TACKER: barnacle () SUBJECT: smoking, obesity. Determism or free will? DATE: 17-Sep-04 15:46:50 HOST: sverige >I have no sympathy for the 'poor people who smoke'. a warning flag in my brain went up when I read this in ANONYMOUS. i don't see habitual smoking as a choice. I think most of us have tried cigarettes at one time or another, and some are just unlucky enough to have the biological, neurological, or endocrine (hehe, I dunno) makeup such that nicotine seized their brain's addiction mechanism. also, one has to consider what lead these people to try that one cigarette for the first time. Was it particular friends? A particular environment? how much 'choice' did that person have in selecting those friends or that environment? i find that something like 75% of my posts tend to degenerate into arguments for determinism vs. Free will. i guess this particular question pretty obviously heads in that direction: 'are smokers exercising a poor choice or is their behavior due to outside influences?' the obesity question is similar: 'are fat people fat because they choose to put too much food into their mouths, or because the putting of too much food into their mouths is determined by external influences?' very briefly (hehe, I'm very aware what I'm getting myself into here): any event had to have happened the way it happened, and could not have happened any other way. There's no such thing as probability -- all events are expressly and precisely determined by all other events (and would be perfectly predictable with sufficiently advanced and precise equipment, including chaos math). Anyway, that's my 'argument' for determinism. I use the scare quotes because of course it's irrefutable, similarly to the 'argument' for free will. I'm just sharing how I happen to feel about it. so, smokers smoke not because they've made the choice to smoke, but essentially because they've been victimized by reality. Haha. There's a school of thought that holds that free will and determinism are indeed reconcilable, but I've never understood their reasoning. To me, it seems like an irreconcilable split in world-views. TACKER: barnacle () SUBJECT: .. Smoking, obesity. Determism or free will? DATE: 17-Sep-04 18:13:37 HOST: sverige >I personally agree with you here, it's hard for me to reconcile them >either. But it's a very Western perspective, dualistic. I'm sure many >practioners of Eastern philosphies could explain why both are true. :-) good point. i think the question of free will gets confounded by the estimation that it is rooted in the realm of human choice, freedom and responsibiliy. I think a more objective view of 'free will' comes from things like the shroedinger's cat experiment or even a coin toss. In fact, I'd like to dispense with the term 'free will' entirely, and call the opposing theory (hehe, dualism) 'probability' or something like that: the theory that there are many possible outcomes to any event. this brings me to the 'many worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics (which is related to another field, 'quantum probability'). 'many worlds' apparently accounts for both determinism and probability (or 'free will,' if you want to use that term). Every event splits reality into I guess an infinite number of possible worlds (i assume there are also an infinute number of events per any 'quanta' of time). so, maybe this is the reconciliation we need: quantum mechanics. Actually, i think eastern philosophy does have a lot in common with more modern interpretations of physics. Contrast this to western philosophy, which is sort of stuck under a newtonian shadow. There's a book, _the tao of physics_, that talks about some of these things. the problem is, this falls (in many people's eyes) under the very iffy umbrella of 'science studies,' the kind of thing the sokal hoax was a reaction against (google sokal hoax). And here we have another parallel: a lot of philosophical interpretations of qm as well as eastern philosophy sounds a lot like the kind of postmodern epistemology that sokal spat upon. I sometimes see postmodern philosophy as a somewhat effective bridge between western and eastern philosophy. But I'm getting tangential here. central point: qm may reconcile probability and determinism. side point: I'm uneasy with the term 'free will', and favor abandoning it in favor of 'probability.' of course, this leaves open the question of why things do happen in a certain way -- why are we stuck along this one particular path of events, in this particular one of the 'many worlds.'
WARNING: most depressing blog ever.
I had a realization tonight. I was eating dinner with my mom and aunt at the lonestar steakhouse (awful), and while I was looking at the two of them and considering myself, I thought 'they look just like my grandmother.' they looked like little old ladies. My grandmother is dead, but there's a certain 'grandmother look' that I familiarized myself with when I was 6, 7, or 8 years old. This locked into my head, and my ongoing thought was 'this is what a grandmother should look like.' I realized this evening at dinner that my mother and aunt looked like this. And, of course, with this observation comes the realization that I'm where my parents used to be when I was that age; I'm two years old than my mom was when she had me. I'm an adult.
My mother is a little old lady with white hair, and I'm an adult.
I know this should have been obviously and intuitively true for a while now, but I've never thought of myself that way before.
I was still stuck in a child's world view, as exemplified by my fixed concept of what a 'grandmother' should look like. But tonight, I saw my mother and my aunt together at the dinner table, and they looked like that. So, obviously the child's world-view no longer works -- people my age don't have grandmothers, and our parents are elderly and white-haired.
I think this generational shift takes place often at around my age. Try this experiment. Picture your grandmother, regardless of whether or not she is dead. Now, take a look at your mother. Does she look more like your mental image of your grandmother than your idea of 'mother'? If so, then she has become the 'grandmother,' and you have become the 'mother' or 'father.' a generational shift has taken place.
Of course, having children probably brings about the generational shift too, but since I don't see myself reproducing, my only option is to observe my mom and aunt together, eating dinner, looking like little old ladies, and see myself with them, looking like an adult. I turn 30 in December.
Of course, what does it mean to be an adult? Absolutely nothing -- nothing changes. But it's a way of thinking about the world, and a family's generational structures.
The problem is, I don't really like hanging around with people as an adult. I don't know what to do with them. Go to bars? Go out to dinner? Not only do I not have the money for that, but I don't really enjoy it. I'm not sure what I enjoy. I was talking about this with my aunt and mother this evening at dinner. They mentioned the cirque du soleil in las vegas, where my mom will be going to a convention, and I thought to myself 'does this sound exciting and fun to me?' not at all. I have no desire to sit in a plastic seat in the dark and process some images on the back of my retina of people wiggling around. What's 'fun' about that? Not to mention getting to the cirque-venue, parking, getting home, spending $30, etc. Now that I think about it, I honestly can't think of anything that I enjoy.
I know this is supposed to be a sign of depression, but I'm not entirely convinced. However, it's possible that I've just been depressed for so long that I don't remember what it's like to have fun. Yes, I think so. Now that I think of it, that makes me angry and upset; it isn't fair that some people are able to enjoy life while I am not.
However, I maintain that anhedonia has less to do with a 'chemical imbalance' than it does simply getting older. When I was young, I used to have 'fun.' I used to have sleep-overs, and talk about girls late at night, make home movies, and illegally shoot bb guns at city junk yards. Even when I was a teenager, I would get drunk, sneak into the woods, scream while running around naked, and hide from the cops. That was fun. And the thing is, I was diagnosed with depression at this time, while the 'fun' was going on (of course, I was also taking something for it, which I'm not doing now). Now, things aren't fun. Even, for example, if I was to drink an equivalent amount of beer and sit in the very same woods I used to sit in when I was 17, and build the same campfire, I would not have a 'fun' time. The most I can hope for now is an 'interesting' time -- I might be intellectually stimulated, but I'm incapable of having fun. I don't want to go so far as to say that I don't enjoy anything, because I do (i think). On second thought, it's very possible that I don't enjoy anything.
The more I think about it, the more likely it seems that I have a neurological problem that keeps me from experiencing pleasure. My mother and aunt are both on antidepressants. Almost everyone in my family has attempted suicide, including myself. These issues run in the family, so to speak.
The problem is, I don't trust society to keep me furnished with the drugs I'd need to stay healthy. Especially not in america, where I'd need to stay employed at a full-time job and on 'insurance,' something that has proven impossible for me to do.
It looks like I'm doomed to be unhappy.
I've been thinking about stopping picking up the phone, taking phone calls, or answering the door. I tried not answering my email for a week, and that went fine.
Even though I might be depressed (ok, I probably am), I still think the ability to experience 'fun' simply leaves one's life when one gets to be a certain age. The world just isn't experienced in the same way, and is no longer conducive to the uncontrolled, giddy, exhilarating, spontaneous sense of fun that we experience as children. Isn't that 'interesting'?
This week's blog got all screwed up in terms of the displayed date corresponding correctly to the actual day an entry was written. As I'm sure you've noticed, I've been re-publishing my SDF bulletin board posts here. Sometimes this produces too much material, and have to fudge the dates a bit in order not to overwhelm any particular day with too many disparate subjects. Particularly, I didn't want to add anything else to my post about circumcision (which was in fact only partially cannibalized from the bbs, hence the 'normal' font); I felt that was important for people to read, and didn't want to distract them by rambling about why I don't like the windows OS or something.
Here's a song/poem/whatever that I wrote:
floating dung
several cans of stringent worms
rub together betwixt the apocalypse
dont shut me out with your nefarious terms
i shower myself with turnips
bastard! (floating in the dung)
Bastard! (floating in the dung)
bastard! (eating from the trough of heaven)
bastard! (floating in the dung)
pop! Vacuous orifices condone spacious crapulence
flip my toast over so it's easier than
befooooooooooooore theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee raiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin
death! Satan is my jigsaw-puzzle partner
he eats. He eats. He eats..my BRAINS!!!!
falling? Not me, she said! I'm too far encapsulated
dropping? Not me, he said! I'm too ugly -- uglier than you.
he eats. He eats. He eats. He eats.
several cans of wormy tridents
get rapacious in the boat of pock-marks
drink the viscous slime of sex
and eat the meat of apes.
This blog's first birthday is approaching, falling on October 20th -- a little over a month away.
I'm a bit tired of using the 'pre' tag to re-post bbs posts in my blog. For one thing, I think they're harder to read. Most browsers display the 'pre' tag in 12-point courier, while my blog is set to display everything in 14-point verdana. I had to check my style-sheet, which I've not looked at in...well, in almost a year. Also, I'm afraid that courier looks sort of 'techy,' and discourages people from reading it. Verdana, on the other hand, is quite stylish, I think.
I haven't done this in a while: just start writing and hope something interesting gets squeezed out. Thus far, I don't think it has. Maybe I should quit while I'm ahead, eh?
I was thinking of stopping my blog on the 20th. For one thing, I have a mind to organize all of the entries by topic and make them more readily browsable. I'd discard the pointless babbling, such as this entry. But I think here and there, there are some pretty good essays on this server. It's just a matter of cleaning them up a little bit. It might be fun to collect the blog into several longish, arguably cohesive collections of articles (spirituality, economics, obesity, computers, etc) and maybe illustrate, self-publish and distribute them.
Or, alternatively, get a copy of 'writer's market' and try to earn a little bit of recognition that way. Maybe the best approach would be to choose the best-written blogs, regardless of topic. I dunno. We'll see what happens.
TACKER: barnacle () SUBJECT: why I don't like MS DATE: 13-Sep-04 13:49:15 HOST: sverige this is what I dislike about windows: 1. The requirements of corporate growth have made windows do far too much. I don't see why an OS should be more than a memory manager and multitasker for programs. 2. Outside programs can modify the os, and fixing their damage requires web searches and constant vigilance with the taskmanager, msconfig, etc. I'd rather spend my time being productive than supervising and slapping the wrist of the OS for doing things I didnt ask or want it to do. 3. The closer to the 'bare metal' one tweaks, the less sense it makes. Contrast this with unix, which uses a consistent language and is straightforward in its complexity from the surface on down through the deepest level. Windows makes a big effort to conceal from the user 'what's going on under the hood,' and then when the user pries open that hood, what s/he sees is a jumble of wires. Metaphorically speaking, of course. 4. The fact that it's closed source means that microsoft, whose motives are certainly not altruistic, can do anything it wants (windows could be reporting data back to them in one of the MS system processes that want to access the network). That's just a hypothetical example, and in fact not a very meaningful or likely one. I use a non-ms firewall, and use it to block all ms system-ish programs from accessing the network, with no ill effects. Maybe this is why MS is so eager, with sp2, to implement its own firewall. Eh?? Eh?? Eh?? But seriously, MS could do anything it wanted (similarly to the way a unix user could modify the source code and re-compile the kernel any way s/he wanted to), making it undetectable through conventional means. Of course, who knows what sort of shady deals ms has made with real networks, dell, etc, so that both can more easily exploit the user and tap his/her wallet? Basically, there's no reason to trust microsoft (or any computer company with a profit motive). 5. Ppl alwayz try 2 hack m$. My firewall iz busy all day roflmao
here is a link.
here is a google search.
The more people are educated about this, the sooner the practice of routine circumcision will end.
Circumcision wasn't too popular until the 1950s when someone decided that if boys were circumcised, they would be less likely to masturbate because it wouldn't feel as good.
I was circumcised as an infant, and I'm convinced that a lot of my problems with sexual sensation have to do with this procedure. The foreskin is sexually sensitive tissue, and is essential to the mechanics of sexual intercourse. I think the procedure is clearly analogous to female genital mutilation practices in africa (aka clitoridectomies), and is a human rights violation on a large scale.
It's interesting the way americans get so excited about female genital mutilation, but calmly ignore male genital mutilation that still takes place in something like 60% of male infants born in american hospitals.
I guess this is an example of cultural cognitive dissonance; you'd have to look back to claims of the world being flat to find an analogous phenomenon.
TACKER: barnacle () SUBJECT: .. Liberal arts majors DATE: 26-Jul-04 15:47:51 HOST: sverige so was i, actually...quite a shame. I don't think it would have been so bad if I'd gone to some place like vassar, sarah lawrence, bard, bennington, etc, where the liberal (and fine) arts are actually taken seriously and approached with some seriousness and rigor. However, I went to UMBC, a state school where the liberal and fine arts are offered as ways to funnel off those not able enough to major in techy things, but who still want to get $25K in debt for their piece of paper, because that's what society tells us we all must do. Nothing is more important than college!anyway, I think it could have been really enriching to major in something fruity at a place where gourmet fruitcake is peddled. But at UMBC, the only subjects that can offer competent and competetive peers as well as rigorous standards are the sciences and engineering. the UMBC art program is, as I suspect any liberal or fine arts program to be in a state school, a joke, and a waste of money. state universities are really mixed bags, and the good programs have to be ferreted out. And I'm not sure history, english lit, art, psychology, etc, are ever among them. If you want to go somewhere to study art in a serious way, there's parsons or RISD. English, vassar or bard. But computer engineering can be hapily and competetively undertaken at MIT or UMBC, depending on the budget. majoring in the liberal/fine arts at a state university was the dumbest, most regrettable decision I've ever made. TACKER: barnacle () SUBJECT: .. Liberal arts majors DATE: 27-Jul-04 02:24:16 HOST: sverige >I have to ask: If you think it was so dumb, why did you do it? i guess I didn't plan ahead. Knowing me, it's likely that if I had majored in electrical engineering or something like that I'd be complaining how ee majors are trapped in their tiny prisons of deductive thought and pattern recognition and couldn't generate a creative project by combining more than 2 things if their slashdot subscriptions depended on it. my failures are all my own, and not the fault of my course of study. I know quite a few liberal arts and fine arts majors (that is indeed an important distinction to make) who are perfectly sucessful. It's a matter of drive, self-esteem, competetive nature, assertiveness...all things that can be understood to fall under the unbrella term of 'aggression,' which is something that I lack. Maybe the word 'drive' is better. Whatever you call it, I don't have it. i really enjoyed my art courses, and I think most fine arts and liberal arts students enjoy their majors. Maybe we need to stop allowing students to choose their own course of study, and force everyone to pursue both higher order logical thinking as well as intensive creativity, so as to avoid ejecting either bums or dullards into our society. i can't help but blame capitalism for this. If our economy weren't based on growth and consumption, then I'm not sure technological and scientific progress would be treated as being as vital as they are by industry and government sponsoring of academic programs. Maybe just being happy, spiritual beings would be seen as most vital, and artists, writers and musicians would be nurtured and encouraged. maybe it all started with sputnik...
Command: TYPE (A NUMBER) 1.17 TACKER: barnacle () SUBJECT: .. Terrorist DATE: 13-Sep-04 15:41:23 HOST: sverige it seems that the problem, as always, is dualism (the passion of the western mind rears its head, yet again). You're either a terrorist, or you're part of the war on terror. You're either with us or you're against us. i sympathize with the ideology behind anti-state terrorism (the poor are getting screwed over by a multinational coalition of the rich, and must protect themselves in some way). At the same time, I don't approve of people getting killed. The people who killed those children in russia are sick, as are the people who flew planes into the wtc. Violence begets more violence, always. TACKER: barnacle () SUBJECT: .. Terrorist DATE: 13-Sep-04 16:05:09 HOST: sverige >> I sympathize with the ideology behind anti-state terrorism (the poor are >> getting screwed over by a multinational coalition of the rich, and must >> protect themselves in some way). >I agree with the text in the parentheses, but why do you call it >terrorism? i made the association because the 'terrorists' fall into the set of 'the poor' (on a national level -- the united states and her allies are seen as taking more than their fair share of global resources). but it is oversimplification to assume that money is the only motivator. In many ways, 'the war on terror' amounts to a holy war between the christians and the moslems, wealth notwithstanding. >Don't you believe in a possibility to achieve this goal democratically? >Just elect your own representative. :) probably not -- democracy is sort of like communism: it's a utopian ideology that's never been practiced. Political structures, across nations and across history, have always been based on a small group of people (those with wealth) ordering around the masses (those without wealth). You can call it whatever you want: a republic, soviet communism, maoist collective, american democracy -- but they're all essentially the same thing. It's just the way humans structure their hierarchy. [ to follow thread, (R)EPLY or (Q)UIT ] CONTINUE TACKER: barnacle () SUBJECT: .. Terrorist DATE: 13-Sep-04 16:38:35 HOST: sverige furthermore, all kinds of revolutionaries, from the founding fathers to lenin, used the same party-line: 'our government is going to be for the people! The people will rule! Not the aristocracy!' and it never works. contemporary 'terrorism' can be seen as a global reaction to this international power-structure, and the fact that it hasn't been possible to set up a goverment where 'the people rule.' so, the people start getting angry and killing the rich. Contemporary 'terrorism' could just as easily be called 'the new revolution,' the one the hippies in the 60s always said was coming. But far be it for me to make such analyses. All I know is that people are getting killed and being made miserable, and that this is not good. here's an old blog I wrote on the 'war on terror,' if youre interested. It talks about this international new world order, how the masses are having their options taken away, and how this results in terrorism and violence. 0026.html#17apr04