Simon001
irrelevant - irrelevant
...If she was a rainbaby, I�d be a firechild...
I sat by the fire, and I thought of this...
Decisions. There are two types of people who make decisions; rather, two different methods of achieving a decision from a choice. The Means and the Ends. Run Program: Create Character, Mean-based. Run program: Create Character, Ends-based. Run Program: Interrogation. End-based, how do you define your mode of decision making? By impulse. Whatever is needed is needed, and damn consideration of the path through the park as long as the park is crossed. One day we will all be dead, we might as well do what is best at the time. And Means-based, how do you define your thought processes? By algorithmic tradition. There is a set mode of reason with any problem that consistently works, and we have discovered these methods though the development of the human race. The Truth is the only path that prevents one from walking into a tree in the park. If a person makes decisions for the right reasons, it shouldn�t matter if the most optimal result is gained or not, because it will be Right. Run Program: Example, Math. A child is doing a complex math problem, and does most of the method correctly. But the addition of two numbers just before the answer was found was done incorrectly. The child obviously understands how to do the problem. Ends-Based, as the teacher, do you mark it as wrong or right? Wrong, of course. The final answer was incorrect. Means-based? It depends. The child did a portion of the method incorrectly, so partial credit should be acceptable. But one must also consider the child who does most of the correct method in his/her head, which would not be visible to the corrector of the test, even though the exact same logical progression was followed. And one must also consider the child who will say that they did most of the method correctly, without having used, or learned, it at all. In the end, it should be up to the specific teacher�s discretion, given the type of test, as to how much credit should be given. This seems to be recursive, in the sense that I have answered the question by putting the question to another individual, whom I was portraying the role of in the first place, and it sort-of is. The largest concern of the teacher, however, should be to the child who does not learn, and gets the right answer, either by miscalculation, random guessing, or cheating; and not the child who knows what they are doing...
This I thought, as I sat by the fire...
End-based, tell me about the Journey. The journey is a path to get to a goal, no more, no less. The path is used to achieve a desired goal, and it does not matter how we get to it, the goal will be the same. Means-based, what do you think of the Journey. The Journey is everything. Life itself is a path, with death as a goal. If we skipped to death from birth, what would be the use of life in the first place? If we imagine ourselves on a quest, we do not simply rescue the damsel in distress and escape. There must be distractions on the road to the monster�s lair, and distractions on the way back to the quester�s home base. Otherwise, when the tale is told, all that is said is that the foe was vanquished. In a way, every event on the path is a goal, whether purposeful or not, and the summation of the goals before the end goal is reached should always be more important than the end goal itself. At Christmas, one searches for a special present, wraps it nicely, and donates it to another at a traditionally generous time of year, to make that person feel better. Indirectly, the giver feels better, in a more-or less direct proportion to how much better it makes the receiver feel. So it�s not the receiving that should be important, but the effort of giving...
I sat by the fire to think...
I wouldn�t have come to the conclusion of Means without posing the paradigm of Ends vs Means. I posed the question because of my desire to know, rather than it�s timely reason for questioning; and that�s using Ends. I use Ends because it works, and Ends produces the answer for Means, even though Means holds no firm grip on its own justification. Which came first, the Means or the Ends?
The fire sat by me and we thought...�how odd�.
Simon Says
...They chop the tree off away from the ground, because you don�t have to pay for what cannot be measured...
...hollow spoons not good for eating alphabet soup; if all letters fall through the spoon, you can�t spell things in the bottom of the bowl...
...Man who takes hardcore placebos is usually more unstable than man who smokes crack...
...the fish hover in their filthy tank, alone together...
...One man go out of way to see the sights, another man go out of way because he is told to. First man called a tourist, Second man called a detourist...
...I need mango...
