From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V16 #673 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Wednesday, July 30 2008 Volume 16 : Number 673 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: elizabeth wurtzel [HSatterfld@aol.com] RE: More songs about women and food ["Bachman, Michael" ] Re: Generation gaps [2fs ] Re: Love Songs ["(0% rh)" ] Re: Love Songs [2fs ] Re: Love Songs [Sebastian Hagedorn ] Re: Generation gaps [The Great Quail ] John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Chubby (and, ick, Elizabeth Wurtzel) ["Ben] Re: John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Chubby (and, ick, Elizabeth Wurtzel) [Sebastian Hagedorn ] Re: Love Songs [2fs ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 08:42:26 EDT From: HSatterfld@aol.com Subject: Re: elizabeth wurtzel Why aren't any of her books available as audiobooks, BTW? Does she have a voice like Harvey Fierstein? It is annoying but understandable when I find that older material, like say Richard Matheson, is not available as an audiobook. But when I can't find newer best sellers, I just wonder what the problem is. Searching audible.com returns 0 downloads for Elizabeth Wurtzel, and causes the site to try to sell me "Girl, Interrupted" instead. **************Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for FanHouse Fantasy Football today. (http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 08:40:25 -0400 From: "Bachman, Michael" Subject: RE: More songs about women and food - -----Original Message----- From: owner-fegmaniax@smoe.org [mailto:owner-fegmaniax@smoe.org] On Behalf Of grutness@slingshot.co.nz Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2008 7:03 PM To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Subject: More songs about women and food >> But it is one of the few songs written about cunnilingus. Are there >> any others? >Though not strictly a cunnilingus song, I take it from that lack of a mention here that all of you still think >Bryan >Adams' "Summer of 69" is about a year Kate Bush - The Warm Room.... "down you go to where the mellow wallows". Michael B. NP Tangerine Dream - Phaedra ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 08:09:33 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Love Songs On 7/30/08, (0% rh) wrote: > > > I'll quote something from the book (which of course cracked me up.) > The setup is that our Lizzie is down in > Florida working on "Bitch", kind of, but mostly she's just starting what's > to > become a major Ritalin and speed addiction. At at rate, she has some > relatives down there: a cousin, Lewis, who lives nearby with his wife and > two middle-school aged daughters, and goes to dinner there occasionally. > > ``She [Lewis' wife, who is Chinese] converted to Judaism, they got > married on a boat, now they've got two girls born less than a > year apart, with that interesting mix of Asian and Jewish genes > that has made them both boringly obedient. They clear the table > without being asked to, they get good grades without being > pushed, but I can't stand that they are eleven and twelve and still > such good-goodies. They sing in the Hebrew school choir. They > are hall monitors. > > "Why don't you listen to Marilyn Manson?" I ask. "When I was > your age I listened to the Sex Pistols and Patti Smith. I gave > my friends older brother blow jobs. I snuck out of the house in > high-heeled shoes and tight Sasson jeans. Don't yo ever want to > misbehave? Just a little bit?" I encourage them to throw their > bikes down the stairs and talk back to their parents. How old was she at this point - seventeen? Any older and it's just ridiculous: why the hell would any adult worry that her nieces are too boring, at the ages of 11 and 12 yet? And good to know she was so fucked up she was blowing her brother's friends at the age of 12... Ultimately, I think she thinks it's cool that she has all these problems - which is her major problem. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 08:19:24 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Generation gaps On 7/30/08, Carrie Galbraith wrote: > > > > Well, I'm around a lot of "today's youth" from nieces and nephews to > many college students and I find a lot of their views refreshing. I > rarely see homophobia, racism, sexism or class issues with the > students I deal with day-to-day. True. Or at least they're smart enough, or courteous enough, to know it wouldn't be appreciated and keep it to themselves. But I do think that the sorts of visceral homophobia etc. that you see in people, well, our age, that tends to be very rare. And when it shows up (rarely) - when one of my students says something clearly homophobic, for instance - the rest of the class quite clearly disapproves and pretty much immediately judges the person as an idiot. I trade music with them, talk shop > about video games and, to some extent film, although it is sad how > woefully ignorant most young Americans are of cinema history due to > the complete lack of Rep Houses in America anymore. History generally. The world began a few months ago. > > But the one thing I find shocking, given the advances and > breakthroughs since I was a 20-something, is how many young people > smoke cigarettes. Yeah. Goody for tobacco companies, managing to persuade yet another generation that smoking is cool. I've long thought that most anti-smoking ads seem put together by people who simply don't get that most teens don't want to be dutiful towards their elders' opinion...and in fact (like Our Ms. Wurtzel discussed elsethread) find it deeply uncool to find oneself agreeing with an authority figure. My idea for a youth-targeted anti-smoking ad would feature a nerdy-looking adult (a stereotypical "professor," or a dweeby accountant-type, etc.) smoking a cigarette, with the tagline: "Smoking: It's what your *parents* do." Problem is, a lot of these kids' parents *don't* smoke - the kids take it up out of misguided rebellion. Yet still end up with weirdly conservative political views, often... One thing I have noticed is that my students love to hear my stories > of street theater, pranks, urban adventuring, culture jamming and the > like. If there is one hit I do get from these young folks is they > don't feel as if they can do whatever they have a mind to do IF it > steps outside the boundaries of what the authorities say is > acceptable. Drinking, smoking? OK. But altering billboards? They find > it a bit daunting. Whereas we never gave it a thought. We just had a > point to make, or an idea, or a good sense of humor, or free time. Is > this a post 9/11 media-fear-driven inhibition? I think so, sadly enough. That reminds me of my friend Susan (also teaches college students, at a community college in CA). She's a year or two older than I am, which I think makes her a year or so younger than you - but she loves to "shock" her students with tales of youthful misbehavior...but more to the point, they love it. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:14:45 -0400 From: "(0% rh)" Subject: Re: Love Songs 2fs says: > How old was she at this point - seventeen? i think more like 30. > Any older and it's just ridiculous: why the hell would any adult worry that > her nieces are too boring, at the ages of 11 and 12 yet? i think it's more complicated than that. on some level, it's not that she *really* thinks her nieces are boring, but that they make her realize how dysfunctional her own family was when she was that age. i know it's popular to say that ALL families are dysfunctional these days, and, in a certain way, that's true, but not as true as how clear it is that some families are more dysfunctional than others. > And good to know > she was so fucked up she was blowing her brother's friends at the age of > 12... i'm not sure what you mean. > Ultimately, I think she thinks it's cool that she has all these problems - > which is her major problem. no, her major problem is that she's suffers from mental illness and drug addiction. just because she sometimes plays it for laughs doesn't mean she would trade her problem (i.e. mental illness) in for a ``normal life''. i'll confess that i've been defensive of her since ``prozac nation'' came out.. she got a lot of press and much of it amounted to saying she was just entitled and whiny. i sometimes think that people believe that because she can articulate her problems, that her problems are somehow her fault, or maybe it's that if she can talk about e.g. how difficult and irrational she can be, that she's somehow choosing to continue to have the problems that she does. she has an illness, and manages to write about it, and not take herself seriously. i certainly might be misinterpreting what you've said, but what you're saying sounds to me like, on some level, she's not ill, she's just an ass. personally, i think it'll be a long time before depression and other mental illness are not stigmatized. people pay lip service to how mental illness is as much of an illness as e.g. diabetes or cancer, but most of those people are kidding themselves. they want to think of themselves as having modern and tolerant thoughts. deep down, they know ms. wurtzel just could snap out of it if she's grow up and stop acting like a selfish baby. as ever, lauren - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:07:40 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Love Songs On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 10:14 AM, (0% rh) wrote: > 2fs says: > > Any older and it's just ridiculous: why the hell would any adult worry > that > > her nieces are too boring, at the ages of 11 and 12 yet? > > i think it's more complicated than that. on some level, it's not that > she *really* thinks her nieces are boring, but that they make her > realize how dysfunctional her own family was when she was that age. I'm sure that's true...the problem for me arises in her public performance of this realization - which, to me, comes across as desperately wanting to reinforce her own coolness. > > > And good to know > > she was so fucked up she was blowing her brother's friends at the age of > > 12... > > i'm not sure what you mean. I mean I think 12 is a little young to be offering blowjobs, and random blowjobs to acquaintances is a bit much at any age, and when those random acquaintances aren't really random but are chosen (at some level) to get the message back to one's family of one's own misbehavior, that's even more fucked-up. I'm sure Wurtzel understands that it's fucked-up...but again, she both understands that and wants to glory in it. > > > > Ultimately, I think she thinks it's cool that she has all these problems > - > > which is her major problem. > > no, her major problem is that she's suffers from mental illness and > drug addiction. just because she sometimes plays it for laughs > doesn't mean she would trade her problem (i.e. mental illness) in for > a ``normal life''. While if I were seriously evaluating what her most major problem is, I doubt I'd say "her need to be perceived as cool," I'd also say that that desire probably interferes with her efforts (whatever they might be) to mitigate the problems of her mental illness and drug problems. > > > i'll confess that i've been defensive of her since ``prozac nation'' > came out.. she got a lot of press and much of it amounted to saying > she was just entitled and whiny. i sometimes think that people > believe that because she can articulate her problems, that her > problems are somehow her fault, or maybe it's that if she can talk > about e.g. how difficult and irrational she can be, that she's somehow > choosing to continue to have the problems that she does. True, some people think of mental illness and addictions in that way. Having known quite well people suffering from both afflictions, I'm not one of them. However, as I said, sort of glorying in "god I'm such a fuck-up" and parlaying that fucked-upness into endless stories and books suggests a dependence *on* that fucked-upness even beyond that arising from mental illness and addiction. In other words she's feeding the beast. > > > she has an illness, and manages to write about it, and not take > herself seriously. i certainly might be misinterpreting what you've > said, but what you're saying sounds to me like, on some level, she's > not ill, she's just an ass. No - she's ill, *and* she's an ass. Her being an ass no doubt partly arises from the circumstances of her illness. But the impression I get is that she's benefiting from being an ass - and I'm guessing that really doesn't, ultimately, help her. > > > personally, i think it'll be a long time before depression and other > mental illness are not stigmatized. people pay lip service to how > mental illness is as much of an illness as e.g. diabetes or cancer, > but most of those people are kidding themselves. they want to think > of themselves as having modern and tolerant thoughts. deep down, they > know ms. wurtzel just could snap out of it if she's grow up and stop > acting like a selfish baby. I guess the question is, where do we (or do we?) draw a line between behavior that a person can't help due to illness (I include addiction as an illness) and behavior that we *can* help? Except in the most severely dissociative psychological disorders, I don't think anyone argues that a person has *no* control over their actions - similarly w/addictions. It's the fact that people still have a certain amount of agency in how they deal with and respond to psychological issues that complicates our reaction to them, in that it's hard to distinguish the illness talking from the non-ill (but maybe stupid, obnoxious, or otherwise fucked-up) person talking. There isn't that sort of confusion with physical medical issues, or at least not in the same way. However, there can be a slightly similar dynamic: say you break your leg, and rather than go see a doctor, deal with its healing, and move on, you stay home, bitch about it, and drink heavily to dull the pain, most people would say that you're not dealing with your physical problem well...even if you argue that christ the pain's so much you can't think straight and that's why you're making bad decisions. If they're bad decisions, they're still decisions. That's certainly not the same thing as saying "snap out of it you big baby." (At this point it might be useful to point out that I'm talking about my *impressions* of Wurtzel based on what I've read, and I'm generalizing from my experiences with people with mental illness and addictions. That is, I'm not really writing particularly about Wurtzel except insofar as she's an example. For me, I kinda tie in the positive reaction to Wurtzel with a few other things that I dislike...say, the whole spectrum of attitudes that amount to thinking it's cool to be an asshole, seen in everything from talk radio to pro wrestling to rock-star obnoxiousness to Leona Helmsley to Camille Paglia...It comes from a sort of shallow notion of rebellion, I think - whereby loudly yelling about one's difference, and dismissing those who aren't different like you as tools, square, boring, etc., without regard to their feelings or even whether your actions have any positive effect, somehow expresses a kind of pseudo-Romantic heroism. I mean, go ahead wear a mohawk...but don't go off to the suburban mall and yell at the normal boring people for being boring and normal, and then when they get pissed cuz you're yelling at them, claim it's only because they can't handle your radical mohawk attitude maa-aa-aan.) - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:03:45 +0200 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Re: Love Songs - -- 2fs is rumored to have mumbled on 30. Juli 2008 11:07:40 -0500 regarding Re: Love Songs: > I guess the question is, where do we (or do we?) draw a line between > behavior that a person can't help due to illness (I include addiction as > an illness) and behavior that we *can* help? Good question. > Except in the most severely > dissociative psychological disorders, I don't think anyone argues that a > person has *no* control over their actions Well there *is* a school of though called determinism, you know. I wrote my philosophy (that was one of my minors) paper on Ted Honderich and his two books "A Theory of Determinism: The Mind, Neuroscience and Life-Hopes", and "How Free Are You?: The Determinism Problem". He makes very good points (I think) on why we don't have free will, even if we think we do. That theory can be depressing, as he himself allows. That's why a large part of his book deals with the consequences of the theory, i.e. how we should learn to live with it. - -- Sebastian Hagedorn Am alten Stellwerk 22, 50733 Kvln, Germany http://www.uni-koeln.de/~a0620/ "Being just contaminates the void" - Robyn Hitchcock ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:00:47 -0400 From: The Great Quail Subject: Re: Generation gaps Rex writes, > Don't people tend to have a wider field of cultural experiences when-- that > is to say while-- they are younger? Certainly, of course. But the broadening effect of mass media has really changed the way younger generations go about things. More after this... > By which I mean, some of those R.E.M. > fans probably listened to a bit of Public Enemy back in the day, Well, some certainly did -- and probably some NWA and Beastie Boys, too. But I know plenty of people my age who still think "Rap" is anathema. Bear in mind, being active participants on an Internet music list, we are likely more in-tune with modern music and musical technology than most of our cohorts. For instance, my brother, who is 38, just learned how to use an MP3 player -- but refuses to listen to anything that is not heavy metal, a stance unvaried from high school. The idea of going online to hear something new is very very strange to him. > and today's > ever-so-much-more-musically adventurous youth will probably, by the time > they reach their 40's, have narrowed down their nostalgic music habits back > to a few key acts as well Maybe. But I think younger generations view musical genres less as ruts or ghettoes. You look at the iPods of most people in their twenties, and you'll see a wide variety of hip hop, rock, alternative, etc. Certainly more variety than I'm used to in my own generation, even when we were young. Of course, there's plenty of reasons for this -- the commercialization of music, the Internet, the easy availability of MP3s, and so on. But whatever the reasons, it has caused a shift in the way people perceive music. (I do, however, have the geezer's fret that these youngsters have lost the appreciation for a whole album, though. Sigh.) I also agree with Carrie -- I am much more comfortable with typical millennial views on racism and gender orientation than the cautious & qualified views frequently expressed by my own generation (that being X), let alone the condescension of the Boomers. > Dude, I hate my generation, too, but I just can't get a boner over the Youth > of Today like you do. Issues, man... issues. I have scanned my previous emails for any signs that I was expressing arousal to no avail. But if it pleases you to imagine me with an erection, knock yourself out. - --Quail ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:39:44 -0700 From: "Benjamin Lukoff" Subject: John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Chubby (and, ick, Elizabeth Wurtzel) > From: 2fs > > PS: Defending Paul doesn't mean I dislike Lennon - the notion that one has > to choose is absurd. George was a pretty talented guy himself! Also: Ringo > is a *brilliant* drummer - anyone who thinks he was just kind of middling > is > (a) probably not a drummer and (b) possessed of a couple of stale cinnamon > rolls for ears. Ringo's one of those drummers who's not all that > flashy...but he's incredibly distinctive. You can recognize his drumming > almost immediately...and in fact, you can recognize almost immediately when > another drummer is playing in a "Ringo" style. > Completely agree re Ringo, and as far as George, it's long been my contention that George was the true sonic heart of the Beatles. Almost always singing harmony, regardless of whether it was a John or Paul song; in the early days at least, always playing lead guitar... if either John or Paul had left the Beatles in 1969 and the other three had carried on, it would certainly have been different, but recognizable (see, for instance, "I Me Mine" -- is John missed? I don't think so). If George had left for good during "Let It Be," "Abbey Road" might have all sounded like "Maxwell's Silver Hammer." John and Paul definitely couldn't have continued the Beatles alone, like the Davies brothers and the Kinks or Difford and Tilbrook with Squeeze. That way "The Ballad of John & Yoko" lies. > > From: "(0% rh)" > (quoting Elizabeth Wurtzel) > ``She [Lewis' wife, who is Chinese] converted to Judaism, they got > married on a boat, now they've got two girls born less than a > year apart, with that interesting mix of Asian and Jewish genes > that has made them both boringly obedient. They clear the table > without being asked to, they get good grades without being > pushed, but I can't stand that they are eleven and twelve and still > such good-goodies. They sing in the Hebrew school choir. They > are hall monitors. > Hey Jason, as the only listmember who knows me personally -- am *I* boringly obedient, too? Maybe my Korean and Jewish genes got mixed up along the way. > > "Why don't you listen to Marilyn Manson?" I ask. "When I was > your age I listened to the Sex Pistols and Patti Smith. I gave > my friends older brother blow jobs. I snuck out of the house in > high-heeled shoes and tight Sasson jeans. Don't yo ever want to > misbehave? Just a little bit?" I encourage them to throw their > bikes down the stairs and talk back to their parents. > Where were girls like this when *I* was in middle school? > > They don't answer me. They just go back to reading _The Babysitters > Club_ books and watching the Cartoon Network, and generally > disappointing me with their lack of subversive curiosity. > Then again, they are happy and I am not." > Yeah... she can write, but the self-indulgence is just too much for me. I can't imagine dealing with 200+ pages of this, let alone paying for it. 'Sides, I think THIS has pretty much made me never want to hear about the trials and tribulations of 20-something East Coast Jewish women writers ever again: http://ettyblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/self-indulgent-self-indulgence.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:58:10 +0200 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Re: John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Chubby (and, ick, Elizabeth Wurtzel) - -- Benjamin Lukoff is rumored to have mumbled on 30. Juli 2008 10:39:44 -0700 regarding John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Chubby (and, ick, Elizabeth Wurtzel): > Yeah... she can write, but the self-indulgence is just too much for me. For some reason I don't mind that when I read something. I find it fascinating. Things would likely be different if I were to meet such a person in the real world. > I > can't imagine dealing with 200+ pages of this, let alone paying for it. > 'Sides, I think THIS has pretty much made me never want to hear about the > trials and tribulations of 20-something East Coast Jewish women writers > ever again: > http://ettyblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/self-indulgent-self-indulgence.html I really enjoyed that NYT magazine piece and was absolutely shocked to see how vitriol-laden the attacks on her in the comments section were. - -- Sebastian Hagedorn Am alten Stellwerk 22, 50733 Kvln, Germany http://www.uni-koeln.de/~a0620/ "Being just contaminates the void" - Robyn Hitchcock ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:16:44 -0700 From: Carrie Galbraith Subject: Re: Generation gaps On Jul 30, 2008, at 6:19 AM, 2fs wrote: > History generally. The world began a few months ago. I often start my first day of a class, in particular my book classes, with a questionnaire that asks them if they've read Borges, Calvino or Burroughs, among others. I include questions about recent history, the Beat poets and some of the fringier (but definitive) art movements like Fluxus. I also have to wonder just how much an emphasis is put on reading these days, other than Wikipedia. > > That reminds me of my friend Susan (also teaches college students, > at a community college in CA). She's a year or two older than I am, > which I think makes her a year or so younger than you - but she > loves to "shock" her students with tales of youthful > misbehavior...but more to the point, they love it. Yeah, I'm at a community college in San Francisco and you'd think these young "burners," as many of them are, would want to step out of line. Hell, I was an art student in SF and we hardly ever slept with the mischief we got in to. And they do love to hear the stories. But going to the Burning Man seems to make them feel like they've done their deed of rebellion for the year. Burning Man - please! I won't start on my opinion of that definitely-in-it-for-the-money event! As a kid I watched riots and demonstrations and war and a president resigning on TV. In depth coverage - not 30 second soundbites. Raw news footage most of it and impartially presented. Not carefully crafted as entertainment with a healthy dose of fear. So when did that change? Because I do believe that is one of the major factors in this recent generation's attitude. II asked my niece, who is 22, why she suddenly got political this year and is active in her support of Obama. And she said, matter-of- factly, that she had never known life without a Bush or a Clinton in the White House. Really made me stop and think from her point of view. > On Jul 30, 2008, at 10:00 AM, The Great Quail wrote: >> >> Bear in mind, being active participants on an Internet music list, >> we are >> likely more in-tune with modern music and musical technology than >> most of >> our cohorts. For instance, my brother, who is 38, just learned how >> to use an >> MP3 player -- but refuses to listen to anything that is not heavy >> metal, a >> stance unvaried from high school. The idea of going online to hear >> something >> new is very very strange to him. >> My friends, aged 40+, including my bro-in-law staring his 60th in the face, are all comfortable with surfing iTunes radio, downloading from a variety of sites and exploring anything new that is suggested to them. I actively trade music with my 24 year old nephew and my sister, the luddite among us, has had her iPod for at least 2 years and constantly changes her playlists. My point? What I'm saying is perhaps it's not necessarily a generational thing as it is a curious listener thing, if you know what I mean? Or a familiarity with technology thing? Working in hi- tech or education might make it easier to get in tune (so to speak) with what is out there than if we were, say, claims adjusters or bankers. (No offense to any claims adjusters or bankers who might be on the list.) Just a thought. - - c "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. " - - Thomas Jefferson ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:22:35 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Love Songs On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 12:03 PM, Sebastian Hagedorn < Hagedorn@spinfo.uni-koeln.de> wrote: > -- 2fs is rumored to have mumbled on 30. Juli > 2008 11:07:40 -0500 regarding Re: Love Songs: > > I guess the question is, where do we (or do we?) draw a line between >> behavior that a person can't help due to illness (I include addiction as >> an illness) and behavior that we *can* help? >> > > Good question. And rereading my hastily composed e-mail, I realize I wrote poorly: the last phrase should have read "behavior that a person *can* help" - I shifted my POV unannounced. I'm not referring to therapy or drugs, in other words. > > > Except in the most severely >> dissociative psychological disorders, I don't think anyone argues that a >> person has *no* control over their actions >> > > Well there *is* a school of though called determinism, you know. I wrote my > philosophy (that was one of my minors) paper on Ted Honderich and his two > books "A Theory of Determinism: The Mind, Neuroscience and Life-Hopes", and > "How Free Are You?: The Determinism Problem". He makes very good points (I > think) on why we don't have free will, even if we think we do. My understanding of the issue is that calling it "free will" leads us a bit astray. What is "will" if not freedom of sorts? And so, adding the "free" is a sort of honorific, a sort of glorification...which makes us (as no doubt intended by its adherents) less likely to argue against it. There's also the notion that what people generally mean by "I acted freely of my own will" and some sort of absolutist definition of "free" are rather different from one another. By "free" we simply mean something like, I examined the situation to the best of my knowledge, and chose a course of action that seemed most beneficial (or most altruistic, or easiest, or whatever rubric one might use). The notion that wait a minute - our actions are "determined" by the variables at hand, by the limitations of our knowledge and situation, etc...such that "really" we could have done nothing else...that notion's problematic, if only because there's no real test case (no way to A/B the choices, since the definition has already said there is no choice). The usual comeback involves some sort of trivial situation - say, I could have gone to the sub place for lunch today, but instead I went to the Chinese place...and if I'd been thinking about the "free will" argument, I might have gone to the sub place *even if I really felt like going to the Chinese place* just to prove my "free will." (Which, of course, doesn't work, the determination to make a point re "free will" being among the variables that "determine" the action.) Maybe a better way to look at it is that even though the universe is deterministic at the subatomic level (apparently), and so each individual action leads to a predictable reaction, the summation of all those actions is impossible to predict, through sheer complexity and the fact that there are more actions than neurons/bits/etc. available to try to calculate the results. There's also the question that unless someone were capable of *knowing* all those variables, even if there was an ability to calculate, the data would be incomplete and hence inaccurate. The claim amounts to a pseudo-scientific way of saying "There's a plan in the universe, but it's just unknowable to us." Practically speaking, what we mean when we say "free will" is simply that we *feel* as if we're choosing, as if we're free to have made another choice. (I could have had a sub if I'd decided to. And I could have hit delete w/o sending this message - an action some of you probably regret that I didn't take...) And to argue against that idea, we end up denying the reality of that perception (not its accuracy, its reality) - which seems odd, since surely that perception of consciousness and choice is among the variables "determining" our actions. (I'm ignoring any religious varieties of determination - but that's okay, since you can just sub in "God" for all that bit about "all variables and situations" and presume that the bearer of absolute knowledge carries the same name. ) 'Course, I haven't read the books you mention, and it wasn't my academic specialty - although I've read a few things on the subject here and there. > > -- > > ...Jeff Norman > > The Architectural Dance Society > http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V16 #673 ********************************