I will, nearly randomly, raise a psychological issue: even secular, atheist, non-spiritual types can interpret events as signs and make decisions treating those events as a kind of message to be listened to. It seems like the mods there and Rick, whatever he is, have had mixed feelings about having an open forum for a while. They get various kinds of tech problems caused by bots and they take measures to fix this, but also start mulling over possible fundamental changes in the forum, including just ending it or making it pay only.
Yes, sure. There reactions could simply be: now this truly isn’t worth the bother, we had issues with this the way it is and now it’s a pain in the ass.
But my sense is people, regardless of paradigmatic leanings, even verbally frame this kind of thing in terms that indicate they take it as a kind of sign. I can’t demonstrate that the PN people did this in this case - in part because I can’t go there and look at their wording in reaction to earlier shutdowns. But I have experienced such things being responded to that way by people who do not otherwise fit paradigms where negative (or positive) events are messages.
Humans do have a tendency to personalize and anthropomorphize, so perhaps it just comes naturally to sometimes take something as a message, even if one doesn’t actually think there is an entity that sent a message or is communicating with one.
And I doubt that then most of the category of people I am referring to would then defend it as more than metaphorical.
So the same loons from PN are on here using the same usernames
I wonder if a disgruntled banished PN member is trying to ‘cancel’ it from their exile. You know how nasty and vindictive those ‘be kind’ woke types are.
If you go to the Philosophy Now magazine web site, you’ll notice that there’s no longer the Forum option to click on. That might just be until they have the problem fixed…or it might mean they’ve already decided to scrap it. Rick told me they would eventually address the forum issue in an “announcement”.
Tell Rick James if I’m the asshole that’s causing PN to drop in ratings, I’m willing, with honor and good will toward all philosophers, to resign my membership and accept a socratic exile into the internet wilderness if it means PN can remain a vibrant symposium of ideas and discussion for free thinkers and intellectuals.
Verily, this is my offer.
p.s. i don’t know Robby Tomminson or whoever that is.
Can’t be talking about Iambiguous becuz he’s so fractured and fragmented, he doesn’t even know what he is. So he’d never take a position on anything. He’d just antagonize any available objectivists, left, right or center, after examing the manner in which he has come to construe dasein in a no-god world awash in chance, change and contingency.
Sorry just dis-covered being here belatedly, sorry, and then started to think, I should say something, but thought better of it. Lucky and grateful still being here, esteem coasting , on an unimaginable roll, niw and then in spite of what position taken on a positive side of put upon perceptions of narcissism.
Sorry to hear about ‘Philosophy Now’ then the bot invasion, and that’s why I pulled out or became put out on account.
Seems like an idiot could say good things about self centered ness, but then it really is difficult to stick to a position, not taken.
Talking of the matrix, do you know who my avatar is - something that predates the Matrix but a lot happens in a virtual world - clue - written by the Messiah of cyberpunk.
It doesn’t seem to be as active as PN was. It’s a shame the site went down. It’s kind of ironic that forums are being destroyed by bots that are intended to make things easier for us. It won’t be the first time that technology has turned out to have a double edge to it, I suppose.
