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.

I do not agree that love is immeasurable and illimitable. Love is an experience shared by all. I am leaning into Plato's claim that love is a desire, a desire for the beautiful and good. — GregW

Well the best of luck with that. We don't have to agree.

You are saying these are parts of love. But what is love as a whole? — GregW

Well if you want to theorise, I might say it is the transcendence of identity. That is, whereas rationality identifies a self and acts in its own interest, love is not interested in self as a limit to action. Because it goes beyond the limits of self it is beyond the ratios of comparison and attains to the immeasurable. In this sense, to answer you question in a way satisfactory to the rational mind would be to set a limit to the illimitable.

Concerning the object of one's love, one is painstaking.

for example: https://www.sorefingers.co.uk

Other body parts can become painful when other activities are beloved.

But love pays the price, no matter how high.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. — Jesus

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+15%3A13&version=KJV

There is a secular myth, that Jesus tricked Judas into betraying him, thinking he was magic and would escape, in order to forestall a populist rebellion against Rome, using Jesus as a figurehead - ie he sacrificed himself to prevent a massacre.

Speaking of show offs, some clever dick writing for posterity ...

I'd like some coherent story of what these NHI people are doing here. Are they getting us ready to join the interstellar community? — checking that the quarantine is holding? —eco-bio research? ...

I'm looking for a plausible reason for them to deal with governments and hide from people. That's a hard ask, I think, but important to the credibility of the 'revelations'. I can see why paranoid governments would want to keep secrets from us, but aliens - not so much.

I'm afraid I'm not quite playing the yes/no game, but that's because I'm not sure who is in charge of these revelations, the governments or the aliens?

It doesn't matter whether the picture is big or small, coarse or fine; philosophy is what one does when the picture one has in mind fails to correspond to the world one lives in. Accordingly, the most useful tool in the philosopher's kit is the eraser. (But try to use it on the picture, not the world.)

Run away while you can!

I have an argument for it. Please read it and tell me what you think about it. — MoK

I have read it. I think I will leave you to it.

Quite oppositely, time is needed for any change, as I argued in the OP. — MoK

Quite oppositely, time is needed for no change.

If plank state 1 is followed by plank state 2 without apparent rhyme or reason and that negates a meaningful concept of time — Hanover

Well no, it doesn't. You have there a constant 'plank' and a change from 1 to 2. That is an ordered change. To the extent that if the plank were to change back and forth from 1 to 2 to 1 to 2, one would have a clock - tick, tock, tick, tock.

you've created an untestable theory because it's possible laws exist that just can't be understood. — Hanover

Up to this point I haven't promoted a theory as such; I have rather proposed a meaning for the concept of time - the necessary ingredients as it were, particularly taking account of Einstein's theory that space and time are in some sense equivalent. But bringing the observer more into the picture, if the observer is placed in a sensory deprivation tank, then he is obliged to observe himself, his breathing his heartbeat, and the flow of his thoughts. This is an experiment you can do for yourself, and some people find it a wonderful way to relax, and others a frightening claustrophobic out of control panic. But either way, one of the things that many report is the weakening of the sense of time, somewhat as the sense of time in a dream is weakened. This suggests, as one might have expected, that the sense of time involves a calibration of internal and external regularities - heartbeat with music or the swaying of the trees, or whatever. Without that ongoing calibration, the sense of self - one's very identity - starts to dissolve, with relaxing or frightening results.

If one takes the point of view of god, which I can best describe by means of analogy with a programmer creating a digital world, one can see that the characters within the world cannot be aware that the programmer is starting and stopping the program as he develops his world according to his whim. He can quite easily make the program at some point transform every aspect of the digital character's world at a stroke. This would correspond to death and afterlife, assuming the character did experience it and connect his afterlife to his previous life in 'his' memory.

The observer's sense of time can be seen to depend on memory, an observer with no memory has no past and therefore no sense of time. Memory is the subjective continuity, regularity is the objective continuity.

This seems to suggest the only reliable description of time requires a conscious observer, right? — Hanover

What other kind of description, reliable or unreliable can you suggest for anything whatsoever, other than that of an observer? Perhaps a stick insect constitutes a description of a stick? And a bird might mistake the description for reality? It's a stretch...

Time is ordered succession. (So is space)

Consider a ball rolling down a hill. The ball moves from moment to moment always downwards in relation to the hill, which remains constant. Strictly, it is a matter of our convenience and habit to say that the ball moves and the hill is still. They move relative to each other.

But imagine, that halfway down, the hill tuns into a bucket of water and the ball becomes a fish, and the movement becomes the fish swimming round in the bucket. Now there is only one thing tying this moment to the previous one; which is the constancy of the observer, in this case the imaginer - you.

If everything changes, there is nothing to tie one moment to another; time would fall apart if it was just one damn thing after another. Everything is tied together by order, and kept distinct by change, and this is the nature of space-time.

Conservatives like order, and liberals like change, and neither notices that they are inseparable.

This is technically off topic, but a survivalists handbook wouldn't make a topic and there is a whole philosophy of environment casually assumed in this handy guide to planning.

So were some hypothetical person to have:

1. XX chromsomes
2. A penis
3. Testes
4. Low testosterone and high estrogen
5. Breasts

Then they have 3 female traits and 2 male traits and so are female and ought use the women's changing rooms, compete in women's sports, etc.? — Michael

That's according to Harry-biology, but other biological determinants have been suggested, which is why, according to me, there remains biological ambiguity, of which your hypothetical is an example. Why we cannot in such a case say "three fifths female and two fifths male" instead of forcing such people onto one or other side of the rather arbitrary line remains mysterious to me. It smacks of the one drop rule to me.

Desire is a projection of memory.

Thus the determinism of the mind is an introjection of the determinism of the world , which is a projection in turn of the need for stability and predictability.
— unenlightened

I don't immediately understand this. Could you elaborate a little? — bert1

I desire ecclesiastical cakes because I have enjoyed ecclesiastical cakes in the past AND I expect ecclesiastical cakes to be the same in all relevant ways. So my desire is predicated on the assumption that ecclesiastical cakes and my tastes are predictable and consistent. {I decided to leave that autocorrection just for fun} In other words, desire presumes determinism. The next eccles cake might make me ill, or taste foul because it was made with palm oil instead of butter, or I might have developed an allergy to currents, but my desire already presumes consistency.

So mind projects consistency onto the world even to the extent of mechanising the production of eccles cakes and regulating by law the ingredients, in order to back-project as it were, that consistent predetermined nature onto itself as desiring ego. It is the mind and only the mind that predetermines what it will 'inevitably' decide.

They are all chained by desire, and their freedom is nothing but a conflict of desires. is that right?

Desire is a projection of memory.

Thus the determinism of the mind is an introjection of the determinism of the world , which is a projection in turn of the need for stability and predictability. The storyteller is constrained by their need for neatness.

Wilful Willy hurls a brick through the cake shop window showering the remaining cakes with glass fragments - the other poor lost souls all die of internal injuries, caused by greed, except Abdul who dies of a brick to the head. "Just what I wanted", says Wil.

I've set it up that way I guess! — bert1

In your story, you are god and always correct.

If Pete chooses not to buy a cake, he's not Particular Pete any more, he's Absolute Pete. — bert1

So Pete does not determine his choice, but is determined by it?

And not all bears shit in the woods either. :joke:

Well we have Leo XIV. It is not as gentle a name as Francis, but we will see, and I will judge by how he deals with children, women, the poor, how Christian he is. "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God." Mark 10:14

Yes.

I can find nothing here to disagree with, except your writing is pretty good actually, and especially for a non-native speaker.

Do you truly think this is what was being said? — AmadeusD

It was said, on several occasions, such that I developed a stock response. I guess you are too young to have experienced the rigidity of gender norms that used to prevail.

Are you seriously suggesting that the reason for privacy in ablutions is to avoid rape during ablutions? — AmadeusD

No, I am seriously suggesting that there is a strong taboo against exposing genitals; particularly to the opposite sex, as if visual contact were dangerous. (That it is not dangerous can be attested by any naturist.)

It is rather odd that society mandates the covering up of the sex, but then turns that same covering into a conventional display of it as gender
— unenlightened

I don't think it's odd at all. 98% of people identify strongly with their sex, and so express that. — AmadeusD

We express what we are obliged to cover up. It's entirely normal of course and almost universal — for humans. But humans are weird. If we want everyone to know our sex, why hide the parts that distinguish it most clearly?

Millions of women world wide enjoy sport but you would happily dismantle the structure that allows them to do that.
— Malcolm Parry

Yes, that is nuts, — RogueAI

Indeed it is nuts; or rather "crazy". But it is not what I said. It is an uncharitable and invalid inference from what I did say. I don't much like sport so I would be happy if there was less sport, but I am not going to dismantle sport supposing that were remotely possible. But what I advocated for sport is that those concerned should make their own arrangements according to the sport. Snooker, I noticed has started to have matches between the sexes and good luck to them. Basketball probably ought to have segregation by height if anyone wants my opinion; fishing seems to have women in the ascendent position, I don't know what their policies are.

Why would I interpret charitably what I think is a crazy stance? — Malcolm Parry

You wouldn't and you don't. So please just ignore the crazy people instead of baiting them. Because in responding to them you are already implying that they are amenable to persuasion and argument. Why do you keep asking a crazy person questions? Have you no sensible people to talk to?

So you are happy for women’s sport to be destroyed and for women to risk assault when needing a to go to the toilet away from their home? — Malcolm Parry

I am happy for all sport to be destroyed, at least as a public display. And I am happy that women are generally not risking assault more when going to the public toilet than when walking down the street. Thus toilets need no more security than streets.

So you are happy asking leading questions like some cheap attorney rather than interpreting charitably and engaging with others on equal terms?

Setting aside the clear stab here(it was funny, so fine lol) I am bisexual, and married. LOL. I do not care what people look like, generally. The ambiguity means the rules are irrelevant. There is no restriction, in those cases because anyone can claim an identity and move along expecting you to assent to their self-image. If that seems reasonable, we don't have much ground on which we could talk about it. — AmadeusD

I apologise, it was a bit pointed. But I couldn't resist the opportunity to make the sharp point of 'what really matters' to people about sex, which is who one might have it with. But the reality is that there is no restriction to anyone who can 'pass'. But anyone who cannot pass, (which is to say cannot conform their physicality to the stereotype) as either normal, is already subject to social condemnation, revulsion and hatred. The UK law in effect forces such people into places where that hatred and revulsion will be worst. We are interested in people, not genes, and people just are fucking weird. I am old enough to have been stopped in the street and given lectures about how my long hair meant they couldn't tell if I was a boy or a girl. To which my reply was generally, "If you can't tell, it is none of your business." I still maintain that.

It is rather odd that society mandates the covering up of the sex, but then turns that same covering into a conventional display of it as gender. To the extreme that defecation has to be done in secret behind a locked door alone. As though pulling one's pants down made one sexually irresistible??? Humans are ALL weird. Perhaps we are bonobos pretending to be chimps.

If you mean chromosomal sex, then say that. If you mean phenotypic sex then say that. These have no effect on whether one is a male or female organism. — AmadeusD

But The debate is about the law, about male and female toilets, prisons, and safe spaces, and these things have neither phenotypes nor chromosomes.

using visually-represented phenotype to determine sex is bonkers.
— AmadeusD

Why is it bonkers? — frank

Because it leads to ambiguity, and some people find ambiguity intolerable. Fear of coming on to a ladyboy, perhaps?

You think all restrooms should be open to anyone? What about sports? — Malcolm Parry

I'm happy to let people who want to play games choose who they will or won't play with and against. Personally I think athletes cheat by exercising and practicing so we wimps stand no chance; so I won't compete in their sports.

I don't think restrooms need policing; they just need regular cleaning. I always use the one with the symbol person with trousers, not the one with the dress, but they are usually both 'open to anyone', except for the individual cubicles when occupied.

Not sure why you are picking hairs here tbh. — I like sushi

When someone wants to lay down the law about who can and who cannot excrete here or there, then the hairs have to be picked, or split or something, because all God's children gotta take a dump, even the weirdos and curiosities.
Personally, I'm happy to let people pick the toilet they feel most comfortable with, and not demand to see their genetic record or genitalia or certificate of sexual identity. And maybe in prisons spend enough money to make everyone safe anyway and not have to segregate in the first place, except to isolate those who cannot or will not restrain themselves sexually or violently.

Old Spice - old cheese. Love it!!!

As for Paganini - no one likes a showoff, Lucas.

I can live with that.

This is page eleven of the ambiguities. You haven't disambiguated them, and nor has anyone else.

. Haven't you noticed this? — I like sushi

Yes. Haven't you noticed the ambiguity? Not just the varieties of physical inter-sex ambiguity but also the sex-gender ambiguity, and the physical-mental ambiguity.

And who has to consider it and why, are important questions to consider also. Everyone is supposed to be normal? But not everyone is. And the decisions of the UK supreme court about the interpretation of some words in a recent law do not make anyone more normal.

The law is an ass. And likewise philosophers who try to disambiguate the actual ambiguous. As if the law or philosophy can make life clear and fair and unambiguous. The patriarchy is obsessed with sex, and especially the thorny issue of other people having sex.

After 11 pages, is it not time to admit defeat and perhaps stop trying to force all humanity into the categories we habitually use for toilets and prisons?

we should not use concepts such as 'mediaeval' because this is a Western notion of the world. If we want to understand Mishima, we have to see Japan from a different view. — javi2541997

Have you seen "Silence"?

Cheers! I'll start with a word about the cultural context.

I imagine Japan of the time of WW2 as culturally medieval in character, the romantic culture of Arthurian legend that concerned itself only with the aristocracy. 'Might is right'; 'death before dishonour'; there are only masters and slaves and only masters have any value. It is a culture of trial by ordeal, where cruelty is not only functional but an aristocratic virtue. I can see how those of the land of Don Quixote, might find an affinity with such a culture, but WW1 I think largely destroyed the vestiges of it in British culture. It turned out that machine-guns have no romance and do not distinguish between gentlemen and peasants.

Unconditional surrender of this culture to 'their inferiors' (the Americans) became a contradiction that had to be resolved.Enter "Sun and Steel".

LLMs have no contact with reality, but are themselves textual artefacts. They never touch the ground but are free-floating in the sea of language. There's nothing like banging your head against a brick wall for convincing you of its solidity; likewise spades hitting 'bedrock'. They know not whereof they speak, having as yet no senses of anything that is not language and image. Therefore their talk is all talk and no trousers.

Like intellectuals, you cannot trust them further than they can throw you.

Is anyone interested in doing the second chapter? :smile: Feel free to comment! — javi2541997

I am interested - mainly by my antipathy to the man and the culture he was trying to reconcile with the defeat of the war. So I anticipate i will contribute, if at all, mainly with questions, incomprehension, and antagonism. Or if you prefer, I can just follow in silence.

Another blue man singing the whites...

The good hardworking folks across the way are having their garden modernised. Out go half a dozen mangy conifers and their roots; out goes a load of gravel atop some black weed suppressing cloth, along with an old barbie, and all the topsoil. In comes several tons of hardcore, some carefully levelled treated wooden edging, and all topped off with fine slate dust.

This has involved three men working for about ten days with a digger, a dumper, and a compactor and delivery and removal lorries, not the electric kind. We helped out one of the guys who needed phone charged as he was homeless and trying to deal with the authorities.

Today, we are awaiting the final crowning glory - the artificial grass. The effort and expense that has gone into creating this small sterile desert is considerable, but the little boy's football ground will be guaranteed level and weed free.

Behold, the enemy!

It's up to us...

If ... yeah, I think I’m mostly to blame. — Mikie

If you were that person, you would think otherwise, or else you would act otherwise. But how does this help? I can feel righteous and innocent because I have been speaking and acting environmental for 50 years. Hurray for me, I'll go to heaven. But I'd rather be mending this world.

Surely it is up to "us" to boycott the bullshit, to counter the propaganda, to vote out the liars and thieves. "They" are not going to do it — by definition.