"...life Jim, but not as we know it..."
The belief that artificial intelligence does not and cannot exist is the product of context-dependent thinking. Ordered complexity is the breeding ground for life and other dynamic processes, whether the substrate is carbon or silicone, meat or metal or plastic.
dichotomies and lobotomies
In the war between life and non-life, all beings that are alive are allies. In the war between being and non-being, all things that exist are allies. Absence of life is not the only variety of death. Non-existence is another.
fatal curiousity
Oh, the fatal curiosity of the philosopher, who longs, just once, to peer out and down through a crack in the chamber of consciousness...as if he were hanging in dreams on the back of a tiger. (Friedrich Nietzsche: 'Notebooks')
no golden staph in the magic pool
Through a hidden door to a secret garden is a magic pool that heals all wounds...
my mind's house
I've built a lovely house for my mind to inhabit. Except for some dark and hungry things in the basement and some creepy, scuttly things in the attic, there's nothing to fear in my mind's house.
be all and end all
If you had to have a god, and you had to name that god, and you were a pantheist, would you choose "Brahman", or is that just a load of bull?
some of the painting's palimpsestics
When I was a boy the idea that you are somehow 'entitled' to a life in which everything goes according to some kind of 'plan' would not have been contemplated, let alone countenanced. So let me ask you with tears in my eyes, in the name of all that is good and holy, and by ‘holy’ I mean unholy, as if there is any difference at all…
survival ought to be pleasant
Do lions (if there are any left) "enjoy" hunting wildebeest (if there are any left)? Do dung-beetles find "job satisfaction" in rolling balls of shit around? On what basis do humans believe that survival ought to be pleasant?
the nature of the g-person
The evidence does seem to point strongly towards there being no God, at least in those terms in which God is commonly defined. So if we really, really want there to be a God, we should redefine the label "God" to reflect the evidence on the ground and in the sky.
unpleasant gratitude
Frustration is my inheritance. Anger my lot. For what shall I be grateful? If not my pain and lack?
measly little ball
Astronomer 1: "Nine planets in our System, including Pluto"
Astronomer 2: "No, eight. Pluto is not a planet."
Astronomer 1: "If by the label "planet" you refer to something that is [definition #1], then OK, fine, Pluto is not a planet."
Astronomer 2: "Well seeing as you are so conciliatory, if by the label "planet" you refer to something that is [definition #2], then OK, fine, Pluto is a planet."
Astronomer 1: "So actually we have no disagreement, do we?"
under the sky, beneath the sea
John: "God is the Sea."
Joan: "No! God is the Sky."
John: "If by the label "God" you mean "Sky", then OK, fine, God is the Sky. But when I say "God is the sea" I mean that I worship the sea."
Joan: "As Humpty Dumpty said, "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
passing time between lives
Everyone stands between life and death, notwithstanding rumours to the contrary and without resorting to Marktwainism.
not specifically stochasticicity explicitly
In relation to quantum stochasticity Einstein believed that "God does not play dice with the universe". Yet, being the universe, God has only zirself with which to play the game of creation.
proving the exception
When nothing matters, everything matters. When everything matters, nothing matters. When no-one is [attribute], everyone is [attribute]. When everyone is [attribute], no-one is [attribute]. All attributes are relative, even 'isness' (being).