Month: November 2011

Honest

You know what this world needs more of? Honesty. No one wants to talk about reality, about the way things are or the way they feel. They’d much rather accept the first thing they hear, dismiss what doesn’t appeal to them, etc.

Honesty.  We live in a sick generation. We’re over medicated, self-obsessed, unreflective, overly neurotic. The poor are looked at as scum, as a plauge to society, like they don’t pay enough, like they free ride. The fact is, they can’t afford to be poor and live. Society as robbed them of their ability to make due on their own. You disagree? They can’t grow their own food, they can’t make their own goods, they need to fuck it. I don’t know what i feel anymore

Cultivating Successful Paradigms: Typological v. Population Thinking

Today I read an article in Business Week titled Why China Doesn’t Have Its Own Steve Jobs. The second paragraph struck me:

Former vice-president of Google global and president of Google China Kai-fu Lee explained on his weibo that it was because Chinese education puts too much emphasis on reciting and memorizing stuff instead of fostering critical thinking.

As the article further mentions, China’s collectivist culture or “herd mentality” wouldn’t permit the kind of narcissistic egoism that characterizes Job’s genius, and I think that’s a darn shame.

Innovative entrepreneurialism/ executive leadership requires a degree of egoism– that is, fierce self-reliance, self-confidence, non-conformity/individualism and narcissism. These qualities allow individuals to take more risks, bet on themselves more often, think more creatively and retain more faith in their individual vision, especially in the face of adverse circumstance/ opinion. I doubt don’t these people can be difficult to deal with, but their vision is inspiring and contagious.

China needs to place more emphasis on creativity, novel thinking, and the individual value of a person, their ideas and experience. America could do a better job retaining their share in these areas as well– instead we’re busy standardizing students and their thinking like China, like somehow that’s the answer to our problems. It’s a matter of typological thinking v population thinking: one emphasizes Platonic-ideals and abstracted averages, the other emphasizes evolutionary-variation and unique individuals.

The difference between Typological thinking and Population Thinking goes back to the classic distinction between a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge: knowing by way of axiomatic definitions, and knowing by way of experiential intuitions. This distinction manifests as deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning, relations of ideas and matters of fact, analytic statements and synthetic statements, contingent and necessary propositions, quantitative and qualitative properties, and the like.

Typological thinking is deductive and categorical in nature. Its roots go back to Plato whose philosophy codified this form of thinking by maintaining that the physical world adheres to ideas or eidos. Characterized by ‘forms’ such as the Equal and the Good and other such values and virtues, Platonism holds that there are a limited number of fixed, unchangeable ideas that underlie observable variation. The gradation and discontinuities observed in nature were explained simply as ‘gaps’ between natural ‘ideas’ (types). As a result, gradual evolution by variation was a logical impossibility for the typologist and evolution at all could only occur in steps, from one ‘form’ or type to another. Modernism of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries utilized the idealism of Platonic philosophy (Think Kant)

In contrast, Population thinking is inductive and qualificational in nature. Darwin posited this type of thinking when he introduced his theory of evolution. It maintains the uniqueness of everything in the organic world, that all animals or humans or plants possess qualities distinct to themselves alone, and that even individuals continue to change throughout the duration of their life. Each  organism possesses unique features that can be described only through inductive methods such as statistic reasoning to produce terms appropriate for the average. However, statistical terms are merely abstractions and not indicative of the individuals that actually compose reality.

Ultimately, the typologist is an idealist who hold that only type (eidos) is real and that variation is an illusion, while the populationist hold that type (average) is merely an abstraction and that only variation is real.

You may be asking yourself why this is important. One word: change. Life is characterized by change, and change is absolutely necessary for the variation that facilitates evolutionary adaptation. Typological thinking treats the world idealistically, giving everything a proper place and name. But this is not reflective of reality, or the observable world. It is only reflective of our symbolic mind where ideas can persist without variation (the concept of tree does not change in my mind).

We need to encourage variation, encourage change, novelty, and creativity if we have any desire to flourish and succeed. Simply adhering to prescribed notions of ideal states and ideas will guarantee eventual failure. And in my mind, believing we have it all figured out, that we’ve got the basics down and we’re doing it all right, is a dangerous form of hubris. Success– adaptive variation–requires valuing individuals, their ideas and experience, rather than some abstracted average dictated to us from above. Statistics and science are helpful, but not with regards to possibility. In this area they fail more often than not.

Also, typological thinking creates biases and stereotypes by prescribing labels and abstracted terms to everything. Population thinking is more open and tolerant because it is reflective and observant of all variation and experience, recognizing that there is always more than meets the mind. But this comes down to man’s propensity for control, his desire for the will to power and to dominate, which has pros and cons and is situationally contingent. Because typological thinking is assertive by nature, it is good for positing and leading and commanding, but it is poor for learning and observing and reflecting. William James said:

“There can be a tendency to label something in order to negate its impact. It is easier to brush off or control what is perceived as solid instead of fluid.”

Perhaps this is why man has the tendency to label everything at first glance instead of experiencing things as idiosyncratic and unique phenomena.

What typological thinking allows for is control. When we label and abstract and standardize we delude ourselves that we’re in control, that our ratiocinations are reflective of what is.  Now, it is true that this type of thinking is useful, but its shortcomings apply when forecasting into the future. This is because the physical world is in flux and ever changing. Formalized logic applied to matter is most useful within the time and context it originally created and diminishes in utility/ value as time progresses and change becomes more evident. Eventually the logical structure can no longer hold together as the premised facts of matter change so drastically they can no longer be said to be true.

(This may be a bit abstract so I’d suggest reading Axioms (pdf) as a nice little introductory piece, or if you are so inclined, check out Kant’s Prolegomena for any Future Metaphysics and Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding)

The point I want to make is that as a nation we need to relinquish the tendency to think typologically in favor of the more evolutionary population thinking. Specifically, we should do away with standardized methods of schooling that quantify instead of qualify: This means focusing on quality rather than quantity. We need to develop a system for encouraging quality teachers, not by necessarily measuring their efficiency or effectiveness. All that does is emphasis fulfilling whatever criteria we lay out. Same goes for students. I would argue that the quality of student and their thinking has declined significantly since the advent of standardized tests which resulted in teaching material and learning facts that are minimally necessary for passing or getting by.

We should value diversity. Diversity of methods, opinions, ideas, etc. Value individuals. What criteria would I require for delivering quality teachers and students? Output. Productivity. Activity. Experience. Something that indicates they are actively producing. This will indirectly indicate the aptitude and ability of the individual, as well as indicate their motivation and passions. I wouldn’t give grades, per say. I would let their work, their results, do the speaking.

However, there’s a hitch: cultivating leaders requires diversity, but their success dictates uniformity: its paradoxical.

Additional references:

Elliott Sober (1994). Conceptual issues in evolutionary biology . MIT Press: Bradford Book.^

Marjorie Grene (1990). Evolution, “Typology” and “Population Thinking” American Philosophical Quarterly, 27(3), 237-244.^

Collected Thoughts and Aphorisms

I carry around a book that I use for jotting down snippets of notes and ideas that occur to me throughout the day. In an effort to organize them I decided to digitize some of the shorter, more random thoughts. These were taken from a weeks worth of entries. And here they are:

Embrace suffering: it is the impetus of growth

Continue reading “Collected Thoughts and Aphorisms”

Running Thoughts

Sometimes I feel shy about talking, about writing, about confessing my feelings or thoughts on certain matters, such as death or love or fashionable opinions. Sometimes I feel alone, with myself. Sometimes I pretend that being alone is more meritous than being in the midst of the crowd. I like to think that those people, suspended in the midst of others, inundated by their opinion, are quite alone. I know so many lonely people. I think I’m drawn to these types. They commiserate with themselves and so they get creative. They manufacture all sorts of hooks and lines to grab the attention of others.

Sometimes I enjoy being all alpha male, objectifying women and looking at their curves and sensuality like its something to be had. Other times I want to be the voice of all the women who can’t say it for themselves, the voice that’s strong and tells people who they are rather than what they are. Sometimes I like to imagine that I’m that voice for women. I talk about their social oppression, about the inequalities portrayed in our culture. Then I think how much bullshit that is. How they do better than males on average in school. Then I think how women are masqueraded as sex objects in every form. How demeaning. Eventually I wind up facing the physiological reality, accepting the crawling instincts that move men to react to the opposite sex, and it all makes sense. No use trying to overturn biological roots. Or no?

My greatest luxury is knowing how to forget. Forgetting is one of the great pleasures that allow me to remain intact, whole, more person than sheer weight. Its raining out today. Today I drive home, through the rain, for thirteen hours as I travel to florida.

It’s funny to think about ex’s/ Usually I don’t, but when I do, it moves me. I wonder if they ever think of me. I wonder if they ever miss me. I wonder if I really miss hem. I have a visceral reaction whenever I think of them, of holding them, of looking into their eyes, but I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted to be back with them again. OR is that just a way to protect myself? I reactive mechanism that pushes them away and disengages my feelings. Could it be that every girl I went out with I secretly still want to be with? And why would that ever be the case? Why on eaarth would I want something I’ve had, something that I chose to give up, most of the time anyway, at one point or another? I feel like it may have something to do with my self-esteem. Perhaps I don’t feel as good about myself  as I need to, perhaps letting girls go is a way to keep me from hurting, so I push them away, and don’t put any work in. Or maybe these little questions and conclusions are artifices that I’m creating to understand the unknowable?

Gray day.

Cultsense

So many people try so hard. In a culture that’s built on sensation and feeling, rather than thought, one must leverage all he can to appeal to the sensations of others: looking right, acting right, talking right- appealing to all the right sensations so to elicit an emotional response that draws them in, like months to a flame, blind and aimless.

Interesting Day in Class

2:25pm: I just got outta class: some kid just had a psychotic episode and cursed out the professor.

A student with a thick red beard and aviators waltzed through the classroom door roughly five minutes into lecture and yells ‘Dale Dennet is a fucking douche-bag, who’s with me?!’, throwing up his hands as he walked and collapsed into his seat, leaving the professor staring blanking, poised mid-breath, still hunching over his lecture notes. After a curious pause, the professor, being bellicose and quite provocative, corrected the student by saying “I dont think I’ve heard that name, Dale Dennet” to which the kid replied “He’s the guy who’s actually stupid enough to believe that evolution is actually real.”

With his usual air of superiority, the professor casually retorted “Perhaps the name of the person that you’re trying to, or attempting to, reference that has got you so mad is actually Daniel Dennet, the popular contemporary philosopher, who has written “etc, that book on evolution”.  Upon hearing this the student vocalized his dubiousness, arguing back and forth with the professor and saying things like, “Are you sure about that?”, “Are you sure?”, “How do you know?”, “I don’t think you know what you’re taking about”, etc., until the student grew visibly bloated with emotion.

Observing the satisfaction that the professor derived from being right and telling him he was wrong, the berate student blurted for the professor to “fucking read Chris Langin, cause he’s the smartest fucking guy alive”, to which the professor replied that he actually never heard this guy’s name and asked why should he read him, with the student replying “you wouldn’t know him or read him because you’re a god damn athiest”, to which the professor, with his hands in pocket, gave a bewildered and confused look at the kid, a look I interpreted as “what the hell are you trying to do, kid”.

But the student’s emotional discomfort continued, well past the point of boil, and the situation quickly escalated as he leaned toward the professor, postured and erect, and began yelling intermittent profanities into the silent classroom like “you’re a fuckin atheist, a fucking idiot”, “fuck you, fucker”, *pause of shock and silence*, then he yells “I win” and “fuck you”, grabs his bag and stands up, throwing up a peace sign as he passed by the prof’s face, and stomps out the door, yelling “fuck you, peace fuckers”.

Silence and incredulity blanketed the room as each person tried discerning what to make of the episode: if it was a joke, if it was a threat, if we should just continue class, if we should be alarmed. But the prof, slightly bewildered and now evidently perturbed by his own ratiocination’s on the matter, continued with small lecture talk in an effort to ease tensions and make light of the confusing and outrageous behavior.

But not a minute into talking a girl interrupts to ask if he could shut the door because, confessing coyly, she was slightly worried he might come back. At that point the prof regained some gravity over the situation and asked if there should be concern, or any reason we should be concerned, such that would require notifying the police, for instance. The class then began exchanging opinions and weighing in on the matter until a student in the far back raised his voice and vocally assured us, quite ineffectively I might add, that we shouldn’t worry because the behaviors he exhibited appear to be consistent with his past, recalling that the student had taken a leave of absence in previous semesters for similar bizarre phenomena.

Obviously, as you can imagine, this had the opposite intended effect, causing quite the consternation among students, and heightened alarms that he may indeed pose a threat, be it to us or himself or others. As these concerns percolated throughout the classroom the professor, appearing less pugnacious and more thoughtful than usual, acquiesced under the growing hysteria and, with a controlled repose, began jotting down some notes as he slowly indicated to the class that “I think we might just take the rest of the day off, and since we have off Friday, I look forward to seeing you all after break”. Then the commotion gave way like a release of breath and everyone barreled for the door to gossip about the bizarrity of the episode.

Socratic Philosophy as Preparation for Death

This essay argues that Socrates provides a clear and consistent attitude towards philosophy that is justified by and grounded in religious conviction. The core of Socrates philosophical beliefs concern his convictions regarding death, with him stating that “the primary aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death.”(64a) His philosophy provides a method for ensuring that the soul will enter Hades in its purest form and attain the highest reward by being granted access into heaven. (113;114c). Socrates’ definition of philosophy is thus inextricably bound to his religious convictions. Although philosophy’s literal translation means “lover of wisdom,” it was not just an activity that one casually partook in, but a mode of living that pervaded every aspect of life as a way of transcending the physical world and possessing near-divine wisdom.(82c) Continue reading “Socratic Philosophy as Preparation for Death”

Pragmatic Reflections on the Will to Power and the Creation of Truth

 

Hard/ complete: Georg Cantor- Continuum hypothesis

Embodies rationalist/ modernist/ analytic movement

 

Soft/ incomplete: Godel- Incompletness Theorem

Embodies relativist/ postmodern/ creative movement

 

Synthetic: Hegel/ James- Dialectics/ Pragmatism

Synthesizes these two perspectives for subjective ends according to their utility to solve and achieve dilemma/ inquiry

 

 

All modern studies and disciplines, being defined by prescribed rules, expectations, is limited in its ability and scope, and will be inhibited in adequately addressing novel problems.

 

In addition, Hegel, and Neils Bohr, saw necessity in taking counterfactuals or contradicting ideas, and holding them together in the mind, suspending their rigid, dissolving boundaries, and creatively synthesizing their properties into a single, third, idea that is able to satisfy the initial counter-facts.

 

Relativist attitudes: revolution, creation, destabilization, individuality, synthesis, deconstruction.

 

Will to power- those who master language are the masters. Masters of language- more specifically, masters of delineation, or description- are the creator of causes.

Those who possess language, and the ability to manipulate language- proliferate perspectives and justify actions for everyone else.

 

To not have language, to not have education, is to be dispossessed, to be dominated. He who develops language, specifically his own language- be it borrowing from others or creating neologisms- can manipulate and dominate. Nietzsche understood this: the jews were masters of language- specializing in the oral and written tradition of the torah- owned and mastered language and eventually used this strength to manipulate the language of their ‘masters’ or the ‘gentiles’ by inverting their values of their language to subversively overpower and dominate them—see the New Testament, or Christ’s message.

 

The use of existing language can be used to justify by assimilating it into a final vocabulary by removing it from its original context. Decontextualizing is the ability of the pragmatic and creative types: they use existing language (tools), to manipulate and justify a unique (individual) end/ intention (action). Derrida attempts to capture the gestures of decontextualization. He seeks to pervert the internal semantic structure of words and language in order to recontextualize words, or leave them totally suspended in semantic ambiguity.

 

The reason manipulation can occur is that terms/ facts/ meanings are formed within a ‘present’ context. When the word is borrowed at a later time, it is referring to a previous/ past context, yet its use is always in the present. No two perspectives are alike, for all are subjective and indexed to individual/ unique direct experiences and the prevailing ideology of the context/ culture mutually shared by your social peers.

 

Language is social. Perspectives, thoughts, are formed to due direct experience, i.e. senses, impressions, experimentation, and ideologies, i.e. the semantic code and historically rooted structure contained in the language maintained by peers.

 

Perspective takes direct subjective experience and indexes it to the inherently ideological lanugae of yoru social peers. In this way subjective experience (individual consciousness) is censored by language. Likewise, language is compromised by ‘misusing’ semantics (metaphors, metonymies) and ‘decontextualizing’ it from its prevailing paradigmatic ideology.  Rorty alludes to this practice when he refers to the accumulating and building of “final vocabularies”.

 

The ability to use language is the ability to control the mind. Religion once controlled all language, and priests were the arbiters of its meaning—the interpretation of the bible, gods word, his divine will. This allowed the priests and prophets to govern the thoughts, and therefore actions, of their people.

 

The world tells us—leads us to believe—that language captures facts and truths. This is a form of ‘natural’ domination. ‘Natural’ in that man lives and persists through the “will to power” which enables them to thrive (dominate) in society by leveraging the minds of other men. This “will to believe” is uniquely distinct from other animals in that animals do not leverage the minds or ‘intentions’ or other animals. Instead they possess a “will to survive” which manifests through killing (predators) or compromise (prey).

 

Pragmatism recognizes the utility of using language—its conventions, rituals, customs, traditions, and accepted practices semantically assumed it contains – and uses it to justify intentions (ends/ actions).

 

Modes of Thought: Visual-spatial v Auditory-sequential

 

I am strong visual-spatial learner. Rather than a auditory-sequential, characterized by time and order, I am concerned with relations and assimilate information via space. Order does not diagnose a relation. It only designates hierarchy and assigns values according to this order. Rather than time, I am concerned with space. I do not think in time, order, and temporality by default. I must consciously switch modes of thought for that thought. I think in space and relations between parts. Those who time auditory-sequentially, in time and order, are bound by definite value and temporality. This is not an adaptive way to think since order is an established system. Recombinations are unthinkable outside the designed system of value and order.

 

Visual-spatial thought is conceptual and occurs on an arrangeable, flexible platitude or recombinatory possibility. Shifts occur that disrupts relations, destroying the perceived order that it temporally occupied.

 

Freedom lies in the how: how to act, move, combine, shift, create… etc. Slavery lies in the ‘what’: what to act, move, combine, shift, create, etc. The what is concerned with the concrete, atomistic, particulars.

 

Understanding the ‘how’ requires a multiplicity of perspectives, a pluralistic appreciation for possible alternative methods, concepts, etc. Understanding the ‘what’ is static and dead.

 

‘Utlity’ is thought to reflect ‘reality’, but it reflects ‘intention’ or ‘perception’. Things are useful because they work for some(one): for an individual subjective perspective according to their intention. ‘One’ is parenthetical because it refers to the (I), the single presence occupied by a consciousness.

 

Myths are useful, but they are fictional abstracts. ‘Utility’, to be said to reflect reality in the way most people think it does, depends upon the ‘aim’ or precise ‘intention’ driving/ behind the utlity. Things are always useful to some end. But the question is ‘whose’ end? Since they are useful for people (individual subjective perspectives), how these ends are chose is a matter of the “will to power” which, it seems, is a manifestation of living organisms innate ‘will’ to ‘self-preserve’. Is self preservation a manifestation of a deeper cause, such as the “law of conservation of matter”? The law of conservation of matter states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant over time, or conserved, so that energy cannot be created or destroyed.

 

Will to power is the primal instinct to transpose ‘will’ (proclivity to preserve mental conceptions/ beliefs by acting on them so that they manifest) onto the world via domination specifically through the use of language, or linguistic coercion, since leveraging minds is more productive and less threatening than physical coercion. (What is the ‘will’? What is ‘domination’?) The Jews do this fantastically. Their race is inseparably connected to their culture and religion which strongly emphasizes the use of language.

 

Language is God, and God is language.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” –John 1: 1-5

 

Greek Transliteration of the first verse:

 

En arche een ho logos kai, ho logos een pros ton theon, kai theos een ho logos.

In Greek, theos translates as God. logos is defined as: (a) that which is said or spoken; (b) ratio, thought, reason, agreeably with reason; (c) the word, comprising both senses of thought and word.

 

Understanding the word, being able to use the word, makes you god.

 

Language is justification, is god, is logic, is reason. He who possesses the language, has access to the language, who is esteemed to possess authority of that language, has power, is god.

 

The modern gatekeeps: preists, academics, institutions, preofessors, politicians, or anyone deemed authoritative expert. These expertssimply possess language. Authoirty is derived from (a) amount of linguistic capital/ language, including its diversity and depth, (b) application of linguistic capital, (c) creation of new linguistic capital or ‘truths’ or ‘neologisms’.

 

Experts and geniuses produce and, as a direct result, proliferate ideas (which language is used to capture). Activity is the mark. This activity may translate as a depth of justification within a given scope or activity may translate as a bread outlining of many scopes with brief justification.

 

Training or repetition instills habituation. Habituation, or consistency and repeatability, is the hallmark of analytic or rational systems which are concerned with the ‘what’. Novelty, change, is creativity. Repeatability is a hallmark of a closed system.

 

Habituation leads to inhibition.

 

Truth is a subjective perspective. Isomorphic facts, such as those immediately apparent and accessible to our senses which have no need for reflection to verify, is not what I dispute. Hume argued, as I upgold, that perceptions of ‘things’ or ‘facts’ of ‘cause and effect’ are simply the result of habitual associations, or conditioned correlation. The cause and effect, the perceptions- and categorical structures we organize our senses with- are all subjective, and therefore relative. Hoeber, we converge on agreement on how thesse aforementioned phenomena ‘are’ or ‘exist’ by dialoging with our social peers in order to establish a common/ mutual ground/ standard—which provides the ability to exchange information (communicat) about our unqiue/ subjective perspective and continually add to these convergent agreements and the way things ‘are’ or ‘exist’ in the world.

 

Novelty is not rewarded. Conformity is rewarded, through achievement in rigid/ formal education systems with ‘degrees’ signifying expert authority on a prescribed system of established study.

 

Linguistic Relativism

 

When I support relativism, I do not mean relative isomorphic facts or direct representations about the world. Though, Austin said that the “state of affairs can only be described in words, such as a state of affairs is toto mundo distinct from true statement.” These so called statements that seem true or false have no descriptive content, that is, they cannot be true or false. Strawson denies that facts are something in the world. Facts are not objects or complex objects combining particular and universal elements. Statements refer to such objects but they do not refer to facts; rather they state facts” says Strawson. Additionally, he says “fact is what a statement says, not what it is about. Facts correspond to ‘truth’ or ‘true things/ state of affairs in the world’ but cannot be used to define truth. Facts cal be localized to space and time. Melbr says ‘Facts’ different than facts and that facts, he says, exist independently of whether we talk or think of them.

 

Thing: an entity whose development in space and time is well defined? What of quantum phenomena within quantum mechanics? See Heisenbergs indeterminacy relation: cannot ascribe properties of space and time simultaneously to one and same object. The difficultly exists in determining quantum entities as thing possessing spatio-temporal location, or an event always obeying causal description, e.g. wave v. particle.

 

Scheme and System: define similarities, differences, compatibilities, metaphorical relationships.

 

Think in spheres.

 

When thinking: a multitude is no substitution for magnitude. Narrow intensity and power is often more persuasive than broad justification.

 

If heart is the thread then mind is the needle. Correctly combined they stitch together experience—a patchwork of irregular, paradoxical, incongruous experience—into a single reel of life.

 

Fear is internalized oppression. Of power? Of responsibility?

Fear is the character of inhibitions.

Fear is the manifestation of the inhibitions/ limitations possessed by the subjective character

 

Cause and Effect Relationships

Domination, Oppression

Individualism, Conformity

Expression, Depression

Wealth, Poverty

Possession, Dispossession

 

The world does not reward curiosity in the same way it rewards passivity.

 

Steve jobs understood power and authority’s role in leveraging others for the purpose of his personal creative self-expression that dominated competition.

 

Domination: properties in serial order

  1. Why? Ends, subjective intention or desire or will, direction, aim
  2. How? Method for attaining why power relations, program
  3. What? Content, facts, things

 

  1. Why? Will to power, to self-preserve, intention
  2. How? Feelings, emotions, intuitions
  3. What? Rational, reasoning, language

 

‘What?’ only serves as proof or justification for ‘why?’ or what your ‘believe’. Appeal to what others ‘believe’ or their ‘why?’ and you will leverage their mind.

Appeal/ leverage by way of language—possess and manipulate the language others possess and you will lead/ dominate/ over-power them.

 

Concentration of power (wealth) exacerbates inequality and decreases mobility by stripping/ inhibiting freedom due to others oppression (will to power)

 

Jews seem to be the masters language, and thus the art of ‘will to power’: despite their few numbers, they possess more nobel prizes than any other race/ ethnicity and they have more money, and subsequently more power, than any other race. They have done this through, relatively speaking, pacifism (non-violence). They dominate American business and politics and media and academics.

 

How does thinking in systems differ from thinking in schemes? What strengths do each possess?
Etymological Reflections

 

In greek, ‘power’ translates as dynamis or dunamis (δύναμις) which means potentiality or potency. It can also be translated as possibility, capacity, ability, capability, force, strength. Another word for power is krátos (κράτος) which translates as hard, or strength. (Think autocracy, democracy, etc.)

 

The Greek word dunamis, δύναμις (force ; specially, miraculous power (usually by implication, a miracle itself); force; specially, miraculous power (usually by implication, a miracle itself)) is derived from the Greek word dunasthai which is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *deu-.

 

The Proto-Indo-European root deu- is the root for plural word form deus (deywós) which, in various languages, translates as God, or celestial or that which belongs in heaven.

 

In Hebrew this most often translates as Elohim, which means God or power.

 

In the old Hebrew testament Jehova (kurios or κύριος) is translated to the latin dominus which means lord or master of the house, or to build. (Recall annō Dominī) (dominatus : rule, mastery, tyranny, domination).

 

To bring this superficial sketch full circle, it seems interesting that logos, or word and reason, is equated with theos (θεός), or god. According to sources, Latin deus is consistently translates Greek theos.

 

Interestingly, ‘word’ translates to the Proto-Indo-European as ‘verb’ or *were-. The etymology is as follows: verb late 14c., from O.Fr. verbe “part of speech that expresses action or being,” from L. verbum “verb,” originally “a word,” from PIE base *were- (cf. Avestan urvata- “command;” Skt. vrata- “command, vow;” Gk. rhetor “public speaker,” rhetra “agreement, covenant,” eirein “to speak, say;” Hittite weriga- “call, summon;” Lith. vardas “name;” Goth. waurd, O.E. word “word”).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Random Reflections

Modes of Expression:

Hard/ complete: Georg Cantor- Continuum hypothesis: Embodies rationalist/ modernist/ analytic movement

Soft/ incomplete: Godel- Incompleteness Theorem: Embodies relativist/ postmodern/ creative movement

Synthetic: Hegel/ James- Dialectics/ Pragmatism: Synthesizes these two perspectives for subjective ends according to their utility to solve and achieve dilemma/ inquiry

All modern studies and disciplines, being defined by prescribed rules and expectations, are limited in their ability and scope, and will be inhibited in adequately addressing novel problems.

In addition, Hegel, and Neils Bohr, saw necessity in taking counterfactuals or contradicting ideas, and holding them together in the mind, suspending their rigidity, dissolving boundaries, and creatively synthesizing their properties into a single, third, idea that is able to satisfy the initial counter-facts.

Relativist attitudes: revolution, creation, destabilization, individuality, synthesis, deconstruction.

Will to power- those who master language are the masters. Masters of language- more specifically, masters of delineation, or description- are the creator of causes.

Those who possess language, and the ability to manipulate language- proliferate perspectives and justify actions for everyone else.

To not have language, to not have education, is to be dispossessed, to be dominated. He who develops language, specifically his own language- be it borrowing from others or creating neologisms- can manipulate and dominate. Nietzsche understood this: the jews were masters of language- specializing in the oral and written tradition of the torah- owned and mastered language and eventually used this strength to manipulate the language of their ‘masters’ or the ‘gentiles’ by inverting their values of their language to subversively overpower and dominate them—see the New Testament, or Christ’s message.

The use of existing language can be used to justify by assimilating it into a final vocabulary by removing it from its original context. Decontextualizing is the ability of the pragmatic and creative types: they use existing language (tools), to manipulate and justify a unique (individual) end/ intention (action). Derrida attempts to capture the gestures of decontextualization. He seeks to pervert the internal semantic structure of words and language in order to recontextualize words, or leave them totally suspended in semantic ambiguity.

The reason manipulation can occur is that terms/ facts/ meanings are formed within a ‘present’ context. When the word is borrowed at a later time, it is referring to a previous/ past context, yet its use is always in the present. No two perspectives are alike, for all are subjective and indexed to individual/ unique direct experiences and the prevailing ideology of the context/ culture mutually shared by your social peers.

Language is social. Perspectives, thoughts, are formed to due direct experience, i.e. senses, impressions, experimentation, and ideologies, i.e. the semantic code and historically rooted structure contained in the language maintained by peers.

Perspective takes direct subjective experience and indexes it to the inherently ideological lanugae of yoru social peers. In this way subjective experience (individual consciousness) is censored by language. Likewise, language is compromised by ‘misusing’ semantics (metaphors, metonymies) and ‘decontextualizing’ it from its prevailing paradigmatic ideology.  Rorty alludes to this practice when he refers to the accumulating and building of “final vocabularies”.

The ability to use language is the ability to control the mind. Religion once controlled all language, and priests were the arbiters of its meaning—the interpretation of the bible, gods word, his divine will. This allowed the priests and prophets to govern the thoughts, and therefore actions, of their people.

The world tells us—leads us to believe—that language captures facts and truths. This is a form of ‘natural’ domination. ‘Natural’ in that man lives and persists through the “will to power” which enables them to thrive (dominate) in society by leveraging the minds of other men. This “will to believe” is uniquely distinct from other animals in that animals do not leverage the minds or ‘intentions’ or other animals. Instead they possess a “will to survive” which manifests through killing (predators) or compromise (prey).

Pragmatism recognizes the utility of using language—its conventions, rituals, customs, traditions, and accepted practices semantically assumed it contains – and uses it to justify intentions (ends/ actions). Continue reading “Random Reflections”