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The Secret of Lifer in your Pants (Random Questions for the weekend)
(h/t to
Quinn for the line from Cummings in the title.)
A little change of subject after a ... lively... week around here.
Just looking for suggestions.
The Secret of Life? Bugger me if I know. I'm waiting for all you smart people to tell me. But here's a shot: If you're worried about this question, you're probably doing things wrong.
Okay, not helpful. Here's another shot: You're looking at things wrong. You could think of Water as H20. But stop pretending that's what it is.
Water is what water does.
This is what water does
Water is what you wish you could do with it
water is what others do with it.
So the secret? Try not to adopt the View from Nowhere. You won't find Anything Nowhere. We're all natural Mind-Hoppers. We naturally see things from all kinds of angles - from the viewpoint of all kinds of beings, without knowing it, if we just take things as they come. So hop away grasshoppers.
If science is all that is natural, then I believe in the supernatural.
That's all I got. Hope someone 'gets' it. Otherwise, enjoy the pictures.
Anyone got any other secrets?
The water rising picture taken from laszlo-photo
The waterwalker picture taken from OneExposure
The caterpillar picture is taken from deviantart.com
These thoughts are a reaction to this wrong-headed article in Scientific American
update: just added a link to the Cummings poem from which the title of this post was taken (see up top).
A little change of subject after a ... lively... week around here.
Just looking for suggestions.
The Secret of Life? Bugger me if I know. I'm waiting for all you smart people to tell me. But here's a shot: If you're worried about this question, you're probably doing things wrong.
Okay, not helpful. Here's another shot: You're looking at things wrong. You could think of Water as H20. But stop pretending that's what it is.
Water is what water does.
This is what water does
Water is what you wish you could do with it
water is what others do with it.
So the secret? Try not to adopt the View from Nowhere. You won't find Anything Nowhere. We're all natural Mind-Hoppers. We naturally see things from all kinds of angles - from the viewpoint of all kinds of beings, without knowing it, if we just take things as they come. So hop away grasshoppers.
If science is all that is natural, then I believe in the supernatural.
That's all I got. Hope someone 'gets' it. Otherwise, enjoy the pictures.
Anyone got any other secrets?
The water rising picture taken from laszlo-photo
The waterwalker picture taken from OneExposure
The caterpillar picture is taken from deviantart.com
These thoughts are a reaction to this wrong-headed article in Scientific American
update: just added a link to the Cummings poem from which the title of this post was taken (see up top).
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Jesus Christ Obey, (blesses himself), I live in the land of ten thousand lakes for chrissakes. ha
I think about it all the time. Every walk I take.
Beautiful pictures here. Just beautiful.
Grouch is a free lance photographer and showed me some examples of his craft.
But photos just give you a chance to go out and see life.
The only secret to life I have found in older age is
NOW. The word 'now' has something to do with the secret.
May 23, 2009 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Glad you liked the pictures Dick.
Yup, when faced with the options 'NOW' or 'Never' - should always go with Now! ;0)
May 23, 2009 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
The only secret to life I have found in older age is NOW. The word 'now' has something to do with the secret.
This is what I call the "green banana" theory.
May 23, 2009 9:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
"There are only two things in life, but I forget what they are" - John Hiatt
May 23, 2009 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I say we beat that Hiatt boy like a red-headed stepchild. That's what I say. He'll remember. Ohhhh yes, my lovelies... he'll remember. Heh heh heh." - Dick Cheney
May 24, 2009 12:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
I suggest we get Lalo to waterboard him with green banana puree. If he doesn't remember after that, we make green banana daiquiris and watch the bolds and italics tickle lalo with peacock feathers till he takes that stovepipe hat off.
May 24, 2009 12:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
OK, I tried to cut & paste, and then to drag a pretty water-picture of my own. Couldn't do it. Obey, I like what you wrote, and the pics were great; I love the kerplop one at the top!
May 23, 2009 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
CV, too bad about that photo. would have liked to see it. I was going to suggest you just send me the link and I could update the post including it. But you'd need to upload it to a flicker account (or whatever they're called first). Anyhow, it would make for an interesting idea in future: a communal photo blog... what say ye?
May 23, 2009 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Blue fishies, pink water...
Conjugating forms...
May 24, 2009 12:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Alas and alack, we cannot insert photos into comments. Only into our blogs.
May 23, 2009 9:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, Seashell, we can insert pictures into our comments. I've found that by using a very fine-tipped pencil, I can make little drawings on my monitor that fit juuuuust inside the more rounded letters. You know, the o's and the b's and p's and such (though the a's are a right bugger.) If I place said drawings exactly right on the screen, and then you scroll to exactly that same place, you'll get the picture too! Fab, eh?
Like for this comment, I've included a (quite wonderful, if I do say so) picture of a head of lettuce chasing a small corncob 'round inside a laundry basket. Just scroll up and down for a while, you'll see it I'm sure.
I find a picture's worth a thousand words. Hell, in Obey's case, maybe 1,100!
THE END.
May 24, 2009 12:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Now, I've been hitting command + repeatedly, scrolling, and scrolling, and I still can't find that pic. Sounds interesting though...
May 24, 2009 12:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, we all know whose fault THAT is. He whose name must not be spoken.
Mr Fancy Schmancy.
May 24, 2009 1:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
So the pug gets 'blue-eye' instead of 'red-eye' in flash pics. Isn't that one of the signs of the anti-Christ?
May 24, 2009 1:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
This subthread is taking a worrying line. Better get me some shades...
May 24, 2009 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Quinn, you won't believe this, but I saw the lettuce and laundry basket, but it was a little blurry! So I used my fine micro-fiber to get a better view, and it was all gone. There is a lesson here, somewhere.
May 24, 2009 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obey: First, as an art teacher, just want to say "thanks" for citing the sources of your photographs; I've been fighting the citation/attribution battle all year as a (so far) losing proposition with the internet source generation. (Your first photo, btw, caused a huge uproar here when: 1) a senior bound for an excellent college submitted it in my class without attribution (ironically, a student I had defended, at some real risk to my tenure, earlier in the term); 2) I recognized the source, documented it and gave the student a "zero" for that project (as the faculty handbook directs); 3) tuition-paying parents went wild; and, 4) and the admin caved, thereby allowing the student to skate while marking me as a "troublemaker"....but, actually, never mind....Om......
I do think Dick is onto something when he talks about the relevance of "now." And I think you are onto something when you talk about being mindful of endless possibilities, rather than living life according to dicta of duality. And I think I may be onto something when I aver that a espousal and demonstration of FLEXIBILITY is key to achieving grace -- which is all we can really hope for, in the end... yes/no?
May 23, 2009 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not impressed with your admin there, Staebler. What a story! There is definitely something happening with plagiarism norms happening these days. As for flexibility, that's a secret I haven't quite got the hang of yet - always falling into one of the vices on either side: bending over backwards or being the guy with a broom up his butt. I'll live and learn... hopefully...
May 23, 2009 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
(SMACKS LARRY)
Leave the pug alone!
May 23, 2009 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
yez - learning to keep my butt on the ground when the broom's around...
(hhaha - nonono that wasn't what I meant)
May 23, 2009 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
What did I do?
As a broom life is about sweeping away other peoples’ messes. My dream is to find a pristine place that has not been the scene of some other’s misadventure.
Water may be the universal solvent but without a broom it has no use, no purpose, no escaton. And water is shapeless like the universe before creation. I give purpose and meaning with the cleansing sweep of my bristles. I give purpose and meaning to water and to everything else. I am the true Creator because I create the possibility for new adventures. “Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.” Meister Eckart, and only the broom that sweeps can clear a fresh place for some new dream.
But who will be broom to me and to my dreams? That is the question of my life.
May 24, 2009 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Also sprach the broom. Me and the chicken... yeah... we'll be your broom Larry. Cleanliness is all in the mind afterall. Just come over to the sty or the henhouse and we'll begin your instruction. Leave the pug at home though... sumthin' about his eyes ain't right.
May 24, 2009 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
'Pears to me that Broom-Dude is lotsa talk, but can't handle the deep-down grime. First it was Mr. Clean that came to town, laid on a serious bristle-kickin', and that was bad enough. But now.... well, can you say:
Swiffer.
Strategically, the choices seem clear. Broom's either gonna have to bulk up and take a run at that Clean guy, or spend some time on the yoga mat, bring up the flexibility. "Skinny & inflexible" - in the 21st century, that's pretty much a job description for a curtain rod.
May 24, 2009 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
The brooms gonna be all right... or he'll concede to the swiffer and become a fluffer. Either way it's gonna require more flexibility on his part. Like I said Larry, come over to the sty so we can begin your instruction.
May 24, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Regarding your link, I can only quote Justice Potter on what is truly obscene:
“I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so.
But I know it when I see it,..” Jackobellis v. Ohio
May 24, 2009 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I understand. Yours is a predilection that is fortunately shared by many others.
May 24, 2009 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is not too sweeping a critique to say that the greatest broom was F. Nietzsche. He once advised that “If you stare into the Abyss long enough the Abyss stares back at you.” In other words it is a wise broom who picks his messes carefully. Mr. Clean ignored this wisdom. He is an amiable enough fellow but his claims to divine parentage is the stuff of religious excess. He tarried too long amidst the mess that is human folly and has become a caricature of himself.
And I am no Luddite but the swiffer, like any machine, is no substitute for the wizened stroke of an acutely self-aware straw broom and using such a device risks breaking the subtle bond between all living things.
May 24, 2009 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
What the hell happened to Handy Andy anyway. I mean Ford and Chevy, Camels and Luckies, Communist and Free...Mr. Clean & Handy Andy.
Just a thought
May 24, 2009 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Only a pig wearing shades like some bohemian poet could stand in the middle of a sty and utter the words “Cleanliness is only in the mind after all” Cool irony my little porcine Kerouac. I would dig it the most but I’m a broom not a shovel. And as for chicken coops, have you ever looked at the floor in a chicken coop? That’s work for a fire hose not a bristling nihilist like myself. No I was meant for better things like marble steps before a temple to my favorite god – me. I will be happy to have you as companions as we walk the path of life but please don’t expect me to sweep it clean along the way.
May 24, 2009 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bohemian? You have no idea...
I saw the best brooms of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the chicken house at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry pig-god in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating careers in the sex-film industry,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on the sty roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant eyes hallucinating Oregon and Quinn-light tragedy among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from TPM for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull, etc.
May 24, 2009 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sounds to me like there's too much lifer in Porky's pants.
May 24, 2009 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow!
see, now i've got a problem... I Have a bkmk file for "whacked out crazy shit", but this is a whole new category of piginsanity!
Dude, if your friend is an encyclopedia on acid, but I gotta wonder how he describes you...
May 24, 2009 7:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've been trying to get the meds right, but I just keep forgetting to take them, or if I have taken them, I forget that as well. It's not easy being the little peeg. Makes me want to Howl!
May 24, 2009 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
(tears up)
May 24, 2009 8:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just so y'all know, that wasn't me typing, it was the cheekhen....
(LisB)
May 24, 2009 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh yeah, and btw, that wasn't me posting any of those references to the porn industry above. It was... Bwak. Yeah! That's right. I try to keep her off my computer, but she's evil, and likes to spout off like a drunken soldier with Tourette's Syndrome sometimes.
May 24, 2009 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
My god. What if none of us is real? What if we are all just personalities inside a chicken? I mean I've never actually met any of you but whenever we talk Bwak is there. DID. Dissociative identity disorder. If it true then we will never meet. We will all just go on talking inside the chicken's head - just one lonely chicken standing in the middle of an empty coop with a conversation going on endlessly. And me, I never existed really. It has all been a misunderstanding on some farm somewhere. God life is full of surprises.
May 24, 2009 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
existential angst - existential chicken. All the same thing really...
May 24, 2009 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I can assure you I'm not the walrus, LOL....
No, we were together at me Mum's for the weekend, all three of us (and then four of us later when my niece arrived), were sharing one computer.
It got a bit fun, a bit confuzzling, a bit uproarious, and a heck of a lot of laughter ensued.
I hope you all had as wonderful a weekend as we did. =D
-Signed, the real LisB, @ home now ;)
May 24, 2009 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nah
you was all inside my head
=D
May 24, 2009 8:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's the Chicken Head Unified Field Theory, (CHUFT). Not to worry. From what I understand of it we all differentiate from the chicken head at an early stage in our ontological development. The trick is getting back to the one-ness of the head. I heard the chicken is over at Lis's Mum's place, so we might be able to save some time here, by renting a car, and driving over there tonight. Then, while the chicken's asleep, we.....
May 24, 2009 8:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
No.
Too late
I am Big Brother, er, Chicken.
And just.... Shut Up!
(Pecks desk)
(owww)
'kay, I found reality.
May 24, 2009 8:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sort of like Zardoz right? I get it. Mind meld in 5 minutes at level 3. I'm right here when you are ready.
May 24, 2009 11:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
(note to self. Strap on protective head-wear before reading Larry... my head keeps spontaneously exploding!)
;0)
May 25, 2009 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
We live and we learn every day, whether we like it or not. Life, as the author said, is light.
May 23, 2009 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
To clarify: flexibility >grace, based in empathy, rather than dodging and weaving denial.
May 23, 2009 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's all this about a "secret lifer" in your pants? Set the lifer free pug. Like those class 5 detainees at gitmo, your secret lifer must needs confront prosecution, stay in jail, or go on his/her way, (or at minimum, abandon the secret life). Free the lifer in the pug's pants! (Not a 'dirty' water link ;)
May 23, 2009 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Crap Miguel, I think I've exposed myself!
figured Everyone had a lifer in their pants!?!?! In my defence, I DID try to free him, but the authorities kept saying NIMBY : said he was 'unsightly', or something, sent the ladies screaming... oh well.
(got a bit nervous/piqued with the title of your link, there... Pretty! But I'm never going to see these kerplops, as CV says, the same way again! Expanding my horizons...)
May 23, 2009 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's hysterical! I wondered about the 'lifer', also.
I can see where walking on water would be a golfers greatest wet dream (so to speak, of course).
May 23, 2009 9:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Listen Meester Peegy, it's completely obvious to any real poet that "lifer" works much better in this context.
Free your inner mispeller.
May 23, 2009 9:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
That’s a great photo Miguel
What if the Green orb represented the Earth? The outer rings signified the ever-expanding universe from the center of the big bang? Wow what symbolism.
Were in trouble.
May 23, 2009 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
When I get back to my computer, I'll rec this, too
(bwak)
May 23, 2009 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yikes! Lis, you possessed by the chicken...?!
May 23, 2009 5:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
We are at Maggies house in the woods, and I can't get Wi-Fi
=D
How is the pug?
May 23, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gooood. Sitting with a beer in the Alps somewhere. A bit guilty though. Supposed to be working: a paper on ... guilt. (seriously)
haha!
May 23, 2009 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
THE END!
I am in the Poconos, not quite so, er, high
May 23, 2009 6:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
But we're trying to get high.....
(LisB)
May 23, 2009 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Always strive higher, no matter how high you are, Lis! Careful though, just hope the chicken doesn't start to believe she can fly...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v2YjmY_14k
;0)
May 23, 2009 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
The cheekhen sez she is as tall as the chipmunks and doesn't plan on flying any higher than my shoulder height tonight...
(LisB)
May 23, 2009 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Liz maybe your friend can you this advice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKLF3-Qvk84
May 23, 2009 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a wonderful blog, Obey! Just what I needed today. Blogs like this one keep us going - so we can do or read the heavy duty blogs.
I've got a nest full of robins outside my kitchen window. One flew today. But I missed it's flight. The others won't be there much longer.
I love nature! :-)
May 23, 2009 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thera, this actually started out as a heavy-duty piece on Empathy, then it kind of flipped all by itself. Needed something lighter myself. Will get back to serious stuff soon enough! Glad you liked it.
:0)
May 23, 2009 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't that amazing, how the mind works? :)
May 23, 2009 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Glad you opted for light today. But don't give up on empathy. It's a discussion we need to have, IMO.
May 23, 2009 7:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, will get back to it. But it's hard to find the bits people would be interested in... Just waiting for the right relevant occasion where it might fit in. Thanks for stopping by, blue.
May 23, 2009 8:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can appreciate picture #2. I had arrived earlier than usual on a job site. Day was breaking in the desert Sky.
The morning sun was coming up. The most awesome, inspiring sight I had ever seen. Our Sun’s glorious rays were shining through the reddish and blue sky, highlighting and defining the billowing clouds.
This view gave a different prospective, it was though I was on a hill looking across a sea and the clouds were islands. It all blended together
This song was playing in stereo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrXNLot1VlY
Guide me towards salvation
I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of this thing that I've become
Gonna take some time to do the things we never have
Toto
Africa lyrics
I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She's coming in 12:30 flight
The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation
I stopped an old man along the way,
Hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say, Hurry boy, It's waiting there for you
CHORUS:
It's gonna take a lot to take me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never have
The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what's right
As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of this thing that I've become
CHORUS
(Instrumental break)
Hurry boy, she's waiting there for you
It's gonna take a lot to take me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa, I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa, I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never have
May 23, 2009 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Resistance, great comment! Hey I just put TOTO on pursuant to your link.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
May 23, 2009 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dickday, When I was younger I used to go to a camp on Little Boy Lake for 2 weeks. Canoeing towards Rice Lake. It’s so beautiful leaving the shore for the waters and looking down 40ft deep and the water so clear. Living the life of a voyager.
Or fishing for walleye, in the backwaters of the Mississippi, by Redwing.
Observing the rare sight of the dancing loons, in the evening. Looking up and seeing so many stars and what was probably the aurora.
I wish my children could have enjoyed that
I loved Minnesota, but you can keep the cold and the mosquitoes.
May 23, 2009 7:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, thanks for that R. Nice accompaniment for evening blogging...
May 23, 2009 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
After I posted this link, there were so many verions on You tube that may have been a better link, with beautiful pics.
May 23, 2009 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not sure what you thought was wrong-headed about the SciAm article, but the pics are nice.
Why is it super-natural that we would find the sight of water in all its possibilities pleasing?
May 23, 2009 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Was wondering if someone was going to pick up on that. Not personally much of a fan of Hood and how he constructs his theory (extrapolation from experiments mainly on children, etc). You like him?
Take the data about aversion to wearing a killer's sweater. kids will have strange theories about that, which show up in Hood's data. I wouldn't have a great reason. But the best I could do is say I'd keep imagining myself in his 'shoes', or him in my shoes - empathic mental 'time travel' as they call it in the broadest sense. it changes your self-image in subtle and unpleasant ways ('the clothes make the man' and so on). A strange effect that is difficult to explain. I don't think Hood's attempt - positing a mysterious 'supersense' - is that good. Would wearing Mr. Rogers cardigan make me nicer/sweeter? Who knows - lets find out before we say it's irrational to believe I will be affected.
As for the 'supernatural', slightly tongue in cheek. Has again to do with the theory about empathy's role in aesthetic appreciation and pleasure (see the linked article from SEP). It's not so much 'attributing' agency to things (which would be straightforwardly supernatural) - it's not an INfered conclusion from evidence, it's the primitive cognitive mechanism of imaginative engagement with the object - sometimes putting ourselves in the object's place. But it's the same mechanism that underlies our beliefs about mental states in others - supernatural or not.
well I'm blathering here...
glad you liked the pictures.
May 23, 2009 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I get you now, thanks.
I dig ice pix, too, but my main preference is plants and animals on the ground, and astrophotography. See my website.
May 23, 2009 11:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
will do, thanks.
May 24, 2009 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't empathy the supersense?
"lets find out before we say it's irrational to believe I will be affected"
Not sure, but I think you made a mental syntax error. It's not what you say, but that your belief would be irrational and that irrational belief could then rationally affect you.
Belief is a basis for fear (and other emotions or states of mind).
May 24, 2009 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think empathy is a kind of supersense, insofar as it isn't easily reducible to the other five senses. But I'll disagree with Hood who seems implicitly to believe that attribution of agency involves a theory about patterns in reality - that they are the outcome of mental states in objects. Mental states being 'theoretical' entities. And he supposes that we are hard-wired to have a tendency to over-attribute the presence of such states in things. I don't think empathy works that way (or it's not really 'empathy' when described that way), and I don't think it's a generally Over-exercised mode of apprehension. (comes down to the psycho-philosophical debate about simulation vs. theory theory - I'm on the side of simulation)
Now I'd also disagree with you on the nature of belief, or its role in emotion. belief plays an important role in emotion, but a lot of what goes on cognitively in emotion doesn't rise to the level of what I'd call belief. 'Imagining myself in x's shoes' isn't a belief, but it does inform my self-perception, my emotional state, my perception of the world. So the kind of mental operations involved in modes of aversion and attraction need not involve irrational belief as such.
May 25, 2009 8:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
what is simulation theory?
"But I'll disagree with Hood who seems implicitly to believe that attribution of agency involves a theory about patterns in reality - that they are the outcome of mental states in objects."
"seems implicitly to believe" is just so silly, due.
In order to disagree rationally, you need to state representative counter-examples and/or alternative notions. "simulation" doesn't mean anything to me.
People can project agency where it doesn't exist, whether in the form of superstition or imaginaing windmills as giants (or pronoia contrasted to paranoia). Can you show how the ability to be empathic is completely distinct from this projection ability?
Hood, again, isn't saying that superstitious people have intellectual theories, he's saying they can be understood to operate according to such theories.
May 25, 2009 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wonderful - eds the insult dog: 'silly, rambling incoherently, irrational, irrelevant'...
take a pill, dude.
Did I do something to piss you off again? wtf...
1. "what is simulation theory?" hmm. Seriously, you want a course in philosophy of mind? I gave you a hand-wavy reference in case you're interested in thinking about this stuff. I'm not going to write you a ten page intro here.
2. ""seems implicitly to believe" is just so silly, du[d]e."
I say 'implicitly' because it's an assumption stated and unargued that 'agency' is INFERED from perceived patterns. Inference, strictly speaking, happens within a conceptual framework which just amounts to a theoretical framework, however rudimentary. (hence the notion of 'Theory' theory in our interpretation of other minds).
I say 'seems' because I have only read some of his work. When I'm not sure, I hedge my statements, I don't start pissing on people like they're on fire, eds.
You want to discuss? tone it down.
The point about less-than-belief cognitive states was to say that I think it's wrong to suggest that in most cases 'belief' plays a significant role in explaining the aversion people will/may feel towards the killer's sweater and the general phenomenon of perceived 'moral contagion'. You can explain it without positing 'irrational beliefs'. That's the 'relevance' to your point.
I'm not disagreeing with Hood on the prevalence of type I errors in matters that are of importance to us - safety, social status, social cohesion, etc. I have a problem with the special 'irrational' status he gives to 'agent'-type explanatory narratives you get in a lot of cultures, explanations that don't fit nicely into the western scientific paradigm for what counts as 'explanation'. (Btb, you get an awful lot of type I errors in science as well, notably neuroscience and medicine in general, Hood being a nice example of that). I also have no problem with slapping down superstition in its various forms, and its often nasty consequences (a lot of this on his site http://brucemhood.wordpress.com/).
I'm an atheist, so I have no problem with talk of religion in these terms, but I find Hood, Dawkins and co a tad too unsubtle.
May 26, 2009 4:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
"You can explain it without positing 'irrational beliefs'."
So you say but so you don't do, so far. The inability to summarize in a few sentences (you'd need a ten page essay) "seems to implicitly" mean you really don't know what you're talking about.
Did you get a degree in philosophy or a degree is writing bull?
You "seem to implicitly" hold Hood to some extraordinary standard, considering the short pop article form referenced...
If you offer insult, don't be surprised to see insults in return.
May 26, 2009 5:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
have a good day eds.
May 26, 2009 5:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'll take that as an intended insult, and say good day to you too.
May 26, 2009 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well then *I*'ll take offence at the idea that it was an insult.
Frankly eds, I'm kind of confused by this new-found(?) contempt directed at me, but random pissing contests, as you should know, aren't my thing. So just disengaging. We used to have nice discussions. I'll miss them. Stay well.
May 26, 2009 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe you could self-reflect a bit [more], Obey.
If you want to get some order restored to this subthread:
Both of those point to apparent insults on your part. You say it is explainable without relying at all on irrational beliefs, but you don't explain (that I could see). You blew off a sincere inquiry by implying that it would take ten pages. And there's more, if you want it.
The point at issue (on my end) is whether beliefs can form a basis for other mental/psyche conditions such as fear. You took issue with my assertion about this. I had pointed out how that could work. I don't see any way to avoid "irrational belief" or an equivalent in explaining why people feel icky about wearing "stained/tainted" clothing.
May 26, 2009 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Now I'd also disagree with you on the nature of belief"
I'd like to see you do that, but rambling incoherently doesn't count for much. That not all cognition amounts to belief is obviously true but not relevant here.
Me, earlier: Belief is a basis for fear
One's belief system affects how one recognizes perceptual inputs, and that affects how one judges them to form new belief.
May 25, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ain't surface tension amazing!
May 23, 2009 7:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know that pic isn't photoshopped, eds! there's a whole set of them with explanations attached. pretty amazing...
May 23, 2009 8:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why did you bring up photoshopped in re surface tension??
"Water is what water does. "
What about fake water?
May 23, 2009 9:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thought you were making a crack about the guy walking on water.
fake water? huh, who's counterfeiting this stuff...??
May 23, 2009 9:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
It has nothing to do with surface tension. It's about the state of the water. ICE
May 23, 2009 9:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, walking on water at the human scale would transcend mere surface tension of real water!
Were you researching "Agenticity"? What's so wrong-headed about the SciAm article?
The pic with a person in it looks like someone standing on wet sand.
May 24, 2009 2:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ed, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this article, with you and others. I have a meeting this A.M. and will be back.
Quickly in response, I want to be able to deliberate a little more on the words I choose. Not guaranteeing it’ll help.
Go to the end of this thread or bottom of the page. Where I write about the Nephalim, and the Gods and goddess
Back to the article
In the article the writer says
" “More important, such experiences are not substantiated by a body of reliable evidence, which is why they are supernatural and unscientific"
Does commonalty establish a foundation for truth?
a theorem describing how the conditional probability of a set of possible causes for a given observed event can be computed from knowledge of the probability of each cause and the conditional probability of the outcome of each cause
Maybe you know? Can this commonality be called a truth?
After going back, and quickly scanning the article again. I think the writer makes some valid points.
I would love to hear your impressions of the article.
I’ll be back
May 24, 2009 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Does commonalty establish a foundation for truth? "
I think that is a typo or misuse of the word, 'commonalty'.
I don't understand how you mean the question in context. And I don't get how the cite is good evidence of "wrong-headed" even if it's not well-stated.
I'm not up to debating interpretations of The Bible such as your other comment offers.
May 24, 2009 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ed this article had so many points for discussion.
I did agree with the agenticity, because they do exist. I felt the writer was questioning the sanity of those who would believe. The writer wrote:” such experiences are not substantiated by a body of reliable evidence’
My first inclination after the author further stated, “ which is why they are supernatural and unscientific” .I thought was to far of a reach for the writer to call into question the reality of the very existence of these agents. Then again the writer states, “The inclination or sense that they may be real is our supersense.”
I personally I don’t feel that once the agent has been identified, and I see his workings or feel his effects, it is not a supersense to me. It’s obvious.
No one questions the findings of Leeuwenhoek, or Pastuer who used the microscope an instrument for viewing objects that are too small to be seen by the naked or unaided eye. Identifying objects that could harm humans.
But if someone named Moses or any of the writers of the ‘BOOK” identifies an invisible spirit who exercises control over mans affairs, this is pronounced as supernatural, “are not substantiated by a body of reliable evidence”
In that regard he was wrong headed.
May 24, 2009 9:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
he's talking about scientific evidence, because he's writing in SciAm. Personal or subjective evidence would be something else.
But surely microbes have been seen and analyzed, so there is evidence.
Don't forget that 'supersense' is like 'superstition', and that what is obvious through rose colored glasses is not real at all.
May 25, 2009 1:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
See my comments to Tom for a start...
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/obey/2009/05/the-secret-of-lifer-in-your-pa.php#comment-3477257
May 24, 2009 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
commented there now...
May 24, 2009 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thought you might have been referring to the first pic. Have you seen the photos of Harold Edgerton (he invented the strobe to take stop-motion pics, pioneered underwater photography with Cousteau, invented sonar, etc.)?
May 23, 2009 10:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not just the first one.
Yes, Edgerton did some great stuff!
"In 1937 he began a lifelong association with photographer Gjon Mili, who used stroboscopic equipment, particularly a "multiflash" strobe light, to produce strikingly beautiful photographs..."
and attributed to him: "The trick to education is to teach people in such a way that they don't realize they're learning until it's too late."
May 24, 2009 3:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have a recurring set of dreams, which Ive had since I was a little boy. One is me walking from the tip of Manhattan on water, and walking past the ruins of the Lincoln Memorial. Another is me in the Ocean, hitting my hand on the underside of a huge ocean liner, but no one can hear me. I think it's the Titanic, heading through heavy fog.
The best one; there is the one where I'm in my schoolyard, where I used to get stung by bees, and beaten up by bullies. I'm walking along the sidewalk, which is all broken up. I walk into the playground, where they are having a balloon launch. I start running as fast as I can, and I begin to lift up amongst the balloons, and fly. EVeryone looks up and is in total awe, as I fly and swoop down 100 feet over them.
May 23, 2009 8:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting set of dreams, Joe. I've never done the walking on water, and my dream-flying skills suck. Tends to end badly with gravity kicking in again for unexplained reasons. But seriously, I've never had Recurring dreams, though I often hear of others with them. Is there an explanation for that? Don't you get bored, wanna change the movie?
May 23, 2009 8:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
The dreams are never exactly the same. It's kinda like if you watched the same situation over and over but from slightly different POV. Or, slight nuanced changes to the story, but the same result. I guess it's interesting to me because the first one was at age 6 or 7, then for some reason at 18 I drempt it again. Not again till I was about 24. No logic behind it, I just wonder what I am doing this to myself for, to keep bringing it back up.
I also noticed, no matter how old I get--I always live in "New York," though it is really just my old neighborhood, and "my house" is always the house I grew up in.
Call a doctor.
May 23, 2009 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Joe maybe the flying dream you had. Was a relief for you? Flying was a way for you to escape your tormentors. They were unable to touch or get hold of you. When you swung down at them, you were in control.
I too, use to be tormented in school. Looking back at my flying dreams, I didn’t have enough room for the running start. (Remember the old Superman days he had to take a few steps first)
I haven’t had the dream for a while; but the last time I did I’m glad the new Superman, has the ability to just rise up from a standing position.
My flying dreams, always me choosing a path, not seeing that the ceiling has a lid on it and I am trapped in the apex.
So if I were ever to be a superhero, I’d pick strength.
May 23, 2009 9:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, that actually makes alot of sense.
I have noticed that dreams get populated with "extras" like a movie--the subliminally remembered man who walked across the street that day, but you barely noticed, or the man who sat in the back of the bus, who you glimpsed for a moment--they become characters in my dreams.
Then, One night I left the TV on, and drempt of a horrible highway at night plane crash into a row of vehicles. It was so real. I woke up, and realized I must have been listening to the breaking news story of a plane crash that night while asleep.
May 23, 2009 10:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obey, I’m so glad you decided to lighten the conversation here by discussing trivial things like the meaning of life. I know, I know, you were going to write about simple shallow stuff like the philosophy of empathy!
Maybe empathy and the secret of life are related. I try to empathize (i.e. every time I see your avatar I sense your legs are getting just a bit longer and one day will reach the ottoman, and you’ll have achieved nirvana). The secret of life? Jesus, Jack Daniels and a joint? No, that’s not it.
I probably could say what the secret of life is, but it depends on what the meaning of “is” is. But I think I get your point about life just “being.” Life is a verb! (-am, are, is, be, being, been, do, does, did, etc.). I think, like with empathy and everything learned, we may be trapped in our own language.
If we can look at beautiful scenes like those pics without naming things or conceptualizing it in our language–bound thought, then maybe we can just experience it “as is.”
Interesting post, as usual, Obey. You always make me think (“a secret lifer in my pants”…hmmm?).
May 23, 2009 9:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
F@#k "conceptualizing it in our language–bound thought" Dude. You almost made me have to take my keyboard in for regrooving at "I try to empathize (i.e. every time I see your avatar I sense your legs are getting just a bit longer and one day will reach the ottoman, and you’ll have achieved nirvana)". Note to self: swallow the whole sip of beverage before reading donkey's comments. LOL.
May 23, 2009 10:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Glad your keyboard still has its groove. I never got mine back after the infamous chipotlé-lime salsa and tequila incident of '04.
May 23, 2009 11:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh.
That.
(shuffles feet)
May 24, 2009 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, good times... good times.
May 25, 2009 1:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Holy shit Peegalito! It's baaaack! The 100%, fully, madly, deeply, entirely-in-bold comment! OMG.
May 24, 2009 12:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I donno what to do, dude. Sleepin' and I thought maybe I was over it last night. But just look up. It's back, man. What if ALL my comments start coming out in bold? You gotta help me. WHAT DO I DO??!!
May 24, 2009 12:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
F@#k-it man! I've got my own shit to deal with. I think you're on your own, (at least for a while). I feel your pain dude, but these italics are driving me nuts. Did you ever have an itch you can't scratch? or is that Kant scratch. Kant scratch fever. F@#kit man, you know where this all leads to, don't you?
May 24, 2009 12:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
the ottoman sits there
mocking unmoved
without purpose
blissful unbearing lightness of being
I recline
whine, sigh, pine
feet dangle without purchase
Between us the abyss...
May 24, 2009 10:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Staring... abyss... don't do it.
May 24, 2009 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
oh noooo
the horror
carpet stain!!
quick a broom... LARRY?!!!
May 24, 2009 7:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
No offense to the broom, but that sounds like a job for the swiffer.
May 24, 2009 7:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Crap, seriously guys, what's this broom good for?! Can't do chicken coops, pig stys, dog houses. apparently only does marbled temples to the Hinds on High... frankly we got jipped on this one.
"SUPERBROOM FOR ALL YOUR METAPHYSICAL MESSES, SEMANTIC SPILLS! RESTORE ONTOLOGICAL ORDER TO YOUR THREADS!"
My ass. Seriously people - no more 'spur of the moment' collective purchases on those tempting late-night sidebars!
May 24, 2009 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
the ottoman sits there-
for it is
May 25, 2009 1:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
This reminds me of a couple lines in a Dire Straits tune....
"I can't do everything,
But I'd do anything for you."
It doesn't look like I'm getting it, this water is too deep for me, but thanks for the pictures, Obey. Oh, yeah, and I have lotsa secrets.
May 23, 2009 10:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Looks like I overstepped that fine line between being enigmatic and being just obscure.
The View from Nowhere = the striving for 'scientific objectivity' in one's understanding of the world, where you end up abstracting it from from all that has subjective meaning or communal meaning. Something like that, anyway...
Okay, maybe I should stick to the pictures.
;0P
May 24, 2009 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, now you tell us. I guess I have to go back and rewrite all my responses in this thread now?
May 24, 2009 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Crrap. i knew I shouldn't have said anything. Never clarify. Golden rule of writing: ASSURE OBFUSCATION!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIqLsGT2wbQ
May 24, 2009 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have a secret lifer in my pants
it lives with flowers
it dies with ants
I take my lifer in my pants
and make proud the sister
of my aunts
Never having tried "the Crystal Meth"
I will not die the early death
You'll no doubt have another chance
to see the lifer in my pants
May 23, 2009 10:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Y'see this Obey? Just one small flick of the wrist, adding a random "r," and now we have both cummings and Joe.
And they laughed at you, going on about the secret of lifer in your pants. Pish.
May 24, 2009 12:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
If by implication you’re referring to me, I’m not laughing
I read your post about Luke 4, and I had felt empathy for you,
I could only imagine the trauma as a young child, you must have gone through, with the incest and all.
May 24, 2009 12:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, Resistance. I wasn't clear. The random "r" I was referring to was the original misspelling of "life" - turning it into "lifer" - in an ee cummings poem I like to quote, and that Obey picked up on for the title to this post. I actually enjoyed the original misspelling, and now, Joe Wood has come up an additional poem using it.
In short, it's turned out to be a fruitful error.
May 24, 2009 12:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks quinn for the explanation, I respect a lot of what your write. It would tear me up if you cast me aside. or I was the butt of a joke.
May 24, 2009 12:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
What is your favorite ee cummings poem? I have googled it and he has so many.
May 24, 2009 1:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
In my present mood, I find this one appeals. Humanity i love you.
But you may well prefer this one. a man who had fallen among thieves.
May 24, 2009 1:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
I prefer the first poem. The second reminded me of that weekend in Boston with Zebo.
May 24, 2009 2:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
me too
May 24, 2009 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
It must take some skill to understand some of the poems. How can I understand without someone explaining? Giving that "moment of clarity” that Miguels link to Pulp fiction's character expressed.
Maybe one must start off with the simple and then progress to Cummins?
Are Cummins’ poems, for those of innocent naivety or is it for certain adults?
May 24, 2009 11:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
my father moved through dooms of love
by E. E. Cummings
my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height
this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if(so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm
newly as from unburied which
floats the first who,his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots
and should some why completely weep
my father's fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.
Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead called the moon
singing desire into begin
joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice
keen as midsummer's keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father's dream
his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn't creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.
Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain
septembering arms of year extend
yes humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise
offered immeasurable is
proudly and(by octobering flame
beckoned)as earth will downward climb,
so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark
his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he'd laugh and build a world with snow.
My father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)
then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine,passion willed,
freedom a drug that's bought and sold
giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear,to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am
though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit,all bequeath
and nothing quite so least as truth
--i say though hate were why men breathe--
because my Father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all
--
I likes this one.
May 24, 2009 3:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
I actually think that adding the "r" was actually a great gift of happenstance.
It stands out from the crowd, who never thought to use it.
I enjoy using it.
It's takes on a new task--a "lifer" is prison slang for a life sentence. So now, through unintended coincidence, you have added irony and meaning to the use of the word "Lifer."
May 24, 2009 3:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
What will be funny is when others begin using the term, adding into their ambitious vocabulary--and what creative definitions they will come up with to explain "the lifer in my pants."
It will catch on, mark my words.
(and pants.)
May 24, 2009 3:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well heck.
That HAS to be a good thing....right?
May 24, 2009 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks so much for that Cummings, Q. Finest thread I've ever had! It's all in the R...
;0)
May 24, 2009 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wonderful Joe! bookmarked!
May 24, 2009 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obey if this is the end of the discussion on the pictures, I want to agree with you
Obey wrote, “These thoughts are a reaction to this wrong-headed article in Scientific American.
I agree the writer forgets an important element of mans history
The famed and dreaded NEPHILIM.
Most civilizations who after the confusion of the languages at Babel on the Plains of Shinar, were scattered Earth wide. Despite some embellishment there was a commonality in these groups when they spread out, carrying the knowledge and are now a part of their ancient mythologies.
One example: The Greeks, (descendants of Javan son of Japheth and grandson of Noah) spoke often of Gods and Goddesses, mating with humans.
Man alone was no match for these Angels who took the daughters of men.
(Genesis 6:4-9) . . .The Neph′i·lim proved to be in the earth in those days,
This mating was one of the reasons for the Great Flood. Spoken of in most cultures.
May 23, 2009 11:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
interesting R. I'm unfamiliar with the Nephilim. will look into it. My issue has more to do with how the author (and Hood, who the piece is about) construe the nature and basis for attribution of agency in general. among other things.
May 24, 2009 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
What I am in agreement of, the writers comments
The writer’s mention of type 1 or type 2
Believing in type 1 could save ones life.
And the writers words ‘we infer agency behind the patterns we observe in a practice I call “agenticity”: the tendency to believe that the world is controlled by invisible intentional agents. We believe that these intentional agents control the world."
When you review the information about the Nephalim, they are the human/ Gods, offspring of the invisible agents.
Noah and his family, along with the flesh of selected animals, being in the ark they escaped the process in which the offspring of the invisible agents had no escape. The Nephalim made of flesh, perished or drowned. They had no protection.
The powerful, invisible parent of the h