In connection to words, I once heard that there was the idea that all words are rooted in the formation to references to the hand....I'm not sure about that; even chimps must have other things to think about other than what they do with their hands.

Language may even have coevolved with our species- in other words language became a ratcheting mechanism that increased other cognitive capacities, like forms of memory, problem-solving, planning, etc. which then magnified further with cultural learning that language provides the foundation for. I — schopenhauer1

I read that the development of hands, and the opposable thumb may have also acted in the same way, in that a person can have and idea, and then try to put it into practice, and that can lead to a feedback circle that leads/lead to the evolutionary development of the brain/mind.

This process may have gone on in other animals, like monkeys and chimps.

I think so, yes. Wouldn't the objective speed of the ball be the speed of the ball as it is, independent of observation? The moment we observe the ball we are doing so from a perspective. If the light rays travelling from the ball take longer/shorter to reach me than they do you, then we reach different perspectives regarding the motion of the ball. But why should we tie the motion of the ball to the distance that light rays travel? This seems arbitrary. There is an objective motion to the ball but it cannot itself be observed. — philosophy

I think part of the problem here is the idea that the ball is some kind of object that isn't affected by things like the speed of light....maybe I have put that badly, but if you think about what a ball actually is, it is bunch of atoms, made of fields, and these fields transmit the information and fields relevant to the ball at the speed of light....so I suppose you could say the ball itself doesn't exist in an objective way either.

Indeed in special relativity the ball would be seen by the outside observe as squashed in the direction of travel....which is called 'length contraction', in SR.

I get your point here. But what if we had a universe with no observers? If motion is relative to an observer, would it not follow that there would be no motion in said universe? — philosophy

Maybe one could argue that there would be no motion, on the other way of looking at it, everything could happen at once..!

This is interesting. So, if a person were locked in a room with nothing in that room, would that person still retain a sense of the passage of time? — philosophy

the person might still be able to see their own body as they move it...if they are blindfold, then all they may have is their own thought processes....but you might have experienced that time seems to pass very quickly sometimes, and very slowly sometimes...if say you are bored..

But isn't the key word in all this appearance? The ball appears to travel slowly for the observer on Earth, but it doesn't follow from this that the ball is really travelling slowly. — philosophy

but what do you mean when you talk about the 'real' speed of the ball?

Is there somehow an objective speed of the ball?

yes, I know what you mean; your own experience is a perception of your arms moving as an example....but for the outside observe, who is not travelling close to the speed of light, relative to the rocket, his experience of you moving your arms would be that you would be moving them slowly.

Say you are on the rocket and bouncing a ball off the wall....the outside observer will see you slowly throwing the ball, and then the ball moves slowly towards the wall, bounces off slowly, and returns to your hands, as you slowly reach out to catch the ball.....for you on the rocket, all seems as usual, and you are just bouncing the ball off a wall, like you might have done a thousand times before you got off the rocket.

The conclusion of relativity is that if you were in a room in a rocket, without a window, you wouldn't be able to tell if you were stationary to an outside observer, or travelling at close to the speed of light, relative to the observer.

Yes, well you can argue that time is some kind of objective thing, but it is clocks, and balls bouncing around etc that we actually experience and scientists can measure.

Scientists like Einstein set up thought experiments, like a scientist on a rocket, with a clock, and a scientist as an observer of the rocket with his own clock.

The observer see that the hands on the clock on the rocket moving more slowly, and the observer on the rocket sees the clock the observer has as moving more quickly....but both observers see their own clock as working as usual....according to the special relativity theory.
Which is one of the reason for the 'relativity' part in the name of the relativity theories.

The observer's experience depends upon his situation, and isn't necessarily the same to another observer's..

but how would you experience time, if it wasn't by measuring physical activity?

For a guy in a rocket getting faster and faster, the speed of a clocks hands and its ticking doesn't change, it only changes for an observer of the rocket looking though the window of the rocket....the observer will see eg it take a clock's second hand maybe 10minutes to make its click to the next second.

If he could observe the guy/s in the rocket, he would see them move in slow motion, but for the people in the rocket, nothing would have changed, and everything would appear as usual.

Janov used to go on and on about curing impotence or something related... :D

When I say shut down on cognitive ability regarding love, I don't mean all ability, but the cognitive ability is damaged...it's a bit like the ability a ship might have to propel itself; it might have 10 engines that power it, and one is taken off line..
Although with cognitive ability there are more 'engines', but bit by bit the might shut down if they don't get the love and engineering maintenance from the ship's engineer....

You might have read Janov's term for these shut-down events;; he called them 'primal events' I think, and the point about his therapy was to get back to these primal events and face what was unfaceable at the time.....it was unfaceable at the time, I guess, as the person was still in the situation at the time that was causing the pain...to face hopelessness in the situation that is causing it, I think he said, would be psychologically, and neurologically dangerous, and so the shut-down process is, or would be, a very important mechanism......kind of like in my ship analogy, if you couldn't disconnect an engine from the system, it might cause the whole thing to shut down....not that I know much about ships...maybe the whole thing does break down with real ships...

From what Janov said, it does seem to follow that some kinds of homosexually can be...'addressed', if the homosexuality is part of the 'acting out' process to fulfil subconscious needs. But I don't think all homosexuality is the same, some is just the result of eg neurological development in the presence of the relevant hormones...there might be other reasons like genetic differences, eg chromosome differences..etc...so it was a dangerous and stupid claim for Janov to make...and he later said, in a book I read, that in the even of it being an acting out, it gave the person 'hope', and he said that seeking hope is a healthy activity.

I've wondered and thought about memes for years.
i'm not sure what definitions of them there may be, or what research there may have been on the idea, but to me, a meme could be like a computer algorithm that can interact with other algorithms, and in the process copy itself into other systems....
I has been compared to a biological virus, that spreads and evolves.
It is a bit like an idea; if you accept that it is a good idea, you might tell other people the idea, and it might morph along the way, ie evolve, but it is my opinion that a meme is the thing that ideas are made of, ie an interconnection of other idea-type things/processes..and idea might be made of countless memes, and in the spreading of the idea, the memes are also spread, and develop and evolve..

It is an interesting idea....something that Richard Dawkins may be remembered for for a long time.

That kind of rebuttal doesn't phase the argument, and I usually cringe a little when someone uses it. — schopenhauer1

I only use it because I have some belief in the idea of life before conception.

Why are we anthropomorphosizing some creator/sustainer/destroyer god-entity anyways? Why is this entity even in the equation. But again, your idea there is very much Mainlander.. If that's what you think, then his conclusion is the best answer you got.. He is so bored, he is waiting or the universe to kill itself in a final heat death. — schopenhauer1

but the idea of death and suicide leading to peace is just a guess or hope in the people who see things that way. There isn't any guarantee that there will be peace, there isn't even, if you argue it, any guarantee of oblivion.

perhaps I could add 'fear' as to one of the things which lead to suffering.

Fear of the unknown, fear of what we might do in a state of boredom.

Perhaps God really is envious. — wax

I mean 'jealous'..that's what the bibles says, isn't it..?

That's one of the reasons I'm an antinatalist though. Why put someone through the struggle (even for some sort of enlightenment) if they didn't have to go through it in the first place. — schopenhauer1

but in that argument, is there a 'someone', before they appear to have come into this world?

I don't know the answer to that myself. I do think a person is a person at and after conception, but I do think there is the very real possibility that they exist in some sense before conception, and may have have had some form of eternal existence.

I'm not sure I personally would, or would have iiked to have brought someone into the world with the possibility of all sorts of suffering, and maybe at the end of that suffering they just didn't make it.
But people are brought into this world quite often with no sort of planning...ie unplanned pregnancy, so there seems like there will be struggle just as an outcome of the way people behave.

As for suicide, why do some people seem to think that it leads to peace?
It may for some, but I do think there is always the danger that they just end up taking their struggle and suffering into a post life situation.

As to God, I think that he is in a situation where there is no-one higher in terms of the reality of consciousness, and thinking, to refer to.
We can't really know what that is like, but maybe we could suggest the idea that his reality emerges from his own thinking and behaviour.....what he thinks then becomes part of his reality and his own reference frame of reality.

He can't for example think, 'what would it be like to think A,' without automatically thinking of A in some ways...and in this way his reality evolves....so I bring back my argument, that I made in another thread in an OP, that God has his own needs.

I would guess that one of those needs is to try an attain peace, and not having any problems to work on leads away from peace and into boredom....in a state of boredom he is still capable of thoughts and actions, but what is he going to think? So his desire for peace is not being met because he as nothing to think about...some of all that might be a bit circular, but I think most of us have experienced boredom.
One way that boredom can be alleviated might be to read a book, or listen to some music, watch TV, but this is God we are talking about; in a way, he has watched all the movies, read all the books, and is fed up with the same old music....and in that context, he still goes on thinking, and any thoughts he has form the framework of his future reality............

Perhaps God really is envious. He might be envious in that for people there is the possibility for an end of struggling, and to one day find peace. Whereas he is stuck in a state where he has to struggle to some extent, and also maybe have to take responsibility for any suffering that is inured by his actions......
In the idea of God having his own needs, he must live in hope that someday his struggle will end, and in that hope, that the struggle for every being he is responsible for can come to an end..

sorry, another point...

If on asks the question, 'is it ok to challenge a system A?,' and people's answer is 'no, it is not ok to challenge system A, because system A doesn't approve, or it violates system A's way of behaving, in some way'.

In this kind of argument, you can set A as anything you want....that to me seems pretty dangerous

Yes, I think some people forget the purpose of profession sport, and that is because a lot of people enjoy watching it.
Professional sport doesn't exist just for the benefit of the the players, its main reason, as far as I can see, is for the benefit of the audience.

There is nothing to stop anyone from playing sport in a non professional situation. A person can, if they can find other players, go to their local sports centre and play tennis, squash, football etc...any issues that prevent that, may have some validity, but I don't think that that should apply to professional sports.

one of the things about the dialectic process is that it might; it just might, make you look bad...it might lead to someone expressing all sorts of opinions that maybe they have tried to hide most of their lives.
This must be a real fear for some people.
They might have gone through life trying to create one impression of themselves or another, and the dialectic process might completely blow all that away.
I think this is partly what motivate some people to support and promote 'political correctness'...

I realise that there are other motivations eg that some ideas, if gone unchecked, could lead to a very bad outcome, but if I use my first argument about dialectics, this is exactly what happens when political correctness itself goes on unchecked.

yes I seem to agree with everything in both these posts.

Political correctness seems to disable the ability for real dialogue, for real dialects to take place, and I do believe that dialect processes are really the only way for society to mature.

I do think it is possible to attain peace; like an old soldier who has lived a varied life; he has fought in wars, and survived; got back and lived an ordinary life of work etc; he has grown and matured a philosophy of life...but, there has had to be struggle in order to grow as a person, and although he might have found peace, there will be more people who are born who if they are lucky, they can grow as well, which may also mean they have to spend years of struggle.

With this continual process, some people will 'make it' and some won't...and at the root of it, is boredom.

My underlying belief is that God, in all his mysterious eternal existence, always risks being bored himself....it is inescapable if he is an intelligent being.

I tend to think the source of suffering is boredom.
As a species that evolved to solve complex problems, living a life without problems leads to boredom. Having a life with no problems leads to the Hobson's choice of one activity that doesn't involve solving problems, or another activity that also doesn't involve solving problems....there is another choice, and that is to cause problems...and then there will be something to do that engages the minds we have ended up with.
things are only a problem if they have have some kind of negative effect in the world, and once the cat is out of the bag, some of those negative effects will lead to suffering.

We are all free to believe as we wish, both theist or atheist, about our view of such a thing as God, however it is important to note all such beliefs are outside reason and are based on faith. — Rank Amateur

why are such beliefs outside of reason?

If someone believes they have had personal experience of anything, then that is good grounds to form a belief.

Take an example if someone believes that they saw a flying saucer land and aliens get out...that is good reason to form the belief in the existence of aliens. Witnessing that event might not tell you much about the aliens, only that the witness then has personal evidence that they exist, and that example doesn't seem to be outside reason, to me.

not much of a god then in those models then. :)

no thoughts, no actions etc...more like a statue of a god.

Comfortable compassion may be billions of dollars for some. — tomdollar

I think for someone who bases their comfort/safety on large amounts of money, will never have enough to feel secure. You can have x amount of money one day, and you can lose x amount of money the next day, quite easily for a number of reasons. If society broke down x amount of money would be worthless..I think some rich people must worry about money all the time.

nothing you can sell, and no way to attain any way to pay?
Then I guess someone has to fall back on people's philosophy of charity..or something like that.

No a lack or loss isn't a void. It is like a car that has run out of fuel. There is no void, just the inability to function as a vehicle. Maybe a Buddhist would say then this is the time to get out and walk..and not be attached to the car.?

can one define 'void' without referencing it to things, things with definitions that aren't based upon any definition of a void?

Can you say for example what the void created by the absence of a football is without referring to the concept of a football?

I read in the Arthur Janov books that in children, if their need for love goes unfulfilled then that need actually does die, and with it the cognitive processes associated with that need...much about Janovs ideas and therapies is a puzzle to me, in that I'm fairly sure that the therapy doesn't actually work; not completely sure, but \that is the way I tend to look at it, these days, but some of his ideas make sense.

To have a need implies that there is something important that could be included in your life...and the lack of whatever it causes some level of pain to the person. Oh well Janov says that as children we just give up hope of that need being filled, and the mind shuts down on that need. The need is then no longer felt, and neither is the associated pain, lost as well is the cognitive processes that gave rise to this need, which is the ability to receive and give love.

If this happens it could be interpreted as 'acceptance' that there is this lack, but really it is just a kind of death.....ironically, in Janov's theory, this need is then buried in the subconscious, and has to be filled symbolically...eg the need for love gets turned into the need for chocolate..and can be temporarily met symbolically by eating chocolate...I say ironically as maybe Buddhists would say this need for chocolate was an attachment..?
Whereas Janov's therapy goes along similar lines in the idea of giving up this attachment, it is part of the therapeutic practice...so you give up chocolate for the therapy and the need for love that is buried in the subconscious is no longer met, and so the original need for love surfaces in the conscious as the feeling of pain. In his therapy the idea is to 'feel' this pain; make a real connection with it...I'm a little unclear after that...the old buried trauma is felt, and is then no longer buried...the connection is made that the love they needed at the time, they never got...they don't have to hide that from themselves any more, and the cognitive ability is not longer locked in the act of repression, and comes back to life.

I think Janov(he died a couple of years ago) might have said that accepting this loss without making a connection with the traumatic memories wouldn't be healthy....So the character on the desert island could no longer fulfil his buried needs symbolically with the example of chocolate, and would become increasingly in touch with is ancient pain...it was never an attachment to chocolate he had, but a need for love.....

Anyway, I still find value in what Janov wrote, that I read 30years ago...and it still makes sense, and the only reason I can see that the therapy might not work is that the mind just, in most cases, won't accept the feeling of that much pain; not without a bloody good reason, and he always said that drug addicts once they go without their drug, have much quicker access to their buried pain than most people, and go through the therapy much quicker.......but who knows...where is the revolution he promissed?

one thing that just struck me about 'agreements' is that, take the example of formal agreements between two countries. They are written up in some document, and people on both sides sign it.
But what do these agreements really mean?
They are codes of behaviour about how the two countries will interact, but these codes are written in words, and word and sentences are always open to interpretation, ie subjective. So there is plenty of room within formal agreements, and so informal ones too, as how two entities can act and still adhere to those agreements.
Then I suppose you bring in 'good faith' which would be about trying to stick to the agreements in spirit as well as letter...

maybe in Newtonian physics a planet can be modelled as orbiting in a circle if it is in a two body system.

My guess is that an equation that describes an ellipse would still be connected, or involve, pi though....so if a planet could could describe an ellipse in a mathematical way, you could derive pi from it....but that's all by the by...:)

yes, that was my point.
It might help some people understand a bit clearer why a pencil certainly can't either.

There is a profound difference between a physical drawing, and an abstract, idealized geometric shape. You can't draw a mathematical circle with a pencil and paper. Nor could you ever make a physical measurement of any irrational number. Do you understand that? I'm asking just to make sure we're not talking past each other on this essential poin — fishfry

you can't draw a mathematical circle with a pencil and paper, but do you think, if you use a compass, that the pencil end of the compass describes a mathematical circle in the process of drawing one..?
I guess maybe I would argue that there is no zero dimensional co-ordinate in the pencil end to describe the actual mathematical circle, so there is that limit, and if one argues that a planet might describe a circle like this, in its orbit, one would run up against the same problem....

Long hours of meditation, is that willpower? — Brett

if it is a choice, and not something someone wants to do, then yes.

If I wanted to eat a cake, it doesn't take will power to do it, apart from the will power to walk to the kitchen..if I had a cake, which I don't atm..

if we have the ability and choice to make changes, then we must have some kind of willpower.
This doesn't mean it is that powerful; a candle is using energy(it has power), as well as a Bowing jet.

Perhaps it is all we have in our interactions with the world, but it often seems to be used in a brute force way of looking at it. Like instead of using one's willpower to examine the root cause of a problem, we should throw ourself at the problem like a bull in a china shop...it's like the harder something is to achieve, the better we will feel about it if we do end up achieving it......it sort of is a madness.

Another interesting point of view. Where do you think this idea of willpower comes from? Where could we track its origins? — Brett

not that you asked me, but if you did, you might find an answer if you trained to do a half marathon, and then ran a half marathon.. :p

Unless you have and found it easy...

there is the saying
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"

I wouldn't say it was insane, but I would say there is a lot going on behind that behaviour.

experts who promote, or would promote the idea that dieting is of little or no use, wouldn't survive that long in positions that try to address obesity, or in the media playing this role, so we are left with the ones who do promote this way of thinking.

I mean, if an expert were asked onto a breakfast program and asked what diet people should opt for, and they said that all weight loss diets were pretty much useless but here are some other options, maybe they wouldn't be asked back.
What if they just said that people should accept that they are overweight, and just focus on small changes that might make their life a bit more healthy, like walking to places like the shop if it is not too far, instead of driving.
Maybe research information about food science, like what calories are, how many calories are in this or that. May be before they eat something, ask themselves if they are really hungry, and if not what is motivating them to consider eating something.

I think challenging the 'nuclear option' as the best way forward, ie some kind of overly strict diet regime, is also challenging a lot of things. Like the idea that weight loss diets don't actually work, that people have less will power than they thought they did; that will power might not be what they thought it was, not to mention the whole dieting industry.
It also challenges the idea that being fit and healthy is a virtue, rather than a luck of the draw.

Yes, I think it is often interesting to examine behaviours in society that don't seem to work, but yet are promoted, and that carry on decade after decade, regardless. There are many interesting reasons often why these things continue.

So if we reach the conclusion that reality had no beginning, it is kind of mind-blowing, but what really is the problem with this?

One way to see issues to do with will power and changing parts of one's life is to think of a river. The amount of water passing down a river is something that can't be changed at any point in the river, and if the amount of water flowing down represents symbolically a problem, addressing it at a location down river using 'will power' is like someone building a dam...yes they will stem the flow of water for a while, as the water collects behind the dam, but at some point the dam will become full, and the original level of water flow will resume.

This could be seen as a failure in the part of the dam builder and people will encourage them to build a better dam.. maybe higher walls or something people might suggest. :)

So the more the dam builder tries to build a better dam the more it looks to some people that this guy is just a rubbish dam builder.... :)

And the dam builder gives up in the end and goes away believing he is just a failure of a builder/designer etc.

I suppose part of the problem in that case is that for a while it really did look like the dam building stratagem was working, and so the strategy isn't cast into doubt, in fact it might have been re-enforced.

like you say with weight loss people think that laying on the guilt is the way to get people to lose weight, which is one reason some people try going on one diet after another, not because they necessarily think the diet will work, but partly so that they can say they are 'doing something' to lose weight, so that people will lay off the pressure.
I am pretty overweight, and if people ask if I am trying to lose weight, I get the sense that when I say no, they are a bit surprised.
I realise that dieting is usually prone to fail, and not only fail but result in putting on more weight.
A lot of diets will result on someone thinking about food a lot more, which is really not a good idea for someone who wants to lose weight.
So adopt the attitude that by not focusing on my weight, but just bearing it in mind, I might be more likely to lose weight, and I did lose quite a lot of weight over a few years, but in these years it was a change of diet unrelated to the desire to lose weight.
Most people do I agree, vastly overestimate their own will power, and therefore in the example of weight, maybe assume it's not a matter of not having will power it is due to them being some kind of hedonistic glutton, which is maybe how issues to do with changing something in one's life, and failing are thought of as some kind of 'sin', some kind of flaw in character.

The idea that being overwieight is an indicator of character flaw has its opposite in that being fit and healthy is some kind of virtue.

by true, it depends what you mean by 'true'.. :P

We are complex beings in a complex mysterious universe, the workings of which we only have a vague clue.
So we use these complex mysterious minds/brains to perceive and understand the question 'is 1+1=2 true'........people often try to prove it is true by showing a person gather a single apple and the place it next to another apple....and I think 'are you serious?'..have you any idea how complex an apple is?
What exactly is an apple? It is the perception by a complex mind, in a complex universe of various components...we really can't be sure of the 'truth' of what is going on..are we supposed to build a model of reality, actually inside that reality, and compare the concept of adding two apples together and then counting the result, and the consider we have proved that 1 apple placed next to 1 apple leads to the conclusion that this process proves that 1+1=2 is a statement of truth somehow.

And as Noah Te Stoete said, it is just a statement that doesn't mean anything outside of maths....it is no different than saying that 1=1...or 683=683.. :)

maybe Jesus should have said, or maybe he did say: 'He who can promise not to commit a sin in the future, cast the first stone'.....