As found on Facebook...
Apr. 4th, 2019 10:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatFound on Facebook...which I'm rarely on, I tend to spend most of my time on private group sites on FB due to FB being overly crowded by crazy-ass family members and church acquaintances.
1. What Actually Happened for this Sign to be Needed? - shows a picture of a sign post on a women's restroom...it states: "No Horses Allowed".
Yes. Really.
2. In my neighborhood site...a driver got this note placed under his windshield.
"I am selfish. I take two spaces. When others don't have..."
The person who got the sign posted it on the Kensington Neighborhood Site with this message: "If you left this nice note on my car last night. Thank you for reminding me who i am and why I do what I do."
Someone asks if he did it?
He responds of course he did, what would you expect me to do -- park in my driveway, pshhh.
[Have I mentioned lately how happy I am that I don't drive? And how insane you'd have to be to drive and own a car in this crazy-ass city?]
3. Cousin: The Mueller Report has disappeared from the News, why?
Me: Don't worry it will be back...with bells on.
And sure enough... The Justice Dept is Fighting With Mueller's Team on what should be released to the public - Note they've been fighting over this for several days, they took a break on Monday and Tuesday to inform the Doofus and Justice Dept, that no they can't invalidate the Affordable Health Care Act and Enforce the Borders with Mexico ending all trading with the South, without a)destroying the economy, and b) costing themselves the election. Now that that's over, they are back to fighting over the Mueller report. But hey,it could be worse...
A UK friend posting on FB...about Brexit, she has my sense humor regarding politics (which is rather dark and snarky): "They told me that if the UK voted for Brexit, it would eventually bring the nation together as one across age, gender, race and political beliefs. AND IT WAS TRUE... - Sky Data Poll Reports 90% of Britains state that handling of negotiations is a national humiliation"
4. A philosophical discussion about free will and determinism that took me back to my college days - also the All Things Philosophical Board about Buffy and Angel The Series. There's nothing philosophy buffs like to argue about more than free will and determinism.
My take?
Eh. Both. To the degree that we have control over ourselves and our reactions to things, we have free will. Is there a definitive pattern to life as we know it, even though from our perspective it seems completely random? Yes. We just too tiny to see it. But at the same time, we do have the ability to choose. We choose to get up. We choose to eat. We choose to sleep. We choose to go to work. We choose to watch a sunrise. We aren't forced to do any of that.
Yet, our choices are restricted to a degree by others. If we want that job, but someone else applies and gets it instead, then no we don't get that job. Our choices are limited to how we react to not getting the job. The job isn't ours just because we decide we want that job. The problem with free will? Is other people have it too, and more often than not their will comes into direct conflict with ours.
Also, choices are to a degree restricted by DNA and environmental factors. Someone born without a leg -- probably is going to have a harder time becoming a professional dancer. Doesn't mean they won't, just their choices in how it happens are different than someone born with the leg.
We don't choose our family, our DNA, our gender, our sexual orientation, our race, our height (well for the most part at any rate), our weight (there are mitigating factors involved), and various talents. But we can choose what we do with what we are given. The way I've always looked at it -- is we're all sitting at a black jack or card table -- and we are given a hand of cards to play. We don't choose the hand we're dealt, we choose how to play it -- and to a degree the hand we are dealt dictates how we choose to play it.
So no it is not "absolute" free will, but it is not "absolute" determinism either.
That's where all the philosophical arguments or theories have always fallen apart for me -- in the absolute. Human beings have a tendency to think in absolutes, which I think is a flaw in our thinking. Nothing is absolute. It's mostly both, not either/or. There's always going to be mitigating factors involved.
Same is true with the other part of the discussion I saw on FB, about good and evil, where they state that the two are not necessarily separate concepts. Well, yes and no. There's a spectrum. But there is also always going to be mitigating factors in regards to good and evil behavior -- why the person does the act or what motivated it or caused it to occur is often far more important than the act itself. What were the pattern of events that proceeded the act from all the angles. (IT's actually why I love serial drama and soap operas, because they look at it from all the angles, and not just one narrow perspective or line of thought.)
Going further, if you consider that this is all binary or linear thought and the universe is not constructed as binary, and isn't linear -- than that well throws the whole thing out the window, doesn't it? Often Western Philosophy falls short in it's inability to think past the binary model.
That said, what I really liked about the item I'd read on FB, was the discussion on how we place far too much emphasis on "praise" and "blame" or rewarding allegedly good deeds and punishing allegedly bad ones...without looking deeper, or instead of placing blame at all -- see it as problem or challenge to be resolved or something to be improved upon. Well, that didn't work, whoops, let's try this instead. Also instead of feeling "proud" for accomplishing a good deed, feeling gratitude for being given the opportunity to have done it -- since it's a stroke of luck that this opportunity presented itself to you at that point in time -- in which you were in the correct place, time, and mindspace to act accordingly. I've noticed that all people, everyone on this planet, dead and alive and to be born is capable of good and evil things, at the same time. Depending on the circumstances, situation, etc.
And but there for the grace of God go we...in how that happens.
IT's so easy to judge what we'd do in a situation after it occurs and we see someone else handle it. But we do not know what we'd do in their place. And there is no we can know -- since we won't ever be in their spot at that specific time and place with all those variables in play. Yet we feel the need to place judgement in terms of praise or blame, acknowledgment, punishment, etc. Our egos require it. Our minds do. But if we consider for a moment that our ego is merely a construct of the mind, a self that it has constructed, and these external validations means to keep it full and complete. Then, what? This is the philosophy of the East, not the West. Where enlightment is found in acknowledging the mind but at the same time letting go of it. We stop judging, ourselves and others, we stop feeling the desire to praise or win or judge...and instead look at ourselves and our world through the veil of compassion and kindness. But in order to do that -- according to this philosophical perspective -- we must let go of ourselves. And that is painful and contrary to all we've been taught, and what our society dictates.
I don't know the answers...the above is merely what I've thought about over the past several years and the conclusions I've made to date. But I remain agnostic in my opinions and open to other opinions or views.
1. What Actually Happened for this Sign to be Needed? - shows a picture of a sign post on a women's restroom...it states: "No Horses Allowed".
Yes. Really.
2. In my neighborhood site...a driver got this note placed under his windshield.
"I am selfish. I take two spaces. When others don't have..."
The person who got the sign posted it on the Kensington Neighborhood Site with this message: "If you left this nice note on my car last night. Thank you for reminding me who i am and why I do what I do."
Someone asks if he did it?
He responds of course he did, what would you expect me to do -- park in my driveway, pshhh.
[Have I mentioned lately how happy I am that I don't drive? And how insane you'd have to be to drive and own a car in this crazy-ass city?]
3. Cousin: The Mueller Report has disappeared from the News, why?
Me: Don't worry it will be back...with bells on.
And sure enough... The Justice Dept is Fighting With Mueller's Team on what should be released to the public - Note they've been fighting over this for several days, they took a break on Monday and Tuesday to inform the Doofus and Justice Dept, that no they can't invalidate the Affordable Health Care Act and Enforce the Borders with Mexico ending all trading with the South, without a)destroying the economy, and b) costing themselves the election. Now that that's over, they are back to fighting over the Mueller report. But hey,it could be worse...
A UK friend posting on FB...about Brexit, she has my sense humor regarding politics (which is rather dark and snarky): "They told me that if the UK voted for Brexit, it would eventually bring the nation together as one across age, gender, race and political beliefs. AND IT WAS TRUE... - Sky Data Poll Reports 90% of Britains state that handling of negotiations is a national humiliation"
4. A philosophical discussion about free will and determinism that took me back to my college days - also the All Things Philosophical Board about Buffy and Angel The Series. There's nothing philosophy buffs like to argue about more than free will and determinism.
My take?
Eh. Both. To the degree that we have control over ourselves and our reactions to things, we have free will. Is there a definitive pattern to life as we know it, even though from our perspective it seems completely random? Yes. We just too tiny to see it. But at the same time, we do have the ability to choose. We choose to get up. We choose to eat. We choose to sleep. We choose to go to work. We choose to watch a sunrise. We aren't forced to do any of that.
Yet, our choices are restricted to a degree by others. If we want that job, but someone else applies and gets it instead, then no we don't get that job. Our choices are limited to how we react to not getting the job. The job isn't ours just because we decide we want that job. The problem with free will? Is other people have it too, and more often than not their will comes into direct conflict with ours.
Also, choices are to a degree restricted by DNA and environmental factors. Someone born without a leg -- probably is going to have a harder time becoming a professional dancer. Doesn't mean they won't, just their choices in how it happens are different than someone born with the leg.
We don't choose our family, our DNA, our gender, our sexual orientation, our race, our height (well for the most part at any rate), our weight (there are mitigating factors involved), and various talents. But we can choose what we do with what we are given. The way I've always looked at it -- is we're all sitting at a black jack or card table -- and we are given a hand of cards to play. We don't choose the hand we're dealt, we choose how to play it -- and to a degree the hand we are dealt dictates how we choose to play it.
So no it is not "absolute" free will, but it is not "absolute" determinism either.
That's where all the philosophical arguments or theories have always fallen apart for me -- in the absolute. Human beings have a tendency to think in absolutes, which I think is a flaw in our thinking. Nothing is absolute. It's mostly both, not either/or. There's always going to be mitigating factors involved.
Same is true with the other part of the discussion I saw on FB, about good and evil, where they state that the two are not necessarily separate concepts. Well, yes and no. There's a spectrum. But there is also always going to be mitigating factors in regards to good and evil behavior -- why the person does the act or what motivated it or caused it to occur is often far more important than the act itself. What were the pattern of events that proceeded the act from all the angles. (IT's actually why I love serial drama and soap operas, because they look at it from all the angles, and not just one narrow perspective or line of thought.)
Going further, if you consider that this is all binary or linear thought and the universe is not constructed as binary, and isn't linear -- than that well throws the whole thing out the window, doesn't it? Often Western Philosophy falls short in it's inability to think past the binary model.
That said, what I really liked about the item I'd read on FB, was the discussion on how we place far too much emphasis on "praise" and "blame" or rewarding allegedly good deeds and punishing allegedly bad ones...without looking deeper, or instead of placing blame at all -- see it as problem or challenge to be resolved or something to be improved upon. Well, that didn't work, whoops, let's try this instead. Also instead of feeling "proud" for accomplishing a good deed, feeling gratitude for being given the opportunity to have done it -- since it's a stroke of luck that this opportunity presented itself to you at that point in time -- in which you were in the correct place, time, and mindspace to act accordingly. I've noticed that all people, everyone on this planet, dead and alive and to be born is capable of good and evil things, at the same time. Depending on the circumstances, situation, etc.
And but there for the grace of God go we...in how that happens.
IT's so easy to judge what we'd do in a situation after it occurs and we see someone else handle it. But we do not know what we'd do in their place. And there is no we can know -- since we won't ever be in their spot at that specific time and place with all those variables in play. Yet we feel the need to place judgement in terms of praise or blame, acknowledgment, punishment, etc. Our egos require it. Our minds do. But if we consider for a moment that our ego is merely a construct of the mind, a self that it has constructed, and these external validations means to keep it full and complete. Then, what? This is the philosophy of the East, not the West. Where enlightment is found in acknowledging the mind but at the same time letting go of it. We stop judging, ourselves and others, we stop feeling the desire to praise or win or judge...and instead look at ourselves and our world through the veil of compassion and kindness. But in order to do that -- according to this philosophical perspective -- we must let go of ourselves. And that is painful and contrary to all we've been taught, and what our society dictates.
I don't know the answers...the above is merely what I've thought about over the past several years and the conclusions I've made to date. But I remain agnostic in my opinions and open to other opinions or views.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-05 05:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-05 01:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-05 03:38 pm (UTC)I'm still trying to figure out they did. It must be a really big bathroom.
Horses and Brexit
Date: 2019-04-05 02:03 pm (UTC)What's a farm girl with a filthy horse to do? I guess that probably means you can't wash your pony or a zebra in there either. Next thing you know, they'll ban moose and dairy cows.
I said back just after the vote, once it was decided the politicians in power (who didn't want Brexit in the first place) probably weren't the best choice to negotiate the way it was going to be done. Parliamentary rule didn't exactly work as planned in this.
Corollary: I dislike Trump and all his childish works as much as the next sane person. But I have to admit the electoral college worked exactly the way it was supposed to, not allowing large majorities in just a few large states to dominate the vast expanse of the rest of the nation. I only hope enough people in that large expanse will wise up before November 2020.
Re: Horses and Brexit
Date: 2019-04-05 04:45 pm (UTC)Agreed. Apparently someone figured out how to get their horse into the bathroom -- no clue how. That has got to be a huge bathroom.
The funny thing about Brexit, is the commentator on FB and other Brits/Europeans -- previously stated that the 2016 election and what was happening in the US -- may demonstrate that the US governmental process doesn't work and Britain's does. LOL! So much for that perspective.
But I have to admit the electoral college worked exactly the way it was supposed to, not allowing large majorities in just a few large states to dominate the vast expanse of the rest of the nation. I only hope enough people in that large expanse will wise up before November 2020.
Whether that's a good or bad things is another issue entirely. ;-) And did it? There was a lot gerrymandering and tampering going on by various parties. Not necessarily those running or just those running for office.