@Possibility When you suggested earlier that we ought to be talking about things more pertinent to our lives, “family” as opposed to acute angles, I took it as a red herring and avoided going there...

...but now I do go there, Mr. Possible, and I find myself drawn to ask you a rather personal question: what was your family life like? Describe your upbringing, if you are willing...

...if not, then I still have a less personal, more general question to ask you related to our current discussion.

I have been a participant in this forum for only a couple months or so, and early on I noticed playful references to banning, “be careful what you say or you might get me banned”, and that sort of thing...

Then I started witnessing actual bans, and I still wasn’t alarmed because they seemed justified on the basis of whatever anecdotal evidence I received. I always felt I could say what I felt and give my reasons for it, even if it was controversial in nature...

Then, in this very thread, I posted an opinion based in reason and untainted by hate that was deleted almost immediately by a moderator (I prefer to call him a censor), @Baden, who not only threatened me, but lied that my post had not been taken off (the threat was proof of the lie).

But worst of all, after I gave an example of one of Aristotle‘s opinions that might, today, be considered offensive, Mr. Baden suggested he would have banned Aristotle from the “philosophy“ forum had he posted such scandalous material here! Wouldn’t that be sort of like kicking Michael Jordan off the basketball team because his play was too antiquated?

Mr. Baden said that we don’t live in Ancient Greece, that times have moved on. Well, we don’t live in Ancient Rome either, nor Machiavelli’s Italy, nor Locke’s or Shakespeare’s (an obvious anti-Semite’s) England, nor Rousseau’s France, who said he didn’t believe a woman could be unwillingly raped. It seems to me that to avoid unphilosophic behavior one ought to quit reading the philosophic tradition.

In fine, I perceive clearly that my days (or hours) as a member of this forum are numbered, and the number isn’t long!

@Baden Do you mean rather that nothing never “disappears” due to manual moderation?

Nor did I mean to provoke anyone...just state an opinion...
If someone said “some men are born slaves”, would you censure him?...Aristotle said it.

Funny...

I just “posted” something here that apparently was considered so inappropriate by the powers that be that it never appeared...would y’all like to see it?

@Possibility It is curious to me, O Possible One, that you failed to address my second question in your last post: is Rovelli’s theory not compromised by its own self?

Whether his theory is a temporal or atemporal “event” is of no matter, for the atemporal ones, as you have said, only have significance to us in their relation to the temporal ones...and it is all a mishmash of indeterminate “potentiality”...

So, I ask again in a different way: why do you adhere to the theory of a man who acknowledges that human thought is based on uncertifiable certainties? And if all thought is so uncertain, how can we be motivated to think or act in our world?

My older brother liked to repeat the tale how Mama slapped his face in front of all the family one day at dinner, and to express his indignation at the affront...

They were all gathered around the table, aunts and uncles and cousins, etc., the whole extended family, one day for dinner at grandma’s house. Grandma, of course, had prepared the meal, and had long gray hair she kept tied up in a bun on the back of her head...

Suddenly my brother, a wee tot, raised a long gray hair up into the air with his fingers out of the midst of his plate, and exclaimed, “there’s a hair in my food!”; just as suddenly, Mama’s open palm descended on the unsuspecting child’s cheek with a “pop”: “Don’t EVER say you have a hair in your food!” she angrily replied.

I don’t think Mama ever really apologized to him for this, and he held it as a grudge against her the rest of her life, though he always loved her dearly.

In acting the way she did, my mama certainly lost her temper and acted inappropriately: her child had just shamed her in front of everyone, and she reacted thoughtlessly, lost her cool...

On the other hand, my brother needed to be corrected for transgressing a social barrier. What Mama should have done was take him aside and explain to him in private that what he did offended his grandma, and that he should have dropped the hair silently on the floor and continued eating...

If after being warned in this way he had repeated the offense at some future time well, then punishment, not just warning, would have been called for, for a recalcitrant nature that is hard of learning. Whether such punishment be corporal or non-corporal is of little concern: a “grounding” or withdrawal of privileges can be as painful as a slap in the face or a paddle-stroke on the posterior.

The key thing, as Benji hints at, is that the punishment be delivered out of love, that is, desire for the correction of your child; not out of anger...

...it is said that Plato once got so angry at one of his slave’s bad behavior that he grabbed a whip and lifted into the air to strike him...sometime later, one of his friends happened along and, finding him poised like a statue, whip hanging and no one else in sight, asked, “what, dear Plato, are you ever doing?”, to which the philosopher replied, “I’m punishing an angry man.”

@Possibility Well, Mr. Possible, we might move on from acute angles to discuss something less benign, like family, and more pertinent to our lives as human beings, but if you believe we cannot really agree on things as harmless as mathematical angles, how could we proceed further into more complicated ones like those of “family”?

When you say that my “perspective” of the atemporal (as you have avowed it is) acute angle is likely to change, I can only shake my head and laugh. What an acute angle “is” has been agreed upon by every even amateur geometrician since Euclid. It is not a perspective but a definition...except for Lobachevsky and the other non-Euclidians, whose work I am frankly unfamiliar with, other than that they postulated that two parallel lines can actually meet at some point, which has contributed productively to physics and astrophysics and Einstein’s General Theory...

Now let me ask you this: is Rovelli’s theory, that our perspectives of the temporal and atemporal “things” are only potential within the block universe, applicable to his own theory also? In other words, in espousing this theory, is he not subject, in his thought, to the same principles that he promotes in order to “deconstruct” our common conception of what is temporal and, either atemporal or aeternal?

If not, then, why not? (I ask); if so, then is his own theory not compromised by its own self?

@deusidex Just remember dear deusidex: better to dwell with one book/soul deeply...than to reside with many temporarily, like a man who moves from one place to another, never fully absorbing what he has found but only taking a bit from here and there...

Good luck, brother in wisdom and philosophy!

@baker Well, I propose a distinction be made here first of all between a child’s “nature”, and his “character”: the former is fixed in his genes; the latter is an admixture of his genes and his education or upbringing...

...when I was a child there was a boy I knew both at school and privately, for his and my parents were friends, and I sometimes played with him. He was an only child, and was therefore doted on more than usual, and raised permissively, but his evil exploits became legend both in school, through anecdote, and by my own personal experience...

...he attempted to steal one of my possessions (his parents caught him, and returned it); he shot at me with my own air-rifle; slung a steel cable through the air right in front of my face; cut a boy, who had to be rushed to hospital, at school with a piece of glass he picked up off the ground; killed his neighbor’s cat then brought it into her dining room while she was eating breakfast and asked, “is this your cat?”, etc, etc...

I don’t know what sort of punishment he endured for doing these things, from either his parents or the school; neither can I say how much of his bad behavior resulted from his permissive upbringing as opposed to his bad nature...

...but I know for sure at least some of it, if not the brunt of it, was due to nature. I was raised rather permissively myself, and I did some bad things too as a child that I believe are attributable to my permissive upbringing...but I never did things so bad as this guy.

But the question was whether we can know that a child’s bad behavior results from upbringing or nature, and I must confess that it is a difficult question whose resolution depends upon the subtlest of discernments...

Nevertheless, I maintain that his character is the result of a combination of these two separate things: his nature and upbringing...would you not agree?

@Possibility Can anything that exists without relation to time, in your opinion, ever change? That is, be altered in any way from what it (already) is?

@deusidex What of Seneca have you read, and what translations?

His Dialogues, and On Benefits are excellent, but I think his greatest work is perhaps the Epistulae Morales, maybe because it is addressed to one, Lucilius, an adherent to philosophy, whom he wished to convert to TRUE philosophy, and whom he sometimes praised for his efforts, more often chastised for poorly following what his mentor saw as correct.

@deusidex I read Latin, and have read Seneca in his own tongue throughout most all of his philosophical works...if you should ever have any uncertainty concerning some passage.

@deusidex Oh dear deusidex!...you will never learn until you put your notes aside and experience learning as a sensory pleasure...take notes later, after you have felt the thrill of imparted insight.

@", deusidex” Absolutely you should reread books that have affected you. Allan Bloom said that Leo Strauss read Plato’s Republic, carefully, 50 times...and in the original Greek.

Aren’t there certain movies you love to watch? Aren’t you inclined to watch them again and again over the years? It’s the same sort of compulsion...but with a greater gravity, that drives someone to go back to and dwell with a soul immortalized in a book that has affected him so much, maybe even shaped his basic notions of the world and of his own life.

If we divide love up into different sorts with different names and properties, then we end up discussing different things under the guise that we are talking about one thing only, and we only end up talking about what are really different things.

If on the other hand we agree that the word “craving” and the common conception of it as “an immoderate desire” for something fits the bill, then our discussion might prove productive.

@Possibility You say “When we think of an acute angle...we assume it is eternal, but to be honest, we wouldn’t know.” So are you retracting your previous statement that the acute angle is atemporal?

@baker I don’t say unwanted children have a bad nature. I would certainly say they have a bad nurture.

@Anyone Is not love the longing to have what you do not possess?

For example, if I love money, do I not strive to possess more of it than I have? Or, if I love women, don’t I desire the next attractive one I see? Or, if I love honor, will my longing be quenched until I am ruler of the world?

@Pantagruel Your explanation of enantodromia reminded me of an old black-and-white movie I saw as a kid that effected me. In it (I don’t remember it’s title) a student in a nunnery, inclined to mischief, leads astray her “good” schoolmates into escapades that get them all into trouble. She is revered by her fellow students for infusing a semblance of the rebellion against piety she represented and that they all secretly felt, but is chastised and punished by the nuns in authority...

...then one day a crisis occurs; maybe a dear sister of the convent tragically dies (I don’t remember), and the mischievous girl secretly witnesses the painful but pious manner the chief sister prays for her perished comrade, and invokes god...

At any rate, having witnessed this, she experiences a conversion to the church, and dedicates herself as a nun, her rebellious character replaced by a serene and pious countenance.

@baker I would call such a child one in need of foster parents who would receive him or her as a blessing instead of a curse.

@Benj96 Does a child with a perverse nature want to listen to parent who tells him “no”? And if you listen to a child and only hear bad things, schemes and plots to do harm to others, how can you countenance it other than through threatening, and sometimes inflicting, physical pain as a deterrent?

When a child with a bad nature who has been educated in this way grows up, when he feels the desire to harm, will remember, subconsciously, the pain or threat of pain (which, btw, is worse than the pain itself) that accompanies such thoughts and will desist from acting on them.

@Benj96 My assumption was that nature is a fixed thing for the individual, something determined by his or her genetics.

You might, by your better nature, overcome an adverse upbringing, or that earliest education may thwart the inclinations of your better nature.

On the other hand, a perverse nature might, with a salutary early education, be turned away from perversity. By the way, wouldn’t you agree that the education of a perverse nature must be punitive in character?

@Benj96 It’s the old nature vs. nurture problem: you are born with a certain nature, but your upbringing and life experience may either counteract that, or support it.

@Benj96 Do you mean like someone who naturally cares little for money, and so cannot be commended for not being greedy, while the avaricious man must be checked in his greed?

In other words, chance is an equal factor in all sports...except on the last play...huh?

@LuckyR I’ll tell you what I think it was...

During a rally many shots may be made and a lot of time taken up. If after all these shots one ends up being a let-cord winner, well then, to replay that point would eat up a lot of time, whereas, after a serve, which is just one stroke of the ball, not much time was wasted.

So I think you were on to it: even in its origins, the reason to accept let-cords as winners had to do with the length of matches!

@LuckyR To be sure there is a movement in all of sports to shorten the time that contests take...but that is a separate discussion.

But my question is what the rationale was in tennis’ origins to nullify a purely random event during the serve, but reward it after play had begun. There must have been SOME rationale (?)

@synthesis I would say not, since a baseball game could be called a tie after the regular nine innings.

Are you familiar with tennis? If you are, why is a let-cord replayed after a serve, but counted as a winner (if the opposing player can’t get to it) after the point has begun? For in both instances the let-cord is due to chance and not to skill. Indeed, the winner of such a point characteristically throws up his hand, as though to say, “My apologies: it wasn’t by my skill I won this point but, rather, by Lady Luck”.

@Possibility You said that when someone thinks of an acute angle, that the thought is temporal, the angle atemporal. You also said, however, that the acute angle is a fuzzy thing lacking in certainty.

I think of the temporal things as the fuzzy uncertain ones, subject to the ravages of time, coming into being and perishing, like your keyboard. On the other hand, I conceive of the atemporal things as remaining unchanged throughout eternity, not subject to the vicissitudes of time.

Obviously our conceptions of temporality vs. atemporality are dramatically different. Would you please indulge me by explaining your conception of these polar opposites?

@magritte I disagree with you...

Wester philosophy doesn’t consist of discussions of MINOR points made by Plato, but rather MAJOR ones. For example, when he described the philosopher as a naked man taking cover behind a little wall to escape the slings and arrows directed toward him, the Enlighteners took this as a call to arms...to transform political life in order to protect the philosopher.

“Ancient Greek”, you say, “is an impossible read for nonspecialists”. By “nonspecialists” do you mean those who cannot read Ancient Greek? If so, agree. But anyone with a knack for languages can learn to read it in a year or so of constant study. As far as the uncertainty of the meanings of Greek words goes, this can only be cleared up by continuing on to read enough variety of the extant literature, Homer, Plato, Xenophon, Aristophanes, Euripides, Thucydides, etc, so that, just as in your native language, you come to learn the various shades of meaning, and how they evolved over the centuries...

In doing this, you will, of course, become immersed in Ancient Greek culture, put yourself so-to-speak in Homer’s or Xenophon’s shoes. This is truly respecting another’s culture, when you study it so assiduously that you actually hope and expect to learn something about life from it. In contrast, the modern “respect for cultures” does not animate a soul to want to know anything about any particular one, to long to learn anything about past times or places...other than the saccharine moral that “we should all just get along”.

@Possibility So, if you and I were discussing the properties of acute angles, you would require that I draw one before you be assured that we were thinking of the same thing?

@synthesis How does calling a baseball game a tie after 12 innings reveal or promote honor?

@deusidex My recommendation regarding an English reader of Plato: firstly, “The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Platonic Dialogues”, edited by Thomas L. Pangle. This compilation is an excellent representation of the Straussians, in which they not only give us some very good and literal translations, but also lay out their notions of translation and explain its rationale. Also included are commentaries, by each translator, on each dialogue.

Secondly, Allan Bloom’s translation of The Republic. I would guess there are extant translations of many of the other Dialogues by this school, but I am unaware of them.

Oh! If you read the Symposium, read the translation of Seth Benardete.

@deusidex Are you good at learning languages? Not just the spoken ones, but the “dead” ones? Then I suggest you do. If you’re young you have plenty of time...but Tolstoy began to learn Greek in his eighties (!).

Otherwise, seek out the literal translations. There was an efflorescence of them in the 20th century by disciples of Leo Strauss in English. Allan Bloom did an excellent one of Plato’s Republic and Rousseau’s Emile. Harvey Mansfield translated Tocqueville’s Democracy in America literally late last century...

But you cannot trust the translators for, as I said, they tend to interpret rather than translate. As far as German translations go, I have no personal knowledge.

@Harry Hindu and @TheMadFool I think I got y’all mixed up in my response, so just switch the names...my bad.

@Harry Hindu Your idea of the ancient notion of the relationship of reason and the emotions is not quite right. They thought, not they we should excise the emotions, but rather educate them. Emotions are indeed the enemies of reason, but if you eradicate them, then you have sapped the soul of its energy, what drives it, leaving it vapid and incapable of action of ANY sort.

@TheMadFool Why cannot human beings be both special, AND a part of nature? Are there not special things in nature, like, for example, the animate as opposed to the inanimate, animals as opposed to plants, and aren’t these qualitative superiorities?

On the other hand, I agree that beasts often display more rational behavior than we do. Seneca says the animals sense danger and flee it...then are at peace; we feel threatened, but cannot flee it, for we build it up in or imaginations until it paralyzed us, even after we are free of it.

@synthesis Funny (or sad) that a man who taught “sports ethics” for so many years had no answer to you basic question. I would question his credentials in the field.

Not familiar with Japanese baseball; how does honor still count there?

@Possibility Do you not agree that an acute angle is one of less than 90 degrees?

@deusidex just a couple admonitions...

Are you reading translations or do you read in the originals?...because you can’t trust translators, who tend to translate key words differently in different contexts, or, worse, interpret what they think the author meant. There is, however, a tradition of literal translation, from William of Moerbeke to the 20th century Straussians, so I would recommend you either (worse) read good literal translations, or (better) learn the original languages.

Finally, just remember in your study of philosophy, that any learning not motivated by the felt need to understand how the world works and the meaning of life is mere pedantry.