Siduri's kiss

Have you ever tried playing chess on modafinil?

I know, right?  I don't know what I did wrong... I kept everything, EVERYTHING the same as last week, but my love went unrequited, and now I tremble with fear that this coming Saturday I will be rejected again... but you never know... some girls admire perseverance... maybe... maybe...

In order to remove "what's her name" from your thoughts, just think of her with no hair on her head but plenty on her face and chest. Problem solved. ;)

You may well be right, I really expected "Siduri's kiss" last Saturday, my blood was loaded with B12, adrenaline, endorphins, ethanol and I found a key tactic that destroyed my poor opponent, but as soon as I found it... I... I... was expecting more... the pleasure was not even close to what I remember Siduri's kiss to be... maybe you're right that I need to just focus on the game and let any euphoria occur naturally... chasing the chess "high" is rarely a good idea. I will take your advice to heart and just repeat the same conditions again this Saturday, but this time with no expectations. I hope it works... or not... whatever... see? I'm doing it already :)

Regarding your second point, the ancient Greek philosopher, Chrysippus of Soli, created an original system of propositional logic in order to better understand the workings of the universe and role of humanity within it. In propositional logic, modus ponendo ponens ("the way that affirms by affirming") can be used to determine if something, or someone, exists. Thus, by using the propositional logic "If A, then B - A - Therefore, B" paradigm, I can reach the truth underlying Siduri's putative existence:

Someone must exist in order to kiss;

I was kissed by Siduri;

Therefore, Siduri exists.

You are indeed correct that I can not make the claim "I was kissed by Siduri" with certainty, but I ask you, what claims can one make with certainty?  According to the modern philosopher Simon Blackburn, the author of "Think", the only thing we can know with certainty is that we are thinking entities.  A concept that dates back to Rene Descartes, the 17th century French philosopher, who stated in his seminal work (Discourse on the Method) "Cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am).  According to Blackburn, we stand alone on the Cogito rock in a sea of doubt and can not know anything else with certainty.  Wouldn't it be much nicer if Siduri was on the rock with us...

DrJamesB: You can not think I without an implicit assumption of you or we etc.. Otherwise makes 'I' no sense. I is never i-solated from its environment. He should write a book 'Rethink' (or start reading Levinas or understanding the word Ubuntu, which can mean among others 'I am because you are').

It's time to Kiss Off Siduri, and perhaps Descartes, as well. 

If you really follow Descartes to the end, then is a brain already much to much. You should not stop before the swinging in emptiness of 'I doubt'. That is what DrJamesB did not mention, but it is critical to understand Descartes.

The value is the experience of existing, which is a very amazing thing. You do it now, it is very very special, please stop for it, take a look at it, feel it and dive into it. And when you go real deep, that is where you will meet the basic thoughts of some great philosophers like Socrates, Plato, Descartes, Heidegger, Levinas, Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, Bergson, Sartre etc.. Only there can you understand the deepness and sincerity of their thoughts.

And when you then experience your true existing, you might get the kiss of Siduri. :-)

Loek, thank you for your wonderful posts. I hope you will contribute more posts to this thread. Esoteric philosophical discussions, sexy Babylonian goddesses and chess, am I dreaming? (--Pinches oneself--)... no... still here... trying to write a boring grant and getting increasingly distracted by the chess.com forums... again... Anyway, I will take your advice to heart and hopefully put it to good use this Saturday (my day off)... after loading up on unnatural levels of B12 (and other vitamins), running 6 miles with little water, rapidly drinking three pints of beer (on an essentially empty stomach), I will commence playing a 30/0 live chess game, here on chess.com, and at the exact moment I (hopefully) feel a profound chess-induced revelation, I will follow your suggestion and reflect on the experience of existing... in that moment... in that second... the second that all of those factors collide... the feeling of the endorphins released from running and (possibly) dehydration... the relaxing pleasure of a few pints of good beer... the joy (seratonin and dopamine) of discovery and victory... and hopefully... maybe... I will get to again feel the euphoric kiss of Siduri - or Pelikan_Player if they are one in the same :) - Thank you!

But for a few short hours, I may feel the existentialist euphoria of her presence... her lips... her kiss...  the anticipation is killing me...

My eyes open far too early. Today is the big day and my body and mind know it. I have only been asleep for about 5 hours at this point. Damn it! Several attempts to get back to sleep are laughed at by Hypnos, who sees that his domain no longer holds what my heart desires. I remind myself to play it cool, I remind myself to contemplate on my existence of being, but most of all, I remind myself of the wave of pleasure that may soon be mine with her kiss...

... the faint bleeping sound is the first thing I register ... penetrating the blanket of nothingness that wraps my mind... followed quickly by a throbbing pain emanating from my stomach, arms and one of my legs ... the excruciating underlying pain dulled, probably by morphine or some other analogous blocker of my pain nociceptors... I try to get my bearings... who am I? where am I? why an I here? ... the big three questions of life... I reach back into the depths of my mind for the answers, like a drunk desperately searching below the cooler's floating ice layer for that last precious can of beer... but the answers are hard to grasp and slip out of my fingers, like a freshly caught fish, stretching and twisting every muscle to escape my possession... I crack open my eyes... I can feel that they are severely sleep encrusted... I must have been out for days... all at once, it all floods back to me, the arena, the gladiator, the battle that I had lost... how did I survive? I saw enough of my own blood to fill a wash basin... I should be dead... and then I remember... I remember the dream... the dream of discovering the ultimate chess truth... the grand unification theory of chess and beer... and the dream of her... and the anger that had sustained me... I had been ROBBED of the ultimate knowledge... I had been ROBBED of enlightenment... I had been ROBBED of her kiss... I had stubbornly refused to die until I discovered the truth of chess... I had rejected the shadowy grasp of Death's hand until I had once more experienced the pleasure, the joy, the euphoria of Siduri's kiss... I tore off the monitors, needles and drips and arose shakily... and then staggered out of the hospital to find my way back to that chess battle field... I broke into a run, and ran 6 miles through the hot Santa Monica sands... I arrived at the holy ground... my laboratory... the battlefield... where I had earlier experienced my humiliating defeat... I drank of the sacred fermented libations... three pints thus consumed... and with vengeance on my mind, in my dreams and within my soul, I played e4...