I'm glad I have made you think. What's it like doing it for the first time?

There are standards or guidelines that need to be followed, as both a poster and a moderator. It is what keeps people like you from constantly posting anime.

Yes. He is crying after I told him about you unfortunately being born without a personality.

I agree entirely with both points. However, when someone performs open heart surgery on my ego without anaesthetic, I want them to have a very steady hand and know what they are doing; saintliness would be too much to ask, but I'd want them to have their sadism and aggression under close control. — unenlightened

My first ever essay in politics a long time ago was a D- covered in red ink aggressively scribbled by my lecturer. I got A's and B's ever since. If you think it is emotionally distressing for someone to be told that their post lacks quality then you have clearly led a sheltered virtual life. There perhaps needs to be strategies enforced to ensure moderation processes without loopholes, such as sending a PM each time a post is deleted to avoid any follow-up posts questioning why, or in the case of the Phil. Sci a discussion amongst yourselves whether the content is worth it and coming to a majority agreement, but in the end it is your obligation and expertise to remind those unable to articulate themselves that they should work a little harder. Sometimes a slap across the face does the trick.

I am glad I made your day. Your reply is another sample of your worth. — Hachem

There there, no need to be so upset. (L)

Unfortunately this more or less underlines what I'm trying to say; of course you weren't able to change this guy; you were in a position of social equality; you were within a friend group. — Noble Dust

He wasn't a friend, that was what I was attempting to rouse in him because it is only in friendship that a person can begin to experience empathy. He was attracted to me but I had no feelings for him, on the contrary he was just a guy that I was forced to work with and his pathology both frightened and intrigued me. There was a moment where I thought that perhaps the reason I feel so convinced I can help him is because I am attracted to him too, but that came right at the moment he left and in the end, after everything was over, all that was real were memories of a man who bullied me that I wanted to believe could find the courage to be better. I was not able to achieve this because the conditions would not allow it.

As I said, he was caught up way too deep into his own lies that it became a reality to him; to penetrate that required some serious thought, something I could not give. He is long gone, now, and though I see him occasionally, he is no longer worth the effort. I am only ever capable of talking about the past when I am not tied to it emotionally. It is merely an example.

As you said, often when your methods here were successful were with younger women; that's a teachable situation in which that person views you as a role model of some sort. Once again, among equals, the best we can do is exemplify behavior; I can observe the changes over the years in the characters of the guys in my band, for instance, and I know my own influence as the band leader has influenced them; but who am I to say what influence I really had on them? Again, we're social equals, even if I lead the band. I can't try to change anyone's habits or perspectives, all I can do is try to exemplify the lifestyle I think is right (and I fail at that all the time anyway). — Noble Dust

I get what you are trying to say, there needs to be a willingness. He needs to want to improve and be motivated to become a better man. Those girls are motivated by seeing me as a role model and I understand how that works. My question here, however, is how I can address that lack of motivation and find ways to stimulate it without being that role model. That is why you need to watch Dead Man Walking to understand that moral position I am trying to find.

Surely one's environment during critical developmental stages determine some aspects of a person's moral framework. — Noble Dust

The critical developmental stages is cognitive, whereas morality requires reason and it is why Epictectus is right when he says reason shapes and regulates all other things, it ought not itself to be left in disorder. You can have a perfectly nuclear upbringing and still lack moral fibre.

Through community. — Noble Dust

Where does the community get it from? Perhaps think of the keyword ideology.

I'm speaking idealistically here; obviously not all members of a community have individual autonomy. Maybe that concept of community isn't correct; I think an ideal community would be made up of autonomous individuals, but I'm well aware that won't happen given the human condition. At least not in this life. But a community made up of autonomous individuals would not be a community in which manipulation and fear would have any power. SO, what I meant to imply (and didn't) is that, in this imperfect life, individual autonomy is more valuable than community because the virtues of individual autonomy are more realistically achievable than the virtues of a community which does not build itself on manipulation and fear; community is a word with good connotations, but the "heard mentality", for instance, a less sanguine way of putting it, will always be built on manipulation, fear, and a lack of intellectual inquiry. — Noble Dust

A neo-Kantian community is what every moral philosopher would want applied to distributive justice, but it is not realistic. You only mention this idealism because you are still not aware of why individualism itself is ideological, a social construct. It is why in the US everyone boasts of this "individualism" and yet blindly moves in masses.

I tried to read Foucault once. It was like beating my head against a wall. You and a lot of people here are a lot more patient and philosophically well-read than I am. I enjoy the chance to learn about philosophy from experienced people without having to read anything myself. The reason my philosophy is so spare is that I am really lazy.

I see the process we are discussing as primarily cultural, not political. It's not about legitimacy to me, it's just the way things are, the way we are. I'm not really sure if you and Foucault are agreeing with some of that or not. — T Clark

I will try to simplify it, but when you purport that things are just the way that they are, that is the very heart of power and legitimacy; culture, politics, society - all interconnected - require people to believe that the way it is must be true, factual, right otherwise any sustainability of this mobilisation would crumble. Foucault calls this discourse, it makes people believe that things are just the way that they are so that they do not fight the system or doubt it in any way and what differs between him and Marx is that he believes that this can actually make people productive and have a positive effect, so in a way you are agreeing with Foucault. In the end, however, it is still signing the contract. If you are a part of a community, you have conformed in some way or another.

I was going to mention Heidegger, but if you feel dizzy with Foucault :-x

Again - I see what you call conformism and what I call surrender to a community as a cultural process, not political, ideological, or moral. I think it started before there was civilization, and I guess before there was really society or culture as we think of them. — T Clark

So, I take it that you agree with Rousseau vis-a-vis the state of nature?

You say "the community itself - should there be this lack of consciousness - may motivate social cohesion, but it is nonetheless imagined..." Is that you or Marx speaking? I certainly don't agree with that. The idea that a community motivates social cohesion is a bit tautological. A community is social cohesion. — T Clark

It is actually Anderson, not Marx. It is not a community that motivates social cohesion but the ideology that the community believe in that does.

I will try to specifically remain classical, so no Dvorak or Liszt...?

Claudio Monteverdi - Duo Seraphim
It touches me in ways I really can't explain. I guess that there is a part of me that wants to just hide away, to read and learn until I die. It makes me feel sad at how pleasing that idea actually feels.



Vivaldi - Summer Presto (Four Seasons)
I am a fan of baroque art and it reminds me of my time in Venice. I am astonished how each interpretation of my favourite part of the four seasons can vary one from another and so drastically. Despite the reasoning behind the piece, I like it because there is a sense of passion and energy that - especially when you listen to it live - puts you at the edge of your seat.



Toss between Mozart Symphony no. 25 and Lacrimosa from Requiem. Its Mozart, do I need to give an explanation?





Tomaso Albinoni - Adagio
It has its place in my heart when I nearly thought I lost it; I forgot how important classical music and art was to me, how I became fond of it at a very young age and when I heard this, it reminded me of how easy it is to fall prey to society that you literally forget who you are.




Beethoven, Symphony 7 Alegretto

Listen to this full blast while lying down on the floor, the climactic moment is almost orgasmic (probably stop around 3 mins in, though, unless you like having a smoke afterwards :-O )

This says more about you than me, that you choose to vent your opinion in such a "righteous" way instead of putting your money where your mouth is.

Maybe you will be ready to go farther than every detractor has gone before, and prove me wrong by more than general reference to the contemporary state of science.

If you cannot, then do not be surprised if I say that your opinion is not worth... squat. — Hachem

This is just golden. :D I quite literally could not stop laughing. I love you, man.

I don't think that's an accurate description of where morality comes from in a community. Sure, it can come from conformity and fear, but I don't think that's the primary source. I think that's a sense of belonging. A willing, but probably not self-conscious, act of surrender to the will of the community. Surrender is not something I'm good at, so that's not really a choice I have. Also, in the US now, there really isn't a community for me to surrender to. Other's have churches, small towns, the military, social groups, large families, and many other institutions. My communities are smaller - my family, friendships, work. This forum is starting to become a community that I value. — T Clark

This unconscious act of surrendering to the will of the community is conformism, however you are speaking from a Foucauldian angle. Foucault' study on the power of discourse is a process that authenticates social stratification, and ideological positions almost always draw a focus on an opposing force which is used to justify the legitimacy of a social arrangement, be it the inner networks of these communal groups that you mention. But, power in this discourse that enables a person to conform unconsciously because it is automatically processed as "truth" is not always negative, but can actually provide a productive mobilisation that closes an existing gap between culture and society. This is comparatively an opposing view of something like Marxism and the superstructure, that it is inherently the elite exercising dominance over the proletariat, ideology itself existing because the latter desire in order to fulfil the bourgeoisie agenda. In the end, the community itself - should there be this lack of consciousness - may motivate social cohesion, but it is nonetheless imagined and could also be the impetus of injustice and immorality since people are not autonomously committed to morality but simply conform to this deeply rooted sphere of social life used to interpret an imagined communal character.

Read a book?

Accordingly, my moderation priorities are directed towards filtering sense from nonsense, and kindness from unkindness, more so than spelling from mis-spelling, philosophy from non-philosophy, educated from ignorant. — unenlightened

I think the site is doing well to find this balance you mention above and no doubt sometimes mistakes are made in ascertaining the correct application of this filter, but I believe each of you are willing to listen and that is the first and most important aspect to moderation and shows a sense of being humble that I respect. This thread is an example of that.

In saying that, each of you have a level of expertise that differentiate and I think that it is important to close those existing gaps by pulling more focus on this expertise. The level of absurd posts in the philosophy of science is an example of where this gap is clear that causes me to avoid it.

It is not poor conduct. If you think you are a wonderful musician but you sound like a damaged trumpet, having experts in the field tell you that you sound like a damaged trumpet may hurt your feelings, but it is probably a reality check that you need.

What are the methods? Are you talking about a mentorship type relationship? In romance, or among equals, or from abused to abuser, for instance, I don't think change can be effected through the will. But obviously a relationship that involves teaching of some sort is different. — Noble Dust

You can call it unconditional love. It is cultivating friendship, which forms the nucleus of empathy and a shared sense of value and respect.

The only way I am able to describe this to you is to ameliorate a personal experience. I met this young man who lacked a conscience. He had no empathy. He had such a profound pathology because of a very deep or inherent confusion, like he had absolutely no idea how to live or who he was that he would simply follow others, exhibited by clearly chopping and changing himself with each person that he met; his conformism was severely irrational. If it were suggested that being homosexual was great, despite being heterosexual he would likely choose to do so only because others suggested it, for instance. He himself said that his girlfriend has a "power of him and he does not know why" but he did not realise that everyone can have this power because the problem is in him.

It is as though he were still a child who had reactive attachment disorder, that his internal network was sensitive to all the wrong things where he would respond in a strangely hypervigilant manner as though resisting a non-existent threat, his eyes impassive as he would stare out and say some incredibly vicious comments. His insecurity drowned the screams of the real person he was that he became very nasty to me and others. He excluded me, slandered me, said some pretty vicious comments to me including indirect threats, but somehow my heart believed that I knew the source of this problem and despite the fact that I myself was going through some incredibly difficult experiences at that time, I remained convinced I could help him. So, 1. I was being a friend, I was being empathetic towards his condition and I felt I could help him.

The methods were, in my mind, speaking of friendship and love, I started talking about my own past to make him trust me enough to open up to me, I showed him kindness despite being terrified of him, sometimes I would exhibit anger to try and get him to stop and think, and I would try to work through his lies by pretending that I was not aware of them. He lived "himself" in his fiction writing, his identity could only be articulated when he wrote it in other characters, but he had no idea how to live or apply this real him in reality, the person I identified as being highly intelligent and gentle in nature. So, 2. my intent was to enable him to learn how to be a friend, to learn how to develop and build a conscience (as a child does) and be empathetic towards others. I wanted him to see that any past rejection (likely from a parent) was not going to happen with me and I wanted him to learn to believe in himself because I believed in him, to get him to stop doubting himself.

Unfortunately, nothing worked because he kept on hiding in these characters, kept on lying and misunderstood everything that I was trying to tell him. In the end, he gave up on me and I was so profoundly dejected at my failure that I became really sick and rather sad for a while. So the methods cannot be articulated in some format, it is a process that over time contributes to form a bond or trust and solely dependent on the intent. I can assure you that I have been successful at applying this in many other contexts, especially young girls.

I pride myself on my honesty. :P — Noble Dust

Haha, your mum must be awesome. (Y)

I haven't; I'll look it up. — Noble Dust

Please do, amazing movie.

I believe in individualism as well as community. Community is made up of autonomous individuals; again, the responsibility of individuals within a community is to exhibit exemplary behavior, rather than to talk someone into behaving a certain way, manipulate someone's behavior, or otherwise strong-arm someone's behavior. Trust me, I grew up in the Church...I know a lot about this... — Noble Dust

I grew up on my own; I had no (proper) family, no church but they are not the basis that make a person moral or immoral. You say the responsibility of individuals is to exhibit exemplary behaviour, but where do they attain any knowledge of what "exemplary behaviour" is? It is as you say either manipulation, or conformism, or fear. Our responsibility is to transcend those incorrect initiatives and the value of moral behaviour as it is universally and indeed that requires an autonomy of mind. If what you say is true, that a community is made up of autonomous individuals, those that have been manipulated to conform through fear are not a part of this "community" and so, where does your obligations lie?

You probably need to see a specialist, then. You're out of my depth.

I can see you're angry. Like I said, I don't get it. — T Clark

:-} I'm not angry. I am asking you to stop saying things like that and like:

You use your feelings and experiences as illustrations and explanations of your ideas and philosophical positions. You wear your heart on your sleeve. — T Clark

It is highly imaginative of you to continue placing an image of what I am based on what I write. That is the point. You can never "know me" just as much as you can never know "the truth" and to say otherwise is wrong. Get it.

Sorry this is four days old, but what exactly? — Noble Dust

It was four days ago, how the heck should I know?

Not a good idea >:O — Noble Dust

It is not a good idea doing most things that make life interesting and adventurous. I'll give up if you make me way too dizzy.

Surely playing the victim can be done at any time in a situation. On the contrary, it can be used to extract an apology. Is that apology authentic? Authentic in the sense that the person really feels the need to apologize (emotionally) because of manipulation, sure. — Noble Dust

There is always this clear schism between what is authentic and what is not authentic when you deconstruct the intent. For instance, studies show that attractive women who put themselves down in front of others only do so because of social-psychology, a way of saving themselves from gossip or disdain because an attractive woman who is actually happy with herself is negatively categorised as dangerous. They don't actually believe it but are unconsciously playing the crowd to avoid conflict.

If you have a crazed person who is attracted to you and no amount of anything can get rid of him, to save yourself you present yourself in a way that provokes him to lose interest and eventually he leaves and draws his attention to something else. We act in some ways to save ourselves, but we also act in ways where we try to save those that we love and I learnt from this latter experience that trying to move the conscience of a heartless man is going against an impossible grain. But that is what love is, it is that fight for some moral awakening and it doesn't mean that you are actually a victim, but an attempt to try and get them to feel empathetic and thus transcend.

Have you watched Dead Man Walking? If you haven't, watch it and then you may understand what I am trying to get at. I do understand and agree with you, but I am not referring to the inauthentic.

Do you mean using forgiveness as a form of power over someone? — Noble Dust

Yes. Every first apology must be quickly accepted. An act repeated, though, is when you need to start thinking a little bit harder as to the causal reasons in order to try and reach an outcome that is righteous, but it should be done with utmost empathy.

Not long ago, I was in my friend's car and the lady parked next to me opened her car door and clipped the side of the car. My friend was immediately like, "what the?!" and the lady was really apologetic. My friend let it slide and went into subway to get food. The lady came back and clipped the car again. When you use the word "sorry" in vain, it is simply a way of escaping from any wrath or possible consequences, but it loses the meaning of why we apologise, the very reasons for actually saying you are sorry. The fact that we actually did something wrong that hurt someone else. This is ethics, empathy, love, moral consciousness.

Sometimes, conversely, people don't accept an apology without necessarily any reason not to (usually it is for the stupidest reasons) and drawing out the apology until they become the reasons why it loses meaning, why people start lying as they become afraid to say sorry. I have often found that men who have domineering mothers tend to be liars.

Yes, as I've tried to underline, feeling responsible for "effecting change" in anyone is a slippery slope which leads to either manipulation or just burn-out; total emotional exhaustion. — Noble Dust

I get that. What I am trying to say is that there are methods to "effect this change" that is different with each individual, but the driving force behind any authentic intent to change is usually for love. If it is manipulation, it is done for the wrong reasons. If you are burnt-out, you used the wrong methods. I have been burnt-out and I understand exactly what you are saying and agree for the most part.

And as I'm trying to emphasize here, it's not just "ultimately" not our responsibility, it just plain isn't. — Noble Dust

If you believe in individualism, then yes. If you are communitarian, a utilitarian, or just someone who believes they are a part of a whole rather than an individual (hence, the Aloha - there you go, I remembered now), then you are wrong about responsibility. It becomes a moral duty, in a way, but a very tricky one.

Desire is always fascinated with the obstacle, the rival. What is hardest to attain, what rejects it the most, what humiliates it, that is its attraction. The beloved which insults - the true mirage of desire, the imagination of the contradiction of rejection and acceptance. — Agustino

Not really. I am talking about having a sense of humor because aggression is causally rooted in the ego, our self-defense mechanisms provoking our emotions that makes us say and do bad things to others. When two people are in genuine love with one another, the ego dissipates and therefore it is impossible to feel angered at the humour because we know where it is actually coming from.

Some people indirectly insult others, are being malicious or cruel but do so with a smile and then say "I was just joking!" which is a load of garbage. It is actually hostility in this relationship and what hurts is not what is actually being said but rather where it is coming from; it is a disconnection. Two people who are so separate from one another must work really hard to maintain this relationship and they'll come up with their own formula to make it so, whether it is changing homes or rearranging furniture or working late or other projects keeping them preoccupied on a daily basis that they end up becoming the joke.

A connection, however, is fundamentally rooted in happiness and when we violate the "serious" patterns of our perceptions - that is, a relationship itself is serious, life itself is serious - and we turn it into something incongruous, laughter or humour between the two becomes the affection at the subtle recognition of the futility of this seriousness and a mutual understanding.

Indeed, desire cannot love except the lover who is unattainable. — "Agustino

I have always found it disturbing how people just do the same thing day in day out until they die as long as they do what everyone else is doing, so afraid of their own feelings and of actually 'living' that a vain pat on the head is enough to keep them happy. Then you have those that become conscious of this and try to escape but end up going back, returning to their unhappy state as long as it is not being alone because they are so afraid to take the challenge until they grow old and regret that they were just cowards.

If you have reasons to love someone, you don’t love them.

And of course:

Humanity is OK, but 99% of people are boring idiots.

No one understands just how important time is.

The attachment to the impossibility to attain is required in order for desire to remain blind to its own vanity and emptiness. — "Agustino

It is intentional when person attaches themselves to something impossible because there are a number - a very large number - of people who do not actually understand what happiness is. They are so comfortable with unhappiness that it becomes the very source of their happiness, indeed when they are presented with the opportunity, they destroy it because they do not subjectively understand what those feelings actually are. That is why they get stuck, they have trouble living and they formulate their environment in such a way that they remain locked in it.

However, if you think the pursuit of happiness is impossible, where you make your decisions based on what is good and right, you may need to think about what is going on subjectively. That is not a vain thing to pursue, even if it means being alone until finding it.

When I first read your response, I didn't understand where it came from, so I went back and read through our posts. I still don't get it. I don't think any further explanation will change that. — T Clark

No amount of writing can ever express what a person is like and to say that you 'know me' is projecting and exposing your own character. It is no different to a person saying "that's the truth" - what truth? If you 'knew me' you would know what I was like and what I was not like and many people rely on assumptions that they make of others thinking that they "know the truth" about them and getting one or two things right about them somehow increases the probability of this "truth" to absolute fact.

So the point is, always doubt yourself.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing - Socrates

To believe in hasty generalisations and assumptions is the very heart of ignorance. Do not ever place me into a box again.

Meh. Its called multitasking. I'm having a bath too and writing a sonnet for my pet fish. Gerald.

What's wrong with you? First you think broccoli is weird. Now you think baking a brownie is not a priority? Psychopath.

Frick. You made me burn the brownie.

You owe me fifty bucks, ol' sock. I figured out the algorithm to looking good; wearing tonnes of make-up makes no difference to wearing a little bit of make-up. And shave your legs the night before. (Y)

What makes it unbelievable, kind sir?

8-)

Dude, after all that I said, that was what came across as weird?

I think the comparison made a legitimate and respectful rhetorical point. Was it too personal? Was I insensitive — T Clark

The problem is that you don't know me and implying that you do only because I have spoken briefly of my past does not equate to actual knowing, which is what makes you insensitive and highly egotistical.

You did not know that I love hot chocolate and have it every morning, where I add a bit of quick oats inside it to make it thicker and when I reach the end, have this ridiculous sense of red-cheeked happiness and peace as I gulp down the oats and cocoa and quite literally thank God for being so awesome.

You did not know that I find myself singing I Want To Kiss You All Over like Adam Sandler while I am in shower but can never get that high pitched end right.

You did not know that I love putting on the heater full blast in winter while wearing my over sized parachute knickers eating ice-cream and listening to Nina Simone' Love Me or Leave Me or Jimi Hendrix' Bold As Love where I full on air guitar on the floor at 2.55?

You did not know that I love cracking jokes and having laughs and that humour is actually seriously important, that one who loves life is a person who loves to laugh, which is why I cannot stand people who cannot take a joke. I am with Zizek on this heart and soul:

The one measure of true love is: you can insult the other
― Slavoj Žižek

You did not know that though I am strict in my logic and reasoning, I am an idealist. That my decision to wait for the right man rests mostly in my belief that real love exists and that real love is someone I can call a friend. I have never met that friend, but I still believe.

You did not know that my favourite vegetables are pumpkins and broccoli, that I love watching dodgy action movies, that it takes me 10 minutes to get ready for a wedding.

And that is just scratching the surface.

What you have done is a classic interpretative error, where you attempt to articulate my identity by implicitly verifying an abstract belief based on what I write to be somehow legitimate. That is how ideology traps people. At an epistemic level, assumptions are the framework that can solidify uncertainties, contradictions, confusions into a generalised whole and you assume some sort of shared language, but this is manufactured by your ego.

I don't know you because you spoke of your wife, your brother, yourself. So, I say a few things about me, but being right about those few things doesn't legitimise your beliefs as a whole.

I have published several non-academic articles in both online and print magazines and all of them were modified and edited without my permission to a specific design that it was no longer something I wrote; they had the same look, sound, effect as every other published article in the magazine that you may as well say the editor is the real author of all them. The process for publishing academic articles is focused primarily on the accuracy of the details and it is certainly more respectful.

No need to get upset. Sometimes I am writing on my dodgy Microsoft phone while on the tram and listening to my iPod while feeling annoyed at the funky smelling guy sitting next to me that when I re-read what I say afterwards to my everlasting horror, I am surprised streetlight didn't delete it.

You quote:

'Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.' ~ Neils Bohr — Wayfarer

And then say:

quantum mechanics carries a metaphysical implication. If it were just physics, there'd be nothing to discuss. — Wayfarer

What, the metaphysical implications from the 17th century Enlightenment philosophers? There is a physical reality underlying observations too, buddy, and the reason for the mess is because that reality is not yet explained. Funny you should quote Bohr and commit the very error.

They are simply potentialities which are only 'actualised' by the act of observation. So it's not as if, prior to being observed, the particle exists in some unknown place - prior to being observed, all that exists is a literal wave of probabilities. There is no actual 'electron' in that wave, and isn't, until it is observed. So this undermines the idea of mind-independence, a world that 'exists anyway', whether it is being observed or not. Sure there are people exploiting the gullible, but the facts remain. — Wayfarer

How can what you say co-exist? You are saying that this quantum state undermines a materialistic naturalism and yet you appear to be verifying the quantum state as describing reality. So is reality nothing more then an infinite number of different probabilities?

Streuth.

What the fuzzball? No, the logic is that such unanimity purports something suspicious or a plot and it is their duty to ensure that they work at trying to prove innocence so as to prevent death, but acquittal isn't actually as simple as the article is making it out to be.

"Unanimity of the judges was not required either to convict or to acquit. But the majority of one for Acquittal was deemed sufficient by all, while if the majority among the judges for conviction was no greater than one, new judges had to be added to the court until a result was reached; either a conviction by a greater majority than one or an Acquittal. In the highly improbable event of the court having come to no decision after being increased to its utmost limit, that is seventy-one, or for the rare cases triable before the great Sanhedrin (also of seventy-one judges), it was provided that upon a division of thirty-six for conviction and thirty-five for Acquittal, the judges should discuss the matter in secret session until one was brought over to the side of the defense. There is no doubt, however, that until judgment was rendered, any one of the judges was free to change his mind either way. If less than twenty-three judges gave an opinion one way or the other, that is, if one or more of the bench of judges said that they did not know which way to decide, it was the same as if the full number of twenty-three had not been empaneled, and there could not be an Acquittal any more than a conviction. New judges had to be added to the bench, two by two, till there were twenty-three ready to give their opinion one way or the other."

Maimonides writes: "If a Sanhedrin opens a capital case with a unanimous guilty verdict, he is exempt, until some merit is found to acquit him; then, those who convict will be in the majority, and then he will be put to death.”

If QM is not actually attempting to explain reality but rather the formalism is just a way to predict observations, it is easy to see why people get trapped in such an idealism since in a way it is describing their reality according to their observations; that is, reality is nothing more than our observations. That would mean I could give everything some ontological status, like perhaps Spinoza.

That is just a deliciously free meal for the crazies. Heck, my perceptions can control things at quantum level, apparently. Why not?

In Jewish law, if there is unanimity against someone in a court of law, they are let free by default, because unanimity is always suspicious. — Agustino

Geez, I didn't realise the mods had authority to conduct capital punishment. And, by the way, the sanhedrin' primary aim is to prove innocence so the person is not acquitted from the charges if there is a unanimous guilty verdict, but rather deferring it until there is a majority rule.

You scheme in vain, for no human male has ever been successful to match my sophistication in j'accepte la grande aventure d'etre moi.

On the contrary, Klingons desire honour, and they only hand-bite or nga'chuq one mate alone.

You are unworthy.

Urgh, how easy it is to give up on your principles, hence my favourite quote...

Well, no, that was the point of why I included Spinoza in that the narration of those experiences articulate the same moral consistency, the value in those claims. There is no lesser or more, but we tend to assume this as a way of contrasting a moral criteria; the rights of the LGBTQI community are not in question, it is the attempt to contrast with this 'perfection' where we draw such conclusions as a normative status based on the legitimacy of these 'hurt' claims.

I too had hoped we could find some common ground on this matter, on which we could grow our relationship until it blossomed with passion and beauty. But I'm not going to compromise on this TL, not even for you. The trouble with Worf is that he was always, at least from the Klingon perspective, a pussy. He didn't make sense. And the episodes that focused on him and the Klingons in general were always the worst, don't you think? — jamalrob

What can I do to convince you otherwise? If you were I would make a video stripping my socks off to Beyoncé's Partition, but I gather feet are not your thing, you hopeless romantic you.

And no, Worf is a real Klingon, he chose his battles wisely. He is Klingon enough to drink prune juice and be proud.

What I want to discuss is not necessarily the merits of each argument - over contentious topics! - but this distinction between real hurt and speculated hurt. — StreetlightX

When you look at the experience of acute stress disorder and PTSD, the latter following a traumatic event such as a car accident (what happened to me actually), for months thereafter one has powerful and yet irrational feelings of anger, fear, anxiety and unnecessary guilt and shame. However, the effect of these feelings stems from a much deeper and "actual" hurt projected into various forms and the reason for this is that the stress hormones glucocorticoid is increased that causes the hippocampus to remain in constant alert and interrupts its function, while the amygdala reacts emotionally as it continues to identify 'threats' and 'risks' that may be imagined. The hippocampus is the area of the brain that turns new experiences into a past-tense memory and therefore the individual experiencing PTSD is unable to correctly consolidate that experience (the shock of the accident that causes a number of different feelings); the result is a person increasingly wound-up, feeling threatened, paranoid, anxious or in a state of constant panic even when there is nothing there.

Spinoza similarly speaks of affectus and therein concludes a variety of forms and our nature is both similar to that of nature itself - causal, spatial, temporal - along with psychological or conceptual. I think what I like about this is the striving toward perfection and the combination of the two, one natural (containing genuine properties) and the other psychological (or imagined) but that is nevertheless consistent with moral views. Our ideas of "perfection" are modelled after nature, and it becomes a formulation - albeit a rather distorted one considering we don't actually know - that is used to correlate or contrast that ultimately articulates a moral language. Morality is somewhat an ideal, something imagined that we existentially narrate or translate perceptually viz., the external world. So, in a way, I don't see there being any difference between speculative and actual as long as there is a consistency with some moral view.

Yes - Happiness = Peace. I don't need to forgive myself. I feel a deep sense of responsibility for my life. We're back to forgiveness vs. responsibility again. I'm as happy now as I have ever been because I've learned how to recognize my responsibility. You and I see things differently. Feel things differently. It's not hard for me to imagine how you feel, even if don't feel that way myself. I'm not trying to say my way is better, but It's definitely better for me. — T Clark

I have been thinking about this and I believe the way that I actually view forgiveness is that the word represents a longing or hope for something that does not come to pass. Say you love someone, your child for instance, but he is a drug-addict and you long that he stops hurting himself and to make himself better but it never happens, that is where the suffering lies, the desire for things to be different to what they are. That is how it is for me anyway; I have not suffered as a victim but rather I have suffered because the said-person is unwilling to acknowledge their wrongdoing, that I cannot reason or communicate with them, that my pain is caused because they don't care about me. It is a fight.

Responsibility is the key. I have always said that I am always there for others, always listening and helping others but no one is there for me; the moment I accepted my responsibility and circumstances, I no longer felt the pangs of loneliness because I no longer hoped or desired a friend to be there for me. I learnt to take care of myself, to take responsibility for my happiness by removing everyone wrong from life.

By the way, you don't know me so you don't need to compare yourself to me.

This puts me in a rather awkward position as I had hoped our opinions aligned in some way. I agree that using Klingons in Discovery was the most idiotic thing to do, no less the way that they look and speak, but Klingons as a whole? Man, I could not imagine enterprise without Worf.

You're crazy.

First of all, the sentence I quoted from you wasn't a complete sentence, so it's possible I mis-interpreted what you meant. It sounded to me like you were talking about victimhood as an expression of power over others. Was that wrong? — Noble Dust

You missed a few things that I said, actually, but I am ok with that, just working with your flow. And yes, I did agree that some people can play the victim as a method of gaining power over others, but only after someone apologises authentically. It is immoral to do this. This is no different to when someone is artificially apologising, where if you continuously and blindly forgive then you are at fault also. It is immoral to do this as well. As for the latter, you become somewhat responsible in effecting change, to make them see that repeating the same mistake is wrong, but this is where it can get dangerous and why ultimately it is not our responsibility. I have always been interested in the latter, how this can be achieved ethically.