Larkin, Hobbs let's meet in the middle.

It is not necessary that you are able to use them to prove their usefulness. Only that others can. Perhaps i can do so as well. Would you limit the possible range of your ability artificially?

And what happens when "being happy" is no longer a desire?

I reserve judgment on that. But then my definition of spiritual is vastly different from that of common religionists.

As if any other can.

I have not. I always try to educate before trash binning anyone. Not everyone is receptive, that is their issue. I try to provide, they must make the choice to partake, or not.

On a sunny day (Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:06:27 -0700) it happened JosephKK wrote in :

Sure, you can be the example, in the universe of things, if somebody is at that point, receptive, then that person will learn.

From a neural net POV, just to keep it simple, if the weights in the net are close to the threshold it will change state (in the sense of giving a different answer to the same question), after your input. Else you would have to repeat that input and provide feedback many times. That situation is not normally the one when you encounter somebody once. OTOH one can read something and say: 'Wow, now I understand', in such a case the threshold was close.

Since we do not know the state of the other nets (then us), we can [only] be [an] example, some will 'learn', many not.

As to your other question: 'What if one no longer has 'being happy' as objective?', well listen to you heart, it will always want to be just that. In this society, people will tell you that you will be happy when you: 'have this', 'buy this', 'have this relationship', 'have this position', 'have this much money', yet happiness is an internal experience, good thing too, the poor guy living in Africa with just a goat _can_ be happier then the president of the US. And it is a moment to moment thing, there is a process inside that should happen, without that process happening you will _never_ be happy. With that process happening, the kingdom of heaven is yours now.

Then you need something else to believe in, like global warming.

John

objective?',

president of the US.

I specifically and explicitly deny the existence of any heaven or hell. Now Valhalla is a different issue, it can be earned.

Happiness and Unhappiness, i do not have much of either. But the contrast reminds of why i strive.

objective?',

president of the US.

Being competent makes me happy. Real productivity is the basis of group and individual morale (a form of happiness).

You have not been watching my posts very well, i have been fighting that delusion, in some of my spare time.