My recent comments on Pharyngula Excerpts from my comments: I should have written “all-loving” instead of “all-powerful” twice. Just a typo, nothing esoteric. The “etc.” was a placeholder for all the other typical attributes (infinite, eternal…). I wouldn’t say these attributions are necessarily incorrect, they are just inadequate descriptors. Cataphatic theology must be balanced by… Read more
PZ Myers’ blog post: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/10/eight_reasons_you_wont_persuad.php Some excerpts from my comments (beginning around #403): The sort of god PZ has decreed impossible to believe in has little in common with Augustine’s, or Plotinus’, or Aquinas’, or with any other great theologian’s God. Natural science is epistemically closed to theological issues, not because they are unreal, but… Read more
A quick contextualizing note for those who are just joining the tangled thread of my recent blogalogue concerning the nature of consciousness and its relationship with the nervous system and surrounding cosmos: Last month, Steve Ramirez, a PhD candidate at MIT, posted an entry on his blog (http://okaysteve.wordpress.com/) concerning neuroscience’s supposed successes explaining the “problem” of consciousness purely… Read more
This is my textual response to Steve Ramirez’s post: Steve, First, thanks for taking the time to rebut, in writing, some of my statements concerning consciousness on YouYube. As a thinker, I can hardly think of a more helpful gift than a detailed counter-posturing in response to my ideas. I think consciousness is involved in… Read more
The following is a video response I posted on YouTube to a blog post by Steve Ramirez about consciousness and neuroscience. He writes the following: Matthew Segall, known popularly as “0ThouArtThat0″ on youtube, is as eloquent as any up and coming philosopher – an eloquence rivaled in magnitude only by his deep misunderstanding of how science… Read more
Here is a message and my response that I’ve exchanged over on YouTube as 0ThouArtThat0. From YouTube user drchaffee: Thanks for understanding that I wasn’t trying to demean you with my length-constrained message to your video. I’ve had a question rolling around in my head for a couple of days, and I just… Read more
“In one sense philosophy does nothing. It merely satisfies the entirely impractical craving to probe and adjust ideas which have been found adequate each in its special sphere of use. In the same way the ocean tides do nothing. Twice daily they beat upon the cliffs of continents and then retire. But have patience and look deeper; and you find that in the end whole continents of thought have been submerged by philosophic tides, and have been rebuilt in the depths awaiting emergence. The fate of humanity depends upon the ultimate continental faith by which it shapes its action, and this faith is in the end shaped by philosophy.”
—Alfred North Whitehead
© 2006-2026 Matthew David Segall