That last paragraph actually made me understand something about 'fetishisation' at last. Cheers!

History teaches that sanity cannot be relied on. — unenlightened

But never mind the chaos, never mind the so-called decision, and whether anyone can or will make it or has made it, the important thing is that Jeremy Corbyn might have muttered to himself 'Stupid woman", when May was literally doing her pantomime routine in parliament. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-46628420/mps-accuse-corbyn-of-calling-may-stupid-woman

Here's your daily dose of paranoia fodder:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/18/sealed-v-sealed-robert-mueller-mysterious-case-subpoena?CMP=fb_gu&fbclid=IwAR1FGFD-VplVZ_ARG1At381qN2akFTa-EXI946zaaXSYJC5ylSYedvyn4Gk

Further frantic looking for reds under the bed led me to this:

https://hillreporter.com/fall-trump-power-rise-rosneft-deal-17323

It's a funny old world where 'commission' amounts to hundreds of millions, and can be just awarded to someone for 'no reason'...

the only sane option — Benkei

History teaches that sanity cannot be relied on.

but, could if the judge accepted the fact that they had a limited liability in committing the crime due to deterministic factors, what then? — Wallows

*Judge* __" I have no free will either; five years."

It is a necessary assumption in making a judgement or a decision, that the result is not pre-determined. And this applies to making a defence argument - that the judge can be swayed - that the judgement is not fixed already, but open.

But if your claim is that the judge is capable of acting justly, but you are not, then it stops being an argument for the defence, and becomes one for the prosecution. "Wallows is un-reformable, and therefore we deserve to be protected from him with the maximum sentence."

None of which is to deny that there may on occasion be mitigating circumstances, or even a defence of incapacity to do otherwise. "I was at the firing range, and heard a commotion behind me, and as I turned round, the police tazered me and my finger involuntarily spasmed and the gun went off, killing the officer."

https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2018/12/13/full-speech-sir-ivan-rogers-on-brexit/

Worth a look if you have time, or if you haven't try the Guardian's pre-digested bombshell - sounds appropriately messy and uncomfortable.

Edit: So for us EU proponents in the above sense, Brexit is not simply "will Britain GDP do better within or outside the EU", but very potentially a start of a process that breaks up the EU; the UK is a big piece and leaving has lot's of political consequences, many unforeseeable. — boethius

It's very interesting you say that, and thanks for the general analysis too. The suspicion I have is that it is the UK that will break up, with N. Ireland (eventually) federating with the South, and Scotland going independent and seeking to rejoin the EU. But we agree that it is divisive, perhaps it is a mutual myopia, or perhaps both will happen ...

Someone gave a great summary of what is happening globally, that there is a growing attraction to and rise of "Strong Leaders", who set about dismantling the institutions that were set up after WW2 to protect us from the repetition of "Strong Leaders" that brought us to that war. Well at least no one can accuse the UK of having a Strong Leader, though many wish for one. :roll:

We don't need to talk about Kelvin, we need to talk about Donald.

The largest donation in the foundation’s history — a $264,231 gift to the Central Park Conservancy in 1989 — appeared to benefit Trump’s business: It paid to restore a fountain outside Trump’s Plaza Hotel. The smallest, a $7 foundation gift to the Boy Scouts that same year, appeared to benefit Trump’s family. It matched the amount required to enroll a boy in the Scouts the year that his son Donald Trump Jr. was 11.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-agrees-to-shut-down-his-charity-amid-allegations-he-used-it-for-personal-and-political-benefit/2018/12/18/dd3f5030-021b-11e9-9122-82e98f91ee6f_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b3daa67ea42c

$7 ! I think this shows the calibre of the man like nothing else - stealing a paltry sum from a charity that bears his own name. He has reached absolute zero.

When I think about it, there have been very few tasks where the relation of the measure I was using to the 'official metre', whatever that was at the time, mattered. — andrewk

It matters when you go shopping.

Yes, I understand. But it is still a strain to say that 'all possible worlds' of yesterday excludes the actual world of today.
— unenlightened

I don't know what you mean by that. Who is saying or implying that? Can you make the thesis that you believe to be strained a little more explicit? — Pierre-Normand

Yes, I'll try and nail it down, and hopefully that will kill it.

"One Metre" once referred, in every possible world, to the length of the stick.

We now use "One Metre" to refer, in every possible world, to a different length determined by vibrations and stuff.

Two different uses of "One Metre", talking about different lengths. But one Metre is the same in all possible worlds. You might sometimes have to specify which one you are using. — Banno

I remember when the UK changed to decimal currency. The pound (£) didn't change, but the number of pennies in a pound changed from 240 old pence (d) to 100 new pence (p) and the poor old shilling and half-crown ceased to exist. So for a time there were old pence and new pence in common parlance. I still have a set of grocer's scales for weighing produce that has prices in old money - quite useless now.

But the change from old metres to new metres has not been so radical, and I can still use the old measuring tape for all purposes except the most esoteric physics experiments, so as far as I am concerned, a metre is still a metre. It is the fact that the old metre is to nearly all intents and purposes the same as the new metre, which deceives me into thinking they are the same thing.

So in all possible worlds, there are 240 old pennies in a pound, and the old metre standard is an old metre long, though it was always possible that we used an entirely different standard. The standard applies to all possible worlds to which the standard applies, and even to those it doesn't apply in, because when I talk about a penny these days, I don't mean the penny I used to talk about. There are still 240 of the pennies I used to talk about and keep in my pocket to a pound.

Is that about right?

It rather means that this name, as used by us, today, in the actual world, refers to the same object in (our talk of) all possible worlds. — Pierre-Normand

Yes, I understand. But it is still a strain to say that 'all possible worlds' of yesterday excludes the actual world of today.

Basically, the clarity act was made to solve the fact that a sudden ill-defined separation vote would be total chaos with dozens of practical problems no one had the slightest answer to — boethius

Shame we didn't learn that lesson from you in good time.

For Kripke, the Metre is a rigid designator for a certain length, and hence the same in all possible worlds. — Banno

Prima facie, this looks to be plain false, given that 'we' (scare quotes because I was not consulted) have changed the designation. Presumably, the new designation is more rigid than the rigidity of the lump of stuff that was previously designated. We can now measure what was immeasurable.

But I believe the French have a different view...

do you think it is fair to say that they typically have in mind Anglosphere countries like the United States, Canada, Australia, the UK, New Zealand. — johnGould

"The Latin phrase civis romanus sum (cīvis rōmānus sum) (Classical Latin: [ˈkiːwɪs roːˈmaːnʊs ˈsũ], "I am (a) Roman citizen") is a phrase used in Cicero's In Verrem as a plea for the legal rights of a Roman citizen." (google)

When I were dragged up, it were the Greeks and Romans that were the source, and the jolly old Englishman was the inheritor and perfecter. The semi-literate ex-colonies are not with mentioning in the context of civilisation.

The problem is, that same criticism can be levelled against our representatives in parliament. Boris Johnson, speaking as Foreign Secretary, said that his policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it, and David Davis, speaking as Brexit secretary, said that we could strike a deal whereby we enjoy the exact same benefits that we currently do. — S

No, that's a different problem. By and large, the voters are not idiots, and do not expect contradictions to be implemented. But some politicians are sufficiently two-faced to propose them in the hope that everyone will think they are proposing something they want, and won't notice they are also proposing the opposite. The technical term for such people is 'manipulative lying bastards'.

So you favor totalitarianism? — frank

Excuse me for quoting myself from page2.

Another folly of a referendum is that it asks an isolated question, when policies are interdependent. If you have a separate vote on, say...

1. lower taxes - yes/ no.
2. better services yes/no
3. economic stability yes/no

...You are very likely going to get three yeses. But they constitute a trilemma of which only two can be had. — unenlightened

So an excellent reason for not running the country by referenda, but by representation is that one needs to avoid contradiction. It does not require even that anyone is themselves voting for a contradiction: if one third votes for 1 & 2, one third for 2 & 3 and one third for 1 & 3, one has a two thirds majority for all three.

Now in this case, we have a single referendum, but with people voting for incompatible reasons, and voting without having considered the ramifications of the decision.

By and large, people did not vote to end the Good Friday agreement, or for the independence of Scotland, but did not either seriously consider that these might be consequences.

There is much emphasis laid on sovereignty, but little consideration of the sovereignty that will be given up in making trade deals elsewhere - the court which would administer disputes in a trade deal with the US, for example, or the regulations on food standards that would have to be aligned.

Much emphasis too on control of immigration, but very little on the loss of control of emigration.

And these two are certainly things that folks in economically depressed areas voted for, as if the transfer of power from Westminster to Brussels has been the reason for their neglect. But if you actually make the comparison, Brussels is the more benign power in terms of developing such regions.

Indeed, in my view, the loss of sovereignty itself is more seriously to the multinational companies than to multinational governance. So the direction in which totalitarianism lies is quite other than in not accepting an advisory vote.

I have some advice. Studies show (that's the new prefix to replace ,'And God said') that group singing is one of the very best activities for lifting depression. Join a choir, it might save your life. It's the group togetherness, it's the deep breathing, it's letting out some feeling beyond words, who cares, it works.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42431430

No it hasn't.

I commend to you The White Goddess, by Robert Graves, classical scholar and poet. His thesis in very brief is that Greek myth contains the disguised remnants of an older, matriarchal society and religion, in which case much of what one reads today is by way of being patriarchal propaganda or political correctness.

However, it does seem to me that the romantic ideal as we tend to think of it comes much later, with the legend of King Arthur. And it comes out of a much more established and complacent patriarchy, that can 'afford to be chivalrous'. Though that too was propaganda; relations were much more about money and power, by and large, and that seems to have always been the case for the rich and powerful, and still is, royal wedding pageants notwithstanding. What the peasants get up to, nobody knows or cares.

The reason the EU would rather suffer a worse impact itself than make the deal better for the UK is that, the less penal the deal is for the UK, the greater the risk that other valued members may at some stage vote to leave. So it's in the interest of the EU to make the deal as bad as possible, even if it causes short term pain for the EU.
— andrewk

Maybe you're right. I get the incentive for that, but I'm not convinced that it's the overriding incentive. I'd have to think it on it, and maybe do some more reading on the subject to see if anyone shares that view. — S

It looks to me that the main problem with the deal is the backstop, and the backstop is there to protect the Good Friday Agreement, which is a treaty between The UK and Eire to end the civil war in N. Ireland. That is to say, it's actually nothing to do with the EU but is something the UK needs. (see my previous comment)

"Why am I here?" said the grain of sand in the oyster.
"I don't know,"said the oyster,"all I know is you're bloody irritating."

But the pearl fisher knows.

Read some Hume before you read Kant.He's one of the clearest of philosophers, and sets out the sceptical arguments that Kant addresses.

Otherwise, you could do a lot worse than flick through some of Stanford, and follow up on whatever grabs your fancy, making sure of course to know your enemies as well as your friends.

Those stats illustrate nicely the nature of the problem. Which is that 'a compromise is the worst of all possible worlds' is about the only thing both sides agree on.

Perhaps someone can explain what will happen to the Irish border in the event of no deal? Because my own primary concern is not the economy but peace. The civil war in Ireland spilling over to the mainland as I remember was 'rather unpleasant', and I would guess, worse than the possible unrest that would result from another referendum or even the revocation of article 50. The defusing of the issue of the partitioning of Ireland is for me one of the most important benefits of the EU, and yet the issue was hardly mentioned during the campaign, and is still little understood on the mainland, let alone abroad.

It seems reasonable to assume that the op is a lie. Nothing to see here, move along.

Here's a little article that might be of interest.

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/kurt-godel-and-the-romance-of-logic?fbclid=IwAR0m6ifJB0TLm2IdreqB3Wt8Ig6iRB9a9LjU3IgA4PlhnV28kLgNHuIF8nw

Why attempt to upset me? — All sight

DS: In order to reach that place of new life or
healing, the whole story on which the person has
built his or her life, and the system that enabled the
child to survive, has to be dismantled. That is
terrifying. It does not change without enormous
resistance, pain, fear and a huge fight.
DK: Yes, and it happens one step at a time; there is
no quick way through. A person comes into therapy
because something has happened that makes her /him
realise that s/he cannot continue as s/he is –
something needs to change. But understandably,
s/he is very ambivalent about giving up the defensive
belief system that has ensured survival.
And this system is most often challenged when the
patient actually starts to care about the therapist….or
shall we say that the little girl/boy inside the
patient, hidden from view, starts to make a new
attachment to a real person beyond the survival
system. When this happens, the
protector/persecutor is challenged, and the selfdefence
system goes into over-drive. It will try to
sabotage the therapy and the relationship with the
therapist – anything to regain control.

Donald Kalsched interview.

So the psychological response to trauma is a defensive splitting, and the divided selves are mutually antagonistic. As long as this condition is bearable and functional, why indeed upset it? But when it comes to fashioning nooses, or what-have-you, it is clearly not bearable and functional any more. To care is to be vulnerable, whether one cares about oneself or another; to be upset is to care, and this is the beginning of life. It is the business of a therapist to upset, to overturn a psyche that has become self-destructive, to force the antagonists together.

If the UK's exit from the EU turns catastrophic, they'll just reenter later. It's not like the EU nations are unforgiving. — Hanover

I wonder what makes you think that? I am old enough to remember when DeGaulle blocked the UK application to join the EEC as then was for many years, and having lived in France, I think the sentiment there will be fairly unforgiving, as the UK has not been an enthusiastic supporter of the project, but typically the awkward one, demanding special arrangements and exemptions. If I was the EU, it'd be a cold day in hell before I let the UK back in.

I can handle it. :love:

But, like unenlightened pointed out, in the real world, everyone has their breaking point. — csalisbury

Well a shrink whose breaking point is anything said by a client needs to get another job; they are a menace. I don't want to make a judgement at this distance, and based on one side of the story, because sometimes an emotional response is what is required. But on the face of it, it doesn't sound very therapeutic.

he was disgusted with your vulnerability - but were you respectful of his? — csalisbury

That's an unfair question to put to the client. Client - therapist is not an equal relationship, and whatever the failings of the client may be, they do not excuse the failings of the therapist. I would say, in general, that disgust and anger are defences against vulnerability. The therapist needs to be vulnerable, but also able to maintain himself in his vulnerability, and not defend by projecting.

I dunno. Perhaps I should ask what is

that picture of naming — Banno

?

N&N killed it. — Banno

Where did I go wrong?

Oh no, I don't think so. I'm not much of a diplomat. If I was in charge, anyone who owned more than £5m would have the balance removed; income tax would be abolished and moved onto resource-consumption, business and commerce (from where it would return to the common people via retail pricing); Brexit would be cancelled; the national anthem will be replaced by "21st century schizoid man", and so on. I suspect the British people wouldn't like/want me, despite the good I would do.... — Pattern-chaser

You got my vote.

You need to work out your biological metaphor better. If Dutch elm disease could not survive the death of the elm, there would be no dead elms by Dutch elm disease. — DiegoT

You need to read with a modicum of charity. I'm not an idiot. A disease that kills its host can of course survive the death of its individual host, but a disease that kills all its hosts cannot survive. There is conflict and competition, but there is strong evolutionary pressure to minimise it. Sensible diseases do not damage their host too much, sensible predators do not kill all their prey. But I am not grounding social phenomena on biology, I am responding to your question about "social and natural phenomena" by talking about them both in turn.

And it's not that one cannot, in the privacy of one's lounge, assign a name to such-and-such. This does happen; but it is the exception. In the vast majority of instances, this is not so. — Banno

I occasionally mention on these boards, a person I call "Mrs un". If you want a definite description, "Mrs un is the woman I live with." Or an alternative, and equally definite description, "Mrs un is the mother of my daughter".

So if I am to be believed, then you know that I live with a woman and we have a daughter. It is a non-counterfactual possibility that Mrs un and I split up, and then she would no longer be the woman I live with, but the woman I used to live with. But there is no non-counterfactual possibility that would make her no longer the mother of my daughter. Yet it is counterfactually possible, that we might have had a son, or two daughters, or none. And all of this is perfectly comprehensible.

Yet though Mrs un is a real person, "Mrs un" is not her real name. You, most of you, do not know her real name, or anything about her that would allow you to pick her out in a line-up of women, even if you could question them - many women have daughters and live with philosophers. You know exactly who I'm talking about, yet you have no idea who I'm talking about.

Do you agree that the true nature of social and natural phenomena is conflict and fight? — DiegoT

No. It's a nonsense. If my neighbours and I were constantly fighting and trying to steal each other's stuff, life would be impossible. But we don't. We cooperate, we come to an understanding, we leave each other be, and help each other out, and that cooperation is the nature of social phenomena, and it is upon that ground of cooperation that conflict can arise.

And the natural world works similarly. Dutch Elm disease cannot outlive the Elms that it kills; the dependence is deeper than the conflict, and one way or another, the conflict will end, and life that is less conflicted will continue. Evolution does not favour such conflicts, but more the cooperation, say, between plants and pollinating insects.

But perhaps Europe has been behaving like Dutch Elm disease, and ravaging and destroying its neighbours. Then indeed you are right to be worried. But blaming the refugees is like blaming the dead elms for destroying by their death, the disease that kills them.

It is the beetle in the box, that drops out of the conversation because nothing can be said about it even to oneself.
— unenlightened

But, it can be shown. — Wallows

I think this is wrong. 'Whereof one cannot speak' is not the same as 'the beetle in a box.' There is a world, that is bigger than language; there is no beetle.

Sensations of colour have no colour. It's not that one cannot say what colour they are.

Imagine a camera (or an eye) that detects colour, and sends signals down some wires (or nerves). For the convenience of the eye of the electrician, the wires might be colour coded, but the signals are not coloured. Even if they were coloured, one would need an inner eye/camera to detect the colour, that would have to send its own signals down its own nerves/wires. There is no inner eye.

I'll add to your addition that the control of sexuality is always part of social control. It passed from religion to the state, and has now passed from the state to the corporation. It has no effect on democracy, because democracy has no effect, because all aspects of power have gone from governments and are in the hands of corporations.