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Tag Archives: materialism
The Old In and Outputs: Neuroscientist Tom Chivers Doesn’t Think We Have Free Will. Is He Right?
A stunning tidbit from an interview, in The Telegraph, with neuroscientist Tom Chivers: [I]f we are part of the universe, and obey its laws, it’s hard to see where free will comes into it. What we think of as freedom, … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, epiphenomena, epiphenomenon, free will, God, materialism, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology
8 Comments
Global Debt Slavery Watch: Economic Anthropologist David Graeber Thinks Slavery and Debt Slavery May Be a Distinction Without Much of a Difference
At Naked Capitalism, Dublin-based journalist Philip Pilkington asks economic anthropologist David Graeber an intriguing question: We know that in many Western countries over the past few years households have been running up enormous debts, from credit card debts to mortgages … Continue reading
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Tagged class warfare, david graeber, debt, debt forgiveness, economics, globalism, jubilee, materialism, mind, philosophy, social psychology
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In the Free Will Debate, Does the Truth Matter?
According to the New York Times this morning, researchers have discovered a curious correlation between belief (or disbelief) in free will and behavior: [W]hen people doubt free will, they do worse at their jobs and are less honest. This raises … Continue reading
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Tagged arthur schopenhauer, atheism, critical thinking, determinism, free will, God, materialism, philosophy, pragmatism, psychology, truth
6 Comments
Free Will Objectivism Fail: Two Mathematicians Demonstrate that Ayn Rand’s Philosophy is Incoherent
At ScienceNews.org is a troubling piece reporting that two highly acclaimed Princeton mathematicians, John Conway and Simon Kochen, have mathematically demonstrated the following: if humans can actually choose what to observe (or not observe) in a particular sort of physics experiment involving particle spin, then the … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, Ayn Rand, consciousness, determinism, free will, idealism, materialism, math, philosophy, physics, science, T.S. Eliot
15 Comments
David Chalmers on Hard v. Soft Emergence with Regard to Consciousness
David Chalmers discusses hard v. soft emergence and why consciousness falls into the former category:
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Tagged atheism, brain, cognitive science, david chalmers, dualism, emergence, God, materialism, mind, philosophy, qualia
1 Comment
A God Delusion: Josh Timonen v. Richard Dawkins
One sad aspect of the lawsuit recently filed against Josh Timonen by Richard Dawkins is the way that it has inadvertently played out the atheist script generally: reduce an ontological mystery (a mystery of being) to a mere problem or function for rational … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, delusion, God, josh timonen, love, materialism, psychology, qualia, reductionism, Richard Dawkins
9 Comments
The God Conclusion v. The God Delusion: Keith Ward Tries to Tackle Richard Dawkins
Philosopher Keith Ward has probably written the best book attempting to counter the antitheist claims in Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion (Houghton Mifflin 2008). Ward’s book is titled Why There Almost Certainly is a God: Doubting Dawkins (Lion 2008), and on page 11 … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, God, Islam, Jesus, Judaism, materialism, matter, mind, philosophy, psychology, religion, Richard Dawkins
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What is amor fati?
What Friedrich Nietzsche took from Charles Darwin is the idea of radical contingency, and so Nietzsche’s amor fati (love of fate) is an embrace of all of life’s contingencies. Do you have the courage to embrace your existential situation (what Sartre called … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, contingency, Darwin, death, evolution, heaven, idealism, life, materialism, Nietzsche, philosophy, Platonism
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Quote of the Day
The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, in Volume 1 of his The Nature and Destiny of Man (1964 edition, pg. 43), critiques Freudianism and, by extension, naturalism generally: The whole of Freudian psychology, not in what it declares but in what it … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, Freud, materialism, naturalism, philosophy, psychology, Reinhold Niebuhr, religion, Richard Dawkins, theology
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Would the Ante-Nicene Fathers call contemporary American Protestants Christians (followers of Jesus)?
Early Orthodox (or proto-Orthodox) Christians writing after the apostolic period but before western Christendom’s adoption of the Nicene Creed (325 CE) are sometimes called the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and there is a fascinating (and rather thick) book I’m reading that catalogues quotes from … Continue reading
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Tagged ante-Nicene fathers, authoritarianism, Christianity, consumerism, fundamentalism, God, islamic fundamentalism, Jesus, materialism, psychology, religion, the Bible
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The Hundredth Cricket Phenomenon?: Pregnant Crickets Forewarn Their Young Before Birth! An Opportunity for Natural and Supernatural Speculation?
And that would also mean that baby crickets have prebirth “memories” (either somatic or mental), doesn’t it? There must be a mechanism responsible for this, but what could it possibly be? This today in the New York Times: Researchers from the University … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, biology, crickets, evolution, experiments, God, hundredth monkey, materialism, naturalism, science, supernatural
3 Comments
Slipping Off the Atheist Dude Ranch?: Strict Naturalism and Atheist Philosopher Thomas Nagel
Before philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote this in the most current edition of the Times Literary Supplement about Stephen Meyer’s new book (ticking off a lot of atheists), he wrote this, in the New Republic, in late 2006, concerning philosophical naturalism’s reductionist project: I … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, apologetics, atheism, atheist, God, jerry coyne, materialism, philosophy, reductionism, religion, strict naturalism, thomas nagel
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Symphonic Harmony and the Intellectually Fulfilled Atheist?
Richard Dawkins has famously said, and on more than one occasion, that Darwin’s theory of evolution has made it possible for him to be, not just an atheist, but “an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” But what, exactly, does it mean to be … Continue reading
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Tagged Albert Camus, apologetics, atheism, atheist, God, immanence, imminent, materialism, philosophy, religion, Richard Dawkins, science
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Promissory Materialism and Second Coming Messianism?
This struck me as a provocative way to frame materialism v. dualism. It comes from a 2003 paper in NeuroQuantology, and it was written by Donald Watson and Bernard Wilson: The “psychophysical identity” proposition is today’s most popular model for … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, brain, dualism, God, materialism, mind, mind-body problem, near-death experiences, science, second coming, sir john eccles
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This Near Death Experiencer Says We Should Not Fear Death
She shared her experience at the 3rd Spiritual Retreat for Near Death Experiencers, St Louis, May 2008: What weight do you suppose we should give near death experiencer testimony? At one level, it’s akin to a person in Italy in … Continue reading
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Tagged atheist, death, fear, Jesus, life, love, materialism, meaning, philosophy, psi, purpose, ufo abductees
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Urizen the Bearer of Circumfrences
A biographer of William Blake discusses Blake’s take on materialist reduction and the nature of mind:
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Tagged agnosticism, atheism, life, materialism, mind, poetry, urizen, William Blake
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Carl Jung on the Reduction of Mind to Matter
Carl Jung, as quoted in The Conscious Universe (1997, 324-25) by Dean Radin: It is almost an absurd prejudice to suppose that existence can only be physical. As a matter of fact, the only form of existence of which we have … Continue reading
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Tagged agnosticism, atheism, atheist, epistemology, life, materialism, matter, mind, paranormal
2 Comments
Dean Radin, Speaking at Google, on Psychic Phenomena
Oops. I see that this talk does not embed. See on YouTube here.
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Tagged dean radin, materialism, mind, philosophy, psi, psi phenomena, psychic phenomena, reason, science, skeptic
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Confusion in the Atheist Universe! We Are the Paranormal Phenomenon That We Have Been Waiting for!
Remember how, during the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama said that we are the change we have been waiting for? Well, I was thinking about this in terms of paranormal phenomenon. So many people are looking beyond themselves, out into the world, for evidence … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, atheist universe, biology, materialism, mind, paranormal, philosophy, Richard Dawkins, science, UFOs
12 Comments
John Searle Wants Us to Reject Both Materialism and Dualism with Regard to the Mind
John Searle splits the difference by saying that consciousness is, in relation to matter, “ontologically irreducible but causally reducible.” Here’s parts 1 and 2 of a longer talk. If you don’t want to hear the biographical introduction to Searle, you … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, atheist, consciousness, dualism, free will, john searle, materialism, mind, philosophy, reductionism, science, self
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Prometheus Unbound 