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"It's
fascinating when people give reasons why one shouldn't be reasonable,
proofs that one shouldn't rely on proof, and philosophic arguments
against philosophy."


Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. And no, this isn't having "faith" in reason (in the same way that some people have faith in miracles), because we don't "believe" in reason; we use reason.

Steven Pinker
Standard Canadian Mode of Travel

Typical Canadian Taxismiley - cool


"Body am I, and soul"--thus speaks the child. And why should one not speak like children?
But the awakened and knowing say: body am I entirely, and nothing else; and soul is only a word for something about the body.
The body is a great reason, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a herd and a shepherd.
An instrument of your body is also your little reason, my brother, which you call "spirit"--a little instrument and toy of your great reason. . . .
Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there stands a mighty ruler, an unknown sage--whose name is self.
In your body he dwells; he is your body.

There is more reason in your body than in your best wisdom.

Friedrich Nietzsche Thus Spake Zarathustra
Sam

Sam

Best of friends


When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent.
Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence.
So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.

-- J. Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known, pp. 51-52

As
a matter of fact, we
do observe evolution.
Even humans are still evolving... Well, some are.
- response to a creationist claim that evolution isn't true because we don't observe it happening

"Men
fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth - more than ruin - more
even than death....
Thought is subversive and
revolutionary,
destructive and terrible,
thought is merciless to privilege,
established institutions, and comfortable habit.
Thought
looks into the
pit of hell and is not afraid.
Thought is great and swift
and free, the
light of the world, and the chief glory of man."
-- Bertrand
Russell


The autobiographical self is the brain state for which the cultural history of humanity most counts.

-- Antonio Damasio
The Feeling of What Happens

Philosophy is looking in a dark room for a black cat.

Metaphysics is looking in a dark room for a black cat that isn't there.

Theology is looking in a dark room for a black cat that isn't there and yelling "I found it!"
- anon


Welcome to Taliesin's Back 42 on h2g2 smiley - smiley


>>> Updates to this page are becoming increasingly unlikely

Although I still pop by hootoo from time to time...

.. I'm usually riding my FJR, or you may find me at bikerjon.com, my blog

Imagine
our surprise when we noticed that in patient LB the left hemisphere
said it believed in God whereas the right hemisphere signaled that it
was an atheist.


The inter-trial consistency of this needs to be verified but at the
very least it shows that the two hemispheres can simultaneously hold
contradictory views on God, an observation that should send shock waves
through the theological community.


When a patient like this eventually dies, will one hemisphere end up in
hell and the other in heaven?

--V.S.
Ramachandran on the two hemispheres of the brain (A Brief Tour of Human
Consciousness)

Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves;


because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation;


but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.

--Russell "The Value of Philosophy"

For each new moment self dies

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