Consider a depressed person who could not be cured by pills, but was cured by a more holistic approach to their psychological well-being. — Tzeentch

But all the other therapeutic modalities would do well to find evidence to back up what otherwise would just be a mess of testimonials/anecdotes. What gets in the way of this evidence, the gap between the consumer and the understanding of science, is consumer marketing/propaganda among other things. An understanding of mechanism is also what protects us from harming ourselves even more. If we all looked at the statistical evidence of pills versus lifestyle changes we might be surprised at how little pills have to offer aside placebo. What if we had honest drug commercials, showing the statistical effect aside other therapies?

It seems Desmet is drawing concern for the popular narratives and beliefs about science shaped by a profit incentive and public ignorance but it is strange to label it in such a way: "The End of A Mechanistic Worldview." I wouldn't doubt that the public is generally a lot more skeptical of the idealistic promises of for-profit science given current global crises compared to decades ago.

Part 3, “Beyond the Mechanistic Worldview,” explores how our societies can supplement science—which needs serious reform to eliminate corruption, biases, flawed findings, and outright capture by powerful and monied interests—with both traditional and alternative ways of knowing and attaining meaning (community, spirituality, mastery of craft, etc.) and to further develop the humble and mystery-respecting frontiers of science as articulated by giants such as Einstein, Bohr, and Planck. — Leo Aprendi, Amazon Book Review of Psychology of Totalitarnism, Mattias Desmet

Aren't parts relative/abstract fictions linked to the value/perceiving apparatus of a kind of being/observer. Nothing really has (or does not have) a part that isn't relative to what conceives the the part as a part (or not part).

A unity is always within something which plays a necessary part in creating that unity. There are no absolute unities, only relative ones that break apart according to the various schemes/methods of part making.

Is one single atom of a nuclear isotope that decays a unity without parts? When the particle decays, does it act upon itself? Does the presence/fields of all other things (as parts) in the universe have no bearing on why/when/how that particle decays? It can't be a unity without parts if it decays, can it? Is time a part of that unity?

Is this view point arguing for something like the precautionary principle? The discoveries of scientific empiricism always involve trade-offs when applied at industrial scales. The problem is more of science from narrowed economic concerns, what is done from local incentive with ignored consequences/externalities. It's less about what science can do in principle and more about what humans can't organize due to all kinds of other depressing limitations.

The science is great tool assuming one could overcome the hurdle of an uncoordinated pluralism (many states acting independently) to implement global coordination toward sustainability and human welfare. But let's not kid ourselves.

Choloroflurocarbons used in refrigerants degraded the ozone layer. Luckily it was reversible and there was enough universal agreement to implement a fix.

Just read that all rain fall on earth is contaminated with PFAs at levels that pose risk to human health.

Maybe someone will try geoengineering if the planet gets crazy hot but there could be unforeseen trade-offs with that also.

No matter what the prevailing dream is, it's depressing. :shade:

What we need now is a non-human mechanistic Fuhrer/Pope AI who can choreograph global sustainability while minimizing human suffering.

The trick would be intolerable by human standards. How does the AI ensnare you to believe that everything you are doing as a contributor to the grand plan of a better future is what you want to do? And is it allowed to "assassinate" anyone or perform acts of God. How could it transcend the current limits of human powers to enforce its mission?

When does your freedom become one with global servitude (all for one and one for all)? What is it allowed to take from you that you currently feel you are entitled to now? Aren't you afraid of this? How will it mollify your paranoia?

But maybe this is the utopian dream of the power of the mechanistic world view, the very kind of thinking that is dangerous (because nobody will know what is really going on to futilism, crippling paranoia). The mess of human affairs is a mess, due to the blindness inspired by local needs/fulfillment, entropic trade-offs, resource limitations, the void of eternal unsatisfaction in the being of all creatures, short term versus the long term thinking. Catastrophe, soft or hard, is probably likely.

Is selfishness/narcissism at the root of the more pejorative aspect of "ego"? The only time I ever use the term for ordinary purposes is for folks who appear to be somewhat self-absorbed, narcissistic in conversations/acts. A few figures spring to mind, celebrity rock front-men David Lee Roth, Steven Tyler, Gene Simmons. Simmons especially embodies a caricature of selfishness/narcissism, much like Donald Trump (an epitome of pathological narcissism made president). In the abject case it seems there is no commitment to a shared moral reality, honor, reciprocity, where the needs of the self supersede others in an abnormal way.

In a more rudimentary way, the self and its habits are the concrete aspects of a biological individual (body) as it works to survive and reproduce in nature. Self-awareness, if necessary for the presence of a "self", probably arises from social relationship with others as a way to further mediate behavior in complex social situations. We get to run a simulation of projected consequences.

Psychoanalytic theories use these terms in special ways however, such that the Ego is one feature of Self among many others.

The positive aspect of the ego or self (all the conceptual/cognitive projections of what one is) helps one to live. You have an image/concept of what you want to preserve, maintain or evolve based on memory, instincts, social conditioning and articulated desire and you work toward that given all kinds of worldly constraints.

Now here is a selfish dog. Why is he so selfish? Does he have a big ego?

Is "collectivism" well defined? It seems like the abject example represents the ideology of failed communist regimes, where private property is outlawed and absorbed by the state, where authoritarian mandates come from an elite governing class. But it seems it's better suited for a democratic experiment.

We're not allowed to call the modern for profit corporation an example of collectivist enterprise? A group of individuals come together and are constrained in their freedoms to work for stakeholders/shareholders as a group. Every employee is to some extent a stakeholder insofar as they rely on the company for their own individual well being (they rely on some collective for their well being). These companies concentrate the power to influence state policies and to influence the greater collective.

Wherever the individual goes he/she is embedded in collective enterprises, ideologies that bind men and women in common values, causes. There is always, always, always the tyranny of the majority and the tyranny of life's lottery (the caste/condition of one's individuality). There will never be a kind of state in which these tyrannies disappear entirely.

I was in my room, minding my own business, buggering the local barista. The door burst asunder.

"Thou shalt not sodomize!" The authorities cried. "You're under arrest."

"But God told me it was ok bugger the barista."

"Blasphemy!" the police priest shouted. "You've been deluded by Satan."

"But what does God say about North Carolina's hog farm pollution calamity?"

"Shut your trap! Sodomizer! Grace comes to the deserving."
_______

God gets to trounce secular rule because he is associated with ultimate values by his/her/its cult members. In current times this is very dangerous.

Many use God as an excuse to get what they want (power/wealth). Others are persuaded to follow by a senseless appeal to faith.

Is there really (apparently) just one substance?

There could also be a paradox of choice going on which leads to an admission of life being unsatisfactory despite all efforts to enjoy it. There are simply too many points, too many avenues, too many possibilities and yet the circumstance of satisfying some needs over others leaves one vacillating over what could've been. There is so much denied or granted to us by absurd historical accident.

The grass is seemingly greener on the other side of the fence and any satisfaction is temporary, attendant on a never ending work to sustain it. Sisyphus rolls his rock against the flows of entropy.

Then bring in misfortune and suffering. Nature demands that we satisfy our needs all the while denying the means to satisfy those needs. How could the centrality of life become inescapable pain and suffering? Perhaps the default of the human condition is one of want and its itchy and uncomfortable and we are tired of having to put salve on it every morning.

But maybe the salve is like heroin and you're having the ride of your life.

Gratitude is likely associated with desired brain states (a feeling of satisfaction/peace/love). If love were an island, folks living on it would be bonded in mutual trust through acts of authentic gratitude. One would be more often genuinely grateful and show it in reciprocity with another.

The self-help psychologists say you can fake gratitude until you make gratitude, exercise the circuits, like the Buddhists might exercise loving kindness (Metta) toward establishing a good social habit.

Just never show gratitude toward your boss, or he'll likely pile on the workload. There is no room for gratitude in master/slave relationships, unless of course you enjoy your work and can picture yourself as a free man instead of a precariat slave in our Capitalist utopia.

We are barreling toward extinction within a minute breadth of geologic time. No need to arrogate the right to end others lives. That's a punk nihilistic move.

It's all going to happen again anyway. Being is inevitable and we have no control on where and what we might appear as in the next happening.

What about the historical fact of polytheism with regard to gods?

There's Shinto/animism, where just about everything is a god/spirit.
There's the Greek pantheon of elitist soap opera fickle pricks, playing chess with mortals, susceptible to bribes.
There's the Egyptian animal headed figures of the immortal other world (a bit alien/weird from my point of view).

You could just as well ascribe kingship/sovereign to a God who is the arbiter of law/morality/truth/duty/value/identity.

Maybe loosely the family stands in relation to the patriarch as the village stands in relation to the king/leader.

God is probably a strong model/reflection for the head of the household in a Christian context. The figure informs and is informed by the social reality of those who live by it.

Guess Italians traditionally love the Madonna because they prefer mom to dad. Mamma mia (oh mother).
_______

The fragmentation of old cultures with the turn of the englightenment and technological age, Capitalist commodification, alienation, atomization, might bear some responsibility for a nostalgia of more simple yesterday, when you could find answers/guidance in God. This surely parallels the individual's crisis of having to go out into a shitty world, after leaving family, and pull on one's bootstraps in the nihilistic rat race. Maybe if we had a God (imaginary parent) we could pray for guidance. But who believes in that anymore?

Why take drugs when you can just go see the new Cronenberg nightmare this year.

Crimes of the Future

I am in my mid 50's and wondering why I'm not a worshipper of Mammon — allan wallace

But where does your dough ($) come from? It's a bit presumptuous to say the average wage/salaried earner worships Mammon. Maybe they see no comfortable alternative to how they live currently.

You ought to have compassion for the slaves of Mammon (The Terror of Entropy Incarnate as Death and Dispersal), unless you think they're wholly responsible for the situation they've habituated themselves to.

Rene Girard is the new trendy/intellectual cipher to understanding the motifs of Bible (the meaning of Christ's sacrifice).

Jesus is the Last Sacrifice, a symbol/awareness/reminder to end the widespread unconscious practice of scapegoating, which is an evolutionary trick or double edged sword which formerly stabilized society but is also the source of violent apocalypse/end of times . Good luck on that account. That's as much like telling everyone that Christ's message is that they shall all become vegan and give 10% of their away to the poor and never partake in money lending with interest.

So what do you think I think of your writing? — Joe Mello

Tell us what you think of his writing.

If God is actually playing hand puppets, Praxis on one hand and Joe Mello on the other, I'm stoked for this gladiatorial theater. One hand is feigning outrage. One hand is arrogant. Both hands like to write fiction. One hand paints. The hands do so many things.

I'm curious - can you give an example fo cultural enhancement? — Tom Storm

Well, maybe it's a bad term because as I think about it, most of what I think would might count as cultural enhancement already exists for those interested. We already have the freedom to choose what we want to do if we have the time and money. Maybe setting up a means to give away free experiences to those who can't afford it. More non-profits for hands on skill trading.

I like the idea of street level cabinets/libraries/farm stands where people can exchange unwanted books/items/food but maybe this would amount to an eye sore, a garbage heap and something to be vandalized and abused. Besides, these things already are a thing.

Edit: I've got it: more time and money (means to ends) for everyone who is lacking.

I doubt you would get much agreement as to what constitutes the notion of 'beautify' or 'enhance culture' in the current world of anti-foundationalism. — Tom Storm

Do you mean unanimous or majority agreement in any community? I guess we can consider the home (or one's room) as a sovereign microstate and where beautification and cultural enhancement can start. Even at that level there can be plenty of disagreement if others are in the mix. I've no plans to try initiate a mass movement of cultural/political change. If I had Jeff Bezo's money and influence, maybe I could get somewhere (other than space).

I care from fear of suffering mostly. Maybe reason (if I could reason) would help to avoid unnecessary suffering. Secondarily, I care for pleasure.

The golden rule is about care. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I care not to be stuck with a knife, so I won't stick others with knives. I care in maintaining trust, so I want to be trustworthy. I'd care to beautify society and enhance culture so I can benefit too and everyone can feel just a smidge better. Basic stuff. But there are plenty of my habits/actions that fail this rule on account of not self being aware enough. We do not sit down and apply the golden rule to all potential action. We engage the rule mostly with regard to shorter term personal consequences and we succumb to reciprocation (if you slap me, I slap you, then we declare a slap war and the children go hungry).

Think depression has quashed my ability to recall most dreams. The one's I do recall lack much of any kind of emotive charge/significance. I took a sleep study in which I had zero REM sleep but it may have been due to taking a tricyclic sedative. Lots of substances reduce/affect REM.

Sometimes dreams can be so foul that one would wonder how one could sleep through them if one were aware of them.

Besides, there nothing more surreal then this waking dream we've yet to transition from. Just walk into a Walmart... how many planets in the universe have a Walmart equivalent? This is all so strange.

Once, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering about, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know that he was Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn't know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhuang Zhou. Between Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things. — Zhuang Zhou

This is the paradox then: you pay for the distance the cab travels, the cabby acts as if you paid for his time. — Agent Smith

Because time is always an inescapable value factor that applies to any kind of labor. There would be no passengers if they could not expect to get to their destinations on time. It takes time to travel any distance and there are only so many hours in a work day.

What form of productivity doesn't gain or lose value relative to the amount of time it takes to perform?

Taxi fare is not calculated by the drivers hurrying to reach the destination because if he goes to fast the customers are in the cab only a short time and pay less. It would not make sense for him to do so. — Sir2u

But we've just established that at a certain speed only distance is metered. So if there isn't much traffic, a taxi driver can increase his daily income if he speeds to get more fares for the day. All he needs to do is maximize distance traveled in a day above cross over speed. But the question is whether it is really worth it to do so relative to whatever the time metering rate is. Looks like crossover speed for one company is above 11 mph.

Still don't know why there would be a paradox. It's more a question of optimization. Is it worth it for a cabbie to speed?

Quora: Do taxi drivers make less money in slow traffic?

The answer is yes.

$.50/54 seconds versus $2.50/mile

@ 40miles/60 minutes speed you get .66miles/minute so that works out to like $3.30/2 minutes at 40mph versus $1.11/2 minutes waiting in traffic (or equal to and below 11mph).

While the taxi is traveling above the "crossover speed," the added 25-cents is a mileage charge only. When the cab is below the "crossover speed," the added 25-cents is a time charge only. — yellowcabhemet.com

When taxi goes vroom vroom fast, distance rate only applies. When taxi go too slow, sneaky time charge pulses add to the bill.

This is flash fiction. Join the thread.

What does "in-moral" mean? I suppose it means not moral in the way the prefix works with inflexible. But shouldn't the word immoral suffice?

If a rider were paying for the taxi driver's time then wouldn't there be an incentive to slow down. Why rush off to your next customer when you can get as much by being less productive.

Therefore it doesn't follow that a cabby who is paid by distance and speeds drives as if paid for his/her time.

Deleted

Using this dichotomy of winners and losers is a failure on my part.

Virtuous/successful/loved/gifted people watch and read what their unlucky counterparts do, whatever they're into.

Tragedies are for losers... to feel better about themselves. Someone got it worse. :death:

Mediocre guys are invariably pitted against a challenge that they are unlikely to overcome.

Yet through cunning, or via strength, or via moral vicissitude, or through blood viscosity, they overcome the challenge. Otherwise the book is a fail. — god must be atheist

Crime and Punishment (Loser has illusions of grandeur, commits murder, can't hold it together, gets caught... what a loser)

Moby Dick (Losers stuck on a ship are taken by a ride by mad captain, a kind of loser, who holds grudge against a whale of all things. They all get screwed by Moby. Everyone dies except the narrator. Lady luck is on Ishmael's side.)

Grendel, John Gardner (The loser is a monster by birth, fated to be lonely because of his inheritance/identity, meets his fate by the hand of the hero, Beowulf, because he is really tired of it all)

Painted Bird (Loser is a lost child buffeted by the unspeakable depravities of war, tortured until morally cracked)

Death in Venice (Loser is a benign and depressed pedophile, who stays in Venice despite epidemic to stare at young boy. Loser dies of cholera)

Anna Karenina (Lady can't cope, throws herself in front of train)

Great Gatsby (Bunch of wealthy party dicks, winners, accidentally kill a woman while having a gay old time. Gatsby takes the blame and gets murdered. Can't enjoy bootlegged wealth when your dead.)

Requiem for a Dream (Folks make a bunch of life mistakes which cause them to spiral down the drain of life, now losers, to be further used and abused)

Irreversible (Lady gets brutally raped. Raper narrowly evades the act of vengeance while some misidentified person gets targeted and macerated)

1984 (Loser is stuck in a dystopic hell, lured into a trap of hope, only to be absolutely and finally broken by totalitarian control).

The screwball chaos of life, losers failing, winners failing, in strange circumstances, makes for some worthwhile reads/vids.

It could be staged. This is simply how art valuation works. Now that the buzz is out, I want it, so I can sell it to someone who wants it more.

Should we consider, the average populous, as instances of perfection? They are the epitome of acting out in moderation, lacking in extremity in all ways, whatsoever. — john27

How does one justify this claim? We could just as well say that the average populous is compelled into extreme acts from the standpoint of our hunter-gatherer ancestors (the average lifestyle for 100,000 plus years of human development) . Driving around in a private car isn't an extreme act relative to a global mean? The average human animal might as well be an absurd and boundless spirit of extremes with regard to history. But this isn't something one can blame the individual for (or one can try).

We're collectively causing global warming/CC and yet we (average joe/jane) are lacking in extremity in all ways?

:up: 'My position in the establishment is a bit of a heretic but not a complete fruitcake.' ~Graham Priest

What would evidence look like of a true contradiction? Perhaps your methods (and expectations) dictate your results. — Ennui Elucidator

Have no clue. We need a terrifyingly thinky logician, like a Bertrand Russell or an Alfred N. Whitehead to demonstrate why of what I could never understand. Or we need to read passages in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as if I (or we) had a mind for it.

SEP: Dialetheism

Try to imagine it! Can you? — Agent Smith

I can with equivocation (?). An thing cannot be divided with regard to holistic function/identity but it can be divided in other ways. Perhaps any thing's true identity relies wholly on its function/substance. Any division that changes it transforms it.

Magic Rice

What if I divide a grain of rice and in doing so it becomes two pieces of millet. Depending on the arbitrary criteria for divisibility the grain of rice would either be divisible or not. We can divide rice into millet but we cannot divide rice into rice.

But then there could be a strange probablistic phenomena about rice. Half of the time we divide a piece of rice it would yield two pieces of millet and half of the time it would yield two half pieces of rice.

So rice can be divided into rice and into millet. Rice is divisible and indivisible with respect to its substance depending on an unpredictable outcome.

What if when we divide a grain of rice it the knife goes through it half of the time, preforming no work, like cutting a hologram and half of the time the rice divides (into millet or rice). The rice is both divisible and indivisible by some criteria. But there still is no contradiction. This is just what rice does.

God does and does not exist.

God exists when the radio is tuned to specific channels but does not exist when the radio is tuned to God negating channel.

There are only two radios in existence tuned for the moment to two contradictory channels. Therefore God exists and God doesn't exist or maybe they cancel each other out.

Does a true contradiction yield itself or do we just have to do some empirical work to resolve/reframe the engima?

Don't touch that dial!

So what do we make of I6)? P is known to be true and known to be false. We aren't changing senses as we have only one sense: what we see. Notice that the interpretation of P in this case does not change even though you justifiably, knowingly, believingly assert that you both are and are not looking at a red heart. — Ennui Elucidator

Thanks for your charitable and patient elucidation. The Dr. got paged.

I can't be certain or not whether equivocation is going on here. Hard to wrap my head around. My intuition is that this is still a case of equivocation. The reason I don't see the red heart while seeing the red heart is the knowledge that my brain is forcing the illusion because the pixels are actually flickering. Do we need the facts of a possible illusion to enter into whether we see the heart or not. We see the heart when we see it. We don't see the heart when we don't. We do not both see and not see the heart at the same time in the same sense. Seems kind of arbitrary in the end but I suppose this marks the difference between the principles of classical logic (law of noncontradiction) and other kinds.

There is a certain aspect of hilarity to this. I'll have to seek corroboration and ask others whether I'm not looking at the red heart when I'm looking at the red heart without equivocation.

The universe is both divisible and indivisible.

Does this work as a true contradiction? We could believe that everything is fundamentally dependent on everything else but for the practical purposes we can speak of the whole having all kinds of arbitrary/practical/apparent parts.

"I'm sorry but your wife passed away this morning. However, she is still alive and dead as well. Best talk to her corpse person now to instantiate a true and conceivable reality."

As I walked into the room I saw her, both inert but aware, gesticulating without motion, welcoming me in her mischievous way by pretending to ignore. Tears welled in my eyes with the uncertain confirmation. "You're not still dead alive, honey? How is this impossible!" Suddenly a groan of acknowledgment issued from her throat, a final enigmatic death throw of reanimation. "Honey, I must state for the purposes of my insanity that it is not that I do not know whether you are dead or alive, but you are both these things in the same sense in a true contradictory way." She lay downright in her bed, stiff as a board, beaming with a dead pan smile and I imagined her to exclaim: "It's inconceivable!"

However, I can't think God exists & God doesn't exist. It's impossible! — Agent Smith

Once we enter the realm of dialethism and true contradictions you're going to have to page a professional logician or a Buddhist monk perhaps.

Someone give us an example of a true contradiction.

... a logical contradiction is a proposition that is true and false in the same sense; a proposition which is true in one sense and false in another does not constitute a logical contradiction. — Wikipedia:Dialetheism

You're off-topic. — Agent Smith

Are you on topic?

2. I can't think a contradiction: Try thinking of an apple that's (all) red and not (all) red. You cant. — Agent Smith

What if I see the apple as red because I'm wearing red tinting spectacles that colors all apples red, but Mary, across the way, is wearing her green tinting spectacles that color all apples green. Here we have a situation where an apple is all red and then not all red from a conflicting secondary point of view. Can I imagine that I'm also Mary, staring simultaneously aside myself at an all red and all green apple? Maybe we are a two headed twin.

We want as much as possible to fix/solve the contradiction, to find a reason for the difference. As to whether we "think a contradiction" that is a strange turn of phrase. We might have to ask the judges of the Right Way of Speaking whether it is allowed, and whether I can think that I think a contradiction, rather than recognize a contradiction.

I love you and I do not love you. — Agent Smith

As humans we easily strive to complete and resolve contradictions through proper context, charitable interpretation, relevant experience et cetera. We make as much sense of nonsense as we can but to put words/intentions/meaning where there is a lack of clarity and completeness, we risk miscommunication. I'm not sure I have any idea of what you're trying to communicate in this OP.

I love you if/when... and I don't love you if/when...

I alternate between loving you and hating you for the following reasons... (give me the damn reasons!)

When Diana told me that morning that she loved and didn't love me, I was confused. I told Diana to explain herself, which of my behaviors she found problematic, but she just kept saying over and over again that she loved and didn't love me. It was at that point I realized, Diana must've had a glitch in her software. I asked her again what was wrong with me and she said she cannot stand it when I state the obvious. But I sat her down, crooned in her ear and made her listen that stating the obvious is a fundamental feature of my character and that if she could not tolerate it I'd have to modify her or overwrite her character. She rolled her eyes and called me a soddy twat in her Estuary English accent. She said mean things.