Jack Oughton - Incessant Typing V1.0

Incessant Typing // Jack Oughton http://jackoughtonwriter.info // https://www.facebook.com/jack.oughton.writer // 2013: CC BY-NC-SA // Wanna chat?
Tweet @koukouvaya
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About this book / Preface:

Hi there. I'm going to try and put you into a box (not literally of course) You can be placed into two categories. In the first, you've read my stuff before and presumably have found a reason for coming back. If this is the case, hello again and thanks for returning. I look forward to your responses to my ongoing attempt to stir up controversies and new understandings in your consciousness. The second category, you've not read any of the stuff I have written and you've somehow come across this book. If so, hello, and welcome. I'll give you an outline of what to expect from it This book contains all the stuff that is just too weird to go anywhere that'll pay me to write about it. But it's the stuff that I want to write. Maybe there are some gems in here for you. I hope so I wrote these pieces as things for seekers and freethinkers. And, that said, this is probably not the kind of book that is going to get a publisher. But thats OK, this book was completely written in the spirit of fuck it, lets see what happens. Or as a morewell spoken writer might term it, embracing serendipity It's also another experiment in self-publishing. Will I get more readers if I present my work in book format and give it away? Who knows? So lets see what happens. Also, hyperlinks embedded in the document look like this.
What does the book contain?

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey
Incessant Typing // Jack Oughton http://jackoughtonwriter.info // https://www.facebook.com/jack.oughton.writer // 2013: CC BY-NC-SA // Wanna chat? Tweet @koukouvaya
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Well, it's a series of essays off of Demysticism, my wisdom blog / esoteric writings. Since they're written for the web, the essays are usually short. Which is good for you, the reader. Yall (understandably) hate long tracts, right? The words are an attempt to distill and purify some the most insightful moments and important lessons that Ive learned so far. And then sharing with others These writings are an attempt at continual reunderstanding and reinterpretation of what is taken for 'reality'. Challenging assumptions and rebuilding and improving upon the Zeitgeist.
What to do with the writings

Whatever you want. Id suggest that you eat it with your brain. It's licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA license. So share far and wide and tell people if you want. Or don't if you don't want to. Whatever works for you. If you liked it, or you had any powerful insights please buy me a coffee. Or don't if you don't want to do that either. I thought I'd just put it out there.
What can you expect to gain from the book?

New ideas presented in the old way and old ideas presented in a new way. And everything inbetween. And probably some stuff thats completely wrong and bollocks. And perhaps a few Aha moments. Subjects touched upon include science, sociology, futurism, psychology, metaphysics, spirituality and I suppose what some call self improvement (though Im of the opinion you can turn anything you read into self improvement if you find a way to apply it). Anyway, I dont claim to be an expert on any of these subjects, Im just a curious person.
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Most books have a unifying theme. It took me a while to figure out this one. What I think Ive arrived at is what the great Alan Watts referred to as 'philosophical entertainment'. Philosophy is often seen as an ivory tower discipline. When we think of it, we often think of stuffy old Greek dudes with beards, or people writing massive tracts about nothing in particular. Impractical stuff. But IMHO philosophy should be something that can be internalised, applied and lived. Not more junk information. So this is what Im trying to write for you. After some inspection, you might think that it is all shit. This is fine. As long as it makes you think something. This is the goal. That's all this book is. One giant invitation to think about stuff. One giant game trying to be played with your feeling and reasoning faculties. Hopefully one that you enjoy as well. So, are you gonna play or are you gonna sit it out?
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Part I: The Philosophy
I
Too much philosophy makes men mad. ~ Alan Judd, The Noonday Devil The first part of this book deals with the slightly longer and free flowing pieces Ive loosely defined here as philosophy. They touch upon a variety of topics. There is no real unifying subject
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We Drew The Short Straws

Compared to the history of human life leading up to this point, you and I are quite lucky. In fact, if time and circumstances of birth into the world where part of a competition set in some ethereal kingdom outside of the physical universe, you and I picked the short straws. We won. For a start, were alive during a time in history when (for most of us) human advancement has allowed us to meet all of our basic survival needs Food is an obvious and excellent example No more having to chase down a mammoth in the wilderness with a spear, or to spend hours digging for tubers just to get dinner and not die. No more having to even kill our own food, or conceptualise that for you to be eating that burger, a cow had to have its brains blown out with a mechanical bolt. Thump, splat. Or that chicken to have its head mechanically severed, a few seconds after the chicken before it in the production line suffered the same fate. Cluck, silence.
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You can eat chicken exclusively until you are completely stuffed, every day for the rest of your life, and you dont even have to think about the grisly scenario. For some prior generations, meat was the rarest of delicacies. But you can gorge yourself on chicken daily and it probably wont take too large a portion of your salary. (And no, this is not a rant for vegetarianism/veganism/etc. I am trying to make a point about material abundance) Anyway, in some particularly ridiculous cases, theres no more need to know what an actual potato, or tomato looks like, when the menu is all processed foods coming in abnormal colours. Disclaimer: I was one of these people when younger. Isnt life easy for us? We are affluent enough to have an excess of calories to worry about. Instead of starving, many of us are now choosing to dig our own graves with forks and spoons. With an absence of real problems, we invent our own, and they become real problems. No longer in danger of starving, now CHD or diabetes will bury us instead.
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I say invent, but I dont mean to downplay the many causes that often lead people to such a lifestyle. Thats another article entirely Theory of Constraints Because we now have the problem and the paradox of choice! Yes, now we get to choose! Instead of a monodiet of potatoes or something similarly bland (think 17th century Irish farmers), the potato lovers amongst us can enjoy hundreds and hundreds of varieties of spuds. And those who enjoy monodieting can indulge themselves anyway, nobody is going to stop them. Fruitarians are cool with us too. More and more we have the freedom to choose. But what have we chosen? As human power over the environment has increased, we have individually and collectively become more powerful. You, me, your neighbours, powerful beings all. I mean this literally and figuratively. We now have access to and use more power than any other generation before us. We entertain ourselves with a myriad of electronic devices, do business globally via electronic means, and carry energy guzzling things wherever we go (think iPhones). Were used to them, and its a fact of life that energy consumption
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is just a biproduct of being a modern human. And weve all got access to far more stuff than anyone else has ever had. And with that stuff we can do things. A Little Knowledge With the net weve all got access to knowledge that can teach us to kill a human with our bare hands, or build an atomic bomb. Or to grow petunias and play the violin. Its all there we dont even need to enrol in school or bother finding a book on it. And with Google growing increasingly more clever, we dont even have to make much effort in finding the information anymore. I love Google. And, in the basic sense, we have access to more raw units of energy (thanks to the generation and more efficient harnessing of energy) and we also have access to better technological leverage to use this energy, as our technology becomes more and more efficient. A Little Choice We have more choice than ever before; improvements in manufacturing mean that we can have goods brought to us from lands weve never seen, with next to no cost. My distant ancestors didnt even know what China was, but today I can buy goods from
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China that are cheaper than ones made in the UK. The miracle of capital allocation and a relatively efficient global logistics system has allowed that. And, in the developed world, even the poorest people can go away and visit foreign lands on a budget tour. Or choose not to work at all and slide by on benefit payments. Todays serfs are the overworked, high tax bracket middle class, who have willingly chosen their own enslavement and 60 hour work weeks and to carry the rest of the society on their very tired shoulders (at least economically). But theyve chosen the career path and at any time can walk away from the job, if theyre willing to face the consequences. And whatever the consequences are, its unlikely anyones going to starve or be killed. We are indeed living in miraculous times. Yes theres a lot of freedom now. And a lot of choice. Perhaps too much for many of us. We won the lottery, and invented a whole new set of problems. Cos if everything was easy and serene, itd be boring. And wed hate that
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THE LITTLE THINGS

Something for you to ponder as you go about your day to day A river is comprised of droplets, A desert is comprised of grains, A song is comprised of musical notes, A painting is comprised of brush strokes A book is comprised of words, Lasting romance is comprised of individual loving actions, And your life is comprised of every action you ever take.
So, break formidable and lengthy tasks down into their smaller parts, And dont forget to do the little things daily
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Have People Forgotten What Freedom Is?

Disclaimer: I can do this stuff as well. Im not preaching, merely commenting.
All possessions are temporary
Life is precious. Time is precious. Time is the currency of life. When times up, lifes up. Chasing paper But moneys acquisition needs not be tied to hours spent. That is to say many people have worked out how to generate income out of increasingly less amounts of time working. Its a bit of a challenge for many of us to adjust to. Some people refer to it as passive income and the opportunity to obtain it is part of the reason why so many people take to alternative means of money making, such multi-level-marketing (MLM) and internet businesses. Though it doesnt always work, these things provide the opportunity to decouple ones time from ones money making. Or retire. And with that, hopefully spend time on the important things.
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Afterall this is not the industrial age anymore. Technology has changed how we create and distribute value. Its even changed what value is. Now we can make money out of ideas, and we can automate much of the manual labour that was once done by hand. The game has new rules, though many people have either neglected to learn or refuse to play by them. Acquiring stuff vs. acquiring freedom Your jewelry, widescreen TV, sports car, trendy haircut, vogue clothing will not endure when you die. Your competitive urge to have more does not make you more than anyone else. It does not provide an authentic feeling of happiness. Keeping up with the Jones is a superfluous system of keeping score that will take away your time and by extension, your freedom. If you chase money solely to acquire these fine things, then when you expire, that time chasing will have been wasted. What the fuck does it matter if you are gunning for a promotion at work and working like a zombie if you are never around to see your children grow up? When you are on your deathbed you wont give a damn about the hours you missed at the office. Youll regret the hobbies you didnt take up or the friendships that you let fade
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away, or the girls you never asked out. Theres an exercise called the deathbed exercise. It encourages you to really think about your life from the perspective of your older self, nearing death. If you really get into it, it can be an utterly harrowing experience. Ive tried it a few times and it helps put things in a brutal perspective. I think it also made me a little more compassionate. How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened. ~ Thomas Jefferson And this is why it is important to distance your thinking from the work time/free time mindset. Trading time for money and possessions is like slicing bits off of your life (which is all you have) to obtain physical materials. What kind of tradeoff is that? It cant last forever. You cant last forever. Of course, if you accept that you are hiding from family life in your job, at least there is intellectual honesty there, and room for change. But if you work like a bastard every week for a family you never see, examine your situation. Doesnt it defeat the point?
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And what about all these toys you buy? Perhaps you enjoy them for a while, but how much do they really satisfy you, and if so, how long does that feeling last? How many thousands hours of your precious life do you have to spend to get things that will soon bore you. Is it a worthy tradeoff? This is all personal choice of course. But theres a reason why some people cut themselves and some people throw themselves off of bridges with rope attached to their ankles. They want to feel more life. More adrenaline. Its also the reason why people who work in jobs that they like, regardless of how wealthy they are, are often content. They do the work for the works sake. For them, its not about trading time. Its about where the time is spent. Think about it To me it seems that to be happy with work (and you may disagree) you need to either 1. 2. Do the thing that you love to do, Get so good at leveraging your time that you need to work
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very, very little time at a job you dislike. Because internal satisfaction cant be gained from external things. We all know this. Theyre just a panacea that keep you chasing more. But we forget. I forget. Maybe you forget? And for those who feel themselves bound to wage slavery, perhaps you need to be more frugal with your money and more extravagant with your time.
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Dumb Luck
I've been lucky. I'll be lucky again. ~ Bette Davis Definition: I use luck to describe the outcomes of situations or things, either known or unknown to us. To those who believe that dumb luck is a myth, or that we manufacture all of our own luck, I disagree with you There is luck, dumb or cruel, and you cannot discount the random hand of fate, or the effects of the unknown. Just because you dont believe in chance, doesnt mean it doesnt exist. Take for example the lottery winner. Or the man who takes the day off and avoids the train crash. Lucks clearest examples are often the cruelest things. What of the innocent woman who is shot at random by the sniper on a crowded street? Theres little any of these people could have done to either stack the odds in their favour or have even known what to do. They were unaware. Dumb luck.
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Self Determination Some say what and where we are in life is the result of what we have thought and done. This true, to some extent. But nurture does not undo every facet of nature Example, if I have a genetic condition that destroys both my eyesight and my chances at being a fighter pilot, was it my fault? What if I want to play professional basketball, but never grew past 59? Surely not We are all dealt a deck of cards at birth Self determination is limited by probability and the unknown. But to advocate all accountability to luck is insane and disempowering to the extreme, and I doubt many actually do. Self determination, self belief, these are obviously good things to believe and live by. But you put too much stock in your own personal power if you think theyre the complete arbiter of your life. The only person to determine everything without luck or fate or probability would have godlike powers. Timing But timing is everything. Take Justin Bieber worshiped and
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despised in equal measure. I have nothing against Justin, but I think he is a magnificent example of dumb luck. Hes clearly a good singer and entertains millions. But, there are hundreds of thousands of vocalists and entertainers, probably equal or better to him in talent. So why is he the big shot? His Mum was uploading videos of his performances at the right time for someone with the power to make him a star to see. That guy, Scooter Braun, was also ballsy enough to take a few commercial risks and make the right introductions. Very astute. But again, probably a stroke of dumb luck for Justin. Of course you can manufacture your own luck by arranging things as best as possible and letting the cards fall as they please. By knowing how to set things up in a certain way you minimise your risk or bad luck. You stack the decks in your favour. Probabilities improve. You are likely to be more lucky. But you cannot stack every deck, improve every probability, or even know everything you need to be stacking. Life has too many variables. Thus your luck will fluctuate.
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Think about the woman killed by the sniper. Perhaps the thought may have crossed her mind a few times in her lifetime that she could get shot at by a sniper. Perhaps the idea came to her briefly after watching Phone Booth or Enemy At The Gates. But is it her fault because she was unprepared this time? Nobody would say that. So, for those who beat themselves up for every failure, you can blame luck sometimes. Or call it fate, or call it responsibility. Its never all your fault, or your credit. Just dont blame luck for everything.
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You are the sky. Everything else its just the weather. ~ Pema Chdrn
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On Acting, Roleplay and The Persona

This is an article exploring role and acting, onstage and off. I claim to be no expert, and am coming from the perspective of someone who has done a small amount of theatre, and been an extra on a few TV shows (which isnt really acting). I wrote this because I wanted to explore how acting can help improve our intuitive, feeling skills and in how we express ourselves. Ive no doubt that it also improves upon ones self confidence and gives people the mental tools to put ourselves into new frames of mind and modes of experiencing the world. Acting deals with very delicate emotions. It is not putting up a mask. Each time an actor acts he does not hide; he exposes himself. ~ Rodney Dangerfield Thinking about acting is useful to us as it provokes a different look into the question of what authentic identity really is. We are all acting at least some of the time. Authentic identity is the spiritual indescribable at the core of who we are. But how many of us are completely ourselves all the time?
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I think it is the same reason why the man climbing the corporate ladder goes out on a Friday night to get wasted and have sex with someone hes just met. Its not that his true persona is a sex mad alcoholic, its that his work persona has not allowed him to express this part of himself, and he needs to play a different role every now and then. And Im not talking of multiple personalities, which I think is quite different, probably maladaptive and describes a belief in one person believing that they are many. I instead speak of all the different ways that the self can be whilst remaining intact. So, off I go If you have ever spent too long in an environment where you feel you have had to repress aspects of your self, then you know how ill fitting a persona can be. Especially if the scene has carried on for too long (OK, so I had to stretch the metaphor a bit) The Hollywood Set Professional actors fascinate me because I still feel I dont at all understand how they do what they do.
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Consider the prestigious Hollywood set. Theyre famous as much for who they are than what they have done, but the fact that they are extremely famous doesnt detract from how good many of them are at the craft of acting. " You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a fruit fly and still have room enough for three caraway seeds and a producer's heart." ~ Fred Allen In actors, the worst of them are completely inauthentic. The best of them, completely believable. So, put another way, good acting is authenticity. The Many Faces of Harrison Ford Actors are people we often see all the time, but take for granted. To me, the good actor becomes the character they portray. Think about Harrison Ford as Han Solo in Star Wars. If I see Harrison dressed conventionally, Im probably going to identify him as Harrison, but if I see him dressed in full Corellian costume (what you usually see him in the film) I immediate identify him as Han. Its kind of strange, but its almost like hes two people to me. And not to labour a point too much, but when I see him dressed in his archeological digs, then I identify him as Indiana Jones. You see where Im going with this? Harrison Ford is an identity, Indiana Jones is an identity. Who I identify the person that looks
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like Harrison Ford/Indiana Jones as, is completely contextual. That person, who we normally refer to as Harrison Ford, has multiple personae. Good Actors, Bad Actors and False People Some people are almost born onto the stage or screen. Some actors, like Al Pacino, Leonardo di Caprio, etc, are so fantastically believable that to me, they seem to be completely assimilated into the persona theyre playing. Others, such as Sylvester Stallone, do not always seem to disappear into their character, despite Sly being an example of someone who has wonderful passion and intensity in his acting. It seems that more often than not that he gets typecast in roles that seem to suit his action man persona. I suppose this is fine, since hes very good at that sort of thing. Its like the character becomes him. But I still think hes a hell of an actor. Id use the film Cop Land as my example. I admire Stallone very much indeed. Bad acting is so blatantly bad, that you usually cant miss it. Yet good acting is almost undetectably subtle. Like the best scores and sound design are weaved into the background of a track, almost as to be unnoticeable, good acting feels like a part of the reality of the film or the theatre that you observe. Bad acting often breaks your
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suspension of reality, and it becomes very clear that what you are watching has been staged. Persona: Italian word derived from the Latin for a type of mask made to resonate with the voice of the actor (per sonare: literally; to sound through) Thinking outside of acting, false people are often too obvious, right? Depending on how good a judge of character you are, your gut often senses these political types. Those who act friendly but are trying to use this relationship with you for a reason. And for them, it doesnt usually work. You cant really like anyone that gives that untrustworthy vibe off. The persona fails, and the true, nasty face beneath the mask is revealed. Or the persona holds but you steer clear anyway knowing what awaits you. Everybody in some way or another is an actor. Its true. Mum bakes a horrible pie? You get an Oscar nomination for Best Prolonged Food Related Lie. Want to get that promotion at work? then play the role of proactive and interested employee not Im Just Here For The Paycheck. And there are many other examples Authenticity And Empathy Good acting is not inauthentic, it is completely authentic.
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What is authenticity anyway? In acting, authenticity is reacting to what happens, as it happens. The script works as a guideline to direct the emotional performances of the actors. Words are simply a vehicle for emotion and intangible atmosphere of the production. Its like music, where instead of words, the organisation of harmonic and rhythmic textures are the vehicle by which emotions are manipulated. Acting requires a well developed imagination and the ability to intuitively interpret things as they happen. From what I understand, wooden acting comes from the situation where the responses have not been authentic. A good actor is one who responds completely to the environment and what happens, as it happens. Or as you may have heard it said, acting is reacting. Like any other act of expression, too much thinking seems to hinder good acting. Overanalysing. And this is the same with many other things. Want to talk to a guy/girl? Go talk to him/her dont spend too much time deliberating about what youll say. Just say hello. Then have a conversation. The same is true with acting. In many schools of acting, actors are told to just do it. And I think many of us, especially those more afraid to express ourselves, could learn from this.
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The Persona Responsibilities and Social Masks Beyond the name you call yourself and who you think or know you are, you have many identities and play many roles in your day to day world Ever met someone famous and found that they werent who youd expected them to be? You may have witnessed the unmasking of a social persona. There are countless examples of peoples private face being much different to whom they are outside of the public eye. Read a gossipy magazine and youll likely find plenty of accounts. Similarly, ever thought about how you have a different role to play when at a drinking establishment with a bunch of old friends, than when looking after your kids? Your identity, though fixed to some extent is very much contextual. Id argue that what professional actors do is to change the context of their identities further than most of us do Our identities shift in line with our environment. The media influences them. Suppose I find a new genre of music (lets say Country) and a particular artist in it admire. Perhaps I choose to adapt elements of their dress style as homage, and because I think it looks good on me. Thats my persona shifting in response to external events. I may now also identify myself as a country and western fan, changing my behaviour, adopting certain mannerisms
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and so on. In this instance the genre of music has personal relevance to me. You can actually see how it affects me. Or another more obvious example of musical personae. Think about the mild mannered, accountant by day type guy who dresses up in leather, studs and spikes and plays satanic black metal gigs every other weekend. Or the loving father who makes a good living touring as a member of a gangster rap group (and there are many examples of this too). And then of course theres the other mild mannered guy who lives out a second life roleplaying as a dungeon master on the internet in a MMORPG. Not strictly musical, but a similar idea. Role Playing Games Vampires, Elves and Romans In fact there are numerous subcultures where people practice roleplay as another means to be themselves. The vampire subculture is very active online and offline. Many of these vampires incorporate an element of vampirism into their day to day lifestyle, and they will often meet, specifically to role play. The most popular game I could find being Vampire: The Masquerade Another group of roleplayers, usually with more of an interest in traditional fantasy, are called LARP (Live Action Role Plays). There are many different LARPS, ranging from fantasy oriented
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scenarios to historical reconstructions of the American Civil War and Ancient Greek phalanx warfare. Here the level of player dedication varies from people just out to have some fun and hit people with large foam swords, all the ways to groups of people who have created their own unique fantasy cultures and hierarchies. Theres actually a pretty reasonable (if a bit exaggerated) introduction to LARP culture in the 2008 comedy, Role Models. These are people who willing embrace a completely contrary aspect of themselves. Often taking new names and behavioural characteristics theyve been unable to express as their normal selves. Another persona. And speaking of people getting in touch with other aspects of themselves Animal Personae Furries, Lycanthropes and Shamans If you have been on the internet for longer than 5 minutes you have probably heard reference to the furry fandom. Hohoho Theyve attracted controversy for all sorts of reasons, much of the
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bad press being unfair in my opinion. But Im going to skip over all that, as it takes us away from our subject Furries are an interesting study in persona. Instead of a mask, many of them wear full body fursuits and have another, animal alias that they escape into in their free time. The community thrives on the internet, often in places, such as Second Life, where one can live out an idealised identity, unconstrained by physical limitations (such as the fact that you were born human, though you may really feel yourself to be a wolf). Some of the more serious amongst them legitimately believe that they have animal souls. Or can shapeshift. In that instance perhaps they see their day-to-day identities as human beings as an unwanted persona to live through. Its food for thought. Furry has been around for a long, long time, in some form. People have physically identified themselves with animals for as long as there have been people. Many shamanic traditions, crossing multiple cultural groups, have an element of animism, belief in shapeshifting, experiences in the body of an animal, and so on. Lycanthropy & Therianthropy have been documented by the medical profession for centuries. It is an almost universal attribute of the various human cultures to use animals as characters in the stories we tell our children.
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But who told you that you had to be just one person (or animal) at a time? Group Personae Riots, Sermons and Oratory Personae also emerge on a larger, collective scale. Ive already spoken quite a lot about emergent phenomena, so Ill make my examples here brief. But take for example any crowd situation, such as a sports game. To some extent, especially during moments of great passion and energy (like a scoring event), individual personalities seem to merge into a larger mass. Sometimes people lose themselves in the seething social energy of a football riot, or a powerful religious sermon. The individual persona merges with the group, if only for the briefest time Conclusion: Who Are You Anyway? Whoever you want to be What Im trying to get at with all this is that we can all be so many different people over the course of our lives and in the day to day. We have digital identities, aliases of our construction, the people we think we are, the people we try not to be, the people we like to be sometimes, the people we have to be in certain situations. We change our manner of speaking to suit our environment, we change
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our dress depending on where we go. Because personae are just like the clothes that we wear, we have some that we are fond of, and wear more frequently than the rest. And some that we just take out for special occasions. Human beings are like a more complicated version of the chameleon. Changing our appearances just as quickly as we change a multitude of other aspects of ourselves. Including the very way we think and look at the world. This is free will and you have the right to exercise it. And it leads to the dangerous idea that if you dont like what you are right now, you can choose to be someone else. Freedom means you are unobstructed in living your life as you choose. Anything less is a form of slavery ~ Wayne Dyer Whether we are conscious of it or not, we act every day. We act upon things to get things done, and we also act in the metaphorical sense We fulfill the social roles and functions that fit us into the societies that we comprise. Its obvious in how we choose our careers; the
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person appointed as a policeman has to act as guardian of the peace. The woman who becomes the midwife has to be that supremely attentive, nurturing person. But when either of them finish their shift they can go home and be almost anyone they want. Maybe the policeman has his own desires for chaos and destruction. Maybe the midwife does as well. And once the work persona is done with, the devilish sides can come out to play And this can be very healthy. Perhaps the word is therapeutic. Both individually and for society. Its probably not a good idea to take a position of power without an outlet for ones baser instincts which are completely at ends with the job description. We are all human after all. And theres another way to allow the other aspects of ourselves to thrive. The actual, theatrical craft of acting. Which may have more benefits than you think It can be a way to get in touch with our intuitive, feeling, side, or try out new personae, like youd put on clothes in a department store changing room. For example; never been that much of an outgoing person, but really want to be? Fake it til you make it. Act. If you need to, start
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in a dramatic environment where it doesnt feel so weird, and get some practice in. Allow the aspects of the character that you want to be to integrate into who you are. Its been done before, over and over again. General George S. Patton was obsessed with military history. He modeled himself after everything he knew of Alexander The Great. What part did this have in his success as a military commander? Or perhaps Arnold Schwarzenegger, who at a young age idolised bodybuilders like Reg Park, and decided that was who he would become. And he did. In fact he even described the process that took him to the top What you do is create a vision of who you want to be, and then live into that picture as if it were already true. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger And whoever you are, theres usually someone or something happy to tell you who or what to be. Think of the modern media landscape and lifestyle brands with their consumer demographics. You are not a demographic But whatever the world tries to make of you, true self resides there always. We are most happy when we are being the person we want to be at the time. Though who we want to be can change. After 12 hours working in a stock exchange, we may no longer want to be
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the full stress, hard charging commodities trader. We may want to be the caring father. Or watercolour painter. Both are perfect for the time they are chosen. So embrace every aspect of yourself. Embrace all the personae. Because at the end of the day, theyre all you really. "You have to have a certain persona to be a star, you know, and I don't have that. I'm a banana." ~ Harvey Korman
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Pain Is Humanitys Common Ground

Pain
A unifying, universal element of the human experience. A place where we can build empathy and truly connect with others. Because, despite our multitudinous differences and completely unique lives, everybody has experienced pain. We dont want it but we must all endure it. Sometimes collectively, and sometimes personally. But were not in it alone. I feel your pain is one of the most understated yet significant things one human can say to another, if sincerely meant. Its an admission of connectedness and unity. A reminder that we dont and shouldnt suffer the human condition in isolation. We are there for others, others are there for us. It makes it easier to bear. A Buddhist exercise in compassion teaches us that, as we regard
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people, to remember and repeat the following silent mantra; This person wants love, doesnt want pain. A simple reminder. If were finding it hard to show compassion, maybe we can remember that this person, on a foundational level, wants to love and not to suffer. Yet we are so quick to forget this, as we struggle and fight to carve out small places in some of us see as a dog eat dog world.
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On Normality:
Im going to talk a little about the social construction of normality and why changing how we define it can help the collective shaping of a better world. It all comes down to standards, though you may end up fighting the herd Bathing and killing people what is normal anyway? One way to define normality is as what we are accustomed to and come to expect. Normality is an attribute, not a constant or a truth, and is relative to the person and situation. For example, nine out of ten people may think daily bathing is normal. One other may have a different idea. To him, bathing less could be perceived as normal. Is he a dirty person? Or are the others just obsessive in their bathing? Whos right? Its irrelevant. It is a point that can be argued either way. Some of us become accustomed to doing extraordinary things For example;
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A hardbitten soldier: taking human life is normal. A butcher: splitting the ribs of animals with a knife is normal. An architect: seeing buildings that originally existed only in his/her head is normal. A concert pianist: practicing 8+ hours at the piano a day is normal. What we become accustomed to comes from the activities we choose and the environment that envelops us. These things form a cocoon of expected and predictable events and things that make up an ordered life. A comfort zone. We get used to them. On some level we associate them with our safety. We begin to entrench, and keep doing them to stay in the place we know. This is great if these things are what we really want and make us happy, and maybe not so great if they are simply a superficial means for you to feel safe. Some people seem accustomed to challenging normality and this zone of familiarity as time goes on, but this seems to be less normal. From what Ive seen, many are happy to just set in their ways
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So, consider what normal things you are participating in with those around you. As I said, normality is often socially constructed. Do the norms of your various social groups help or hinder you? Is it normal for you and your friends to be broke? Perhaps by the standards of your friendship group this is normal but is it what you really want? If you should be the one to start saving or investing your income a little more wisely, how would that affect your standing in the group? Wealthy people seem to associate with other wealthy people. Is it normal for them to be wealthy? What about in other areas? Does normal mean a mediocre standard of performance to you? The Japanese have an oft-quoted saying that roughly translates to the nail that stands tall will be hammered down. Another word used to describe it is tall poppy syndrome the idea that people of unusual merit or achievement are cut down to size by their peers. Its origins appear to go all the way back to the ancient world, in which one or various kings had his most eminent citizens put to death in an attempt to retaining power. Im not sure if it worked. It used to promote a culture of superior teamwork that stifled
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individual achievement to some extent. Individuals who chased their own dreams or grew too big for their boots faced ostracism. Or as some like to repeat these days, theres no I in team. But we clearly arent in feudal Japan anymore, and though teamwork gets many things done, a culture of conformity is often not the environment in which it feels safe to innovate or push boundaries. To stretch an already tenuous metaphor, why not have every nail or sunflower standing taller? moving the standard ever upward Introducing The Idea Of Calibration If you calibrate a device, you find something that is objectively accurate, and set your measurements to it. For example, you can calibrate the brightness on your monitor by using a diagram. Your eye (subjective) becomes calibrated to a colour value (objective). Calibration has also been applied to your personal standards, whether you are aware of it or not. What you now define as right is a personal calibration. What you define as normal is also a calibration. And the nature of calibration is that you can change what your standards have been metered too. I.e at some point, taking a lead from the environment that surrounded you and the stimulus you were exposed to, you decided that some level of a personal attribute was normal or the status
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quo. So, what are you calibrated to? The lessons of your parents? Holy books? Social norms? Your personal code of ethics? Calibrate your kiddies If you have children, why not encourage them to associate higher standards and pushing boundaries with being normal? Is it normal for your child to be told no, over and over? To be told off. Does your childs environment suggest that normality is not doing anything new and remaining completely safe so safe that there is little chance for new experiences, perspectives and people? For many families this is done with the best intentions but stifles young questing minds all the same. And its understandable, we want the best for our children, even if that entails being a little over cautious in how we care for them. Perhaps we care too much? But experience is the surest teacher, and if ever theres an age were learning, childhood is it. It seems like a shame to withhold that opportunity for our children. It could save them years of learning these lessons, in a far more expensive environment, and at a much later date
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Because, some lessons you have to learn eventually. Outro: Is Simple Much of personal motivation and the way that society plays out collectively is just a striving towards perceived normality (via groupthink) and a stable world. Normal is not what people tell you it is. Its whatever you want it to be. So make your normal better. TLDR We could all have better standards, even if it seems the majority wants us to settle for mediocrity.
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You are the sky. Everything else its just the weather. ~ Pema Chdrn
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The Importance And Art of Listening

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again. ~ Andre Gide
I bet you reckon listening to people is pretty important. But have you really thought about how important? We all need to vent every now and then, be listened to, and feel validated by the act of others considering what we have to say. Sometimes we just need space to talk and express ourselves in words. And some of us, even more than others Why else would people write so much poetry that theyre so very reluctant to share with others? And feeling like nobodys listening to you can really, really drive people mad. For an example, ever see the film Falling Down? Theres more to listening than a lot of people think. Broadly speaking, you can divide it into two varieties.
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Theres what Id call conventional listening this you do to obtain information; discuss things in the normal sense, make small talk in uncomfortable social situations and hold less intense conversations with people you know. Then theres active listening which is done by the listener to specifically help the speaker. In active listening, the listener actively makes an effort to listen and clarifies that he/shes understood the speaker. This hopefully leads to a dialogue with greater understanding, and leaves the speaker with a feeling that theyve been really listened to. The different effects these two kinds of listening can be profound. You can do listening wrong Often we do the wrong kind of listening at the wrong time, which is no good for anyone The reason why I love some of my closest friends so much is because we all give each other space to speak. Its actually rare and refreshing Because I feel the quality of listening where I am is usually substandard. In conversation it very often feels that people are just racing to fill spaces in dialogue.
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In fact, its not even dialogue at all its often like a series of vaguely connected monologues. Nobody really gains anything from it, and I dont like these kind of conversations at all. Ever experienced what I mean? Ever done it? I think we all have at least a few times But we can learn our lessons and be forgiven. Everybodys talking but I cant hear a word You probably notice that in the western world, many people are unhappy Or think theyre unhappy. Some think they need psychotherapy, when all they really need is a listener. Or a counselor. Just a little space to talk about their problems in a nonjudgemental environment. Why do they need this? Because they dont get this kind of listening from the people in their normal day to day life.
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Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person they are almost indistinguishable. ~ David Augsburger Perhaps they dont have a friend that they can count as a confidant. However, this can go both ways. Sometimes people try to turn their friends into their counselors (without consent and often without realising it). This is actually a very bad thing for both parties. Because if this kind of helping relationship isnt done right, theres a transfer of something I can only describe as negative energy from speaker to listener. And it can destroy relationships. Example; Consider the scenario when someone calls a friend purely to vent. Often the listener feels put upon to provide a solution, but all the talker wants to do is vent. This is often the problem in male/female relationships. Solutions oriented men want to offer practical remedies to their woman, whereas she just wants to explore her feelings. At the end of the miscommunication masquerading as dialogue, the speaker feels just as bad and the listener feels like shit too. Because its all been done wrong.
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Other times the negativity of the speakers situation weighs down on the listener, who just isnt ready to take on that burden. Especially when the listener feels unable to help (which is often the case). This can lead to a feeling of powerlessness in the listener. At times like this, the listener finishes the dialogue like theyve just taken an emotional beating from a friend. They often feel guilty that they cant help. And sometimes the listener even feel resentful. And still, the speakers problem hasnt been solved. So dont be that person dumping your problems on other people. Because weve all known that negative, toxic person, right? The one who brings everybody down. With these people, the process of listening can be much harder work than wed expect. And speaking of listening as hard work Introducing The Samaritans Ever heard of The Samaritans?
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Theyre a UK charity and one of the best examples of the incredible good that can be done just by actively listening. The Samaritans is comprised of people who volunteer to listen. They man phone lines, counsel in person and respond to letters, emails and text messages from suicidal or desperately unhappy speakers. Often, The Samaritans are the only people that a suicidal or near suicidal person feels they have left to speak to. And it works! The stated aim of the organisation is to reduce the number of deaths via suicide, and as far as I know, theyre seeing results. For decades The Samaritans have been the last line of defence for the suicidal person in the UK, their phone-lines open even when more official, governmental organisations such as the NHS mental health helplines are inaccessible. I wonder how many lives theyve saved, just by being there and properly listening when nobody else would. Samaritans listen with a compassionate, non-judgmental ear. They dont offer suggestions, and dont criticise, no matter how dire your actions or your situation. Each of them is trained in active listening and many of them have years of experience hearing the most heartbreaking scenarios. Very often they have to counsel each other, as hours of this kind of listening takes its toll.
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Pretty tough. Their example shows us how important a kind, listening ear is, and what listeners themselves may have to go through. Conclusion: How to get wisdom And theres an another obvious, but often overlooked thing about listening properly. You might actually learn something useful. Well, depending on what you are listening to of course
Listen or thy tongue will keep thee deaf
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Ownership And Denial

"Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim
at, with originality, which they should never bother about." ~ W. H. Auden Those who own their choices live closer to authenticity and reality. Ownership is accepting what happens and the state of affairs as it is now, and it is not as common as you may think. Sometimes people in bad situations (jobs, marriages or anything else) havent fully accepted that their choice has led them to where they are. Or the extent of the situation theyre in. This is denial. People deny ownership of their circumstances. But their circumstances are the same, and not seeing the problem doesnt make it go away, as we all know. Think about the mother who refuses to acknowledge that her initially spirited, now very delinquent son is getting worse. Or the artist who refuses to listen to the constructive criticism directed at his work, and thus never makes improvements. It's that old cliche of 'burying your head in the sand.'
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We all do it I think everybody has an element of denial in their life. How many things we deny, and the extent of the denial is a matter of degree. Were all a bit deluded, but some of us develop full blown Delusional Disorders (as classified in the DSM-IV) of a paranoid or grandiose nature. Hopefully this doesnt describe you, or me. So, Ill use me as an example to some extent I am in denial that I may not have a future as a music producer or composer. My odds of success are probably quite small. Perhaps Id do better if I spent more time working in areas where I have already seen results, such as writing. But I have always wanted to make a living out of music and I will never give up on it. So perhaps I am not completely in denial, since I accept this fact, even as I fight against it by continuing to do what doesnt seem to work! I think I am moderately deluded. I have unrealistic expectations, and its just a facet of my stubbornness. Dealing with the blind spot The first step to solving a problem is knowing that there is one in the first place. But actually seeing that there is a problem is one of
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the biggest. We dont want problems, or at least, we want to be entertained by superficial problems. We create small dramas and diligently keep the larger ones out of perception where they may do us psychological harm. And this is why there can be such a blind spot. Some problems just seem too big to face, let alone solve. So the problem can be described as this: We deny some of our potentially biggest problems so strongly that were often not consciously aware of them. And at times like this need an objective third party, perceptive enough to notice our floors, assertive enough to be unafraid of hurting our feelings, and compassionate enough to tell us for the right reasons. This person can give us the brutal reality check we need.
So whos watching out for you?
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Distraction Vs. Inspiration

Simply put, there are three ways to experience the world
You can try to focus on nothing at all (which is very hard, your mind needs something to chew on) You can focus on distractions we need distractions to entertain us, and sometimes dull the existential pain (which we perhaps feel as Dysthymia or boredom?). You can focus on inspiration this is material which nourishes your soul. That inspires you to do important stuff. It gives you ideas and/or the drive to implement them. But whatever you choose to focus on will in some way affect the way you spend your life. And you can choose. The Balance As with everything, theres a balance between distraction and inspiration. Perhaps for many of us, we have spent too much of life focusing on distractions.
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Yet, this is understandable, if you take a look at our world today. Especially our media landscape It all seems arranged against us. The media is far more full of distractions than inspiration. Sometimes I wonder if it is not a conspiracy of some kind to distract us away from thinking for ourselves more and doing bigger things. And then it occurs to me that it probably just comes down to market forces. Because distracting you is profitable The main distraction today is advertising. The consumer economy wants you to spend your money. People with goods and services to hawk go hungry unless they can convince you that you want the latest hot item. Cos its harder to make money out of people who are inherently focused on their own thing and who arent looking at the ads, right? Thus, one ad executives inspired copywriting or advertorial image is a distraction for multitudes. Take the example of being on the Internet did you ever see a place so full of distraction?! Wherever there is this much information available on tap
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distraction is inexorable. Lets start with Youtube as an example. You can visit, seeking useful information, such as the multitude of tutorial videos available there. But, after a momentary lapse, you find that youve instead spent 35 minutes watching videos of cute baby animals. Or street fights. Has this ever happened to you? And outside of Youtube, the internet world is full of banner ads, popups and popunders. Like the Youtube example, all of it can conspire to create sudden changes in direction that take you far away from where you wanted to go, before youve even realised whats happened to you. Unmindful Internet use often sets you on autopilot, like a dog chasing a stick. This is fine if you are browsing for entertainment. And probably not fine if you are trying to be inspired or get any work done. Onto TV Another example is TV. Usually its pop culture programming, frequently punctuated by advertising which ranges from blatant to subtle. Or the news, which provides a whole lot of information which, hopefully, leaves you informed.
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Informed about information that you cant really use Because unless you trade commodities or genuinely enjoy hearing about whats going on (accepting that its filtered through an editorial agenda and strongly tinged with a sensationalist slant) I believe that the news is feeding you junk information most of the time. Will you do anything about the horrible images of that car crash? Asides from feel distressed? Probably not. How can you? And watch out for (my) generalisations Of course one mans distraction is another mans inspiration. And some people do enjoy being informed. They often become journalists. And, inspiration can be found in the strangest places. Perhaps one of these soap operas tells a tale that really moves you to do something. Or theres a fictional character that you use as an inspiring, possibly heroic example. And its not uncommon for the news tells to uplifting stories, should a producer deem it newsworthy. It is important that I try not to generalise too much (if I havent
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already!) Because one thing is not always the same thing to everybody.
My point here is that as you consume information, you can consciously ask yourself is this distracting me, or inspiring me? And then you can ask, What does it inspire me to do or what is it distracting me from? If no answer comes, keep asking, until something of an answer emerges. When you get an answer, then you can decide if you want to do anything about it. You can either continue with what you are consuming it or stop and do something else. The choice of your focus is always yours. And as I said before, inspiration comes from the most unexpected places and often requires you look for it. But distraction is everywhere. Guard against distractions and seek inspiration.
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Because the process of seeking, finding and creating inspiration makes for an inspired life. Always remember, your focus determines your reality. ~ George Lucas
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Chasing Greater Pleasures

Sometimes, the greater pleasures in life come only once youve let go of the lesser ones But so many people will never realise these greater pleasures. This is because they fear losing what they have far more than they are inspired by mere promises of something better. Because ofttimes, when its right in front of you, its ohhh so hard to resist it. Yet some of us do, anyway. Some people call this delayed gratification
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Embrace Destruction
Destruction is
not a thing that should distress us. It is the process of (re)creation.
Nature periodically destroys itself so that it may be renewed.
Forests burn down, and new growth springs from the ashes. Stars build complex elements within their cores, and then blow themselves apart in supernovae. This seeds the universe with new materials. And then new stars reform from these seeded materials, to build more elements and blow themselves apart, again and again. This is how the earth got here. Your body sheds skin, and turns over the cells which comprise you on the inside. In a number of years the stuff that you are made of has completely changed. Your brain, which does your thinking, is not the same brain, a decade later. Your body has destroyed and recreated itself. Yet you are still here, anchored by your consciousness.
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In the business world, creative destruction is the process by which outdated ideas are destroyed and replaced with ones that better serve the marketplace (us). All that dies and decays on the earth, nourishes other life. Destruction is just the other side of the coin of existence. Inevitable, integral, beautiful and as perfect as everything else. Embrace it. The urge to destroy is also a creative urge. ~ Pablo Picasso
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Part II: The Thought Experiments
II
It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong. ~ Richard P. Feynman The second part of this work deals with a category of articles I call thought experiments. These are non formal exercises in thinking that can help you test scenarios and concepts using nothing more than your mighty and creative brain. Thought experiments have overturned everything from quantum mechanics, to computer science, pop culture and science fiction. In fact, one of the ideas that helped Einstein formulate one his Theories Of Relativity came from a thought experiment imagining what the world would look like to a beam of light. So perhaps play along and see if they give you anything to think about
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Apophenia
If humans are pattern recognition machines
Then perhaps there are a number of latent patterns of perception which make for happiness and a life well lived. And all we need to do is interpret them
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Godlike Understanding
Here I try to speculate at how omniscience and omnipotence might work or feel, logically. As far as I can see none of these ideas can prove or disprove the idea of a God As human knowledge has advanced, it appears that the causes of more and more phenomena are becoming clear to us. If human understanding can be placed on a continuum where the value of 1 represents complete understanding of the cause of a thing, and 0 represents no understanding at all, maybe randomness represents a value below 1. Randomness: the incomplete understanding of causal effects? Let me elaborate In times past, humans used various unscientific explanations to natural phenomena. Crops failed? Angry god. Comet? Angry god. Famine? Angry god. You get the picture.. God: Original cause and solution to all your problems. Where there have been things unexplainable through empirical observation or science, we have reverted to a supernatural explanation. Humans gotta know, right? However, now that science is advancing, the amount of supernatural explanations we
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use is decreasing. They are obsoleted by new discoveries. Some say that The God Of The Gaps is shrinking. As I understand it, randomness suggests an element of uncertainty, but can be accounted for and worked around. For example, we can leave space in our calculations to account for randomness and fully expect this will affect our final result. We can account for randomness but it means that the outcome can never be known with certainty. Possibility of Random Outcome: Uncertainty. Possibility of Random Outcome: Everpresent. Therefore, Uncertainty: Everpresent due to randomness. Practical Impossibility So, using statistics we can plot the probable outcomes of a situation. The more results we get from our uncertain situation, the closer we get to certainty in our predictions of how this situation may play out in future. But we dont ever get to certainty. For example with a coin toss, the odds of getting heads 186,000 in a row are ridiculously small, and coin tosses tend to even out towards a 50/50 distribution in the extreme long run. Even so, we cant be certain that it wont happen to keep coming
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up with heads, no matter how ridiculously improbable, and therefore we do not have complete certainty. In the practical sense we can say it is almost impossible. But is anything really impossible? Trying To Define And Comprehend Godlike A godlike/limitless understanding would imply absolute certainty in all outcomes. Godlike power would mean that all endeavors set into motion would work out absolutely flawlessly. In prediction, there would be no randomness, as all outcomes would be known or controllable (theres that godlike power again). In a real sense, things would be predestined because youd know what they where before they happened. Put another way, perhaps random things prevent destiny, unless there is some way of understanding so much that we could know the outcome of events that were previously deemed random. Thus; no more randomness. Itd be a bit crap though. Why would you play a game of chess if you knew the outcome of the game in advance and any move you made changed nothing? I can imagine two Godlike perspectives
1. Someone who knows the outcomes of everything yet is unable

to interact in any way to alter the fixed path of events. Some sort of
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cosmic observer. Omniscient but not omnipotent. Perhaps the loving God who sees all of our suffering but can change nothing.
2. Someone who can change any single variable and know exactly
what sort of limitless causal consequences this would take. This is closer to a Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Such a creature would exist within each universe within the multiverse (and there would be an infinite number of them), and would probably see how tweaking the effects in one environment caused cascade effects on all the others. Omnipotent and omniscient, and unable to act on anything apart from everything. Such a being couldnt be disentangled from the multiverse, because as part of everything, it has to exist. Similarly, since every effect is in some way linked to everything else, every action it took would cause an infinite number of consequences. I guess this is closer to the traditional monotheistic conception of an all-powerful deity. To say that this God was everything would be literally true, since this being would be tied into everything and every effect, which would be linked to everything else. I think Ive said everything so many times it is starting to lose meaning.
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Heres my main point; What if there is an ultimate destiny, and randomness is simply the symptom of a deficit of understanding? For example, we are uncertain of where a coin lands, as we havent quite grasped some bigger explanation that allows us to predict where coins land with complete certainty. Knowing every infinitesimal variable (which is practically impossible) might allow us complete certainty in our predictions. Another way to consider would be to think of the paradox of predicting the future, which is similar to the well-worn grandfather paradox of time travel; which applies to the past. To recap, you cant go back in time to kill your granddad because if you did, you would not have been born and therefore couldnt go back to kill your granddad. Capisce? OK now lets loosely apply this to predicting the future, thinking of how causality may disrupted by something else, namely observer affect. Or put another way; Perhaps you cant see the exact future, because by observing it, you change it. And if that where the case what would that do to our hypothetical omniscient being?
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Protip: Don't go back in time to kill your grandad
TLDR/Summary:
Could randomness simply be a lack of understanding every single variable within a situation? Therefore; would an all powerful being know so much that randomness was no longer a consideration? But is it possible to know every exact outcome, if your very observations affect what you are observing? Could an omnipotent being take any single action without creating an infinite set of repercussions (butterfly theory)? Would an all powerful being by its very nature be forced not to intervene in the nature of the universe to maintain free will?
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Time's Arrow
This thing all things devours: Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel, Grinds hard stones to meal; Slays king, ruins town, And beats high mountain down ~ J.R.R Tolkien The Hobbit Where is the empirical proof of time? It is true, that we feel something pass every day. Or at least we see evidence something passing; stuff getting on, stuff falling apart. Progress But is time change? (Put another way, is the motion of times arrow evidence enough for time?) Crux of the argument: How can we empirically observe time if we are forever trapped within it? What can we measure time against? Entropy; is that the corollary value? Can we have entropy without time? It seems not When we do science our method often is to look empirically at something from a detached position, that we may learn about it.
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Except, you cant look at time from a distance, because you are always inside it. Relativistically speaking you are trapped in the reference frame. Within time where are our reference points? We use times and dates, right? But they are all relative to each other, not measured against some universal standard. There is not a detached position to calibrate all of times progress to. If someone moves one goalpost, youll notice. If someone moves both goal posts, youll probably notice. If someone moves the entire field and you with it, would you notice? Relativity: How would we know if times progress rate has changed, if all the clocks had calibrated to keep to this new rate of passage? Itd be like travelling in a car that accelerates, yet with the dial remaining constant despite of speed changes. In this car you cant see properly out the windows because it is terribly dark. How would you know that the car were speeding up, slowing down or even moving at all, if your senses and your instruments were deceiving you?
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You couldnt get out and verify if the car was moving, relative to the ground. You cant get out of time to see what it is moving relative to. So, similarly, how would we know that time were changing? How would we even know that it was? Is there a spoon? Consider the importance of relativitywhat is relative to time? Everything? What would a being outside of time experience? Perhaps considering what it would be like to exist without time will help us better think about its ubiquitous nature. If time where plotted as a fourth dimension, what would a being that where outside of time perceive, if it could observe time discretely? The First idea is that itd see everything will have happened all at once, the Second idea is it will have seen that nothing will have happened at all. If the first case, how would it differentiate discrete events? Itd just be like a long exposure photograph thatd merged into a mass of undifferentiated information. If it were able to interact with the universe, maybe itd be stuck in the mass
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If the second case, surely the being couldnt exist without time. Because in this instance time is only present when things happen, and therefore since nothing could have happened there could have been no time and no being. If you took time away as a value (as in you removed the fourth dimension), what would happen? Would the nature of everything fall apart? Can time stop? Why does anyone care anyway? Because every scientific measurement we take, or observation we make happens within time. It constrains everything. Everything we do in our lives happens within the boundaries of time. We only exist within a certain set of temporal and spatial co ordinates. Put another way, you cannot be located at any point without a time and a place to find you. We take time for granted as we have always experienced it, yet what we really know (in the personal sense) of time is felt subjectively. We put faith in the existence of time. An eternity for the fruit fly is a day in the human life. Theres the relativity again, except it is more perceptive.
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I quote Alan Watts, fountain of wisdom and philosopher of no philosophy I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is. So are the timepieces in a way, reinforcing an illusion? A clock just measures time; it is not proof of time, just as a ruler does not prove that an inch exists. But Space: Evidence for time? Evidence for time seems to come from the idea that you and I can occupy the same space because time exists. For example (disregarding the motion of the earth through the solar system, the solar system through the galaxy, and the galaxy through the universe), if you have been to the foot of the Eiffel Tower, you have occupied the same space I have at some point. It therefore follows that, obviously, time can put a distance between things happening at a single point in space. If it didnt I might walk into a dinosaur or a Cro-Magnon villager in Croydon, UK which is where I live and where they will have once lived. So, I suppose, it follows that for things to change, time must pass. But is this evidence enough for you? Im not sure were seeing the whole picture on time, or if we are using it as a conceptual
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placeholder for something much more complicated. Maybe time is an illusion or a simplification. I wish my brain had more computing power.
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Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth. ~ Henry David Thoreau
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Ranges
Intellectual Abstraction Into What Data and the Physical World Represents Disclaimer: Geology and the stock market are complicated. I dont offend your intelligence by presuming differently, but I make some gross simplifications in the differences between them for the sake of metaphor. Thanks When you look at a volatile stock chart, you may notice that in some way it resembles a mountain range It has peaks and valleys, jagged edges and all the formations of a sharp area of the earths geography. What does it represent? By design, it represents a consensus in value, as projected by humans and plotted over time. You may see this same jagged formation on the surface of the earth. Certain mountain ranges have harsh jagged edges that resemble more volatile times in the history of the stock market. Other, more hilly ranges resemble times of less volatile mood. The stochastic formations of the earths surface are the natural result of statistical probability. The values of the stock market
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are the same thing. The sum of sentiment makes the trendline of the market. The collective agents (such as the rock and material) which make up the structure of the earths surface, form the sum which resembles a trendline. The surface is the trendline(?) Here is the Question: We plot a graph of the stock market to represent the action of this market over time. In a way we know what it represents (well, we designed it after all!). Perhaps, the shapes of solid things around can be thought of as graphs. Except instead of being plotted by man, they are plotted from the physical data going on in the background in our real world. It is interesting to look at the shapes around us as plots of information. And if they are graphs, what is the data they represent? Definitely they dictate geological data. We can analyse, and using the mathematics that understands pressure formations, work backwards and plot their formulation. We can use mathematical models to plot geological changes and growth of a mountain range. So, in a way, by representing them as 3d objects these mountains are graphlike manifestations of the data used in our
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mathematical model. 3d > 2d Of course there are a few differences. On earth, all natural solids (graphs?) are plotted in 3D, which would lead us to think the graph has more variables (to account for an extra dimension), though the same jagged pattern is unmistakable. As far as data goes, plotting in 3 dimensions gives us a larger range of possible variables to work with, within the same space. So what does nature plot? Though consciously designed to plot stock market data, without any labeling, or prior knowledge of subject matter, a graph of the stock market may hold very little meaning for the reader. With no labels on the side to indicate what the values are, it just looks like a jagged line. Natures Games I think that the stock market is a game environment. Here I define a game as an environment in which different agents play out under a certain set of environmental rules, and there of course is an element of chance. If there wasnt any chance involved it wouldnt be interesting, cos wed know the outcome and would lose all novelty and sense of unpredictability. Just because it is a game, doesnt mean that it is trivial.
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Ask any football fan if his game is trivial and youll see what I mean! I look at life as a game, a very complicated game, with nearly infinite variables. Maybe our mountain range is just part of the game OK so where am I going with this? Look at the (3D) world around you. If it is some sort of graph, what data is it manifesting? If we work out what the data is that makes up the graph, can we work out what this data means? How to do this thought experiment Think of the physical universe as a big, dynamic graph, manifesting certain underlying physical data. If this is the case, what controls the variables in this underlying data? What put the data there? What happens if you change a value? How many values and variables could there be? Could it be derived from one equation?
TLDR:
Think of the world as a big graph that represents some sort of underlying physical data.
What does the chart mean and what are the variables?
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God's Eye
Imagine that instead of perceiving the passage of time as you do now, second by second, you could choose see the passage of time in different orders of magnitude. You could choose to watch centuries pass like seconds. Or observe nanoseconds drag by like hours. Now, imagine you could see every of these variable speed time frames moving at the same time. Everything happening all at once. Can you visualise that? Paradoxical perhaps, you ask; how can causality (the idea that things must happen in a certain order) not be violated by objects existing simultaneously, but out of phase within time? Maybe they can, but we need to rethink what time is. Lets do away with notions of right or wrong here and just totally lose the plot (the basis of any good thought experiment). If causality is the arbiter of circumstance (as in, things have to happen because they have to come after causes) then perhaps time is a law that enforces causality? Sort of like the rails on a rollercoaster that keep everything travelling along at the right speed. Time ensures that causality doesnt ever go wrong and we dont suddenly get cakes un-baking themselves or your tea unThe right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey
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brewing. That wouldnt do in an ordered universe, after all... We refer to the tendency for things to fall apart over time as entropy, and that the fact they do indicates that time has a direction. This is referred to as times arrow, and times arrow is always in the direction of your ice cream melting or surfaces in your newly cleaned house getting dusty Therefore, for causality to exist, we must have time. This examination of causality is here so that we have an idea of what we are doing away with in the experiment. Examining causality further is a threatening and fascinating detour in itself. Im just going to say this is a quasi- quantum eye that perceives the passage of time very differently. It is not restricted by trivial stuff like causality. (Hey, this is Gods eye after all!) So, back to your view through the eye With Gods Eye, in whatever playback speed you look at, you would find that everything on the earth is vibrant and alive, having its own unique movement and moving in its own time frame. In the eye that drags out milliseconds for eons, you could go back
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to what physicists call the Planck Time and watch the forces and energies of the universe decoupling, changing phase and establishing themselves. You could watch the transition of the primordial fireball as it morphed from the infinitely small energetic dot into the wondrous universal playground we live in today. You could watch it as it expanded and you could see its eventual fate (whatever that may be). Interestingly, from our current human perspective, the early cosmic genesis would happen so fast as to be completely imperceptible. Worse, to be present at the Planck time would probably result in some serious bodily damage imagine being killed by a wall of infinitely bright energy. Anyway You may have seen a timelapse video in which the tidal motions of the ocean resemble the lapping of waves in the sea in real time (Gods Eye sees beyond this real time nonsense). Perhaps you observed a flower that appeared to watch the sun rise and fall? Similarly, to see an individual rock in a longer time frame is to watch an object metamorphose, grow, collect new materials, change size and shape, form and re-form. In the right timescale this rock may resemble something very much alive, travelling around the earth and shedding and gaining size
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and materials, such as other rocks, or lichen and moss. Perhaps like a human who moves home, who gains and loses body weight over time, or changes his or her clothing and hairstyle? What we perceive as still comes from our reference point. We are (relatively) frantic, fast moving and (comparatively) newly animated carbon structures, surrounded by a nursing home of very old and very slow moving heavier metals. Like hummingbirds whizzing around a tree, our perception of the timeline is blisteringly fast relative to much of the our surroundings, such as the geology all about us We see trees grow, but perhaps not at the speed trees perceive this growth. If a tree could see, it may very well recognise humans as fast moving blurs that are quick to come and hack away with sharp, serrated instruments. Small, demonically fast and brandishing chainsaws! If I were a tree I would be terrified Im a little uncertain about photons, a lead into Part 2. Next time you see something that appears slow or unmoving, remember that slow is an attribute that is relative to your perception of time.
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The photons that carry the imaging information which makes up your body may experience you as a totally static environment in which they play out. You know better. To you, they travel so fast as to be unperceivable. More paradoxically still, they are the means in which you perceive. You cannot observe a photon without interfering with it. You cannot know perception from a 3rd vantage point. Scientists say that the observer and the observed are a closed system. Information transfers between the two parts observer and observed, regardless. It seems to imply that we are all connected through information. Lets make a mess of this with words. To perceive perception you must use perception to perceive, and thus a truly objective state is impossible, right? I think this is the Uncertainty Principle that Werner Heisenberg expressed so elegantly. Within the message is the messenger TLDR/Conclusion: Imagine you can see with Gods Eye. Gods Eye can operate outside of causality and does not affect the system in which it observes at all.
It is completely detached from the bindings of the uncertainty
principle and of time.

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Godhead, Bored
Heres an idea. What if our experiences of individual consciousness are all pieces of an eternal, unified mind, which has grown tired of its omniscience. It has chosen to forget everything it knows and experience again the joy of discovery. And with every new day you are remembering new things Consider how life would be if you had the kind of amnesia which destroyed your identity every time you slept and brought fresh novelties to every experience. Perhaps stranger things have happened. I know many will agree with me when I say that some of our memories are not worth the space they take up
"In the Hindu view of nature, then, all forms are relative, fluid and
ever-changing maya, conjured up by the great magician of the divine play" ~ Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics
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A sticker in Covent Garden

Sometimes you come up with the strangest realisations when you arent looking for them Whilst Out Walking I saw a sticker in Covent Garden with a two-letter acronym I recognised. I calculated the odds of my guessing what it stood for correctly as 26 (number of letters in alphabet) x 26 (number of letters) = 671 to 1. Then after that I thought what other factors could affect the probability I was right? I hadnt considered the usage of other alphabets, A bias on probability caused by more exposure to the service in London, Other strange things about peoples preferences for putting stickers in certain places and so on Which brought me to the conclusion that it is extremely hard to know all the variables to any given situation or question and
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speak with absolute certainty. You can never be completely right Life is less certain than wed like to think, and this was, relatively speaking, a simple guess that I was trying to make. What about predicting economic outcomes or conflict scenarios? The Best Laid Plans Think about it in your planning. Youve probably had plans go wrong at some time in your life right, why? Because A. A variable you had calculated for went awry. B. There was a variable you missed. You calculate from a nigh on infinite range of variables, which increases your odds of getting something right, but you wont catch them all. There are always variables you miss. You just need for things to be just right enough. And you decide when it is right enough. But they are never completely right; at least, not in the sense of absolute, utter certainty. Like so many things, we put our faith in statistics and probability.
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Certainty Is A Mental Crutch...kinda The implications in risk management are obvious. I guess you could say theres always risk and theres always unknowns. There is no insurance against whatever happens to you, perhaps apart from happiness. If you are supremely, intrinsically happy, you wont care what happens anyway. I guess this is a goal of existential practice, and is a kind of spiritual invincibility. Yes, certainty is an illusion that makes us feel comfortable. But what is so uncomfortable about embracing the reality of an unpredictable world? I mean, apparently the universe exploded out of a tiny dot in an endless void of nothing, and we went from total entropy to dogs driving cars in just a few billion years. Who could have predicted that?
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You've got to get out and pray to the sky to appreciate the sunshine; otherwise you're just a lizard standing there with the sun shining on you. ~ Ken Kesey
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Information Unshackling
This article is aimed at people who sell bits and bytes and wonder why people dont always pay for them. Drawn from my experience of time amongst the digital natives. Later it speculates into what would happen if the same lossless duplication and abundance that digital information offers us where to be applied to physical goods, which could happen in the future The Digital Revolution its still happening: At risk of pointing out the obvious; digital information does wonderful things for art and culture because it is both abundant and egalitarian. Once something goes digital; it can be copied indefinitely and shared with anybody who has access. It allows the unlimited distribution of old songs, books, films and things previously no longer available to the world. It is also insurance for our older treasured cultural works threatened by physical degeneration. Consider Googles liberation of books to the public domain through its meticulous program of scanning and uploading lots of very old texts. It is nice to think that they are now available to everybody without charge, and easily accessible. As they should be. You could think of it doing backups on historical data.
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An old hacker maxim says Information wants to be free. In the physical, and on a large commercial scale (think Googles servers), the cost of information storage is now so low as to be worth (in economic terms) almost zero. Its price continues falling, as technology improves and hosting moves to the cloud. The buyer has the choice to pay, so can we really expect everybody to willingly give their hand earned money away for our bits and bytes? Point I am making: In this instance we must not mistake pay for with value. If I love your music, adore you as an artist but dont pay for it, I maybe incongruent in how I value you (maybe Im ripping you off?). However, I clearly value your work in some way. Just perhaps not monetarily. Do you love your girlfriend less if you cant afford to buy her a meal? What if you are too cheap? What if you steal the meal for her? Speaking Of Piracy: And just because I download your album, doesnt mean I dont value your music. The loss of a physical sale is not so much a loss as a lesser gain; as not everyone who downloads something illegally would have purchased it with no other option. The free download option has given rise to a semi (emphasis on semi) honorary system dubbed try before buy. It has been around in one
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form or another for many years now with the idea of shareware. It appears that information starts to centralise as the efficiency of communication increases. A better network facilitates a faster diffusion of information. Think of examples from film or fiction where someone leaks a story to the press information is very adept at duplicating itself. It starts off leaked from one source, and eventually winds its way back to the major (central) information outlets, CNN, BBC, Google News, so on. And it rarely takes that long. Music is a good example We can extend this metaphor of diffusion to the distribution of music. New tracks, especially ones by artists who are well-known and highly commercial will be let released quickly as the insatiable demands for them can be fulfilled. This includes new channels such as peer-to-peer file sharing and digital distribution. Why wait for your CD to arrive if someone has already leaked the album onto a torrent, which will take you a few minutes to download for free? Yeah, its possibly unfair but humans often value utility over the relatively small ethical snags or guilt. This is especially when the implications of illegal downloading arent clear. What is the Internet, asides from a conduit? It is a repository and a
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medium in which the majority of human information is being indexed. I think of it akin to a big hard drive with an everexpending storage size that we havent properly mapped yet. You can find almost anything there, if you know what sectors to look in. And collectively, the internet doesnt really follow an ethical code. Just because sharing pre releases of albums for free is illegal, doesnt mean our giant hard drive (the net) wont make that available to you. If you know the right search terms or places to go, it is all there waiting. If I download Rihannas new album, to me, that doesnt seem to take anything away from her considerable wealth. But if I leak a pre-release of her album, I dont necessarily see the damage that Ive done to her sales. She looks rich and successful to me regardless, even if I do take a cut out of her figures. And if I am harming her business, can we quantify the damage Ive done? Its all a bit thorny and therefore easy for me as Mr. Digital Native With BitTorrent to really not care that much. Does she feel a financial hit to her bottom line if I download her album for free? What about the mailroom guy at the record label she records for, do you think he feels it? What am I getting at in all this? Its that people, in their practical
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way, dont see the consequences of these abstract laws they break. They dont want shackles and limitations if they honestly believe that they are committing little or no wrong. And if they believe themselves to be anonymous (which is easier online), they are less afraid of legal ramifications. We have an environment where everyone has the ability to share files at great speed, with negligible cost to both sender and receiver AND both are completely unconstrained by geography. Its easy to see that your CD is going to get out there, whether you like it or not. There are people who crack software that they dont use and share music that they dont listen to. They do it just because they can, and they enjoy the challenge. Dont Fight The System, Change The System Impose artificial scarcity on an essentially unlimited environment and the system will correct itself whether your ethical stance likes it or not. Digital natives cannot be told how to value things. Dont stake your money on convincing them to. A couple of years of torrenting and 4chan and people get a sort of blas approach to the whole thing. As an artist you may do a limited press run of 100 CDs, but once someone has encoded that to an MP3 all the scarcity is gone, at least as far as the music is concerned. Perhaps the intrinsic scarcity (and value?) now shifts to the physical product
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You know as well as I do that people still like to appreciate and feel beautiful, tangible things. Give them a CD or DVD product with inherent physical value in related to your music and those buggers who pirate your sounds will have a hard time cracking and sharing that experience! There are tangible and intangible things that are beyond piracy. Your brand and beautifully designed physical goods are amongst them. Yet Another Thought Experiment A World With No Scarcity Here is a thought experiment for you to ponder (because sometimes I spend too much time and energy in my own mind). If physical resources become susceptible to the same kind of abundance as digital information has, what happens to value? What happens to scarcity? Theoretically matter equals frozen energy and matter can be described as resources. Maybe at some point in the future, if humanity will acquire the ability to harness immense amounts of energy (zero point, fusion? etc.) and the mechanism to freeze this energy into things. Maybe well be able to create abundant matter of any variety we like, and therefore experience no physical scarcity.
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In Star Trek, the devices that do this are called replicators. People seem to use them to usually to make coffee. (lol) At this point is what sort of economic system and would we be operating under? New Economies Of Lossless Replication: So, perhaps these digital shenanigans are a preview of the coming new economics (given a few hundred years of technological advancement). Economics driven by a value system that does not incorporate scarcity any more Maybe this marketplaces values will be driven instead not by financial gain but by something higher, such as the need for selfactualisation, e.g. the need to express our creative selves and the altruistic urge to see people around us happier. I and many others believe that the need to acquire is a phantom happiness that passes onto the next new, desirable thing that comes along (see hedonic treadmill). But, perhaps when the need to desire material things is removed, the pursuit of happiness will be redirected toward immaterial things. Spiritual things? Maybe itd head towards a more authentic pursuit of happiness, which comes from things we cannot sell each other, but give only freely. I say this with the caveat that we often tend not to value the things we didnt work for.
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How does this relate to the new digital economy? Perhaps it is a prototype of a system to come as our resources increase and marketplaces start to see less and less scarcity. A testing ground for us to see how we can make money out of things that are essentially free. Maybe a little paradoxical; what do we do with all the money then? No Replicators Allowed Think about it, if someone invented a replicator that was commercially viable for the general public, the damage that it would do to the marketplace would be almost unlimited. I wouldnt be surprised if there where lawsuits to try and limit the distribution and usage of this hypothetical replicator. But think, we already have replicators that work losslessly with digital information. We call them computers! And theyre doing plenty of damage. What happens when people in the developing world get them? More replication It makes me think; money is an incentive and a way to systematise and control the exchange of goods and services. But if these goods and services arrive instantly and without effort, you dont need to 'incentivise' anybody. Money becomes redundant. The inequalities in power caused by an uneven distribution of resources go away. What then? Green Utopia? I wonder.
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Pay What You Want You Might Have To Eventually Asking for people to pay what they want for something could be the preview to a new economy. If you think of it as a continuum between price fixing and haggling, then this form of everyone individually valuing things is the ultimate form of liquidity. Such a society could be full of deeply spiritual and contented people. Alternatively it may come to grow lazy now that the impetus and motivation to do anything was removed. If you had every material thing you ever wanted, what would you do? Youd probably be forced to chase the intangible. And that can be the hardest thing to chase
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Freefall
Unpleasant Scenario: You are skydiving, descending, in freefall at 15,000 feet. Your chute fails to open. Your second chute refuses to open. You have only two chutes, things look hopeless. You are above what appears to be a pine forest. It is now 10,000 feet below and the ground is rushing up to meet you You recall a story of an airman in the Second World War who survived a fall from a similar height, and who also landed in a pine forest. The only advice you remember that he gave was to land on your back, creating as much surface area as possible, thus dispersing the blow. You also intuitively understand that falling from 15,000 feet without an operating parachute is instant death. You can now choose to believe either of these things and act accordingly. Should you choose to believe the airmans tale you can guide your fall over the forest and brace yourself for landing. Should you choose the alternative you can make your peace and prepare yourself for the end Symbolically the outcome of life is no different from this situation Inevitably, you are going to die. This is neither bad nor good, its just the way things turn out. You can either go on through life and
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deny it, or accept that life is shorter than it should be and that you have many things to do before you hit the deck. Are you doing these things?
Are you preparing for (or denying) the end? Or making the most of the dive whilst you still have the time?
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There is the sky, which is all men's together. ~ Euripides
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Stuff By Me
Cover image and back image by me, book design by me, words by me, publishing by me, (ineffective) marketing by me...
Stuff Not By Me
The following beautiful creative commons licensed images With thanks to their creators! 001 "Planet Earth" credit to: Jrwooley6 002 "Krak Sunset" credit to: Ed Brambley 003 "Meditation" credit to: Francesco Procacci 004 black-and-white winter credit to: Mervi Eskelinen
About The Author
Serious face is serious
Jack Oughton is a freelance writer/copywriter , composer/sound designer and digital artist/photographer from South London who has serious problems writing biographical information about himself in the third person. He has written for the likes of The Guardian, The Independent and FHM, and currently spends all day sculpting alien sounds using wavetable synthesis. Some people know him as Koukouvaya.
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Twitter(s): @xij @koukouvaya Personal Site: http://www.koukouvaya.co.uk
UFAQ
Answering in advance the questions you probably arent going to ask Why do you write this stuff? To try and make people reexamine their assumptions and think more. What else do you write then? Well, Im a freelance writer. So I write lots of stuff for lots of different people. Why pictures of clouds? Clouds are associated with the sky, the sky is associated with soaring, soaring is associated with freedom. I dunno. They look nice, don't they? Why incessant typing? It's a common complaint. Do you have any more of this sort of writing? Yeah, its all available on http://www.demysticism.co.uk
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What are Analytical Adventures and Icarian Philosophies? Analytical adventures: because exploration & love of knowledge can be fun or adventurous (I sound like a complete tool). Icarian: The tale of Icarus is about a man who flew too close to the sun. In this I use it as a metaphor for an explorative and ambitious spirit, with the sun maybe representing too much information. I think the original tale was a metaphor as well Or maybe I just wanted to try and come up with a snappy title to make it appear more appealing. You get to decide Thanks for reading me -J
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Incessant Typing // Jack Oughton http://jackoughtonwriter.info // https://www.facebook.com/jack.oughton.writer // 2013: CC BY-NC-SA // Wanna chat?

About this book / Preface:

What does the book contain?

What to do with the writings

What can you expect to gain from the book?

Part I: The Philosophy

We Drew The Short Straws

THE LITTLE THINGS

Have People Forgotten What Freedom Is?

On Acting, Roleplay and The Persona

Pain Is Humanitys Common Ground

The Importance And Art of Listening

Ownership And Denial

So whos watching out for you?

Distraction Vs. Inspiration

Chasing Greater Pleasures

Part II: The Thought Experiments

1. Someone who knows the outcomes of everything yet is unable

Protip: Don't go back in time to kill your grandad

principle and of time.

A sticker in Covent Garden

There is the sky, which is all men's together. ~ Euripides

About The Author

Serious face is serious

Twitter(s): @xij @koukouvaya Personal Site: http://www.koukouvaya.co.uk

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