Years ago, a teacher offered me the following universal adage. He who, he who, He who, he who.
I have never been the same since. It's nothing if not asinine. N On Tue, Aug 13, 2024 at 1:21 PM Marcus Daniels <mar...@snoutfarm.com> wrote: > There's a large dog park where I walk my dog most every day. One of the > minor downsides of this park is that there are these geezers there that sit > on the park benches and rant about various things. Their dogs are puzzled > because all the other dogs get walks, but they are expected to sit there > with their diminished owners. One of them is a RFKjr advocate. Another > is a Trump guy. I try as I hard as I can to avoid talking to them, but > others get drawn in. It's occurred to me that it wouldn't take much for a > guy like that to take a tumble into the water, especially if it were dark > on a Friday evening. That would really improve my walk with Abby. > Luckily, she's deaf and doesn't have to hear it. > > No, I don't get it. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of glen > Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2024 10:07 AM > To: friam@redfish.com > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] When are telic attributions appropriate in physical > descriptions? > > Dude. OK. The Angels becoming Demons isn't a duality, at least in my > intent raising it, here. Our want to, desire for, *fascination* is both > good and bad and good and bad aren't duals. Regarless, even if you want > them to be duals, that's fine. The point I'm making is that this trait of > ours, the desire to be fascinated/ecstatic is hallmark/canonical. Only > those of us hopped up on mediTation or drugs that blunt emotions exhibit a > reduced desire for things like profundity, awe, ecstasy, etc. It reminds me > of the book "To Engineer is Human" ... but I'd generalize and say that it's > fundamental to biology for organisms to seek ecstatic states ... the > oneness of the universe, the dissolution of the self, etc. > > But this desire for beauty, to escape our selves, IS the problem as much > as it is the solution. That's what I mean by Angels and Demons. Also > "bullshit" is fairly well defined. It's an artificial/false construct > constructed without regard to the Truth (where "Truth" might mean any > number of shared values, accuracy, usefulness, etc.). This means that > bullshit can accidentally be true, but never True. > > I don't know how much time y'all spend talking to, say, QAnon believers > ... or back in the day those who yapped about Bilderberg, the Illuminati, > speaking in tongues, or whatever. But, for me, the enthusiasm and ecstasy > they exuded was infectious. Even as several of my homunculi knew it was > bullshit-begetting, it was downright fun; not so harmless as the mob > behavior of a rave, but still fun. I sought (still do to some extent) it > relentlessly. It's a miracle of happenstance (or genetics?) I was never > engulfed by it. I still do, at least when it's not merely lazy. In order > for me to feel it, there has to be some *deep* bullshit ... you have to be > able to get lost in the bullshit. If you hit clay or sand in the first hour > or so, then it's just not that beautiful ... It has to be like String > Theory deep. Now that's far out, man. > > > On 8/13/24 09:19, steve smith wrote: > > Ideaphoria as part of an annealing schedule perhaps? > > > > > > A possibly self-referential example of what we are speaking of follows, > as triggered by the topic and substance itself: > > > > On he angel-demon duality... > > > > Escher's famous hyperbolic tesselation on the same subject reminds me a > bit of rayleigh-bernard convection cells? I haven't seen (but may have > imagined?) the kind of convection/involution patterns we see in the classic > demonstrations in the context of the churn of good vs evil, and the the > foreground/background exchange? > > > > As Dennis Miller used to smirk at the beginning of his "don't let me get > off on a rant here"... > > > > I'm honestly trying to explore this "riff" as an example of what I think > you are speaking of? We were talking about the generality of "profundity > as a breeding ground/enabler/masker" for "bullshit" (not precisely defined, > but we probably all share an intuition of the 'know it when i see it' > style?). > > > > Your mentioning of the Angel-Demon duality triggered in my (too near the > edge of chaos?) fecund (fertile/feral?) mind and Escher's image overlayed > with R-B convection cells roiling (my first experience was in metallic > model airplane paints when disturbed and left open to evaporate? would roil > until the metal particles settled to the bottom?). Without trying (but > perhaps being compelled by an inner nature or drive, possibly what you > refer to as the "orgasmic feeling" of "paradox or sophism") I found myself > tangenting (as explored above) on the Angel-Demon implications of good/evil > and the way one might be the fuel for the other and vice-versa. > > > > Having veered from the original question of Telic and perhaps Teleonomic > (applied recursively to the RB-convection phenomenon) I would sit and stare > (inadvertantly huffing the volatiles?) at the roiling cells in the > model-airplane paint with a fascination as to whether there was intention > or goal or purpose in that activity? I did not know much of any of the > technical details of these things and while I had been instructed by elders > in no uncertain terms not to impute either perpetual motion nor animism > into such things, it was hard not to be deeply fascinated by said > roiling. I don't know that I as the R-B cells in Escher's image the first > time I saw it, but probably not long afterwards. > > > > This is the type of tangent I often delete, understanding it might well > be taken to be deliberate bullshit generation (disguised as profundity)? > My threshold for <delete before sending> varies. I haven't been on any > pain meds beyond acetominophen since my (first) hip replacement a week ago, > but the strange euphoria residue from the dissociative sedative (ketamine?) > used during the extremely precise/surgical yet nevertheless invasive > surgery, and the whole new suite of pains emanating from the hips and the > introspective consequences are quite mind-bending. As we know, I don't > need this kind of (mild?) altered state to wax "profound", but it does > change it qualitatively (from the inside) a bit... > > > > On 8/13/24 9:05 AM, glen wrote: > >> It's reasonable to ask what proportion of profundity is a cover for > something versus a marker for something. I still tend to give people the > benefit of the doubt. So when I see either something that seems profound > (to me) or others saying or acting as if something's profound, it's a > marker for my or their confusion, respectively. While it may be true that > there are grifters out there who sow profundity, purposefully, in order to > mask their rational plans, that sounds conspiritorial to me. A good edge > case might be Elizabeth Holmes. To what extent did she know her claims were > bullshit? Or to what extent did she convince herself that her bullshit was > true/useful? > >> > >> Regardless of the proportions, the grifters don't breed bullshit so > much. They prop it up artificially. Bullshit begetting more bullshit (i.e. > breeding) has another home. I grant that it may not be profundity, > directly. Maybe it's the confusion underlying the profundity. But the > reason I think it's more the profundity is because the people I see who are > most guilty of it are attracted by the "awe" or the "beauty" of some thing. > They *want* to get stoned on some aesthetic, whatever it is ... carried > away, ecstatic, blissful, etc. Like a paradox or sophism, there's a kind of > orgasmic feeling to profound things ... "like. whoa, man." > >> > >> And *that's* the breeding ground, where Angels become Demons. > >> > >> On 8/8/24 11:03, steve smith wrote: > >>> > >>>> Maybe. I'm not convinced. Profundity is THE breeding ground for > bullshit. > >>> I'm more inclined (in the context of my own profundity or perhaps more > aptly prolificness or prolixity) to suggest that it is more of a mask (and > therefore enabler?) of bullshit than a breeding ground. Could be a fine > hair I suppose. > >> > > > -- > ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ > > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > -- Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology Clark University
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