Not Knowing

Thoughts on the Occupy Movement

2011-11-15T16:59:00.000-07:00

The Occupy movement: A large drum circle combined with picket signs; followers and true believers wanting for a charismatic leader, for something to believe in. It was full of energy when it expressed the frustrations of the majority, but has since decayed, having no purpose and no constructive impetus -- and most importantly, no leader. It attempts to defy leadership, it attempts to champion egalitarianism. Mass movements, however, require leadership, humanity requires leadership -- it is in the mortal nature of humanity to seek a specific social structure. This isn't to say egalitarianism and democracy are impossible, but to say: for perfect equality all must achieve true psychological or philosophical autonomy. Even then, the nature of specialization necessitates the empowerment of certain specialists according to the needs of the greater whole. "We the people" are as soveriegn as ever, wherever we assume responsibility for ourselves, and accountability for the state of the nation, even in dire times. We are Wall Street, and we are Capitol Hill.

The Three Musketeers (A Response to the 2011 Movie Trailer)

2011-07-07T18:29:00.001-06:00

As an avid fan of Dumas, I was curious to see what the new Three Musketeers movie would be like, so I watched the trailer.

At first, I thought: D'Artagnan is well-cast, but acts nothing like D'Artagnan (groveling at the heroics of the three musketeers, when in the novel, D'Artagnan's bravado has him dueling them all on the same day). Porthos is horribly miscast. The Cardinal looks too young. Nice costumes.

Then the Duke of Buckingham arrives with a fleet of airships, and the Countess de Winter is a ninja assassin. There is slow-motion and dialogue comprised entirely of quips.

What disappoints me is that the movie only tries to cash in on the adventure, the bravado, the "all for one". The musketeers are about action and killing 40 or 400 men in a day (and to joke it was an "off day"). There is comparatively very little action in the novels. The action and bravado is D'Artagnan being a Gascon, part of his embodiment of a Romantic ideal. The other three musketeers, Aramis, Porthos, and Athos, each embody an aspect of the Romantic ideal as well; they embody chivalry. The story is in how that affects the musketeers, how it influences their actions, their words, and their lives as they unfold over decades. It's about honor, loyalty, compassion, faith, a sense of duty, maturity, and about bravery and wit and romance and love.

The movie is about airships, fight scenes, slow motion, and quip after quip. All that costing tens of millions to produce.

There are scenes in the novels where D'Artagnan sadly observes the character and quality of the up-and-coming generation -- the sycophantic, spineless courtiers driven by avarice and senseless to honor. Over the series, the musketeers watch as the Romantic ideals die with them.

I don't want to see the movie. I've already seen it. It has nothing to offer (except for maybe an argument for why copyright should be extended indefinitely).

It would be more efficient, and far more effective, to simply plug an electrode into the hypothalamus of movie-goers for 90 minutes.

(SATIRE) Apocolyptian-Aquarian: The sensible person's horoscope for May 2011

2011-05-20T16:54:00.002-06:00

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Bot fly larvae cause headache surely. Something may happen to you or someone you may know. Courage is needed. The time for reconciliation with a loved one can wait. The fortune cookie lied. Make room for love and love will make room for you. A heavy burden will be eased with time and plenty of fiber. If you let your body go it will come back to haunt you. Angels are watching over you. The odds are 10:1.

MacBeth: Hierarchy in The Witches Sabbath (adapted from a paper for ENG2300)

2011-05-18T17:38:00.002-06:00

"Double, double toil and trouble" is a familiar phrase, but its context is less well known. This line is found in Act 3 Scene 1 of Shakespeare's MacBeth, where it is chanted by three witches at their cauldron. The setting is described:

A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron boiling. Thunder.

It is part of a dark and dramatic scene called the Witches Sabbath. The focus of this essay is to answer whether or not the Witches Sabbath represents some kind of witchcraft hierarchy.

In analyzing the Witches Sabbath, I made a list of ingredients that the witches place in their cauldron in order of their appearance. I also made note of the particular witch that performs the action. My reckoning is appended to this analysis.

Approaching this quantitatively, if we rank the witches by the quantity of ingredients each witch added to the spell, we see:

Third Witch - 12

Second Witch - 11

Fourth Witch - 3

First Witch - 2

Fifth Witch - 1

Sixth Witch - 0

* Unattributed - 1

Ranked by the number of solo actions, we see both the Second Witch and the Fourth Witch act independently most often, each performing 3 actions. Unless the unattributed action of adding the three ounces of red-haired wench is attributed to the Sixth Witch, this Sixth Witch might as well not exist outside of the fact that the scene starts with three witches, and Hectate then enters with three more witches. Surely, then, it is not a stretch to assign this Sixth Witch the lowest caste and placing in the Twisted Hierarchy. If the Sixth is last, who then should be placed first?

The Third Witch adds the most ingredients. Furthermore, if we are to assume that the subjective value, or the importance of ingredients, follows a common, widespread cultural norm, shouldn't bits of frogs, snakes, bats, dogs, lizards and owlets be less important than bits of mythical creatures, foreigners, and stillborn babies? If so, not only does the Third Witch add the most ingredients, she also adds the most infamous of them.

Nevertheless, there are a few things about the Second Witch that stand out: She's there from the beginning, and acts independently as often as any of the witches, and altogether, she acts the most frequently. Perhaps even more notably, the Second Witch adds the final, intimate ingredient: "By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes" (61-62). (Note that I have considered that "By the pricking of my thumbs" could be interpreted as an exclamation, rather than infer any action on the Second Witch's part, but since actors often proclaim what they're doing, and because this, as a final act to complete the spell, has a certain affectation, I'll risk to err.)

Another notable, somewhat mysterious action in all this: the ambiguous witch who adds three ounces of red-haired wench. Is it to "rid the stench?" Does the "red-haired wench" refer to anyone in particular? Why is this action left to "A Witch" rather than to a specific witch? Does it mean anything? This time, rather than indulging in, say, the possibility the mysterious Sixth Witch is Lady Macbeth, or an extremely obscure reference to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, I'll surmise that these questions are unimportant and their details coincidental.

What about Hectate? She is a cthonic Greek deity of magic, necromancy, curses, witchcraft, ghosts, infernal spirits -- the supreme ruler of the borders between the natural and supernatural worlds -- and most significant to Macbeth, the crossroads are her dominion. Hectate is portrayed in Hellenistic art as a three-faced woman, and her likeness was erected over city gates to ward off evil spirits (or, if she was offended, to let them in). Her presence is signified by the barking of dogs (and she is often portrayed with dogs by her side), yet her nature is also polymorphous. Clearly, Hectate trumps all the other witches, which are only a pale reflection of her. Yet, Hectate adds no ingredients. She oversees, she has a ceremonial role.

Considering Hectate's supreme dominance, and the role she plays in the Witches Sabbath, it reasonable now to assume that the importance of the Twisted Hierarchy is not structured on the quantitative measures (the number of ingredients supplied) and if so, it is only among sub-dominants. So should hierarchical importance be relative to the kinds of ingredients or actions performed? Anciently, the most common form of tribute to Hectate was to leave meat at a crossroads, or (very rarely) a dog was sacrificed to her. Dogs were sacred and identified with Hectate. A tongue of dog is added by the Second Witch at line 16, but this seems less significant to Hectate and more important to rhyme with "toe of frog." Thus, I'm left with no sound reasoning to argue for an hierarchy present in the Witches Sabbath as relates to the acts, actors, or the ingredients. The inclusion of ingredients appears to be based on the needs of prose and rhyme; the choice of actors appears to be based on giving everyone their fair turn (excepting poor No. 6).

The Second Witch is compelling, as I've laid out previously, but the evidence is too nebulous to make claim for her as "the one to watch". Ingredients, on the other hand, start with bits of animals, and then become bits of corpses -- then they enter the pot pell-mell: blood and bane and oil and juice and that curious three ounces of red-haired wench. This leads me to believe there is no hierarchy in the importance or relevance to the ingredients, nor the sequence in which they are put into the cauldron. There also seems to be no connection between dog-based ingredients and Hectate, who resides over this Sabbath. Therefore, I have to conclude that the witches, the ingredients, the sequence, all are purposed to prose and rhyme rather than any meaningful witchcraft hierarchical significance.

Step	Action / Ingredient(s)	Performer(s)
1	Ingredients: poisoned entrails, toad venom.	First Witch
2	Incantation	All
3	Ingredients: fenny snake fillet, newt eye, frog toe, bat wool, dog tongue, adder fork, blind-worm sting, lizard leg, owlet wing.	Second Witch
4	Incantation	All
5	Ingredients: dragon scale, wolf tooth, witches' mummy (maw and gulf), salt-sea shark, root of hemlock (dug at night), blaspheming Jew's liver, goat gall, yew slips (silvered in a moon eclipse), Turk's nose, Tartar's lips, stillborn baby's finger, tiger's chauldron.	Third Witch
6	Incantation	All
7	Ingredient: baboon blood.	Second Witch
8	Enter Hectate and three more witches. Commendation. Command to encircle the cauldron and sing like elves and fairies. Enchantment of ingredients.	Hectate, All
9	Summoning incantation	Hectate
10	Evocation: Titty, Tiffin, Firedrake, Puckey, Liard, Robin.	Fourth Witch
11	Ingredient: bat blood.	Fourth Witch
12	Ingredient: grain of leopard's bane.	Fifth Witch
13	Ingredients: toad juice, adder oil.	Fourth Witch
14	Ingredient: red-haired wench (three ounces)	"A Witch"
15	Incantation	All
16	Ingredient: Second Witch's blood	Second Witch

Descartes's Meditation On First Philosophy (Meditation I.) Explicated

2010-07-22T21:56:00.003-06:00

(This was originally a paper for my Philosophy 1250 class.)

René Descartes was forty-five years old when he published his Meditationes de prima philosophia. He considered that at this age he had attained maturity; he had freedom from passions; he had security in retirement – therefore, he had come to an optimal position in which to overthrow the false opinions he had accrued in life. Descartes was convinced that it was necessary to question all that he knew, and that through this critical self-evaluation, he would “establish a firm and abiding superstructure in the sciences”. Through laying out the nature and purpose of this method of doubt, Descartes establishes for the reader, by way of empathy, the necessary foundation – a philosophical context – for the ideas and solutions he will present in later Mediations.

Descartes does not idly mention the place he finds himself in life: he illustrates the peace that makes an honest skepticism possible, free from mundane passions and anxieties. He had become aware several years before that he had accepted untruths, and from that, had developed unsound principles; but Descartes had considered, at that time, the endeavor of overthrowing these opinions of “great magnitude”, implying an honest attempt at doubt required his utmost faculties. This begins to define the nature of doubt, and its rigor.

He further defines his method of doubt by stating what is sufficient: he does not need to show that individual beliefs are false, but rather, question the principles on which all these beliefs rely. He compares this to demolishing the foundations of building, which necessitates the downfall of the whole edifice.

Then Descartes provides reason for doubt by stating that all certainty and truth in his life had come through the senses, and yet sometimes these senses misled him. He asserts that prudence requires doubt; that prudence dictates distrust of things “by which we have even once been deceived”.

To further define doubt, Descartes describes what he cannot doubt, and asserts what he regards as infallibly sound. He acknowledges that, while the senses occasionally mislead “respecting minute objects” ( here regarding this phenomenon as unimportant, or simply casually accepted mundane limitations of his being), he must also acknowledge that which is “manifestly impossible” to doubt: particularly, that he has physical form, or a point of observation with associated mortal intimations; that he occupies a location in space (particularly, on a chair by a fire); and, lastly, that he is engaged in the act of writing this Meditation. He will not question this, and colorfully describes that to doubt this manifestly sound truth is an act of madness: like a schizophrenic man with delusions of kingly grandeur, or even a man who believes himself a plant of the family Cucurbitacea. This seems to set Descartes' limits.

Having given this example of certainty, Descartes begins to lower the reader on a safety rope of sound reasoning into the depths of doubt. He twists certainty into uncertainty: as surely as Descartes is a man, he dreams, and in these dreams experiences illusions. Yet, again Descartes provides what seems solid ground on the “manifestly real”, to provide evidence of the safety line while he continues to persuade the reader to descend into doubt. Descartes asserts that all the objects found in his dreams must have had origins in a grounded reality, that they are only imitations of a real thing, and could not exist without something to be based on. He says, at the least, even were it possible to imagine an object that is completely novel – something that cannot be derived from any physical form – that this object will still be composed of colors, and that these colors are universal.

Descartes then prepares the reader for a final descent into doubt, into its furthest imaginable reaches, by delicately broaching the nature of Deity, reassuring by reaffirming that this nature is sovereignly good, and that the safety line is still secured, that the reader is safe to suspend his prejudices and beliefs. Now, Descartes destroys the seemingly solid ground he has just established: he proposes a thought experiment that allows the reader to consider doubt at its furthest depth – doubt allowed full potency, doubt empowered to invalidate all the previous examples of solid ground and sound reasoning in what must surely be “manifestly real”. The thought experiment supposes that an (nearly) all-powerful and malignant demon actively deceives Descartes in every way, and that absolutely nothing Descartes has sensed has validity independent of Descartes' mind (in a more modern context, Descartes might have imagined himself a brain in a jar – or possibly gone further and discounted dualism in favor of monism; nevertheless, this thought experiment helps set the stage for Descartes' concept of a dualist reality given absolute uncertainty).

In the environment of this thought experiment, Descartes posits that he must suspend judgment on the verity of everything: this is the rigor to which he must hold his doubt. Even if he is incapable, as in the case of the all-deceiving demon, of reaching perfect knowledge, it is still within his power to suspend judgment.

Finally, Descartes concedes that the demands of this doubt is an arduous undertaking, and that he is inclined, out of custom or indolence, to accept certain things that are unable to satisfy these unyielding demands. He shows that he shares a common faith with the reader in the acceptance of the state of being as-experienced by allowing himself his old beliefs. He returns the reader to solid ground.

Having given doubt its full range and afforded it full potency, Descartes has defined and demonstrated it, wielded it; he has elucidated the nature of doubt and its significance in the ideas and solutions he will subsequently present.

Wikipedia contributors. René Descartes. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. May 21, 2010, 11:56 UTC. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ren%C3%A9_Descartes&oldid=363183401. Accessed May 21, 2010.

René Descartes. Descartes' Meditations. July 27, 2005. Available at: http://www.wright.edu/cola/descartes/meditation1.html. Accessed May 21, 2010.

Dave's ideas on romantic love

2010-02-16T13:53:00.003-07:00

I actually wrote this a couple years ago, but I figured for Valentine's being in the discount bin, I'd add my penny-philosophies.

A person will feel the most intense romantic longing for whichever individual that person perceives as being the most socially desirable. Failing to achieve the affections of this desirable individual, a person will then accept an individual of less social stature -- however, a person will always seek to be with an individual that they perceive as being more socially desirable than themselves, then of equal social stature.

Romantic love, therefore, is a function of sexual selection.

A disaffected person who views their own life as ruined, hopeless, or otherwise lacks faith in themselves is likely to feel intense romantic longing for someone whom that disaffected person believes will give them a new identity, a new start. This romantic interest functions as a redeemer, a knight in shining armor. The resultant relationship is likely doomed, as it is a palliative.

A self-actualized individual who acts authentically and derives meaning out of their lives will never need a romantic relationship. Nevertheless, two such people are likely to find happiness together.

I've heard it said that couples have a better chance of happiness in arranged marriages -- I think this is true primarily because of the inordinately unrealistic expectations people have of romantic love, and in particular what the role of the other person will be. I've also heard that not only is marriage work, it's hard work. I don't want to speculate on the nature of marriage, because I'm mostly ignorant and I don't feel like writing much anyway -- but as the desired outcome of romantic attraction, it seems that marriage might benefit from being more realistically portrayed (for example, who cares what happens to Bella after marrying the vampire? These romances are exploitative of sexual longing and irresponsible for the aftermath primarily because they're too weak to sustain further interest).

Ideally, romantic love is enduring, but I think we have few examples of any such portrayal. The story typically ends at Happily ever after. Everything just works after that? Seems like what happens next is the part where romantic love is truly tested. If love were a runner, it would have to run a marathon, not a three-meter dash.

The popular concept of romance needs a lot of work.

Finding my place in society

2009-08-24T15:35:00.001-06:00

It just occurred to me: my place in Homo sapiens, a social animal that is intensely observant of other's behaviors in order to learn what is possible and what is fatal. The thin-boned animals are naturally anxious, skittish, very curious; they don't make a lot of social connections. They are expendable. They are the ones who go see if the snake is poisonous; they see if the lion is hungry; the monkey that first tries swimming the moat to get the bread. They figured out fire. What is that? What is that?

The others in the social group watch, and they observe these scouts.

That's what my genetic disposition is. It's not a disorder. It's evolutionary adaptation of the species as a group. Curious. Haphazard. Foolish. Inclined to eccentricity. The group benefits from Curious George's antics. They know what not to do.

Connections

2009-08-23T20:49:00.004-06:00

I believe every child has tremendous innate potential.

I remember being afraid of my imagination as a child, and if I relax deeply enough, I can try to remember what it was like to regard the realm of my mind equally valid and real as the one I explore with my mundane senses. I think different parts of the brain facilitate this, and that, unfortunately, as we get older, that part of the mind atrophies. It's more important to utilise what makes sure to take the garbage out, pay bills -- and most demanding -- care what other people think.

In the future, I think there will be biologists that map the evolution of the human mind. Our Age will be regarded as one with remarkably few focuses: the economy (productivity), and being successful. Perhaps we will be regarded as near-automata.

I imagine the brain mapped out like photos from Hubble, but in 3D, with false coloring showing activity and whatnot; a time lapse showing the parts of the brain utilized and developed as average for the time period; maybe even a sort of simplified code that simulates brain function as a set of algorithms and a tree of switches that reveal what areas of the brain were shut off simply because of belief, or habit.

We box ourselves in. We paint ourselves into a corner of our brains and stop making connections.

There's so much out there.

Rambler

2009-08-01T18:06:00.005-06:00

We have made great advances at discovering what stimulates and gratifies, but yet haven't accepted that an electrode planted in our hypothalamus is the purest, most direct technology to achieve this means. Perhaps we cling to an ideal that we are somehow more than biochemistry, more than our material selves, and that by submitting to the complete gratification of the electrode, we would accept that we are nothing more than stimulus's response.

Ecstacy is probably boring. It's limbo. Where's the balance? Where's the Art? You don't get biodiversity without extinction.

I used to try to imagine if there was no Universe. I imagined just white. But that's something, and it's being observed. It's really boring, but it's not Nothing, and I'm there to be bored with it.

Why does anything exist? I think there should be a reason for it, and it's possible that any reason is the real reason, because it's a reason, and therefore it exists, and it's not Nothing. I don't think oblivion is understandable -- I guess it's the absence of being understandable, the absence of being anything. I don't get it. It's un-gettable, though by nature -- which it doesn't have. It shouldn't have anything, not even a label "it".

Maybe if you ponder it too much, you pop out of existance.

That would be kind of cool, except I wouldn't be able to experience coolness.

That's where I don't get atheism: by my definition (I am God and God is everything), if there's no God, there's nothing, because I don't exist -- I AM (not). If there's no me, there's nothing. If I really believed there was nothing, I wouldn't be around to believe it. The best I can do is believe I don't believe in God. Any God I would want to believe in would make things behave the way I think they should, and I shouldn't have to doubt what should be obvious -- which is kind of funny, because I am obvious, perhaps the only really obvious thing ("I think therefore I am"), and yet I observe things that don't seem to be a part of me, so assume I don't have control; I assume someone or something else might have control. It's all about control.

If I could control everything, then I would know I was God. Yet, I'd be bored because everything did what I expected it to, and what would be the point of All Creation? I'd be All Creation all at once, and I'd always do what I did. Maybe that's what happens when time stops.

I think the only way to experience omniscience is to experience everything, and that means experiencing not knowing.

Bric-a-brac

2009-06-28T19:09:00.005-06:00

I admire Alexandre Dumas. I have been intruiged and inspired by The Three Musketeers and, especially, The Count of Monte Cristo. Dumas was a Romanticist, and when I started reading him my own writing and interest and world view wasn't anything of the sort.

It is a quality of great fiction that I could be enlightened so much about character and concepts such as honor, humility, respect, devotion, duty, determination, faith, pride.

I could say more about these aspects, but I think Dumas's works speak for themselves.

I only wish I was fluent in French.

On a very different level, I don't think I've come across anyone in modern literature that reveals character as masterfully as Elmore Leonard, and his lean prose makes me intolerant of more fatty and schmaltzy writing.

And I'm growing weary of sentences that start with "and". Sentences that are incomplete. Because it's daring and only a master would flaunt breaking the rules.

And one-sentence paragraphs.

For impact.

As for "Not Knowing", here is an excellent quote from Thomas Jefferson:

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

Also, I re-read part of Feynman's The Pleasure of Finding Things Out and felt embarassed for my blog's title -- Feynman is far more lucid and enlightening. Some day I will write a more formal post/essay about it.

Part of a dream

2009-06-14T16:17:00.001-06:00

I walked past a bar. The bar was like a stage set, just a singular location made to look exactly like the real thing, and yet just part of a chain of dream locales. I walked past her, and she said, "What's up?"

She asked why I didn't say "Hi," and I explained I wasn't really socially versed. She said, "When you go to a party and you start a conversation, do you mostly talk about things you know?"

I thought about it. What do I talk about? Something cool (to me) I learned, like Did you know they pretty regularly find sperm whales with little vestigal hind limbs?

I said, "Yes."

She said, "You're a circuit type personality."

Just thoughts

2009-06-03T22:55:00.003-06:00

I had a dream where I met an alternate-reality female version of myself. She had died her hair black with some colored streaks (I think pink). She lived in the basement of the house I'm living in now, stepping out periodically to smoke cigarettes.

I asked her about several projects I felt very enthusiastic about. I don't remember exactly what these projects were, but they were extremely important to me. She didn't know what I was talking about.

I got pissed off: she looked pretty good (meaning she had my metabolism) and was of a liberal persuasion in Utah Valley, which I figure is analogous to being a tanned, single man with a mustache in rural Australia as far as being in-demand. She didn't do anything but live this sort of self-hating narcissistic binge while her looks lasted. I lectured her angrily, that stupid junkie.

At first, this dream seemed insightful into how life would be if I was desirable and what aspects of myself I value would be lost. Now, as I think about it more, I think about how angry I was. I had such high hopes for my potential, and she was wasting it. Yet, the way I criticized her only made the situation worse. And the way I talked to her is much like my usual inner authoritative and perfectionist voice, the constant critic and bemoaner of my ignoble and weak and failed aspects.

The authoritative inner voice with its cutting destructive logic isn't helpful. There is something that aspires to transcend, but it is lost coming through so harshly.

Why aren't I successful? Why am I bored? Why can't I be happy with what I have? Why is nothing ever good enough? It's all my fault -- but why do I care about all those things? I think there is something to it, but it's getting bent out of shape.

Inner dialog is important. I have to treat myself with respect. I think it's possible to be abusive to myself: out of boredom, or out of fear, or disappointment. It's just words, just thoughts, but it makes a difference.

I cry every day

2009-05-24T19:05:00.006-06:00

I saw a promo for TNT Drama – a new series starring Jada Pinkett Smith (I'm not an official reviewer and won't swear to my spelling). In any case, the final line in the promo was Jada tearfully asking, “Am I going to cry every day?” To which an older, wiser nurse solemnly replied, “Probably.” Way to sum up an entire series in five seconds!

I also found a mean ol' black widow web. They make their webs without any apparent design: just steely lines layered wantonly to make sure there's no getting out once you've stumbled in. Surely, if traditional chaotic evil were to have a spokes-spider, it would be a black widow.

Also, I'm turning now philosophically in a new direction. Let me give some background.

One evening in September of 1963, in Elmira, New York, Jane Roberts received revelation through an entity (“an energy personality essence”) called Seth. Seth later, using Roberts as a medium, dictated a series of books which I believe have been enormously influential in New Age ideology. Chief among these ideas is: “You create the world that you know. You have been given perhaps the most awesome gift of all: the ability to project your thoughts outward into physical form … The fact is that each of you create your own physical reality.”

I'm not familiar with Eastern religion, so I can't compare it to Seth material; therefore, I'm uncertain as to whether the Seth material is a misguided interpretation of Eastern religion. In any case it is highly readable and also well worth reading (Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, Jane Roberts, notes by Robert F. Butts).

I tried doing some automatic writing by falling asleep with my fingers to the keyboard. What resulted was profoundly enlightening:

Ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccm;

The Secret; Think and Grow Rich; what else? The Law of Attraction. If you think about something all the time, that's what you get. Isn't that the basic idea? Excepting, of course, schizophrenics (and, honestly, probably pretty much everybody else). Something about the New Age rubs me the wrong way. A while ago when I was rather submerged in New Age philosophy (mainly I was just interested in out-of-body experiences [also known as sleep paralysis]) I created a deliciously satirical list of New Age vocabulary, but it seems to have been wiped from existence by the justly wrath of some higher being or another. Ooh it makes me so angry.

In any case, I've gotten bored of it, which means I'm turning now to something nice and bland and irritable to keep the well-meaning at bay until the universe speaks to me again and promises the ability to see real dinosaurs.

Mostly, then, it's all a potpourri of ideas like free radicals in my head -- except with a slight radioactivity, e.g. the world was not created by me, and more often than not does exactly what I don't want it to do. Nevertheless, I can offer this helpful list of advice (with just enough glurge to sting a little):

Just when you think you've done it all, you've done it twice. You can't think like a robot unless you are one. Stop watching the sun set and help it rise. Whenever you catch yourself abdicating, try not to smile. Going for the whit and the shit is the same thing. You won't find bananas on a pear tree. Being so far behind is when you start to see the big picture. When you doubt you cast a shadow, try to look at the sun. In every retrospect, there's an equal circumspect. Don't attach meaning to blank spaces. Catch a sniffle and you've snuck. White House documents are never this boring. Be prepared to update your will whenever you feel like it. Just in case it doesn't rain tomorrow, bring an umbrella. Consider the emancipation of divine will to be circumspect to underwear. Grow a breath of fresh air once in a while and you'll see what catches colds. The plans of the almighty are often the realizations of the very small. Grain and wheat are not the same thing. Exercise caution when entering an enclosed space. Every once in a while a fig tree catches fire. Heavens decry the platitudes!

Food

2009-05-19T18:38:00.003-06:00

When I was in First Grade -- I wasn't actually playing soccer -- but some other children were, and kicked the ball over the fence. They tried to get it by reaching through the fence, but couldn't manage. I realized I could probably reach through a grab it. I was right. I felt so useful! I had a use.

But I learned (in my listless way) that being skinny was socially registered under the emotional response .Shame further nested under .Weakness. Several times in my life throughout the years I've been compared to an Ethiopian. I'm socially in a whole different class -- and not underservedly so. The physical status of a person is under constant social scrutiny, because it has valid practical implications. Can you lift that? Is it too heavy? We gotta squeeze into the car, so can you sit in the middle? Does it come in your size? Lurpy. Twiggy. Effeminate. Sub-male.

I think I hate myself. It's not a predominate emotion, but I feel it; I think everyone does at least sporadically, and people who don't might very well be sociopathic. I think the .Hate has a lot of branches inclusive, and some of them are useful. I ask myself, Why do I hate myself? Because I'm skinny. If I looked better, I could get what I want. I don't accept myself. Why?

.Hate and .Shame have tendrils nested deep and far-reaching into my main program, my psyche. I have issues with my weight. Do I feel that having control over what I eat is the only control I have? I have to ask myself if I dislike eating in childish spite that my weight is percieved as a flaw: I rebell against the idea that my size precludes social status. My response is not to bulk up -- rather, it's a vindictiveness, a depreciating reticence and a smothered fury. Eating is a weakness.

Are my rebellious proclivities rooted in a psychological defense against social normalcy? Is it an emotional outgrowth of the simple difficulty to adapt with the larger, cultural program -- to find acceptance?

I hate myself because I am not accepted, and I am not valued.

That leads to self-acceptance, prehaps requisite to broader acceptance. Do I need a new way of percieving myself and my world -- a new version of the code for psychological adaptation to my environment? Perhaps so: I think so many base assumptions in my psyche could use revision, but they're so deep that I forget they're there.

Yet, I could be imagining things. Eating is a costly chore. I have better things to do: Shouldn't I focus on my strengths rather than trying to compensate for a weakness? It's a simple choice with such far-reaching ramifications.

Perhaps if I edit the code programmed way back in First Grade, I can change my life, my attitude, my way of thinking, my reality.

And I also realize: In self-discovery, biology cannot be ignored.

Pearls strung together

2009-05-08T17:55:00.003-06:00

Winston Churchill said,

You create your universe as you go along. The stronger your imagination, the more variegated your universe. When you leave off dreaming, the universe ceases to exist.

Albert Einstein said,

... The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

Perhaps imagination weaves time and space to create reality: we are all engaged in a cooperative effort that results in the universe we experience.

I like this (from Encarta):

The dialectical materialists assert that the mind is conditioned by and reflects material reality. Therefore, speculations that conceive of constructs of the mind as having any other than material reality are themselves unreal and can result only in delusion. To these assertions metaphysicians reply by denying the adequacy of the verifiability theory of meaning and of material perception as the standard of reality. Both logical positivism and dialectical materialism, they argue, conceal metaphysical assumptions, for example, that everything is observable or at least connected with something observable and that the mind has no distinctive life of its own.

Again, perhaps I'm just stringing quotes together and not adding much to the discussion (as my English professor might have said). But this is not an essay: I enjoy having a digital memory of my delusions.

Unh?

2009-04-08T11:14:00.003-06:00

If someone were to ask me, being real serious here, asking the hard-hitting question: What possible reason could a marginally rational intellect have for believing in an afterlife? the first thing that would enter my mind is this:

Because I want to go back in time and see dinosaurs.

Now, I understand that my wanting something to be true doesn't make it true -- well, actually I don't know that. Maybe it's the only reason anything ever exists. But I understand that often when trying to relate spiritual things, it's helpful to be a lot more obscure and mystical. If it's not difficult to understand, then no one will take it seriously.

I think I read in this book once that the great spiritual/religious truths were so simple that nobody would respect them, so the wise ensured them being passed on by telling parables and stories rather than being blunt.

Basically, I figure it's absurd to try to prove non-scientific stuff by scientific means. I'm not sure if this is something Kant addressed in his Critique of Pure Reason or not, because so far the only part of that I've understood is this part:

Deficiency in judgment is properly that which is called stupidity; and for such a thing we know no remedy. A dull or narrow-minded person, to whom nothing is wanting but a proper degree of understanding, may be improved by tuition, even so far as to deserve the epithet of learned. But as such persons frequently labor under a deficiency in the faculty of judgement, it is not uncommon to find men extremely learned, who in the application of their science betray to a lamentable degree this irremediable want.

Of the "faculty of judgement" Kant says:

Thus, it is evident, that the understanding is capable of being instructed by rules, but that the judgement is a peculiar talent, which does not, and cannot require tuition, but only exercise. This faculty is therefore the specific quality of the so-called mother-wit, the want of which no scholastic discipline can compensate. For although education may furnish, and, as it were, ingraft upon a limited understanding rules borrowed from other minds, yet the power of employing these rules correctly must belong to the pupil himself; and no rule which we can prescribe to him with this purpose, is, in the deficiency of this gift of nature, secure from misuse.

Knowledge of the rules does not mean one knows how to apply them, which reminds me of another quote I enjoy, this time from The Count of Monte Cristo: while Dantès is wrongfully imprisoned, Abbé Faria begins his mentorship of Dantès:

'Two years!' said Dantès. 'Do you think I could learn all this in two years?'

'In their application, no; but the principles, yes. Learning does not make one learned: there are those who have knowledge and those who have understanding. The first requires memory, the second philosophy.'

'But can't one learn philosophy?'

'Philosophy cannot be taught. Philosophy is the union of all acquired knowledge and the genius that applies it: philosophy is the shining cloud upon which Christ set His foot to go up into heaven.'

And there you have it. Lots of quotes from people smarter than me, and something about dinosaurs! Even if I'm a bit facetious, I can't help but to feel those citations in such close proximity say something. Every once in a while bits of information floating in my head bump up against each other and the combination seems to say something new.

Zest-fully clean!

2009-03-29T20:57:00.002-06:00

I think that if the collective unconcious were to be simplified it would be a to-do list of mundane chores and responsibilities, an unsettling that seems impossible to pinpoint (but can often be ignored by entertainment and other distractions) -- this would be conjoined with hope in an extremely nebulous Someday. There would also be a list of disappointments (and possibly therein a devout faith in the redemption of a more powerful income).

Some don't believe they are inventing their lives and reality as they go. Some are waiting to die, because they believe they are condemned to a mortality forever vieled from the divine, and that they are incapable -- unworthy -- to transcend it. They must prove themselves before the eyes of some omnipresent judge, and hope that the afterlife (the ultimate Someday) will be more entertaining (because they won't have to work every day or worry about money or whether they're going to hell or not). I think with heaven, if you make it in, it's now or never, and it doesn't really have anything to do with locality so much as choice. The power to transcend is always within yourself rather than an external authoritative enabler, which is why so many can't find it.

Life is a continuosly creative process. The way someone lives their life is Art: how they create, or fail to create, meaning; the way in which they define reality and regard the more universal laws necessary for a collaborative construct; how they suffer; how much of their own truth and self they sacrifice to someone else's who seems more confident about it; what they do with now. It's the insane balancing act of the divine with the mundane.

If I'm malcontent with life, I think it's because I have a failure to engage: I'm throwing it all away while I chase after what I think everyone else thinks is valuable, or for whatever reason that I'm not excited about right now. I should have nicer things and be better regarded by my peers. I should be successful.

So much time is wasted on distractions and material fuzz.

My life is never going to get better. It will always be subject to subjectivity.

It makes more sense as I think about it: I'd rather be than have. I'd like to be happy and enthusiastic and engaged in my life. That's the sort of life I want to live.

The Little Tyrant

2009-03-17T20:46:00.004-06:00

I figure that the disparity between what one wants and what is causes much of the non-existential grief in life: self-hate is socially virulent, it's toxic. There are an infinite reasons to hate yourself, but I think most of it all boils down to this: you failed to live up to some expectation and it is your fault. You're unhappy and it's because you're faulty.

I've been into meditation and trance states for a while. I particularly like TMI Hemi-Sync brainwave entrainment. I can't make any testimonial claims for it, but I do find it relaxing white noise. In any case, one day I was feeling especially frustrated. I have too much energy and too many expectations and my imagination got me worked up. I was so pissed at myself for being so weak, for being such a disappointment. So I listened to this white noise and relaxed.

There's definitely something to meditation and alpha, beta, theta activity or whatever. It's peaceful. It's easier to transcend the daily noise and really have some introspection. I tried to find the root of all my frustration and hate and anger, and I saw a little boy, maybe two years old: the little boy was furious that his mother denied him something, so he picked up a china plate he knew his mother valued and smashed it on the floor.

All this anger was a child throwing a tantrum. Emotions amaze me sometimes at how simple they are, and yet they're so incredibly powerful. Life would be meaningless without them.

I recognize the little tyrant fairly frequently in my thoughts: he doesn't get what he wants, dammit! What is this drive? This compulsion is probably in everybody to some extent (there's a stage of child development where the child tests what he can get away with). Maybe it's part of what drives life, a biological imperative. A body, be it a man or a cockroach, will exploit its environment to the fullest extent. It's a crucial part of the code. I don't know.

The other thing about emotions is they aren't logical, they lack reason. Am I going to be happy because I get everything I want and everything is the way I want it? It's a horrifying thought. It wouldn't please me at all. I would be the ultimate tyrant, the Emperor of It All, and it all would be worthless. I'd have the sandbox all to myself and it would be hell.

I try to think about what makes me happy instead of about what disappoints me, and I try to love what I have. If I'd read that a year ago, it would've pissed me off. I would have called it passive acceptance, a failure to have any ambition, a slave mentality. I want so much more! Now, I reason it's pointless to want more when I don't appreciate what I have. Or, at least, why not practice and recognize with what's at hand? I don't want to spend my life chasing the illusion of happiness via material success when I can find happiness now. (It probably won't be because I always get what I want.)

I'm still learning the whole experience of emotions, I think. I don't think they're inherently bad or good of themselves, but it is important to me that I properly express them, and that I don't poison myself, or others, by misdirecting my emotions.

Asceticism

2009-02-12T17:09:00.002-07:00

I've been thinking lately about asceticism (versus aestheticism, which is all about beauty). Asceticism is about being austere; it's about living with minimal material comforts; it's self-denial. I don't agree with it: it's okay for hermits (I'm not quite yet qualified there), and monks.

I thought I wanted to be wealthy, but then had to define what exactly I meant. Basically, I want to be able to afford to live independently, have no debt, and have no worry about the cost of health care. I also do want to be able to afford certain luxuries: what this encompasses is probably somewhat modest. A new computer every other year; games (worthy of purchase); documentaries on DVD; the nice TV as well (no cable, though); gym membership; a drafting desk; a nice printer; a camera. That's it. My domestic imagination might not be all that vast, however. I imagine if I were to have a girlfriend, the list could easily become monstrous (but this is, fortunately, irrelevant).

Put succinctly, I desire abundance (it may be also important to note that I desire to attain this through creative industry, rather than as a matter of entitlement).

So what about the mansions, the maidservants, the cars, the driver, the gardener, the pool? This is excess. I don't believe civilization could endure further attempt to make the standard of living more grandiose – especially if other countries want in on that as well. There are not enough resources. There's not enough room. Civilizations have only ever managed to support a very few pharaohs, and they've all been remembered more for the result of their maniacal vanity than for anything else.

I don't want the culmination of my life to be a monument to my indolence. On the other hand, I don't want to be bent under the constant grind of existential want and “quiet desperation” as Thoreau said:

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things."

Buns of Steel

2009-01-29T10:40:00.005-07:00

Vanity is either bizarre or hilarious to everything but the participants. Consider the mating displays of the various colorful bird species on Planet Earth, or the Comtesse Dash in her Memoires de autres (1896-7) commenting on Alexandre Dumas “... he was a fine figure of a man, tall and well-made. In those days, it was still the fashion to wear breeches to certain balls, and Dumas was only too pleased to show off a pair of well-turned calves.”

Bell-bottoms. Cravats. Leotards. Parachute pants. Colorful waddles. An impressive inflatable throat pouch. Sexual selection not only reveals the strangeness of aesthetics, but also the enormous cost a species is willing to accept in order to appear sexually superior. Many male birds, such as the peacock, have tails as long as is possible without being completely crippled by them.

Buns of steel. Pecs of adamantium. Calves of Damascus steel. If “objectively hilarious” wasn't an oxymoron, it would be the perfect description of sex and all things related. The endlessly amusing non-fiction book, Dr. Tatiana's Sex AdviceTo All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex by Olivia Judson illustrates this point very well (it's also funny that the TV documentary was broadcast in the UK, Canada, Australia, and France but was “too risqué” for the US).

No, I really don't have anything serious to say. But I did overhear a convenience store conversation that went a little like this:

“Can I get my smokes now? I didn't get my smokes.”

“Oh, you wanted smokes? I didn't hear you ask—I didn't charge you anything, see? Sorry, bro.”

“It's all good, bro.”

“Let me ring this guy up real quick and I'll get you your smokes, bro. What kind was it?”

“Marlboro Reds.”

“Sure thing, bro.”

The Ethics of Prozac

2009-01-17T17:11:00.001-07:00

One of the most difficult ethical questions, for me, is this: Are psychotropic drugs immoral?

I'm not referring to recreational drug use. I mean drugs like Prozac, lithium, methylphenidate; drugs used to affect the mind and treat psychiatric disorders.

It seems reasonable to make the claim that taking psychotropic drugs is an act of “bad faith”: this is not taking full responsibility for my behavior; this is a “flight from freedom” and an act of self-delusion as I try to create external restraints to my freedom. It is impossible thus to live authentically. I am not accepting my true nature and confronting it.

I recently spent some time on holiday from Prozac, believing that my attitude, my faith in myself, my hope was enough. Without question my strength in these things was magnified because they were the only things I had. I had to rely on them. It took all my emotional and mental faculties to get through the day. Life was very difficult; it felt barren. I had so little energy. I became more socially paranoid and withdrawn. Then, I returned from holiday: Prozac kicked in, and for a few days I felt – such contrast – euphoric. I was happy. Not only did I have a tempered positive attitude, but also the serotonin to feel something. As I say, it lasted a few days: I became despondent. No matter how much I had tried, I'd never been able to feel happy – not for more than a moment – and I had become enabled, not by my own will, but by something that felt deterministic, fatalist: I needed to take a drug to feel happy.

So why not take it further? Why not develop a super-opiate that forces Heaven onto earth by making the physical body, so inadequate, facilitate the absolute euphoria?

No, that feels wrong.

If it's wrong to force happiness, then how is it right to force even the simple ability to feel happy when the physiological ability is – by nature – lacking?

In a lot of ways life is learning to get along with an animal body. I have the now-adult body of a child who had a “failure to thrive”, and I have to frequently remind myself that something is physiologically off here. People treat me differently, so how could I forget I'm so … twiggy? Until very recently, I've actually been in serious denial about it. Of course, this means I've had it on my mind, and I've had it on my mind while reading about animal behavior. There was a study (by Michael Raleigh) done with a colony of vervet monkeys that strongly suggests serotonin levels are related to hierarchal dominance: give a low-ranking monkey a medication that raises its serotonin levels and a high-ranking monkey a medication that lowers its serotonin levels, and their ranking reverses. I wildly speculate that my physiology is meant to perform a certain social role: the hyper-vigilant, overly-anxious, aggressive runt that is the first to call the alarm when it spots the predator – which also means it gets the predator's attention – but this is okay, as the runt is expendable (they even starve themselves during famine to sacrifice for their betters). I'm like the second egg an eagle lays in case something happens to the first one. Nature's backup plan.

What does this have to do with Prozac? I'll get to that in a moment.

Self-pity is a horrible thing. I endeavor to always eschew it. I am not a victim nor a martyr. I am simply unique, and it is up to me to accept who I am and decide – by living my life, by how I think – to define myself. I believe in Carl Roger's drive to self-actualization. On the way, I will use whatever resources available to me – including Prozac. There is a vital difference between forcing and enabling: one is a flight from freedom, the other is a flight toward it.

There are, among a great many other things, biological elements at play in reality as I know it; the human condition is a mortal condition. I reason that if I were diabetic, I'd allow myself – against the clear destiny chosen for me by Fate – insulin. Blood sugar levels affect cognition, so it's not such a leap to concede that there are conditions, with primarily cognitive symptoms, that can be managed with medication.

Animal Violence

2009-01-11T13:24:00.000-07:00

I was reading Temple Grandin (and Catherine Johnson's) essential book, Animals In Translation, when I read something that I wanted to comment on. (To be fair, the book is just one huge feast for thought, but this seemed particularly philosophical.)

I don't know why animal violence happens, but when I read through the research literature I'm struck by the fact that the animals with the most complex brains are also the ones who engage in some of the nastiest behavior. I suspect people and animals probably pay a price for having a complex brain. For one thing, in a complex brain there may be more opportunities for wiring mistakes that will lead to vicious behavior. Another possibility is that since a more complex brain provides greater flexibility of behavior, animals with complex brains become free to develop new behaviors that will be good, bad, or in between. Human beings are capable of great love and sacrifice, but they are also capable of profound cruelty. Maybe animals are, too.

I think this part is especially telling: “... become free to develop new behaviors that will be good, bad, or in between.” It contrasts with the more reductionist idea that proceeds it, which attributes aberrant behavior to faulty wiring, rather than the freedom to choose, but here again is illustrated the duality of things.

The Afterlife

2009-01-10T19:32:00.003-07:00

It's impossible to be curious and not want to know what happens next, especially considering how inevitable and complete death is to our material existance. Is there anything after?

I don't know.

I suspect that we will die; we will recognize time differently; we will have a more complete self-awareness and understanding; the state will be one similar to waking from a dream. It will feel so much more familiar to us than our lives do to us now.

I don't believe in the popular concepts of Heaven and of Hell, but I do find the concepts useful: Hell is the Black path, the path toward nihilism; it is self-destruction, self-loathing; it is falling farther and farther from God. We may experience Hell now. I have no doubt that the lives of those in Hell exceed anything Dante and others could possibly imagine.

Heaven is the White path, and I might conveniently describe it as the opposite of Hell. I don't think that it means that you always get what you want: it means that you always want what you have. Even in the most horrible material circumstances, Heaven is being able to accept and love yourself, to be honest with yourself, to acknowledge your freedom to choose; Heaven is to love creation and to experience it without pretenses, and to do so right now. It is being rather than having. Heaven, like Hell, is always within reach. We have only to choose it and to accept it.

The Basics: Black and White

2009-01-10T19:29:00.002-07:00

I believe in dualism: specifically that there exists the body and the mind, the objective and the subjective. I do not care for the terminology of good and evil, as these terms are subjective. I do, however, prefer the visual association of the White and the Black.

It is an equal reality that the objective universe is godless and is governed by only one law: nihilism. Everything is subject to chaos and entropy. Everything is meaningless. This is the destructive force; this is the Black.

It is an equal reality that the subjective universe is God. The subjective creates the objective: the mind of God is reality, in infinite variations; a singular variation each of us experiences as self-awareness: the illusion that we are separate from our surroundings, from God. Our minds create the world we experience. All our minds, in every form, are omniscience, and omnipotence. There is meaning. This is the creative force; this is the White.

It is tempting to call the Black evil, but it is not. It is an undoing into chaos and finally nihilism. Yet, it is also the chaos from which creation springs.

I agree with Sartre when he said that “man is condemned to be free.” We have complete sovereignty over our subjective experience. I also find Sartre's concept of “bad faith” to be useful: this is when a person creates something to relieve him of the terrible freedom he has: this is religion, for instance. To believe that there is a higher authority than himself, to believe that he must walk a certain path, to believe that there is “right” and “wrong” is a self-delusion; this is God denying himself, this is God cutting himself off, this is to be “fallen”; this is the path toward powerlessness and nihilism.

Nevertheless, it is important to see that none of our lives are created wholly from the White or the Black, but in different balances: again, it is not “wrong” to act in bad faith; to do so is necessary for God to experience creation.

Redirection

2009-01-10T19:23:00.003-07:00

Being frequently too lazy (or preoccupied) to post my dreams, I have decided to take this blog in a more productive direction, particularly one I can contribute to more frequently because it's more interesting than logging my dreams.

I enjoy my brother's philosophically-centered blog, "Surviving Phalaris" and decided to follow suit, as I often feel a compulsion to noisy the gestalt with my own take on things.

I believe in awareness, and so I believe in philosophy, and that means writing about it.