LastThursday

Other than the negative physical effects of alcohol and how it personally turns me into an insufferable idiot, I would say that there is some spiritual dimension to it. The thing I take most from it is the dreamlike quality of the experience when sufficiently intoxicated. Whatever it does it removes some of that rational veil to how we perceive reality, and in some sense we can experience things a little more "as they are". We are living in a dream all the time.

Motivation is hard. It's shouldn't be a surprise how much being ill can affect your mental state. I've had a head cold since the end of last year and it's dragged. Today is probably the first day where I don't feel too bad. I know enough to know that all the symptoms I feel: migranes, head and neck ache, copious mucus, trouble swallowing, lethargy, brain fog, sleepiness, are all caused by my body's reaction to the virus or bacterium, not by the things themselves. The question then arises, why is my body sabotaging me so much and for so long? It's a combination of things. But the main thrust of my idea is that these symptoms are strongly negative motivators, they are very hard to ignore. For example, I feel lethargic because being still and not using up energy is precisely what my body needs to pour resources (energy) into overcoming the infection instead. But why trouble swallowing? Because my throat is sabotaging the infection's ability to take hold in the moist warm environment that it likes, it takes away the moistness and makes it dry and scratchy, it inflames the area and floods it with histamine and heats it up so that my body's own cells go into overdrive and kill off the infection. Notice how good the body is at (anti) motivating you just when you need it. The symptoms of disease have largely nothing to do with the disease itself, it's all your body. Only in cases where the disease causes outright bodily damage is it different. How amazing would it be if the body actually positively motivated you? What would this look like? I think you only have to look at how most children are: running around expending vast amounts of energy, exploring the world, making up realities and getting to know how to be human, exploring themselves and experimenting in the world. Now imagine the adult version of that. But who do you know that is like that? Nearly no one. Everyone seems locked into their particular life circumstances and everyone seems to be suffering one way or another. A lot of that suffering is exactly like the symptoms of disease. Subconsciously, your energy and vitality are being sabotaged by your body, mostly enacted via your mental state. But what is the disease exactly? It's a whole plethora of factors, including nutrition, exercise, sleep, level of connection with others, the social matrix, the grind of work, stress responses to money and status and obligations. All of which mostly occur with adulthood. It's like we have a chronic illness but we just don't realise it. It's only when we begin to dig into ourselves with self-help and spirituality that we realise what's up. Some amount of mental re-programming and awareness can help alleviate the symptoms of our suffering. Understanding what humans need: sleep, good food, movement, the support of others, can also help. But ultimately the "disease" is systemic in the way we're plugged into society at large. And largely there is no escaping it, because our body's symptoms sabotage our attempts at escape. And society also doesn't want us to escape. Masking the symptoms ultimately doesn't help rid us of the disease. Only awareness and very strong motivation can do it.

I think it'll be good to get out things that arise and put them down in written form. I have so many lost thoughts and ideas, and some of them were very good.

My father could easily have died recently when he was hospitalised. The thing he appreciated the most was just my constant daily presence throughout the whole ordeal. Yes I spoke to him, and asked him how he felt and what he was thinking, and I gave him some advice, and joked around with him about the hospital food and about doing laps around the ward with his movement therapist. But just being present and having that connection there is the most important thing, everything else is a bonus.

I totally get it. You seem like the type that needs constant stimulation just to tread water. Tell me if I'm wrong. It does get to the point where whatever you do everything seems "the same" and it gets repetitive and boring, because you've done the exciting stuff already. I think what you call passion is just what I call stimulation. We all have different thresholds for stimulation. But nearly all activity in life is passionless, it just needs to be done to achieve your goals. I need to buy a car, I have absolutely zero passion for it, but I have to do it. And so it goes on. Aim for big passionate goals in life and then do all the boring drudgery to get there - at least there's a payoff at the end. That's the only sustainable way. Maybe on the way you'll stumble upon something new to be passionate about.

Solipsism depends on the unity of experience, yet that unity can’t be established without an external vantage point. From within experience alone, plurality and unity are indistinguishable. And solipsism denies the certainty of an external vantage point. It seems like solipsism only has the certainty of one experience and experiencer, and everything else it uncertain. But solispism itself can't verify its own claim. But yes, it's still a useful idea as a basis for good ethical conduct. We should give uncertain things the benefit of the doubt.

My first self-aware memory was of me being picked up by my mum and tucked into my pram, with her looking down directly at me. It's interesting because supposedly you don't form solid memories until you're about two years old. But I guess there's wild variation between people. My next memories are of me walking about, so there's definitely a gap of at least half a year or more.

What can be learnt from the idea of solipsism?

Master of understatement.

Connection between people is a beautiful thing. First and foremost let yourself enjoy the connection. Is it better to capture a butterfly and study it, or to watch it fly?

Sure. Sounds fun.

Life isn't anything in particular. You exist, and you must do lots of things to carry on existing. That's it. But we're all free to see it as we want to see it, if it makes existing more pleasant.

Ah yes. Life could also be a game and you could be the main character in it. What a blast. But of course life isn't really a game either.

It's the human condition to believe in stories and characters. If believing you're the main character motivates goodness in life, then why not? But once you've exhausted it, believing you're a character in a story is limiting and also on some level untrue.

I definitely agree there. But people are not conscious enough to find the right words (sorry I laugh at my own jokes). I don't know. There are plenty of synonyms: existence, awareness, self-awareness, knowledge, qualia, experience, God (on this forum), thought, inner dialogue, feelings and so on. But on a forum you're not going to get accurate language in general. I'd also say in general it's not even possible to agree if my experience has any overlap with your experience at all. Because all agreement is done through language, so it's already once removed. It's quite possible we're not even talking about the same thing when we say "consciousness".

I find it amazing that a word like consciousness exists. It's like a fish describing water. We pretend we all think we know what "consciousness" refers to. But it's a completely relative notion, not absolute. I'd say that there's several different definitions floating around: the sensations of experiencing, the awareness of existence, the awareness that you as a person exists, and a more general "knowledge" of the world and how it works. All of which causes no end of confusion.

I've been feeling a lot of stress lately and I'm concerned about its effects on my health and sleep. Anyone here now how to clear stress hormones quickly from the body, and how to reverse the bad effects of stress hormones?

This sort of thing happens all the time when people live together whether in a relationship or not. People will annoy you eventually. I have a friend who can't stand me flossing, and she doesn't even live with me. The thing is, what to do about it? It's all about give and take with a dose of decent communication. Firstly, you can only control what you do. You can encourage each other to be open and communicate what's annoying you both. The danger here is that it can get a bit emotional, but it doesn't have to be, just be direct and to the point. Then ask yourself "am I willing to change for him?", if not then simply tell him so and why. Most relationships have a honeymoon period where you tolerate each others' bad habits and let them slide. But that's hard to maintain longer term, living together can be intense and you sometimes have to come to an agreement about "how to live together", to actually verbalise it. The second, is that if either of you are questioning the relationship, then that has to be taken seriously. A one-sided relationship never works out in the long run, someone ends up being unhappy, probably both of you. The thing is a relationship can change day to day, so it can be hard to tell. You kind of have to step back and look at the bigger picture over time. One red flag is when you have an unequal power dynamic, where one person tries to dictate the relationship. You will have different roles in the relationship, but there should be equality and compromise at some level. If one person is unyielding, then that is normally a bad sign. Unpleasant communication can be a sign of power games, or just plain immaturity. So. Step back, take some time to think, maybe a month or so to see how things go. Ask yourself then "do I want to be in this relationship?", "can I live by myself for a while?", "will I have a better relationship with someone else in future?". You're still young you have time.

With my lowly 1000 rated brain, white does have a pawn fork on the next move, probably worth moving either the Knight or Bishop to avoid. So move the black Knight backwards (f6). White does whatever. Then black Bishop e4 and it's well protected. Then exchange frenzy. My only other plan would be to weaken white's pawns covering their King, by saccing first the Knight (to avoid fork) and then the Bishop. I don't know where to go from there though.

I used to use Dvorak layout for programming. I got quite proficient at it, but never as fast as qwerty. As a bonus nobody could ever get into my work laptop, even if I told them the password. Dvorak, good security, but it's over hyped for typing speed. For a long while I also had the number keys inverted on a standard layout for programming. That meant I could use punctuation without having to constantly use the shift key. Numbers in most progamming languages are less common than punctuation, so I had those shifted. For Windows I use Keyboard Layout Creator.

Whenever I spend any time thinking about it, it blows my mind how little we know about other people. Nearly my whole life revolves around just a few dozen people at most, all my pain and happiness is about those people. And yet literally metres away through my living room walls, is a different bunch of people living their lives in their own particular bubble with their own few dozen people and their own drama. We are living on islands in a huge ocean of humanity.

No you're adding more than Descartes said. He was talking about the absolute truth of knowing you exist only when you are thinking (or experiencing). It's absolute because doubting the statement is itself a form of thinking, which means the doubt is wrong.

I think about this sort of thing constantly. I've just turned 53, so, you know. Except, people are consistently surprised when I tell them my age. I was talking to a woman I play badminton with who works in a theatre, and she said "we need more young people like you in our theatre, everyone there's over 50". I didn't have the heart to tell her. I'm surprised myself when people think I'm younger. My point is, is that "being old" is largely a state of mind, and your state of mind reflects in how you feel about yourself, and how others perceive you. We are living in the 21st century, and people can and do keep their health well into their seventies. I have a friend who's 57 and regularly runs half marathons and longer. It's undeniable that you have less energy with age, and your looks can go down hill, and you'll start having aches and pains. But it's not a given. Life isn't just about "being youthful", there's lots of other more exciting things to compensate. You know yourself better, you're wiser, more intelligent, understand people better, make better decisions, take control, stand up for yourself, financially more stable. In other words lots and lots of things just keep improving and never stop. Do I wish was twenty again? Of course, but only if I can take my current knowledge and experience. Getting old is just a change of emphasis, not an excuse to give up.

HNY. A quick summary of the holes in the argument so far: 1. Are we talking about thinking (reasoning) or experiencing (prior to reasoning) here? 2. Is it possible to bring things into existence by pure reasoning? 3. How does reasoning bring itself into existence? Or is reasoning and existence the same thing? 4. If a truth is self evident and unquestionable, then how does an "absolute" truth differ? 5. An "absolute" truth presupposes other types of truth, what is "absolute" in opposition to?

Why not? We could do with more smartassery and less parroting and unquestioning dogma. Isn't truth itself just: self evident, unquestionable? What about the "absolute" bit, what is that exactly?