Broken Postcard

Consciousness and Logic

Alexander Crockett — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 03:58:34 +0000

Among the most difficult issues faced by humans in science and in philosophy is consciousness. The problem with consciousness is that is has many sides to it. On the one hand there is the very difficult problem understanding what it is. Is is a stuff like say an electron is something i.e. matter, or is it it's own stuff? That is the problem of substance. Then there's another problem, that is: how is it that we are conscious?

Xenophanes, Wittgenstein and Meaning

Alexander Crockett — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 02:27:04 +0000

Wittgenstein remarked “If a lion could talk, we could not understand him”. It's worth noting that the insight was not Wittgenstein's alone. Xenophanes (approx 400 BC) stated “if oxen, horses.... had hands or could paint...

A visual identity

Alexander Crockett — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 03:28:33 +0000

my own exploring of my identity through sound and vision. I put these short videos together in 2009 as an experiment, trying aesthetically express my sensibilities. Each of the three depicts a different aspect of me. As usual I am always grateful for peoples views and ideas.

A Relationship With The World

Alexander Crockett — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 07:17:21 +0000

A tantalizing part of experience is the noise we don't experience; both the visual and auditory noise in the environment is immense. The environment is an almost chaos. Light, shapes and sounds; all varied and complex.

An anatomy of the idea

Alexander Crockett — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 12:14:16 +0000

Knowing how the world and our own consciousness of it will help us to frame ourselves in relation to the concepts that inhabit our world. The physical world is important if we want to understand that other word we inhabit, the world of ideas.

It’s a wonderful life

Alexander Crockett — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:43:10 +0000

Each second is unique. Each mind experiences it's own fragment as time moves forward through us; passing back into a horizon that we've passed. And it is wonderful.

Society

Alexander Crockett — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:33:37 +0000

“Between persons of equal income there is no social distinction except the distinction of merit. Money is nothing: character, conduct, and capacity are everything. There would be great people and ordinary people and little people, but the great would always be those who had done great things, and never the idiots whose mothers had spoiled [...]

Resonance and Recognition

Alexander Crockett — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 03:57:26 +0000

I don't know at what age we become conscious of ourselves as agents in the world. I remember being a child passively. Things happened, and somehow, even if I was the cause of something happening I had no sense of agency. The world happened around me and I was a part of it, but I don't remember thinking that I played any part in what was happening.

De Lunatico Inquirendo

Alexander Crockett — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:51:14 +0000

Any attempt to define what psychopathology is presupposes that we know what normality is. In view of this, any consideration of psychopathology requires an examination of the notions of mental health.....Throughout history, people's understanding of psychopathology has constantly shifted; different cultures and historical periods have labeled 'mad' those whom other times and societies have regarded sane

Writing as I see it

Alexander Crockett — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:29:51 +0000

Of course there is something very much like art to writing. It is what I have said about writing that not only gives it it's purpose but makes it what it is. That is a form of communication that allows the writer to communicate in great detail something about the world, or their vision of it. And that is magical. When any person has a vision and is able to articulate their vision, either through writing or any other medium what they have mastered is an art, it is the mastery of those very skills that allow us to fold our inner vision into the world outsides of ourselves that makes both the process and the task as fantastical as it is frustrating. That is the very beauty in it.

Homo Poeta & The Idenity Of Thought

Alexander Crockett — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 23:47:32 +0000

“What if language closely related to poetic diction were indispensable for a science of man…?” Medard Boss, 1954 “The intuitionist mathematician proposes to do mathematics as a free vital activity of thought. For him mathematics is a production of the human mind. He uses language,…only for communicating thoughts…Such a linguistic accompaniment is not a representation of [...]

Embodied Society #1: The World In The Mind

Alexander Crockett — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 08:56:02 +0000

"Bodily space can be distinguished from external space and envelop its parts....the body scheme is finally a way of stating my body is in the world"

Poetry Embodied

Alexander Crockett — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:57:05 +0000

And so, from the mystical and poetic expression of the mind to the concrete we live and live on, wit pleasure disguised as an opiate of entertaining and the fallacy of misunderstanding that we muddle toward the half satisfactions that are left as both the only possibility and the one reality to confer with little thought as to its reality; we continue to live.

everything is ‘natural’

Alexander Crockett — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:24:05 +0000

If we were to understand and apply all implications of that one single statement "The physical world is causally closed" our entire attitude to life, the planet and many of the choices we make would be radically different.

Memes don’t exist (or things without existence)

Alexander Crockett — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 23:58:33 +0000

To say that there are two classes of things to which the property 'exists' does apply (the class of all things y) and the class of things that don't 'exist' (the class of all things x) is also to say that the class of things that don't have existence in fact do exist. One must exist in order that one really has any properties at all, including existence. A vicious circularity seems almost in force.