okay, it is pretty much always a diversion from challenges to power, I totally admit that. Sorry for downplaying it. — ToothyMaw

I don't use the terms "racist" or "racism."
— T Clark

I think it is okay to use those terms as long as one understands the weight behind them. — ToothyMaw

Am I a racist if I think black on black crime is worth accounting for when discussing race issues? — ToothyMaw

The easy way: learn it by heart and let it live there. — Cuthbert

Williams I have some feel for, but the rhythm is the hardest part to analyze or explain. Reading "This is just to say" is like unfolding a bit of origami. He's very tricky about how the syntax is broken up over the lines; you unfold the next bit and it's satisfying but then you're not sure where to tug next and suddenly pop the next fold has come open. By the time you get to the very end and it's all laid out, you're not quite sure how you did it. Some of these little poems of his sound like they're sentences, sound urgently and insistently like sentences, but turn out not to be if you look carefully. Some of that is a commitment to spoken vernacular American, in which syntax can be a bit malleable, but some of it is the way lineation offers a competing structure, and that structure is in part rhythmic. — Srap Tasmaner

For me the breaks serve as one beat pauses, and the breaks between stanzas serve as two beat pauses -- though reading it again I think I actually give a three beat pause for the second break. When I read it like this, it's like the way the speaker would have said it, had they been there -- sheepish, slow, guilty -- but not so guilty, because the prize really was just that nice. The first two stanzas read like that slow admission of guilt, but then right after asking forgiveness, by way of explaining himself, the speaker relishes in the memory of the stolen plums, and finishes with that memory. — Moliere

It makes me think of a close relationship you have with someone, and you know them so well that you know their favorite things -- and somehow along the way they kind of became your favorite things, too. So it sort of serves as a poem of familiarity and friendship, even though it's highlighting that part of familiarity where people are maybe too familiar. — Moliere

Prosody matters enormously to the meaning of a poem. — Srap Tasmaner

Philosophy as dumpster diving. I can get behind that. — Tom Storm

I know middle class Westerners seem to fetishize Buddhism but is there any good reason we should care what it (in any of its fecund forms) says? — Tom Storm

I'm guessing it's that linebreaks slow you down, and you pay more attention to the words in themselves. — Dawnstorm

It's one of my favourite poems. — Dawnstorm

I went to look at his page on Poetry Foundation and didn't like any of the poems they had on offer as much as This is Just To Say:

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold — Moliere

The Soviet Union lost 10,000 to 15,000 men in Afghanistan out of a much larger population base, says Samantha de Bendern, an associate fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the international affairs think tank Chatham House. And, she told The Associated Press, even the most conservative model suggests 50,000 men dead in Ukraine. That’s between three and five times greater than what the Soviet Union lost in Afghanistan in nearly 11 years.

“I can’t see how a society can sustain that,” de Bendern said. — Associated Press

Sorry. — Moliere

oui mon ami — Agent Smith

A circular definition, not particularly helpful. — Amity

jk — Manuel

Wigner-grade "quantum weirdness" is when Wigner's friend in the lab is in a superposition of having measured state 0 and having measured state 1. From the friend's point-of-view, the wave function has collapsed whereas from Wigner's point-of-view, it has not. — Andrew M

Taking the concept of reality out of the equation for a moment, I believe we can assert with confidence that there exists variation in the way things are organized in the universe; meaning that we can be certain that there exist things different and separate from themselves and our bodies - the distribution of whatever it is that makes that which we call the universe is not isotropic. Even if this variation is real or not, it exists (no matter what real means, there is variation); it is undeniable, even from the human perspective, since the fact that there are things different from me implies that I am different from them - none of the schools of philosophy can exist without variation/difference/variety. In fact, any kind of organizing process, if that makes any sense, is unable to exist without variation - for how can there be any kind of organization in an absolutely isotropic quality/entity/substance? Now, to me, it seems this variation is ubiquitous across all levels of organization that pertain to the sciences, math, and logic, and I would say there is nothing more real than that, but again, it might not even be. — Daniel

Dyspeptic? I prefer bemused. — Tom Storm

This marketing of the 'real' is to me related to authenticity culture which for some years has been a defining quality in marketing lifestyle options, especially the 'hipsters' who, when they were more of a thing, pontificated about the authenticity of products like beer, music or clothing. Perhaps the vestigial traces of 1970's 'be real' imprecations. — Tom Storm

Probably right. I suspect part of this strand is even less defined - 'real' as somehow pure or good; it's opposite being not just artificial, but insalubrious, less moral. — Tom Storm

Authenticity comes in many guises, each contributing something essential to our calm satisfaction with the truly genuine. Authenticity of object fascinates me most deeply because its pull is entirely abstract and conceptual. The art of replica making has reached such sophistication that only the most astute professional can now tell the difference between, say, a genuine dinosaur skeleton and a well-made cast. The real and the replica are effectively alike in all but our abstract knowledge of authenticity, yet we feel awe in the presence of bone once truly clothed in dinosaur flesh and mere interest in fiberglass of identical appearance.

If I may repeat, because it touched me so deeply, a story on this subject told once before in these volumes (Essay 12 in The Flamingo's Smile): A group of blind visitors met with the director of the Air and Space Museum in Washington to discuss greater accessibility, especially for the large objects hanging from the ceiling of the great atrium and perceptible only by sight. The director asked his guests whether a scale model of Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis, mounted and fully touchable, might alleviate the frustration of nonaccess to the real McCoy. The visitors replied that such a solution would be most welcome, but only if the model were placed directly beneath the invisible original. Simple knowledge of the imperceptible presence of authenticity can move us to tears. — Stephen J Gould - Counters to Cable Cars

Then how would you even begin to talk about sensations like hearing, seeing, etc., if there is not something doing the sensing? If you have an aversion to the term "self", that's one thing, but isn't it still necessary to assume something which is sensing, in order to make sense of sensation? — Metaphysician Undercover

But prior to coming to this conclusion, isn't it necessary to do our due diligence toward understanding the thing which is doing the measuring? If the thing doing the measuring isn't real, then what validity does "if we are measuring it, it must be real" have? — Metaphysician Undercover

There are two definitions:
* Belief Independent
* Authentic

Conflating them will only lead to confusion — hypericin

Just 4 real ingredients. — Tom Storm

Isn't the contrast here real against artificial? — Banno

But I didn’t intend the thread to specifically be about music; my threads just tend to go there because it’s what I know the best and I use music to try to illustrate my points. If you have any thoughts about these ideas in relation to another art form (or even something not specifically art) please feel free to bring it up. — Noble Dust

I can recommend the same recommendation that was given me -- don't worry too much about the scholarly side, just feel it like you would any other poem. — Moliere

While browsing for poems -- I have never before ventured down the path of The Wasteland until now. And I really did love it. — Moliere

Am I missing something? Is there a sense in which artistic function is bottomless/eternal, or am I right in demarcating it's beginning and end points? What do your opinions say about your philosophical predisposition on what art does and is? Just my semi-annual art rant. — Noble Dust

But that’s full of mental phenomena, I don’t see a way around that. Take your atime example of an apple in front of you: you’ll say this is real. Perfect. Now I’m not in front of it, so I have to take your testimony as accurate and I have to imagine that what you mean when you say “this is an apple” will evoke in me, a similar object to what you are seeing. Likewise if I look out my window and say I see a car, a real car, not a toy car, you would have to imagine a car in your head, unless you look at a car. What’s the issue here- this looks to me like “ordinary, humdrum reality”. What’s your concern in such a situation? — Manuel

Right, that's the point. We consider whether or not the thing being measured (through sensation) is real, and we naturally conclude that if we are measuring it, it must be real. But prior to coming to this conclusion, isn't it necessary to do our due diligence toward understanding the thing which is doing the measuring? If the thing doing the measuring isn't real, then what validity does "if we are measuring it, it must be real" have? — Metaphysician Undercover

Is it meant to lead anywhere — Amity

However the tension you raise with option 3 arises is especially acute with the Wigner's friend thought experiment. From the friend's point-of-view, she observes a definite result. From Wigner's point-of-view, he observes interference effects which indicates indefiniteness. — Andrew M

The term 'real' is used in various ways and to some extent it may come down to commonsense picture, or that which is confirmed intersubjectively. Even within psychiatry, while there is some acknowledgement of cultural beliefs and differences, there is an adherence to a general realist worldview. This is the basis for ideas of what is delusional and, for example, if one believes that they have magical powers they are likely to be seen as delusional. To some extent, there may be a shared understanding of delusion in the psychiatric and philosophy perspective in Western culture. — Jack Cummins

Yeah, my bad. I was speaking from an ontological perspective (reality is....), you were speaking from an epistemological perspective, (making sense by relation). — Mww

Can you not articulate what the potential difference is? — frank

What's the difference? — frank

For something to be true.. It must exist. — Benj96

For something to be true.. It must be knowable. — Benj96

the truth doesn't change. — Benj96

And such a fundamental constant/ law/ principle as truth - which is unchanging.. Must therefore be inaccesible to systems that change/are under the influence of change. — Benj96

And because the truth cannot change fundamentally or it wouldnt be true - it must have something to do with energy and time — Benj96

Since science is epistemic, not ontic, I don't see what "QM" has to do with "reality" as such (i.e. map (QM) =/= territorry (reality); therefore, interpreting one in terms of the other seems to me a category error), and puzzles me why (the Mods allow) so much pseudo-quantum graffiti to deface these fora. — 180 Proof