Arkanin

I just want to say you're right. For some reason the up arrow is gone and I can't upvote you. But you're right.

If I am reasonably bright, I am capable of learning if I work hard. I don't have an excuse to fail. Period. There are reasons promising people fail -- they realize, perhaps, that they aren't going after what they really want, or a serious external crisis occurs, or they feel entitled because everyone used to tell them they're smart -- but as long as I am aware of, there are no excuses for falling into those traps.

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to try that. 6-10 books. OK. I can do that in 4 months.

First topic: learning, memory & reading comprehension techniques. Then change habits. I have a couple books already.

But what, other than intelligent beings, can ponder the concept of beauty? When we say something is beautiful, we mean it is aesthetically pleasing, and without a perceiver of an object, there is nothing to be aesthetically pleased.

If you believe in god, space aliens, etc., we can shift the admirer of beauty to another perceiver, but still, without the perceiver there is no concept of beauty ascribed to the object.

What? No. Maybe you should read this article. Perhaps you can interchange "Luck" with "Fortune", but it contains a few principles that could benefit you in the future.

"Beauty" is an aesthetic concept of the mind that varies between each person, not a property that you can give to an object. The object is beautiful because its perceiver finds it to be so; without the perceiver, there is no beauty. Therefore, it is a mistake to talk about beauty as an intrinsic property ("X is beautiful") when it is actually a perception ("Jim finds X beautiful.").

When we say "X is beautiful", it is actually shorthand for "Lots of people find X beautiful", or "The consensus is that X is found to be beautiful".

/aspie

I think he is getting at the epistemological problem of first premises. If the only fact of epistemology that I accept is "I exist", the statement "Objective reality exists" cannot be proved.

I'm sure there's better formal language for this, but we could benefit by making a distinction between "facts in principle" and "facts in practice". Let's say a fact in principle is derived from a priori knowledge, whereas a fact in practice is one that we have accepted and depend on in order to make pragmatic decisions and survive. In principle, I believe that I exist but that I cannot prove objective reality exists. In practice, I accept that objective reality exists and that if I stand in front of a bus I will be hit.

Disclaimer -- IANAL, so maybe we can all get some elaboration from an attorney and learn something?

Let's make a distinction between intent and awareness of the law. For example's sake, let's say you've been trading stock off a tip a company insider gave you, which is illegal. At the same time, you don't know it's illegal, but you are consciously trading the stock.

Intent -- You have the intent to trade the stock because you are doing it during the day, awake and fully aware of your actions. You would not have intent if you traded the stock while sleepwalking.

Awareness of the law -- You are not aware that your actions are a crime, despite having an intent to perform those actions. This makes no difference -- you are held accountable for your actions whether you knew they were illegal or not, as long as you were cognizant while you were taking those actions.

IANAL, so again, the language is probably all flubbed. But it's my understanding that intent matters, not awareness of the law. Can anyone correct me if I'm mistaken?