secretions
.net

In the course of the day,
most of my thoughts are shitposts.

Being enlightened is just one part of life.

"Real" is not a big enough word to encompass reality.

Things seem to be simpler than they are.

No matter what sentence about the world
you can come up with in your mind,
you will never simply understand the world.

I think, therefore I understand.

I am so deep I do not understand myself

How I can aid other thinkers?
Before that... what can I aid them with?

Thinking is important.
Or not.
But whether is is or not, that question itself is important!

Our concern with multiculturalism, and racism is at the same time a form of tribalism. As such it takes the focus of you and me as a developing person.
In a word with no multiculturalism (and therefore no racism) people are still far from happy.

In honor of MLK day:
I always loved how black people danced and how cool, they were.
I loved their emotional abilities.
I wanted to be like them.

Freedom also includes the luxury of speaking without too many filters.

And music used to be so inclusive.
Love would solve a lot.
Where is the inclusive music of today?

And I am not being ironic with the following link:
(Cultural appropriation is cross-cultural love.)

A Zen Christmas present: half a cicada wing.
Once you understand this present it will seem wonderful!

We have met the next enemy and he is also another part of us.

With the growth of AI humans have a competitor.
If we remained at the top of the intelligence chains out foibles and weaknesses would seem like emotional outbursts of God, rather than cerebral defects

no doub't

How can we all get along?
Well if history is any guide, we cannot.
But can we at least come up with a vision of how we can all get along?
Well if history is any guide . . .
It is not even clear you could get along with people who are just like yourself,
or even with yourself.

Similarly for the question:
How can we get most perfect, or much better, government?

What is wrong with increasing income disparity?

This is one more seemingly simple question that
(1) Everyone acts as though it has an obvious answer
(2) that they know, and
(3) even though everyone thinks it can be simply stated
(4) the answer turns out to be difficult to put into words.

Here are a few directions to consider thinking:
• Making the rich richer is not bad mostly because there are privileged people with much more stuff than you, although this may be the source of some of our emotional animus against income disparity.
• Many ways of getting wealth just require money, then make more money without much thinking or labor. Investments without work should be un- or less rewarded.
• Under a capitalist system, those with money get to make many decisions about changes in the world and consequently the kind of jobs and world that people will have.
• All investments not equal. The value of an investment depends what you spend it on.
Spending on military equipment does not increase the wealth of society.
• Large income disparities leads to corruptions.
• There may not be a conspiracy but everyone is thinking about what is good for me. One theory is that this is best for everyone, but this is not obviously true. Consider the dangers of monopolies and oligarchies.

If only life were a quest.

Perhaps other people could
but at this time in my lie
I could not be happier.

If you look long enough at an camera image of yourself on a screen, pretty soon that image becomes you.

Because all comprehensible theories are wrong,
even the greatest philosopher can only marvel at the gate,
forever outside.

But don't let that stop you from imagining you are entering, though you can never describe it in words.

Most of us work in a position of if not humility, a functionary, a humble McDonald worker as far as the universe is concerned.
That goes for philosophers and artists as well.
And that is the first thing to understand.
The work of life takes place outside the gate.

[at my house]
It's beginning to look too much like Christmas.

In most cases,
you cannot blame another person
for making you feel awkward. .

Government by opposition has its problems.
Two heads are better than one,
but not if all they do is insult one another. .

Stop pointing.

I naively believed that our constitution, and the "wisdom of our founding fathers," the progress of knowledge, and the momentum of intelligent bureaucracy would protect us from bad governance.
But there is no protection against stupidity, and worse.

A party can wage war on a functioning government by making sure it fails.
Is this not treason?

On the philosophical | metaphysical | spiritual plane, there is stuff no one can tell you.
It cannot be put into words,
and words necessarily misrepresent it.

I should be-here-now more.

There may be a good reason for having people in authority,
less so for having these actual people in authority.

Should everyone take hallucinogens early in their lives?
Yes?
What about those who see perverse or bad evil messages?
Arrghhh!!
The few ruin it for everybody else.
This is why we can't have world peace!

Religion should be overcome.
Religion leads to a blind alley
that cannot deal with today's problems.
And it keeps us from speculating freely.

To face the future we need to understand:
• who we are,
• where we are going,
• what we are doing,
• and we need reassurance, lots and lots of reassurance.
Or do we?

I don't like what is going on, but I cannot do anything bout it.
I am not thinking so much about the current government theater
but the changes in planet coupled with a perceived inability of governments to deal with it,
and with a real tendency to get into fights.

If you can't describe reality,
because reality is indescribable,
then you cannot describe what that is that you cannot describe.

Plato on the sacred lie.
Why would you think that humans need a lie,
only if all are lies.

What is created in the dark is dismantled in the dark.

I am working on Philosophy Without Words Now with words!

A man's gotta' poo what a man's gotta' poo.

When I yearn for the old America,
for what do I yearn?
I certainly yearn for a time, when we were not embarrassed by a president.

I may just be yearning for my youth.
Not my actual youth but a new youth
with the feelings of my youth:
when all was open and possible
and time was endless.

As far as I am concerned,
just keep flying the flag at half mast.

Isn't it ironic that the man who wanted to Make America Great Again is in fact is in fact doing just the opposite?

What are some creative questions to ask Google?
(That is not one of them.)
What can the Internet teach us?
(That is not one of them either.)

Of what does the Internet rob us?
• solitude
• time
• the optimism of living in a safe world
• interactions with people around us in the real real world
• the ability to go to a new place beyond the blue horizon, and leave my past behind and make a new start

Personally, Linda and I, are going to "buh-bye" our way out of this.

Republicans have drunk their own cool-aid.

Google news is not what you should be paying attention to,
it is determined by what people are interested in.
Therein lies a problem.

Unless you have felt Beethoven's greatness, you do not understand Beethoven,
which implies learning to appreciate greatness.

We need two kinds of car horn, one would be a friendly reminder and the other pissed off.

In my stupor
I sit at peace,
just me
and time.

People often act as though the politicians are stupid (or venial or corrupt or selfish) because the correct answer to the problems at hand are obvious.
But they are not.

If everyone were non-racist, non-sexist, non-{you-name-it} the world would still be facing many problems.
If everyone were non-religious and generally scientific, the world would still be facing many problems.

The current administration is like a slow paced television series. We might call it House of Tards.

2017 with its concerns too will pass.

It is not clear that "What is reality?" can be answered in a sentence
or even in words.

Proof for the theory that reality cannot be put into words:
different people have completely different ideas about the ultimate nature of reality,
whatever it is.

New word for new times™: unformation

To say "You're a liberal", or "You're a conservative" is not making an argument at all.

What is the opposite of "I will not bullshit"?
How can a bull not shit?

I emulate Wittgenstein by writing nothing in my lifetime.
(Unlike Wittgenstein...)

What is wrong with touching someone without their permission?
Are we "trespassing"?
Or violating our peculiar sense of what is "mine"?

What makes us think god would "speak" in words?

Let's keep the zen in frozen.

Nationalism, and racial identity, has no morality
except group selfishness
and a sense of belonging.

Regarding the daily sexual assault scandals:
The common thread of the perpetrators is men, but more specifically it is bosses, or those in power,
taking advantage of unwanted perks of power.

Men would not feel as violated by inappropriate groping,
unless of course it was coming from a gender they were not comfortable with,
or it was too rough.

Democracy assumes best way to govern people is by educated citizens. They main way ignorant citizens are good for democracy, is that it gives them a feeling they have a voice, and (as Mencken wrote) it gives them a sense of dignity.

Democracy cannot work as a guiding force in nations where the majority is angry at the government, although even here it can at least change those in power.

We fear the foreigner because we feel they care as little about us as we care about them.

Whatever gets you through the day.

To be a philosopher is to have a coherent response to a great variety of questions, none of which answer or lay the questions to rest. (A philosophical problem is not a math problem.)
Do those answers have to be interesting answers?
No would be the first answer. But perhaps there would have to be some interesting questions.

We are in an era of apologizing
and evaluating the apologies.
which we never accept.

What is difference between my understanding
and the understanding of a truly ignorant person?
For one thing, I want to know my understanding is the best mankind can do.

Sometime I feel super-duper,
other times I just feel duper.

It is very hard not to write bad music.

Promote what you love,
rather than bashing what you hate.
— Banksy

What do I love about modern life?
My life.

Let's give mankind a happy ending.

Our virtual reality gets better and better as our reality gets worse and worse.
We are happy as we destroy our world.

"fucked-up" vs. "fucked-down"

What if we are the only conscious life in the universe?
We would have different responsibilities.
Now we are children, ready to fight phantom enemies from space,
or waiting for a rescue.

The night is young but I am old.

I grow old in a youthful self.
I doubt I could change that.
And why would I?

A Southern accent loses you ten IQ points.

How complex is the world
without the added complexities of humans?
At a bare minimum we would need to live around the complexity of the universe.

Philosophy promises so much and delivers almost nothing with titles like: Beyond Vision, Knowledge and Reality, The Meaning of Belief.
Diving into the book we are soon lost in a thicket, talking about Aristotle, Spinoza, or Hume.
And, if that is not bad enough, at the end, there IS NO ANSWER!

That a book can answer these questions is an illusion in which we all participate, nay live.
The illusion is actually that these are answerable questions: that there is knowledges, truth, morality,

We do not have is a nuanced theory,
or that holy grail, a simple nuanced theory,
that "explains" how morality changes over time, and yet remains morality.
How should we evaluate moral practices that are now repugnant, yet which were common a century, or even a generation ago?
How, obviously, morality is a product of its culture, even though it is explained, and initially taught, as rules which are or are not obeyed.
So, was Washington wrong in holding slaves, when they were legal?
Yes. But also no.
(The "Yes but also no" and the "No but also yes" answers are unsatisfying but also correct.)
Morality violate not only laws, and moral laws, but also social norms. And social norms usually have contexts of application. We learn these contexts without being aware that we do. Killing is wrong, unless it is in war, or capital punishment,

Questions of conscience:
What is missing in my twitterfeed?
What is missing in my Facebook wall?

Life is not summable.

It's not how much you men want to see,
but how much we want to show.

The fight over what is America is a word fight.
So is the fight over what is an American?

A part of us is always out of control.

True knowledge involves knowing our ignorance,
our perpetual ignorance.

"You cannot legislate against evil."
Evil, the nominalization of evil actions, creates a false bogeyman. It is like saying you cannot educate against Ignorance, or correct behavior against Mistake.
There is no Mistake, Ignorance or Evil. These are a complex ball of consequences
of which you can at best, and sometimes should, tweak a part.

A roomful of people is a world.

How much does the world
impinge on my thinking,
my equilibrium?
How much does the world
impinge on your thinking,
your equilibrium?

We humans are best motivated and inspired by simple, appealing, false, thoughts.

I support the religions which bring you peace and satisfaction, that you then bring to the world.

We don't care as much about victims as we care about the group identity of the perpetrator.

In religion we obey and follow rules with a deep feeling of satisfaction and safety.
This is our beta-person's delight.

People are against the sexual misdeeds of celebrities, but they sure love to read all about them.

The unexamined answer is not worth understanding.
The unexamined question is not worth asking.

Morality, seen from the outside is hesitation.

Keep dumbing it down until we can understand it — and until we like it.

Why are academics persecuted in the times of raw power?
They are the preserver, the reminders of promises made and of visions embraced.

New word: a twittiot

Oh we Baby Boomers had childhoods.
What do the millennials have?
I can't imagine.

How can one song drive out all other songs from our mind,
and be a perfect and beautiful song?

It's a shame that Leonard Cohen's Everybody Knows, Kevin Gilbert's Thud, and the songs of early Bob Dylan still make so much sense.

The current debate on sexual gender and sexual aggression is simultaneously a (mostly unconscious) debate on how we use words.

ESSAY:
Why do philosophers disagree on fundamentals?

I blame the scapegoat.

Reality is the ultimate reality show.
We are now in the 2017th season,
at least for the current cast.

If I abandon all false reasoning,
will I be left with true reasoning
or no reasoning at all?

If I abandon all false conclusions,
will I be left with true conclusions
or no conclusions at all?

Here is a good idea: change the names of nations, get new flags, new national anthems, a new calendar with new months, week and hours, and new religions.

To believe one knows is to err. – David Byrne

Not much can be said in words.

A superior human is hardly a superior being.

I have a common philosophy,
shared by many,
and that is that I basically don't need to learn anything.

ESSAY:
In the last year I and many others have wasted much too much time "thinking" about one Donald James Trump. The question is Why do we obsess on this?
[ from OBSESSING on TRUMP ]

Life is single click.

Illusions, not delusions.

Every philosophy book is the last book in philosophy.
That is what being a philosophy book is.

We cannot write a book called Theory of Knowledge if there is no such thing as knowledge.
Or it would be a different book,
explaining both its appeal and how the illusions of knowledge are accomplished.

We are inclined to say, but we are also inclined to understand.

It is easier for our brains to see what is right than to notice what is wrong.

Downplay the importance of a quick and clear responses. This is a lower-brain-stem upper-brain-stem response.
Thoughtful responses takes time, to adumbrate and to understand.

Millennials can't seem to boogie down;
they're all boogied up.

Creation may be a miracle but death is even more.
How can you get nothing our of something?

Re-examining the historical past from a moral point of view:
(say racism, colonialism, settlerism)
it is difficult to find exactly the right word.
Though they can easily be seen as wrong, they were wrong in a different way than we would be wrong in that they didn't know it was wrong.
The racism is wrong, but for us there is also something else that is wrong.

A book may have a point of view, but I don't have a point of view in the same way:
I am willing to change.

No one simply "understands" a philosopher.
That is why there are so many commentators and teachers.

The world is not a puzzle to be solved.
It's a puzzle what the world is.

Having children is not primarily a "rational" decision.
It would be irrational for everyone in the world to stop having kids,
but it would be equally irrational to have too many kids.
Why?

Having children (getting married, raising a family) is a rite of passage involving activities on many levels: b. the local interactive, with local people, especially a spouse, and
c. the cultural | ideological, involving: ethics and religion, expectations, laws (rules), symbols.
All of these in multiple often interlocking ways.

But does reason apply in these realms.
But what does this mean?
A disconnect between reactions and what may be seen as rational in the long run.

We can all rationally share certain long-term aims:
• We want humans to thrive in the long run.
• We recognize a certain equality among all humans.
• We do not want a war, genocide, terror, plague, atomic war.
• We do not want racism (not least because that does not work) and will get out of hand; atomic war,
• Pollution and global warming
• Extinction of rich animal life on planet
• Growth of leisure arts. (like we like through short term reasons, and understandings.
Am I imagining a calm western life? I suppose I am.

Is that rational?
Well what do you want?
We can all agree on this.
Agreeing is wrong? Any compromise form what I think is absolutely true.
This position cannot be argued out of.
Side does not recognize its own psychology.

Is it important to see the world as composed of chemicals?
Yes, if we are going to mess with chemicals.
Yes, it it enables us to manipulate chemical in useful ways.
Can we see it any other ways?

The ideals of youth are but a temporary cloak.
Whatever the cloaks may be, they are temporary.
As we age, we may lose the energy to carry on the multiplicities of a detailed cloak, we need a more comprehensive view.
This is death for the cloak.
It, and we, no longer fit the part.
Now I am old and find many aspects of being young tiring.
So who is the most human, the young me or the old me?
(What the young have going on is often foolish, often trivial, and sometimes dangerous, so there is that.)

There is a real world. It may be argued to be an illusion but it is a core illusion. It is the operating system and all its uninstallable apps.
We can also say it is the behavior of the apps, the cerebral processes and processing that determines the reality of the ultimate reality.

I want to say we cannot understand language, because we cannot enumerate the thousands of rules of using language in all its contexts.
And if we could enumerate those rules, we could not understand them as they would be far too complex, and useless in real time language use.

Things are, and things are not, relative.

Do I want to have a solution to our news driven social problems or do I just surround myself with the right responses?
Is there a solution?

What brought us all here at this coffee shop?
Mostly subroutines.

Once you think seriously about it, our social values and judgments are contradictory and fragmentary, held in place mostly by our senses of contextuality.

If you believe in a flat earth, or the existence of the Sasquatch, you are hardly alone. IS there something you believe that no one else believes?
(Not counting your opinions about yourself.)
Would you even want that?

To get to the truth you must go though stupidities.

The strong theory of philosophy:
philosophy is bullshit!
And of course it is.
But neither is it simply false or fake, since that implies an true or genuine alternative.

Your understanding of the world is an oversimplification,
most likely an educated guess.
It will always be an oversimplification.
So, why do we keeping seeking an understanding of the world?
And why do we think we can understand such an explanation?

Things are endlessly unique.

I wish that every day would be like an extra unexpected day.

Life is like a festival
in a park in the city in which you live,
where so many different things are happening at once.
Life is their harmonious confusion.

Why can't we all get along?
is an important question.
It seems it would be an easy question to answer, doesn't it?
Why is that?

We need an atomic theory of knowledge, culture and humans. a theory in which we can talk about the many epistemic differences between us.
Not that this would be possible.

One can also say that it is the lack of such a fundamental theory that makes some questions philosophical.

Most philosophical knowledge, the laying out the pieces of an exposition | presentation, are apologetics for things of which their authors are barely aware.
"This, this and this, cannot be doubted or moved. We will have to think our ways around them."

Nevertheless
reason is reasonable . . .
ness.

Most people use their life as their persona.

At times our understanding of the world is like the understanding of a simple country song that can be understood through layers of stupefaction.

We like harmonious aggregation of associations,
and we can share the aggregate of association.
They are often called "understandings."

We remain boring to each other, in part to remain in peace in crowds.

Why don't the transgenders have their own gender or two, distinguished by different dress, speech etc.?
Why two genders anyway? Biology of course, but certainly more.

We must look at humans in a new way. It may not be a pleasant way. In particular we must not let our slight lightly constructed virtual people get in the way.
Our pictures (metaphor) of people are created and fed by our ignorance to cover up our ignorance. (We cannot picture ourselves being ignorant.)

Thinking about humans in a new way can help with racism, albeit in a minor academic way. Instead of identifying with ones race or culture, one is a actually a being, a brain in a vat — but there is a vat, or better, a brain in a stew.

Racism is not multiculturalism. We can dislike (and that is not quite the word) different people of our own culture.

The societal attack on racism can hinder us in speaking about and thinking about and understanding racism.
It stops thought, as of course it is intended to do.
But thinking about racism as a not so simple problem with no simple solutions is not racism.
It just goes against our pressure to conform.

Humans like group hate.
"Let's get together and kill somebody. (There, now we are all in this together."

It is time to begin to put to rest the fiction that there is an invisible loving God who takes care of us as we move through our lives, an invisible friend.
The belief may be comforting, but comfort is not a good criterion for truth.

Another pleasure of old age is that I do not worry about what will happen in 2100. I will let others handle those.
a. I will be long gone.
b. No one listens to me.
c. I am clueless.

The unconscious in not like a person who makes decision but whom we cannot hear. On the paradigm of the multi-tasking mind, there are countless "processes" working simultaneously, and the ontological status of such processes are vague at best.
We do not not know how to think of mental processes in isolation (except by the metaphor of a mini-me) nor can we easily moderate their aggregate influences.

There are mysteries of our self,
and mysteries of our society,
due to their happenings-at-once-ness.

When we speak, and think, about our culture as that which affects us form the manimals outside us, our "culture" includes all our so-called cultures.

People are a funny sorts of generally unattractive simple beings. This is hidden from us by our various kinds of virtual people, who are charismatic, funny and involved in a story of interest.
But people are not stories.

The truth shall make you ignorant.

People have no time because everyone is too busy wasting time.

on overpopulation

Overpopulation would not be a problem for us if the Earth was not a rare, limited and ultimately fragile habitable resource — and round.
If the habitable Earth were unlimited, an expanding population would be a boon of sorts, enabling diversity, economic grows and the possibility of human happiness for all.

[ from REGARDING OVERPOPULATION ]