a semi-fertile mind

From the Devils Dictionary

2010-03-11T14:09:00.000-08:00

HATRED, n. A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority.

PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

AMBITION, n. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

FASHION, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.

SELFISH, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.

CARTESIAN, adj. Relating to Descartes, a famous philosopher, author of the celebrated dictum, Cogito ergo sum — whereby he was pleased to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved, however, thus: Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum — "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.

2010-03-11T13:55:00.000-08:00

Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

- Friedrich Nietschze

a poem

2010-03-03T14:49:00.000-08:00

Truth is like a cascading rainbow

Multicoloured and unreal

Yet without it lost and dazed,

We cannot help but feel.

Men are malleable.

Truth has many faces.

One mans rebel is another mans liberator,

Both with sound cases.

So how, you ask, do I know what’s right?

And what bad man that I must fight?

Cleanse the filter that surrounds you

And see for yourself what this world contains.

Precise ground your feet will never fall,

But the enlightened stance you will attain.

The only truth there is, you see

Is the one we ourselves behold.

Sooner or later we will realise

We make our own resolve.

untitled

2010-02-21T10:17:00.001-08:00

The scattered fragments of the night before are slowly reconstructed in his mind. Mixed emotions ensue, shame, regret, embarrassment? He detests himself. This is no way to live, he reminds himself. Is the booze the problem, or is something else? Is it society? Escapism...from what? He knows he is not the only one. Whence come these drives, those that wish to destroy him, and how can they be channelled? What is he trying to prove? This behaviour is destructive, decadent...there is no rational behind it, perhaps this is the whole point. He looks at himself in the mirror, his eyes are bloodshot - they hurt. He lies down and stares at the television. This is no way to live, he reminds himself, this is no way to live.

A paradox

2010-02-14T14:15:00.001-08:00

Imagine an arrow shot from a bow travelling directly towards a tree. It is ten meters away, travelling fast. Then it is five meters, two meters, one meter. Now it is really close, just a centimetre or so. Now it is a millimetre, half a millimetre, and half that again. Wait just a minute, if at every point of its trajectory it travels half the distance it previously was, how can it ever arrive at the tree? The distances would just divide themselves infinitely, without the arrow arriving.

This is Xeno´s paradox, and it demonstrates an interesting point. The explanation to this paradox is that the arrow never was at any of these points. To the person experiencing the arrows flight towards the tree, it traveled the distance in one complete movement. It is only when we look back and analyse its flight that we imagine actually being at these different positions.

What am I getting at here? Well, a simple point – simple, but by no means trivial. We experience the world differently from how we reconstruct it. In fact, was one to develop this idea it actually points towards two fundamentally different ways that humans can correlate with the world – one qualitative and one quantitative. However, this paradox will have to suffice for todays post.

Eagle fly free

2010-02-11T16:01:00.000-08:00

Lyrics

People are in a big confusion
They don't like their constitutions
Everyday they draw conclusions
And they're still prepeared for war

Some can say what's ineffective
some make up themselves attractive
build up things they call protective
well your life seems quite bizarre

In the sky a mighty eagle
doesn't care 'bout what's illegal
on its wings the rainbow's light
It's flying to eternity

Eagle fly free
Let people see
just make it your own way
leave time behind
follow the sign
together we'll fly someday

Hey, we think so supersonic
and we made our bombs atomic
or the better quite neutronic
but the poor don't see a dime

Nowadays the air's polluted
ancient people persecuted
that's what mankind contributed
to create a better time

In the sky a mighty eagle
doesn't care 'bout what's illegal
on its wings the rainbow's light
It's flying to eternity

Eagle fly free
Let people see
just make it your own way
leave time behind
follow the sign
together we'll fly someday

The Dice Man

2010-02-02T14:25:00.000-08:00

I am reading a fascinating book. It is called The Dice Man, and it written by a person called Luke Rhinehart. The plot is roughly as follows. A bored middle aged psychiatrist discovers a new way to live his life. He has wealth, a family and is respected by his peers. However, the nature of his boredom is existential. Various events makes him discover the meaninglessness of his life, of society, convention and of the pursuits of his fellow psychologists. One night he comes to a simple realisation which not only relieves his existential boredom, but fuels a new theory of human choice and the nature of human selfood.

The realisation is that to make his life exciting again, he must surrender his personal choices to the whim of a dice roll. His method is to select a range of options, some favourable but most importantly some which are not, and allocate different outcomes of the dice to them. He rolls the dice and the outcome determines his course of action.

He find the dice liberating - by letting the dice determine his course of action he removes his responsibility. Not only this, but by surrendering his choices to the dice, he removes himself from the equation. Hence, he becomes a random man. We like to think that lack of determinism implies freedom - that a free choice is that which is not controlled by external forces. The Dice Man provokes you to examine this belief.

This lifestyle, of course, has some interesting and quite amusing effects on his life and his practice as a psychoanalyst. He convinces himself that human change is possible through dice therapy - that is, when a subject frees themselves from the choices they associate with "themselves" they can learn to be new people.

I am not finished with the book, but i am finding it deeply intriguing. Indeed, my last two posts were inspired by this reading. What of my obsession with selfhood and subjectivity? Well, for this I invoke a general philosophical curiosity - much of modern philosophy is concerned with the status of the subject, and this book has got me starting to think about it again.

I leave you with an except:

"I gurgled with anticipation: the next half year of my life, perhaps even more, trembled in my hand. The dice tumbled across the desk; there was a six and there was a...three. Nine - survival, anticlimax, inconclusion, even dissapointment; the dice had ordered me to decide anew each month what my special fate would be."

a diologue

2010-02-01T13:29:00.001-08:00

Who are you? he asked.
I am the one they call Zarathustra. They say I am mad.
Why so?
I am a man of the dice. I let no self control my destiny. I am beyond human. I am a god.
A god?
Yes, And i come with a message. A prophecy. One which the world is not ready to recieve.
What kind of message?
A message of truth. And as with all truth, a new value. And as with all value, a new power to act.
Of what nature is this truth?
Ask yourself. What makes who you are.
How mean you?
What are you faced with at every moment of your living being. What defines you.
Mortality.
No. To face mortality one must choose. You are defined by your choices.
Yes, but these choices are mine. So they do not define me, i define them.
Do you really believe this?
A pause. No. But what does this mean?
It means that to be free you must move beyond choice, you must resist choice - to resist choice you resist your self. To resists yourself, you must let the roll of dice chose your fate.
You speak in riddles, old man. You are mad.
Yes. For i am a dice man, a random man. I have no self, for my actions are determined by the dice, as are their consequences. I have no audience, I have no scene - i am kind then i am mean. I am one, i am two - i am many, i am few. I am nothing, i am everything. I am the contradiction. I do not exist.

the self

2010-01-27T16:26:00.000-08:00

the self either finds itself in habitude, or outside it,

cought between two irreconcilabe extremes.

one either knows oneself in comfortable predictability,

and in the norms which guide routine,

or one knows oneself in the chaos and extitement of the unkown,

in which the stability of convention is opposed.

one requires compliance, the other rejection.

in either one finds freedom; but never in both.

for this is the true irony of human finitude.

The question of always expressing ones opinion

2010-01-17T15:13:00.000-08:00

I have become a little unsure of myself recently.

I am an outspoken person, and will express and argue my views against those different from my own. If this happens to offend someone then so be it, they shouldn’t be so touchy. I live in a liberal society in which I think people who get deeply offended at people who don´t agree with them do not belong. In the face of my criticism they might come to their senses and agree with me one day. Who knows, if they can put forward good arguments in favour of their own viewpoint, I might even end up agreeing with them and change my own mind. This is called rational discourse.

The reason I have become unsure of myself is because after examining a few of my own views I have realised that they may not always be in the best interest of the other person, let alone mankind. I may be right in a rational sense (I try to maintain views which I perceive as rational), but what if my views aren’t necessarily the "best" ones – should I keep them to myself?

I realise that what is true for me may not be true for another, even though it maybe should be. Some of my views I am sure do promote a better world and i want other individuals to feel the same freedom and increased power to act i get from my own views. One of these views is that religion is decadent, stifles a more rational understanding of the world, and that its power over human actions should be combated. But some of my views, though rational and appealing to me, may not promote the greater good - such as that people are not always responsible for their actions.

So my question is, should we promote views which we think are true against contradictory opinions, even though they might not lead to a better world? If there was a single truth which we could all agree on if we all thought rationally, then maybe. But as to this I am sceptical. Society generally defines what is true, especially what is "moral" - this is illustrated in the radical different understandings of what is “true” and "moral" which have existed in history. But where does this leave us? If there are only perspectives, then you might as well endorse your own.

So again, is it immoral for me to epxress my views and stand by them, even though i am not sure they would lead to a better world? Probably not, as the goodness of the world doesnt fall under my responsibility. But if it doesnt fall upon individuals, then who´s responsibility does it? Perhaps one should only promote those values which one knows to be in the benefit of all of us, and keep the other ones to ourselves. But where is the fun in this?

Maybe i should keep my mouth shut more oftnen. I dont know, hence I shall ponder on.

Everyone has a book in them - or is it a blog?

2010-01-12T14:19:00.000-08:00

Everyone has a book in them - or is it a blog? Either way, this is my blog. The reasons for creating this blog are as yet unclear to me, as is the point behind it (i dont think these are mutually inclusive). If i were to really think, it would be to write. I respect words and their power to create meaning, however meaningless.

But to be honest, the real reason for creating this blog may be to prove, at least to myself, that i am an interesting person. I consider myself quite intelligent - sometimes a little witty even. I also posess the kind of arrogance which enables me to maintain that the vast proportion of the people in this world are deluded. Some find this amusing, some provocative. I have perspectives, as you will no doubt see if i manage to write another post, which i think are worth sharing.

Hang on. "Sharing" implies than anyone else will actually read this blog, so perhaps a less bold claim would be to that i have perspectves which are worth externalising. I dont want to keep them bottled up.

What topics will this blog cover? Well, this is also quite unlcear to me. Most probably a deal of ranting and rhetoric, perhaps even some pseudo-philosophical observations about the world which you might find interesting - but also things which I like, music, literature, films, art... This blog has no "selling point" - but perhaps, like art, this is its point of interest.

Anyways, this is my first post. Writing it felt good, I think i shall write some more.