What's new

Longest Thread Ever

My kids would giggle at this, I think. They know pretty well what "imaginary" means. They play imaginary games all the time. Enough to give them some concrete notion of "reality" and how it is different from imagination.

Because a lot of stuff happens, and can be observed from a distance, that clearly in not something they are imagining.

But this particular comment is a close kin to many a philosopher's dawdlings along various and sundry riverbanks on warm summer days. . .. .. .Alice in Wonderland comes to mind. . . . .

There is a difference between imagination and illusion. The question is can you prove it with irrefutable objective evidence, when the problem is posed such that everything you see and experience is created perfectly with the express purpose of convincing you that everything is real, when in reality you are the only thing in it that is truly real. You imagination, therefore, has very little to do with your perceptions of a "reality" designed specifically to convince YOU that it is indeed real, even while it actually is not.
 
I just don't see this as sarcasm, not in the least. For a second I wondered if you were being sarcastic in saying that, but I had to rule it out entirely as unthinkable, because I know you. . . . or think I know you. . . . , I have to consider this to be a sweet sort of compliment, nothing less.

The only person on this board who knows you well enough to make that judgment is ****, who also is incapable of sarcasm.

Log obviously was speaking from the ideological mindset of Mormonism, which places Man at the apex of creation because of the fact that no man has ever been an idiot, a moron, or even been wrong about anything in all the ages of human experience, and properly should receive the grateful acknowledgment of his godliness from his women, who could never actually be right about anything because of the effects of their hormonal floods on their perceptions of reality. . . . .

The fundamental fact of science is that men have been perfected by God in His final act of making Man like himself, by the effects of testosterone exerted in the embryonic development of the male brain, essentially perfecting that instrument of truth and logic by clipping the great majority of interconnecting nerves between the left and right hemispheres, which enables Man to literally function in unconscious denial of ninety percent of the sensory inputs which trouble women with information about the universe.

Damnit!

I can't compete with the power of your brilliant man brain!
 
There is a difference between imagination and illusion. The question is can you prove it with irrefutable objective evidence, when the problem is posed such that everything you see and experience is created perfectly with the express purpose of convincing you that everything is real, when in reality you are the only thing in it that is truly real. You imagination, therefore, has very little to do with your perceptions of a "reality" designed specifically to convince YOU that it is indeed real, even while it actually is not.

Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth opem toward the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette-players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.
Do you see men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals, which appear over the wall?

...And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice that they heard came from the passing shadow?
No question, he replied.
To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.
 
Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth opem toward the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette-players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.
Do you see men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals, which appear over the wall?

...And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice that they heard came from the passing shadow?
No question, he replied.
To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.

Kinda cute of you to bring up Aristotle's cave. My first trip into philosophy. . . .
 
Kinda cute of you to bring up Aristotle's cave. My first trip into philosophy. . . .

k?

Sounded a lot like what log posted so I posted it. I'm not sure why it's cute. It was my first trip into philosophy as well and I still enjoy it. Does the fact that the Republic is popular really detract from it for you? What is it with peoples obsession with the novel or to have some secret knowledge? Why can't a classic be appreciated without it being scoffed at in our culture?
 
Damnit!

I can't compete with the power of your brilliant man brain!

Well, I don't believe you missed the ironical twist at the end, or Log's point. Putting them together like that, of course, would prove that Man's superiority is the result of the brain-clipping blindness to most of the stuff women know. . . . a sort of uninformed mindset. It is very fitting that in The Republic, it is "men" who are chained in such a manner that all they see is the shadows. The shadows, I say, of women's designs. . . . ..

My theory is that it is nevertheless useful in setting priorities in life, because it reduces the options to a more manageable set, perhaps more focused on the basic necessities of life, such as food, shelter, and tools. . . .

Which of course renders Man much more manageable in the hands of women who know how to handle their man properly.

Folks like OB are splendid examples of this sort of thing, in my own very limited "low information" sort of manner of seeing things. . . . .all wrapped around the little feminist finger focused on the many imagined ways women are neglected in Western society. . . . with nary an objection to the Middle Eastern cultures I might point out. . . . or India or China or, indeed, the whole world. . . . where men's mates traditionally were secured by parental negotiations and his lifetime of duty was to provide for his spouse and her children.

It is commonly insisted as a matter of shame that society neglects women, while the truth is that a man is the obligatory provider, the servant if you please. And this is all so because, universally, women just know how to handle their men that well.

To an enlightened soul sufficiently apprised of the origins of modern political puppet shows, the bald marxist view of "equality" for women is a rude reduction of women's rights to near zero, comparatively speaking, to the traditional place women have achieved in almost every traditional society. And how necessary it must be for political revolutionaries fixated on global fascism run by old white men with enough money to nearly achieve immortality through exclusive access to the leading medical technologies, including computer applications, to play out the lies in this manner, with everything they put out in wholesale public indoctrination/media saying everything that is the exact opposite of the truth. David Rockefeller might live another hundred years, and by then he'll be holding title to human souls just like in Gogol's Russia. Some future for trusting believers in "progressive" ideals like "social justice" and "equality". I'd prefer a world run by women with their sensitivities and talents for persuasion that renders a life of service in their care fulfilling and happy.

I have previously asserted that without women there would be no such thing as civilization. Included in that sweeping truth is the minor chord that men simply just don't know what needs doing without the female guidance, which in turn arises from the unsnipped interconnections between the two hemispheres of the female brain.

I will leave it to the reader to surmise who is really in charge.

I know my place, and I love it.
 
Last edited:
I don't object at all, in fact I'm impressed. I tried to rep you again, but I'll have go out passing out rep to get back to you. . . . .

Ohhh

I guess I never hear people use the word cute unless they're being sarcastic.

my bad
 
k?

Sounded a lot like what log posted so I posted it. I'm not sure why it's cute. It was my first trip into philosophy as well and I still enjoy it. Does the fact that the Republic is popular really detract from it for you? What is it with peoples obsession with the novel or to have some secret knowledge? Why can't a classic be appreciated without it being scoffed at in our culture?

I didn't mean to be that snobbish about it. Though I may be British in my roots, I am American by birth. Probably a Born-Again American. I was impressed with the cave and the shadows when I was only about fourteen years old, and Ambrose Bierce spoke to my soul when I was seventeen. Might have something to do with the result that I am still in love with new ways of looking at the world. Well, things "new" to me for sure. I'm pretty sure some people were pretty much doing all this kind of thinking ten thousand years ago. . . . sitting in the cave above my ranch where they built their fire on the outdoor rim, and indeed dreamed of the shadows on their back wall.
 
Ohhh

I guess I never hear people use the word cute unless they're being sarcastic.



my bad

In my dictionary, my girls are "cute". That's Brit understatement. Code for "Awesome" nowadays. Woulda been code for "Splendid" or "Magnificent" to my grandpa.
 
As computers get closer and closer to exhibiting consciousness, this question becomes less and less meaningful.

Sounds like you're about to fall into the transhumanism infatuation. Is there room in your lexicon for two entirely different species??? consiousness might be an attribute of living things, and maybe a sufficiently huge and well-programmed computer can draw sufficiently from massive data inputs to seem "conscious", but I can guan-damn-tee you that the only "will" a computer will ever have is in the programmer humans.

consciousness is not will. A camera lens does not interpret the world.
 
Sounds like you're about to fall into the transhumanism infatuation. Is there room in your lexicon for two entirely different species??? consiousness might be an attribute of living things, and maybe a sufficiently huge and well-programmed computer can draw sufficiently from massive data inputs to seem "conscious", but I can guan-damn-tee you that the only "will" a computer will ever have is in the programmer humans.

consciousness is not will. A camera lens does not interpret the world.

Let's say someone you loved suffered partial brain damage. Let's also assume that an artificial neuron is available. Would you replace 10% of their brain with those neurons? Would that person be only 90% conscious? How many neurons could you replace with artificial neurons before that person ceased to be a conscious being?
 
There is a difference between imagination and illusion. The question is can you prove it with irrefutable objective evidence, when the problem is posed such that everything you see and experience is created perfectly with the express purpose of convincing you that everything is real, when in reality you are the only thing in it that is truly real. You imagination, therefore, has very little to do with your perceptions of a "reality" designed specifically to convince YOU that it is indeed real, even while it actually is not.

OK. . . . so in your view, does a camera record imagination, or illusion???
 
I didn't mean to be that snobbish about it. Though I may be British in my roots, I am American by birth. Probably a Born-Again American. I was impressed with the cave and the shadows when I was only about fourteen years old, and Ambrose Bierce spoke to my soul when I was seventeen. Might have something to do with the result that I am still in love with new ways of looking at the world. Well, things "new" to me for sure. I'm pretty sure some people were pretty much doing all this kind of thinking ten thousand years ago. . . . sitting in the cave above my ranch where they built their fire on the outdoor rim, and indeed dreamed of the shadows on their back wall.

Nah it really is my bad. I tried to interpret your meaning a couple times and should have known that you of all people didn't mean it the way I was reading it. People often use a denigrating tone or are dismissive of things that are old or familiar. I find myself often defending the value of things that aren't esoteric or novel.

I had a friend that could not love anything unless he had heard of it first. It was as if he was laying claim to the work of others and that this somehow elevated him or validated his worth. It seems to me that fewer and fewer people really appreciate anything. They only love their discovery of it. Comradery is dead in the age of one-upsmanship. I have never read anything that you have posted that could be characterized this way and it seems to be more outside your nature than mine so I really should have just said "huh?'.

my bad

Did the Beatles sing about this??? I might have missed something. . . .
Not to my knowledge.
 
Nah it really is my bad. I tried to interpret your meaning a couple times and should have known that you of all people didn't mean it the way I was reading it. People often use a denigrating tone or are dismissive of things that are old or familiar. I find myself often defending the value of things that aren't esoteric or novel.

I had a friend that could not love anything unless he had heard of it first. It was as if he was laying claim to the work of others and that this somehow elevated him or validated his worth. It seems to me that fewer and fewer people really appreciate anything. They only love their discovery of it. Comradery is dead in the age of one-upsmanship. I have never read anything that you have posted that could be characterized this way and it seems to be more outside your nature than mine so I really should have just said "huh?'.

my bad


Not to my knowledge.

Good statement.
 
Back
Top