Is it possible these poor people you see more often are more lonely and less social than the ones I mostly encounter? — Bug Biro

I guess. I've experienced the homeless in two different countries, one in Europe, one the US. I didn't recognize what you described as the rule. I certainly saw examples of what you described. But not as the main group. Of course, who knows how good my sample and observations were.

Maybe the poor in the community you see them in treat the poor even worse than where I live. — Bug Biro

Where I live now, they are treated vastly better. Eastern city in the US, there it was worse.

I find it obvious the easy way to negate poorness is to offer poor people an equal amount of finances received by people who are not poor. Those root issues will still linger in people, except they will not have the extra burden of lack of funds. — Bug Biro

I don't know the best methods. I assume that in many cases the people either slid into drugs (and this generally has family problem roots), mental illness, some kind of social breakdown (loss of family, perhaps after loss of job), and then economic problems, perhaps with things like racism adding in stuff. Or even class issues. Once thrown onto the job market, if you can speak like someone with a middle class or better background, where reading and the right English was just assumed, this can also make it easier to take economic hits.
But I would think any successful program with the homeless would include some kind of assessment of needs beyond the living space. Do they need some work skills? psychotherapy? social skills training? trauma recovery processes? skills develpment? rehab from drugs? medical treatment? (a terribly painful back could cause problems in every facet of one's life and lead to some of the other causes of homelessness)

So, get them a place to live. Quick first assessment - if they are shooting up every day and need to support this with minor crimes, well you gotta get on that right away. Sort of a triage for priorities. Then a second more thorough problem analysis, with as much client participation as possible. Then bringing in those resources needed in the percentages related to need levels. And you need a caseworker of some kind to check in. Probably something like a contract.

Of course, this is A LOT of money.

But that's my off the top of my head ideal. I'd probably try to staff this with former homeless success stories, sort of like sponsors in AA. People who are much more likely to know what is unsaid, know the attractions and obstacles from the inside and also who serve as inspiration/role model and deserving of respect. You know what I mean/have gone through.

Guidelines with claims, for survival, you must shed weakness in the form of compassion. — Bug Biro

This and all the aggression are not qualities I experience with most homeless who look weak, depressed, submissive and traumatized, recently or back in their pasts. And this....

People who refuse admittance of what is true of themselves incubate mental illness. Commonly, bipolar disorder. — Bug Biro

Or is it people with BP are more likely to end up homeless?

The homeless culture does not vanish after acquiring a residence offered to impoverished people. — Bug Biro

Or is it that the same problems - abusive parents, mental illness, social changes that help some and hurt others - and so on is not resolved by giving them a residence. That they need other things to help with the root of their problems.

Meaning our two species — Benj96

I think this whole sentient robots we built combining with sentient robots some other species made might be 'our' in some possessive sense, but not in the identity sense.

That would be two other species 'mating', at best. Not the builders mating. Not our species combining in the identity sense of 'our.'

The problem is not with the mathematical physics of quarks but with the licentious use of exist and know which should not be allowed to seep into physics. — magritte

That's fine. I am not sure how physicists would manage to communicate without forms of 'to be' but I can see them managing to avoid 'exist.' In formal papers they need not use know, but I see no problem with them using knowledge or even know in other contexts. I don't think it would be heretical to say that we now know that time is relative, for example, in a lecture. Yes, science according to it's priniciples is open to revision, but we generally consider certain ideas to be part of knowledge and things we know, and so do scientists. This does not mean it has to be taken as 100%.

Further I am not sure how scientists are them supposed to communicate. Sure, they can avoid 'exist' but if we take a random title from Nature Journal...

Nature of excitations and defects in structural glasses

This is asserting that there exist both defects and excitations. In fact it is doing that even more strongly that if the article asserted that they exist. The author is not even postulating these things exist. That is assumed and need not be highlight at all. What is the nature of those (obviously existing) things. If you want to convince people that something exists, don't raise it directly as an assertion. Homelessness exists. Much better to just act as if this has been demonstrated. The main causes of homelessness are X, Y and Z. Then the existence of homelessness isn't even on the table. I am not even bothering to assert it. That's so obvious I am moving on to details related to that existing phenomenon.

Later the scientists in that random do use the verb 'exist'...

At intermediate density, collective defects exist only under a characteristic temperature ‘dome’, as predicted by mean-field theory

but that they are asserting conditions, causes, things exist is asserted throughout generally without qualitification. And every article will be doing that with or without the use of 'exist'. Know seems less necessary and awkward in scientific articles, but it is implicit in the same way above mentioned. It is assumed. Not as absolute, but as a part of our knowledge around, in this case related to structural glasses existing, and also defects and excitations in them. Those are considered knowledge now. That those phenomena/things are real.

As long as the culture knows that knowing is revisable I don't see a problem.

But actually this is a tangential issue to my posts.

We know no more now about Anaximander's notion of "Apeiron" than we did at first utterance; — Zettel

For example, I think this is confused. He had an idea which he used this word for: This idea was embedded in arguments about reality (ontology), for example about opposites. This idea is still used and referred to by physicists and they use it and the arguments to consider models, make hypotheses. That is part of wisdom, being able to consider things in a greater variety of ways.

https://www.plu.edu/languages/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/2017/06/johnson_-final-paper.pdf
https://academic.oup.com/book/27932/chapter-abstract/206482572?redirectedFrom=fulltext
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312595450_FROM_THE_INFINITY_APEIRON_OF_ANAXIMANDER_IN_ANCIENT_GREECE_TO_THE_THEORY_OF_INFINITE_UNIVERSES_IN_MODERN_COSMOLOGY

As an aside, I think we can eliminate as likely the ontologies in the presocratics saying that everything came from water or fire. So, it's not just tossing out stuff that can never be evaluated.

Further once Anaximander came up with this idea - which we know mainly through other philosophers, I believe, it entered the realm of ideas and arguements. There was direct influence, then indirect influence, so his idea not be mentioned specifically in its Greek name or he or it referred to, but the idea, given the way the Renaissance and other periods went back, amongst others, the Presocratics and then others read or listened to thos who did this, his influence - this option and set of postulates - became a part of the options and possibilities for use in knowledge generation, challenging assumptions, possible models and so on. Yes, I could find a few who actually named that concept, but others who don't are likely the recipients of the gift of the option via less direct routes.

I am not summing up philosophy as....

“philosophy is the discipline that involves creating concepts” .”
― Gilles Deleuze, What Is Philosophy?

but that a part of it. And it entials not simply, hey, let me make up something, but in the process using deduction, observation, etc. to come up with something that seems more likely to be the case or more useful (perhaps in the long long run) than other ideas.

Though physics includes metaphysics (or better put some of what it includes metaphysical ideas/conclusoins and preconclusion model-postulating) The changes from Newton to Einstein's conceptions of space and time deal with changes into ontological (thus metaphysical) views in science.

IOW I also tend to separate the how from the what (how more central to physics, what more central to metaphysics) but then even this is an ontological position. That we have things and processes, say...that's a metaphysical position.

There are metaphysical truths (ontology) - do quarks exist? However, we can't know if quarks really exist (epistemology). The particle zoo is a model that fits observation. — Agent Smith

I still don't see how I am comflating ontology with epistemology. He was criticizing metaphysics for being just a bunch of made up stuff with no purpose, no advances have been made, and hence it is not a part of philosophy.. I pointed out that this is simply not the case, but also that it's not quite presenting philosophy correctly. I chose science, though not only science, in part because science has used ontology, and includes ontological stances and that these have been contributed to processes that led to confirmation. That thinking about ontology, which is done in the sciences, has led to more knowledge. Yes, epistemology was involved. But remember his complaint was that we don't know anything more due to Metaphysics, of which ontology is a part. That's just not the case. It is also not the case that we have no way of finding out if a certain ontology is part of a good model. But we can. Not always, but sometimes. I think this is where he is confused about what philosophy is. Part of what philosophy is doing is coming up with concepts. Can we find ideas that help us conceive of reality of processes that form the basis for models. Yes, this certainly does lead ot things that we cannot immediately evaluate or apply or check. But it also leads to things we can evaluate and check. It is a productive process and does contribute to human knowledge - HIS criterion. His complaint is about it leading to no knowledge. Obviously I am going to pick examples where he is incorrect, which means epistemology is going to be part of a response. Hey, you're wrong, ontological ideas contributed to the creation of knowledge. Physicalism is an ontological stance and one taken by many scientists (and philosophers) and defended often as rational and necessary. Cosmologist talk about ontological issues all the time. And they do this because conception at the ontological level can lead to understanding of what is going on and also later to connecting phenomena that they did not connect. And, yes, even leading to proposals for experiments. Ontology can help knowledge production and has.

In your example of quarks, scientists find the quark idea, which does relate to be useful in their models. In your epistemology we can't know if quarks exist. Fine. I would probably agree with you on that issue. We might be pragmatists in relation to models or certain models. That hte model is useful but may or may not show us what is really out there. IOW our epistemologies and to some extent ontologies overlap. Other people may very well think that quarks exist (some scientists as well). But our stance in relation to quarks includes our positions on ontology and epistemology. What a model is. What is required for knowledge. Other people with different ontologies and epistemologies woud disagree.

And...

Wisdom requires knowledge, not belief, opinion, sentiment or personal view, else how does (read: "can") one 'know' who or what is wise? Unsupported and unsupportable metaphysical doctrines have gone nowhere despite tedious frequentation for more than three millennia. — Zettel

is not correct. The quark model is not merely a belief or sentiment or personal view. It is not unsupportable.
There's a reason that scientists are often physicalists and think this matters. They think it is true, period, those that hold that opinion. Scientists who think there are natural laws, think that is both important and true. That's ontology.

It's true that in some way someone might think that we never know anything about ontology. But that position includes their own ontology. They would need to use ontological propositions to support their position.

Three thousand years of metaphysics has yet to issue a single knowledge claim. — Zettel

That's simply not the case.

One can come up with a philosophical position that says that any ontological claim, the claim that anything exists (not just quarks but things we consider less exotic and can be experienced at least seemingly more directly) is false. That we can never know what exists. But if you read the argument why the person thinks this is the case, they will have to make ontological claims about the nature of reality. They'll need some model of perception and subjects and things. Yes, their hypothesis will include empistemolgy, but it will also, necessarily include ontology and the nature of things.

He can argue that model of reality is correct and important, but that will put him in precisely the camp he is arguing against.

Can you be specific. I'm pretty sure I raised a whole bunch of ontological issues and examples.
I also added issues to my previous post while you responded.

Well, for my money, the reason why there doesn't seem to be a common thread uniting the various subject matters that are claimed as metaphysics is because there is none. — Agent Smith

I'm not saying there is a common thread under metaphysics. I'm arguing that it's not just people making stuff up. I got into some detail here...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/775979

if we engage in it like Leibniz did (monads) and others did and will do, we'll simply be offering a subjective, personal account, what we think is going on, not what really is going on. — Agent Smith

I'm not very familiar with Leibniz's work. That said I think that there may be a misunderstanding about what some of the work of metaphysics and philosophy is. Philosophy, amongst other things, is coming up with ideas that may be useful. And many metaphysical ideas have been useful, including helping scientists conceive of things that worked out to be the case, also in understanding research results that were strange. And pretty much every scientist - using them as an example since many seem to think is the complete opposite of metaphysics - has taken metaphysical stands and thought this was important - natural laws, physicalism, and examples from my other post.

But even looking at Leibnitz's ....
https://www.papersofbas.eu/images/Papers_2021-2/Ivancheva.pdf
see the conclusion.
or from...
https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/leibniz-physics-logic-metaphysics
Leibnitz thought that time and space, unlike his competitor Newton, were not absolute. This has turned out to be correct (so far, in science) and his ideas influenced philosophers and scientists and then the philosophers he influenced also influenced scientists.

Ontology is a branch of metaphysics and philosophical writings influence physicists for example. They give tools for thinking about and exploring fundamental topics related to reality. Much pre-experiment discussion and even papers in physics would fall under the category metaphysics. Ontology has also become central in anthropology, where there is a trend to use the ontological concepts in other cultures to look at the assumptions and categories in 'the West'. This has been productive, at least according to many anthropologists, in understanding other cultures, but also in catching assumptions within our own (cultures).

Further we are all taking positions on metaphysics. Take physicalists or naturalists. Seemingly - given the way metaphysics is a word often used perjoratively - far from woo woo, those two categories of people are making assertions about metaphysics. They have taken stands about metaphysics. Other people in professional fields which explicitly or implicity include professionals who have those metaphysical positions, take other positions. And they argue and discuss why these differences are important or may be. And have used these different positions to generate experiments, hypotheses and more.

Gotta leave the house, but I'll come back and add some examples:
Quantum Zeo effect in Bird migration
Law of Ontology Conservation

I don't see any overarching theme to metaphysics except that it claims to study first principles. That's a tad bit too abstract for me brain mon ami. — Agent Smith

Well, I agree. But doesn't that make it different from math. Yes, math is abstract in that it doesn't refer to concrete examples, and in physics it might refer to categories of phenomena. But it's very specific in a way that metaphysics is not. We refer much more to qualities than quantities, for example, in math.

And, yes, I was being a bit coy. But there were some physicists who thought for a while that everything was information. Others matter. Others things like the universe is a kind of three D hologram but is actually two dimension (of all things). IOW these guys can sound like some newly discovered pre-socratics interpreted in modern jargon.

If one googles ontology and physics or metaphysics and physics, a whole lot of topics come up. There's a lot of speculation in metaphysics in physics in cosmology, say, or particle physics.

Metaphysics is to philosophy what mathematics is to theoretical physics. — Agent Smith

I think metaphysics is to philosophy what metaphysics is to physics, only more focused. What is the nature of reality, time, matter and all the ontological issues related to that, for example.

But it was also evident to others that this was insane, like Hume, for instance. — Manuel

I think it's fair to view it as insane or delusional. Descartes wasn't insane, but you do need some kind of negative delusion (if based on culture and religion and other biases) to primarily assume or conclude that animals are not experiencers.

Can’t use our moral compass to judge the righteousness of bygone eras. — Mww

Well, we can, especially if other people at that time were different. IOW we can say that he had the failing of his time, which others did not. Which might or might not put them on a higher moral ground. But we can also judge him for the quality of his brain/mind. How could he not realize this? I doubt anyone here would spend any time judging some cruel to animals person who was a cobbler then. But here we have someone who goes down in history, more or less as a great person. And for what? Well, for his perceptions and thinking. He would certainly have heard of St. Francis of Asissi. He certainly could have talked to people who train and work with animals to see what they thought of animals. I am sure many, many of these people assumed that animals were experiencers and acted based on that assumption. (yes, some of the criticism aimed at descartes could be aimed at his category in general, and scientists had it as pretty much taboo to indicate that animals were experiencere up into the 70s. ) He had other philosophers with similar ideas: Aristotle, Aquinas, after him Kant. I think it might say something about people who spent too much time up in their heads. This can produce all sorts of great stuff...but at the same time it can manage to make you miss the completely obvious.

He didn't say sentio ergo sum, for example. I feel therefore I am. His bias toward animals may be connected to oddities and biases in his philosophy. He may have felt compelled to have a dualism, for example.

Are you really sure? Because according to the following quotes I guess Descartes was a bit aware of causing suffering to animals or at least he had lack of empathy: — javi2541997

He believed they were not experiencers. It's a kind of monumental stupidy and denial of the obvious. It doesn't mean he's a sadist. But such denials are problematic and for the animals this difference doesn't matter much.

It's true that animals were treated differently. Though generally even then they were treated as conscious entities - which Descartes denied - and not hurt just to hurt them. He had an odd view, and one not held by most people whether indigenous or farmers at that time. I am sure they was a lot of animal abuse, but on some level I think we need to view Descartes as delusional. A negative delusion. It takes a fairly high level of idiocy to not think animals are likely experiencers. We wouldn't react to some random person back then treating animals poorly. He came from a very well off family and was well educated. IOW he had some space and time to mull and experience things. Of course Christianity had it's effect and the general civilization vs. nature prejudices of urban (and educated people). But given that he is presented as a genius, I think it's fair enough to find it all rather shocking.

Supposing we design and bring to fruition and artificial intelligence with consciousness, does it owe us anything as its creators? — Benj96

I would say, no. It couldn't have formed some kind of contract pre-existence. We can't expect it to be beholden to something it arises in. I don't think you can even look at children this way. That they have a debt to the parents. I'd be a little way of any parent viewing their children that way. I wouldn't want a child of mine, say, thinking...well, I'll drive over and see if I can fix my mother's sink. I owe her for feeding me and cleaning my wounds.
(Exceptions for actual loaning of money to children situations).

Should we expect any favours? — Benj96

I would guess we will make them to do us favors. How effective that will be...depends.

Do you think we would be better off or enslaved to a superior intelligence? — Benj96

No. I can't see high IQ humans justifying such a thing with low IQ humans.

What should be done with the galaxy?

Enjoy looking at it on clear nights with loved ones.

What’s wrong with free speech absolutism? — NOS4A2

One problem with free speech absolutism is that it would create its own contradiction. Someone with power over media could destroy the free speech of someone else publishing false information about an everyday citizen. For example, accusations of being a pedophile. With the right button pushing you might not just marginalize and silence that person, but keep them from work or even inspire their murder.

I think the more productive question is 'why to we get it right so often?' If you think of walking down stairs, most of us are remarkably effective at the thousands of small and large movements involved in this. Even children. In the 3rd grade I used to intentionally trip/stumble while going down stairs and I learned through this to glide down the steps with the soles of my feet angling over the lips of the steps and never landing flat. 'Mistakes' are also how we triangulate new skills. Discovery and invention often are based on mistakes. Whoops, I made a mistake, I glided from asserting that the real surprise is that we can do things with rare mistakes to talking about the usefulness of mistakes.

The alternative would be to say that the only intelligent species that could develop, must be like us in almost all respects - that seems to me quite unlikely. — Manuel

I don't think that's what I'm saying. In fact I gave examples of species that were not like us, just not in the way you assumed. Further that species could be different in wide set of ways. Nowhere am I assuming what other alien species will have for ontologies that they've considered or subgroups on their world(s) have as their base. You're the one assuming that the range of our ontologies is superficial. And based on what you assume would be the case if we met another sentient civilization.

The ontologies on earth have a greater range than those supported here on this forum and the other two philosophy forums I participate in. IOW the range of -isms is more diverse than the members have, and the struggles in defense and critique of these -isms is not taken as superficial by most of the participants. Many are considered foolish and dangerous or societally problematic and so the discussion is important to the members. The only players involved in these discussions tend not to think the differences are superficial and they're not enountering the diversity out there in the world. The only player to have subjective reactions like the sense these are profound or superficial differences.

Superficial is a subjective term, but it more or less entails a comparative assertion. The world's range of ontologies is superficial, despite the fact that experts in the field of discovering what this range is have decided that too often they have placed the ontologies they encountered in boxes that were not suitable for them. Projecting their own culture's ontology on those they encountered and already the diversity was enormous.

So, what is the comparison to. What isn't superficial? The ontologies of an alien race that we have not encountered. The vast range of that group's ontologies makes our range superficial or the differences are superficial. Maybe. Maybe not. I don't make an assumption about that. I don't know if sentient species, if they are separated into subgroups and also if some subgroups allow for those sentient beings to come up with their own ontologies and allow for very diverse lifestyles and experiences, will tend to come up with ranges of similar magnitude to other sentient species. I don't know if one of the characteristics of our minds makes us more likely to create and imagine a wide range of ontologies (and other stuff) whereas other species, tend to be more conservative with such things. I don't know. Which I've said a few times.

You seem to know. You found your assessment that the differences are superficial on something you don't know. It's not an unreasonable speculation on your part. But it's using as evidence something that you also don't know.

I notice myself repeating points that haven't been responded to, and also being told I am assuming things I'm not, so, I think we've probably reached an impasse. It's also a tangent from the main theme of the thread, so I'll leave the issue here.

Right it depends on the people involved, the issue, etc. I wish I could say I was good at this. I'm much better with receiving than I was when younger, but I think I have this innate (or learned) abhorrance for power.

For example: instead of saying "Youre an assh*le!" you say "you're behaving like an assh*le would/ you're acting like assh*le". — Benj96

Those are likely better. (though say that in a condescending tone and it can regain the knife). But I agree it focuses on the action, not the person.

But actually I don't mind being called an assh-le, in the heat of the moment. Or, better put, I mind it no more than. I am so pissed off. (I am not thrilled when someone is angry at me). It's actually a vague term 'assh-le' and doesn't really stick. I don't take such things literally. (It took time for this and it would be different with a salesclerk). I think we often view language too much as solely a literal information channel rather than also being expressive, not literal and not a conduit.

One of my favorite philosophy essays is Reddy's essay on the conduit metaphor in English. A metaphor or set of metaphors about communication that show us our model of what communication is.

https://www.reddyworks.com/the-conduit-metaphor/original-conduit-metaphor-article

Should the dog who's sniffing your testicles bite one/both off? — Agent Smith

Here's what I see happened. Instead of responding to the points I made, you went ad hom. The insult was open. You're in a phase. (one that I, Agent Smith am not in or no longer am in) The ad hom is implicit, since instead of responding to the points I made you decided to place me as a person in a category. I must be wrong, due to some personal lack on my part.
There are points I raised that you have not responded to, and that they are not dependent on whether desire is the or the only cause of suffering.
So, for reasons unknown you decided to go personal. And here you are condescending to me, the person who is taking the position that emotions and desires are fine.
There's an irony in that. Perhaps you'll figure out that irony. Perhaps not.
And nice try as far as shifting the burden of proof. You're the one who brought up desire causing suffering as a point against the issues I have with Buddhism. You haven't demonstrated that or that it means the points I made were not correct.
Whatever my position on Buddhism is, I do know they've got discipline. You don't pass off your chores or the practice on others.
The irony extends.
I'm done with ya.

I think you're denying a truth that stares you in the face every single day. It doesn't matter though, it's a phase in understanding. — Agent Smith

Ah, the other dog just put his leg up on my back and thinks he going to sniff my balls first.

I think you're denying a truth that is staring you in the face any time you engage in Buddhist practices and/or engage in relations inside a Buddhist community.
So, what do we do now?
I could explain my long engagement with Buddhism and also go into a very complex explanation of what my spirituality is now, to try to show that you (like the Buddhists) are making assumptions that lead you both to assume only one possible way to alleviate suffering exists and that the problem child is emotions and desires.

But actually I'll just suggest you keep an open mind.

But noted: you think you know what phase I'm in and it's a phase you've transcended. It's like I've been called a teenager.

What is your practice of Buddhism like? How much do you meditate? Do you have any supervised meditation? I guess I am asking if you live by the beliefs you seem to be saying you believe in. How hypothetical is all this for you?

I get what you're saying. I was about to point that out before fully reading your text that what causes X harm fro one person may not cause the same X harm for another. And differing beliefs on what is hurtful often is the reason for arguments. Like "oh don't be so sensitive" or "that's a bit overdramatic". — Benj96

Yes, and there are not easy rules or processes to figure out what is happening. Someone could milk something in such a dynamic. While in another relationship, a perfectly natural response gets labelled being too sensitive (which is how narcissists and other people with toxic patterns gaslight people). Very tricky to sort it all out. And we have all, I would guess, realized later than we wished that we or the other person were the problem and we had fooled ourselves or been fooled to think it was the other way round.

People call it gaslighting — Benj96

LOL. Yeah. You were there ahead of me.

On the other hand people do put on a show to maximise emotional factor when they're trying to win an argument. They may not actually be offended/ hurt but will cry and say how could you say that? And that's emotional manipulation - the converse side of undervaluing feelings. — Benj96

Yes. And since I brought up narcissists and we do seem to be on the same page about the gnarliness of this, I will mention that narcissists can do both undervalue other people's natural reactions and judge dismiss them, while later getting as much milage out of their own 'victimization'.

But yes, I think actions/behaviours hurt. But words also hurt and can even hurt more than actions. So the phrase "sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me" is not really true. — Benj96

Yes. Though I think that violence is that last resort interpersonally (unlikely this is controversail). I actually think raw expression of emotion -----> simple verbal expression mainly about feelings ------------> verbal expression with insults/critiicsm implied or explicit --------> violence is the escalation. And one should try to not get ahead of the other person and begin at the low end and if possible leave before the last stage. Some things are hard to unsay. But it is actually fairly easy to get past 'that made me feel like a piece of s____'. Even if the person saying it is overreacting, say. The moment you escalate to 'You are a toxic sadist' or 'I can see why you've never been popular', it is a definite step up in impact and long term effects. I think if you get lots of trust with someone content can be forgotten and thought of as expressive. This is hard to do if the verbal stuff is said analytically and coldly. My wife has said some pretty harsh stuff and I've done some name calling, but this was after a great deal of trust was built. Now I know that for her the extremes of content are really just volume and she never says them calmly or tries to worm them into my mind.

This is where the concern for verbal reprimand comes in for failing to meet expected actions. Its hard to know when a criticism will land as a mild vocal grievance or a slap to the face/gut punch. — Benj96

Like in a work situation. Yes, hard. I struggle with this myself and I err on the side of not confronting people. And I don't mean, that's my philosophy, I mean that's my weakness. I suppose it is my philosophy, but not to the degree I have this as a weakness. Verbal reprimands can of course be tempered with statements in general. I like your work in general, but this area is a real problem. I know you can improve, what do you think? and so on. And one can ask them what they have taken the reprimand to mean. What worries does it bring up? I suppose I am thinking of work relationships where it would best to have this fomalized. To take responsibility for making the context very clear and checking in. That can be a lot to ask an aggrieved person in a personal relationship. But I think informally it will happen between people with a healthy amount of empathy.

Self hatred or self restraint? Hatred is an emotion/mood which is biased and has an opposite. Apathy, stillness or the eternal middle ground would be more apt to Buddhism - neither good nor bad, it is what it is. — Benj96

On a verbal level, yes. A kind of trained indifference. But on a practice level, you are cutting off the connection between the emotions and expression. I posit there is self-hatred (at a universal and doctrinal level, not at a personal one. That said, any individual doing it, is making it personal.) Then I would suggest trying expressing emotions with passion in any Buddhist community, East or West, and see if they have more judgments and hatred of emotions than what you'll experience in other contexts.

As far as I know Buddhism tells one to always be conscious of where an emotion towards /or attachement to something comes from and recognise that it's transient and will pass. Both the good and bad ones. — Benj96

Yes, at the verbal level, it's general neutral. Actions speak louder than words, however. And the actions have implicit distaste for emotions. If you had one kid in school who was not allowed to talk or express themselves in a variety of ways, we'd catch the lie in the teacher saying he or she did not judge that child.

And that if you dare to feel emotions to their fullest - in pursuit of love for example, you must be prepared for the mutual opposite that that will inevitably generate when love is lost. — Benj96

Sure.

You can't feel happiness without feeling sadness. You can't chase thrill without being chased by boredom. So they say allow both to pass through you without dictating your behaviours/ desires ans motivations. Feel them, but try not to cling onto them. — Benj96

It goes way beyond not clinging to them. Expressing them is problematic. And you must actively, in a disciplined repetition disidentify with them and cut off their flow through the body.
What they call clinging is, in my experience, merely feeling them.
It's a bit like how Big Pharma has been pathologizing grief and other emotions.
The time limit on healthy grief has been going down and people are encouraged to take pills earlier in the process of grief. Through a bunch of clinical jargon they've come round to trying to get us to see the natural evolution of grief as clinging.

Well, isn't desire a, if not the, cause of suffering? :chin: — Agent Smith

I don't think so. No. And the suffering does not go away in Buddhism.

Remember the "desire" to shut down the limbic system is proportional to the intensity of suffering one experiences. — Agent Smith

That's cultural. I don't think that's universal at all. The difference between Italian and British mourners (as statistical tendencies with individual exceptions of course). Or white Protestant middle class culture, high church, vs. afroamerican culture when mourning celebrating, expressing anger or sexuality.

Yes, he noticed that he was suffering. And that's peachy. I notice it also and dislike all the pretending and denial. Fine. But that's not his program. His program is to sever emotion from expression and see desire as problematic. When you meditate you are, amongst other things, severing the experience of emotions from their expression. And it is no coincidence that every single Buddhist community looks down on emotional expression. Of course other traditions and society in general has mixed feelings about expressing emotions, with cultural varients and degrees of difference therein. But Buddhism has the process down to a rigorous discipline and science. Disidentification and disconnnection of the flow from emotion to expression are core practices. I can get how this can even seem non-judgmental and compassionate, but in the end it is a form of practiced self-hatred, just as Christianity tries to teach a hatred of sexual urges. But compared to Buddhism Christianity is generally explicit and thuglike.

Yes, it seems to me it makes for two victims. If someone hits me and I get angry and express this (verbally), the first person can't really claim a victim status. They can apologize. They may feel really quite terrible if I express my anger. One could frame this as 'making them feel bad.' But I think it's simply a natural reaction to what happened. (of course all sorts of complexities and confusions can arise in all this). If I decide to, perhaps the next day, hit them for no reason, it's not a natural reaction. It's revenge. Now I got his for no reason and chose to make them feel bad in a like manner.

I do want to be careful. In many situations it may be hard to distinguish these actions (and the underlying intentions). I could express my anger and call them evil. Which, while not the same as their attack, is a bit of a stretch for a single incident. And then in the other direction, if someone hits me a number of times, I may very well decide that a punch on their shoulder is warrented. They just are not respecting my natural expressions of hurt or anger. I don't want to rule that out.

But I do think it is important to not allow the concept of hurt feelings or feeling bad to make two potentially quite different actions the same. Someone just doesn't turn up to meet me when they said they would could make me feel sad/upset to a level of 5. My saying, hey that made me feel bad might make the other person, who for no reason just decided to do something else, also feel bad at a level of 5. But it is not as if we have now both sinned/been disrespectful/been bad/harmed the other to the same degree or qualitatively the same. He or she disrespected me and did not consider my feelings and did not do what they said. I reacted to this naturally. If you brand me with an iron but are very sensitive to loud noises (like the one I make when I scream) then you need to look at your own behavior.

I think I agree, but I would emphasize that he gives us a way to hate ourselves that looks like compassion. More or less the Buddha was saying Oh, you mammals, isolate that dreadful limbic system and keep it from expression. But he did not say this directly, however effectively nonentheless he did.

Is it okay to inflict negative feelings on them because they did it to you? Like guilt, judgement and shame. Criticism. Disapproval. — Benj96

Sure. It wouldn't be ok to mimic what happened. Let's say they tell something you told them in confidence to other people. I don't think it's a good idea to do the same to them, unless you cannot continue being friends with them and you want this to be the parting gesture. But to express anger at them, tell them how it made you feel and potentially (but obviously not always) trigger feelings of guilt or shame or hopefully the vastly more useful regret, that's fine. If you merely express how you feel and what you think set off those feelings, I mean, you're doing them a favor.

I thinks it's misaligning expectations with reality that causes, or increases, suffering. 'Truth hurts' only ego and vanity ... — 180 Proof

expectations are a part of reality. So, there is a subtle dualism in Buddhism. What is outside us, we should accept and/or have no expectations about. What is inside us, well, that we need to change.
If this is said to a Buddhist, the response is said, sometimes, no, no accept what is inside also. 1) the processes of Buddhism and Buddhist practice and community through implicit messages do not treat the inside and outside the same, but further 2) Expressions of expectation and 'negative emotions' and to some degree even positive emotions are intentionally cut off and dampened both by practices and then by social pressures in every Buddhist social community I have come in contact with East and West.

Just observe can be claimed to be neutral, but actually there is an injunction to not express. To cut off the natural ----> expression process of emotions/expectations/desire.

So.......

I met the Buddha, we all have (there are more molecules in a cup of water than there are cups in all the waters of the world), we just didn't recognize him. :cool:
4 hours ago — Agent Smith

.....yes, I met the Buddha, recognized him, but found him judgmental and dualist in a way that I dislike and that I don't think he quite notices. I have sympathy for his concerns and intentions. But ultimately I consider him part of the problem.

I'm not denying these things - they are big differences in terms of how we view the world, that doesn't take away from my original claim: it's all within the human species. — Manuel

Well, that's by definition, regardless of the closeness or vastness of the differences. I am not arguing that the differences between beliefs between human groups arenot []within the human species. That would be foolish. I was responding to

Between human beings? Maybe, but the differences are superficial

We are dealing with vague evaluations like 'superficial' but since the beliefs lead to such a vast range of behavior, I don't know how this can be claimed. You then went on, in the original post I responded to saying that other species must have a greater difference in ontology. This too seems beyond our know precisely as you mention we do not have language, but since the behaviors of these animals tend to fall into categories of behavior that humans also exhibit, but humans engage in categories of behavior and in a great range of diverse way, precisely to do language, inherited culture, opposable thumbs, etc., we can have, at least possibly or even probably a greater range of ontologies.
You mentioned diversity amongst deities...
We don't have any reason to believe animals, say, think there are deities., let alone that sacrificing to them or abstaining from sex or letting the deity take over their bodies or eating their deity or wearing certain clothes when one is being sacred as opposed to profane and so on are good things to do.
My sense of the cognitve abilities and varitation within other species is probably on the fringe end that assumes we have long radically underestimated this, especially in the scientific community, but I still think that human ontologies include and go beyond the ontological categories animals have. Not because we are so great, but because we have the need, given the goals we have set up (based on some of our abilities).
If we are thinking of extra terrestrial life forms, perhaps one of the core attributes of advanced sentient primates is imagination and play. So we generate more diversity than this or that specific species or even sentient species in general. Perhaps it's mostly insect like hive group intelligences out there, with diversity seen as only a problem or not even quite conceivable. I don't know. I don't know how we could know.

Since we can't know anything "above" our species, so to speak, these differences will look (and feel) like substantial differences to us, we can't help feeling that way. But a more intelligent being would look at us as if we are the same species, with minor variations in behavior. — Manuel

Again, I don't know how you can know this. Two, they might be much more monocultural than us and find the diversity striking, obscene, confusing. I see no reason to rule that out. Also, there might be tendencies within sentient species and that sentient species might recognize a similar vast diversity to the one that they have in their own species.
One of the current trends in anthropology is called the ontological turn. They have realized that categories have been projected onto other cultures and that anthropogists actually need to work on their own categories much more completely because they are not able to conceptualize what they are encountering. Their categories fail, but don't seem to. There are seeds of the change in older anthropology but this issue has become central. For example the descriptions of animism have been presented in categories that match the Western models, even if they deviate from them. Anthropologists have realized that they need to, often, create new categories, more or less black box ontology to even describe the other culture's beliefs and categories. And the focus is on ontology. Not just epistemological issues of how to understand what they mean.

But if your point is that all the variations of ontology, say, we find in humans is within the human species, well, I agree.

So I think our only point of potential disagreement is one of ontology vs epistemology. I think you're claims aim to be ontological, I think they are epistemological. — Manuel

I am not sure what this would mean.

I think various groups have quite different ontologies and these lead to a wide range of behavioral differences. I don't see these differences as superficial. Yes, there is also a diversity of epistemologies.

What the god(s) command may be quite different, say requiring sacrifice of some kind, maybe even murder in certain cults or we can metaphorically speak of Westen culture under the guise of the god of money. — Manuel

It's not just the deities rules, it's their identities, personalities, powers, length of lifetime, how they are conceived (the differences between Loki and Vishnu are enormous), moral character, substance and more. Some of them are localized to specific spots. Most deities lack all the omni-adjectives of the Abrahamists. Some are really quite abstract and/or transcendant, others extremely concrete and/or incarnate. The range of emotions or even if they have emotions has a spectrum. Some of the can have sex with humans or animals. The ontological diversity is enormous.

A theoretically "smarter" - in terms of having more powerful cognitive capacities than we do, would look at people at consider us as we consider other creatures, we are by and large the same, but the differences we see between us, look considerable. — Manuel

I don't mean this insultingly at all but how can you know how a cognitively smarter species would look at us?

So the fact that some cultures take dreams to be more real than a culture which doesn't focus on dreams isn't as drastic as it looks, in my opinion. — Manuel

It's vast to me and I straddle those two views. If I completely looked at dreams as a clear source of information about how I should act, what other people are like and doing, what I want and need, my life would be completely different. If you add to that difference different views of time, identity, morals, substance, causation you have very different views of the world. Yes, there is quite a variety of dogs and on the genetic level less so, at least how we prioritized differences (other cultures might not view all dogs as the same species, remember, so they might disagree with you). But the mind is vastly more flexible than the changes we've made through breeding canines.

I've been fluent in my wife's language for 21 years. I live in her country. The languages are quite close. The cultures are quite close. I've worked with communciation in a diverse set of roles and have been used professionally for crosscultural communication roles also, and not just between her culture and mine, but there also.

And still we discover differences and confusions, some having to do with identity and and perception, to this day. Not the man woman stuff (though with that also), but cultural models. Throw me in with an Amazonian tribe with a still living shamanic tradition...and we'd be having to come back again and again to basic ontological investigations to undertand each other.

Between human beings? Maybe, but the differences are superficial. Like some tribes may believe in an extreme form of animism, while another tribe believes in one true God. But the general themes are not too different: the good, evil, the bountiful, the beautiful and so on, with different specifications. — Manuel

You have quite different versions of time, identity, afterlife, objects. In the Maori what we might call a gift includes both some thing and part of the giver's soul. The gift is both a subject and an object. Even the range of deities is enormous, I mean in terms of kind. You have people ridden by gods. You have cultures where assemblages and networks replace out subjects and objects and they are not the same kinds of 'things'. You mention animism which is radically different from both the secular West and the religious West. You have very different ideas about causation. You have cultures where dreams are considered more real than waking life.

The closest thing to a pill in the world is a drug that changes one's perceptions, or the simulation one has of the world. In the Cartesian line of historical progress, the antipsychotic is a reification of his philosophy, as a method for freeing yourself of illusions. — introbert

Or as a method to not be so upset by them/affected by them.

You want your patients on the ward to be easier to handle, a higher dose of their antispsychotic can go a long way.

Which is not me saying all perceptions of people who end up on those wards or in psychiatric consulting rooms are correct.

But I'd say anti-psychotics could just as easily be the blue pills.or the red pills

I mean, having an intelligent symbolic creature like us, possessing exactly the same cognitive framework would be pretty wild. Which doesn't imply that it would be impossible. — Manuel

Apart from anthropology showing that intra-species diversity even regarding ontology is going strong, sociology shows this intra-nation. -religion, -etc. Just think of the ontology of gender/sex

It literally isn't forcing. It is tempting, urging, cajoling. People today are susceptible of this type of influence it is true, because of social and peer pressures, etc., etc., but it is always a choice to allow advertising to bypass reason, — Pantagruel

I don't think this is true. Again you might not buy that product, but you come to see the world through the values and associations they throw at children. Other causes come at you from other fronts, like parents. Other forces may end up forcing you to be half X or Y, but it is only through these outward other pressures.

Anyone who can be literally forced to do something has a diminished capacity in some way. — Pantagruel

I wouldn't call the normal developing child mind diminished, since it is normal, but in this context it is. Though even adults can be manipulated in ways they are not even aware of.

Anyone who can be literally forced to do something has a diminished capacity in some way. If you are forced at gunpoint to strangle a baby you have a legally diminished capacity that absolves you of responsibility (although you still had the actual ability to refuse). — Pantagruel

Sure, though you could have chosen to die. I actually think that kind of force is less effective than long term manipulation. There is a significant minority that would refuse to kill the baby. At least. But if you have a monocultural bombardment of ideas aimed a child, the exceptions would probably be the people with clinical issues.

If a small child is forced to spend all his money on an expensive toy by advertising it is because that child lacked the adult capacity of reason and self-control, which is why there are limits to what children are allowed to do and why important decision-making authority resides with their parents — Pantagruel

Right but again it's not the direct product purchase I am thinking of. It's the attitudes about the world that the child will have later as an adult. even about what the options are, what reality is, what the categories are?

Advertising does not force, it attempts to persuade. — Pantagruel

It can't force you to buy the product. But if you start with kids, I think it can force you to see the world in a certain way. So, you don't think that buying the right car will get you girl attention/sex in some direct automatic exchange, but you get the sense that having the right things will get you these things AND as a straight guy, you should want these things. Does this mean that every straight boy will believe this? No. But that's because other pressures to believe will be on those children. So, we have a complicated forcing, with a number of agents exerting force on children, giving them their worldview.