I watched the Frank Capra directed film, “It’s A Wonderful Life.” My wife and I viewed it together. It is one of her favorite films. With each viewing of this 1946 film, a Christmas fantasy tale from our parents generation, I understand better why the story has become one of her favorites. The philosophical…
We discussed ideas from an essay by Stephen Law. Law took pains to show that the concept of language games developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein late in his career do not provide immunity for theists from the intellectual assault of those who simply cannot believe. I do not use the term “unbeliever” because it is…
A few days remain before Christmas. At this juncture in life, I am able to call to memory past Christmas seasons. Christmas is the high point of a year, is it not? A season of ending, as well as a season of anticipation. Something is about to begin. The ending and the beginning are…
Society is an imaginary sphere in which different processes of signification interweave and interfere. The symbolic organization of this imaginary sphere is an effect of signification. I define “signification” as the building of a bridge of shared illusion over the abyss of the absence of meaning. Reality, by contrast, can be described as the…
What is outdated is not asking what is true and what is just, but viewing science…relegating it to the status of unlegitimated learning, half knowledge… The question, “What is your argument worth, what is your proof worth?” is so much a part of the pragmatics of scientific knowledge that is what assures the transformation…
The difficulty with rape, is getting past the emotional wave of horror and revulsion, to ask “how are such acts possible in this or any civilized society?” The #Me Too movement is not new. Women have lived under the threat, and some have suffered from this manner of violence for 2000 years and longer….
Another grey winter-like day. More similar days are to come. Much in life must be accepted. In the state of Georgia the scrum intensifies leading up to the January runoff between a pair of Republican and a pair of Democratic candidates. The outcome will determine which party controls the Senate. What if any difference…
And we, who have always thought of happiness as rising, would feel the emotion that almost overwhelms us whenever a happy thing falls. — Rainer Maria Rilke, The Tenth Elegy I suppose that my first few months of life were happy. That is speculation. I am not certain that I have at any time…
One might argue that the refinement and miniaturization of the intelligent machine, linked to the introduction of fuzzy dynamics in the quantic activity of AI, will lead androids to behave consciously… It is philosophically false, because consciousness is not behavior, but self-perception and self-judgment, self-enjoyment and self-loathing. this is the distinctive feature – ethical…
Yes, most of the posts have been rather dark. There’s the second law of thermodynamics, the fall toward entropy, which is unpleasant and irresistible to contemplate. Things come apart, the center does not hold. That is only part of the story as many of us know. A year represents a sliver of time, a…
