{∅, {∅}, {∅, {∅}}} : Rage Against the Meat Grinder
General Category => Why Take Laughter Seriously? => Topic started by: Nation of One on October 22, 2015, 08:40:08 pm
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We need a joke disguised as a religion ... Kind of where Vonnegut was going with the Bokonists (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokononism).
Since the term "weirdo" is kind of insulting, I thought we could refer to our imaginary cult as "Weirdo-Rejectionism" - the Rejectionist part based on David Benetar's theory that coming into existence is harmful, and hence one may be on the moral high-ground by not bringing life into the world even if this has not so much to do with "choosing not to reproduce" as it has to do with "not being chosen to reproduce" ...
This term is subject to change constantly.
It also elevates the term "weird" to a different level than how it is thrown around in the streets, and puts it more in the realm of Lovecraft horror fiction and a Cioranesque attitude toward the universe.
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NOTE: This post is not a letter to anyone in particular. I could just as easily be writing to myself.
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Instead of a joke disguised as a religion, how about a science disguised as a joke?
The Art and Science of Antinatalism ?
I have this sense that I am destined to be viewed as a joke by this Universe which treats "my struggles" with cosmic indifference. Just maybe Kurt Vonnegut was on to something with making up a nonesensical religion. I wish to do something similar but opposite. How can something be similar but opposite?
Well, since I am destined to become the personification of the "accidental comedian," a term I am coining to designate a serious thinker who is not taken seriously by his contemporaries, rather than responding in the usual ape-like manner of pounding chest, slamming stick on ground, and throwing poop (or, nowadays, my god, humans running down humans intentionally with their motor vehicles ... how many such timebombs among our populations?), I feel my heart changing. I mean, I'm thinking I will "play the Idiot" to their St Petersburg, the Ignatius Reilly to their Confederacy of Dunces.
God knows there are enough comedians in this annoying world, but to be a living joke and keep a straight face, well, then one might experience a small inkling of what a basic mathematics teacher must experience as he or she is mocked daily by swarms of TV-fodder. In the future, I can see a rise in "teacher eruptions."
Anyone can snap at any moment, and I think most the gorts the world over are underestimating the threshold capacity of our very selves as a species. What is our tolerance for absurdity as a species? It will be different for each individual, different in siblings, different maybe depending on individual temperament. I'm for sticking around, but I have noticed my own limits starting to glare ... In fact, the reason I am collecting "government relief" (Ignatius's term) has everything to do with my apparent deficiency in being able to "tolerate" the psychological abuse modern day "employees" are expected to endure.
I am gort-intolerant, hence Gorticide can't be subjected to steady and repeated abuse by spoiled, rude, philisitines. It might push him over the edge. It's best I don't see the masses up too close and personal lest they shock my senses with their rude behavior. Jailbirds and inmates on psychiatric wards have more respect for a sentient life form than some of the mall-rats in Bizarroland.
What would the science of antinatalism entail? Ceasing to reproduce. Flipping the script. Making a mockery of the sexually attractive hordes enthusiastically breeding human misery for the sake of appearances. The joke is on the gorts!
Isn't that a relief? Be a knower rather than a sufferer. Know that the gorts are fuucked, and be glad! Rejoice in the firm knowledge that this carnival that sits on top of garbage heaps, prisons, and malls is certainly not sustainable. Not only this, but the gorts themselves are having a difficult time believing the lies they have to tell themselves each day to keep up the farce of society.
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The human predicament : a candid guide to life's biggest questions (https://b-ok.cc/book/3319670/bb9525) by David Benatar
From the description:
Are our lives meaningful, or meaningless? Is our inevitable death a bad thing? Would immortality be an improvement? Would it be better, all things considered, to hasten our deaths by suicide? Many people ask these big questions -- and some people are plagued by them. Surprisingly, analytic philosophers have said relatively little about these important questions about the meaning of life. When they have tackled the big questions, they have tended, like popular writers, to offer comforting, optimistic answers. The Human Predicament invites readers to take a clear-eyed and unfettered view of the human condition.
David Benatar here offers a substantial, but not unmitigated, pessimism about the central questions of human existence. He argues that while our lives can have some meaning, we are ultimately the insignificant beings that we fear we might be. He maintains that the quality of life, although less bad for some than for others, leaves much to be desired in even the best cases. Worse, death is generally not a solution; in fact, it exacerbates rather than mitigates our cosmic meaninglessness. While it can release us from suffering, it imposes another cost - annihilation. This state of affairs has nuanced implications for how we should think about many things, including immortality and suicide, and how we should think about the possibility of deeper meaning in our lives. Ultimately, this thoughtful, provocative, and deeply candid treatment of life's big questions will interest anyone who has contemplated why we are here, and what the answer means for how we should live.
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Bad things happened today. I was quite jittery.It was mathematics that came to my rescue. I became the eye that sees the world,it does not want the world to be forced into a certain pattern.It merely watched.
You say,in your dreams,you befriended the monster. The monster here might be nature itself.When you befriend the monster,in someway,you recognise that you are a part of it.We are a part of nature.The theologians might say otherwise but the truth is truth.
Earlier I was looking at the maths solutions all the time. Now, I try to do it on my own,as much as I could, and then look for the hint as regards the specific point which I find to be beyond my grasp.
My natural instinct,when confronted with some kind to stress, is to root out its cause. Like any other animal. Yet, its not always clear as to what is causing what. Instead of reacting with animal instinct,I want to hold back, if only for a moment, and just be the eye that sees the world.
https://youtu.be/98W9QuMq-2k
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You say, in your dreams, you befriended the monster. The monster here might be nature itself. When you befriend the monster, in someway, you recognise that you are a part of it. We are a part of nature. The theologians might say otherwise but the truth is truth.
And what a Monster our great earth mother is!
I want to bring attention to a passage that leaped from Benatar's The Human Predicament:
The overwhelming majority of turtle hatchlings are eaten or otherwise die after surfacing from their sandy nests before they can make the few-minute scamper into the ocean. More die in the mouths of ocean predators. "The little turtles come out into a world anxious to eat them."
Coming into a world anxious to eat them. They have eyeballs and faces, and are driven by impulses which are most likely charged with similar aches and pains we are all familiar with (want, need, necessity). And these turtles don't even have music to console them. :-\
It would indeed be wonderful if there were a beneficent God who had created us for good reason and who cared for us as a loving parent would for his or her children. However, the way the world is provides us with plenty of evidence that this is not the case.
So much for the idea put forth by the Native Americans about Our Earth Mother. This has been a far more painful realization for me than when I lost my faith in a "Creator God" during my teenage years. I had always still clung to this concept of the Great Earth Mother, especially from reading the translated prayers of native "holy men" such as Black Elk. And yet, I feel my heart may have turned dark, or maybe I am just preparing my mind, strengthening my resolve to accept that our mother earth's ways appear monstrous. Would She love some more than others? Would She be any more gentle with one who whimpered and begged for mercy? Would She treat all Her children with the same indifference as She does the little turtles? Do we just not understand Nature's Ways?
We have within us the inner kernel of Nature, the Original Mother of All Monsters. We are mostly made of our inhuman elements and components. Maybe mankind is a myth.
From page 39 in the chapter, "Meaninglessness":
Upton Sinclair famously remarked that it "is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." It is similarly difficult to get somebody to understand something when the meaning of his life depends on his not understanding it.
I will close my little night-time reflection with the paragraphs leading up to "The little turtles come out into a world anxious to eat them."
Imagine you were to visit a country in which the evidence of repression is pervasive: There is no freedom of the press or expression; vast numbers of people live in squalor and suffer severe malnutrition; those attempting to flee the country are imprisoned; torture and executions are rampant; and fear is widespread. Yet your minder tells you that the country, the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” is led by a “Great Leader” who is an omnibenevolent, infallible, and incorruptible being who rules for the benefit of the people. Other officials endorse this view with great enthusiasm. There are impressive rallies in which masses of people profess their love for the Great Leader and their gratitude for his magnificent beneficence. When you muster the courage to express skepticism, citing various disturbing facts, you are treated to elaborate rationalizations that things are not as they seem. You are told either that your facts are mistaken or that they are reconcilable with everything that is believed about the Great Leader. Perhaps your minder even gives a name to such intellectual exercises—“Kimdicy.”
It would be wonderful if North Korea were led by an omnibenevolent, infallible, and incorruptible ruler, but if it had such a leader, North Korea would look very different from the way it does look. The fact that many people in North Korea would disagree with us can be explained by either their vested interests in the regime, by their having been indoctrinated, or by their fear of speaking out. The presence of disagreement between them and us is not really evidence that deciding the matter is complicated.
Not all of earth is as bad as North Korea, but North Korea is part of “God’s earth”; so are Afghanistan, Burma, China, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, and Zimbabwe, to name but a few appalling places for many to live. Even in the best parts of the world, terrible things happen. Assaults, rapes, and murders occur, injustices are perpetrated, and children are abused.
Fortunately, the incidence of such evil in places like Western Europe is lower than in worse places on earth, but my point is that they all occur within the jurisdiction of a purportedly omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God. Nor should we forget the horrific diseases from which people suffer aroun d the globe, or the fact that every day, billions of animals are killed and eaten by other animals, including humans.
The numbers are so staggering that we cannot even compute them. However, to get some sense, consider that one study found that common dolphins and striped dolphins along the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula consume 27,500 tons of sardines, gadids, hake, and scads annually. That is over 75 tons of fish per day—by only two kinds of predators in one corner of the world’s oceans. Globally, sperm whales are (conservatively) estimated to consume 100 million tons of cephalopods.
The annual loss of wildebeest to predators is estimated to be 42% of this prey species’ total biomass. The overwhelming majority of turtle hatchlings are eaten or otherwise die after surfacing from their sandy nests before they can make the few-minute scamper into the ocean. More die in the mouths of ocean predators. "The little turtles come out into a world anxious to eat them."
Imagine how ridiculous we appear even making some kind of "plans" or taking on some kind of "project" in such a world. If there are Invisible Intelligences observing us, we must keep them laughing hysterically every time we make plans or try to accomplish some kind of "work for posterity."
If Raul and the Gnostics are correct, then becoming allies with the Monster of Creation might come down to not taking ourselves so seriously, and just see what happens. Like you said, Holden, "I became the eye that sees the world, it does not want the world to be forced into a certain pattern. It merely watched."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRKzzEeHWss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDstqHkWF6Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG4W389Gmcs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C557XEGrjs&t=27s
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This is a link to a direct download of a 65 page paper, UTOPIC PESSIMISM: THE MESSIANIC UNDERPINNINGS OF THE ANTINATALIST POLEMIC (https://ninercommons.uncc.edu/islandora/object/etd%3A1444/datastream/PDF/download/citation.pdf)
by Joshua Robinson Miller
A thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of North Carolina at Charlotte in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Religious Studies
Charlotte 2015
I sense this may be an argument against Antinatalism, in that the author seems to be arguing that Antinatalism contains "hope" and is therefore optimistic.
ABSTRACT:
"Pessimism in the west was made into a system by Arthur Schopenhauer. It has never been a popular philosophy but provides rich insights into the nature of human desire and the possibility of happiness in a materialistic cosmos. Antinatalism, the idea that birth has a negative rather than positive value, has been a component of pessimism since the beginning. In the last ten years antinatalism has been a developed into a system of its own. This new antinatalism magnifies the antinatalist observations of earlier forms of pessimism into a moral rallying cry. Today’s antinatalists go so far as to recommend a voluntary extinction of the species through an avoidance of reproduction. This paper explains the pessimistic background of modern day antinatalism while at the same time showing the ways in which modern antinatalism makes use of utopian and messianic hope in its moral response pessimistic philosophy. This paper further claims that pessimistic philosophy is only consistent with itself to the extent that it remains descriptive. The antinatalist solution to the problems of existence engages in a messianic optimism that is not allowed to the secular pessimistic mind."
???
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I have been reading through UTOPIC PESSIMISM: THE MESSIANIC UNDERPINNINGS OF THE ANTINATALIST POLEMIC late at night. It is worth reading. It has many deep insights into our predicament.
I'm still pecking away at "the maths" --- but it truly is some kind of science fiction. Having trigonometric circular functions running through my mind does not exactly put me on the same page as those who vote in national elections.
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I wonder how much suffering fate has in store for these kids.
https://youtu.be/XB6yjGVuzVo
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I think I can understand what you are working on-both mathematical and coding/programming projects.
Only at the moment I am trying to build very,very strong foundations-which I could not do due to back luck when I was younger.
I think in a few years,2 or 3 or 4 maybe 5, I would ready. Provide of course, as you say,Lord willing and the creek don't rise.
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As the kids sing in the video:
There's a time that I remember when I never felt so lost
When I felt all of the hatred was too powerful to stop
Now my heart feel like an ember and it's lighting up the dark
I'll carry these torches for ya that you know I'll never drop, yeah
:'(
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Holden,
Thank you for the read. It is a strange story. I am afraid more of human demons. You can see them at broad daylight. Most of them also drain us of our energy. You are experiencing it in your office with your colleagues.
I heard that in a city in Spain the members of a council are debating if males with bigger balls are more violent than those who have smaller balls.
It is a strange to see ourselves programmed like machines. Who built/programmed this complex biological organism called homo sapiens sapiens?
Our brain is a complex network of 86 billion neurons. Why make such an effort to build the human race? We are troublesome creatures. Why create creatures that finally will rot away inside a cheap coffin and become breakfast to little maggots for a few years?
I remember the 1999 movie The Matrix. In that film, the human race is a source of fuel for very advanced machines that thrive on our electrical energy, while we unknowingly live in a dream world born out of a sophisticated hologram—the matrix of the movie’s title. Indeed it is intriguing.
In the tube I listened to a researcher say that according to Tibetan Buddhists a tulpa is a creature that is created and driven by the power of human imagination. Can we say that humans were created the same way? I have no clue.
I quote a writer, Charles Hoy Fort, who said that, we, the human race, are “animals here for the slaughter and incapable of seeing the greater and more terrible meanings that surround us.”
Well, in short, we are sscrewed.
Sleep well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRtQTYdaXww
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I think I can understand what you are working on-both mathematical and coding/programming projects.
Only at the moment I am trying to build very,very strong foundations-which I could not do due to back luck when I was younger.
I understand why you wish to proceed in as intellectually honest a manner as possible, for your own peace of mind.
The masses may be distracted by the circus of political elections and Kafkaesque Nightmare Castles, but, for me, it takes hard core, no nonsense, to the roots, trudging through mathematics curriculums creating or enhancing solutions to the exercises, always thrilled to stumble upon something NOVEL during this seemingly endless traversal. It is like a Sisyphian Boulder I roll up the hill each day, trudging along ... pointless existence of turtle mesmerized by abstact symbols.
I admit with the utmost intellectual honesty that the mathematics is pure distraction from meditating too long upon what the point might be of breathing and satisfying needs, wants ... These "projects" I engage in, my message in a bottle to an imaginary future, it is all a fiction used by my nervous system to entice the Beast to trudge along, to humbly and dilegently peck away.
I admit to not fully appreciating the severity of my "chains" (to existence, that is). I have only been close to death a few times, but every time I nearly choke on my food, I instantaneously experience the Will to Live in my own Animal Body.
Still, Holden is on point in suggesting spending a good portion of our mental energies meditating on death, for it reveals a very mysterious element about the nature of our biological existence. Death and biology are related intimately. Our awareness of death may be our species' universal curse, but I can't imagine that any of the "higher" animals are not aware of death. They see it every day.
Yes, perhaps cockroaches are also aware of death.
But, plants, vegetation, no - I do not think they know this thing "death."
Death is in time and space. And yet I am of bones and veins, blood and guts and excrement.
So many lies we must keep puffed up as a false reality so that we do not reflect too long on our true natures, the one that has to urinate and deficate, the one that gets tired, exhausted, overwhelmed - the animal creature Thing. As I said before, I distract myself from these brute facts by trying to focus on getting through the last of a series of texts I've been working through. It is my own little world, like the shell of a turtle.
The entire project has taken on a significance like one might find in a story by Poe or Ligotti or even Lovecraft, where I, the protagonist, have ventured so deeply into the roots and structure of pure mathematics, discovering a secret delight in going over ever-so-meticulously those texts from high school that I had once blamed for my nervous breakdown, that I have been able to cement a kind of parallel-universe reality, where I am able to take certain ideas seriously which most people I come in contact with find useless if not annoying and boring - this is the hum-drum thread holding my entire life together. I even leave little comments that certain exercises are "mechanical" or "dull" or "boring," noting specifically where Schopenhauer might use the term "drudgery," where he suggests, in the 1800's, creating a machine to perform the task as it is pure tedium for the sentient human consciousness. I suppose some of his contemporaries were tinkering with such machinery, as the ancients have been doing for eons I imagine.
I understand that the first set of exercises in each section may be meant to give the student some confidence in basic structure as it relates to methods. I am a patient man who must be bonkers for "sticking to his plan" even as it has proven to be some kind of lifelong task preventing me from "venturing into the workaday world." It would be evidence of some kind of obsession. Obsessive and compulsive serving of my Muse, toiling where She commands.
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he entire project has taken on a significance like one might find in a story by Poe or Ligotti or even Lovecraft, where I, the protagonist, have ventured so deeply into the roots and structure of pure mathematics, discovering a secret delight in going over ever-so-meticulously those texts from high school that I had once blamed for my nervous breakdown, that I have been able to cement a kind of parallel-universe reality, where I am able to take certain ideas seriously which most people I come in contact with find useless if not annoying and boring - this is the hum-drum thread holding my entire life together. I even leave little comments that certain exercises are "mechanical" or "dull" or "boring," noting specifically where Schopenhauer might use the term "drudgery," where he suggests, in the 1800's, creating a machine to perform the task as it is pure tedium for the sentient human consciousness. I suppose some of his contemporaries were tinkering with such machinery, as the ancients have been doing for eons I imagine.-Herr Hauser
Most people fail to go down the rabbit hole because they are too occupied with superficial aspects of life. I have come to realise that if I spend enough time with mathematics then it could be as intriguing as HPL's or Poe's world.
Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.-Kafka
I wish to reach that point in mathematics.
We are all stuck here whether we like it or not. Doing math seems to be ,to me, the least harmful activity possible.It does not disturb the beast. There will be chaos from time to time,it cannot be helped. But if could spend a great many hours engrossed in math,then, at least I won't be perturbed for that much time.
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I remember becoming curious to see if I might "reformat the hard drive" of the organic computer we have cased in our skulls. Surely, after a few decades, and after exposure to higher mathematics at the university, I might be a more prepared student (for getting to the roots of the structures of pure mathematics) than I would have been as a teenager. The authors of the series were devoted and obsessed. They were radical set-theorists. :)
Anyway, in the so-called Real World of Society, which puffs itself up into significance, I am miserably judged for "smoking tobacco all day" - just killing myself with tobacco, in this parallel dimension, the one in the mind where the abstract symbols of mathematics exist, where the Real Numbers, Integers, Rational Numbers, Complex Numbers exist, where matrices exist. I am nourished by the practice, and even though I wake up in the morning angst-ridden, always struggling with inner misery, always talking the Angry Frustrated Will/Beast/Creature through it.
This goes for mathematics drills as well. The Creature often protests, as Hesse hints at in Der Steppenwolf, when his Wolf-part mocks everything the Man-part holds sacred and holy. I have compromised somewhat. The Beast/Creature does get to enjoy stillness and calm when truly engaged or interested.
Since I am creating Solution Key modules along with the notes, when my attempt is way off, or if I sincerely do not have any idea on how to proceed, I have no choice but to consult the old worn original solution keys. This instills humility if I keep in mind my goal of intellectual honesty as regards the development of mathematical maturity. Like you Holden, the one I am always trying to convince of this maturity or level-of-understanding is myself and myself alone. We are our only audience, in the end.
That teenager I was would be very impressed with this old dog's grasp on the subject matter. :)
The depressing solitary life of an "economic dead-beat" serves as a parallel dimension to the diligent monk at work.
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I think you are doing with mathematics what you have already done with philosophy-reaching the very bottom.
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Schopenhauer looks majestic in this photograph,only thing more majestic, is his philosophy:
https://iai.tv/articles/schopenhauers-sense-of-self-auid-1329
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I finished reading the paper, UTOPIC PESSIMISM: THE MESSIANIC UNDERPINNINGS OF THE ANTINATALIST POLEMIC (direct download link left in on page 1 of this thread (http://whybother.freeboards.org/funny-stuff/weirdo-rejectionist/msg9708/#msg9708)) by Joshua Robinson Miller.
I was surprised at my reaction. That is, I was initially a hostile reader, thinking he would be attacking authors I embraced; but he did not so much attack the pessimistic conclusions of these authors as he exposed the futility and lunacy of the Antinatalist Movement. Holden has also already come to similar conclusions, if I'm not mistaken.
Well, much like Holden, this Joshua Robinson Miller concludes that we have no choice but to just accept this raw deal for what it is. It is not within our power to change the nature of this world, the nature of the very kernel of Nature itself.
[ NOTE: In an admonition of humility, admonition |----> gentle reproof ]
His concluding statement:
For those who find themselves among the pessimistic few, stoicism may provide a way of living in the pessimistic void created by the vacation of meaning. Epictetus was born a slave but died a free beggar in the early Roman Empire. His Enchiridion or manual, provides advice to those who want to discover the secret to happiness in this world. His great work begins with an admonition of humility. “Of things some are in our power, others are not...If then you desire anything not in our power, you must be unfortunate (unhappy).”
If one acknowledges the conclusions of pessimistic philosophy, it is far better to accept the world as it is than militate against it in an imaginary hope. It matters not whether the hope is for the willing extinction of the human race or the transformation of human society into a universal brotherhood. Recognizing what is in our power and only desiring that which we are capable of controlling is far more conducive to happiness than attempting to remake the world according [to] our infinite desire for more justice and equality. If we accept the thinking of Schopenhauer and the pessimists who came after him, we are left with very minimal available reactions. We can be kind to our neighbors and coworkers. We can engage in friendly ways with our children. We can help to encourage the optimistic illusions of those around us rather than attempting to deconstruct worldviews which we are unable to replace. Essentially, pessimism reveals a world with a future that is not significantly different from its past. It is beyond our ability to change this world. We just have to decide whether and how we want to live in it.
I would not go so far as encouraging the optimistic illusions of those around us, but we might ease up on deconstructing worldviews which we are unable to replace. I can't help but notice this suggestion is pretty much right from the horse's mouth, for Schopenhauer touches upon this in his "Religious Dialogue," a kind of back and forth in the tradition of Plato recounting Socrates. The one admonishes to allow the masses their necessary illusions, for not all are able to handle raw animal existence without meaning, even if the meaning is derived from fiction.
Of course, one could use this conclusion to say we ought to also allow Antinatalists the option of believing that they might contribute to the desired extinction of the race by not reproducing. Chances are, our species is just another big fat cancer which has convinced itself of some kind of "higher purpose."
In other words ... as per usual, this big mother iceberg we call existence, has really got us by the balls. :-\
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QSyaBHr1jU
The more things change, the more they stay the same. New Boss, Old Boss, No Boss.
I have this feeling I am going to require some heavy drugs and hard liquor at intervals along the way through this thing we're calling human existence, to be honest, blunt, frank, if not even a bit rude and inappropriate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZqPoriYXho
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju_GLKaH4vM
We all know that crap is king.
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Holden,
Thank you for the link to Schopenhauer's Sense of Self (https://iai.tv/articles/schopenhauers-sense-of-self-auid-1329) :
At the hands of presumed experts, Schopenhauer’s profound insights have been grievously misrepresented for decades.
Also: In his mode of existence as the pure subject of knowing, ‘man is nature herself’ and therefore undying, universal, and eternal.
Decoding Schopenhauer’s Metaphysics: The Key to Understanding How It Solves the Hard Problem of Consciousness and the Paradoxes of Quantum Mechanics (https://b-ok.cc/dl/5871514/7f7f43) is already on Library Genesis!
Someone is going to have to fund such scholarship one of these good old days.
I would have never known about this book if I had not followed the link to the article on Schopenhauer's sense of self. Thanks again, Holden. It took me a couple of days just to get around to discovering it in the link. ;)
In fact, there is an entire slew of interesting titles by this Bernardo Kastrup at the genesis library:
http://gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=Bernardo+Kastrup&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=1&column=def
I can't imagine the youth being able to stay focused on damn near anything if they are going to be sitting at their terminals "unsupervised" - ha! How ridiculous. Well, maybe the more solitary and imaginative ones will find ways to educate themselves in spite of themselves, and despite the odds against it. Hell, we managed somehow to salvage a love of learning. There will be others as well, rest assured.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O9EdiabJGk
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After a second successful configure/build/compile of SageMath 9.2 from source files, I experienced enough temporary satisfaction to "allow" my "self" to continue reading Decoding Schopenhauer’s Metaphysics: The Key to Understanding How It Solves the Hard Problem of Consciousness and the Paradoxes of Quantum Mechanics (https://b-ok.cc/dl/5871514/7f7f43). It is delightful to read someone who feels as though they have made a great discovery in finding Schopenhauer's works. I remember that feeling well. I appreciate his use of terms like "spacetime" (credit given to the Physicist Eggheads) since Schopenhauer had always been pointing out that energy and matter are two sides of the same coin, and that time does not exist without space.
I am happy for Arthur Schopenhauer, that he has been well-received by those who recognize his genius. The breakthrough Schopenhauer made, as far as smashing through the glass ceiling of Kant's "limits of reason," was quite simple, really. It is an insight which I have heard expressed in the streets by everyday people. There are the Arthurs in various different families of diverse ethnicities who have made this leap, stating simply something such as, "One Love."
They get it that "what it is like to be the world-in-itself" can not be different from what it is like to be any one of us.
We all know what it is like to be alive, to experience existence, hence we do know the Thing-in-itself, if only in the raw experience of our animal existence. The more we know about ourselves, the more we will know about the nature of all that is.
Around chapter 3 or 4 is where I left off at 3AM.
The rain is coming down hard here, and although a neighbor needs help moving out today (or tomorrow!), I do not see it happening (today). I will peck away at some technical "tinkering" until the rain lets up, and I am summoned.
Thanks again, Holden, for pointing out this author. He claims to not have read Schopenhauer before coming to the same conclusions, and I will give him the benefit of the doubt. Schopenhauer's work is nothing less than the Upanishads interpreted to the Western psyche. Just as Schpoenhauer might have streamlined those ancient texts in the context of Socrates and Kant (Greek philosophy spreading via slavery and Roman military conquest of "Germanic Barbarians" [NOT!]), so too this Bernardo Kastrup may be streamlining "The World as Will and Representation" in the context of Quantum Mechanics and Modern, even Classical, Physics.
It is mind-blowing to consider that the world-in-itself is a mental phenomenon, and that one might embrace at once both Subjective Idealism and Objective Idealism when it comes to the nature of this thing we call "our" Lifeworld (Lebenswelt).
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https://www.ozy.com/true-and-stories/the-philosopher-of-love-who-lived-and-died-alone-except-for-his-poodles/95895/
You might like this video(if you have not come across it already):
https://youtu.be/W_e17mfbX2s
I wish to understand mathematics. I really do. If I live long enough ,I'd like to under the fundamentals at least.
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https://youtu.be/OK2z1sp0l0w
Interview starts after 15 minutes and 20 seconds.
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I only know what it feels like to exist as me, and Schopenhauer only knew what it felt like to exist as him, but we can infer from our own experience what the nature of reality is, we can feel what it must be like for any sentient organism to exist. There is no dodging the problem of existence. We each can feel the gravity of the Will to Live in the way that we are wired. People like us have passed through our respective societies. Our species has undergone sweeping transformations and globalization. Maybe our tinkerings with mathematics or programming, and our explorations of literature, philosophy, and music/film are more reflective of what human animals will be doing after the collapse of industrial civilization. Remember that we have conflicting expectations of what a post-collapse or partial collapse would be like. Our natural state may not leave much time for the preservation of cultural artifacts, but, on the other hand, it may leave nothing but such time.
Cultivating the ability to pass long periods of time in solitude might be beneficial for mental health in the very long run. Ataraxia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ataraxia) is the ability to keep one's head together while the world outside is falling to pieces. I discovered this word while rereading Cioran's The Trouble with Being Born for the Nth time in "the hospital" ... the concept itself helped me. it was what I needed to get through each moment.
It appears that this ANTARAXIA may be at the heart of Husserlian Phenomenology in the suspension of judgement about the reality of the objective world, epoche. Husserl coined the term epoche to represent the phenomenological reduction, but it has deeper roots:
Epoché (ἐποχή epokhē, "cessation"[1]) is an ancient Greek term. In Hellenistic philosophy it is a technical term typically translated as "suspension of judgment" but also as "withholding of assent".[2] In the modern philosophy of Phenomenology it refers to a process of setting aside assumptions and beliefs.
I do believe that this happens naturally when practicing mathematics over a lifetime. It is OK to forget, then have to relearn in order to remember. Maybe the understanding deepens each time we have to relearn something. So we suspend our assumptions and approach a problem attentive to details. We are also aware that we must ignore the pressing demands of the Will, all the panic and anxiety and fear that is hard-wired into our animal being. That is a tricky part that I doubt anyone can claim to have mastered, since we never know what life is going to throw at us, and we each have breaking points. Nature/existence-itself will bend us and break us. It is our Fate. We will be crushed and devoured.
In the meantime, we are individuated creatures placed in the predicament of NEEDING to eat in order to remain alive, to avoid death. Is it worthwhile to solve triangles? Is it just a monkey's trick to distract the mind from deeper questions?
What if there exists no "intellectual leader" who might provide an honest answer to our most disturbing questions? The masses rely on traditional world religions, but within these masses are individuated human animals, each with a subjective Lifeworld (Lebenswelt). The rulers and industrialists will not dictate the unfolding of our shared reality, but Nature itself, the one that exists in each of us, as each of us - this is the only reality any of us will ever know, the reality of having to eat and urinate and defecate. I wake up emotional (angry? anxious, insecure, nervous?) --- requiring coffee like an infant requires a pacifier. Without tobacco, I become quite a nervous wreck.
As anyone can see, I never claimed to be some kind of healthy guru with the answer to the question, How to live? or How to get through a life not worth living?
I'm just a frustrated chimpanzee with some disturbing questions. And I wish to, once and for all, smash through the collective projected lies of what reality is, the Disney-ification Silenus mentions --- What is in the heads of the masses is not reality. Reality happens within the animal body. The emotions they experience, their frustrations and fears, are played upon by governments and corporations paid by governments to control and manipulate the masses. Schopenhauer and Freud explored the unspeakable world, and Freud's nephew used the fruits of those explorations to strengthen the influence advertisers and propaganda machines have on YOU and ME, little units of humanity among this mass of activity on the surface of the planet.
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NOTE: I have started to listen to (and watch) the Bernardo Kastrup audio/video clips, but my attention is limited with such mediums. I am pecking away at his book as well, meaning, some times during the nights when I pull myself away from calculating or computing or deriving. I get it that there are those, like Schopenhauer himself who wish to sum up and explain the main problem of existence itself, and this perplexes me nearly constantly, but there is something relaxing in reckoning in a calm and reflective manner.
I listened to the part about "the intellect pulling us out of depression" with positive thinking. I was curious to hear Kastrup's response. I share his skepticism about the superficial changes brought about by cognitive-behavioral therapy. Our foundations are driven by the blind will.
https://youtu.be/W_e17mfbX2s?t=1289
"Schopenhauer's recipe [for dealing with suffering, was not positive thinking at all] was to overwhelm thinking, get rid of thinking, get rid of abstract representation by flooding your consciousness with pure un-re-represented perception, that you could access the primary template behind the forms of the world underlying everything."
Freedom from suffering induced by meta-congnitive reasoning:
Freedom from reason, freedom from deliberate thinking, freedom from personal identity ...
https://youtu.be/W_e17mfbX2s?t=1190
On some level I am realizing how very limited our time on this earth really is. With so much information available at our fingertips, it is especially challenging to focus. Blank, unruled paper and pencil (or pen, if you insist) ... pecking away as Holden suggests, trying your own intuitive approach first, before researching a more refined approach (solution key). Maybe your own approach is novel and worth preserving in a more permanent notebook. Maybe graphomaniacs are drawn to mathematics because it requires a great deal of scribbling with meaningful notation, diagrams, sketches, side notes. It is great that Schopenhauer is recognized as something more than a freak philosopher. I suspect that the future, if there is a future as such, Schopenhauer might be listed more along the lines of the founders of religions. That is, he may have created a "holy book" - he was using all his mental powers in a most sincere manner in an attempt to become an instrument of the Kernel of Nature Itself speaking to mankind.
We might want to consider ourselves as the inner kernel of Nature trying to get a grip on itself, trying to understand itself.
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Most people will never understand this message board.That is just a fact. I have met a few CEOs of multi-billion dollar corporations and a few Members of the Parliament. I can tell you for a fact that you have a sharper brain than all of them put together. But there is more.You represent an exceedingly rare grade of the Will.
I am looked upon as a cretin by the people here.By this country. I understand that. I fully expected that.Its grotesquely overpopulated and poor. There maybe thousands of Holdens dying every day here- it does not matter. (Sometimes I like to think of Schopenhauer when he was trying to find some translation work and earn some money for his daily needs -he did not find any work).
But I really wish you were treated better in your country. You really are one of a kind and sponsoring you would not be expensive at all.
Is there not some kind of mechanism to lodge a complaint with regard to the unjustified medical bills which you have received?
In the book Lila, the protagonist has a system of arranging his notes and he does not know how classify a few of his slips-I think you are one such slip.
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Thank you for your moral support, Holden. Unassimilated. That is the label Pirsig gave the slips of paper with ideas not connected to an already existing topic category.
Yes, I do feel quite unassimilated. And yet, I sure am not the only one who is unassimilated. One of the great lines in Toole's Confederacy of Dunces was when he wishes he could live in ambitionless peace. If I were to complain too much, I might risk sounding like Ignatius. It is very easy for others to "put me in my place" simply by pointing out that I have not held down a steady job in nearly 2 decades. So, anyone, especially children who have since become adults, who might have respected my "sharpness" or "math skills" at one point, as they became adults themselves, witnessing my life unfold, upon witnessing where all those skills and so-called sharpness got me, they are now free to mock me from afar. I have no doubt in my mind that there are those, especially in the extended family, who like nothing better than to witness my low social status. They want to put money in their pockets. What an absolute fool I must appear to them, and how wonderful that they live in such a world where "a positive attitude" will get you much farther in the work-force than a sharp mind. No one earns more at the State University than the Football coach. Go team, go. :-\
No, no, and again no. I am afraid I have grown tired of trying to find a niche in American society. They want me to play the role of "mental health consumer." Maybe there are those within that system who might offer me genuine emotional support, but I have had enough of this ... They have so much banking on their Health Care System. It's like the only game in town. Now, with so many suffering severe anxiety and existential despair, they are sure to mine for more and more "emotionally disturbed persons." Have a few drinks, go to the hospital ... now you are a client suffering from mental illness. Shuffle 'em through ... ching, ching ...
If the youth know what's good for them, they will be sure to try and land a job with a telecommunications giant and campaign for the next big breakthrough technology. Or, be sure to get in on the Slave Patrol or else risk being a slave patrolled. I really have a terrible attitude. I won't deny it. If everyone thought like me, well ... maybe we would consider figuring a way out of this raw deal we call life/existence; but I'm afraid that each of us, along with all the other freaky creatures on this planet, are on our own. We each suffer as lone individual organisms. We each would endure our illnesses and heartache alone within our own hearts, within our own animal body. I suppose this is why Schopenhauer suggests compassion as the only sensible attitude to take towards our fellow-creatures. One must even try to have compassion for those who have wronged us.
Schopenhauer suggests that, when you find yourself hating someone with intense feeling, to consider the pain this person has experienced in their life. Some say to forgive as long as you don't forget. It is difficult, but if even the slightest degree of forgiveness is to be felt in the heart, it must be linked to an intrinsic awareness of their suffering and general dissatisfaction. Even when people put up a front, like a couple that wants people to envision them as lovebirds, one knows from experience the drudgery that is animal existence. Want, need, and utter futility.
The reason I am not too comfortable complaining about anything whatsoever is because I am aware that there are others suffering far worse fates. There are also the countless automatons who feel they have no choice. They have too much "dignity" and "character" to live on the dole. Not only that, but there is no social status when one is living off the taxpayers. I understand that many quirky and eccentric people get some kind of grant or sponsorship to do research, but those tax dollars bring some dignity. I don't know Holden. It's just not in the cards for me. I mean, I have lost the desire to please or impress others.
The bills are all from August. Over the summer, during a "trip through" the psychiatric hospital, I had passed out from the medication they gave me, and when they shipped me to the hospital (I had no choice in the matter), they sent me up to the cardiac unit! The thing is, I was sent to the PSYCHIATRIC hospital involuntarily. I did not want to be there. I did not request to be there. During the stay there, I was shipped to the regular hospital, stayed there a couple of days, and then was sent back to the psychiatric (behavioral health) hospital/jail/zoo. They then took me in as a NEW patient, even though I was supposed to be discharged soon. I had to be re-evaluated all over again [ching, ching]. I was literally held hostage/prisoner. I'm disgusted with the entire system. I do not have any faith in psychiatry or the kinds of services offered by "outpatient behavioral health care." I'm just at this point in my life where I realize the health care industry is as corrupt as any other Big Player. They are processing the poor through their system, sending people bills they can't or won't pay, and then claiming to have "treatment" to offer. There are also all those who aim to make careers out of working as nurses or "mental health technicians" or "substance abuse counselors." I don't want to be fuel for their goddamn fire. I am not saying that there is no such thing as mental illness or emotional distress. I simply don't believe that there is any real science to what is referred to as "being in treatment." Holy Fuck, I hate those kinds of phrases, being in treatment. ::)
Hell, I have lost patience with paying deference to those who think they know a little something about "treating emotional disturbance". It is all too absurd to get too upset about. I am ignoring the bills and hoping they (or I) will eventually just go away.
As usual, I have conflicting emotions about the people I met in the hospital. I feel for people. People are suffering terrible anxiety. If I could get them all cigarettes, I would.
Thanks again, Holden, for those shots in the arm you administer with your words. You are Good Medicine.
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So, anyone, especially children who have since become adults, who might have respected my "sharpness" or "math skills" at one point, as they became adults themselves, witnessing my life unfold, upon witnessing where all those skills and so-called sharpness got me, they are now free to mock me from afar.
It is the same with me.My mother tells me that she regrets not having at least two more kids apart from me because I am a disappointment as I refuse to get married. I told her that she could do what she pleases.As far as I am concerned,I would go away to some forest.
I do not care much for this world of shadows. I would not mind an early departure(could it ever be early).
Those kids who have now become adults ( and,not to mention, Judas) would never manage to put in as much hours that you have put in ,in studying mathematics.For them, learning how to get thirty silver (bit) coins is good enough. They would never have the depth you have attained as regards philosophical comprehension-you know that too.
They might have some of the same blood that flows in your veins but none of your spirit,not one iota.
They are like Chinese cheap and fake replicas that gets damaged the day one buys it.You are the real deal. Genuine German Gold -good for thousands of years.I know, and you know, that there is no justice in this world of shadows so please do not expect any. However, there might be something beyond this paltry one.
Steer clear of Judas.
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Thank you for being such a perceptive and attentive reader.
I had written a long response, but too many tabs were open in web browser, so it was accidentally lost and has slipped into the void.
I like to imagine your maternal grandfather pleased that you are finding some solace in allowing yourself to continue your explorations in mathematics. I have to say that when I am sick and tired of spinning my wheels, tracking down issues with installing software (or writing some code), I force myself to stop. This is another great thing about working through math textbooks. While it seems like a waste of time, it is often better to stop tinkering with computers when you find yourself going around and around in circles, or digging a deep hole ...
I wish I could remember what exactly it was that Virginia Woolf wrote about them not being able to lock one out of "one's own mind."
I will look in xhentric.wordpress (https://xhentric.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/grunts-and-groans/) :
Contemplation and reading numerous books simultaneously, randomly, chaotically, and nonsequentially goes against the grain of “being a productive and industrious citizen.” I can’t help but recall something Virginia Woolf had written in “A Room of Our Own” to the effect that sitting around reading in a relaxed manner may be considered one of the most deviant activities as it displays a total disdain for the work ethic and those who judge us by our “position” or lack of position in the work force.
Meanwhile, across the pond in the UK, the government is warning people who consider living on the dole as a “lifestyle choice” that soon they will be forced into the work-force, and that there will be “nowhere to hide.”
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From the introduction to Virginia Woolf’s On Being Ill by Herminone Lee:
… a satire on conformity begins to make itself felt. The ill are the deserters, the refuseniks. They won’t accept the “co-operative” conventions. They blurt things out. They turn sympathizers away. They won’t go to work. They lie down. They waste time. They fantasize. They don’t go to Church or believe in Heaven. They refuse to read responsibly or make sense of what they read. They are attracted to nonsense, sensation, and rashness. On the other side of the glass is “the army of the upright,” harnessing energy, driving motor cars, going to work and to church, communicating and civilizing.
Reading in bed – like writing in bed – is, it’s suggested, a form of deviancy.
Virginia Woolf asks, “If truth is not to be found on the shelves of the British Museum, where, I asked myself, picking up a notebook and pencil, is truth?”
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FOUND IT: Virginia Woolf
Watch in the Spring sunshine the stock brokers and the great barrister going indoors to make money and more money and more money when it is a fact that 500 pounds a year will keep one alive in the sunshine.
When food, clothing, and shelter are mine, not merely do labor and effort cease, but also hatred and bitterness.
I need not hate any man: he cannot hurt me. I need not flatter any man: he has nothing to give me. It was absurd to blame any class as a whole. Great bodies of people are never responsible for what they do. They are driven by instincts which are not in their control. They too, the patriarchs, the professors, had endless difficulties to contend with. True, they had money and power, but only at the cost of harboring in their breast a vulture, forever tearing the liver out and plucking at the lungs – the instinct for possession, the rage for acquisition which drives them to desire other people’s fields and goods perpetually; to make frontiers and flags; battleships and poison gas; to offer up their own lives and their children’s lives.
But how impossible it must have been for them not to budge either to the right or to the left. What genius, what integrity it must have required in the face of all that criticism, in the midst of that purely patriarchal society, to hold fast to the thing as they saw it without shrinking.
Literature is open to everybody. I refuse to allow you to turn me off the grass. Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.
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So, to paraphrase Virginia Woolf, Mathematics and Philosophy (and Computer Programming) are open to everybody. Do not allow those who wish to control you to TURN YOU OFF THE GRASS. Let them lock up their libraries, but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that they can set upon the freedom of your mind, Holden.
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Thanks,Herr Hauser.Suffice it to say that your plight and I might add,mine too, is that of far worse than Winston Smith's in 1984.
Unknown people knocking at my door,ringing my door bell,call up my phone.I try, as much as possible, to hide and respond to come face to face with the malicious force.
Is there some kind of ombudsman to whom you could write about getting the invoices scrutinized?
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I think the fact that you have not had formal employment for close to twenty years is something to be proud of.
This cult of cubical worship is rather new. Gentleman ,by definition, were not supposed to work like a domesticated horse but to think.
You are not asking for anything drastic-just the right to live like a free man.
Some of the ancients believed in the superiority of contemplation over action. The problem is, most of the people are so full of crude Will that they just fail to recognize your higher calling- a vocation.
I see that the heath care system over there is synonymous with high way robbery. In this particular area, the UK's almost free National Health Service seems far more humane.
You live a fairly simple life. Food , shelter, some stimulants -that is all.
As far as existence is concerned,unfortunately there seems to be no way out.All I can do is to observe. All I can do is to wait for unconsciousness to arrive.
I find it interesting that Pirsig was into programming too.
I hope they forget about the bills. ( Is it possible or would they create more trouble for you?)
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I don't think they will forget, but they have been adjusted downward already. I have been dodging their phone calls on two fronts. For one, I do not want to participate in an economic relationship with psychiatry and the health care system. I do not want the "treatment" offered. Those calls have since ceased, but today a call was dodged which might have been of a more financial nature. They may wish to discuss bills or even inquire about whether I am taking prescribed medications. They can be thick-headed. They may have conveniently forgotten that I said I did not want to take medications like that. I don't feel like constantly explaining my position to them.
I did consider calling them today about the bills, but it is not just one place sending me bills. Any damn professional that laid their eyes on me at the regular hospital send some kind of bill, including the lab that was probing my heart area. Nothing but tests ... there are two different ambulance companies sending me bills. I can't keep track of them, and, to be honest, I would not have the 40 bucks each month to send ten dollars to each of those blood sucking entities. Hell, I am nearly broke before the month begins since the fixed income is rather spent on the necessities. In other words, they can't get blood from a stone.
Eventually I may be in the mood to discuss the situation with whoever is calling for me, but I have the feeling that the great epidemics of madness will burden their system to the point that they will be continually filled to capacity, an endless supply of clients, patients, people that have lost the will to live. They will not have any rooms to spare for people to be placed there for too long. I mean, the place really fed us well, even though I could not really move my bowels for several days at a time.
I hear that one day the zookeepers intend to charge the prisoners room and board. It does not take much to get into trouble here in the States. Thankfully, for the most part, I have been able to avoid altercations. I was only placed there, in the first place, because my mother came home from a visit to my uncle's a day early, and, upon her return, I was enjoying a rare session of drunkenness, at liberty to slice up a watermelon with a large knife outside with no shirt on (August). [The mother (and association) have this weird thing in the summer about having to have a shirt on outside].
From there, my mom must have simply called the police because I was drunk, but the police came to find the watermelon and knife outside. It must have been the large ugly medieval knife beside the watermelon that got written in some police report which gave whichever "professional-in-charge" the legal authority to hold me against my will.
fk-em' :-\
I suppose the music didn't help either. ( https://youtu.be/3OXLRuu8YQY?t=324 }
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This morning was raw with uncomfortable emotions, but my late night reading has helped a bit. That Ernest Becker did not pull any punches when it came to discussing the real terror of being born a biological creature. The ways family members hurt one another is just one of these dark aspects of reality Becker was shedding light on.
I don't think much trouble can be made over it, and I might even send each ten dollars if the government generates some economic traction with a stimulus - but, for the months that follow it, I am not going to go without food, shelter, or stimulants just to pay some bills to support their corrupt health care system.
In fact, I may even be dishing out more towards other bills which are escalating in this difficult year of this difficult era.
Do you think we may be in worse shape than poor Winston in Orwell's 1984? Hmmm ... Yes, I have gotten a close look at some of the degenerates in charge. I imagine they can be quite the Sadists.
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I am sorry for the delay in response-my melancholy gets the better of me.I think the police should not be called so casually. One needs to fly under the radar. Even if you were quite drunk ,I do not believe that you would hurt anyone unnecessarily.
When I think there is potential for conflict ,beyond a certain threshold, in a place or a situation, I try to get out of there-maybe I go to a park or to a nearby forest till things quiet down a bit.
Also, a trick I use very often,in order to make sure that nobody comes in when I am not expecting them, is that I bolt the door from the outside, and only I have the key for the lock. These precautions may appear to be the symptoms of a burgeoning paranoia but experience has taught me that they have indeed helped a great deal. Pulling a Haudini has saved me from many an unpleasant experience.
As regards 1984,yes, I read it when I was 19 or 20, and immediately identified myself with Winston. My workplace has always tried to brainwash me.There are always people sending me weird letters, calling my phone, ringing my door bell. Its really bad.
I know " Brave New World" quite well too, but somehow, it just did not have the kind of impact that 1984 had on me-maybe its because of the kind of country I am in, in line with your theory.
I think that it might a good idea for me to keep an "Escape Kit" ready. It would have a few books, some stationery articles, some Ready to Eat food, maybe a small bed-sheet, and a mosquito repellent and maybe a small tent and a soap ( a few potable water bottles).
That way ,whenever the situation appears to be getting to be too hot to handle, I take the kit and run off to a nearby park or a forest and then come back after 10-12 hours , hoping that situation would have become easier to tackle by that point of time.
I just find it very difficult to get along with people and I also do not wish to confront anyone-so the only course of action left is to hide-and stay hidden.I realise that your natural instincts are that of an outdoors-man and so for you it is even more difficult.
Your situation reminds me of this book.
https://martinjfrankson.com/2011/03/30/the-tenant-roland-topor/
https://youtu.be/2Y-4rJJw554
Please take care!
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A little humor from The Onion (https://www.theonion.com/pressure-mounting-for-humans-to-step-down-as-head-of-fa-1819579924)
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Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect. Mark Twain
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Eldridge added that if human beings do not voluntarily step down as head of the ecosystem, the environment might have to take drastic action to remove them forcibly.
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I find it interesting that Pirsig was into programming too.
I investigated the extent of his interest in programming, and I found a couple interesting tid-bits:
(1)
At the time of publication of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsig was an unassuming writer of computer technical manuals (https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/a-fresh-look-at-robert-pirsig-s-zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance-1.2856138). This does not necessarily imply an interest in programming, but I would not be surprised in the least if he did engage in some programming.
(2)
He was of German and Swedish descent.
(3)
In 1958, he became a professor at Montana State University in Bozeman, and taught creative writing courses for two years.
(4)
In 1974, Pirsig was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to allow him to write a follow-up, Lila: An Inquiry into Morals (1991), in which he developed a value-based metaphysics, Metaphysics of Quality, that challenges our subject–object view of reality.
(5)
A Critical Analysis of Robert Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality (https://cdn.website-editor.net/90e0cb600d8146f9af85b88f0c2f8fb2/files/uploaded/A.McWatt-PhD%2520Thesis%2520June%25202011%2520pp.pdf)