What does it take to know someone?

Wait until we all come to see you next year in Norway

It's the quality of beings, as mostly we don't see the faces, and I think it is a good thing! Faces can be misleading and distracting at times.

Nice post Cyr I truly appreciate that !
...tomorrow back to disagreeing with you...

What Calam said.

Where in Norway are you? Near the coast, I hope. I want to catch a boat ride to Riga, the city of my birth.

That's an interesting question Cyracuz, requiring some thought.
I enjoy reading and posting here on A2k, and am fond of the color of many of the other regular posters.
It's an odd relationship, one has with another, online. A reactive sort of relationship, we really have no knowledge of who is in the room, until they post.
There is no body language, no quiet observations, no humans being. We react solely to the product of each other's minds.
There are no prejudices toward appearance, physical intimidations or fears, no foul odors, nor annoying clickings of the teeth.

I don't believe we can know the whole character of a person without the physical element. We may know the intellect, but the human is not entirely a being of the intellect.

I don't think we ever really know anyone, we just know the product of our interaction with them, which we see as 'them'.

I think why most people come on here is to engage in some kind of discussion in an environment where there is less social pressure to be something that is defined or constrained by the tastes/social code of a friend or friendship group.
Not that that's totally eliminated here, but maybe partially.

I also really appreciate A2K for the reasons you've suggested

Click, click.
No seriously. Thanks for your valued comments, Cryacuz. They'll keep me on A2K for another 10 or more years.

Click, click.
No seriously. Thanks for your valued comments, Cryacuz. They'll keep me on A2K for another 10 or more years.

Quality of their being , always

Jane, yes I agree that faces can be misleading. There are enough of those who look like angels and act like devils and vice versa, and very often we let our eyes do our thinking. But I must admit that sometimes that happens even here. If I see a reply by someone I've talked to before, the mere recognition of the name introduces the inevitable prejudice of experience.

PQ, your comment that "we don't really know anyone, just the product of our interaction with them, which we see as them" got me thinking a bit. Isn' that true for our interaction with ourselves as well, considering the fleeting and ever changing nature of a self?

Yes, I think it is, I was actually going to add that when I post it originally!

There's a good bit (one of the only good bits) in Tender is the Night where someone says to Nicole 'You really are a very complex person' and she says something like 'No, I'm just a lot of simple people.'

Have you ever known anyone who behaved radically differently in different situations? I have one friend like that. His love of being the centre of attention all the time makes him pretty hard to work out. In fact, I rarely try and do that anymore. It seems, to his friendship group, his personality is defined by just doing whatever would provoke the most attention from his audience at any specific time. This includes generally taking an opposing or shocking stance to an issue during conversation or doing stuff like coming out as gay for an evening whilst drunk and then going back straight again the morning. I always used to feel a bit sorry for his old girlfriend, who was a reserved girl who he used to behave completely differently and quietly around, thinking that it was only his friends that knew the 'real' him. But actually, he's a very good example of the fact there is never a 'real' someone - to his friends he acts outrageously because we are all quite loud and highly spirited and this way he can get social esteem, to his girlfriend he would act in a more tender way that would meet her approval and make a different form of product. In fact, this even used to extend to the way he dressed; if I used to come home and find him smoking a spliff wearing his old baggy pants and an orange t-shirt instead of skinny jeans it meant he'd split up with her; he used to kind of return to it to reaffirm his separate identity, I guess.

Interesting, this topic of identity. We like to think we have a core identity which remains constant despite all our situational identities. I remember a young man asssuring me that while he is a unitary being, he appears to himself to be very different when talking to a nun and when talking to a prostitute, and that the difference is "very sincere."

...furthermore interesting would be to relate that with the free/non free will argument, that would make the day...

That's so true, especially when that name is associated with ideas that are very contrary to you own way of thinking. In my view, it's very difficult for them to redeem themselves. However, should they choose another name and come in with a fresh, clean slate, we are open and free of prejudice again. Something that cannot be done in real life where you can see the person and it's impossible for them to switch to a new identity.

The freewill matter is no longer an issue.

...maybe not to you...good ! it is not an issue to me either... but I meant the generality of people...