Comments

  • Enactivism and Eastern Philosophy
    ↪Quixodian
    Nice obituary. A lifetimes' work, to add one informative idea to the human mindscape.
  • Enactivism and Eastern Philosophy
    Tying this with the thread's main theme, were a literally egoless consciousness possible to actualize in principle, such would then be perfectly devoid of otherness - but there is no cogent reason to then affirm that it would also be devoid of its "auto"-awareness regarding its own, here unperturbed, state of being. I interpret this to then be in-line with the often told description of Moksha or Nirvana as being pure bliss. — javra

    I have to report that there is as a matter of fact a state of absorption sometimes called 'flow', which I have experienced, mainly playing music, but even occasionally in writing, and sometimes walking in the countryside. In such a state, there is no separation for the moment between self and world; the music is playing the fingers and the rhythm is breathing the time, I mean timing the breath: even as an audience one can become lost in music.

    In such a state, there is no difference between idealism and physicalism. It is called flow because the normal state of consciousness holds self static as the ruler that measures the movement of time, like the post of a sundial or the static face that the hands of the clock move across. Or perhaps it is more like like a log in the river, snagged on a rock that the river of time washes over and around until some wave or flood releases it to flow with the movement of the water for a while.

    My poetic metaphorical language attempts to convey something that is probably familiar to most, so one does not need to rely on the authority of another. Bliss, because the habitual tension and anxiety of holding out against the world is gone for a while.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    ↪Isaac
    I have to admit that I have seen no reasonable evidence in this thread of any poster being terminally stupid, uncaring or insane. If I had, I would certainly have reported it to the moderators. And the same if I had seen evidence of racism and xenophobia. In fact I have a particular sensitivity on the latter issue that some here will be aware of, being part of a mixed race family.

    And here is the inconsistency I see in your posting: you are very free with these negative labels, but there is no good reason ever to address them to your interlocutors on the boards, rather you should point them out to the mods so that they can be remove the people we don't want to waste time talking to and the sensible fair-minded decent people can discuss freely.

    But instead, you use these sorts of epithets on a regular basis in an attempt to undermine people you do continue to engage with. And then bang on hypocritically about respect.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    The argument here is not all people's opinions are equal. — Isaac

    What argument?The rest of us call it ad hominem fallacy.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    I've no interest in arguing with those. Likewise the terminally stupid, the uncaring, the insane... There are lots of categories of people who might have an opinion about how to resolve this conflict against whom I've no wish to argue, whose opinions I've no wish to hear. — Isaac

    But you sure like calling them out, o fair-minded one!
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Intelligent, well-informed people have a different view as to how best to resolve the conflict, but we can't just discuss the merits of each approach, those differing from the mainstream have to uniformed, biased, — Isaac

    Or racist xenophobes.
  • Masculinity
    ↪Moliere
    Yeah I meant love that takes pains, not that gives pains. Old-fashioned Christian life-laying-down love. "He ain't heavy, he's my brother."
  • Masculinity
    , it is also a deeply violent emotion if what we love is threatened. — Moliere

    Ah, I see. There is some ambiguity in the word 'love'. I'm not referring to the emotion in that sense. Would you be happier if I used 'care', or 'affection'?
  • Masculinity
    chauvinism in popular discourse is associated with men — Moliere

    And boars. And bores.

    I just have to stipulate I'm talking about the system here, something that men and women can do -- the way that a country can be chauvinistic towards another country. That's the sort of chauvinism I mean. — Moliere

    Well yes. we're back to power here, are we not? Puissance — what (any)one can do: which is a function of culture (the system) rather than a literal trial of strength (the pecking order is not literally physical in human society). Patriarchy empowers men and endorses power as a masculine virtue, thereby declaring itself virtuous. Therefore...

  • Ukraine Crisis
    Girkin appeared in a Moscow courtroom on Friday where he was formally charged with extremism. Earlier this week he had called for Putin’s downfall, saying Russia “could not survive another six years” of his rule.

    He has also been found guilty in absentia by a Dutch court of the murder of 298 people onboard flight MH17, the plane shot down by a Russian surface-to-air missile while flying over east Ukraine in July 2014.
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/21/russia-arrests-pro-war-putin-critic-igor-girkin-reports

    ↪Jabberwock
    Igor No-mates, it seems.

    Can anyone semi-informed imagine who might replace Putin, and what policy changes would result? Or am I only dreaming?
  • Masculinity
    I think this is the main reason women might be expected to present themselves as childish. I'm thinking more about Japanese culture where women are simultaneously ridiculed for behaving childishly, but the women themselves say they have to behave that way for acceptance and career advancement. — frank

    Childishness is performed subservience. Reminds me of a thing I noticed about some US women - voices like the Chipmunks. Cute indeed! My ignorance of Japanese culture is profound, but a powerful woman is liable to be a witch, a harridan, a harpy, or if persistent, a nightmare, in this culture. A threat to the masculine identity. But girls just wanna have fun.
  • Masculinity
    ... the loving oppression which is paternalistic in nature. It comes from a place of love, but the power differential matters if the loving person is ignorant in some way of their amor's needs. — Moliere

    Why do you call it paternalistic rather than maternalistic? Don't confuse paternal with patriarchal here.

    The infant is helpless, so the power relation is real and necessary and its neglect would be the abuse. But even here, the nature of love is communicative - one does not force feed the infant, though one does force clean them because one literally does know better.

    Interesting that in your example 'ignorance' is expressed as 'knowing better'. Something to look out for, along with infantilising language. But voting is for adults, and one does not marry one's father, so that particular 'knowing better' is patriarchal rather than paternal, I think. I treat my children as children, until they become adult, and then love has to grow towards respect and equality. I recall there was a radio 4 disability series called "Does he take sugar?" — a gentle reminder of how easily one can fall into that kind of ignoring, belittling ignorance. Sometimes, of course, a disability is a communication difficulty, but a communication difficulty is necessarily mutual in this sense:- one expresses inadequately and the other understands inadequately; although in the other direction of communication there may be no difficulty.
  • Enactivism and Eastern Philosophy
    Interesting thread. Is consciousness cognition? Or is cognition something one might be conscious of. Or can both be true at once, such that consciousness is recursively defined as consciousness of consciousness?

    The theme of this book is that a universe comes into being when a space is severed or taken apart. The skin of a living organism cuts off an outside from an inside. So does the circumference of a circle in a plane. By tracing the way we represent such a severance, we can begin to reconstruct, with an accuracy and coverage that appear almost uncanny, the basic forms underlying linguistic, mathematical, physical, and biological science ...
    http://www.siese.org/modulos/biblioteca/b/G-Spencer-Brown-Laws-of-Form.pdf

    This relates to Bateson's idea of a difference that makes a difference, and also to symmetry and symmetry -breaking. It is a mathematician's version of Genesis, and necessarily, before the beginning, before 'a universe comes into being' there must already be a space and a severing or breaking thereof.

    Suppose that the space is consciousness; it is contentless, a blank page. But saying as much, I have already severed the space into consciousness and its contents.

    'Wordless' is a word that is self-negating. Best not talk about it, but at the same time one is always talking about what is beyond words unless one is disappearing entirely up one's own arse. "The tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal tao."
  • Masculinity
    So I'd go with your latter -- he has been a misogynist all along, — Moliere

    That's a bit oppressive of you, isn't it? If your theory is also

    People don't identify as misogynists — Moliere

    The philosopher psychologist assumes the position of superiority, which is a power relation whereby even bosses are what we say they are. The man/woman at the centre of the hypothesis is a cypher, and we do not care a jot about their identity for themselves, or whether or not they even want promotion. Of course our power is also hypothetical here - our writs do not run the world. But they are to a great extent a product of the way the world is run.

    I think the way out of this jungle is to see that oppression is power without love. The inequality between men and women or black and white or whatever, is one of power, and that is why it is always the boss who is oppressive in relation to his minions, even though they may all have equally uncaring and prejudicial views, and the minions may have their own pecking order.

    Thus masculinity becomes toxic to the extent that it identifies itself with power, and femininity with love.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    It might be nice to hear what you say, and why you might say it? — Isaac

    Well I have to say it is not always nice to hear what you say
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Negotiation is how we stop this God awful bloodbath. — Isaac

    You say negotiation, others say appeasement. Peace in our time can mean a God awful bloodbath in someone else's time.

    Yours was your only post for pages. — Isaac

    Well the thread moves fast, so you can be forgiven for missing my response earlier today on the same page about Russian history, which a couple of people mentioned in a somewhat positive tone. But even if you had been right in your facts, that is flimsy evidence on which to base an accusation of racism and xenophobia. But never mind, I'm sure I have prejudices and ignorance to spare.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Russians haven't genetically inherited a likelihood to commit war crimes, they're not all warped by racial tendencies toward atrocity, there's no magic line from Rostov to Kursk east of which everyone is a monster. — Isaac

    Of course they haven't. Of course there is no magic line. But there is a social inheritance that is expressed for example in nationalism, and ethnic identification, because people have memories and some have been known to hold grudges.

    Fucking xenophobic, racist claptrap like that. — Isaac

    Respect dude. But not much.

    You are being unpleasant and silly, again. I expressed some sympathy for, and possible explanation of, the reluctance of Ukrainians to negotiate. I certainly think that mass killing is not unthinkable to the current Russian regime.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Speaking of history, I feel this thread is in need of a mention of the Holodomor, so here it is.

    https://shron2.chtyvo.org.ua/Zbirnyk_statei/Canadian_American_Studies_Holodomor.pdf?PHPSESSID=p93mf86aasbafa5snpbs922m02

    My father would have been a student in 1933, and if I were a Ukrainian and my father had whispered this story at all, I would not be very keen now, to negotiate away an inch of sovereignty.

    The attack on Odessa's grain facility is a further reminder.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    So this is something I don't quite understand. Has Russia always sort of been "hollowed out" as a kleptocracy? Is this the way their culture is normally? Or is this an aberration? — frank

    Russia at the beginning of the 20th century was still in the process of emerging from the medieval organisation of society. The liberation of the serfs only began in 1861, and was not complete at the beginning of the revolution. So about 500 years of social change in Europe since around 1400 or so, has been compressed in Russia into a single century. They may have missed some of the nuances of the development of the social contract, the enlightenment, the reformation, the development of universal education, the industrial revolution etc, etc, in the rush to catch up.
  • Striking A Balance Between Conceptualising Things in Terms of Fixability
    This is my method psychologically, but don't apply it externally; don't wait for the roof to mend itself, or even for yourself to spontaneously become a roofing expert. :wink:
  • Striking A Balance Between Conceptualising Things in Terms of Fixability
    Do you have the patience to wait
    Till your mud settles and the water is clear?
    Can you remain unmoving
    Till the right action arises by itself?     — Lao Tzu again
  • Striking A Balance Between Conceptualising Things in Terms of Fixability
    (how would one become both sides of a conflict? — Tom Storm

    Yes, that is where the words stop; there is no how, no method. You know, there are 'methods' for relaxing, but they are actually not methods but distractions that allow relaxation to just happen while Mr Analysis is concentrating on his breathing or some such and stops 'trying to relax'. Trying to be whole is like trying to relax, it has the opposite effect.
  • Striking A Balance Between Conceptualising Things in Terms of Fixability
    So long as becoming single-minded isn't something that can be attempted and failed, and you're allowed to only say it occurred after you see the result, then it isn't a real method. — Judaka

    It isn't a method, you are quite correct. But if what I say is unhelpful, carry on by all means with your topic, and I will interrupt no more.
  • Striking A Balance Between Conceptualising Things in Terms of Fixability
    How does confronting a difficulty allow you not to experience it? — Tom Storm

    I was hoping my post was an illustration of that. I don't think I can explain it much better. When one has a problem, it is generally the result of a psychological conflict. Such a conflict can be resolved instantly by seeing the whole of it from the inside, which means by fully, consciously, being both sides of the conflict. If I am the conflict, I no longer experience the conflict. As long as I am being one side of the conflict, I experience the other side of the conflict as the problem.

    Unfortunately, until one does it, this is just a pile of words that sort of might make theoretical sense, but doesn't actually do anything.
  • Striking A Balance Between Conceptualising Things in Terms of Fixability
    Wanting to avoid the health risks of smoking and wanting to smoke are logically consistent with each other, within the mind. The contradiction is in the incompatibility of these two desires in the real world. One isn't split between wanting to avoid the health risks of smoking and wanting to smoke, one wants both, they just can't have both. — Judaka

    So because one does not live and smoke in the mind, but in the real world, one has to make up one's mind. Otherwise, one remains in two minds about it; that is in the contradiction of wanting to smoke and not to smoke.


    In cases like this, it is simply unthinkable for anyone to have seriously attempted something like quitting smoking, and never once resented their contradictory desire to do the very thing that they're trying to quit. The very thing that thwarts their efforts every time, what possibility is there that anyone wouldn't at some point wish it would disappear? — Judaka

    In the case of smoking, trying to stop and failing, and then stopping with no difficulty at all, I speak from personal experience. It is simply a fact that not doing something that one no longer wishes to do is the easiest thing in the world.

    If it's so simple, is everyone who fails just weak-willed and a fool? How can failure deserve anything but derision when the solution is something a 6-year-old could come up with? — Judaka

    It is that simple, but when one wants to want what one does not want, it becomes not just complicated, but painful and almost impossible. There is no derision on my part, though, because I have been in that conflict and contradiction, and have resolved it by understanding the whole of it from the inside rather than by trying to fix it.
  • Striking A Balance Between Conceptualising Things in Terms of Fixability
    practical themes in motivating us to conceptualise problems by their fixable components — Judaka

    I'd like to distinguish first that a problem has internal aspects and external aspects; or mental and physical, if you like. Suppose for example, I problematise my hair in some way; I can try and deal with it physically, get a hair cut or a wig, or a transplant, or a hat; or I can try and deal with it psychologically by learning to love the frizz, or the bald patch, or whatever, and learning to not care so much about the looks and comments of others. I can even attempt a social change - start a 'slap-heads rights' movement or something (I count that as external to self).

    Fixable factors represent things like habits, routine, thought patterns, attitudes, methodology, education and any category typically characterisable as actionable. — Judaka

    Here you seem to be focussed on internal aspects, and internal aspects cannot be operated on in the same way as external ones. In seeking to fix the mind, one necessarily creates a division in the mind between the mind that needs fixing and the mind that is going to fix it. This comes out very clearly when one seeks to deal with habits. The smoker, it is, who wants to stop smoking, and the smoker's will to stop is in conflict with the smoker's will to smoke. Whose will will be stronger? The smoker's of course, because that is the only one there is.

    Habits are formed by the mind, and in order to change one's habit, one has to change one's mind. How does the mind change the mind, without first changing its mind? On the other hand, it is very easy to change one's mind if one has a mind to, but the trick is to be single minded, and then one has no problem.


    In the universe the difficult things are done as if they are easy.
    In the universe great acts are made up of small deeds.
    The sage does not attempt anything very big,
    And thus achieves greatness.

    Easy promises make for little trust.
    Taking things lightly results in great difficulty.
    Because the sage always confronts difficulties,
    He never experiences them    .     — Lao Tzu
    (my emphasis)
  • Coronavirus
    ↪frank
    The Termitinator for president! So much better looking than than the average average.
  • Coronavirus
    We don't know whether Kennedy is deliberately exploiting conspiracy theories or not.

    He says, as if he might want later to deny that he has anything against Kennedy at at all, whilst raising the spectre in everyones mind that the guy is either a nutcase or an exploiter of nutcases.
  • Is a prostitute a "sex worker" and is "sex work" an industry?
    Wherein there is a difference lies the answer to your question. The open minded liberal tends to be open minded and liberal about prostitution as long as it's "them" that's doing it. — Baden

    But you haven't said what that difference is. Yes, humans are hypocrites. Perhaps we are all nimbys in our various ways—
    … I want ev'rybody to be free
    But if you think that I'd let Barry Goldwater
    Move in next door or marry my daughter
    You must think I'm crazy…     — Bob Dylan

    And it is a dangerous and stigmatised profession, whereas sport is heroic, but the reason for that is — I'm not even going to say the word, I'm starting to bore myself... you do the gender maths, as they say.
  • Is a prostitute a "sex worker" and is "sex work" an industry?
    I think professional sports of all sorts are prostitution; why single out sex?
  • Deductive Logic, Memory, and a new term?
    I might be way off topic here, but...

    If you are interested in how deductive logic 'emerges' from neural networks, you might like G. Spencer Brown's The Laws of Form
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    But Trump said he did, so people believe it. They believe it even though it has been explained over and over again that the VP doesn't have the power to do this. — GRWelsh

    I'm sure Pence is right in law; but he could have done it anyway. People do break the law sometimes. Trump clearly feels the function of the law is to be on his side, and he wanted the result overturned.

    But I'm not saying science is the same as politics, but that psychologically the same resistance to change operates. This is not an original observation on my part.

    An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth. —  Max Planck
  • Why should we talk about the history of ideas?
    ↪Srap Tasmaner
    Ten bonus unenlightenment points for mentioning Robert Graves.

    He is quick, thinking in clear images;
    I am slow, thinking in broken images.

    He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images;
    I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images.

    Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;
    Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

    Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact;
    Questioning their relevance, I question the fact.

    When the fact fails him, he questions his senses;
    When the fact fails me, I approve my senses.

    He continues quick and dull in his clear images;
    I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.

    He in a new confusion of his understanding;
    I in a new understanding of my confusion.     — Robert Graves, In broken Images.
  • Why should we talk about the history of ideas?
    Why should we talk about the history of this conversation? — Srap Tasmaner

    Because there is more to philosophy than argument, and conversations that are all argument are not generally worth going over, but even here, there is other stuff; rhetorical questions, genuine questions, opinions wise and foolish, misunderstandings and understandings, eyes glazing and rolling, and occasionally even some communication. This, for example, is an opinion not an argument, to be considered or not according to taste. I will make no attempt to prove it, and I recommend that no one bothers to try and disprove it. Sorry to clutter up your thread, but you asked, and i have an answer, and this is it.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    what I call the "reality warping" effect of Trump — GRWelsh

    I wonder if it is anything very different to what happens in science? There is a current theory that is accepted, and as anomalies start to appear, ad hoc additions are made to explain them - 'dark matter', 'dark energy' for examples, and it seems a bit uncomfortable to some but what can you do, until eventually someone will come up with a new theory that does not need these arbitrary additions to make it work, and then it is easier to change one's mind, but some are still reluctant..

    Conspiracy and deep state are like dark matter, and dark energy - ad hoc additions to save a theory in trouble. In this case the theory is that Trump is going to make America great again - just as soon as he's dealt with the pesky deep state, etc.

    I have a radical new theory that dispenses with the need for conspiracies — That America never was that great, at least in terms of giving opportunities to the poor, or freedom or democracy or morality; rather a few people made a lot of money from slavery and exploitation at the expense of a great many people's hardship and misery. And those days never ended, but continue unabated. I don't think it'll catch on though.
  • Climate change denial
    You all diligently buy nothing but certified organic or biodynamic food then I assume? — Isaac

    I don't care what you personally do (unless perhaps, you're wanting to make the argument that no-one is hypocritical in this respect?) — Isaac

    Respect dude.
  • Climate change denial
    ↪Benkei
    The hippies were right as usual. Local vegan organic whole foods are more healthy for man and environment.

    The soil is also an excellent carbon sink, and nature is the best therapist.

    But alas, the machines have already taken over and their servants are our politicians.
  • Climate change denial
    You aint seen nothing yet.

    https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn7950
  • Why should we talk about the history of ideas?
    ↪Isaac
    Respect, dude.
  • Why should we talk about the history of ideas?
    By all means disagree — Isaac

    Thank you.
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