August 2009
29 posts
“No one wants to see themselves as someone else’s program running on...”
– Kevin Kelley, writing on Extropy
There are only two ethical paths.
Either might makes right, or something else makes right.
The former is mere force. Whomever exercises it powerfully enough, is right. They decide what is right and what is wrong, they decide the ruleset.
The latter is all other ethical theory - an appeal is made to something else outside the self, to which a comparison is made, and a judgement rendered as to how closely one conforms to that...
Let it work only as long as it works
Extending your identity (or setting identity markers) outside a well bounded self and into particular man-made structures and processes is also a bad idea because it keeps you from adjusting structures and processes to improve them
You may cross
“Permissions”, boundaries and self all go together.
there is no self-ness without a boundary between self/not-self.
boundaries exist only when they both:
demarcate a true/false line (self=true on this side, self=false on that side)
AND
there is a negotiation that occurs upon the crossing of that demarcation in which permission is granted for the crossing.
with food, the...
not so centered self
self-that-acts
self-that-judges
self-that-sits-between/over-the-other-two
looking backwards in my memory, I see only one “self”, a somehow combination of the three “selves” above.
But in each moment of “now” I’m aware of the three. Sometimes more strongly than others.
When Does It Become Me?
“Inputs” into the self, like food, exercise, things listened to, read or viewed have always needed attention/management for a healthy self.
But that management only happens when the boundary of self/not-self is well understood.
flesh is part of the operating spec
It has been my hypothesis of late that the rapid development and adoption of new technologies is exposing our anemic ecclesiologies and misguided understanding of the role and nature of the proclomation of the Word. Until evangelicals properly articulate why the Church gathers and hear’s the Word of God, and then shapes its churches accordingly, we will continue to be co-opted by technologism....
though Christ is the truest human
A mature Christian is easily edified.
While true, I think this is a subset of “A mature human is easily edified.”
I have died and my life is hidden
We can be more sure of our knowledge of God then our knowledge of ourselves.
Zimmerman on Berry →
In his essay “Quantity Vs. Form” Wendell Berry contrasts a long life, which biotechnology and commercialism have made the presumed norm, with a whole or complete life, which is more communal and aspirational.
Looks like something to eventually add to the Bibliography.
my 3 year old has this problem, too.
Justice, Fairness and Equality are not synonyms, and social and self understanding suffers from their confusion.
But that was during my blue period
Who was Picasso? Was he the man who painted Guernica or the Portrait of Suzanne Bloch?
Used to be you could only ask that of famous creators, whose oeuvres spanned their lives.
But now we all are creating a digital oeuvre. And our works can be accessed all at once by anyone.
So who does that make us?
Clarify
The trouble with GTD (Allen, 2002, 2008) is that, properly applied, it regularly pushes you to think about what you did, are doing, and want to do. As well as what you didn’t do, aren’t doing, and won’t likely get to do.
It’s a very practical, and so profoundly exposing, way of showing your personal limits. This can be too much for a person used to ignoring their...
Building Towers of Ivory
Being Good at A Thing
And
Being Good at The Study of Being Good at A Thing
Are not the same thing. And you don’t have to be good at both to be good at either of them.
But confusing one skill for the other can cause a great deal of angst.
Recognition
What is the relationship between pattern and context? Both are meta-information related to a data set.
A pattern is meta-info of the data internal to the data, context is meta-info external to the data, but might not have any direct relationship to the data itself.
A real-world example of both would help. An analagous relationship would also inform.
The nevertheless against the data
It’s good news that the Triune God of Abraham, Issac & Jacob is beyond the data of life.
Paul describes this as hope against hope in Romans. Here’s the data: you are dead, beyond all earthly help. Here’s the story, though: God saves you in Christ. It is true, you are saved! But it is also something one must believe in spite of the data, which all points to: you are dead....
But I have a friend
As access to data increases, its actual value in human decision making decreases and the value of anecdote increases. This seems a function of human believing.
This is why information design is so important. Good information design reduces, summarizes and highlights the important points of the data field to overcome the irrelevant but supremely powerful anecdote.
WatchWas it really me? Indeed. ht Baseball Renaissance.
Transcendent Greatness in Sports
Rohr (2003) says we think we experience transcendent greatness by being part of a big crowd at a great victory. But really this is meaningless. I agree.
But. I do think there can be a transcendent greatness in the way an individual or team plays the game, in the same way an artist or orchestra can make transcendently great things.
To their own ends
I chose the Philosophy Department at my Alma Mater because it was full of White Hats. The Religion and Psych Departments, mostly Black Hats: used intellectual vulnerabilities to exploit and control.
Neologism
Socrates was a White Hat, looking for flaws in thinking, so to help the thinker close them before they became exploitable.
Links are one thing, a Bibliography is another
So I am now including a Bibliography.
Internal links (like to Kevin Kelly) will not go into the Bibliography, but since most of this stuff comes from the bumping together of all these unrelated ideas, it seemed right to start listing the important unrelated contributors.
Tufte, McLuhan, Zinsser, Strunk & White
In the 20th century, good writing was the thing.
In the 21st century, good information design is the thing.
(Good writing is a subset of good information design.)
Keep it real in the internets
Dear friend, any friend of yours is a friend of a friend of mine.
Polanyi preknew it
The questions you ask of your data come already laden with presuppositions about the data.
Kuhn was incommensurably correct
After 400 years of collecting data in the modern project, Google shows that all the world’s data at your fingers matters less than knowing what is the question you need to ask.
Your Permanent Record
“Authenticity” will matter less and less as everything you do is captured into bytes and available for searching. (Thanks internets!)
The new value: will you be existentially and socially crushed by your record, no longer ignorable? Or will you be able to stand and flourish as a person over and against your permanent record?
Who will save you from this body of death?
Pacifism, Coercion and the State
Coercion by force seems counter to pacifism. (Coercion by psychology seems also counter, but more esoteric.)
The State, by definition, is explicitly given the power to coerce. Explicit use of coercive power is only one way in which the power is used. Merely posessing the power, and the ability to exercise it, is itself coercive.
Can a pacifist coherently embrace the idea of The State?
800lb Gorillas only push
Is it possible that the Federal Government can actually Nudge? It is so big and rich, with the power to coerce by force and by finance, I don’t believe it is possible for the Feds to do anything besides coerce.