Posted in Knowledge

The Post-modern Closet

I have been meditating – oops, first wrote “medicating” – on the word post-modern recently. Ken Wilber says (and I paraphrase), that in the context of Transpersonal Psychology, post-modern means that your personal evolution has carried the human race past the sterile pragmatism and/or atheism of the Computer Age into the next stage. My understanding […]

American Irony

Trademark registration number 74485223. Description of Mark: The mark consists of the exhaust sound of applicant’s motorcycles, produced by V-Twin, common crankpin motorcycle engines when the goods are in use. It almost makes sense. You pay your hard-earned American dollars to get that distinctive Harley-Davidson sound. You don’t want some Southeast Asian company copying it […]

Consensus Reality

Referring back to Shamanism and Talking to Dog. We have the ability to perceive *everything* until our society teaches us to block out of our minds what’s happening on the other side of the door. Privacy is how it starts. Later it becomes political. This is the definition of sanity, sharing a world-view. My cat […]

Talent, a Lifer, or a Mandarin?

I’m a Mandarin! You’re an intellectual, and you’ve worked hard to get where you are now. You’re a strong believer in education, and you think many of the world’s problems could be solved if people were more informed and more rational. You have no tolerance for sloppy or lazy thinking. It frustrates you when people […]

Ice-9

Amazon.com: Cat’s Cradle: Books: Kurt Vonnegut I wound up writing this review because recently, in a flight of fancy, someone conjectured that perhaps in other parts of the universe silicon forms four bonds, making ring structures – similar to the carbon-based benzene ring that is the basis of all organic materials – possible. My question […]

20 Questions – Echidna

My new 20 Questions game correctly guessed “anteater.” I told it that it was wrong and after another five questions it guessed “echidna.” What the heck is an echidna? The answer is: a prickly australian version of an anteater. You must buy this game. It is uncanny. Picture from the Australian National Botanic Gardens.

Talking to Dog Again

Follow up to https://intothevoid.us/2005/07/09/talking-to-dog/ There is this thing called the religious experience. This is where you feel the presence of something larger than yourself, and know your place in the grand scheme. Sometimes you only get a glimpse of it, but it’s enough to change your opinions completely. Uh, epiphany, that’s what it’s called. Epiphanies […]

Six Degrees

There is a theory of relationships that states that any person on earth is separated from any other person on earth by at most six degrees of separation. Say that I wanted to get a letter to a friend in Germany but I couldn’t remember her address, only the town she lived in. Obviously I […]

TFTD – on persuasion

To persuade a man that his experience is not real or is worthless is to be a propagandist for some vested interest.

TFTD – on appearing normal

In appearing normal to others, one becomes a habit-ridden plaything of social pressures and expectations.

Bad Behavior has blocked 3362 access attempts in the last 7 days.