What I meant is that the conflict with the 2nd law is only applicable to dialectical materialism but that materialists believe in the 2nd law since the only violation is cosmological; sorry, I may be wrong about what you are trying to convey. Can you clarify?

Science doesn't assume or rely on any such inductive principle. — tom

Sorry, I think you may be confusing the 2nd Law with dialectical materialism.

Bernard Williams once made a "joke" that whilst Australia wasn't the only place where materialist theories of mind were believed, it was the only place where they were true. — MetaphysicsNow

:lol: I studied near David Chalmers and asked him to come onto the old PF forums, but I can assure you that this is no joke.

It might make more sense if you read what I say properly. I didn't deny that it's supposed to be personal, I said that you're making it too personal. There's a difference. It's personal for each of us, but you made it too personal with your talk of finding a partner, fighting injustice, and so on, as if that's what it's all about, rather than that being what it's all about for you, personally. — Sapientia

What I was attempting to convey is that we form meaning through love and our virtues - such as righteousness - and it is a natural part of the human condition to desire happiness. Cypher did not experience love and so turned to hedonism as a last resort, but I doubt he would have wanted to return back to the Matrix if the love was reciprocated, clearly by his determination that he forgets everything. Finding real love and being able to be charitable and fight injustice enables meaning that we create and gives us purpose, so it is not being too personal here. It is really a part of our human nature. The difference is Cypher chose something false or unreal whereas Neo didn't. It is just about the authenticity of our motives.

I would've laughed at her. — Sapientia

I don't like that kind of behaviour and despite appearances on here, I am actually a very peaceful person in real life so I pitied her more than anything, although there still remains that resentment clearly for her attacking me like that only because of the way that I look. And yet, it was apparently OK to do that as though she were justified? Nope. She was the one in the wrong, despite how pleasurable the sensation is attacking someone for being themselves.

If that were the case, why scream out 'skinny bitch' with big mac sauce on your face? And besides, the traffic had stopped so it was not like she was going anywhere.

You do show off in that way. — Bitter Crank

There was once a lady who literally yelled out profanities to me from her car. I was walking in my sports gear eating an apple. She was sitting in her car eating McDonald's and the traffic had stopped so I crossed the road in front of her as she gave me a deathly stare before yelling out as I was crossing to the laughter of what may have been her daughter. I did nothing.

It is not my fault that she has the problem and it is easy to blame me as being a show off when really, it is just you being pathetic.

:confused:

That's why I feel as though it is imperative to be vigilant of the multiplicity of thoughts and feelings associated with positions and some such matters. — Posty McPostface

The only way you can is by explaining it. If you are overweight and sitting at home all day doing nothing but eating soft cheese and I said that I went hiking yesterday and spent most of last night stargazing and now terribly sleepy, if you turn around and start attacking me for being a show off and intentionally making you feel shit about yourself, the problem is in you. Its all well and good about utilising the forum to question things important to you, but do it in a way that doesn't force them to feel uncomfortable because it differs from your lifestyle.

I hope that helps.

Perhaps I was too exposed to Wittgenstein and "ordinary language philosophers" like J.L. Austin in my younger days, or am myself merely ordinary, but I'm inclined to define "love" as I think we typically do, as we use the word in context; as a noun or a verb, depending on the circumstances. So, I'm inclined to say that when I love someone I have a profound affection for them, for example, or a romantic attachment to them. I may have both for the same person, or I may not. I don't see these uses of the word as artificial, but rather think that uses of the word which substantially differ from them are misuses of the word and language, which may as lovely, lovely Ludwig W used to say, lead to the bewitchment of our intelligence. — Ciceronianus the White

If love is something that you feel and express, and relying on socially constructed ideals about what love is and how relationships function only explains the depth of your low self-esteem since these connections are alien to your inner agency. Moral consciousness is that self-awareness or genuine behaviour that characterises a willingness distinct from what others expect and it is you giving because you want to and not doing because you are supposed to since that is what everyone else is doing. The expressions - erotic love, love toward your child, love of friends, family etc - are coming from within you and explain a positive feeling of care and affection. Many people have partners that they do not love but comfortably say I love you, they have children that they don't care about, friends they treat badly. There is no love, just an artificial display.

I am saying that you should feel profound affection toward someone, but ascertain whether that is real; do you admire them for who they are or are you deeply lonely; do you have that profound affection for them because they are worthy of it or do you feel affection because they are popular and attractive, the difference between giving love and wanting love.

A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet "for sale", who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence - briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing - cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity. He cannot help suffering, even though he can experience moments of joy and clarity that are absent in the life of his "normal" contemporaries. Not rarely will he suffer from neurosis that results from the situation of a sane man living in an insane society, rather than that of the more conventional neurosis of a sick man trying to adapt himself to a sick society. In the process of going further in his analysis, i.e. of growing to greater independence and productivity, his neurotic symptoms will cure themselves.

Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.

You don't know whether I have a girlfriend or not, and even if you did or didn't you have no context for understanding that potential relationship. — Sum Dude

That was not the point. The point is how do you know that what you see is actually real since your perceptions themselves can be contaminated by manipulation, desire, social constructs etc You could meet a woman who merely behaves in a way that is representative of the socially constructed idea of an ideal woman and compelling you to believe that she is virtuous and honourable by publicly being charitable, but is that moral behaviour if her intention or motivation is simply getting attention? Like those people who pray in front of everyone, it is a show or a display, a game that people are playing in order to receive the congratulations from others and the underlying motive is egotistical because it is about receiving, getting the attention through feelings of popularity and being appreciated for obedience to the norm.

I dont understand why you have such a hangup with the word good, you sound like a Determinist steeped in cultural relativism. — Sum Dude

Determinism and free-will are not mutually exclusive and being intellectually fluid is essential if you want to really understand the complexity of the world, otherwise you end up a stubborn child who listens to no one because he thinks he is absolutely perfect, erstwhile everyone else is like what a dipshit.

Good is synonymous with moral... the point of the thread, brah.

Manipulation and influence are the same thing, with different intentions. — Sum Dude

How does that work? How can different intentions produce the same result? Manipulation is intended for evil; influence is you just being you and people admiring you for it. You don't have any intention other than being you. Manipulation is subtle and done well - otherwise it would not be manipulation - making you feel guilty when you shouldn't, shifting the blame and the responsibility, the intention being to control you in a way where you don't even realise. If you knew you were being manipulated, you would not be manipulated. You know when you admire someone. It is the difference between being in love with someone and deeply happy, or being dependent on someone and deeply miserable.

Telling me to fuck myself while being a woman and wearing a bikini is just rude (not the bikini part, I'm not sure why you added that necessary detail), it's not really a moral transgression, it just means that person would be kind of a dick. There's nothing wrong with being kind of a dick unless you accelerate it to the point of lambasting someone with slander. — Sum Dude

I believe in modesty and higher virtues so if I wear a bikini and if I swear and if I behave in a manner that others would consider contradictory to this, am I no longer virtuous? Is being 'virtuous' only when other people tell me that it is? That is the point, what Camus was explaining in his story The Outsider. I challenge myself all the time by intentionally breaking down those social constructs and flipping it the other way around because I hate the show or the game. I hate how people use it and manipulate their way through life when underneath their intentions or will is immoral. Some people spend decades with someone before realising that they are not who they say they are.

There is no "authenticity of motivations" because we all have the same motivations, security, love and fun. — Sum Dude

They are each paralleled with fear, social constructs and conformism. What you call "love" could merely be some socially constructed ideal that you unknowingly conform to and the happiness it produces is because you are doing what you think you should - along with everyone else - and therefore you feel security because you think that you are somehow connected. It is why people feel anxiety or depression because who they really are is attempting to speak through emotions that tell them something is wrong but they cannot articulate using language as to explain why since their delusions are so embedded that they almost cannot escape except for that feeling compelling them otherwise. Authenticity is when those motivations are genuinely you. I want security, love and fun but I will never do it at the expense of who I am; I will never be with a man who follows the herd, never have fun by going clubbing and drinking, never try to manipulate in order to have security. I follow me, my heart, and not the crowd and I can do that because I have learnt to be on my own, learnt to take care of myself. There is authenticity in our motivations.

You claim to understand your moral compass but seem to like to type good in quotations, which indicates you are uncomfortable with that term. Further, the final part of that statement asserts that NO ONE's moral compass is distinct from their environment.

My understanding is that you think somehow a moral compass can exist totally outside of structure and context. — Sum Dude

That is what free-will is, that language is a tool but that the belief in some sort of unity or connection with society or other people is really just psychological and not real. Morality is the very 'you' as someone who has embraced their separateness and transcended those psychological barriers and while much of what we have learnt is a part of that structure, the point is that we don't blindly follow but begin to process information independent from that structure; we become self-aware and that cognitive process enables us to transcend.


--

Just a side note, can you quote my comments, it gets confusing.

Interesting, but being the jokester I am, I would state that the fire is always real before the shadows. :cool: — Sum Dude

That's not funny.

Look at the title and figure it out.

I love the Analects, but it was Plato who first initiated that 'whoa' epiphany for me, when I was 14 and realised that our perceptions were merely the shadows of reality.

"On the walls of the cave, only the shadows are the truth."
"How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?”
“It is the task of the enlightened not only to ascend to learning and to see the good but to be willing to descend again to those prisoners and to share their troubles and their honours, whether they are worth having or not. And this they must do, even with the prospect of death.”

If indeed its subjective or personal experience can be 'sped up' or 'slowed down'; ones experience of ten years might be the same as another's experience of ten days. — Marcus de Brun

You can treat time as something real with an arrow that includes a "past" or retention as Husserl would say, that real interaction with the external world, but it neglects our phenomenal engagement that exists without duration. You are giving the phenomenal that temporal structure and thus using temporal language to describe time-consciousness, but our personal engagement with time can be slowed down or sped up depending on how engaged we are with the experience. So, I am unsure what these mechanisms would look like.

The receptionist comment is rude, but I won't insult you in return. :smile: — Sum Dude

No, it wasn't. It was a funny way of saying that you type fast. Interesting how your ego can interfere.

I'll rephrase, it's self evident once it is seen. — Sum Dude

Seen, how? Like that "good" girlfriend of yours who has manipulated you, where your self-esteem is so low that you conform and do what you are told, like how your desires make you overlook who she really is, like how the praises and accolades by others for being with her makes you think it is "good" because everyone else tells you that it is? Self-evident, how?

So, I could be the most loving, righteous woman on earth, virginal and charitable all hidden from everyone, but I could tell you to go fuck yourself and wear a bikini, does that make me "bad"?

And are you only "good" because you have yet to be given the chance to prove the authenticity of your motivations?

I don't believe in "isms." I take what I find useful in schools of thought and disregard that which isn't succinct. Is this stupid? Maybe, but I can live with the fact I'll never perfectly understand morality. — Sum Dude

That type of indifference lacks cognitive rigour and as a consequence you lose the opportunity to broaden your intellectual horizon and ultimately your moral compass to thus find adequate solutions and calculations that are forward thinking, or what you referred to as an educated guess. May as well say "meh" and be done with it so yes, it is stupid. It is defeatist and the moment you anticipate failure, the likelihood you will become one.

There is always validity in learning about things that appear wrong or even useless in order to provide that suitable contrast, to give you insight into ideas and thoughts that others may have, breaking down those barriers by enabling relativism. Indeed, no one should believe in beliefs or "isms" because that is simply a person who mirrors their identity to something socially constructed and so ultimately they are not really thinking but merely rearranging their prejudices. But, one should always be willing to learn it. The world is not you.

Lastly motivation is never a question of what is appropriate. The want for food or sex is neither appropriate or inappropriate, it vastly precedes it in nature. — Sum Dude

Instinct is different to motivation.

How can you separate truth and falsehood, (notice there are no parenthesis, meaning I know there are truths and falsehoods and your parenthesis indicate you don't believe in either) when you can never have a moral system that is separate from values prescribed by society? — Sum Dude

Not sure what you mean here, care to further explain?

You know it when you see it, it is self evident. — Sum Dude

Nope. Ever heard of a wolf in sheep's clothing? If it were self-evident, there would probably be no such thing as philosophy.

Setting aside the fact that you write like a neurotic receptionist on crack, how can you separate "truth from falsehood" when you are comparing this moral system to the very values prescribed by society? You cannot abandon rationalism if your focus is on how appropriate your motivations are since it is reason that regulates our understanding.

By an educated guess you imply rational thought and so how can you ascertain the sincerity of your moral claims as transcending some mere expression of your desires or beliefs that have been constructed by society?

Whether it's right or not your moral character is the only metric that is truly measurable, paradoxically it doesn't always end with the best moral outcome. — Sum Dude

How is your moral character measurable?

Are you suggesting that moral claims can be true or false? I can believe that I am justified in telling you that you are a moron because you say something moronic, but is it moral despite it appearing sensible?

It doesn't seem to me there is any moral imperative to be authentic. Authenticity would seem to be for some and not for others, and perhaps even only possible for some and not for others. So, authenticity and inauthenticity would just seem to be two possible modes of being for humans; and perhaps no human could ever be entirely one or the other. — Janus

The connection between moral judgement and motivation rests under the umbrella of our cognitive state and thus moral expression is dependent on rational thought. Authenticity is to imply a clarity or honesty of such normative judgements, because if our mental states are constructed and given to us, then there is no actual mental states, no rational thought and thus no morality. You are just a blind follower.

You're making this too personal. The options, as set out in the opening post, are to continue to be miserable in the domain of the real, or to give up reality for wealth and power in a dreamworld. The options aren't as you set out above, and besides, one could have the experience of living your ideal life in the dreamworld, despite it not being the real thing. The real thing might be your priority, but it's clearly not everyone's priority, and that's okay. It's okay that there's a difference in how people answer this question. There's no real right or wrong here. You should recognise that your ideal life isn't necessarily the ideal life of others. — Sapientia

That makes no sense, it is supposed to be personal. As mentioned already to Michael, the Architect at the end of the movie explains whether or not you will actually be happy considering that bad is as much a part of the human condition and necessary for the matrix to function productively, that what you are right now is just the same as what it will be in the matrix. You are not Cypher. You are Jessica from West Brompton who eats gluten free.

Is free-will an ideal?

Why would anyone consciously choose to limit themselves? Because within the boundaries of a known and predictable matrix it's relatively comfortable, right? — praxis

:ok:

Cowardice. The worst kind being those that actually admit to being a coward, that conscious decision to avoid responsibility and allow others to think on your behalf.

I understand that, hence what the schism of opinions are all about since either pill may take you on the ride that seems most fulfilling. One, however, actually is.

You are just reinforcing the same doubt, but how that parallels with reality is nonsensical, however even if it were so, the question is about what you do given that possible reality, which is the point of the thread.

That's just silly.

You are forgetting the architect.

You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision.

If your life is determined, how can you make the choice for one. And two:

The inevitability of its doom is as apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every human being, thus I redesigned it based on your history to more accurately reflect the varying grotesqueries of your nature.

What makes you think you will have a happy life?

Yes, but people and outcomes are variable to a much greater extent than the characters Cypher and Neo, and what happened to them in the film. — Sapientia

I agree, but the parallel here is about our state of mind, about the authenticity of our experiences. We can easily find a partner who we are indifferent to but they have a pleasing enough face to help tolerate having sex with, or we can find someone who we genuinely care about and fulfils our experience in life beyond that mere interaction. We can go to work in a dead end job as long as we make money to buy material bullshit and a nice meal until we grow old and die, or we can fight injustice and do something meaningful in our lives.

People are different. Cypher isn't Neo. And misery isn't what you dictate it to be. — Sapientia

Cypher didn't get the girl.

Why "miserable"? Neo found real love and fought injustice, two of the best things anyone could ever find and the idea of that is so appealing to me. The delusion is misery, living an artificial existence.

100% red pill.

I don't think love is something we can give to all people, unless you equate it with "comradeship" or something similar. And I think it's quite possible to love someone and remain indifferent to everyone else. I think we do that all the time. We don't know anything about most other people, in fact. — Ciceronianus the White

I believe that authenticity is a state of mind and love is synonymous with what we know as our motivation that combined can be explained as moral consciousness, that awareness and feeling combined. It is not something outside of us, powered by some external source but something that we work to better understand within ourselves and it is the reason why you actually matter, the state of your mind and why, indeed, by better understanding this self-love you were likely drawn to philosophy and stoicism in the first place in order to help articulate this subjective language. The authenticity of our motivations or will is empowered by self-love, when we understand ourselves, appreciate who we are and find that peace formed by an acknowledgement that transcends others - hence why paradoxically it is by being alone that we learn how to love - because love is that language that explains our place in the world.

When we know ourselves and our wants and likes, we better express ourselves and much of the misery and grief in this world is that ignorance caused by society that coerces conformism and initiates artificial explanations of "love" to ensure people remain distant from themselves while thinking they are happy. When someone mistreats you, makes you feel terrible about who you are, you feel worthless and your motivation is shattered and in your indifference to yourself you begin to lack that feeling of empathy, of affection and kindness to others. In such bitterness, they themselves begin to commit the same error and thus that self-hatred and hedonism is given outwardly where nothing but destruction grows. The destruction here being everyone trying to be loved but not actually learning how to love themselves.

That is why I agree that it is indeed possible to think you love one person and remain indifferent to all else, but that is not love, that is just an enlarged ego. The motivation is not the same. That feeling of euphoria when someone love you - that can be born out of manipulation because you present yourself in a desirous way, because you are popular, because that is what everyone expects you to be like - is caused by that desire to have someone love you and that motivation is rooted - just like selfishness and narcissism - because of a deeper loneliness. There is no self-love.

So the problem is not about knowing other people. It is about knowing you.

I am absolutely saying that authentic love has nothing to do with emotion. Love to me is not about how you feel, I see it as a shared goal that you and your partner are constantly striving to work towards. — Gord

Then it is not love anymore but merely a transaction that is mutually beneficial. It is no different to forming a relationship based on economics - because you save money - or because she provides that platform that makes you appear more popular because she is attractive, etc, those artificial elements. What if a woman is actually right for you, someone who will bring you happiness, but she does not have those qualities - economics, popularity, attractiveness - that is beneficial to you, does that mean you reject her?

Love enables us to transcend those almost capitalistic transactions that make us see an object that is beneficial to us in as much as an iPhone would, and it is questionable in how much of that "need" that compels us to an iPhone is socially constructed. People tell us what we are supposed to want and that is where an absence of feeling exists, because the centre of our being is our connection to honesty and authenticity and why one needs to first learn how to love themselves so that they do not follow but think. Love is moral consciousness, a type of authenticity in our behaviour and responses; so, when you say you are using your mind, you are using your mind with clarity, with common sense and honesty - moral consciousness.

Friendship is the most important step in forming a bond, the very beginning and why when you meet a love interest you should first form that friendship, but there is love in this friendship too although it is something acquired and not given unconditionally. You are probably at this stage. That move from friendship to romantic love is a move from that conditional space toward trusting or having that faith that allows you to feel that emotional connection. You develop through reason and mutual enjoyment a compatibility that respects and admires the other as you move towards that love; it is not blind or spontaneous, basically. It is something you learn to give.

It is therefore your state of mind and your responses that you need to question; for instance, love is not something you give only to one other person while remaining indifferent to everyone else. It is an expression that you give to all people and that requires a type of feeling or comradeship with all people.

I think we are all alone in this life whether we are around people or not. There is no way of escaping the "I" you refer to. I freely admit all of my motives are selfish. I believe if you can find a person who enhances that "I" within you then that is very much a good thing. In the same way i would not expect her to admire me, who I am, what I do. I would wish her to be with me because of how it helps her change herself. Do you understand? — Gord

You speak of this 'I' as though you somehow have sufficiently found who you are but I see your articulation on love to prove quite the reverse. In your actual case, you are not giving love at all- and that is what love is, it is to give - but you are receiving. You want. That is why selfishness and love are incompatible. It is only a justification of your selfishness to claim that somehow she will improve by being with you, again, as though she were some object. This "I" that I am referring to is a feeling, intuitive, emotional that separates you from all that you have been taught to identify as 'reality' and thus separate from all that learning. It is a state of mind that explains your genuine or authentic responses.

To say your motives are selfish only show me a person who was probably hurt and wants to protect himself.

The affair has a parallel, in that similar instinctual imperatives clearly lie behind mass participation in 'fashion' the 'Kardashians', and even 'animal intercourse'. — Marcus de Brun

That is just awkward, although there was a part of me that enjoyed the parallel between the Kardashians and animal intercourse. Visualising baboons with botox.

We must therefore ask: Is it possible that the un-intellectualized evil-myths perpetuated at the Nuremberg rallies, can be compared to the Capitalist and ecological evils, that are presently perpetuated by the persistence and pervasiveness of the Princess-Prince fairy-tale myth? — Marcus de Brun

I don't know what possessed you to write this strange thesis and I also have no idea the comparative you are making here. Are you attempting to convey some sort of propaganda is used in these public marital activities that reinforce the elitism of the monarch? For most normal people who are indifferent to the wedding, it is just a nice whatever day that they really don't want to be a part of - both those who zealously love and zealously hate it - but it verifies a shift in cultural concepts of 'purity' that had long gripped the royal 'bloodline' and thus proving that we are improving. I hardly think that is equal to Nuremberg, so I do wonder about your state of mind here buddy.

Calm down.

To start i will define love. I believe love is an expression of the mind. I do not see it as an emotion but rather a will to act and by act i am referring to the act of giving. When you exercize your mind creatively and intuitively in the presence of a lover, you will be rewarded without fail. — Gord

What does that even mean? Are you attempting to convey that love is not emotional or something spontaneous that develops out of your control, but rather a wilful decision? I agree that relationships are certainly this way, but there is something about love that is unrelated to this because it is an expression of your feelings, of you or that inner 'I' and it is why you can fall in love with someone so unexpected and so different to you and still decide to be or not to be with them. Basically, the act of giving love is dependent on a number of factors, but giving love itself is an expression of who you are and you are both a feeling and thinking person. That is why love is moral consciousness.

I understand being in love as a spiritual awareness. Think back to when you were a child and the world seemed magical and your curiosity boundless. I believe at this point in our lives we were in the state of being in love. I think this comes about through the connection we forge with a loving mother. — Gord

Are you sure about that? I had a pretty shit childhood and I consider myself to be an extremely loving person. I see "spiritual awareness" to again be moral consciousness or the capacity for self-awareness and the empowerment that follows and that is not something you get from others as such artificial consciousness is inauthentic. This consciousness is a state of mind or a cognitive tool that we each have at a psychological level and although I understand the Freudian link here, I believe in free-will.

I met a girl in my junior year of college who i had an instant almost preordained connection with — Gord

It takes courage to admit this attachment you had to your mother, which is that feeling of home, of something unconditional and safe. Being separate from that produces an angst that many cannot handle and so this "instant" attraction could be a reflection of your own loneliness and that your ego enlarges to consume the other person by imagining that she is a part of you or that she has the same ideas that you do. It saves you from feeling like you are alone and in particular separate.

We reach a time during our "coming of age" phase where we move away from our mother and attach ourselves to others and sometimes this transition is too difficult that attachments are made in much the same way as people re-arrange their prejudices and call it "learning". It is the reason why only a person who is alone and feels comfortable with being alone can truly separate themselves from this attachment to mother and feel safe and at home within himself.

I love a woman now. I am not in love with her at all. She does not raise my spirits in the slightest. She challenges me to become a stronger, more self aware man, the same way a best friend might do. — Gord

Yeah, this is awkward. You do need to be in love with her too, as in, you love her for who she is and that she makes you a better person - as a friend would do - and I wholeheartedly agree with that, but you also need to feel that emotional connection too, that need to be near her. You need to admire your partner but this admiration needs to be for the things that they do, the person that they are and not the things that you will get out of it including that social protection [like popularity since it enables them to look good and that makes them feel less alone and less separate].

When you look at the advantages without that feeling, you are still being egotistical. It is still about you.



--
On a side note, can you please spell properly and use proper punctuation and grammar. I particularly hate the use of i when it is not capitalised.

But I doubt a cure may be rooted principally in improved habits of speech. — Cabbage Farmer

It is not "speech" that I am concerned about like rumination, but rather making sense of our emotional responses and feelings of anxiety or depression using language, floating it up to the surface of consciousness by giving the feeling an arrow of time that contains the experience into some linear story.

Most, if not all, of our mental suffering is rooted in this lack of understanding, which is why we end up experiencing these emotional responses that explain unconscious knowledge (intuition) that we cannot explain or articulate. We just feel anxious, we feel depressed, or worried but we cannot explain why.

That feeling or emotional response is the 'I' or the actual person and since most of what we are at cognitive level is the language given to us by our environment and society, we have not yet learnt how to talk or communicate from that place within, what we actually want. It is like a clean slate. Hence the biblical concept of 'being born again' or transcendence that many philosophers speak of, to slowly start merging the two - language and the 'I' - to start communicating independently.

This is why art - in particular fictional stories - help paint that picture because it offers the opportunity for someone to think independently and in a self-reflective manner, some comparative analysis or mirroring in a domain outside of reality and thus they are not being force-fed definitions or explanations about why they are feeling that way - something that New Ageism or society and the Kardashians etc stuff offers.

You end up piecing together fragments of these feelings and experiences that sit just below the surface of consciousness and make sense of it consciously and when we start to make sense of it all, that empowers us to make decisions that are genuine or correct and lead to an actual resolution. If, on the other hand, you seek out artificial sources that manage those emotional responses, you are not directed to the source or reasons why you are having them in the first place and are simply prolonging the problem by ignoring it.

That is the point about "peace" - it is really that empowerment that stems of honesty.

It is perhaps important that girls learn of the mechanics of the mating ritual (these are contained in the Princess myth) and it is important that males learn how to attain and wield power, so that they might be attractive to their Princesses, and thereby also participate in the mating ritual. — Marcus de Brun

:brow:

Again though, the problem I addressed is the tragedy that this isn't experienced more than a small number of people for various reasons I've mentioned. Our process for attaining this desired good is not great it seems and even if there were actually demonstrated improvements on it, the prisoner's dilemma would probably make any attempt towards this solution a non-starter. — schopenhauer1

I began developing feelings for a man who was completely absorbed by these socially engineered constructions of reality that it was impossible to connect or communicate with him. That was the tragedy.

Love is possible only if two persons communicate with each other from the centre of their existence, hence if each one of them experiences himself from the centre of his existence. Only in this 'central experience" is human reality, only here is aliveness, only here is the basis for love. Love, experienced thus is a constant challenge; it is not a resting place, but a moving, growing, working together...they are one with each other by being one with themselves.

It was not that I wanted him to love me, in fact my affection for him was very gentle and distant, but he was completely divided within himself, between the real "him" and the false identity formed by his environment as though disembodied from that "central experience" and it was very obvious to me. He had feelings for me, but he didn't understand that it was because I was "real" and a feeling that came deep from that "central experience" and this fucked him up, he could not stop hurting me as though at war in himself because his understanding of reality, that false life that he believed was real, was static. Love is moving, growing but his life was and will remain dormant. He is not alive.

I think I fell in love with him because of that subjective battle he was experiencing, as though I was egging him on in the hope that he would 'wake up' but it was just too hard for him and that is why I crumbled to bits. As mentioned earlier, a friend of mine broke out of that false reality by completely abandoning it. He just walked away from a life he was deluded to build despite the controversy of his departure, choosing only to remain in contact with some of his friends who are good people. That is a huge thing to do, completely start over, but he is happier because of it. His honesty is what makes him feel alive.

Okay, but here you are really stretching the word "love" to such a wide scope, you should probably use another word (even agape vs. eros would be fine). However, you knew, based on the confines of this thread which was started from a short story on dating/relationships/romantic love, that the definition I am using is about romantic love- that is to say that involving having an emotional and physical bond with one (or more?) particular person(s). — schopenhauer1

It is delusional to believe that some symbiosis is possible between two people and despite that sexual/physical bond, the ultimate reality is that it is just sex, we are just sharing our time together and why I say that philia is the best form of love. The futility is real and we play "games" with ourselves and others by portraying socially engineered notions of "love" to pretend some validity to this symbiosis - that you are a part of me - but this type of union is nothing but an exposure of your own subjective vulnerability and loneliness. In the end, it is a stale relationship between two actors mimicking socially constructed traits because they are too afraid to admit that separation is real.

If it is impossible to form that unity with another person, what is this feeling then? It is in you, love is something you feel, something you give. Not share. Give. If that is reciprocated, it is because your partner is giving it to you. The relationship is nothing more than two separate people that form a bond by equally expressing this love. So, when this love is authentic - that inner life contrasted by a moral consciousness - the communication between the two is genuine, because there is no underlying narcissism, no archetype or lies or socially constructed delusions. This is something within you and so when you say that I am stretching the word, you are actually trying to reduce it to definitions based on the ways in which we can express it, yet this doesn't change that it is us expressing it.

I appreciate your responses. I think better of the story and the author because of them, and may even understand them somewhat. — Ciceronianus the White

Thanks, and likewise.

But don't be too kind to us. Pity may be more appropriate than sympathy when it comes to these things. And caution. The pressure you speak of is largely self-imposed. — Ciceronianus the White

I do not see it as self-imposed. It is a given identity that narrates predictable male traits and guarantees this disembodiment or unsettling disconnection from the self in an attempt to find some solidarity with his environment, and society configures and regulates these archetypes through socially coercive Othering making men feel impotent should they fail to adhere to these patterns of masculinity.

This dyad exposes the vulnerability or lack of esteem in men and to call it a "weakness" or to say it is "self-imposed" is another mechanism that reinforces something "masculine" and does not productively explore the phenomenon leading men to conform.

I would not call it self-imposed, but rather a limitation of power. "Masculinity" as a socially constructed concept is a product of this relational ontology, where the solution for this lack of power is deviously the very thing that causes it in the first place, thus conforming enables an acceptance that leads to feelings of (inauthentic) empowerment when society is the reason why they felt dis-empowered in the first place.

Covering a bullet wound with a band-aid. The solution to this is escaping; if one is addicted to drugs, they need to go through the withdrawal. We need to get away from the toxic environment to improve, even if it means leaving loved ones. Education is another; self-education would suffice but learning and reading improves the psychological barriers in our search for authentic empowerment, but with so many barriers to this - while we have the cognitive tools to achieve this - makes me further sympathise why many men fail.

Your quote there, seems at odds with what you said earlier: [Love is] "the only thing worth living for". Well, if real love, and relationships are so paramount, indeed so much so that it is "the only thing worth living for", then for MANY people not to experience this (I am talking specifically romantic love), would seem to be a tragedy. — schopenhauer1

The problem is you see love to be romantic love as though when I said love is the only thing worth living for that it is somehow meant for one person and so if you never find that one person than it is tragic. Love - like authenticity - is a state of mind, something that we give and if we only love one person and yet remain indifferent to all others, that is nothing but an enlarged ego or narcissism. You love only because you are loved.

These delusions that people conform to are rooted in this vulnerability, this lack of self-esteem and so when I said that love is the only thing worth living for, I meant reaching a genuine understanding of the world around them because "love" is moral consciousness. It is why some people can be physically alone but never feel lonely, whereas others are in relationships and have many people around them and yet feel anxious and lonely. It is that subjective, inner life that I speak of and working towards attaining this harmony with ourselves - love - is the only thing worth living for, because without it our understanding of the world around us is artificial at best.

It is not to say that authenticity in romance is impossible, the love between two people who have reached that subjective harmony and have overcome that narcissism and lack of self-esteem to see with their own eyes and not with socially constructed ideals. If they can "see" then they can see each other. The tragedy only exists in those that never attain that self-awareness.

It seems to me that throughout our sad history, we males when taken together have for various reasons characterized women as either impossibly bad or impossibly good, as it suits us and our circumstances. We're either gross or (grossly) sentimental about them, generally. I'm not sure what Goethe was thinking when he wrote that line, but it sure seems he had the impossibly good woman in mind. — Ciceronianus the White

Goethe was almost biblical and this dichotomy between the harlot and the holy illustrates the subjective conflict between instinctual desires or the "bad" and moral responsibility or the "good" that seems to be projected and translated in women. We tempt and inspire the same struggle and thus men create these artificial constructs that they project into an ideal woman and women play the part in order to make themselves attractive. It is superficial communication that enables two people who don't really like each other to stay together, a type of possessiveness rather than harmony. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?

I wonder now and then whether we can be any more sensible. I think we can be in certain cases, but not as a rule, because I suspect when it comes to women we desire we stop thinking in any significant sense. I want to be clear about this, and don't want even to imply that we lose responsibility for what we do or are deserving of sympathy because we driven by impulses beyond our control. But I think that we can become exceedingly stupid and sentimental, though calculating. At worst, we become...well, repulsive. And that may inform the socially constructed ideals you refer to. — Ciceronianus the White

Love is a practice or an ordination of character, about how we use our own mind and if a person cannot take care of themselves, how is it they can take care of others? If we cannot love ourselves, how can we love others? This subjective vulnerability and lack of self-esteem compels one to conformity or an almost delusional pathology, but as Erich Fromm stated: "Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.” I believe men do deserve sympathy because a deeper vulnerability pressures them to silence articulating their own identity. The pressure of masculinity. If they ever reach that unity within themselves, that honesty where they separate themselves from these socially expected ideals, such men can be inspiring.