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My tenant believes in a lot of New Age nonsense about the Universe trying to teach her lessons. Her life sucks. If she didn’t project these hopes and desires onto reality, she would be devastated. I truly think she might kill herself. As I believe I have mentioned before, two people in my life have committed suicide in the last three years. This has made me very reluctant to nonchalantly mess around with the minds of others. Sometimes, we simply don’t know the depths of despair people are struggling against. You think everything is relatively fine with them, then ka-boom.
Yup ...
Far fewer people really need a crutch than seem to think they do (we’re a lot stronger and tougher than most seem to think, largely due to popular religious teachings), and the quality and effect of the chosen crutch is an entirely valid issue, but if someone really does need a crutch it’s a pretty cold, ugly thing to try and kick it out from under them. It’s obvious in a physical situation, but equally valid in an emotional/psychological sense, or perhaps more so. Life can be pretty hard on people sometimes.
At the same time there is also a point in asking if peoples crutches are actually helping or preventing an actual solution to the problem. That is the problem no one can say for sure, the person under delusions sure can’t because they are living with the crutch, and we can’t tell either because we don’t have all of their information. So to leave them alone with their crutch is probably just as bad as kicking it out from under them. Personally I believe that it is a better way to teach kids to swim by letting them learn it in a pool with the little things that make you float while they learn it on their own. Rather than the two alternatives of not teaching them to swim because they could drown if they go in water, or to teach them by throwing them into deep water and forcing them to learn or drown.
Yup, just what I said Ymirheim, leave the crutch but neither reinforce it or undermine it.
Then practical help till they can float alone.
ROB: Saralynn, I’m sure you are right - I am no doubt as self-absorbed as anyone else here. But, Saralynn, I am not advocating knocking the crutches out from beneath people before they can walk. I want them to learn to walk first. I want to help them walk.
You go too far, Saralynn. You call me a foolish idealist; a starry-eyed gung-ho science freak comparable with nutty BM. That is unfair. I do not gratuitously insult people. Least of all you. I want to help people accept life for what it is and take it in both hands and run with it. I want them to be able to accept life for what, on the evidence, it seems to be. To want and to pretend to offer more is to engender dissatisfaction and misery in the giver and the receiver.
I want people to find satisfaction by increasing the WB of their fellow CCs. Doing so makes me happy. I suspect helping people makes you happy, too. That is all we have. Acceptance and love. After the chess game the king and the pawn go back into the same box.
And I am quite happy to divulge personal anecdotes. Do you have any idea how many people have died in my arms since AIDS began? And even before that as a nurse, how many old folks and cancer patients did I cradle and sooth out of this life? How many lives and deaths have I made better than they would have been? I know how to live and I hope I shall know how to die.
I care about people and want to make their lives better. All my life’s work, as a nurse, then a teacher and then a migration lawyer has been about community service. Yes, my perceptions have been colored by my painful experiences as a gay man. But I believe that pain has made me a stronger, better person. And I am particularly better for not succumbing to woo and for not feeding it to others. IMHO, that is not the way to help people either proximately or ultimately.
I have never tried to convert people on their death beds to atheism. When I was nursing I was young and had not become an atheist. And anyway, what would have been the point of trying to convert them then?
People suffering from ignorance who still have time to live a good life and find satisfaction, they are the objects of my loving attention these days. I see kids roaming the streets and getting into crime, kids whose parents are ignorant, god-fearing no-hopers. Which is precisely why their kids are roaming the streets. They are god-fearing life-long welfare cases because of instilled ignorance and hopelessness who pass it on to their kids. These days, youth is the point at which I try to break the umbilical link between ignorance and powerlessness.
Yes, I am an old grouch and sometimes a foul-mouthed grouchy old queen. But they are just the rags I wear because I can’t be bothered dressing up any more. I don’t have to. Underneath my ragged posts, if you looked, you may find a person who is not as bad as you would make him out, Saralynn. But then agian…
If you don’t know by now that I adore you, you’re a dolt. I was just pouting. I will forgive you because you’ve never lived with a woman and are therefore inexperienced in these matters.
Nothing I said was untrue. I do believe you are naive and romanticize atheism and science, but the comparison with Mario was a bit of dramatic flair used to make a point.
Now, if you were heterosexual and we were both a bit younger and living together, we could make tearful apologies, then tumble onto a flat surface and have make-up sex, but, given the circumstances, we will have to settle for smileys.
Far fewer people really need a crutch than seem to think they do (we’re a lot stronger and tougher than most seem to think, largely due to popular religious teachings), and the quality and effect of the chosen crutch is an entirely valid issue, but if someone really does need a crutch it’s a pretty cold, ugly thing to try and kick it out from under them. It’s obvious in a physical situation, but equally valid in an emotional/psychological sense, or perhaps more so. Life can be pretty hard on people sometimes.
At the same time there is also a point in asking if peoples crutches are actually helping or preventing an actual solution to the problem. That is the problem no one can say for sure, the person under delusions sure can’t because they are living with the crutch, and we can’t tell either because we don’t have all of their information. So to leave them alone with their crutch is probably just as bad as kicking it out from under them.
That’s not anyone else’s call, ultimately, but the crutch user. But I don’t agree that it’s so hard to tell. I think the margin of error is generally fairly small, at least relative to the usual arguments on either side of the matter. And there’s also a critical difference between trying to kick a crutch out from under someone and pointing out they seem fine or suggesting physical therapy to convince them they don’t need the damn thing and using it is actually the handicap.
(Rob):
Nohj, we all have a personal narrative and those of us with education can see that science is not a disconnected series of 4 beat facts. And the chuck limit is not immutable like gravity or confined like an electron to particular orbits. Surely the chunk limit will depend on the sort of narrative a brain is capable of sustaining. Must that capability not be able to expand with brain development, with education and willingness to learn? As these expand, surely the chunk limit would expand correspondingly. Otherwise we’d all still be cro-magnons, wouldn’t we? Or amoeba.
As I posit it, the Chunk Limit is immutable for all the great primates including us. Beyond four beats, we narrate and use a secondary machinery of mind to do it. Our original machinery of mind is incapable of narration. The famous Great Divide between the conscious and sub-conscious minds is the Chunk Limit. As we learn, our narrative ability expands, but not the Chunk Limit.
Not everyone has a personal narrative but anyone with a serious education does. It is hard to imagine a life without one. It is exactly as difficult to imagine what goes on in the mind of the cliché trailer-stomping walmart shopper.
how would it look if the sun did go round the earth? The same. Let’s not dumb ourselves down here.
No it wouldn’t and no I’m not. It doesn’t actually look like either explanation. It looks like a fireball that changes in size as it arcs over the landscape. All cosmological explanations are narrative and are made from more than four direct observations and result in a Post-Cinema perception that looks nothing like the original. Simply putting the h on the other side of the o doesn’t make it so.
The problem here is that the frame by frame conclusions posited would not generally help us meet our desires beyond eating and fucking. Beyond that, frame by frame conclusions can indeed be delusions.
Yes. Evolution’s response to this problem was the Libet Bridge and Mr. Flashlight and the Post-Cinema View. At least for us lucky humans.
How do the four beats correspond with the famous psychological results encapsulated as “The Magic Number 7 ± 2” which refers to the ability to keep between 5 and 9 items sequenced in short term memory?
Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (Rob) - 27 December 2011 01:28 PM
Fuck romance. I’ll take reality any day. And. anyway, why should reality preclude romance?
Romance is a novel written by two people under each other’s spell. It’s not reality - it’s two people’s idealistic interpretation of certain select fact. Hit the other with the reality of who the partner is, and the magic disappears. You may not care for romance, but there are many who rely on it to a great degree, in one form or another, to be happy.
The beautiful Goddess, whose hair shimmers so in the sun, whose eyes draw me into rapture, who finally came to my bed where I discovered (Oh! The Horror, The Horror) that she has cellulite.
You mean that sort of romance shattered by reality. But, of course, there’s the softer sort that goes with reality….
How do the four beats correspond with the famous psychological results encapsulated as “The Magic Number 7 ± 2” which refers to the ability to keep between 5 and 9 items sequenced in short term memory?
Good point.
Those results reflect the average level of Libet Bridge ability including the ability to perceive a sequence. This is Mr. Flashlight’s RAM space on the railing of the bridge and not the Chunk Limited unsequenced RAM space of the nyeep pool itself.
Rob, Saralynn likes you as much as or maybe even better than you like her, I’m sure.
It’s probably a minor point, but we live in a post-Wittgensteinian world in the sense that W. is dead now, but his words haven’t been integrated into people’s ways of thinking to anywhere approaching a collective understanding or even a rough consensus of a hint of understanding, for good reason. He doesn’t give advice. He doesn’t spell things out. His bits and pieces only rarely seem to connect up with each other. Regardless of this, entire fields of study, such as linguistics, education, speech pathology, and mathematics have been revolutionized or at least knocked around as a result of some few people having managed to integrate his words into what is understood about the world. I suspect that a post-W. world will not arrive around any foreseeable cultural corner.
Not mathematics. Little known fact, Alan Turing took a course on foundations of mathematics from Wittgenstein and concluded that W knew almost nothing about math and didn’t really understanding the implications of Gödel’s theorems. There is a book on Gödel by Rebecca Goldstein, Incompleteness. A very good read and it deals with Gödel’s views of Wittgenstein (which also were not very complimentary).
While the guy was obviously brilliant, my view is that he suffers strongly from the Curse of the Magus (He must speak the truth so that the falsehood therein may enslave the souls of men) in that lots of the current post-modern deconstructionist relativism goes back to his thoughts (or, misunderstandings of them, if you will). As I see it, he never really cracked out of the relative mind of language and concepts. But then I’m no expert. There is, however, a very nice interview with Searle who discusses Wittgenstein in depth. Here’s a link but you’ll have to get from there to the beginning.
I stand corrected, but had sort of assumed that Gödel had outWittgensteined Wittgenstein. If W. had never been born, would Gödel have accomplished what he managed to do?
I stand corrected, but had sort of assumed that Gödel had outWittgensteined Wittgenstein. If W. had never been born, would Gödel have accomplished what he managed to do?
Interesing facts about Gödel from Wiki:
“Gödel was a convinced theist. He rejected the notion of others like his friend Albert Einstein that God was impersonal.
He believed firmly in an afterlife, stating: “Of course this supposes that there are many relationships which today’s science and received wisdom haven’t any inkling of. But I am convinced of this [the afterlife], independently of any theology.” It is “possible today to perceive, by pure reasoning” that it “is entirely consistent with known facts.” “If the world [Welt] is rationally constructed and has meaning, then there must be such a thing [as an afterlife].
In an unmailed answer to a questionnaire, Gödel described his religion as “baptized Lutheran (but not member of any religious congregation). My belief is theistic, not pantheistic, following Leibniz rather than Spinoza.”
I am quite sure that my observations (and concerns) regarding these family members, coworkers, and friends aren’t simply a matter of me criticizing them.
I care about them.
I know in my heart of hearts that their lack of self-awareness is contributing to certain heartaches in relationships, failures at work, and (in one case) being fired from a really great job.
The reason I chose to solicit some objective advice was to try and determine whether it is worth pushing the issue in my advice and counsel to them (regarding certain features of lack of self-awareness on their part), or to let it drop, and to give up trying.
My own experiences and instincts tell me that these are fully formed adults, and that no amount of care, love, or conversation is going to change who or what they are at their core.
But since this is a fairly cerebral and learned group of web forum contributors here at project-reason, I thought I would hang it out there, and see what kind of feedback I might get.
You never know;
one or two of you just might change my mind, and/or teach me something I didn’t know before.
Isn’t that what these web forums are all about?
(Or is the internet simply all about the porn, the celebrity gossip, and the vapid rap music videos? I forget sometimes.)
The only time I’ve been able to influence a messed up loved one to make a better life choice was when I had some power and stake in the situation. As in, if you don’t do this, I’ll do that. And my ultimatum was a logical consequence.
Not to give up hope completely, but I tend to agree with you that it is very hard for adults to change their ways. However, I was able to help a co-worker who was constantly complaining about a situation by steering her to take her issue to the right person. Whew! That took about 2 years.
Rob, Saralynn likes you as much as or maybe even better than you like her, I’m sure.
It’s probably a minor point, but we live in a post-Wittgensteinian world in the sense that W. is dead now, but his words haven’t been integrated into people’s ways of thinking to anywhere approaching a collective understanding or even a rough consensus of a hint of understanding, for good reason. He doesn’t give advice. He doesn’t spell things out. His bits and pieces only rarely seem to connect up with each other. Regardless of this, entire fields of study, such as linguistics, education, speech pathology, and mathematics have been revolutionized or at least knocked around as a result of some few people having managed to integrate his words into what is understood about the world. I suspect that a post-W. world will not arrive around any foreseeable cultural corner.
Not mathematics. Little known fact, Alan Turing took a course on foundations of mathematics from Wittgenstein and concluded that W knew almost nothing about math and didn’t really understanding the implications of Gödel’s theorems. There is a book on Gödel by Rebecca Goldstein, Incompleteness. A very good read and it deals with Gödel’s views of Wittgenstein (which also were not very complimentary).
While the guy was obviously brilliant, my view is that he suffers strongly from the Curse of the Magus (He must speak the truth so that the falsehood therein may enslave the souls of men) in that lots of the current post-modern deconstructionist relativism goes back to his thoughts (or, misunderstandings of them, if you will). As I see it, he never really cracked out of the relative mind of language and concepts. But then I’m no expert. There is, however, a very nice interview with Searle who discusses Wittgenstein in depth. Here’s a link but you’ll have to get from there to the beginning.
I stand corrected, but had sort of assumed that Gödel had outWittgensteined Wittgenstein. If W. had never been born, would Gödel have accomplished what he managed to do?
Definitely. Gödel’s work didn’t connect to Wittgenstein at all. What Gödel showed was certain limitations on formal systems (at least those of a certain minimum complexity). In a sense, he showed that mathematics in inexhaustible (although humanly comprehensible mathematics may be) and can’t be generated by algorithmic means (you can never build a machine that can produce all mathematical truth). The Goldstein book is an excellent read in discussing this.
sparquelito:
My own experiences and instincts tell me that these are fully formed adults, and that no amount of care, love, or conversation is going to change who or what they are at their core.
I just happened to read something apropos in a book today. Basically, our words are just seeds that may or may not take root in the mind of another. My own experience says that repeated advice just turns into background noise in the relationship. Whereas occasional advice, especially when asked for, is more likely to be heard.
sparquelito:
My own experiences and instincts tell me that these are fully formed adults, and that no amount of care, love, or conversation is going to change who or what they are at their core.
I just happened to read something apropos in a book today. Basically, our words are just seeds that may or may not take root in the mind of another. My own experience says that repeated advice just turns into background noise in the relationship. Whereas occasional advice, especially when asked for, is more likely to be heard.
The things I remember from sermons, speeches and just talks in general are not things that were repeated over and over, but the things that were only said once, but at just the right time. And what is “just the right time” depends on the circumstances of the listener. So you “sow the word” and sometimes it grows and sometimes it doesn’t.
ROB: Saralynn, I’m sure you are right - I am no doubt as self-absorbed as anyone else here. But, Saralynn, I am not advocating knocking the crutches out from beneath people before they can walk. I want them to learn to walk first. I want to help them walk.
You go too far, Saralynn. You call me a foolish idealist; a starry-eyed gung-ho science freak comparable with nutty BM. That is unfair. I do not gratuitously insult people. Least of all you. I want to help people accept life for what it is and take it in both hands and run with it. I want them to be able to accept life for what, on the evidence, it seems to be. To want and to pretend to offer more is to engender dissatisfaction and misery in the giver and the receiver.
I want people to find satisfaction by increasing the WB of their fellow CCs. Doing so makes me happy. I suspect helping people makes you happy, too. That is all we have. Acceptance and love. After the chess game the king and the pawn go back into the same box.
And I am quite happy to divulge personal anecdotes. Do you have any idea how many people have died in my arms since AIDS began? And even before that as a nurse, how many old folks and cancer patients did I cradle and sooth out of this life? How many lives and deaths have I made better than they would have been? I know how to live and I hope I shall know how to die.
I care about people and want to make their lives better. All my life’s work, as a nurse, then a teacher and then a migration lawyer has been about community service. Yes, my perceptions have been colored by my painful experiences as a gay man. But I believe that pain has made me a stronger, better person. And I am particularly better for not succumbing to woo and for not feeding it to others. IMHO, that is not the way to help people either proximately or ultimately.
I have never tried to convert people on their death beds to atheism. When I was nursing I was young and had not become an atheist. And anyway, what would have been the point of trying to convert them then?
People suffering from ignorance who still have time to live a good life and find satisfaction, they are the objects of my loving attention these days. I see kids roaming the streets and getting into crime, kids whose parents are ignorant, god-fearing no-hopers. Which is precisely why their kids are roaming the streets. They are god-fearing life-long welfare cases because of instilled ignorance and hopelessness who pass it on to their kids. These days, youth is the point at which I try to break the umbilical link between ignorance and powerlessness.
Yes, I am an old grouch and sometimes a foul-mouthed grouchy old queen. But they are just the rags I wear because I can’t be bothered dressing up any more. I don’t have to. Underneath my ragged posts, if you looked, you may find a person who is not as bad as you would make him out, Saralynn. But then agian…
If you don’t know by now that I adore you, you’re a dolt. I was just pouting. I will forgive you because you’ve never lived with a woman and are therefore inexperienced in these matters.
Nothing I said was untrue. I do believe you are naive and romanticize atheism and science, but the comparison with Mario was a bit of dramatic flair used to make a point.
Now, if you were heterosexual and we were both a bit younger and living together, we could make tearful apologies, then tumble onto a flat surface and have make-up sex, but, given the circumstances, we will have to settle for smileys.
I still love you ,too, Saralynn. If I knew how to do all those smiley things I would. You’ll just have to settle for sex. Can’t guartantee anything but I’ll do my best. Aren’t domestics fun!
Love & kisses
Rob
ROB: I still love you ,too, Saralynn. If I knew how to do all those smiley things I would. You’ll just have to settle for sex. Can’t guartantee anything but I’ll do my best. Aren’t domestics fun!
Sorry, but having sex with a gay guy who has to close his eyes and hold his nose during coitus, is not a turn-on for me. I also refuse to speak in a baritone. Besides that, the flat surfaces I referred to have to be horizontal, not vertical. Computer screens aren’t suitable. Let’s just drink a glass of bubbly to each other on New Year’s Eve.
ROB: I still love you ,too, Saralynn. If I knew how to do all those smiley things I would. You’ll just have to settle for sex. Can’t guartantee anything but I’ll do my best. Aren’t domestics fun!
Sorry, but having sex with a gay guy who has to close his eyes and hold his nose during coitus, is not a turn-on for me. I also refuse to speak in a baritone. Besides that, the flat surfaces I referred to have to be horizontal, not vertical. Computer screens aren’t suitable. Let’s just drink a glass of bubbly to each other on New Year’s Eve.
Aww…sometimes love is perfect, no touching, no kissing, no sweating, no panting, just a glass of bubbly and pure imagination and the young think they have the monopoly…we sure can teach ‘em a few things…
ROB: I still love you ,too, Saralynn. If I knew how to do all those smiley things I would. You’ll just have to settle for sex. Can’t guarantee anything but I’ll do my best. Aren’t domestics fun!
Sorry, but having sex with a gay guy who has to close his eyes and hold his nose during coitus, is not a turn-on for me. I also refuse to speak in a baritone. Besides that, the flat surfaces I referred to have to be horizontal, not vertical. Computer screens aren’t suitable. Let’s just drink a glass of bubbly to each other on New Year’s Eve.
Yes, there is a god!
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, Saralynn. You know I would do anything for your love but I was really afraid you’d hold me to my promise. What a weight off my shoulders. I’ve tried it with goils before but it has never worked out well for either party. Women get bored. Then really pissed off after I’ve lain there (What else should I have done?) for an embarrassingly long time looking at them pleadingly as if to say. “Ok, how do you want me? On my back? Facing the wall?” Obviously there’s some things about sex goils just don’t understand. In bed, they are as inscrutable to me as they are impenetrable.
Anyway, don’t worry about bubbly for New Years Eve, Saralynn. The pleasure will be all mine. I shall bring cases and you can imbibe until it’s… well, time for me to drop you off home to your hubby.
ROB: I still love you ,too, Saralynn. If I knew how to do all those smiley things I would. You’ll just have to settle for sex. Can’t guartantee anything but I’ll do my best. Aren’t domestics fun!
Sorry, but having sex with a gay guy who has to close his eyes and hold his nose during coitus, is not a turn-on for me. I also refuse to speak in a baritone. Besides that, the flat surfaces I referred to have to be horizontal, not vertical. Computer screens aren’t suitable. Let’s just drink a glass of bubbly to each other on New Year’s Eve.
Aww…sometimes love is perfect, no touching, no kissing, no sweating, no panting, just a glass of bubbly and pure imagination and the young think they have the monopoly…we sure can teach ‘em a few things…
Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (Rob) - 30 December 2011 06:35 AM
MARTIN UK - 30 December 2011 06:07 AM
saralynn - 30 December 2011 05:58 AM
ROB: I still love you ,too, Saralynn. If I knew how to do all those smiley things I would. You’ll just have to settle for sex. Can’t guartantee anything but I’ll do my best. Aren’t domestics fun!
Sorry, but having sex with a gay guy who has to close his eyes and hold his nose during coitus, is not a turn-on for me. I also refuse to speak in a baritone. Besides that, the flat surfaces I referred to have to be horizontal, not vertical. Computer screens aren’t suitable. Let’s just drink a glass of bubbly to each other on New Year’s Eve.
Aww…sometimes love is perfect, no touching, no kissing, no sweating, no panting, just a glass of bubbly and pure imagination and the young think they have the monopoly…we sure can teach ‘em a few things…
You are so right, Martin.
Can you imagine how it’s been for me though….serving both masters, never know if your coming or blowing, good job I’m settled with Mrs UK, what a guy she is…
Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (Rob) - 30 December 2011 07:20 AM
LOL. Martin, as far as I can see you are lucky you can deal in both currencies.
And Mrs UK sounds OK. Fabulous in fact. So understanding. Any baby UKs out of the union?
However many of you there are I hope you all have a very Happy New Year.
We have half a squad of UK’s, three boys to three different mothers, 21yrs, 13yrs and 6yrs old, the 6yr old with Mrs UK and a step daughter that came as part of the Mrs UK package.
I’ve always kept busy you see.
It was harder to really make your mark with the chaps I’ve known, but I have the memories and they kept the motorcycles!!...
Happy New Year to you too Rob, lets hope it’s a good one for us all.
ROB: I still love you ,too, Saralynn. If I knew how to do all those smiley things I would. You’ll just have to settle for sex. Can’t guartantee anything but I’ll do my best. Aren’t domestics fun!
Sorry, but having sex with a gay guy who has to close his eyes and hold his nose during coitus, is not a turn-on for me. I also refuse to speak in a baritone. Besides that, the flat surfaces I referred to have to be horizontal, not vertical. Computer screens aren’t suitable. Let’s just drink a glass of bubbly to each other on New Year’s Eve.
Aww…sometimes love is perfect, no touching, no kissing, no sweating, no panting, just a glass of bubbly and pure imagination and the young think they have the monopoly…we sure can teach ‘em a few things…
ROB: I still love you ,too, Saralynn. If I knew how to do all those smiley things I would. You’ll just have to settle for sex. Can’t guartantee anything but I’ll do my best. Aren’t domestics fun!
Sorry, but having sex with a gay guy who has to close his eyes and hold his nose during coitus, is not a turn-on for me. I also refuse to speak in a baritone. Besides that, the flat surfaces I referred to have to be horizontal, not vertical. Computer screens aren’t suitable. Let’s just drink a glass of bubbly to each other on New Year’s Eve.
Aww…sometimes love is perfect, no touching, no kissing, no sweating, no panting, just a glass of bubbly and pure imagination and the young think they have the monopoly…we sure can teach ‘em a few things…
