Empty Cage

Writing (McGyvering) an essay for my analytic philosophy class I came across a thought in the introduction to Daniel Dennett’s Conciousness Explained that kind of interested me, and since I promised myself to blog more here’s an opportunity to briefly consider the idea in text. Informally, because when I do things formally I sound more like an idiot.

Thus, I quote

…but philosophers have assumed for the sake of argument that however technically difficult the task might be, it is “possible in principle.” One should be leery of these possibilities in principle. It is also possible in principle to build a stainless-steel ladder to the moon, and to write out, in alphabetical order, all intelligible English conversations consisting of less than a thousand words. But neither of these are remotely possible in fact and sometimes an impossibility in fact is theoretically more interesting than a possibility in principle…

In all its blockquote glory.

I’m finding this insanely interesting, because in philosophy (and I’m looking at you ethicists), thought experiments reign supreme in creating analogies that have a tenuous relationship with the topic at hand but usually lead to you insisting that your opponent is suggesting we all eat babies. Pointing out a flaw in a thought experiment (after all, an inordinate number of thought experiments seem to involve locking people in rooms with limited means) about their nature being nonsensical earns you a chorus of ‘avoiding the problem’ or ‘being obtuse’. Of which I do prefer the latter.

The fact of the matter is that I agree with this rather pointedly, its much more interesting to talk about the impossibility of a fact, than it is the possibility of something completely arbitrary. It seems that you are saying something with much more substance when you say ‘It is not the case that Cthulhu exists’, then it is to say ‘Supposing Cthulhu existed, he would wear a purple bathrobe.’

I know I’m kind of straying from the topic, but this is my first time writing anything all proper philosophical in here, and it’s 1AM so I have about -3 focus points right now. I’m going to call it a night and muse on this more.

Also, I still haven’t cleaned up old posts, or my tags or my categories, and trust me, I find it even more annoying than you do.

I’m now a Philosophy/Computer Science double major, and I’m telling everyone. I am so happy with this combo!

I’m going to confess, in elementary school and high school I was never really a mathy kid. Quite the contrary in fact, I think it was the fourth grade where my computational skills were markedly slower than all the other little kids… and I knew it. I seem to recall reasoning along the lines of ‘this is why we have calculators’. But in elementary school calculators are the infinitely dirty word of the school system. Computation is key, and if you’re behind in math, well maybe it’s just not your thing.

I have since learned that Math probably was my thing.

After all, I was a lifelong lover of science (and wisdom haha). I loved logic and reasoning puzzles. I liked when things worked out logically, solving problems and was always in awe of the world I was a part of. It was sort of my thing, the nerd. I think this was how I eventually ended up in Philosophy. Math was definitely not my thing, and you can’t go into science or technology without math, and so I found myself in Philosophy arguably the most scientific of the arts.

I remember so clearly in high school, you are either in the science stream or the arts one. Period. You’re either an impractical hippie or a humourless drone. Job, or soul. Like its some kind of either or thing. And for me the rock in the road was always the mathematics. I could build a computer program in grade 10, but I was completely an artsie. Obviously. I took history and stuff, and always had my ass handed to me in math.

When you want to understand the all encompassing everything though these lines make things difficult. And this all started when I couldn’t multiply as fast as the others in the fifth grade.

It started to occur to me over the past few years that math is something interesting. I took Pre-Calculus last year under the pretence of needing it for a Computer Science Minor (technically true, but I could have minored in any number of things that wouldn’t have needed math). I’d been under some sort of personal conviction that mathematics was something that I should be good at.

I still had my ass handed to me.

The difference was I wasn’t left hopeless and convinced I wasn’t a math kid. I actually came out curious, yeah, okay, marks did not reflect but my memories of the class were a barrage of equations, minimal explanations, hellfire, all at eight thirty in the morning. Not the prof (actually a grad student)’s fault, tons of material, no time etc. But I think what I won there was a springboard and the confidence to keep going, despite my GPA begging I stop being so cruel to it.

And so I think, Philosophy of Math, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Technology. These things all exist. The thought of Physics and Philosophy makes me giddy, string theories, movement. Unfortunately this is all stuff I have to go backwards to learn so that I can apply ideas to what I think. Because back in High School I was an artsie kid, and taking science or math would only serve to drop my average and then no university would ever take me. And besides– a structured major at any University is not open to this idea, they want you to learn Science or Philosophy. One or the other, take your pick.

This is the part that gets me. I’m going to school to learn. Obviously. This is what school is for. But I am not allowed to learn what I want to learn. Instead I have to hedge around what I have an aptitude for to keep my GPA in check, or my average high. So I was told I wasn’t good at math, yeah, I still would probably take a few minutes to recall 7×8 but math and science aren’t even close to being about that. I understand why they have to do this, not every student — hell — most students don’t want to learn. They want the paper, the degree or the diploma and I can accept that. But I think as far as those of us who want to learn we have been put in the most hostile environment of all time.

I am always posting when I should be doing something else. In this case that something else is sleeping as it it 2:45AM and that is when the normal people generally get some shut eye. But good old Kae, she’s a bloody insomniac and therefore blunders through her entire life half asleep. Go Team.

I feel like I should blog more, but whenever I have an idea for a blog post it is when I am smack dab in the middle of doing something else. I mean, my life isn’t the hyper exciting rocketship ride it was in the UK, but, so what, I’m still living right. In many ways that trip was bad for me, I expect everything to be exhilerating in my life now and get all pissy when I have to do the same old. Or find a fucking job.

Speaking of finding a job, holy bloody fuck is it getting hard. People don’t seem to get that I could care less about the recession but everywhere has a hiring freeze. You just want to yell at them ‘Well, fuck, you may not be hiring but they are still going to charge me several thousand dollars next year to go to school.” I know it isn’t the fault of individual companies, but do people have to be so agressive when refusing my resume. Shit. I may need to go back to Ottawa where I have more options.

Speaking of which, I finished my first year of University April 30th, I had an exam 7-10 which was the last possible time slot, and it was my hideous math exam from hell. But so far I’ve passed all my courses with just my Criminology mark to come in. Woohoo. I finally got my minor together too, so I am now a Philosophy Major with a Computer Science Minor.

Because this entry is doomed to be schitzophrenic due to the early hour that I am unloading my brain I guess I can babble about music for a bit, I’ve been getting into even more grunge tunes, not sure why, but lately Hole, Melvins, Meat Puppets and Butthole Surfers are getting a lot of play time here. I am in love with Plateau by the Meat Puppets and Pepper by the Butthole Surfers (I know, the commercial underground forgive me gods of indie for I have sinned)

Anyways, I thought I could write more of an entry but I’m drawing a big old blank. So, more entries soon, but sleep now.

EDIT:

I confess — I have Twitter.

I meant to comment that I have fixed the problem since my last entry but got caught up in other things. So, the problem ended. Basically what happened was the the “kernel” or version of my Fedora upgraded but not my video card drivers. To fix the problem (until updated drivers were avalaible — which are at the time of writing) I had to boot from an older kernel. To do this I simply hit ‘I’ at the boot and picked the second option on the boot list. When the video card driver was avalaible all I did was let it boot normally. Thanks to the guys at Fedora Forum for all their help. I seem to have posed the question properly as they got back to me and were fairly nice about it.

In other news, school, blargh. Well, sort of blargh, maybe like, half blargh. Because I decided to make my minor Computer Science I have to take Math. Which was one of those really terrible ideas I once had. The course is soundly kicking my ass into next month. And the final for it is on the last possible day, that would be April 30th! Which is pretty sucky. The worst part being that I have no idea what is going on in this class. I can only assume it is something appallingly difficult and leave it at that. For fear of my sanity.

I have more to say I think, but I should really be doing some school readings. Later.

I have a lot of ‘real life’ sort of updates today (including some web ones, but let’s focus on me haha) and, despite the fact that Syd, my laptop is not yet back from the shop, I can type fairly well on this IBM, even though it sounds positively terrible. It’s on it’s last legs for sure. So, let us begin!

I have finally started school first of all, which is tons of fun in and of itself. I am officially a Philosophy student at the University of Ottawa! A grand school in our nations capital the campus is beautiful, and I’m still a bit haggard from ’101 week’ which is what they call frosh week. I’m still a non-drinker (I hate the taste, though I have had a few drinks to keep the peace with some rambunctious drunk people), but it is so much motion, and so much meeting, that for someone like me it gets exhausting! I went to maybe half of the events.

Because I’m forcing myself not to be a social recluse here, as I usually am, my goal has been to find venues that I’m comfortable in and meet people, as well as trying to get to know people in my classes in an effort to if not find a ‘best friend’ have people that I could hang out with should I feel so inclined. So far I’ve had some moderate success in this — there’s a pretty nice looking guy in my Latin class who I talk to all the time, and a nice, albeit hyperish girl in my English class who has me in stitches the entire class.

I also try to go to the Thursday night Philosophy Discussion Groups, allowing me to observe people and their theories — this being the only venue that I drink at (if even this!) as we do hold it in the basement of a pub, and I get offered about thirty drinks a night, usually I pull what Andrew would call a ‘Sue Saunderson’ and accept one drink and nurse it all night. Normally I’d be all ‘fierce I don’t drink’ but I’m legal, and I find people get very standoffish and defensive if you just don’t drink, as if because you don’t drink you expect them to not drink. To be honest, I don’t really care too much, but it’s a subconscious thing, and I’d rather not have people be chilly towards me because of my choice. One beer over the course of about four hours once a week doesn’t really concern me too much. As far as I’m concerned it doesn’t even really count, I find I still have about half a glass by the time I leave, which someone else is more than happy to relieve me of.

Other than that, I don’t know if I mentioned on here, but I bought myself an electric guitar this summer! It’s a Seafoam Green Fender Squier, a good solid beginner’s instrument I hear, and I got it really cheap. Andrew provided an amp, and after getting some picks, a patch cord, and a headphone adaptor I find I can kill hours with it. I’m not really following a course or tutorial or taking lessons. In fact, usually I just dig up a tab, and try playing it until it sounds right. Mostly, though, I love to just sit, close my eyes and pluck the strings randomly and see what sort of sounds the thing can make, trying to come up with words for the sounds. If I didn’t have headphones I’m sure my room mate would commit suicide while I did this. Because it isn’t really music, just sound. So far my only accomplishment was finding a way to play power chords comfortably. While Dan showed me how to play them ages ago it was always a painful hyper extension for me, and I was worried my hands were simply too small for the instrument. Did I need a children’s guitar? God I would have lost it, after all, Andrew and Daniel always laugh, because I had to hold a PS2 controller with one hand hooked over the top to hit all the right buttons! Fortunately, after playing with the angle I held the instrument at, I managed to find a comfortable way to play power chords. All-in-all, I’ve really been enjoying learning to play the guitar, I’m absolute rubbish, and can only play things like ‘the intro to Daytripper, Smoke on the Water, and Smells like teen Spirit’ but it’s relaxing for me, and helping me with my goal of not always being on the internet.

My classes are all great except English. English is ‘essay writing’ and we’re currently reviewing nouns and verbs. Yes, seriously! In a University course I am learning that an adjective describes a noun. Other than that I have Philosophy Critical Thinking and Reasoning, History 1500s-1900s, Latin I, and Technical Theatre I. I’ll write more on my courses later, suffice to say, I’m in them, I enjoy them, and only two are big enough to be in lecture halls.

In my little web kingdom, I have (obviously) successfully moved hosts. My next steps involve filling the domain (still!) and changing the entry classification system (use a mix of tags and categories), moving Cursed onto a CMS so I’ll actually be inclined to update. It is my hope to get Cursed completely up-to-date with the finishing of the manga. I want it perfectly comprehensive so I can leave it alone. As well as a new layout. Next I want Loyalties to be a proper shrine, so it will likely also move onto a CMS. I’m looking at Chyrp, if anyone has any input on that. As Amber mentioned WordPress is pretty heavy duty. Finally, Wonderland, and Enigma are my last two on my immediate to-do list.

Anyways, I do have more to add, like my need to get a job, my trials getting into a computer course, my deepest desire to take driving lessons, and how badly studying for my A+ Technician exam is going, but I need to get ready for Latin. Cheerio.

This should be good, there’s about a 90% chance this blog will get lost in the abyss, when I move, but I’ve just had a hit of bitchy, and I can’t help myself. As for the contents of this blog, I’m not going to pretend I’m not just as guilty as the next guy on this one, but I just need to get some stuff off my chest.

Why is it that everyone on the Internet has such a healthy hit of self entitlement? Everyone seems to wield knowledge like a weapon, when it has so many other uses. It’s absolutely obscene to watch “help” forums on the internet. Are we all so small and petty that when someone asks for a minute of our time to give them a hand we slap them in the face.

And I know. I know, read my blog entries and people will get to thinking I actually have a heart because I’ve hit this topic before. My problem here though is that so much the snobbery today is people trying hard to emphasize their perceived “uniqueness” It’s a bit nauseating. I’m obviously not pointing any fingers, this is a by product of the hyperconnected society.

Throughout elementary school and high school you will be told a couple hundred times a day that you are completely unique. That no one on this entire planet is anything like you, and everything you do is special. I am very naive and I like to believe that to some degree this is true. I like to believe at our core we are each at least slightly different. As a Philosophy Major, I cringe at the words ‘I like to believe’ because as far as I’m concerned that’s code for ‘I can’t prove a damn thing’

The thing that troubles me is of course that for being ‘unique’ we sure as hell hate to act unique. And I know this rant has been given a million times: “Counter culture is culture, you dumbasses.” I’m a counter culture kid but at least I have the guts to call a spade a spade on this one. And as someone wise once pointed out to a very innocent me, who was trying to decide if she should get a tattoo for no good reason except that she would fit in with the other Goth kiddies “You are unique, just like everyone else.”

I love turning that sentence over in my head, it never fails to stop me in my tracks.

And I’m not surprised at the rise of depression, and, (in only the most shallow people), it’s links to goth, emo, or whatever other group you may be a part of. I have dealt with depression, I have been a goth, and to be fully honest about this all, I still like the goth lifestyle, and have no problems “gothing it up”. But being an insider looking in, as well as an insider looking out it’s so easy to see why we are the way were are today, this massive addiction to not being okay.

Look at it this way, on the internet pretty much everyone in the western world can instantaneously see almost anything they like about us. In this blog alone essentially anyone can read this entry (I mean, mind you they’d have to find it either by looking for it or happening upon it) but, for the sake of argument anyone who wants to know my thoughts on things can access them with ease. And despite my bellyaching it’s not all that difficult to do. In fact, dare I say it, anyone on the entire internet who views my website is more than capable of also making their own website, be it livejournal, geocities, or a domain, it’s not as though only the elite can throw together a website. Anyway now, unlike 10 or so years ago when the only people you had to tell about your life was your best friend now you can tell someone on the other side of the world about your life. In only a few mouse clicks. As soon as I click Publish to my right there this blog, too will be available to people across the globe. And this hypercommunication causes a bit of a problem.

Suddenly, the old phrase ‘you are unique’ starts to lose meaning, because at any given time I can find someone who feels the exact same way as I do. In fact, with the right keywords, I bet I could find someone who has written a journal entry with an extremely similar concept to this one. People can now look around and feel lost in the internet, their problems don’t seem that impressive and in many cases people even find that their problems are eclipsed by the problems of others. Sadder than you syndrome starts to form. People start to hope for, or lie about misfortune in order to command the attention of everyone, where before having your cat get hit by a car would earn you some sympathy, now your entire family has to be killed in a shoot-out to win you much attention. And, god, what people won’t do for attention. I’m doing it right now by writing this blog.

This massive selfishness wouldn’t be a problem if it didn’t lead to agressive flocks of people who think they are the most important people in the world. That what they have to say is a million times more important then anything anyone else could ever dream of saying. This self-importance easily turns fairly agreeable people into a popular phrase online today “attention whores”, though it also breeds “elitists” it really depends on the person. Elitists take out their need for attention on others, being agressive to people they believe to be below themselves, attention whores just try to make everyone pay attention to them, whether we give a shit or not.

Haaaa~~ Just needed to get some of that out.

I haven’t written a ‘heartfelt’ blog since I returned from the UK, so I guess, here’s one. It should be brief because I have things I need to get done today and a whole pile of documentation to write for my mother with regards to her website.

I guess the title of this entry should say it all — or most of it at least. I’m standing on the edge of a number of things right now, and I’m still not sure how comfortable I am with the whole situation. School is obviously the biggest one, as I’m watching the frantic days flutter by I wonder what the hell is going to happen to me come August 30th.

And there’s been nothing but hassles getting into school, it is absolutely mental all the stuff I’ve had to do — you’d think after paying several thousand dollars they’d be able to hire enough people to not make this a nightmare. Currently I’m in two random courses just so I’m “billed properly” which, I have to admit scares me. They’re more concerned about my billing than me actually being in courses I want to be in. Soo… Ancient Greek civilisation and… Chinese… here I come. And for the record, I don’t know a word of Chinese, so, this should be fun. The Greek course, despite my love of history, doesn’t really hold my intrigue at all. So there you have it, good thing I’m being billed properly.

Motherdear also insists I take an essay writing course, which makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little. Despite my major I’m taking two Philosophy courses and three English ones.

Bah.

I have more to say, but work to do.

I’ve been part of the world internet community for a number of years now… six or seven at least. I’ve been a part of various groups and sects. From arbitrary fandoms to deep technical and philosophical groups I’ve been a participant a contributor and a creator, it comes with many years integrating yourself into a global culture. Something I have always been painfully aware of though is Internet Snobbery. That is, everyone on the internet looking down their nose at everyone else on the internet. And I’ve done it too.

I mean, let’s look at a few of the billion examples. Microsoft users and Apple users are really looked down upon by Linux users (not that Microsoft and Apple users really care, they are too busy looking down at each other). Lately I’ve been thinking of making my system a dual-boot, Ubuntu or Fedora and Microsoft Windows Vista (don’t get me going on the XP snobs, many of whom don’t even really know why they hate Vista) and almost all of the guides speak in such a pretentious way often adding in notes about how one should just ‘trash Microshit all together’

I’m sorry, I thought I googled ‘tutorial’ not ‘your incredibly immature and biassed opinion on why you hate Microsoft because they are successful’.

But that’s just one example, us webdesigners are the absolute worst for drawing lines in the sand and daring others to cross them, it’s like we’re trying to create some sort of artistic objective rather than the ideal where art is subjective, coding makes it really easy to quantify art, coupled with the fact that you can be totally unknown online makes people seem bolder and more able to say things that they would never dream of saying to someone’s face.

Like, I was swimming the internet and stumbled upon a group of tutorial comments meant for people who had any questions on the material, and someone asked a pretty standard (albiet a little dumb) question about the tutorial and the tutorial writer swooped down in a fit of rage and railed on the newbie for asking such a stupid question and several others rallied with the tutorial owner, until the website’s moderator stepped in… the best part of this story… the moderator was accused of ‘trying to start a flame war’ I mean… really. Maybe they were just done with people making someone new feel uncomfortable.

And I remember that feeling well from when I started web design. People with domains were on a high plateau of existence than those of who did not, and those who were hosted on someone else’s domain were at least higher than us Geocities kids. And how much HTML you knew versus page builder, and your graphics skills, your hit counter, your affiliates. And it was all but impossible to convince old websiters to affiliate with newbies and help given was often condescending and sarcastic. Everyone wants you to get better but no one would even dream of helping you.

It seems like everywhere you go online nothing is really good enough for everyone else.

I love review sites that do ‘unrequested reviews’ too. You know what I call that? Flaming. Plain and simple, you write a whole page detailing why someone else has a crappy page that no one asked for you are a flamer. And these are the people who whine when anyone sends them a one liner that says ‘your site sucks’.

Or maybe I’m just really tired and there is no spoon.

I got approved for the Magical Mystery Tour Fanlisting

And to Amber, you just need to take a leap of faith. If you fail go home, but no one will ever criticize you for trying. Or if they do I’ll chase them down with a beating stick, you are incredibly smart and creative, you did better than I ever did in school. Plus, just for shits and giggles I looked up how much a freelance webdesigner makes in New York and have decided you will be a millionaire. <333

But Andrew came over and I had to fix Cathy Goldberg’s computer! How was I supposed to update, huh? By magic? Eh? Eh?!

I love hardware repairs way more than software ones, with hardware at the end you can say ‘Yes. This is fixed. There is a taste of minor triumph.’ With software… well, now you’re dealing with the ‘ghosts in the machine.’ Which I think would be a pretty cool thing to haunt to be honest. Typing cryptic messages every few days, causing myself to implode. Other nefarious misdemeanors… I’d be worse than Y2K! (Which was a bit of a let down with regards to the collapse of the universe)

Will I update tonight? Maybe.

It’s my broski’s birthday, and I should probably be nice to him as I can’t really afford to get him anything. Oh, my dear bother… that was a typo, I did indeed mean brother. He’ll be seventeen, which I find kind of scary, he’s getting so big and grown up and totally can and will push me around at random.

I still need to pick my courses for school, but I need to call the university because according to their website all of the compulsory classes I need to take are full. Hmn. My old manager Al said he’d help hook me up with a job at Staples Ottawa, so that takes care of the fact that I have no money at all. My residence is amazing, I can hardly wait to move in with my… double bed and cable TV. BWAAHAHAHAHAH! I don’t even have that in my room at home.

I have a new chapter to upload for Whitechapel, which I will get to soon, I’ve just been so preoccupied with work and life, and have started a new (hopefully) short story about a rockstar. (It sucks less than in sounds like it should I promise) So I’ve been actively writing, a lot of my usual philosophic rants in my paper journal mostly.

In the merry land of websites, obviously my priority is fixing this place up to a serviceable level again, I finished the Sakaki Haruto Fanlisting though (and already it needs a new layout), and totally GOT APPROVED FOR THE CHESHIRE CAT FANLIST!! yey. Book and Movie Characters, not animation, which strikes me as odd that they are two separate but whatever. The small webshrine I was going to be making for the Cheshire Cat receives new furvor, in fact, I may apply for American McGee’s Alice — The Cheshire Cat too just because I am that addicted. No word on the Magical Mystery Tour yet. Albums said they would update this week though, so we’ll see. Loyalties will be getting fixed up soon. My other websites — Ruins is going to be born as I need something Angel Sanctuary, and I’m going to upload all my info on Umbreon for Enigma like I should have done months ago. Cursed also has an update coming in the near future as I prepare to get it fully up to date, as, for those who are yet unaware, the Inuyasha series has finally finished. Loyalties is also looking for an update, and Bloodlust is teetering but may be turned into a Shougo Kawada shrine before the day is out (despite my Sugimura love Shougo would be much more interesting to write about I think)

For OTHER people’s websites, Justin if you still exist, and even read my blog anymore I can make Twilight RO a new layout, last I checked your domain was down, but if you ever read it, I can redo. Blue Heron Books is going to be made less ugly and updated to use Word Press. And finally, Shards will be finished hopefully before CN Anime….