Right, but what you're asking me to do, is imagine three balls - and then take them away, and suppose there's some substance of configuration still there. — counterpunch

We could copy the configuration onto another (synthetic) brain or other appropriate analog. It would be like an artist creating the exact painting (the configuration of shapes and colors) on two different media (one on canvas and the other on paper for instance). Carbon copying? Xerox machines?

configuration of the brain — counterpunch

A configuration isn't physical. Imagine 3 balls, one red, one green and the other blue. A configuration would be some kind of permutation/combination of these balls but there's no net energy, mass, volume difference between these configurations.

Not quite. There is an extremely small probability the die will end up balanced on an edge. Or that as you toss the die a meteor will crash into your home and blow everything to smithereens. Or any number of other weird things. A bit like Feynman with his path integral where he is tasked with computing a quantity for every possible path between points a and b.

But I didn't mean to interrupt the flow of your argument. — jgill

I'm considering the ideal scenario but point noted. Nevertheless, even such outcomes could be included into the possibility space and we could think of a behavior impossible for the die. Can you think of anything? I'm all out.

I'd dispute that. — fishfry

A very basic understanding of probability should suffice for the discussion, no? and that doesn't seem to be beyond the kin of the average person like me.

But to look at screwdriver and wonder why it's not a wrench is a sign of confusion. — tim wood

Are you saying I'm a victim of Moha? How so? Can you tell me more? Is it not true that if I frame atheism as the probability of god's nonexistence, theists would be atheists who think or believe that that probability is 0%. I could be a full-blown case of a religious nut as some theists are referred to but could, without any contradiction, claim myself to be an atheist who believes that god doesn't exist but the probability of that is 0%. Is this a case of mere word play or is there something deeper going on?

Philosophers, according to a source I chanced upon, is about knowing more and more about less and less until there comes a point when a philosopher knows everything about nothing.

What's your take on the above damning report on philosophers?

By the way I'm "more than happy" for the esteemed Thomas Nagel. I put the quotes there because the late comedian George Carlin has issues with being "more than happy", it seems or he points out that being "more than happy" is a rather stupid thing to say because what exactly does it mean?

I would like to discuss his "what is it like to be a bat?" if you're game. Are you?

I have a simple argument about the non-physical nature of consciousness and it starts with a simple memory stick/pen drive (it seems I have a fetish but that's another story). Anyway, I remember plugging my pen drive into my computer to copy a movie that I had just downloaded. The information on the screen showed that the pen drive had 0 bytes of data - I had just formatted it. I then proceeded to cut and paste the movie to the pen drive and as the file copy window displayed the progress I just sat there and waited, impatiently of course. In a matter of a few minutes the copy command was complete. I looked at the screen and the display read 6.56 GB of 8 GB free - the movie was now in the pen drive but...here's what's interesting to me...as far as I could tell, neither the mass nor the volume of the pen drive had changed and nor could I use the pen drive to heat up my tea that had gone cold. In other words, there was something in the pen drive but it wasn't physical (no mass/volume change was detected and no net energy gain was noticeable to the extent that my knowledge of science informed me). The movie was definitely not physical.

It's my contention that a similar argument can be made for the brain/mind. Over the years that we live and experience the world (after attaining physical maturity of course), we gather "information" about the world but our brains neither gain mass nor do they expand in volume and too there's no net change in energy of the brain. Clearly, at the very least, information isn't physical and the best guess I can offer is that like data on a pen drive are simply a matter of configuration of tiny magnets, the mind/consciousness could also be simply a functional/material configuration of neurons and their supporting structures and that implies, in my opinion, that mind uploading - transferring consciousness from brains onto suitable media - could be possible but, above all, it implies that consciousness isn't physical.

What say you?

It appears that the widely held view is that time has no shape like space is thought to have (3D space can be spherical, maybe even a cube) or if one is forced to answer the question, time can be construed as a straight line but I'm not sure if straight lines are shapes per se. If straight lines are legit shapes then it's not too much of a stretch to imagine time being curved, coiled, loopy, and such.

Now that I think of it gravity is proven to affect space, classicaly depicted with massive objects producing dips and dimples in the fabric of space and it's also scientifically proven that mass can cause time dilation and it seems plausible that time dilations can be explicated as mass bending/curving time but that's only a hunch.

You’ve set the limitations - ‘never’ and ‘always’ - by using a six-sided die. Take away these imposed limitations, and uncertainty returns. — Possibility

I was just wondering at the way the notion of absolute certainty is part of a subject dedicated to uncertainty. To me, that's like describing theism as a position in atheism. It seems odd that we can describe good as a variety/strain of bad. That's what I mean.

Requesting @Wayfarer to look into this and share his thoughts provided that Wayfarer remembers the discussion we had: Is Quality An Illusion?.

There seems to be something fishy going on here but I can't quite put a finger on it. @Wayfarer@Possibility any luck?

:up: :ok:

Even if it Kant's position on the matter were misrepresented by me, it doesn't seem to invalidate the general idea that space is geometry and time is arithmetic.

Thanks goes to all who've contributed to the thread. I'm out of my depths at the moment. Will get back if I think of anything interesting.

:up: Prediction's spot on but it really doesn't say much does it? What's the difference between thinking of doing something and actually doing that something? The free will defense of the problem of evil would say a world of difference but then I've heard that there's such a thing as thought crime.

To begin with, I like to look at it from an empathetic standpoint. I don't like getting punched in the face and I like to have a decent amount of fun in my life; must be the same for you, eh? No wonder morality which is all about the value of human life has an ubiquitous maxim going by the name "the golden rule" - don't do to others what you wouldn't want others to do to you i.e. I value others as much as I value myself with the proviso that if it so happens that I don't value my own life, it doesn't mean that I don't value others' lives too. So many tragedies have occurred by not heeding to this simple moral principle and the condition that I made explicit.

Smacks of eugenics at a level that's very dangerous - out of reach of the law to regulate - but which parent doesn't want a handsome/beautiful intelligent child? My own biases may be influencing the question but the myriad ways in which parents dress up their children in pretty clothes and such, the equally many ways they spend on good schools, tutors, etc. is quite telling in my humble opinion.

Also, take into account the fact that if fetuses show signs of severe physical and mental defects that would result in a poor quality of life compounded by an added burden to taxpayers' money, couples opt for abortion. A big hint, by my reckoning, that people want what you think and say they want.

For better or worse, we currently lack the knowhow to engineer babies. Also, can the existing socio-economic structures support such a policy? Can the world, in its current form, handle a situation in which everyone is a doctor or an engineer or a supermodel or a scientist? God knows.

At the moment of the big bang all mathematics breaks down — Gregory

Mathematics doesn't break down, the theory that results in particular formulae breaks down. That's why scientists are on the lookout for new theories and not new mathematics.

Nevertheless, if math with infinity (presuming infinity is the hobgoblin in the equations) can be somehow made comprehensible, things would just fall into place and everything would make sense. Perhaps, somewhere, in the derivations, there's a division by 0, hidden, hopefully for our sake, in plain sight.

Have you provided examples of these cases? — Possibility

Well, they seem to be thought experiments. Shouldn't that do the trick?

BE the ball... — Possibility

Deepity

If R is incapable of experiencing change, then it is incapable of experiencing time — Possibility

Incorrect. For there are cases when no change occurs but time still passes by. However, it seems, on such occasions, a case can be made that time is no longer relevant (to the object that doesn't change) i.e. it would be as if time didn't exist at all. There's a difference between time doesn't exist and as if time doesn't exist. What can you infer from that?

There’s a pattern here. Recall the other day, you were arguing that hot and cold are on a continuum, and so couldn’t really be considered opposites. Here you’re using a similar argument in a different context. — Wayfarer

Thanks for the gentle reminder. From the perspective that I had suggested in that previous thread, dualism would be an illusion for each pair of opposites would be unified as simply two aspects of an underlying harmonious oneness - they're not two conflicting sides like, say, good and evil, but are more like the aging of a person with time, the ignorant child, say, gradually being replaced by a knowledegable adult - ignorance is the opposite of knowledge and are contradictories but both can be brought under the rubric of, let's name it knowledge shall we? This knowledge would be a scale extending from 0 to an arbitrary number, suppose 10, with 0 = ignorance and 10 = omniscience. It's kinda like an Amazonian setting eyes on a man for the first time and coming to the realization that men too, just like them, are also people - people being the cornerstone of unity, oneness, and gender being the preeminent reason for a dualistic worldview.

However, the neither x nor not-x is not just a rejection of dualistic weltanschauungs is it? If not for any other reason than that the mathematical perspective I offer is, whether it makes sense or not, well, new and wasn't available in Buddha's or succesive Buddhist masters' time.

hypothetical claims — Wayfarer

My example was hypothetical but the point it makes is as central to any philosophy as it is to Buddhism. I really wouldn't want to build a way of life around ignorance all the while thinking that I'm in posession of knowledge. However, if Buddhism comes forward and accepts its skeptical roots, I'm game.

Not so fast. The floor changes from wood to tile between here and the laundry.

Change requires a dimension, perhaps... — Banno

That's a different kind of change, not the kind I'm talking about. Also, "...wood to tile..." isn't actually change, right. Would you say, for instance, if I were fortunate enough to be in your company, that for another lucky person passing by that I changed into you or, god forbid, you changed into me?

I didn't claim or imply that it is. — 180 Proof

Then your post is, has to be, irrelevant, no?

The problem here is that an "infinitely durable material" is not physical possible. So how is an example which asks us to assume something impossible, of any use for demonstrating something about the reality of time? — Metaphysician Undercover

Right! :ok: but imagine an infinitely durable material is, there's no logical contradiction, is there?

We’re not saying that entropy is time - it’s the ignorance of change that occurs when we assume an ‘object’ to be changeless, simply because we don’t experience change. — Possibility

Let's get to the heart of the matter.

Suppose someone claims the red ball, R, moved i.e. changed position but then you inspect it, it's still in the same position. Two possibilities: 1. R hasn't moved or 2. space has no effect on R i.e. R lies outside of space so to speak. If there are other ways of making sense of this, please feel free to make me aware of them.

Likewise, if a person asserts that the red ball, R, has experienced time then there must be some way of determining that, right?, and the first thing that crosses my mind is change for without it, as I've been saying, time can't be perceived and/or experienced. Why? Well, if R doesn't change then there's no difference between R at time T1 and R at time Tn where n > 1 and another way of putting it would be that time is stuck at T1 or that time didn't elapse at all - the bottom line is that for R time no longer matters.

:up: :ok:

Physics is concerned with two issues in my humble opinion: First comes description of the way matter behaves - patterns in the way matter interacts with matter, then comes the theoretical framework that attempts to make sense of these patterns - concepts like force, energy come into the picture at this point. The description of the behavior of matter usually takes on a mathematical form and, last I checked, the concepts that constitute the explanatory hypothesis/theory too are mathematical.

If you said that in an essay on Buddhist philosophy, you'd get an 'F', unfortunately. — Wayfarer

:rofl: That's all I could manage with the little that I know.

There is no eternally-persisting anything in Buddhism. That's why, again, many of the early Western scholars characterised it as nihilistic - but it's not that, either. — Wayfarer

I would like you to clarify a matter that's been bothering me for quite some time now. It's about the epistemological nature of what comes across as the Buddhist practice of denial - the neither x nor not-x position which seems to be at the heart of Buddhist thought, a fact that inheres in your posts such as the one above, exemplified in the denial of "...eternally-persisting anything..." and also the denial of the "...nihilistic...". Is this the famous middle path?

Anyway, what I'm particularly concerened about is whether the Buddhist practice of denial emerges from knowledge or ignorance. Perhaps a simple example will get the point across better than trying to explain my predicament so, here goes: Imagine a pot of water standing on the floor of the room. In reality, the water contained in the pot is tepid/lukewarm.

Suppose there are two people, X and Y and while X is allowed to feel the water Y isn't.

X feels the water and discovers the water is neither hot nor cold - X, epistemologically, now has knowledge of the water's thermal state.

Y, on the other hand, hasn't touched the water i.e. he doesn't know the water's temperature and comes to the conclusion that he's too ignorant to claim that the water is cold or that the water is hot.

As is obvious, X and Y both are identical in the sense they agree that water in the pot is neither hot nor cold but X has knowledge (X touched the water) while Y is ignorant (Y never touched the water).

In summary, a neither x nor not-x denial stance can arise from either knowledge or ignorance. In the case of Buddhism, which is it?. Buddhism, according to some sources, shares a deep connection with skepticism and that would suggest that at some level the Buddhist habit of denial of both thesis and anti-thesis has got more to do with ignorance than knowledge. If that's true, it would be disappointing:

Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters — Dogen

1. I think that it is possible to be inside and outside of time. It is both subjective and objective. I think that this possibility arises because it is a dimensions rather than a material construct. Material reality changes, but consciousness arises within the material nature of it but is able to go into the non materialist dimensional reality, in which 3. time can be subjective.

I am afraid that I am going back into areas related to the questions of 3. determinism, but it may be that so much about how we see reality hinges on this — Jack Cummins

1. If you come at it from a position that's contradiction-friendly, I have nothing more to say. By the way, is there a contradiction? I intuit there is one but I may have goofed up.

2. The subjective nature of time is the one thing I'm very familiar with. It's said that the hands of a clock move faster when we're enjoying ourselves and slower when it's dull, dreary, boring.

According to some Buddhist traditions the gods who reside in heaven are supposed to have life-spans of thousands of human-years. I'm not sure but a couple of thousand years for a human is but 1 day for a god. No prizes for guessing which beings, gods or humans, are having the "time" of their lives.

3. About determinism, all I can say is that it's a hairy problem.

You’re assuming that R experiences — Possibility

What exactly do you mean by "experiences"? I hope not in the sense like a human experiences, subjectively?

entropy — Carlo Rovelli, ‘The Order of Time’

Is 'increasing from minimum disorder to maximum disorder of a closed system (e.g. universe)' an illusion? — 180 Proof

Entropy is not time. It's change and while, yes, change implies time, some things don't change or if that doesn't suit your worldview, imagine a changeless object, say C. C would appear to be trapped in a moment/instant - as if time didn't elapse. Many movies depict the stoppage of the time as objects freezing at one spot and in one position and this, to me, is indicative of the intuition that if no change takes place, the effect is the same as time stopping or becoming nonexistent.

There is change and then the measurement of change, which is time. How long did it take for the apple to turn from green to red? Seven spins of the Earth on it's axis. Time is using change to measure change. — Harry Hindu

I have nothing more to add. :up:

A few things I want you two to shed light on.

1. I'm not quite sure of this but I've been told Buddhism is identified more as a mystical tradition rather than your everyday, garden variety, religion. Anyway, a week ago I watched this video on mysticism and one statement caught my attention and that statement is "to be conscious without being conscious of something". I take that to mean, to draw an analogy, that consciousness is like a vessel - it can contain stuff (thoughts & perceptions) but it can be, with meditation, emptied of its contents and just as the vessel remains even when its devoid of anything, consciousness too persists even when it isn't thinking or perceiving something. Call this container consciousness

2. I believe that the notion of consciousness that's around is at odds with container consciousness - the Wikipedia entry on consciousness defines it as awareness of either the self or one's environment and what that means is without an object (self/the environment) to become aware of, consciousness is nonexistent. Call this content consciousness.

3. Nirvana, in my humble opinion, makes sense, given that, knowingly or not, Buddhism puts such an emphasis on deep meditation, only within the context of container consciousness. The idea is to extinguish thoughts and perceptions and not consciousness itself. Discard the contents but keep the container; a very counterintuitive suggestion/recommendation given that in everyday life its the contents that tend to be valuable rather than the packaging (container) they come in. Emptiness? Sunyata?

how can I absorb philosophy better? — deusidex

I sat down beside the woman I loved. It was late evening, the sun was hanging low on the horizon, and I was spellbound by the play of light across that face I'd fallen in love with.

I reached into the wikcer basket, and picked up an orange. As we talked, I peeled the rind off, deposited it on the side of the table and popped one slice of juicy orange into my mouth. It was delicious but I had to do some tongue gymnastics to avoid biting and swallowing the seeds which I spat out as far as I could - it flew in a parabolic curve and landed on a patch of ground close by.

That's what I remember of those precious moments a very long, long time ago as I catch sight of the now fully-grown orange tree that's sprouted from one of those seeds that my love of orange and loving earth's gravity had conspired to deposit on that small patch of fertile ground.

I ate that orange.

Descartes was, I believe, a dyed-in-the-wool, true blue, rationalist - for this Frenchman who, unfortunately died of pneumonia while attempting to tutor a princess, nothing, absolutely nothing, was beyond the reach of reason - he could, as he would've believed strongly, lie in his bed and discover the deepest secrets of the universe simply by thinking; surely, such a simple process as blood circulation would be mere child's play for him. What's up with theoretical physicists?

:up: I will never get to the bottom of the problem. I don't even remember what the problem was. Just vague thoughts on possible routes to solving it. Can you, maybe, work backwards from the OP and make a guesstimate on what the question/problem was/is?

By the way, where exactly are your views on the temporal aspects of logic. I hear there's such a thing as temporal logic, kind courtesy of Arthur Prior. Can you give me, even if it's only one (long) sentence, a short introduction to it?

I should've paid more attention in university. There was a course in, I think, community medicine (no, I'm not a health professional) and we had to study the dynamics of communication - techniques that were designed for optimum efficiency of information exchange - and we had to learn the role of Knowledge, Attitude, Belief and Practice. It seems that there are multiple independent factors that come into play between what one thinks and what one does. For instance, I'm a chain smoker. I have knowledge that smoking is, according to what the packets say, injurious to health. I also believe that to be true. Yet, I smoke, my practice of nicotine inhalation is now, at the very least, 20 years and counting. While I'm fairly certain I'm not reckless, bravado isn't my cup of tea, i.e. I don't seem to have an attitude issue, I can't quite put a finger on where - between my head and hands and lips - the error (it's an error, right?) occurs. Off topic? Never mind.

When it works or is valid under any and all contexts.

I was led to believe that different worlviews are mutually incompatible i.e. it would be quite a (mental) feat to have them sit at the same table and chatting amicably with each other, in a manner of speaking of course.

Nevertheless, I must say that I've heard of the phrase concordia discordis which, to my knowledge, is the position that conflict, between thesis and antithesis, resolves, or is supposed to resolve, into a mutually acceptable compromise; sorry, no real world examples I can think of at the moment.

I'm not really sure about this but one of the reasons cognitive dissonance (inconsistency) is viewed with such dread is because it makes us look, well, foolish. I'm, as of now, at an age when mid-life crisis, whatever that means, is a real issue but when I look back into my past, there was a distinct phase in my life when I did all I could possibly do not to look foolish - I believe it's called the teens. I feel there's an element of infantilism in trying to avoid being the idiot in the group, a lack of maturity so to speak. You need to be of a certain mental age to be able to take jibes, sneers, contempt, laughter in one's stride. In other words, for goodness sakes stop worrying about being inconsistent and/or harboring a cognitive dissonance or two and stop trying to construct that perfect worldview that both makes sense of everything and also is free of contradictions. Off topic?

Maybe entertaining, or edifying, but doesn’t count for knowledge, though.

I think here there’s a lesson lurking under the surface, but I’ve done all I can to point it out. — Wayfarer

Indeed you have. Much appreciated. If god exists, god bless and if he doesn't, good luck to you. I'll reply if I can think of anything worth spilling ink over. Ciao.

why ‘clinging’? What do you think is motivating that? — Wayfarer

Maybe the choice of words can be pinned down to woolly thinking but, setting poor judgment aside, I daresay a lot of philosophy has, at there foundations, nothing more than mere possibility and a good number of philosophers have clung onto that sliver of hope and built rich and profoundly entertaining mindscapes upon it.

‘If only thoughts were reducible to maths! Then I wouldn’t have this problem.’ — Wayfarer

To be honest, I'm not saying they are; I'm, as they say, clinging to a mere possibility. By the way, I want to bounce something off of you. My OP provides a rough sketch of the scientific consensus on color and as I mentioned red is 650 nm, green is 550 nm and blue is 450 nm with other colors falling on a continuum. Our eyes detect these colors and our brains perceive them as well. Color perception then can be construed as measurement of the component wavelengths of white light. Assuming a measuring instrument (here the eyes) must parallel the object being measured (here components of white light), isn't it reasonable that the perception of color is mathematical for that which is being measured is. A similar argument can be made of the spectral, not binary, nature of all perception. In short, our brains do handle numerical information, at least at the sensory level.

As I've heard people say, "all roads lead to Rome". If Rome is your destination (the value), and there are multiple ways of getting there, it would be mighty prudent to pick the best route - no or fewer chuckholes, good weather, safer, shorter, convenient locations for a stop to stretch your legs, cost, picturesque landscape, and so on. Mind you, there'll be some compromises you'll have to make. If you have the time and patience, you could try out all the ways of getting to Rome - each road will have its own treasures (and perils) to offer.

Who's to say that all thought, even thoughts that are frank contradictions, aren't mathematically describable. That possibility shakes the very foundation of quality as a notion. It's like a digital computer, an AI, having thoughts about quality - whatever those thoughts may be, it's ultimately a combination of 1's and 0's.

But we do choose to live, with every action that prolongs exists it's a choice to go on. Stop choosing and eventually death takes you. — Darkneos

Well, I was coming at it from the well-known fact that though a mind makes a firm decision to die (suicide), the body resists (gasping for air, body writhing, and the whole nine yards of what has been fearfully labeled "death throes") and how so has been, occasionaly, depicted quite accurately on screen.

:ok: But...when someone says "dualism" I think of a humble coin with 2 sides but when I hear "perspective" the image that forms in my mind is that of a sparkling, multifacted (many not just 2) gem. A coin can be either heads up or tails up but not both but a gem can present many sides to the observer. Pirsig presents two views which he names as "classic" and "romantic" but, in my humble opinion, these two aren't mutually exclusive - only one can be true sorta deal - and they should be if Pirsig has a bone to pick with dualism; they seem more like, to reiterate, different faces of a glittering gemstone - each as true as the other.

Sorry, as you can see, I'm having a hard time.

I think you’re missing the point, but given that it’s a very difficult point, no blame. — Wayfarer

I have always struggled with the concept of dualism and the last time I gave it any consideration led me to the conclusion that it's about opposites and the interplay between them. By opposites I refer to things such as hot and cold, good and bad, up and down, true and false, etc. which are either contraries or contradictories. As examples, hot and cold are contraries because both can't be the case but both can be false as when the temperature is moderate (lukewarm, tepid) and contradictories can't ever be both true and neither can both be false e.g. the proposition "god exists" and "god doesn't exist" both can't be true and also both can't be false (at least one and only one has to be true while the other is false).

Robert M. Pirsig, in his book, discusses the "dualism" of the classical and romantic view, with the former roughly corresponding to science/technology and the latter being an artistic perspective. However, this, technically, isn't dualism hence the quotes around dualism in the beginning of this paragraph. Dualism proper is, as I understand, about opposites and is definitely not, in my humble opinion, about perspective which the esteemed Pirsig takes great pains to unpack in his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance. Would you call a student's perspective as contrasted with a cop's an example of dualism? No, they're simple different ways of looking at an issue and are most certainly not what we would consider an instance of dualism for a students and cops aren't opposites.

What say you?

Bcause of perspective, a truth can be false. — Don Wade

You have a point but the two arguments that I brought to your attention are not restricted to a single perspective; they're true from all angles..

Starting point: Cogito ergo sum

Another starting point: T = There are no truths. T can't be true because then it's, self-contradictory. T has to be false ergo, S = There are truths

THERE is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is
not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest— whether
or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories—comes afterwards.
These are games; one must first answer.

This is how Camus opens his Myth of Sisyphus. (I'm surprised nobody brought it up yet.)
He formulates the matter as such: It's not about having a reason to live, it's about having a reason not to kill yourself. — baker

My thoughts exactly.

Understood, but, the running laptop is not merely more complex than the laptop in sleep mode... it is also physically distinct from it — InPitzotl

Why bring it up then? We are, after all, discussing physically identical objects (p-zombies and human beings)? We should be comparing two laptops (both on) instead of one in sleep mode and the other not.

the same awake human is physically distinct from the p-zombie, THEN your argument against physicalism does not work. — InPitzotl

That's begging the question.

bad theology — Banno

Bad theology? Are you sure you're not conflating bad arguments with theology unless of course theology is the very embodiment of irrationality? What about Anselm's ontological proof?

Can you be sure we are not conscious in these times? We are conscious in dreams but don't generally remember. — EnPassant

I' not sure but that blade cuts both ways - are you sure that we are.