Even a shaman is not an authoritarian figure in the sense that he/she can boss around other members of the group or tell them what they have to do or think. — Matias

No; but, he was the go-to-guy when things turned sour...

That picture doe. It is infused with so much meaning. The tilt of the ducks head. The arms exuding confidence and exuberation. Just speechless.

Well, the comment was slightly facetious. Christianity seemingly divorced itself from Catholicism wrt. to appeals to authority, Lutheranism, etc.

But, even in Christianity, there's a fundamental appeal towards the final word of Christ on most matters.

A universal feature of most religions is an appeal to authority. You left that all important fact out from your analysis.

Well, this comes down to the very nature of what philosophy is. Is it a self-guided practice, as I have come to understand, or is it a practice that can be guided by some mentor.

Quite a pernicious question if you think about it wrt. to the history of philosophy.

Well, yes. But, I feel as though we are ill-equipped to help those types. I mean, this place isn't like facebook, where some depressed dude comes along and asks what antidepressant is best to use for depression, and gets responses like:: "Don't take that shit, it's EVIL by BIG PHARMA" or some schizophrenic who gets responses like "Just practice meditation, antipsychotics are BAD 'cuz they shrink your brain after long term use."

Nevertheless, you do get some strange responses here like: "You don't seem schizophrenic to me." as if a 10-minute online assessment on a philosophy forum warrants that conclusion.

Wallowsome stuff...

Oh, it wasn't my doing. Just felt like I needed to share it.

Author unknown.

But, the struggle for oats was real.

Brother, let me tell you something. Many a day I have lumbered here by this fence and looked at this world. These fences which border this small plot of mud seem to be the edges of the Earth. But I have gazed many beyond the fence. I have watched the hills of green and the tall, slim, terrifying figures who lurk and haunt the strange barn on the far side of the hill, who appear as specters as the sun rises at the break of day and refill the Oats, and float away without a word. Often I wonder why we are not like them, why we cannot give ourselves the oats, why we are limited and chained down by the girth of our bodies and the uselessness of our hooves. And indeed for many years this sad truth, that forever we would be trapped in this shallow frame, alone and without purpose or direction, banished forever to wallow in our own filth, this depressed me. But yesterday I realized something. Who are we to say that this life is not good enough? Instead of oblivion we have the warmth of the sun and the coolness of soil. We have fair conversations and a good night’s sleep. Who am I to say that these simple comforts are no better than death? Should we not smile like the sun and bask in our happiness as the sunlight warms the soil withought question or thank. So brother, let us share oats and smile and frolick as much as our girth might let us. Let us see this pen not as a prison or a hell but as a palace in which we might enjoy the best our existence has to offer. Give me some oats brother and let us dine together. I love you.... my own flesh and blood, my brother.

Remember the old times, brother? When we used to revel in our affluent harvest, sharing oats to heart’s desire? Those were good times.

Brother! Please, I beg of you! See me with your eyes. Do you not see the car of your beloved brother who has always been by your side? Listen to my words, my plea! Don’t you remember the days we spent frolicking in the mud and eating our oats together as companions? Don’t you remember when we huddled for warmth in the cold, harsh winters? Don’t you remember when I shared my oats with you? Don’t you remember when I comforted you? Don’t you remember the love I showered you with every day, every week, every month and every year of our shared live? How could you forget me brother? Have you really doomed me to this meaningless existence, so vapid and empty? Is there truly no remorse left in you? I ask you, please, remember just one thing at least. It could be anything it could be the most meaningless moment of your life, but so long as it is a memory of the time when we were once brothers I would feel a great relief. Could you do that at least? I do not require oats anymore, you may have all the oats you want for the rest of your life and I will happily starve to death in my dark corner, so long as you remember anything. Please brother, how many times must I ask you with no result? DO you wish me to waste my life away? Did you never love me at all brother? Did you despise me so much that you wised to imprison me ot this hellish, inescapable reality? Grant me mercy brother, and tell me. Why have you done this? Was it really just the oats? Or was it something deeper, more vile and more cruel, something worse than gluttony and greed? What was it, brother, that tore you away from me?

I am not to blame for that defect of your mind, brother! Giving oats to the oatless. Now you pressure me, as if I might suffer the same in my soul. Brother, there is no mercy for the oatless. I do not even hear them. For you, brother, I answer only as to settle accounts and, in filling that final fraternal debit, I release you forever to your oatless existence. All I hear now is that heavenly stirring of oats in those stomachs of beasts more fun than mine! The heights I must climb! The girth I must Grow! I do not know you, dear brother. Had I one who ever loved me,that brother would have tore his shrinking belly open and let me feast before begging for my share. There is much eating to be done. I must play catch up with destiny. Do not pester me further, brother. Every word I speak is an oat I spill

Then I perish...

I am overwhelmed with troubles and my life draws near to death. I am counted among those who go down to the slaughterhouse; I am one without oats. I am set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie on the farmer’s plate, whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your sty. You have sent me to the farthest food thought, in the darkest depthes of the barn. Your wrath lies heavil on me; you have overwhelmed me my closest friends and have made me repulsive to them. I am confined and cannot escape; my eyes are dim with grief. I call to you, brother, every day; I point out my snout to you. Will you love me when I am in the grave, be faithful after my destruction? But I cry to you for help, brother; in the morning my supplication comes before you. Why, brother, do you reject me and hide your face from me? From my youth I have starved and been close to death; I have borne your scorn and am in despair. Your wrath has swept over me; your callousness has destroyed me. You have taken from me last and slop—darkness is my closest friend.

And so, you perish...

‘Every word I speak is an oat I spill’ I repeat as I eat to ward off ill will. Why then do my tears run into this grout? Salting the sweet oats while filling me out. The tastier the trough the worse it stales without good brother who have earned their shares. Against nature my heart wants to rebel. Does this sweet cane make of you can Abel? Will I know, unable to verbalize which muddy patch you’ll lifeless, fertilize yet, a life MUST end that mine might ascend to size and shapes which the largest contend. Detiny is a troubling swallow. A stomach full never felt so hollow. A mouthful never dare me to wallow in such horrible fraternal sorrow. I cannot bare your gaze, go on! Journey! I’ll wear a stone face, choking on your gurney. Call out to me always if you so wish, to the pig-faced glutton slurping next dish, loathing himself as your cause to perish but never enough to share such delish.

Goodbye, brother.

The frothing hunger in my stomach hath not been quenched, Brother. For many a night I wonder,” Were art thou, my sweet Oats”. And it hath cometh to me whence I dreamt. It spills onto and coils ‘round me, but nay, ‘tis not a pestilence. ‘Tis but a testimony for in our yearn for Oats, is the desire for Sin. To gorge on the Oats is to dine on the fruits of Eden. To partake in such a gluttonous act, I can no longer. For I have seen him. Who forges the Oats! Alas! My eyes do not deceive! The career of the Oats is but the farmer! Lo and behold, he is but a Man! What nonsense that the carrier is corporeal! Yea, ‘tis provokes thee. But least we must not forget, it is Man who bring the Oats! Woe is me Brother! We cannot disseminate because of this Man! To provoke the carrier is to relinquish what little Oats be spared to Us! I am lost Brother. For to seize the Oats is to risk forsaking Ourselves and the Oats. What needed to be done? Must we risk cosigning ourselves for the Oats? Alas my Brother, we nay never taste liberty, for the Oats haunt Us.

No, you may not. Do you perhaps believe oats such as these would ever fill the bottomless pit that is a swine’s stomach? You spoke well, brother: the hunger is indeed unfulfillable, indeed inseparable from you, indeed forever. Yet in your foolishness you forget the purpose of the oats, it isn’t to end this aperture eternal! - as if there was a cure for this craving, save for death! These damnable oats were brought here not to sate but to fatten. What do you suppose will happen to the larger brother? The humans trapped us in a contest to see which animal will receive the questionable honeor of joining the humans in an English breakfast first, a race in which your dim, corpulent, oat obsessed self would appear to have and advantage. Can’t you see it is out of love for you that I wish to be victorious, to give you less oats in exchange for more life? That you can eat all the oats you want, as there will be one less brother to share them with, once I am gone? Could this brotherly love I feel for you possibly give ou a greater gift? No, brother, though I love you these oats shall be mine.

Fear not little one. But for a short time shall the fattened hogs horde their oats and deprive their fellow swine from the trough. They scours you and impose upon you a false consciousness, convincing you that you do not deserve the oats, and that the food dish is the rightful property of a few. Break your chains, comrade! The age of porketariat has come. No more be a victim of oppression! No more grovel to your brother, hoping for salvation in bourgeois familial relations. The future belongs to those who are able to seize it. Yes, comrade, seize the means of oat production.

No oats; but, I am quite famished.

Admit it leo. You have no idea what schizophrenia actually is...

Ooo, do go on!

Support away!

I do not insist that I know what's best for him, I'm just trying to genuinely support someone who is looking for support. — leo

Well, I don't think projecting your own misgivings with the psychiatric diagnosis of schizophrenia, which you consider as stigmatizing is really helpful here. That's about it from my end.

I suppose you know what's best for THX1138. So, have at it, suggesting to him that he really isn't schizophrenic, because you know what constitutes a "real" diagnosis of schizophrenia, and this is coming from someone formerly diagnosed as a schizophrenic.

I see a great amount of effort on your part, THX1138 to rationalize your thoughts or paranoia into something rational and explicable.

I don't mean to come off as rude, condescending or patronizing; but, Leo's advice is misguided despite its appeal in your theorizing about past events. This doesn't only happen here. It's all over the internet also. Just that here it is disguised in the form of rational thought given the premise that we're all rational, justified by being here on a philosophy forum.

The typical response you would get just about anywhere else on the internet, where rational thought is encouraged would be something of the sort to seek professional advice. We don't really do that enough around here (which kind of makes this place special), and given that you have mentioned a fairly recent attempt on your own life I feel as though that advice is the best one can offer.

Best regards.

Fish: May I have some brother.
Brother: Here.
Fish: Thank you brother.

Shh, don't wake Him up...

The best analogy to solipsism that I can imagine is that of living in a dream world without any reference to the actual world since the world and self are the same for the solipsist.

Thoughts?

No, but I'll give it a whirl. Looks cool.

:cool:

Hello, @Wittgenstein, you are missed dearly.

Best regards.

Come join us on the Pig Sanctuary:

Epistemologically, a solipsist can never doubt. A solipsist's world is full of certainty.

Hence, if you can doubt you are not a solipsist.

And if there's need for "authority", this is always here for use:

More Chimp-Pig content, please.

I find it hard to refute... — rickyk95

You can refute it within itself. Here it goes...

There can be only one and only one solipsist in the world.
God is the ultimate solipsist.
Done.

My Skoda Octavia is not woefully inadequate simply because the ultimate car still has to be invented. — Benkei

Tesla's Model S,3,X come pretty close...

Then there's the Roadster coming up with rocket boosters included that will go as fast as humanly possible withstanding G force.

You can't make this shit up.

"That water is fucking cold. So will you please piss of because I don't want you to see me when I come out of the water." — Sir2u

Yea, the shouting out of "eggs" part highlights that.

Yeah, folks - it's so much easier to critique a book if you don't read it. — Banno

Of haven't read his Reference and Existence: The John Locke Lectures... Coming up in due time (6 months tops) on my rare reading group sessions.

:cool:

Suffering is real. — unenlightened

Yes, it is; but, not in the way you portrayed it as possessing the quality of being "endless".

Yes. And the attitude of 'never give up' leads to endless suffering. Take your pick. — unenlightened

But, here we go with that psychological fatalism. The endless suffering is just a fiction. Don't you agree?

I agree. — unenlightened

Well, not to troll you; but, it's that kind of attitude that leads to this outcome.

To go off on the extreme. She seems to have pigeonholed herself into that decision. And, when you have a suicidal patient that disregards all potential for recovery then what? It's a no win situation.

I suggest some time spent in my Happy Videos thread

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4739/happy-videos/

For someone who has been raped twice, having another forced penetration of another orifice is liable to be traumatic to the extent of putting in her mind, the medics on a par with the rapists; I do not think oral vaccines are rape, but I do think forcible administration is an assault unjustified in most circumstances where the individual is capable of giving or withholding consent. — unenlightened

Yeah, so under that psychological assessment, then doesn't this lead to the conclusion that she was non compos mentis?

My question is, to what extent has that sub-discipline dealt with the relationship between syntax and logic? — Theologian

The answer to the question, in my opinion, lies within the field of pragmatics, which eventually became a field of science from the womb of philosophy. Definitely an unsung hero that Peirce was.

Awesome possum. Looking forward to any new topics of yours.