Howdy! It’s been a few weeks since the last update, but with good reason. My Comps, as of one week ago today, has been turned in and not failed by the Studio Art professors! Cause for celebration, I would say. And what better way to do it than by posting the pages from the most recent, and most extravagant Carleton Comics Journal (cover designed by Kailyn Kent)? Let’s get on with it, then:

• Page 1 (Table of Contents)
• Page 2 (Interlude, p. 1)
• Page 3 (Interlude, p. 2)
• Page 4 (Interlude, p. 3)
• Page 5 (Interlude, p. 4)
• Page 6 (Interlude, p. 5)
• Page 7 (Human Waste)
• Page 8 (Swingin’ Sid)
• Page 9 (Hyperman #2, p. 6)
  
• Page 10 (Hyperman #2, p. 7)
• Page 11 (Hyperman #2, p. 8 )
• Page 12 (Hyperman #2, p. 9)
• Page 13 (Hyperman #2, p. 10)
• Page 14 (A Hole)
• Page 15 (Austin Hall)
  
• Page 16 (Without Definite Direction)
  
• Page 17 (Potential)
  
• Page 18 (Rocket, p. 1)
  
• The Back Cover

The issue, due to financial constraints, was unfortunately printed in black-and-white:

Financial constraints that will be solved come Winter Term, hopefully. In the meantime, our motto remains “Small donations are appreciated.” Until then, enjoy what joys late November and the month of December have to bring. One of those joys includes the Scott Collection’s resuming updating! See you on Friday.

"El Factor X"

El Factor X: 27 años de edad, profesor Danyl tiene una pasión por el canto y se roba el escenario por completo en una increible primera audicion!

The X Factor: 27-year-old teacher Danyl has a passion for singing and manages to completely own the stage in an incredible first audition!

Connie Talbot singing Ben and winning her Britains Got Talent semi final

Andrew Johnston

The X Factor: It’s difficult to surprise Simon Cowell, but Stacey Soloman manages to do just that… Does she have The X Factor?

Jamie Archer AKA Jamie Afro has never had his chance to break into music, despite it being a lifelong dream. Will he get that chance today?

Joseph McElderry The X Factor: Joe from South Shields immediately got a yes from Cheryl before he started singing! But will he be able to perform well enough to impress the other judges?

Susan Boyle – Memory from Cats – Made Amanda Cry – Piers said brilliant!

You voted him, out of thousands of entrants, your X Factor winner 2007! Watch Leon Jackson perform his brand new single When You Believe!

Lucie Jones,The X Factor 2009: Nervous Lucie takes to the stage, but her choice of song is questioned by Simon. Has she got The X Factor?

The X Factor: 24-year-old Duane returns to The X Factor after failure at last year’s Boot Camp. Has he got what it takes for this year’s competition?

Shaheen Jafargholi Britains Got Talent Wins Semi Final,UNBELIEVABLE 12 YEAR OLD BOY SINGS!!!

Nicky Evans, who recently lost her father, tries her luck at the auditions – and manages to amaze even Simon!

I’m a bit groggy this morning. Last night my three year old daughter smacked her forehead against the coffee table and we had to take a trip to the emergency room. Seven stitches and five hours later we finally got home around one thirty in the morning and then didn’t get asleep until four or four thirty. I’m amazed at how well she handled everything. She was a real trooper. After the initial shock of all the blood– and boy do heads ever bleed! –she was rather nonchalant about the whole thing, making offhand remarks like “I bumped my head a little! I hit my head on table. Blood was everywhere! Sometimes that happens!” in an amused voice and, while calmly playing before leaving for the ER, “I don’t need to see a doctor and we don’t have any bandaids”. We danced in the hospital room and she charmed all the nurses and doctors. After everything was over she actually didn’t want to leave as she was having so much fun. That’s my girl! What a ham and little attention addict. At any rate, hopefully I’ll make some sense in this post.

Responding to a couple of my posts from earlier this week on translation, Nate over at Un-canny Ontology writes:

What is translation? And why do some things get translated and others do not?

Translation is more than a simple replication. Translation always involves a certain degree of interpretation in which what is inputted is always changed or transformed – from photons of light to complex sugars. Objects translate each other, they change each other without encountering each other directly, which means that objects first and foremost recognize each other.

I am pretty uncomfortable with Nate’s talk of objects “knowing” each other and “recognizing” each other as I think this implies a degree of intentionality (in the phenomenological sense) that only belongs to a subset of objects (humans, many animals, certain computer systems perhaps, social systems), not all objects. In my view, it’s necessary to distinguish between reflexive objects capable of registering their own states and relations to other entities like social systems or cognitive systems, and non-reflexive objects that do not have this characteristic. In other words, where non-reflexive objects are in question it’s important to emphasize that intentionality is not required for translation to take place and be operative in relations between objects.

read on!

Nonetheless, when this qualification is made, I do think Nate is asking a good question. I’m of two minds about this question. On the one hand, my initial thought is that it is not for philosophy to answer how translation takes place in any specific relation between objects. Initially this response might look like a dodge; however, it is premised on a distinction between the sort of thing philosophy does and the sort of thing other disciplines do.

Since I am on a Bhaskar kick lately, this point can be illustrated by analogy to Bhaskar’s ontology. Bhaskar asks the transcendental question “what must the world be like in order for our sciences to be possible?” Among his answers is the thesis that things must be structured and differentiated, they must be capable of acting without us knowing them or being aware of them (his generative mechanisms), they must be capable of acting without producing effects in all cases, they must have powers or capabilities, it must be possible to form more or less closed systems (for experiment to be possible and significant), and in open systems these generative mechanisms must be capable of acting without producing the sorts of effects we encounter when triggering a generative mechanism in the closed system of an experimental setting.

Bhaskar’s thesis is that the world must be this way for our science to be possible and for our practice of experimentation to be intelligible; however, his ontological claims about what the world must be like do not tell us what generative mechanisms actually exist, how they are structured, what powers or capabilities they have, and so on. What generative mechanisms exist is a task for direct inquiry in various disciplines, not something that philosophy can answer a priori. The case is similar with respect to translation. Philosophy can tell us that objects must translate one another when they interact and therefore draw our attention to the differences produced in interaction, but it has nothing of its own to say about what translation machines or mechanisms actually exist and how they are structured. This is the job of inquiry in other disciplines. Thus, for example, it falls to the biologist to investigate how leaves translate light into energy. Likewise, it falls to folks like Nate in the field of rhetoric to investigate how audiences are selectively open to certain speech-performances and how these performances on the part of a rhetor are translated by audiences into something else.

Nonetheless, and this is my second point, we can make some very general ontological claims about what objects must be like for translation to be possible. Hopefully these theses somewhat address Nate’s question. My tendency at present is to think of translation in terms of information theory. This should come as no surprise as the ontic principle is, in many respects, adapted from Bateson’s definition of information as “the difference that makes a difference.” So how should this be understood?

First, the concept of information is to be distinguished from that of noise. Information, as a difference that makes a difference, is something that stands out in contrast to noise. If, for example, a student in an introductory philosophy course has great difficulty reading Derrida’s essay “Differance”, this is not because the text is difficult or poorly written, but because the student, having just come to philosophy for the first time, lacks the background in philosophy that would allow the student to encounter the elements of the text as information. Everything in the essay seems significant and as a result it all becomes noise insofar as nothing can be distinguished in the essay by the student. Information can thus be thought in Gestalt terms as a relation between what leaps into the foreground (information) and what passes into the background (noise).

It’s important to note that for self-reflexive intentional objects like students, this relationship between foreground is a dynamic, not fixed, relation. Not only can these systems evolve such that elements that before were mere noise can take on the status of information, but also relations between foreground and background can shift back and forth, such that something that a moment ago belonged to the domain of noise now comes to the fore as information or a difference that makes a difference.

Second, and of great importance, it should be noted that information and noise are not ontological properties of the world, but are object-specific properties. There is no information “out there” in and of itself. Rather, objects “constitute” information for themselves. The idea that information exists “out there” and not simply for an object constitutes a sort of transcendental illusion within ontology that I’ll have to write about in the future. To put this point differently, information is only information for an object. Likewise, noise is only noise for an object. It is not the world that is disordered or chaotic, but rather the world for an object that is disordered or chaotic. Here I am drawing on the manner in which information is thought by systems theory and autopoietic theory.

Third, objects are only selectively open to other objects in the world. Take the example of sitting at a coffee shop with friends. All sorts of things recede into the background in this situation: the actions of the staff, the conversations of other people, the traffic that could be discerned through the window, the talking head babbling away on the television, the music playing in the background, etc. In this scenario we only share selective relations to the world about us. The rest largely disappears until another shift takes place in relations between foreground and background.

It now becomes possible to say a few very general things about the ontology of translation and what must be the case in order for translation to be possible. First, there must be an ontological distinction between stimuli and information. The term “stimulus” is not the happiest term as it still implies a reference to a receiving object. However, I would like to stipulate this term not as a reference to a receiving object, but rather treat it as a difference transmitted by another object. At any given time there are all sorts of stimuli flying about in the world that are not information for various objects. Thus, for example, at this very moment there are all sorts of radio signals pulsing through the air about me. These signals are real things that are out there. However, for me they scarcely exist and are not information as I have no way of receiving them. In order to receive them I need an additional black box– my nifty new iPhone or my computer –that can function as a mediator allowing me to relate to these stimuli.

Second, if there is a difference between information and stimuli, and if stimuli exist in all sorts of ways without being information, it follows that information is not something that is already out there, but rather is constituted by objects receiving these stimuli. This, I think, approaches Nate’s initial question. For information to be possible, certain things have to be true of objects. On the one hand, it is necessary that objects (generative mechanisms) exist that emit stimuli. On the other hand, objects must have channels and an internal structure (endo-relational structure) that organizes these stimuli into differences that make a difference. Channels are modes of openness to other objects in the world, while endo-relational structure, in part, is the mechanism by which stimuli are transformed into differences that make a difference.

Thus, for example, no matter how much I talk to a rock, I cannot compel that rock to get out of my way. While the sound-waves of my voice might indeed affect the rock in a variety of ways because the rock has channels for receiving differences in this sort of causal way, the rock cannot encounter those sound-waves as speech because it does not possess channels or an endo-relational structure for constituting sound-waves (stimuli) as speech (information) in the manner of other reflexive objects. Likewise, last night I could not heal my daughter’s wound through speech; however, when I function as a psychoanalyst for someone else, it is possible to cure a psychoanalytic symptom through the intervention of speech. The channels and endo-relational structure that constitute openness to different forms of difference are something that must be surveyed in every instance and that cannot be determined by philosophy a priori.

This point can be further illustrated with respect to the periodic table of elements. The periodic table is not simply a summary of what we’ve discovered about the endo-relational structure of various elements, but also, for those who know how to read us, tells the chemist, biologist, and physicist all sorts of things about channels or different possibilities of relation that can take place between elements. On the one hand, each element is a generative mechanism capable of producing a variety of actualities. On the other hand, elements are only capable of selectively relating to one another according to very precise laws and these relations generate new properties or actualizations when they take place.

A couple of further points. Over at the Pinnochio Theory, Shaviro riffs on Nate’s post and my own, writing:

I think that the source of this problem, in Nathan’s account, is the following. He says that ” objects first and foremost recognize each other,” precisely because — here paraphrasing Levi, and also to an extent Graham Harman — “objects translate each other, they change each other without encountering each other directly.” But as I’ve said before, my biggest disagreement with both Levi and Graham is that, for me, objects do encounter each other directly.

There’s a lot more in Steven’s post, but I wanted to zero in on this particular remark as I think it conflates my position with Harman’s. For Harman objects are absolutely independent or withdrawn from one another such that you get the question of how they can enter into relations with one another. Within my proposed ontology, objects do touch one another. What that don’t do is represent one another in the manner of a mirror representing an object. Rather, every relation between objects is a translation and every translation involves transformation. In certain respects, this places me closer to Latour and Whitehead in the sense that I do not place objects behind absolute “firewalls” as Graham does. Where I differ from Latour and Whitehead, is in holding that objects have a being that is not reducible to their relations to other objects (their endo-relational structure), and that the relations objects do entertain to other objects are selective. Where Whitehead and Latour hold that each actual occasion holds a definite relation to every other actual occasion in the entire universe, I hold that 1) objects only share relations to other particular objects and are unrelated to a number of other objects in the universe, and 2) that even if all other objects in the universe were to cease existing a particular object could continue to exist (something that is impossible in Whitehead’s and Latour’s universe). In part I believe this must be the case as inquiry would become impossible were objects to be related to all other objects as it would no longer be possible to form more or less closed systems within which inquiry takes place. Insofar as inquiry clearly does take place it follows that this thesis cannot be true.

My gloss on the “occasional” in Latour is thus somewhat different than Harman’s. Discussing Latour’s reference to occasions in Prince of Networks, Harman writes, “A thing is not separate from its relations [for Latour], and in fact ‘each element is to be defined by its associations and is an event created at the occasion of each of those associations’ (Pandora’s Hope, 165, emphasis added by Harman)” (80). Where Harman reads this as a reference to the philosophical doctrine of occasionalism, I read the reference to occasions in temporal terms as in the case of referring to things like “on this great occasion…” To speak of objects entering into relations with one another in occasions is thus to refer to the selective and limited nature of those relations, along with the fact that objects contingently encounter one another or encounter one another in an aleatory fashion. I would differ from Latour here in hold that it is not the occasion or the relations that make the object the object. The occasions can modify the manner in which the object actualizes itself, but this is quite different from suggesting that the object is its relations.

Despite these ontological differences, Harman and I do arrive at similar conclusions. If I am comfortable talking about objects “withdrawing” from one another then this is because translations that take place within an object always differ from the other object that instigates the translation or provides the input for the process of translation. The other day I came across this comment over at Another Heidegger Blog:

Why do you not address the most obvious problem of why vicar’s (representations) are central to the mechanism of causation between two inanimate objects?

Do you read as coherent that when a baseball hurls into a windshield it must FIRST send a representation of itself INTO the glass, and then it must brush this “vicar” into a state of phenomenenal breakdown, a breakdown which THEN results in the baseball cracking the glass? Does this make any sense to you? Aside from projecting a human caricature of experience and cognition, in what way does this actually seem to reveal how objects interact without human beings?

This is an example of what I would call an uncharitable interpretation of Harman’s position. It is important that we understand just what I have in mind by the “principle of charity”. The principle of charity does not consist in passively endorsing another position or refraining from criticism. Rather, the principle of charity is a necessary condition for philosophical discourse, requiring that we present the positions of other thinkers in the most reasonable and plausible light before proceeding to criticism of that position. Working on the premise that our interlocutor is a reasonable and intelligent person that genuinely wants to get at the truth, explain features of the world, and understand things– a premise that should be granted at the beginning of dialogue and revoked only when proven otherwise –we should ask ourselves, with respect to our interpretations of the positions of others, “is this a position that a reasonable person would endorse or advocate?” If our impression of another’s position is that it is batshit crazy insane, then it is likely we have misinterpreted the other person’s position, not that the author is making the absurd claim. Note, that the claim that a position is reasonable or a position that a rational agent could hold is not equivalent to the claim that the position is true. Of course, it comes as no surprise that this person’s reading of Harman would be so uncharitable, given that he confesses he’s only read of Harman’s theory of causality as developed in his early work presented at the speculative realism conference, and that he has not actually read Tool Being, Guerilla Metaphysics, or Prince of Networks.

The characterization of Harman’s position above is clearly absurd. Harman’s thesis is not that objects must first encounter other objects under the form of a “sensuous vicar” and then relate to them. Nor is it an anthropomorphization of relations between objects. Rather, Harman’s thesis is that objects only relate to one another selectively with respect to particular qualities, never exhaustively in terms of all the qualities that an object might possess or be capable of. Austin over at Complete Lies drives this point home nicely in his recent post on Harman’s theory of vicarious causation:

In Aristotle’s Categories he distinguishes between subjects and predicates. The Greek word for “subject” is hypokeimenon (ὑποκείμενον) meaning “underlying thing.” Essentially, it is that which is predicated but remains beneath the layers of predicates. We can also understand this through substance and accidents. The substance of the thing is that which the accidents adhere to without itself becoming anything fundamentally new. My car is still a car even if I have it painted a new colour for instance. The predicate “silver” does not alter the substance “car” in any substantial way. So there are substances and there are accidents. Great. The chief occasionalist insight to be made here is through the chain of causality. The position is one that says substances don’t touch each other. Let’s use an example. When I have a relationship with a person, there is more to that person than our interactions. Let us assume it is a romantic relationship between lover and beloved. Does this relation exhaust the other’s being? Is it not the case that there is far more to the person than their relation to me? While we would likely share much of our lives with each other, there remains a fundamental gap between the two of us. Don’t we interact on the level of accidents and not substance? When I talk to or touch my girlfriend, there is always more to her than these interactions. This is also the case for my interactions with non-human objects, for instance the relationship I have to the laptop I am writing this on. There are infinite possibilities for relations within a thing, it can interact with practically anything else in the universe in any number of ways, none of which could exhaust its possibilities. This is the point of the fire and cotton example. Cotton can do a lot more than burn, and the fire only engages the cotton on that level and not on the part of the cotton (to use improper language) that could become denim or a Q-Tip. While the fire destroys the cotton, this does not mean it has exhausted those potentialities, it has simply destroyed them.

The point is that there is always more possibilities open to any object than those actualized in any particular relation the object enters into. In many respects, then, Harman’s claim can be understood in counterfactual terms. One of his key points regarding the inexhaustibility of objects pertains to the inexhaustibility of their possible relations. If objects are always in excess of or more than their relations, if they only relate to one another under particular aspects or in terms of “sensuous vicars”, then this is because there is always an excess of other relations they could enter into under different aspects. I hope to expand on this a bit in the near future in terms of the sorts of transcendental illusions generated through the process of translation, giving transcendental illusion not an epistemological grounding restricted to thought or the human-world gap, but an ontological grounding.

Today’s ‘Live Better With Willie Jolley’ Tip: Fly Like a Bumblebee

No fear. No doubt. This is it, look out! Success is an amazing adventure. It is the process of having a dream and then pursuing that dream whole-heartedly. It is getting to the point where you believe it is impossible to fail.

I had the opportunity to meet Mary Kay Ash, the founder and president of Mary Kay Cosmetics. Mary Kay Ash is a remarkable woman who had a dream that others called impossible. She refused to listen to the naysayers, and went on to build a business that is now one of the largest cosmetic companies in the world. The symbol for her company is a bumblebee and it represents the ability to do the impossible.

Why? Because scientists and animal experts have emphatically stated that it is impossible for the bumblebee to fly because it has small wings and a big body. But the bumblebee doesn’t know that it is impossible for it to fly, so it flies anyway!

The only one that ultimately keeps you from being great is YOU, and your limiting beliefs. Stop saying, “I can’t”, and start saying, ‘‘it’s impossible for me to fail,’’ and you, too, will do unbelievable things!

Visit my website at www.williejolley.com for free motivation and make this a great day!

“Who Needs a Boss” read the title to the story. The article went on to extol the virtues of team management. “The team”, as it has been called, has been dubbed the competitive weapon of the 1990’s.

While teamwork is essential to the accomplishment of most objectives, the success of any team is dependent on the quality of its leadership. Even the most talented team will not reach its potential without effective leadership.

While today’s management scholars hail the emergence of the “management team” as the productivity breakthrough of the 1990’s, they perhaps overlook the importance of leadership. A famous military leader understood the impact and importance of leadership on the performance of the team. General Pershing said, “A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops; while on the contrary, an incapable leader can demoralize the best troops.”

One need not look any further than current events to learn several valuable lessons about leadership. Events will eventually require that leaders make necessary, but sometimes unpopular decisions. The mantel of leadership can be a lonely burden to bear. It’s comforting to see the support that the President has received in recent weeks, but what would have happened if the first few days of the war hadn’t gone well?

One can look again to current events to see the impact of leadership styles on communications. News reports indicate that the Iraqi leadership is inclined to “kill the messenger” when the messenger brings bad news. This quickly contributes to an environment in which the boss hears only what he wants to hear, a situation not unique to middle eastern dictators. The impact on decision making is obvious and regrettable.

Effective leaders apply their skills with such apparent ease that they are often referred to as “born leaders”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Leaders become leaders through experience and hard work.

You acquire the ability to lead by taking a honest look at yourself. Hold yourself up to the standards that you admire in an effective leader. Examine your performance against those standards. Set objectives for your conduct in those areas that are important to your development as a leader. Begin by looking at some of the traditionally respected character traits of good leaders.

INTEGRITY. When you give your word, make sure you keep it. Your people are depending on you, don’t let them down. All your statements, official or casual, are considered to be true. Make sure they are. If you have made a mistake or created a false impression, don’t overlook it or be too proud to correct it. Credibility takes a long time to establish, but it can be erased in seconds, never to be regained.

KNOWLEDGE. Know your job. The charismatic school of leadership doesn’t get the job done over the long run. Most of us become reasonably expert at recognizing a phony, don’t be one. If you don’t know something, admit it. If it is important, go and find it out. Dis information and disillusionment are often distributed by well meaning individuals that “fake it” when they should have known better.

DECISIVENESS. When making decisions, get all the information that is available to you. Weigh all the facts and then issue your decision in clear and confident terms. We all need direction from our leaders. Don’t quibble over minor points and create ambiguities that will transfer responsibility to those who need direction. When you are wrong, say so. Everybody makes a mistake. The trick is not to make the same one twice.

FAIRNESS. Create an even playing field for those that work for you. Don’t play favorites. Keep anger and emotion out of your decisions. Give credit where credit is due. Recognize the hard work and good ideas of your employees and be grateful that you are associated with quality people. A lot has been recently written about executive perks from parking places to lunch rooms. True leaders get their satisfaction from a job well done and not by first feathering their own nest.

ENTHUSIASM. It is contagious. Put all that you have into the achievement of your objectives and others will follow. Display indifference and you will lead in the wrong direction. Your knowledge, interest and enthusiasm will inspire others more than any other single factor.

Your leadership will enable your team to reach its full potential.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again:

Envisioning and believing in your dream WILL make it happen!

When I was a little girl I had a recurring dream that an “office” came down from the sky and landed in my back yard. Inside was endless supplies of paper, pens, pencils, staples, buttons to push, and phones to chat on. I can still see this magical place clearly. When someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was a secretary.  In 1978, this was the only definition I had to fit a woman who played with pens and paper.

30 years later I know that being a secretary isn’t the game I want to play or my only choice. Throughout most of my 20s I was indeed a secretary, and a glorified and more creative version of one as I neared 30.  But for the past 17 years I have known – and told everyone freely – that I want to be a writer. Then I moved up to become an Aspiring Writer. Eventually, in the past year I have made the final transformation to Writer. I named myself, wrote it down, and it happened.

From the moment the family leaves the house for the day I am writing. I write, therefore I am a Writer!

When I worked in a cubicle, the daily monotony and lack of creativity dragging me into despair, I would daydream about the day when I would be sitting at my own desk. In this vision everyday was different, a different project – a little art, a little design, and a lot of writing. I was busy, happily busy. And pursuing my potential.

As I write these words I can say I am living my dream. Yes, the daily drudge is still close at hand (literally: Two overflowing laundry baskets taunt me from across the room) and bills have to be paid, screaming children corralled and hair tangles combed out. But no boss is waiting for me to show up for another day of torture.

And the best part: When you commit to your dream, it commits to you.

In the year that I finally admitted I was a Writer and the six months since I left my job these are the doors that have opened (both through networking and doing nothing at all other than just being authentic and a little help from good old Serendipity):

1. Three articles published in small ‘zine

2. One article published in local paper

3. Query accepted by major magazine

4. Taught numerous workshops

5. Lined up to teach workshops and training sessions at various non-profit organizations in coming year (with a number more in the works), including one which could extend to multiple school districts

6. Asked to become a ghostwriter for a marketing company

I tell you these things not to boast. I tell you to set myself as an example of someone who has long dreamed a dream, had a Purpose, and made it a reality. Of course it takes hard work too (getting out of the house at 6am on a frosty morning in order to drive to a meeting is not fun!) but the prize is living how you want to, seizing your potential by the hand and walking down your own path to the place where the grass is greener.

Most people don’t live life to the fullest because they have fear. They let fear rob them of life and the joys of living. I don’t want you to be reckless and foolish, but I do want you to take chances and challenge yourself. If you’re afraid to take some risks, you will never grow, never stretch and never reach your potential. Sometimes it may be painful, but there is no growth without pain. That’s why they’re called ‘growing pains’.

What would you think if you had a baby who was three years old and had not grown from infancy? You’d take the baby to the doctor. Or suppose the baby fell down once and just stopped trying to walk? You’d know there was something wrong because you know that without falling and getting back up, the baby would never learn to walk.

We cannot stop trying just because we fall or just because it is painful. Growth is painful, but it is necessary. This is a direct quote from the families of the astronauts who died in the tragic Challenger shuttle disaster: ‘‘Do not fear risk; all exploration, all growth is calculated. Life is filled with challenge. Only those who are will­ing to go after those challenges grow. Only if we are willing to walk over the edge can we become winners.’’ Remember, all things are possible if you can just believe.

Visit my website at www.williejolley.com for free motivation and make this a great day!

Nuggets from “As a man thinketh” by James Allen

2. Effect of thought on circumstances– PART-4

( Explanation to the 2^nd chapter of “As a man thinketh”)

The reason that “Sufferings” serve:

Suffering is always the result of wrong thought in some direction and when a man or woman is out of harmony or sync with himself or herself, which causes the bad circumstance.

As a result they suffer. Then what?

He or she becomes enlightened and goes to the next level in his/her life (if that person learns from it and changes or couldn’t tolerate the sufferings anymore and want a change badly), become pure like a gold.

Sufferings do teach one many life’s lesson of what not to do and how not to foster bad thoughts. And when one learns the lessons then the stage is set for his/her next journey in life.

When a man or a woman is rightly conditioned?

A person is rightly conditioned when he/she is happy, healthy and prosperous. This is a natural thing but unfortunately has become something like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow for majority of the population around the world today.

When your inner has become harmonious with your outer, then this is possible by all means.

When does a man or woman discover his or her endless potential and possibilities?

When a man or woman stop accuses the circumstance or anybody for the condition, uses the surroundings as an aid rather than seeing it as an obstacle starts to give himself or herself that sudden boost in his or her life.

He or she has altered his or her thoughts toward people and circumstance, and consequently has them altered toward him/her.

Thoughts develop into habits:

Thoughts cannot be kept secret—yes, you heard that right, thoughts cannot be kept secret!

You know what happens? Thoughts form into habit; habits results into ones circumstances.

If one has the habit of indulging in excess of alcohol, then the condition of disease and despair is sure to fall up on him or her.

Impure thoughts–>Enervating and confusing habits–> adverse circumstance

Beautiful thoughts or pure thoughts–> good and healthy habits–> favorable circumstances

So let a man or woman cease from his or her sinful thoughts and the entire world will become a heaven for him or her and is ready to help him/her.

Now, start burying your weakly and sickly thoughts. Encourage good thoughts irrespective of your external condition and people. Be steadfast on this and don’t move even as to an inch from this truth, for it will set you free and you’ll come out on top!!

Wish you all the riches to come with God’s blessings

Peter Anand

I am still experimenting with the diagram below, but as I was teaching the concept of translation in Harman’s Prince of Networks today, I found it to be a useful heuristic device for thematizing just what is new or interesting in Latour’s concept of translation. Scroll past the Scribd diagram for a bit of commentary.

Clearly I have adapted this diagram from Hjelmsleves model of the sign. All of us are familiar with the relation between the signifier and the signified in Saussurean linguistics (to the left). In naive theories of linguistic translation (NTTs), the idea is that the concept remains the same (content), while it is only the signifier (expression) that changes. There are any number of reasons that this concept of translation is mistaken. I outlined some of these shortcomings in a previous post, so I won’t repeat them here. Latour’s concept of translation is broader than that of translation as it applies to linguistics or the transposition of texts from one language to another. The key point to take home from his analysis– and he doesn’t spell these implications out himself –is not so much the fact that a translated text always differs from the text that it translates, but rather that the process of translation produces something new, regardless of whether the relation is between texts in different languages, conscious minds to world, or relations between objects. What Latour wishes to do, I think, is generalize the concept of translation, such that translation is no longer restricted to the domain of language, nor requiring the involvement of living beings of some sort, but rather involves any relations among actants, human or nonhuman, living or material.

Hjelmslev’s key innovation in the domain of linguistics and semiotics was to recognize that both the plane of expression (loosely the signifier) and the plane of content (loosely the signified) have a form and substance that can enter into different relations with one another. Here I am partially basing my analysis of Deleuze and Guattari’s treatment of Hjelmslev’s model of expression and content as developed in “The Geology of Morals” in A Thousand Plateaus. This discussion would require a far more developed analysis than I’m capable of giving at the moment. For those who are interested, it would be worthwhile to refer to DeLanda’s early work on this essay (here and a number of Delanda’s articles, podcasts, and talks can be found here), as well as the first chapter of A User’s Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Brian Massumi. While I don’t entirely share the ontological commitments of either of these thinkers, their works nonetheless provide some pointers in the direction I’m thinking.

read on!

Hopefully I’ll have more time to elaborate on the diagram above in the near future (I’m in a rush now), but to understand what’s at stake it’s helpful to take a brief detour through Aristotle’s four causes. I apologize for the inelegance of my diagrams. Hopefully my diagram of Aristotle’s four causes in the upper right hand corner of this paragraph (click to expand) will convey some of the sense of his sorting. The important point to keep in mind here is that Aristotle’s term “cause” (aition) is closer to what we might mean by “reason” than how we think of “causes” today. Each of the four causes is a way of answering the question of what and why a thing is. The efficient cause is therefore that by which something is produced. The material cause is that out of which something is produced. The formal cause is the structure or pattern of a thing. And the final cause is the goal or that for the sake of which something is produced. It will be noted that bisecting the four causes is a dotted line distinguishing what is potential (δύναμις) from what is actual (ἐνέργεια). If the material cause and the efficient cause are associated with potentiality, then this is because matter– for example clay –has the potential to take on many different forms through the agency of an efficient cause. Likewise, if form and finality are associated with actuality, then this is because structure or pattern (the formal cause) indicate that matter has taken on a determinate form, whereas something is actual when it reaches its goal or telos. I take it that these distinctions are well known, so I will not elaborate on them in greater detail here with the proviso that much more can and should be said.

Closely associated with the distinction between matter and form and potentiality and actuality is the distinction between passivity and activity. In a crude version of the Aristotlean schema matter is the passive principle and form is the active principle. Returning to the Saussurean schema of the sign under NTT (the naive theory of translation), the signified as the constancy of meaning is the form or active principle that in-forms the signifier or passive material of expression. This reveals another dimension of form: it is what remains constant or identical in all of its instantiations in matter. The role of matter is simply to take on form, without contributing anything to form beyond the mere instantiation of that form in an existent. Referring to another inelegant diagram in the left above (click to enlarge), we can call this the ontology of “sovereignity”. The sovereign can be anything from a king to a general to a father to God to a boss to a teacher. The sovereign functions as the efficient cause containing the form as an ideational structure (like an architect’s or engineer’s blueprint) that is then imposed on a passive matter. The key point here is that causation is conceived in a unidirectional fashion, passing from the sovereign and his blueprints to the passive matters to be in-formed.

It is now possible to discern the innovation in the adapted Hjelmslevian schema. In the relation between Actant1 and Actant2 there are arrows between the two schemas. These arrows indicate one actant acting upon another actant. It will be noted that both actants possess both a form (structure, pattern) and a substance (a “materiality” broadly construed). As Harman often puts it “there is no such thing as un-form-atted matter. In addition to each actant possessing a form and a matter, each matter contains both a content and an expression. Here content– and I need to say much more about this –can be understood as the other actants that an actant has “appropriated” to constitute itself as an actant, while “expression” can be understood as the manner in which the actant has “actualized” itself qualitatively at a particular point in time. In Harman’s language, content can be understood as the “withdrawn” being of an actant, while expression could be understood as the “sensuous vicar” by which this withdrawn being is expressed for another being. Why, then, the additional dimension of matter for each of these actants? Because in addition to the internal composition of each actant or its content (what I call the endo-consistency of a being which is roughly analogous to Suarez’s “substantial forms”), the being of any actant is infinitely decomposable into other actants or entities. With great caution we can refer to this “matter” as “hyper-chaos”, so long as we note that this hyper-chaos is structured and that its apparent “disorder” is only disorder from the standpoint of the structured being of a particular actant (more on this another time).

The diagram at the beginning of this post requires a great deal more commentary than I can give it here. The shift from the Aristotlean model where we have– at least in thought –pure unformed matter that is completely passive or a sort of “hyletic flux”, thereby requiring in-forming-ing from another actant to my adapted version of Hjelmslev’s model where all actants have both a form (structure, pattern) and a substance (formed matter) initially appears slight. However, if we refer back to Aristotle’s model the significance of this slight shift becomes apparent. If each actant involved in an inter-act-ion has form, then it follows that the actant receiving the action of another actant cannot merely be a passive matter taking on the form of the other actant (the ontology of sovereignity). Rather, because actant2 itself has form, structure, or pattern, it too is an active principle. Yet as an active principle it too must contribute difference. Yet, if this is the case, then it follows that the form of actant3– the outcome produced by the interaction of actant1 and actant2 –cannot merely be the instantiation of the form of actant1, but must instead be a “synthesis” of the forms of actant1 and actant2 producing something new through this inter-act-ion. A task and a critique are here announced at the ontological level. The critique would be a critique of all those vestiges of the ontology of sovereignity where some set of actants is treated as consisting merely of passive materials that take on the form of some other actant. The positive task would be to trace these imbrications of forms in inter-act-ion, investigating the manner in which they produce new forms as a result of the “struggle” between these forms. It now becomes clearly why the alternative ontology is a horizontal, flat, immanent, or networked. No longer can one actant stand apart from the rest imposing a unidirectional, form-bestowing causality on all the others. Rather, the so-called “sovereign” now becomes an actor in a field of actors where causality is bi-directionality and where form is a result of inter-act-ions among actants rather than an identity preserved across chains of inter-act-ions like a signified behind a signified that is in-different to its instantiations in other matters.

- Jo, jag undrar varför vi har mängder av mat i butikerna, resturangerna, fiken och våra hem, på samma gång som flera miljontals människor svälter… – på samma planet!? Det måste ha blivit fel i logistiken…

Den senaste tiden har jag tänkt och känt att jag behöver göra något aktivt, för att vara en del av lösningen; på att miljarder människor inte har tillräckligt med mat. http://www.hungerprojektet.se  är en stiftelse med projekt som stödjer och hjälper människor till självhjälp. Tycker att den verkar väldigt bra. Så om än så lite, ska jag nu börja stödja stiftelsen ekonomiskt varje månad, och ge dem gratis annonsering på http://www.hallbarlivsstil-webbmagasin.com/ Det känns bra att göra något aktivt. Då vet jag att jag är medskapare till en bättre värld… – Vad kan och vill du göra, för att vara medskapare till en bättre värld? Du gör säkert en hel del redan… Om du upplever att du vill göra mer, gör det! Om än så lite.

Drygt 960 miljoner människor lever i hunger från att de föds till sin ofta för tidiga död. Det är en sjundedel av världens befolkning. De flesta lever i Sydostasien och i Afrika söder om Sahara.

Människor går inte hungriga för att det råder brist på mat. Det produceras mer än tillräckligt med mat i världen för alla. Människor går hungriga för att de saknar möjligheter. Möjligheter att omsätta 16 timmars arbetsdag till pengar som räcker till deras basbehov. Hela 1,4 miljarder människor lever på mindre än 10 kronor om dagen. Pengar som ofta ska mätta en hel familj.

Källa: http://www.hungerprojektet.se/page.asp?id=19 

Det är bättre att göra något, än ingenting alls…

/Camilla

Something that I sometimes wonder about in relation to this study is the idea of destiny. The reason that anyone studies this particular unconfirmed field is to try to get a heads up  on a future which is already dead certain. What I mean by this is that somehow, there is a destiny which is already fact and that although our lives are only in the making, although our lives are incomplete and lacking at the moment, the idea that there is something definite in the future is tantalising and promising.

But, no matter how much I study, I will never fully “know” the future. I will never understand that I might be different at some future time, just as I had been different in the past. The scope of emotion that I have experienced in life, I would never have dreamed of in childhood. As a child there was no worry, no sadness, no disappointment, but those things came just as they come to all.

A chart though contains more potential than what is lived at the moment in which one looks at it. This is part of the reason for study. It´s the fact that you can find things that you would have never before dreamed of. There is more potential than what you are able to garner in one look. What is there in this life that is worth living for? What is there in the chart which makes this life worth living for? In part it requires you to remain open and unconscious about the possibilities, but in a like manner, cautious about the possible dangers. For there is the same possibility for harshness as there is for joy.

In some ways the stars appear to look a little like Heaven. According to the ancient Greeks, Heaven and Hell were in fact one place, and your life in the afterlife could be pleasant or it could be nasty, (carrying a large rock which always roles back, or carrying water with a sieve), depending on actions and deeds on Earth.

Let´s say though, for argument´s sake that there is no real afterlife, that for all purposes, this is the only life that we get. In this case, the Heavens are a kind of reflection of what´s going on down here. Only studying the paths of the demigods, (the planets) may give us clues as to the paths that we ourselves are likely to take. Heaven obviously does continue, and according to the ancient tradition, the gods, (though I don´t deny a prime mover), the gods as represented by the planets are in fact jealous of our mortality, because it makes our lives so much the more precious.

Our lives really are precious, in the case that there is only one life. But, what say, if your life is more like a tragedy? There is no chance at a replay. This is where I get stuck. This is where I find I can´t escape despite my best efforts. In one sense, it should then be our duty to have some faith, that all will eventually work out the way it ought to. Perhaps the fact that it is impossible to know all that a life contains from the start is another small aid in getting through the tough times.

What kind of life is rewarded? What kind of attitude is given happiness? The rewards that come to those that are of the nature of Mars are immediate, they are probably pleasurable and exciting, but they are gone just as fast, and the down side is that of danger. The rewards in life that come to those of the nature of Saturn or Venus will probably not be apparent at the beginning, it looks grim or shoddy, or inadequate, but it probably lasts right until the very end. With this view in mind it does not profit us to look at what other people get in life and compare notes or even try and garner what might be your own fate through similarity of planetary force.

Jupiter trine Venus persons might be incredibly lucky, they might have a permanent party, all of the friends they could wish for etc. etc. and this is cause of much misery for the Venus-Saturn person who must sit next door listening to other people having fun while contemplating the reasons for not being popular, for being a social reject. Bu perhaps in ten years time Saturn-Venus will have someone love them solidly, and permanently and despite all imperfection, while Jupiter is on the next empty and soulless relationship based on appearance and excess.

What does destiny say about the life as a whole rather than the life as viewed from the perspective of someone only interested in the “now”? IT is said that “God created Heaven and Earth.” In heaven we see the stars and planets, which in my opinion are what the ancients believed to be gods, and which in a sense are in fact forms of higher power, demigods perhaps. The final word though, the final word is that if there is a singular thought that runs through everything, then there can´t truly be anything that is bad, or rather there can´t be anything that isn´t pre-destined, or part of the plan and therefor it cannot be bad.

What is the meaning of the suffering that I go through now? Or that I went through two years ago? According to the stars it changed my attitudes in certain ways by being a transit to my third ruler. What was the meanin of that mental suffering? In one sense it was a stretching of the mental muscles. And it is a well known fact that muscles do not grow unless they are trained through the strenuous if not at times painful exercise. “No pain no gain…” A lot of people interested in the stars look at a transit and are glad that it´s over once it´s over and consider it as one would consider a tragic act of random fortune. I´ve stipulated here that there is no random act of fortune, because the stars are put there by God, whoever he may be, benevolent or not.

So what does this have to do with anything? It´s the idea of destiny, the idea of suffering the pains of life by “being good” in order to reap the rewards in the “afterlife” or more to my taste, the life which we haven´t yet lived, but which is definitely projectionable and visible on the horizon. To suffer loneliness will create the appreciation for company, not just the appreciation, but the desire and the need for partnership. To suffer stupidity or to suffer powerlessness will give rise to talent, to adaptability. The idea is not that the FATE of our lives is random, cruel and unprecedented, but that because it comes from one  mind, that there is reason behind the current suffering in whatever from it may take.

The things that are most lacked will be the things that are most compensated. It seems that humanity tilts itself in the opposite direction from where it is, whether it is instant or whether it takes years. It´s the idea that everything is not realised that is important to keep in mind. It´s what we don´t have now, and ask for and pray for that may be ours tomorrow or later on in the future. One of the steps towards this materialization is that of imagination, of thinking and creating a blueprint of what it is that you want to create. Persistence pays, this is why Saturn is associated with achievement, with things that last, with a very moderate amount of happiness each day for the rest of your life.

This dialogue isn´t finished yet, because the full extent of it´s possible realisation isn´t apparent and because the mind that has written it isn´t satisfied with the philosophical clarity which it is meant, or designed to bring. Part of it is a reason in order to have faith that the present time is how it is meant to be as a foundation for greater future things. Part of it is a reconciliation with the apparent seeming randomness of life. There is nothing random, and it is difficult to believe this. When as individuals we strive and struggle, it is impossible to think that those struggles are in fact destined in the same way that other things in life appear to be destined. When you feel pain, you do not accept that the pain is in fact part of the plan. Pain is inconceivable to be part of some divine plan, it´s practically incomprehensible. Though, as an argument it might be said that the birthpains of a mother make her realise that a child is serious business, and the pain is part of the reason for the protection she eventually gives.

There is more to this…

Angkor Wat

The Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta provinces of Kien Giang and An Giang will organize a tourism promotion program in Cambodia from December 7 to 9.

The event, to be held in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville, will showcase the images of the two provinces and HCM City and highlight HCM City’s tourism destinations.

Vietnamese travel firms will also have a chance to meet Cambodian authorities to seek investment in transportation, real estate, and tourism.

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Grown Folks music right here…Kinda reminds me of something Foreign Exchange would do…This is the latest single off of Baltimore native Jsoul’s upcoming album “The Black Sinatra”

“Potential”

I lost one of my best friends this week. She died in a car wreck. My friend Errin was a young woman with lots of goals many unrealized. Some of these goals we had in common i.e. to have retreats for people that were health focused and fun was one of them. I have had competing thoughts since I heard the news of her death; one she did not realize her full potential and the other she realized her full potential up to this point in her life. The later idea is winning out because Errin was a lifeaholic. Errin lived every moment of her life with passion and purpose. I am not sure we can ask for more than that. I am not saying she did not have more lessons to learn we all do until the day we die. I am saying that she continued to learn, grow and take risks until the moment she was gone. We may have lost an intelligent, compassionate, passionate, and beautiful person but we can learn from Errin to not miss out on a moment of our lives. She made many mistakes I know because we talked about them and she always learned from her mistakes and challenged her self to keep going, to improve.

At her funeral service it was more than evident that Errin had inspired hundreds of people and through them thousands will be inspired. What a life! Her father commented that Errin had lived as much in her short life as many ninety year olds. This is a good goal for all of us. Pursue your dreams even when you don’t know what they are yet. Question, probe and challenge yourself to become better, to become more of yourself, like Errin did. When you know what you want in life don’t stop, never stop until you have achieved your goal. There will be obstacles, road blocks and people blocks (i.e. your self). Get out of your own way, feel the fear and do it anyway.

Greta Jaeger is doing a seminar with Dr. Michael Duckett if you want more information about the Mental Codes Seminar please call (404) 259-1335. Tickets are selling fast so call now (404) 259-1335.

Please send any questions to:
greta@CoachingYourDreams.com
Please put in the subject line “Question for Coach Greta” or leave a comment on my blog and I will get back to you.

Greta Jaeger, LPC, PLC
www.CoachingYourDreams.com
greta@CoachingYourDreams.com
www.YouCanHaveItAll.WordPress.com

Struggle for potential Pt III
“There is a blessing in it”
Synopsis of sermon 11/15/09
1 Peter 4:12-13: 12Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: 13But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

The most difficult areas for us to deal with in life is with the sovereignty of God. It is the sovereignty of God that stretches most of us in here. Remember the Sovereignty of God reserves the right to do what he wants to do without giving us an explanation. This can stretch you, but God knows what he is doing. Sometimes God will allow certain things to happen in our lives simply to mature us. Look at Paul when God does not remove the thorn out of his flesh. God keeps it there and says that his (God’s) grace was sufficient. It was about Paul maturing. Paul says as a result that he will glory in his infirmity. Other times he will allow things to happen to make us examples of faithfulness. Look at how God dealt with Abraham. God used this principle regarding Abraham dealing with him sacrificing his son. Sometimes God will allow things to happen just to send the devil a message. God wants to remind the devil that he is in control and that God has his hands on his anointed. God will prepare a table for us in the presence of our enemies. God will keep us and protect us so the devil will know that they picked the wrong person. God has our destiny in his hands. Sometimes, it is hard to see how this experience with our trials will come back to bless us. It is hard to factor in how this will bless us. Know that if God allowed it, it will bless you. Often it is in hindsight that we see where the things that God allowed in this season came to bless you. It might be hard to see it while you are in it, but many people can testify that they thank God for what other people complain about!
It is important to put this text into context. Peter is writing to 1st Century Christians. This is the same Peter that Jesus drafted to be a disciple. This is the same Peter that walked on water and fell. This is the same Peter that pulled out his sword on the Roman soldiers when they came after Jesus. This was the same Peter that denied Jesus 3 times. Now if take look at the context at which 1 Peter 4:12-13 comes from, we will have to take at look at our biblical history where we would notice one leader of Rome named Nero. In 1864, this leader burned the city of Rome. This is a historical fact with theological implications. Nero was a renegade leader and he has aspirations to rebuild Rome in his own honor. The people of Rome are upset over this. They ask why Nero would burn Rome. They are losing their houses, their possessions, and temples of worship all because one man’s ego. Nero is a manipulator and he decides to use early Christians as scapegoats by spreading lies and blaming Christians for being responsible for the burnings that were taking place in Rome. As a result, this turns many people against Christians because they think they are responsible for these burnings and they began to call them cannibals because they would over hear them saying ”this is his body take and eat all of it and this is his blood take and drink” while they were taking communion. Now early persecutions begin against Christians because of this and Christians were set on fire. Nero would actually use them as human torches to light up his festivals. He takes Christians and crucified them upside down. He also would take Christians and tie wild animals around them and send them out in wilderness so they would be hunted by wild dogs. This was all because of one man’s’ egotistical plight. It is in this context where Christian’s are being set on fire, Christians being crucified upside down, and sent in the wilderness to be hunted by wild dogs that Peter pins this epistle and says thing it not strange concerning fiery trials which come to try you! Peter says rejoice because when his glory shall be revealed, you will have great joy. Some of you are going through something right now that has nothing to do with you. You are a victim of somebody’s egotistical plight and schemes, but know that God says whatever the enemy does in your life; God will make sure that you get a blessing out of it.

I. You must submit to the test.
1. Tests are a reality and so are trials. If you can’t change a thing, then you must deal with the thing; Remember the serenity prayer says Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. We know that in this life, we are going to have trials. Job 14:1 says1Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble. Psalm 34:19 says 19Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all. 2 Timothy 3:12 says 12Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. – If you are not experiencing trials or test, you ought to be nervous. This means you are not a threat to Satan. View persecutions as confirmation of what God is going to do in your life. The more the devil brings in your life it is an indication that God has a lot in store for your life. Tests are important and this is why Peter the apostle tells them that they must be ready and prepared for.
2. Test comes to:
a. Mold us -There are things resident in our life that will never come to pass, without God molding us. Ex-Kids will take Play Doh and press on it and mold it and do almost everything with it. Just like the Play Doh, it doesn’t matter if God presses on us as long as we remain in his hands.
b. Matures us-Some of us would not be reading this if it had not been for our trials.
c. Manifest us-God puts us on trail to get us to the next dimension. It is just like taking a class in school.
d. We must have the Right perspective. Just like in school, if we can pass this test, we know we can pass this class. We often look at the curriculum ahead of time to see how many test we will have during the class. Don’t curse God for the tests. Know that you are in a university for adversity.
e. We experience Rigorous preparation- You will have to focus for the test. You have to study and you have to be willing to miss going out when everyone else does. Your Pastor is only an instructor, but you have to open the book for yourself. Your Pastor can’t give you all the answers on just Sunday morning. You have got to study. Ask this question, “Why can’t people pass an open book test?”
f. Must be ready to perform.
g. We must be Resolved to pass-We are determined that we will pass this test. We are coming out!
h. We will Receive promotion-God doesn’t promote based on tenure. God can’t promote you until you pass some test.

II. You will have substance in your testimony
1. Many of us want a testimony minus the test. The revelation is there are some things you need to get. 1 Peter 4: 13b says we must be partakers of Christ’s suffering. 13But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings;
2. If we don’t suffer with him, we can’t rein with him 2 Timothy 2:12: 12If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: – If we deny Christ, he will also deny us: We hate on people who are blessed, but we don’t know what they have been through. God said he is willing to put his reputation on the line through us. Look at Job and all the loss he went through. God told the devil if anyone will bless him (God), it will be Job. Job doesn’t even know this conversation is going on. The same conversation may be going on over you right now. The devil intensifies his attack on Job, but job says though he slays me, yet he will trust him. Some people understand that they are a testimony in the making. You move from testiphony to real full fledged testimony. Some people wonder who are those who have this true testimony? Well the answer is simple. Let the redeemed of Lord say so!

III. This will stretch your theology.
1. Theology is the study of God. When the glory shall be revealed, found in the c portion of text, God wants to prove the power of experiential knowledge. 1 Peter 4:13c: When his glory shall be revealed, we may be glad also with exceeding joy.
2. We don’t know God like you should, but because our experience in him his growing, our knowledge expands every day. Philippians 3:10: 10That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made comfortable unto his death; -We have to go through some stuff, to get to know him. The challenge with our theology is that it has been held hostage by ecclaostoloy. Ecclesiology is indoctrinated upbringing. This is why some people can’t experience God out of their denomination. Their theology is held hostage as a result of the ecclesiology. You don’t’ believe God can turn a situation around. God says, he is trying to get our theology to transcend the ecclesiology. God gives you your own set of expererinces so you can say you are bigger than your theology. You don’t believe, until you see Gods power for yourself. God takes us through test to expand our theology.
3. Why does Peter call it fiery trial. Maybe it was Peter who saw a Christian being set on fire and was so horrified, he pinned this text for encouragement. We don’t’ know for sure, but the scripture strongly uses the word fiery. This word must have some relevance. Fire and heat are synomounous. Where there is heat, there is fire. Fire and heat are necessary if they are properly regulated. Without being properly regulated, fire couldn’t burn. The delicate balance is of importance. Ex-When you took a shower this morning, you didn’t take a cold shower. You turned on the heat, so it would be regulated so that it would bless you. When you got up and cooked and put fire to the food, you properly regulated the heat on the burner so that the food was cooked and not burned. You ironed your clothes and the heat properly regulated so that it wouldn’t burn your clothes. Some sister today can thank God the hot curling iron was regulated so you could have a blessed hairdo. Properly regulated heat has a blessing in it, if there is a balance. God put the sun on the proper axis. If it had been placed too far away, we would freeze. If it had have been placed too close, we would have we burn up. Shedrack, Meshack, and Abednego was placed into the fiery furnace and the heat was turned up twice its normal temperature, but God regulated the heat. He didn’t bring them out; he regulated the heat so they could stand it. God does us the same way. God might not bring us out of the fiery trail, but he will regulate the heat so that we can stand it. You think it will hurt you, but know that it is properly regulated.
4. Why does the trial come? There are some members that go thru the fiery trials and they don’t understand why. The gold smith said he must place the gold in the fire to take out the impurities. Like gold, there is some mess or impurities in your life that only the fiery trial can get out. Just because the impurities are off of you, it doesn’t mean God won’t put you in the fire. Don’t miss this blessing. Like gold, he keeps us in there and then he takes us out. The blacksmith takes the gold in and out until the gold his pure enough that he can see his reflection in it. God is just like the blacksmith. He says he will tell us when we are ready. Just like the blacksmith, when God sees his image in us, he takes out. God will keep you in there until your praise looks like him.

Take my rights…I’m a potential terrorist and my teddybear too #I_Quoted_U

Without goals, our lives are like a ship without sails.  The winds of potential blow strong against our mast but with no sail to capture the energy we are left stationary, floating quietly with no command over the direction the waves push us.

Having goals allows us to hoist our sails high into the air and in an instant we are skipping across the surface of the water.  Our sails are filled with energy from the wind and our eyes are focused on the sliver of land that has just peaked out from the ocean blue.  Our destination comes into focus and as we arrive upon the shore we have learned a powerful lesson; if we create goals and harness our ambition & passion, we will realize our dreams.

If we are ships upon the sea with no focus or direction, what can we do to raise our sails and capture the wind?

Something I don’t spend much time discussing is the power of long-term goals.  My list of 100 Goals consists mostly of milestone accomplishments, things that once accomplished can be crossed off the list.  Crossing a goal off the list is a moment of satisfaction; knowing that I’ve done something great and meaningful in my life but once that goal is crossed off, it is done.  The moment has passed & I am looking forward to the next milestone that I can work towards accomplishing.

While I wouldn’t change any of the experiences I’ve had in using this method to accomplish my goals, the question that begs to be answered is this: “What happens when I have accomplished everything I want to do in my life?  What will I be left with?”

The answer is to have a Master Plan; a series of successive goals that will ultimately lead to what we envision our Perfect Life to be.  A Master Plan requires knowing where you want your life to be and figuring out a way to get there from where you are today.   It requires you to be proactive and take intentional steps in order to make your plan a reality.  It requires discipline, determination and flexibility.

Creating Your Master Plan

Too often we find ourselves ignoring our dreams of a Perfect Life because we tell ourselves that they are not grounded in reality.  Before we allow our desires to blossom into anything more than a passing thought, we stifle ourselves.  We are blocking our own success and happiness.  There will always be a reason why we “can’t” do something and now it is time to ignore those excuses and begin to create your Master Plan.

Close your eyes and envision your Perfect Life.  What do you see?  Are you working with panda bears in a sanctuary?  Are you backpacking the Appalachian Trail?  Maybe you are relaxing in your backyard drinking lemonade watching your children playing on the swing set.  No matter what you see, you have found your destination.  Now it is time to figure out how you will get there.

Usually at this point you would push your dreams aside with thoughts of “reality”, all the reasons why you are unable to pursue your dreams.  I want you to consider all of these excuses about why you can’t follow your dream but I need you to change your perspective.  Instead of using them as reasons why you can’t follow your dream, think of them as challenges to beat.  Don’t use them as an excuse any longer.  Use them as motivation.  Instead of feeling overwhelmed, find a way to overcome these challenges.  Your plan should be ambitious yet realistic.

The next phase in accomplishing your Master Plan is to figure out what steps you must take in order to position yourself to make your dream possible.  Will your Perfect Life require a career change?  Do you need to further your education? If your Perfect Life requires you to get a degree or certificate, enroll in classes, even if that means taking one class a semester for the time being.  If you need to change your career, start submitting resumes and begin networking with people who are in the field that you want to break into.  Prepare to Quit Your Job.

Ultimately, your Master Plan is about having a long-term goal to pursue while using short-term goals as a means for making progress towards your Perfect Life.  A Master Plan is not something that happens overnight.  My own Master Plan has been in the works for nearly 5 years, and I am only now really beginning to fully understand what it is that I want in my own life.  Progress is slow but steady and each day is a new opportunity.  Today is your opportunity to make a change in your life, an opportunity to start working towards your Perfect Life.  No more excuses, no more hesitation.  Today is the first day of the rest of your life.  You decide what that means for you.

Until each leader can face his/her own inner doubts and fear of reprisal, all attempts at leadership will fail in the face of conflict.  

ex⋅cep⋅tion⋅al [ik-sep-shuh-nl]

“Extraordinary, uncommon, noteworthy, remarkable, special, unique, unprecedented.”

What will you do today that is exceptional?

Lately I’ve been thinking about potential.  How much of it can one tap into in a lifetime.  Recently the thought of going to Seminary has returned to my mind causing me to ponder this possibility of higher education.  If it just happened once, I wouldn’t give it a second thought, but it returns like a stray animal that you’ve given food.  It always comes back.  It sits at my doorstep and peers inside the window as if to say, “I know you’re in there.” It sits there, looking in the window, prompting me to acknowledge its presence.

If I were to return, to acquire knowledge….the application of which leads to wisdom.  What does the Bible say? Proverbs says the Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. We are to seek knowledge, obtain it.  I return to potential.  It sits within, unreleased.  Like a fault line underneath the Earth. If it moves, it could change the entire landscape of everything above.  So is potential. It is locked inside waiting for release.  What would it change, and in what size and scope?  The thought of wasted potential is a dreadful one.  That is not a good risk to take….wasting potential. This is dangerous in my estimation.  What danger is there in wasting the potential that has been given?

What are you doing with your untapped potential?

Det slår mig gång på gång – att när jag fokuserar på tacksamhet känns livet mycket rikt.

Det kan vara så enkelt som att jag vaknar på morgonen och inom mig tackar för; att jag har en säng att sova i, ett täcke att ha om mig och en mjuk kudde att luta huvudet på.

Sådana saker som vi kanske tar för givet, är inte givet.

Det är inte en självklarhet att ha en säng, ett täcke, en kudde, värme och mat. Och det här med mat… En insikt kan ta flera år på sig att fördjupas. Oftare och oftare slår det mig att alla människor faktiskt inte har tillgång till att bli mätta, flera miljoner människor lever dagligen i svält, och här har vi mat i överflöd.

Jag behöver ta reda på hur jag kan engagera mig aktivt (om än så lite), för att på något sätt bidra till att fler människor har tillgång till mat. Jordens och naturens resurser tillhör alla. Tänk att det någon gång i historien uppstod att en eller flera sa att de ägde marken, och att männiksor skulle betala till dem för att få mark. Egentligen kan ingen äga mark eller naturresurser. Naturen äger sig själv och vi kan få ta del av dess gåvor, men egentligen kan vi inte äga marker eller natur…

/Camilla

 www.hallbarlivsstil-webbmagasin.com

Mikhail sent me the following post in email, giving me permission to post it if I so desire. I think it gets at a number of important differences and assumptions, so it might be of general interest to others. Following Mikhail’s post you will find my reply. I hope others interested in the realism/anti-realism debate and OOO take the time to read through the post as I think some key points are made here, as well as some arguments potentially central the epistemological grounds of OOO and why the “speculation” of OOO is not simply “making things up”. Basically I rehearse Roy Bhaskar’s argument for transcendental realism, trying to show why I think that epistemological questions can’t properly be resolved without robust realist ontological claims. However, there’s an important caveat here. While I’m strongly inclined to endorse the form of Bhaskar’s transcendental argument for ontological realism, I am more circumspect about the ontological claims he is making. In other words, it is possible to endorse much of the reasoning that leads Bhaskar to the conclusion that we can know something of mind-independent objects that exist regardless of whether anyone knows them, while rejecting the specifics of this ontology on the grounds that it is inadequate.

I think this particular exchange is not about SR/OOO/OOP or anything that has been discussed so far, it’s an old philosophical issue and this is why I think it is important to address as it seems to underlie
many of the disagreements. I’d like to begin with some very basic issues before going any further. You write:

“In my view this position undermines the possibility of any fallibilism so we’re left without the means of determining why we should choose one theory over another.”

This is important. Now just because a position undermines a certain possibility does not mean that it is wrong, just that it is inconvenient. I hope we agree on that. Therefore, say, if skepticism has a good argument, we cannot simply say that if we accept that argument we will be deprived of certain possibilities. I take your observation to mean more than just an expression of preference – if we cannot have an access to the world, we cannot have a true theory of it, because it’s neither true not false and cannot be shown to be
either true or false. I agree.

Now let’s slow down here a bit and see what’s going on. As you say, this is not a real point of disagreement, it’s just a statement and it has consequences. This is going to be very primitive not because I’m being condescending, but because I found of late that most of the disagreements seem to be about very small things we overlook because we think of ourselves (I mean myself primarily) as having long overcome these problems. It seems to me that you are affirming a kind of duality: there’s a level of the world and there’s a level of the mind (the theory of that world) – am I correct in reading you this way? An immanent “inside” and a transcendent “outside” – of course, as we both know from Descartes/Kant, we need a
“third” level, a point from which one can compare the two – the world and its theoretical description – and declare it to be adequate. Let’s reject Descartes’ solution and forget about God or anything that’s
truly “outside” and stick with Kantian types of solution that places that “third” on some transcendental level.

read on!

Actually, I don’t even want to name names here as it is bound to cause friction in terms of how we
read this or that philosopher. Let’s just say that there must be a third point from which we can compare the world and its theory – do we agree on this point? If we don’t, I’d like to hear your take on this.
If we do, then the obvious question is not that of realism/anti-realism, that is to say, not whether the world is out there and can/cannot be known, but whether if it is accessible, then what of it is accessible and how do we know that what we access is part of the world and not part of our own mind. That is to say, I’m
realist if realism is a simple postulation that the world is out there (barely anyone I know isn’t a realist in this sense). The issue at hand is the possibility of the only true theoretical representation of that world which I claim is impossible and you seem to claim is possible. Can we begin here for now?

Let’s me say a quick aside about epistemology/ontology. I think I see your point about collapsing the two, even though I don’t think I could ever be accused of doing it, but of course that’s my perspective. If I
understand the issue here, epistemology preceding ontology annoys you because of its certain counterfactual or counterintuitive move to ask questions of the conditions of possibility of something that seems to be very much there and possible. In a sense, it’s a stepping back from what we are doing while the task is precisely to stay in that what is being thought – stepping out, even if for a couple of epistemological
questions, ruins the effort. At this point, I’m willing to set the epistemological questions aside – that is to say, although my above observations seem to suggest that I’m interested in “knowing how you
know” if your theory corresponds to the real world, I’m asking the question not from a transcendental epistemological position (“let’s take a break and look into the knowing apparatus before we do
anything”), or some sort of methodological position, but from a simple procedural point of view. That is to say, I affirm that we never really are “outside” of anything, but are always “inside” both mind
and world, if you will (this, of course, makes any outside/inside distinction collapse, it’s all immanent).

If epistemological questions are preparatory questions, I’m willing to set them aside and affirm
that since we are already in the world and already have all sorts of theories about it, and we cannot leave it to ask epistemological questions (although we don’t necessarily have to, at least according
to Kant), we must proceed with questions of ontology. At least this is how I’m reading your complaints about epistemology/ontology. This is just as aside, if we disagree here as well, it might slow down the
discussion even more which is fine with me, I’m on Thanksgiving break.

I appreciate the effort Mikhail made in this email. I’m extremely tired as I only got two hours of sleep last night, so hopefully I’ll make some sense in my response.

I do not feel that I’ve ignored the basic issues as Mikhail suggests, but rather have carefully worked through these issues. Above Mikhail proposes a model of mind-world relations drawing on the spatial figures of the inside and the outside. His premise is that our minds are characterized by interiority or “inside-ness” and the world is outside. In my terminology, the mind is here treated as immediate, while our relationship to the world is mediated. Put differently, the relationship of mind to itself is here treated as immanent, while the world is treated as transcendent. From this it follows that we can only have access and certainty about our minds, never about the world. The question of knowledge becomes that of how we can get out of our “bubble”.

Much of my book, Difference and Givenness, is devoted to contesting this model of mind, though not in the way one might expect. This is particularly the case with chapter 7. My thesis is not that we have immediate access to the world, but rather that our access to ourselves is itself mediated. In other words, we no more have a direct relationship to our own minds than we have to the objects of the world. Put differently yet again, we are transcendent to ourselves. I won’t here rehearse all the arguments for this claim, but merely reiterate it to point out that I do not share the first premise Mikhail proposes.

If it is true that our relationship to ourselves is mediated or that we don’t have direct or incorrigible access to our own minds, it follows as a consequence that there is no reason to claim privileged access to our relationship to our own minds over our access to objects. In other words, the epistemological problem of access is not restricted to that of how we can have access to the world, but arises in exactly the same way with respect to the question of how we can have access to ourselves.

Mikhail seems to hold the view that I reject epistemology or do not raise epistemological questions. I do not think this is true. My thesis is rather different: we cannot have an adequate epistemology without making ontological considerations. Here my argument, following Bhaskar, is transcendental and is driven by an examination of the actual practices involved in knowing the world. Following good Kantian transcendental methodology, the question here is “what must the world be like for knowledge to be possible?” The question here is a transcendental question insofar as it seeks after conditions that would render our knowledge praxis intelligible. However, it differs from Kant’s transcendental idealism in that where Kant asks “what must our minds be like for synthetic a priori propositions to be possible”, this position asks what the world must be like for knowledge to be possible. In other words, it is a question about ontology, not our minds. The thesis is that an adequate epistemology requires an answer to certain ontological questions.

Like Kant’s transcendental arguments, it begins from the premise that we do have knowledge of certain things in the world and independent of mind. For Kant it was an uncontroversial fact that mathematics and Newtonian physics are instances of knowledge. The question then became that of determining what mind must be like for this form of knowledge to be possible. It differs from Kant in that it asks what the world must be like for this knowledge to be possible. In the domain of the sciences, a question closely related to this is the question of why the practice of experimentation in the sciences is necessary.

Now the move I am making, following Bhaskar (wish I could claim credit for these arguments), is controversial so it requires some justification. We are entitled to ask “Why is it necessary to make this move through ontology to answer the knowledge question of epistemology? Doesn’t this simply beg the question by claiming to know before we’ve answered the epistemological question?”

Here is the reason why I believe this move is justified. In outlining certain points about Kant and Hume I am not trying to patronize Mikhail or suggest he is unfamiliar with these things, but to trace out the line of thought. It is necessary to backtrack a bit through the history of philosophy to see the problem. Hume tried to reduce questions of being to questions of sensation or experience. Everything had to be traced back to experience. For Hume causality is just a constant conjunction of sensations. Kant shared Hume’s premise that there is no knowledge apart from sensibility, but noted that sensibility alone could never give us the idea of necessity. Paraphrasing Kant’s famous statement, “while it is true that all knowledge begins with experience, and that knowledge is impossible apart from experience, it does not follow that all knowledge arises from experience.” If we want to understand why experience or sensation alone is inadequate for grounding the relations of necessity asserted in causal judgments, we need only look at the logic of the lower portion of Aristotle’s square of opposition. Quite frankly I’m shocked that it took nearly two thousand years after Aristotle developed the square of opposition for philosophy to arrive at Hume’s skeptical conclusions.

From the observation that sensation alone cannot ground relations of necessity in causality, and that experience is all we have to go on, he inferred that the idea of necessity comes not from sensibility but is contributed by mind. Like Hume, Kant holds that causality is a constant conjunction of sensations. Unlike Hume, he argues that minds contributes the category of causal necessity that links these sensations. The thesis that judgments of causality are judgments about the constant conjunction of sensations is positivism.

Here’s the problem: The concept of causality and knowledge producing practices become incoherent if causality is understood as a constant conjunction of sensations. This for three main reasons:

First, outside of astronomy we very seldom encounter a constant conjunction of sense-events, yet we still hold that causal relations are functioning in the world unobserved. Sex, for example, doesn’t inevitably lead to conception, but without sex (setting aside artificial insemination) conception cannot take place. Antibiotics don’t inevitably get rid of an infection, but we still hold that antibiotics have the power to kill infections. If we take seriously the thesis that causal claims are constant conjunctions of sense-events we would be forced to reject the thesis that sex, antibiotics, and many things besides have causal powers.

Second, many events are constantly conjoined in experience, but we hold that they do not possess a causal relation to one another. I get up before the sun rises and make a cup of coffee for myself. The sun then rises. Why am I not led to the conclusion that making coffee causes the sun to rise? It might be argued that I do not assert a causal relation here “because there have been occasions where you haven’t made coffee before the sun rises, yet the sun still rose.” However, returning to our first problem with positivism or the thesis that causality is a constant conjunction of sense-events, we see this doesn’t work. Why? Because the failure of a consequent to occur after the antecedent occurs is not grounds for rejecting a causal relation. The antibiotic is taken (antecedent) and the sickness does not go away. Yet we do not, on these grounds, arrive at the conclusion that there is no relation between the antecedent and the consequent. In short, the positivist theory of causal relations doesn’t allow us to distinguish genuinely related sense-events from unrelated conjunctions of sense-events. This is true even under the Kantian model.

Third, the thesis that causal statements are simply constant conjunctions of sensations does not explain why scientific experimentation is necessary. If causality is a constant conjunction of sensations then the idea of engaging in experiments in a controlled and isolated setting makes little or no sense. What would be gained from such a strange activity?

Bhaskar’s thesis is that the problem with the empiricist thesis is that it conflates causality with sense-experience, when in fact, the two are very different things. Recall the first argument: it is possible for antecedents to occur without the consequent occurring, yet for there to still be a causal relationship between the two terms. What is being said here? In our practice we are saying that the causal mechanism is independent of 1) whether or not we experience its consequent, and 2) whether or not the consequent takes place as an event in nature.

In other words, we have three terms: The causal mechanism, natural events that may or may not be experienced by anyone, and experiences. The sense-data empiricist tries to collapse the first two into the third. The problem is that if we do this we are unable to explain 1) how it is possible for something to exercise its causal powers without producing the accompanying natural event, and 2) how it is possible for something to exercise its causal powers without us experiencing it. In other words, this model, according to Bhaskar, fails to distinguish the real, the actual, and the empirical, instead trying to collapse the other two into the third.

Here we can finally return to the question “why is scientific experimentation necessary?” Bhaskar’s answer to this question spins on a distinction between open and closed systems. According to Bhaskar, if it is possible for 1) an antecedent to be triggered without being actualized in a natural event, or 2) an antecedent to be actualized in experience without producing the consequent event, then this is because most causal mechanisms function in open systems where other causal factors intervene, overdetermining the event. As a result, the other causal factors prevent the causal mechanism from actualizing itself in a natural event or an experience for an observer. This is the reason, contends Bhaskar, that it is necessary to engage in experimental activity. Experiment creates a closed, artificial system allowing the inquirer to trigger the causal mechanism to determine what consequent it produces without the intervention of other causal mechanisms.

So returning to Bhaskar’s question “what must the world be like for knowledge to be possible?” we now have a thumbnail sketch of an answer to this question. First, it is necessary to distinguish between the real, the actual, and the sensed. Second, it is necessary to distinguish between causal mechanisms, natural events, and sense-events. Third it is necessary to distinguish between open and closed systems. The ontological dimension of Bhaskar’s epistemological problem lies in the transcendental claim that the condition under which science is possible is the existence of causal mechanisms that can function or act without producing a corresponding natural event or consequent. It is only on these grounds, argues Bhaskar, that 1) our engagement in scientific experimentation, and 2) our claim that certain entities like antibiotics have causal powers even when they fail to successfully cure illness are intelligible or coherent. Experiment creates a controlled and isolated environment in which causal mechanisms can be triggered without the interference of other causal mechanisms. When or if these mechanisms are found they are then accorded the status of “transfactuality”, which is to say they are treated as functioning in the ordinary world of open systems even when they do not actualize themselves in an event.

These are specifically ontological claims about the nature of the world, not epistemological claims about how we come to know the world. Without these ontological claims, argues Bhaskar, we can’t render our epistemology intelligible.

Before wrapping this up there are two crucial points to be made:

First, the ontological claim that causal mechanisms exist and that it is possible for causal mechanisms to act without being actualized in a natural event makes no claim as to what causal mechanisms exist. In addition to the existence of these causal mechanisms, Bhaskar argues that these mechanisms must be differentiated, structured, and stratefied (more on that another time). Finally, he argues (and this gives Harman fits because he’s an actualist, I’m not sure where I shake down on this issue though I tend towards potentialism) that these causal mechanisms must have powers (capacities, “able-to-do’s”) that can go unactualized. The discovery of what causal mechanisms exist, their differentiation, their structure, and their stratification is the responsibility not of philosophy, but of actual experimental inquiry. All the transcendental argument purports to demonstrate is that causal mechanisms exist (because knowledge exists) and that these causal mechanisms are mind-independent and continue to function regardless of whether any human perceives them.

Second, within the domain of experimental inquiry the claim that such and such an entity is a causal mechanism is not infallible. It can turn out that subsequent inquiry shows that such and such a claim that “x is a causal mechanism” was, in fact, mistaken. All the transcendental realist is committed to is that causal mechanisms exist and can function without being actualized in natural events. He is not committed to the claim that specific knowledge-claims about causal mechanisms are infallible or that we have direct access to these mechanisms. Getting at the causal mechanisms is, for Bhaskar, hard work. It requires the laborious construction of closed systems that allow for the causal mechanism to be triggered, producing both a natural event and a sensible event independent of intervening causal mechanisms in open systems where the contribution of the causal mechanism being sought is ordinary disguised or mute in its functioning.

Here I think we get at one of the central failings of traditional epistemologies. For whatever reason they begin from the premise of a passive observer that simply has sensations that it links in some way or another. What is missing in this intellectualist model of knowledge acquisition is the work it takes to produce salient experience. Basically, what is missed is the crucial role that the fact that we are embodied (and therefore ourselves causal agents), that we act on the world, that we use instruments to trigger these mechanisms, and that we carefully build closed systems to trigger events. But here’s the central point: We strive to create closed systems that allow us to trigger the causal mechanisms we’re searching for, but no system is entirely closed and subsequent experimental inquiry might reveal that there were intervening causal mechanisms that led us to misinterpret the triggers. In other words, Bhaskar’s position is fallibilist, allowing for the possibility of error.

Alright, that’s enough for now. What do you all think? I’m still working through Bhaskar’s arguments myself, but I confess I find them deeply appealing and convincing.