Quote of the day

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iambiguous
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Re: Quote of the day

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Siddhartha Mukherjee

Cancer was not disorganized chromosomal chaos. It was organized chromosomal chaos.


God in other words. Now all we have to do is to prove that He exists so He can explain why.

If we define "beauty" as having blue eyes (and only blue eyes), then we will, indeed, find a "gene for beauty." If we define "intelligence" as the performance on only one kind of test, then we will, indeed, find a "gene for intelligence." The genome is only a mirror for the breadth or narrowness of human imagination.

Gotta love those defintions!

Like musicians, like mathematicians—like elite athletes—scientists peak early and dwindle fast. It isn’t creativity that fades, but stamina: science is an endurance sport. To produce that single illuminating experiment, a thousand nonilluminating experiments have to be sent into the trash; it is battle between nature and nerve.

Next up: an illuminating post.

In 2005, a man diagnosed with multiple myeloma asked me if he would be alive to watch his daughter graduate from high school in a few months. In 2009, bound to a wheelchair, he watched his daughter graduate from college. The wheelchair had nothing to do with his cancer. The man had fallen down while coaching his youngest son's baseball team.

Clearly another one of God's miracles. Right?

Three profoundly destabilizing scientific ideas ricochet through the twentieth century, trisecting it into three unequal parts: the atom, the byte, the gene.

Or four when we include dasein.

Cancer's life is a recapitulation of the body's life, its existence a pathological mirror of our own.

Next up: the pathological God.
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Re: Quote of the day

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Philosophy Tweets

“Schools serve the same social functions as prisons and mental institutions---to define, classify, control people.” Michel Foucault


Though, sure, for some, with the very best of intentions.

"We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap." Kurt Vonnegut

Or too damned capitalist.

“Are the prisons overpopulated, or is the population over-imprisoned?” Michel Foucault

Yes.

"I was making my mind as blank as possible, you see, since the past was so embarrassing and the future so terrifying." Kurt Vonnegut

Sure, for a couple minutes -- or, okay, hours -- perhaps.

“Another Christian concept, no less crazy, has passed even more deeply into the tissue of modernity: the concept of the 'equality of souls before God.' This concept furnishes the prototype of all theories of equal rights..." Friedrich Nietzsche

And we know where that takes us...

“Democracy represents the disbelief in all great men and in all elite societies: everybody is everybody else's equal, 'At bottom we are all herd and mob.'" Friedrich Nietzsche

And we know where that takes us...
https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora
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iambiguous
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Re: Quote of the day

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Eric Hoffer

There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.


Clever enough for you?

The enemy—the indispensible devil of every mass movement—is omnipresent. He plots both outside and inside the ranks of the faithful. It is his voice that speaks through the mouth of the dissenter, and the deviationists are his stooges. If anything goes wrong within the movement, it is his doing.

Trust me: practice makes perfect.

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.

See, I told you.

We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.

Like you being absolutely certain about me.

It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.

And how truly pathetic is that?

There is perhaps no surer way of infecting ourselves with virulent hatred toward a person than by doing him a grave injustice.

The human condition let's call. Perhaps?
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Re: Quote of the day

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The Onion

Increasingly Anxious Man Worried Order Confirmation Email Never Going To Come


No, this is now actually a real thing.

Elderly Woman Relieved To Know She’s Tackled Last Technological Advancement Of Lifetime

You know, before oblivion itself. Well, not counting the possiblitly of technological advancements in Heaven of course.

Man Credits Great Kissing Skills To Growing Up With Lots Of Sisters

Yo, Nancy!

7-Year-Old Apparently Under Impression Everyone Knows Who The Fuck Aunt Dee-Dee Is

Uh, humor her?

Man Given 3 Months To Live Throws In One Or Two Non-Sexual Things To Do

The fool!

Nation’s Female Joggers Know They Will One Day Be Assaulted, Buried In Woods

One near you, alas.
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Re: Quote of the day

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Virginia Woolf from The Waves

I need silence, and to be alone and to go out, and to save one hour to consider what has happened to my world, what death has done to my world.


An hour at least.

On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.

To the cause for example.

I have made up thousands of stories; I have filled innumerable notebooks with phrases to be used when I have found the true story, the one story to which all these phrases refer. But I have never yet found the story.

Unless, of course, that's the story.

The moment was all; the moment was enough.

Nope, none so far.

But for pain words are lacking.

Actually, you can borrow mine.

These moments of escape are not to be despised. They come too seldom.

I call them distractions, he said, and they come all the time.
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Re: Quote of the day

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Existential Comics

If this site goes down my last tweet will be revealing which of you I secretly hate.


Same here, of course. Well, if it is of course, of course.

When you think about it, it just makes sense for Elon Musk to own this website. Who better to run Twitter than a narcissistic moron?

Got a few of them here, don't we?

All the people saying they are going to leave twitter are in for a shock when they discover every other website also totally sucks.

What, even ours?!!
[I won't go there if you won't]

If I see someone driving a Telsa I will be making assumptions about them. A lot of assumptions.

He means Tesla, of course. How embarrassing. Even for a Communist.

No one wants to admit it but the real problem with modern philosophy is that all the good ideas have basically already been thought of.

Not counting the small "d" dasein of course.

I don't get the controversy around Marvel movies, I mean...they are obviously stupid trash movies that say nothing at best. It's fine to like them or whatever but come on, be real.

No, as a matter of fact, he snorted, it is not okay to like them.
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Re: Quote of the day

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Sean Carroll

If you believe that the atoms that are inside your brain and your body act differently because they are in a living person than if they were in a rock or a crystal, then what you're saying is that the laws of physics are wrong.


Oh well, so much for free will.

Biologists Robert Sapolsky and Lisa Share studied a group of Kenyan baboons who fed off the garbage from a nearby tourist lodge. The clan was dominated by high-status males, and females and lesser males would often go hungry. Then at one point, the clan ate infected meat from the garbage dump, which led to the deaths of most of the dominant males. Afterward, the “personality” of the troop completely changed: individuals were less aggressive, more likely to groom one another, and more egalitarian. This behavior persisted as long as the study continued, for over a decade.

Memes > genes?

Each day, the moon’s gravitational field tugs at the earth as it rotates underneath. At CERN, this tiny stress caused the total length of the LEP tunnel to stretch and contract by about a millimeter (one-twenty-fifth of an inch) every day. Not such a big deal in a seventeen-mile-long beam pipe, but enough to cause a tiny fluctuation in the energy of the electrons and positrons—one that was easily detectable by the high-precision instruments. After some initial puzzlement at the daily energy variations, the CERN physicists quickly figured out what was going on.

Hmm. Remember back when the human race lived in caves...grunting for communication.

Meaning in life can’t be reduced to simplistic mottos. In some number of years I will be dead; some memory of my time here on Earth may linger, but I won’t be around to savor it. With that in mind, what kind of life is worth living?

Meaningless enough for you?

All lives are different, and some face hardships that others will never know. But we all share the same universe, the same laws of nature, and the same fundamental task of creating meaning and of mattering for ourselves and those around us in the brief amount of time we have in the world. Three billion heartbeats. The clock is ticking.

Actually, it's closer to 2.5 billion. But point taken.

The enigma at the heart of quantum reality can be summed up in a single motto: what we see when we look at the world seems to be fundamentally different from what actually is.

Next up: quantum morality.
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Re: Quote of the day

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The Onion

Report: World's Lone Non-Telepathic Individual Still Completely Unaware


Hmm. I wonder if that might be me.

Rock Apparently Factors Into Girlfriend’s Shower Routine

Wrapped in a towel, say.

Trump Disappointed After Holocaust Denier Tells Him Holocaust Never Happened

Time for another one perhaps?

Child Who Just Lost Balloon Begins Lifelong Battle With Depression

One of these though: https://www.google.com/search?source=un ... =615&dpr=1

FDA Warns Tying Penis Into Knot Only Prevents 73% Of Pregnancies

And only then if it's long enough, Satyr.
Note to MagsJ:
Did I get that right?
:lol:

Study Finds Plants Communicate Using Underground Network Of Spies

Ours and theirs.
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Re: Quote of the day

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Emil M. Cioran from The Trouble with Being Born

I react like everyone else, even like those I most despise; but I make up for it by deploring every action I commit, good or bad.


This might surprise some, but I wouldn't go that far.

I am for the most part so convinced that everything is lacking in basis, consequence, justification, that if someone dared to contradict me, even the man I most admire, he would seem to me a charlatan or a fool.

This might surprise some, but I wouldn't go that far.

If I used to ask myself, over a coffin: “What good did it do the occupant to be born?”, I now put the same question about anyone alive.

And thus the expression, "you need to get laid" was born.

Having destroyed all my connections, burned my bridges, I should feel a certain freedom, and in fact I do. One so intense I am afraid to rejoice in it.

I'll never stop rejoicing in it myself.

If we could sleep twenty-four hours a day, we would soon return to the primordial slime, the beatitude of that perfect torpor before Genesis---the dream of every consciousness sick of itself.

Pure poetry!

If death had only negative aspects, dying would be an unmanageable action.

Kind of let's say.
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Re: Quote of the day

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The Onion

Man Hopes No One Can Tell He’s Bald Under Full Head Of Hair


Next up: the wife's merkin.

So-Called Christian Has Erection

The shame!

Career-Driven Man Beginning To Worry Entire Identity No Longer Tied To Job

The Horror!

Woman Embraces Holiday Spirit By Telling Strangers She Doesn’t Speak To Her Family

The postmodern holiday spirit let's call it.

Herschel Walker Quietly Asking Around For D.C. Abortion Clinic Recommendations

A bit premature though, isn't it?

God Releases New Peppermint-Flavored Chipmunks For The Holidays

Well, His ways are mysterious, aren't they?
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Re: Quote of the day

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Albert Camus from The Stranger

That's all for today, Monsieur Antichrist.


Of course, that's up to him isn't it?

How did I picture the life after the grave?
I fairly bawled out at him: 'A life in which I can remember this life on earth. That's all I want of it.'


As opposed to oblivion, say.

Well, then I'll die. Sooner than other people, obviously. But everybody knows that life isn't worth living. And when it came down to it, I wasn't unaware of the fact that it doesn't matter very much whether you die at thirty or at seventy since, in either case, other men and women will naturally go on living, for thousands of years even. Nothing was plainer, in fact. It was still only me who was dying, whether it was now or in twenty years' time.

Ah, of course: the philosophical death.

Marie came that evening and asked me if I'd marry her. I said I didn't mind; if she was keen on it, we'd get married. Then she
asked me again if I loved her. I replied, much as before, that her question meant nothing or next to nothing--but I supposed I didn't.

'If that's how you feel,' she said, 'why marry me?'

I explained that it had no importance really, but, if it would give her pleasure, we could get married right away. I pointed out that, anyhow, the suggestion came from her; as for me, I'd merely said, 'Yes.'
Then she remarked that marriage was a serious matter. To which I answered: 'No.'
She kept silent after that, staring at me in a curious way. Then she asked:
'Suppose another girl had asked you to marry her--I mean, a girl you liked in the same way as you like me--would you have said 'Yes' to her, too?'

'Naturally.'

Then she said she wondered if she really loved me or not. I, of course, couldn't enlighten her as to that. And, after another silence, she murmured something about my being 'a queer fellow.' 'And I daresay that's why I love you,' she added. 'But maybe that's why one day I'll come to hate you.'


Well, it's not The Stranger for nothing.

So the thing that bothered me most was that the condemned man had to hope the machine would work the first time.

That it not be, say, a "cruel and unusual" death.

Then she said she wondered if she really loved me or not. I, of course, couldn't enlighten her as to that. And, after another silence, she murmured something about my being "a queer fellow." "And I daresay that's why I love you," she added. "But maybe that's why one day I'll come to hate you."

Love and Human Remains: https://youtu.be/bwFjQrK5iLI
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Re: Quote of the day

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Milan Kundera from The Unbearable Lightness of Being

He suddenly recalled from Plato's Symposium: People were hermaphrodites until God split then in two, and now all the halves wander the world over seeking one another. Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.


:lol:
For starters.

The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful...

That takes me back. Way back.

...she loved to walk down the street with a book under her arm. It had the same significance for her as an elegant cane for the dandy a century ago. It differentiated her from others.

On the other hand, he insisted, what book in particular? Atlas Shrugged? The Bible? Das Capital? The Magus?

And therein lies the whole of man's plight. Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.

Eternally as it were.

I want you to be weak. As weak as I am.

On the other hand: "I know you don't like weak women/You get bored so quick/And you don't like strong women/'Cause they're hip to your tricks"

...loves are like empires: when the idea they are founded on crumbles, they, too, fade away.

On the idea of love itself, for example.
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Re: Quote of the day

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Philosophy Tweets

"Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men." Plato


If [here] only up in the clouds of intellectual contraptions.

“I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” Lewis Carroll

Well, that and the physics.

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." Lewis Carroll

You know, like winding up here.

"Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle." Lewis Carroll

Unless of course you're a pinhead.

"I am not young enough to know everything." Oscar Wilde

Unless of course you're a pinhead.

"The public has an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing." Oscar Wilde

Wow, that would include us!
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Re: Quote of the day

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Sylvia Plath from The Bell Jar

I didn't know shorthand either.

This meant I couldn't get a good job after college. My mother kept telling me nobody wanted a plain English major. But an English major who knew shorthand would be something else again. Everybody would want her. She would be in demand among all the up-and-coming young men and she would transcribe letter after thrilling letter.

The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any way. I wanted to dictate my own thrilling letters.


Next up: a plain philosophy major.

“What do you have in mind after you graduate?"

What I always thought I had in mind was getting some big scholarship to graduate school or a grant to study all over Europe, and then I thought I'd be a professor and write books of poems or write books of poems and be an editor of some sort. Usually I had these plans on the tip of my tongue.

"I don't really know," I heard myself say. I felt a deep shock, hearing myself say that, because the minute I said it, I knew it was true.”


That ever happen to you?

I felt the first man I slept with must be intelligent, so I could respect him.

If only that had been me, he mused.

The bell jar hung, suspended, a few feet above my head.

Again, in other words.

What a man wants is a mate and what a woman wants is infinite security.

Next up: the sex part.

I thought it sounded just like the sort of drug a man would invent. Here was a woman in terrible pain, obviously feeling every bit of it or she wouldn't groan like that, and she would go straight home and start another baby, because the drug would make her forget how bad the pain had been, when all the time, in some secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor or pain was waiting to open up and shut her in again.

Any men here?
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Re: Quote of the day

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Philosophy Tweets

"Life is life --- whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man's own advantage." Sri Aurobindo


I'll never cease to be amazed that human beings are actually able to believe things like this!

"I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship." Louisa May Alcott

Trsut me: there are storms and then there are storms.

"If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants." David Ogilvy

Okay, but what's the company selling?

"The most common form of despair is not being who you are." Soren Kierkegaard

Not even in my own top ten. As, no doubt, you might well imagine.

"The crowd is untruth." Soren Kierkegaard

Well, their crowd, anyway.

"A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth." Aesop

Next up: the buffoon.
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