If God is totally ineffable, why would we waste time debating on this effing forum? — Gnomon

To become a conduit for the will of the divine. — Punshhh

What percentage of Americans do you think are sincere God believers? — Tom Storm

The goal should be equality for humans. — MoK

... a conversation about what counts as a coherent or useful idea of God. — Tom Storm

... what some thinkers call Panpsychism:

"Panpsychism is a philosophical theory that proposes consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality". — Gnomon

Why do you think that humans cannot find peace? Why are they not wise enough to judge properly the situation, so everybody gets what they deserve? — MoK

I say it is healthy to be unhappy about injustice and misery and suffering even if one is not oneself so badly off. Don't mistake compassion for sickness. Do not go to your local doctor because a child is starving a thousand miles away. There is no pill that you can take that will nourish that child. — unenlightened

Since I was diagnosed with depression, I wanted to get a philosophical approach to why people suffer from this mental state; and on the other hand, if there is another way to get through it apart from medical drugs. — javi2541997

I tend to think of disinterested interest as untheorised interest, a term I've often used. Untheorised means responding to something without frameworks or training, intuitively for pleasure and, I guess with disinterest - if by this we mean minus theoretical investment. — Tom Storm

Arguments for or against God are really arguments about what counts as a valid claim to truth. — Tom Storm

And here’s the thing: how can we ground our knowledge at all?

... should we even care what the average believer thinks?

I see it as a contingent product of culture and language. Most people arrive at faith through socialisation and the intersubjective agreements held by the community they grow up in. Faith is in the culture.

Philosophers only like truth. — Fire Ologist

... a desire to shape my own life through inquiry. — J

It doesn't seem to me there are that many philosophical questions. Or maybe it would be better to say that what appear to be many questions are all variations and/ or elaborations on a few basic questions ... The categories of philosophy seem to show the basic questions. — Janus

... some dislike science because they think it disenchants the world. Others like science because to them, on the contrary, understanding how things work makes the world more interesting and hence more not less enchanting.

I'm asking after philosophical justifications for this aesthetic choice.

Do you think that aesthetics in philosophy is a thing? Should it be? — Moliere

Do you have a sense of your own taste?

Why are you more drawn to particular philosophers, schools, styles, or problems?

Is there such a thing as bad taste in philosophy? If so, what should one do if we encounter bad taste?

Likewise, is there such a thing as good taste in philosophy such that it differs from "the opposite of bad"?

How do you feel about your own personal aesthetic choices?

Do you think about how to choose which philosopher to read?

How do you think about others choosing different philosophers from you? Is that the sort of thing one you might be "more right about"?

I often say that belief in God (for instance) is more likely a preference for a particular type of meaning and value which attracts us, rather than the outcome of sustained reasoning. If reasoning is involved, it tends to be post hoc.

[ ... ] there is often a clear aesthetic preference for a world with foundational guarantees of beauty and certainty.

[ ... ] notions of intrinsic meaninglessness is ugly, stunted and base. And therefore, wrong. — Tom Storm

The process of philosophy is more interesting to me than the results of philosophy ... Good questions and observations that force us to look at the world differently -- that's the best philosophy to me. — Moliere

Philosophy at this point for me is mostly about doing away with bad ideas, which is most of philosophy. — ChatteringMonkey

While lacking empirical predictions or quantitative rigor, [Waveframe cosmology] .... — Razorback kitten

What is space?

What is light?

What is matter?

I can't accept it. [ ... ] None of it makes sense to me ... — Razorback kitten

The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you ... The good thing about Science is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it. — Neil deGrasse Tyson

I have constructed a non-anthro-morphic god-model ...  a featureless abstraction (pure Potential), — Gnomon

Doing logic then seems to be a property of minds. — kindred

Anyway, I'll go on: my point – maybe not quite the OP's – is not that "logic is inherent in existence" but, parsimoniously, that logic is existence (i.e. 'universes' themselves are logico-computable processes ...) about / from which we (can) derive abbreviated syntaxes & formulae ... — 180 Proof

Physicalism provides a very good reason to think we have similar "inner-lives": we have a similar physical construction. — Relativist

The success of physics, in particular, provides good reason to believe that the observable universe is natural and operates in strict accordance with laws of nature. The question remains: does it account for the mind? At the onset of the investigation, I expect that it should - because we're part of the universe, and there's no evidence of anything else existing that is nonphysical or exempt from laws of nature.

Physicalist theory proposes models that account for the functional and behavioral aspects of mind (beliefs,learning, dispositions, the will, perceptions, "mental" causation...). — Relativist

I am not sure that it is possible for time to end. That is partly because I am inclined towards a cyclical picture of the universe and see the idea of 'nothingness' before or after the existence of life in the universe as rather dubious. — Jack Cummins

[N]aturalism and physicalism ignore the foundational, disclosive role of consciousness at the basis of scientific theorising. — Wayfarer

[T]he real question of philosophy is ‘know thyself’’ — Wayfarer

Cite a single non-idealist philosopher who says 'the material world is the whole story'.
— 180 Proof

Thomas Hobbes (d.1679) – Argued that all phenomena, including thought, are explicable in terms of matter in motion. Leviathan opens with: “The universe is corporeal; all that is real is body.” — Wayfarer

Julien Offray de La Mettrie (d. 1751) – In L’Homme Machine, he argues that humans are essentially sophisticated machines, governed entirely by physical processes.

Baron d’Holbach (d. 1789) – In The System of Nature, he writes: “Man’s life is a line that nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the earth, without his ever being able to swerve from it... his ideas are the necessary effect of the impressions he receives.” That’s full-blown deterministic materialism.

Ludwig Büchner (d.1899) – In Force and Matter, he argues that all spiritual phenomena are explicable through matter and force.

J. J. C. Smart (d. 2012) – A champion of the mind-brain identity theory: mental states just are brain states.

David Armstrong (d.2014) – Argued that mental states are physical states with a certain functional role.

Paul Churchland (b. 1942) & Patricia Churchland (b. 1943) – Advocates of eliminative materialism, which holds that beliefs, desires, and intentions as ordinarily understood don’t really exist; they’re just folk-psychological illusions awaiting replacement by neuroscience.

Daniel Dennett (d. 2024) – A leading proponent of functionalist materialism, famously dismissive of qualia and any notion of non-physical mind. See: Consciousness Explained (1991).

Alex Rosenberg (b. 1946) – Author of The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, where he asserts that physics is all there is, and that even meaning and morality are illusions.

But my thesis & blog treat Consciousness and Life as philosophical subjects, not scientific objects of study. — Gnomon

... explains nothing. It opens up possibilities, but possibility is cheap. — Relativist

transcend Reality — Gnomon

It’s not that the material world is unreal—it’s that it cannot be the whole story. — Wayfarer

What lies behind the traditional philosophical denial of common sense would seem to be the assumption that this world, not being perfect, cannot be the true world. The human desire for a transcendent reality, as opposed to this "mere shadow world" [ ... ] — Janus

Suppose cosmologists develop a testable theory that accounts for the conditions at the big bang? Would you abandon your hypothesis, or revise it? — Relativist

You sound confident about the independence of our world from any uncaused First Cause. — Gnomon

[W]hat is the "exact nature" of that prior state, ...

... and what is the evidence for it?

Have those cosmologists solved the "puzzle" of the hypothetical "prior state" with facts that us amateur philosophers don't know, ...

... or are they just guessing, ...?

That there are things which "be". That implies non-being — AmadeusD

What exists today is a consequence of what existed before. — Relativist

Do you not find it mysterious how non-being eventually turned into being? — kindred

Cosmology has not concluded our world is dependent on anything. — Relativist

Apparently 180 doesn't see any purpose to an evolving world that began with nothing (zero) but Potential (infinity) and has produced inquiring Minds that explore the mystery of Being. — Gnomon

So much thinking may become so concrete, as if models, including the mathematical and scientific ones, are seen as all encompassing. This may show a bias and diminishing of human reason — Jack Cummins

Is story and metaphor central to all understanding of 'truth'? — Jack Cummins

The fact that you replied to me shows that the world is pretty much as it seems. — Banno

We are all mortal beings as we pursue the philosophical questions. Everything in life is impermanent and all exploration occurs within the uncertainties of an unknown future. — Jack Cummins