rotenotes @rotenotes@qoto.org

"Κάποιος ρώτησε τον κύριο Κόινερ αν υπάρχει #Θεός. Ο κ. Κόινερ του είπε: Σε συμβουλεύω να σκεφτεις αν η συμπεριφορά σου θ’ αλλάξει ανάλογα με την απάντηση που θα δώσεις στο ερώτημα. Αν δεν αλλάξει τότε η ερωτηση ειναι περιττή. Αν θ’ αλλάξει τότε μπορώ τουλάχιστον να σε βοηθήσω λέγοντας πως εσύ αποφάσισες κιόλας: χρειάζεσαι έναν Θεό"

- Bertolt #Brecht, Ιστορίες του κύριου #Κόινερ (Geschichten vom Hern Keuner), 1956

"In one of his last books, famed paleontologist (and atheist) Stepehn Jay #Gould attempted to negotiate a peace between #science and #religion by referring them as two “non-overlapping magisteria” (NOMA), with science concerning itself with understanding the #natural world while religion deals with issues of #morality.

Many reviewers pointed out that Gould was trying to redefine religion as #moral philosophy. In fact, religions do more than just preach on morality. They make claims about the real world-about space,time and matter- that are thereby open to scientific testing.

Furthermore… religion has not exactly shown any significant expertise with respect to morality. It has supported #slavery, the oppression of women, ethnic cleansing, serfdom, the divine right of kings, and extraction of testimony by torture. It has opposed anesthetics, lightning rods, sanitation, vaccination, eating meat on Friday, and birth control. It is very easy to give #nonsupernatural reasons for preferring honesty to lying, for outlawing murder and theft. And in fact, those moral principles were common in human society long before anyone had thought of the current major religions. So whatever useful moral prescriptions religion has provided are equally available without it."

- Victor J. #Stenger in his book The New #Atheism, (Page 70) on why science can study religion

"The consistent #anarchist, then, should be a #socialist, but a socialist of a particular sort. He will not only oppose alienated and specialized #labor and look forward to the appropriation of #capital by the whole body of #workers, but he will also insist that this appropriation be direct, not exercised by some #elite force acting in the name of the #proletariat."

- Noam #Chomsky - In Daniel Guérin, #Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, 1970

"The basic tool for the #manipulation of #reality is the manipulation of #words. If you can control the #meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."

- Philip K. #Dick

#Pragmatism characterizes the #unconscious as embodied #habits and #skills we take for granted in focusing on #intentions or #conscious thought. Temporal performances create a background, context, or situation. In contrast, #Freudian thought renders the unconscious as a kind of space, like the basement, attic, or closets of a house. It suggests that #dreams and unconscious “thought” are a kind of broken or deformed version of conscious thought— junk stored in the basement or attic.

[John #Rothfork: Review of #Dreyfus's On the Internet](https://louisville.edu/journal/workplace/issue5p2/rothfork.html)

"In the weightiest matters we must go to school to the #animals, and learn spinning and weaving from the spider, building from the swallow, singing from the birds, — from the swan and the nightingale, imitating their art."

- #Democritus of Abdera - The Symmetry of Life

"Of practical #wisdom these are the three fruits: to #deliberate well, to #speak to the point, to do what is #right."

- #Democritus of Abdera - The Symmetry of Life

"The aspiration to be in no degree whatever a prisoner of #language, so dear to #Hobbes & #Locke, is unrealizable."

- Charles #Taylor - “The Importance of Herder” from Philosophical Arguments (http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jgr6/NMT/332taylor.htm) (1995), p. 96

… #Holism of #meaning. A #word has meaning only within a #lexicon & a context of #language practices, which are ultimately embedded in a form of life. * * * This insight flows from the recognition of the #linguistic dimension as #Herder formulated it. Once you articulate this bit of our background understanding, an #atomism of meaning becomes as untenable … . To posses a word of human language is to have some sense that it’s the right word … . [p. 93]

… A being who emitted a #sound when faced with a given object but was incapable of saying why … would have to be deemed to be merely responding to #signals [like a parrot, like a computer].

This is what the holism of meaning amounts to: individual #words can be words only within the context of an articulated language [a #grammar]. Language is not something can be built up one word at a time. [p. 94]

Charles #Taylor - “The Importance of Herder” from Philosophical Arguments (http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jgr6/NMT/332taylor.htm) (1995), pp. 93-94

"#Animals respond to natural & accidental #signs (smoke is an accidental #sign of fire, clouds portend rain). #Humans also have instituted signs. The difference lies in the fact that by means of the latter [#language] humans can control the flow of their own #imagination … ."

- Charles #Taylor - “The Importance of Herder” from Philosophical Arguments (http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jgr6/NMT/332taylor.htm) (1995), p. 88

To learn to use the #signal is to learn to apply it appropriately in the furtherance of some non-linguistically-defined purpose or task.

[Whereas] … if we want to think of a task or goal [which must exist in a field or context or process] which would help to clarify the rightness [appropriateness, accuracy] of #words … it would itself have to defined in terms like truth, descriptive adequacy, richness of evocation, or something of the sort [that is not capable of being rendered into a simple correspondence with a putatively pre-existing “chunk” of reality].

A creature is [only] operating in the #linguistic dimension when it can use & respond to #signs in terms of their truth, or descriptive rightness, or power to evoke some mood, or recreate a scene, or express some emotion, or carry some nuance of feeling … . To be a linguistic creature is to be sensitive to irreducible issues of #rightness. * * * Whether a creature is in the linguistic dimension in this sense isn’t a matter of what correlations hold between the signals it emits, its behavior, & the surroundings — the kind of things the proponents of chimp language focus on. It is a question of subjective understanding of what rightness consists in for it, qua what word is right.

Charles #Taylor - “The Importance of Herder” from Philosophical Arguments (http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jgr6/NMT/332taylor.htm) (1995), p. 84

[Message from Leonard #Peltier: We are winning!

The Red Nation
Sep 19, 2023

A message from Leonard Peltier communicated through his legal team at the rally outside of the White House demanding #clemency.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLlRur0whWU)

[Peltier has been in prison since April 1977, when he was convicted by a federal jury in Fargo, N.D., for the killing of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He is considered by many as America’s political prisoner. He’s been eligible for parole since 1993, for 29 years. The Supreme Court has twice denied his petitions for a rehearing.](nativenewsonline.net)

«Σημείωσε πόσο φευγαλέα και ασήμαντη είναι η περιουσία του ανθρώπου — χθες ένα έμβρυο, αύριο μια μούμια ή στάχτη. Έτσι, για το εύρος του χρόνου που σου έχει ανατεθεί, ζήσε λογικά και αποχωρίσου τη ζωή χαρούμενα, όπως πέφτει η ώριμη ελιά, εξυμνώντας την εποχή που τη γέννησε και το δέντρο που την ωρίμασε».

"Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man — yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it."

- Marcus #Aurelius, Meditations, IV, 48

Artwork: [The Three Ages of Man
Artist #Titian
Year c. 1512–14
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 90 cm × 150.7 cm (35 in × 59.3 in)
Location National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Ages_of_Man_(Titian))

"#Conscience is an inner voice that warns us somebody is looking."

- H. L. #Mencken

«Δεν μπορώ να συλλάβω έναν #Θεό που ανταμείβει και τιμωρεί τα πλάσματά του ή έχει μια θέληση όπως αυτή που βιώνουμε στον εαυτό μας. Ούτε μπορώ ούτε θα ήθελα να συλλάβω ένα άτομο που επιζεί του φυσικού του θανάτου. Αφήστε τις αδύναμες ψυχές, από φόβο ή παράλογο εγωισμό, να αγαπούν τέτοιες σκέψεις. Είμαι ικανοποιημένος με το μυστήριο της αιωνιότητας της ζωής και με την επίγνωση και μια ματιά της θαυμαστής δομής του υπάρχοντος κόσμου, μαζί με την αφοσιωμένη προσπάθεια να κατανοήσω ένα μέρος, ακόμα και τόσο μικροσκοπικό, του Λόγου που εκδηλώνεται στη φύση.»

"I cannot conceive of a #God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

- Albert #Einstein, The World As I See It

Artwork: [Title The #Flood
Artist #Michelangelo
Date 1512
Medium fresco
Dimensions 305 cm x 550 cm
Art Movement High Renaissance
Current Location Sistine Chapel, Vatican]

The flood in #Bible
(Genesis 6:5-8,19)
(Genesis 6:13-14)
(Genesis 7:4)
(Genesis 7:10)

"Man has #free choice, or otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards and punishments would be in vain. If the will were deprived of #freedom…no praise would be given to human virtue; since virtue would be of no account if man acted not freely: there would be no justice in rewarding or punishing, if man were not free in acting well or ill: and there would be no prudence in taking advice, which would be of no use if things occurred of necessity…"

- Thomas #Aquinas