Oh that's ok. The glory is implied.

How many thousands of years ago did the first human condemn the present age as if the world was once perfect or even slightly better? It must satisfy some need...

But what?

Sir2u's avatar looks like a dude sitting on a toilet.

(Y) Interesting comment.

"We are swimming in the ocean" is true for microbes IFF microbes are swimming in the cup. — Banno

I didn't know microbes could talk.

What are the microbes swimming in? The cup. They see an ocean, we see a cup, but we are talking about the very same thing. — Banno

Fleshing out the pertinent language game?

Tipping point for what?

My guess is Trump is concerned and presently pondering military options.

Good.

Did you also predict that N. Korea would grow ICBMs? Considering your proximity, maybe you folks should pick a general to be your chief of staff (or whatever you call that person).

here certainly appears to be something there which had been called the unconscious but other names as well. — Rich

What other names?

Saying there are no genetic differences between races is like saying there are no genetic differences between individuals... — VagabondSpectre

Is there a statistically significant difference? Either way, the term wasn't invented to talk about genetics. It's about appearance or culture. Appearances can definitely fail to testify to bloodlines.

The narrative Cold War babies heard was that our nature had brought us to the brink of self-destruction. The whole 20th Century is an emotional argument for post-structuralism.

I think that what we are at any moment is one tiny manifestation of the human potential. Manifestations are shaped many things, positive and negative.

Would you agree that the unconscious is made up of signifiers? That it's basically linguistically structured?

Do you pay attention to slips of the tongue?

Well, or just statistically speaking.

If you can hear the bell it's probably not tolling for you.

I still don't think we were in disagreement.

Yep. :)

It could be that John and I are in disagreement. Wouldn't be the first time. :)

I agree with the thesis of Fight Club. The test is whether the subject ever really gave up... abandoned all hope.

We could ask him. Or ask Nietzsche what it takes to becomes your own divinity. He went on and on and on about it, didn't he?

Yep. Brian Greene became is own mission-giver. I mentioned that Frankl did as well. ?

Neither of you have articulated why life can (in your case), or can't (in John's case) be attributed meaning in the absence of an author. — StreetlightX

John and I are not in disagreement. Frankl became his own author while stuck in a concentration camp.

This is all psychologically precarious stuff. Poor little Eros faces all the horror and depravity in life. Take it a little at a time. That's my advice.

Are you trying to suggest that the question has meaning in a way that, er, no mortal can understand or some such thing — StreetlightX

When people ask after the meaning of life, translate "meaning" as purpose. If you're polylingual, you know better than to ask why it translates this way. It just does.

The purpose of most things is transcendent to the thing in question. The purpose of a hammer is not found in the hammer. Purpose, in the case of life, is often stated as a mission. The Romans were on a mission from Mars to bring order to the earth. The Christian mission is obscure and wildly varied.

Lacking mission-giving divinities, purpose is still available and still has a transcendent quality. See Victor Frankl. Brian Greene also talks about his childhood encounter with Sisyphus and the purpose that followed.

Look above. I quoted you.

Why would I want to do that? — Banno

It was probably an accident. You didn't mean to say "no" to Von Neumann. You meant "I don't know."

It's not what most physicists think happens. It looks and smells like new-age wishful thinking.

No. — Banno

Sometimes most physicists are wrong. When Newton introduced the concept of gravity he was accused to dragging spirituality into science.

Are you really in a position to rule out any of the many quantum theories?

'you teach best what you most needed to know" I think that's from Jonathon Livingston seagull.

I always expect that everyone will eventually discover what a dick I am, or I feel phony, or like I'm tricking them if they think I'm anything other than a shit... lol. — Wosret

I feel that way too, but I also get this edgy feeling if somebody likes me... like I have something to lose now. One thing that gives me some peace and gets me out of my head is to give people the freedom to think whatever they want... even if it means they'll kill me and dump my body in a ditch somewhere.

One thing that's been coming home lately has to do with my looks. I'm not as good-looking as I used to be because I'm getting older. Every now and then it comes to me how immersed in fear I've been most of my life related to being a nice looking female. At the time, it was just life, but I get these waves of grief and pity for the person I once was... to just be living everyday wondering who in the environment wants to rape me, kill me, and dump my body in a ditch somewhere. Actually, it helps just saying it to somebody else.

Maybe you could talk about the weather to that girl, and ask her for her number or to get some coffee. Do you drink coffee?

Could be, but there's nothing altruistic about it in my case. I think I'm just fundamentally afraid of people. What's your craziness? Or are you completely sane? :)

My insanity is that I understand it if people are mean to me, but I can't quite get it if they're nice. It's like it doesn't compute. I wonder what they really mean, or what they want.

I noticed recently that smiling is like a social dominance thing. Smiling says "I'm not dangerous." I noticed because where I work there's a hierarchial situation. People below me smile at me all the time. People above me don't smile.

But I smile at everybody. It's insane.

I put it on myself to try to understand what they're asking. If I really want to know, I probe. Sometimes the results of that are astonishing.

Funny, I had just been reading about the Truman upset the week before the election. So it did go through my mind...

Busta Rhymes marathon

It would remain true even if god did not see it. — Banno

The issue is knowledge. A proposition may be true, but if it was asserted, then someone is claiming to know it. Knowledge internalism says that the knower must have access to some justification. Knowledge externalism rejects the need for justification. Take your pick.

You can free yourself of the POV shenanigans by saying that you aren't talking about assertions. But then the question becomes... what are you talking about?

That inner voice people talk about... is yours usually in first, second, or third person?

The media I encounter uses bullshit to make money. Article after article dangles some tempting news before the reader only to fail to deliver in the fine print. Big speculations no news. I've generally turned away from it.

I think you're continuing to put the self and memories beyond the power of word magic. You have the self actively setting out its own boundaries.

So you don't need innate knowledge to solve meno's paradox.

Do you have eidetic memory?

Anamnesis.

If you reject reincarnation it's because that game isn't played in your community.

By any other name I'd still be me.