Still, it is tempting to think that, when a team of mathematicians have finished programming a computer to perform a proof, and finally, after months of toil, run the program, that there is indeed a mathematical proof being performed by the computer.

If no mathematical proof was performed by the computer, if abstract entities were not instantiated and operated upon, then it is quite difficult to explain just what is going on. — tom

I'm not sure how the set of all non-elephants might be instantiated. And its membership doesn't come and go depending on whether anybody's thinking about it. But this is all for a different thread called "What is an abstract object?"

OK.

Men are externally yang, but internally yin. Women are externally yin, internally yang.

Femininity is like the earth. It freely gives itself up. The passive, feminine part of creativity is a willingness to serve inspiration... just become transparent to its light... give it what it needs to clothe itself in earth. The masculine side decides. It's self expression. Too much masculinity can result in infanticide because ultimately there aren't really any right answers when it comes to creation. Too much femininity, and the ultimate result is fragmented like a painting that has no coherent composition. So yea.. I agree with the balance idea.

An accupuncturist told me that yin is expanding outward. Yang contracts in. Hip hop is yin. Soundgarden is very yang. But the two are aspects of everything. Consider the yin aspect of authority. Contrast that to the yang aspect of it.

Abstractions being strictly mental, of course. — Terrapin Station

"Abstract" and "mental" are different. Numbers, math in general, sets... these are abstract objects, not mental objects.

For me it's better to look at the concepts without ontological considerations. If you subsequently want to say there is no such thing as an abstract object.. fine. Ontology does not provide leverage for redefining terms.

Frequently a world is an abstract object. Hamlet's world is abstract to some extent. That means that if I said Hamlet was Argentinian, you could correct me.

Then consider the Kipling/Twain issue. Twain tells Kipling he's going to rewrite Tom Sawyer. Kipling says that isn't possible. Twain says he can because it's his story. Who's right?

The story is public domain at the time the conversation takes place.

Don't know. Most people have some annoying features. Weigh the good against the bad. Good rule of thumb: don't try to fix people.

Just yesterday I was walking into a hardware store, a fantastic idea had just come to me. It occurred to me that all I could do is watch my life as if I'm watching a movie to see if the follow-through will accompany this particular idea. But I'm older. I've been watching this movie for a while now. Visualizing may or may not have any bearing.

Once I was at the base of a cliff. The landscape was covered in about a foot of snow. I decided my best way forward was to climb the cliff (which I'd done before without the snow.) About a third of the way up I reached an iffy portion. I'd need to jump like superman and grab. I took a moment and visualized the leap several times. I leaped and caught two hands full of ice and slipped all the way back down the cliff. At the base again, I let out a scream because it hurt and without thinking I just scrambled up the cliff without any visualization at all... probably the way the average primate would do it.

Stalling isn't necessarily a bad thing. Being unproductive isn't either.

Life is the greatest of all gurus. Your friend is a disciple along with the rest of us.

When I'm intent on displaying my stupidity I prefer to do it by cartoon.

I've been reading Geneology of Morals (after Gay Science). Paying closer attention to the parts I sort of ignored before.. the blond Aryan conquerors versus the darker primitive people. The assessment of democracy is that it endangers the purity of the blond Aryans (who were universally blond for some reason). Communism is a monstrous reversion to a primitive social structure resulting from the rise of the darkies.

So.. he said he dwelt with Schopenhauer to the point that it was just the two of them. That means he has to have known that the pale blond image is a myth.. a metaphor... a magic language that is bound to create pathos and pathology. Expression and creation are identical.

Per N, the Buddhist longing for nothingness is the same as the Christian mystic's longing for union with God. He thinks both forms of mysticism are nihilism cults.

They bare their teeth sometimes.

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.
-- Emerson

Well, there you have it. I should just read the Guardian.

China is presently building about 20 nuclear power plants to go with the 35 they already have. And anybody else who needs fossil fuel to climb out of poverty will sink right back into it when the fossil fuel runs out (per David Archer, some time in the 22nd Century... so not long.)

Some Democrats did, yes. Not all, though, and those who didn't -- while they opposed Bush 2 -- thought it was silly to make said comparison, for the reason you note here. — Moliere

Sure. I was the one in the crowd claiming that the comparison was inappropriate. I was silenced by the rage. It's easy to forget exactly how angry part of the American population was about GWBush.

I think suspicion of experts is more typical of rightists. Their point is that Nature is the super-expert. Convolutedly, this outlook was shown to be flawed by the failure of an expert who championed nature: Alan Greenspan.

My reply to Rorty would be that if all we have is conversation "disembodied" from the world around us, then those with existing power will be able to dominate that conversation. That is, his recipe for a liberal paradise will result in a conservative world in which those with more power dominate the conversation. — Banno

Those who are in power usually do dominate the conversation, don't they?

Have all Democrats called every Republican candidate a fascist since Bush? — Moliere

Since Gore Vidal said it, probably. People regularly compared GWBush to Hitler. There was nothing particularly fascist about him. I haven't heard many people call Trump fascist, but he did heavily promote nostalgia and what appeared to be scape-goating. Didn't see much war-mongering, but who knows what he'll say next week?

The question is: what difference does it make? It's hard for me to think of a scenario where the US crashes into a fascist ditch. But whatever it is, it's not something to be glib about. It's horrendous.

True. Some people are alive because of medicine that probably wouldn't have been developed in an efficiency loving environment. A lot of people suffer because of it...

I maintain that the spin doctor and the bullshitter are distinct, so:

Spin doctor - That is the truth, but it means this...
Liar - That is the truth, but I am going to tell you this...
Bullshitter - I am going to tell you this... — Banno

I understand. It was the prevailing mode in American politics in the 1800's. Lincoln decided not to participate, earning the nickname "Honest Abe." But a case of complete bullshit in which Democrats said they had evidence that Lincoln was involved in an attempt to take a federal arsenal facilitated the onset of war.

Point is: bullshit doesn't necessarily result in a bad outcome. It's a social ritual.

And most of what you call healthcare originated in the USA. And that.. is not bullshit. :)

But bullshit is useful... meaning as use and all.

The same thing was going on before spin-consciousness. We just weren't as aware.

But it's ancient. The Romans peddled propaganda. Facts are for historians.

You say it's difficult to step outside power structures "for we are embodied within them." The master and slave both have to die to be born anew as equals. There's an American movie called Gone With the Wind that depicts the ending of a whole world due to war and the abolishment of slavery.

What I note is that it never really seems to end. People rise up, things change for bit, and then slavery appears again in some other form. Is that because it's part of our basic nature? Do we have to die and be replaced by something else for slavery to finally end?

I don't think it's always possible or warranted.

Fear is paralyzing when it takes over. Any self-directed action is a sign that fear is diminished. And then action leads to further diminishment. Gandhi spun fibers to relieve fear of going without clothes. The Samurai studied Zen so they could fight with no fear of death. If you go into healthcare someone will share ways to overcome fear when someone is dying in front of you and it's your job to do something about it.

Or you could do it like MLK... have faith in people.

It is slavery when the dependence is sustained by fear instead of by love. — unenlightened

True. And I guess simply abandoning fear is a kind of emancipation.

Enter Foucault, stage left. Each of us is complicit in the framework of power we find ourselves in, indeed I oppress myself, I self-censor, I apologise when I don't need to, I accede when I could have asserted. This does seem to me something in us - each of us spends years accepting parental / institutional authority, before each of us breaks out in our own way, with all sorts of residual obedience to habit / instruction / people. — mcdoodle

I'm not familiar with Foucault. Does he talk about self-oppression?

I guess everybody's got a Stern Gang that gets wild and crazy from time to time.

Only a small proportion of hourly wage workers are engaged in labor that is not alienating. — Bitter Crank

And recently the crowd mourns that there isn't more of this kind of work. "Provide more wage slavery" is basically the Trump mandate, right?

A tribe somewhere in a pristine jungle would not see it as self evident that they'll be fed if hungry, someone living among people who are all considerably wealthy might. — Gooseone

Exactly. Cool article, thanks.

On one hand we have people who fall through the cracks, so to speak, and are in the doldrums not of their own volition, and on the other, we have people who very much choose to fall through the cracks. Are both of these people in the wrong? — Heister Eggcart

Why are there cracks to fall through in the first place?

Hello, thanks for your post. Interesting topic, imho. I'm just trying to follow the train of thought, concerning dependency and slavery. Could you define what you mean any further? — 0 thru 9

I've been spinning yarn, which for me is a hobby. For Gandhi it was about self-sufficiency which provides the power to stand up with dignity. Why was power and dignity lost to begin with? How did India become an object of exploitation? They were conquered during a window of weak political power. So doesn't it come back to defense? If you don't invest in the ability to kill, you may never pay a price for it but your descendants might.

I'm suggesting that it really isn't so much a slow insidious loss of self-direction. Violent subjugation comes first. True or deluded?

'This table is made of clay.' To me that is contingent upon who is speaking, in what location, when, and what contextually they mean by 'clay', which has a rather imprecise meaning to it. So what is necessary about it? — mcdoodle

I think it would have to be truth-apt before it could be necessarily true. We would have to know what table the statement is about.

Descartes takes his date, Jeanne, to a posh restaurant for her birthday.

The sommelier hands them the wine list, and Jeanne asks to order the most expensive bottle on the list.

"I think not!" exclaims an indignant Descartes, and *POOF* he disappears.

Terrapin pointed out the significant factor: Kripke denied descriptivism in favor of the chain scenario.

Andrewk said: "Under Kripke's approach, it seems possible, on a formal basis, to imagine that Obama is a mountain."

Way to go TGW. You've got people believing that Kripke was an idiot.

The point is measurement problems are incohrent because one does not achieve knowledge by relying on a set of associated properties.

To understand a state, one has to grasp the thing that exists. "Essence" is not a description or measurement of anything. It's just someone pretending to know what something must be. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I don't think this has anything at all to do with Sartre.

Did you choose what you are?

"Existence before essence" means that presence (whatever it might be) has primacy over associated properties (essence). — TheWillowOfDarkness

I don't think so. It's more like the measurement problem. Sartre was a wild guy. He was in the French Resistance during WW2.