A philosophy blog 24 Jul 2010 I have only just found the blog Journeyman Philosopher by Paul Mealing, a fellow Australian. It is a thoughtful and infrequent blog in which he deals with everything from quantum mechanics and time through to popular culture and speciation. I strongly recommend subscribing to this one. Mealing is a writer, not a professional philosopher (as you might have inferred from the title), which makes his posts the more remarkable. And he’s even been mentioned by Larry Niven! Administrative Philosophy AdministrativePhilosophy
Metaphysics Why am I not speaking at 2012 Global Atheism? 28 Oct 201128 Oct 2011 Next year, in Melbourne, where I live and 2 hours from where I have been living over the past several years, the Global Atheism Convention will be held. I am an Australian practical atheist (and philosophical Agnostic, which will become significant in a minute), who has published in The Australian… Read More
Administrative Go vote for Grrl 12 Sep 2009 GrrlScientist, who blogs at Living the Scientific Life, is in third place to go to the Antarctic as guest of a tour company’s competition. She’s catching up on second place, which is currently held by a son of Donny Osmond. She needs your vote, so if you have already voted… Read More
Administrative And so to Tucson 10 Mar 200818 Sep 2017 Yesterday John Lynch (he of the Stranger Fruit) took me to see the Arizona Museum of Natural History in Mesa, which had some truly excellent displays of the feathered dinosaurs from China (they wouldn’t let me photograph them, though, and none of the souvenir postcards had them either, but see… Read More
Well, after a few comments with him. I’m afraid that either I’m pretty ordinary (as in brain dead) at thinking or Paul is just someone who finds it profound to proffer arguments from ignorance and incredulity. He finds the statement ‘The greatest mystery of the universe is that it created consciousness,’ even meaningful. It’s like asking why is there something rather than nothing? Argument from ignorance.
Just to demonstrate my militant atheist qualities. What does he mean by the universe creating anything? Is it god? Spinoza…..
For my part, I was rather unimpressed at Brian’s commenting style. Leaving aside the content of his comments, what irks me more is Brian’s failure to take responsibility for saying what he intends to say the first time he says it. At one point Brian posts three comments in a row, and later a further two comments in a row. We all occasionally need to write a postscript, but doing so with such regularity smacks both of laziness and of hogging the microphone. (It did not take long for Brian to dominate the ‘recent comments’ widget.) I think this is a bad habit. If it were my blog, I would have edited Brian’s comments by putting some of the postscripts in with the originals, and then deleting the former.
I think it’s just a very emotive topic for some folks Flesh eating dragon and one that it is difficult to grasp opposing perspectives or find any value in diffrent approaches. Presenting a fundamental and exagerated argument and going on academic jihad can be usefull and certainly in my time at uni. somewhat typical in the early stages of a debate. But it’s when both sides start to move, identify the fault lines in there own approach and meet in the middle that they are most succesfull. Somewhat problematic when they don’t and a particular identity becomes static and entrenched.