Krattle
-
Posts
137 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Krattle
-
-
Thank you Alfa and Megansnow for not just bashing my post and understanding that I have a real reasons for what I'm asking.
I beg to differ, Alfa! Attraction can always be explained logically, and I much to prefer to appeal the mind of a woman than her body. In fact, if I remember correctly, the first time I ever attracted a date without flirting or looking sexy, was....god knows, 8 years ago, I was teaching a course on Japanese history and she was impressed with my intellect. Now, she didn't work out for many other reasons; we just weren't compatible. But the point remains appealing to the mind, the logic, of women is quite effective. I've done it successfully three times, and twice had very, very long-lasting, rewarding relationships. I'm in one now. It just depends on the woman. I'd rather attract women who care about the mind more than the body than pimp myself just so I can brag about how many women I've attracted.
But even when the reasons for attraction *themselves* are irrational, like you only go for bald men even though baldness has no relevance to personality or character, you can still explain the attraction itself using logic. The woman has a trait she's attracted to: baldness. So she looks for bald men. Simple, pure, logic. Why does she like bald men? Could be any number of reasons, depends. Maybe she thinks it's a sign of virility, maybe she just doesn't like hair, maybe she thinks it makes you look tough and she likes tough-looking men. WHO KNOWS. But there is *always* a reason, if you just take the time to introspect. Attraction is not controlled by hormones, genes, biology, anything. It's all personal preference that you've developed *volitionally* throughout your life.
In response to rl096: maybe I'm not drawn to beautiful faces? That is to say, the mainstream, contemporary standard of beauty. I think the mainstream, contemporary standard of beauty is, frankly, ugly. I don't like any Hollywood actresses, I despise the supermodel look...nor do I believe symmetry makes you beautiful. Half of beauty, for me, is in the emotions and expressions in a person's face. Even a person many would consider ugly can be quite attractive to me if I see intelligence and strong emotions in their eyes and the way they control the muscles of their face.
Hmm, I'd also like to add that I don't like women who want to surrender into my care. I prefer independent women, and would even like a woman who knows how to defend herself (like how to shoot a gun). I'm not here to care for or pamper my woman. She has to have a brain, motivation, ability, and preferably she shouldn't be afraid of defending herself. My current woman knows how to fire a gun, for instance.
-
That's the other thing, while it may be true that some muscle is attractive to women, it's also true that men typically *MASSIVELY* overestimate just how much. By 15 to 20 pounds according to some studies.
I'd also like to point out that the idea of "looking as though you can protect your woman" is typically couched in evolutionary psychology nonsense. Women do not know "instinctively" that a man can protect her brood. The human race doesn't operate that way! While non-sentient animals will feed on the children of other non-sentient animals (e.g. some birds eat the eggs of other birds), humans do not do that. We don't go around to other people's houses to gobble up the kids. There's no instinct, there's no such behavior...Do you honestly think that when women first see a man their first thought is: "gee, I wonder if he can protect my brood?" Umm, no. Sorry.
-
I disagree with the assessment that such ads portray women as slutty. But I do think all these fads, which change almost every week, are quite silly. Axe smells like shit and you see every douchebag on campus wearing this stuff. It seems these idiots really do believe the ads and think that women will flock to them just because they wear this fowl smelling stuff.
There's nothing wrong with sex...or portraying men/women as liking sex. But believing a deodorant is going to get you sex? That's just plain silly.
-
Look, I still don't understand what you mean. I'm not expecting anyone, myself included, to have bulging muscles.
I mean, what I'm trying to get it is that society in general expects men nowadays to have big muscles. You see it literally all the time, and it's just curious to me because even 20 years ago this obsession wasn't nearly as widespread.
You see TV ads constantly with these ripped male models who have 0% body fat doing exercises on the Bowflex or the Ab roller or Ab rocker or Ab this Ab that. You see it in movies all the time. If you want your male lead to be sexy, just give him muscles. Brad Pitt, Hugh Jackman, Jason Statham, blah blah blah...in the new Sherlock Holmes movie, of all people, they made Sherlock Holmes extremely muscular. They made the new James Bond muscle bound...what happened to Sean Connery? He didn't need huge muscles to be James Bond, to be sexy.
-
Capitalism Forever, I made it clear that this is not about me in my post. It's not. It's just an issue I've never understood. Frankly, I still don't.
I still don't understand. You don't need big muscles in order to be able to "protect your woman." I don't know what on Earth you think you need to protect her from anyway. It's not as if you have ninjas coming to attack you every day. You can learn a martial art, the majority of which do not require large muscles. They require you be fit, but not overly muscular. Who do you think would win in a fight? Jackie Chan or Arnold Schwarzenegger? I'm putting my money on Chan. Faster, more agile...he probably knows a hundred ways to kill a man with a single blow of his hand. Back in my Aikido classes, I used to beat up on a muscular cop all the time. A few simple flicks of the wrist and I had him writhing on the floor in pain. Again, you don't need huge muscles to be able to defend yourself...
In the entire lives of my parents, who are now in their 60s, my father never once had to protect my mother in a fist fight or any other form of physical violence. In our society, it's incredibly rare that you need to get in a fist fight to defend yourself. It's far more likely that your house will be burgled and you'll need to use a gun to defend your family. If you want to protect your woman, it's wiser to learn how to fire a gun. Even a muscle man will fall to a gun. A gun, especially something like a .357 magnum or a 45 caliber, is phenomenally more powerful than any human being. It takes far less time to learn how to fire a gun well than it does to gain lots of muscle. I speak from experience. My skills with a gun make me far deadlier than any muscle man.
Also, you don't need "massive strength" in the course of a normal life. In my own life, I have moved several times and have almost always done the moving of the furniture myself and never had any trouble or any pain afterward despite the fact that I am not muscle bound. Now, if you work for a moving company or a construction company or something similar, I can understand needed muscle...but even the movers I've used before have not been particularly muscular. In fact, they've all looked quite normal.
As for what Bourcet said, under what weight? You don't need to be muscle bound to be a normal, healthy weight. And what do you mean more prone to injury? Seriously, in my entire life I have never broken a single bone and never had a serious injury, even though I've had my fair share of accidents...I've fallen from some considerable heights before, tumbled over myself for some distance, fallen flat on my face, and just never broken anything...I don't see how I could have been any better off than I was just by having more muscle.
-
This isn't about me, but a general question I've had lately.
Why do we have this current obsession in our culture with gaining muscle mass?
So, first off, I have a pretty normal body. I'm blessed with high metabolism and I'm normally pretty active, so I have very little fat. But I don't have huge amounts of muscle. I don't have gigantic biceps, six pack abs, etc. etc. And I don't care about having those things. Nonetheless, I am fairly strong and have decent muscle tone.
What I fail to understand is why anyone would *want* bulging muscles. Why would you want to look like that? Just personally, I find the bodybuilder look grotesque. I don't understand why six pack abs are considered sexy. Again, I think they look grotesque.
What's wrong with having some fat on your body? I don't mean being overweight, but I mean, what's wrong with having even 10% body fat?
Why would you want to weigh 200 pounds? I don't understand the obsession with ridiculous amounts of muscle mass...
Why would you want gigantic muscles? To what end?
Why are muscles even considered sexy in our culture in the first place? I don't find them sexy. Some muscle tone, yes. But when your muscles bulge, when you have six pack abs...WHY IS THAT SEXY?! I honestly don't understand. My girlfriend doesn't either.
I can understand wanting to be fit (fit is not the same as ripped) to avoid loss of bone strength later in life, and just so that you live longer. But do you really need six pack abs and big biceps to live longer? I don't think so...
Pardon me if there's little organization to my post. It's kind of a smattering of questions, but they are still legitimate. Maybe this is just a personal preference issue...but I just can't understand why anyone would want that look. Am I just an idiot? Am I failing to see something important here? Am I supposed to have bulging muscles? Is that what I'm supposed to want? Am I supposed to think that's sexy? (I'm very happy with my own body; I'm just asking in general here).
-
I honestly don't know enough on that subject. From what I have read, there is a genetic or just early uterine environment on sexual orientation. I know people who were "different" from the moment they were self-aware. However nowadays, it is popular to be "gay" and there are many people who pretend to be gay (but surely never participate in sexual intercourse with the same sex). I also know people like that. They just put on affectations. The real gay people I know don't act much differently from straight people.
Keep in mind I never said that the capacity for sexuality is volitional. All people have the capacity for sexuality. What I *did* say was that what arouses you is volitional. What images, acts, words, etc. etc. Those things are chosen and I can easily prove so with my own experiences.
-
Unfortunately I can't remember what page that's on, but I do remember where in the novel. It's when you learn what happened to that factory: they basically put a communist doctrine into effect, and it caused the workers to "feed" on each other. A family would have a baby, so all the workers had to chip in. It came to the point where things had to be sacrificed, and I believe they had to take away the record collection of this one worker who loved music. He loved it so much, apparently, that he committed suicide.
I agree with that quote from page 299. Other than your own life, the hierarchy of a person's values is personal more than anything else. It's not your place to judge how much suffering another person can take unless you know their value system as well as he/she knows it. (This provides an interesting justification for something I've been thinking about recently...)
I can only speak personally in this thread: without the woman I love, without my main passions/work in life, I would not be able to go on living. My life simply wouldn't have meaning anymore.
-
So I guess no one is interested in this topic?
-
Shall we get this train wreck back on the tracks?
There are several values I think any human being can't live without: your own life, it is the very reason you have values in the first place.
Your work. Maybe not true with all people, but for those who do something they have a passion for, this could easily be true.
Your spouse. If you are in a romantic relationship, and you have become very fond/attached to this person, they could easily be a value you can't live without.
It could even be something minor. In Atlas Shrugged, a worker at the factory where John Galt first went on strike, he committed suicide because they wouldn't let him have his cherished record collection.
-
Actually, it can have an effect on at least your writing ability in your native language. Allow me to explain.
I'll just take Japanese, the language I've devoted a significant portion of my life to, as an easy example. There are several different ways of saying "to take" that are pronounced the same but written differently, and used in different contexts. In the process of learning these distinctions, I became more acutely aware of the same distinctions in English. I also learned a great deal about the nuts-and-bolts of English grammar and syntax just by having to learn the different ways sentences are constructed in Japanese. In short, if you set out to learn a foreign language in great detail, then you will inevitably be made more aware of aspects of your own language you may have taken for granted before.
You also learn to be extremely accurate with your diction in a foreign language because you have a more limited vocabulary and much more limited knowledge of connotations and derogatory and pejorative implications of words. This, in turn, teaches you (at least it did me) to be more accurate with your native language.
The only way to really learn a foreign language and make it second-nature to you is to immerse yourself in it completely and use it as often as possible. Make opportunities to use it if you don't have any. You have to read, write, speak, listen to, and think in this language. If time does not permit, then cut out writing since you typically don't write during a conversation. Even so, it's hard to learn another language without knowing how to write it, so you have to know at least basic writing skills in your language of choice.
-
As a sheer matter of fact, it is impossible to have two people in your life who are your highest value. That's a contradiction in terms. Now, if we take love to mean admiration of values apparent in another person, same or opposite sex, then it's quite possible to love many people. But in the sense of romantic love, where the target of your affections represents a wide range of important values to you, including your highest values, I do not think it is possible to have two such people in your life. For one, it's a matter of time: who did you meet first and spend time with first? After several years of marriage, you may meet another woman/man with whom you could easily have fallen in love had you met them before you met your current partner. But you spent your time, energy, money, affection, everything on your current partner. And you've begun living with them, sharing every single detail of your life with them. And you've had sex with them. How can you honestly, without fooling yourself, do the same thing again while still married? You cannot; not without some serious evasion on your part.
As for one-time, three-way sexual intercourse...that's more up to personal preference, but it defeats the purpose of sex, which is to experience a kind of physical and emotional intimacy with your partner that no other action can afford you. Your partner is the operative word here, not some other woman or man, close friend or otherwise.
I find too often that Objectivists or semi-Objectivists will throw all tradition out the window because they have come to think that tradition is bad just because it's tradition. This is a totally false idea, whether you hold it explicitly or not. There are many good, logically sound traditions that should be followed. Monogamy is one of them. The origin of the tradition is completely irrelevant; all that matters is the content of the tradition: what does it say you should do? Is there some logical justification for this action? I've given one for monogamy.
Don't think that just because some traditions are mistaken or even evil that *all* traditions are like that. That's a broad generalization, and it's also a logical fallacy to say that tradition is bad because it's tradition. It's like saying new things are good because they're new, or old things are bad because they're old.
As for other people's opinions of you for engaging in polygamy or groups sex, this is not an argument. An argument is not right or wrong just because someone says it. Therefore, you shouldn't care what other people think just because they think it. Christians think premarital sex is evil, even when objectively, it can easily be proven that it is not. What matters is the *content* of their argument. It is right of people to look down on polygamy as a perverted and even immoral act, but not just because they think that. They're right for the reasons I listed above, if those are indeed their reasons.
One could probably come up with hundreds of rationalizations for engaging in group sex or polygamy, but not a one of them is right. I've heard some people use the excuse that sex is instinctual, that humans have to have as much sex as they can, whenever they can, with whomever they can. They think it's some kind of uncontrollable urge that's part of their brain since our early evolutionary period. I'd rather not go into why this view is so horribly mistaken right now, but if you want to see why I think so, just read my posts on the thread about Objectivism explaining sexual attraction. In short, people who think sex is some kind of uncontrollable, animalistic urge will act as such, thereby deluding themselves into thinking that their sexual urges are indeed uncontrollable instincts. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is often turned into a rationalization for having more than one sexual partner at the same time, but for the reasons I just gave I find it morally repugnant. I find it odd that Objectivists, who should put reason above all else, fall for this junk science. Evolutionary biology and its deterministic explanations of sex has some kind of odd attraction to Objectivists/libertarian types and I don't know why. It seems Penn Jillette has fallen for this nonsense, in light of his Bullsh*t episode about romantic love being a myth. Yet again we see the all-too-easily accepted idea that all tradition is bad by dent of being tradition that so many o'ist and libertarian types are lured into. I suggest reading Nathaniel Branden's explanation of the origins of the concept and practice of romantic love in his book on romantic love.
-
You can go even further back in time and find that obese women with pendulous breasts were attractive: The Venus of Willendorf.
I would also like to further emphasize the importance of mental association in the process of forming sexual preferences by noting the existence of fetishes. A fetish is sexual arousal in response to inanimate objects. Being turned on by lingerie, by high-heel shoes, etc. Not a one of these things existed in prehistoric times. They have become fetishes because of things like Victoria's Secret making "sexy" lingerie popular. It wasn't necessarily sexy, at least popularly so, until they made it sexy. Until men saw all their magazines and their stores and were turned on by it.
Fetishes can even get very strange, like sexual arousal in response to "amazonianism" or grotesquely large breasts. These things are definitely not hard-wired into us, and you can only become sexually aroused by them through association.
-
Why is this simple concept so hard for people to grasp?
Existence exists whether there are conscious beings who are conscious of it. Sound, in the sense of air compressing and expanding as a result of some object's movement (in this case a tree falling) will always occur if there is a medium (not necessarily a gas because sound waves can travel through anything, even solids and liquids) and an object to move and set about the vibrations. It will occur irrespective of the existence of conscious beings who are conscious of its happening.
Now, sound in the subjective sense of the perception of said compression waves can only exist if there is a being with auditory sense organs able to process the compression wave into the perception of sound.
The separation between these two things is pretty clear. Just as light waves exist irrespective of our existence, but the perception of said light waves as light and color can only exist in the eyes and mind of a conscious being.
-
Certainly, you can build upon these food atttraction instincts and prefer Chinese food or veggie food as result of your personal preferences, influenced by your family, culture, etc.
By the same token, you can build upon the natural, biologic, instinctive attraction to a healthy female-like body look (broad hips, breasts, smooth skin) and develop a preference for brunettes, blondes, slim, deeper voice, bright smile, high-brow look, miniskirsts, etc. which is all the product of your choices, influenced by culture.
When Howard Roark and Dominique had their first sex encounter, how much did they know about each other in terms of values, projects, affinities? What sort of rational thinking had led them to engage in sex that first time? They could not forget each other since the very first time they saw each other. Why?
What makes you think I like broad hips, breasts and smooth skin? Maybe I prefer rough skin. Maybe I prefer thin hips. Maybe I prefer small breasts, or just don't even care about breasts at all. I'm sorry, but none of this is hard-wired. It's all up to mental associations made throughout your life, particularly your sexually formative period. And those are often if not always volitional associations.
Also, please don't invoke a fictional story to prove your point. It's FICTION. In fiction things are not always realistic for the sake of drama.
I should also point out, that even if something like the female breast is hard-wired to be attractive to men, then we still have full control over our sexual arousal. Personally, I cannot be turned on by strippers. It doesn't matter how attractive their breasts are because I find everything about strippers and their "career" to be morally repugnant. I cannot be aroused by it, period.
Allow me to go on even more...let's say you saw some women with what you considered attractive breasts (I'm sticking with breasts because they are so often invoked as that one "hard-wired" trait that all men are attracted to). Then you hear the woman's voice and she's a total ditz. Depending on your preferences, you could either be even further aroused or you could be completely turned off. Personally, I find the flaunting of breasts to be quite a turn off because it's insulting to my intellect. If a woman flaunts her breasts to random men, it says she has a low opinion of men - that all she needs to do to attract us is do that. That no one would ever care about her mind, her character, her personality. I find character to be one of the sexiest traits of a woman. I don't know about other men, but an extremely motivated passionate woman who works hard to accomplish something is extremely attractive to me. That one trait is far more attractive than any physical trait, for me.
-
All this nonsense about sexual attraction being instinctual is just that: nonsense. It is impossible for a rational being to have instincts. For instance, we have the sensation of hunger. But being hungry doesn't tell us what food is good for us, how much we need to eat, where to get it, how to cook it, etc. etc. It's just a feeling and gives us no knowledge whatsoever. Also, the sensation of hunger differs from person to person. Some foods may be repulsive to me and make me want to vomit, while they may make you salivate and want to eat them. This is clearly not instinctual. It's based on associations you've made throughout your life. I may have associated the smell of a particular food with some other repulsive smell, like the smell of rotting flesh for instance. That makes me not want to eat that food and it doesn't make me hungry when I look at it.
It's the same for sexual attraction. There are no hard-wired physical traits that all people are attracted to. There are many cultures, in Africa for instance, that laugh at the idea of the female breast even being considered sexually attractive. Note that no two people have exactly the same sexual preferences. Some men may like large breasts, some may prefer small breasts. Some may not even notice the breasts at all. Some may find hair or hands or legs or some other body part more significant. Some women may find muscle tone attractive, some may not care at all. Some may find square jaws attractive, some round jaws. It all depends on what kind of associations you've made throughout your life. Some women may prefer bald men, others may prefer hippie hair. Going to the extreme: some men may prefer the female bodybuilder look, most prefer the traditional femininity.
And associations can be changed if you want to change them.
Finally, standards of sexual attractiveness have changed throughout history. Going back even 10 years you can see that different standards were the mainstream. Nowadays we seem like the stupid spoiled whore look: Megan Fox. And for men the "I haven't shaved in two weeks" look is "sexy." And for some reason those gross six-pack abs. I'm so f*cking tired of the hubbub over abs. They're really gross, actually.
Anyway, just 5 years ago we liked "thick" women like Shakira and Jennifer Lopez.
10 years ago, and even to some extent now, we liked supermodel-thin almost anorexic.
In the 80s we liked the toned Fara Faucet look.
Note that even in relation to specific traits: the female breast for instance, what is considered attractive has changed over the centuries. Before it was the small breast, then the large breast, and back and forth. There are many socio-cultural reasons at work as well as just plain personal preference that is created by associations made throughout your life.
May I also point out that sexual arousal can occur as a result of words spoken by you to your partner and vice versa. And it can occur as a result of a combination of attraction to a person's character and mind and physical traits. Sexual arousal is not just physical. For instance, I find it impossible to be sexually aroused by hard-core pornography. The whole idea of hard-core pornography is vile to me on so many levels that it just immediately kills my interest, physically and mentally. In short, we must not forget the effect of ideas on sexual attraction. It's not something totally unaffected by the mind.
-
But of course there is! If my liabilities exceed my assets by one dollar then my net worth is -$1.
John Link
Hmm, I just need to clarify my point. Your example is true, but that's not what I meant. For instance, a one dollar bill physically exists. It is an entity. And there is one of those bills. But you cannot have -1 of those bills. Do you understand what I mean? The least quantity any entity can be is 1. If an entity has 0 quantity, then it does not exist. Therefore, in this sense, negative quantities are an impossibility and would imply some alternative to existence vs. non-existence, like...less than non-existence.
Even when your liabilities exceed your assets, the fact that your net worth is a negative number is not an actual entity. This is still a concept of method. Physically what is going on is you lose all your assets, but you don't continue losing assets once you go negative. You have no more assets to lose when you have 0 assets! No, what happens is you go in debt. You don't have anymore assets, so you are going to have to get more in the future. I hope my point is clear.
-
?????
Who ever said the universe had a shape?
If we take the universe to mean everything, all that is, i.e. existence, then it cannot have a shape because that implies existence has limits. That's a self-contradictory statement. What would exist beyond existence? Beyond the edge of that "shape"?
The universe is infinite in that you can keep going and not find the edge. But no matter how far you go, that distance is still finite. You understand? It's like numbers: the number line is infinite, but each number is finite.
-
Obviously there is no such quantity as -1 in real life, and so obviously you can't find the square root of a non-existent quantity. But things like negative numbers and imaginary numbers are concepts of method. So they still have use in relation to quantities that do exist. You can understand the concept of -1 because you understand positive numbers and 0. On, say, the Cartesian plane, it would get pretty confusing if you just used positive numbers for every quadrant. You need some method for making that easier, and that's where negative numbers can help; the negative of course just indicating direction.
-
Wow...
The government determines what wavelengths things like TVs, radio towers, cell phones, etc. can use so that they don't interfere with each other.
Radio waves are not energetic enough to ionize cells. They pass through you daily without any harm done.
-
Building a mosque and minarets is not an act of aggression. Terrorism is an act of aggression. These are two totally separate things. The Swiss government should not have banned the construction of minarets because, as I said, such construction is not an attempt to impose Islam on the Swiss population through force. It is a free, non-coercive expression of the beliefs of a large group of people.
-
Classical. More specifically:
Rachmaninov (all preludes, symphonies, piano concerti, moments musicaux, and vocalise, aleko, piano sonata, variations on a theme of corelli, rhapsody on a theme of paganini)
Chopin (nocturnes, waltzes, ballades, scherzi, etudes, polonaises, concerti)
Mussorgsky (pictures at an exhibition)
Holst (the planets)
Rimsky-Korsakov (scheherazade)
Shostakovich (jazz suites, symphonies)
Debussy (suite bergamasque)
Liszt (uh, everything?)
Beethoven (symphonies...all of them)
Dvorak (symphonies, particularly 8 and 9)
Smetana (moldau)
Satie (gymnopedies, gnossiennes)
Brahms (symphonies)
Tchaikovsky (capriccio italien, marche slave, 1812 overture, many more)
Camille Saint-Saens (symphonies, particularly 3)
Ravel (also everything)
Puccini (some pieces)
Wagner (some pieces)
I detest Mozart and Bach and most Baroque and actual Classical music save a handful of pieces. Vivaldi can be OK. Some of Bach's preludes and fugues and tocattas and fugues are good; look out for little fugue in g minor. It's awesome. Mozart? Ugh...there's only one piece I like. His 40th symphony.
As for modern music:
Jerry Goldsmith (Star Trek: TMP, Star Trek: First Contact, Patton, many others)
James Horner (Aliens, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)
John Williams (Star Wars IV, V, VI)
Vangelis (Blade Runner, Chariots of Fire, Cosmos)
Jean Michel Jarre (literally all his pieces are amazing)
Yoko Kanno (everything from Cowboy Bebop)
Maurice Jarre (Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, many more)
Ennio Morricone (particularly The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly)
Brian Eno (most of his stuff is good)
Michael Giacchino (Star Trek - the recent one)
Dire Straits (in particular The Sultans of Swing, Romeo and Juliet, Tunnel of Love, Espresso Love, Brothers in Arms, Going Home, Once Upon a Time in the West)
The Ventures (everything)
The Rolling Stones (Paint it Black, Satisfaction...there are others but can't remember)
Men at Work (Down Under, Who Can It Be Now)
Frank Sinatra (everything)
Nat King Cole (everything)
There is one contemporary pop singer I like, but she's Japanese. Shimatani Hitomi. Only female voice I've liked in the past 50 years, easily.
-
Here's a radical thought.
Assuming we're all adults here, how about you just listen to the music? Put on a CD of Beethoven, listen, don't think. Just listen. Do you like it? If not, you don't.
You can learn to appreciate music, but you can't learn to *like* music. You like what you like, and while your tastes may change over time (even as an adult), you can't change the fact that at a particular moment you like something. Music is not a matter of thinking. Music is supposed to evoke emotions, not deep philosophical thoughts about the meaning of life. You may think such things *after* listening to something because the emotions you felt while listening prompted you to think about such matters. But that's not what I'm talking about here.
-
I really don't mean to sound demeaning....but does this question really boggle anyone? Seriously? This isn't hard. Reality exists independent of living beings. I.e. yes a tree falling in the woods makes a sound even when there is no one around to hear it. More precisely, sound waves are produced.
This is more an argument over semantics than it is metaphysics.
I'll put this yet another way...the objective fact of sound waves still exists even when there are no conscious beings to be aware of them. The subjective experience of sound, quite obviously, does not exist without a subject. The objective fact of light waves/color exists even when there are no conscious beings to be aware of them. The subjective experience of color does not exist without a subject.
Don't fall into the trap so many people do of thinking that some objective fact doesn't exist until it is observed. Something can be unknown until it is known, but it cannot be indefinite until it is known. All things are definite all the time, but not everything is known. Again, I'm talking objective vs. subjective.
Obsession with self-image
in Psychology and Self Improvement
Posted · Edited by Krattle
LOL, Dmitri...I remember listening to that a while back. That's the thing, though...from your points and others people have made, I can understand wanting to build muscle for your own purposes, whatever they may be. But, if your sole purpose is to attract women, then that's like Dmitri. You're just being blatant about your purpose. And frankly, I don't find it attractive in women when they're making obvious attempts to attract me like showing cleavage so I don't understand why women should find guys who go to the gym just for the sake of being more attractive to the opposite sex attractive.
Let's say you're obese. A rational, selfish reason for going to the gym would be to loose weight so you can live a healthier and longer life. But if you're just doing it to be more attractive to women and you don't care about your health, then that I don't understand.
Ah yes, I have to say I agree fully with bluecherry on this. Exactly, what if the big muscular guy is actually bad in fights and what if he's not around? Would you rather want to *feel* as if you can be protected, or would you rather *know* that you can be protected, because you know your boyfriend/husband has actual skill at something that can actually protect you? Or, for that matter, why not go learn how to defend YOURSELF. Women can learn how to handle guns and do martial arts just as well as any man.
Now, maybe it's personal preference, but yes, I think there are far better challenges to accept than bodybuilding. Not that I eschew physical challenges; sometimes I enjoy them. But usually I enjoy mental challenges. For me: becoming fluent in Japanese, mastering the philosophy of Objectivism and learning how to think rationally, becoming talented enough on the piano to play Rachmaninoff. These are all challenges I've put myself up to and gained just as many visible, tangible returns from. You can see improvement in your skill at piano very easily, you can see improvement in your thinking ability readily, and so on...