Agent Chlorophyl

teaching directed at the writer

2011-09-03T15:57:00.002-04:00

You want to position yourself exactly so people will care about what you write.
Most struggle for the reader’s appreciation.
If you bypass the reader, and strive for your _own appreciation, you will learn more than they do.
It is ultimately about what the _writer can learn. If you think it is ultimately about the creation of the
best/truest philosophy...
We need _one person to learn this stuff before we can have many people know it.
It is about pedagogical/paedosophical.
And we want to teach children to be better than us. Not to simply reproduce.
Reproduce the same set of human types and you will merely reproduce a broken society.
Some people don’t see it this way. They see no problem, no broken society. Good for them!
I am more directing my productions at people familiar with pain.
Pain with a “big P” is really another way to hide pain.
Saying it is primal just gives you another excuse.
It is “primal”, but not “Primal”.

the essence of consciousness

2011-09-03T15:49:00.002-04:00

What can you do? Is it “mathematical”? I don’t think so. Math is an abstract system, invented by
humans. Meanwhile, there is nothing abstract about the wire level, or about consciousness in general.
Perhaps it is more fitting to say, indeed, that we are metalinguistic entities. Language seems like it
could be a “system” closer to consciousness than math is.
But language is kind of amorphous. It is not a tight structure like a computer program.
This is when you have to come across using new concepts. Syntexy, diatexy.
The ultimate goal _is diatex operation with self-ownership. For a writer, at least. I will ignore other
cases for now.
Diatex thought is very satisfying. It feels good to think with ideas.
And if you achieve syntexy – or relevance relative to your whole set of truths – you can truly do some
amazing things.
If you are a writer. Should [...]

A "Schematism"

2011-09-03T15:46:00.001-04:00

You are always spawning processes. This can’t be denied.
Yet at the “wire-level”, neuro-atomically, in other words, things must be coded. Pure concepts as such
could never instantiate at the wire level. Thus there must exist a code. Or codes.
_Virtual linguistic processes are always trying to hack your code. “Own” you.
You need guidelines for generating your layer of defenses, so you can maintain ownership of the
subjective.
It is not easy, it is not difficult. It is just something that you may find yourself wanting to do, at some
point.
Virtuals, that is, virtual linguistic entities, are processes which “virally” infect your wire level, or even
your conscious level, and attempt to hack your system – to exert (virtual) control over who you are.

your "question"

2011-09-03T15:07:00.001-04:00

We get it. We decide to "write"(to make things right)... This is what I've decided. What I decidecan have a bit of _truth to it, at least for my world. Myself and myco-conspirators. We get to determine what (our) life consists of. Not everyone has this freedom. I'm talking about America. I'mtalking about Pittsburgh. It is different elsewhere. I have themeans, the technology, to put my vision online. I even have themeans to occasionally advertise my sites. Very rare, I would think,in world civilization. All the things that make one different... Allthe things that make one true. You never find things out until youresearch. "Explore reality"... What is your "experiment"-- your "question"? Benjamin would say that every writerhas one great question. We have to look into this. When you readliterature, there are hints and occasions for meaning that it becomessomething of a duty to look into. If you want to gain benefit, orgive benefit...

this is the kingdom of God

2011-09-03T13:30:00.002-04:00

You don't know. That's the key. You don't know the truth... Nietzsche thought that Pilate's question to Christ, "What is truth?", was the only valuable statement in the Bible. Nietzsche is surely a contradictory character. Or -- _more than a "character" -- a _philosopher. He not only dreamt, but also he controls our dreams. To the extent we listen to him. He would say things like that about Pilate, but also, that Christ's life was an original example of a truly Buddhistic peace movement. The kingdom of God is _here..! We are all the children of God! Good news -- the world is heaven, has been graced, is the meaning of life...

the good life

2011-09-03T13:22:00.002-04:00

The stimulant is starting to hit. That means pleasure, it means creativity. At least -- the _illusion of creativity. Ronald Judy claims you can't reach "original" work. I am still thinking about this, even though he said it eight years ago. I guess, there's a "flow" to language. Why not say it's _all original? It's new -- Hegel and the rest of the philosophers are (still) new. Nothing ages. The Now, the moment, is all. How could you generalize, how could you exclude? We try to do any number of things. If we're philosophers, we try to change the way people think. The good life, as Adorno put it. We decide, declaim, what is good.

true creation

2011-09-03T12:13:00.002-04:00

I guess things "matter" if you want them to matter.

In the symbolic realm, at least -- in the real world, maybe we have less choice/say.

What do we want to write? Show how life is? Show to the world?

I don't know if anything makes sense. "Naive" attitudes may be most realistic.

This is what we come across. (That line is one of my verbal tics.)

My verbal tics are getting more and more complex.

Poetic tics, philosophical tics. I guess true creation wouldn't be so automatic.

the solution to the world?

2011-09-03T11:38:00.002-04:00

I'll try to be/come a "blogger", too. May as well diversify...

I don't know what the solution to the world is. Is there a solution? Is there a _problem?

You could say that life is an intelligence test... Are humans passing the test?

Individually, we might be doing admirably -- but as an aggregate?

Aggregate Rationality is my brand of political philosophy.

Is it rational? To act this way? Fossil fuel, nuclear energy, global capitalism?

Maybe there is simply no alternative. This is the best possible world.

Eerie thoughts...

things are difficult

2011-08-14T12:05:00.002-04:00

Maybe I should be writing. Maybe this is the thing to do. It's not like I have anything better to do. Even, being the person who wrote such-and-such, you'd think there would be a psychological payback. Some sort of comfort or stimulating effect. I can't really detect any. Of course, if I hadn't have written them, maybe I'd be doing even worse. Is this bleak? Do I have a bleak vision to share with the world? Does the world need that? I don't know if the world needs anything. Moreso, _we need things. ("Do only what you need to" -- Janov). I guess we figure some stuff out in the end. if we really want to. You'd think life would be easier. Maybe it is, for normal people. Maybe my illness makes things especially challenging. That would make sense of them giving me disability. I actually tried to work. Extreme difficulty. Well, a learning experience. Now I know what I'm up against -- the reality of most people. Kind of scary. Life is kind of scary. Knowing you have to fend for yourself, in a jungle. Maybe I'm not meant to fend for myself. "Most writers need to be subsidized". If that's what I choose to be. I thought it would be best. I'm good at music, also, but musicians get exploited pretty bad by the recording industry. Also good at film, but it's a lot of work to direct a film. Maybe stick with the written word. You'd think things would be easier -- doable. This is almost not doable. I am almost at the edge. Where things are no longer doable. I was feeling pretty good Friday... Strange how that doesn't really last. Strange how there can be such a radical turnaround.

going public

2011-08-09T22:12:00.000-04:00

finally going public, publishing to Kindle.

yes, it's "self-publishing" -- vanity?
or, the wave of the future?
I guess we all have to figure out some things. We all have to create our own realities. In the end, will be you and your dust. This is all.

genome base one

2011-07-13T15:40:00.002-04:00

this shows how functional I am

genomebaseone.com

a transvaluation of value

2011-07-10T12:38:00.003-04:00

it is a transvaluation of values. That is what I'm talking about. Valuing the self, the mind -- consciousness -- above all else. Anything else is mistaken -- delusional.

"What about other people -- sex and reproduction, the social and communication?" I hear you asking. Well, that's a good question. These things are good for what they are, in-themselves. They should not, however, be valued higher than the self. The are secondary, minimal goals. Yes, we need reproduction. Yes, we need to communicate. Animal needs. We are humans, though. We can choose a higher path, than the animal path. Empirical sensation is pathological, as Kant would say. It is delusional, and stupid. Why is it so often the focus of life? Hard-wired, genetic programming. An unconscious "trance" we are victim to when we come into this world.

objectivity, capitalism

2011-07-10T11:22:00.001-04:00

I'm just trying to write. "Perform"... If I want to be a philosopher, I guess this is what I should do. I _do want to be one. But maybe I already am one. "milk-drop dream dialectic" is getting tons of hits.. That could be a bit of a revolution in itself.

Do I share? Do I express my thinking, and publish my experiences? I try. I guess that is all we can do. Try our best.

Do you think the world is a good place? Does it need a communist revolution? Well, I've been thinking about it this way... Would _you want to work on an assembly line, in a loud, dirty factory? Would you want to be a garbage collector? If not, then how can you really say that a socialist revolution is viable? Jobs no one would want, but that capitalism is set up to fulfill.

Maybe the world _is a good place. Maybe this is the only alternative..

Didn't Kant say "people should be ends, never means"... But this isn't objective -- people _are means, they are the reason we can have such wonderful tools as laptops and skyscrapers.. If you are your own object, aren't all the others objects for you?

pleasure pathology

2011-07-09T19:28:00.002-04:00

the trick is not to go to bed too early. There is a temptation. It must be resisted.

the trick is a "transvaluation" of all values...

Negative: Object Orientation

it could be titled...

Your soma / self is the only object you are really stuck with.

Maybe it's good to focus on these.

We are programmed to be object-oriented -- sexual.

this can be discovered, because as you learn, you can learn to undo some of this programming

If you can undo something, it must have been done in the first place.

Children closer to the edge, the primal origin, are much more programmed, in some ways.

Sex / sensation is pathological, as Kant would put it.

It is a failure of the imagination.

It simplifies life, and it stupifies life. Getting something for nothing? I don't think so.

Pleasure... Usually delusional.

flushing gists down the memory hole

2011-07-09T18:05:00.002-04:00

that's what i've been into lately -- fewer needs / simplifying things..

the fewer needs you have, really, the more free you are.

If you're goal or "telos" involves always getting something else, or someone else, this actually constrains what you are then capable of doing.

Freedom would mean freedom-from-want. I think . I don't know. It's hard to know anything, for sure. We try. We give it our best shot. "We"? Who exactly are you talking about here? I can talk about whoever I want to.

Different levels of achievement. Different levels of accomplishment.

Actually, you want to stretch things out, to fully "perform" or sound-out in your mind, all the sentences you come into. If you just get the "gist" of them, and flush them down the memory hole, without performing, you are missing out on a lot.

I guess we all figure it out

2011-07-09T17:43:00.000-04:00

I guess we all figure it out, in the end. Supposedly.
You don't _really have any choice. Fatal.

I guess we all figure it out, in the end.

Supposedly... This is how it goes. No one _really knows. No one really has the full story.

Is our world unique? Humans who crucify their god?

What if there are thousands -- millions of worlds much like ours?

That would be more realistic. That would be more of a goal.

There is no such thing as a world -- there are only _worlds...

I'm coming around. Coming around to a different sort of belief.

May as well write to the world

2011-07-09T16:04:00.000-04:00

I was going to write a private document, but may as well write to the world. What good is keeping yet more production secret?
I don't know what the point is. If I have things to express, may as well express them. What is so sensitive that it cannot be shared online? What is so critical for my own literary development? I've already shared a lot. I've already kept a lot private. This is just what I'm thinking. This is just what I feel.

Dismissive (Exclusive Selective)

2011-05-28T22:45:00.001-04:00

Dismissive Input Vector //
Normal Matrix //
Infinite Output Function --

The modalities of the self. The concerns of all wealth.
You have to do what you never were...

Modalities of the brain,
a neuro-signaletic multi use processor..

We have the right to question,
to program!

For anything significant to happen

2011-05-18T16:23:00.000-04:00

i don't know if the elite _is hegemonic...

it seems like every attitude of the individual is a function of the universal...

what is hegemonic is, as i have called it elsewhere, "chm" --

the compulsive heterosexual matrix of thought and body control...

to be an effective subjectivity, it doesn't matter what structural class you're in...

that's why i say "permanent revolution", that's why i say "the degenerate world"...

consciousness is false to the extent that it's ignorant...

"where there is a beggar, there is a myth", as benjamin would put it...

that's why digital is interesting --

old school, you had to please your audience, to publish and be spread...

now you can be true to yourself, and the digital will save you forever...

this is actually the first time there's been a chance for anything significant to happen

themes on the head of a pin

2011-05-17T22:25:00.000-04:00

this book i have on adorno is called "semblance of subjectivity"...

i am finally getting what that means...

for him, we are more a communal function, less a true/pure individualitaet...

the universal is what shines through in each of us, and selfhood is more of an illusion...

of course he's speaking of the populace, for the most part...

it's elitist -- he can't be understood by the proles -- he needs philosophers to interpret him...

i'm trying to phrase it in a few short phrases...

think of language, of the themes of your parents...

we needed endless variety to learn language -- yet our family constellations revisited themes again and again...

we are kind of like vectors of our pasts...

adorno failed, hardly anyone can understand him, he is forgotten in world history...

yet he was a bestselling author in germany -- his is a "pedagogical framework" -- he educates the elite...

he was dancing on the head of a pin, yet he needed to explain some things to us...

True Memory

2011-05-04T14:51:00.000-04:00

You figure that nothing you say / write / do will survive your death. Yet also, what you say / write / do is "written in stone"... History will not forget. The system integrates everything. If you put your work on the net, it is guaranteed a permanent place in history! This is true memory, true intersubjective phenomena... I guess you have to go at your own pace. You feel, "I wish I could write a book _now!" But yet, if you could write a book, you _would write one... You have only to _choose. (It's not "ability" -- it's _choice!)

Common Sense

2011-05-04T14:39:00.000-04:00

This can be very enjoyable. A tension-release, a relaxation. I am experimenting with relaxation. Instead of building up your tension, practice releasing it. It is not "radical acceptance"... I would simply call it "acceptance"... There is nothing "radical" about the most true philosophy. It is almost on a common-sense level, of folk-lore or tradition.

Not "Ability", but Choice

2011-05-03T14:33:00.000-04:00

Things, sometimes turning out how you want them to. I guess "TINA" -- "there is no alternative", is what my philosophy boils down to. Nietzsche would say I'm a nihilist, a decadent. The denial of power would mean to him the lack of it ever in the first place. I guess we all have our philosophical burdens to bear. It doesn't even matter "what" you believe -- moreso _how_. Because you cycle through many varieties. You figure out some cool stuff to think and do. Not all of it makes sense. In fact, this "heliosophy" or Earth-knowledge may indeed _not make sense, ultimately. Who would believe in god? Who would believe in no-god? I guess you have to make your own decision. It's not "ability" -- it's _choice.

A Perfect Life

2011-05-03T10:29:00.000-04:00

You can say I like this. That would be a sound proposition. Whether this is true, is another question. Why do I write "free-form sophistry"? Maybe it's the most _pleasurable way to write. I'm blogging. I'm developing my _voice... This is one of the main ways to do it -- to _write. I'm sorry for using so much emphasis. I don't know any other way to go about it. You could say I have a relationship with writing. I've done a bit of it. I've had to do it, in order to cope with some problems I've had. Not everyone would have solved them like I did. It's a matter of style...

The Only "Real" Earth

2010-08-29T20:55:00.000-04:00

I'll do this "simply" because it's good for me. Good to express. Even if I have nothing new to say. That is not the issue. The flow of language is the issue. "Voice", in other words. You _can_ practice voice when you have no other knowledge to impart. But I suppose voice _is a knowledge. It all depends. "It's all relative", is the easiest way to put it. There is no absolute. The infinite totality is the only absolute. The whole is the whole. Heterogeny -- all is different, all is in flux. We may not live to see the end of this. And in a way, it doesn't matter. Even the sun will die, one day. But before then, we can see what kind of patterns -- cognitive or brick-and-mortar -- we can create on this -- the only "real" Earth.

Naive Attitude

2010-08-26T11:38:00.000-04:00

I like going about my day with a Cockney accent. No one knows why this is true.

I have other affinities with other cultural phenomena. Musically, I am a blend of medieval travelling musician (I can't think of the proper term right now) and ultra-modern fusion band.

You're not supposed to use "I" in a composition -- only in letters. What does that say about the nature of the blog?

I don't know if any of this will come to anything. The key, I'm learning, is to cultivate a "naive" attitude toward reality. No, you _don't_ know what's going to happen. No, this _hasn't_ happened before.
At least this is my current philosophy. You know how that goes.

intrusion

2010-08-17T21:02:00.000-04:00

These things come in cycles, in waves. I'll lay off the blog for weeks and weeks. Then be right back to it -- hungry for the sort of energy it gives...

No one really knows what's going to happen. Anything could happen. We have to choose an appropriate arena for our efforts, our struggles. Writing, "texy", seems like the best arena for me.

It wasn't always like this. For a while, I was practicing to be an avant-garde composer. I would compose imaginary movements all day long. However, I discovered that my various other types of consciousness were suffering. Discursive thought, which I value highly, was being pushed out by the AMI -- "automatic music intrusion"... When you habituate your brain to something, it seems it is not so easy to re-program, if this indeed is what you want to do...

we'll see

2010-08-17T18:44:00.000-04:00

this is one venue. Whether or not I excel here is another question. I try my best. In the end, it doesn't matter. But before then, some things may come together...

you have to ask yourself what the point of anything is. What it "means"... Perhaps this world is not right for "Heliosophy"... Only time will tell.

can I imagine the publication of my book? What would that really mean? A small income in my pocket? Requests for interviews? Write-up's in the paper?

Maybe books have no, or near-zero, impact on reality. Compared, for example, with movies. Maybe if you want to be a real ball-breaker, become a director.

I think literature still has potential. I'm giving it a shot.. We'll see...

251frankjazz com

2010-06-20T22:38:00.001-04:00

i now spend my time
on
251frankjazz.com
!
david

World of Text

2010-05-08T14:36:00.002-04:00

It doesn't have to be anything amazing. One just wants your voice. Your "vocal structure" or vocal process. This is what communication, sharing, writing, philosophy all depend on.

If you do have any amazing thoughts, of course share them. But this is not important at first. You want to connect with your "language generating apparatus"... This is how you become a writer who writes. More and more stuff appears in your mind, to come out into the world of the text.

The CODE

2010-04-15T20:19:00.000-04:00

There is an amazing lack of objectivity in the world, in the media. I have elsewhere theorized that there is a regime of censorship -- not perpetrated by the Central Intelligence Agency -- but instead the CIA -- Composite Informational Apparatus... This is maybe not just a metaphor -- a fanciful speculation as to why everything seems in pre-agreement, always, with the code.

I wouldn't know how to start telling you about code. I guess we have to each come to a realization for ourselves. Pretend you are immersed in a Symbolic reality. Everything meaning not just itself -- but also other things. Everything "referring" to another reality, in other words... Our task would then be a sort of cryptography -- a cryptoanalysis -- first, to decode the set-up, then, to interpret the resultant "transcript"...

An imperative aspect

2010-04-05T16:34:00.000-04:00

This is a great outlet. Not that it is "really" "publishing"... You may never reach "real" publication. Not to worry. There are already a lot of producers doing that. They don't seem to be "missing" your input. (It's exclusive -- set up to exclude...)

Well, we can figure out stuff on our own. We can build our own texts, our own discourses and recoveries... No one is responsible for your recovery except for you. You really have to go for it, if you are diagnosed, or dual-diagnosed. There is an imperitive feeling/aspect to the situation.

Your world..

2010-04-02T16:46:00.000-04:00

You have to have a bit of "distance"... Or else things may appear overwhelming. I know this is true with reading... All the books and texts that "surround" you -- and in some sense that have determined you, and even will determine you... All of these texts can seem like "perfections" -- against which your own writing efforts may appear to fail...
I don't have a quick answer for this lack of self-esteem. I guess the solution is to just "keep going" -- don't "kill yourself" with drugs or blades -- keep reading, keep writing. The life is that worth it. It is that key that you stay alive and kicking.
The struggle will go on. With or without you. But we want you to be a part. Your own world needs you to be a part. The world you have helped create...

Important things to write

2010-03-29T15:47:00.000-04:00

I'm really recommending turning on to your voice. The actual things you would actually say/think.
There doesn't seem to be any other way to approach recovery. Dual-recovery, especially. The person must be addressed, the person must be expressed. How you do this is your choice. There can be many, many possible approaches. You don't even have to think about publication. You could be decades away from publication, and still have urgent, important things to write.

Try some reality.

2010-03-26T18:56:00.000-04:00

We all have things to say. And some of us even say them! I know I don't make smooth, glitch-free composition my norm... I can be difficult to read. This is a mark of bad writing. I am trying to fix this...
What do you have to talk about? The way of being you, really in your life, in the world as it is? Right on! That is what we want to hear. We want your real life, for this eternity of time we all spend together. Enough fiction! Try some reality!

It wouldn't work

2010-03-25T17:52:00.000-04:00

Just sitting around, waiting for something to happen? Not the right approach. Not in this world, at least. This is just what I've found. It's not a priori the truth, it is instead after experience and learning. Maybe it's not obvious. I don't know. This is just what I'm facing now. The urge or craving to go back to the drugs... But I think I'm skipping some intermediate positions/steps, between this and that. I could go for a walk. It wouldn't have to wind up at the drug den. I could theoretically walk wherever I wanted. I could try to write something. Or read something. Even -- a dvd... There is no end to what I could do. But drugs would be an "end"... I simply can't. There's too much going against that sort of life choice. It is an option that makes everything extermely difficult and down. It doesn't work for me.

Can't sit still

2010-03-24T17:47:00.000-04:00

I am being a bit disorganized in this forum. But it is intentional. It is a way to let thoughts achieve higher resonance. If you're too formal at the outset, the rigid structure may disallow great realizations that a looser structure may indeed make possible. That is a theory, at least.
I suppose any work of nonfiction psychology/philosophy has to be critical theory. What else would be apposite? If you are not critical of a state of affairs, you must be for the status quo -- and in that case, why write? This is the sort of thing I think about. It may not be on the highest level of sophistication (yet), but it is a step in the right direction.
Being a structure. If you think about it, you have direct neuro-atomic access... Indeed you are a neuro-atomic structure! Hard to believe. But there is no alternative. Your consciousness works all the way down to the micrological level. These semblances and appearances here on the macro level are fully connected to and fully count on structure all the way down to neuro-atomic.
I know it is a tough pill to swallow. Process... The mind is nothing but a process. This is why we find stability and relaxation so elusive. You always have to "take a step." The mind just can't sit still. It is always going.

As writing develops

2010-03-23T18:50:00.000-04:00

At the same time, you don't want to accept a priori limits to your own developing thinking. You want to give yourself the freedom to follow any of the narrative threads that present themselves to your desire in the moment.
Set, setting, context: in other words, your "mind-set", your "situation", and your "context" -- the plot of your life. This is what the big picture breaks down to, as far as I can see. There is a plot to each of these three elements. There is a plot to everything, in other words. Everyone's lives are going places. No one is in suspended animation or hibernation.
I don't know how helpful these posts are for now. They are the first fragmentary beginnings of my new discourse. It is simply the way my writing develops.

The strength of the disease

2010-03-23T17:59:00.000-04:00

I don't think you want to hit another bottom. I don't think you've even begun to experience how deep a true abyss is. Another run out, and you might -- who knows... It's unpredictable -- that's the thing. No one knows how much danger you would be putting yourself into with another trip out.
These things, and their like, are what you have to constantly keep in mind. You have to constantly remind yourself of what the stakes are. There are no two ways about it. You do drugs, you will become very unhappy. So why do them? That is the question. It's the disease. Cunning, baffling, and powerful. It lives within you. It gets stronger as you get stronger. Only the barest margin keeps you ahead of a crash.

Non-isolation

2010-03-23T17:10:00.000-04:00

It is true -- addiction. That craving, that psychotic, delusional impulse, will hit you out of nowhere, just like that, strong as possible.
This is where the 12-step meetings come into play. This periodic "booster shot" of recovery may indeed be necessary, if you're really an addict. You simply can't do it "on your own"...
And it makes sense. I could only quit in the beginning with rehab's help. I needed that structure to reprogram my life. So why should I propose to leave all the structure behind and embrace an "isolative" method?

Maintaining recovery

2010-03-23T14:31:00.000-04:00

Push yourself to write in strange situations. I just got in the door. Why not use that "outside" energy for a little blog post?
I think recovery is something you have to maintain. Evolve, in other words. Addiction is like a dragon, living within you. It grows as you grow. You have to let go of the doping life, absolutely, if you want to beat this thing. There is no alternative. It's "all-or-nothing" thinking, alright...
I can do it. I will do it is more doubtful. No one can predict the future. There may be conditions I'm not able to withstand. But I can try my best. This is all anyone could hope for.

Inner authority

2010-03-23T11:19:00.000-04:00

It's always interesting to see if I can write in the morning. How "awake" is awake...
I'm just going to continue my exploration of recovery and psychology. I think these are two areas where I can contribute a unique perspective.
It would be nice to have some more interesting things going through my mind. I guess this is everyone's goal, to a certain extent. Although not everyone would formulate it that way. People, I think, usually look outward, to the external, for their interest. Fewer take inner authority to be the ultimate authority. This may be inevitable. But it doesn't have to be permanent.

Negative Dialectic

2010-03-22T18:34:00.000-04:00

I think there is also something to dialectic. I am here attempting to follow Adorno in the usage of this term. He would propose things like "moments of language" or "thought against itself" or other such things which I can characterize as "provisional" and "contingent"... What he would not do is set up a scheme, a "system", which is fixed and with which a philosopher could always confront the world (other thinkers)... But you do want to set up a text, which is in any case eventually fixed... This balance, between the organic and the static, could be said to be a prime characteristic of "negative" -- or thinking -- dialectics.

Process versus Structure

2010-03-22T18:13:00.000-04:00

Process -- what, following Dan Siegel, the mind is... ("a process directing the flows of energy and information...")

Dialect -- the stuff of thought... What we cognize, internally or externally.

Together these concepts form a formiddable knot. In particular, there is the tension between structure and process... The contemplative, non-gymnastic mind wants to remain stable and "fixed", almost like it was/is a structure... Yet the processional nature of the mind means that dialect and action will continue, no matter what...

More to come...

2010-03-22T17:55:00.000-04:00

Hello again. I believe the more you talk about something, the more likely it will be to happen, (following a DeLillo character)...
So I'm going to start talking here a bit about my new book project, a literary effort to address psychology and recovery, life for patients and providers...
The working title is currently "Process and Dialect: A program for patient self-control"
More to come...

I might agree with you

2009-11-23T18:23:00.002-05:00

Sometimes you just have to "go with it"... There can be no "two ways" to approach writing. One simply _writes. This is the pro-expression side of me talking. The pro-impression side might be a bit more careful with what text-stimulation I was preparing for people's reading pleasure...

I try to go for a bit of a "special" feeling to inspire me to write. And hopefully, this is an "everyday" feeling -- as well as a philosophical one. I do not distinguish between everyday and philosophical concepts. The two should blend together and be identical. There is no vacation from philosophy. There is nothing in thinking that needs to be ignored on off-days...

This is some of the only writing I'm doing, I should remember. A bit of journal, and this. No real "projects" other than this philosophical blog. So I should really go all-out in doing as much of it as possible. This sort of effort on my part may not last indefinately, but I should be happy with what I do indeed produce.

"Empty verbiage" or "wordiness" you may say. And I don't necessarily disagree with you. But I value narrative threads for what they are -- part of our lives. You cannot escape the ones inside your head. And if you achieve a certain quality -- you may want to externalize a narrative -- make it real outside.

Maybe it's simply the matter of me being a better typer than penman. Maybe this sort of writing is simply the easiest way to stimulate my own thinking. Not all versions of me-in-my-life have had access to internet, or a venue like this. I shouldn't take it for granted...

The lost brain map

2009-11-21T17:42:00.000-05:00

I have begun to value _thinking. Doing that, and nothing else. And a narrative kind of thinking, as opposed to visual or memory-picture-thinking. This is I suppose the purest form of writing. Creation of words or sequences of words in one's mind. This may be the "end" of a writer's quest for the good life. What was all the text-work, reading- and writing-work for, if not so you can comfortably live with yourself? The mind is an amazing thing to waste...

I don't have much "philosophical" to add to that. I am trying to accept things for what they are. Nature is red in tooth and claw. Rather than alter that, I am trying to see it for what it is. A great drama unfolding on the surfaces of the Earth.

I suppose we all have things to communicate. Being an American, I am a privileged member of the "broadcasting" class -- everyone in the world knows what's happening in America, but Americans don't know what's happening in the world... And they have a saying about Mexico... So close to the United States, so far from god.

We'll see what this blog "leads to." Maybe it can just be for-itself. For no scheme or purpose other than what it is. Hegel rails against schematism in the _Phenomenology_... I, of course, have embraced it. Hegel didn't know how computers would work, how powerful their model would be for a potential philosophy of consciousness. What could he think, looking at the brain? While we at least know it's a neuro-structure, quantum electronic and neuro-chemical.

Knowing this, we _have to posit a schematism. The ultimate structure of the brain will remain unknowable... It's too big. And even if you had a good map, what would this tell you? We only know subjectivity -- quality -- and that this must reduce, finally, to the structure or schema of neuro-atomics...

Surely you have done something!

2009-11-20T22:56:00.002-05:00

You have to decide what your life consists of. Literature-wise, or any other way. When they say "Who cares who anyone's 'favorite books' are?", you have to counter with, "Favorites are _all that matters." That is what I have realized, _escpecially about philosophy. This is where our intuition serves us best -- in the creations of our passions and desire. Ignore your passion at your own peril.

I am a writer, I have discovered, of "fictional philosophy"... Real "true" philosophy is simply too stressful, too out-of-reach, too technical. Better to admit right out that you don't know what's going on, rather than engage in a sick pretense that you understand the world.

We just pick little topics, then we "riff" on them for about a paragraph. Who is this "we" I'm speaking of? Maybe you'll find out...

Trying to record the Pittsburgh natives this Friday night, from my second-storey window, I have realized that I have a "subjective ear" and an "objective ear"... The subjective one was very confidant of being able to get a good recording of the merriment and goings-on. While after listening to a cut as it actually records, the "objective" view -- the voices recede into the distance, compared to the overbearing traffic... The voices become almost microscopic, in fact. So sad, but true. My brother works in Hollywood. I guess he will ultimately be disappointed in his quest for more real sounds collected by me...

Technical difficulties. But that is all. You could say people are the "software" of the economy -- and the crystal, the superstructure, is the hardware. One or the other does not seem to be designed properly. I'll leave it to your particular political bent to decide which it is. Is social thought wrong? Does it actually accomplish anything in the reality? After all -- you can publish any book you want, write any article, make any lecture tour -- and what does this change about the misery, the torture and injustice? These things are kind of "solid", kind of "concrete"... Our symbolic manifestations don't seem to change them much.

But -- if you are engaged in the "construction of people", in education, that is, maybe you do have a chance. For if you "teach" or craft a subject/agent, who then goes out in the world, surely you have done something real!

The academic thinking cap

2009-11-18T20:41:00.000-05:00

I think it has come to the time to turn to myself. You can never be _entirely sure when in the day or week this will happen. But trust that, if you are a writer, it _will happen.

Consciousness is _that hard... That is why they call us "straight edge"... It is simply _that tough to be a being-in-the-world... The _real world -- with freely available substances to abuse, if you so choose to partake. I am choosing to accept treatment for my problems. Not everyone can make this choice. Not everyone does what they _should do.

What does this have to do with philosophy? Well -- what _doesn't it have to do with it? What do you think philosophy is? I am the writer, here, so _I get to decide. Unless you were to comment, at which point there'd be a discussion and a social engagement... Until then, my definitions hold.

You have to wonder 1) what your program is and 2) what will help your program. If you don't know these things, you can be pretty easily led astray. My program doesn't involve self-mutilation (anymore), it doesn't involve neuro-toxic insults to the brain (anymore), it doesn't involve wasting my mind, what is truly precious and worthwhile in my life (anymore).

We all have our choices, we all have our programs. You have to look at school, and figure out whether it is a "whole" or a "hole"... Empty, or full. The appearance of all the creatures there, in the swamp, writhing around, may make you think it is a living place. And I myself once thought as much. Indeed -- I _needed to think as much, stuck as I was in an undergraduate program.

Nothing can come of the academy but academics. This you should realize. "But" you may say "you yourself are one of its products -- should we discount your current productions?" And this is the circle, vicious or not, of causality. Maybe you have to partake of evil before you can escape from evil...

Or, you may say "Isn't this sour grapes -- wouldn't you take a teaching job if you could get one?" I would point to the "if" in this question -- a big "if"... John Landon says "anything published by a peer-reviewed university press is automatically suspect." A scary thought, but valid nonetheless. It is almost as if the system is _automatically set up to exclude revolutionary material. It is almost as if "They" know we're out here, writing, and "They" simply don't want to read it...

Put your thinking cap on...

Self-critical realizations

2009-11-16T19:26:00.000-05:00

As Hegel says, we are not simply Beings. But, rather, Subjects -- things which are reflected back into ourselves. But also -- Substance _is_ Subject. That is, we are "solid" -- material -- entities. Crystalline, as I like to put it. This is a reviewing of some philosophical history for us. As a teacher said today, "Philosophy can be anything you want it to be"...

I do not know why I write. Or -- that is a lie. Yes I do. I do it for the way the keyboard interacts with my hands, with the way the screen gives light to my eyes -- for the transformative powers of the concepts themselves working on my brain -- for the hope that _you_ will eventually read me... As Judy said long ago, "Let the _ideas_ be your drugs." Because of course, ideas are _mind-altering_ -- and what's more, they continue to do good work on you -- unlike substances, which breifly change you, then leave you needing more and more...

We have to "lock onto" our discourse. This is the way writers "grow up"... Have I written anything that's not juvenalia? Have I written anything worth publishing? I'm gambling on Google's long-term survival by putting all my material in a Blogspot blog. But, as my brother says, Google's skills are "retarded"... In other words, no worries.

Sometimes, I can simply keep writing as long as I want. I guess this is what I was always going for, when I've been learning how to write. It was sure painful in the beginning, at age 18, starting my first writer's journal. But since then, the thousands of pages unfolding, I've come to have some very good times, at times...

I don't have anything else to say... (This statement makes one wonder..) When you find yourself thinking like this, you have to hesitate, and do some self-critical analysis. What is _actually_ going on? Like with my SI -- suicidal ideation... I have learned to ask myself, "What is the _real_ feeling behind 'I want to kill myself'? -- Because I _know_ I don't actually want to kill myself."

Similarities of self and machine

2009-11-16T17:31:00.000-05:00

I _do_ like pushing myself. (To write more). As long as it's for a good cause... What else is the writing life for -- if you can't write all the time? I'm reading Nietzsche's _Pre-Platonic Philosophers_, and he makes it a point to emphasize that philosophers devote their lives _exclusively_ to knowing. Becoming, Purpose, and Knowledge he claims are the three themes of pre-Platonic philosophy...

I do seek to devote my life to knowledge. While my unemployed state lasts, why not direct my energies to the most _elevated_ and _admirable_ of pursuits? I could be an "artist" -- writing poetry or novels. But somehow I sense that the study of philosophy can only help such artistic endeavors -- while the artistic endeavors sometimes do not help philosophy.

We have to make choices. I am not good at this. But every line you write can be seen as a choice. Atheist, because god cannot be explained, and a lack of god isn't totally unbelievable. Materialist, because phenomena are ideal -- and there is no need for any realm that transcends material -- unless you have a stupid idea of what "material" is.. Fatalist, because there is only one History. Schematist -- because as numbers are objects, objects are also coded numbers -- _especially_ the self/subject, which can be thought of as a quite large, and quite quickly changing, number. (Just as is your computer).

Cosmological, crystalline

2009-11-16T15:51:00.002-05:00

What more can a poet or philosopher do, than use the words? This is what I think when I think of Pablo Neruda, or Hegel... What would _I_ have done in their place? I hope the same thing they did...

Sometimes I have to write, when I'm not exactly "feeling it." But I think it will be valuable, so I make an attempt anyway. I guess this is a sort of self-test -- of the limits of cognition... The powers of the embodied mind...

But really, shouldn't one _always_ want to write? I don't think so. -- Some times are recollecting times, remembering times -- not all times are up for production. That is another thing -- usually we think of "learning" or "finding" knowledge... But, following Judy, the writer _produces_ knowledge... Very strange. To be able to produce what one is indeed looking for in the first place!

We all have things within us. So when thinking of the strangers -- in the cafe's, on the busses, in the street -- you _have_ to suppose they might be on your level. Thus the "cosmological" in my book title. "Crystalline" comes from the _material_ aspect of the mind -- the fact that it is an embodied brain. "Psychosomatics" is the practice of using your whole body to think, not just your head. "On the verge of inner life," because while we hope to actually get there, we are sort of always already attempting to achieve it, but not fully succeeding...

To reach the cosmological

2009-11-15T18:45:00.000-05:00

We all have our "projects". We have to determine our own. _If_ we are creative agents. There cannot be control from outside, for the philosopher. "You cannot think by committee."

Phenomena are ideal. This is what we _mean_ by "ideal"... I got this from reading Hegel say that any true philosophy is an idealism. If we would look for an exception to this, a strict empiricism perhaps, we would presumably find that a totally "empirical" philosophy would have no opinion/belief -- would be a simple machinic registering of events, and thus not interesting.

Another way of this is to say that the real is transcendental. It _transcends_ ordinary, dead nature -- it becomes _consciousness_ in our heads. And bodies, by the way. You can engage a "psychosomatics" and use the area of your body to "think" with, as an extension of the head. Intellectuals tend to be afraid of expanding their minds this way, but it is necessary to avoid certain "head-focused" ways of life.

I don't know. I just try to live the best life. I guess this was involved in the ancient Greek conception of philosophy -- the study and implementation of the good life. What _else_ could it be for? And once you realize that, you are on your way to a "cosmological" stance, where what happens to you could resemble what happens to anyone, or everyone, else...

Afraid of everything

2009-11-14T20:22:00.002-05:00

Sometimes you just have to push yourself a little bit further. The moment calls for it. Like when you were in school, with the educational pressures forcing you to create. But now, it has to be yourself doing it. Your telos/dream...

I don't know how much value writing like this has. It seems to come of its own accord. We all have our wanted ways. Anyone can write like I'm writing, I think. I'm just doing the things any writer would do. Perhaps my preparation is the thing keeping me apart. That is what I think. The things I went through to get here.

We all have lives we've gone through. We are all different, but equal. As far as subjectivity goes -- realizing that you can reduce it and reduce it, to ideas, then to a matrix, then to a number. Indeed, if a DVD is really a quite large _number_, and even your computer, OS is a number, we can perhaps say that -- properly coded -- the _world_ could be viewed as a quite large, quite quickly changing number. If numbers are objects, aren't objects also numbers?

This is speculative, this is philosophy. You don't have to believe it. You can create your own things to believe. I don't think many people will even read this far into my posts/pasts... As soon as you say "you're a number" people seem to phase out, their attention gets defocused and they drift away, to more complex oceans of conceptuality.

But I think it is key. I think it is problematic, yet key. We all have our cycles to go through. You may achieve states you can indeed call "peak" states... For liberal minds, this can be possible. The themes are obvious enough. Read everything. Write everything. Think everything. Don't be afraid of everything...

On the Verge of Inner Life

2009-11-14T20:09:00.000-05:00

What is there _not_ to write? This is the appropriate question. Or the "apposite" one, as I sometimes say. In other words -- why would you _not_ write -- now, or ever?

We have to do what we're told. As children, perhaps. But I think this followingness can linger on, even into adulthood. Followingness, which I remind you, has to be ultimately circular -- devolved from previous past followingess in the ancient's times...

I do not have anything to write. But write I do, nonetheless -- and so should you. It becomes philosophical -- it becomes poetic. Both discourses converge, in an odd sort of way, at certain times of the night.

What philosophically do I have to say? I think just as with anything else, the philosophers we value most are also the most poetic/artistic with their wordplay. It is not some competition in boringness and "can't"... It is instead an undending flowing of light, sense, idea, and knowing -- which if you latch onto it early enough in life -- you might actually get to where you want to go!

That is for you to judge. Many are not happy where they are. They are "in search of" -- which I instead now try to "just be/exist"...

It comes down to a pretty interesting and entertaining way of life... The title of a book could be "Cosmological Psychosomatics: On the Verge of Inner Life"... In fact, let's say that _is_ the title of a book -- an _imaginary_ book!

Cosmological, because you can be universal and escape your particularity. Psychosomatics because you can use your _body_ to compute, just as well as your mind. On the verge because we're always already trying again. Inner life because the outside is pretty much under control...

Conceptual matters

2009-11-11T22:49:00.000-05:00

I made it. I have just made it to the point in Hegel's _Logic_ where he gets a bit too nutty, a bit too obsessed, for me to read any further... (You may say: "It took you this long?!") I suppose I should stick to the _Phenomenology_, his first epic: maybe when I understand that one, I can make another go at the _Logic_...

Or maybe this is bigger than Hegel. Maybe this is what philosophy in general does to you. You reach a point where everyone else seems crazy, or irrelevant, or just plain wrong. _Now_ is when you're truly a philosopher, when you truly have to _write_ your own way in the world. I don't suppose it could really happen any other way. For imagine if you always labored in the shadows of others... Would you ever achieve the immanence, the trasncendence, necessary to become your true telos/dream?

But _what_ is this thing called "philosophy"? That is what all the ink is being spilled over. The very _terms_ of the course, the stakes. I have made some provisional definitions already in this blog. Something about attunement and elaboration of the parameters of everydayness. I am resisting the analytic tradition, which I see wrongly emphasizes the "boring/scientific" aspects of philosophy. Though I would not go so far as the Continental tradition, which gets too "spacey/wordy" for me.

I guess finally the realization is that you have to do it _yourself_.. If I give suggestions here, I give them only to myself and _you_ -- not some third person. I realized this when thinking about the stuff I've read and learned. I realized, the point of it all? It was _me_ -- not some pan-optical observer in outer space. And so should _you_ be the point of all the education that comes your way.

I used to have a real vision of the education of the student. I have since strayed away from these speculations, into more of the "deconditioning" or dys-education we must go through to free our minds. But does any of it matter? If you _think_ it does. Or, "everything matters", as my brother famously said...

Too much information

2009-11-11T21:09:00.000-05:00

I suppose it's enough to say that "I'm alive." Though I have posited in this blog that organisms can be more profitably viewed as "dead things alive". This is because "life" as a word and as a metaphor has been far worn out.. Also -- if materialism is correct, and we're nothing but machinic assemblages -- what difference is it to call us "alive" or "dead"?

I hope this isn't depressing anyone. Am I making things too difficult? Because I see no reason for a god? Natural selection is a vulgar theory, also. So what is my third way? A force of life -- an "anti-gravity"? I don't know. It almost seems like too much effort to contemplate. Something or other, in the universe, must be very creative, or have a _lot_ of time on its hands...

Think of the things you could do here, and the things you could do elsewhere. This is how I view my decisions about committing to a move. Here I can seemingly do what I want, what I need. Sure, there are periods of discomfort, but I don't think anything that can't be dealt with arises... This could be my memory playing tricks on me, though.

At a certain point, you wonder _what_ you're communicating in philosophy. Am I communicating _myself_ -- or some abstract "other"? And if it is myself, how much of myself? What I did or didn't do today? What I dreamt last night? There has to be a line of "too much information". But I no longer know where it is.

No fate except for destiny

2009-11-10T19:27:00.002-05:00

The pressure, the "pain"... I suppose it's to be expected -- given the large amount of neuro-toxic insults I've administered to my brain over the seventeen-year career of substance addiction... But if I can make it through these "primal" periods of malaise/suffering -- if I can make it through to the other side -- how much _stronger_ I become, how much more able to handle the difficulties of life.

I don't know what my philosophical project is. I've sort of lost sight of it. With the eclipse of "books" as a viable means of expression, where should intelligence turn? The blog seems to be the only answer. Letters to the swarm, to the void core. This will become more apparent as time goes on, as the decimation of selections at bookstores continues, and as online access gets easier and more widespread.

But just because this is only a blog doesn't mean I should approach it with any less seriousness than I'd approach a book. Perhaps I should be crafting my posts, instead of simply writing them into the blog as rough drafts. But I don't know. I'm sort of interested in improvisational artforms. For instance, what if Hegel or Aristotle could have blogged -- what would they have had to say? In other words, _what_ _is_ improvisation, when philosophy is the concern?

So much difficulty is faced in life. You have to wonder what the point is. I don't think it's a transcendent point -- something in a beyond. I think, whatever it is, the point is _here_ _now_, on the earth, in waking life. I guess we have to make our own points. There is no "real self" as Janov would have it. Instead, there are multitudes of possible selves, and it is up to us to choose ones we like.. No _one_ fate, except our destinies, which can never be avoided...

Different surfaces

2009-11-09T20:20:00.000-05:00

I feel like I could write something now. There is a sort of "plane of existence" -- a "surface of reference" within you, which you can play language onto, if you want...
I am having trouble with my brain functioning... I'm not impressed with it.. But then I think, "Don't be 'in search of' -- instead just 'be'..." Don't posit the value of your mind as what it can create, in other words -- instead posit its value as intrinsic, essential...
What after all are these amazing ideas I supposedly want to have? I'm in my apartment... Reading books, listening to Mars Volta... Sufficiently stimulated to what? To write or think some amazing new philosophy? Perhaps not... Perhaps normal everyday functioning is all one can hope for, every day...
I think my brain has degenerated... I re-read "Today is Only Day", and I ask myself how I was capable of such a work... I don't feel like I'm being that skilled lately.. But maybe I'm just using a different approach... Instead of crafting a document, focusing all my energies on one text, I'm writing blog -- which is a more additive and unfocused event...

I try not to get depressed... I have to remember the view of the "totality" -- the world, that is... Think of all the immiseration and torture going on -- and you think _your_ life isn't cool? You've got to take a relative approach... Relatively, you're doing fine..

At this degree of night

2009-11-07T21:04:00.000-05:00

Maybe "nothing" can be truly accomplished in philosophy, anymore... When you have something like Hegel's _Logic_ written almost two hundred years ago... What do you expect? But, after all, one might point to the everydayness we have, and the changing relations of contemporaneity, and see that everything is in need of being _newly_ explained -- no matter how well explained the past was to the past...

I am just trying to make a philosophical _beginning_... I have been advised to use language like this, instead of talking of "originality" -- which is seen as being too vexed and unobtainable a concept... A beginning, on the other hand, is always possible. I try to make a beginning of thinking, "in thought"... I don't know how successful I am...

Sometimes, the concept of "time" can seem really boring... But, I think, only when my consciousness is on the wrong level... If I am in the right flow zone, so to speak, I can sort of observe time itself passing, and myself passing with it...

But maybe there is nothing worth writing... Or I have already written it all -- spilled my guts to a sufficient extent. Then where is this "pressure of voice" coming from? Where is my "trajectory of desire" taking me? Do I simply want to understand German, so I can read philosophy in its native language? Is all this English-speaking sort of a distraction from what I should really be working on? Well -- I _am_ listening to German radio, as I write this... I guess one can't _continually_ be at dictionary-work...

Yes, nothing much to report, at this degree of the night in my life... But maybe that's the way I want it. Maybe everything is going only exactly as it was meant to go... A belief I should find plausible, given my fatalist pronouncements...

Non-boring everydayness

2009-11-07T20:13:00.000-05:00

We have to come to terms with who we "are"... (Unless we seek to undergo life-changing therapy...) Our fundamental selves, the core (numeric) essence of our persons, is something that can truly be considered a "given"...

Why am I calling our selves "numeric"? Think of number as a shorthand for "structure"... The structure of our brains, I argue, being reducible to some quite large, and quite quickly changing number.

I know this seems a bit perverse. Read Hegel in his _Logic_ completely tear this idea to pieces... He would offer ideas/forms as the basis of our minds... But I ask you -- can an idea be reduced to a structure (of neuro-atomics)? I don't know -- but surely a _number_ could be, if properly coded...

Yes, this is how boring the thoughts of a philosopher are. Occasionally, they might get spiced up a bit by some life-event, -- but for the most part, they obsessively circulate around a few boring core problems that each of us chooses to entertain...

I'm trying to make Agent Chlorophyl more "life-oriented." Trying to include everyday items in here... Like for instance, my substance usage. I am coming to see that "the programs" may indeed be correct, when they say we can't hang with the people or places... It is just too torturous... No matter how solid in my recovery I might think I am, if I choose to enter those situations, it is like my good sense evaporates... This may be why, for example, I am called an "addict"...

The market doesn't lie

2009-11-05T20:04:00.002-05:00

It becomes kind of amazing... (Life, that is...) You discover that you _have_ accomplished things, be they though in the dim reaches of ancient history... At least this is the feeling I'm cultivating now... One has to read one's text works with a _somewhat_ sympathetic attitude.. You can't just be a critical asshole, like the market or academy would have you please...

We all develop into our own types of writers... However, if you consciously set out to please the market, to please the academy, prepare to feel very unhappy when your time comes up for judgment... "Beware of academics -- they'll screw you over every time," said someone memorably to me... I've come to understand, though, that by rejecting me they weren't necessarily screwing me over... Instead, they were simply alerting me to the helpful fact that a slot in the academic corporation may not be a wise choice for someone with an artistic sensibility...

I tend to think about this kind of stuff. This is the type of writer I am... "Your work is very ambitious, Mr. Bard," said Judy to me a while ago. Yes -- I do seek high levels -- even, the highest... There is always room at the top, as they say... If you're not aiming for a moon shot, why aim at all?, has been my belief...

When learning to play guitar, one always used to think, "In five years, I'll be good enough to be a pro!" Oh -- how sad, how tragically wrong we were! You may _never_ reach pro level. And with writing it's even more insane. As I've been writing here, there are probably _thousands_ of writing philosophers, just in Amerika (with the hip 'k' to denote the fascist state), and only a few dozen precious slots on the shelves at Barnes 'n Noble... Very sad, very avoidable though... Really? Would you say the market is wrong -- about _any_ of its decisions?

Against panopticality

2009-11-05T02:10:00.002-05:00

We have to approach reality. This is the only way to go about it. If you don't do this, you may be very unhappy...

Such considerations lead one naturally to the question -- "What is this all about?" And I think this is natural. We _should_ be always asking what things are about... This is the "relational test" -- the "research" into our activity that is necessary to live the virtuous/excellent life...

You might not agree with this. For instance, I just read the part of Hegel's _Logic_ in which he explicitly tears apart my philosophy of "schematism"... This is the belief that we are based on -- no, that we _are_ -- numbers... What it boils right down to is _quantity_... Quantity leads to quality... I know I'm going to have to read the _Logic_ a few times, and more carefully, before I am fully ready to admit defeat on this matter... But isn't it interesting how Hegel could have intuited that there were/would-be people with "computationist" leanings!

Things all look interesting, when I get in this sort of mood. Everything is a point or spot of interest. Very visual... But not, I would hope, panoptical...

Panopticality is the belief or paranoia that you are being watched -- by god, the CIA, or whoever... Instead, we must posit a _trans-opticality_... A faith that one day what we see will be seen by others... This is the substituion of logic for what was pathological...

I don't know how better to explain things... If you have any suggestions, please comment... Of course, only the people who read me will know of any of this... That is why my writing is exclusive.

Read everything!

2009-11-04T21:47:00.002-05:00

...to an extent it's a "turning inward"... To another extent, of course, it's a full-out relationality with the world and history... These moments cannot really be separated -- unless you'd separate yourself from things-in-the-world...

We have to make a lot of "turns" in our writing, in our development... My latest turn is a turn to analysis. You'd think, having gone to University of Pittsburgh, I would have come to this point long ago... Maybe if I were a traditional student, this would be the case... But I only came to Pitt after a long and torturous journey through Virginia Tech and schizophrenia... Pitt was like a second childhood for me... And it is only now, five years after graduating, that I am finally feeling like I have a handle on the philosophy thing... What horror, if I would have gone to grad school five years ago! The trash I would have had to read, not to mention write!

It all seems to make sense, when you get in a certain mood. The balance between what did happen and what could have happened becomes rational -- life is viewed as neither bad nor good -- but instead as a GED -- a grace, excellence, and delicacy...

We have to take certain steps, in our growth and development. Imagine being a teacher, and having to tell students how far they have to go! Perhaps that is what all writers are, though -- teachers... And it's "do or die", if you want to get good at philosophy... "Sink or swim", in other words -- you'll only understand all the thinking that's been done if you actually try to read it... Foucault would say, "Read everything." I would be a bit more selective, but only a bit...

Struggle

2009-11-04T20:41:00.000-05:00

I get so confused, when deciding what to read... I am really fickle in my tastes, my loyalty to particular writers... I had been thinking Benjamin was a pretty decent writer, but now, reading his early works, the sheer quantity of "god-speak" is turning me completely away... I know he supposedly moved on from his theological phase -- and heck, I've been in similar phases myself... So I really shouldn't give him a negative valuation just for this... But I can't help it...

Sometimes you just have to write, and be damned the consequences... You have to take Janov at his word, when he says "Anything on the way to expression is good." Expression -- the right and privilege of language-using creatures... And with the net, there is seemingly an endless "downstream" effect of anything you express... In other words, people could actually read it!

What do I think about, in my everydayness? I think a lot about thinking itself. I'm always criticizing the state of my brain functionality. Always hoping to be just a bit sharper than I actually feel. I always want to learn... As Rob Hall said, "Everything you do improves you..." What is learning? A modification of your PIN -- your identity number? (If you're new here, I'm being serious -- we actually _have_ Personal Identity Numbers...)

Some writers, as Smith put it, seemingly write like they _want_ to leave their readers "strewn along the margins"... I perhaps used to do this moreso. .. Lately I just seek to be understood. I feel I've found the truth, I seek to share it.. I have locked onto a voice, a manner of speaking, and all I have to do here is unfold the story...

Give it one more try -- why not? The theme here is somewhat obvious... A "struggle-fail" versus a "struggle-succeed" approach... Which is your basic imprint? Only you would know...

Provisionally speaking

2009-11-04T15:24:00.000-05:00

You can really push yourself to create, if you want to. There is a sort of barrier, what they call a "learning curve" -- if you push through/over it, you can achieve things that "relaxation" simply will not yield..

What do I speak of? -- Writing. It is one of the only things I am expert in. I have done my share... "Not much has been published," as they say... But I'm not including web publishing... If you include that, then almost all of my "crafted" work has been put up for online distribution... A good thing, thanks to modern technology...

There is a bit of a dispute about what philosophy is/should-be all about... The systematic exploration of concept usage? A lot of boring language, in other words? Or are we more concerned with an elaboration of the parameters of everyday life? Be they linguistic, be they meta-linguistic...

You _do_ really have to escape school philosophy... If you want to get anywhere interesting in the world... It is pretty hard, though -- the "suck" of school is fairly powerful... As an institution, though, it is no match for the _institution_ of language itself...

You have to wonder how long any of this will last... "All that is solid shall melt into air," as Marx put it... Ultimately, you could say life is meaningless.. But I don't think we're "speaking ultimately"... More provisionally...

We'll see where I take this

2009-11-04T13:29:00.000-05:00

My brain doesn't work very well in the morning... But with the new theme of "blog as reality", I'm going to make an attempt at writing, anyway...

The themes are obvious enough... We have to, at some point, leave behind "school philosophy", and take up _world_ philosophy... School is like an intellectual black hole, sucking you into its contemplations, time and time again... But there is so much more to the world... Infinitely much...

The themes are obvious enough... Schematism: your person as a quite large and quite quickly changing _number_ or quantity, which translates into the ideal quality of the phenomena you experience. Fatalism: there was only one past, there will be only one future... Materialism: to say that anything transcends the material is to accept a stupid idea of material; indeed, we don't even know what material really is... Atheism: not only is there no "panopticality" -- no omniscient observer watching everything you do -- there is instead a "trans-opticality" -- what you write will one day be observed and read... You have to be careful not to let the latter fade into the former...

The themes are obvious enough... No one _really_ knows what a blog is or should be... It is still too new of a form... That means it is up to us to create it... I'm trying, in my own little way... We'll see how far I take this...

Unhappy philosophers

2009-11-02T20:53:00.001-05:00

It is quite amazing, if you think about it... Even if you don't, it is still wonderous...

I just try to call 'em as I see 'em. I think "theory" may be descriptive, while "philosophy" might be normative or prescriptive... This is just the way I read these terms... I do not rule out alternate readings... My theory is that we can all think in perhaps variously different ways -- there are no mental rules, no "a priori thoughts"...

The topic of philosophy is a vexed one. There is "school philosophy" and "world philosophy"... The latter is what everyone can have a share in. The school form is of course quite exclusive. Corrupt, also, if you believe the reports...

Figure conservatively that one in a thousand people are "writers"... That leaves ~300,000 "writers" in America alone... No wonder the NY Times tends to stick to Ivy League types... Figure, conservatively, one out of a hundred writers fancies herself a "philosopher"... That still leaves three thousand active philosophers in this state... But have you looked at the shelves at Border's or Barnes 'n Noble recently? They've decimated their philosophy sections -- perhaps a few dozen authors are represented... If you ask me, this probably makes for a quite unhappy group of philosophers!

"Deal with this!"

2009-11-02T18:04:00.000-05:00

We're finally starting to figure things out... Technically speaking, at least. I try to look at the economy as a three-parter: the construction of people, places, and things... Construction of people is obviously the most important -- though of course the areas all interrelate...
No one knows what I _will_ say to history... They only know what I have said... This is the edge of being a writer. You have to express because you want to because you can...
There are so many ways to approach blogging. I have only begun to tap into it. I resisted for a long time that the blog was a viable approach to organic writing. As a record of actual personal progress, it outdoes a book as a piece of real authenticity...
You want to make your philosophy second-nature. You want to be able to instantly think the truth. You want to be able to "turn on", even when you are off...
So many things need to be discussed. Yes, Zizek has discussed many of them -- but only in his insensitive, ignorant fashion... So much more GED -- grace, excellence, and delicacy -- must be applied to philosophy if we are to get anywhere new... He writes like he doesn't care about his text -- like he's building a mountain to drop on his opponents... "Deal with it", is his attitude. Sometimes, I am up for it, but he can at most times be easily ignored...

Intention as Science

2009-11-02T00:54:00.000-05:00

...Finally I am getting back to writing in here... I have been having some computer problems...

I'm starting to think of titles for a book I could/would write. "Intention as Science" is one. My titles usually are evolved from earlier forms... The sequence for this one was "Science of Logic" to "Logic as Science" to "Reality as science" to "Intention as Science"... I think you'll see the sense in doing it this way...

Because as I've been telling you, the real is the rational, or logical. What could be more logical than reality? I don't know... And what can be more _real_ than your self? I don't know. We of course start from phenomenology -- from the logic of our spirit... We only then venture to move out to "the neighbor", who we learn from Zizek is not "human", but instead fundamentally "alien"... Then from this we have of course learned to view society as an alien organism...

From here it is easy to transcend utilitarianism (great good for the great many) and achieve an elitism (great good for some)... I think it is the most _realistic_ way to approach philosophy, which can only be exclusive or elitist (only my readers will ever read me, in other words)...

We go to such troubles to avoid thinking... We read, or write -- all to avoid coming to terms with the _highest_ form of mentality -- inner narrative... We are (sort of) programmed... In other words, we are _programmed_ to develop interest in attention-seeking behaviors, like the "behavior" of becoming academic, or capitalist, or whatever. I am of course free from this, because I don't work, so instead I can write. People who have to work might have a different idea...

Schematizing the world

2009-10-31T22:18:00.000-04:00

You have to, to a certain extent, withdraw from the world, and go within yourself. Too much world-immersion/involvement, and it is impossible to get objectivity on your own artistry. What do I mean by this? Think about it, if you are a musician.

Immersion/involvement in the world is also somewhat dangerous for a philosopher. To come up against the epic achievement of, say, Zizek, and expect to be able to answer with anything comparable is somewhat foolish... But I do think it is not _totally_ insane to feel the ability to respond in your own sort of way... For if you are a philosopher, your philosophy can be thought to be able to be boiled down to a certain group of tag-words... Zizek has these tags... And so do you.. In this way, you can compare...

I've repeatedly pronounced my own tags on this site -- I won't do it again, just now. Maybe reading through, you'll find yourself with different ones. Eventually, in philosophy, you find yourself _translating_ other thinkers into your own language... If you're a, say, schematist -- you find yourself reading Hegel, and contemplating how you can read him as being a good example of schematism! Think about it. It's not so strange. Or maybe it is...

I was calculating the odds of being a philosopher in America, and the odds of being a published philosopher with books on the shelves at Border's, and the math is pretty grim... I am tending to think that my best course may _not_ be to attempt to publish a book. "Books" as such may be not the ultimate contested ground of the future, in any case... From the philosophy "online is meaningless", maybe come to an understanding, "online can be very meaningful."

The destination to choose your fate

2009-10-30T22:22:00.002-04:00

We kind of, sort of, know what we're doing, by this point... This turn in the critical journey, this juncture of the epic quest... At least I would _hope_ so... You can never be sure, especially under the current prevailing cultural condition...

It never seemed to matter before the net, but with the explosion of informational availability, certain things are being published that would not otherwise have been able to be published... But on the other hand, before the population explosion, there was actually a bit of a chance for a writer to get noticed and published!

I don't know if any of this matters. I seem to say that a lot lately. But it is true. And I'm realizing, the less paranoid and delusional is your worldview, the probably better... I didn't always think as such...

What is the philosophy we're talking here? Self-transformation? Life-transformation? Bio-logical stuff, I'm sure. It would be pretty hard to come up with anything _not_ bio-logical, being who we are...

The real is the rational. And I'm thinking, the more reality something has, the more rational, ultimately, it is... This does not bode well for alternate competing philosophies. I am a priori the most rational. It is our destination, to choose the fate we choose..! And so on...

A variable approach

2009-10-30T19:08:00.000-04:00

The world can do whatever it wants... It may be at the bottom of a hole, figuratively speaking, or at the top of a mountain... In the one case, pushing on it will do nothing, well in the other, we may indeed start it rolling...

You have to realize certain things. This is just my finding. This is my work-in-progress. I wish I had another approach to take -- I wish there were an easier way to thinking... But it seems that this fragmentary approach is creating the most productive experimental writing I have ever accomplished. Whenever I have consciously tried to focus all my energies on a changing document, I seemingly don't get very far. But this piecemiel approach, slowly adding content to a collection, is really drawing the truth out of me in an interesting way.

Eventually, of course, I may want to systematize things, and put this all into a coherent whole. But I don't think the time has yet come. With philosophy, also, you have to realize that your readers may be paying very close attention, so the urge to repetition can be suppressed a bit. In contrast with a more popular approach, where people will be scanning your text, and you can repeat to your heart's content...

I don't know how valuable any of this is. It seems to make sense to me. It is all I'm capable of, now. Maybe in some other dimension I am a different kind of writer -- but not here, not now...

Things are appearing

2009-10-28T23:15:00.000-04:00

... The condition of the individual... Sometimes one realizes it, sometimes it is somehow elusive to the cognitive grasp...

We have to, I think, comminicate in a purely verbal form here... There is no room for body language... And this forces our minds to perhaps "over-intellectualize" things... But maybe not. Maybe the language of the blog is fitted perfectly to the blog. After all, if we have no choice in something, should we worry about its parameters?

You always seem to _think_ you know what you are talking about. Sometimes the reality gets a bit more intense. Then -- do you "really know" what you are talking about? --The fourfold manner of essences? (To appear, to be, to be said, to be thought...) Which level are you on now? I know which level _I'm_ on... Or at least I think as much...

I'm reading Finnegan's Wake... Trying to have faith in the Joycean phenomenon. Trying to "get it"... I think I'm succeeding, to an extent. The nuttiness is reminding me of my old friend via1joann... She would write kind of like Joyce... I wondered where she could have gotten such a style... Now, I know...

Sink or swim

2009-10-28T17:31:00.000-04:00

I guess I do have things to write. The non-hierarchal view of mentality... Nothing is elevated, transcendent -- it is all relative/similar... You can't say a feeling is more core than a thought, or vice versa... In other words, what's happening in your mind is what's happening in your mind. Of course, some states are more comfortable or stimulated than others... But if you have the choice, don't you wind up entering these states voluntarily? Do you need to be told how to think?

I'm kind of winding down this recent phase of philosophical exploration. I seem to have peaked, maybe a week or two ago, and now I'm on the decline, kind of a "clean-up" phase. Well, you can't be productive all the time...

Maybe this is what achlorophyl.blogspot.com is... Just a place to "unwind" my mind. No need for stellar performances... No need to produce anything phenomenal. People can get all the fireworks elsewhere -- they know where to look. The swarm will continue on, whatever I choose to do. My hopes of changing the crystal have been radically modified. I'm coming to really perceive what the book market is. It is not a friendly market. The most amazing things come to be viewed as simple pap... The most stellar performances go out of print...

Engagement without philosophy

2009-10-24T19:02:00.000-04:00

I don't know what will come of this post. I am kind of feeling, now -- silence.

There are so many questions one can ask. But in another vein, there is so much truth that one can simply _exhibit_ or present -- without the artifice of asking a question first...

I like to think. I have come to a point where I do not need the textual or the verbal in order to do this. I can simply exist, thinking. I don't know why it took so long for me to discover this "mode" of comportment... Do others do this? They must. Not many people talk about it. Maybe this is why some of the famous revolutionaries got radicalized during prison terms... Maybe when you are forced into this, pure thinking, you adopt a mode which is the most beneficial for philosophical transformation...

I have my philosophy -- I could recount it now. But you can simply look at older posts, to find it. I could bring it back to awareness, contemplate it some more -- maybe even make some progress... But I hesitate to do this. Philosophy is "useful"... Maybe to _not_ use it is an important philosophical decision. To engage without the powerful tools of philosophy may ultimately help your thinking even more, than going at it directly does...

The new literature

2009-10-24T13:27:00.000-04:00

I'm coming to view writing kind of like my guitar playing: I like to improvise, but I no longer care to craft songs... Things are getting very internal, very flowing. There seems to be more than enough "truth" in the external world culture. Another book added to the mountain might not clarify things for anyone. But that's being pessimistic. If I can say things uniquely, I should write a book. It just seems like such a struggle -- and for what. We all see how the bookstores have decimated their selections. Online is coming to be the only viable way to distribute literature. So maybe, stick with the blog. Kindles will be able to read them, eventually... And this is a sort of organic, growing art form. The way the newest post shows up first -- I like that. The way it slowly develops, slowly evolves over time. You can see how your philosophy changes over time. Lots of good points to a blog.

No rules for the mind

2009-10-23T12:53:00.000-04:00

This becomes something of a daily ritual, the blog. I have no a priori objections to the ritualistic -- especially when it involves _thinking_... As I thought earlier today, "there are no rules for mentality"... Anything is possible, in the mind.

I don't know if I have anything new to say, now. But perhaps I can newly say things... One always has hope, when one writes. I have thought at various points in my development that I had "achieved everything" -- done all there was to do in life... How wrong I was! I feel like I'm just _now_ doing really interesting work. Just _now_ keyed in to my key-est problematics...

To quit or die would be unspeakably tragic. As Baudrillard says, "Suicide is worse than murder.." With murder, I suppose, there's chance for parole...

A quasi-poetic post

2009-10-22T12:20:00.002-04:00

Maybe I'm repeating myself. -- Would that be so bad? It's kind of poetic, to repeat oneself. And, perhaps, philosophical also...

I have a "pressure of voice" going on inside me. This means I want to say things, but not necessarily knowing what to say... Does anyone _ever_ "know what to say"? Wouldn't I be the hero of philosophy, if I knew that?

I try to live my life as a good person would live it... (Kieran Setiya). I try to, but who knows how well I succeed. I willingly choose deviant philosophies to believe... Atheism, fatalism, materialism, schematism... But of course I have my reasons for this.. I have apparently explored the alternatives, and found them wanting verity...

It doesn't _appear_ like I have much interesting to say today. But how things are, how they're thought to be, how they're said to be -- are all different from how they appear to be... This is the fourfold approach to essence. Or, "Compute, and obey!", as I've put it in previous posts...

I'm not going to take a stand on evolution -- natural selection... I still kind of like my "anti-gravity" as a candidate for the force behind life... Anything further than this would be outright speculation...

Escaping in the void

2009-10-21T20:54:00.000-04:00

"The Night of the World"... The great Abyss of meaning -- not "out there", in reality -- but behind your very eyes... This is what we look into, when we look into one's eyes... This may be why "being a writer is the hardest thing a human being can do." -- Not the _writing_, necessarily, but the _being_... I sense this, at times. At other times, no. But during these night/empty phases, I should take heed of the lesson -- instead of trying to "fill the void" with sociality... What _is_ the night? What is the abyss?

Certainly we can escape in many ways... "Escape from Evil", as the book title went... I think I have done it, though only to an extent. My personal evil, the self-destructivity, the doping, may never be fully escaped. But I have my "recovery tools", which I am perfectly capable of using. It is a matter of time, and of events-in-time. Consciousness, of course, being the most important of these...

Sometimes we come across a little inspiration, an inner pressure of voice, and during these modes, it is best to express. What else would a blog be for? I have the "venue" here, so I may as well use it to the max. I could be scribbling away in my journal -- but I feel up to the big time, at least now, at least here...

To be-with anti-gravity

2009-10-21T17:40:00.000-04:00

The _facts_ are here, and they are quite a marvel: physiology in general, the circulatory system, the human eye, the human brain, perceptuality, the phenomenal model, Cognitive Neuro Arithmetics, the Personal Identity Number, consciousness, the immune system... None of it seems very simple to explain... Especially if you have no god to do it. Professor Judy talked of a "force of life"... Maybe instead of this, we could think of the force as "an anti-gravity"... This anti-gravity is what's responsible for all these phenoms I previously mentioned... Still, it seems a bit odd.

And closer to everyday life, we have to adopt a _viable_ life for ourselves... Is drug abuse viable? Maybe for some. I found that it made my life extremely difficult. And my wonderous brain started not to function so wonderously... Not to mention the unseen, longterm negative outcomes... I _think_ I can stay away from drugs... This is always speculative, given my history. But it is at least a possibility...

Today, I'm trying not to think deeply. I'm finding that mental effort can be as exhuasting as physical. I'm trying to "be-with" instead of "seeing-through"... In this way, I hope to have a few more hours of enjoyable wakefulness, before sleep gets me again...

The purest of the pure

2009-10-20T20:42:00.000-04:00

I don't know what I'm doing. I have a conception, but it is only that. This is what the "laws of thought" require, though. State A leads to state B, and so on. The fourfold mantra: atheism, fatalism, materialism, schematism... Repetitive cycles of ideas, going through my brain, perhaps being improved upon, perhaps not.

This is the only way I know how to progress. Would I like to be less intelligent? Doped up? Would that "make me comfortable"? Is stupidity more comfortable? Maybe I should examine my motivations more precisely. And my ends/goals. I wish to write books. According to Zizek, only "the purest of the pure" can do this. Pure as in a non-doped brain... But the dope is ever-so-tempting... I suppose, if I want X, I cannot also have Y...

We have to "come across" as ourselves. It is the only method of sincerity. Perhaps thinkers like Confucious are more relevant to my current struggles than a Hegel. But any thinking is indeed real thinking. What consciousness has made can help consciousness. And, the real is the rational...

Encouraged to keep my themes active

2009-10-18T16:23:00.000-04:00

I am following my own advice: writing (blog) when I have nothing to write. It is a sort of elaboration of my "mental DNA": my "CNA", as I've learned to think of it: Cognitive Neuro Arithmetics... The CNA works, does its functioning ultimately on the PIN: Personal Identity Number -- the primal number which defines who we are as persons...

This stuff has to become second-nature, if I want to elaborate it into a robust theory. I've been learning to conduct my thinking according to a fourfold mantra: Atheism, Materialism, Fatalism, and Schematism. Knowing explicitly what my philosophy can be "tagged" as helps me stay on track, when my thinking can get depressed or dysguided...

Does it matter that other philosophers, like Hegel, did not share my idea that we can be reduced to a PIN? I don't think so. They had other insights, very valuable -- but simply just not as reductive as mine. I still think Hegel is the first to really "rip" at a contemporary level, the first one to write like he knows everything... And if he were alive today -- who knows -- maybe he would perceive the workings of the CNA as well...

One might suppose that talk like this could be really discouraging for the newcomer. Maybe so... But it is a blog, after all, so if one wanted to understand where I'm coming from today, one could theoretically read the earlier development of my thinking... And the fact that it is a blog is reinforcing of my cognitive development: I am encouraged to revisit my favorite themes in today, so as to keep them at the forefront of the site...

A state of being or matrix

2009-10-17T20:45:00.000-04:00

I'm becoming sort of addicted to this... But it can't be denied that such an addiction is healthy. Though it might possibly be true that my time would be better served now by reading/researching more. But can I really develop my theory by turning outward -- toward other people's theories? Or is the key, key realization that I need to do this myself..?

We eventually come to think of ourselves as numbers -- or better yet, matrices of numbers. These numbers are instantiated who-knows-how in the neural machinic assemblage. They lead in a who-knows-how way to the phenomena of classical subjectivity. Quantity becomes quality, and quality in turn becomes quantity. "A Strange Loop" is how the one guy states it... Though I try to avoid characterizing us as circles/loops, instead positing a "state" of being or matrix.

And my concerns don't end here. They go on and on, with my self in the development of myself. That is what a _primal_ philosophy ultimately has to be: self-referencing, self-originating, and self-actualizing self-development. "A lot of focus on the self," as my brother put it. But this is not so surprising. Instead what is surprising is that the closer you get to your own self, the closer you can get to others. The more you develop your own consciousness, the more "negative capability" or ability to imagine yourself as someone else you have.

I actually enjoy this

2009-10-17T18:17:00.000-04:00

Sometimes you have to let go of your "symptoms", and trust the flow of language coming out...

I know this is a repeated insight for those of you following achlorophyl... But in this blog I am trying to redevelop my thinking to the higher levels it has been at... There only seems to be one way to do this, and that is repetitive expression of my subjective consciousness. Following the narrative thread wherever it leads.

For a while there I was thinking that consciousness was "odd" or "strange"... I even thought it made perfect sense, at one point... Of course the person who solves this puzzle will be the hero of philosophy... What arrogance, to think that you can do what no one else has been able to! "What arrogance, to think that chance does not rule our fate!"

I suppose this shades into esoterism, ultimately... One _has_ to assume that one's readers are to a degree "in the know" -- otherwise too much sidestory has to be continually explained... And isn't it a bit fun -- to give puzzles out, for readers to solve? Do people really need everything to be crystal clear from the get go?

This is my philosophical blog, I should remember. It is not a book, it is not a paper. It is a new type of form, one whose contours are only now becoming visible. Just as with chat, things can be discovered here that could be nowhere else... So don't stress when things don't seem familiar...

I have to remember -- atheism, materialism, fatalism, schematism... My fourfold mantra... "Compute and obey!" Maybe this sounds a bit dry and boring, but to me it's not. I have learned, or have been taught, to quite enjoy this type of thing...!

Persons as (large) numbers

2009-10-17T13:36:00.002-04:00

And, I dare say -- even write (blog) when you have "nothing to write"...

This is a mode of comportment-in-the-world... As a thinker, it should be your chosen mode... Just as a theory that practice makes perfect... You want to revisit your themes -- again and again... In this way you may actually make something of them...

A-theism, material-ism, fatalism... These form a sort of backdrop to my newest flavor, schematism... Schematism is the awareness/belief that underlying complex subjective phenomena are, to put it simply coded numbers, riding the neuro-structure... The person is, in other words, a matrix... The neurostructure is a "ground", from which springs the life of the spirit. The spirit -- or "quality" -- can be reduced to "quantity"... Think about it for a second...

I know I'm starting to sound like a crank, or "new age obscurantist"... Maybe this is the fate of anyone with a new idea... I might be completely wrong... But I might be right.

Pragmatically speaking, this schematism is helpful. It helps me get a handle on my subjective "computations"... And it is certainly the simplest theory of mind -- the person is a (large) number! I don't see how you could reduce it any further... Not only are numbers objects, but in terms of the "coded" nature of quantum reality, objects are numbers! (Or at least can be expressed as numbers...)

Attempting to express

2009-10-17T11:56:00.002-04:00

Why does expression seem so difficult at times?

"Compute -- and obey!", could be my new mantra... We cannot really know _how_ the neural apparatus is "computing our intelligence", and what's more, even if we knew this, we wouldn't know how this computation leads to consciousness... Even so, my subjectivity, when turned inward, can seemingly sense "echoes" or valences of some of these "numbers of the brain"...

I don't know -- I used to have a low opinion of people struggling with consciousness studies... Did I think it was obvious -- or did I think it was unknowable? Probably a bit of both... But I've turned around.. I am quite enjoying the puzzling that is going on in my life...

Another example of the lesson: you do not know where today's philosophy will take you tomorrow... You might think Zizek is key one month, and then realize suddenly that he is a simpleton and ignoramous... So perhaps it is best to cultivate a slight air of detachment...

I'm simply trying, in the morning, to generate quickly the type of wakefulness that takes a whole day to achieve... Perhaps this is why I'm failing... But I will publish this post anyway... I've learned that _attempting_ to express can be almost as valuable as actually expressing...

The intersection of thing and mind

2009-10-16T22:11:00.000-04:00

Maybe, instead of an hypothesis on what "would be good to think", try to develop some _actual_ good thinking... This is only a suggestion... A push for you to enhance your creativity.. You might recognize a bit of anti-schematism in this imperative...

I would be careful, though. My philosophy is ultimately, I am coming to suppose, a schematism... -- So how should this suggestion be read?

When one has ideas, vague or concrete, of "what would be good to think", one often turns to reading... I instead would seem to recommend _writing_... Ultimately, they are both necessary... Just as reading a (schematic) text in turn "schematizes" your mind, to a degree -- writing (schematizing) a text creates a new schematic for your optimistically-hoped-for audience of readers...

I like to use that word, lately, it seems... This is because I think it is fundamental to a conception of the mind. Subjectivity, like the Buddhists say, is the best, and maybe only, way to explore subjectivity... But what about if your curiosity includes that wonderous object, the brain -- and how subjectivity interpenetrates this object?

My supposition is that we should, in a sense, "tarry with the structure." The structure of neuronal connections is real, but does not absolutely concern me... I would think that no matter how detailed a map of this we could imagine, it would be of little help in consciousness studies... Instead, by "structure" I am perhaps predictably pointing to things like language and mathematics, which no matter how they are neuronally realized, _have to_ emerge "as themselves" at some point on their way to awareness...

And ruminating on what a film ultimately is -- a DVD of a film, at least, is helpful... It, like Windows itself, is ultimately a large number... Coded appropriately. And so can language and mathematics be viewed...

This is my schematic suspicion. At some point, numbers form the intersection between the thing and the mind... We should find this point...

To write without "naming names"..!

2009-10-16T19:53:00.000-04:00

Language -- _this_ is language -- and as such, "I" am real in it -- though, when you are reading this, my "I" will no longer be real, but merely virtual... (I'm trying to read Hegel... I've begun to think that contemporary philosophy is a history of thinkers who haven't read their Hegel carefully...)

I have come to a realization about the quantitative essence of the mind. Now, of course I have not yet puzzled how _quantity_ generates _quality_ -- else I would become hero of the philosophical world! But it is progress... Perfection may one day be reached -- or perhaps, the whole development of the "Oak tree" is a perfection, as much in the completed tree, as in the little acorn...

Sometimes you have to start writing -- and not know where you're going... At least if you want to be an artist -- creative. No matter how carefully -- how indeed _schematically_ you prepare for composition, it ultimately is done with no a priori models! Beleive me...

I think the tendency is to _schematize_ the thinkers we know... This is understandable -- it is a way to come to terms with their natural complexity... It is even a mode of self-relation... But in the end, we have to confront a thinker in all her endless coherence and beauty/complexity -- not in any simple schema we have modelled from her work...

This is my criticism of Zizek... Though I am getting _far_ less interested in critical/negative thought lately... He does not take Hegel directly, but instead develops simple schematic interpretations... (Check achlorophyl later for my developing thinking on this..!)

Criticism is far less interesting than art, than creativity... Just as Hegel wrote _Phenomenology of Spirit_ without "naming names" -- he did it as a pure positive act, and waited until his _Logic_ to take on "Kant" literally -- I think that in a philosopher/thinker's first major work, he should refrain from naming names... He should be able to write things that stand on their own, without the need to "rip on" other thinking...

Pattern-beings pattern patterns

2009-10-16T15:26:00.000-04:00

The "flow of language" has something to be said for it... Philosophical or not, the writing of a philosopher has a certain "gist" or "cut"... This can be thought to be different than the writing of a non-philosopher, if any of those exist...

I am thinking of my cut because with these achlorophyl posts, I make a new beginning each time -- only occasionally skimming previous posts... In other words, I am improvising here... And one always wants to justify or rationalize one's method...

My cut can be very deep, at times -- other times crisp and light... I didn't always write like this. I've been both exo- and esoteric in the past, but it was always different... Most of the time, it was tinged with deism of some sort. Even, dare I say, solipsism... I have passed through many philosophical modes. Perhaps in order to know truth, you must commit to many errors in the making of your thinking...

Now I have reached another esoteric stage. I no longer care whether or not I'm understood... -- And not because I'm "uncaring" -- but because I _can't_ both care and be true to my project... Certain types of philosophical projects, Benjamin's Origin of Tragic Drama, for instance, _require_ esoterism...

This is starting to get good -- Agent Chlorophyl... I have sort of "built up a structure" in my recent months' worth of posts -- and now I can sort of just "surf" on this reality...

In other words, I can stop repeating myself, for the most part... Unless, of course, I want to repeat... A large part of my cut I can attribute to the "loop-cycling" me and my writing partners did, back in the day...

"People love patterns", I overheard a writer say... In other words, "the pattern of pattern-beings is to pattern patterns"... But seriously, this is some good stuff. I was thinking about neural patterns... Some neurons have thousands of interconnections with other neurons... And my true gist, if you want to take one from this, is that this order of complexity is a matter for hilarious laughter, not tragic tears..! Stop worrying and torturing yourself about the problem of the mind..! It is something we will endlessly puzzle over, and almost never "solve"!

From exoterism to esoterism!

2009-10-16T12:42:00.000-04:00

Things get more interesting, the further into the day you get. I do not know if this is a cosmological law, though... It just seems true to me _now_... -- But, as an immediate position in the present moment, it is _rational_, it is _real_... You could thus say that the particular is the cosmological... And every cosmological "constant" is realized in a particular "fact"...

When writing (philosophy), there is, as your discourse progresses, a host of unwritten "back-up" reasoning you do... Some of this will be shared later -- but some of it remains back-story... That is perhaps the way I can describe the tension in my writing... I am expressing truth, though at the same time repressing other truth... Too much "access" at once would produce only disordered pap... While too little, of course, would lead to cold, static truisms...

I have to constantly remember what I'm "doing" -- what I'm getting at. A philosophy, a _consciousness_ of consciousness. Perhaps it is not always necessary to look super-deeply into this phenom... You could indeed say that the "natural shallowness" of consciousness is truly worth its own investigation. Or, a "being-with" is as important as a "looking-through"...

This is my journey. I have come really far in the past two months. If I would have been doping, I definitely wouldn't be here now... Where is "here"? I seemingly have come to an (analogy)/reason/basis of consciousness... I have performed a "structural reduction", and now posit the ground of consciousness to be a _number_! Yes, I am repeating myself... As a circle, I am kind of trying again to compose my thinking in a way most understandable to the reader...

I have made the leap from exoterism to esoterism... In other words, I now know I have the truth, and am no longer quite so caring about whether you believe me or not!

A critical realization

2009-10-16T11:07:00.000-04:00

It takes a while to "jumpstart" thinking in the morning, (assuming you have slept that night...) I use various techniques, like inner narrative, and writing -- not as much reading, which I save for when I'm a bit more awake.

I can have the most profound philosophical realizations at night, but when I wake up, it's like I'm at "t-zero" again, and have to totally build up my philosophy from scratch. I guess this is natural, perhaps, the way of the world...

Regarding my "matrix theory" of mental substance, it does seem that it sidesteps "the hard problem" of consciousness studies -- that of experience... But in this, I am no different than any other philosopher... I do not think any of us have, or maybe even _can_, solve this problem.

However, my critical realization of what the matrix/ground of consciousness _is_, cannot but help us, when we contemplate what could really be the process of consciousness... Knowing that the mind is but a big number, or matrix of numbers, and the brain is a machinic assemblage, coding and decoding these numbers, will perhaps eventually allow us to find the "missing link" between material and the "ideal"...

But remember, as with any other area of inquiry, the _real_ is the _rational_... Fatalism holds, no matter what bad things people say about it... We are on a journey, one to the furthest reaches of inner- and outer-space. Nothing that has happened could have gone any differently -- but this does not excuse us from our responsibility in our present to whatever we have decided to value in life...

The matrix of persons

2009-10-15T20:26:00.000-04:00

Eventually, you have to decide whether to be a _circle_, or a _matrix_... There is a difference! Think about it for a while...

The matrix is a "ground from which life springs" -- or it is a sort of mathematical grid of numbers, or it is a fantastical sci fi virtual hollywood reality...

I would encourage you to think your matrix as a grid of numbers, from which your consciousness springs... The "brain", our thinking "machinic assemblage", can be _said_ to be composed of a set of variable numbers, very big numbers, which are encoded so as to form our persons... This is just a theory, of course, but it is the most radical reductionist theory available.. What could be simpler, than thinking yourself as a number? On the other hand -- what could be more liberating to realize? _This_ is how we grow, this is how we change -- we do it in coded, machinic ways... Bio-logic, in other words -- the logic of life...

You have to take leaps like this in your thinking... "Nature makes no leaps"?? I think _not_! And you get to watch me here in Agent Chlorophyl, taking the leaps in almost-real-time!

A Primal philosophy

2009-10-15T20:04:00.000-04:00

One has to ask "who" the philosopher _is_... As in, given that I have philosophy x, (y,z...), what do I _then_ express in my "other" writing? How does one's philosophy _inform_ the rest of one's work..? I guess this could be a question of connection/directness... How exactly connected are you to your deepest problematics, your key-est insights -- all the time, writing..?

And _writing_ is what I'm interested in... I'll quote Benjamin yet again, "The world is made of words", (The Metaphysics of Youth)...

Writing is what I'm interested in -- and what's more -- you should be also interested in (your own) writing... If you are a thinker, or you aspire to be a thinker, or you once were such...

It doesn't have to be the most "profound" or analytical stuff either... Look at me: in recent posts I have theorized that "personality" may simply be, in ultimate effect, a _number_..! How complex is that?! But indeed, it took me a long time to formulate... First I had to hear from a grad student, "You have to get used to thinking of numbers as objects..." Then, finally, I have turned it around -- "You have to think objects-as-numbers!" This could be my revolution... This could be the insight that defines my work from here on... Perhaps, it is nothing new... It's hard to tell, with the near-endless proliferation of venues on the web -- it is hard to know _what_, really, is out there... But even if I'm not saying anything unique, I have to as a writer know that somehow, I am saying it _uniquely_...

Also, a "metaphor of resistance" has been recommended to me... Or as a teacher put it, "I tend not to do what I'm told." This is how you learn to be yourself: going against the grain/flow... It is not by conformism, by any means, that one becomes a truly great intelligence... Or, as I recently put it, my philosophy is not "romantic": with rules as in courtly love -- it is instead "primal": with utterly profound (shocking) transformative experiences...

Key, key problematics

2009-10-15T17:44:00.000-04:00

The "creativity" can ramp up a bit, if I've been carefully developing my thinking and my mode/mood... If I get a coupla these blog posts done in a day, I'm satisfied. This is on top of private journal writing, thousands of pages... (Probably ~3500 pages over the seventeen years I've been writing)...

Creativity, as per the last post, needs something to work on -- a number, in other words... You have to kind of "feed" yourself data... As a Zappa song put it, "You got to put a little motor in yourself"...

And when you feed yourself data, your brain can feed you knowledge back... This is kind of what they mean when they say we're "circles"... I'm not too sure that's the best analogy, though... A set of machinic assemblages, a biology, could more profitably be named a "matrix" than a circle...

After you've been writing long enough, it seems as like "the struggle is over." You feel as if you've written it all, and the work you're doing now is just "topping it off"... But I think this feeling must be radically resisted... After all, it is only _now_ that you "know the truth" -- it is only at the _end_ of a struggle do we totally know what it was all about... Now is the time to _punch it_, to really crank into your language generator, and come up with some key, key realizations...

I've said that our problematic is no longer language, truth, or the mind... Instead, it is finally _world_... This is what we are worried about... (We being part of the world, of course..)

A true computationism

2009-10-15T16:56:00.002-04:00

I'm coming to a sort of, not "numerology", but _computationism_... Maybe the word has been used before in another context. But as I use it, it means the belief that our c(onsciousness), indeed -- our very biology, is a computational phenomenon.

Think of DNA. It is a coded number, when you get right down to it. A very large number, but a number nonetheless. I started to have these ruminations when contemplating what a DVD really is -- and guess what, it's a big number encoded on a disc... Now, if you think of the brain as a machinic assemblage, (whose very structure could be represented by a properly coded _number_), and the sensory input as another "data"-type thing, our personality -- the "state of our person", could be thought of _as_ a giant number!

Why would you want to think like this? Well, why wouldn't you?! What if it's true? That is what Zizek recommended when reading any philosopher -- "I'm always thinking, 'what if this guy is right?'"

The West/East dispute in philosophy

2009-10-15T15:36:00.000-04:00

This is how it has to come about. -- The growth of a _discourse_... Experimental vignettes, constantly evolving; a public venue; periodic attempts, in all phases of mode/mood...

This is what works for me. You might find that secrecy and developing your discourse in private are more appropriate... I tried that, also -- but now I've reached here: full, total, transparent composition...

Differences between Eastern and Western modes of philosophy: E is said to be private: a "sage on a mountain"-model. W is said to be public: a "professor in the department"-model... I don't know if the reality is that clear-cut.

I do want to accomplish some "actual" philosophy... As Hegel put it, to move beyond love of knowing, and reach actual knowing... And it is getting easier, the longer I remain sober.. I am able to read things I had trouble reading earlier. I've moved beyond the preface of the _Phenomenology of Spirit_ and am now reading the actual _book_... This is a big leap for me. Hegel was first to reach contemporary status. He should "get props" for that. And if you haven't read his book -- how can you claim to get beyond it?

Abstraction? Perhaps...

2009-10-14T16:29:00.002-04:00

Things are "getting interesting"... But remember the ancient Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times."..

I guess you could say I'm coming to an awareness of how difficult recovery is -- how cunning, baffling, and powerful is that "thing" called addiction. I was kind of thinking I had it somewhat provisionally beat... No such luck... Random life will hit you in the face... Surprise!

Does this influence my philosophy? You bet it does... If I would have been using drugs these past two months, _endless_ amounts of productive work would have been not achieved by me... And who knows what _would_ have been achieved -- if anything!

Philosophy -- a love of knowing -- but not "romantic" love; I'm thinking more a "primal" love... Not so bound by the courtly rules -- more attached to fundamental transformative experiences...

Abstraction? Perhaps.. But I am definitely on my way to some concrete stuff.

The fragile absolute

2009-10-14T11:00:00.000-04:00

I don't quite know what to "make of" life, anymore... Things don't seem so clear-cut. In other words, it has seemingly become fragile -- oh so fragile.

I don't know what I want to do. To write, yes. To write what? -- I'll figure it out... To write how? -- maybe this is the question... What can I allow my life to become? Because I do have agency/freedom. The Marxist girl was wrong when she said to me a few years ago, "You're not free."

How close can I bring the blog to my life -- or my life to the blog? Do I want to engage in the trivial speculations that form the connective tissue of my real thinking?

Compulsion, obsession, black lung, psychosis... These are the things I'm avoiding, when I'm avoiding dope... (Weed)... But the creativity -- what of it? I know now that _sobriety_ brings way more creativity... The doping would be, in short, an insult to the pleasure centers of my brain...

It's a fragile absolute, as the title of Zizek's book puts it... There is an _absolute_ difference between addiction and recovery. You could say "There are no two ways about it..."