Normality as a paved road is a quote from a philosopher (of which I forget the name): it refers to the fact that authenticity is stamped out by common norms. The common path is walked so much that a flower cannot bloom on it. — Bob Ross

Yes, I got that. What I don't see here is the alternative they should have chosen, how they could have known that was the better choice and did they have the capability and opportunity to choose it? Who decides whether they are well or sick, according to what criteria?

The common path can feel good because it is comfortable and undisturbing, but it this kind of ‘wellness’ that makes many people sick. — Bob Ross

What if most of us are common and content not to walk on flowers, but just look at them alongside the road? If common folk were not a majority, how could they have trod a paved road?

You’ve probably met people to some extent like this: they have no thoughts because it is easier to have them given to them—they have no life, because they won’t depart on their own path. They have no purpose, because they never fought for it. — Bob Ross

No, I haven't. All the people I ever met had thoughts and lives and purposes. I may not approve of some of their choices; I may have found some of them boring; I may feel superior to those people with no special talents or intelligence and I may have considered my causes more noble than theirs. But I'm not happier for having chosen differently, and neither their or my lives made an impression on the universe.

They go their entire lives without finding true meaning, finding their authentic self, thinking about the deeper things, — Bob Ross

What is true meaning and how do you tell it apart from false meaning? What is an authentic self and how can you tell what someone else's authentic self is? What is a 'deeper thing than they're thinking about, and who gets to measure the depth?

because doing what everyone else is doing in mainstream, practical life is so easy.

Not always. Mining coal is hard, even if every man in your village does it for want of a better job. Active service in a war is hard, even if all your cohort is conscripted; bearing and feeding nine children is hard, even if every woman on the street accepts all the blessings God sends them.

Then they get slapped with the bill decades later and have to deal with the seeping hole in their heart.

Old people have regrets, and some of those regrets are about not having pursued their passion. But they're just as likely to be about doing someone wrong or missing opportunities for happiness. If there are holes, they're particular and personal, not metaphysical.

Human beings, like sea lions and zebras, are individual, real, particular, unique - not generalities forming a dull backdrop against which the special ones suffer mental anguish and shine like stars.

And then may we visit Pandora and ride a blue dragon? I'll settle for Carl Sagan's ship of the imagination.

"I, John, think therefore I, John experience thinking" if written down is no longer knowledge, — Jack2848

It's your knowledge, nobody else's. To a reader, it's words that may be true, but they can't test, so they either believe it or not; they don't know it.

And yet if the beliefs would be assumed to be true. — Jack2848

Then they would be beliefs, whether objectively true or not; information not assumed to be true is not a belief.

We choose JTB — Jack2848

A great many choose to believe the Book of Genesis. They know that God created the wold in 6 days, because it's in their big book of all necessary knowledge and doesn't need justification. I know that people do believe those words; I know what they mean, but I don't believe them.

I don't want to be rude or mean, but this was the final time I go around I go around this circle: there is no finish line.

By demonstrating that both knowledge and mathematics depend on unprovable starting points, the paper reveals a universal idea, viz., that our systems of understanding require ungrounded foundations to function. — Sam26

Yes, that's the part I didn't get: 'ungrounded foundations' seemed to me a contradiction in terms. I assumed unquestioned assumptions were formed either through empirical testing or specialized faith.
But if it's a study in how humans think about lofty matters, I can see a purpose to the exercise.

I guess everyone knows I don't 'do philosophy'.

The reason why I put Vera for Dante is because I see her as rather literature based. — Jack Cummins

I once read almost half of the Inferno. Took a second run at it half as century later and left poor Dante in the deep, dark wood.
That's the only essay I didn't comment on, since it's completely beyond me.
I could only address half of Wittgenstein, for that matter, due to innumeracy.
I write simple stories and contentious forum posts, not philosophical essays. I only entered this event on a dare.

And this is why I don't guess authors. I could maybe take a stab at one or two, but I just don't know the participants well enough to make intelligent guesses.

I'm pretty sure the salient points can be translated to more accessible - if less philosophically precise - language. I would like to see that version widely disseminated....
.... so the important message could be ignored by a wider range of readers.
[sigh] I've been here before, in several formats.[!sigh]

Who says you can know a true belief just because it is deemed justified? But not know true information if one has good justifications for believing the true information is true? — Jack2848

What?
I wasn't concerned with the difference between belief and true belief or justification and justification, or even truth; I was concerned with the distinction between belief and knowledge. I see no reason to belabour the issue any more than it already is.

That rethorical question makes it clear that we are just arguing on how to use words. — Jack2848

Since words are our only means of communication, I consider their use significant.

If we point to a book with knowledge. — Jack2848

We can't; there is no such book. You can point to a book full of information on some subject, if you like, or an encyclopedia that contains information on many subjects. I believe that the contributors to such a book had knowledge of their subjects. But they didn't pour the contents of their minds into the book; they wrote words that convey information.

We won't find justified true beliefs. We will find justified beliefs assumed to be true — Jack2848

That's what belief is, yes.

Anyway this won't be productive beyond this. — Jack2848

Right.

"You know Styx, life can sometimes be a little hard. Good times do come, but they seldom linger for biscuits and tea. But! Isn't it a comfort knowing that, whatever happens, the past is always there? That all our adventures and good times sit forever, safe and secure, in the universe's own safety box?" — Moliere

It grabs you right away. Land-whale and crow...?? The choice of words is unexpected, arresting, intriguing. I mean "universe's own safety box". I've never thought of the past that way and now will probably never think of it any other way. The dialectic format, the informal presentation, the style - everything about this piece is original. The illustrations are a novel touch, as well.

Okay, it doesn't sound like a serious essay. But it is, very serious and thoughtful, covering all perspectives, without ever using a cliche or boring the reader with pedagogy.

I was much amused by the narrator's version of Moby Dick. The take on Nevermore seemed a bit forced, but still funny and the question about genuine and fake is perennially valid.

The death of a butterfly juxtaposed with the glory of a sunset, encapsulating life in nature, is a very neat closing; it seems to reflect the opening:

Good times do come, but they seldom linger for biscuits and tea. — Moliere

Sadness gives way to wonder.

the journeys in the kingdom of the Marmalade Wizard, the excursion to the Crystal Falls, the bewildering nights in the warrens of the Mole Tribes, — Moliere

Please, may we have those stories?

You said knowledge is true information. I said it is not: unless and until it's been tested, reviewed, classified, stored and incorporated into a data base, information may be believed and understood, but not known.
I distinguished kinds of knowledge as 1. what I can know from direct experience and 2. what I can know from learning and remembering. The second kind is always incomplete provisional, because new information can always be added and old information may be re-evaluated in light of new.
The first kind may also be questioned for validity, but can't be altered. Whether I did something or just imagined that I was doing it, the experience remains the same.

If the metric is to minimize personal loss or get the most benefit for you realistically in that moment then confess is better. — Jack2848

A person can be rational and yet be unable to calculate the odds accurately. Indeed, I'm pretty sure no prisoner worked it out as the philosophy students were required to. That's part one.

But if the goal is to work towards the best possible outcome over time regardless of momentary personal loss then it is rational to not confess. — Jack2848

part two: Some decisions with which humans, and most other creatures are faced are long term: whether to start a trust fund for a newborn child; where to store enough nuts for the winter, etc. But the majority of our choices of action have fewer variables to consider and require a single, immediate decision based on limited information. We evolved to make very fast, uncalculating decisions, because the ones who couldn't, didn't live long enough to reproduce.
Both long- and short-term decisions can be equally rational in their own context, and in each context, we are equally open to reflexive, emotional, sentimental or faith-based, irrational decisions.

Of course it would be smarter in the long run to follow the science and avoid disaster, but it's all too common for humans to choose short-term goals over long-term on the rational assumption that the short term objective is to our own immediate benefit, while from the long term one, we probably won't get any in our lifetime; it's only for the benefit of our descendants. Let them figure it out.

So, to you, art is simply in the eyes of the consumer? — Jeremy Murray

Not simply; it's quite a complicated process. Some new thing gets into the culture if many people admire it. Christo wrapping bridges in silk, to me is just ridiculous; to many others, it's madly original and worthy of applause. In this instance, I was in the minority, along with many art critics, but the public ate up his exploits. One possible of its quality is whether it's still admire 20, 50, 100 years after. Rembrandt still is, while most of his contemporary painters are forgotten. A work that survives its maker, may be assumed to have some deeper message than "Love me!" "Die!" or "Lookie here!"

It seems clear to me that intent is a necessary condition. — Jeremy Murray

Okay. Cooking dinner is done intentionally; so it tearing down a condemned building, crossing the street, holding up a bank, going to the dairy Queen for ice cream. Hardly a sufficient condition for art.

Do people 'accidentally' create art? — Jeremy Murray

Maybe. I know that some artists incorporate chance and randomness in their work, and some people admire their work.

If enough people subjectively agree? — Jeremy Murray

Then it become part of popular culture, and may even survive.

It feels like skill / authenticity / voice / intent are all likely candidates for 'artistry' — Jeremy Murray

I'm inclined to agree that they're prerequisites. Whether the criteria have been adequately met in any given artistic endeavour is what each beholder decides according to their standards, discernment and taste.

That's an uncharitable take. I am going by probabilities. Grandpa is definitely least likely, unless you think art is simply a product of chance. — Jeremy Murray

Based on what data? Why do you think there is causal link between reproduction, age and art? You seem to be judging unknown people blindly.
A grandfather has the sameintent as Hemingway: to tell a story and convey a message; no chance involved. You don't think an old man cannot have talent and originality and craft? Why? Shakespeare and Chaucer had grandchildren, and they did okay.

Actually, I can't really tell what your stance is? That it is pointless to discuss art? — Jeremy Murray

No. That the function of art is to add value to, to enhance, enlighten and enrich culture. Violence doesn't.

Personally, I use my own judgement, and am influenced by people I consider worth listening to, be they critics or the masses. You? — Jeremy Murray

Own judgment, formed over time and through learning. I have no reverence for critics, since they so often seem to follow fads.

I doubt it's a philosophical question. It's a cultural one. Every age, in every culture, has beliefs, values, norms, taboos and moods. These are not universally shared in the society: there is also corruption and creativity, stagnation and resurgence, complacency and unrest; an undertone or undertow of differentness awaiting its chance for dominance. Not every new style or mood seeks to create beauty or admires skill: some embody anger and destruction; some revere nature or the supernatural or technology; some welcome chaos; some try to show harmony; some depict the nobility of man or his depravity. Each succeeding fashion is seen by the admirers of the established as ugly and worthless; yet the examples of each wave that survive their novelty add more texture to the culture.

Aha. But nobody's told me yet: if "Do what I want!" is art and "No!" is art, butchering a pig is art, brawling is art, feces is art - exactly what isn't art?
And if everything is art, why bother having a word for it or displaying it in galleries?

And where, precisely, does 'the possible but not actual' exist, if not in the mind? — Wayfarer

Sure. Why not? It's all real and portable.

Surely one of the astounding, if often taken-for-granted, aspects of the human imagination is to peer into the realm of the possible-but-not.-yet-existent and bring things back from it. — Wayfarer

Bring things back from the future? I don't believe anyone can actually do that until STNG. Imagination can project possible futures - it always has. Some time ago, a guy in a loincloth contemplated a fallen log and saw a boat; an old lady plaiting reeds for a roof wondered if the same technique could be made into something in which to carry fruit; long before that, a crow desiring grubs deep inside a hollow tree pictured a harpoon; yesterday, a bull terrier found a gap in the fence and began wedging his jaw between the boards to create a gate. Ideas are of the present; they are formed in physical brains.

Violence can be a skill, and a skill can become an art in the hands of a master. — MrLiminal

Without original content and a message, it can only become a craft. I'm not putting crafts down: an excellent brick wall or well-made violin, a beautiful amphora or graceful basket are admirable object and the skill of their makers should be appreciated. But they are not creative and tell us nothing new.

Does anyone out there still think we are the crown of creation? — unenlightened

I strongly suspect the majority of humans do. More sadly, a large proportion of that majority still restrict that crown to male humans of European origin.

for poetic skill, it's no Hound of Heaven, but it has great breadth as well as depth. It touches on every discipline with interesting analogies, changes pace and rhythm, lapses into vernacular and takes off on flights of picturesque fancy. There are succinct insights

The Now we know spans wider than we think,
As consciousness takes time to form its link;
Each present moment born from what has died,
As past dissolves in memory’s swift sink. — Moliere

We chase our shadows round the cosmic hall,
Like cats that chase their tails and sometimes fall;
Not seeing that the watcher and the watched
Are one same dance against existence’s wall. — Moliere

and beautiful passages

Dreams are the starlight of our minds’ vast night,
A scattered glory burning clear and bright;
Above the mundane world of daily tasks,
They spread their constellations of delight. — Moliere

Like trees that slumbered through the frozen night,
My spirit wakes to touch the growing light;
Each cell remembers ancient rhythms true,
As winter’s dormant dreams take verdant flight. — Moliere

It covers more territory than any poem or prose piece I've ever read.
I'm impressed by the ambition, the audacity and the sheer quantity of work that went into this entry.
:clap: :clap: :clap:

Every now and then, you read a movie or book review that includes the sentiment: "explores/illustrates what it means to be human". The question has been exercising human minds since antiquity, in all cultures and belief-systems, yet none of those great minds has found a satisfactory answer.

I remember picturing the evolution of man. That strong image, seen here:
The Seven Stages of Human Evolution: Discoveries and Special Traits
https://krmangalamvaishali.com/blogs/7-stages-of-human-evolution/ — Amity

And to think they did it all without female participation!
Until the briefcase stage - and women's role in that is still hotly contested.
I wonder what the next stage is.

Disclaimer: I can't comment on the comparison or parallel, due to the limits of my knowledge. I know how many cats I have to feed, what catfood costs and how far the store is. Beyond that, my encounters with arithmetic are few and brief; with mathematics, non-existent.

Rather than representing failures of reasoning, these ungrounded foundations serve as necessary conditions that make systematic inquiry possible. — Moliere

Does this systemic inquiry serve a practical purpose? Or is it more like Sudoku?

We often perform actions without hesitation, such as sitting on a chair or picking up a pencil, without questioning the existence of either. — Moliere

That's from experience. Chairs were made by people for people to sit on and pencils were made by people for people to write with: we've known these things from early childhood. A tentacled alien would not guess how to use them. As for questioning the existence of such mundane objects, Virtual Reality and holography have brought doubt back into play.
Humans made language long before they made philosophy and acquire language before the age of questioning. We have been living on this planet and using the things it provides since long before reasoning or justification. Couldn't do any reasoning or justifying without gravity, oxygen, and all that other necessary stuff we don't think about until they're absent.

For instance, the certainty that the ground will support us when we walk is a nonlinguistic hinge that enables movement without hesitation. Similarly, our unthinking confidence that objects will behave predictably, that chairs will hold our weight, that pencils will mark paper, represents this bedrock level of certainty. — Moliere

And yet, we can be wrong about those things. When the pencil point breaks, we fail to write; when a chair breaks, we fall down with a painful thump; when the ground is quicksand, we sink and suffocate to death. Cavemen, whose language consisted of gestures and vocalizations knew enough to test the reliability of physical objects by simple physical means.

Unlike nonlinguistic hinges, these can be spoken and seem propositional, yet they resist the usual patterns of justification and doubt. — Moliere

And that makes them dangerous, because of the exceptions, gaps, biases, delusion, misinterpretation and incorrect information. Much worse, our "language games" include fiction, deception, mis- and dis-information, which are all too easily internalized as foundational. Thus cultures become interwoven with false certainties and civilizations collapse.

I'm skipping the section on mathematics, by reason of skeptical ignorance.

Traditional approaches to knowledge often assume that proper justification requires tracing claims back to secure foundations that are themselves justified. This assumption generates the classical problem of infinite regress: any attempt to justify foundational elements through further reasoning creates an endless chain of justification that never reaches secure ground. — Moliere

Bedrock is not tested with logic; it's tested with a drill. It doesn't need justification, it just needs to be hard. Only direct testing can justify non-linguistic certainty and only practice can justify linguistic certainty.

Rather than representing failures or limitations, these unjustified foundations function as enabling conditions that make coherent thought and practice possible. — Moliere

I think acknowledging its failures and limitations improves cohesion of thought.

By recognizing this necessity, we can develop more nuanced approaches to foundational questions in epistemology, philosophy of mathematics, and potentially other domains where the relationship between systematic inquiry and its enabling conditions remains philosophically significant. — Moliere

To what end? This is a sincere question: What is it you hope to learn or achieve?

Of course computer hardware is physical, — Wayfarer

So is human hardware.

In fact the computer chip manufacturing process echoes Aristotle's form-matter dualism. — Wayfarer

I'm sure he would be gratified to hear that.

But as to whether the software itself is physical or symbolic, I think that question is, at the very least, moot. — Wayfarer

I have yet to see a program without the hardware, or a concept in the absence of a brain. But, who knows? I might encounter them in the ether, once I've sloughed off this all-too-material flesh.

My sex was determined at the moment of fertilization despite what I, my mother, father or the doctors knew at that time. It was only in making observations over time that my sex became known to the doctors, my mother and my father. I had to wait to acquire this information (not create it) by making my own observations. — Harry Hindu

Yeah, it's hard to peek over the baby belly when your head is too heavy to lift. But eventually, you became an expert on what a woman is. Amazing!

I don't get your point. — Harry Hindu

That, at least, is evident.

The fact that almost everything we do, insofar as it is mediated by technology, as this conversation is, is dependent on the effectiveness of mathematics. — Wayfarer

And technology came about by.... no physical or material means? OK

Artificial intelligence cannot replace the decision of the people. — panwei

But can represent the will of the people far more accurately that a questionnaire made up by people.

Because from a normative perspective, land ownership does not belong to artificial intelligence, but to the people, — panwei

Land ownership is a human invention (an abominable one) and has been so hotly contested in history as to cause millions of lives.

so even if artificial intelligence is in power, it still needs to be authorized by the people. — panwei

How will 'the people' enforce those demand, when they own almost nothing and the oligarchs own almost everything? An independent AI could solve the disparity, but one owned by the oligarchs can only make it worse.
Your idea is not wrong; it's just unworkable in this present world and far too unwieldy in any world.

What makes you think they're real?

Yeah, we find it useful. If you can manage without it, happy trails!

While I agree we’re not born able to do mathematics, we’re born with the capacity to learn to do mathematics ( — Wayfarer

Not without your senses, your squishy, pink, very physical brain and someone to teach you or a whole lot of imagination. We have the capacity to make stuff up. Imaginary things are immaterial in themselves, but even naming them requires some physical process in a physical brain. They have no existence outside the hardware.

What might pure thought devoid of input from the five senses consist of? — Moliere
Pure mathematics would come close, wouldn't it? — Wayfarer

Where? How would a mind be able to think mathematical thoughts? We're not born with mathematics, but we are born with sense. How would pure mathematics express itself without a material brain to apprehend it through one or more senses and form it into equations?

Individuals are inexplicable, incomparable, unlimited, unique. — unenlightened

Made up of the traits all humans share, what we were each born with, what we've been given and had impressed upon us, what we've learned and experienced, what we've done and thought, what bonds and enmities we've formed. And yet, being social animals, we each profess an identity, whether it's a facile label stuck on for convenience or a set of signals we choose to broadcast. We need to be identified so that we can interact with other individuals.

The world is destroyed by mere cyphers, masquerading as 'characters', addicted to the fake freedom of money. — unenlightened

I love :starstruck: this sentence!

After this comes reason, which forms judgments by a process of logic. Reason is the hard link to unpack. — Moliere

I don't think you can. The process may be envisioned through probes and coloured lights, but you can't go into the brain and follow the action close up.

Given this reality, it’s natural for us to conclude “an idea about all roses” is non-material. We conclude it’s a non-material concept that inhabits the mind only. — Moliere

It also inhabits some portion of the brain. It can be replaced by an improved version (Some roses have a strong scent, others are nearly scentless; some don't conform to the iconic image of a rose; some climb, while others grow as shrubs etc). Every time you upgrade a concept with more knowledge, it takes up a little more neural real estate. In the brain of a horticulturist specializing in roses, it takes up all the room once devoted to dogs, pies and birth-dates.

How can something so unanalogous to its source be no less material than its source? — Moliere

As you said, by compression. A volcano is bigger than a mouse but they're equally material and take up roughly the same storage capacity in conceptual format. All those roses take up several acres of garden, while the generalized image in your mind is only a few cells wide. Nevertheless, when someone next thrusts a thorned rose in your hand, you will receive a flood of brand new material impressions. These will eventually - in several minutes - be processed, rendered down to essentials, compressed and added to the rose file already stored in your brain.

Intent is a function of the designing mind that thinks strategically about “that which is not yet but will be.” — Moliere

Do you mean speculation and planning? They are operations, accessing, comparing, organizing data to anticipate future events and calculate probabilities. We only anticipate the future because we remember the many presents that became the past, even as we were experiencing it. We don't actually know whether we ourselves have a future and can only assume that the reality we know will continue. But the process of thinking about it is a physical activity in a material brain.

This is a more complex expression of time “manipulation” towards abstract generalization. It is cognitive-time- dilation of present action towards a strategically determined future material outcome. — Moliere

Do you mean doing something now in order to cause something to happen next?

Critical to absential materialism is the bi-conditional relationship between the supervenient emergent property: abstract thought, and the subvenience of the ground for the emergent property; the brain. They are a matched pair and there is one IFF there is also the other. — Moliere

You've totally lost me. I may ask the bot for directions.
No luck. Need a more sophisticted bot or Amity to dumb it down, or...
give up.

He was ethical. However, in the Myth of Sisyphus, he writes of an ethics which is less about accepting social moral codes and more about individuals and their values. — Amity

Well, yes. That's a whole 'nother kettle o' sprats. Social mores are not necessarily - indeed, hardly ever - about the value of individuals. They're about the welfare of the social unit, whether that unit is a commune, a tribe or an empires. All ethical individuals must compare the mores of the state with their own attitude to their fellow beings and their world. Divesting oneself of externally imposed values is the first step to building internal values.

Don Juan does what it takes to satisfy his selfish desires at the expense of others. He is amoral. Unconcerned whether something is right or wrong. A slippery slide to immorality. Wickedness. — Amity

I always thought him flat-out wicked. For pleasure and defiance, but most importantly for self-aggrandizement. That is, selectively: I don't know whether he also stole and set fires. The killing was in a duel, wasn't it? Didn't go around murdering people at random. He was just a sexoholic with no support structure or guard-rails, poor lamb.

Where were we again? Oh yes, suicide, tearing off the mask...is painless? — Amity

I hope so, for if/when I need assistance. Reason says that day may come, even though hope would have me suffer longer, only to arrive at the same result.

The killing of one self so that another self lives. The good wins?

The authentic self wins, for good or ill, or they both die of oxygen starvation.
At least, that's the message I intend to take away from this essay.
(I eagerly anticipate the author's comments.)

Why would someone write an essay with a faulty analysis of the facts? — Harry Hindu

Lots of people would, for lots of reasons - climate change denial comes to mind... or the benign uses of coal power.... This author hasn't.

Then we agree that people are not always what they claim to be. An individual is what they are based on natural causes (in the context of mating and medicine) and their actions since becoming a legal adult (in the context of the laws of the society they live in) that preceded their existence at this moment in time. — Harry Hindu

That's a bit of a snag for authoritarians proclaiming themselves liberators.

I was a male regardless of what I knew or believed until I acquired more information. — Harry Hindu

And once you acquired more information, you learned what it is to be a woman? Well, all right, sister. Welcome to our rest room!

It is not about crimes committed. It is about, as you said:

Why would a man be in a teenaged girls' changing room? — RussellA

The essay we're supposed to be discussing never mentioned changing rooms.... Although, speaking of, since you're so deeply invested in them, what exactly was Donald J. Trump doing in the Miss America contestants' locker room? Oh, yeah, I remember... Not wearing a dress.

Why would the author write the essay asserting that Libertarianism is actually Authoritarianism unless they planned on inciting others to do something about it? — Harry Hindu

Aside from the misrepresentation of this topic, are you saying the only reason to write an essay to incite?

Just because someone claims to be a woman does not mean they are a woman. Just because someone claims to be a Libertarian does not mean they are. — Harry Hindu

The essay is about one of those subjects.

It appears to be an authoritarian describing libertarianism. It's like a man describing what it is like to be a woman. — Harry Hindu

It's not describing either of those things. It's pointing out discrepancies between theory and reality, rhetoric and action. Yeah, it's hard to discern those subtle nuances.

One is a woman by the way they are born. — Harry Hindu

How do you know? Do you recall being born and knowing what gender you were? Are you speaking of every woman's experience, or are you a man describing what it is to be a woman? What so troubles you about women and who's allowed to be one? I've been one most of my life, and it's not that special. I'm willing to share womanhood with anyone who wants it.

Any unbiased, intelligent person understands that ALL politicians lie and manipulate the facts. — Harry Hindu

I've never met an unbiased person, and damn few intelligent ones. I have, however, known politicians who didn't tell ginormous lies or borrow the philosophical stance of people they don't understand or agree with.

I have already pointed out that both Dems and Reps hide their authoritarian tendencies by covering them up with their Libertarian tendencies. — Harry Hindu

You've asserted that, yes. Wanna do it again? Go ahead, we've got time.

Just as you telling me what pronouns I have to use is not an expression of freedom and inclusion. — Harry Hindu

I'm not telling you any such thing. Someone who prefers to be addressed in a way you don't approve of might you ask you politely to use the correct pronoun, but no Democratic president has passed an executive order forcing people to an assigned gender.
Your notion of equivalency could benefit from a review.

'm now thinking about the issue of pain. Physical and mental. The philosophy of detachment from it, and even hope. 'Indifference' and non-attachment. — Amity

Buddhism, Stoicism... to rise above desire, fear, pain. For Christian and Sufi ascetics, just the opposite: to seek and embrace suffering.

Is this wholly possible or even desirable? Perhaps acceptable as a theory but in practice?

To me, it just seems crazy. Healthy animals try very hard to avoid pain and privation; if they must suffer, they try to get through it and heal. Healthy animals seek comfort, wellness, pleasure and joy. Humans have ideas, ideals, theories, disciplines, faiths, cults.... regrets, retribution, suicide, martyrdom, crusades, jihads, genocides. Humans rejected nature but are not very good at civilization.

What is it about Greek Myths and their appeal? — Amity

They are accurate, insightful and succinct commentary on the human psyche, while also picturesque and dramatic - entertaining.

Camus wants to live life without appeal - on his own terms without recourse to religion, hope or the big theories of others. Without morals. Amoral. — Amity

Sounds like a big order. We can manage without other people's theories, if we're clever and confident enough to make our own, but we can't do without other people. I have never seen amorality in practice. I've seen people ignore prevailing moral precepts - selectively - and I've seen people break moral precepts, either in protest or to seek forbidden pleasure.
I'm long out of date on Camus, but I came away with the impression of an ethical being.

Hope is seen as irrational - the opposite of reason. Airy-fairy without substance. — Amity

The drive to survival - our oldest, deepest, most compelling instinct. Hopelessness is wholly rational, imposed by force of logic on the eternal spring in every beating heart.

But if situational, comparative and subjective, how can you dole out the 'yes' and the 'no'? — Jeremy Murray

Subjectively.

the process, not the product, is what I define as art — Jeremy Murray

Okay. Which processes are art and which are industry or mundane life?

So, for me, yes to Hemingway (even though I've never read him), yes to Dickens (thousands of pages read), yes to Chekov and Roddenberry (though I dislike much Star Trek), and perhaps yes to both the grandpa and the elder. — Jeremy Murray

So, basically everybody who tells a story, whether you know what stories they told or not. Fine; that's your prerogative. It may be more difficult with installations.

Grandpa here is least likely to have aspired towards 'art', and to have taken any actions towards making his output 'art'. — Jeremy Murray

How do you know? If you're not judging the product, it doesn't seem fair to judge the likelihood of their aspiration.

So, how do I evaluate different 'degrees' of art from someone I consider an artist in their best work? — Jeremy Murray

What about Piero Manzoni's best work? What about Picasso's second-best work, or Rembrandt on an off day? A lot of people seem quite taken with that stuff. You have little alternative to using your own judgment, unless you simply go along with what the majority likes or what critics like.

Is this referring to resurrection and the afterlife of which he will know nothing? — Amity

I thought it was like the Klingons' 'a good day to die': that is, whether you win or lose, there is glory in the engagement. I have no problem with that part.
It's this I can't fathom or identify:

Every solid she touches is liquefied; every liquid solidified. She is a walking contradiction: the prey which is its own predator. She has walked the common path undisturbed, and exactly this wellness has made her sick: normality is a paved road—it is comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it 1. She has no flower to call her own, and the chasm in her heart has grown to large: she rips herself apart, just to sew herself back together. — Moliere

Perhaps we don't need to respond. Perhaps they don't want us to. — Amity

I did that. But posting something in a forum solicits responses; I felt I had to say something. Which was: I don't know what to say.

For me, the author doesn't need to spell out the background.
That would be boring. — Amity

I respectfully disagree. No soul's journey is boring!

Uncertainty is not to everyone's taste. But when is life ever certain? — Amity

I grasp for meaning and coherence in literature, precisely because there is so much uncertainty, incomprehension and miscommunication in life.

The social and public identity is a facade to fit in. Like wearing a mask to act a part.....
The demons sit on the left shoulder, the angels on the right. Both vying for attention. What part of us do we feed at any given time. Do we practice bad or good life habits. What is it that we want? Who are we?
It is finding peace or equanimity in the chaos of life's desires. The battles of the selves; higher and lower. — Amity

Most of us make choices about that: when to mask and to whom to reveal. We respond to life and other people; we find a workable balance. There is discomfort and compensation, success and failure, self-praise and self-blame. I respect most other people's choices about how to conduct their lives, and most people respect mine. We can usually do this without tearing ourselves to pieces.

I know of situations where people who would otherwise be persecuted live in a confined closet and suffer for it. I try to support them where I can.
I know of instances where ordinary people have an inflated sense of themselves and dramatize their angst at being denied the admiration they consider their due. I have no sympathy for them.
I know of a very few people of exceptional abilities who lack outlets for expression and feel isolated. Sometimes the loneliness and frustration makes them despondent, even suicidal, and they struggle against that impulse. I intuit their feeling of hopeful hopelessness, but can't respond to them appropriately. I suspect what we have here is the last mentioned.

There are no answers forthcoming because it is left to the reader to find their own meaning. — Amity

That's what I'm talking about. It's not about me or anyone I can identify with, so the only meaning I could find would be intellectual, which is context-dependent.

If the author does not want to appear biased then they would take a more objective position. — Harry Hindu

Every essay takes the position it takes on the subject it discusses. The author talking about Kierkegaard makes no appeal to Schopnehauer. The one discussing past and present doesn't get into a critique of Judaism. An op-ed piece on cinema hardly mentions what's wrong with painting and a recipe for bean soup doesn't even consider pumpkin pie.

By focusing on the lesser of the two "evils", your intent does not appear to be to solve the problem they are showing but to simply bash one ideology. — Harry Hindu

Where does the author say this essay is intended to solve a problem? Or the relative size of evils?

This essay argues that radical individualism is less a coherent political philosophy than a theatrical pose that conceals its reliance on collective institutions, rationalizes inequality and rebrands domination as personal freedom. By examining its philosophical roots and public champions we expose a paradox at its core: the celebration of liberty through authoritarian means. — Moliere

It's not bashing the ideology; it's showing its shortcomings as a philosophy. It points out the gaps between the stated tenets of the ideology, political theory and social reality, as illustrated by some high-profile figures who claim to be its embodiment.