I think in words, and with a few exceptions, I always have. Thoughts come to me in complete sentences, usually grammatically correct. Interestingly, I don't think in letters, or in the sound of the words subvocalized. I think in meanings, but those meanings are always in a grammatical or descriptive structure.
I think that because of this, I find it extremely difficult to visualize static images. All of my thoughts move. The view is always different at the end of the thought than it was at the first.
Bastet thinks in pictures. Haven't asked if they move or not. Honey? Keeping up with my blog? DO the pictures you think in always move?
I learn best by listening to the spoken word explaining something. I learned to be a DM by listening to Forstchen or CrimeBoss run games.
I can remember most important conversations I have had verbatim. I am sure Bastet and Yhazmina would both fervently disagree (and both have, loudly and mock-violently. ) I can also remember the repetitions of "I didn't SAY that!". I think most people remember what they MEANT, not what they said. And because most people don't think in words, they often do not realize that the two are not identical. I am not saying, by the way, that my recollection is always right.
So, I know people who think in words and in pictures. I am quite sure my dog thinks in odors. Anybody think in sounds? Is that even possible?
Do people born blind think in terms of a spatial perception that I can't imagine because I can see? Or is it sort of like my thinking in words but not in sounds, they think in shape and structure but not in pictures?
Thinking about thinking, preparing for my yearly solstice trip.
Under the effect of psychedelics, I experience the effects as a conversation with dark, foggy pictures accompanying. I hear the sounds, and feel the emotions, all expressed to my mind in words, paragraphs and connecting plot-lines or developments. Wierd, huh?
Monday, November 26, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
What the hell am I?
My friend Grindelwald asks a question in the prior post that I will answer (or attempt to) here. To repeat the question:
Okay, Lizard, I don't get you. Clearly you are not anti religious, because more than half of your posts are about religion, in a sense. Obviously Christianity has annoyed you, so it is a good guess that you aren't one.
So, what are you?
I know you wargame, I know you do drugs, I know you can play Russian WW2 combat strategy better than anybody I have ever met(digitally), and I know you know a lot about the bible and the occult. What does all that add up to?
There is no formal name for what i believe. I have tried several times over the past few years, and have come up with: Rational Animism, Animism, Anarchist Animism, Gnostic Animism, Gnostic Shamanism, Tribal Mysticism, Mystic Animism, Chaos Animism, Chaotic Gnosticism, Rational Mysticism.
(The reason for the chaos theme is that I have a working theory that attributes much of what I consider my mysticism is to a chaos-theory interpretation of the sufficient complexity that gives rise to intelligence. I am fairly convinced that sentient identity some sort of emergent phenominon of the neural net, and by wierd permutations in chaos mathematics, we share things in common that can be changed, with the results also in common. It is kinda complicated)
I like Rational Mysticism most, but most people who groove on rationality consider it an oxymoron (I obviously disagree), and most people who are into mysticism misunderstand it's usage.
I think there is enough evidence of mind-to-mind communication that it cannot be ruled out, and must be considered and studied.
I believe that science does not understand intelligence at all well. I think that there is considerably more going on in the universe than science can yet see. I believe that if we survive long enough as a species, science will see most of what is, but never all.
I read Tarot cards. I started it to try to get laid, and I kept it up because it worked, (for doing readings, not getting laid, altho it is how I met my wife) much to my shock and surprise. I do not use the cards to tell the future, I use them to explore different vantage points on the question, using the symbolism of the cards, and project several possible ways of handling said question.
Because it worked, and because I am a rationalist, I refuse to believe that it has anything to do with the 78 pieced of cardboard, and had to have something to do with my perception of the question when exposed to the symbols. I am sure some would argue that it didn't work, that it simply seemed that way. That depends on what you think "worked" means. Since I was not 'reading the future', I told nobody what would happen. But suddenly, because I had these cards in front of me, I could see their question clearly, and suggest things they, almost ALL of them, found useful.
I also felt something happen, as soon as I started to really examine what I was doing (It is very hard to overstate how shaken I was at the results I was getting) and I started noticing differences. My breath came slower and deeper, my eyes never quite focused sharply, my heartbeat slowed and I lost track of time.
The act of performing a tarot reading was putting me into an altered state of consciousness.
I have digressed, in a desire for clarity, but to answer the question: I am a mystic, because I use altered states of consciousness to investigate both the world within me and outside me. I am rational because I acknowledge that i can't prove any of it, and therefor, it may not be true or real in any objective sense. I am sure that I am exploring myself. When I think I am exploring or effecting the space outside my head, I might be completely and totally wrong, and deluding myself at every point.
Why explore if it might all be delusion?
Because it is truly an unknown, and I want to find out.
And it can be fun.
I will go into why Animist is appropriate in another post.
Good enough, Grin?
Okay, Lizard, I don't get you. Clearly you are not anti religious, because more than half of your posts are about religion, in a sense. Obviously Christianity has annoyed you, so it is a good guess that you aren't one.
So, what are you?
I know you wargame, I know you do drugs, I know you can play Russian WW2 combat strategy better than anybody I have ever met(digitally), and I know you know a lot about the bible and the occult. What does all that add up to?
There is no formal name for what i believe. I have tried several times over the past few years, and have come up with: Rational Animism, Animism, Anarchist Animism, Gnostic Animism, Gnostic Shamanism, Tribal Mysticism, Mystic Animism, Chaos Animism, Chaotic Gnosticism, Rational Mysticism.
(The reason for the chaos theme is that I have a working theory that attributes much of what I consider my mysticism is to a chaos-theory interpretation of the sufficient complexity that gives rise to intelligence. I am fairly convinced that sentient identity some sort of emergent phenominon of the neural net, and by wierd permutations in chaos mathematics, we share things in common that can be changed, with the results also in common. It is kinda complicated)
I like Rational Mysticism most, but most people who groove on rationality consider it an oxymoron (I obviously disagree), and most people who are into mysticism misunderstand it's usage.
I think there is enough evidence of mind-to-mind communication that it cannot be ruled out, and must be considered and studied.
I believe that science does not understand intelligence at all well. I think that there is considerably more going on in the universe than science can yet see. I believe that if we survive long enough as a species, science will see most of what is, but never all.
I read Tarot cards. I started it to try to get laid, and I kept it up because it worked, (for doing readings, not getting laid, altho it is how I met my wife) much to my shock and surprise. I do not use the cards to tell the future, I use them to explore different vantage points on the question, using the symbolism of the cards, and project several possible ways of handling said question.
Because it worked, and because I am a rationalist, I refuse to believe that it has anything to do with the 78 pieced of cardboard, and had to have something to do with my perception of the question when exposed to the symbols. I am sure some would argue that it didn't work, that it simply seemed that way. That depends on what you think "worked" means. Since I was not 'reading the future', I told nobody what would happen. But suddenly, because I had these cards in front of me, I could see their question clearly, and suggest things they, almost ALL of them, found useful.
I also felt something happen, as soon as I started to really examine what I was doing (It is very hard to overstate how shaken I was at the results I was getting) and I started noticing differences. My breath came slower and deeper, my eyes never quite focused sharply, my heartbeat slowed and I lost track of time.
The act of performing a tarot reading was putting me into an altered state of consciousness.
I have digressed, in a desire for clarity, but to answer the question: I am a mystic, because I use altered states of consciousness to investigate both the world within me and outside me. I am rational because I acknowledge that i can't prove any of it, and therefor, it may not be true or real in any objective sense. I am sure that I am exploring myself. When I think I am exploring or effecting the space outside my head, I might be completely and totally wrong, and deluding myself at every point.
Why explore if it might all be delusion?
Because it is truly an unknown, and I want to find out.
And it can be fun.
I will go into why Animist is appropriate in another post.
Good enough, Grin?
I FUCKING hate christmas
Let me be very clear: I hate Christmas. I hate everything about it. I hate Santa, I DESPISE the Little Baby Jesus, I can't stand either giving or receiving gifts, I hate the music, I hate the sentiment and I hate the day.
Santa is nothing more than a shill for the moneysucking merchant pinheads pushing bullshit toys and a spirit of unmitigated greed.
Santa is a lie, generally the first significant lie we tell our children. "Oh, it is such an innocent lie" they say. "Oh, it does no harm! The kids LOVE it" Yeah, bullshit on both counts. Let's teach the kids that in order to instill the happy-happy-joy-joy ethos of peace-on-earth-goodwill-to-men, we have to invent an obese asshole with terrible taste in clothes. Yeah! Let's teach our kids that in order to teach them generosity, we have to first lie to them, then we have to accompany it with greed.
"Oh, but Christmas is about the message of Jesus" they tell me. Yeah, lets teach our kids that ending your career executed by the powers that be and failing in your mission is a good thing. Lets tell them that a quisling, a cringing, whining, other-cheek-turning passive dipshit is actually GOD. Lets tell them that if you get invaded, oppressed and nearly genocided out of existence, you should pay your fucking taxes to your fucking oppressor, because Rendering Unto Ceaser is a good thing, even if Ceaser is offing your people like they were ants at a picnic.
Lets keep telling our kids that if Grandma gives them a pair of mittens 9 sizes too small, they have to smile, and LIE, and thank her with sentiments they almost certainly do not feel. Let's perpetuate the culture of lies that communal crap-giving furthers. Lets insist we buy gifts for people we can't stand, because it's Christmas.
I do not give gifts for christmas, nor do I want to receive any.
Fuck Christmas.
Santa is nothing more than a shill for the moneysucking merchant pinheads pushing bullshit toys and a spirit of unmitigated greed.
Santa is a lie, generally the first significant lie we tell our children. "Oh, it is such an innocent lie" they say. "Oh, it does no harm! The kids LOVE it" Yeah, bullshit on both counts. Let's teach the kids that in order to instill the happy-happy-joy-joy ethos of peace-on-earth-goodwill-to-men, we have to invent an obese asshole with terrible taste in clothes. Yeah! Let's teach our kids that in order to teach them generosity, we have to first lie to them, then we have to accompany it with greed.
"Oh, but Christmas is about the message of Jesus" they tell me. Yeah, lets teach our kids that ending your career executed by the powers that be and failing in your mission is a good thing. Lets tell them that a quisling, a cringing, whining, other-cheek-turning passive dipshit is actually GOD. Lets tell them that if you get invaded, oppressed and nearly genocided out of existence, you should pay your fucking taxes to your fucking oppressor, because Rendering Unto Ceaser is a good thing, even if Ceaser is offing your people like they were ants at a picnic.
Lets keep telling our kids that if Grandma gives them a pair of mittens 9 sizes too small, they have to smile, and LIE, and thank her with sentiments they almost certainly do not feel. Let's perpetuate the culture of lies that communal crap-giving furthers. Lets insist we buy gifts for people we can't stand, because it's Christmas.
I do not give gifts for christmas, nor do I want to receive any.
Fuck Christmas.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Finally, some GOOD news
My back, which has been causing massive amounts of pain for 15 years now STARTS the day almost painless. As I stress it, it gets achey, and I still can't do much, but this weekend I did housework at a consistent (tho slow) pace. That might not sound like much, but it is better than I have done for ages. It has been feeling so painless lately that I have finally canceled my one remaining narcotic scrip. I havent been taking them anyway, but the scrip was always there is a way of getting through the pain, thinking if it gets too bad, I can always fill that scrip.
Thinking about going back to karate soon, and fully participating. That might be a bit soon and a bit overambitious, but I am still just thinking about it.
Thinking about going back to karate soon, and fully participating. That might be a bit soon and a bit overambitious, but I am still just thinking about it.
Bitch Bitch Bitch (political post)
It isn't a word I use a lot, except when my hand is firmly intertwined in Bastet's.... well, never mind that. I don't use it as a descriptive term, nor do I use it as an insult unles it is appropriate, and then, almost universally to describe a male behaving in a petulant, jeuvanile manner. (ex. "Stop being a little bitch about it"!)
When used as an insulting comment about a woman, it usually means one thing: Agressive Woman Who Won't Change Her Mind When She's Told. In that I absolutely love intelligent aggressive women who are not intimidated by me, I hardly consider that a slur.
I know women who bear the title proudly, who court the word and use it as a badge of pride.
If Hillary Clinton wants to get elected president of the united states, she CANNOT run from that word, or that concept, she has to OWN it. She has to smile to herself, and to everybody else, be proud every time an insecure male idiot refers to it, or a jealous woman spits it at her.
Because she is a bitch, by the definition I am using, and I think it is a pretty accurate one, close to what people really mean when they use it.
Hillary DOESN'T know her place, and she shouldnt. She is, at the moment, engaged in the process of MAKING her place. And she had better own the word that best describes her.
When used as an insulting comment about a woman, it usually means one thing: Agressive Woman Who Won't Change Her Mind When She's Told. In that I absolutely love intelligent aggressive women who are not intimidated by me, I hardly consider that a slur.
I know women who bear the title proudly, who court the word and use it as a badge of pride.
If Hillary Clinton wants to get elected president of the united states, she CANNOT run from that word, or that concept, she has to OWN it. She has to smile to herself, and to everybody else, be proud every time an insecure male idiot refers to it, or a jealous woman spits it at her.
Because she is a bitch, by the definition I am using, and I think it is a pretty accurate one, close to what people really mean when they use it.
Hillary DOESN'T know her place, and she shouldnt. She is, at the moment, engaged in the process of MAKING her place. And she had better own the word that best describes her.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Where, oh where, has my week gone?
Sooooooo, it turns out that I am missing 7 days from my life, five in one chunk, and two in another. Here is what happened:
I went to the E/R and got medication that lowered my blood pressure. And I don't remember the next 5 days. I only understood this last night, when I took my family out to dinner and we talked. Turns out I was a complete (tho nonviolent) asshole. "Grumpy" is the word my very pleasant and nonjudgemental wife used, which, coming from her, is a very severe statement.
I realized this was happening almost immediately (from my perspective, anyway) and wanted to go off the med the next day, but since I was scared to death of ... well... death, I kept taking it. From my perspective, I kept taking it for two days, but from the perspective of everybody else, it took me 7 days. I then called the Doc and asked if it was dangerous to stop taking the med suddenly, and they said I needed to keep taking it and the "side effects" would eventually subside. Now, judging from the number of pills that are left, I stopped taking the med about two days before I 'woke up'. After talking with the doctor, I took another dose, and lost the next two days.
While I was out, I drove, talked with people (including my oldest and dearest friend, on the phone, for a few HOURS) and nobody but my wife noticed that anything was wrong.
I have stopped taking that med. This condition is terrifying and very hard to deal with.
Under normal circumstances I am a VERY controlled person. It does not always seem that way because I am vehement and loud, but it is true. Even in the height of anger or depression, I always know what I am doing. To spend LARGE chunks of life out of control is horrifying, like living in a nightmare.
I went to the E/R and got medication that lowered my blood pressure. And I don't remember the next 5 days. I only understood this last night, when I took my family out to dinner and we talked. Turns out I was a complete (tho nonviolent) asshole. "Grumpy" is the word my very pleasant and nonjudgemental wife used, which, coming from her, is a very severe statement.
I realized this was happening almost immediately (from my perspective, anyway) and wanted to go off the med the next day, but since I was scared to death of ... well... death, I kept taking it. From my perspective, I kept taking it for two days, but from the perspective of everybody else, it took me 7 days. I then called the Doc and asked if it was dangerous to stop taking the med suddenly, and they said I needed to keep taking it and the "side effects" would eventually subside. Now, judging from the number of pills that are left, I stopped taking the med about two days before I 'woke up'. After talking with the doctor, I took another dose, and lost the next two days.
While I was out, I drove, talked with people (including my oldest and dearest friend, on the phone, for a few HOURS) and nobody but my wife noticed that anything was wrong.
I have stopped taking that med. This condition is terrifying and very hard to deal with.
Under normal circumstances I am a VERY controlled person. It does not always seem that way because I am vehement and loud, but it is true. Even in the height of anger or depression, I always know what I am doing. To spend LARGE chunks of life out of control is horrifying, like living in a nightmare.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Headlines I'd like to see
Dick Cheney sodomized with a rusty wire whisk by angry waterboarded ex-detainees
Micheal Mukasey reveals garden-gnome ancestry 'no, I didn't do it on purpose!' mother retorts, 'I was just plantin' potatos and 'ee snuck up on me. And he didn't have a condom'
Secret Origin of Humanity revealed! Aliens return to earth to harvest republican conservative brains. Xenospokesman Louboo Smarmeling tells us that "It is a culinary miracle! When we first terraformed your puny little planet, we were thinking 'apetizer', but when we came back to see if you were ready yet, we were surprised! You humans, especially you conservative republicans, have the best tasting brains of any known world, and we have sampled many"
Micheal Mukasey reveals garden-gnome ancestry 'no, I didn't do it on purpose!' mother retorts, 'I was just plantin' potatos and 'ee snuck up on me. And he didn't have a condom'
Secret Origin of Humanity revealed! Aliens return to earth to harvest republican conservative brains. Xenospokesman Louboo Smarmeling tells us that "It is a culinary miracle! When we first terraformed your puny little planet, we were thinking 'apetizer', but when we came back to see if you were ready yet, we were surprised! You humans, especially you conservative republicans, have the best tasting brains of any known world, and we have sampled many"
Friday, November 9, 2007
I promise, this is the last time I will moan whine and complain
and if you believe that, I have a really cool commercial property for sale, runs from new jersey to new york.....
Since a few weeks ago, I have gone from elated to miserable, from very very sick, to amazingly healthy, from very encouraged about my future, to checking out prices at crematoriums. Life is giving me some choices (which is rare in and of itself) and some of those choices aren't all that bad, given certain assumptions.
The Numbers:
Best case: I can live a normal life, die of old age. 2% probability, and 'old age' is defined as 70.
Worst case: My brain explodes before I am finished writing this. .003% probability. (Okay, I made that one up. :-)
If I do Nothing: in three years, I have an 89% chance of still being alive
In 5 years I have a 70% chance of being alive, but with a 30% chance of suffering a debilitating stroke.
in 11 years, when my son turns 18, there is only a 22% chance that I will be a normal, functioning 55-year-old man. There is a foggy probability melange that mixes death, severe disability and systemic organ failure that is so dismal it doesn't bear repeating here, not if I actually want to function for the rest of this day. Let me put it another way: 20 years of uncontrolled stage 3 hypertension is pretty much a death sentence. Melodramatic? yes, it is. but the numbers don't lie, and they lay out a neat probability line for how my health future looks.
I realize I am obsessed with this, probably obsessed with it beyond all proportion. It is almost impossible to work out proportionality when, on one side of the ledger is EVERYTHING and on the other side is.... well..... everything.
This is mortality, closing in. I have expected it for years, but I am now FEELING the crush of it. My nemesis has a new name (hypertension) which replaces my former nemesis (asthma), which was far more annoying, but a tad less deadly. Of course, the asthma isn't gone, it's just getting it's clock ceaned by the sheer brutality of death from uncontrolled hypertension. Blindness, diabetes, heart and kidney failure. Slowly.
The doctors I have spoken to are split evenly (2 against 2) that my hypertension is a lifestyle problem, or an endocrine problem.
I hope the two on the lifestyle side of the argument are wrong, but I suspect they are not. I am beginning to believe I need to fundamentally change who I am to beat this.
And fundamental personal change is a mystical thing.
Historically, I adapt quickly and well, but this bump in the road is rather large. We will see. Less optimism than in my last posts, but the despair I felt after my last e/r visit (which I have not yet written about, the despair was THAT bad) is receeding.
Since a few weeks ago, I have gone from elated to miserable, from very very sick, to amazingly healthy, from very encouraged about my future, to checking out prices at crematoriums. Life is giving me some choices (which is rare in and of itself) and some of those choices aren't all that bad, given certain assumptions.
The Numbers:
Best case: I can live a normal life, die of old age. 2% probability, and 'old age' is defined as 70.
Worst case: My brain explodes before I am finished writing this. .003% probability. (Okay, I made that one up. :-)
If I do Nothing: in three years, I have an 89% chance of still being alive
In 5 years I have a 70% chance of being alive, but with a 30% chance of suffering a debilitating stroke.
in 11 years, when my son turns 18, there is only a 22% chance that I will be a normal, functioning 55-year-old man. There is a foggy probability melange that mixes death, severe disability and systemic organ failure that is so dismal it doesn't bear repeating here, not if I actually want to function for the rest of this day. Let me put it another way: 20 years of uncontrolled stage 3 hypertension is pretty much a death sentence. Melodramatic? yes, it is. but the numbers don't lie, and they lay out a neat probability line for how my health future looks.
I realize I am obsessed with this, probably obsessed with it beyond all proportion. It is almost impossible to work out proportionality when, on one side of the ledger is EVERYTHING and on the other side is.... well..... everything.
This is mortality, closing in. I have expected it for years, but I am now FEELING the crush of it. My nemesis has a new name (hypertension) which replaces my former nemesis (asthma), which was far more annoying, but a tad less deadly. Of course, the asthma isn't gone, it's just getting it's clock ceaned by the sheer brutality of death from uncontrolled hypertension. Blindness, diabetes, heart and kidney failure. Slowly.
The doctors I have spoken to are split evenly (2 against 2) that my hypertension is a lifestyle problem, or an endocrine problem.
I hope the two on the lifestyle side of the argument are wrong, but I suspect they are not. I am beginning to believe I need to fundamentally change who I am to beat this.
And fundamental personal change is a mystical thing.
Historically, I adapt quickly and well, but this bump in the road is rather large. We will see. Less optimism than in my last posts, but the despair I felt after my last e/r visit (which I have not yet written about, the despair was THAT bad) is receeding.
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