ysbreker

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That's fucking great. Pretty jealous right now.

Fun Fact: Aside from that he's an expert in the field I'm interested in, one of the primary motivations for asking the particular thesis supervisor that I have is that he reminded me so much of Giles.

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That's fucking great. Pretty jealous right now.

Fun Fact: Aside from that he's an expert in the field I'm interested in, one of the primary motivations for asking the particular thesis supervisor that I have is that he reminded me so much of Giles.

Care to share what field that is? Sounds interesting!

Yes, I know. I can barely believe it myself. Seriously, I feel like I dreamt the whole thing or something. I wish I had a photo to prove to myself it actually happened... I mean, it just can't have happened. Of all the years in my life (including the future) I happen to bump into him just after after finishing watching the series...? Not in ten years time when I have vague memories of the show, not 10 years ago when I only knew him from the coffee adverts... Right now, when Buffy is a massive thing in my life. When I'm presently re-building my life and Buffy has been an enormous welcome comfort. Just the weekend after I'd picked up "Season 8 Vol 1", and the day after I'd ordered "Buffy: The Origin". That doesn't happen! The star of your current favourite TV show doesn't just walk onto a nearly empty platform, and stop to have a quick chat with you.

Except it did.

Wow.

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Care to share what field that is? Sounds interesting!

I think I explained this better a bunch of pages back in the thread when my "life" update was "HOT DAMN I GOT APPROVED FOR AN HONOURS THESIS!" but to recap:

My supervisor is a professor of Ethics. He specialized further in that he is fairly well known in relevant circles because of his efforts to make various ethical theories fit in in some way with incompatible determinism (that is, a determinist who does not believe that free will exists, or is even compatible with reality). I happen to be an incompatible determinist, and my specfic project is in finding a rationale for principles of desert (as in: X deserves to be punished/rewarded for performing act Y) without having to allow that X ever freely chose Y. It's proven to be a very difficult thing that has taken up most of my free time for the past 8 months, but I'm actually making a lot of progress recently and am quite proud of myself.

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I happen to be an incompatible determinist, and my specfic project is in finding a rationale for principles of desert (as in: X deserves to be punished/rewarded for performing act Y) without having to allow that X ever freely chose Y.

That's the dumbest thing I have ever heard. I'm kidding, I'm kidding! In fact, I think I've mentioned before that I'd like to take a look at your thing when you're done, although I probably will not understand most of the words.

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I think I explained this better a bunch of pages back in the thread when my "life" update was "HOT DAMN I GOT APPROVED FOR AN HONOURS THESIS!" but to recap:

My supervisor is a professor of Ethics. He specialized further in that he is fairly well known in relevant circles because of his efforts to make various ethical theories fit in in some way with incompatible determinism (that is, a determinist who does not believe that free will exists, or is even compatible with reality). I happen to be an incompatible determinist, and my specfic project is in finding a rationale for principles of desert (as in: X deserves to be punished/rewarded for performing act Y) without having to allow that X ever freely chose Y. It's proven to be a very difficult thing that has taken up most of my free time for the past 8 months, but I'm actually making a lot of progress recently and am quite proud of myself.

Cool - I'd be interested to hear whatever you think. My degree is in Philosophy, and I am very interested in free will topics. One of my professors was a noncausal libertarian (a very interesting viewpoint).

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But the Book of Job is about the apparently randomness/unfairness of life. That's a pretty big and deep question for any book or film to tackle. (eg. "Why are we here?", "What's the point of all this?", "Why must I suffer?") I don't think it's selling the film short to say that's what it's about.

I like your observations, too. I didn't get the literal Schrodinger's Cat connection in the opening sequence, but that seems to make a lot of sense, and it also connects to what I'm saying: By being a witness to the experiment, you also change its outcome. Probably more importantly than that, though, it also sets the idea of there being some answers that we're never going to get, mirroring the frustrating experience of Larry Gopnik (and of life itself).

As the Rabbi said of the "Goy's teeth", "who cares about the answer?".

And, as Gopnik's student's father said to him: "Why can't you just accept the mystery?"

So really, I don't think it's selling the film short to say it's attempting to address the apparent crippling unfairness/randomness of life. Talking about it is really making me analyse it further. Very interesting stuff!

I know I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I just watched it this evening. I see the parallel between Larry (Job) and Schrodinger's cat as, was Larry always this way or did his trials make him that way? Does the decision he made reflect who he is or what the tests he's endured has caused him to be? What I don't get is what they were going for at the end with his son.

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some Peanuts cartoons, and a shitload of David Attenborough nature documentaries

Sounds like a woman of taste.

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Very much so. Any of the Attenborough Life series really hit the spot when you are at home sick and have a nice cold Sprite™ to drink as well.

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LOST is still great (once we got last week's Kate episode out of the way), it happily holds the title as "The only thing SoulChicken watches on Television."

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I thought it was a pretty good return to form. After the fantastic feature length opener things went back to formula a little bit (still doing the 'inspiration from something someone said about something else' schtick), although the spotlight episodes for other characters were very nice. I especially liked the psycho episode. That woman was chilling.

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yeah, her facial expressions at some points totally freaked me out...

and i also like the "spotlight" episodes...cuddy's episode from last week was quite a remarkable display of her hectic everyday life....

i'm really looking forward to seeing what will happen with house and cuddy now...cuz things are really raveled.....

i don't know...it's currently...well, for quite some time now, actually, my favorite show....watching it just helps me relax and forget about all the shit going around, for those 43 minutes. :)

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That may have been largely subjective as it made me think about some experiences of my own......the story is told from Tom's perspective, including his selective memories of their relationship, and him being blinded by love despite never getting to know Summer at a deeper level.

yeah....now i'm not so sure i actually want to see this movie...cuz it will most probably get subjective for me too...lol. :)

ah...what the heck...it's kinda funny seeing bits of your life from a different standpoint... :)

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yeah, her facial expressions at some points totally freaked me out...

Yeah, that episode was really upsetting, but I enjoyed it.

I'm sort of embarrassed to admit I watch House, because in my head I think a lot of people hate it, but I'm not sure. I only got into last year because I needed a show I could relax to and do animation work at home in the meantime. House filled that gap best, and I ended up really liking.

I've actually been trying to catch up and watch Season 6 at the same time. I still haven't seen any of Season 5 and I am halfway through Season 4. As an outsider, I still found the premiere for Season 6 to be excellent as an outsider and I always love how Franka Potente acts. Some of the episodes were iffy, but the last 4 or 5 have all been great in my opinion, and I love the dynamic of House making small attempts to change his personality, although I wish they would go further with it faster.

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I keep watching House, but I always get depressed by how everything nice always turns out to be just shit, and if you're kind it's because you're sick, and everyone's a lying, manipulating asshole and nothing has really changed.

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I keep watching House, but I always get depressed by how everything nice always turns out to be just shit, and if you're kind it's because you're sick, and everyone's a lying, manipulating asshole and nothing has really changed.

yeah....kinda shows how everything in this world actually works, doesn't it?

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No.

I still watch House, though. One of the only things I watch on TV nowadays.

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Any of the Attenborough Life series really hit the spot when you are at home sick and have a nice cold Sprite™ to drink as well.

And the same can be said of the Peanuts cartoons.

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