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I fail to see how predictability trumps the story's responsibility to convey a relevant and positive message to kids.

 

I fail to see how Unity, Duty, & Destiny are so important. I think a message that team work won't solve everything is invaluable, & if you're always about winning you statistically are not going to have a good time...

 

Or more seriously I don't think everything has to have a good message, only a good story.

 

Unity, Duty, and Destiny AREN'T important. What IS important are the big concepts—don't betray your friends, fight for what's right, be willing to put your own interests aside for the common good. Ending the story with "the bad guy wins, everyone dies" undermines EVERY SINGLE MESSAGE the Bionicle story ever touched on. More importantly, it renders every single victory in the previous eight years worth of story meaningless. It surprises me that people who claim to love the classic Bionicle would suggest that Lego should have so profoundly disrespected the story—and make no mistake, letting Makuta win would send a clear message that Lego hated Bionicle and everything it ever stood for. With that in mind, it's no surprise that we got an actual respectful ending instead of sn impossibly bad, nihilistic, meaningless ending like some people are advocating.

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Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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I have to agree with everything Lyi has said. Ending after Makuta took over in 2008 wouldn't just be ending with a defeat. It would be ending with the ULTIMATE defeat. It would be if, after winning a video game, you didn't get any victory cutscene or end credits, just a score of zero and the same "game over" message as if you'd lost on level one. What was it all for? Well, nothing. The Toa Mata could have let Makuta win in 2001 and they'd be no worse off than if they had done everything right until 2008. In fact, they might have been better off, because at least that way their Makuta overlord wouldn't have been omnipotent and there might be a better chance of overthrowing him one day.

 

There's a difference between "you won't always win" and "even if you live virtuously and do everything right, you will lose, and when you do none of your earlier victories will matter anymore, while the person that always acted in his own self-interest will live happily ever after."

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I add that taking a story that presented us with both good and evil and ending it with evil winning would put across the message that brutal and self-interested actions and aims are acceptable, and will in turn be rewarded with lasting success, whilst trying to act heroically in the interests of others is pointless. Whether or not the situations and struggles of reality reflect such a message, that surely isn't what we want to see happen in real life, so stories that deal with good and evil shouldn't push such a message.

 

Obviously not every story has to end with the right people or cause winning - we wouldn't have any tragedies or cautionary tales if that was the rule - but I do think one like Bionicle's needs to.

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Technically, there were two endings. One with evil winning and the second with good winning. Kind of like with Star Wars: evil won at first, but later good won the war.

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Technically, there were two endings. One with evil winning and the second with good winning. Kind of like with Star Wars: evil won at first, but later good won the war.

Yeah. But some people were arguing that they considered the one with evil winning the only legitimate, valid one. It's a good comparison—Star Wars couldn't afford to end with Empire Strikes Back, because that movie's ending only happened that way in the first place to set up for a third, triumphant chapter of the trilogy.

 

Or in other words—the ending of the 2008 story works, and works well, but only because it's also the start of the 2009 story. If the story as a whole had ended with Makuta's victory in 2008, it would have been a terrible, meaningless, and disrespectful end to the series.

Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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 it would have been a terrible, meaningless, and disrespectful end to the series.

 

There is obviously room for meaningless, as yes it made many of their actions moot: Teridax won.

Those others however aren't necessarily objective truths. Prove me wrong.

 

Terrible might apply insofar as a it's a bad ending for the protagonists, but not all of the audience is going to find it a terrible story(-segment)/ending — as evidenced by this thread.

 

Disrespectful?

Respect is a social construct that varies from group to group.

 

Yes some people would have taken it as TLG left Bionicle in a bad place (from protagonist perspective), because they didn't like the protagonists, & Bionicle by extension(?); but not everyone would have taken it this way.

Some would have taken it as a cool ending, some would have found it a good premise for fanfiction, it wouldn't have been as rushed as the latter years...

& some people appreciate things being done 'unrushed' more than a nice happy ending.

 

Regardless, some would have hated it some would have enjoyed it.

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~ Sophistry: A way to be antidisuncorrect. ~


 


 


In a decade you might convince maybe a small tribe of people.


In a decade you might also conquer one million km2 of land,


& in over a thousand years you might have over a billion followers.


 


I like building things. Please don't break the big ones.


& evidential philosophies that dare to extrapolate beyond


an individual's direct experience aren't easily built.

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Like I said in Lyi's blog entry, it's really a function of how much one dislikes 2009-10. 

 

But I'd like to draw attention to one more thing that I've just touched on - every single Bionicle year arc had a happy ending, or at least a bittersweet one, previous to 2008. That's what gave the 2008 twist so much shock and impact - it was a subversion of every single year arc ending ever. To end there would be even more of a shock - and it would be outrage.

 

Bionicle's story has foreshadowed epic twists before. But it doesn't foreshadow downer endings. To end there would be a subversion of what came before. Plus it leaves HUGE plot threads hanging, like:  What happened to Mata Nui? What happens to everyone in the robot? WHY DOES THE ROBOT EXIST??? What is it's purpose?

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Evil is a fundamental law of the universe. And yes, the bad guys have to win sometimes. That's the cold, hard, truth of realty. If the good guys always win, then are they really good? What's the point of separating the different sides of the same coin if it's always going to land on heads?

 

Just my 2 pesos. 

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Evil is a fundamental law of the universe. And yes, the bad guys have to win sometimes. That's the cold, hard, truth of realty. If the good guys always win, then are they really good? What's the point of separating the different sides of the same coin if it's always going to land on heads?

 

I see what you mean, but ending with Makuta winning leaves good having never won (because all previous good victories in earlier Bionicle years were part of his long term plan) and evil with the greatest victory. That's basically the same problem that you pointed out, but with the two sides reversed.

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Technically, there were two endings. One with evil winning and the second with good winning. Kind of like with Star Wars: evil won at first, but later good won the war.

Yeah. But some people were arguing that they considered the one with evil winning the only legitimate, valid one. It's a good comparison—Star Wars couldn't afford to end with Empire Strikes Back, because that movie's ending only happened that way in the first place to set up for a third, triumphant chapter of the trilogy.

 

Or in other words—the ending of the 2008 story works, and works well, but only because it's also the start of the 2009 story. If the story as a whole had ended with Makuta's victory in 2008, it would have been a terrible, meaningless, and disrespectful end to the series.

 

My reference to Star Wars was actually referring to the prequel trilogy ending with evil winning but a sliver of hope still existing, and the original trilogy picking up with the galaxy wreathed in shadows and hopelessness, and from darkness light starts out as a speck, but grows to blind out the darkness and crush it.

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I'm not going to argue anymore. I've stated my opinion, and the only thing people seem to pick up on is my love for the 2008 ending, not that I even bothered offering my opinion on the later years. I've loved Bionicle ever since the start, and to imply I didn't just because I like the depressing ending that actually wasnt the ending is uncalled for.

 

Back on point, I don't really have an ending for Bionicle, because it was a mess to follow after the line ended. Do I consider JE the End? Yeah, I do. Because the alternative is accepting seemingly-unfinished story bits. I'd rather have a vague ending than none at all.

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I'm not going to argue anymore. I've stated my opinion, and the only thing people seem to pick up on is my love for the 2008 ending, not that I even bothered offering my opinion on the later years. I've loved Bionicle ever since the start, and to imply I didn't just because I like the depressing ending that actually wasnt the ending is uncalled for.

 

Back on point, I don't really have an ending for Bionicle, because it was a mess to follow after the line ended. Do I consider JE the End? Yeah, I do. Because the alternative is accepting seemingly-unfinished story bits. I'd rather have a vague ending than none at all.

Sahmad's Tale ended after Journey's End, do you except that one? Just curious.

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I'm not going to argue anymore. I've stated my opinion, and the only thing people seem to pick up on is my love for the 2008 ending, not that I even bothered offering my opinion on the later years. I've loved Bionicle ever since the start, and to imply I didn't just because I like the depressing ending that actually wasnt the ending is uncalled for.

 

Back on point, I don't really have an ending for Bionicle, because it was a mess to follow after the line ended. Do I consider JE the End? Yeah, I do. Because the alternative is accepting seemingly-unfinished story bits. I'd rather have a vague ending than none at all.

Sahmad's Tale ended after Journey's End, do you except that one? Just curious.

Eeehhh, see that's the problem. I wish I could change my vote, now that I've rethought it in the past few minutes.

 

I acknowledge everything Greg wrote, and anything considered canon, but I'd like it if Journey's End was the end. It keeps things a bit cleaner.

 

I'd also like to take a second and explain what I have been trying to convey in my previous posts.

 

I LIKE the Makuta-winning-ending. I WOULD NOT have liked it to end that way. I said that differently in my first post. It wouldn't have been a very Bionicle-ish ending. I just hate that everything after that ended up being a mess.

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I simply said that cutting off the Bara Magna part of the storyline leaves you with a horribly bleak ending for the franchise as a whole. Going back to the original vision for the franchise, it would have been like the cancer (Makuta) taking over the body (GSR) despite the medicine (Toa Mata) and the body being left floating in the void to die.

:r: :e: :g: :i: :t: :n: :u: :i:

Elemental Rahi in Gen2, anyone? A write-up for an initial video for a G2 plot

 

I really wish everyone would stop trying to play join the dots with Gen 1 and Gen 2 though,it seems there's a couple new threads everyday and often they're duplicates of already existing conversations! Or simply parallel them with a slightly new 'twist'! Gen 2 is NEW, it is NOT Gen 1 and it is NOT a continuation. Outside of the characters we already have I personally don't want to see ANY old characters return. I think it will cheapen the whole experience to those of us familiar with the original line...

 

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it would have been a terrible, meaningless, and disrespectful end to the series.

There is obviously room for meaningless, as yes it made many of their actions moot: Teridax won.

Those others however aren't necessarily objective truths. Prove me wrong.

 

Terrible might apply insofar as a it's a bad ending for the protagonists, but not all of the audience is going to find it a terrible story(-segment)/ending — as evidenced by this thread.

 

Disrespectful?

Respect is a social construct that varies from group to group.

 

Yes some people would have taken it as TLG left Bionicle in a bad place (from protagonist perspective), because they didn't like the protagonists, & Bionicle by extension(?); but not everyone would have taken it this way.

Some would have taken it as a cool ending, some would have found it a good premise for fanfiction, it wouldn't have been as rushed as the latter years...

& some people appreciate things being done 'unrushed' more than a nice happy ending.

 

Regardless, some would have hated it some would have enjoyed it.

 

Terrible because it would use a twist ending purely for shock value, with no deeper meaning or message. Makuta won... why exactly? Not because the Toa had some tragic flaw that would justify a downer ending. Not because they had made some terrible mistake and were reaping the rewards of that. No, the ending you and the others are advocating suggests that the Toa should have lost solely because Makuta was an impossibly good planner, and might makes right, and despite their best efforts the forces of good could never have possibly triumphed over evil. Darkness for darkness's sake, edginess for edginess's sake... pretty much the epitome of the worst of Bionicle's writing and promotion. "Sound and fury, signifying nothing".

 

Disrespectful because it would undermine every single previous event in the story. All the Toa's victories, wiped out. All the characters you knew and loved? Well, the living ones would have lived for nothing, and the dead ones would have died for nothing. "Thanks for following the story for eight years, kids! As a reward, we're killing off all hope for your heroes. That's it. That's the end. The good guys fail, evil wins, everyone lives miserably ever after."

 

If this were solely about the story seeming "rushed", then it's entirely possible to consider the story finished in 2008—provided you rewrite the ending to have Makuta's plan fail and have Mata Nui awaken for real (like what would have inevitably happened if the story HAD had to end for real that year). Congratulations! You are left with a nice, concise ending that DOESN'T spit in the face of the entire previous story. But the fact that people are suggesting that the villain SHOULD have won baffles me, because it indicates that people are more interested in a shocking twist than anything remotely resembling good storytelling.

 

 

Evil is a fundamental law of the universe. And yes, the bad guys have to win sometimes. That's the cold, hard, truth of realty. If the good guys always win, then are they really good? What's the point of separating the different sides of the same coin if it's always going to land on heads?

 

I see what you mean, but ending with Makuta winning leaves good having never won (because all previous good victories in earlier Bionicle years were part of his long term plan) and evil with the greatest victory. That's basically the same problem that you pointed out, but with the two sides reversed.

 

This exactly. I have not argued ONCE that Makuta should not have taken over or that 2008 had a bad ending. My point is that if you end the series as a whole with that, you have essentially established that good can NEVER triumph over evil and that every single heroic action the Toa ever made was a waste.

 

 

 

Technically, there were two endings. One with evil winning and the second with good winning. Kind of like with Star Wars: evil won at first, but later good won the war.

Yeah. But some people were arguing that they considered the one with evil winning the only legitimate, valid one. It's a good comparison—Star Wars couldn't afford to end with Empire Strikes Back, because that movie's ending only happened that way in the first place to set up for a third, triumphant chapter of the trilogy.

 

Or in other words—the ending of the 2008 story works, and works well, but only because it's also the start of the 2009 story. If the story as a whole had ended with Makuta's victory in 2008, it would have been a terrible, meaningless, and disrespectful end to the series.

 

My reference to Star Wars was actually referring to the prequel trilogy ending with evil winning but a sliver of hope still existing, and the original trilogy picking up with the galaxy wreathed in shadows and hopelessness, and from darkness light starts out as a speck, but grows to blind out the darkness and crush it.

 

I recognize that, but since Star Wars was not written chronologically, Empire Strikes Back works better for the metaphor. The downer ending of Revenge of the Sith only worked because of the inevitability of the previously established victory in Return of the Jedi. But the prequel trilogy wouldn't have even happened if not for the previous trilogy concluding, so there's really no way Revenge of the Sith's ending could exist independently of Return of the Jedi.

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Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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so what 2008 ended on a dark note? not every lego story has to end with " and the day was saved!" its nice to have a change of pace from legos typical bright and sunny story endings.

Most LEGO themes end with happy endings for a good reason. A story that ended by undoing every good thing that happened before it and telling kids that evil always wins in the end would be a change of pace, certainly, but not a good one.

 

No LEGO theme has ever ended by telling its readers to kill themselves, either. But that doesn't mean that they should, or that it would be "nice to have a change of pace".

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excuse me for not being mr. rainbows and sunshine.

 

telling kids that everything works out in the end is just setting them up for heartbreak when they grow up and find out that the world isn't what they thought it was.

 

and the good guys winning all the time is just plain boring story telling.

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excuse me for not being mr. rainbows and sunshine.

 

telling kids that everything works out in the end is just setting them up for heartbreak when they grow up and find out that the world isn't what they thought it was.

 

and the good guys winning all the time is just plain boring story telling.

 

You're not telling them that everything works out in the end. You're telling them that by making the right choices, they can make a difference. There's nothing wrong with the good guys losing from time to time, but if you end the story there it sends the message that even if you do everything right, nothing you accomplish will ever matter and you might as well not even try.

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telling kids that everything works out in the end is just setting them up for heartbreak when they grow up and find out that the world isn't what they thought it was.

 

But telling kids that every effort to do right will fail and wrong will win forever is just setting them up to never bother trying to do right at all. Is that a better message to put across?

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beats breaking their little hearts with lies and falsehoods of perpetually happy stories.

It's not an either/or choice. You can have a story with ups and downs and let the heroes lose sometimes without permanently making every one of their victories meaningless. And the official BIONICLE story had those ups and downs without undermining its own moral values. The BIONICLE story taught us that fighting for what is right actually matters, and that heroes can make a difference. That's what makes the official G1 BIONICLE storyline so much better than the soul-crushing story you seem to have wanted. For that matter, that even makes the Hero Factory story better than the story you wanted G1 BIONICLE to be. At least Hero Factory never tried to tell kids that trying to do the right thing is worthless.

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not soul crushing, real.

 

you cant always win.

You keep bringing that up. Nobody here has said otherwise. But there's a difference between "you can't always win" and "you can't EVER win", which is what you're advocating by saying only Makuta should have ever gotten a lasting victory.

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I don't understand why everyone is still on about this.

 

...the fact that people are suggesting that the villain SHOULD have won baffles me, because it indicates that people are more interested in a shocking twist than anything remotely resembling good storytelling.

 

I don't believe anyone except Salvus has said anything remotely saying "it SHOULD have ended that way." I said the exact opposite in my last post, and anyone "advocating" for said ending is simply defending its validity.

 

Also, shocking twists CAN be good storytelling, so you may want to reword that.

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Yarr, but you don't END the story with the shocking twist. That's bad storytelling. You let the readers see the ramifications of said twist play out and resolve themselves before you cut the story off.

I would disagree. I've read, watched, and written enough to see the good and bad of something like that. Of course, that's just my opinion, so that's neither here nor there.

 

You simply expanded upon my point, in the negative aspect. ("CAN be")

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not soul crushing, real.

 

you cant always win.

"Welcome back to Metru Nui, Heroes, you have saved us all." Stars form into Kraakhan. "Toa Nuva, you have doomed us all. You are banished from the city." *end*

 

What a horrible ending. While a twist ending could be good, this one wouldn't be anything but a horrendous disappointment. It isn't realistic (we're reading a story about biomechanical nanotech), nor is it even cynical. That's pure, outright fatalistic. When you end a story with 'the bad guy won despite everything', you're destroying the themes of 'working together we can do anything' the series was built on. I'm not much of a Transformers fan, but who would genuinely think that having (say) Armada end with Unicron killing Optimus Prime and Megatron and then eating Earth and Cybertron would be a good ending?

 

Salvus, have you had a significant other break up with you, or a loved one die, over the past week? That's how you seem to be talking, from the dark side of a deep bout of depression.

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:r: :e: :g: :i: :t: :n: :u: :i:

Elemental Rahi in Gen2, anyone? A write-up for an initial video for a G2 plot

 

I really wish everyone would stop trying to play join the dots with Gen 1 and Gen 2 though,it seems there's a couple new threads everyday and often they're duplicates of already existing conversations! Or simply parallel them with a slightly new 'twist'! Gen 2 is NEW, it is NOT Gen 1 and it is NOT a continuation. Outside of the characters we already have I personally don't want to see ANY old characters return. I think it will cheapen the whole experience to those of us familiar with the original line...

 

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If this is what people call soul crushing, I wonder what they tell themselves to keep their 'soul' going...

 

Maybe if they didn't work together things would be even worse; but alas that avenue was never really looked at in depth even though it wasn't exactly uncommon...

 

Most of us are just stating opinions; they aren't necessarily objectively true.

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~ Sophistry: A way to be antidisuncorrect. ~


 


 


In a decade you might convince maybe a small tribe of people.


In a decade you might also conquer one million km2 of land,


& in over a thousand years you might have over a billion followers.


 


I like building things. Please don't break the big ones.


& evidential philosophies that dare to extrapolate beyond


an individual's direct experience aren't easily built.

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Salvus, have you had a significant other break up with you, or a loved one die, over the past week? That's how you seem to be talking, from the dark side of a deep bout of depression.

I don't think we should be making assumptions here. His words probably only sound depressive because what he is defending with them is depressive. He's exhibiting classic smoke-screen behavior, throwing objection after objection after objection to try to defend himself, even when the objections are depressing and don't make much sense. Mr. Salvus has some unique and interesting preferences, and he feels the need to defend them against others who find them reprehensible.

 

It's an old pattern. I used to get kicks out of it myself (NOT saying that Salvus does) because if you defend your preference, your statement is ALWAYS objectively true, so you're always right! Being right is a huge boost to the ego...you can totally walk away laughing, every time. It's damaging to others, however, which is why I try not to do it any more, as evilly fun as it is.  

 

I would disagree. I've read, watched, and written enough to see the good and bad of something like that. Of course, that's just my opinion, so that's neither here nor there.

 

You simply expanded upon my point, in the negative aspect. ("CAN be")

I don't think anyone is arguing that shocking twists can't be good storytelling, or that this shocking twist was bad. But part of what made this twist so shocking is that we expected the good guys to win (like they had every year for pretty much all 7 years prior).

 

But in this case (but perhaps, not necessarily in all cases), this twist left several things unresolved. Ending with it would have proved to be an unsatisfactory resolution because the story isn't really resolved. (What happened to Mata Nui? How will the Toa survive? etc being the most pressing questions.)

 

Most of us are just stating opinions; they aren't necessarily objectively true.

All taste-preference-opinions are objectively true. ToaSalvus' opinion "I would have liked the Bionicle story to have ended in 2008" is an objectively true statement - that's his valid preference. What is getting people here is that they don't share that preference and find it unstomachable - and that Salvus has implied that it was the best way to end Bionicle. That implication - not the valid taste-preference - is anathema (and very wrong, as all of you have pointed out for very valid reasons).

 

If I walked in here and said that "I would have liked Bionicle to end in 2008 with the big twist but I understand that it wouldn't have happened for XYZ reasons." I bet you $50 no debate would have broken out here. But it took me years of life changes and refining my way of thinking before I fully understood the difference between what I wanted, what was actually real, and what was going to happen, and could accurately reflect that in my wording. Even now sometimes that distinction wants to blur, and I've caught myself talking smoke screens.

 

As one wise debater once said "if someone won't stop blowing smoke, leave them alone". The man is right. If this being spewing nonsense everywhere drives you up the wall, try rephrasing his statements in terms of "I like this to have happened" rather than "It should happen". Because that is the way this matter is solved in the end - eventually the smoke-screen-blower finds themselves alone in a corner, unable to get the attention they crave through their smoke-screen-antagonism. They realize that nobody cares about their taste-preference any more.

 

And the sooner that happens, the sooner they start searching for something that people will actually listen to. When that happens, truth tends to seep in through the cracks. Sometimes they can come up with new lies, though, which is why this process can take years to unwind. (That, and the fact that other people can agree with their screens, making it even harder.)

 

The bottom line is, having an eccentric-taste-preference does not give you a license to shove it down everyone else's throat. But writing a bunch of posts saying so won't change this situation. Failing to give this person the attention they want will.

Edited by fishers64
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not soul crushing, real.

you cant always win.

"Welcome back to Metru Nui, Heroes, you have saved us all." Stars form into Kraakhan. "Toa Nuva, you have doomed us all. You are banished from the city." *end*

What a horrible ending. While a twist ending could be good, this one wouldn't be anything but a horrendous disappointment. It isn't realistic (we're reading a story about biomechanical nanotech), nor is it even cynical. That's pure, outright fatalistic. When you end a story with 'the bad guy won despite everything', you're destroying the themes of 'working together we can do anything' the series was built on. I'm not much of a Transformers fan, but who would genuinely think that having (say) Armada end with Unicron killing Optimus Prime and Megatron and then eating Earth and Cybertron would be a good ending?

Salvus, have you had a significant other break up with you, or a loved one die, over the past week? That's how you seem to be talking, from the dark side of a deep bout of depression.

Hard to lose a significant other when you've never had one... :,(

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if you defend your preference, your statement is ALWAYS objectively true, so you're always right!

 

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that your statement is empirically nonsense, since an internal experience such as enjoyment cannot be independently verified by sense data?  In an empirical/positivist approach, I think we would have to say that a preference cannot have a truth value.  (Could someone who has read Schlick more recently than I verify--pardon the pun--this?)  And then of course I'd ask why you suppose preferences do in fact have truth values and why both a statement and its negation can have the same truth value.  (For instance, if the statement, "BIONICLE is cool" is true because it states my preference, then how can the preference-statement* "BIONICLE is not cool" [i.e., the negation of our first statement] also be true?)  Exactly whose theory of aesthetics are you following here?  And, more importantly, how does this theory of aesthetics square with your stances on the role of logic?

 

*Please excuse my invention of this terminology; I cannot think offhand of a good term for what you mean by statements defending a preference.

 

~ BioGio

 

"You're a scientist? The proposal you make violates parsimony; it introduces extra unknowns without proof for them. One might as well say unicorns power it."

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Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that your statement is empirically nonsense, since an internal experience such as enjoyment cannot be independently verified by sense data?  

I would say that it is indeed verifiable. If I'm enjoying myself, I usually have a smile on my face, which an observer can see and verify.

 

And then of course I'd ask why you suppose preferences do in fact have truth values and why both a statement and its negation can have the same truth value.  (For instance, if the statement, "BIONICLE is cool" is true because it states my preference, then how can the preference-statement* "BIONICLE is not cool" [i.e., the negation of our first statement] also be true?)  

Because preferences are aspects of different people (i.e. objects).

 

If I have a book that is red, and I say "this book is red." that is an objectively true statement. The book does have the color red; it is true. That does not mean that all books are red - in fact, there is a white book right next to it. The whiteness of the second book does not negate the redness of the first book - they are two different objects with two different properties.

 

In the same way, people have different preferences. "I think Bionicle is cool." is a preference statement. I own it; it is an aspect of me. "I think Bionicle is not cool." is also a preference statement, which Joe holds - it is an aspect of him. Two different people, two different preferences, two difference aspects of two different people. Thus they cannot contradict each other - they refer to two different things.

 

A fundamental aspect of an entity does not change because another entity has another fundamental aspect. I have brown eyes. This statement is true. Anyone in my immediate area can verify it. Does that mean that everyone else in the world has brown eyes? Does the fact that not everyone in the world has brown eyes make that statement false? No, because I still have brown eyes.

 

In the same way "I like Bionicle" is a true statement. Now does everyone like Bionicle? No. Does that change the fact that I like Bionicle? No. So all preference statements are true. They are a fundamental aspect of every human being, as valid as statements about eye color.

 

Exactly whose theory of aesthetics are you following here?  And, more importantly, how does this theory of aesthetics square with your stances on the role of logic?

My own. And I think I just answered that question above.

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To add: it's one thing to have a opinion on something in the sense that I thought it was terrible, & it feels terrible to me, (valid); it's another thing to say that something IS terrible (a valid experience, but as a statement of it's property you need evidence for any reasonable person to even consider that — even if the also found it to be a terrible experience [although if they're a reasonable person & that's there opinion they probably will have some evidence, but sometimes we have a feeling about something & we struggle to say what causes us to feel that way in particular], in short you can't 'truthfully' say that something IS X/Y/Z when there isn't a defined criteria.

 

Oh yeah, I still haven't been proved wrong.

~ Sophistry: A way to be antidisuncorrect. ~


 


 


In a decade you might convince maybe a small tribe of people.


In a decade you might also conquer one million km2 of land,


& in over a thousand years you might have over a billion followers.


 


I like building things. Please don't break the big ones.


& evidential philosophies that dare to extrapolate beyond


an individual's direct experience aren't easily built.

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To be clear, I absolutely agree with iblis' statements - that's why this entire debate exists in the first place. If I say "this is terrible", then the preference I hold about the object "this" is a valid and true statement, since I do hold that viewpoint. It is true.

 

However, if I imply that all beings hold the same preference as I do, that is a logically invalid statement, since it would take only one being with a different preference than me to invalidate my statement. Therefore preferences are NOT universally applicable, the same way aspects of entities like books and eyes are not universally applicable. 

 

What started this debate was a statement that Lego should act in accordance with their personal tastes. This is a logically invalid statement because other people have different preferences than him, and that should be taken into account in a marketing strategy. It's also selfishness - elevating your personal tastes above others, and not understanding that you have no right to.  

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To be clear, I absolutely agree with iblis' statements - that's why this entire debate exists in the first place. If I say "this is terrible", then the preference I hold about the object "this" is a valid and true statement, since I do hold that viewpoint. It is true.

 

Then you aren't actually talking about the preference per se, but rather the fact that a person has the preference.  These are two very different things; namely, the second is a (potentially discrete) internal experience.  Consider the similarity in syntax of the statements:  "this is terrible" and "this is red."  In both cases, the subject is "this," not "I who am making this statement."  But you've said that preferences refer instead to the person making the statement.  So when you said earlier that "your statement is always objectively true," you actually meant that "the speech act of stating your statement is always objectively true" (i.e., your statement does in fact refer some internal experience--such as a thought or opinion--and you did in fact articulate it).

 

So to use the simple example I gave earlier, we have the preference per se "BIONICLE is cool," as well as the speech acts stating preference* "I think BIONICLE is cool" and "Joe thinks BIONICLE is not cool."  Do you think that the statement "BIONICLE is cool" has a truth value?  According to Schlick, it doesn't.  So far (well, discounting your original statement that failed to distinguish between preference and speech act, and discounting your later example regarding the statement "this is terrible"), you've only claimed that both of the speech acts are true; so I'm curious as to what you think about the truth value of the preference per se.

*Perhaps better said as "statements relating speech acts stating preference," but that takes up a lot more space.

 

Now, if we continue to make this distinction between preference and speech act stating preference, ignoring the preference per se, then operating within your theory of aesthetics we will see that every speech act concerning a preference is true.  But that's a rather useless approach to anything (including, I hope to show, aesthetics).

 

Consider the following statements:

A:  This apple is red.  (Parallel to "BIONICLE is cool.")

B:  Tom thinks that this apple is red.  (i.e., Tom believes A)

C:  Dick thinks that this apple is not red.  (i.e., Dick believes the negation of A)

 

In this scenario, we may imagine that Dick has a rare form of color-blindness that means he can only distinguish between "red" and "not-red"; lamentably, he also sometimes identifies red objects (say, apples) as being not-red.  Thus, both B and C are true, but the beliefs embedded within (respectively, A and ~A) cannot both be true.  So we have something very similar to what you were talking about earlier.  The proposition itself (A) must be either true or false, and so must be Tom and Dick's respective beliefs as to the proposition's truth values (B and C); however, both B and C can be true even though they contain embedded within them mutually contradictory statements.

 

But this raises an interesting point:  How can we distinguish between a preference (e.g., one's enjoyment of a fictional story) and a perception (e.g., the color one sees in an apple)?  Are we then to throw our hands up in the air and say, "Both B and C are true, and that's all I can tell"?  (I can probably come up with an answer here and even link you to some relevant literature, but I'm curious to see how you engage with this problem.)

 

I'd also ask the following questions:

 

Precisely what evidence is necessary to verify someone's internal experience?  If a stroke victim cannot smile, can we be sure that they enjoy something?  If a coma patient is in pain, how can we verify this?  Even bracketing these larger questions, how can you be sure that someone on the internet is not lying about their opinions?  If I post that BIONICLE should have ended in 2003, by what means can you verify that I actually believe this?

 

Similarly, how do we know that Dick is actually color-blind?  What if he's just being difficult on purpose?  How can I verify the internal experiences that are his perceptions?

 

Why do you believe that objects have properties?  Have you ever directly experienced a property?  Or have you only experienced a sensation presumably caused by this property?  (If you want to explore this question in more depth, I recommend reading first Plato, then Bishop George Berkeley, and then Bertrand Russell, plus probably some other works on the question of qualia/properties/Dingen an sich/etc.  Those names a just a few halfway decent signposts in the debate over whether objects themselves have properties and whether objects/properties exist.  Some readings in philosophy of language and broader philosophy of science may also help.)

 

Oh, and one last trifling matter:

 

valid and true statement [...] invalidate my statement [...] This is a logically invalid statement

 

Statements, by the definition of validity, cannot be invalid.  Statements have truth values.  The phrase "logically invalid statement" runs counter to the actual definitions used in logic, as described by logicians.  I understand that you actually mean to say "true," but these sorts of fuzzy semantics can get out of hand, especially since we're talking about truth values here.

 

Throughout all of your posts here, you've been doing philosophy, so demonstrating greater familiarity with the acceptable terminology of the field would be helpful (although not technically necessary).  (It also wouldn't hurt to try to gain a greater familiarity with the history of these ideas, and the greater modern dialogue in which you are participating--if only because it can be fun to see that you're not the only one who's thought these things)

 

~ BioGio

 

EDIT:  It appears that I have gone from using the term "preference-statement" to instead selecting the term "preference per se."  They mean the same thing, i.e., the statement which communicates the content of a preference.

Edited by BioGio

 

"You're a scientist? The proposal you make violates parsimony; it introduces extra unknowns without proof for them. One might as well say unicorns power it."

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