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Topic: Chicken soup for the philosopher. (Read 3249 times) |
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Blunderov
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Chicken soup for the philosopher.
« on: 2006-09-20 05:29:27 » |
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[Blunderov] I found this rather reassuring on the subject of cognitive dissonance, even if it does seem to recommend taking comfort in the sufferings of others. My feeling is that the "others" can take comfort in mine too, which seems at least fair, if not completely ideal.
Might it ever be possible to achieve a zen-like state of pure non-dissonance? Not this side of death is my guess.
http://www.amherst.edu/askphilosophers/
Question about Logic, Ethics (Oliver Leaman responds):
I have a few friends who are professional philosophers and who recognize the strength of arguments for vegetarianism, who say they don´t have counter arguments but still don't turn vegetarian. Is rational argument really persuasive? Or can't Mark Rowlands ever convince Roger Scruton that hunting is immoral? What is the authority of moral reasoning? Is there something one can do through reason to persuade the sensible knave?
[OL] I have friends who are convinced that one should always tell the truth and yet do not do so, and librarians are familiar with the phenomenon that books on ethics seem to disappear with greater frequency than on many other topics. It is one thing to be convinced by an argument, and quite another to make that fact of personal relevance to your life.
This is not just a feature of morality, it occurs also in areas like sport, where we often know what we ought to do to score when taking a penality kick, for instance, but don't, for one reason or another. And that is the essence of the issue, other reasons intervene, such as our habits, who we are with, what image of ourselves we wish to project, and they overcome our reasoning on occasion.
The world would be much more boring were this not to be the case, of course, since it is in the contrast here between what we want to do and what we know we ought to do that so much of the pleasure of being alive rests.
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Hermit
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Re:Chicken soup for the philosopher.
« Reply #1 on: 2006-09-20 13:28:53 » |
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I have many arguments against vegetarianism. The nutritional ones are unarguable. The balance are unexeptional.
Like any other common or garden omnivore, we evolved to eat whatever was handy whenever it is handy, but, like most species which have discovered the delights of ripping warm flesh from reluctant bones, we gave up on a large number of slow digestive paths in order to improve our mobility. So we can't digest cellulose. More relevant to this argument, we have a hard time extracting iron from anything but meat, and we can't synthesize vitamin B12 from plants. Many vegetarians avoid the worst symptoms of dietary deficiency through obtaining traces of needed nutrients from fecal and insect contamination of their food (although contaminated food brings other challenges with it). When this is absent, they become aneamic, suffer brain damage, and in extreme cases, die.
Infants fed by lactating vegetarians usually suffer measurable brain damage due to B12 deficiency. Depending on the kind of vegetarian, they almost certainly miss amino acids, vitimins, minerals and proteins needed for "normal" cognitive function (taunting a vegetarian is a good way to discover this as one of the symptoms is lousy temper control) as well as effective immune system functionality (there are many aspects of the immune system, some critical, which are dependent on high protein levels) which shows up in the probability that the vegetarians you know are much more likely to get a cold than us flesh chewers and while we are more likely to die of cardio related causes, they are more likely to succumb to certain types of tumors.
Declining to eat meat, while it may have appeal to certain weak-kneed philosophers, denies what we are and what we need in order to thrive. While it is frequently true that denial of our more brutish instincts (rape, murder, grabbing etc.) results in a much "nicer" human, much more suited to living in troops, in this case it is a self-denying and self-harming practice. And yet, according to the preceding article, some philosophers advocate it as what "we ought to do." Clearly dishonest and stupid as well as life threatening advice is not solely the realm of the religious. Perhaps it is something they didn't eat.
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:Chicken soup for the philosopher.
« Reply #2 on: 2006-09-20 16:04:31 » |
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[Blunderov] Hermit, I recall that you produced a post on the dangers of vegetarianism a few years ago. It was so resounding that I printed it and showed it around from time to time when the subject came up. I've got it some where but my study is in a little turmoil at the moment so I can't locate it right now. It was a great help to me at the time I recall.
In a more general sense though, it's maddening to observe myself often not doing the things I really weyken I should be. I suppose one should try to prioritise. Smoking in my case. This really is doing something stupid on purpose.
Grrr.
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Hermit
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Re:Chicken soup for the philosopher.
« Reply #3 on: 2006-09-20 17:39:35 » |
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[Blunderov] Smoking in my case. This really is doing something stupid on purpose.
[Hermit]
Tell me about it. I started smoking when I was around 12 - stopped only well past 40.
Being in a climate (political and environmental) where outside can become pretty miserable in winter and where many places don't allow smoking inside makes it easier. But for what it is worth, here is the recipe which I think helped me and definitely helped others.
Speaking from experience, it is much easier if you switch from cigarettes to a pipe before stopping. Create a whole "tea ceremony" around smoking your pipe - especially keeping your combustibles away from where you are, so that you have to make an effort to go and smoke. Keep your combustibles in a difficult-to-port-about-with-you kind of a box, the nicer the better. Use matches to light a candle to light a taper to get it burning nicely. Use a pipe tool to load, tamp and scrape the pipe. Use pipe cleaners to keep the pipe clean and keep one in the stem when it is not in use to help absorb oils. Practice slowing down before smoking so that you can thoroughly enjoy it. If you are, as I was, a heavy coffee drinker, try to combine pipe smoking and coffee drinking into the same ceremony. By building a ceremony, it is much easier to break the nasty habit, because losing any step in the process can make it much more difficult for the mind to insist that it is absolutely necessary to smoke.
After a few months of that, scatter cigarettes and matches or lighter everywhere (so you can tell yourself that you can have one if you have to) and just stop cold. Remember that the physical addiction is broken after 3 days. Which doesn't take a long time to reach. After the first few hours you have established a break which you can keep reminding yourself would be a pity to spoil. Three days later the physical addiction should be dealt with, and the much longer, slower wrestling with the psychological is "all" that is left. Go to a dentist and pay for having your teeth cleaned really well. This helps enormously in avoiding lapses (and feels wonderful). Brush your teeth a lot. Practice sitting quietly and achieving the same degree of relaxation as you had before without smoking. If you take sugar in your coffee, cut that from your coffee at the same time as you stop smoking, and substitute bottled water for the coffee you don't drink any more. You will find that stopping smoking and decreasing coffee intake balance each other out.
Try to walk more, as you will almost certainly put on weight when you stop smoking, but the more you walk, the more you will enjoy it too. From then on, avoid cigarettes and environments where you would normally have smoked. If you have to smoke again (e.g. high stress induction) only do so with cigarettes and try not to inhale.
When I stopped, I told myself that I couldn't claim to have beaten the addiction unless I could continue to enjoy a cigar when I felt like it. I did that every 6 to 9 months afterwards, and even today, might still do so if the opportunity arises. I even managed to join a friend and smoked a cigarette - once, just to prove to myself that it was possible - without re-addicting. It was much easier than I thought as I had forgotten how vile cigarettes taste unless you are used to them. The terrible taste is auto-inoculating.
Best of luck
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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the.bricoleur
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making sense of change
 
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Re:Chicken soup for the philosopher.
« Reply #4 on: 2006-09-21 06:42:52 » |
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Quote from: Blunderov on 2006-09-20 16:04:31
[Blunderov] Hermit, I recall that you produced a post on the dangers of vegetarianism a few years ago. It was so resounding that I printed it and showed it around from time to time when the subject came up. I've got it some where but my study is in a little turmoil at the moment so I can't locate it right now. It was a great help to me at the time I recall. |
[iolo] I weyken that the article you mention is the following:
The Myths of Vegetarianism by Stephen Byrnes, ND, RNCP
Please correct me if I am wrong Hermit. And, if I may request any further resources that you have at your disposal on the subject – they would be greatly appreciated.
Interestingly, I placed the above article under the nose of an irate vegetarian a few years ago …
… she retorted by dismissing it as misinformation from someone who is obviously in the pay of the meat industry… where have I heard that argument before? 
- iolo … who has thankfully never become addicted to nicotine.
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:Chicken soup for the philosopher.
« Reply #5 on: 2006-09-23 09:23:18 » |
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Quote from: Iolo Morganwg on 2006-09-21 06:42:52
[Blunderov] Now that order has been restored in the provinces I can confirm that it is same source.
27 February 2002 14:05
L' Ermit
Eliminating myths - being definitive.
My Britannica claims that "recent studies" have cast doubts on some of this. My dentition disbelieves it.
Best regards.
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Hermit
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Re:Chicken soup for the philosopher.
« Reply #6 on: 2006-09-23 15:04:35 » |
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Contrary to popular rumor, that series of articles remains a great deal more definitive than the bulk of what is pushed by the vegemunity. There is much worse news to come for them. Many people pushing vegetarianism also like soy. While it has a little GE hysteria in it, the article at http://www.mindbodyhealth.com/avoidsoy.htm makes for some seriously worrying reading for anyone who has used or advocated soy. I personally would take their advice seriously and avoid soy completely. Particularly when combined with http://www.aquarianonline.com/Wellness/soy.html which contains information which I have checked and found accurate.
In another look at the consequences of vegetarianism, the decidedly pro-vege book at http://www.bhj.org/books/diets/chap1.htm, contains a number of horrible immune system implications in Chapter 18 , where my reading is that the asserted conclusion at the end of the chapter is pretty clearly at variance with the information provided within it.
The moral of the story is that "if the great Jub-Jub hadn't meant us to eat people, he wouldn't have made us of meat" :-)
Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Chicken soup for the philosopher.
« Reply #8 on: 2006-09-23 22:14:41 » |
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Blunderov having "outed" the source of my quotation, below follows the full lyrics, courtesy of http://www.thurb.com/humour/cannibal.htm (I only found the much better site, http://nyanko.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/fas afterwards), [flat] notes interjected by me. Having said that, these are songs which really should be heard, not just read. The "musical accompaniment" (banging on the piano in this instance) was clever, clever beyond what was usual, even in an age which, in comparison to ours, produced many scintillating works. Notice also the line I have highlighted. It is the kind of brilliant throw-away which permeates their work. Michael (aka (and received letters as) "Mick Flan, England"), wrote the words, narrated and played the part of the Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief. Donald (who "orchestrated, frustrated and flagellated them" [said in unrecorded but well remembered conversation]) sang the part of his "reluctant" son.
Blunderov kindly pointed people to an Amazon URL for Flanders & Swann's works, which I have slightly adapted* to give a few pennies to the CoV if anyone buys a copy, using this link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000006T4S/thechurchofvirusA . Let me add an introduction and recommendation to that, given that if you don't know their work, you should :-)
Flanders and Swann. Both now deceased.
*Sniff*. Both were great people.
Flanders and Swann have remained my favorite bloody clever duo of all time since I first heard them (long before I started to shave, wherin lies another story). My life would have been poorer (and significantly different) if I had never met them, first through recordings, later in real life. Today my delight in their music (and what a tragedy there is so little of it) remains untempered. The closest to them I have found, at least in wit and wordplay, is Tom Leher (whose music is quite delightful too; but who is, to his no doubt unbounded delight, still alive); but while Tom's words are a joy, there is a certain generational-transcendental effervescence to Flanders & Swann that remains unmatched by any other musicians of my aquaintance.
Hypatia has already learned some of the delights of F&S with "Pee, pooh, belly, bum, drawers" (to the tune - almost - of the "Banana Boat Song"), "The Hippopotamus Song"(wherein in the introduction occured a little chess lore to make Blunderov smile), "The Happy Song" and of course, "A transport of delight" (wherein, in the intro here, "our farrago" is sadly mistranscribed as "out forago"). For all of the above Hypatia cheerfully belts out the chorus on little provocation and a mere passing familiarity. Leher's humor being a little more subtle and his music more complex, he will keep untill Hypatia is a somewhat older.
F&S don't just overcome generation barriers but also defeat nationality and language obstacles. The Hermitess was captivated when I introduced her to these "national treasures", and she drove around listening to their three CDs for long enough to learn the words back when her English was not nearly as good as it is today - and greatly enjoyed them anyway. She was kind enough to notice that Donald's Russian accent was "almost perfect", I wish he'd lived long enough for me to introduce her to him, he would undoubtedly have chortled.
Kind Regards
Hermit
The Reluctant Cannibal
by Flanders & Swann, circa 1956
[Michael Flanders] Sorry about the language. It is justified, I think, don't you? We thought that after that we ought to take you somewhere warmer, to the Tropics, a song which we have entitled by way of compliment to the management: The Reluctant Cannibal.
[Thump! Thump! etc]
[Father (spoken over the sound of drumming (Donald thumping the piano))] Seated one day at the tom-tom, I heard a welcome shout from the kitchens: “Come and get it!”
[Thump! Thump! etc]
[Father (spoken)] Roast leg of insurance salesman.
[Thump! Thump!]
[Father (spoken)] A chorus of yums ran round the table. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.... Except for Junior, who pushed away his shell, got up from his log, and said, “I don't want any part of it.”
[Father] What? Why not?
[Junior] I don't eat people
[Father] Eh?
[Junior] I won't eat people
[Father] Huh?
[Junior] I don't eat people
[Father] I must be going deaf
[Junior] Eating people is wrong
[Father] It's wrong?
[Junior] Don't eat people
[Father] Have you gone clean out of your mind?
[Junior] I won't eat people
[Father] What's the matter with the lad?
[Junior] Don't eat people
[Father] He keeps on repeating
[Father] Eating people is bad
[Father (spoken transitions to song)] But people have always eaten people, what else is there to eat? If the juju had meant us not to eat people, he wouldn't have made us of meat.
[Junior] Don't eat people
[Father] Oh no, not again
[Junior] I won't eat people
[Father] All the day long
[Junior] Don't eat people
[Father] He keeps on repeating
[Junior] Eating people is wrong
[Father (spoken)] Well, I've never heard of a more ridiculous idea in all my born days. To think that a son of mine should grow up to be a sissy... Me, chief assistant to the assistant chief. I suppose you realise, son, if this was to get around we might never get self-government.
[Junior] I won't eat people!
[Father (spoken)] Have you been talking to one of your mothers again? You're not getting to be one of these cranks that thinks that eating people is cruel, are you, you see a man sitting in a pot and think he's suffering? Oh, it's not like that at all. Why, he's just had an invigorating chase through the forest. He's sitting there in the nice warm water, with all the carrots and dumplings and things, he's thinking “Oh, the pleasure and happiness I'm going to give to a whole heap of people”, that man in the pot there, he enjoys it.
[Junior] Eating people is wrong!
[Father (spoken)] Look, son, son, I admire your sincerity, always be sincere, whether you mean it or not. You're young, when you're young, you think you can change the whole world overnight, even eating people, I know, I've been young myself. Take it from your old dad, you've just got to learn to take the world as it is.
[Junior (spoken emphatically!)] I won't let another man pass my lips!
[Father (spoken)] I know why you say “Don't eat people”, because you are a coward, Francis, that's your trouble, yes, a yellow-livered coward. You wouldn't mind eating people if you weren't afraid of ending up in the pot yourself. How despicable. Go on like this and you're liable to get me into hot water.
[Junior] I won't eat people!
[Father] That's enough!
[Junior] I don't eat people!
[Father] I don't want to...
[Junior] Eating people is wrong!
[Father (spoken)] Communist!
[Father (spoken transition to song at end)] Going around saying “don't eat people”, that's the way to make people hate you! We always have eaten people, always will eat people — You Can't Change Human Nature.
[Junior] I won't eat people!
[Junior] I don't eat people!
[Junior] I won't eat people!
[Junior] I don't eat people!
[Junior] I won't eat people!
[Father (spoken)] It must be someone he ate
[Junior (spoken)] Eating people is out!
[Father (spoken)] I give up. I give up. You used to be a regular anthropophagi. If this crazy idealistic idea of yours was to catch on, I just don't know where we would all be. It would just about ruin our entire internal economy. Fortunately, I suppose its catching on isn't very likely. Why, you might just as well go around saying “don't fight people”, for example...
[Junior (spoken)] Don't fight people? Ha ha! (Both convulsed with laughter)
[Father (spoken)] Oh, that's my boy.
[Father/Junior (In chorus)] Ridiculous!
*Always worthwhile turning an Amazon reference into a CoV link if you have the time. Look at the Amazon page, to find the ISBN or ASIN number, then give the link as Code:| [url]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ISBN here/thechurchofvirusA[/url] |
, replacing "ISBN link here" with the appropriate information, e.g. Code:| [url]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000006T4S/thechurchofvirusA[/url] |
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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Re:Chicken soup for the philosopher.
« Reply #9 on: 2006-09-24 13:38:17 » |
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Quote from: Hermit on 2006-09-23 15:04:35
[Blunderov] Startlingly so. Gather round femnists.
In South Africa, soy based medications can be bought over the counter as an alternative to doctor prescribed hormone replacement therapies. They are promoted as effective, safe, "natural" (whatever that means) medications. Herbal, like.
(Well, I've asked the Politburo to make certain that she does not get these. She has undertaken to consider the matter.)
Is this allowed in other countries? Or are we being sold yet another 3rd world pup?Judging from the article which the Hermit very kindly and most timeously presented, my guess is that this practice is widespread.
ISTM that there need to be measures taken in this regard.
And they are even putting it in the bread? This really is very shocking.
Wow.
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Hermit
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Re:Chicken soup for the philosopher.
« Reply #10 on: 2006-09-24 18:26:36 » |
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It seems to me that it is a global phenomenon.
Idiots are everywhere.
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:Chicken soup for the philosopher.
« Reply #11 on: 2006-12-05 15:20:51 » |
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Quote from: Hermit on 2006-09-20 17:39:35
[Blunderov] Smoking in my case. This really is doing something stupid on purpose.
[Hermit]
Tell me about it. I started smoking when I was around 12 - stopped only well past 40...
When I stopped, I told myself that I couldn't claim to have beaten the addiction unless I could continue to enjoy a cigar when I felt like it. I did that every 6 to 9 months afterwards, and even today, might still do so if the opportunity arises. I even managed to join a friend and smoked a cigarette - once, just to prove to myself that it was possible - without re-addicting. It was much easier than I thought as I had forgotten how vile cigarettes taste unless you are used to them. The terrible taste is auto-inoculating.
Best of luck
Hermit
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[Blunderov] The after dinner cigar was my downfall last time. I agree in principle with confronting the addiction. I can do this with alchohol now - very, very occasionally one single malt and that's it; I'm done. Nicotine is more pernicious for me.
But I'm two days into it now. A little NRT, but that was also a mistake last time out I now recognize - I simply replaced one with the other. Did save my lungs some though. This time I'm going to get away clean. Hammering the gym now and loving it - 70 bpm trance on the headphones and endorphin city here I come.
Still need that luck the Hermit wished me though. The magic 3 days is nearly here tho' and the worst will be over. <grits teeth>
I'm hoping my concentration will return sometime soon too, wandering all over the place
like a sailor on shore leave... must be all this oxygen.
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Hermit
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Re:Chicken soup for the philosopher.
« Reply #12 on: 2006-12-06 09:20:37 » |
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((( Thinking of you )))
The mind fog does eventually clear, but it may take a few weeks rather than days.
Be well
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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David Lucifer
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Enlighten me.
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Re:Chicken soup for the philosopher.
« Reply #14 on: 2006-12-07 20:21:41 » |
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While I currently have no inclination to become a vegetarian I find Hermit's arguments against it unconvincing. Surely any dietary defficiency can be compensated with appropriate supplements? I bet I already get enough iron and B12 solely from my daily multi-vitamin. Am I missing something?
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