Chatterbears nailed. — Bitter Crank

Nah, Jake nailed. Surely I should find something more interesting and useful to do. Sadly, my ego is a sucker for shooting fish in a barrel operations. Pathetic, but there you have it.

Here's how to back up your claims: Provide evidence. — chatterbears

Do you seriously not get that you've been moral posturing throughout this entire thread? Please look at the title you chose for the thread. It's not about animals. It's about us. Your judgment of us.

I was making a comparison between what we are standing up for, which is injustice. — chatterbears

If you were standing up for injustice, you'd be interested in the most effective ways to do that. As best I can tell, we're on page 14 and you've expressed little to no interest in such an investigation. You want to have an ethical conversation, with you being the moral authority. Everything else is discarded.

You seem to have the patience to criticize, but not to offer a solution and/or provide examples of the thing you claim is wrong. — chatterbears

I could, we all could, probably provide many examples of a more effective persuasion strategy for helping animals, and you could figure it out on your own, but all you want to talk about is yourself.

Illumination in the Flatwoods: A Season with the Wild Turkey by Joe Hutto. Hutto hatched a batch of wild turkey eggs and raised the chicks which had been imprinted on him. He spent most of a year with the turkeys, all day, on many days. Great book. — Bitter Crank

Yea, that was great!

Here's a trailer to the documentary video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmYRi-3m6oA

Full video here, but requires login.

https://www.pbs.org/video/nature-my-life-as-a-turkey/

=============

Here's a wonderful similar video about a guy and deer (though not Florida)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii4Oke8lb6A

=============

Here's what YouTube has about my home state park, 4 miles from my house. Not a very good selection, but convenient.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=san+felasco+state+park

=============

Kathy and I used to have a website containing many videos of our adventures raising squirrels, but it went bye-bye some time ago. But of course there are many such vids on YouTuber.

Yea, more posts about Chatterbears! Fuck the animals, let them start their own darn thread.

How about a new thread which focuses on animals instead of us? Wipe the slate clean, start over from scratch, bygones be bygones, give it another go?

Give me an alternative way of what would be better. — chatterbears

Before we do that, show us that you are actually interested in alternative ways of serving animals. You can do that by starting such an investigation yourself, on our own, without us. Start a new thread. Write some posts which show that you are conducting your own investigation, doing your own homework, trying to find these alternatives no matter what anyone else may do or say.

There are a million alternatives to moralizing. You don't see them yet apparently because you want to moralize.

You made the claim that I am more focused with displaying my moral superiority, rather than focusing on the animals. I asked you to back up this claim by providing me with evidence of me doing exactly what you are accusing me of doing. — chatterbears

This entire thread is an exercise in your positioning yourself as being morally superior on the subject of animals. Pick any of your posts, there's your evidence.

Please note how you continually respond to this challenge over and over again, and have even started an entire new thread on the subject. That's because your focus is on Chatterbears, not on serving animals.

Your focus on Chatterbears is not a moral crime. You're entirely within your rights to sell yourself anyway you wish. I have no complaint with that at all. Your focus on Chatterbears is a lack of clarity, because you seem to sincerely feel that you are focused on serving animals. This is a philosophy forum, our job here is to attempt to remedy lack of clarity as best we can.

Here's how to debunk all of the above. Abandon this thread. Start a new thread which sincerely attempts to investigate what the most effective and efficient ways of serving animals might be. Don't just blindly assume that is moral sermonizing just because that is what Chatterbears likes to do.

If you should discover that you lose interest in the topic if it doesn't involve moral sermonizing, then you will have enhanced your clarity.

If you discover that moral sermonizing is actually not a necessary part of your desire to serve animals, that will enhance your clarity too.

Again, you don't have anything to compare life to apart from your neighbor who always smiles every day when going to work and coming back from it. — Wallows

I agree we have no basis of comparison. And thus, not wanting to die is not reason based. A reason based perspective would be built upon comparing A to B and then selecting the more desired outcome.

The fact that we may like where we are now doesn't equal where we are now being better than something else which is unknown. I like this forum, but that's only because I don't know of a philosophy forum populated by cute redheaded coeds who all find me to be The Genius.

Mods, are you reading this? Do you see now how you're totally falling down on the job? :smile:

How would you know? — Tzeentch

I have know what I have observed, a significant pile of evidence. But you're right, I surely can't claim that NOBODY could escape their philosophical ego.

In fact, I have escaped my ego. Yes, it's true. In fact I won the 2018 Most Humble Man Competition, having trounced my pathetic competitors. What a bunch of losers, nowhere near as humble as me! :smile:

There is no comparison. So, we must appreciate life for what it offers us regardless. — Wallows

Not wanting to die is based on a comparison, whether one realizes that or not. Appreciating life is not the same thing as not wanting to die.

It could be argued that if a person needs to be restrained in order to make him engage in true philosophy, he does not yet have the capacity to be a true philosopher. — Tzeentch

I think my point might have been that it's the human condition that we all have egos and so if our names, even anonymous screen names, are attached to our thoughts then a distracting agenda is introduced.

Perhaps there are those who can attach a name to their writing without their ego becoming engaged, but in 20 years of doing this dance I've yet to meet them. :smile:

Hey everybody, look at this post! It's by Jake! Isn't Jake incredibly wise? :smile:

The reason I so often rant on this topic is that it is a very real part of my everyday life. Other than my marriage, my life is almost entirely divided between nature and the net, two very different experiences, both of which are very compelling for me. That is, I'm almost always doing one or the other, nature or the net.

And so I'm continually traveling back and forth between the real and the symbolic, over and over and over again for years. Thus, the comparison between actual reality and simulated symbolic reality is constantly being shoved in my face.

And it's not just an intellectual question for me, because I have a deep emotional relationship with both of these experiences, even though they are very different.

This personal experience gets reflected in my philosophy, where I'm constantly philosophizing about the limits of philosophy, and constantly writing about the emptiness of the symbolic.

About 20 years ago I attempted to square this circle by becoming a nature photographer with a series of nature websites. My main project was Nature-Talk.com, many many thousands of pages, and doesn't the name say it all? (Please note that somebody else now has this domain and it has nothing to do with nature anymore)

Anyway, in the end I gave it up, because it's simply not possible to capture the real world in the lens of a camera or any series of words. My $2000 worth of camera equipment has long been sitting lonely in an upstairs closet, presumably rotting away, and my websites are long gone.

And so here I am, keeping the contradiction alive for reasons that likely make little sense. I am cursed with being born with some ability at the symbolic, and also some ability to see it's emptiness. Next time around I won't be so greedy and will request just one or the other. :smile:

Don't you find life rewarding enough to not want to die? — Wallows

Rewarding in comparison to what?

ust hope that everyone is rational enough to not want to die. — Wallows

Which opens another huge box of worms. Where is the evidence that life is better than death?

I myself routinely wail about nuclear weapons based on the assumption that life is better than death, but that conclusion is really little more than faith.

That's why a philosopher needs to be utterly dedicated to truth, and nothing but the truth, and he must scrutinize himself every step of the way, for of all people a philosopher should know how valuable and rare truth is. — Tzeentch

One device that might assist this process could be for all philosophy to be done anonymously. No names attached to any statements. This would help remove extremely distracting agendas like ego and career advancement etc.

I recently spent a few months on a group blog for academic philosophers. It was almost entirely about chanting the politically correct group consensus so as to develop one's career by seeking affirmation from one's peers etc.

What complicated that realm almost beyond hope of redemption is that the academics are very articulate and well endowed with authority credentials such as the PhD. So the writers, especially the younger ones, were very sincerely convinced they were doing advanced philosophy when really they are just running a business built upon chanting the group consensus.

Anyway, remove all the names and there is little left to do but real philosophy.

While it's nice to fantasize about the future of fantasy and virtual reality, let us remember that you aren't going to get so much as a cheaply printed comic book for free, let alone an hour on the holodeck of the future. — Bitter Crank

Hi Crank,

Well, yes, of course. I had to buy this computer in order to connect with you, an essentially unreal character in my experience.

You're right in that the more powerful the coming technology is the more it will become another tool in the process of funneling money and power from the middle and lower classes up the chain to those who are already rich. This is a sobering reality for sure.

We could look to our relationship with dangerous drugs perhaps. Everybody knows these drugs are unhealthy from the start, but the experience they promise is too appealing for many to resist.

What may make VR even more dangerous is that it will also have many constructive uses, which will make it easy to justify it's development.

I wish. It's more like the priest keeps saying the same things over and over again until... — BrianW

Yes, but to be fair to the priest, this is what their audience wants. If we keep talking about love, love, love and God, God, God then we can create the impression that we are faithful to the religion, without having to actually do anything that is scary or challenging.

You know, when I was young my Mom dutifully took us to Mass every Sunday, and we sat there and did the routine, and then never spoke a word about it the rest of the week. We had checked the God box, we were done until next Sunday.

It seems the reality the priest is faced with is that this is what most of us want to do most of the time, and if the priest rocks that boat too much he won't have a congregation.

Hi Rank,

My unsupportable opinion is 99% of this is for human aggrandizement and 1% for the greater glory of God. — Rank Amateur

The trouble starts at the moment we say the word God. The word "God" is a noun. It has to be defined so we can draw the imaginary boundary between "God" and "not-God". Then various people will declare themselves experts on the subject, and those who can master the job of projecting authority will be able to make a living at being such experts. Once they know how to play the role of expert, and probably forgot how to make a living any other way, the authority generating machine has to be promoted, typically by an ever growing pile of definitions and explanations. And the authority generating machine has to be defended, which typically involves conflict of various kinds. Then people's egos become attracted to and addicted to the conflicts, and the circus unfolds from there.

Rather than attempt to unravel the circus bit by bit, it seems more efficient to return to the "original sin" of taking the real and turning it in to the symbolic. That is, the shift of focus from the experience to explanations of experience.

Ok, so some of that shift is inevitable, this is granted. But instead of building an ever higher pile of interpretations we should be seeking to reduce the pile to the lowest possible level so that the pile of interpretations doesn't get confused with the experience itself, at least to the degree that is humanly possible.

This is why I keep chanting John's statement that "God is love". It's an interpretation of course, but it seems to get to the bottom line in the most efficient manner. But then John, like me, wasn't content to leave it there and went on to say a million other things, and so the circus continues.

Still waiting for you to quote me. — chatterbears

Still waiting for you to shut up about yourself and shift your focus to serving animals.

Sermon over. — Rank Amateur

And I must say, it was a fine sermon. Seriously.

But as you can see, the Bible, all holy books, are just begging people to get lost in all this interpretation analysis. It's been going on for 3,000 years, it never ends, each new generation gets sucked in to it.

This is more an emotional journey, than a cerebral one. — Rank Amateur

Then why has the Catholic Church been piling up all the intricate doctrinal documents for 2,000 years?

Here it comes again, yet again. John said, "God is love". Three words. All anybody really needs to know. All the billions of other words are not bringing us closer, they're a hiding place. They allow us to circle safely around what matters and pretend that we're participating.

We go to church and the full text of the priest's sermon is...

God is love.

But, but, but, we say, we have many questions!!

And the priest says...

Never mind about that. You know what to do, so go do it. Or admit that you're not.

And then the priest has to get another job, cause there's little market for getting down to business. :smile:

Quote me where I actually have acted in a way that displays a sole purpose of moral superiority. — chatterbears

And we might wonder, what does all your protesting have to do with serving animals? You have a thing you want to do, that's all about you, and I'm getting in the way, so you're upset.

And the reason you haven't gotten criticized for being vegetarian, is because you don't talk about the morality and ethics behind your decision making. I do. That's the difference. — chatterbears

Right, and I don't do the moralizing dance because it's not effective. People don't enjoy being lectured, just like you're not enjoying it right now. Lecturing alienates people and turns them away, just like you're now alienated from me.

Here's how to debunk all this. Start a new thread which is specifically and sincerely about finding the most effective methods of building vegetarianism in particular, and serving animals in general.

Not what you want to do for you, but what actually works.

I might add that serving animals need not have anything at all to do with what other people are doing or not doing. My wife puts both of us to shame in the serving animals department, and she never lectures anybody, because she's too busy doing it to talk about it.

Here are your words again...

Since I became vegan, many people have told me, "You think you're better than everybody else, sitting on your high horse." — chatterbears

I've been a vegetarian since the early 1970s. Nobody is saying any of that to me.

Anyway, you're not interested in what might be the most effective method of persuasion. That's ok, you're entitled to that choice. This seems a good point for me to butt out, and leave you to learn on your own by beating your head against doing this the hard way. Maybe we can talk again someday when it finally dawns on you that what you want to do is not what works.

Look, I'm on your side, and just trying to help you out. You have activist disease. That's going to get in the way of you helping animals in an effective manner. Your friends were already telling you this before I found this thread.

Sorry, you are not Martin Luther King. You aren't some glorious historic figure that's going to change the world. You're just a well meaning guy who hasn't yet figured out how to help animals in an effective manner.

This is a philosophy forum.

This is what we do here.

We tear things apart...

... in the hopes of shedding some light.

It's not personal.

The thread was originally about the effect of contradiction on truths but the response has been people defending the bible. — Andrew4Handel

Here's the very start of the thread, your words.

I was brought up to believe that the Bible was infallible and True. Then as a young adult I discovered a website concerning numerous contradictions in the bible.

You started right in from the very beginning attacking the Bible specifically, and are now surprised that members are talking about the Bible.

I suggest a start over in another thread. If you wish to talk about contradictions, talk about contradictions.

Imho, Kennedy was killed by the "deep state" because he brought America to the very knife edge of total destruction, truly an unforgivable failure for any President. If Trump puts the country in a similar position, the gloves will come off, imho.

So it could be any day Trump feels like starting the bombing. — ernestm

We are probably lucky that NK has some pretty awesome ability to respond to any attack. As best I can tell, much of that ability can not be taken out in a first strike.

My analysis is that all Trump cares about is Trump, and a horrific war in Asia would not be good for Trump.

What worries me are unintentional fuck ups.

As example, one time in Arkansas a repair tech dropped a wrench which punctured the side of a missile in a silo, which led to massive escape of rocket fuel, leading to the rocket leaving the silo and dumping the nuke on the ground nearby. Didn't go off. If it had Arkansas would now be unlivable.

On another occasion somebody accidentally put on a training tape at NORAD which simulated an incoming Russian first strike. The generals called the National Security advisor and told him that we were under attack.

Crazy stuff like this could happen again at any moment. We're playing Russian roulette with modern civilization.

So far VR technology has added a bit of whizbang but is mostly a novelty only. It hasnt provided enough additional input information to the brain to justify the expenditure and inconvenience of the equipment necessary to provide the additional data. — ernestm

This is interesting, thanks. I hope you'll continue to add your insights from the front lines. What was your personal experience of VR? Do you still use it now that the company you worked for is no more?

Ok, I think they will be different, — ChatteringMonkey

Sorry, I was unclear, I was actually supporting your point of view there. Let's just assume that what we think of as reality is not a simulation.

It's difficult to say a lot about how the ones we will create will look like, because there even the sky will not be the limit... the possibilities are in principle only limited by our imagination. — ChatteringMonkey

Yes, that's the new realm we are entering, an exploration of our imaginations. At first we'll address the fantasies we already have, like porn and travel etc. At some point we'll move beyond that in to, in to, in to, something I can't yet imagine.

To harken back to Nietzsche - as I tend to do - what people want is "the feeling of increase in power"... power cannot increase if you allready can do everything. — ChatteringMonkey

Great point ChatteringNietzsche. Yea, perhaps these new realities will also have to simulate the limitations we are trying to leave behind. I'm sure this all makes perfect sense if one smokes enough weed. :smile:

Which reminds me, I'll bet the technological part of the fantasy machine will be supplemented by drugs of various kinds.

And many of those who seem interested in me actually make it clear to me that they think I'm boreing. Indirectly of course. — Emmanuele

That's because we nerds are boring. Be grateful for the indirectly part and carry on. :smile:

Uh oh, but if you don't die soon enough your digital entity will live on in fantasy space for thousands of years, still speaking like you, looking like you, wanting what you want, etc. I'll be typing for an eternity. No, wait, I already did that. Damn, this is confusing! :smile:

It seems what keeps the fantasy separate from the reality these days is that the fantasy is typically contained within a 2D panel such as a TV or computer screen. VR would seem to be a step away from that, but still you're inside of a device.

A crucial turning point may come when the imagery can be projected photo realistically in to 3D space, like a hologram. It seems the real and fantasy realms would then be merged, and the confusion regarding what is what would skyrocket.

A darker vision is that some global corporation(s) is probably going to control access to these fantasy realms, and this will be a very powerful tool for manipulating us to serve their will.

I'm fascinated by the incredible pull even a primitive 1950's technology like television has upon the masses, me included. If we can be sucked headlong in to something so simple as TV, we're likely to lose our souls in media which is projected in to real world space and fully interactive.

Aha! Luckily I have a solution to all of these concerns! You guys just need to be 67 like me, so you can die off before the fantasy shit really starts to hit the fan. :smile:

As Nick Bostrom (did I get his name correct?) argued simulated worlds would exceed real worlds in such numbers that it is likely that we are in one. — TheMadFool

I too find this theory intriguing. The universe is 14 billion years old, so there could easily be civilizations a billion years ahead of us, and we are their TV shows.

For practical purposes it's enough that a simulated world that we create is different from the one we might be living in, — ChatteringMonkey

But, this is what I'm attempting to focus on here.

Being forced to adapt and adjust your wishes to an external world, seems to be something of vital importance for the devellopment of a healthy human being. — ChatteringMonkey

This is a reasonable theory for sure, but I'm not sold yet. That is, I have no idea. :smile: That's surely been the pattern since the dawn of time, so that's what we're adapted to. That's pretty strong evidence.

To argue the other side, a Holodeck-like world presents a new challenge we'd be forced to adapt to, such as, what is it that we really want? As it stands we really have little idea given how rarely the option is available.

Have you tried the most recent VR-technology allready? — ChatteringMonkey

I haven't, but have been meaning to. I don't even have a cell phone, and to the best of my extremely limited understanding, that seems to often be necessary. Well, my wife has an iPhone, so I guess I'm out of excuses.

I am however deeply engaged with 2D video editing using products like Hitfilm and CrazyTalk. This week I've begun exploring 3D editing via DAZ, and iClone looks pretty amazing. So I'm engaged in the fantasy quest, but haven't made it to VR yet.

Yes, the porn industry is likely to lead the way, or um, so I've read in many scientific journals. :smile:

Very well said, I cast my vote for your post.

Philosophy always cuts both ways and is awash in a sea of motives. There are likely deep personal reasons for your inquiring into philosophy's use as a justification for personal investment in society and the status quo as opposed to philosophy's use as a justification for resentment towards society and personal inability to cope successfully with the status quo. The only philosophical cure for bad philosophical self-justification is more philosophy. But as we all know too much philosophy usually destroys a person, so it may often be best to let people play in their sandbox of philosophical self-deception, or at least not to be shocked or dismayed when they prefer to do so. — John Doe

Wow, yea, what he said. Nice post, standing ovation.

I do think it is the role of philosophy to explore the boundaries of the group consensus, but it's probably good that the project is rarely successful at rocking the group consensus boat, because...

....as we all know too much philosophy usually destroys a person — John Doe

The same is probably true for a society. Hopefully philosophy can help in knocking the edges off of some of the wild excesses of the group consensus, but too much challenging of the group consensus becomes another form of excess.

My college roommate went on to Harvard Med School and became a surgeon. The whole process is an incredible amount of round the clock work that goes on for years and years. I'm amazed that anyone is willing to do it.

But, some people are just born for it, just as folks like us were born to philosophize. I knew my roommate from about age 10, even as a child he was constantly taking things apart and putting them back together.

What interests me about medicine is that these are highly scientific people generally, whose profession is built upon blind faith to a significant degree.

I'm looking forward to the day some doctor says to me, "If you don't get this operation you're going to die, so obviously you'd better do what I say." I'm going to turn to the doctor, especially if they're kind of snotty and superior, and will ask...

Please show me the scientific evidence that life is better than death.

This was my roommate. He is obviously a very highly skilled mechanic, but the question I've just asked would baffle him. He would consider it silly and ridiculous, because his mind was not born to challenge the group consensus.

Which is probably just as well...

I actually told you multiple times, this is not what I am doing. You are incorrectly assuming I am trying to position myself as superior to somebody else. — chatterbears

Since I became vegan, many people have told me, "You think you're better than everybody else, sitting on your high horse." — chatterbears

I don't really understand your question/point? — chatterbears

Managing one's personal morality does seem important.

Why does a comparison to someone else matter?