Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : The Trump Presidency -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (69372)

5/2/2018 10:00:02 AM

From: koan

Respond to of 365755

I liked that, very introspective.

<<

Can you purify via this synthesis? If so, how so ... by chucking? You got any examples?

You have already said that you like Haidt. I think that the six foundations are a good synthesis, one example. I wouldn't use the word, purify. More like providing utility through de-cluttering and clarification. The foundations are easy to understand and work with.

So garbage is a sort of pollutant to the alpha thing.

I think that the Bible is a good example of clutter. (I won't call it garbage.) There are thousands upon thousands of loose bits in there, some of them contradictory, none of them arranged hierarchically. It's a collection of the alpha emanations of its various authors. The greatest utility I see in that arrangement is for those who want to do something to search out a particular bit, either consciously or unconsciously, to rationalize and enable the already chosen path. Which is not how moral choice is supposed to work.

As for those primal emanations, I don't know how valid they are in their natural state. I've written before about one of mine, the radish incident. When I was in the fifth grade we moved from an apartment to a house where I was given my own section of the garden as a learning experience. I got two packages of seeds, to the best of my recollection, radishes and zinnias, and planted them following the instructions on the packets. A while later the instructions said to thin the seedlings to some number of inches apart. I balked. Every instinct in me said that uprooting and discarding seedlings was horribly wrong. There they were with their little green faces to the sun wanting to live and fulfill their destinies and I would be killing them. I had a terrible time with that. Eventually I told myself not to be stupid and to grow up and do what needed to be done but I never really got over it. I didn't plant seeds again until a decade later when I planted gourds. I'm fond of interesting colors and shapes in nature. I have collections of shells and rocks and sand. So, when I planted the gourd seeds, I planted them far enough apart so that I wouldn't have to uproot any seedlings. I haven't grown anything from seed since.

I present that anecdote as an example of alpha emanations that may or may not be valid. Just because it feels wrong doesn't mean that it is wrong. Not until the thoughtful brain has had a crack at it and concurred.

To: Lane3 who wrote (69372)	5/2/2018 2:02:24 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 365755

Coincidentally, I was given the row of radishes as my first gardening responsibility... well except for some tomatoes when I was a toddler but I think my job was just picking some ripe ones. I didn't thin the radishes until it was pointed out that there was no other option, if I wanted fully grown and healthy radishes. By then I had baby radishes and I insisted upon fixing them in a dish with some lettuce. So every few days I would pull a bowl of them. It was way more work than I expected for the products produced but I enjoyed it immensely; I also found salt really helped. I learned to like radishes that summer... still do but without the salt. I am growing zinnias now for the first time. I started them in the house a couple of months ago but didn't transplant them soon enough so they are suffering some. I live at 9000 ft and it is snowing but the ground and air is warm so I've got my eye on the transplants and they seem ok. My kitchen and porch are covered with plants waiting to find their spot out on the property someplace. I love spring. >>>"I think that the Bible is a good example of clutter. (I won't call it garbage.) "<<< I don't know much about the Bible but from what I've read it is a collection of oral history, poetry, scriptural do's and don'ts, parables, literature and a smattering of mysticism. With regards to clutter, one guy summed it up saying something like, 'if you want to make it (the synthesis) useful, be the living bible, you know for the important things.' I think that was in regard to all the rebuking of the Pharisees who were considered the scholars and yet the worst hypocrites of ancient Jerusalem.