Persistence | The MIT Press
Another question is possible. What remains of the issues Professor Marie Kurtz poses when an 'elephant in the room' problem is raised?
The problem is that everything you and I know involves private experiences: My idea of you is a private experience. The idea of objects, the idea of objects' persistence spatially and temporally, conversations wherein we refer to common elements and mutual experiences, are private experiences.
Accordingly, if an adequate explanation of private experiences can be advanced, the Law of Parsimony and Occam's Razor would be on its side.
Any such explanations would also imply that arguments for subjective idealism (Bishop Berkeley's suggestion that the idea of an actual world is evidence that cost-saving move on God's part is working) or radical skepticism (I have no way of knowing whether I am imagining you, or whether I am anything more than a brain in a vat manipulated by aliens or Satan ).
A more provocative possibility exists! What has heretofore remained sacred is Descartes' claim: he exists because the fact of doubting guarantees the existence of at least one doubter. In other words, experiences of doubting and of being the cogito thinking or doubting, is also a private experience.
In short, the sceptical impulse has heretofore failed to take up the final challenge.
Chomsky dispels 9/11 conspiracies with sheer logic – YouTube
Chomsky dispels 9/11 conspiracies with sheer logic - YouTube.
Noam Chomsky versus young conservative – YouTube
Another masterful rejoinder.
Notice, in particular, the comment about 4 minutes in, about 'consciously choosing': What does this entail. Is it our consciousness that is doing the choosing or is the choosing occurring through processes that occasionally include consciousness in their proceedings? This is what I think. And I think that this parsimonious bit has escaped Mr. Chomsky's notice - which probably tells us all we need to know about how unlikely it is that the realization will occur widely enough soon enough.
She cured Ebola — using garbage bags and raincoats | Toronto Star
She cured Ebola — using garbage bags and raincoats | Toronto Star.
BBC News – Former Colne high school topless photo teacher banned from classroom
For a number of reasons, I group this incident with an epidemic of politically-correct admonitions and practices.
When things are going south in a hurry, it is important for adults to find ways to burnish their moral and prudential credentials. They often do so by keeping pets in the lap of luxury, by being meticulous in the way they speak so as not to offend anyone, and by operating uber-safe school buses and crossing guards at critical junctures.
All of these activities principally intend to exculpate parents and grandparents from responsibility for the fuck-up that emerged during their watch.
With respect to the torment this student apparently endured, I would not have reported any such teacher to anyone. I would have been delighted to be so instructed.
What was this fellow thinking? Did the teacher not come up to the pornographic standards he was accustomed to? Did he seize an opportunity to stick it to an establishment figure the way young people often do? If so, this is well and good. We have all been there.
What is wrong is the way school boards and helicoptering adults seize every opportunity to make themselves important by diminishing the adequacy of common sense, community and natural life.
Are Burkas not lurking down this road?
BBC News - Former Colne high school topless photo teacher banned from classroom.
BBC News – Italy pushes ahead with ‘next generation’ biofuels from waste
BBC News - Italy pushes ahead with 'next generation' biofuels from waste.