I Have a Laptop (sorta)

...naturally, the first thing I should do with it is to blog. Or renew blogging. Who knows if I'll keep this up.

As for the laptop itself, it's an old ThinkPad T43. It's not really mine, either. Rather, it's a work laptop, that this company gives to most of their employees. Not to me. I'm too low on the totem pole. I can halt their revenue for hours, and I'm the one who's low on the totem pole. Not that I would of course. It'd cost me my job, I'd think. This laptop was given to my coworker bart. Who already had a laptop and gave it off to another admin. That admin passed it to another who passed it to another who became a teamlead and got a laptop from the company himself and passed it to me. But effectively I'm borrowing it. Indefinitely.

Time for Some
Announcements.
If I have time later, ruminations.

I'm considering another tattoo. It's picked out and has some special meanings already. Lets start with who said it. The author of it wrote it in his autobiography, and it seems to me to be true of him. This is why he's one of my heroes. That and his aptitude at writing (Nobel prize winner for literature) his achievements in Mathematics (for example moving set theory forward further than anyone besides Cantor) and philosophy (answered long-standing questions in logic and had a sensible, comprehensive political theory) and as an activist (imprisoned in britain, his pacifism was later commended by the government). The only person I'll call a persnal hero, of himself, he said an approximation of the text I'll be getting:
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unvearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
I put that on my profiles and all the regular modern age crap. Talked to my sister about my admiration for the quote. In spring she gets the thing as a tattoo. Seriously, she freakin stole it! Well, in any case, I'm probably getting it on my arm. I'm reclaiming it. Oh, and there's the added significance that we'll both have it. You know, shared ideals and sibling significance and such.

Also, I'm at least auditing classes right now. In a week I may have the capital to get myself enrolled. If this happens I'll have almost no money for as much as two weeks. Also, it'll be up in the air whether I'll be able to pay for what I would enroll in. Fun stuff, huh?

I thought I had already posted this, but while I apparently had not, let me include an image of how I think this tattoo might look.

Tremble, be a human

I'd like to start blogging again, so here's a post about something that's as good as any I'll ever write.

"When you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine"

--Ernesto Guevara

I had a conversation earlier which uplifted me more than most. Let me preface this by saying I am a feminist. I care about women and society, how we see gender, how it needs to be corrected very badly. My views are summed up as well as anything by something my friend Kevin Garvey said in the conversation I'll later describe, I'll mark that with an asterisk, but I feel the need to explain further.

My freshman orientation showed me more should be for this, one moment especially affirmed this: a 'game' of sorts was made to highlight the understanding of different types of people (from different point of view to different ethnicity), and the stereotypes which are wrongly applied to them. My orientation group was set in a line, and different such groups would be read by the leader in the format of a statement aligning one with that identity (e.g. "I am Jewish," "I am African-American," "I am a liberal") those to whom the statement applied would walk ten or so feet from the line and stand facing them, and then stereotypes which students had written of such a group were then read. I heard "I am a feminist," and, immediately, walked to face the group. It surprised me out of the six women and four other men of my group, I was the only one to do so. After this ended, one of the orientation leaders, whom I knew to also be a feminist, came and told me she was surprised and glad that I walked over, considering it is always such a small group that does so, and that I was the first male she had seen do so after all of the orientation groups she'd had in two years. I told her I was sad that this was the case, and that more did not do so.

I sat outside the atrium, eating, picnic style with Dan, Kevin, and Steve. At one point in the conversation, Steve mentioned self-defense courses for women, and how it's bullshit that they may very well be needed in our society. "Think of what a woman needs to do not to get raped," he was saying, possibly speaking of his class discussion, "take self defense, carry mace, be accompanied in many situations, dress differently." I don't think I even need to tell you, the list continues. I could probably think of more myself, and I probably failed to remember more that were mentioned.

Then he said the next part of this: "What does a man need to do not to get raped?" The only thing that we really thought of, speaking for the general case here, is not go to prison. This isn't to say men don't get raped, but that's the only precaution that we have any pressing need to take, if it can be called that.

Self-defense classes, awareness of situations, these were considered, but the best response, from Kevin: "How about people learn to fucking respect their fellow human beings?"*

Damn right. That's what's needed. Respect. For people. Guess who isn't, in every part of society, getting a deserved amount of that? This isn't hard, and I'm not aboutto say the problem is in the least minimal. I was pleased to find myself among three other guys, all of them very enthused about that. I'd also like to see more.

I've had a disturbing and revealing past couple of ears by listening and knowing people. Off of the top of my head I can think of three women at the very least who had some experiences in which this was the sole issue, and I probably am again forgetting a few. I can think of, among these, even one instance of rape. Not a violent case, but one which no less highlights the issue: women are not respected nearly enough, and because they aren't major damage is done. All of the cases showed a similarity that the woman in question in each case was harmed by this mentally and emotionally. Usually accompanied by a vast loss of self-respect, which turned out to make things far harder for each of them. I talked to the person I mentioned that was raped at great lengths few months after this, and when I realized what this was a case of, and how much it changed things for her, I knew how absolutely crucial this issue was, and believe me it is.

In the other cases, it was usually blatant use of another person, by whatever means. This must have involved, for at least that time, a complete absence of respect for and care for the other person. I cannot imagine how deeply into society this lack of respect must reach. I just know the implications extend beyond this into the daily lives of women in our culture and probably every other culture on this planet. I know that, because I've listened, because I've observed the behaviours and heard the stories of my fellow human beings, I am very much changed and will speak and act as I can in order to express this. Join me and the multitudes who also understand.

I tremble. Do you?

Yeah, it's damn long.

OK, it's been a week or so, and was thinking this is excusable. It has to be. I'm back home, and have been spending time with friends. And Louisa. You see how this leaves little time to blog. In the meantime, I have all these thoughts and discussions (many of which are with Billy, another key one with Nick J) during which I think "I should blog about this when I get around to blogging." Of course I forget some of this beforehand, and I'm reminded that part of this blog is to sort out these ideas as they happen. And bug you with them. That way I don't forget to bug you with them before.

Let's start with the 'right about now', shall we? What am I doing up at this hour? I've been telling meself to get to sleep earlier for days. Answer: Reading up on the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Yep. I've heard so damn much about it, gotta figure out the back story now. I was surprised to find it more than an internet phenomenon amongst atheists. Apparently, for the most part it is an attack on "Intelligent Design" rather than on religion as a whole (though it works as a demonstration of burden of proof lying with believers.) Bobby Henderson, the creator of this and the famous graph Global Temp. Vs. # of Pirates, started all of these things in a simple letter to the Kansas school board. They had made the unconstitutional (yep, that's my opinion) decision to teach ID in their classrooms, and Henderson (a self-described out-of-work science major) wrote a letter to the school board advocating that they have every reason to teach the Pastafarian theory (every bit as scientific as ID) alongside evolution and their recently-ruled teachable ID. I must say, this is a very Swiftian satire on the political concerning education. If there is any political issue I'm on about it's education. That'll be explained in another post, but I digress. I'll do that from time to time. For example...

I love wikipedia. It's true. Fuck the criticisms. It's not meant to be something you cite in a paper, necessarily, but I'll tell you it's good at what it does. If you want to know generally about a subject, there's wikipedia. It's my first stop for a low-down on most things. It's quite an accomplishment of human knowledge and free information. Something that's governed by the people themselves, works, and benefits all. Everything should work like this. Another great thing is the use of links. You wind up going to read about one thing, and read about tens of others. If you want something you're sure is reliable links to sources are available. Lemme sum up a couple of thoughts I had during such a process.

Richard Dawkins is a champion to many atheists. I need to look at his stuff more closely to decide if his ideas are any good. From what I can tell, a difference between his approach and mine is that he looks at things scientifically, I philosophically. I'm not even sure if we have the same conclusion, but I like his view that God is not impossible, just not likely. (Same with the FSM, I suppose.) Another idea he has had which is very controversial, is that the world would be better without religion. I don't know if I agree, but it certainly seems that way sometimes. What do you think? Would the world be better without religion? Hell, what would the world be without religion? Forget if religion is valid or not, it's just how things would be without it. Now. In today's world. Respond, I'd love to hear it. Back up what you say, I'll be responding. Not sure this'll be anything more than supposition though.

Then, I decided to figure out if I really know what it is I criticized in the first part of this post. Intelligent Design, I've concluded, cannot be rationally seen as anything more than an attempt to teach creationism in public schools. If you weren't aware, that's been officially established as unconstitutional after the Edwards v. Aguillard case of 1987. The idea is that there was some designer behind much of what we see and specifically to the presence of humans. There was an attempt to say this was not necessarily theistic (thereby creationist or religious) which allowed for a designer to be "intelligent but not god," but this will easily lead to the infinite regression of who designs the designers. It points as evidence to gaps of things that can't be explained. Michael Behe, Christian author of Darwin's Black Box (yes, I read it) does this well, but he admitted it was no logical proof, nor a scientific one. Let me go the extra step for him: it also gives no logical conclusion. The ID supporters talk about things in the world, particularly with humans, to have required direction in it's process, which brings me to a philosophical topic...

The problem, roughly, as I see it.

I talked about this briefly with Billy. If you want to improve the world, you have to remove the imperfections... are there any? Stupid question, right? Now if there exists a creator or designer of the like that these ID fellas think, making things better and more perfect, and this, as I showed, requires something like god... then what's with all the imperfections and suffering? There's the premise for the problem of evil. Go ahead and post if you'd like.

Damn, you must be tired of reading this stuff in extended blog posts, I might have to start a book instead.

Pynchon does me the favor of making a long list significantly longer, etc

Thomas Pynchon has been more compared to James Joyce than anybody still alive. I've been excited lately to find that he has recently written and published another book, and some critics are calling it his best since Gravity's Rainbow which he published in 1973. I've been excited, though I have not bought his new novel Against the Day as of yet. It will remain on my reading list for quite some time now, on the very low side of estimates, I will not even begin to read it for a year. The longest it'll take me to finally pick this one up is a decade. (I'd like to read at least one of his others, V., before then.) Partially, I think this is exciting news to me because it is like seeing something important within our lifetimes. We're seeing a master of writing like Joyce publish again.

This, I should mention, has made me look at my reading list again. I mentioned James Joyce twice in the last paragraph. He might be next. The only Joyce I've read are some short stories. I mean to read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and perhaps, if I'm ambitious and want to start another giant, obscure book, Ulysses. While creating this blog, I noticed the previews for the templates do not use 'Lorem Ipsum' as filler text but instead lines from the English epic Paradise Lost. Another book I need to read. Fortunately, that one isn't totally giant. For my philosophical interests, I'd like to read Fear and Trembling, and I was just loaned some essays by Bertrand Russell. On the technical side of philosophical interests, I've also been loaned by my philosophy professor a book on mathematical logic. While I have it, I may as well do my best at trying to understand Gödel's theorems and Church's Theorem. Just getting the notation in that book down will be a task.

This week has been crazy if only for the little sleep I've been able to get: there is a subtle tradeoff with some classes: they might not have a final, you might not have to study much, but you'll need to write papers. I have chosen to be ambitious and write a paper for my philosophy class that I'll have to think about, I'll be developing some basic theory on personal identity and the survival or continuity of personal identity. No, I don't really have one yet, I'll come up with enough ideas to answer the problem which is posed (a rather simple one) and just move on to what such a theory could imply given more complex ones. (These more complex ones, specifically pertaining to the division of brain and consciousness, I have no immediate answer to, and will not be satisfied with what I conclude, most likely.) I'm in the process of writing a paper about gender and sexuality as it was for the Greeks and Romans and how it is today for, say your first year college student in our society. I am aware of how general this is, and that my report of sexuality in either society will be incomplete, but what can you expect? I'm trying to make apparent the contrast between modern thinking about sexuality (the perhaps falsely categorical look at it as gender-preference, the mental exclusion of homosexuals from normal terms) and the thoughts of the Greeks and Romans in antiquity (preservation of masculinity, detestability of passivity for the male, the occasionally ridiculous contrast they made in considering gender.) Looks like Foucault will be useful. Has anybody heard the statistic that more homosexuals come out of the closet as such in their first year of college than any other point in their life? If you know a source that says this, or something like it (even contrary to it) and can be cited, it'd be useful for this paper. For my philosophy paper I wish I could find my copy of The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, it may hold insight which is more important for theory on brain and identity than was anticipated when it came out. Damn. I think I left it at home. Point is my papers will hint at these theses: The English paper will note that it is perhaps not naturally logical to make the strict, categorical distinctions between sexualities which we have made, and that though the Romans and Greeks weren't ideal either, their example perhaps shows this. My philosophy paper will argue that a continuance of consciousness and self-awareness while the seat of consciousness is also continuance qualifies for survival and maintains identity. (The brain, to me, is the seat of consciousness, both hemispheres together, with only one consciousness may be severely different, therefore perhaps not actually 'preserved'.)

This post probably wasn't that interesting for most of you, but it's a paper writing week: what can you expect? They'll get better. I promise.

Here it is, folks!

Yes, yes, I'm making a blog. After probably over a year's absence from the "blogosphere" I'm entering the atmosphere hot, full with a screaming coming across the sky. Both Them and I thought I was gone for good, but looking back we all should have known better. It was all inevitable, and maybe (but hopefully not) predetermined. Certainly foreseeable.

I came back for a few reasons, first and foremost of which is I discovered I still enjoyed blogging after some experience on facebook with a series of philosophical notes. A second is that I've been musing with this idea a long time. I want to expand my blogging experience to more topics, more ideas, etc. I'm more or less doing the opposite thing as my good friend, and author of The Xiphoidian (Darin), I am reserving my facebook notes for the philosophical notes mostly, and posting more types here, with topics which will repeat (and some which will have no topic). (Do not misunderstand, this will also contain those notes; I will post them in both places simultaneously.) This could be said to be a major reason for this blog, to post on more things, here. This blog will be an outlet for my thoughts. It will be mostly just various thoughts of mine, on topics which I find interesting. You, my friends, know that is not a small number of topics. Another purpose is to expand this beyond "the facebook community" if you will, a greater audience by number. Facebook is also somewhat deficient, it does not allow for long responses, which good thought occasionally requires.

I invite you to comment on all notes which you wish to comment on. Argue. Insult me, if you must! (Though I may still your tongue (keyboard? (Nested parentheses?)) by moderation abilities, I'll try to restrain myself.) Suggestions for the blog itself are welcome. Anything I should add? Change template? Shall I repost my facebook notes?

Bonus points if you caught the obscure reference in my first paragraph here.