Searle says the man on the street is a Cartesian.

Idealistic, materialistic, some combo of the two?

What a jip!

Maybe. But common sense saying that ideas and physical stuff is real doesn't go far enough to imply dualism. — Sapientia

So how would you describe your common sense metaphysics?

No. I was asking if common sense speech and behavior implies dualistic beliefs.

Common sense says ideas are real things. Common sense says physical stuff is real. Dualistic?

Would you say common sense is dualistic?

Yes. There's plenty of plastic in landfills. Plenty of coal to fuel the production of nuclear power plants.

I will consider it as such, but it doesn't really matter, as you again have not provided me with a definition of the phrase, but only a quote which contains mentions of it. — Arkady

"Ground of being" is Christian mysticism. It goes back at least to Meister Eckhart. It's pretty much what it sounds like. As opposed to God being on high like the Great Architect, God is a primal source of all being. Maybe the quantum theory picture of a possibility field is similar. Christ is more an image than a person. Christ is an intermediary within every person through which they can connect in some way with God.

Bernard McGinn wrote a book about Eckhart. Worth the read.

Sounds interesting. Thanks!

I think you should feel free to interpret the OP as you see fit.

Cool!

Interesting. I think the concept of divinity is and always has been what we would either call mind or life (mostly, anyway.) Is it really two kinds of question?

Are you saying that without particles, there is no causality?

What work?

.Why should we go into outer space? For the fun of it!

I think we should be climbing off this planet. I don't think cold fusion will help with that.

More coal and nuclear use. They didn't finish investigating hot fusion. Might try that again. I think they'll start mining old landfills for plastic.

Could you expand on the connection to volition?

I was thinking more about idealism, materialism (either of which can be eliminative or reductive), neutral monism, etc.

I think theism is generally going to involve at least some idealism.

Your metaphysics is probably a retroactive expression of your behavior/outlook. — The Great Whatever

As a child I was convinced that there's something behind everything (like the world I see is just a veil). I don't remember when I decided that thething is ideas. Did you have an experience like that?

The way we exist in the world is formed in our infancy, and develops rapidly. — Bitter Crank

With some room for innate personality, I see that.

I'd say make a different thread.

Sure. Go for it. My thought was put together specific questions, email them off, and then publish the answers in a thread.

In a thread a while back, I emailed Chalmers, Soames, and some random professor in Canada in order to get views on a conflict between myself and another poster. Chalmers answered with one sentence. Soames gave a paragraph and direction to an online essay he wrote (which was very helpful). The random professor spent more time explaining the complexities. I thought it might be cool to do something like that again with an issue like semantic atomism/molecularism/holism, knowledge internalism/externalism, and other such.

Plus any questions to David Lewis would interest me. I can't afford his book. :(

I see from looking at other plush forums that there is blog capability. I don't really like it though.

I don't believe they can do what I had in mind.

I'll take one with mustard. Now go practice your I Ching.

Ok. I'm actually confused about how much energy to put into it. I'll write out something like a pitch. Couple of paragraphs.

Don't you have some camels to feed?

I'm getting a "Resistance is futile" vibe from Yaha. The Ask the Philosopher will just be some threads. No bother.

So it is doable, there just isn't anybody who has the time to do it. Thus I said keep it in mind in case that changes and someone wants to experiment with making the forum more attractive to readers.

Packaging wouldn't be a function change. I'm not sure why you're stuck on that.

Fine. Should that change at some point, I hope you keep my suggestion in mind.

Ok. Packaging is undoable as well? It looks like the categories are package like.

Ok. But the more I think about, the more I'm convinced that readers would benefit from a user-based presentation. Package all of SLX's op's, for instance.

Oh, and a couple of us are going to work out some sort of "Ask the philosopher" deal. Are you cool with that?

So we really have no control over the format? I'm just surprised. And I didn't particularly want to start a blog. As I said... it was a thought about making the content of the forum more interesting. It was partly inspired by something Jute said about TGW and partly past experience.

Yes, I'll start a thread.

Oh. Did I sound blaming? It would just involve a little column (maybe to the right) with names and a little signal about whether they have a new entry. If you click on the name, you can read their latest philosophy ramblings.

Oh, cool!

Was the software ever intended to cater to those who want to write a blog? If not, then no. What we have here is a forum, a place to publish articles, and the option to link to your blog if you have one. It's not an all singing, all dancing website. I'm content with that. — Sapientia

Jesus, dude. A long time ago I was on a forum that had a little blog section. It ended up being a discussion generator. I was thinking of ways to improve the content of this forum.

You just hurt my fucking feelings, by the way. Where's unenlightened? I need a champion.

Wah!

Wow. All great ideas. I asked because I was listening to an NPR article about Facebook's efforts to increase interest. I thought.. "How would the philosophy forum do that?" Really all the stuff you mentioned would be interesting to me. I'd definitely read Dennett's thoughts on his tendency to equivocate. I agree with you though... on the old forum we just ended up abusing people who were good enough to take the time.

Would you be interested in talking a little more about it? Maybe formulate a plan?

The universe is the result of God's loneliness.

It's part of the soundtrack. Plus the Blue Danube if I remember correctly.