Great post BC!

I think practical value of the choice lies the life one leads, not in this or that particular god. We all want explanations for our situation and we all have to make a choice, either there is an explanation or there is not. The believer chooses a god, because it makes sense of their life and death, the non-believer does not see answers in the proposition of a god.

The decision to believe or not to believe in god, is no guarantee of eternal salvation. The concepts of heaven and hell, each support the concept of the possibility of life after death, which I think can be the only basis for accepting the wager.

And I don't think this matters. It is the Ideal one can believe in or not, whatever it might be, the Ideal that supports life after death that supports the wager.

Yes, we wager prudentially, if there is not benefit then why bother. I think It is the possibility and uncertainty surrounding life after death that makes the wager tenable, regardless of the deity(ies) involved.

↪Cavacava The point is that Pascal's Wager doesn't address the situation where two conflicting religions each claim that beliefs in their respective Gods ensure eternal paradise after death and disbeliefs in their respective Gods (or beliefs in other Gods) ensures eternal hell after death.

How do I use Pascal's Wager to choose between Yahweh and Allah, for example?

Not sure how your statement follows from mine.

Yes, we wager prudentially. If there is no benefit, then why bother? I think that it t is the possibility and uncertainty surrounding life after death that makes the wager tenable, regardless of the deity(ies) involved.

It is pragmatic, not "disingenuous" unless you consider pragmatism disingenuous. What do you mean by the "wrong deity", how can there be a "wrong" in this discussion.

I don't like Pascal's wager either, but it a rational alternative, and rationality does not have to be sincere, just reasonable.

Well, there is always Pascal's Wager.

I don't think there has ever been a civilization or society with no religious practice. There must be something about being human that inspires us to seek out reasons,ways of living, beyond our apparent situation. Even after we have reached the conclusion that god cannot rationally exist., we still argue his existence. All the rational proofs of god's existence are labored, none satisfy.

Maybe god exists in the same way the self exists, not in actuality, but in virtual reality.

So what is the main dish? Turkey? I think I am having pork crown roast. I am bringing the wine, an Italian red Toscanna.

Still planning to make my Turducken terrine, Smokies as the appetizer! Should work out well, I need the bacon to wrap the terrine. Cranberry dipping sauce and perhaps a cranberry vinaigrette for the cold Turducken (served over a leafy green salad mix), Not sure about wine here, something light, a sparkling wine.

Martha Stewart


I have made some of her recipes, they work, but if I remember correctly she uses a lot of exotic ingredients. It is fascinating how my conception of Martha has changed over the years. She kinda morphs along, she changes peoples lives for the better.

I saw an experiment investigating rats color discrimination. In it the rats are trained to associate food in a specific location with a blue light, the rats were also tested with yellow, and red lights. The yellow light produced the most correct results, red the worst. Gcolema2 rats's Blog ? I have no idea how trust worthy, but it looks pretty straight forward.

https://gcolema2rats.wordpress.com/anastasias-clicker-training/

Hi Monitor, just teasing a little. I think science is expanding with new disciplines all the time, new areas of study. We seem driven to want to know, more and more. This same desire to know, makes us want to know 'who/what/why' we are, pushing us towards resolving problems related to our own reality/actuality as beings in the world. This is what I meant by convergent.

Converging on what?

Answering that question.

Science's progress is divergent and human progress is convergent.

Sounds great! Bacon, sausage and brown sugar, are all naturals. What you might want to consider is a few different types of dipping sauces as a way to expand your dish, beyond the magnificent aroma of your crispy treat. They should be simple. Your favorite barbecue sauce, a mayo/mustard piquant sauce, and perhaps a tart cranberry dipping sauce.

The colors alone should entice the dippers.

BC

Supposing that early morning in the park I had a gun handy and pulled it out, telling the guy to go back the way he came. Having done that, I would know that this now angry person might be waiting for me when I decided to leave the park (only one way out) and stepped onto the sidewalk under bright street lights. Bang bang, maybe. Dead crank.

Well, supposing along with you. Suppose you go into that same park with a gun handy, and ready. You see someone sitting on that rail fence. You go up and sit next to the person start up a conversation and mention that you have a gun at the ready. You note the obvious consternation in the others face, so you shove off and move along.

I do like the drama you invoke, it is kinda funny that your hypothetical climatic end occurs under "bright street lights" and not in the shadows. :)

We live in the age of progress. Progress has become a secular Ideal. We collectively and individually strive/desire to become richer, healthier, happier, finer people. We see how quickly science has moved, and we desire to advance humanly in a similar manner, with all the trappings that accompany our progress.

This Ideal moves us along, sets a direction which will never end. Keat's says

"Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine—
Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made
The tender-person’d Lamia melt into a shade."

The mystery of life is lost in our quest for explanations and along with it any sense of acting beyond the pro-functionary necessity of doing what is expected. As we look straight ahead, we lose what is tangential, off to the side. Politeness is a victim of this view, it becomes a hallow token of how we are expected to act, what we are expected to say. It loses its genuine character, y'all.

"In both cases we are judging the whole on the basis of the irrational actions of a minority of participants".
— Cavacava

Whether or not the objection is based on the actions of a minority of participants becomes far less relevant in light of both the number and frequency of occurrences and the significance of the detrimental consequences.

--Sapientia

Yes, I agree with this but it does not address the contradiction. The same can be said of the actions of Terrorists, their ideology claims a sacred origin, their killings are what the mediators of their god have said they ought to do. The importance of their ideological view point is "relevant in light of both the number and frequency of occurrences and the significance of the detrimental consequences"

It is an easy step to claim that all of Islam condones violence, and these terrorists are proof that violence is inherent in their faith. It is easy to say that the 'right to carry arms' is the cause of much of the violence we see in the United States, and it is easy to condemn gun owners as perpetrators of this violence.

It is the same sort of value judgement. We tend to judge a ideological group by the actions of its most radical elements. If differentiation is a basic instinctual force in culture, the radical describes the border of what is meant by labeling one a member of a group.

I still don't know how to delete a post. Hit the wrong button. But I do want to say something about this.

My father used to go to bed with a 38 at his bed side, and I know several others who still do. I have nothing against guns for hunting, target practice and for protection, but I do not think machine guns, grenades or other idiotic weapons should be available. I like shotguns, clay pigeons.

There seems to be a left leaning portion of society that condemns guns on the basis of the actions of a few lunatics. At the same time, the right leaning portion of society asks others not to allow refugees into the country for fear that we may be letting in terrorists. In both cases we are judging the whole on the basis of the irrational actions of a minority of participants.

I wonder about how 'polite' society is possible today, we seem to be moving too fast to allow it.

Yes, I agree with what you wrote. I think simple things such as an infants instinctual grasping of objects become cognitive over its maturation. If I remember correctly, Jean Piaget proposed that this reflex as well as other reflexes are transformed over into the cognitive realm as a child matures out of its earliest stages of development. Isn't this what Lacan calls the "Real"?

In the first days of their lives, French infants already cry in a different way to German babies. This was the result of a study by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, the Centre for Pre-language Development and Developmental Disorders (ZVES) at the University Clinic Würzburg, and the Laboratory of Cognitive Sciences and Linguistics at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. In this study, the scientists compared recordings of 30 French and 30 German infants aged between two and five days old. While the French newborns more frequently produced rising crying tones, German babies cried with falling intonation. The reason for this is presumably the differing intonation patterns in the two languages, which are already perceived in the uterus and are later reproduced. (Current Biology, November 5th, 2009)

I don't think it is all about discrimination or elimination. It starts off as mimicry, cooing back to the mother. Discrimination or elimination seem to be a latter development.

I think both Fascism and Totalitarianism are about control of the state, but Fascism seems to go beyond caring about the state, the state is only a means to a Fascist ideological ends.

Note that my membership says subscription cancelled...not big deal, but I didn't cancel it.

Levinas wrote an essay around 1933, "Hitlerism", in it he suggests that Marx's transformation of German Idealism was interpreted by these Fascists as the priority of the body over the soul, the priority of race/consanguity in the realization of a Utopian society. Achievement of Utopia required removal of all racial impurity,the Jews and other un-Aryan races.

Umberto Eco in his "Ur-Fascism" *describes growing up in Italy during Mussolini's rise and fall. He suggests that Fascism is kinda of an all-purpose term, you can take out or insert terms, but he does outline typical features:

1) A strict and narrow traditionalism, they are ultra-reactionary right.
2) Anti-modernism. They love armaments, all technological, but they think that the Enlightenment's humanity is the beginning of depravity.
3) Irratiionalism, action for actions sake, since it alone is beautiful. "Goering's alleged statement "When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun"
4) There is no disagreement, that's treason.
5) "Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference." It is by definition racist.
6) Fascism is derived from individual or social frustration.
7) In place of identity, Fascism inserts nationalism, common origin and its nationalism is defined by its enemies. It is all a plot against Fascism and the culprit must also lie within the common society. It's the Jews primarily, since being a Jew means that the person's origin is in some manner beyond all other national origins
8) Its enemies are strong, rich, powerful, and they are humiliated by this, yet by switch of rhetorical focus Fascism believes they will overcome their enemies might. [The short guy complex. (W. Riech)]
9)" For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle. Thus
pacifism is trafficking with the enemy"
10) Fascism is ordered hierarchically, in military fashion, with one worthy leader.
11) " everybody is educated to become a hero"
12) "Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist
transfers his will to power to sexual matters"
13) A citizen has no rights, no purpose only a role which is given to them.
14) "Newspeak", what is said is kept simple, no complex ideas are encouraged.

http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf

It is a short and excellent read. Anyway, I think ISIS falls into several of these categories. Going back to Levinas, ISIS gives priority to the soul over the body, supplanting rationality with myth.

I find the physical description of the Barycenter center fantastic. The Barycenter of the earth and the moon is that point where these two celestial bodies are one in gravity. A physical point that is 1000 feet beneath your feet. If I understand it correctly, the earth and the moon form a conjunction of each others gravitational force. If the earth and the moon had the same mass their Barycenter would be half way between each.

The Barycenter of the sun with respect to all the planets rotating around it is still within the mass of the sun! The Barycenter of our solar system is a point, which is frozen in place inside the sun and the Barycenter of the Milky Way...no clue.

Gravity is a physical force. Gravity is an emotional force. a seriousness, a grave set of circumstances. Does a poem that can move in two directions at the same time, physically and emotionally have a Barycenter? And if yes then where is it and how could it be described. Is the Barycenter of man in his body or in his thought or is it somewhere in the middle? The poem, I think, is suggesting it is a moment in time.

These attacks will force world governments to be more concerned about their security, more secretive and push us more towards a totalitarian form of society which we will accept willingly. It will create intense hatred of not just ISIS but of all Muslim people. Today 10 states here in the US have refused to accept a quota of refugees. One of the goals of ISIS is to radicalize Muslim populations everywhere. To make them make a choice, so no "grey" stance is possible, and they may achieve this goal.

We have bombed the piss out of ISIS for the last 12 months, but it has only grown in size. They want us to react strongly to their actions, they want to die as a 'heroes', martyrs to their cause. We have tried in the past to blast populations into the "stone age", only to see them crawl out of their 'caves' renewed, with their renewed resilience drawing new blood to their cause.

I think boots on the ground is the only way to defeat them and I think these boots must be Muslim led. Not any coalition, but a coalition of Muslims nations willing to fight to take back their honor. If this kind of coalition is possible, it should receive world wide support.

ISIS is not a state, they don't even recognize that as a concept, they don't want to negotiate, that is against their unbelievably traditional ideology.

They want to fight, to die, to go to heaven.

Hi John,

I post on Tumblr because I find it is a convenient way to keep a virtual file of my work. Once it is on there it is easy to copy and paste to emails, forums and other places on line. I have never spent much time browsing around it, it is an enormous compendium of work by all kinds of people.

If you like poetry, music lyrics, rap try http://genius.com/ It is very interesting site, with individual interpretations of all types of works.

Hey John, I like the painting very much. The color palette, all the forms, it looks very orgasmic and symbolic. What is the media?

BC, I agree with what you have said. The question:

"Does the spirit of a congregation create the spirit of god, or is it "the call of the spirit of god" that arises?"

I think there has to be a call, a gift of faith, and it is not something everyone gets or chooses even if they do get it. It seems that man needs a universal to explain our curious circumstance, however you want to frame it. It also seems to me to be more likely that the realization of a spirit may be possible in our relationship with others.

Even those individuals who proceed on their own, must be first called and then be willing to take great risks. Hermits, mystics, and others who look for a direct connection have to empty themselves of their self, all desire and reason, until they become an empty vessel, capable of receiving god, and acting as his instrument willingly and ecstatically. Many of these persons go nuts at least from our viewpoint.

Some mythological narratives appeal and carry more meaning about life/death for many then the narratives of the rational enlightenment.

Toffee, 21 to Philosophy 24 to Ontology

I saw this and I thought its sentiment kinda fits:

An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
~ John Gardner

MOS "I sort of have the feeling that "Warhol's laconic" is itself a 'readymade'"
Yep. :)
His color palette reflected the advertising colors used at the time. They remind me of the colors I see on casino slot machines, bright, flashy, showy colors. Much like the colors Lichenstein used, comic book colors.

BC
Dano thought Warhol's Campbell Soup Cans were art. Warhol hand painted all 32 varieties which were displayed at MOMA as follows:



His work and Lichenstein's work play on what they saw in ordinary life, they mimic the mass-produce culture of the time. Here are Warhol's Marilyns' this is a silk screen print.



His painting of 'Marilyn' is not Norma Jeane Mortenson, it's her as an iconic sex goddess, and not her as a person, this is similar to his treatment of the soup cans and Brillo Boxes. His painting emphasize the glitz, her stardom, the facets of her public persona. It is his statement about how we look at our idols, it is not about the work on canvas but what and how the work reflects culture at that time.

Their work raises the ordinary above what it is to give us a view to the culture that produces the objects we see every day, it invites us to think into the process of what culture has formed. It does justice to that critique, and I think their intrinsic worth lies in the vision they allow.

(BTW Jaume Plensa, "The Fountains" is considered to be Neo-Pop)

Warhol's laconic "Art is what you can get away with" I think was directed at Duchamp's use of readymades. Warhol always played his bumbly persona for the press, he was rarely out of character. He meant that any object is possible as an art object, which is what Duchamp had shown.
So yea, anything can be art, but that does not make it good or bad art, high or low art. We value art, but art is a spectrum of experience.

Art can enrich our experience of life, it can enable us to transcend the worst that life can bring, and make it bearable.



I stated earlier that I thought the Vietnam Memorial befits it subject in a way that the MLK memorial does not come close to. I think all good art must do justice to its subject.

Why does a poet struggle to find the right words in a poem. Why did Ezra Pound spend a year and a half writing his poem "In a Station of the Metro". He had his initial inspiration on the same day he saw all those faces in the crowd and then he worked on it and worked on it. What is it about art that can command such devotion. I think that good art has intrinsic worth, a worth that compels us.

The Millennium Park has much to offer residents and visitors to the city. Jaume Piensa's Crown Fountains also create public space, but in a very different manner than the Bean.

While Piensa work is conceptually complex, the enjoyment of the space he created requires very little thought. Perhaps like watching TV. Remote operation of the boob tube is within the grasp of most couch potatoes.

He describes these heads as gargoyles, water spouts. He seems to be a mainly fascinated with heads, structure body and the placement of his work in public areas. The fountains are interactive art, at the monumental scale, a spectacle, a carnival of enjoyment for spectators day and night.

The Sculpture asked a 1000 local residents to pose for the faces that appear in the fountain, figures that required manipulation so that the images lips would purse exactly at the point when a gush of water is sent out.

The public was not totally on board with this project when it was proposed, they thought it would be too highbrow, intellectual. The unexpected way children took to this space as a place to splash and slide around, thoroughly enjoying themselves quickly changed the public's perception and makes it one of the many jewels in this park.

Several interesting views, and I agree with much that has been said. Kant (and others) ask what it means to be a moral agent, for him this must involve the concept of freedom of the will. We, as a species, seek to order what we experience, and language facilitates this process. Unless there are rules/language then it is difficult for me to see what could be meant by freedom. The presence of rules suggests certain way(s) to act, which we can follow or not.

Kant is doing meta-ethics, he is not so much concerned with applied ethics. I think pressuring his statements too much about their application may lead us off his course. The way we can recognize that a chair is a chair, regardless of its maker or style may also applicable to what we think is moral or not. We learn what is right and what is wrong, from our family, our community, all the societal forces around us.

Normative values become habitual in individuals and these values provide us with our initial moral viewpoint, which we accept without much question, at least until a dilemma arises that tests our values. I don't think we should tell an ax murderer where our friend is, but context also may play an important role. Does immanent danger to one's self out weigh our duty to a friend? We recognize the moral course of action, but our freedom as a moral agent has been compromised. We can lie and this may be the best moral course of action given the particularity of the circumstance.

I think empathy, compassion, fairness/justice are instinctual drives that become the emotive content of our thought and I don't think the way we think about what we desire or how we act can be reduced solely to either emotions or reason. These two seem inexorably intertwined in our will and our imagination. I don't think Kant was correct in separating them, even though I understand his desire to achieve the form of an action that might serve as a universal law.

Mark Rothko

"From one angle I find works by Rothko and Pollock visually pleasing, but from other angles they can seem empty and dull. They attract considerable loathing."

Rothko's


It's vertical, it is like a portrait, it is about 81x66 inches, a huge work. Its hugeness draws the observer into the work, you get lost in it, like a surreal figure less landscape. The paint seems to want to go beyond the canvas.... away from the white. The yellow is optimistic and the red passionate, the black in the middle is like a land mass separating these two seas of color. The orange is the surrender.

Rothko was trying to connect with people on the plane of feeling, movement here is in chunks of emotion.

Hi Baden, most of my work (3 yrs) is posted on Tumblr under name "Mermonk" an old PT Barnum scam, no web site.

I saw this tree on Palm Beach Island last March. It sits directly across from West Palm Beach and it reminded me of a kind of universe.



This is one of the few I have done from a photo, mostly I like to get outside and plein air paint. Or come up with an image based on a poem.



And thank you for the all kind words.
I really enjoy all the creativity that the posters have all displayed.

In 1963 Robert Rauschenberg was on a bus trip in Texas, touring with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. He was the art director. Here is his statement about his art. http://post.at.moma.org/sources/18/publications/274

FIND IT NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE FREE ICE TO WRITE ABOUT JEEPAXLE MY WORK. THE CONCEPT I PLANTATARIUM [sic] STRUGGLE TO DEAL WITH KETCHUP IS OPPOED [author’s note: the s has been dropped from “opposed”] TO THE LOGICAL CONTINUITY LIFT TAB INHERENT IN LANGUAGE HORSES AND COMMUNICATION.

MY FASCINATION WITH IMAGES OPEN 24 HRS. IS BASED ON THE COMPLEX INTERLOCKING OF DISPARATE VISUAL FACTS HEATED POOL THAT HAVE NO RESPECT FOR GRAMMAR. THE FORM THEN DENVER 39 IS SECOND HAND TO NOTHING. THE WORK THEN HAS A CHANCE TO ELECTRIC SERVICE BECOME ITS OWN CLICHÉ. LUGGAGE. THIS IS THE INEVITABLE FATE FAIR GROUND OF ANY INANIMATE OBJECT FREIGHTWAYS.

His art statement makes use of his art method. The images he saw on the road entered his text, much in the same way images enter his canvases.

I put them on Tumblr first and then copy the URL on to the image box above.