The BIP is not a Discordian work: discuss

[Arafelis]

Cramulus, I'm starting to like you a lot, and I swear it's not just for the flattery.

Whether we write a new BIP or not, understanding people's reaction to it is helpful for future projects.

Writing, compiling, and editing the BIP in the first place is, let's face it, a stunning achievement for the Discordian web presence.  Lots of Discordians have written stuff.  Some of it's even good.  But very few have ever gotten together to do it.  The issue that is relevant here is one of complexity: a body comprised of more than one entity has exponentially more inefficiencies in its system, yet it also has exponentially more reach.  What a human being is capable of is unimagineable for ten trillion paramecium.

The fact that I am so critical (in some case, this is reactionary) of the BIP does not negate any of this.  Nor does it mean I expect people to suddenly rewrite the project on my whim.  The quote above summarizes very well what it does mean, and since I feel like I'm adding little of substance overall to that, I think I might as well just stop here.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Cramulus, I'm starting to like you a lot, and I swear it's not just for the flattery.

The WOMP is strong with him.

Whether we write a new BIP or not, understanding people's reaction to it is helpful for future projects.

Writing, compiling, and editing the BIP in the first place is, let's face it, a stunning achievement for the Discordian web presence.  Lots of Discordians have written stuff.  Some of it's even good.  But very few have ever gotten together to do it.  The issue that is relevant here is one of complexity: a body comprised of more than one entity has exponentially more inefficiencies in its system, yet it also has exponentially more reach.  What a human being is capable of is unimagineable for ten trillion paramecium.

The fact that I am so critical (in some case, this is reactionary) of the BIP does not negate any of this.  Nor does it mean I expect people to suddenly rewrite the project on my whim.  The quote above summarizes very well what it does mean, and since I feel like I'm adding little of substance overall to that, I think I might as well just stop here.

So then, lets on to the next exciting project. Hope your stickin around.... I want to chalk up a Convert Me Win

[fomenter]

humor is the fulcrum, the work being accomplished can be heavy (serious ) and the energy required to do the lifting can be large but by having humor (absurdity) put in the right place at the right time gets the job done with greater efficiency ...

the right joke in the right place can Carry a writing with a serious/heavy tone or help ease a "taking itself to seriously vibe" i agree the bip is done and moving on to new projects makes more sense, but its definitely a writing tool to keep in mind for future projects, the entire thing doesn't have to be humor but a little humor in the right place can make a project like this even better..

[Kai]

How come no one ever wants to discuss the ideas?


This reminds me of this guy in my classics class who complained that the Iliad was sexist.

Of course its sexist (if you are doing a presentism themed reading), but isn't the concept of the Illiad as the first real war story epic that featured war as what it is, a bloody feud for petty reasons where both sides suffer and the gods favor no one?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

How come no one ever wants to discuss the ideas?


This reminds me of this guy in my classics class who complained that the Iliad was sexist.

Of course its sexist (if you are doing a presentism themed reading), but isn't the concept of the Illiad as the first real war story epic that featured war as what it is, a bloody feud for petty reasons where both sides suffer a/msg NickServ IDENTIFYnd the gods favor no one?

Fuck you, Kai.

[Cain]

Well, the Greeks didn't care about that stuff, really.  Warrior ethos and all that.  Yes it was petty and pointless but you got to strut around a battlefield in fricking armour, being all manly and shit.

[Kai]

Well, the Greeks didn't care about that stuff, really.  Warrior ethos and all that.  Yes it was petty and pointless but you got to strut around a battlefield in fricking armour, being all manly and shit.

I don't know, Homer (or whoever started it) made it clear that no one had really won at the end, I mean, the thing ends in two funerals of great heros on both sides, the culprits who started the whole mess (Paris, Helen, Agamemnon and Achillies) walk free and no one was saved. The line that sums it up for me "In times of peace, sons bury their fathers; in times of war, fathers bury their suns". And maybe I just got it wrong with the first reading and don't really understand it yet, but thats the deeper meaning I got out of it so far.

Anyway, was just stupidly expanding upon LMNO's point, didn't really have anything to do with the discussion. Carry on.

[Cain]

Well, the Greeks didn't care about that stuff, really.  Warrior ethos and all that.  Yes it was petty and pointless but you got to strut around a battlefield in fricking armour, being all manly and shit.

I don't know, Homer (or whoever started it) made it clear that no one had really won at the end, I mean, the thing ends in two funerals of great heros on both sides, the culprits who started the whole mess (Paris, Helen, Agamemnon and Achillies) walk free and no one was saved. The line that sums it up for me "In times of peace, sons bury their fathers; in times of war, fathers bury their suns". And maybe I just got it wrong with the first reading and don't really understand it yet, but thats the deeper meaning I got out of it so far.

I'm pretty sure that quote was a later addition, since it comes from Herodotus of Halicarnassus.

Did you miss the theme about greatness/glory and death, or a long yet anonymous life?  I mean, that was the offer made to Achilles, and that Greek culture celebrated his choice suggests they found the former to be the right one.

[Cainad (dec.)]

How come no one ever wants to discuss the ideas?

Which ideas are those, huh?  The Plato's Cave allegory, or the part where Somebody Should Do Something About It?

You know, I really love how people think they're hot stuff for reading the BIP and thinking "Oh this is just Plato's Cave in different words."

Because it isn't. The ideas are somewhat similar, but the BIP isn't just the same old thing with a fresh coat of paint.

Plato's Cave suggests that we are only able to see shadows of what is truly real. This basically means our senses are limited, and the best we can do is recognize that what we see are but shadows or imitations of true ideal forms. The person in the cave is little more than an observer, and the allegory suggest that this is simply an inherent part of nature. It goes on to suggest that being a philosopher means that one can be aware of Really Real Reality. So it's basically an all-or-nothing deal, wherein one either knows the Really Real Truth or else one is a sucker. Which is stupid and rather masturbatory on the part of philosophers, IMO. To even think that a one-shot "enlightenment" is capable of curing one's ignorance of objective reality is, frankly, egotistical and dumb.

In the BIP, the person in the cell is much, much more than an observer, and there is far more to the process of becoming aware of objective reality. The bars of the cell are products of the prisoner's own mind. They might also be described as projected lenses of the prisoner's mind, which bring reality into focus but necessarily distort it in some way. There is no way of directly observing Really Real Reality, but it is possible to be aware that the way we perceive it is influenced by our beliefs, experiences, and biological limitations.
Just as we can take pictures of things using different ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum and thereby get a better idea of what that thing is really like, so too can the prisoner of the BIP get a better idea of what the world around him is like by taking on different perspectives or beliefs. However, just as a picture from the entire range of the electromagnetic spectrum is both impossible to take on a single frame of film and would just look like a big mess anyway, so too is the prisoner unable to perceive the entirety of objective reality directly (the prisoner cannot remove all the bars at once or cease projecting any lens at all, in other words) and such direct observation would overwhelm the brain anyway.

In Plato's Cave, Really Real Reality is knowable by being a philosopher. In the BIP, it is not knowable, but philosophy is one of many ways in which one might get a better idea of it.





Sorry for the threadjack, and I realize that my description of Plato's Cave is so simplified and dumbed-down as to be offensive to any real student of philosophy. I'm just sick of hearing about it, and I think dismissing the BIP as a rehash of it is disingenuous.

[Arafelis]

You know, I really love how people think they're hot stuff for reading the BIP and thinking "Oh this is just Plato's Cave in different words."

You know, I really love how people love to think other people think they're hot stuff for saying something with the slightest relationship to literature or philosophy, when in fact those other people are merely assuming basic cultural literacy on the part of their audience.

Plato's Cave suggests [things that Plato probably actually meant with the cave allegory]...

I'd give you the same answer I gave Requia.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Its as if Plato's Cave and Reality Grids had a wild night at a Metaphor Mixer and woke up the next morning with a hangover, anterograde amnesia and a box of broken condoms.

[Kai]

Well, the Greeks didn't care about that stuff, really.  Warrior ethos and all that.  Yes it was petty and pointless but you got to strut around a battlefield in fricking armour, being all manly and shit.

I don't know, Homer (or whoever started it) made it clear that no one had really won at the end, I mean, the thing ends in two funerals of great heros on both sides, the culprits who started the whole mess (Paris, Helen, Agamemnon and Achillies) walk free and no one was saved. The line that sums it up for me "In times of peace, sons bury their fathers; in times of war, fathers bury their suns". And maybe I just got it wrong with the first reading and don't really understand it yet, but thats the deeper meaning I got out of it so far.

I'm pretty sure that quote was a later addition, since it comes from Herodotus of Halicarnassus.

Did you miss the theme about greatness/glory and death, or a long yet anonymous life?  I mean, that was the offer made to Achilles, and that Greek culture celebrated his choice suggests they found the former to be the right one.

I got the theme that achilles could live a long and quiet life or stay and fight (and die young) on the shores of troy. Didn't see any glory in that.

I guess I misinterpreted the whole damn thing.


@Cainad: Right, Plato was working with the concept of eidos, these perfect type forms that all reality were just a (poor)  reflection of. I would hope BIP would not be working on this idea, as it more or less was cast aside with the acceptance that types are mutable (Cf. On the Origin of Species). BIP philosophy says that not only is there no eidos, but you can make one up, we all make one up, and that eidos we make up traps us. Or something. Or I'm way way off.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Luckily, the old pdfs still exist

nothing lost at all 

Right, but the "old PDF's" could (and probably will, if my experience is any guide) easily just gradually be lost, and only the currently circulating whatever-we're-calling the BIP will remain. And I think that would be kind of sad. I'm far more in favor of a new project; a complete rewrite, if you will, with a different name.

[Cain]

Well, the Greeks didn't care about that stuff, really.  Warrior ethos and all that.  Yes it was petty and pointless but you got to strut around a battlefield in fricking armour, being all manly and shit.

I don't know, Homer (or whoever started it) made it clear that no one had really won at the end, I mean, the thing ends in two funerals of great heros on both sides, the culprits who started the whole mess (Paris, Helen, Agamemnon and Achillies) walk free and no one was saved. The line that sums it up for me "In times of peace, sons bury their fathers; in times of war, fathers bury their suns". And maybe I just got it wrong with the first reading and don't really understand it yet, but thats the deeper meaning I got out of it so far.

I'm pretty sure that quote was a later addition, since it comes from Herodotus of Halicarnassus.

Did you miss the theme about greatness/glory and death, or a long yet anonymous life?  I mean, that was the offer made to Achilles, and that Greek culture celebrated his choice suggests they found the former to be the right one.

I got the theme that achilles could live a long and quiet life or stay and fight (and die young) on the shores of troy. Didn't see any glory in that.

I guess I misinterpreted the whole damn thing.

For my mother Thetis the goddess of silver feet tells me
I carry two sorts of destiny toward the day of my death. Either,
if I stay here and fight beside the city of the Trojans,
my return home is gone, but my glory shall be everlasting;
but if I return home to the beloved land of my fathers,
the excellence of my glory is gone, but there will be a long life
left for me, and my end in death will not come to me quickly.

[Cainad (dec.)]

You know, I really love how people think they're hot stuff for reading the BIP and thinking "Oh this is just Plato's Cave in different words."

You know, I really love how people love to think other people think they're hot stuff for saying something with the slightest relationship to literature or philosophy, when in fact those other people are merely assuming basic cultural literacy on the part of their audience.

Plato's Cave suggests [things that Plato probably actually meant with the cave allegory]...

I'd give you the same answer I gave Requia.

Fair enough. I still think that this statement:

How come no one ever wants to discuss the ideas?

Which ideas are those, huh?  The Plato's Cave allegory

is a disingenuous way of referring to the ideas of the BIP, but I suppose that's a matter of communication.