Making peace with femininity

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Robert, that post looks very little like an rebuttal, and quite a lot like a hissy fit. Now that I know this is how you react to having a single careless mistake pointed out, I'm going to save my breath. If I bested you in an argument, the fireworks would be tedious.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

What boggles my mind about this affair is that I called Robert out as someone who was speaking as a spiritual authority. Then he tried to turn around and insult me by calling me a spiritual authority? Really, this whole thing doesn't jive. Since when was being a spiritual authority a bad thing?

[RobertGreenSky]

Finished? I ask because as I was posting another went up. This is not a criticism.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Yeah, I'm done.

[RobertGreenSky]

Robert, that post looks very little like an rebuttal, and quite a lot like a hissy fit. Now that I know this is how you react to having a single careless mistake pointed out, I'm going to save my breath. If I bested you in an argument, the fireworks would be tedious.

Your reasoning about the so-called careless mistake has been called into question but your justifications are only transparent rationalizations of your own mistake. I can label myself a bullshitter if I wish, but doing so does not disprove any of my arguments. Only a simple-minded person would think it does. Similarly, only a simple-minded person would think that David Quinn, having claimed authority, can only be answered by someone also claiming authority. Every post of yours is marking you a bullshitter and not a very bright one. QRS would have no point operating a message board and freely arguing with everyone if only the enlightened could post. I don't think you'd be a member in that case, Trevor.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Why call yourself a bullshitter if you aren't one? This all seems to make thinking very murky. Are you trying to avoid honesty?

[RobertGreenSky]

What boggles my mind about this affair is that I called Robert out as someone who was speaking as a spiritual authority. Then he tried to turn around and insult me by calling me a spiritual authority? Really, this whole thing doesn't jive. Since when was being a spiritual authority a bad thing?

I don't think that's present in the text.

For a person who wants to be taken seriously on a philosophy forum, this is suicide. It's a blatant admission that you don't really know what you've been talking about this whole time -- which, then again, should have been obvious at least from back when you started bragging about how great you are at bullshitting.

...But I guess Robert has already fallen out of the thread. I hope that doesn't make me look like I'm speaking retrospectively. This sentence was just a terrible admission.

It is not apparent that you labeled me a spiritual authority; it is not apparent that you were attempting to gain the admission I am or consider myself a spiritual authority.

What is apparent is that you argued that anyone who wanted to be taken seriously on a board such as this needed to set up as a spiritual authority, and which is unreasonable. You accused me of bragging about being a great bullshitter, using it to back up a claim that I never knew what I was talking about because I had not claimed spiritual authority. I am afraid your tactics led to a remark on another board for which I am now apologetic although with you writing that like, it is hardly that you didn't deserve some shot in return. Dan Rowden's 'moral outrage', however, showed me the error of it. I myself should have considered the ripples from that remark and I do apologise. I do not always take the long view and I regret that I did not here.

I can claim only to be a competent debater. I never said there was anything wrong with being spiritual authority, only that I am not one.

[RobertGreenSky]

Why call yourself a bullshitter if you aren't one? This all seems to make thinking very murky. Are you trying to avoid honesty?

Get the quote and let's have a look at it. Likely I expected people to be able to read the English lanuage, but let's see. And given your series of weaselly posts, I don't think I'd be mentioning 'honesty' too much.

[Steven Coyle]

Warm air on winter day make green sky into tornado.

[RobertGreenSky]

The allusion to hot air, and the failure of your wit, notwithstanding, there is some truth to it. I'm all wound up, spinning as it were.

The whole of it will amount to hot air tomorrow; yours, mine, Trevor's, but Quinn's loss will long outlive it. Another week maybe.

'Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.'

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Robert, I found the post, but I'd misread it the first time around. You did not call yourself a bullshitter, so I guess I'm sorry.

I myself should have considered the ripples from that remark and I do apologise. I do not always take the long view and I regret that I did not here.

Well, if it makes you feel any better, I had to bite my tongue a few times to keep myself from saying anything too stupid. I didn't realize I still had buttons that could be pushed.

As it is, the posts you read were all considerably shorter than the originals.

[RobertGreenSky]

You were pushing mine also, Trevor. Note the advantage that we who are unenlightened have, in being able to admit the truth. I made it known on boards long ago that I was treated for years, having sustained tremendous damage from drugs, so it is not that I am unsympathetic to anyone suffering what can be a terrible experience.

[Laird]

Yes, Dan and David are clearly at odds with Kevin on this issue, but then my bet is that Kevin took the position that he did in that thread not because he truly believed it but because to admit that he was modelling or conceptualising would have been to admit to the possibility that the model or concept might be flawed or at odds with reality, and he wants his philosophical assertions to be beyond the possibility of error. That's my take on it anyway, for what it's worth.

No, there is no conflict there. Despite the fact that reality cannot be conceptualized or modelled, we can still talk about it, point to it, direct people's minds to it, teach people how to open their minds to it, etc. No trouble at all.

Hang on, hang on there David. Earlier you wrote that even "pointing the finger" is a conceptual act. Therefore when you, as you write above, "point to [reality]" you are performing a conceptual act. But you also write above that "reality cannot be conceptualized". So which is it? Can reality be conceptualized (in the act of pointing) or not? You seem to want it both ways. Ataraxia is right - there's some serious cognitive dissonance here.

[Laird]

Oh, you mean in the "Trevor Salyzyn Memorial Mental Hospital and Debating Forum"?

Hey, Dan, what did you mean by this? I'm very curious. I had a hunt around Olio and I couldn't find anything that might have inspired it. Has something been removed?

[Dan Rowden]

Nothing has been changed that a blind man couldn 't already see.

[Ataraxia]

Ataraxia is right - there's some serious cognitive dissonance here.

To be fair(to me) I didn't actually say there is some cognitive dissonance going on here.I said they are causing me to suffer dissonance.Through what seem(to me) mixed messages.

It seems if I'm going to persist here'I'll have to learn when something is being used as a genuine concept,and when it's a 'stepping stone'

The difference is certainly still not entirely clear to me,I will admit.

[David Quinn]

Yes, Dan and David are clearly at odds with Kevin on this issue, but then my bet is that Kevin took the position that he did in that thread not because he truly believed it but because to admit that he was modelling or conceptualising would have been to admit to the possibility that the model or concept might be flawed or at odds with reality, and he wants his philosophical assertions to be beyond the possibility of error. That's my take on it anyway, for what it's worth.

No, there is no conflict there. Despite the fact that reality cannot be conceptualized or modelled, we can still talk about it, point to it, direct people's minds to it, teach people how to open their minds to it, etc. No trouble at all.

Hang on, hang on there David. Earlier you wrote that even "pointing the finger" is a conceptual act. Therefore when you, as you write above, "point to [reality]" you are performing a conceptual act. But you also write above that "reality cannot be conceptualized". So which is it? Can reality be conceptualized (in the act of pointing) or not? You seem to want it both ways. Ataraxia is right - there's some serious cognitive dissonance here.

I like the way you automatically assume, when you don't understand something someone says, that the fault lies with them.

While reality cannot be conceptualized (as it has no form), it is perfectly possible for us to conceptualize why it can't be conceptualized (i.e. understand the nature of its lack of form). Reaching this conceptualization, to which all authentic spiritual teachings point, is a key step towards breaking free of all conceptualizations and reaching enlightenment.

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[Sue Hindmarsh]

Laird wrote:

Sue wrote: Another question though - you mentioned the wood that the cupboard is made out of - do you think that the “cupboard” existed in the wood of the tree before it was cut down, and the planks used for the cupboard’s construction?

This isn’t a trick question. It is a serious one that goes to the core of this matter.

Well it's a bit like presenting me with a kit to make a model aeroplane and asking me "Is this a model aeroplane?" My answer in that case would be something like "Not yet, but it has the potential to become one." Similarly to your actual question, my response is "No, the cupboard did not exist in the wood of the tree before that tree was cut down, except as a potential."

But the wood isn’t ''potentially'' part of the cupboard, it's an integral part of it, for without the wood, the cupboard, as you described it, would not have come into existence. And we can go further and say that for the cupboard to exist, it also depended on the tree, and the sun and rain to help the tree grow, and the seed that germinated and grew into the tree, and the bird that ate the seed then deposited in onto the ground in amongst its poo,..., and the comet that just missed hitting the Earth and causing the planet to swivel off its axis and cause the whole planet to freeze over killing the bird, and the…

We can also see that the cupboard is an integral part of the existence of the tree, the seed, the poo, the bird, the Earth, the freezing of the planet, and the comet, and the…

Every ‘thing’ is like the cupboard in that everything depends on other things to come into existence - even things that did not happen (like my example of the comet missing the Earth). This means that any effort to draw set boundaries around anything is a complete waste of time - for even the boundaries (a thing) are also dependent on other things, like us and our senses, to create those boundaries.

[Laird]

While reality cannot be conceptualized (as it has no form), it is perfectly possible for us to conceptualize why it can't be conceptualized (i.e. understand the nature of its lack of form). Reaching this conceptualization, to which all authentic spiritual teachings point, is a key step towards breaking free of all conceptualizations and reaching enlightenment.

It baffles me how you can on the one hand write that "reality cannot be conceptualized (as it has no form)" and on the other hand propound on the concept of the Totality (reality) with the properties that you ascribe to it - causelessness and infinity.

[Laird]

But the wood isn’t ''potentially'' part of the cupboard, it's an integral part of it, for without the wood, the cupboard, as you described it, would not have come into existence. And we can go further and say that for the cupboard to exist, it also depended on the tree, and the sun and rain to help the tree grow, and the seed that germinated and grew into the tree, and the bird that ate the seed then deposited in onto the ground in amongst its poo,..., and the comet that just missed hitting the Earth and causing the planet to swivel off its axis and cause the whole planet to freeze over killing the bird, and the…

When I talked about things being "essentially separate" I was referring to their immediate, physical existence, not to their relationship with what came before. You're now talking about "connectedness" not in a physical sense, but in a causal, temporal sense. Of course you're right that all things are dependent on their causes, but once they have been caused then they can, as I described in my earlier post, be regarded as essentially separate. I thought that you would have expounded on the same terms that I used - the immediate, physical sense - whereas instead you've changed the terms to those of temporal, causal relationships.

[Laird]

Nothing has been changed that a blind man couldn 't already see.

Well hand me my sunglasses and call me Stevie Wonder.

But I'm going to let this drop, because I'm presuming that this is what Robert was referring to when he wrote to Trevor:

I am afraid your tactics led to a remark on another board for which I am now apologetic although with you writing that like, it is hardly that you didn't deserve some shot in return. Dan Rowden's 'moral outrage', however, showed me the error of it. I myself should have considered the ripples from that remark and I do apologise. I do not always take the long view and I regret that I did not here.

If Robert has already apologised for it then I think that it's appropriate that I stop investigating and let the matter rest.

[Dan Rowden]

Sam,

I've created a debate forum so we're good to go. You got a debate title in mind at all? How about something like:

"Enlightenment: Thought v Feeling"

[Dan Rowden]

While reality cannot be conceptualized (as it has no form), it is perfectly possible for us to conceptualize why it can't be conceptualized (i.e. understand the nature of its lack of form). Reaching this conceptualization, to which all authentic spiritual teachings point, is a key step towards breaking free of all conceptualizations and reaching enlightenment.

It baffles me how you can on the one hand write that "reality cannot be conceptualized (as it has no form)" and on the other hand propound on the concept of the Totality (reality) with the properties that you ascribe to it - causelessness and infinity.

Causeless and infinite are not properties of formlessness, they are simply alternate ways of saying "formless", just as caused and finite are just alternate ways of saying "form".

[David Quinn]

The fact that reality has no form means it has the property of having no form. Or at least that is a way we can speak about it - poetically, as it were. It also means that it has the property of not being able to be conceptualized. Nor can it possess the traits of a form - i.e. with beginnings and ends, and causes.

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[Dan Rowden]

As soon as you say "formless", "causeless" and "infinite" necessarily come along for the ride. It shouldn't be too hard to see why.