Reading Time: 9 minutes Everything old is new again, in the world of mainstream reporting on scientific progress. That’s why you can be forgiven for déjà vu if you read this week about cells trained to interact in an environment mimicking the video game Pong. Wait a second, you might have told yourself: Didn’t we do this already? And […]
Consciousness
Posted inScience
What happens to the soul if the brain is brought back to life?
Reading Time: 3 minutes A few years ago, a neuroscience team at Yale University performed some groundbreaking studies on pig brains, showing that after the animal is dead, if the brain is cooled immediately, not all the brain cells die. In fact, they are quite resilient and can be resuscitated if they are provided with the right environment—temperature and […]
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Posted inUncategorized
If Consciousness Were a Noun…
Reading Time: < 1 minute If consciousness were a noun, your mind would be frozen. You’d be a vegetable. Discuss. Stay in touch! Like A Tippling Philosopher on Facebook: A Tippling Philosopher You can also buy me a cuppa. Or buy some of my awesome ATP merchandise! Please… It justifies me continuing to do this!
Posted inUncategorized
2nd Covid Jab, My Multiple Sclerosis, and Qualia
Reading Time: 3 minutes This is what I just wrote on Facebook with regard to having my second covid jab yesterday and how it interacted with my multiple sclerosis: Wow. Oof. I had my second Astra Zeneca vaccine yesterday at about midday. That was a wild night. I thought I’d share my experiences with you in case some of […]
Posted inPhilosophy
Idealism Is More Parsimonious?
Reading Time: 11 minutes Holy crap. So we are now positing that the entire universe “suffers” from a multiple personality disorder because we need to solve a non-problem that we created ourselves out of stubbornly postulating that there is something special and quasi-magical about consciousness. — Massimo Pigliucci Recently, I have been looking into idealism and the beliefs of Bernardo […]
Posted inGeneral
Other Minds and Problems with Idealism
Reading Time: 11 minutes Time to get back to some philosophy. Today we will be briefly looking at the position of idealism as developed by many German philosophers, but including the famous Bishop Berkeley and then taken on by Moravian philosopher Edmund Husserl and other Continental philosophers. Defining our terms Here are some pretty basic definitions of some useful […]
Posted inSpirituality & Ritual, The Secular
God is Not an Old Man in the Sky. Now What?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Dana Horton is back with another look at atheism and spirituality, this time concentrating on what we do with the idea of God. Over to him: God is Not an Old Man in the Sky. Now What? (5-minute read) We often repeat in our posts that God is not an old man in the sky. […]
Posted inPhilosophy
Let’s All Not Look at the Moon and See What Happens
Reading Time: 3 minutes Here’s another guest post from Dana Horton – thanks! Let’s All Not Look at the Moon and See What Happens (5 minute read) Last week we speculated on whether the Universe came from an explosion, a creator, or an emanation. This week let’s take up whether matter is real, or just an out-picturing of something […]
Posted inPhilosophy
An Immaterial Mind Causing the Universe
Reading Time: 4 minutes The other day, I was sent an argument by a commenter on my video discussing the Kalam Cosmological Argument. For the full details of his arguments, please see my post here. William Lane Craig uses an extension to his Kalam Cosmological Argument to conclude that this an immaterial mind, qua God, is necessary to explain […]
Posted inUncategorized
Criticising Craig’s Personal Mind As Causing the Universe
Reading Time: 4 minutes Here is an argument that a commenter on one of my recent YouTube videos on the Kalam Cosmological Argument gave me. It’s actually something I have argued elsewhere (possibly even mentioning in that Kalam series itself). Before I hand over to him, let me remind you of the KCA: Whatever begins to exist has a […]