Be the machine that you are in the world.

Baudrillard: Surplus value, profit, exploitation -- all these "objective realities" of capital have no doubt worked to mask the immense social domestication, the immense controlled sublimation of the process of production, appearing only as the tactical side of the process. [...] For the system no longer needs universal productivity; it requires only that everyone play the game. [...] Excluded from the game, their revolt henceforth aims at the rules of the game. This revolt can remain ambiguous if it is experienced as anomie and as defeat, if it occupies by default the marginal position assigned to it by the system or if it is institutionalized as marginal. But it is enough that it radically adopts this forced exteriority to the system in order to call the system into question, no longer as functioning in the interior but from the exterior, as a fundamental structure of the society, as a code, as a culture, as an interiorized social space.

wittgenstein #18

Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets
and squares, of old and new houses with additions from various
periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with
straight regular streets and uniform houses.

research tidbit

"The functionality of Nature structured by labor, and the
corresponding functionality of the subject structured around needs,
belong to the anthropological sphere of use value described by
Enlightenment rationality and defined for a whole civilization (which
imposed it on others) by a certain kind of abstract, linear,
irreversible finality: a certain model subsequently extended to all
sectors of individual and social practice. This operational finality
is arbitrary in such a way that the concept of Nature it forgets
resists integration within it. It looks as if forcefully rationalized
Nature reemerges elsewhere in an irrational form. Without ceasing to
be ideological, the concept splits into a "good" Nature that is
dominated and rationalized (which acts as the ideal cultural
reference) and a "bad" Nature that is hostile, menacing, catastrophic,
or polluted." -- Jean Baudrillard, "The Mirror of Production" (pp.
56-57)

33 1/3 Mercy Street (vintage material!)

(Anne Sexton vs Peter Gabriel, Nick Cave, and Tom Waits
with a sprinkling of Kathy Acker.)

In my dream, looking down on empty streets, all she can
see is that it began when they came and took me from my
home.  The dreams all made solid and, drilling into the
marrow of my entire bone, they put me in death row, the
dreams of which I am nearly wholly innocent, you know.

MY REAL DREAM:

The bats in the belfry and I'm walking up and down Beacon
Hill.  Searching for a street sign, namely MERCY STREET.
Waiting.  Not there.  Where are the arms that held me and
I'M YEARNING.

Try the Back Bay.  Not there.

I pledged her love before, an eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth.  It's such a sad old feeling and yet I know
the number, 45 Mercy Street.

I know the stained-glass window, it's memories.  But
you're innocent when you dream and i think of the foyer,
my head is glowing.

When you dream the three flights of the house
when you dream its parquet floors

And we'll be done with all this weighing up of truth, the
furniture, and mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, the
servants and the graveyard. We laughed, my friends and I
know the cupboard of Spode, got nothing left to lose.

The boat of ice, solid silver, where we swore we'd be
together and the butter sits in neat squares until like
a strange giant we died on the big mahogany table.

Not there.

Glowing until the day we died and I think my head is
smoking and where did you go?

In a way I'm hoping I made a golden promise to be done
with 45 Mercy Street, all this looks of disbelief.

That we would never part with great-grandmother, an eye
for an eye, a locket and a tooth for a tooth, kneeling in
her whale-bone corset, and praying gently but fiercely;
then I broke the wash basin, her heart at five A.M., and
anyway at noon there was no proof and then I broke her
heart, nor motive why, dozing in her wiggy rocker.

And grandfather taking a nap in the pantry, smoking all of
the buildings, grandmother pushing the bell for the
downstairs maid, all of those cars and, I'll say it, Nana
rocking Mother with an oversized flower.

And my head is melting again on her forehead to cover the
curl where once just a dream of when she was, good, and
when she was... not afraid to die.

And in a way I'm helping in somebody's head where she was
begat, and in a generation, the third she will beget, I
began to warm and chill, she pictures to be done with all
this, twisted of the truth.

In the broken glass, she pictures the steam to objects and
a lie for a lie, their fields, she pictures a soul, a
ragged cup, a twisted truth for a mop with no leak at the
seam the face of Jesus in my soup and I've got nothing
left to lose, let's take the boat out, those sinister
dinner meals wait, and I'm not afraid to die.

Until darkness, with the stranger's seed blooming, the
meal trolley's wicked wheels let's take... melting the
boat into the flower called Horrid.  A hooked bone rising
from my food wait until I walk in a yellow dress.  And I
think my blood is boiling darkness comes, all things
either good or ungood.  Nowhere, and a white pocketbook
stuffed with cigarettes, I'm spoiling in the corridors of
pale green and grey and enough pills, my wallet, my keys,
all the fun with all this truth and consequence and being
twenty-eight, or is it forty-five?

I walk. I walk.  Waiting nowhere in the suburbs and I hold
matches at street signs burning in the cold light of day,
for it is dark, and in a way I'm yearning, and a truth for
a truth, there in the midst of it so alive and alone as
dark as the leathery dead to be done and anyway I told the
truth with all this measuring of words that support like
bone, and I'm not afraid to die.

Dreaming an eye for an eye of Mercy St. and I have lost a
tooth, my green Ford waiting, anyway i told the truth and
i think my head is burning.  My house in the suburbs
dreaming of mercy, two little kids, and i'm not afraid to
die.

In your way sucked up like pollen by the bee in me and in
a way I'm yearning for daddy's arms and a husband again
interpret signs and catalogue who has wiped off his eyes,
dreaming, done with all this measuring of proof, in order
not to see me inside out.

Of Mercy Street, a blackened tooth, a scarlet fog.  I am
walking and looking. Swear, a life for a life, they moved
that sign, the walls are bad.  And this is no dream-black.
Just my oily life-bottom.  And a truth for a kind truth,
where the people are alibis, and the street is unfindable
for an entire lifetime.

Pull the shades down (dreaming of mercy) they are sick
breath and I don't care! anyway there was no proof in your
daddy's arms, bolt the door, mercy, they are sick breath,
erase the number, but I'm not afraid to tell a lie.

Rip down the street sign, pulling out the papers from the
drawers that slide smooth and the mercy seat is waiting
what can it matter, they are sick breath tugging at the
darkness, and I think my head is burning what can it
matter to this cheapskate word upon word they are sick
breath gathering who wants to own the past that went out
on a dead ship and in a way I'm yearning confessing all
the secret things and left me only with paper in the warm
velvet box, done with all this measuring of truth.

Not there.

Hear stories from the chamber, between the dollars and the
lipstick.  I open my pocketbook to the priest, as women
do.  He's the eye for an eye doctor, christ (I pick them
out) and fish swim back and forth.  He was born into a
manger.  He can handle the truth and the truth shocks and
like some ragged stranger dreaming of the way I told the
truth -- tenderness -- the tremble in the hips that died
upon the cross but here I'm afraid I told a lie.

Kissing Mary's lips and might I say it seems so fitting in
its way of Mercy St. -- I'm dreaming he was a carpenter by
trade, wearing your insides out, one by one or at least
that's what I told, them dreaming of mercy like my good
hand in your daddy's arms again, tatooed evil, that filthy
across Mercy st. throw them at the street signs.

Dreaming, shoot my pocketbook, they did nothing to
challenge, swear they moved that sign in heaven, his
throne is made of gold looking for mercy the ark of his
testament is stowed into the Charles River.  In your
daddy's arms, a throne from which I'm told all mercy does
unfold.

Next I pull the dream off.  Mercy, mercy, looking for
mercy down here it's made of wood and wire anne, with her
father is out in the boat and my body is on fire riding
the water and God is never far away.  And slam into the
cement wall riding the waves on the sea into the mercy
seat of the clumsy calendar I climb my head is shaved, my
head is wired and like a moth that tries to enter the
bright eye I go shuffling out of the life I live in, just
to hide in death awhile.

I never lied in my notebooks.

My life, a wedding band its hauled up, collaring all that
rebel blood.

buster benson's rules to live by

1. You must not dilly-dally. 2. You must be your word. 3. You must
have good intentions. 4. You must admit to being the maker of meaning.
5. You must not feel sorry for yourself. 6. You must have a vision
that you are striving for. 7. You must tie creativity and
experimentation with survival. 8. You must be the change you want to
see. 9. You must rally others with your vision. 10. You must stake
your reputation on your better self. 11. You must be comfortable with
the consequences of being who you are. 12. You must share. 13. You
must make your own advice and take it. 14. You must manage your
stress, health, and clarity. 15. You must study your mistakes. 16. You
must retry things you don't like every once in a while. 17. You must
make time to enjoy things. -- http://busterbenson.com/

focus, leonardo

"Inhibition may have an opposite impact on two aspects of creativity:
convergent thinking and divergent thinking. [...] Thus, poor
inhibitory control may present a disadvantage for individuals with
ADHD on convergent thinking tasks, such as the Remote Associates Task,
that benefit from strong inhibitory control. In contrast, given the
positive relationship between poor inhibitory control and divergent
thinking, individuals with ADHD may show above average divergent
thinking. [...] On the other hand, some models of creativity suggest
that both the ability to diffuse attention and generate ideas, and the
ability to focus attention and work within certain constraints, may be
important for actual creative production." --
http://proadhd.nl/White_Shah_ADHDCreativity_PAID.pdf

Circumstantial evidence: a friend of mine who is more towards the ADHD
end of the spectrum has told me on several occasions that he thinks I
am very good at relating otherwise unrelated things (convergent
thinking). Am I comparatively bad at coming up with alternatives? I
must admit that although I like to think all over the place, I often
do so through the use of textual aids (e.g. using Gathatoulie posts to
record weird ideas -- which I then later draw connections between).

My guess is that I think more towards the high anxiety ("inhibited")
end of the spectrum (cf.
http://gathatoulie.blogspot.com/2011/11/old-mail-amy-g.html,
http://gathatoulie.blogspot.com/2011/10/self-agency-reward-and-anxiety.html)
-- which makes my own issues with focus and attention somewhat
curious.

Perhaps instead of what would be called divergent thinking (generating
ideas), I sensitively search and observe the world I'm in. Hm... it's
also curious that at the same time as having a fairly strong ability
to put up with things and deal with problems by self-soothing (not
always the best way, I might add), I also seem to have fairly bad
impulse control when it comes to things like budgeting money or
playing cards or whatever. Maybe being creative isn't always the best
blend for dealing with normal day to day life? In fact I'm pretty
sure it isn't. To put it another way, creativity and adaptivity are
vastly different things.

old mail: amy g

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/22/depressed-mothers-have-children-with-enlarged-amygdalas-says-study.html
Awesome article, fucked up but interesting neurological effect!   On
the positive side, such persons would be well qualified for careers as
super-detectives! :)

"If you grow up in an environment in which you don't have all the
support you would need, maybe you become a super-detector of threats."

On the down-side, somewhat subject to stress...

"a larger amygdala might be the equivalent of having not one fire
alarm but many go off at the slightest whiff of smoke."

My friend who's a psychologist by training had a different view: "I
think the actual effect of amygdale size is very small... a person's
education probably has much more to with how well they cope in real
world situations than the size of any particular area of their brain."

Cf. http://gathatoulie.blogspot.com/2011/08/comic-book-psychology.html

apomorphine reconsidered

The classic D1/D2 receptor agonist apomorphine has been
used as a centrally acting emetic in Parkinson treatment
and to treat erectile dysfunction. A new sublingual form
of apomorphine has recently been developed, which produces
fewer side effects, such as nausea and vomiting. It has
been assumed that apomorphine would primarily influence
erectile function by acting on oxytocinergic neurons
located in the paraventricular nucleus of the
hypothalamus. However, animal studies as well as
observations in humans have shown that motivational
aspects of sexual behavior are influenced by apomorphine
administration as well. Summarizing a series of animal
studies, we may conclude that dopamine is involved in the
appetitive phase of sexual behavior, which is primarily
processed by the nucleus accumbens, whereas consummatory
aspects of sexual performance are controlled in the dorsal
striatum. -- http://66.199.228.237/boundary/Sexual_Addiction/orgasm_dopamine.pdf

linklater

"Slackers might look like the left-behinds of society, but they are
actually one step ahead, rejecting most of society and the social
hierarchy before it rejects them. The dictionary defines slackers as
people who evade duties and responsibilities. A more modern notion
would be people who are ultimately being responsible to themselves and
not wasting their time in a realm of activity that has nothing to do
with who they are or what they might be ultimately striving for." --
Richard Linklater, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacker_(film)

the ethical parent

The following are five basic elements of how caregivers can foster a
secure attachment in the children under their care:

Collaboration [...] Reflective Dialogue [...] Repair [...] Coherent
Narratives [...] Emotional Communication.

-- http://www.robsilvermancounseling.com/images/siegel-interpersonal-neurobiology.pdf

Leigh Brasington's tentative hypothesis

First, from Emily Yoffe in Slate Magazine:

Mammals stimulating the lateral hypothalamus seem to be caught in a
loop, Panksepp writes, "where each stimulation evoked a reinvigorated
search strategy". [...] 'Wanting' is Berridge's equivalent for
Panksepp's 'seeking' system.

[However,] it is the 'liking' system that Berridge believes is the brain's
reward center. When we experience pleasure, it is our own opioid
system, rather than our dopamine system, that is being stimulated.
This is why the opiate drugs induce a kind of blissful stupor so
different from the animating effect of cocaine and amphetamines.

[In short,] wanting and liking are complementary. The former
catalyzes us to action; the latter brings us to a satisfied pause.
Seeking needs to be turned off, if even for a little while, so that
the system does not run in an endless loop. When we get the object of
our desire (be it a Twinkie or a sexual partner), we engage in
consummatory acts that Panksepp says reduce arousal in the brain and
temporarily, at least, inhibit our urge to seek.

Now, from http://www.leighb.com/jhananeuro.htm:

Quite secluded from the dopamine-based wanting system (substantia
nigra), secluded from any other disturbing mental activity -- one
enters & remains in the first jhana: dopamine-based liking system
(ventral tegmental area) activation [...] accompanied by background mental
activity.

With the stilling of background mental activity, one enters & remains
in the second jhana: dopamine-based liking system activation &
opioid-based liking system activation born of concentration,
unification of awareness free from background mental activity --
internal tranquility due to opioids flooding the nervous system.

With the fading of dopamine-based liking system activation, remaining
equanimous, mindful & clearly aware -- with continued opioid-based
liking system activation, one is physically sensitive of pleasure. One
enters & remains in the third jhana, of which the Noble Ones declare,
'Equanimous & mindful due to opioid system activation, one has a
pleasurable abiding.'

With the abandoning of liking generated by opioid system activation --
as with the earlier disappearance of liking generated by dopamine
system activation -- one enters & remains in the fourth jhana:
mindfulness fully purified by the equanimity remaining from the prior
opioid activation, a neutral state now that the liking systems have
calmed down.

(N.B.: both dopamine-based liking and opioid-based liking are housed
in the Nucleus Accumbens, cf. this recent post on Gathatoulie,
http://gathatoulie.blogspot.com/2011/10/self-agency-reward-and-anxiety.html)

judeo-buddhist

I noticed some fascinating parallels between the instructions for
Buddhist meditation in the Anapanasati Sutra
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anapanasati_Sutta#Preparatory_instructions)
and the layout of the Kabbalistic tree of life.

Let me run through the "steps" in that Sutra with parallels to some
tarot cards that seem to make sense. (These can certainly be switched
around considerably for other interpretations.)  What's interesting to
me is how these steps map onto the "male" and "female" attributes of
the tree of life.

The parallels can serve as a mnemonic for remembering the various
components of a meditation practice, and for better understanding what
some mystical Kabbalistic things might "really" be about.

Contemplation of the Body / Malkuth
1. Discerning long breaths: 10 of wands, Oppression, as in a sigh
2. Discerning short breaths: 10 of coins, Wealth, as with speech or laughter
3. Experiencing the whole body: 10 of swords, Ruin, as in bodily pain and decay
4. Calming bodily formations: 10 of cups, Satiety, as in calmness

Contemplation of the Feeling / Netzach
5. Being sensitive to rapture: 7 of wands, Valour, as in being in love with an idea
6. Being sensitive to pleasure: 7 of cups, Debauch, as in taking it a bit far

Contemplation of the Feeling / Hod
7. Being sensitive to mental fabrication: 8 of swords, Interference, as in this stuff is messing with me
8. Calming mental fabrication: 8 of coins, Prudence, as in, hey, what's really going on

Contemplation of the Mind / Chesed
9. Being sensitive to the mind: 4 of cups, Luxury, as in what we cook up in fantasy
10. Satisfying the mind: 4 of coins, Completion, as in getting what you're after
(at least in fantasy)

Contemplation of the Mind / Geburah
11. Steadying the mind: 5 of wands, Strife, as in how we must be prepared for a struggle
12. Releasing the mind: 5 of swords, Defeat, as in moving on when we see that the
fantasy level doesn't really "work"

Contemplation of the Mental Objects / Chokmah
13. Focusing on impermanence: 2 of coins, Change, as in things are always changing
14. Focusing on dispassion: 2 of wands, Dominion, as in 'truth will make you free'

Contemplation of the Mental Objects / Binah
15. Focusing on cessation: 3 of swords, Sorrow, as in the the sadness of giving something up
16. Focusing on relinquishment: 3 of cups, Abundance, as in, actually there's plenty so don't worry

london psychogeographical association?

You get a shiver in the dark
It's raining in the park but meantime
South of the river you stop and you hold everything
A band is blowing Dixie double four time
You feel all right when you hear that music ring

Well now you step inside but you don't see too many faces
Coming in out of the rain to hear the jazz go down
Competition in other places
But the horns, they blowing that sound
Way on down south
Way on down south in London town^*

[...]

*: I looked this up after listening to the Kiosk version of "Green
Grass", which is to Tom Waits what "Sultans of Swing" is to swing (as
I remarked on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rlv_KejUI_k#t=1m6s); anyway, it seems
like the two songs use a similar metre. I like the spooky original
addition to the cover by Kiosk frontman Arash Sobhani:

The grass grows by every stream
Like smiles faintly gleam
step gently cause it not to scream
For it has grown from a lover's dream

hamming

"Now, how did I come to do this study? At Los Alamos I was brought in to run the computing machines which other people had got going, so those scientists and physicists could get back to business. I saw I was a stooge. I saw that although physically I was the same, they were different. And to put the thing bluntly, I was envious. I wanted to know why they were so different from me. I saw Feynman up close. I saw Fermi and Teller. I saw Oppenheimer. I saw Hans Bethe; he was my boss. I saw quite a few very capable people. I became very interested in the difference between those who do and those who
might have done." --http://www.newschooljournal.com/files/NSER03/05-26.pdf

maladaptive and progressive schemata

Emacs Lisp mode for fontification of "maladaptive" schemas:
https://raw.github.com/holtzermann17/rid-mode.el/master/mal-mode.el

Working on this was rather tedious. What I'd like better than what
I've made here would be a "progressive" word-list generating tool that
would not only extract an initial list of keywords from a given
document, but flesh that list out over time to make a better
representation of the key ideas, based on keywords found in the
documents. For example, if a known keyword A appears many times in a
given document, some new word B that also appears frequently in that
document should be added to the list of words that A is a part of.

Also, the maladaptive schema stuff is tedious because it is
depressing! "Maladaptive Schemas are self-defeating, core themes or
patterns that we keep repeating throughout our lives." Things like
"The perceived instability or unreliability of those available for
support and connection", or "The expectation that others will hurt,
abuse, humiliate, cheat, lie, manipulate, or take advantage."

It's also not entirely clear to me that working on this tool was
itself "adaptive", but I wanted to make another analytic module I
could share on the GNU Emacs mailing list (because rid-mode.el was
copyright encumbered).

Some other details about maladaptive schemas:

Definitions: http://www.schematherapy.com/id73.htm

Questionnaire: http://www.schematherapy.com/id53.htm

Scoring: http://www.schematherapy.com/id111.htm

look at who stands to benefit

«These are the ones who stand to gain from the whipping up of
chauvinism, from the chatter about "patriotism" (cannon patriotism),
about the defence of culture (with weapons destructive of culture) and
so forth!» -- V. I. Lenin,
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/apr/11.htm

self-agency, reward, and anxiety

Our previous work demonstrated that behavioral inhibition is
associated with perturbations in the appetitive-motivational system.
In this study, we found that these perturbations were specific to the
condition in which participants believed that choice of self-executed
responses determined outcomes, and did not extend to the condition in
which outcomes were independent of subjects' agency. Indeed, a sense
of "responsibility," or self-agency, in a context of uncertainty
(probabilistic outcomes) drives the neural system underlying
appetitive motivation (i.e., nucleus accumbens) more strongly in
temperamentally inhibited than noninhibited adolescents. One important
next step will be to determine how the reward system interacts with
fear circuitry among subjects characterized by behavioral inhibition
and elevated anxiety. --
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2785902/

nerves of the face

«The theory has two important parts. The first is the link between the
nerves of the face and the nerves that regulate the heart and the
lungs. The second is the phylogenetic hierarchy that describes the
evolutionary sequence from a primitive, unmyelinated vagus related to
conservation of metabolic resources, to a sympathetic-adrenal system
involved in mobilization strategies, to a myelinated vagus related to
modulating calm bodily states and social engagement behaviors. The
hierarchy emphasizes that the newer "circuits" inhibit the older ones.
We use the newest circuit to promote calm states, to self-soothe and
to engage. When this doesn't work, we use the sympathetic-adrenal
system to mobilize for fight and flight behaviors. And when that
doesn't work, we use a very old vagal system, the freeze or shutdown
system. So the theory states that our physiological responses are
hierarchically organized in the way we react to challenge, and the
hierarchy of reactions follows the sequence in which the systems
evolved. Additionally, the linkage between the nerves that regulate
the face and the nerves that regulate the heart and lungs implies that
we can use the facial muscles to calm us down. Think about it: when
we're stressed or anxious, we use our facial muscles, which include
the ears. We eat or drink, we listen to music, and we talk to people
to calm down.»

«So we could use dramatic facial expressions to calm down?»

«Absolutely. Think about how pranayama (a yogic breathing technique)
works. When you do these breathing exercises, you're actually
"exercising" both the sensory and motor nerves regulating the facial
muscles; you are controlling breath and maneuvering the oral motor
cavity. It's a very efficient way of working on the system. A lot of
people don't like to teach pranayama because they think it's too
powerful. Polyvagal theory explains how pranayama might work and how
other methods of stimulating the same system, including social
interactions, can result in similar benefits to our health and mental
state. The social engagement system includes the nerves regulating the
face and the myelinated vagus regulating the heart and bronchi. The
power of the social engagement system is amazing both in terms of its
effects on behavior and mental state, but also in terms of the speed
with which it works.»

-- Stephen Porges interviewed by Ravi Dykema,
http://www.nexuspub.com/articles_2006/interview_porges_06_ma.php

A Villanelle for Their Time

"Are you not weary of ardent ways,
Lure of the fallen seraphim?
Tell no more of enchanted days.

Your eyes have set man's heart ablaze
And you have had your will of him.
Are you not weary of ardent ways?

Above the flame the smoke of praise
Goes up from ocean rim to rim.
Tell no more of enchanted days.

Our broken cries and mournful lays
Rise in one eucharistic hymn.
Are you not weary of ardent ways?

While sacrificing hands upraise
The chalice flowing to the brim,
Tell no more of enchanted days.

And still you hold our longing gaze
With languorous look and lavish limb!
Are you not weary of ardent ways?
Tell no more of enchanted days."

-- James Joyce, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"

Don’t be afraid to really want what you desire.

«And so contemporary French theorists remain trapped in
this conceptual cage: Althusser sees theory as a
"production," Deleuze and Guattari give us an unconscious
that is a "producer" of desire, the Tel Quel group refers
to textual "production." But it was political economy
that erected that "phantasm," in Baudrillard's words, of
labor as the human essence. To whatever extent Marx was
able to demystify its liberal usage, to extract it from
the hegemony of bourgeois rule, he still turned it over to
the working class, imposed it on them, as their central
means of self-comprehension. Baudrillard would like to
liberate the workers from their "labor power," to have
them, if they are to represent a radical alternative to
the present system, think themselves under another sign
than that of production.» -- Mark Poster,
http://theearthisdying.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/mark-poster%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Ctranslator%E2%80%99s-introduction%E2%80%9D-1975-to-baudrillard%E2%80%99s-the-mirror-of-production-1973/

«What do we perceive today as possible? Just follow the
media. On the one hand, in technology and sexuality,
everything seems to be possible. You can travel to the
moon, you can become immortal by biogenetics, you can have
sex with animals or whatever, but look at the field of
society and economy. There, almost everything is
considered impossible. You want to raise taxes by little
bit for the rich. They tell you it's impossible. We lose
competitivity. You want more money for health care, they
tell you, "Impossible, this means totalitarian state."
[...] The only sense in which we are Communists is that we
care for the commons. The commons of nature. The commons
[not] privatized by intellectual property. The commons of
biogenetics. For this, and only for this, we should
fight. [...] The only thing I'm afraid of is that we will
someday just go home and then we will meet once a year,
drinking beer, and nostaligically remembering "What a nice
time we had here." Promise yourselves that this will not
be the case. We know that people often desire something
but do not really want it. Don't be afraid to really want
what you desire. Thank you very much.» -- Slavoj Zizek,
http://www.thenewsignificance.com/2011/10/11/slavoj-zizek-we-are-the-awaking-occupy-wall-street-talk/

the much awaited venus in gold (reed vs young, circa 2005)

I want to live,
I want to give
comes in bells, your servant, don't forsake him
strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart

It's these expressions
I never give:
ermine furs adorn the imperious
severin, severin awaits you there

i am tired, i am weary
i could sleep for a thousand years
You keep me searching
for a heart of gold

I've been to Hollywood
I've been to Redwood
tongue of thongs, the belt that does await you
strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart

I've been in my mind,
it's such a fine line
taste the whip, in love not given lightly
taste the whip, now plead for me

i am tired, i am weary
i could sleep for a thousand years
You keep me searching
And I'm getting old

shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather
whiplash girlchild in the dark
I've been a miner
for a heart of gold

mother of exiles

"The scarcity of copyright cannot compete against the abundance of
gifts." -- Richard Barbrook, "Cyber-Communism: How the Americans are
Superceding Capitalism in Cyberspace",
http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/17/cyber-communism-how-the-americans-are-superseding-capitalism-in-cyberspace/

"Nothing can intensify my passion more than tyranny, cruelty, and
especially the faithlessness of a beautiful woman." -- Leopold von
Sacher-Masoch, "Venus in Furs"

"As the seventeen-year-old Karl Rossmann, who had been sent to America
by his unfortunate parents because a maid had seduced him and had a
child by him, sailed slowly into New York harbour, he suddenly saw the
Statue of Liberty, which had already been in view for some time, as
though in an intenser sunlight. The sword in her hand seemed only just
to have been raised aloft, and the unchained winds blew about her
form." -- Franz Kafka, "Amerika"

agorism

"The state is the primary source of violence, oppression, theft and
all forms of coercion. Stop funding the state with your tax dollars
and direct your productive energies into the black market." -- Silk
Road, quoted at
http://gawker.com/5805928/the-underground-website-where-you-can-buy-any-drug-imaginable

applied catastrophe theory

"The key, then, to dealing with organisms in highly accumulated
'stasis' states is the application of finely timed sequences of
autonomically acting stimuli coupled with the evocation of appropriate
behavior in terms of mobilization. It is this sequential patterning
of autonomic and somatic behavior which is central to the resolution
of accumulated stress as well as to its regulation in general." --
Peter Levine, "Accumulated Stress, Reserve Capacity, and Disease",
1976 Doctoral dissertation,
http://www.somaticexperiencing.com/images/stories/Peter_A_Levine-Thesis.pdf

i know you'll take care of all my needs

«Below are provisional lists of [...] emotional skill needs, and
experiential needs.

Emotional skill needs are the need for basic skills and abilities for
handling emotions:

* Emotional self-awareness: a need to learn to appraise and express
what one is feeling;
* Managing emotions: the need to handle and regulate feelings so that
they are appropriate;
* Self-motivation: a need to learn to harness one's emotions in the
service of a goal, for example by delaying gratification.
* Affect perception: a need to accurately appraise what others are
feeling as they are feeling and expressing it;
* Empathy: a need to learn to appreciate what others are feeling
(closely linked in the literature to emotional self-awareness);
* Handling relationships, primarily via managing the emotions of
others. This skill is a necessary component of friendship, intimacy,
popularity, and leadership.

Experiential emotional needs [...] are mostly inherently social needs,
and are therefore usually only met with the assistance or presence of
others.

These include a need

* for attention -- strong and constant in children, fading to varying
degrees in adulthood;
* to feel that one's current emotional state is understood by others
(particularly during strong emotional response);
* to love and feel reciprocity of love;
* to express affection, and feel reciprocated affection expressed;
* for reciprocity of sharing personal disclosure information;
* to feel connected to others;
* to belong to a larger group;
* for intimacy;
* to feel that one's emotional responses are acceptable by others;
* to feel accepted by others;
* to feel that emotional experience and responses are "normal";
* for touch, to be touched;
* for security.»

-- Jonathan Klein, Rosalind W. Picard and Jocelyn Riseberg, "Support
for Human Emotional Needs in Human-Computer Interaction",
http://affect.media.mit.edu/pdfs/97.klein-picard-riseberg.pdf

socrates

"Socrates says three important things with regard to his invitation to
others to occupy themselves with themselves: (1) His mission was
conferred on him by the gods, and he won't abandon it except with his
last breath. (2) For this task he demands no reward; he is
disinterested; he performs it out of benevolence. (3) His mission is
useful for the city, more useful than the Athenians military victory
at Olympia - because in teaching people too occupy themselves with
themselves, he teaches them to occupy themselves with the city." --
Michel Foucault,
http://foucault.info/documents/foucault.technologiesOfSelf.en.html

self-deception

My feelings were hurt
because I felt like
my feelings weren't taken into account.

But I had disguised my feelings before,
or downplayed them,
or simply didn't know what they were.

Wrong Desire is the Source of Suffering‎

"[...] They shed their sense of responsibility
Long ago, when they lost their votes, and the bribes; the mob
That used to grant power, high office, the legions, everything,
Curtails its desires, and reveals its anxiety for two things only,
Bread and circuses."

"So is there nothing worth people praying for? If you'll take
My advice, you'll allow the gods to determine what's right
For us, and what's likely to benefit our situation; for
The gods grant us gifts that are more fitting than nice.
They show more care for us than we do for ourselves. We
Seek marriage and offspring driven by blind emotion, by
Vain desire, while the gods know all about the children
We'll have, and what kind of wife ours will turn out to be.
Still, if you want a reason for prayer, for offering a pretty
White piglet's innards, the sacred sausages, at the shrines,
Then you might pray for a sound mind in a healthy body.
Ask for a heart filled with courage, without fear of death,
That regards long life as among the least of nature's gifts,
That can endure any hardship, to which anger is unknown,
That desires nothing, and gives more credit to all the labours
And cruel sufferings of Hercules, than to all the love-making
All the feasting, and all the downy pillows of Sardanapalus.
The prayer I offer you can grant yourself; without doubt,
The one true path that leads to a tranquil life is that of virtue.
If we were prudent, you'd possess no power, Fortune[!]: it's we
Who make you a goddess, and grant you a place in the sky."

- Juvenal, http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/JuvenalSatires10.htm

the problem of (re)thinking bodies

«Thought is a consequence of the provocation of an encounter. Thought
is what confronts us from the outside, unexpectedly: "Something in the
world forces us to think" (Deleuze, "Difference and Repetition", page
139). What confronts us necessarily from outside the concepts we
already have, from outside the subjectivities we already are, from
outside the material realities we already know is the problem. The
problem provokes thought [...] Thought-events [...] are singularities
that mix with and have effects on other materialities, with other
political [and] cultural [...] events.» Elizabeth Grosz, "Space, Time,
and Perversion", 1995, pp. 128-9, Epigraph to Nicole Dawson's Master's
thesis, "(Re)Thinking bodies: Deleuze and Guattari's becoming-woman"

She (Dawson) continues on page 2: "Becoming-woman is an occurrence in
which the poles constituted of the dualism and enforced by dualistic
thought no longer serve to determine a body's experience of itself."

And on page 3: "It is not unlikely that these transformations will
have political and empirical consequences, but any transformations
that might arise of conceptual shifts inspired by becomings-woman are
to be regarded as open ended -- open, that is, to the endless
possibilities of becoming other (other than what (one) has been, other
than what (one) presently is, other than what (one) *might* come to
be)." (My emphasis.)

creativity and lack thereof

«Kris (cited in Martindale, 1999) proposed that creative individuals
are better able to shift between primary process and secondary process
modes of thinking than uncreative individuals. The primary-secondary
process continuum is assumed by Fromm (cited in Martindale, 1999) to
be the main dimension along which cognition changes. Primary process
can be detected in normal states such as dreams, as well as in deviant
states such as psychosis and hypnosis. It can be characterised as
autistic, free-associative, analogical, and involving concrete images
as opposed to abstract concepts. Secondary process thought can be
described as abstract, logical, reality-oriented thought of waking
consciousness (Martindale, 1999). According to Kris (cited in
Martindale, 1999), creative inspiration includes a regression to a
primary process state of consciousness. This state presumably
facilitates the discovery of new combinations of mental elements.
Creative elaboration, in turn, is marked by a return to secondary
process thought. Uncreative people are assumed to be caught at one
point in the primary-secondary process continuum. Hence, they are not
able to develop creative ideas. Martindale quotes several lines of
research as evidence for this theory, including that creative people
are found to be more easily hypnotised than uncreative people (Lynn &
Rhue, 1986). Wild (cited in Martindale, 1999) found evidence that
highly creative individuals are better able to shift between use of
primary process and secondary process cognition.» -- A cross-cultural
investigation in suggestibility and creative imagination in young
adults, Claudia Trebes, Master thesis presented in partial fulfilment
of the requirements of the degree Master of Arts (Psychology) at the
University of Stellenbosch

(Martindale, 1999) is Martindale, C. 1999. "7 Biological Bases of
Creativity.", in Robert J. Sternberg, ed., Handbook of creativity,
Cambridge University Press, pp. 137-152 (mostly available on Google
Books, at http://bit.ly/qFBwhS).

love grows

I think love needs to grow in a context of visceral conflict
either involving eating really greasy food and drinking a lot
or playing sports
or both

think about families
Thanksgiving, we go toss the football around
and eat til we're sick
then start over again
OK, maybe not every family
OK, maybe not even my family
but it's close

Four Freedoms of Free Wetware (draft)

(0) the freedom to use your body and mind how you see fit
(1) the freedom to compare one situation to another honestly and to
act on these judgments
(2) the freedom to engage with whomever you'd like in the pursuit of
pleasure or power
(3) the freedom to fill your time with the things you find important,
and to change what you're doing to suit circumstances

comic book psychology

«Batman. His deductive talents seem highly overrated. It doesn't take
great intellect to tackle street crime. Luck and timing are the
operative skills. No, what interests me . . . is the fact that he
functions as a lightning rod for a certain breed of psychotic.
[pictures of the Joker, the Riddler, and Two-Face are shown
successively] They specialize in absurdly grandiose schemes, and
whatever the ostensible rationale -- greed, revenge, the seizure of
power . . . their true agenda is always the same: to cast Batman in
the role of nemesis. Hence the puns, the riddles, the flagrant clues
in their collective wake -- daring their foe to penetrate the obvious.
He always triumphs. If he failed, they'd be bereft. The pas de deux
would have no point. Like naughty children, who tempt the wrath of a
stern, demanding father . . . They seek only to shock him by the
enormity of their transgressions. It's the moment of acknowledgement
they crave. Thus "good" conquers "evil." True evil seldom announces
itself so loudly. The dangerous ones set their subversive goals, and
achieve them, bit by bit . . . invisibly, inevitably. They have no
taste for theater. While Batman busies himself with petty thieves and
gaudy madmen, an abyss of rot yawns ever wider at his feet. He's a
band-aid on a cancer patient. I am of course no moralist, but this
Batman, I think, has a very poor understanding of the world.» --
http://www.adherents.com/lit/comics/Batman.html

Marvin Minsky vs Lou Reed

"You can't blame teachers for trying to make numbers interesting. But
-- let's face it -- numbers by themselves don't have much character.
That's why mathematicians like them so much! They find something
magical about things which have no interesting qualities at all. That
sounds like a paradox. Yet, when you think about it, that's exactly
why we can use numbers so many different ways! Why is it that we get
the same kind of result when we count different kinds of things --
whether we're counting flowers or trees or cars or dinosaurs? Why do
we always end up the same -- with a number? That's the magic of
arithmetic. It wipes away all fine details. It strips things of their
character. The qualities of what you count just disappear without a
trace. Programs do the opposite. They make things come to be, where
nothing ever was before. Some people find a new experience in this, a
feeling of freedom, a power to do anything you want. Not just a lot --
but anything. I don't mean like getting what you want by just wishing.
I don't mean like having a faster-than-light spaceship, or a time
machine. I mean like giving a child enough kindergarten-blocks to
build a full-sized city without ever running out of them. You still
have to decide what to do with the blocks. But there aren't any
outside obstacles. The only limits are the ones inside you." -- Marvin
Minsky, "Introduction to LogoWorks"

"I have made very big decision
I'm goin' to try to nullify my life
'Cause when the blood begins to flow
When it shoots up the dropper's neck
When I'm closing in on death

You can't help me not you guys
Or all you sweet girls with all your sweet talk
You can all go take a walk
And I guess I just don't know
And I guess I just don't know

I wish that I was born a thousand years ago
I wish that I'd sailed the darkened seas
On a great big clipper ship
Going from this land here to that
I put on a sailor's suit and cap

Away from the big city
Where a man cannot be free
Of all the evils of this town
And of himself and those around
Oh, and I guess I just don't know
Oh, and I guess I just don't know"

-- Lou Reed, "Heroin"

further

Zeynep rides a red motorcycle across the country

One supposes she will never crash

Just ride out into the sunset, forever

Like the appropriate citation

For a half-remembered paragraph

That one agreed with entirely

But neglected to bookmark,

And so, it's gone.

maths of god

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Shield-Trinity-Scutum-Fidei-compact.svg/1000px-Shield-Trinity-Scutum-Fidei-compact.svg.png

Deus forms a "cone" over the other nodes. There are no
higher-order triples. There is no "excluded middle"
between being and non-being.

conceptual/anti-conceptual

Outsiders see mathematics as a cold, formal, logical,
mechanical, monolithic process of sheer intellection; we
argue that insofar as it is successful, mathematics is a
social, informal, intuitive, organic, human process, a
community project. -- Social Processes and Proofs of
Theorems and Programs, DeMillo, Lipton, and Perlis.

It is the thesis of this book that society can only be
understood through a study of the messages and the
communication facilities which belong to it; and that in
the future development of these messages and communication
facilities, messages between man and machines, between
machines and man, and between machine and machine, are
destined to play an ever-increasing part. -- The Human
Use of Human Beings, Norbert Wiener.

ecosophy

"Guattari holds that traditional environmentalist perspectives obscure
the complexity of the relationship between humans and their natural
environment through its maintenance of the dualistic separation of
human (cultural) and nonhuman (natural) systems; he envisions ecosophy
as a new field with a monistic and pluralistic approach to such study.
Ecology in the Guattarian sense then, is a study of complex phenomena,
including human subjectivity, the environment, and social relations,
all of which are intimately interconnected. Despite this emphasis on
interconnection, throughout his individual writings and more famous
collaborations with Gilles Deleuze Guattari has resisted calls for
holism, preferring to emphasise heterogeneity and difference,
synthesising assemblages and multiplicities in order to trace
rhizomatic structures rather than creating unified and, holisitic
structures." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosophy

the god complex

«From our perspective, hochmah is that "higher wisdom" that some
systems call primordial Awareness. [...] Binah, meaning understanding,
is a kind of partner to Hochmah. The sefirot are often gendered
(sometimes multi-gendered), and their interaction is often depicted as
a series of erotic interchanges. In this case, Hochmah is the male and
Binah is female, the Divine womb, the generative principle of the rest
of the universe. [...] Binah and Hochmah map easily onto "left brain"
and "right brain" thinking, even though the Kabbalists presumably had
no scientific knowledge of the brain's internal structure.»
--http://learnkabbalah.com/keter_hochmah_and_binah/

I've been attempting to redrawing the standard "tree of life" as a
phase diagram in three dimensions. It's quite tricky to get the
drawing right, partly because Beauty is adjacent to nearly
everything... :)

One of the striking characteristics of the figure is that the Tower
and Strength/Lust form a very noticeable division between the two
"hemispheres", perhaps playing a role something like the "corpus
callosum" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_callosum)? This is
mirrored again by the Empress, but in a way that seems structurally
different. In my drawing, Binah/Understanding, Hochmah/Wisdom, and
Kether/Crown are projected "inside" of Tifaret/Beauty. For
comparison, the hippocampus appears deep within the temporal lobe...

I'm hand-selecting a picture of the brain with just about the right
number of components (accounting for left and right side):
http://en.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brain-anatomy.jpg -- but
developing well-thought-through correspondences in a coherent fashion
will have to wait for a later date.

For the moment I'm just intrigued by the idea of Malkuth/Kingdom as
the nervous system *outside* of the brain. What if the
World/Universe corresponds to the corticospinal tract (motor), the
Moon to the posterior column-medial lemniscus pathway (fine touch,
vibration sensation and proprioception), and The Aeon to the
spinothalamic tract (pain, temperature, itch and crude touch)? This
all makes a certain amount of sense to me...

last fragment of a half a manifesto

"The greatest crime of Marxism wasn't simply that much of what it
claimed was false, but that it claimed to be the sole and utterly
complete path to understanding life and reality. Cybernetic
eschatology shares with some of history's worst ideologies a doctrine
of historical predestination. There is nothing more gray, stultifying,
or dreary than a life lived inside the confines of a theory. Let us
hope that the cybernetic totalists learn humility before their day in
the sun arrives." -- Jaron Lanier,
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier/lanier_index.html

back to work

"Desktops inspire the ultimate fantasy as business accoutrements are
knocked to the floor with one fell swoop of a worsted-clad arm
(difficult with all the PC equipment, I know - all those leads and
plugs and mouse-mats), buns are unpinned, spectacles torn off, plus
all that ice-cold laminated chipboard stretching out beneath you with
just the odd unseen paperclip or stapler to mar the magic of the
moment." -- http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/when-a-colleague-becomes-a-lover-1153739.html

travel trip: day 1, remembering silent camaraderie

Are my "social" frustrations actually a mis-directed expression of
"work" or "learning" difficulties? It's interesting to imagine what
things would look/feel like if I felt my work was going swimmingly. I
do hope to learn a lot this week! -- maybe getting over the next major
hill workwise.

But I'm also thinking that there is something that feel almost
strictly "social" about the way people (can sometimes) spend time
together. I remember thinking of the college library as space of
"silent camaraderie", for example. Why did I feel like we were "all
in it together"? Maybe because in college there is a natural 3rd
party ("the college") to triangulate with -- whereas a collection of
independent researchers will typically all be triangulating against
landmarks related to their own fields, disciplines, or hobby-horses.
It's chaos!

personal

It seems I "ask" a lot and I "give" a lot, so I'm happiest in
relationships with a lot of bandwidth. Also a big plus when people
can find a way to exercise their independence *without* being
inconsiderate, imposing, or super distancing. That right there's a
lot to ask, but hopefully possible when everything's going well...!

health notes from the heart of saturday night

I like peers but I hate "peer pressure" (not just because of the extra
double letters either) and unfortunately I tend to react to stress by
not sleeping, partly because I typically try to readjust my mood by
doing "creative things" whereby perhaps I achieve the most tenuous
sense of "belonging". It's doubly ironic that I worry about being
"lonely" when in fact I simply can't cope with people (and the things
they seem to enjoy) 9 times out of 10. Which of course either renders
me as extremely fragile or manifestly subhuman, and I'm not sure which
I like least. No one would know until I told them what sorts of
things set me on edge, but anyway the category is general enough that
it's no wonder I'm e.g. frequently ill and avoid daylight like a
vampire. I didn't have such a full grasp of this until moving
overseas, but a lot of my life it's been variations on the same theme.

thinking with your !

"The parts of the homunculus that have huge representations (such as
hands, lips, and tongue) are not merely able to detect faint
sensations but can also discriminate the location of these sensations
very precisely. … The genitals, while they can easily detect faint
sensations, cannot accomplish tactile form perception." --
http://zeebees.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/how-much-of-your-brain-is-for-sex/

ugly / pretty

ugly: http://metameso.org/~joe/music/lost-wheeze.mp3
pretty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkumhBVPGdg

Went out a dance club w/ my friends for a bit this evening, the loud
music hurt my eyes (ears rather) and I decided to leave and walk home.

Thinking about folk music on the walk home.

"It is always easier to see human behavior in terms of roles when we
look backwards to earlier times, so this retrospective look makes it
easier for Reed to clarify his intentions." --
http://www.reasontorock.com/tracks/sweet_jane.html

massively obvious online denial

It's interesting to see a common category emerging: slacktivists and
slackademics alike finding it easy to say "yes" to things online, and
then not having the wherewithal (or the motivation) to follow through
in any way.

Of course, this happens offline, too: February is the season of failed
New Year's resolutions. The question or issue is not just "why", but
what if anything can we do about it!

on structurelessness

http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2613/2479

never in anger...

«Positive: The Goat can be appealing, altruistic, creative,
empathetic, intuitive, generous, artless, gentle, romantic, sensitive,
compliant, candid and self-effacing darlings. Negative: The Goat can
also be self-pitying, pessimistic, fugitive, parasitic, vengeful,
lazy, indecisive, contentious, violent, capricious, irresponsible,
tardy, careless, bigoted, nasty little pieces of work.» --
http://www.gotohoroscope.com/chinese-zodiac-ram.html

«In Genesis 2:18 ... the Hebrew expression ezer kenegdo appears,
meaning "one who is the same as the other and who surrounds, protects,
aids, helps, supports." There is no indication of inferiority or of a
secondary position in an hierarchical separation of the male and
female "spheres" of responsibility, authority, or social position.»
--http://www.godswordtowomen.org/help.htm

hyperreal enterprises

"Stay in your hyperborean mists and Christian incense and leave our
pagan world to rest under the lava and the rubble. Do not dig us up
... You do not need the gods – they would freeze to death in your
climate!", Sacher Masoch, "Venus in Furs", quoted in Gilles Deleuze
(tr. Christian Kerslake) "From Sacher-Masoch To Masochism", Angelaki,
Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, volume 9, number 1, April 2004.

sublime masochism

Two quotes from
Slavoj Zizek. Notes on a Debate "From Within the People"
Criticism - Volume 46, Number 4, Fall 2004, pp. 661-666

...

With reference to Deleuze:

"The masochist, while remaining within the domain of the
paternal (contract), reintroduces the Woman as the partner
in the contract—not in order to fully enjoy the Woman, but
in order to mockingly undermine the paternal
authority. The masochist thus stages an uncanny
short-circuit, a monstrous travesty of the Law: in her
very elevation to the undisputed Master, whose every whim
the masochist is obliged to obey, the Woman is turned into
a puppet effectively controlled by her slave, who controls
the game, writing its rules—the explicit asymmetry of the
masochist contract (at the level of enunciated: man's
subordination to woman) relies on then opposite asymmetry
at the level of the position of enunciation. The humor of
masochism is therefore not directed only at the figure of
the father; it relies on the ridiculous (and,
simultaneously, monstrous) incompatibility or discord
between the symbolic place of symbolic power and the
element who occupies it."

With reference to Badiou:

"How can a human animal forsake its animality and put its
life in the service of a transcendent Truth? How can the
'transubstantiation' from the pleasure-oriented life of an
individual to the life of a subject dedicated to a Cause
occur? In other words, how is a free act possible? How
can one break (out of) the network of the causal
connections of positive reality and conceive of an act
that begins by and in itself?"

qualia (Sonnet 18 and Zombies)

"Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, or
the redness of an evening sky." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

"Zimboes think^Z they are conscious, think^Z they have qualia, think^Z
they suffer pains – they are just 'wrong' (according to this
lamentable tradition), in ways that neither they nor we could ever
discover!" -- Daniel Dennet,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

"When philosophers claim that zombies are conceivable, they invariably
underestimate the task of conception (or imagination), and end up
imagining something that violates their own definition" -- Daniel
Dennet, at ibid.

"As I see it, feelings are not strange alien things. It is precisely
those cognitive changes themselves that constitute what 'hurting' is —
and this also includes all those clumsy attempts to represent and
summarize those changes. The big mistake comes from looking for some
single, simple, 'essence' of hurting, rather than recognizing that
this is the word we use for complex rearrangement of our disposition
of resources." -- Marvin Minsky, again in the Qualia article

...

The quote from Minsky makes me think that the "discretized" world
of Qualia can itself be painful, perhaps even capturing (as well as can
be imagined), a sort of essence of hurting, after all.

What I mean is: it is quite painful either to feel that others aren't "real",
and possibly even more painful (and disturbing) to feel or imagine
the irreality of one's own inward existence.  However, the "instrumental"
nature of Qualia seem to be a step precisely in the irreal direction of
think^Z -- "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day", and so forth.

In other words, the simple mechanics of "judging" or "evaluating" (as
via an integral, for example), even just of "the thinginess of things" --
the self-same clumsy summarising and representing -- what might
be called "grasping thought" -- *are* Qualia, *are* pain, and *are
also* the key move to zombieism.

As an application: judging things/others to be irreal (i.e. to be zombies),
whether this is true or not, effectively infects one with zombieism.
It would be absolute insanity for a human to *embrace* this move...
and yet... taking a look at Sonnet 18, there are certain clear attractions
or, shall we say, enticements...

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

sonnet for joanne 2

I'M A buSy womaN AGAINST A BLACK BACKGROUND
aND EVERYTHING IS JUST OK
what thE hell WaS thAt crAzY Thing i sAid neXt?
PoppIng out of his HeaD lIkE thosE

(what is It you're after)
MAYBE IT IS JUST THAT ONE SECOND GUESSES ONESELF
MAKING IT EASIER AT TIMES TO APPROACH ELEGANCE...
OUT WITH THAT INVITATION.

WordS in my MoUth BACK, i
RE-SOLDERED THE TYPE ELEMENTS ON MY TyPewRiTeR

mad (what degree of intimacy + mutual care?)

Where do things stop short? Perhaps at the moment any sign of real
pleasure is involved ("jouissance"?)?

"This much madness is too much sorrow"

anatomy of a callback

"The 'Call back' is usually the first time everybody making the
commercial has been in the same room together, thus it's no surprise
that lines and action get changed or re-worked. So you may walk in to
see you have been rehearsing the wrong sides, or you might get asked
to read for a different part on the spot. This is all business as
usual, so be ready for it." --
http://commercialsuccessresource.blogspot.com/2009/03/anatomy-of-callback.html

D'oh - not that kind of callback!

At http://tanks4code.blogspot.com/2008/07/c-style-callbacks-in-c-code.html
there a kind of complicated object-oriented scenario is described,
indicating that a "callback" is quite similar to a "hook" but also a
bit like a "closure".

So then... from
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/615907/how-is-a-closure-different-from-a-callback:

"The bit that makes it a closure, is when that function accesses
anything on the context where it lives, like variables outside it."

And from here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2070275/javascript-closures-and-callbacks,

"Callbacks are a simpler concept. A callback is basically where a
function accepts another function as a parameter. At some point during
execution the called function will execute the function passed as a
parameter, this is a callback."

They further remark:

"Quite often the reason that closures get created (either
incidentally, accidentally or deliberately) is the need to create a
callback. [... some code defining a function ...] A closure is
created containing in part the 'message' parameter; 'fn' is executed
[on delay] quite some time after the call to 'AlertThisLater' has
returned, yet 'fn' still has access to the original content of
'message'."

So, that's the scoop on that: a "callback" is when a function executes
another function that is one of its arguments, and a "closure" is when
a function executes another function (whether it was initially passed
in as an argument or not) that continues to have access to the scope
of the original function.

OK, not so bad, but still it seems so much more *comprehensible* in
LISP, where one wouldn't geverally bother thinking about whether the
thing was a "closure" or not - one would just put some local variables
to a lambda, then pass that lambda as an argument to another function,
and be done with it.

BDGBTW

Do you like girls or boys
It's confusing these days...
They sat together in the park
As the evening sky grew dark,
holding hands in the moonlight.
There was silence between them.
Silence to say goodbye.
(And the wall won't come down,
until they're no longer afraid of themselves.)

when reviewing or writing a paper

Two thematic questions one could ask about any paper are:

(1) What problem and solution does the paper
describe? (What have the authors themselves learned?)

(2) What problem does the paper itself solve?
(What do the authors want the readers to learn from
reading the paper?)

paul coelho on being read

"I always thought that when, at the beginning of your career, you
strive to be read, you can't change your mind later and become greedy
about it" -- http://www.newsweek.com/2008/02/05/free-speech.html

like a chronically stressed rat looking for sugar

"Bike Messengers face death on a constant basis. And what do they
receive in return. Harassment, ridicule and getting ripped off[,] and
this is from the companies they work for. Bike Messengers are paid by
the amount of packages they can pick up and drop off in a given day.
This is why they usually look like a rat on crack. All jittery and
looking for sugar." -- "Those Crazy Messengers", Hideousewhitenoise
#56, 2003, by Mr Forehead,
http://www.messmedia.org/Toronto/hwn56-crazy.html

"Extrapolating from the observations that positive emotional
experiences boost the immune system, Roberts speculates that intensely
positive emotional experiences –- sometimes brought about during
mystical experiences occasioned by psychedelic medicines -- may boost
the immune system powerfully. Research on salivary IgA supports this
hypothesis, but experimental testing has not been done." --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoneuroimmunology, citing
Thomas B. Roberts (2006). "Do Entheogen-induced Mystical Experiences Boost the Immune System?: Psychedelics, Peak Experiences, and Wellness." Chapter 6 in Psychedelic Horizons. Westport, CT: Praeger/Greenwood.

Even if the connection to psychedelia is "as fine as powdered doll
shit" [0], it seems like a good idea to look around for positive
emotional experiences as a general contribution to health and
wellness. And perhaps also to look for any associations between
negative emotional experiences and a downturn in general health.

In a glance through this "negative" lens, we find some research with
an interesting extrapolation of that thought, namely that exposure to
"chronic stress" can sap an individual's ability to select actions
based on the consequences of those actions, and instead causes the
stressed person (or rat) to fall back on habit [1]. The conclusion of
[1] is quoted below in full (minus citations, for readability):

"Optimization of decision-making processes confers an important
advantage in response to a constantly changing environment. The
ability to select the appropriate actions on the basis of their
consequences and on our needs at the time of the decision allows us to
respond in an efficient way to changing situations. However, the
continuous control and attention that this process demands can result
in an unnecessary expenditure of resources and can be inefficient in
many situations. For instance, when behavior is repeated regularly for
extensive periods without major changes in outcome value or
contingency, or under uncertain situations where we cannot manipulate
the probability of obtaining an outcome, general rules and habits can
be advantageous. Thus, the more rapid shift to habits after chronic
stress could be a coping mechanism to improve performance of
well-trained behaviors, while increasing the bioavailability to
acquire and process new information, which seems essential for
adaptation to complex environments. However, when objectives need to
be re-updated in order to make the most appropriate choice, the
inability of stressed subjects to shift from habitual strategies to
goal-directed behavior might be highly detrimental. Such impairment
might be of relevance to understand the high comorbidity between
stress-related disorders and addictive behavior or compulsivity, but
certainly has a broader impact spanning activities from everyday life
decisions to economics."

One of the citations here is [2], which at 33 pages is effectively a
guidebook to stress, including a bit of "stress management".
Recommended reading. (Just now sitting on my desk as a printout.)

I now briefly return to the theme I suggested above: What if a negative
emotional experience is like a "hit" of "chronic stress", inasmuch as
it *temporarily* ratchets up the use of previously learned habits, and
ratchets down the learning of new patterns? As one becomes (perhaps
only briefly) more automaton- or puppet-like, "health" becomes
less and less of a viable facility and perhaps even an undefined
quantity.

To switch to the positive lens: Situations in which we are adaptable
(let's say, autonomous, not automaton-ish) could be taken to be the
very *definition* of health - and positive emotional experiences could
be found by ratcheting habit-use down, and pattern-learning up.
For some reason I'm reminded of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are
Dead"... [3].

"There was a messenger.
Rosencrantz... Guildenstern...
We were sent for."

And for whatever reason, it cheers me up.

[1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/325/5940/621.full
[2]: http://physrev.physiology.org/content/87/3/873.full.pdf+html
[3]: http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/r/rosencrantz-and-guildenstern-are-dead-script.html

what are you adding?

It keeps occurring to me to post in various mailing lists

"Hey have you considered such-and-such?"

But it also occurs to me to stop myself. Is it really going to add
much? Perhaps not unless I actually have time to follow through and
actually implement the thing in question.

I don't see the point in talking in that way, if I'm just doing it to
hear myself talk. That's what blogs are for :)

1->2

"My philosophy basically reduces to the idea that
if one is good, two would be better."

(How many philosophies are really so different
from that?)