Search results for query: *

From the OP: So then being an atheist must be the will of God!

How do you qualify something as an illness then? Is Synesthesia an illness? The fact that someone has the ability to see smells for example or smell sounds - are those illnesses or simply a novel and different form of perception? If I am for example able to view the contents of my psyche in some...

Yeah, I'm not insisting that we must know a thing-in-itself at all. I'm saying merely that we can't know a thing-in-itself and therefore materialism is a metaphysical belief. (Because metaphysics is about the nature of things, the nature of existence, how things are in-themselves etc).

I think that's a bit of a dangerous position. There is such a thing as "psychic reality" (psychic in the original sense as meaning pertaining to the psyche), at least at the subjective level. Someone can be afraid of the dark despite all manner of reason that it's irrational. We don't say they...

In the absence of "soul" (and I mean that metaphorically), we need systems of morality, politics, charity and so forth, but those structures are precisely what self-perpetuates the very absence of "soul". People live on the outer rim of their emotional self, almost everything in our modern...

My view is completely the opposite. I think these "political" aspects of organized religion are inherently the biggest problem. I would argue that the usefulness is in engaging in magical / superstitious practice simply as a psychological tool. No literal externalized belief necessary. The only...

hmmm....no, I'm not talking about emotional comfort. Psychologically that's a form of suppression / repression and I would agree here that this "feature" of religious practice should be abandoned. I'm talking about the efficacy of engaging with the irrational parts of the human psyche on it's...

Yes, I agree that it's possible to come to understand the limitations of a system by exhausting that system. That's why I'm saying QM challenges our intuition because, not because space is 3-dimensional and QM is just strange but rather because our pre-conceived notions of space being...

I totally agree with regard to organized religion. But is that really "religion" or is it more accurately described as "politics", whereby the former has been hijacked by the latter? If you mean to say that we should absolutely discard the irrational then from a psychodynamics / psychological...

Ehm, I'm not saying it's 2-dimensional. I'm saying that how something appears to humans through our cognition is not to be mistaken for how the thing is in itself.

That's funny because when we play a 3D game we are immersed in a 3D environment (with sound) and yet it's all "virtual", none if it is actually a "real world", it's like a simulation. My point is not that the world is actually 2 dimensional, or that it's a simulation. I'm making no claims about...

I disagree with this because my point has been that one must learn to engage with the irrational aspect of the psyche at the irrational level. Philosophy generally doesn't do that, it's mostly a rational engagement. Relating to one's own psyche at the unconscious or instinctive level is...

Agreed. But it's strongly correlated and I'm not talking about organized religion here as you can clearly see. But I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Agreed. To some degree the rational function may be involved in making choices but it's largely instinctive / irrational. A good example is when people are attracted to the kinds of people they know are not good for them. Even when people do choose someone that is perhaps "good for them", that...

LOL. Is it 3 or 12, because earlier you were saying it's 12 dimensions? Let me put it this way. If your cognition and sense could only perceive 2 dimensions then you would perceive all effects in the world via 2 dimensions even if the world had more dimensions. For example if your sense organs...

You're merely rationalizing "Love", providing a rational reason for it's existence. That does not make love as it functions within the human psyche, a product of the rational function. Do you rationally think to yourself "Oh, that person over there has the curves or bulges in the right place so...

No. The majority of your psyche's functioning is irrational (instinctive). If you want to come to terms with who and what you are you need to engage with it at the irrational level. (That doesn't mean you need to abandon rationality either.)

We fundamentally do need religion. By that I don't mean organized religion but rather that we do need some way to integrate and interface with magical and superstitious thinking. Why? Because, fundamentally a very large part of our psyche works that way. For example love and sex are entirely...

There is either a thing-in-itself or there is not. Space-time either exists as a thing-in-itself (independent of human perception) or it does not. If you say that there is no thing-in-itself then you are invoking classical idealism where we all exist as a thought form in the mind of a supreme...

Yes, I thought we were more in agreement than in disagreement once we drill down to the core of the issue. It's more than just creating "maps" though because that tends to be a reference to our intellectual models and it goes a hell of a lot deeper into the underlying pre-conscious cognitive...