Is there such a thing as a "creative arc"? A sort of life cycle of an artists vision which evolves from their early days when their work was full of untapped potential, through to the "magnum opus" phase in which they did their best work, and finally falling off into a sort of denouement phase in which they rehash their old successes? — Noble Dust

I think there often is an arc. I don't think it's inevitable. I think it is common with authors that my favorite works are their earliest. It seems like there is a vein of stories for them to mine. When the vein runs out, they often keep going, trying to recreate the magic. I think of John Le Carre and Alan Furst, two wonderful writers that I generally avoid these days. Even though I think "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," and "The Polish Officer" are wonderful, I've been disappointed too many times with more recent books.

Which brings us to country music. I include in that category much folk and what they call "roots" music. Country musicians don't seem to be trying so hard to go anywhere. They just want to make good music, even if it is a cover of a classic rather than something newly written. Do you know how many singers have covered "Poncho and Lefty." Country albums are much more likely to have instrumentals. Sure, a lot of it is crap, but a lot of everything is crap.

The Beatles, Shakespeare, Beethoven and Mozart, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Picasso etc... These people made significantly more in their field than their competitors. Beethoven and Mozart made 400% more music than the average composer. Kobe Bryant was always the first one to practice and the last one to leave. He literally took the most shots.

The thing is, we don't like these people for everything they've made. We only pay attention and notice a few key pieces of their work. Most of the music written by Mozart we never have and never will hear.

As far as artists having an arc.. I think artists rehash old hits or masterpieces because they've found a formula, market niche where they have a "monopoly" or reliable source of money and attention. I think artists can continue to create new and wonderful things if they keep taking more shots, instead of fear forcing them to rely on shots they've already taken. — Kasperanza

I think this is a good way of looking at it. I think of Woody Allen. He makes a movie every two or three years. Some are masterpieces. Some don't work. Those in the middle tend to be good, workmanlike films. Even when they don't work, his movies are well-made.

It's always the squeaky wheel that gets some grease. — unenlightened

Martin Luther King was a pretty squeaky wheel. [gratuitously provocative] I also don't remember that the suffragettes burned down any buildings[/gratuitously provocative].

Clearly you don't see the foolishness of white society demanding respect from the movement demanding basic equal treatment for black folks. If only they were like us, everything would be alright. — unenlightened

I don't "demand respect." I only claim that the social justice warrior's approach won't work.

I'm not crazy about head-butting with people who disagree on profound cultural matters. You get a headache and people tend to increase in their vehemence, almost as a defensive strategy. — Tom Storm

Again, for me it's all about effectiveness. We can argue whether I'm right about that, but I think any other discussion on this issue is pointless.

No, they need their compliance. Until black lives do actually matter as much as white lives, there is no civility because civility is a mutual relation. — unenlightened

For better or worse, that's not how it works, no matter how many times you say it before you stomp your feet and hold your breath.

You cannot show respect to someone who shows you no respect; it is meaningless. Not civility, but mere servility. — unenlightened

Yes, you're right. That fool Martin Luther King got it all wrong.

What I see from the radical left is an urgency and importance that creates impatience and frustration and that's where the anger and incivility come from. There are civil ways of conveying radical leftist ideas and quite a few posters on this forum demonstrate it. — Judaka

However understandable an angry rejection of civility may be, the real issue is effectiveness. Black Lives Matter and other similar movements will not achieve their desired results by insulting and demeaning almost half of all Americans. Whether they like it or not, they need the support of those people to get what they want. Left wing activists and traditional liberals by themselves cannot make this a hospitable country for black people, hispanics, or gay and transgender people. They need to get the other guys on board too. In order to do that, they need to show some respect. That's what civility is about - showing respect.

Translation: it pisses people off when their good intentions are being attacked and condemned on the basis of accusations of agendas of hegemony , privilege, domination and bias that is supposedly hidden and implicit in the idea of individualistic civility. — Joshs

Upvote for providing the translation and for it's content.

I think I came at this from a bit different direction than you did. I don't necessarily think that a government or society should provide all the things I identified. It's the other way around. We can't call our society a good one if a significant number of people don't have the benefits I listed. If everyone can live a safe, healthy, secure life with enough good food and a decent place to live, what does it matter what specific policies lead to that outcome? If people are living good lives, what difference does it make if there are taxes?

So I thought I would ask here and see if anyone has any thoughts on what rules or attributes you would like to see in the civilization you participate in. — RoadWarrior9

I'll take a swing at it:

• Adequate healthcare, education, security, nutrition, housing, work, community, and opportunity for everyone
• Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
• No reruns of "Two and a Half Men"
• Deport Dr. Phil.... to Australia

I'm serious about the first two.

No taxes
Free quality health care for everyone — RoadWarrior9

Please explain how you get free healthcare with no taxes.

Well, certainly that's what he means by "I think of civility as akin to table manners" you gibbering, drooling, fatuous, miserable, pompous, self-righteous, preening, inane cretin. What else would he mean? — Ciceronianus the White

Upvote for best use of a thesaurus, although I'm sure you didn't need one.

[2] Well, certainly, a single grain is simply the least in a series of cases ordered according to the acceptability of 'heap' as an English descriptor. — bongo fury

Definition of "heap" - a disorderly collection of objects placed haphazardly on top of each other.

Definition of "collection" - a group of things or people.

Definition of "group" - a number of people or things that are located close together or are considered or classed together.

Definition of "number" - several.

Definition of "several" - ....

I guess it's turtles all the way down.

Interesting.

I think it must be just an artefact of familiarity. That is, we've been treating the apple and the tree as distinct for so long that it doesn't seem we could do otherwise. — Banno

I agree, but I don't think "familiarity" is the right word. I think it's something more deep-seated. I think that's the reason it's a tougher argument to make - seeing reality as a collection of objects is natural for us. Seeing it as a continuum with fluid boundary distinctions isn't.

I do indeed venture that there are no natural boundaries; that like simples, boundaries are not found but inflicted on the world. The point being that no matter how we divide stuff up, we might have done otherwise. I'd be more than happy to consider counter instances, should you have any at hand. — Banno

You and I agree on this, but what gives me pause is that some divisions do seem more "natural" than others. A bunch of sand may or may not be a heap, but that spherical object hanging on that apple tree over there is definitely an apple. A tree is pretty much a tree even if a bunch of trees may or may not be a forest, copse, woodlot, woods, grove, or stand.

There are so many different contexts, and ways of being uncivil, different intentions and what else accompanies it, there's no way to address them all. — Judaka

Your post makes a good case.

the war criminality of Donald Rumsfeld and most of America's political leadership) — StreetlightX

Criticizing the words and actions of Donald Rumsfeld and recognizing the consequences of those actions is not the same thing as gloating over his death. The problem with hatred, anger, and vitriol is that, in most cases, it doesn't lead to the best solution to the problem at hand. You see that now in the US. The hatred and resentment have taken over and become more important than the issues that generated them.

That is, civility isn't some 'neutral' position that merely concerns 'style' while the substance of political argument is elsewhere. Rather, the demand for civility is political from the get-go: it says, only these claims are worth entertaining, while these others are not. Couple this with the fact that 'civility' is always the privilege of those who are not affected by issues - or at least are comfortable with them - it basically puts the ball in their court and keeps it there. — StreetlightX

I think this is really wrong-headed. When I say "hello" to someone on the street, when I open the door for someone, when I speak calmly about important issues, when I say "thank you" when I buy something, I am setting the stage. I am expressing my understanding that we are all here together as a community and that I intend to treat others with respect. It's an act of recognition.

Is courtesy often used hypocritically or cynically as a rhetorical weapon? Yes, of course. Is it ever ok to raise your voice and yell out your anger? Yes, of course it is.

The reason I'm having a somewhat random whack at Banno is because his views on language and definitions prevent him talking about things that I and many others want to talk about, — bert1

Yes, our friend Banno can be a pain in the ass. I have no objections to you giving him a hard time, it's certainly something he likes to do to others. I think it comes from eating all those didgeridoos and billabongs.

Be that as it may, I don't think his position in this matter is dogmatic.

Have I got this wrong? — bert1

I wasn't questioning your usage, I just wanted to make sure I understood.

So even 'bachelor' could be vague, as at precisely what point does someone go from being unmarried to married? — bert1

In the good old days, it was after the marriage had been "consummated." Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, say no more.

unanimously a heap (e.g. a million grains). — bongo fury

A bunch of sand with a million grains, or a trillion or a quadrillion, would not be a heap if they were spread out on a surface a single grain thick. It's not just number, the configuration is also important.

Definitions are not all essentialist - Banno himself showed this. — bert1

This is what Wikipedia says about "essentialism."

Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity.[1] In early Western thought, Plato's idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form". In Categories, Aristotle similarly proposed that all objects have a substance that, as George Lakoff put it, "make the thing what it is, and without which it would be not that kind of thing".[2] The contrary view—non-essentialism—denies the need to posit such an "essence'".

When you identify a definition as "essentialist," do you mean that the definition corresponds to a natural boundary inherent in the phenomenon and not established by human consensus? If so, I, and I think @Banno and @Michael, don't believe any phenomenon has an essentialist definition.

Banno's position is extreme and dogmatic. — bert1

I don't agree.

adding a single grain can never turn a non-heap into a heap then — Michael

Following the Clark method, developed by philosopher T Clark in 2021, there would be a way to determine when a single grain turns a non-heap into a heap.

There's no contradiction or paradox there. There is, however, perhaps implicit in the argument that to become a heap there must be a point at which adding a single grain "turns it into" a heap, but that would be essentialism which ought be rejected. — Michael

If we cared enough, which we don't, we could set up a method for determining the meaning of "heap" the same way they measure the toxicity of a substance. LD(lethal dose)50 is the amount of the substance that will kill a rat in 50% of cases. So we could have HD("heap" definition)50, the point at which 50% of a group of people would define a bunch of sand as a heap. Or we could spend our time polishing the silver, which would be more productive.

Take the heap/sorites paradox. The heap-ness has nothing at all to do with the sand grains individually but what it actually is is the shape (roughly conical). — TheMadFool

I don't think there is any good reason to fiddle around with "heap" to make it more precise, but if there were, this would be a good way of going about it.

My view is that a grouping of items is an existent entity wherever that grouping exists, whether that's in a person's mind or outside the mind. In other words, there's one existent heap outside the mind, but another existent entity is a person's mental image of that heap. Anyways, that's my view. — Roger

I feel differently. I don't think things exist as phenomena separate from the undifferentiated world until someone like us brings them into existence by naming them. That is the essence of what Lao Tzu wrote in the Tao Te Ching.

So, what kind of world does the ontology of a 'heap' inhabit? Purely, "worldly" or phenomenological; because the law of excluded middle wont let both be satisfied at the same time, no? I might be wrong; but, a heap comes off as a epistemological problem, as specified by philosophers and their criteria for other terms such as 'holes' or heaps upon heaps. — Shawn

I don't think I understand what you mean by "worldly" or "phenomenological" in this situation. "Heap" is a label we put on a phenomenon we observe in the world. The word is artificial, human-made. Is that what you mean by phenomenological?

It's not that the use of "heap" is arbitrary; Capricious, whimsical, random. — Banno

I said the distinction between what is considered a heap and what isn't is arbitrary. Maybe I used the wrong word. The line we draw between heap and not-heap is one we've drawn. It's a choice we've made based on the kinds of things we want to say. It doesn't necessarily correspond to some natural boundary. And, as we've both noted, we make that choice with all the words we use.

I would even argue that cognitively a "heap" is what can be called a phenomenological expression if its so inexact. — Shawn

It's always seemed to me that the real issue with the so-called "Sorites paradox" isn't that the idea of a heap is vague so it's hard to know what is and what isn't. As others have noted, we don't generally have any trouble using the word "heap" without confusing people. I see the real issue being the arbitrariness of the distinctions we make for everything we talk about. A heap is just an easily understood example.

The world is the world. There are no paradoxes in the world. We starting confusing ourselves when we lose track of the difference between the world and the words we use to describe it. That's what we're talking about when we talk about paradoxes.

I have Einstein's Special and General Relativity, I've been meaning to re-read it and your post reinforces that.... — Pantagruel

You should read the original paper too. It's well written and clear and is available on the web. The first couple of pages are simple and straightforward, then it gets more difficult, but it's not that long.

To what extent can you read one person's summary of a book, and claim to be acquainted with the actual ideas of the author? — Pantagruel

while it can be useful to find such summaries it is worth looking at actual texts, including electronic and paper books. I believe that it is worth looking at all possible options. — Jack Cummins

For non-fiction, very often when I look at original sources I find unexpected and surprising information. Examples:

• Special relativity - "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" - Einstein does not show or prove that the speed of light is a constant in all reference frames, he assumes it.
  
  
• Evolution - "On the Origin of Species" - Darwin identifies the primary mechanism of evolutionary change as natural selection, but he also considers inheritance of acquired characteristics, Lamarckism, as a possible mechanism.
  
  
• Uncertainty principle - "Quantum theoretical re-interpretation of kinematic and mechanical relations" - Heisenberg's derivation of the equation for the limit on measurements of position and momentum is based on assumptions that are no longer considered correct.

In the case of human expression it seems leaving out why would miss most of the contextual information surrounding an event like a protest isn't explained by the manner of gathering but the reasons for it. It could be impossible to generalize successfully at this level. — Cheshire

Good point. I was thinking more of subatomic particles, billiard balls, and galaxies. Is "the sky is blue because blue light scatters more than other wavelengths," how or why?

completely explain the outcome — Cheshire

It comes down to what "completely explain the outcome" means. Does it mean "how," or does it mean "why." I think how is all we can know.

You and I seem to agree on most of this. We're just batting around the details. I'm satisfied where things stand.

Is it possible to create universal criteria that answers the question why?. — Cheshire

I guess it can only end with "I don't know" unless we know absolutely everything? — Down The Rabbit Hole

I like "Because I said so," although the best answer is probably "There are no answers to the question "Why." We don't or can't know that. The only question we can answer is "How."

Yes, in my amateur experience you can separate the mind by the stages of brain evolution. So, the reptilian mind that concentrates on safety and resources, the mammalian mind that has more emotional and empathetic functions and then the human mind that acts as an office manager and creates the illusion of a single mind during real time experiences. So, two minds and an executive function that can act in the moment. It translates the needs of the others into a human level of complex planning and attention. But lacks a separate history in the event of separation. — Cheshire

I think this understanding is outdated. I've been reading, very slowly, "How Emotions Are Made" by Barret. According to her studies, the entire mind takes part in all aspects of mental life. @Possibility is more familiar with her work than I am. Maybe she can add something.

Have you read them? — baker

No. I don't believe your ad hominem argument criticizing the contents of my posts was valid.

Let's quit this back and forth. I'll give you the last word.

But that's not what I'm saying. Ironically you are making me use this argument as an example of how it is used. You are essentially straw-manning my argument. I'm not saying that someone is just saying a fallacy and using that as a way to dismiss other's arguments, I'm saying, like right now, that pointing out fallacies and biases and then explaining why they are applicable is the way to use them. — Christoffer

To make sure we're talking about the same thing, when you say I'm "straw-manning" your argument, you mean I'm attributing an argument to you that you never made. Correct? If so, it was on account of a misunderstanding, not an attempt to win the argument. I have no problem with explaining the problems with another person's argument. As I've said from the beginning, it is labelling an argument as a logical fallacy I object to. Doing that allows people to criticize another person's argument without thinking through the reasons. It also makes it easier for the other person to dismiss the criticism.

That just raised a question for me - is labelling a person's argument a logical fallacy an example of an argument from authority? I'm not sure.

it doesn't work to just say which bias or fallacy they are guilty of. You have to explain why. — Christoffer

Yes, this is my point. What fallacy is it when we agree on something but keep arguing anyway? Whatever you call it, it's one my wife and I get caught in all the time.

The point is not to "win" an argument by pointing out fallacies and biases, it is to improve the quality of arguments so that there actually is a forward momentum of thought for both parties. — Christoffer

Agreed.

An argument needs to be solid, it needs to have good thought out premises. We don't need to use the classic deduction/induction format, but it needs to have a logical throughline. But for argument's sake I can make one here. — Christoffer

Agreed.

You mean to say a bad person can't come up with a good argument? — TheMadFool

That probably isn't as much an issue with metaphysics, philosophy of science, philosophy of art, etc.; but when it comes to ethics, morality, and political philosophy, I'm not so sure.

Only insofar as deciding whether-or-not to accept the advice. — gloaming

I agree. It is generally when action, such as medical treatment, is required that it becomes most important to determine the truth.

Condemn was probably too strong a word. But I have experienced people who will scold or frown on bug squashing. For example, I have a good friend who comes over to my house on a lot of afternoons. If we're on my back patio and I start stepping on a line of hungry ants making their way from the grass, he'll tell me to "just leave them alone." Sometimes I horse around and start stamping them even faster and he will say "Come on, man" or "I'm just going to leave then." I'm pretty sure he sees it as immoral but we're good enough friends that he overlooks it. — IanBlain

The pleasure you seem to take in killing bugs and your willingness to unnecessarily anger your friends does not reflect well on you.