On behalf of Oscar Wilde, I beg to differ.
And agree with the rest of what you’ve said.
Respond away. I can’t wait to see the re-articulation. I often cry out in wonder when I glimpse the forms my words take in the minds of others.
But after that, I believe I’ll step out of Spiritus’ way. You may need more than the word “suicide” you keep wielding like a rubber knife.
Discussion? I just asked you what meaning(s) you attached to the symbol. You have used it in defining “religion”, which you have been using throughout this thread. Has it never occurred to you before now that it would be a good idea to know what the terms you use mean in teh manner that you use them?
Again, I did not ask for your “views” on energy. I asked for the meaning you attach to teh symbol, since it is obviously not the meaning common to, say, physicists or engineers.
Ah–and so opposed to the “informed consent” meaning of transparent, I suppose. I think it rather interesting that the phrase, “Using undefined terms for the purpose of non-transparency” appears ideally suited to describe your method of discourse, since it appears in your definition of “religion”.
“The act of this witholding creates an unnecessary [thing metabolized to maintain a state] from which slave labor is procured.”
I think we need to add “metabolize” and “state” to our list.
Definitely “matabolize/metabolism”, and now “efficiency”, too.
Yes, it would be too confusing to use it to indicate an economic system based upon private ownership of capital. I’m still not clear on how this “system of hoarding” acts an an agent for witholding the “resource” of suicide machines.
I am also unclear how suicide machines can be “metabolized to maintain a state”, but perhaps your meanings for “state” and “metabolize” will illuminate that question.
“I’m quite certain that it does, that rare children are literally older (more mature) than a majority of adults”
more mature: having passed through more cognitive stages
cognitive stages: structure which is stable enough to be recognized by humans as allowing an entirely new tool of abstraction to a stage which preceeded it.
Piaget’s Cognitive Stages (since you have declined, after direct appeal, to specify any alternative “recognized” stages of cognition)
It would not surprise me either.
I would prefer our recursion to be finite, so I am just going to pretend I never read that passage. I will note that the ability to write the sentence, “They have absolute control over [a person without some “tool of abstraction”]” is a strong indicator that you have never raised a child.
And “not violating consent” is thus "a process for determining contradictions???
Which leads us to . . .
I think I’m going to need you to explain your theory of value, too, especially in the phrase, “the other person is worth the violation of consent”.
and . . .
Yet my dog comes when I whistle.
and . . .
I guess we are going to have to go back to “prove” again. Which of your proffered “definitions” to you feel applies to this usage?
Moving on:
You skipped this one.
What … Do … You … Mean … By … Reproduction … As … Applied … to … Cognition?
Physiological reproduction produces new physiological entities. Simply stamping that that terminology onto “cognition” does not yield a clear metaphor, much less an unambiguous definition.
What entities are reproducing? What is the nature of the reproductive activity? What is the result of their reproductive act(s)?
If you are arguing that a human being must exhibit a certain level of cognition in order to physically reproduce, then you are simply wrong.
I am afraid not.
Too complex to allow phrasing in a non-confrontational third person? I can understand apologizing for unintentional rudeness when it is pointed out. I can understand remaining firm about intentional rudeness when one thinks it is warranted. But I think this is the first time I have ever seen someone claim they were rude because the subject of conversation was too difficult–especially when the subject of conversation is “what does justhink mean by . . .”
I’m still struggling to apply this to the sentence, “Cognitively immature individuals can reproduce, but the REQUIRE a slave to do it for them” If the slaves are less cognitively mature than their masters (from your “treatise” on “tools of abstraction”) then the slaves of a person too “cognitively immature” to reproduce without slaves would also be too “cognitively immature” to reproduce without slaves. So, they cannot “cognitively reproduce” for themselves, but they can “cognitively reproduce” their masters?
I am getting the feeling that your terminology is so imprecise that even you don’t know what you are saying.
And yet not a definition?
Perhaps you should refrain from confidently pointing out the immaturity, hypocricy, and delusions of others until after you figure out what you are talking about.
I can’t think of any more extractions which would pose as objections to the general topic I’m trying to convey with relation to the OP. Now that I’m in the recursive ditch with regards to accusations regarding my own cognitive age contradiction, I think we have an balanced approach to this topic. I’m working on integrating these into a comprehensible reply which addresses each one.
Spiritus, I will not answer the definition of energy except to convey it as a general sense of the products of meditations on force. (concepts of kinetic, potential… etc… relating it to other variables which don’t describe much when pondered excessively).
It would rack my body with pain to have you consent to a definition of this term; I don’t believe that one could be offerred currently which would not be an underhanded means to violate a beings consent.
-Justhink
Well, if you cannot offer a meaning which would allow others to interpret the symbol transparently, perhaps you should stop using the symbol. Anything else would be “religious”.
the same applies, of course, to any symbols of justhink which cannot be defined without reference to “energy”.
First off, I need to clear up the idea of ‘reproductive cognition’, which seems to be a source of confusion on your end with regards to what I’m attempting to communicate.
If you are a 5 month old baby; you have a cognition. (I’m stating this as a truism to move the point along).
If your cognition as a 5 month year old baby has not even matured enough to tell the difference between those things which subside the basic pains of hunger and thirst… and you mind does not mature cognitively beyond this stage for the rest of your life-time, you will die long before you can reproduce and perpetuate the species. This person has not matured to possessing a reproductive cognition.
Does it really matter if you can’t find the term ‘reproductive cognition’ in your books Spiritus? The point couldn’t be any clearer IMO.
If your cognitive state does not mature enough to allow you to possess even the bare minimum requirement necessary to have the potential of reproduction (without being used as a machine by someone else because your sexual organs may mature, but your cognition cannot comprehend basic survivability let alone reproductive understanding); then you do not have this state which I am terming: ‘reproductive cognition’.
The term is not circular. We can observe individuals who do not achieve ‘reproductive cognition’. I’m talking about extremes here, I’m not even tapping into your sense of ‘free-will’, so I don’t know why you’re getting all huffy about this…
People are born who do not develop the cognition to reproduce without someone else doing all of the work of keeping them alive and forcing them to breed for them…
You avoided my point regarding the halting of cognitive progression. In your little world, it’s ok for a human being to NEVER go through puberty… but when I dare suggest that cognition can halt just below a stage of well known progression, you cannot or will not process it.
Do you really need a quote from ANY book of psychology to tell you that human beings are born who do not cognitively mature enough to reproduce of their own accord? Do you seriously not think that people’s cognitions HALT the maturation process, just like peoples bodies halt the maturation process?
Even in a situation mental retardation, we know that their emotional devolpment halts, their logical devolpment halts… they don’t ever figure out why they get mad at things… little things set them off, their cognitions don’t comprehend as much of the world around them as those who have a process where the brain continues to mature to cognition.
To deny that this occurs, tells me that you have not been around mentally handicapped individuals, or that you make a living ripping them off somehow… it is wholly obvious that these individuals are making ‘mountains out of molehills’; not because it’s not real, but because most of the population doesn’t have their cognition simply STOP at that point in development.
We’re moving up the ladder just so slightly… from individuals who cannot even reproduce because their cognition hasn’t developed enough, to individuals who can reproduce but still show very clear stasis in cognitive progression with regards to MOST of the population.
What this points to, is a continuum. Maybe, just maybe, Spiritus is trapped in a cognitive stage which others have equally transcended - maybe only one thousanths of a percent of the population reaches this stage of cognition. Here’s Spiritus, looking around at his 998 people who validate his need to not be charachterized as cognitively immature, and he’s thiniking “There just isn’t such a thing, it’s not possible. There’s only this one stage that piaget has in his book, and that’s not me and because there aren’t any more stages in the book, there can’t be anymore. Maturity is just relative after this one stage.”.
My understanding of Piaget’s work is that there was a divisian of 6 stages with regards to ethical development that he tested for as stages of cognitive progression. It’s my understanding that he stopped testing for the 6th one because he only found 3-4 who fit into it. You know what? Piaget’s stages were undoubtedly tainted by his own cognitive abilities. The guy could have been testing for 6 stages which existed below the next critical mass for cognitive development (maturity) in a human being.
You seem to be of the mind that a 4th grade child with well developed reproductive changes signifies an increase in physical maturity, yet seem to be blocking out the idea that such things can and do occur equally with ones basic cognition in apprehending the world around them, allowing more freedom to access the variety of what is able to be expressed on this earth; particularly within that species.
I’m not seeing where you justify the need of a quote from a book to point out the common sense of the postulation. Do you really require a book to tell you that one cognition can be more mature than another? Do you need one to tell you (look back at your life now), that some cognitions enter developmental stasis with regards to what MOST human beings are capable of expressing and comprehending of this life?
Does it seem so outrageous that such states could transcend even your own cognition… that in this continuum, even though you have quite a bit in common with most people on this earth, that you could look totally and factually, demonstrably mentally retarded/ cognitively mal-developed to a small portion of the population like the ones who on the other spectrum can’t even comprehend enough about the world to feed themselves?
I’m not uderstanding how the point is not conveying to you Spiritus. Even more, I don’t see where you have this big argument to stand on once you aknowledge what I’m actually using this term ‘reproductive cognition’ to mean.
People literally do not develop cognnition to the level of maturity necessary to live a life without the slavery of other individuals to do everything for them except digestion of food, the beating of the heart, the breathing of the lungs…
-Justhink
Once again, you become so enraptured with your personal fantasies about what I must think that you cannot spare the courtesy to respond to what I actually say.
I may find some compelling reason to revisit this thread again, but for now I will simply accept that our dialogue might have been illuminating to any who cared to examine the quality of your ideas and the integrity of your posting style.
BTW,
if you imagine that the mentally retarded are incapable of feeling and acting upon sexual urges, then we need to add another category to the areas in which you are ignorant. Perhaps we can place it between “the meaning(s) of the words you babble” and “the inner workings of Spiritus Mundis”.
Game. Set. Match.
There is and has been a difference illuminated between mentally retarded individuals and those who do not possess a reproductive cognition.
From the post responded to:
People are born who do not develop the cognition to reproduce without someone else doing all of the work of keeping them alive and forcing them to breed for them…
Even in a situation mental retardation, we know that their emotional devolpment halts, their logical devolpment halts… they don’t ever figure out why they get mad at things… little things set them off, their cognitions don’t comprehend as much of the world around them as those who have a process where the brain continues to mature to cognition.
We’re moving up the ladder just so slightly… from individuals who cannot even reproduce because their cognition hasn’t developed enough, to individuals who can reproduce but still show very clear stasis in cognitive progression with regards to MOST of the population.
What this shows is that there is a continuum here.
Back to this response:
Mentally retarded indinividuals clearly do have sexual desires and the capacity to act upon them and to reproduce and to actually live together as couples. We can however illustrate that their cognitive development hits against barriers which the average population moves through without much effort. I don’t see how my words were that difficult to interpret.
x individual possess zero reproductive capacity with their cognition.
y individual possess relatively impotent reproductive capacity with their cognition, but can perpetuate the species with regards to their cognitive capacity (maturing into a minimal cognition which perpetuates the species).
z individual is most of the population, capable of effectively reproducing the species with their cognitive development.
I’m stating that z+1 exists.
It’s a reasonably logical hypothesis that I believe is demonstrable.
You can pretend like you aren’t capable of reading the words in front of you if you like; you can accuse me of not using standard meaning; and that all points are thus irrelevant…
Why are you denying what is so clearly written on a public board?
I did not even come close to making the statement that mentally retarded individuals don’t and cannot reproduce. It’s as obvious as my post is in this thread.
-Justhink
( ‘*’ = see disclaimer )
I must admit, I wasn’t expecting such a demonstration of denial to a basic concept without rebuttle.
Human beings are born who do not mature enough cognitively to reproduce for the species.
I understand that processing multiple ideas at the same time may be somewhat difficult, so I hesitate at this stage to add the overwhelming information from the first statement:
They CAN reproduce if another being or beings who possess a reproductive cognition do it for them… physically shove food down their thoats, pump them with water, maturbate them and issue a rundemtary insemination for them. This means that the body has reached the capacity to reproduce, even though the actual cognitive maturation process wouldn’t develop enough to allow them to survive long enough for the body to undergo this stage of physical development.
Equally, individuals can achieve significant cognitive maturation with regards to reproduction while their physical body terminates metuarion before the sexual organs activate from puberty.
Individuals can also (probably like yourself) develop BOTH levels of maturity.
Individuals can also not achieve either of these states of maturation; either cognitively or physically.
A mentally retarded individual is being distinguished from a person who does not even possess a rudimentary reproductive cognition OR the system which kicks that stage into effect. This is actually inarticulate.
This is where there may be some confusion:
I’m using the term ‘mentally retarded’ to charachterize two differing forms on quality of mental retardation as a whole.
*Clearly, a person without a reproductive cognition would be defined as mentally retarded; which makes the discernemt between those who can reproduce with their cognition (but show cognitive stasis with regards to the majority of the population) as indiscernable from each other.
What we have, are multiple stages of mental retardation, framed with regards to the observers cognitive maturity.
I can tell the difference between a person who cannot reproduce of their own will because they cannot comprehend these things, an individual who can comprehend these things but are severely immature with regards to cognitive development as observed with regards to the majority of the population and the majority of the population. I don’t find it to be unreaonable to assume that you could do the same.
((disclaimer – This is only true if the perpetuation of life or the species is considered meaningful - obviously the argument loses its teeth if someone simply states that there is no meaning to being able to reproduce or to live, this makes the line impossible to draw with respect to this particular articulation, although it can be addressed later on with a higher degree of subtlety using the understanding of this primary concept))
Instead of ‘winning’ this argument making up what I’m actually stating - provide at least minimal evidence that you comprehend the basic point I’m making with regards to a ‘reproductive cognition’ and why you disagree with the concept - or why you disagree that reproductive cognition exists on a continuum?
-Justhink
Whatever happened to Mrfoi?
Only just found this thread, so apologies for digging so far back into it for this comment:
From what I’ve witnessed over my life, almost 32 years (we’ll say 26 of them actually aware of the world around me). religion and myth have been not at all useful in understanding how to relate to one another. At least, not as a -people-. Not as humans.
Religion divides. It tells one group of people that they have all the answers and everyone else is deluded or worse, evil.
For that matter, Reason does as well.
So where does that lead us?
I have no answer, other than saying that hope is not reasonable. To have hope in the face of adversity, especially drastic adversity seems to some, ridiculous. Unreasonable. Immature.
And yet, I have been put on the path of my own death many times. But I had hope that I would live to see the next morning.
Was it a God that gave me that hope? No, I don’t think so. I don’t know what did. Maybe if I tried too hard to put a name to it, I would discover some basic truth…that might also completely kill my capacity for hope.
I don’t live in a world where I need to know the answers to everything. The world is a mysterious place. And I enjoy the mystery. I don’t think everyone should think as I do. Indeed not. There are some people in the world who feel the same strength and comfort from their belief in the ‘god’ of Reason. And that’s wonderful. For them.
Just as some may not wish to have Jehovahs’ Witnesses knocking on their door at 10 am, wishing to share their version of the gospel with them, other’s don’t really want to be preached to by those who’s god is Fact.
There might possibly be ‘Answers’. I don’t think it makes me intellectually immature not to need to know them.
This person is in serious trouble and needs help! If it wasn’t for the fact that his posts in this and other threads are filled with hatred, self-promotion, ego-boosting and other similar unpleasant traits, I would have taken the time to reveal to him to the concepts of love and friendship, but why waste the electrons (no doubt he’ll claim he can count them as well :rolleyes: ).
For my part, he can go and crawl away into some dark corner and stew in his bile until painful death comes and improves the world!
[Moderator Hat ON]
rampisad, in this forum please do not wish death upon your fellow posters. Thank you.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
Mr Moderator
I did not wish death upon him - do not read into my words things that are not there. I said …
Since we can state as a matter of fact that he is going to die, that development requires neither a wish nor a command ( unless you are suggesting that justthink will not die unless I have something to do with it ).
As for me, you can keep you hat on ;j ( NB - smilie is not a statement of religious preference, chosen because it’s the only one with a hat 
)
Count me in as another (soft) atheist who strenuously disagrees with the smug arrogance of the OP. Personally, I think that the intellectually mature recognize their own fallibility and understand that other human beings may legitimately disagree with them on the fundamentals of the universe. I think a glib belief that you have all the answers, that you’re so superior to other people that you can make snap judgements about their maturity, betrays a lack of experience in the world.
Foi, learning about your own intellectual limits is a vital part of growing up. I heartily recommend to you the book The Crooked Timber of Humanity, by Isaiah Berlin (a secular humanist), as an eloquent statement of this idea.
Daniel