Posts by Elizabeth Ruiz65

Nancy Brown11 said:It honestly feels like Liq has no clue what I’m saying, what I'm asking, or even who I am or why I'm talking to him... at least that's my take! Not even worth flagging a moderator about it...

And why is that? Did I misread something, or do you simply have no
answer? Or perhaps you don't know how to respond, so you're trying to dodge the issue by claiming I
misinterpreted your point? Besides, how exactly are you deciding what merits a response and what
doesn't? 🤷 Regarding my original questions, my first goal was to
clarify what wasn't making sense in your post, and my second was to confirm whether my
interpretation actually hit the mark. But fine, have it your way; I'll allow for the possibility that
you aren't even sure what you wrote, which makes it pretty difficult for you to explain the
issue to me. When you think about it, that actually aligns perfectly with the post-structuralist
notion regarding the death of the author. 🙂

Nancy Brown11 said:Let me clear this up:

Libet expected conscious intent to show up before the brain's motor areas even started firing, but he found the exact opposite. That decision to act actually arrives nearly a full second after the motor regions begin prepping for movement. Your CONTROVERSIAL PART brain has already made its subconscious call to move, and you only catch wind of it once the action is already underway
.
There’s zero proof that what I marked red
in the paragraph above is actually what pulled the trigger on that decision!
Basically, there isn't any hard evidence that this "unconscious thing is the primary driver (deciding) for the action (that the action happens
)" in a physical, brain-based way.
The proof for that claim is missing because there’s no guarantee that an unconscious process—wherever it lives—has to be a physical brain function! Even so, the post just glosses over this unproven assumption, treating it like a proven fact. Then, based on that same shaky ground, they start "drawing conclusions" and "building models," eventually pivoting away from actual science toward pure "gut feeling" or common sense.

Is that claim, which gets presented as so convincing later on, actually convincing? Not to me. I don't see why a brain would bother doing something like that—what biological or material benefit could it possibly get from creating the illusion that "it wasn't me"? It would be way more efficient if everything just worked exactly as intended without trying to create these "impressions"—which would be much more impressive (much more impressive, if we follow the logic that everything is just the brain, as LIQ definitely thinks)! So, it turns out that what the post calls most "striking" is actually the least striking thing ever, and I'm not even exaggerating. It might be the easiest pill to swallow, but there’s really no good reason to serve up such nonsense or buy into it.

Secondly, the whole "voluntary" choice to move your hand and hook yourself up to electrodes just so someone can record data and draw conclusions speaks volumes about how "methodologically sound" any interpretation of this experiment really is.

So, they used common sense to jump both ways (like skipping over the question of "why does the unconscious *have* to be brain-based"). They skipped that part because people who are easily swayed by media spin often fail to realize that talking about free will isn't stifled by finding the unconscious; if anything, it makes the whole debate even wilder!

And there isn't even proof that the brain hadn't already CONSCIOUSLY decided to perform the task before those preparatory signals even started. Someone could have decided to do something, forgotten they even made the choice right before they did it, and then only realized it as they were starting. In other words, we can't rule out that possibility, and any decent psychiatrist knows (and teaches) that these kinds of "quirks" and "glitches" are totally normal parts of everyday life for "sane" people.

And how exactly is free will being liberated by clinging
to your notion that the unconscious isn't rooted in physical brain matter?

Elizabeth Ruiz65 said:There is no proof that before the brain prepared for an action, a person hadn't already made a conscious decision to act, only to forget that very decision right before starting to announce it—assuming they even felt the urge to announce it at all. In other words, there is no evidence to disprove that possibility.

So, are you suggesting our entire existence potentially functions within
a perpetual loop of: a) conscious decision-making, b) an inevitable amnesia regarding
that conscious choice (for reasons unknown), c) a subconscious
preparation for the decided action, and d) the eventual execution of that original
choice, which then feels as though it was never actually
consciously experienced or decided in the first place? 🤷

Joseph Rodriguez9 said:I don't mean to offend anyone, but I honestly don't think this qualifies as philosophy. It feels more like a failed attempt at some sort of manufactured "wisdom."

So, you can either point out exactly where you see their potential downfall,
so they might actually use your brilliant insights to climb out of the gutter, or
you could stop mocking their failed attempts at "wisdom" and instead offer a successful version
of your own.

Otherwise, you're standing on the exact same level as the people you're criticizing—if not lower—
by egoistically assuming a higher ground without actually contributing anything
to justify staying there.

"Quote:"

Matthew Ortiz said:

I don't even know what to say anymore. Just total nonsense. Matthew Ortiz says:
Some hits just leave you scarred for life. 😉

Exactly. We’re all obsessed with this idea of being "natural," yet we try to force ourselves into this perpetual state of spring—always happy, always perfect, always "good." Our culture loves to publicly crucify anyone who makes a mistake or acts out, but let's be real: most people aren't actually good; they're just terrified of being canceled by society. If you've never messed up, you're probably just an idiot who hasn't learned anything yet.

Althusser, is that you? 😁

Basically, yeah, some guy once said that ideology works by... Subjectivity through subjugation. The whole concept is about how you're simultaneously being subjugated and turned into a subject. Ideology is basically the glue holding an entire culture together, but ideas aren't actually where it starts—they're the end goal. You have these ideological apparatuses, like a church, that use specific rituals and practices to shape people into certain roles, like "believers," which then eventually produces the ideas themselves, like "faith." As Pascal once said: Get on your knees, fold your hands, and just have some faith! Practice and ritual are what actually turn an idea into reality. It's like Brecht said—people don't cry because someone died; they cry because they're at the funeral. 😉

The whole point of Althusser’s theory is that we aren't "made" into subjects—we're born as them. We don't become; we just are. Even before you've taken your first breath, the role is already set: they've already picked out the pink or blue blankets and decided on a name. You can't wiggle out of this kind of subjectification; it's baked into the system. Ideology basically tricks us into mistaking a total illusion for reality, which brings us right back to that Freudian idea of culture being one big delusion. Or, if you want to get Picasso with it, it's that perfect illusion of order within pure chaos. 😉).

Name and identity are tied to this whole concept of interpellation—basically, being called into existence. It’s how a subject gets summoned. Take that classic example where a cop on a street corner yells, "Hey, you!" As soon as we spin around, we become the subject (we're the "you"), but we also immediately submit to the ideology behind it (since he has the authority to call us out). subjectivity and subjugation. Exactly. It’s the same deal when someone knocks on your door and says, "It's me." We immediately give them our name and let them in, basically handing over our identity. There are two well-known mechanisms at play there too.

Is the term "performative" actually valid if we look at it through a linguistic lens? In an Althusserian sense, sure. And then you've got Austin's take on it... Speech act theory. Statements fall into two camps: constatives, which just state facts that are either true or false, and performatives. Performatives actually carry out an action just by being said. Think about a priest baptizing a baby, or someone saying "I do" at a wedding, or even a starter yelling "Go!" to kick off a race. But you can't just anyone shout whatever they want and expect it to work; there are four specific conditions that have to be met. First off, there’s the one-time nature of it—you can't start the same race five different times (unless we're talking about false starts). 😁To pull off a performative, you need seriousness, the right context—like a formal agreement or a competition—and the right authority. You can't just have anyone officiating a wedding or calling a race to start. Then you have implicit performatives, like promises, requests, oaths, or threats. In those cases, one of those four pillars is missing, usually the seriousness or the official authority, which makes them more about targeting the listener rather than actually changing reality.

So, now Judith Butler takes this idea of performativity and argues that naming is basically an act of identity construction. We’re constantly surrounded by others who leave traces on our bodies—traces that the body remembers. They steer our behavior without us even realizing it (kind of like how identifying with someone else in a Freudian topographical model involves transference; you identify with a higher instance like a father or God, which subconsciously dictates your actions—that higher instance being the Other). Because of this naming and these external traces (which overlap and repeat, calling out to and identifying the subject), the subject is never truly sovereign. External forces strip us of that sovereignty by labeling you as a girl or a boy, effectively stripping the subject of control over both biological sex and social gender. This ties back to Lacan, too, since that mentioned "name of the father" drives a child to enter language in an attempt to become an object of maternal desire. We only really become human once we adopt language, which brings us back to that Heideggerian idea of language being the "house of being." If we master speech as an articulation of understanding, we move closer to the laws of language, which are directly linked to the laws of being (everyone has their own struggle, moving from I am being beinged to I am being; shifting from subject to object requires grasping the false density of anonymous existence and our determination within the World).

You could also bring in Foucault's regimes here—specifically those so-called heterotopias, where society isolates whatever is "different." That difference has to be quarantined, much like a biological body isolates a pathogen via the immune system. Similarly, the social body isolates the "other" and triggers its defense mechanisms: those who don't fit in or pose a threat to the culture get tucked away in mental hospitals, prisons, and the like. The reaction from the "cultured" is a mix of disgust and fear of that otherness. But language is essentially a system of differences; as Saussure noted, something is what it is because of what it is *not*. It's all metaphysical oppositions and structuralist binaries. Derrida defines it such that one part of an opposition only gains identity through the absent "other" that defines it in its presence. Nature exists because it isn't culture; language exists because it isn't speech—and the weaker member of an asymmetrical opposition is just the stronger member's shadow on the path to itself.

Butler builds on this systematization, arguing that the norms distinguishing humans from non-humans (think of Said's concept of Orientalism—where Westerners could only define themselves as human by casting the East as slaves, monsters, or subhuman) are just constructs. These boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable, or right and wrong, aren't fixed or self-evident axioms; they shift over time. We need to push them so those outside the lines can finally be seen as human and avoid being destroyed. But there's a catch: by shifting the norms, we risk pushing ourselves outside the boundaries and threatening the lives of those whose existence relies on those very rules. (If we fight for gay equality and shift the boundary, maybe tomorrow, I don't know, blue-eyed people 😁 will be cast out—and what if I'm blue-eyed? Just my luck.)

It would all be great and wonderful if Althusser hadn't screwed everything up by killing his wife. 😁

Solid post. You’ve connected the dots well, though I suspect plenty of people would take issue with several of your points.
Anything else to add? Perhaps a debate on whether this approach is actually legitimate, or maybe some more granular detail?
Let me expand on that insight. Since I'm a bit pressed for time, I think I'll stick to a more polemical approach.
Looking back at your mention of Judith Butler, I have to say that brings up a fair amount of controversy for me.

So, you're talking about her and how she’s basically hijacking the whole concept of performativity as an act.
The construction of identity—which she then immediately pivots toward discussing the concept of alienation.
How does one define a subject through the sheer impossibility of governing gender or sex? And more importantly, how exactly do you concretize that process?
First, it’s biological, and second, it’s social. Honestly, it's just a tired, overused dichotomy.
If we look at feminist theory—not just as a broad category, but as a specific intellectual lineage—it’s easy to trace its roots directly back to the framework established by Simone de Beauvoir.
Simone de Beauvoir, whom Butler takes such a specific aim at—it really comes down to the fact that...
When you bring up performativity in the context of identity formation, aren't we really just circling back to what Butler argues in her work?
The way "Gender Trouble" tackles the actual construction of gender identity is pretty significant, especially when you consider how...
Their whole performance relies on this idea that they’re retroactively constructing themselves through the very act of existing.
The supposed dimension of sex—those biological traits that are claimed to precede gender identity in the first place?

In other words, sex doesn't dictate gender; rather, gender precedes sex and constructs it as such.
How does gender serve to obscure the actual process of constructing sex, specifically when that construction is aimed at legitimizing it?
The concept of a gender-neutral antecedent—to put it another way, the idea that assembly itself functions as a subversion...
By presenting through presentation, one constructs something previously non-existent just so
it can be falsely framed as if it preceded the act itself. In this way, gender is portrayed
as an inherent, predetermined category; consequently, Butler follows a distinctly Marxian, Nietzschean, and
Foucauldian path to propose a genealogy of how gender identities are realized, alongside the socio-
cultural components and power regimes that facilitate such constructions—thereby bypassing
those tired, classic debates between essentialism and constructivism that she views as overly
reductive.

By invoking Nietzsche, she leans directly on his insights from "On the Genealogy of Morals"
regarding the absence of a subject behind the deed (where the deed becomes everything, retroactively creating the illusion
of a subject) to develop the performative dimension of identity, while also pointing
toward the broader origins of the concept within the framework of speech acts established by Austin.

Nicole Barrett76 said:Is a man or woman who is inherently indifferent to everything truly a good partner? In my estimation, they are not. Such individuals usually prefer nothing more than to lounge around in front of a flickering television or a radio.

I would gladly toss both that person and their television into a distant galaxy! How on earth can anyone be so utterly, completely disinterested in everything?!

You imply twice that they actually enjoy sitting there in front of a TV or a radio, yet
you end by acting shocked that they have zero interests. I wouldn't ask for much, but maybe a tiny bit of
consistency 😁

fadedbison17 said:What's your deal, following my posts around just to twist my words and talk nonsense...? Seriously annoying.
Just a heads up—I've put you on my ignore list. Honestly, I'd rather just toss a grenade at ya... 😛

Edward Flores4 said:That right there? That’s what I call objective fanaticism. 😁

🤣

Linda Hughes88 said:maybe try explaining that in plain English......

Elizabeth Ruiz65 said:It’s essentially a logical fallacy—assigning universal weight
to a single statement that lacks any corroborating evidence, effectively attempting to diagnose
an isolated moment in time and space as some sort of absolute truth. .

now try to wrap your head around that, using the example mentioned earlier......

Based on how they phrased it:

David Bennett53 said:While some of what you mentioned are actual needs, things like oil and technological progress feel more like imposed requirements. Oil, for instance, is an imposition by massive energy conglomerates like ExxonMobil; they’ve basically engineered a global dependency to ensure their own profits, making it part of our very fabric—from fuel and heating to plastics and medicine...

As for progress, that's a deep philosophical question. I guess the world could function at a different level of development if everything were managed on a local, community scale. In that scenario, energy, food, and basic welfare would be produced right where they are used.

There would likely be far less theft and violence, too. But the issue remains the imposition of values by corporate overlords; the world essentially functions as one giant corporation. These companies have seized almost everything, including the ability for individuals to produce their own food or power.

Wars might be necessary, but perhaps not for us, but rather for the global corporate machine which can't sustain itself—let alone expand—without them.

...it doesn't follow that they are:

Linda Hughes88 said:Wars started with corporations.

This is just a logical fallacy born from assigning
eternal significance to a statement that really just looks like an attempt to diagnose a specific moment in time and space.

I don't have the bandwidth to dive deep into this fascinating thread; I just wanted to ask
why, in the following paragraph:

nobody and nothing said:So, Heraclitus would be at fault because Hegel misinterpreted him, which led to Marx misinterpreting Hegel, followed by Lenin misinterpreting Marx, and there you have it. All because of Heraclitus.

...talks about misinterpretation? For instance, Marx didn't criticize Hegel for being wrong, but rather for how he placed the dialectical
journey of the spirit within the sphere of the absolute in an idealistic manner—essentially suggesting
that one simply needs to wait for this spiritual journey
to unfold on its own, thereby undermining the necessity of human agency (praxis)
to bring it to fruition. Consequently, Marx flips Hegel on his head, stripping
his system of revealing the spirit as a divine consciousness from celestial realms and instead
redefines it within secular frameworks, viewing a communist society
as the final stage of this spirit's development—a stage that won't occur through mere
waiting, but exclusively through the uprising of the proletariat. This isn't a matter of a "misinterpretation" of
Hegel, but rather a fundamental disagreement with certain idealistic premises
within the Hegelian philosophical system, which Marx explicitly states in several places.
The same logic applies to the relationship between Heraclitus-Hegel and Marxist-Leninist ideology -> depending on one's own
interests, intuitions, and affinities, certain ideas are accepted while
others are rejected. Therefore, it seems to me that the claim itself is a misinterpretation: the idea that a misinterpretation is what is actually occurring.
Where a genuine case of misinterpretation comes to mind, for example, is in the way
Sartrean thought interprets Heidegger as a humanist, despite the latter's explicit warnings against such a reading.

Setting aside that specific point, regarding this chain of who misinterpreted whom,
why is there an underlying assumption that Heraclitus's thought was originally his own?
Who can truly say what influences he was under before he even
formulated these specific propositions?

bluetiger13 said:I've met a ton of people, and honestly—I wouldn't even touch a 1-to-10 rating system if I were in an evaluator's shoes. It’s just not that simple. To be real, I haven't run into anyone truly brilliant yet—it's like they don't even exist.

So, in your estimation, what actually constitutes a truly intelligent person?

I had a random thought today, a sort of reformulation of that
Einstein's quote about those two infinite things—the universe and human stupidity.

The thing is, if the quote leaves open the possibility that human intelligence is actually limited,
then maybe both the universe and human stupidity are finite too. We just call them
infinite simply because our own limited intellect isn't quite capable enough
to actually figure out where their boundaries lie.

When you watch a movie, you don't cry. You aren't allowed to show any of those emotions typical of the common masses. When you watch a film, you analyze it meticulously.

This feels like a paraphrased version of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle:
if you want to avoid being a snob, you have to mindlessly consume whatever is
served up to you, but if you actually care about deep analysis and
deciphering the subtext encoded in a film, you’re automatically labeled a snob.

It's impossible to be both a non-snob and a meticulous analyst at the same time.

Fascinating, really..

www.gigapedia.org -> sign up to browse the site's content;

Taking a quick look at the site, I noticed they have four complete
Habermas works available for download, along with an entire collection of high-quality papers centered on Habermas himself.

Robin Taylor2 said:To begin with:
Personally, I think you overlooked one key detail in your analysis.
Antonioni opens the film.
Is there anything more predictable than the sudden surge of youthful anarchism that seems to reject absolutely everything? It’s become this repetitive cycle where every new generation decides that opposing the entire establishment is their primary personality trait. Why does it always feel like they’re just rebelling against the concept of existence itself?
He’s clearly visible in the scene as they walk right past a group of uniformed officers.
First you have the nurses, then the Secret Service.

First off, thanks for being such a great conversationalist. =)

If you take another look at that final paragraph in the introduction, you'll notice two specific points being made in this paragraph.
Regarding the film:

Work said:1. I feel obligated to mention that I’m certainly not attempting to exhaust every single point here.
His meanings, without ever bothering to nitpick every single moment that catches the eye.

The work should have been framed primarily as a pure analysis of perception, with as much as possible...
Ten pages, plus there was a deadline looming over the whole thing.
Done. As I started diving into the analysis, I began noticing more and more...
Look, I don't have enough time to include absolutely everything here, but certain things are...
Unfortunately, they fall outside the interpretive spectrum. So, should we really be looking at this work as...
A complete analysis that leaves absolutely nothing left to say, effectively doing exactly that.
What he mentions in the introduction... plus a little more, given how much room they gave me to work with.
Time.

Work said:2. I could probably structure the entire paper as an analysis, for instance.
How much does the protagonist's approach to his own relationships actually dictate the way he views gender dynamics?
The models and other female participants in the film won't be given the same treatment regarding this topic.
Priority status will be processed just enough to get things outlined.
What can really be said about the central character's evolution, or rather, the lack thereof? We watch them move from the opening frame to the credits, tracing a trajectory that supposedly signifies growth, yet one has to wonder if they are actually changing or just reacting to increasingly absurd circumstances. Is it true character development, or just a series of inevitable shifts forced by the plot?

You could read this paragraph as an attempt to swap out the analysis of "gender dynamics" entirely.
Taking a closer look at the concept of "youth anarchism." To put it simply, as I’ll explain below,
My primary objective was simply to shine a light on certain people and events, specifically where they carry enough weight to warrant it.
The impact on Hemingway's character. Following that, if I were to address this point...
I don't think the criticism is particularly justified. Why?

On one hand, I don't really see the point in labeling young mime artists as anarchists.
I'm not implying that kind of character trait by labeling them as some "group of degenerates."
A bunch of wild kids running around in mime costumes and face paint.
Coated in white, they just keep heading down the street after stepping out of the Jeep.
"...in a Dionysian frenzy, letting out nothing but incoherent sounds." I also dedicate them to...
They play a pivotal role right at the finish line—the kind of people who stubbornly refuse to fall in line.
They operate within an exclusively materialistic paradigm of the world, exerting a decisive influence as such.

str. 20 said:"[..], observing how the mimes find fulfillment in existing within the
moment, minimally dependent on the material things at their
disposal, one could say that from the first time he saw the
mimes at the start of the film until his current encounter with them—his
mindset undergoes an Odyssean journey from a capitalist-
misanthropic view to one that is finally enlightened, realizing there is nothing left
to realize, thereby exposing and discarding the false luster of capitalist
society in favor of the joy found in simply being present."

However, that bolded word (minimally) was used intentionally, because if you recall the
film's opening, they are still running around trying to collect money from passersby. So,
while they might subvert the social order with their unrestrained
performances, on the other hand, they aren't refusing to take cash from those who are
firmly entrenched in that very order. Because of this, I don't think
Antonioni's goal at that point was so much to highlight their anarchism as it was to show that
it is impossible to purely enjoy oneself and rebel against the system without someone
acting as an integral part of that system to supply the necessary funds. That’s where my
line of thought led me, connecting it to the next scene where the
existentially threatened proletariat emerges from a crumbling shelter. I also called that group of young
people the forces of the bourgeois avant-garde, because while they do bring novelty to the
social fabric, they remain dependent on others' resources and remain indifferent to the
existential struggles of others. Still, there is a massive difference in that part of the
film between them and Hemingway: while the young mimes collect funds
so they can live more freely and unconstrained by society, Hemingway
primarily lives just to collect funds.

Regarding the Royal Guard and the nuns, I noticed that moment, though
I didn't consider it directly linked to undermining Hemingway's character, or rather,
the specific criterion I use when analyzing events outside the main
plot. Additionally, I interpreted the running nuns and the marginalization of the Royal
Guard as the erosion of religious and monarchical values in the face of
shifting social structures in 1960s New York, but since
I questioned those same issues later through a different set of examples, the analysis of that section
was omitted for the sake of brevity.

str. 5 said:[..] we see Hemingway driving through New York, caught in the swirl
of urbanization, implied by the series of new buildings and construction sites he
passes, and at the end of the drive, he notices two feminized men with
poodles, remarking later that "what is the deal with all these
buildings popping up everywhere? There are already gays and poodles everywhere." If we
add the later scenes of protests against nuclear weapons
and the group of Black Americans dressed in traditional attire wandering
casually through the streets of New York before Hemingway nearly runs them over with his horn, one
could assume that Antonioni intended to depict all of this as symptoms
of a new era.

Robin Taylor2 said:In that bookstore scene, if my memory serves me right,
the owner mentions wanting to head off to Nepal (you mentioned Tibet).
Contrary to your take on how the youth yearn to escape into some brave new world,
my impression is that the director is reminding us of an age-old human fallacy:
it’s always better somewhere else, and the grass is always greener on the other side.

You're right about Nepal; my mistake (that's what happens when you write late at night while being geographically close to the region,
ah =) ). As for your observation... we have this old employee at the antique shop
who refuses to change a single thing and is perfectly content where he is, quite
happy with the grass on his own lawn =) On the flip side, the young owner
of the shop is the one trying to sell everything off just so she can hit the road
to a place where she won't encounter any relics from the past. So, we're looking at a conflict between "youth/
age" and "appreciation for antiques/desire for novelty". If we
look at how that fits with your theory, we end up concluding that it
isn't actually better to be somewhere else for everyone—because the old employee is fine exactly
where he stands, and the grass isn't always greener elsewhere—since the girl
doesn't want to go anywhere specific, she just wants to go somewhere that doesn't have old junk.

There’s a section in Voltairean Candide where he and his servant Cacambo
happen upon the utopian city of El Dorado, where the streets are paved with gold
nuggets—just as our own terrain is covered in ordinary
stones. The two, caught up in the moment, start grabbing them, hoping to
stash some away for later, while the locals just watch them with a strange sort of curiosity, wondering why
they’re bothering with common rocks that are already everywhere and serve
absolutely no special purpose.

My take is that Voltaire used this witty scenario to highlight
how relative our perception of value actually is. In other words,
the worth of gold doesn't stem from its inherent properties, but rather from its
scarcity (it's often said that, on average, only about three parts per billion
of Earth's crust consists of gold). If we lived on a planet where one out of every five hundred
parts of Earth's crust was gold, there's a high probability that the perceived
value of it all would plummet significantly.

I’ve recently put some effort into applying a socio-
humanistic theoretical lens to provide a more granular analysis of
the film mentioned in the title. If anyone feels like taking a look and offering
some critique, feedback, or perhaps kicking off a discussion with their own interpretation
of this particular classic, I’d certainly appreciate it.

You can download the work at the following link:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/qjrf6x

Olivia Evans8 said:I'm right there with you. Let's be real, we're all a little bit unhinged...

And from that comes the conformist conclusion that if you actually want to function
in this society, wanting to be sane is considered a disorder. =)

It’s hardly surprising; if we’re actually buying into Freud, everyone caught up in
the constraints of a civilized society—which forces them into social roles at the massive
cost of suppressing their primal instincts within a culture that offers no outlet for their true
selves—is bound to suffer from some variation of
neurosis. =)

Quote : LNP20

Jessica Scott5 Asks: That was just a typo—I started typing "wake" and then decided to finish the thought. Anyway. 😳 😳

Well, I understood all of that perfectly fine; I just took the opportunity to...
I’m going to use that icon =) shamelessly.

Quote : LNP20

I felt the same way about it. You’ve got that heavy philosophical undertone mixed with lucid dreaming, and that whole blurring of the lines between what’s real and what isn't. By the end, you’re left questioning everything—is any of this actually happening, or is it all just a projection of the mind? 😉

Ever since I finished watching, my head has been spinning with all these new ideas. It’s like... what if?
Why is it that our dreams—those moments where everything feels like it stretches on for hours in a single blink—seem to defy the actual passage of time?
I won't even say it's been days; if we’re actually measuring this by our standard earthly time, it’s been...
They play out in just a few seconds, sometimes stretching into a couple of minutes, yet they never truly offer anything substantial.
Is it possible that our entire lifespan actually spans seventy, eighty, or even ninety plus years?
Maybe just a few seconds or minutes of sleep is all it takes to make us feel like outsiders looking in.
Is the entire framework flawed? What we consider death would only represent...
Waking up from a dream—is it just a sudden spike in adrenaline, a random glitch in the system, or maybe just a conscious choice?
Our dreams always end up pulling us right back into this reality. I even had a dream the other day that...
I came across this somewhat oddly shaped pool sitting right in front of me.
So, I had this dream where some voice just casually informed me that I was swimming in a pool of dreams. Totally spontaneous.
I dove headfirst into it, only to find myself suddenly paralyzed.
Sinking toward the bottom, suffocating, haunted by the memory of my own attempt.
Surging out of physical lethargy just to find some kind of footing. That's when...
That voice started up again, telling me I should just let go, since apparently that's what's necessary.
Surrender yourself to the current if you ever want to reach the shore. It was at that exact moment that I felt completely overwhelmed.
There was this strange sense of peace, a certain stillness, even as I felt myself slowly drowning in that water.
I remember that pitch-black void and the suddenness of waking up the next moment—just as calm and composed as everything else.

Sigmund Freud would probably argue that a dream pool is just a manifestation of some unconscious desire.
My very being seems to drift toward this metaphorical longing—a desire to sink into something that isn't exactly overwhelming, yet still feels like enough.
Is it about those damp, dark depths, or just some primal urge to crawl back into the womb? 🤣

At the end of the day, I can't help but feel like we don't give our dreams nearly enough credit.
They really ought to take them into account, rather than just taking them for granted without even knowing they exist.
We're almost at the point where we can just say "hello." =)

Quote : LNP20

I’ll be honest, I wasn't exactly sold on the animation at first. It felt like a hurdle. But by the time the credits rolled, it hit me that the movie wouldn't have functioned half as well if it hadn't been done this way. That specific medium really amplifies that sense of losing your grip on reality, doesn't it? It just works.

It feels like he’s just leaning into that sensation you mentioned—those slippery, shifting identities.
Shape-shifting, a complete lack of empirical grounding, and pure extravagance.
Color and experience—there's just this total lack of fixed meaning at any level. And yet, what?
The most fascinating part is how an individual interacts with their surroundings while in a state
of wakefulness, which explains why we aren't constantly shocked by the reality of things.

So, if we judge by the mechanics of dreaming, does that mean a significant portion
of human—and perhaps other species'—existence has been somewhat postmodern since ancient times? =)

👋 👋 👋 and people claim that isn't possible 🙄
I hope you haven't gotten yourself tangled up in any power lines or tree branches... 🙂

People certainly love to talk. It just occurred to me how people in the
Middle Ages used to claim that at the edges of the "world" maps back then
which were grotesque enough as it is, there actually lived monopeds
(people who walked on a single leg) and others with faces located on their stomachs 😁

Anyway, here is an interesting page that offers a more detailed look into the
phenomenon of lucid dreaming:

http://www.lucidity.com/LucidDreamingFAQ2.html#LIQ

You should also Google the name "Steven LaBerge," a psychophysiologist and
the founder of the Lucidity Institute and one of the leading figures in this
field of research. He teaches techniques on how to achieve this, and according to him,
he personally managed to have four lucid dreams in a single night.
Here is an interview with him that I found particularly interesting:

http://www.futurehi.net/docs/Laberge_WakingDreamer.html

Quote : LNP20

Jessica Scott5 Asks: I was watching the movie... a few months back.Waking Life watching.Interesting little film. It really dives into those deep questions about reality—like, how can we actually be sure we aren't just dreaming? Anyway, it avoids that pseudo-intellectual nonsense you get in movies like *What Do We Know*; instead, it’s more of a collection of reflections from various characters the protagonist encounters within his dream state.

Waking Life 😘

I watched it about a year and a half ago. It was an excellent film, though I can't say how it holds up under a more critical lens.
Whether you're looking at the depth of the philosophical themes or the specific subject matter regarding lucid dreaming, there's a lot to unpack.
If dreams serve as the very foundation of a conflict, what exactly can be extracted from them? Is there any substance worth salvaging once you peel back the layers?
There are a few interesting implications here that almost veer into radical territory.
It’s all about that sense of skepticism. There is this pervasive atmosphere where reality feels completely unmoored, mirroring that fluid, drifting quality you only find in a dream.
The animation distortion technique they used is particularly well-integrated, isn't it?
In reality, when we look at recorded events, they eventually become common knowledge to those who...
Just caught one of the more recent pieces from that same director, Richard Linklater.
Under the name A Scanner Darkly.

I remember how, after watching that film, I spent quite some time just... staring into space.
I've been diving deep into the world of lucid dreaming lately. Actually, I might have even had some success.
Taking flight on my own terms, more than a few times now. =)