When it was proclaimed that the Library contained all books, the first impression was one of extravagant happiness. All men felt themselves to be the masters of an intact and secret treasure. There was no personal or world problem whose eloquent solution did not exist in some hexagon [shelf]. The universe was justified, the universe suddenly usurped the unlimited dimensions of hope. At that time a great deal was said about the Vindications: books of apology and prophecy which vindicated for all time the acts of every man in the universe and retained prodigious arcana for his future.

A place which differs somewhat from my university library.

Still, as I sit there daydreaming I’m thinking of how many of the great thinkers whom I have taken ideas from would have spent years surrounded by similar bookshelves hacking away at the questions of the universe. Being surrounded by such vast amounts of knowledge and history instills ideals of intellectual mastery and progression in me,  but also makes me realise that even if I was to devote my life purely to learning from this day forth I’d barely even get through a shelf or two.

It humbles me as an individual; were I to write a book it would be but a drop in ocean amongst the billions of words contained on the sprawling shelves. Here in the library is the most important history of the human race, the ideas of mankind put to print and presented in their insurmountable glory; so much material yet infinitely lacking when compared with what has never been documented. Our efforts to record and explain the cosmos, the human experience, so neatly contained within a building. There’s a long way to go.

I don’t handle the cold well, my frame isn’t designed for extremes. In fact, both my flesh and my mind are always less resilient than I imagine. I need peace and quiet and calm to write, hence the lack of updates; more than that I need vast amounts of time to think and organise my thoughts, something I’ve not had for months now. But that’s ok. I’m finding it exciting to be constantly unsure of where I am and where I’m going; I’m finding value in places I hadn’t expected, I’m skating on the waters where I used to swim. Maybe I’ll have a chance to organise my intentions when I’m home for Christmas; hedonism takes many forms, as I am discovering…

So much for structure, if anything I’ve gone the other way.

More words soon. 

For example I used to fear drowning, or death-by-flames, and I am obviously still not exactly joyful about the idea of dying in these ways, not least because of the physical pain involved. However I no longer fear the isolation and ‘inhumanity’ of this type of death. My previous ‘death of choice’ would be the jump from a cliff or the envelopment in a fireworks factory explosion.

Clarification: When I talk about control over the event I am meaning mental control more than physical control (although this can play a part). To be able to stand there and think ‘I am ready to die, I accept death’, that is the good death. To have a constant awareness that death is real, death will come, and death is likely the second most important event in your life.

However it happens, don’t fear the reaper; ‘Fear is the mind killer’ as F. Herbert would say.

From Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, a (brilliant and witty) story about a man who turns into a woman, this bit is set around 1750:

Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than merely to keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world’s view of us. For example, when Captain Bartolus saw Orlando’s skirt, he had an awning stretched for her immediately, pressed her to take another slice of beef, and invited her to go ashore with him in the long–boat. These compliments would certainly not have been paid her had her skirts, instead of flowing, been cut tight to her legs in the fashion of breeches. And when we are paid compliments, it behoves us to make some return. Orlando curtseyed; she complied; she flattered the good man’s humours as she would not have done had his neat breeches been a woman’s skirts, and his braided coat a woman’s satin bodice. Thus, there is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us and not we them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking. So, having now worn skirts for a considerable time, a certain change was visible in Orlando, which is to be found, even in her face. If we compare the picture of Orlando as a man with that of Orlando as a woman we shall see that though both are undoubtedly one and the same person, there are certain changes. The man has his hand free to seize his sword, the woman must use hers to keep the satins from slipping from her shoulders. The man looks the world full in the face, as if it were made for his uses and fashioned to his liking. The woman takes a sidelong glance at it, full of subtlety, even of suspicion. Had they both worn the same clothes, it is possible that their outlook might have been the same.

In our image-centred society, clothes are a big deal. A good percentage of the high street seems to be clothes shops, or at least shops whose core product is clothing. Why do we spend so much money on clothing? What makes us buy the particular style of clothes we choose to wear?

I’ve always gone for the fairly straight edge bland clothing look, mainly because I don’t have the guts (or funds) to walk around in a pinstripe suit with slacks, a bowler hat and a cane, which is my ultimate aim, but also just out of laziness and my dislike of shopping-centre shopping. I do think clothing choice says a lot about the wearer, but I’m far more concerned about the post-image stages of human interaction than immediate appearances, so I try not over-emphasise clothing and presentation. I think one of my future ‘projects’ will be to experiment with some different clothing ideas to see how they affect social intercourse.

Although it is a sweeping generalization, I find that within social groups (most obviously when we are young) people want to dress like others, they want to be “in fashion” (in the loosest sense of the phrase), but at the same time nobody wants to be caught wearing exactly the same clothes as somebody else (with a few exceptions). Clothing is a fairly unique product in this sense, that a person wants to look the same and fit in with everyone else, but also wants to be individual and stand out at the same time. Clothes differ from other products, such as an iPod, because everyone has (more or less) exactly the same iPod, and that’s what counts - pure single product ownership. This is why we end up with lots of clothes shops, selling pretty much the same thing, with slight but important differences.

Clothing choice enables us to have a sense of belonging, but also a sense of individuality and uniqueness at the same time; security and freedom; acquiescence, apathy and (in some cases) a platform for communication. All of which are rather fundamental aspects of our lives - aspects which can be expressed and cultivated through our purchases.

[Picture from qube. Check out Rachael King’s post on the same subject.]

My life is a constant cycle of procrastination, there are so many opportunities all around me for growth and progression, yet I still manage to spend most of my day doing very little. Part of me is ashamed at my lack of energy and application; part of me, to a certain extent at least, believes indolence is necessary and helpful, that the time spent doing ‘nothing’ gives me the space I need to process and subconsciously take hold of the thoughts, feelings and ideas conceived when I am doing ’something’. For example, I probably sleep too much, time that could be spent acquiring knowledge, but sleep helps me sort out the knowledge I have gained during the day meaning I don’t end up getting swamped in an ever deepening pool of information.

In the past I have always reasoned that I need this space, but now I am feeling that this is more an excuse for inactivity than a healthy viewpoint, I start to abuse the balance and become less active as a result. I’ve found that one of the best ways to regain the balance is to have structure; over the summer I often haven’t had commitments during the day which has enabled me to sleep in late, and nap in the afternoon - I justify this by reasoning that I will stay up late and get things done - but then I just head to bed at the normal time. Without structure I fall into a rhythm of lethargy and inaction, it takes far more discipline to get things done when you have no time constraints or set points in your day. I’m hoping now that I am back at university I’ll be able to establish a rhythm of action through the increased structure of the week.

I’ve been reading some ‘life pointers’ from different websites and organisation recently, and many of them seem to contain this recurring idea of structure, control and action, especially that of structuring your day around reflection and introspection, often they just provide a kick up the backside for people to start doing something with their day other than sitting in front of the TV. For example, meditation CDs present a form of structure, to meditate for half an hour a day is a set time of intense introspection and hence intense progress, a time out to think about who you are and what you are doing, a process from which often comes action. Christians grow when they spend alot of time reading scriptures and in spiritual meditation, which is often acheived through structured study. Children have set daily routines to grow and learn discipline; even material-secularism gives us structure though the prevalent ideas of customisation and products to fill every need, the ideal advertisement-presented life involves gym, television, friday night socialisng, ipod on the tube, picking the kids up from school, yearly summer holidays…

As usual, it’s about balance: structure and space.

I’m seeing geometry where I previously saw just buildings, I’m seeing photography where I previously saw just streetlamps to light my way home, I’m seeing waves and oceans in the approaching rainclouds… In some ways this growth has made me more distanced from ‘reality’, I can feel further from the faces that walk past me, more detached from the cultural and political forces pressing upon me, distant from the motives I once had; but in other ways I am closer and more enveloped in what is going on around me than I have ever been, I feel close, involved in a near timeless sense with the omnipresent movement and flow constantly giving birth to life, beauty and death. It’s not as if I’ve found god, or found Gaia, it’s a change within myself rather than a change to the world around me, maybe even the cleansing of another set of doors of perception.

I don’t know whether the artist intended to write ‘looser’ or ‘loser’, but I like to imagine he or she spelt it that way on purpose, rather than it just being poor spelling (although this is entirely possible, the graffiti is from Lisbon, Portugal).

I have started dropping it into conversation now and then, if you say it fast enough people don’t catch the last word and it’s interesting to see the different responses you get, whether they interpret it as loser or looser; perhaps when it is ambiguous people are likely to hear the phrase which fits with the philosophy they believe, the christian hears loser, the ardent agnostic hears looser.

At different times in my life, or even from day to day, you could place me into either interpretation. Mostly I believe that you can be more ‘free’ without inflexible dogma, but I also believe in ‘cosmic-objective’ moral truth (as in good and evil are more than bio-evolutionary products); I believe in truth, but my idea of the nature of truth is flexible and constantly being knocked down and rebuilt. A good way to look at it could be “Without a truth you are the loser”, even if that truth is “there is no truth”; the place not to be is that of not caring or not thinking about truth.

As time goes on I find myself less attached to truths I once held dear, especially those of a political or philosophical nature; as I learn more I realise just how limited my knowledge is, I am infinitely ignorant. I have become less eager to subscribe to any ideology or movement or to place myself on the political compass because I don’t want to commit without enough information, but I will never possess enough information. This give me more freedom to criticise and to move between ideas, but also means that I have less constructive ideals of my own to share.

Many of the things I have pursued over the past few years have given me a lot; I’ve progressed far, learnt much, discovered new things. I don’t want to abandon ideas like philosophy and ethics that I have been passionately investigating, maybe just place these things on the back burner for a while as I pursue something new. It could be that what I find is a renewed passion for these same ideas, most likely I’ll never have a concrete new direction, I’ll just look back in a years time and say ‘Ah, that’s where you were headed then’.

On the other hand, I learnt about some amazing things that can be done. For example, we can manufacture passable man made ears, and before too long eyes as well. A scientist called Miguel Nicolelis has done some amazing experiments where a monkey was trained to move a robotic arm using thoughts alone. This involves implanting electrodes right into the brain, which obviously is going to be tricky and expensive to apply in humans; but there are also more limited examples of ‘thought control’ using non-invasive EEG (pads on the head) methods. This has obvious medical applications, such as re-routing thought impulses in paralysed people so they can regain control of their muscles, which is potentially fantastic; but on the other hand the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency have apparently already started looking into such brain-machine interfaces to make killing people even faster.

It all presents interesting ethical questions. Stem cells. Mind control. Mind-altering drugs. Military technology. When science and morality clash, who’s more powerful? Can the two be combined harmoniously? If we wanted to could we ever stop the juggernaut of scientific progression? After revealing so much knowledge and power, could science ultimately be the death of us?

What if all our goals are simulacra? Does this present any problem? Or even hold any relevance at all?

I think it’s important, especially for the agnostic, to be aware that everything around herself is in flux, isn’t constant, is (perhaps) simulacra. Things are slightly different for the theist, as they have god, a constant non-simulacrum (subjectively at least); she has an eternal, unchanging aim in life; not even just on a whole-life timescale, every action of the theist is directed towards god. Even if the manifestations of god can be interpreted as simulacra, there exists an eternal god figure transcendent of his “actions” who is a copy of nothing else (as the theist perceives him).

The agnostic might be able to obtain a similar eternal cosmic non-simulacrum goal as well. For example “The Good” as described by Plato in the metaphor of the sun, which is briefly outlined as follows.

The sun … not only furnishes to visibles the power of visibility but it also provides for their generation and growth and nurture though it is not itself generation. … In like manner, then … the objects of knowledge not only receive from the presence of the good their being known, but their very existence and essence is derived to them from it, though the good itself is not essence but still transcends essence in dignity and surpassing power. (509b)

Learn more about it here.

What he is getting at is that there is an eternal constant (The Good) divorced from sense perception that “shines” on objects of knowledge to give them existence, such that everything around us comes from the Good. So the good would not be a simulacrum, although it’s so abstract it’s pretty much in the “god sphere” of belief anyway.

As for the strict atheist naturalist, perhaps they could argue that everything is simulacra of everything, meaning that together all objects make up a unique whole…

Regardless, does it matter? Should we care if our lives have no eternal goal? No solid foundation? I’m comfortable in constant flux, comfortable with a non-eternal lifetime if that’s the way things turn out to be, I’m comfortable not knowing. I think it is entirely subjective. Some people need a firm goal, some people don’t; some people “naturally” have one (the “natural” theist), some people don’t.

A fantastic example of simulacra.

Perhaps the most powerful and obvious example of simulacra in our lives is that of “make-up”, in the widest possible sense of the word. To change your body and appearance to look like someone else who in turn is a copy, and a distorted copy at that, of someone else. It’s difficult to break down the motives for such self-manipulation; does the “right look” represent natural sexual attraction? Is it a indicator of wealth (much like an expensive car, the act of looking the part)? Perhaps it is for self-esteem, although that is undoubtedly woven into the other reasons, we can end up going in circles. An evolutionary reflex? A defense from criticism?

It seems as though everyone is pursuing some ideal or another, cosmetic change or purchasing choices are just two examples of the infinite number of decisions we can make to move ourselves in a certain direction, everyone is changing themselves to be more like someone or something else, towards an amalgamation of goals. Jesus and celebrities are two obvious “goals” that spring to mind, but there must be countless other far more subtle ideals, most, if not all of them simulacra in some sense. Consider the two examples above, Jesus is a simulacra through the bible, a copy of speech from an image of god; celebrities are simulacra in the cosmetic sense mentioned above and also through media representation which is a distorted image of a person who is presenting themselves in a certain way to begin with, as we all are.

What if my ideal is love, or wisdom, or some other abstract virtue? Again surely these are simulacra, perhaps even simulacra with no original form; what is love? what is wisdom? If we only know these things through their manifestations then they are ultimate simulacra.

What if my aim is to be like my father or mother? Then still that image isn’t unadulterated, my idea of father and mother is filtered through everything else I have seen and know about family relationships, my father becomes a simulacra of some cosmic father figure.

A perfect relationship? Copied from others, or constructed out of the errors of others.

The pioneering genius? Creating a pale reflection of the universe.

If everything we can become are simulacra, what does that make us now? Just a reflection of everything that has already come into contact with us?

Fantasy, fiction, fame. Progress. Simulacra.

It's something I've written briefly about before, but after being away and having lots of photos of my travels to look through it's a thought that has come back to me. I'm talking about photos in the snapshot sense, or perhaps in the  "holiday photos" sense, rather than the pictures you would find in a gallery. I know a lot of people really love photos, love having them about; they stick them up around their room, have photos of their friends as their PC wallpaper and use photos as a sorce of comfort and familiarity.

I can't do this. I find photographs immensely powerful, they either make me feel alienated from a situation in the past, or make me feel isolated in that past time whilst everyone else is in the present, it's like being alone on a separate but identical planet Earth stuck in that single moment. That makes it sound worse than it is, I don't think these feelings are really a bad thing, if nothing else they are powerful and refreshing, when I feel like I want an emotional "hit" so to speak I whip out the photo album (or open the photos folder on the PC) and have a browse through. I don't take many pictures myself but when I do it makes these feelings even stronger. It's not just pictures of people that make me feel this way, often landscapes can be even more powerful, especially if they are of a deserted mountain vista, or most magnificently of all if they are looking out over some expanse of water.

On the other hand a really great photo as a piece of art is one that really draws me in, that can give me the same depth of feeling (though not necessarily the same feelings) as a photo with the added weight of a personal memory attached to it. The wonderful thing about a photograph by somebody else is that can give me that powerful feeling but it's not tied to one particular time, one particular event, I can take it wherever I want, place myself into it in whatever way I wish. I personally find photography one of the most powerful art forms because of this, indeed a good chunk of my time on the Internet is spent browsing for brilliant pictures, brilliant wallpapers to fit my mood and my view on the things around me at any particular time.

What are photos? For me, either powerful relics of the past, or (good photos at least) a form of artistic expression on a par with music.

I've been reading some fiction lately, something I haven't done in a fair while, and it made me realise (again) how valuable fiction and the "non-knowledge-creating" arts are; this is probably part of the cause of this sensitive state of mind. I feel that sometimes I get so obsessed with learning and knowledge that I start to lose hold of the reason knowledge is valuable: as something to be used and applied in "living". I try and keep these things in balance; experience and contemplation, fact and fiction, thought and silence, listening and talking. All of them are useless without the other.

It was fantastic seeing some new and different cultures, looking at how different groups and nations organised things in different ways and comparing them to what I am used to. One particularly interesting comparison was how different countries treated the environment. For example in Germany they have recycling bins everywhere and lots of wind power plants, whilst in Austria there are a lot of solar panels on house roofs. It was also good to see how much people had in common, despite the barriers of language and history. People tended to speak English, but even when they didn't it was easier than I had expected to communicate.

I went to places of great history, like Rome and Paris, but I never really felt "in touch" with the past there. Perhaps it was the other tourists, perhaps the commercialisation, but standing in the Colosseum or walking round the Forum didn't instill in me much sense of what life would have been like for the ancient Roman in these places. I was expecting to learn lots about the history of the cities I visited, and perhaps I would have done if I had spent longer in each place, taken more time in the museums; but I found that the cities were more useful in placing and visualising history I had already learnt from books, rather than creating new knowledge.

One of the strongest desires I gained from the trip was to become fluent in another language. Currently I know a bit of German, and that's it; I really want to be able to think in another language to see what that feels like. Perhaps only knowing English puts a limit on what I am able to think, or at least what I am able to articulate. I'm pretty poor at learning languages, but hopefully over the next few years I'll be able to learn more and get some idea of how language effects thought.

I never felt as isolated as I expected to feel, on the long train journeys you are in carriages filled with other people, and the cities are (understandably) crammed with tourists. I think for my next journey I'll try and go out of season in order to better get an idea of the real nature of the places I visit. The trip helped me secure a sense of "home"; I don't think I could spend a long time travelling, one of the best things about being away is the feeling that at the end of the journey you will come back home to comfort and security.

I've not been on a trip like this before, so I'm both excited and anxious about what is ahead. It will undoubtedly bring a plethora of new sights and experiences; some good, some bad, but hopefully all beneficial. I'll let you know how I get on.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." ~ Mark Twain

 "When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego,
and when we escape like squirrels from turning in the cages of our personality
and get into the forest again,
we shall shiver with cold and fright
but things will happen to us
so that we don't know ourselves.

Cool, unlying life will rush in,…" ~ D.H. Lawrence

 "Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going. Travel is glamorous only in retrospect." ~ Paul Theroux

Silence,
Sound,
Serenity.

From abstract to emotion,
An idea in motion.

An image, a form,
An ocean, a storm.

A fire, a call,
A moment, a fall.

Lonely people, lonely time,
My memories which are not mine. 

The voice of god whispering in the darkness.

The power of life streaming through the body.

A time of love, a time of loss,
Now reborn; silent reform.

New memories sealed, forever frozen,
The new direction, constantly chosen.

The end,
Silence,
But the rhythm lingers on,
Rejoins the eternal one.

A few weeks ago I found some short video interviews with the physicist Richard Feynman on the BBC website. Feynman was a genius physicist, one of the most important of the twentieth century, but during the interview he is talking about how he always avoided the humanities at college, and throughout his life he had never really looked into other more humanity based subjects, preferring to focus purely on physics. He chose to dedicate himself to one specific task, broadening humanity's knowledge of science, at the expense of other knowledge. 

Is there anything wrong with focusing your life in one direction in this way?
Perhaps; although there is a magnificent romanticism about such dedication and obsession, besides no one is ever going to experience everything, we are all infinitely impoverished by what we can never know, so maybe it doesn't hurt to narrow down the scope a bit and really achieve something no human has ever achieved before in one particular field. For myself, the sacrifice is too great. Even if all I manage to think and feel throughout my life is a drop in the ocean I still want to see as much of it as I can, to dedicate myself to one thing now and then, but to always return to the surface to try and pull things back together. Can greatness be achieved either way? Maybe the greatest of humans are those who have the guts to sacrifice everything else to pursue the single ideal.

One of the first things that hit me was my lack of empathy, or perhaps more accurately the realisation of just how difficult it is to empathise with people. The all-consuming stress and workload of this time of year is something that always seems to take me by surprise, and now just a few days after my final exam I am already finding it difficult to evaluate how I felt just a week or two ago. When someone mentions to me that they have exams it's not a big deal, I forget the immense effort that revising entails, practically shutting down your life for a few weeks; if I can barely empathise with myself a week on, what chance do I have of understanding what someone else is going through?

This is just a specific example; I have realised that the difficulty of empathising applies to most everything. I can't really understand someones pain unless I am experiencing the same pain myself, I can't re-conjure any of the most intense feelings I have had in my own life, let alone understand what it must be like for someone else feeling them. There's a glimpse there, for sure, I understand what someone means when they say they are happy or sad, or in any other state of mind, but there is such a gulf between knowing and feeling, to understanding on an intellectual or even emotional level and placing yourself into the situation of the other person, to feel what they feel.

Can empathy be cultivated? I think so. I think the more time and effort you place into manufacturing a particular perspective in your own mind, the closer you are going to get to someone you are trying to communicate with who is in that situation. Having past experience is a massive help too, the closest you are going to get to real understanding is if you are going through the same thing at the same time; but even with the greatest possible effort, there's always going to be a gulf between any two people; the gulf of individuality, of personal perspective.

Perhaps not being able to empathise fully isn't such a bad thing, if we could understand what everyone else feels we would never need to venture outside our own mind, never have the satisfaction of really communicating and understanding someone else.

Back to normal next week.

Ask Philosophers
They have a "Question of the day" which is normally pretty interesting; there's a lot of good stuff in the archives too.

New Scientist - Last Word
A similar thing, but more science based; interesting questions about trivial things.

Allegory of the cave 

Imagine prisoners, who have been chained since birth deep inside a cave: not only are their limbs immobilized by the chains; their heads are chained as well, so that their gaze is fixed on a wall.

Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway, along which statues of various animals, plants, and other things are carried by people. The statues cast shadows on the wall, and the prisoners watch these shadows. When one of the statue-carriers speaks, an echo against the wall causes the prisoners to believe that the words come from the shadows.

The prisoners engage in what appears to us to be a game: naming the shapes as they come by. This, however, is the only reality that they know, even though they are seeing merely shadows of images. They are thus conditioned to judge the quality of one another by their skill in quickly naming the shapes and dislike those who begin to play poorly.

Suppose a prisoner is released and compelled to stand up and turn around. At that moment his eyes will be blinded by the firelight, and the shapes passing will appear less real than their shadows.

Similarly, if he is dragged up out of the cave into the sunlight, his eyes will be so blinded that he will not be able to see anything. At first, he will be able to see darker shapes such as shadows and, only later, brighter and brighter objects.

The last object he would be able to see is the sun, which, in time, he would learn to see as that object which provides the seasons and the courses of the year, presides over all things in the visible region, and is in some way the cause of all these things that he has seen.

Once enlightened, so to speak, the freed prisoner would not want to return to the cave to free "his fellow bondsmen," but would be compelled to do so. Another problem lies in the other prisoners not wanting to be freed: descending back into the cave would require that the freed prisoner's eyes adjust again, and for a time, he would be one of the ones identifying shapes on the wall. His eyes would be swamped by the darkness, and would take time to become acclimated. Therefore, he would not be able to identify shapes on the wall as well as the other prisoners, making it seem as if his being taken to the surface completely ruined his eyesight. (The Republic bk. VII, 516b-c; trans. Paul Shorey).

He then goes on to explain how this enlightened individual would be thought of as crazy, as he has such a different viewpoint now he has seen the bigger picture; but it is his responsibility to stay there in the darkness and lead the people in the cave to the truth, explaining how the philosopher should take this role in his Republic.

I think the freed man represents so many people, or at least many people believe they are the freed man. From religious people sharing their eternal truths, to politicians building societies from their enlightened ideals; academics publishing their discoveries to parents raising their children; philosophers (as in Plato's case) building ideas to editors writing papers. All these people have other motives as well, some of them probably more significant, but all of them share at least a spark of Plato's idea.

Everyone can gain some sort of enlightenment, maybe not to be a leader, maybe not to find the truth, but to have something to share no-one else has, an individual's unique perspective.

"Better to be the poor servant of a poor master, and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner"

This is one of my favourites:

and

"In a rare public appearance, photographer Gregory Colbert talks about the creation of his exhibit "Ashes and Snow." Colbert's work, which he calls "a 21st-century bestiary," captures the poetic beauty in our relationship to the animal kingdom. Colbert shows an 8-minute film, from the exhibit, of his epic swim with whales off the coast of the Azores."

You really need to experience these in motion to see why they are so special.

 

I'm going to be posting shorter updates until the end of May as I have a whole load of exams coming up. I'll mostly be sharing links to some of the sites and things I've found recently, just like this.

In The Trap he looks into ideas of social control, such as game theory, and how they have been applied by elites over the past thirty years or so; examining their practical implementation and subsequent economic and sociological effects. Game theory is a mathmatical model of decision making that was first applied on the political stage during the cold war to try and balance the superpowers to create an environment of safety in the west through rationality and fear; it is based on the idea that humans are ultimately self seeking individuals, out purely for their own good. He claims that this mistaken assumption has led to practical applications of the theory having dire consequences, citing examples from the 80s through to the present day.

He also explores the idea that there are two different types of freedom, as pioneered by Isaiah Berlin, these are defined through concepts of positive and negative liberty. The gist of it is that negative liberty is the freedom to be able to do what you want, to not be coerced against your will; whilst positive freedom allows the individual to "fulfill their potential". For example, positive freedom is often demonstrated through revolutions, like the Russian revolution, in which an individual or a group overthrows the establishment to make a new Utopian society through implementing a new social ideal; throughout history this process has often ended in disaster, primarily due to the corruption of the leaders once they get into power. Negative liberty is what we exercise today in the west, a concept of liberty that grew out of the "clash of ideals" during the cold war. Curtis looks into these two types of freedom and explains how he sees them implemented over the past few decades. Fantastic stuff.

Once when I was particularly ill with a fever I almost lost complete control over my mind, something like an hallucination. It didn't get to the point where I didn't know what was going on around me, but I couldn't command or focus on any thoughts, my mind was all over the place for a few hours until the fever passed. I just lay there waiting for it to stop, worried that I felt so ill, but never really doubting that after a certain amount of time my body would bring me back to normal. A fantastic, if not altogether pleasant experience.

When I think about it, It should be terrifying that my body, my state of mind, perhaps everything in my life can be taken away so easily, so quickly. Everything, based on such delicate foundations. Maybe that is part of what makes life so precious?

Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world. In our endeavor to understand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears its ticking, but he has no way of opening the case. If he is ingenious he may form some picture of a mechanism which could be responsible for all the things he observes, but he may never be quite sure his picture is the only one which could explain his observations. He will never be able to compare his picture with the real mechanism and he cannot even imagine the possibility or the meaning of such a comparison. - Einstein

I have been reading a lot of Physics recently; learning about relativity, quantum theory, time, matter and everything else that is tied in with them. It's really opened up my eyes to a whole new world of knowledge; I've always had a healthy interest in science, but once you get deep into the workings of modern physics there are theories and ideas that just seem crazy from an undeveloped common sense point of view. This has really consumed my thinking over the past few weeks, I'm developing this whole new level of ideas of an almost mystic quality, which is fantastic.

I've always been anti-scientism, in the sense that I think a lot of existence will never be understood through scientific means, and that I believe the essence of our being is outside the material "sense world". I don't really have any logical reason to think this, and that's kind of the point, it's not logical, it's not scientific. Perhaps it's just my romantic view of god/the universe that causes me to want to feel a connection to something eternal, timeless and infinite. It's probably best explained in that feeling of awe you get when you look at a picture of a supernova, or a galaxy, or just a picture of space; the immensity and depth of it makes my mind run wild with the potential and possibility of the unknown.

This doesn't mean I deny the claims of science, not at all, It's fantastic to find out about everything science has discovered, a feeling which is enhanced by the fantastic theories of modern physics. I just like to keep in mind the fact that all we know is a tiny glimpse of reality, a magnificent achievement for humanity but near-nothing compared to what we don't understand, and that mystery of the unknown is the most magnificent thing of all (even if, like Einstein, you believe everything has an underlying structure).

I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence — as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature. - Einstein (again)

This is the time of the year when I feel closest to nature, there is so much around me that I can sympathise and empathise with. From the young plants who have sprouted too early (due to the warm winter), and paid the price, to the magnificent old trees, having passed through another year on their long, slow, journey. The young animals are preparing to have their first taste of life, with so much promise and so much possibility, while many adults are beginning the risky and fragile parenting process. The is so much to juxtapose, so much change, so much life.

I'm excited at the prospect of summer, by this time in the winter, even though it has been incredibly mild this year, I'm just waiting for the summer around the corner; I always have a romantic view of the seasons, but far more so when I am in the opposite season and I can take an unrealistic idealised view of what lies ahead. It's times like this when I get the urge to buy a camera…

It centres around Antoine Roquentin who is writing a book about some 18th century historical character, he seems to have enough income to not need to get a proper job so he just hangs around in cafés and goes to the library every day to write his book. You get the impression he hasn't really spoken to anyone in months, if not years; he says himself:

When you live alone you no longer know what it is to tell a story: the plausible disappears at the same time as the friends. You let events flow by too: you suddenly see people appear who speak and then go away; you plunge into stories of which you can't make head or tail: you'd make a terrible witness.

The book orbits around him, as a recluse, coming to a revelation about his life and existence, giving a "real-life" outworking of Sartre's own existential philosophy. The weight of his experience, described in magnificent detail, just blew me away; Sartre really gets into Antoine's head and brings out a whole load of things I had never properly thought about. I can't say I followed his feelings all the way through, I found myself getting more distant from him as the book went on, but I definitely caught a glimpse of what might possibly be going on in the back of my head behind my thoughts.

Here's an example of one of his descriptions, as Antoine is sitting in a café listening to the music:

For the moment, the jazz is playing; there is no melody, just notes, a myriad tiny tremors. The notes know no rest, an inflexible order gives birth to them then destroys them, without ever leaving them the chance to recuperate and exist for themselves…. I would like to hold them back, but I know that, if I succeeded in stopping one, there would only remain in may hand a corrupt and languishing sound. I must accept their death; I must even want that death: I know of few more bitter or intense impressions.

With people of only moderate ability modesty is mere honesty; but with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy. - Arthur Schopenhauer

Modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a confession of the deficiency it indicates. He who undervalues himself is justly overvalued by others. - William Hazlitt

I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm. - Jean-Paul Sartre

And for a bit of balance:

Modesty is the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it. - Oliver Herford

Modesty: The art of encouraging people to find out for themselves how wonderful you are. - Unknown

First I want to define modesty in order to make it clear what I am talking about. I am taking about modesty as the act of deliberately hiding some talent, knowledge or ability; the act of pretending you know less than you do, or are not as good at something as you are. 

I've always felt modesty, in most contexts, was a false virtue, although I've been quite worried that this makes me an elitist git. The the more I think about it, however, the more it makes sense; modesty is simply a form of dishonesty.

Take for example the last quote above. Avoiding an argument over the value of people regarding you as "wonderful", how is anyone ever going to find out you are wonderful if you are constantly modest? If I am modest in everything I do then surely I can only be great when no-one is watching, so the only way anyone is ever going to discover a particular talent I have is if I let my modesty slip in public. Herford's claim isn't really modesty at all, it is calculated pride. Even if he pretends not to realise his charm, he is nonetheless demonstrating it deliberately which is immodest in itself.

Schopenhauer has missed the point, anyone with at least a single talent can still be modest and in the process be dishonest. Sartre has his finger on the pulse here; I can see how humility has great worth, the idea of pure honesty about one's talents and failures, the middle way between arrogance and modesty.

I'm amazed at people who can churn out quality posts and podcasts every day, or sometimes even a few times a day. Perhaps after a while you get into a rhythm and get better at grabbing hold of you thoughts and articulating them. However, the reason I only update once a week (aside from not having enough material) is that I don't want to get to the stage where I start interpreting my experiences in the context of the site, saying "oh, I'll write about this later on", and end up missing out on the event itself.

I'm often torn between the value of unadulterated experience and the value of articulating events in some form, specifically that of prose. I think writing about an experience can help you understand it and also provide others with ideas (what would I do without great fiction to fuel my mind?), however this can also sterilise the pure feeling, the essence of the experience itself, by pinning it down and weaving it into language you are limiting it and freezing it in time. Things are slightly different in the visual arts, and even poetry, as the idea can take on a new life of it's own in the art piece, allowing you to articulate your own experience and create a legion of new experiences for those who come into contact with your piece. Oh, to have the gift of a great artist…

So I turned up not really knowing what to expect, I had seen the trailer and justifiably assumed it would bear little resemblance to the actual substance of the film (time travel? right.). I was blown away, this is truly the greatest film I have seen in a very long time; afterwards I felt as though a wave had washed over me, my mind buzzing and spinning with the depth of the experience, the new ideas it had awoken inside of me. The film takes the single event of a death and zooms in on it to such a point that it turns into a whole lifetime, a whole age of evolution. I can't recall any other film I have seen that has adopted this viewpoint, The Hours has a similar central theme, but doesn't delve into the pure emotion and humanity of the experience, or expand it out in the way The Fountain does.

The majestic score is provided by Mogwai and Clint Mansell (who scored Aronofsky's other two films) and really breathes a whole new dimension into the pictures. The whole film has a beautiful, rich, golden, organic feel to it which is sometimes complemented by full orchestration and at other times juxtaposed with distortion-filled electronica. Particularly of note is the final credits music which is incredibly sensitive to your feeling at the end of the movie and really pins you to your seat allowing you to meditate over the events of the film.

It is more "arty" and more directly philosophical than his other two films, and isn't going to be for everyone (as the reviews have shown), but if you come at it from the right place then it has the potential to really flourish.

The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence.

I am really feeling at the moment, my music, old and new, has more power to flow through me and spin me round than it has done in a long while. Music is the one art form that can take a hold of me when I least expect it, rather than requiring me to put in the effort. Other people have said what I am trying to say more eloquently:

"I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music. " George Eliot

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." Aldous Huxley

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."  Victor Hugo

Awesome.

I had felt recently that everything has been flat, like my senses and actions have been dulled, but now colour is flowing back into my world and everything has become beautiful and fascinating again, rather than cold and frustrating. I'm unearthing new ideas everywhere and they are flying through my mind like fireworks, hopefully this is the beginning of some new path to places I haven't been before. Perhaps though, this is just transient and I'll be back to cynicism within a few days; we'll see.

It didn't go quite how I expected. First off, I have very little body fat, and having never done this before I got hungry pretty fast, although after a few hours I got used to the idea of not eating even though I was hungry, I became aware and overcame a reflex to eat that I had not really realised I had before. I started after lunchtime, so by the time I was going to sleep I had only missed tea, and didn't have much trouble nodding off. However, when I got up in the morning I felt fairly bad after a few hours and was thankful to be able to get a big late-lunch. I was somewhat disappointed with how well my body dealt with its ordeal, I felt tired for the rest of the day, and I would probably have been feeling quite ill if I had tried to do more than 24 hours; that will take some working up to.

From a non-physical perspective I didn't accomplish half as much as I was hoping to. The hunger was more an annoyance than something I could tap into to focus my mind, and when I tried to meditate I found my mind flying all over the shop like normal. I have tinnitus (a constant ringing in my ears) which, as well as my active mind, has meant all my efforts to get into regular meditation have failed pretty miserably. My mind didn't seem to develop the command over my body I was hoping for, I found the best way to avoid the hunger was just to keep busy, rather than forcing my body to accept it's new environment, perhaps that is something that will only come with more regular fasting. I didn't find much stillness either, if anything things sped up and became more twitchy and erratic; my senses seemed blunted and I couldn't bring my thoughts into focus as easily as normal.

Nevertheless, I think it was a valuable experience. I am planning on trying again when I next have a few days with nothing going on, maybe try 48 hours next. I am also planning on doing a see-how-long-I-can-stay-awake at some point, maybe that will bear slightly more exciting results.

This is having a massive effect on me, the most obvious of which is frustration. The main reason I have kept away from these topics in the past is because of the frustration and despair I knew I would feel from finding out about these things. It is true that as you learn more, you have more to (potentially) make you miserable, however I think it is far more important for me to be performing what I feel is my social responsibility (for want of a better phrase) than building my own personal happiness. Noam Chomsky in this interview manages to reconcile all his knowledge about the horrors of (certain aspects of) US foreign policy with an enthusiastic optimism that democracy and the general public are going to solve these problems; that the western propaganda system is already starting to fall apart. I admire (and am encouraged by) his optimism, but I find it so hard to see all the problems in the world that are maintained by mass apathy ever being solved through anything short of a psychological revolution.

I'm still glad I have started on this path though, however much anger and frustration it brings me I know it is the right thing to do, and hopefully the work I have ahead of me will have some fruit in the future. I'm planning to keep this site fairly separate from any politics, that isn't really my image of what thesimulacra.net is about, but I feel I need to communicate some of this feeling as it is making up a greater and greater part of myself. Here's a few links in case you are interested in what I have been looking into, but aside from these there won't be too much direct political discussion on the site:

The Power of Nightmares
Why We Fight
The Mayfair Set
Manufacturing Consent

http://www.caat.org.uk/
http://www.democracynow.org/
http://www.cnduk.org/
http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/
http://www.amnesty.org/
http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/
http://www.worldchanging.com/
http://www.controlarms.org/​

This time it seems to have come out of recent conversations I have had and a rapid change of location, spiritual awareness and a half-forgotten past recapturing me somewhat. The way I think and feel is all over the shop, at the moment I feel as though everything is up in the air, waiting to fall back to earth into the ever-moulding, ever-flowing mass that is myself. It's somewhat terrifying, as I have no idea where or when I am going to land again, but also incredibly exciting, as I know that a whole new world is in the process of opening up to me. It feels as though a giant new space is opening in the back of my mind, ready for me to explore and fill with new things that wouldn't fit into my head before, like an ideas explosion has blown a hole in the wall of my head. I know that in the past these events have had an impact on me like nothing else, so I'm looking forward to seeing where I end up.

I love this season where I can really feel detached from what’s going on around me, if only for a short time; a time to really look at myself and invest time and effort into the relationships and personal things that are really important to me. There’s nothing quite like the ideal (that is never quite realised) of sitting around the fire with those you love and rebuilding the relationships that may have withered somewhat over the last 12 months or so. In these long nights it feels as though time slows right down, especially when the days are short and grey like they are at the moment, meaning everything just blends together into one long evening.

After an incredibly busy autumn I feel I can rest for a week or two; I am able to look back over the path I have taken this year and think about which direction I want to head off in now. So much has changed in these last few months, and I’m sure the months ahead will bring even more exciting new experiences.

When I'm in the country I feel part of the natural world; I feel as though I am living amongst the trees and the animals, a member of the community of "life", wandering through an everlasting ever-changing natural world. I almost feel like a visitor, or a nomad, passing through the territory of the plants and animals (or the fields at least). I can see the stars move above me, the ground alive beneath me. From this extreme I head back to the town, where I have spent most of my life.

From here I can see green hills on the horizon, and when I walk up to them I can see the town below me in the valley. It looks as though it has taken control of it's land, but I can still see the fields and trees surrounding it, almost observing the town and its inhabitants, aware that one day these squatters will pass on and it will take control again. Here Nature always feels as though it is in control.

In a city this all changes. As I walk through the centre of London everything I see is man made. Even the parks and trees and developed and managed by humans, the squirrels and pigeons are there by our grace alone. Instead of feeling a member of Nature, I feel a member of Humanity. I feel as though I am in a human world, part of the human race and all that that entails. At night, I don't imagine the trees gently swaying, I imagine the cars, and the people on the streets, the buildings and the shops, all alive, prowling or sleeping. I feel safe (from nature at least), as though this land has been conquered by humanity, and nature is only allowed in with our consent.

I had never really appreciated this difference before I spent a significant time in a city. I imagine that if I lived in an urban area for an extended period of time this would have a massive effect on me, and how I view what is going on in the world, especially with regards to nature. I am glad that I have grown up in the semi-country; it has given me a better understanding of our position in the grand scheme of things, and helped me appreciate more why it is important that we preserve the natural environment that is around us.