#2026 #Poetry #Philosophy #USA
#philosophy — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #philosophy, aggregated by home.social.
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Out of the willows whisp the winds of change, as the moors creak with the frozen flow of winters air, darkness crept across the bogs, a wolf howls at the moon unseen for the winter storm cloaked the sky, the biting blizzard caused the horse drawn sleigh to jeer left and right, long into the night fires burned as the town was closed up tight, the great snow beast emerges from the forest, as it slithers into the towns alleys, clanking of rubbish cans as it searches for a meal to eat, a raven swoops down and drops a fish at its feet, as dawn slowly emerges the beast retreats and the blizzard subsides, a crisp new blanket of white covers everything in sight;
You can encourage my continued useless #poetry, creativity and expression of self, #commentary, random thoughts, #philosophy and ideas, and by doing so your helping to feed, house and clothe a #disabled man living in #poverty, $5-10-15 It All Helps, via #cashapp at $woctxphotog or via #paypal at paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=…
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For those whom lack knowledge ignore wisdom, and those whom lack wisdom fear knowledge, and those whom gather what they know from headlines and soundbites protest they know the truth, for the truth is if you lack the wisdom to comprehend you have no knowledge, you should protest nothing, you should listen, read, absorb, and ask for help to understand, lest you go through life a fool, for your position station or wealth equates not to value of substance, but your willingness to exploit without context, to drift without direction, to exist with a self inflated ego, for egos are not currency, but a hinderance to reality, for when I hear of others speak upon what they know nothing about, it is like nails on a chalk board, for not your age your position your station your wealth impress me, it is your ability to reason to comprehend to absorb abstract and complex thoughts, it is your ability to logically know the difference between learning and being taught, for many have been taught, while so few have learned;
You can encourage my continued useless #poetry, creativity and expression of self, #commentary, random thoughts, #philosophy and ideas, and by doing so your helping to feed, house and clothe a #disabled man living in #poverty, $5-10-15 It All Helps, via #cashapp at $woctxphotog or via #paypal at paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=…
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I defend Karl Popper and extend David Hume's scepticism in my latest Substack post. Check it out and don't forget to subscribe.
https://brywillis634737.substack.com/p/the-wrong-pony-hume-popper-and-the
#philosophy #substack #blog #podcast #science #language #epistemology #ontology #humility #pragmatism #limits #scepticism
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The Generosity of Selfishness: C.S. Lewis on How to Be Interesting
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/11/05/interesting/
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I am starting to unroll a yarn on imaginaries: growth versus care 🧶
#beliefs #progress #polycrisis #hope #conversion #reconversion #power #transformation #ecofeminism #development #mindsets #ideologies #desire #narratives #domination #philosophy #separation #degrowth -
Did you know that right now in #America if you stripped every #Multimillionaire and #Billionaire to only $20million, and re-disturbed their #wealth to the rest of #Americans, each American would get a one time payment of around ~$87,087.00, now as a member of the 34.5 million people that live in #poverty in this country, that could be a massive boost, sadly it wont last long, currently I am at around $16k a year if I am lucky, the median #income in #America is ~$46,960 per year, so that ~$87,087.00 for the average American is only a 2 year buffer assuming they have the ability to directly stick it into a high yield savings, for someone like me, if I choose to remain in #poverty mode, I could maybe have a 5.5year buffer, and as much help I need right now, that simply is not enough to insure my health stability security or my future even at 48 years old currently, worse then stripping and re-disturbing that wealth is taxing it, as much as I hate to say it, taxing them harder will not trickle down to those of us in poverty and will do nothing for the average American either, personally I despise the wealth inequality there is, and I personally I believe no person needs nor should be allowed to have beyond $20million, but as of right now, there is no way to actually right the inequality and actually make a lasting and meaningful impact for all;
You can encourage my continued useless #poetry, creativity and expression of self, #commentary, random thoughts, #philosophy and ideas, and by doing so your helping to feed, house and clothe a #disabled man living in #poverty, $5-10-15 It All Helps, via #cashapp at $woctxphotog or via #paypal at paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=…
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"The freedom to live like a human being annuls the supposed freedoms of commerce and predation."
Raoul Vaneigem
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It is the morality of man that measures his representation in the scrolls of time, for when you cross morality fidelity ideology and faith, you begin to make supplications as well as excuses to justify your lapsing morality, for when the ground beneath your feet begins to shift, it is then you must dig in your heals and stand on what is morally right, or you will fall for what is wrong;
You can encourage my continued useless #poetry, creativity and expression of self, #commentary, random thoughts, #philosophy and ideas, and by doing so your helping to feed, house and clothe a #disabled man living in #poverty, $5-10-15 It All Helps, via #cashapp at $woctxphotog or via #paypal at paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=…
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Ok so I am not sure about others but ~$12.90 could have bought me an extra meal, or 2 weeks of laundry, or 3 weeks of personal hygiene, and knowing there are roughly 34.5 million people in #America living in #poverty, that all could have gotten ~$12.90, #ElonMusk elected to spend $445million dollars on campaign contributions, that when we look at the history of American #government over the past 50 years, would have done nothing to improve life for the 34.5 million in poverty, but Elon had a chance to do something, small yes, but it would have been a far wiser investment in America than throwing it away on elections that simply fell apart because those Elon was hoping to have won, could not read the room of Americans actual needs, #wealth never equates wisdom, intelligence nor compassion, rather wealth often equates paranoia boredom and greed, ~$12.90 sure may not seem like a great deal to you, but to 34.5million in poverty it could have meant having dinner last night, instead of watching the highest bidder lose his grip on the American government;
You can encourage my continued useless #poetry, creativity and expression of self, #commentary, random thoughts, #philosophy and ideas, and by doing so your helping to feed, house and clothe a #disabled man living in #poverty, $5-10-15 It All Helps, via #cashapp at $woctxphotog or via #paypal at paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=…
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For those greater than we shall fall for far less than we have stood before, it is not the strength of the man that shall bend the will of time, but the will of man that will crumble the strength of time;
You can encourage my continued useless #poetry, creativity and expression of self, #commentary, random thoughts, #philosophy and ideas, and by doing so your helping to feed, house and clothe a #disabled man living in #poverty, $5-10-15 It All Helps, via #cashapp at $woctxphotog or via #paypal at paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=…
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Apologetics is the discipline of defending a position, often in religious contexts. It involves providing rational justifications for beliefs and addressing objections. Many find it essential for understanding their faith and engaging with others. #Faith #Reason #Debate #Philosophy #Apologetics
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There seems to be a #depression among those of a certain #political persuasion, well maybe not so much a depression as a realization that #idolworship really is not in the best interest of their lives and the lives of millions of other people, it is going to be a hard pill to swallow for many that they allowed themselves to be swept up in soundbites and false god promises, it is up to the rest of us to lift them up, offer compassion, wisdom, patience and dignity unto them, as they pick up the pieces of their shattered ideals, the thing about #society and a #nation is that We Are All One People, One Family, and in these trying times, we must extend our hands and offer support, this is not a rub it in your face moment, it is not a one sided celebration, it is an opportunity for community building and unification of our neighbors, friends and families, if you truly are to the core a #democratic person, then this message will inspire and empower you to lead with compassion, wisdom, patience and dignity, for today is a new dawn in #American #government
and in the fabric of our society, it is up to us all to make it strong lasting and prosperous for all;You can encourage my continued useless #poetry, creativity and expression of self, #commentary, random thoughts, #philosophy and ideas, and by doing so your helping to feed, house and clothe a #disabled man living in #poverty, $5-10-15 It All Helps, via #cashapp at $woctxphotog or via #paypal at paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=…
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The next 2 years will be an uphill battel for #democrats, as they smell the blood in the water if you will, #repbulicans are cornered and my not be willing to work with them, and with a #potus who has already stated he will #veto veto veto, every thing the democrats do now has to be measured balanced and as bipartisan as possible so that #congress can over ride every veto, as neither part currently has the necessary ability to put out anything that is veto proof, last night was a message the #Ameirican #people want leadership they want progress and they want a #government that works for them, the next session of congress has it's work cut out for it, and then there are all the new democratic governors that also have to lead with a calm steady mind to unite their respective house legislators, November 3rd 2026 laid out a framework and a foundation, will democrats build upon it and actually produce for the American people, we can all only hope so, it will take compassion, wisdom, composer and dedication to truly make these electoral wins a real success, and as the people of America it is our jobs and duty to hold these would be servants and stewards of our nation to the line they campaigned upon;
You can encourage my continued useless #poetry, creativity and expression of self, #commentary, random thoughts, #philosophy and ideas, and by doing so your helping to feed, house and clothe a #disabled man living in #poverty, $5-10-15 It All Helps, via #cashapp at $woctxphotog or via #paypal at paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=…
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"Yoga is basically a technique to acquire power."
On this week's YogaScussion podcast, Patrick McCartney breaks down what that actually means—from physical empowerment to peace of mind.
Gina Clingerman connects it to why so many women are drawn to the practice, before dropping a hard truth: the structures of patriarchy are still very healthy in these spaces.
🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts: https://yogascussion.podmasana.com/yoga-acrobats-the-saffron-zone-patrick-mccartney/
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CW: Controversial Opinion / Homosexuality
@lifewithtrees
If I were gay, I wouldn't mind someone saying that to me, as long as there's no physical assault. Call me stupid all you want; stupidity is relative. People judge based on perspective, not absolute truth.But to me, it's stupid; if everyone were gay and only attracted to their own sex, humanity would go extinct. Civilization would collapse from a lack of births or STD spread.
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If you want to check out our monthly magazine, or our weekly short story Substack, links are in the bio. #litmag #reading #fiction #ethics #philosophy #shortstory
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Just in case someone was wondering what #TechBro controlled #AI #Media is actually meant to achieve 🤔😒
@reading @bookstodon @books @philosophy @stoicism @psychology
#Thinking #Meme #NoAI #Philosophy #Psyhology
#BookMemes #Meme #ReadingMemes #Reading #Readers #ReadingCommunity #Litterature #Novel #Bookshelf #Books #Bookstodon -
Castlevania: Belmont's Curse; Ice Skating Uphill (video companion) #gaming #design #philosophy #puzzles #challenge
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Castlevania: Belmont's Curse; Ice Skating Uphill- https://activetimeevent.com/2026/11/03/castlevania-belmonts-curse-ice-skating-uphill/ #gaming #design #philosophy #puzzles #challenge
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“I neither know nor think that I know.” -Socrates (Plato, Apology).
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Fundamental Research: Unpredictable, Seemingly Useless, Unpopular. Yet The Savior Always.
Abstract: Fundamental research consists of venturing beyond what society already knows how to value.
From Faraday’s experiments to quantum biology and the search for glueballs, discovery advances through uncertainty, failed conjectures, and generations of collective persistence towards elusive goals.
The usefulness of Fundamental Research often becomes apparent only after it has transformed civilization (although the critical aspect can be immediately valuable, if the society is open to NEW LOGIC!).
This essay defends research as an adventurous attitude toward reality supported by the entire society, and they succeed or fail together: questioning inherited definitions, pursuing unpopular possibilities, and finding knowledge through the correction of errors.
Demanding predictable returns from fundamental inquiry misses the point, which is unpredictability, and risks preventing the discoveries on which future survival depends. We cannot know the future of truth; we must nevertheless venture further, fishing in the dark.
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FUNdamental Research: Generally In Error, Seemingly Useless, Crazy And Unpopular. Yet Necessary Fun:
Fundamental Research is an attitude, and it searches for truth, that is errors… It demands multi-generational tribes aspiring to reality. Fundamental research is a social phenomenon, and it demands and can only be sustained by a dynamic society… The only sort of society which can survive…
Genuine Fundamental Research answers Faraday’s definition in a press conference showing his latest research: “What is the use of a new born baby?” In the matter of Quantum Computing the evidence points toward biology, fundamentally, as a giant Classical Machine plus Quantum Computer. This mix where the quantum is fundamental is basically proven for chlorophyll.
The evidence shows that biology is not merely classical machinery: in photosynthesis, the conversion of light into chemical energy involves quantum-mechanical electronic excitations, vibronic coupling, and ultrafast coherent dynamics. Chlorophyll-based light harvesting demonstrates that life’s most basic energy process operates in a regime where quantum mechanics matters. This may sound as not daring to say that biology is a quantum computer… However, quantum computing algorithms as envisioned today typically mix quantum and classical computing in an intimate dance, quite a bit as biology seems to be doing.
A (fundamental) problem is how “Quantum Computing” is defined. My answer is that nature proceeds, at the fundamental level, through quantum processes defined as whenever Quantum Waves are involved (so a definition beyond strict computing of qubits, Hadamart gates, etc.) The eternal objection is that quantum coherence is not maintained at room temperature. This is an objection as intelligent as claiming there are no atoms at room temperature. Quantum Physics is literally everywhere. Granted the best existing Quantum Computers use SQIDs at near absolute zero… But that’s from the narrower definition of quantum computing we can only hope to use today.
Chlorophyll is not any molecule. It is the root of most energy in biology.
The electrodynamical effect Faraday discovered in 1831 made the electric industry possible (hence the electronic and now quantum revolution). In 1831, nobody could have guessed that this was coming. A changing magnetic field generates an electric current in a conductor. That made it possible to generate a current by rotating a magnet. So electric generators and dynamos, transformers, much of modern power generation and distribution
Some say Benjamin Franklin, another physicist, made the remark first. In 1752, Benjamin used a kite to collect charge from a storm cloud; the key at the string’s end produced sparks, supporting his claim that lightning and laboratory electricity were the same phenomenon.
In 1820, Hans Christian Ørsted showed that an electric current created a magnetic effect around a wire: it deviated a compass needle. André-Marie Ampère quickly developed the mathematical laws for forces between current-carrying wires and helped formulate electromagnetism. Inspired, in 1821, Faraday built the first electric engine.
We never know what fundamental research will lead to.
When a young Darwin attended the teaching of Lamarck’s (and Cuvier’s) evolution theory at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, as it was outlawed in England (to protect God), little did he know it would lead to RNA vaccines…
In the case of Quantum Computing, “decoherence” has to be avoided. Now, most of matter, most of the time, seems to be “coherent”. In the sense I gave above an atom is a quantum computer. Electronic orbitals, for example, are examples of “coherence”. “Coherence” is not necessarily well-understood: any entangled pair is in a state of “coherence”. Quantum Mechanics is about classical outcomes (so-called “states” or eigenvectors). QM makes waves (“wavefunctions”) out of these states, and spits them out as probabilities.
Planck introduced the “quantum” to explain emission of radiation. In 1900 he solved the blackbody-radiation problem, by proposing that energy is emitted or absorbed in discrete packets with energy E=hν. Einstein, Planck’s de facto protégé, then grabbed the concept and formula and explained the photoelectric effect this way. He got the Nobel Prize for it in 1922. Planck was upset and viewed Einstein’s explanation as a mistake. Planck was wrong, Einstein was right (sort of). Planck got the Nobel in 1918.
Planck was not wrong to demand evidence; at the time, Einstein’s photon hypothesis was genuinely radical, and threatened the wave theory of light, a continuous hypothesis, while Einstein hypothesized that light TRAVELLED as packets, a particle hypothesis. But Einstein seemed right that the quantum was not merely a property of emitting matter—it was a property of travelling light and, ultimately, of the electromagnetic field itself. In truth, though, Einstein supposed more than what was needed to explain the photoelectric effect: all that was needed for Einstein’s explanation of the photoelectric effect to work was absorption by packets.
Travelling as a simple localized packet, as Einstein suggested, is unproven and seems contradicted by entanglement and the COW experiment (and I call Einstein’s photon-particle hypothesis “Einstein Error”… It led straight to the idiocy of the “Many Worlds”… This remark would have perhaps baffled and irritated Einstein, rightly so…).
Reality is probably much more complicated.
Using the only collider of a particular class, designed especially for that quest, Chinese researchers found gluon matter. The glueball result from China’s BESIII experiment at the Beijing Electron Positron Collider (BEPCII) is striking. In August 2026, the BESIII collaboration reported that the particle X(2370) is predominantly a pseudoscalar glueball: matter whose dominant constituent is gluons, the carriers of the strong force, rather than quarks
A glueball would be a new class of hadron: not a proton, neutron, meson, or ordinary quark composite, but a bound state of gluons. Its confirmation would be a major proof element of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the Standard Model theory of the strong interaction.
This was not a sudden discovery. It required decades of theoretical prediction, a purpose-built collider, billions of events, and 15 years of analysis (the particle was found in 2011!) before the evidence became convincing.
That only one accelerator can produce glueballs is a testimony to the fact that research is unpredictable. Many would-be Nobel laureates and countries thirsty for glory would have been delighted to finance the research, had they known that it would produce. But they didn’t know for sure, that’s what truly fundamental research is about.
Most fundamental research produces failed ideas… But the failures themselves built the truth by complementarity, by filling up all the failed logics. This is the same logic as with funding start-ups. 95% of handsomely financed start-ups completely fail. Same logic for general fundamental research, but on a much grander scale, and the failure rate must be well above 99.9% (stupid AIs detest this sort of poetic and impressionistic logic)… The areas which advanced one genius at a time were generally already extremely successful. For example the so-called Copernican revolution started with Buridan, Oresme and Al, two centuries earlier .Let alone Aristarchus of Samos, 16 centuries before Buridan: the idea kept floating around as we know William the Conqueror once mentioned it in a banquet.(Claude AI said that it should be cut out because Claude AI did not know about it… Will AI define reality from now on? My biological intelligence was struck, decades ago, by that fact which was mentioned by a text contemporary of William; William in general supported even an abbot who claimed that God was Reason, so the cult of rationality was the cult of God, etc. The abbot was excommunicated, but had to be reinstated when William gave him his full support.)
Similarly Relativity, named by Poincare, contributed to by at least a dozen top physicists, was fully formed by the time Einstein came to fly to the rescue of glory. And probably more than one hundred physicists have contributed in a major way to QM. Between 1826 and 2026…. As I said earlier, I am using the most general definitions (the photoelectric was discovered by a Frenchman around 1830, the time at which the atomic war started in full, to prove that atoms were real (generally it’s considered Einstein clenched that one, but actually a couple of others did at the same time (Smoluchowski, Sutherland)… following several French physicists such as Louis Georges Gouy (1888) and Louis Bachelier (1900)… And a third one I forgot, even more important…) Similarly, General Relativity was a vast effort: Poincare got the gravity waves in 1905, and then Einstein cooperated with his usual math collaborators, plus Hilbert (no less) and using the math of Riemann, Ricci, etc…The basic idea was from Buridan: force is geometric deviation, re-proclaimed by Riemann multidimensionally in the 1860s, identifying force and curvature…
Fundamental Research is an attitude, a rebellious attitude, and it searches for truth, that is the errors, oversights and misdirections which ruled previously… Fundamental Research demands that a substantial part of the population aspire to reality to the point that the entire society is ready to support the search for truth.
When one looks at the contemporary problems of a European society such as France (the spiritual leader of Europe historically speaking, especially in the EU), one is struck by the fact that the intelligentsia is obsessed with novels, fiction, not reality…. To the point that fiction becomes reality and “auto-fiction”, a sort of official lie, gets Nobel Prizes
Truth, nothing less, redeems and resupplies. Antiquity failed because the ruling fascism prevented imagination and the will to truth to aspire for better ideas. So when the squeeze of unsustainability came, no new science could answer.
We don’t know the future of truth. That’s what truly fundamental research is about. : fishing in the dark on a stormy night, when everybody feels you have gone off the deep end..
Patrice Ayme
Many of the greatest geniuses were unknown in their lifetimes and their influence was indirect. Posthumous fame is a great classic. Many are still unknown. Most were viewed as more or less diabolical. For example it’s a woman who nailed energy, the Marquise Émilie du Chatelet, in the Eighteen Century. She was viewed as rogue, but tenderly so by her mentor Maupertuis,… But Euler was not amused by the beautiful young, wealthy and hyper intelligent Marquise. Euler, indeed, may have been a fabulous mathematician, but he did not discover energy and infrared. And no guy had realized, before Émilie, that Newton had confused the concepts of momentum (from Buridan, circa 1350 CE) and energy (which Leibnitz had a presentiment about).
But (sexist) morality was saved: du Chatelet is generally ignored. Similarly Queen (Saint) Bathilde who outlawed slavery in 657 CE, is ignored… With the consequence that one has ignored the fact that Europe herself, which then was forced to do without slavery, was forced into the future. Would the outlawing of slavery in 657 CE be ignored if Bathilde had been a king?
#Civilization #Consciousness #FundamentalResearch #Philosophy #Physics #Science #spirituality -
I wonder if that house is still hunted, or if it is even still there, between the creek running on the back of the property, and the caskets that where in the cellar, just walking into the front door would send chills down your spine, from sitting at dinner to watch the China cabinet open and dishes whizzing about, to toys getting played with when everyone was asleep, then there was the looming lingering figures that would make sure you could see their shadows while remaining out of view, the basement was dark damp and full of voices, the yard had a steep drop from road to creek, the old couple across the creek and their Scottish tales aplenty, I can still taste the shortbread and smell the mothballs, a friend across the street until they moved away, the twisting road into town the darkness all around, no street name nor number remains in my fading memory, but that house was as haunted as anyplace could be, for a year until it forced us all to flee, for what ever happened to that haunted house indeed;
You can encourage my continued useless #poetry, creativity and expression of self, #commentary, random thoughts, #philosophy and ideas, and by doing so your helping to feed, house and clothe a #disabled man living in #poverty, $5-10-15 It All Helps, via #cashapp at $woctxphotog or via #paypal at paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=…
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The Electric City and the Last Chicken
There is another question hiding beneath the conversation about ecological resilience, food production, and human independence: What happens when a society becomes so organized around centralized systems that it gradually loses the ability to sustain itself without them? If we become a society that is against chicken, against beef, against animal agriculture, and increasingly disconnected from the land that produces our food, what happens when the systems supplying our necessities are […]https://exlerstudio.wordpress.com/2026/11/03/the-electric-city-and-the-last-chicken/
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Do you ever get confused as to where you are, even though you know exactly where you are, but suddenly the surrounding environment seems foreign, sometimes it lasts a moment other times it lingers as you try to rectify the confusion, maybe it happens when you happen to step outside of yourself and your body and mind are simply on momentary holiday, your looking around unable to recognize anything, your sitting there looking at yourself just in a trance in which your unaware as to how this is transpiring, and you really have no idea how to move forward, then suddenly your jarred "awake" and the experience lingers in your memory but you really have no clue what actually just transpired, sometimes these events happen frequently, and can last for hours, other times they are completely random and happen in a flash yet seem to last forever, anyways just something random to ponder, and yes it happens to me always has, and sometimes I can trigger it to happen other times it just does it on it's own, in any event sometimes it becomes rather startling, ok that's all for now, my mind seems to wandering into past dreams and the building where all the windows are women singing the town to sleep are now somehow front an center inside of another building where everyone drives their vehicles in a rather absurd manner as the airport is under ground, because of course flying from the grave totally makes prefect sense;
You can encourage my continued useless #poetry, creativity and expression of self, #commentary, random thoughts, #philosophy and ideas, and by doing so your helping to feed, house and clothe a #disabled man living in #poverty, $5-10-15 It All Helps, via #cashapp at $woctxphotog or via #paypal at paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=…
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I am really struggling with any sort of thinking and focus today, lt's like my brain is stuck in boot up and unable to access bios, which means my OS will never get up running today, add the fact I have zero energy, I'm really not functional at all really;
You can encourage my continued useless #poetry, creativity and expression of self, #commentary, random thoughts, #philosophy and ideas, and by doing so your helping to feed, house and clothe a #disabled man living in #poverty, $5-10-15 It All Helps, via #cashapp at $woctxphotog or via #paypal at paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=… -
Book Review: The Mind is Flat by Nick Chater
Forget all about the Freudian ID, Super-ego and Ego vying for your present attention. And forget about Jungian archetypes and stuff randomly bubbling up to the surface of your consciousness. According to Behavioural Psychologist Nick Chater – this doesn’t exist.
Instead, what we all have is a flat mind. Or a mind that’s incredibly adept at improvisation and filling in the gaps to build up constantly evolving reconstructions, based on sensations.
Look under the hood into our minds and there’s nothing underneath of this – only perceptions and sensations that are comprehended through our rapid-fire neurons that consecutively, one after the other, build a constantly evolving story of who we are, from moment to moment.
This book could have therefore been called The Mind is Shallow or the Mind is Empty – but that would have probably made it seem too confronting for people.
Chater looks into a variety of different scientific studies to draw these conclusions. Including well-known mind tricks including the 12 dots optical illusion.
Feelings and emotions are not reliable either according to Chater. Our physiological state influences how we feel more than we know.
Also memory is highly fallible too and liable to being easily tricked into believing in things that we never imagined we would be convinced about.
In one study cited by Chater, people were told to vote according to their political beliefs. A few days later, they were read back the results – except they were the opposite of what they had claimed that they valued most. The majority of participants didn’t even realise that they had been fooled. Chater’s contention is that we are more flexible in our core belief systems and values than we suppose.
The notion that we ‘work away on complex problems while our brains take a break or have a nap’ is challenged by Chater.
Instead Chater says, the brain iterates through a whole range of solutions one at a time, until it comes to an answer.
Chater tends towards an idea of our minds being constantly ‘in the moment’ with nothing existing below the surface except for the raw processing machinery of our neurological ‘back-end’. As such, it’s easy to draw parallels to Buddhism, mindfulness, Zen and present moment awareness.
Although the spiritual aspect of this, the idea of mystical non-duality and oneness with the universe that is a part of Buddhism is beyond the scope of this book. That’s a shame, because the whole mystical and spiritual part of consciousness is the most interesting part, I would say.
Also the theories about how the mind is flat, shallow and locked in a constant vice of present moment awareness are well backed-up with scientific evidence. It’s just too ‘one-dimensional’ to really fully believe.
What about personality…that persists over time doesn’t it? What about heritable traits of mental illness or some people’s genetic predisposition to be a psychopath, and others to be kind? What about a million other things like how a song or a smell can transport you to a different moment in time? A lot of things aren’t neatly able to be explained by Chater’s theory.
The writing though is potent, interesting and compelling in terms of how Chater pulls you along for the ride. I only having a passing interest in psychology and I have only a basic undergraduate understanding of it, yet I was still managed to read it to the end, which was a sign for me that it was a decent book. 4.5/5 for mind-expanding reading fodder for the (non-flat) mind.
#book #BookReview #BookReviews #bookstadon #brain #communication #intelligence #mind #mindfulness #neuroscience #Philosophy #psychoanalysis #psychology #spirituality #words #writing -
Like you could argue with every purchasing choice you're presented with, you just choose the one that's less harmful, but I feel in every case there's always an even less harmful choice you could make. If you move to a city with no public transit and no bike lanes, your use of a car to get to work you could argue is necessary, but you could walk; it would be very difficult and time consuming, but there's nothing really stopping you from walking and it's less harmful than using a car.
I guess what I'm confused on is what is the bare minimum requirements for saying you're an ethical consumer? At what point can you say you've made all the ethical choices you can and can go no further? At what point can you actually feel good about your choices as a consumer?
#ethics #philosophy #fuckAI #environment #capitalism #consumerism
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Don't misconstrue this as pro-AI, but there is an ethical inconsistency I find troubling when people argue we mustn't use AI because of its many harms. Those harms I don't deny, but if you rely solely on whether something causes harm for its ethicalness, then you'd have to avoid a lot more than just AI to be consistent.
The use of any product or service perpetuates harm somewhere. E.g., you could buy the most repairable phone, but exploitative and pollutive mining and factories were still needed. You could argue that a phone or a car is required to have in today's society, but that's not really true; it's not logically impossible to go without a phone or a car, it's just difficult.
Seemingly the only ethically consistent lifestyle is to live like a hermit in the wilderness. I can't find middle ground between that extreme and the other extreme of mindless consumerism, that's self consistent. 😕 Thoughts?
#ethics #philosophy #fuckAI #environment #capitalism #consumerism
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@stux
You reminded me this saying
Some obsess over cleanliness expensive shampoo, perfume, tailored clothes while their minds hold ideas filthier than the shit under their shoes. And not even their own ideas to defend, but society's. Move them and they become someone else, will-less. -
Anarchy: further thoughts
‘The ancient Greek origin of the word ‘anarchy’ is a matter of common knowledge’ comments the Israeli activist, academic, editor, anarchist and author, Uri Gordon, ‘and it has become a predictable convention to mention it at the outset of almost any discussion of anarchism…(A)narchist and non-anarchist commentators alike have inevitably satisfied themselves with second-hand exercises in Greek etymology’ (Gordon, 2006, p81).
In a time of crisis, particularly in a time of crisis, vested interests ensure that the words around us swirl and merge and change meaning. Defence is attack; free speech is silence; homelessness is a lifestyle choice, to take three recent, well-publicised political examples. Predictable and conventional though it may be, understanding the word ‘anarchy’ through a second-hand exercise in Greek etymology still seems useful ground to stand on.
Etymologically, then, ‘anarchy’ certainly means ‘without’ something; few scholars bother to give the ‘an’ prefix a second thought. But without what? There are multiple translations for the ancient Greek ‘archos’, the root of the word: sovereignty (Jewett, 1886); a military king (Raaflaub, 2004); authority (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2023); government (Woodcock, 1989); and simply, ruler (Wikipedia 2023).
Analyses of how ‘anarkhia’ was actually used in ancient Greece are inconclusive. Gordon finds, in Aeschylus’ ‘Seven Against Thebes’ (467 BC), not only a feminist inspiration in its protagonist Antigone, but a proto-anarchist, who uses the term for the first time on record. She will act, she says, in defiant opposition (apiston tênd’anarkhian) to the rulers of the city (Gordon, 2006). But Sophocles, Herodotus, even Euripides, use it in a pro-oligarchian sense: the idea of a ruler-free populace invoking scorn, terror or both (Radding, 2019). The cycle of merciless slaughter, at the behest of rulers bad, mad or bored, depicted by historians from Herodotus to Thucydides, hangs in the background, as the Parthenon burns.
The archons of ancient Athens, to whom the word ’anarchy’ is connected, were not merely leaders, but rulers. One can, justifiably then, perhaps, take the most literal meaning of ‘anarchy’ as being ‘without a ruler’. Today it is, as in ancient Greece, the disseminated understanding that being ‘without a ruler’ instead means being ruled: by violence, war, disintegration, barbarism and terror. Anarchy is seen as chaos (MacLaughlin, 2016). One can quite understand why rulers of any era would prefer to frame it that way.
Looking at it from the general population’s point of view, one can deduce, from the multifarious translations of ‘archos’, that the word ‘anarchy’ refers to a human fear, and envisages a world without it. The precise translation of the fear varies, since it is time and culture specific, but it is invariably potent. At any point on the human timeline, one of those versions would invoke alarm, whether for someone at the mercy of the Chinese government during the Cultural Revolution’s massacres, or facing the gang leaders in modern day Colombia. Contemplate disobeying your sovereign in 16th century England, or, if in 19th century Madagascar, the military queen, Ranavalona; or religious rulers in multitudinous iterations. Today, if you can entertain the word ‘authority’ with nothing but a brief shiver, and the word ‘government’ produces a mirthless laugh, you are lucky, and know it.
And yet, even in countries with the comfort blanket of a democracy, one is, sometimes uneasily, sometimes desperately, aware that this so-called comfort may be illusory; that just down the road, or over the continent, ‘angry old f*cks’, as thejuicemedia snappily puts it, (Honest Government Ad, 2023) ‘are massacring civilians and children as the world looks on’. Or rather, ordering their massacre. And yet the lack of these rulers, and their enforcers, would be anarchy. Could that be worse? Would it be possible?
Etymology aside, there must be at least two ways of attempting to explain an understanding of anarchy. The first might be simply to cut and paste Pyotr Kropotkin’s essay from the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911), or perhaps to abridge it. Anarchism means being free from state and corporate and mind control; to cite Kropotkin: ‘man would not be limited in the free exercise of his powers in productive work by a capitalist monopoly, maintained by the state; nor would he be limited in the exercise of his will by a fear of punishment, or by obedience towards individuals or metaphysical entities, which both lead to depression of initiative and servility of mind’.
Since then, thoughts on, and writing on, anarchy have apparently continued to evolve. As Chomsky puts it: ‘There have been many styles of thought and action that have been referred to as “anarchist”. It would be hopeless to try to encompass all of these conflicting tendencies in some general theory or ideology’ (1970, p4).
Fortunately or not, my own understanding of anarchy is not based on theory or ideology. It is, instead, centred around a childhood logic which was most definitely anti-rule, and the perspective which occurs if, as an adult, you contemplate a life without rulers. What would it be to be free of them, in their myriad internal and external manifestations: the rule of the fear of death (Freire, 1970); the rule of the inner tyrant (Boal, 1979), or the outer tyrant (just about all good children’s literature), or the rule of physical violence, manifesting itself acutely in the throes of increasingly desperate totalitarian governments (Arendt, 1951)? What would it be?
#anarchic #anarchism #anarchy #bible #god #history #philosophy #religion -
"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." Carl Popper.
Freemasons learn tolerance, but also know when it is wiser to set a limit.
#Freemasonry #Freimaurerei #Masonry #2B1ASK1 #ethics #Philosophy #society
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Sign of the Times: What is an (AI) author? https://www.byteseu.com/2494835/ #AI #AiAuthor #analysis #Anthropic #ArtificialIntelligence #author #ChatGPT #Claude #Copyright #DeathOfTheReader #essay #focault #google #JoanDidion #kierkegaard #literature #novel #OpenAI #pessoa #philosopher #philosophy #plagiarism #PostLiteracy #RolandBarthes #School #SignOfTheTimes #SocialTheorists #SocialTheory #Student
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The Art of Advancing with Age: Bertrand Russell on What Makes a Fulfilling Life
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/11/03/how-to-grow-old-bertrand-russell/
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A Field Guide to a Happy Life 53 Brief Lessons for Living by Massimo Pigliucci, 2020
A brilliant philosopher reimagines Stoicism for our modern age
For more than two thousand years, Stoicism has offered a message of resilience in the face of hardship. Little wonder, then, that it is having such a revival in our own troubled times. -
Who I Am, What MDRIN Does, and Why Metallurgy Still Matters
Why did this component fail, and how do we make the next one last longer? A first post on my work, MDRIN, FETECH Group and Global Lineage. -
A Declaration of the Rights of Human Beings by Raoul Vaneigem, 2019
On the Sovereignty of Life as Surpassing the Rights of ManSometimes playful or poetic, always provocative, Raoul Vaneigem reviews the history of bills of rights before offering his own call, with commentary, for fifty-seven rights yet to be won in a world where the “freedoms accorded to Man” are no longer merely “the freedoms accorded by man to the economy.”