Human beings, like sea lions and zebras, are individual, real, particular, unique - not generalities forming a dull backdrop against which the special ones suffer mental anguish and shine like stars.
6 days ago — Vera's last sentence of her last pf post

Not a bad place to stop. A star set in a background of stars. Thank you!

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/jun/21/harvard-slavery-decendants-of-the-enslaved

Can these injustices be remedied with greater compassion with humility in humanity? — RadicalJoe

"We cannot afford it."

We are already morally bankrupt, and looking only for a token and image of justice; and a lot of us are resenting even that token. There is no way to make it right, no redemption or restitution. Total annihilation and extinction would not suffice.

But possibly, we might hope to show some love to our children and teach by example, to a new generation, a new way to deal with conflict.

Work is done, then forgotten.
Therefore it lasts for ever. — Lao Tzu

In a little while we will forget, but not just yet.

This is rather interesting. A significant correlation between Earth magnetic field and atmospheric oxygen levels. I would suspect some crankery to this, but while causal explanations are still up somewhere near cloud cuckoo land, the data themselves are fairly solid.



https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adu8826

A crime we used to call 'being a broken record'. A crime we used to call 'being a broken record'. A crime we used to call 'being a broken record'. A crime we used to call 'being a broken record'.

UNENLIGHTENED COMMENTARY AS AN AID

There are many worlds, but only one subjectivity. This subjectivity is cloaked by intellect, by identifications and by habit. This cloaking means that one fails to recognise oneself in one's fellow man, let alone one's myriad other fellow life-forms, all trying, in their wormlike, birdlike, or piglike ways to do what one can best do as a human — to recollect oneself as the universal subject.

The world we inhabit is God's explosion of his own being into myriad fragments, that must yearn and struggle through the ages to re-integrate themselves into the singular being again. like a giant self assembling jigsaw.

Thus the importance of relationships; one needs to find one's appropriate place in relation to others - one's mate, one's career, one's teacher, or whatever other relations are central to one's particular life.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world
The heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the morning brings
But the heart has its seasons, its evenings and songs of its own

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCy9k_RWlvA

This too is a kind of looking - to look is to question the world. 'Who are you?', the world asks itself. My only criticism is of that parochial, speciesist locution "human". Does anyone out there still think we are the crown of creation?

I think identity can be an important, even essential element of particularity, as does situatedness in history. It's what makes the individual a meaningful individual. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well of course - I think You are saying that identity is important socially? for sure, but psychologically, it is a contradiction as an individuality. When I go to the doctor I want to see a member of that professional body trained and vetted and supervised by them - not a quack! But identity is always the social form — a hat, a mask, or a costume. When a doctor retires, she does not become someone different, though she takes another role socially. It is very common for people to mistake themselves for their role, but it is always a mistake. The individual is not their identity; "the Doctor" is not one person.

Which is to say that meaning is social as language is social, and not individual and private.

I'm not competent to comment in detail in this; it is too steeped in postmodern considerations that are beyond me, or beneath me, I'm not sure which. But I can make some comment perhaps from a psychological perspective that might be helpful or confusing'

“Freedom is the ontological condition of ethics. But ethics is the considered form that freedom takes when it is informed by reflection.”

Foucault [4]. — Moliere

This is a restatement of the biblical story of the Fall. The escape from the determination of physical law necessarily results in the institution of moral law. To be free is to face the conflict between selfish desire and social responsibility

The overall implication of our claims is that technocapitalism is a global cultural machine for producing nominally free subjectivities while eroding ontological freedom. It creates and processes subjectivity as a product to be sold (e.g. to advertisers) and converted into more capital. In fact, we claim capital, in its operation through autopoietic social systems for which freedom is epiphenomenal, essentially expands through monetizing the conversion of ontological to nominal freedom. The ultimate result of this, we have cautioned, may be an irreversible decline of both culture and the subjects that form it. — Moliere

The main point is that capitalism creates a false sense of freedom while actually taking it away, treating individual identities as products that can be sold. This can lead to a serious decline in both culture and the people who make it. — Amity

(Amity's dumbitdown version)

"individual identities" are what we are being sold, what we are told is important, and they are nothing else than the sum of the consumer choices we make. It follows that wealth is freedom. But consumer choices are not moral choices.

But it goes deeper: identities are not individual. Identities are necessarily external to the individual in origin and are interiorised by imposition or incorporation. To say that I am this or that, a philosopher or a buffoon, is to identify with a type, to join a club, and this, whether I say it or you do. Identification denies individuality. Race, gender, nationality, profession, football team, favourite shampoo, favourite philosopher, neurotype, there is nothing individual in any of it. Individuals are inexplicable, incomparable, unlimited, unique.

So one watches helpless as what I like to call "the community" (that which arises from communication) dissolves in the acid of the bullshit of "Sovereign Individuals", the logical apotheosis of the contradictory individual identity, that is entirely arbitrarily made-up, as there is no truth of the matter. The world is destroyed by mere cyphers, masquerading as 'characters', addicted to the fake freedom of money.

As I understand it, in some jurisdictions users have a legal right to have their posts and identity removed from the website if they so wish. Most forum software make it possible for administrators to do a full deletion for this reason. — Leontiskos

The right to change or erase the past is a dangerous nonsense, beloved by dictators and warned against by George Orwell.

I didn't say that.

To err is human, but to umm is divine.

Psychologists talk about a 'fight or flight' response. An automatic response to the perception of threat. Presumably, psychologically, one has no freedom about having this response or not, but also presumably, one does have freedom to fight or fly, unless one is caught in a trap and one's struggles in either case are in vain.

The only possibility for freedom seems to be a freedom created from nothing. — Fire Ologist

This seems correct to me, and accords with the meaning in the game of 'go'. A stone or a configuration of connected stones has degrees of freedom corresponding to the unoccupied spaces around and within it. In order to survive permanently a configuration needs two degrees of internal freedom - two separate internal spaces so that even entirely surrounded, both cannot be filled because the fill of the first would be itself surrounded, and not survive until the second space could be filled.

Humans, it appears, have only one such internal empty space — a singular awareness, and thus our freedom is temporary. Hence the inadequacy of the individual and the necessity for relationship. Hence the desperation of the narcissist and psychopath.

Deleting the posts is an extreme option, indeed. Imagine everything you posted for years vanishing like the smoke in the air. — javi2541997

It is extreme, and inconsiderate to members who have engaged in good faith, as it makes a nonsense of threads when one side of a dialogue is removed. I am surprised it is allowed; I would suggest that in general it should not be allowed, as it somewhat undermines the value of the site as an archive record.

Members need the ability to delete the odd post they might make in haste or anger, but to delete one's entire contribution is to destroy not just one's own work, but the full meaning of the contributions of one's interlocutors. And that is a deliberate destructive and malicious act.

Adrian Piper in his article ... — Moliere

Women philosophers are not so numerous and often cited on this site as to make this an entirely trivial error. Especially when one is banging on about formality and style, and the importance of "... founding those opinions in fact."

Adrian Margaret Smith Piper[1] (born September 20, 1948) is an American conceptual artist and Kantian philosopher. Her work addresses how and why those involved in more than one discipline may experience professional ostracism, otherness, racial passing, and racism by using various traditional and non-traditional media to provoke self-analysis. She uses reflection on her own career as an example.[2]

Piper has been awarded various fellowships and medals and has been described as having "profoundly influenced the language and form of Conceptual art".[3] In 2002, she founded the Adrian Piper Research Archive (APRA) in Berlin, Germany,[4] the focus of a foundation that was established in 2009.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Piper

Here's a discussion of the UK Strategic Defence Review, of recent publication, and a more general discussion of Nato, threats worldwide, and so on. Rather sobering stuff, and interesting, alas, for anyone prepared to stare into the void a while. Thankfully, the nob on the frontispiece is not much featured.

Mainly i just want to celebrate, but suddenly, a whole nuclear deterrent system can be put at risk with a bit of well planned espionage and sabotage. "Wage war with surprise moves." Things are changing, and we live, alas, in interesting times.

I have not had a large life; As I approach the end, I am tempted to try and make something of it - a rounded tale that will have a legacy of meaning. I have done some things and had some relationships, nothing important or exciting, but who knows I might with a kind word or a cruel word have saved or ruined a life that would or will transform things for everyone.

But it doesn't matter. The drama is ephemeral and I am nothing more than the drama as it plays out to the curtain. The applause or the boos I will not hear. I have been on holiday my whole life, and this is just a postcard sent to a random stranger. I had a ball - I hope you did too.

I am reminded not of Moby Dick so much as Eric Newby's [The Last Grain Race

This is a classic. The intro alone is sublime, the vocals are ridiculous, the cross rhythms superb, This is rock and roll all scrubbed up and out on the pull.

|The assumption made here is that "the will of the people" is a coherent decidable thing.

Here is a scheme that suggests it is not always coherent or decidable.

Suppose that everyone understands that of these 3 things, only any 2 can be promoted at any one time:

1. High government expenditure on social good.
2. Low taxation.
3. Financial stability.

So you can have any two, but the third you cannot have by any means.

Now we all vote for our preferred two policies, and the result is evenly split; there is a 2 to 1 majority in favour of all three policies. Yet we all know that we cannot have all three, and no one voted for all three.

So each of our individual votes was rational and possible, but the aggregate is impossible.

It just came naturally. Just like being naked in front of your child stopped after a time. I think my child chose the time. It seemed organic — Malcolm Parry

I agree; it seemed natural and organic. But if you think about it, there is not much natural or organic about it. Such things do not occur in nature, and are not universal in human societies either.

I think Dr Bell is right in almost every particular. I wouldn't call it "transient" though. In my experience women are body shamed by society and by advertising in particular and the prevalence of cosmetic surgery and the weight loss industry suggests it is spreading to men too rather than diminishing. Many remain body shamed all their lives.

Anyone remember this? My mother, worked in a bank, but was forced to leave on getting married - company policy. Blatantly unfair dismissal today, but open standard practice back then.

I would have thought that anywhere that has children being undressed would have private cubicles. — Michael

Let me take you by the hand, and lead you to my local pool, I will show you something that will make you change your mind.

The pertinent question is: should bathrooms, sports teams, prisons, etc. be divided by biological sex, by gender identity, by something else, or by nothing at all? — Michael

Round here at least, because folks are not all great at reading, toilets are generally labelled with a cartoon of a person either in a dress or in trousers; these items of clothing are not genetically determined. The meaning of the pictures are thus unambiguously gender distinguished, not biologically distinguished.

Sports teams have their own tests - it used to be hormone based, but I don't know, these days.

Incidentally, speaking of changing rooms - what does one do if a man wants to take his young daughter, or a woman her young son, to the swimming bath? This is a genuine problem that arises from the separation, however our current question is resolved. Obviously a babe in arms has to go with the parent; obviously a teen has to go on their own. Where is the line between them? And for children with Downs' or other disability? Would you send your 4 yr old to get changed on their own? (This is a genuine social dilemma I have faced with my daughter)

So engage! Stop playing the cheap attorney, trying to catch me out with leading questions, and respond to what I am actually saying. You cannot even respond to my answers to your stupid leading questions except to find fault with my style. Pathetic!

Does it mean to act as if one has ovaries and a womb? — Michael

My wife does not have ovaries or a womb, but she does have breasts and a vagina. Should I be worried I am an unwitting homosexual? (She used to have them but transitioned surgically due to cancer.) Should I tell her to use the mens'

So bite me!:smile:

Proper debate on here. — Malcolm Parry

Stupid leading question leading nowhere, deserves a little ridicule.

Of course! Whatever is considered acceptable is considered acceptable until it is considered unacceptable. Slavery was accepted and normalised. When I was at school, corporal punishment was accepted and normal; now it is not. So bite me!

But how is that different than Bruce Jenner identifying as a woman? Why is that tolerated?" — RogueAI

I don't think it is different. What is tolerated depends on the culture of the time in relation to the social construct in each case.

"All biological males are born equal in dignity and rights."

Remember the uproar when Rachel Dolezal, a white women, identified herself (or tried to) as black? That didn't sit well with a lot of people. — RogueAI

Yes, I remember it well. Have you read Faulkners' Light in August? In a deeply racist country, as in a deeply sexist society such identifications are fraught, and passing is difficult and exposure devastating. But what is your point?

It is a curiosity of a society coming out of a state of open oppression that the status of the oppressed starts to become attractive.

Now, I’m liberal, but to a degree
I want ev’rybody to be free
But if you think that I’ll let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door and marry my daughter
You must think I’m crazy!
I wouldn’t let him do it for all the farms in Cuba — Bob Dylan

I remember too when one was asked whether or on one would 'let your daughter marry one?' for real. A joke against sexism and racism is kinda smart lyrics eh?

And this is the problem with anti-trans policies [...] It’s dehumanising. — Michael

:100:

Here is an interesting comment on the economic effects of climate change. Basically, since we have been persuaded that adaptation is easier/cheaper than net zero, adaptation is what is going to happen. Here are some adaptations described. Of particular interest are a few remarks about "internal refugees", the unpopularity of whom in the US were recorded by Steinbeck in "The Grapes of Wrath".

At what point is a person white or black? — RogueAI

You might as well ask 'at what height is a person tall or short?' Make up an answer in situations when you need to decide that is appropriate to the situation. Some fairground rides have a minimum height for safety reasons, and this is set by the physicality of the ride not the person. At the make-up counter, various shades are available Hairdressers have various products available to more ore less nappy hair.

The question I think one ought to ask as a philosopher is "Why do you ask?" And the answer mostly given in this thread and others comes down to 'rape culture'. Allow me to pontificate a little:

Patriarchal capitalism requires rape culture in order to control the sexual activity of women. The sexuality of women has to be controlled so that the succession of the kingship, or lordship, or property owner can be secured to his offspring and not another's. It must therefore be the case that for a woman to have sex with anyone but her owner is a disaster worse than death. Rape being established as the unspeakable trauma from which there is no recovery, by means of strong taboos on nakedness and so on, the control of women on safety grounds becomes justified, and the idea of 'unwanted pregnancy' comes into being.
The whole social importance of sex springs from the simple fact that men cannot know their own children from those of another except by controlling (protecting) their women. Thus virginity is a virtue in a woman, and a weakness in a man. Consider any aspect of cultural sexual differentiation in terms of this simple explanation, and see if it is explained. Foot-binding? Keeps the women close to home. etc.

I actually don't understand how biological absolutism has anything to do with the struggles of blacks and gays. How is it even vaguely related?
— frank

I have no idea. Ask the posters — Malcolm Parry

frank is asking you.

There is a fundamental difference between trans and other issues.
A Black person is black, a homosexual is homosexual, A trans woman is not a woman. — Malcolm Parry

This where it started. I'm not sure what your comparison was intended to show by way of 'fundamental difference', but it was ill judged and unhelpful. Obviously, since race is socially constructed, it makes for a very poor comparison with sex differentiation to the extent that you are arguing that it is absolute and inalterable in every case. On the other hand, to the extent that gender is also socially constructed, the comparison can be made to some profit, but then, in terms of gender, a trans woman exactly is a woman, just as one who "passes" for white exactly is white.

Now that he has attained full status as dead white male, I shall have to seriously consider reading him.

He points out that the Enlightenment, liberal tradition is self-undermining, and this is precisely why it has bottomed out in relativism and perspectivism and has such a deep problem with a "slide towards multiplicity." He then goes about defending his preferred tradition as a tradition (as opposed to denying it is one). — Count Timothy von Icarus

The observant amongst you might notice why this makes him attractive to one as old-fashioned as me.

That is not only a social fact, it used to be a legal fact too. — T Clark

In some ignorant benighted countries certainly.

Anti-miscegenation laws are laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage sometimes, also criminalizing sex between members of different races.

In the United States, interracial marriage, cohabitation and sex have been termed "miscegenation" since the term was coined in 1863. Contemporary usage of the term is infrequent, except in reference to historical laws which banned the practice. Anti-miscegenation laws were first introduced in North America by the governments of several of the Thirteen Colonies from the late seventeenth century onward, and subsequently, they were introduced by the governments of many U.S. states and U.S. territories and they remained in force in many US states until 1967.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws


Thus the law was used to try and maintain the absolute separation of the races. The law creates the facts, and my family would have been illegal and therefore not a family. And I'm the one who's not nice, if not actually insane? Is there a polite way to call out bigotry?

I prefer discussion but it appears to be beyond you. Which is fine. — Malcolm Parry

You prefer pontification; but only your own. I thought you were going to leave back there?

I’ll leave it there. — Malcolm Parry

Good idea, your flames are no substitute for an argument.

That isn't very nice. — Malcolm Parry

Your racial absolutism wasn't very nice. And I didn't even mention black albinos, or non-negro blacks of Papua and Australia, or ...

And discrimination is discrimination, ha ha.

A Black person is black, — Malcolm Parry

My wife is at least as white as she is black, but she is clearly black. such are the mysteries of race-mixing. Our daughters are only slightly black, but are still black. And fuck your attempt to clarify reality for us all.