In my original tarot deck I used the title "The Player" on the #0 card which is usually "The Fool"

The Tarot cards represent what is called "The royal road" or "The journey of the Fool."

The Fool has always interested me. For many years I have watched numerous cartoons in various countries that so happened to always have a character as the fool that represented cowardness physically, but great wit mentally.

How it all started? The history, the beginnings of such characteristics doesn't seem to be easy to find, besides looking at jesters in medieval times.

Anyway, I am sure we all pose this characteristic occassionally.

Sorry for being off topic by the way.

Please don't shoot me down!

Absurd evidently has a different meaning to you than it does to me. That 'label' has subjective meaning.



In the objection you provided, what was being interpreted? What was found to be funny by my sense of humor? What was thought about?

The joke.

It most certainly did cause the smile. If you would like to get even more specific about it, an autonomous process stemming from within my brain signaled the muscles which cause my mouth to move in such a way that it was raised up at the corners...

What caused all of that?

The joke.



Do not get caught up in the label. It is all we have to use given our means of communication is written. When someone is smiling or laughing it is reasonable to say that at that moment in time that behavior has an intrinsic meaning.

The label 'happy' is just a label. When that intrisic meaning which we label as 'happy' is named it obtains a subjective identity, and the label becomes subjective. The intrinsic meaning is unchanged. The smile does not depend upon the label 'happy' for it's meaning. If that were true, then a smile did not mean anything until it had a label. We all know that that is false. It has an intrinsic meaning with or without a label.

In the Tarot, the fool does not represent cowardness at all. On the contrary, the fool is bold and reckless.

Clueless would be a better word.

The joker from batman smiles all the time, but I am sure he isn't really smiling at all about the things he wants to do.

I could imagine, but I am sure you have heard of the term "the wise fool" before. I guess that is what I was observing in movies and cartoons for many years.

For the tarot I could imagine it has different meanings like the one you stated. Very interesting by the way.

The joke cannot cause the smile. If that were the case then everyone who ever heard that same joke would have no choice but to smile.

Some jokes are funny to some people and not funny to other people.

It is not the joke itself that makes a person smile.

I stand by that statement.

Your assertion that a joke causes a smile is absurd.
You smiled because you thought it was funny.
I may not smile at the same joke.

I stand by that statement.

Yes, the wise fool is also used in the Tarot.

Ah I see there are two fools in the tarot. Very interesting. Okay let me stop here. I am soo off topic, I might get shot down before I know it.

Anyway good to know.

This is what you are offering as evidence to support your objection?

"The joke cannot cause the smile," because "if that were the case, then everyone who ever heard that same joke would have no choice but to smile?"



How does my smiling at a joke depend upon or necessitate that? Those things are in no way dependent upon nor indicative of one another.



True. How does that fact support your objection? It seems to be further evidence for mine, because...

That is why different jokes cause different people to smile.



Ok.



Without the joke, the smile was not.

Define 'absurd'. I can garauntee you that it does not mean 'differs from JB's opinion'.



Show me how it is absurd.

Very simple. To claim that a joke "caused you to smile" is not taking responsibility for your own participation and decisions in the matter or for your personal feelings. Its like claiming that another person caused you to be unhappy, or angry. It is the beginning of blaming everyone and everything else for all of your own personal reactions to things.

"He made me angry and I shot him, but its not my fault because he made me angry."

Take responsibility. Take some credit. Your 'sense of humor' caused you to smile. You could just as well have been insulted by that joke. It depends on how your mind works.




No it is different unique interpretations, decisions and sense of humor that cause the smile, not the jokes. It is the different reactions (thoughts) that cause the smile.



Absurd: It is ridiculously unreasonable, unsound, or incongruous.

JB,

I have said all that is needed to establish my earlier claim. Your now talking about things which make no difference to the claim of intrinsic meaning within a smile, with or without a label. The new information in that response had nothing to do with what is being discussed here. The little bit that did relate is just more od the same, which I have already addressed without due response.

Jeannie’s post points to exactly what I was thinking as I read your post.

Instead of just cause=>effect, you’ve got: primary cause=>primary effect/secondary cause=>final effect.

That is…

“ ‘Smell of food’ causes ‘happiness’”, followed by “ ‘happiness’ causes ‘tail up’”

“ ‘Joke’ causes ‘happiness’ ”, followed by “ ‘happiness’ causes ‘smile’”

“ ‘an unfamiliar sound at night’ causes ‘uneasy, defensive, and alert’”, followed by “ ‘uneasy, defensive, and alert’ causes ‘growling and upraised hair on back’”


In other words, in between “primary cause” and “final effect”, there is an intermediate thing that is both cause and effect, which practically guarantees equivocation.

And here’s why:

In all the examples, the primary cause and the final effect are objective, but the intermediate “cause/effect”, is subjective.

“Smell of food” and “tail up” are objective, but “happiness” is subjective.

“an unfamiliar sound at night” and “growling and upraised hair on back” are both objective but “uneasy, defensive, and alert” are all subjective.

“Joke” and “smile” are objective, but “happiness” is subjective.

And in all three case, the thing you are labeling “intrinsic meaning” is the subjective component, and the things you are labeling “cause” and “displayed behavior” are the objective components.

So, unless you can provide an example of “intrinsic meaning”, which cannot be deconstructed into the same components and relationships…or a different way of explaining it, which circumvents those issues, I don’t see anything that contradicts my original position that “meaning is subjective”.

Now to be fair I can see some rationale behind arbitrarily assigning the label of “intrinisic meaning” to that “intermediate cause-cum-effect”, simply for the sake of brevity. But there are some significant problems in that as well – stemming from both the subjective nature of the referent, and the inherent dualism of the definition.

Sky,

You guys are both hung up on the labels... I am tired, so I will show you tomorrow. Your assessment is of the label, not the intrinsic meaning behind the objective properties of behavior that is being labeled, and thus becoming subject to what that label means.

And, as you can se, JB, the Tarot cards aren't the only place populated by fools...

This is the key point to the whole philosophy: it starts with the postulate that "self" is a single, indivisible, independent unit, not "a pattern" or a "combination" or an "emergent property". I has no "pieces" to "take apart".

Now unless you are able to comprehend that single, most fundamental concept of the whole philosophy, then all the extrapolations and corollaries and conclusions based on that concept will be equally incomprehensible.

If your example(claim) that a joke is the "cause" or your smile was supposed to establish some other claim it would only do that if it were a true claim. While the joke itself was the thing that caused your inner (subjective) reaction, it was that reaction and decision (that it was funny) that caused the smile.

Now if this fact supports your original claim then you are okay. But if it does not then it was simply a bad example. I was not really following your and Sky's conversation in depth so I don't know what point you were trying to make, I just saw your claim about a joke that caused your smile and that just did not sound like a true statement.

I'm sure you THINK it was the joke that caused the smile. Maybe you just are not aware of the inner emotional process that follows the hearing of a joke and the actual smile.

I am not "hung up" on labels, I don't know why you would say that. I take a statement for exactly what it says in the most simple and literal sense possible without assuming anything. If my assessment is of the "label" I will confess I don't know what label you are referring to. From there, your statement above wanders off into "objective properties of behavior" and I don't know what you are talking about so.......

never mind.

I have to laugh at the sheer irony of that.

You're no less hung up on labels than we are.

What is there to work with here but labels and our own subjective interpretation of them?

What other option is there?

Ignore all the labels and depend entirely on our own subjective? (Solipsism anyone?)

Or maybe Telepathy? Or Astrology?

"Labels? Labels? We don' need no stinking labels!"

bean, my question was in response to your having introduced the term "physical universe". i was simply trying to understand what you mean. the term is unfamiliar to me.



well you bring up "reality" and then decide you'll "not get into that discussion". fine.



no. frequency is a measurment of a vibration usually expressed in hertz or cycles per second. it is a measurement used to deliniate any type of wave or pulse like reproduction. again i was asking for clarification. so how does everything physical have anything to do with frequency? i cannot contemplate the points you're trying to make without understanding your point.



unfair bean. and totally uncalled for. not being a mental health professional i'd never call and individual delusional. the only occasions that i use the word is in describing what i understand the diagnosis to be in phsychiatry. you want me to move one bean? fine if that's your wish. but you continue to reply to my responses and i reply to yours. i enjoy the exchange. if you wish to move on that's up to you but i've no control over that. i'm participating in open forum as are you. i ignore many hear as i suspect you do as well. so if you wish to move on, ignore what i have to say. but telling me to move on is not you moving on is it?



thanks bean but no, i'm quite happy with my understanding "about frequency as it relates to 'science' and have many sources where i can look to learn more.