On Monday, November 25, 2013 2:10:04 PM UTC-6, Ned Batchelder wrote:
> Let's please avoid veering off into rants about language
> and philosophy now.
Hello Ned. I respect the fact that you want to keep threads
on-topic, and i greatly appreciate the humbleness of your
request.
However, i feel as though i am being unfairly treated when
other people (who shall remain unnamed) started the
discussion in an off-topic direction long before i chimed
in.
And to be fair, i was merely retorting a hasty assertion by
our friend Steven. Yes, i might have gotten a bit
philosophical in the process, but the reply itself was
germane to the sub-topic that Steven propagated up.
Furthermore, I don't believe that applying ridged rules of
topicality are to the benefit of anyone. Conversations of
any topic are destined to spin-off in many seemingly
unrelated directions -- and this is healthy!
As a spectator (or a participant) you can choose to stop
listening (or participating) at anytime the conversation
becomes uninteresting to you.
Some of the greatest debates that i have participated
in (those that result in epiphany or even catharsis) had
initially sprung out of seemingly unrelated subject matters
which slowly built to a crescendo of maximum intensity.
I don't think we should attempt to restrict debate since it
is this very debate that results in evolution of not only
the participants, but also the spectators.
"Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is
given to him, survival is not. His body is given to
him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to
him, its content is not"
[...]
"Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not
a mechanical process; the connections of logic are
not made by instinct. The function of your stomach,
lungs or heart is automatic; the function of your
mind is not."
"In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to
think or to evade that effort. But you are not free
to escape from your nature, from the fact that
reason is your means of survival -- so that for you,
who are a human being, the question "to be or not to
be" is the question "to think or not to think."
-- Ayn Rand
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