Fasteriskhead

Just a heads-up for the fans (spoiler-free): Genshiken 2, episode 5 is absolutely the funniest, smartest, best 23 minutes that I've seen in months, at least since Dennou Coil 12 (the infamous beard episode). And, with that in mind, I propose that Ogiue be canonized as the patron saint of anime. EDIT: oh, and I absolutely hate the new op song, so a couple of weeks ago I stripped it out and [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuM-MRh4D3c][u]Halko'd things up[/u][/url]. Seriously, I'll never understand why they didn't call Manzo back after the work they did for season one.

T Deus I know you really want to defend the show (and the crowd watching it), but I think you've just helped prove my point. Quoting selectively: [quote name='Deus ex Machina'][COLOR="DarkOrange"]I know that over at megatoko, I was one of 3 people really looking forward to it. Yes, it's true, all 3 of us are lolicon, but all three of us were cheering on the incredible psychological element. Would I have watched it anyway? Yes. I loved Moetan for what I've seen. But is that what makes KnJ a good show? No. IT's probably true that lolicon like me would have liked it, but nothing to make it the amazing show that it is.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]Without pushing the point too strongly, I can imagine a situation analogous to this. Let's say that I go to a restaurant and order a hamburger, and to my surprise it turns out that the burger comes with a free salad. I am, of course, very happy about this because it turns out I'm getting a bonus with my meal that I wasn't expecting - but that doesn't change the fact that what I [i]originally[/i] ordered (and what caught my interest in the first place) was just the burger by itself. If I understand you fairly, the three people you mention were initially interested in KnJ because of the rorikon aspects (or, more exactly: it was a show that only rorikons were interested in), and even if the show were trash they would watch it for that reason anyways. The fact that KnJ is actually a good series, then, just acts as really nice bonus - more or less the same as the free salad. This shows pretty decisively that a large portion of the fandom for KnJ are there first and foremost for the "burger," so to speak, even though they may enjoy the quality of the series as well. And I suspect that the more rabid fans are probably of this type. As for the rest of us? Well, if I can stretch the analogy a bit further, maybe we're a bit like someone who just really wants the salad, even if it also comes out with a mess of meat, bread, and ketchup that they have little interest in. KnJ is a good show, certainly, and it can be enjoyed solely for that fact. But I tend to think, based on your post and my own thoughts, that the people who liked it early on and like it the most now also have other reasons (reasons which, among other things, encourage them to check out the DVDs).

[quote name='Kam']The states are wrong for banning the protests, bottom line. That's not the states' place, and anytime the government tells anyone that protesting is wrong, it should make us all uncomfortable.[/QUOTE]There is definitely a first amendment rights issue here, but I'm going to have to side with the crowd on this one. Protecting private funerals from protesters, to me, just doesn't seem to be on the same level as (for example) interfering with the freedom of the press. Let's say some Bad Person died (a Pinochet-alike, maybe) and I would like to say (very publicly and very loudly) that the guy was a monster, but I am prohibited by law from picketing the thing within 500 feet. Even if that's the case, though, I am still perfectly free to condemn the Bad Person in other ways - in the newspapers, on the internet, at public events, or even on a street corner a few hundred feet away from the funeral itself. Although I might be annoyed that I have to move down a block or two, I do not think this would be a particularly significant infringement on my right to protest. At worst, I think it ends up balanced quite evenly against the protection of a family's right to express their grief, such as it is, in peace - even if it's the family of a Bad Person. On the other hand, when the government starts telling us that we can only ever exercise the right to protest in a strictly designated area well removed from anything important, [I]then [/I]we can really start worrying. [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone"][u]Oh, wait...[/u][/URL]

Westboro Baptist Church and Fred Phelps have a long, distinguished history of attacking just about everyone in the world and generally behaving in pretty much the most hateful way imaginable. My favorite recent example can be viewed [URL="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0e0_1178304529"][u]here[/u][/URL], where they pooh pooh the Virginia Tech massacre (for reasons somewhat different from what you might expect). Basically what you've got in these folks is a pseudo-Christian cult about 100 strong, mostly composed of members of Phelps' family. In other words, they're completely marginal, much more than the kind of attention they get in the media tends to suggest. They run their own video news service and generally use all the power of technology to tell us how we're all under the control of jews and homosexuals and will soon be killed in the most violent way possible. They absolutely [i]love[/i] getting attention, the more openly critical the better - because hey, if people are offended, it means their crackpot views must be right! Even better if people want them arrested or dead! Regarding Westboro and Phelps having to kick up $11 million, I'm absolutely ecstatic to see these wackos get called on their ****. The responsible side of me loves seeing justice done; the less responsible looks forward to the videos they will inevitably make whining about their martyred status and helplessly fantasizing about the deaths of everyone "persecuting" them. So, I guess everyone wins.

[SIZE="1"]I get the distinct sense that the constant, way-overzealous censoring is there to help sell DVDs more than anything else. In truth, it makes the show way more creepy than it already is to know that the creators are likely using this trick to get thousands of hopelessly blueballed perverts to shovel them more money. Regarding the show itself: I'm a bit hesitant to talk about it, because I'm actually rather fond of the thing but just about anything I can say in its favor could be easily read as me hopelessly trying to justify my watching a fetish series (kind of a "reading Playboy for the articles" situation). Heck, I like to think the best of people, but were I in the outsider's perspective I don't think I could resist coming to similar conclusions. "Good characters, thought-provoking subject matter... yeah, yeah, you just want to see panties and school swimsuits, you perv." Kodomo no Jikan is just not the kind of thing you can admit to watching and come away looking better for it. So, while giving the series a test run, frankly I was ready to drop it in the fail pile at the first sign of inadequacy (especially after the rather lackluster OVA). As an anime fan I'm going to get accused of sexual deviancy enough as it is, and KnJ looks to provide tons more justification for that kind of thing. Imagine my surprise - and, I admit, a few pangs of self-hatred - when it turned out that I happened to like the show a lot (I'm not sure, but I think this is how vegetarians must feel when they accidentally eat a hunk of beef or something and find it delicious). In any case, obviously I like the thing enough to talk about it a bit regardless of consequences, so off we go. It's a surprisingly deep little series. The characters aren't particularly endearing: you've got the boring 20-something aw-shucks male teacher, the well-endowed female coworker whose crush on the previous is constantly played for cheap laughs, and a brood of fetish objects as the pre-adolescent girls (I am very, very well aware of the reason most of the viewers are watching this series, folks). The cast is serviceable, though, for what really makes the series interesting, which is the situations they get thrown into. KnJ is at its best when it puts a microscope on the (seemingly trivial) moments of child life and makes us see them as the crises they would be to someone in the third grade. It is, I think, the first show I've ever seen where an episode centers around one of the girls having to wear a bra for the first time - and they don't even play it for laughs! Sure, KnJ goes for the yuks frequently, but that's not the main point: the series forces us to take the concerns, desires, and opinions of these kids [i]seriously[/i]. The most infamous element, Rin's blatantly sexual crush on Daisuke, also has to be seen from this perspective. There's a temptation to take her behavior as the actions of someone who doesn't yet understand what she's doing and who isn't fully responsible yet - and who certainly isn't prepared for a sexual relationship (there's also, I might add, the temptation to think it was just cooked up to sell manga to lonely neets). But Rin - while she admits that a lot of it is just screwing with Daisuke's head - absolutely wants her feelings taken seriously, rather than brushed off as the fantasies of the immature. So, the show places us in a bind. Exactly how are we, as the adults, supposed to deal with this? How willing are we to grant children their own lives and listen to them as thinking, feeling beings? How do we teach them, and how do we understand them? So, in a nutshell, there's why I find the series interesting - these kids and their dumb oaf of a teacher trying to find a way of living with each other. On the other hand, I know full well that this is [i]not[/i] why the manga is so popular, nor why the anime's (uncensored) DVDs are going to sell like a Halo sequel - a fact that should make us feel a touch of shame on humanity's behalf. I also know, even more, that you have no reason to believe anything that I've just said, and probably find it more plausible to just take me for a rorikon and move on. And that's fair enough, I suppose: in the world of anime fandom, believing someone when they claim to be without a creepy sexual hangup means making a shaky assumption indeed (the newer fans may object to this, but I think the vets will understand).[/SIZE]

[quote name='Dagger']I think I'm going to forget about watching the rest of the first season and just settle for gawping at Shana merch.[/QUOTE]This is probably a good idea. Y'see, Shana is the kind of show that I hate the most. I'm not sure if there's a name for what that is, but there should be. Shana starts off [i]really well[/i], with some interesting ideas and a lot of nice design work. At three-four episodes in, you're thinking that it's among the best of the season. Then, after that, it more or less drops most of the ideas that made it interesting in the first place and builds itself into a dull routine that never really lets up - except that you [i]keep watching anyways[/i] under the dual justification of "I've put x hours of my life into it anyways so I might as well finish it out" and "it has to get back to the level it was at some point, right?" Pretty soon you're just praying for the thing to be over, with the only things keeping your interest being the swimsuit episodes and the Incest Twins. Yes, I watched the whole first season, and I'm never getting those ten hours back. Shana is worse than a merely [i]bad[/i] series, because you can recognize a bad series from the word go and spend your time on something else. No, Shana is the kind of show that [i]dissembles[/i] quality at first and then turns out to be completely tepid shounen romance/action/comedy once it's got the hook in. I know that most of the vets here get what I'm talking about with this - if you haven't seen Shana, then you've seen something like it. These kinds of shows are the scourge of anime viewing, and if I had any kind of political know-how I would lobby to get a cautionary notice stuck on the front of the DVDs. The Shana-tan specials are surprisingly good, however, although they're pretty much the only consolation I've gotten for sitting through this thing. You have been warned, folks.

Look, this one is a personal preference thing. Vampires are metaphors for bohemian lifestyles, rejection from the civilized world, and sexual promiscuity. Werewolves are metaphors for menstruation. So which do you prefer: living life hiding from the sun and putting the moves on countless innocent young'uns, or a somewhat more extreme "time of the month" regardless of gender?

[B]Name:[/B] Dutch [B]Source:[/B] Black Lagoon [B]Status:[/B] One of the leads. Cool, jaded vet turned pirate working out of Roanapur. Sexy as hell. Probably in his '50s or thereabouts. [center][IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/Black_Lagoon_11_Dutch.jpg[/IMG][/center] - Best boss ever. He's really lenient about vacation, takes the crew out to lunch every once in awhile, and just got approved for 401(k) planning. Plus he's a damn good shot with that .44. - The coolest Christian you will ever meet. "Amen, hallelujah, peanut butter." - Never, ever takes off those sunglasses. - If you're ever in a karaoke bar with him, ask him to sing that version of Barry White's "You're the First, the Last, My Everything." You'll understand why. - Cracks jokes about people who were dead decades before you were born, and STILL manages to make them funny. - Is probably Tyrone "Clean" Miller from Apocalypse Now. Apparently got the hell out of 'Nam a couple of years before the pullout. - Completely adorable when he smiles.

[quote name='Dagger']By the way, the full version of Utada's Beautiful World came out recently.[/QUOTE]Oh, you mean [URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwXkXPMqs4k][u]this[/u][/url]? Looking at the side-by-side comparisons serves to nicely bring together the feelings I've been having towards Rebuild for the past couple of months. It's all extremely pretty, of course, but I can't help wondering if a bigger animation budget is really all that we're getting here. What's the point, really? I mean, even if this is nothing but a purely commercial enterprise it'll still be good - even when Anno does something blatantly intended for the sole purpose of making money, he still manages to put that crazy touch of genius into it (Evangelion is especially interesting on this because it's among the absolutely [i]most[/i] commercial of recent animes, being born basically from Gainax selling itself to King Records - which should seem strange to anyone who's seen more than two episodes). But even if it works, I don't know if it'll be good for much more than a rehash of something that was pretty much done a decade ago. Which is not to say I won't be watching this and the other movies the moment the raws hits the torrents, mind. I'm still absolutely crazy about this ****. [quote name='Laborpilot86'][Neon Genesis Evangelion is] not as good as Space Runaway Ideon (A Tomino show from the early 80s. watch it.)...[/QUOTE]Now this I really have to object to. The original Evangelion series is a mess, there's no doubt of that, but Ideon makes Evangelion look like Vertigo (which is not a good comparison, but it's the best-organized movie I can think of right now). I'd be willing to call the second movie, Be Invoked, a flawed masterpiece. I'd be willing to admit the series has a bunch of really nice moments. But good god, the slog you have to go through to get to them! The designs are painfully ugly (and this isn't just a criticism of turn-of-the-'80s mecha: Gundam looked way better than Ideon). The individual episodes are often repetitive and contrived. The themes are presented ham-handedly. But most of all, the characters are insufferable - they don't even try to be consistent, and typically end up acting like complete idiots in order to further the plot for that week. The really great things about Evangelion can sometimes cover over the massive, glaring flaws. The good parts of Ideon actually make the flaws stand out [i]more[/i] than before. I suspect it's the kind of show that's only liked by a) hardcore old-school mecha fans (and more power to them!) or b) people who really hate Eva and want to think that it stole all of its ideas. The only thing Ideon really has over Eva, in my book, is that it doesn't have (as much) ridiculous religious symbolism or psycho-scientific technobabble - which is, I admit, a big plus.

As a rule, people who do these kinds of small but annoying things can be classed into two groups: the ones that can take a hint, and the ones that cannot. The former can be rehabilitated, and may actually curb their habits over time; the latter should be escaped from as discretely (but quickly) as possible. Here's a test. Imagine you're sitting somewhere by yourself, maybe eating your lunch and reading a book. Suddenly, Chatty McLoudpants comes over, says hi, and decides that she's going to tell you all about the problems she's had trying to get a guy in to fix her phone line ("they never show up when they're supposed to!"). At this point you can make subtle indications that you aren't interested in hearing this - for example, refuse to look at her directly, continue to eat your lunch, occasionally take wistful glances at that last paragraph you were on, etc. - basically you're trying to radiate an aura of [i]LOOK LADY, BUSY HERE (SORRY)[/i]. Did she get the hint and find a polite way to end the discussion and excuse herself? Then there's still hope for her! If not, it's time to be more direct. Here, you can try making a [i]strong indication[/i] at any halfway decent gap in Chatty's speech - for example, "You know, I need to finish my lunch and get going pretty soon" OR "Have you read this before? It's actually pretty good, I'm really getting into it." Hopefully that'll work, but as a last resort you can move up to Defcon 2: "Hey, I'm trying to read here." NOW does she get it? If yes, then again there's still hope. Otherwise, you're going to get a minute of lecturing about how selfish you are for not listening to Chatty's problems (bonus points if she mentions how her family does the same thing) before she neatly spins right back into complaining about her life. In this case it seems that you really are, in fact, dealing with a total ***hole, and should find a good excuse to get out of there asap and avoid contact in the future. Get a buddy system in place, assign someone to lookout duty, wear a disguise, whatever. I've found that the worst case isn't that common, though. Never assume malice or other inherent bad qualities when ignorance or thickheadedness could also be an explanation. Most people do this kind of annoying stuff because they haven't caught on that it bothers the folks around them - only the supreme d***s know and don't care.

First of all, there are some people who just [i]should not have credit cards[/i]. I'll assume that most of you already know who you are, in which case you've probably either A) cut yourself off/limited yourself somehow, or B) already ruined your credit history to the point where no one is going to give you any more cards to abuse anyways. I figure that you folks already know how the game is played, so I'm skipping y'all to deal with the greener crowd. For the rest of you, I assume you can hunt down cards with low interest rates and promotional deals on your own. I'm just going to give you three tips on how to use the accursed things once you've already gotten one you like. I'm no economist so take everything with a grain of salt, but this is general common-sense advice. 1. PAY YOUR BILL ON TIME. I cannot emphasize this enough. Credit card companies are absolutely unforgiving about late payments: you might have been a paying customer for years, but drop that envelope in the box a day late and you get stung for a late charge and will suddenly see your interest rate shoot up to the low 30s. Seriously, pay the bill as soon as it arrives if possible, which leads us to... 2a: TRY TO PAY OFF YOUR BILL COMPLETELY EVERY MONTH. If you're controlling your spending, this should be a cinch. There are a lot of people who think they're being clever by just paying the $20 (or whatever) minimum every month and leaving the rest to collect interest ("hey, I get to keep more money around that way!!"). These people are [i]morons[/i]. Generally it's better to have your bank account in double digits and a paid credit card bill than a massive balance that's growing by the day. On the other hand, you're only human and bad things do happen, so if you're still massively screwed over somehow... 2b: LOANS ARE BETTER THAN CREDIT CARD DEBT. Look, I know it's easier to just let a credit card balance sit and forget about it, but don't. While you are in debt you are [i]bleeding money[/i]. That should be staunched as much as possible, so you want to see if you can get someone less greedy to help you pay your Visa bill. Head down to your local bank (or, if you're a student, the loan office) and see what they can do - at worst, you'll only lose a few hours of your time. The math is pretty simple: would you rather be paying the bank at 12%, or credit card interest at 19? A few points doesn't seem important, but it adds up very quickly. 3. Four words: TREAT IT LIKE CASH. This is a thought exercise that's good for when you're just starting off with credit. Every time you're thinking of pulling out your card to pay for something, ask yourself: would I be comfortable paying this much [i]in cash[/i]? Imagine yourself digging into your pocket and thumbing through the bills. Imagine yourself passing over a wad of twenties (or whatever) to the cashier. Then, ask: am I [i]comfortable[/i] with that? Because really, that's what you're doing when you swipe the plastic - you are giving the store [i]real god damn money[/i], not otherworldly phantom currency that you'll never have to worry about. I like this exercise not only because it gives the amount you may be spending a more tangible feel, but also because it shows how you should really be using the card. Basically, treat it as a way to save yourself a run over to the ATM, and [i]that's all[/i]. If you have no money in your account, [i]you are still broke[/i] even if you've got a financial poker deck dozens of cards strong - so for god's sake [i]act like it[/i], and hold off on buying Bioshock and the next Black Lagoon DVD until you are no longer in a ramen-for-dinner-every-night situation. Look, credit cards aren't evil. You don't have to treat them like The Bomb, only to be used in the worst possible circumstances. They can be extremely useful, they give an enormous flexibility to your purchasing power, and using them will help to build up your credit history. But seriously, [i]be careful[/i]. Don't begin to think of your card as a magic wand you can wave to have anything you want - these things will [i]ruin your life[/i] if you aren't paying attention. Just as gun owners should know to keep their weapons pointed downrange when the safety's off, card owners should know to never ever purchase anything with plastic that they couldn't buy some other way if they wanted to. Use some common sense and keep track of yourself, and that's really all there is to it.

Man, I'm amazed that this series didn't have a topic yet. I feel like I watched it a zillion years ago. And now it's on Sci-Fi? This should teach me to pay attention to what's going on with domestic television. Anyways, Noein starts off confusing and it starts off slow. It's the kind of series that basically throws you into its universe and expects you to figure things out on your own. And, aside from a few set pieces, nothing much really happens in the first few episodes - most of it's groundwork for the various characters and hints here and there about the plot. The show is very deliberately paced, especially compared to other shounen stuff - it's got a slow ramp-up time, but do cut it some slack at the beginning (because the end is worth it). It's worth noting that the previous effort of the director, Kazuki Akane, was Escaflowne. Noein is very much a younger sister to that series. Escaflowne starts off as a quirky adventure/fantasy/mecha/romance show with incredible design and little details everywhere, and somehow ends up channelling all of that into a big meditation on fate and human freedom. Noein does much the same kind of thing. Just playing the series straight would have been amazing enough, a feast for the eyes and ears (have I mentioned the sound design? It's incredible. Whoever did it deserves some kind of award), but instead it goes in a different direction. In the last few episodes, even while the action hits its peak the sensibility of the show is heading off into speculation on whether existence means anything. (No, wait, it's better than it sounds, trust me) Anyways, it's good. One last thing, though: don't pay any attention at all to the quantum physics stuff. Seriously, just don't. Screw Wikipedia and its affection for superficial details. The physics babble, while it probably sounds impressive, is all a big red herring, and you shouldn't let it distract you from all the really important things going on. If you want to learn about quantum theory, go read Alistair Rae's introduction or something. For Noein, just treat all the talk like dilithium crystals and phased carrier waves in the shield emitters and you'll be fine.

I love this show, even though I know I really shouldn't. For the most part this is a straight-up shoujo romantic comedy kind of series - it's not particularly profound, it doesn't really take any risks, and it tends to go a little off-key in the dramatic moments. There are two really big things to like, though. First, it's [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansai-ben]Kansai[/url], and I mean REALLY Kansai. To the point where the main (transparently pre-romantic) pairing basically starts off as a comedy duo, nande ya nens and all. The second big thing (no pun intended) is Risa. Otani can hop in front of a bus for all I care, but Risa is pretty much immediately likeable with some depth to boot. What you've got in her is a normal (if overly genki) teenage girl who just happens to be really, really tall (and also capable of making [i]completely awesome[/i] facial expressions). A lot of the series really amounts to nothing more than Risa's trying to be a girl, [i]just[/i] a girl, and trying to get others to treat her that way rather than as a carnival side-act. Put aside all the traps &c. and Risa's the one truly carrying this series, because it just wouldn't work at all if she wasn't such a great lead. Tall girls don't get enough love, you know? Anyways, like I said, it's not a show for the ages and doesn't really pull it off when it tries to be. It is, however, one of the best series of its kind to hit in awhile. Worth checking out if you're into this kind of effeminite, lovey-dovey stuff at all.

You know, ever since Higurashi I've had this very strong suspicion that there was a deep and fundamental connection between "moe" and disabling psychological problems. Zetsubo Sensei is pretty much the best confirmation of this idea that I could ever have hoped for. Screw Ken Akamatsu's ridiculous attempts to make moe into some kind of abominable half-breed between maternal love and (constantly denied) lust towards the weak and helpless. Forget various attempts on "cultural commentary" kinds of sites (not naming names) that try to make it into some kind of weird Freudian thing. Moe is all about attractive girls (or otherwise) who have psycho-social disorders and/or are otherwise unable to function normally in life. How do you liven up a slice-of-life anime set in a high school? SZS answers: take all of the characters and give them a horribly disabling pathology. It works wonderfully: INSTANTLY every single character is rendered immeasurably more likeable and interesting. Let m = moe, p = psychopathology, and f = ability to function normally in life (i.e. the character can do well in social situations, is at an age where they can take care of themselves, etc.). Moe can then be roughly defined as: [center]m = p + 1/f[/center] Note that psychopathology seems to have a direct relation to erotic lure (cf Black Lagoon), while life functionality has an inverse relation with cuteness (cf every clumsy girl in every anime ever). There also seems to me to be a relation between psychopathology and functionality (a less sane character usually has more problems getting around), but it's more obscure. I wonder if I could get a grant to try to study this. Anyways, digression over. I absolutely love SZS, and I think it's probably the best show yet by SHAFT and the Akiyuki Shinbo team. It's definitely one of my favorites of the new season, in any case (a lot of the rest has been fairly dry so far, unfortunately).

This is the most awful, reprehensible series I've ever seen. The transformation sequence all by itself is probably in violation of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Everything about this show screams that it was made entirely by pedophiles for public enjoyment by, and ONLY by, other horrible sexual predators like themselves. This is the end of human civilization, folks, it's all downhill from here. In ten years the only form of anime (the only form of entertainment whatsoever, for that matter) that will still exist will be newborn infants of indeterminate sex - [I]who are of legal age nevertheless [/I]- running around in skimpy two-piece bathing suits waving about magic cellphone-ipod-wiimote-wands while various in-show perverts drool over them. Every moment of Moetan represents the essential sadness and futility of the human species, its massive failure at everything. After this we pretty much deserve whatever it is fate has in store for us - Moetan is just that god damned terrible. Naturally, everyone should go and watch the series IMMEDIATELY. Highly recommended!

Sorry to take a while responding. I usually need a couple of hours to cobble one of these posts together, which hasn't really been possible since I started working full time. Anyways, let me see if I can take a crack at all this. [quote name='Dagger']Words have no fixed meaning on their own. The same goes for sentences, i.e., the meaning of a sentence is something independent from the meaning of the paragraph or chapter or novel it's found in.[/QUOTE]Well, first, I'm not sure if you took that bit you quoted as being my actual position on this (it's not, I'm using it basically as a straw man). That position says that words have no meaning [i]at all[/i], which is different from their having no [i]fixed[/i] meaning (which is what you're getting at). I think this is correct, to a point (the philosopher Frege uses the wonderful term "unsaturated" to describe functions that require something else added to them before they mean anything - words, in this sense, are unsaturated). Words do not have their meanings delivered to them from on high, neither do they have no meaning whatsoever; rather, they get their meaning from how they are used. On the other hand, words tend to maintain a [i]consistency[/i] to them, especially in the course of a single text. The meaning of a word (e.g. "the war") in one sentence will probably keep a very similar meaning when it appears in the sentence right afterwards (this isn't a [i]requirement[/i], only a tendency). [quote name='Dagger']It seems like most of the problems you have defining a sentence arise because you keep circling around the idea of a pure, context-free sentence. But I'd say that the leap from sentences to paragraphs is at least as big as the leap from words to sentences.[/QUOTE]Now this I have more trouble with. There are two issues here, the difference between sentences and larger structures and the problem of context. I'll deal with the context thing first. It's true I didn't get into this, mainly because I don't know how to present it very well. First of all, it's worth saying that this can work in reverse: sometimes how you understand an entire book is dependent on how you read a single line. But the bigger problem is that by taking meanings as even [i]partially[/i] dependent on context, you end up on a regress. If sentence a has to be understood in the context of chapter b, that means similarly that chapter b has to be understood within the entire meaning of book c, book c within style/genre d, and on and on. The result seems to me to be that understanding even a single sentence completely is going to require understanding the totality of [i]the entire language[/i] - or, if you take "context" more generally, an understanding of the whole world. This actually isn't as crazy an idea as it sounds, and I think I would personally hold to something like it. Take a very simple sentence like "I saw a duck." "Duck" expresses a concept, in this case a class of beings (never mind how to define that class, or how well its limits hold up). I could alter the [i]contents[/i] of that class, for example by removing one of the beings included within it (not destroying it, but [i]conceptually[/i] de-listing it), and thus change the entire concept so that "duck" no longer has the same meaning as before. The upshot is that when I say "I saw a duck," that sentence [i]depends on[/i] everything that is or could be a duck in order to get its meaning. Taking it all the way: whenever you talk about [i]anything[/i], [i]everything else[/i] has to be involved and understood intuitively somehow. What exactly that means, I'm still not clear on. On the point about the leap from sentences to paragraphs, I think I have to disagree with you (there's probably some confusion due to the fact that when I talk about "sentences" I'm really talking about propositions and avoiding the more highfalutin' term). Again, this might not work for all cases since I'm limiting the kinds of sentences I'm talking about to purely descriptive ones. I said before that what seemed to seperate words (or, better, logical subjects) and sentences was that the former could only [i]express[/i] concepts, while the latter actually [i]assert[/i] them ("this is how it is"). Paragraphs don't seem to have as huge a split from sentences. Think of a paragraph composed of descriptive sentences - let's say, a really boring one describing my kitchen ("The dimensions of FH's kitchen are 7'x10'x8'. The kitchen has a gas stove with four burners." And so on). You could conceivably lump all of those little sentences together into one ("The 7'x10'x8 dimensionality of FH's kitchen, FH's kitchen having a gas stove with four burners... are all asserted") without doing violence to the meaning, even though you'd do plenty to the English language. Likewise, if you had an entirely descriptive chapter or even a book you could do the same trick. It would be a disaster to read, but what was said would remain basically the same. So, in these cases at least, I have to disagree with you. [quote name='Umbra II'][FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"][Snip][/FONT][/QUOTE]Nah, sorry, I'm not going to figure out what specifically to quote here. First of all, it's worth reading the Cratylus on this, since that's where Plato explicitly tries to link the problem of language with the ideas/forms (funny as hell, for most of its history Western philosophy has never really cared about language, even though it's cared a [i]lot[/i] about forms; I guess they just never bothered to try that path until the 18th-19th centuries). There's no way in hell I'm talking about any of the dialogues here, though, since I'm straining to keep myself intelligible already and a Plato thread would probably break me. Plus, despite the fact that it definitely has insights, I find the Cratylus mostly unhelpful: most of it is about how we [i]should[/i] talk rather than how we really do. Secondly, I agree with what you say about "functions," if I understand you right. I take what you're getting as saying that the meaning of a word gets established through (can't think of a good term) "hooking up" with the meaning of other words in the sentence, with which it has a compatibility. This is basically what programming is all about, as far as I understand it. Anyways, something like this is probably right, although I don't know if it's enough (can you use a bunch of compatible, "hooked up" word meanings to get a sentence meaning?). On your second post, I'd like to argue about one thing: [quote name='Umbra II'][FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"]"Oswald's assasination of Kennedy" is indeed not a sentence, but a concept, as you rightly put it. It is not neccesairily unanalyzable, though. Take a look at "assasination". (Is that what's called a gerund?) You and I will both probably agree on a definition: the act of assasination. The very noun implies a kind of verb. Assasinated. This streches to normal nouns to. "Oswald" can have many meanings, but the most basic one might be "is".[/FONT][/QUOTE]I don't think so. It's certainly true that the assertion of a sentence has to do with its verb (Indian grammarians figured this one out a couple of thousand years ago), but I don't think it's possible to take a logical subject (a concept) and "imply" a verb out of it. Not even if the concept includes a verb acting as a noun, such as gerunds, infinitives, and so on (and "assassination" is just a noun). Oswald actually did assassinate Kennedy, but this is never clear from the mere concept any more than in a counterfactual case ("Oswald's assassination of Nixon," "Babe Ruth's ruling over France," etc.). It requires some kind of extra push to say that the concept [i]is[/i] or [i]is not[/i] - a push doesn't seem to be analyzable in terms of the sentence's conceptual content. Thus my confusion. [quote name='Allamorph'][FONT=Arial]This sentence is a complete lie. ... Show me a group of compatible words (grammatically and conceptually) which do not yield a sentence.[/FONT][/QUOTE]I think you've misunderstood what I'm getting at (fair enough, I phrased that part badly). I meant "compatibility" in [i]conceptual[/i] terms there, by which I had in mind concepts that would be sensibile together and those that wouldn't. "Irresponsibility fishes on purple" is a grammatically perfect sentence, but it's nonsensical (well, I'm sure someone could imagine a situation where it would make sense, but for now let's say it's nonsense). My point was just that even if you gathered together a set of words/logical subjects (no verb conjugations, etc. yet) that would make sense [i]if[/i] they formed a sentence, you would never actually [i]get[/i] the sentence out of them. As for the liar paradox, I think it's actually something that can be worked out quite easily. Assume that any sentence you can say always contains the fact that it's [i]asserted[/i], i.e. that it calls itself true. "It's hot outside" is, meaning-wise, equivalent to "it's true that it's hot outside" (it's kind of like multiplying by 1). Even negative statements should do this: "it's not hot outside," which is the same as "'it's hot outside' is false," can be made into "''it's hot outside' is false' is true." As a way of making this clearer, I'll make it so that the main sentence is named by a variable. For example, "it's hot outside" becomes "'it's hot outside' is x and x is true." So with a liar paradox like "this sentence is a complete lie," you end up with a structure like "'x is false' is x and x is true," or simply "x is false and x is true." This is a simple contradiction. Assuming anyone believes in logic laws anymore, all contradictory statements are false, and the same with this one. So the reverse of the statement, its negation, must be true. However, the negation of "this sentence is a complete lie" (understanding it as I am) isn't "'this sentence is a complete lie' is false," which would fall right back into the paradox. It should be taken instead as "'this sentence is a complete lie and this sentence is true' is false," which in regular English can be translated as "this sentence is not both true and false." Does that make sense? [quote name='Break']I always thought sentences were relatively simple.[/QUOTE]Well, it's easy to [i]make[/i] a sentence. All you need is a subject, a verb, maybe a direct or indirect object, and some other stuff for flavor. Anyone can do it. But since I'm an overeducated loser with a lot of free time, I'm actually asking a different question - not "how do you make a sentence?" but "how is making a sentence possible at all?" I find that, generally speaking, the interesting thing about sentences isn't that they follow a grammatical formula (even though that's true). Sentences tell us what's up with stuff, which is something tougher to nail down than grammar. Good god, that was long. I think I'm gonna get some dinner.

It occurs to me that I've never actually started a [i]thread[/i] on the dumb kinds of things I sometimes write about. Usually I just come and invade someone else's. So, quid pro quo, I guess I have to try one of these things sometime (and the drier the topic, the better). Recently I've been dealing with problems relating to sentences - or "propositions," if for some reason you prefer the stricter, stick-up-the-rear academic term - and I thought I'd bring them around here to see if anyone had any fresh thoughts. Or, more likely, if anyone wanted to make fun of me. This whole thread could be a disaster (or complete non-event), but here we go. First off, I'm not going to work on why it is that some sentences make sense ("Smith smokes cigarettes") while others that are grammatically similar do not ("quadruplicity drinks procrastination"). I'm also going to skip how it is that saying or writing certain things can have [i]effects[/i] (for example, saying "I promise to clean my room" or "I pronounce you man and wife"), or the communicative role of language in society. Those are interesting questions, but I'm gonna keep it simple for now. So, start with the example from above, "Smith smokes cigarettes." This is a very simple sentence composed of a subject (here a proper noun), a transitive verb, and an object. Grammatically it's valid, but it is also meant to express a [i]fact[/i]. When I read this sentence I take it to be saying something: that Smith's a smoker. The sentence produces a kind of picture of what's happening, and that picture is the sentence's [i]meaning[/i]. We know, from taking in the sentence and getting its meaning, that - for example - Smith probably smells like smoke, he's going to have health problems if he doesn't quit, and so on. All of that's pretty obvious, yes? The problem is figuring out where that meaning (the representational picture) comes from, and how it [i]connects[/i] to the sentence that's supposed to be presenting it. I said before that "Smith smokes cigarettes" has a subject, verb, and object. So, it's possible that the meaning of a sentence comes from the combination of all the words composing it. "Smith" - a person; "smoking" - an action where some substance is set on fire, held up to the mouth, and inhaled; "cigarettes" - paper-rolled tobacco with filters. By combining the individual meanings of these three words, you get the meaning of the sentence. Except that this runs into problems. Take another sentence like "Snoop smoked the punk" - "smoking" appears as the verb here as well, but it's a different kind of smoking. I'm probably not saying that Snoop lit the punk on fire and then inhaled him. It's [i]possible[/i] that that's what happened, but more likely what I'm saying is that Snoop shot a guy. If both "Smith smokes cigarettes" and "Snoop smoked the punk" are allowed their obvious meanings, then "smoke" has to be able to mean different things. But then, in each individual case, how do I tell when it means one thing and when it means something else? If I listen to a sentence like "Smith smokes cigarettes," do I have to quickly rifle through the catalog of all the possible meanings for each word and then select the combination that's most likely in order to understand the sentence? But I don't usually have that kind of experience. Usually the meaning of a sentence is something obvious to me. So is it an [i]unconscious[/i] process? But then, why is it - in the few cases where I DO have a confusion - that this confusion rises to the surface? (if I was choosing everything unconsciously, why wouldn't that faculty just pick one word or the other?) And unconscious or not, what would even be the basis for choosing between one take or another? ("one makes more sense than the others" - what does that mean?) All of this indicates an opposite solution, namely that the meaning of a sentence is something [i]independent[/i] from word meaning. Words, in fact, [i]have[/i] no meaning on their own. There might be a general [i]convention[/i] about what they mean, but actually this is an illusion. A word like "dog" never has any set meaning, and its meaning will change depending on whether the sentence is "the dog is a four-legged mammal" or "that dog hit me over the head and stole my money." "Smith smokes cigarettes" and "Snoop smoked the punk" may share the same word, but since they're two different sentences (two different wholes) the shared element comes to nothing. Each sentence has to be learned and understood individually, in isolation from all others. But this has problems too. It's not economical, for one thing. Suppose I knew the meaning of a sentence like "Smith smokes cigarettes" - if meaning is unique to each sentence, then I would be putting just as much work into learning very similar sentences (like "Smith smokes cigarettes after dinner," "Smith smokes Camel cigarettes") etc. as learning one which has nothing in common at all (like "Elizabeth is the queen of England"). But again, this doesn't seem to fit with experience: I find sentences similar to the ones I already know easier to learn than ones that are totally different. Furthermore, I can often understand or make up totally unique sentences from pre-given elements ("Smith smoked a cigarette after the dog stole his money") and have them mean something. Not all sentences are equal; there has to be something meaningful in the words themselves. So we're at an impasse. Sentence meanings don't seem to happen because we make the right guesses about what their words mean; on the other hand, sentence meanings don't seem to be totally independent from word meanings. And it gets worse. Take a sentence like "Oswald assassinated Kennedy": as before, we can break up the sentence into individual elements, "Oswald," "Kennedy," and "assassination" (for now, ignore the problem of multiple meanings). We can look at each word, even the verb, as a [i]logical subject[/i] expressing a particular concept (Kennedy was the man who was the 35th president, he was elected in 1960, etc.; ditto for Oswald and assassination). We can even synthesize these elements into a single subject, "Oswald's assassination of Kennedy," which also expresses a concept. The problem is that just saying "Oswald's assassination of Kennedy" [i]isn't itself a sentence[/i]; all it is is a concept, one which doesn't say whether it's actually a fact. It only becomes a sentence when one says that the assassination [i]happened[/i] (or didn't happen). So, in analyzing it down to its contents, we've somehow eliminated whatever it was that made it a sentence in the first place! This means that even if it's possible to determine with complete precision what the conceptual meanings of individual words in a sentence are, there still has to be something unanalyzable in the sentence as a whole which [i]asserts[/i] the sentence, which says that it's a [i]fact[/i] and not just a possibility floating around in logical space. This is a big problem. There's a famous Indian parable about a chariot (it's adapted by just about everyone, most famously the Buddhists). The point is that you can't find the "chariotness" of a chariot by looking at its individual parts or even the sum of those parts, but a chariot missing too many those parts also ceases being a chariot. The relationship between a chariot and its parts turns out to be a very odd one. Sentences seem to have a similar problem. Just because I can pull together a bunch of words, even [i]compatible[/i] ones (grammatically and conceptually), doesn't mean I'm automatically given a sentence. There's some little sliver, a kind of logical gremlin, separating a sentence from the sum of the words in it. Obviously there has to be some relationship between sentences and their words (more accurately, between sentence meaning and word meaning), but [i]what the hell is it?[/i] How do you make the jump from one to the other? Anyways, this is a problem I've been banging my head against lately, and I thought I would bring it around to anyone who was interested in reading a few pages on this stuff. Dangling the hook, or whatever. Talking about how sentences work isn't going to cure cancer or tell you what the meaning of life is, but I think it's an interesting puzzle worth talking about.

Cops are my anti-drug.

[quote name='Charles']Eh....it's his [I]third[/I] time being banned. It loses its luster after a while. lol[/QUOTE] Wait a minute. I linked to [url=http://www.jerkcity.com/jerkcity2388.html][u]this[/u][/url] as a joke, and now you're telling me that that's actually happened [i]twice[/i] already? Does this mean Jerkcity is prescient somehow? I wonder what would've happened if I'd opted for [url=http://www.leisuretown.com/articles/kmfr.html][u]the one from Leisuretown[/u][/url] instead.

Aww, and just when I was getting used to the guy. I'm not going to question the ban (mods do what they must). It's good that it dropped before the ridiculous [url=http://www.jerkcity.com/jerkcity2388.html][u]GOODBYE TO OTAKUBOARDS (I'M GOING SOMEWHERE WHERE I CAN BE APPRECIATED)[/u][/url] drama really got started, in any case - that kind of thing gets old after you see it a few times. On the other hand, it was nice to have [URL=http://bridgebunnies.com/omoikane/code/Code_Geass05_007.jpg][u]C.C.[/u][/URL] around to provoke interesting responses from [i]other board members[/i], even if his own posts read kind of like a deranged freshman comparative literature paper. I doubt being provocative was intentional - I think the point was more that we were supposed to recognize his "brilliance" and treat him as some kind of internet sage. A teacher of mine once told me that there are two ways of being smart. The first is being smart in a way that makes you look impressive (and everyone else dumb, if you're doing it right). This is very easy: all you need to do is build a reputation on how important you sound. The second way is to try to make other people smart, which is much more difficult. I myself am obviously no master at this second one, but I'd like to think (for one final shot at saying "what Ohh Bee is") that a lot of what makes the 'boards shine is the few people around who can actually do this well. I have a lot of catching up to do before I reach that level.

[quote name='Raiyuu']I'd like to be able to say, "quit debating one-liners vs dissertations and get back on topic," but I'm not really sure what the topic was in the first place, and I think only the effervescent, philosophical brains of Copycatalyst and **** really have an inkling.[/QUOTE]I'm not sure why this got censored (according to Dagger's quote the second party here is me) but in any case it's incorrect since I never have any idea what's going on. I just took it as another variation on the "why are you on Ohh Bee" kind of thread. Style-wise (OT, but this is the only comment I'm going to make on it) I'd rather not be compared to [URL="http://endofdreams.animeblogger.net/images/eodimages/eod-CGS02.jpg"][U]C.C.[/U][/URL], but I guess it's inevitable ("oh, he sounds pretentious too!"). Keep in mind that I'm at a huge disadvantage: it takes me hours to cobble together a mediocre essay-length post, while he seems to be able to free associate one together near-instantly. I feel like John Henry challenging the steam engine.

It's a mess, that's what it is. And I mean that in a good way. Less messy than a lot of others, more messy than a few, but there's a charm to it which other boards don't have. The folks here didn't land in Ohh Bee because they're in fifth grade and this is the first message board they ever stumbled across; they're here because they love all this crazy stuff, the collective mania of Japan, and they enjoy talking to others sharing the same pathology. A year and a half ago I took this place up as an experiment in forcing myself how to learn. It still is, in part; internetwise I come from very old communities which haven't had any new members in months, and in grad school most of the people I hang out with are just as insufferable as I am. So it's always a shocking (and occasionally refreshing) bucket of cold water in the face to come here every day and find new folks who've never seen an episode of Macross, or who've never heard of Kant. It forces me to try to reconsider those things and others in new ways, and keeps me from getting lazy and complacent. As an impetus for [i]thinking[/i] I find Ohh Bee indispensable. Then there's the veterans, OtakuBoards' great gems of wisdom (you know who you are), many of whom know way more about this stuff than I do and are still willing to tolerate my mouthing off about it. Not to mention my dopey sense of humor. There's also some stuff going on in the Creative Works area, so I've heard. Troublemakers, the whole lot. To sum up: it's a mess.

[quote name='Sesshomarufan']so can we at leasat agree on this? everyone has a different opinion of beauty and technically no one person is wrong, because everyone can argue their case to a point. some of us use logic to show our theories on the subject, others tend to use experiences and personal deductions based on no scientific or fact-based medium. sound good?[/QUOTE]No, I'm not going to agree on that. I think I'm beginning to go broken record here, but at the risk of being a pest, once again: saying that reactions of taste towards a particular object (say, a painting) are going to be different - that is, that those kinds of judgments are not universally the same among everyone - doesn't put a dead stop on the question of beauty. Actually, that's where it first gets interesting. Here's the catch: when we say that not everyone considers the same things beautiful, we already imply (in spite of ourselves) that [i]beauty itself[/i] really is known and understood generally. I don't learn what beauty is by finding every "beautiful" thing and then abstracting what they have in common; the fact that I can experience [i]anything at all[/i] as "beautiful" in the first place means that I already have some kind of understanding of beauty hard-wired into my experience. Again: it's not philosophically interesting [i]what[/i] we find beautiful, only [i]how[/i] (in what way) it happens. This isn't about coming up with "theories" or "personal deductions" or "different opinions" (I would rather that people consider my previous posts a waste of time rather than taking them as offering a "model" or "theory" of beauty to stand alongside others like a museum piece; all they represent is a try at the problem). And, I might add, it definitely isn't about throwing around sanctimonious, insubstantial aphorisms which are basically ungrounded in and unconcerned with the problem as it is given. ("physician, heal thyself" I can hear someone saying, which is fair enough - if you read a lot of philosophy you can still be decent person, but after only a little you're doomed to being insufferable. I like to hope I'm in that first group, but maybe not) I take the real task here to be just mulling over the brute, unmoving fact that we [i]can and do experience things as beautiful[/i], and that we can't really escape from it. Given that truth, which most of us are so used to that we don't even consider it meaningful to talk about, what can we say? What is beauty [i]like[/i]? Abstract it from whatever particular thing it may be attached to: how can it be described, and how can it be analyzed? How is beauty different from the erotic, or from the admirable? None of these questions have anything to do with whether any particular judgment of beauty will hold up [i]objectively[/i], the issue this thread has been stuck on and which I expect to see at least five more answers to before the thing's finished. Such questions can be discussed, and discussed (I hope) in a clear way, no matter what's going on with the problem of objectivity. Not by me - it takes me hours to write one of these things, and after this I don't think I have another one left - but I think it can be done. [quote name='Retribution'][size=1]I think if the reasoning is first experienced prior to the acknowledgment "this is beautiful" then you are right -- it's cheapened somehow. But if you see your daughter, think "this is beautiful" then realize you think that because you are biologically predisposed, I don't think you are necessarily compelled to then lose the feeling.[/size][/QUOTE]Good point, that's very possible. I'm still inclined to think that the experience would really change somehow - it would become bittersweet, maybe? or something even milder? - but I also think the sense of delight would continue over in large part. That means that the presence of a reason doesn't totally break down an experience of beauty, it just "dilutes" it somehow. I'm not sure what that means. Give me awhile to think about it, and maybe I'll have a good reply later on?

Coffee is my lifeblood. I usually go with french vanilla (it tends to mask the cheapness of the flavor, since I can usually only afford budget-brand stuff), brewed [i]very[/i] strong and liberally mixed with a lot of half-and-half and sugar. This is the slow poison that makes it possible for me to function in the mornings. In the winter I will sometimes forgo the sugar in favor of hot cocoa mix. "Thick" is not a strong enough word for what comes out of this. In summer, on the other hand, I usually go the iced coffee route (try it yourselves!! first make as big and strong a pot of coffee as your 'maker can handle, filling the filter up to right before it hits the point where the grinds'll spill out once they get wet and expand (grinds in iced coffee = no fun); second, turn off the maker, let the pot sit for about two hours, then pour it in a big pitcher; third, add an immense amount of sugar and put the pitcher in the fridge for a few more hours; serve your cold caffinated kick to the head with ice and a generous sploosh of half-and-half). In spring and fall, especially in the evenings, I'll often forgo coffee in favor of masala chai (which is much lighter and more refreshing - if my normal french vanilla concoction is an M1 Abrams, this stuff is a Lotus Elise). I've seen people make this with all manner of stuff (cinnamon, cloves, [i]black pepper[/i] of all things), but I keep mine conservative. Just a bag of black tea (assam if I can get ahold of it), a good amount of cardamom, boiling water, and cream and sugar (the stuff is even better if, instead of the cream, you replace half the water with boiled milk; I'm usually just too lazy to make it this way). Coffee is the black, soulless fuel I use to keep my body alive for just a little while longer; tea, especially masala, is what I take for comfort and contemplation.

[quote name='Retribution'][size=1]Great post, first of all.[/size][/QUOTE]I'm not sure if this is directed at me or someone else. If me, then, well, thanks! [quote name='Retribution'][size=1]But that’s the thing though. Your daughter’s perceived beauty does not arise from a void – it’s biological necessity. This is a prime example of an evolutionary process working powerfully to bond you to your offspring. In this vein of thought, I would go on to argue that many, if not all forms of beauty are seen as such because of previous experiences that shape your current ideals of the concept. ... But I do acknowledge the fact that we have a heavily complex mind, and because of this, I cannot adequately explain all instances of finding something beautiful. As a general trend, however, I stand by my argument.[/size][/QUOTE]I think you have a point, but it ignores a distinction of Kant's that I brought up just before the bit you quote when I said, "We never find anything beautiful because it's useful to us, or because we've been 'conditioned' to like certain things (on reflection that may seem likely, but you'll never find it in the experience itself)." I would have expanded on this more, except the post was too damn long already. This is the distinction Kant makes between [i]empirical realism[/i] - which is the stance we make when studying objects, when we test them and learn about them through experience - and [i]transcendental idealism[/i] - which is the stance necessary for studying [i]subjective facts[/i], things that have to be true for experience in general. The analysis of beauty, or (more accurately) the conditions for beauty's [i]possibility[/i], falls into the second area. What that comes out to is this. If I study myself as an [i]object[/i], say by scientific psychology, and I begin to take measure of all the situations in which I find something beautiful, then I may begin to find patterns. I can compare that object to other similar objects (other people) and look for patterns there as well. In the end I may indeed find that the evidence points to my "taste" being conditioned biologically, culturally, etc.. And Kant would have no trouble with this, so long as these studies kept within their limits. However, the results of those kinds of empirical investigation can't say anything about the immediate [i]experience[/i] of beauty. It can't invalidate the point that taste is "devoid of all interest" because even if my reactions are conditioned, that conditioning is only [i]empirically[/i] true, true of myself and other people as [i]objects of experience[/i]. Because the sense of beauty comes from the subject rather than the object, [i]transcendentally[/i] (I'm sorry to drop that word, but there's nothing else that works) I will never find a reason for it. In order for an experience of something beautiful to happen at all, in order for me to take a thing as beautiful in the first place, I can never encounter reasons in the experience itself. This sounds abstract, but it's actually pretty obvious. Imagine that I look at my daughter and find her beautiful; now imagine that [i]accompanying[/i] that judgment is the thought, "What I sense right now is due to biological necessity." Or, while listening to Bach: "I feel delight at this only because of cultural conditioning." If these remain experiences of beauty at all, I think they end up extremely dissonant ones. The moment the reason is added to the perception [i]itself[/i] (not just retroactively), somehow the experience of beauty crumbles. The point is this: while working scientifically, with people taken as [i]objects[/i], you can explain "taste" however you like. But in order for taste itself to work, I must never find its explanation in the given experience. So basically I agree with your post on the level of objective science, but what I was trying to point out was a fact about perception. EDIT: I think this addresses Lunox's question as well. I would just add that Kant's interest lies not so much in saying why one person finds something pleasant and another person finds it unpleasant, but rather in how it is that such judgments are possible at all (what has to be sort of "pre-packaged" in all experience in order for me to find something beautiful or ugly?). The former is a question for experimental science, the latter is one for philosophy and metaphysics. The unique problem of this kind of judgment, which is why he wrote a book about it, is that it doesn't involve an object's relation to other objects, its position in time and space, individual facts about it, or even its actual [i]existence[/i]. Neither does it involve any kind of moral imperative. It has to do solely with how we encounter the thing's [i]form[/i], which can be a completely imaginary process. So if you can't fit it under conceptual understanding and you can't fit it under practicality/morality, then it needs its own category.