BOOK 66
SELF IN TIME (2-12)
BOOK 66: SELF IN TIME
2. On Otherness
Although I was once guided by the Cartesian rationalist maxim – cogito ergo sum (“I think therefore I am”) – it was my unfortunate duty during university studies to encounter the work of psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan. Lacan’s take on the cogito was based in deeply cynical skepticism, and he purported that our articulation of thoughts could be a mere by-product of some other force or entity’s process of conceiving.
Essentially, for Lacan, we would be understood as having no autonomy or free will given that we were not genuine thinking-things but rather automatic expressions of some other thinking thing’s activity in conceiving. This Lacanian conceit isn’t intuitive to anyone, but it is set up as a valid philosophical proposition directly against the conclusions of Descartes’s philosophical meditations which brought us the cogito.
Descartes has been one of the most brilliant minds among humans, but who said he had to get everything right? Still, is it productive to prove his maxim wrong through expressing a theory that is in polar opposition, such as that of Lacan’s existential skepticism?
I propose the following rational maxim – vinculum alius ergo sum (“Another bond therefore I am”). This is an absolute truth because I perceive otherness that I do not recognize as being myself, and that fact constitutes a guarantee that I am an autonomous thing at the level of perception. There can remain the Lacanian post-structuralist hermeneutic of suspicion regarding my “thinking” as being a genuinely autonomous process, but my perception of otherness through bonding (vinculum) is assured, and this necessarily defines an innate characteristic of self.
2. On Otherness
Although I was once guided by the Cartesian rationalist maxim – cogito ergo sum (“I think therefore I am”) – it was my unfortunate duty during university studies to encounter the work of psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan. Lacan’s take on the cogito was based in deeply cynical skepticism, and he purported that our articulation of thoughts could be a mere by-product of some other force or entity’s process of conceiving.
Essentially, for Lacan, we would be understood as having no autonomy or free will given that we were not genuine thinking-things but rather automatic expressions of some other thinking thing’s activity in conceiving. This Lacanian conceit isn’t intuitive to anyone, but it is set up as a valid philosophical proposition directly against the conclusions of Descartes’s philosophical meditations which brought us the cogito.
Descartes has been one of the most brilliant minds among humans, but who said he had to get everything right? Still, is it productive to prove his maxim wrong through expressing a theory that is in polar opposition, such as that of Lacan’s existential skepticism?
I propose the following rational maxim – vinculum alius ergo sum (“Another bond therefore I am”). This is an absolute truth because I perceive otherness that I do not recognize as being myself, and that fact constitutes a guarantee that I am an autonomous thing at the level of perception. There can remain the Lacanian post-structuralist hermeneutic of suspicion regarding my “thinking” as being a genuinely autonomous process, but my perception of otherness through bonding (vinculum) is assured, and this necessarily defines an innate characteristic of self.
BOOK 66: SELF IN TIME
3. On Introspection
We recognize through our senses that there are multiple dimensions of space (a line, a plane, a 3D environment). Perhaps, there are multiple dimensions of affect, for example, anger or loss are simple affective states, but grief is a kind of combination of anger and loss. Grief has a sense of greater dimensionality or complexity as an affective state than anger or loss have, individually. Then, could thought also have an aspect of multidimensionality?
Linear thinking would constitute a mode of thought where meaning is produced through linear configurations – an idea moving (or forming) from one node in the discourse to another node. For example, the thought, “ice hockey makes me happy” is a linear thought traversing discourse from a single node (the sport of ice hockey) to another node (the feeling of happiness).
Circular thinking adds a dimension to linear thinking – “ice hockey makes me happy, but chess makes me bored”. With circular thinking, meaning is produced through planar configuration where an idea moves (or forms) between multiple nodes within related discourses.
Bordered thinking adds yet another dimension to circular thinking, constituting an ‘isometric’ configuration where an idea forms through reflections within the planar-structured discourse – “ice hockey and sports make me either happy or sad, but chess and games make me either excited or bored”. Bordered thinking adds only an extra “pseudo” dimension to the discourse through navigating the discourse in reflective ways.
Finally, recursive thinking articulates thought in a kind of 3D configuration within discourse. Recursive thinkers ask, “why am I concerned about my emotions regarding sports and games?” The discourses for these kinds of thoughts are navigating a ‘z-axis’ of evaluative nodes for inquiry.
Perhaps, introspection and metacognition are connected to development in the dimensionality of thought. I have also considered that certain mental disabilities may be best characterized through the recognition that those individuals are inept at, or yet incapable of, recursive thinking.
Would training exercises in recursive thinking increase the likelihood of introspection and self-awareness for an individual, and potentially stimulate greater moral competence in society? Would similar exercises be of use to some of the mentally disabled?
3. On Introspection
We recognize through our senses that there are multiple dimensions of space (a line, a plane, a 3D environment). Perhaps, there are multiple dimensions of affect, for example, anger or loss are simple affective states, but grief is a kind of combination of anger and loss. Grief has a sense of greater dimensionality or complexity as an affective state than anger or loss have, individually. Then, could thought also have an aspect of multidimensionality?
Linear thinking would constitute a mode of thought where meaning is produced through linear configurations – an idea moving (or forming) from one node in the discourse to another node. For example, the thought, “ice hockey makes me happy” is a linear thought traversing discourse from a single node (the sport of ice hockey) to another node (the feeling of happiness).
Circular thinking adds a dimension to linear thinking – “ice hockey makes me happy, but chess makes me bored”. With circular thinking, meaning is produced through planar configuration where an idea moves (or forms) between multiple nodes within related discourses.
Bordered thinking adds yet another dimension to circular thinking, constituting an ‘isometric’ configuration where an idea forms through reflections within the planar-structured discourse – “ice hockey and sports make me either happy or sad, but chess and games make me either excited or bored”. Bordered thinking adds only an extra “pseudo” dimension to the discourse through navigating the discourse in reflective ways.
Finally, recursive thinking articulates thought in a kind of 3D configuration within discourse. Recursive thinkers ask, “why am I concerned about my emotions regarding sports and games?” The discourses for these kinds of thoughts are navigating a ‘z-axis’ of evaluative nodes for inquiry.
Perhaps, introspection and metacognition are connected to development in the dimensionality of thought. I have also considered that certain mental disabilities may be best characterized through the recognition that those individuals are inept at, or yet incapable of, recursive thinking.
Would training exercises in recursive thinking increase the likelihood of introspection and self-awareness for an individual, and potentially stimulate greater moral competence in society? Would similar exercises be of use to some of the mentally disabled?
BOOK 66: SELF IN TIME
4. On Affect
All human beings have hormones; there are male and female hormones in all people. Affect as a lower faculty of reasoning has a male and female component – two sides of the same coin. The male hormones provoke aggressive affective responses to stimuli while the female hormones provoke emotional responses to stimuli. There is nothing inherently “good” or “bad” about the expression of aggressive or emotional responses.
Many contemporary women have faulted when accusing men of “toxic masculinity” and this is as much true as the fault of previous generations of men accusing women of “hysteria”. Women are capable of being toxically aggressive, just as men can be emotionally hysterical – each of us have male and female hormones which stimulate a lower faculty affective response to stimuli.
The relevant issue is whether affective responses are being expressed rationally or irrationally. Rational expression requires mediation of the higher faculties over the lower faculties of reasoning. Rational expressions of affect – aggression or emotion – are productive to society and/or the individual. Essentially, productive expression of aggression focuses on healthy contest (one against another), while productive expression of emotion is concerned with healthy bonding (one with another).
4. On Affect
All human beings have hormones; there are male and female hormones in all people. Affect as a lower faculty of reasoning has a male and female component – two sides of the same coin. The male hormones provoke aggressive affective responses to stimuli while the female hormones provoke emotional responses to stimuli. There is nothing inherently “good” or “bad” about the expression of aggressive or emotional responses.
Many contemporary women have faulted when accusing men of “toxic masculinity” and this is as much true as the fault of previous generations of men accusing women of “hysteria”. Women are capable of being toxically aggressive, just as men can be emotionally hysterical – each of us have male and female hormones which stimulate a lower faculty affective response to stimuli.
The relevant issue is whether affective responses are being expressed rationally or irrationally. Rational expression requires mediation of the higher faculties over the lower faculties of reasoning. Rational expressions of affect – aggression or emotion – are productive to society and/or the individual. Essentially, productive expression of aggression focuses on healthy contest (one against another), while productive expression of emotion is concerned with healthy bonding (one with another).
BOOK 66: SELF IN TIME
5. On Trauma
Over the years, I have noticed through conversation as well as through literary review that psychoanalysis has increasingly fallen out of favor in popular culture. Many have an aversion to psychoanalysis because they misconstrue the field of “talking cure” therapy to be based in examining sexual neuroses.
Additionally, feminists have vehemently rejected the canons of psychoanalysis because they were developed almost entirely by wealthy, over-educated, heteronormative, white males, such as, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. The feminists promptly threw the baby out with the bathwater.
Nevertheless, psychoanalysis has some things going for it as a method of analysis, especially with respect to the logic chain of trauma-disavowal-fetish. Forget sexuality for a moment, because fetish need not imply sexual neuroses or sexual deviance – that is merely one application of the concept. Instead, fetish emerges from the notion that in a person’s mind they are always traveling down a mental road through the process of thinking. A trauma is a rupture in the road – the traumatic event is akin to an earthquake sundering the landscape at your feet. You cannot continue in the same direction without crossing the newly-formed chasm. The traumatic rupture has broken the chain of association in your mental process of meaning-production.
How trauma converts to fetish is through disavowal. To leap across the chasm is fretful and to search for the mental tools to achieve that task requires close and careful examination of the trauma (often too uncomfortable for the individual). Instead, the trauma is disavowed, and thoughtfully, the individual pursues a new path determined by the profile of the traumatic chasm. This new path that is followed constitutes the fetish. The fetish is a single feature of the trauma that can be navigated – just one of the chasm’s edges – as opposed to facing the entire chasm which is psychologically daunting and therefore disavowed.
If you apply the logic chain to a sexual fetish it might work something like this: a boy is finding it difficult to psychologically navigate all the ideas he has about the sexuality of woman after an early traumatic experience with a female (perhaps, his mother pushed him away from her breast), and now he disavows the trauma of his mother’s rejection and fetishizes a single element of sexualized woman that he feels he can think about, talk about, and control in his thoughts – breasts. This boy grows up and proudly identifies as a “boob man” – he’s into breasts. I’m into butts, and I’d absolutely hate to discover why. However, we can understand our quirks (including non-sexual related ones) through considering the trauma-disavowal-fetish logic chain of psychoanalytic method.
5. On Trauma
Over the years, I have noticed through conversation as well as through literary review that psychoanalysis has increasingly fallen out of favor in popular culture. Many have an aversion to psychoanalysis because they misconstrue the field of “talking cure” therapy to be based in examining sexual neuroses.
Additionally, feminists have vehemently rejected the canons of psychoanalysis because they were developed almost entirely by wealthy, over-educated, heteronormative, white males, such as, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. The feminists promptly threw the baby out with the bathwater.
Nevertheless, psychoanalysis has some things going for it as a method of analysis, especially with respect to the logic chain of trauma-disavowal-fetish. Forget sexuality for a moment, because fetish need not imply sexual neuroses or sexual deviance – that is merely one application of the concept. Instead, fetish emerges from the notion that in a person’s mind they are always traveling down a mental road through the process of thinking. A trauma is a rupture in the road – the traumatic event is akin to an earthquake sundering the landscape at your feet. You cannot continue in the same direction without crossing the newly-formed chasm. The traumatic rupture has broken the chain of association in your mental process of meaning-production.
How trauma converts to fetish is through disavowal. To leap across the chasm is fretful and to search for the mental tools to achieve that task requires close and careful examination of the trauma (often too uncomfortable for the individual). Instead, the trauma is disavowed, and thoughtfully, the individual pursues a new path determined by the profile of the traumatic chasm. This new path that is followed constitutes the fetish. The fetish is a single feature of the trauma that can be navigated – just one of the chasm’s edges – as opposed to facing the entire chasm which is psychologically daunting and therefore disavowed.
If you apply the logic chain to a sexual fetish it might work something like this: a boy is finding it difficult to psychologically navigate all the ideas he has about the sexuality of woman after an early traumatic experience with a female (perhaps, his mother pushed him away from her breast), and now he disavows the trauma of his mother’s rejection and fetishizes a single element of sexualized woman that he feels he can think about, talk about, and control in his thoughts – breasts. This boy grows up and proudly identifies as a “boob man” – he’s into breasts. I’m into butts, and I’d absolutely hate to discover why. However, we can understand our quirks (including non-sexual related ones) through considering the trauma-disavowal-fetish logic chain of psychoanalytic method.
BOOK 66: SELF IN TIME
6. On Freud
If I could reimagine Freud’s modernist categorical distinctions for the human psyche (id, ego, superego) and devise a similar understanding for the postmodern human psyche, it would be as follows: the I.A. (Inner Anarchy), the A.E. (Alter-ego), and the A.I. (Artificial Intelligence).
The Freudian id was defined by its state of repression as well as through the laymen understanding of it being partly atavistic sex-monster and partly primal violent release. For the postmodern psyche, we might imagine the inner anarchy component which instead of being understood through unorganized instinctual drives follows laws of entropy. The I.A. is geared to have us respond to stimuli through manifesting motivations which require the least conscious energy expenditure. The I.A. is operating when we hear the phone ring and contemplate the value of answering it, or when the social media advertisements interrupt online surfing, and we tarry with hitting the mute button.
Whereas, Freudian ego was a mediator defining the boundaries of the avowed personality, the alter-ego is necessarily schizophrenic in nature, and it mediates the boundaries of self against the simulacral-self that is draped overtop within the psyche. The representation of postmodern identity is two-pronged: self affirmed and simulated alter-self performed. The alter-self is mediated within the virtual social forum. The A.E. works to distinguish the simulacral fantasy self from the genuine self.
Finally, the artificial intelligence component of the postmodern psyche threatens takeover of the alter-ego through promotion of absorption into a hive-mind anti-hierarchical social structure. A sense of superiority for the A.I. is achieved through acts of absorption of the self by otherness, as opposed to the Freudian super-ego where superiority is achieved through self-absorption.
This theory of the postmodern psyche may develop further as we move past our reflections on technology and shift to a truly “post-human” status as beings.
6. On Freud
If I could reimagine Freud’s modernist categorical distinctions for the human psyche (id, ego, superego) and devise a similar understanding for the postmodern human psyche, it would be as follows: the I.A. (Inner Anarchy), the A.E. (Alter-ego), and the A.I. (Artificial Intelligence).
The Freudian id was defined by its state of repression as well as through the laymen understanding of it being partly atavistic sex-monster and partly primal violent release. For the postmodern psyche, we might imagine the inner anarchy component which instead of being understood through unorganized instinctual drives follows laws of entropy. The I.A. is geared to have us respond to stimuli through manifesting motivations which require the least conscious energy expenditure. The I.A. is operating when we hear the phone ring and contemplate the value of answering it, or when the social media advertisements interrupt online surfing, and we tarry with hitting the mute button.
Whereas, Freudian ego was a mediator defining the boundaries of the avowed personality, the alter-ego is necessarily schizophrenic in nature, and it mediates the boundaries of self against the simulacral-self that is draped overtop within the psyche. The representation of postmodern identity is two-pronged: self affirmed and simulated alter-self performed. The alter-self is mediated within the virtual social forum. The A.E. works to distinguish the simulacral fantasy self from the genuine self.
Finally, the artificial intelligence component of the postmodern psyche threatens takeover of the alter-ego through promotion of absorption into a hive-mind anti-hierarchical social structure. A sense of superiority for the A.I. is achieved through acts of absorption of the self by otherness, as opposed to the Freudian super-ego where superiority is achieved through self-absorption.
This theory of the postmodern psyche may develop further as we move past our reflections on technology and shift to a truly “post-human” status as beings.
BOOK 66: SELF IN TIME
7. On Addiction
I have had cause to consider why it is that I have never been susceptible to certain addictions that plague the lives of so many others. For example, in my young adult years, I exposed myself to habitual alcohol and drug use, however, living with sobriety since then has never resulted in “cravings” of any kind. I can partake in recreational use of addictive substances whenever without feeling temptation of any kind to indulge further. Additionally, I do not believe that for me personally this is tied up in notions of ‘self-control’ as much as it is related to how I regulate my internal clock.
This may be speculative and reflect a bout of pseudo-science on my part, however, I have noted a variety of positive effects from having rejected timepieces in my life. I have not worn a wristwatch in almost thirty years. Also, I have an uncanny knack to know the time within minutes even after not having seen a clock for several hours. I have concluded that my “internal clock” is fine-tuned because it has to compensate for a lack of an external timepiece on my person.
I conjecture that my seemingly high “self-control” in not falling prey to common addictions is in fact my high “self-regulation” of time – or the sense of time – through refusing to carry a timepiece on me. One might argue that a craving is regulated by a perverse sense of time passing, therefore, if your internal clock is more highly regulated then you may have better control over the sense of time passing such that it helps you appreciate the nature of a craving and then you can dismiss that unwanted alert with enhanced strength of will. It is a possibility, I suppose, but we require researchers to test the hypothesis. Only time will tell if science can qualify the quantification of our mental mechanisms.
7. On Addiction
I have had cause to consider why it is that I have never been susceptible to certain addictions that plague the lives of so many others. For example, in my young adult years, I exposed myself to habitual alcohol and drug use, however, living with sobriety since then has never resulted in “cravings” of any kind. I can partake in recreational use of addictive substances whenever without feeling temptation of any kind to indulge further. Additionally, I do not believe that for me personally this is tied up in notions of ‘self-control’ as much as it is related to how I regulate my internal clock.
This may be speculative and reflect a bout of pseudo-science on my part, however, I have noted a variety of positive effects from having rejected timepieces in my life. I have not worn a wristwatch in almost thirty years. Also, I have an uncanny knack to know the time within minutes even after not having seen a clock for several hours. I have concluded that my “internal clock” is fine-tuned because it has to compensate for a lack of an external timepiece on my person.
I conjecture that my seemingly high “self-control” in not falling prey to common addictions is in fact my high “self-regulation” of time – or the sense of time – through refusing to carry a timepiece on me. One might argue that a craving is regulated by a perverse sense of time passing, therefore, if your internal clock is more highly regulated then you may have better control over the sense of time passing such that it helps you appreciate the nature of a craving and then you can dismiss that unwanted alert with enhanced strength of will. It is a possibility, I suppose, but we require researchers to test the hypothesis. Only time will tell if science can qualify the quantification of our mental mechanisms.
BOOK 66: SELF IN TIME
8. On Dreams
During a period where I was studying at the university, I was fortunate to make the acquaintance of renowned Canadian director and author, Guy Maddin. We discussed film and got onto the topic of the oneiric – dreaminess. Both of us were at a loss to cite a single movie which had accurately represented the dream experience through the cinematic apparatus. I went home and thought about it carefully.
Was the answer to the conundrum rooted in the “cut”? Editing in film – creating cuts between shots – demands a certain quality of critical attention from the viewer. The spectator is aware of the cut in visual media because changing shots also changes spatiotemporal coordinates for the viewer as they realign with the transcendental subject position. The nature of the camera is to align the viewer’s perception with that of the apparatus itself – the apparatus generates a transcendental subject position that is not inherently the position of the viewer, but which invites the viewer to assume that position as an ideal one for taking in the visual presentation.
However, in dreams there is no apparatus, but instead there is our own mind generating a sense of the visual field. The cut in dreams does not require critical attention and our position can change without having to realign with an external object such as the cinematic apparatus, or camera. In dreams, we have a direct subject position. The dreamer does not become critically engaged with the mode of representation because that mode does not originate from an external source.
Cinema and other audiovisual media forms attempt to be immersive, interactive, and interpellative, however, dreams don’t make the attempt because they have those aspects innately. After discussing the issue with Guy, my conclusion was that cinema would have to rely on the long take (such as in Coppola’s The Conversation, or Welles’s Touch of Evil) to properly emulate a dream experience. The cut in cinema will disrupt the oneiric effect in significant ways.
8. On Dreams
During a period where I was studying at the university, I was fortunate to make the acquaintance of renowned Canadian director and author, Guy Maddin. We discussed film and got onto the topic of the oneiric – dreaminess. Both of us were at a loss to cite a single movie which had accurately represented the dream experience through the cinematic apparatus. I went home and thought about it carefully.
Was the answer to the conundrum rooted in the “cut”? Editing in film – creating cuts between shots – demands a certain quality of critical attention from the viewer. The spectator is aware of the cut in visual media because changing shots also changes spatiotemporal coordinates for the viewer as they realign with the transcendental subject position. The nature of the camera is to align the viewer’s perception with that of the apparatus itself – the apparatus generates a transcendental subject position that is not inherently the position of the viewer, but which invites the viewer to assume that position as an ideal one for taking in the visual presentation.
However, in dreams there is no apparatus, but instead there is our own mind generating a sense of the visual field. The cut in dreams does not require critical attention and our position can change without having to realign with an external object such as the cinematic apparatus, or camera. In dreams, we have a direct subject position. The dreamer does not become critically engaged with the mode of representation because that mode does not originate from an external source.
Cinema and other audiovisual media forms attempt to be immersive, interactive, and interpellative, however, dreams don’t make the attempt because they have those aspects innately. After discussing the issue with Guy, my conclusion was that cinema would have to rely on the long take (such as in Coppola’s The Conversation, or Welles’s Touch of Evil) to properly emulate a dream experience. The cut in cinema will disrupt the oneiric effect in significant ways.
BOOK 66: SELF IN TIME
9. On Neurosis
What is it to be neurotic? No one like being accused of this condition, but sometimes it feels like a bit of a catch-all insult. Simply, neurosis is a state driven by compulsions and complaints without a sense of related causes. A neurotic is making much ado about nothing. Perhaps, the truth is far from the current understanding. I would like to suggest that neurosis is related to fatigue.
When there is a surfeit of sensory information, the body actively blunts the senses to reduce the excessive flow of information being transmitted from the body to the brain. The mind can only process so much data at a time without raising the risk of becoming unprepared for potential threats to survival in the environment.
This notion recalls the “myth” that humans only use a portion of their brain power at any given time. Essentially, it is true though, and only mythological in how people interpret the phenomenon through percentages. Most tend to understand that by only using a portion of the brain’s “power” we could also somehow “unlock” our full potential and become super-geniuses, or even, super-powered beings. The reality is that the brain is geared to push only so hard because resources must remain available as a matter of survival. We must have brain power to rely on if a situation suddenly changes and it is an emergency that we engage our mind quickly for solving a new, difficult task.
This brings me back to the issue of fatigue as it relates to neurosis. With sensory overload, the body slows or stops the flow of information. The mind searches for the “missing” information as it relates to sensory data that has just been processed. If the individual’s mind is capacious then they will begin producing “pseudo-information” about the sensory-based stimuli which is still in the process of being analyzed by the brain. This pseudo-information could be referred to as “flux-truth” or “fluth” for it being information that appears true but in flux (because it is in fact confabulatory information). Interpreting fluth produces compulsions and complaints because the cause of the fluth cannot be identified, and the mind is unwilling or unable to blame itself for the confabulation. The result is neurosis.
This is my laymen musings on the topic, and I would feel more confident about my hypothesis if it were shown empirically that neurosis affects highly-intelligent people more than people of average or lower intelligence. Ergo, neurosis is more common for capacious minds that can be filled with “fluth”.
9. On Neurosis
What is it to be neurotic? No one like being accused of this condition, but sometimes it feels like a bit of a catch-all insult. Simply, neurosis is a state driven by compulsions and complaints without a sense of related causes. A neurotic is making much ado about nothing. Perhaps, the truth is far from the current understanding. I would like to suggest that neurosis is related to fatigue.
When there is a surfeit of sensory information, the body actively blunts the senses to reduce the excessive flow of information being transmitted from the body to the brain. The mind can only process so much data at a time without raising the risk of becoming unprepared for potential threats to survival in the environment.
This notion recalls the “myth” that humans only use a portion of their brain power at any given time. Essentially, it is true though, and only mythological in how people interpret the phenomenon through percentages. Most tend to understand that by only using a portion of the brain’s “power” we could also somehow “unlock” our full potential and become super-geniuses, or even, super-powered beings. The reality is that the brain is geared to push only so hard because resources must remain available as a matter of survival. We must have brain power to rely on if a situation suddenly changes and it is an emergency that we engage our mind quickly for solving a new, difficult task.
This brings me back to the issue of fatigue as it relates to neurosis. With sensory overload, the body slows or stops the flow of information. The mind searches for the “missing” information as it relates to sensory data that has just been processed. If the individual’s mind is capacious then they will begin producing “pseudo-information” about the sensory-based stimuli which is still in the process of being analyzed by the brain. This pseudo-information could be referred to as “flux-truth” or “fluth” for it being information that appears true but in flux (because it is in fact confabulatory information). Interpreting fluth produces compulsions and complaints because the cause of the fluth cannot be identified, and the mind is unwilling or unable to blame itself for the confabulation. The result is neurosis.
This is my laymen musings on the topic, and I would feel more confident about my hypothesis if it were shown empirically that neurosis affects highly-intelligent people more than people of average or lower intelligence. Ergo, neurosis is more common for capacious minds that can be filled with “fluth”.
BOOK 66: SELF IN TIME
10. On Providence
They say that if we put an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters, they will eventually produce a copy of the Bible, or the works of William Shakespeare. This is an intuitive fact when considering variation across an endless time period. However, what would we say if we sat down just ten monkeys and let them type for a year, and at the end of that year we had pages that could be assembled which constituted a copy of Othello or the Book of Genesis?
Would it be intuitive that variation across time had brought about the result we had been seeking over such a short period? It is unlikely that many people would be compelled to believe that it was “coincidence” – we got lucky and the ten monkeys in one year made an achievement that would normally take near-infinitely longer and with a near-infinitely larger workforce. No, we would be checking under the typewriters for some sort of mechanical dongle that had been pressing typewriter keys. We would be leaning on the researchers to admit that they had doctored the results. Some would be hailing God for the “miracle”. We wouldn’t believe that statistical possibility had brought about the result.
Perhaps, coincidence is never mere statistical possibility being realized, but rather, it is design even if we cannot appreciate or understand the causes. I have experienced coincidence that upon further analysis I could trace to the workings of my unconscious (knowledge I didn’t realize I had stored), or a kind of collective unconscious (society behaving in patterned ways). Also, I have analyzed some coincidence such that I came to recognize that it wasn’t in fact what had happened wasn’t very unusual, but it had been fortuitous for me and so I wanted to imbue it with extra meaning so that I could feel good about myself (like finding money on the ground in a park).
Yet, there are coincidences where I have crunched the numbers statistically and then not been able to dispel the incredible happening as paltry and explainable through known mundane factors. Those coincidences are still adding up for me and I cannot deny that they imply some form of Providence. How I design my faith is perhaps the paramount concern because faith breeds self-deception if you are not rigorous in your methods of analysis on extraordinary phenomena which each and every one of us experiences in this strange world.
10. On Providence
They say that if we put an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters, they will eventually produce a copy of the Bible, or the works of William Shakespeare. This is an intuitive fact when considering variation across an endless time period. However, what would we say if we sat down just ten monkeys and let them type for a year, and at the end of that year we had pages that could be assembled which constituted a copy of Othello or the Book of Genesis?
Would it be intuitive that variation across time had brought about the result we had been seeking over such a short period? It is unlikely that many people would be compelled to believe that it was “coincidence” – we got lucky and the ten monkeys in one year made an achievement that would normally take near-infinitely longer and with a near-infinitely larger workforce. No, we would be checking under the typewriters for some sort of mechanical dongle that had been pressing typewriter keys. We would be leaning on the researchers to admit that they had doctored the results. Some would be hailing God for the “miracle”. We wouldn’t believe that statistical possibility had brought about the result.
Perhaps, coincidence is never mere statistical possibility being realized, but rather, it is design even if we cannot appreciate or understand the causes. I have experienced coincidence that upon further analysis I could trace to the workings of my unconscious (knowledge I didn’t realize I had stored), or a kind of collective unconscious (society behaving in patterned ways). Also, I have analyzed some coincidence such that I came to recognize that it wasn’t in fact what had happened wasn’t very unusual, but it had been fortuitous for me and so I wanted to imbue it with extra meaning so that I could feel good about myself (like finding money on the ground in a park).
Yet, there are coincidences where I have crunched the numbers statistically and then not been able to dispel the incredible happening as paltry and explainable through known mundane factors. Those coincidences are still adding up for me and I cannot deny that they imply some form of Providence. How I design my faith is perhaps the paramount concern because faith breeds self-deception if you are not rigorous in your methods of analysis on extraordinary phenomena which each and every one of us experiences in this strange world.
BOOK 66: SELF IN TIME
11. On Nostalgia
Homer’s Odyssey presents us with the definitive example of nostalgia – the feeling of longing for home. Nostalgia has been a fertile theme across media forms, and for me, Robocop (1987), did an excellent job of framing a Homeric journey as defined through the affective condition of nostalgia.
In Robocop, mangled police officer, Murphy, is beginning to realize that he is a cyborg as opposed to an android. Murphy is “tapping” into the memories of his human life and searching for details of his past. Access results in Murphy journeying to his former home where he had raised a family. More memories are triggered as he explores the empty house. Murphy was journeying to a house as a location, and when he arrived, he was longing for what home once was – a place. Nostalgia is a feeling based in loss and it focuses on something you want returned.
However, I considered the antonym for the word, nostalgia. Searching online turned up nothing, and many people were discussing carpe diem as the opposite of nostalgia. Where nostalgia is based in a feeling of loss of a moment or place, carpe diem is a feeling of capturing and holding a moment or place. This was a fair assessment by the users online, but I was seeking to define a “negative” feeling of loss for a moment or place. The word for the negative feeling should be the proper antonym of nostalgia which defines a positive feeling.
In the end, I uncovered no definitions being offered, and so, I developed my own neologism – aponostalgia. Aponostalgia used the prefix apo- (lose, away, off, destroy), and therefore this new term is essentially negative nostalgia as a feeling. If someone desires a return to the past simply to experience the pain, disdain, or disgust associated with those moments or places then they can be said to be feeling aponostalgia.
For example, over the years, I have often reinstalled the video game, Gears of War 2, to play online multiplayer for the popular third-person shooter series. However, I don’t do this to reflect on positive feelings from the past. My online Gears of War 2 experience was a colossal waste of time and rife with anxieties and misery. The game was riddled with exploitations, from general quality of service issues to modding and hacking. I spent hours fruitlessly pursuing players that had cheated by “glitching” out of the playing map of the game environments. I was even remote hacked through Xbox when a malicious Gears of War 2 gamer pinged me, hacked my IP, and then took control of my computer mouse and began attempting to lock me out of my laptop. I made it to the router and killed the connection just in time.
It would be wrong to refer to my feeling of longing for Gears of War 2 online gaming as a nostalgia because it is a negative feeling. I have only wished to return in order to express my contempt or see the very structure of the game world decimated and destroyed. When I feel the need to reinstall that game, I am experiencing aponostalgia – a strong feeling to return, but not a positive one.
11. On Nostalgia
Homer’s Odyssey presents us with the definitive example of nostalgia – the feeling of longing for home. Nostalgia has been a fertile theme across media forms, and for me, Robocop (1987), did an excellent job of framing a Homeric journey as defined through the affective condition of nostalgia.
In Robocop, mangled police officer, Murphy, is beginning to realize that he is a cyborg as opposed to an android. Murphy is “tapping” into the memories of his human life and searching for details of his past. Access results in Murphy journeying to his former home where he had raised a family. More memories are triggered as he explores the empty house. Murphy was journeying to a house as a location, and when he arrived, he was longing for what home once was – a place. Nostalgia is a feeling based in loss and it focuses on something you want returned.
However, I considered the antonym for the word, nostalgia. Searching online turned up nothing, and many people were discussing carpe diem as the opposite of nostalgia. Where nostalgia is based in a feeling of loss of a moment or place, carpe diem is a feeling of capturing and holding a moment or place. This was a fair assessment by the users online, but I was seeking to define a “negative” feeling of loss for a moment or place. The word for the negative feeling should be the proper antonym of nostalgia which defines a positive feeling.
In the end, I uncovered no definitions being offered, and so, I developed my own neologism – aponostalgia. Aponostalgia used the prefix apo- (lose, away, off, destroy), and therefore this new term is essentially negative nostalgia as a feeling. If someone desires a return to the past simply to experience the pain, disdain, or disgust associated with those moments or places then they can be said to be feeling aponostalgia.
For example, over the years, I have often reinstalled the video game, Gears of War 2, to play online multiplayer for the popular third-person shooter series. However, I don’t do this to reflect on positive feelings from the past. My online Gears of War 2 experience was a colossal waste of time and rife with anxieties and misery. The game was riddled with exploitations, from general quality of service issues to modding and hacking. I spent hours fruitlessly pursuing players that had cheated by “glitching” out of the playing map of the game environments. I was even remote hacked through Xbox when a malicious Gears of War 2 gamer pinged me, hacked my IP, and then took control of my computer mouse and began attempting to lock me out of my laptop. I made it to the router and killed the connection just in time.
It would be wrong to refer to my feeling of longing for Gears of War 2 online gaming as a nostalgia because it is a negative feeling. I have only wished to return in order to express my contempt or see the very structure of the game world decimated and destroyed. When I feel the need to reinstall that game, I am experiencing aponostalgia – a strong feeling to return, but not a positive one.
BOOK 66: SELF IN TIME
12. On Coincidence
Often, I encounter people who believe in the power of coincidence, yet there are unique definitions for what constitutes a moment of coincidence. For some, seeing a “magic” number on a storefront or taxicab door is a coincidence, while others who have no system of meaning for those numbers would find such an event meaningless. Other times, events come together, and we cannot explain why, so we conclude that this is an example of coincidence. However, with more information we may no longer understand the event as coincidence, for example, one woman has been hit with lightning on three separate occasions in different parts of the country where she resides. Then, we find out she has a metal plate in her head, and we question the supposed coincidence status of the events.
What could be another explanation for what we perceive as coincidence? I would suggest a theory based in the laws of spatiotemporality and human perception. We perceive multiple dimensions of spatiality (zero dimensions of a point, one dimension of a line, two dimensions of a plane, three dimensions of a 3D environment to support 3D objects, such as, pyramids or boxes). The tesseract is a theoretical four-dimensional spatial construct which we can represent graphically similarly to how we can draw a cube (3D) onto a piece of paper (2D). Humans do not perceive a fourth spatial dimension with our physical senses.
But, what of time? Perhaps, zero dimensions of temporality is like the point – a moment. One dimension of temporality is like the line – our history through time, and our lifetime. It seems we cannot directly perceive more than one dimension of temporality, similarly to how we cannot perceive the tesseract, but rather merely the representation of it in our 3D world. Then, could coincidence somehow be a representation of multidimensional temporality?
12. On Coincidence
Often, I encounter people who believe in the power of coincidence, yet there are unique definitions for what constitutes a moment of coincidence. For some, seeing a “magic” number on a storefront or taxicab door is a coincidence, while others who have no system of meaning for those numbers would find such an event meaningless. Other times, events come together, and we cannot explain why, so we conclude that this is an example of coincidence. However, with more information we may no longer understand the event as coincidence, for example, one woman has been hit with lightning on three separate occasions in different parts of the country where she resides. Then, we find out she has a metal plate in her head, and we question the supposed coincidence status of the events.
What could be another explanation for what we perceive as coincidence? I would suggest a theory based in the laws of spatiotemporality and human perception. We perceive multiple dimensions of spatiality (zero dimensions of a point, one dimension of a line, two dimensions of a plane, three dimensions of a 3D environment to support 3D objects, such as, pyramids or boxes). The tesseract is a theoretical four-dimensional spatial construct which we can represent graphically similarly to how we can draw a cube (3D) onto a piece of paper (2D). Humans do not perceive a fourth spatial dimension with our physical senses.
But, what of time? Perhaps, zero dimensions of temporality is like the point – a moment. One dimension of temporality is like the line – our history through time, and our lifetime. It seems we cannot directly perceive more than one dimension of temporality, similarly to how we cannot perceive the tesseract, but rather merely the representation of it in our 3D world. Then, could coincidence somehow be a representation of multidimensional temporality?