In the words of Damien Rice: 'So Here It Is'....

More fauxetry for all four of you. It is an incomplete work so (feign caring) check back to see its evolution.

I will not love you only for your body
I will not love you only for parts of your body
I will not love you only for access to your body
I will not love you only for your mind
I will not love you only for parts of your mind
I will not love you only for access to your mind
I will not love you only for what you think of me
I will not love you only for what I think of you
I will not love you only for what others think of us
I will not love you only for what others don't realize in us
I will not love you only for what has happened
I will not love you only for what I want to happen
I will not love you only for what I hope will happen
I will not love you only for what I treasure that has already happened
I will not love you only for what can never happen
I will not love you only for what will never happen
I will not love you only for what has never happened
I will not love you only for what has yet to happen
I will not love you only for what I can make you be
I will not love you only for what you can make me be
I will not love you only for what we can make others be
I will not love you only for what we can make the world be
I will not love you only for your potential
I will not love you only for our shared potential
I will not love you only for yor existence
I will not love you only for your presence in my life
I will not love you only for how you can complete my life
I will not love you only for your gaze
I will not love you only for those moments when we are the only two in the world
I will not love you only for how you look at me the way only you do
I will not love you only for how comfortable we may be together
I will not love you only for how good we are together
I will not love you only for what you say
I will not love you only for when we are silent together
I will not love you only for our shared interests
I will not love you only for our diametric oppositions
I will not love you only for our shared experiences
I will not love you only for our similar experiences
I will not love you only for our parallel lives
I will not love you only for our parallel dreams
I will not love you only for our shared virility
I will not love you only for our shared vividness
I will not love you only for your tastes
I will not love you only for your lack of taste
I will not love you only for your talents
I will not love you only for how you perceive
I will not love you only for how you say what you say
I will not love you only for your misperceptions
I will not love you only for your adorable imperfections
I will not love you only for your abhorable imperfections
I will not love you only for your silly understatements
I will not love you only for your grave misunderstandings
I will not love you only for your mistranslations
I will not love you only for your perfect synchronicities
I will not love you only for your perfection
I will not love you only for your imperfection
I will only love you because I love all of you, regardless, and that is more proof of love than you will ever get anywhere else. And that is proof of love in its purest, simplest form. The only form in which it lasts eternally, all else is naive bullshit and/or attempted-panty-dropping buncombe.
But when I pose the question: Will you choose ghost or will you choose life? You will choose death.
And when I pose the question: Will you choose him or will you choose me? You will choose him.
It is because you have a deathwish and do not want life; the life that I would bring you. You will suffer all your days and I tried...

Mot Juste in Fauxetry

I went down to the studio today (my third place as the textbooks would call it now) to do some mental health improv shredding in the key of A and found this while leafing through a notebook of music I've been working on for an upcoming album over the last few months.

Still working on further actual posts in re of whole brain thinking, priming, mental clarity, and the new concepts subprogramming and the fallacy of (mis)scaling. Keep an eye out, but don't hold your breath either.

Enjoy my rambling poetry (or as I call it, fauxetry).

cheers.

Mot Juste

Eldritch ether of my childhood waking dreams

On the outer lip of sleep’s spiral-funnel-abyss

Of non-, un-, meta-, sub-, supra-consciousness

Of the ages since the dawn of man

Of my life since my conception

Of the reality of my day since daybreak

To this point

To this now

To this ever present, everlasting moment

Which is always here

In this bed

Underneath these blankets

The intimate warmth of superficial safety

Guarded from the suicidal tendencies

Lurking beyond my mattress

Haunting my halls

Stalking this eldritch ether of mind and experiences

Isolated

Apart

As

All

Any

One

Two

Infinite

Unable

To consummate as all

As us, them, me, you

Perfection is striven for

The closer I get the further I am from you all

Raising awareness and pints…and expectations

…And falling short, flat, face down

The pitiful chakras in the soles of those whom

I lay beneath, trampled and tread upon

I will always see you for more than what you are

I will paint you as a rose-

Colored

With my infatuation; delusional

Only to end with distance in time and geography

Hopeless Utopian romantic dreamers

Will forever grasp for coals too hot to handle

Never waiting until they have cooled

And then it’s too late

Sucker

Again you shall starve, writing a recipe to die for

And a song to forget

And a song to forget you by

Forgettable as any

Who said ‘Alchemists should stick to the laboratory’?

Stop venturing about young Fool

Lest the Devil take you back to the Tower

Initiation never ends, just youth, just chance, just this life

Mere opportunities

Sheer logic

Would tell you

Give up, turn inward, the outside is too much effort

They don’t want you and they don’t believe you anyway

Helpless quixotic debutant: go fuck yourself

And stick to what you know

Go eat out the Muse and drink from her font

She’ll at least pat you on your head afterwards

Give and give and give and give

Never take

And blame them afterward

Born under certain stars

It rains…in perpetuity

A solemn cloud to match a solemn shadow

Tempus loquendi, tempus tacendi;

And I never get it right; silence when communication is apropos

And the other way ‘round

Wending abysmally down wrong-ways

Ah, but consistency is a virtue!

And the Greeks have their crowbars and Preparation-H

Platonic

Ha! And I use to be Aristotelian

And now the Neoplatonists want me

Born under certain stars

23 of them to be exact

And the Universe’s synchronous sense of humor…

…Yes, and there is that

And you can only achieve T.A.Z. with an instrument in your hand

Goose eggs!

And George Washington wrote: ‘No wife, no horse, no mustache’

No girl, no money, no style.

Mot juste.

Harnessing the Irrational

Been away for awhile, if anyone noticed. Yeah, didn't think so. Either way, I've been busy doing more concept formulation and active discussion and less composition, but I did want to throw up a quick post for the purpose of keeping myself focused on Alchememetic Illusionectomy, if only in the back of my mind.

Anyway, I've been working on the idea of using reason to harness our irrational side of the brain so as to use it in rational ways; i.e. using reason to take advantage of irrationality. This seems to be on the face of it the basis for systems such as alchemy and goes along with the concept of the yin and the yang. Basically, I'm talking about the marriage of the rational and irrational and understanding the equally worthy aspects of both.

We employ reason everyday in our lives as I've often spoke of before. But we also employ emotion and intuition as well and this can be tricky. Pure emotion often will lead us in the 'wrong' direction and we tend to make 'mistakes' when we go along merely with our emotional responses to circumstances.

When we have an emotional response to something, but before acting upon it we employ reason we can head off a lot of misery by seeing the long-term effects that our strictly emotional responses could have led to if we had acted solely in accordance with them. We become reactionary and inconsistent.

I'm especially looking into how this can be applied to creativity and quotidian life, but until I have the time to fully and more articulately go on further I hope that you may have your on thoughts and feel free to share them.

No Wife, No Horse, No Mustache...Ewige Blumenkraft, vol. XXIII

We have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, in order that you may, as the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer.

Pico della Mirandola Oration on the Dignity of Man.

More older stuff...
23 September 2007
Pico, quoting from the Hermetica, states the same thing as modern day existentialism, Objectivism, and even LaVey's version of Satanism, that man is free to make his own choices and fashion himself as he pleases. What remains is for man to gather the knowledge and resources to make the optimal decisions and fashion himself in the best way possible for himself - requiring the development of purpose - which is not inherent in him at birth. Man is not born with purpose, he may choose to develop one for himself...or not.

Good and evil are not axiomatic. These concepts can only exist via self-referential consciousness. The lack of good and evil's existence as fundamental axioms does not negate the possibility for a code of ethics and morality; indeed, our survival requires it.
Strive for intellectual honesty, intellectual integrity, and intellectual courage. This is the only way in which you can fully develop your personal philosophy in such a way that it will (to the fullest extent possible) be developed logically and clearly.

How Far Have I Really Come?

Found this sitting on the hd the other day. Hmm...I don't know if I really agree with all of it, but I was reading a lot of wierd shit at the time. Enjoy.

6 December 2004

Man has no intrinsic, inborn, fate-determined destiny or purpose. You make your own purpose. All existence is one (as above, so below; micro/macrocosm); we are only different because our self-reference allows us to negate and realize our being, our subjectivity. Increase awareness and understanding. Gain knowledge and learn to properly connect it and conciliate it. Tap into your divinity. There is no supernatural, just aspects of nature which are not widely understood. God is the infinite, the nameless – that which cannot be understood given the holistic nature of God – everything is ‘God’, being is ‘God’, infinity is ‘God’. We are just different patterns of the same energy as everything else. These patterns create systems, subsystems, and metasystems. Look at the similarities of the physical patterns against information patterns. Dreaming as reorganization of memes (or ‘filing away’) and the mind coming up with stories to explain why you are thinking what you are thinking (compare with the plasticity of the brain). Transform negative experiences into something that furthers you, makes you grow. Altruism breeds victimology.

Appreciate your challenges. Transform yourself: Extropian Alchemy.

Mind expansion!

Higher awareness – being aware of life and of living!

Realizing your subjectivity, and even more profound, realizing you are the unknown Other to everyone else, or more specifically in everyone else’s subjective perceptions. Other people have their interesting views of you that you are unaware of. They see you as something you are not. You are what you do, your actions, and what you have done. But the majority of people have no idea who you are, let alone what you have done which makes you who you are, and furthermore, you to yourself are something different than what you do.

Sartre, by saying that you are who you are through your actions (I presume) is implying that that is who you are to everyone else. Quite on the contrary, you have the intimate knowledge of your thoughts (whether acted upon or not) and also your unique subjective perception of the world and thusly, are a much different person to yourself than you are to others. And on top of this, every other individual has their own unique perception of you whether it be from different shared experiences with you, hearing different stories about you, meeting you at different times of your life (or day for that matter). This, to an extent, references to the question of who we are: the ‘every changing “I”’.

Are we really the same ‘I’ that we were ten years ago? Firstly, our cells regenerate every seven years (or so), so technically our bodies are not the same, but our minds, though having taken on many more memes are along the continuity/continuum (as far as an autobiographical ‘narrative’ of experiences, et cetera). But I pretty much believe that our minds are the product of our brains (bodies/soma) and so henceforth, discounting the mind/body duality. So, are memories/memes somehow made physical when ‘recorded’ in our brains? If this is so, then our memories must be copied to newer cells (check on the factuality behind this as in neurons and neuronal connections) before the cells are replaced. [Sounding a bit too much like Dianetics (engrams and such)> find out how much more physiology/neuropsychology has discovered; ‘electric patterns/neuron-firing patterns’].

If all you do is self-directed, how can you feel like you are living? One action can change how people think of you completely. Up until you do a particular action people may say that they ‘Didn’t think you were “capable” of doing it.’ Of course, this can have positive or negative connotations. So who are you really? You are many people; you are many possibilities. On a daily basis, most people tend to act according to probabilities, but that in turn is more often than not a form of laziness; continuing along patterns of mere existence and fortifying the status quo.

I am not here trying to proselytize the reader into chaos or anarchy, but saying rather to find positive purpose in ones life so that one may move towards something better – to improve as opposed to just staying the same way, which is never as optimal as it could be (tautological? – is it possible to be more optimal?)

Experiences can create memes because they replicate the situation in objective reality into a mental state in the brain. This mentalization can then be conferred to another brain i.e., replicated.

What is the relation between experiential memes and fundamental memes? Experiential memes can possibly be viewed as a combination between memes and qualia. Fundamental memes are irreducible, and are the foundations on which more complex memes are based upon, or at least enabled by.

Y2K As A Cultural Benchmark Pt. II

Just as sociocultural currents influenced the technological implications of the 19th-Century, so too did the sweeping sociocultural tidal waves of the 20th-Century affect the evolution of the technology we employ everyday now in our quotidian lives. And just as art influences life and vice versa, technology too influenced life and vice versa.

The practical applications of technological developments direct the way in which they are designed. These practical applications may be different from user to user, i.e. the government, the military will use certain technologies many times in much different ways than civilians will in their daily lives; businesses may use certain technologies in different ways than NASA, etc.

The 1990s with the 'Tech Boom', or the birth of the Information Age, saw the beginnings of the fruition of many, many technologies trickling down to the lay person. No longer was it necessary to educate oneself to a staggering degree in order to fully immerse oneself into the realm of personal computers and the burgeoning internet. Gone were the days where only the wealthy and electronically-inclined were able to build hi-def home stereos and theatres. Just as the Industrial Revolution brought high-speed travel, electricity and long-distance auditory, telephonic communications to the masses, the Information Age brought PCs, video games and satellite television to the luddites - technology used and embraced by everyone from retired seniors to elementary school children.

So how did this new state of affairs affect and infect culture? The technology boom of the 20th-Century was by no means instant or universal, but you can find Toyotas and Michael Jackson cassette tapes in Third World villages the world over. The Cold War's military forces brought plenty of technology to these remote regions and so did the growing phenomenon of globalization.

In the smoldering ashes of the fallen Soviet Union, the door was opened for the West and its investment capital to move into previously verboten territory making new strides in the increased availability of cheap labor and the subsequent lower production costs.

As with anything viewed as change, whether the particular point of view deems it as good or bad, there are those who see more negative than positive aspects in the new state of affairs. Not that their fears are totally unwarranted every time: nuclear warfare threatens us to this day, new diseases arise with stronger immunity to our medicinal countermeasures, global finance is at the whim of a growing international market affecting all corners of the world, terrorist backlashes (sometimes referred to as blowback) from groups ranging from suicidal fundamentalist Muslims to jaded fundamentalist 'pro-life' Christians to crazed, homegrown activist-zealots (be they of the animal-rights, racial supremacist or other ilk).

One such fear stemming from the unique situation we have become accustomed to as a result of our modern-day digital world was the so-called 'Y2K' scare. This particular circumstance involved the date change at the beginning of the new millennium when the dates of computer software would traditionally have rotated on a two character year format from '99' to '00'. As you can see, this problem would have resulted from computers representing the year 2000 as the year 1900 by default - as all computers (electronic at least) up to this point had all existed in one century, the 20th.

I will take for granted here that everyone reading this will remember vividly all of the possible apocalyptic scenarios peddled on all of the nightly news programs(and by that time the twenty-four hour news channels as well for that matter).

As the urgency to change code in all possibly affected software increased, businesses large and small from banking conglomerates to independent business owners, and government agencies and offices hurried to update all their software and operating systems to show the four digit year and thus avoid any possible breakdown in the immense system of res digitalis on which we had all come to depend.

Even with the lumbering bureaucracies of the US government, the updates were completed in time and the earth did not crumble even as we clinked glasses over the familiar melody of Auld Lang Syne. Yet another Eschaton had failed to be immanentized. Sorry, Nostradamus...I guess.

In the wake of this largely non-event, a subconscious affirmation of our abilities to avoid Frankenstein-like self destruction by way of our own technological developments arose. We had dodged a bullet which we had accidentally, or unknowingly, fired at more vital organs than our feet. As the decade wore on the first generation to be totally immersed in internet culture started to grow up. In a few short years cell phones became as prolific as blue jeans once had, and quicker nonetheless.

Everything from instant messaging to instant bill payments became a way of life for more and more. Harddrives became more capacitous and processors quickened at an incredible rate (and continue to). And size decreased making it feasible to hold 2 gigabytes of information on your keychain for a few hours' wages. The ability to carry thousands and thousands of high-quality audio tracks in your pocket, to check your myspace page and take pictures with your phone.

As we said before, life influences technology and technology influences life and hence, culture in general. It seems that our successfully overcoming the Y2K dilemma has renewed our confidence in mankind's ability to overcome both problems in nature with our technology and our technolgical problems with our intelligence and increased awareness. We now live in an age where the generation is living which doesn't know life without complete digital immersion, just as our parents were the first to lack the ability to understand life without television.

The implications of this fact are numerous, but specific cultural tremors are already being felt: the total marketization of all Western sub-cultures. A phenomenon which was already moving in full force starting in the '80s with rock and pop music continuing to partition further down the rabbithole of subgenera and subsubgenera and the increase in them to steal more and more market share from the broader more sterile powerhouse acts. The '80s saw the last of the true giant hit makers such as Aerosmith and Bruce Springsteen. Underground music in all broader genera of rock and pop (and the rise of rap/hip-hop) served as alternatives to the sterile, formulaic corporate rock and pop.

Just as punk had sought to rebel against the overproduced, over-indulgent arena rockers of thh '70s, the New Wavers and alternative, college radio bands of the '80s on into the '90s flew largely under the radar - but not necessarily without any success or attention.

The '90s saw recording technology become available which was both affordable and easy to operate with which musicians could record themselves and feasibly distribute their do-it-yourself recordings on a wider scale through tape trading and thankless touring. In turn, a sort of fetishization with low quality but seemingly more genuine recordings set in and soon the alternative became the norm, much as it usually does.

The moral of the story, of course, is not who got big or who sold out, but rather the way in which technological growth allowed for a new dynamic to take hold of an industry and bring us closer to the unique situation we experience today.

And where we are today is a total commodification of every tappable subculture from dance-rock to violent, mysogenistic hard-core rap, from Swedish black metal to 1001 subgenera of techno. That which was risque just in the Reagan adminstration now will not raise an eyebrow. The free-wheeling flower children of the '60s are now becoming grandparents and the freaks who dressed in all manner of bizarre regalia for Cure shows are now sending many of their children to college (and more Cure shows).

A cultural benchmark has definitely been set and has it served a real purpose insofar as the cultural evolution of society as a whole is concerned? Have we made progress as a result or are our standards for a modicum of 'decency' merely watered down due to oversaturation of 'offensive' behavior and media products?

The '60s's cultural revolution is now trivialized (if it wasn't then) and the adament please for universal LSD usage didn't really do much to change the overall consensus reality outside of certain isolated echo chambers. This naive beseeching for a tuned in, dropped out world may have been responsible for some actual, progressive change, but many aspects have merely morphed into casual facets to the normalities of bourgeois humdrum.

It must be noted however that many in the '60s revolution did, after the fact, turn inward to further their personal growth journey and reformulate their approach to changing the world. These individuals who retained an ability to continue their maturation have effectively promoted actual paradigm shifts in an array of sociopolitical aspects. Everything from medicine, politics and academia to the subtle overall views on all things previously underground.

The groundswell in changing perspectives has slowly, but definitely, affected the shift in what is thought to be 'normal'. The forward momentum with which erstwhile avant garde memes have taken hold in the cultural vocabulary and the whole constellation of accepted behaviors and style is definitely a legacy of those subcultures and countercultures of the 1950s and 1960s.

Recap of the Last 2.5 Days of My Life...Not A Live Journal (Calm Down)

We are all time-travellers insofar as we all progress with time. It is always the eternal now. We always have the past with us in our present in terms of recall.

Self-analysis's usefulness is limited by our understanding of the fundamentals of our philosophy. If our premises are false, our logic is not in line with reality...hence, wrong decisions; poor judgment.

The more accurate our understanding of our fundamental, basic philosophical keystones are, the closer in line with reality our value judgments may be. Otherwise we risk false equifinality which leads, or can lead to, future poor judgment due to faulty implementation of reason / logic.

When we can (through, oftentimes painful, journeys through the fires of Chapel Perilous) face our demons and conquer them, only then can we start to understand and implement the art of living. We cannot conquer our demons without first facing them. All too often we decide to give in to their 'will' and 'run with the devil' as opposed to standing up to them and knocking them down so that they can no longer hinder our progression and our evolution as individuals. This act of standing our own ground will usually be rather difficult as it is foreign to us and uncomfortable as hell (terminology meant literally), but there really is (in my experience) no other way to reduce these (formidable in actuality) 'demons' which hinder our everyday lives and every subsequent value judgment (i.e. every decision we make) and, hence, how we live our lives.

This may not have the intellectual impact on the reader that it should, so please go back and re-read this last paragraph because every decision, and hence, every act one performs, is based on your philosophy. The problem tends to be that most peoples' philosophy is not delineated nor is it clarified or articulated to an extent that said individual's understanding of oneself is sufficient for actual understanding of overall reality, specifically the reality one finds oneself in.

Y2K As A Cultural Benchmark Pt. I

What would humanity do without the differing degrees of apprehension felt concerning the next apocalyptic lunch date with the Eschaton? How would we survive without the vague possibility of not surviving looming on the flip-side of the desktop calendar?

When we run out of specific time frames for the fruition of our myriad existential risks, what then shall we have to fret about as a species? Specificity is the key distinction regarding this phenomenon as we shall always retain plenty of factors which threaten our race. The lurking fears will always haunt us pacing just outside our door: nuclear destruction (mutually assured), epidemic, extraterrestrial invasion (via life-forms or supersonic projectile matter), supernatural reckoning per prophecy or otherwise, etc.

The date 1 January 2000 stood to play this role of possible global disaster and waited impatiently to wreak havoc upon our power grids and digital fiat money stores (i.e., our bank accounts). As we approached this milestone, turn-of-the-century event, we raced against time to update our operating systems and governmental databases to ensure that massive cybernetic haywire did not ensue thus rending useless the technological achievements of the entire 20th-Century and triggering the distress that having to adapt to a lifestyle known all so well to our quite recent forebears would lead to.

Indeed when the proverbial clock struck midnight, the celebrated ball dropped much less clumsily than our collective jaws as we exhaled a great sigh of relief, albeit in amazement, wary though it may have been. And on into the 21st-Century we headed full of apprehensive hope as a resurgence in our possible capabilities to technologically survive ourselves was reawakened after our Space Age, Promethean dreams had been slowly sobered due to the natural course of events playing out according to a different script than the sci-fi writers had envisioned (with notable exceptions such as William Gibson coming to mind).

The accrued time-binding of human knowledge logically led to the Industrial Age, and furthermore, had led to sociopolitical restructuring as an offshoot of the cultural ramifications thusly resultant thereof. The previous governmental dichotomies of the Eastern and Western world of the Enlightenment had been totally reworked both due to imperial colonization of the former and the uprising of democratic, humanistic, individualistic revolutions in the latter.

Philosophically, the Lockean movements for individual freedom had led to the classical liberalism, which in one form or another, affected much of the Occident and America as well. In the United States especially, this libertarian, though specifically Calvinistic, push for 'the American Dream' coupled perfectly with scientific, technological breakthroughs which ushered in industrialism. This state of affairs led to gigantic corporate entities wielding power previously unseen by nongovernmental organizations (the addition of a phenomenon known as corporate personhood further complicated this matter).

Immanuel Kant gave way to Hegel and before you knew it, Marxism is born. The Marxist ideology was picked up by disenfranchised, yet-to-be-unionized American dreamers of the Industrial Revolution giving birth to the union.

In Russia, the Axis shipped a sealed boxcar containing a 'plague bacillus...more deadly than any bomb' (Churchill's words), Lenin, who promised 'bread, land and peace' to the war-weary, disenchanted people and communism had a breeding ground ripe for the taking. An Oktober Revolution later, the Czar was unthroned, a dictatorial authoritarianism was instituted and the Soviet Union erected itself. By the 1940s a treaty signed in another German train was broken and the major powers of the world were in heated worldwide conflict again.

This time around, of course, the Russians did not accede to their Teutonic neighbors and Stalin teamed up with Roosevelt and Churchill to fight a multi-theatre full-scale war against the Nazis leading to the ultimate victory in Europe thanks to Hitler's decision to pull a Napoleon qua Operation Barbarossa. The ensuing political and geographical dynamic turned into a geopolitical chess game the likes of which Great Britain's eternal sunshine had never known.

The ideological differences once swept under the carpet for the purpose of defeating Hitler were now no longer confined to academic debate. The US arose with peerless hegemony in the realms of financ, production, and hence political, not to mention military power. The Soviet Union on the other hand with their own ideas of national sovereignty and individual liberties (or lack thereof) began jockeying for position as the benefactor of the world.

It took until the Berlin airlift and multiple violent national takeovers until the US realized the new state of affiars - they were now th leading proponent of 'democracy' and their erstwhile allies, the Soviets, were now trying to outbid them for the future of this new world.

Compounding this issue was the fact that the European empires were now in shambles all over the world. The race for hegemony now became a bit of a bidding war, cold though it may have been - usually, over which newly independent countries would choose to side with whom: puppet states of either the democractic ruling power or the socialists.

This led to scores of engagements over hitherto unknown nations and innumerable amounds of covert operations by the CIA and the KGB and their allies' counterparts. Every possible measure was employed by both sides, and the technology boom which the Second World War had launched did nothing but gain momentum as the competition heated up on both sides.

Global hegemony in a nuclear age called for further and further capability to strike first and have as much intellignece on the other side as possible. Von Braun's rocket program in Nazi Germany evolved into the Space Race, ushering in the new age, and with it new possibilities.

Von Neumann and Shannon et al. brought us number and information theory, eventually the personal computer as well as communication theory leading to that crowning achievement, the World Wide Web.

It must be noted that the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about was not the sole progenitor of Western technological revolution as Stuart Brand of the Merry Pranksters and the whole '60s movements in hallucinogenic, antiwar fuelled cultural backlash were and are heavily responsible for the direction so many of those technologies took once in civilian hands. This is not to mention the influence of the sometimes utopian visionaries like R Buckminster Fuller and the science fiction and underground writers of the '50s, '60s and '70s.

Whose Responsibility is it to Adapt?

Humans, having the faculties of reason, have over the course of our existence as a race furthered our knowledge of and, hence, our ability to manipulate nature, the Universe. We employ reason to develop technologies which aid in our survival, primarily (which is our primary purpose - the only inherent inborn purpose we have), and also aid and allow for the development of our own unique, individual, arbitrarily chosen purpose.

Even the most primitive jungle-bound tribes employ technology. These 'savages' reap the rewards of the capacity for reason their forefathers implemented ages ago when they developed the now primitive (in context with the 21st Century's Western civilization's high degree of sophistication) technology of spears, loin-cloths and thatched huts.

Many argue the traditional relevance of their culture and subsequent lifestyle and their 'right' to retain their primitive heritage, though it seems to only serve the status quo and an unwillingness to adapt to changing circumstances - i.e. changing realities.

When humans apply reason to a particular question they have about nature they can learn, i.e. increase their knowledge, new things about the way the Universe works, both micro- and macrocosmically. The more knowledge we have about the Universe, the more we are able to manipulate aspects thereof to serve our own purposes. This is how we develop technology.

As we implement new technologies, our lives too change as we are able to substitute one way of doing something for another via the implementation of said technology or are able to do things we weren't previously able to do at all in the first place.

This changes our situation in the world, it changes, morphs our circumstances and, thus we are in a situation where we have to adapt, or attempt to adapt.

Adaptation explains the do or die, the sink or swim aspects of reality. Adaptation consists of a system responding in the most preferential way for its own system as stimuli from res extensa are perceived within the sensory and conceptual parts of the system.

It is ultimately the responsibility of an individual to respond in the optimal way for oneself to external stimuli (changes in circumstances). Oftentimes, individuals do not have the requisite variety which comes with sufficient knowledge of a situation and the available knowledge surrounding its comprising parts to make a proper decision in terms of the long-term consequences.

Culture is a transient thing and changes as necessary to fit the changing times. As we employ our reason to increase our knowledge and then use this new knowledge (integrated with our previously gained knowledge) to create technology with which to make certain tasks easier or to allow us to perform erstwhile undoable tasks. This increase in our abilities leads to a new situation either subtle or extreme. Now we have altered our situation and must adapt to our new state of affairs.

What happens if we don't? Refusing to adapt to new realities implies an arbitrary refusal to perceive and conceive of reality as it is. This denial leads to the inconsistencies on par with trying to insert a square peg in a round hole. Either one can adapt as necessary to changes in reality and / or one can (within the reality of the situation) attempt through further reason to manipulate the reality to a way in which one wants it.

It must be noted that force / coercion are not viable options in terms of this second option (that of changing the circumstances to fit your preferred mode of being). Bear too in mind that this second alternative still requires varying degrees of adaptation to new circumstances.

Too often though, those who would prefer to keep circumstances at a status quo level disregard reason (and its implications of individual freedom and the respect subsequent thereof) in their attempts at reversion to preview circumstances.

It must be here said that the faculty of reason is what allows us to best deal with reality as it is, hence failure to apply reason to our situation as it is in reality leads inevitably to an inability to properly deal with situations in which we find ourselves. Our survival depends upon our application of reason.

We, of course, tend to employ greater and lesser degrees of reason in our quotidian lives, but the difficulty stems from prevalent mis-reasoned fundamental philosophical basics. What I am referring to here is the lifelong programming / conditioning process we go through.

As we enter this world tabula rasa in terms of concepts (discounting possibly inborn instinctual / response mechanisms) we are quickly bombarded with all manner of new sensations and subsequent perceptions upon which we, via our faculty of categorical perception, develop and integrate concepts to allow for an understanding, nascent though it may be.

With the development of linguistic capabilities our ability to grasp increasingly more sophisticated concepts grows and we are thus able to both receive concepts as well as clarify to others what our remaining questions are. Those questions being the knowledge gaps existing in our understanding of that which we perceive and the subsequent abstractions thereof.

The problem thus arises that we are at first depend upon others for our information (or rather, meta-information). The cause of the problem is not the dependence itself necessarily, but rather the reality that those upon whom we are dependent tend to have their own irrational understandings which they pass on to us.

Without necessarily malicious intent, our elders pass on faulty concepts and poor critical thinking habits which we habitualize and become to employ in a conditioned sense. This is why all mystical traditions first require deprogramming of the individual in order to rediscover the ability to perceive and conceptualize aspects of reality which are not 'visible' post normal Western lifelong conditioning. It should be noted more explicitly here that the majority of this conditioning occurs, more or less consciously (on the part of the 'elders'), early in life and become more rigid as one ages.

When culture is adhered to merely by virtue of tradition without regard to emerging realities then the fact that an irrational refusal to allow culture to modify or be modified will logically become obsolete as it does not conform to reality and thus hinders individuals involved in said culture from adapting to the new reality leading to a lack of proper / correct responses. This lack of correct response will inextricably lead, sooner or later, to difficulty in overall survival.

According to humans being rational, reasoning creatures, culture is an implement to be employed, updated and discarded as necessary to best allow for adaptation to changing circumstances. Toleration of emotionality dictating what we modify, or how or if we modify our culture, will inevitably disallow us from properly responding to changing realities because it is reason which enables us to know how to appropriately modify - via adaptation; correct responses - our culture.

Subcultures arise due to the fact that all societies with their cultures are comprised of individuals and individuals each have their own unique complexes of reason - i.e. differing degrees of the ability to correctly apply reason as well as deciding upon different things to apply reason to. With this being the case, it follows that certain individuals will develop differing concepts as to how or it a present culture should change.

This may be due to a better or worse grasp and application of reason or to the willingness to employ reason over emotionality or not.

As humans increase their knowledge of the Universe, i.e. the 'world we live in', it is inevitable that we will apply this knowledge to developing new ways of doing things and new implements to help us do them. These new implements we classify as technology. Knowledge and subsequent technology leads to changing realities and hence to the necessity for modified culture. When new technology is denied on the grounds of culture then we come to the aforementioned cundundrum, that is an irrational response system to the objective reality we find ourselves in.

If our new knowledge and subsequent technology abides by reason, and is acquired by way of reason, then a refusal to accept it is irrational.

Culture, like religions, which are 'designed' to disallow its adherents from updating it is response to changing realities are inherently 'built' to cause the overall downfall of its adherents. Abiding by a dogmatic, faith-based approach to reality will inevitably lead to this downfall because it refuses to accept changing realities and does not apply reason to understanding objective reality.

Faith insinuates the negation of reason for the purpose of understanding reality regardless of whether some of its claims turn out to be correct or not. Failure to apply reason to understanding reality is a set up for failing to respond to reality itself properly. 'Properly' in terms of the context of survival of any individual.

Primitive and developed cultures alike lose or decrease their ability to survive in a competitive world made of individuals (all out to survive, at least long enough to reproduce) when they arbitrarily decide not to do what it takes to adapt and respond accordingly to new realities. It is not the fault of those who do adapt and apply reason to acquiring new and more accurate knowledge of objective reality and implementing said knowledge as technology that other individuals / groups of individuals do not.

Those who do not adapt are not the responsibility of those who do.

Why a Free Society?

Why is a free society where everyone has equal individual rights most preferential?
Because no one possesses inherently more or different rights than others. Stating otherwise is arbitrary. People can only hold more power than others - i.e., more wealth, knowledge/information or force.

Force implies the disregarding of others' individual rights. Wealth implies material assets which can be employed in coercion (and the ownership thereof is not inherent at birth - discounting parents' or benefactors' assets, ownership of which can be transferred within the framework of an arbitrary legal system). Only information (which can be doled out or withheld for coercive purposes) and labor involve the equality with which humans have inherently. Unless, of course, we lived in a world where wealth was always obtained via information and labor - both gained and employed honestly - and not through offensive force and coercion.

Acquiring information and applying it through labor requires adaptation. Actions themselves are a form of adaptability insofar as they are responses ('correct' or not) to external stimuli to the individual.

Since, in regards to interpersonal affairs, all individual humans are inherently equal it follows that the use of the term 'better' is arbitrary and contextual. No one is intrinsically 'better' than anyone else without some contextual, delimiting qualifier. Someone may be better than another at performing a particular task or grouping of tasks, but each and every one of these is ultimately a man-made construct.

One may be a better runner than another but the qualification is arbitrary in that we must look at the arbitrary rules we outline for the performance of a competition between individuals to see who performs better in said competition. One may be faster (at the time of a competition), but one may also run longer, one may have better 'form' (as we arbitrarily define it), etc. One may have longer legs, whereas a shorter-legged person may actually move their feet faster.

Using the term 'better' implies a valuation which is in itself an arbitrary process based on personal self-interest, i.e. what is more and what is less preferential to a given individual.

This is how we develop purpose - by giving value due to our preferences to our desired outcomes given particular circumstances which we perceive from external stimuli and apply the integrated concepts in our ideospheres to reach decisions via cost/benefit analysis on how to act as responses to said stimuli to adapt to said existing circumstances. This continual feedback loop involves more and more complexity as our understanding of our external stimuli/circumstances (and all the aspects that comprise them), our perceptive and sensory faculties, our ideospheres and desired outcomes, and the why for of each increases: i.e., information is power. QED.

Res Extensa - Res Cogitans - Res Extensa

It is important to note that res extensa affects our subjective experience and how. Objective reality exists ‘apart’ from us (although we are part of it). Our perceptions thereof, via our senses, are conceptualized in our brains and those conceptions help create our reality tunnels. Our reality tunnels in turn affect how we respond to our perceptions.

Every concept in our ideosphere colors how we integrate each new concept we receive or develop (memetic reception or memeogenesis respectively). We need to analyze what our concepts are in order to realize how our ideospheres affect new concepts as well as our responses to perceptions.

Seeing as how we have reality tunnels which affect how we view the world (i.e. how we respond to our perceptions) we need to understand what our reality tunnels are; what they are comprised of. We do this by analyzing our metaprogramming and finding our imprints (what they are, how they affect our programming, whether they should be changed, deleted, dealt with at all, etc.); not only looking at what our concepts are (what our ideosphere is comprised of), but also how they affect our responses to perceptions and how our imprinted metaprograms affect our way of integrating new concepts.

All these things affect how we give meaning to the representations we have in our mind of the sensorially perceived objective realities of res extensa. They affect our concepts of quality and how we feel we should behave (our behavioral strategies) in order to achieve certain outcomes.

It is important to find out what our programming is (via imprint) insofar as it dictates what our responses are to our perceptions of res extensa. We may see a gray building and our response is negative – sadness, for instance – and it makes us depressed – i.e. our hormonal secretions may increase or decrease (depending on which hormones) and change our overall mood which affects our reality tunnel. We may see a gray building and the inverse happens and we become happy – ‘this gray building reminds me of the abilities of the mind of man’. The way we process the perceptions we receive via our senses is affected by our metaprogramming / reality tunnels.

If we irrationally respond to certain perceptions then we must chunk down until we find the imprint, i.e. why we respond as we do, in order to change our responses because our physiology affects the way we respond to perceptions and vice versa.

If we perceive something in res extensa which does not threaten us in reality, but ‘triggers’ something in our brain which causes us to respond with panic and subsequently triggers the appropriate physical responses for panic, i.e. quick breathing, sweat, inability to focus on anything but the situation at hand – all evolutionarily stable responses when the threat is real. But when these responses are not appropriate this is not an evolutionarily stable approach to said situation. It is therefore necessary to find the imprint which has caused the brain to react to such perceptions so one can change this.

One’s metaprogramming has been such that ‘it feels’ that this response is appropriate because it has always worked in the past (even though the conscious mind may not agree) and so it does not change the response to the signal. Once you can change what originally caused you to react a certain way to a certain perception then you in essence change the ‘coding’ of the metaprogram which instantiates the irrational response to said perception.

Jealousy, Priming, Synchronicity, ESS's and Cultural Evolution as Benchmarking New Paradigms

Identifying imprints or the reasons we act in certain ways (for the worse especially).

The importance of letting go and realizing that many problems stem from what we want / desire not being in line with the realities of others and objective reality in general; especially in cases where we want others to act in a certain way or feel a particular way. We can attempt to appeal to reason and empirical evidence to sway them to our mode of thought, but we cannot coerce them in any other way. Once one is able to cope with fact, then we are able to be at peace with many situations that may otherwise haunt us.

If you desire a relationship with someone who does not reciprocate such desires then we must learn to move on past that desire and allow them live their life separately, at least until such time as they see fit to act otherwise. The chances of them reversing their attitude and reciprocating is diminished if you fail to respect and dignify them by allowing them to continue their life without you and without any unjustified prying, etc. It is not your job to fix other people’s problems especially when they do not want your help.

Many further problems arise from others failing to leave others alone for one reason or another. This is an excellent example of why individuals should be extra careful with whom they have children or participate in mating practices in the first place. Coitus is the means by which humans reproduce and this should be apprised of at all times without compunctions to the contrary. Evolutionarily speaking, it feels pleasurable because that increases the chances of it happening on an oft basis so that the species replicates and ensures survivability, although we as humans, have reached capacity and are now surpassing a healthy population which endangers the species.

The sex act is primarily the means to reproduction. Emotional and spiritual aspects are secondary to this fact. It is only because of our self-referentiality and consciousness that these facts are extant at all. The sex act can be quite a useful and efficient facilitator in the emotional and spiritual arena (not to mention good exercise), but at all times it must still be acknowledged that reproduction may result from said act. This is mere causality; i.e., sperm enter an egg and a human may be the final result. Of course, there are any number of situations which may result in the human not being the result, such as successful contraception, infertility, miscarriage, etc. But, unless one is proven to be sterile, the fact remains. Henceforth, if the child is unwanted by either would-be parent, causal-related decisions must be made beforehand. The female at any given point during the pregnancy (if one results from the sex act) she may choose logically speaking, not necessarily legally) to terminate the pregnancy inasmuch as the fetus is viewed as functioning as an organ of the mother’s body, whereas the male has only until the sex act to decide whether he either desires a resultant child or not. The female has until birth because that organism is not separate from her body (it is an organ thereof) until birthed. The male’s decision is made at the point of ejaculation into the vagina (as this is the culmination of the sex act and ultimately the means by which humans attempt to reproduce) – his part is done.

Having a child – bringing a whole new life into the world – is such a big deal it is a wonder so many humans do not seem to view it as such. Unfortunately, the fact that it is not always viewed as much of a serious topic is evidenced in the way so many children are raised.

The symbiotic nature of priming and synchronicity

Due to individual ideospheres, personal time-binding colors all memes that are integrated into said ideospheres. All previously held memes and experiential memes / experiences are affected by this Korzybskian time-binding and priming and affect how each individual’s reality-tunnel evolves with each newly acquired concept.

My basic dichotomy here is this: memes = concepts; experiential memes = percepts / concepts about experience (which are understood sensorially, and hence, only understood in terms of the[relatively] few sensory perceptions both perceived and remembered thusly).

The distinction may thus be made that memes (going with the Dawkinsian view) are ideas / concepts which are transmitted from one individual (host) to another individual (although fidelity will never be perfect due to each individual’s widely varying reality-tunnels), and hence, the qualifier ‘experiential’ for experientially acquired concepts that an individual may hold / acquired via their own experience with res extensa (excluding of course, those experiences which were those of directly [or maybe indirectly also] experiences of receiving memes from another individual either explicitly or implicitly – i.e. conversation or reading of books, respectively; both directly and indirectly – i.e. communicated or imitated, respectively). This dichotomy may be further understood as those which are acquired via symbols and those acquired directly through observation (of behavior or phenomena in res extensa, i.e. of others).

This does seem to remain somewhat counter-intuitive, especially as all acquisition of information (regardless of its qualifications as memetic or not, notwithstanding personal preference in the definition thereof) is experiential (even so-called intuited information by my standards).

Relevant to this topic, I also believe that the subjectivity / objectivity dichotomy is most clearly explained as res cogitans (subjective being that which exists in the mind) and res extensa (that which exists in objective reality apart from any one – or multiple – particular consciousness(es) measuring said objective reality through any form of measuring [which in itself affects the measured aspect(s) of objective reality / res extensa]) Of course, the Universe is always ‘measuring’ (per Seife, et al.).

All this said, we must remain mindful of the inherent wholeness and unity of existence (including res cogitans, since all minds are extant within res extensa) and that our perception defines fragmentation and ‘subsystemization’ of the Universe via categorical perception. We thusly ‘choose’ how to perceive our Universe (both via conditioning and imprinting of our reality-tunnels, not to mention Consensus Reality in general) and how to fragment into categorical perceptions res extensa into res cogitans for the purposes of conceptualized understanding of our sensory perceptions. Furthermore, the symbol-systems we develop to understand and communicate our conceptions are arbitrary.

To summarize, there exists an objective reality (res extensa) which we perceive via our senses (and thus measure) which we form concepts about (res cogitans). This res extensa is a unity, a whole although we perceive the distinctions in patterns which make this up and we arbitrarily categorize fragmented subsystems within the whole (which, if nothing else, enables us to make sense of the various aspects of the Universe which we sensorially perceive, as well as our theoretical models of many other aspects).

Any relationship or organization which is to last amongst the complexity of its environment must be an evolutionarily stable system. It will either evolve itself into an ESS or it will fail and become extinct so to speak.

In an increasingly complex, and hence volatile, world both relationships and organizations must adapt to given environmental situations / circumstances in order to survive. This requires properly functioning feedback loops and self-correction. The advantage relationships and organizations have over nature is that they have the faculty of intelligence and reason to aid them in this process. The given system(s) must take signals coming from both inside and outside the system and gather meaning from them and thusly (correctly or incorrectly) respond accordingly in order to adapt to any new situation. This is an ongoing process that takes place at nearly all times at which the relationship or organization is functioning. A good example would be conversation itself or day-to-day business.

The difference that is delineated by consciousness and/or self-referentiality between genetically affected aspects of life and memetically affected aspects of life. Suggested by both Dawkins (in the final chapter of The Selfish Gene) and earlier by William James, particularly in his speech commemorating Shaw’s Boston monument. Whereas genetically affected behavior seems to (by its implicit / implicate nature) play its roles with more subtlety, memetically affected behavior too seems (once ingrained) to be difficult to distinguish as such without careful speculation and analysis.

Is there then a strict demarcation between the two (keeping in mind that genetic evolution itself is responsible for the capacity for memes in the first place) or might it be possible that epigenetics plays some kind of role of corpus callosum – a specie of liaison between the two.

The hitherto nascent study of epigenetics is currently suggesting that memetically affected behavior may play a part in recoding the genome, via the epigenome, which entails a generational change subsequent to reproduction.

Being ‘successful’ in a productive / creative endeavor requires self-discipline and hard work and this is why, I think, that the trying, difficult, sometimes depressive stage of ‘paying ones dues’ is often so formative in the life of those who are creatively, productively successful. It oftentimes requires a time period of stressful ‘do or die’ situations to instill the necessary character traits. For some reason, the causality involved between the desire to have or do something and what it takes to acquire or achieve it seems to be missed by a fairly large percentage of the population. This invokes all sorts of parallels with alchemy's Chapel Perilous and Prigogine's dissipative structures...one could even divulge into the ESS model from this perspective (at a later date).

So much of life is affected, if not dictated by fear. Either fear of pain, death, or just what others think of you (which according to Howard Bloom in Global Brain may be the most debilitating fear of all), but fear nonetheless. There are obvious reasons. Fear of death – you want to live long enough to procreate (or your genes want you to). But not just genetically, but also memetically insofar as you want to finish your intellectual endeavors so that you may gain immortality via meme, not just gene. Most hindrances in people’s lives boil down to fear in some, or multiple, forms.

Cultural evolution as benchmarking new paradigms by way of counter-cultural ‘advances’ becoming mainstream. Whereas those who may consider themselves the ‘progenitors’ of any cultural ‘advance’ (the vanguard of the counter-culture, if you will) tend to have negative attitudes towards said cultural advances taking hold in the mainstream, it should be noted that the paradigm shift leads to cultural evolution for the society as a whole and the watering down is inherent in that process. It should, in my opinion, be seen in a positive light therefore because of the overall progress made by the society. The society, by evolving, is better in its adaptability in terms of how it can face further problems and challenges and hence we can say that there is progress.

Man is not born with purpose. Man may or may not choose a purpose for himself. This purpose(s) may change at will. We can play any number of different roles that serve one purpose or another. What we choose in any given circumstance depends on our metaprogramming, how we have been imprinted and whether we have the capability to realize when and how our imprints affect our behavior and whether we should act counter to what our imprints would ‘have’ us do. This is why Gurdjieff’s self-observation is important to the Great Work, it is because it enables us to realize the otherwise subliminal, subconscious behaviors and thought processes that we enact on a constant basis: why do we do what we do?

As the pragmatists would put it (Charles Sanders Peirce in particular I believe – not sure, check on) the probabilistic predictability of your actions from one given moment to another is what makes you who you are – if you always acted totally chaotically and random you would be considered to have no personality at all (as the Existentialists would put it, you are what you do).

Inversely, your reality tunnel, the way you see the world, may also not be in accordance with ‘proper functioning’ (another Gurdjieff / Ouspensky concept) and the Great Work must lead you through the analysis of all aspects, your ecology, of your ideospheric conceptions / philosophy.

As we accumulate beliefs / concepts in general, we develop a kind of personal time-binding phenomenon, whereas Korzybski’s is a generational time-binding mechanism for memes. Korzybski’s time-binding function in the context of post-postmodernism.

It is important to note that res extensa affects our subjective experience and how. Objective reality exists ‘apart’ from us (although we are part of it). Our perceptions thereof, via our senses, are conceptualized in our brains and those conceptions help create our reality tunnels. Our reality tunnels in turn affect how we respond to our perceptions. Every concept in our ideosphere colors how we integrate each new concept we receive or develop (memetic reception or memeogenesis respectively).

We need to analyze what our concepts are in order to realize how our ideospheres affect new concepts as well as our responses to perceptions. Seeing as how we have reality tunnels which affect how we view the world (i.e. how we respond to our perceptions) we need to understand what our reality tunnels are; what they are comprised of. We do this by analyzing our metaprogramming and finding our imprints (what they are, how they affect our programming, whether they should be changed, deleted, dealt with at all, etc.); not only looking at what our concepts are (what our ideosphere is comprised of), but also how they affect our responses to perceptions and how our imprinted metaprograms affect our way of integrating new concepts.

All these things affect how we give meaning to the representations we have in our mind of the sensorially perceived objective realities of res extensa. They affect our concepts of quality and how we feel we should behave (our behavioral strategies) in order to achieve certain outcomes.

It is important to find out what our programming is (via imprint) insofar as it dictates what our responses are to our perceptions of res extensa. We may see a gray building and our response is negative – sadness, for instance – and it makes us depressed – i.e. our hormonal secretions may increase or decrease (depending on which hormones) and change our overall mood which affects our reality tunnel. We may see a gray building and the inverse happens and we become happy – ‘this gray building reminds me of the abilities of the mind of man’.

The way we process the perceptions we receive via our senses is affected by our metaprogramming/reality tunnels. If we irrationally respond to certain perceptions then we must chunk down until we find the imprint, i.e. why we respond as we do, in order to change our responses because our physiology affects the way we respond to perceptions and vice versa.

If we perceive something in res extensa which does not threaten us in reality, but ‘triggers’ something in our brain which causes us to respond with panic and subsequently triggers the appropriate physical responses for panic via the parasympathetic system, i.e. quick breathing, sweat, inability to focus on anything but the situation at hand – all evolutionarily stable responses when the threat is real. But when these responses are not appropriate this is not an evolutionarily stable approach to said situation. It is thusly necessary to find the imprint which has caused the brain to react to such perceptions so one can change this.

One’s metaprogramming has been such that ‘it feels’ that this response is appropriate because it has always worked in the past (even though the conscious mind may not agree) and so it does not change the response to the signal. Once you can change what originally caused you to react a certain way to a certain perception then you in essence (at least in theory) change the ‘coding’ of the metaprogram which instantiates the irrational response to said perception.

The concept of indigo children as those born outside of Consensus Trance/Reality; i.e. born awakened. The idea that they may or may not choose to enhance their awareness or ‘fall back asleep’.

Lockean empiricism (tabula rasa, etc.) and liberal individualism (both in terms of atomism – i.e., as an analog to Newtonian physics – as well as in terms of individual rights – freedom / liberty, property rights, libertarianism, etc.

Instead of saying that atomistic individuals are nothing without the group in which they exist (holism) look for ways to understand that they do have meaning as separate entities (the Law of Identity) but (cybernetically) are affected by their environment via feedback loops and adaptation (according to their [empirical] perceptions of res extensa). Whereas agreed upon meanings for any number of memes rests upon the larger social framework in which they exist this does not necessarily connote the inability of individuals to gather meaning on their own without a socially agreed upon ‘consensus’ meaning’s existence.

Whereas, phenomenal systems of meaning such as language are functionally worthless unless there is an agreed upon meaning for any given code being employed from sender to receiver, and vice versa, it does not at the same time negate the possibility of an individual developing a system of meaning that only said individual understands. If nothing else, it may be that qualia fall underneath this category of systems of meaning insofar as ‘redness’ can only, in practical terms, hold meaning for an individual qua that individual in so much as ‘redness’ can be considered a meme in the first place.

Individual entities in objective existence are perceived by individual consciousnesses who, in turn, develop concepts thereof via the employment of reason and thusly are given meaning in the mind of the beholder who then (through the apparatus of language) conveys (or attempts to) that meaning to another individual. Hence, a consensus meaning may be achieved, but not without the individual consciousness first developing meaning prior to the memetic transmission from one individual to the next; ergo, memeogenesis. QED.

One point that must be made here though is the arbitrariness in deciding upon given meanings.

It seems (unless I am missing something somewhere or looking at this from the wrong angle) that the holists are applying a false dichotomy to liberal individualism. I believe the appropriate approach is to acknowledge both aspects for they both bear relevance to the way actual existence plays out.

It makes the most sense to me to realize that individuals make up groups (i.e., society) and thus interact in groups – hence, societies are made up of individuals, yet individuals interact in societies. So we are interested in individuals and also how they interact with other individuals. But they are always acting as individuals. A mob may have a mentality, as it were, but that mentality is both shared by and affected by the individuals who comprise it. We can look (and should look) at both the individual parts of the system and the system itself.

The individual is always the ‘atomic’ lowest common denominator of any societal group. From within the individual you must look inwardly and outwardly to understand the makeup of said individual though. Both their environment and their genes effect ‘who they are’. Physical attributes are largely dictated by an individual’s genes, but their diet and habits also play a large role in how they turn out. One who exercises regularly will inherently have better toned muscles than one who does not. One with higher intake of particular vitamins and/or minerals will both appear and behave differently than someone with lower intake of said vitamins/minerals.

In terms of behavior and philosophy of life, one who abides by a strict diet and workout regimen may tend to have a more self-disciplined approach to life in other areas of their life as well, whereas someone who does not may be less disciplined in general. The amount of factors that play into all aspects of life are myriad, but not unchangeable (for the most part, at least).

Dissipative Structures as Chapels Perilous and Such

Challenges create the opportunity for both increased awareness due to lessons learned when scrutinizing intellectually honest analysis and self-analysis is applied as well as the possibility for an increase in resilience. Research in psychological resilience began with studying children of schizophrenic parents – the realization being made that about 1/3 of the children actually became more able to cope with catastrophic situations; their Chapel Perilous being visited and conquered successfully. These trials of childhood helped shape their abilities in their formative years and unlocked the capacity to cope and even shine in situations that might otherwise lead to other collapse on the part of the individual stuck in said situation. Their ego-resiliency and ego-control was actually improved by their atmospheric conundrums.
This can be likened to Ilya Prigogine's dissipative structures which upon threshold-reaching perturbations cause the affected system to have to adapt - sink or swim.

The importance of putting your philosophy into action – otherwise what’s the point in developing it?

Individualism as a basis – think for yourself; act for yourself

The importance of self-motivation, and discipline – institutionalized education is not necessarily (especially in today’s world) going to give you a well-rounded, useful philosophy.

You are not born with purpose – you develop purpose. This is why it is so important to develop as informed a philosophical policy for living and decision making as possible.
On the one hand we do what we have to do to survive and reproduce – producing (and producing better products and ideas than others especially) enables us to survive and reproduce better (at least in a free-market society) for we can make a better living (and hence survive better – because the more financial means the easier it is to afford better food, shelter, protection, etc.), as well as find a better mate and hence, reproduce better.
Whereas surviving and reproducing better are both preferable in order to enjoy life whilst living it one must acquire the ability to appreciate (an art in itself).

Once you develop the ability to think for yourself and educate yourself with all the necessary knowledge (and start to develop ‘wisdom’) you can tackle (or at least begin to) the otherwise seemingly meaninglessness of life through balancing both the survival / reproduction aspects of life with the enjoyment / progress aspects (a further art in itself).

It is important to keep your ‘system of belief’ open-ended (Pancritical Rationalization) always allowing for new information to be applied if it fits in logically (i.e. it passes the rigorous analysis of reason and is found to be ‘true’). This is also why one must continue ones education both formally through actively seeking new knowledge through all forms of media as well as learning from experiences. This is why we must develop finely-tuned memetic filters both for traditional memes and experiential memes as experiences tend to affect our thinking via our subjective emotional responses to said experiences more so than the objective ‘intellectual’ responses we tend to have toward memes acquired through reading or conversation, although heated conversation tends to incur emotional responses for instance our bias toward being right for our own sake – what I call the ‘I want to be right all the time’ ego fallacy, or the Passionate Believer Fallacy.

Once we dogmatize our ideas and opinions we tend to lose conceptual validity and oftentimes validity of our actions as well.

The desire to control stems from fear. The more fear you can conquer the easier it is to enjoy life. This said, it is not always useful merely to conquer a fear, it is oftentimes useful to avoid that which causes the fear (or the object of fear more precisely) i.e. fear of death or painful injury. Conquest of fear should not lead to a subsequently haphazard lifestyle; it should not lend license to carelessness / recklessness.

I find it far more useful to first develop a system for thinking than a system of thinking. Once you have rules laid out for the gathering of knowledge, then you can go through knowledge only assimilating that which can be logically shown to be ‘true’. Next you must combine the ideas to conciliate a full, consistent philosophy which in itself is a framework for action in day-to-day life.

Adaptability and Corporate Urination

The greater ones ability to adapt, the more effective one becomes in more life situations. The more knowledge one has, the greater the possibility of greater adaptability. It is necessary for a wise, co-intelligent, overarching, (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) ecological view of each situation in order to employ the right methods of adaptability for each situation.

The key is responding appropriately to specific stimuli: correct response. Furthering ones awareness increases the ability to respond correctly. This requires having both awareness of ones environment and the events occurring at a given time; and also those likely to occur as a consequence to current events and the situation surrounding them as well as possible alternative responses to the situation(s) as it/they arise.

Knowledge of current situations and the ability to correctly respond results in greatly decreased stress as stress seems to stem from the frustration brought about by not knowing how to correctly respond to a situation or an event confronting an individual. An apparent inability to do anything about a seemingly negative situation too may be a stressor, but further awareness can either lead to possible responses (which can lead to a solution) or the summoning of the peace of mind that comes with an understanding of a situation and its probable consequences; i.e. when something is ‘out of ones control’ (or at least appears to be) and one is able to accept life as it happens and deal with the oncoming situations as they arise.

Having a fuller ability to deal with diverse situations (adaptability / flexibility) engenders self-efficacy, which when employed successfully, leads to increased self-esteem over time. Understanding leads to greater awareness which leads to the possibility of greater adaptability when in conjunction with humanistic conscience and the discipline in action that stems from it.

Along with dealing with situations as they arise, awareness can also help with avoiding situations which may be detrimental in the first place further allowing one to limit even possible stress from rearing its head. Doing away with self-illusions / -delusions enable one to deal with situations as they are, not as one wants or wishes them to be, which, in turn, gives the individual the best information to work with further enabling one to correctly respond.

Of course, this may be stressful, but if one opens ones mind and escapes from consensus reality, the opportunities for growth in awareness arise and, if taken, will allow for a greater ability to deal with said situations and correct response; i.e. adaptability / flexibility is possible.

Corporations Pissing on Free Market Capitalism via Adjudicated Anthropomorphisis

Is it the case that local governments would do better to hinder individual and group efforts to reinvigorate urban areas less than to attempt to aid in such enterprises? In other words, should they just stay out and not attempt to help implying that their attempted ‘help’ would actually impede any such progress, whereas inaction would be preferable to a successful outcome?

If corporate personhood were revoked, then corporate responsibility would cease to be a near-meaningless tagline in an investment brochure and would have actual ramifications in the real world. Increased personal responsibility and self-reliance necessitates more self-awareness on the part of the individual and hence the rate of both personal and social transformation grows at a more and more rapid pace.

The revocation of corporate personhood would lead to a decrease in unethical practices because the owners of corporations would be legally held liable in such matters as individuals. This would include the practice of lobbying and, hence, the corrupt relationships between government and business which has led to many of our current problems and subsequent frustrations.