Authors to Read

I had the fortuitous blessing of talking at length with my brother this evening about books and decided that I (as a compulsive list-maker) needed to make a list of must read material, so I'll begin that task with a list of - in my opinion - must-read authors which thusly ensues:

Robert Anton Wilson
Douglas Hofstadter
Robert Anson Heinlein
Alan Watts
Tom Robbins
Erich Fromm
Lou Marinoff
Thomas Pynchon
Hermann Hesse
Neil Stephenson
Philip K Dick
Kurt Vonnegut
Jay Ramsay
Erik Davis
Howard Bloom
David Boaz
Alvin Toffler
Paul Johnson
Ayn Rand
Umberto Eco

If you, reader, have anyone to add, please feel free to drop a line with your own list as this is merely a beginning off the top-of-my-head roster of authors.
Fortune to all.
Cheers.

From the Beginning

The first step toward freedom is not fearing or being offended by ideas. Once one has the capacity to ponder a concept without bias then one is able to begin fully exploring the possibilities of that concept as opposed to denying entrance into your internal conversation of any idea which on the face of it appears to be antithetical to your present belief system. Employing a bit of the Pyrrhonistic idea of Epoché in other words. (Cf. Pancritical Rationalism)

This allows one to increase the depth of ones philosophical palette. This, in turn, furthers the philosophical 'opportunities', so to speak, one may pursue, which enriches the routes one may take to fulfilling the desire of a satisfying, productive and successful life.

More Fauxetry

I'll hopefully turn this gibberish into a song here soon.
Working title(s) is(are): To rue a lost love in the 21st Century / Song for the lovelorn 21st Century boy

When I meet my friends at a 100 year old bar
And they all ask me how you are
Imbibe some local craft beers
Wondering what happened over all the years (I'm getting fat and going gray?)
Regardless of what they say...
Going home to myself and my thoughts
Playing some (glorious) hits of the 80s thinking lots
About what went wrong. Playing those old songs
From childhood
From the old neighborhood
When we all stood
Straight and should, could - would
Do everything we said we were going to
Having and doing it all with you
Right there to share
Aw, I should just give it a rest
Bon Jovi said it best:
"I'll still be there for you"
And sometimes, after some grog,
my memory's jogged
and my being gets bogged
down and backlogged
with the times we had
flooding back in a peer-to-peer torrential influx
of reminiscence,
downtrodden nostalgia
and I give in and check your blog
And for what.
Anti-ism
Check your E-prime meter.
What is and never was will never be.
Or according to those who claim to know.

Holons and Politics

I've been giving a lot of thought to the application to my political and philosophical belief system of the concept of holons - the idea described by Koestler as the fact (at least by my lights) that systems are both self-assertive and autonomous as well as integrative parts of yet higher systems.

The self-assertive aspect of my brand of libertarianism - of taking responsibility for ones own actions and destiny - but always having a nagging question of how effective / efficacious the whole political system ties in with the integrative reality of living in 21st Century Western society; the reality of being dependent upon other individuals and groups, organizations, et al.

How does this correlate with the optimization techniques (both internal and external) of the occult and related esoterica? In my case specifically: alchemy, chaos magick and psychology, philosophy, etc...

My bent is typically to view all of this in terms of systems theory, which is why I believe the concept of holons seems to help explain things a little better to me.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated in the comments.

Cheers

Random Musings on a Slow Workday

With all the progress that has been made in the maths and science over the last century, it is increasingly important to have writers who can explain these, oftentimes complex, new ideas to the lay public in such a way that real understanding can be had by all.

Better communication of these ideas can more easily result in individuals or groups working in other fields becoming aware of these things which may turn out to have implications for their field and vice versa.

As specialized fields develop more and more obscure jargon to explain more and more complex concepts, the need for 'translation', as it were, back into more universally understandable language increases. This can allow for the possibility of interdisciplinary cross-pollination. In other words, we need more James Gleicks.

New Moon Rising

A real quick update: We here at alchememetic are working on a new feature for your long forgotten blogspot cul-de-sac - interviews with *living* people. Our immediate focus will be on regional thinkers and doers and other internet-catchword-types.
Stop back soon (and soon is a very relative term at alchememeticillusionectomy...)
Cheers,
Dolf

Values

Applying systems theory and the like to looking at our systems of belief and our overall philosophy so that we may 'perfect' them and clarify them. This allows us to make sound and consistent decisions in our daily lives.

Studying systems theory with this in mind helps us with identifying the organizational structures of our ideosphere. It helps with understanding what fundamental concepts we employ in deciding which more complex concepts we choose to believe, as well as which are inconsistent with our fundamental principles.

Once we identify our value system we may further look to see why we make the choices we do and whether these are consistent with our belief system as we claim it to be. Our actions truly illustrate what our actual values are.

It must be noted that these actions are by no means congruent with our stated values. Our stated values, those which we may only superficially think we hold, are nothing but stated values if, when it comes time to act accordingly or not to said values, we choose the latter. Thus, actions speak louder than words.