Categories
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Glossary of free-will debate terms
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How to subscribe to LDS-Herm. An LDS theology and continental philosophy mailing list.
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Economics and utilitarianism
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The new Philosopher's Carnival is up.
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On the Null set
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The book Shopping for God and Mormonism. Interesting discussion in the comments.
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FPR on John's account of Christmas is Revelation. I bring up 1 Ne 11 which is tied to Rev 12.
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FPR on Myth analysis and Mormonism. I tend to take the poststructuralist skepticism although I confess I have a lot of myth-criticism books on my shelf.
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Against Evolutionary Psychology explanations of women with narrow waists and big hips. EP in my view oversimplifies things and produces "just so" explanations. I honestly can't figure out why they are so popular in the press.
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Should cousins be banned from marrying? Would anyone want to anymore? For some reason I always think of rural areas where people have lived stably for a long time with little outflow or inflow of populations. Where is that true now?
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Razib on the follies of economics. I don't know enough to say much beyond noticing that many economic majors have horrible math skills. Not all do of course. But when math is such a big part of modeling it always left me with heavy skepticism towards the profession. Undoubtedly unfairly so since there are many very well versed in math and statistics. I'm also skeptical of the "rational actor" model that is behind so much.
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... the production of spontaneous facial expressions of emotion is not dependent on observational learning but simultaneously demonstrates a learned component to the social management of expressions... (HT: Gene Expression) Not that surprising all things considered. I suspect most human phenomena ends up being about 50-50 learned vs. wired. But there's still a lot of folks who push the nurture basis way too much.
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Happiness and those around you. Argues your happiness doesn't depend upon your friends.
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Reading Burn After Reading. Coen meet Freud.
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Public vs. Public Morality
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Vallicella on Eliminative Materialism. Also see his post on what Eliminative Materialism is.
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Richard refutes Anselm. I think just thinking through all the ways to refute the ontological argument are interesting. It's an excellent problem to think through. I like Kant's existence is not a property approach best. Marion also has a discussion about whether the ontological argument is ontological at all. I'm not sure I agree with Marion (on numerous things) but it is interesting.
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Far Side reenactments (HT: BCC)
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What is the Mormon answer to the meaning of life? I always took us as more Nietzschean than Utilitarian. That is I think happiness isn't the meaning of life but merely something we obtain while pursuing it.
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Nauvoo polygamy. Fantastic discussion that made me reconsider several things. (Although the trolls come in after a while) Also a the earlier post on the same which has some great comments as well.
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FPR on the Divine Council in Hebrew literature.
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Brains and spirituality. Or why discovering cognitive units for spirituality should be expected and not be shocking to the religious person.
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Intuitions of free will. Not at all unexpectedly different people have different intuitions.
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The Sorites paradox and non-standard arithmetic. Great post. This issue of vagueness is one of my favorite philosophical topics.
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Volokh makes the case that voters of both parties are ignorant. The scariest thing about our democracy is how elections are rarely decided on the issues.
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More Entries

Mormons, Productivity, Intelligence and Living Alone

Interesting post up at The Audacious Epigone (HT: Gene Expression) Mormons are the least likely of 19 denominations examined to live alone. Also Mormons are the second highest for having an income beyond what intelligence alone predicts. (Jews being first)

Economics and Utilitarianism

Economics and utilitarianism

LDS Theological Methodology

Over on LDS-Herm Jacob Baker posted a nice little bibliography of papers relevant for discussing LDS theological method. This has been a topic of interest to many the past years as more formal thinking about our theology has flourished. While I think writing on specific topics is still underdeveloped there has been a [...]

Philosopher’s Carnival

The new Philosopher’s Carnival is up.

Anselm’s Ontological Proof for God

I’d mentioned on the sidebar Richard’s discussion of the ontological proof for God. I wanted to return to this since I think the proof is just one of the most interesting arguments in philosophy. It’s been characterized many ways and most of the variations we have today owe at least as much to [...]

Null Sets

On the Null set

Shopping for God

The book Shopping for God and Mormonism. Interesting discussion in the comments.

Mary and Revelation

FPR on John’s account of Christmas is Revelation. I bring up 1 Ne 11 which is tied to Rev 12.

Myth

FPR on Myth analysis and Mormonism. I tend to take the poststructuralist skepticism although I confess I have a lot of myth-criticism books on my shelf.

EP and Narrow Waists

Against Evolutionary Psychology explanations of women with narrow waists and big hips. EP in my view oversimplifies things and produces “just so” explanations. I honestly can’t figure out why they are so popular in the press.

Kissing Cousins

Should cousins be banned from marrying? Would anyone want to anymore? For some reason I always think of rural areas where people have lived stably for a long time with little outflow or inflow of populations. Where is that true now?

Follies of Economics

Razib on the follies of economics. I don’t know enough to say much beyond noticing that many economic majors have horrible math skills. Not all do of course. But when math is such a big part of modeling it always left me with heavy skepticism towards the profession. Undoubtedly unfairly so [...]

Facial expressions

… the production of spontaneous facial expressions of emotion is not dependent on observational learning but simultaneously demonstrates a learned component to the social management of expressions… (HT: Gene Expression) Not that surprising all things considered. I suspect most human phenomena ends up being about 50-50 learned vs. wired. But there’s [...]

Anodyne Age

Secular Right has up a post on an anodyne age.
“We live in an age when religion is good, just not too much, or too strange.”

Happiness and Groups

Happiness and those around you. Argues your happiness doesn’t depend upon your friends.

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