16 October 2009
07 October 2009
Can vulnerability make me invulnerable?
I feel like an eggshell today, careful not to walk on me.
This week started with my friend L coming for a visit. L of the torturous relationship with my tortured brother. Soon after best friend J came for an overlapping visit. J of a full quarter century of friendship. All these chalice-holders of the past in the midst of the entire house playing musical rooms and a new roommate. Oh, and our room is being painted adequately by "stoner teenagers" as J likes to call them. Aren't all painters stoners? Isn't that a prerequisite, or perhaps a hazard of the job?
On Monday, well. I was not in top form. Actually a little thing, as anything forgotten is a little thing, but the subject might be big and in Monday's case it was pretty close to as big as it gets in my humble life. I forgot about my children. More specifically, I forgot to pick them up at school. This resulted, through the very powerful fact that my cell phone was dead, in my ex getting called and having to leave work early to pick them up. What actually happened is I failed, in all the action of the early week, to really mentally digest that it was Monday. I was aware of it, but the implications had not really set. This reality became congruent with another reality that I have observed in myself but never really seen communicated. I do not think about my kids when I do not have them.
Though this admittedly leads to problems which illustrate the need for correction, there is a real reason. When I think about them and do not have them, I am heartbroken. What to do? Walk around in a perpetual state of heartbreak, tearing up and breaking down at the slightest ruffle of emotional remembrance?
So I do not. I steel myself from that vulnerability. And practical and timely matters suffer, so does my relationship with my boys, co does with my wife and with my ex wife, and eventually with myself.
I called my ex immediately upon discovery of my inaction and offered an untarnished apology. I spoke to my boys. G was very upset. I apologized to him, but told him it was OK to be angry at me. He was. I apologized to E. I'm not sure he could have cared less. True to form.(after today, perhaps it is my job, in part, to help him learn how to care more.)
Are not we all so true to form.
Today I had to go to traffic court, 7:30am to set the 2pm appointment.
I saw the sunrise.
Then I went to therapy. My therapist, an intelligent man, is a Sufi. I don't know mush about Sufis. They come from North Africa. Whirling Dervishes. Fez caps. Islamic mystics. Misogynist? Probably not the bay area variant. I respect his intelligence and appreciate his mysticism.
Today, despite T's expectation, we focused on my relationship with my emotions - which seems pretty tightly bound to my thoughts. We did an elaborate and labyrinthine exercise of removing emotion from cause and environment. It was illogical, but so is emotion. It was extremely challenging.
Then, I think, he tried to hypnotize me. It is not that I was resistant to it, if not entirely comfortable - but my mind was.
I used to have a code for myself in the mirror of my bedroom: discipline thyself.
In meditation - of which hypnotism seems to be a guided variant, I do not believe that discipline thyself is exactly correct. The mind & soul must be disciplined so that whatever they encounter does not destroy them so much as to be nonworking. the ritual must be disciplined enough to be consistent in time. But the meditation is a practice in undisciplined.
So, in the midst of anger and frustration about my circumstances and confusion about the path of conversation, I felt a sadness with no root. He slowed me down and slowed my thoughts and spoke to go within and get a picture of the child I was. The child in a room with other children. Those children are active and noisy and this child, me, is quiet and in a book. Get a hold on what he is saying. He is going to say to you what he is feeling and remember it.
He didn't say anything. he seemed content and happy. he also seemed a little melancholy, but he didn't say anything about it. I think this is where the guidance broke down and my thoughts reemerged.
I think if he said anything he would have said: I feel alien.
Should my parents have helped me learn how to not? Am I projecting? What and where?
That was that . I went to court after that.
For me court is one of the more uncomfortable environments I have encountered. It is anxiety and impotence. It went well, though.
At the end of my day I remember some events.
Robert DeNiro is a trigger for me. A Boy's Life killed me. I couldn't finish The Fan (even though it was ridiculous) and I literally broke down weeping. Weeping at the end of City By The Sea. He reminds me of my dad, not always. Raging Bull doesn't, or Deer Hunter, or Meet The Parents.
This week started with my friend L coming for a visit. L of the torturous relationship with my tortured brother. Soon after best friend J came for an overlapping visit. J of a full quarter century of friendship. All these chalice-holders of the past in the midst of the entire house playing musical rooms and a new roommate. Oh, and our room is being painted adequately by "stoner teenagers" as J likes to call them. Aren't all painters stoners? Isn't that a prerequisite, or perhaps a hazard of the job?
On Monday, well. I was not in top form. Actually a little thing, as anything forgotten is a little thing, but the subject might be big and in Monday's case it was pretty close to as big as it gets in my humble life. I forgot about my children. More specifically, I forgot to pick them up at school. This resulted, through the very powerful fact that my cell phone was dead, in my ex getting called and having to leave work early to pick them up. What actually happened is I failed, in all the action of the early week, to really mentally digest that it was Monday. I was aware of it, but the implications had not really set. This reality became congruent with another reality that I have observed in myself but never really seen communicated. I do not think about my kids when I do not have them.
Though this admittedly leads to problems which illustrate the need for correction, there is a real reason. When I think about them and do not have them, I am heartbroken. What to do? Walk around in a perpetual state of heartbreak, tearing up and breaking down at the slightest ruffle of emotional remembrance?
So I do not. I steel myself from that vulnerability. And practical and timely matters suffer, so does my relationship with my boys, co does with my wife and with my ex wife, and eventually with myself.
I called my ex immediately upon discovery of my inaction and offered an untarnished apology. I spoke to my boys. G was very upset. I apologized to him, but told him it was OK to be angry at me. He was. I apologized to E. I'm not sure he could have cared less. True to form.(after today, perhaps it is my job, in part, to help him learn how to care more.)
Are not we all so true to form.
Today I had to go to traffic court, 7:30am to set the 2pm appointment.
I saw the sunrise.
Then I went to therapy. My therapist, an intelligent man, is a Sufi. I don't know mush about Sufis. They come from North Africa. Whirling Dervishes. Fez caps. Islamic mystics. Misogynist? Probably not the bay area variant. I respect his intelligence and appreciate his mysticism.
Today, despite T's expectation, we focused on my relationship with my emotions - which seems pretty tightly bound to my thoughts. We did an elaborate and labyrinthine exercise of removing emotion from cause and environment. It was illogical, but so is emotion. It was extremely challenging.
Then, I think, he tried to hypnotize me. It is not that I was resistant to it, if not entirely comfortable - but my mind was.
I used to have a code for myself in the mirror of my bedroom: discipline thyself.
In meditation - of which hypnotism seems to be a guided variant, I do not believe that discipline thyself is exactly correct. The mind & soul must be disciplined so that whatever they encounter does not destroy them so much as to be nonworking. the ritual must be disciplined enough to be consistent in time. But the meditation is a practice in undisciplined.
So, in the midst of anger and frustration about my circumstances and confusion about the path of conversation, I felt a sadness with no root. He slowed me down and slowed my thoughts and spoke to go within and get a picture of the child I was. The child in a room with other children. Those children are active and noisy and this child, me, is quiet and in a book. Get a hold on what he is saying. He is going to say to you what he is feeling and remember it.
He didn't say anything. he seemed content and happy. he also seemed a little melancholy, but he didn't say anything about it. I think this is where the guidance broke down and my thoughts reemerged.
I think if he said anything he would have said: I feel alien.
Should my parents have helped me learn how to not? Am I projecting? What and where?
That was that . I went to court after that.
For me court is one of the more uncomfortable environments I have encountered. It is anxiety and impotence. It went well, though.
At the end of my day I remember some events.
Robert DeNiro is a trigger for me. A Boy's Life killed me. I couldn't finish The Fan (even though it was ridiculous) and I literally broke down weeping. Weeping at the end of City By The Sea. He reminds me of my dad, not always. Raging Bull doesn't, or Deer Hunter, or Meet The Parents.
17 September 2009
Reading the Bible book 1 - ...
It's Genesis and I read the whole thing, geneologies and all.
Having just completed reading The Epic of Gilgamesh (sumeria) to the boys and an aborted attempt at the Illiad - two of our older peices of literature - I couldn't help but note some similarities in style and tone...they were all written by Homer?!?
No, but they are all attempts at compilation of oral histories, of communication with and to a degree coersion of primitive societies. It that sence, as a largely unchanged document between the early jewish elite and the jewish people, a written chronicle of a preliterate nomadic tribe written in the infancy of its literacy and establishment!
It was not unenjoyable as a peice of historic literature.
I have entered Exodus and note immediately a change in tone.
I don't feel like going into too much detail but I did note the treachery, deciet and cowardice in these fathers (& mothers)of Israel. I feel like it shows a spiritual & moral complexity that has continued through the first Abrahamic religion.
Such mighty names these books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Kings!
Having just completed reading The Epic of Gilgamesh (sumeria) to the boys and an aborted attempt at the Illiad - two of our older peices of literature - I couldn't help but note some similarities in style and tone...they were all written by Homer?!?
No, but they are all attempts at compilation of oral histories, of communication with and to a degree coersion of primitive societies. It that sence, as a largely unchanged document between the early jewish elite and the jewish people, a written chronicle of a preliterate nomadic tribe written in the infancy of its literacy and establishment!
It was not unenjoyable as a peice of historic literature.
I have entered Exodus and note immediately a change in tone.
I don't feel like going into too much detail but I did note the treachery, deciet and cowardice in these fathers (& mothers)of Israel. I feel like it shows a spiritual & moral complexity that has continued through the first Abrahamic religion.
Such mighty names these books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Kings!
16 September 2009
A man doesn't buy something that is freely provided:
How to be:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
-Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
-Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
12 September 2009
an old poem
This settles in my mind as we enter fall and I feel change and loss stir in me and mine:
My Summer is through
I'll put a shotgun to the trees
and squeeze fresh blasts
of...
What part of my lover have I
not sunk my palm and fingers in?
Now. What parts of Autumn
will be strange to my shoed feet?
Or will the ground be untouched
leaves waiting to be stirred,
while the wind - a wallflower -
only passes sidelong gusts
_______
I will then,
shave this beard
when the season is past
and Winter has lost It's starless grief.
I will then walk
barefoot and barefaced through
new-birthed fields of dandelion and thistle
I will then spread my fingers
from my palms to see what weeds I held:
Sharp reddened petals to the ground? A blast of ghosts to the wind?
My Summer is through
I'll put a shotgun to the trees
and squeeze fresh blasts
of...
What part of my lover have I
not sunk my palm and fingers in?
Now. What parts of Autumn
will be strange to my shoed feet?
Or will the ground be untouched
leaves waiting to be stirred,
while the wind - a wallflower -
only passes sidelong gusts
_______
I will then,
shave this beard
when the season is past
and Winter has lost It's starless grief.
I will then walk
barefoot and barefaced through
new-birthed fields of dandelion and thistle
I will then spread my fingers
from my palms to see what weeds I held:
Sharp reddened petals to the ground? A blast of ghosts to the wind?
17 August 2009
compendium of goals
The following is a list of goals I have posted here; I have checked the ones I have accomplished or more likely, made a good effort toward. many of them are not binary but are progressive.
Blog everyday ( )
Reading list (X) 3 of 10, acquired 5 of 10
Letter discipline ( )
Read Bible (X)
Make personal cult of self (X)
Make kayaking a priority (X)
Learn to make cider ( ) pickles ( ) jam ( )
Make kids room habitable (X)
Be outside more (X)
Find job that's been searching for me ( )
Better than I expected from myself, especially when I consider new & unpublished goals that have been met. However, I feel a little disappointed in myself for some of the more egregious errors.
Blog everyday ( )
Reading list (X) 3 of 10, acquired 5 of 10
Letter discipline ( )
Read Bible (X)
Make personal cult of self (X)
Make kayaking a priority (X)
Learn to make cider ( ) pickles ( ) jam ( )
Make kids room habitable (X)
Be outside more (X)
Find job that's been searching for me ( )
Better than I expected from myself, especially when I consider new & unpublished goals that have been met. However, I feel a little disappointed in myself for some of the more egregious errors.
11 July 2009
“He will never worship well the image on the altar who knew it when it was a trunk of wood”
I am at work now, 'biding time. I will leave here, make a too quick stop at the bookstore, load the truck and set out through traffic to the north coast and into the woods. There is a peace I am expecting from those woods. It will not greet me as I arrive late this evening, nor tomorrow, but I have faith it will come; it will come as I rise early giving time no abide or inhabiting a book, look up to be suprised at company, or listening to the children roaming freely - bug bitten, half naked dirty and happy. It might come in our pitched black cabin, letting the peace seep into our life together. God knows we need it. It might come around a fire communing with the flame and naked bodies there.
It will probably come as I walk a path in the dark under the narrow strip of sky the trees allow, or as I, solitary, attend to my daily tasks.
My pleasure comes from those I love, my peace comes from myself.
I am signing off for two weeks. Any logging will be done with ink and paper.
I have not yet began the bible as I had planned. I am taking Milton with me though.
My promised when I return:
begin bible
make kayaking a priority
learn to make and make cider, pickles and jam
make children's room a habitable place
find that jab I've been waiting for
be outside more
It will probably come as I walk a path in the dark under the narrow strip of sky the trees allow, or as I, solitary, attend to my daily tasks.
My pleasure comes from those I love, my peace comes from myself.
I am signing off for two weeks. Any logging will be done with ink and paper.
I have not yet began the bible as I had planned. I am taking Milton with me though.
My promised when I return:
begin bible
make kayaking a priority
learn to make and make cider, pickles and jam
make children's room a habitable place
find that jab I've been waiting for
be outside more
04 July 2009
the riddle that answers itself...
It's here as much as it ever really gets here.
We are heading off to Nevada for a shared celebration, to the middle of Nevada, past the "town" of Middlegate and on to the hot springs. Last time we were there, Tifany took close ups of the moon.
There is something notable about our destination.
Our point of departure will be my mother's house of course. What is funny about my family is that I have had a strange sense of foreboding and have been reluctant to contact them recently. Meanwhile, my first brother has packed up his business and is leaving to rural Idaho two days before I roll in to town. My second brother has returned from what appears to have been the lackluster trip to Mexico with our Dad that I had to opt out of. He is so far tight mouthed about it. In fact, only my mother has been in touch.
My youngest brother will be there. I hope our interaction is positive. I feel somehow some sort of remorse toward the other two and a fear of resentment.
The last time I saw my youngest brother was when he came through on the way home for summer break from college. On a lark we took a natural pscychadelic together (and of course the house joined in save 'M'. Who babysat and eventually got cozy with my brother. That experience, or rather my experience is the source of the title of this blog. A phrase I used along with others similar to describe how I felt and what I thought I was realizing. I would like to go into further detail at a later time, as I have yet to feel different about it. Life is the riddle that answers itself.
Next week...family camp. I hope I return before then. I have a lot I'd like to write about that I've been putting off.
We are heading off to Nevada for a shared celebration, to the middle of Nevada, past the "town" of Middlegate and on to the hot springs. Last time we were there, Tifany took close ups of the moon.
There is something notable about our destination.
Our point of departure will be my mother's house of course. What is funny about my family is that I have had a strange sense of foreboding and have been reluctant to contact them recently. Meanwhile, my first brother has packed up his business and is leaving to rural Idaho two days before I roll in to town. My second brother has returned from what appears to have been the lackluster trip to Mexico with our Dad that I had to opt out of. He is so far tight mouthed about it. In fact, only my mother has been in touch.
My youngest brother will be there. I hope our interaction is positive. I feel somehow some sort of remorse toward the other two and a fear of resentment.
The last time I saw my youngest brother was when he came through on the way home for summer break from college. On a lark we took a natural pscychadelic together (and of course the house joined in save 'M'. Who babysat and eventually got cozy with my brother. That experience, or rather my experience is the source of the title of this blog. A phrase I used along with others similar to describe how I felt and what I thought I was realizing. I would like to go into further detail at a later time, as I have yet to feel different about it. Life is the riddle that answers itself.
Next week...family camp. I hope I return before then. I have a lot I'd like to write about that I've been putting off.
10 June 2009
old blogs migrating here
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Fear of Death pt II: contemplating whist reading Dune
Thinking about the apparent, but I believe opaque dichotomy of death and life, I came on an analogy. Of course the nature of things is that everything is analogous.
Consider breathing
inhale
exhale
Intake life sustaining oxygen
Outtake (seemingly) static Carbon dioxide
Both are separate activities as we delineate them, but as far as the body is concerned the difference is perhaps not so clear. More importantly, in and of themselves, neither one is the act of breathing. To breath we must inhale and exhale.
I am reminded of the different applications of the words death and life. "Death" is active, while "life" is passive. Inhale and exhale are active, while breathing is a broad passive. Life is a thing that contains death as the degenerative aspect of itself, just as exhalation is the degenerative aspect of breathing. What word is there for the regenerative aspect of life - the inhale?
Life is at least twice as large as the part we call life, it is also death and who knows what else.
I don't know why Dune had me in this state of mind, perhaps the characters' solipsizing led me to do the same. Here is some lint from my navel gazing, anyway. And before you raise a stink, which people often due on the internet, let me tell you that in addition to usually being true, all analogy is eventually false. Consider that, then comment.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Fear of death part III: Science!
After determing that it is just an elaborate ad machine for the labels, I have tried not to read Rolling Stone Magazine. However, I gotta take something into the john, and at work, it's all I've got. This month's issue contains a feature on Inventor Ray Kurzweil, the prophet of the singularity theory. The theory goes that technology will soon surpass human capacity for intelligence and at that point (of singularity) the two must merge, redefining life as we know it.
I don't even feel the need to refute his particulaly tech-heavy messianical vision. Even a lightweight like me can identify the logical, philosophical, technical and biological gaps in his staid prediction. What intrigues me is his purpose for arriving at this prediction, where the idea sits in our period of time and its place in our pre-agreed realities - an exagerated spike in a massive wave of our cultures paradigms.
His motivation seems to be a fear of death driven by the loss of his father 20 years ago. His belief in science is almost admiriably singular. There is no problem so great, he believes, that it cannot be overcome through application of creative human thought.
Some excerpts, mostly Kurzweil's own words:
"Death represents the loss of knowledge and information. A person is a mind file. A person is a software program - a very profound one, and we have no back-up. So when our hardware dies, our software dies with it....I've made an issue of overcoming death, and the strongest experience I've had with death is a tragedy.'"
Wow! This is today's paradigm for the mind - its a big computer. Is this true? I would venture not.
"'By scanning the contents of your brain, nanobots will be able to transfer everything you know, everything you have evr experienced, into a robot or a virtual reality program. If something happens to your physical body, no problem. Your mind will live on - forever....After 2045, Kurzweil predicts nanobots will replicate and spread throughout the tiniest recesses of matter, transforming the host - say, a tree or a stone - into a computational device. He calls this intelligent infested matter 'computronium, which is matter and energy organized at optimum level for computation. Using nanotechnology, we're going to organize matter into a computer.' As the nanobots spread computer intelligence beyond our planet, the universe itself will awaken as if a giant switch is finally being turned on. 'The universe is not conscious - yet, but it will be'"
What.The Fuck! This is a good thing?!?! But is artificial intelligence the same as sentience?
"'Most have a conventional concept of a lifespan...if they move more aggresively, they can actually be quite healthy In another 15 years, we get to a tipping point.' By then, he says, we'll have the means to reverse-engineer 'the information processes underlying biology' - giving us the power to ensure our immortality."
I recall reading a similar article in Wired a little while back.
Aside from the obvious, that Kurzweil has never read the science fiction implications of his irrationally rigid predictions, or seen Terminator, and that he needs some serious grief counseling over the death of his father (over 20 years ago), I am struck by the paradox of his quest. He truly believes there is no problem that cannot be overcome through creative human thought. This might be true. It has at least been the impetus to many of humanity's amazing acheivements. Perhaps, but his quest operates under the assumption that mortality is a problem.
RESPONSE FROM A FRIEND:
when i was in junior high i would sometimes lie awake at night scared of what would happen to my consciousness after death, mostly that it would continue on. immortality scares me. the desire for such seems to be a result of fear of death, of the unknown, but i would say i can't think of anything worse than my consciousness continuing on forever and ever and ever...i don't think anyone can honestly comprehend eternity, making it kinda silly for someone to desire. although i suppose we do desire things we don't entirely understand all the time.
as for artificial intelligence being the same as sentience, man, i love (in a very selfish entertainment driven way) that this is still up for debate. still a part of the moral discourse that has entered into every aspect of society, including our lovely pop culture that you speak of. central to the recent battlestar gallactica themes, might i add, which goes to my selfish entertainment.
well basically i'm adding nothing to your post that you didn't already write, and write more eloquently, might i add. purely self-indulgent. i'll leave on a cliche note. mortality makes us human. though human nature is theorized and analyzed to the point of no return (which i am in no way complaining about as it is an interest of mine), i do hope we won't have to change that aspect of the definition.
Posted by little on Wednesday, June 03, 2009 - 7:22 PM
MY REPLY:
The greeks knew that mortality made us human, and the immortal gods envied that and the passion it propagated.
As for immortality of whatever it might be, it could not be an eternity, because at least it has a start. An eternity would extend to infinity, which has neither beginning nor end. I would suspect that if there was en eternal consciousness, it would be dealt in stages with only a dim concept of what came before and would come after. Perhaps we are already at a great length along that continuum, having birthed out of a different past into the present and dying into an entirely different future.
I prefer the concept that most fits with the nature of matter as composed of energy, being reorganized constantly constantly by Life, but always seeking entropy. A human being, and consciousness and even spirit, would be the energy we are composed of. It is unlikely that energy would maintain any level of unified organization after death, but would be given off in heat and consumed by organisms. These organisms do not inherit our being as we do not inherit the being of the organisms we consume, so our being must be diffused to no longer exist.
However, what of those moments before full diffusion. I would like to believe that dying is like a deep sleep that deepens to be un-plumbable and un-returnable. I would like to believe that those lat moments are in dream state and I know that dream state is neither limited by space no time. To our consciousness, Death is a dream that extends time beyond the maybe seconds a death takes, a surreal wrap up of our lives that is like a vortex (a swirling has always been a symbol of traversing levels of consciousness either way) down into what he have carried in our lives. Have you died with fears? This last dream might be filled with fear and rather hellish. Have you found some equilibrium in life? This last dream might be rather pleasant or at least a carrying on of the things you have loved. The dream as a St Peter projecting the state of your soul. And that dream fades away imperceptibly, as all deep dreams do without fear of end or what is beyond - which is nothing.
Posted by Nick on Thursday, June 04, 2009 - 9:53 PM
Fear of Death pt II: contemplating whist reading Dune
Thinking about the apparent, but I believe opaque dichotomy of death and life, I came on an analogy. Of course the nature of things is that everything is analogous.
Consider breathing
inhale
exhale
Intake life sustaining oxygen
Outtake (seemingly) static Carbon dioxide
Both are separate activities as we delineate them, but as far as the body is concerned the difference is perhaps not so clear. More importantly, in and of themselves, neither one is the act of breathing. To breath we must inhale and exhale.
I am reminded of the different applications of the words death and life. "Death" is active, while "life" is passive. Inhale and exhale are active, while breathing is a broad passive. Life is a thing that contains death as the degenerative aspect of itself, just as exhalation is the degenerative aspect of breathing. What word is there for the regenerative aspect of life - the inhale?
Life is at least twice as large as the part we call life, it is also death and who knows what else.
I don't know why Dune had me in this state of mind, perhaps the characters' solipsizing led me to do the same. Here is some lint from my navel gazing, anyway. And before you raise a stink, which people often due on the internet, let me tell you that in addition to usually being true, all analogy is eventually false. Consider that, then comment.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Fear of death part III: Science!
After determing that it is just an elaborate ad machine for the labels, I have tried not to read Rolling Stone Magazine. However, I gotta take something into the john, and at work, it's all I've got. This month's issue contains a feature on Inventor Ray Kurzweil, the prophet of the singularity theory. The theory goes that technology will soon surpass human capacity for intelligence and at that point (of singularity) the two must merge, redefining life as we know it.
I don't even feel the need to refute his particulaly tech-heavy messianical vision. Even a lightweight like me can identify the logical, philosophical, technical and biological gaps in his staid prediction. What intrigues me is his purpose for arriving at this prediction, where the idea sits in our period of time and its place in our pre-agreed realities - an exagerated spike in a massive wave of our cultures paradigms.
His motivation seems to be a fear of death driven by the loss of his father 20 years ago. His belief in science is almost admiriably singular. There is no problem so great, he believes, that it cannot be overcome through application of creative human thought.
Some excerpts, mostly Kurzweil's own words:
"Death represents the loss of knowledge and information. A person is a mind file. A person is a software program - a very profound one, and we have no back-up. So when our hardware dies, our software dies with it....I've made an issue of overcoming death, and the strongest experience I've had with death is a tragedy.'"
Wow! This is today's paradigm for the mind - its a big computer. Is this true? I would venture not.
"'By scanning the contents of your brain, nanobots will be able to transfer everything you know, everything you have evr experienced, into a robot or a virtual reality program. If something happens to your physical body, no problem. Your mind will live on - forever....After 2045, Kurzweil predicts nanobots will replicate and spread throughout the tiniest recesses of matter, transforming the host - say, a tree or a stone - into a computational device. He calls this intelligent infested matter 'computronium, which is matter and energy organized at optimum level for computation. Using nanotechnology, we're going to organize matter into a computer.' As the nanobots spread computer intelligence beyond our planet, the universe itself will awaken as if a giant switch is finally being turned on. 'The universe is not conscious - yet, but it will be'"
What.The Fuck! This is a good thing?!?! But is artificial intelligence the same as sentience?
"'Most have a conventional concept of a lifespan...if they move more aggresively, they can actually be quite healthy In another 15 years, we get to a tipping point.' By then, he says, we'll have the means to reverse-engineer 'the information processes underlying biology' - giving us the power to ensure our immortality."
I recall reading a similar article in Wired a little while back.
Aside from the obvious, that Kurzweil has never read the science fiction implications of his irrationally rigid predictions, or seen Terminator, and that he needs some serious grief counseling over the death of his father (over 20 years ago), I am struck by the paradox of his quest. He truly believes there is no problem that cannot be overcome through creative human thought. This might be true. It has at least been the impetus to many of humanity's amazing acheivements. Perhaps, but his quest operates under the assumption that mortality is a problem.
RESPONSE FROM A FRIEND:
when i was in junior high i would sometimes lie awake at night scared of what would happen to my consciousness after death, mostly that it would continue on. immortality scares me. the desire for such seems to be a result of fear of death, of the unknown, but i would say i can't think of anything worse than my consciousness continuing on forever and ever and ever...i don't think anyone can honestly comprehend eternity, making it kinda silly for someone to desire. although i suppose we do desire things we don't entirely understand all the time.
as for artificial intelligence being the same as sentience, man, i love (in a very selfish entertainment driven way) that this is still up for debate. still a part of the moral discourse that has entered into every aspect of society, including our lovely pop culture that you speak of. central to the recent battlestar gallactica themes, might i add, which goes to my selfish entertainment.
well basically i'm adding nothing to your post that you didn't already write, and write more eloquently, might i add. purely self-indulgent. i'll leave on a cliche note. mortality makes us human. though human nature is theorized and analyzed to the point of no return (which i am in no way complaining about as it is an interest of mine), i do hope we won't have to change that aspect of the definition.
Posted by little on Wednesday, June 03, 2009 - 7:22 PM
MY REPLY:
The greeks knew that mortality made us human, and the immortal gods envied that and the passion it propagated.
As for immortality of whatever it might be, it could not be an eternity, because at least it has a start. An eternity would extend to infinity, which has neither beginning nor end. I would suspect that if there was en eternal consciousness, it would be dealt in stages with only a dim concept of what came before and would come after. Perhaps we are already at a great length along that continuum, having birthed out of a different past into the present and dying into an entirely different future.
I prefer the concept that most fits with the nature of matter as composed of energy, being reorganized constantly constantly by Life, but always seeking entropy. A human being, and consciousness and even spirit, would be the energy we are composed of. It is unlikely that energy would maintain any level of unified organization after death, but would be given off in heat and consumed by organisms. These organisms do not inherit our being as we do not inherit the being of the organisms we consume, so our being must be diffused to no longer exist.
However, what of those moments before full diffusion. I would like to believe that dying is like a deep sleep that deepens to be un-plumbable and un-returnable. I would like to believe that those lat moments are in dream state and I know that dream state is neither limited by space no time. To our consciousness, Death is a dream that extends time beyond the maybe seconds a death takes, a surreal wrap up of our lives that is like a vortex (a swirling has always been a symbol of traversing levels of consciousness either way) down into what he have carried in our lives. Have you died with fears? This last dream might be filled with fear and rather hellish. Have you found some equilibrium in life? This last dream might be rather pleasant or at least a carrying on of the things you have loved. The dream as a St Peter projecting the state of your soul. And that dream fades away imperceptibly, as all deep dreams do without fear of end or what is beyond - which is nothing.
Posted by Nick on Thursday, June 04, 2009 - 9:53 PM
29 May 2009
What's a synonym for slow?
Some much called for solipsism:
(called for by my therapist)
I am recognizing my pace. I am not fast, abrupt, quick or witty. I am deliberate ponderous, leisurely...
I am to make a religion of this.
I am to be my own mythos.
Each day is one thing. Each thing is significant to me. My mind is like a garden growing or a stew, slow to simmer. I am the crust of the earth is slow upheaval and erosion. I am tectonic plates of imperceptible shutterings. I am magma concealed.
I am a slow burn.
I am to stop letting myself be distracted by modernity to the cult of speed.
I am going to find a paying position that is benefited by this gift.
I am going to gird my time and my space and let people feast on me at leisure.
This world will not catch me in its whirlwinds. I am a stone with its own life force, holding warmth and coolness.
Enjoy Enjoin Engine in idle.
(called for by my therapist)
I am recognizing my pace. I am not fast, abrupt, quick or witty. I am deliberate ponderous, leisurely...
I am to make a religion of this.
I am to be my own mythos.
Each day is one thing. Each thing is significant to me. My mind is like a garden growing or a stew, slow to simmer. I am the crust of the earth is slow upheaval and erosion. I am tectonic plates of imperceptible shutterings. I am magma concealed.
I am a slow burn.
I am to stop letting myself be distracted by modernity to the cult of speed.
I am going to find a paying position that is benefited by this gift.
I am going to gird my time and my space and let people feast on me at leisure.
This world will not catch me in its whirlwinds. I am a stone with its own life force, holding warmth and coolness.
Enjoy Enjoin Engine in idle.
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