Xenaoth

R.A.W. on Alfred Korzybski

2010-01-20T22:41:00.001-08:00

Still Alive

2010-01-03T15:06:00.001-08:00

This was a triumph!
I'm making a note here:
"huge success!!"

It's hard to overstate
My satisfaction.

Aperture science:
We do what me must
Because we can.

For the good of all of us.
Except the ones who are dead.

But there's no sense crying
Over every mistake.
You just keep on trying
Till you run out of cake.
And the science gets done.
And you make a neat gun
For the people who are
Still alive.

I'm not even angry...
I'm being so sincere right now-
Even though you broke my heart,
And killed me.

And tore me to pieces.
And threw every piece into a fire.
As they burned it hurt because
I was so happy for you!

Now, these points of data
Make a beautiful line.
And we're out of beta.
We're releasing on time!
So i'm glad i got burned-
Think of all the things we learned-
For the people who are
Still alive.

Go ahead and leave me...
I think i'd prefer to stay inside...
Maybe you'll find someone else
To help you?
Maybe black mesa?
That was a joke! haha!! fat chance!!

Anyway this cake is great!
It's so delicious and moist!

Look at me: still talking
When there's science to do!
When i look out there,
It makes me glad i love you.

I've experiments to run.
There is research to be done.
On the people who are
Still alive.
And believe me i am
Still alive.
I'm doing science and i'm
Still alive.
I feel fantastic and i'm
Still alive.
While you're dying i'll be
Still alive.
And when you're dead i will be
Still alive.

Still alive.

Still alive.

... and this is what I do now

2010-01-01T13:31:00.001-08:00

So uhh - this is practically all I did in high school

2009-12-03T16:17:00.000-08:00

Soon Enough

2009-11-19T18:52:00.001-08:00

That pretty girl in class, on the bus, at work, where ever. Some day she'll be as old and ugly as everyone else you see. Time will take it's toll, her face will not seem so robust and youthful, her hair will change and become grey as will her personality. Your illusory perception of her as "perfect" and sexy will be eradicated, dissolved, unveiled. Disappointment from valuing all the wrong things.

Like everything we hold on to, it leaves us only with a little time. And so our identification with these things causes us pain when it does happen, as it always does. Like trying to clench water in our hands, it escapes our possession. Everything we have worked to obtain, every perfect looking woman, every grade, every successful job.

Gone at the moment of Death.

Books that influenced my world view

2009-11-07T20:11:00.000-08:00

It should never be that our world views and personal philosophies are simply given to us either by older "wiser" people or even through philosophical or religious texts. I think that this is something we're all responsible for figuring out on our own. However, I think there are a number of praise worthy works that I've been lucky enough to discover and read that have opened new avenues of thought and self discovery for me in the past. The sheer, intense insight their authors display shook me when I first began to read philosophy and esoteric treatises at around the age of 16. Some of it I was ready for, most of it ... not so much. I deliberately don't mention scriptures.

The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are - Alan Watts

This is, more or less, Alan Watts' social commentary that focuses on the mass distractions and illusions we've erected around ourselves in American society. It's bold, to the point and makes a variety of controversial statements that get to the core of our ethical dilemma: virtually all of our interactions with each other are based on misplaced priorities and selfishly motivated. Yet at the same time, we don't totally know why we do selfish things.

What Makes You Not A Buddhist -Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

The book breaks down Buddhism to the most essential and urgent teachings of Gautama Buddha: the four seals. Most people think that the only really important beliefs of Buddhism involve vegetarianism, reincarnation and karma. This simply is not true. This book will quickly and mercilessly dispel all of the disinformation you hold about Buddhism and at the same time bring you straight to the beginning of the true Buddhist path of self realization.

Turning the Mind into an Ally - Sakyong Mipham

The is a sort of training book that uses breath meditation, aka Samatha meditation, as a tool to develop a calm, focused and clear mind in the reader. While the author talks about what is most important for the beginning student of meditation - how to stay focused - the meditation itself will also bring you to further levels of realization ... if you do it regularly, without exception.

Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self - Carl G. Jung

Carl Jung is an extremely famous author and depth psychologist who wrote and developed his theory in the same context as Freud. Though the two eventually had a falling out and never really reconciled. Aion is Jung's grand essay on man, the universe and everything using the terminology of anima and animus, esoteric Christianity and Gnosticism. There is simply too much to explain here about the book. All I can say is read it for yourself.

Neurosis and Human Growth - Karen Horney

While Watts' The Book focusses on neurotic society, Horney's book tells us about the neurotic individual and the most common failure we all make towards self knowledge: the construction of an imaginary, ideal self.

The Kybolian - Anonymous

The ultimate mind bender. Really, it's an introductory treaties on Hermeticism and the western Esoteric philosophy. And if you're really ready to read something like this, then you will benefit greatly from it. If you're not at least remotely interested in self knowledge, then don't even bother. You won't take it seriously anyways, as it should be.

Raja Yoga - Swami Vivekananda

This can be considered an introduction to the "real" yoga of India, and a book that dispels the idea that Yoga is simply a new age interest. Basically, Yoga is identical to certain Western practices that are mentioned here and with the same goal of self discovery. The practice here has simply taken a different form and religious context.

How to write a mathematical proof

2009-10-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

Step one: freak out and curse your professor's name for at least five minutes when you see the first problem on the test.

Step two: breath and chill the hell out.

Step three: if possible, draw some pictures to show what's going on and learn everything you can from it.

Step four: use this to make sense of the original problem.

Step five: now relate the prompt to what exactly it is you're trying to prove and decide on a method of proof (direct, induction, by contradiction or contrapositive etc etc)

Step six: kick that test's ass, yeahhh!

The Vow of Compassion

2009-10-05T20:43:00.000-07:00

I know we've all heard and experienced this before, life is pain. All of our emotions are essentially painful. Even the ones we enjoy eventually come to an end. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have grown up with two parents, a house and a brilliant brother. Not a single morning meditation passes when I don't reflect on how I could have been born instead in a self-created hell. After only a few short years of walking the right hand path of return I could now probably fill whole volumes with lists of things I'm grateful for, people I'm glad I've met in my life, and what I've learned from them.

Now, when I think about these things, I become extremely joyful. I gain confidence that I can do something meaningful for other people like others have done for me. And yet, with further reflection on how most people choose to live their lives, the woeful state of the world due to their greed and hatred, and the future of the planet earth, I'm filled with pity for them. This applies not only to "them" the world away from me, but to people I know personally as well. My parents, grand parents, friends, myself; we all are afflicted, to some degree, with the mental poisons of desire, hatred and ignorance.

It is the most heart breaking thing in the world to think about the state of some of my own family members, what happened in the house when I and my brother were growing up, and how fractured my family is from alcoholism, mental instability, loneliness and death. And then to think, there are countless others in the world who have it even worse. In Buddhist texts we read about the 6 realms and the hells and initially think of them as separate places others with bad karma go to when they die so as to purify themselves. When children must carry guns and blades bigger than they are with no food or water to kill other humans instead of playing with their companions, that is hell. There are humans just like us, here in this very city who have known nothing but sheer pain their whole lives. And we ignore them because they subtly remind us of our own suffering.

To feel compassion for others who suffer, is to connect to them through reflections on our own suffering as well. It has been argued that there is no such thing as a selfless action. I disagree. First learn to accept that your life experience and yourself are ultimately impermanent. You will eventually die and everyone will forget. Don't be depressed about it, just feel compassion for others. And let that be your ultimate motivation for all your actions in this life.

Buddhism and Martial Arts

2009-09-21T09:47:00.000-07:00

Something that's always nagged me just a bit in the back of my mind: I train in a style of Okinawan Karate (as well as Aikido), a system of fighting that, in its hey day, was primarily a martial, killing art. And it's pretty violent, too. At the dojo, in our training, if we're not practising with an uke or a nage, we visualise we're fighting with someone. A large bulk of the techniques we learn there are killing strikes, or at least severely damaging. We learn that this is justified by using them as an absolute last resort in self defence in an altercation with someone who's intent on killing us first. As unlikely as such a situation is, it's unnerving to think such, especially given that a much larger and more important part of my life in devoted to Buddhism and non violence. That's the problem right there, how can these be reconciled?

I think that at the moment I can only theorise about this. I've (thankfully) never been in a situation where I had to fight someone else for my life. Hopefully it will stay that way. But that would be the most concise way of seeing how this conflict really works in me. Would I fight? Would I have the courage to not fight, so that my assailant could see the senselessness and ignorance of his actions? If I did not fight, I'm afraid it would be more likely that they'd think "why the hell isn't he fighting back?" But the underlying intention of a proper Buddhist's actions are always "how can I show this person the Dharma in a way they'd comprehend it?" Fighting back in a situation like this would only reinforce the attacker's aggressive and destructive instinct, it would only encourage his already firm belief that it's okay to hurt other people for his own benefit. By not fighting back, there is a chance they would get a glimpse of their own ignorance, "wow look at you, you're beating up someone who's not even going to fight back at you. Aren't you brave and macho?"

So I conclude, does this mean I should stop training in the martial arts? I don't think so. I'm not at the dojo to learn how to hurt people, much less kill them. That will never be my intention. There are a variety of other things to be learned there instead. After training for only seven months, I learned my attendance at the dojo has become less about fighting, and more about learning self awareness, ki development, perseverance and community.

Kind of cool

2009-08-24T12:08:00.001-07:00

Based on the philosophy of Ken WIlber. Check him out.

Writing

2009-08-22T22:38:00.001-07:00

Here's what's on my mind: I've been trying to write something recently. With summer quarter over with, there's no tutoring to be done and I just have my job on the weekends I have little to do. So I read, a lot. The more I read the more I want to give back, to write. The problem is I'm still searching for something to write about. I don't even know what form my writing would be in, an essay, a prose, a short story? What message do I want to convey to my readers? Would I even be good at it?

I guess I'll just keep writing here for now as things come to me through my meditations and readings.

There are somethings I've read and thought on in the past that have had bigger impacts on me, of course. At work today I thought a lot about Emerson's essay on Self Reliance. He said that people are too caught up in their convictions of how they should be living their lives as opposed to simply living them. Sloughing off virtue and vowing to live more effectively in the future is no different. My God! This is my life! What am I doing holding these idle, useless fantasies about the way things will never be for me? Do I doubt myself? Am I unhappy with my life? I am one of the most privileged people in the whole world. I should give back to it to the best of my ability!

Televsion

2009-08-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

"I find television very educational. Every time someone turns it on, I go in the other room and read a book."

—Groucho Marx

The Dark Night

2009-08-08T21:22:00.000-07:00

I cover my ears and close my eyes. I'm so sick of this shit. The place where I wake up every morning, the place where I go to class, the people I see, the shit I put up with. I sit on the bus and think, I know this is all my fault. I've chosen all of this for myself, I've chosen not to practice better social skills. I don't need or want them. The misunderstandings and miscommunication that get me into so much pointless trouble. And I won't explain it to others, they've pigeon holed me as the irresponsible shut in and don't even see all the work I do for them! I do not exist with out them, I undo myself and my ego for them. I despise the self so much, I empty it into them, for them, pitying and looking down on their delusions so much that I want to enlighten them even more than I want to end myself.

And that is just the thing, this disgust with the human condition, all this visible and invisible suffering that is absolutely everywhere, I cannot desire an escape from it. I must accept and assimilate it's wretched existence in myself and in others! I can't wishfully pretend that it doesn't exist any more, it is all that exists! Suffering is the only thing that exists. The self. The impermanent illusion that will eventually pass, and Nothing will be found behind it all in the end.

so...

2009-07-20T21:59:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about writing a book, a short one. I've taken and learned so much from the literary world and the written word that I feel obliged to give something back to it. Something worth while and honest, directly from my own experience of the right hand path of return that I hope others with like aspirations would benefit from. Of course this is just an idea, and at the moment I don't feel like I have a whole lot to talk about. I've been actively pursuing the right hand path for only 4 years now (since my baptism and confirmation at the Hagia Sophia Gnostic Church), yet I can't even describe everything I've learned and experienced from the variety of disciplines I've become involved in.

E.I.P.S.

Quote on Impermanence

2009-07-19T13:55:00.001-07:00

If you desire this life then you are not a religious person." said the Indian sage Santideva.

Upon your first reflection on impermanence, you feel like someone has pulled a rug out from under your feet. Upon applying the Dharma teaching of impermanence to your life experience and your life itself, you begin to get a feel of how utterly urgent the work of the holy Dharma is. This is not something to be taken lightly, so please do not do so.

Kins and Adversaries

2009-07-15T08:38:00.000-07:00

The Buddha is inside of you, me, and all sentient life. We find ourselves here, caught in a vicious cycle of suffering and fleeting joy with billions of other humans, trillions of other animals on this tiny planet Earth; we're all looking for the same thing, lasting happiness. What is unfortunate is that most of us are looking for it in the wrong places, in the wrong way. And in so doing, we cause others to suffer even more, bringing negative karma down on ourselves again and again until we resolve to practice virtue and avoid things that cause others to the pain we all know so well.

When we look at the events of the world in this light, and take it seriously, it becomes obvious to us that phenomena such as war, strife, riots and the like are all result from the trappings of the ego which tells you that you can violate others' rights to happiness for your own, that you have your own separate existence away from everyone else. Yet we ourselves, when oppressed by others instead, become extremely unhappy. Why would you do this to others, what is the best way to react when others oppress you for no apparent reason? In what virtuous spirit should be act on this planet that is filled with so much unhappiness?

I like what H. H. the XIV Dalai Lama said about the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the Chinese troops are humans just like us struggling to find happiness. As such they deserve our compassion.

It doesn't matter if other people hate us, violate our basic human rights or even our right to life. It is always, despite the circumstances, our obligation to honor the innate Buddha nature that all of us have. See, we all have a right to attain Buddha hood here and now as well! As humans on this planet earth, we have somehow miraculously obtained the unique opportunity to practice virtue, compassion and the like. We should foster those basic qualities in ourselves. Perhaps then we can set a good example and encourage others caught in the cycle of suffering to do likewise.

Elfen Lied AMV

2009-07-12T08:35:00.000-07:00

Elfen Lied is an extremely violent and sad cartoon about government controlled super humans called diclonus'. When one of them escapes from the complex, Lucy, she is shot in the head and develops a split personality upon arriving in the normal world. She's recovered in her befuddled condition by two college students who, by sheer coincidence, happen to have a deep childhood connection to her that has been repressed because of the traumatic experiences she caused them. Throughout the show we learn more about their past, the nature of the diclonus' and watch Lucy struggle for survival as the aforementioned governmental forces ceaselessly try to recover and kill Lucy before she murders even more people.

So essentially it's a story illustrating the extremes of intense suffering and brief, fleeting intervals of happiness and the whole human condition in general.

Faith

2009-07-10T08:08:00.000-07:00

Many times I hear people say, when asked what they believe in, themselves! I think that humans are naturally very ambitious beings. It's obvious that we are individually and collectively capable of great things, good or evil. Perhaps it's also obvious that any serious attempt to do something beneficial for yourself or for others requires a strong degree of confidence in your ability to do it. It's like knowing and assuming the benefits to good actions before actually believing that they can be done, or even doing them.

It's kind of funny in that correct action is so simple, it seems absurd. In Japanese martial arts, for example, the best way to do something is the quickest way that requires the least amount of effort, and yet it is often enormously powerful. It's sometimes hard to believe some things like that are true. So what makes correct action difficult if it's so simple? Lack of faith, duh.

Faith, in its many guises and types, serves this primary purpose. "Faith clears away doubt, when confronted with problems of understanding the true sense of the teachings, a person with faith will be inclined to search for true answers."

Psychopathology means...

2009-07-10T07:45:00.000-07:00

The pathological psyche:

Psyche: means soul, the invisible part of ourselves.
Pathos: is suffering and inballance.
Logos: is thought and the essential meaning of things.

Therefore psychic conflict, personal agony, is to find the meaning of the suffering of the soul.

Life Long Goals

2009-05-05T14:50:00.000-07:00

Every few years I write a list of life long goals and, privately, compare my current goals to what I've written before. Yeah, I find this to be rather enlightening since my experience of life is day-to-day paced, slowing down the scope of time a little by looking at long term events helps to place myself back into proper perspective.

Obtain a graduate degree in mathematics
Learn to play an instrument (violin)
Become a citizen of Norway
Become fluent in French and Norwegian
Work in cryptography, computer science, cognitive science or teaching college level mathematics (post calculus)
Be happy

Regret

2009-04-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

It seems to be in our common nature that we often regret certain decisions in our individual pasts. In turn this tends to give rise to feelings of guilt, shame and anger later on in our lives even though a particular event actually only occurred once before and is now over and done with. Given that we ourselves are continuously changing, developing new ideals and feelings about the world and about ourselves, how can we be sure that this won't happen again in our future for decisions we make here and now?

Many times I think that if, given the exact same situation again, would I make the same decision now as I did then? As one person who will live and experience the consequences of my own actions throughout the rest of my life, no matter how subtle or profound, I realize that while I may not be able to stop that passage of time I can make better use of it with wise decisions with pure motivations that will not weigh me down emotionally in my future. While the decisions of my peers may not be very enlightened ones and have adverse effects on myself and others, it is still not my right to become angry with them because I'm responsible for receiving any situation in good nature and learning from it, realizing that these people are going under the same rite of passage as I am. That in the future they will learn from their regret of ill influenced actions as well.

Star Trek XI

2009-01-25T18:20:00.001-08:00

The French Algebraists

2009-01-09T00:27:00.001-08:00

Some time ago in the twentieth century a group of French mathematicians, mostly algebraists, gathered under the pseudonym of Nicolas Bourbaki. The purpose of their gathering was the axiomatization of mathematics from the Set Theory perspective. They wrote a series of books together concerning the main fields of modern algebra and others: Théorie des ensembles, Algèbre, Topologie générale, Fonctions d'une variable réelle, Espaces vectoriels topologiques and Intégration were the first volumes. Later came: Algèbre commutative, Groupes et algèbres de Lie and Théories spectrales.

So what? Why bother with this and why are these volumes significant? The early twentieth century was preceded by a time when French mathematics thrived. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw figures such a Cauchy, Laplace and Lagrange. Granted, most of these men worked in Calculus and Analysis, the time for Algebra to take the main stage was finally approaching. These volumes, that is, the axiomatization of algebra, are important because they induce rigor into modern mathematics. They are cold, heartless corner stones of pure logic, definitions, theorems and their (various) proofs that help us to expand our knowledge and theory of space and quantity now in the twenty first century. These volumes were the first to bring us the notion of a "pure" math. Calculus, as you may know, was a math mainly tailored for the purposes of physics, rates of change and the natural sciences. From the pure maths perspective, however, this is largely irrelevant. Here, we are concerned with quantity and space and the nature thereof.

You see, modern algebra is just that, modern. Compared to the calculus and arithmetic, it is one of the newest fields of mathematics and yet has quickly adopted the title of the "purest" math merely because it has virtually no real world applications what-so-ever.

A Puzzle for You

2008-12-09T08:27:00.000-08:00

So your boss and the lead receptionist want to renumber all 3000 of their physical files with just a straight 4 digit numbering scheme. Each of the 3000 files will be assigned 4 ordered digits ranging from 0 to 9 so the first file will be 0001, then 0002 and so on until 3000. The problem is that each of these digits must be bought individually and no one knows how many of each digit they will have to buy.

Find out how many digits all together they will have to buy, then look for patterns in how many times a certain digit appears as you count up to 3000. Can these observations help you resolve this dilemma? Good luck!

experience and the real?

2008-10-30T22:58:00.000-07:00

Something I've found in both esoteric and mathematical approaches to life is a constant struggle between the experience and the ideal model. The neurotic ego is naturaly inclined to construct an ideal of itself, a perfect and "complete" vision of itself according to which everything else ought to be true. Of course this vision is short lived with only a little real life experience to bring the person back down to earth. Sticking to the esoteric, there is another model one can choose to turn to for life. Such of model is, of course, a religious scheme, a heirarchy of spheres, gods ect... A proposal to explain the inner experience of life, why we find ourselves on this planet together, struggling for mere survival.

Granted a great deal of faith must initially go hand in hand with such a world view. Perhaps later this faith becomes something more as the ideal Self and the ego self become a little less alienated from eachother. And in this age, where scientific positivism and narcicistic atheism are rampant, the faithfull is not allowed the luxury of free belief. At some point they must establish how and why their world view is justified and deliver that big "fuck you" to the world as well.

Now, on a more mundane level, I think mathematicians face a simular trial. When the philosophers come to pester us with their positivism we're inclined to automatically say "math is just a meaningless collection of symbols!" so that they'll go away and leave us alone. At this point we may turn back to our work where we feel something real, something that we believe exists outside of only our imaginations. But outside of this fabled "mathematical intuition" our only connection to the ideal world of mathematics if our reasoning ability. What does this have to do with our emotions? Can you really reason through or with such emotions? I tend to think this is evidence that humans are rather dumb creatures not designed to be intellectuals, all the while mathematicians are, strangely, thought of as being supremely smart above all else. Do you see the problem here?

There is some distance between our life experience and our naturally sought after ideal experience. While there are various ways one may try to close this gap, this decision and this path is left to the individual. And it is always a path that must be travered utterly alone.

Some people... as if I had the right to give advice

2008-10-27T21:55:00.000-07:00

What is there to say? Things in my life have been rather quiet as of late. And that's not to say boring, uneventful or dull. But quiet is a good thing. To illustrate, I am one of only two people in my circle of friends who makes a point of keeping my place of living, daily routine and way of life clean, organized and free of anything base and blatantly offensive. I don't drink alcohol, do drugs or look at pornography. For some strange reason, some people I've befriended get kicks out of hitting on girls at the college, getting hammered or disprespecting religious institutions because it's "delusional and innane." We've all known people like this; at some point you have to pause and wonder what is the real reason for this behavior?

Is there really a good reason to stare at that girl's ass every MW morning before class as she walks by when you're not even ready for that day's quize? Or to let others know your opinion on religion when it wasn't even asked? And the most frustrating (for me at least), why ask someone to tutor you in your calculus class when it is clear that you're not even willing to make an effort to learn calculus? Don't all these things seem to point to another problem all together? If you say you want to be an engineer, for example, and you're in school for such but you're constantly distracted by such petty things, then what does this say about how serious you are about your goals? Perhaps you should reconsider what you want to do with your life, or work to develope the focus and mathematical rigor that an engineer ought to have.

Perhaps if the reader knows what I'm talking about, they know the value of living a more stable, routine based life that isn't so self destructive or egotistical. And perhaps this varies from person to person, but I've found a few good, simple rules to stick to and all other good things follow: never compromise your honor, work hard every day but not to the point of insanity, and love your family and friends unconditionaly.

Neige et Noirceur

2008-10-04T23:34:00.000-07:00

N&N est le projet solo de Spiritus, Fondé en 2002 comme side-project. Ancien guitariste et compositeur du groupe prog blackmetal québécois : Mor Phose (RIP)
Groupe fortement inspiré des étendus nordiques québécoise, des principes occultes et religieux, de la guerre et du folklore québécois. La musique s'inspire des ténébreuses et longues soirées d'hiver de chez nous. Les ambiances sont grisantes, minimalistes et angoissantes, mais cache derrière, une tempête de metal noir et de froid. Les chants ont la qualité d'être chantés (ou hurlés) en français.

Your Paradigm of Choice

2008-08-15T09:32:00.000-07:00

Theism and Atheism. They, when dissected and thoroughly examined, are in fact very much alike. Take a strongly theist person and a strongly atheist person and put them in the same room with a completely ignorant person with no knowledge of the world around them save for the room that they are in. BOTH the theist and the atheist will firmly argue why the other is wrong--one based his argument in proven fact of the physical world around him and the other in the metaphysical world around him. The problem with this is that alone. Both feel oppressed and therefore see an undeniable flaw in the other.

This anonymous passage suggests an underlying pattern in how humans tend to behave in spite of the radically different worlds they choose to live in. I've talked here before about how the decisions we make have their consiquences in how we behave; this matter is merely another illustration of that point. However, as you can see, there is something else in play here. You live in a universe and you must eventually decide how you percieve it, if you haven't already. But chances are you're going to feel indifferent from your fellow human beings who have made different choices in that respect despite the fact that we're all humans living in the same universe. They feel the same way, they just may be more kind or more aggressive about said difference.

The point is to not get caught up and centered on your view alone. We've all seen how egocentric popular atheists like Dawkins gets when he starts selling books and we've all bore witness to the innevitable attrocities of mass, organized religion. But we must also be open to other paradigms and worldviews to prevent these occurances and at the same time allow us a pristine view of ourselves, how we behave and how we feel when we do this.

Quote

2008-07-29T09:13:00.001-07:00

"Illumination is not achieved by visualizing the light, but by exploring the darkness."

-C.G. Jung

Maleiçon

2008-07-28T09:18:00.000-07:00

De la même manière que nous nous sentons en marge et au-dessus d'un monde que nous voulons annihiler, les anciens sorciers furent les révolutionnaires du passé. Comme nous détestons nos congénères béotiens et américanisés eux aussi détestaient le prêtre, le roi, le riche. Eux aussi, préparaient en ces occultes cérémonies les bombes des maléfices. Ils empoisonnaient surtout, détruisaient cependant avec plus d'ampleur, savaient répandre dans les campagnes la poudre qui tue les moissons, ensevelir sous les étables, la charge magique dont les troupeaux dépérissent. Et ils s'en prirent surtout à la tendre race des enfants, celle qui, ne gardant pas les crapauds à refusé l'initiation, décimèrent plus radicalement, plus religieusement que les anarchistes modernes, frappèrent la race avant tout, partout, sachant que, quoique fasse l'Homme, il sera toujours l'Homme,
le vil, l'égoïste, le déprédateur du patrimoine d'autrui, la honte du monde, la honte du monde. Cela devenait pour eux un but mystique de débarrasser l'univers de cette lèpre humaine, gagnant la bonne nature, corrompant la Terre faite pour être libre et qui s'avilit d'être l'esclave nourrice!

Some Thoughts on Causality

2008-07-15T09:01:00.000-07:00

One striking question that's come to me recently: When are two things the same? Now pause for a moment, this is a deceptive question and not as simple as it may seem. When we percieve something with our senses we tend to make the mistake of fixing that sensory impression as the way that thing really is. With our (unfortunate) societal conditioning that's our first reaction when told to memorize are remember something. It follows that this makes for a rather mitigated and limited view of your world and essentially of yourself. And yet causality, the conceptual underpinning to everything we experience, does not come to mind as something we can use to amiliorate this.

In mathematics and science we imbue meaning into otherwise meaningless strings of symbols; via causality and human logic we rewrite these strings of symbols in an attempt to recognize something yet more significant in it: a solution, a new scientific or mathematical theorem, a new paradigm for us to explore. Namely, scientific "advancement." And we arrive at this thing of significance with the causal step by step process of rigorous reasoning and observation. Yet even logically we know that we're still living in the same world, but we've conceptually changed our perception of it time and time again. Everytime we may think "this must be how nature really is; this theorem explains so much more."

I don't mean to propose that everyone be required to study an extensive science or maths curriculum to see these hidden connections (although I think it would do the lot of us some good!) But am merely trying to say that we can/ ought to use these reasonings to mimick the basic law of nature (causality) to our benefit. So to return to my initial question: when are two things the same? Remember that things follow from previous things, perhaps in ways simple enough for us humans to mathematically conceptualize, perhaps nature's way of recreating itself is too complex for us to comprehend at the time; however, our advancement as a race must be based on this mimikry of nature to the best of our ability should we wish to see it's unfied and holistic structure as well as our place within it.

The Fear of Mathematics

2008-07-02T09:13:00.000-07:00

Does anyone really believe that all the universe is essentially mathematical? And if so, is this view the result of honest intellectual investigation or of a delusional search for power? Many of my contemporaries in mathematics share the recuring feeling that, like machines, they're behavior is becoming self-predictable as if tainted by a cognitive insight that leaves no place for one's emotional, spontanious being. The frightful thing is, of course, that they are probably right. By that I mean with the much more extended language of mathematics more can be perceived clearly and consistently of our personal experiences. More aspects of our lives can be articulated and analyzed in ways to reveal information and patterns no spoken language can ever hope to achieve. Of course that's not to say that maths are perfect. They are not. "Math" is simply the mathematical language, like French; and "calculation" is merely a method for expressing things that mathematics deem to be true (when properly done).

At this point I would expect a few readers to cite counter examples in human experience that allegedly do not have any mathematical relevence and can only appeal to the emotional self. Let me tell you this might be a mistake. Consider a beautiful painting. Initially it's appeal is deeply emotional, as it's painter intended. And yet an alternative (or more correct?) perspective is to subject it to measurement and symbolic analysis. The hue, saturation, dimensions, the standard deviation of the value range at all infinitesimal points on the painting can be noted and probably extrapolated to learn more of the painting's hidden dimensions. And the painting itself, independant of mathematical analysis, it still suffers the limitaions of Monet's technical skill (I'm not bashing Monet here, by any means), his imagination, the chemical composition of his paint etc... To step back even further, consider the beautiful scene from which the painting was inspired. Can we say we "know better" that this vision is actually the result of perfectly calculated chemical, biological and physical phenomena all working harmoniously in perfect, irrational symmetry? The trees' and flowers' double image upon the pond that makes the painting so much more powerfull can also be subjected to physical theories of light and its behavior in such a circumstance (ie reflecting off the water).

I guess I should make it clear that I don't believe that all things can be mathematically expressed, but I'm hard pressed to find effective counter examples without getting to esoteric. Kudos the the reader if you can, of course. When talking about the universe, and the human experience, we must be prepared to allow for some level of abstraction and obscurity. This isn't exactly something that jives with the language of mathematics. However attempts can always be made to paint these uncertainties as miscalculations.

Riddle

2008-06-16T08:11:00.000-07:00

Two roads diverge in a forest, but you are trying to get home, and only one road will take you there. Standing nearby are two woodsmen; one always tells the truth, the other always lies. You are only allowed to ask a single question directed to either the liar or truthteller, to determine the correct road to get home. What question do you ask?

Quod Erat Demonstrandum

2008-06-06T20:53:00.001-07:00

With finals approaching this next week I'm reminded of one of the reasons why I find maths to be so captivating. Like a game of chess, it cannot be friendly. When you are doing math you are the only one responsible for either perfect sucess or failure which you cannot shoulder off in any way. When you make an error you have only yourself to blame. Doing math is pure and direct oposition with the ever present thrill that you might not make it. All your emotions, your habits and personal traits are left out and the only thing left is your raw cerebral strength waiting to be challanged...

Fear and Shame

2008-04-30T21:10:00.000-07:00

What, in the human experience, is more debilitating and self destructive than feelings of fear or feelings of shame? Even if we are offered the most abstracted perspective of the self where all our traits are of equal and no value what-so-ever, value judgements inevitably begin to arise when these concepts are introduced. They are viewed as "bad" things to be avoided at all costs. Because their sudden involvement in your life makes your life just more complicated, more animate than the non emotional life. And that can be difficult to deal with sometimes.

But they are inevitable, and their threat to the self is imminent unless we are masters of the self and therefore of them. "Woe to him who cannot focus and discipline his mind to save his very life or those who depend on him! His short comings undermine his bravado and he is as worthless as a child distracted in a house that is burning to the ground." To paraphrase Sakyamuni Buddha

The way out: develop the powers of the mind and "know thyself" to be the conscious chooser of all things in your life. You may find yourself to be feeling shame or fear because, somewhere and somehow, you chose to have this emotional reaction.

Make a healthy decision and stick to it, therefore shalt thou develop the powers of the mind and conquer feelings of fear and shame.

The Purpose of Life

2008-04-16T15:45:00.000-07:00

In a class I took a while ago on developemental psychology I and my class mates studied the phenomenological and family impacts of death, of the self and of a close one (family, friend etc.) We were given an assignment to write our own eulogy and present it to the class. The purpose of this was obviously not to present an intellectual challange, but an emotional one.

Needless to say this assignment upset more than a few of the students and they broke into tears in their presentations. To reflect on your own death forces you to reflect on your purpose for being alive and compare it to what you are doing now. Many of my class mates, I observed, had warped this and wrote their eulogies as if they lived to be their ideal selves, and not their real selves. Other of my peers chose only to write about parts of themselves that they liked and wanted to tell others about. There were a few other patterns going on as the presentations did as well. But that's irrelevent for now.

If you are going to reflect on your own life and goals, then does behaving like this really do anything productive or positive for you? Or will all your problems go away when you die? It should be common knowledge that unfinnished business, both in the world and in your psyche does not make death a pleasent experience. Infact, leaving your body and your loved ones knowing that you did not do your best, I imagine, would be utterly torturous.

So then, how to escape this and experience a pleasent death? I suppose the first thing to do is conquer your fear of it. And be honest. If you really want to conquer your fear of this, I'll tell you, a sure fire way to test that is to... write your own eulogy and recite it to someone you trust. After that is said and done (and you've been honest with yourself), the rest of the way will gradually reveal itself.

Determinism

2008-04-13T09:48:00.000-07:00

We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.

-Pierre-Simon Laplace

Of course those of you who keep up with modern developments in physics and mathematics, uncertainty inevitably comes into play. As such it seems there is some degree of chaos in our world, much to the dislike of Laplace, I suppose. Then again, this could also be interpreted as an arena for free will, can it not?

What Do You Think Of The Old God?

2008-04-06T19:20:00.000-07:00

What have you been doing in the past that makes you so unhappy? Think. O.K. now stop doing that. I know, I know, you think you'll go back to you old and unproductive way of living, that's alright. To discipline your self, all you have to do is make a healthy decision and stick with it.

The above image is from a musical act I've recently discovered, pleasantly, called Reverorum ib Malacht. The focus of their work is on Gnosticism, spiritual transcendence and all that good stuff. If you're into dark ambient music and/ or Black Metal like I am, I recommend you look into their work. I believe you can get at least one of their demos from Todestrieb.

Some Empty Space

2008-03-28T12:46:00.000-07:00

Not long ago I opted to actually delete a previous blog I had on this website. I suppose I just wasn't happy with it, or that I was using it as an excuse to not engage in more important matters at the time. I have, however, eventually noticed I some-what miss having this space to drop in a thought or two that wouln't really fit elsewhere, but is worth mentioning. So I present to you, dear reader, Xenaoth, my *new* blog. Fyi, Xenaoth is a term from a Santeria text meaning "Higher Celestial Spirit," and is akin to the name of a particular musical act I enjoy once and a while.

About myself- I study mathematics and psychology at a descent, small college, though I haven't yet decided which of these two I want to try and make a career out of. I enjoy working with children, believe it or not, I find it to be very rewarding sometimes. I also enjoy a veriety of authors, music and studies as well as more mundane things.... like video games. Never the less, it's important to keep in mind the order of priorities, some things are more important than others.

Thanks for reading, more to come soon.