Joshe

And yet the average human character has evolved far beyond what it was 5000 years ago.

The solution is evolution.

You can be successful and keep your values. They can actually set you apart. I have the ability to manipulate the shit out of people but I won’t do it because I couldn’t live with myself if I did. It wouldn’t be worth it in the end. Betraying yourself isn’t an option, even if it means you sacrifice everything.

Tis true - to be happy, you first have to remove unhappiness. But you cannot stop at the removal of unhappiness, lest you bullshit yourself like someone who mixes blueberries in a broccoli and chlorella smoothie, takes a sip and says "Mmmm, delicious". If you're chronically sleep deprived, it doesn't matter how peaceful you are - you will experience the opposite of happiness when you're forced to experience something you don't want to. When you remove all the blockers to happiness, happiness doesn't just usher itself it. Relative peace and calm is easier to access, but I'm not sure I'd call that happiness. Happiness seems like success - it's different for everybody.

I don't think so. This gets back to the "perception" aspect. Meaning is derived from the perception of the context and content. Without the context, the content can't have meaning, but that doesn't mean the context gives or assigns the meaning. Context does largely determine what meanings can be derived, (which is what I was trying to get at with the "objective" quality), but subjective interpretation interacts with the objective aspects to select what meaning actually arises. Context limits meaning and makes specific meanings more likely. It paves the way for meaning. Without context, content can't be interpreted meaningfully. The main aspects are: context, content, and perception. All of these are interdependent. Context = the structured possibility space Content = the distinctions inside it Perception = the interpreter that derives meaning It seems hard to come up with a good definition for context without mentioning the other 2. Keryo brings up a good point about how context changes over time and is influenced by previous meaning making. This seems important to have in the definition. All that said, I'm still failing to see how this inquiry pays off. All I'm doing here is exercising my cognitive abilities.

So you're a Karen?

Yes. Yes, outer space is just the "possibility space" for things like distance between objects to exist. "Distance" would be a variable assigned to "content" within the space. The collections of content do comprise a particular context, because context cannot exist without content. But that does not mean content = context. Context isn't reducible to the things inside it. The possibility space and the things that arise in it are inseparable, which is why my definition includes content. My definition includes the space itself, the content, and the perception aspect. Together, these create "context". I think the definition needs all 3. Yes, this is what I meant by "dynamic". The possibility space can allow for an infinite number of configurations, but once you start to make distinctions by setting variables, constants, and constraints, the space takes on a particular shape, thus forming a context. But the possibility space itself is not sufficient for defining context IMO. When you look at a small tree next to a big tree, the big tree is objectively bigger. The distinction is not subjective. The perception of the distinctions include both the subjective and objective content. I'm not sure though whether to call perception "content" though. The perception part of my definition could use some work. It might even be best left out, I'm not sure, but I feel like it has to somehow fit in. I mentioned dynamic and nested as properties of the possibility space, not the content. "Context: a dynamic, nested possibility space, shaped by constraints and structured by variables and constants." I think the disconnect is coming from my inclusion of content in my definition. I think we agree that context is the precondition for content, but the way I see it, you cannot exclude content from the definition because without content, there’s no distinction, and without distinction, there’s no context - all there is, is the void. Context only has meaning in relation to content. So maybe you could say that the ultimate context has no content, and maybe we could call that the absolute context, but if we define that as context itself, we don't really capture what context is. Context only becomes context when there’s content/distinctions inside it. No content, no context. BTW, I'm no expert on this stuff. Engagement with this thread is my first go at this and I'm forming these ideas somewhat on the fly and from intuition.

Could be. I hope so.

When they say “I became angry because my eyes became really bad”, they mean they saw something really bad and/or were kept in the darkness. And they want to destroy their glasses so they don’t have to see it anymore or because they don’t need them in the darkness. Something really bad might have happened to them and they disassociated. This person sounds like a mentally unwell hostage. They “won’t leave their house” because they can’t. And outside unusable = they aren’t allowed to go outside. This is either a troll or someone in need of serious help. @Leo Gura Not sure how you handle things like this.

I didn't say the rocks on Mars are the context, although they could be if you were analyzing the rock's atomic structure. I said they exist in a context. Specifically, in a nested context. I agree. Outer space would be the "possibility space" in my definition. The rocks on Mars already exist, even though you've never perceived them. If you get in a spaceship and fly to Mars, you will find them. If you go to the forest, you will find the fallen tree. That's what I mean by they exist prior to perception (if you don't zoom all the way out). I didn't say those things were the context. I said they comprise the context. Variables and constants were just a single aspect of my definition. You have to consider my entire definition, which I gave a point-by-point breakdown of. When I listed things like gravity and mood, I didn't mean they are context. I meant they are examples of conditions that give the possibility space structure or could be seen as features of the space. They contribute to the context, but they are not the context itself. Reread my definition. I started off by saying context is a dynamic, nested possibility space. This explicitly framed it as a field. And of course, the "possibilities" here refer to content. So, a field of potential content that is dynamic, nested, structured by variables, constants, and constraints, and has both objective and subjective qualities to it. Of course, if you zoom out far enough, context is just a mental construction with an arbitrary quality to it, but so is everything, so collapsing it like this is useless IMO.

Lol, yes exactly. It's not about either of them being selfish, as it's natural. It's about how Timmy deals with it. He should not expect others to come to his center anytime he wants. He should understand they have a center as well. But the Grandma should have a healthy balance, as should Timmy, because that's the foundation of a healthy relationship, IMO.

Selfishness is the refusal to recognize and engage the legitimacy of another person’s center of value, while insisting that others continually engage yours. Everyone has a center Each of us organizes life around certain values, projects, or identities - what I’ll call our center. For one person it might be knitting. For another, sports. For others, maybe it's political debate, career, or parenting. We don’t just care about these things privately. We want others to notice them, engage them, and validate them. That’s the natural bias: “meet me where I live.” When two people interact, the real negotiation is not over “truth” or “reality,” but over whose center deserves attention right now. This is why a grandma wants you to admire her knitting, or why a sports fan wants you to talk about last night’s game. They don’t just want you to acknowledge the facts - they want you to spend your scarce attention budget on their value system. Conflict emerges from competing value functions. Default bias: Each person assumes their center should be the reference point. When another person doesn’t engage that center, it feels like neglect, dismissal, or disrespect. The clash isn’t over what’s real, but over whose values get airtime. This explains why couples fight over what look like trivial things: the dishes, a hobby, a preference. The triviality masks the real wound: “You didn’t engage my center. You didn’t treat what matters to me as mattering.” You can see this in children. I have a nephew who has come to realize that the world isn't going to be so selfless as to remain in his center - if they even show up, and he's become nihilistic at the age of 12 because of this. That's just one way to cope with this truth. The healthy way is to acknowledge and accept it. If you can do that without bitterness, you gain in strength and sovereignty. But this is no easy thing to do because our response to it is formed unconsciously in childhood. Maybe this post could also be renamed to "The Heart of Neediness".

That is the very idea! Maybe I didn't communicate well.

A lot of folks make a habit of skipping the discernment step (over-reliance on judgement), while others spend too much time there, burning time and energy out of fear of error or perfectionism. We need discernment about how much discernment is needed. Ideally, we can learn to judge accurately via discernment, and then rely on those sound judgements without getting bogged down in trying to discern everything there is, because there's simply not enough time.

So what makes you get up to do the dishes? Maybe you value things being clean, tidy, or done, or maybe you fear your friends will think you’re a slob or you fear the dishes will pile up and bite you in the ass later. For some, it’s good to do the dishes - for others, bad. Even in the most trivial of things, we’re making judgements. What’s regarded as neutral can be and often is recognized in higher consciousness, but it’s almost always glossed over so we can get to the stuff that we think matters. It takes effort to force oneself to look at something they deem unimportant or less worthy of attention, because we all usually have something of our own that we place at the center, and we want others to acknowledge it and engage our center but we don’t want to engage the center of a grandma knitting sweaters. The grandma sees it as valuable, and so engages it. To me, I gloss right over it because I don’t care about knitting, but I do understand the grandma cares about it and it doesn’t go unnoticed. I judge her activity as unworthy of my time in a matter of milliseconds. Grandma knitting sweaters is neutral to me. But something like fishing, hunting, and watching sports - I see those as negative and I judge them as stupid and harmful wastes of time. If the grandma is nice and sweet and wants me to engage her about knitting, I will, because I like nice and sweet (judgement). But if she’s nasty, I will add that on top of my judgement of knitting and soon bounce. A very important thing to know is that judgements often happen in milliseconds because we’re pulling from previous assessments (cached data). I feel people need to be able to see this. You have to understand what 500ms is and how it differs from 1 second or 200ms. You can have Claude build you an artifact with 5 buttons, where each button opens a small popup at different speeds. There is significant difference in 50ms and 500ms, and the button popups can reveal it to you. Actually, I set it up so you can see: https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/d0f033db-aeb2-4e8f-abe5-cd06d240b269 Most people would gloss over this, but understanding the speed of psychic phenomena is crucial for understanding the mind. If you pay attention to this and see what I’m saying, you can start to become aware of just how fast thoughts, judgements, and their implications occur, so that you can then contemplate the larger implications of it. Lastly, when we encounter something we’ve never seen before or never considered, we take time to form a judgement. We might judge the thing as potentially good for us but we don’t have time now to engage it, or we might judge that it is not for us at all, and the next time we encounter it, we quickly access our previous assessment and place our judgement. Some do this quicker than others but everyone does it, because they must. Imagine trying to navigate a bookstore without judgement. You must use judgement to find the books you're interested in, then you use discernment to figure out if you should buy the book. Without judgement, you're like a deer in headlights, not knowing what to do. The main role of judgement is to move forward. Maybe another good contemplation would be the distinction between judgement and discernment.

Good to know. Thanks

Same. 500 codes are server issues. Not the first time this happened.

It’s characteristic of intelligence. Lest you wind up shitting in a colostomy bag.

An assumption can be a stepping stone toward a judgement, but it doesn't have to be. assumption → assessment → judgment Assessment is where personal values and morality come into play. The point of a judgement is to move forward, out of perpetual assessment. "Given what I know, here's where I stand, and here's how I'll move forward". Regarding assumptions, we have to operate on assumptions because we don't have time to question them all. We'd be paralyzed by analysis. And even if we did, like if we questioned our assumption about gravity, that's not a very fruitful endeavor unless you're a philosopher or scientist. That is my judgement - based on my assessment.

😂 Thanks. Glad someone got something out of it. lol

So, if God came down and gave you the full answer directly, you would say "no thanks, I'd rather come up with it on my own". That's the thing I was talking about in the other thread where contemplation is being done without a purpose, merely for the sake of contemplation because one enjoys it, but I'm sure this plays out like "I'm not just doing fun stuff here, I'm doing serious stuff, developing my inner faculties". Hmmmm. If it's truth you seek, do you only appreciate truth if you toil in your mind and find it yourself? Or are you happy to find it anywhere and through anything, with little effort on your part? If an AI could lead you to the whole truth of what context is, you would reject that path. That's worth contemplating.

Maybe for you. For me, the point of contemplation is to make progress. Smarter, not harder. That doesn't mean to let the AI steer the ship. You're selling me short. AI would never have came up with such a robust definition. I came up with each of the points in less than 20-30 minutes of contemplation, and then used AI to flesh them out. Why don't you give a go at providing an all-encompassing definition and let's see what you come up with. If you come up with something and then use AI to flesh it out, I wouldn't knock you for it. But if you went to AI and asked it "what is context", then I would knock that, but that's not what I did. Like I said, AI would never come up with a definition as robust as mine. My shits original bruh. lol

The rocks on mars exist in an objective context before you perceive or interpret them. Variables and constants are things that comprise the space. Variables change, constants don't. Variables = weather, mood. Constants = gravity, location. I constructed the definition, AI helped me articulate it. Trying to wrap it all into a terse definition that satisfies the philosopher isn't easy. I tried to capture the essence in as few words as possible, but it's difficult to do without sounding abstract because each facet is highly complex. Point-by-point breakdown Dynamic Context is always changing and evolving. It’s not fixed; conditions can shift, variables can fluctuate. Nested Context comes in layers — local, regional, global, universal. Each context exists within a broader one (e.g., a conversation inside a culture, inside history). Possibility space Context defines what can happen, not just what is happening. It sets the range of potential actions, meanings, or outcomes. Shaped by constraints Constraints = the limits or rules that narrow down possibilities (like gravity, social norms, logical rules). They structure what’s possible by ruling certain things out. Structured by variables and constants Variables = things that can change (weather, mood, circumstances). Constants = things that remain stable (laws of physics, core principles). Together, these give the possibility space its texture. Objective aspect Exists independently of anyone perceiving it. Fully defined by constraints, variables, and constants. Example: a rock on Mars is under the Sun’s gravity whether or not anyone is watching. Subjective aspect Emerges when perception or perspective comes into play. Still tethered to the objective conditions (can’t make up reality), but: Selects what to notice. Frames what it means. Interprets it in a way that can add or distort meaning. Example: two people see the same rock in the desert — one sees beauty, the other sees useless dust.

It's a function of moving forward, whether that be by solidifying one's identity or moving forward with practical matters, such as in business or basic life management. One would be paralyzed without making assumptions and judgements. They are necessary to move forward. To evolve. Even if they're wrong, there comes a time when one must move forward.