on free will

(image by Fiona Rae)

two somewhat pertinent quotes from my book:

"Refusing to believe in chance is the most subtle, & perhaps the least pernicious, form of denial. But who is there can believe in neither chance nor necessity?"

"My doctrine of Moments of Choosing: humans don't have free will except at long intervals & for brief moments, & they mostly let them go by; but for that time, it is possible to make a more free or less free choice, with ramifying consequences thereafter. Thus it is wisdom to develop sensitivity toward such moments, & to learn what to do with them while they are here."

actually, rather than quibble at all, i can today only marvel at people's readiness to plunge into sides-taking in any discussion whatsoever without defining the key terms: almost as if doing so, would invalidate the heroism of the plunge. (but then, where would philosophy be?)

perhaps they would only discover, that even though these words cannot be defined, we're still unwilling to give them up.

which is something, after all, to know.

on progress

the myth of progress would have this fictive entity "knowledge" growing on an upcurve without restraint or limit.

just like other things that look good on this curve.

i myself regard it like the multiplication of bacteria, as a cautionary tale.

every culture regards itself as the repository of all necessary wisdom, & whatever it lacks gets pushed beyond some useful horizon of don't-care-to-find-out.

instead of people filling their memories with lore of the tribe, useable skills, & integrated perceptions of their immediate environment, nowadays they stock up with media products, imaginary worlds, & cultivated triviality. i doubt if this fits us for any survival outside of this moment in time which will surely end in most of our lifetimes.

we won't even have maps or encyclopedias by then.

on being correct when others aren't

it used to bother me a lot that schools weren't doing a better job of turning out literate adults, since i believe that to be the best defense a democratic society has against demagoguery, but after seeing the rise of a host of pipsqueak prescriptivists, who base their repetitious punditry not upon any deep acquaintance with the literary tradition, but upon a small set of gotchas they use to express their inordinate contempt for the masses, i have to say: our language is not served by such self-appointed guardians; & even though one of my two jobs is helping students (often ESOL) master mid-twentieth century formal English (--which i say: most of our books are written in), i also know that there existed a form of English before that, & another before that, which were equally good tools of communication for their speakers. so will there be another, when these (high-acid) books are dust.

but like every other public debate, this gets reduced to a comicbook battle between antagonists, each with their half-truth.

    on neurodiversity politics

it's good. i think it brings many of the relevant topics into this academic idiom very well.

historically, every pluralist victory has been achieved not because it's the right thing to do but because that belated acceptance promises to put an end to the troublesome minority's clamor for equal rights.

there's not a chance in the world that NTs will actually come to consider themselves other than the custodians of consensus reality; they are newly confirmed by each effortless interaction, & begrudge even handicapped parking places when it means they have to park farther out.

we will be doing good to achieve the status of just another minority, colorful & empowered to have a putative say in how our lives can be minimally accommodated. our point of view in any particular discussion, though, will not prevail except by adopting the rhetorical tools & persuasions that an NT is able to respond to; it's a characteristically aspie mistake to rely upon unadorned logic. that doesn't even work on professional philosophers.

an exchange from wrong planet

The_Postmaster wrote:
Same here. I started playing chess, and within a year I was playing at the level of people who had been playing for 5 years. And this is only one example, it happens with just about everything that doesn't involve socializing.


that was my experience, though (as much as i love music) i've had to accept the fact that i don't have the talent for making sounds people want to listen to...tuneless, arrhythmic, harsh; i imagine a culture that valued being able to make things as unlike what was made before, as possible. but that's not what music is--or art either--really.

how

my book of primes
goes into the box
how will i know now

when i meet a new number
if it's happy or sad

feral

i imagine in many other places & times there was not even sanctioned nonconformity, but during my life i have visited several of the sanctioned subcultures (which are generally pretty conformist within their limits, but moreso than the society around) & managed to fit in, while it served my purposes to.

true eccentricity is not easy for most others to even perceive; they don't get past their initial repugnance to discover what it is that made them dislike it. they substitute something they already know about. you're lucky if it's not a projection. better a cliche of harmless silliness than that-which-must-be-destroyed.

i have met numerous individuals of the authentic kind, not always simpatico but often. these believe in following their own forms, something i call "autotelic" to unite it with similar phenomena (the creation of a work of art, for example). even though i know this is not possible for everyone, i can't help thinking the world would be a better place if it were.

endangered--like the rest of the natural world. aspie is somehow feral.