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Re:Imagining Life as a Stack of Mental States by jeromebaek on Monday June 03, 2019 @12:24AM (#20080397)
Classically reductionist, and completely incorrect. If I like my blanket-tea-kindle-bed ritual, it's because I like my blanket-tea-kindle-bed ritual. It's not reducible to anything else.
Re:Imagining Life as a Stack of Mental States by coldtea on Monday June 03, 2019 @03:49AM (#20081211)
That is so absurd, it's not even wrong.

For one, you weren't born with the affection for blankets and tea. You developed it under several conditions. And you chose this particular comforting pass-time other others for several reasons.

Heck, billions of people crave the lifestyles the see on movies and commercials, and e.g. go creating rituals of "hygge" (blankets and hot beverages being essential to it) because they saw a show about it or read about it on Goop and think they will make them as happy as the people in the photos...

Re:Imagining Life as a Stack of Mental States by Rainymood on Monday June 03, 2019 @02:07AM (#20080756)
>If I like my blanket-tea-kindle-bed ritual, it's because I like my blanket-tea-kindle-bed ritual.

But why stop there? What you are saying now feels (to me) much like circular reasoning: I like X because I like X. But why do you like X? I also like to lie in my blanket and read with a cup of tea because: it is comfortable, it is safe, it is stimulating for the mind ... so I urge you to think why do you like your ritual

Re:Imagining Life as a Stack of Mental States by callesgg on Monday June 03, 2019 @05:40AM (#20081639)
There is never a clear answer to why something is the way it is. The answer depends on the context in which you ask the question.

Which context is best to use is impossible to answer. You don't know all the contexts.

Re:Imagining Life as a Stack of Mental States by kranner on Monday June 03, 2019 @02:15AM (#20080799)
You may like ritual-X-ostensibly-to-facilitate-end-Y now, but surely when you first started following ritual X it was to achieve end Y, and not just to have a ritual you would eventually come to like for its own sake.