In that sense:
1. Pleasure is acquisition.
2. Medicine is denial.

Just one more thing VS no more.

But if the grass is always greener on the other side...
Where's Switzerland if you're already in Switzerland?

Due to there being less pet humans, than pet animals.

We butcher animals with little resistance, but cannibalism is controversial.

So and so.

Yet I thought about telling him and asking for the mark to be lowered. — orcestra

Then tell him, but let him judge whether the mark should be lowered.

Though it is an indirect analysis, if you agree with what you have written, what is the issue?

What do we actually mean when we say something tastes good? That it is agreeable? That we desire more? — Inyenzi

That it fits.

When the shoe fits, it is comfortable.
When it does not, it pinches or flies off.

What do you think brought us to this state? — lucafrei

People want too much, and can't carry the burden of it.
It's always pushing and pulling; an overstressed heart.
A heart attack is a learning experience for some and a death sentence for others.

And how can we make a change? — lucafrei

Generosity.

That said, rock bottom isn't so bad, when you realise you can't go any lower and all that's left is elevation.

I would have to say, who cares? The grass may or may not be greener than your underwatered lawn. — Wallows

More or less.

What does it matter if the grass is greener on the other side, if you're on this side?
I guess it matters in a way, helping you take note of your underwatered lawn.

The only thing I did, was write a few words to you.
I did not request that you consider them.
If they are not to your liking, pay them no heed.

You are ALWAYS yourself, because you cannot be anything but yourself. — NKBJ

Technically not, because who I am is not who I was; and yet, who I was, when I was, is who I am.
The self is just a frame of many; in this sense there is no self - as there is no permanance to comprise a self.
And yet each self is permanent, so there is a self. One self being change.

And when we're talking about freewill, an unconscious "choice" is definitely not a "freewill" choice, because it was entirely out of your control. — NKBJ

Free will that is controlled, is bond; it is not free.
Free will is free from control, consciousness and things altogether.
Free will is going with the flow; it doesn't care.

You've stopping making sense here. — NKBJ

Then, I propose we cease this yapping.

My advice to you would be: Look it over some more, mull it over some more and then go with what comes - whatever it may be.

Although we only have a concept of "roundness" due to the existence of not-round things — NKBJ

Not necessarily. Round and not-round can be, without being applied to anything; making us oblivious to them, but not destroying them.

in itself the curve of the surface is a quality of the object. — NKBJ

Again, not necessarily; for the same reasons.
The curve and the surface themselves being objects, mind you.

That said - every object itself may be viewed as a quality; which makes a composite object, a composite of qualities. In that sense, sure, they have qualities. Yet the composite object is different from the objects that compose it - detaching it from all those qualities; making it again without quality, but being a quality itself.

Going along with that, the following:

Applying the aforementioned, I deem that the object itself is not representative of a quality, but rather has qualities applied to it; the way you lather something with paint.
A thing is not good, bad, strong, weak, crooked, straight - but viewed as these; and what these are, are just lenses through which one sees. — Shamshir

May be taken as a half truth.

Specifically this:

A thing is not good — Shamshir

When the thing is goodness itself, again it is not good per se - but it is goodness, which is good.
In layman's terms: It doesn't have to be good, so it isn't. It can be good, so it is.

Technically, every desire bringing about discontentment with the self, sets one on the path to not be oneself.
Obviously, even during this process, you're you; of a sort.

But you being you is not a choice, the way you put it, because it's not a conscious choice.
But it's an unconscious choice; a free willed, spontaneous choice.
Which is to say it is both a choice and not a choice.

Pertaining to:

"everything is what it is and not some other thing" — NKBJ

That would mean everything is everything, which funnily enough makes it - everything it is and is not, so it amounts to everything.
They key to this predicament is the word is.

Wouldn't choice simply be 'one instead of the other'?
Well, you are what you are, instead of what you aren't.
That's a choice.

You don't have to be aware of what you could be and what you aren't, to be what you are.
You just are - it's a choice without intent.

You're jumbling up different kinds of qualities, though.
There are descriptive qualities like round, 5 feet tall, 7 pounds heavy, etc. that are inherent to the object, and I may or may not be able to perceive this quality about the object, but it is nevertheless a quality of the object. — NKBJ

It's not an inherent quality of the object. It doesn't have to be round, big or smooth.
You say round in comparison with something thought of as flat.
You say big in comparison with something thought to be small.
You say smooth in comparison with something thought to be rough.

It's an applied quality that comes from comparison.
An object doesn't need a description and it doesn't have one; it is given one, in an attempt to convey something.

Think about 1. for a second. If your actions are totally uncaused, they must also be uncaused by emotions, reason, past experiences, and anything else. What would that mean for your actions? Would they still be your "choice" if reason and experience weren't factors? I don't see how. They would be random (mis?)firings of the brain. — NKBJ

Wouldn't they still be your choices - albeit unrecognized and unforced?
Choices that don't know or care about options

You can resolve that by considering eternity isn't bigger than itself; so it's finite.

I still maintain that infinity is unmeasurable so has no size - that is the real cause of most of the paradoxes of infinity. — Devans99

Infinity has the size of infinity. An infinity. One infinity.

Infinite infinities? Let's just divide infinity in to infinite pieces.
But we're still dividing an infinity. One infinity.

Combination or unification, whichever you prefer, amounts to one.
Division amounts to many.

Let me phrase it this way:
Oversimplification and overcomplication are like zoom out and zoom in.
Less pixels vs more pixels; but essentially the same picture.

Is there a thing such as oversimplification? Probably.
Is oversimplification overly simple or just right? Depends on if you're looking at it or something else.

Moral simply is the absolutes of good and bad; which is to say, their combined form, born alongside them.

The goodness and badness of things, is not good and/or bad, but an applied aesthetic; a layer of paint.

Moral conduct is without intent.
Simply acting right, and not because it is right.

So what is the source of moral? Being.

Let's think of it like this:

Everything simply is.
There's no reason, cause or purpose to its being outside of simply being.
This is a self-determined act; so in that sense, sure, it's an accordance.
But it isn't influenced by anything, it is willed (determined) but also completely free.

When you think of free will think of actions, not intent.
Actions themselves are completely free; determinism arrives from intent.

I don't how what you say sits with what people seem to call Emergence which, if I understand correctly, basically claims that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. On this view consciousness is a different layer of reality arising from a particular configuration of matter (brain). Doesn't this mean we, consciousness, didn't exist before the brain formed? — TheMadFool

The whole is the sum of its parts plus itself.
Think of it like this: You cut up a square in to four parts. How many squares are there? Five; four little squares (parts) and one big square (whole).

Now, did 'this' consciousness exist prior to the brain being formed? Probably.
Was it, for lack of a better word, on - prior to the brain being formed? Probably not.
If you take consciousness to be light, you may think of the brain as a light switch.
It doesn't determine the existence of consciousness, but whether it is evident or not.

Understandable.

As to, did we exist before this?
I'd consider it as existing in another 'state' or 'frame', moreso than existing; considering the aforementioned definition of existence is limited by a few senses.
We're like a man spinning in place; our view changes, but we stay in the same spot.

we didn't/can't experience anything at all before we're born — TheMadFool

Not necessarily.
Maybe you did and you can, but you just don't remember.

Consider this: At birth, you pass through a sieve, which leaves some qualities out and some qualities in.

(1) How can Hegel claim that being and nothing are and are not the same? This is a contradiction. — philosophy

Consider that when he says nothing, he just means 'lack of'.
Now - are something and a lack of something different? Sure.
But is a lack of something, something? It is. Void is something.

(2) How can being vanish into nothing and nothing vanish into being? This violates Parmenides' argument in On Nature, according to which being cannot come from nothing, and vice versa. — philosophy

Given that nothing means 'lack of', this vanishing act just describes the general process of change.
Something which is, changes, and vanishes in to a lack of itself.
But that 'lack of' as I stated is something, and so something is immediately reinstated.

Sure, that works.
I'd only say, I find spirit and soul to be different things - like the light of a flame and its heat.

Ironically, you're committing the fallacy — S

No. Either reasonable people need me to be reasonable to accept my belief, which in turn means I have to be reasonable - or they're not reasonable; in that number, you.


Dear S, all you do is state your belief.
All I do is state my belief.
Yet, I do not understand, why it pleases you so to dominate me, and why you desire to tower over me and cast a big shadow over me.
I do not understand why you strain yourself so, to put me down.
If you are so great, and you tower over me, why do you care about me so much - as to want to put me down? Do you go out of your way to squash every ant to proliferate your greatness?
If I have, in some way, encouraged you to this demeaning behaviour - I apologise.

Reasonable people need it to accept your belief. I'm not saying that you have to be reasonable. I'm just curious what you're doing here if you don't care to be reasonable. — S

You're saying reasonable people 'need' it, and yet I don't 'have to' be reasonable.
So clearly, I either have to be reasonable or you're unreasonable - evident by how I cannot reason with you.

You aren't paying sufficient attention again. The question is whether or not you can reasonably justify your belief. — S

Read what is written. I don't need to justify my belief, because it is irrelevant to my belief.

How can you justify the existence of things? They just are, with or without your justification. — Shamshir

Meaning I can only reason about my belief, your belief and any belief.
Any justification itself, mind you, being a belief.

There's nothing wise about indulging folly, and that's what you must do in order to believe the silly things you've said that you believe. — S

You're silly. You go about chasing one thing, calling it 'wisdom', and leaving behind another thing, calling it 'folly'. And you end up with neither.

love is not a contentious thing — Shamshir

I plead you give these few words some thought, rather than rushing to prove me wrong - which proves nothing.

Spirit is the the power that moves.
One may compare it to wind.

Now, consider the following:
If you should sever your hand, you would no longer be able to move it.
Yet you will move the rest of your body just fine.
This is severing the flesh from the spirit; something that happens at death, when the spirit leaves the body and the body becomes a lump of flesh, a steak if you will.

If a gust of wind blew by your severed hand, it would move it.
If it blew in a specific manner, it could even make it wave at you or give you a thumbs up.

So I say: spirit is like a soft, silent wind that moves things.

This is an incredibly basic thing in philosophy. Are you new to the subject? — S

It is not about justification, as nothing wants nor needs your justification.
How can you justify the existence of things? They just are, with or without your justification.

The incredibly basic thing about philosophy is that it is 'the love of wisdom'.
And love is not a contentious thing, as you would desire it to be.
You lust after wisdom, you do not love it; perhaps this is why we misalign.

Only those worth exploring, and don't assume that the basis for such beliefs hasn't already been explored and found to be severely wanting. — S

They're all worth exploring or you stay in the dark.
As to whether they have been explored? Probably.
As to whether they have been sufficiently explored? Doubtful.

Possibility alone is insufficient grounds for justification. — S

It's not about justification; it's taking one foot and putting it in front of the other.

I haven't said that. Stay focussed. — S

You don't need to say something for me to ask you about it.
Just like how conversations can spontaneously start with: "What's your name?"

Once again, possibility alone is insufficient grounds for justification. — S

Once again, it's not about justification.
It's a question that endears its reader to think; and loosen the bonds of his mind.

Aren't philosophers ones who should explore ideas, wherever they may lead?
So, shouldn't reasonable people reason that there may be more to something, than their preconceived notions?
Isn't it unreasonable to say that what we're seeing, hearing, smelling and tasting is all there is?
Wouldn't it be reasonable to think, that in the same way there are people blind to this world, we may be blind to some other world?

At the expense of certain social circumstances, various sciences have brought us quite a long way toward understanding ourselves and our environment, and I'd hardly call it stagnation to make progress by contesting bad ideas. — whollyrolling

By contesting previously established scientific ideas.
If they didn't and merely stuck to what was, we wouldn't have made a step forward.

But I digress.

No, I quite clearly compared you to a chick stuck inside a shell.
And suggested, to your benefit, to wander down the rabbit hole and see where it leads.

Why would they be all over the place? Are anglerfish all over the ocean?
I, for one, know seers - that I would constitute as having superpowers.
They, by their claim, say anyone can read minds or see in to the future - but, people are simply oblivious to it, being so enamored with the small physical view they're presented.
By their claim, I suppose they're not superhuman - and it's inadequate of me to give them as an example. Nonetheless, I believe they possess super powers.

Are you actually implying that someone's mind stagnates if they claim they don't believe in mythology and super powers? — whollyrolling

I'm saying one's mind stagnates if one doesn't let it wander off.
Like a chick stuck inside the shell that yells: "THIS IS IT! THIS IS ALL THERE IS!"
And once it breaks the shell, it sees there's a fair bit more.

May I suggest that, to your benefit, you allow yourself the idea that there might be such people, as opposed to letting your mind stagnate in to contentious rhetoric.

I'll have you know stick war is a way better topic.

Emphasis on "for".
Which bases it on personal desire.
In this case, a lust for territory.

If you want to continue this, I plead it be by PM.

Isn't it?
What's the problem - disproportion?
There's more water on the surface of the planet than landmass - is it fair?
I have less land to walk on, but that's fine by me.

My observation is this:
My body is different organs working for a mutual cause.
My organs are at peace with each other; one might even say friends.
Humans can accomplish the same.

As to an unfair world- not really.
We view it as unfair based on desire.
I mean, why shouldn't my opponents beat me down ten times in a row through pure luck? I don't mind.