Tag: Individuality

Freedom As an Absence of Free Will and an Absence of Free Choice

negativegeography4 Comments

Last night I dreamt I was a Germanic medicine man, warrior kicking Roman ass in the Teutoburger Wald (my tribe’s version of the Little Bighorn). Dying in agony I was annoyed to discover that my wife was not tending my wounds, but merely nudging me in the ribs so I’d stop moaning in my sleep.

Despite my battlefield injuries, despite lying face-down in the swampy woods screaming in pain, I was not relieved to find myself back in this cold, bureaucratic, technological culture, although word processing is a nice addition. [See footnote on racial identity and the development of eco-fascism].

We’re all born mid-highway, spewing gas out the tailpipe, decimating forests for school projects, eating animals penned in concentration camps, privileged or lacking privilege, praying to the local deity, before we have a moment to reflect, through no choice of our own.

I just appeared here as a newborn in this historical timeline like a Chomsky Martian, and was quickly covered in all these decals and rooting for the team I got saddled with, no matter how often they lose.Read More »

Integrating Mind and Matter: A Playfull Hypothesis

negativegeography2 Comments

The following hypothesis won’t be correct, but only at best insightful. From where I stumble through life, no human knowledge will ever be free of distortion, because we can’t pin down the nature of a morphing and multi-dimensional infinity. Therefore, I don’t want to construct a stable theory of reality. I’m offering a playful metaphysics instead, a suggestive cartoon (cartoonish in comparison to the dynamic world), a caricature that exaggerates certain features of reality that more conventional stories and theories have tended to downplay by exaggerating other features.

Metaphysical trips such as this are only built for the short haul. My exaggerated intention is to remove a dogmatic beam from the field of perception. Call it a cultural floater that is blinding us to wider potentials. What I’m doing feels practical, not academic.

Also, I’d like the reader to realize that these essays are not rationally planned. At this point in the essay I’m only pursuing a metaphor that now and then crystallized over the past few months. So I write my way deeper into this vague sense of a vaster formulation hiding in the fog of my own ignorance. I want you to know this, because this is an exploratory journey into the wilderness of ignorance, and I want you to ride along as it unfolds, not as a spectator reading a conclusive script.

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