Beware Siddartha’s “middle way”. Buddha led the most foundational times of his life to the extremes, in both extreme opulence and extreme poverty. Surely that factored into his enlightenment more than any middle way. — NOS4A2

This is a good point. Harkens back to the epigram “Life is a journey.” If Siddhartha had not experienced the extremes, would he have attained enlightenment? Perhaps ‘enlightenment’ can be achieved through many different paths, and it’s a destination that results in a ‘middle way’ lifestyle.

follows that any error in cognition, or even if a cognition can be given, is the fault of judgement, and has nothing to do with whether or not the concept in use is correct in itself, but only has to do with whether or not it is itself the correct concept to use. — Mww

This makes sense to me.

I didn’t mean to offend you. I value your contributions to the threads I’ve encountered you in. My personal approach is that OR is modeled by observing, perceiving, and measuring AR. This method of approximating OR from studying AR implies a gap between AR and OR which is the nature of having conscious beings in a physical world. This is metaphysics, not science, as TClark pointed out.

I paid the dentist up front so I have to go now or lose the money. :lol: — Sir2u

Yeah, I should’ve gone a while back, too. I let it get to the point that I can feel my pulse in my tooth. :grimace:

Hence my fear terror of dentists. — Sir2u

Funny you mention that. I have an appointment to get a molar pulled tomorrow morning.

Ahh, the good old days. :cool:
Busted and scarred lips, nose, eye brows and knuckles. A 2x4 on the back of the head, a bottle on the back and a boot in the balls. And I never came out the loser. Except when they ripped my new suit, that made me cry.
Manchester in the 60/70's was the place to be. — Sir2u

Haha! You sound cool.

Depends how important it is to the person. If it was that important to me, why would I let the fear of being bullied repress me? For comparison, I didn't come out publicly with my true sexual identity whilst in school for that very reason, but I haven't let homophobes or other judgemental types silence me or keep me in pretence for quite some time now, and there are still plenty of homophobes and judgemental types around. — S

Good on you. I don’t let a fear of bullying about my mental disorder stop me from being open about it, so I can relate on some level.

This is over my head. I suspect I’m not the only one confused about it, though.

That one's actually pretty easy to figure out, even without the aid of Google. It means something along the lines that you don't identify as a single, set gender over time, but are flexible or "fluid" enough to identify with whatever seems right in the moment or to not identify at all. — S

That was my intuition as well. It’s weird, I think, but who am I to judge? I suppose one could live one’s life this way, but I think it just invites bullying, and who would want that? Not that they deserve bullying but that’s not something that one would expect a Cro-Magnon type to understand and accept. Why go through the trouble?

What does “gender fluid” even mean?

There is a Plank time, the shortest time in which anything can happen, and there are zillions of these times a second. Presumably, the discreteness of this and other quanta indicates a digital universe, casting Einstein's analog continuum into doubt—but it could still very well approximate a continuum. — PoeticUniverse

So if there are ‘jumps’ from one discrete state to another, what does that say about causality? It seems that at the quantum level, cause and effect break down, no?

Can we admit that whether or not there are actual possibilities and therefor an actual choice would be made, our minds go through a decision making process? Wouldn't hard determinism include that decision making process? — ZhouBoTong

Yes.

You don't have to be a great sorcerer in order to have the charisma, personal qualities, and rhetoric required to bring the worst out in people. Hitler had it, and Trump has it too. That footage of the crowd behind Trump chanting, "Send her back!", whilst Trump stands there and does nothing, indicating passive acceptance, is chilling to the bone. — S

And don’t underestimate the capacity of a moron to fuck things up.

It appears that there is such a continual transitioning of the 'World' that not anything in particular can remain the same, even for an instant, or the instant is incredibly short. To me, this indicates something very energetic. It's hard to specify. — PoeticUniverse

This made me think of something. Is there a Planck length of relative motion or time as there is a Planck length in spacial extension? If not, then what are the implications? If so, then what are the implications for cause and effect?

Funny that by your own logic I wouldn't be incorrect in interpreting you as saying that I'm always right. — Baden

:wink:

Yes you are, because "chair" has a completely different meaning to bicycles. The common meaning is considered the standard for determining correctness by default. That's always the implicit context. You seem to think that you yourself are in charge of the implicit context, and of the default standard for determining correctness. You seem to think that you can change the default setting to your own idiosyncratic meaning on whim, without saying a word. But you're wrong. That's clearly not how things are, and not how they work, and the rest of us are keenly aware of this - it's pretty obvious when put to the test by trying to communicate in your way - which is why no one is agreeing with you. Baden has already effectively reduced your position to absurdity. You're just biting the bullet at this point. Consistency despite absurdity. Nothing to write home about. — S

:up:

:lol:

Yes, she is my muse and my oracle. :smile:

:grin:

To that, I would probably tell them to do one. — S

No problem. It’s not my axe to grind.

Do you hang out with any feminists? Do you use “he” instead of “one” or “he or she”?

Are you a computer programmer? You should learn code if you’re not. I never met someone so logical linguistically.

I demand that you let me use language however I want to. I don't identify as a conformist to what others want. — Terrapin Station

But you do conform more than you don’t. However, you do conform less than most around here, so I guess that’s the problem with communicating with you.

Perhaps the problem is in the sheer rarity of such people? If they had a large army, and if everyone had one as a neighbor, then things might be different. I don’t know.

It seems to me that you model reality differently than I, which can lead to problems with philosophical discussions. However, I’m not sure that your model is any better or worse than mine. Jus’ sayin’.

Yes, which was my point about using concepts in unique and novel ways in certain language games. However, that was one concept. It didn’t appear that you misunderstood other concepts I was using in this discussion, no?

Do you get my meaning? If so, then what’s the problem? If not, then I’m not using the term correctly, and that’s why this communication is failing. Hence, my point still stands.

The problem is that there are no exceptions. The only time the consensus opinion is relevant and not fallacious is when we want to know what the consensus opinion happens to be, but that never makes the consensus opinion correct. — Terrapin Station

“Correct” as in that it works. A concept’s use is correct when used in a way that people understand one another.

I agree with you. If Terrapin is a man by gender than I will call him “he”. If Judith is gender fluid then I will call them “they” if that’s what they prefer.

I don’t even know what we are arguing about anymore. This is way off topic, anyway, and I’m not even sure we would necessarily end up disagreeing with each other if this discussion continued, so I will just let it go.

There are correct uses of concepts determined by a community of users. If the users didn’t have a general correct use for concepts, then communication would be impossible. Communication, however, often succeeds. That is the argument.

Claiming that something is correct because it's common is an argumentum ad populum. — Terrapin Station

I’m claiming that’s how it works in practice. That that is how it works in practice is a true description.

An incident... which occurred whilst he was designing a bird costume for camouflage? :brow: — S

Yes, I guessed that was part of the joke.

side from pro-conformism sucking in my opinion (:joke:), that's an argumentum ad populum fallacy then. — Terrapin Station

It’s not an argument. It’s a description.

What do you take to be correct, just conformity to the norm? — Terrapin Station

Community involvement, yes. Concepts can evolve or even change meaning or gain new meaning, but it ultimately depends on a community of users. Sometimes authorities such as experts determine correct usage, and sometimes the language game permits a community of users to use a concept in a unique and novel way.

I figured it was a “Hey, Joe” reference, but I wasn’t sure if he was joking about there being an incident.

How do you know? — frank

From psychologists on the news.

Obviously I don't agree with that (and not just because I think that communication often does fail--hence your surprise that I make sense), but it's a huge thing to get into different theories about how communication works. — Terrapin Station

This is now far afield of the OP, but I will just say that the vast majority of concepts have generally true or false values. Communication fails when one or both interlocutors are wrong about concepts used. ‘Cat’, ‘chair’, ‘normative ethics’, ‘sun’, ‘Dow Jones Industrials Index’ all have correct usages. Communication fails when these concepts are used incorrectly.

A crazy old man started following me around in the grocery store mumbling things about the items on the shelves and grinning at me. I expedited my shopping to get away from him because I didnt want to get caught in the crossfire. — frank

Clinically mentally ill people are more likely to get hurt by others than to hurt people intentionally themselves, unless in self defense or defense of others they care about. Mass shooters are more likely than not to not have a clinical mental illness.

I was in the parking lot designing a bird costume for camouflage when POW! A body went down and I started humming a Jimi Hendrix song. — frank

Are you being funny here? Because I don’t understand you.

You actually make sense here, but I must politely disagree. Concepts have generally true or false values, otherwise communication would fail more often than it does.