Your favourite quotes

[Mr H]

Schopenhauer said: "Man can do what he wants, but he cannot want what he wants."

[Fruithunter]

[wagdog19]

They are two cheeks of the same arse. (Labour Party/ Conservative Party).

[wagdog19]

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"The Stoics of ancient Greece and Rome implored people to keep death in mind at all times, in order to appreciate life more and remain humble in the face of it's adversities. In various forms of Buddhism, the practice of meditation is often taught as a means of preparing oneself for death while still remaining alive. Dissolving one's ego into an expansive nothingness -- achieving the enlightened state of nirvana -- is seen as a trial run of letting oneself cross to the other side."
- Mark Manson

(AVC writes) The samourai had similar beliefs about conditioning the spirit for ascension while living life. A philosophy of making the transition as natural as possible.

 

Our culture, on the other hand, are terrified and frantic at the mere prospect of facing death. A bumpy transition I would expect. A soul limping in to the pearly gates.

 

 

Edited May 6, 2024 by Avoiceinthecrowd

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"Human nature, the eternal struggle between the desire for growth and the fear of transformation."

 

- 7 Reasons Why The Chosen Ones Cannot Be Around Too Many People (transcribed from the video)

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

Old Russian proverb ;

 

" When you live beside a cemetary you cannot cry for every burial."

[Campion]

"Politics is the entertainment division of the Military-Industrial Complex."

 

Disputed, possibly Frank Zappa. 

[Mr H]

"When you are happy you are ordinary, because to be happy is just to be natural. To be miserable is to become extraordinary. Nothing is special in being happy – trees are happy, birds are happy, animals are happy, children are happy. What is special in that? It is just the usual thing in existence. Existence is made of the stuff called happiness. Just look! – can’t you see these trees?…so happy. Can’t you see the birds singing?…so happily. Happiness has nothing special in it. Happiness is a very ordinary thing.

 

Misery makes you special. Misery makes you more egoistic. A miserable man can have a more concentrated ego than a happy man. A happy man really cannot have the ego, because a person becomes happy only when there is no ego. The more egoless, the more happy; the more happy, the more egoless. You dissolve into happiness. You cannot exist together with happiness; you exist only when there is misery. In happiness there is dissolution.”

 

Anon.

[Screamingeagle]

Nothing would be what it is,
Because everything would be what it isn't. 
And contrary-wise - what it is, it wouldn't be. 
And what it wouldn't be, it would.

You see?

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

Wrong thread

 

Edited May 11, 2024 by Avoiceinthecrowd

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

Wrong thread.

 

Edited May 11, 2024 by Avoiceinthecrowd

[Campion]

36 minutes ago, Avoiceinthecrowd said:

 

In other words, tit for tat. A good strategy. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat  

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

32 minutes ago, Campion said:

 

In other words, tit for tat. A good strategy. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat  

Reciprocity

[webtrekker]

1 hour ago, Campion said:

 

In other words, tit for tat. A good strategy. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat  

 

 

I remember long ago being interested in certain aspects of Game Theory while developing code for some computer board games and came across 'The Prisoner's Dilemma.'

 

Various strategies, including: TIT FOR TAT, TIT FOR TWO TATS and TWO TITS FOR A TAT were put forward as solutions. Here is a short description ...

 

 

In 1980, Robert Axelrod, professor of political science at the University of Michigan, held a tournament of various strategies for the prisoner's dilemma. He invited a number of well-known game theorists to submit strategies to be run by computers. In the tournament, programs played games against each other and themselves repeatedly. Each strategy specified whether to cooperate or defect based on the previous moves of both the strategy and its opponent.

 

Some of the strategies submitted were:

• Always defect: This strategy defects on every turn. This is what game theory advocates. It is the safest strategy since it cannot be taken advantage of. However, it misses the chance to gain larger payoffs by cooperating with an opponent who is ready to cooperate.
• Always cooperate: This strategy does very well when matched against itself. However, if the opponent chooses to defect, then this strategy will do badly.
• Random: The strategy cooperates 50% of the time.

All of these strategies are prescribed in advance. Therefore, they cannot take advantage of knowing the opponent's previous moves and figuring out its strategy.

 

The winner of Axelrod's tournament was the TIT FOR TAT strategy. The strategy cooperates on the first move, and then does whatever its opponent has done on the previous move. Thus, when matched against the all-defect strategy, TIT FOR TAT strategy always defects after the first move. When matched against the all-cooperate strategy, TIT FOR TAT always cooperates. This strategy has the benefit of both cooperating with a friendly opponent, getting the full benefits of cooperation, and of defecting when matched against an opponent who defects. When matched against itself, the TIT FOR TAT strategy always cooperates.

 

Several variations to TIT FOR TAT have been proposed. TIT FOR TWO TATS is a forgiving strategy that defects only when the opponent has defected twice in a row. TWO TITS FOR TAT, on the other hand, is a strategy that punishes every defection with two of its own.

 

TIT FOR TAT relies on the assumption that its opponent is trying to maximize his score. When paired with a mindless strategy like RANDOM, TIT FOR TAT sinks to its opponent's level. For that reason, TIT FOR TAT cannot be called a "best" strategy.

 

It must be realized that there really is no "best" strategy for prisoner's dilemma. Each individual strategy will work best when matched against a "worse" strategy. In order to win, a player must figure out his opponent's strategy and then pick a strategy that is best suited for the situation.

[webtrekker]

I believe the above theory is used daily in the House of Commons and the Lords ...

 

TWO TWITS FOR A TWAT!

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

5 minutes ago, webtrekker said:

Various strategies, including: TIT FOR TAT, TIT FOR TWO TATS and TWO TITS FOR A TAT were put forward as solutions. Here is a short description ...

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

-Depeche Mode "Precious"

 

The angels with silver wings are those empaths that are made to feel the suffering of others.

[Campion]

10 hours ago, webtrekker said:

I remember long ago being interested in certain aspects of Game Theory while developing code for some computer board games and came across 'The Prisoner's Dilemma.'

 

Various strategies, including: TIT FOR TAT, TIT FOR TWO TATS and TWO TITS FOR A TAT were put forward as solutions. Here is a short description ...

 

Thanks webtrekker, Game Theory makes interesting reading especially how it can be applied to real-life situations like how to deal with the climate change agenda, or doing trade deals. And how to cooperate vs compete with other people generally. 

[DaleP]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdgHw_2E0OE

 

[Mr H]

ALL of your problems are because you believe in an imaginary "I" character.

 

Made that one up myself, could you tell?

 

(fricking true though. Investigate the real I. Then there are only practical solutions and not delusions.)

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

" Nobody knows whether our personalities pass on to another existence or sphere, but if we can evolve an instrument so delicate as to be manipulated by our personality as it survives in the next life, such an instrument ought to record something"

 

- Thomas Edison 1928

[Campion]

1 hour ago, Avoiceinthecrowd said:

" Nobody knows whether our personalities pass on to another existence or sphere, but if we can evolve an instrument so delicate as to be manipulated by our personality as it survives in the next life, such an instrument ought to record something"

 

- Thomas Edison 1928

 

There was someone who tried weighing the souls of people as they died and came up with a figure of 21 grams - although as you may expect it's disputed science. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_grams_experiment  

[Avoiceinthecrowd]

"What Hath God Wrought"

 

- first ever morse coded telegraph message. From Washington to Baltimore, May 24, 1844. 

 

Verse 23:23 Bible.