Favorite Quotes

From Karl Popper 1902-1994:

"Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite."

"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood."

"No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude."

"Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell."

From Ayn Rand 1902-1982:

"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."

"Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone."

"The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt."

"A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving."

"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."

"These two — reason and freedom — are corollaries, and their relationship is reciprocal: when men are rational, freedom wins; when men are free, reason wins."

"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)."

"Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think."

"Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property."

Not to pick on you rombomb...but I've never been much of a fan of Ayn Rand. Her writing did not impress me, and some of these quotes are flawed, so I am picking on her! There is some truth in some of her quotes, but many are over-generalizations. Don't take this personally...lol

From Ayn Rand 1902-1982:

"A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving."

Not necessarily...we can desire things that we will never try to achieve, or have any hope of achieving.

"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.""

Again, not necessarily...some of us just need to create without concern for achieving anything, and conversely there have been more than a few that were consumed with the need to beat others, in many fields of endeavor...science and medicine are obvious examples.

"These two — reason and freedom — are corollaries, and their relationship is reciprocal: when men are rational, freedom wins; when men are free, reason wins." "

Just being free does not ensure reason! Democracy is proof of that.

"Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.""

Wealth is generally a product of man's greed and avarice, since it generally comes on the back of others; and if men were really thinking, we would have equality rather than the disparity between the rich and the poor.

From David Deutsch 1953-

"...everything that is not forbidden by laws of nature is achievable, given the right knowledge."

"So it is fallibilism, not mere rejection of authority, that is essential for the initiation of unlimited knowledge growth – the beginning of infinity."

"The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests."

"Biological evolution was merely a finite preface to the main story of evolution, the unbounded evolution of memes."

From Richard Feynman 1918-1988:

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."

"Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars - mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?"

From Penn Jillette:

"Every problem we have should be solved with more freedom, not less."


From Ludwig Von Mises 1881-1973:

"Modern society, based as it is on the division of labor, can be preserved only under conditions of lasting peace."


From William Godwin 1756-1836

"If a thing be really good, it can be shown to be such."

"As the true object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various reading should lead him into new trains of thinking."

loved those last ones.

From me:

"We are all fallible -- anyone of us can be wrong about any one of our ideas. So shielding any one of my ideas from criticism means irrationally believing that I have the truth."

Hi frmthhrt, I'm gonna reply to your post tomorrow morning. too tired right now.

frmthhrt wrote: Not to pick on you rombomb...but I've never been much of a fan of Ayn Rand. Her writing did not impress me, and some of these quotes are flawed, so I am picking on her! There is some truth in some of her quotes, but many are over-generalizations. Don't take this personally...lol

I love criticism! It drives learning and I love learning!

frmthhrt wrote:

From Ayn Rand 1902-1982:

"A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving."

Not necessarily...we can desire things that we will never try to achieve, or have any hope of achieving.

That is her point. Why does one desire that which is impossible to acheive?

frmthhrt wrote:

"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.""

Again, not necessarily...some of us just need to create without concern for achieving anything,

No. Creating *is* achieving!

frmthhrt wrote:
and conversely there have been more than a few that were consumed with the need to beat others, in many fields of endeavor...science and medicine are obvious examples.

Yes and Rand is saying that that is immoral.

frmthhrt wrote:

"These two — reason and freedom — are corollaries, and their relationship is reciprocal: when men are rational, freedom wins; when men are free, reason wins." "

Just being free does not ensure reason! Democracy is proof of that.

Most children in our best democracies are ruled by dictator parents. This causes children to have irrationalities.

Current day democracies are not very free anyways. Majorities regularly impose their will on minorities. This is anti-freedom.

frmthhrt wrote:

"Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.""

Wealth is generally a product of man's greed and avarice, since it generally comes on the back of others;

What do you mean by "on the back of others"?

frmthhrt wrote:
and if men were really thinking, we would have equality rather than the disparity between the rich and the poor.

What do you suggest? Are you advocating that every person have the exact same income?

From Edmund Burk 1729-1797

"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."

"The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse."

"A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation."

From me:

"All knowledge is connected in a network."

From Elliot Temple:

"Emotions embody traditional knowledge which we don't have a full, conscious understanding of. Emotions are also fallible and possible to change."

From Socrates:

"The unexamined life is not worth living."

From Simon Pegg:

“Being a geek is all about being honest about what you enjoy and not being afraid to demonstrate that affection. It means never having to play it cool about how much you like something. It’s basically a license to proudly emote on a somewhat childish level rather than behave like a supposed adult. Being a geek is extremely liberating.”

I agree with the main message. But I disagree with his use of the word childish. It implies that children are immoral and adults are moral, but that's false -- many children are more moral than most adults. So he is effectively insulting children.

From Elliot Temple:

"Do not do anything to your child that would be a crime to do to someone else."

From Thomas Szasz 1920-2012

"Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is."

From Karl Popper 1902-1994

"All life is problem solving."

rombomb wrote:

frmthhrt wrote: Not to pick on you rombomb...but I've never been much of a fan of Ayn Rand. Her writing did not impress me, and some of these quotes are flawed, so I am picking on her! There is some truth in some of her quotes, but many are over-generalizations. Don't take this personally...lol

I love criticism! It drives learning and I love learning!

frmthhrt wrote:

From Ayn Rand 1902-1982:

"A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving."

Not necessarily...we can desire things that we will never try to achieve, or have any hope of achieving.

That is her point. Why does one desire that which is impossible to acheive?

No, her statement was simply a falsehood...why not desire that which is impossible to achieve? There is no accounting for desire...

frmthhrt wrote:

"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.""

Again, not necessarily...some of us just need to create without concern for achieving anything,

No. Creating *is* achieving!

It may be, but there may not be a conscious desire to do so as a motive.

frmthhrt wrote:
and conversely there have been more than a few that were consumed with the need to beat others, in many fields of endeavor...science and medicine are obvious examples.

Yes and Rand is saying that that is immoral.

That is not how I read what she was saying.

frmthhrt wrote:

"These two — reason and freedom — are corollaries, and their relationship is reciprocal: when men are rational, freedom wins; when men are free, reason wins." "

Just being free does not ensure reason! Democracy is proof of that.

Most children in our best democracies are ruled by dictator parents. This causes children to have irrationalities.

Current day democracies are not very free anyways. Majorities regularly impose their will on minorities. This is anti-freedom.

My point exactly.

frmthhrt wrote:

"Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.""

Wealth is generally a product of man's greed and avarice, since it generally comes on the back of others;

What do you mean by "on the back of others"?

Meaning others below them in their corporation or company or empire or whatever work for far less than their worth, and the wealthy man takes their fair share as part of his own wealth.

frmthhrt wrote:
and if men were really thinking, we would have equality rather than the disparity between the rich and the poor.

What do you suggest? Are you advocating that every person have the exact same income?

I am suggesting that everyone have a fair share...not a tiny minimum wage for some, and a multi-million dollar wage for bank managers. It should not be the same...there should be some difference for schooling and experience, but not more than an order of magnitude!

frmthhrt wrote:why not desire that which is impossible to achieve? There is no accounting for desire...

I disagree. One desires that which he values. He values that which he believes is good. Do you agree?

frmthhrt wrote:

No. Creating *is* achieving!

It may be, but there may not be a conscious desire to do so as a motive.

Thats not the point. You said yourself that you create because you want to. But what is it that you want? The acheivement. The thing you created.

Rand is saying that acheivment should be sought after for the benefit of acheivement (for himself).

Some people acheive *so that* they beat others. Rand is saying that this is bad. Its other-people-oriented.

frmthhrt wrote:

Yes and Rand is saying that that is immoral.

That is not how I read what she was saying.

Its hidden. A quote can't say everything. To understand the whole meaning, you'd have to learn objectivism. A good place to learn it is from _The Fountainhead_ and _Atlas Shrugged_, they are fictions. Another crucial one is _The Virtue of Selfishness_, which is a non-fiction.

heh, here's a quote that asserts why meaning can be hidden.

"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood."
Karl Popper

frmthhrt wrote:

Current day democracies are not very free anyways. Majorities regularly impose their will on minorities. This is anti-freedom.

My point exactly.

Whats your point? You said that being free doesn't make one reasonable, see democracy as proof. I said that currentday democracies are not as free as they can be (not even close). That implies that our democracy can improve to become more free, which is conducive to people being more reasonable.

What is your point? That our democracy can't be more free? Or that freedom isn't conducive to people being more reasonable?

frmthhrt wrote:

What do you mean by "on the back of others"?

Meaning others below them in their corporation or company or empire or whatever work for far less than their worth, and the wealthy man takes their fair share as part of his own wealth.

How do you determine one's worth (in trade)?

frmthhrt wrote:

What do you suggest? Are you advocating that every person have the exact same income?

I am suggesting that everyone have a fair share...not a tiny minimum wage for some, and a multi-million dollar wage for bank managers. It should not be the same...there should be some difference for schooling

Many non-graduates do better work than graduates. Are you suggesting that graduates with less merit make more money than non-graduates with more merit?

frmthhrt wrote:
and experience,

Many new people (to a career) do better work their experienced peers. Are you suggesting that experienced people with less merit make more money than less experienced people with more merit?

frmthhrt wrote:
but not more than an order of magnitude!

How do you propose setting the price of wages?

rombomb wrote:

frmthhrt wrote:why not desire that which is impossible to achieve? There is no accounting for desire...

I disagree. One desires that which he values. He values that which he believes is good. Do you agree?

No I don't. I sometimes desire that which may be bad for me...or is just bad.

frmthhrt wrote:

No. Creating *is* achieving!

It may be, but there may not be a conscious desire to do so as a motive.

not the point. You said yourself that you create because you want to. But what is it that you want? The acheivement. The thing you created.
Rand is saying that acheivment should be sought after for the benefit of acheivement (for himself).
Some people acheive *so that* they beat others. Rand is saying that this is bad. Its other-people-oriented.

Sometimes...but sometimes I do things just for the sheer joy of creating, not for any desired result or achievement, so again no.

rombomb wrote:

frmthhrt wrote:

Yes and Rand is saying that that is immoral.

That is not how I read what she was saying.

Its hidden. A quote can't say everything. To understand the whole meaning, you'd have to learn objectivism. A good place to learn it is from _The Fountainhead_ and _Atlas Shrugged_, they are fictions. Another crucial one is _The Virtue of Selfishness_, which is a non-fiction.

, here's a quote that asserts why meaning can be hidden.
"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood."
Karl Popper

Ummm...I have read Ayn Rand, and her writing sucked. Objectivism is flawed.
I am starting to hear the tone of someone trying to talk down to me...I sincerely hope not! You cannot berate me and beat me into submission to agree with you! If you want to compare IQs, or books read or anything like that...trust me, you will be very surprised. This board is full of well-read, well-educated and very intelligent people. No one should be talking down to anyone else here. My take on these things is different than yours. Let's leave it at that. Sometimes we really do have to agree to disagree, because we cannot reach the same conclusions...and I disagree with Karl Popper too! LOL.

rombomb wrote:

frmthhrt wrote:

Current day democracies are not very free anyways. Majorities regularly impose their will on minorities. This is anti-freedom.

My point exactly.

rombomb wrote:Whats your point? You said that being free doesn't make one reasonable, see democracy as proof. I said that currentday democracies are not as free as they can be (not even close). That implies that our democracy can improve to become more free, which is conducive to people being more reasonable.

What is your point? That our democracy can't be more free? Or that freedom isn't conducive to people being more reasonable?

That being what most people consider to be free does not mean they will be reasonable! Many people hold democracy to be the pinnacle of freedom, yet it inherently discounts the rights of minorities: therefore it is not truly reasonable. The two are not reciprocals as Rand states.

rombomb wrote:What do you mean by "on the back of others"?

frmthhrt wrote:Meaning others below them in their corporation or company or empire or whatever work for far less than their worth, and the wealthy man takes their fair share as part of his own wealth.

How do you determine one's worth (in trade)?

You start with "all men are created equal", and you go on from there...I don't want to have to be the one to decide.

rombomb wrote:
What do you suggest? Are you advocating that every person have the exact same income?

frmthhrt wrote:I am suggesting that everyone have a fair share...not a tiny minimum wage for some, and a multi-million dollar wage for bank managers. It should not be the same...there should be some difference for schooling

rombomb wrote:Many non-graduates do better work than graduates. Are you suggesting that graduates with less merit make more money than non-graduates with more merit?

No, I would say equal pay for equal worth, but maybe with a small reward for extra merit, if that can be accurately determined.

frmthhrt wrote:
and experience,

rombomb wrote:Many new people (to a career) do better work their experienced peers. Are you suggesting that experienced people with less merit make more money than less experienced people with more merit?

I really don't agree with that statement at all. Experience has value. The newbs make many mistakes that experience will teach them to avoid, and are often not prepared to function in a real world situation. School can really only give one the tools to learn from a base level, to begin to acquire the experience required in a career. Again, if you can prove merit, then reward it, but as a rule, I would pay more for an experienced person. (Speaking from experience.)

rombomb wrote:

frmthhrt wrote:
but not more than an order of magnitude!

How do you propose setting the price of wages?

I don't...someone else is going to have to figure that out in my Utopian world. All I know is we start from the "All men (AND WOMEN!) are created equal" idea and go from there. What would you do? Credit for years of training, calories burned, time spent on one's feet...danger pay...I don't know. Do you want to try?

frmthhrt wrote:
No I don't. I sometimes desire that which may be bad for me...or is just bad.

You can fix that. All problems are soluble. Just need the right knowledge.

frmthhrt wrote:
Sometimes...but sometimes I do things just for the sheer joy of creating, not for any desired result or achievement, so again no.

Thats my point. Joy of creating/acheiving is good.

Joy of beating others is bad. People who desire beating others, are mistaken. They can fix this. All problems are soluble. Just need the right knowledge.

frmthhrt wrote:
Ummm...I have read Ayn Rand, and her writing sucked.

I didn't claim that her writing style was good. Though I've heard others say it is good. My opinion doesn't matter since my first fiction was hers. As for non-fiction, she's a great writer. I especially value her book _The Art of Non-fiction_.

frmthhrt wrote:
Objectivism is flawed.

What are your criticms of Objectivism? (I guess that's what we're talking about anyway, so nevermind this question.)

frmthhrt wrote:
I am starting to hear the tone of someone trying to talk down to me...I sincerely hope not! You cannot berate

I had to look up what 'berate' means. I saw the word "angrily". Do you think I'm angry? I'm not. I don't know why you think that.

frmthhrt wrote:
me and beat me into submission to agree with you! If you want to compare IQs, or books read or anything like that...trust me, you will be very surprised. This board is full of well-read, well-educated and very intelligent people.

I don't know why you're saying these things. You said "thats not what I understood". So I explained that you'd have to understand Objectivism to understand the quote. Do you think I should have said something different instead?

frmthhrt wrote:
No one should be talking down to anyone else here.

I don't know why you think I'm talking down to you. I haven't made any personal attacks. Are you thinking that listing some books that explain Objectivism is talking down to you? Why do you think that?

Note that there are other people reading this, so if they want to know about Objectivism, they can read the books I listed. I often take other posters into account, not only the poster I'm replying to.

Note also that many more people read Rand's fictions and not her non-fiction book on Objectivism _The Virtue of Selfishness_. So if someone tells me that they read Rand, and they misunderstood that quote, then a good guess is that they didn't read the non-fiction book. I think you've misinterpreted my guess for anger about disagreement.

About disgreement, there was some discussion on that topic today on one of the philosophy lists that I participate on.

Someone said:

A lot of people have a large problem: they have an adult social role and do not want to take on a learner/student/child role. This gets in the way of their learning. What is to be done about this, if anything?


So I said:

People should adopt a good attitude towards learning -- and drop the progress-haulting attitude of seeing adults and children as different.

Anybody can learn from anybody.

Disagreements are good. They are opportunities for us to learn from
each other. Either I'm wrong, or you're wrong, or we're both wrong.
The goal of our discussion is for us to discover the flaws and fix
them.

If we're were always in agreement, that'd be boring! Learning is fun!

frmthhrt wrote:
My take on these things is different than yours.

Disagreements are common.

frmthhrt wrote:
Let's leave it at that.

Ok, if thats what you prefer. I don't want to trample on people's preferences.

frmthhrt wrote:
Sometimes we really do have to agree to disagree,

I think "agree to disagree" just means that we are willing to part ways because we have a disagreement and one or both of us decide not to continue discussing in order to reach agreement. I agree that this is good.

frmthhrt wrote:
because we cannot reach the same conclusions...

Knowledge is objective. That implies that we can reach agreement.

frmthhrt wrote:
and I disagree with Karl Popper too! LOL.

What criticisms do you have of Popper's ideas?

frmthhrt wrote:
That being what most people consider to be free does not mean they will be reasonable! Many people hold democracy to be the pinnacle of freedom, yet it inherently discounts the rights of minorities: therefore it is not truly reasonable. The two are not reciprocals as Rand states.

No Rand did not say that. She didn't mention democracy, you did. She talked about freedom. She envisions a future government where majorities do not take away the freedoms of minorities.

frmthhrt wrote:

How do you determine one's worth (in trade)?

You start with "all men are created equal", and you go on from there...I don't want to have to be the one to decide.

But each man chooses to do work, and improve his skills to do better work. Some men choose to do little, and don't improve their skill much, so they do less productive work. What is equal about this?

frmthhrt wrote:

Many non-graduates do better work than graduates. Are you suggesting that graduates with less merit make more money than non-graduates with more merit?

No, I would say equal pay for equal worth, but maybe with a small reward for extra merit, if that can be accurately determined.

Merit is often easily determined. In a sales job, its sales numbers. For Apple executives, its Apple stock prices and other metrics. Merit is the only good measure. School isn't a measure of skill. Neither is experience.

frmthhrt wrote:

Many new people (to a career) do better work their experienced peers. Are you suggesting that experienced people with less merit make more money than less experienced people with more merit?

I really don't agree with that statement at all. Experience has value.

That value is measured in merit. Experience is just an indication that one's merit might be good.

frmthhrt wrote:
The newbs make many mistakes that experience will teach them to avoid, and are often not prepared to function in a real world situation. School can really only give one the tools to learn from a base level, to begin to acquire the experience required in a career. Again, if you can prove merit, then reward it, but as a rule, I would pay more for an experienced person. (Speaking from experience.)

Just take a sales job for example. Haven't you seen a rookie sales person sell better than veterans?

frmthhrt wrote:
but not more than an order of magnitude!

How do you propose setting the price of wages?

I don't...someone else is going to have to figure that out in my Utopian world. All I know is we start from the "All men (AND WOMEN!) are created equal" idea and go from there. What would you do? Credit for years of training, calories burned, time spent on one's feet...danger pay...I don't know. Do you want to try?

Ah, you envision a Utopian world. Do you think that world will be void of problems (i.e. that it will be perfect)?

From Ludwig Von Mises 1881-1973

"Men cannot be made happy against their will."

rombomb wrote:From Ludwig Von Mises 1881-1973

"Men cannot be made happy against their will."

well who can..if your not happy..your not happy!! I am trying to envision someone trying to force another to be happy...how would you do that..hold his face in a permanent grin and tickle him..feed him happy pills..send telepathic messages to his mind of the happy kind..huh? Maybe its just my mind in overdrive here..probably!I have been known to enter into risky areas of my head.and have major outpourings of the alien kind...

Alethia wrote:

rombomb wrote:From Ludwig Von Mises 1881-1973

"Men cannot be made happy against their will."

well who can..if your not happy..your not happy!! I am trying to envision someone trying to force another to be happy...how would you do that..hold his face in a permanent grin and tickle him..feed him happy pills..send telepathic messages to his mind of the happy kind..huh? Maybe its just my mind in overdrive here..probably!I have been known to enter into risky areas of my head.and have major outpourings of the alien kind...

Maybe you've never seen it happen. Maybe you live in a capitalist society and were raised by parents who did not coerce you much.

That quote is from _Liberalism: The Classical Tradition_. Mises explained the fact that there were slaves that believed that they need masters. Why? Because those slaves were not only physical slaves, but spiritual slaves. They believed that having their master be in control of certain things, that leaves the slave to not have to worry about those things. They believed that they were intellectually inferior to their masters. This spiritual slave does not realize that if he were free, he could bring himself happiness. He doesn't know this because he's never experienced it (nor does he have a philosophical understanding of liberalism).

Whats interesting is that if you gave a spiritual slave his freedom (of no longer having a master), he wouldn't necessary be happy. Why? Because he doesn't know how to. He doesn't know his preferences. He doesn't know how to learn his preferences nor how to create his preferences. Somebody who lives his whole life having other people choose for him, has not learned the skill of learning and creating his own preferences. And without that, happiness is impossible. Why? Because no one else can know what your preferences are -- no one else can know what would bring you happiness.

This idea reaches to the parent-child relationship too. Many parents routinely act against their child's will thinking that they are doing it for the child's benefit -- the benefit of happiness. The parent thinks that they know better than the child about what would bring happiness to the child. The parent thinks that he can make the child happy by raising him a certain way. But this is a mistake for the same reason that a slave should not have a master.

This idea also reaches to the romantic relationship. Some women expect their husbands to "make" them happy. If the woman is not happy, *he* is to blame. The woman is denying responsibility and trying to shift that responsibility to the man for something that the man has no control over. (I expect that these kinds of relationships only occur with women who were raised in sexist societies where the man's role is similar to the master, and the women's role is similar to the slave -- like countries whose population is predominantly Muslim.)

Alethia wrote:

rombomb wrote:From Ludwig Von Mises 1881-1973

"Men cannot be made happy against their will."

well who can..if your not happy..your not happy!! I am trying to envision someone trying to force another to be happy...how would you do that..hold his face in a permanent grin and tickle him..feed him happy pills..send telepathic messages to his mind of the happy kind..huh? Maybe its just my mind in overdrive here..probably!I have been known to enter into risky areas of my head.and have major outpourings of the alien kind...

I forgot to mention another thing that this idea reaches to -- a single person -- or rather, a conflict of ideas within a single person.

Sometimes people try to force themselves to be happy. But, it doesn't work. It doesn't work because in these situations they have one idea that the person is happy about, and that idea happens to conflict with another idea that the person is unhappy about (and sometimes this second idea is subconscious, meaning that the person is unaware of it explicitly). So how does one know that he has a subconscious idea conflicting with his conscious idea? Thats what emotions are for, like the gut feeling. A gut feeling indicates that you have a subconscious idea, and that idea could be conflicting with a conscious idea.

So the person mistakenly thinks that the first idea can make him happy, when in reality it doesn't work because he has a conflicting idea doing the opposite. This is a problem. Whats the solution?

To resolve the conflict.

At the start, either (1) the first idea is flawed, or (2) the second idea is flawed, or (3) both ideas are flawed. By the end, the solution explains the flaws and fixes them leaving only one idea that the person agrees with and he has no conflicting ideas to rival it. Note that this does not mean that its ok to assume that either of the two ideas were true before starting this process. Doing so means appealing to the authority of one of them -- and judging ideas by authority is bad.

How does one do this? By the process of finding common preferences (even though there's only one person involved).

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Maya Angelou

But people can't "make" you feel anything. Your interpretation of whats happening in front of you is what causes you to feel certain ways.

Also, most people do remember how they felt more than what actually happened, but thats bad, not good. Why? Because they could have misinterpreted. So if one only remembers how he felt, rather than what actually happened, then how can he recall what happened in order to reexamine his interpretation looking for flaws in his thinking? He can't. This is bad because its removing one's ability to error-correct.

“Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.”
Sandra Carey

rombomb wrote:"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Maya Angelou

But people can't "make" you feel anything. Your interpretation of whats happening in front of you is what causes you to feel certain ways.

Also, most people do remember how they felt more than what actually happened, but thats bad, not good. Why? Because they could have misinterpreted. So if one only remembers how he felt, rather than what actually happened, then how can he recall what happened in order to reexamine his interpretation looking for flaws in his thinking? He can't. This is bad because its removing one's ability to error-correct.

You are over analyzing the quote. Some people make you feel good with their honesty and infectious smile, joy for life...whatever their magic spark is. You have to be cold-hearted to not enjoy their presence, no matter how you are interpreting what is in front of you.
I doubt you would have misinterpreted if you are remembering a strong emotion rather than what happened. Why do you need to re-examine and look for flaws in his thinking...get it right the first time.

frmthhrt wrote:

rombomb wrote:"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Maya Angelou

But people can't "make" you feel anything. Your interpretation of whats happening in front of you is what causes you to feel certain ways.

Also, most people do remember how they felt more than what actually happened, but thats bad, not good. Why? Because they could have misinterpreted. So if one only remembers how he felt, rather than what actually happened, then how can he recall what happened in order to reexamine his interpretation looking for flaws in his thinking? He can't. This is bad because its removing one's ability to error-correct.

You are over analyzing the quote. Some people make you feel good with their honesty and infectious smile, joy for life...whatever their magic spark is. You have to be cold-hearted to not enjoy their presence, no matter how you are interpreting what is in front of you.
I doubt you would have misinterpreted if you are remembering a strong emotion rather than what happened. Why do you need to re-examine and look for flaws in his thinking...get it right the first time.

Valid point hrt. It has actually been proven that which entices most emotions and senses is what we retain with the highest level of recall.