Look At How They Flock to Him

Well, it's the last day of the semester, rather, it's the last day of instruction for grad students: I do have one final that I do have to sit for on the 16th, but otherwise, I'm done! Time to drink! And sleep! I finished my second of two term papers last night. I ended up titling it: "Speaking with the Gods: The Role of Swearing and Invocation in Plato's Theaetetus and Apology." It weighs in at just under 20 pages, and I would have liked to have at least 2 or 3 pages more to write as I wanted to explicate further the role of de-mythologizing that postmodernism, mostly by Barthes, attributes to philosophy and the philosopher. But, that probably would have ended up turning into a completely new paper, so it's probably for the best that I couldn't extend that line of thinking. Here is the introduction of the paper, and if you want the whole thing, let me know, and include an email address and I will send it to you. Otherwise, skip over it.

One of man’s greatest gifts is his curiosity, his desire to look inward and outward with a sense of openness, a sense of wonder. However, upon much introspection, one comes to the realization that there are more questions to be asked than answers that are readily supplied by such introspection. The workings of nature, the presence of the soul, enquiries into death, and even into the depth of life, are profundities that arise from such a reflective existence. In light of this double existence – living, but also living-with these problems – man has historically reached out, and in most cases, created, many of the great problem-solving systems in human history: science, philosophy, art, mathematics, history, religion, etc. For that is what all of these systems, processes, and constructs represent: a searching beyond the human from within the human, a desire to have answers that come “from beyond” and yet are still relevant to our existential recognition. This searching and reaching-beyond is compatible with the life that questions, the life that seeks to enrich itself by stretching beyond itself. Nietzsche enriches this necessity of distance: “We had forgotten that some greatness, like some goodness, wants to be beheld only from a distance and by all means only from below.”
The development of these informative systems has further enriched society historically, introducing new concepts and helping to establish culture. Ancient Greece is one of the most fundamentally important cultures in the history of Western society as the Greeks found a great source of identity in philosophy, religion, politics, and art. Indeed Philosophy is considered to have begun with Thales who famously embodied the notion of human wonder and curiosity by extending his gaze up to the heavens; and of course, Thales fell into a well as he was gazing upward as he had fully extended himself beyond himself: he had become caught up within this extension, and instead of trying to bring the heavens to bear upon his humanity he forgot his humanity and that he was necessarily earthbound. Even though much of science, mathematics, drama, sculpture, politics, and ethics are attributed to Ancient Greek culture, it is the mythology of the Greeks that supplies a rich, imaginative outlet for human wonder. This supplying is also a replying: the mythological tradition of the Greeks is the foundation of their culture as it can be found in all facets of Greek life and heritage.
Even though Thales, the first Greek philosopher, attempted to transcend explanations of nature and life qua mythology, the philosophical tradition never strays far from the mythological, whether it be through allusion, metaphor, or allegory . When a religion is as fundamental and explanatory as that of the Ancient Greeks then the beliefs of that religion become enmeshed in the culture, in society, to the point that the difference between religious practice and religious influence become obfuscated. So, when Greek philosophy is under scrutiny there is a double-enmeshment: an intersection of philosophy and mythology, and mythology and culture. This chiasma becomes extremely important when considering the works of Plato as his work is considered the first complete Greek philosophical system; but also, by writing in the form of the dialogue Plato was able to keep many elements in dialogue with each other.
Plato’s work is perhaps one of the greatest examples for illuminating the effects of mythology in philosophy, and subsequently on culture, on the polis. Socrates as Plato’s philosopher par excellence is himself represented as imbued and inspired by Apollo, and thus Socrates becomes an improvised prophet – literally (and literarily as Socrates the character) he embodies the meaning of the Greek pro and phētēs: Socrates speaks for Plato; and, in living out the pronouncement of the Delphic oracle, Socrates disseminates the teachings and prophecy of Apollo. It is also in this way that Socrates takes on a double role in regards to the gods: he invokes them through speech – his logos – and by action – his ergon. This double role also helps to build on the role of the Philosopher as epitomized by Socrates.
So through the writings of Plato, as voiced by Socrates and his various interlocutors, at the culmination of Western philosophy (up to that point), the role of the divine, of the gods, of mythology in Platonic dialogues takes on new life, on new meaning. Plato never wasted words, and so the arrival by invocation of various deities and myths in his works deserves some amount of scrutiny. The current investigation will show both philosophical and literary usage by Plato of Greek mythos in his Theaetetus and Apology. This will further uncover what roles such invocations bring to bear in these dialogues, and finally, illuminate this interweaving of philosophy, mythology and culture.


I also finished my other term paper, which ended up being entitled: "The Ethical Imagination: Cain's Mark on Mankind." Seeing as how I offered to email that in a prior post, I won't do so again here.

I know that it has been awhile since I have written one of these, but I have been busy, and I am sure that you have been busy as well. My Thanksgiving went well, it was good to see my extended family and spend time with my older brother for several days. Though, the drive back from Va was terrible: it took me 13.5 hours to make an 8.5 hour drive. While I knew full well that a lot more people would be on the road the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I never expected such a vehicular clusterfuck. I mean, it did rain the entirety of the drive up the East Coast, but since when is that license to drive like an idiot, or at 20 miles under the speed limit? I think that I counted 10 accidents, but only 2 appeared to be actual collisions, which means that the rest were people who either a) weren't paying attention b) don't know how to drive on the highway in the rain, and therefore c) shouldn't be driving! At least, not when I have to deal with them. So I made it home at 3:30 early Monday morning and fully zombified by the ordeal: I still haven't recovered nor fully woken up, which of course has been brilliant for my last week of academia this semester.

I'm not sure how many more posts I will make before I come home for the holidays as I will be busy working as much as possible, and so, there probably won't be much for me to write about. So, yeah, I know that breaks your heart.

don't tread on me when you're floating downstream on a moonbeam,

philip

Burying Patterns in Your Chest

I am so damn tired. Seriously, I felt like I haven't been fully awake since Sunday, and I haven't even really done anything extra since then: Same work schedule, same school schedule, same sleep schedule. Maybe, I'll get to bed early tonight, maybe.

So, I think that my Plato paper is starting to gain some kind of form in my mind, or at least I think I know how I am going to structure the paper. I've done all of the research, and just need to get started. I have tons of material, so I don't think length will be a problem, just cohesion. And it's due December 4th, so it has a bit more of a sense of urgency than my Imagination paper. Other than that I am pretty much coasting until the end of the semester: my Imagination paper is done, I have an A in my Logic class, and I just need to keep my homework grades consistent through the end of December. Oh, and they do things pretty strange here...they don't offer "dead week" or "dead days" like at UNT, but the last mandatory assignment is always due a week and a half before finals week even begins. I am not sure if that means that they can teach new stuff, just not assign homework, or if they really dedicate a week and a half to review. Either way, my last day of class is December 4th, and my one and only final is December 16th. So I have like 12 days of break before my final...so strange. I will probably just wear myself out working during that time to make up for the three weeks of vacation that I will be taking. And both of my papers will be due by the 4th of December...so except for my Logic final, school will be done for me that on the 4th. And first day of instruction next semester is January 14th.

So it's getting cold here in Mass., and I think cold to stay. The highs have been in the mid-40s for about 5 days now, and I think that it is only supposed to get colder after this weekend. And that's fine with me, I love the cold weather. But what isn't fine with me is that my top button came off my brand new wool coat. I was in the grocery store today, unbuttoning it so that I could move better and not be so hot, and the damn thing just came undone. I have only been wearing that coat for like 4 days now...pisses me off. So, I purchased a sewing kit along with my groceries and am going to try and sew this button back on tonight. Don't get me wrong, buttons have definitely made my life better, but some time they piss me off to no end. And as many of you know, I don't get angry easily, but for some reason, a broken or unraveled button just sets me off. So, gotta get that button back on or things will get pretty drafty for me.

Another strange thing about living up here: after daylight savings time the sun sets around 4:30. It's so odd...I got off work today around 5 and the sun was completely down. I think that might be part of why I am so lethargic; my body thinks that it is later than it is. Which of course introduces a strange problem about my body knowing or thinking something other than my brain. Or at the very least, sending cues to my brain to go to sleep.

Speaking of which, time to make a pot of coffee and battle my body in the name of higher education.

--Philip

In a Battle for Belonging

Ok, so I finished the first draft of my imagination paper. It still needs some polishing and the inclusion of footnotes and the bibliography...but it's done! I wrote the bulk of the ending today, and at three different occasions I thought that I was done, but just kept coming up with more ideas that seemed to necessitate inclusion. It weighs in about 15 pages without footnotes...but yeah, if you want to read it, let me know and I'll email you a copy. Now, I drink!

Oh and have you ever thought about the fact that it's impossible to cut off your own hands? Strange huh?

--Philip

My Life Came Up Quick, Call It Your Asterisk

Ok, so I am re-reading Being Singular Plural by Jean-Luc Nancy, and let me say, it's as if I am reading it for the first time. I first read it about this time last year when Nancy was mentioned in my Postmodernism seminar, but apparently the time has surely been my aid in digesting this work. His premise is that existence is always already addressing itself as singularly plural and plurally singular; indeed, it is hard to think of existence as independent of other existents, especially in the case when existence addresses itself: the act of denying meaning has meaning. Out of nothing comes everything and, according to Nancy, out of everything comes nothing as being is circulation, a constant self-addressing that opens presence up to presence in all directions and by saying "we" all entities, all beings, all existence is gathered up and bound into this boundless circulation in all directions. He also extends this idea into an eloquent discussion on Nietzsche's "eternal recurrence."

The first thing that jumped into my mind as I was reading this (and I am sure into yours too) was phenomenologically, or maybe ontologically, which comes first: "I" or "we"? I can't remember if Nancy deals with this, and I will find out when I make it through the book, but I don't recall him dealing with this in-depth. The problem, as I see it, is one of a violent differentiation of being. Do I posit two "I's" into a "we" or do I extract at least one "I" from the recognition that "we" is constituted by multiple entities? Surely, in keeping with Nancy, he holds that being is singular and plural at the same time: a multiplicitous singularity embodied by saying "we." But, my question in all of this is where is the Other? This assimilation of all existents into a unity of multifarity seems to (at some level) subvert Otherness into sameness. Truly, an ethical treatment of the Other requires a commitment, a com-passion, but I don't know how I feel about the ethical implications of this "we." Maybe my questions will be answered as I read, but these are at least preliminary ideas and foci.

Ok, so if you have made it this far I applaud you and your determination to wade through a paragraph saturated with...strange musings. On to other matters. I started my training today for my incoming promotion, and it was fairly simple. The weather has been oddly temperate here lately: highs in the low 60's, lows in the high 40's. I am waiting for winter to descend and knock me on my ass one unexpected morning. But not yet, brother, not yet.

It's amazing how fast time is flying! I know I remark on this every other post or so, but I can't believe that the first week of November is almost over. Time is such a strange thing to me...but that's a post for another...time. Dammit, not using "time" is almost as hard as not using "is." Being and Time indeed. Oh, and I know he isn't going to read this, but I must say happy birthday to my (assimilated) brother Drew Riley: 23 and going strong! Everyone call him and wish him happy birthday...and call him an asshole for me. Seems like only yesterday we were 14 and playing Final Fantasy in his living room...ahh sweet memories of nerddom and nerderiferousness.

Well, I am going to get back to my reading and my High Life.

"Ah, whom can we ever turn to in our need? Not angels, not humans, and already the knowing animals are aware that we are not really at home in our interpreted world."
- Rilke

They didn't give me anything, then they took half of that,

-- Philip

The best way to the heart is awkwardly.

Well. It's only 10:36. This has been one of the longest days (week and month) of my life. Surely, I cut my hair about 3 weeks ago, but the greys are always the fastest to grow back. I unequivocally sold my life to a bank today by accepting the loans that I need to attend graduate school here at Boston College. Of course, it is worth it, but fuck. That's about as far as I get when I think about it: fuck. Also, it rained here all day, and was cold, and I had to take a midterm first thing this morning. All of this might explain why I have been drinking for the last 5 hours. Oh, and they are calling for snow tomorrow. I guess a glimmer amongst all of this is that I got my absentee ballot notarized today, and I wrote 2 pages on my Imagination paper, so 6.5 pages down, 7 to go. I just had an immediate realization that I might have to insert some fluff into this paper, as I expected the exigetical portion to be at least 11 pages. Shit.

In other news. I saw Deerhoof last Thursday night. It was a badass show at a bar called The Middle East over by Harvard and MIT. Just a little comparison as to clubs and alcohol between Boston and Denton. There was about 200 people at this (sold out) show. Normally, at Boston College I don't see many people who look familiar to me (compared to Dentonites). Well, The Middle East might as well have been Haley's with two bars and a bigger floor. Draft beers ran about 4 to 6.50. Personally, I was drinking Budweiser from the can for 2 dollars. Hey, don't hate, I had to pay 8 dollars for parking. But, all in all, it was a positive experience, though 29 degrees in the middle of October is definitely an odd experience for me.

Oh, I bought my plane ticket this weekend: officially, I will be in Texas December 16th through January 7th. If you are reading this then I probably want to see you, so do your best to contact me in that time frame! If you are reading this and don't want to see me then I don't know what to say; you are living a conflicted life! I plan on spending most of the time (read just a little more than half) in Garland with my family, and the rest in Denton. My vehicular situation is suspect at this time, but I'm sure it will work itself out. I will definitely be in Denton December 17th: my brother Jonathan will have just turned 21 and I will be bringing him to Denton to get him stupid-drunk. Be there!

Sometimes I wonder at the barries that we put up to deter communication and relation between ourselves and other people. Whether it be something as artificial as a cellphone, or something as constructed as a fake persona, the idea is still the same: we don't want people to come into our lives. True, we let them experience a little, or maybe even a lot of our fabricated selves, but the conscious act of commitment is foreign to us. We do not let people in because we are scared of what the means: they will take part of us with them and our self will disappear in the singularity of an "us." Try it. See how hard it is to meet someone this week. And not just small talk, but really, try and get to know them. Our society is moving in the direction in which everyone exists inside their own artificial and technological worlds and human interaction will be superfluous, and at best, a bonus. We are finding it more and more appealing to try and find our humanity in our differences rather than sameness in our humanity. It troubles me.

Daylight is the enemy,

--Philip

A Person from Porlock

So, I'm sitting here waiting for an episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" to load, and I figured I would write something. I am ardently avoiding homework and enthusiastically inebriating myself: it's a wonderful life. I mean, I really don't have that much homework, just a midterm in my Symbolic Logic class to study for for next Tuesday. I really don't feel like it though; I did earlier, but now it's later and that gumption has been jettisoned. Was another beautiful day in eastern Massachusetts: I woke up and it was about 30 degrees, it was overcast by noon, drizzling at three, and raining at four. I love it. It's good thinking weather.

In other news, I went to Connecticut this weekend to visit my brother and his wife, and her family. It's a beautiful state, with the same kind of scenery as Massachusetts, but more hills. I had a good time, as I spent the entire time (sans the trip there) either drunk or hung over. But, it was good to see Andrew and Amy, and my now (more) extended family. The town I was in was Cromwell, CT (named after Sir Arthur Cromwell I'm sure) and it was about as small-town as small towns get...except with better bars. The weather was brisk, the people were nice, and the alcohol was in great supply. What else could one ask for in a weekend off?

Speaking of time off, I will be in Texas from Dec 16/17 to Jan 6/7. I will spend most of my time in Garland with my parents and brother and niece, and the rest in Denton. Though I will try my best to make it Sulphur Springs, as there are people there (or that will be there) that I dearly miss. So, if you miss me, or hell, even if you don't miss me but still want to see me, that is when I will be there.

Well, I guess that's it, my episode is loaded and I have no other news to impart. Oh, I found a pretty cool website that will host my papers, so look for a link to that as soon I get them formatted accordingly. Until then, a little more William Blake:

An aged shadow soon he fades,
Wandering round and earthly cot,
Full filled all with gems and gold
Which he by industry had got.

And these are the gems of the human soul:
The rubies and pearls of a lovesick eye,
The countless gold of an aching heart,
The martyr’s groan, and the lover’s sigh.


-Philip

My Brother, where do you intend to go tonight?

So I started writing again tonight. It was a lot harder than I thought that it would be. Surely, I haven't written a substantial piece of philosophy since last November, but it was more difficult than I expected to gather my many thoughts into tangible, communicable ideas. I began work on my paper for my Philosophy of Imagination paper. As mentioned before, I am writing my paper on the idea that ethics find their foundation in the imagination. I am using the myth of Cain and Abel to extend my point that even though Cain has been historically and theologically construed as a villain, and as a character that should act as a foil to our own behavior. I am attempting then, to reconstruct Cain as an imaginative revolutionary that defies God and creates his own reality. While some of the passages of Genesis that I use are bare in their information, my method of deconstruction and historical application essentially "beefs up" some of the verses and gives a new meaning to the idea of sibling rivalry and role reversal. My eventual goal is to establish the idea, or discovery of an ethical framework that tempers our outlook and decision-making process. While some may oversimplify this and say it is just our "nature" or "disposition" or "that's how he/she is." They are missing the point as that is exactly what the Greek word ethos means: nature, disposition. We actualize our imagined realities and thus create our own future. We can be immortal through ideas and our actions. True immortality is legacy, not just not dying.

"All great problems require great love...It makes the most difference whether a thinker has a personal relationship to his problems and finds in them his destiny, his distress, and his greatest happiness...for even if great problems allow themselves to be grasped by them they would not permit...weaklings to hold on to them."

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

Love for the one you know more,

Philip

The Sparseness of Our Speech

So, not too much going on. Went to my first party here in Massachusetts last Thursday night. Had a pretty good time: tried Anheuser-Busch's new American Ale (it really is pretty good, reminds me of Yeungling), whipped some ass at beer pong, had some undergrad girl point out my grey hairs, and talked some drunken philosophy. Not a bad night at all.

On another note, I think that I have found an additional angle to my Philosophy of Imagination paper. I have slightly re-aligned my thesis into an exploration of the formation of ethics in the imagination. I am still going to start my paper with a new analysis of the Cain and Abel myth, but I think that I am going to make Jean-Luc Nancy's philosophy from Being Singular Plural. In this book he takes Heidegger's Da-sein one step further and insists that being is always already a mit-sein, a being-with: to be is to relate. So, it seems at even the most primordial reckoning of existence we are thrust into an ethical sphere. If to be is to be with, then to exist is to relate, and relationships demand an ethic. So, yeah, here's to the equiprimordial notions of being and ethics.

Also, I think that I may have found some fertile ground in one of Heraclitus' Fragment 92 for my Plato paper. I just hope that I can turn these ideas and notions into a cohesive twenty-page paper.

Here is a website that I have found humorous and somewhat accurate and makes for good light reading: Stuff White People Like

Here is the next section of the "the mental traveller" by Blake:

She binds iron thorns around his head,
And pierces both his hands and feet,
And cuts his heart out of his side
To make it feel both cold & heat.

Her fingers number every nerve
Just as a miser counts his gold;
She lives upon his shrieks and cries—
And she grows young as he grows old,

Till he becomes a bleeding youth
And she becomes a virgin bright;
Then he rends up his manacles
And pins her down for his delight.

--Philip

Don't keep appointments with disappointments.

Well, I know that a good amount of the people that read this haven't experienced how brilliant the transition from summer to fall to winter can be in a region with seasons. So today I took my camera to school and took some pictures of some of the fall foliage and some other views of campus. I would have taken some better pictures of the Gasson Tower, but they are currently doing construction on 3 sides, so I was only able to get some far away pictures of one side; you will have to look closely in the middle of the album: you can see it sneaking in the top-right corner. These are just a few photos, and they may seem redundant, but I was doing my best to capture the brilliance of the colors whether by contrast to the green leaves, on their own, or up-close. Oh, and the house at the end of the path is the Murray Graduate Center, a renovated three-story house where the grad students hang out and drink free coffee and study. There is also a flower collage of the BC monogram that I thought was pretty cool.

So here is the link to the pictures:

Through Autumn Leaves

Well, the semester is almost half over, and I still get so surprised at how fast time moves. I was able to procure 5 days off for Thanksgiving, and that is right around the corner, and right after that will be the end of the semester. So, expect updates soon regarding papers, notes and rough drafts.

--Philip

Corn, Turnip, Asparagus

Well, finally got the internet installed in my apartment. Gave me something to do for the four days of constant rain that we received. Though, I did brave the elements on Sunday for a conference on Merleau-Ponty. Was an awesome conference, with many insights onto M-P, especially on passages from his magnum opus Phenomenology of Perception. Had about 9 PhDs giving papers, from Boston College to Harvard to University of Freiburg. So, all in all, well worth venturing into the rain. On a sidenote, via one of the papers (given by John Sallis) I was introduced to the art of Paul Klee. I would encourage everyone to check out some of his artwork, it's very good to say the least.

I have also been trying to get my paper for my Philosophy of Imagination class underway, as I have all of these ideas bouncing around in my head and I need to write them down before they bounce out of an ear and escape into the ether. I did manage to write a few lines the other night, thus beginning the path that I think the introduction will fall, and thus creating the road that the entire paper will traverse. I am working on writing the paper on Cain's legacy via the revolutionary use of his imagination, and use the Cain and Abel murder story as the beginning of ethics qua imaginary ethics, or primordial ethics. I begin with a quote from Nietzsche his Gay Science:

“ Good and evil are the prejudices of God” - said the snake.

To enter into the realm of the moral, to discuss good and evil in light of a past event, or the possibility of a future consequence, to conjecture on the implication of a particular action in a particular time and in a particular context, is to enter into the realm of the ethical and the historical: both ethics and history find their foundation in the imaginative, in man's central position in the midst of imagined omni-possibility, in the necessity for man to simultaneously live and create. For this is the fate of man as seen through the foci of imagination: our doom is to create our future. We can become immortal in what makes us ultimately human: the fact that we exist historically allows our actions to become our immortal scions and through action and consequence we attain an immortality that is separate from the mere notion of immortality as not dying.


Again, this is just some ideas that I have, and I wrote this more stream-of-consciousness than actually planned and carefully constructed. It is of course, subject to change, but I think that it's a good beginning, or at least fertile ground upon which to plant a good beginning.

More as it develops.

--Philip

Holy Rattlesnakes

Well, so much, and so little has happened since my last post. I have since: contracted and gotten over a cold, become addicted to the US version of The Office, found a Blockbuster (about 4 miles away) and started exercising (jogging a couple miles a day).

First things first. The average temperature here has been around 55 degrees in the last week; it reached the highest at 70 degrees and lowest at 42. Needless to say, my Texas immune system hasn't adapted to this kind of climate so I got a minor head cold. But, 4 days of rest and lots of fluids have nixed that cold. I am also signed up to get a flu shot, and encourage everyone else to do the same, as my experience with the flu last February was terrible.

The original version of The Office, starring Ricky Gervais, is a classic; but. in being a classic it is untouchable in its place in history, and yet is worthy of homage in the greatest form of flattery: imitation. Now, the US version of The Office has similar components, and yet is an entirely different beast. I think that I may be one of the last people on the earth to have watched the US version, but I just started last Thursday or so. I have since made it through the first 3 seasons, and half of the fourth season. It's a wonderful show, and while it lacks in the utter despondency in the "boss" character, it makes up for it in the depth of the supporting characters, and the contradictions that are posited in the main cast. Jim is ultimately the most likable person ever, and yet has an almost non-existent social life outside of his job; Michael is one of the most inept, self-unaware, irresponsible people and yet he has managed to attain his position of Regional Manager and be the most successful salesman ever for Dunder-Mifflin. Pam obviously has talent in her art and a measure of drive, as she has a college degree and is fully aware that she could do better, yet she is fully comfortable keeping the lowest position at her place of work. And Dwight, he is overtly a fascist, a nerd, and openly takes survival of the fittest literally, yet he hero-worships the 'least fit' Michael, and the biggest problem that he encounters is an emotional problem, and though he tries to stay aloof, he yearns to share his problems with others, and yet creates a facade in order to maintain his facade that he created by allowing for the first facade...Anyways, the UK show vs. the US show is like Fight Club the book vs. Fight Club the movie: the original is seminal and classic, and yet the re-make takes the spirit of the original and re-creates a vision that stands on its own. On a side note, I think it's interesting that both B.J. Novak (Ryan Howard the temp) and John Krasinski (Jim Halpert) were both born and raised in Newton, MA, the city where I currently live.

I rented EXistenZ this week, and it was definitely worth seeing: it operates on several levels, but ultimately asks many questions about reality, existence, and our perception of both. So, go rent it! or download it!

I think that I've talked about how it is just more expensive to live here in Boston than in Texas, and I finally got a concrete example that I think all will be able to relate to: frozen pizzas. If memory serves me correctly Tony's Pizzas (not Totino's) cost around 1.49 in Kroger's in Texas; well those same pizzas cost 3.19 at Shaw's in Massachusetts; California Kitchen Pizzas cost around 5.00 in Texas, and about 7.99 here in Mass. So yeah, that seems to be about the relative shift for the cost of things here. I would have done beer, but they don't sell the same beer here as in Texas.

Oh, and I am finally getting my internets installed this Sunday, so expect more frequent posts! Or dread them, or ignore them, whichever you already do. I will still write them.

Odd...

Kind of busy at the moment, but I thought I would make a quick post about an odd occurrence that I witnessed this morning. I was leaving the restroom in the library this morning when this guy bursts through the door and then proceeds to look in every stall. Needless to say, there was no one in any of the stalls or I think that this would have been even stranger. Anyways, he looks in all the stalls, looks at me, chuckles to himself, then takes a drink out of one of the sink faucets. Then he just walks out. I mean, what the hell is going on? Anyhow, that was it, but I thought that that was enough.

Anyways, back to our respective days. I will have a more voluminous post next time dealing with irony, or at least the etymological connotations of irony (I am hoping that I can turn the idea of wonder and Socratic irony into my term paper for my Plato class).

Imagining Being

Well, the weekend is just about over and it's been pretty good. I enjoy Virginia: seeing my family, being part of my grandfather's wedding, drinking Yuengling, driving on wide roads, watching cable TV...yeah it's been good, but the drive sucks, and unfortunately, I have to make that same drive again in about 8 hours. Pictures of the weekend, family bonding, my month-old niece, and the wedding will follow soon.

I'm a bit too tired and drunk right now to really write anything, but needless to say I have been thinking a lot about context and relation. In philosophy grad school one has to kind of, well, have a philosophy. I know what mine is, and it is mostly still just a feeling, or the thought of a thought, but soon I will have it encapsulated into a cogent statement. Needless to say it deals with ideas of primordial ethics, frameworks, urges, localized reality, postmodernity, and cell phones. So, stay tuned and I hope to soon have something either written or at least defined in regards to my own personal philosophy. But as a springboard: I believe that all philosophy is based on ethics and begins with ethics. So, think about that, or comment on that, or ignore that, but in some way let that at least affect your life for a little while.

Also, I am pretty sure that I am going to write my paper in my Philosophy of Imagination class on the Cain and Abel story. I am not going into the whole of Kearney's exposition on imagination or his exigesis on the Hebraic imagination, but my thesis deals with the link between the imagination, alibis, and creativity. It will surely be posted, but not for a few months, you know, when it's written.

Well, I'm going to bed: need to rest before I traverse most of the East coast via highway. Goodnight, good luck, and I hope that your dreams are reflective of the creativity of your imagination and the essence of your being.

Weather

Well, if the leaves changing and the landscapes weren't enough, I finally got the definitive indication that I am in a new meteorological climate: I could see my breath this morning while walking to school! Sure, we got rain the day before yesterday, but this colder weather only came in last night, and doesn't seem to be a function of the rain. Thankfully, I will be getting all of my weather clothes this weekend from Virginia.

I am driving to Virginia for my grandfather's wedding on Sunday. I am really glad to be a part of his wedding, but I must admit that I am not looking forward to 9+ hour drive tonight, and then again next Monday. But, I will get to see my parents and brothers, and extended family that I haven't seen in years. And if I remember, I will take pictures and post them as this will be a rare occurrence in which I will be in a suit (as well as my brothers). So, if any of you get random calls tonight or in the next few days, it's me trying to stay awake while driving 95 south for 550 miles.

On a scholastic note: I got my first problem set back in my Symbolic Logic class, and I made a 96 on it, but I am really not liking this whole formal language business. I tend to start thinking things over, but usually end up overthinking those things. So, a 30 minute exercise took me almost two hours. And I know that the purpose of this class is to differentiate valid arguments from invalid arguments, and the best way to facilitate that is to turn the sentences into equations so that it isn't the meaning that is in question, but the form of the argument. One could then extrapolate these rules to other arguments and better decide an argument's validity. What I have a problem with is this need to purge meaning from a statement and turn it into a variable. While it is always possible to re-translate the variable back into the statement, I don't like this. Part of the adventure of dealing with others is language: implications, subtleties, indicators. These attributes are all lost once converted to symbols. I also think that this is a very weak (semantically) enterprise. One must translate the variable back into the statement, and then analyze the statement to discover the meaning of the word: it's the translation of a translation. If there was one unified language in which all words had one meaning (a la Tower of Babel) then I would have less of a problem of this. To take it even further: English evolved primarily from French and German, both of which were formed from dialects of two other parent languages. There are thousands of years of meaning inherent in any statement and yet logicians would have this reduced to "x." It is a fact that in Philosophy one must have cogent, valid arguments in order to clearly communicate, but does this necessitate a formulaic rendering and logical judgment call? I don't think that it does. Now, I hope that all of my conclusions are based on valid and sound premises, but it seems that if one starts thinking in terms of ONLY thinking logical terms, what happens to epiphany, creativity, error? I know that this argument could easily be torn down, but I don't care, this is how I feel and no logical equation can impart emotion or context. It seems to me that we are prompted to say things based on our personal context, and formalizing the verbal offspring of that context withdraws one from that context, distracts from that context, and makes all arguments fall into two categories: valid or invalid. It is argued that one just needs to translate the variables back into their sentential forms and one has the original argument. And one could also argue that in fact, sentences, words, letters are variables in themselves, pointing to accepted sounds or meanings, but I think that that path leads to a nihilistic, or relativistic view of language and meaning. What I am talking about is the notion of something being "lost in translation." Other than there not always being a semantically equivalent translation from one natural language to another, I think that through the formal process of translating one loses the aforementioned context, and the more that one translates and re-translates the more watered-down the original thought becomes until it is either gibberish, or devoid of any usable content (semantic, emotional, or otherwise).*

So I will continue to take this class, as I have to have the Logic credit, but I won't like it!

Anyhow, I hope you have a wonderful day and that something meaningful happens to you.




*This is not so much an attack on Symbolic Logic as it seems, rather that is just my point of departure to talk about the act of translating as creating an a-contextual version of language.

The Move

I know that I don't have the most extensive audience, but I figured that I would start writing my thoughts here so that I can post to both Facebook and Myspace. Maybe it's vain to think that even more people want to read my ramblings, but I don't mind being vain. Thus, it begins.