I’m not sure I follow how you took what I said and made it an issue of adapting to society or not.

I didn’t. I’m taking it a step farther, to my own pet project. It was too close to resist….

Isn’t society something we created to adapt us to our environment? If we have to spend so much effort to adapt to our society, isn’t that the clearest indication you could ask for that your society is fundamentally broken?

I’m not sure I follow how you took what I said and made it an issue of adapting to society or not. I’m not really saying we have to adapt to society, but that we simply have to adapt. We have no other option.

I’m with you in my wonder at human adaptability, and seeing it at its extremes is a remarkable thing. But let me suggest this: that our extremes of adaptability should be a testament to personal achievement, rather than a basic requirement of society. Should we really be testing the limits of how far we can be pushed, just with the structure of our society? Isn’t society something we created to adapt us to our environment? If we have to spend so much effort to adapt to our society, isn’t that the clearest indication you could ask for that your society is fundamentally broken?

On specialization, I agree with you that there’s a certain degree of natural inevitableness to it; and I also agree with the importance you place on well-roundedness. I’ve come to the conclusion that the Rubicon flows between specialization and exclusivity. If you’re just the guy that really likes making bows, then others might come to you to make their bows, you’ll do it better than everyone else, etc. But if you’re the only one who knows how, you’ve crossed a very dangerous line, because now you can coerce others to do as you say, or you’ll withhold from them the things they need.

Baltimore itself can be quite a trip, and the Light Rail even moreso. I would go so far as to quote the Star Wars description of Mos Eisley and call it a “wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

Indeed, and I have often mused that the people of the Dundalk area of southeast Baltimore are living proof that Lovecraft was right about the “Spawn of the Old Ones”. Hideous.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein

A cow, for example, might be 30% smarter than any other cow around it. To the other cows, were they to have the ability to both notice and care about such things, the cow would be remarkably bright. They might be rapt at the sheer mental power of the einstein among them. To us, though, with a different vantage point born of differing celings and basements, the cow probaly wouldn’t be seen as any different than the other cows, and if it were noticed to be slightly smarter, could even be held up as proof that there is no real variation in intelligence within the species.

You implied that having choices gives us access to more of “what life has to offer”.

I don’t remember saying that at all. And if it came off that way, it’s certainly not what I meant. What I meant was that it is our ability to adapt to any circumstance that makes us human - and whether or not we make choices or not, we adapt to circumstances simply by being alive, by continuing to live.

I say “forget” hesitantly, unsure whether readers here ever gave it credence in the first place. There is also an age-bias in our discussions: to those who are young, talented and confident like Alistair - professionally confident indeed:

i don`t do my work with clients without the certainty of healing

- limitations are merely mental horizons to be overriden. I’m more than twice as old as some of you, and with age comes a more immediate awareness of insuperable limitations & death.

this might give you some idea of where our boundaries lie. i think we could adapt to live in zero gravity or in a water environment. that`s what technology is for………breaking the barriers of skinbag limits. the soul wants to fly and swim and go into space. not this soul mind you, i like my feet on the ground.

i realised that our neurology is best suited to this high technology living in cities in highrises with faster and faster computers and telecommiunications. something is emerging from all of this. the future hi people were on about this but i disagreed about how it will end. i think we are a transitional species, a caretaker for what`s emerging. our consciousness will survive, b ut not necessarily t he skinbags……….

What I find even more interesting are the ways those limitations boost and even force out hidden potential in the way people adapt to get over and around and above them.

Yeah, wow, that opens up a whole other door, doesn’t it?

Human beings have huge reserves of potential. But in the practical sense, that potential has to give-and-take with the natural (and naturally limited) characteristics of the individual. What I find even more interesting are the ways those limitations boost and even force out hidden potential in the way people adapt to get over and around and above them.

I find myself at odds with you, Tim, in your assumption of the privilege of choice of “end-goals”.

I’m not sure I follow what you’re talking about in terms of this idea of “privilege” and “end-goals” and I honestly don’t see where what each of us are saying is at odds with one another…

Here’s to staying flexible!

Yes, but it is harder to learn a musical instrument when we are older. And whilst I may sympathise with the sentiment that

we ought to be well-rounded and engage in a full experience of all that life has to offer

, I think this is to underrate several things:
— the effect of circumstance on human life
— the spiritual dimension
— the equivalence of one kind of experience with another. I mean that a person who is blind does not necessarily suffer a diminution of “what life has to offer” because the bandwidth of possible inputs is so great.

I find myself at odds with you, Tim, in your assumption of the privilege of choice of “end-goals”. We are all challenged to make something of our lives despite the vicissitudes we suffer. I take that as the given and could not care less what the privileged happen to choose, & what accomplishments they clutter their lives with.

I measure human life against the extreme benchmark of certain congenitally brain-damaged children I encountered at the Mustardseed community in Jamaica, especially one young lady aged 21 whose tiny body is so twisted, deformed and uncontrolled that she can do nothing for herself. She has to be turned over at frequent intervals to prevent bedsores. I am not sure if she can swallow food. This young lady radiates happiness, has an angelic silvery laugh and gives her carers more than she receives in love. I don’t understand it but I saw with my own eyes. This also is adaptation, but I cannot help feeling that there is something else involved too.

I don’t think adapting is what we should be doing. It’s what we do anyway, and we sometimes get stuck in our adaptations and have to seek therapy to escape them. I also think it’s a terrible trap to use philosophy to work out what we should be doing with our lives. Our intellect is not for that. We should let our body-wisdom, a much more reliable guide, take us to wherever feels right - an individual fulfilment for each of us.

My dad used to bodybuild and still has a billion bodybuilding magazines sitting around here. Looking at these weird wasp-shaped bullish men and crazy masculine women, it’s really really bizarre to think about them trying to fit in anywhere. Even Arnold has gone through a lot of adaptations. From a top-heavy/tiny-waisted iconic bodybuilder, to a more Hollywood-action-hero-proportioned actor, aaand of course to Governator-shaped, which is probably the most out-of-shape he’d ever been.

I, on the other hand, admire specialization, but my personality wants to do everything and anything (particularly creative) that I can get my hands on. So, chances are I’m going to end up looking pretty typical, minus the dark-circles under my eyes.

Not so much the fat asses most of us seem to be developing, esp in the USA …

Even that though is an adaptation, I have realized!

Did you use that Heinlein quote before?

Yeah a bunch of times. I love it!

Did you use that Heinlein quote before? Because I saw it somewhere and it really stuck with me. Raising 2 teenagers, I’m all about getting them to stretch themselves, while learning to pump gas, and balance a checkbook, etc. But there again is the paradox: we DO need to be well rounded life-long Liberal arts educated humans, and at the same time develop what is our own unique speciality. This is value to ourselves, and our community.

Did you once quote an anthropologist, who said in all cultures studied, the one common value was that everyone valued life for themselves and their family????

I thought that was profound, wherever I read that … and I accept it as an excellent core basis for morality. It seems that which follows needs to be the “golden rule,” and from this develop ways to ensure “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” for everyone, as framed by the declarers of independence.

From this it seems laws are necessary to provide the peace for the common good. Unfortunately I can’t see, in this worldly global (universal?) society, how one can escape the need for police, to enforce the laws.

Yes … I recently watched “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” Gort nice, or Gort maaaad!!

“Join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration…the decision is yours.” Maybe that’s the only compelling way??

To me the most important aspect of deciding how to act, is to have fun if possible.

This can be a tough task in the bloodthirsty, materialistic world we live in.

Since we are forever stuck with having to admit that all is value judgement, and all theory, as to the right way to live, it makes sense to me to find ways that cause the least damage to the earth, and empower people to be able to fulfill their particular dreams as much as possible.

A simple and practical approach that allows people to act out , learn, grow, in a good stimulating intellectual environment , seems right to me.
That is a value judgement. All we have are value judgements.