I must admit I am a little sensitive to this: nationalism. Also, to the sister of this metaphor: patriotism. I have been playing with this idea for a while. And it came to a head at a Rotary Conference in Spokane this June, where someone was playing to an audience and being somewhat a touch … Continue reading Nationalism
Author: rom
As a point of disclosure, I think Donald Trump is a terrible President. I cannot help but dislike the man. I don't care about his hair, his orange complexion, the size of his hands, his inability to string together coherent sentences or his alleged infidelities. Ultimately these are irrelevant to the job, though speaking coherently … Continue reading Trump: Doing Well?
I started reading How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan. I have not got very far into the book, but it is about using entheogens (psychoactive drugs) in some way to activate one's spiritual mind. I quickly skimmed through the book and it did not have a single chemical structure in it. And being … Continue reading Chemical Spirituality
Agnosticism Very Short Introduction - Robin Le Poidevin While in the UK, I was looking for the VSI* book on consciousness, as the assistant was looking at the rack for the book, Madeleine pointed out this book on agnosticism. This is the fourth book I have read about agnosticism presumably by agnostics, they were: In … Continue reading Manifesto
I am going to tackle a difficult problem here. I am not an expert here, not even an expert on my own experience of consciousness. Quite often it is described as The Hard Problem. Some pundits don’t see it as a problem at all. Problem or not, all is not well in the house of … Continue reading Consciousness
One of the first pieces I ever wrote on the web was about agnosticism. Before James died there was little spare time for writing nevermind spare time for thought. I had recently opened a personal web page. I decided to put some time into it. Agnosticism was my chosen subject. When I put finger to … Continue reading Agnosticism
My wife spends a little bit of time with Ann almost on a weekly basis when the universe allows. Ann is sort of a guru, that provides insights into the way the universe is unfolding, and perhaps how to respond to that unfolding. This afternoon I asked my wife what they spoke about in this … Continue reading Love
A while back I read this book, The Jesus Sayings by Rex Weyler. Weyler uses his journalistic talents to look through a whole host of documentation including Josephus’s stories, Paul’s letters, the Gospels of Thomas and Mary, and Q collections, some 200 documents in all. Rex Weyler I don't have any dog in the fight … Continue reading The Jesus Sayings
This blog is a rebuttal of some arguments found in Marvin Edwards' essay on free will. For full disclosure, I am monistically inclined. And I cannot do otherwise but find remnants of dualism in Marvin Edwards' essay. While dualism can be useful to model this universe, it is fundamentally wrong, at least in my opinion. … Continue reading Deception
When discussing free will, people quite often refer to it as an emergent property. Emergence is described by Wikipedia as an entity having properties its parts do not have, due to interactions among the parts. This is fair enough. Sure, humans behave differently to molecules that make up the body; but so what? The assembled … Continue reading Emergence
rom's corner 