It is pretty accurate - dramatized, but based on real characters. And what characters. I'm sure you'll really enjoy it. — Wayfarer

It was a good yet forgettable movie and whilst I am rather genteel and fluffy in nature, my mind is, well, lets just say I have an attraction to the powerful and persuasive. It is not often I walk out of a cinema feeling like how I felt after the first Matrix, or Unbreakable, or Ghost in a Shell (the original anime). Or even after Seven Samurai or To Kill a Mockingbird. But, for a Monday afternoon, it was unchallenging enough to be likeable. Nonetheless a great opportunity to expose a hidden aspect of US history.

Glaucon actually advocates a view which is similar but not identical to social contract, namely that people associate under law, and accept the law, because without being bounded by the law (what Hobbes would call the state of nature) is worse than accepting the limitations of the law (the Leviathan state in Hobbes's parlance). Now Plato argues decisively AGAINST this conception of justice. Justice is an end in itself, not chosen based on utilitarian consideration as in social contract theory. — Agustino

This makes no sense and you certainly need to clarify your position vis-a-vis Hobbes. Our state of nature - which according to Hobbes is famously solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short - is neither just nor unjust [13.13], which is why he believes that the passions should be channelled by the fear of an authority that would ultimate control them. If Plato argues decisively against 'this conception of justice' as you have put it, how exactly is that wrong? And why have you brought in the concept of utilitarianism?

I am not sure whether you are versed in political philosophy.

However what you're doing is much alike what some people would do when they hear me talk to a close friend and calling him, for example, "a retarded idiot" - he doesn't mind it, because he knows I don't mean it seriously. — Agustino

I choose to keep company with those fearless enough to genuinely admit to their errors, confident that I am rational enough to respect - and even admire - such an honourable gesture. We all make mistakes, but what makes a rational agent is one who works towards and adheres to the values he expects in others. I have encountered some pretty vicious men but never once have I said that 'all men are vicious' not even 'all the men I have met' because I am respectful enough to know the fallacy with such hasty generalisations; but to go as far as mocking their 'almond sized brains' and other clearly sexist remarks? Then, to add insult to injury you say:

I have to ask what exactly has caused you upset? — Agustino

Grow up.

Just brought tickets to watch this tomorrow after work. Perhaps the storyline itself is not historically accurate but it is true that there were three African-American women who worked at NASA and to do this during a period of great difficulty for both women and African-Americans is just... (Y)

Well, one of the methods of the academic liberals (AcLibs) is to exaggerate. — Bitter Crank

I think anarchists and marxist rioters are being labelled academic liberals. I assume the position is the assumption that the anti-fascist movement is ironically committing the same aggressive advances of the Italian fascists that engender a moral supremacy to their own ideals. But the real question here is whether freedom of association and speech of any group - call them fascists or white supremacists - that endorses hate against particular races or the like, should be permitted.

And perhaps - being Australian - I am unable to ascertain the historical and certainly deep rooted influences that would enable people to burn crosses in front of an African-American families' home (R.A.V., Petitioner v. City of St. Paul, Minnesota) which is a clear symbol of hate, while criminalising some peculiar offences such as topless sunbathing and yet seems downright passionate about justifying obscene political messages by hiding behind the first amendment; for instance, in Ohio v. Wyant that confirmed the unconstitutionality of bias-related crimes.

The is one of the reasons here in Australia that arguments relating to whether or not we should have a Bill of Rights often proceed with great caution because some ambiguous human rights positions require legal flexibility to avoid erroneous conclusions; we want to ensure freedom of speech and association whilst additionally protecting the citizens of any race, ethnicity, skin-colour and nationality from hate speech and/or incitement to hate.

So, do you think the protests are an outcome of your legislative failures?

Plato had absolutely no notion of social contracts. Furthermore, Greeks didn't have a developed notion of individuality to begin with... These are just being read back into Plato. — Agustino

The fact that you are asking this only proves that you know little of Plato and having me 'prove' this to you despite the adequacy of the link to enable your own effective investigation into the subject only proves that ignorance appears to be a choice since you clearly have the aptitude to look it up yourself. The social contract theory is a representation of the nature of justice and the obligations individuals agree too; the individual compliance to laws is exemplified in Crito and whether or not our modern understanding of freedom and individuality has been fed back into our interpretation of the dialogues, I hardly think that his individual choice to drink hemlock as part of his decision to comply with the jurisprudential expectations of his time is anything but. In addition to this are opposing views of freedom that nevertheless illustrates a key role in his thoughts on justice such as that of Glaucon and the Ring of Gyges in the Republic.

Maybe but it also demonstrates that you're not being intellectually honest with regards to what other philosophers have actually thought and will manipulate their thoughts to fit your own end — Agustino

It is not my fault that you know little of Plato and if you want to project your own inadequacies by purporting my intellectual dishonesty, so be it. It is no different at you screaming and defending tooth and nail that the sky is purple after I have said that it is blue. Good luck with that.

LOL!! You are free to take my jokey comment seriously if that's what you think is the right thing to do, however it would be somewhat silly to assume that the comments someone makes half-jokingly in a thread that had already been sliding off topic actually means anything with regards to how they are as people. That would be like assuming that I'm an idiot because I posted that Rakesh video to Heister LOL! Everyone has an outer and an inner personality, it's silly to judge someone by what they say when they're just joking or not talking seriously. — Agustino

I have no time for childish boys who are so afraid of facing their intellectual and emotional failures by pretending once exposed that 'they were just joking'. You can shove your LOL's where it hurts.

The key point of our disagreement is semantic: about what it means to be loyal to your country. I still prefer my own interpretation. And I don't think that that's through failing to understand your point, however many times, or however many different ways, you reiterate it. I think we just disagree. — Sapientia

I will concede to that mostly because you are right in that your interpretation is certainly more easily understood, and because I appreciate that you are one of very few who see the form of justice in a broader context and as it should be rather than from an egocentric benefitism.

For one thing, I think that my meaning is more easily understood, as demonstrated with my example of Nazi Germany. Whether you focus on government, people, or culture, all three of these key aspects which are taken to represent a country predominantly conformed with Nazism, which is not something worthy of loyalty. Hence, if asked the question of whether or not I am loyal to my country, in that context, it would make more sense in my mind to answer no. — Sapientia

When it comes to this conformism, however, as I expressed earlier is a failure to understand loyalty genuinely or authentically. So continuing the previous thought experiment, the man incorrectly applying loyalty gives it to a woman because she represents the perfect object for his image and social position, indifferent to the principles she upholds as long as she is attractive. He only loves this object if she complies to the image he requests for his social standing and after a length of time he forms a habitual cycle that he becomes dependent on the object and thus fixed in his ignorance that the idea of changing would mean to completely change his entire lifestyle and everyone in it, which is just too difficult. He is so afraid that the idea of awakening him to his delusions - that is separating himself from society toward individualism - would be viewed as an act of aggression from an enemy. A genuinely loyal man would give his love and loyalty to a woman herself and not to the object she represents, for who she is and the principles she upholds despite the effect it will have to his own image or social standing.

Erich Fromm wrote about this in the Fear of Freedom, what he distinguishes with freedom from' and 'freedom to' - unlike me who uses authentic/genuine with the unauthentic/false - whereby they sense a destructive moral isolation where the individual adheres to Nazism or escapes to authoritarianism to avoid their own individuation. As Nazism is both static but also dynamic in its adaptation of society, it provides a class structure that strengthens into a habit - or automaton conformity - where people retreat to a sado-masochistic dependence and the idea of anything different becomes so threatening that it is viewed fearfully as the 'enemy'. They are unable to separate concepts like justice because of this and so they are considered ignorant. Only a genuine individual can remove themselves or their ego from the concept and see Nazism vis-a-vis Justice with the former thus defying all that justice stands for.

This is nowhere specified in Plato, this is your own typically modern import. — Agustino

The social contract theory was suggested in the Republic.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4545279?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

And at least my modern "import" has a fixed sensibility that proves my dedication to virtue, unlike:

Pretty much THE common experience, considering the number of moronic women that exist out there... Smart women are a rare find bruv ... many women I can't tolerate for two seconds, much less for more >:O The brain the size of an almond ... :s But it's not just lack of intelligence... It's lack of intelligence combined with arrogance, pettiness, and pride that is the real problem. I've met some quite dumb women who were nevertheless enjoyable to be around simply because they were interesting people, who at least had some decency and humility. — Agustino

Do you want me to get started on the profound inanity, viciousness, and lack of humility in the abovementioned comments that expose your own gender-bias and subjective inadequacies? I hardly think you are in a position to remark about liberty and my use of it.

Okay, now you seem to be contradicting yourself. You said that the form of loyalty itself is what I adhere to and not the country. Am I loyal to my country or not? Make up your mind. In the mean time, I'll answer the question for you, again. I'm not loyal to my country. And I'm not loyal to my country because, in many respects, either I'm not committed in the first place, or I would abandon such a commitment under certain circumstances.

Contrary to what you suggest in the quote above, neither justice nor the people within my community nor their best interests are equivalent to my country, so loyalty to any of the aforementioned does not entail loyalty to my country.

You're free to construe it in that way, but I don't agree with that. — Sapientia

I can clearly see why you would think that and even whilst writing I knew that the above-mentioned response was likely even with simplistic thought experiments of a platonic nature that attempted to explain my point, so I guess I will use a slightly different method.

You have the Form of Justice, what is morally fair that equally distributes rights and duties proportional to its function and without affecting liberty and social well-being. For me, it is righteousness and I undertake a lifestyle personally that attempts to exemplify the application of this quality of virtue. I say this because like Plato I believe the individual represents the State, and my application of virtue via a moral consciousness ensures I live a good life, just like how justice via a social consciousness facilitates a good communal life.

For Plato, the Form is harmony or at least conducive to and is the remedy for the evils in society; it is clear in the Republic that the dialogues example the inadequacies of political systems, for instance Thrasymachus' dangerous view that leadership is [rather contemptibly] an object for the strong that serves self-interest over the weak, making it clear that power can be exploited. The Form of Justice is the ideal that transcends physical reality and is a model represented by objects or instruments that illustrate this ideal state. From an Aristotlean perspective, it is a distinguished principle that one actively attempts to administer in reality and so teleological that determines an essence to the material world. Loyalty is associative viz., your relationships with people and is paradigmatic to justice; if you are loyal to the Form of Justice, you are loyal to all the people and objects that justice is member to. So, like the Form itself, the essence or ideal, and the instruments or objects that are subject to it, your loyalty to Justice corresponds to your loyalty to people or the objects that are subject to justice.

Legally, you are a citizen of your country and subject to a government that is responsible to represent the ideal Form of Justice. The selection of these executive representatives is debatable (can fascist governments represent justice?) but a country is not just the government if you accept that the representatives are selected by the people and that it is the people - not the government - that determine a country. And since you are loyal to justice, by extension, you are loyal to people, you must therefore be loyal to your country. Those representatives who oppose justice, oppose your country and the people it is supposed to represent because of Thrasymachian ideals that have subjected justice as an apparatus to power.

If you say you are loyal to your country only up until you see an injustice at which point this loyalty is no longer applicable, for me, that makes no sense because justice is applied by people and governments or all objects and instruments of our social reality, including your country. If these instruments are subject to injustice, it is injustice that you are disloyal to and what you seek to modify is the balance or harmony as the Form of justice exemplifies. If you were no longer loyal to your country, you would no longer be loyal to justice and you would simply abandon. That is why I stated that though I may have enemies, I do not seek to eradicate or hurt them but punishment in anyway is wholly under the hope that somehow they may recognise their misdeeds and modify their behaviour, however small that hope may be. I am committed to justice, which is why I oppose injustice; justice cannot be divided.

You appear to be entering contradiction in an effort to support an untenable metaphysical position. Subconscious, by definition is not a form of consciousness. By claiming this you only contradict yourself. I believe that you are denying the distinction between these two, conscious and subconscious, which I have utilized, in order to assume that the two exist only as an undivided whole. But this is not the case, because we see from the evidence of evolution that consciousness evolved, and that there was a form of subconscious prior to there being consciousness. So the distinction between these two, is in principle validated, while your claim that one cannot exist separate from the other, should be rejected. — Metaphysician Undercover

:D

No, you are confusing the subconscious mind with the unconscious mind. Freud discusses three levels of the psyche; the Ego, the ID and the Superego. The Ego - consciousness - is reality as we experience it and in addition to its faculty to regulate cognitive and perceptual structures of the mind during contact with the external world, it also liaises with the Id. The Id - unconscious - contains the instinctual drives and impulses present since birth and as an developmental apparatus is inaccessible unlike the Superego - subconscious - the apparatus of cognition that internalises perceptual experiences and what we have been taught and becomes the reservoir of meaning and emotion. The proximity of the superego from the agents consciousness is strictly confined to limitations that often distort the content' meaning and requires the Ego to attempt to reconcile the instinctual drives of the id with the superego' feelings of guilt or fear etc.

The reality which you seem to be ignoring is the fact that the subconscious is necessary to support the conscious, but the conscious is not necessary to support the subconscious. So the subconscious can exist independently of the conscious, as we see in primitive animals and plants. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is not that I am ignoring and I am sorry that you feel that way, I am quite simply not sure where you obtained this idea from and though I am more than happy to discredit my own learning from the psychoanalytic and cognitive sciences - which is controversial in itself - just popping out with some random thoughts of your own vis-a-vis layers of psyche really does not suffice. Even Freud himself stated that Ego utilises programs such as defence mechanisms to regulate behaviour - that is, when our unknown experiences of emotions or tensions conflict with our experience in reality. So, you see someone you instinctually want to have sex with, for instance, or you have a sudden sensation of incredible anger over an experience you have but that you are unaware of why you feel so incredibly angry, the conscious mind attempts to regulate that experience, sometime even with delusional internalisations such as denial, fantasy, projection, disassociation etc. These expose the interconnectedness with the conscious and subconscious minds with the imagination that can be used both in positive and negative ways depending on the nature of the individual. I do agree that both the subconscious and the conscious faculties of the psyche can function distinctly but they are most certainly relational, one in the case of emotions and passions and the other commanding reality. Both are epistemological.

In my analysis, which I described in the last post, I have separated intention from conscious, so that the subconscious may still be directed by intention, but this is not a conscious intention. Consciousness is not necessary for intention, as we see that plants and primitive animals act with purpose, but not with consciousness. This allowed me to say that intention can direct the attention, at the subconscious level, without conscious interference. — Metaphysician Undercover

But, where does this intention come from? I think that it is clear here that you are referring to the Id - the unconscious instinctual drives - and not the superego - the subconscious - which is perhaps where our confusion lies.

But say the country I live in (without any realistic alternative) decides to go to war with another country, for a reason I find to be illegitimate. Do I have a responsibility to support my country and even fight and die for it? It doesn’t seem so. This is an instance of coercion - the ascription of special obligations without any prior consent.

Many consequentialists like to argue that we have some special responsibility to reduce suffering and promote happiness. I myself am a consequentialist of sorts (but actually more of an axiological welfarist), and I’ll agree that we have genuinely good reasons to consider the value of maximizing sentient welfare. What I will not concede is that we have a special deontic obligation to do so. — darthbarracuda

I have my concessions of axiological welfarism and though I appreciate that our happiness is exclusive, I fear it may contain characterisations of benefitism rather than considerations as to the greatest distribution of well-being; the latter, in addition, is just as convoluted and needs to descriptively capture how it represents and measures this; economically this is feasible, but philosophically it is rather loose.

If your country decides to go to war as a way to protect its internal state of affairs because of outside aggression, then you are in a position of responsibility despite the misery it may inflict on your own happiness since the risk or outcome of failing may render a permanency viz., domestic instability that would ultimately impact on your capacity to achieve happiness. Otherwise you would need to revoke your citizenship and go live on a mountain by yourself like Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, maybe grow carrots or poke sticks in your face. But if you've signed the social contract and it is an act of aggression on part of your country to another that would create the same risks and instability to this greater well-being, then you should not.

Ultimately, maximising sentient welfare may require what would appear a disadvantage to ones own welfare and happiness - as in the path towards reaching that may appear so - but the aim itself is still the same.

Right. I'm not loyal to my country, like I said. You seemed be contradicting what I said. — Sapientia

No, you are loyal to your country because you are loyal to justice and that would mean what is best for the people within your community who are citizens of the state. Patriotism is different to loyalty, the former is the ideological attachment the ignorant have as Schopenhauer states: “Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resort the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.”

I have seen this time and time again where men view women as objects that would benefit their image and only love the object if they comply to this image, trapped in an habitual cycle where they never progress and they are trapped because their lifestyles have made them dependent on this habit. Genuine love, however, transcends this objectification and a morally conscious man would fall in love with a woman because he admires her for the person that she is in principle and vice-versa, where together they support one another to better themselves. To get to this point would be to change everything about the former lifestyle and that is too difficult to change for many people, which is why it continues cyclically and why they remain in impoverished relationships.

Politically, it is the same where the ignorant are trapped in an habitual cycle that only repeats history and often at a disadvantage to others whereas those genuinely committed to justice love and admire what is just and good enough to consistently dedicate themselves toward progress. Because that habitual cycle is so rigid considering people have positioned their lifestyles that traps them in that cycle, diplomatically it is incredibly difficult trying to amount any change.

We don't actually disagree with one another but I think you misunderstand the primary component of my position, namely the division of loyalty. When you reach a level of moral sophistication, you transcend and adhere to the categorical imperative aside from your own or the benefits that this behaviour will have to you personally. Immature or ignorant people are loyal to specific objects only when it benefits them and disregard or abandon the object as though it were disposable - even other humans - when it no longer benefits them, because they see people as objects.

You are either loyal, or you are not. You are either morally conscious, or you are ignorant.

Epistemology is the study of knowledge, and knowledge is related to the conscious mind rather than the subconscious.

It's true though, that we do talk about innate knowledge, and we must have some innate capacities which make knowledge possible, but I'd prefer to call these innate capacities rather than knowledge. These innate capacities may be related to emotional feelings, but I wouldn't call them epistemological. Those feelings are purely subjective, (of the subject), and with conscious knowledge we try to bring objectivity to bear against these subjective emotions. So I would use "epistemological" to refer to this process of trying to objectify the subjective, not directly to purely subjective experiences. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is not that I have incorrectly applied the term epistemological but rather you yourself have failed to understand the subconscious mind and the structural layers of the psyche; I fear you think that somehow the subconscious is distinct from the conscious mind. It is not, and as I said earlier, the subconscious mind is still a form of consciousness. It is just as accessible and communicable only without the same coordinated semantic order of a conscious mind and though it may not have the same reality - or ego - as the conscious mind does, it consists of memories that trap the same sensations, emotions, habits, perceptions that influence your behaviour. The problem is that you are unable to articulate why, exhibiting reactions such as intense feelings of fear or guilt or anger by experiences that you do not understand. It is why when you do understand, those feelings dissipate. Thus trying to objectify the subjective is trying to objectify memories and experiences that you do not understand. Thus it is already epistemological. What we know we know only of experience.

I really don't know what you would mean by "independently innate". Innate things are inherently within the subject, they are subjective, so what would you be referring to with "independent" here? I figure that everything which is present to the conscious mind during sensual experience, has been produced by the subconscious. — Metaphysician Undercover

I apologise, I could have perhaps elucidated my point better with the use of the word 'distinct' rather than 'independent' and I do not believe that the psyche is divided into two independent or distinct constituents but that both are layers of consciousness. Think of it like this; as we increase our language through knowledge and experience, we are capable of surfacing - piece by piece - memories of experiences that we at the time did not have sufficient capacity to articulate. So the subconscious mind stores those experience until we increase in awareness to eventually understand it; perhaps if we did not have the facility to do this, we would quite simply go mad.

I believe that our imagination is innate, which has caused me quite a lot of grief since empiricism makes a great deal of sense to me.

You can experience this in a practise such as meditation. Through conscious intention you attempt to free yourself from the subconscious influence of sensation. This requires conscious effort, to completely ignore your surroundings. But if you achieve this meditative state, where sensations no longer attract your attention, then you realize that intention is required to focus on any particular sensible activity. This indicates that there must be some form of intention which is active at the subconscious level, directing the attention of the senses. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have found the experience of rationally dissecting emotions after experiencing them to be of greater value. Meditation, whilst valuable in that it provides a calmness necessary to enable rational thinking, essentially does not get to the root causes of the emotions but rather becomes a way of managing the intensity. The activity of releasing rather than managing emotional experience through various forms of communication is quite effective in taking those steps toward retrieving memories from the subconscious and being able to understand it. This is why art therapy is quite powerful, as well as writing. And... music. :P

I was talking about being disloyal to my country to serve justice, not to serve justice for my country. — Sapientia

That is exactly right, because you are loyal. You are intelligent. You are not inauthentic because the principle, the form of loyalty itself is what you adhere to and not the object, the person, the country etc. I am trying to tell you that you cannot divide that into parts, the objects are themselves divided but not loyalty. You serve objects for justice because of your loyalty to justice. Get it? :-#

What I am trying to tell you is that selectivity on part of loyalty is ignorant, which is why false people' so-called loyalty is interchangeable only when it benefits them. Being morally conscious, you do not view the world subject to this ignorance but rather model your ethical outlook by identifying injustice and positing solutions careless of whether or not it benefits you, examining the causal reasons on part of criminals, agents, institutions, governments etc. Wherever justice is required, you are loyal, so that would mean loyal to your country, to my country, to the world, wherever there are people.

To gain that level of moral consciousness would imply that those who serve justice - as I do - would never allow 'bad' people in my personal space and I was once guilty of that ignorance and paid the price for it. In the end, your examples are merely exposing the very issue I have with the 'parting' aspect of your argument - you are either loyal or you are not - and a dedication to just one object [i.e. a person] is the very same ignorance I am attempting to direpute.

When I seek to punish bad, I seek it only because of a very small hope that they may recognise their own bad actions and become aware or morally conscious since I do not believe that humans are innately evil. Just ignorant. When one is loyal to righteousness or justice, they are inevitably loyal to people, that is, the well-being of all people.

Being disloyal to your country would best serve justice when the situation warrants it. You seem to think that you can somehow do this whilst maintaining said-loyalty - which is absurd. — Sapientia

Well, this is just faulty logic; you are being disloyal to serve justice for your country when the situation warrants it, but serving justice for your country implies loyalty to your country. You are disloyal to injustice because you are loyal to justice and you do not want injustice in a country you care about.

A 'friend' could pretend to be loyal to me, for instance, but authentically they may only be friends with me because of my social position, what I offer them and how it helps them and their image. But if shit hits the fan and I get sick or fall from all the social graces, do you think that such a 'friend' would remain and support me through it? Nope, I am just a disposable object. A friend would care about my well-being, would criticise when I do something stupid, would protect as much as they would admire. This is loyalty. Those absolute loyal 'artists' do not actually give a shit about their country; they thirst after ideology or power, which is why we encounter holocaust deniers, for instance. They haven't a sense of justice in them. To you, it may confirm the failure of loyalty and this is to a degree true but like pride, which can compel a man to stubborn disregard of facts just as much as it can strengthen a sense of self-worth, it is relative to the intelligence of the individual. So, in the end it is not about dividing loyalty into parts but rather the level of individual ignorance.

I tend to disagree with this. I believe the ability to experience music is innate, coming from deep within. Birds sing to each other. Animals in a barn are receptive to music playing. And I think that this is why a mother singing to a baby can produce such a powerful experience. There is a language here which goes much deeper than any socially acquired language. — Metaphysician Undercover

Which is perhaps the reason why music itself can arouse this 'movement' as Hegel calls it to enable us passage into our innate or subjective self; one cannot articulate this experience because the response is emotional and the stored memory being elusive becomes all the more intense. It is only when subconscious experiences surface to conscious level that our responses are no longer emotional, or I should say as intense because the memory is understood and the genuine emotions are experienced; so with your mother it would be feelings of nostalgia perhaps, of comfort and happiness.

Conversely, when we experience something bad that remains fixed at subconscious level, we feel intense emotions and confusion that could be quite dangerous to us. So, say your mother passed away and your rather peaceful and comfortable understanding of the world was suddenly shaken, you fall into a position of having to grow up and become a man. To see reality at conscious level as it is, but you subjectively refuse to because if you do then it would be the same as accepting that your mother has died, something you subconsciously fear. So, you get stuck at the same age you were when your mother passed away, perhaps taking drugs to inhibit emotional responses that would otherwise enable you to face your intense fear and accept the fact that she is gone, following others and allowing them to think on your behalf, anything to save you from facing this fear. If you were to hear someone playing a song that reminds you of her, you could potentially hate her, harm her even, think it noise or agitating and yet at the same time you would be compelled, obsessed because you cannot express why you are having these emotional responses.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that what is innate is relative to our experiences and that is why it is epistemological and not independently innate. It triggers emotional responses through memory and imagination, only sometimes we are just not aware at conscious level as to why.

But what is that window, other than an innate, and authentic capacity to experience music? — Metaphysician Undercover

The window to surfacing our memories caught in the subconscious realm is our imagination; that is innate, a universal translator of sorts to our emotional responses that are triggered by musical experiences. It is not the same as language acquisition, but I do wander whether it may be a product corresponding to semantic mechanisms, but even then meaning and development is wholly social.

So temporal order is essential to intelligibility. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not necessarily. Ever had an extremely strange dream, cut up into multiple, unintelligible parts as you say that when you wake up think, 'what the heck?' and have a rather intense emotional response to it; but when you think about the dream, are able to piece the puzzle as to why some images were perhaps representations of certain fears or desires, it begins to make sense and the anxiety subsides. It is an intellectual sophistication that would enable one to decipher and relate, just the same as one would when listening to music. Indeed, for the most part a temporal arrow enables us to surface our emotions, but it is not essential. The sophistication itself being as you say:

I believe we need to consider multiple levels of interpretation then, at the subconscious, and at the conscious level. — Metaphysician Undercover

Also an honesty, only possible when we overcome the angst caused by our fears.

So when the feeling is reproduced, an indication is made to the conscious mind that the same sound has been heard, but this is not really the same sound. — Metaphysician Undercover

(Y)

Progressives hardly need resist the Trump clown show. It's doing a better job of destroying itself than any of its opponents could. Sometimes the only way to teach a baby not to eat its own shit is to let it try some and see what it tastes like. — Baden

Only its not shit, but plutonium. The problem with this type of thinking is that while we dribble about the political show taking place, we fail to take into account the policies implemented by the real powers of the conservative party. George Bush Jr. was a colossal moron, but his foreign policies, military engagements and other major failures during his presidency had and continue to have catastrophic consequences at global level. Trump is another conservative puppet but the fact remains that in the space of four years a lot can happen. The situation in the Middle East is no joke the clown can make.

As Blackadder would say, twenty-four hours is a long time in politics.

but how can I achieve this mindstate? I want to believe this. What I really want is to be able to accept that I am here and just live life. Deep inside I don't want to hurt myself, my family and friends, but also I am extremely suicidal and don't know what to do. — rossii

Taking care of yourself is not an easy endeavour and some people are caught in a continuous loop like a scratched record because they refuse to take that step of separating themselves from the world around them. Some even thirst for drama as though their identity is based this heavy burden, as though they refuse happiness.

I admittingly do not understanding suicidal thoughts but I was in danger of death once because I was sad from multiple and rather negative experiences that I stopped eating properly. That is because I put others before me. To achieve the 'mind-state' as you call it is to first and foremost start taking care of yourself. See it as a strategy, a first of many steps, but setting a health goal and working toward achieving that is essential. It could be to eat less fatty foods and more protein or to quit smoking or to get to a healthy weight range, what you eat and exercise is fundamental to a healthy mind. The second is to express yourself, release these feelings even if they make no sense and this can be done through writing, through art, and through verbal communication including talking to a counsellor or a good friend, or some random dude you are sitting next to on a train and freak them out a bit, haha. See each moment as a puzzle piece that you will over time be able to connect to one another. So, the strategy is, each time you feel a way that is effecting you, try to write about it or draw the images going on in your mind at the time; build on your subjective language. But you need to release. Finally, you need a strategy or a life-long goal to work on; this could be study or employment but you need to follow your heart and find yourself something that you can do actively. Set a temporal goal, or what is known as a 'five-year plan' and try working toward it. I set myself a goal that I will be working internationally in five years in the field that I want to be in and as each month passes, I feel that goal getting closer and closer. But this goal needs to be something that you LOVE. I am not there yet, as in have not reached the goal that I love, but I am strategically working towards it. Try to find out what you love and if you don't know, study. Study, read, study and learn and something will pique your interest and that will open the doors for you.

Life is a responsibility that you must accept is yours and taking care of yourself is a sign of independence. No one should make you feel crappy and if they do, you need to re-arrange your life to eliminate them from it, even if that means your family and friends. You are paramount. And only when you are healed and in control can you invite others to participate in sharing your life with you.

The artist will approach composition with intent, and the goal might be to please oneself, or to please others. If it is to please others, the composer will look toward cold hard epistemological principles, grounded in objectivity and ontology. If the goal of the composer is to please oneself, then the artist is freed from such constraints to wander down various creative avenues, perhaps even discovering new objective principles, which may be accepted as epistemological principles in the future. In any case, the artist in today's environment must find an intricate balance between epistemology (what has been proven to work), and subjectivity (what pleases oneself). — Metaphysician Undercover

I am still not confident about such authenticity even when the composer attempts to please oneself as I find that we ultimately possess a social language that influences our aesthetic values. If we never had contact with any other human being since birth, would we still experience music? I don't think so; it will always be epistemological.

With respect to the audience, the audience needs that recognition factor, and for the individual it is a subjective experience. But inter-subjectivity makes this subjective aspect the essence of the epistemological principles which the artist must respect. So as much as you and I have had different subjective experiences with respect to listening to music, the music which we have been exposed to, and conditioned by, is similar, and this grounds the epistemological principles. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is why I feel musical experience can never be authentic but rather the emotional sensations music has merely ignite our imagination and enables us access to our own subjectivity; that window or access itself is authentic and not the music.

The question would be, does this subconscious process proceed by "recognizing" something as the same, or does it proceed by association, in which case one thing is associated with another thing. These are distinct, and perhaps we need to respect them both. — Metaphysician Undercover

The subconscious processes perceptual experiences that filters what our conscious minds are able to articulate, so indeed consciousness is experience made intelligible. To me, philosophy is a language as is all learning with the aid of tools such as memory and imagination that enables us to surface our awareness of ourselves or 'recognition' as something distinct; a being. As we continue through this maze of self-identity, consciousness gradually raises pleasant or unpleasant experiences, values and even formerly strongly held beliefs to the fore - via memory and imagination - enabling us to re-present ourselves authentically however under the constraint of semantic rules. It is cognition as a naturally evolving state.

However, and this I assume is where we disagree, I am of the opinion that our subconscious mind also attempts to communicate but not with language, but rather with emotion - what we call intuition - as the subconscious mind is still a form of consciousness. It is the non-linear processes [hence outside of space and time] embedded into a stable network, such as the architecture of a dream explaining experiences in an unintelligible story that paradoxically makes sense. We just cannot explain it since it is unintelligible, only, we can at conscious level appreciate the emotions that we 'sense'. It is representational. Semiotics is a way of explaining such symbolic inferential relations and that our 'quasi-mind' as Pierce denotes has levels or processes that ultimately reach reality [consciousness].

I believe that the essence of this association is to be found in the recognition of something as the same. I think that when something is sensed, it produces a feeling in the subconscious. When the same feeling occurs again, we recognize the cause of that feeling, the thing being sensed, as the same. — Metaphysician Undercover

A tryptych of recognition is explained in Pierce' process of semiosis [representation, object, interpretation] and though inter-related is nevertheless modelled under the general assumption that they are distinct from one another. Working in parallel to accommodate the distinctions, once an interpretation has been reached it is enabled to interpret other objects and representations that continues to define and trigger other definitions and so on. We falter in this process only when we attribute incorrectly through habitus. This is why you would supress your feelings when you mistakenly think it is your mother's guitar.

Perhaps it's never quite over till it's over: You can apply the insight you've gained through your past experience as a dancer to your present experience playing and composing music. — Cabbage Farmer

That's a great point but not just yet; I feel that only once the water is rested I will be able to articulate that experience more creatively, as in, in a harmonious manner as I find the harmony within. My songs slowly start to make sense as I make sense of the world.

You get it. (Y) You must be a real musician.

Oh dear... :-O Im not sure I ever want to woo this real woman with a mojo ... Im not quite sure what that is supposed to mean to be quite honest >:O — Agustino

Haha! >:O

Going out of your way to not experience sadness or pain will only make sadness and pain that much worse. You should openly and freely accept all emotions that come your way. Depression can affect us on a physical level and it's important to know why you feel the way you do. Take time to relax and learn to think deeply about yourself and your feelings. It may not "cure" you but it will help you immensely. Depression isn't the enemy, fighting it is. — Grey

Depression and sadness are two very different situations; I have never had depression, but I have been incredibly sad to a very dangerous point because the latter is based on objective or lived experiences, such as a broken heart when someone deceives you. Depression, on the other hand, is elusive and contains negative sensations that you are unaware of. As it is subconscious, it makes it all the more difficult to overcome because you are unable to reason or articulate it; this is the same with anxiety, only the latter conversely involves frustrated sensations. The only way to overcome either is to decipher the language either through writing or art. When you sense something, express the feelings, draw the images that may be in your mind; communicating emotions is difficult but it needs to be done and sometimes just having someone listen to you without judging you is enough; no one can help you, you just need to release, that is, release it from subjectivity and raise it up to consciousness, to the objective realm so that you are able to articulate it and understand it. Only through understanding can the heavy emotions dissipate.

It is also important to recognise that sometimes these feelings are intuitive and it is really you trying to talk to you, signalling that something is wrong. It could mean a situation that you are in, say for instance you are in an unhappy relationship, or that you there is something that occurred in your past that you have yet to confront, that you are in an existential angst because you are unsuccessful etc. Sometimes, it is also because you are unable to make decisions for yourself and because it is in our nature to eventually transcend and become of independent mind, our failure to do this divides us between being like everyone else and being ourselves that we get confused or caught in an existential limbo. There may be a lot to filter through, but take it one step at a time; as I always say, be concerned about how to cross the bridge only when you get to it. Focus on a plan, set goals, and read or write or draw as much as you are able. The emptiness will slowly start to heal as you start taking better care of yourself.

People who smoke or take drugs or even conversely those who slice and dice their bodies toward a supposed perfection essentially have mental health issues, even if they present themselves as happy people because our society has enabled these types to appear normal. I overcame much of my past lived experiences and there was a lot to go through by taking care of myself, by learning and reading, eating right and exercising, enjoying my own company and taking care of others in need, which are all signals of someone who is of right mind. But it took a lot of work, courage, patience and tears and no doubt there are still some obstacles I will need to face.

It is not easy but I am taking my sweet time knowing that this healing is permanent and I have strengthened to a point that I know will mean that I will no longer be affected by either my past or indeed my present because I care about me. I recommend that you never give a fuck what anyone thinks because your health and life is paramount and by being able to articulate the reasons for those feelings, you will take control of your life permanently and not simply wash it down with a couple of pills.

Haha that's a good romantic song, but not my favorite. This is my favorite...
Followed quickly by a few italian ones from Umberto Tozzi, Celentano, etc. — Agustino

Haha, so Eurovision :P But listen, if you want to woo a girl then perhaps that song might just do the trick. But, if you want to woo a real woman with a mojo, then I would suggest never, I mean never ever ever ever, dedicate that song to her, mkay. Though not necessarily my taste, if you need a pop-like song with a bit more sexual sophistication, then perhaps try:

I would think so, don't you? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, but I didn't realise you did. I'm feeling a tad bit like a crusty dragon right now. :s

If listening to music were like this, "a network of perceptual experiences which we are unable to identify and make sense of", would it be possible to enjoy music? Imagine if music appeared to you like random unidentifiable noises. Wouldn't this make you very confused, maybe even scared, how could this be enjoyable? Even if you listen to music when extremely wired on acid or some other hallucinogen, you recognize it as music, and make associations. If there were some kind of background music, which you didn't recognize as music, it could really freak you out. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am slightly confused as to your position here. I never said that perceptual experiences were the same as listening to music but rather to the architecture of our subjectivity that amalgams memory, intuition and emotion. Our subconscious is filled with a network of experiences that our conscious mind has yet the tools to comprehend adequately with and becomes the reasoning behind why we are unable to articulate the 'movement' or emotional sensations we feel. It is perhaps the reason that makes it possible to enjoy music, since the subconscious mind it still conscious in that it is accessible but lacks a control since you are unaware of why, perhaps intuitively, you feel something is wrong or right. So, we may not be aware of why we associate certain feelings to particular musical experiences, but the logic is that we explore this subjectivity through sense rather than reason. As you say below, music brings up these emotions.

I'm not sure about hallucinogens as I have never taken any form of drugs neither do I drink but I guess Huxley may appreciate the quality of induced transcendent experience.

Music helps you to bring up these emotions, understand them, and ultimately assist in knowing yourself. My mother had a guitar, which she would pick up, to play and sing a few songs, from time to time, when I was very young. These may be the earliest memories which I have. A mother's voice, singing, can be very pleasant for a child. When you're a baby, and you know that your mother is relaxed and happy, then so are you. — Metaphysician Undercover

Have you ever experienced an association with that through songs, such as a singer whose voice may induce the same feeling of being relaxed and happy as you were when you were a child? I take it that associations such as this must therefore be linked to particular memories, but I recently had a conversation with a friend about this who like death metal and what I gathered was that the music he liked provided him with a sensory experience that explained his subjective frustrations, agitation and anger that he felt that listening to the music almost provided him with relief. Though it may not provide him with the tools that would enable him to understand the causal roots for these rather negative feelings he had subjectively, there was nonetheless a connection and this raises the question itself to the fore. It helps articulate the feelings that would otherwise remain dormant, bringing it up to consciousness. Conversely, though, when I think of popular music and the simplicity it affords, I really wonder about the minds of the masses.

This guy knows how to woo a woman (Y)

It is this recognition which makes us feel good — Metaphysician Undercover

So it is epistemological?

Surely perceptual experience is very much part of what we might call "subjective experience", or experience considered in its subjective aspect; though in the course of ordinary affairs we may tend to focus on the objective aspect of perceptual experience. — Cabbage Farmer

Subjective experience can quite easily be flawed considering it is subconscious and therefore wrought with little conscious awareness, but it is nevertheless 'alive' and I tend to believe that the subconscious realm - or intuition - is a network of perceptual experiences that we are unable to identify and make sense of. So, pretend that when you were a child you were walking in the park where there were pigeons and your older brother jumped off a tree he had climbed and frightened you along with the birds that flew up and made loud noises. You grow up fearing or disliking pigeons because the experience with your brother and your limited cognitive and linguistic capabilities have transferred that 'feeling' and you grow up not really knowing why (I read of a similar situation in Helene Deutsch' Character Types). When I think of how my feelings could be flawed in some way, I begin to doubt my intention for liking the experience of music.

A combination of factors can enable us to like a song; the lyrics, the music, even the video (I once watched a video that had a Tekken montage with the song 'Bring me to Life' by Evanescence and loved the combination because of memories playing Tekken with friends, the lyrics, the music, her voice), and what compels us to a song could be psychological. Where I found the latter questionable was why I liked the opera of Puccini when I had no social or environmental connection to opera at all and how I could possibly be moved when I do not even understand the lyrics. As mentioned previously, some cultures are known to not even know why they are mutually emotional about a particular form of music but the outcome rests in its symbolism. Perhaps - from a semiotic perspective - I loved Turandot because of a combination of factors that enabled me to imagine tragedy without having to directly understand what Puccini was attempting to convey. So, I was moved with emotion because I am emotional about tragedy.

Accordingly, I'm inclined to think of perceptual experience, and thus subjective experience, as closely coordinated with what seems to be a ceaseless play of things outside, upon, and within my body, including the lights, sounds, and odors that appear to me; as well as the things in the world that seem, for instance, to produce, reflect, transmit, or absorb lights, sounds, and odors.

The soundcloud appears as a body in the world, a physical phenomenon. This is the body the musician moves and shapes and responds to and is moved by, the thing the musician plays and plays with and plays to, the thing we hear. — Cabbage Farmer

Hence my previous remarks and this includes everything that we experience but that we cannot completely maintain at conscious or objective level, filtering out what is necessary. It does not mean that everything else disappears, it is still there, we just cannot articulate it and it is expressed through emotions rather than language.

It's hard for me to fathom: In what sense do you "love Bob Dylan as a musician", and why do you "not enjoy listening to him", and how do these two attitudes fit together in the same person? — Cabbage Farmer

It is hard for me to fathom too, just as much as why I like opera though I do not understand the lyrics and why I feel intense passion when I listen to Vivaldi' Summer Presto and Mozart' Requiem, which was used perfectly in Amadeus. Its the feeling; that is, I respect and admire Bob Dylan when I read his lyrics and him as a person as he epitomises the type of man I respect for his dedication to justice and principles, but I do not feel anything when I listen to him, it simply does not work. I feel more when I read his songs than when I listen.

Thus we have two distinct forms of "objectivity" here. We have the objective fact of harmony, and we also have objectivity by convention. Objectivity by convention is created through inter-subjectivity, and since it is based in subjectivity it is not a true or real objectivity, like the objectivity found in harmony. Inter-subjective convention is produced by a number of factors likely starting with the goal of maximizing the potential for harmony. But the purity of this goal is mitigated by many factors such as the basic objective difficulty of the Pythagorean comma, and many other practical concerns such as the nature of the various instruments. — Metaphysician Undercover

I understand but your argument seems to rest on the assumption of one playing an instrument or creating music; what of the movement music can inspire in people? With regards to the abovementioned, this is where my superficiality was concerned, that my replication of other’ music appeared inauthentic. From an anthropological perspective viz., ethnomusicology, some cultures experience profound mutual emotions without any cognitive awareness as to why because of the symbolic meaning and so this subjective experience is really a study for semiotics and psychology. As you say, the purity of creating inter-subjectively is thus called into question, namely whether the eternal properties that exist outside of space and time merely denote memory or intuition?

The point to remember is that we are trained, or we train ourselves, to ear the different tonal aspects of music. So we do not automatically hear even the pure objective harmony of the two tonics of the octave. And even if a tone is played, and a second later the same tone is played, we must train ourselves to recognize this as the same tone. Musical theory seeks to determine objective facts concerning wavelengths, but then we must practise in order to be able to recognize the principles put forward by the theory. Subjectivity enters into the theory itself, because of the pragmatics of practise. The theorists may attempt to hide their subjectivity behind conventions of inter-subjectivity, to the point where the average musician cannot draw the line between objective principles of harmony and inter-subjective conventions. The creativity of the artist may inspire one to disrespect all conventions and experiment with new forms, but nevertheless, we all recognize that there are some basic objective facts, such as the octave. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think what sparked my initial enthusiasm was the relationship between wavelengths and frequencies when we objectively ascertain what is considered tonal, particularly where making an instrument is concerned. I found myself thinking about Georgia Brown whose vocal range is 8 octaves but her highest pitch at G10 is considered a frequency rather than a note; is it all just noise? I think of my placid, lazy dog that never barks and how he went mental when fireworks started exploding; what we judge as music could merely be ordered frequencies as part of our hearing range and neurological processing.

our first reply, which was the very first reply to the opening post, and the first reply that I read. It wasn't as harsh or strongly worded as Hanover's, and you clearly had good intent, but I still found it objectionable for similar reasons to Question.

Looking down on people who spend time with their mother and eat KFC. What's wrong with that? And if his now ex-wife left him for those sorts of reasons, or because he didn't succumb to the social pressure of other people trying to push him up the 'career ladder', and instead chose a career that he thinks is right for him, then frankly she sounds like a shallow bitch who he'd be better off without. — Sapientia

One thing I would like you to think about is why it is that you found my remarks against Question objectionable and not my remarks against Hanover? I was rude to him, but that seemed to escape your notice, perhaps you laughed and even approved of it. The reason why you found my remarks against Question objectionable was because you identify with the situation and so felt the need to defend the argument - rather prejudicially - rather than seeing the rationale behind it.

The point of that reference - albeit rather jokingly rude, yes - was that you will end up doing the same thing over and over again that you will never really live, remaining dependent, safe, comfortable but having no real taste of freedom. Freedom is where our genuine humanity exists and we need to exercise it in order to live, using instruments both subjectively and objectively including taking risks, challenging yourself, overcoming fears to reach or transcend toward having that capacity to understand - authentically - how to be autonomous. If you meet a girl, for instance, you merely swap that dependence over to her and follow her as long as you are comfortable [the only time this is an exception is when the girl is exceptional enough to help elevate you toward this freedom... good luck finding such a woman]. For many, comfort equates to happiness; you may have it 'all' but really it is nihilistic because you hate life enough to sacrifice it for this comfort, relieving yourself with questionable excuses such as pretending to be defiant to societal pressure when - just like much of society pretending to be individuals when they blindly follow in masses - you are blindly following your fears.

Masculinity itself is a social construct and anyone who idolises muscular, male forms, concepts like a powerful career and other perceptions that somehow epitomise a 'man' is, well, a dipshit. I can only love someone for the principles that they follow because they show me who they are as a person subjectively, not their appearances, because the former is what makes a 'real man'. But someone who is dependent and cowardly enough to not follow his heart, has no passion for life that he cannot make decisions without approval or never challenges himself by taking risks is truly non-existent. He is a slave to fear and comfort eases the tension of this fear; so your shallow bitch leaving him is just another excuse you are making to justify this really terrible attitude to life.

The principles within us - principles like virtue, courage, honour - are real, they are necessary when we seek to become autonomous in character and cognition. You cannot run away from civilisation and expect that somehow that is 'ethical' and will effect change only because you don't hurt anyone. The Ring of Gyges is enough to prove that it is what goes on within a person that is relevant. A truly ethical person would be disgusted with the crimes of humanity and would want to effect change somehow, even locally in their community, and you can't effect change if you are too afraid to get off the couch and take responsibility for your own life.

It is mathematics which expresses eternal properties, and to the extent that music partakes in mathematics, it has eternal properties. Do you understand the physics of consonance and harmony? This is when the wavelengths produce synchronized crests and troughs. Here, the subjective becomes objective, because what I like may be the same as what you like, due to something describable by mathematical principles. — Metaphysician Undercover

I find the pythagorean angle tempting but paradoxical and somehow I appreciate Hegel' view that the more we attempt to theoretically formalise music through harmonic perfection, the likelihood of losing a connection to this subjective movement; thus, we never reach the subjective for it to become objective. It is as though each time we attempt to reach into eternity, we form opposing dipoles rather than coherent magnetic field interactions just as we are never able to grasp the relationship between space and time. The numerical or relational properties between the ratio of consonance and harmony can explain qua music in its formal and theoretical as a thing in itself and can explain the diffraction of sound waves, but any objective answers as to why we experience music is no where near as clear.

So, you may need to further explain how you concluded wavelengths can reach into the subjective and objectify rather than it being relative to the individual aesthetic and experience. Are we really experiencing something subjective or have we formed constructs where we attempt to form meaning through tonal patterns where our subjective inspiration is psychological? Is mathematics real? The former, I much prefer but would still be keen to know your thoughts.

What this indicates is the fundamental difference between doubling a number and halving a number. From our mathematical training, we tend to see halving as a simple inversion of doubling. But what music demonstrates to us is that when we are dealing with frequencies there is a fundamental difference between doubling and halving. This problem manifests in the Fourier transform, and is well known as the uncertainty principle. — Metaphysician Undercover

Look, I absolutely love this that I got a little tingly when I read it, but the equal division of harmony [or two synchronous wavelength sources of equal amplitude] fails to adequately explain the question and is theoretical in its explanation of the concordance between harmony. Would that imply that something may be temporally wrong with jazz music because of its dissonance? Does something need to be pleasant in its consonance to be deemed harmonious?

What I said wasn't about being part loyal, it was about being loyal to parts - only those parts which deserve your loyalty. — Sapientia

I say, and this may be all talk and no trousers, but isn't that being part-loyal? So, you're part loyal not part loyal, partly?

I'm not merely talking about being critical of or disagreeing with certain aspects of my country, since it's possible to do that whilst being loyal to my country. But I don't think that justice would be served by universally taking that approach. Like I said, sometimes the right way to go about it would be to go further by retracting or breaking off your loyalty - or by not committing your loyalty in the first place. — Sapientia

This is not really an answer at all; how exactly did you conclude that being disloyal to your country would best serve justice? I may be wrong in my understanding, but I assume it is because loyalty - even one applied rationally and therefore capable of criticism and fighting injustice - can still potentially form bias somehow? Well, yes, but this bias is for the genuine wellbeing of the state, hence the capacity to criticise and fight injustice. You do not need to fight popular culture by being gothic. You really need to clarify your point and particularly re-think your "part-loyalty" a little more thoroughly, as you say here:

"And in so doing, I've reached the conclusion that only certain aspects of my country are deserving of my loyalty."

Independence is something idolized here or at least in the west, which I find hilarious. I don't care for it. — Question

Well, here I must ask for your apology as I certainly either lacked cultural relativism or at the very least was haughty enough to assume that you were from a western culture, perhaps the latter a good thing in that you are able to articulate yourself rather well enough for the above-mentioned to escape my original assessment. However, and to reiterate, I never said that there was something wrong with living with your mother and certainly looking after your mother is strongly reinforced in places like China. I also said that your position could even be enviable - I love to garden and have many various roses and flowers that I cultivate as well as fruits and herbs - but it does not change the fact that Candide had to go through a substantial amount of absurdity to realise the point of having a garden.

Why, exactly, can you not take care of your mother and live on your own? If you had ambition, if you wanted to make something of yourself, why can you not fulfil your dreams and help her at the same time? This sacrifice is not an actual sacrifice, you see, neither is it love or guilt. It is your dependence and ultimately that can weaken you in the long-term. Would the only way you detach from your mother be when you meet a girl and simply transfer that dependence over to her? And what if this girl was a moron? Will you continue to depend on the moron until you become one as well? The one thing that has always disturbed me is how people say things like this:

"...question that originated from the demands of society, which I gladly have, will, and continue to shirk away from."

There is no justification for shirking away from the world and to say you will happily do so is no different to someone who witnessed a crime and instead pretended that they never saw anything. You are afraid to live and that means you do not love life. If you did, if you really understand how magnificent it actually is, you would fight against injustice, you would be passionate, you will take risks because you will not shrivel at the face of the ignorant but come face to face with it until they shrivel.

I am all for people sharing their personal stories and please do not assume I am attacking you. If you see what I say, if you don't, there is not much I can do. But I believe you are highly intelligent and the world - the world you understand to be wrong - needs people like you to take responsibility so that if you are as you say here:

"I am an ethical person..."

Than you would help more than just your mother. You would help yourself and not sacrifice yourself to pay the bills. But, in the end, your life and your choice.

I'd advise you to disregard the judgmentalism and looking-down-upon-ness as expressed in the replies of TimeLine and Hanover. — Sapientia

Geez, Sapientia, what on earth possessed you to compare me to a man whose sole ambition in life is to get stretch marks on his ankles? :(

mean, what steps have you taken, how have you approached the project of learning to play piano?

For instance: It sounds like you've mainly been learning to play songs on the piano and to sing along with your own playing. How have you gone about learning the songs? Instructional books or videos, sessions with a local teacher, playing along to recordings by ear, putting each song together purely on the basis of memory.... Have you learned the names of the "notes" corresponding to each key on the keyboard? Are you acquainted with concepts like "octave", "scale", "phrase", "chord", "meter"?

For that matter, is this the first time you’ve learned to play an instrument? Why now? Why piano, instead of guitar or sarod or shakuhachi or dumbek, or any other instrument? — Cabbage Farmer

Yes, I have purchased introductory books on how to play the piano and have learnt the notes and concepts like octave and scale etc. I always wanted to play the piano specifically, doing a couple of music classes when I was in early secondary school [around 13 years old] as part of extra-curricular activities they offered but because I was in and out of school and quite poor, I never got a chance to learn and later other priorities became, well, more important. I guess my reasoning behind learning now is because I feel it is never too late to learn anything and I am no longer there anymore and have the choice and the opportunity to learn. Why weep for the past when you can change the present?

I appreciate and welcome your advice, there is not much to say in response to what you wrote as I will try and adopt the strategies you put forward and turn it into something habitual.

...in musical sound-production and music-coordinated activities such as dancing — Cabbage Farmer

Well, I was once a dancer and recently I tried to dance on my own at my friend's studio but couldn't because of an injury. I cried my heart out when I tried dancing to Ben Howard' 'Small Things' as though the song was expressing the misery within that I wasn't aware of. If you know me, there is no chance of seeing me fall in the face of an injury, nothing stops me, but because I was listening to that song it effected me. I felt wonderful afterwards because I knew something was over, out, that my vulnerability was no longer controlling my inner 'movement' because 'small things' understood me.



I have to go now, ill respond to the other part of your post later.

Be careful - seeming lack of ambition can be the mask for the greatest of ambitions. The thing with great ambitions (unlike puny ambitions) is that they cannot be fulfilled very easily (and it's stupid to try when failure is guaranteed), so people having them, often seem to be doing nothing from the outside - not even attempting to do something. — Agustino

I am aware of that and I am confident that the OP will pursue a life of philosophy whether academically or independently, but what I got from his post was a lack of confidence in himself. Once he breaks that barrier and challenges himself by being courageous enough to take risks, his greater ambitions will come to fruition. The first risk is living on his own for a while.

Who cares? Really, who cares? Once you realise that no one cares, not even you, you can renounce whatsoever is troubling you. Really, if you never leave the walls of your house, until you die, has your life been wasted? Absolutely not - when you die, you die, that's the end, doesn't matter that you were President or you were the beggar on the corner of the street. Relax! The real secret is that only the man or woman who has completely renounced winning the world, only that man or woman can actually turn around and win it - everyone else has already lost before they've even tried. Their ambition has killed them. Only those who have conquered their ambitions can fulfil them - it's a paradox, but it is true. — Agustino

This is the most horrifying thing I have read in a very long time. Quite literally. Though I understand your point [if it is attempting to speak of transcendence], the way that you have explained it in light of referencing Osho is just all wrong. You become that very 'worm' that Kierkegaard despises, as do I.

“Let others complain that the age is wicked; my complaint is that it is paltry; for it lacks passion. Men's thoughts are thin and flimsy like lace, they are themselves pitiable like the lacemakers. The thoughts of their hearts are too paltry to be sinful. For a worm it might be regarded as a sin to harbor such thoughts, but not for a being made in the image of God. Their lusts are dull and sluggish, their passions sleepy...This is the reason my soul always turns back to the Old Testament and to Shakespeare. I feel that those who speak there are at least human beings: they hate, they love, they murder their enemies, and curse their descendants throughout all generations, they sin.”

The purpose in life is that YOU MAKE your purpose in life and yes, one will need to let go of the 'worldly' aspect with this attempt, that is, trying to build an artificial life with false ambitions, but that all boils down to finding your independence and being able to ascertain what it is you genuinely what and are as an individual. It is only possible when you reach autonomy, embrace your free-will. Then, the eternal beauty of our capacity to live, the opportunities becoming so profound, so exciting that real passion starts to form, only then will you understand life. To lock yourself in a cage because you are terrified to fly - though you have wings - and pretend to yourself that is somehow wisdom by adopting New Age gobbledegook, well, that only confirms that you have chosen a purposeless life. What does that say to your state of mind and being?

I recognize desires as per the Buddhists as the source of suffering. This is a synthetic a priori truth that all sentient beings ought realize.

Living with mom isn't a bad thing and never was. Society imposed some fictitious rule on people that "man" ought move ought from "mother". I suspect this has to do with capitalism, individualism, and consumerism, along with a plethora of unrestricted wants and desires from the daughter or son spewing out.

I am not needy for anyone. I just appreciate the advice and thoughts of this community.

I do not see myself ever having a wife, although the thoughts do return and bother me on the subject. Still thinking if I can have a wife with my current lifestyle or even if I realize the dreams in the OP.

Life is about getting through it. Schopenhauer can expand on that for you. — Question

I don't think there is any problem living with your mother, but it may be for you in the long run and I believe that every person should attempt to be on their own to really get a grasp of what it is that they want in life and for themselves unless you, by some miracle, meet an amazing woman who will help you reach that goal. Why people believe it is wrong to live with their mothers is often because it confirms a lack of independence; genuine and successful relationships between people are best when two people have attained that individuality and direction in life and merely share it with one another and the risk is that you will continue this dependence when forming relationships with other women; that is, you may find yourself comfortable, yes, but unsuccessful and ultimately unhappy.

When one depends on the other, well, the dynamics becomes difficult and in the long-term you will look back having repeatedly done the same thing in different ways because you fear taking risks and challenging yourself to avoid losing comfort. Life is not about getting through it. It is about living it.

Don't listen to Andrew K and don't listen to Hanover. Listen to yourself.

Why do you need reassurance?

I do think changing the structure of your life is more important, as you say developing better work ethic and study habits. Your lack of ambition is clear by your satisfaction in a peaceful life - whilst perhaps to a degree enviable - is dangerous in the long term and would mean that you are one to never take risks and challenge or push yourself, clear by this post with your neediness of others. This could stay with your forever and one day you'll find yourself sitting on a couch with your elderly mother, a box of KFC chicken and a letter from your now ex-wife telling you that she's left you for Harold.

Life is about taking risks, losing everything, gaining, crying, laughing, shocking people, shocking yourself, as long as it is all within the constraints of morality. Be passionate and courageous otherwise you will never really understand philosophy and, you will never really live either.

How did you begin to "learn the piano"? — Cabbage Farmer

Que? :-O

In what sense did learning or playing the piano lead you to "feel insincere"? And why did this experience of insincerity lead you to try "research" -- instead of to try banging on the piano and singing your heart out in another way? — Cabbage Farmer

Well, I'm not that advanced yet to simply improvise and I believe my insincerity lies with the fact that I am learning other people' music rather than creating my own, something I hope to do once I feel confident enough with playing. As for the research, that was the other phenomenological aspect of my enquiry, to try and ascertain the properties that enables a person to experience music and whether sound and perception help conceive of subjectivity. Think Hegel' aesthetics and the 'inward movement' or the subjective life that music is experienced conceptually without transcending 'Notion' or toward the immediate perception of 'Being' - music provides the aesthetic opportunity to access and express via sound the inward dimensions and turn it into a form, the “the Ah and Oh of the heart” as he says. When a piece of music is created, it enables us to understand this movement; this 'movement' is not subject to the constraints of space and time and music provides us with the link to these 'feelings'. He also notes that formalizing music may destroy this link or feeling hence your:

But the sound that strikes our ear, the sound that we produce by shaking a string -- that sound is a concrete thing in each instance, and the real focus of the musician on each occasion of performance -- that shaking thing, that motion in a medium, that unique soundcloud, not some abstract "notes" jotted down on paper or recalled by rote. — Cabbage Farmer

Is the damper pedal indicated in the score? In that case, it would mean you were playing it inconsistently with the score in this one respect. — Cabbage Farmer

That is the precise point. If the music was created through this elusive access to our subjective 'movement' would changing it according to the way it was meant to sound by the creator mean we have ruined it?

I like Bob Dylan's singing overall. He's like an American griot. He sings phrases with a human voice, not "notes" according to some artificial standard of precision and correctness -- and the way he does it, it's no accident, it's nuanced and musical, he knows what he's doing, he's in touch with the sound he's making and he does it on purpose. Maybe he gets carried away sometimes, one way or another at different points in his career, because he's an artist leaning into his craft one way and another, trying it out, figuring out what works for him by trial and error. He's a real folk singer. — Cabbage Farmer

I love Bob Dylan as a person, as a musician and as a poet and was overwhelmed with joy when I heard he had won the nobel prize. But, I still do not enjoy listening to him, however much I respect him. I agree with everything that you write here.

Shall we say some styles and voices and personalities are more "authentic" than others? — Cabbage Farmer

Yes.

I think there are situations in which constructive criticism would not be enough: situations in which the right thing to do would be to retract or break off your loyalty. I'm only loyal to aspects of my country, not the whole thing, warts and all. — Sapientia

You can't be part loyal. Loyalty is a choice, an expression of your moral position and so what you are saying is no different to what I said; by choosing aspects of your country is merely criticising other aspects that you do not agree with.

I disagree. I don't think that love is the most characteristic feature of loyalty. It wouldn't even apply in some cases: for example, in cases in which an emotion is there instead of love, and which has some - but not all - features in common with love, and which isn't quite so strong a feeling. Honour and duty strike me as more characteristic or prominent than love, and I think that care would be more broadly applicable than love, with regards to loyalty.

I also don't think that you can rightly exclude "blindly defending tooth and nail" as a possible feature or consequence of loyalty. I think that an examination of loyalty which is as impartial as it can be would lead to an inclusion of the good as well as the bad. But I think that some people are biased in that they seem to desire for loyalty to be kept untarnished - or at least not as tarnished as it can be, in light of some cases - so they superficially make it so that loyalty will always match their ideal of it. In other words, wishful thinking. — Sapientia

Love is a term I use to denote moral consciousness and loyalty can - along with honour and duty [or responsibility] - be expressions of our morality. I am quite firm on my belief that love is a choice and not some subjective, sweeping feeling [hence the consciousness] that, without reason, can be self-deceitful and even sometimes dangerous to our own well-being. Hence my previous remark on the superiority of reason over intuition. Concepts, such as pride, is an example of this danger; without reason, pride can lead us further away from intellectual and emotional progress, but within reason, can empower us to appreciate our individuality. Loyalty works the same way, that without reason can be dangerous.

It does not mean that because of our failure to apply our moral position consciously and correctly that somehow loyalty itself is flawed; the flaw is the expression and that is a individual choice.

I was wondering if the mods had considered inviting intellectual celebrities to participate in the forum?

How are such events organized here? — m-theory

Years ago in the old thread I organised for Paul both David Chalmers and Graham Priest to visit and answer questions, but it was rather pointless because the questions were pretty absurd and they both had little time to respond to any of the good ones. I think inviting academics who may have the time to discuss or talk about the work of celebrity philosophers would be more productive.

Haha, sorry, was editing it! :D