Re: OT: totally off-topic

D <nospam@example.net> writes:

On Fri, 21 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
>

What is this about? Maybe I should make a note of that text.

>
That's a conversation David Bohm held with an audience (in California,
if I recall correctly).  The book is a transcription of the
conversation.  In those dialogs, David Bohm tries to convey what he
means by a ``dialogue''.  While an intellectual discussion is typically
a subtle fight, as Jiddu Krishnamurti (David Bohm's friend) would
describe, Bohm's dialogue is a certain construction among two or more
people in which /listening/ (in the Krishamurti's sense) is key.
>
I believe it was in an interview that David Bohm gave to Professor
Wilkins---which was an interview meant to write a biography of David
Bohm, which I believe never happened---that David Bohm remarked and
pretty much nobody had ever understood his notion of dialogue, and that
made it even more interesting because it suggests that it has a certain
subtleness that could be escaping people---and then I wonder if it
escaped me too.

>
Sounds a bit like Jürgen Habermas and his ideal dialogues.

I need to look this guy up.  I hope I remember to do it before I send
this article.  I'm began my offline mode.  So now I can't look stuff up
and can't lose myself in a web of tangents.

Do you know what type of people gets off on tangents most easily?
Schizophrenics (of a certain kind).  (I believe they would be the
paranoid schizophrenics.)  So, the more you get off on tangents, the
closer you are to the diagnostic. :P Embrace offline mode and keep your
sanity.

By the way, if I were mildly inclined to the same, I could likely be
there myself.  When they moved in, they threw various parties and
invited me to them all.  I had lots of chances to blend in, but I
couldn't, really: I don't drink; I don't stay up all the night; what I

>
Haha, well, sounds like you probably did yourself a favour. I am
fascinated! In sweden, it would be exceptionally rare that any
neighbour would be invited.

>
I see a lot of neighbors here that don't get along.  I am probably a

>
Ahh... sounds more normal! ;) In my current apartment, the community
is either non-existent or nuts. I don't like them, and therefore I am
selling the apartment.

Not an unwise decision.  But the wises decision is to buy a house.  An
apartment is like living together with strange people, except that you
have a very nice room (that comes with a kitchen inside) that gives you
a good sense of privacy.  (But you have none.)

In the other 2 places I have apartments, I do like the community! 66%
goodness!  ;)

Dude, 66% is no good. :)

I probably shouldn't tell your this, but I looooove Mc Donalds
hamburgers! ;) My wife forbids me from eating them too often, so I'm
probably at about 9 per year or so. ;)

>
Lol!  Here's a sermon made specially for... Lol.  Just kidding.  To tell
you the truth, I kinda like it a lot, too.  Now, one thing is true---it

>
I mean, come on... who doesn't? ;)

Lol.  Those who were not raised eating it.  Cheddar McMelt is my
favorite.  The most beautiful girl I ever dated was hungry one day and
she wanted to stop by McDonalds.  We did it.  It was lunch time but I
wasn't hungry---because I didn't think I had enough money for McDonalds
(and I would still get home for lunch).  She bought a Cheddar McMelt.
She asked me if I wanted some.  I said no.  She reserved a bite for me
that she called the best part.  I still refused. :( I think I was 15.
Not having enough money put me in a tough position there.  I couldn't
admit it.  I had never eaten a Cheddar McMelt 'til then.  I never
thought I would like it.  Many years later I tried it out.  It's all I
eat now when I go there---once every 5 years?

indulged in it perhaps eating McDonald's every day, along with ice
cream, coffee and other terrible ideas.  Thank God I'm got out of that
alive.  These days, gluten hits me pretty bad.  It still tastes good,
but it doesn't after the food starts taking its effect.  I didn't feel
like that in my teens, but after I started quitting all of this bad
stuff, I can't seem to go back to it at all.

>
Interesting. I have also noted more weird feelings in my stomach as
I've gotten older. I wonder, is it age? When I was young I could eat
and drink anything and never get a weird feeling in my stomach.

I think ``age'' just means ``lost some health''.  There's some evidence
that the body has a certain tolerance for things.  You lose that
tolerance when you abuse it.  If you stop the abuse, that tolerance is
built again (as much as possible?).

This is the good tolerance.  People use the word tolerance for a bad
kind---such as being alcohol tolerant the more you drink.  Perhaps the
body finds a way to throwing alcohol away when the volume is high?  If I
drank a lot of coffee and noticed that after some point, more caffeine
almost seems like doing nothing---perhaps just keeping the level at the
highest?

Loud? Southern europeans are loud by my standard, so if they are loud
by your standards, then they must be _really_ loud! I once had a
brazilian colleague from Sao Paolo for 2 months, and he was a really
nice guy. But once he had some fellow brazilians over and the volume
did increase. =)

>
Lol.  Sorry about that! :)

>
No worries... it is very interesting to note these differences between
cultures.  =)

It was more like a joke---I'm apologizing on behalf of my countrymen.
Surely it's not my responsibility that my countrymen are not very
polite. :) (Except that it is because they're all humans.) 

It turns out I identify myself very little with Brazilians.  But I think
the problem is not Brazil.  I think I just identify myself with a type
of people that could be called intelligent.  Not intellectuals; not
mathematicians, say; not academics.  I don't think I have any connection
with these people.  But some are really intelligent and I do seem to
admire them.  I identify myself with many poor people with no
instruction.  Some can be very intelligent and very compassionate.
Above all, I identify myself with people with vigor, passion and energy.

He sounds like he would be right at home in northern europe. No fun
there unless alcohol is in involved.

>
Yeah---I suppose there might be cultures out there that drink a lot more
than Brazilians.  I don't think Brazilians do too bad, but it's been
getting worse.  There's an Americanization of the food industry here.
Brazilians are going in on it.  I remember over 10 years ago seeing on
TV that over 52% of Brazil is overweight.  That was unthinkable in the
70s or the 80s, say.

>
That's horrible! =(
>
But I think it is a global phenomenon.

I agree.

I think our increasingly sedentary lifestyles are to blame as well as
the mindset of instant gratification which makes people want to
achieve things with the minimum amount of energy necessary.
>
I also think this ties in with the fertility crisis we spoke of
before.

Yeah---the experts always include nutrition in their hypotheses.

I am lucky! I do not like to exercise, but my wife forces me to. ;)

Doesn't sound like fun.  If you take a half hour walk each day, you
should probably be good. 

I've reached a routine I've been looking for for a long time.  I wanted
to bike to the beach, walk and swim.  I was swimming in a gym pool.
It's not very good for me: the chlorine water doesn't feel right at all.
Sea water, on the other hand, is ideal.  I live in a part of the town
that's elevated.  When I bike to the beach, I must go down.  Coming back
is not easy.

Hah... I'll take the challenge! ;) I agree, objectively speaking,
that there is no reason.

>
No reason?  I think there is reason. :)

>
But can you prove it, objectively?

>
Objectively?  You mean kinda like a proof that the whole world with
stand in awe, like beautiful math proofs like Godel's Theorems?  I
believe I can't and likely wouldn't work on trying.  Why should I do

>
What a shame! =(

I think it's a relief. :)

I think proofs are just constructions.  In math, for example, their role
is quite clear.  I don't even know what it would mean to prove that
there is reason.  I think there's reason because we seem to be doing
some stuff here that we decide to call reason and then, evidently, it
exists in the sense that we conclude it does and move on.

>
You do sound like a philosopher to me! ;)

Lol.  I should probably take that as a compliment.  On a more serious
tone, I'd ask what is a philosopher to you.

Or, another out, is the way of definition.  Depending on your
definitions, it could of course be "made" objective. The question is
then if I accept the definitions or not. =)

>
So you seem to think that a proof is something like too hard to
resist---like a math proof.  I believe I don't think like that.  A proof
to me is a joint work between a writer and a reader.  If the reader that
catch the spirit, there is no proof.

>
Based on a recent conversation, there can be proof, as in math, and
evidence, as in empirical science. Since philosophy is not about
empiricism, I'd say proof is probably it. There is of course a new
branch of philosophy called practical philosophy, but to me, it seems
more like a closet branch of sociology or psychology.

I had never heard of practical philosophy.

If someone /rejects/ an axiom I came up with or a definition I wrote,
then there's likely little friendship there.  Friendship exists when
people go along with you without judgment.  Rejecting /or accepting/
anything is judgment, which is not friendship.  When someone proposes me
anything, I look at it without accepting it or rejecting it.  (Unless
I'm a really bad mood!)

>
There is a theory of truth called the consensus theory of
truth. Sounds as if that might be what you are thinking about?

No.  Certainly not.  I have nothing to do with consensus.  Truth should
have nothing to do with consensus.  We can easily imagine an outrageous
group denying obvious facts.

I'm quite okay with the keeping ``truth'' undefined.  I may have some
idea in my mind that I think it's totally true.  Perhaps I can't get you
to assert the same.  So what?  Does that keep in doubt?  So?  I can't
see any problem with living life with a little doubt.  Every now and
then it's a good idea to hang a question mark on those things we've
taken for granted.  (Have you located where Russell said this?  I can't
even be sure it was him.)

Agreed! But boy have I had endless email discussions with people who
reject the proof of their senses.

>
Excessive refinement in thinking?  They want a kind of super assured
certainty?  I think that's a waste of time.  It's not a waste of time to

>
So do I. In 2500 years no such thing has been found, so I am quite
happy and content to accept what my senses tell me. ;)

Our senses also do make mistakes.  And some things can't come directly
from the senses---what we see in a microscope, for example.

Even ``senses'' is a complicated word.  I met someone at the beach last
Saturday.  It's a person who lives very far from the beach---another
town.  For about a year and half, I've been thinking about (as I walk on
the beach as I always do) that I could someday meet that person by
chance on that beach.  But, of course, this is just fantasy because it
nearly makes no sense.  So, after my Saturday surprise, I was thinking
to myself---omg, how weird!  Do the things I imagine come true or is
this imagination a kind of premonition?  (Or just coincidence?)

This is not the first time this happens.  But many of the other past
coincidences (such as this one), I have been able to explain in a
special way, which I have been calling long-range planning.  I can spend
years imagining a certain situation (a little bit every now and then)
and then I end up putting myself in a position where I can live that
imagined situation.  I could then claim to have materialized that
situation or that somehow my imagination was having a glimpse of the
future.  But I actually call that long-range planning. 

But the beach event of last Saturday seems very much outside of my
control.  The most I could do is to always go to beach, which in fact I
have been doing lately...  Still...  It still feels totally outside my
control.

care for your math proofs, say, or removing bugs from your programs and
so on.  But rejecting the senses as in I don't know if really exist or
I'm being fooled by an evil genius?  I think that's excessive thinking.
That's when thought escapes from the leash.

>
Agreed! That is why I do not care much for interpretations of quantum
theory as well. Plenty of thoughts escaping from the leash there, and
plenty of useless (in my opinion) speculation.

The case of quantum mechanics is a necessary one, though.  Yeah, surely
there's a lot of imagination there, but I think that's part of science.
Quantum mechanics is giving us great philosophical problems.  It's a
very hard read, but to see them all you could skim a quantum theory book
by descant.  Interpretation of quantum mechanics force us to make up
our minds about how we want to see the world.  The fun thing is no
matter which perspective we take, they're all problematic.

I did a lot of good, of course, but his theories about dream
interpretation and the psyche I think are no longer relevant. On the
other hand, I am not a psychologist, so who am I to say? =)

>
Most psychologist are so full of nonsense that being one wouldn't help
you here. :) I haven't read The Interpretation of Dreams, but I really
would like to do it.  The book could be wildly wrong, but notice that
nobody seems to have made any advances since then anyhow.

>
I find the Dodo effect quite facsinating. It says that it is not the
school of psychology that makes a difference in therapy, but only the
person.

I had never heard of it and I can't look up anything right now, but it
makes perfect sense to me.  The inner is the outer.  What a person lives
in the outside is a reflection of you'd find on the inside.  A
therapist, like any intelligent person, can be of help, but you can't
put your life in order if you are not able to find order where you
should be looking.

A beg your pardon?  I'm not sure what you mean, but I think I agree.  A
counterfactual is something that goes against the facts.  Surely.  I
could never deny that 1 + 1 = 2, say.  I can't even ignore evidence.  I
don't mind leaving questions open at all.  Every now and then it's a
good idea to hang a question mark on all those things we've long taken
for granted.  (Is that Bertrand Russell again?)

>
Not quite. Counterfactuals are questions such as... "imagine you ate
an apple this morning, would that mean that later in the day you
would have a stomach ache". So when those types of thought
experiments are not made with the intention of high lighting
something tangible or empirically provable, I find them to be
useless idle speculation. That's what I was trying to get at.

>
Oh, I see.  We're in total agreement.  I think counterfactual
propositions are useless distractions.

>
Excellent! There has been a meeting of minds! ;)

This is the USENET.  We could be yelling at each other for an entire
year.  Instead, we do something completely different.  We're weird.  And
we don't even use our real names.  Our friendship can't leave the
USENET.