Can one study too much?

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
cousinbasil
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by cousinbasil »

Diebert wrote:A start for many folks is to understand how "good" things still happen, like sacrifice or compassion, without "love" being ever part of it. They actually function way better without it, unless one stretches the meaning of love to encompass all.
Stretches the meaning from what, exactly? This seems to be an anal-retentive focus on some imaginary boundary. The word "love" irritates you in some way that the word "compassion" does not. If you do not wish to concede that compassion is a facet of love, fair enough, but can we agree they are in the same general vicinity?
Well, you said there was "more to the story". Perhaps you prefer to leave it up in the air? How much more?
Twelve feet, or roughly four meters.
"Experiencing it" as you suggested so far, remains very inclusive (comprehensive) unless you come up with more descriptions, which will probably take form of some "constative", at best.
What is it you require, then? That I trot out personal experiences in their particulars so you can proceed to misunderstand them deliberately as well? All right. You go first.
The things is, when one enters the realm of reasoning, reductionist as it can seem, it doesn't negate experience and the opinions formed through it. It actually builds on top of them but is in itself not just another opinion or experience. A true quality is added.
Reasoning need not be reductionist. And I submit to you that the experience which you say reductionism does not negate (I agree, BTW) is no less comprehensivist that the "experiencing it" you are accusing me of suggesting. Do you see what I mean when I say I feel you are accusing me of something underhanded? You seem to object; to what, precisely, I cannot seem to put a finger on.
Actually you were criticizing what was in your view a fairly common reductionistic view of "Love". Did you find it excessive as reductionism goes or excessive when it comes to "Love"?
I don't recall saying anything about excess. How could I consider it excessive as far as reduction goes if I view it as fairly common?
My response to your criticism was more in the line of trying to find out what you think is the 'story of love' or how one would 'get it right' at some point, in your value system. And you have these values otherwise there's no way of getting it "right" in your or anyone's eyes.
But one only has to get it right in one's own eyes, so where is the harm in exhorting someone not to give up? Look, Diebert, I am not going to get into any kind of lengthy back-and-forth with you about what love is. Because it obviously has negative connotations for you, otherwise you would not be splitting hairs by using other terms such as reciprocity in its pace. If it has a dark side (which it does) then must it also have a bright side. And it is such a human thing, that to shrink from it in fear is inhuman at best. I am trying to come up with a suitable analogy. Yes, everything you eat turns to shit; do you therefore stop eating? Or maybe less prosaically, one would not refrain from walking down a street because it had a shady side - one would simply stay on the sunny side whenever possible.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

cousinbasil wrote:What is it you require, then? That I trot out personal experiences in their particulars so you can proceed to misunderstand them deliberately as well?
But you brought it up as argument against a perceived reductionism of Prince, the story of love being "more" and something to be "experienced" in a manner you imply was not yet experienced somehow.

And now you are retreating in the fog of particulars, after I predicted that was precisely the only way you could make your own argumentation relevant, and how "tricky" that was. You're slow on the uptake, aren't you?
Reasoning need not be reductionist.
One thing leads to another?
Do you see what I mean when I say I feel you are accusing me of something underhanded? You seem to object; to what, precisely, I cannot seem to put a finger on.
Quit whining about accusations. All I try is to get to the bottom of your reasoning and reasoning skills beyond the skill with the word.
I don't recall saying anything about excess. How could I consider it excessive as far as reduction goes if I view it as fairly common?
You introduced "Excessive" in the same way as you introduced "fairly common". That's why I pointed it out for you.

You're falling apart rather quickly here.
Look, Diebert, I am not going to get into any kind of lengthy back-and-forth with you about what love is.
You started to spread your views around but when questioned on any of it you back off. Really, you have proven to be disingenuous, deceptive, immature and hardly aware of what you're saying most of the time. It's a disappointing repeat after all.
cousinbasil
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by cousinbasil »

Diebert wrote:You started to spread your views around but when questioned on any of it you back off. Really, you have proven to be disingenuous, deceptive, immature and hardly aware of what you're saying most of the time. It's a disappointing repeat after all.
Ouch. What a scolding.
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Tomas
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by Tomas »

cousinbasil wrote:
Diebert wrote:You started to spread your views around but when questioned on any of it you back off. Really, you have proven to be disingenuous, deceptive, immature and hardly aware of what you're saying most of the time. It's a disappointing repeat after all.
Ouch. What a scolding.
We love our Diebert, here.

Shit, or get off the pot.
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cousinbasil
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by cousinbasil »

Tomas wrote:
cousinbasil wrote:
Diebert wrote:You started to spread your views around but when questioned on any of it you back off. Really, you have proven to be disingenuous, deceptive, immature and hardly aware of what you're saying most of the time. It's a disappointing repeat after all.
Ouch. What a scolding.
We love our Diebert, here.

Shit, or get off the pot.
Did you make that up?
cousinbasil
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by cousinbasil »

I mean, really. "Shit or get off the pot." Is this how Geniuses are to conduct discourse?
Carmel

Re: Can one study too much?

Post by Carmel »

cousinbasil:
I mean, really. "Shit or get off the pot." Is this how Geniuses are to conduct discourse?

Carmel:
cousinbasil(or ?), don't mind Tomas, he's just testing you, either that, or maybe he didn't score any wins tonight at Wednesday night Bingo down at the Freemason's lodge, so he's a bit grumpy. :(

Anyway, he gives everyone here a hard time, don't take it personally....but it's dished out equilaterally and offset with a good sense of humour, so I really can't complain...too much. :)
cousinbasil
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by cousinbasil »

Carmel wrote:cousinbasil:
I mean, really. "Shit or get off the pot." Is this how Geniuses are to conduct discourse?

Carmel:
cousinbasil(or ?), don't mind Tomas, he's just testing you, either that, or maybe he didn't score any wins tonight at Wednesday night Bingo down at the Freemason's lodge, so he's a bit grumpy. :(

Anyway, he gives everyone here a hard time, don't take it personally....but it's dished out equilaterally and offset with a good sense of humour, so I really can't complain...too much. :)
At last, someone with a modicum of manners. Don't tell me, let me guess. You are a female? I must confess I have not trolled extensively before I began to post here. Perhaps my lack of due diligence in this regard has led to a few ruffled feathers. Quite honestly, I was considering abandoning this Forum entirely just now, but your civil tone has made me reconsider. I thank you for you cordiality.
Pye
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by Pye »

cousinbasil, here's a small schematic that might help you understand some of the reactions to discussions of "love" here, because, apparently, you are supposed to already be "enlightened" in this way to write here, or interested in arriving to the same conclusions:

Love is an attachment
An attachment requires an ego
An ego/attachment creates emotion
Emotion gets in the way of rationality
Rationality/logic is the only way to enlightenment
Enlightenment is the end of suffering


Hence,
One must destroy the ego
Which in turn will destroy attachment
Which in turn will result in no-emotion
Which in turn will pave the way to pure rationality
Which in turn will produce enlightenment
Which in turn will end suffering

because, really, you [rhetorically] are 'nothing' but causal artifact, hence the self and the ego and the things to which they get attached are delusional.

And as you have no doubt already understood, the things that promote enlightenment are characterized by the masculine, and the things that stand in its way are characterized by the feminine. In one sense, characteristics, and in the same sense, their respective genders. That's the muddy football field the chauvinists (and no doubt some misogynists) do their (frequently sloppy) rationalizing upon: a bid to destroy dualities whilst standing ankle-deep in them.

Hence, if you bring up love in any context other than negatively, then you have not thought 'rationally' about it, hence you cannot state a logical case for speaking of it positively, which is what Diebert was asking about (and which explains your sense of "being charged" with something that Diebert either expected you to know or logically defend).

I hope I've not stated the already-obvious to you, but in theory, that's what this forum is for. In reality, all sorts of people are 'tolerated' here (myself included) - in theory, as long as they are presenting something of the rational (which, with your questions, I believe you are spiritedly on board); but once again, in reality, there's no real consistency applied. (Old man Tomas, the political paranoid, is a case in point. He speaks for no one when he quips that "we" love "our" Diebert here).

In theory, Diebert is holding up the aspirations of the forum (absolute truth, as loosely methodized above), in the absence of its founders. In reality, I doubt he would be as honest about his personal experiences with love as he is expecting you to be. He is alpha-dogging you - a strictly non-emotional, non-ego-driven response. And his scolding is entirely devoid of emotional disgust, don't you know (yes, sarcasm). After you destroy all sense of ego and all its attachments (like love), you may go forth to love wisdom and logic and rationality, and you may display all sorts of passion for it and disgust for things that get in its way. Attachment to wisdom, enlightenment, are, apparently, not attachments at all.

welcome to the forum
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »


It's time for the women here to brush up their female intuition, common sense and people skills. It's all looking rather witless and gullible.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Pye wrote:hence you cannot state a logical case for speaking of it positively, which is what Diebert was asking about (and which explains your sense of "being charged" with something that Diebert either expected you to know or logically defend)
Actually this was not the most obvious meaning of "a positive" in the context. You're getting sloppy Pye. Or just the spotty performance of a top performer :?)
cousinbasil
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by cousinbasil »

Pye - Thank you for the précis. I am encouraged that it is very like my own impression of the "way things are" at GF.

If Diebert is indeed speaking - in spirit - for this forum's general point of view, I take it that would mean he agrees in essence with the major positions of the three founders, whom further trolling has suggested are David Quinn, Dan Rowden, and the good Kevin Solway (whose Poison for the Heart I am now reading) aka QRS. That would mean he is not an alpha dog, but at best a delta dog. I am not convinced his "scolding" is devoid of emotional content, but no matter, a real dog has no true emotions when he attacks your ankles, either, yet such an unwarranted assault is rather distasteful.

I think my main objections so far are the automatic characterizations of a differing viewpoint as being one necessarily lacking in rationality or dripping with emotion. Of course I see how being attached to emotions - or anything else - can lead to pitfalls on the road to that place where there is no suffering. I do not believe for a second that anyone lives in that place and never anywhere else. Since emotions can be pleasant as well as unpleasant, and they are human, I choose to acknowledge my humanity so that I can actually deal with my emotions instead of denying that they exist. It's not that i don't sympathize. I can quite understand that if one concentrates the bulk of one's energy into denying part of oneself - not to mention into convincing oneself that one has succeeded in this endeavor - when someone comes along and says but I do not practice such self-denial and yet I feel just fine, that one might get peeved. This Illusion <---> Love <---> Pain stuff is fine to keep in one's sock like a Derringer. Walking about hefting it on one's shoulder like a STA missile launcher is far more likely to lead to the International Incidents, even where carry-in-plain-sight laws prevail, like here.
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by Pye »

cousinbasil: I think my main objections so far are the automatic characterizations of a differing viewpoint as being one necessarily lacking in rationality or dripping with emotion.
in a tidy nutshell. But this is what happens in intellectual hegemony. Everything else presented - even on rational grounds - suffers the fate of alterity. It can only be considered from the point of view of other-than the aims of this forum. Some are not open to any other way of seeing things, being as many believe they have already located the absolute. And we all know what absolute means.
cousinbasil: when someone comes along and says but I do not practice such self-denial and yet I feel just fine, that one might get peeved.
more to the point, this would be considered the utterance of ignorance. And it is ignorance itself that characterizes suffering, for many of the ersatz buddhists here.

(Diebert, I can't make out much from these recent 2 quips but the presence of jealousy. Feel free to enlighten me otherwise . . . . stuck to desk today working, interrupting myself to write, but I'll certainly listen.)
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Pye wrote:(Diebert, I can't make out much from these recent 2 quips but the presence of jealousy. Feel free to enlighten me otherwise . . . . stuck to desk today working, interrupting myself to write, but I'll certainly listen.)
I don't claim to be without emotions, nor do I claim a desire to rid myself of them in any way. Although when seriously dealing with the hard questions of life and existence, growing up as a mature human being, then turning slowly the inside to the outside and the outside to the inside: it all will greatly affect ("lessen" if you will) emotional responses to all kinds of things. It's an unavoidable outcome.

That said, the emotion present in my quips was one of disappointment. I believe you're not focusing, not reading and sensing careful enough right now to be able to make any relevant commentary or obtain a clear view on what exactly transpired above. But lets just move on from here as there are more fertile grounds and circumstance where we can exchange some better attuned thoughts again.
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by cousinbasil »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
Pye wrote:(Diebert, I can't make out much from these recent 2 quips but the presence of jealousy. Feel free to enlighten me otherwise . . . . stuck to desk today working, interrupting myself to write, but I'll certainly listen.)
I don't claim to be without emotions, nor do I claim a desire to rid myself of them in any way. Although when seriously dealing with the hard questions of life and existence, growing up as a mature human being, then turning slowly the inside to the outside and the outside to the inside: it all will greatly affect ("lessen" if you will) emotional responses to all kinds of things. It's an unavoidable outcome.

That said, the emotion present in my quips was one of disappointment. I believe you're not focusing, not reading and sensing careful enough right now to be able to make any relevant commentary or obtain a clear view on what exactly transpired above. But lets just move on from here as there are more fertile grounds and circumstance where we can exchange some better attuned thoughts again.
IOW: Yes, Pye, come back again later when you agree with me 100% and feel no desire to express a viewpoint not completely aligned with mine.
more to the point, this would be considered the utterance of ignorance. And it is ignorance itself that characterizes suffering, for many of the ersatz buddhists here.
Understood, Pye. But ignorance of what, exactly? If I say I feel fine, then I do. Am I not the expert on what is going on in and around my own self? Because I do not wallow in fear of things that can not hurt me, I am free to experience life as fully as I see fit, deal with the hurt when it comes, and move on. Diebert makes some hazy innuendo about who I am and what I am doing here, but trust me, he does not know everything. If he did, he would not be delta dog, and let's face it, if you are not the alpha-dog on the sled, all you ever see is some other dog's asshole.
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by Pye »

OK Diebert. I get you now. But if you believe this to be an incarnation, why not be forthright about your suspicions rather than participating in obfuscation as well?

Consider, too, that others may not spend the amount of time and anal-lytical attention that you do to the people on this forum. A face-value approach to things - and perhaps even any ensuing trust - is not always a matter of pure witlessness. Many a sage from forthrightness can assume a forthrightness in others, sometimes mistakenly; just as many a disingenuous person can see disingenuousness where it may not be.

In any case, it's time for a couple months' break from the disingenius forum.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »



No, it appears you don't get it, yet. The reincarnation, any reincarnation here is about the same ignorance and disregards for truth and disabilities to reason. That doesn't need time or deep analysis, not more than the time and thought it needs for you to write your quite long analysis to basil. Your likes and dislikes based on people's writing is more often than not based on the way the words make you feel. It's something to think about in the coming months perhaps.
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by Pye »

Well, Diebert, wise words make me 'feel' as well, as is the nature of making sense (and as I have oft repeated here). But you're correct - I need to pay closer attention to what they are making me feel.

And it's worse than you think. This is the second time in as many months, I have made trustful extensions on this forum that were subsequently misused. It is indeed my problem, and curiously wrapped up with friendliness - something I've seen happen to others here as well. Most relationship extended 'outside' the forum slackens most everyone's ability to critique and respond to each other's thinking presented here. It is one of the chief reasons I rarely write - rarely respond - to PMs or any other 'private' communication with any of its members. I have a handful of support-you-no-matter-what friends in life, but neither can they be trusted to go-to for the most important things - not when [their] notion of [my] excellence is embedded in the present, rather than the future of the next higher thought.

The relative 'purity' of exchanges possible here is the backbone I've usually stood upon, uncomplicated by the compliments, insults, affections, and affectations to which so many of us are susceptible, and through which higher reasoning is often sabotaged by default. Would that 'friendship' instead defined itself along the next higher thought; I happen to consider you helping me towards that now.

And finally, whilst in emotive mode, fuck off, Alex.
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Tomas
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by Tomas »

Carmel wrote:cousinbasil:
I mean, really. "Shit or get off the pot." Is this how Geniuses are to conduct discourse?

Carmel:
cousinbasil(or ?), don't mind Tomas, he's just testing you, either that, or maybe he didn't score any wins tonight at Wednesday night Bingo down at the Freemason's lodge, so he's a bit grumpy. :(

Anyway, he gives everyone here a hard time, don't take it personally....but it's dished out equilaterally and offset with a good sense of humour, so I really can't complain...too much. :)
Actually, that's part of my genius, the ability to take everything personally, to keep a running score with rivals real and imagined. Every time I post on Genius Forum, I'm playing for posterity.
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Carmel

Re: Can one study too much?

Post by Carmel »

Really? Why bother?

I thought you held the view that we're all just "pixels on a screen"...
Last edited by Carmel on Sat Jun 19, 2010 8:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Tomas
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Can one eat too much spaghetti & meatballs?

Post by Tomas »

Carmel wrote:Really?

I thought you held the view that we're all just "pixels on a screen"?
To quote the newbie, Cousin Basilica: "...and let's face it, if you are not the alpha dog on the sled, all you ever see is some other dog's asshole."

And Cousin Basilica's other nugget: "...Is this how Geniuses are to conduct discourse?"

In my nomothetic pixel-talk .. some pixels smell and look better than others.

PS - Basil-infused spaghetti & meatballs - What a lovely scent and heavenly sight!
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Re: Can one eat too much spaghetti & meatballs?

Post by Carmel »

Tomas:

To quote the newbie, Cousin Basilica: "...and let's face it, if you are not the alpha dog on the sled, all you ever see is some other dog's asshole."

Carmel:

Honestly, Tomas, that's a "guy thing". I don't concern myself with who's alpha, beta or omega, but rather with the content or wisdom contained in their posts. Why bother "keeping score", it seems like a waste of energy...
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by cousinbasil »

Carmel wrote:Honestly, Tomas, that's a "guy thing". I don't concern myself with who's alpha, beta or omega, but rather with the content or wisdom contained in their posts. Why bother "keeping score", it seems like a waste of energy...
Such "keeping score" would be not unlike holding a grudge, which would be the last thing an enlightened person would be likely to do. It is an attachment. Note that Tomas said "real or imaginary" so he is conceding that it is a delusion. Also note that Tomas says he has the ability to take everything personally, not that he does take everything personally. Thus it is a skill, not a condition.

So must Tomas then seek to eliminate this attachment if he is to gain wisdom? I should hope not. If you have a skill like that you hone it and put it in your back pocket in case you ever need it.

This is what I mean when I say that enlightenment is not somewhere you live to the exclusion of other places.

Tomas - does the ability to take everything personally have an edge on the other side of the blade? By that I mean, do you also have the ability to take nothing personally when you need to?
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uncledote
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by uncledote »

cousinbasil wrote: I thus learned an invaluable skill: how to bullshit. It is often all that is required of you.

Can one learn too much?
Yes, but that is anti-education in a very deep way. Higher education should be about more than getting your name printed on a faux scroll bit of paper, no?
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Anders Schlander
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Re: Can one study too much?

Post by Anders Schlander »

for many that's all education is, a scroll of paper for their later mediocre life. People are liberated from having to study, work, and actually 'think', so the moment they receive said piece of paper they start taking drugs, drinking, partying, burning their books, and a couple years later, they've problably forgot about most if not all of it, atleast with regard to any degree of personal value. School shapes a person, but it shapes them into becoming social animals, not good thinkers.

This is my impression from high school, higher education has a wide selection of 'specialization', but in the end, I fail to see how university shapes people to be much different from social animals. They merely 'advance' that step further where they can start to settle down, find a partner, and stop the struggle.

Higher education for the masses is simply just a stupid expression, the common people are by definition not higher, if they were, higher would lose it's meaning. Hence, we have 'common education', i.e. liberated education. In Denmark almost everybody can go to university, you don't have to be a higher being to do it. It suits the masses, it suits all the women, it suits anybody, that is in people's best interest. It's common. Our liberated age has compromised, it has become mediocre and common, rather than arrived at the stars, it has dived back into the mud.

The real person doesn't fear knowledge, because he knows what to do with it.
On the other hand, the normal person fears responsibility and is quick to hide from knowing anything. The academic always wants to know, but never to relate it to himself.
How can knowledge mean anything without the values of the person who knows? How can the values of a person mean something without knowledge? ofcourse, people value not knowing anything. They know that by 'not knowing' they avoid responsibility, it is inescapable to value, because even trying not to value anything is a value. Only death can bring about an end to knowledge and value completely.

Values only appear with knowing. But knowing only appear when one values.

Without values we would not be able to use knowledge at all, for knowledge to mean something, values must be utilized.
Without knowledge, there would also be nothing to value, because we would have no knowledge of what we would like to value.

Both types want to escape them-selves by allowing one or the other to fail them as completely as possible, it would seem to me.
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