Question of Values.

Which is more important: The butter or the bread? Before you just give an answer.. Why?

Or even, rather.. A friend of mine noticed, a goldfish cannot be caught on a fishing rod. What does that tell you?

May I remind you, I mean this in a metaphor/values/philosophy point of view. Whichever you see fits the quesions I've given at hand.

I plan to let all of you post your opinions and merely ask questions, and let you debate amongst yourselves, where I will later get involved.

Why?

Oh, Britt.
You're using it in a literal sense.

Fair enough.

If anything, I'd say society trained them to be stupid.

Why do you think I'd say that?

This is all about your opinion.

But i have the rest of mine for later. :]

This made me snort.

My opinion on the whole gold fish thing isn't that society taught them not to be stupid enough to grab onto the hook. Because, like. . . society is teaching people to grab onto the hook to the point of death. Literally, you got all this 'in' stuff, by grabbing onto the hook you're losing your own values/morals and hanging onto theirs. They're catching you in this web of lies where they will EAT YOU. Like fishermen eat fish. Therefore, it's actually the opposite. Society is teaching FISH to grab onto the hook and be completely stupid. Where as those who don't grab onto the hook, such as the goldfish, are the better ones with their values/morals still intact.

And, the whole bread and butter thing.
Butter is better because it seriously spices things up. Bread may be the foundation, but you can't have a foundation with out 'spice'. Spice being your imagintion. Therefore you can't create a house or a friendship without a mind/imagination. You can't create love without one either.

Not completely imagination, either. Because. . . when you feel those things you feel in love and frienship it's almost like a spark. This person is my friend WOW. This person is my lover WOW. Hence, the butter/spice.

The bread comes later.
Plus you can't have bread and butter without butter.
Or bread without butter.
Because, it's just nasty. Mkay. Lmfao.

. . . I like toast without butter. it tastes the same. :|

You're on the right track towards my opinion Teria. But, if society can't tame something, they try to overcome it. True, we can't catch them on hooks. But also true, they then rely on us to survive. Release a goldfish into a lake. Will it live?

Mmm fish

Society can only overcome so much though, darling.

I don't know if a goldfish can really live in a lake, I'm not all up on my goldfish facts. Lol. But, I do know [using us as goldfish]. . . That in order to live in the lake the goldfish may have to mold it's life around the lake, while at the same time living in the lake with it's own beliefs and thoughts.

In literal terms you can be yourself and still 'out do' society. Not being in and such.

The goldfish might not have many bigfish friends to fend for it, but it has to learn to fend for itself or it's honestly screwed.

Butter is more important.

Two slices of bread with nothing is two pieces of bread.

Two pieces of bread with some thick salty butter is a sandwich.

Think about it.

Yes but you could also say

Bread is more important

Two dolops of butter is two dollops of butter

Two dollops of butter on a piece of crunchy warm freshly baked bread is heaven

Think about it

So you did think about it.

So i suppose the answer is pretty much the answer to most things. Depends and varies entirely on what the person values and holds important in society. And how they'll use what they choose

Haha i didn't think anyone would answer that quickly, no one is ever on when i am ( by no one i mean hardly anyone)

The answer is whatever you think it is. You failed to mention which option it was. You have an immense point Brett that has never been said by another.

I disagree Teria, I think Britt-bob is correct.

Without a decent base and foundation to all things, all people: the butter is merely useless. What lies beneath to all things is what possesses the ultimate importance, without it, it'd be like personality but no person.

You won't understand that because I'm not sure if I do. I'll get back to you later.

I happen to think both are important. Like in a friendship-- ofcourse you have the foundation, you get along well, your personalitites match..but without the butter, the spice, the effort..it just doesn't taste as good..so often we go for another option than just having the bread alone. Now if there wasn't bread..well would the whole thing not fall apart? The butter might keep it alive for a while but it won't last long. Butter will melt eventually.

I don't think one works without the other. That's the point..that's why we have them both together.
--Viola

Bread is better because butter doesn't provide enough sustenance to keep you going, but a person can live off of bread.

Goldfish probably can't be caught on a hook because their mouths are too small to fit around the hook.

Yes I'm being literal, and before you go and start saying I misinterpreted your whole be metaphysical crap at the begining, which you claimed britt did, let me explain something to you. The fathers of modern western philospohy, Aristotle and Plato, always disagreed on their ideas. Plato was more theoretical and ideological, and Aristostotle was always about the practical, or matter. One would think how it effects people, and one would focus on it being "truth."

Me, I would like to say your "butter" doesn't perform crap for the foundation, bread, it is something people think tastes good. If you always look at the stupid butter as being the spice of life before worrying about the basic needs of the individual then your philosophy is retarded and useless because it has entirely thrown out the window all good morals and values that philosophy stands for. You can't by pass the individual on your way to theory, or you get the society that we are starting to become. Butter is just an extra we claim to be a neccesity. It doesn't represent imagination or spice or mind because to get a complete person, the bread, you have to have those things. Butter would be the bmw, the mansion, the job.

As for the goldfish thing, it shows how people are unable to adapt in modern times. Get a smaller hook. Common sense completely unused, which it is often times. Being logical has passed by society because they are too busy worrying about the butter. Sure imagination is good, but it doesn't get you out of a refugee camp in Darfur and bring you to another country away from death..

Butter= Decartes Bread=Francis Bacon

Bring on the Bacon.

First off, Sir, I was picking on Britt with the 'literal' comment. She's a close friend. You raise an extremely good point with the fish, I'll give you that.

I think they're both equally important. Because if you just had the bread or just had the butter, I find that that doesn't necessarily taste good. But if you put them together you have a yummy piece of toast =)

Ugh, someone has been reading too many Eastern Philosophy books not meant for western minds.

Still my bread is buttered on both sides and Goldfish can't be caught on hooks because they aren't wild.

Poppycock.

You can indeed catch goldfish on hooks.

Been there, done it.

I understand paddy. :| Lol.
But, I do disagree.
yes, bread is the foundation. . . but it's nothing without butter.

take it as a friendship. you have two friends. . . but nothing to make it fun, or increase/decrease trust. you just have friends. they can't prove their strengths or weaknesses for one another. if they can trust or can' the other because they just sit there, nothing fun . . . no spice.

the whole goldfish thing... i didn't completely read everyones. but just because they can be caught doesn't mean they will be.

take the baby goldfish who can't fit their mouth on the hook thing. or whatever bob said. they're like the little kids here. innocent with nothing wrong. they can't get caught up in the entire society thing. but as they get older and grow. . . they have a huge chance of it. just as goldfish do.

i don't think it matters if it's a goldfish or not. it matters what kind of goldfish it is.

if there's kinds? probably not. but. . . oh well.

^You make a fair and valid point, my friend. But I can't say for certain that the bread always needs the butter.

Yeah. oh well.
i think that everyone's right.
lol.
bread needs butter.
butter needs bread.
fish need water.
water needs fish.

You know the big prblem with this post. It has nothing to do with values whatsoever. It is an abstract idea about what goldfish not being caught on a hook means? Or the relationship bread has with butter. Many people have described the bread as the foundation and butter as the imagination. Where does any of that have to do with values? Some people say they value one over the other because of whatever, but it is all a debate based on definition. It could have never reached values because the original poster failed to define terms and set guidelines by which everybody could think and share. Now we have massive amount of people saying something based on their own ideas while others have a completely different set of ideas about the terms.

I will define them as best as possible by the posts that I have read and try to come up with a middle ground.

Bread = foundation, or the individual human in most circumstances.

Butter = the spice, or the imagination, the creativity, the mind.

Now you see the problem with the post because if the bread equals the foundation, and in most circumstances the human is the foundation of what we have said, then the butter can't equal imagination or the creativity of the mind because both of those are found within the foundation of the human. They aren't extras, and they cannot be classified as extras. They don't exist outside of the person and therefore are parts of the foundation just as much as water is part of the cement.

So now we're at the question of what is the butter. Without this definition we have no basis to argue over values. Unless anyone would like to change the definition of bread, and leave the butter definition. Feel free. I would like to see what people say. As of now, I would define butter, but what I have proposed, as the extras of life, call them spices if you wish. Extras/spices as in the benefits one gets from a free-market/ democratic society: expensive, or non expensive, cars, and houses, and clothes, and fancy foods, and you now get the picture. These things that make people happy without actually being an intricate part of the homosapien make-up. With this definition, I would again say the bread is more important.