Tag Archives: identity theory

My Mind Is Not My Brain

Posted on August 9, 2022 by Abigail

My Mind Is Not My Brain How much hangs on that denial – or on its contradictory, that my mind is my brain! If our minds are our brains, as I once thought, and as our educated contemporaries mostly still … Continue reading →

Posted in Absurdism, Academe, Action, Afterlife, Alienation, Anthropology, Art, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Biblical God, books, bureaucracy, Christianity, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, hidden God, history of ideas, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Immortality, Institutional Power, Judaism, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Masculinity, Medieval, memory, Mind Control, Modern Women, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, morality, Mortality, motherhood, Ontology, Past and Future, Philosophy, Poetry, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Reading, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, Romance, Romantic Love, science, scientism, secular, self-deception, Sex Appeal, Sexuality, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status, status of women, Suffering, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Theism, Theology, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged ambition, anguish, anxiety, attitudes toward death, brain and memory storage, brain death, brain death and consciousness, cardiac arrest and consciousness, cardiac care, computers and brains, conscious state and neural correlates, cruelty, cynicism, dealing with death, death and denial, death as escape, death as the end, despair, Does God make a difference?, EEG, God hypothesis, God question, identity theory, intellectual courage, life review, localizing conscious experience in the brain, manipulativeness, Materialism, mind/body problem, MRI, NDE, NDE research, NDE studies, near death experience, oblivion, paradigm shift, PET, Philosophical Materialism, physicalism, Pim Van Lommel, Pim Van Lommel's Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience, placebo effect, prejudice, reductionism and culture, reincarnation, right pathway, search for purpose, success fixation, surviving brain death, surviving death, terminal lucidity, the absurd, verifiable afterlife reports, willful blindness | 3 Comments

How A Woman Can Be Liberated

Posted on September 8, 2020 by Abigail

How A Woman Can Be Liberated When I started this column a few years ago, I vowed not to give advice. I even put that in our subtitle: “The Non-Advice Column.” So why am I about to give some? Well, … Continue reading →

Posted in "Absolute Freedom and Terror", Absurdism, Academe, Action, Alienation, American Politics, Anthropology, Art, Art of Living, Autonomy, beauty, books, Childhood, Chivalry, Cities, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Courtship, cults, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Female Power, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, Heroes, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, ID, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Institutional Power, Journalism, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, Masculinity, master, master/slave relation, Memoir, memory, Messianic Age, Mind Control, Modern Women, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, morality, motherhood, novels, Ontology, Oppression, Past and Future, Philosophy, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, radicalism, Reading, Reductionism, relationships, Roles, Romance, Romantic Love, secular, Seduction, self-deception, Sex Appeal, Sexuality, social climbing, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, Sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status, status of women, Suffering, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged a child’s body, a woman’s appeal, adolescence, Advice, American boys, American courtship, anatomy isn’t destiny, biological clock, biological imperative, boys and girls, child’s flexibility, de Beauvoir and Sartre, debts to feminism, European courtship, existentialist feminism, experience as evidence, extreme skepticism, false consciousness, Feminism’s preconditions, Frederich Nietzsche, Freud and women, Freudian theories, gender boundaries, getting dates, girlhood to womanhood, giving advice, growing up, growing up and liking it, ideas and culture, identity as a choice, identity theory, intellectual curiosity, Jean-Paul Sartre’s freedom, Jean-Paul Sartre’s fundamental project, Karl Marx, living a lie, losing inhibitions, male agendas, male-authored theories, moral motivation, natural laws, on the shelf, opinion shapers, personal consciousness and power structure, philosophical feminism, philosophy and courtship, philosophy and eros, playmates, pleasing men, puberty, search for truth, seduction’s consequences, self as an illusion, self-invention, sexual identity claims, Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, testing ideas, the for-itself, trendy thinking, truth and objectivity, truth claims, unfairness to women, women giving up, women’s narratives | Leave a comment

The Meaning of Meaninglessness

Posted on August 20, 2019 by Abigail

I’m reading a book by a philosopher named Susan Wolf about the meaning of life. Or rather, about the importance of meaning in a good life. What prompts such a book? you may ask. Susan Wolf explains that philosophers have … Continue reading →

Posted in Absurdism, Academe, Action, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, books, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Eternity, Ethics, Existentialism, Faith, Fashion, Feminism, Freedom, glitterati, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, hierarchy, history of ideas, ID, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Mind Control, Modernism, Mortality, Oppression, Past and Future, Philosophy, Poetry, Political Movements, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Reading, Reductionism, relationships, Roles, scientism, secular, self-deception, social climbing, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status, status of women, Suffering, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Time, twentieth century, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged curing depression, cynicism, definitions of the good life, depression, despair, empirical evidence, facts and theories, fashionable theories, finding your path, having a passion, human purposes, identity theory, life after death, life’s purposes, little things, meaning of life, meaning of meaning, meaninglessness, mind and brain, opinion shapers, passion for philosophy, personal quandary, philosopher’s books, philosophers, philosophic authors, pointlesslessness, quality time, quantity and quality, skepticism, socially constructed beliefs, socially constructed values, Susan Wolf’s Meaning in Life and Why It Matters, the absurd, the search for meaning, too brief to matter, too small to matter, value judgments, what happens when we die, worldviews | 4 Comments

“Proof of Heaven?”

Posted on April 10, 2018 by Abigail

“Proof of Heaven?” Epicurus, ancient atomist and empiricist that he was, taught that we human beings are composed of large numbers of atoms, each one too tiny to see. So, he maintained, is everything else. When such collections of … Continue reading →

Posted in "Absolute Freedom and Terror", Absurdism, Academe, Action, Afterlife, Alienation, Anthropology, Art, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, Biblical God, Christianity, Cities, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Courtship, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, Guilt and Innocence, Health, hegemony, Heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, ID, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Immortality, Institutional Power, Journalism, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, memory, Mind Control, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, Mortality, Mysticism, novels, Ontology, Past and Future, Peace, Philosophy, Poetry, Political Movements, politics of ideas, post modernism, promissory notes, Propaganda, public facade, Public Intellectual, radicalism, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, scientism, secular, self-deception, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, Sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status, status of women, Suffering, Terror, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Theism, Theology, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged academic presentations, ancient atomism, Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, ants, atomism, brain death, brain surgery, coma, comforts of religion, cultural paradigm, death, death as the end, death is not, determinism, dissolution, divine beauty, divine light, divine Love, E. coli bacteria, Eben Alexander’s Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey Into the Afterlife, enjoying solitude, Epicurus, Esquire magazine, fear of death, Harvard Medical School, heart death, heavenly support, hyper-reality, identity theory, journalistic expose, journey to the after-life, kabbalist, medical credentials, medical warrant, medically inexplicable recovery, mind as brain, moral struggle, near death experience, neocortex, neuroscientists, Omaha Nebraska, paradigm change, physical anxiety, physical vulnerability, received opinion, scientific consensus, scientific fact, Scott Wade, Sioux City Iowa, solitude., stress fracture, surviving brain death, surviving heart death, total death, Ultrasound Surgery Foundation in Charlottesville VA, world of action | Leave a comment

Do Miracles Happen?

Posted on December 27, 2017 by Abigail

Do Miracles Happen? Occasionally something occurs that you or I might be tempted to call “a miracle.” But: what follows when you try to talk about a “miracle” that you think might have happened to you? Despite the Establishment Clause … Continue reading →

Posted in Absurdism, Academe, Action, Afterlife, Alienation, Anthropology, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, Christianity, Class, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Eternity, Ethics, Existentialism, exploitation, Faith, Fashion, Freedom, glitterati, Health, hegemony, Heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history of ideas, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immortality, Institutional Power, Journalism, life and death struggle, Male Power, Masculinity, Memoir, memory, Modernism, Moral action, Moral evaluation, Moral psychology, Mortality, Mysticism, Ontology, Past and Future, Philosophy, politics of ideas, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, scientism, secular, self-deception, social climbing, social construction, Social Conventions, social ranking, Sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status, Suffering, Terror, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, the profane, the sacred, Theism, Theology, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged "Freddie's lost his cool", A.J. Ayer, accepted views, altruism, Analytic philosophy, Anglophone philosophy, annihilation of consciousness, anthologies of religion, Atheism, atheist, atheist anxieties, belief system, body as mechanism, brain damage, brain death, British Humanist Association, brute features of humanity, chance as explanatory, Darwinism, definition of miracles, established religion, Establishment Clause, evolutionary biology, felt futility, First Amendment, fruitful outcome, getting nowhere, heart death, human refinement, identity theory, improbable events, laws of nature, laws of probability, life after death, life deceits, light on the meaning, logical positivism, meaning of life, meaningful events, meaninglessness, mental clatter, mind is brain, miracles, N.D.E., natural selection, near death experience, non-conformism, noticing a miracle, O.B.E., objectivity, origin of space and time, out of body experience, out of the closet, perceiving a miracle, philosophical failure, philosophical success, private experience, randomness, Rationalist Press Association, reductionism, religious doctrine, religious tolerance, role of chance, secular humanism, seeing God, selling the Brooklyn Bridge, sense data, social conformism, social dissent, social excommunication, social isolation, South Place Ethical Society, stopping to listen, stopping to look, Sunday Telegraph, supernatural event, survival drive, synchronicity, synchronous events, target of ridicule, The Big Bang, the material world, the objective world, the selfish gene, theory of evolution, US Constitution, what's a miracle? | 2 Comments

“The Big Picture”

Posted on August 2, 2016 by Abigail

“The Big Picture” Why do we need philosophy? There are entire philosophic orientations, Wittgenstein’s is one, holding that philosophy as traditionally practiced is something to be cured of, and that the only thing philosophy can usefully do is to cure … Continue reading →

Posted in "Absolute Freedom and Terror", Absurdism, Academe, Action, Alienation, American Politics, Anthropology, Art, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, Bible, Biblical God, Chivalry, Christianity, conformism, Contemplation, Contradictions, Courage, Cultural Politics, Culture, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Eternity, Ethics, Evil, Existentialism, Faith, Fashion, Femininity, Feminism, Freedom, Friendship, Gender Balance, Guilt and Innocence, Health, Hegel, hegemony, Heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, History, history of ideas, ID, Idealism, Ideality, Identity, Ideology, Idolatry, Immorality, Immortality, Institutional Power, Jews, Legal Responsibility, life and death struggle, Literature, Love, Male Power, Martyrdom, Masculinity, master, Medieval, Memoir, memory, Messianic Age, Mind Control, Modernism, Mortality, Mysticism, nineteenth-century, Ontology, Oppression, Past and Future, Peace, Phenomenology of Mind, Philosophy, Poetry, Political, Political Movements, politics, post modernism, Power, presence, promissory notes, Propaganda, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Race, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Renaissance, Roles, Romanticism, Seduction, self-deception, Sex Appeal, slave, social climbing, Social Conventions, social ranking, Sociobiology, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, status, status of women, Suffering, Terror, terrorism, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, Theism, Theology, Time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, Violence, War, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged "man will be a god to man", "the best lack all conviction", "the moderns", "the worst are full of passionate intensity", administrators, alienation, automobile manufacturers, autonomous man, autonomous woman, bankers, Battle of Lepanto, Battle of Tours, biblical world view, botanists, chefs, church authority, Church Fathers, Classical world view, common experience, communism, conscience, cosmology, cultural self-condemnation, cultural self-reproach, disaffiliates, disvalued Jews, dualism, expertise, experts, facism, fly in fly bottle, free will, Galileo, Galileo's telescope, Gates of Vienna, geologists, globalization, grammarians, Greco-Roman world view, Hebrew Scripture, house painters, ice cream from the hardware store, identity theory, intelligent will, Islamism, Israelite world view, Jihad, language of specialists, lawyers, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Materialism, metaphysics, micro-particle physicists, mind as brain, mind/body, Modernity, naturalism, newscasters, novelistic lives, Ontology, ordinary language, Patristic writings, personal identity, personal life, philosophic cure, philosophic therapy, philosophical puzzles, philosophy, photographers, physicalism, poets, political Islam, priests, puzzle pieces, qualia, quarrel of the ancients and the moderns, reductionism, religion, religious authority, scientism, secularlism, self-assertion, sins of the West, social life, specialists, supervenience, The Bible, the mind/body problem, the will, the will to power, W.B. Yeats' "The Second Coming", Western Civilization, Wittgenstein's philosophical investigations, Wittgensteinians | Leave a comment

“Proof of Heaven”

Posted on June 7, 2016 by Abigail

“Proof of Heaven” We are in Riverside, California, having arrived from Phoenix, Arizona, where we had a five-minute TV appearance on Pat McMahon’s show, The Morning Scramble. Jerry had had his first radio interview with Pat, an hour-long substantive conversation … Continue reading →

Posted in Action, Afterlife, Alienation, Anthropology, Art of Living, Atheism, Autonomy, beauty, Biblical God, Cities, Contemplation, Contradictions, Cool, Courage, Culture, Desire, Erotic Life, Eternity, Faith, Freedom, Friendship, Health, Heroes, hidden God, Identity, Immortality, life and death struggle, Love, Memoir, memory, Mortality, Past and Future, Peace, Philosophy, politics, Power, Psychology, public facade, Public Intellectual, Reductionism, relationships, Religion, Roles, self-deception, Social Conventions, Sociobiology, spiritual not religious, Spirituality, Suffering, Terror, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Men, The Problematic of Woman, Theism, Theology, Time, twenty-first century, Work, Writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged afterlife, alimentary canal, Arizona, bacterial meningitis, bodily wisdom, body’s viewpoint, brain death, California, cognitive function, cognitive recovery, cognitive survival, coma, cultural change, cultural influence, Dante, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Dante’s Paradise, deathbed communications, Eben Alexander’s Proof of Heaven, empirical evidence, evidence, father-daughter relations, father-son relations, filial piety, heaven and hell, identity theory, liars, life as story, love as force, Materialism, materialist worldview, media visibility, medical team, medical worldview, mind and body, mortality, narrative view, natural law, near-death experiences, neurosurgeons, out of body experiences, paradigm shift, Pat McMahon, peer pressure, performers, personal identity, personal responsibility, philosophers, philosophic influence, philosophic wisdom, philosophical materialists, Phoenix, professional courage, professional duty, professional responsibility, Q & A, radio interviews, Riverside, scientism, talk shows, the Big Questions, The God Show, The Morning Scramble, the paranormal, trip to heaven, truth, truthfulness, TV interviews, untruthfulness | Leave a comment

“Knowing Thyself”

Posted on November 18, 2014 by Abigail

“Knowing Thyself” My right foot has a walking difficulty. I have been trying unsuccessfully to cure it for as long as I’ve had it. That’s about twenty years. No one in the medical field has been able to diagnose it. … Continue reading →

Posted in Action, Cool, Desire, dialectic, Erotic Life, Faith, Femininity, Philosophy, Poetry, Psychology, relationships, Roles, Social Conventions, Spirituality, The Examined Life, The Problematic of Woman | Tagged acupuncture, Aristotle, Authenticity, body rhythm, brain, contradiction, diagnosis, disability, dualism, eliptical, energy, exercise, handicap, hope, hypothesis, identity theory, Materialism, medication, medicine, mental causation, MRI, neurology, physical causation, placebo effect, psychic healing, psychosomatic, psychotherapy, riding, sincerity, strolling, symptoms, The Mind-Body Problem, the will, therapeutic riding, Total Gym, walking, yoga | 5 Comments

“Grief”

Posted on May 13, 2014 by Abigail

“Grief” Of late, it’s been one friend down after another. They’re falling over like soldiers raked with machine gun fire, each one opening another gap in the serried ranks. With every loss, one feels a whole dimension of one’s self … Continue reading →

Posted in Academe, Culture, Friendship, Philosophy, relationships | Tagged Aging, brain, death of a friend, elegy, fallen comrades, grief, grief support, identity, identity theory, Kaddish, life story, lifetime, loss of a friend, Materialism, meditation, mourning, mourning a death, mourning a loss, Nevermore, philosophy, soldiers, The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe, the self, witness | 4 Comments

“Materialism”

Posted on October 17, 2013 by Abigail

“Materialism” Sometimes, when I am feeling particularly out of sorts, I imagine how my day or week would look to me if I were a materialist. That makes me feel better, because I remember that I’m not one. By “materialist” … Continue reading →

Posted in Academe, Culture, Desire, Erotic Life, history of ideas, Literature, Philosophy, Political, Psychology, relationships, Sexuality, Social Conventions, The Examined Life | Tagged 13th century physics, Aristotle, Beatrice, Beatrice Portinari, cognitive science, Dante, Dante Alighieri, death of a parent, Divine Comedy, erotic quick fix, false consciousness, father's death, Florence, George Gilder, heaven, heliocentrism, hell, hook-up culture, identity theory, love, Materialism, May-Day, paradox, physical brain, Ptolemy, purgatory, reductionism, sociology, soul's journey, the soul, Thomas Nagel, Thomas Wolfe | 6 Comments

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“Grief”

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