Wait, wait, so the Fanim are among the most wrong? Tbh I considered them the one safe harbor in the ocean of crackpottery, and now I just don't know what to think anymore.

Morality as such, however, is universal.

No, my question is: why wasn't Achamian's immediate reaction "let's go look at Kellhus with the Judging Eye like right fucking now then" instead of the slog to ishual. It just really, really stands out

Only after Ishual turned out to be a waste of time iirc

You sound remarkably something like a techno-Buddhist.

Really interesting speculations in this thread. I really wish we got some descriptions of Paradise.

Quote from: Baztek on August 09, 2017, 10:06:53 pm

There's really nothing new science is telling us that a intuition, arduous study, and introspection hasn't already revealed.

Here's my problem with your argument: Science confirms Buddha's insight (that there's no self-moving soul) -> extrapolation -> "There's really nothing new science is telling us that a intuition, arduous study, and introspection hasn't already revealed."
Buddha may even have been somewhat blind to his own insight, given his religion's seemingly need for a soft version of free will. This is the essence. Science reveals those blindnesses.

You think I'm implying science needed to confirm these insights so Buddhists can breathe a little easier. If anything science just peeked under the hood to get a better look at why the engine keeps catching when the Buddha et al diagnosed it as a transmission problem millennia ago. Like okay the analogy isn't perfect because Buddhism still proposes a solution that is more of an inner science than an objective one but you get the idea.

 

Quote from: The Sharmat on August 10, 2017, 12:49:40 am

Science can't contradict these philosophical concepts because human scientific knowledge of these areas is still extremely rudimentary.

My point wasn't that it fundamentally can't (that question is open, but it's a fair bit more advanced than what I had in mind). I was talking precisely about science being somewhere at the start of a long road to quite possibly gaining those much needed new perspectives on philosophical issues. Not to mention relevant information obtained through the scientific method is valuable even if it doesn't further philosophical understanding.

I think people who think science can, say, explain subjectivity qua subjectivity don't really understand the problem. Try to imagine in your mind some hypothetical solution to consciousness, some diagram, formula, description, etc. that once and for all, explains, say, how/why the experience of my watching film x is the way it is or whatever in such a way that is immediately accessible to concrete intuition.

Something like, "the lighting in the scene affects you in the register of melancholy because tensor fields in your neurons resonate according to this particular frequency in a way orthogonal to the synaptic gap", like some bullshit like that, and you'll see how completely absurd it is to try to propose a thoroughly mechanical explanation of how any particular conscious experience isn't already what it is, but really [tortured physical explanation provided by physicalist who just twisted himself into a pretzel trying to get it out]