tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81853227961368477032024-02-08T06:50:36.785-08:00Gazing into the HorizonTyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-13606394511890760702019-12-31T14:42:00.001-08:002019-12-31T14:42:12.853-08:002020 Political Discourse, Analysis of Themes and Speculations for Ways Forward (working)<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I find that if I donate to the political candidates that espouse the ideas that I believe people need to be more exposed to, that depending on the scenario, such a donation is more effective than casting a single vote in the election. If the idea is sound, drive it home. But politics these days still doesn't focus on policy ideas that challenge the status quo; and the status quo is perpetually fighting against such changes by their very nature. Thus we need to rebuild from the foundation a new interpretation of reality that redesigns social constructions to account for billions of humans existing together collectively with the internet. </span>Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-68696999836692230622017-09-01T08:43:00.001-07:002017-09-01T08:43:33.915-07:00I, you<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Helpless heart;</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pulling strings begging reverberation.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tap.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tap tap.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ears ringing. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seeing you through starscapes. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I ran for so long. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Strained neck from looking back.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We danced, I think.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Metronome - etched in souls,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Connected so, perpetual. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A breath of air I’ve never known.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deeply, scanning… seeking.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bits in erudite form; prescient,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Speaking, standing, briefly,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lost my feet beneath me, falling</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">landing… pleading.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All we. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I, you. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-29ed6b48-3e1c-7e0f-85b1-1eaa5c50e7ca" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I read once: imagine reels,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unfolding imagined Real. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hyper real. A spectacle. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A perfectly rendered whole.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was skeptical. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I expressed it so.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then I froze,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seeing you through heartache.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I could only stand for so long.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Strained back from never moving.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We danced, I think.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Time is subjective. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And all this experience has brought me by the hand,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To your moment, moving. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All we,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I, you. </span></div>
<br />Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-83057415822754679932017-02-07T16:31:00.002-08:002017-02-07T16:31:37.101-08:00Universally Cultured<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "eras demi itc" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><u><b>Universally
Cultured</b></u></span></span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "iskoola pota" , serif;">The
Phenomena of Rhythmic Energy, Language, Music, the Arts</span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "iskoola pota" , serif;">And
their historical implications</span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "latha" , serif;"><b>Philosophical
Exstasis: Linguisticism</b></span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><b>Preface</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">***I
have no fucking clue what I even really said in here. Well, I have an
IDEA... but yeah. Hahahaha. Have fun. (Apparently I wrote in the
grammar rules that fragmented sentences are encouraged & I use
“it’s” regardless if it’s wrong or not.)***</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
“<span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;">The
real secret of magic is that the world is made of words, and that if
you know the words that the world is made of you can make of it
whatever you wish.” </span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><i>–
</i></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;">Terence Mckenna</span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><i>(</i></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><i>"Alien
Dreamtime" a multimedia event recorded live. (27 February 1993)</i></span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;">I</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> Societies
across the world exist because they are forced to by the innate need
for Modern Man to procreate. Humans, like all animals that require
other animals of their species are forced by nature to be Social. The
glitch in this system doesn’t exceed the ability the human brain
received by whatever unknown force that introduced it to primate
evolution; to intellectualize. In other words, from the Dawn of Man
in some historical models primate evolution was brought about by a
slow gradual evolutionary curve that is the direct result of an
unknowingly powerful cataclysmic blast that sent matter into the
universe in completely random directions, only to find agreeable
matter, exchange numbers, and copulate. Terence McKenna had the idea
that the Big Bang is the least likely scenario, so the Big Bang is
</span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>the</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
empty canvas of which Philosophers, Scientists, Preachers, Professors
and the like have been painting their ideas or models of what the
Universe is on. This empty canvas of unlikely possibility. Without
diving too deep into my specific opinion on Evolutionary theory and
how it relates to the consequential events in History and ultimately
our development as a species, I’ll conclude this tangential
introduction to Music and Arts with a single statement, that I think
makes sense. If music were ever perfect, there would no longer be a
need for it. </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><b>Music
is the Universe</b></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">,
in that we create our own models of what we feel Music is out of the
transdimensional clay of multi-conceivable perceptions of
socio-environmental influence. </span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> Music
and the Arts is always a very intensely philosophical undertaking.
Because in order to understand the Arts (which is what people of the
past referred to as Magic, Witchery, “Ninjitsu,“ and the like)
one must delve into the very depths of the Human spirit. This is not
an original notion by any means, but the desire to restate this
notion is just as strong as the desire one gets as an artist, to
create. True artistry, whether wrapped in this guise of Capitalist
greed or bound by the twine of responsibility that is seemingly it’s
very nature; to question the Self and therefore to question each
other. Questioning is the key to realizing any related truths that
one may have missed on the first go-’round. George Carlin said,
“It’s not important to get children to read, children who are
going to want to learn to read are going to learn to read, it’s
more important to get children to </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>question</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
what they read. Children should be taught to question everything…,”
and I’ll narrow that down a bit… everything they think they find
complete truth, must be questioned. The argument usually is, if you
don’t accept something as true and always question it, you’ll
never find the truth. The simple response to that argument is why is
it required to define a questioning statement as a statement only
released and received to fulfill present notions of personally
desirable intentions to find Truth. The concept of true
intentionality… so rather than question something because it seems
like it doesn’t make sense; and like what William Cooper said,
question the things you even think you believe are truth, because if
you enter the realm of mysterious discovery with pre-conceived
notions on what the truth is, you‘ll only find evidence to support
or deny your claim and will never find the Truth. This is the Chief
Cornerstone of human intellectual history, the Sword in the Stone,
the Light of the World, the Blessing in Retrospective Disguise. This
is Nature at it’s very hub. In doing so consciously for the first
time or some time after you‘ve reflected a bit, you will find
yourself realizing truths in such rapid fashion based on so many
layers of predetermined understandings, that you will feel a
sensation of “awakening,” every single time. This is Truth fused
with Emotional Response. This is the pre-functioned reaction your
body </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>feels</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
is perfect to balance you (as an energy-filled being) when you
discover a Truth. This concept alone is difficult to embrace, but you
have to deduce it even further than the standard conclusion often
reached by lazy intellectuals and uninspired political hustlers who‘s
Ends are only Justified by “Means,” (makes you think, ends are
justified by Means… more than likely on an ever increasing </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><b>average</b></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
scale; which may be where statistical probability comes from)… the
trendy conclusion. In so far as, this </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>is</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
the Crux of intellectual growth’s systematic design. When an entity
realizes a Truth, even before it decides to question it, as has been
stated prior should be actively taught and practiced as a healthy
behavior, there is a real sensation of the physiological sort, always
occurring right on the money upon the discovery of a Truth. And it’s
one of the most positive feelings one can experience in the emotional
spectrum. This implies, in an almost identical way the Reproductive
Processes our bodies cycle through when we feel we need to get “on
the prowl,” and attempt to mate and procreate. The Urge. The work.
The formalities. The Finances and ruined carpet and over flowing
ashtrays that never get emptied. We all know what it‘s like, but
when you finally reach true Orgasm with that mate, after all the
smoke clears, you’ve striven for a single thing, Creation (by
nature this is true in it‘s most natural sense, regardless of what
modern misconceptions exist about the psycho-physiology of the
difference between Love and Lust). Ideally (or not… circumstance
beckons…again), a child is born. And therefore in a single
instance, evolution pushes forth. When one discovers a Truth, the
sensation created is intellectual Orgasm, and out of that intense
emotional (and physical, I might add) response comes eventual
Understanding of that Truth. Just as out of the intense physical and
emotional response of the Sexual Process comes eventual Creation of
the Intention. In perhaps simpler terms, the Parallel rears it’s
oddly misshapen head in this idea: To Create anything, one must
experience a Process of Creation, in which seemingly by it’s very
nature, causes the urge to be a Creator. This is where I usually try
to draw you into the connection between the Unknowable Forces we all
deduce (as Philosophers or Humans, you choose the word) in dissimilar
orders as the same thing; and the urge (that is also quite
indescribable and unknowable) to Understand what/where/why/how/who
the Unknowable Forces are. In the wake of this very simple and
impossibly hasty process, is one thing: Creation. Regardless if we as
Intellectual Humans are stuck in this void of infinite
misunderstanding or infinite understanding, there is still present
that indescribable Urge to create. This idea rings true on almost
every layer of Human Society, Human Nature, and Humanity in it‘s
most basic general terms, and with each ring comes an even more
abundant and psychedelic resonating effect. Think in terms of
exponential mathematics. You learn a Truth, you “awaken,” your
Urge to discover more Truth kicks into high gear (the metaphysical
Adrenal Gland of the Creation process), and in (with fair confidence
in this estimation) the wake of that single new Understanding of
Truth comes an undeterminable ripple effect of more Understandings of
more Truths. Evolution down to it’s very core is simply a series of
exponentially increasing Creation, in relation to what is needed to
understand, regardless of the dimensionality. This is where you get
the infinitely pieced puzzle of the Universe, with Philosophy and Art
crafting the Present’s most definable means to fill in the
“blanks.” Philosophically, all this means is Hegelian Dialectics,
Marxism, and Democratic ideals all fit together on this puzzle as a
shape (conceptual resonance, perhaps) just as Buddhism, Metaphysics
and Christianity can be welded together (rather forcefully, I must
add) to add another Mass to the Paradigm Puzzle. The moment this
piece is placed in Unison to the Puzzle a new Philosophical creation
is unleashed and the entire Creative process then recycles, with no
time enough to even measure with any sort of conceivable symbolic
system of numbers, or letters. Then the Orgasmic feeling of
“awakening,” is followed by that anomalous sense of Urgency to
discover more! To Create more! To feel more Orgasmic awakenings! This
may also be the very rudimentary engine structure that defines our
Human susceptibility to addiction, of any kind. But regardless of
that, this idea that Creation is the driving force behind evolution
is not only a seemingly innate characteristic of Nature itself, but
is cause AND effect, the Yin AND the Yang… it is every teaching of
every true Seeker of Truth. </span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> Societal
cues and basic returned responses of those cues Create what McKenna
and many other thinkers, Modern and otherwise, referred to as
something like a filtration system (simply: </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>opinion;</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
to be even clearer and deduce even further) for perceived reality as
we as humans drift on the Space/Time paradigm seeking refuge through
the Doors of Perception. It’s like a child’s blanket which
possesses such an intense intention to smother the inconceivable
potential Understanding that child will inevitably come to. The most
accurate term for this concept is Culture. I don’t have to force a
young mind through a Culture 101 lecture for them to understand the
concept of Culture. Culture is as innate as the Symbio-instinctual
Human Genome. Culture is what lies on the other side of the Doors of
Perception. The emergence of a seemingly natural conflict that is
simultaneously agreed upon; as the Truth. Culture is the impermanent
immortality of Human Intellectualism and Evolutionary Progression.
Even the most radical idea in the most radical realm of radical
thinking has a newly Created model of Culture. On a very basic level,
Culture IS the Universe. The Universe is the substance in which we
mold our Culture and our Culture is the substance in which our
Universe takes root, to ultimately sprout under the glistening glory
of the singular Light. I write with cryptic and pseudo-intellectual
language; because I know, based on this understanding of the Creation
of Culture and therefore the Creation of the Universe that my choice
of words (subconscious, or not) Creates its own Culture. Perhaps the
infinitely unbound urge of dependency is what that Urge to create
derives from; and therefore it’s engine and its wheels, it’s
Viola and it’s Pizzicato Cello Bass line, it’s Light Source and
it’s Coloring utensil… all being Created exponentially anew on
the canvas of the </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><b>Universally
Cultured</b></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">.
</span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> My
attempt to expand upon this concept of the Universally Cultured
depends, co depends and is paradoxically independent on/from Culture
and its resulting Language-produced Arts, Music and symbolically
represented and deeply deduced perceptions of Truth; or Philosophy.
If </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>anyone</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
tells you they have </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>no</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
interest in Philosophy, they are innately wrong. Just as a melting
pint of Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food Ice Cream, still bound by the
poison of plastic imprisonment, is correct to keep melting under the
sun in which it is foolishly and irresponsibly being allowed to
post-exist. Get the point? There is no such thing as a non-deducible
conclusion. Naturally, an outcome must resolve to result from this
post-existing melting delight, and that result is the Ice Cream
equivalent ‘Lingo,‘ or “tasty” language, The </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>Music
and the </i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><b>Arts.
</b></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">The
first dimension of Culture that I focus on specifically and will
probably conclude with should this writing ever reach an end, is
Music and the Arts, and yes the two must be together as one
inseparable entity of Creation. The Creation of Universally Cultured
ideas are conceived in the Philosophical Mind’s </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>Urge</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
to Create. Creativity existed in original arts and languages, evolved
riding the tail-saddle of the Jurassic clarity of indigenous stick
figured attempts at modeling the Self, and persists as a Self serving
co-independently encrypted and decrypted function of the Universally
Cultured. One quick aside about Culture before I forget… Culture is
undoubtedly one of the most important Natures or outcomes of Human
Intellectualism, and it’s vastly rapid acceleration from
Catapulting Cosmic pebbles and debris aimed for Crowned Jewels to
Pellet Guns and Figurine disfigurement, or maybe… reconfiguration
is the Historical symbolism we can tag the process with. Or maybe a
more appropriate comparison; a stick with a sharp point to a cluster
of bombs with energetic potential that exceeds the possibility for
the arrogantly considered inevitability of Earthly regeneration. </span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> Music
and the Arts as a rhythmic mutually inclusive entity has been at the
foundation of Human development pre-intellect and most likely before
the initial sapiens’s evolution. The primate body, in it’s erect
form is relatively taller, less aerodynamic, more strangely
configured than many animals and still perfectly equipped for rhythm.
Rhythm exists in the intertwining and overly bound fabric of Time.
Plastic and trite more often than not; this </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>Time</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
concept. The black and the white duality is forced together by the
dominant energy of rhythm. The need to move in space, the
pre/sub/super-human addiction to procreation, the rhythmic nature of
repeating specific actions to attain desired reactions/climaxes
(sexual stimulation of exceeding and increasing pleasure and it’s
explosive result; continuing evolution) and the Understanding that is
the rippling of the tear drop, post impact, with the messy carpeted
flooring in the pitch black yet completely familiar space; that costs
way too much to spend a single month living in, much less multiple
years. Digression aside, </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>again</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">…
Rhythm is the boundless uninterruptible (except with the death of
presently understood truths, which conceptually would just merge into
a subsequent rhythmic-fractal of an identical nature) force… Rhythm
is to the Energy of Music as Gravity is to the Lunar-Oceanic effects
on Earth and it‘s perfect balance with the infinite Solar defined
season change. Rhythm is the energy that creates the Universally
Cultured. Rhythm and resonance is like the oil and gas compounds that
drive Universal machinery. Returning to the notion of the Urge in
hopes to close in on this idea in a more precise manner, the Urge to
create is by nature a Rhythmic energy (sexual/musical rhythm). Out of
this rhythmic energy, by-passing the obvious point where man
discovered his ability to recognize the rhythm as a coherent and
concrete abstraction and Creation of an innately simple physical
action (tapping a tree with a hand, and the resulting sound, and the
resulting Rhythmic resonation or the clicking of the teeth more than
once in succession). So, </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><b>finally
</b></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">music
is born. Which came first, the rhythm or the music? Did Rhythm exist
before Music… or is Music only the discovery of different ways to
create newly perceived Rhythms? Sounds to me like this whole Human
vs. God showdown is a little too closely associated to the Chicken
and the Egg war that rages defiantly across the cosmos. Sounds like
there’s way more to this Creation idea than is understandable.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> This
question of Rhythm’s existence before Music and vice versa is one
of the many paramount dual-singularities that allow this concept of
the Universally Cultured to be True without </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>True
</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">understanding.
Think of Rhythm as a True form of Energy. Think of how it is
perceived. Energy is visually and spatially filtered. Visual
representation of images and motion through gravitational space; </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>that</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
is Rhythmic Energy. Rhythm is to Universal acceptance as Music is to
Cultural interpretation. Kind of like Energy is to Universal
acceptance as Existence is to Cultural acceptance (or some variation,
it really doesn’t matter how specifically focused this can get).
I’ll remove this concept of the Music and Arts from the unrelenting
vice grips of Philosophical thinking for a moment and merge the prose
with a specific fundamental rhythmic tool. The </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>rhyme.
</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">You
know the sayings, the rhythm and rhyme, the rhyme and reason, etc…
Does basic (or in my case, ridiculous) prose become music the instant
it is Created as a Rhyming piece? Or is prose a different but equally
powerful means of creating Music? Here’s the fundamental break in
the bond that Rhythm and Music have, and it’s so deeply rooted into
the Aesthetics of the written word (more evolutionary implications
arise, of course). The writings we choose to use as English speakers,
or Spanish speakers, or Arabic speakers, all differ, whether
different in alpha-numerical ordering or simply the rearranging of
the geometric shape creating tendencies. The aesthetic of this
written word is based on a vast rule system and symbolic-structure; I
think more than is even considered once a child is taught to write
(the desk, the lame classroom, the white paper, all those lines, and
the pencil that never sharpens efficiently enough so you have to keep
trying to sharpen it until it breaks in half). Writing is
symbolically Created to catalyze a “Linguipathy,” or </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>linguistic
pathology </i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">through
time and space/matter and spirit. Culture is the system that this
Linguipathy specifically filters through. Now return to your idea of
what good music is supposed to be, keeping in mind the notion of
Culture as a systematic machine that “Linguisticism”
(Lingo-mysticism) forms itself around in order to nurture the
system’s growth. The disconnection of Rhythm and Music as
inseparable entities happens only in this fragment of conceptual
deducibility. Prose is to linguistic pathology as Rhyming or Poetry
is to Music. The ability to conceptualize that comparison without
having to document the necessity for Rhythm in the equation is the
discrepancy I’m talking about in fundamental logic. The Rhythm is
the Universal Order and the Music is the Cultural Acceptance and
Reciprocation of questioning one entity only, the only thing that
drives music into infinite existence, Rhythm. Rewind now, go back a
bit… Can Culture truly exist Universally without a concept of
Universality? No. Can rhythm exist without Music? Yes. Can both
Rhythm and Music exist as a Universal law and order then?, just as
Demagogue-Fascist Republican Hegemonic Hierarchies can exist as
Cultural laws and order? This gets the mind working, believe me! To
say that Rhythm is the Energy that drives Music in a Universally
Cultured predisposition for aesthetic desire or interpersonal
achievement kind of just… I don’t know… line-dances its way out
the back door. Let me be clear, this assumption is made with the
utmost confidence and humbleness. Most certainly personal achievement
is often fulfilled truly before, during, and after (in retrospect,
always) the Creation process and most certainly Aesthetic desire
(desire is a key word here in this realm of conceptualities). To
desire an aesthetic is just as simple a notion as desiring a favorite
decision that never fails you (what to eat at that obscure restaurant
you’ve only been to a few times, or what song to listen to driving
along your childhood streets) for your money or the fulfillment of an
intense craving. </span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><b> Urge:
</b></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>Enter
stage center</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">.
Psychologically and even in the realm of Psychoanalysis, perhaps more
Jungian than Freudian is the comparison of the Rhythm’s innate
Energy characteristic and the Un/Subconscious Mind’s (Id, Ego…
etc) reliance on the possibility of a Dream state to place
semi-applicable standards for describing reality. Freud’s only
error in thinking based on his strangely fitting model of the
Universal Order from within the Human Mind is his failure to mention
(look up later to confirm) the possibility that there still is an
Unknowable Driving Force or Engine that we call Universe. So in
conclusion to this particular relative tangent, the difference
between Music and the Arts and the Universally Cultured is seemingly
tangible evidence that Music and Art is a phenomenon anomalous to
Modern Humanity (post primary intellectual enlightenment) and isn’t
as deeply rooted into the Universe as Culture is as a whole and as
the Rhythm/Energy singularity is a likely unit. The Music and Arts
seems to me to be a specific tool utilized to stimulate not only
infinitely expanding Creation (symmetrical completely to that Urge to
procreate) but that Creative endeavor on a specie-continuing level
being the same and yet completely unique to the Creative process
being an actual extension of the Nature of Man and the Universe to
further evolution of the Mind, and consequently the species. I’m
trying to make a practical, clear distinction between the difference
of these concepts relative to their relationship to each other‘s
individual concepts and dualistic-singular connections. It’s a
geometric tool of novelty that allows mass to exist based on well
defined representations of matter. It’s a physics construct that
determines what the most logical and mathematically influenced
trajectory should result in… And that result is: further Urge to
create. </span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> Back
into this </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>theory</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
bound by rules of linguistic or prosaic conceptual dualities. Anyone
able to deduce this far through my writing is probably quite clear on
a somewhat general concept of a species’ evolution, specifically
ours. Regardless of belief in certain creeds or doctrines, if a
Priest were to think about Evolutionary processes he could probably
conceive of Humanity existing hundreds of thousands of years ago. He
could then presume a clear understanding of Mankind’s substantial
primary encounters with Music and the Arts and more specifically the
changes that sheepishly worked their way into the line of all the
other necessary actions needed to be taken to survive. Music and the
Arts came after the Acceptance of the Instinct, logically. Then after
realizing that Instinct will ensure a family their meat and water
came a short burst of terribly non-liberating free-time. These
people, living in Rhythm with their instinctual drives and their slow
consideration of their predisposition for intellectual thought (that
Urge) in the future, allowed for one or many persons to measure that
Rhythm and shape that Rhythm into something coherent enough to learn
from. Rhythm then is responsible for the creation of Language, even
outside of Language being a necessity for intellectual growth (which
is inarguable, even incomprehensible and indefinable languages still
bridge the gap between needing to communicate with others and the
actual methods and practices). Any Communications student will tell
you one of the first things they learn in their studies is the
importance and fundamental stability created in a human being in
relation to his Body, and the language it emits. Before the first
coherent spoken word that had the proper symbols and systems in place
to advance it as cultural, Rhythm was the language and therefore the
culture manifested itself from the rhythmic desire to have a
multidimensional use for the tongue. The beating of the chest and
shouting from the vocal depths created shapes of Rhythmic intention.
Think of what this actually means, post-deduction and pre-acceptance
as fact. Rhythm </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>is</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
language, and by the very nature of its existence is the only
language with a rule system that encompasses the Universally Cultured
model of the Universe-Culture. The Rhythmic Energy that composes the
Universe by nature gave permission to a subset of primates to cross
the threshold into true communication, and this entire process was a
completely unique Cultural Creation. Again, this implies the
exclusive need for Modern Man to have Rhythm and Culture, to have
Energy and Universe. Language comes first creating culture, (every
single time in evolutionary logic) and Rhythm is the power source.
I’m sure you’ve noticed my failure to mention Music specifically
so far… perhaps you wouldn’t have had I said anything, because
the synonymous nature that Rhythm and Music agree by practically
disguises the necessity for Music, as it‘s understood miracle
by-product of Energy and Rhythm. Here’s my contention; Music is the
Deity, Tyrant, Office Manager and Night Shift Janitor. Music is a
post-linguistic by-product of Rhythmical Engineering tendencies.
Music attempts to define Culture and the Universe. Music defines
neither truly because it attaches like a prosthetic that Nature built
adaptations for, into this Cultural Universal identity of the most
dominantly evolving Intellectual species in evolutionary history, not
excluding the Dinosaurs. They were large enough, instinctual enough,
and definitely peaceful enough with each other being the clearly
dominant species. But the Present Time explains only one thing, a
completely different notion. They weren’t large enough, instinctual
enough or quite smart enough to sustain. Did Dinosaurs have Music?
Even relative to their inconceivable notion of what Music is or
isn’t, could they have had Music outside of Nature’s Rhythmic
Energy? Possibly they could have, but I’m leaning on the side of
not a chance in hell. The onset of language in Man sent entire
populations of people into uproars of musical fury and frenzy. And
after that initial Urge to create was fulfilled, Language was created
and gave rise to Music. Music has become the only Universal language
that everyone on this planet, even those who live with no concept of
what it’s like to hear it, still understand what Music is, what it
means and what it’s </span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>for</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">.
</span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"> Music
is the sole operator that separates the aesthetic cultural dynamic
completely from the central synapse of the Energy/Rhythm
complexities. Rhythm made Music a Language and therefore has created
upon itself, in its own image; a Language of Music. Sounds a lot like
God creating Man in his Image and Likeness. This is where I draw the
line. I feel as though Philosophical thought is a necessary
singular-duality in Human intellectualism. The only Philosophical
line of thinking that fits into any model of Culture and Universe is
this theory of Linguisto-rhythmic shifts in force and intensity… or
Music, Creating Culture, Creating Universe, and using its own medium…
</span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><i>Music</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">….
to question and reinterpret both ideas in completely separate
conceptual realities and paradigms, therefore instinctually Creating
to fulfill that Urge for the means to do a single thing; not die.
Music strives to prevent its own destruction at the hands of itself.
Music strives to sustain, unlike Rhythm’s natural survival
encoding, but more like the fossil records after a civilization is
toppled, with the first explorers venturing across the newly created
wasteland discovering boxes and vaults inches under the earth, and
the months and years it takes for those small groups of people to pry
open that impenetrable barrier of the past’s future gift for the
Present, and those people emerge from the daily grind of which could
have yielded any number of mysteries, with a new addition to their
Culture. The difference is, Music is never forgotten, never buried,
and even if intellectual thought dissipates from the planet for
another billion years… the Rhythmic Energy of the Universe will be
there Coaxing the Gods of the Music and Arts into reality, to mend
and to invigorate; just as the Earth’s biosphere summons it’s
denizens to uproot and topple foreign structures not kept clear by
their keepers. </span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "malgun gothic" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">To
never be continued…</span></span></div>
Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-69646010581702824882015-10-12T19:32:00.001-07:002015-12-15T20:13:53.285-08:00Organizing Complexity; Aphorisms on Ultimate Reality<div dir="ltr">
Our world is one of distractions. Interestingly, distractions are both necessary and restrictive. The human mind is a very powerful entity; it processes information at extraordinary speeds; it both directs behavior and stores information while simultaneously accessing that information to encourage the direction of behavior. It is a miracle in itself to suggest with confidence that we have collectively managed to construct a series of social organizations that influence behavior and provide information</div>
<div dir="ltr">
Complex systems seem to require feedback loops of information processing and information utilization. In fact, it is less a requirement than it is simply the nature of the systems at work. An entity behaves due to the information it receives. Thus, information in itself operates on several layers of primacy. There isn't ultimate primacy as much as there is a system at work that engages all layers in tandem. However, an ultimate system must exist in what Kant called the noumenal realm; or the space in which all entities within a system only access at the most fundamental levels. The primary laws that dictate what is allowed in a system are determined by whatever the parameters are. Certain parameters are not amenable; that is to say, because the largest majority (indeed, all things) seem to operate within certain unavoidable parameters, whatever exists in the noumenal realm must define the parameters. However, human understanding is also limited by a set of parameters. There is thus an outstanding and unavoidable paradox. We are reliant upon a certain Logic; that Logic constructs a Iimit for itself to operate. Within that limit, one might argue that such a limit is simply a product of the limits of the system that engages that logic. If a concept like evolution can thus emerge from a limited logical system, there must exist a system beyond the scope of the logic-understander that at the very least encourages the probable nature of potentiality. In this crevice we might encounter notions of God. However, it is not necessary to reduce that which we do not understand to a limited idea. Doing so might lead to <u>an</u> unnecessary limiting factor. The last thing a complex information system wants is a condition that limits it's ability to utilize information beyond what it requires to operate in a normal state. Indeed, novelty undermines the notion of any limiting feature, because any entity that defines it's own parameters must give way to a set of instructions that can up root it's former construction. This is evolution. Evolution does not destroy God. In reality it enables it as an open ended necessary condition. That is, it is a mistake to constrict God to a subset of rule systems that it's already limited creations define for it. A system does not operate if it's agents dictate it's rules, and it also does not operate if it's rule systems are not malleable in the face of novelty. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
Systems require agents at work. Work, it turns out is the inherent product of opposing and complimentary forces. Common parlance understands work in sociocultural environments </div>
Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-36326350083385277922015-10-11T16:07:00.002-07:002015-10-11T16:07:43.274-07:00The ISIS InitiativeRussian determination in Syria leaves us with a serious opportunity for self reflection. It is impossible to ignore what is once again becoming a clear indictment of American foreign policy; as a power intent on policing international law, it is alarmingly clear that the United States is the power exacting any real violation of the law. America has been largely irresponsible in the middle east in this regard, for it places it's own interests ahead of any established rules of international engagement. The question of whether any power is justified invading the sovereignty of another nation without sufficient cause is again on the forefront of debate. Russia is correct in this instance; it has been law abiding and very vocal against the contrary. Putin has responded to Assad's request for assistance. The United States has been complicit in bolstering the very elements that it currently finds itself opposed in the region. Interestingly, Washington remains silent about this fact and only emphasizes it's intent to intervene so as to encourage the ouster of Assad. This should remind us of the errors America committed in Iraq. This should also remind us that those infractions were largely catalysts for what is now a greater threat than Hussein was to begin with. Perhaps a larger question ought to be considered: is the international community prepared to get behind a Russian initiative against ISIS regardless of any hidden agenda Putin and his government might also be advancing? The propaganda machine so visible in the west cannot continue ignoring this question with impunity. Evidence continues to mount that whatever strategy the United States is undertaking has either failed, or what the United States has told us simply isn't what it actually wants. If the goal is to beat back the ISIS advance, it isn't clear that opposing Assad does anything other than impede that agenda. Assad is faced with an impossible threat; an already faltering regime encroached upon by a multitude of factions, some supported by the west, others seemingly isolated from any coalition beyond what the ISIS leaders dictate. It is also unclear if western intelligence has a real beat on the organization of ISIS, what other subversive interests it might have and how far it is willing to extend its influence.Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-75853568301304051672014-12-19T14:05:00.001-08:002014-12-19T14:13:35.476-08:00That's Just a Mental Health IssueSo many times this year we have encountered situations that have caused us to invoke the causal claim that, instead of pointing to something external from the source, or outside of the perpetrator's consciousness, we just say (to cover ourselves) "it's a mental health issue," and thus it must be ridiculous to suggest any contrary causal claim. Individual consciousness is a fragile thing; it doesn't take very much at all to cause upheaval in what is intended to be a "normal" development pattern.<br />
<br />
If a college outcast lashes out against a house full of party goers, because, maybe he resents the pleasure and fun that those more socially accepted, popular kids are having, instead of pointing to the social caste system that inherently develops throughout the teenage years into early adulthood (for example), we just say... "well, it's a mental health issue." It is an interesting paradigm, one in which we are expected to understand the behavior of individuals based on a normative mental health condition. Are we even equipped to understand what a concept like mental health means? We live in a world where arbitrary norms are created based on qualities that society deems acceptable at the time. At some other time in history that normative claim was probably fundamentally different. Think women's rights and civil rights in general.<br />
<br />
Are societal norms objective or normative claims, or are they arbitrary based on the current but ever changing zeitgeist? If social norms are arbitrarily created based on perceived value, then we are, without consideration, excluding large swathes of people from this "club" because they don't perceive societal norms in the same way. Then we are shocked when something extreme happens. We are so shocked that instead of trying to understand what might have caused the "issue" we marginalize the perpetrator and reduce the problem to "mental health."<br />
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When are we going to stop and ask the hard question... WHAT IS MENTAL HEALTH? What does it mean to be mentally healthy? Once we ask that question, we are going to have to confront some of the fundamental societal claims that just might turn out to be fundamentally problematic. We expect people to adhere to norms, then we turn around and exclude them from the very systems that exude those rules as norms in the first place. Undoubtedly, we can learn a great deal about what is wrong with society when we first examine the marginalized and undervalued. Some are there because of true mental health problems, indeed. Brain chemistry is a complex paradigm. But brain chemistry isn't a paradigm that exists in a vacuum. We aren't all, in an absolute sense, responsible for our brain's chemical and neuronal development. <br />
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Mass shootings, for instance, are horrific events that consume public consciousness when public consciousness is made aware of them. Many times, the causes are reduced to "mental health." Maladjusted people lash out against society because they weren't nurtured or prepared for societal interaction. But what does it mean to be prepared for social interaction? If there is even one discontinuous thread in a person's consciousness that causes them to resent society for ANY reason, it doesn't seem farfetched that even that one thread could cause an extreme reaction when there is so much inequity and materialistic shortsightedness to react to. We live in a society where the mainstream media forces down our throats what people ought to be doing with their lives, what they ought to look like, and what they ought to believe. Millions of people spend their entire lives unhappy because they are forced to try to live up to the exceptionalism portrayed by money mongers and media groups. Public consciousness is saturated by a capitalistic media culture that deliberately marginalizes large groups of people based on perceived normative value claims. Interestingly, we are then shocked when someone who doesn't fit the criteria for exceptional humanness lashes out against society because they never saw an outcome that would yield them that kind of acceptance. If all it takes is one thread of discontinuous development to cause an extreme reaction, then why is it a surprise when someone goes off the rails and unleashes hell on some socially accepted venue? <br />
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We are so quick to invoke "mental health" as the issue without defining what mental health consists of in the first place. For example, we live in a society where marriage is considered a social norm. As a result, everyone makes it their dream of young adulthood to find a partner to marry. Indeed, there are many financial and social benefits to marriage. But isn't there something awry, when marriages by a large percentage end up dysfunctional, and end up as a result in divorce? It doesn't take much time to examine the "mental health" literature to come to the conclusion that broken homes and split parentage is large cause of psychological dysfunction in children and young adults. This is just one primary example of what might cause a discontinuity in mental health, and yet, this is a social norm that we, as a whole, stress as a good thing; indeed, an admirable thing.<br />
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What of poverty? Societal inequality is a huge issue today, because it is becoming increasingly clear that a society driven by capitalistic incentives creates unreasonable demands on such a competitive society. As a result, there are large swathes of people that are left out of this incentive structure and are forced into potentially detrimental psychological territory. Again, if all it takes is one traumatic event for a psychological complex to react unfavorably to the society, then indeed, the marginalized and disgruntled are certainly prime for such extreme reactions.<br />
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I don't want to get caught in the trap of reductionism. It's very easy to reduce causal claims to outliers and extremes. Mental health is much too complex and dynamic than that as an issue. There are, indeed, cases where individuals grow up in what appear to be perfect developmental conditions, but end up on the wrong side of the normative value divide. What explains these cases? If a single trauma can cause upheaval in mental development, then it isn't enough to reduce all extreme issues to mental health, without pointing to the problem of mental health and specifically attempting to understand the cause.<br />
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The brain is so much more complex than our ideological biases can ever imagine. If one thinks society should be a certain way at the expense of certain people, it might be time to examine more closely what one calls "normal." And if one cannot agree on what normal is, then the onus is on all of us to think more closely and clearly before we start invoking the causal claim for ANYTHING as "mental health."Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-90612284095229434012014-09-24T10:04:00.000-07:002014-09-24T10:04:01.409-07:00Stuck in the Loop: Pragmatic IdealismWhen I was a young child, my perspective on life was very limited. Like most of us, I was focused on the things that made me happy. Because I was fortunate enough to have been planted in the socioeconomic dynamic that I was, I was able to exist in both a pragmatic and an idealistic paradigm. In some cases, a child is able to do what is necessary, and that necessity is the achievement of a kind of blind happiness. Adulthood turns this paradigm into a negative feedback loop for people like myself. Necessity as dictated by society does not make me happy, and yet, I am forced to engage in the loop in order to achieve some sort of happiness.<br />
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I continue to find it unacceptable that just because society deems it so, I must engage in what I consider ridiculous "work," primarily because that which I consider "work" is distinct in a very important way from the orthodoxy. Much like my youthful self, I am eager to merge the two paradigms, for happiness would just then be around the corner. When happiness becomes the necessity by virtue of achieving both goals, that is the both the ideal and the pragmatic working in tandem. I am not content to be a man of specific talent... a robotic self serving some external agenda by becoming locked into a mechanistic function. My utmost desire is to engage in what Emerson called <i>Man Thinking</i>, where the dictates of my actions serve and are served by the rigor of both my intellect and my activities as a human being in society. Society does not desire this sort of thing; indeed, this antiquated vocation has been forced into the abyss of academia; back into the underground corridors beneath the ivory towers; where above, those who desired something similar as myself find themselves shuffling about in the same mechanistic fashion as everyone else in the capitalistic drudgery. Yet, I find myself leaning in that direction, in spite of the hypocrisy afoot, because there is nothing else in the society that rewards one with the necessary dollar for something akin to <i>Man Thinking</i>. Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-55862873697314397212014-06-12T06:46:00.001-07:002014-09-30T19:34:01.883-07:00Conversations with MV<br />
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Is our system a system that expedites true specialization; or do we need a system that facilitates flexibility in thinking and knowledge, due to the pace of change in society?<o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s a question of the importance of specialization/non-specialization. The current paradigm is specialization driven. Is our system one of increasing specialization? Or, and this is what I’m thinking, it’s a way to help facilitate that flexibility in thinking while still orienting students toward what they have aptitude for/what the society “needs” at the time.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Indeed, I don’t think moving away from specialization in education is counter to our “idea.” I think it might actually be the crux of our idea.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My problem with this is simple: isn't it the case that precisely because the work force is changing, specialized degrees are ultimately counter-productive; wouldn't it be beneficial for the education system to facilitate developmental foundations and increasing understanding of personal aptitude, rather than in every field offer specialized degrees? Of course were going to need specialists in medicine for example, perhaps… but my job does NOT need a specialized degree. Your job doesn't necessarily need a specialized degree, but the overall ability to manipulate abstractions and understand patterns that operate within a certain legal framework. That doesn't require a specialized degree, necessarily. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I don’t know… this all depends upon one’s view of the current system. I definitely think that it doesn't prepare people for the job market, because there is no incentive structure built into the education system from day one; rather, when people are interested in something that doesn't necessarily “pay,” they are discouraged and sent off to do something they would rather not do. I think the system should be oriented to help children and learners be helped along their path of aptitude to give them better understanding of their options when they are forced to choose a specialized path.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But we need to define what we mean by specialized. Because an education path that caters to something very specific, as you said, could become futile with a chance technological innovation. Perhaps the primary MAJORS in our system should be the general foundational majors, and the specializations should be addendums that utilize the virtues of the general majors.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I think the system requires reform. It’s a potential paradox: specialization is a difficult problem. I’m torn on how I feel about this. In one respect, the system is effective in sculpting people into agents with specific functions; though I’m not so sure increased specialization is the answer. However, there seems to be some intuitive problem with the way the system gives people too much freedom to choose degree programs and specializations that the society either does not want or does not need. <o:p></o:p></div>
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How do we balance? On the one extreme, we force people into specializations. On the other, people are given complete freedom. (There are many questions here, obviously). We fall in the middle, recognizing that specialization is necessary, but we are arguing for a more efficient way to train people into fitting into specializations that the market might be pulling them towards.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I still agree with our system’s structural principle. There needs to be a better way of creating an informed, effectively influential populace. The system should work to improve itself, not degrade under the weight of the burden of too much freedom. It’s an odd paradox: complete freedom is too extreme. Our early childhood education should be a process to facilitate aptitude, to lead learners through a process toward specialization that they can be passionate about. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Yeah… after reflection, it’s a drastically more difficult problem than I imagined initially. But I still think it is worth exploring this idea; of reforming the education system to allow for more wherewithal for the kids. More awareness of their own strengths not thrust into a world of almost randomness. </div>
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<b>MV: </b><o:p></o:p></div>
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I think our system increases specialization in some capacity. The issue I've been debating in my head today is how well our system would work with a changing work force. Our system is designed around the idea of getting rid of generic degrees. So instead of being an English major, you major in some major field (legal document writing) and then minor in English. What happens if legal document writing becomes automated then? The specific degree is now completely worthless......while a more ambiguous, generic degree in English would retain value. Perhaps. However, the argument for our system is that once you are an experienced worker - your degree means less and less anyway. So someone with an English degree and 10 years of specialized work experience is essentially pigeon holed anyway. The specificity of the education does amplify this which creates a lack of flexibility in the work force which can create economic problems at a macro level under certain circumstances. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It is an interesting discussion. Specific education would help our current situation because it would help get you into a job. However, specific education would have killed the economic boom of the 90's. So when designing a system, we must consider far more than our current situation. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Well, aptitude and education are separate.....and then they are not. Upon reading your thoughts I immediately thought - well, if we had a reliable means with which to gauge aptitude then why do we need advanced education at all? If you major in something broad, then a business will have to train you to teach you the specifics. What is the point of the degree then? Why not just have the business hire based on aptitude and teach the specifics that it would otherwise have to teach anyway? <o:p></o:p></div>
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It seems to me that the major function of education, in the current system, is to rank people. I can judge a person’s aptitude based on how highly ranked their school is and their GPA. I know a person who majors in finance will have a higher aptitude with numbers than a person who majored in English. The current system allows for that type of thinking, from the perspective of the hiring agent. The hiring agent can also assume a basic understanding of the specific systems in place. I know a finance major will understand a few basic principles that an English major probably won't have knowledge of. So aside from ranking people, a degree provides some very basic value. But it seems like the primary point is the rank people. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Perhaps the question then is, when you say that our current system doesn't prepare someone for the job market - how would a less specialized system do any better? It seems to me that the only way to prepare someone for the job market more efficiently is to become MORE specialized......which then runs the risk of being incapable of adaptation to technology. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Also - while our jobs don't need degrees.....someone with a finance degree would be significantly more likely to have an aptitude for my job than someone with a different degree. There are exceptions, but hiring is based on probability. The problem with higher education is that there are degrees where aptitude is unclear and probabilities are impossible so these majors are often ignored. An English major might have aptitude in what? Organization of ideas? Creativity? Operating within a defined rule set (grammar)? Reading comprehension? It is too vague of a concept. Finance is more concrete so it is easier for hiring agents to understand it. The problem still remains, to help an English major and a hiring agent find some kind of link where they understand each other - you have to make the degree less vague and therefore more specialized. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The basic link is that hiring agents want a specific skill set (or aptitude in a specific area) so they are looking for education that speaks to that specific skill set (or aptitude). The specificity of employment demand seems to warrant MORE specific education. <o:p></o:p></div>
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To create less specific education would create a more adaptable work force; however it would make the problem of hiring even more of a problem. A balance must be struck between the two ideas. You need a work force with specific knowledge but also flexible enough to survive innovation. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I still argue that solving the problems of today would require more specialization.......however I also think this would cause problems in the future. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So I am less convinced today that our idea is a good one. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Well maybe not. Our system would guide people of a certain aptitude into a customized education that fits their skill set (intellectual strengths). This would make the assumptions that employers already make increasingly accurate. <o:p></o:p></div>
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At the back end (the college level), the idea would be to get rid of majors that have no employable value. However, building that curriculum into majors that have employable value. For instance, business school does this already. You go into a business school because you think you like business admin - you end up specializing in marketing, finance, accounting, strategy etc. The degree is both broad and focused at the same time. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I guess social science majors would have to get pulled into the appropriate degree (teaching, econ and perhaps a handful of others) and then what we know now as English, Philosophy, history etc. will be more meaningful minors. So you will end up with a specialized degree because the minor will have meaning, but the degree will remain broad because of the major. So someone with a degree in Econ with a minor in history will have a broad understanding of econ with a solid basis in history. This isn't really any different than today's system, however we are basically guiding students better and getting rid of degrees with no employable value. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Perhaps the weakness in today's high school system is that someone with an aptitude for social science does not have access to more employable subject matter. There are really no econ classes in high school so a student might fall into an English major simply because they haven't had the exposure to econ or another subject that the same aptitude levels would apply towards. <o:p></o:p></div>
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However, by limiting the choices of college degrees......we are forcing some level of specialization; however it isn't so specialized that it is restrictive. We know that econ will be a meaningful degree as long as humans engage in exchange of goods (the foreseeable future). English is a broader degree, but it is too broad. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I don’t know, maybe the current system isn't so bad as long as we simply got rid of the degrees that have no employable value and improved the k-12 experience. <o:p></o:p></div>
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2/5:</div>
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<b>TH:</b></div>
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Such an interesting discussion yesterday.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have many thoughts, though hashing them out in any structured way will be difficult. First of all; why are we intent on reforming the education system in the first place? Does it not work as it is? I don’t think it works as it could work. Further, what evidence is there that suggests the current system doesn’t work as well as it could? Is the evidence based on assumptions we are making about society at large? I think that is probably a large part of it. However, our views on the way society functions are probably fairly different, though they converge on many points. My problem right now is that I can’t stop my brain from zooming <i>way </i>out and looking “down” over the system; the problem area(s) start with education; but why? Because it <i>seems</i> there are way too many futile, unproductive people in the world. Part of that is because of the <i>system</i>. The system gives people the freedom to pursue their own ends. If their ends do not conform to the goals of the system, their ends are often out of reach; the primary example of this problem is what you’ve focused on already: <i>degrees</i>. Fruitless degrees yield no fruit; not because in and of themselves they are fruitless, but because the system is oriented in such a way as to not reward people for the skills they obtain from those degrees. This is a systemic problem; the problem thus, for me, is simply this: the system is a material condition of great complexity that is determined by what it desires… production and sustainability. Whatever the results of those desires are (greater efficiency in manufacturing, better technology, better service industry, etc etc); people pursue degrees to fit into a structure that ideally facilitates some goal within that paradigm. If that is the <i>only</i> paradigm, then the education system must be restructured to facilitate that goal.<o:p></o:p></div>
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However, perhaps society needs reformation on a very general level. Perhaps productivity and sustainability are going through a paradigm shift; with increases in technology (as we’ve mentioned), many jobs are no longer in existence. The demand for specialization will maintain itself, but the specialization needs to be more “broad” in scope; that is, people need to be prepared to work many types of jobs over time, and perhaps no longer think in terms of long term, single job lives. Degree programs should specialize in creating a broad skillset that focuses on certain disciplines. Our major/minor distinction is important here; if, for example, an individual emerges from our new education system with a focus in finance and economics; his skills should also have developed in such a way as to orient him toward policy implementation and political ethics/morality. Education shouldn’t mold someone into a niche, because society is necessarily a <i>changing</i> entity; in virtue of its complexity, and the drastic increase in technology advancement, our understanding of the world is shifting. People should be trained to be flexible, to be able to work many kinds of jobs.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’ve run out of time, but yeah… <o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p>MV:</o:p></div>
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Well, one thought I suppose is that the education system is
not the issue. People are the issue so therefore to fix the
"problem", which will need to become a defined term, we will need to
somehow provide means with which to fix people. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I think I've used this line of thinking before - but
economics majors and business majors are a great example. There are
econ/biz majors that land in those fields simply "because", and those
people typically land in low paying, meaningless jobs. Then there are
econ/biz majors that have a true passion for the field and they end up with
more meaningful and better paying work. There are multiple layers to this
of course. People with "passion" could simply be harder workers
or less lazy or more intelligent or from the right background with the right
parents and the list goes on and on. That is the complexity to
this. How do you disect that onion and determine what factors are the
difference between the person with "passion" and the person
without? And then how do you manipulate those factors to increase the
pool of people who have a "passion"? <o:p></o:p></div>
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A seperate issue is the issue of people having a passion for
education that has no employable value. You are the prime example of
that. Philosophy has no employable value when compared to other majors,
however you are gifted with it and have a passion for it. So how did the
system fail here? Is it a failure that a philosophy degree exists?
Perhaps there is a failure of expectations. People who major in degrees
such as this should be warned quite severely that the employability of the
degree is essentially zero. The degree can exist for people who have the
time and money to pursue it, not for people who are primarily focused on
education as a means into the work force. <o:p></o:p></div>
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However, I'm willing to bet that another failure is present
in the system in regards to these types of degrees. I'm thinking that
many individuals who end up in these degrees are people who end up
"lost" in the system. You gravitate towards something that you
find comfortable. English. History. Philosophy.
Art. These are things that could easily be hobbies for many people and
there is a comfort there. Comfort does not neccesarily mean a level of
aptitude. However, if you are a mediocire highschool student that enjoys
writing then you may just wind up as an english major because that is your
comfort zone. It also does not exclude aptitude. These degrees seem
aptidudely ambigious to me. There are infinite reasons for people to
gravitate towards "comfort" degrees. ADHD, depression, lack of
guidance, lack of exposure to other subjects, lack of understanding of one's
own self, lack of understanding of the job market etc etc etc. Having a
system that addresses these problems is also infinitely challenging. <o:p></o:p></div>
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HOWEVER - it seems to me that
one of the biggest areas of concern is the lack of guidance provided to young
people. This might be a paradigm shift. In the past - the family
was a stronger core unit and it seems to me that it is possible that the
responsability of guidance is shifting from the household to the
"system". I'm biased towards my own life of course. I
received a lot of guidance from my parents/brothers/relatives/friends/friends
parents etc. It is most likely that this social structure I grew up in is
what fostered my mentality towards work and education. I'm driven towards
things because I've been focused on them since a young age and that focus
derived from the environment I grew up in. It seems more and more likely
that this environment must be provided by the "system" because the
family is no longer capable of providing this is many cases. </div>
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Which leads is into more of a
political science and philosophy (with perhaps law and history) discussion of
the role of government and society? I'm not really interested in going
down that path because it seems less practical (by means of being more outside
our level of influence). The point is that I'm becoming less convinced
that the education structure is the root issue. There seems to be more of
a macro-societal inefficiency. The question then is - is the inefficiency
a chronic problem or is it just the result of constant change? Whenever
there is change there will be inefficiency. It is inherent and
acceptable. We went through massive change as a society in the past 20
years and I think society is struggling to evolve. The issue for us then
is what ideas do we have to aid that evolution? What future do we
envision and what type of tactical actions are neccesary to ensure a safe
transition into the future? <o:p></o:p></div>
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TH: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Very
nice.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">All
very good points. It is a truism that the people are the problem – That is
always the case, simply because people make up the society. This is my biggest
focal point in philosophy of society, etc… The <i>system</i> is comprised of
people, and people influence the system. However, we are at a point in history,
if you will, in which the system is so entrenched that it is very difficult for
the <i>people</i>, in the strict sense, to alter its course; rather, it is now
bound up by the influence of larger, more influential entities. These are
obvious points to make; but it is important to acknowledge that the education
system is one of those entrenched institutions that pushes back hard against
change precisely because those “larger entities of influence” have their grips on
it.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Education
as a system is perhaps the wrong way to go about it then, or rather, the wrong
lens through which to examine the problem and offer a solution. Perhaps
education ought to encompass a wide range of learning that, as you mentioned,
pervades the home and the family, and creates conditions for people who didn’t
grow up with rich family influence (rich in the qualitative sense… not money).
However, we encounter the issue of the age old debate; freedom vs
government/institutional intervention. It’s a problem with the kind of
complexity that inherently exists in the system. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">We
grew up in completely different situations. I grew up with no direction
whatsoever. I was allowed to make my own way without the kind of guidance that
facilitated good, preparatory decisions. And I’m dealing with the consequences
of my upbringing every single day. You’re right though; regardless of the
environment, in some sense, aptitude is often able to persevere through
influence; it’s just that the aptitude of an individual can be utilized in ways
that do not facilitate sustainability for the individual and thus, right on
down the generational line. Of course there are ways to break that chain, but
yes, that is most definitely the issue in our society. Families no longer, in a
broad sense, “guide” their children along a certain path, but rather, for many
sociological reasons--parents work more and harder, are more distracted by
media and technology, are also products of the same kinds of families that
didn’t guide their children… etc—and as a result there are generations of
children in the same boat as me, and, perhaps these are too broadly generalized
to be verifiable, but perhaps not as many children like you who grew up with
that rich family influence that guided you to where you are. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">You’re
right, these are very complex philosophical and sociological problems. Indeed,
all social science disciplines are needed to understand these problems. Which
brings me to my next point:</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">If
the problem is inherent in the system, and the system is composed of families
who do not facilitate the kind of developmental setting that helps children
become “agents,” as it were, and as such people find themselves in degree
programs that either don’t satisfy them existentially, and thus create wealth
but not health, or they find themselves in the job market with “unemployable”
degrees, and perhaps do not have the material conditions necessary to
facilitate happiness and wealth; then there is something to be said about these
unemployable degrees that ought to be used to help explore and understand the
conditions through which these problems emerged. In a lot of ways, we encounter
a negative feedback loop – because our system demands the kind of degrees that
in a lot of ways, sustain the very problems – more work to obtain more
specialized degrees, more hours on the job, less family time--- etc etc. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Yeah…
I wish I had more time to sustain my trains of thought, but I’m constantly
interrupted due to my unfulfilling job that I have only to make money that my
unemployable degree landed me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">MV: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Look
at you defending your unemployable degree haha. Well played sir. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I
think the family vs society thing is the real issue. Arielle has an
associates degree and finds herself in a very "employable" state of
being. She also had that rich family upbringing that you discussed.
It seems based on this microcasm that the upbringing trumps the degree,
regardless of degree type or field. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It
should also be noted that we are making very broad sweeping generalizations.
A specialized degree does not neccesarily mean more time spent at work and less
family time. I think we may be both putting too much weight on degrees in
general. You spend 4 years in college and 40+ years working. The
degree leads to a job and acts as a first step down a path, however there are
countless other steps in a human life. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Specifically
- I'm thinking about the problem you brought up. The system demands
degrees that do not focus on adjustments to the system. However - it
seems to me that a 4 year degree could not possibly prepare someone to make
adjustments to the system. It is more likely that someone would have to
spend 20 years studying the system to really understand it. These types
of people would likely have advanced degrees + advanced work experience. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So
my new question - when weighing the grand scale of a human's life - how
important is the degree choice? <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">TH:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Good
questions.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Interesting.
This goes back to how our discussion began in College Park. The assumptions we
make based on value determine whether or not something has any inherent “worth”
to society. Quite literally too; if the market devalues something, it’s because
the “agents” that act within the market determine that valuation assumption. So
weighting degree choices on a subjective spectrum influenced by sociocultural/sociopolitical/market-driven
assumptions is difficult to do beyond merely pointing what dominates the
professional milieu.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
grand scale of a human life includes how one is oriented professionally,
personally, etc and their attitude/feeling in regards to that orientation. A
degree, in our society, either situates someone effectively toward pursuing
some goal (namely, income which allows for the pursuit of basic needs), or does
not situate them effectively at all toward those goals. The way the system
exists now, it seems obvious. But I guess it depends on your view of our
society, politically/culturally. Is it successful? Is the economic crisis
evidence that it is not successful/efficient? </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">All
these factors and more play into it. So a reformation of the education system
might be a process worth considering depending on where you fall intellectually
in this labyrinth of conditionals. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Yeah.
So we may not have anything to contribute at all; regardless, thinking about
social well being and political efficacy and cultural success through the lens
of education reform is interesting.</span><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">MV:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think this discussion is more interesting from the lens of
"how did we get to where we are now?". And it seems, efficient
or not, the system makes sense based on the questions we are asking. It
makes sense in the sense that it seems to have followed a logical evolutionary
path, not in the sense that it is the best system one could imagine.
There is this constant balancing act between financial motivation and
intellectual motivation. Between specialization and generalization.
Between the demand for jobs and the demand for quality of life. The
balancing act, when looked at through the lens of education, is seen fairly
clearly which is why I agree that it is an interesting lens. Seeing
something clearly doesn't make it any less complex of course, but it does seem
helpful in understanding the system. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think education is somewhere in the middle of the
"process" of a human life, which is why it provides a nice 360 degree
view. Your childhood environment will, to a certain degree, dictate what
field you choose to study in. All the numerous factors, your parents
occupation, your friends, your lifestyle, your income bracket.....those will
dictate your interests. Of course - at the macro level, there are always
exceptions. So your environment --> education --> career.
Education being in the middle gives a solid understanding of the push/pull
between all other facets of life. The system essentially enables/inhibits
the flow of one human through this process. In theory, the best system
would ensure the best environment, allowing one to have the most effecient
education and go on to have the most meaningful career (based on self
actualized value, not money). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The difficulty lies in how vast the system is. Having
a bad relationship can throw off this process. Should the system account
for that somehow? Having a child, having a car accident, having a death in
the family, moving, etc etc. There are so many variables. It can be
reasonably said that it is impossible for a system to account for all of
them.......so therefore the system must decide which variables it should/can
control and which it should/can ignore. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This brings us back to the role of government, simply
because in our current situation it seems likely that government is the only
agent powerful enough to effect the system. Of course, the government
agent is an agent made up of many agents. To become one of those agents
you must go through the system, which seems to bias certain environments,
educations and careers into the path towards agency. Therefore, our
agents (assuming they act morally), are making decisions based on their own biased,
limited knowledge of the system which is likely to have a complete lack of
diversity in thought and background. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So the original idea, at the macro level, was to find a kink
in the system that would throw society out of this negative feedback
loop. Changing the environment is unlikely, because it requires agents to
choose to do so and the negative feedback loop blocks this. This CAN be
done at a micro level by motivated individuals and groups, but would likely be
more grassroots than systemic. Education could do this, however we run
into the problem of the balancing act (paragraph 1). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Perhaps, instead of having specialized education accross the
board......we have a focused plan for civil service. We identify
individuals who have certain aptitude towards the skill set required in policy
making and allow them an option that provides a clear path into
government. Ideally, we create a government agent that is representative
of the population as a whole. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br /></div>
</span></div>
Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-50753941808825184862014-06-12T06:39:00.001-07:002014-09-30T19:35:02.731-07:00No-Place Like UtopiaThis is a world of microcosmic obscurity and macrocosmic uncertainty. On the one hand, we can analyze the specific workings of a minor institution, determine why it is necessary, what it's purpose is supposed to be, how it functions, and whether or not it fulfills that purpose. On the other, we can examine the grandiose, and see patterns supposedly emerge from overwhelming data sets quantized by super computers and monitors. <br />
In both cases, we are bewildered to find that numbers at the same time do not lie, and lack the virtue of true prescience. Yet, we proceed to make bold assumptions concerning very liberty-sensitive subjects. How can we do this confidently? Are we so bold? <br />
<br />
A utopia would require, first of all, a technological infrastructure that comes as close as possible to that prescience virtue mentioned above. Secondly, it would require a means through which to enable positive eugenics without humanitarian atrocities. <u>These</u> two demands are inescapable problems, but at least with respect to the former, we can somewhat safely bring that condition to life as a thought experiment. Regarding the second notion, well, we must be so bold as to posit a system that enables eugenics... It's as simple as that. <br />
<br />
One must keep in mind that Utopia is a word that really means "no-place," and to proceed with the abundant cognition that such no-place can never come to pass as long as it portends to express true utopianism is paramount, so long as the utopian writer desires to "try out" controversial ideas in the societies. <br />
<br />
A concern to be addressed is the fact that utopianism is an ideal set of conditions hinged on ideological constructs. Such constructs are both the necessary enabling conditions and the major factors of conflict in any diversified society. One cannot make the claim that eugenics is necessary without some notion of the "pure" or actual elite person. One must acknowledge the ideological ruse a utopian espouses when his ideas encroach upon human heterogeneity. There are some preferred features the utopian requires in order to trust his agents in his no-place. Those features will necessarily exclude large swaths of people. As a result, the interested reader must be willing to render very real ethical problems into the abstract, see them as problems to be solved in a later iteration of the system and allow the ideas themselves to come together. <br />
<br />
We all exist within boxes, connected to clusters of other boxes that we either voluntarily participate in or involuntarily are associated with simply in virtue of our existence. It is thus impossible to attempt a utopia without attempting to maintain a universe within which those boxes are allowed to persist. We mustn't do away with our ethical sensibilities, but we must be able to do away with certain "beliefs-because-they've-always-been-the-case." Ideology is both dangerous and inevitable, we must account for its influence in such a way that assumes it's effect on agents in the society, and engineer an approach to directing that effectiveness. Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-29444048349951510142014-06-12T06:26:00.006-07:002014-09-30T19:33:02.367-07:00Ideology and Repression: Obstructions to Moral Evolution<h2>
</h2>
<div class="postcontent" style="height: auto; overflow: hidden;">
Reading Foucault, I came across a notion
regarding ideology and repression as "universal skeleton-keys"
(commonly used jargon that describes specifics in meaning regardless of
the nature of the dialectic) which maintain as entities subject for
intellectual reproach; surrounded in negativity. That is to say, one's
Ideologies or Ideological foundations are looked at as antitheses of
"truth" in science, philosophy, etc. Similarly, repressed phenomena
within an individual's psychological makeup are very seldom seen as
things of a positive nature; rather, they are the very things that may
be working incognito to bring about the downfall of the individual. <br />
<br />
However, it seems to me that if one were to view Ideology and
Repression in the same light, under the same lens of analysis, it is
more a natural progression to conclude that perhaps, one is simply the
mask for the other. Whereas Ideology seems to be an overriding "view of
one-in-the-world" from that one's perspective, taking into account all
past experiences, learned and instinctive; it seems also to be, in
perhaps more respects that I can deduce presently, a disguise, or a
mask for the very things one represses (based on those world-views and
nurtured belief systems). Freud's psychoanalytical approach to
psychology sought to unearth, as it were--to excavate those repressed
memories, fears, desires, etc... <br />
<br />
It is interesting to consider, even if the notion ultimately fails to
stand on its own, the idea that perhaps, the things human beings
repress are essential to the characterizations and evolution of what,
in their internal/external world-views, become Ideologies as such. That
is to say, what one presumes to know as truth based on a preconceived
ideological notion, may merely be the inversion, and/or
negative-repression presented in "belief form." Foucault is regarding
the two concepts in relation to their effect on power, and knowledge,
and the force the two as symbiotic entities have over individuals and
the societies they subsequently belong to. If it is the case then, it
is no wonder that, as stated in Foucault’s Truth in Power, “Repression
is a concept used above all in relation to sexuality;” it is indeed no
wonder that notions of civil rights for people of different sexual
orientations are such a problem that still divides the Western world. <br />
<br />
In this light, one’s ideology is revealing itself through the very
fears being repressed. Conservatives and religious people hide behind
their ideologies so they never actually have to make an informed
decision on civil rights for individuals who differ from them; their
ideology becomes the disguise—the mask—of the very thing being
repressed. When I say “disguised,” that isn’t to say that one is casted
away in some metaphysical dimension separated in some spatial/temporal
dimension, or “hidden from view,” but rather a blockade of sorts--an
obstruction that hinders progression in regards to whatever contingent
set of problems that society is attempting to resolve or explain. <br />
<br />
Beyond sexuality though, it seems as though this notion pervades many
problems that societal structures shake and rattle as a result from.
Under what circumstance does one usually come to face the fears that
have so restricted one’s growth, in virtue, in moral goodness? Usually
those things that bring under heavy scrutiny their ideological
foundations; those root beliefs that fix—weigh on the shoulders from
birth—the individual maintains through repressed fears because of the
“comforts” the ideology brings in allowing one to essentially avoid the
very things that cause those fears, or those weaknesses in character
that prevent such growth. The seeker of truth, the philosopher, the
writer, the explorer of the arts, it seems to me, has a more efficient
capacity to reveal these repressions and therefore, as autonomous,
reasonable individuals, bring the light those faulty and potentially
character-weakening ideological super-structures that so prevent
societies from evolving out of bigotry and hatred.<br />
<br />
Capitalism as well, seems to be an entity of the same nature. Rather
than face up to its weaknesses (creating competitive living
environments whereupon the ultimate goal of the individual is to
essentially one-up his neighbor in order to receive more money), it
hides in a sense behind its ideological framework (undoubtedly driven
forth by its constituent actors) creating the grounds for shortsighted,
fear-driven obstructions to the progressive well being of the citizenry
writ large. Governments are afraid to reveal their own repressive
weaknesses and continue to hide behind their own un-evolved
predilections of what is “best.” Perhaps the solution lies in the very
“crises” sweeping the planet. Perhaps the world as we know it is having
its mirror-image reflected back on itself, revealing the very flimsy
and nonsensical repressions that create the ideologies that so usurp
the creative and positive power of the human world.
</div>
Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-18461413715760596402014-06-12T06:26:00.002-07:002014-09-30T19:33:24.437-07:00Thoughts: art, philosophy, language, existence<div class="postcontent" style="height: auto; overflow: hidden;">
When creation takes over; when harmony and rhythm reach a synergy,
fresh reality is born. Philosophical systems are a certain synergistic
phenomenon. They all utilize the same principles of language upon which
established frameworks maintain a semblance of stability. Arts reflect
emotion from agent to super-agent -- the true artist creates the mirror
while looking into it; the true thinker questions what the mirror
reveals. Philosophers of Art use channels of analysis that seem to
penetrate mere subjectivity, but if that were truly the case, the
interpreter of the piece of art is essentially a Philosopher of Art.
There is thus a line that can be distinctly drawn between the two. The
philosopher engages with a work of Art and enjoys it aesthetically, or
not. Given that the piece of work was able to "connect" the viewer to
its impetus, the interpretive engines are ignited; art simply requires
this. Even if one gets complete satisfaction existentially from their
own work, locking it into a fire-proof safe for no one to ever see but
the combination holder; without a modicum, at least, of interpretive
"space," the product becomes a lesser thing. By virtue of its
resistance to outside interpretation, it contains no "meaning" except
what the artist may, or may not have intended to express through the
work itself. Thinking reflexively, the philosophical Mind essentially
creates Art; when he or she finally chooses to "open the safe" as it
were, to stand up to the required scrutiny of the "Other," what once
was a mere "lesser thing" becomes a thing-with-its-own interpretive
space. Perhaps I'm risking the regresses of Platonism slightly, or my
Emersonian "youth" is peaking through, but I'd venture to say that
harmonic synergy, or rhythm: when things just seem to be "perfectly in
order," touch upon an Ideal, pre-rational, a priori; entities of the
metaphysical shine through with aesthetic perfection, or simple
"Goodness" when such synergy is created and sustained. Plato
"participated" in his Ideal as much as he could, drafting Ideals in
concentric circles around one another with a Pureness in the center.
Yet, the "center" of a circle is also the "center" of a square, or a
number, or a mountain, or a scale, or a solar system, or a universe, or
a mind... What are these things we create then? Are they existential
"eruptions," manifestations representing the subjective, representing
for the interpreter? <i>Mere</i> ideas and music, visually descriptive
paradigms, cinematic, illustrative phenomena, from a center, to a
center...? Might not they just be centers, or sources... cruxes? Are we
all the same then regardless of our character differences, our
sensibilities, our temperaments? Is there "truth" in a "name?" <br />
<br />
<br />
The greatest thing about being human is having the ability to be human. </div>
<div class="postcontent" style="height: auto; overflow: hidden;">
</div>
<div class="postcontent" style="height: auto; overflow: hidden;">
November 11, 2009
</div>
Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-56834605080438431772014-06-12T06:25:00.002-07:002014-09-30T19:35:17.775-07:00Meditations and pleadingsSpectral, deserved, driven by the mind killer, reverberating
fleetingly; enlivened by exceedingly desperate exactitude; grossly
misinformed and vastly uncontainable, this. I grow weary. And yet the
only impetus approaching all horizons resounds, "press on, carry forth."<br /><br />I'm
here because hope is thriving, but here is not, paradoxically, where
this hope is aroused. (The beginning and end of one ripple gives life to
the awareness of an overwhelming connectivity; we may not be destined;
but we are an exemplar for ourselves and our future.)<br /><br />I spend my
time engaged in myriad forms of reflection. The only true energy exerted
from within me is oriented toward the understanding of... my Self. Soul
enrichment; virtue cultivation; character development. Why fear
knowledge? Wisdom? Language? I pray you not to mistake such endeavors as
ego-encompassed thralldom. Virtues coat the underside of all outwardly
ventures. Companionship is a virtue; or friendship of a truer, finer
nature. Love and compassion intertwined between souls is our common
virtue. "The only way to have a friend is to be one." Conrad wrote of
common fate, of the tragic underbelly of our mutual-destiny.<br /><br />The
only path is the path ahead. I seek love now, as well as the future:
"Yet a man may love a paradox, without losing either his wit or his
honesty." I cannot be content with desolate cascading droughts of
insincerity; the elusive agility of simple confidence, in potential
amorousness, flourishing in Dreams only. There is more glistening Beauty
than is contained in a night of gazing into the cosmos; traversing a
township of sorts where all commune for knowledge, every shift of my
awareness brings into view the ever expansive, inwardly motivated,
desire for real growth; new gardens from which Eden did not fear the
sweetness of the fruit, but eagerly pursued its liquid wisdom despite
threats from invisible bullying apparitions. Each shift of awareness
casts away evil for a time. Too many; yet no one.<br /><br />Most are ripped
from their stagnation by Fate's swinging fury; I will not be dragged
along unawares. One must choose. It is no longer acceptable to be led
astray by fleeting passions; we all bottle our own raging temptresses...
our own casks of wailing tempests. Proximity is a ghastly deception;
disillusioned by one claim or another, one portrayal of the Unknowing as
if the fanfares and triumphant victories are merely shades of a grander
monstrosity.<br /><br />"How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot
a spectre through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by
its spectral throat?"<br /><br />Do not fear the intimations that keep you glancing.<br /><br />Each glance chips away, slowly, the layers of my being.<br /><br />I hope to soon be unprotected and free.<br />
<br />
February 7, 2010
Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-81793898306562807892014-06-12T06:24:00.001-07:002014-09-30T19:31:20.358-07:00What Went Wrong?
The universe must be a composition from a Perfect Mind, removed from
the poison and pettiness that limits human innovation; a cosmic second
encompasses and sustains into infinite futures the quality of life
exceeding the collected works of every genius to ever stroke a brush,
pluck a string or deliver oratory. The thinking of one human might
approach such mastery, but any terrestrial approach is rather like the
romantic traveler heading into the horizon, for which there is no
destination, only a confounded, admirable, perpetually stubborn
traversing of distance and time; indeed, therein resides the uniqueness
and Beauty of the humanity we all possess. What went wrong?Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-75330164107833410792014-05-27T08:12:00.004-07:002014-05-27T08:12:55.070-07:00What happens when the rest of the world gets a smart phone with internet access?Imagine this... a global economy that resembles our current one is functioning, faultily in many respects, but the engine is indeed churning away; adding new consumers/investors all the time; the market is indeed sustained by the need to devote most of its energy in attracting consumers to specific products... then, 2 billion new consumers enter the marketplace.<br />
<br />
It isn't quite the same as imagining a local or mid sized retail chain <i>g</i>etting flooded with 1000% increased foot traffic, because a global economy works with current and potential inventory; just the <i>n</i>otion of that many new eyes alone would spawn efforts to increase market presence. Signaling to your product becomes at least more active, and the demand for new products, increases by sheer awareness increases from those newly considered consumers.<br />
<br />
The economic arguments are usually shrouded in pessimissim regarding human nature, and a cynicism about how human beings are going to handle, collectively, such a flux in status quo. I submit that this potential scenario does not lose its luster simply because people <i>might</i> screw it up. I will try my best to argue for a scenario that results itself in lieu of current assessments on human nature (whatever the hell they actually are).<br />
<br />
Think back to when you first discovered the internet. I was probably 8 years old; I would goto my sister's house and play video games on their PC. Old, original DOS games mostly. Then, suddenly, they would, before letting me sit down to play, connect their computer vizaviz AOL to the internet, and allow me access to a search engine and chat rooms. I was instantly enamored. What happens when you give an 8 year old today, access to a fairly up to date interface through which to access the internet. Ancient Android operating systems, with their youth, are stable and functional enough to sustain repeated use and intrigue the curious. <br />
<br />
Again, I think it's convenient and lazy to a certain degree to simply respond with an argument that hinges upon the historical precedent that humans will likely just screw it all up. Either the power elite will snatch and control this opportunity in fear that too many people with access to information is a danger to the state (which is a likely point of concern for those in power, I'm sure), or people just won't be that interested in the technology because they are somehow not smart enough, or enlightened enough, or educated enough. And indeed, a state responding with control manuevers rather than expansion strategies are probably going to do that in order to stop access to unwanted information. All this really can go without saying, in my opinion, for the implications to the contrary (even if not ultimately optimistic) are considerable, even if the outcome turns out to be a negative one on a moral level.<br />
<br />
Think of a society of evil rulers controlling the internet; then think of its contrary... an internet-connected global economy with 6 or 7 billion active participants; I'm confident in the intrigue. Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-51065825744419915482014-04-29T09:36:00.001-07:002014-04-29T09:37:04.453-07:00Mysterious Epistemology and Metaphysics part 1<p dir="ltr">It is probably impossible to convince me of anything. The reason is rather simple. I cannot trust the efficacy of any mechanism that requires itself to understand itself. As a result, I cannot trust, truly, anything that the mechanism claims to understand. Yet, this is itself one of many paradoxes one arrives at following this line of logic.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Yet, it may not be a problem at all. In fact, I'm inclined to think that this infinite conundrum could be the very essence of the evolution of any being that uses a mechanism comparable to our own. In light of this, perhaps I should define this mechanism... (indeed, there are already many terms I must attempt to define to try to render anything I've already said, and anything I will henceforth say into any clarity whatsoever). I will try first then to define the said mechanism, commonly referred to as "mind."</p>
<p dir="ltr">The human mind is a mechanism that wields reason as its weapon in the fight between itself and reality. The battle is waged with interpretation (or perception, though these two terms are generally distinct) and is ostensibly the means to reality's end. The "end" of reality is that which one perceives as reality. It isn't hard to see the circularity inherent in this definition; I'm afraid you will have to set aside your qualms with circular thinking in order to attempt a charitable grasp at what I'm trying to articulate. Mind is thus that which contains reason. Any notion of "mind" beyond that is merely suggesting something different than I am in this instance. Of course, we are beholden to the assumptions we make, and such assumptions are merely the interpretations of our mind-using-reason.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Reality is thus the result of the battle between mind and reality. I like the describing it as a battle for, if anything, an entertaining reason; societies are doomed if they do not determine what is considered reality for most in the society, for they would then be forced to concede to any or all interpretations, and would therefore have no basis upon which to establish codes of conduct and rules of law (relativism). There are indeed problems with this formulation, but we must try to do away with certain things in principle, and allow how things operate in practice to be sufficient frameworks within which to operate.(Not all reality is created equal of course. If this is your argument against what I've said so far, I must implore you to allow the argument to unfold). Mind makes reality, reality is codified, societies operate. Take for instance Kant's categorical imperative, which states that one cannot make universal a law that contradicts what the society determines to be "obligation." Do not steal if you cannot say faithfully that stealing should be a universally allowable behavior. Society would at least cease to exist in whatever current iteration it exists in at the time. That interpretation of reality is standard because any other interpretation of that phenomenon jeopardizes social order. What constitutes effective social order, and whether or not Kant's ethical principles are valid is not the point, but points to the notion that it is at least sufficient that people agree, by and large, to a somewhat standard view of reality to maintain social order. As far as Kant is concerned, and the notion of social order, I will tackle these problems later on.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Let us remind ourselves of what has been said so far. Reason cannot be trusted, yet, reason is required for understanding, therefore, we gaze deeply into the manifold of paradoxes. The mind uses reason to attempt to avoid such paradoxes by engaging reality with its interpretation of that reality. The paradoxical nature of such a mechanism emerges because in effect, mind cannot use reason to understand reason, and thus any interpretation of reality is problematic. It is easy, and convenient to brush aside this problem with many a philosophical trick, yet I remain unconvinced. Perhaps I am not intelligent enough to confidently implement any of the major philosophical strategies and derive a compelling solution. Yet, perhaps there is no mind intelligent enough at all to do so.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Above, it is claimed that the paradoxical nature of reason could be the primary engine of the evolution of whatever being that engages with reality as stated previously. To unpack this notion, it is helpful to attempt a definition of "evolution," given its hefty connotative baggage. Firstly, we must assume (every notion is an assumed notion) that beings with comparable mechanisms such as ours at least desire, on some level (primitive or otherwise) their own progress. Progress can be construed as that phenomenon which a reasonably ordered society strives toward in its overall state of affairs. Astute readers might have noticed that as a result of this particular assumption, evolution and progress are related but distinct dynamic phenomena. They differ in one important way; progress is relative to a society's interpretation of its reality; evolution is all-encompassing progress, and may or may not include, or even "agree" with the society's interpretation of its own progress (here we see another iteration of the paradox of reason). With that distinction in mind, we might also want to assume that there is indeed an evolutionary trajectory. Again, it is important to remember that whatever understanding reason comes up with to interpret such an evolutionary trajectory must be held under close scrutiny and suspicion. The conclusion to this line of thinking, while it is what I am striving to achieve currently, still does not convince me ultimately that such truths can be known. Nonetheless, it is clear at least that there is progress in the universe. If that is the case, then perhaps there is indeed an inherent teleological "forwardness" carrying itself out.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I will have to now concede absolutely to the notion that the nature of the universe is unknowable to reason. In light of the above, hopefully the manner in which this concession is made is coherent. Notice, I have until now avoided making any theological claims. I will try to tackle some theological issues moving forward. First, whether or not God is an adequate solution to the epistemological problem of interpreting reality depends on whether or not God exists. This is itself an epistemological problem of interpreting reality, and thus cannot be adequately engaged using reason. Some might then employ the notion of faith in response to this problem, and while the jury is most certainly out on this question, I have no qualms with concluding that it is paradoxical by virtue of its notional existence, in the same way that any concept is reducible to paradox. For example, to say that something exists is to suggest something true about reality. If truth about reality is subject to the interpretation of reason as stated above, then such truth is at best a place holder for potential truth. If such place holders can be allowed to exist, then all interpretations of reality have equal access to placing whatever notion in as a place holder for whatever cannot be explained or understood through reason. This is paradoxical, because the suggestion that all interpretations of reality are valid defies reason, and reason is the cause of any interpretation of reality.</p>
<p dir="ltr">A counter to this line of thinking might attempt to place any of the previous assumptions made above about the nature of reason in the same category as things that exist through faith--in the "place holder" position as something that only <i>might</i> exist, and because one cannot access it through reason, then it must exist in another realm of existence (or some such formulation). But to say that something both is, and is not, is incoherent to reason. Only when we add qualifications to that undefined something are we able to force it out of nonexistence. Thus, we cannot say something exists through "faith" with any more confidence than anything else that might exist through faith <i>or </i>reason. If something "is" because of "faith," then it no longer occupies a space out of reach of reason's interpretive grasp. And yet, this very move is subject to fall into the same trap, for it requires reason, and reason cannot be trusted with matters of understanding reality. Another way to look at it, is to examine more closely the notion of faith. One might have faith in something, which at first glance doesn't seem like quite the same thing as faith about unknowable existence. Faith in something brings that something into existence as a desired interpretation of reality. But, the fact that if I have faith that I am healthy enough to not get cancer, does not render out of existence the possibility that I might get cancer. If that is the case, then an odd thing happens. Faith about the existence of God is just as ineffective; just because it is bringing something from beyond the realm of interpretative existence, does not give it adequate space to exist outside of becoming a mere "place holder" for something that cannot be known. It seems then, that faith is actually a form of reason, for it requires both realities to be true and false in the same instance, and is thus paradoxical.<br></p>
<p dir="ltr">To be continued. <br>
---</p>
<p dir="ltr">Follow me to keep up with this series of writings on epistemology and metaphysics. </p>
<p dir="ltr">@sacrifice_mc<br>
Soundcloud.com/sacrifice <br><br></p>
Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-55864669400494091052014-02-12T05:03:00.000-08:002014-02-12T05:03:02.060-08:00Our Political Turmoil: Ideologically Driven Shutdowns, Furloughs, Concessions to Law... Confusion<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Our Political
Turmoil: Ideologically Driven Shutdowns, Furloughs, Concessions to Law...
Confusion</b></div>
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To say the least, it has been an interesting latter half
of 2013. Blaring from our TV screens, radios and media devices are issues
ranging from the domestic consequences of foreign policy spending, Syria and
the U.S. Middle Eastern footprint, Healthcare, Gun Control and Education to
name a few. And now, a not-so-unprecedented, yet strangely anomalous government
shutdown, causing millions of people to either be subject to furlough or to be
forced to work without pay; and perhaps most importantly, a gridlocked
legislative system caused by political hardliners driven solely by ideological
agendas. It is difficult, if not nearly impossible to parse out this situation
in objective terms, because most opinions (private and public) are influenced
entirely by factional opinion creating and propagating machines: political
parties and their proponents in the mainstream media establishment driven by
fervent political activism. It is increasingly difficult to sort out why
politicians take certain positions, because in large part, they are in a
perpetual political war, where ideological trade offs become valuable political
currency, or territory, to use the war metaphor. </div>
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These issues raise many important, systemic problems.
These problems procedurally condition our political processes, orient and
reorient them closer toward extremism, and determine public opinion. This is
not an uncommon phenomenon in a political economy where the default currency is
public opinion. This indeed, is a problem that most opponents of democracy writ
large have warned about throughout intellectual history. </div>
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How then should a Federal Constitutional Republic
governmental structure work? What are the conditions under which a smooth
policy making process ought to unfold? How much influence should a capitalist
economic system have on policy making? Is it ever a good political strategy to
threaten political/economic stability to push an ideological agenda? </div>
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It comes down to a very simple, ethical, and ultimately
philosophical dilemma. How far should a policy maker go, politically, if he or
she truly believes that a law, or political position could destroy economic and
political stability? Should he push his agenda to a point where such
instability is immediately foreseeable, so as to force an opposing point of
view to fold under the pressure of disaster? If that is a viable strategy, are
we engaged in a healthy political process? It's a matter of perspective: what
is the end-game scenario for any political ideology? </div>
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It's not merely a "big government" vs
"small government" paradigm anymore. With respect to our two main
political parties, the threshold encapsulating that line is becoming
increasingly crowded. In many respects, both parties lean toward the center on
this issue; its not even clear that this is still the crux of the debate. It's
perceived as a trivial point, unfortunately, but the <em><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">purpose </span></em>of a government depends
upon the ideological outlook of each bureaucrat independent of any partisan
agenda. We should be debating along these lines every single day in D.C. Out of
this fundamental debate, key issues will be forced onto the floor. No one
should simply assume that because representative x is a republican, or a
democrat that he automatically treads the basic republican political line.
Parties exist to facilitate political support mechanisms to hoist individuals
into positions of power, where the perception is that they will have some sort
of procedural influence over the ultimate partisan strategy. In reality, it is
never made clear what a politician believes regarding this fundamental
question. </div>
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<![endif]-->Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-85827462185828595332014-02-12T05:02:00.004-08:002014-02-12T05:02:41.765-08:00Religion and the Sociological ParadoxIt is impossible to declare anything definitive about "God," except that it either exists, or does not exist. These two propositions are absolute realities that are, paradoxically, contrivances of the human mind as we understand it. There are many philosophical problems, and linguistic difficulties when attempting to articulate anything regarding ultimate reality and "creation," which renders discussions between believers and non-believers both necessary and meaningless. Faith cancels out reason, and reason cancels out faith. There are no "voids." Yet, semantic renderings of absolute substances like "God" create voids. <br />
<br />
This is the reason religions motivate people to do terrible things to each other, because of the logical and spiritual impasse naturally reasoning minds reach when trying to justify their belief systems to people who have different belief systems. <br />
<br />
The only stance I can possibly take is a spiritually charged, rational skepticism; or if you will, a Socratic, principled discourse of knowing ignorance. The fact that religions inspire people to commit atrocities is a psycho-sociological and anthropological problem of finite beings in constant battle with their own existential angst in the face of death. The logic is clear; death is the antithesis to life; life is the synthesis with which we derive purpose and meaning, thus, when there is a clash between ideologies that quite literally provide the enabling conditions for actualized meaning and purpose, it is no surprise that so much blood is shed as a result. <br />
<br />
As an aside, this argument can be applied aptly to many debates where a "cause" for such things as violence, war, etc. are concerned. People are desperate when the meaning of their existence, or the purpose of their being on the planet in the first place is questioned or threatened. Sociological phenomena such as economic struggles, for instance, or socioeconomic statuses that render upward mobility near impossible, or living conditions that include substantial lack of essential needs; it is not surprising that the most violent places on the planet are those places that turn out to be breeding grounds for desperate extremism. Purpose driven by desperation is possibly even what spawned the need for religions in the first instance.Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-35434465921640468222013-08-23T19:51:00.002-07:002014-02-18T18:59:49.149-08:00the box<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Box. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Within
which all things exist. To emphasize the scope of the idea, one could even
place conceptions of the universe, infinity, absolutes, God (perhaps) inside
The Box. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
pervasive medium through which thought is allowed to explore the totality that
exists within it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">-----</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Is the
universe a dualistic manifold? If entropy is the necessary counteracting
function to that of evolution's necessary promulgation of life, does entropy
exist outside of evolution, or does it cohabit with evolution as a
dependency? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It seems
that repulsion is needed to hold the fabric of existence together, acting as an
incentive creating, motivating force; that which evolution strives against. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If so, as
evolution evolves toward greater complexity, as embodied in what seems to be
it's apex evolutionary achievement (technology, or humanity... Obviously these
things are interdependent as of now), in virtue of evolution's absolute stake
in the proliferation of life, is it possible that entropy could be suspended,
then utilized, harnessed for its own gain? Couldn't it be argued that entropy
is a technology of evolution, a functioning system on the globe of the
universe, like a river, with which its societies tap into discoverable
irrigation and power generating technical systems? What agency the universe
must possess, to extend it's immanence through to its constituent phenomena.
Some will use this line of reasoning to posit God. In this discussion I am
forced to concede to a Conception of God; to find it embodied in a single being
however is manifestly underwhelming as a belief system. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What are
we faced with in this paradigm that motivates us, specifically? It is difficult
to avoid the moral domain, but we must maintain the metaphysical stance for as
long as we can. The moral domain is merely another box. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Yet,
there is this complexity, that in one sense feels intricate and designed, but
in another, chaotic and random. Human reason seems to operate so as to bring
the design, and perhaps the designer to the forefront of consciousness. What is
consciousness but a free filter, with space and time as its axes, shaping
perceived reality into very distinct fabrications that allow for meaning and
propositions. As it slides its perceptual modalities from one axis to another,
the design is altered, and through different patterns arises nuanced
understanding of the universe. Through these intellectual localities we bring
into existence ideas that span the disciplinary spectrum. The Free Filter moves
and the output is thus sociological, or physical, or economic.... But what is
it that describes the operating systems of that spectrum? Metaphysics becomes
that domain of forcing the general into the domain of the specific. These
manifold intuitions become processing tools with which consciousness shapes the
chaos into designs. Meaning is made by extrapolation from the general to the
specific and vice versa. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Nonetheless,
we must contend with the entropic: in this discussion I will expand the meaning
of entropy to mean more than its common physical definition, and for good
reason. First, physics, by its own definitional nature is presupposed as a
fundamental absolute domain. It provides for, in one sense, the grounds upon
which the rest of the universe exists and operates. One could say physics is
the set of algorithms that informs the operating system's behavior. The
platform. Entropy thus, insofar as it counteracts what might as well proceed <i>ad
infinitum</i>, the force of life, as it were, is an expanse of negative forces
against the pervasive thriving for progress. For example, one could perceive
Entropy expanded to include the limitations of reason, the unanswerable
questions of reality, the paradoxes of rationality, the morally depraved,
sociopathic, randomness of destruction, mortality itself. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;">---</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;">If technology is driven, as it
were, by the engine of evolution, that is, evolution could be cited as the
entity that co-opted humanity, using its ability to reason, to implement the
procedures which gave rise to technological development*, mustn't we consider
the unintended consequences, as if evolution is a decider of things, of such a
developmental paradigm; what of the impact of technology on humanity itself...
There are abundant examples of the benefits of this growth, and there are many
detriments... But what of the more insidious effects; what of those resulting
phenomena that portray themselves to perception and society as positive, and in
virtue of that illusion, humanity is driven toward more and more self
deception, facilitating an ever expanding positive-seeming negative feedback
loop;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;">and to feed into the previous
discussion of entropy, perhaps it is merely a necessary application of reason
(reason as evolution's tool, perhaps even primary tool to create "extentionary"
technology) to create illusions and negative feedback loops, so as to ensure
the thriving of the machine. After all, systems detest most those free radical
elements perpetually intent on subverting the system. It would be interesting
to posit the idea that humanity acts at the whim of evolution, that freedom of
the will is merely a necessary function of consciousness, and conscious beings
similar to our iteration act in ways that overall generate for evolution
technologies to expand its reach. One could even venture into the intellectual
frontier, and suggest that perhaps those malicious elements of society are
necessary, perhaps to create a mirroring through which consciousness
collectives can self correct. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;">The brain is an interesting
machine; it operates in seemingly plausible schema in order to ensure that it's
own limitations are not the focus of consciousness. If the brain had perception
visual representations of all of gaps in perception, we'd see more
incomprehensible images than coherent ones. But the brain is constituted in
such a way as to fill in these gaps using patterned assumptions, givens,
tautologies. Interesting that evolution would develop a fault eliminating
technology to allow it's agents to proceed unthwarted toward it's technological
destiny.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;">It is increasingly difficult to
get beneath the driving forces of technology because those forces ride on the
backs of hidden agendas and motivations. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;">But back to the main point; first,
evolution seems to have a purposive drive, insofar as life is its goal... to
establish stability enabling conditions for the propagation of life, so to
continue perpetuating it's goal. Again, we have to make many very substantial assumptions
regarding humanity's role; first, it is a result of evolution, because humanity
is composed of living creatures, and of course humans have evolved to adapt to
their environs using the intellect combined with brute force and the
utilization of tools. It has to be at least tacitly assumed, to some degree,
until further verification is realized, that evolution is making adaptive
technologies of its own, and the resulting phenomena of the intellect are
necessary extensions of that evolutionary creativity. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;">--</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;">What of the
sociopolitical/economic realm? First, it is naive to attempt a real
disentangling of these three tripartite mechanisms, as it were... Culture can
be removed to some extent as a generally held constant aspect which changes as
kind of an outlier. Perhaps. But we mustn't err in thinking of these domains as
independent from one another. The social paradigm is generated by, and at the
same generates the political environment: this dynamic in turn generates an
emergent economic paradigm. None of these elements are static. The multi-fold
aspects of each adjusts to the varied aspects of each and thus the system
operates as a kind of collective machine. The complexity becomes much more
intense when one zooms into each domain to examine the phenomena that occurs on
the level of the agent. There is a top down bottom up interchange that does not
trade influential moves, but constantly influences the agents within the system
while being influenced by those same agents. Hence the necessary interdependence
between what a community buys, for example, and the agenda of the local
political structure to both capitalize and respond to the activities of the
community. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;">To assume that markets operate by
some absolute order, as an entity in and of itself is to deny the necessary
effects of socio-politics on the psychology of communities. Some effects may be
difficult to measure in direct quantitative-qualitative domains of analysis,
but it is naive to disassociate the effects of policy on consumer trends. It seems counter-intuitive to redirect the focus and try to understand markets as a
strictly agent-market relationship. Society has staple productive attractors,
food and entertainment, but even those are intertwined with the power
mechanisms of policy, food and drug dogmas, movies and music derived from pro
and anti nationalistic concerns. Thinkers might be a bit too narrowly oriented
when they suggest of the paradigm that it is merely markets, and the
reactionary pursuit of orienting policy around trends. Again, policy and
politics are driven by agents with as much stake in the social order.
Legislation itself cannot be like what markets are claimed to be, removed from
and objectively gazed to engage society. They are driven by subjects with
agendas; of course to assume this is to assume something fundamental about
human nature, that minds cannot be absolutely objective, unless perhaps they
can escape bias and engage in truly scientific rationalism. It's a tall order
to be truly a scientist about society and the people in it and the people that
govern it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;">So we return to the grand idea,
The Box within which we all exist and all things exist. It is moved and
adjusted by the gaze alone, the gaze of the intellect, and refocuses on
different landmarks of its infinite-like topography. Each landmark brings to
the gaze a specificity that cannot be observed when looking at The Box as a
whole. Indeed, we see what we want to see and make associations accordingly. We
can control our analyses and create ever more refined boxes, and as a result
our gaze discovers connections within that extrapolate naturally to connections
outside of the box currently under examination. The Box is super-dimensional;
within it we can posit infinite dimensions... But infinity itself can paradoxically
fit within its own confined box through which the gaze can focus. It folds, it
expands, it rotates. It is in gravity and in time, but it is also in the mind,
and in concepts gravity and time can mutate, trans-morph.... We cannot allow
ourselves as open minds to be captured by a specific position in The Box, a
specific sub-box... We must entreaty our intellects to explore the confines of
each box under the strict assumption that it connects, in virtue of it being in
The Box, to anything else. Every sub-box is linked necessarily to any other. We
entertain paradox and perfection, discord and harmony. We entangle and
disentangle. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;">This is The
Box. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: white;">---------------</span><br />
<span style="color: white;"><br /></span>
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Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-52008273329556505082013-02-17T20:24:00.000-08:002013-02-27T19:09:24.945-08:00"Wasteland"<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
They used to say people were honest
with each other. I lived amongst them a skeptic. These days though,
I've learned that trust is not merely a construct of the human
relationship, but in large part it is an illusory aspect of human
perception.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
"What good is truth?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
"George; my words are just words."</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
"But truth is a word."</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
"True."</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
That was five months ago; preceding the
question of the value of truth, he asked if what we did here was
worth doing. I thought I spoke to George like I spoke to all my
students. But he was broken. I spent the entire semester trying to
make it clear, and I thought abundantly so, that purpose is the only
truth that exists. That language is inferior in its attempt to define
purpose; that action as intention orients perception; that
consciousness is arrived at vicariously through that which exists in
the realm of the Other.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
George's perspective was different
though. Just months before he came to our class on Nietzsche's
"Twilight of the Idols" with a suitcase, wearing tattered
clothing, as if he'd just escaped the grip of demonic charge. I was
preparing my lecture notes as he approached my lectern. It was odd;
the room seemed desolate of sound. The only thing I noticed before he
confronted me was that silence; indeed... accompanied by the stench
of terror and tragedy. "Professor, my family is dead."</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The page of Nietzsche I was on seemed
to consolidate it's ink into an odd abyss. I could feel my gaze
strengthen on the page. Nietzsche wasn't a philosopher, but a
philologist; he was a geneticist of ideas. I couldn't see concepts in
his pages then. I only saw... rather, I only felt a desolation that I
still find difficult to realize in memory.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I raised my eyes to George. It was
strange, the strength with which he told me that he lost his family.
His <i>family</i>... gone. "George, what happened?"</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
"There was a fire."</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
"A fire..."</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
"Yes."</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
"Are you alright?"</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
This exchange haunts me to this day. I
still teach that class on Nietzsche's book: "How to Philosophize
with a Hammer." Nietzsche would have appreciated the absurdity
in the question I posed to George. Are you alright? I fear that if I
try to put into language the appropriateness of that question, the
absurdity will dissipate. Camus reveled in the absurd; an absurdist's
embrace of the void. And when one asks a... child... if he is
alright, what does one expect to receive back in that exchange?
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Irony: seeing a void, a creator of
desolation come alive. George found truth; the rest of us only beckon
toward it like vagrants. Truth wasn't lost to George. Just his
family.</div>
Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-83619377522528254112012-05-25T19:29:00.004-07:002012-05-26T20:52:59.124-07:00ISTL Season 1<div style="text-align: center;">
<u><b>ISTL Week 10 <strong>$50 Exhibition - "Respect"</strong></b></u> <br />
<br />
The Future is Now! the Daily Times exclaimed.<br />
The latest scientific journal headlined: Life... explained!<br />
The year is unimportant, the calendar's been pulled for analysis,<br />
with GenMod's assertion that mortality's been challenged.<br />
This year is a new year, with its corporate fountain now spouting youth;<br />
Advertisements were precisely contrived to confound the truth.<br />
"We will choose the best candidate to become the first immortal being!<br />
Applicants will have the medical establishment's support completely..."<br />
<br />
Born with a life-limit, she chose to live accordingly.<br />
At four she was awarded due to increased mental absorption speeds.<br />
Memory exemplary:<br />
language skills gave her peers and teachers the strangest feeling,<br />
how a child could speak so forcefully...?<br />
Eventually she sped ahead of her friends and authorities,<br />
clearly an anomaly: but fearing not she wondered exhaustively<br />
about everything from <i>principled morality</i> to <i>government policy</i>.<br />
The times were changing, and she noticed she could play a role.<br />
With the genetic clock ticking in her body she knew she had to take control.<br />
She avoided faith and antiquated methods to save her soul,<br />
and instead dedicated her existence to humanity's greatest goal.<br />
The implications were immense, if she could be the first success,<br />
the immortality ensued would clearly be worth the stress.<br />
She wrote a brief letter to GenMod's president.<br />
Careful not to deify the man with any exaggerated Pretend-God epithets.<br />
She spoke in simple terms, with clear logic and argument.<br />
She was the most brilliant in her region, and her problem was arduous.<br />
What a waste it would be to see such genius extinguished,<br />
by something as <i>trivial</i> as genetic predisposition...<br />
She sealed the envelope with her tongue and smiled.<br />
She sought immortality with a stubborn hunter's guile,<br />
and wouldn't be denied, in fact, she couldn't be rejected.<br />
A dead genius is no good to society, and... she wouldn't be respected.<br />
<br />
Born in privilege: he chose to live recklessly.<br />
Spent on a whim and treated no one respectfully.<br />
He had the money to obtain anything material.<br />
And spent to avoid his unadulterated fear of truth:<br />
the fear of his own morality encountering society,<br />
but still he chose to live selfishly with every ounce of his propriety.<br />
His rivalry was poverty, to avoid struggle at all costs<br />
and never wondered what would happen if he woke up with it all lost.<br />
He'd assault transactions with greed and manipulation,<br />
and didn't really care if moral structures disintegrated.<br />
The implications of immortality had obvious appeal;<br />
more reason to pursue wealth with obnoxiousness and zeal.<br />
With the respect his money earned, his problems were concealed.<br />
And he knew his vicious nature would be impossible to heal...<br />
As soon as he heard that he could live forever,<br />
he wrote a check for a substantial amount and placed it in a letter.<br />
To GenMod's president he wrote of his intentions:<br />
He pledged to engage the world with philanthropic aggression. <br />
He assured him of the reward he would receive in publicity,<br />
if such a powerful man were to be the first to live infinitely.<br />
He knew he'd need incentive to carry on in his ways...<br />
the thing about material existence is that it's gone with your days,<br />
profits decay, lost in dismay: all that you've fought to obtain.<br />
So he'd solve that problem regardless of the cost it would take.<br />
<br />
The President of GenMod stood aloof on his office balcony.<br />
The city moved beneath him, he thought of how it would feel falling down <br />
as he pondered his options. How could he decide...<br />
Either choice would require sacrifice.<br />
Would he squander his profits in favor of the world's most ample mind?<br />
<br />
Think of the implications of having to choose your first immortal soul.<br />
As a president responsible for ensuring corporate growth,<br />
would you deprive the world of genius for sufficient payment,<br />
allowing Greed to encompass the first immortal in the nation?<br />
He's known now as just another corporate head,<br />
which decision would help garner more respect?<br />
This technology is unprecedented, the control is his to decide,<br />
he's slated to undergo the treatment as soon his approval's signed... <br />
It becomes about respect: for the present day or future growth.<br />
Then he decided... why shouldn't he just move for both?<br />
It's both about longevity <i>and</i> the profit it generates,<br />
let nature take its course with an honest respect for Fate...<br />
<br />
A year passed, the first of humanity to surrender to longevity<br />
emerged from their procedures. <br />
The <i>girl</i> was now perfection genetically, <br />
she was determined to free Earth from its deadliness.<br />
But the public, failed respecting her as Heavenly,<br />
didn't see salvation in her intentions, didn't perceive her respectfully.<br />
They were threatened by her brain, not in awe of its utility.<br />
There's a sense in which she realized as a mortal with a short life<br />
despite her intellect she was more liked...<br />
The first task <i>He</i> set about to do with his enhancement complete,<br />
was to fund the most lavish retreat for the President of GenMod and<br />
never did he feel so happy and complete.<br />
He wrote a check to lift the ten bottom countries from madness and disease.<br />
The last of the impoverished were shown posterity.<br />
His deeds made the headlines, once again his respect climbed.<br />
It's not terribly implausible to imagine this outcome.<br />
How else could you truly gain respect and happiness without funds.<br />
<br />
Philosophers in the academies recoiled at the developments.<br />
Morality was turned upon its head with sacrificed intelligence.<br />
Never before had humanity truly learned about respect.<br />
A girl genius lives forever but was cast-aside: irrelevant.<br />
Practicality without the ideals of a liberal society.<br />
"Whatever works," said the pragmatists in interviews with sly decree.<br />
The lesson is of true concern, our course presently depends<br />
upon decisions that contribute to our longevity, but<br />
if a life is just another means to a greedy end<br />
then clearly life is not a concept that needs respect.<br />
<br />
-----------------<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><u><b>ISTL Week 10 - "Captain's Ode"</b></u></span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
"Captain's Ode"<i><br />
<br />
Beloved:</i><br />
I have little time for words, for we have a campaign to wage.<br />
My dearest, I fear you must do away with the champagne we saved...<br />
<br />
<i>Prologue: Dawn of War</i><br />
I'm writing now with the hopes to convey...;<br />
today all I've witnessed has been the atrocious display<br />
of defeat, all our focus on the goal has diminished.<br />
Like a sinking vessel, a simple hole and were finished.<br />
<br />
<i>Ode to Command</i><br />
Gazing into the horizon...with the sun setting we oblige: <br />
alive yet amazed, what with the blood letting and the collecting of demon hides.<br />
My machete's stains serve to constantly remind me<br />
of that blitz into the abyss. The defiance of Divine myth.<br />
In the midst of defeat, within an inch of retreat<br />
decide quickly to divide us, or keep the advantage with precision.<br />
Glinting steel: our battle standards advancing our position.<br />
And lift the veil, but conceal intentions to attack.<br />
Your decision is our mission: keep our legacy intact!<br />
Contain the enemy: be aware of the perimeter.<br />
Your control over the tides, you're our scribe, you're our God...<br />
you're alive as our parish and parishioner!<br />
<br />
<i>Ode to Soldier</i><br />
Muse wielding battlements, anticipating savageness.<br />
Feeling passion rip the fabric of our reasoning capacities.<br />
There's little logic in a Soldier's day.<br />
He responds to what controls his fate.<br />
He will not be dominated by these legions slinging tragedy!<br />
In moments we shall confront the Depths.<br />
For all that's holy we shall punish Death!<br />
We will not be stopped by hatred, we'll free our kindred from their shackling.<br />
Count the war drum's rhythm, feel the pure thud driven<br />
by our lust for the thrust of our swords in their guts!<br />
Listen to the hush before the last drum's signal<br />
on the final eighth we shall invade.<br />
Attack from the shore to the hill with grace and valiant Blades.<br />
<br />
<i>Ode to Understanding</i><br />
Another day with Reason marching, thinking of freedom largely,<br />
and what possibly a notion of God could teach us.<br />
A mythical regress, cyclically blind to peace, just<br />
needs, wants and linking the Mind to genius, hardly<br />
feasible truths breaking the membrane<br />
of paradise, just sterilized creations of End Game.<br />
Let's say, we finally reach our tenth pace<br />
and rather than getting struck with <i>canonry</i>, it just rains.<br />
I've guessed Grace in the past was the way to the Path<br />
but the dualistic nature of that made me change with the fact<br />
that life is simply the exchange of a shameless attack with hatred attached.<br />
They took the ethics of greater ancients and painted them black...<br />
<br />
<i>Epilogue: The Last Days</i><br />
I'm writing now with the hopes to express proof,<br />
that life is just the patching of the holes in your vessel.<br />
The tides of war divide the pure from their lives of peace,<br />
but war exists between more than these rifts in society.</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><u><b>ISTL Week 9 - "New Order"</b></u></span></div>
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<br />
April 20, 2412<br />
United Federation of the Hegemony<br />
<br />
<i>Listen to my story, it is a tale of two paradigms.<br />
I am but a fraction of the whole, beneath a veil of truth terrorized.<br />
I am not destined to be static, but cursed to be paralyzed<br />
until irony ensues and my worth can be verified...</i><br />
---<br />
Dystopian fictions fail to describe the situation at present;<br />
Orwell was innovative and clever, Wells instigated in letters<br />
fear of the unknown through swift invasions and intimidation.<br />
Today is a different day, its, beyond any distant Matrix,<br />
even the one written in cinema now is considered ancient.<br />
These words are a simple preface: we live in a technocracy...<br />
where robotic philosopher kings manipulate the Fed's policies.<br />
They couldn't be wrong, they've accounted for all contingencies,<br />
until one day a boy stumbled upon me as I drifted along the city's stream:<br />
<br />
Through his eyes I had to seem like a hieroglyphic dream,<br />
he, used to eye scanning as the instant means of transmitting "me,"<br />
for currency is now accrued based on one's latent abilities...<br />
<i>You are the face of your "dollar bill,"</i> not some vagrant from history.<br />
In the past I was the root of all the evil that surrounded humans.<br />
Nothing more than a curse, simply a profound illusion<br />
that forced people into enslavement to earn a fraction<br />
only to turn around and contribute to their existentially coercive habits.<br />
<br />
I'm being carried from my resting place across the platform toward a sentry.<br />
The boy showed its "eyes" his embedded passport affording him entry.<br />
I can see the domes above controlling the impact of solar flares,<br />
until we entered his home, upstairs where he lived alone and scared.<br />
The boy scanned me with some interesting device.<br />
"What is this piece of paper with such intricate designs?<br />
It seems to resemble what I learned in History that time,<br />
about a species of humans who traded objects for paper,<br />
which had such value as the society's progress would favor..."<br />
He noticed inscribed upon my body a cryptic inscription:<br />
<i>Novos ordo seclorum</i>, little did he envision,<br />
that in 2412 I'd be the salvation of his kindred.<br />
In an instant he turned and ran toward his pixel-screens,<br />
on them a news anchor was in mid scream about rioting in the streets.<br />
It appears the System of Exchange has been assaulted.<br />
The means of scanning for purchase power once so exalted<br />
has been irreversibly exhausted...<br />
<br />
The boy turned and looked at me as I rested on his scanner...<br />
<i>In God We Trust...,</i> judging by his face I guess he had the answer.<br />
A bright light overcame me for an instant...<br />
he stuffed me in his pocket as my first sibling was printed.<br />
<br />
<b>A new, new world order was born</b>.</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> <u><b>ISTL Week 8 [Contendership] - "Veil of Ignorance" </b></u></span></div>
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<b>Theory of <i>Mystic</i> Justice</b><br />
<i>The Veil of Ignorance</i><br />
<br />
<i>"...no one knows his place in society, his class position or social
status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural
assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like."</i> - John Rawls<br />
<br />
---<br />
<br />
Breathing deeply exceeding sufficient focus conditions.<br />
Spinning on either side of me, silently combining each<br />
element invoking implicit occult traditions. Let us seek<br />
wisdom from Opus to Opus: molecular message peaked;<br />
Systems controlling my hopes to get us connected to Gnosis.<br />
The Stone is just another drop away: <i>osmosis</i>. The clock's display<br />
is frozen for Time is only a constraint for those within limits of<br />
conventional physics. Only respect for the distance between<br />
ignorance and enlightenment. Action crafted in silent rifts.<br />
Rawlsean veils exposed by the mystic's decree. <br />
Restrictions: thinking linearly. <br />
I insist: to proceed and process most efficiently<br />
let the mental stretch with exponential logarithmic speed.<br />
Potential bleeds from the vial, more errors in this trial<br />
than perfect successes. <br />
But only <i>one</i> needs to work to make it worth the investment.<br />
<br />
Breathing heavily connecting each section to the next,<br />
mixing acoustic mastery.<br />
The music blasting free into collections of obsessed<br />
citizens moving frantically.<br />
Spinning on either side of me, a veneration of control...<br />
They say the art is religious regeneration of the Soul.<br />
Crack the wishbone: carefully extract the marrow.<br />
Ambitions dripping acutely into industrial cauldrons.<br />
Relax your grip though, it's the subtlest science.<br />
The mission is truth seeking: the lushest indulgence.<br />
Pungent environs, <br />
the praxis is beyond just syntax and semiotics.<br />
It's actually applying exactness when combining <br />
enough passion to create impactful steady progress. <br />
Enough potency to render the power in Heaven modest...<br />
<br />
Pray accordingly, <br />
this much precision we should be worshiping.<br />
Blending the micro-filaments with diligence in ordering.<br />
Output various like instrumental chords from strings.<br />
Break the plastic: fervently replace the needle.<br />
Sufficient this mythic truth seeping love from the auspice<br />
of ancient madness, it's a wondrous triumph. <br />
Pythagorean spheres spinning with abundance exhausted. <br />
Sacred neolithic scripting etched on the masks of pharaohs.<br />
Cast the mended Arrow toward the frantic raving excitement:<br />
Sound from the loudest of amplification devices.<br />
Fluid from the Grand Elixir creating infinite Youth.<br />
Drum, bass, rhythm<br />
rhyme, flow, charisma<br />
Coal, gold, platinum,<br />
all that exists is the Truth. </div>
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><u><b>ISTL Week 7 - "Lift Off"</b></u></span></div>
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"Lift Off"</div>
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<br /></div>
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Meteorology is a strange science.<br />
He packed his death-machine in anticipation of rain. <br />
Triumph was only a couple train-trips away.<br />
Silence conveyed as pockets of hate dripped disdain.<br />
Capitulating dismay by proxy through perfect trajectory.<br />
No allusions: just simple deeds working effectively.<br />
Beyond the scope of life and death, his mind would bend<br />
matter and temporal flux, as if purpose could end a dream.<br />
No predictions or challenges, no statistics to shout amiss,<br />
no retroactive out of practice conditioned analysis,<br />
just a simple click to send a miniscule sound adrift<br />
across a chasm of Mind. This grand gap in our lives is<br />
redefined simply as a man caste by a lot<br />
wreaks havoc to stop sagacity's climb up the hazardous ladder of Time.<br />
No praxis, no syntactical signs.<br />
No exactness of science could capture the Why.<br />
Just a simple madness refined by the craftsmen of passion.<br />
Humors contrasted because a man has to decide<br />
whether or not our measurements stand the passage of...<br />
<br />
Could it be the hive approaching? His eye just a fashioned design,<br />
fastened precisely to deliver Fate in a hand basket divinely woven?<br />
I suppose... but imagine when Time's exposed as the illusion it might be.<br />
A decision to act could be revisited eliciting a union of likely<br />
scenarios. Potential externalities and impregnated confusions.<br />
If time weaves its baritone voice we could placate the movement<br />
of mere matter, appease the Gods of disaster and make haste to induce trust.<br />
<br />
Could it be robotics or nano? Or psychotics with ammo?<br />
Or time robbing your ant-hole of any fine promises and hopes?<br />
Time's locked in a damned trope, trivial, tautological.<br />
A simple tick of the clock closing in on the often exhausted who<br />
couldn't make a stand with defender's advantage.<br />
We're just mere pretenders with language, Enders of Games.<br />
No card carrying members, no extensions or breaks.<br />
Just a carried out example of effortless rage. <br />
They say a man with a shot is man on every stage<br />
screaming out for any intelligence to mention his name. <br />
<br />
These broken wings. These brittle bones of Kings.<br />
Fossilized and bought for dimes.<br />
We ask, how could the dark side of the moon even talk of shine.<br />
And he answers, through the eye of the hawk drifting aloft with Time.<br />
There are simply too many puzzles to sit and solve.<br />
Unless there's nothing more than a single click involved...<br />
<br />
And we've lifted off...</div>
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<b><big> </big><u>ISTL Week 6 - "Nabatean Salve: 19xx"</u></b></div>
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<b>Nabatean Salve: 19<i>xx</i></b><br />
<br />
The arid ruins reflected dawn like they manifested Heaven's balm,<br />
lubricating perception.<br />
Desolate but any angered spirit would instantly be rendered calm.<br />
Upon approach his Mind would dance, his Muse exclaimed...<br />
<i><i>Forever lost are these ruined plains;</i></i> as time advanced<br />
the Nabateans witnessed legends brought to bear on Market Square<br />
the rabble approached the Street Priest with awkward stares.<br />
He'd scream "Peace! as prophesied since the Dawn of Time!"<br />
Focused as if called by God though most agreed he'd lost his mind.<br />
The truth is, through meditation he saw designs of ancient crypts,<br />
and on an obelisk's spine displayed an escapist's script<br />
with golden-glyphed messages comprising a salvation Myth.<br />
His proud nation split thanks to religious rifts and civil war.<br />
And he knew these visions writ of a simpler fix than glinting swords<br />
slicing hordes of passionate zealots and revolutionaries.<br />
Lies resounded confounding unconnected ideologies;<br />
Until finally someone listened that wasn't a filthy pocket thief.<br />
"The war's direction rarely seems to sway based on the executions."<br />
Wary, the non-thief looked on, a "rebel" patch on his leather tunic:<br />
"The Mages sent me to you, you claim to have been revealed an answer,<br />
we are a smaller rebel order, the revolution feels in danger<br />
for the last time we listened to a prophecy we were killed in anger."<br />
The priest recoiled, never having been confronted by authentic doubt before.<br />
He lived within his own truth, strife never having been accounted for.<br />
So he set the rebel to task, to seek these mythic ruins.<br />
<i>To the Nabatean Petra. </i>Assuming this isn't just some twit's delusion.<br />
A single etching by an ancient sage to upset entire institutions?<br />
But the non-thief believed in peace and swore he would live to prove it.<br />
<br />
<i>Within the Priest's chambers</i>, a lazy shadow reflected stasis...<br />
He sat lotus-like, controlled, precise in effortless meditation.<br />
Visions flooded his cortex, at first numbers in an extended matrix<br />
spilled out onto a canvas painting of a list of ten equations:<br />
The first was a function of Time as it bends with space,<br />
the last was an algorithm explaining genetic language.<br />
Between were arguments for the existence of persistent life,<br />
the priest: the vehicle for the computing system within his mind.<br />
These combined created an image of the Mage's rebel,<br />
a silhouette shifting from ether to flesh engraved in metal.<br />
No aesthetic order, but the program seemed to sketch a border<br />
within which man could act without fear of the gaze of devils.<br />
A shadow on a cavern wall became blighted by the ridicule<br />
of humanness, which only captures what is timely and predictable.<br />
The priest imagined the non-thief deceased on the ruin halls,<br />
then was struck out of his trance by rebel guards screaming "Move along!"<br />
Truth is lost in the channels of sublimity,<br />
"The river downward" could merely be the mind stuck in the annals of infinity. </div>
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<u><b>ISTL Week 5 - "Waiting"</b></u></div>
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<i>Waiting</i><br />
<br />
Patience is not a virtue. <br />
At least that's what the boy had believed.<br />
Despite being told the opposite he'd thought a bit,<br />
understood reality moved regardless if he thought his choices were free.<br />
The problem isn't cosmic drift, it's<br />
the Grand Comic's bit about the universe expanding until apocalypse...<br />
And he considers himself an optimist.<br />
From a very young age he had questions regarding consciousness.<br />
Waiting for answers weren't part of his parents' promises.<br />
His father did not permit anything but an agnostic twist<br />
to an age old argument: "No one can ever know, therefore, God exists."<br />
Puzzled, the boy struggled, encroaching upon logic's limits,<br />
consulted scholar after scholar, religious thinkers <i>and</i> scientists;<br />
and concluded that even the world's foremost geniuses have extreme biases.<br />
He wondered about Time's condition, <br />
from atomic clocks that tick to Einstein's persistence,<br />
that space conforms to Mind and perception is just petty acceptance of environment.<br />
So the boy drafted a letter: "To the Children Who Wait..."<br />
Entitled with a kind ellipse to capture the resilience of Fate.<br />
In fact, that's the concept he started with:<br />
<br />
"Fate is fascination with certain uncertainty. Not faith<br />
just the acceptance that if we wait things will never work perfectly.<br />
Purpose seems to buckle under the weight of philosophical urgency,<br />
and conceptions of the End become brilliant obstacles and recurring themes.<br />
Beauty and Goodness, Platonic forms and Promised War:<br />
We wait regardless if they choose the pen and not the sword.<br />
We wait for harvest, fruits of labor or Confucian favor,<br />
or Buddhist wayward progression away from the abuse of flavor.<br />
Pleasure without an epicenter where the youngest reside,<br />
waiting like the Man who just turned one hundred to die.<br />
Waiting like, for the bus, or a ride, to get plucked like a fly <br />
and plunge from the sky... or the stubborn depressed<br />
waiting for the comfort to cry. <br />
Patience is <i>not</i> a virtue, I believe that's taught to hurt you<br />
into thinking that if you wait for an answer it oughtn't curse you.<br />
Patience is just another means to get caught in an awful circle<br />
of thought we turn to only to struggle distraught:<br />
there's enough love lost for one soul, not to mention an Earth full."<br />
<br />
He dropped his pen to the floor, shaking as if in the purview of Proof<br />
and still went about his life, in continued pursuit of the Truth.<br />
<i>Patience...</i></div>
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<u><b>ISTL Week 4 - "Divine Mirror" </b></u><i><br /></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Divine Mirror</b><br />
<br />
Meritocracy hoisted and bolstered by divine will.<br />
Shadows with voices. A controlled worth that time wields.<br />
Valiant talents challenging choices. Prayers amounting to noises<br />
-each rupturing the barrier between our doubts and their poignancy. <br />
Skeptics are rounded up and caste by silence.<br />
Acts of Mind nullified in favor of massive blindness. <br />
The opiate of the collective disconnecting truth from the Praxis.<br />
To see the ontological alive and breathing,<br />
to feel the epistemic placed aside, vagrant lives completely<br />
changed, their minds appeased for the Proof is in Madness.<br />
That is, analogical to the problem of Who is this God we've accrued...<br />
is the problem of Genius, from the Mind of belief,<br />
is a Man of overwhelming power holding life at his breach.<br />
That is, if you choose to let your Mind in his reach.<br />
Picture a world of faith... governments controlled by religions and creeds.<br />
Could an atheist exist in it free? Could he see the difference between<br />
faith in the unknown and the prescriptive beliefs?<br />
Or would he just become a shadow with a rhythmic speed?<br />
Screaming out for freedom without a passage for delivery...<br />
A message in perfect Time... where Time is actual infinity.<br />
Could a nonbeliever truly exist in a universe of Divines? <br />
I suppose the truth is certain for Minds without worldly concerns...<br />
Or is truth just admiring the world as it turns?<br />
Or is truth just retiring from the world as it burns?<br />
<br />
or<br />
<br />
Are the faithless just reflections of the faithful?<br />
With no aesthetic or logical weapons to escape to...<i> </i></div>Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-34847218056793483742012-03-09T08:07:00.004-08:002012-03-09T08:07:32.067-08:00InformationCould the universe simply be an aggregated system of information, both processing and processed in simultaneous fluctuations? It seems to me plausible, in light of the findings in disciplines such as mathematics, physics, genetics, among many others. Is it possible that all of reality can be reduced to information? If so, is information something a priori--before human perception... in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noumenon">noumenal </a>realm as Kant would call it, or is information merely a construction manifested by conscious perception itself? It doesn't seem to me very likely that, even though we have a word, and a concept <i>for</i> information, that information is merely a conscious contrivance. In fact, "mere" consciousness is a faulty reduction, for if indeed the universe is information, then it necessarily follows that consciousness itself is composed of information. Potentially fallacious, I suppose, is this determination, for it doesn't always follow that the because a part of the whole is composed of some property, that also the whole is composed of the same. However, the "universe" is an absolute of sorts -- and the Absolute, whether one conceives of it as God, or otherwise, must at least contain aspects of the varieties of substances contingent in its parts. Another way to say it is, even though the universe may not be <i>only</i> what we can conceive of as information, the <i>reason</i> we can even conceive of the universe is through the medium of information. Language is code. Code can be broken into simple bits. The simplest bits of any entity seems to me to be the building blocks that we call information. So <i>at least</i> what we perceive can be reduced to information. The question becomes then, and this is the million dollar inquiry, if we experience the universe through the medium of information, and everything in our consciousness can be reduced to information, does it follow that the universe is comprised of information at the most fundamental level? And if so, are we then potentially able to tap in to the very nature of reality, with our technologies -- or even just simply our consciousness--with enough effort--?Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-46996287387230569382011-12-16T06:51:00.000-08:002011-12-16T07:02:21.097-08:00Failed StateEvery year the legislature gets together to re-up the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act">National Defense Authorization Act</a>. Every year, under the auspices of this legislation, the Constitution that is supposed to protect the "inalienable human rights" bestowed upon us by our very nature as human beings, is being systematically destroyed. The entire system of government in the United States is working to undermine the basic freedoms we as citizenry ought to be able to take for granted.<br />
<br />
Beyond any idealism, the systematic evisceration of the Constitution is not something that can be attributed to just one administration. Bush and Obama are no different in this respect. There is little reason to believe that during this election cycle, Obama will revert back to his campaign "promises." Rather, the current president should be known as the propagandist of the century, for his rhetoric during his election initially has been completely ignored. Government is no longer working to protect the citizenry; Government is a body of lawyers and lobbied special interests working to only protect those who have large sums of money invested in the policy making machine. Government is neither for the people, nor the State. Government is out for itself. People in power will fight to stay in power at all costs.<br />
<br />
During wartime, these laws effectively give the President, as Commander and Chief, the power to do literally as he pleases, domestically and otherwise. It just so happens that we are engaged in an endless undeclared war on terrorism. Come to think of it, when is the last time our government actually followed the Constitution and declared war? There has never been any congressional discussion or debate as to whether or not the president, on the whims of his own decision making, has grounds to send the military to war. And yet, here we are. We are living in an age of unauthorized, unprecedented government seizure of power over the entire country; it could be argued as well that that very same power extends to everywhere the United States has presence. The idea that the world is now an authorized battleground is no longer fantastical.<br />
<br />
Those of us that are glued to our television screens absorbing the mass propaganda of the now moot mainstream media will not see the full picture. The media is programmed to emit limited information on limited subject matter. Journalism no longer operates under the principles upon which it was founded. Freedom of the Press was extended under the Bill of Rights to ensure a constantly opened window into the fortress that is now the Government. Such amendments are now being systematically ignored. With sports and entertainment news consuming the headlines, and pundits swaying and misinforming the public on issues that matter, there is also very little reason to believe that the public will ever have a chance to become truly informed. As a result, the public will continue to vote for major leaders of the major political parties, further exacerbating the corruption now inherent in the system.<br />
<br />
If these issues remain ignored, it will no longer be the fault of the Government, but of the masses, for they will unknowingly participate in the destruction, or the failure, of the State they are pretending to vote in the best interest of. <br />
<br />Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-23915379657359256642011-12-08T06:40:00.001-08:002011-12-08T07:58:07.239-08:00Indubitable CrisesThese are interesting times. It is quite simple to capture the state of things in a few paragraphs. The difficulty arises when these few paragraphs are read and evaluated by the news-media influenced public mind. Encouraging people to think of the issues themselves untainted by the propaganda machine is the most difficult thing to do for reform-minded activists. Common thinking is swayed significantly by the media, which directs its focus toward issues at the whim of the power elite. Financial institutions and multinational corporations, as Noam Chomsky highlights, are clearly at the forefront of government influence toward policy making. Chomsky points out in a recent article "American Decline: Causes and Consequences," that the public is seriously divided, not only within its own ranks, but also separated significantly from policy makers. The problem then is clearly one of misinformation, or propaganda. If the electorate is to ever have an effect on the outcome of policy, the system must be unhinged from the throes of the financial industry "masters of humankind" as Chomsky puts it.<br />
<br />
Why is it acceptable that Obama hired on his economic team the very same individuals who manufactured the current crisis? Goldman Sachs and its economic policy is no policy at all... it encourages high risk high reward transactions at the cost of the "rabble's" livelihood. The recent bailouts of the "too big to fail" banks benefited those banks, who have further incentive to do as they please. Their security blanket is the government itself. Why should they yield? And why should a legislature that is largely bought and sold by those institutions pass reforms that would hurt the masters' bottom lines? Despite the evil of the state of the economy and government, it is entirely rational from their point of view to sustain business as usual.<br />
<br />
Analogous is the global warming crisis. The economic crisis is a long term issue--reforms made today will not be overwhelmingly noticed today, but ought to protect future generations from having to pay their forefathers' debt. Similarly, the climate crisis is something that must be dealt with today, not because we will necessarily feel the effects today (even though the fluctuating weather patterns across the globe seem to be a surprise to everyone), but because our children will have grandchildren of their own who very likely will pay with their lives in a century or less.<br />
<br />
These are crises of ideas. Policy follows ideas. And the ideas being generated from the current popular media and legislature are overwhelmingly "business-as-usual" in tone. Business as usual is not sustainable by any stretch of the imagination. <br />
<br />
Far from conspiracy theory, all it takes is a day of research to connect the dots for oneself uninfluenced by the pundits on the major broadcasting networks. They do not live by journalistic principles. How could they? They are told by those in power what to report. And it isn't their fault. They trust those in power, even if one particular network is more cynical than another. The internal constraints built into the system prevent free thinking from breaking out into the public mindset. Even the tea-party grassroots movement was co-opted by the Republican Party. Accordingly, it will not be a shock to discover the occupy movements to be co-opted by the moderate-conservative Democratic Party.<br />
<br />
Societies are complex, dynamic systems, driven and confused by what I have called the "Agency/Morality Circularity." Simply put, to be outlined in more detail, self-interested agency influences, manifests and deterministically generates moral structures (governments, social norms), which subsequently influences self-interest. Eventually, the paradigm is caught in a stagnant loop, where one side of the polarity is controlled by the other side of the polarity. The dichotomous nature of such a circularity gives rise to the very complexity apparent in the system at large. There are now layers upon layers representative of such static circular paradigms. Corporations are also driven by self-interest, despite being heavily motivated by their "lesser" working constituents. However, the upper echelon's self interest is what influences policy making on the government level. Moral agency is thus co-opted by self-interest in the guise of moral agency. Consider the recent legislation granting Corporations the ability to, as private citizens can, fund campaigns. One not need to ponder that fact for more than a moment to realize the connection.Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-39536970382617786822011-08-30T08:37:00.000-07:002011-08-30T08:37:25.569-07:00Quantum Macroconnectivity<div style="text-align: center;">Condensed energy, <br />
then it seems a single momentous stream<br />
stretches means into modal tendencies.<br />
Space spanning centuries: <br />
Origin growth, exponential forces explode.<br />
More than is known disclosed as we soar from the globe.<br />
Potentially...<br />
Cosmic memory is force and motion, <br />
gravitation extrapolated from common heredity.<br />
Genetic courses from enormous holes in proportion,<br />
to life thriving from the shores to the oceans.<br />
How did we progress from the source of the quantum order,<br />
where nothingness became collections of thought recorders,<br />
with their own subjective piece of this tropical destiny.<br />
Philosophical, psychological, biological entities<br />
devouring the planet like some entropically spread disease. <br />
Mechanics is the observation of interaction<br />
between the constant stages we're living trapped in.<br />
To study how our honest hatred conditions madness<br />
is to understand how our cosmic sameness delimits passion.<br />
Just listen closer, Schrodinger found, as minutes pass,<br />
friction happens, causing certainty to diminish fast.<br />
Despite the fact we know so little, the problem is real:<br />
as descriptions of the micro and macroscopic revealed<br />
through action processed in theoretical fields,<br />
become accurate commentary on our active ontic ordeal. <br />
<br />
Now we seem to be so entrenched in our attributes,<br />
we're content to be blind to the evident, savage truths<br />
raining down upon us like Heaven's collapsed and moved<br />
our notions of paradise to discrepancies, past confused.<br />
Get it? We never get asked for proof,<br />
we just refer to the annals of the last who knew,<br />
who referred further back to the annals of aristocrats reviewed,<br />
who earned money by selling the truth in a package to<br />
the same people who eventually became the massive youth.<br />
<i>Intertwined quantum exactitude.</i> <br />
We live inside minds where consciousness acts as You<br />
and think were not a single kind of object who lacks a clue.<br />
Connections run deeper yet I'm still a skeptic.<br />
We need food, but eat poison knowing it kills digestion.<br />
We feed into a system knowing that it will infect us.<br />
But it's all part of this absolute soul.<br />
We're all descendants,<br />
we all have to choose though.<br />
Despite the fact that beyond our actions, truth holds<br />
and becomes the very same as our decisions.<br />
Thus, we're all dependent,<br />
and we have to choose, so...<br />
With Mind we track beyond our actions, where truth floats<br />
beyond horizons<br />
and becomes the very same as our conditions.</div>Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8185322796136847703.post-41747330392267271302011-08-18T06:37:00.000-07:002011-08-18T06:37:13.011-07:00Purus emergentiæ poetica<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Sacrifice | Three-Planes-Aligned</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Purus Emergentiæ Poetica </i> </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Grief and fantasy, dreaming phantoms scream<br />
out into the void where freedom emerges, into<br />
peaceful disturbances, voicing lethal determinism;<br />
I sleep to manage these, frequent occurrences,<br />
either that or keep my evil concerned with rhythms;<br />
To answer each question authentically is mentally,<br />
like trying to deal with good and evil separately,<br />
I guess we need to keep our terse existence anywhere the serpent isn't.<br />
<br />
Or embrace the oblivion that subverts the spirit<br />
- Being senseless is preferred in a dirty prison<br />
Fast to coerce a critter - to pretend and bleed<br />
That the flesh is weak - and thoughts are worthless flickers<br />
Either you accept that objections breed, regret and grief<br />
- Or you consent to sleep in the middle of this burning village<br />
The path of least resistance has a toll of thirty silvers<br />
But off-road, regime servicemen murder drifters<br />
<br />
Emergent myths turn from illusory to computed truth.<br />
Programming souls standing up to those that choose abuse.<br />
I'd prove to you the need to evolve,<br />
but the people involved seem to confuse peaceful resolve<br />
with the seeds of assault: reach into the breach,<br />
beyond par when the King might attempt freeing the Gulf.<br />
The spider's web is an equally responsible matrix;<br />
from the launching of spaceships to the breeding of Gods.<br />
<br />
And there you lie in obscurity and bleed for your cause<br />
To feeble applause - from the listless choir<br />
Coughing and wheezing as mould eats through the gauze<br />
- A crippled, wizened, disfigured lion<br />
The facts demand, a man of action, and<br />
- A proactive stance as well as a fist of iron<br />
The tree of wisdom withers as it's licked by fire<br />
Making a noise falling - but rotting in chilling silence<br />
<br />
Filling vibrant strings of void with prophets.<br />
Building minds with nodes and sockets, open sourced<br />
pockets with exploding bandwidth consortia.<br />
Assorted and reconfigured pieces expand distraction.<br />
Speed and advanced exactness while fleeing from damned entrapment,<br />
so I toss mountains until my glass house is freed from the threat.<br />
Speak for the rest of the diseased collective<br />
tell them they don't need to expect it, the answer happened.<br />
<br />
The balance act is - impossible math<br />
- A dance with abstract particulars and ashen hangmen<br />
Ghastly Latin - creativity is an obstacled path<br />
- Insoluble wrath and fractured grammar<br />
Unfathomed famine - towards the lucid offering<br />
- The future is calling and in my stupor I'm soaring<br />
I don't plan to shatter or go out with a bang<br />
- I just plan to implode one of these beautiful mornings...<br />
<br />
From ousting the strange to computing its normalcy,<br />
the future's abhorrently without the constraints<br />
needed for equilibrium. I'm fused with a coarse disease<br />
that forces me to accord with reason and destroy deceit.<br />
Speaking to free the cynical from their obnoxious doubt.<br />
I'm more than Me, I'm uni-factual when problems bound,<br />
computing practical by tapping into the quantum-cloud.<br />
Because the apocalypse will only arrive when I'm not around.</span></div>Tyler Hislophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14946774682993196445noreply@blogger.com0