FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
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User ID: 1739
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1mo ago
Jesuits would deny the principle of sufficient reason? That's remarkable to me. I don't know much about Jesuit theology, but I would have thought...I mean, our choices are not ontologically simple enough to be brute facts.
The connection I saw was to the idea that God can see all possible outcomes, and His providence moves events in such a way that the choices He can predict we will make work towards His greater plan while preserving free will. That seems to fit well with Leibniz's thought, especially from this section of his Monadology:
Now as there are an infinity of possible universes in the ideas of God, and but one of them can exist, there must be a sufficient reason for the choice of God which determines him to select one rather than another.
And this reason is to be found only in the fitness or in the degree of perfection which these worlds possess, each possible thing having the right to claim existence in proportion to the perfection which it involves
It seems to me that the Dominican's primary objection is that God structuring the universe around our choices puts God subservient to man's decisions, in a sense. Which I don't really agree with, but I can understand the objection.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1mo ago
Thanks for that context. It really clarifies the Catholic Church's stance on this matter.
I agree wholeheartedly with the Jesuit's "middle knowledge" and it's neat to see an argument that seems to be a direct precursor to Leibniz's "best of all possible worlds" theodicy.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
2mo ago
It's a fair cop. I'll do better.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
4mo ago
Markets have proven to be very robust decentralized systems for allocating resources: if it is true that growth was higher before central banks started recession proofing, then there's an argument to be made that natural volatility is more optimal then our current level of volatility.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
4mo ago
That doesn't logically follow at all: that's like saying that if poison can be used as a weapon, then the antidote to poison is also a form of poison.
If someone uses their speech to overwhelm someone else's speech (for instance, if someone is giving a lecture and someone else starts screaming on a megaphone so that you can't hear them) then they're engaged is censorship. Their speech itself is not censorship, but the form they are presenting it in is censoring others.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
4mo ago
Silencing others is not speech, it's censorship.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
4mo ago
You don't get to decide what speech is or is not appropriate! That's the whole point! If you don't like it, put up your own poster: but what is or is not allowed to be said in the public square is not based on your opinions. That's the whole point of the 1st Amendment.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
4mo ago
If the posters are placed illegally, then yeah, you can tear them down. If they're not illegally posted, then tearing them down is suppressing the speech of fellow citizens, and you don't do that. It's un-American.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
4mo ago
Supernatural forces being more involved than today might make it easier to believe that a miracle had occurred: it wouldn't change the fact that you would understand it to be a miracle. It's not like Joseph thought to himself "Well, I guess sometimes women can have babies without having sex with anyone." He knew just the same as we do that that sort of thing doesn't happen, and that if it does happen it would be a miracle. A virgin birth violates as many assumptions about how the world works back then as it does today: in both cases the only explanation for such a thing occurring would be a miracle (that is to say, a violation of the natural order by an outside force).
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
7mo ago
I'm sure FlyingLionWithABook can pull up the full quote,
Speak of the devil, and he shall (eventually) appear!
People get from books the idea that if you have married the right person you may expect to go on "being in love" for ever. As a result, when they find they are not, they think this proves they have made a mistake and are entitled to a change—not realising that, when they have changed, the glamour will presently go out of the new love just as it went out of the old one. In this department of life, as in every other, thrills come at the beginning and do not last. The sort of thrill a boy has at the first idea of flying will not go on when he has joined the R.A.F. and is really learning to fly. The thrill you feel on first seeing some delightful place dies away when you really go to live there.
Does this mean it would be better not to learn to fly and not to live in the beautiful place? By no means. In both cases, if you go through with it, the dying away of the first thrill will be compensated for by a quieter and more lasting kind of interest. What is more (and I can hardly find words to tell you how important I think this), it is just the people who are ready to submit to the loss of the thrill and settle down to the sober interest, who are then most likely to meet new thrills in some quite different direction. The man who has learned to fly and becomes a good pilot will suddenly discover music; the man who has settled down to live in the beauty spot will discover gardening.
This is, I think, one little part of what Christ meant by saying that a thing will not really live unless it first dies. It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go—let it die away—go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow —and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life.
It is because so few people understand this that you find many middle-aged men and women maundering about their lost youth, at the very age when new horizons ought to be appearing and new doors opening all round them. It is much better fun to learn to swim than to go on endlessly (and hopelessly) trying to get back the feeling you had when you first went paddling as a small boy.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
8mo ago
Has Dr. Peterson officially converted?
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
8mo ago
I had a lot of fun with Cultist Simulator. The main thing I liked was how failed runs would continue into a narrative, which made the learning curve become thematic instead of frustrating. My first character find an eldritch book, tries to study it, goes mad (going mad being my first failure state). My second character works at the madhouse and learns some eldritch secrets from my first character, becomes a painter with a cult following (ha), a then goes mad. My third character, a layabout son of a gentryman, learns about the painter from his dying father who was a big fan of his paintings. He investigates and discovers the eldritch book and by this point I had learned enough to prevent him from going mad. He gathered a real cult, stole some artifacts, summoned monsters to attempt to kill plucky detectives, escaped conviction in the courts, and managed to transform himself into an immortal being of twisted flesh. Great success!
The game clearly expects you to fail a few times before you get your feet under you, and that really works. Delving into the secrets that men were not meant to know should be dangerous, with a high casualty rate.
I'll have to check out BOH. Thanks for the recommendation.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
8mo ago
I pulled the two pounds thing out of thin air, but I remember looking it up at some point and finding that there was some kind of limit to the amount of fat you can gain in a day. That limit may very well be how much you can stomach. There might also be a bottleneck in the number of calories the gut can absorb at once. On the other hand, I don't think excess blood sugars ever get peed out, so presumably if you had more sugars than the body could convert to glycogen and fat in a day then you might have hyperglycemia? Which is not good for the body. On the other hand, you never hear about non-diabetics eating themselves into dangerous levels of hyperglycemia, so there's got to be some mechanism that prevents that.
Realistically though I think you have the right of it: even if you tried its extremely difficult to eat an extra 7,000 calories in a day.
The pumpkins are good, but my absolute favorite is Reese's easter bunnies. I don't know what it is, but they are fantastic. I also like the Reese's nutcrackers and "holiday lights" that come out around Christmas time, they have a good chocolate to peanut butter ratio.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
I've written a few short stories and I used to have a blog, but over the last few years the only writing I do is commenting like this. I have some hope of doing some more substantial writing when my kids are older, but I don't plan on writing professionally.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
As someone who believes all human life is sacred (and who recognizes that, scientifically, a zygote is the first stage of human development and thus counts as a human life), I am opposed to IVF.
However, given that IVF is happening, I am in favor of the embryo with the highest chance of survival getting to try to be born first.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
Might have been better off going West instead of East. Eastern religions seem to float people down the stream of this particular blackpill, while the various forms of Christianity attempt to row against that current. Say what you will about Christianity, but it is very insistent that the self is real, and that our choices matter immensely (Calvinism aside).
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
My advice is given to someone who has expressed a desire to believe, but does not. I have no desire to be a "Progressivist".
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
Right now I mostly eat tomatoes in the form of homemade tomato sauce, onions in the form of cooking them up in sauces or burrito fillings, and that's about it. I mean, I'll eat other vegetables at restaurants and functions, but cooking at home that's pretty much it. Maybe once every couple of weeks I'll make fried rice, I throw some canned peas and carrots in that. If we're getting fancy I might put some canned green beans in a bowl as a side.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
I'm confused. Why would toilet training require showing my children other people's genitals? I'm genuinely confused here.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
They're the best I've found for poems online, but they're not great. It's laid out in a kind of confusing way, you have to poke around a bit before you can figure out where everything is. For example, if you search for a poet they bring you to a page with a long biography about them, and then at the very bottom all of the poems they have by that author in a grid format instead of a list. Annoying.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
Do you love it because you have experience with it and it works, or because it's theoretically the perfect solution? I may have to suggest it to my provider.
I made it a personal policy a year or so ago to never downvote anything that doesn't break the rules. Even if I absolutely hate it. It's a good, Motteian kind of policy to have. I think it's possible that there any many here, potentially newcomers, who just don't understand what etiquette is appropriate for the site. I wonder if there is an effective way to orient new users to the mores of the community? I'm not sure how it would be done, other then people generally making it known that downvoting someone is an ill-mannered faux pas in this community.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
18hr ago
I think it’s mostly funny because it’s kind of what you expected, but not right. Subverted expectations is the foundation of a lot of humor. Like with the Hook Hand meme, if you’re familiar with the urban legend then you expect the ending (she opens the door and sees a hook hanging off the handle) and instead of getting that you get a jumble of nonsense that contains all the elements you expected but in an order that makes them semantically meaningless. That surprise is funny to me.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
11d ago
Actually, Christian observance in America reached a new high in the postwar era. The height of weekly church attendance in America was in the 1950s.
No atheists in foxholes indeed.
I'm not sure that my view is incompatible with libertarian free will? I believe a summarized definition of libertarian free will is that an agent is able to take more than one possible course. And I agree with that! I think we are able to make multiple choices. I also know that we only ever make one choice: from the perspective of someone looking back from the end of time, all the choices have been made and cannot be changed. And of course the choices we make are informed solely by our character, history, and circumstances (how could they be informed by anything else?). But I don't think the fact that we will make one choice, means we were not able to make another choice, just that we chose not to make those choices.
Honestly, any discussion of free will that goes too deep inevitably makes my head start to spin. I wouldn't consider myself a compatibilist, but then again I never really understood the compatibilist position so it's possible I am one and don't know it.
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