[ExI] christmas songs 2

[Seien]

On 11/12/2007, PJ Manney <pjmanney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Seien,
>
> Of the 6+ billion Homo sapiens sapiens on this globe, we find that
> brains can be wired in many different ways.  I am wired for increased
> empathy, so much so that I write about the subject and see the world
> through that prism.  I'm also wired to love.  I love a lot of people
> in many different ways.  I suspect the two are connected.  Perhaps you
> are not wired that way.  That's okay, although a lack of empathy would
> make it very difficult for you to be a literary critic, since fiction
> requires empathy.  But from your writing, I can tell storytelling is
> not at the top of your list of interests.


Surprisingly enough, you're completely wrong.  I write fiction almost
constantly, fanfiction and original fiction. I also read fiction almost
exclusively. I'm sure if I was as frigid as you portray me, I would not be
as deeply in love with a certain fellow as I am. However, I am also
rational. I'm aware that love is governed almost exclusively by the romance
memeplex, and I take GREAT care not to wind up making bad decisions because
of that. We're not "wired" to these kinds of things. We can identify the
memes that produce them and modify them.

However, in defense of my previous statements, love has a myriad of
> meanings and Dickens utilized almost all of them in "A Christmas
> Carol", from the interpersonal to the impersonal, including romantic,
> sexual, familial, parental, fraternal, religious, platonic,
> altruistic, empathic and paraphilic (one could interpret Scrooge's
> love of money as a sexual replacement if you really wanted to get
> Freudian, which I do not).  Dickens knew that there is no universal
> definition for love, as do I.  He knew that what one person calls love
> may be different from another's, as do I.  But in the aggregate, all
> the forms of "love" represent the bonds humans acknowledge between
> each other.  You may call them what you will; morality, ethics, a part
> of evolutionary psychology, the golden rule, etc., but the bonds
> exist, even on this list.  ;-)



Most of those kinds of love are either irrational, or executed in irrational
ways. I wouldn't want that portrayed in a good light. And Morality, Ethics,
EP, all are distinct things with their own meanings. They are not
interchangeable.

And by the way, if you think humans are objectively rational, or are
> capable of making even partially rational decisions without the messy,
> mawkish, emotional parts of their brain coming into play (read any
> António Damasio), perhaps I could interest you in purchasing a bridge
> in Brooklyn.  I'll even put a bow on it.  It makes the perfect holiday
> gift...



I think that the majority of our memes, even here in the West, are
antirational. Oh well, that's a shame. But, like all problems,  it can be
solved.
"if you think humans are objectively rational" <---- I don't, but I do think
that rationality is objective and that humans are capable of reason.

In the statement "rationality is objective" is contained the parallel
statement "morality is objective".


-- 
~Seien
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