Module X

I think the fine point is being missed here, and I haven't explained myself properly. What I'm trying to talk about is a complete LACK of conceptual alignment. This is the hall of mirrors I find at the end of philosophy: if your mind were a hot air balloon tethered to the ground by your conceptual allegiances (be they religious, social, intellectual, etc.), I'm talking about cutting these tethers altogether. This is where I see myself tottering on the edge of something unknown that I don't fully understand. At this point I don't think science and language remain alignments; you aren't still climbing the stairs after you jump off the roof of the building. I didn't make it clear that when I'm talking about joining the military or joining a frat, I'm NOT saying individuals who do these things lack the ability to think for themselves. Those people are archetypal. Real people are, by and large, the same, and we all think for ourselves to greater or lesser degrees and align ourselves with our own social frameworks to greater or lesser degrees. I'm the same way. But I'm talking about abstractions which is why I found The Sound and the Fury to be an apt analogy. I'm talking about the difference between Quentin and Jason Compson; this is the best analogy I can think of, although it wouldn't be fair to expect any/everyone in here to have read the book. Hopefully someone has. Anyway I think what I want to say is that when I take the conceptual ethics train to the end of the line, I find that there are an infinite number of exits at the station, and I don't know what to do. I poke my head out of a few of them, walk through a few others and find myself in an M.C. Escher world where every door leads back to the station. I'm not always sure I HAVE any beliefs, or any conceptual allegiances. The closest thing I have is a case-by-case sense of aesthetics, which, in the end, is (ironically) probably colored by social or biological influences I don't fully understand. Again I don't think I got this across right.

Let me use this definition to flesh out what I'm saying here. You have two entities here: the "judge" and the "law." As you and I both said, every judgment is by definition arbitrary. Of course. But, there are people, such as those who make the decision to join a frat, who make decisions that they do not view as arbitrary. These appeal to this fuzzy concept of "law." What do I mean here? There are different ways of defining this thing called "law." There are basic laws of human behavior, matters of survival such as eating, drinking, and not letting yourself get hit by a bus. These are in a sense arbitrary, but inescapable. Then there are more complicated, also arbitrary, but often escapable laws of social construction. There are many people who define their worlds with these constructions as their anchor. That is, as their "law" in a concrete sense. If you've read The Sound and the Fury the character Jason Compson illustrates this pretty well. Quentin Compson, then, would be like me, or like others in this thread (to whatever degree). I realize it's a work of fiction but I found the psychology in that book to be pretty profound. Anyway, these Jason Compsons, these are the people (maybe they are, strictly speaking, archetypal) who have lost (or never had) this "high personal aesthetic" I'm talking about. To me joining a frat is like joining the military; it's an admission of an inability to think for oneself; it states that this arbitrary thing holds value to you as if it were law. The high personal aesthetic might be equated with the creative process very broadly applied; decisions and value judgments are essentially made with arbitrariness AS law. (the definition I want is escaping me here...more about the creative process later, I need to ponder this one...crooked maybe you have something to say?) If the self is the judge, and the law is logic, there are no individual moral laws. I don't think anything I'm saying is super profound. A lot of people end up sounding all high and mighty in this thread; I don't want to sound that way. But I think you're just taking the discussion I'm trying to start and oversimplifying it. You're right, what I'm talking about is essentially thinking for oneself. But this is a question of degree. If you're in this thread you're somebody who thinks in this way. The issue I'm raising is one that I'd venture to say everyone who philosophizes like this extensively has encountered: what lies at the far far end of "thinking for yourself?" What really happens when you discard these constructions that are necessary for you to function as a human being and as a part of society? Is there an important link between the thought process of schizophrenics or autistics and creativity or intelligence? I have been exposed to some literature regarding the similarities between psychedelic states, schizophrenia, and creativity, and then of course high intelligence and autism. I think there's something to be said about a relationship between all of these things. I realize that this is a VERY broad statement, and I'm not really qualified to speak much on it. I tend to turn philosophy into these big science questions, I guess because ultimately philosophy to me is like a hall of mirrors; science provides engagement with something tangible. edit: crooked, I also braved left some cold climate for college (I'm from Cali). I'm glad it's almost over, but I think it makes me appreciate my home a lot more...

For sure, that's a pretty good justification in my book. I feel pretty much the same way about physics, but as I've said before I just don't really buy into philosophy as a university major. What you said about analyzing your own learning process hits on something that I've been thinking about for a long time. As a person of both creative and logical, analytical bent, and partially due to use of psychedelics at a young age, I find it basically impossible to accept almost any value judgment people around me make. Let me try to explain what I mean by this. This doesnt' mean I'm amoral; killing people, to me, is still wrong. My moral judgments and my concept of value are essentially based on intuition and aesthetics. By this I mean I tend to discard utilitarian considerations in favor or artistic ones. For example, I despise fraternities because in joining one you are subordinating yourself to an arbitrary, essentially ignorant social structure and discarding your individual capability to define yourself. Put simply, you are sacrificing any high personal aesthetic you might have. I've never properly articulated my sense of aesthetics, but I think it's more fundamental than any belief that can be easily articulated or argued. When I say "I don't like that dude" or "(insert campus interest group here) is full of shit" I'm constantly hit with logical appeals, or at least demands to logically defend my position. This kind of irks me, but when I take time to do this, my logic tends to snake its way back to the fundamental fact of logic: nothing, especially not anyone's moral judgments, social standards, or so well-articulated beliefs, is fundamentally logical. That is, every judgment is arbitrary. Therefore, an aesthetic judgment justifies itself (I need to qualify this a little bit, I'll do that later). I think what this means is that I deconstruct social structures and moral systems to the extent that I treat them in the same terms as I treat physics; from a removed, abstract vantage point. Ultimately, this forces me to face the relativity and sheer arbitrariness of human social, moral, even psychological constructs. If I think about this too much, it makes functioning kind of difficult; I think I perhaps have a taste of where a person with schizophrenia is coming from, or maybe autism. I've failed to get my point across very well but based on what you've said I'm sure you can relate.

^Your mispelling of the word "cease" makes everything you just said mean the opposite of what you intended. I also can't wait until humanity seizes the day, and realizes how great war, bombs, anarchy, and suicide really are!

crooked, I'd like to hear your philosophy on philosophy. I don't think I've ever heard an adequate justification of philosophy. That's not to say that it's bullshit, but I'm a skeptic and a bit too much of an empiricist so I'm interested to know what makes a philosopher find special value in his field.

Amen. This is the cancer of humanities departments everywhere. You basically just described the experience I had with the only undergrad course I ever took in the Philosophy department. It was an intro Chinese philosophy class. Somehow, this dude managed to make the Tao Te Ching and Zhuangzi completely bland, without communicating to the class anything remotely valuable other than the fact that he knew how to talk the talk. I stopped going and just turned the papers in.

The Clinton comment was a joke...your comment just seemed to be leaning toward the older, more conservative side of the "generation gap," to borrow from what you just said. Many people see Clinton as a main-roader and Obama as an up-and-comer, bringing change, so you were sort of on the "Clinton" side of things. Maybe that only makes sense to me. While what you're saying sounds reasonable in general, the crux of the matter, and I think this is something that crooked has discussed on here before, is that the twisting and turning of the "main road" of language might be at a significant turning point. We are consistently reminded of the fact that we are experiencing an unprecedented acceleration in communications and information technology. People have never been this connected before, and it would stand to reason that this would affect a tantamount change in the language we use. Could this extend to the point that even slovenly grammar falls into the emerging definition of established language? I don't mean this in an extreme sense. Internet speak isn't necessarily going to take over orthodox writing. It's a question of degree. I don't think I'm really disagreeing with you, I just wanted to put that out there.

^So am I right to assume you're voting for Clinton? I think the main idea here is that the "main road" is changing, largely due to the acceleration of information technology. You're right to say that a serious writer should know where he's coming from, but more reckless writing often becomes part of the establishment if it speaks to people. I think your statement is too broad.

Re: Im not going to wait for this nigga to die to pay respects.TOO SHORT appreciation thre fixed.

A microblackhole wouldn't do shit. The most interesting thing will be seeing whether or not the LHC produces Higgs bosons. If they don't find any, there'll have to be some serious revisions of the standard model of particle physics.

Sometimes your friends are on your jock. No discrepancy. And I didn't do shit for her on Vday besides grab her a beer when I was at the liquor store buying Henny for myself...why? Because Vday is some bullshit. Get it? Argument over. /nomorethreadjack

I can't wait for this beast to start producing results: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider

Used? We get along, we smash. It's a chill arrangement. She knows the deal, it's been discussed. I just refuse to tolerate bullshit. Beyond basic shit, I'm not gonna go out of my way to make a girl feel special. If you're calling that using someone you must be buying into all that bullshit that dumb bitches make dudes do. Oh yeah, I think I remember you making a thread once about being whipped like that...

Nah she's a cutie...she's just sprung...and smart enough to know if she tries to pull some serious relationship bullshit on me I can and will go fuck another girl real quick. So I guess you're whipped by some dumb stuck-up dainty MTV watchin type bitch then huh?

I fuck one girl on a daily basis but I don't deal with any of that "relationship" bullshit. It's pretty swell. I bought her a beer for Valentine's Day, but only because I was feeling generous.