I would have thought you’d prefer Kuhn to Popper. There just aren’t enough Kuhnians on this forum. Popper is too much of a realist for me. Let me ask you this: who would you side with in the following debate? — Joshs

I'm a Kuhnian and a Abendite. I also like Lakatos. Popper not so much.

No, it isn't. People like Wittgenstein, Derrida are adamant it totally comes down to language. Foucault believed it was totally based on power.

That's a totally different approach to philosophy. They're committed to saying there's no truth outside of our socially constructed paradigm. That's not honest Socratic dialogue, that's dogmatism. Which is fine, I don't mind dogmatism, as long as it's honest.

Postmodernists want to have their cake and eat it, on the one hand all knowledge is limited, relative and contingent, EXCEPT for what Postmodernists claim. That's a dogma.

No, I'm a spirit soul that has a divine consciousness, that's inhabiting an animal body, a machine.

So, my question: Is there a dividing line between low probability events and the Supernatural? Is it just a matter of the degree of probability or should one apply other criteria to an event to qualify it as 'Supernatural’? — Jacob-B

I don't accept the premise of "supernatural" vs "natural" because nobody has defined what natural means.

If we define what that means, we can define supernatural.

When it comes to the resurrection, I reject the resurrection on multiple grounds a) lacks of sources, b) inconsistent sources, c) alternative explanations that work better, d) low prior probability of people being raised from the dead, e) early Christians may not have believed in a resurrection.

So, I don't accept the resurrection on multiple grounds. Aside from that, I have alternative religious commitments of my own.

John Locke is an empiricist, Leibniz is a rationalist. Locke is saying there's no innate knowledge, it's only whatever we glean from the external world. Whereas, Leibniz says knowledge is innate. I read all of these guys in my last semester in undergrad, and I read them before that also, a long time ago.

It is one of the best books of philosophy ever written in my opinion — javi2541997

Well, certainly not all of us can have the correct opinion.

No, that's something anyone who is realistic about the problems in knowledge would say.

There's a period there.

That we're not not programmed with the means to do so? Why would assume we are? We're just animals evolved to behave in a certain way. Why would you assume our programming just maps 1-to-1 onto the way the world "is"?

I reject New Age philosophy also, but I think it's closer to the truth than mere naive empiricism. I don't see how a mystical answer is somehow "imaginary."

Nothing. Certainty is impossible.

He's a crypto-atheist. So is Hegel really. Marx was a true Hegelian.

By sophistication, I mean the idea that what we see is roughly what exists. That's a huge lack of sophistication.

Okay. Many scholars disagree with you. Even people who know German and are translators get confused by Hegel.

But, I'll take your word for it.

Religion isn't the problem, corruption of religion is the problem. All of the Abrahamic cults are corruptions of goatherders from the bronze age who have very little sophistication about the way the world works.

Hegel was an Idealist. He was not a materialist. And I don't have his writings in my library. I have an introduction to Hegel book though.

That's how the scientific dictatorship works. When you don't respect the sacredness of the planet, of life, of the universe and you don't respect the Supreme Controller behind it.

That's just the beginning.

Ideally, society and the whole world would be ran by natural law. Just as the rest of the Omniverse is. Animals don't need to be told what their natural law is, they mate, they eat, they die, because humans are more intelligent, they get deluded about their natural law.

No. It's a question of whether those groups are lead by a central principle.

What's called the Dao, the Logos, Dharma, natural law. If society all works in concert with the natural law, that all of the limbs of the body work in concert with each other cooperatively, then the whole society will prosper. It will be a golden age.

However, because modern society rejects natural law in favor of nominalism and individualism (same thing) all of the various groups of society are in it for themselves, and as such are at war with each other for their own specific benefits.

Normally, this does not happen. Workers work, tradesman do their trade, philosophers philosophize, kings rule and warriors defend and attack. All in accord with the natural law.

Since everyone has their "role" in the whole, because all individuals have their natural law, their natural qualities in the whole which follows the natural law in concert.

Society is a body, and if the limbs of the body are at war with each other it does not function. If the limbs act in concert, the workers, the specialists, the priests, the philosophers, the kings, the warriors, then all runs well. A well-oiled machine. Golden age.

This individualism, liberalism, nominalism type of worldview has forced people to fend for themselves against everyone else. Because there is no organic society to help them, instruct them, direct them and put them in their proper role/duty in society.

Everyone has a place in society. Every single individual. If society works in accordance with the natural law.

If it doesn;t, some will be left out, abandoned. And class division (by that I mean any group division) predominates.

Because materialists are philosophically unsophisticated.

I don't know why theists think "God" will guarantee the validity of science. All he might do is interfere with scientific studies in any ways he wishes in order to produce "faith". All they are left with is the subjective, just as they say is the case with materialists — Gregory

I don't say that, science is methodological. It goes on without God, if you're interested in philosophy of science on the other hand, then yes, you need laws of nature at the very least, otherwise you're just a pragmatist/instrumentalist. When you start asking for justification of those laws themselves, then God comes into it.

Sure you would. Doubting something by itself doesn't lead to nothing, only doubting that's untempered by being realistic about what you can and cannot know or understand.

The irony here is that you suggest that I'm a philosophical suicide because I'm serving as your gadfly. Socrates stung people by making it clear to them that they were unclear, that they didn't know what they were talking about, not really, despite their pride. His wisdom was knowing that he didn't know. Meanwhile you are eager to argue that there is a god, and that anyone doubting that and your method is corrupt, craven, or indolent. I really don't hold it against you. This place only works because/when people get fired up. — norm

Uh, no. Socrates wasn't a sophist. Socrates questioned beliefs, which is correct, but he wasn't a skeptic for skepticism's sake. That's not Socratic, that's sophistry.

Also, you are clearly a believer in God (or something like that), so when you attack secular thinkers it's all too tempting to read it as religious bias. Here's my bias: when believers barge in so aggressively, pejoratively labeling otherness in little bins, I find them less convincing. If I really and deeply believed in God, I expect that I'd be at peace. I'd be magnanimous, an insider with nothing to prove. — norm

Obviously. Everyone has a bias, that's part of the contingency of knowledge. You can't escape your culture, history, etc. when you are making claims or having views or positions.

The question remains: is Dharmi an evangelist? If someone is content with their god, why enter the realm of reason? Isn't philosophy essentially critical? So I'm guilty of using Dharmi as a foil just as he wants to cast me as a nihilist or obscurantist. — norm

For those people who care, I'm an "evangelist" for those people who don't, I'm not. Same as anyone.

But maybe old-fashioned believers should ignore more recent philosophy. Who needs philosophy if they have God? I do understand that theology can bleed into philosophy, since I made that transition myself, wrestling with religious absurdities many years ago. — norm

Recent philosophy is not something I ignore, but I still regard it as not being philosophy.

I know, Buddhism is an incomplete system.

Okay, but then making things even more unclear doesn't help anyone solve those problems. This is one thing Wittgenstein is right about. Trying to conjure up obscurantistic vocabulary to bewilder and confuse, doesn't help one get closer to the truth.

No, you just clearly say what you mean.

It seems like you're just a usual academic obscurantist.

Yeah? So? Ideas operate regularly too, they partake of an eternal unchanging Form, of course they would operate regularly.

No, science doesn't assume matter exists. Metaphysics is not the domain of science.

This book Hindus agree with 3 of 4 of those concepts.

Emptiness is the only one we disagree with.

Because it's true, they are not-self. There's the false self (ahamkara) and the true self (atman). It is true that the aggregates of sense perception are not-self. That's a different thing than saying there's no-self.

Yes, Buddh-ism says that. Buddha only said it's because those things are impermanent, never said what the nature of those things was. He refused to, as I just posted above.

True, but that's not the only thing our philosophy teaches. Four Noble Truths, the yoga system, which the Buddha effectively revived, the impermanence of the material world, suffering arising from clinging to sense perception, these are all Hindu ideas.

Have you read this book? I just finished it. https://www.4evangiles.fr/pdf/Wilber/1984%20-%20Quantum%20Questions%20-%20Mystical%20writings%20of%20the%20world%27s%20greatest%20physicists.pdf

No, you're 100% right. Buddha's teaching was to focus on the teaching of the Four Noble Truths, he was not willing to talk about atman or anatman because that would muddy the waters. That's correct.

Sure. Good for them. I guess.

??? If that's how you're interpreting it, he also denies teaching atman. — praxis

Yes. Because Buddha was an Apophatic thinker. Via Negativa.

↪frank The illustrious secular scholars claim that nothing can be said with authority in what the historical Buddha said. So secular of them to claim such a thing. — praxis

Scholars disagree, what else is new?

Atman is impermanent, so Buddha was right about anatman. :grin: — praxis

Atman is permanent. In the Ananda Sutta, he denies he teaches anatman. Anatman is a later Buddh-ist teaching. Ahamkara, false ego, is impermanent.

Then the wanderer Vacchagotta went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, exchanged courteous greetings with him. After an exchange of friendly greetings & courtesies, he sat to one side. As he was sitting there he asked the Blessed One: "Now then, Venerable Gotama, is there a self?"

When this was said, the Blessed One was silent.

"Then is there no self?"

A second time, the Blessed One was silent.

Then Vacchagotta the wanderer got up from his seat and left.

Then, not long after Vacchagotta the wanderer had left, Ven. Ananda said to the Blessed One, "Why, lord, did the Blessed One not answer when asked a question by Vacchagotta the wanderer?"

"Ananda, if I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is a self — were to answer that there is a self, that would be conforming with those brahmans & contemplatives who are exponents of eternalism [the view that there is an eternal, unchanging soul]. If I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is no self — were to answer that there is no self, that would be conforming with those brahmans & contemplatives who are exponents of annihilationism [the view that death is the annihilation of consciousness]. If I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is a self — were to answer that there is a self, would that be in keeping with the arising of knowledge that all phenomena are not-self?"

"No, lord."

"And if I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is no self — were to answer that there is no self, the bewildered Vacchagotta would become even more bewildered: 'Does the self I used to have now not exist?'" — Ananda Sutta

I challenged him to name a secular scholar that will admit that the Buddha's original teaching was not emptiness or non-Self. He, of course, failed to do this. — praxis

I cited the article, the article has scholars in it.

Impermanence is an illusion. :nerd: — praxis

Of course it's not an illusion.

He admits that the Buddha taught impermanence (nothing to do with emptiness?) though. — praxis

Right, Hinduism teaches impermanence too. Emptyness is a later formulation, is it based on impermanence? Of course. But it's a later formulation.

O son of Kuntī, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed. — Bhagavad Gita 2:14

No, I don't accept the Bible. I don't believe the Buddha was mistaken, because I don't. His teaching on impermanence and the Four Noble Truths is totally accurate.