henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2020 1:20 amultra-humans: HA! Nah, being human is a fine enough thing, so I'm gonna stick with that. Instead, since GIA is all about the tribal we ought refer to him and his as protohuman: troops of monkeys, rigid hierarchies, poop flingin'...
Of course that's what he is, but I was talking to him, and it was the only way I could think of that might get through to the primitive mind of a "protohuman: troops of monkeys, rigid hierarchies, poop flingin'" tribalist.
I stand corrected.: not at all. We differ in methods and approaches but on substance we're mostly aligned.
Curious how the idea of freedom has lost its depth of meaning. Why bother to exchange one form of slavery for another and call it freedom. Another term for freedom is awakening. A person sleeping in Plato's cave is not free. But we think we are closer to human freedom or awakening than we imagine. Thoreau understood
The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? - Thoreau, Walden
A free man is master of himself but our higher nature continues at war with our lower nature so a person cannot be master of himself. But to accept this obvious fact of what we are is the most insulting thing anyone can say. People have been killed for less. So it is better just to attack Trump and appear intelligent
Nick_A wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2020 2:19 am
Curious how the idea of freedom has lost its depth of meaning. Why bother to exchange one form of slavery for another and call it freedom. Another term for freedom is awakening. A person sleeping in Plato's cave is not free. But we think we are closer to human freedom or awakening than we imagine. Thoreau understood
The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? - Thoreau, Walden
A free man is master of himself but our higher nature continues at war with our lower nature so a person cannot be master of himself. But to accept this obvious fact of what we are is the most insulting thing anyone can say. People have been killed for less. So it is better just to attack Trump and appear intelligent
I never know exactly how to take you, Nick. I support your aims, but often find myself disagreein' with your specifics.
This, for example...
A free man is master of himself but our higher nature continues at war with our lower nature so a person cannot be master of himself.
I self-interrogate and I find no divisions, no internal war. No angst grips me. I am seamless, self-directed, confident, certain, and utterly ordinary. I sometimes think you don't give the average guy enough credit.
henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2020 1:56 am
I'm insulted. GIA is a socialist; I'm the libertarian.
Oh. So GIA likes that nobody has freedom (according to his/her definition).
That IS socialist.
Oh, I don't know that he likes it, but he's certain no man is free (which, as I say, is just garde-variety projection), and he's certain no man can be free (which makes him socialist).
henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2020 2:33 am
Oh, I don't know that he likes it, but he's certain no man is free (which, as I say, is just garde-variety projection), and he's certain no man can be free (which makes him socialist).
Funny he'd bother to argue for it, then. Nobody's free to believe him.
henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2020 2:33 am
Oh, I don't know that he likes it, but he's certain no man is free (which, as I say, is just garde-variety projection), and he's certain no man can be free (which makes him socialist).
Funny he'd bother to argue for it, then. Nobody's free to believe him.
GIA sez man has free will but is a useless bit of unfree flesh.
It's an odd combo GIA has cooked up: man can want freedom, can choose it, but can't have it.
Nick_A wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2020 2:19 am
Curious how the idea of freedom has lost its depth of meaning. Why bother to exchange one form of slavery for another and call it freedom. Another term for freedom is awakening. A person sleeping in Plato's cave is not free. But we think we are closer to human freedom or awakening than we imagine. Thoreau understood
The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? - Thoreau, Walden
A free man is master of himself but our higher nature continues at war with our lower nature so a person cannot be master of himself. But to accept this obvious fact of what we are is the most insulting thing anyone can say. People have been killed for less. So it is better just to attack Trump and appear intelligent
I never know exactly how to take you, Nick. I support your aims, but often find myself disagreein' with your specifics.
This, for example...
A free man is master of himself but our higher nature continues at war with our lower nature so a person cannot be master of himself.
I self-interrogate and I find no divisions, no internal war. No angst grips me. I am seamless, self-directed, confident, certain, and utterly ordinary. I sometimes think you don't give the average guy enough credit.
Part of my reason for being Christian is the extraordinary depth of its ideas. One of these ideas is that we are two. Don't believe me but just consider the words of St Paul which a person pursuing self knowledge can verify. The slavery he refers to I've found to be normal for the human condition as it exists in the world leaving us a choice. Which slavery does person pursue and how to open to it? I know this must seem absurd at firsts but a person can verify the inner war or the struggle between our higher and lower natures taking place in our collective being.
Romans 7
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature[d] a slave to the law of sin.
Greatest I am wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 7:49 pm
IOW, there are no self sufficient people.
That is what I said. There are no free people and no human has freedom.
'You've convinced me, GIA. There are no self-sufficient people and there are no free people.
Fortunately for some of us, WE ARE NOT PEOPLE. Whatever the unfortunate creatures you identify as people are, which I assume includes you, I'm not one of them. If what you are describing is human, than I'm not human, because what you are describing is something less than a fully rational/volitional being. Only for you, I will identify what I, and Henry, are. We and others are ultra-humans and you have never met one of us or even know we exist. To us, your, "people," are a sub-species that has not yet achieve full ultra-humaness.
Now you can make all the absurd statements you want about "people" without making the embarrassing mistake of attributing to others your own deficiencies and defects. Just remember it does not apply to ultra-humans, which you know nothing about.
[To Henry only: you're right, he is a sick puppy. I feel sorry for him.]
A rather stupid post.
You rely on others for life like all of us.
Who makes your shoes? You? If not, you are not self-sufficient.
Socrates was correct and you seem to dumb to recognize it.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 5:23 pm
Oh, I read it.
In the story, Ralph (and, to some extent, Piggy) tried to organize society, so that freedom could be maximized. The advocates of unrestricted "freedom" ended up killing Piggy and trying to kill Ralph, the hero of the story.
A few rules for the common good didn't hurt freedom at all, but rather ensured that what freedoms remained took place within a coordinated framework that stood to serve the good of all. It was the little savages who didn't pay attention to that, and wanted freedom without any rules, who ended up creating the disaster that the island became. What Ralph was trying to advocate was not suffocating to freedom, but rather the maximization and direction of freedom into purposes advantageous to all. He was trying to create a minimal level of beneficial civilization, not to impose any tyrannical repression.
Again, you see in that story how a limited set of intelligent rules can serve freedom. Of course, too many rules can suffocate freedom. And of course, there are always debates about how many rules one should have, and about what. But the point of the story is that absence of rules is not freedom, but a things that used to be called "anomie," meaning "lawlessness," the absence of any markers, guides, landmarks, benchmarks for achievement, values, morals or goals. And "anomie" is a state that all human beings actually turn out to hate and fear, even if they claim to want it at first. You can see this because when faced with it they often flee into the hands of dictators (interbellum Germany was a really good example of this).
It seems that human beings will endure tyranny rather than anomie. Absolute lawlessness is not freedom. It's terror.
You are bastardizing the language to try to win a cheep point.
A silly comment. I didn't do anything to the language...well, except use it as a person who knows it does.
And "cheap" is spelled with an "a."
You have freedom as having degrees. One is either free or not.
One is free or not...but sociability and social rules are not the opposites of freedom. So one can be sociable, and follow social rules, and be volitionally quite free.
Your own country has a Statue of Liberty. Not a statue of freedom.
Not my country.
But it's a very nice statue, nonetheless. And I'm not sure what your point is there.
Your last does not surprise me. You do not want to recognize that all you have is liberty and no freedom.
"One is free or not...but sociability and social rules are not the opposites of freedom. So one can be sociable, and follow social rules, and be volitionally quite free."
I did not indicate that all our rules are opposite to freedom, but if you have to follow them, then you are not free of them, thus have no real freedom. You are just free to follow the rules, which is not freedom.
Nick_A wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2020 2:19 am
Curious how the idea of freedom has lost its depth of meaning. Why bother to exchange one form of slavery for another and call it freedom. Another term for freedom is awakening. A person sleeping in Plato's cave is not free. But we think we are closer to human freedom or awakening than we imagine. Thoreau understood
The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? - Thoreau, Walden
A free man is master of himself but our higher nature continues at war with our lower nature so a person cannot be master of himself. But to accept this obvious fact of what we are is the most insulting thing anyone can say. People have been killed for less. So it is better just to attack Trump and appear intelligent
Finally. One with a good enough mind to not go after the personal with benign insults.
A man can be master of his mental side, but not his physical side. We almost all rely on others, for instance, to grow our food, produce transportation vehicles etc. etc.
Meanwhile the less astute shallow thinkers think they are free and can live without society.
henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2020 2:33 am
Oh, I don't know that he likes it, but he's certain no man is free (which, as I say, is just garde-variety projection), and he's certain no man can be free (which makes him socialist).
Funny he'd bother to argue for it, then. Nobody's free to believe him.
Who said that?
The fact you posit it shows how little you understand of the issue.
I am talking of the wherewithal to live. Not how you think or what you are free to believe.
This quote is appropriate here.
John 6 ; 63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2020 2:33 am
Oh, I don't know that he likes it, but he's certain no man is free (which, as I say, is just garde-variety projection), and he's certain no man can be free (which makes him socialist).
Funny he'd bother to argue for it, then. Nobody's free to believe him.
GIA sez man has free will but is a useless bit of unfree flesh.
