Philosophy Discussion Forums

jerlands wrote: ↑February 26th, 2018, 1:45 am

Dark Matter wrote: ↑February 26th, 2018, 1:08 am

I can go along with that. (I’m assuming you wanted to post the video.) There are several kinds of intelligence. According to Wiki,
Using Wike as the guide, in some things my EI is outstanding; in some things my EI really sucks.

I seem to be one of the few that the YouTube link fails with so I don't bother with videos. Seems my system doesn't like insecure information. My mention of the beatles "I am the Walrus" was a bit of a rub as I've seen 'Greta' reference them more than once.

As for EQ.. We think we need to split everything up into pieces, dissecting this and that to understand what it is without realizing this and that is merely part of a bigger picture. Medicine is the same. We have specialists for this and specialists for that and none of them understand how any of it works together.
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That's one of my pet peeves. Human beings are just too complicated to compartmentalize without overlap. For instance, I read people very well -- a by-product of my hypervigilance. That does not translate into empathy or appropriately labeling my emotions. (As my grandfather once said, "Us _______ are a weird bunch." I'm told I take after him a lot.)

Dark Matter wrote: ↑February 26th, 2018, 2:16 am

jerlands wrote: ↑February 26th, 2018, 1:45 am
I seem to be one of the few that the YouTube link fails with so I don't bother with videos. Seems my system doesn't like insecure information. My mention of the beatles "I am the Walrus" was a bit of a rub as I've seen 'Greta' reference them more than once.

As for EQ.. We think we need to split everything up into pieces, dissecting this and that to understand what it is without realizing this and that is merely part of a bigger picture. Medicine is the same. We have specialists for this and specialists for that and none of them understand how any of it works together.
.

That's one of my pet peeves. Human beings are just too complicated to compartmentalize without overlap. For instance, I read people very well -- a by-product of my hypervigilance. That does not translate into empathy or appropriately labeling my emotions. (As my grandfather once said, "Us _______ are a weird bunch." I'm told I take after him a lot.)

Somewhere I know there lies dimension in our experience
.

Dark Matter wrote: ↑February 25th, 2018, 2:57 pm

Dlaw wrote: ↑February 25th, 2018, 1:02 pm

Here's a phrase I've heard in my own head - not about alcohol in my case - "Why wouldn't I want to feel this good all the time?"

Getting drunk is fun. It's that simple. Getting high with marijuana is even more fun, I think.

Now keep in mind that I'm a marijuana user who didn't start until I was in my 40's.

But I can say, for example, that listening to music stoned is FANTASTIC. It's literally always better than listening to music sober unless you're in absolutely the perfect mood. Your mind can follow the music in a different way.

Also, a lot of people find that they are more creative in certain ways with marijuana - at least at first.

Finally, I call marijuana "the weed of forgetting". Because cannabinoids affect your memory very much like the way being asleep does, you can really leave the cares of the day behind if you need to.

You’re making my case for me. You’re describing the kind of immature rationality I try to avoid. The caliber of people who make those kind of arguments I can only classify as “losers.”

Don’t get me wrong. I have a friend who suffers terribly from cerebral palsy and occasionally uses marijuana to alleviate her symptoms. That’s fine. But for recreation? That’s for losers who don’t have any higher interests than feeling better.

Hhmmmm... name-calling and insults? Sounds like a mature winner with high interests to me.

LuckyR wrote: ↑February 26th, 2018, 4:25 am Hhmmmm... name-calling and insults? Sounds like a mature winner with high interests to me.

In order to communicate one has to risk offending. What I called “immature” is just that; what I called “losers” are IMO just that; if your highest interest is finding offense in what somebody says because you disagree with them, don’t be surprised if they refer to you as something that easily melts down.

jerlands wrote: ↑February 26th, 2018, 2:23 am

Dark Matter wrote: ↑February 26th, 2018, 2:16 am

That's one of my pet peeves. Human beings are just too complicated to compartmentalize without overlap. For instance, I read people very well -- a by-product of my hypervigilance. That does not translate into empathy or appropriately labeling my emotions. (As my grandfather once said, "Us _______ are a weird bunch." I'm told I take after him a lot.)

Somewhere I know there lies dimension in our experience
.

I agree, and every circle of experience I unique. That does not mean, however, that we are obligated to accept relativism as a guiding principle.

My two penneth, for anyone who's interested:

I tried marijuana a bit in my youth. It was ok (apart from the paranoia), but the main thing I don't/didn't like about it, compared to wine, beer and gin & tonic, is the different social customs that seem to go with it. Drinking, for me, is associated with nice meals, cozy pubs with roaring fires, good conversation (Putting the world to rights: "This Brexit's a cockup init? Still, the Arsenal's doing well...") and some limited dancing. Maybe even a bit of karaoke if that's the way the evening seems to be going. It's part of the culture.

Marijuana, on the other hand, is (or at least was for me) associated with students sitting around in smoke filled rooms enraptured by the sound of the harpsichord in "Golden Brown" by The Stranglers or the deep poetry of Leonard Cohen lyrics. Great when you're a student but not so great for a middle-aged parent with a job to do. But maybe the culture is different now.

Getting blind drunk: similar thing. You do it a few times when you're a kid and then stick to middle-aged moderation.

Dark Matter wrote: ↑February 26th, 2018, 11:40 am

LuckyR wrote: ↑February 26th, 2018, 4:25 am Hhmmmm... name-calling and insults? Sounds like a mature winner with high interests to me.

In order to communicate one has to risk offending. What I called “immature” is just that; what I called “losers” are IMO just that; if your highest interest is finding offense in what somebody says because you disagree with them, don’t be surprised if they refer to you as something that easily melts down.

jerlands wrote: ↑February 26th, 2018, 2:23 am Somewhere I know there lies dimension in our experience

I agree, and every circle of experience I unique. That does not mean, however, that we are obligated to accept relativism as a guiding principle.

People use drugs for a number of reasons, one of which is to explore their minds. Whether or not this is a good thing is questionable but I believe it a right people have.
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Steve3007 wrote: ↑February 26th, 2018, 2:54 pm My two penneth, for anyone who's interested:

I tried marijuana a bit in my youth. It was ok (apart from the paranoia), but the main thing I don't/didn't like about it, compared to wine, beer and gin & tonic, is the different social customs that seem to go with it. Drinking, for me, is associated with nice meals, cozy pubs with roaring fires, good conversation (Putting the world to rights: "This Brexit's a cockup init? Still, the Arsenal's doing well...") and some limited dancing. Maybe even a bit of karaoke if that's the way the evening seems to be going. It's part of the culture.

Marijuana, on the other hand, is (or at least was for me) associated with students sitting around in smoke filled rooms enraptured by the sound of the harpsichord in "Golden Brown" by The Stranglers or the deep poetry of Leonard Cohen lyrics. Great when you're a student but not so great for a middle-aged parent with a job to do. But maybe the culture is different now.

Getting blind drunk: similar thing. You do it a few times when you're a kid and then stick to middle-aged moderation.

Ah, you’re such the romantic.

Dark Matter wrote: ↑February 26th, 2018, 6:23 pm

Steve3007 wrote: ↑February 26th, 2018, 2:54 pm My two penneth, for anyone who's interested:

I tried marijuana a bit in my youth. It was ok (apart from the paranoia), but the main thing I don't/didn't like about it, compared to wine, beer and gin & tonic, is the different social customs that seem to go with it. Drinking, for me, is associated with nice meals, cozy pubs with roaring fires, good conversation (Putting the world to rights: "This Brexit's a cockup init? Still, the Arsenal's doing well...") and some limited dancing. Maybe even a bit of karaoke if that's the way the evening seems to be going. It's part of the culture.

Marijuana, on the other hand, is (or at least was for me) associated with students sitting around in smoke filled rooms enraptured by the sound of the harpsichord in "Golden Brown" by The Stranglers or the deep poetry of Leonard Cohen lyrics. Great when you're a student but not so great for a middle-aged parent with a job to do. But maybe the culture is different now.

Getting blind drunk: similar thing. You do it a few times when you're a kid and then stick to middle-aged moderation.

Ah, you’re such the romantic.

!

I see the booze culture as one of violence, recklessness and narrow-nindedness whereas the pot culture is more about pondering the kinds of topics consistently raised on this forum. It's enough of a cliché to be used in a number of movies, eg. The Dead Poet's Society and the conversation about the universe maybe being an atom in another universe.

Drugs, with their mind expanding qualities, have thus been a variably helpful or destructive part of the lives of many scientists (who are often more creative than people assume due to their rhetorical caution), artists, philosophers and the religious (entheogens).

Yet pot's role tended to be either helpful or neutral. Weed's greatest risk, and it is a significant one, is laziness and inaction. Booze, on the other hand, is famous for bringing social courage but it is also a hard drug that is far more destructive, and far less creatively useful, than pot.

However, this entirely depends on genetics and body chemistry. Some people simply become sleepy with one or the other drug and are virtually physically unable to consume them. For others, the drug will provide precisely the right chemicals, or kickstart a helpful or healing reaction, in the body. The law effectively rewards and punishes people for their body chemistry.

I actually owe young pot-head musicians my life. My mid-teens had left me thinking about suicide daily. Only pot-head musicians, their pot-head friends and queer people accepted me, as we toked and enjoyed being hypersensitised to the timbre and textures of music or talking about the meaning of life. Meanwhile, the respectable moral majority would plan ways of controlling and exploiting others.

Greta wrote:I see the booze culture as one of violence, recklessness and narrow-nindedness whereas the pot culture is more about pondering the kinds of topics consistently raised on this forum. It's enough of a cliché to be used in a number of movies, eg. The Dead Poet's Society and the conversation about the universe maybe being an atom in another universe.

Yes, the vision of people getting a bit high and discussing the meaning of life is a common one. I guess one thing that this shows is that our attitudes to things like booze and drugs are shaped to a large extent by our personal experiences of them.

With alcohol, there certainly is a culture of violence, recklessness and narrow-nindedness here too. But there's also a culture of local village pubs, a glass or two of good wine with a meal and all that. I suppose the fact that alcoholic drinks of various different kinds are so ubiquitous in our western cultures means there's bound to be various different, widely varying sub-cultures.

Yet pot's role tended to be either helpful or neutral. Weed's greatest risk, and it is a significant one, is laziness and inaction. Booze, on the other hand, is famous for bringing social courage but it is also a hard drug that is far more destructive, and far less creatively useful, than pot.

In moderation, the social courage brought on by alcohol can simply act to loosen people up in a good way - stimulating lively conversation. After that, for me, at least these days, it just makes me sleepy. But for some people it does seem to have a radically different effect, causing them to get violent and aggressive. Very different effects on different people, it seems. Same with cannabis. As I said, that often made me paranoid. I haven't smoked any for about 25 years so don't know what effect it would have now.

However, this entirely depends on genetics and body chemistry. Some people simply become sleepy with one or the other drug and are virtually physically unable to consume them. For others, the drug will provide precisely the right chemicals, or kickstart a helpful or healing reaction, in the body. The law effectively rewards and punishes people for their body chemistry.

Yes.

I actually owe young pot-head musicians my life. My mid-teens had left me thinking about suicide daily. Only pot-head musicians, their pot-head friends and queer people accepted me, as we toked and enjoyed being hypersensitised to the timbre and textures of music or talking about the meaning of life. Meanwhile, the respectable moral majority would plan ways of controlling and exploiting others.

Interesting. My own first experience of cannabis (in the form of resin, not weed) was when my future brother-in-law and a friend decided, as a kind of joke, to introduce me to it by doing hot-knives using a glass milk bottle with the bottom broken off it to inhale through, without telling me in advance what was going on. Ha ha.

Maybe that partly explains the paranoia?

After that, the main druggy types at University were, perhaps surprisingly, the slightly socially awkward physics students. Booze was more the domain of the humanities students. There was a big Archaeology department where I went to Uni (partly because it was York, where there's lots of archaeological history) and for some reason there was a massive excessive drinking culture among them. Possibly to relieve the boredom of having to endlessly dig out post-holes.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑February 27th, 2018, 7:03 am

Greta wrote:Yet pot's role tended to be either helpful or neutral. Weed's greatest risk, and it is a significant one, is laziness and inaction. Booze, on the other hand, is famous for bringing social courage but it is also a hard drug that is far more destructive, and far less creatively useful, than pot.

In moderation, the social courage brought on by alcohol can simply act to loosen people up in a good way - stimulating lively conversation. After that, for me, at least these days, it just makes me sleepy. But for some people it does seem to have a radically different effect, causing them to get violent and aggressive. Very different effects on different people, it seems. Same with cannabis. As I said, that often made me paranoid. I haven't smoked any for about 25 years so don't know what effect it would have now.

I remember the paranoia. That's long gone. Back then I had things to be paranoid about that age and experiences have sorted out. I think it's just sensitisation, which can be a worry if one is not used to being sensitised. Ultimately it's very easy to be do driven and in such a hurry with life that you miss most of the good bits, and that is where something like pot can be helpful in slowing them down to smell the roses. The issue, as abovementioned, is too much rose sniffing and not enough being done.

Steve3007 wrote:

Greta wrote:I actually owe young pot-head musicians my life. My mid-teens had left me thinking about suicide daily. Only pot-head musicians, their pot-head friends and queer people accepted me, as we toked and enjoyed being hypersensitised to the timbre and textures of music or talking about the meaning of life. Meanwhile, the respectable moral majority would plan ways of controlling and exploiting others.

Interesting. My own first experience of cannabis (in the form of resin, not weed) was when my future brother-in-law and a friend decided, as a kind of joke, to introduce me to it by doing hot-knives using a glass milk bottle with the bottom broken off it to inhale through, without telling me in advance what was going on. Ha ha.

Maybe that partly explains the paranoia?

After that, the main druggy types at University were, perhaps surprisingly, the slightly socially awkward physics students. Booze was more the domain of the humanities students. There was a big Archaeology department where I went to Uni (partly because it was York, where there's lots of archaeological history) and for some reason there was a massive excessive drinking culture among them. Possibly to relieve the boredom of having to endlessly dig out post-holes.

It only partly explains the paranoia. Most of it is unresolved stuff one is not keen to resolve ... Pot and also LSD can probe these areas, although the latter's paranoia - which is much more intense - drove me away about four decades ago. Yes, theoretical physics and pot are natural bedfellows - the nature of reality! It's a fine line since engineers, of course, are famous drinkers, although I knew a fellow studying electronic engineering who was enamoured with the concepts and he claimed to have spent most times in class, studying and during exams stoned.

The latter may seem reckless but memory is state dependent and, as a drinker, you will notice that when you are tanked you tend to remember all those old anecdotes of previous sessions. Whatever state you are in when studying is the ideal state to be in for exams. As for those in the humanities, they tend to have a strong social focus so it's not surprising that they gravitate to social lubricants. I worked with many in the humanities for years and, yes, the culture was definitely one of regular wine, beer and disgustingly unhealthy desserts (note that sugar also qualifies as a drug - with physical effects, physical harm caused, addiction and withdrawal).

A synthetic pot tale. I had a major project at work back in the way, with unfamiliar software foisted on me by IT's rollout, a tight deadline and political interest in the results. Alas, the SAP database was a mess because it was too expensive to fix. The raw report needed so much cleaning up I didn't even know where to start. For three days I fumbled, fidgeted and stressed in the office, failing to make any significant headway. The next day I had a smoke of Puff before leaving home as a stress relief. I'd purchased the Puff from the Happy Herb Shop, and it was a gentle synthetic weed that might have had some chance of being legalised if synthetic weed's reputation wasn't ruined by the harms of much stronger Kronic and K2 sold at tobacconists. (Note that the ethical hippy types at the HH Shop would not sell those heavy brands).

So I had a smoke and floated into the office, gathering my coffee, largely avoiding eye contact and conversation, and sat down with the report. Rather than panicking, I figured I might as well just go to the first error and go from there. Then I noticed relationships between the errors and that allowed me to run some batch processes that cleaned up thousands of problems in one stroke (with some severe checking afterwards, of course). By lunchtime I had broken the back of the report and was now ahead of time. I received plenty of kudos for grafting through a difficult report that would have defeated many - but I cheated by using performance enhancing drugs :)

Dark Matter wrote: ↑February 26th, 2018, 11:40 am

LuckyR wrote: ↑February 26th, 2018, 4:25 am Hhmmmm... name-calling and insults? Sounds like a mature winner with high interests to me.

In order to communicate one has to risk offending. What I called “immature” is just that; what I called “losers” are IMO just that; if your highest interest is finding offense in what somebody says because you disagree with them, don’t be surprised if they refer to you as something that easily melts down.

Sounds like a tired or inexperienced parent trying to pull rank on their kid who asks them a question that they either don't know the answer to or that they are too impatient to think about.

As to disagreement, that is besides the point. Separately from that, it is naturally humorous when a glass house dweller chooses to throw stones.

I do remember some bloke from mythology speaking about his relative issues with sins of the spirit and sins of the flesh. Yet his followers seem to largely focus on the latter. Does that make them immature losers or just more flawed humans?

LuckyR wrote: ↑March 1st, 2018, 12:23 pm

Dark Matter wrote: ↑February 26th, 2018, 11:40 am
In order to communicate one has to risk offending. What I called “immature” is just that; what I called “losers” are IMO just that; if your highest interest is finding offense in what somebody says because you disagree with them, don’t be surprised if they refer to you as something that easily melts down.

Sounds like a tired or inexperienced parent trying to pull rank on their kid who asks them a question that they either don't know the answer to or that they are too impatient to think about.

As to disagreement, that is besides the point. Separately from that, it is naturally humorous when a glass house dweller chooses to throw stones.

There was a question?

Greta wrote: ↑March 1st, 2018, 7:15 pm I do remember some bloke from mythology speaking about his relative issues with sins of the spirit and sins of the flesh. Yet his followers seem to largely focus on the latter. Does that make them immature losers or just more flawed humans?

If they have a meltdown because someone dares to express an honest opinion based on personal experience, it makes them the former.

Dark Matter wrote: ↑March 3rd, 2018, 2:11 am

Greta wrote: ↑March 1st, 2018, 7:15 pm I do remember some bloke from mythology speaking about his relative issues with sins of the spirit and sins of the flesh. Yet his followers seem to largely focus on the latter. Does that make them immature losers or just more flawed humans?

If they have a meltdown because someone dares to express an honest opinion based on personal experience, it makes them the former.

Who is giving an honest opinion based on personal experience? What personal experience? I haven't seen anyone melting down about that here, anyway.