- Belief is not a voluntary thing. A man believes or disbelieves in spite of himself. They tell us that to believe is the safe way; but I say, the safe way is to be honest. —Robert Ingersoll
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Recent Posts
- Two Types of Atheism
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- Coherence of Naturalism
- Skepticism, Pragmatism and Empiricism
- Mind-Stuff
- Are Mountains Real?
- Elon Musk is bad at math
- Defining Naturalism the Right Way
- Roundess & What is Real
- John Shook’s analysis of Naturalism
- What is naturalism?
- Preface to Atheism
- Georges Lemaître & Naturalism as History
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- Muse is the Antidote
- Fallacies of the Naive Observer
- Mind is the Brain Improving Itself
- Why Something Rather Than Nothing?
- Rough Notes about Consciousness
- Do We Live in a Simulation?
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Category Archives: Nature of Knowledge
Skepticism, Pragmatism and Empiricism
From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Pragmatism… Richard Rorty (1931–2007) turned consciously to pragmatism to rectify what he saw as mainstream epistemology’s crucial mistake: naively conceiving of language and thought as ‘mirroring’ the world. Rorty’s bold and iconoclastic … Continue reading
Mind-Stuff
Summary: Mind-stuff refers to sensations and meanings (which are also sensations) produced using (probably) reference frames stored in the cerebral cortex/neocortex. How does mind-stuff relate to the world? Our thoughts and feelings, our sensations and memories, are the only medium … Continue reading
Are Mountains Real?
[Post at Preface to Atheism, Apr 27, 2024.] When philosophers ask if something is real, they mean: Does it exist independently of our thoughts? Whose thoughts, exactly? Well, generally, human thoughts. Our in this context means us as a species. … Continue reading
Posted in Naturalism, Nature of Knowledge, Preface to Atheism, Simulacrum
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Elon Musk is bad at math
[Post at Preface to Atheism, Apr 11, 2024] Is Elon Musk bad at mathematics? The suggestion may not shock readers who remember him foolishly paying $44 billion for Twitter (now X). For that I give him a pass. He wanted … Continue reading
Posted in Naturalism, Nature of Knowledge, Preface to Atheism, Uncategorized
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Roundess & What is Real
[Post at Preface to Atheism, Sept 16, 2023.] It’s natural to assume that what we see when we open our eyes is what the world looks like, that we see it as is. Sure, there may be more to it … Continue reading
Posted in Naturalism, Nature of Knowledge, Preface to Atheism, Uncategorized
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What is naturalism?
[This was my second post on Preface to Atheism, Aug 23, 2023.] In my first post I talked about my sudden flip to a natural worldview when I was young. I mentioned that I didn’t call what I believed naturalism … Continue reading
Posted in Naturalism, Nature of Knowledge, Preface to Atheism, Uncategorized
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Preface to Atheism
[Preface to Atheism is a blog I started on SubStack. What follows is the first post from Aug 18, 2023] In this Substack, I will advocate atheism as entailed by the meta philosophy of naturalism rather than atheism based on … Continue reading
Posted in Naturalism, Nature of Knowledge, Preface to Atheism, Uncategorized
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Fallacies of the Naive Observer
Today I’m going to discuss a fallacy common to observers of the physical world (people like us), one which has significant practical importance. I call it the naive observer fallacy, and it goes something like this. (1) Observers bring biases … Continue reading
Posted in Atheology, Naturalism, Nature of Knowledge, Simulacrum, Supernaturalism
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Mind is the Brain Improving Itself
Intelligence is being able to see what is right in front of you. Ignorance is looking at the world before you and seeing what you were taught to see. For thousands of years people looked at the night sky and … Continue reading
Posted in Atheology, Naturalism, Nature of Knowledge, Simulacrum, Uncategorized
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Rough Notes about Consciousness
I suspect that no topic has been obfuscated with more nonsense—religious, philosophical or scientific—than consciousness. First, the focus on what consciousness “is” usually starts at the wrong place, at what might be called “high up” complex consciousness, rather than beginning … Continue reading
Posted in Atheology, Naturalism, Nature of Knowledge, Simulacrum
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