Don't be a cosmic idiot

[Aquagraph]

This is something you should see:



Or in short:


Also:

E-Prime (short for English-Prime, sometimes denoted E′) is a version of the English language that excludes all forms of the verb to be. E-Prime does not allow the conjugations of to be—be, am, is, are, was, were, been, being— the archaic forms of to be (e.g. art, wast, wert), or the contractions of to be—'s, 'm, 're (e.g. I'm, he's, she's, they're).

Some scholars advocate using E-Prime as a device to clarify thinking and strengthen writing. For example, the sentence "the film was good" could translate into E-Prime as "I liked the film" or as "the film made me laugh". The E-Prime versions communicate the speaker's experience rather than judgment, making it harder for the writer or reader to confuse opinion with fact.

Better use that next time you are about to type someone with absolute certainty.

[krieger]

E-Prime (short for English-Prime, sometimes denoted E′) is a version of the English language that excludes all forms of the verb to be. E-Prime does not allow the conjugations of to be—be, am, is, are, was, were, been, being— the archaic forms of to be (e.g. art, wast, wert), or the contractions of to be—'s, 'm, 're (e.g. I'm, he's, she's, they're).

Some scholars advocate using E-Prime as a device to clarify thinking and strengthen writing. For example, the sentence "the film was good" could translate into E-Prime as "I liked the film" or as "the film made me laugh". The E-Prime versions communicate the speaker's experience rather than judgment, making it harder for the writer or reader to confuse opinion with fact.

dumb. as if you never want to leave things in the middle as to what you meant, or leave it to the imagination of the reader.

[Aquagraph]

dumb. as if you never want to leave things in the middle as to what you meant, or leave it to the imagination of the reader.

The idea is not to use it at all times. It's a tool that has purposes and just like other tools they have their place and use.

[Aivonaima]

---

[mu4]

Actually a lot of people familiar with e-prime use it all or most of the time – Robert Anton Wilson to be mentioned. Fuck me for not remembering where he stated that there was a time in his life when he punished himself every time he used the verb "be" in any of its forms.

I've found this very helpful in my life, especially when dealing with controversial ideas – people get less worked up and open up to new thoughts more easily when you do not seem to claim anything absolutely. After all, as long as we think in languages, the way we use the language shapes our thoughts and thus thinking. Dumb, you say? Well, guess what, saying that appears rather dumb to me.

Your quote fails the e-prime test.

this is not a rehearsal
This is the real me.

[Gilly]

Your quote fails the e-prime test.

this is not a rehearsal
This is the real me.

You keep saying this like it means anything at all. Do you not realize that it's not a fucking competition, or strict kind of thing?

I feel like you just don't have any real response, because your points have been proven to be shit, and you refuse to admit that you just don't like it.

[Aivonaima]

---

[krieger]

WRONG:

E-Prime (short for English-Prime, sometimes denoted E′) is a version of the English language that excludes all forms of the verb to be.

[Fermi]

how shortsighted was that labster? You can use E-prime on a segment of text. It doesn't mean you have to use it on everything you write in your entire life.

[Aquagraph]

how shortsighted was that labster? You can use E-prime on a segment of text. It doesn't mean you have to use it on everything you write in your entire life.

This is what I meant.

[Ryan]

still dumb

[Aquagraph]

still dumb

Explicate.

[Ryan]

Explicate.

give me a fact regarding someone's typing, since you proposed it

[Aquagraph]

give me a fact regarding someone's typing, since you proposed it

First you just simply stated it was dumb and now you seem to request me to help you out on explicating it. It doesn't seem to be going anywhere and further debate would probably be just a useless bummer to this thread since I feel that you are not going to change your mind no matter what would I say.

I'm fine with being with the policy of "You either get it or you don't."

[Ryan]

First you just simply stated it was dumb and now you seem to request me to help you out on explicating it. It doesn't seem to be going anywhereand further debate would probably be just a useless bummer to this thread since I feel that you are not going to change your mind no matter what would I say.

I'm fine with being with the policy of "You either get it or you don't."

you're full of shit

facts and opinions are the same thing, and they're just as useless, the only difference between them is the likelihood of being true - and that's usually determined individually by each person. so you're asking people to rate every fucking statement on a useless and vauge scale that was invented by I don't know who. something could be fact to you but isn't to me, dispite it being highly probable, and what I consider as a fact on a given topic could very well be useless in another. i could go on, but something tells me you don't know what you're talking about. so show me a fact of yours on a relevant topic, like someone's type, or whatever the fuck you were talking about in the op, because obviously I don't understand shit.

also, i swear i had this discussion before, maybe with someone else, but i remember gilly posting in that thread as well

[Aquagraph]

@anyone
Could you imagine that increasing the use of sentences which contain the information about the observer being aware that they are merely perceiving could lead to a consciousness that is more aware of being an observer of the subjective nature of reality that is modified by the outlook of the observer?

These include segments of sentence like "I think", "it seems", "in my opinion/experience"?

[krieger]

how shortsighted was that labster? You can use E-prime on a segment of text. It doesn't mean you have to use it on everything you write in your entire life.

look, if you start and stop using it at your leisure it's obviously the same thing as just using English. the only additional feature it confers upon your language use is a handicap. if you can lift that handicap whenever you want, there's nothing left of your cute little innovation.

let me know when you're all caught up with me. in fact, don't. i'm leaving this thread to it's misery.

ps. i was responding to the first part of aqua's post under it's only sensible interpretation, not the second sentence which he edited in later causing him to turn his own comment into a non-sequitur for the reason i express above.

[ashlesha]

its not incredibly interesting to me but i can see its usefulness. if anything as just a mind exercise.

[Aquagraph]

Well, labster sure seemed negative about it. It's just a simple mind exercise if you eliminate that verb from some sentences. If you include the perceiver in the sentence it (which is what this is pretty much about) also makes one impossible to be called out since you can't tell someone that they perceived something otherwise, there will be no more stupid arguments like "Bach is better than Mozart" and in general it's more polite and constructive.

Think about the latter in this sense:
"Labster seemed to miss all of it's value and he didn't even seem willing to give it a thought." vs.
"Labster had missed all of it's value and wasn't even willing to give it a thought."

[Gilly]

look, if you start and stop using it at your leisure it's obviously the same thing as just using English. the only additional feature it confers upon your language use is a handicap. if you can lift that handicap whenever you want, there's nothing left of your cute little innovation.

let me know when you're all caught up with me. in fact, don't. i'm leaving this thread to it's misery.

ps. i was responding to the first part of aqua's post under it's only sensible interpretation, not the second sentence which he edited in later causing him to turn his own comment into a non-sequitur for the reason i express above.

Jesus what crawled up your ass dude

He's just saying it can be used intermittently as a technique or language exercise rather than devoting oneself to never using "to be" for the rest of one's life.

[Creepy-pokeball]

Jesus what crawled up your ass dude

Christ :[

[Absurd]

Christ :[

God commands us not to use His name in vain, infidel.

[Creepy-pokeball]

God commands us not to use His name in vain, infidel.

[Absurd]

Pic

You're so ddd dd umm b, I just can't obtain any satisfaction from replying to you. Excuse me for having high standards.

Oh shit. I used 'you're' again in my sentence.

[krieger]

yeah, like i said. dumb.

[Gilly]

yeah, like i said. dumb.

Why? Things are stupid unless they are clung to and implemented with religious zeal?

[Absurd]

Bump.

[krieger]

"Labster had missed all of it's value and wasn't even willing to give it a thought."

your mistaking unwillingness to give a thought for a well considered awareness of millions of nuances as to how a proposition is flawed.

[Aquagraph]

your mistaking unwillingness to give a thought for a well considered awareness of millions of nuances as to how a proposition is flawed.

And observe how labster quoted the more offensive version of my example!

[Absurd]

Doesn't reality exist independently of your perception?

[Aquagraph]

Doesn't reality exist independently of your perception?

It does seem so to me but I haven't been outside of my perception to perceive.

[Absurd]

It does seem so to me but I haven't been outside of my perception to perceive.

Don't think any one has been.

[ashlesha]

i think ryan doesn't get it, lol.

[Ryan]

i think lungs is baiting me, lol

[ashlesha]

does this have to be another thread about whether objective reality exists because i think there's like 17 of those already.

or maybe aqua doesn't care, i dunno.

[Aquagraph]

does this have to be another thread about whether objective reality exists because i think there's like 17 of those already.

Good point. I hope these discussions will go along the premise that the reality is subjective. I have no interest in debating with those in favor of Naïve Realism.

[Absurd]

Good point. I hope these discussions will go along the premise that the reality is subjective. I have no interest in debating with those in favor of Naïve Realism.

I wasn't debating anything, just asked, and better cease posting those funny links, if you do not want a debate you're so against, apparently.

[Ryan]

Good point. I hope these discussions will go along the premise that the reality is subjective. I have no interest in debating with those in favor of Naïve Realism.

"reality" is just as stupid subject as the one you linked, let me know when you leave reality or whatever shit you're on, i'll be sure to cheer you on

you may want to read this page before you start speaking nonsense

Okay. Cute. What was your point again?

god, you're hopeless

[Korpsy Knievel]

Here's a snippet from Schopenhauer's Art of Controversy which is germane to the problems of communicating/pondering opinion and fact that E-prime aims to overcome:

"By the ancients, Logic and Dialectic were used as synonymous terms;
although logizesthai, "to think over, to consider, to
calculate," and dialegesthai, "to converse," are two very
different things.

This use of the words and synonymous terms lasted through the Middle
Ages into modern times; in fact, until the present day. But more
recently, and in particular by Kant, Dialectic has often been employed
in a bad sense, as meaning "the art of sophistical controversy";
and hence Logic has been preferred, as of the two the more innocent
designation. Nevertheless, both originally meant the same thing; and
in the last few years they have again been recognised as synonymous.

It is a pity that the words have thus been used from of old, and that
I am not quite at liberty to distinguish their meanings. Otherwise, I
should have preferred to define Logic (from [Greek: logos], "word"
and "reason," which are inseparable) as "the science of the laws of
thought, that is, of the method of reason"; and Dialectic (from
dialegesthai, "to converse"--and every conversation
communicates either facts or opinions, that is to say, it is
historical or deliberative) as "the art of disputation," in the modern
sense of the word. It it clear, then, that Logic deals with a subject
of a purely a priori character, separable in definition from
experience, namely, the laws of thought, the process of reason or the
logos, the laws, that is, which reason follows when it is
left to itself and not hindered, as in the case of solitary thought on
the part of a rational being who is in no way misled. Dialectic, on
the other hand, would treat of the intercourse between two rational
beings who, because they are rational, ought to think in common, but
who, as soon as they cease to agree like two clocks keeping exactly
the same time, create a disputation, or intellectual contest. Regarded
as purely rational beings, the individuals would, I say, necessarily
be in agreement, and their variation springs from the difference
essential to individuality; in other words, it is drawn from
experience.

Logic, therefore, as the science of thought, or the science of the
process of pure reason, should be capable of being constructed a
priori. Dialectic, for the most part, can be constructed only a
posteriori; that is to say, we may learn its rules by an experiential
knowledge of the disturbance which pure thought suffers through the
difference of individuality manifested in the intercourse between
two rational beings, and also by acquaintance with the means which
disputants adopt in order to make good against one another their own
individual thought, and to show that it is pure and objective. For
human nature is such that if A. and B. are engaged in thinking in
common, and are communicating their opinions to one another on any
subject, so long as it is not a mere fact of history, and A. perceives
that B.'s thoughts on one and the same subject are not the same as his
own, he does not begin by revising his own process of thinking, so as
to discover any mistake which he may have made, but he assumes that
the mistake has occurred in B.'s. In other words, man is naturally
obstinate; and this quality in him is attended with certain results,
treated of in the branch of knowledge which I should like to call
Dialectic, but which, in order to avoid misunderstanding, I shall call
Controversial or Eristical Dialectic. Accordingly, it is the branch
of knowledge which treats of the obstinacy natural to man. Eristic is
only a harsher name for the same thing."

[Absurd]

[...]people who rely heavily on ‘to be’ (‘I am’, ‘you are’, and ‘we are’) tend to be more dogmatic in their thinking than people who don’t.

What follows is, those dogmatic people after eliminating those forms from their vocabulary won't be dogmatic anymore. Cool, heh.

Ryan, time to stop being dogmatic.