"Touch me. Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. I am lonely here. O, touch me soon, now. What is the word known to all men? I am quiet here alone. Sad too. Touch, touch me."
What is the word lost to most some men? Cold eyes. Fire, earth and water long gone, rejected. I am quiet and sad and untouched. Indecisions. Save me soon, I am untouched. I found inspiration in your eyes. You teased me with it. I lost it. I can't see it anywhere.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Inspired by Ulysses - original "ineluctable modality of the visible"
inescapable qualia of the visible. solipsism through trapped and tortured mind. self-defeating imaginings that cripple objective thought through mercilessly objective actions. caught between cynic, idealist, scientist, artist, extrovert, introvert, philosopher and liver.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Change is bad
That's the kind of attitude I need to change. People (me especially) are lazy and stick with the same patterns of behaviour, people and ideas that are familiar or easy for them. Unlearned behaviours can come back with a vengeance. The connection between self-improvement and improvement of one's surroundings seems difficult to see, but I'm starting to appreciate its subtle, arduous journey.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Ruminations on 80s humour
Stuff I noticed watching a comedy tape I used to watch when very young:
Rowan Atkinson is not good to watch a certain of in a different show. Apparently, he uses perfect pitch to deliver his jokes "perfectly" so two performances sound and are timed exactly the same.
80s humour had a lot of farting and much less complicated sexual humour in it. People heckled throughout, even in huge shows.
French, Saunders, Atkinson, Fry, Henry, Connely and Elton got funnier over time.
My parents did not monitor what I was watching at the age of maybe 4 or 5 very well.
Rowan Atkinson is not good to watch a certain of in a different show. Apparently, he uses perfect pitch to deliver his jokes "perfectly" so two performances sound and are timed exactly the same.
80s humour had a lot of farting and much less complicated sexual humour in it. People heckled throughout, even in huge shows.
French, Saunders, Atkinson, Fry, Henry, Connely and Elton got funnier over time.
My parents did not monitor what I was watching at the age of maybe 4 or 5 very well.
Domestication - proof of behaviour being passed on genetically.
Domestication is selective breeding in order to create animals that are less dangerous to humans, have a better temperament, or desirable characterstics (some of which might contradict my first couple of suggested traits). By getting the "nicest" animal of one litter, breeding it with the "nicest" animal or another, we can be sure at least the majority of animals from the coupling will be nice.
Certain animals fear certain things. Certain animals have aversions to things. Animals are attracted to things, and have instincts to kill others. I've seen it said that all fears are learned, but this only works if you define fear in a certain way. When fear is seen as closer in synonymity to aversion, we see that species, regardless of how they are brought up, will have the save aversions across a species. We are instinctively afraid of certain creatures because we are born with an aversion to a certain object, behaviour or circumstance. Heights, water, etc, they all make sense evolutionarily. What I found really interesting is the idea of why so many people are afraid of mice/rats. They are not dangerous, at least directly, but as disease-carriers... By this logic, we should be most afraid of mosquitoes. They are the only species that have seriously been looked at by scientists as candidates for speciecide (or whatever the word is for the intentional wiping out of an entire species). This makes me thing of a whole tangent about the ethics of keeping species alive, preserving them. Why is it wrong for a species to go extinct? Why is it any more wrong for a species to go extinct because of human intervention? Humans have this laziness in that they regard what "is" as what "should be". That's not how ethics work, logically. The nature card for preserving species only works if you see nature as: a) a pantheistic deity that will get angry if we start trying to take over its normal killing cycle or b) a mystery, ie in this case if we lose x number of species we don't know what could happen, but it's likely to fuck us all up. But anyway, mosquitoes suck and carry a lot of disease and kill millions every year. The most virulent of species should be made infertile. Also, behaviour is as easily passed on as any other genetic trait, though is obviously extremely more complicated in humans, due to upbringing, self-consciousness and other shit. Phobias are what are learned, not fears.
Certain animals fear certain things. Certain animals have aversions to things. Animals are attracted to things, and have instincts to kill others. I've seen it said that all fears are learned, but this only works if you define fear in a certain way. When fear is seen as closer in synonymity to aversion, we see that species, regardless of how they are brought up, will have the save aversions across a species. We are instinctively afraid of certain creatures because we are born with an aversion to a certain object, behaviour or circumstance. Heights, water, etc, they all make sense evolutionarily. What I found really interesting is the idea of why so many people are afraid of mice/rats. They are not dangerous, at least directly, but as disease-carriers... By this logic, we should be most afraid of mosquitoes. They are the only species that have seriously been looked at by scientists as candidates for speciecide (or whatever the word is for the intentional wiping out of an entire species). This makes me thing of a whole tangent about the ethics of keeping species alive, preserving them. Why is it wrong for a species to go extinct? Why is it any more wrong for a species to go extinct because of human intervention? Humans have this laziness in that they regard what "is" as what "should be". That's not how ethics work, logically. The nature card for preserving species only works if you see nature as: a) a pantheistic deity that will get angry if we start trying to take over its normal killing cycle or b) a mystery, ie in this case if we lose x number of species we don't know what could happen, but it's likely to fuck us all up. But anyway, mosquitoes suck and carry a lot of disease and kill millions every year. The most virulent of species should be made infertile. Also, behaviour is as easily passed on as any other genetic trait, though is obviously extremely more complicated in humans, due to upbringing, self-consciousness and other shit. Phobias are what are learned, not fears.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Religious Freedom
Disclaimer: this is probably a very loud and controversial opinion, and I state hoping not to offend people but to encourage reasonably dispassionate debate.
I am a strong advocate of religious freedom, even though most religion is a bit silly. I believe in the strength of the faith card, that science is as circular and self-dependent as any religion and that it is more parsimonious to assume that this world means something. Unfortunately, like freedom of speech, absolute faith in said freedom can lead to some tricky situations. For example, all the abortion ads that were on the side of the road in Adelaide last year. As an advocate of freedom of speech, one could quote voltaire's "I don't agree with what you say but I would fight to the death for your right to say it" (heavy paraphrase) or a quote I haven't been able to track down, something like "free speech doesn't mean anything unless it allows speech which is offensive". Despite my former absolute advocasy of freedom of speech, situations like this just feel wrong. Clearly there is a time and place for this sort of statement, and the good of freedom of speech must sometimes be sacrificed to allow the good of not having lots of parents having to explain to their children what is being posted on the side of the road, etc. Freedom of speech must be curbed.
A similar line of reasoning governs my stance on gay marriage. Marriage is, unfortunately, both religious and state, two things that should and normally are kept separate. Also unfortunately, at some point religions decided marriage could be had by anyone because at that points gays "didn't exist", ie were all closeted. There was some short-sightedness on religion's behalf. Now I think religions that say gay people shouldn't marry are wrong, but I would fight for their right to have faith. I also think people who believe in Scientology and many other religions are wrong. This doesn't make me feel the need to go into their church and tell them to change the way they want to praise. That brings up an interesting question in my head about brainwashing I'll have to stop myself talking about right now. Similarly, I don't think religion, not just individual churches but entire religions, should be forced to recognise marriages of people they don't agree with being together. Why only gay people? Why not polygamy, pedophilia, marriage with animals, bdsm? I'm not suggesting my ethics personally lump these people in together, they don't, but many religious perspectives would. I remember the movie Secretary, watching the making of it etc, the director was emphasising that he was trying to normalise sub/dom relationships "the way gay people had been normalised before". The financial uninion of a man and a woman, two men or two women, etc, should be able to be had by all, but the concept of gay people saying "I have a right to have the same religious ceremony as a man and a woman, and i want the law to be on my side when it does so" is getting religion and state confused. It's like me saying I'd like to be a Jew, but without all the bits I don't like, a muslim but only in name, etc. I believe in religious freedom and I believe in the separation of state and religion when it comes to marriage. Marriage should be like a bar mitzvah in terms of religiosity and sacredness. It should be sacrosanct. I think gay people wanting "marriage" with its religious significance are being religiously intolerant. Marriage without religion should not be called marriage. It should be an entirely secular commitment ceremony.
Anyway, the reason this came up is http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/14/2952787.htm?section=world
I can't believe in a civilised country they have banned a religion's right to express itself, just because our culture calls it unfeministic.
I am a strong advocate of religious freedom, even though most religion is a bit silly. I believe in the strength of the faith card, that science is as circular and self-dependent as any religion and that it is more parsimonious to assume that this world means something. Unfortunately, like freedom of speech, absolute faith in said freedom can lead to some tricky situations. For example, all the abortion ads that were on the side of the road in Adelaide last year. As an advocate of freedom of speech, one could quote voltaire's "I don't agree with what you say but I would fight to the death for your right to say it" (heavy paraphrase) or a quote I haven't been able to track down, something like "free speech doesn't mean anything unless it allows speech which is offensive". Despite my former absolute advocasy of freedom of speech, situations like this just feel wrong. Clearly there is a time and place for this sort of statement, and the good of freedom of speech must sometimes be sacrificed to allow the good of not having lots of parents having to explain to their children what is being posted on the side of the road, etc. Freedom of speech must be curbed.
A similar line of reasoning governs my stance on gay marriage. Marriage is, unfortunately, both religious and state, two things that should and normally are kept separate. Also unfortunately, at some point religions decided marriage could be had by anyone because at that points gays "didn't exist", ie were all closeted. There was some short-sightedness on religion's behalf. Now I think religions that say gay people shouldn't marry are wrong, but I would fight for their right to have faith. I also think people who believe in Scientology and many other religions are wrong. This doesn't make me feel the need to go into their church and tell them to change the way they want to praise. That brings up an interesting question in my head about brainwashing I'll have to stop myself talking about right now. Similarly, I don't think religion, not just individual churches but entire religions, should be forced to recognise marriages of people they don't agree with being together. Why only gay people? Why not polygamy, pedophilia, marriage with animals, bdsm? I'm not suggesting my ethics personally lump these people in together, they don't, but many religious perspectives would. I remember the movie Secretary, watching the making of it etc, the director was emphasising that he was trying to normalise sub/dom relationships "the way gay people had been normalised before". The financial uninion of a man and a woman, two men or two women, etc, should be able to be had by all, but the concept of gay people saying "I have a right to have the same religious ceremony as a man and a woman, and i want the law to be on my side when it does so" is getting religion and state confused. It's like me saying I'd like to be a Jew, but without all the bits I don't like, a muslim but only in name, etc. I believe in religious freedom and I believe in the separation of state and religion when it comes to marriage. Marriage should be like a bar mitzvah in terms of religiosity and sacredness. It should be sacrosanct. I think gay people wanting "marriage" with its religious significance are being religiously intolerant. Marriage without religion should not be called marriage. It should be an entirely secular commitment ceremony.
Anyway, the reason this came up is http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/14/2952787.htm?section=world
I can't believe in a civilised country they have banned a religion's right to express itself, just because our culture calls it unfeministic.
Monday, July 12, 2010
French is harder than German
Andrew asked me whether French or German is harder, and I told him French. However, I've seen it said (by some "study") that there are four levels of difficulty in language (for english-speakers), and easiest contained Dutch and French, second easiest contained German, and most difficult included most asian languages etc. Generally this made sense, and I can see why German could be seen as harder than French for the following reasons:
1) German has fewer words in common with English than does French. Therefore, one spends more time learning vocab.
2) German grammar is, let's say "harder" than English and French. There are more words for "the", word order is different to English, however internally it is very consistent and logical, which is different to French and German.
I would argue against this, however, I would argue that French is one of the most difficult languages to learn, just under English in general, because they are both complicated, full of exceptions to each rule and idosyncratic in the formation of phrases. I would argue that French is harder than German for english speakers for the following reasons:
1) because french has influenced english language so much, there are many "false friends". Words we have taken from french are not used exactly as they were in the native tongue. As an english speaker, learning french is like relearning your vocab in english. Words are not used in the exact same contexts as in english. In German, this seems to be less the case.
2) The way you express things in French is different to English. The bits of speech that you use are different to get a certain meaning. French words have multiple translations that seem unconnected in English. German had some of this, but nowhere near as much. German is very much like old english. The word order is different, but which typoes of words, ie adjective or noun or preposition, are the same as in English. I would say learning old english is helpful for german and learning latin is helpful for french.
Finally, both are easier than Indonesian. This is because, although Indonesian is a really simple language gramatically, it is much more foreign to English then french or german so the rules we know don't apply, and 99% of the vocab is foreign.
Obviously "easy" and "difficult" here have a double meaning of both: complex, as in whether the grammar and connections between words is logical and consistent, or there are numerous exceptions to rules, and also familiar, as in it's easy to learn something that's close to what you already know. I am generalising between the two and switching back and forth now and then when I talk to "easy" or "difficult".
1) German has fewer words in common with English than does French. Therefore, one spends more time learning vocab.
2) German grammar is, let's say "harder" than English and French. There are more words for "the", word order is different to English, however internally it is very consistent and logical, which is different to French and German.
I would argue against this, however, I would argue that French is one of the most difficult languages to learn, just under English in general, because they are both complicated, full of exceptions to each rule and idosyncratic in the formation of phrases. I would argue that French is harder than German for english speakers for the following reasons:
1) because french has influenced english language so much, there are many "false friends". Words we have taken from french are not used exactly as they were in the native tongue. As an english speaker, learning french is like relearning your vocab in english. Words are not used in the exact same contexts as in english. In German, this seems to be less the case.
2) The way you express things in French is different to English. The bits of speech that you use are different to get a certain meaning. French words have multiple translations that seem unconnected in English. German had some of this, but nowhere near as much. German is very much like old english. The word order is different, but which typoes of words, ie adjective or noun or preposition, are the same as in English. I would say learning old english is helpful for german and learning latin is helpful for french.
Finally, both are easier than Indonesian. This is because, although Indonesian is a really simple language gramatically, it is much more foreign to English then french or german so the rules we know don't apply, and 99% of the vocab is foreign.
Obviously "easy" and "difficult" here have a double meaning of both: complex, as in whether the grammar and connections between words is logical and consistent, or there are numerous exceptions to rules, and also familiar, as in it's easy to learn something that's close to what you already know. I am generalising between the two and switching back and forth now and then when I talk to "easy" or "difficult".
Default
Yesterday's news, plus several other factors, makes me feel much more free than I have in a while. It's amazing how much the world can actually seem to change just because of a few words and some pithy actions. It's also a case of the result being less important than the decision to try. The difficulty is not in being disappointed so much as putting oneself out there.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Synchronicity
Synchronicity is, from my vague understanding, when things happen together or for a reason. Because of my lecturers being on leave for the next few weeks, my exam has been postponed for a while. This will give me a lot of extra time and a few of the things I feel I need to better prepare myself for it and pretty much anything else. Today was also a day exactly as I expected it to be, which is to say that it was good.
Language
I can't remember the exact statistics, but there's some study that shows that knowing about 100 words will make it so you understand ~ 80% of an average text, 1000 words for 90% and so on exponentially. It made me realise that after about 6 months of learning French it's not entirely ridiculous for me to be trying to read just about everything I can in it. It's still nowhere near up to my German, and even bits of Indonesian, having been studied for 5 years some 10 years ago now, are more advanced. However, what I do know is fairly solid and is beginning to become more innate, rather than needing a translation in my brain. Anyway, being able to read in the language is a major step to move from translating in my head to being able to think in this language, and it made me feel like I opened up a whole world of faster learning.
My supp exam hasn't been worked on at all today, but I remain confident, as I should be good for 2/5 of it, 1/5 is looking pretty good, the last 2 will need some work but not heaps. Tomorrow shouldn't be written off though.
Tomorrow should just generally be productive, assuming I can sleep better hours tonight.
My supp exam hasn't been worked on at all today, but I remain confident, as I should be good for 2/5 of it, 1/5 is looking pretty good, the last 2 will need some work but not heaps. Tomorrow shouldn't be written off though.
Tomorrow should just generally be productive, assuming I can sleep better hours tonight.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Dolphin brains
I was again reminded of the idea that dolphins might be “smarter than us” or some other such nonsense again today. I remember learning in some Psych lecture that the reason people argue for this is the brain to body size ratio of dolphins is as high as humans, but that ignores the fact that a lot of dolphin brain is needed to get them around. I agree we evolved to be a dominant species because we were able to pick up tools with our magnificent opposable thumbs but through that evolution our brains have gained a lot more high functioning sections than any other animal.
It makes me think about what I believe about animals nowadays. When I was 16, I was an atheist and I believed that that led to believing that there was no qualitative difference between humans and animals, which led to me being vegetarian. When I moved out of my parents’ house, I stopped being vegetarian, though only with a sort of unease about how every time I ate meat it was going against my beliefs. Now that I consider myself to be more agnostic than atheist, and even to err on the side of there being a substance in this world other than just the physical, this supposition seems to no longer be true. There could be something that separates us from animals. I believe there could actually be something “special” about humans, if there is some creator to the universe or some afterlife or whatever. That being said, I suppose I do think of my religious beliefs as somewhere between pantheistic and non-interventionist so there’s no reason to believe that whatever makes humans special could also apply to animals. I still like meat though.
Incidentally, did dolphins evolve in the sea? I know whales returned to the sea after being land-dwelling animals for a while and it seems logical to me that that would be true or any marine mammal.
It makes me think about what I believe about animals nowadays. When I was 16, I was an atheist and I believed that that led to believing that there was no qualitative difference between humans and animals, which led to me being vegetarian. When I moved out of my parents’ house, I stopped being vegetarian, though only with a sort of unease about how every time I ate meat it was going against my beliefs. Now that I consider myself to be more agnostic than atheist, and even to err on the side of there being a substance in this world other than just the physical, this supposition seems to no longer be true. There could be something that separates us from animals. I believe there could actually be something “special” about humans, if there is some creator to the universe or some afterlife or whatever. That being said, I suppose I do think of my religious beliefs as somewhere between pantheistic and non-interventionist so there’s no reason to believe that whatever makes humans special could also apply to animals. I still like meat though.
Incidentally, did dolphins evolve in the sea? I know whales returned to the sea after being land-dwelling animals for a while and it seems logical to me that that would be true or any marine mammal.
Blog inchoation
In My Sister's Keeper, there is a line that goes something like "When the flames are licking your heels, you need to break a few walls to escape." I think that has been my ethos for too long and I have looked for ways to rebuild said walls in so many different places it makes my head spin. Hence, current blog. I'm hoping this will somehow be a tool to add some cohesion to my actions, somewhere between diary, daily planner and attention-seeking dilatory self-praise. Speaking of which, what I should be doing is, well, sleeping, but second to that is studying for my supplementary exam that is not yet confirmed but should exist soon. Instead, I seem to have spent my time 30% Borderlands/Dragon Age, 20% french practice (which I hope will lead to me skipping another level at Alliance Francaise this trimester), 10% cleaning the house and maybe 5% studying. Of course that's not the ful 100%, but I need to appear at least a little mysterious, if only to add strength to how easily I can be summed up as being entirely unmysterious.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)