Friday, January 29, 2010
8:46pm
Today was better. I shut off Facebook last night because I get too many self-promotions from other poets and the like. I really want to hunker down and study philosophy.
I am thinking of somehow applying abstract algebra to some kind of philosophical structures. If that makes sense.
Susan and I are back on track. My brother called and asked when is the wedding. He owns a cupcake shop in Renton called Common Ground. Of course it refers to coffee residue.
11:37pm. Susan has already gone to bed. I am preparing to meet someone tomorrow who is a poet and a teacher. He taught at Columbia University and is currently teaching at the Richard Hugo House and is working for the Gates Foundation. There are a couple of things I want from him, but I don’t know what he wants from me, except to give me a decision whether he wants to be a part of my nonprofit, charitable literary corporation – Chrysanthemum Literary Society (CLS). He indicated that he wants to contribute as a publicity/marketing person and be rewarded the position of book-length editor. This I can deal with because what I willing to let go is some of the editorial function and concentrate on the business side of things to CLS.
This is a kind of personal politicking for me. I don’t know my own worth sometimes. At least for the past several years, I have more or less done school and nothing else. Living with Susan for the past 1 ½ years though is a new thing. I have always been alone except a brief period living with Melanie in a communal situation. Except for a few dates and one extramarital affair, there have been few relationships. But action-at-a-distance had been my romantic experience most of the time. But the reciprocal attention was either minimal or nonexistent. It means, I like her, but she didn’t like me sort of thing. I loved one woman for 7 years though. She knew I had loved her but she was a flower that Don Quixote would admire and smell all they long. All my life, I had put women on a pedestal.
February 3, 2010
4:56AM, PST Seattle
A Recognition
The last several days I have been undergoing some moral crisis, precipitated by my errors in my Philosophy of Mind class. They were not errors strictly of an academic or knowledge matter; they were also of an attitudinal position.
The immediate cause was that I had a disagreement with what I felt was arrogance on the part of one student in class who mercilessly sought dominance by what I felt was an abrasive attitude towards the thoughts of the other students. Granted that the person in question is likely the most gifted student in the class, however, her attitude did not spare our feelings. More specifically, the “arguments” were over the “correctness” of our philosophic positions of “dualism” vs. “monism,” and the role that science, in particular neuroscience, can lead us out of the muddle the rest of us in the class was in.
Her position was that “dualism,” especially Rene Descartes’ position was just flatly wrong; there is no such thing as “mind,” but only the activities of the brain and its by-products. The professor, though not in complete agreement with her, also said that there is only one type of substance in the world, and that’s physical stuff and that our “mind” indeed is a by-product of our brain.
Such a materialistic theory, purported to be supported by the best scientific evidence now available, is said to be valid. It is just “tough luck” that some of us believe still that we have a “mind” in the normal sense of the word.
Many of us in the class, I in particular, found this “theory” or reality hard to swallow, for it would mean that we really have no “freedom” in this totally mechanistic world.
There was an older fellow, my age, who had been a pharmacist and a psychologist, who took the position of Continental Philosophy that science indeed should not interfere with how we think we should live. I supported his position by saying that “science was arrogant” when I did not deal with the issue, but instead said that to indirectly correct that gifted classmate’s position, which seem totally correct, well-argued and articulated, and had such a recognition by our professor.
Furthermore, she attacked my postings on the class Blackboard as vague and ambiguous, and that was also backed up by what the professor said he wanted – precision and clarity.
My shock was two-fold: first is the mind really a “fiction?” and secondly, “am I smart enough to be taking this class?”
This seemed to be to be some kind of “initiation rite” into Philosophy. This particular class, The Philosophy of Mind, was open to anyone regardless of their background in philosophy. And so we have a big difference between the skill and knowledge levels of the students in the class. Therefore, I felt to be so poorly treated, without kiddy gloves, that it felt like being batted on the head. The larger issues of responsibility, freedom, justice, and morality seem to “mental fictions” which had no place in neuroscience. Since the world is all material, we are just material beings with these “thoughts” which are just by-products of our brains, which are physical objects.
8:46pm
Today was better. I shut off Facebook last night because I get too many self-promotions from other poets and the like. I really want to hunker down and study philosophy.
I am thinking of somehow applying abstract algebra to some kind of philosophical structures. If that makes sense.
Susan and I are back on track. My brother called and asked when is the wedding. He owns a cupcake shop in Renton called Common Ground. Of course it refers to coffee residue.
11:37pm. Susan has already gone to bed. I am preparing to meet someone tomorrow who is a poet and a teacher. He taught at Columbia University and is currently teaching at the Richard Hugo House and is working for the Gates Foundation. There are a couple of things I want from him, but I don’t know what he wants from me, except to give me a decision whether he wants to be a part of my nonprofit, charitable literary corporation – Chrysanthemum Literary Society (CLS). He indicated that he wants to contribute as a publicity/marketing person and be rewarded the position of book-length editor. This I can deal with because what I willing to let go is some of the editorial function and concentrate on the business side of things to CLS.
This is a kind of personal politicking for me. I don’t know my own worth sometimes. At least for the past several years, I have more or less done school and nothing else. Living with Susan for the past 1 ½ years though is a new thing. I have always been alone except a brief period living with Melanie in a communal situation. Except for a few dates and one extramarital affair, there have been few relationships. But action-at-a-distance had been my romantic experience most of the time. But the reciprocal attention was either minimal or nonexistent. It means, I like her, but she didn’t like me sort of thing. I loved one woman for 7 years though. She knew I had loved her but she was a flower that Don Quixote would admire and smell all they long. All my life, I had put women on a pedestal.
February 3, 2010
4:56AM, PST Seattle
A Recognition
The last several days I have been undergoing some moral crisis, precipitated by my errors in my Philosophy of Mind class. They were not errors strictly of an academic or knowledge matter; they were also of an attitudinal position.
The immediate cause was that I had a disagreement with what I felt was arrogance on the part of one student in class who mercilessly sought dominance by what I felt was an abrasive attitude towards the thoughts of the other students. Granted that the person in question is likely the most gifted student in the class, however, her attitude did not spare our feelings. More specifically, the “arguments” were over the “correctness” of our philosophic positions of “dualism” vs. “monism,” and the role that science, in particular neuroscience, can lead us out of the muddle the rest of us in the class was in.
Her position was that “dualism,” especially Rene Descartes’ position was just flatly wrong; there is no such thing as “mind,” but only the activities of the brain and its by-products. The professor, though not in complete agreement with her, also said that there is only one type of substance in the world, and that’s physical stuff and that our “mind” indeed is a by-product of our brain.
Such a materialistic theory, purported to be supported by the best scientific evidence now available, is said to be valid. It is just “tough luck” that some of us believe still that we have a “mind” in the normal sense of the word.
Many of us in the class, I in particular, found this “theory” or reality hard to swallow, for it would mean that we really have no “freedom” in this totally mechanistic world.
There was an older fellow, my age, who had been a pharmacist and a psychologist, who took the position of Continental Philosophy that science indeed should not interfere with how we think we should live. I supported his position by saying that “science was arrogant” when I did not deal with the issue, but instead said that to indirectly correct that gifted classmate’s position, which seem totally correct, well-argued and articulated, and had such a recognition by our professor.
Furthermore, she attacked my postings on the class Blackboard as vague and ambiguous, and that was also backed up by what the professor said he wanted – precision and clarity.
My shock was two-fold: first is the mind really a “fiction?” and secondly, “am I smart enough to be taking this class?”
This seemed to be to be some kind of “initiation rite” into Philosophy. This particular class, The Philosophy of Mind, was open to anyone regardless of their background in philosophy. And so we have a big difference between the skill and knowledge levels of the students in the class. Therefore, I felt to be so poorly treated, without kiddy gloves, that it felt like being batted on the head. The larger issues of responsibility, freedom, justice, and morality seem to “mental fictions” which had no place in neuroscience. Since the world is all material, we are just material beings with these “thoughts” which are just by-products of our brains, which are physical objects.
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