@bluesqueakpip @juniperfish Just to be clear: Even though it’s natural for us to want the Doctor and/or Yaz to rush back to save Prem, I knew it wasn’t possible, and so I didn’t really yearn for it. The Doctor established that changing this outcome might very well erase Yaz’s existence, and of course I don’t want that. But I thought, despite her…[Read more]

@mudlark

why not a shalwar kameez for Yaz, especially when she knew she was going back in time to see her grandmother?

It’s something that I feel that would make sense more often- for all of Team Tardis to get dressed suitably for the period and location where that makes sense to do so. With a planned visit like this, to a known time and place, t…[Read more]

@Bluesqueakpip

It’s well worth watching; it can be distressing. Especially seeing the genuine footage of the real cost of the war – all those dead young men, without the distancing effect of black and white.

Yes, it is astonishing how much colour and sound effects contribute to the sense of immediacy, and this was very well done – far more so tha…[Read more]

@nerys and @bluesqueakpip

On the subject of Yaz not looking back…

That sense of wanting the Doctor and Yaz to look back, wanting them indeed, to rush and save Prem, is created there deliberately (furthered by the fact they don’t, indeed, look back).

It echoes the moment on the bus in Rosa when, in particular mirrored for us through the eyes…[Read more]

Partition was such a difficult subject for a show such as Doctor Who to address, in view of the millions who died in the needless and senseless bloodletting, that I was reluctant even to watch this episode for fear that it would be mishandled, and the title, suggesting the introduction of alien antagonists, was not reassuring. My fears were…[Read more]

Well, like @bluesqueakpip and @Sontaran2589 I loved that.

Vinay Patel did an amazing job as the script-writer here.

And the music was wonderful, with all its Indian melodies and notes.

I loved the Vajarians. I mean, look at them withe their tusks and pointy ears and fabulous rows of eyes:

And of course, they weren’t the demons of the Punjab at…[Read more]

@thane16
Please do send your assignment to me, I’d love to read it. But that’s just for fun. Obviously there are others here that can really guide (@bluesqueakpip) and challenge (@pedant)

But I’m enjoying learning about philosophy, and I can help you out with criteria from a boring, generic teacher viewpoint for what it’s worth. So please don’t…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip …love that: “Democracy means that losing side always thinks the winning side is stupid…Democracy includes the right to make stupid decisions.”

yep.

Having voted (Pennsylvania, US), I am sitting here hoping for the Big Blue Wave to wash away the Orange Menace…

many people are quite energized, but had a long conversation w…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip oh I completely understand the logic. And even the fact that there isn’t any direct communication, meaning that the ship can’t be hijacked and the crew forced at gunpoint to make up a plausible story, and the crew can’t play on the pity and compassion of the people down on the planet. It is very logical and utilitarian, it’s more…[Read more]

@KevinWho

The grounds for your reservations about the episode are valid, but I’m not sure that the nuances of the psychological and sociological roots of racism in Montgomery in the 1950s could ever have been adequately addressed in one 50 minute episode of a show intended for family viewing and aimed primarily, in this case, at an audience of…[Read more]

@Bluesqueakpip – Ohhh nice on the meaning of Tsuranga – so that means the title of the episode could be understood to be “The Salvation Connundrum” which makes perfect sense, given the pre-programmed self destruct in the hospital ship in what must, surely, be a war-zone, as we have a sonic mine, a General and a hospital ship combined….

For…[Read more]

OK this episode. Other than I’m pretty sure Graham isn’t in remission (or at least has no intention of telling people when he ceases to be)…

The Graham-Ryan parts remain strong. Men evolving to give birth but only through (albeit nerve free) cesarian, odd, admittedly, but this is far in the future. Could be a deliberate genetic modification.…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip

the latter mentioned Alvin Plantinga who my teacher was not happy about: (sorry ‘Pip) “as a theist he’s morally invested in the God Problem.”

I don’t agree with what my teacher said, Pip. He is a very young guy who made it clear to us he’s atheist. Because of my Christian background I’m usually getting a lot of ‘wax’ about how dum…[Read more]

@Bluesqueakpip

Yes, I like the idea of the P’Ting as an escaped bio-weapon.

Clearly the hospital ship and the General meant the Doctor and friends had arrived in some kind of a war-zone, that and the sonic mine. Not to mention the alarming fact that the ship was programmed to transmit a signal to base concering the P’Ting breach which would have…[Read more]

@mudlark

So, given that many of these concepts were formed long before there was any knowledge or understanding of the vastness and complexity of the universe, is the God of your argument the creator and prescriptive ruler of the Israelites, an omniscient,omnipotent and ultimately benevolent overseer of the universe and our human destiny, the…

[Read more]

just look at this place @Craig! I’m getting a bit weepy. See how people here are explaining things, answering questions, helping others and with absolutely no remuneration to each personally but because talking helps society they talk, and explain, and if one says, “hang on?” another pops in to offer an opinion -a really well-educated thought out…[Read more]

This issue has caused serious tensions and rifts in my own family, and maybe for that reason, I feel the need to put my soapbox away and at least try to understand and respect the Leave argument, and to find points of agreement. That’s hard within my family at the moment, because – well, families. So I’m very appreciative of the explanations given…[Read more]

Also, if we use Plato at all: and why the teacher gave us a handout on Plato and Aristotle I do not know because, as @Bluesqueakpip has said it’s Russell and Aquinas, Plantinga and Frege which are most useful. Plato’s forms and the perfection of the ultimate ‘thing’ are all well and good -these are ways that point to some perfect idea that started…[Read more]

@lionheart564

I appreciate your suggestions! Thank you. I’m not sure you can use paradox fallacies in philosophy. Premises and predicates as well as ontological, teleological or Aquinas’ cosmological arguments counter the argument. And are used as expressions of the arguments. Annoyingly, philosophy essays have a very specific method of argument…[Read more]

@thane16

The short answer is no, because reason and faith deal with entirely different things. This is despite the fact that many of the earliest profound insights for what we now call science (which is reason’s greatest achievement) were made in monasteries. But to William of Occam, the existence of God was not an assumption. His razor is still…[Read more]