Warning, freeform thought ahead
Jul. 25th, 2006 01:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptNone of my umpiring shifts ever get done on time. Well, unless there are forfeits or early-ending games involved. So I'm finally back. Thfffft. Today was a productive day in terms of making Organization XIII suffer mightily for their plotting. Although I do admit that it took some doing, and that the hardest difficulty level in this game lives up to its billing.
Well, picnic times have been happening. If you haven't had yours yet, then maybe you can get this stuff in time. Bring along the 100% compostable dinnerware, the extreme roller skates, and don't forget your Zorbing ball. Have fun in the fields, the flowers. With all that wide-open space, there's plenty of room for some mental digging as well.
AMD and ATI joining forces. This is likely to be a good thing for all.
The Death of the Double Entendre - or why advertising is so simpleminded, and subsequently sucks. I'm inclined to agree that things are playing down to the lowest common denominator, and mostly because that's what the majority of people/consumers want. They don't want Marilyn Monroe holding her skirt down over an air vent, they want her posing nude on the cover of Playboy. Not only that, but they want her to have her legs spread and leave nothing to the imagination. Probably a few others want to see Marilyn having sex above and beyond the spread of her being spread. The language is simplifying, "humor" is simplifying, but in front of that, the mind is simplifying itself, as well. (Thoreau quote here, wielded ferrically as Lao Tsu dances in the dandelions.) My mind is likely simpler than my ancestors'. I can't recall all the stories of Torah or the Christian Foundational Writings, even though I grew up with them. Complex calculations are done more by machine than by mind these days. I don't know the complete details of the inner workings of most of the devices that I use on a daily basis. I haven't been drilled in the cycles of the seasons, when to plant, when to reap, et cetera. By memory standards, I may not measure up to the ancients. By higher thought in science and philosophy, I may not measure up to the ancients. Or, more likely, their shadows and archetypes built by the people that followed them. Perhaps Issac Newton would be best to wield here (shoulders of giants - is that the right person? I can't remember.) as a defense against needing to reinvent the wheel every generation. With increased specialization and segmentation, more machine-like behavior and work/social interactions, maybe the mind is just moulding itself to the new environment around it. Is it somehow wrong to think, in such an enlightened, electrically-powered age that the Seven Liberal Arts still should have an important role, and that the American education system isn't doing nearly enough to produce the well-rounded students it claims to do so, instead preferring to make drug-and-mass-culture-dependent machine-cogs?
There's an interesting side-street here about the requirements of sufficient prosperity to have an idle class that can even begin to consider philosophising, much less over a digital medium to an audience that is scattered across the globe. Probably another one about the enormous waste that occurs, then, when that idle class chooses to expend its energy on what passes for mass culture, in the basest forms that it takes. My point, though, is that in some regards, compared to the past, today's society doesn't stack up. This forms the conservative wing of most societies - learn from the past and try to keep its good things. The obverse of that point is pretty important, too - compared to past societies, we do have a leg up on them in some situations - science (SCIENCE!) being one of the obvious ones. We have a much better grasp of how the gods work now. Philosophy, once considered an art, has become a science (which may just mean that it took on some needless complexities as well as the rules of logic). We understand why getting drilled in the head is likely to readjust our world views, and are learning more and more why the magic plants work the way they do. Of course, we also understand much more about what can happen when the gods get pissed, too. Not all knowledge is virtuous knowledge, and there's probably a significant part of Forbidden Lore in the scientific corpus.
We know more about each other, more about how we behave, more about how to control how we behave (more mechanical mayhem, maybe?), yet it can seem at times that with our increased knowledge and technology, our tolerance, empathy, and compassion for each other is declining. Not that this is necessarily true, but it can appear that way - global blogosphere power and insta-communications can make both parts of a Stalin quote true. The tragedies multiply and spread, the statistics do the same thing. The monkeysphere appears and is exploited by interests that are likely running counter to the way of progress. It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye, and then it's hilarious, replayed on America's Funniest Home Videos and Jackass. There's always a THEM, be it homosexuals or Muslims or A-rabs (nasal a sound, there) or just the Joneses next door. Keeping up?
Praise God and pass the ammunition, we're hunting wascaly wabbits! There's always another wound to discover, there's always something more you wish they'd say. We didn't start the fire, but by God, we should finish it! We don't need no water, let the mother-fucker burn! Or are you unforgiven, too? Dandelions ahead, malapropisms strictly forbidden. Ever seen a walking Spoonerism? Here I am, you lucky fans. I'm ready for my close up, of course, but I might be on minute fourteen. Just lose yourself in the music, the moment, you own it, you only get one shot. The Way that can be named is not the eternal Way. It's all about sound bites, isn't it? Genly Ai finally understood why the Haddara-trained Gethenian, Estraven, spoke in aphorisms - it's about data compression. Westerners write books. Everyone else collects sayings and passes them on.
What does it all mean? (That question's been asked a lot through the ages.) Is there a unifying thread amongst the chaos? Or is the chaos the unifying thread? Does everything reduce to No-Thing, Not This and Not That? Well, science says it will, at least according to the current theory. AC said "Insufficient data." Not "Impossible problem." How does one being in the cosmic swirl, with such a limited lifespan, manage to make enough of the universe to ensure that the next generation steps forward? When it comes to the Long Now, who has the capacity to see and plan out millenia? Seldon certainly did. Is the Zeroth law enough? Which -topia are we going for?
Rrrgh. Phenomenal cosmic power, itty-bitty living space. Wish I could wrap my head around it all. And maybe it all just comes down to a boy, his tiger, a cardboard box, and some uni-directional bonding strip for reinforcement.
I just hope this makes sense to somebody. I suppose I've shown off the simplicity of mind by riddling the whole thing with various culture bits, popular or otherwise. Shouldn't need them as a crutch, but I never did get trained in all of the Seven Liberal Arts. And so I resort to shorthand. Finally, I'm going to bed. Tell me if anything I said helps. It probably looks more like a Gordian knot, now.
Well, picnic times have been happening. If you haven't had yours yet, then maybe you can get this stuff in time. Bring along the 100% compostable dinnerware, the extreme roller skates, and don't forget your Zorbing ball. Have fun in the fields, the flowers. With all that wide-open space, there's plenty of room for some mental digging as well.
AMD and ATI joining forces. This is likely to be a good thing for all.
The Death of the Double Entendre - or why advertising is so simpleminded, and subsequently sucks. I'm inclined to agree that things are playing down to the lowest common denominator, and mostly because that's what the majority of people/consumers want. They don't want Marilyn Monroe holding her skirt down over an air vent, they want her posing nude on the cover of Playboy. Not only that, but they want her to have her legs spread and leave nothing to the imagination. Probably a few others want to see Marilyn having sex above and beyond the spread of her being spread. The language is simplifying, "humor" is simplifying, but in front of that, the mind is simplifying itself, as well. (Thoreau quote here, wielded ferrically as Lao Tsu dances in the dandelions.) My mind is likely simpler than my ancestors'. I can't recall all the stories of Torah or the Christian Foundational Writings, even though I grew up with them. Complex calculations are done more by machine than by mind these days. I don't know the complete details of the inner workings of most of the devices that I use on a daily basis. I haven't been drilled in the cycles of the seasons, when to plant, when to reap, et cetera. By memory standards, I may not measure up to the ancients. By higher thought in science and philosophy, I may not measure up to the ancients. Or, more likely, their shadows and archetypes built by the people that followed them. Perhaps Issac Newton would be best to wield here (shoulders of giants - is that the right person? I can't remember.) as a defense against needing to reinvent the wheel every generation. With increased specialization and segmentation, more machine-like behavior and work/social interactions, maybe the mind is just moulding itself to the new environment around it. Is it somehow wrong to think, in such an enlightened, electrically-powered age that the Seven Liberal Arts still should have an important role, and that the American education system isn't doing nearly enough to produce the well-rounded students it claims to do so, instead preferring to make drug-and-mass-culture-dependent machine-cogs?
There's an interesting side-street here about the requirements of sufficient prosperity to have an idle class that can even begin to consider philosophising, much less over a digital medium to an audience that is scattered across the globe. Probably another one about the enormous waste that occurs, then, when that idle class chooses to expend its energy on what passes for mass culture, in the basest forms that it takes. My point, though, is that in some regards, compared to the past, today's society doesn't stack up. This forms the conservative wing of most societies - learn from the past and try to keep its good things. The obverse of that point is pretty important, too - compared to past societies, we do have a leg up on them in some situations - science (SCIENCE!) being one of the obvious ones. We have a much better grasp of how the gods work now. Philosophy, once considered an art, has become a science (which may just mean that it took on some needless complexities as well as the rules of logic). We understand why getting drilled in the head is likely to readjust our world views, and are learning more and more why the magic plants work the way they do. Of course, we also understand much more about what can happen when the gods get pissed, too. Not all knowledge is virtuous knowledge, and there's probably a significant part of Forbidden Lore in the scientific corpus.
We know more about each other, more about how we behave, more about how to control how we behave (more mechanical mayhem, maybe?), yet it can seem at times that with our increased knowledge and technology, our tolerance, empathy, and compassion for each other is declining. Not that this is necessarily true, but it can appear that way - global blogosphere power and insta-communications can make both parts of a Stalin quote true. The tragedies multiply and spread, the statistics do the same thing. The monkeysphere appears and is exploited by interests that are likely running counter to the way of progress. It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye, and then it's hilarious, replayed on America's Funniest Home Videos and Jackass. There's always a THEM, be it homosexuals or Muslims or A-rabs (nasal a sound, there) or just the Joneses next door. Keeping up?
Praise God and pass the ammunition, we're hunting wascaly wabbits! There's always another wound to discover, there's always something more you wish they'd say. We didn't start the fire, but by God, we should finish it! We don't need no water, let the mother-fucker burn! Or are you unforgiven, too? Dandelions ahead, malapropisms strictly forbidden. Ever seen a walking Spoonerism? Here I am, you lucky fans. I'm ready for my close up, of course, but I might be on minute fourteen. Just lose yourself in the music, the moment, you own it, you only get one shot. The Way that can be named is not the eternal Way. It's all about sound bites, isn't it? Genly Ai finally understood why the Haddara-trained Gethenian, Estraven, spoke in aphorisms - it's about data compression. Westerners write books. Everyone else collects sayings and passes them on.
What does it all mean? (That question's been asked a lot through the ages.) Is there a unifying thread amongst the chaos? Or is the chaos the unifying thread? Does everything reduce to No-Thing, Not This and Not That? Well, science says it will, at least according to the current theory. AC said "Insufficient data." Not "Impossible problem." How does one being in the cosmic swirl, with such a limited lifespan, manage to make enough of the universe to ensure that the next generation steps forward? When it comes to the Long Now, who has the capacity to see and plan out millenia? Seldon certainly did. Is the Zeroth law enough? Which -topia are we going for?
Rrrgh. Phenomenal cosmic power, itty-bitty living space. Wish I could wrap my head around it all. And maybe it all just comes down to a boy, his tiger, a cardboard box, and some uni-directional bonding strip for reinforcement.
I just hope this makes sense to somebody. I suppose I've shown off the simplicity of mind by riddling the whole thing with various culture bits, popular or otherwise. Shouldn't need them as a crutch, but I never did get trained in all of the Seven Liberal Arts. And so I resort to shorthand. Finally, I'm going to bed. Tell me if anything I said helps. It probably looks more like a Gordian knot, now.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-08-05 01:45 am (UTC)'Tis a much sadder world that we live in now.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-05 04:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-05 07:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-05 02:09 pm (UTC)