About

Sabio’s Avatar

My Name & Avatar

“Sabio Lantz” is the pen name I use to protect both my professional and personal relations.  Funny, though — I have used the name so long now, that it feels like my ‘real’ name.

My avatar is an astrolabe within a triangle.  The astrolab is an ancient navigation tool which was used for triangulations.

“Triangulations” means:

  • Navigation term:  a method of locating a point from the angles subtended from three (“tri”) known points.
  • Data analysis term: a method that synthesizes the data from multiple sources.

Blog’s Purpose

The blog explores religion, philosophy, psychology, medicine and language — always using triangulation as I look for conscilience.  My methods are playful, analytic, artistic, irreverent, skeptical, pragmatic and much more — I am many people.

Life’s navigation is complicated and best served when we check our choices against many trusted and tested sources.  All our beliefs are biased by our emotions, our dispositions and our environment.  For this reason, the more triangulations, the better.

My Bibliography & Experiences

  • My Bibliography:  Click here for a timeline of pics and posts about yours truly.  To really understand someone’s philosophy, it is immensely helpful to know some of their story.   I offer way too much, but I am slowly building this to pass on to my kids — so sorry for the self-centered appearance.
  • My Mystical Personality : Atheists come in many flavors. One stereotype is that they are dry, bland, hyper-rational, religion haters. These indexed posts give you an idea of why I may not fit your favorite atheist stereotype.
  • My Supernatural Experiences :  I originally wrote these posts to illustrate to some atheists that even non-believers can have odd experiences.
  • My Superstitious Personality : I think we are all inevitably superstitious — I certainly am.
  • My Cognitive Narratives : Here is what I think about our minds
  • My Alternative Medicine Posts

Resume-like Posts

Some readers may find it helpful to know my technical background:

My Philosophical Positions

Below I filled in two of of my Share Thyself Tables tables for a quick view of some of my stances.  Be aware, I may change any of these opinions at any moment.   I have done that countless times before! :-)

My Philosophical Positions

School of Philosophy:
 not sure
Ontology:
 Naturalist
Science: Scientific Realism
Theory of Time: not sure
Theology:
 Atheist 90% (with flavors of Buddhist), Impersonal Pantheism 10%
Politics:
 Libertarian-leaning
Language: Fregeanism (probably, I am not sure)
Mind: 90% Physicalism + 10% Anti-Physicalism
Mental Content: Internalism
Abstract Objects:
 Nominalism
Knowledge:
 not clear on the categories
Personal Identity:
 not clear on the categories
Free Will:
 not clear on the categories
Normative Ethics:
 Not sure where my opinion lies
Meta-Ethics:
 Not sure where my opinion lies

My Atheist Positions

Level of Certainty:
 Moderate (agnostic in the deep sense, of course)
Openness: Open, but cautious (closeted at with patients etc)
(See my post on “Self-Disclosure“)
Degree of Outreach:
 Debater (with friendly acquaintances) , Evangelical blogger :-)
Present Religious Participation:
 Rare–Occasional (Buddhist, Christian, Jewish )
may increase out of anthropological interest
Stance toward
Categorically Rejecting Religion:		 Sympathetic
Degree of Enchantment Enchanted
Mystical Perceptions: Highly Mystical
Theory of Religion:
 It evolved like all other mechanisms of mind. I will elaborate later.
Non-theistic Leanings
 I am partial to many Buddhist teachings and insights.
Part of me is a Panentheist, I think.
(see, “Many Selves, No Self“)
Secular Superstitious or Irrational Habits
 I have many little superstitious habits, most of them I am aware of and embrace.
View of Reason
 Emotive-Rationalist.
Reason is only one tool of mind and never divorce of emotions. Most of our decisions are made mechanically by our minds with intuitive heuristics, “willful reason” is not a big player. We are largely a juggernaut of habit.
(see, Hyper-Rationalists)
Faith Items
 I strongly believe that love, compassion, freedom and forgiveness are of great value. I have no evidence to support this. (See this list of unprovable items scientists believe)
I do believe “I think, therefore there is awareness”, and that may take a little faith, but I don’t believe in a “self”. :-)
Past Belief History
 Former Believer (wholehearted, deeply personal)
Past Orthopraxy History
 Former Practitioner (fairly diligent)
Past Sect History
 Christian – Baptist & Charismatic, Buddhist to some degree