Riddle wrapped in Psychedelia (unanswered question) There is much to explore. It's not for a lazy mind looking to be entertained, turn on your TV for that. Delight is about exploration. You're unlikely to follow it all on the first read. There is purpose in the form of it. Reading should eventually reveal that purpose. After all, that IS the point here. Move on to chapter two when you know you can answer the question.Hear Cum The Jesters!
Rock-N-Roll Fantasy
Chapter 1) Is it Philosophy or Humor? (perhaps it's both or neither, a matter of perspective) Philosophy is... contemplating thinking... thinking about thinking. The form and style of Pascal's Pensées requires thoughtful examination. The intent can be obscure. The result can be confusing. Objective thought is required. Exploration rewarded. Chapter one is my pensées; seemingly disconnected bits of thinking about thinking. What is the meaning of... a common thread?
Comprehension is... failure to misunderstand.
There are... three aspects to human communication. What was said, what was heard, what was intended. Beauty is when the three are distinctly different yet fully comprehended by all parties. Is that triple entendre? Or triple multiplied by the number of participants? How many aspects?
At least three?
Prove it!
Just click play on the video.
Hotel California
Hotel California... uhm, there's no hotel in the song. The hotel is a metaphor. The entire song is metaphorical. You can end your attempts at figuring out why you can check out but you can never leave the hotel, there is no hotel. It's obvious within the song. Is it obvious within your mind? Lyrics sometimes have meaning and sometimes girls just wanna have fun. Have you heard the story of the hot rod race where the Fords and Lincoln's were setting the pace? (segments, a common thread) (all bricks in the wall) Do you... have a favorite philosopher? Who is it and why? I like Blaise Pascal because he is to philosophy as Alanis Morissette is to music. They both had a major meltdown in their careers and were completely unaware while it was happening. Is that ironic? (quiet snicker) Unlike Alanis, Blaise never figured it out. Hundreds of years later people still try to use Pascal's Wager. Odd but true. Like Alanis, good ol' Blaise had professional accomplishments. Philosophy was Pascal's great failure. He mostly only inspired the accomplishments of others long after his time. Good job Alanis, you've done much better than Blaise. I admire you for figuring it out. Speaking of Blaise... How many methods of mental function are there? An intuitive and mathematical person could figure it out. It also helps if you're pensive. (yes I'm bored, yes there's more to it than that) Is time... fleeting? Or is it a river? What is Time's association? Is time aware? Is time introspective? Does time care that you're out of time? Does Baby New Year know he has a year before he's the old man briefly seen on the back side of that last first instant of time? (quote Ronald Reagan, "Tear down this wall!") Fact... seems to be elusive. Fact is, the universe is comprised of facts. The universe can be defined in one sentence. What is it? Uhm... what is that sentence, not "what is the universe". Ooops, those are the same "thing"? "What is it?" is the question not the answer, or is it... Is the answer asking the question? Does this become a slippery slope of determinism? Even when you have a failure of misunderstanding? What is... fact? Anything is debatable. Does that mean fact is nothing? How many licks does it take to get to the center of reality? Crunch... just one! The crunch is not a shortcut, it's comprehension. Licking endlessly at reality will never result in a failure of misunderstanding. Reality is observed. Debating reality is foolish. Darn, determinism jams it's nose into everything... A while back... there was a man protesting against the rights of same gender couples. He failed in his comparison of the marriage of same gender couples, to him marrying his horse. Um, huh, what? He thought that was an accurate comparison? Fact is observed not decided. What is it that made him factually incorrect? Is his horse capable of choosing to be married? To that ugly guy? Or was he claiming that half of all same gender marriage applicants are horses? Perhaps... he's smarter than he appears and was deliberately demonstrating that anyone who denies the rights of others, is a horse's ass. Good job ugly guy! You and Alanis rock! Crunch, comprehension... would have kept ugly guy from making a horse's ass of himself. On a larger scale comprehension would have prevented many decades of blatant persecution of gay couples. Someone else's lack of comprehension is not justification for persecution. Ugly guy should blame whatever college gave him a degree. Comprehension is... elusive for some, ever more so after you've been kicked in the head by a horse, of course. But wait, there's more! Mr. Ed was a male horse and ugly guy was male... Would that make the comparison less inaccurate? Mr. Ed could have said "I do". No fingers so where do you put the horse's wedding ring? On the other hand, or hoof, I've seen wedding video where one newlywed rides the other. 'Wilbur, carry me across the threshold.' This man marrying a horse thingy is complex if you lack something crucial. It's called comprehension (toss in objectivity, toss out superstition & bigotry). Define the universe... in a single sentence and you will have taken one giant leap for... only you... because millions of people have already defined it in one sentence entirely on their own. This is comprehension. This is philosophy. Stupidity is... uhm, that answer is available in a google search "man wants to marry his horse". You can prolly change it to pig, goat, beef stew, Batman action figure, red Ferrari... and still get results defining stupidity. By the way, "man wants to marry his horse" is not the only instance of social stupidity. All bigotry is the same, only the results differ, slightly, in degree of persecution. (hold off on the Crunch, let's keep licking at reality) Do you know... George Boole? Amazing man. "No general method for the solution of questions in the theory of probabilities can be established which does not explicitly recognize, not only the special numerical bases of the science, but also those universal laws of thought which are the basis of all reasoning, and which, whatever they may be as to their essence, are at least mathematical as to their form."(is this a case of stuffed shirt? sure it is but it's also a revelation) There has... never been found a story of George Boole trying to marry his horse, or his cousin's horse. There was rumor about a mare in a barn down the street. That rumor was never proven and she was a floozy anyway. (look up the notion of "boolean", there is great intellectual value in thoroughly failing to misunderstand it) A quote... new to me and immediately on my favorites list. "Optimism assumes that all will go well without our effort; pessimism assumes it’s all irredeemable; both let us stay home and do nothing."
(quote Rebecca Solnit) What does it mean?... Is it a condemnation of absolute duality? Is it a suggestion? A request for activism? Simple observation of one of the facts which comprise the universe? The answer is revealed in the third aspect. The author lives in the present for the future.
(how many bricks can one wall have? what is the reach of a common thread?) How are you?... When asked I tell the facts, just the facts... I'm bored, I'm ugly and my feet stink. I guess it's a 70's thingy. Don't pass up the opportunity to break the facade of social interaction. Instead you have the chance to create social interaction. You may brighten somebody's day even if it only results in them telling people about the oddball they met. Keep it up and once in a while you'll get a convert, somebody comprehends what you're doing.(or fails to misunderstand) Those are the moments which make life worth living. Connection with another mind to prove you're not alone in the universe. It results in a brief change in answer to the question "How are you?" What can I get for you?... 'I'd like a red Ferrari please.' It doesn't matter that you're at the deli counter. A sharp clerk will cut the cheese, put it in a bag and use a red pen to write "Ferrari" on the label. Yes, that happened. Hands off, make up your own reply, red Ferrari is all MINE! Try "pot roast" at the hardware store. "Fishing lure" at Dairy Queen. Just keep away from my red Ferrari. What did the fish say... when he ran into a concrete wall? Dam. Why don't clams share?... Because they're shellfish. What lettuce... was only served once on the Titanic? Iceberg. A herd of cattle sleeping in a pasture... what are the males doing? Bull dozing. Tell a joke... that's odd & simple & juvenile and you'll likely learn much about the mind of the listener, if your mind allows for observation over self absorption. It's not important what they think of you, you're trying to learn something about them. Learn enough about enough people and something wonderful could happen. Do nothing and nothing will happen. It's OK... to love yourself but don't get by on your own love alone. Why is... pot roast the best thing ever? Because it's made with the special ingredient. No... not pot. Pot roast is made with love. That makes it a rare meal indeeddy... Somebody has to make it for you. If you make it for yourself, well... it's creepy to eat your own love. Men are ugly... (your results may vary and that's OK) Women are beautiful... (except Roseanne Barr, if your results vary then please leave) Beauty is a thing to behold... and it's nothing more than that. Beauty does not exist. Beauty is not intangible, it's inexistable. My view of beauty as demonstrated in the case of Roseanne Barr, has nothing to do with the light which strikes my eyes having first bounced off a person. That would be the most totally totally totally absurd of all notions. Regarding people (presumed to be intelligent beings), beauty is the depth, the content and the result of intellect. What has this person created within the mind they occupy? Is it intellect? Massive beauty... requires minimal intelligence. Anyone with the mental ability to tie their own shoes had the opportunity to create beauty. Use that mind to create something more than an alcohol sponge. It's your only hope for beauty, contentment, comprehension, compassion, capability, capacity, competence, etc. and a bunch more "c" words. Oh m'gosh, like totally... totally totally totally. (you MUST like totally tilt your head with each totally spoken, at least that generation didn't invent Disco, so ashamed, by generational association only, I know someone who had disco boots with goldfish in the heels, still ashamed more than four decades later, worse... he did it because he thought it would, uhm, get him extremely close to women, sheesh, he couldn't realize they were doing the same things trying to get extremely close to men, where has intellect gone?) Objectivity... how do you know if you're objective? It's simple, objectivity is an offshoot of honesty. You only need to develop beauty. (see above) Objectivity is the internal version of honesty, it's one characteristic of inexistable beauty. (circular references abound) Find objectivity or not, your choice. If you're honest you'll know when you've found objectivity. Uhm, perhaps the other way round? Need objectivity to find honesty, or beauty, or... maybe they're intertwined. Getting there is a process of failure to misunderstand. (see a common thread? bricks in a wall blocking your view?) Logic can... sometimes get mixed up with philosophy. For example, the concept of false assignment of causation. It helps to use logic (the discipline of thinking objectively) and philosophy (contemplating thinking) when failing to misunderstand a concept like false assignment of causation.
(wait a minute, how much difference is there between logic and philosophy? the disciplines are related, in practice logic is required in philosophy, the opposite is a boolean variable which evaluates to false) In false assignment of causation... it's not the causation which is false, it's the assignment of the causation which is false. The assigned causation could be valid or bat crap crazy, either way the assignment of the causation is still false since it's not known. It's foolish to guess at reality, it can only be observed. With many possible causes and the actual cause unknown, it's false assignment of causation to claim a forest fire was caused by lightning. It could have been a camp fire or bats playing with matches. OK, bats and matches is unlikely but it's more likely than many commonly made cases of false assignment of causation. Correlation... does not imply causation. Specious reasoning returns confusion. Failure to misunderstand is not optional. Lisa understands and Homer gits a rock. Specious What?
Prove it!
1+1=0
Just click play on the video.
When multiple claims... are all demanded to be fact yet they claim very different and opposing realities? Those claims are Mutually Exclusive, meaning each rules out the others. They cannot all be true, in fact... only one CAN be true but maybe none are. If one claim is that pigs can fly and another claims pigs can't fly, both cannot be true. On the other hand, if Bha claims Ghal claims Oogh and Whu are dead while Oogh and Whu claim they are alive... well... seems sometimes... fact is obvious even when things are mutually exclusive.
(Oogh & Whu never tried to marry their horse and they created beauty within their own honest intellect, can you imagine failing to misunderstand the universe even without a global society supporting your effort? even with, most people are still unable to fail to misunderstand, philosophy is required, never wait to be told what to think, always think objectively or what you're doing is not thinking. deciding is not thinking. squirrels don't start forest fires by rubbing sticks together.)
Daffynition... a look of absolute confusion. The question... is simple. You can't be told the question and you can't be told the answer. Some know one or the other, question or answer. Some know they know one or the other and some know one or the other without knowing they know. A very few know both, even fewer know they know both. The vast majority know neither, question or answer, never having imagined answering the question as one of life's possibilities, perhaps life's only significant possibility. Life lived with neither is life not lived. So it is from above it rains below a constant flow of cats and dogs, a blinding storm reigns upon the brains. Careful, you'll be lost if you step in that Poodle. The Siamese and Pekingese might be less a hazard. Did you read... "Siamese and Pekingese" and only think "Oh, they're so cute"? If so see above, especially the bits about the Hotel California and three aspects. Solve the riddle and research the advice.
(did I mention up front about a common thread? is that thread a thread from the emperor's new clothes? big brick wall blocking your view?) Bang on this... Why does a doctor tickle your soles? "Babinski eats Dirac for breakfast and defecates Clerk-Maxwell."
(quote Amy Farrah Fowler) Let the video loop... for thirty minutes while you do other things at your computer. Turn the volume up. You may be Delighted with the result. Two out of three... physics students think deterministic physics is a physical science, the fourth student has witnessed all. Is there a dead cat in that box? Smells like a warthog been dead a long time. Please leave it outside, it may decide to spin up and spin down at the same time. Hey Floyd, think pink. We don't need no determinism... physical or philosophical. Satisfaction we could maybe use.
Skip thought control... Self control is a good thing... Hey teacher, leave them warthogs alone! See ya later... right now I feel the inexplicable need to tear down some well built masonry. Is that what I've been doing since the start of this chapter? Perhaps. Hope so. Condensed? Reader's Digest? Phooey, it's all included one brick at a time in one common thread. Pull hard... it won't unravel. If you pull hard enough the common thread might bring down the entire wall all at once, epiphany, way kool, not sad. Figure it out... for yourself, you can't be told the question and you can't be told the answer. If you know both and know you know both then I hope the common thread is entertaining. Entertaining or not it's wise to perpetually reconsider. OK... end of philosophy, or humor, or both, or neither. (reader's perspective) EUREKA! GIMME GIMME GIMME
Chapter 1 notes: If you're a horse and desperate, I know of a preacher who wants to make you his wife. Did this chapter help you answer it's question? If not, you may be suffering the inverse of a von Neumann bottleneck, which is good since it's not hopeless, keep trying. The mind which brought you this is and always has been free of drugs and alcohol. Disclaimer:
I smoked a bit of pot in the 70's. Drank champagne on new years eve 1975.
