the more I think I have a pretty darn good life. — Athena

Exist there, in that realisation. Take your strength from there.

I am feeling happier and happier with the life I have right now. — Athena

So, keep existing there.

If all the basic needs were met without a person making an effort, how would that be different from having too much wealth? — Athena

It's very different indeed, as being able to take your basic means of survival for granted, does not give you the power and influence over others, and over what does and does not happen, that having excessive wealth can and usually does.

What would motivate people to make an effort? — Athena

All the unanswered questions in the universe and the journey to discover who you are and what you want.

What are you willing to do for no reward? — Athena

Contribute to the well being of others.

Many jobs have an intrinsic value and many do not but they must be done. — Athena

Those jobs that don't offer humans meaning and purpose and do not offer them a way to pursue personal vocation, should be automated asap and the burden of doing those crap but necessary jobs, that cannot currently be automated, should be shared by all, until they can be automated.

I am trying to expand my great-grandson's life by increasing what he knows and helping him find his own interest and talents. That was the role of teachers played before IQ testing to identify those students best suited for higher education for military and industrial purposes. Today's education is producing products for industry and this leads to a mechanical society. Children who do not automatically follow this technological education agenda become excluded and part of the thrown-away population. It is a huge challenge to help a child discover his/her talents and interest and excite them about learning about the world instead of turning the child off. What do you think is the best way to motivate personal growth? — Athena

I touched on this on my most recent post on the masculinity thread.

Education should cater to those being educated and not to the needs of commerce.
Educational qualifications being little more than currency, is just a horrible state of affairs.
Finding your personal vocation is what matters, not who you are better than at what?
Personal identity states such as gender, sexuality or age should not dictate or preclude you from a particular career path.

I think what matters is the context and the way in which Elvis sings this song.
He sexualises it.
Watch his use of mike, thrusting fingers and I think he sings ' suck' rather than 'sock'. — Amity

He certainly does sexualise it, you can hear the female screams from the audience and see the approvals/appreciations from his female backing singers for the moves and gesticulations he makes.
He also certainly does say suck and not sock.

Just like Meg in the Harry met Sally scene, they both connect food and eating with sex.

But I think Meg/Sally, faking a gratefully receiving female, in awe of male sexual prowess, as all females are supposed to genuinely experience and demonstrate gratitude for :lol: , was in fact demonstrating how easy it is for a female, to fool an individual male, regarding their perceived masculine sexual prowess.
This ecstasy donated by men, that causes women to reach heights of pleasure that have been hitherto, unknown to them, must be acknowledged before, during and after the sexual act. The patriarchal, manly man will accept and acknowledge nothing less. Any woman who does not show such appreciation, every time such a manly man is even just in the same room as women, is not in touch with, and does not understand what real femininity is, from the manly man masculine pov. Such women are probably not 'fully' heterosexual. Meg/Sally was just demonstrating how easy it is to play that role.

Some theistic fables, even back up such manly men self-images of masculinity, as Yahweh itself, turned Adam's first wife Lilith into a snake, for disobeying its demand to let Adam be sexually dominant over her. Lilith insisted on sitting atop of Adam. Adam was underneath her. Yahweh would not put up with that. :lol:
I wonder how Yahweh's supposed wife/consort, Asherah reproduced? A goddess who supposedly gave birth to 70 other gods, including BAAL, who I think is refurbished for use as Satan.
She was the consort/wife of other top gods besides Yahweh, such as El, Anu, and Ugaritic. :scream:
In those days Asherah was called the mother goddess of fertility, in todays celeb world, the paparazzi would call her a slut goddess.

Yeah, plenty going on in the next few years regarding the moon.

From moon missions:
India plans to launch the Chandrayaan 3 mission to the Moon in June 2023, taking a landing module and robotic rover to explore the surface. India first reached the moon in 2008 with Chandrayaan 1.

Russia plans to launch its Luna 25 mission in July 2023, putting a probe on the Moon to gather samples from its southern polar region.

SpaceX plans to take Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and eight other passengers on the dearMoon voyage around the Moon in late 2023. This would be the first mission for its Starship vehicle, which is capable of carrying 100 people.

Nasa, the United States space agency, plans to launch its next Moon mission in 2024. Called Artemis II, it will take astronauts to orbit the Moon.

The US Agency is due to launch the Artemis III mission in 2025 or 2026, landing the first woman and the first person of colour on the Moon.

It will be the first time that people have walked on the Moon since the last of Nasa's Apollo missions in 1972. Nasa has said it will use the Space X Starship for the mission.

China has announced plans with Russia to set up a joint base on the Moon by 2035, but no timeline has been drawn up for the project.

Much better to co-operate, than to cyclically compete, via preparing for war, engaging in war and recovering from war and then repeating the cycle.
Time to go drink beers! Thanks for the exchange!

It's always very interesting and very pleasant to exchange views with you. :up:
I am just watching the live launch of the Euclid space telescope in the background on my TV.
It will hopefully move our species forward a great deal in its search for the nature of dark matter!
Another fantastic, totally human achievement!

:grin: Careful how far you stretch those terms my friend. I think that elasticity is gonna fail ya!

Sounds to me that your thinking is naturally gravitating towards panpsychism, as your panentheistic contemplations seem to lie uncomfortably in you. You do not seem convinced to me that the source of this universe is a fully formed eternal conscious entity that exists outside of spacetime(supernatural) but nonetheless, inhabits every 4D (one dimension being represented, as a duration) coordinate, in spacetime.

But panentheism insists that a god exists as a separate entity, outside of spacetime.
The idea that this panentheistic entity is omnipresent, does not equate such with panpsychism.
Panentheism is a 'rigid concept of a divine,' is it not? It is posited as a prime mover, a first cause an agent of mind/consciousness that created the universe or started the now eternal cycle but it is not deist, is it? not if it is not ever changed but is the cause of all change, which again reduces all change caused by humans to be nothing more than divine relayed intent. 'Outside of spacetime,' is surely supernatural.

Whether one wishes to all this a mind/Brahman/computer is a matter of preference. — Existential Hope

So what is your preference? It's ok if you would rather not say but then saying that you are a theist, suggests you do have a preference and this means you must defend and justify your preference.
Why does a cyclical theory, such as Roger Penrose's CCC not attract you more than theism when theism has such poor evidence and CCC at least has hawking points, that it can demonstrate in the cmb, that are further evidenced/supported by data from the planck and Wmap projects.
I know there are alternative possible explanations for Hawking points but none that are strongly compelling. What convinces you most towards theism?
The something from nothing concept is invalid as there is no exemplar in this universe that science is aware of, for the concept of 'nothing.'

In the final analysis, Mr Nehru's relationship with Mountbatten's wife does not dilute the validity of his political stance. At best, it can be used to question his moral stance or social stance and Mountbatten's daughter Pamela does indeed insist they had no sexual relations.

Hindus believe in a cyclical model in which individuals have always existed in some form. Hopefully, we will continue use our fascinating faculties for the good of all. — Existential Hope

But you still have to qualify and evidence brahman or reject it.

From Wiki: Brahman
In major schools of Hindu philosophy, it is the immaterial, efficient, formal and final cause of all that exists. It is the pervasive, infinite, eternal truth, consciousness and bliss which does not change, yet is the cause of all changes. Brahman as a metaphysical concept refers to the single binding unity behind diversity in all that exists in the universe.

Do you hold that brahman is true?

whereas my example involves an infinite number of functions in the iteration process. — jgill

What condition do you use to terminate your program?

How would you compare Meg Ryan's feminine sex play with Elvis's sex moves in his polk salad annie stage performance? Do you think Elvis is suggesting a more thrusting violent sex?
He was called 'Elvis the Pelvis' by the press during the beginning of his career and was only filmed from the waist up for a while? He hated the suggestion that he was being sexually provocative on stage.
Does this not exemplify how contradictory the male patriarchy, evident in American society during Elvis's rise to celebrity, was? To me, the importance of the Meg Ryan scene was more about place and time (in a restaurant, when everyone was eating.) That was also her expose, imo, as not everyone in the restaurant would know the conversation that led up to her performance.
Almost a sex in public because it's so taboo challenge. Some people watching such an event, may assume she had a secreted sex toy in play. Would that alter the analysis you posted?

Why doncha post your most listened-to Elvis song in the Lounge? — Amity

Because I doubt that many on TPF could care less.
I can listen to Elvis sing about love or even a gospel song as I love his voice so much but songs like 'In the ghetto,' 'If I can Dream,' 'American Trilogy,' and other less serious ones like 'Polk Salad Annie.'
Just takes me through my full gambit of personal emotions.

Oh my goodness but how do we survive in the US if we think like you? — Athena

You have already achieved that survival. You have reached a grand laudable lifespan.

I am beating myself up for not being a more successful person. I didn't try hard enough, or was there value in being cooperative and not competitive? — Athena

I don't understand this mindset! What notion of success are you allowing to hold judgement over your life? Surely not the amassment of money and material goods.

I remember the 1970 recession when it was extremely hard to get a job and it was demanded that we dress up our resumes and perhaps exaggerate our qualifications. I was a domestic woman and just could not become competitive in that way. Not even college cured me of being a domestic woman. I knew the tricks for selling things and I could have been rich but I had to take a low-paying in-home aide job that fit my values. I have read women tend to be more attracted to meaningful work, and we do it for intrinsic reasons, not the money. Doing something just for the money was so wrong! That is being part of the problem. — Athena

Sounds to me that you know what your reasoning was, for not playing the money trick game, to buy cheap and sell dear, and become rich by doing so. Never forget the main problem the rich (especially the nefarious rich) have. If you can buy a Rolls Royce in the same way as an average person can buy a loaf of bread or a drink of water, then there is no joy, no satisfaction, no achievement whatsoever, in buying a Rolls Royce. This is why the rich get involved in weird shit, as they need to get involved in more and more extreme stuff, to feel anything.

I am not sure I am wrong. Now teachers and nurses are paid a lot and they want more, and this makes education and health care unavoidable. Our equality with men means more women and children are involved in crime as both victims and the ones who commit the crimes. Our technological development is doing fine, but our civilization seems to be spinning out of control.

Talk to me. Where do we go from here? — Athena

We keep on the same path Athena!
We do whatever we can as individuals to help create a better world.
We speak out and vote against unfettered free market capitalism. We support ideas such as Universal Basic Income. We advocate nurturing people over profits. We fight for the basic means of survival to be accepted as a human right or else we declare our society, still, uncivilised. We support the removal of money as the main means of exchange from global humanity. We totally reject all forms of religious authority, for ever and ever, regardless of how convinced that woo woo is real, any individual or group is.
I could go on, but I wonder when you will finally accept that you have been, and continue to be, a 'successful' human being. Why don't you take that very very deep, very slow, inhalation and exhalation of breath, over and over again, that confirms your 'at f****** last, acceptance of you as a successful human.' It was NEVER about becoming one of the rich and powerful. The vast majority of them are, and always have been, and always will be, unsuccessful human beings imo.

Irrespective of the origins, the kernel of the issue lies in upholding the catholicity of Hinduism while constructing narrow walls between "us" and "them". — Existential Hope

The problem with even a theism as universal as a pantheism is that it credits any human achievements to supernatural influences and reduces human reason, will, motivation and purpose to nothing more than a conduit for supernatural reason, will, motivation and purpose.
I think this is the curtain between you and I.
I insist in assigning credit to humans alone, and not (what I am 99.999% sure are non-existent) supernatural agents.
This curtain, of course can be opened and closed and we can still fully co-operate to help make the better world we both think can be achieved. A better and continuously improving human experience for those who come after us.

The antinatalists are short sighted fools, who utterly fail in their responsibility to help to make a better future for our continuing species, simply because they are so afraid of suffering.
In truth, suffering is limited, as an eternal hell of suffering, would make an individual into a creature that served no purpose, and learned to accept any level of pain as normal and probably even, eventually, enjoyable.
If I experience the 'limits of pain,' that can be done mentally or physically to a human, every given time unit, for tens/hundreds/thousands/millions of years, then such would eventually just become boring and meaningless, just like antinatalism.

Your comment reminded me of Wikipedia's description of Pandit Nehru: — Existential Hope

I am honoured to find common ground with the politics of Pandit Nehru.
I will still wag a disapproving finger at the small part of his legacy that involves his tryst with Mountbatten's wife, if it is true as reported.

I agree with you that secularism does not demand atheism but I think atheism accommodates secularism better than theism.

Mindless competition will spell doom for us. As degradation continues, one can only hope that reason will prevail. — Existential Hope

I can but agree with your two sentences above, completely, and continue to act against our species continued use of money, unfettered capitalism, willingness to follow others blindly and party politics.

I am a massive Elvis fan. He remains the greatest stage performer I have ever watched, with one of the greatest voices I have ever heard. He was also a dimwit when it came to politics and science and I think his theism was based on his lack of general study. I currently own 74 Elvis CD's.

Doncha just love it when the flying foughts of butterfly brains spark off other trains. — Amity

I tried youtube, but I couldn't find a clip that just said 'don'tcha,' pussycat doll style and I didn't want to put you through the horror of watching the whole song. But imagine I did find a clip with just the don'tcha part and I posted it here. You know it makes sense, DON'TCHA!

focus can flee oot the windae. — Amity

How many Scots or Caledonophiles are on TPF?

Ah, how different would the world be if we could transform rich, political white males currently abusing power to...well, the opposite...? How would they feel? Would there be an increase in empathy or compassion and would it hold when they switched back? Would any pain be forgotten... — Amity

Dunno, but it sound like a cheap, bad tv show we have yet to be subjected to. In a similar vein to:

We transform the current reality of a species controlled by a nefarious, rich and powerful few, by changing our societal drivers on a global scale. Might take a while yet, but we will get there.

Back to the question of 'masculinities and femininities'; the balance thereof...
How feminine is Trump? Putin? What are they trying to prove...with all the chest thumping/dry humpin'? — Amity

They are trying to prove that they should be King/Messiah/God, of the planet and over our species!
They each just don't understand why we don't agree with them and so, in their mind, we have defied our one true god(s) and need to be punished for eternity. If you asked Trump or Putin, I am quite confident that they would agree, (as long as it was off the record and on the QT.)
Competitive unfettered masculinity can result in horrors like Trump and Putin seeing themselves as fully occupying and owning personal images of themselves, such as:

Its an interesting branch to what is a man, woman, human!
Will a future AGI ....... ASI make any use of, or see any value in, our distinctions between the masculine, the feminine, gender, biological sex etc other than it's functionalities towards reproduction.
Especially when it considers asexual reproduction and the fairly wide existence of species that can switch between being biologically male and biologically female, as need dictates.

19 Animals That Can Change Gender (Updated 2022+Images)

EDIT: Sorry, I think I made typos in every second word. Hopefully I have corrected them.

No. But I hear ChatGPT does some neat tricks. Try there. — Amity

Tricks??? Oh! the humanity :groan:

You seem to prefer asking questions to answering them, perhaps that's just your biosemiology. (sorry for that new term,) I think I received a rather chaotic semaphore message, which set out on its journey towards me, from the vacuum of space, during a duration of planck time event, in the 1980's.
My brain just interpreted the sign and gave it meaning, resulting in the term biosemiology.
Does this help prove your claims?

This is where my command of all things mathematical will probably fail me.
Based on your wiki link and that a composition series is a normal series without repetition, do the program function(s)/procedure(s) that created the 'Dream of Gold' image, not employ recursion?
So one or more of the functions/procedures your code employs will call itself.
The content of one or more variables will be altered between recursions, and will normally include a randomised factor, right?
Some conditional is normally employed to terminate the recursion, yes?
So, this causes interesting patterns to appear, yes?
This is similar to how fractal patterns are produced, is it not?
I get that the difference is that there is not a scaled repeat of a basic fractal but the principle is very similar, is it not?

Pikachu gets stabbed by a Jamaican man and then asks why?
The Jamaican man replies he just wanted to poke a mon. — Amity

Could you explain this from a purely biosemiotics viewpoint please!

You haven’t made any argument in support of your rash assertion as yet. Give us an example of how sensitivity to initial conditions is relevant to human social and political structures.

Are you really wanting to claim they are simply chaotic and random outcomes like the weather? Provide some evidence. — apokrisis

This universe is formed from the fact that chaotic systems naturally produce order.
Chaos is also demonstrated in every human, all the time, by means of 'random thought.' An ordered thought can naturally form from that process. Watch something like:


Imo, anthroposemiotics is a description of human communication, which is ordered.
Biosemiotics is all it's forms, for me invokes an image of a chaotic system, which actually has meaningful 'signs' within it, almost like wee semaphoric messages that the ordered human mind can interpret or our biology formed from. It seems to support a deterministic universe, which I do not ascribe to, do you?

The “butterfly effect” is already notorious as the most pop-sci hot take in non-linear dynamics. Let’s see you flesh out your claims here in some fully argued way. — apokrisis

Watch the vid I posted above!

The key is that it is “any spark” that will do the trick. And biosemiosis is about how to harness such criticality and milk it for scalefree growth. — apokrisis

This is too restricted to a cause and effect order, but I like your 'any spark will do,' as this suggests that when the spark is the cause of the beginning of a cascade, you do not say anything regarding what caused the spark or indeed, the nature of the spark. So 'any spark' may be caused by 'any event,' just like a butterfly flapping it's wings in London, ultimately causing a hurricane in Florida.
So exactly what constitutes masculine, feminine or even human, can be influenced by an unknown number of factors from biosemiotics to the butterfly effect/affect.

A butterfly’s wing beat might have done it. So might a half beat, quarter beat and even virtually no beat at all. The frog fart nearby, the bee coughing a moment later - anything can be regarded as the material/efficient cause of a storm. — apokrisis

Now you're getting the idea!

What do you think about quantum fluctuations in the vacuum of space?
Do you think they exist?
Do you think they are truly random and chaotic?
Do you think they are semiotic?
Do you think that they are the main happenstance events that produce the current order in our universe?

Isn't it interesting how an exchange about masculinity can quite quickly, result in questions about quantum fluctuations. Do you think we could get from an exchange about quantum fluctuations to asking the question. 'What does a frog fart smell like and why?' Oh Wait, I think we just did!!!

All this is relevant to the Masculinity thread because Universeness and I are engaging in typical masculine rhetorical maneuvers. — BC

:lol: :clap:

My puns are sooooo much bigger that your puns!

Which one are you referring to?

A pun is:

a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words which sound alike but have different meanings.

Who knew squirrels were so gullible? — BC

I agree, a worse pun ever thread, would be quite entertaining.
My 'Jeopardy' pun in the shoutbox, was much better!

It's Mod Rule!! :scream:

I have declared myself a democratic socialist and a secular humanist, consistently on TPF.
I value co-operation far far far more than I value competition.
My individuality is part of my identity, my socialism and humanism are my conclusions and my main/strongest drivers.

No, I think you should enjoy your cringe, you are welcome to it.
Effect is the result of the change, affect is the influence that causes the change.
Stop wearing your arrogance so prominently, it makes you look desperate and petulant.

You are ignorant if you think that political and social landscapes aren't instead ruled by structural attractors. They have memories and thus place constraints on their variety. They evolve as information systems and don't simply unwind as an accumulation of accidents. — apokrisis

You are rather naive. Political and social landscapes can be altered by a myriad of factors. Especially in a world where global communication can be achieved from almost anywhere on the planet. An individual really can start a revolution from their bed. 'Went viral,' is a common phrase in use today.
The butterfly affect is very much in play in the social and political world today, much more, in comparison with the past. Who knows what small event (perhaps even one based on patriarchy,) a person might see, by accident, on-line, which causes them to perform an action, that results in a long term cascade/recursive effect that ultimately causes or prevents a second civil war in America.

You might have familiarity with the maths of non-linear dynamics, but citing the butterfly effect in this context is yet another irrelevancy you have tossed into this thread. — apokrisis

Yeah, you keep repeating your interpretations of irrelevancies and you keep tossing them into this thread. Are you hoping to cause your own little butterfly affect?

No worries, happens all the time within families. Would be nice to see one of your Aunts paintings though.

Yeah, and you seem to be scrambling around in the dark trying to just find where the line is, whilst images of me gyrating occupy your thoughts. I can keep this fun style of exchange up as long as you like princess, it's really easy.

Sorry, should have checked the details about the painter, before posting the painting! :roll:
I assume you aunt was not called Boris Chaliapin!!

Cheers, not so old man! Coooool fractal based image!
Was this the one your Aunt did?

That's a great response, as it demonstrates how flawed your analysis can be. :rofl: :kiss: :lol:
From Turing to Mandelbrot, I know it quite well. Even did part of my honours degree thesis on fractals.

I try to analyse how I now analyse and interpret another personality/identity, when I socially meet a person for the first time or I exchange ideas or opinions with a person on-line or I listen or watch people talk on TV, or in on-line debates or on call in shows etc.

I have become much slower towards deciding to hate, the vast majority of personas that I would have been quick to hate in the past. Hate is thee most powerful human negative reaction we are capable of, so I now reserve it for a few, but I recognise that hate does still very much exist within me.
Non-heterosexual folks are now removed from my list of identities, I even disapprove of, never mind hate.

I think we all create a list of personas/attitudes/opinions/images, that we apply a response to, within the range between love and hate. But I think it's vital to be always analysing why you include a particular group or individual where you currently place them on your love/hate range.
I think that personal scrutiny of my own 'self,' is what has changed most in it's complexity, refinement and flexibility since I was young. I can only hope that I am doing a better job regarding that responsibility than I have done in the past and I hope to keep recognising the importance of acknowledging, that I have such a responsibility and that I need to always be trying to improve my approach.

You started withering on about being labelled by our proper names as well. If you can’t understand the irrelevance of that to what I was arguing, then so be it. — apokrisis

What I do understand and you obviously don't, is that all human labels are significant and powerful. You have labelled my argument here, 'irrelevant' and I have labelling your analysis of my argument, misguided and wrong. So be it, but the labels stand, and are in earnest, and that does matter, because such influences the actions of both of us, which can in turn, affect the actions of others. You seem rather ignorant to the fact that small butterfly affects can change political and social landscapes in the long term. Your first words in your reply where quite accurate, 'what can you say?'

Imagine for a moment, you had a powerful personal experience, that absolutely convinced you, that Allah exists and was the one true god. Would you need to tell your loved ones? Would you be compelled to declare your new faith publicly, regardless of the significant social cost to yourself and perhaps your family?

Is there any identity that you can imagineer, that could be important enough to you that you must reject your current identity, publicly at significant social cost to you and others?
Surely those deconstructing from theism choose to face that situation all the time.
Do you understand those who decide to upset their entire lives and their familial support system by rejecting their religion and choosing to become an atheist?
Is transitioning to a new sexual identity soooooooo different from that?
Can you offer anymore detail in exactly what it is that you don't understand about such decisions? Especially when I have actually heard some trans people say online, words as serious as 'I either transitioned or I killed myself.'