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Ichon
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted July 19, 2001 05:06 AM |
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Merging...
One of the things I find most amusing is how everyone who so rejected conformism in the earlier posts have now begun agreeing in general. Not that you don't actually agree... it's just ironic.
There is no certaining in saying anything including what I just said. So, with that in mind as much as anyone can have an opinion it's right as far as they think otherwise why bother to hold it? Know what people hold as opinion of belief is often a far cry from what they say. That's only important if you care that intentions meet actions and self-respect is integrated into morality or ethics. So honor doesn't mean anything except to those who value it. Obvious isn't it? Yet almost everyone values it in some way, just not the same way- making their expectations and view of what actions are possible very different and occasionally hostile.
Now the way anyone views life is impossible to define broadly except by saying it's only different as much as it's the same. That's not contradictory really when dealing with so many different factors. Of course people persist in determing how they view life for themselves, but it's really meaningless except for each of them individually and for the larger human race as a rare commonality seems to emerge of everyone with a different answer, but the same question. If it's all illusion however...
Well, not many people see what they believe as an illusion and so I suppose can't understand when someone else explains anything that differs substantially to the reality they view as the truth. Not everyone desires change, but many realize it's inevitable in some ways- that might increase the need for security however. Somewhat you have to imagine insecurity is a large partner of disagreement as people who can't stand the thought of a different reality or any illusion but their own(perhaps sensing how flimsy it might be?).
Well, this has certainly been interesting and I hope some people like Shae learned how much more interesting it can be to moderate their tones occasionally. I think some people only respond to shock therapy in certain extreme circumstances, but it's rare you need to continue applying the shocks since it distracts from dialogue and learning anything which is hopefully the way you reasoned to justify the shocls in the first place. Of course, personal attacks are only one form of shocks, and probably the least effecient in my opinion, and I have to wonder if the reason Shae has been slapped by so many is the way here attitude comes across, people listen as far as that and react to it rather than your opinion which isn't all that bad really. At least you are thinking and considering such things, which most people don't usually do. I hope to see more debate like this on here actually. I'd love to play an H3 game where things like this were discussed. That's one thing I haven't found in any online games yet.
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Avallach
Hired Hero
Disputo ergo sum.
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posted July 24, 2001 08:41 AM |
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Sorry for the belated reply. I wasn't able to use the internet for a few days, and wanted a bit of time to think some of it through, anyway.
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Avallach, the beginning of your post was superb, I found you hit the nail right on the head (ouch!) The nature of logic though, doesn't necessarily preclude us from other things being true. Logic dictates that a subject matter must be assessed in order for it to be discarded as false or ill at ease with other perceptions about life. If logic precluded us from the possibility of other things being true then a logical person would be very narrow minded indeed, lol!
Thanks Shae  . About the logic part, I really didn't express what I was saying very well. I'm afraid I can't even claim Ugene's excuse of not being a native english speaker - I was just being lazy, so I'd better clear it up now. All I was saying is that holding certain things to be true will mean that there will be other things that we must, at the same time, hold to be not true. The simplest example would be the negation of that view (eg if I believe the world is round, I cannot believe at the same time that the world is not round). Logically these cannot both be true, and as long as I am aware of that, I must hold one of these statements to be false. The same with anything in which the negation is implicit (eg if the world is flat, that logically implies that the world is not round). So for someone to state that something is true they are also stating, implicitly, that other things are false, and my point was that this is not in itself narrow-mindedness. As you say, it is still necessary to assess any evidence or argument for those things that we hold to be false, or against those that we hold to be true. If presented with sufficient evidence of the worlds flatness (if I sailed off the edge, say ) then I would no longer hold that to be false, but I would have to consider false the proposition that it is round. That's all I was getting at when I mentioned the nature of logic, and I can agree with the rest of what you said.
Ugene, thanks for the reply. If you don't want to continue discussing this, no worries, but I'll reply to what you've written anyway.
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Perhaps it is the nature of bivalent logic, but we both know that this kind of logic is not appliable when it comes to human behaviour.
I guess that depends in part on where you make the distinction between behaviour and thought, and the effect that these have on peoples opinions and beliefs. For my part I'd say that people are logical creatures, and that even when acting irrationally our thoughts and behaviour still adhere to the basic principles of logic. It's just how our minds work, how they've been 'programmed' if you like, and we can't get away from that.
But whether or not that's the case is irrelevant. Whether or not what you term 'bivalent logic' is applicable to human behaviour, it is applicable to external reality. For a persons thoughts to adhere to this logic then is not to be 'narrow minded', but to conform to reality. To be further from reality is not to be open minded, but, at it's extremes, to be delusional. Which is why I question your definition of what open mindedness is, as in most people I don't think it involves any tendency to delusion....
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Lol, this is not narrow mindedness. This is plain insanity.
Well I'd say that it too can be delusion, but it's exactly how I'd define narrow-mindedness. You needn't think of it as so extreme though - I wasn't talking of a conscious denial, but unconscious, someone just not letting external evidence or reason touch them. The problem with how you seemed to be using 'narrow-minded' (or 'narrowed' as you actually said) is that it would apply to everyone. As mentioned before, everyone has a set of beliefs that they hold to, and another much larger set that they don't. The term thus loses any sort of meaning and just becomes another stock insult. That could be another discussion in itself, but I'll resist . Anyway, most of the time when I hear someone being called narrow-minded it's simply because that person disagrees with some opinion of the person calling them that. Not that that's what you were doing, but it's how it mostly seems to be used. I just think that there are very few people who truly could be called 'narrow-minded', hence the definition of the term that I used.
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What if, evaluating his opinions, one discovers that his opinions are wrong? Is he supposed to continue to hold on to them, considering that he is the sum of his opinions and beliefs? Would this not be an exremly frustrated individual?
Of course he should discard them if he finds them to be wrong.
But who's to say that a person is the sum of their opinions and beliefs anyway?
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Open mindedness is the abillity to change. Not as in 'evolving'( unfortunatlly, I do not believe in one's capacity to evolve beyond certain limits) but as in 'adapting'.
I think that everyone has the ability to 'adapt' in this manner though. You also have to be careful not to judge someones open-mindedness by the frequency with which they do change their opinions. I could show you one person whose opinion on an issue regularly shifts and another whose stays steadfastly the same, both of whom are equally open minded. The first may just be weak willed, his mind 'a leaf, for every wind that blows', and the second may have their opinion so firmly rooted in reason for it to be virtually unassailable. That does not say anything of their respective capacity for adapting though. As a side note, I should add that I've not meant to say that objective reason is the be all and end all... it's just easiest to assume so for examples. Different presuppositions, uprovable axioms etc. can complicate things... but I'm not going to try and get into that.
Well this did ended up being a bit longer than I intended. Apologies to anyone who actually read this far . There's a couple of things in some of the later posts I might like to reply to, but I'd better leave it for now.
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"Death slew him not, but he made death his ladder to the skies"
- Edmund Spenser, on the death of Philip Sidney
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ugene_de_mue...
Adventuring Hero
Romanii ca brazii
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posted July 24, 2001 04:19 PM |
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To Avallach:
Hehe, I agree with some of the things you said there...Not with what you said about logic, but I don,t wanna go into that...rrr, well, if you would now romanian...but bivalent logic was just one of many failed attempts of the humans to explain the mechanisms of the world. Just like religions, to some extent. No, bivalent logic does not apply to human behaviour and does not apply to the external reality. Just think at the nature of the photon...and you will see that world can actually be flat and round in the same time...The very same pc you are writing with kills bivalent logics...
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Give me one year and I'll teach your horse to speak
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Sha_Men
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Jack-Of-No-Trades
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posted July 24, 2001 05:15 PM |
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I must add something...
to this massive thread...
What is logic anyway?
I may think logically but who says it so?
Some other that thinks the "same" way?
There's no real logic, there's only one's way of thinking what is logical and what is not.
Man is animal...
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Catch the vigorous horse of your mind.
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Avallach
Hired Hero
Disputo ergo sum.
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posted July 25, 2001 06:41 AM |
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Well written post, Zedrin.
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Did you ever think that there may be things so alien to us that our brains might simply ignore or not acknowledge them? Things so different that they defy our every sense?
Have you ever read a short story called 'Mimsy were the Borogoves'? Not exactly what you're talking about, but I think you'd find it interesting.
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Whoever trusts in everything he knows is a fool.
True, as is anyone who trusts in nothing. Philisophically, it is impossible to know that anything is true, except for ones existence in some form or other (I think, therefore I am). We can, however, know things 'beyond reasonable doubt', and it is these things that we should be willing to put our trust in.
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Acknowledging that you can be wrong at any given time gives you an edge over time, for you are more liable to change and keep changing as the world turns. Knowing your beliefs are wrong simply demotes them from the status of beliefs to the status of opinions. A belief is not flexible, and opinion is. for if you believe then you do not question, you accept and follow. If you start arguing then you find flaws, that may or may not appeal to your sense of stability.
Is that an opinion, or a belief? 
I'll assume that if you were to answer that you'd do so in a manner consistent with it and say that it's an opinion, since doing otherwise would remove any credibility of the statement itself. But then... if you're acting consistently with this opinion anyway, what's to distinguish it from a belief? That it can change? I 'believe' absolutely that the sun will rise tomorrow, and act consistently with that belief, but if it didn't rise then that belief would change soon enough, I assure you! I don't see how an 'opinion' is any different - you'd still act consistently with it, living as if it were true (as to the best of your knowledge it presumably would be). Perhaps you could give me an example to demonstrate what you're saying, but to me any distinction between 'belief' and 'opinion' seems artificial, and in reality there is no difference between them.
Have you see the movie 'Dogma', by the way? I haven't myself, but I think a similar distinction between belief and opinion was made in that.
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"Death slew him not, but he made death his ladder to the skies"
- Edmund Spenser, on the death of Philip Sidney
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Ichon
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted July 25, 2001 07:49 AM |
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Logic
Well, there is only one logic- it's causal. If ____ then ____ result. The only problem is it relies on facts and when it's only perception we have to replace facts with you can't call that process logical though it proceeds logically from the result of what you know to the logical answer. It's just like in Star Trek, Spock wasn't alway sright, he was wrong when you went from teh wrong assumptions. However, as far as you can say there is any certain fact- then if you use it to get a logical conclusion, that answer will also be fact and arrived at through a logical process.
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Ichon
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted July 25, 2001 07:54 AM |
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Gaaa...
Caught by that dang posting error! First time it's gotten me, usually I am thinking and realize it's already sent, just the error was on going to see the update, was at work and just hitting repost till I realized. Augh.
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Paradigm
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 25, 2001 10:03 AM |
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Is there Honor in being a Father?
Is there Honor in paying tribute to a Hero?
Is there Honor in being the first Man on Mars?
Yes! Honor is earned, but never deserved. You may go through life demanding Honor and wonder why you do not have it. Or you can life your life following the Golden Rule (Do on to others as you would have them do on to you) and and following your path to achieve your personal goals and always being amazed at the Honor that is bestowed on you....
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Provenire of the Shift!
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ugene_de_mue...
Adventuring Hero
Romanii ca brazii
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posted July 26, 2001 12:03 AM |
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Back to Honour
We all seemed to forget the actual subject of that post...and I think Zedrin deserves an answer to his question. Since you all were unable to truly answer, I will.
In my first year at the university, the proffesors taught us a very interesting exercise. Of course, the exercise had a precise purpose, but that is not the matter now.
So, the exercise went like this: someone gave you a word, a notion, and your job was to visualise it. Of course, when you hear 'dog', you will not see all the dogs in the world, but your personal image of thais notion.
The catch was to get the first, uncorupted image that emerged from the back of your mind.
My 'piano' was a picture from some school book, for example.
Obviously, the exercise is more difficult when it comes to abstract notions. Such as 'HONOUR'.
But as I am quite fond of Zedrin and I hate to see him trembeling in a web of uncertainty, I did the exercise, I thought 'HONOURHONOURHONOURHNUORHTROURHUOHORH' and I caught the first image. It was a big, green apple.
So, there you go, Zedrin, now you now what honour actually is: a Big, Green Apple
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Give me one year and I'll teach your horse to speak
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Mad_Unicorn
Famous Hero
I am a mean person shame on me
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posted July 26, 2001 02:53 PM |
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I had to post something being 8am zzzzz
This is dealing with thread topic totally;
Honor is what YOU decide, Honor is what YOU belive, Honor is what YOU make it. (side note) Honor is NOT chilvarly 
yay me i posted zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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zedrin
Known Hero
Ping pong goes the gong
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posted July 28, 2001 02:17 AM |
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hehe
Well since i'm almost drunk, i won't post anything i can't fully control
And that includes a whole lot of things.
I tried the same exercise as Ugene tried to get the apple picture... I got a dice, a simple dice... And yes, it was before i was almost under the influence of the bad drink.
I'll reply to others later though.
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"Blow wind! Come wrack
At least we die with harness on our back" - Shakespeare, Macbeth
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Maximane
Adventuring Hero
Pot Burner
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posted July 28, 2001 02:26 AM |
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Will the use of definitions, descriptions, or reasons tell us what honour truly is?
I see honour (from a total non-logical personal standpoint) as for how your soul feels 'right' when standing on your own beliefs or decisions.
Every person is truly unique in that they perceive everything in their own way. One saw honour as a big, green apple and another dice. What do I see it? I feel it as perception. Perception in that what I had done was from myself.
To be unhonourable is almost like being influenced to choose something you do not believe in. I personally find that every time I look at the sky and the dirt at my feet that the ants and the birds see everything totally different and unique from my own standpoint.
To truly see.. no feel how one feels to be of honour is one of the most precious gifts anyone could have.
I look at honour and I see...
A sphere within a sphere
-Maximane
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"Understanding is a three-edged sword..."
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Ichon
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted August 01, 2001 03:25 AM |
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Souls...
How do you know what your soul is? Or where it is, or even if it is? If you only know that you are, since you are- and that is the only 'fact' how can you know what your soul feels unless you are using the term soul for yourself? For a reasonable doubt or at least a reason even to think a soul exists whether or not it's your soul or something else's soul; you can't ever know.
So what is honor? What is in a word first of all- if you think it's only a sound wave vibrating at a certain speed which you percieve as a recognizabvle pattern which you can intrepret as a concept, then do you 'hear' the same concept as the person you sent you that vibration? Probably not, yet is the concept you percieve even related to who spoke it? Probably, but a 1% chance when everything else is .000000000001% is still probably.
About which the excersise to picture the first image in your mind when you hear a certain word- is it a different image if you hear it or read it? And if it is, does that mean a different concept or just an idiot college professor trying to be an intellectual?
Honor is order- if it's any one thing it is order for without order than a concept can't remain fixed or unmutated, so honor is order before anything else.
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Thunder
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted August 04, 2001 03:44 PM |
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Everyone knows but none knows that they know. Or other way around.
In the end it won`t matter if you have lived like a fool or wise, poor or rich, villain or hero, brave or coward.
All is nothing. Nothing is all.
If a thing is too big or too small, you can`t see it.
Yesterday`s wisdom is tomorrow`s foolishness.
What have been will always be.
End is the beginning.
Opposite isn`t always the opposite.
Nothing can be fully destroyed. It only takes another or smaller form.
Life is a cycle. Nothing really dies.
From the earth to the earth.
Smaller the scale... larger the object.
Peace to all. Peace be all.
Name it and so shall you break it.
Two heads, one body. More it stands still the faster it runs.
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ArchAngel_86
Tavern Dweller
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posted August 10, 2001 11:56 PM |
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Honor is more like a feeling in my opinion. I dont think just being nice to someone on a game( In other words, showing mercy to another). I'm mean, is it real honor to be nice in a game, especially one like heroes. I was playing a game of checkers just recentaly, and when I was about to be the other player, I just let him gat by, and I didn't feel "honered". I felt develish , making him wait longer, although he knew he would lose.
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zedrin
Known Hero
Ping pong goes the gong
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posted August 15, 2001 01:16 AM |
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Been "away" for a couple of weeks and look what happens: utter silence. Do you people know how to party or not?
I agree a bit with ArchAngel_86 (i agree?! i must've changed, i must be a better person... Nah). I mean really, don't you get a lot more satisfaction by making your oponnent suffer a bit longer, knowing that the only way for him to go is down? Torture him a bit... although he can break your fun by conceding.
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"Blow wind! Come wrack
At least we die with harness on our back" - Shakespeare, Macbeth
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dArGon
Famous Hero
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posted September 04, 2001 08:58 AM |
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Been a while...glad to see the thread moving ahead
Avallach....very thoughtful and in my opinion (or is it a belief...lol) very true posts.
I really liked the point you made in reply to Zedrin about opinion versus belief. Zedrin seems to be a very smart person...I am surprised he has fallen prey to the empty, baseless, and irrational belief/opinion (lol) of relativism.
Avallach what time zone are you in? I would like to play you a game of heroes sometime
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zedrin
Known Hero
Ping pong goes the gong
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posted September 05, 2001 09:29 PM |
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lol
is this thing still here? i thought it would be deleted by now.
I've fallen prey to many things lately. Opinion vs belief is probably one of them. Chances are that my almost hatred of fanatics has led me into that trap.
I'd like to challenge you to a game of heroes now that the new season has started and i might get the heroes bug back... (but then again i might just get bored again)
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"Blow wind! Come wrack
At least we die with harness on our back" - Shakespeare, Macbeth
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dArGon
Famous Hero
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posted September 06, 2001 05:49 AM |
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Yeah I hear ya..."almost hatred" or hatred itself can lead us into many corners Fanatics....hmmm...does anyone in here remind you of a fanatic?
Zedrin if you were talking to me about a game of heroes...let me know....if not well have fun in the mini season
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zedrin
Known Hero
Ping pong goes the gong
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posted September 06, 2001 08:11 PM |
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in my off days i remind myself of a fanatic.
yeah, i'm talking to you about a heroes game. and let it be known, this be fighting talk
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"Blow wind! Come wrack
At least we die with harness on our back" - Shakespeare, Macbeth
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