your last meal? — frank

Mostly I think of freedom as liberation from fear and suffering. — Tom Storm

... without chance and contingency ... The fixed intelligible world is unintelligible. — Fooloso4

Which thought then do you find scarier? — jasonm

If we die and reach the afterlife, what if there is life but not eternal life? — jasonm

I don't hate Israel. I'm anti-zionist. — Benkei

Do you believe in the preservation or destruction of the Jewish state? — BitconnectCarlos

If you're an anti-zionist then you ultimately aim at it's destruction.

Bunge has some other remarkable observations, that energy is the only "universal physical property," for example. But what I like most is his conclusion that "the general concept of energy is so general that it belongs in metaphysics." Because it is so big that it overflows our scientific conceptions of it. — Pantagruel

To reify is to make a thing', — Wayfarer

... ideas [Forms?] don't exist - not because they're unreal, but because they are beyond existence (which is precisely what 'transcendent' means). — Wayfarer

... ideas [Forms?] are transcendental.

I had the idea it is impossible to admire both Nietszche and Plato.

Baby, don't you let your
dog bite me

With regard to Plato and Aristotle their shared common ground is that they are both Socratic skeptics, inquirers who know that they do not know. — Fooloso4

It should be understood that Socratic skepticism differs from other types of skepticism. It is the desire to know based on the knowledge of our ignorance. It is, as the root of the word indicates, the practice of doubt and inquiry.

With regard to evidence, we must follow the argument and action of the dialogues in Plato that lead to aporia and the dialectic of Aristotle. — Fooloso4

The heuristic I prefer is that forms or ideas don't exist - not because they're unreal, but because they are beyond existence (which is precisely what 'transcendent' means). We are blessed with the intellectual facility, nous, which is capable of grasping these forms (or perceiving rational principles) — Wayfarer

I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar — F.N.

Better to be a sad Socrates than a smug swine
— 180 Proof

John Stuart Mill said in an essay titled A PIG, A FOOL, AND SOCRATES: It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.

That's not quite as pithy as your version — BC

focusing on parts at the expense of the whole can lead to conspiracy theories and paranoia — tim wood

[C]ivilisations tend to suffer from entropy over time and slide into decadence. — ChatteringMonkey

The point of determinism is that there are no options, but that there is only one course of action possible. — Hanover

The only true free will would be an uncaused cause ...

(i.e. conditionally voluntary actions)
— 180 Proof

Conditionally voluntary is a self contradictory phrase to the extent "conditionally" means deterministically. If you mean something other than that, explain what it is. — Hanover

Why am morally responsible for X if I couldn't have done otherwise?

How is determinism of any sort, hard or soft (i.e. compati[bil]ism), compatible with moral responsibility.

The most that can be said about thought then, is that we are unaware where thoughts come from and where they go - so why the leap to no-self? — Heracloitus

I accept libertarian free will as a necessary component for any understanding, analogous to Kantian space and time intuitions, which is simply to say it's necessary for any understanding of the world, even if it makes no sense under deep analysis. — Hanover

"The unexamined life is not worth living" may be a bit extreme, but the examined life is certainly better, ceteris paribus, than the unexamined — Janus

Both deny free agency. — Hanover

What is freedom? — Nemo2124

What is the difference between Fate and Determinism? — Frog

So if it's not internal models that make them more than "very fast GIGO, data-mining, calculators", then what would, in your view? — flannel jesus

What evidence would you have to see about some future generation of ai that would lead you to say it's more than "very fast GIGO, data-mining, calculators"?