lɪŋˈgwɪstɪks

Tames

00:09

Tames is creating her own temporary homemade blackboard

this is so cool

David Wallace

@Tames Are you thinking of providing an online service, where people can request photographs of particular things or people?

Tames

@DavidWallace Hi! I'm not sure yet! any ideas on this are very much welcome! I thought about it this afternoon. I have visual arts graduation and I've worked with marketing for a while. It would be really nice if I could earn some $ with this.

Hi there @EkoostikMartin

David Wallace

The hard part would be licensing, I think. Once you've given somebody their photo, whose IP is it?

Tames

i know there are different types of licensing, like.. they pay for the use of the picture in some publication, for example, or the pay for exclusivity, I could not sell it to anyone else then and they may use it however they want

is this what you meant?

David Wallace

Kind of, yeah. If you wanted to retain any sort of ownership of each photo, it could be very hard to enforce. But if all you provide is a "photography service", it should be fine.

How would you deal with people who, after you've taken the photo that they requested, say "oh no, that's not what I wanted at all"?

Tames

00:25

I don't know.. probably there's some form of contract in these matters like... they'd pay half of the price before the service and half after.. but my original idea was doing the photos on my own and then finding people willing to buy them

Cerberus

@Tames Oh yes, I saw it! I am pondering it in relation to the other answers.

Thanks.

Tames

@Cerberus you are welcome. I find it an interesting question. I guess it is pretty much related to our discussion the other day (subway stations and the like lol)

inside and outside the circle, etc

Cerberus

In a way...

Although it's still not very practical, but I guess that is just not F's point.

I'm being too Anglo-Saxon.

Tames

@Cerberus I think he is very concerned with practice, but probably doesn't like the idea of saying something like "this is what you should do", leaving the discussion open, so that people will search for answers themselves. Keeping himself restricted to doing the critic guarantees that the discussion doesn't become too attached to the perspective of some period,

even though he is a historian, his discussion is timeless

"it goes a long way", would be a lacanian thought on this

and it does so because he is not giving particular or singular answers

he seems to be more concerned with form

@Cerberus I'm not very knowledgeable of Foucault's work, so I may be mistaken... but I think it must be something like this, considering that he is from the same generation as Lacan and that they share some influences

lol

Cerberus

00:45

It matches what I know about him. But it is a bit...dissatisfying.

Because it seems obvious to me.

@Tames Haha.

Tames

@Cerberus what is obvius and what is dissatisfying?

Cerberus

It seems obvious to me that labelling someone insane takes away some privileges.

We all know this.

Tames

the problem is not simply the consequences of labels, but how do labels appear

and beyond that, what is cause and what is consequence, as we move into an era that points to biology as a cause of everything, it seems that there is a pathology in itself

specially mental stuff

but this comprises many things, economic differences, as instance

Cerberus

I'm not sure what you mean.

Tames

it is not rare to hear people say that poverty has to do with lazyness and "race", or even regional matters,

here in Brazil is common to hear that people from Bahia are lazy

and Bahia is a poor state

possibly because of this?

Cerberus

01:00

Well, we are philosophers, not the average person. We know stuff.

Tames

do you know Heidegger?

Cerberus

If it can be proven that people from Bahia have a cultural trait that involves less status derived from a job, or whatever, then it might not be unreasonable to say that they are poor because they are lazy. But it would still be a crude, inaccurate description.

Not one that any educated person would make.

Tames

did you know that he joined the Nazis and even betrayed his girlfriend Hannah Arendt, handing her to the nazis?

he was a philosopher

Cerberus

So surely Foucault is speaking to educated people.

I know Heidegger did dubious things, though I don't know the details.

I think all the continental philosophers that you mentions are just not my cup of tea, hehe.

Tames

it is the same kind of problem, "the source of disgrace is jewish people, they should disappear"

Cerberus

01:03

I do not understand what problems they are addressing or what their points are.

I'm sure they have points, but they do not seem to communicate them to me.

Tames

have you not understood what I said about Foucault? maybe it is not a matter of understanding, possibly there's something else bothering you

it seems like you'd rather have some straight answers

"do this", "don't do that"

Cerberus

What he says seems obvious. And I could not discover much of a point beyond the obvious. That is my issue.

I have read some chapters from his work on ancient Greece.

Tames

maybe it seems obvious to you because your generation already digested many of these issues

Cerberus

That is quite possible.

Tames

it doesn't make the discussion less important

Cerberus

01:07

But my friend loves Foucault.

I don't know, I don't understand what the discussion is about.

Tames

what have you read from him?

Cerberus

Perhaps I should read more Foucault; but when I read summaries—I don't know.

Parts of his history of sexuality.

Tames

I'm not a big fan myself, but I recognize him as an important thinker

Cerberus

He was using a food metaphor to describe how the Greeks thought about sexuality.

Made some OK points.

Tames

are you disappointed that he did not surprise you?

Cerberus

01:10

Perhaps.

You know, I like it when a philosopher brings up an original perspective. That is good. But it is only a small part of the job: I like to see it all analysed and worked out afterwards.

Tames

maybe you already live ina "Foucault's universe", so there's nothing new about him..

what do you mean by "worked out afterwards"?

the guy died in 1984.. there's plenty of room for improvement... you could work on that if you are willing..

Cerberus

@Tames Haha could be.

@Tames He wrote plenty of books...

Sometimes I feel that analytic philosophers sometimes fail to see the bigger picture, while continental philosophers sometimes fail to work out the details!

Tames

I think sometimes we wish those guys would live forever, like Lacan... but they all die someday... it is up to us, to keep working on the ideas that we find appealing..

@Cerberus yes, and besides, they end up working on some specific subject, and we ask ourselves how would that be like in some other area

Cerberus

I want both.

Tames

so go for it!

this is about finding something that you love.. and going deep on it..

do you have some favorite philosopher?

or some author

Cerberus

01:24

I like many.

Perhaps Lucretius.

Tames

maybe you'd like Lacan, but it takes some time to get him. He's a sort of Heraclitus, the obscure

I've never read Lucretius. what is it that you like about him?

Cerberus

@Tames And you think I like obscure? Haha.

Obscure is the opposite of what I like, sorry...

Heraclitus is next to unreadable.

Tames

hahah

Cerberus

We don't even have any complete texts of him anyway.

So perhaps the quotations become somewhat readable in context; now we mostly use what the commentators said about him to interpret him, I believe.

Tames

I didn't mean that... I guess everybody only likes to read something if they get some point of it. Most people give up on Lacan too quickly, because they fail to see the point

they consider him to be arbitrary, and he is not

it is like if he's being mean

Cerberus

01:32

Yeah, and then I think, there is so much else to read!

My maxim: if an explanation is needed to understand a certain philosophical text—then why is not the explanation the text?

2

It makes no sense.

Thanks for the star, hehe.

Tames

well... on Lacan.. if you read only him you will never get him.. because he talks about everything, from biology, linguistics, philosophy... if you don't have references for what he is talking about, nothing makes sense

sometimes I feel like everything I study is only to understand what Lacan says

Cerberus

Then I would need lots of extra things to motivate me to keep on reading.

Haha.

Tames

sometimes I read a whole book, and then I get the point of one paragraph he wrote. He is incredibly dense

but the good thing about him is,

Cerberus

There once was a sage from the east whose maxim was: "One."

He would not say more.

Tames

when you begin to understand something, you start to see that all over his text. it is like he is always talking about the same thing from many many different perspectives

and when you get some "key", you open a thousand doors

it is amazing

Cerberus

01:36

All the wise men around him studies the rarest books, the most complicated theses in order to understand his maxim.

Tames

hahaha

Cerberus

In doing so, they discussed many things, came up with many idea, and wrote many books.

But they still failed to understand the sage, and with sad faces they came to him to report their failure.

But then the sage said, "the goal is the way". And it turned out it was not his silly maxim that contained any useful knowledge, but the efforts of the people around him.

To me, the same applies to any simple "wise" sayings or paradoxes.

Tames

one important point in Lacan's 'style' was that he was very upset by people repeating his words without understanding, so he made his speech so complex that only very dedicated people would know what he was talking about and would not make bad use of it

Cerberus

Sounds like a mad priest.

Tames

hahaha

he became kind of mad in the end of his life,

he would go to some lecture wearing pajamas

Cerberus

01:39

Well.

Tames

in the end, it seemed like his lectures were more like "happenings" than lectures

Cerberus

Like a performance artist?

Tames

he wanted his speech to have consequences, this is the only guarantee of the existence of psychoanalysis

yes, sort of

it is like... what he said would have to transform people. he didn't want people to repeat his words, but to understand how this worked

Cerberus

Everyone wants that.

Tames

but not everyone succeeds

I'm off to sleep Cerb..

bye bye

Cerberus

01:46

Good night!

Good luck getting up in the morning...

Tames

night! take care

thanks

tchau :)

Cerberus

Bye!

Tames

22:02

good evening

Otavio Macedo

Hi!

Tames

hi there @OtavioMacedo

Otavio Macedo

Have you started reading Aristotle? hehe

Tames

22:19

oh.. not yet! UFPR's library is closed.. I should check other places for books on this topic. Maybe I could find them in pdf, but I don't really enjoy reading on the pc

I have a small book on logic (general introduction), I began reading it some time ago, I should finish that as well

there are about 10 books that I'm reading... some almost finishing, some by the middle... but I haven't read anything in the last 15 days

I've made a pile of them on my table to remind me. I have to get back on track again!

Otavio Macedo

You know what they say: stop starting, start finishing.

hehe

Tames

hahaha I'd never heard that

Otavio Macedo

But I think Aristotle's logic has only historical interest nowadays.

So much happened in the field over these 2300 years.

But I don't know, for sure...

Tames

I think it should be interesting anyway, it is a classic, and more advanced ideas are certainly based on his

Otavio Macedo

Oh, sure!

Tames

22:24

and Lacan always talks about him, it would be good to know what Aristotle says,

maybe I could decipher some of Lacan's jokes then

I should study Aristotle's ethics as well

and you.. have you been reading something nice lately?

Otavio Macedo

Only the GEB.

Oh, and I've just finished "The Hobbit" hehe

Do you know Goodreads?

goodreads.com

Tames

oh, I got a copy of it through estantevirtual, I paid for it today, must receive it next week

no

I've read The hobbit many years ago!

before the movies

Tolkien is very nice.. I got kind of obsessed by him at that time,

I even got some books that were not published in portuguese, but I never read them fully

Tolkien's biography is interesting as well

so it says that when he was a kid, he saw trains with strange words on them (trains from other countries), and that this got him interested in creating languages

something like that

Otavio Macedo

Most of the LOTR mythology comes from Beowulf, I've heard.

Tames

I guess mythology is never 'original'... if you check different myths, many of them are so similar!

have you seen this?

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

The Hero with a Thousand Faces (first published in 1949) is a non-fiction book, and work of comparative mythology by Joseph Campbell. In this publication, Campbell discusses his theory of the journey of the archetypal hero found in world mythologies. Since publication of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell's theory has been consciously applied by a wide variety of modern writers and artists. The best known is perhaps George Lucas, who has acknowledged a debt to Campbell regarding the stories of the Star Wars films. The Joseph Campbell Foundation and New World Library issued a new ...

Otavio Macedo

Oh, interesting!

Tames

22:37

it seems that in the end of his life, Tolkien spent a lot of time answering letters as such "what is the elvish word for..." (does that sound familiar?) lol

Otavio Macedo

Have you read this book?

The Hero...

Tames

yes, some time ago

this kind of thing is related to Jung's psychology

the archetypes

I was a junguian then

but it is related to psychoanalysis as well, only that psychoanalysts do not consider the "collective archetype"

Campbell is very famous. Had you never heard of him?

it seems that, among others, Campbell was influenced by Otto Rank, who was Freud's disciple,

Rank deviated from Freud's ideas after a while, but I'm not sure what is his point

Otavio Macedo

No, I haven't.

Tames

(the same thing happened to Jung and others... Freud was very disappointed by this lol)

in the end, all of his disciples deviated from his original ideas, including his own daughter

Otavio Macedo

What's the difference between Junguian psychoanalysis, Freudian psychoanalysis, etc?

Tames

22:50

mostly.. Jung denies sexuality as the main principle behind actions, trying to keep it simple. I think that he also doesn't care about structures like neurosis, psychosis and perversion.. rather it is like each person has a kind of "personal identification with a myth", which s/he may have never heard of,

but it is like s/he reached this through the "collective unconscious". It is kind of "new age"..

when someone asked Jung if he believed in god, he answered "I don't believe, I know"

for him, things like intuition... are almost as if people were permeated by a collective soul, or something like that

Freud is much more scientific, in this sense... this junguian thoughts would be considered a fantasy, mostly

Freud gives much more importance to language and how our thoughts are shaped by it

Jung doesn't even mention language.. in all I've read from him, I don't remember him talking about this

Otavio Macedo

In which ways are thoughts shaped by language?

Tames

this focus on language is what differs in most of Freud's disciples. Lacan says that those disciples disregard some of the most important freudian works like Interpretation of dreams, The Witz... these works point to language mostly

totally... for someone radical in this subject as Lacan, even your emotions are shaped by the emotions you know through language,

concepts and words always happen together

there are not concepts without names for them, and vice-versa

if you say "I'm feeling something, and I don't have a word for it", a psychoanalyst could say that there is some repression going on (many people criticize psychoanalysis for this)

Otavio Macedo

But how do children learn to speak, then?

Tames

for Lacan, the unconscious is structured as language, this is the only way we could have access to it

the children learns from the community,

a child cries, the mother says "oh, you are sad!"

the girl smiles and the mother says "oh, she is shy" etc

it is the other who gives the sense of it

the mother, holding her child, looking at the mirror, points and says "that is you"

etc

Otavio Macedo

Ok, but at some point, the child learns to say "I'm hungry".

So, should we conclude that they didn't have the concept of hunger before?

Tames

23:02

yes.. because when the baby is misbehaving, the mother goes there and gives the child her breast (this means "you are hungry"), after sometime she will say the words

the child has some discomfort, and the mother interprets it as hunger, sleepiness, etc

how can you know what a child thinks/feels?

the mother supposed she just knows, just like that

Otavio Macedo

But there was a discomfort, right?

Otherwise, the word "hungry" wouldn't make sense for the child.

Tames

you may say the child was an organism, but to become a "person" s/he has to join the symbolic linguistic community

yes, something happens, and someone says "this is hunger"

sometimes people may get really confused with this conceptions, depending on how s/he was raised.

have you ever seen someone saying "beautiful" meaning "ugly"?

Otavio Macedo

Yes, ironically.

Tames

this may have deep consequences on a person's character

it may be a shock to some, to leave the "nest" and be confronted with other conceptions

it can be very confusing

does that make sense to you?

Otavio Macedo

What? Language shaping thoughts?

Tames

23:10

these things I've said

Otavio Macedo

Hmm, not much.

Tames

why not?

Otavio Macedo

Very counterintuitive.

Language is a very important tool.

Tames

what would the intuitive conception be?

Otavio Macedo

That language arises from our thoughts

And that what happens in society determines what concepts we need.

Like, let's say "environmentalism".

Tames

23:15

what do you mean by "language arises from thoughts"?

Otavio Macedo

This idea arose in the modern Western society.

Tames

do animals think? what does it mean to say that? what kind of "thoughts" are those?

Otavio Macedo

What's your point?

Tames

for me, humans who don't enter the language community are like animals, an as such, they are only a product of evolution. With language they overcome this and may even deny the most basic 'instincts'. Not eating when hungry, for example

Otavio Macedo

BRB.

Tames

23:26

ok

I had just finished completing my profile on goodreads an when I clicked to save it, the site went down? pff

oh, got it now

Cerberus

Heya.

Animals can resist hunger too.

Tames

Hi Cerb!

how come?

probably you have behavioral conditioning in mind. In this case, i believe it is not possible to say that the animal has a choice, it is more like preserving life, one of the most basic 'instincts'

an animal is not capable of moral actions

Cerberus

23:47

Animals can just resist all kinds of temptations when they know giving in would be dangerous, whatever you call it.

Tames

yes, because they have been severily punished

Cerberus

Not at all necessary.

Tames

I know this, I have made experiments with rats in cages, it is part of our formation

Cerberus

They just know.

Tames

can you give me an example?

Cerberus

23:48

For example, a dog would not jump down a cliff to catch a rabbit.

They have both innate and learned controls on their impulses, just like humans.

Dogs and cats generally make sounds of frustration when they have to control their urges.

Tames

but why would he not jump down a cliff? because dogs who did that did not survive to pass on their genes

Cerberus

They feel frustrated, like us.

Tames

haha

Cerberus

As Locke says, most knowledge comes from experience.

For all animals, including humans.

There is also an innate part of course.

Tames

we say they are frustrated, just like we say some child is. We project our humanity on them. We may even do this with objects

animals may learn to interact with us, because they learn some signs

Cerberus

23:51

Why would frustrated not be an appropriate label?

Tames

I do not assume animals feel like humans. You may do so if you wish.

Cerberus

What is your definition of frustration, then, if you have clearly established that dogs fail the criteria?

It's just a word anyway.

Tames

exactly, it is a word, and dogs don't know it

Cerberus

What does that have to do with it?

Tames

(I'm assuming here that you are not talking about three-headed dogs from hell, of course)

Cerberus

23:54

What are your criteria?

(No, those always possess ultimate ataraxia.)

Tames

that only through language can we overcome biology and evolution

Cerberus

What are you criteria for assigning or denying the emotion "frustration" to an entity?

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