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MikeJoyous

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    I've been a self-esteem coach o'er ye Internet for a few years. Taught math and English miserably in a Watts school ("To know Watts is...to know the Devil"--cit. Ekim Lear, wise Chinese scholar). I've been a postal clerk and a furniture salesman. A liquor clerk. After what feels like a thousand years in purgatory, I returned to college, got a BA in psych and an MA in instructional technology. I wanted to be a therapist, but alas! I didn't know how to be a "good boy" in school. I thought I knew more than my teachers (who were half my age). Too true, too true:( I tried teaching, but hated the California laws that permitted the kids to do anything and the teacher to do little in return. (I seem to recall a wise Chinese saying about the Devil:)) For a while I created self-esteem-self-help on the Internet, and apparently was of sufficient fame that a doctor of psychology actually created a webpage that did nothing but quote me out of context (shades of Albert Ellis, if you ever read "Is Objectivism A Religion?"). Now I'm into investing, preferably in Chinese stocks. Hey, I *love* bubbles. Those stocks just rise up and up--until stocktonian gravity pulls them down again:) I improvise classical or pop music on piano and accordion. I have way too many books, CDs, cassettes and DVDs at my place. Should I start a lending library do you think? I'm living with an elderly lady who has the virtue of loving to laugh, to let her Inner Child out, which plays with my Inner Child, even as she likes to fondle what, in various commercials, would be that delightful part of the male anatomy. However, philosophy is to her a closed book. Thus I am available to other members of the opposite sex who both have a delight in play (on the one hand) and an interest in philosophy, psychology and music. I am interested in friends of either sex, and a friend is to me a priceless jewel. Are there any potential friends of mine out there??
  • Copyright
    Copyrighted
  • Real Name
    Mike
  • School or University
    UCLA, USC
  • Occupation
    semiretired investor

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  1. Hi:) Volition is about the degree to which a man throws out his internal antenna when seeking for how *this* situation differs from similar situations encountered in the past. It's like when you put on the gas in your car. When going ahead, even if the freeway seems stalled, you usually put on the gas a *little*. That corresponds to having your intuition ready to advise you when you need to up the degree of awareness needed to understand or be in control at that moment in time. That by the way is the reason I don't let myself get drunk. That dulls my intuition so that my actions are based upon the emotion of the moment which may have *no* relation to the reality in front of me. That last situation of having my emotions in control with no intuition in the background to warn me if the situation is inappropriate---that is the nearest to "determinism" in the mind of a man. Put in other words, "determinism" when applied to a mind means something very different than determinism when applied to a billiard ball! best wishes, Mike
  2. Hi:) A "just society" doesn't refer to some sort of collective mind. It's about the philosophy consciously shared by a majority of the members of that society. It's the idea that life *should* be fair, and that it is right and proper for a government to enact legislation against various instances of members being *unfair* to others. There is the implication that the principles governing "fairness" are of universal applicability, thus justifying the "superior" voice of the commentator who talks about the "justness" of that society. In practice, there have been many different and contradictory notions voiced of the "just society." This does not mean, of course, that universal principles of justice do not exist; rather that well-meaning folks have not agreed upon what those principles are. Sheesh, don't let the vagaries of the English language confuse you, friend. The language is about *explaining* things, not making 'em overly complex. I realize it doesn't always seem that way:( best always, Mike
  3. Why is there existence instead of nothing? Really folks. This is one time I just feel like having fun. It has already been answered anyway somewhere around here. My answer: Because. PS: Often questions having to do with religion seem so absurd, that I can't bring myself to take them seriously--as some of my previous posts will attest:) PPS: Yes, I know, this question was a "perfectly good" question of metaphysics:( Really guys and gals, if there were nothing, we wouldn't be around asking questions. Existence implies prior existence, and that's as much of an answer as you can get. To assume that once there was "nothing" (=the absence of any something) and now there is "something" is to talk about sumpn in the 5th dimension or wherever Who caused the sumpn to somehow come into existence. Feels to me like "How many angels on the head of a pin?"
  4. Hi:) I like to think of the miracle of flowers growing one moment and of babies living and the blue skies above. Yea, verily, also the miracle of the opening of the Red Sea and the arising of Jesus from the Dead. I wonder, though, which set of events is the miracle? The commonplace of nature or that which differs from nature? O la, let the theologian explain this to me. Which set of miracles does he choose as the True Miracles? Then and only then will I know the True Place of science in God's Eternal Universe:) best to all, Mike
  5. Hi:) I have no idea what a True Objectivist would say about this. My attitude, being a Humble Lad (you can call me HL in the future:)), would be that if there ain't no infinity in time, why not? What is time if not a record of the movement of things? Why can't movement go on and on and on without end? Unless our theological fellow had in mind the notion of the Immovable Mover somewheres in the fifth dimension (I presume) who is stirring up the gases and electrons and such to create a nice Big Bang on earth? In my answer, I think I might rhapsodize about the Lord who can do anything, who can move though He is Immovable. Yea, verily. My heart grows bigger as I think about it. The joy, the effluvium of the Holy Ghost affecting things through the etheric continuum:) Some days I wish I were a preacher. Like would be so much simpler:) Fun and joy to all, Mike Rael
  6. Hi:) Justice is about folks getting what they caused. It's an ethical concept. Personally I dislike the train sequence because if a reader is immature, he'll be guarding his every thought. And, friends, our thoughts are not always within our direct control. The result of such self-wariness is to cause unearned guilt. I kinda laugh when I read the anarchist cult book, "Illuminatus," by Shea and Wilson. It satirizes in a fun way much that Rand wrote. John Galt becomes "John Guilt." And that is the problem. People have actually landed in psychotherapy for years because of guilt created by reading the train sequence among other of Rand's creations and not understanding the reasons Rand did what she did, as in creating literary archetypes that are NOT meant to represent actual people or situations but rather are about creating character and situations out of concepts. best wishes, friends, Mike Rael
  7. Oh yes, the last part of your question was about feeling making us human? Well, the Jews would argue that one reason the Nazis were inhumanly brutal was that they did not allow themselves to feel what their victims must be going through. Something of what was happening still came through to the Nazi guards, as resulting in sleeplessness, formless anxiety, stuttering, that kind of thing. I think those Holocaust theorists have got a point! On the other hand, Rand would say that the essence of being human is the head, not the heart. She was reacting against mushy compassion based on altruism, that resulted in all kinds of problems, personal, economic, and political. Personally, I would argue that we need both. I'm talking not just from a theoretical perspective a la Branden. We can't know what the hell we really want in life, want enough to enable us to overcome internal and external barriers to achieve it, unless we identify our core desires. Deep down. When we *really* want something, we don't need to plan goals to achieve it, as if the planning somehow creates a "want" that did not exist before it. Rather the planning seems to come almost automatically. From this point of view, we already know a lot about the hows of getting things. The problem is we don't know enough about the deep whys that make it worthwhile to us. That is, about the heart. best wishes, friends, Mike Rael
  8. Hi:) First off, emotions are certainly related to our thoughts and values but that's only part of the equation. Emotions can come from focusing on parts of a particular experience that seem to demand awareness, such as pain. They can come from fragmentary ideas of possibilities that, upon calm reflection, are not reasonable. They seem to be related to physiological freedom associated with the thought or feeling. To make things more complex, they can be wildly different depending upon the level of emotional focusing that we do at any one moment and the degree to which we can accept the emotion that is center stage of awareness for us. "Acceptance" refers to a quality of *letting* the emotion feel like it is ours even if it is uncomfortable to do so. This quality of acceptance has been discussed by Branden in "Six Pillars of Self-Esteem" an by Gendlin in "Focusing." Can we ever fully control our emotions? Nope. All evidence compiled by folks who make a living recording their emotions suggests that many emotions just *happen* whimsically, due to the reasons mentioned above. An instinct refers to the internal drives to do stereotyped behaviors. Those stereotyped behaviors occur in species other than humans, though some developmental psychologists would disagree with me about this and talk absorbedly about an infant's predilection to certain patterns as "instinctive." Ho hum, as they say. In any case, even instincts are often (not always) the result of learned behaviors. Take a lion cub to your home for years as was done in the famous case of Elsa, and she does not know how to hunt. Elsa had to be *shown* how to hunt. It was very quick learning, but still, it *was* learning. I forget the last part of your question. Sorry about that. best wishes, friends, Mike Rael
  9. Beautifully put, Musenji:) best wishes, Mike Rael, MS
  10. Hi friends (for I presume we are at least *potentially* friends:) I consider the talk about the title as of relatively little importance. Objectivism is a body of principles that is reasonably well established. Thus folks have the right to have any kind of introduction to Objectivism they like, without asking anyone for permission for such. Can you imagine the silliness entailed in my writing to Kant's estate for permission before writing an introduction to Kantianism? Far more important, to my mind, is the quality of the music. One person is supposed to have composed a Concerto of Deliverance which, while legal and all that, was terrible music IMHO!! As long as the music is really of high standards and is relevant to its stated theme, I'd be a happy listener:) best wishes all, Mike Rael
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