There is, I mean, no aboriginal stuff or quality of being, contrasted with that of which material objects are made, out of which our thoughts of them are made; but there is a function in experience which thoughts perform, and for the performance of which this quality of being is invoked. That function is knowing. — William James

:100: Notice how this re-affirms my criticism of Descartes' reification - because that is what it is - of the self as 'res cogitans', which is what subsequently gave rise to Ryle's 'ghost in the machine' argument.

But not as anti-metaphysical. — Wayfarer

I wholeheartedly embrace a certain style of metaphysics.

I even like the way Emerson uses 'God.'

I call myself an 'atheist' as a shorthand for not 'that' kind of theist. My God is a devouring fire. He eats atheists himself for breakfast.

In case you missed it, I wasn't endorsing James but saying that a certain way of thinking (reducing all the subject, etc.) points toward the dissolution of a subject that no longer has an other to talk about or others to talk to.

The minimal rational situation is us in a language in a world together, with ourselves subject to norms for the making and acceptance of claims. This is almost tautological, but it's surprisingly nonobvious in various circles.

So I will boldly admit that I believe that I live in a world with other people. I don't think it makes sense to present this as 'very likely all things considered.' I think it's confusion to violate this unity.

I'm not seeing any point here to respond to, which you should understand, even if only on the basis that you seem to think language so indeterminate. — Janus

Sure. But I also think people are different. I can't pretend to think all interpretations are equally good or that communication is impossible or offer some other easy target. Semantic finitude is not semantic nihilism. I can't get it all but I'll always want more. Will to power, will to clarity, will to beauty.

A command of language is simply the ability to communicate adequately. — Janus

You leap from stone to stone, as we all must when we clarify. Pile signs on signs. But not all piling is equal. What is it to communicate adequately ? We both already know 'well enough' in the fog of average intelligibility. In this context the point is to notice the leaping from stone to stone. Meaning is being is seeing is meaning is being. Forms and information and sensations. We dance around in a ring and suppose.

That said, even my dogs understand what "do you want to go to the beach" means.

I don't imagine "something in some occult sphere" that gives meaning or "life" to sentences; it's just a matter of habitually instilled association as I understand it. — Janus

That doesn't make sense, unless you want to reduce rational norms to 'habitually instilled associations.'

What is being associated with what ? It can't be hidden mind stuff, so ?

the words mean, but we are still their creators. And they are up for interpretation, so emphasis on the we: what I intend is not per se what I say. Intent could be important for my listener, but need not be. And it's this interplay between writer and interpreter where meaning originates, — Moliere

I think we are basically on the same page. Meaning is between and within us. The view I criticize seems to assume that the self is infinitely transparent to itself, gazing on 'pure information' or on Exact Meaning which wears marks and noises as its clothing. Exact Secret Meaning is to marks and noises as The Soul is the mere flesh. I use the capitals to emphasize the Theological payload here. God created nature from nothingness. His radical separateness from nature symbolizes (Feuerbach or Becker might say) our denial of our animality and death.

it's perfect for disrupting the notion that a sign must be either visual or aural, and the pheromone example demonstrates how it could even be chemical (and need not include homosapeins -- most social species, I imagine, have language, whatever it is — Moliere

I like the continuity you are emphasizing. Biosemiosis (such as very low level cellular signaling) also interests me, but I haven't got around to studying it closely.

The apparent medium-independence is also fascinating. It's easy for us now anyway to switch between reading and listening. Then of course we speak and hear so many metaphors meant for eyes (visual memory, I guess.)

I say 'occult' is deliberately pejorative, in this context. — Wayfarer

One more little point: if the goal is to clarify thought and ennoble existence and see reality whole and true, then hiddenness is not exactly the fetish of the philosopher who lives to unveil and shine light.

Hey my argument is not with Wittgenstein in particular but 20thC English language philosophy in general :-)

I like the continuity you are emphasizing. Biosemiosis (such as very low level cellular signaling) also interests me, but I haven't got around to studying it closely. — green flag

Me neither.

The ant example is something I take more seriously as an example of a sign than cellular signaling. At that point I'm not sure if we're speaking in metaphor or not anymore, where at least with the ant example I'm certain I'm willing to claim that has enough similarity to count as a sign -- looking at meaning as something that isn't unique to humans, at least, when thinking of writing in the large sense.

I originally thought that because they are an obvious example of a highly social species, even moreso than ourselves, and it seems to me that this is a good guess to begin in looking for some kind of bridge between the two kinds of writing. And now I'm thinking any sexual species must have language at some level in order to coordinate copulation, but it may also be very metaphorical at that point -- it's a little hard to see what we have in common with sharks, for instance. There clearly is more than just this point, but it's an important point to consider in looking at cellular signalling, because they are asexual. Making it even stranger for us to relate to -- which means it may be their "language" is is so foreign that it'd be foolish to understand it on the architecture of understanding our own language.

Some thoughts on translation:

Even though ants are writing meaningfully to one another in a way which we can translate into our language that doesn't mean that we are suddenly speaking ant, or that they can speak English. If there be a poetry of ants we'd have to be an ant to read it. But we know we have poetry, at least. So there's something to claiming these four tokens as a sign (English sentences, braille, sign-language, ant pheromones) -- but that sort of meaning is larger than and doesn't include translation, per se, where "translation" is an act whereby a writer who knows two languages is able to re-express meaning in a similar manner in both of them. (the first three obviously count as translatable, where the fourth is questionable). But just because this writing is "larger" that doesn't mean "better" -- just more encompassing. We, as humans, will clearly prefer the first three examples of signs over ant-signs, and if there be a way to understand language on a scientific basis then it'd make sense to prod why it is our species is able to write in the small sense.

Relating our abilities to the creatures around us seems to me to be the route I'm most interested in. It just gets very confusing very easily.

The apparent medium-independence is also fascinating. It's easy for us now anyway to switch between reading and listening. Then of course we speak and hear so many metaphors meant for eyes (visual memory, I guess.)

Right! That's what makes it hard to specify some set of conditions for a sign. Along with everything else we've said so far.

I think we are basically on the same page. Meaning is between and within us. — green flag

Yup! Seems pretty close. Though it's worth noting that what we are close in is confusion :D

But just because this writing is "larger" that doesn't mean "better" -- just — Moliere

The ant example is something I take more seriously as an example of a sign than cellular signaling. At that point I'm not sure if we're speaking in metaphor or not anymore, — Moliere

I think (?) we are forced to speak in varying intensities of metaphor, within or upon a continuum of metaphor.

At the moment I'd say we don't need consciousness for a sign system. But I see the value in looking at ants, because the interplay between individual and tribe is still visible.

What would reading their poetry be ? Deep question. Do ants have consciousness ? But I don't even know what 'consciousness' means exactly. Humans use it in criminal trials and on operating tables. We implicitly (most of us) judge that the dead are not conscious, for we put them in holes or ovens, just as surgeons cut out the wisdom teeth of anesthetized patients.

Right! That's what makes it hard to specify some set of conditions for a sign. Along with everything else we've said so far. — Moliere

Yes. And we can note why Saussure said a system of differences without positive elements. In other words, the game of chess would still be (essentially) chess even if everything, even the game itself, was renamed. So a sign system is designed only up to isomorphism. But the 'positive elements' (the arbitrary, contingent paintjob) strangely hint at the presence of such a system. Writing 'poison' on a bottle is no better than writing 'hisdfhsdfsd' on a bottle unless a particular arbitrary convention is established. I imagine that various neurotransmitters are just as arbitrary. But a historical 'conversation' is established even in Darwinian evolution. There's a nerve that runs from the brain to the throat but goes under the heart, for stupid historical reasons (marginal costs of stretching it just a little more were always low, etc.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO1a1Ek-HD0

I think (?) we are forced to speak in varying intensities of metaphor, within or upon a continuum of metaphor. — green flag

I'm not certain anymore. I had thought that, but now I'm not sure. But even if so, it's still worth noting the divergence here between cellular signaling and ant-signs, yes?

It's hard to pin-point when we're no longer really talking about language, but rather using the metaphor of language to talk about something else. With cellular signaling I suspect that this is what's happened, but I admitted to not being well read on the subject of biosemiotics too which seems to go down that rabbit-hole -- so it's just a worry of mine. I tend to worry about overly complicated ontologies, especially when they start going into things we don't normally have day-to-day experience with like cellular machines, proton pumps, antibodies and so on. And then the a/sexual division which makes me doubt that we are similarly motivated enough to really be able to even begin to make metaphors of understanding, where at least with the ant I can see an organism performing a role within a community. It's close enough to count while still possibly being wrong, but in figuring out it being wrong that might point to possible differentiations between large and small writing.

At least, so the guess goes.

At the moment I'd say we don't need consciousness for a sign system. — green flag

Agreed. Consciousness is a related issue, but a side issue.

But I see the value in looking at ants, because the interplay between individual and tribe is still visible.

Cool :) That's what I want. And ant-psychology is so very different from ours too, so we can't go down the psychologistic rabbit-hole in defining the sign -- which I think is another reason it's a good thing (no reason to explain one uncertain thing with another uncertain thing like the mind)

What would reading their poetry be ? — green flag

Exactly! It's an example of something that is not-translatable, but in total. Unlike, say, English to Spanish poetry, which is very difficult but we are able to make translations because we are able to learn both languages. And we are able to interpret the ant in our languages, but we are not able to translate because the notion of ant-poetry (or ant-language) is so foreign and alien we can't even imagine what it might be like. It's entirely out of our knowledge of meaning. (EDIT: Though, quick note upon re-reading -- I hate to rely upon the imagination as an argumentive tool. It's very easy to point out that one could just not be imaginative enough)

Deep question. Do ants have consciousness ? But I don't even know what 'consciousness' means exactly. Humans use it in criminal trials and on operating tables. We implicitly (most of us) judge that the dead are not conscious, for we put them in holes or ovens, just as surgeons cut out the wisdom teeth of anesthetized patients.

It's a great question to me :) -- but hopefully the above can put the question of consciousness aside as another confusing question rather than an avenue for understanding the confusing question of the sign.

It's a great question to me :) -- but hopefully the above can put the question of consciousness aside as another confusing question rather than an avenue for understanding the confusing question of the sign. — Moliere

For me the questions are entangled. A relatively innocent early version of philosophy (like lots of us start with?) tries to do 'math with words' about God, truth, knowledge, etc. , without noticing much that it takes these signs for granted, as if these words are reliable labels for definite independent entities. Our own role in the creation or maintenance of reality is unnoticed. We are so eager to prove P that we don't notice that we only barely know what we mean by P. We've gone deaf (a metaphor). Call it the forgetfulness of meaning, but maybe it's basically the same as the forgetfulness of being (of the 'hard problem' of the meaning of being ). These token thing begin to sings.

Here's a Derrida quote that gets at the heart of it, at something like our soul myth, a perfect selfoverhearing of pure information or thought. The mind is mouth and ear at once.
***********
The voice is heard ( understood ) ­... closest to the self as the absolute effacement of the signifier: pure auto-affection that necessarily has the form of time and which does not borrow from outside of itself, in the world or in "reality," any accessory signifier, any substance of expression foreign to its own spontaneity. It is the unique experience of the signified producing itself spontaneously, from within the self, and nevertheless, as signified concept, in the element of ideality or universality. The unworldly character of this substance of expression is constitutive of this ideality. This experience of the effacement of the signifier in the voice is not merely one illusion among many ---since it is the condition of the very idea of truth... Within the closure of this experience, the word [mot] is lived as the elementary and undecomposable unity of the signified and the voice, of the concept and a transparent substance of expression. This experience is considered in its greatest purity --- and at the same time in the condition of its possibility --- as the experience of "being." The word "being," or at any rate the words designating the sense of being in different languages, is, with some others, an "originary word," the transcendental word assuring the possibility of being-word to all other words. As such, it is precomprehended in all language and...only this precomprehension would permit the opening of the question of the sense of being in general...Heidegger reminds us constantly that the sense of being is neither the word "being" nor the concept of being. But as that sense is nothing outside of language and the language of words, it is tied, if not to a particular word or to a particular system of language..., at least to the possibility of the word in general. And to the possibility of its irreducible simplicity...
*******
Of Gram

I call myself an 'atheist' as a shorthand for not 'that' kind of theist. My God is a devouring fire. He eats atheists himself for breakfast. — green flag

:clap: :halo:

Thinking, one wants to say, is part of our “private experience”. It is not material, but an event in private consciousness. This objection is expressed in the question: “Could a machine think?” I shall talk about this at a later point, and now only refer you to an analogous question: “Can a machine have toothache?” You will certainly be inclined to say: “A machine can't have toothache”. All I will do now is to draw your attention to the use which you have made of the word “can” and to ask you: “Did you mean to say that all our past experience has shown that a machine never had toothache?” The impossibility of which you speak is a logical one.
https://www.wittgensteinproject.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Book&action=render

We haven't checked lots of machines for toothaches and failed to find them. We don't know how to look for them. We don't know what it mean for a machine to have a toothache.

Now one may go on and ask: “How do you know that he has got |(Ts-309,39) toothache when he holds his cheek?” The answer to this might be, “I say, he has toothache when he holds his cheek because I hold my cheek when I have toothache”. But what if we went on asking: – “And why do you suppose that toothache corresponds to his holding his cheek just because your toothache corresponds to your holding your cheek?” You will be at a loss to answer this question and find that here we strike rock bottom, that is we have come down to conventions. (If you suggest as an answer to the last question that, whenever we've seen people holding their cheeks and asked them “what's the matter”, they have answered, “I have toothache”, – remember that this experience only co-ordinates holding your cheek with saying certain words.)
https://www.wittgensteinproject.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Book&action=render

The vaguely postulated pure immaterial pain is like the hole in a donut. Its plenitude, the circular dough, seems to be a nexus of public deeds including blurry equivalence classes of speech acts.

When we say that by our method we try to counteract the misleading effect of certain analogies, it is important that you should understand that the idea of an analogy being misleading is nothing sharply defined. No sharp boundary can be drawn round the cases in which we should say that a man was misled by an analogy. The use of expressions constructed on analogical patterns stresses analogies between cases often far apart. And by doing this these expressions may be extremely useful. It is, in most cases, impossible to show an exact point where an analogy begins to mislead us. Every particular notation stresses some particular point of view. If, e.g., we call our investigations “philosophy”, this title, on the one hand, seems appropriate, on the other hand it certainly has misled people. (One might say that the subject we are dealing with is one of the heirs of the subject which we used to call “philosophy”.)
...
If we sing a tune we know by heart, or say the alphabet, the notes and letters seem to hang together; and each seems to draw out the next as though they were pearls strung on a thread, and by pulling out one I pulled out the one following it.

Now there is no doubt that seeing the picture of a string of beads being pulled out of a box through a hole in the lid, I should say: “These beads must all have been together in the box before”. But it is easy to see that this is making a |(Ts-309,65) hypothesis. I should have seen the same picture if the beads had gradually come into existence in the hole of the lid. We easily overlook the distinction between stating a conscious mental event, and making a hypothesis about what one might call the mechanism of the mind. All the more as such hypotheses or pictures of the working of our mind are embodied in many of the forms of expression of our everyday language. The past tense “meant” in the sentence “I meant the man who won the battle of Austerlitz” is only part of such a picture, the mind being conceived as a place in which what we remember is kept, stored, before we express it. If I whistle a tune I know well and am interrupted in the middle, if then someone asked me “did you know how to go on?” I should answer “yes I did”. What sort of process is this knowing how to go on? It might appear as though the whole continuation of the tune had to be present while I knew how to go on.

Ask yourself such a question as: “How long does it take to know how to go on?” Or is it an instantaneous process? Aren't we making a mistake like mixing up the existence of a gramophone record of a tune with the existence of the tune? And aren't we assuming that whenever a tune passes through existence there must be some sort of a gramophone record of it from which it is played?

Consider the following example: A gun is fired in my presence and I say: “This crash wasn't as loud as I had |(Ts-309,66) expected”. Someone asks me: “How is this possible? Was there a crash, louder than that of a gun, in your imagination?” I must confess that there was nothing of the sort. Now he says: “Then you didn't really expect a louder crash, – but perhaps the shadow of one. – And how did you know that it was the shadow of a louder crash?” – Let's see what, in such a case, might really have happened. Perhaps in waiting for the report I opened my mouth, held on to something to steady myself, and perhaps I said: “This is going to be terrible”. Then, when the explosion was over: “It wasn't so loud after all”. – Certain tensions in my body relax. But what is the connection between these tensions, opening my mouth, etc., and a real louder crash? Perhaps this connection was made by having heard such a crash and having had the experiences mentioned.

These last passages are great for foregrounding the takenforgranted metaphoricity in our talk about the mental.

Sure. But I also think people are different. I can't pretend to think all interpretations are equally good or that communication is impossible or offer some other easy target. Semantic finitude is not semantic nihilism. I can't get it all but I'll always want more. Will to power, will to clarity, will to beauty. — plaque flag

I don't think what I think you are looking for will be found via any discursive investigation. It is obvious there is no perfect communication and that language is an inherently fuzzy medium, so it is not a suitable tool for drilling down to utter clarity. You might be able to formalize language to get unequivocal statements, but they will be unbearably dry and empty. It will be like eating perfectly washed sand.

You leap from stone to stone, as we all must when we clarify. Pile signs on signs. But not all piling is equal. What is it to communicate adequately ? We both already know 'well enough' in the fog of average intelligibility. In this context the point is to notice the leaping from stone to stone. Meaning is being is seeing is meaning is being. Forms and information and sensations. We dance around in a ring and suppose. — plaque flag

We communicate adequately when we feel we understand each other. Do we really understand each other? Did your wife really have an orgasm? Does she really love you? We can torment ourselves because we can never be logically certain of anything, because it's always logically possible that we are mistaken. Can we live with uncertainty then? Is it okay to allow ourselves to dream a little, or must we aim, per impossibile, to be absolutely explicit and correct about absolutely everything?

The idea of semantic finitude seems mistaken to me; meaning is not finite it is in-finite; there is no way to corral it satisfactorily, and it would be unsatisfactory if we could corral it. The deluded endeavour to corral meaning is the reason AP is such a terrible 'medicine'; it produces legions of one-dimensional semantically correct wankers who are in mortal danger of disappearing up their own arses. They are flies in a dreadful normative bottle of their own devising who deludedly think they have escaped another bottle of their own imagining.

That doesn't make sense, unless you want to reduce rational norms to 'habitually instilled associations.'

What is being associated with what ? It can't be hidden mind stuff, so ? — plaque flag

Rational norms are the delusions of semantic policemen. The habitually instilled associations of shared meaning are merely organic outgrowths of the lifeworld. Association is a living ever-changing process; don't ask what is being associated with what; the attempt to isolate the elements will always fail and after the futile process of eliminating error, you'll end up with sand instead of water.

We live our lives in an ocean of seeming; that is the "being of meaning". If you try to get out of the ocean of seeming onto dry land, onto terra firma, you'll end up trying to eke out a bare existence on an uninhabitable speck. There's my bit of wisdom for the day for what it's worth; take it or leave it, I don't mind.

The deluded endeavour to corral meaning is the reason AP is such a terrible 'medicine'; it produces legions of one-dimensional semantically correct wankers who are in mortal danger of disappearing up their own arses. — Janus

This is accidentally hilarious. Are you trying to replace my boy @Bartricks ? I'm not offended but just a mixture of amused and dismayed. You don't exactly make me reconsider my case when this is what you end up throwing (throwing up) against it.

Rational norms are the delusions of semantic policemen. — Janus

No offense intended (I'm really not angry but just mystified by your new tone), but thus spoke The Great @Janus, who either thinks he can make a case for this bold claim in terms of the very norms he denies or thinks he doesn't need to. I don't mind if you disagree with me, but it's only polite to agree with yourself.

the attempt to isolate the elements will always fail and after the futile process of eliminating error, you'll end up with sand instead of water. — Janus

Let's translate this less flatteringly (I admit this is a parody, an exaggeration .) : ...dude like philosophy is stupid because like you never like get things totally like figured out like dude seriously its pretty much a waste of time just be cool and have fun... Have you forgotten that philosophy is a profound pleasure ? No one is asking for your therapeutic sermon to release them from the infinite task opportunity of getting more clear on the being of the here or what the fuck that even means. It hurts so good to play the game. It squirts glow wood to pay the flame. But do feel welcome to spew it if it puts you in a better mood.

****************************************************************************************
To put out a manifesto you must want: ABC
to fulminate against 1, 2, 3
to fly into a rage and sharpen your wings to conquer and disseminate little abcs and big abcs, to
sign, shout, swear, to organize prose into a form of absolute and irrefutable evidence, to prove
your non plus ultra and maintain that novelty resembles life just as the latest-appearance of
some whore proves the essence of God. His existence was previously proved by the accordion, the landscape, the wheedling word. To impose your ABC is a natural thing— hence deplorable. Everybody does it in the form of crystalbluffmadonna, monetary system, pharmaceutical product, or a bare leg advertising the ardent sterile spring.
https://writing.upenn.edu/library/Tzara_Dada-Manifesto_1918.pdf

I don't mind if you disagree with me, but it's only polite to agree with yourself. — plaque flag

I'm not disagreeing with myself. The only rational norm worth holding to is consistency and then only when the concern is with logic.

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

I call myself an 'atheist' as a shorthand for not 'that' kind of theist. My God is a devouring fire. He eats atheists himself for breakfast. — plaque flag

Can you briefly explain this curious poetic sentence? Generally I find poetry as impenetrable as any foreign language (except, perhaps Dylan Thomas).

Can you briefly explain this curious poetic sentence? — Tom Storm

Joyce has an avatar of his young self say : History is a nightmare from which I'm trying to awake.
Heidegger and Sartre say (or so I claim) that we are the history from which we are trying to awake. This works both individually and culturally. A metaphor that might help here is software that modifies itself. It's only within the constraints or by the instructions of my current code that I can modify that code and be something new, and so on --- in our case with more and more complexity, until the Jenga tower falls and we worship thunder again.

Or it's a convoluted and playful way to say I'm a postFeuerbach humanist of some flavor. We humans are god. The divine predicates are human virtues. We 'eat' our old selves by criticizing what we've been as part of inventing what we will be.

Neurath's boat is another good metaphor. Imagine a boat that is always at sea, so that it must always float. We can change out every part over time, but only piece by piece. Man is underdetermined, has no 'essence.' Existence is the kind of thing that is whatever it takes itself to be. image

Sure there are 'physical' limits and we aren't truly blank slates, but we are 'the' nightmarishly triumphantly softwhere-not-hardware selfdefining animal toolgod. If we don't kill ourselves, we may merge with our technology, modify our genetic code, colonize the galaxy. Hard to say. But of course the innocent optimism of Hegel and Feuerbach is mostly lost now. Technology threatens dystopia and extinction. This gets us into the ghost that haunts Hegel, one strangely named Schlegel ( two brothers who are theorists of Romanticism's infinite irony.) Are we the ironic flowers of the heat death ? Are we coal's trick for getting itself burned ? Dissipative structures who didn't start but surely must optimize the fire ? Are we the gallows humor of the Universe in its hospital bed?

(except, perhaps Dylan Thomas). — Tom Storm

:up:

You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed’s edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44214/preludes-56d22338dc954

Or it's a convoluted and playful way to say I'm a postFeuerbach humanist of some flavor. We humans are god. The divine predicates are human virtues. We 'eat' our old selves by criticizing what we've been as part of inventing what we will be. — plaque flag

This I understand.

Are we the ironic flowers of the heat death ? Are we coal's trick for getting itself burned ? Dissipative structures who didn't start but surely must maximize the fire ? Are we the gallows humor of the Universe in its hospital bed? — plaque flag

I think we are whatever we fancy ourselves to be. Or nothing in particular (which is my position).

Rational norms are the delusions of semantic policemen. — Janus

The only rational norm worth holding to is consistency and then only when the concern is with logic. — Janus

I'm not disagreeing with myself. — Janus

Sorry, officer, that I assumed we were concerned with logic. Carry on my playword fun.

No doubt you know this one. I'm amused by this becasue I have a dull, literalist mind. :wink:

This Be The Verse
BY PHILIP LARKIN
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

I think we are whatever we fancy ourselves to be. Or nothing in particular (which is my position). — Tom Storm

:up:

But I'd add that we have the languages we were thrown into, the technology, the political structures. We take a world and a default background self (decency norms) for granted most of the time. The menu from which we choose we did not choose, but we do get to change the menu for the next customer.

I love that one, yes. I used to quote that one for my wife when her family was trouble.

Or nothing in particular (which is my position). — Tom Storm

:up:

I'm down with the positronic negativity.