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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   3767 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 7, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Wait, if there are four unique essences, why do you call it triessentialism?

Anyway. I believe there’s a categorical difference between “not seeking, actively denying, killing those who seek” something. Those are the meaningful groups, not umbrella terms like “maximizer” or even “agent.”

Worrying that (insert political party) will go too far in service of its goals…that’s got to be one of the oldest arguments in politics.

The three unique essences in Triessentialism are The Physical, The Logical, and The Emotional. They deal with reality, truth, and value (good/toward vs. bad/away from); change, ordering, and incentives is another perspective on these, as is The What, The How, and The Why.

Science, philosophy, and psychology are fields concerned with pairs of essences: truth and reality, values and truth, and reality and values, respectively. Morality/ethics is the combination of all three, the uniquely human realm in which choices interact with other choices. Draw up a Venn diagram of three intersecting circles, the moral view of the world is at its center.

The value categories of experiences, utility, and esteem are all morally valuable things people can choose to seek for, and so the very choice to seek things of value does itself have value. We can call this choosing by several names: freedom, choice, control, interface, power, reach, and so on. It is valuable enough that people are willing to give up their very lives just to have the assurance of having a freedom they possibly will never have to use. Thus I class it as the fourth of the three categories of value.

Wait, if there are four unique essences, why do you call it triessentialism?

Why is the book called The Three Musketeers if there are four of them?

It’s been a while, but isn’t one of them the narrator?

IIRC, for most of the book D'Artagnan is a guard under the command of Desessart, rather than a musketeer under the command of de Treville (like Athos, Porthos, and Aramis), but he does eventually get a transfer.

That is correct. There are only three musketeers, until the very end.

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