November 02, 2003
Mountains
While reading Mountains of the Mind, a book by Robert Macfarlane that attempts to explain why mountains are special, I dropped in little pieces of paper whenever I stumbled across an especially salient bit. It's been several weeks since I finished the book, but those marks are still there. I'll now attempt to remember what I marked and why. (1OW)
Yet, despite these multiple discomforts, Burnet is happy. For here, among the mountains, he has discovered somewhere utterly unlike anywhere else: a place that has for the instant stalled his powers of comparison (23). (1OY)
Yes. (1OZ)
The mountains, the desert, the oceans, the other, the alien; that which is not in the backyard has the power to halt, if only briefly, our thinking, our power to compare, our only real power. We are left with pure sensing. This is the ecstasy of erasure; the knowing it's all really very big out there. And we, tiny and mortal, are able to see it and see it as new. (1P0)
Yet, there is is also something curiously exhilarating about the contemplation of deep time. True, you learn yourself to be a blip in the larger projects of the universe. But you are also rewarded with the realization that you do exist -- as unlikely as it may seem, you do exist (44). (1P2)
In high school I found myself for reasons unclear now and then at a weekend retreat with the church youthgroup attended by some friends. Freaked out by all the (I now know to be quite lightweight and entirely not strident, in comparison) church going on around me I retreated at night to an open field. There, lying on my back, I stared up into the stars and watched what was revealed. As I looked, more arrived. As they impressed their millions upon me I receded from that moment in time, that place in space, and was unable to find myself. Disconnected I wandered, lost, around a nearby lake until I stumbled back into the retreat where friends and church officials expressed concern that I might kill myself. I was not suicidal, but I was care free: I was but one small mote of dust, how could I possibly matter? How could I possibly be arrogant enough to choose to matter? (1P3)
Yet here I am, still. (1P4)
The mountain-top became a ubiquitous symbol of emancipation for the city-bound spirit, a crystallization of the Romantic-pastoral desire to escape the atomized, socially dissolute city. You could be lonely in a city crowd, but you could find solitude on a mountain top. (1P5)
I wandered lonely through the tunnels of the metro in Paris; along the streets of Munich, Copenhagen and Amsterdam; over the legs of the homeless and puking on Seattle's Broadway. But I sat alone at peace by the Pacific; in the shadow of Denali; above the White Horse on the Ridgeway; by the tall trees near my home. (1P6)
The mountains tell no lies, they are alien without excuse. The people, wandering in their streets, they are you and me, and we, together, make me and you aliens. (1P7)
Experience was unpredictable, more immediate and more authentic in the mountains. The upper world was an environment which affected both the mind and the body in ways the cities or the plains never did -- in the mountains, you were a different you (213). (1P8)
The mountains are pornography. They are illicit sex. They are the chaotic spirit that breeds religions, ruined by codification. People go to the mountains for the same reasons they might seek a pro-dom: alter my perceptions, of the world, of me; push my edges. (1P9)
The mountains describe a giant piece of space and time. The closer you get, the described edge pushes into you, opening up a little space and time within. (1PA)
October 31, 2003
Perspective
There's a nice line in Quicksilver: (1OS)
Paris was a city of stone, the color of bone, beautiful and hard--you could dash yourself against it and never leave a mark. It was built, so far as Jack could tell, on the principle that there was nothing you couldn't accomplish if you crowded a few tens of millions of peasants together on the best land in the world and then never stopped raping their brains out for a thousand years. (1OT)
Things have obviously improved a great deal since then but has the model really changed? These days most, or at least many, folk work so the owners can get rich and it's done with such indirection that it's near impossible to point a legitimate finger of accusation. (1OU)
Or if you can't stand such sweeping generalities, watch La Haine for a it-hasn't-changed-that-much view of Paris. And a damn fine movie to boot. (1OV)
October 21, 2003
Quicksilver
While reading Quicksilver it occurs to me that it ought to be required reading for InformationScience? programs. Nary a chapter goes by without some sideways reference to the importance and difficulties of information representation. (OX)
Reviews at amazon are at the extremes: some people praise it for its wondeful self indulgent luxury while others rant about the apparent lack of plot. (OY)
I'm willing to forgive the lack of immediate action: the book demonstrates, through interesting tales, whence modern thought comes. (OZ)
That's an accomplishment worth a read. (P0)
(Unfortunately the crucial (as in it's the crux of the biscuit) value of information representation was under represented in my InformationScience? education. I had to plumb it out myself, which tends me towards zealotry.) (P1)
July 22, 2003
Serendipitous Epiphytal Being
Traditionally, when reading a book, if I encounter a word for which I don't have a full grasp of its connotative spectrum I take a best guess and move on. (0001DF)
I'm in the midst of reading Edward Wilson's The Future of Life. At times Wilson writes with such grace that I've been driven to the dictionary (OED) when I've stumbled. I don't want to be a bad dance partner. (0001DG)
- Disguised briefly with the voice of an optimistic economist, Wilson speaks of humanity's evolution to a more "irenic international culture". (0001DH)
- Further in, the end of the battle between market and natural economies is a "Cadmean victory" unless changes are made. (0001DI)
- "Epiphytes" in chunks of Amazonian forests separated by clear cutting and burning suffer from the drying effects of winds once buffered by the trees. They themselves help manage moisture, locally. (0001DJ)
I looked these up as they happened. (0001DK)
My first reaction to this was, "yeah, right, whatever": any pretensions the international economic community has toward peace create an unstable veneer maintained in the pursuit of profit, easily broken. Humans fight because it is good for breeding (Wilson goes on to suggest this, in a later chapter). (0001DN)
- Cadmean victory (0001DO)
- a prryhic victory (won at too great a cost to be of use to the victor). (0001DP)
My negativity blossomed at this stage. I thought of god-fearing politicians, burning away the present day in pursuit of greatness with nary a concern for the future, secure in their knowledge of the second coming and the termination of this time ("EschatonsRUs?"). (0001DQ)
And then this. The meaning of epiphyte was unknown to me. I read the definition and felt warm and fuzzy again: the network of connotations, moving with the metaphors of these three words had come into harmony. (0001DT)
To avoid the Cadmean victory and reach a greater good, to be irenic in our doings and our beings we can remember that we all can be epiphytes: growing on one another, present but not parasitic. Epiphytes the whole way down, but also the whole way up. I'm on you and you're on me. Somewhere in the cycle we connect with one another and we connect with everything else. (0001DU)
I've trackbacked this posting to Eric quoting me because this everybody's an epiphyte world view is the source of statements such as the one he quotes: (0001DV)
Transcluding is a good tool in the process of presenting thesis and antithesis, but at some point we want to crystallize out the synthesis. (0001DW)
Knowledge is the result of a collaborative dialectic dance. Sometimes we collaborate directly with others, sometimes we do it apparently alone, but always we do it in a network of many things: each thing presenting its own thesis, our many reactions a multitude of antitheses. (0001DX)
Just as we go to parks to see the epiphytes and other wonders of nature to be informed and enlivened, so too we go to people and their artifacts. And we protect, preserve and make accessible. (0001DY)
May 06, 2003
Weird Economy
I've started doing my part to help the economy by doing my short story reading at Borders. (0000IN)
If a collection has about twenty short stories and costs around seven dollars to take home but I sit down to read one and only one chapter with one double soy latte at $3.71 per sitting (including tax), after a few hundred years I should have fixed things up nicely. (0000IO)
I reckon I shouldn't have to pay sales tax as I'm providing a charitable service. (0000IP)
Current reading at Borders is The Martians by Kim Stanley Robinson. If you liked the Mars trilogy a great deal (I did) you'll probably like at least some of these stories. If you think Robinson is a windbag (some do, with good reason) pass on this one. (0000IQ)
February 19, 2003
The Golden Rule
In what I'm hoping is going to be something of a trend, the introduction to the Analects identifies the central goal of a person as being moral. The essential aspect of being moral is manifesting benevolence. The essential nature of benevolence is encapsulated in the following: (00008Y)
Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire. (XII.2) (00008Z)
TheGoldenRule. It's central to many faiths. It's nice. (000090)
Is there a similar rule: we do that which has been done to us? Eye for an eye is a manifestation of that? (000091)
I have a deep-seated bias that institutionalized authority is eminently capable of eye for an eye and not so good with the golden rule. I'm also aware that that bias is at least in part the result of me doing what has been done to me: Judge first, ask questions later. (000092)
Maybe while I'm reading the Dhammapada there will be some suggestions on how to break free from the endless cycle of hypocrisy that colors life. (000093)
Do not want. Do not do. Only be. (000094)
Tonight's reading will be in the Koran. (000095)
February 18, 2003
Gettin' Religion
I've been meaning to do this for quite some time. I just finished He, She and It so it is time to start something else. (00007P)
I've cruised my bookshelves and found a selection of religious texts. Most of these are from classes I took in college, some I've glanced at, some I've spent considerable time with, most did not get the attention they deserved. Now seems like a good time to give them another chance. All at once. (00007Q)
These don't intentionally reflect a bias. These are just the books I happen to have on the shelf; books I was assigned to buy or were left here by others. I plan to read a bit of one, then another. These are they: (00007R)
- Confucius: The Analects (00007S)
- The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (00007T)
- Hindu Scriptures (00007U)
- Tao Te Ching (00007V)
- The New Oxford Annotated Bible (00007W)
- Science and Health: With Key to the Scriptures (00007X)
- The Dhammapada (00007Y)
I don't believe in a personified god. Nor do I believe in any force separate from us that controls the fates. I do believe, however, that we (the people, the animals, the plants, the stars, the flowers, the kitties, the winds, the past, the present) are all pushing time forward to create the future. Collectively we are determining our own fate. I do think it is something akin to magic, I don't think it can be explained, and I don't want to. I can't be in Sifter and I like it that way. (00007Z)
Because we create our own fate, we are responsible, individually and together for what happens. If, for example, we collectively insist that our leaders should be cock sparring overgrown frat boys, that's what we'll get. (000080)
The books above are some collected wisdom that some people use to shape some of their lives. That makes them instructive, to me, on what makes the world go round. Even though I don't want to explain everything down to the last detail I do still want to participate in the majestic unfolding of understanding that comes from simply being in the game. (000081)
Unfortunately, the weight of the past is heavy. Would that we could simply wish a new world. Maybe we can start with the hope. (000082)
February 17, 2003
Conscious Creations
I've finished He, She and It. At the end the cyborg, Yod, is sent by his creator as a suicide weapon. Yod, who has become a person, is not keen on this but cannot reject his programming. So when he blows up he also blows up his creator and the lab that contains the record of his creation. (00007L)
Malkah, the old and wise but sexy grandmother figure says to Nili, an augmented human: (00007M)
Yod was a mistake. You're the right path, Nili. It's better to make people into partial machines than to create machines that feel and yet are still controlled like cleaning robots. The creation of a conscious being as any kind of tool--supposed to exist only to fill our needs--is a disaster. (00007N)
I'm undecided about the value of surgical augmentation but I think the differences between and issues related to Nili and Yod are similar to those seen between Engelbart and Licklider that we discussed in augury last year. (00007O)
