Blog Stats
- 2,574,544 readers since June 2008
Recent Comments
- iranblogknew.ir on Trump’s VP Pick Mike Pence a Homophobe
- irancorporate.ir/ on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- edwardpalamar on Was Jesus the Only One to Rise from the Dead on Easter Weekend?
- collin237 on Thinking Critically about Critical Theory
- BestAurelio on Christopher Hitchens, Henry David Thoreau, and Peitho
- Rachel Jennings-Tafarella on A Mini-Course In Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.2: Notice Where Arguments Start And Stop
- A Mini-Course In Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.6: Distinguishing The Logically Possible From The Actual | Prometheus Unbound on A Mini-Course In Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.3: Worldview
- A Mini-Course In Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.6: Distinguishing The Logically Possible From The Actual | Prometheus Unbound on A Mini-Course In Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.4: Spanning The Bridge From Logical Possibility To Truth
- A Mini-Course In Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.8: Scientific Method — Prometheus Unbound – „Ingerii sunt spirite inaripate, prietene cu spiritul tau inaripat.“ on A Mini-Course In Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.8: Scientific Method
- Santi Tafarella on A Mini-Course In Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.1: Good Rhetoric Is In Need Of Critical Thinking
- Keith on A Mini-Course In Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.1: Good Rhetoric Is In Need Of Critical Thinking
- A Mini-Course In Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.7: Distinguishing Best Explanation From Ad Hoc Explanation Using Occam’s Razor | Prometheus Unbound on A Mini-Course In Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.1: Good Rhetoric Is In Need Of Critical Thinking
- A Mini-Course In Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.7: Distinguishing Best Explanation From Ad Hoc Explanation Using Occam’s Razor | Prometheus Unbound on A Mini-Course In Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.2: Notice Where Arguments Start And Stop
- A Mini-Course In Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.7: Distinguishing Best Explanation From Ad Hoc Explanation Using Occam’s Razor | Prometheus Unbound on A Mini-Course In Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.3: Worldview
- A Mini-Course In Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.7: Distinguishing Best Explanation From Ad Hoc Explanation Using Occam’s Razor | Prometheus Unbound on A Mini-Course In Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.4: Spanning The Bridge From Logical Possibility To Truth
Top Posts
- How Crazy is Dr. David Jeremiah?
- Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Matthew 27:51-53: The Bible's "Night of the Living Dead" Passage
- What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- What is a Human, Really? Thinking about Definition via Aristotle
- Adam Smith and Capitalism for Beginners
- Walt Whitman: "To be indeed a God!"
- How Many People Could the Ancient Colosseum in Rome Hold?
- Ludwig Wittgenstein for Beginners
- Charles Sanders Peirce on the Method of Tenacity
-
Recent Posts
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.9: Imitation And Emulation With An Eye On Competition
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.8: Selection And Editing
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.7: Audience And Rhetorical Strategy
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.6: Moving From First Sentence To Thesis
- A Mini-Course in Critical Thinking For Writers. Concept 1.16: Thinking Critically About Beauty, Art, And Literature
Recent Haiku Tweets
- nytimes.com/interactive/20… 3 months ago
- RT @mrchan: So much has changed in America, and yet so much hasn't https://t.co/x2mthUr4Kc 5 months ago
- Perfect. twitter.com/newsundayheral… 1 year ago
- RT @goldenglobes: At tonight's #GoldenGlobes we honor Hollywood legend Meryl Streep with the prestigious Cecil B. Demille Award. https://t.… 1 year ago
- If Trump establishes a Muslim registry, and calls on Muslims to provide their names, this agnostic will be joining them. #registerasamuslim 1 year ago
Tag Archives: reductionism
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
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, atheist, delusion, God, josh timonen, love, materialism, psychology, qualia, reductionism, Richard Dawkins
9 Comments
Stuart Kauffman on Poetry vs. Science and the Possibilities for Atheist Spirituality
Atheist spirituality? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Below is biologist and complexity theorist Stuart Kauffman speaking to the Centre for Inquiry in Ontario. In the talk, Kauffman is laying out some of the arguments that he makes in his book Reinventing the Sacred … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, biology, emergence, God, philosophy, physics, poetry, reductionism, Richard Dawkins, science, spirituality, stuart kauffman
1 Comment
Freud’s Oceanic Feeling Associated with Brain Damage!
During meditation or prayer, have you ever had what Freud called (picking up the term from Romain Rolland) an “oceanic feeling“? In other words, have you felt your “little self” (the shrew of your ego) submerging harmoniously into the “Big Self”—the Atman—or the universe? Well, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Bhagavad Gita, elton john, Freud, harmony, meditation, mind, ocean, reductionism, science, spirtuality, yoga, Zen
13 Comments
Santi Tafarella’s Poem, “The Appearance of the Real”
. . . . . . . . Beneath a dormant tree in brown eggshell crisp leaves a child found a white branch with a red blossom. . The branch bent at its middle and the child, to hold … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged autumn, Blake, childhood, crows, innocence to experience, John Keats, life, poems, poetry, reductionism, Santi Tafarella
Leave a comment
Reductionism Not? Mathematical Biologist Stuart Kauffman on “breaking the Galilean spell”
My favorite line in the gnostic Gospel of Thomas goes like this: If matter emerged from mind, it is a wonder. But if mind emerged from matter, it is a greater wonder. In the recent dead tree edition of Free Inquiry (Dec. 2009/Jan. 2010) is a … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, atheist, biology, determinism, free will, God, mind, philosophy, reductionism, religion, science, stuart kauffman
10 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
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnostic, apologetics, atheism, atheist, God, jerry coyne, materialism, philosophy, reductionism, religion, strict naturalism, thomas nagel
5 Comments
Ah, Gray Sunflower, Forget Me Not! The Beautiful, the Sublime, and the Moscow UFO Mothership/Cloud
When looking at the above video today, I thought of Allen Ginsberg’s “Sunflower Sutra” (in which Ginsberg eulogizes a soot covered dead sunflower). And it made me think: what makes this UFO-like cloud (seen last Wednesday over Moscow) beguiling? And … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged aesthetics, aliens, edmund burke, philosophy, reductionism, schopenhauer, science, sublime, the beautiful, the sublime, UFO sightings, UFOs
Leave a comment
Reductionism, the Ontological Mystery, and Joni Mitchell
What do we really know about clouds and rainbows, let alone love and free will? To speak of them, scientifically or otherwise (including poetically), is like using chopsticks to drink the ocean. Our instruments seem inadequate to the scale of our task, and somehow … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnosticism, atheism, atheist, life, literature, meaning, philosophy, poetry, reductionism, religion, science, the ontological mystery
1 Comment
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
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnostic, atheist, consciousness, dualism, free will, john searle, materialism, mind, philosophy, reductionism, science, self
1 Comment
Just Asking
If you are an atheist, and you think that free will, ultimately, does not exist, but you nevertheless act in your day-to-day life as if free will does in fact exist, aren’t you like someone who doesn’t believe in God, but under … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged a question, agnosticism, atheism, determinism, free will, philosophy, prayer, psychology, reductionism, The God Delusion, theism
4 Comments
I Am Not Determinate Matter, and I Too Sing the Universe!
This is the confident theist position, which as an agnostic I am not committed to, but I nevertheless think it might well be right. Here’s why: Science is a tool for the study of matter, and it must study matter in … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnostic, apologetics, atheist, matter, mind, philosophy, psychology, reductionism, religion
4 Comments
Notes from Underground
Who will speak from the insistent vantage of the ontological mystery? Against the best efforts of our contemporary advocates of scientism, positivism, and reductionism, below is a succinct explanation for why religion, poetry, Dostoevsky’s “underground man,” and Camus’s “Sisyphian hero” cannot just cede the … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Albert Camus, Camus, Dostoevsky, Fyodor Dostoevsky, philosophy, poetry, Politics, reductionism, religion, science, the ontological mystery
4 Comments
Richard Dawkins v. John Keats: Does Science “Conquer all mysteries by rule and line” and “Unweave a rainbow”?
In John Keats’s “Lamia” are these lines (231-238), cautioning against a too-eager reductionism, and recalls Wordsworth’s assertion that “we murder to dissect”: There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnostic, apologetics, atheist, philosophy, poetry, reductionism, religion, Richard Dawkins, science
1 Comment
