The Naming Ape Introduction Pass 1.5

INTRODUCTION:

The idea to be explored here in the entries which will for the time being be connected under the title (perhaps too cutely) The Naming Ape, is that Humans are simply animals fundamentally indistinguishable from other animals. In this regard one of the things which does distinguish humans in our use of language, and specifically how we filter our experiences through language and naming living more within out conceptualizations than the actual world we inhabit. This for the time being raises three prime questions in my mind, many more no doubt to be added as I go. Firstly how did we develop our systems of naming and how does it influence and effect our experience of the world? Secondly how do animals experience the world around them without the mitigation of language and conceptualization? Thirdly how might we understand those aspects of the world which we currently comprehend in a conceptualized fashion free of these concepts and filters? These are all complex questions which no doubt draw on various areas of study which are outside of my expertise, historical, anthropological, neurological, and I will attempt to address them as best I can, but it is of course also important to identify and accept the limitations inherent in any project.

The Usefulness of Conceptualizations

I do not mean for my attack on the human action of conceptualization to be taken as a devaluing of it. The truth is that on a day to day basis conceptualizing the world around us is not only a necessary part of living in the world but is most likely the cause of the success of the human species in competing with other possible apex species on the planet. The use of concepts is what has allowed us to store large amounts of information in our brains and draw conclusions about current and likely future experiences from those in our past. We do not need to remember all parts about all things but can instead extrapolate from the particular to the general. We are able to categorize and systematize our knowledge about the world. The problem comes in through our mistake in believing our concepts, categories, and systems reveal essential truths about the world and are more than the useful tools developed through generations of trial and error, and empirical investigation, through the process of evolution as those ancestors whose brains favored certain mental processes over other succeeded and passed such preferences down to us today. [This claim of an evolutionary source for our mental processes may seem strange, perhaps it does not, I intend to discuss this further later on but to quickly address it; Those ancestors whose brain structures allowed them a more accurate and complete mental representation of the world around them succeeded to a greater extent than did others and so had more children etc. This is how human beings came to be predominantly visual in their experiences of the world, no doubt somewhere along the chain there were those who relied more on their hearing, or sense of smell perhaps, to tell them about the world. There are obvious benefits to these systems and obvious detriments, bats and dogs for example have found a niche with in them.] (This section will likely be removed and expanded elsewhere) We mistake our limited understanding of the world around us, filtered through our preconceived categories, concepts, and systems, for reality because we mistake our categories, concepts, and systems for reality. Perhaps one of the most striking examples of this behavior is found in our system of categorization for animal life. In the 18^th century our brightest minds led by Linnaeus began replacing the Aristotelian taxonomy with a standardized binomial system for naming all organisms. This was a noble effort and one which provided the foundation for many great advances of our understanding of the world around us, including Darwin's revolutionary description of how such distinctions developed over time. Now however through the discovery of genetics and DNA we are able to map this development more precisely and see where our past system of classification broke down placing animals together according to physiological similarities which in truth developed independently of one another most likely in response to similar external factors. It was the discovery of the process of change over time itself however which put the nail in the coffin of the system of categorization as an accurate depiction of reality. This does not negate the essential usefulness of the system, but only its reliability as a source of truth.

The Vomit Was A Bit Much

I saw Perfect Pitch. No shame in it... ok a little but hey I'm comfortable in my sexuality or something like that. The idea that a movie whose main characters are predominantly female cannot appeal to a male audience is not only stupid but offensive, I like good movies regardless of whether I bear any resemblance to the protagonists. The reason I cannot stand Tyler Perry movies is not because the characters are black and I am white, it is because the movies, to the extent that I have seen them are horrible. Not only that but they are racist, I'm sure toward white people, but in my experience mostly toward African Americans. This is well trod ground and seeing as I have seen a sum total of 20 minutes of all of his movies I will not continue along it, I being it up merely to contrast it to the much better movies starring other people who do not resemble me which I enjoy. In the nineties there was a whole series of "Gangsta" movies which I quite enjoyed and still do even if I am now more aware of how they did not show the African American community in the best light, but they were well made and told compelling stories about characters they managed to get the audience to care about. The two best were of course Boyz N the Hood, and Menace II Society. These were particularly dark films which carried a strong social message much like the "Gangsta Rap" music which provided their soundtrack, informed their sensibility, and provided a significant part of their cast. There of course was also Friday which was a great movie and carried no important social message, though it also starred Ice Cube... "It's Friday you ain't got a job you ain't got shit to do..." Friday of course was a great stoner movie, which at the time was something I had in common with the characters... It does however point to two other great stoner movies Cheech and Chong which I first enjoyed before my discovery of the wonders of Marijuana and Harold and Kumar which I watched after I had ceased to be a regular smoker... All of these movies star characters of different races than me but with whom I shared other more important connections. I have gotten a little off track, as I was speaking originally of good female centered films. The three most recent which spring to mind are all comedies, and all include Rebel Wilson in the cast interestingly enough. Firstly there is Bridesmaids, which everyone and their mother has seen and talked about ad nauseum, I know this because I recently managed, with the help of two female friends, to get my male room mate who refused to watch it on the basis of it being a chick movie to sit down and watch it and then admit to having enjoyed it... The third movie is the one I have already mentioned which kicked off this whole rant, Pitch Perfect. This was actually a really good movie, I mean don't get me wrong it was not a tour de force of cinematography or anything, but then who really wanted it to be. On the most shallow level it had 5 really attractive actresses in it, which might seem counter to my point to bring up but I'm not going to lie, my attraction to the women on screen is an important part of my experience. Sometimes I am identifying with the character as an aspect of myself, which I am capable of doing with both male and female characters, and sometimes a am identifying with them as a person I would like to have some form of relationship with, whether as a friend or in a romantic context or both. The two odd choices made in the movie were the weirdly rapey depiction of the one lesbian character who took every opportunity to grope the overtly sexual Stacie, any male character who did the same would have been the obvious villain of the film leading to charges being filed and intense bonding over the evils of sexual assault. The other of course is the afore mentioned vomit, not so much the first time which worked well but the recurrence which I won't spoil but it was over the top and out of place tonally as the only true gross out moment, perhaps a nod to the dress shop scene in Bridesmaids, but that did somehow fit with much of the rest of the movie.
Ok so I said three movies and then mentioned a first and a third. What happened to second, and why call what was obviously the first movie mentioned the third etc. Well the second was probably the best and certainly the least well known, Bachelorette. Perhaps it is most telling, and perhaps reflects badly on myself and my associations, that this movie rang most true to me. I highly recommend it. In fact as much as I think you should pay to see this movie in order to encourage people to make more like it I will tell you that if you just go here: http://www.sockshare.com/file/55A827DA0EE001AE you can see it right now. Aside from having a great performance by Kirsten Dunst, whose mere presence on the side of 7th street in Manhattan once caused me to almost crash my bike and most surely die, and the always amazing on screen chemistry of Lizzie Caplin and Adam Scott the loss of whom in the guise of Party Down has greatly lowered the value of owning a television... the film is quite simply funny as shit. The three main characters could have come off as complete train wrecks, which in some ways they are, but they are also subtly imbued with the humanity to make their flaws endearing, and again Kirsten Dunst, Lizzie Caplin and Isla Fisher are all gorgeous women. Ultimately the point of all of this is that you can have any number of relationships to the characters in a movie, as with any work of fiction or art for that matter. You can identify with them as a representation of yourself, or as a person you would enjoy knowing, or as a person you are glad not to know, as a representation of someone you actually do know... And involved in all of these complex relations are innumerable other factors such as the fact that of all the representations of Elizabeth Bennett I have encountered from the Original, to PBS, to the BBC, to film adaptations both faithful and loose to the point of Bollywood, I have identified with all of them but none as much as Kiera Knightly the one I would most like to have sex with, but that might just be my own narcissism... or not.

A pointless post I used to get my fingers moving

As it turns out it is possible to oversleep on a day when you have nothing to do. That is not to be taken to imply that I just woke up right now at 3:37pm but suffice it to say that the amount of time that has passed since I awoke and rigt now is embarrassingly short, especially for a person who is attempting to do a thing he is refusing to call "self-improvement" As to some of the things I promised last night to do today I am still planning on attempting to do that. I have reached a starbucks, so thats one thing down, and I am typing so that should count for something. At this point I am holding to Truman Capote's description of Kerrouac's work as "not writing but typing" that might not be an exact quote, but seeing as I prefer Kerouac to Capote I have no problem with it, not to say I do not enjoy Capote... I have to say that the Book Breakfast at Tiffany's was very good although I was picturing Audrey Hepburn rather than as Capote intended someone more like Marilyn Monroe...

A second and FINAL failure to post in a timely fashion which doesn't even count cause I got soemthing up last night after I posted about not getting anything up...

I really haven't decided on the rules of this whole thing yet, so I am trying to decide whether I need to get something up before midnight to count as having posted today or merely before going to sleep. For the time being I am posting this in case midnight turns out to be the deadline which seems arbitrary given the fictional nature of our conception of time... Although the non-arbitrary line would need to be linked to either sun up or sun down, and sun down perhaps would make the most sense so in that case I would have already missed it, thought there is much to be said for sun up as the distinction which leaves me almost 7 hours... Ultimately the reason for my failure today might be slightly more acceptable than were my reasons yesterday, not that what I was doing was any more valuable but it was not on my couch which should count for something right. Ok I went to a double feature and I guess if I write about the movies that falls within the guidelines of this nebulous project as it stands at the moment and I cannot write about movies without seeing movies... But I am not going to do that today but perhaps tomorrow when I have nothing on the schedule but reading and posting and drinking coffee. I'm going to try to go back and add to something already here, as well as cover those movies and get some reading done which I have been neglecting in favor of using that time to write, not that I have been writing well but I am trying to get my flow and style back... So with 10 minutes left until the arbitrary cut-off of midnight I solemnly pledge to cover at least one movie reviewish type thing, a response to at least one of the two things I am currently reading, and to work on something already here tomorrow. Oh also I was thinking on the subway tonight about instituting a further program of actions apart from the blog, to include returning to Zen meditation, and active conscious exercise, which as I write it sounds ridiculous, I hesitate to use any words which might imply self-improvement as one of my core mottos is "Self-Improvement is Masturbation" and I recognize the ridiculousness of any motto, but my point being that one should be outwardly oriented toward the world and not become overly inward motivated only concerning one's "self" with the fiction of the "self"which in reality is merely the convergence of biology, physiology, and experience with no essential truth other than that which it brings into being through interaction with the external world. Ok see these rambling meaningless posts serve a purpose as I am going to take that sentence out and expand on it in my attempt to define my ideas surrounding the concept of self. Again however I will be doing that tomorrow...

The Impossibility of the Soul Given Evolution (Just a quick beginning)

The belief in an immortal soul is nothing more than the convergence of two core weaknesses of the human species; the fear of death and the desire to believe in our own privileged position in the universe. I suppose there is no revelation in attacking the existence of the soul, however most people seem to hold onto some remnant of the concept no matter how rational they are in the rest of their thought. It is my intention here to discuss the one of the many reasons to abandon the belief in the soul, not merely as outdated but as proven to be ridiculous and/or impossible. The starting point of my argument is the belief in Evolution. Those who deny Evolution will be un-swayed by my arguments but given their refusal to accept scientific evidence I can't be bothered with them.

The questions I will be asking of those who hold with the soul among many others as I get going will include: what has a soul what doesn't? Plants vs. Animals? One species vs. another? When and why did the soul evolve? These questions, I believe have no answers and without sufficient answers to such questions continued belief in the soul is untenable.

Failure to Post

Ok so its only day 3... of the pledge to post at least one thing everyday and I am already falling down on the job. I am still going to try to put another substantive post up since I don't want to count these filler posts about posting. I learned however that as much as I might claim that I am going to post from home, I am not... I need to go to Starbucks or something to be productive. I had good reason for lying to myself and going straight home from work... I missed last nights Daily Show, Colbert, and Rachel Maddow so I told myself I would watch these shows and they would provide fodder for posting... Well that half happened... So the other thing going on in the world of talking about posting instead of actually posting is that I am worried about the fact that this might end up being a lot of starts of things and very little finishing of things. All things considered the starting is a big step forward from the thinking about starting, so maybe I should just call that a victory and try to take the next step forward of attempting to finish which might ultimately lead to actually finishing... Also the way I see it the more things I start the better the chances of finding something worth finishing...

My Public Brain Goes Public

As of 30 seconds ago this blog is now available to be read by anyone! I still have not mentioned it to anyone... but theoretically it is out there to be read. It is obviously not ready to be read but that is kind of the point, were I to wait for it to be ready I would never put it out there... so to those of you who have found this enjoy and for those who I have told about this blog you can ask yourself how long after this post went up did I mention the blog to you and judge accordingly.

A Modest Proposal Post One

A Program for Direct Democracy Through a System of Proxies

This is by necessity far from complete and is at the moment little more than a thought experiment not yet well thought out. I hope you (the imaginary readers of my blog) will take it in that light and think and respond accordingly.

One of the projects I have been thinking about for a while now is a new political paradigm exploiting new technologies and communication to allow for a system of direct democracy allowing all citizens to have a more direct voice in Government but also allowing for expertise and flexibility free of traditional political divisions. This would be accomplished by digital online voting allowing every person to log in and vote on any given issue... This of course would be a complete and utter mess... There are many problems with this system which I will be outlining and addressing over future posts and as such here I am going to try to lay out the system in broad strokes and acknowledge the essential problems inherent in the idea which will be expanded on and hopefully in some way answered in the future.

First the basic structure. People would be able to place their vote into a system of proxy where-by they will designate a person to vote on their behalf. They could do so on a blanket basis, handing over their vote on all things to a single person, as they essentially do now to their congress person and Senators. Or they would be able to designate different people to vote on their behalf according to the area of policy being addressed. This would allow the representation to more closely reflect the opinions of the populace as there would be no reason to balance one's opinion on economic issues with those on social issues in order to find a single representative who is acceptable on both, let alone on various social issues, the environment vs. gay marriage...

Ok, so you place your votes in the hands of different representatives on different issues, this raises the first possible problem:we would need to clearly define the areas of policy and categorize the policy proposals in order to determine who has how many votes to cast on each issue. Also people would have the ability to withdraw their proxy at any given time and vote for themselves, or place their proxy in another person. This level of flexibility is only available to us now through the development of information technology eliminating the need for scheduled elections and campaigning, no longer would people be forced to place their power in the hands of another for years at a time and watch helplessly as it is mishandled. Also representation would no longer be geographically defined such that all a person needs to do to gain 1/435^th of the voting power is convince 50.01% of the people who show up on a given day to vote, or less in the case of a plurality, in a given area to invest it to them essentially ignoring the opposite will of the rest of that constituency...

Further we would set a cycle by which every year, or perhaps another time period as seems appropriate all proxies revert and people must choose who if anyone will be empowered to vote on their behalf. In this way we could ensure that those voted are being actively invested and not sitting with any given person out of apathy. Those people who are not interested in the issues will simply not be voting their vote nor investing it with a proxy, however should an issue come up which awakens their political interest they will not be locked out until the next election cycle but will have the choice either to vote on individual issues or should they feel that their knowledge does not meet the level of their concern or interest choose a proxy who they believe knows the correct answer or at least trust to have a good idea what needs to be done.

There is obviously much more work to be done on this proposal and I will be returning to it frequently both adding new entries and editing this one. I am cutting it off here primarily due to time constraints of the day. I am posting it because rather than waiting for a sense that something is finished and thereby allowing myself to never post anything I am going to post works in progress forcing myself to improve them as they exist in public and people will be judging me based on them.

On the Death of Richie Cunningham

SPOILER ALERT

 

Ok, so I'm not sure why I bothered to put the spoiler alert at the top as at the time of writing this the blog is still not available to the public, and also I famously do not believe in spoiler alerts because I doubt the possibility of things being spoiled by knowledge of the end and if you are concerned with that happening you have a moral responsibility to see things when they become available and not wait... I see many things before they are widely available or at least as soon as possible but that is because as you might have guessed by the fact that I have a blog, I have no life... But yeah last night on Sons of Anarchy they killed the coolest character on the show, and one which was being criminally under emphasised all along. OPIE IS DEAD! and by the way did you like my tricky way of titling this post so that those cry babies wouldn't be able to say I spoiled it before the spoiler alert... oh you don't get it? well you see Richie Cunningham from Happy Days was played by Ron Howard (I'm almost sure having never actually watched Happy Days), who played Opie on the Andy Griffith Show (I am completely certain despite having never watched this show either, so for the love of God don't tell me how either show ends, I'm told one involves pie and the other a jukebox...) Ok yeah so I am still processing the fact that they killed off Opie and wondering who I am going to dress up as for Halloween this year... Maybe get myself a prison uniform and some fake blood and go as Opie from the end of the episode...? He had kids for god sake and that hot porn star (ex-?)wife who I was sure he was going to get back together with. And I don't think he ever found out that it was Clay who ordered the hit on his first wife... so much story to be told there. He was Jax's real moral center even more so than Tara plus he just looked the most Fucking Bad-Ass even more so than Chips with the face scars... Tig or Happy might be the real most Bad-Ass but I mean really being Bad-Ass and still a good human being is more Bad-Ass than being a scum bag like Tig. Happy seems cool enough, with all the tattoos commemorating people he has killed obviously a socio-path but nice enough... Also just the fact that he was the same actor as the defensive captain in Remember the Titans is amazing and he served as the greatest possible proof that beards make people cooler...

 

 

 

Boom.

 

Rest in Peace Ope. All things considered sacrificing yourself to save your best friend is a BAD ASS way to go.

 

Naming Ape Intro Pass One

The Naming Ape

INTRODUCTION:

The idea to be explored here in the entries which will for the time being be connected under the title (perhaps too cutely) The Naming Ape, is that Humans are simply animals fundamentally indistinguishable from other animals. In this regard one of the things which does distinguish humans in our use of language, and specifically how we filter our experiences through language and naming living more within out conceptualizations than the actual world we inhabit. This for the time being raises three prime questions in my mind, many more no doubt to be added as I go. Firstly how did we develop our systems of naming and how does it influence and effect our experience of the world? Secondly how do animals experience the world around them without the mitigation of language and conceptualization? Thirdly how might we understand those aspects of the world which we currently comprehend in a conceptualized fashion free of these concepts and filters? These are all complex questions which no doubt draw on various areas of study which are outside of my expertise, historical, anthropological, neurological, and I will attempt to address them as best I can, but it is of course also important to identify and accept the limitations inherent in any project.

More to Medical Choice

The Republicans simply cannot conceive of any issue outside of the confines of money. They frame their discussion of Medicare as "putting seniors back in control of their own healthcare decisions." By which they mean letting seniors pay for their own healthcare. It does not seem to have occurred to them that the senior citizens could possibly be making their own health decisions in consultation with their doctors even though Medicare was paying the bills. Now they would no doubt say that with Medicare paying the bills a Government Bureaucrat is sticking his nose into the decision making process. But the fact is that while giving seniors a check for $6000, or however much is finally agreed to, to spend on health insurance might take the Government out to of the equation it sticks a corporate bureaucrat right in its place. The Republicans are blind to the problem in this because to them the market is magic and can only make things better and the government is evil and can only make things worse. However, the Government Bureaucrat is at least to some extent beholden to the American people as his/her boss, or boss's boss is following the direction of an elected official. The corporate bureaucrat is beholden only to the stock holders of the company who seek only profit. The government is at least on some level concerned with the best possible health outcome, the insurance company only with cost. To the Republicans only if the money is coming out of your own personal pocket can you be said to be taking full responsibility for your healthcare decisions. They see Medicare as limiting seniors freedom to choose because they have not considered the restrictions which these seniors would face outside medicare which they are being freed from by the Government. The Republicans do not consider the lack of choice faced by people who cannot afford to take all the available options because they either have never faced such a circumstance and/or they blame the individual for having gotten themself into such a position. In this way the Republican party has lost both its concept of the reality of the daily lives of Americans as well as its hold on the underlying social contract.

Posting Strategy

It is my intention to force myself to post at least one thing a day everyday! I think this was my intention on Saturday and it is now Tuesday and this is the first thing I have posted and it hardly counts as it is not anything of substance or interest but is only about the internal functioning of something which as of right now has neither any interior nor is it functioning. However my thinking is that I did not put it into words on Saturday that I was going to post something everyday no matter what and so I felt no real pressure to do so, and by writing this here, even though I have not made this blog public yet, despite the name, I will cause myself to take responsibility for sticking with the now publicly stated goal... It also stands to be said that I will be re-working and editing the "real" posts, meaning those about something other than the act of posting, so while here,in this one I have run on sentences and you all, meaning the future readers who hopefully will not bother to come all the way back and read from the start and hence will not see this, will just have to deal with it. At this point the aim to make words come out of my brain into my hands and then through a series of tubes into your eye holes... Ok anyways I actually intend to put up at least one other thing today of substance if not value so I should stop using this act as an excuse for avoiding doing that one as that is the real point, and this is not...