Few things more difficult (on a Sunday
morning no less!) than trying to figure out why code that seems so clear
to you is causing everyone else to gap. My guess is that it’s
intentionality that’s the problem?
I’m saying fantasy is a stark cultural expression of the problem of
nihilism – perhaps the starkest. What makes worlds worth dying for is
their meaningfulness. What makes worlds fantastical (not at all worth
dying for) is their meaningfulness. I’m saying the dilemma that
confronts us on the question of consciousness (how can the experiential
frame of right and wrong be wrong?) also seems to structure the
competing cultural roles of scripture and fantasy.
Is the human soul scripture or is it fantasy?
My responce, which I now feel oozes more optimism than I would have expected from myself:
Look, you can pitch the idea of there just
being a planet with very, very complicated waves of chemical reactions
roiling across it’s surface (and airs) as much as waves of much simpler
chemicals roil across it’s seas. And there being alot of evidence, so
far, for there being nothing else to the picture. Though the big bang
still looms as a big ?
I’ve thought about what if I were trapped in the matrix and knew it?
For myself, it seems a matter of caring about something because this is
where it’s happening for me. Perhaps if I were immortal I’d not bother,
laugh and wait for it to break down around me. But otherwise, what,
throw away caring at all because I’m stuck in a joke? Like as if I
should chastely hold back caring for the real reality, even if that
holding back is the rest of my life? That’d be the last laugh, surely?
It reminds me of the christian I spoke to recently, when I asked him why
couldn’t he live with uncertainty. His one word utterance of “Death”
makes me suspect absolute honesty and direct person to person talking at
that very brief point.
What makes worlds worth dying for is their meaningfulness. What
makes worlds fantastical (not at all worth dying for) is their
meaningfulness.
And the in between? Where you propose a fantasy that strikes someone
as something they would like to care about in the real world?
Particularly if we go back in time a bit and have the idea of female
equality, for example. Suffragette fantasy eventually seeps into a
reality people will, well, not die for, but sacrifice some of their
finite lifespan for? Men don’t want to waste their lives doing the
dishes, but now even my dad does a fair bit.
This is a choice because it’s ‘a fantasy’ so you can slowly ruminate
on it all on how it feels or might feel, rather than jump to an
immediate knee jerk responce dictated by actual circumstance because of
darwinistic instinct to survive? You can even just forget it. As opposed
to religious scripture, which seeks to dictate actual circumstance.
But all that’s a kind of wank. It doesn’t matter except on the
apparent fact people dare to care about stuff to begin with. Millions
out there, daring – it’s really hard to comprehend.
Too feel good an assessment?
Ugh! Cringe! Still, it's like turning over earth, gotta start somewhere even though after the first spadefull it still looks a mess of weeds and the spade just clanged against a rock anyway.
I rather like my chemical waves image. I think it's clear cut, helps start from a fresh sheet of paper. Oh, but why ever start if everythings that way? As I say, I think I'm bloody minded.
I would like to say that my 'make what you can of the matrix' comment actually has a backfire condition I think, in terms of living inside man made systems. As in, if you start treating capitalism (or heck, probably any old 'ism) as the natural order of things, then you start advocating for the choices of someone, while genuinely thinking your not because "it's the nature of things".
Occasionally I wonder if making what I can of this world is somehow advocating for some alien thingie or others intent. If I were a writer of some kind, I could flesh that out into a story. But I feel blank, maybe the N word* creeps up me in feeling no impulse to bang it out and certainly anyone who writes seems to be miles ahead of me. If I wanted to change someones mind, can't I just say? If I wanted to write entertainment, well I don't know how to and learning seems an exercise in not wanting to change someones mind.
I think there was more I wanted to give disclaimers for, but I'm A: tired of writing now and B: have given some impression of embarressment. Not that I think the structure has merit, but I feel a bit
when saying it.
* I mean nihilism? What did you...did you think I meant Nig...wait, we can't say that! Nihilism is fine to say in public but there is a limit...ah, the joys of this semantic landscape...
My responce, which I now feel oozes more optimism than I would have expected from myself:
Ugh! Cringe! Still, it's like turning over earth, gotta start somewhere even though after the first spadefull it still looks a mess of weeds and the spade just clanged against a rock anyway.
I rather like my chemical waves image. I think it's clear cut, helps start from a fresh sheet of paper. Oh, but why ever start if everythings that way? As I say, I think I'm bloody minded.
I would like to say that my 'make what you can of the matrix' comment actually has a backfire condition I think, in terms of living inside man made systems. As in, if you start treating capitalism (or heck, probably any old 'ism) as the natural order of things, then you start advocating for the choices of someone, while genuinely thinking your not because "it's the nature of things".
Occasionally I wonder if making what I can of this world is somehow advocating for some alien thingie or others intent. If I were a writer of some kind, I could flesh that out into a story. But I feel blank, maybe the N word* creeps up me in feeling no impulse to bang it out and certainly anyone who writes seems to be miles ahead of me. If I wanted to change someones mind, can't I just say? If I wanted to write entertainment, well I don't know how to and learning seems an exercise in not wanting to change someones mind.
I think there was more I wanted to give disclaimers for, but I'm A: tired of writing now and B: have given some impression of embarressment. Not that I think the structure has merit, but I feel a bit
when saying it.
* I mean nihilism? What did you...did you think I meant Nig...wait, we can't say that! Nihilism is fine to say in public but there is a limit...ah, the joys of this semantic landscape...