LastThursday

@tsuki I don't think in such a strong sense (in cinema anyway). Maybe the myth of protecting your loved ones against all the odds, and being silent and stoic in the face of adversity and having a kind of blind pride in that. I do think that heroic masculinity is also being more frequently applied to female characters in cinema too, as a way to legitimise those female characters. But I don't know (not being female) how much this embeds itself in the psyche of women, not so much would be my guess. Although, if so younger women would aspire to it more than older.

I'm sure this happens often. Or at other times, the socially stupid are more or less tolerated. I've seen similar situations in the software industry (although not in a social sense) where a bad programmer is a detriment to both themselves (because they become stressed) and the company overall, and yet everyone else will cover up for their inadequacies. The socially stupid are allowed to carry on being socially stupid. The suffering angle is an interesting one. The overall implication of the video is that the socially stupid drag down everyone else, so this is a form of collective suffering. Actually, the video is more collectivist than individualistic in tone. I don't know, I'm not so sure myself. There are a million ways to suffer, even for the socially intelligent. I guess the socially intelligent are the ones are more likely to learn from their suffering or they realise more quickly that they are the cause of suffering: but they still suffer in other ways. I'm sure that social stupity comes from all the factors you mentioned. Maybe even the awareness is there but socially stupid habits are so ingrained that they're impossible to stop for the person: they don't learn from their suffering.

@tsuki I was being simplistically minded for effect. I realise the purpose of the video was to highlight that the myth exists at all and how many men may fall for it. In a way it's a kind of romantic archetype that a lot of men hold, me included sometimes. I suppose what I was trying to get at is that there are other ways to be, some of them in opposition to heroic masculinity.

Leo made that plain from the very start, we were watching his journey. Any ride we've been on we did out of our own choosing.

A mythic video. What better way to oppose the masculine hero myth than to simply: genuinely offer up a piece of yourself when it's least convenient and there's no real glory in it.

Two posts in a day. What's wrong with me? A few posts ago I mentioned that I was experimenting with altering my perception, mostly with a mixture of subconscious communication and self hypnosis (I suspect the two are the same really). One thing I wanted to do was affect the clarity of my vision (literally not figuratively, although...). I had laser treatment close to 15 years ago, and my vision is good, but in the interim it has deteriorated especially at night or in low light. Also, they never were quite able to completely compensate for my astigmatism (irregular shaped focal point), so there was always a slight distortion around bright lights and at distance. But I seem to be on the verge of cracking this. My process so far has been to imagine twiddling knobs on a kind of console, increase that or decrease that part of my perception. As mentioned previously it works great for smell and colour saturation - especially purples and blues. But vision sharpness has been difficult. I fell upon instead of a using little ditty (mantra if you will), which goes: "Every time I blink my sight grows more distinct." I just say it over and over in my head - even if I feel like a moron. Slowly over the last few weeks my subconscious (so called) has got the message. What seems to be happening is that my distance vision has improved but also has my close vision - and to some degree my low light vision. This is all great, although it's still unstable at the moment. I have to revert to using the mantra for it to kick in. But I'm hoping for permanency. I'm a pragmatist, so I don't actually care what the explanation is (I suspect pupil constriction improving depth of field, or improved "processing" from both eyes by the brain to remove noise, as each eye has slightly different aberrations). I'll keep poking around and report future findings.

One acts because one can. All bases for action comes from the relative domain, whether you act because of external factors (such as other people) or internal factors (such as desire). Seen from a different perspective, we are always acting: we cannot not act, we have no choice in that. So your statement is singling out particular acts which you preselect as being meaningful and have a basis that you've also selected as being meaningful. To regain control in that sense is simply to act consciously as much as possible.

From a more philosophical point of view, it's all projection. You only have the evidence of your senses and your past experience to go on. Having a good theory of mind just allows you to more efficiently predict people's intentions and motivations, but those motivations and intentions are still just projections coming from your own head. Projection is a feature not a bug - to steal a phrase from someone I know.

There's a strong connection between every different aspect of your being. Seen as a dynamical system all the various parts interlock and feedback on each other. The system has an equilibrium point, where opposing parts will balance each other out. This is good because it normally stops you from experiencing extremes. The point of equilibrium is itself dynamic, it's not a static point. It will shift around during the day and over longer timescales, it may cycle or jitter around uncontrollably. You may experience periods of highs and lows, energy and lethargy, focus and distraction. But there's an ill defined locus for all this dynamic equilibrium activity, this is your set point, your temperament. Because the system of you is dynamic it can be pushed and poked around. You can inject highs (or fear) by taking a rollercoaster ride or lows by thinking about all that is bad in the world. Unfortunately, your ability to move your equilibrium point is affected by the your system too. If you are unfocused, distracted and in low spirits, you become unable to affect yourself or take action; and you become stuck in that particular funk. There are so many ways to become stuck: depression, addiction, treating your body badly, isolation, gloom and doom thinking, helplessness. Sometimes, the only recourse is to force the equilibrium to a new point by taking SSRIs or by external means such as therapy or self medication. Once the equilibrium is shifted to a new place, it may be self-sustaining and you don't need the drugs or the therapy - that should always be the aim of any intervention. There are other ways of keeping your equilibrium in a more desirable zone. This is to increase self awareness over time and to build useful habits. Increasing self awareness starts of by taking in external knowledge. That knowledge teaches you about yourself and makes you more aware of aspects of yourself that were hidden before. For example maybe you start to realise that the day after drinking lots of alcohol you feel morose. Or, you realise that you allow yourself to wallow in self-pity after a break up. Once the awareness kicks in, you can consciously force your equilibrium point in a particular direction, by pumping up the parts of you that oppose your negativity. For example you go out and walk in nature every day after a painful break up. The idea is to move your equilibrium point and not to suppress this part or that part of your being. Building up habits allows you to automate keeping your equilibrium in a good zone. It may be that your natural genetic disposition makes you prone to depression or lethargy. Having habits such as exercise and a clean diet or a fixed sleep regime can push your dynamics in the right direction. It also frees up thinking space, your habits become a matter of course. Repeated habitual behaviour becomes a lot easier over time and can seem almost natural. You need good awareness here because you can also build habits that push your equilibrium in the wrong direction - and those habits you must crowd out. Maybe you're prone to the habitual reward highs of social media, so must actively build up opposing habits, like only engaging with social media in small amounts or at certain times. Since everything in your being is connected: taking exercise makes you think good thoughts and makes your body feel good and puts you in a good mood; it's relatively easy to shift your dynamics around. All it takes is increasing awareness and healthy habits. This is just self development by another name.

I just write the headlines, @Yarco writes the story.

Most of us are not car mechanics, we just drive cars. You don't need to be computer literate to live life. We learn enough to get by.

@patricknotstar the observation is a good one. But all it means is that the sleeping dream is linked to the waking dream. The linkage can be subtle though because being conscious is subtle. There are degrees of being conscious, some low, some high. For example, I always dream of water when I need to pee, maybe I'm swimming or maybe it's raining or whatever. I don't know I need to pee in my dream, but when I wake up I do. There is a link between the two things, because really there isn't a difference between them, all that changes is the manifestation. When I'm awake I have urgency in my bladder, when I'm asleep there's water.

Coffee. I didn't think I was a coffee snob. That is until I saw this guy's reaction (@ 6:40): Whenever I visit friends I desperately try and avoid any form of instant coffee, because it frankly tastes like shit. I'm not a big tea lover, but I will drink it because it's quick and easy to make, so I tend to fall back on that especially at friends'. Except; I don't tolerate caffeine. Tea is less caffeinated than coffee, but after two cups I start feeling spaced out and sweaty, yuk. I've trained one set of friends to switch to decaf, so there is hope in the world. I also own (and use) a Moka pot, yes a Bialetti. I've had friends round who said I was "posh" for having such a thing. WTF do they expect, I live in the heart of middle class England and I'm half Spanish! Yes, I suspect I'm a coffee snob: "How many sugars would you like in your coffee, mate?", "If it's that instant shit, I'd prefer salt.". The irony being that until I identified with aspiring middle-classness (thanks Uni) all I drank was instant. --- Now for the serious half of my post. Is it ok to sit in limbo? I mean is it ok to have nothing going on but just being? What's an acceptable amount of time to live like this? Days, months, years? There is a strong drive in Western society to be constantly heading somewhere, to be busy. You've got 40 productive years, the clock is ticking, go go go! Then it's a constant scramble to get things in order and to have a trajectory, to play the game that society has layed down. A lot of us hit a brick wall around age 40 or so. You've bought into society's game and completed all the easy levels. You reach a point where you can indefinitely coast and survive, you have the house, the car, the family unit, the job that pays enough, the annual holidays. But this brings on an existential crisis, because you've been going somewhere all along and then suddenly you realise the same featureless road just carries on and on into the distance without end. That lack of destination is really hard for us Westerners to digest. It was hard for me to digest. I'm conflicted. I can't help but look at my peers and think Nope. Not because I don't love them, but because conventionality is not for me. Equally, I look at my peers and think, why shouldn't I have that? they seem happier and more fulfilled than me. It's a torment. Am I really so different and special that I should fight against it? Why don't I have a house, wife and kids, I'm a pretty down-to-earth normal bloke. Also, I have known friends who in a million years I wouldn't have thought would have gone for conventionality, and yet, they too succumbed to getting married and having kids; they're probably happy enough. Happy enough. Now there's a phrase. Should that be what I'm aiming for? Given Western society's dictats that I should try and maximise everything, isn't happy enough just a cop out? And is it really all about happiness and the level of it? It seems one-dimensional to me. On the other hand should I be getting lost in potential? There's a million potential things I could do with my life going forward (how I hate that expression). I could indefinitely think about what I could potentially do without ever doing any of it. Maybe the better option is to plump for something that I can actually get traction with, and go for that for all it's worth and exhaust it - whether it brings happiness, wealth or anything else. Maybe purpose is all it needs.

I agree and all models are limited, I suppose that's what makes them models. You can rise to any level of sophistication with them, but reality will always outsmart any models. What you see a lot is attachment to particular models as explaining everything - everyone has their pet theories. SD could be made more sophisticated by getting rid of the stages altogether and having something like traits. So just like weaving a Persian rug, a new coloured thread would be woven in and becames part of the ongoing pattern. Each thread is a new trait, for example: I use force to get what I want; and then: I use negotiation to get what I want; and then: I think about whether I want something or not; and so on. If you think about each SD stage as a cluster of traits each different from other stages, then they are kind of polarities - but of course each new trait runs up through all the subsequent stages. You can then state that particular traits come online at particular moments in development. This would make SD multi-dimensional. I think what's nice about very simple models, is that they're easy to understand in one go and it's easy to see where you fall in them. And it's probably easier to see how you would move around the "space" of a model and improve yourself. Looking at the Stupidity model, it's obvious that we want to move towards the Intelligence quadrant and spend more time there. In that sense it's a good and useful model.

Just have a rolling quota per most recent 24 hours or recent 7 days. Say no more than ten or twenty in a day. Of course any changes to they way the forum works will cost $$$, so it has to be easy to implement, so there's that.

I can get behind that, just have another section for Philosophy and all the navel gazers (including me) can go there. I have no idea what you mean by this. What do you mean by this?

You do know that @Leo Gura is pushing philosophy most of the time? Is it a surprise it's so prevalent on the forum and that folks want to emulate him?

@Mason Riggle lol. Ok. Not separate from what? lol again. Anyway. I'm out of these shenanigans on this thread. Enjoy!

Cool. So the self and experience are one and the same thing. When Solipsism says "my experience is the only one [experience]" this is a tautology, because "my", "experience" and "one experience" all mean the same thing. The only juice coming out of this definition is the word "one". What does "one" refer to here do you think?

That's a tighter definition of Solipsism, so that's good because it worries less about brains in vats and simulations - which should really have nothing to do with Solipsism. In fact the looser definition of Solipsism would exclude simulations and brains in vats. But again if there is no "my" then there is no Solipsism. Solipsism relies on there being a "my". If you take a "my" as given, then that's faith and belief. You could just as well take it as the experience of being a self and not the self having an experience. With the former this fits in better with having experience itself as the stage on which everything happens.

I would say that under Subjective Idealism it's just a distraction. If you were suddenly unplugged, Matrix style, then your subjective experience would have a discontinuity in it, nothing more. The nature of that subjective experience wouldn't change, just the content of it. But I fail to see the connection with Solipsism, what do you think the connection is?

That is exactly my point. I disagree. Why would spiritual circles even have a idea of "no self" if it didn't have some validity? I really do think you've got your feet in both camps: materialism and subjective idealism and you're struggling to reconcile the two. They're not completely mutually exclusive: they both agree that reality exists. But they're very different in their approach to reality and existence. You really do have to be a contortionist to hold both views at the same time and you should allow yourself to keep them separate when necessary.

However, Solipsism does have a definition. That is that my experience is the only one. But if you remove my from the definition, then Solipsism can't hold - by definition. It really does hinge on there being a self to experience something, i.e. the self "owns" its experience. If there is any doubt at all that the self carries on continuously without interruption, then that puts Solipsism into doubt too. My definition of Truth is something that continues to exist without interruption. I would say that the self isn't a Truth, and anything that relies on a self for its definition also isn't a Truth. The argument about Solipsism is really an argument about truth, existence and the self. The problem with this sort of thinking is that you've got nothing else to go on other than your experience - there's nothing more or less than that. The higher likelihood is that the notion of having "senses" is wrong and is what is actually causing the confusion.

@Someone here at the root of it all is what is meant by the words existence and real. You could simplify things and just say that everything that is real exists. So what is existence? Even if you have doubt, that is still a form of existence: the existence of doubt about something. So even thoughts exist. Does Harry Potter exist? Yes, as words on a page and in the thoughts of readers. The thing with the self is that it doesn't exist continuously. Ever get lost in a good film or book? Where does the self go then? It sort of disappears and reappears again when you suddenly get hungry or tired. The thing that doesn't ever seem to disappear is the experience of existence/reality. So it would seem that a "self" isn't necessary for existence to exist. Without a self you can't have solipsism because then existence doesn't belong to anyone or anything. If there isn't a self, then there aren't any other selves either.