unreality

nobody has yet fully gotten the first one, and wakesnow's Option 1 for #2 cannot work because the bike is left unlocked for most of the day. perk's solution for #2 is also wrong because they can't unlock each other's bike locks. However, wake's option 2 for #2 works if the other bike is taken into account: edit: as for #3, wake is correct.

(1) Avory and Ben are at Point A (their neighborhood) along a linear bike trail and want to get to Point B (the town, in which resides the ice cream shop where they work). However, they only have 1 bike! It's decided that Avory will start with the bike, ride a certain distance (while Ben walks), then drop off the bike and walk. When Ben reaches the bike, Ben will ride the bike until he catches up with Avory, who takes the bike, and so on. The distance between Point A and Point B is 60 miles; they both walk at 5 mph and ride at 15 mph. How far from Point B should the bicicyle be left behind for the last time to ensure that Avory and Ben reach Point B at the exact same time? ~~~ (2) Being genuises, Avory and Ben show up to work simultaneously and on time. Today is a long 9-hour shift for both of them (ice cream is popular in the sweltering summer heat) so their kind boss Charlie has given them plenty of breaks. However, none of their breaks coincide and they cannot NOT scoop ice cream when it's not breaktime. During his first break, Avory decides to use his ice cream tip money to buy his friend Ben a bike. He does so within time and brings the bike back to the ice cream shop, where there is a pole he can lock the bike to (the bike MUST be locked at all times due to the recent Grand Theft Bicicyle gang that's roaming around). However, Avory is painfully aware that he and Ben each have one bike lock, but of course neither can open the other's bike lock... and what's worse, their workbreaks never coincide! And at that same time, Charlie calls out to Avory that Ben is leaving early today, so Avory can't just unlock it for Ben at the end of the workday. Despaired, Avory decides to wheel the bike back to the bike shop and get his money back... unless he thinks of a solution first. Is there a solution to this dilemma? ~~~ (3) After work, Avory and Ben meet up with their bikes at Point Z along the trail and want to get to Point Y, a friend's house. Avory sees a wind tunnel that's being built parallel to the stretch of trail between Z and Y, and wants to ride in there, but Ben decides to ride on the normal trail. The first half of the wind tunnel has an air current pushing against Avory with speed c, the second half has an air current pushing with Avory at speed c. Remember that Ben and Avory both ride normally at the same rate. Who reaches Point Y first?

yes how about no souls, spirits or such ;D but "essence" might be a nice fit there "Phronism is the religion your essence is already practicing" and if we capitalize Essence, hinting at its connection with the rest of the religion, that might add extra intrigue. But still it sounds a bit awkward. I think it can only sound good with a one-syllable word... perhaps "mind" or "self" or "heart" or "id" or OOOH i got it: "Phronism is the religion your life is already practicing" (maybe. What do you think?) ~~~ @Grayven: yoinks: http://www.essence.org/ That looks similar to what Grayven had in mind, basically telling you to go here which seems a lot like Phronism haha (at a first glance, I didn't delve) ~~~ @Plasmid: awesome recompilation! One thing caught my eye from the first spoiler: What's our stance on weddings and funerals? edit: we definitely have to retain weddings as they pretty much are today. All aspects being the same except the part at church... for that part, they can meet in a phronistery (of any denomination, they don't have to belong to it, and more importantly the wedding isn't tied to any single denomination, no denomination is mentioned in any wedding records, it's a Phronism-wide thing) and the Phronite (do we have a word for priest? lol) will say some stuff about how the "Essence has coiled around them, wrapping them in an unimaginable unity, a bond of love, connection and mutual journey", etc, and maybe less ritualistic words (more of a general speech about them and the Essence) but rather one official sentence which sort of legally and phronistically wraps up the deal (something like "I hereby witness your eternal Connection in the golden streams of the Essence" or something like that)... then everyone claps and they kiss and have a huge reception and then go on a honeymoon (aka wedding) as for funerals... maybe a little less "medieval" with all darkness and candles and open casket... I think we should promote cremation, but not in a stuffy weird funeral home, but on a mountaintop or something cool like that, and watch the ashes float into the wind and rejoin the world.

btw, I tried a variety of potential phronism websites: www.phronism.___ .com - inexistent .org - inexistent .net - inexistent .web - inexistent .biz - inexistent .gov - inexistent .edu - inexistent .us - inexistent which is rare and pretty nice to see. At least mistypes won't lead to porn sites lol. Anyway I think .org is the way to go, especially for a religion/philosophy ~~~ with regards to the billboard phrase, my favorites so far: * Religion meets reality * Religion has come full circle * THINK. ACT. LIVE. * Phronism: The religion that isn't. * Phronism is the religion your conscience is already practicing.

all of these grabbers are good :laugh: And yeah let's nix the monk parable. I hate to see it go but it does seem to promote ritualistic behaviors, which sends a conflicting message. Thus... off with its head! and lol @ Bran being the prophesized Matriyema

yeah my goal was to sorta parse/separate the answers so it seems very short, to get people with short attention spans (aka everyone including me ) I think an FAQ would be really helpful for the basic points (of course we would still have our in-depth overviews and discussions on every little thing for the interested Phronist, but we've already gathered significant portions of that into various posts on various topics... for example I think your overview on pg 23 had an in-depth description of the First Council while the FAQ answer was much more limited)

when someone (coughplasmidcough ;D) recompiles what we've got so far, he can add this on: the answers for the first five questions are heavily based on my response to seeksit's quickfire questions, with a few modifications of my own and some of seeksit's additions from post 219 incorporated (but I didn't add a lot of stuff since the point was to be more concise, and it seemed like stuff reiterated so I took some out), but after that, the Q&A's are new. Most of the edits to the first five are a few changes I've added for clarity, conciseness or meaning, plus a bunch of minor changes to wording (most suggested by seeksit in post 219). The second question and its answer are entirely by seeksit btw. Also I called the universe an "inevitable existence" in q3, let me know if this clashes with any known Phronism dogma also, in part of his last compiling, plasmid drew a lot from the first five q's of this FAQ so he doesn't need to incorporate that in the overview again for the recompilation seeing as it's covered in the FAQ. Maybe just a brief overview and leave the specific q's for the FAQ. And if anyone wants to add any possible questions to the FAQ, feel free to do so [edit - typo]

yes I have a similar sentiment on the phrases. They're fine and dandy when you know the thinking behind them, but they can't be in the parable without sufficient explanation, which would sidetrack the parable. So we should drop the ritualistic phrases but still get across those ideas through more straightforward mediums.

wow I ran across this by accident today during an ABCs-of-Mafia game: http://phrontistery.info/

yeah seeksit mentions a good point about confidence. I used to suck at public speaking but I find I don't really fear it anymore after countless projects and whatnot. Usually I try to draw on my sense of humor (I think the sole reason I got elected to NHS officer is because I shamelessly made fun of myself in my speech while everyone else's were all uptight and well crafted gems)... so yeah I think confidence is something you build up. I think you have a lot of confidence riranor but don't know it... like if you've already told 6 people and they took it fine, you're more than halfway there my friend

perhaps but I'm one for environmental cause and a supporter of "tree hugging" (hehe), yet I don't partake in fairy, er, belief systems. So it's not entirely 100% true. But certainly if fairies exist, they would be glad of modern environmental efforts, if a bit stymied by the hipocrisy of it all. Hmmm. I wonder, though. Maybe fairies should do a bit more to help out the Earth. I mean, they're intelligent life and arguably responsible for their actions. If they exist, I hope one of you that knows that does ask them to help out the Earth. No really this isn't a joke. Maybe they are already the last strain holding up the eden that is our planet, but most likely there is more that everyone can do... it's generally thought that humans are alone in this conservation effort. But think of the possibilities if fairies were to magick away sidewalk trash, save stretches of Amazon doomed for farmland, etc

A long, long time ago in a universe far, far away I used to be insecure, unpopular, unconfident. I know, I know, it's hard to imagine - a strong, handsome man like me, gasp, wearing a pocket protector and joining the chess club? Haha well I never did anything *that* nerdy but you get my drift. I'm not like the life of every party today, but I have changed a LOT over the past seven or so years and all for the better. Let me tell you my story. In elementary school when everyone was cool and everyone had everyone as friends, I was up there. I was athletic and extremely competitive. Even a cureless romantic. Then in 3rd game I found out that I was "smart". We had never paid much attention to "grades" before but I discovered that I was the "best in the class" when it came to certain things. This is important later on, but for the rest of that year and 4th grade, it was only on the sideburner. In 4th grade we had constant recess and it was an awesome year. Enter 5th grade, the impossible gap into "middle school". All the elementary schools in the district (like a bunch of them) all poured their masses into one much larger building. With all these people that didn't know me, for some reason I felt the need to make sure that everyone knew quite how intellegent I was. I knew how to add 12 and 37 for goodness sake! And gasp I knew what a factorial was! I knew how to do long division! It's all so hilarious looking back, but I must have been an insecure little dude. On our "icebreaker introduction" in 5th grade homeroom I proudly announcement that I was "the smartest kid from my elementary school". My elementary was the smallest in the district of course but that hadn't crossed my mind. Anyway that was instant social destruction... not that I knew anything about social norms at the time. I had huge*ss glasses, even. But still somehow I managed to become friends with a bunch of cool people... all the people from my elementary were still good buddies plus I meant a bunch of new people. So I must not have been that bad. But my friends were more of the intellectual type and not "popular" by any means, except maybe one or two. Over the course of time, I have improved amazingly. Everything's been self-taught... certain aspects of my intelligence are probably predisposed, genetically or atmospherically, but any leadership skills, public speaking skills and most importantly social skills have been self-taught rigorously since then. Seven years later and I have to say I've done myself a favor. I'm now as sociable as possible, and as spontaneous as I can be. I've made lots of friends and made lots of cool people, and really I'm erasing my past. Sure I still may not be considered one of the "popular" people but over time you realize that no such faction exists. They are really only popular within themselves and not to the rest of the school. Before I was always feeling that my circle of friends was too small... until I realized that it was a tight circle with a lot of experience. It's a quality over quantity thing. I've seen people who go to parties and get wasted every night and don't remember anything and never go out and make any truly meaningful connections... they have a bazillion friends but none of them close. It's like Facebook. So I'm glad in what I've accomplished and that I've realized what really matters in life. The thing is, f*ck what the world thinks about you. Sure there are things I haven't told my friends. Nothing as big as bisexuality but you know... for example I haven't told them that I love reproving ancient mathematical theorems. Or that I'm a member of Brainden and play an online game called mafia. Perhaps my largest such secret is my atheism... not that I don't mind coming out with it, but mostly because there's never really an opportunity to so it doesn't matter. You just don't go up to people and say "Hey I don't believe in your silly fairy tales" randomly ;D But I think most of my friends know, maybe not in such finality, but at least they know how I value things like rationality, science, freethinking, etc, over religious dogma. A lot of my friends are very politically liberal and we agree on things like evolution and whatnot. I think I've only explicitly called myself an atheist to one friend but that was when he was going through a kind of spiritual journey. Anyway I guess my biggest parable with you is my atheism. I say f*ck it and tell them! I guarantee most of them have never been presented with such a situation but are eager to try out their tolerances if they're any kind of friend at all. It's actually a perfect method to weed out who's a "true friend" or not but I guarantee most of your friends will be cool with it and try to help you out. They're not "false friends" just because you haven't told them your sexual preference... I think sexual preferences have a lot less impact on a person's personality than you may at first think. So it's not like you've been "lying" to them with your behavior. You are who you are, and just because you don't tell them that you're attracted to males as well as females, that doesn't mean you've been lying to them (unless you believe in lie-by-ommission but that means you lie to everyone about everything unless you can give them a video recount of every second of your life when they ask how your day went). So really... if my friend said that he was attracted to men too I wouldn't mind. A lot of times me and my friends pretend to be gay as a joke (but in good taste). I know homosexuality is a lot different than bisexuality but anyway you get my drift. It's really not that big of a deal. If you feel like now's the time to get it off your chest, then get it off your chest. I told you that (much compressed) story of my life to show you that it doesn't really matter what people think of you. The initial conditions affect you in the outcome, but you can change them. Sure I was a nerd in middle school. I'm still nerdy at heart now, but I'm definitely not the nerdy stereotype. Anyway... your life is not a lie. Atheism perhaps defines a large portion of my outlook on life, but that doesn't mean my life is a lie just because I haven't told certain people. A life is only a lie if the person is lying to themselves about themselves. For example, if I pretended that I was this really cool jock, even trying to convince myself that, I'd be lying to myself. You're clearly not lying to yourself - you know who you are. You know the things that define you. Ergo, your life is no lie. Just the opposite. Whereas someone else may try to deny their own (possibly genetic) sexual disposition, you have embraced it within (if not externally). Also it sounds like you've already told your closer friends. Six people is a lot of people already, don't downplay that. If they are your closer friends, and they're okay with it, then why tell "everyone else"? It's not like you need everyone to know everything about you. It's your friends/family that matter most and your closest friends that matter most of the most. If they already know then there's really no need to proclaim yourself to the world. But if there's good friends you'd like to tell, I say tell 'em! If there's one very good thing that my naturalism imparts: don't take life too seriously... no one gets out alive. No really. It's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. Do whatever the hell you want because when it comes down to it doesn't matter in the end... it just matters how awesome the whole experience was, how many sensations you felt, how much meaning you brought to your own life and to other's lives. So f*ck the world, f*ck the system and f*ck society - do whatever, whenever, and have fun! Live not survive! I know you only a little bit from on Brainden, but from what I know of you, you are an awesome person... if I was near you in real life I would probably be your friend. None of this was said with the intent to cheer you up artificially. It's all true and very natural. I mean what I say and I say it like it is. It just so also happens that life is awesome and you should enjoy it however you wish unreality out

maybe we should recoagulate into another all-in-one Phronism pamphlet like plasmid did a few pages back, because I looked back again and saw some posts of people saying basically everything I said in the above post so maybe we should figure out which proposed changes are to be official and then re-make the central post, and then we can bounce off again from there (I'm thinking of making a Q&A session thingy, or maybe FAQ)

mostly awesome stuff floating around, I especially like plasmid's resummation of what we've done so far (I think on pg 23 or so)... but like dawh I'm not liking some of the new directions that some of the philosophy is taking... The focal point of Phronism lies in its attention to the material world... it's all we have and all we know we have, so Phronism is all about making the material world the best it can be and fulfilling yourself and others within the material world. Phronism is about not wasting time & effort on unhealthy unknowns. I think we have sufficient mystery/mysticism already within the parables and guidelines, enough to make it a "religion", while still remaining healthily rationalistic. I'm not sure where I've seen any specific cases, but I hope we don't move into the sort of "abandon physical happiness" mindspace. Phronism is all about physical happiness, really. One example is the monk parable... I'm not sure why I had the monk originally walking around, but it seems honest enough. A lot of people - including me - exercise to think, and it's a form of meditation but not pointless meditation seeing as its physically and mentally stimulating. But chanting weird phrases at each corner??? I'm not sure at which phase of this nifty collaborative process this was added in, but it seems as if Phronism supports strange ritualistic behavior. Which is one of the things we're primarily against I thought. As seeksit said it's not about the ritual itself, it's about the canvas it provides (or something like that), but that's not even mentioned so it may seem to an outsider that Phronism supports things like that. Well to make it clear, Phronism supports everyone to do whatever makes themselves and the world a better place, but we don't want to encourage such behaviors. So, yes, the monk is doing this for himself only, but still this is a major parable so we can't have confusing sideballs in here that semi-contradict the more important message. And on the issue of free will, I agree that it's a risky issue but I still think we need to promote self-responsibility. And there's no need to sugarcoat it. The parables with Laozi and thieves are excellently written, plasmid, but to me they're too confusing and too sugarcoated. I've only read the second one in detail, and maybe it's a sequel thing, but it doesn't make much sense to me, and allows for lots of misinterpretation. Just because we're mimicking old texts doesn't mean we need to be as vague in parts where we want to be crystal clear. So, respectfully, I think we should "chop out the fat", soto speak, and have a major Samarkand council figure say it: "You have responsibility for your actions" and make it short and sweet (not that short but you know what I mean). I don't know what this hocus pocus is about the Essence "sending thieves as punishment" but the Essence isn't a god or cosmic judge, it's more passive (unless I'm missing some change we decided to enact, I've been on a family vacation the past week so I'm not 100% caught up yet) I have to go for a bit but when I come back I'll be happy to help edit some of the parables we've been churning out (plasmid especially - you're an awesome parablist! ;D)

but he also said "if that's the only way than why not" and he's right, despite anything else he may have said. At least religion for the most part keeps the masses happy and/or ethical without thinking too hard about it. edit ~ discounting extremism, false beliefs, naive thinking and wasted time/hope/faith [some of the negative aspects of religion]. Despite those, it seems that most societies need some form of religion either as a moral compass or as a justifier for a leader and also as a cultural identifier. There are pluses and minuses of religion and sometimes it's hard to sort out which is which

if you wanted to "unplug" why are you joining forums? If I were you, I'd just not even come back here to check for replies... although obviously you did if you're reading this. So, after this, no longer visit Brainden, or any other forum unless it's absolutely necessary. Then stop reading/commenting blogs unless you find them always new & interesting & insightful... if you're doing it because it's routine then just stop. But if it's something you love doing then why not, just don't spend so much time on it. I'd say cut back on the blogs and icq, and in some cases, where appropriate, maybe make an announcement how you'll be on less as you have more and more things IRL to be attending to. If you love doing something or if you love being part of this-or-that community then don't leave it all together... retain connection with it but just don't go on as much and spend more time "outside". You can still maintain a vast social network and not have to care for it every second... just come on occasionally, keep up with the community, etc. But if anything is superfluous or routine anywhere in your web life then cut it out, delete it from your bookmarks and force yourself not to go back. The internet can be addicting

jmotley and hugemonkey: if you follow the link in the beginning of the topic you'll see the catch in the comparison. If the comparer is weaker than one or both of the wizards he/she is comparing, the result will be opposite

here is the requested sequel

http://brainden.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=8415 Using the same method in that post to compare wizardry strength, four wizards duel it out: W, X, Y and Z. * Y compares Z,W and gets Z>W * W compares X,Y and gets X>Y * Z compares W,X and gets W>X Who is the strongest wizard?

No, Nevo cannot be the strongest. In your possibility, you say that Onyx is stronger than Nevo - which would mean that Nevo isn't the strongest. Either Merlin is #1 and he picked Nevo correctly as #2, or Merlin is #2 or #3 picking Nevo as #3 or #2. Nevo cannot be the strongest

the endless argument: safety vs. experience/sensation. It's not just relevant to fairies... it's relevant to parents, to gods, to gamers, to businessmen... my stance is not to go extreme on the other side. You don't want to live your life in a veritable minefield... but you don't want everything safe and shielded either...

I was originally intending to make a sequel to this but I forgot until now. Maybe I'll get cracking on it