Hint: The vast majority of it is extremely cartoonish in nature. Mostly being slow to adapt to the changed Equestrian culture and technology, being a bookworm like Twilight (but with lots of math), and being a prankster. Stuff where she's evil, depressing, or resentful towards Celestia is pretty rare.
This is about right from what I gathered, and I much would've preferred this. Still, I'm coming around to "canon Luna," even if she's a much more superficial character than I would've liked.
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
If there were anything in her portrayal that were against the cartoonish spirit of the show, I'd be all aboard the hate train. Fortunately, fanon didn't come to pass and we got a character who fits right in with the madness. It isn't as if we're expected to take her seriously: her theatrics were a parody of every Saturday-morning cartoon villain ever, we got a good dose of slapstick in her scene with Fluttershy, and her olde english made for some fun one-liners and exchanges.
Most of the comments I made about the episode were before my rewatch, where I warmed up tremendously. After reading this, however, I'm tempted to watch it again with this perspective in mind. Good stuff.
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
A lot of scientists don't like to talk about things they don't understand. "Good enough job" is anything which matches the experimental data and the stated assumptions of the theory, which for something like QED is more precise than measuring the length of America from coast to coast and getting it wrong by less than a hair's breadth.
This is a competent summary of how the scientific method works. Even here, however, science rests on unfounded claims. If it doesn't, you're going to have to take Feyerabend's position of epistemological nihilism: there is no method, as science questions everything, so anything goes.
What does it even mean to have faith in infallible natural laws or mathematical laws? So could it also be said that you have faith in your "infallible photon receptor" aka your eyes when it comes to reading my posts?
Obviously. This idea is as old as Western thought itself, hence why Plato refers to physical things as "pistis," which means confidence or faith.
If we're just using the word God to symbolize and entity with knowledge and power far greater than we can comprehend, the existence of God seems pretty logical. I would go as far as saying probable. My issue is with humans who claim to know who or what it is, how it acts on our world, and the exact things it wants us to do.
So you're a deist (or at least saying that deism is a possibility)? I appreciate your honesty, but this runs into its own set of problems: namely, how it impacts human action from day-to-day. What should we do in the face of moral problems? How do we reconcile our inextricably limited mental faculties with our claims to certainty?
The way I see it, every day we know more about the world than we did the day before (speaking figuratively here) with unlimited time and resources we will continue to add to the knowledge gained from the people that came before us. Honestly speaking, I see no reason that there should not come a time when we can understand literally everything there is to know about the very nature of the universe.
This is the position known as logical positivism, and it assumes that there is a definite structure to the universe that the human mind can understand. You're making the same mistakes I laid out before: you suppose that the fallible mind of man has potential access to universal truth, and you suppose that the universe follows rigid natural laws for seemingly no reason.
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
Then I presume every single one of those erudite religious people will also tell me that there is no need to have any empirical reminders of God's existence, such as holy books, priests, institutions, other believers, am I correct?
They would probably argue that these "empirical reminders," while a way for us to come closer to and celebrate God, only have meaning in the light of a higher faculty, i.e. nous or religious understanding. Strictly empirically? No need.
Why do we need erudite religious people to tell me, via photons or the vibrations of air that I empirically verify with my own eyes and ears, that God exists and that he has this property called "transcends empirical existence"...?
They don't "need" to tell you anything. Again, you're suggesting that "empirical verification" is all you need to understand the world as it is. If this is your position, then come out and say it: modern science alone is the pathway to truth, and anything else is rubbish because it does not conform to this conception of the world.
Actually, can you even tell me what it means to transcend empirical existence, without using any synonyms?
Sure. There's empirical existence- the slice of the natural world the human mind has access to, or could ever have access to- and then there's something beyond this. For the religious folk among us, this "beyond" is constituted by a divine authority. If you want to reject this, as I do, then be consistent: human beings only have access to a very thin slice of existence.
And also, I don't know what you mean by "limits of the human mind" when you don't want to look at the human mind.
I'll ask again: do you or don't you believe that the human mind has access to the truth of existence in its entirety? This question has nothing to do with how the brain is wired.
Yes, but that doesn't prove anything about truth itself, which is the ability for any sentient mind to draw maps. Nietzsche most likely didn't guess at the existence of computers, or about how minds are not confined to mere carbon hardware merely because it is all we have seen. At the very most, it proves that CERTAIN minds similar to ours would not be optimized for truth. And it doesn't exclude us from being able to think about the truth either.
This is why I was calling you out earlier: despite all of your talk of empirical truth and the rejection of a religious basis for rationality, you continue to persist in your belief in "truth," which is something you have not sufficiently defined.
Interestingly, "the ability for any sentient mind to draw maps" sounds a lot like Nietzsche's perspectivism: everything is a value judgment, seen from but one perspective among many. The difference is that science is just one of these judgments, yet you reject all others.
I don't even know what this is in reply to.
It's in reply to your faith that human hardwiring is geared only towards truth, when- as byproducts of a survival-driven process- falsity plays an equal, if not greater, role.
Here's a specific example: suppose the world is, as Nietzsche conceived, a chaotic flux without order or reason. A creature who could see the world in this way would hardly be fit for survival, as he could not identify patterns or distinguish classes, something that, while arbitrary, has appeared to have played a tremendous role in the development of mankind.
Fun fun fun!
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
a) You didn't specify which "territories" are permitted and which are not, so presumably, everything could potentially have its own roadmap.
Sure. x3
So is this agreement? Sarcasm? Clarify.
To be less wrong in my definition, truth is actually synonymous with explanation. Humans are especially good at self-deception so that their explanations post hoc, so a particularly good way of preventing it is to ask for an explanation beforehand, that's what predictions are: honest attempts at checking the map against the territory.
So truth and empirical science are synonymous? You're going in circles.
Of course, predictions in this sense aren't just limited to what you could "bet" on. For example, a good enough knowledge of aerodynamics, materials science and electrons allows someone to "predict" what shapes, designs and compositions would result in a flyable airplane.
Yeah, this is empiricism. It's useful. It helps us build planes and make relevant predictions. Is that it? Is that as far as you're willing to go?
I don't even know what accounts those are. What is a poetic account? A religious account?
Let's take a plant as an example. For a religious person, this plant plays a small but essential role in the divine structure of the universe, as ordained by a higher power. For a poetic person, this plant might be symbolic of the bittersweet fleeting beauty of life, one that should give us pause as to our own existence. For a scientific person, this plant is a crude combination of matter and energy organized in a particular fashion.
Which is better? Which is true?
Religion is exceptional in its contagiousness and has an entire set of reasons for why it would be evolutionarily advantageous, and although evangelical religions have had comparatively short lifetimes (~2000 years) there still should be some evidence selective pressures acting to promote them. I suspect that you should find some increase in religious genes where religion has been operating for a long time.
This is an unsubstantiated claim. Did you not read that aphorism I posted? Blind faith in mental faculties like deduction and induction is a much more contagious disease. At any rate, this isn't all that relevant, so let's move on.
The Nazis lasted less than 50 years as a highly influential organization, was incapable of surviving a single war and now pretty much exists as a purely fringe movement.
True, but the ideas behind national socialism remain. Again, I'm not seeing your point: what's the relation between memetic effectiveness and the truth of something?
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
Gameplay wise, Earthbound takes some of the least risks ever, it's weird, but it's not anything I would describe as "original".
While most jRPGs were getting more and more intricate, EarthBound reduced its gameplay to the bare essentials, rivaling the original Dragon Quest in simplicity. And I wasn't just talking about gameplay originality; the entire aesthetic of EarthBound was a huge gamble and departure from the norm.
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
Believing in some religious texts in the literal sense is nutty. Believing that "Eve" was created from a piece of Adam is nutty. Believing the story of the Tower of Babel is nutty, believing in Noah's Ark is nutty.
Empirically/historically, sure. Which is why most intelligent Christians view these sorts of stories as powerful allegories, not literal accounts.
It doesn't matter how smart a person is, if they're willing to believe in the existence of Angels, Satan and the idea of a "man in the sky" who used to cause natural disasters when he got mad, but now he's pretty chill... You have to be able to suspend a large amount of disbelief. A large enough amount that I think is reasonable to say anyone who puts "faith" in such ideas is a little off.
You're focusing too much on the content of one specific religion and not enough on the concept of God as a whole. I'm an atheist, and I'll grant you that much of the Bible, if taken literally, is rather foolish. But this is step two; step one is assessing whether or not a God exists in the first place, whether we can know him, and what we have to sacrifice if God is dead (and let me tell you, it's a great deal).
I have no problem with people believing in higher intelligence, I just have a problem with any religion that claims to know all the answers.
So what are your thoughts on those who worship science as the pathway to universal truth? Naive? Religious? Spot-on?
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
Because it doesn't. Nature does whatever the hell it wants. Natural laws AREN'T laws. Natural laws our attempt to EXPLAIN the universe using mathematics and they are rigid and uniform because the mathematics that are involved are rigid and uniform and it does a good enough job of modeling the universe.
"Good enough job" sounds an awful lot like giving up. How do you define "good enough"? What makes religion not "good enough"? To me, it sounds like you're making the same mistakes as most scientists, except replacing faith in infallible natural laws with faith in infallible mathematical laws.
Hats off to seeing through scientism, though! You're on the right track.
what does it even mean to be the essence of existence. can I eat it?
Look up "essence" in any online dictionary. You could reject the existence of any essence to the universe (I personally do, rejecting, in Nietzschean terms, the idea of a "true world"), but it requires a good deal of philosophical argument. I'd also suspect that you don't really believe that there is no essence to existence, no true order to things; otherwise, you'd have to reject Truth entirely.
Science deals with tangible concepts. It doesn't claim an intimate relationship with a being that is universally considered to be unknowable and incomprehensible.
Actually, the metaphysical basis of the scientific method is entirely intangible and theoretical.
And calling the work of Newton, Einstein, and Hawking "crude" is foolish, at best.
I wouldn't hesitate to call their metaphysics rubbish, no. Descartes is a step above them, as is Hume. Now, Bacon? He's the guy. So good.
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
That said, I've always found the sheer arrogance of humans to believe that we're just so gosh-darn special that we couldn't possibly have evolved from animals to be quite off-putting. Feels out of step with Jesus's teachings to boot.
"Science can provide access to universal physical laws which bind the entire, infinite universe." -- scientists, talking about what they've uncovered from their infinitely limited human minds
Arrogance exists on both sides in stunning display.
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
All ensemble cast comedies are built around lampooning social misunderstandings and awkwardness, aren't they?
That's part of it, sure- but just one part. As an animated show, a lot of MLP's appeal is the slapstick, its parodying/honoring traditional cartoon cliches (chase sequences, moral-of-the-story structure), and surprisingly witty lines and exchanges. It's not all about satire.
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
Lots of religious topics lately. Are you guys trying to bait people or what? Because it's working!
It bothers me that some people believe that science and religion are somehow rivals, when they don't need to have anything to do with each other, or even compliment each other.
On the whole, I'll agree (though this is an oversimplification; there is overlap, like it or not). The real schism today is between science and philosophy, since the former wants to eclipse the latter even while its claims to truth are metaphysical.
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
As in, ratio based of crap and great, or most awesome game of last decade VS most awesome game of this decade kind of thing?
Key question here. Games are getting better on average, but the peaks are much lower. Does anything from this generation compare to, say, the peaks of the SNES/Genesis? No.
I'll go ahead and go D
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
I confess, I feel better about this on a rewatch. Still think the "relic from the past trying to fit in" motif has been done to death, and that they could've taken Luna's character in a less derivative (or at least less forced) direction, but it was still tolerable. Definitely a bottom-tier episode, however, even considering how good Pinkie was.
As for Zecora, she's less enchantress and more summoner. See: all her crazy spells and potions.
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
But I already feel like anyone who believes in God (as it is portrayed in the majority of major religions) is a bit nutty, so if it was somehow proved that he didn't exist, my thoughts on these people wouldn't change.
Several billion people in the world today, and the vast majority of people throughout human history, have been religious. Some of the smartest individuals ever to have graced this earth, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, have been deeply religious. Issues of religion are among the most complex in philosophy, and have been eloquently and exhaustively argued by both sides for centuries.
Given all this, what gives you the right to hand-waive religion as "nutty"? That's sounds as undeservedly arrogant as it does childishly misinformed.
I think the proof already exists.
Oh, this should be good.
Theists claim existence of the supernatural. Either our world is natural (i.e. perfectly consistent) or it is not. If I stick my hand over a fire 1,000 times, I will get burned each and every time. The theists who claim that god has control over the "laws" of physics would inherently believe that the possibility exists that I could eventually stick my hand in the fire and not get burned.
Of course; this is true of empiricists as well. See: Hume's inductive skepticism.
Either the world is what it is, or it is an inconsistent blob that is under the perpetual control of a supernatural force. Again - our world cannot be natural and supernatural at the same time.
Question: if there is no God, then what compels the entirety of existence to abide by uniform, rigid natural laws? Because some guy in a wheelchair said so? Please.
Scientists talk all the time about how "arrogant" and "anthropomorphic" it is to conceive of man as the center of the universe and made in the image of divinity, yet they immediately proceed to talk as though the crude handiwork of laughably fallible human minds constitutes the essence of existence. It's a disgusting double standard.
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
Just as a heads-up, TC, people aren't answering the question because a) most of them are atheists, and b) most of them haven't thought through the implications of their belief system permeating society at large. Don't know why they're getting so defensive though.
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
...Yeah, uh... The fact that they could be manually charged to be used where they weren't meant to be used is what made them be exploited. You cannot, with a straight face, say that Nintendo intended for them to be used on straightaways. Don't even try that noise. They were expected to be manually charged on turns, where you had more room to do so... Not to frantically mash on straightaways to exploit the system.
I really, really hate this mindset. Who cares how Nintendo creative director X wants you to play Mario Kart? Plenty of games have benefitted tremendously from "exploits."
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
Now let's say you watch the opening two pilot episodes...and this recent Luna episode. What have you learned about Luna's character? She's socially awkward and wants to make friends. O.k., that could apply to Twilight or Zekora or damn near any pony if the authors decide they want to cover social awkwardness again (Rainbow Dash with the wonderbolts, Fluttershy sometimes, Rarity with the prince, the CMC with kids who have their cutie mark). Obviously this isn't exactly a defining trait in FiM. Is there anything else we can determine about her character? Some level of snobbery, I guess?
shut up hater
Kidding aside, this is basically my problem: she has no character. "But it's a different kind of awkward!!" seems like grasping at straws to me. You have this fan-favorite secondary character within a big chunk of your community; why make her not only boring (and somewhat annoying), but a retread of stuff you've done before?
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
I'm pretty sure that human being are the top of the *sentient* food chain. The Drake Equation doesn't make things look good for other sentient life, at least within some reasonable distance.
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
So this is how the butthurt Luna fanboys reacted to the show... I didn't think I would see a reaction like this considering I don't hang around fanfiction and lunar republic forums
lol reading comprehension
Again, fanon Luna was bad, canon Luna was worse. But nah, I'm just a hater right
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
So does anyone else have thoughts about how this episode will be received? The brony community is easy to please, and initial impressions are always ecstatic... but what about tomorrow? A week from now?
Also, Dischord > Luna confirmed for life
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
You know what I don't understand? People who believe that wanting a game to be balanced means you're a HATER who HATES FUN.
The blue shell rolling on the ground is a marginal improvement, but this game appears to be continuing the trend of "make Mario Kart as little competitively-friendly as possible," seemingly for no reason other than to troll people who enjoy games of skill. No snaking is another big loss. That item switch idea that Bosco mentioned *needs* to be implemented.
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
Just because something makes sense doesn't mean it's enjoyable to watch. There are plenty of directions they could've taken her, and Lunautism isn't my idea of a good development for her character.
Shes not speaking to her subjects, shes speaking to an "equal".
She mentions it early in the episode, the voice is how she addresses her subjects.
My point was that she knows how to speak like a normal person. So she should've, at least once she "lowered her guard." The episode made it seem like she's completely incapable of acting normal even when she's trying.
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
Basically anything other than "loud, obnoxious, unfunny, socially awkward, and speaking in middle English for no real reason." I really don't approve of the fanon's interpretation of Luna, for example, but I easily would've preferred that.
Also, remember this?
Quite the evolution since then.
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
I have concluded that bronies have no quality control to speak of. That episode turned out to be totally mediocre. And Luna was handled horribly; I expect her not to be popular with the show's key demographic, i.e. anyone outside of the rabid online base.
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
well I have no idea what difference there would be? You'll have to be more specific
What if the truth of the universe precluded modern-scientific methodology? In other words, what if the scientific conception of the world was wrong? What if everything couldn't really be quantifiable, what if there was an objective morality preventing the inquiry into certain things, what if there was a correct way to live that involved abject poverty and self-contentment? Would you embrace this true way of living, or reject it in favor of personal power and scientific mastery over nature?
Again, hypothetical.
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis
Not really no. Jaffar believes in a diseased discipline, I believe in a method so successful that people like jaffar and redsox would literally prefer to give up everything that the method touches just to make up their own imaginary paradise where it doesn't apply.
Will respond to the rest tomorrow, but I find this very entertaining. For someone who pretends to care so much about being "rational," you sure do throw away all convictions of reason at the very thought of productivity.
Here's a fun mental experiment for you to toy with in the meantime. Suppose that the nature of our universe, properly understood, demanded a choice between truth and scientific advancement (i.e. material wealth, power, greater control over nature; all the principles Bacon originally laid out). Which side would you fall on, and what does that say about you?
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Houston Texans: 3-3 also Jaffar I am dubbing you the hipster Atheist.-- ExThaNemesis