Footnotes2Plato

“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”
–Alfred North Whitehead

Author: Matthew David Segall

  • God is Three Things

    People are always talking about God, but they use the same word for three different people. Call it the Holy Trinity if you must. God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God the Father is the material world, all the stuff out there (points around). God the Son is the body, an incarnate…

  • Masculine Minds make for Selfish Genes

    Either altruism is possible, or it isn’t, and this goes for both nature and humanity. I happen to think altruism is possible, and that the human being is just one of the most striking examples of it. Equally striking are our bodies themselves, composed of trillions of cells who somehow have chosen to participate in…

  • The Living Cosmos

    ‘ve been struggling with how to bring teleology back into scientific cosmology (by which I mean the development of the entire universe, from the birth of matter and energy, to stars and planets, to cells and animals…). It is difficult, because we are so used to seeing the world as a collection of blind atoms.…

  • What’s Going On?

    I didn’t know where else to start… But now I see I can’t! To say what is going on, I need to know how it all began. Problem is I have access only to the present. I have memories, sure; but these are not the past. And I plan, but for a future which never…

  • Biology Culture Wars

    From Wonderist: First I want to say that the closest I’ve heard to a serious shift in thinking is with epigenetics, for which there is *actually* evidence that it occurs in life.With that out of the way, I’ll boil down my point. Let’s say you have a well-known metaphor A, and a lesser-known metaphor B.…

  • Being No One

    Canteatpancakes Love your videos, Love your comments, I’m a giant Alan Watts fan my self I’ve found Thomas Metzinger to be a great addition to his ideas, have you read Being No One? The functional boundary between a supposed internal and external world seems to me nothing more then a evolutionary tool which can not…

  • Curing Philosophy

    Wittgenstein’s model philosopher would act like a physician, though instead of trying to cure physical ailments, he would attempt to relieve metaphysical tension. The philosopher is a doctor of the mind, more commonly known as a psychologist. His task is to keep the language from misunderstanding itself. This, in turn, prevents people from becoming insane.…

  • Embody Your Soul

    Honesty is only possible if one agrees with oneself. If an inner conflict persists, one can only delay the truth, or lie. If we can befriend ourselves, speaking the truth becomes a possibility. Telling the truth consists in carrying the inside, out. Truth reveals what is of itself so, but which had prior to its…

  • I am Time

    Suffering,or bliss. Do not be disturbed. Do not lose your head. Do not knot your soul. There is no testimony, no measuring of miss. The either/or is mysterious, that’s sure. Just hear it. Then see it. Now taste it. What have you found? Ask your mind what it is like… go on. Four dimensions: The…

  • Integrating Rationality

    Prickles, I’m gooey and you’re prickly. This may be the root of our disagreement… -Goo —————————- Goo, i think there my be a distinction in the ‘personality’ of our philosophy… heres what ive been thinking though regarding our discussion: Like i said before, and im going to try to make more clear in another video……

  • Hofstadter, Wittgenstein, Varela: Loops, Language, Poesis

    The purpose of this essay is to display how the Enlightenment’s arête became its hamartia. In other words, it is to show how Modernity’s greatest virtue became its tragic flaw. Its virtue was to separate the Big Three: the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. This differentiation lead to all the positive aspects of Modern…

  • Love of Wisdom

    To you, As long as we’ve known each other, even intimately at least for brief episodes, there seems to remain something hidden between us. It is not something so simple as a secret kept by one of us from the other, but rather seems to be something we share but are unwilling or unable to…

  • Phenomenology and Science

    Science (empirical observation coupled with logical deduction), as a way of thinking, has undoubtedly made more out of mankind than any other mode of thought in his historical arsenal. In both the material and mental spheres, man has used the knowledge and technology that he has gained from science to make many great practical advances.…

  • A Fable of Time and Eternity

    Writing is weaving, and weaving is telling a story. This evening’s readings began with pen and paper, but alas, the well ran dry and my lines became blank. So back inside I went —leaving my medieval manuscript face open on the porch chair with the sterile hollowness of a quill that it was laying flat…

  • The Essence of Religion

    Preface It has been suggested that all modern philosophy begins with doubt (JC, p. 80). When one philosophizes, they agree to take nothing for granted, and even to question themselves backward into a corner if need be. Cornering oneself in such a way becomes the goal of philosophical inquiry, as once trapped by one’s own…

  • Myth and Mentation

    Belief is creation. Human beings cannot escape the relationship between the formative powers of their imagination and the world itself. Thought is reality. Yes, we have science; we have response to thought. We can test our thoughts and gauge their efficacy. We can produce statistics and build models. But these responses are still thoughts, still…

  • YouTube

    Video doesn’t afford us the same intensity of individuality that the printed word provides. Speaking aloud into the internet is emersion in the Other. Writing affords an author time for reflection and debate. One can “catch their breath” before they pronounce the world, gather supplies before setting off to sea. Marshall Mcluhan said that “every…

  • Inside and Outside

    Why does my mind matter more than my body? Why is it that it’s what’s inside that counts? Isn’t the shape and character of my face as much “me” as the trends and moods of my personality? Aren’t they each a symptom of the other? My personality is my reaction to the other faces I’ve…

  • Impersonal text for no one in particular

    Talking out loud is tiring, it is inevitably personalizing. If I want to stick to impersonality,it pays to write. Remaining faceless avoids the glare. Spontaneously talking into a camera to post your face on the Internet is pornographic. It is pop-thought, public nudity, mass consciousness. It is confronting the superego and shouting spells at him…

  • To TheModernMystic (YouTube)

    TheModernMystic @ YouTube.com Nick, the gap has been leaped. 1st person and 3rd person are equally illusory. No “I” and no “it”. There is no single observer just like there is no single observed. In fact, there is no observer or observed at all, they are not two. Thou art That. I am It. No,…

  • Ego trying to transcend Ego

    Oh, I am dizzy from the never ending torment of chasing my own tail around and around and around. I feel deflated, not for any particular reason, but more so because I need a reason not to be. Why spirituality? Why demand that existence be meaningful? Because it just feels so much better that way!…