Weakness is strength??

Suppose you’re ugly. I’m not saying you are. But suppose. Suppose you know, with sufficiently high degree of confidence, that you can never be – and when I say never I don’t really mean never, but more like within some arbitrarily chosen timeframe – that you can never be anything more than ugly. Now tell me, does it logically follow that ugliness is beauty?

We can take another example. Similar but a bit more concrete. Suppose you somehow know that your descendants can never be anything more than a little less ugly than you are. Does that mean, I have to ask again, that ugliness is beauty?

What is my point?
My point is that you are confusing two different questions. One is “what is within your capabilities?” and another is “what is beautiful?” I am afraid you are not willing to keep the two separate instead confusing them.

That’s what people who are emotionally reactive do. They confuse what was previously recognized as distinct.

Another interesting fact about emotionally reactive people is their lack of tolerance, or patience, for their unpleasant, which means overwhelming, emotional reactions. So, for example, when they realize they are not perfect, that they lack something others possess, they immediately start to pursue that thing. In other words, they cannot admit they are ugly (or otherwise inferior) without immediately positing a goal and pursuing what is beautiful (or otherwise superior.) So what happens . . . instead of simply accepting they are ugly (stimulus) as well as that ugliness is inferior to beauty (reaction to stimulus) and rejecting the immediate pursuit of beauty (reaction to reaction to stimulus) because it’s not within their ability, they are rejecting first reaction, that ugliness is inferior to beauty, so that they don’t have to make an effort to destroy the connection between first reaction and second reaction. Do you see where I am going?

What is better is independent from what you can do. It is also independent from what you personally want.

MA,

Where does taste, preference play into what is “seen” as better? Purpose? Fit?

Better is not useful as a blanket statement for what is better for you may not be better for me.

Are you now advocating for subjectivity? Objectivity is a blanket approach used to simplify an estimation.

Honey, when I say better I mean greater. I don’t mean any kind of better. But better as in greater. How the fuck is that subjective? It’s quintessentially objective.

You want me to repeat myself. Okay. A, B and C is greater than A. That’s simple mathematics. Hardly subjective. More and less. The basis of every judgment of general, rather than specific, value.

I don’t know, Maiden, I think that the purpose of consciousness is to discriminate – to recognize distinctions instead of blurring them.

Strength and weakness are opposites. That’s how it is. Deny this and it better be a metaphor. Otherwise, you’re committing a sin.

Consider this situation: I know in advance that my actions will miss the target but they have acquired a momentum, in the form of instinct, making me inclined to perform them anyways. By restraining myself I would make myself passive in that moment . . . I’d have no reaction to the external stimulus. But my intelligence says this is better than reacting because it estimates it will lead to less damage than otherwise. You can now say “weakness is strength”. My response would be rather simple “lol”. No, honey, it isn’t strength, it is simply wiser than the other option. My reactions would still be manifestation of my strength, even though, in this particular instance, they would be self-destructive.

Then, you have to ask whether restraint should be considered passivity. Though it makes you less active it also requires active effort to do so. Indeed, many people who act a lot are passive in the sense that they are inert: not restraining their instincts when their intelligence tells them they should, making their behavior very rigid, mechanical, repetitive, obsessive.

Finally, simply not acting, I presume outwardly, does not mean you’re weak. Weakness refers to your potential – to what you CAN do and not to what you DO. There’s a difference. If a lion does not react much, that does not mean he’s weak.

yawn #-o I already said that too. Objectivity helps save time by simplifying distinctions into sweeping categories not based on individuality.

A Shieldmaiden (MA’s other, Honey)…his conversation is of greater value to you, yes? :evilfun:

This tells me you cannot separate realism from idealism. Realism is about what is likely to happen in the future which includes what goals you can achieve. Idealism is about comparing patterns in order to rank them in terms of their greatness. If you say X is better than Y that does not mean you should pursue X. There is no necessary connection between the two. Unless your brain is inflexible and impulsive, unable to separate the two, instead seeing them as one. Then there is a necessary connection but only in your brain.

You are forcing me to repeat myself. Over and over again.

Honey, if you’re fat and you know that being fit is better than being fat, that does not mean you should immediately jump on your treadmill. Whether you should or should not do something is a matter, not of idealism, but of realism. And sometimes, it’s better to remain fat than to pursue fitness (why? because it would backfire if you tried to be fit, that’s why.)

Similarly, just because you can do Y and not X does not mean Y is better than X.

Tastes aren’t arbitrary.

Wendy wrote:

There is no helpful information I could offer to answer that question. When a person resorts to name calling it is an indication, to me anyway, that there are some feelings of inadequacy in that person.

One must keep in mind that philosophy is a discipline of clear thinking and there is no statement of truth that is, in and of itself, philosophy, simply because, philosophers take innumerable mutually opposed positions and have done since the beginnings of philosophy. I would offer that one needs to be constantly aware of how to avoid logical flaws, not always easy when you passionately believe in a particular stance or feel threatened by a particular person.

MA wrote:

Beauty is difficult to define, it has no common core, so save yourself the trouble in attempting to define it, and

ugliness does have something to say, surprisingly more to some than others.

Everything is difficult to define in the beginning. Things aren’t born defined.

You have an anti-intellectual agenda as does anyone who thinks that everything is relative.

You are emotionally reactive. You can’t control your emotions. You can’t understand your reactions. So you have to fight them. With stupid, entirely unnecessary, thoughts.

Someone says “you’re ugly” and then your brain gets flooded with emotional reactions. Instead of trying to understand what’s going on you simply turn against your emotions and whatever is triggering them.

So it must be that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” so that you don’t have to suffer in reaction to the fact that you’re ugly.

No, you’re not ugly. You’re beautiful. Because you say so. Tastes are like that. You just say they are whatever you want they are. Entirely arbitrary.

Why not learn how to separate realism (what you are and what you can become) from idealism (what is better)?

Why not learn how to accept who you are without having to tell yourself you are something you are not?

Here’s the kind of goal you should set for yourself: being able to see yourself as you are and then when you switch to observing someone better than yourself being able to feel comfortable in this fact. You accept you are inferior and you don’t suffer. You feel no need to hate yourself for being inferior nor to glorify yourself by telling yourself you’re actually better or that tastes are relative and so that we’re all actually better (a.k.a. equal, egalitarianism being collective arrogance.)

Wow! You got that from my response? Take a chill pill.

Beauty and ugliness, it appears means a great deal to you. I understood what you wrote, but I disagree with your premise and I might add not from a personal perspective as I believe you may well think I am ugly that is your perception and I cannot or do not wish to change it, let alone take offence at it, but I question the validity of a persons’s appearance with what it has to do with philosophy. Voltaire writes that the toad sees beauty in large round eyes and a flat snout, and the devil sees beauty in a pair of horns and four claws.

So I rest my case. HA!

MA wrote:

What goal do you set for yourself, Jack off all trades?

Jackoffs of all trades have no goals, honey.

Well… I was all(most) well and woke… until a local anaesthetic floored me, and after 4 days and 3 nights I arose, but in the state that I previously described… I am simply not good with toxins. This wasn’t the first time that this episode has happened but I am working on it being the last, as I have people to see, things to do, places to visit, and new experiences to experience.

I have since learnt that an allergy to local anaesthetic is heart-stopping… literally, so I now keep thinking about what was the defining factor in me coming to, as opposed to never coming to.

One cannot go beyond what one’s body has re-programmed itself not to go beyond… or suffer the physical consequences of that wrong action, so it is not a question of simply pushing beyond that limit.The changes may reverse over time, but that is not a scientific/biological certainty.

Mags … chances are … you will see people in a different light … you will see places in a different light … you will experience “experiences” in a different light. At least lots of empirical evidence support such an outcome for people who have shared a similar life threatening experience. Kriswest comes to mind.

Perhaps … just perhaps … you have joined the community who have the fortitude to forego their earthly bread … figuratively speaking. You have joined the community of the ‘weak’ who are at the same time very strong.

experience is our teacher … perhaps … just perhaps … your experience was necessary to point you in the right direction to fulfill your life’s purpose.

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science/biology is unable to answer many many questions about human life.

Right, so if I think that Whites are the best looking people and that Indians, Arabs and Jews are among the worst looking people then that’s simply my personal perspective conditioned by my in-group bias, which is to say, White-bias. I suppose then that Indians, due to their Indian-bias, think otherwise, and that is that Indians are the best looking people whereas Whites are not so good looking if not the worst looking people. Wouldn’t that be what modern people, such as Biguous, call relativism?

I think otherwise, honey. I think that beauty is a measurement against an ideal that is more or less shared by everyone.

Indians might not be attracted to Whites due to endogamy but they will admit, I am sure, that Whites look better than them.

Beauty and attraction are two different things.

MA wrote:

Freud wrote that humans found beauty in that which inspired sexual feelings.

Judgments of beauty are individual judgments that cannot be generalised.

Why is he not looking at the camera?

Either way your argument is basically “if people can have different views then it’s all subjective”. I guess then that whether God exists or not is subjective too.

So that which is considered beautiful by any person must inspire sexual feelings? … Really? Well, let’s detract the human element, and focus on other objects which are considered beautiful, say, for example, a view on a mountain top or certain animals. Does that claim still apply?

I think the choice of any of those would depend on what the circumstances/situations would call for.

Aside from that, the best bet is usually a harmonious, balanced one.

Average? How boring. Have you ever heard the saying: "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
― Norman Vincent Peale
:angelic-flying: