Celui qui veut être aimé ne désire pas l’asservissement de l’être aimé. Il ne tient pas à devenir l’objet d’une passion débordante et mécanique. Il ne veut pas posséder un automatisme. [...]
Mais, d’autre part, il ne saurait se satisfaire de cette forme éminente de la liberté qu’est l’engagement libre et volontaire. Qui se contenterait d’un amour qui se donnerait comme pure fidélité à la foi jurée ? Qui donc accepterait de s’entendre dire : « Je vous aime parce que je me suis librement engagé à vous aimer et que je ne veux pas me dédire ; je vous aime par fidélité à moi-même. » ? Ainsi l’amant demande le serment et s’irrite du serment. Il veut être aimé par une liberté et réclame que cette liberté comme liberté ne soit plus libre. Il veut à la fois que la liberté de l’Autre se détermine elle-même à devenir amour — et cela, non point seulement au commencement de l’aventure mais à chaque instant — et, à la fois, que cette liberté soit captivée par elle-même, qu’elle se retourne sur elle-même, comme dans la folie, comme dans le rêve, pour vouloir sa captivité. Et cette captivité doit être démission libre et enchaînée à la fois entre nos mains. Ce n’est pas le déterminisme passionnel que nous désirons chez autrui, dans l’amour, ni une liberté hors d’atteinte mais c’est une liberté qui joue le déterminisme passionnel et qui se prend à son jeu.

Sartre, L’Etre et le Néant

By Amateur Philosopher Penny Ham

If any of you are familiar with the continental and analytic divide in philosophy, then you probably know by now that analytic philosophy is the shit. No wonder so many continental philosophers are so opposed to analytic philosophy – they naturally hate what they do not understand. Continental philosophers and existentialists like to ramble on about empirically unverifiable terms all day. For instance, I was thinking just a little while ago about purpose and other such existential/continental philosophy themes. But then I realized that the proposition “I have created my own purpose” is meaningless since there are no possible state of affairs where such a statement can be empirically falsified or empirically verified. So obviously to ask “do I have purpose?” is seeking meaningless answers. But maybe if you think of purpose as a kind emergent state of physical processes, then maybe we’re getting somewhere. As long as we can give a good physicalist description of each existential term that we use, progress can be made.

In the mean time, however, why should we be concerned by such meaningless things as existentialism when discussing the notion of free will or determinism? The answer is that we shouldn’t concern ourselves with existentialism since it’s a waste of time. We needn’t look any further than W.V.O Quine’s statement: “all philosophy is philosophy of science.” Does purpose, despair, human futility have anything to do with that? No. Therefore, such discussions of existential terms, unless they’re explained and defined in terms of a physicalist description, can only be called “literature” and not philosophy. Poor literature if you ask me.

Existentialists and continental philosophers would really solve a lot of their own problems if they just used symbolic logic. I think one thing that makes me happier more than anything is to think of a world in which everything can be explained symbolic logically. Like I could just go through a modus ponens-like proof and deduce everything I so desire. That would be awesome. Also, in this world, every city is built with a Cartesian coordinate plane set up. In this world, when you ask set-theoretically, where to find the mall, a person could tell you the (x,y) coordinates in set-theoretical terms. Also streets wouldn’t have names, they would just have a function description like “f(x) = 5.” Do you know how cool that would be?

What’s more, in this ideal analytic philosophy world the President’s inaugural address should contain some symbolic demonstrative proof of something. Cars would run on books written by continental/existential philosophers (this would solve the oil depletion problem). The existential/continental philosophy books would be used not because the books were prohibited from being read by people in that society but because people in that society couldn’t find any other use for them. They deserve some use, right? In fact, continental philosophers would benefit greatly from having their books used as fuel. That way they’re all happy and despairing.

Alejandro Rojas ha subido a la web de www.filosofiaenmalaga.net resúmenes de las dos primeras sesiones del Seminario sobre La verdad de los Jóvenes Filósofos de Málaga.
Aquí está la web:

http://www.filosofiaenmalaga.net/primerasesion.htm

Time is winding down on our course, and it keeps popping up in our reading selections. Nietzsche, whose “eternal recurrence” thought experiment invites personal reflection on one’s own meaningful relation to past, present, and future, raises the subject this time, and Sartre (remember Mrs. Premise and Mrs. Conclusion and their excellent adventure?) chimes in with his claim that since “existence precedes essence and we will to exist at the same time as we fashion our image, that image is valid for all and for the entire epoch in which we find ourselves.” Time is nothing, we are nothing, until we act and choose. But when we do, we create something we can’t run away from. Scary, and– as previously noted (“renunciation“)– not so happy. Recall, too, his distinctively French- intellectual disdain for the distinctively American “myth of happiness” and Americanism generally.  Robert Solomon says Sartre said he never had a real moment of despair in his life. Huh. It was all affected, then. Sounds like “bad faith,” doesn’t it? But “Jean-Paul Sartre is currently dead,” authentically an object without possibilities. So let him be.

We’ve noted the views of at least two Taylors, Richard and James, and of Philip Zimbardo. Is time even real? Well, aging feels real enough. When time passes slowly it feels oppressively real, and when it “flows” it feels unbearably light. “Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in,” said Thoreau. Meaning?

Meaning, I suppose, that we experience time as a condition of meaningful, happy-making activity. So it’s as real as happiness, happiness is as real as time, and both are real-as-experienced. We need time to unfold our projects, construct our relationships, and enjoy our lives. When we succeed, we experience them and it together as a subjective unity that closes the loop on each episode of expectation. A closed loop is a moment in time– which may or may not correspond to a conventional moment as measured by our clocks and calendars– that represents fulfillment or (in Dewey’s language of everyday aesthetic experience, and in Nietzsche’s of self-overcoming, in the clip below) consummation. Enough moments like that will make some of us describe ourselves as happy, whether or not Aristotle would approve.

For Dewey, btw, the thing about time is not that it’s not really  real, but that it’s not just yours and mine: it’s ours. It’s the stream humanity goes a-fishing in. We still have our consummations as individuals, but our largest meanings embrace the “continuous human community.” When we affirm our place in that pan-temporal community, our inescapably-subjective relation to time trades the worst vestiges of misanthropic narcissism for the more sympathetic angels of our nature: social solidarity and species identity. My time then is your time, and our kids’ time, and theirs, and… and aren’t we glad we had this time together?

Does it help, though, to live now and into the always-cresting now of what was the future just a moment ago, to  excise big chunks of the past? Nietzsche (among many others) said happiness requires living in the now. How forgetful must we be, to accomplish that? Must we aspire to the “blissful blindness” of childhood, the animal (“dog-like”) spontaneity of the Cynic, (IEP) or the aphasia of the amnesiac?

“Forgetting is essential to action” and for “the life of everything organic.” That seems right, we accumulate too much informational dross every hour of every day for our finite minds to absorb. We can be “healthful, strong, and fruitful only when bounded by a horizon.”

But then he gives us “eternal recurrence,” the “greatest weight.” The horizon, fixed decisively to the shores of this world, seems suddenly, paradoxically infinite and dizzying. And liberating? “Be calm.”

J’ai repris la lecture de La Nausée. Cette histoire me fascine. J’aurais voulu lire et lire encore mais je me suis endormie. La première fois que j’avais lu ce livre, je m’étais amusée a dessiner Bouville. Sartre en décrit les rue et recoins avec une telle précision que j’avais réussi a faire un plan qui me semblait plausible. Je suivais les déambulations d’Antoine Roquentin comme sur un jeu de l’oie.

Jean-Paul Sartre

As one of the great European thinkers of the 20th century, Jean-Paul Sartre popularised existentialism, became a working-class hero — and was chased down the Champs Elysées by a pack of imaginary lobsters.

A previously unpublished account of the late French philosopher’s improbable drug-induced crustacean visions has surfaced in New York, where a new book of conversations between Sartre and an old family friend will be published later this month.

John Gerassi, a New York professor of political science whose parents were close friends of Sartre, talked at length to the philosopher in the 1970s about his experiments with mescaline, a powerful hallucinogenic drug derived from a Mexican cactus.

Although it has long been known that Sartre experienced visions of lobsters — which he sometimes referred to as crabs — Gerassi’s account offers startling new details of the philosopher’s descent into near-madness as he battled to make sense of what he had come to regard as the intellectual absurdity of his life.

“Yeah, after I took mescaline I started seeing crabs around me all the time,” he says in Gerassi’s new book, Talking With Sartre. “They followed me in the streets, into class … I would wake up in the morning and say, ‘Good morning, my little ones, how did you sleep?’ I would say, ‘Okay guys, we’re going into class now . . . ’ and they would be there, around my desk, absolutely still, until the bell rang.”

Like numerous other free-thinking writers from Aldous Huxley to Hunter S Thompson, Sartre was intrigued by the mind-expanding properties of the peyote cactus. His mescaline experiments started in 1935 and affected his thinking for more than a year.

They proved a big influence in the writing of his 1938 novel, Nausea — now regarded as a manifesto of existentialism. Shellfish visions also featured in his 1959 play, The Condemned of Altona, in which a race of crabs sits in judgment on humanity.

In between, Sartre told Gerassi, “I began to think I was going crazy.”

He consulted a young psychiatrist named Jacques Lacan — who later became another of France’s foremost intellectuals — and they attributed Sartre’s crab-infested depression to his fear that he was being pigeon-holed as a teacher.

“That was the worst part, to have to be serious about life,” said Sartre. “The crabs stayed with me until the day I simply decided that they bored me and I wouldn’t pay attention to them.” By then it was the 1940s, France was occupied and Sartre had other things to worry about.

Gerassi’s unusual access to Sartre derived from a remarkable family bond. His father Fernando Gerassi was a Turkish-born Jew who became an anti-fascist general in the Spanish civil war. His mother, the Ukrainian-born Stepha, then pregnant, had travelled to Paris and ended up in a clinic across the road from La Closerie des Lilas, the celebrated bar where Sartre and his lover, Simone de Beauvoir, mingled with the Parisian cultural elite. De Beauvoir became a close friend of Stepha.

“So my father, André Breton [the poet], Marc Chagall and Joan Miró [the painters] were all drinking there and every now and then my father would rush upstairs to find out if I was born,” said Gerassi. Sartre arrived late, just as Stepha gave birth. The atheist philosopher normally shunned Christian ritual, but agreed to become Gerassi’s “non-godfather”.

The relationship served Gerassi well when he began a series of intimate interviews with Sartre for a biography but ultimately he wrote only a first volume. The interviews languished unpublished for years before Yale University Press took an interest.

After surviving imprisonment by the Germans and throwing himself into post-war anti-American agitation, Sartre told his non-godson that he had been plunged back into depression by the rise to power of Charles de Gaulle, the hero of the conservative bourgeoisie.

No longer taking mescaline, Sartre, who died in 1980, found himself pining for the distracting visions from his youth. “The crabs were mine. I had got used to them,” he said. “I would have liked my crabs to come back.”

Yet by then the crustaceans that he had once found so inspirational were nowhere to be seen. “We call them crabs because of my [Altona] play,” he said, “but they were really lobsters. And you know, I’ve never said this before, but sometimes I miss them … I remember how they used to sit there on my leg.”

__________

Full article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6926971.ece

Photo: http://pagesperso-orange.fr/philocom/accnew.html

This quote from Sartre captures my understanding of Existentialism.

“The existentialist . . . finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It is nowhere written that “the good” exists, that one must be honest or must not lie, since we are now upon the plane where there are only men. Dostoevsky once wrote: ‘If God did not exist, everything would be permitted’; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. . . . Nor, on the other hand, if God does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimise our behaviour. Thus we have neither behind us, nor before us in a luminous realm of values, any means of justification or excuse. – We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free.”

Originally posted on Great Cloud blog, which remains a helpful introductory blog to all things philosophy.

Er hat inzwischen eine reiche Frau geheiratet, er betrügt sie nicht oder nur auf Reisen und heimlich, kurz, der treueste Ehemann. Als er heiratete, schöpfte er aus seiner Lektüre die Formel, die sein Leben rechtfertigen sollte: “Man muss es wie alle Welt tun”, schrieb er mir eines Tages “und wie niemand sein”.

Jean-Paul Sartre

I’ve been using this little book, which attempts to render the history of philosophy at a break-neck pace (128 pages… and it flies even faster in the Kindle edition), as a centerpiece in my Intro courses for many years. This semester I’ve saved it for last, hoping to provide a bit more historical perspective than the same authors’ topically-arranged Big Questions achieved. I’ll be going back to the old approach next time. (I know where to find a much cheaper version of at least one “big question.”)

The  brooding thinker doesn’t really represent my idea of philosophy anyway. A little sitting-and-thinking is fine, but I prefer the perambulating, peripatetic spirit of motion and activity. The best ideas come while walking, said Nietzsche (who showed, in spite of himself, that the worst ones do, too).

Philosophy is something you do, not something you just ponder. I did enjoy the art history lessons.

I’m a big fan of the late Robert Solomon (his widow Kathleen Higgins, still at the University of Texas in Austin, published the latest edition of Big Questions just after his untimely death in a Swiss airport a couple of holiday seasons ago). He also wrote Spirituality for the Skeptic, which we’ll be reading in the “Atheism & Spirituality” course next semester. In that book, love of living is the simple essence of spirit– made poignant by our knowledge of the author’s own foreshortened fate, which he would remind us is inevitably our own. We must not take a moment of life for granted.

Solomon: “Whether or not there is a God to be thanked seems not the issue to me. It is the  importance and the significance of being thankful, to whomever or whatever, for life itself.” Thank who? Thank God, thank goodness, or thank pitchforks and pointed ears. But give thanks. Gratitude is a renewable resource, and then some. It’ll leave you feeling gratified.

He was a critic of overly-narrow, technical philosophy that, with “mind-numbing thinness,” fails to speak to ordinary human concerns. He was the sort of academic philosopher you might look for, if you were inclined to look for one,  in a popular film like Waking Life:

Aristotle initially discusses decision and deliberation in Book III of Nicomachean Ethics. Both decision and deliberation are integral components to the Nicomachean Ethics. He introduced decision by categorizing and listing what decision is not and concludes Book III by qualifying all decisions as being made with an end already decided upon. A good decision, therefore, is the product of proper and good deliberation. Once an end is established a person begins a process in which she determines through cogitation the appropriate or efficient way of reaching that goal.
If a person is habituated to various excellences of character then she will act as a prudent person should and deliberate correctly which ultimately leads to a good decision. Decision is the implementation of the means determined by proper deliberation. Good deliberation does not entail a good decision, although the opposite is necessarily true. In Book VI, Aristotle describes the person who is good at deliberating on unsavory, malicious, or selfish goals as clever. The clever person excels in deliberating, but his excess/deficiency in virtues of character negates her erudite deliberation, for the goal she wishes to ascertain is inconsistent with that of the prudent person.
Sartre’s story of the young man torn between fighting against the Nazis and staying with his mother elucidates a shortcoming in Aristotle’s process of decision and deliberation. Aristotle failed to comment on decisions about choosing ends; instantiated ends are antecedent to deliberation. Throughout the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses the various attributes of the excellent person and how such a person acts in accordance with vice and virtue, but the tacit assumption concerning deliberation and decision is that the excellent person will intuitively know that the end she desires or working towards is good.
Aristotle insufficiently addresses the method for appropriately identifying a proper end in Chapter 5 of Book III. He writes: “ if each person is in some way responsible for his own state [of character], he is also himself in some way responsible for how [the end] appears (Aristotle 1114b lines 2-4)”. The comment is a rebuttal to an anticipated counter-point to his argument for the identification of proper ends. His response is succinct and applicable when examined within the context of his treatment of virtue and vice. Aristotle explains, starting in Chapter 6 of Book III, the traits in which excellences of character are manifested. He discusses at length throughout the Nicomachean Ethics that the process of finding the mean between excess and deficiency is compulsory when acting according to virtue. Habituation in acting virtuously is the way in which a person “is responsible for his own state [of character]”. The malleability of the character enables a person to ameliorate her condition through repeated practice of the determination of the mean between excess and deficiency. However, I do not feel that there is an adequate amount of discussion concerning “proper ends”. Aristotle equivocates repeatedly when confronting the choosing of ends and never arrives at an answer that satisfies situations similar to the predicament of the young man in Sartre’s story.
The young man in Sartre’s story is an anomaly if considered under the paradigm of Aristotelian Ethics. The young man was contemplating two ends; his means to achieve those ends were already decided upon. He either joined the Free French Forces to avenge his brother’s death and help rid Europe of the Nazis or he remained at his mother’s side ensuring her well being by his self-preservation. When examined under Aristotle’s definition of decision and deliberating, the situation is excluded because in order to make a correct decision the end must already be chosen. However, the young man must choose between two ends, a dilemma of which Aristotle makes no mention.
Aristotle reiterates throughout the Ethics, that the excellent person will choose the correct ends and the deliberations and decisions will reflect a person’s virtuous character. The young man in Sartre’s story is ostensibly a virtuous man. Although only a paucity of information was written about the young man, no facetiousness or undesirable character traits were apparent in his description. Both ends the young man desired are comparable with those Aristotle would describe as consistent with the excellent person. If either end was found to be base or vicious, the contradiction between Aristotle’s idea of deliberation and the young man’s situation would be rectified, but no malicious intentions are detectable within the description of the young man’s motivations. Scrutinizing the intentions of the man is superfluous to the dilemma of choice, but if his motives were found to be self-serving then the situation would fall under the actions of the base person consequently abdicating the role of proper decision because the ends are self- serving.
In Chapter 7 of Book I, Aristotle writes: “in every action and decision it is the end, since it is for the sake of the end that everyone does the other actions (Aristotle 1097a lines 20-22)”. Eudaimonia is the final end that he is writing about. Eudaimonia, loosely translated into English as “happiness”, is the state of character in which all actions according to virtue lead. Ultimately all ends are but means to reach eudaimonia, but that explanation is severely lacking when applied to the story of the young man. Either decision the young man makes will come with a sacrifice. Simply glossing over every decision and deliberation process a person encounters throughout their life by claiming that eudaimonia is the ultimate end is an egregious attempt to force conformity on all situations without explicitly clear answers. Eudaimonia is achieved through a life of actions in accordance with virtue, but the young man’s situation transcends the restraints of such a definition. The young man is forced to confront and ponder two equally virtuous yet costly ends and the Aristotelian argument of eudaimonia as the ultimate end is inapplicable and useless in the situation.
Aristotle states “we enlist partners in deliberation on large issues when we distrust our own ability to discern [the right answer] (Aristotle 1112b Lines 10-11).” The young man in Sartre’s story sought counsel for his decision. Sartre pointed out that by choosing a certain person for help in making a decision, the person choosing has already made the decision. The young man by seeking advice from a priest, for example, is familiar with the political/moral stances the priest has on certain issues concerning the decision the young man has to make. By choosing the priest, the young man knew what type of advice he was going to get. The young man ultimately chose Sartre who declined to give any concrete advice and deferred the decision back to the young man. By enlisting partners (Aristotle’s recommendation when faced with a difficult decision) we have already decided which route to take by our choice of which person to seek advice from.
Aristotelian deliberation and decision making is irreconcilable with the dilemma facing the young man in Sartre’s story. By definition, decisions and deliberations are only applicable once an end has been determined. Aristotle assumes and explicitly states that the ends settled upon prior to deliberation will be good or vicious in accord with the person who wishes those ends. In mentioning that some decisions require partners in deliberation, Aristotle perforated the foundation of his argument about decision-making. The Nicomachean Ethics deals with personal actions and their relationship with virtue and vice. By seeking advice we either choose a confidant in which we subconsciously know what their counsel will be (Sartre) or we introduce new variables (people) into the deliberation process whose ends may not be consistent with our own. Enlisting others for help in decision-making not only obscures one’s own inclinations, it weakens the validity of the chosen end due to unknown motivations within the people who have been sought for help. A confluence of opinions may prove beneficial in certain situations, but is certainly not beneficial in all situations. Aristotle’s generalization of all ends as leading to eudaimonia is flawed and the brief mention of “enlisting partners” is riddled with contradictions when compared to his accounts of the individual actions of the excellent person. Aristotle’s wrote that an excellent person will inherently know the proper ends to situations, but he contradicted himself when he advised to confer with friends in difficult decisions. There is an absence of any discourse within the Nichomachean Ethics directly concerning ends that are at odds with one another yet both good on all accounts.

Works Cited
Aristotle, Terrence Irwin, trans. Nicomachean Ethics 2nd Edition (Indianapolis, IN: Hacket, 1999).

Sartre, J. P., Excerpt from Existentialism and Humanism, pp. 35-36
(Course Packet Philosophy 421 pp 67-69, J. Wallace).

Newkirk and McClure (1992) begin their discussion of how stories are related to literacy by introducing the notion that discussions centering on texts must take into consideration the “openness of talk” (97). This openness means inviting the text into conversation with the conversants and allowing for digression or “bridge building” to associated topics of interest. They urge a review of how teachers conduct discussions about text and offer suggestions about understanding the text as another participant in the discussion, rather than the only topic of relevance.

While reading this article, I found myself repeatedly noting, “Yes!” in the margins. When a community comes together, they create culture amongst themselves. This culture influences how the community members experience the world around them. If we try to extract them from that culture in order to have “official discussions” about a text, we are limiting their ability to process and make meaning out of the text. Rather than adhering strictly to the text and direct topics evinced by it, we see the students in Pat’s class using the text as a trampoline from which they can reach new heights of understanding of their world. The story of the text offers a meaning, a classmate has another story to share, and then, as Newkirk and McClure write, “his story evokes mine, enables me to see mine” (99). Rather than dissecting cultural community, we can build it through discussion. These story discussions, and story telling experiences offer an opportunity to create and decide on a group-identity. And when we deny participants the chance to give their own voice to a story, we “turn a deaf ear to this culture” (100). I think Rowe (1988) puts it most succinctly when she writes, “talk is not only a manifestation of participants’ beliefs and relationships, but also the medium through which these relationships and meanings are constructed” (160).

One of the most important aspects of my pedagogical philosophy is “make it relevant”. If I can’t make my subject (English literature) relevant to my students, then we’re setting ourselves up for hours of wasted time – and I think the same goes for any subject. This relevance means including the text as conversant just as our assigned texts this week specify. We start with the text, and then I try to offer connections to the world of my students, or to our world at large. And of course, I always ask for connections students make between the text and themselves. This can include themes/memories/concerns/fears, etc. I wish I had more time to do this sort of community-building. When we share culture, and make attempts to understand the how the text speaks to us, we become more like one another despite our differences – and that is a valuable use of time in this broken world.

This weeks’ articles, and Wells’ text, all remind me of some writing I did ages ago (2001) while reading Sartre’s The Words. Basically, I am pondering the necessity of interacting on a personal level with a text – you must allow the author to say his piece, and then you interact on a personal level to develop your meaning.

The interaction of reader/author/text just brought this to mind and I wanted to share it:

I looked down into the book I had opened. My mind delved deep, desiring to be on the level of the author behind the words. He peered laughingly out at me from behind his signs as he described people like me reading his book – reading him. My smile rose from inside as I realized I was desiring that very unveiling of which he spoke. To see him as he was – but from the fragments of what he wrote. How obtuse for me to believe that I could come any closer than my fingertips to ink. Brushing the surface of what is only a re-presentation in the first (or second) place. Nonetheless, I sought such an insight.

Was his life as mundane a child prodigy’s as he leads me to believe? The smirk in his words as he deems himself thus seems to reach out to me more than the words themselves. Foucault, Derrida herald the “death of the author”, yet they have never conversed with Sartre over his life as I have. Even so, this is the author/narrator, one removed from the person himself. A particular nervy objectivity rises in such a narration. His person does not quite shine through. It is more the focus on the author than the death of him. Just as he speaks of previous authors glancing at him, their reader, over the pages with familiarity – he does the same to his readers. But I do not know him. Jean Paul is not a person to me – a narrator, yes, but an intersubjective being, no. The distance of page and ink, though my sole connection to him, are also the barrier. I can bathe in his pictures, his verbal gestures, his self-mockery, but I cannot meet him. My preoccupation remains with the words themselves – the mirror distortion he has chosen to reflect of his life.

This mirror, however, is not prone to reflecting him but me – the reader. I choose which signs mean the most to me. I choose to laugh or to jeer. I am the one reflecting in the mirror he holds up, while telling me I will find him in it. So there he is – the man standing behind the mirror. He frames the glass, sometimes peering over it and murmuring to me what I should look for. I can see his hands on the rim, pointing. At me, at the glass, anywhere but back at the holder. So the author is not dead, but the necessary life behind my interpretation. Without his verbal mirage of a person, I could never enter the view of myself presented by his mirror.

William: you know, love and deep friendship is definitely possible in cyberspace
William: you and I, Steve and you, are proof
William: me and Krishna, me and Geetanjali

Aida yes

- Friday November 20 2009, 04:57 -

William: lunch time?
William: I am now in my beloved Ubuntu operating system

Aida I just had lunch
Aida today is weekend
Aida how are you?

William: went to sleep at 9 pm and woke up at 3am

Aida wow

Aida what time is it there now

William: excited to be making progress in learning Linux
William: almost 5am in New York. What time is it there in Iran?

Aida it is 1:30 pm here in Tehran

William: did you have lunch

Aida do you know how I can use Socratic method?

Aida yes I did.

William: you mean, you desire a tutorial in use of socratic method

Aida yes

William: i would liken it to Zen Buddhist Koan method

William: which means that books which instruct in Koan, give insight into socratic

William: in a nutshell: Socrates has TWO nick names in the dialogues

Aida I want to extract the truth in myself and people without offending them and as if they have discovered it themselves

Aida yes?

William: one is NARKE which means sting-ray, it is where we get our work NARCOTIC

William: because Socrates NUMBS his interlocuter into APORIA, which means cul-de-sac, no-way=out

Aida haha

William: he does this by a technique called ELNENCHYS, which means refutation
Aida refutation?what is it

William: and it is part of a process called DIALECTIC which Plato likens to a weavers loom with WARP AND WOOF, threads at 90 degrees
Aida what is warp and woof

William: ok… hypothetically, lets say that YOU are prepossessed or convinced of some position

William: it might be regarding a medical treatment

William: or, political issue

William: or whatever

William: so, by means of dialogue, question and answer,

William: i maneuver you into the position where you contradict yourself

William: and i help you to reach a BLANK WALL, in which you suddenly FREELY admit to yourself and others that you did NOT really know what you took for granted

Aida can we practice that

Aida but what if am smart enough?

William: now, socrates is also called MID-WIFE

Aida I know

William: in the sense that he helps people GIVE BIRTH to understanding

William: but, there is a joke in plato about WIND EGGS
Aida yes?

William: IN nature there are times when a bird does lay an empty egg
William: which has nothing but air inside

William: but it is also a pun on FLATULENCE
William: in other words, if someone is full of shit… they give birth to fart
William: so, it is a bit of platos humor

Aida haha

William: now, the very best way is to actually read the dialogues

Aida but socrates thinks we are all full of wisdom but we have forgotten the truth we carry

William: one brief dialog with Meno, Socrates attempts to prove that mathematical knowledge is inherent even in an uneducated slave boy

William: so, Socrates takes a slave boy, and questions him about a geometric issue of triangles
William: socrates seems to demonstrate that, through eliciting questions, the slave boy arrives at the true answer….
William: for Socrates, this means that the soul has pre-existence…
William: otherwise where would such understanding come

- 05:07 -
Aida interesting.
Aida do you think he is right?

William: second, Socrates (plato) sees geometric and mathematical truth as EXISTING as IDEAL FORMS (eidos) or plural EIDEI

William: WELL, this is very interesting, Einstein and Kurt Godel were friends, and mathematicians

Aida yes?

William: Kurt Godel passionately believed that the elements of number and geometry had some real existence in another dimension

William: whereas, Einstein saw them as ad hoc tools

Aida what is ad hoc?

William: and not having any sort of Platonic existence as ideal forms

William: ad hoc is latin for TOWARDS THIS END OR GOAL

William: IT is a contrivance or tool, a means to and end, and once the end is acheived, the tool is discarded

William: Wittgenstein speaks of this in Tractatus

William: Wittgensten says that we construct a LADDER of sorts, which is some ad hoc method, for us to ascend to some higher plane of understanding, and once we arrive, we push away and discard the ladder

William: same with Mahayana buddhism….

Aida we invented geometry and numbers etc

William: Samsara is the 10001 things in life which mess our minds…
William: the VEHICLE or boat, is a contrivance of ideology, which helps us arrive at the other shore

William: but ONCE WE ARRIVE we leave the boat behind
William: the boat was not the end, but only a means to an end

Aida yes

William: one sees this symbolism in Homer, when Odysseus is advised to take a ships oar (for rowing), place it on his shoulder

Aida but it mattters a lot in the beginning

William: and begin a pilgrimage to some distant unknown land

- 05:12 -

William: he is told that eventually, someone who has never seen the ocean will ask him what that strange object (the oar ) is

William: when THAT happens, then he must plant the oar in the ground, and make a sacrifice, and he will be purified

William: now, of course, Homer is mythos,…. but the story is very useful for us to understand the ad hoc nature of language and axiomatic systems

Aida I dont understand

William: and, sometimes, we make the error of seeing THOSE as an end in themselves, with a substantive reality

Aida why should he plant the oar
Aida and how he will be purified

William: well, the oar is a TOOL, which is only useful at sea, to propel a ship

William: but, in a desert, it is useless

Aida yes

Aida like religion which is useless in this century

William: so, in life, and in cultures, we often see that individual or even nations, cling to something which was really meant as a transitional tool

Aida yes

Aida like money ,,,

William: for example, in pre-history, before writing, there was only discourse and oral tradition

William: around a campfire

Aida how exciting

William: THEN writting was devised

Aida yes.how else I could talk to nietzsche and plato

William: THEN, the liveliness of the tradition kind of DIED, as the redacted and codified text became something SACRED in itself

Aida they dont move around my campfire

William: which is a form of idolatry
William: and your example of money is excellent
William: in pre-history, no money, but communal tribal survival where there is no concept of private property
William: and the SHARING means survival of the small struggling group or species
William: THEN money as coins of precious metal is devised

Aida but lets not get distracted from our aim which was to learn socratic method
Aida but lets not get distracted from our aim which was to learn socratic method
Aida dialectics.

William: then, love of people is replaced with love of money, and people become a MEANS to an end , rather than an end in themselves

William: now, Kant says that once people become only a MEANS to an end, that is the source of the unethical

- 05:17 -
Aida I wonder if there is an end even.

William: and Azar Nafisi, in “Reading Lolita in Tehran” offers the notion that the Iranian Govt. does to its people what the old man in Lolita, Humbert Humbert does to little Lolita

William: namely, he OBJECTIFIES her

William: she is no longer a person, with a life of her own, to be nurtured

Aida what do you mean objectify

William: but instead she is an object, a possession, for him to hold on to for his own gratification

Aida yes men usually think that way of their wives

William: when we love another in a non-erotic sense, as a parent for a child, we are not selfish, we endeavor to lead the child to INDEPENDENCE, which naturally involves their distancing themselves from us

Aida they forget they are similar human beings who have to live their lives.

William: to lead a life of their own

Aida well usually parents cant take that independence without suffering

William: that is why in old testament bible in genesis, in early pages, it says that the children leave the parents and cling to the new spouse

William: so, what we selflessly love, we are willing to give up one day, for the sake of their independence

William: but a selfish love is treating person as OBJECT for our own needs, and so, we do not EMPOWER them towards independent self-hood
Aida yes..I always thought what is the use of me getting married..my mom sacrificed her life to prepare everything that is needed for my growth?and development and what is the point of me leaving her
William: a modern expression of socratic method is exemplified by that one psychotherapist, i will think of name in a minute, who wrote “On Becoming a Person”

Aida oh
Aida is it a book

William: he developed a technique of REFLECTING back to the patient, like a mirror, what the patient was really trying to say.

William: i think i must google on his name
Aida yes please
William: Carl Rogers

- 05:23 -
William: and his technique is Rogerian

Aida aha

William: in otherwords, often, in discourse, we do not really LISTEN well to the OTHER person

William: we are anxious to express our SELF , our own notion
William: BUT, if we become Rogerian, we act as a MIRROR, for that person to explore their true feelings

Aida that is true.I talked with my boyfriend today. and realized myself doing that.

Aida so he got bored and left.!

William: we reflect BACK to them, in slightly different words, what we perceive them to say

Aida I usually try to be the mirror.but sometimes I like to be seen too..to find myself in others

William: AND we act in a positive manner, as if we agree, as if they are really helping us to understand something

Aida yes perfect

William: but in reality, we are allowing ourselves to serve as a kind of SCAFFOLDING to help them construct their own edifice or building of self

Aida true

William: but you see, a builders SCAFFOLD, the bars and ladders that allow the builder to scale the walls and roof of the structure

Aida but the problem is

William: they are AD HOC

Aida usually people do not talk what we like to talk about
William: and when the edifice is finish, the scaffolding is dismantled and perhaps discarded

William: well, you see, for example… with you and me….. you suddenly ask about socratic method

Aida how can we lead the conversation to some meaningful subject
Aida yes.but you are my type.

William: so, i transform myself into an instrument , a tool , which can possibly help lead YOU to your own conception , understanding, of socratic method

William: but, to be such a teacher, a socratic teacher, requires the ability to shift into a selfless non-egoistic mode

- 05:28 -
William: i must take one minute to refil humidifier for wife, and give her pill for thyroid be right back

Aida sure

William: back, quick like a bunny

Aida hi

Aida is she fine?

William: Bertrand Russell commented that all of the history of philosophy is but a footnote to PLATO

Aida what does it mean

William: she wakes up, takes thyroid med, sleeps for an hour more, and then she can eat

William: well, it is very helpful to read Bertrand Russell’s History of Philosophy

Aida yes am reading that

William: to gain grand overview of western philosophy

Aida I have read half of it

Aida but then decided to read each philosopher

William: now, Russell means that, in essence, Plato posed everything, every problem, issue that the next 2500 years has attempted to address
Aida about him there first and then his works

- 05:33 -
William: and he is quite correct, regarding the west

Aida that is perhaps true

William: BUT, One cannot make the same claim about EASTERN, buddhist, hindu, taoist, philosophy

Aida why not?

William: now, one CAN claim this about Arab Islamic thought in the sense that they were heavily influence by Aristotle, and preserved the greek writings for the west

William: ah, hmmm…. well, that would take me some time to put into laypersons terms

William: the DIFFERENCE between platos west, and the east, likes hidden in the understanding of JAIN philosophy, and taoism

William: as two repositories

Aida i dont know much about eastern philo

William: BUT, east and west come together in 20th century with the workers in relativity and quantum

William: as a matter of face, on physicist, a personal friend of einstein, designed his own heraldric emblem based upon the YIN YANG symbol

Aida yes?

William: and, during the lifetime of einstein, kurt godel, max plank, heisenberg, and the other fellow whom i forget, with the yin yang heraldry

William: they debated about the eastern vs western ways of understanding reality,….

William: so for first time in history it came together
Aida interesting

William: one may also gain insight into the merging of east and west by reading the writings of… oh my, i just had his name, aha…. Radhakrishnan

- 05:38 -
Aida is he indian?

William: who was a prime minister of India, but also, a consummate scholar of both eastern and western tradition

William: yes, an Indian scholar, prime minister for a period

William: i have a collection of modern essays ABOUT the works of Sarvapal Radhakrishnan

William: you see how my memory skips like record with a scratch
William: that is why google helps so much
Aida

William: like, i google on “the making of a person” and come up with Carl Rogers name

Aida your memory is perfect.am amazed

William: i cannot retain everything at once
William: no one can

Aida true
Aida am reading about how to improve memory
Aida how to use mneomonics?

William: it has to do with something called MULTIMIND which was coined by Robert Ornstein, a researcher into the psychology and physiology of consciousness, in the 1970s along with Charles Tart

Aida how can you have a multimind

William: you see, in the human brain, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny
William: so, we have multimind structures, from very primative to most advanced, and they are multitasking

Aida what do you mean by ontogeny and phylogeny

William: so, at same time as we philosophize about ethics, another part is a neanderthal seeking food, violence

William: ok,… consider the development from embryo to child to adult

Aida yes?

William: each stage of development in womb, the ONTOLOGY or becoming… emulates the evolutionary PHYLOGENY

William: kingdom, phylum, class , order family genus species
William: which is Linnaeus
William: in the 17th century

William: and, curiously , it resembles certain operating systems and sofware products

- 05:43 -
Aida ontology means development of the person?

William: which of necessity, preserve backwards compatibility to earlier platforms

William: well, ontos means being existence palpable reality
William: logos means reason, understanding , expository expression in language

William: so the logos of the ontos , is an account of BECOMING
Aida and phylogeny is?

William: in platos Timaeus, BECOMING is the middle ground between non existence and BEING

William: phylos is a family or tribe

Aida interesting!

William: but, first are ancient seas, with millions of years of lightening striking the chemical laden waters
William: until, organic compounds form
William: and those begin to acquire a behavior, like a meme, to replicate
William: and those become bacteria, which is quite different from a nucleated cell
William: the bacterium has no nucleus but had the ribosome directive activity

Aida yes and

William: so, right now, we use the various classes of bacteria, as laboratories to understand synthesis

Aida this is ontogeny?

William: but the ONTOLOGY, or evolutionary development, over eons
William: produces various levels or phyla of organisms

William: and in the GENOME study, we can quantify the similarity and different

William: BUT, each new stage, bears deep within the markings, the heritage, of earlier stages

Aida this is not true

- 05:48 -
William: so, for example, in the brain, the Limbic SYSTEM is VERY PRIMITIVE, and yet it is perhaps there that our moment to moment experience of consciousness is SYNTHESIZED

Aida there are differences between procaroytes and eukariotic creatures

William: aha, but, it IS true, and as long as you embrace the resistance, and say that it is not true, then you have an empediment to the understandings

William: yes, but ALWAYS, there is some common precursor

Aida no I mean it is not that they carry the primitive state forms

William: just as there is common precursor to human and neaderthal

Aida but that they have things in common

William: i was trying to remember the procaroytes aud eukariotic terms
William: regarding bacteria…

Aida am confused what was the main track

William: now, everything boils down to the big question, is reality ultimately digital or analog

William: which hinges on HOLISM vs REDUCTIONISM

William: holism says that the whole is GREATER than a sum of the parts, and that cognitive analytical axiomatic analysis will never breach the gap
William: wherease REDUCTIONISM is that the whole is PRECISELY the sum of the parts, and that through analysis, we can ultimated digitize everything precisely
William: descartes dreamed that one day there would be an equation for a tree

Aida yes. he believed in reductionism

William: hegel dreamed of an END TO HISTORY, which means ABOSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE where they succeed in string theory AND CAN ultimately express symbolically what is happening in the ontology of being
Aida

William: so, from big bang beginning, to final heat death of maximum enthropy

- 05:53 -
William: where nothing further can happen, because thermodynamically there is no more potential energy
William: you see, life lives upon negative entropy
William: entropy is a measure of disorder

Aida yes

William: a crystal is a highly ordered structure with potential energy
William: when crystal is disolved, energy is released
William: it also gets into Carl Jungs monograph on The Nature of the Psyche
Aida yes

William: can you not post for one minute, until i say hello, i have one system message

Aida how can you correlate all those things
Aida sure

++++

William: you see,…. discourse and writing itself is an artificial PROJECTION of a multidimensional process of multimind, into a linear discourse of axiomatic precations

Aida talking to you is like reading a james joyce novel
Aida one needs some big refrence book to see what your words are reffering to.

William: so, in an aristotelian syllogism is A implies B, implies C….. emplies Z, ergo, Q.E.D. (quod erat demonstrandum) we have demonstrated what was to be shown

William: that is LINEAR

William: but, my mind, my understanding, is not linear, it is many many things at once

William: my 60 years of experience
William: sO, If you mathematically project a 3 dimensional shape onto two dimensions

- 05:59 -
William: you have something you may graph and use as a tool, but it is DIFFERENT from the original object of three diminsions under consideration
William: BUT, suppose we seek a model of some economic phenomenon, or some metabolic phenomenom,…. it may have 10 or 20 dimensions
William: but, we cannot deal with 10 or 20 dimensions at once
William: so, we seek an axiomatic model, as a tool, which allows us to deal with it
William: but, you see, our moment to moment experience of CONSCIOUSNESS, IS A Process of data reduction…

Aida yes

William: we selectively ignore a myriad of external and internal experience, to focus on our discussion, or an opera…. or ball game

Aida yes

William: BUT, when that funciotion of brain BREAKS DOWN and we are overwhelmed simultaneously of ALL sensations
William: then it is madness
William: it is psychosis
William: i am forgetting better word
Aida
William: it is the stage beyond nurotic
William: neurotic
Aida nervous breakdown!
William: well, yes, psychotic… better yet SCHIZOPHRENIC

Aida yes.psychotic

Aida what was the exact name of the book of carl rodgers?

William: a neurotic person understands whee and who they are, but, the overemphasize things which are unimportant, and they are caught in a circle of repition, like a broken record

William: carl rogers “on becoming a person”

William: now, carl rogers had one psychotic patient….
William: he merged so closely with her, that HE began to suffer psychotic symptoms
William: and he speaks of that danger

- 06:04 -
William: aristotle said the one unique characteristic of being human is MIMESIS, we love to IMITATE
William: and that allows us to adapt
William: we BECOME Like fish with scuba, and like birds with plains
Aida
William: planes
William: but what is our virtue, and makes possible survival in diverse ecological niches
William: can also be our enemy

Aida how can we distinguish ourselves from our enviroment

William: whenever we become locked into one mode, even when changing circumstances demand a shift in gears to some opposite mode

Aida and how exactly know what we say or do is beloning to us and not external words.

William: each of our faculties has a positive necessary function, fear, desire , lust, hunger, weariness
William: but, each can become imbalanced and become pathological
Aida I wonder how one can generate new ideas out of nothing.
William: if our species did not have an overwhelming sexual dimension, we would not have survied for 500,000 years

Aida yes.

William: BUT if we cannot bridle the sexual side, then we cannot be doctors or lawyers of professors
William: similary if we bridle or suppress TOO Much, then that becomes a patholgy

Aida why not?

William: think of anorexia
Aida it takes time?

William: a virtue of moderation taken to an extreme which becomes a pathology

Aida sorry got disconneted

William: there is a healthy place for anger, it is a useful tool for survival, and even for healthy function society

Aida I wonder how can one balance all those elements
Aida make balance between*

William: but, when anger becomes unconrolled, then it is destructive, and also, it becomes an END IN ITSELF rather than simply a means to an end

- 06:09 -
William: so, the whole greek thing was, balance, moderation, the MIDDLE WAY, the mean between the extremes

Aida for example………I was thinking to acheive what I want to in my life I dont have time to get married and have children etc

William: so, it is like the goldilock fairytale

Aida what is it

William: one bowl of porrige is too hot, the next is to cold, and third is just right

William: goldilocks

Aida oh

William: and the three bears

Aida yes
Aida aha yes
Aida it was funny story

William: it is a childrens story , but it illustrates balance, moderation, in a simple way

William: no matter HOW Complex something is, there is always some simple model or parable to illustrate it

Aida yes a guy asked his class why should she rest in the bears house after eating porridge etc

Aida a student said…to commit suicide!
William: and a parable or a sufi teaching story, is a tool to reshape our mind to better comprehend the REAL problem

Aida hey wait a second

Aida can we study a problem of me

William: well, again, WIttgenstein reachs the higher plateau, and then kick away the ad hoc ladder which helped him to get there
William: you see, bible, koran, vedas, and roman law, are all ladders which help us to evolve to where we are

Aida are you listening?

William: BUT, at some point, we must let go, and adopt something that suits TODAYS
William: oh, the problem of you
William: well, i see you from a great distance, and have my theories
William: but, i may be mistaken
William: for example your boyfriend, now ex, was a ladder which helped you to make a certain life transition
William: and it was positive
William: BUT, if you stay with that, it becomes counterproductive

- 06:14 -
William: a ladder which serves its purpose and one point, becomes a crutch, if we do not let go

Aida but I havent said my problem yet

William: so, say your problem

Aida but you do not listen…

William: i was speaking of my perception of your problem
William: so i am listening
William: you ask me to address grand issues of all history
William: i cant go to warp speed, and easily put on the breaks

Aida yes but then you disconnect from me.

William: i am listening

Aida and then you forget am talking to you.

William: well, it depends on how dear the topic at hand is
William: to you
William: i am listening now

Aida yes the topic is dear.

William: state your problem

Aida but you forgot we wanted to practice socratics dialect and not a one way speech

William: your NEXT problem

Aida ok now my turn!

William: well, you MUST carefully read all the dialogues, and study what Socrates is doing

William: and ask questions

Aida but you leap from one subject to the other and I get confused
William: but, what is the life circumstance in your life where you desire to use socratic method

William: because, my mind works as it does, multidimensional
Aida and lose the track of our subject

William: and i try to project it to linear
William: for you

Aida it is interesting.. but at the end you have said too many beautiful statements but we cant reach the end

William: plus, you must understand, i can afford the luxury to be multidimensional ME, because long ago I gave up the chance to be a directed and disciplined YOU

Aida we can not have a meaningful conclusion of what was said.
Aida am not disciplined

William: well, you must understand, discourse has its limits, the next stage is writting essay or book

Aida that is my problem
Aida I have too many interests

William: SO, if you could have lunch with Pplato himself, it would NOt BE as good as reading Plato’s republic

Aida and want to understand too many things

- 06:19 -
William: because, a writer, SPENDS YEARS, distilling everything into one book or essay

Aida yes I read his republic

William: so, at any given moment, the author is LESS than his work

Aida but I am talking to you now.and not reading hid republic

William: and he at times STUDIES his own work
William: because it has become a scaffolding which surrounds the cathedral

Aida can I ask something

William: he constructed it, true, but he must climb about in it,…. he cannot be everywhere at once, on the dome, and at the windows

William: yes
William: ask

Aida which methods you think works best being multidimensional and gain a little of everything or being one dimensional and going in to depth of one subject only?

+++++

William: you confront your own frustration

Aida since I have this problem…………………

William: you see, i cannot give you a Sitaram pill, to swallow, and instantly become 60 yr old sitaram

William: yet, when we approach a teacher, that is what we desire
William: which is only natural

Aida in order to improve in my studies………..I have to put all the time I have on studying medicine

William: now, what is your precise roblem
William: exactly, at each moment in our life, we GIVE UP 1000 possible futures, in order to actualize only ONE

Aida but I love to learn …I like to read philosophy and psychology and history and art I like to paint and practice my violin

William: so, successful life, is a process of data reduction
William: success is a process of intentional failures

Aida but if I do that I wont be able to organize my studies to the level that I could continue them the way I desire.

William: we give up chance to be a ballerina or concert pianist, in order to be physician or politican

Aida but I can not do that..I mean I can not be a physician only

William: and as physician, we give up chance to be surgeon or anestheosiologist, in order to become our one specialty

- 06:24 -
William: lets say nephrologist, or cardiovascular
William: or neurologist

Aida I want to understand life

Aida and it is not all written in medical books

William: it is division of labor
William: well, you want to be , what do the call it, POLYMATH

Aida yes and unfortunately I want it to be perfect.

William: actually, though i sounds blasphemous, you want to be God, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent
William: now, that is a GOOD desire, for it is a desire to perfect oneself

Aida I mean I want to be the best I can be in my job and also in whatever am interested in
Aida but it contradicts…I mean I can not focus on everything and be perfect in them
Aida yes I cant be god..

William: we desire ALL that is good, but we must make choices, and settle for what is reachable, achievable, based upon our own gifts and shortcomings, and the age and society and technology in which we live

Aida and I reproach myself of not being able to be one

William: so the woman who wrote Pride and Prjudice, Jane Austin, had to be content with paper and quill and ink
William: no word processor, no internet

Aida we make choices but we do not know if they are the best ones

William: and she had to make do with a patriarchal society, with victorian morals, which frowned upon the woman author

Aida for example I can put time to succeed in my career only and study and study
Aida and of course it is a precious career
Aida but I worry to lose my human side and goals and become narrow-minded and lose insight about why I am doing my job

William: there is a story about a donkey, who is surrounded by many different buckets of grain, delicious,…. all at an equal distance

Aida why am living it
Aida or giving life back to people

William: but because the donkey cannot decide which is best to approach
William: he sits there, hungry

Aida yes am the donkey

William: because to chose any one bucket, is to give up and ignore the others
William: now, diffeent story,…. thee are many piles of hay, and many hungry cows
William: but, there is also a dog

Aida I dont sit there but I go toward each for a while and then doubt!!!
William: the dog cannot eat the hay

- 06:30 -
Aida and go back to the other direction

William: but the dog is selfish and barks at all the cows, to keep them fromt he hay

Aida haha

William: so, you are caught in an existential trap
William: which you may explore with Kierkegaard and Sartre and Camus

Aida yes I recognize myself while reading them

William: Sartre speaks of the young man, in war torn france, who is his mothers only support, but his friends join the underground resistance
William: he is damned whatever choice he makes

Aida I really worry not to live my life they way I want to lead it
Aida yes?

William: if he stays to care for mother, he is unpatriotic bastard who does not joint his comrads in underground resistance of nazis
William: but if he is patriot, and good comrad, his is bastard to abandon his poor mother

Aida yes

William: so, damned if he does, and damned if he doesnt
William: so this is the BIND…

Aida I feel that way

William: i forget the best term

Aida bondage?

William: but the schizophrenice is a pathology which seeks to escape from the intolerable DOUBLE BIND

William: ACTUALLY, when i was only age 4
William: i noticed the dog in the next yard, on a chain
William: i realized he was in a double bind

Aida how come?

William: but i could not put it into words
William: well, he wanted one thing, but the chain kept him back
William: he had two directives, mutually exclusive
William: lets say, his job is to chase way the intruder

- 06:35 -
William: but, when he runs to do that job, the chain chokes him and pulls him back
William: so, my mother was placing me in a similar bind
William: and i told her about the dog

Aida wow
Aida how cute

William: i exlained to her that she was doing to me just what the dog was in
William: but, she could not catch the analogy

Aida how could you do that in age 4?

William: because, SHE had two conflicting goals to place upon me
William: well, that was how my mind was…

Aida how exciting

William: also, i heard someone say “time passes QUICKLY when we have a pleasant passtime, but SLOWLY when we have an unpleasant task
Aida yes
Aida can I ask something?

William: SO, i thought they meant quite litterally that TIME itself changes
William: but listent
William: I DID AN EXPERIMENT at age 4
William: at nap time, i took my most favorite book, whcih was soft blue colors, about virgin mary

Aida are you sure it happened then

William: and looked at it
William: yes, positive
William: and while i looke at the pleasant book, i tried to judge the speed of time
William: then i switched to my LEAST favorite book, a harsh red on fireengines

Aida wow

William: and as i looked at that, i tried to sense the slowing down of time

Aida how?
Aida haha

William: but, i realize that one could not detect the change in time
William: so, that was my existential experiment at age 4

Aida wow very impressive

William: so, you see, such Sartrean things are innate in the human mind
William: because, i was illeterate, i couldnot read
William: and there was no telivision
William: and only music on radio
William: so i could not have overheard
William: and the people around me did not read or discuss such matters

Aida so how could you measure time..you couldnt read the clock

- 06:40 -
William: BUT, the point was, i constructed an experiment
William: i attempted to measure

Aida yes .very unbelievable

William: but, yet, not uncommon
William: Ramanujan was a poor boy in india with no schooling
William: he found a handbook of mathematics, no proofs, just the formulae
William: and he independently PROVED, and derived all the equations

Aida is it possible?

William: Ramanujan died in his 40s

Aida do you think we all can do that?

William: but he was one of the greatest minds in NUMBER THEORY
William: and number theory is called the QUEEN of all mathematics

William: number theory involves statements like, all prime numbers

Aida can I ask you something ?again

William: and greater and lesser infinities…
William: yes

Aida now that you are 60 …do you think you lived your life and gained what you wanted to?

William: so, you see, at 4, i was like socrates slave boy in the Meno
Aida did you reach where you wanted to reach
William: well, i had many blessings
William: i never knew war or hunger and had good health and dental care
William: i had luxury of liberal education

Aida no I mean human achievements……..

William: and freedom from constraints of professional requirements like university
William: i did not have to “publish or perish”
William: i had my own printing press and soap box of internet

Aida but didnt you want to do that?

William: well, it HAPPENDED…
William: i didnt set out to be this or that
William: opportunities arose and i chose them

Aida I mean when you were 30
Aida what did you think of your 60
Aida what you wanted to gain and you gained it or not?

William: of course, i had notions of goals, but that was an illusion
William: well, what i did gain was the opportunity to become what i am
William: you see, and acorn is not an oak tree

Aida how do you feel now that those goals arent fulfilled?

- 06:45 -
William: yet, its essense is an oak tree
William: so, we BECOME what we are
William: an infant is not Bertrand Russel, or Walt Whitman, or Barack Obama
William: but, it is a seed containing that ultimate personal
William: so we become what we are
William: by labor, chance, circumstance, serendipity

William: if one reads the Nobel acceptance speech of Hemingway, and then of Faulkner

Aida and if we dont become what we wanted to become do we feel we wasted life?

William: who were always lifelong enemies

Aida I really worry to waste my life

William: as they embodied literary values / goals which were diametrically opposed
William: then one sees how their life unfolded
William: and the extent to whcih they were fulfilled
William: and the extent to which they were frustrated and failed
William: and throw in F. Scott Fitzgerald

Aida yes?

William: so, in that limited literary context, one may explore the drama of the very question which you pose, about the individual as the pass through life

William: making choices….and with each choice, giving up forever a 1000 possible futures
William: to actualize ONE future
William: and it is an act of faith

Aida and you know then we are not sure we really made those choices.freely

William: we cannot know, at the moment that we risk our lives to cross a berlin wall
William: we cannot know whether it is our doom, or our salvation
William: BUT, even inaction is an action
William: if we do nothing, that too is a choice, and has consequences

Aida so you do not regret for whatever choices you made?

William: if we are the donkey who never approaches one of the equidistant food buckets
William: well, i often think about these things

- 06:50 -
William: and, i could choose to mourn and have regrets
William: but yet, what I became, Sitaram, was a unique opportunity

Aida

William: to say and do things at a stage in history when no one else could afford to say and do those things
William: without suffering consequences
William: because i was no one, there were no constraints

William: imagine you are rev. Billy Graham, or he Dali Lama, or Pope Benedict, but suddenly you walk along a beach one morning with Mic Jagger
William: and you suddenly are inspired by some truth that Mic Jagger possesses

Aida who is Mic Jagger?
William: Mic Jagger is a successful rock star singer
William: and age 70 he still belts out songs like age 20

William: and he embodies wild rebellion
William: but, because you are Dali Lama, or Pope, you are CONSTRAINED to be true to what you embody
Aida

William: otherwise, millions become disillusioned, and you give up your special persona

Aida haha

William: so, your very success, in being what you have become, is a chain, a limtation

Aida true

William: so, you are not totally free…

Aida that is true

William: there is a part of me which feels talented to explore in writing my sexuality
William: BUT, if i do that, i become branded as a porn writer
William: so, i give up what i have as Sitaram

Aida aha

- 06:55 -
William: and, the author of Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, gives up is persona if he begins to write as I write
William: so, whatever ladder we climb to reach whatever cloud or plateu
William: we must KICK AWAY that ladder, so we lose our precious ladder

Aida yes

William: PLUS we are stuck one the top of Everest, but we cannot not be on top of Killimanjaro, or Madderhorn, or Grand Titons

William: so, there are many heights, many depths, but we must choose one…

Aida how do we know it is the right one

William: but in one Psalm in bible, it says, “I go up to the highest moutain and Thou are there Lord, so I go to the deepest ocean, and Thou are also there,… and whereve I go, I cannot escape you, but neither can I join with you and unite with you in an absolute fashion

Aida or there is no right or wrong path

William: but, it is all realtive, sujective, contextual
William: i cannot tell someone to become Sitaram, they must become THEIR OWN Sitaram

William: which may be very different from me, but it is all essential
Aida

William: That Argentinean writer.
William: Jorge Luis Borges

Aida yes?

William: writes a story about an orthodox man, who spends his life chasing and persecuting an Heresiarch
William: a leader who teaches heresy
William: finally, he captures the Heresiarch, and execute him
William: the, he too dies, and comes before God

- 07:00 -
William: only to learn that, for God, both HE and the Heresiarch, are important components of some much larger organism
William: some much larger being…. and BOTH are essential
William: just as in musical harmone

William: the three notes of a chord are DIFFERENT,
William: yet in combination, they become something beyond themselves

Aida superhuman?

William: a Neapolitan sixth is a major 7th chord build upon the flatted second note of the scale of the piecee
William: so, it sounds as a profound punctuation
William: discordant, yet, making a point
William: so e.e. cummings speaks of “the dilemma of flutes”

William: it comes back to Platos analogy of Dialectic being the weavers loom
William: there is the WARP, the treads running vertically
William: and the WOOF, whcih run horizontally
William: and the SHUTTLE which weaves in and out,….

Aida ?

William: and it s a continual process of SEPARATING and CONJOINING of opposites
William: but the product is a TAPESTRY
William: and the tapestry on one side, depicts a picture
William: but on the back side, is all loose threads
William: there is a famous tapestry from the middle ages
William: depicting the norman conquests
William: or, the prehistoric cave paintings

Aida yes?

William: my vision, my view, is based upon these 60 years

- 07:05 -
William: but, it is unique to me…
William: to share it, you would have to be me, to have lived through the 50s and 60s and 70s

Aida what is unique?

William: MY view, my understanding, my contentment, my frustration
William: same with Hardy “Jude the Obscure”, same with V. Woolf and “Orlando”
William: I couldnt remember yesterday that the Novella was “Orlando”
William: but i saw the book this morning on my shelves

Aida yes?

Aida and
William: someone said to Helen Keller (the blind deaf from birth) “life is filled with suffering” and she answered “BUT it is also filled with the OVERCOMING OF SUFFERING
William: so, as lincoln said “each person is about as happy as they make up their mind to be
William: cognitive therapy “is my cup half empty or half full”

Aida true

William: in highschool, had i known what i know now, i could have rejected liberal arts, beecome an accountant CPA, and perhaps been wealthy, financially secure
William: but i would not be able to speak with you today of these matters
William: now, perhaps, some of my thoughts will live on for 1000 years

- 07:11 -
William: and become a part of something much larger

Aida yes.I wouldnt talk with you now if you were an accountant
William: but, had i become wealthy accounant,… at the end… my house would be sold, my art collection,…. relatives would take the inheritance, and perhaps it would ruin them, they might become gamblers or alcoholics
William: NOW, what we have discussed these past years…..become seeds which i plant in tehran, and seed which you plan in new york

Aida maybe you would go to different museums around the world and explore more
William: so, perhaps that grows in the next generation, to something that works a lasting peace an harmony
William: between our cultures
William: so, are we being wastrels, with empty talk, idling our time
William: OR, is this the most essential dialogue
William: which will build something enduring, like the Great Wall of China, which is the only man made structure which is visible from outer space
William: and yet the Great Wall itself is crumbling….
William: and Venice is sinking

Aida

Aida it is essential at least to me

William: because like every good ladder, and every seamans OAR, there comes a time when it is pushed away, or planted in the ground and sacrificed
William: so, like shakespear says in Lear….. we are on the stage for our hour, and we rant as a mad man, with great sound and fury
William: and it passes away, as the tinkling of bells and the sounding of brass symbols
William: Hegel saw Napoleon one day, pass through a town , in all his glory

- 07:16 -

Aida yes?

William: and yet Napoleon had his Waterloo
William: so, we play roles, and in the end, all passes
William: Solomon’s wisdom – THis too shall pass

Aida what remains then?

William: the riddle “what is the ONE THING i may say to you that, if you are sad, you shall become happy, but if you are happy, you shall become sad
William: the answer is “This too shall pass
William: sickness passes, health passes, poverty passes, wealth passes,
William: nothing endures

Aida life passes.

William: yet, if it were not for constant change, there would be no drama

Aida so it loses its meaning.

William: and we draw the meaning of our life from that drama
William: without failure, there can be no victory
William: yet victory carries failure within itself like the seed which carries withing the oak tree

William: such is life
William: but, we have some good conversation
William: there is a cartoon of Charlie Brown from Snoopy, Charles SHultze
William: wearing his baseball cap and catchers mitt
William: never winning a game
William: always the losing team
William: but he grins, and says, we may not win many games, but we have some great conversations

Aida haha

+++++++++++

Aida I enjoyed talking with you
William: so, have i helped a little

Aida yes very

William: yes, and I cannot be me without questions like yours
William: every answer is meanings outside of the context of a question

Aida thank you for sharing time!

William: and thank you for asking

Aida it made me relieved so much.

William: yes,….. therapeia, in greek, is a process of maintaining balance, and realieveing pressures

William: or releasing pressures
William: kind of a discursive acupuncture
William: one, a patient said to his therapist, whatever shall i do when you are no longer around

Aida yes?

William: the therapist (Sheldon Kopp) said, by then you shall become YOUR OWN therapist, and internalize these discussions

Aida ok I have to become my own therapist now!

William: just as, even when our parents have passed, we leave a room, and hear our mother or father say SHUT OFF THE LIGHT
William: CLOSE THE DOOR, you dont live in a barn
William: we internalize

Aida haha

William: we become our own parent our own teacher

Aida our own lover and friend

William: our own judge jury and executioner/jailor

Aida and child

William: yes, that oo
William: that too

Aida I always find myself guilty and execute myself

William: yes, but then, the next day, you give birth to yourself again and like the Phoenix arise from your own ashes

Aida I have to find another judge within me!

William: but, if you were not driven by that torment, that suffering, you would not struggle and strive up the mountain

Aida now I have to do something with my life uncle wiggly.

William: your Sisyphean task
William: you ARE doing it
William: you are exactly as you SHOULD be at any given moment

- 07:27 -
William: that is the message of the Bhagavad-Gita
Aida yes., in a more practical form.am passive now.

William: and various eastern gurus

Aida only mentally active

William: the saint, the thief, the tyrrant despot, the prostitute, the scientist, the politician the lawyer

Aida have to form the thoughts and give birth to ideas and then act based on them

William: each are what they should be, at that moment

Aida ah that is beautiful message

William: unravelling the karmic knots of many previous existence

William: without hitlers opression we would not have things like Viktor/s Mans Search for Meaning

Aida haha

William: or that movie… now i forget the name AHA SCHINDLER’S LIST
William: the movie about the man who saves all the jews
Aida I was readiung the search for the meaning
William: all i can think of now is jacobs ladder….
Aida it really made me depressed.so I couldnt continue
William: but that is not the movie
William: it will come to me
Aida now you take care of yourself and hug concordia for me
William: sams message, jacobs ladder
William: ok…. yes.

Aida love you !
Aida you helped me gigantically

William: luv you to very much, my daughter
William: but, in a pinch i would marry you, if it made sense, ha ha

Aida thanks..take care@}

William: a means to an end
William: a ladder to that cloud

Aida am no good wife.. I have no time

William: to be kicked away

Aida yes

William: but, it would be a marriage of celibacy

Aida I prefer to be your niece

William: much like my current one

Aida be well !!

William: you too sweet heart
William: in love, we become what is needed by the other
William: but when we love ourselves properly, then we become what we need when we need it

- 07:32 -
William: and then move on
William: now, run along
William: and play nicely

Uscite di casa la mattina, prendete la vostra macchina e vi avviate verso l’ufficio. Davanti a voi avete il classico calvario, un’ora o anche più nel traffico infernale dell’ora di punta, in autostrada, tangenziale o superstrada, passando sempre più nervosamente con lo scorrere dei chilometri dalla prima marcia alla seconda – qualche volta arrivando alla terza- osservando quasi con ostilità le macchine (e i guidatori) davanti e a fianco. Uno scenario che potrebbe diventare solo un ricordo, sempre più sbiadito, se la sperimentazione del Progetto SARTRE (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) – finanziato dall’Unione Europea e condotto da un consorzio di aziende sotto la guida di Ricardo, azienda leader nell’innovazione tecnologica – iniziata lo scorso settembre, dovesse avere i risultati che i suoi promotori si aspettano.

Il sistema automatico "guida" un veicolo all'interno del "treno" di automobili. L'autista del veicolo può dedicarsi alle sue attività: leggere, ascoltare musica, telefonare, lavorare, semplicemente rilassarsi.

Il progetto prende l’avvio dalla diffusione di sistemi automatici di guida che fanno uso di sensori di vario genere (come quelli di parcheggio, che variando l’intensità del fischio indicano la distanza da un ostacolo non visibile negli specchietti) e rendono anche possibile mettere in comunicazione diretta più veicoli. O, per essere più precisi, i sistemi automatici di guida e controllo di più veicoli.

L’industria autmobilistica da tempo è impegnata nello sviluppo di sistemi di questo tipo, ed è andata anche oltre arrivando a realizzare sistemi in grado di sostituire completamente il guidatore. Sono i sistemi di Autonomous Driving (Guida Autonoma), una tecnologia disegnata per prendere il completo controllo delle funzioni di accelerazione, frenata, guida di un veicolo, e che in più è anche capace di entrare in contatto con altri veicoli dotati della stessa tecnologia e di formare, con essi, un “treno” .

I vantaggi? Una guida più sicura, più fluida, senza scossoni e cambiamenti di marcia e, quindi, con un minor consumo di carburante e meno emissioni di CO2 e altri gas inquinanti. E un comfort di guida assolutamente impensabile nelle condizioni odierne. Lasciare il completo controllo del veicolo al sistema automatico di guida, infatti, consentirebbe al guidatore di rilassarsi e dedicarsi alle proprie attività, dall’ascoltare la radio al parlare al telefono (e senza necessità di auricolare o blue tooth!), leggere il giornale, guardare la televisione, lavorare al computer e qualunque altra cosa possa essere fatta nell’abitacolo di un’automobile. Insomma, la nostra macchina si trasformerebbe in una dependance della casa o dell’ufficio, dandoci la possibilità di sfruttare in modo intelligente le decine, se non centinaia di ore l’anno che passiamo chiusi in quello spazio ristretto.

Come funziona SARTRE? L’idea è di formare treni di autoveicoli – dai sei agli otto – con alla testa il cosiddetto veicolo-guida, condotto da un guidatore esperto. Per questo ruolo si pensa, per esempio, a tassisti, camionisti o autisti di autobus. Avvicinandosi a questo veicolo-guida, ogni altro guidatore interessato a inserirsi nel treno dovrà semplicemente lasciare il controllo del suo mezzo al sistema automatico che lo guiderà fino ad agganciarsi agli altri veicoli. Da questo momento, il suo guidatore potrà rilassarsi, dedicandosi alle sue faccende personali, senza doversi preoccupare di camvbiare velocità o marcia, sterzare, mantenere la posizione in una colonna o evitare gli ostacoli: sarà il sistema automatico a fare il tutto.

Avvicinandosi alla sua destinazione, ogni autista dovrà disattivare il sistema automatico e riprendere il controllo manuale, lasciando il treno degli altri veicoli. Il sistema di controllo posto sul veicolo-guida, a questo punto, provvederà a ricompattare il treno.

Non c’è, quindi, necessità, che tutti i veicoli agganciati nel treno seguano esattamente lo stesso percorso: ogni automobilista rimane libero di entrare ed uscire da un treno senza limitazione.

SARTRE si presenta con ottime possibilità di successo soprattutto su percorsi autostradali e di tangenziale. Lo scenario ideale potrebbe essere quello delle tangenziali milanesi, per esempio, che formano un anello intorno alla capitale lombarda. Una serie di veicoli-guida potrebbero percorrere ininterrottamente questo anello, dando la possibilità alle altre macchine di agganciarsi e rilasciarsi secondo necessità.

A parte la incredibile comodità di marcia, SARTRE dovrebbe, nelle speranze dei suoi disegnatori, dare un enrome beneficio per quanto riguarda i consumi: hanno calcolato che potrebbe far risparmiare ben il 20% di carburante, un pieno ogni cinque. In soldoni, si tratta anche di un centinaio di euro al mese per chi copre lunghe distanze ogni giorno.

Quando potremo vedere SARTRE all’opera? Le prima macchine equipaggiate con la tecnologia adeguata cominceranno i test nel 2011. Non sono ancora disponibili indicazioni su costi di installazione e manutenzione di questi sistemi automatici.

Pete, over at Philosophy in a Time of Error, has an interesting, albeit brief, post up on Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason. Pete writes:

My point on Sartre was simply that I think he explains the pre-evental in a way that I find Adrian Johnston and others (Nick S. has written on this, too, as has Peter Hallward) have all wrestled with in Badiou’s work. Adrian Johnston in his new work points out that Badiou doesn’t really have an account of desire that would be a condition within a given set such that one would act for the event in question. Now, I think one could in a sense use the language of scarcity in Sartre, much derided, as but another way of speaking of lack, and thus I actually think in this way Zizek is more of Sartrean than Badiou, since he sides with Sartre on history, the void of the subject, and a certain freedom at the heart of any given structure. That’s a bit broad, of course, but I figure for a blog post, it’s better to be simplistic and provoke more than subtle and dusty about it. Of course, in Sartre, organizations such as the group in fusion are post-evental, too, and I think Badiou was wrong to stipulate in his move away from Sartre that for him the political was reducible to the historical. And in any case, Badiou never satisfactorally bridges the metapolitical and the situated worlds in Logic of Worlds and Being and Event. It’s a subtraction procedure, to be sure, but in the end I find Sartre tells me more about, say, hunger, than set theory does. That’s simplistic, but again, the first thing one thinks when one reads Badiou is something just this snarky, and I don’t know if that’s really ever answered, except through a lot of steps wind in too many circles up to an air too rarified.

Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason is, I think, one of the most unjustly neglected works in political theory. I’m really not sure why this is or what happened here. There is, of course, the infamous Levi-Strauss review. And the language of the text is barbarous (but what text in Continental philosophy isn’t?). And I’m certainly aware that the work is prized highly by Jameson, Badiou, Bourdieu, and Deleuze and Guattari. Nonetheless, it seems like a text that somehow fell through the cracks, never having the impact or hearing it deserved. With any luck there will be a resurgence of interest in the work.

My love of it has always been because of the manner in which it conceptualizes groups in fusion and the practico-inert. With neo-Marxist theory, especially that coming out of the Althusserian school, I’ve always felt that there’s too little focus on group formation and too much emphasis on critical breaks and whatnot. I’m not sure how social structures are to be changed without flourishing group formations or the formation of subject-groups. But if you begin paying attention to questions of group formation, then all sorts of questions arise as to how groups are formed and maintain themselves. I don’t see these questions really being posed at all in contemporary theory. As a result, what you get is a critique of reigning social conditions, how capital functions, ideology, and whatnot, but you don’t really get much in the way of an account of praxis as to how these “structures” might be changed. This is, in part, exactly what Sartre is trying to do in The Critique of Dialectical Reason. While he certainly develops a critique of the contemporary world, his mode of analysis is squarely focused on questions of praxis or how group formations (what he calls “subject-groups”, think Marx’s thesis that the proletariat is the “subject”) come into being and take of the force of transforming “structures”. This is a very different sort of question than the critical question or the question of ideology. Deleuze and Guattari try to complete this project in Anti-Oedipus, yet their nods at Sartre and his subject-groups are far too impressionistic to really provide much in the way of a well developed theory of praxis.

Wien Lounge. We all know it. Its beautiful fireplace, large windows, comfortable furniture, and wide-open space make it an ideal place for rehearsals. However, it can be difficult to mount a full production in there, as anyone who has attempted to do so knows. However, first-time director Thomas Kapusta (CC ‘12) wanted an unconventional space for this play. “I really want the focus to be on the characters and the story,” Kapusta said, and he believes an unconventional space really allows those elements to come to the forefront.

The story Kapusta has chosen is Dirty Hands by Jean-Paul Sartre. Set in fictional Illyria in World War II, the play centers on Hugo (Sam Johnson, CC ‘11), a young idealist who is tasked to assassinate a leader of Illyria’s communist party. He learns the timeless political reality that no one governs innocently. The cast features Tyler Benedict, Emily Feinstein, Madalena Provo, Henry Ring, Arron Seams, Jenny Vallancourt, and Anya Whelan-Smith.

Having spent an immense amount of time studying the play in the original French over the summer, Kapusta knows the story backwards and forwards and it still compels him. He hopes it will interest audiences as well. His use of Wien Lounge as a performance space, in addition to the characters and story, should pique audiences’ interest. The cast has not had the opportunity to rehearse in the space much; from the rehearsal I saw last night, they are adapting well and are learning the real dimensions they have to work with. Light is used well in the space to create the intimate feeling Kapusta wants the audience to have with the characters. Lighting Wien well for a performance is difficult because of the large amounts ambient lighting from the computer lab and laundry room that overlook the lounge. Kapusta has chosen to use lighting effects (backlights, etc) and a thrust stage, which is unusual for Wien, to allow the compelling characters and plot to really be thrust in the middle of the audience, Kapusta said.

CUPlayers present Dirty Hands. Directed by Thomas Kapusta. Produced by Dane Cook. Thursday, Friday and Saturday (November 19, 20, 21) in Wien Lounge. You can get your FREE tickets and see the Dirty Hands’ Facebook event.

********

Alison Goldberg, BC ‘12

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are

- Jean Paul Sartre

Well, I haven’t made a post here in almost a month. I just came across a post with some sartre/husserl stuff and left a little comment:

It’s a lonely road I know, but we are there, walking together… just a thought.

I read all that in my twenties (thirty years ago) and I have come to believe that we can only realize the things which our eyes or our mind’s eye can see. No matter what anyone tells us, no matter what the evidence, many are blind to the existence of these things. Birds hear sounds they don’t recognize – it is the voicings of other birds claiming territory upon their own, each species overlapping in a multidimensional pattern. We have the same territorial phenomenology – in the end, it’s cute really, kind of makes me smile at tea time.

All things are designed for or directed toward a final result – there is an inherent purpose or final cause for all that exists. Nature has no design or purpose. A person has eyes because he has the need of sight, and sight because he has eyes.

“Nothing occurs at random, but everything for a reason and by necessity.”
οὐδὲν χρῆμα μάτην γίνεται, ἀλλὰ πάντα ἐκ λόγου τε καὶ ὑπ’ ἀνάγκης

In case you wonder why I am not posting much now, it is because I am trying to come up with an interesting idea for my next project and the workshop next week. I can tell you right now that it will have to do with defacement of portraits in Maya art and architecture. This project will work along these theoretical lines:

Defaced people on a ballcourt panel from Cancuen

The human subject emerges from relations of exteriority and from parts to whole. In the empiricist philosophy of David Hume, Deleuze (1991) finds an alternative to the linguisticality of experience that has been part of the Kantian and Hegelian traditions. Based on Deleuze’s reading of Hume, DeLanda argues that subjective experience is formed from distinct and separable sense impressions. Ideas derived from these impressions are direct replicas of the impressions without any representational link (as a contrast to Kant’s faculties of representation). The ideas only have a lower intensity than the impressions (cf. Bergson 2004). Therefore, each kind of impression (visual, aural, passion) has a singular individuality and existence. They are heterogeneous and cannot be reduced to one another (DeLanda 2006, 48-50). Emotions and senses like sight and hearing are depicted in the expressive record in the Maya area (Houston et al. 2006). This data can be used to understand how these impressions were understood from the ideas formed by the impressions.

The subject pursues a goal through the principle of utility and establishes relations among ideas through the principle of association. The association of ideas gives the singular impressions and ideas a unity, an assemblage. Our habits of grouping ideas and comparing them transform a population of individual ideas into an emergent whole (DeLanda 2006). Habitual repetition creates a stable identity for the assemblage and habits sustain the association of ideas (cf. Turner 1994). The human being is habitual and creative at the same time.

On the personal scale, the main effect of language is to form beliefs. To believe in the ideas brings them closer to the impressions. However, it is often the intensity of a belief that drives social action, rather than its linguistic proposition and semantic content (DeLanda 2006, 48-52). Thus, human agents did not study, analyze and contemplate the monumental iconography into the cosmological and symbolic details described by various Mayanists (cf. Normark 2008a). Monumental iconography rather worked like Gell’s (1998) sense of index that directly affected the viewer. It was the intensity of the beliefs associated with the impressions of viewing the iconography that created an intense ritual arena. The iconography was also a way for a signifying regime to direct the ideas into a homogeneous form, and these ideas would then affect their components (the impressions) as well.  

The subject emerges from subpersonal components and it interacts with other subjects through short-lived assemblages called encounters, which consists of the co-presence of human bodies and materialities (DeLanda 2006, 52-53). Sartre’s (1991) concept of serial action, of how people form temporary series in relation to materialities, is a complementary perspective in the study of social encounters (Fahlander 2003; Normark 2007). Locations where series of people formed and encounters occurred can be found in abundance in the archaeological record: house lots, causeways, plazas, rooms, water reservoirs, sinkholes, caves, quarries, etc. (Normark 2006a). Encounters can also be seen in the iconography (Reents-Budet 2001), detected through the epigraphic record mentioning nobility visiting or interacting with other nobility (Schele and Mathews 1991; Stuart 1999), and the location where this occurred (Stuart and Houston 1994).

An encounter is territorialized by behaviors that define the borders, such as grinding corn in a house lot (Hutson 2004), quarrying stone (Abrams 1994), and the meeting between nobles from different sites (Martin and Grube 2000). Embarrassment and dishonor can be seen as deterritorializing processes in an encounter. We have examples of this in the iconography of defeated captives (Houston 2001; Martin 2001; Schele and Freidel 1990; Schele and Miller 1986). The same event is also a territorializing process for the victorious ruler and the organization of which the ruler was part. Such lethal encounters were eventful and allowed the participants an expressive possibility to display character, such as courage and integrity (DeLanda 2006, 55; Normark 2007). Defacement is an effect of similar encounters.

Nu importă ceea ce au făcut din noi, importă ceea ce am făcut noi din ceea ce au făcut (ei) din noi. (Sartre, citat de părintele Steinhardt. Vezi întreg contextul aici.)

Esta é uma argumentação filosófica a respeito de desenvolvimento ágil, utilizando-se de algumas argumentações de Jean-Paul Sartre em sua obra “O Ser e o Nada”. Por favor, não se precipitem achando que o Sistema substitui o Nada, ou que o Sistema é o Nada ou até mesmo que o Sistema não serve para Nada! Ao longo do post ficará claro a escolha deste título. Por enquanto, vamos a uma pré-argumentação.

A adaptação

Quando olhamos para as práticas e valores dos métodos ágeis, assim como em qualquer outro contexto onde temos que aplicar um conceito em nosso trabalho diário, existe uma forte tendência no sentido de tentarmos adaptar os conceitos para a nossa realidade. Esse é um comportamento natural e podemos até mesmo dizer que seja desejável.

Porém esta adaptação pode seguir em dois sentidos:  evolução ou desvirtuação.

Vamos a um exemplo prático:

Decidimos passar a realizar o Scrum Diário. A partir do momento que passamos a aplicar esta prática, ela vai tomando a “cara” do time, sendo adaptada, por exemplo, para colocar no quadro mais uma coluna que faz sentido no contexto daquele desenvolvimento ou empresa. Isso considero como uma evolução, onde existe uma simbiose entre o conceito e a realidade diária. O motivo e benefícios de se fazer o Scrum Diário se mantém e se adicionam elementos para facilitar a aplicação.

Porém, muitas vezes o Scrum Diário pode se tornar uma reunião demorada, se extendendo, por exemplo, para discutir um assunto crítico. Uma reunião que era apenas para termos um status e durar alguns minutos se torna uma reunião cheia de detalhes e que demora várias horas. Essa é a desvirtuação do conceito original, o motivo e os benefícios de se fazer o Scrum Diário são perdidos

Citei este exemplo por já ter vivenciado este cenário e por acreditar que deva se repetir em várias empresas que começam a aplicar o Scrum Diário.

Como podemos nos prevenir para não desvirtuarmos os conceitos de métodos ágeis no nosso dia-a-dia? A resposta pode ser tão simples como: Releia a definição do conceito e faça exatamente o que está ecrito! Será que esta resposta realmente nos satisfaz? E se a aplicação do conceito não é o melhor para a minha organização?

Creio que a melhor resposta continua sendo: Adapte, porém tome cuidado para não desvirtuar. Para que isso não aconteça, como disse meu amigo Agnaldo em seu blog:

“Tão importante quanto seguir uma metodologia é conhecer sua filosofia.”

Temos que procurar entender os motivos pelos quais sugiram os valores dos métodos ágeis e quais são seus benefícios.

Feita esta pré-argumentação, podemos ir à argumentação principal que procura apresentar conceitos filosóficos como motivos que dão suporte a alguns conceitos utilizados nos métodos ágeis.

O Ser

O livro “O Ser e o Nada” possui o subtítulo “Ensaio de Ontologia Fenomenológica”. É um livro a respeito do estudo da realidade, que pode ser chamado também de estudo da natureza do ser ou ontologia, através dos fenômenos associados ele, ou seja, suas aparições e efeitos (fenomenologia).

Apesar de correr o risco de ser simplista, vamos tomar um exemplo concreto para a nossa argumentação:

Uma porta

Isso mesmo, uma porta comum que abre e fecha, tem uma maçaneta e pode ser trancada com uma chave.

Na introdução, que possui o título “Em busca do ser”, Sartre argumenta que a filosofia moderna avançou consideravelmente ao reduzir o ser à série de aparições que o manifestam. Ou seja, a porta só faz sentido como ser ao analisarmos as suas manifestações. Porém, analisar a manifestação momentânea do ser não é suficiente para determinarmos o que realmente é o ser, uma vez que ele provavelmente irá se manifestar de outra maneira no futuro. Precisamos analisar a razão da sequencia de aparições do ser para realmente chegar à sua natureza. Sartre escreve:

“É preciso que capte o vermelho através da sua impressão de vermelho. O vermelho, ou seja, a razão da série: a corrente elétrica através da eletrólise, etc. Mas se a transcendência do objeto se baseia na necessidade que a apararição tem de sempre se fazer transcender, resulta que um objeto coloca, por princípio como infinita a série de suas aparições. Assim, a aparição, finita, indica-se a si própria em sua finitude, mas, ao mesmo tempo, para ser captada como aparição-do-que-aparece, exige ser ultrapassada até o infinito.”

Sartre chega então a um novo dualismo:  o do finito e infinito. Para este post, podemos parar a análise do livro por aqui, uma vez que chegamos no ponto central desta argumentação:

Não temos como obter a natureza completa do ser, uma vez que seria necessário observar todos os fenomenos que o manifestam até o infinito. Consequentemente, não conseguimos abstrair e modelar o ser por completo.

O Sistema

Podemos dizer que o desenvolvimento de sistemas tem como meta abstrair e modelar o mundo real e os conceitos que envolvem as tarefas dele (ser) em artefatos automatos capazes de manipular informações e coordenar tarefas.

Ignorando neste momento a definição de sistema e como esta palavra/conceito deveria ser melhor apresentado e colocada neste post, vamos inferir o ponto em que chegamos no tópico anterior para nossa realidade de desenvolvimento de sistemas. Podemos dizer que é uma utopia acreditar que é possível modelar a totalidade de um ser, que neste caso podemos ver como os objetos e processos que estamos desenvolvendo. Voltando ao exemplo concreto:

Vamos modelar um sistema para realizar a pintura de portas novas, ainda sem pintura. O objeto principal de nosso sistema é a porta.Observando então a porta e as várias características a respeito de portas que temos em nossa memória, conseguimos ver vários aspectos que podemos modelar a repeito da porta:

- A porta é feita de uma determinada madeira
- Ela possui maçaneta
- É aberta por uma chave
- Pode estar aberta
- Pode estar fixada no batente
- Pode ser resistente ao fogo
- Pode ter cupim
- Pode estar com mofo
- Pode ser nova
- Pode estar quebrada

Creio que é claro para todos que poderíamos listar até o infinito o número de informações e comportamentos a repeito da porta. Porém, não é isso que precisamos! Precisamos apenas modelar as informações e comportamentos necessários para cumprir o escopo do nosso sistema, ou seja, devemos focar a modelagem somente no que é necessário para o desenvolvimento do sistema de pintura de portas novas, ainda sem pintura.

Tentar predizer que o sistema um dia pode precisar de algo que não precisa hoje é uma tendência natural ao erro. Poderíamos já fazer a modelagem pensando que um dia o sistema poderia pintar portas usadas e que bastaria colocar uma etapa para primeiro tirar a tinta atual da porta e então seguir o processo normal. Porém a porta por não ser nova poderia estar lascada e ser necessário que o sistema recurepe esta parte da porta para depois então pinta-la.

Se considerarmos que a manifestação do ser que queremos modelar é o escopo do sistema, ou seja, o comportamento do sistema que o cliente espera naquela entrega, não temos como prever o que será este ser no futuro, dado que ainda só conhecemos a manifestação finita dele: o que o cliente precisa.

Os Conceitos

Toda esta argumentação serve para chegar em um simples ponto, normalmente adotado nos métodos ágeis:

Somente modele o que você precisa!

No XP, isso é suportado pelos seguintes valores e práticas:

- Design incremental
- Simplicidade
- Passos de bebê

Porém, novamente aqui reforço a importância para que não desvirtuarmos estes conceitos. Estes valores não são desculpas para realizar uma modelagem correta de OO, por exemplo. Faça o design correto, mas não modele informações e comportamentos que você acha que um dia o sistema irá necessitar.

O Resumo

Vimos a importância de compreender a filosofia por trás dos conceitos adotados nos métodos ágeis. A partir deste ponto utilizamos a argumentação do Sartre de que não é possível determinar a natureza total do ser sobre o qual iremos modelar o sistema com base em uma série de manifestações finitas, que mapeamos sendo o escopo do que o cliente precisa.  Por este motivo é uma tendência ao erro tentar modelar situações que não estão no escopo da entrega atual.

A Conclusão

[LL] Os métodos que nos auxiliam a lidar com o novo modelo estrutural aqui preconizado prepara-nos para enfrentar situações atípicas decorrentes do levantamento das variáveis envolvidas. [/LL]

Obrigado pela revisão e dicas, Agnaldo e Renan!