“Ultimate Reality”?

It’s tempting to be sold on the idea of “ultimate reality”; that there exists something deeper than the reality we have, and that is the real arbiter that justifies or disconfirms the validity of our beliefs; the very concept of truth or even the mark scheme against which beliefs are considered more or less defensible…

To exist

What does it mean to exist? I obviously can’t answer that ― no one can. But permit me, if you will, a perspective. I think existence can be subdivided into genres of existence, and not everything that is ‘true’ necessarily exists. There is the most obvious kind of existence, which is a physical presence in…

Truth: is it coherent? (A follow up on Sam Harris and Jordan B Peterson)

Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson, a very long time ago now, had their first podcast together. Whatever their schedule, their conversation turned to a massive disagreement about the concept of truth. It wasn’t about whether ‘truth’ is ever attainable, they disagreed about what it literally is. And, despite the commentary, it is not a case…

Sam Harris and Jordan B Peterson: On truth

As part of Sam Harris’ Waking Up podcast, Harris invited someone I had not heard of ― Jordan B Peterson ― with a schedule that, I presume, included discussions of morality and religion. However, Harris and Peterson ended up having a disagreement about what it means for something to be true. Harris didn’t really offer…

Did man create God?

Did man create God? Yes. I like to pick questions a part a little, and so I’m going to do that with this question, focussing on the words “create” and “God”. Firstly, I’m going to present a slightly facetious argument to help unpick the word “God”, and then I’m going to present a much more…

“All religions are true, in that the metaphor is true”?

When responding to Stephen Fry’s prose on a “stupid God”, Russell Brand shared a quote that pops in and out of the public consciousness: all religions are true, in that the metaphor is true. The actual quote is “Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it…

I like being around beauty

I like beauty; if I have to fill my life with things, I should appreciate the aesthetics of those things. And I don’t like having to defend myself for this. I have been accused of being a misogynist and a chauvinist for this. But that is a misunderstanding (or oversensitivity) about what beauty is. Beauty…

9. If there is No God, then we don’t Know Anything

If our brains are the result of evolution then our brains are tuned to believe things that are adaptively useful. The Christian in this book points out that if the truth is that a plant is poisonous then all our brain has to do is believe a claim that stops us from eating it: that…

Happy and Ignorant or Miserable and Knowledgeable

In my last post I said I would choose happiness and ignorance over misery and knowledge, if somehow those were my options, almost without hesitation. But it wasn’t without hesitation. I took many years to overcome my sense of pride that I associate with knowledge and to recognise the true bliss of just being happy.…

Scientism

Wikipedia defines scientism thusly: “Scientism is a term used, usually pejoratively, to refer to belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints. It has been defined as "the…