Some thoughts....

As part of my crusade to breath life back into the noble endevor that is the westsound/philosophucked blogs I have decided to post some of the thoughts that have been rolling around in my head.

Guilt: the emotion that occurs when one violates an intrinsic moral standard

Shame: the emotion that occurs when one violates an extrinsic moral standard (most commonly a social standard)

My questions are: did cave men feel guilt? if so, did they have a moral sense of right and wrong? How would they have learned this moral compass? Did they learn it? could it be that humans have a physiologicly programed moral code that can be peverted by culture? Could the universialty of many religions major tenants "though shalt not kill", etc. reflect these biological inclination?

bonus question: If someone has ambition, does that nessisarily mean that they are not spiritualy satisfied with their current place in life?

Nathan Bison

Why did the plains bison adopt the lifestyle so dramatically over such a brief period of time? The answer lies, it seems, in the dangers that plains bison faced. Herd behavious is often a response to the presence of predators that can easily pick off isolated individuals or small groups. Such predators find it much more difficult to kill one of a herd. There were only three predators capable of hunting adult bison: wolves, grizzlies and Folsom point-wielding men. Humans are thus the only force capable of 'making' the plains bison... Human hunting literally helped form the American Plains Bison, which fossil record suggests Changed Both Physically and Behaviorally after the arrival of the Indians. Before then the Bison did not live in large herds and had much larger, more out stretched horns. For an animal Living in a wide-open environment like the Great Plains and facing a sophisticated predator armed with spears, mobbing in big groups is the best defense, since it affords the vigilance of many eyes; yet big, outstretched horns pose a problem for creatures living in such close proximity. It was human hunting that selected for herd behavior and the new upright arrangement of Bison HOrns, which appears in the fossil record not after the arrival of human hunters... Indian hunters and bison lived in a symbiotic relationship, the bison feeding and clothing the hunters while the hunters, by culling the herds and forcing them to move frequently, helped keep the grasslands in good health. the bison is a human artifact, for it was shaped by Indians and its distribution determined by them.

- a summary of Tim Flannery anthropologist.

--Nathan i can see why you hold little ear to authors such as Michael Pollan--on the perception that they attempt to take large ideas and gather as much info into purporting them in what appears to be a Dan Brownesque motif.

But again Dan Brown happened to be an author who projected himself into fame by creating literature that reflected the studious eye and elbow-grease that authors and journalists such as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were. Such journalists collect and follow a path of ideas and information: piecing them together. If it were not for their synthesis, such events as in the arrest of Virgilio González would never have been understood in the relation to its larger context: the blatant disregard of democracy within our country by our president of the time.

There would be no Environmental Movement if it were not for the writing of Rachel Carson: who at here time was strongly criticized--DuPont compiled an extensive report on the book's press coverage and estimated impact on public opinion. Velsicol threatened legal action against Houghton Mifflin as well as The New Yorker and Audubon Magazine unless the planned Silent Spring features were canceled. Chemical industry representatives and lobbyists also lodged a range of non-specific complaints, some anonymously. Chemical companies and associated organizations produced a number of their own brochures and articles promoting and defending pesticide use. However, Carson's and the publishers' lawyers were confident in the vetting process Silent Spring had undergone. The magazine and book publications proceeded as planned, as did the large Book-of-the-Month printing (which included a pamphlet endorsing the book by William O. Douglas).


will finish

watch this on netflix

ten minute clips of contemporaries addressing philosophical ideas

a nation where individuality has vanished to be replaced by people who exist purely to sustain a global economy

The fundamental problem of political philosophy is still precisely the one that Spinoza saw so clearly (and that Wilhelm Reich rediscovered): Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?

check out this flash video

http://www.coldhardflash.com/swf/music_life.swf

So I started reading this book called A Brief History of Everything, by Ken Wilber. Wilber published his first book when he was 23 after dropping out of graduate school and has been writing ever since. His areas of interest include pretty much all academic and religious philosophy, and A Brief History of Everything seeks to demonstrate the commonalities between all of these seemingly separate disciplines and viewpoints. I decided to take notes chapter by chapter so that I don't forget what I'm reading and can go back and use them for reference later. Seeing the slowing of activity on the blog, I thought I'd post my notes chapter by chapter for discussion. On a side note, I think his theory of evolution is very similar to Robert Pirsig's, and a lot of what I've read so far is basically saying the same thing in different words. So you can use the metaphysics of Quality as a lens through which to view Wilber. Here's chapter 1:

· The whole of existence is the Kosmos, a term used to describe the sum of its parts: matter or cosmos (physiosphere), life or the biosphere (bios), and mind or the noosphere (psyche or nous). Therefore, kosmos does not only describe the physical universe. You can also include the theosphere (theos, the divine domain).

· Autopoesis, the creation of life out of life, is a profound emergent, something “astonishingly novel.”

· The universe is composed of units called holons, a term borrowed from Arthur Koestler, units that are simultaneously part of something larger and made up of smaller units (holons). This is the first tenet out of twenty that Wilber laid out in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality.

· If we look at what all holons have in common, we will begin to see what all stages of evolution have in common and therefore all of the Kosmos.

· There is a natural tendency towards agency and communion in all holons; this is tenet two. All holons are, of course, independent of each other, but also a part of a larger holon. This relationship is hierarchical, but not in a patriarchal or domineering sense. A molecule does not exert dominance over its atoms, nor the other way around. Pathological hierarchies occur when a holon loses its place or tries to exert control over other holons; these holons must be put in their place or risk dissolution. The alternative term proposed is holarchies/holarchy, which better describes the communal and cooperative nature of holonic hierarchies

· Holons also demonstrate vertical drive, either towards dissolution or ascendency. Ascendency is an emergent event that creates new holons. The idea of evolution as natural selection misses the point, as this only describes the process of “nature” selecting traits that have already emerged; it is not the process itself.

· Tenet three states only that holons emerge. The reductionist drive fails when we recognize that you cannot reduce mind to life, and life to mind; the deconstruction is discontiguous.

· Chance cannot be the mechanism for evolution. Scientists calculated that the time it would take to produce even a single enzyme is greater than the proposed age of the universe, 12 billion years. Therefore, the drive towards transcendence is present in all of the Kosmos.

Vancouver Footage

http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/video/2743

After seeing this link - Feelings?

hmmm...what do you think?

The world is meaningless, there is no God, there are no morals, you do not have a “soul.”

The universe is not moving inexorably towards any higher purpose.

All meaning is man-made, so make your own, and make it well.

Do not treat life as a way to pass the time until you die.
Do not try to find yourself, you must make yourself.

Choose what you want to find meaningful, then live, create, love, hate, cry, destroy, fight and die for it. Do not let your life and your values and your actions slip easily into any mold.

Leave yourself plenty of room to proclaim loudly, without fear or shame, ,"This is who I make myself, this is who the fuck I am!".
Remember that nothing you do has any significance beyond what it means only to you.

Whatever you do, do it for its own sake.

When, and if, the universe looks on with indifference, laugh and shout back, "Fuck You!".

Remember that to fight meaninglessness is futile, but fight anyway, in spite of and because of its futility.
The world may be empty of meaning, but it is a blank canvas on which to paint meanings of your own. Live deliberately. You are free.

You were not born in debt to some messiah that has somehow gifted you with this existence.

You, your life, your heart, your dreams, your fears, all are just as valid and important as any one who has ever lived.

Anyone who has the audacity to tell you otherwise should be avoided as if he were a flame.

Dream big, Love big, feel big....BE BIG!

who works more --the hunter gatherer or the industrial man??

Nathan this is for you

I believe in a long, prolonged derangement of the senses to attain the unknown. Our pale reasoning hides the infinite from us.

Yesterday’s finance majors buy their summer homes with the bleak futures of today’s humanities majors.--mathew pfeiffer

Empericicsm

I seriously philosophucked myself today when I realized that the Truth,"something must be experimentally verifiable to be True", is not experimentally verifiable. My initial reaction to this realization is the thought that science can no longer be held as a metaphysically viable way of deriving Truth(in the big T sense of the word). Just wanted to see any one had any other relevent thoughts...