A US Supreme Court ruling recently overturned abortion as a fundamental right and it has brought the issue of abortion to the forefront. In this post, I will discuss the problems with rights and freedoms, why they can never form a coherent legal doctrine, and how society is lost in strife when a legal system …
Why the Material World is Called an Illusion
Imagine that you are sitting inside a room. You will likely say that there is a space, inside which there is a planet, in which there is a country, inside which there is a city, inside which there is a house, inside which there is a room, inside which the body is currently situated. If …
The Personification of Knowledge
Modern logic is defined by three principles—identity (A is A), non-contradiction (it cannot be both and A and not-A), and mutual exclusion (it cannot be neither A and not-A). In Vedic philosophy, we will call this a dualistic logic in the sense that the categories neither and both are logically forbidden forever. This dualistic logic …
The Psychology of Fonts
Aristotle divided all Platonic forms into two classes—theoretical and practical. The theoretical forms could be quantified by converting them into geometry, essentially reducing them to shape. The practical forms, such as beauty, justice, and truth, could not be so converted and had to be decided by people’s intuition, opinions, or choices. Thus, a classic divide …
The Modal Conception of Reality
Epistemology in the West is defined as the “theory of knowledge”, especially with regard to the methods of knowing and questions about whether these methods deliver truth. However, owing to numerous dualisms in Western philosophy, including the strict separation between the observer and the observed, it has never been clear if knowledge is possible. Even …
What is a Machine?
A few articles ago, I discussed the nature of Personhood as six traits—self-awareness, intention, emotion, cognition, conation, and relation. Then we discussed Personalism vs. Depersonalization: A person is governed by free will and the depersonalized is governed by laws. As a follow-up, in this article, I will discuss what I mean by a machine in …
So, You Are Saying …
I have many amusing and yet frustrating exchanges where people tell me: So, you are saying <something which I never said>. Then I refute that claim and clarify it. But then I get even more amusing and frustrating answers: So, you are saying <some new concoction which I never said>. Can you confirm? Sometimes, the …
Differences Between Western and Eastern Personalism, Impersonalism, Voidism, and Materialism
Śrila Prabhupāda’s Praṇām Mantra describes the Western world as nirviśeśa and sūnyavāda, which are translated as impersonalism and voidism. This has always perplexed me because the West sees itself rooted in Christian theistic Personalism. In what sense can a society based on theistic Personalism be called impersonalism or voidism? The problem compounds if we consider …
What is a Person?
In the last article, we briefly discussed the personhood of God and soul, and this one elaborates on that discussion. In modern societies, a person is defined as something that has rights. For example, forests, rivers, mountains, animals, and oceans are not considered persons and hence not given rights. Conversely, corporations have rights, therefore, they …