How do I stir up the Cambridge Philosophy budget scoffers?

on the subject of cloying.......

My mother used to tell me about when she worked as a beautician in a beauty shop when she was single and young. She reports a conversation she remembers in which one of the beauticians was speaking with a customer.

"Why, yeeeeeeeeeesss, Mrs. Bush......(not her real name) ..........yes, we sure have missed you here.....where've you been? Oh, that's lovely....what a nice trip it must've been. Oh yes, we'll be happy to see you when you come in.....yes, well, you know, you have such good hair and a sweet smile, it's always such a pleasure....yes, well we'll see you tomorra."

<hangs up telephone>

[referring to Mrs. Bush] "Two fac-ed heifer, I'd just-a-soon work on a pole cat!"

I've always loved that story.

spendius returns;-

He hasn't yet got his brain back in gear due to the enforced boredom of recent days.
His principle pleasure is the contemplation of the absurdities that swirl around his conker.The most useful subdivision of that category being blowing on the dull coals of the well trained torpidity of uppity female persons and that of males who differ from them solely in one biological respect:the objective of each being polar opposites.
A fairly close second is the perusal of Olympic gold medal standard light patterns and otoscopic waves which unfortunately are now unknown in the CPD due to an array of factors which may come to light on this thread.
Then there's sports betting,playing snooker,drinking
with above mentioned flapping egos and stroking cute cats.The odd descent into "the usual" remains a weakness.

spendius.

I can't figure out what you could possibly mean when you say that the objectives of male and female are polar opposites..............unless you're referring to the electricity produced when an electrical plug is inserted into an outlet.

Where would a neurotransmitter be without it's receptor? And what use would there be for a receptor without the synaptic pleasure offered by the neurotransmitter itself? It's all mutual pleasure after all, else it would never take place.

Lola:-

You make it seem as if electricity is produced by the action of plugging into a socket.That's typical.Lots of women think they have done the washing up when in actual fact it is mainly technology invented and powered by men which contributes by far the largest share towards the process.If you don't believe me try it in a river.
The polar opposites were the "torpidity" and the "one biological respect".I was trying to suggest that most men are intellectually feminine.It was clumsy I'll admit.

A neurotransmitter without a receptor would still be a neurotransmitter.It might hope for a receptor.Is not that a typical case of Type 1 conversations.In the pub late on that's the general state of things.A room full of NTs.And a receptor on it's own is also living in hope.
Mutual pleasure is all very well so long as it remains mutual pleasure.In the totality of the actions the mutual pain often far outwieghs the initial pleasures as can be seen writ large on all the news channels.The position you take is very similar to an ad-man's promise.The trick is to grab the pleasure and avoid the pain but that is harder to do than to say.

spendius.

It's true, spendius, electricity was invented and is largely maintained by men. I quite prefer to simply use the electricity given to me by man. I need not understand it. But I do understand how sockets and plugs work. Isn't it nice that you so clearly understand man's place in life? Receptors would be hard up without good NTs to make them fire. Hopefulness is a pleasurable state.

I find that women are often in the degraded position of using what men provide. It's a burden but I'm willing to bear it. Check me out later, I'll be down by the river doin my female thing.

Grabbing pleasure and avoiding pain is the Pleasure Principle as defined by Freud. Letter perfect. It is the goal of us all, however impossible it is to maintain. Still it's a worthy purpose, I think. If we're alive, there will be pain, no way around it. I strive to maximize pleasure while I'm here. And I'm lucky enough to be living in an age and in a country where that's possible to some extent. Think of what it was like before antibiotics or electricity, for that matter.

Lola:-

I don't like thinking of those days.It depresses
me more than I can say.It must have been wall-to-wall horrorshow for everybody.Paupers and peasants and princes and kings.

Oh-I understand man's place well enough.

Won't you get arrested if you do the "female thing"?

spendius.

I have a way of getting away with things.......one must be subtle in one's technique.

And as I said, it's pleasant that you know man's place. Otherwise, where would the NT be?

Lola:-

I'd sure like to see this "subtle technique".

spendius.

You are seeing it.

Lola:-

I see the technique you use on here.I'm sure you have other techniques for other times and places.Which ones are subtle is a matter of taste.

spendius.

Agreed, however let's not conflate conscious and unconscious brain activity.

Lola:-

I would'nt dream of doing a thing like that.The myriad of unconscious brain activity which controls my temperature and when my nose itches and such-like is a similar system,maybe identical,to that which controls similar things in animals.
What about my dream.You promised a free interpretation.

spendius.

I don't think I promised a free interpretation. But if I did, I must have been temporarily lying or confused. We can play with the interpretation of your dream......but only if we work together. I can only help you find possible meanings through your associations (thoughts without editing). A proper analysis of your dream would require much more than we can do on an internet forum.

I could tell you what the dream might mean to me through my associations to your dream, but that would be my meaning, not yours. And it's your dream.

I could conjecture, for instance from what you've told me that you were fearful of a humiliating experience which you may have experienced symbolically as a castration at the hands of a desired but unfaithful woman. (The little dwarf being attacked by the cat. And your association to the events in your life at the time.....the relationship with the English rose.)

The fact that you were watching the event in the dream could indicate that you wished to remove yourself from the experience and see it as happening to someone else or to yourself, but in an objectified way, thus ameliorating the sensation of humiliation.

A deeper interpretation, of course would be about who the contemporary rose or woman represented to you. That would be your infantile sensual desire for your mother and your fear of her humiliating response to you about it, or your fear of your own sense of humiliation about the wish. A mother can be experienced by a young son as unfaithful when faced with the reality of her adult relationship with her husband, who may or may not be the child's father. You can see how these events complicate the emotional life of man.

Before you go crazy over that one, keep in mind that Freud, in his oedipus theory, was referring to a very young child and his primitive wishes based on his view of his mother at that early age. Most very young children think their mother is divine before they grow big enough to see her more objectively.

Anyway, those are possibilities, but only that. It is what it would likely be about for me if I were a man and I had the dream. Whether it's true for you, only you can be the judge.

Your turn.

Lola:-

Thanks.I'll study it all although I detect a certain slide into teleology.

You would'nt want my unedited thoughts and I don't think the admin would allow them--

"If my thought dreams could be seen,
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine.
But it's alright Ma-I can make it."

You know that stunning song I presume?Did you ever see the video of the live version in Australia with The Heartbreakers.Oh me oh mi love that country pie.

I have no experience of unfaithful women.When I was young and impressionable and on military training they showed us films of the effect of VD and the treatments for them.Some of my pals actually vomited.I have had zero interest in loose women ever since.I think a castration complex is a perfectly natural thing to have and in regard to every part of the body as well.It is true that I am generally fearful of humiliating experiences.I thought that was normal too.Is it pathological?Maybe women can take advantage of men who have no such fear but I rather think they don't respect them.The real respect of women is something I seek-yes.

I can see how the possible events you describe could easily complicate the emotional life of a man.
Especially if he takes no steps to rid himself of such things.Do you think there is much chance of the lives of Cambridge philosophers being complicated in these ways?Do some men hang on to these conditions as a deliberate life strategy?One thing I do recall is that I tried to avoid being kissed by my mother or any of my aunties who werre all quite keen on the idea.I hated it.We didn't have any sex education then and I didn't know into my teens that my Dad did these things of which you speak to my mother.Perhaps it would have been better if he hadn't.I never remember thinking my mother divine.She was just a nuisance.Maybe when I was on the breast,which I was for longer than is usual these days,it might well have been different but I think a wet nurse would have been just as divine.
I still think my reaction on waking is the most likely.It was spontaneous.The imp was my subby.The cat was the Rose who had emptied me.
The conscious me was what was in the audience.

How much would your interpretation cost if I was on the couch admiring your legs.

spendius.

PS.It ought to be a rule on this thread that the Cambridge crowd at least get one mention.

I'll try a quick fix.I'm probably wasting my time but one never knows.Stendahl said that he only wrote for the chosen few.That's about the only thing he got wrong.

You are on a philosophy channel.Right?Am I right or am I wrong?
Philosophy is a science.Right or wrong?It isn't a science on this thread and that's for sure.Not yet.
Scepticism is the beginning of science.I needn't prove that it is so plain.
Philosophy studies scientifically such things as the nature of the conventions under which men live.Customs,usages,traditions,canons of conduct,standards of taste,of morality,of religion and of law and order.It tries to bring these to take account of advances in other sciences.
Obviously any enquiry into these matters will disturb the habitual preconceptions and convictions of non-philosophers.If it didn't there would be no point in it.If the habitual preconceptions and convictions are taken to be inalienably right and good the case rests in silence.When that happens all you have is a fatuous argument,going nowhere,about who's habitual preconceptions and convictions are the best.That is not philosophy.It might be your gig but if so it belongs in other forums and all it does is discredit philosophy.A young student might come on this thread and get the idea that what he sees is philosophy.He will think-"that looks easy.I can do that.Its good money I heard." and off he goes.You might lose a good engineer or biologist that way.
We need to know the difference between homiletic expositions and scientific enquiry.
The vast bulk of men,of whom there is one born every minute,have sentimental convictions which is to say self-serving convictions.They stick to these for perfectly understanable reasons with tenacity and any disturbance of these they see as a violation of the truth.It upsets them the little dears.
It is easy to be popular by confirming the sentimental convictions of others.Advertising does little else.And proper philosophers are not ad-men.
Any suggestions in this field which don't corroborate opinions in vogue are condemned.Those suggestions which do are not philosophy and are pointless except as flattery or exercises in financial aggrandisment.
Philosophy involves the extrusion of ideas as far as they will go.If you like,which I suspect you will like,to absurd limits.You even conduct your personal relationships within guidelines philosophers have mapped out for you.That's pretty absurd eh?Especially to those who think they conduct them out of their own resources.
Philosophy is not for the faint of heart.It is a man's game and it is for real.
You,and me,are trapped in a gargantuan mechanism.It has benefits as you know and it has costs and risks of greater costs.Should we proceed further and get the shackles off stem cell research or cloning or should we stop or even go back.That is the philosophical issue of our day.Future generations are hanging on our specualations just like we are hung out on the specualations of previous generations.Is the scientific experiment worth it or not.Can it even be stopped.Are we Faustian?Temptation is the very Devil.
Who's for **** or bust?Staying out of it;escaping down all the routes available,is a mere trifle and adds up to being of no account.No wonder the red states won the election.

spendius.

Lola:-

I'm sorry to hear you are not too well.I hope you are back soon in fighting trim.

That last post wasn't for you.I know you know all that.

I'm a bit worried that Cambridge doesn't.If they don't-what then?

spendius.

Yes, I think it's normal too. It's interesting that you had the question. Did it sound as if I thought it pathological? Funny, many people think this about Freud and his theories. It's not pathological at all. Wishes and conflicts, and their associated defenses are not pathological in and of themselves. They are normal. Pathology can only be determined regarding method. It's the way a person tries to work out the solution to their conflicts that can be understood as pathological or not. That is......some methods work better than others in providing the gratification and defense necessary for a good life.



Yes, I'm sure of it. The lives of all of us are complicated in this way.....and what else would we have to do without such complication. Again, one Cambridge Philosopher's method of managing his/her complications may be effective or ineffective.......depending. Those Cambridge folks are a mystery to me. Do you know any of them personally? Or are they simply interesting to you in the abstract?

Lola:-

I'm on hold.

We had a big storm last night.Not by your standards but bad enough.I'm in that game which involves sorting the mess out.

Glad to see you up and about again.

Hope to see you Monday.

Mind how you go.

spendius.

TWIMC:-

The intro to an article by Brian Appleyard in The Sunday Times.

"Last year universities around the country closed physics departments.The subject was widely undersubscribed and,in the eyes of our wonderful modernising government,it didn't actually seem to do anything useful.One less physics department was about as bad for the economy as one less theology faculty.
Both theologians and physicists seem to pass their days in futile speculation about the meaning of everything without ever saying anything useful or comprehensible.They may as well do that on their own time.spending their own money."

What I want to know is how the Cambridge Philosophy Department are managing to avoid this savage cull.Could it be they are being "treated in the community" to borrow a phrase from our so-called Iron Lady?

spendius.

It is all over Yucky media that the leader of the Conservative Party is offering to cut £35 billion of Gov't expenditure as an election pledge.

If the Cambridge Philosophy Dept. is not included in such swingeing cuts what on earth are we to think?

spendius.