Is that expansion for the HD version? I remember reading that the HD AoE2 has problems like bugs and crashing.

Through intuition. My aim personally is to search for truth. I'm happy to use a different word than philosophy to signify the search, if that seems necessary. — Noble Dust

Having a philosophy about x, y, or z is different from the actual doing of philosophy. Does this make sense?

The meanings of words constantly change. Is philosophy still "the love of wisdom"?

I find there to be a difference between having knowledge of having an experience, and having knowledge of the experience itself.

I'm still looking for any evidence of wisdom in the discussions on this forum...

I think lots of posters here "love wisdom." This doesn't mean that everyone has knowledge of what wisdom is in practice, however :-*

Meaning is extra-physical. It's the inner life of experience. — Noble Dust

wat

~

How does one know whether intuition is intuitive or not?

Quite an objective statement! — Noble Dust

And? — Jeremiah

>:O

Firstly, I'm not getting your distinction between logic and intuition. Could you try and and differentiate them another way?

misguided intuition — Noble Dust

How exactly can an intuition be misguided? What does guide intuition? Certainly not logic, it would seem. Again, I think your terminology here is a bit off track, at least for my understanding.

as the constant bickering over logical arguments for any given topic on this forum demonstrates. — Noble Dust

The problem I have here is that philosophy is treated as a science. — Noble Dust

It isn't philosophy's fault that some people treat philosophy as a science. Such is, quite ironically, illogical.

Philosophy should be a search for meaning. Meaning is not an empirical physical object or force that avails itself to scientific inquiry. — Noble Dust

How have you decided this to be true?

Meaning is spiritual, so naturally — Noble Dust

What do you mean by this? And is spirituality necessarily natural?

Faramir has always been my favorite character. Like Sam, he fulfills the good when it is needed most, and carries himself humbly, but not weakly.

I'm also wary to agree that there's a single primary hero in the the books. Everyone is needed in the narrative, in my eyes. To make a list of more important/less important would to make certain characters diminish in influence, which would be imprudent.

At the same time, Tolkien hated when his works were labeled Catholic fiction. No one denies that LotR has Christian symbolism, but it would be a mistake to label it, as you say, too broadly, as Tolkien himself doesn't do that.

The distinction doesn't appear to me to be so clear cut. — Agustino

Jesus Christ, Agu, did you have to so savagely pun right there? >:O

However I would say that we always want to avoid harm, while we don't always want to obtain pleasure because the costs (pain) may be too high. — darthbarracuda

Have you met anyone that cuts themselves? Or has done so in the past?

If he didn't have a desire to get x, would the man still consent to go through all the pains of the journey? That's manipulative, even if the pay-off is "worth it". — darthbarracuda

This question reminds me of Tennyson's famous line, "'tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." Poetically worded, but still gets at what you're asking, I think. And I'm not sure if I agree with Tennyson all of the time.

I can feel the erotic tension between you two. Agustino, do you want to offer our room to Mongrel? We have a soft bed and fluffy pillows, c'mon!

Street psychology sounds like a rich man giving change to a homeless veteran on the street.

Fight, fight, fight!

I'm just saying that mental illness is what it's categorized as. I also agree that saying it's mental illness doesn't make complete sense, but you should use the academic and medical terminology.

Then you'll see that such a condition doesn't qualify as mental illness. Alzheimer's, for example, would classify as a disease of the brain, as the brain physically changes. It's a physical disease first and foremost. — Agustino

As I wrote in my first post, diseases like Alzheimer's are still categorized as mental illnesses, even though mental infers mind, when really it should be brain. And I forget if it was in here or some other thread, but the discussion of materialism in the sciences is actually one reason why psychology is held back at times. Even though mental illness derives from physical changes in the brain, it's still important to make the distinction between brain and mind. A lot of people worry over whether their illness will change who they are as a person, and for the worse, so it's important that medications, and counseling, and so on all work together in order to help the person realize that they're still them.

Not all mental illness occurs in old age though — Agustino

I didn't mean to suggest that mental illness is seen only in the old.

Overall, I still think you're failing to acknowledge how well psychiatry can and does help people. But I also realize from the historical standpoint that mental healthcare in Europe has a track record of being abysmally worse than really anywhere else in the world, which is perhaps still true now. Here in the US, I think there's a healthy appreciation for what mental healthcare we do provide. If anything, we need more mental healthcare, which doesn't just means drugs. To treat any illness or disease, you need a lot of different things to come together for progress to be made and for the person to get better. If somebody's simply going to a psychiatrist, or just a psychologist, or just their doctor, or whatever else, then that probably won't be enough.

Two more points...

Shame does not always have to be about other people's expectations. I've often felt shameful for there being something wrong with me, which is inherently irrational, and has to do with my own expectations, so I agree with your analysis, I think. If I had cancer, it'd be retarded for me to feel sorry for myself, as if I did something wrong. Mental illness is just the same.

Also, when I'm talking about mental illness, I mean real mental illness, not circumstantial depression or anything else that's "normal." Mental illness is unintended and unwanted, as Terrapin says, undesired. There's no choice involved with it until you can get help. That's the biggest thing, really.

Contrary to how it's worded, mental illness is not first a failing of the mind, but an often unavoidable disease of the brain. Major depression and schizophrenia, say, should be treated just as cancer and heart disease are - as destructive, physically formed blemishes on an already fallen and frail human body. And as someone who has struggled with "mental" illness before, even now as I am writing this, I'm grateful that not everyone I've met is so quick to dismiss me of my problems.

I will admit to being offended (indeed, even triggered) by those who attempt to project their own experiences as necessarily being the same for everyone else. I try my very best not to do that. It's a dangerous sentiment to have to assume that because you got over what you describe as "X" problem, that everyone else can and should as easily overcome what plagues them. On a personal and familial level, I know how truly catastrophic and debilitating mental illness can be for someone who once was strong, independent, and of a healthy disposition. And I've never felt or thought about anything more painful in my life than the experience of not being able to help someone who needed me.

But no amount of patience, love, time, or sacrifice can be enough sometimes, either for another, or for yourself. The isolation that the truly mentally ill often feel stems from not being able to empathize with others. Most people think waving some pom-poms will do the trick, or hearing a benediction in a Church, or receiving a hug and a kiss, but until you've stared insanity in the eyes, and seen someone you love fall into shambles and disrepair, and you can't do anything about it, then you'll understand that mental illness can be gravely serious.

Anyway, I'm not going to argue with anyone what I've said here, because you asked for experience and anecdote over the gobs of research and findings and studies I could have listed here, so you'll just have to think about what I've said and give me your thoughts. I didn't write this response to get winking/laughing faces, only to give another perspective, which seems your only aim.

Classical Christianity holds existence to be a quality, which I think is what you're stumbling over, perhaps.

The amount of equivocations in your post be like

Alright, enough of this. Back to paper writing. I've already exhausted my wit too much in this single thread, sigh.

But I thought you wacked off to pictures of Putin and busts of Brutus, :’(

Don't ovaryact, it's just a nickname, sweetie.

Being an immigrant isn't very conservative, Agu.

Spirituality is an intrinsically inward understanding, so the idea that we can figure out which sex or gender is more spiritual based on the perception of who looks to be more spiritual is pretty stupid.

Have you even met a black person before, Agu?

Who says I'm forcing you, though? You forget, Agustino, that I still believe in the powar of luv, brah.

Absolutely, because then you'll be sterile.

You are culturally oppressing me with your opinion, please refrain, sir.

I feel strangely more authentic and whole than being in the humanities, hummmmm.

Trivialities like bus routes and rain — intrapersona

Are these always trivialities?

No, I have a few people in my life that I share love with, which makes my life worth living. Thanks for your worry, though :D

Anyone, including your nonexistent unborn child.

Would it be oppressive to stop a murderer from killing?

I'm literally going to pop some popcorn here in a minute. Got a box of movie theater popcorn at the store, looks gnarly (Y)

Although the sodium may end up killing me... >:o

Without a negative value to birth, it makes no sense to deny potential children existence, for any reason. To argue someone ought not exist becasue of the suffering which will occur during their life is to place a negative value on their birth. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I'm anti-procreation, not anti-birth.

What if they were to agree though? How can you make the decision to deny them that opportunity? This is why you are assigning a negative value to their birth. On the off change they won't find life worth living, you decide they will not be at all. What justifies this decision on your part? — TheWillowOfDarkness

There's no opportunity cost for that which does not exist.

Certainly, not the fact they don't care because they aren't alive yet. — TheWillowOfDarkness

So, nonexistence cares? huh, how?

That's just a naturalistic fallacy that someone failing to care what you do makes it okay.

This "someone" doesn't exist, though........

This is what I mean about denying your responsibility. You try to pass off your denial of life to the child as if it was an act without significance to what happens in the world.

The only significance in the world that results from my not procreating is what affects me. The world is not affected by what does not exist in it. Non-existing children only matter once they've been willed into the world, which is why I'm against abortion, for instance.

The point is made on the idea that love redeems a life of suffering. If that is true, without qualification (e.g. without a negative value assumed to birth, limitation to your own experience), then the non-existence of a child is no reason to deny them a life containing love. Their suffering soul be fine because love would be their to make life worth living anyway. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Life is suffering, and one is only ensured to suffer, not to find love. Love is but a possibility, not a certainty. Redemption does not make the world good, it merely brings the fallen back up to its knees, figuratively speaking.

Also, this is lazy rhetoric. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This is a rhetorical comment, right?

If I held the above position, I wouldn't necessarily have acted morally myself. Even if we assume I meet other criteria which might be critical to having a child (e.g. that I have a willing partner), I might have failed to meet this standard of having children. You cannot expect such an ethical argument to be false just because someone hasn't lived up to it. That's a category error-- the confusion of how someone acts with the significance of a moral position.

I have precisely no idea what you're trying to tell me here. Please rephrase and help me understand.

"Hypocrisy" is a logical fallacy. Just because someone doesn't do what they say people ought to, it doesn't mean the moral argument they are making is wrong. If a serial killer tells you not to kill people at random, their argument is still right, even if they might be constantly violating that ethical precept constantly. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Who, what, dafuq? If someone agrees with my position as I understand it, and they still have children, then they're morally bankrupt and do not have the authority to posit what they don't practice. Good intentions must lead to good actions. If one never acts in accordance to their supposed intentions, then they've not truly intended to act the good.

You're just talking to me with this response. Anyhoo, a new challenger has approached, so perhaps let me argue with them, then maybe you'll understand better what I'm trying to say, if read at a distance.

The trouble is it's misleading. You make it sound like the child has acted to avoid suffering while also living — TheWillowOfDarkness

No, this would actually be me, the person deciding not to procreate. Although, I don't think I really know what you're trying to say here.

In truth, it's not that the child avoided suffering, but that a suffering child was prevented by denying them existence.

You just turned 180 degrees, and then 180 degrees again. Saying the same thing a different way doesn't altar the thought, Miss Willow.

What you are saying here is more an excuse to deny the responsibility for this act. — TheWillowOfDarkness

wot

If love makes life worth living, then we ought to give thus child existence so they can experience. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Nope. Me, myself, and I think life is worth living because of love. The child I may bring into existence may not agree.

Non-existence cannot be used to deny others what they deserve. — TheWillowOfDarkness

You've essentially just said that non-existing entities deserve to exist. Okay, why do you say that? If every unborn child deserves to exist, then I should expect to see you with lots and lots and lots and lots of kids running around...no? Why not?

It's a path which lets the powerful get away with anything and then calls it moral-- "That poor man, he doesn't exist with money or resources, so no-one needs to help him out." The absence of moral outcome cannot be used to deny a moral outcome someone else deserves.

You're talking about someone who already exists in this world, so you've not properly compared anything to an unborn, non-existing child.

No doubt an anti-natalist postion is possible — TheWillowOfDarkness

I don't assign a negative value to birth, so I'm not an antinatalist.

Nonexistence couldn't possibly be existence — Agustino

Where did I say it did? You misunderstood me before.

Possibly. — Agustino

Why?

Because who knows whether the child should or shouldn't exist? — Agustino

If I point a gun to your head and fire, you could survive but be impaired, or you could die. If my intention was to sustain what you were before, ie to keep you alive, surviving, then I'd never would have chosen to shoot you in the head. But if my intention was in fact to kill you, but I didn't actually kill you, then I'm still in the wrong because I've still forced my will upon your own, even though you lived.

Why do you think it doesn't warrant one to will another into existence? — Agustino

Because it does not follow that what redeems existence necessarily redeems nonexistence. Love may make life worth living, but only because I am, because I exist. Were I not to exist, which is to suffer, then I would have no need of love, as there would be no suffering to define love's antithesis.

I've explained to you that in no way can you say the child will avoid suffering if you don't have him. — Agustino

Suffering is of the world, not of nonexistence. The child cannot necessarily experience suffering if it does not exist. Therefore, if the child does not exist, it does not suffer, which means it has avoided suffering by not suffering. This is super simple to understand. I don't think I can write it any clearer.

This is a tautology. — Agustino

No, it's just a fact of the matter.

It doesn't need to choose existence - but maybe it should have the option to exist. — Agustino

Maybe, perhaps, idunnowhynotsure? Really?

Who is it to say that I should choose not to have a child instead of choose to have one? — Agustino

Well, I am, in this discussion. And you should, too.

Both are risks — Agustino

How is not having a child a risk? The child doesn't exist. It cares not for whether it may exist or not because it necessarily can't care.

Maybe I am depriving the child of something great. — Agustino

This is completely secondary. Greatness, love, happiness, whatever else doesn't warrant one to will another into existence through procreation.

Maybe I'm sending him to suffer. — Agustino

Maybe? Why are you backing down? You acknowledged that suffering is a truth, there's no ands, ifs, or buts about it. If you procreate, your child will suffer. Period. End of story.

Who knows? None of us — Agustino

You do know, you're just trying to wriggle your way out of my grasp.

thus we live in fear and trembling.

So, fuck a woman and make a child? You've not shown me why I'm wrong, so c'mon, Agustino. Let's go, bro.

we should all listen to the black people's music, they got the shit right — Agustino

Have you read the signs, Agustino?

How is it possible for something that doesn't exist to avoid, passively? — Agustino

It is in the nature of opposites to passively avoid their antitheses. Because nonexistence does not exist, nonexistence passively avoids being what it isn't.

But who decides that he shouldn't? Isn't THAT also me? — Agustino

Your unborn child already doesn't exist. It doesn't need to choose whether it wants to exist because it only knows nonexistence. You're not choosing it's nonexistence, you only choose whether to keep it there.

I mean, what's so bad about suffering that makes all of life not worth having? Would you choose not to attend a great dinner just because you'll have a headache if you attend? — Agustino

Suffering only exists because life does. No life, no suffering. This also means no love, but love also only is because of the world. And no, your dinner analogy falls short to adequately describe life.

So... that's like preventing a village from the uncertain possibility of getting flooded by not building it in the first place. But this is a trick of language — Agustino

Suffering is a necessity, you've already admitted this truth. A village flooding is not.

The child can't be avoiding anything, because only beings who are alive can avoid. So the whole assertion that "X is avoiding suffering" in the circumstance where "X doesn't exist" is nonsense. — Agustino

X is avoiding everything, which necessarily includes suffering. Nonexistence is passive avoidance, not active.

Not necessarily, but he should at least have the chance of agreeing. Why are you so sure he won't agree? — Agustino

Why should he? Who decides that he should? Oh yeah, you, not him. Your potential child also has to decide whether he wants the choice of choosing whether to be or not to be, so how might it do that, logically?

But that's purely hypothetical. — Agustino

And this is purely a cop-out.

What's so bad about suffering? — Agustino

Did you just ask me this? Really?

It's part of life, I fully acknowledge that the child will suffer — Agustino

Okay...

that's unavoidable. — Agustino

No, it's not unavoidable. Guess what, Agustino? If you don't have the child, the child won't suffer, thus it's avoided suffering, :o

But life is worth living, at least for me, despite the possibility - certainty - of suffering. — Agustino

So, because you think life is worth living, your child will also agree, amirite?

The fires of the world can burn the flesh, but not the spirit. — Agustino

None of this matters were you and I and your potential child not to exist.

If you don't have a child, then they won't suffer. If you choose to procreate, and the child wonders why it is suffering, are you blameless? Is it merely God's will that the child exists to suffer because you didn't need to have the child in the first place?