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Re: brute journal

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 4:11 pm
by Jason
LOL@brute

Life is meaningless and nothing matters and however I decide things are is the way they are but don't call me a sociopath on the internet!!!!!

For a hardcore, tough guy agnostic, Brute whines like the second-runner up in a childhood beauty contest.

Re: brute journal

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 4:51 pm
by Ego
BRUTE wrote: by the same logic, brute can find meaning in, or find important,eating delicious high-fat foods and drinking stimulating coffee.

but does it make brute feel like he has a purpose, or if his life has meaning? no.
Pleasure. Happiness. Satisfaction. Purpose. Meaning. The words are easily jumbled and sometimes purposely so. Advertising has so utterly confused us in this regard that we have trouble distinguishing between them.

Is the high-fat food pleasurable to you? Does it evoke happiness? Does it deliver a jolt of meaning?

William James said, "The strenuous life tastes better," and I tend to agree. Or maybe I agree with the inverse, the easy life tastes bland.

There is something about engagement that takes simple pleasure and ferments it into a more meaningful brew. Maybe it is the combination of the pursuit and the attainment. Having pleasure delivered on a platter is base hedonism and is subject to habituation. Being immersed in the whole process produces an appreciation and a savoring that leads in the direction of meaning.

Now I'm hungry. Gonna go make lunch. :D

Re: brute journal

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 5:03 pm
by BRUTE
Jason wrote:Life is meaningless and nothing matters and however I decide things are is the way they are but don't call me a sociopath on the internet!!!!!
Jason must be confusing brute with FBeyer, who said the thing about not calling others sociopaths. brute has no problem with that label. brute also has no problem with being called a whiney bitch :D

Re: brute journal

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 5:37 pm
by Dragline
BRUTE wrote:getting a dog feels like the ultimate cheat - except for taking heroin, maybe.
Not "cheat". "Hack".

Ok, so its the same thing with different connotations. :lol:

Re: brute journal

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 5:48 pm
by Dragline
BRUTE wrote: brute used to believe that, given enough time and effort, it should be possible to compile a logical "truth-graph" (or would it be a tree?) of all possible statements (is this Aristotle?). recently, he's not so sure.

maybe the opposite way of thinking about this is the latticework mental model, in which all ideas are just rough simplifications that apply to very specific contexts. instead of building a giant truth graph, the art consists of finding what model applies in which circumstances.
The former is related to Praxeology -- building up everything from a few basic assumptions. And yes, its based in Aristotlean thinking. Paradoxically, Positivism has the same "constructionism" structure, but a different way of getting there.

The second paragraph is closer to complexity theory and the idea of emergence of one level on top of another ("More is Different"), where different models work at different levels of reality.

Re: brute journal

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 6:47 pm
by BRUTE
Dragline wrote:Not "cheat". "Hack".

Ok, so its the same thing with different connotations. :lol:
yea, like Tim Ferriss super efficiently chugging red wine out of the bottle to maximize time spent listening to self-motivating affirmations.. life hacks all the way! brute is planning to listen to all of Shakespeare's work at 3x speed to minimize the time spent with this invaluable cultural treasure while still being able to claim he knows it.

brave new world.

Re: brute journal

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 7:17 pm
by Dragline
Now Tim Ferriss has actually been improving.

Since he got a dog . . . :D

Re: brute journal

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 7:38 pm
by BRUTE
easy way out

Re: brute journal

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 8:20 pm
by bryan
well if BRUTE is finished up with his South American travels and has conciliated his brutish desires, he could learn a bit of coppersmithing and settle in Colombia and open a shop to sell artisanal, hand-crafted copper fishies made from the coins that people give him in exchange for his copper fishies. If he were FI he could avoid the undue effort of selling the fishies or running a shop and simply melt them down to start again. Though, having the shop operation would probably mean better tax efficiency.

Re: brute journal

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 8:41 pm
by bryan
also, if he wanted to avoid the undue effort of physically making the little fishies he could buy a VR rig and virtually make the little fishies.

Retiring is easier than ever these days!

Re: brute journal

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 9:24 pm
by halfmoon
BRUTE wrote:getting a dog feels like the ultimate cheat - except for taking heroin, maybe.
Wait, wait! I'm pretty sure brute said somewhere that he likes heroin. Why is heroin okay and a dog is a cheat? Unconditional love is the ultimate drug, after all. :D Dogs don't demand meaning or purpose; they just give devotion and hope they'll get a little back. Probably more satisfying than typing for the man who sort of needs you, and possibly just as addictive as heroin.

Re: brute journal

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 9:43 pm
by Dragline
brute seems to find meaning in some form of "purity" (no purity, no cheats), while simultaneously denying that meaning exists. Makes no sense.

Makes a great excuse, though, for failure to get off ass and thrive.

There cannot be any cheating in a world without meaning. If there is cheating, there is meaning in not cheating.

Dogs rule.

Re: brute journal

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 9:51 pm
by BRUTE
yea yea, humans and their dogs. jeez.

brute actually really likes most dogs (if they don't keep him up at night). he might eventually get one. right now, and in the near-term future, brute would be unable to provide a pleasant environment to any dog. thus, brute is half kidding when he says dogs are cheating. on the one hand, an unconditional love machine is the ultimate giving in to biological meaning-distraction. on the other hand, brute has enjoyed the company of some high-quality dogs in the past, just as he enjoys steaks and coffee. in fact, if brute were an animal, he'd probably be a dog. simple tastes, mostly meat.

Re: brute journal

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 10:11 pm
by Dragline
Now yer talkin' ;)

Re: brute journal

Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 12:05 am
by Tyler9000
Image

Re: brute journal

Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 5:03 am
by FBeyer
BRUTE wrote:... instead of building a giant truth graph, the art consists of finding what model applies in which circumstances.
Holy fucking shit you're actually a scientist! Hence the discussion gap between fundamentalists and relativists.

I tried saying the same thing above, I guess you're more eloquent than me these days :)

Re: brute journal

Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 5:07 am
by FBeyer
Jason wrote:LOL@brute

Life is meaningless and nothing matters and however I decide things are is the way they are but don't call me a sociopath on the internet!!!!!

For a hardcore, tough guy agnostic, Brute whines like the second-runner up in a childhood beauty contest.
For a Holy Jesus lover you sure come across as exactly the kind of stuck up and judgemental person the stereotype advocates. Is this your intention or are you just having a bad day?

Your journal speaks of a person with humor, your behaviour here speaks of someone who doesn't like to be disagreed with. I sincerely hope I'm wrong about this 'cause I enjoy your writings when your not actively butthurt and I'd hate to sour that impression feeling like we could never have a discussion on anything unless we agree beforehand.

Re: brute journal

Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 5:13 am
by FBeyer
BRUTE wrote:gratitude and praise are important to humans because evolving this trait has helped them compete with other mutations in the evolutionary market. by the same logic, brute can find meaning in, or find important,eating delicious...but does it make brute feel like he has a purpose, or if his life has meaning?
You got a job, and one of the points listed is that you took the job 'cause it makes you feel like The Man needs you. Feeling needed and loved is a basic human need. Why relish in that need in form of a job, and not relish in that need via other means, like helping poor people out of the ghetto via learning software skills, say?

Re: brute journal

Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 6:06 am
by 7Wannabe5
I was helping a very bright, tough, hyper 5 year old Bosnian boy (diamond stud in one ear, tendency to grab blocks from other children without asking) to take a nap recently, and he kept throwing himself down on his little mat and consequently banging his head on the cupboards behind him. So, I pulled his mat away from the wall, informing him that I didn't want him to hurt himself. And he, with very serious manner, and thick accent, inquired "What is the meaning 'hurt self?'"

I am reading a 19th century book on the topic of small-scale market gardening. The author describes a named variety of strawberries such that "they will produce fruit that will stop a man running for a train, should it meet his eye." If you search the internet, you can find old images of this variety of strawberries, but you can no longer find actual plants of this named variety.

My interest in perma-culture led to an interest in regional geography and native plants which led to an interest in local history which led to an interest in my own extended family history which led to the recent discovery that my BF and I are distant cousins. But, I laugh and say "It really doesn't mean anything, when you go back so many generations."

Even if, for instance, BRUTE himself persists in refusal to assign meaning to female or dog with whom he associates. IOW, even if BRUTE refers to female as "just some attractive skank I banged in London" with no further details offered, and does not give the canine who persistently follows him about in hopes of food a name, other people will likely eventually start making reference to these entities as "the dog of BRUTE" or "the woman of BRUTE." If BRUTE acquires land and shelter, others will likely start referring to that place as "the house of BRUTE." Since BRUTE is a free adult man of property, he would thus only be bound to his own house, and this would be the location of his house-bound-ary. Then, if some attractive skank came to live wifthe BRUTE wifthin the context of his house-bound-ary, she might acquire the name Mrs. BRUTE. Also, if the dog continues to follow Freeman of Property BRUTE about within the context of the boundary of the legal domain of his property, but then on one occasion bites the neighbor of BRUTE then it is likely that a court of law will assign the behavior of BRUTE and the-dog-without-name a meaning such that BRUTE will be required to pay damages to the neighbor-of-BRUTE. Generally, the avoidance of responsibility under common law requires lack of engagement.

Re: brute journal

Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 8:42 am
by BRUTE
interestingly, when brute lived in a much poorer part of the world for a while, he would have street dogs following him around, guarding him, sometimes even trying to get on the bus with him. these dogs sure didn't seem to know they weren't brute's dogs.