Compos Mentis

A Sign

2008-11-27T15:33:00.000-08:00

(Eds. Note: I was working very hard on Thanksgiving, and when I finally decided to take a break the break took the form of me crashing on the couch and watching tv. The best thing on was a House marathon, so I stepped in to the exciting and misanthropic world of diagnosis for a couple of hours. Here are some of my thoughts, on second look rather disjointed as they may be.)

House is an effective base for a story because of the puzzle that diagnosis presents doctors. These puzzles have been at the heart of medicine since its founding in ancient times. It struck me how some things remain completely unchanged by time and technological improvements; no matter how advanced the tests get, the basic strategy remains the same; interpret the signs the body gives you and treat the illness that best fits the sign. In fact, the etymology of our word "sign" is derived from the Greek Seme, which was a derivation of medical signs.

Of course, medicine is not the only area which deals with interpreting signs. Seme gave its name to semiotics, which is a set modern philosophical disciplines looking at the way communication works. Umberto Eco, in his monumental Theory of Signs, outlines some of the uses of semiotics: studies of musical codes, of formalized languages, of code breaking, of visual, olfactory, and tactile non-linguistic communication. Among his list he includes medical semiotics. The drama of House is increased because all of the episodes are focused on issues of life and death (not to mention the personal issues of the main characters) and so the interpretation of the signs becomes top priority and is generally very urgent. House and his team are shown to be brilliant because of the way they know diagnoses instantly, the same way our comprehension of language is tested in how fast we read or in our understanding of rapid speech.

But the function of the doctors on House seems to be a little different from our interpreting a book. It becomes more complicated as symptoms seem to contradict other symptoms. Occasionally having every symptom of a disease leads to the idea that something else is happening - since it is rare that every symptom will ever be shown. What we seem to have, then, is a language (the set of diseases) that is known fairly well (there are no new diseases that show up on House; otherwise diagnostics would have no place) but the expression of that language is fuzzy or indistinct.

It is somewhat similar to when I try to read Japanese poetry. If I try to read printed Japanese, I can get a little ways. Often, I'll have no clue about context or specifics but given my knowledge and the ease of getting general ideas from Japanese characters, I can get the gist of the text. More to the point, if there are characters I am unfamiliar with, I can look them up in a dictionary, something most diagnosticians outside of television surely avail themselves of. But Japanese poetry, written by hand, generally uses calligraphic script. The characters, while more beautiful, become almost illegible, at least to me. Not only do I have to decipher the meaning I have to decide what part of the squiggles that I am seeing are meaningful and which are not. Similar instances occur when listening to Gregorian chant or Japanese chant - trying to interpret a foreign language that is then given in an unfamilar way.

Given this difficulty in interpretation, any correct diagnosis seems incredible; the odds seem monstrous. Fortunately we have several things on our side: twenty five centuries of medical history to draw upon, and the fact that there is a relatively small pool of common diseases that make it easier to diagnose. On House, of course, these two aspects are shooed away: the medical history is suppressed by the genius of the doctors, since they never consult books or anything else to help aid their memories; and the small pool, since the drama is heightened by the exotic diseases or circumstances used.

The drama is also elevated by the strategy of having some patients die. Here the difference between television and reality must certainly step in. Most people survive on House. Surely, most people with the diseases presented on House die in real life. But let's leave the difference aside for a moment. Assume that a single case happens in real life the way it happens on television - the same race against time, the same difficulties in diagnosis, and eventually, the same victory. What does that say about humanity?

Pascal said that a man is a reed, weaker than anything in the universe, but that he is a thinking reed, which makes him better than the whole universe. We are cut down by so much, but we have learned nearly as much as we have lost. Our mistakes, on certain fronts, become fewer and less severe as time goes on and we learn from them. It's true that we will never be able to solve every problem, but it is enlightening, when we despair of solving anything, to look back and see how much we have solved.

On Pain

2008-11-05T19:14:00.000-08:00

The existence of pain and suffering is a fundamental question for all. A time of grief or despair is one of the few instances where individuals almost universally come to grasp questions that they may have previously scorned. Why did this have to happen? Why does this happen to me? These searches for reason in what, to an objective eye, seems to be chaos is often the first steps to philosophy or religion. But for religion itself it poses a problem: the objection from time immemorial against theology: if God existed, is good, and is supremely powerful, why is there evil in the world? And, related, why is there suffering?

This question drives The Problem of Pain, one of the most memorable books penned by C.S. Lewis. It is a book that has often given me questions to grapple with, because in the end no answer satisfies. Hume pointed it out reasonably. We have three positions: God is all-beneficent; God is willing to intervene for the good; and evil exists in the world. Logically we cannot hold all three positions, and so either our idea of God needs to be altered or God does not exist. Evil is far too prevalent to consider the other alternative seriously. Hume, not being well read in the history of philosophy, missed out on Augustine's theodical answer to this problem. First, evil is privation and cannot be said to exist in the proper sense. Second, God can be willing to act but still refrain from doing so if he has an sufficient moral reason for holding back. For Augustine, this reason is free will; God would be violating our autonomy if He were to directly prevent evil from happening.

These arguments are related to but not connected to the problem of suffering. Evil is theologically important for all who are not salvational universalists. The existence (or persistence) of evil is a prerequisite for the idea that some humans or angels may not reach paradise. Suffering does not have this theological importance. Where the thought argument of a created world without evil is impossible to conceive, the idea of a world without pain is relatively easy. One could imagine a world without pain to still have evil. Why, then, we ask the author of theodicy, did and does God allow suffering?

C.S. Lewis answers, in a nutshell, that suffering is necessary in order to stimulate humans to maturity. Pain is a learning experience. This has always come across two ways in my mind. Sometimes it seems eminently plausible. Other times, it seems like a cheap cop-out. I waver between thinking that pain can actually cause one to mature and thinking that suffering merely dulls the spirit and mind. Here, I think it is quite legitimate to ask: surely God could have come up with something better to teach us with? Surely there is some other way of becoming the type of person we need to be? Perhaps one could argue the same way as utilized against the equivalent problem of evil: any other learning mechanism, at least any other that was more effective, would violate our free will again. God is determined to hide, it seems, as frustrating as it may seem to some of us.

There is an old story that came up from the Cabbalist tradition. Two rabbis, one young and impetuous, the other old and seasoned, begin debating some theological matter. For hours their arguments are considered and attacked, and as a crowd gathers it seems like both of them have an equal grasp on the situation, both of them have the scriptural knowledge to face any objection. Finally, though, the elder draws his trump card. "May God bring lightning if my position is correct." And God answers with lightning. As the crowd begins to realize the significance, the younger rabbi remains unperterbed. "Is it not written," he asks, "that no one shall interupt two rabbis while in discussion of the scriptures?" And a voice from heaven cries out that the young rabbi is in the right.

The idea is that God is not looking for slavish, passive worshippers. As C.S. Lewis writes in the Screwtape Letters, He wants saints, gods like himself. Is hiding away and prodding us with random bouts of suffering the best way to bring this across?

Sometimes I think that I finally have something that I understand. It usually does not take much to have that happy, naive view come tumbling down around me. But understanding is not a prerequisite for obedience, whether you believe it to be obedience to God's wishes or obedience to your own conscience, striving to make you a better person. And obedience to others does bring about changes, which does require some measure of pain: think of the value of boot camp, or more poetically the fire which cooks the clay into a meaningful form. Pain comes when we have to give up something which we hold dear to ourselves, something we think we own. The idea of ownership is one of the most corrosive and dangerous ideas morality has to face down. Reason, spirituality, or common sense experience all tell us that we can never own anything permanently. Everything can be taken from us. Relinquishing this idea of ownership, this conception that X is mine empties places where pain can take hold. This is the polar opposite of becoming numb, cutting oneself off from feeling. It is something far greater: losing our fragile ego in order to become something more.

I will miss you, friend.

A Milestone. And Self-indulgence.

2008-10-20T11:55:00.000-07:00

(Eds. Note: I've come down with my first cold of the year. It's hit me a little hard, and so most of today I've just been sitting around doing nothing at all. As a matter of fact, I spent most of the last four hours watching three episodes of NCIS and two episodes of Scrubs. Aside from the random coughing and sneezing my head feels like it's in a rather painful fog, so I'm really in no position to be writing anything. On the other hand, yesterday I passed a milestone I'm quite proud of so I think I'm entitled to a little bit of random and pointless elucidation.)

I've never considered myself to be a writer. What I mean is that I never think of myself as being a 'writer'; I differentiate between the kind of writing I'm doing. So, generally, since most of my writing is philosophical, I consider myself a philosopher. Back when I used to write poetry on a regular basis, I was not afraid to call myself a poet, albeit usually one who hastily added that he was a bad poet. I write some history, but not enough that I think of myself as a historian. I write generally essay length scribbles on anything that comes to mind, but I don't think of myself as an essayist - this perhaps because, again, I'd have to come out very quickly and say most of them are very bad essays. There is a trend here that I have caught on to and that has served me well to realize: the fact that I try everything does not necessarily mean that I am good at everything, and that sometimes realizing what one is good at and running with it gets you farther than trying to claim you can successfully do everything.

That doesn't mean I can't admire the people who can. For me, Jean-Paul Sartre is the prototypical writer. He did it all: novels, plays, essays, journalism. And he tended to be good at all of them. Besides, he lived like a writer; and so here I admit that there is a certain difference between the 'artistic' life of a writer and the 'academic' life of a... well, any kind of specialist. This is why Sartre trumps Umberto Eco as a 'writer': because I see Eco fitting in better with academic life, although he too has done it all: novels, essays, research into some rather arcane fields, and surprisingly enough even a couple of children's books (I have yet to find a translation from the Italian, though). I have to admit my preference for Eco's style and intelligence in all cases as well: Name of the Rose and the Island of the Day Before trump Nausea and certainly Theory of Semiotics trumps Being and Nothingness. There are others, too, who manage to blur the distinguishing lines: Tolstoy and Dostoevski (in fact most Russian authors), Victor Hugo, Bertrand Russell (though he never really strayed into fiction, he covered just about everything else).

I wonder how these writers managed to do it - to be good at so many different styles at once, not to mention the amount of head-work going into researching the novels and the non-fiction. I'm also curious about their process. Bertrand Russell wrote that he once tried doing drafts of whatever he was writing, but the subsequent drafts were always worse than what he had written the first time. But being most enamored of Eco's writing, when I found he had gone into some detail in an essay entitled 'How I Write' I went to town. Talking about his novels, he often went years without writing a paragraph; he spent time mapping out the surroundings and characters - drawing them before he figured out their personality and speaking traits.

Now that I've finished a draft of a short story collection - well, let me stop there. It's just a draft. It's not particularly good at the moment. I'm not Bertrand Russell, and I can't just whip out a solid product on the first go. Besides, if anything it's harder to write solid fiction than solid non-fiction. But I've never finished anything this far-reaching before. You just need to look at the three abandoned books I have on my hard drive next to this one to see that. This was ten months of solid work. Umberto Eco put in about six years of solid work before he finished A Name of the Rose. So I'm hoping for something about one seventh as good as that. But right now it's enough that it's going to be finished - this is where I say a very grateful thanks to all of you who have edited, discussed ideas, or simply given me encouragement; I couldn't have gone this far otherwise.

But having come this far I can now look a little closer about how I write. Like Eco (I really shouldn't say that, it'll give me the wrong idea) it takes me a long time to go between having an idea and being able to start writing. But then from there it usually comes out smoothly. I usually do better just sitting down for several hours to get a short story done than to try to write it in chunks. For the most part the same is true for my non-fiction writing, or at least the stuff I get graded on. I'm not sure whether breaking off and coming back to something you are writing is something you can learn to do: but I imagine if it is like the other things I've learned while writing this collection, it's something that takes discipline and patience. There were times when I did not look forward to writing, but the idea was in my head and I stuck it out anyway. There were dry periods where I didn't write anything at all, but I continued to think about and sketch out ideas which eventually seemed fruitful.

The patience involved in this is probably the one thing I would like to take with me - this even if my collection gets completely rejected, if it turns out to be completely horrible. I'm always torn when trying to define 'writer': would someone who wrote as prolificly as Sartre but was completely horrible at it still be a writer? Or one who was as good but didn't publish anything, instead burning the drafts while they were stil warm from being printed? The question is interesting to me in one sense, but in another it doesn't matter. I can't see myself changing anytime soon - I write because I feel compelled to write, about whatever situation or story pops into my head. It can drive me crazy until I can find something to scribble some notes on. Whether or not I ever am successful with my writing really doesn't matter. And I can be optimistic here, too: look at C.S. Peirce, who managed to be the greatest American philosopher in history with only a couple of people realizing until some decades after his death. I'm going to be writing no matter what; in that case, I can say that what really matters is what writing has taught me.

(A Little Strange)

2008-10-11T14:57:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to distract myself recently. I thought rather naively that senior year would come and I would be able to fall back from school a bit, maybe get a job and maybe have some more time to write and do music. Now, in a sense I was right on the money. My classes this term are pretty easy and don't require much work. But the rest of my life has thrown me some stress: trying to figure out what I'm going to do in the future, how I'm going to do it, and also trying to go through a ton of administrative red tape in transferring the credits I earned in England here. (To be fair, the red tape isn't all that bad. I don't have to fill out too many forms. It's just the people who are difficult.) All of this and a fair amount of stress in my personal life has thrown my original plan out of sync.

What was my response? To throw myself into work even more than I had originally intended. I had the same amount of time to kill, just without the relaxation I had hoped for. So, when my history of modern philosophy teacher assigns readings from, say, Leibnitz, I go out and read two books about Leibnitz so I can understand him better. For a presentation I'm giving in my philosophy seminar, I'm reading all of the published works of Wittgenstein in order to better analyze the four or five pages I was assigned to critique. I've been consistently reading two books outside of assigned reading at any given time, one of which was in Latin and took me far longer than I would have hoped. I'm teaching myself how to play the piano, and am still putting nearly an hour a day into guitar. I'm continuing to learn Greek. I've already read three books for my honors thesis and I've started a fourth.

I'm not sure this was a usual response to stress, but it's been working. Instead of thinking about all of the things which are out out of my hands, all of the things I can't change, I've occupied myself so much with things that I enjoy doing that any work I can do towards, say, graduating or getting into the JET program gets done because I can focus on it as the task at hand.

There are downsides. I can't pay attention to everything at once, so things slip. I've started working on my last short story for the set (mostly by writing in class) but it took me a good month to get an idea going for it from the end of my last one. And I know soon I'll have to start looking into it more, since the deadline is coming up and it takes me a long time to edit things. But other things have dropped too. I remember freshman year on the weekends doing something each night and then staying up until three or four in the morning on a regular basis. Now, if I go to a party, usually I only spend a little while there before I go home and practice Greek before bed. And my non-fiction writing only comes in fits and spurts - I wrote eight pages on consciousness yesterday after having my notebook lay fallow for about three weeks. And of course there is the habitual dropping of writing on my blog.

Of course no coping mechanism is perfect, and even on my good periods stuff doesn't get done that needs to get done. Occasionally I get ahead of the power curve; occasionally I even feel unstressed. But the most important thing that has allowed me to have this kind of focus is something I believe I picked up in England; the idea that this too shall pass. On the good days as well as the bad, I know that the feeling is transistory as well as the situation being transistory. Something will happen and I will have to deal with that. This understanding allows me to push aside, for the moment, any despair or anger that I may have concerning my present situation and to just focus on what needs to get done, even if I'm somewhat artificially creating a need to cope with extreme circumstances. And this sense of release of my emotion in order to get things done may be particularly surprising as it is a sign that I may in fact be grown up.

Silence, or, De Amor

2008-09-13T20:20:00.000-07:00

(Eds. note: Writing has become more difficult for me lately. Partially this is because I find myself very busy, partially this is because I have been reading fewer books that make me think very hard, and partially this is because I've reached a kind of watershed mark on some subjects, and I now have to dig deep into them rather than just play around the edges. I also have four posts that I've started writing here but then abandoned because I didn't like them. But all of this is my problem. Here's something a little different from my notebook. My only warning is not to take it too seriously.)

Love, of course, means nothing. It is a vacuologism, and perhaps the basis of many others. It is also one of the best teaching tools the human race has at its disposal, being generally painful, scratching, aggravating, exhausting, inspiring and yet desired. I would explore this side of love more but I doubt my poetic abilities. So I look at love as a linguistic phenomenon.

'Love' is one of the most broad terms as used in general experience. You can love toast, books in general, a particular book, a pet, a place, a spouse, a parent, and even a God without being inappropriate. This is what is said: "I love toast," "I love my wife," "I love God." Three tokens of the same type, but used in very different ways. No one has been so moved by their love of toast that they felt compelled to write great verse or compose or paint or sculpt. The love for some things indicates only an emotional emphasis on the pleasure one receives from the particular thing - "well, he may like toast, but I love it." The speaker is describing the same relation, but with emphasis to indicate his desire or the pleasure he receives from toast is greater than the other person's.

Elementary. This is clarifying meaning. But difficulties arise when we use 'love' in a different way: "I love him, I know it." What does it mean to love someone else? Or what does it mean when one says, "I love him?" In some cases, surely, the meaning is the same as that of toast above. Some instances of "I love him" mean "I enjoy his presence," or at least "I enjoy what he does with/for/to me." But hopefully we can say with many others that love goes farther, that saying "I love you," - perhaps after forty or fifty years of knowing and being with each other - is something entirely different.

What would this mean? Well, let us see first if it is true. Perhaps all love is of the first kind, an acknowledgment of desire and articulation of appreciation. Some of the love I alluded to - that which inspires poetry and other art - could possibly fall under this category. Unrequited love, certainly, if particularly powerful, as desire tends to grow when unfulfilled. And perhaps we can say that, sometimes, mere desire is not truly love, even in the sense that we've acknowledged; if I see a girl out the corner of my eye and I am attracted to her, I cannot say "I love her" seriously, even in the same sense as loving something like toast. She has nothing to do with me. I cannot claim to have gained any enjoyment from seeing her, not enough to require the emphasis. So why do people say, in that moment, at that juncture in two lives, "Oh, I love her!" if they can't put in any more poetic, beautiful, or alternatively sappy way?

I think we know or expect that there is more to loving people than just this pleasure and this desire. We can see changes in lovers who stay together as they age; and we can see its absence in those who may live together but not have the same connection.

"There!" you may say, we have it. We have a word. Love is a connection. Let us play the Aristotelian game, let us be followers of Porphyry and outline the differentia from all other connections. How would we describe such a connection? Or better, how would we explain what we mean to someone else? If we have not felt that connection ourselves, we have to float about for an explanation, latching on perhaps to examples we have seen, heard of, or read about. Similarly, if you try to tell me about your great love, you will describe instances. I may be able to form a kind of picture in my mind based off of those examples, but unless I was a complete fool, I would not assume that my experience would match the picture you had drawn. Here, I believe, we must fail. There are no words to describe love in the same way we can use words to describe or define books. Perhaps definition is not as precise as we once thought it to be, but with some things it fails completely. I worry about falling into cliche when I say love is something unspeakable, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that to be the case.

Are other things like this? Things like virtue, and friendship, the things Socrates tried so hard to define in the early dialogues? How about philosophy, etymologically 'love of wisdom'? Maybe. But love, I hope, I believe, is the most important of all, and it may be that we can say nothing meaningful about it. Poetry may evoke it, music may feel it, and art may be inspired by it, but what past that? I suppose I am calling for the destruction of the fabled ivory tower, where Great Men sit around pondering the problems in life (I imagine here the 'School of Athens'). Some problems, perhaps, may be knots we are unable to untie with words, but only with choices, action, and courage.

Whereof we cannot speak

2008-08-26T18:29:00.000-07:00

(Ed. note: the majority of this post struck me as I walked back to my house from Starbucks. As a result it was hastily written as I desperately tried to get it down before I forgot. Some of it, however, has been rattling around in my mind for a very long time. Anyway, it may not be particularly well written but it goes to the heart of what I think about language and meaning and other cool things.)

Ludwig Wittgenstein believed that he had solved all of the problems of philosophy. His short book, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, outlined the proper conditions for a statement and then rejected the use of statements outside that formulation. Namely, he said that only a very few propositions were in any way meaningful, and everything outside of those propositions, including particularly ethics, aesthetics, and metaphysics. Incidentally he considered such things important, but claimed that nothing could be said about them: they had to be "shown" rather than "said." But to be clear he ends his book with the warning: whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent.

I take Wittgenstein seriously as any student of contemporary philosophy ought to. He did much in the way of clearing out traditional ideas of philosophy that had become stagnant, ideas that people still clung to, often from Plato and Aristotle, but that were ultimately irrational. But this phrase in particular stands out from the rest. It seems to go against the rational, enlightened, scientific project that has shaped and guided the modern world. Often the standard position of scientists is that any project guided by scientific methods (which are often only vaguely realized) can ultimately reach truth. Consider Richard Dawkin's take on religion, for example, or Daniel Dennet's recent claim that there are no factual assertions that religion can claim that are off limits to science. This attitude is directly comparable to the attitude of the enlightenment philosophes who believed that the world was perfectible and would be vastly improved with increased knowledge and a movement away from dogmatism. Their views were put to the test during the French revolution, when a church of reason was established, along with ten day weeks and other, rational changes were made.

This is one extreme. And perhaps, after all, no factual statements are off limits to science. Science at its simplest might be taken as testing the correspondence between a statement and the evidence. But this obviously doesn't guarantee that utilizing science would ever guarantee an improved society. As Karl Popper pointed out, if science is defined by its falsifiability (that is, if a scientific theory is advanced because it more exactly fits the evidence as compared to one that is then considered disproven) then we will never have certainty that our current scientific paradigm is the best, the absolute truth. It is always up in the air whether something will come along and disprove it or a better theory will supplant it. And this of course is just within the realm of knowledge, this has nothing to do with the improvement of people who understand this theory.

This has always been the moment where I see Wittgenstein's point. The views of various parts of society are themselves up as possible content of knowledge, but those views themselves are not necessarily rational and so fall outside the classical enlightenment scientific project. That is, the enlightenment project would not have us understand everything, only everything rational. Fair enough. We certainly have come farther in recognizing the value of vernacular or popular culture as meaningful. Much contemporary philosophy recognizes the value of non-rational experience. But that still leaves us after all with the question: is Wittgenstein right in general? Are there things of which we cannot talk about?

Other philosophers have said yes. Kant, for example, claimed that our minds shaped the reality we live in using constructs of space and time. Philosophers after Kant used this to claim that Euclidean geometry was the only way of constructing geometry as a result; this only a few years before Gauss began recognizing the weakness of the parallel postulate and doing the first work into non-Euclidean geometry. Thus here, existence dominated thought - because the world was one way, we had to think in a certain way. In some cases this might still be true: the old exercise of trying to imagine what a four dimensional object would look like springs to mind. But of course there we seem to have a counter-example. In mathematics we can work with n-dimensional objects for any value of n, even if so many dimensions do not exist in reality.

Other things have been postulated to be ineffable, especially art. There has been much fairly useless arguments in aesthetics and the philosophy of music as to whether music "means" something. "Means", being a useless word in this setting, leads to every possible answer: no, because music does not have syntax like a language; yes, because our cognitive experience is affected by listening to music; yes, because music has structure and patterns; no, because music does not contain propositions, to list the conclusions of the last four books I've read. The book I read before those has, I believe, the answer. Music is not meaningful the way languages are meaningful; it is meaningful, though, because it evokes emotion. Theoretically, one could set up a code whereby a certain musical phrase is equal to because it logically entails a certain result: if phrase A is played, then emotion A' will result. In this way, music is a semiotic system, and therefore similar to language in expression, if not in other capacities. This means, essentially, that what music or painting or poetry (as poetry) says cannot be 'translated' into the rational dream of the enlightenment by means of criticism, or a given philosophy of art, but is meaningful in a given way, nonetheless.

The whole tangled mess relies on one question: is language isomorphic to reality? I encountered this question first during my tutorial on Aristotle, giving an idea about how old the question is. Aristotle, not being particularly curious about the way language works, seemed to take it as a given, and I was told such by my tutor: language is isomorphic to reality. This idea is, roughly, summed up in another statement of Wittgenstein's: the limits of my language are the limits of the world. In mathematics, isomorphism means a one-to-one correspondence between functions, and this generally applies to Aristotle's conception as well.

Wittgenstein's Tractatus, where he propounds this idea of isomorphism, is the pinnacle of twenty five hundred years of assuming that language is isomorphic to reality. Such an assumption is plausible, simple, and appealing to philosophers aiming to look for the truth. Language is isomorphic to reality? That means truth is when it accurately corresponds. Falsehood is when it does not. This obviously would appeal to those holding to the enlightenment project. Wittgenstein, for better or worse, believed that he had finally solved all the problems of philosophy by using logic to show those aspects of reality that are true. But therein lies the rub. Since language and the world are isomorphic, any attempt to say in logic (i.e., in language) "A" is meaningful but "B" is not, is doomed to fail, since it would mean that logic has gone beyond the limits of the world, and also of itself. Wittgenstein in fact noticed this, but instead of realizing that he had destroyed most of classical philosophy in 80 pages claimed that the Tractatus should be used as a ladder to see the truth which would then be discarded once one had climbed to the top.

Language is not isomorphic to reality. This is the new problem that philosophers have to deal with, and it creates some tricky situations as far as questions regarding truth, meaning, and logic go. But it seems to explain a lot, too: like how language is a social construct and changes along with social pressures; from there we might notice how that integrates individuals, with consciousnesses that are so dependent on language, into a larger whole. It means along with works of literary fiction we can write science fiction and fantasy stories, where we create entire worlds based as loosely upon our own world as we may wish. We can speculate about possible worlds and alternate histories, and can even make scientifically sound thought-experiments that would not be possible given the limitations of the physical world. We can ask people who believe that there are things of which we cannot speak what it is exactly we can't talk about; and if they can come up with something then they've obviously found some language for it. Any possible experience, situation, event, or entity can be expressed.

All of this is not proof, of course, not even Wittgenstein. If there truly is something that is real that we cannot talk about, and language is isomorphic to reality, then that thing is incomprehensible, it cannot be thought of, cannot be imagined. I quoted Wittgenstein in an article I wrote about death: about what happens afterward, we cannot know, so we cannot speak of it in any knowledgeable way. But such things, though perhaps like death inevitable, fall outside our experience and do not effect us as we are now. But proof of anything is hard come by and might only be found in mathematics, a very special branch of knowledge after all.

The difficulty in reconciling the progress made by philosophers of language working under the defunct model with the new one has led to a lot of problems for philosophy: it has led either towards some brands of post-modernism, where language is said to be meaningless because it is non-isomorphic, or towards the excesses of analytic philosophy which relegated philosophy to logical analysis of statements. There are signs that philosophy and intellectuals in general are moving beyond this paralysis. Perhaps the only thing that we need take from this, along with the need for new ideas as to what this all means, is to stay intellectually humble; along with Popper we have to say that as regards science and philosophy we cannot know definitively and certainly anymore. For that price our imaginations can roam free and we can communicate that creative impulse to the people around us. It seems like a fair deal to me.

I know it's not November, but....

2008-08-15T19:23:00.000-07:00

I am now fifty thousand words into my little short story collection thing. This is the longest and by far the most entertaining and enlightening writing project I've ever done. There is a writing contest which I'm entertaining the idea of entering, but even if it falls flat there it will have been well worth doing. (I have to admit to partly using the writing contest as an impetus to actually finish the thing).

I want to thank all of you who've so far read parts of it and given me feedback. I will be finishing some others shortly and will probably be looking for some more criticism. Any help is appreciated.

A Reckoning

2008-06-29T05:43:00.000-07:00

The original use of the word reckoning labeled a numbering or census, an enumerated list. In connection with another use implying thinking or belief, I reckon it's as good a way of organizing a retrospect as any. (Ed. note: I should never ever be allowed to buy an actual Oxford English Dictionary. The etymology is as addicting as wikipedia). The real reason of course is that this is one of the few times I'm actually not looking forward to seeing the chapter of my life end. In any other situation I'd try to look ahead and see how things would improve in the future, but here I can't really see how my life could get better than the time I've had here.

That said, I do like looking back at times and seeing how different periods of my life have gone. After high school, after each year of college, I've found it's a good idea to look back to see how I've changed and what I've done. It's helpful in trying to figure out what I need to do next in life. In this sense, I need to do this reckoning to figure out how I'm going to make next year at all comparable to the time I've had here. So what I've done is compiled a list of things that I have done or have experienced while I've been here: at least the things I could count. By no means does this encapsulate my experience here. It is merely a guide towards an approximation.

Travel
Countries visited: Nine, not counting the U.K. Five were visited by plane, the others by train.
Miles walked in foreign countries: about 120, give or take.
People noticing I was American: at least 20 who mentioned something.
Conversations had with people in a language I had tried to learn that morning / the night before: 6. One couple actually knew English, they honestly thought I was Italian.
Languages I remember now after trying to learn them overnight: 0
Times I was scared for my life: 2. Once in Budapest, once somewhere in Romania.
Number of times I've broken the ice by telling the train story: 8
Number of times I've broken the ice by talking about guitars: 3, all in the same hostel
Number of fantastic beers I've had: Too many to count
Number of fantastic meals I've had: see above
Phones lost while / because of traveling: 3
Times been to London: 5
Most visited attraction in London: outside of this one great coffee shop, the British library
Most surreal experience in London: realizing that it's exactly like Paris except tidier.
Place I most wish I could have visited but didn't: probably Amsterdam, although I saw great pictures and had recommended by one of my tutors Tripoli.
Biggest letdown: Not being able to see Vienna because the train was delayed
Most awe-inspiring: toss up between Notre Dame and Hagia Sophia. Runners up include the Duomo, Rustem Pasha, Guernica, Dachau in an obviously more subdued light, and the whiskey tasting at the Jameson's distillery.

Productivity:
New books read from: 579, of which, I read 508 completely.
Books read including re-reads (read here more than once) and repeat readings (reading a book I've read before): 812. (Ed. note: you cannot believe how long or the necessary neurotic perfectionism it took to count them all)
Biggest surprise: How much of "the Diary of Lady Murasaki" I could actually read.
Biggest letdown: toss up between Michel Foucault and the later Heidegger.
Pages written: 950, give or take, not counting these pages. Break down: Non-fiction, assigned: 192. Non-fiction, drafts for larger things: 202. Non-fiction, random crap including blog and journal: 304. Long fictions: 80 and 114. Short fictions: about 58. About 40% of the total was handwritten and 60% typed. Percentage I now think is crap? Too much.
Number of story / argument ideas that I had to trash because they were bad: at least ten including some that I had before I came here.
Songs learned on guitar: a dozen or so, depending on how you define "learned".
Pieces composed not for guitar: Well, it would have been four, but my flash drive ate three of them.
Hours spent playing guitar: not enough
Meals accidentally missed because I was too busy playing the guitar / writing / reading: Too many
Times seriously considered giving up academia in order to pay the bills with the guitar: at least once
Amount of money made from performing, ever: $0. (Ed. note: hmm.)
Subjects I now feel fairly competent in: 2
Subjects I presumably need to be competent in for the writing I have planned: not counting the fiction? At least 6.
Best answer I can give for why I write so much: "I can't not write."
Best answer I can give for why I read so much: "Because books are awesome!" (Ed. note: both these have actually been said.)
Biggest time waster: Outside of guitar? Webcomics.

Concluding Remarks
Most lasting impressions: The friends made here. By lasting I guess I mean something I still have.
Thing missed most from the States: Other than certain people? Seriously, Mexican food.
Good memories: All of them, no regrets whatsoever.

P.S.
- I'm going to take this moment to mention casually to those of you in Utah that I will be there for approximately a month starting July 1st. I might want to mention to those of you in Spokane that I will be there after that. We should hang out. Totally.

The Value of History

2008-06-12T06:06:00.000-07:00

(Eds. note: I've mentioned I keep a notebook where I jot down ideas and such. I don't often move those writings here - I think I mentioned it the one other time I did it. I'm not very happy with this one, and though I've cleaned it up a bit I think the tone is still off. Still, I'm hoping it's interesting; it does deal with some other things I've written here.)

Two things brought about this train of thought. The first was reading, in a book of essays by the philosopher A.C. Grayling, that the best thing to read for the autodidact was history; it was the best reading for those wishing to improve their lives because it showed the best people acting out their lives. The second was remembering something my history tutor last term mentioned when I said my primary tutorial was philosophy. This man, perhaps the most brilliant person I've ever met, said, "Philosophy? I never could wrap my mind around that stuff. It's too deep for me." This surprised me, because I thought if there was anyone I met while in Oxford who didn't need more philosophical thinking, it was him.
Besides the obvious point that people tend to think that things that they don't understand are more difficult than they actually are, the combination surprised me: the philosopher praising history, the historian acknowledging philosophy's complexity. The two statements aren't exactly the same; I can't imagine my tutor going on to say that everyone should study philosophy because of or despite of its difficulty. But the similarity of the two statements are suggestive. I think it is because of a misunderstanding of the methods of these two disciplines. By method, I don't mean to imply the historian's or the philosopher's version of the scientific method; the method of looking at the data. I mean method in terms of the goal. Philosophy aims to explicate and analyze reasons, while historians look to track causes. Again, these two things sound similar, but they are not quite the same and they require different skills. A philosopher should be creative and perceptive on the one hand and hold a sharp analytic razor in the other. A historian should ideally be able to abstract cause and effect from discrete data rather than just re-relate what has happened in the past; but he or she should also realize where there is not enough information and not be creative in interpreting in the same way a philosopher might be.
I've talked about what I think philosophy should be elsewhere. But history has shown itself quite capable of resisting radical change. Historiography is an old and relatively stable science, when compared to the radical nature of philosophy and the modern genesis of such disciplines as psychology, sociology, and anthropology that study fairly similar things. History as a discipline has showed fortitude against post-modern and post-structuralist attacks in the same way the hard sciences have, and this is quite an accomplishment considering the way the majority of the humanities have made way for some levels of relativism and irrationalism. Either the discipline of history generally attracts epistemologically conservative scholars or the field itself is naturally resilient to such attacks. Most of the methods modern historians use would not have been too foreign to Herodotus and Thucydides; perhaps updated somewhat, but the intent is fairly clear. Tell what happened and more importantly why it happened.
This search for cause is part of what links philosophy and history. Philosophers create explanations which best fit what they perceive; historians have an advantage in that the explanations should already be present; it is but a matter of finding them. How much they in fact create is a matter of debate but for me the evidence is on the side of the historians.
So, if this is the case, I can take a look at Dr. Grayling's statement. Would I agree with him that history is the thing for those who wish to educate themselves? Let me begin by saying history is not good biography. Reading history will not tell you how to be like Napoleon, or Jesus, or Han Fei-Tzu. The best you can hope for in that case is to try to learn what other people are like, what makes them tick. And for that, I would say novels are a better source of information than history, since the sensitive novelist can create a character much more life-like than any honest biographer or historian. You can learn more about how people work from Jane Austen than from Edward Gibbon or Thomas Carlyle, except for when Carlyle writes like a novelist. But I've said that historians are supposed to tease out cause and effect. Wouldn't reading history be a good way to learn that? Perhaps. But reading history does not have the same effect as doing the job of a historian. A history book lays out the causes and effects that the historian has found. The reader hopefully will analyze the arguments made - but that lies, as I have it, under philosophy. Other than the methodical practices learned, history is excellent for teaching the causes of the modern processes we have; but that is not a reason to claim that origin implies actuality. The genetic fallacy is one of the most pernicious; it is very easy to claim that where or how something originates determines what it is.
I think many people have the idea that history is the subject best for self-education, and I believe people think this because they trust in the adage: those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. But I have a hard time with this idea, since there are only rarely occasions when the circumstances are similar enough to provide a guide. This is especially true when one thinks about the lack of perfect information at the time a given decision is being made; it is easy in hindsight to find a correspondence between two given events. Or the opposite situation occurs: people jump to a conclusion that something is the case because it is similar to a certain event in the past: look at how all of the revisionist historians looking at Japan in the 1980's claimed that Japan's remarkable growth in taking over market shares was simply a holdover from the rampant nationalism of the 1930's. It turned out only afterward that Japan's economy was only doing so well because of the inflated performance of the stock market and that the single drive to take over economically was non-existent.
But the fact remains that if history is what interests you than it should be the thing you read. I have been treating all of these disciplines as means: learn philosophy so that you can learn to think critically; learn history and you will learn to extract causes. But that's not why anyone learns a subject - which I'm considering in a broad sense. I'd like to think that people who read find themselves fascinated with a certain problem, or a certain question, or a certain beauty in a theory, explanation or explication. And if that's the case, they will already have some leg up in figuring out what books should be on their reading list. On the other hand, if someone wants to educate him or herself without that drive then there is very little which will give them active improvement. They are honestly better off finding something that they love to do, and hopefully it will be something of more value to the human race than sitting around thinking about these problems; something like raising a family or helping people or simply fixing things and making sure every part fits. There is nothing more useless than a person who does something only because everyone else is doing it or it is the "thing to do"; the only thing that comes close is someone who has found what it is they love and it turns out to be academic.

More travels

2008-06-04T03:31:00.000-07:00

Another European city means another chance for me to write at length. Check it out. It involves me getting compared to the David statue.

Democracy

2008-05-26T14:20:00.000-07:00

I've been on a writing kick; short stories, mostly. I have an idea swimming around the back of my mind of a set of short stories which all kind of build on one another, since that's the way I seem to be going... but that's some time in the future.

I have one that I'm fairly happy with. That's a good thing. The bad thing, as far as this is concerned, is that it's long and, I think, not easily divided. It's a short story, you kind of need all of it. But the last time I posted fiction of that length, I got no less than six comments, in various ways, telling me that it was too long and that they didn't read it.

So, I'm up for a vote. It's about 6000 words long, or ten and a bit single spaced pages. Leave a comment or get in touch with me some other way saying you want it or you can't be bothered. If you really can't be bothered, I'll take a non-response as a no... since I'm pretty sure I'm familiar with my readership.

Cheers.

Dialogue

2008-05-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

(I very rarely remember my dreams. However, on those unusual occasions on which I do, they are usually very vivid and very lifelike. The following is a recollection of a recent dream-conversation which I was fortunate enough to remember completely, all the way up to the moment I awoke. I have to emphasize that it was a dream, nothing more and nothing less, so I recommend against taking it too seriously. Also of interest: I'm pretty sure of the two things which brought on the dream: the first is the Socratic dialog style which I'm sure was inspired by the fact that I'm reading Plato. The second was meeting, a few days ago, a friend of a friend who identifies male though being biologically female. He and I did not talk about any of this, but it was enough to get me thinking along these lines. ~ed.)

S: "...so you see, society is far too constraining with its insistence on equating sex with gender. Gender is constructed, so it is obvious that someone can be a man even if they have the body parts of a woman."
E: "I'm sorry, Sam, but I just came in at the very end. I'm sure you gave an excellent explanation, I just missed it. If you don't mind, could you explain it again for me? I'm interested in the subject and have an overwhelming desire to understand."
S: "Of course. I said that it is plain that different cultures have different values for men and women. There are different expectations for what a man is supposed to be versus what a woman is supposed to be. In some cultures, there is not even a binary relationship: there are third genders for which we don't have equivalents. So, 'male' and 'female' are not strictly part of human biology. Claiming that they are perpetuates the traditional and constricting aspects of our culture, pushed by society, where all people are shoehorned into nice, nuclear families; the man goes out to work and the woman stays home and takes care of the children."
E: "I take it you would be against that."
S: "Of course I would!"
E: "Alright; I just want to make sure I understood you correctly. You say that different cultures have different values for gender than ours. Therefore, gender is constructed, and therefore biology and gender do not have to correspond. Is this right?
S: "That's it, exactly."
E: "Now, I just want to be clear. You say that other cultures have different values for gender than ours. So, for someone living in another culture, it is their culture which constructs the gender for them."
S: "Yes."
E: "So it is our culture which constructs our gender for us."
S: "Our culture constructs its traditional gender roles, masculine and feminine, and associates them with particular sexes."
E: "But you, for example, do not go along with this. You identify as the opposite gender to your sex than our culture dictates."
S: "Yes, that's right."
E: "So, our culture isn't constructing your gender. Who is to say that it is constructing everyone else's? It seems to me that you have several options. It might be that you are outside society as we seem to be defining it, or it could be that society, our culture, is constructing your gender-role and is not forcing people into the pigeon-hole which you mentioned. Or, it could be that society is not irresistible, that people can choose their own way against our cultural influences.
S: "Hmm... well, it's likely that society isn't irresistible. After all, I know that I'm male despite what our culture tells me. And I'm sure I'm part of this society, despite how much I would rather be in a different one."
E: "You would say, then, that culture is very influential in making gender stereotypes. You mentioned masculine and feminine roles. I think that's an excellent way of putting it. Would you say that one's culture provides a description of what is masculine and what is feminine, and makes a big push to set people within each of these categories, but sometimes, like in your case, a person can resist society's influence?"
S: "That sounds about right. It takes a great deal to break society's influence, so it would be a lot better if we changed society's values."
E: "So you would say that you are a woman, if we're using the word here to describe the biological characteristics, who has the masculine traits our culture dictates."
S: "Er... when you put it that way, it sounds wrong. Since we can say that a woman is masculine while she identifies as a woman, it's not quite the same thing. I would say in general, what you said is right, but only as it affects identity."
E: "Alright, let me try again. You are saying you're a woman who has a masculine identity. (Sam nods) This masculine identity is given to you by society, but you recognized this fact despite the fact that our culture is also pushing you to have a feminine identity."
S: "Right. There are some people who claim that they have a gender outside of society's influence, but I know that's not the case with me. That's almost as bad as the women who try to justify their misandry with pseudo-feminist rantings about how men can never understand how they feel. It seems to me that, while society has many bad characteristics, one redeeming feature that it does have is that it promotes empathy; we should all be able to at least try to understand each other's position."
E: "I'd have to agree with you on the last point, but I can't say anything about misandric women since I'm still trying to wrap my mind around your position."
S: "I thought I had made that fairly clear"
E: "You've made it very clear. Still, there was a question that occurred to me. You say that your identity is not influenced by our culture; or, what influence there is is not irresistible. This follows, I think, from the fact that you know you're male despite the fact that society pushes you to identify as female to match, so they say, with your sex."
S: "Right"
E: "But then you say that your male identity is given to you partly by society. It seems to me that the two cannot go together. Either your identity is intrinsic, self-justifying so to speak, or it is open to our culture's influence. But if part of your identity is that you are male, then your identity is open and you cannot justify your position by claiming you personally, intimately your position against society."
S: "Well, society does have some influence, but eventually it comes down to me to know my identity. It's like... like a book. In Japan, the books open the opposite way from ours. This shows that the way the book is arranged is convention. Convention influences the way 'The Republic' is printed, but that still doesn't mean that I can't know my copy from anyone else's."
E: "That makes a lot of sense... but no, I still don't quite understand. And I'm no good at analogies, so let's try something else. I'll ask you questions as if I'm society, and you answer as yourself. I, as society, provided your masculine identity, insofar as it is masculine, correct? Because you would say that some of the rest is your own, intrinsic."
S: "Right, the rest is intrinsic."
E: "But I've made this part of you, how are you sure that I haven't made other parts of your identity?"
S: "Because I know myself."
E: "But you've just claimed that society is part of your identity in the same way you are. Whether or not your masculinity is the only part of your identity which is created by our culture, I hear you saying that society has the same access, the same privileges as you do in this regard. I don't understand how you then try to claim that you have sole understanding of your identity."
S: "Well... I don't know. I just know myself."
E: "Well, just speaking for myself, I can never be content with that. I'm driven, nearly to distraction at times, for finding reasons outside of my own opinions. Usually I just wind up annoying people like some insect always pricking and pricking away."
S: "Why don't you tell me your opinion on these matters, then?"
E: "...I would be more than happy to do so, if I was sure I had a good, sound position. But so much of what I think seems to change within the next minute, I wind up changing my mind mid-sentence."
S: "Still, I'm curious. I'll forgive you your weak position, if that's what I find."
E: "You are most charitable. Let me see. I suppose I would start by looking at 'society.' What do we mean when we say 'society constructs gender' or suchlike? I would lean towards saying that society is the amalgam of the prevailing ideas that we are exposed to. How does that sound?"
S: "I suppose that sounds alright."
E: "I might be a little sloppy in my definition, but maybe it will turn out alright anyway. If this is right, then I think it would explain how society has such an influence, since we are all social animals and love to find our place, either fitting in or rebelling against, either maintaining stability or trying to improve our own position in relation to everyone else's position. After that, I think I would agree with what we said before, that our culture, this society, has expectations for masculinity and femininity. I think you can see it in language, though perhaps far less than in previous times, in phrases that portray feminine characteristics as being synonymous with daintiness, fragility, and sentimentality. Masculine characteristics, obviously, would be the opposite."
S: "But there's more to it than that."
E: "Is there? Like you said before, you can say that a woman can be masculine without implying that she is secretly a man or sees herself as a man. As regards those who do... well, let's take two people. One, like you, is biologically female but identifies as male. However, he does not have traditionally masculine characteristics. The other we'll say is biologically female, identifies female, but has masculine characteristics. The first is happy to do all of the typical feminine things... I believe you mentioned saying home and raising the kids, as some fathers typically do. The second is not. Who would have a harder time being accepted in society, or rather by those people who typically accept the ideas which make up our culture?"
S: "I suppose the second."
E: "Right. What it seems to imply, as far as I can tell, is not that society constructs gender, but that it has expectations for the sexes. Or, what would perhaps be better, given that you pointed out those cultures which have a third gender, that the expectations for society are given to those, in our case, to those with certain biological characteristics."
S: "Still, isn't that just as bad?"
E: "I don't know whether it's good or bad. I'm sure it's bad for some people, good for others, and as far as society itself is concerned, is necessary for it to continue existing."
S: "Now you're confusing me. What do you mean by 'as far as society itself is concerned?'"
E: "I'm sorry. I'm getting a little off-track, since the question was really not about society but about identity. My aim was towards the idea that gender is not part of our identity."
S: "Are you serious?"
E: "I know, but this is just how it appears to me. If I wanted to be lazy, I would just point out that the main association is simply the fact that I would refer to you in the third person as 'he' rather than 'she', but when you say 'I' there is no connotation of gender. But I hope that you will not let me get away with being lazy. The argument, I think, follows from the observation about masculine traits in women; that the idea of being masculine only occurs in the mode in which she performs actions. Let's say she speaks with a masculine quality. Her identity is not changed when she starts to speak in falsetto. 'Masculine' and 'feminine' refer to quality of actions, rather than identity. On the other hand. there is much to be said, as far as I can see, for determining one's identity by one's actions rather than by one's intrinsic qualities. But that wouldn't change anything, since the qualities of those actions would be accidental in the Aristotelian sense, not essential."
S: "You're going too fast for me to follow you... "
Finis

Umbabarauma

2008-05-13T03:50:00.000-07:00

I'm very sorry about this. I was fairly convinced that I could go without ever posting an internet meme here, but circumstances have arisen that have made it necessary. Well, maybe not necessary, but satisfactory.

There was an argument. I was trying to convince him that my taste in music was extensive. He replied that everyone says that, it's just a cop-out; he went on to say that most people who said that really only listened to alternative pop. I started to get annoyed. I insisted that I was serious, that I liked music of practically every variety, even adding, (mostly, I admit, for the purpose of argument) that there were a couple of country songs that I had learned to like when the radio was left on at my work. I'm not sure where the idea came from... I think someone else at the table threw it out, that the only way to be sure was to go randomly through my music and see what came out. Thus, the meme. I think the best part is the fact that there are seven languages represented on here, of course not counting the two Spanish accents; and all told it worked out fairly well. Hopefully, Kyle, this will lay your doubts to rest.

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
Latin Simone (Que Pasa Contigo) (Gorillaz)
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
Come to Rest (Hesychia) (Blindside)
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Hiphopopotamus meets the Rhymenoceros (Flight of the Conchords)
WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Piano Concerto #12 in C, second movement (Mozart)
WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
L’amour Est Une Etoile (Tino Rossi)
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF OFTEN?
Minerva (Deftones)
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR ENEMY?
Is this the Fall? (Carbon Leaf)
WHAT DOES 2 + 2 =?
Fly Trapped in a Jar (Modest Mouse)
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BESTIE?
Concerto Grosso #11, Third Movement (Vivaldi)
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
“Krusty the Clown” Main Title (The Simpsons)
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
La Boheme, Finale (Puccini)
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Agaetis Byrjun (Sigur Ros)
WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Straight, No Chaser (Miles Davis)
WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Birak Kadinin Olayim (Sebnem Ferah)
WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Spirit Fight (Itzhak Perlman – Hero Soundtrack)
WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST??
Milan (Karsh Kale)
WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
Tom Dooley (The Kingston Trio)
WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Fandangos (Flamenco Traditional)
WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Umbabarauma (Soulfly)

Top of My Thoughts

2008-05-09T13:15:00.000-07:00

I grew up in Utah remembering how much better British television was than American television. Since I've been back, and been reinstated somewhat into British television, it has occurred to me that it still rings true; I wasn't sure what it was, but something about British television made it more entertaining than the American. Some of my housemates have staunchly supported the superiority of American television, but I've come up with a few reasons why the Brits have superior TV.

1. British television airs American shows; quite a few of them, in fact. While many of my housemates pointed to this being a fundamental flaw in my theory, I pointed out to them that the Brits also air Australian and Irish shows. The fact that the Brits are willing to pick and choose means that they will generally have superior programming in general. In fact, this is true to a large extent throughout Europe. I nearly missed my bus for my flight back from Spain because I was engaged with a Spanish voiced-over version of a German cop show. The fact that American tv only airs American shows limits them.

2. The British shows are obviously run on a shoestring, with little to no budget and sometimes just plain silly antics. Some might see this as lacking quality. On the other hand, most of the actors are really good, being groomed straight from schools where Shakespeare is still standard fare. Sometimes this means the acting is over-the-top. Fair enough. But the quality is there; and more than that, there is no air of self importance which usually encounters American shows. British shows know not to take themselves too seriously, and are often more entertaining as a result.

3. Besides the fact that BBC runs no commercials, they choose superior movies to air at good times. They may not spend money on special effects budgets for their TV shows, but any extra money they have goes to licensing the best movies.

By the way, this is what I think of when I have to get away from being swamped by Medieval Philosophy and Contemporary Japanese history. All the necessary apologies are in order; I promise I'll get back to actual posting when I get a breather.

Clarification

2008-04-15T13:49:00.000-07:00

I assumed the date on the previous post would read April 1st, the date on which I posted it. Instead, it reads March 29th, the date I first wrote and saved a draft of it. This, I believe, was the source of some confusion. As you may be familiar with, April 1st is popularly considered "April Fools Day", on which ridiculous or exaggerated measures are often taken with standard routines. Any silly hyperbolic caricatures and self-mockery was directed to this effect. Apologies for the confusion.

Still, I highly recommend the links, especially the youtube videos. I put a lot of effort into finding them and they are, in a word, superlative.

The Stature of Physiomorphs in Relation to Ability in Producing Tonal Machinations

2008-03-29T08:33:00.000-07:00

For any of the thousands who are regular readers of this blog, my ultimate intent should quickly become clear. While I have great interest in a wide range of matters, from the philosophical to the physical, from the sophisticated to the sophistical, from the mathematical to the numerological and of course from the literary to the lateral, my foremost interest has always been music, which obviously explains the length and depth of my devotion to my music minor.

As everyone knows and has been articulated with great subtlety by many of the great thinkers of our time, music is no mere intellectual exercise. Nor is it merely a form of entertainment. Since the dawn of human existence, music has been an integral, if not the most important, aspect of human mating rituals. Compared to any other practical discipline, people are more attracted to musicians than any other. Since you all know this is how I roll, I put some thought into the matter. I naturally figured you would be just as interested in my conclusions as I am.

What is perhaps most surprising is the disproportion between physical attractiveness and musical ability. One would obviously assume that someone displaying some level of mastery over a very difficult style of music, such as, and I'm just pulling this out of thin air, classical guitar, would display stunning physical traits. You all probably have a counterexample in mind, but I assure you that for the most part there is not a correlation. The musicians who are not physically attractive but are skilled still retain some level of attractiveness; this probably has something to do with evolutionary traits and such, but I doubt anyone cares.

What one does find is fairly standard levels of attractiveness among different types of musicians. This is a social division among musicians, and can be seen at all levels of accomplishment. In an extensive survey of high schools in Bountiful, Utah, one can find a recurring pattern. The choir is populated with the prime beef, and within the choir the sopranos and the tenors ascend above the rest. The band is made up of people on the practical level of the hierarchy: these are the people who actually do things in high school. Last comes the high school orchestra, which is the cross-country team of music: underappreciated and underfunded despite the hours and hours of back- and finger- breaking work that goes into the instruments! Oh, the years of oppression and trauma for those hardworking orchestral students!

But for those orchestral musicians who continue in music beyond high school, there is some hope, especially as they move beyond the superficial aspects of secondary school social ladders. Their attractiveness no longer stands on their state within a certain hierarchy, but on the more democratic notion of their physical characteristics. The strata within the world of music still stands, but with a more appealing criterion. Those attractive people who remained outcasts rise to the top once in the professional music business: they become the virtuosos, the soloists who get paid the big bucks and are able to command photo shoots to display their best qualities. Anyone who remains behind in the orchestra inevitably is less beautiful than those in front. This is true, furthermore, of the rankings within the orchestra itself: the concertmaster is more attractive than the eighth row violinists.

Furthermore, attractiveness varies on the solo instrument. Solo violinists are usually the most attractive, obviously, followed by pianists and clarinetists. Cellists are a mixed bag. Many of them are quite attractive, but others, following Yo Yo Ma, believe strangely that looks are less important than the music. Compare Yo Yo Ma to Joshua Bell:

My point should be clear. Besides, the one is holding out his instrument in plain view, almost shielding his body behind it. The other is doing almost the exact opposite, cradling his violin and putting his hands in a certain position to emphasize his arms.

This phenomenon is almost too clear in vocal soloists. It does not take any effort for someone to imagine a soprano, an alto, a tenor, or a bass.

Though perhaps not the best example, the two in the middle are clearly the Soprano and the Tenor, taking up the spotlight, showing off their bodies and full of the belief that they are God's chosen. The Bass on the left is sporting a shadow which will eventually become the standard full beard. The Alto, while sporting a classy red dress, will never quite compete for the spotlight.

In the jazz world, things are slightly different. Whereas the most prominent performers of the classical world are also the most beautiful, in jazz this is not always the case. Great trend setters such as Miles Davis and John Coltrane were not exactly lookers. Thelonius Monk, on the other hand, always looked sharp in sunglasses.

Jazz and rock share the hard rocking bassists, who are usually more dependent on personality or projected personality than looks. Drummers too have this quality, but there is usually a reason why drummers are placed behind all of the other instrumentalists, and I doubt it has anything to do with the fact that drums project far more sound than the rest. In rock bands, the front man who sings and sometimes plays lead guitar, is usually the most attractive, in order to get the most value from their fans. Of course, this is not always the case, and there are times when a band must rely on their musical skills because of a certain lack among all of them, despite the common wisdom.

I, of course, have a particular interest in classical guitarists, but I am afraid to say that the results are mixed. Andres Segovia, I'm afraid, falls under the label of cute old man, while John Williams may not even have that luxury. Of course, there is a new generation of virtuoso guitarists, and some of them, fortunately, are displaying some talent. There is still some hope for guitarists; there are now new performers that we can compare and live up to. They have the knack for inspiration; they give off the hope that says "I can try to reach their level."

So, next time you head to a concert or other musical occasion, you can begin playing the massively entertaining game of "figure out what instrument he or she plays based on their looks". Given enough effort and practice, such skills will ultimately come in handy in real life. Whatever that is.

More Wanderings.

2008-03-22T09:57:00.000-07:00

Here is the long awaited (for some) tale of my journeys in Byzantium, and once more an opportunity for me to show my laziness by only posting a link.

I would write more, but unfortunately I have to get back to failing to not be ill.

On Music

2008-03-01T14:04:00.000-08:00

This post is a response to several things that I have encountered recently. The most important was something which Chris posted recently on a similar subject. Far less important were works by Roger Scruton and Tolstoy on the subject "What is Music?" Last and least is my own recent conversations with people on the question at hand, and the realization that my conviction on one side was inconsistent with the other. This is something that I can't live with and so am trying to come to terms with it in the most public way possible. Further, this post is going to be long. I wouldn't be offended if any of you skipped some of the paragraphs which seem to be anomalous. For example, the first two paragraphs have to do with my personal experience, which has been commented on recently - so if you're not interested in what I'm saying, you have my permission to skip it.

First, an apology, in the sense of a defense for my view which I'm convinced will satisfy nobody. I've been a musician for ten years. About the same time, I started taking an interest in listening to music. The two things quickly diverged. My first CD that I bought with my own money was P.O.D., a Christian heavy-metal nu-metal group. The first music that I was learning to play was easy classical. The classical remained throughout school, and even now I play mostly classical, even now that I've switched to guitar. The composition of the genres on my computer is about forty percent rock, of various genres, thirty percent classical, twenty percent jazz and ten percent various other things.

The reason I mention all of this is because there is a disproportionate emphasis on classical music when it comes to figuring out what music is and what good music is. For people like Scruton and Tolstoy, classical music is the only name in town. For most other people in all periods of history, what we call classical music has been seen as outside the common experience, something that might be beautiful and transcendent, but still unknowable. I had to mention what I listen to and what I've learned to play because I seem to be the outsider to both traditions. Unlike Scruton, I can't overlook the musical value of bands like Nirvana. Unlike most people who listen to music, I can't see classical music as being remote.

There is a difference between most classical music and much of the music of most other genres. Classical music has drawn on a tradition that reaches back, in some ways, nearly a thousand years, and in other ways, about five hundred years. Over that time, there have been various rules on what is supposed to sound good and what is not - but the prevailing motion has been to push compositions which toe the line between the good and bad. The most obvious example is the use of discordant lines or chords: anyone comparing Schoenberg and Palestrina can instantly hear the difference. For the most part, however, except for the rather poorly executed experiment of twelve tone serialism, the good composers using discordant elements knew how they fit in to the rest of the music. They had hundreds of years of theory to draw upon to make sure it could work the way they wanted it to work. Contemporary bands may choose to ignore this history, making their music as discordant as they wish: or, they can make use of the simplest elements to ensure what they play sounds good - which would annoy those people raised on classical music hoping for something more interesting than a continuous I IV V7 I progression.

Keep this difference in mind while I put something which has some small influence upon this on the table. Music is a type of communication. As such, the closest analogous process is language. There are many things that music lacks that keeps it from actually being a language: syntax, for example. But it signifies in a similar way to language. Instead of communicating concepts or desires or a host of other things like language does, it seems to me - and if I stumble, it's because I can't effectively back up this statement except by pointing to personal experience- music communicates emotion. What springs to mind is the possible congruence between language and music that might result: that is, that the more complex a handle a person has on language, the more complex concepts that person can communicate. I think this is the case - but my justification for it won't fit here.

Complexity is not a normative value. Further, there are times when complexity is called for and when it is superfluous. So, classical music shouldn't be called better because most of it communicates more complex emotions than most other genres. I'd like to think Scruton would be pulling his hair out at this point. "How, then," he would ask, "are we to tell what music is good and what music is bad?" To answer that question, I have to answer a more general question than the one Chris raised in his post: the question of what is good music is the goal of criticism. So to that I turn.

I would like to mention something that I've admittedly stolen right from the literary criticism of C.S. Lewis. He describes how there is two different ways of reading poetry or literature. The first, which is the most common, is using literature. This is reading to pass the time, to find people who agree with your state of mind, for any other reason. The other is reading to absorb the literature - this is the kind of reading that is done in English classes. This is reading in order to understand the work as it is, to relate to its characters and to understand its language. This second type of reading involves some amount of knowledge beforehand. In music, this disjunct is even more pronounced. Many people have music on in the background in order to have some kind of rhythm or something to sing along to while they are doing work. Others listen to certain kinds of music because they believe it relates to how they feel. Others enjoy certain kinds of music because it is fun to dance to. The other type of listening involves some previous knowledge of musical functions, and also involves listening in order to try to understand the various individual elements that makes up the whole. This listening is usually a lot more work than the other. Unlike C.S. Lewis, I'm not going to say that the one is better than the other, as it seems to me that music is easily adaptable to different situations, and there is a time and place for both kinds.

Here I can begin to explicate my answer to Chris' question: "what qualifies one to be a reviewer?" In this case, the role of the critic is divided. On the one hand, the qualification for being a critic would have to be a deep understanding of the structure of music, the traditions involved and used, an actual knowledge of the elements which make up music. For the absorptive kind of listening, I would say that it does take a degree or equivalent knowledge to do it justice. But what about functional listening? Here the answer becomes murky. I assume there would be a multiplicity of answers, one each for all of the ways people use music. But perhaps things are not quite so dire. If we look at it from the reviewers point of view, his or her point of view can be taken into consideration. Does he or she listen to music while they are trying to study? In order to feel good? Then as long as he or she are clear about what they are trying to accomplish when they listen to music, it won't go too far wrong. Even if they don't listen to music with the same goal every time, they can mention what they did find it good for: I know I was surprised to discover that listening to rap can help me relax before I go to sleep.

Here, I would like to see what my formulation makes of the two suggestions Chris makes in the second-to-last paragraph of his post; in order to save anyone too lazy to actually go over there, I will quote them directly (I have copyright permission, right, Chris?): "maybe what we need... is a greater opportunity for the non-professional critic to offer their response to art, one that can actually claim to speak for the layman" and "whether the ideal of a review or criticism should be to confront the art on its own terms, it should not be out of the question for a review to be approached on its own terms." The second deals with the controversy that has embroiled the esteemed Aaron Brown that Chris mentions, but the idea is one that perhaps differentiates Chris from many other reviewers and potential reviewers out there: Chris has a reasonable explanation for what he is trying to accomplish with his response to music. Anyone attacking Chris, including its composer, for not understanding the subtleties of the Mozart Quintet would be misguided.

Overhead, the other shoe looms. Here it falls. The problem lies in the phrase "response to art." An immediate, emotional response to art is something that is profoundly personal, even if it is something shared by many people. Writing about it is a tricky business, especially if one wants to avoid the technical methods by which that response was brought forth by the music. It is not wrong to write about it by any means; many great poems, novels, and other compositions were written by those responding to music. But, going back to the analogy of music to language, one's response would be the personal understanding of what the other has said - but it is not part of what is articulated. It is a result of the music, but brings with it much that is not part of the music - it carries personal baggage. What a person's "response to art" cannot be is a review, critical or otherwise, of the music. How could such a review "speak for the layman" when it is one's personal experience?

There is a particularly useless mindset that can come from an extreme formulation of this position. That is the person who listens to music, explicates on it, and insists upon the legitimacy of their position solely because it is their response to music. This is, for the record, miles away from Chris' position as it appears to me. He hopes to describe the music as much as he can, using accepted terminology when appropriate. The person or caricature I mentioned would insist upon accuracy of description because it 'matches' in some unreasoned way what they heard. The image that jumps to mind is that of English class, where teachers are always asking for the 'textual evidence' for things - if this is a review or response or anything to music, there must be a place in the music that you can point to that matches what you are trying to say. If you can't point it out while listening to it, then what you say is meaningless. If you can, and want to explain what the certain section is doing - then there is very likely an accepted term for it, and insisting on the accuracy of your formulation on the basis of your personal legitimacy is just laughable.

Perhaps, though, some people might object that I haven't managed to answer Scruton's question. I haven't explained the difference between good music and bad music, it's true. And my answer, I'm afraid, might seem like a cop-out. I think the question is too simple, because it begs another question. Where I imagine Scruton asking, "what is good music?" I respond, "good at what?" As I mentioned, music has many different aspects, so where some music is good at one thing, it might be worse at something else. As a result, I think that if one reads any review, of either kind I mentioned, and find that it says that "x piece of music" is better than "y piece of music", then there is an implicit function that x is specifically better than y at. So, if a piece of music serves you well, listen to it. All past that are details.

I think the closest explanation would be: Further Phenomenological Self-Explorations with a Genesis in Narcissism, but does that have the right ring?

2008-02-16T07:51:00.000-08:00

Some time ago, I had lunch with another American visiting student. Our conversation turned to how England was different from America, and she pointed out that most people here seemed to be in relationships, at least as evidenced by the large number of couples walking around holding hands.
"Oh?" I said. "I hadn't noticed that."
"How can you not have noticed it?" she asked. "You've been here nearly two terms already."
We finished lunch, parted ways, and I started to walk back to my house. Along the way, I noticed that she was right. There were many, many couples walking around holding hands. Now, whenever I go out of the house, that's practically all I notice.

This incident has opened my eyes to a certain phenomenon. When I'm walking somewhere, I'm pretty much oblivious to what is going on around me. It's a usual occurrence for me to pass someone whom I know and not even realize until they say something once I'm already ten feet past them. This becomes even more problematic when I'm walking with someone, as I'll either ignore everything around me more in order to focus on the conversation, or I'll get distracted and forget the other person is there. The former leads to me running into light poles and the latter leads to people assuming that I'm deaf, stupid, or hateful.

There are times when I've been so focused on a book that I was reading or on something that I was writing that I failed to notice that I had been sitting in the same spot for hours and had forgotten to eat, go to class, move, etc. I've always had an easier time doing math problems in my head - once spending about half an hour going through a differential equation - and then writing them down then trying to work them out just with pencil and paper. This goes farther, too - I remember talking to someone about her first couple weeks in high school. After going on for some time about how she disliked a particular class, I said, "Well, at least you like the guy sitting next to you." She looked at me, torn I think between horror and confusion. She had mentioned this person only once. "What?" I asked. "Your jaw and the muscles under your eyes relaxed when you said his name. Plus you inhaled deeply right before you said that the guy next to you had given you one of the answers, so I assumed it was the same guy."

Incidentally, that's the only time I've told someone exactly what I notice when I'm talking to someone and the results were ambiguous. I mean, I got the gist of her shaking her head violently, making an excuse and walking away, but I can't be completely sure whether she was offended that I got it right or that I was trying to read her facial language at all. So as far as accuracy goes, I can't say whether I perceive anything more than most people. The point is that when I pay attention, I pay complete attention.

As my first example shows, however, being focused doesn't necessarily mean that I'm more perceptive or smarter than most people. Far too often, I miss things that are completely obvious to other people because I just tuned them out. In my tutorials I can often describe in great detail a certain passage that I found particularly interesting; but when my tutors asked me about the next section, I often immediately flounder. It also often means that I do not seem like I care about anything happening around me, which is probably not the case. However, it has come to my attention recently that I've hurt some people recently because I seemed callous, and in lieu of a priest, I hope to confess to you, my brothers and sisters. I made it my new-year's resolution to be less of a jerk this year and this is a good part of what I've come up with in fulfilling that quite vague dictum.

So, if I pass you on the street and don't notice, and want to get revenge on me, then the best solution is to shout out something opposing the book that I've just been reading. I should respond to that by snapping around to reality and saying something random and quite possibly archaic. I imagine it being quite comical.

A Moment of Sadness, Nothing More

2008-02-10T14:20:00.000-08:00

Recently I've been thinking that I would not mind having a pet of some sort. It's been a long time since I had my two gerbils to take care of. I was thinking of something along the lines of a cat. I think it would suit my personality.

Then I realized the practical upshot of spending another four months here, a short summer in Utah, another year in Spokane before having a year or two in the JET program in Japan, leading to about a year in Santa Fe getting my masters and then who-knows-where for who-knows-how-long for a doctorate.

For at least four years, I won't even be able to keep a Japanese Peace Lily.

That's all I have.

Breaking the Rules of Polite Conversation

2008-02-06T04:48:00.000-08:00

One of my housemates here in England is rather deep into politics, in the same way that I am rather deep into philosophy. As such, yesterday was a rather important day for him. He was trying desperately to find out what was going on in the 'super Tuesday' races but finally realized that it would be far easier to just sleep on it and wake up to find the results in his lap, as it were. During the course of the evening, however, he made sure all the rest of us in the house knew what was going on, and asked each one of us in turn whether any one of us was registered for a political party. When he asked me, I nearly started laughing. I managed to restrain myself before he hit me, but he was tempted again when I told him that, if I had a chance, I would watch the third party debate on C-SPAN 3 and vote for whomever was the most articulate, honest, and intelligent.

Now, he and I have sparred before on the question of whether or not such a choice is throwing away my vote. I know full well that the candidate whom I vote for is not going to win. Then again, voting in Utah, I'm pretty sure that my vote is not going to make a difference one way or another. There's a good reason why no political candidates ever come campaigning in a state that has a record of usually voting over 70% for the Republican candidate. The place is a lock. Since he comes from Colorado, much more of a swing state, he obviously sees that his vote might actually make a difference.

This time, however, he surprised me by mentioning that he thought I was a registered Democrat. I have to admit that there was a time that I saw myself as a Democrat, but that was in 1996, right when I had moved from England to the States. I had no idea who either candidate was but I thought the map with all of the states divided up into red and blue was pretty cool. I decided I was a Democrat because I wanted to be associated with the winning side. I have to admit that I was rather surprised by the reaction I got at school when I mentioned this.

Since then, of course, I've learned a little more about the political system and what the red and blue actually claim they stand for. The more I know about politics, the more important I think it is for more people to know; in this regard politics is unlike philosophy, which is pretty useless for most people. His comment made me wonder, then, why I don't try to use my vote, or my time volunteering, to try to do my part to make the country a little more like what I think it should be like. (Actually, it wasn't so much wondering as remembering what I came up with a while ago. This post is partially me explaining and partially me making sure my thoughts are clear on the matter)

The first reason I alluded to already. In some ways, just given the political system we have, the individual votes don't count. The votes of the people who vote Democrat in Utah or Republican in New York are throwing away their vote just as much as one who would have voted libertarian in the last election - although socialist was close second.

More importantly, though, I'm a cynic. I seriously doubt the promises made during an election. What a politician does in office hardly ever matches the plans outlined during the course of a campaign. I compared the big name debate in the last election to the third party debate, and the one thing that came off of the former was the sense of the theatrical. Everything was staged, every gesture, every phrase, every mannerism. This is why I'm somewhat dubious whenever I hear something like "Hilary is really like..." or "Romney has the quality of... " That's certainly the image they want to cultivate, sure, or else the one their rivals are trying to cultivate for them. But I am doubtful that one can really find out what a candidate really favors and is really like by what goes on and what is reported on during the campaign environment.

Strangely enough, though, I don't think that this necessarily makes them bad at their job. The President has to deal with people who merely want things for themselves or their constituents all of the time. Being opaque and a consummate liar might be a virtue in this case. It just makes it hard for me, personally, to decide whom to vote for.

"Well, what about the issues?" You might well ask. "Perhaps you're not well suited to vote in a primary, but you could certainly vote for the party that you agree with more!" That's quite possible. Unfortunately, here too my head gets in the way. When it comes to politics, I don't think I can really be labeled a conservative or a liberal, either on social policy or on economic matters. First of all, I think such labels are fairly illusory. What actually exists is a series of unrelated pressures (I can't necessarily call them problems, but that's usually how they're conceived). To try and link them and solve them by applying a blanket ideology seems to me to be simplistic at best. What I would much rather see is someone who looked at each pressure as unique and tried to find the best way to solve it, no matter what that might entail.

Of course, such a person would have to be fairly honest about their position, and as such, could never, ever be elected. And, since I'm not stupid enough to try to come up with my own theoretical political utopia, and I am just stupid enough to spend my time thinking about stuff like this, the best solution I could come up with was to vote for the person whom, as I said above, was the most honest, articulate, and intelligent.

Now you know why I vote third party. Aren't you glad you wondered?

Fear and Trembling

2008-01-27T03:17:00.000-08:00

I had my first secondary tutorial on Friday, and it was intense. My tutor is one of the foremost scholars in his field; if you want to verify this statement, go to a decent bookstore and look for books by C.F. Robinson in the Middle Eastern History section. Our interaction was a little one sided. He obviously knew far more than I would ever on the subject. I was under prepared, having concentrated more towards the end of the time period I was assigned to write an essay on, where he was more concerned with the origin of the situation. It was early in the morning, and I was only half awake and sometimes trembling because my muscles didn't like being used at the ungodly hour of 9 a.m. Further, I was distracted by all of his books, especially the ones in Arabic. (Why do professors have to tease me so?) I came away thinking, but with some difficulty; having had to come up with answers on the spot for an hour, I had a somewhat severe headache.

Still, I could walk out of his office with a smile. I knew that I would learn more from this approach in the course of four tutorials than I would in a traditional class, even one that was every day. Merely being prepared to take the onslaught of brilliance is preparation; fear of being caught in a wrong answer and wanting his approval as a carrot-and-stick approach to studying seems to work for me.

The way my mind works, I was tempted to then think about the nature of fear, how fear on the one hand kept me frozen while I was in the arena, but when it comes as a goad it can be helpful and a prompt for work. Instead, I sat back and tried to relax by reading Sartre and Heidegger.

Today, I got word of the deadline for Reflection, the literary magazine at Gonzaga. I had already been told about the deadline for Charter, the academic literary magazine. (The difference is that Reflection leans towards poetry and fiction, Charter essays and non-fiction) Both are in early February, which doesn't give me very much time to write for them. Now, I submitted to Charter last term, but I wasn't particularly pleased with what I sent them. As it is, I don't even know if it got in. As for Reflection, well, I've been writing a little poetry here, but I haven't had much time to revise them, and it takes a long time for me to be satisfied with my poems. I could write a quick short story, I suppose, but the thing is, I want to be able to submit things to both that I'm happy with. At the same time, I'm here in Oxford and I have one or two prior commitments to keep, as well as books I want to read. Oh, and I'm still trying to learn Greek, as well.

All of a sudden, I wish some of that fear that inspired me on Friday to go and get reading done on Saturday could come and hit me over these new assignments. Once, I would have jumped on them immediately. Now, I think work is catching up to me at last, and I can't produce on the same broad range that I used to. It's not that I'm really complaining; it's just I've fallen into the state which I hate the worst when I see it in other people; I want things both ways. It goes along with change, I expect.

Soon, I know I'll get over this slightly self-pitying moment and get to work. I can cut back on my outside reading, and some of the sillier things I spend time on. I'll get to writing, which always helps me write more. Once I get on a roll, I'm sure I'll come up with something half-way decent. And if someone lets me know how things go in February, I'll pass it along here.

On Inspiration

2008-01-20T13:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the study abroad program with which I participate sponsored a trip into London. As I had little need or desire to go on the tours that were planned, I treated the trip as merely a free bus ride into the city. The last times I have gone into London I have not had very much time, and I've found myself doing some of the same things more than once, something that I think is a shame in what might be the world's most diverse city. So, though I did go with some of my new friends into the National Gallery, when they left to go with the rest of the group to another museum, I headed off on my own and made my way on the tube to the British Library.

I've seen the British Library once before, but I did not remember very much of it, merely that it contained a section of George III's library and a collection of some old manuscripts and such like. On this trip, having experienced the Bodleian library here in Oxford, I think I could appreciate the British library more. They are built in the same regard; by built I mean the system is developed in the same manner. Entrance for actual reading is controlled carefully, but anyone can come in and read essentially anything. Like the Bodleian, there is very little that you cannot find in the British Library.

Unlike the Bodleian, the British Library keeps a display of some of their more precious possessions. These include original Gutenberg bibles, the common indicator of a worthwhile collection. But there are things on display that are literally unique to the world's historical collection. They have, for example, the second oldest record of the book of Hebrews. Next to that, they have a codex of the New Testament from a century later. The distinction is obvious, and connects the museum visitor to the past: "see how Christianity began to flourish between the third and fourth centuries A.D.?" These records had a profound effect on me, something I've mentioned before. But this was a double jolt. On the one hand, reading the Latin in the original hand made me feel a connection to this otherwise anonymous monk copying out the codex. But then the two of us are connected in a different way when I think about the theological nature of the bible, and wondering how they play out with a different emphasis in a different tongue. The two of us are then looking back even further together, connected in purpose.

One part of me wants to shrug this off as nonsense. I've put a lot of thought into arguments to the effect that such a work is not attached to its author. But the idea is still seductive, that we can live on in our works. The idea was further enhanced by the handwritten notes of more modern authors kept by the Library; notes written by Austen, Auden, handwritten compositions by Britten, Vaughn Williams, and even Handel. The thing that struck me is how ordinary they looked. You couldn't tell at a glance the difference between genius and scribbles. To me, this was the most inspiring thing of all. Seeing these things connected me to their authors; they showed me that I could be like them.

England, in this respect, is a little different than America or France. In those two countries, the original copies are usually not given to museums, but to colleges and family. This is, in my way of thinking, a mistake, but I won't go into that here. The landscape here is inspiration. In earlier times, biographies of great men were inspirational to generations of artists and thinkers. Plutarch's Lives inspired people all the way to Napoleon. I can understand why such things are not quite as effective as they used to be, but what I presumed was that the nature of inspiration was the same. Having these things on display would seem to me to be inspirational for people in the classical way.

It seems to me that either people are not rising to the occasion of being great thinkers on the model of the past, the model has changed, or they are rising to the occasion and I'm just not aware of them. I can't say which one is more likely. But if it's the first, I think that we have reason to be worried.

An Example Needs to be Made

2008-01-11T15:31:00.000-08:00

One of the questions I am generally asked, especially once people know that I'm studying in Oxford, is "what are you studying?" I've come to dread that question. If I reply that I'm studying philosophy and history, about half the time the immediate response is something along the line of "well, what do you plan on doing with that?" The best response, I've found, is to shrug it off, and say something along the lines of "get used to being poor." But if I gave in to my emotions more, if I told the truth more, what I would honestly have to say is: "be a philosopher, one that has strong ties to history." It wouldn't go over well. No one is a philosopher. Even back in the days when people were philosophers, that wasn't their profession. They were either independently wealthy, teachers, or part of a religious order. The first being already somewhat out, I've not quite decided yet between the other two. But such would be only something to make sure that I stayed fed and clothed. What I would be is a philosopher.

It still sounds presumptuous. It sounds like I would sit around all day thinking about things and coming up with abstract and useless descriptions of how the world works, without managing to do anything actually useful. To a large part that might be true, as a caricature of a philosopher. Most of our lot have been known to be fairly eccentric. Immanuel Kant, for example, would take walks around his hometown of Koningsburg with such regularity that the local housewives were known to set their clocks by him. And everyone knows about Aquinas and his job with the firebrand and the woman for hire his brothers had sent up to him. They're not exactly the sort of people you might first think of consulting when you want help with your everyday life. That's fair enough, actually. Everyday life is not the sort of thing philosophers are generally good at. But then neither are a lot of people, so that's not too much of a problem.

One of the real problems most people have with philosophers is an assumed sense of snobbery. Philosophers are seen as thinking of themselves as smarter than everyone else. Again, there are examples to back this up. Hegel believed he was being very clever when he said that 19th century Prussia was the heyday of civilization, that it was, in fact, the end of history. There are accusations of dogmatism; the British have a joke wherein a British physicist is explaining to a French philosopher about how the latest scientific equipment was proving such and such, and that so much progress was being made about the state of the world. The Frenchman replies, "well, that's wonderful, but how's the theory?" Philosophers are seen as not particularly caring about the state of most people, and of sitting in an ivory tower while they go about counting the number of angels on the head of a pin. How they paid for the ivory, I have no idea.

I can't really defend the historical philosophers against these attacks. What I can do is outline my own idea for what history should be and hope that it is an improvement: something that comes out of empirical knowledge, rather than trying to force the phenomena into rigid theories; and paying more attention to the outside world rather than what is traditionally considered "high culture." Studying in Oxford doesn't seem like the first way to encounter this 'outside world,' but I like to think I'm doing my part by slumming around Paris on the cheap with more such adventures on the way.

What I can defend against is the idea that philosophy is useless to the workings of the world. There are very clear instances when philosophy could be very useful. Philosophy is, after all, a certain method for putting forth, exploring, and analyzing arguments. Any time there is an argument (even in the vernacular sense) where one side is trying to persuade the other, philosophy would be useful. For the most part, though, this seems to be ignored. Let me give a good example where philosophy can help. Chris has recently posted on his blog about the neo-atheists - thanks for giving me this idea, by the way. While it might be, and often is, fun for me to check out and analyze their arguments, I'm not going to go that far right now. What I'm going to analyze is a selection of some comments made at a site which has links to a rather important debate between three major neo-atheists and three people defending religion on the question, "are we better off without religion?"

Many of the comments, of course, dealt with the believability of the debaters.
"[Theologian 1]'s answers were very straight-forward, but his answer assumes that hte (sic) listener is able to think logically and has some background knowledge about teh general area. [Neo-Atheist 1] answers were full of handwaving -- oh scientists are working on it. Trust us."
And,
"it was left to the stammering [Theologian 2] to predictably add a hackneyed, Daily Mail-style cod philosophy to justify religion. He wound up tying himself in knots .....On the other hand [Neo-Atheist 2] was his usual persuasive self, forensic, emotive and potent as ever. [Neo-Atheist 1] was devastating in taking [Theologian 3] apart..."
the result of this being a mere commentary on the debate. Nothing is decided this way; it is genetic fallacy to say "A had a better argument than B, therefore A is true." Supposing that people wanted to actually find an answer to such a question (and I don't think that they do, more on which later) what you would have to do is first find some common ground to define the playing field by, something that is hard to do on such an open ended question. But the people commenting make it worse:
"Those who choose to believe in one or more of the diverse gods that human mythology offers, have thus stepped outside the possibility of discourse"
Also,
"What a ridiculous claim! Do you honestly think you can disprove the Bible? Every argument... has been countered. And if you really read the Bible, and understand it, it will save your life."
Both of these examples, in different ways, puts forth their own opinion by completely denying the possibility of the other position. Since the other position in fact exists, and has some fairly intelligent proponents with good reasons for believing such things, I would say that such arguments are weak at best and vacuous at worst.

In general, and in a very oversimplified way, the problem with this debate is over the ambiguous nature of the word "faith." Used negatively by one side, it means the impossible picture of a man with a beard in the sky, which seems just as possible as a flying spaghetti monster. Used by the other side, it means a justification for knowledge which is beyond empirical data, which can also be applied to the presuppositions of the neo-atheists. Finding one singular definition is of course, impossible. What you could try to do, though, is to explain, far before the question "are we better off without religion?" comes up, exactly what one means by religion, what one means by knowledge, what one means by supernatural, and what one means by faith. Only then could such a debate occur. Otherwise, it is simply glorified opinion stating, with neither side actually considering the other's arguments.

Of course, most people don't actually care about other people's arguments. Most people are generally satisfied that they are in the right, and that anyone who disagrees with them is simply ignorant. For the most part this tendency is kept under the table. This is why we don't talk about religion, politics, or recent events at a fancy dinner. Today, the situation is somewhat worse. Most people, when confronted with an argument (even poorly conceived) against their position can revert to the line: "well, we should agree to disagree." This is where the philosopher is needed, and desperately. Knowledge, truth does not mean anything any more if people can't tell when something is proved and when something isn't. At this point, it's not so much the job of the philosopher to explain why the argument is right or wrong, it's simply to try to let people realize that arguments matter. Why do you believe what you believe? What's your justification for it? What are the holes in its conception? What are the advantages of thinking in a slightly different way?

One person commented, "The problem of the BELIEVER is: s/he believes they know the truth (and, therefore, can never come to the truth)." This, of course, is something I believe to be slightly more universal, and it is in solving that problem that the philosopher can be of help to the world.

And I was doing so well, too...

2008-01-08T03:22:00.000-08:00

Christmas break always is a bad time for me when it comes to keeping in touch with people. First of all, I'm usually going back to a place where my laptop doesn't have the constant access to the internet that I've become used to in college. That keeps me from checking and sending e-mail, and of course updating my blog. This Christmas I went to visit some old friends of mine in England, and they don't have internet at all, which in some ways was actually a nice break, but it also meant I was essentially cut off from a lot of the things I pay attention to. I mean, what if I needed to find out some useless information? I couldn't just go and check it out on wikipedia. I honestly don't know what I did with all my time without youtube, either.
I have noticed, however, that it is not just the access or lack of access to the internet that makes me more or less likely to post. I've been back from Suffolk for a pretty good amount of time now. I did have a friend of mine visit from Germany, but I could still have posted while he was here, though not when I took him to London. The fact is, I've noticed, that I really need to have a set schedule before I can get to posting. At Gonzaga, this isn't really a problem. I have my schedule all set up for me. In England, we're pretty much on our own for most days of the week. We have a couple of hours in a week that we need to be at a certain place; other than that, it's all on us. Besides that, this is the first time I've lived in a house rather than in the dorms. This means I have more stuff to keep track of: food, laundry, keeping the bathrooms clean. Strangely enough, this situation seems to motivate me to get all of my work done. I am more disciplined here than I have been at Gonzaga. Sometimes, I think this is just because the work here is harder, but I think a lot of it is just because I have more freedom regarding my choices.
On the other hand, this all falls apart when classes are over and I don't have anything to do anymore. My natural instinct is to be lazy. I have a very hard time getting anything done when the basic goals of the week that I become used to disappear. This break, I've read maybe half the books I wanted to. I haven't cleaned my room, even though every time I walk in I am reminded how much I should. I procrastinate in buying food, to the point where I often wonder what is the better choice - going out at 8 p.m. to buy groceries or to just eat cereal with no milk. I haven't written much. While I was at my friends' house for Christmas, I spent a couple of hours every night before I went to sleep writing a story that I've been working on for a long time. I could do that because I kept a rhythm, but now that I'm back here, but without anything specific to do, all of my energies just dissipate.
I'm not particularly worried about this phenomenon. Next week I start my tutorials, and I'll get back into a rhythm, even if that means I won't be able to have as much time to get "outside" reading done. I simply find it interesting how much easier it is for some people, at least, to pay attention to things when they can block out everything else. "This is something I need to do, this is something I would like to do. I better do the former before I get to the latter." I suppose not all people need be like this. I'm sure there are people one could put into a room with no particular instructions, and they would figure out something to do without any other prompting. I'm sure there are also people that need every hour of their life scheduled out by other people before they can get to work and actually be useful. But in any case, there is a discrete influence by our sensibilities that affect our attitude and attention. I suppose it is possible that I could just gird myself and change my attitude, without having outside influences change. But it seems like a major part of human existence to have one's attitude reflect one's situation, as strange as that may sound. Philosophers and psychologists have wondered for years why people obey orders that they personally disapprove of, just because it is given by a superior. They ask why people in a mock up prison acting like prisoners start being more docile, while the guards become more sadistic. Nothing fundamental or essential has changed: these are the same people, except with the perception of a change of sensibilities.
My introspection is obviously not a contribution in any real way to the solution of these problems, but it seems clear to me that there is a three way connection between one's actual situation, one's attitude, and one's response that is far more complicated and intricate than most people think about.
Anyway, all that to say that I'll be updating more frequently starting next week; also, a peephole into the way my mind works. Hope you came out this side unscathed.

Eastern Adventures

2007-12-13T17:49:00.001-08:00

If any of you have read my adventures in Paris and are looking forward to my next set, you'll be interested in reading them here.

And just to warn you, this story may contain scary images that are not suitable for young children.

as bad as the Elgin Marbles, except over in an instant

2007-12-11T08:11:00.000-08:00

(I'm going to deviate from my usual behavior of copying my travel post from the other blog I contribute to in order to post something especially for you guys. If you still want to read about my travels, I'm sorry but you're going to have to go through the extra step of clicking on "My other blog." Unless I have a swarm of new ideas, though, this will not be a regular occurrence. -ed)

As some of you may know, I dislike having my picture taken. In order to stave off any ad hominem attacks, let me state clearly: the following has nothing to do with this irrational dislike. It has to do with the behavior many people exhibit when traveling, a behavior I find irritating to the point of being slightly repellent. So, if there must be ad hominem attacks, at least let them be directed accurately. Given that, let me continue.

I am an unusual traveler, because I don't like taking pictures of the places I visit. Most people I see visiting famous monuments, of which there are many in the neck of the world in which I live, stop, set themselves up against a background, and take a picture, thus proving that they had in fact been to the place. Now, there is no one particular reason why people take pictures of themselves against the background of these famous things, so the fact that I don't want to is even more surprising. The burden of proof lies firmly on me.

Why do people take photographs in famous locations? I presume one might want to take pictures in order to show other people what one did on one's travels. I won't be able to show my grandkids what I did in London or Paris, and that might be a shame. But in my experience, seeing a photo of what someone else did in a location I haven't been to is not really a way of experiencing the place vicariously. The picture, being posed, being of something which they are completely unfamiliar, will not replicate the experience the same way the inspiration of imagination started by a good story about the place will. Telling a story connects you to the actions, the feelings, and the context of the experience; the picture will connect you to the light and the shape of the object. This is especially true with the kind of pictures I see being taken most often at these places, the kinds of pictures I mentioned above and are what I'm really railing against: posed photos, with a smiling face in the foreground and something famous in the background.

Perhaps, though, I am not taking the picture to show other people. Perhaps it is a way of reminding myself why I went there and the experience I had while I was there. This might be more acceptable, except for the actual results that such an attitude produces. I will go to a famous place for the experience; I wish to remember the experience, so I will take photographs. Therefore (most people seem to think) I will go there to take photographs. Perhaps I am being unfair, but it's useful to see the behavior of people at these attractions. They show up, they spend five minutes taking the photograph, and then they leave. That this is a symptom of a larger problem I have no doubt, but the fact remains that they are missing the crucial premise: the experience of going to a place. To get a true experience, one must appreciate what he or she is seeing, feeling, smelling, hearing, and appreciation takes some time. Henri Nouwen, to write a book about the Rembrandt painting The Return of the Prodigal Son, spent seven hours just sitting and looking at it. That was only the first day. I imagine that he appreciated that work inexpressibly more than someone who walked past, took a photo of it, and moved on, as I saw so many people doing to similar works at the Louvre.

Furthermore, the volume of pictures taken lends some evidence that people are not taking pictures to enhance their memory. Take a look at all the photos in albums on facebook, some numbering in the thousands. Who has time to go over those and consider what happened? And if people do, it would seem to me like it would take more time to go through the photos than it took to take them in the first place, which is again a case of mixing up cause and effect of the reasons for traveling. Sometimes I think that people on facebook use the number of photos only as a scorecard, so they can say, I have more than you. Going through an album, I often only see two kinds of photo. One is spontaneously taken, of something that seemed pretty or interesting or weird at the time of taking it. Now, unless the person taking the picture is considering these spontaneous pictures carefully, using photography as art, then the overwhelming majority of these pictures will lose their appreciated value as time goes by. For those who do consider their photography to be an attempt at art, they would agree that the percentage of useless photos is only slightly less for them. This again implies that these pictures are not for posterity or memory, but only to fill the album. The other kind of picture is the posed kind as mentioned. Posing for a photo idealizes the moment, makes it artificial and reduces the memory to a set of the same smiling face with different backgrounds. It takes away any context from the moment captured in the photo and reduces it to the level of a postcard when compared to the original artwork.

The final evidence I have is the places that tourists go to take pictures. There is no concern, in many cases, for why one should go to a place, just that it is a place to go to get one's picture taken. This is not especially evident for people going to places like Trafalgar square, Notre Dame, etc., and I hope people who realize their historical, philosophical, and aesthetic significance appreciate them in some way despite the lack of effort that seems to follow from merely taking a picture and then leaving. Perhaps this next part is merely something I don't understand or am ill-qualified to judge (since I used to live here), but it seems to me to fit. Many tourists to England, especially Americans, like to visit places that have been mentioned in some of the more popular novels. The barrier between platforms nine and ten at King's Cross rail-station, for instance, has become a popular tourist attraction. I wondered whether or not visiting the place mentioned in the book made the book seem more real: this seemed to be the only reason for seeing it. Now, since the book that this locale was featured in was a fantasy novel, technically all the places in the novel are imaginary, even the ones based on real locales.
It seems to me to be antithetical to the imaginary nature of the book to have (as they have done) half of a trolley sticking out of the wall. I would prefer to have nothing of note there, so that I could always have a little wonder for the invisible workings of the world, so that I might have a little hope in the back of my mind for the possibility of doors hidden behind illusory walls.

As I mentioned, I believe all of these actions are symptoms of larger problems. It would be worth it to me, though, if, even in rejecting my argument, someone thought about what they were doing and why they were doing it. It has been said that two centuries ago, people knew when a thing was proven and when it was not; that is the situation that I think I would wish to return to above all things.

Munich

2007-11-28T03:43:00.000-08:00

While last weekend was an adventure in Ireland, this (marginal) weekend I spent perusing Chris and Molly's city of residence. Owing to some scheduling and price hassles, I flew in Sunday morning and left Tuesday, so I managed to come over right in the middle of their classes. While I only have fond memories of having classes every day to remind me what it is like, I understand the amount of hassle it requires to take in a visitor, especially when you have more mundane things to occupy your mind. So thanks again, guys, for all your hospitality despite the circumstances.

Making what seemed to be the best of two bad decisions, I decided to try to stay up to catch my 4 A.M. bus to the airport rather than trying to get some sleep and risk missing the alarm. As a result, my only sleep that first night came from about an hour on the bus to the airport and an hour and a half or so on the plane. Perhaps because of these circumstances, I mistook the directions which had been given to me by Chris and got off at the wrong bus stop: the main train station in Munich. For many people this would be reason to start panicking, but given that I was quite tired, I wasn't too worried about it. Apparently other people were, though. I received a call from Andrea, still in Oxford, relaying Molly's worry about me. Having received this call, I decided it was a better plan to just wait in the train station rather than get on the U-Bahn where I would lose reception and have Molly really worried. So, for about an hour I waited. When Molly finally did call me, she gave me the same instructions I would have followed without her. While I can't speak German, I can navigate underground trains. It's like music and karate: an international language.

Having finally arrived at Molly's apartment, the three of us (with Chris) decided on our next course of action; it was a decidedly somber next step. Visiting the reconstruction of a concentration camp is not supposed to be a light and fun outing. The only thing it made me do was think; admittedly something more difficult having only had two and a half hours sleep. The exhibit in the museum segment was entitled: "How did the Nazi party come to power?" but that is at once nearly trivial and yet beyond a museum's ability to answer; this is especially true when coupled with the companion question of Dachau: "How could a modern nation, with all its benefits, systematically, coldly, cruelly, calculatingly murder millions of people who had not lifted a finger against it?" Even Stalin had (or imagined he had) better reasons for his great purges. The holocaust was simply an absolute and needless destruction. While I do not believe that there can be "no art after Auschwitz" as Adorno maintains, I found the art pieces designed as a memorial at Dachau were repellent to me. I wondered why; then I realized that the form of Dachau matched its function. The camp was lifeless: the buildings all at cold right angles, the grass decaying and dying, the paths open and without scale, the guard towers anonymous and forbidding, the wall blank, the empty expanse open to bitter winds. Adding artwork was like putting perfume in a coffin, in order to mask the smell of death, but more than that: to add scent in order to reanimate the body with a little life. This memorial did not need artwork to display its emotion. The camp was enough, as a kind of anti-art meant to make one dull and to deconstruct the person within. After experiencing that, I can add my voice to those who say, nie wieder! Never again!

The next day, I slept in. After having some more problems with finding places on the U-bahn thanks to Chris, we decided to just take a look around some German bookstores before heading to the primary entertainment of the night. The bookstores, I have to mention, rekindled my desire to learn German after I learn ancient Greek. Chris and I met Molly coming out of class at this point, and we went and had some truly German food: sausages, sauerkraut, and a beer; Bavaria at its finest. After this, Chris and I headed to the Rodrigo y Gabriela concert.

Rodrigo y Gabriela, for those who do not know, are a pair of acoustic guitarists who got sick of their heavy metal band and traded in their electric guitars for nylon stringed guitars when they realized they could do more tricks with them. They are probably most famous for their cover of Stairway to Heaven, something to check out on Youtube if you have not. They are two of the finest and most creative guitarists I have ever heard or heard of. They have created an ideal musical situation, with Gabriela playing rhythm guitar in a style I believe to be truly unmatched (she just as often plays percussion on the side of her guitar as she does her incredible strums on the strings) while Rodrigo plays lead with ample nods to his heavy metal roots. Both of them have invented (as far as I'm aware) techniques; but then they are experts at these techniques as well. While many of their songs are not structurally or harmonically impressive (not that that always produces good musical results) their technique is beyond masterful, and is pulled off with a hint of sprezzatura which can only be found in those who truly love and have invested thousands of hours into their instruments. On the one hand, seeing them was slightly depressing: I have so far to go, still! On the other hand, it was inspiring. I want to be able to play like that someday, in a different style, sure, but with their finesse, confidence, and technical ability. More inspiring, still, was the fact that Rodrigo threw his pick out into the audience after the first set and it practically fell into my hands.

Tuesday came with a trip around Munich's historical and traditional shopping center. The markets were fantastic, but I'm not sure how willing I would be to get on the U-bahn every day to get fresh fruit. Apparently, Molly and Chris need to get on the U-bahn anyway, just to get to the grocery store. Personally, I would prefer smaller and more local shops, but everyone has to live somewhere.

Upon my arrival in England, I got another reason why I'm studying at Oxford. I was at passport control in Heathrow, which has very negative connotations for me, and the young lady at the counter was asking me whether I was a resident studying in England. I replied yes, I was studying at Oxford. As she stamped my passport, she asked me what I was studying, and I replied that I was taking tutorials in philosophy and history. Her eyes went wide for a moment, and she said, under her breath, "wow," before waving me through. I only hope that the grad schools I apply to have the same reaction.

For now, then, I just have one more paper to write before I meet up with Chris again; this time it will be in Paris. From there, I'll be taking the train to Istanbul to visit Sara. I'll be on the road a lot, which always tires me out; but I'm pretty sure it's worth it.

On Aqua Vitae and plain Aqua.

2007-11-20T04:21:00.000-08:00

(This is, shamefully, just a copy-paste work from the travel blog for the honors program at Gonzaga, linked to under My Other Blog. Chris, Molly, and Anna are all classmates of mine. I think the rest speaks for itself -Ed.)

Since Chris, Molly, and Anna seemed to have so much fun visiting each other in Cork and Munich, I've decided to join in the excitement. This weekend I visited Anna in Cork, and next weekend I'll go bother Chris and Molly in Munich. Then I'll be traveling pretty much until Christmas break, so I won't be able to really return the favor of having my schedule being disrupted and getting behind on my work. Sorry guys...

I must admit, I had rather romantic expectations for Ireland. I'd never visited before. Looking back, that seems strange, but since the opportunity was there, it was something I couldn't turn down. I had an image in mind of small villages with people speaking in Gaelic, playing violins at the pubs at night, and lots of green rolling hills before you got to the silvery blue sea. Perhaps there are parts of Ireland like that, just like there may be parts of England where people still wear monocles and speak snootily on every subject. Cork, however, seemed to me to be just like England; even the different accent didn't throw me off, since it was about as different as a Cornwall accent.
The flight over was a little exciting. Flying on Ryanair, I have a vague hope that my chances are better for sitting next to someone who is interesting and hygienic, rather than the usual people who seem to take over half my seat and snore the entire flight. This trip, I managed to avoid that problem. Instead, a few minutes after being seated, I found a sharp pounding in the middle of my shin. The source of the pain was a foot attached to a three year old girl, quite precocious and energetic. After a little while, her mother noticed and put an end to this quickly. She apologized, I said it was nothing, and figured that would hopefully be the end of any interaction between us. What I found instead was that she was the source of my cleanliness when her daughter decided to vomit upon landing. I took her wet wipes appreciatively, and again waved off her apologies. She wasn't the one who needed to apologize to me.
Everything was uphill from my arrival. Even the pouring rain which greeted me (thanks again for putting up with that, Anna) was better than the plane. Though it seemed like it would last forever, the rain just meant I had a chance to learn a new card game. After quite a while, the downpour receded. Anna and I decided it would be worth the risk to go visit a couple of the local drinking establishments. The first was large enough so that it didn't seem crowded, but the second place was packed shoulder to shoulder. The drinks, however, was very good. The Guiness was, in my opinion, superior to the export product, and Anna introduced me to a local beer, Murphy's, which is one of the better beers I've ever had in my life. Too bad it's only made in Cork and not likely to be found in England.
The next day we visited the Jameson Distillery. It was an interesting trip. I didn't ever even think about the difference between fermentation and distilling was, but, after the visit, I can even tell you the difference between Irish whiskey, American whiskey, and Scotch. The highlight of the visit was at the end, where they took volunteers to be whiskey tasters. After a slight moment of indecision and fear, I raised my hand and was hustled off to a separate table with three other people away from the rest of the group. There they gave us samples of three different kinds of Irish whiskey, Scotch, and Jack Daniels'. They do indeed have very distinct tastes. After I picked up my certificate labeling me a qualified whiskey taster, Anna and I were both starving, so we found the cheapest fast food place in town and had wings and chips. It was funny going from sophisticated to dirt poor in a matter of minutes.
That evening the rain continued. It was raining when I got back to Oxford as well, so instead of blaming it on the fact that I'm living in the British Isles where it rains a good portion of the year, I'm going to say there's a good chance I'm a rain god, like the Douglas Adams character. Perhaps places with droughts will pay me to visit them; alternatively, perhaps vacation places like Malta will pay me not to visit them. I can see lots of opportunities here. Still, the rain kept us inside for the rest of the evening, so it mean playing more cards and watching The Usual Suspects, a brilliant movie.
My visit was far too short. Someday I'll have to go back to Ireland and take a good tour around the country, but for now, I suppose it's enough to say that I've been to the homeland at last.

This May Not Go Over Very Well

2007-11-13T14:31:00.000-08:00

The link really doesn't have much to do with what I'm going to write about, except that it prompted a line of thought and one of its assertions: that terrorists are not, on the whole, uneducated but generally have at least moderate education. The author explains this in economic terms, but I'm not convinced of the causal link in such arguments, since they seem to be post facto instances.
Anyway, along those lines, at Oxford I've been attending the Doctor Who society, where we sit around with people who like the good Doctor and watch episodes. Some of us are fairly casual fans, but others have obviously spent a good deal of time and effort into knowing the series intimately. This is obviously not a unique phenomenon. I know, for example, far more about the Star Wars universe than anyone who has simply watched the six movies could ever pick up. Other science fiction series have similar fans. Dr. Who, however, beats the rest in terms of length and depth, along with the lack of a cohesive chronology, at least as far as I can determine. The fans have very impressive intellectual knowledge. One of the more knowledgeable of them has cross-referenced events that took place in episodes spanning decades. They can point out multiple plot holes based on which incarnation of the Doctor one considers to be legitimate.
To some people, this just seems ridiculous, like these young adults are caught in a game of make-believe that has outgrown its roots. Why would anyone, they ask, spend so much time and effort learning about things that do not in fact exist? Why are they so interested in events which are not real?
What I believe the advent of science fiction accomplished was the idea of alternate realities. Not necessarily just holding to the future and advance societies, but just the idea that the world can be constructed differently from how we perceive it. I hypothesize that, before science fiction, fiction was supposed to be construed in our world or else a obviously distorted version of our world, for example in Gulliver's travels. Anyway, it is definitely a recent idea. Alternate realities can have their own logic, their own history, their own science, their own metaphysical foundations. They can have a God, no god, many gods. They can change. They have total freedom in a way that reality does not. Not to go too deep into psychology, but obviously this would be a comforting thought to people who feel like they have no control over reality.
What is interesting is the original objection to this immersion into alternate realities. It is true that they do not exist, but that does not necessarily mean that we access them, especially intellectually, in a way any differently from the way we understand reality proper. There is one reality, and (to ape Aristotle somewhat) knowledge of it is best, but that doesn't mean that the knowledge of alternate realities is different fundamentally from knowledge of reality proper.
The application should be obvious. The first people who jumped to my mind were the Marxists, who built a completely fantastic view of history. Their reality, at least in some regards, was an alternate reality. They were highly educated, Marx especially (though he's a special case because it's hard to say just how Marxist he was) but the fact that were applying rules from an alternate reality to reality proper just meant they were committing a type fallacy. Terrorists, I imagine, work in the same way.
I'm going to answer the question of how I can be sure that there is a reality proper and not just a series of anthropocentric alternate realities by glossing over it. It's really not essential to the question, anyway. The point is not that the terrorists are or are not educated, it is the type of education they get which is the issue.

News and Related Items

2007-11-05T10:54:00.000-08:00

1. I now have a guitar. The past six weeks without one were not good for my sanity. I have found some things frustrating, since I can't play at the level I was at six weeks ago. On the other hand, having a new guitar to mess around with is interesting enough to keep me from denigrating into frustration over my newfound lack of skill. Plus, my callouses are gone, so playing hurts. It is essentially a mixed blessing, but its always worthwhile to have a musical instrument than not. I find with the guitar (something I regrettably did not find with the cello) that having to concentrate on something outside of normal work is incredibly relaxing. Also, in Oxford I have found the books on musicology that I would have done terrible things for when I was at Gonzaga. I have a vague desire now to turn from my traditional desires in philosophy to become a musicologist. But, when I leave, I'd have to give it up, so what's the point?

2. This Sunday I went to London. I spent ten hours in a city in which you could spend a lifetime and not see it all. I did my best, though. I started off at the Bank district, where there were lots of beautiful buildings. I followed my nose to St. Paul's cathedral, where I had the rare opportunity of taking in a service. It was the most gorgeous experience I have had in a long time. Also, I had forgotten how beautiful the building is. The cathedral took decades to build, something that is very uncommon now, but sometimes I think that haste breeds a lack of care. On the other hand, I am speaking from someone who enjoys the benefits of these old buildings; if I died a year before St. Paul's was completed, I might have wanted them to hurry a little. From there, I hit the Tate modern. Unfortunately, they were having an exhibition on Surrealism, which is not my cup of tea (take that, Lacan!*) so I only skimmed it. From there, I walked along the Thames and crossed to the Parliament buildings. Big Ben, I noted, was about three minutes off by my watch. Anyway, back down the underground to the British Museum. If I could find one place to live in London, this would be one of my choices. The place has a feel to it.... Perhaps it comes from having a knowledge of history. Let me give an example. I spent one week this term writing a paper on the Augustan Revolution, when Augustus Caesar became more than a consul or even a dictator; he became emperor of the whole Roman world. I read about the wars, the political intrigues, the rhetorical and political manipulations he had to go through. When I went to my tutor to talk about what I had learned, he showed me a coin minted for the ascension of Augustus to the imperium. I felt a profound sense of connection with all of what I had read and learned. That was a coin. The British Museum feels like walking into a Roman temple, or an Assyrian capital, or an African village, or a Greek temple. Seriously, they have a reconstruction of the original Parthenon there. It is nearly overwhelming.
From there, I went to Trafalgar square, to say hello to Nelson. I spent some time there: the nearby National Gallery was just closing, and I was getting very tired. I sat, engaged in some people-watching, and wrote some stuff. The sun was setting behind me, and people were out with their families, some heading home, others just heading out. One man was playing with a remote control helicopter, which his son was chasing wildly. I was completely satisfied with life.
For the denouement, I managed to get some very good Chinese fast food. Besides from a little scare at the bus station, namely, wondering whether I was in fact in the right place or not, I made it back without further adventure.

*As I suddenly realize I have an incredibly inbred and exotic sense of humor that no one will find funny but me.

3. Outside the British Museum was what looked like a political stand; there were people giving out pamphlets, trying to get people to sign up for something. I wasn't very interested, until I saw one of the signs was celebrating Cyrus day, in honor of the 6th century B.C.E. emperor of Persia. Apparently, the sight of one of his capitals is under some threat due to a dam being built by Iran. If you would like to check it out for yourself, the best sight is: www.savepasargad.com/european_languages.htm
The evidence is slightly underwhelming: Iran is saying that the resulting flooding will not cover the city, but will increase the erosion factor. AWTI, the organization trying to stop the dam being built, says that the danger is equivalent to that of the giant Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban about a decade back.
What I found interesting was the bind that everyone involved found themselves in. On the first level, the evidence is equivocal as to whether or not the flooding will do irreconcilable damage before scientists could make record of the artefacts there. The question is, to what extent does modernizing the country have precedence over restoration of the past?
The second bind, on the next level, is three fold; between Iran's government, the Iranian people who wish the site to be preserved, and the West, notably UNESCO. The Iranian people are, by all accounts, often at odds with the leadership of their country. They will put what pressure they can on the government, but that pressure is mostly symbolic and ineffective, like the petition I signed. Between Iran and UNESCO is a stand off. UNESCO has no teeth; they would obviously like the city to be saved, but they cannot do anything to stop it. This is especially true given Iran's status as a fairly influential power in the region. Few people want Iran to be destabilized.
I cannot hope to predict what Ahmadinejad is thinking. On the other hand, it would not do for Iran to look bad in the international community. Thumbing one's nose at the U.S. does not make you look bad; destroying an ancient heritage site does. But what else can be done? The modernization of his country also must continue. Why? Because it will give Iran the same power as the West: industrial power, military power, and economic power. But the West is what Iran is defying. The artefacts are in danger because Iran is following contradictory principles.
I usually hate it when people try to persuade me to join their cause, even if the cause is right. Most of the time I don't think that the cause is worth very much at all, but in this case my opinion is slightly different. Again, most of the time I think discussing politics is a waste of time, not necessarily because people don't know what they are talking about, but because the arguments assume a (nonexistent) Ceteris Paribus clause, which means "all else being equal." Arguing for a change in policy assumes that everything else around will stay the same. But things don't say the same, so by Modus Tollens, arguing for a change in policy will lead to false results. Theoretically, I believe I'm correct, but there is more to life than theory. (Gasp!) I think the world will be better off if that dam is not built. I think Iran will be better off, as it will look good to the world community. I think the people of Iran will be better off, as they will see the government listening to them. I think the world will be better off, because a connection with history, a great part of history, will remain.
That is why I signed the petition.

On My Style

2007-10-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

(Ed's note: Since high school, I've kept notebooks which I jot down any thoughts I get from time to time. Today I was sitting in a cafe in the bookstore in town, and wrote this. Since it has a lot of bearing of my mindset since coming to Oxford, I thought you might be interested in reading it. If you don't recognize someone I mention, either go out and read them, or just forget about it. I think I put enough information about them so that you can figure out enough about them.)

Most if the time, in fact, I don't think I have a style. I write essays, yes, and those essays just seem to me to be an outlining of the facts. I don't imagine how anyone could distinguish my writing from any other. I suppose one could proceed negatively. I try not to use jargon and restrict my use of technical terms to a minimum. If there is a question, I err on the side of readability, even if it costs me technical accuracy. On the other hand, I do not believe that my writing is marked by any sort of poetic beauty. This seems unjustifiably unfair because I write an unfair share of poetry. I believe writing poetry does improve prose. It has certainly helped me notice rhythm and the way words sound, but when I write essays or fiction it doesn't seem to come across.

All of my dabbling, of course, might be part of the problem. I write these essays, essays for credit in the university, poems, and so far several short stories, and half of a novel that I realized that I couldn't finish because it was merely background for the novel I am currently writing. In the back of my mind I also have ideas for longer works of philosophy and history, for which I currently have only notes. All of these require different voices; unfortunately, it seems to me that I sound pretty much the same in all of them. For someone less stubborn, the obvious answer would be to figure out which one I am best at, or prefer the most, and focus on that. I cannot. I cannot abide the thought of becoming a specialist. My curiosity gets the better of me, and when it allies itself with my ambition I find I am caught. It goes beyond writing. Not only do I want to be a philosopher, historian, poet, novelist, and essayist, I also want to be a world-renowned classical guitarist, composer, athlete, mathematician, chef, juggler, yogi, and lover to the extent that Tribolet will replace Casanova as the common designation for the profession. However, it is perhaps in writing where I still have furthest to go, so I worry about it the moist.

It is interesting who I model my ideal writer(s) on. Using the list above, I want to write philosophy like Bertrand Russell (his style, not his mentality or approach), to write history like Gibbon, poetry like T.S. Eliot (or, on some days, like Milton), novels like Umberto Eco, and essays like Barthes. Sometimes I think I would be better off defining what I want by who I don't want to imitate; in that case, it would be: Hegel, Suetonius, Donne (though I love him), Hugo, and Montaigne. I fear that the only way I could come close to achieving that kind of diversity of style is to be struck with dissociative personality disorder.

There are questions that come up naturally here, too. Why would I hope to write in the style of Russell when I disagree with so much of his thought? Isn't there a connection between style and message? Is it reasonable to want to write history like an eighteenth century historian? Then there is the problem of Eco. I find his novels read very much like his philosophy and his essays. They have similar sentence structure and similar pattern of reasoning. Yet, I don't want to imitate his philosophy or his essays. Moreover, his style is tinged with post-modern irony. He has an incredible way of using intertextual methods in his work. As a result, his works are less clear, less in the 'realist' tradition than Russell, certainly, and even Barthes when compared to say, Lacan or Derrida. If I had to pick a novelist who I could imitate in the 'realist' tradition, I could choose Dostoevski, or any other Russian novelist. This is one of the hardest things for me to overcome, should I achieve what I am hoping, because so far I have written fiction the way I write essays, and at this point I am unclear about how I would incorporate what I like of Eco's style into my own. I suppose I could just credit it to a level of maturity in his writing: he was decades older and a far more experienced writer when he first worked on The Name of the Rose. Not to mention that he was far more well read. Perhaps I should read more Joyce, whom Eco cites as being the source of his style. Of course, Joyce was a published author at my age.

The only solution to my problem, I know, is just to continue to read and to continue to write. That way, I will learn what works and what doesn't. It already has, in fact; I can't help but wince at some of the things I wrote even three years ago. Sometimes, though, it brings pitfalls. I'm reading Lacan's Ecrits, and am overwhelmed by his broad knowledge. I suppose I should be excited, to realize that it is still possible to be a generalist (of sorts) today. After all, that's what I want, right? Instead, I felt buried by the weight of all I still want to learn, discover, and write, and I feel, even now, that I don't have enough time to do it all. I suppose, though, I should just add one to my list: I want to write lectures like Lacan. As for the rest? I suppose I should cheer up. After all, Rimbaud had only written about half of his poetry before he was my age. I still have time to catch up.

a day in the half-life

2007-10-23T14:35:00.000-07:00

This is an account of one of the more surreal days I've had in Oxford.

I was sick, and had been for several days. I was also running out of cash so I thought I would force myself out of the house and to the bank in order to get some. I barely remember the walk down; my head was fuzzy and my breathing was about the same. Every three steps or so I was reduced to hacking coughs. That, plus the fact that I was wearing one of my heavier jackets in order to retain some semblance of warmth, probably was the reason several people stopped me and offered to buy any copies I had of Big Issue, which is the magazine homeless people sell around here.

Most of the walk to my bank is generic English town. There are lots of little grocery stores, cafes, newsagents, and bicyclists. It could even be some place in America, somewhere on the east coast but without the massive snobbishness, and with a far more diverse selection at the farmers market. Still, there is not much that makes you think you're in the city that grew up around the oldest University in the English speaking world.

Oh, except the Clarendon printing house of Oxford University Press (go look at any books you have which are OUP: if they say Clarendon St., then that's the one near me), which is about two minutes walk from my house. But that hardly counts.

About fifteen minutes walk, I've gotten to the part of the city which actually looks like a University, probably because it is. My bank, however, takes me away from the beautiful Bodleian library and Trinity college, my own. Instead, I turn down the market street, which is typically English. It is the widest street I've seen in Oxford, but it's closed off to traffic. It is full of actual stores: a couple of bookstores, music shops, and a department store, but also several banks. Today, though, it is particularly crowded. There are usually several street musicians plying their trade around this area, including a guy on the bagpipes whom is the best I've ever heard. Today, near the end of the street, by my bank, there is a full salsa band. I cursed the fact that I was sick, because at that moment I had a wild urge to ask the next passing woman for a dance, but it would have taken too much energy.

Actually, perhaps it was just as well I was sick.

I withdraw my money and I start heading back. Instead of pushing through the crowd this time, I stay close to the edges and try to sneak past them. I notice, however, that there are people there set up with stands, looking like they have things to give away. As I never pass down something free to read, I head over there. The first one turns out to be a stand for the local communist party. I laugh, and start to move on, but I notice the title of one of the pamphlets: "Communism: The Only Viable Future." Feeling like I needed some amusement and actually being somewhat interested in how they sweet coated a "Scientific expression of History" I took it and started to move on. I was stopped mid-step by one of the communists taking my arm.

"It's seventy pence," he said.

The wracking coughs that I produced signified for him to repeat his statement.

I was astonished. The communist party was reduced to selling its pamphlets: it was making money on production, it was betraying its proletariat ideals, it was gouging the price of cheap literature. I had to buy it. I would have paid pounds for that experience. As I took out my
money, he asked me where I was from, and what I was doing in Oxford. I told him I came from Utah, and he said it was "One of the more exotic parts of the States." I told him I was studying in Oxford for the year, and he insisted that I sign up for their e-mail list. I really couldn't think of any reason to refuse. Now, of course, I think: If I ever run for office in the U.S., this would probably work against me. On the other hand, I'd really like to see one of their meetings.

Anyway, after that, the next stand was a Muslim proselytizing. I didn't get into nearly as long a conversation with him, probably because I mentioned I needed to just pop round the corner and buy some whiskey, but I would love to come back to talk to him. I did take his pamphlet, though, and I'm proud to say that Christian tracts are much, much worse. I don't believe it's an art form meant to be perfected.

After that, I decided that the previous events had cheered me up so much I was up for a little studying, so I went to Trinity college's gardens (absolutely gorgeous, by the way) to read the book I had brought in case of such an eventuality. I read for perhaps an hour when I was overshadowed by two men who were waving a camera at me. I wondered at what kind of shot that would produce before I realized that they wanted me to take a picture of them. I did, they thanked me ("shih-shu, shih-shu") and I got up to leave. On my way out I realized I was at a university, at a college within that University, that regularly had tourists show up and want to see the sights that were the grounds where I am studying. It gave me a little shiver down my spine.

After that, I walked back and took a nap. All in all, a good day.

Long Overdue

2007-10-09T14:37:00.000-07:00

This post is going to come in three parts. In case you want to skip any of them, here is the table of contents:
1. Description of England
2. A Reply to Chris Heinrich
3. A Personal note for Paul Astin

1.

Oxford is rather crazy right now. The first reason it is crazy is that I only have one or two classes a week. Why one or two? Because one of my classes is once a week and the other is once every two weeks. What these classes consist of is the tutor reading an essay that I have written during the week, critiquing it, and then giving me a reading list. I then toddle off to write an essay based on the new books I have read/am reading. This sounds perfect for me, and it really is, but it is still difficult to keep focused when I don't have the class every day or even every other day. The fact is, I haven't actually had a class yet, just the introductory meeting of my tutors. I have to turn in an essay in my first class! There are only eight (or four) classes in a term! As you may imagine, the pressure to get each essay exactly right is tremendous. Besides which, my tutors know the subjects like they've been studying them for thirty years. Oh, that's right, they have been. So, no matter how much I read the book, they are going to know it better than I am. An example: I came to one of them with only a very broad topic in mind. Between the two of us, we hammered it down to a certain period. Then, off the top of his head and with no warning, he mentioned seven books, some of which only certain sections were relevant to my essay. I was blown away. Both of them have books out on their favored subjects. It's intimidating, but also fairly exhilarating. It fulfills my sense of ambition.
Getting used to living here was interesting. Obviously, I had less of a transition than some people, so people often came to me for advice on how to act, speak, etc. On the other hand, I've never actually lived in a town in England before, so it was still somewhat of an adjustment. I'm always surprised when people treat me differently because I'm an American. I don't remember them doing that before.
Other than that, it is very cold and drizzly and there are lots and lots of gorgeous buildings that are very inspirational, so I'm loving nearly every minute of it.

2.

First, I apologize, Chris, if you're reading this, because you've heard a lot of it before from me. Others of you might be interested in what he has to say, so if you don't know, click here: http://lifesspice.blogspot.com/2007/10/argument-in-favor-of-facebook.html This is my friend Chris' blog, and he and I, when we're in the same country, often have conversations regarding things that most people would consider unspeakably boring. He's now studying in Germany and hopefully drinking nearly as much good German beer as I am good English beer.
Chris,
You point out quite distinctly the advantages of facebook, and yes, I have to admit that, in some ways, communicating on facebook is the same as communicating in other ways. It is distinctly beneficial for long range communication, especially when e-mail is too much of a hassle. It is great for keeping track of people in lots of different areas. In the end, yes, they are all simply ways of exchanging information. From there, however, our distinctions must differ. You mention that face-to-face communication is the most intrusive, with phone calls being next most and finally via the internet. I have to ask at this point, what do you mean by being intrusive? You say "telling someone they have no time to talk when they are looking into the other's eyes is highly impolite," and while this is certainly true, I don't think most people would mind talking to another person - I think it would be very unlikely that many people would simply say that. In some ways, it certainly is intrusive. Certainly, talking to someone takes up time, time that might be better spent, oh, I don't know, composing e-mails and facebook messages. The reason why it is intrusive is because it is more personal; it makes the people involved more vulnerable towards each other. With e-mail and facebook, you can craft the response that will make you sound cool, or make you sound the way you would like, or make you sound happy and upbeat all of the time. With talking, you can hardly keep that up. It requires honesty, if not in words than at least in body language or tone of voice. You mention that you would never ask someone who broke into tears why over facebook. That is because facebook fosters relationships that are an inch deep. People have contests to see how many friends they can get on facebook, but how many of these "friendships" involve emotional commitment? How many of your facebook friends would you be willing to call when you needed real help? I submit that if it is a small percentage, then there is something wrong. Facebook takes out all of the emotional context behind a message; this makes it a convenient mode of communication that produces friends of convenience.

3.

Paul, despite what I've said in #2, why haven't you friended me yet?

Rampant Plagiarism!

2007-08-30T10:02:00.000-07:00

I know I'm not Berit, Paul, but I thought: what the hey, I hardly ever do these. It should be fun.

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? My Uncle, who was named after an Irish terrorist.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? The last time I listened to Irish music. Alternatively, it was the last time I heard Barber's Adagio for Strings.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? Yes, yes indeed.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Hmm... I have to go with roast beef with a little mustard.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? Nah.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? I'd probably be the only person not bored to tears by what I would have to say.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? Sarcasm? What's that?

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? ... You know, I'm not sure. Probably, I guess.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? Yes.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? I don't really have a favorite. I like pretty much all kinds of cereal, and I like to eat it all the time.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Depends.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? Er... you know, I still think of myself like I was in ninth grade, when I was just a skinny pipsqueak. Nowadays I think I'm alright, I guess.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? See, here I'm a traditionalist. You can't go wrong with just plain vanilla.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Their voice. I like my sense of hearing: I can use it to pick out and identify people I know in a crowd, even when I can't see them and there is a lot of noise.

15. RED OR PINK? er... neither? Probably red, but I have nothing against pink.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? The random laziness that takes me over every once in a while.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? Wow. I miss everyone. I haven't seen you guys all summer. I haven't seen my friends from Gonzaga. I haven't seen some of my friends who are off on missions. The most? That's really hard.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? Send it? I'm posting it. N/A

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Er... red Basketball shorts and no shoes

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? Ha! Rice Crispies.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Silence, Jars of Clay

22. IF YOU WHERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Silver

23. FAVORITE SMELLS? The moment after it rains, my mum's chocolate bit cookies, old books, freshly mown lawns.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? On the phone? Probably Pierre.

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? Yes, indeed. Except, not sent. (See #18 above)

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? In America, basketball. Anywhere else, football.

27. HAIR COLOR? Brown

28. EYE COLOR? Blue

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? I'm terrified and slightly sickened by the idea of putting something in my eye.

30. FAVORITE FOODS? Oh... too many to count. My Nan's yorkshire puddings are very near the top, though.

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? I like smart action movies with complex, ambiguous endings... so somewhere in between.

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? No Reservations - say nothing or death will ensue.

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? Er... right now? I'm going to go with pale white as the color that is on my torso.

34. FAVORITE SEASON? Fall.

35. HUGS OR KISSES? Tough... Have to go with kisses, though.

36. FAVORITE DESSERT? Most kinds of pies.

37.5 WHAT DO YOU THINK #37 WAS? I like Paul's answer.

38.5 WHAT ABOUT 38? Hey! Getting a little personal with that question, don't you think?

39. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING NOW? Er... Since I'm studying at Oxford, and they have a little bit of reputation for being difficult, I'm brushing up on my history by reading the eight volume (average of about 800 pages each) Cambridge History of the Middle Ages. I'm on volume seven. Also, I'm rereading the Dune series, but I'm almost done with those. I've been reading some basic stuff on Semiotics - Course in General Linguistics by de Saussure, some of Pierce's essays, Barthes' Mythologies, trying to decipher Derrida's on Grammatology. To balance that out, I've been reading Sartre's Essays in Existentialism. I know there's more... oh, I went to a used bookstore the other day, and got a history of Greece and a Philosophy of History reader. I finished the history and am still going through the philosophy. I'm sure there's more... you know, that's good. I'm sorry, but you asked.

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? An advertisement for www.mustardshop.com

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V. LAST NIGHT? Taxi. It's the only thing on at 12:00, except for Craig Ferguson and I missed the opening. I like to have a little background noise on while I read or write.

42. FAVORITE SOUNDS? That harmonic B that I hit on the last run of the Asturias-Leyenda of Albeniz. When I get it right, hm, that's good.

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Depends on the day, honestly. Right now, probably Beatles.

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? Probably Kenya.

45. DO YOU HAVE SPECIAL TALENTS? Er... I can read really, really fast.

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Fairfax, VA, a stones throw from our nation's capitol. If I ever go into politics, before I shoot myself, I'll run an ad featuring that.

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK? Again, I'd be happy to hear from anyone. Paul's already done it, of course. Other than that...

I can't be stuck in this hole / but time, time's on your side

2007-08-13T09:52:00.001-07:00

!Warning! This post has been rated V.L. - VERY LAME Continue at your own risk.

This weekend, I'm heading up to a wedding of an old friend of mine. There should be lots of people there, lots of fun, and lots of crazy stuff happening. I'm really looking forward to it. I've known this guy for a long time, and it's about time he got married so he would get off of my back on the subject of marrying his sister.

Anyway, the gist of what I'm saying is that I have no idea what to get him as a wedding present. Any ideas? :)

This is why we keep things secret

2007-07-29T12:15:00.001-07:00

Sorry about the false alarm, but there will be no guitar playing by me today.

At least not where anyone can hear me.

TOP SECRET

2007-07-12T09:46:00.001-07:00

Just a quick note, an exclusive update for all of you.

There may be a performance of classical guitar by me at the West Bountiful Starbucks on July 29th. I'm just waiting to hear back from them.

More news as it arrives.

Deftones!

2007-06-24T10:32:00.000-07:00

Going to a concert tonight, and I'm psyched!

New things with me!

2007-06-07T10:54:00.000-07:00

Er... I guess soon is a relative term, right?
I'm sorry you guys missed me for that sidewalk art thing; I would have liked that. I don't know where I would have been, unless it was the weekend I was at my Dad's for my half-brother's graduation. Other than that, I've pretty much just stayed right here. The graduation was the same as every other, by the way. I've never understood why so much effort goes into things like that, since no one really likes them - even the people who put a lot of effort into them don't like them because they only have the spotlight for a second or so before they're shooed off and have to deal with hundreds of other people getting their second in the spotlight.
Eh. It was fun to see those people again, though. I had some really good food while I was over there, and some people tried to get me addicted to Lost. Anybody seen it? It's not bad, as far as I could tell.
It's been a little while, but school ended fine. It was time to leave, but I thought I'd miss everyone more this year than I did the last year. And just think; we're about half way done! Can anyone believe that?
I have a job now. Let me first say, if anyone calls you doing a phone survey, if you don't have anything pressing, do us a favor and do it. It's a lot nicer than... well, what most people do and say to us. Anyway, it's a better job than last year since I won't be up all night; I work 3 to 9 or 10 most weekday evenings, and then 9 to 4 Saturday, so I still have time to do things in the morning and Saturday evenings.
Other than that, I just have going to England in the fall to look forward to. But it should be a good summer... assuming it ever warms up again. There is something fundamentally wrong when I have to sit here typing this in sweatshirt, inside, in June.
Oh, and it's my mum's birthday. So wish her a happy b-day, if you would be so kind.
till next time

Life

2007-05-13T09:57:00.000-07:00

So, I'm back.

I started writing about a dozen updates, but I was always interrupted. Now that I am back in Bountiful, I might have more time.

If I don't see people in the immediate future, I'll update soon with stories and such, but for now, I just wanted to let you know I'm alive and within visiting distance.

And I approve of the new Wild Wild West fixation.

Ciao

Ask, and ye shall recieve

2007-02-20T23:25:00.000-08:00

Or more appropriately, complain on your blog and you shall recieve. I'm sitting here at 11:30, practically the beginning of my evening, and I have nothing that I need to do... at least nothing I need to do that I can do until morning. I've been sitting here listening to classical music, reading a book, and I thought that you guys deserved an update since you were willing to listen to me whine. Anyway, I've been thinking.
Our philosophy course this semester is Ethics, and I am enjoying it; it's one of the first times we've been able to actually "practice" philosophy, use reasonable methods to try to consider the way things are. I've thought about these things on my own before, and I have to admit that I've not come to any real conclusions yet. But it's always good to put your thoughts on... well, not exactly paper, but something more permanent than memory. If I start making no sense, feel free to either ignore me or slap me around in the comments.
First. I make a distinction between ethics and morality, one that is different from most people's distinction. I consider people in two ways: as individuals and as part of the herd. Individuals, I believe, make their moral decisions because of their conscience, whatever that may mean. It is internal, though, not forced upon them. People as part of the whole, however, follow laws. These are ethical rules that relate to the working of the whole rather than the individual. So: morality, individual conscience; ethics, rules of the whole.
This solves a number of problems. Most people who think about these things (poor sods) divide into two camps: consequentialists, who think that the outcome is the most important part, and... er, well, nonconsequentialists, who for the most part think that doing the right thing has intrinsic value. Both sides often go head to head because, while no one wants to admit that they're wrong, everyone seems to think that both sides are kind of important, and it's really hard to reconcile them. But me, if people can be seen as part of the whole (and that's a whole 'nother shebang, but take my word for it) then it's the consequences that matter. As far as it concerns the individual, it is the act of doing the right action that matters.
I know, the wording of the last sentence is awkward, but it's on purpose. I don't believe anymore that someone's intent matters. I used to, but now I don't. Well, I do, but in a different way. I've picked up an idea from some people who disagreed with me. They said that if someone claims to be doing something for a good reason, then they are not doing something to be good, but only for the credit. I don't think about it in those kind of cynical terms, but I have noticed that anytime you consider why you do something, you run into trouble; that is, you are simply doing things for your own good, and that's no good at all. Pretty much any justification other than "it's the right thing to do" leads me into trouble.
So, I shouldn't do things because it's the law, or because the person I am helping will help me later. What, then, is my motivation? It'll sound corny, but it's not. Love. If you are doing something out of love, then you aren't thinking about why you're doing it. It's just the right thing to do. This is unconditional, Godly love I'm talking about; the Big Love as a churchmate used to put it. This is also why humans fail at being moral a lot of the time; they're not capable of that kind of love.
Ethics is different, but that's really another post.
Anyway, tell me what you think.

It's raining, it's pouring...

2007-02-19T11:10:00.000-08:00

I have discovered a flaw in my plans. You guys know that I couldn't decide which major I was going to get, history or philosophy, so I decided to do both. After that, I took Calc III from Doc. Stone and realized how much I enjoyed higher level mathematics (it's a lot more fun than the basic level stuff, trust me) so now I'm a math major as well. So far, no problem. As my engineering and biology friends love to tell me, none of those are nearly as hard as their major, and this is true. But, believe it or not, three majors is a lot of work, so I have to compensate by dropping something. I am playing guitar for about an hour a day, and there's no way I'm giving that up. I go running occasionally, and for the sake of my sanity, I can't give that up. What does go is my chance to read books that I want to read. Back in the summer I could go through about a dozen books a week. Now, it's more like a book every two months.
It makes me sad. You all know this, but I love books. I think I have learned more by the books I have read outside of class than everything that I have learned from school. I try to keep up but I simply do not have enough time anymore.
On the other hand, I love the classes I am taking; you can tell by how much I complain about them. The more I grumble, the more I actually like it. I don;t know why this is. I love history, and the history of Eastern Europe is like the Mecca of pure history. Trying to keep straight everything that happened, what they thought happened, how that effects what their neighbors thought happened, how their prime ministers were executed, all need to be untangled in multiple ways if we are to understand the way people work and think in this region.
Discrete structures is pretty much the perfect math class, because we haven't dealt at all with numbers. It's all logic, and abstract at that, despite the class description. I could never do physics even when I knew the math because it was far too utilitarian, and discrete structures makes calculus look like a story problem.
Ethics is just beautiful. No more needs to be said.
But I love and miss the challenge of tackling a book that makes me stretch beyond my own beliefs. Arrgh.
It's raining here, and that makes me think of England, where I first came to love books. That's really why I'm melancholy. I'll be there next year, studying abroad (I promise to update as faithfully as I do now) but that knowledge just makes me miss it more. Plus I had Indian food today, which again made me think of England.
I am going to go do my homework, listen to some... Chopin, I think, and then try to get a head start on some book. And then I'll be back to sorts.

More than Once a Month!!

2007-01-28T21:13:00.000-08:00

It always seems to amaze me how some people seem to lack empathy for others. They don't seem to understand basic emotions that are universal. Yet, they expect others to be there for them during their emotional troubles. This is a very easy trap to fall into, and yet it is one of the most common reasons for strife within a group. This is what I have been dealing with for the past two or three weeks, ever since I have come back to Gonzaga.
I think it is fantastic timing that the Honors Program here is sent off on study abroad during their third year, usually with half in Fall and half in Spring. Such a closely knit group spending two years together nearly constantly falls into strife. On Tuesdays, our class is put together for six hours in three classes. After this, we often spend time studying together, hanging out together, doing errands together. The stress can become incredible.
This is where the empathy comes in. In order to really get along with others you have to understand what they are up to, what makes them tick. Some people seem to have missed the knack for it or fail to understand its importance. As such, these people are always creating friction within the group.
Anyway, enough about my strife. By the time I get back from Oxford, my frustrations will have passed.
My history class this semester is going to be really boring. Oh, wait, that's more of my strife.
Coming back from vacation, I'm getting back into reading awesome books. That's good. I have more time right now, since I am still looking for a job and only have 20 credits- say nothing- I have some marginal spare time in which to get to all the books in Hopkins house I have missed so far. Example: Umberto Eco's exposition on Thomas Aquinas' theory of art. Two of my heroes, together in one book! And it's semiotics, and it's Aesthetics, and it's just completely awesome!
Yeah. Life goes on.

My Life, as I know it

2006-11-22T14:47:00.000-08:00

Yes.
Yes yes yes.
etc., and so forth.
I see the pattern, but I can't stop it.
I guess I'm just an evil person.

Thanksgiving was excellent. I recommend the train to anyone who wants to travel about halfway around the country, for those trips that are too long for cars and not worth blowing a fortune on a flight. The train is far more comfortable as long as you're not too worried about being on time to anything, because without fail it will be late to where ever you are going.
Seeing Beth and Paul again was awesome. As all of you know, I try really, really hard to keep up with everyone, but I fail miserably most of the time. I found everything well with them and got some great news that will mess up my fall schedule horribly. But I'll deal with it.
The last part of the semester was pretty good. I kind of ran out of steam at the end but it turned out that I had just enough to get over the really tough bits. My Japanese finals were pretty terrifying, but I pulled off an A- in the class (for the first time!) and finally got a general idea of what it might be like to understand the language.
Then Christmas break came. It was fairly decent, I didn't do a whole lot but it was worthwhile just to be able to read the books I wanted rather than the books I was assigned. Christmas itself was good as ever, but it's kind of sad to say that the coolest present I got was socks. They were what I really needed.
And now I'm back, from outer space- I came back to find that same stupid look upon your face. Though my roomate tried to change the stupid lock, tried to throw away key, he was still there to bother me. Still, I will survive.
And now I wonder whether anyone will understand the reference.
My first day of classes was today. I think I'm going to make it, though I also think that pretty nearly exactly all of them will be either terrifically exciting or incredibly, incredibly boring. Like Hist. 353: Eastern Europe after 1863. Who wouldn't find that exciting?
OK. I guess only I would find that exciting.
But I could find that exciting, except for the fact that my prof.'s voice nearly put me to sleep. I could tell he was really excited about his subject, but his voice was nearly expressionless. Plus it was after Discrete Structures, which is essentially mathematical logic. Who wouldn't be bored by any class after that one?
OK, I guess it's just me again.
On another note, I used to think that I was doing so well. I had no TV, no video games, and no really easy food for a year and a half. And what have I become addicted to? Diablo 2, and Mario Kart. I'm actually going to go off and play the latter.
I promise I'll be better this time.

update

2006-11-05T20:20:00.000-08:00

Hey, what's going on, it's been a month, yeah, I know.
I'm here listening to people listening to backstreet boys... or N'sucks... I very easily get them mixed up. Backstreet boys make the Emmett go crazy. Anyway, to make up for it, I am going to do something virtuous like post on my blog.
so.
I have such a boring life here.
but I'm going to have a fun Thanksgiving; unfortunately I won't be able to see those of you who read this blog, I'm going to be spending time with one of my old friends in northern Washington. I hardly ever talk to her (this is completely my fault, I have her cell phone number and I just never get around to it...) and it will be really good to spend time with her.

Language Woes

2006-10-03T16:36:00.000-07:00

Usually this is the time when I would like to assure all of my faithful readers (yes I'm talking about both of you) that I did not, in fact, die; I was simply lazy and full of busyness which distracted me from posting on my blog. Let me assure that this is in fact not true. I died, and this is the real and by no means fabricated reason why I did not post. I was once was dead, now I'm alive, we're all happy again, back to business.
One more thing, actually. This is a ranting post. If you do not want to hear about my hard times, I suggest that you forget that I posted this and go on complaining that I never update- then you can e-mail me that I never update so that I remember to do it.
I hate Japanese. I got a test back today, a test that I studied 6 hours for in preparation of it's evilness. I knew I wouldn't do well- but I figured that in the 80's wouldn't be too far out of the question.
I got a 60. Now, our teacher said everyone in the class did poorly, so perhaps the material was merely incomprehensible to all of us. But this is the second (of three) tests that I have recieved "D" grades on. I am unused to being a "D" student, especially when I put 6 hours of studying into a test.
I spoke with a girl in my class afterwards and started conversing with her along this vein. I had forgotten how surprised people get when I tell them that I am taking 23 credits- it was funny to watch her eyes pop out of her head. But she was surprised when I told her that I could handle Ordinary Differential Equations, I could handle American History, I could handle Philosophy and Rhetoric- but Japanese took up 3/4 of my studying, and still I got bad grades in it.
There is a senior in the H.P. here who speaks 5 languages. Those are the ones she speaks fluently- she can handle the basics in a few others. I think I would trade my knowledge in another subject if I could learn how to speak well in another language. It's simply the coolest thing, and I just can't seem to get a handle on it.

Ethics- Surprise!

2006-09-17T16:44:00.000-07:00

I just saw the movie Sin City. It was the most disturbing thing I have ever seen- nearly every single human taboo that you could possibly think of was exploited and occasionally celebrated. Still, it was less effective at being frightening than say, Saw. Horror movies try to exploit realism, and Sin City was quite obviously comic-book like in character, more so than Spiderman or X-Men, to the point where the dialogue might have come straight off a comic page. The special effects made no attempt towards realism. As a result, the disturbing images did not come across as being as blatantly disgusting as they might have been. I find it interesting that simply the context of taking place in a make believe world can desensitize our feelings.

Summer and School

2006-08-29T23:21:00.000-07:00

I have seemed to lose time when at college. While I was a vampire, time simply seemed to expand in order for me to be able to pursue Latin, Japanese, Calculus, and my various writing pursuits along with working out. Coming back, though, I have suddenly remembered how much time being around people takes. Social interaction is a skill that I shall have to relearn. Suddenly I am faced with vocabularies that are above the fifth grade level (though you would be hard-reckoned to find fifth graders who were as vulgar as my fellow proletariat) and with people who actually understand what I say. It is an odd experience. Don't get me wrong, my co-workers were not the most refined or nice people but they were not completely bad. It was a good experience for me- trying out the new sleeping system, hanging around people who were different from me in nearly every respect, and enduring 8 hours of working a night, every night, even when I really, really, didn't want to. On the other hand it was kind of liberating. At college, the main interaction that goes on with my friends is relationships. In such a tight nit group, gossip travels around faster than sound, light, and bad news. For some reason, good or bad, I seem to project a stable influence, so people come to me and tell me their problems. Often, I get both sides, and keeping both could be very stressful. I would worry about both sides and hope against hope that my advice would not be terrible influence. Soon enough, I was caught up in it myself. But after months not thinking about anything that had to do with these interpersonal squabbles, I find that I rather miss being involved. So this year I'm going to make a few changes. I'll give advice, but with the premise that I am not responsible for what happens as a result. Mostly I'm just going to relax, figuring that relationships are pretty much going to be or do what they are going to be or do no matter what I say. And if I ever have the need to fulfill my own romantic desires, then I am definitely going outside the Honors Program. Otherwise, it would just get complicated, and I don't think I can handle it.

Update!

2006-08-28T09:51:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've taken far too long to update. No, I didn't make it to the library at all over the summer. The reason for this was my job, which I shall not describe here, save the hours it required me to be asleep, namely, the hours in which anything useful can be done. Yes, I've finally lived my dream; I lived the life of a owl. Except for the whole catching voles thing. Let me just say, it was harder to get used to then I thought it would be, and, strangely enough it was even harder to get back to sleeping normally (at least what constitutes normal for me) than it was to get into that sleeping pattern in the first place.
Anyway, I'm back, basking in the glory that is high speed internet, and wondering if anyone is still reading my blog. I'll put up more later when I have something interesting to say and time in which to say it.

Rambles and Self-Deprecation

2006-06-03T16:18:00.000-07:00

Memory is a funny thing. It has an annoying habit of making the past seem more pleasant than the present moment. I know that the past was just as good or just as bad as what I am going through now, but it is depressing if I constantly look back and think that things were better as they were. I hope to always think that I am improving as well as needing improvement, that I am learning as well as having more to learn. I don't really want my current tribulations to be overblown, but neither do I want them to be underestimated- and unfortunately I cannot have an objective opinion on the subject. So, if I'm melancholy today then I shall look at my past with a melancholy perspective.
Doesn't melancholy sound like a type of tea?
Anyone who knows me a little might appreciate my mixed feelings for the library I am sitting in. While being surrounded by books is never a bad thing, it could be improved if the quality of the literature were improved. And now I sound like a snob.
It doesn't seem fair- I'm sleeping far more than I did in college but I seem to be more tired. I think it's dehydration. Silly chemical processes, what do you really do for me? Of course it is likely that it is actually those chemical reactions that allow me to type this, but...
meh.
I shall go and play my guitar. That will make me feel better. And I'm still waiting for a certain kidnapping... although it looks like you guys haven't updated so I don't know when you'll read this. If it's soon- don't come in the morning or the early afternoon, as I will likely be going crazy while my body rests in a catatonic state; either that or I'll be sleeping.
Bad jokes. What would I do without them?

...and he's Back!

2006-05-25T11:45:00.000-07:00

The first thing I want to say is that one of the hardest things about being back in Utah is having no internet connection at my house. As a result, I cannot update as often as I might like... and I'm obviously not on AIM as often as I would have been if I had had it throughout the school year. So, bad planning on my part.
Still, I made it back alright, my birthday came and went as I like it... with no one, including me, really noticing. Nineteen, and I still feel like I'm sixteen...
I have few plans for the summer- I'll probably get a job and I'll probably spend time running in my old haunts, I'm planning on learning latin (I already have two books, so that should be enough, right?) and studying Japanese. I'm taking a calc class from Doc. Stone- and those of you who read this and don't know him are missing out. Wow, that looks like I'm going to be really busy.
I was really surprised, coming back to Utah, how much I felt like a stranger even though nothing had really changed. There's an electronic bulletin at the high school now, and a few more stores on fifth west. Not much, but I still feel older and... I don't know, more tired, I suppose, than nine months away should make me feel. And I'll spend three months or so here and then go back- to new living arrangements, new classes, and a new group of freshmen. Sometimes I think I'm splitting in two.
Then I consider that, really, I haven't lost anything by changing- I still remember quite vividly all the good times that I had in both places. My appreciation for my friends remains, even when I'm away from them. Is that enough?
Sometimes I selfishly wish that I believed more in Descartes' solipsism- that the only thing I can be sure of is my own mind; then there would be no doubt that my thoughts are enough to be a good life, but then what would be the point? I'd be lying to myself- and other people are so much cooler than my thoughts, anyway.
Anyway. I'll try to head down to the library to update as often as I can.

sad, sad news of moral degradation

2006-05-08T22:10:00.000-07:00

So...
I have a thing against secondary communication, except when absolutely necessary. I know I've talked about this before, and I don't know how I can say this without sounding like a hypocrite.
I now have AIM.
But, I have no buddies. :(
So, if you're interested in talking to me... let me know your screen name... and... I don't know, I'm new at this, okay? This is hard!!
yeah.

Mind? No Matter. Matter? Never Mind.

2006-05-06T15:47:00.000-07:00

One of the problems that humans have is their inability to seperate themselves from themselves. I am becoming less and less certain that we can be objective about anything. Everything we take in, everything we consider, all of it is screened against a filter of our past experiences. The way we see the world is the only absolute thing we have, and though it may change, how would we know the difference if it didn't allow anything outside of its rigourous conditions to come into our head? We look at other people and consider their actions in terms of what we know- and when we assume these things we lack the fundamental empathy of having their experiences and ruminations to draw upon.
I could go into how even science is unable to really give any proof of being objective- ideal scientific inquiry perhaps, but since when is there ideal anything?
It's distracting to me to try to be impartial when learning something when I know that I am taking it only because I can assimilate this into what I already know. But I hate it even more when people don't even realize they do it. The best example is English class- we read these works of literature and people agree or disagree with them off the top of their heads. They don't appreciate the days put into these works because they have already assumed that their world-view is the correct one, or at least that their view cannot be assailed by other people because it is their point of view. Arguing with these people is especially frustrating because you can go over the same points again and again and they can always retreat back to "the way I see it..."
But if we cannot escape from being subjective, how do I know that they are not in the right? Is there any purpose for me to look for transcendental truths if I cannot work outside of my own head? What is the dividing line between fundamental philosophy and psychology?
If I cannot be sure of finding and being sure of proving objective truth, then I can at least look for subjective truth- the idea that what people consider fundamental tells more about them than it does about actual fundamentals. But is this a mere cop-out to humanism?
Even now I am subjecting my decisions to my sense of rightness. Why should I consider fundamental truths to be more important than human truths? Because I have assumed, from study and from custom, that they are.
If understanding was the reason why we are here, then we fail miserably.
So, my quest for knowledge has become simply a game I play. I hope that it still yields rich results. I hope that people will hear of me and say, "Well, at least he thought." But I am a little saddened by my loss of naievity.

Wittgenstein and my Fly-Bottle

2006-04-29T23:23:00.000-07:00

I have to admit to being a little upset at my most recent reading material. It's not that it wasn't genius or anything. Wittgenstein was nothing if not a genius. He was a crucial foundation for most contemporary philosophy of language and philosophy of mathematics, which happen to be the cornerstone of modern philosophy. I read his first book, the Tractatus Logico-philosophicus a while back and I couldn't understand a word of it. Then I read that he presented it as his doctoral thesis at Cambridge University, and at the end of the interview clapped the adjudicators on the back (and they were Bertrand Russel and Alfred North Whitehead- not exactly dumb people) and said, "Don't worry, I know you'll never understand it."
I was fine with that. In fact, I used some of his ideas in my draft of what was going to be, eventually, after many hours and many revisions, a book. And then I read Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. These were never published during his lifetime; like Pascal's Pensees, they took a draft he essentially had on his desk and published that. You might think that this would be an inferior work, but I really like the style- as fragments, you can get a hold of a given idea better than you would if the same idea was presented as a chapter. It is more concise and more to the point.
But I have a problem with Wittgenstein. Check these sentences, they don't make sense out of context, but just read them:
"...if someone wished to say:"There is something common to all these constructions- namely the disjunction of their common properties"- then I should reply: Now you are only playing with words"
That sentence put my whole work (20,000+ words, constantly revised, days worth of work) on hiatus as I try desperately to come up with a way around his argument.

A Mini-Rant, but I'm not real mad.

2006-04-28T09:16:00.000-07:00

I have a little bit to say about political arguments. I might have, in fact, mentioned them before, but now I have reason to mention why I don't engage in them. I've been asked by three different people in the past couple of days what my stance was on a certain issue, and I've had to politely respond that I couldn't give a fair opinion and that, indeed, no one could really give an accurate prediction of a given policy.
All political arguments have one essential flaw in them. They are all arguments with an implied Ceteris Paribus clause, which in latin means all things being equal. People argue that, all other things being equal, this change in policy will have this result. But that is not right at all, since the real world doesn't work with all things being equal; it works with things changing right when you expected them to stay the same, or with things having unintended consequences that come back to mess up the system.
In some settings, I love arguing over politics, but only when it is completely ensured that it is a hypothetical argument, such as in a polisci class or with friends who know me well enough to realize that I will just as easily argue the other side of the argument.
I have a calculus test in a few hours, and this is what I do. This isn't even a finals calc test! I have this test, dead week, and then the final on friday next!
And I can't even talk about my English paper. 12-15 pages...
Japanese Oral...
Japanese Written...
Stupid Japanese out-of-class assignments...
GGAAAh!!!!1
*twitching*
In other news, I have decided to become nocturnal for the summer. More on this later.

Yeah I know that every time I'm busy I give a poem. So sue me

2006-04-23T22:32:00.001-07:00

Can't talk. Too busy. Sorry for short posts. Will stop with telegraph writing soon. Must eat- haven't all day. Have poem. Not mine: one of my professor's:

Metaphysic, with Bird

A window allows
that stories
seldom
translate, that the verb falters.

O that it falters. And rises
From mud again.
That this window
allows a cardinal in the yard

to flash across a stretch of glass
and vanish
into eye and ear and heart
that follow feathers and light

to dreams of perfect bird,
perfect cardinal
in the yard
with mud and a verb-

to flash to fly to be
to God. Verb falters
when the window allows.
And rises.

Cheers, Dr. Marshall

Frustrations...

2006-04-15T23:37:00.000-07:00

There is much that we do not understand about the world. Trying to find out exactly what we can and cannot know has been a passion of mine for quite awhile. I have a long way to go- people have been trying to figure this stuff out for thousands of years.
But is it worth it if I cannot even start with what I know? How do I know what I am knowing this instant is what I knew five minutes ago? How do I know that I agree with you on what we are seeing?
Why is knowledge so important? Why am I always trapped by my perception of knowledge rather than actual knowledge?

Just a few things I'm working through.

Memories

2006-04-13T00:04:00.000-07:00

I know I said that I would be getting back to those topics that I put up- but then life came up and bit me while I wasn't expecting it.
One of my friends, my classmate in the Honors Program, Ann Komadina, died Friday evening. It was a massive blow to all of us- we have all been in shock throughout the weekend and still feel very raw- and we will, for a long time to come.
I'm very sorry that you guys in Utah didn't get to know her- you would have gotten along splendidly. She was very quiet around most people- but if you put forth the effort to get to know her then you realized how many levels and how many facets she had. She was one of the kindest people I ever knew, and she had an absolutely sharp sense of humor at the right times. I got to know real well her little half smile that just invited me to ask- and I would always get hit with a zinger.
It's the little things that we remember.
So. I don't say this enough- I want to thank you guys for always being there for me, even a thousand miles away- I keep you in my heart and I hope you keep me, too.

A Quick Note

2006-04-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

I have to run, but I wanted to quickly say a couple of things that I've been thinking about recently and want to consider in depth later:

1. The fact that fictional writing requires dialogue to make it interesting- it is the dialogue that creates the characters, even more than their actions. If novels are, as I suspect they are, paintings of propositional psyches- what does this say about human nature?

2. I really should stop being surprised by this, but when giving forth their opinions, people don't realize or consider how weak their premises usually are. Premises! It's all about premises!

Sorry this took so long. Have a poem.

2006-03-29T17:19:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so I need to update more often. Dang it, there are only a certain number of hours in a day and... yeah. So I should quit complaining and update.
here's a poem I'm working on; it's not titled yet.

I sit and watch
the people pass by-
an uninterruptible flow.
Blink...blink...blink...
they go, and do not know
to stop.

I sit and watch
the birds swirl in lines
spiralling to spare the wing
they are the billowed flight
no end, no sight from the height
of wide life below.

I sit and watch
the clouds bob and mose-
to personify can't describe
the passion of the float.
They soak in sky
and I am left behind.

I sit-
close my eyes, to hope-
to lose myself-
the world is gone,
but I am, still.

I also just want to mention that running one's emotions through a blender is not the best way to keep up with one's studies. There is a story there, but its not to be told here- but the worst is over and the sun has come up.

And I thought "who am I?" was a Simple Question

2006-03-05T12:11:00.000-08:00

This is written in response to Paul's comment in the previous post- so if you don't understand it blame him, not me- I was going to post it as a reply but then I thought about it and it got too long. First of all, my Japanese oral went alright. I consider it par for the course if I make it out of there alive, and this time my sensei sprung the hideous trap of having it recorded while my partner and I talked. Those fifteen minutes were probably some of the longest ever in my life. Anyway.
Paul mentioned actors, and how they use their abilities to convince themselves of a characterization that is not usually their own. I heartily agree with his assessment that this is a property of filters in the mind- I would probably classify it as 'faking' filters, just because they are completely temporary and can be dropped as soon as the scene is done- and I wanted to expound some more on the idea of human acting.
Humans are the best actors in the animal kingdom; they are, in fact, the only actors that have come up out of evolutionary processes. But wait, you say, what about those great imitating insects, the kinds that look like sticks and leaves so that predators can't get them? Or the predators that fake food sources to trap their prey? This, unfortunately, is not acting. They are playing out their lives in the appropriated way- as Aristotle would say, they are fulfilling their essence.
Humans, on the other hand according to Aristotle, are full of accidents. Here, accident means something that is part of a person but is not essential to that person's essence. Thus, by definition, the roles that an actor portrays must be accidents- if they can change what they are feeling, or what they are percieving (as Paul apparently manages to act so well that he fools himself 8P) then those feelings and perceptions are not integral to the essence of being human. It is all about consciousness, and what we are conscious of- but if consciousness can be fooled, or if it can be altered by things that are part of me, but are not my consciousness, then my conscioussness in itself is not my essential spirit- to us religious peeps, our soul. There must be more to us than that.
It seems a bit silly, at first, to consider so deeply the idea of acting when considering consciousness, but it is surprisingly something that has come up in arguments for and against certain interpretations on the nature of consciousness. On the other hand, acting has never been used, as far as I am aware, as a justification of a certain definition of consciousness, so way to go, Paul- you just got a credit in my book. Still, I find it interesting that acting, formal acting with standard rules for the societal audience to understand, was invented and became popular around the same time as people like Aristotle began looking into the nature of consciouness: at least within the same century. Coincidence? I think not.

I? I, also.

2006-03-02T12:58:00.000-08:00

I have a Japanese oral exam in 23 hours and 40 minutes, but I have been obsessing about it for the last 56 hours or so; I need to be distracted from thinking about Japanese for a little while, and, hey presto! Distraction!
I've been thinking a lot recently about the nature of consciousness. Why would anyone think about this? you might ask. ('course, if you ask that about me, then we haven't known each other more than a few minutes.) Well, the little thing that I'm working on intermittently saved in my computer as "Magnum Opus" keeps demanding that I talk about consciousness as I slave away on it. Seriously, I'm not free to write the thing- it just keeps insisting that I sit down and pay attention to it for a certain time each day.
Anyway, my literary-schizophrenic tendencies aside, I've been thinking and reading a lot about the nature of consciousness recently. It's something that people have been considering and talking about for thousands of years- it might in fact be the most discussed topic in philosophy. The reason people are so interested in it is because it is essentially the core of human nature. How do you know you are human? Because I am able to know I am human. (Word up, Descartes.) Language may seperate us from the rest of the animal kingdom in the sense that it enables a new kind of interaction between the members of the species, but consciousness is what separates me from you. I am conscious of myself; I am not conscious of you.
Sartre, in his epic (and mostly intensely boring) work, Being and Nothingness, emphasized this fact (over the first 300 pages- thank you messr. Jean-Paul, but I get the idea). By definition, consciousness is consciousness of something. There cannot, for example, be a disembodied consciousness in a vacuum.
This leads to an interesting, but ultimately flawed, idea. If consciousness is awareness of me, does that mean there are two parts- me and my consciousness? Rene would be doing backflips in the ground: he found consciousness to be the 'other half' contrasted to the body. If 'I' am not my consciousness, what, where, who am 'I'? What are we left with? The problem is that self-awareness is not an outsider peeking inside. There is no contradiction when my consciousness is me aware of me; it is an individualized phenomena- I am who I am aware of myself.
What does consciousness do? It shows us the world. My "Magnum Opus" is concerned with filters, things that affect our thinking and worldview by keeping things out of our minds. We have filters for our vision because we can only percieve a very small set of wavelengths- we are filtered in our hearing because there are only a few frequencies that we can hear. Consciousness keeps other things out.
Consciousness is mutable. The easiest example is when we are full of some strong emotion- the world suddenly looks different than it did when we were calm. Concentrated consciousness prolongs experience, diverted consciousness shortens it- this is why a watched pot takes forever to boil. Hopefully this doesn't seem too weird. The interesting thing is, consciousness only works as a filter as long as it is not conscious of the fact that is acting like a filter. Realize that the pot is taking too long to boil and time seems to regulate itself again. Realize that you are angry, and the world suddenly doesn't look quite so hostile.
This has some interesting connotations. We all (or at least I do) love to think that we are correct, and can usually come up with some good reasons that we are right. But perhaps there are some things that we are not aware of that is keeping us from some key datum that would show us our folly. Perhaps the importance we place on some entity is only because of the certain way our consciousness is filtering the world.
This is not really a new argument. How different is what I'm saying from the general idea behind Freud's theories about the unconscious? In some ways, it could really be a cop-out. I do things because my filters make me do them- but wait, if you can say that, then you are conscious of them and they are not filtering anymore! Free will is preserved. Yay for saving the phenomena.
I've gone on for far too long, but thanks for reading this- any feedback would be appreciated and could win you a place in a preface of a (far-flung) future book!

spice up the food of life

2006-02-28T15:56:00.000-08:00

First of all, to all my regular readers, you might have noticed that I have a new blog link down there in the lower right hand part of your screen. Well, my friend Chris Heinrich here at Gonzaga apparently has a blog of his own that you might find interesting- and he doesn't seem to get very many comments. Go check it out if you have a few minutes to spare. So let it be written, so let it be done.
I'm still looking forward to spring break in a week and a half. On the other hand, I still have the hardest stuff to do before then ahead of me still, so I feel like I'm on the part of the log ride when they've taken you through the forest with your canoe bouncing up and down and up against the sides, then taken you up to the top with the tip of the boat just peeking out before it tips over and you go screaming down towards the great splash. The splash is spring break, but I've still got a lot of screaming before I get there.
I have to go sign up for my dorm room for next year tonight. This is messing with my head a little bit because I can barely keep a plan for two weeks ahead, and they're asking me to be ready for next year before midterms this semester. And yet, though I seem incapable of planning for the future, I realized today that I had been doing the same routine out of sheer habit without realizing for the last month or so. Since my dorm next year is immediately next to the dorm I'm living in now, it seems that I will continue to do a similar routine next year.
By now, you may be thinking "What is Emmett doing? Is he copping out of his usual thought of the day in his post?" (Alternatively, I suppose you could be thinking, "thank goodness, he's finally not putting more of his insipid opinions up!) but, surprise! I have a thought. Here goes:
I have been considering people who play an instrument, or perhaps write poetry (those are the two best examples I have) without putting forth the effort to practice hard, revising their work and making sure that what they are putting forth is the best that they can do. I know I used to have that problem with poetry- I could write a bunch of poems a week because I would just scribble out what was in my head. As I kept doing this, the poems got better, but that method really didn't do much to help my poems. The same thing can be true of some people who attempt to play an instrument- my friend's roommate apparently only learns the beggining of a song and only plays that over and over again because he is unwilling to put forth the work needed to learn the whole song.
Common practice would tell us that we should define these people as a poet and a musician, respectively. I look through Poetry.com occasionally and I see people who obviously do the same thing I used to do with my poetry and it is painful to read. But they are there, anyway- and poets of their caliber get published. Have any of you listened to Nirvana? There is a band that obviously didn't know how to play their instruments, but they are still a 'must-hear' group of our era.
Most musicians, of course, can stick their noses down at Nirvana and other garage garbage sound bands; they have years of practice under their belts and can afford to be a little arrogant comparatively. As for poetry, Ezra Pound thought it would be a good idea if poets went throught the same kind of training as musicians did in order to get the same effect- to keep amateurs away.
A part of me sympathizes with the people who write poetry and play music like that, but for the most part I have to agree with Pound and the other 'elitists.' Partly because of all the work I put into orchestra, and am putting into my guitar now, I know the great pleasure and self-respect that comes with learning something difficult, and learning how to do it well. I know when it comes to poetry that I much prefer now getting out maybe one poem a month, but a poem that has been critiqued by people and worked over extensively by me to the stuff in my old notebooks that I now cringe at to read.
Wow, this has become long- but let me know what you think: is there any worth in having these kind of 'amateur' poets and musicians?

Who are the People?

2006-02-21T18:25:00.000-08:00

So I was working on homework today and I decided that I was pretty much done- so I now have time to update! I'm sorry that I've been so bad about updating- it's been nearly two weeks, and that's just unacceptable to me. I'm going to try and be better about it, but since Spring Break is in less than three weeks, it shouldn't be too hard to pass the time before I can talk to you guys for real.
That's actually what I've been thinking about recently- the fact that people don't have to really interact anymore. I know people who often have IM discussions with each other while they are in the same room, and if that isn't an example of the deterioration of human interaction, I don't know what it is. I suppose they could argue that they had to discuss things that they wished to keep private, and they didn't want to be rude by publically announcing that they had something private to say. But isn't it just as rude to have a conversation in the middle of a group without including everyone?
It all comes down to the shrinking of time. People have become so caught up in the routine and society of technology that speeds up routines, so no one has to take the time anymore to cement human relations. We have something called "facebook" here at Gonzaga and other Universities, where people can keep in touch with people over the internet, and get to know new people based on their interests and similar 'groups' that they can create and join. It sounds great, but it cheapens the experience of actually getting to know real people. Like IM, E-mail, and unfortunately, even this blog, you are not interacting with a real person but with the words and pictures on the screen. It's the difference between being friends with a person and reading their biography- and which would you prefer to have, friends or a bunch of biographies? Something to think about.

Ode to a hacking Cough

2006-02-10T13:33:00.000-08:00

Wow. I finally have time to check up on my blog when I realize that it has been far too long since I last posted. I was going to write some commentary about how I got around to writing those two positional statements but then I got caught up with twenty-one credit hours worth of work and suddenly the rest of my life just kind of fell by the wayside. In response to this unfair and biased treatment that it feels I have been giving it, my body all of sudden decided to stop working and get sick. Thus, I now have enough time on a friday afternoon to update, between hacking coughs, my blog.
Life is different when you are sick. Einstein showed how time is relative to the position and velocity of the observer, and though what I am experiencing is the slowing of psychological time, it is a nice confirmation of his physics. I can sit here for minutes and feel like time has the same consistency as molasses or honey. Going to class, like I did yesterday, makes the time go by faster but it seems to worsen whatever condition I have- a headache starts pounding, the coughing gets hoarser, and the sneezing becomes more frequent. Being sick is all about the realization of limited choice- I can go to class and be sick, but not have to make up what I miss, or I can stay, feel better and be behind by a quarter fortnight.
A little while ago, I postulated a new idea for the definition of freedom. Since there are obviously things that we are not 'free' to do in any situation (such as be two places at once, or fly by flapping our arms) we should look at freedom as the ability to make a choice between the options we have before us. Such a definition leads to an odd conundrum: a man in prison has more freedom than I do, because his options are limited enough that he has an easy chance of making his choice, whereas I have so many options that I am often stuck in making decisions. Think of going to a restaurant and seeing 50 things on the menu that you like. Now go to a different restaurant that has only 10 of the same things- where would you be more free in making a choice?
All this sounded good to me when I thought it up, a few months ago, but being sick and having only my intellect to keep me company (nice conversationalist, but he gets kind of repetitive) I was going over my old arguments and this one stuck out for me because while being sick directly and physically limits me from making some choices, the fact is that I am still free to keep those choices in mind and feel distraught for not choosing them. Being sick should have kept me from statistics and English this morning, but it didn't; though I shouldn't (by my definition) have been free to see the options I couldn't take, I still tried to do those things that I was not free to do. This could only lead to negative consequences. I still think I'm right in using that definition of freedom- only problems come up because people can see beyond the freedom they have and attempt to do things that they are not free to do.

Yeah. Being sick sucks. I hope you guys are doing well!

Rebuttal

2006-01-25T17:22:00.000-08:00

What we see in the world is what there is. My opponent asks, "Does it matter whether or not there is an absolute truth or merely our subjective opinion?" and though he says that subjectivity is what we're forced into, he is obviously not taking the question as seriously as he needs to take it if he is serious in contemplating the nature of optimism and pessimism.
My opponent is right about one thing. Pessimism- as I will explain it, not as my opponent maligns it- is Romantic at heart. We know the power of the individual, and the power that comes with knowing that there is complete truth, a real and powerful entity that is real beyond bounds. This is the power that comes up against the forces of darkness in the world, the power that is strong against the bonds of evil.
My opponent, who calls himself an optimist, cannot object if I use his 'optimistic' definition of pessimism- that it is looking at the universe for all of the negative. But then he goes on to say that this makes one alone in such a universe. But a person does not stand apart from the universe- not only does he create the universe he percieves, he is part of it and is it. And since it is true that man cannot see himself in the negative, that man is always the protagonist of his life story, that such a pessimist cannot exist. There is always something that is good in the world, and that opens us up to positive thoughts.
Real pessimism has always been more like realism, or like anti-optimism, as they are wont to flip the universe into seeing things that are not really there: they become like Pangloss, blind to what is real and only allowing for the good. Optimists are trapped by their sense of mulitlateralism, that all philosophies and schools, when fully understood, cannot help but be good. What they don't realize is that it is stupid to think in that way: there is no sum of anything- all of these things can only be taken as they are, and placed against the absolute and complete definition of good and evil.
The pessimist is not trapped. By not insisting on any subjective stance, they realize the differences in ideas are real differences in ideas and not simply manifestations of some Neo-Platonic god.
We thus escape from infinite infinite universes of ideas and can realize the truth! My opponent cannot deny it- he said we cannot escape from our minds, and he is right, but people see the absolute in different orders, not a different translation of the divine.
As such, our minds can only go so far as the divine, and all that we do, all our actions, depend on it! Such freedom it is, that he does not recognize, to cast away false freedom of choosing your own path rather than do what is written on the divine script!

Truly yours,
The Anti-Optimist

Note

2006-01-25T15:24:00.000-08:00

There is a certain division that certain persons make between differing personalities in this world. These are called, on the one hand, optimists, and on the other hand, pessimists. The power inherent in these terms is the manner in which they sway opinion or our view of the world; this power is treacherous, for even if I were to give a definition of one the reader could easily verify on which side of the breach we lie. For example, if I were to say that pessimism was looking at the world in a negative sense, the implication is that I am an optimist, because to be negative is to be in the wrong, and we can never truly admit that we are in the wrong- we all believe to have right thought. But were we to say that pessimism is the art of revealing bravely all of the wrongs in the world, then we would be seen as a pessimist, for there it is the world that is in the wrong rather than we. Whatsoever way it is taken, those are the accepted definitions of the art or philosophy of pessimism, and whatsoever view one takes the opposite will be the meaning of optimism.
There is a certain sense, or air, of the Romantic about the pessimist, as he sees himself. As we said, the pessimist sees bravely (in himself- his self description) the wrongs in the world, it's lack of order. Such a man is driven by himself, and himself alone, because it is quite clear that if there is an evil world there is nothing that he can be sure of being good but himself.
The optimist is driven instead by hope. He has a sense, not of the Romantic, but of connection to the universe. If he is good, and the universe is good, then there is a commonality between the two, and even if those who adhere to solipsism are right, the optimistic ones are not alone in their minds.
The nature of the world is here at stake- we must be inquiring on its wholesomeness or its corruptness. But a question arises first: can we talk about the world in itself? That is, can we talk about the world objectively? Or, is it that we can only see the world through ourselves? Is there a truth in the absolute sense, that we can know?
Such an argument has been consistent since the ancients. But whether or not there is a truth, is it not so that we cannot escape ourselves to see it? We only see what we see, whether it is absolute truth or not. And the nature of the universe as subjective (that is, as we see it) is phenomena in context. How do I mean?
There is a certain lady of our acquaintance whom dislikes the nature, the commonplace, physical nature, of the Catholic Church of which she is a member of the parish. She complains of the heat, of the strong scent of the scenser, and other such maladies. But these entities or phenomena, which may certainly be unpleasant to the body, when taken in a certain context, cannot help but be edifying. These are the symbols of the Divine! Of what use are they but to be a stimulus to be thoughtful about the Greatness of the universe? In other matters this is also true. It is not the phenomena which is good or bad, but the context; and that is but a matter of the reason of the mind. Those who are optimists, choose to be optimists, not because the world is actually better, but because we like it better that way.

Sincerely,
The Optimist

Back to School part 2

2006-01-19T14:31:00.000-08:00

So, I finally have some sort of a break after finishing what is really my first day of classes that stretched over two calendar days. Now I have taken all of my classes at least once, and have sort of an idea of what to expect. Here's a rundown:
MWF
10:00 A.M.- Statistics. AAAAAGHH!!!! WHAT KIND OF SICK PERSON PUTS TOGETHER THIS CLASS!?! AAAGH!! The teacher is boring, the book is easy and boring, and my classmates are not the sharpest tacks in the box. Not a pretty sight to wake up to, even with a fresh cappucino.
11:oo A.M. Hon. English. I don't know quite what to think. The teacher seems good, the material is excellent (except for Candide, again...but we're also doing Dostoevski again so it's not all bad) and my classmates are obviously well informed. But it's an English class when I'm supposed to be done with English...
gogo ju ni ji desu. Japanese. Well, I hope it will be better this time around since I seem to be the only one who practiced over the break. Still, it's Japanese, so I expect a lot of practicing with not a lot of results.
1:10 P.M. New Testament: Synoptic Gospels. This one should be excellent. I know the stuff, my classmates know the stuff (it's another honors class) and it's interesting material. The textbook is boring, but the teacher is very good, and I'm interested in the directions he's going to take.
2:10 P.M. Calculus II. This is going to be an interesting class because I know the material (We're learning how to integrate!) but it's been a year and a half since I've taken any math. The hardest part is going to be catching up to the point where the class is at, but I anticipate it getting easier after that.
T/Th
9:30 A.M. History 101. Along with Japanese lab on Thursday and another Calculus class on Tuesday, the only other class I have these days is History 101. The good news is that it is taught by a Jesuit, so you know the teaching is going to be top notch. He's also quite funny. The down side is that I'm taking History 101. It's going to be a struggle between the quality of the lectures and the fact that I learned all of this stuff in elementary school. I anticipate major boredom.
Well, now you know kind of where I'm at. I'm off to go study...something.

Right Back to School

2006-01-15T13:45:00.000-08:00

Some of you may be wondering whether or not I was ever going to post again. No need to worry. I'm now back in Spokane, connected again to high speed internet, and my posts will go on. More info as it comes.

Finals

2005-12-13T11:20:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that I'm not a big fan of the final. I can put in some stuff about how Colleges try to stuff the biggest point gain at the very point where college students are the most sleep deprived. I could mention that one test should not be the main criteria as to how much you know about any given subject. I could make the argument that, in my case, discussions with you guys and my fellow honors students here teach me more than any class (or even all of my books) ever will. But it doesn't matter. I'm in the middle of them. And, being me, it affords a great chance to note the psychology of students under stress. That's the other thing that teaches me more than school has: just observing other people.
I must admit to having made a mistake on my very first post. I assumed then that, after the initiation which bonded the students together, the University would attempt to gain their allegiance. I was only partially correct. I think they realize that students, at least the majority of students, are not going to enjoy going to classes, and keep the separation that I outlined in that post. The students here are all universally basketball fans- and that's what creates the unity, even while I hear great complaints, similar to my own, on finals and their inopportune timing.
The library is a great museum of the human condition. This Sunday, the day before test week starts, the place was packed. Their possible motives threatened to escape me. These are the same people who spend their Friday and Saturday nights altering the chemical structures in their brain in what can only be interpreted as an attempt to forget something. Now, they study. More abstractly, what is the goal that they are shooting for? I understand my own motive: I take the clearer but perhaps more dangerous road of wishing knowledge for it's own sake, to some extent for my own improvement. Many of the Sunday library dwellers wish only to keep from failing- from getting a mark on a piece of paper. They spend all of their time living in the physical world and its pleasures, and they fear an academic mark: an idea. Einstein is the prime example of a person who overcomes his grades, but I submit that the people in the library are right to fear, and that the usual view of Einstein is wrong.
Ideas and concepts have strong influences in the physical world. Marks on paper have even more so. Grades drive people to fear: either fear for themselves or fear of the person who manages to get an A in Hon Critical Thinking. Fear, of course, is probably the most motivating emotion in the human repertoire. And while Einstein probably did not fear the repercussions of the failing grades he got, his anger (and how close is anger to fear?) at them probably stimulated him to greater heights then he might otherwise have been open to.
This is very rambling. Don't worry, guys, I only have one more final, and then I'll be back for a month, which I hope will be time enough to get me back to my regular kind of insanity instead of this one, which isn't very fun.

I'm Back!

2005-11-28T20:34:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's true, I'm back. In several ways this is accurate- I'm back in Spokane after seeing all of you over Thanksgiving; I'm back doing the blog after way too much time away from it; and I'm back doing my regular posts of cool ideas I have. The Nano...well, I'm going to finish it. But not in November- I just have had well too much else to deal with. But I've got nearly 30k, and that ain't not shabby. Okay, back to real English, too.
Today's idea comes from a high school kid that I sat next to on the plane ride back to Spokane. I will always remember him because he shared his buffalo wings with me, and I never forget a meal. I was reading, and he asked me what the book was: I told him it was Paradise Lost, and that I had a paper due on it in two weeks (which is true, but that was the third time I've read it and it's one of my favorite English poems of all time) and that I had to have it read by then.
His reply interested me, mostly because it reminded me that no matter where I go or whom I'm with I always manage to get these deep discussions. Maybe it's just me. He said that he didn't like it when teachers force you to read books because you wouldn't get as much out of it as when you read on your own steam. That's certainly true- I know from my own experience of reading books that we later read in class. But then several questions arise. Should we just allow students to read whatever they want to read, no matter the lack of academic weight of the book? Or should we continue to educate in a way that hardens the student against our efforts?
One of the problems with reading in class is that it is read on a schedule. I know that there are often passages in books that I would like to spend extended periods of time on, but I usually don't, favoring reading the whole book quickly before going back and studying closely the more interesting bits. In a classroom setting this approach is not practical or even favorable if the basic premise is class coherency. If all students had one on one tutoring, this would be possible, but not as the education system is currently devised.
But we began with a question on the choice of books to be read. I find that much of the decision making process in answering this question relates to how the teacher or curriculum views the student: whether they see the student as passive or active in their education. Those who see students as empty jars waiting to be filled choose books irregardless of their student's wishes- they see themselves as knowing what is best for the student's education and plan their teaching around the best books. In the 17th century John Locke, in his essay on teaching, favored this approach to education, outlining a courseload that went without exception, teaching English, French, Latin, then Greek, all in thier turn. On the other hand, teachers who see their students as being actively involved in their education often allow more of a free reign. While this has the advantage of allowing the students to place their full attention on the work it often means that they aren't studying the highest caliber works. But that's the trade-off. Jacques Rousseau favored this method on the grounds that children who are forced into academia too early are spoilt by it, but he didn't really propose much else. It wasn't until John Dewey in the 20th century that this idea really blossomed.
But, some teachers still assign books, and I couldn't be happier. Mostly because their list and mine is about the same.
PL forever!

Part 2: Soren

2005-11-11T16:24:00.000-08:00

Since I heard something about the length of the previous post, this is merely a selection of what I've got now. If you're lost, you either should realize that I have left some parts out that happen between the end of part 1 and this, or you should actually read what I put up before. Cheers!

The street had become darker. Suddenly a loud blast exploded out of the darkness, and Paul-Luc ducked down and covered his head with his arms reflexively. He felt shards of something rain down on him for a second, but after it passed, he stood up, and started looking around, trying to see the cause of the explosion. He saw where the dust was clearing from; it was just an alley across the street. He started to cross to see if he could help anyone down there, but was stopped as someone grabbed his arm. He jerked his head around to see a young woman with bright red hair stopping him from crossing.
“Don’t” she said, quietly, with a glance at the alley. “You don’t want any part of that, trust me.” She shook her head, as if to clear it, and Paul-Luc realized the ringing in his ears: he realized that whoever had used that bomb (or what he now thought was a bomb) had also used sonic refractors to send the sound into higher wavelengths: whoever did this was a professional.
While he was thinking this, the woman quickly looked around. “You had better get out of here. It won’t be too long until the militia arrives and…oh, shivut. They’re already here. Come on,” She started to drag him by the arm as he realized he was hearing sirens, and that that was a bad thing.
He allowed her to drag him a few blocks, before shaking her loose. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Who are you? Why are you doing this? What’s going on?”
“You idiot,” she said. “We can’t stop here. They’re looking for you, and if they find you here you’re in deeper trouble than you could possibly imagine. I’ll tell you everything when we get out of here.”
“But why,” he started, but before he could say anything else she had suddenly grabbed him, pushed him against the wall behind, and locked his mouth in a kiss.
H would have protested, and he moved his hands to push her away, but she grabbed them quickly, and pushed them around her back to make the theatrics look more natural. Then he heard the sirens move towards them, then slow as they passed, and then go roaring off again, towards the explosions, and he remembered how worried he had been that his Uncle had been out to detain him, and the thought kind of hovered in the back of his mind that it might have been a good idea to have stayed in what looked more and more like safe and secure walls, rather than constricting and imprisoning. As soon as the transports had passed, the woman broke away from him to look at where security had gone. She said, “See! Look at how close that was! Do you realize the danger you are in now?” And she had again grabbed him and was pulling him, oddly enough, he was noticing, toward the sound that he had been aiming for before. Wouldn’t that be funny, if she were taking me there, he thought. He was too surprised, confused, and filled with the sense of the ridiculousness of the situation he was in to have any, more coherent thoughts.
They had been running for several minutes when they saw the secutrans vehicles pass them again. This time, there were no sirens, and they were moving much slower. Paul-Luc turned away from the woman and went over to them, joining a small crowd that had gathered to take a gander at the sight.
He peered over the crowd, but almost immediately turned away. Those people…had just been obliterated. They must have been standing right next to the blasts to have been shredded like that, he thought. He wondered at all the training he had been given with the sword, from Rainer and earlier; hell, he thought, I grew up with a sword in my hand. How is that different from using a bomb? I can just kill people one person at a time, rather than in numbers. And he remembered a tall man with a large wound of his own, and he wondered if it was better to die from one cut or a thousand.
The woman was again at his side. “What are you doing?” she hissed. Paul-Luc shook her off.
“Listen, my lady,” he said, letting only the barest hint of sarcasm through his polite shell, “I don’t know who you are, for whom you are working, or why you are so interested in my welfare, for good or bad. But you are fortunate, because at this junction of my life, I do not care. Take me where you are going to take me, or do not, but do not pretend that you are in charge of me, or part of how I decide what I choose to do or not do. You have, for one thing, not given me any particular reason why I should trust you in the least. In fact, if I were more sensible, I probably wouldn’t trust you at all. But, again, it must be your good fortune that you decided to kidnap me today.” He gave her a twisted smile.
“I’m not kidnapping you, you arrogant swine.” She spat, “and your act is certainly not fooling anyone if it’s not fooling me. You want a reason you should trust me? If it hadn’t been for me you would be looking like those poor slitted saps who just passed us by. Would you prefer that, eto? I could leave you right now and let you fend for yourself; would you like that, eto? If not, then shut up and come with me.” She turned from him and started striding down the street, quickly but not unobtrusively. Paul-Luc shook his head, but started to follow, wondering again what he had gotten himself into.
As they moved, (still, Paul-Luc noted, still towards the sound which seemed more and more like music, now that he thought about it), he saw more people who touched his heart. One man was sitting in the stairwell with ragged clothes, coughing a droning, hacking, irregular cough. Hack, hack…hack…hack hack hack. It grated on Paul-Luc’s ears like two rough stones rubbed together.
Then he saw a woman lying on the side of the road, sleeping. Her clothes, looked, if anything, worse than the man’s. Her skin was torn and bruised, and she looked like she had never seen or felt any comfort. Both of these times, he wanted to stop, to see, to do something; but the woman in front did not even glance as she passed them. He thought, why do I keep following her? It can’t possibly be as bad as she says. And yet she sounded so real; wouldn’t someone trying to con me give me a more sugarcoated act.
He wondered at his teachers. Why had they overlooked this part of his education? Surely it was important for a Duke’s son to know whom to trust, and when to trust them. This thought rattled around in his mind for several long minutes, and kept him so preoccupied he almost ran over his…what? Companion? Abductor? Acquaintance? He almost ran over his new friend when she stopped.
“We’re here” she said, unnecessarily. It seemed obvious that this was the place that anyone, going anywhere in Kyrie, would head for. It was…Paul-Luc had trouble coming up with exactly what it was. He would have to guess that it was some kind of…club, perhaps. It was big, filling a big hole in the ground and obviously going many stories underground. The part that was above ground was bright red. Loud music of a kind Paul-Luc couldn’t identify was being blasted out of it. It had a heavy rhythm and an unusual beat.
“Come on,” his new friend said, and started toward the door.
“Wait,” he said, grabbing her arm. “We’re here, and you have to know that I am not stupid enough to walk into a strange building without more than what you have told me. You think you’re in charge, but I will turn around and walk away right here if you don’t fill me in to what is going on.”
She turned her head and exhaled vehemently in exasperation, but seemed to consider his request. He took this opportunity to finally take a good look at her. Her most striking characteristic was her flaming red hair, but now he noticed her pale brown skin and sharp brown eyes. He was also able to notice, now that she was standing still, how small she actually was; before she was so full of energy she had seemed to look at him eye to eye. Considering her now, he reckoned she didn’t even make it to his shoulders. At this point she twisted her head back around to look at him, saying, “Fine, I’ll fill you in.”
She took a breath. “I am Machida. My employer found out about your father’s death, and became interested in you after finding out something about the nature of your recent study, and some of the events that led to your leaving home. He has some information that you may be unaware of regarding the origin of your father’s death, and other information regarding your Uncle, both of which you may be interested in.” She looked at him impatiently.
“Wait a moment,” Paul-Luc stuttered, “…who is your employer?”
“You fool!” she said, grabbing his arm and dragging him again toward the red building. “You don’t think we can be overheard out here? Your Uncle has ears all over this city; how do you think the militia got there so fast? Now come on!”
The doors glided open with a slight ‘woosh’ as Machida swiped a white plastic card across a scanner by the side. Inside it was quite dark, but in a short time Paul-Luc was able to discern some things. He and Machida were standing on a kind of platform high above a large room that held what looked like thousands of people, but he figured that it was actually a trick of the darkness that disguised a few hundred as much more. As he looked down to see the people more clearly, he began to notice that they were all, generally, covered in paint. He asked Machida about this, thinking that she might be calmer now that they had entered this place.
“Yes: they are wearing a kind of reflective paint called ‘glow’ that mixes easily and gives off…pleasurable fumes. As they dance, the paint gets spread around from person to person and creates amazing color patterns that can only be seen well from the floor.” She grabbed his arm again, more gently this time, and motioned that they should go down to the dancers.
As they descended the stairs, Paul-Luc wondered at this set up. What kind of ‘employer’ with the kind of resources he must have in order to know the things he knew sets up shop in a dance club?
On the floor, though, all other thoughts drifted away as he realized that Machida had not been exaggerating. He saw people mingling and touching as they danced, bouncing off of each other and moving and touching each other as they danced very close. But that was not what caught his eye. From this angle, the colors created by the ‘glow’ were…just absolutely stunning. The dance floor was a moving, living painting: growing and stretching in place, twisting and reveling, with colors expanding and contracting as they flowed in and out of various hues, always moving, always keeping to the same pulsing beat.
“Wow,” Paul-Luc said stupidly, but Machida didn’t seem to hear him as she moved right in to the pulsing mass of living color. He began to follow her, but then a whiff of a sudden odor caught his nose and he stopped to breathe it in, fully. It was so fresh, so alive, just like flowers or a day right after it rained, and he couldn’t stop breathing it in, breathing it in.
Machida was long gone, and the crowd had come back together in her wake. Suddenly he was in the middle of the living colors and the living smell, and suddenly he wasn’t thinking again it was good for him to be here and that music was just so much to bear that he could only start to bounce around
and now he wasn’t part of the crowd he had the crowd and was it, he had a thousand hands and fingers and eyes and the colors were not just for him they were seen by all of him all of his bodyness that permeated the room and gave him this chance to revel in notthought not real absolute real in its ness
For a long time it seemed like no time had passed or perhaps that for no time that all times had passed simultaneously like a museum of paintings all at once or a symphony and now bodies that were his bodyness but were not him were coming up and feeling him as he felt them motion on motion on body and bodyness and he was moving and moving and feeling and moving and feeling and moving. It was incredibly and utterly and fantastically unreal in how real it was.
He felt something that was not the bodyness that he was such a part of now. He felt motion that was neither part of himself nor again part of the whole. Then time started to rear its ugly head again. He felt things; some kind of heartbeat…beat…beat, it was so slow, so impossibly slow. Now he was breathing and not taking in the aroma. Breath……breath. Slow.
Machida was pushing him out of the crowd, out of the intoxicating effects of the glow. She was talking, but he still couldn’t understand her, it just seemed like babble. Babbling on and on. He kept trying to resist her but now that he was outside the bodyness he found he had no strength left, none at all. He was far back there, far back to where he was part of the body, part of the whole.
She got him to the edge of the room, and made him sit down. She was absolutely furious. How could he be such an idiot! Hadn’t she warned him about the glow? Why hadn’t he listened, the fool? She looked at him as he began to breathe normally again. He had come so close to losing himself in the crowd. She knew people who had been caught up by the drug and never disconnected from the crowd. They were just so excited to be part of the whole rather than just themselves, which turned out to be more scary than they might have realized, coming in to the world. She bit her lip. She knew how close he had come, she realized, because she had walked that line before.
He began to come around some more. She saw this, and said, “you foolish boy, why didn’t you listen to what I said? Come on, let’s go see my boss. He’s very interested in seeing you.”
“Why?” Paul-Luc asked, groggily. “What did I do?”
“You’ll see.”

More is on it's way!

Cool Info

2005-11-07T22:57:00.000-08:00

Hey, I know you guys haven't commented on my last post, and I still want you to, but I just found out a cool little known fact that I didn't know before, so obviously I assumed you guys would be just as interested as me. Did you know, regarding statues, that:
If a statue of a man on a horse displays the horse on two legs (that is, rearing up) then whoever the statue was made of was killed in battle.
If the statue has a horse with one leg up (I've never seen this before, and I lived in Europe where they actually had these statues) then that person died of injuries caused by battle.
If the statue is just of a guy on a horse with all of its hooves on the ground, then the guy was military but lucked out and got to die of natural causes.
This is the kind of stuff I'm going to need to beat Ken Jenning's record in Jeopardy!

Part 1: Rainer

2005-11-02T18:50:00.000-08:00

Here it goes. I'm rather surprised, actually, how easily and quickly this came to me. It would be nice if the rest comes as easily. But now I'm tired of typing and I need to do some homework.

Part One: Rainier

1.
The silvery ovoid carrier ship docked in silence, its engine boosters dropping off with the mere hint of a hiss as the vessel made its final maneuvers into the dock. Of course it was silence: the vacuum of space made it so. But to some it seemed like the silence was pervading more than just the physical realm.
One passenger sat in the back of the upper deck, still feeling the effects of the hyperspace jump. Most people found that they were unaffected by the jump, especially after a few of them under their belts. But this man, after hundreds of jumps, still felt queasy after each one. Intellectually, he knew it was perfectly safe; the process of breaking down the ship into energy and then threading it through space in the tachyon booster at hyperlight speeds was one that had worked flawlessly for decades. It was true that before the tachyon booster some people had lost their selfness in the long minutes or days between stars, but that was ages ago: nothing had gone wrong for a very long time.
It’s useless, he thought. I’m just trying to delay the inevitable. But, if I could do that, it wouldn’t be inevitable then, would it?
He was hunched over in the form-chair, his eyes closed and his face composed in deep concentration. He was studiously ignoring the hustle of the crew as they prepared the ship for its next journey or perhaps an overhaul. He had noticed some out of place vibration for the jump, but he figured it wouldn’t take long to overhaul a ship that was a mere box with a computer system. He didn’t know, though. He had bigger problems to deal with. Eventually the work slowed down, and soon he was alone on deck. He opened his eyes. Slowly he stood up, and as he started forward, he picked up the black and silver set sword and scabbard that lay by his side.
For the most part the ISJ dock was cold and metallic, completely utilitarian. But three men waited in a room deep within the station that was far more comfortable. One, the youngest of the three, was lying off to the side in a light sleep. The other two sat at the central table. One was tall and thin, and had a metallic emblem on his forehead signifying his noble status. His clothes were rich. The other was about a hand span shorter, and was much more muscular. His face was grossly ordinary, except for a long scar that scrawled across his left cheek. He had used it many times to his advantage: He knew that in a crowd bystanders would often remember the scar and not the person behind it. The two men were quietly talking.
“What news do you think he’ll bring?”
“Nothing but bad news, I’m sure. Still, it will be good to have him here.”
“If he ever gets here. Where the deuce is he, anyway? His ship…”
Both men looked up as the door opened; the boy stayed asleep.
“Rainer!” one of them said, as he jumped up to shake the man’s hand. “I was just saying to the Duke, your ship arrived half an hour ago. Where have you been? We were worried.”
“My sincerest apologies, Althen,” the swordsman said, his rich tenor voice just slightly avoiding sarcasm. He walked over and embraced the shorter man, saying, “It’s been far too long.” He turned and gave a half bow to the other man. “Your Excellency, I’m surprised you’re here to greet such a lowly servant as myself. I’m sure a Duke has many important duties to attend to.”
The Duke smiled. “So I do, Rainer. But they can wait. I am glad to see you are still alive.”
“For now, your Excellency.” Rainer said. “But I’m sure its not just pleasure to see me that brought you off planet. You want to hear my report on Huax.” He laughed softly, and lifted his shirt to show his stomach, which showed a bandage covering what seemed to be a large gash.
“Number 5 gave me a parting gift, you see. He surprised me; I think in a straight fight I could take care of him, but as it was he got the upper hand on me.”
The Duke cleared his throat. “The planet is lost then?”
“Yes, without a doubt.” Rainer said. “The Imperial troops have eliminated all of the rebelling forces on the planet, and have placed a permanent garrison onplanet to discourage any further unrest.” Rainer’s eyes became unfocused as he thought back. “I was out on surveillance with some of the best of the on-planet resistance, and we walked into an ambush. I think they just got lucky in their placement of advance troops.”
“Or else rumors of Number 1’s clairvoyance are true.” Althen muttered. “This is the fourth time we’ve heard of ‘luckiness’ on the part of the imperials. You would think that outnumbering us 20 to 1 and having the allegiance of the best swordsmen in the galaxy would be enough for the Emperor. But he has fortune on his side, too.” Althen shook his head.
“Yes. He does seem to have more than a fair share of luck.” The Duke said, “But you may give his imperial majesty too much credit. We do have one of the best swordsmen in the galaxy on our side, too.” He gestured at Rainer, who gave a wry smile.
“Your Excellency. I believe that Althen is more correct here than your illustrious self. Some of the Imperial Elite Guard are my match. Some have been less skilled with a blade than I. But it still remains that Number 3 and Number 4 are more skilled than I, and that Number 1 and Number 2 are the best swordsmen the galaxy has ever seen, skilled enough to walk into the temple of the Shen-Wu and defeat every single Master within.”
“Yes, Yes, I remember.” The Duke said. “Everyone remembers. That was the day the Emperor ascended the throne, and declared all of the Shen-Wu enemies of the Empire.” He paused for a moment, remembering dark nights of fear accompanying terrible news. He looked up as Rainer continued to speak.
“And they have such allegiance to the Emperor that they no longer go by their names, willing to be known only as numbers.” Rainer said. “This leaves us at rather a difficult point. We don’t really have the ability to defeat them in any way. Popular opinion favors the Empire: many citizens consider the aristocracy outdated and archaic. No offense meant, your Excellency.” The Duke bowed his head.
“I am well aware of it.”
Rainer continued, “We lack both the superior numbers and skill necessary to even consider a lasting, or even an effective opposition. At the rate he’s going, the Emperor will have our forces swept up within three years.” The Duke shook his head.
“We’ve consulted experts. The best prediction is that it will take forty months.” Rainier waved his hand dismissively.
“Either way. We also are faced by the distressing fact that most of the Nobility seem unwilling to oppose him. Only three of the noble houses cling to our cause, and only in secret. It is possible that some of the others are also secretly in motion against the imperial throne, but we have no information to make that assumption. It seems irrelevant anyway; the most obvious next move for the throne, after defeating the rebellion, will be to move against the nobility, so the noble houses will have a war on their hands whether they want it or not.” He stopped his analysis as the Duke stood up and began pacing the room.
“We’ve been fools,” he said. “If only we had countered him, right when his ambitions had been made clear. We might have stopped him, then and there. And now that it’s too late we start spending lives in order to counter him. What a waste.” Pain was evident on his face. Rainier looked at him in a new light. He had assumed this man had merely bankrolled the rebellion in order to gain power for himself. For the first time Rainier saw the real compassion the man had for the people he ruled. For so long we have had rulers, Rainier thought, and still so few learn this lesson. And still how powerful it can be when used properly. Maybe there is still a small hope for the galaxy. He gave a small internal shrug. It was likely that leadership ability wouldn’t count for much very soon.
The Duke sighed. “We shall still continue to help you and your people, Rainier, even if it seems to be useless. We do not know what the future will bring; maybe some more of the nobility will join our cause; perhaps we may even uncover a renegade Shen-Wu Master or two.” He smiled, sardonically, indicating the futility of the hopeful thoughts. Suddenly he brightened with a broad smile. “To more pleasant things: I had nearly forgotten. Rainier, may I introduce my son, the heir to the Dukedom.” He turned, waving his hand majestically.
Althen walked over to the sleeping young man, and shook him gently before looking up at Rainier and smiling pleasantly. “It was all the excitement; he fell asleep just before your ship arrived.” He looked down at the young man, who was slowly coming to full consciousness. He noticed that although the boy had to be only…fifteen, according to the files, he already was gaining his father’s height. He had to be nearly two meters tall and would look down easily on Rainer. He, unlike his father, was growing a beard. He probably wished to look older, and was succeeding. Between his height and his facial hair, he looked to be in his late twenties. The young man blinked over his grey eyes (his father’s, Rainer thought, though he had to have gotten his long nose from the mother.) a few times.
“…Rainier?” the young man asked. He slowly rose to his feet, and gave Rainer a tight half-bow. “I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.”
Rainer took a step forward, grabbed the young prince’s hand, and shook it warmly. “You’re the nobility, you don’t need to bow and scrape in front of me, a poor commoner.”
“But not quite common” the duke interjected with a smile. Then he turned to his son and said, “You’ve shown your awe for him quite nicely, my noble son, but there is one aspect of polite introductions you may perhaps have missed.”
“Of course I’ve forgotten, my most noble father…?”
At this point, Althen came up behind the prince and whispered, “Your name, young sir.”
“Ah…yes, of course.” The young man blushed for a mere moment before composing himself, saying, “Rainer, I am Paul-Luc, heir to the noble house of Kan.” Then he leaned in and said, “and I have a boon to ask of you.”
Rainer glanced at the duke, who nodded; Rainer looked Paul-Luc in the eye and said, “My most noble lord, whatever you ask, if it is in my power to give it, I shall.”
“I ask you to teach me the art of the sword.”
Rainer smiled dryly. “Of course, my most gracious lord. It would be my honor, and my pleasure.”
Paul-Luc flashed a broad smile back. The Duke stepped in, a little annoyed at Rainer’s familiar tone, and said “I think it’s time for us to retire. We’ve all,” with a glance at his son, “had a long day. Rainer, Althen will escort you to your quarters, and will inform you regarding the arrangements.”
“You are most kind, my lord.”
The shuttle ride down to the surface was uneventful. Terran was a very mild planet, with few storms that would put the shuttlecraft in any danger. It was a beautiful view out the view ports, but none of the four passengers were watching the descent. Instead, they sat inside their own minds, thinking of the same thing: the future.
The shuttle landed at the palace. It was a short walk before Althen and Rainer took leave of the Duke and his son. Soon after that, Althen indicated a door at the end of a pristine white hallway.
“This is your room.” He said. “You know how it all works: we have your handprint and everything.”
Rainer turned to him. “Thanks, old friend. Sometime before I leave we must get together and reminisce about old times.”
“I would enjoy that very much.” Althen said. He smiled, and said, “Pleasant dreams, Rainier.”
“Now that I’m here, I think that’s more likely.” Rainier said, stepping into his room. “Goodnight, old buddy.” Rainer looked around the room. It looked a lot nicer than his previous accommodations.

It had been a few weeks, and, like always, things settled into basic routines. Three times a week, Rainer and Paul-Luc practiced swordplay. Or at least that’s how Paul-Luc thought of it at first: his boon had been asked at the behest of his father, and the boy had only a sketchy idea of what the art of the sword consisted of. He soon found out his mistakes.
“Oof!” He hit the ground for the dozenth time while his sword went flying out of his hand.
“Are you ready to stop?” Rainier asked politely, swishing his sword lazily through the air for the twelfth time. He seemed to be completely unaffected by the exertions.
“Yes. I’m done,” Paul-Luc gasped between heaving breaths. “You’re much better than I am.”
“And you’re not used to that, are you?” Rainer asked. “Well, you are quite skilled, but you’ve only come up against amateurs, not real warriors. You think of the sword as a weapon, and as a tool.”
Paul-Luc sat up, cross legged in front of his new teacher. His face was contorted in confusion. “Isn’t it? All my other teachers taught me the twelve positions for the three rings of defense, drilled me with counters and entrissers, and gave me mobility drills.” He frowned. “That does sound like technical training. But shouldn’t it be? I mean, the sword is a tool, isn’t it?”
Rainer sat in front of Paul-Luc, mirroring his position. While moving, Rainer had noticed the lad’s overt tallness, and even in this position Paul-Luc had several inches on him. He answered, “If you want to be a fencer, then you need to know all those positions and moves. But you don’t want that; you want to learn the art of swordsmanship in order to fight evil and defend yourself.”
Paul-Luc nodded slowly. “Yes, that’s true.”
“So the enemies you fight will have weapons of their own, correct?”
“I assume so. Otherwise fighting them would be rather dishonorable.”
Rainer smiled. “Yes, I suppose it would. But you see, you will not be fighting their swords, you will be fighting your opponent. To do that most effectively, you must realize the sword, not as a sword, but as part of your body, a part of your soul. The sword must become an extension of your self.”
Paul-Luc shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
Rainer nodded. “I know. This is all new. But understanding in your head isn’t going to do anything. You must know the sword like you know your hand, not understand it like you understand a school subject.” He paused. Or like a lover, he thought. Like a sword, it’s another foreign substance that you can know to be your own. He blinked a few times, then said, “Stand up. Let’s try something.”
Paul-Luc quickly got to his feet. “I’m ready for anything.”
Rainer smiled. “I’m sure you think you are.” He said. He leaned back, and then leapt to his own feet. “Wait here,” he said, “and close your eyes.”
Paul-Luc was confused, but he did as Rainer said. Then he heard, “Oh, and you don’t need your sword, either. You can just toss it to the edge of the room.”
Paul-Luc laughed. “I don’t think so,” and quietly walked to the corner and gently placed the sword on the ground.
“Very good!” Rainer said from somewhere behind him. “Now for the first part of your training.” There was a pause, and Paul-Luc tensed, trying to sense what was going to happen next. Then, he thought he heard something, something soft that was gradually gaining in volume. Music? He thought. No, it couldn’t be music. But it was. A slow waltz, it seemed, something from the fifth century, pre-empire. A Tabluski work, if he wasn’t mistaken. But what was Rainer doing?
He waited. Nearly above all else, a Duke’s son must know patience, he remembered, and this was one lesson he was not going to fail. The music rose to a comfortable level, but then nothing else happened. Suddenly something clicked in his memory and a very uncomfortable thought filled his mind, something one of his history teachers had drummed into his skull with more scorn than she had usually afforded her subject. “Rainer!” Paul-Luc called out to the emptiness, “you had better not be planning what I think you’re planning.” And he was discomfited to hear Rainer laughing.
“So you have been taught some of the ancient lore, eh? That makes it easier, even if you have the same distaste of this venerated art that most have in this day and age. But where I come from, this was one of the more pleasant social customs we had.” Then there was silence again, until Rainer said, “Your first lesson with the sword is this: Never give a man a sword who does not first know how to dance.”
Paul-Luc opened his eyes. Standing in front of him was one of the servant girls, a young silly giggly one by the looks of her. Rainer was nowhere to be seen, but Paul-Luc knew that he would be watching from somewhere. He turned back; the girl was smiling expectantly. Paul-Luc sighed. He didn’t recognize her, but he could tell from her uniform that she was one of the night cleaning service. He took this time to study her more closely: in all likelihood he’d probably seen her two dozen times before, but he had a hard time telling these servant girls apart. She was quite plain, with slightly curly brown hair and brown eyes. He wondered where Rainer had grabbed her from. Paul-Luc swore that he was going to pay for this. Then he straightened and became more serious as he said, as he had been taught in the archaic custom, “My lady, would you do me the honor of giving me this dance?” The girl inclined her head with a very hushed giggle, and took one of his hands in hers as they rather awkwardly began to waltz around the room.

A few days later Rainer and the Duke met in another room in the palace. Rainer noticed that all the rooms looked pretty much the same; some were bigger, some had more furniture, but all the basics were the same. He supposed it made redecorating easier, as well as disorienting any invading troops that tried to storm the rooms, especially since the Duke would be sure to rearrange the rooms on random occasions. The Duke was the enemy of the most powerful man in the galaxy; he would be a fool if he wasn’t cautious.
“What is this I hear, Rainer, of your teaching my son to…” the Duke shook his head, disgusted, “…to dance?”
“A necessary evil, my lord.” Rainer said, with a tight smile.
“Ah, of course…I remember my training in the armed forces, the Knell days, they were called. They wanted to break down the men in order to build them back up, better than before. Or some such hogwash. Is that the purpose of your dancing?”
“Perhaps it is not so harsh as to be named after the prison planet, but I do think that the young prince was not pleased by the experience.”
The Duke laughed. “Indeed. Well, on to more pressing matters. I’d like you to oversee some of the security measures for the castle.”
“Of course, my Lord.” Rainer said. “From what I’ve seen so far I can see that you’ve invested in competent security personnel. I believe your basic security for this castle is adequate, but I would like to spend some time with your men.” The Duke beamed. “Excellent. I’ll have our senior staff ready in an hour. You can join us and see how we rate.”
“I appreciate that, sir, but I actually meant your regular fighting men. I’d like to spend some time with the division assigned to this palace.” Rainer said, more insistently this time. He wondered at this man, the Duke. He couldn’t quite equate with his mode of thought. Sometimes he was completely concerned with his fellow man, but sometimes it seemed he didn’t quite understand how important his subordinates actually were. Didn’t this man remember the great revolts that occurred back before the…but no; he wouldn’t have, would he? That was before the Noble history. Very well. Perhaps the Emperor had also overlooked his history, Rainer thought. That’s all that matters, defeating that murderer and destroyer, no matter the weakness of those fighting him. A master of the old arts will always remember to use his weaknesses as well as his strengths. Rainer took a deep breath.
“What has been done to assure that the Emperor will not attack you here?” Rainer asked.
“Other than keeping our connection with you a secret? Admittedly, not much; we think that any overt armament will simply make us more visible to the throne. We are hoping to set up some surveillance of the system: that wouldn’t be questioned, and it would give us warning to escape or prepare if an invading force came in-system.” Rainer nodded.
“Also, my Lord, there is the matter of your scientists.” Rainer said. It was an unusual request, to talk about the technocrat class to a member of nobility, and Rainer figured he knew the Duke’s response.
“Scientists! What do they have to do with anything? They’re all silly dreamers. They are always thinking that they have almost figured out how the universe works when something shows up that leaves them all feeling silly about what they used to believe. Remember that whole nexus theory nonsense? Now they all think that the fundamental principles of the universe and the origins of life are connected to the Tachyon field pulsations. They never learn their lesson.”
“Yes, but they’re still necessary. Especially in these times, inspiration can come from the strangest places. I have learned not to underestimate the value of science.”
“Science! What next?” the Duke laughed amiably. “You are a strange man, Rainer, but not an unpleasant one. I am glad you are on our side; I think we are better off with you.”
“My lord. You are too gracious.” Rainer said with a bow.
“No, I think, if anything, it is that I am unable to comprehend all of your thought. But you do me the honor of not looking down on me. Or,” he paused, considering for a moment, “perhaps you are merely paying me my due deference.” He stood. “It doesn’t matter, as long as you do your duty.” Yes, the Duke thought, that’s what it is all about. Duty to oneself and one’s environment. “Now I have my own duty to attend to.” He walked out of the room. Rainer sighed. The Duke had ducked him on the matter of the scientists. Well, it was his prerogative, as the Duke. But Rainer had hoped better of him.
Rainer continued to sit in the command room for a long time, considering many things.

Some time later he was sitting down cross legged on the floor across from his student. They were both drenched in sweat. Paul-Luc had gotten into shape very quickly. Rainer commented on this.
“In fact,” he said, “you are perhaps the fastest learner I have ever seen.”
“A compliment? From you, Rainer? I never thought I would see the day.” The young Prince sat back and rested on his arms. He shook his head, and took a deep breath. “I’m not sure…but it feels like…I don’t know, like I’ve learned it all before, and it’s just coming back to me now. Is that usual?” He asked, staring off into space.
Rainer looked at him for some time, studying him. It was beginning to make Paul-Luc nervous. Then Rainer said, “No, it’s quite unusual, in fact.” He continued to stare at the boy for a time, and then he turned away as he stood up, slowly. He seemed to be considering something at length.
As he waited, Paul-Luc began running through the muscle awareness exercises Rainer had been showing him. It made him feel rather strange, to contemplate moving only one muscle independently of all the others. So far, he hadn’t been able to do it, and he wondered whether Rainer was merely telling him stories in order to get him to work harder.
Finally Rainer nodded, and turned around. “Yes,” he said to some unspoken question, “let’s try this.” He gestured for Paul-Luc to stand up, and told him to raise both of his arms.
“Keep them up, but try to relax. Take a deep breath.” Rainer watched as Paul-Luc complied with his instructions. “Now,” he said, “lift up your right foot, and begin to lower your body on your left foot.” Paul-Luc promptly fell over. “Do it again,” said Rainer. “We’ve started on the art of swordsmanship; now we have to craft your body to be the tool that the sword needs. You will need to be able to move any part of your body independently of any other, and to do so without losing your balance or rhythm. It will be hard, do not worry.” He smiled as Paul-Luc returned to his task again, and again, and again.
“Rainer,” Paul-Luc said slowly, working to relax his aching muscles after his teacher said that he was through for the moment, “You mentioned, that time when you made me…dance, that where you are from, it is a social activity. I’ve never heard of such a place. None of my teachers ever mentioned it. I even went to infostor and asked the archivist, and it said no such place exists. Where exactly…?” Paul Luc trailed off as he noticed Rainer stiffen suddenly. Paul-Luc glanced hesitantly at him, afraid that he had overstepped his bounds.
“Eh, but aren’t you a sharp one” Rainer said, with something that was not quite a sneer. Paul-Luc held back, leery, searching for some sign of Rainer’s emotion, but he couldn’t read anything in that suddenly mask like face.
“What did you think, eh? Did you think I was a traitor, sent by the emperor to snare you? Eh, is that what you thought?” Rainer stood up, spun slowly around. “Well here I am! Say it to my face; I’ve been so long distrusted it comes as no surprise anymore.” He completed his turn and faced Paul-Luc, who took a hesitant step back. “Stay where you are!” Rainer bellowed. “You searched hard for knowledge; it shall be given you. You wanted to know about me, I will enlighten you.” He sat back down, and Paul-Luc slowly mirrored his motion.
“I am not surprised that your search was not fruitful. I was born to a people who have exerted a great amount of effort to remain hidden from the outside world. We hide and move constantly; seven planets I can count as my childhood home. We have always been attacked, always been persecuted, always hounded where ever we go. I was born to a league of outcasts. One day, several years ago, our people where found, by servants of the emperor, and we couldn’t evacuate in time. His generals attacked us with overwhelming force, with orders to completely destroy all knowledge of our people. Some of us fought back: a few were able to escape, but for the most part we had no choice; we had few weapons and little real training. A few of us who managed to escape vowed that it would never happen again. So we trained as hard as we could in the martial arts, the way of the sword, and vowed to spend our lives fighting to remove this evil who had taken so much from us.”
“But why?” Paul-Luc broke in, “why would he hate you so much? You didn’t seem to be doing anything to harm him!”
Rainer looked at him intensely. “I can’t tell you. Perhaps you will find out someday, but I cannot answer. That is all I have to tell you. Work on your exercises.” He turned around and walked slowly out of the room. Paul-Luc, shaken by the encounter, merely sat there for a long time.

Late some other evening, father and son were sitting together in an enclosed balcony in the highest tower of the palace. They were looking out at the stars, and Paul-Luc was asking his father for stories about his visits to them.
“So, I stared him down,” the Duke was saying, “I stared him down and said, ‘you’re a fool if I ever saw one.’ He said, ‘how foolish can I be, if I caught you trying to sneak in to this here power plant.’ And I said, ‘because I’m the Duke, you imbecile!’” and he stopped because he had begun to laugh at the thought. “So I went to the police station, and the officer in charge took one look at me, straightened up, saluted smartly and said, ‘your Excellency, sir!’ in his best parade ground voice. I turned around to look at the man who had arrested me, and the look on his face was priceless; pure horror! He didn’t feel too bad, though, after I commended him for his efforts on capturing such a suspicious character.” He laughed again.
But suddenly the Duke looked thoughtful. He said, “Son, I’m sure you are too old for stories now. Why do you keep letting me go on?”
“I am interested in your stories, father,” Paul-Luc said, “but mostly…it’s just that we spend so much time apart.”
“I know that, son.” The Duke looked at the boy gazing out into the night sky. He looked so mature for his age that people forgot to realize that he was still only a child. The Duke sighed. His son’s maturity was a sign of his own mortality.
“If you are so interested in stories,” the Duke began, “then let me tell you another one. An older one. It is, in fact our story, the story of the nobility. I’m sure you’ve learned some of it from your archaic history teachers,” he smiled ironically to show his opinion of those fools, “but it’s now time to hear it from one who keeps the tradition alive.” He paused for a moment, looking up into the night sky as if looking for inspiration from it.
“Long ago, there was a great war somewhere else in the universe; no one really knows where. Some say that it was at the very center of the universe; others of us think that it was around the lost homeworld of mankind.” He smiled again, and glanced at Paul-Luc. “I know what you’re thinking; it would be absurd to think that humans could come from just one planet, but some of us are romantics.” He turned back to the sky, and waited for a moment.
He continued, “one way or another, it was a long and terrible war. We don’t know that much about it, but there is a general consensus that one side had come out ahead in several battles, and the other side grew desperate. They launched a massive, overwhelming suicide attack on the capital planet of the victors. All who were on the planet were destroyed, but twenty ships managed to make it out before the planet was destroyed.” Paul-Luc stirred. “Twenty ships?” he said, “like the twenty houses of nobility?”
His father smiled. “Close, son. One of those ships carried the first king of our land, Thur. If you remember, the houses Isaak and Dun are twin houses, descended from two brothers who were the sons of the patriarch on one of those ships.”
Paul-Luc nodded and looked back out at the sky, his usual posture when listening to his father.
The Duke smiled for a moment, and then continued on with his story: “Our ancestors, then, had become wanderers, without a home or any resources but the grand ships they had escaped in. But at some point, after several years of wandering, they made it here, to this part of this galaxy. Aah! What it must have been like, for those stepping off the ships!”
Paul-Luc considered this. How exciting could it be, he thought, to be forced out of your home, to be forced to wander for years before finding any place you could call home.
But his father continued. “Unfortunately, these planets were not unoccupied. The indigenous people let them stay, for a time, but then struggles between the two groups began. Often small incidences. But these grew and grew and again our people were forced into a war. We don’t know who started it. It doesn’t really matter: it wasn’t a conflict with easy protagonists and antagonists. Both sides have stories of heroism and treachery. Our ancestors had superior technology, but the other side was defended by the Shen-Wu monks. Incredible warriors, the Shen-Wu, though I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that.” He shook his head, remembering the past, visions of men in silver with pure white swords with incredible, almost supernatural skill.
“Eventually, though, the King and his men came out victorious over the Shen-Wu. Some wanted to live equally with the local people, but the majority believed that it was right for our people to rule over them, and teach them what our ancestors knew. Their leaders agreed, on the condition that the Shen-Wu school would not be shut down, and that no child of the nobility would ever come to train there, in order to keep some semblance of balance.”
“Now we had come the age of the king. It was a golden age, son, a golden age for our people, and theirs, when we lived in peace and harmony. Insurrections came, but they were often repressed by a joint force of the Noble Armies and the Shen-Wu. We began to understand each other, to know each others strengths as well as each others’ limitations.” He shook his head.
Paul-Luc understood his emotion. There was no such understanding anymore. He remembered the hate in the eyes of the people he passed in the street. They hated his position, his birthright, and his rule over them. Are they right? We took over this place by conquest, and these people were just unlucky enough to be the descendents of those who were defeated. Are they right to hate me? Wouldn’t I hate if I were in their position?
“What happened, Father? What drove us apart?” Paul-Luc asked.
“No one really knows, son. But someday you will be in a position where you have to make decisions regarding these people, and you must remember that that responsibility is the highest in the universe. Never forget what you owe the people, son; never forget that it is you who serves them, not them who serve you.” He sighed once again, and said: “There are things I must do now, son, but thank you for remembering your old father in his time of struggle.” He embraced his son, turned, and walked into the tower. His son continued to stare out at the stars, and wondered about many things.

2.
It was the dead of night when the first explosions rocked the palace. In two minutes, Rainer, who had already been awake, was at the command center. He was met by the night watch commander.
“Sir, we’re under attack, but we don’t know anything else at this time. We’re working as fast as we can to gather new information, but the fact that they could take out the electron field before we knew that they were there indicates that we are dealing with a very proficient foe.”
“Thank you, commander. Keep me as updated as possible.”
“Of course, sir. If you would like to join the defense, I could equip you with a commnex so you could keep abreast of everything.”
“Yes, yes, let’s do that, and hurry.”
“I’m on it, sir.”
Rainer waited three minutes and forty-two seconds by his count. How typical, he thought, how utterly and fantastically typical. Always, always, always, men like the Duke put the academic commander on the night shift, a commander who had probably never seen any real battles, only simulated ones. The night shift was always for inferiors. Generally a punishment duty. But then when does the enemy attack? At night, for obvious reasons. Rainer burned with anger. Why are intelligent men blinded by rote tradition?
He grabbed the commnex from the man’s hand and ran toward the shield generators. He knew it was theoretically impossible to bypass the electron field, except (theoretically) with an infantry based positron projector larger than any that had yet been built. Of course, all of that would be irrelevant if they had an insider. The oldest weapon in the human arsenal. We’ve been backstabbing each other since before we had knives for stabbing. Enough of this! Rainer thought. If there is a traitorous element, it has to be dealt with before it could do further damage. Plus, he thought, I might be able to repair the field before the missiles start flying.
He got to the field generator with his sword out. The place was deserted. Now he knew there was something wrong. But the trademark of hum of the generator was still buzzing through his head. So…what was going on here? He closed his eyes, listening, trying to hear beyond the hum/buzz. Nothing. He took a deep breath. Think! Then…his eyes flew open and he started running. The field projector on the roof. Anyone would think of the generator. It was the most conspicuous aspect. But this enemy was subtle. It had to be the field projector. He just hoped he wouldn’t be too late.
He got up to the roof and looked about. There didn’t appear to be anyone here. There was something very wrong going on. There was a sound behind him and he whirled around.

At the command center, people in uniforms were still scurrying around busily. The Duke and Althen had arrived and had taken control over the defensive forces. They didn’t like what they saw. Or more precisely, what they didn’t see.
“They’re obviously knocking out our sensors before we can figure out exactly where they are.
“I can see that, Althen. Find out what we can do rather than repeat what we obviously cannot do.” He shook his head, and looked up at the viewscreen which represented the castle. It was mostly filled with flickering static. He took a deep breath. “I suppose it’s academic, at this point, anyway.” He gestured at the Comnex port, which was hissing an audible static to match the map. “We can’t control any of our forces; they’re jamming our transmissions.” Despite the seriousness of the situation, he chuckled a little at a sudden thought. Here they were, truncated and paralyzed at the heart of their ‘impenetrable’ castle, with no options, and still the junior officers were running around, looking busy and harried. Didn’t they see it was over? He thought. He gave a quiet internal shrug. These men had their job to do, just as he had his.
“Well,…” he said. “I suppose that’s that. Althen, issue the evacuation…” but he broke off suddenly as the image on the viewscreen changed. Changed…to a face.

Rainer’s sword spun and rang against his opponent’s. Hands and bodies were moving at lightening speeds; he was somewhere beyond conscious thought, he was all instinct, nerves, muscles, feelings, and sensations. Parry counter thrust spin stride block…all at once. But in a small place in his mind he was feeling something he had not known for a long time. The face under that…creature’s hood seemed eerily familiar. And if it was who he thought it was everyone was in grave danger.
Parry counter thrust block stride back parry duck…the motion of the two fighters grew more and more intense; the swords seemed to move independently of the men wielding them. Every move Rainer made was countered exactly; what an opponent this man was!
Rainer was beginning to tire. He was no longer anticipating his opponent’s moves accurately, and his blocks and blows were becoming less and less effective. The dark man was too strong, just too strong.
Suddenly the dark man spun his sword (blindingly fast!) and disarmed Rainer, who went flying back onto the smooth roof. The dark man stood over Rainer and removed his hood. As the man smiled a hypnotic smile Rainer realized his fear. Then the man’s arm moved (how fast it was!) and Rainer was moved beyond all fear.

“My Lord Duke,” the figure on the viewscreen said in a cold bass voice, dripping with sarcasm. Even on the viewscreen, the man was obviously tall, and his jet black cloak whipped in the wind. “I am here to demand your surrender. Your traitorous insurrection against His Supreme Majesty is at an end.” The black face was hard to discern from the dark background, but the wide yellow eyes and thin crimson lips seemed filled with palpable evil.
“One, you are gravely mistaken. I have no designs against the Emperor.” The Duke said in a measured tone, masking his sudden fear. If One was here, then all the defenses in the Universe would be of no avail. “Withdraw your forces immediately or the Emperor will hear of your blatantly illegal attack upon my castle.”
“The Emperor knows of your treachery, and has authorized me to take you into imperial custody.” The dark figure smiled cruelly. His white teeth seemed incongruous with the rest of the face. The effect was strangely hypnotic, and it left the Duke confused for a moment. Then he shook his head.
“This atrocity will not stand. The Emperor will pay for his treachery, and you will pay with him, One.” He shut off the Comnex, and turned to Althen. “Let’s move with a purpose. Give the evacuation code, and let’s get out of here.” Althen nodded. They turned and started to stride out of the room.
They had gotten a short way down the Grand Hall. Unlike most of the rest of the castle, this section was richly decorated with paintings and sculptures on the walls. But here and now it seemed out of place, a kind of mocking recount of the Duke’s riches in the face of destruction. There was some noise in front of them, some clanging and grunting that sounded familiar to these two war veterans.
When they arrived at the center of the Grand Hall, the noise had stopped; they soon saw why. A tall man dressed in a jet black cloak was standing with his back to them a few feet away. In front of him were about half a dozen bleeding bodies with the uniform of the Ducal Guard. The Duke took a trembling breath. How had he gotten here so fast! It wasn’t possible!
“My dear Duke. How lovely of you to join me.” The figure said, without turning. “If you surrender now, I will ask the emperor for leniency. You might possibly survive. If you are foolish enough to resist, I will destroy you.” The voice was cold, calculating, and almost bored.
The Duke trembled with rage. “One, you have illegally invaded my castle. You are in no place to ask for my surrender.” He glanced at Althen, who nodded quickly. They both drew their swords, and walked quickly but warily toward the dark man. They were almost to him when, incredibly fast, he drew his sword and spun, slashing at the Duke’s throat. The Duke, an old hand, blocked and sent his own attack flying. Althen quickly came to his aid. They were skilled, but the man in black was taking on both of them easily, switching hands on attack and defense, spinning, leaping, every move absolutely perfect. As this wore on, the Duke and Althen began to tire.

Paul-Luc had been awakened by his guard at the first sign of danger, and had been taken to the stronghold deep within the citadel on his father’s orders. He had also discovered the jammed communications and the realization made him angry. There are people dying out there, he thought, and it is my place to be out defending them, doing what I can to aid them. As he waited through the long minutes, he found that it was the unknown that was the most aggravating. He wished he knew what was going on, what was going to happen, anything other than being caught in the middle, in a present he could not change.
Then came the order for the evacuation code over the hardline, and he was relieved for a short time. He was moving now, doing something with that pent up energy and frustration. But he still wasn’t satisfied with being denied being able to help.
But as he was running through a passageway he heard noise coming from the Grand Hall, and he thought that this was his chance to do some good in this fight. He started running toward the noise.

The Duke and Althen, like Rainer before them, were beginning to tire. This man was just far too fast, far too strong. Then they heard a disturbance in front of them, and the Duke glanced up to see what it was. His heart sank as he recognized his son.
“Paul-Luc, get out of here!” He cried, but as he did, he left his defense open. The dark man thrust with his sword; the Duke gasped and fell in a sudden flash of crimson.
Paul-Luc didn’t hear his own screaming. The world had suddenly ceased to have sound, to have motion. Time moved in a series of layers, like pages in a book. He only found himself again after he had picked up his father’s sword and was moving towards the dark man with weapons in both hands and blind rage.
The dark man disarmed Althen in a sudden flurry; a loud crack announced a broken wrist. One turned towards the boy. Paul-Luc saw it all in slow motion: the flashing yellow eyes and that hypnotic leer. He moved menacingly, but Paul-Luc struck first. He drew on all he knew about fighting, and his rage seemed to give him extra energy and speed. The dark man struck twice, quickly; Paul-Luc blocked once with his father’s sword, spun it in his hand and blocked the other blow backhanded while bringing his own sword forward in attack. He began to make up patterns of attacking with two swords, and all of a sudden the dark man was no longer quite perfect in his defense. Paul-Luc, like Rainer, had gone past consciousness: his existence was his body and his opponent, both arms flashing forward and back, quick motions of the body, careful placement of the legs. He jabbed, the dark man took it, spun inside Paul-Luc’s defense, and was barely blocked by a quick motion of Paul-Luc’s weak hand sword. But the dark man pressed in on the attack, and his strength overcame his disadvantage; he pushed forward, and Paul-Luc fell on his back with his opponent on top of him. The dark man grabbed Paul-Luc’s right arm with his left and held it immobile as he slowly pushed down with his sword, closer and closer to Paul-Luc’s throat.
There was a sudden rush of bodies and noise. Two dozen ducal guards with drawn swords and needle guns suddenly surrounded the dark man and the boy. Althen was standing with his sword loosely in his left hand.
One snarled, and jumped upright. He knew this fight was over. The Duke was dead; Rainer was through harassing the empire, and all else here was just extraneous. He kicked at Paul-Luc, sending him crashing back to the floor, and with a flurry of sword work cleared a hole through the guards and was gone in a flash down the Hall.
As soon as he had seen the man go, Paul-Luc sprang up and ran to his father. He winced at his first glance. The wound was deep and there was a lot of blood. But he crouched down, cradling his father’s head in his arms, thinking that it couldn’t be true, this wasn’t real, that any minute his father would wake and clasp him and say everything was going to be alright. For a long time Paul-Luc rocked there, and then he looked into his father’s eyes. They were glazed, and looked like they saw things far away, and there was no more pain in them. Having seen that, Paul-Luc slowly laid the body back down, and kissed his father one last time. He stood up.
“Let’s go,” he said. No one replied, but they followed him swiftly as he continued down the hall.
As they went, they saw more bodies lying to the side. The guards looked around warily; this many bodies probably meant there were more troops inside the castle. Paul-Luc didn’t think about it; he had felt drained after his father’s death, and found now that as devastating as that had been, every new figure on the floor was also draining; every body seemed to take away part of his life. He felt the last remnants of his heart melt away when he saw one body with a head of slightly curly brown hair. There is no end, he thought as he ran. There is no end to death. It just keeps going and going and then…
They reached the exit, and found it guarded by a dozen imperial troops. There was a brief skirmish, but suddenly Paul-Luc didn’t notice it; he had reached the light, the air was touching him, and he realized what had happened; he had reached too far and now he was falling, falling down a deep tunnel that he couldn’t stop.

He awoke in the cockpit of a flitter, used to transport people quickly across planet. He slowly came to, and then looked out the viewshield onto his new fief. It was laced with explosions, fire, and smoke. He suddenly felt a failure to everything he knew. As he slumped back in his formchair, he felt a hand squeeze his shoulder. He looked over and saw that it was Althen.
“You were incredible back there, Paul-Luc. You did the right thing in coming to help us, and then, you took One off his guard. I’ve never seen such a display from a green fighter. Your father will be…I mean, he would be proud of you.” Althen paused, and swallowed hard, before saying, “You did exactly what he would have done, and that’s the highest praise I can give you.”
“What happens now?” Paul-Luc asked quietly.
“Well, we’ve been in contact with our remaining forces onplanet, and they say that it is a mess down there, and that our force of two dozen or so wouldn’t help any. In all likelihood getting to anyplace where we could help will probably get us killed rather than be of any use.”
“Is there any word from Rainer?” Paul-Luc asked.
Althen hesitated, and Paul-Luc’s stomach dropped again. “We’ve found no trace of him, sir,” and in that ‘sir’ it hit Paul-Luc. His father was dead; he was now the Duke. But Rainer was dead too, and that meant…
“Who is second in command of the rebellion? Who’s in charge now?” Paul-Luc asked. “We need to get in touch with them and let them know of what has happened.” He leaned back in his formchair as Althen moved to find out the answer. Again he was in silence. He remained silent throughout the journey to the hidden jump-port, where he and his men were the only ones to escape the planet. As they made the short journey to another ISJ port, he felt a strong similarity to the darkness between the stars. Then there was a harsh kick and the only world he had ever known was left far behind.

BTW, congrats on making it through all of it. If you're interested, it's 8765/50000 Comments are appreciated.

Happy 32nd post Poems!

2005-10-30T12:36:00.000-08:00

I'm happy. Today we set the clocks back, and so I get an extra hour of...well, I really didn't do anything. But it's the principle of the thing that makes me happy.
I've decided to continue my tradition of putting up poems as the last post of the month, and I'm going to get to it, but I have an announcement to make. As you all should know by now, I'm going to be participating in Nanowrimo. This is a good thing. Unfortunately, I anticipate that much of my mental capacity will be taken up while I'm doing it. So, the likelihood is that I won't spend as much time thinking of stuff. So for the next month, unless something just hits me that I can't help but put on the blog, I probably won't be posting any cool ideas to discuss. Still, I do hope to keep updating, so what I will do is periodically put up parts of my story, and since it's me writing it, it will probably end up having philosophy and junk in it. You guys should also feel free to act like editors, and point out mistakes and the like, or you can just lie and say how wonderful it is.
Anyway, enough stalling on my part: to the poems!

I wrote this after reading the Tao Te Ching. If you don't like eastern philosophy you probably won't get this.

Twist

The watcher who sees
doesn't perceive
those who perceive
do not see
I float on the sea of time
Time is a river.
The scars on my legs fade
so does my desire.
Love and words: two burning
fires in you, in me
The flames bring life
The tree I do not see
I am the absence of you,
such brings me to some
unreality. Such takes you
where I cannot be.
Oh, heart of desires fail me.
take the day of our meeting
and sponge it away
looking past the place of
passing into what sets us
free. If such it is to be,
so let us be.
but,
If chains are all we have, to be
chain her to me, throw out the key.

Some people here think I'm too harsh on politicians. Maybe I am, but they are such good material for irony.

Why I Laughed

He opens his mouth just so wide
as too much. There is not enough to
swallow the sun- but he hopes and reaches
for his tall cold hat at the door.
Exit one madman. Playing to the wind
of democracy always requires a
sort of insanity, one not yet found
in the DSM. We send them to practice
popularity properly but tremble if they come close.
what do you ask the questions to?
No kind of creature are these- they know
no questions, please.
And yet, we cannot censure them. The
ironists and change chasers play up
their game while the game is elsewhere.
Come up to bat at this false field
my little chickies? The conspirators are
nonexistent but that means nothing.

I just realized that the last poem had no love angle in it. hmm. Maybe I can say more than one thing in my poems. Or maybe not.

Rabbit Hole

We sit cheek to cheek on a cold stone
at the side of the river. Life
is around us- we do not stop
to contemplate it, its mysteries. We
hear the bard's sweet tree song and
smell the greeness of the leaves.
We take off our skin and scars
tiptoe into the stream.

I close eyes- these are not
deciding your unfreedom
that we revel in
Hey- where did the time fly?
I had it right by my side-
in my new blind genious-

and here he is- three wishes
poof! The world decides
to roll back over and let off its steam
Death comes, but we feel so too much right
to fake surprise. On the inside.

One more.

Devil (improvisation #4)

All alight on the streets
it invites a man with a black streak
to look ahead of the game
shade your eyes bite down your name
and the eyes become freaks
he cannot tame the urge to be unique
on a door,
right before
he steps out
and gone the world's about

I take a step in the dark
guess on the niche to keep it a lark
or else we'll all burn
and come to nought with all we've earned
can't fall, can't flee
everyone climbing away from me
heads back to see
you and me
try to scree
but fall and fail
endlessly
then, we get up
come out of shapes
and back around we
we...
live. again.

You complement my demise
with shots in the dark and a demon disguise
that purifies the room
with it's stench and coldhearted fume
but you, oh, breathe it in
and cuts to sin that life within
that drags us up
flying free, no place to stop
the whirl and dance in
the skies above
and you wrap
the wild untamed some
kind of blame and
hate towards us you
can't stand that fate
and break and break
and break on yourself
'till nought you close
into a point and we in
silence sing.

Answers, and questions.

2005-10-25T21:08:00.000-07:00

Wow, this feels good. I'm pretty much done with all my homework, and I have a good idea that I get to elucidate on. It's like going back to the good old days of, like, a month ago. Just so you know, I'll keep checking the Thanksgiving post and I encourage you to do so also, so if you come up with a brilliant plan for us, that's the place to put it unless you come up with a better idea. I find that not unlikely. Anyway. About my idea. The honors program was in our colloquium talking about race issues, and some thoughts, none concerning race issues, came into my head. It's weird, but that's how I'm wired.
First, people use two meanings of the term, "wouldn't it be better if..." They first speak of things being better if one small thing was changed; if the world was changed a little bit things would be better. (I feel like stepping in with the Tribolet Principle here, but I won't.) The other way is speaking of things as being ideally better; if things were perfect, such is how it would be. Having the two distinctions is not a problem; moving from one to another indiscriminately is. For example, the general consensus in the colloquia was that reducing emphasis on differences between the races was the specific solution for the ills regarding them. On the other hand, I and others I have spoken with believe that, in an ideal world, we would accept our differences and celebrate them, instead. But to move from one to another without thought or warning leads to disagreements and misunderstandings: as you see, the two ideas are nearly complete opposites, so disagreements between people with the best of intentions are not inconceivable.
In a similar way, I believe people fail to make a distinction between behavior that is morally reprehensible and behavior that should be legislated against. In colloquium, we talked about hate speech, and found that while it was almost universally disliked, we could find no real reason to legislate against free speech on account of our dislike. Individually morally wrong behavior is often less dangerous than legislation attempting to deny that behavior, if we are believers of basic freedoms and rights. To make a system work, we have to go through the system according to its premises, even if they lead to ends that we do not like. We should realize that keeping the premises (in this case, free speech) is more important than some behavior we don't advocate.
My points have one similarity. They are both pessimistic in the sense that I don't think that human behavior, as a whole, can be improved. If you read them both through you might infer, correctly, that I think that 'solving' one of societies' problems will only lead to different problems. To some people, that seems rather harsh. I have a good reason for this, and though it's pretty simple, proving that it is true will be pretty difficult, so for the sake of this discussion we'll just take it for granted, and scholars can attack me on it some other time. My reason is the basic similarity of human nature through time: a person today will have the same essential qualities that a person five thousand years ago would have, or a person a hundred years ago.
First, why do I think this? Mostly because the important arguments going on today are trying to answer the same questions people were arguing about throughout history. What is the best way to deal with society? What is the Universe made up of? Why are people the way they are? Why is God the way He is? All of these questions, besides remaining essentially unanswered, deal either with people or their enviroment (theological questions fall between the two).
I was worried for a moment. I thought I was wandering into circular reasoning here, but I'm not. Let me change something. It's not that we don't come up with acceptable answers to these fundamental questions, but that those answers aren't complete.
I was going to go further, but I think I'm going to end here, as I'm not sure on the logic for my next jump. I have to consider it more.

Thanksgiving

2005-10-24T23:53:00.000-07:00

Just a short thing to get you all info on my life: I was going to e-mail y'all but then I realized that it was redundant and unnecessary. Anyway, the big news for today is: I'm coming home for Thanksgiving, from Tuesday the 22nd through Sunday, the 27th. Since this is one of the last times I'll probably get to hang out with some of you for a long time (*Cough*Chris*cough*two years*cough cough*) I thougt it'd be cool to, er, hang out. Let me know using the magic comments button!

The big, scary Superorganism.

2005-10-20T23:20:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in a previous post my postulation of an entity I've called a superorganism. I wish I could say that I am the first to come up with this idea; but, according to another postulation of mine, everything has been thought up already, so I've missed the boat. In some form or another this idea has been around for thousands of years, and was the normal way of thinking about things in a lot of places. More recently, I've found a mention of it in the writings of C.S. Lewis so I'm going to continue my role of being a neo-Lewisian and expound profusely on something he just mentions.
The idea, basically, is this: if you get people together in a group, a social group with some sort of emotional bonding, the group becomes an entity, of sorts, of its own. That is, the Republican party, the Philosophy Club, the Honors Program, and the Lunchtable group all exist above the existence of their individual members. This is obviously not a physical existence, but one formed because of connections people can make to each other. The author Orson Scott Card made these connections physical phenomena and called them philotic links. These links, which I presume to be semiotic because they are created by language, form patterns of various types depending on the relationships and personalities involved. We speak and act in different ways around our family than around a certain group of friends, and different around teammates than we do coworkers. This is us playing to the memes created for those groups. Being in the group changes our behavior, but we also alter the group by our actions and words. This kind of group behavior can be very simple, such as the way people behave when they belong to a certain country club where there is little interaction between members. This is where C.S. Lewis gets his allegory of 'the spirit of the club' which he says is somewhat analogous to the existence of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit between the Father and the Son. (I know you guys think of Him as the Holy Ghost, but take a gander at this view for the sake of argument.) In some cases, though, our actions are even more dictated by the group. The first thing that jumps to mind is school. The superorganism which is made up of the teachers and students performs its little play. All parties go through rituals which seem to have little benefit to anyone involved. Sometimes they are split up as they work in pairs; sometimes the connection only goes one way, from professor to student. But all of these activities are not done for the sake of any of the people involved, student or professor: they are done for the sake of the group, with (catch this) only the stimulation of the group as its end. Here's another way of thinking about it. Humans make tools to extend their physical capability: a hammer can do something a hand can't. In the same way, the superorganism is extended from the people involved in it in order to do something the individuals can't. But from that moment on, the group entity has precedence over the individual, and can make the individual do things that are unpleasant, such as learning. The only way out is to sever the connection: either by not paying attention or skipping class. There are many variations: think of a firebrand riling up a mob. For as long as he holds them he has essentially thousands of arms and hands as they let him do the thinking in order to gain strength in unity. Think of a family, which is an exception because it pretty much exists in order to sustain the existence of the individuals. More on this in a bit.
Now I want to take a second and put out a warning. Some of what I'm about to say is true because of the way our language is set up. That is, we can speak of groups in the same way we speak of other proper nouns. But I don't want you to think that is all there is. I put this objection in because of a recent discussion I had with someone on this subject, and so I put it in in case anyone feels the same way. I do acknowledge that language aids the concept I'm about to bring up, but I also want to say that just because we don't see any physical proof (I picture here rubber bands keeping the people stuck together) of its existence doesn't mean it's not there.
So. We have semiotic connections between people. But this sounds very postmodernish: what did I mean in the beginning when I said that this idea had been around for a long time? People, especially in the East, have thought for a long time that the whole is more important than the individual. Obviously, there could not be a whole without the connection that binds the people together. In fact, there is an old reference to this idea which is very close to our own hearts: in the book of revelation it talks about the Church becoming "The Bride of Christ." While it seems amusing to think that I am some part of the ear while you are part of a fingernail, when taken as the spirit of the Holy Church it doesn't seem that ridiculous.
I think I'm rambling again, so please ask me questions, or tell me you understand and that it was brilliant. Preferably the former. ;P

Fingertips...Almost touching...Just a...Bit further...

2005-10-17T13:49:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that I am a little hesitant about putting up this post; I'm not sure how you guys will respond to it. I have a rather strong feeling that I might run into some opposition to some of the things I say here; that's fine, I love having discussions with people who disagree with me, and I think that any problems you have with what I have to say will help me understand my argument or your positions better. That is what I'm looking for, and I think you guys like me enough (I hope!) to give what I say a chance even if it sounds crazy to you. What I hope to avoid is saying anything that might offend anyone because of my ignorance, not because I'm afraid of offending anyone but because I hold everyone who reads this blog in too high esteem to wish losing a friendship because of some disagreement, even when it's on something as important as religion. So, if you have anything to say regarding my reasoning, please leave a comment; if you think I'm completely overboard and offensive, please send me an e-mail so we can sort it out privately. I don't think it will come to that, though.
Okay, that was far more serious than I usually start out my posts! Time to take a deep breath, and let the penguin of knowledge guide us to new shores!
Brilliant men have always had disagreements on the nature of religion. It is rather unusual that we have so many brilliant people who agree on one thing at all, namely that there is something more to this life than the material world, but when it comes to explaining what that thing is we can't seem to find two philosophers or theologians to agree. This seems odd to me. If the best minds that mankind has come up with cannot agree on religious and spiritual matters, how can we come up with any knowledge about God that is solid? Sure, we can look at religious texts and search for knowledge about God from our understanding of those books, but the one unifying factor regarding those texts is their metaphoric and symbolic qualities, as well as their paradoxical qualities. While these are powerful uses of language, describing their meaning in other terms proves tricky. We might be able to approximate their meaning in abstract terms, but that tends to take away the immediacy and power of the content. It seems hard to reconcile religious texts with truth when they seem, not only to contradict each other, but to contradict themselves.
On the other hand, those brilliant men whom I mentioned above, despite their disagreements, all agreed that these works were important, whether or not they agreed with them. Something is missing here. Our best minds think that these works are important, despite their seeming weaknesses, but they can't agree on what these texts mean.
It seems to me that we have a problem regarding meaning. This makes sense when we consider that our subject is God the Almighty; it makes sense that the power behind the universe is difficult in the extreme to understand in any portion. There is an old 'proof' of God's existence called the Ontological argument that goes something like this:
God is that which nothing greater can be conceived.
Something that exists is greater than something that does not exist.
If God did not exist, we could conceive of something greater than Him existing: namely, something that exists in reality rather than just in our head.
Therefore, God must exist.
At first it seems that if you arrange the words in the correct way that magically God appears. I disliked this 'proof' for a long time until I discussed it with my philosophy professor. After that, I realized that the proof works if you accept that, using it, you cannot assign any properties to God without making him not "that which nothing greater than which can be conceived." In plain English, God exists, but we cannot know for certain anything about Him using that argument.
This leads us to the limiting factors on our knowledge: language and how humans are set up. The latter is less of a problem. We can only know new things in terms of what we already know, meaning in this case that theology is more of a study of what people think than who God is. Still, we can overcome this. First, we are "made in God's image." (Genesis 1:27) so we have some justification in our anthropomorphized descriptions of God. Second, I believe God is aware of our limitations, so when he reveals himself to us, he does not show us his true self, but only puts on a 'puppet show,' if you will, revealing as much as he can that we can understand. So while humans can only really talk about God in terms of being human, sometimes what we say actually resembles what God is really like.
I have, of course, talked about the weakness of the vehicle, the literal level of language before. When talking about spiritual matters, the problem is compounded. Some of the things we want to talk about simply cannot fit into words. This is why books like Ezekiel and Revelation in the Bible are written the way they were. They are not good literature; they were not meant to be. They are meant to show us some resemblance to supernatural power. On the other hand, I also talked about the thematic level of reality, and how we can access it through words even if the words are not accurate reflections of the meaning. This is what these books are trying to accomplish. They are true, even when, or perhaps especially when, paradoxes come up in them. It's just that our puny minds can't wrap around how both sides, which seem contradictory, can both be true, much the same way we can't understand how an electron is both wave and particle.
Unfortunately, the fact that we can't fully understand everything means that we have to pick and choose. This is where some of C.S. Lewis' ideas come in. While he was certain of the truth of Christianity, he said something rather strange. He said that God often accepts people who didn't know better who were trying the best they could with what they know. I think he's right, but I have justification for it: I think that these people whom God accepts are doing and saying the right things on the thematic level, even if they reject Christianity on the literal level of the words they say. As it is written, "The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7B) And let's face it. There is a lot that can be improved in Christianity; all levels. It seems that on every level from the local churches to the highest leadership there is corruption and false actions. I don't see it as a bad thing at all when someone criticizes Christianity, as long as by that he means the church in the world, with all of its baseness and iniquities, and not the Church that transcends words and labels; the Church bearing the fruit of the spirit. Hardly ever do I see people attacking that aspect of Christianity.
On the other hand, while it may be true that people who do not associate with the christian religion may in fact turn out to be close to God's heart, the fact that we cannot accurately know about God has another result, one that leads to strife. If it is true, then none of the different branches of Christianity can have it all right, but only aspects of the truth. But I don't look at this as cause for despair: I think that we should have differences in doctrine. Ideally, these differences should draw people with different needs to them, and help them find their path to God. Ideally, the high churches should minister to those who need regulations and traditions in order to open themselves to the Holy Ghost, and the low churches should minister to those who need freedom and equality in order to open themselves up to the Holy Spirit. And think about it. Aren't all those qualities represented and needed in what we perceive as Divine Virtue? So if you know you've found the true church for you, continue to worship and believe in its tenets. Just know that it is a way to open yourself to God, and not an end in itself.
Does this make me a universalist, believing that all people will be admitted through the pearly gates? I wish I could say yes. But the truth is, I think that God has given us the free will to reject Him if we like. And if they do reject Him, I don't think there is anything he can do to get them into the glory of Heaven. That, my friends, is what I would call hell.
So that's how I see it; my theological theory of everything. What I wrote here doesn't explain everything, obviously, but it should give you some idea on my thoughts.

S.S. Relation

2005-10-15T23:53:00.000-07:00

I was going to do a post on a couple of thoughts I had, but right now I'm really quite tired, so I don't think I'm going to do anything that mentally straining. I think I'm just going to reflect on some things I notice when I'm around my new friends here at Gonzaga.
I'm not sure if any of you caught the passage in my post/letter to my proffesor when I said something about studying other people when they talk. Well, I don't know if anyone else does it other than me, but it is an interesting psychological study to see people going through their social acts. I've found that body language tells a lot more than words can. If they put their minds to it (though they often don't) People can often control the words they speak, but they can't control their physical reactions. Hand gestures are less revealing than pose, usually, and it usually doesn't take that much training to figure out what people are saying with their poses. What is a lot harder is applying it to the person you are talking to, because it is mostly an unconscious act. It's too bad, too, because a lot of interpersonal problems could be alleviated if we understood other people's body language: I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the difficulties in understanding the opposite gender is the fact that we are speaking two (or more) different languages when we are using the same words to each other.
Human interaction is very fascinating. I think one of the reasons we put so much effort in trying to understand the social behavior of other species is that we spend so much effort in our own interpersonal interactions. Parties are wonderful places to see this in action. Try sometime to study the groups people get into at parties, and then how the groups shift and form. When I do this, I start to notice patterns like the size of groups. Lets say the average sized group is six people, which is usually about right, depending on the party. Such groups end in one of two ways. Either they run out of things to say and wander elsewhere, or they get joined by more people and the group breaks down into smaller groups. Groups smaller than six usually are more likely to get joined than big groups. On the other hand, if two people deliberately separate themselves from the rest of the party, they have different characteristics. If it's two guys, they generally stand shoulder to shoulder, looking at some common thing and, generally, commenting on it. Pairs of girls stand face to face. If it is a mixed pair, they usually also stand face to face, but there is usually more active body language. Check it out at some gathering and see if your results match mine.
One last thing regarding more long term relationships. Starting college gave me a unique opportunity to see what happens to a group of people starting a new life together in an unknown, hostile (meaning new and unusual) environment. I mentioned in my very first post how Gonzaga found a way to unite all of the froshes very quickly. Now, though, past midterms, college is no longer quite as hostile. We have settled into our routines, we know how to do all the things that we generally need to do. As this happens, the 'grace period' of grand acceptance disappears. There were signs before: after the first two weeks no one was going around introducing themselves to all the new people at every opportunity they could find. But now, while people have become comfortable in their scheduling routines, they will find themselves at corners with their new friends. They are settling back in to their usual personalities and temperaments, which might be quite different from what they displayed in order to fit in. As this occurs, bumps in the relationships come up. This is when the first real arguments will occur among friends, and when the breaking and cementing of various cliques will be shown. While this period seems treacherous, it is necessary to ensure that these relationships are with someone real, rather than an image put up in order to fit in.
I want to know if these things are happening where you guys are. I bet that larger schools will have different timetables for acceptance and settling in to routines. Or it might not happen the same way at all. And don't worry: I don't analyze you guys the way I analyze people here. Take what comfort you may from that.

Dilatory Poetry Rambles

2005-10-15T01:37:00.000-07:00

"What if a much of a which of a wind
gives the truth to summer's lie;
bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun
and yanks immortal stars awry?"

E.E. Cummings

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for E.E. Cummings. I know a lot of people don't like his kind of modern poetry, especially his poetry for the eye, but its something that just appeals to me. I've never quite understood why people try to fit their art into little boxes, and make what use of the boxes they can. On the other hand, there are people like Wordsworth or (of course) Shakespeare who just take their idiom and take it beyond the realm of human scope. All of us, no matter how much we practice, no matter how beautiful our verse, we will never write sonnets like Shakespeare, any more than we could compose fugues like J.S. Bach or paint landscapes like Monet. I listened to a lecture on the originality of Beethoven yesterday, and how people have spent centuries trying to understand his music, to fit words around it like other, lesser composers. But you can't. There are things in art that transcend our words and probably even our experience. And the fact is, that only Beethoven could compose the Eroica symphony. Only Picasso could paint Le Troix Mademoiselles. Only Shakespeare could write The Tempest. These men (and women, too, though I haven't mentioned any.) sometimes seem out of our reach, out of our range of possible contributions to what humans consider beautiful. But it is at times like that that our minds are too full of themselves. We are not meant to be another Beethoven or Shakespeare. There is no need for them. They have already poured out their souls on the human stage. The thing is, we don't need to write or compose or paint to add to the human play. If we find something, within ourselves or with direction, that we find we can pour out what we are, what we have to offer, then mankind is better off for it. It's what we are meant to do.
Another E.E. Cummings:

maggie and millie and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles, and

millie befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
It's always ourselves we find in the sea

Life. Don't talk to me about Life.

2005-10-12T16:28:00.000-07:00

I was reading a book in the library just now titled The Ideology of Biology. I forget the name of the author, but he claims that much of Biology (he mostly focuses on the idea that we are deterministic creatures controlled by our genes) is not scientific or objective and is ideological in nature. He claims that we should not be looking at genes as the key subjects of biological study, but the organism and its interaction with its environment. Mimicking my Efficient Society Hypothesis, (yeah, right) he also claims that organisms largely create their own environment instead of having the environment shape them. I just had a few thoughts while considering these claims.
First, he attacks the way biologists come up with a theory based on a few observations, and then go on to explain other phenomena using that theory, without testing it, when there could be alternate explanations for those phenomena. He's absolutely right; this is where scientists get in trouble for saying that philosophy is "B.S." (take that Richard Feynman!) because they would have learned logic in their philosophy class. There are some instances where you cannot determine unknowns from known facts only because there are more possible explanations than the model you are using. It is still very common to do so, though, and it gets science into trouble because it becomes a platform for agendas rather than being actual science. Biology is the perfect example. Anyone who attacks the current model gets branded as ignorant, and is informed that the 'top minds in biology' back it. That is, they are defending the system, not because it is necessarily true, but on the basis of authority.
Second, the author of this book makes the same mistake that his opponents make. When he claims that the organism creates its own environment, I wanted to ask him "from what?" Obviously, an organism influences its environment, and that that influence has a major role in what that organism becomes. But isn't it true that the influence of other aspects of an environment on organisms has a greater influence? Let me put it a different way. A classical Oriental philosopher or biologist would never come up with this concept, because for them the whole has more influence than the part. China, Japan, and India didn't come up with biology in the same way the west did: what they had would be more akin to sociology or ecology because they placed more value on the community than the West did. The fact is, any model we come up with to describe anything is exactly that: a model. It will never perfectly describe the real thing. It's placing a three dimensional world on to a two dimensional map: distortions are going to be created. I, of course, have shown how people can say various aspects of the same thing, so that they are both, in all essentials, universally true (in their own frame of reference) while seeming to conflict using my model of 'stacked' realities. Yeah. Go ego.
Third. As for his biology, I think he's mostly right, or at least let me say that I mostly agree with him. I have always had a hard time reconciling the idea of genetics that I got from Biology (RNA comes in, copies DNA, out come proteins. Lather Rinse Repeat.) with the all encompassing qualities I hear attributed to them, that they determine our intelligence and personality. While the answer that it is both nature and nurture seems laughably simple, many scientists find that it is far too difficult to consider. The fact is, it is far trickier to try to determine what part is nature and what part is nurture, which scientists would have to do if they wanted to build a more and more accurate model if they go on the same track, than it is to attribute everything to one important aspect.
I have to admit that most of my antagonism toward Biology was founded prior to reading this book. While in England, I visited the Natural History Museum and was able to go on a tour of some of the research areas of the associated Darwin Center, where much of the work goes into Taxonomy, or the classification of organisms. While there, it was fully drummed into my mind how arbitrary the process was. If a new specimen is found, only an expert in the field can accurately determine whether or not it is a new species or a variation of an existing species. Since there is no objective dividing line, one expert may label the specimen a new species where another may not. This is not science.
Anyway, Maren, next update I'll talk your post, I promise.

It's pronounced "Neat-She"...er, I think...

2005-10-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I last posted. I'm still suffering from the same afflictions I was complaining about at the beginning of my last post. I have a midterm test in English on Friday and I'm not looking forward to it. I have an oral exam in Japanese on Thursday, and I'm really not looking forward to it. On the plus side, I was one of the few people who got an A on our first English paper, and I also got an A- on a philosophy test I took, but that's more annoyance than pleasure. Stupid ego.
Anyway, though I wanted to put up a post to let everyone know that I'm still alive and okay, the thing known as college has taken up a lot of my time and energy, so I'm not getting the opportunities to come up with ideas. I've cut back on my reading, and I haven't gone running in five days. You non-runners have no idea how terrible that is.
I won't leave you without some things to think about, though. Though lessened, my reading still continues. Today it was some Nietzsche. Some of you may be familiar with that name. He is most famous for his statement, "God is dead, and we have killed him." I have to laugh at him, though, because while it may have seemed in the late 1800's that the evidence was against God's existence, mankind's concept of Him continues to flourish and survive. I think he would have been surprised at how things turned out. And, while he certainly disagreed with most Christian doctrine, I think that the concept of 'God' that he was challenging is one that we would disagree with and attack also.
But that is not where I wanted to go with this. If you're interested with disagreeing with him, go look up some of his works or find an edition that has selections of his work; he was not the kind of philosopher that could be summed up in one book, and writes many things that are contradictory and paradoxical.
This is what I want to discuss. I like Nietzsche as a challenge: I find he has the most potent response for many of my beliefs and opinions, not just on religion and ethics but also philosophy, history, and aesthetics. He is also willing to put forth opinions that other philosophers are scared or unwilling to admit to. I admire that, and find that his writing is refreshing. But I want to attack some of what he says anyway.
The statement that really caught my eye today is one on a subject I have considered before. Nietzsche says that philosophers study men and postulate universal truths about them from what they find. But, he says, this is flawed because men are different today then they were hundred years ago, or a decade ago, or a millennia ago, so no universal statements about mankind can be fully complete because the philosophers really only describe the present day. In some sense, I have to agree with him. A lot of what philosophers do is exactly that, as I've said before: putting a modern spin on things. However, with my model of reality that I've recently discussed, I can address his argument more fully. Certainly, at one level, the theme of philosopher's works hold the silent premise "in this day and age, such is true," but on another level, there are assertions that are true (or false) for all humans. We have a basic nature that is common to all of us, otherwise we couldn't find any connection with the past in the literature and artefacts we discover. On the other hand, we are also different, because otherwise all humanity would have one culture. In both scenarios, the idea of global community that we see throughout history would not exist. We have to live in a paradoxical reality, and while Nietzsche usually realizes that, he hiccoughed on this one.
Another thing that he says, while I'm at it, is that there is no 'truth' that we can access using language, because all statements is merely "a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms" ('On Truth and Lies in an Nonmoral sense') combined into patterns that we try to fit into saying things with meaning. But, looking at words the way I've described, we find that Nietzsche (and all the postmodernists who follow after him) are barking up the wrong tree. Words are not fundamental to meaning. While language can certainly not describe everything, it is the higher levels of reality where fundamental truth can be found, not in naked language.
His ideas on morality are difficult, but something struck me about today's reading: he mentions the idea that 'sleeping' morality can make later morality deeper and richer. It seems odd to think that acting barbaric for a time can make you more moral later, but think about this: some of the most moral people did indeed used to be barbaric before they grew out of it. I wouldn't put it like Nietzsche does; I would say that morality means more to the people who have experienced immorality for themselves. Does this make immorality good? No, of course not; but it can end up with good effects. Nietzsche applies this to larger things too: he says that war can be a good thing because it means that culture is asleep for a time. We can see that this is applicable in the actions of the Mongols, who slaughtered thousands in a desperate attempt to become cultured. Again, I think that in this case culture means more to the people who have not experienced it.
One other thing. I've considered my "efficient society" hypothesis, and realized that its most useful application is the analysis of (historical) people in terms of the times they lived in, and the analysis of a (historical) period in terms of the people it produces: essentially, there are no famous men who are ahead of their times. Nietzsche is an example of this: in nearly any other age his work would have been rejected and he would have been forgotten, unless he wrote it and his work was used in a later age: this would, of course, mean that he was a man of that age instead. On the flip side, we can tell, from who Nietzsche is and what he says, what kind of place late 19th century Germany was. But I'll leave that to you to decide.
Okay. I've written more than I expected to, and it was mostly stuff I'd said before. I'll get better after midterms, I promise.

Efficiency is overrated, my friends.

2005-10-05T20:43:00.000-07:00

I'm getting swamped with schoolwork, and I find that I have less and less time to spend posting new stuff on here. I think you guys all are feeling it, too: the feeling that midterms and other responsibilities are getting in the way of stuff that we want to do. Still, whenever I have a new idea, you guys can be sure that you'll be some of the first to hear it.
As you probably have noticed, most of my ideas come when I talk to someone, or read something, and the idea just pops into my head. I consider it for a while, modify it, and come up with examples that support it. But the genesis of the idea remains fairly simple. What I'm going to talk about here doesn't have such a simple beggining: it came up out of a sea of scrambled notions in my brain. There is, however, one concept you must know before we go on. This is the 'Efficient Markets Hypothesis' in economics, which says that the stock market reflects all the new information about it already. That is, it is useless to go look for tips in the Wall Street Journal because anything you get is already being considered in the market price of the stock. This is not true in all cases; still, the statistical or general representation is of an efficient market.
If that messes with your mind, check my application of the rule. My rule is the 'Efficient Society Hypothesis.' As you may be able to guess from the similarity, it says that a society already reflects all the new information about it, perhaps especially the ideas that are intended on changing a society. That means that revolutions don't erupt: the forces that cause a revolution are in play in the society usually decades before they happen: otherwise they couldn't happen.
Most people think that the cause and effect works the opposite of what I'm claiming. They see a leader, or group, that rallies people to a cause and leads them on a crusade to bring about change. I say that by the time such an organization shows up, the society has already changed in proportion to the popularity, power, and radicalism of the idea. Again, if it were otherwise such a group could not exist.
How is that? Well, in general, most of one's ideas comes from the society they grow up in, or are in now. Even if they reject the system, they become rebels in terms of the system they are opposing. Rebel kids today get piercings and tatoos, where in some countries in Africa tatoos are an essential part of livelihood. So to consider that an idea is wrong and needs change means that the concept that that idea is wrong must come from somewhere. The rules that make up society are flexible, so interpretations come up, and with interpretations come disputes. Sad but true. Those disputes lead to various currents of thought that permeate a society, especially a complex society such as ours. It is these currents that cause change, rather than the people in the spotlight who take hold of them. Russia was already Communist when Lenin took over the Bolsheviks. America was already at war years before the Declaration of Independence, but the royalists were always there, too.
Now, there are quite a few exceptions here, mostly because there are a multitude of outside forces that people can get ideas from. Take the Civil Rights Movement. That is a movement that mostly agrees with my analysis, but the idea of nonviolent resistance as advocated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came from his knowledge of Gandhi's similar tactics, (and yes, Gandhi got it from Thoureau, but don't confuse the issue, here) and so that opened up a branch of the Civil Rights Movement that wouldn't have occured otherwise.
Here's a different example. Do you guys remember Mr. Harris talking about elections? He likened them to a freeway: choosing between candidates is like choosing between exits. You might end up miles away from where the other exit led or even from where you started. Well, I have to disagree with his analysis. (Sorry, Mr. Harris, but it isn't the first time I've disagreed with you.) I say that by the time the candidates are in the running, the election is essentially over. People are going to vote in certain predictable ways, depending on the society and the layout of the forces within it. Also, the candidates have to work within the system, and are susceptible to these same forces that other people are. So by the time the election occurs, the car is already off the freeway, and the election is the effect of that shift or continuation in thought, whatever it may be.
I have just realized that this could be useful in history. I haven't gone into the history of it yet, but I certainly could. The French Revolution springs to mind. Actually most revolutions spring to mind. I'll look into it after midterms, maybe.
How this concerns me right now is the idea of whether societies are even able to choose their own paths, whether societies have free will. I wonder if it is even worth asking, or whether it would be beneficial to the individual one way or another?

Signs and the Nature of Reality

2005-10-04T16:27:00.000-07:00

This is a copy of a letter/paper that I am going to send to my philosophy proffesor regarding some subjects I have considered recently. I've done some editing to it so that it makes more sense here. If you are sick of my last posts then this will not help. On the other hand, I may change subjects again pretty soon, so relief is on the way.
I noticed that in Sartre's essay, "what is writing" he distinguishes between two types of written word: poetry and prose, and claims that the two are fundamentally different in their outlook and origins. He notices that the use of signs are different in the two, also: in poetry, the meaning is not the words on the page, but the signs that are pronounced in the mind. In prose, the meaning and script are one and the same. This led me to two lines of thought.
First, the difference between signs and memes. I came at this problem at first with the idea that they were actually the same thing, one coming out of the line of philosophical thought and the other the result of scientific and linguistic analysis. I was both right and wrong. The difference is noted by Sartre, although he doesn't say it in as many words. There are two uses of language: one to project statements, and the other to wrap our minds around a concept that we don't have words to describe explicitly. Both are interrelated. I don't really think that Sartre thought that only writers who worked with line and meter were poets, and that all those who rhyme aren't really just saying something in a lyrical manner. For writing to be poetry, it must signify something within the reader's mind beyond the mere words on the page. This is the idea of signs. The literal or denotative aspect of writing has more to do with memes, the entities that are copied and repeated. This is the nature of silly jingles. But there is some overlap. The poetry does have its denotative aspect, that can lead to it becoming a meme. On the other hand, authors who do not mean to write poetry often manage to create material that gets meaning attached to it from some outside source. This is especially true when we analyze material from outside our own semiotic realm: we can find significance in a story from the past or foreign authors by trying to understand some of their thought for which we have no words. Imagine listening in on a conversation. If you are trained in linguistics, you can analyze the shifts in subject, the general point of view of each of the participants, and attribute meaning to their every move, but if you cannot do the same when you participate in your own colloquial conversations.
Second, the nature of reality. I just mentioned the difference between being on the outside and being on the inside in terms of a conversation and realizing meaning, and the same holds true with reality. 'Reality is what we make it' goes a popular saying. But for something to be real for you, you must be 'inside' it. This leads to a division in the reality of language. We can be inside language when we use it literally, but we cannot attribute any meaning to it. Realities come at us with various levels of complexity, and we can only attribute meaning to that reality by using signifiers that are part of the nature of that reality. The flip side of this is that the levels of signs or memes within each succesive reality become more and more complex, and leave us less and less likely to be able to understand them directly. Let me give some examples so that it becomes more clear.
Take nature. It is what I would call 'physical reality.' Its signs are very complicated and we are unable to attribute meaning to them, although we can often understand it directly: "it's cloudy, therefore it is going to rain." or "his forehead is hot, therefore he is sick." (This is, of course, based on a human understanding of cause and effect, which Hume pointed out was flawed, but it's how we work, so I'm going with it.) Okay, so natural reality is too complex. The next less complicated form of reality I see is social reality. Between the bonds of any group, like a family or club, a 'spirit' of sorts is created that has life of its own. (Ed. I will probably be doing a post or two on this later) This alters the behavior of the individuals that compose this superorganism but also gives them a sense of belonging and extends their influence much the same way machinery extends their physical capabilities. The signs that compose this reality are the signs between superorganisms and the meaning of the connections between the people involved. This is the level that meaning in ordinary language tries to engage: the universal nature of humans and their connection to other humans. Thus, the next level of reality is the level of thematic reality. There is much dispute on this, but I believe that here is the level of poetry, of music, and of art. These activities have different kind of spirit of their own, but it is a created spirit rather than an extended one. This is the level I should call meaning reality, but that doesn't make much sense so I call it thematic reality. We can't say what these things mean in words (despite what our English teachers say when they ask us to explicate poetry) but they contain the themes that the words we use manufacture. Then we have linguistic reality, the simple reality. If I have been unconsciously using value terms when describing these descending realities, then I apologize, and ask that you don't see them as descending in goodness, but only in complexity. Here we can see the advantages of simplicity. Namely, it is only here that we can explicate explicitly: we can say exactly what we mean. This means that we can create a shadow of the other realities in this one, and then explain them in different terms. We will never get the exact nature of the other realities, but we can get approximations of one view.
This has, I think, applications for everything. Or at least applications for everything academic, which is the only semiotic system I'm interested in. But I think I'll hold off explaining them all here and wait until I write a book, or do a thesis paper or something.

Golems!

2005-10-01T18:24:00.000-07:00

This post may sound a little odd to those people who don't like the idea of memes, and who think that I dislike them, also. You certainly would have reason to believe that, but since I am defending them, or at least assuming that they exist, in this post, I wanted to make sure everyone knows that it was not the idea of memes that I was attacking previously, but merely the idea that memes are all-encompassing in the realm of mental activity, and the idea that memes create our selfness. So, with that out of the way...
The history of science has been filled with some very strange coincidences. It has also been dogged by the history of thelogical explanation of the phenomena that science has described. A lot of the latter versions of these histories have been written with the angle that some scientific development had brought enlightenment to these poor deluded theists. What the histories fail to realize is that at every instance there have been theologians saying, "but that is what we've said all along!" While this may partially be because the theologians are trying to cover up their own inadequacies, I believe that in many instances they are correct. There are two parts to this: one is the idea of insight that I have mentioned previously. The religious texts are so full of rich ideas that they cannot explicate them all directly, and so things have to be interpreted. Often the interpretations correspond with modern ideas in other fields. This is where the other explanation comes in, that corresponds to the coincidences we find in science.
If memes are ideas that are meant to be modelled and spread, isn't it obvious that we can 'build' some memes from other memes? Leibniz and Newton had the same information and the concept of the calculus erupted at two places at the same time. For the theologians, it is a little different. They can get the same memes, but with a different angle. If you get the same information with a different emphasis, it reads differently. The theologian would build the same world-view, but with a spiritual emphasis. Other theologians would have said similar things in the past, and so the new guy gets to say that they've been saying it all along. Or you can think of it as an aspect of the eternal truth that transcends through history and is now revealing itself in a different guise. But you see, that the two discriptions I have given are the two different contentious views!
Okay, it's time to stop; I've just combined a bunch of my old posts together and nothing new has come up. But we can call it application.

Happy 20th Post Poems!

2005-09-30T09:10:00.000-07:00

So...this is the last day of September, obviously, and for some reason I thought it would be cool to get in 20 posts before the archive moves to October. Since this is the twentieth, and since it means I've been in school and doing this blog for about a month, I thought I'd switch it up a bit and steal an idea from Paul, which I do regularly enough anyway. This post won't be about some thought I had. It'll just be some of my more recent poems I'm taking out of my notebook. Most of you have heard all of my decent old poems.

Thoughts

I don't ask for them,
not anymore. I beg and plead,
teasing and coaxing
them out. Among others
I see no signs. Well,
Perhaps. Through some Accident
they come out: miracles
of spontaneity and freshness.
Then-
What bothers me most is
what does not bring reflection.
Moments of bright opportunity
inspire only the usual stream;
Preplanned script on
an everspinning wheel behind
the invective. I can't stand to
discuss causality then-
it is too much, too much to ask
to speak of freedom to those
chaining themselves to the walls.

Imperfection

We hold on to so much
what are they?
It's not the perfections that drive
us, it's our flaws
that bind and complete
worries fall in the face
of failures rising up, so
often does the late start
lead to a stronger finish
and the dischord ornaments.
Our connection to the ideal
is strained, but there's
no need to complain in a
comforting paradox, take
hold of me and I
now cannot release. Hold
on to me and never
never let me go. I
cannot see it, what
others can only, what
I miss in the signs...
but when I see you
it doesn't matter at all.

This one I wrote while I was in England. You could probably have guessed that from the title, but I wanted to make sure you knew.

Londonplace

Gray-green hues mingle before me
I am above color recognition; I let it pass
through me. I know it as I know myself.
It has always been a part.
I didn't see the moon last night
you know that means the night overwhelmed me.
The moon is comfort. It is the same
wherever you see it, not fully real 'cause
it's never yourself. It's always nice,
though, when you're home, to look up
and see something invasive and
different.
I'm different. I've changed. But I think
now. I'm more myself than ever
because my home feels more like home
than ever before.
Perhaps because I've never been here before.
It's the air, the ancient air. It's known
people and cannot change. But I know people
and change constantly.
The inside changes; the whole remains the same.

Okay, I was going to stop with that one, but I'm going to do one more.

S.C.

You glanced away. I knew it, then-
I was not the one your heart lived for
not the one I had hoped to be
eyes down, you've broken me before

I could stand: you took me by the hand,
leading me from the wearied green foilage
to a land of light, where we stand,
dancing in the folding future

Eyes closing. I see a hundred sunset
frames for you. Nights of laughter
drowning the dreary day's upsets
then you're gone, gazing steadily at the stars

You fly out of my sight. I hope
you leave forever, forsaking me
to the vision of a window: looking
in can only make you see.

and I'm taken away to an untamed life
unheard of futures with no more strife
you live in the ideal of my adoring mind
where I cannot see myself in kind.

I walk to the river and swim.
the water's cold. It drains
the pain I had forgotten. It's
eternal, forever piercing and leaving
behind the life of a moment.

The mean mnemonic meme machine

2005-09-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

I began this line of thought at Pierre's blog, and I think you all know where that is, so I'm not putting the link here but you can get to it through the little underlined thing that says "forever gathering on yesterday" and clicking on "comments" after the "first post." Anyway, it sounded like there was some confusion about them so I thought I'd put up my thoughts.
I was reading (again) in Hopkins house, this time a book on cognitive psychology called The Meme Machine. The book was written by Susan Blackmore, in case you want to look for it, but the idea of memes that she considers was created by Richard Dawkins, the celebrated zoologist, in his book The Selfish Gene. Dawkins says that memes are human mental constructs that are repeated. They can be ideas, or songs, or pretty much anything that humans can copy from other humans. The idea of a really annoying jingle pops into my head right now. Blackmore says that the memes are the core of human thought. Most everything we consider or think other than the direct input we are getting from our senses has been something that has been given to us, and we are just copying that behavior. The behavior is the meme. On the other hand, Blackmore and Dawkins run into a tricky situation, though, because they can't really define memes, or at least not scientifically define them. What is the unit of a meme? Is language itself a meme, or only the individual letters and words? Is the song itself one meme, or several? Oftentimes we can recall only one short phrase of a song: look at Beethoven's fifth symphony.
Still, some of what they say regarding memes seems plausible. The idea that they come up with regarding memes is that they are replicators, like genes, and the rule of replicators is that the best ones survive, or more accurately, the ones that survive have traits that favor them in certain situations. In this case, we remember songs that are repetitive and simple, but we'll forget a meme like the essay I'm writing right now, which will fail as a meme because it won't be passed along.
Hopefully you guys get the idea. So what does the existence of memes mean? First of all, I am reminded of the postmodern movement in philosophy, which claims that language cannot be used to accurately describe reality, and so puts the whole history of philosophy in jeopardy. Memetics would show that science does not predict or map the physical world but is merely the strongest meme for its time in its idiom. I think Dawkins and Blackmore would agree with that statement. On the other hand, we are running into a logical paradox here. For the idea of memes to be true, it would have to exist outside the memes themselves. Memetics cannot be a meme otherwise it is becomes nonsensical. This logical contradiction is not necessary, however, if there are rules governing thought outside of memes.
One idea Blackmore repeats in her book is the insistent and constant use of language. People talk to each other all the time, and she says it makes no sense from a biological point of view. Talking wastes energy I could be using to eat or propagate. But memes would thrive in an environment that is all conversation, and, according to Blackmore, the ones that survive best are the ones that have some mechanism to ensure their replication. So when we talk, we know we are right (because the memes are set up so that they last longer with passionate carriers) and we often disregard logical methods of argumentation (because we don't remember those as well as we remember our schemas.) Memes even give us the sense of selfdom because a person would recall them better than a series of memories and sensations. Her evidence is strong and what we see seems to favor the existence of memes.
There are just two problems. One, we can create meanings that overcome (or undercut) our schemas and therefore the level of memetic thought. Logic may perhaps be a meme itself, but it creates ideas and knowledge that was not known before, and while those new ideas can also become memes, the system or principles governing it has to be outside the memes otherwise we have an infinite regression of memes that are not replicators. Second, the society she describes is only our society. Other cultures place much less emphasis on speaking than we do. Perhaps they have not created as many memes to reproduce. But why wouldn't they? They have as much experience as we do. Perhaps it is only in a culture where we spend so much time talking that the idea of memes can come up. Memes do exist, but they are not as overpowering as Ms. Blackmore claims.
The real weakness behind the idea of that memes are more powerful than free will is the idea that languistic and semiotic reality is superior to actual reality. The times I know I'm most alive is when I'm alone in nature and trying not to think about anything, but I remain deep in prayer. The second most is when I'm with another person, and we're not speaking or even really thinking, but we are communing and realizing more of ourselves through the other person. To Blackmore and Dawkins, such experiences would be lost as they reject the spirituality of the events. They cannot explain any real thing that happens to us that is not a meme or a physical experience. But such things exist, though I think that they can be denied by the people who feel them.
I hope I didn't confuse anyone. I'm afraid I was incoherent and disunified. Please ask if you need clarification and I'll try to do better. (I don't know why I put this, I know you guys will reply anyway but I just seem to have a hard time stopping my fingers from typing. Okay...gonna...click...publish...now!)