Good Intention Photos that make me think…. Well wait a minute
Part Fifteen
On the Simplicity of being… happy….
We often see photos like this in our lives; Stating in ten words or less the choice of us and our simple drive to this thing we call happiness.
The idea (basically being stated is) one must first have the thought of the emotion in order to actually have it, and so therefore logically one can STOP oneself if one so desires from having said thoughts in the first place… and therefore lead a happier, simpler and easier existence.
Sounds great in theory, if only things were that simple.
This concept is frequently trotted out, but alas it seems to me that often this concept does not seem to pay much attention to the actualities, nor the unknowns of our species. With signs like this, the idea of the quick fix (don’t think it… and you will be all the better for it), circumvents a bigger piece of the human pie… that is the differentiating ideas between conscious and subconscious thought. While the latter may well be indicted in mood generation, quick fix pictures like this most often mean the former when speaking to this idea of ‘thinking’.
My mouth is forced downwards - it creates a negative emotion as if I was unhappy, and does make me want to feel unhappy, but is not created by my conscious mind, and is independent of my mood and thinking… That is the reality of humans, but much less fun or enlightening to put on a beautiful backdrop of… happiness….
And what of things such as bipolar disorder, hormonal imbalances, changes in blood sugar and medications, (among others), in the case of these things, many times the emotions happen first and the thoughts follow. The moods then trigger the bad or good thoughts, not the other way round.
Upon closer thought of this “choice of happiness” thing, it seems to me to be a little more like this: You feel something inside of you that’s wrong, but at first it’s hard sometimes to understand why you’re feeling that way. Only after you experience that emotion first hand can you really understand what you’re feeling. Perhaps then you may choose to try in some way to change the emotion to better feel a sense of … good… within, but to just bluntly state that Happiness is a choice seems (to me) to show a lack of understanding of the way our species really functions.
Emotions aren’t logical or always fun, but experiencing them is what makes us feel alive… good or bad.
There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution
The (Word) Games People Play
Or
Thou Shall Not Commit Logical Fallacies (In easy to remember symbols)
Part Two:
Bandwagon: You appeal to popularity or the fact that many people do something as a form of validation. The flaw in this argument seems to be that the popularity of an idea has absolutely no bearing on its validity.
Composition/Division: You assume that one part of something has to be applied to all, or other parts of (whatever) it (is). Often when something is true for the part it does also apply to the whole, but the crucial difference is whether there exists good evidence to show that this is the case. Because we observe consistencies in things, our thinking can become biased so that we presume consistency to exist where it does not.
Black-or-White: You present alternative states (to something) as the only possibilities, when in fact more (often than not always) exist. Also known as the false dilemma, this insidious tactic has the appearance of forming a logical argument, but under closer scrutiny it becomes evident that there are more possibilities than the either/or choice that is presented. Binary, black-or-white thinking doesn’t allow for the many different variables, conditions, and contexts in which there would exist more than just the two possibilities put forth. It frames the argument misleadingly and obscures rational, honest debate. Black and white is how most humans see the world in general at any given time.
Begging The Question: You present a circular argument in which the conclusion was included in the premise. This logically incoherent argument often arises in situations where people have an assumption that is very ingrained, and therefore taken in their minds as a given, so they include the conclusion (their own idea) in the premise (question) as it just seems… logical… to do so.
A Dose of Sanity:
Part Fifteen:
The Human species often fails to understand things about its own existence. Being that existence is fundamentally imperfect, often (most often due to our reasoning ability) there can be no “total solutions” only “trade-offs.
If everyone in our species were to sit and logically, realistically and unemotionally ponder the actions, reactions, ideas, thoughts, movements and needs of the human species (in all aspects of their being), then there is no other logical conclusion to come to than the notion that the masses in society need to be strategically conditioned (manipulated, brainwashed, as it were, sounds like a power grab, but then I can only explain it in terms that were created by humans, and we often don’t understand that some words we create have both positive and negative connotations to them, even if we never see the other of them) all the time, while maintaining their delusion of freedom (i.e. not directly attacking their volition or their right to what they see as self determination.). That is, in essence what any type of thought is and what all groups attempt to do when they forward an idea of existence and living (or any other idea of thought for that matter). But as humans we do not understand this form of “instinctual” thought. We are all or nothing types of creatures in many ways. Not abstinence, nor overindulgence, but moderation is the way to handle instincts of this nature. We must come to the understanding that strategic conditioning is in some ways an innate part of how we exist within the society we as a species have created collectively. (through all our actions and thoughts).
And so, when it comes to this “strategic conditioning” if moralists can’t do it, those whom think from a truly non-one track minded agenda, those whom can step outside of their own existence, scientists, persons whom can look at the big picture and be really open and honest about what the world society needs (not just certain segments), if these types cannot do it (the ones we usually see as cold, not detached and the like.. and ironically the ones we see as having an agenda), then entities that are more one track minded, like mass-media/corporations and the like will succeed with theirs.
In the world we see today the strategic conditioning is being won by the latter of the two. Humans are at a point in their existence of extreme mistrust and nepotism of all things, especially anyone whom they see as “attempting to tell them what is good for them”
A shift must occur, but the question remains, when are we going to understand that The ‘invisible hand’ in free market and likewise also in free society may be great in shaping the universe, but it can not be friendly to humans; because it’s (fundamentally) Nature’s hand, and Nature doesn’t serve (the) human agenda, it was around long before we were.
The Impossibility of Death (?)…
What is in a Word: Part Twenty Five
(il)Logical Proof (of nothing).
1. God Exists
2. Neither of these sentences is true
The two statements can be reconciled ONLY if God exists.
Therein lies the fundamental thoughts of much of what drives us in many ways….
(over)Simplified Philosophy 101
or
Let’s Wrap this Whole “Why” Thing up in Twenty Words or Less…
Plato- Because there are two sides to discuss, that’s why.
Aristotle- Because its logical, that’s why.
Dark Ages- …cricket ‘s chirping…
Renaissance – Because Aristotle is pretty, that’s why.
Enlightenment – Because of Nature – no, the Mind – no, both, that’s why.
Hegel- Because you got me spinning right ‘round, right ‘round, like a record baby – well, ‘til the music stops, that’s why.
Existentialists- Because it isn’t, that’s why.
Postmodernism – Because fuck you, that’s why.
Human actions and logic don’t always synergise.. flawed in principle or not….
Beliefs, Models, Analogies: Part Five
On Semantical Animonies
“Perhaps the most famous of all semantical antimonies is that of the person who says of themselves…
“I am lying”.
After stating this one must following this statement to its logical conclusion, that conclusion being that it is true only if it is not true; in other words, the person is lying only if they are telling the truth, and so, consequently vice-versa, truthful when they are lying.
-“Every language has, a structure concerning which, in the language, nothing can be said, but that there may be another language dealing with the structure, and that to this hierarchy, of languages, there may be no limit”
-“Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true”.
-“We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice and another which we practice but seldom preach”.
-“The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it”.
-“We are faced with a paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought”.
Education and the Social Order. The Analysis of Matter. The Principles of Mathematics, Russell
Beliefs, Models, Analogies: Part Four
“On life after death, eternity and the meaning of logical propositions”
The real question of life after death isn’t whether or not it exists, but even if it does what problems this really solves.
Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.
This throws light on the question why logical propositions can no more be empirically established than they can be empirically refuted. Not only must a proposition of logic be incapable of being contradicted by any possible experience, but it must also be incapable of being established by any such. It now becomes clear why we often feel as though “logical truths” PHILOSOPHICUS must be “postulated” by us. We can in fact postulate them in so far as we can postulate an adequate notation.
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein
Intermission: Three Minute Philosophy (Kant Edition)
This edition of the series is on the philosopher Kant (watch your pronunciation…. ladies, we are not degrading….)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xwOCmJevigw
And Now For a Few Words …..Part Three
Russell:
-“In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.”
-A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.
-Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country.
-So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
-Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
-Although this may seem a paradox, all exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation. When a man tells you that he knows the exact truth about anything, you are safe in infering that he is an inexact man. Every careful measurement in science is always given with the probable error… every observer admits that he is likely wrong, and knows about how much wrong he is likely to be.
-Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.
-Passive acceptance of the teacher’s wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position.
-All movements go too far.
-Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.
-I do not believe that science per se is an adequate source of happiness, nor do I think that my own scientific outlook has contributed very greatly to my own happiness, which I attribute to defecating twice a day with unfailing regularity. Science in itself appears to me neutral, that is to say, it increases men’s power whether for good or for evil. An appreciation of the ends of life is something which must be superadded to science if it is to bring happiness, but only the kind of society to which science is apt to give rise. I am afraid you may be disappointed that I am not more of an apostle of science, but as I grow older, and no doubt—as a result of the decay of my tissues, I begin to see the good life more and more as a matter of balance and to dread all over-emphasis upon anyone ingredient.
The many faces of Descartes: A refelection of our species
The “Isms” in Art Form:
Part Six: Rationalism
The only way to know truth is through reason because the senses are inadequate and may even be misleading. Starting from premises that cannot be coherently denied, then attempting by logical steps to deduce every possible object of knowledge.
What’s in a number? The Number Wheel….
Multiply 212765957446808510638297872340425531914893617 by any number from 2 to 46 and you’ll find the product on the ring above.
“Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.”
