VIRB

Hello everyone. Seeing as there are so many good thinkers here I thought some of you might be interested in taking part in a book I am editing:

Cassell Illustrated publishing is recruiting writers for its forthcoming reference/coffee table book on the 1000 key events in world history since 1900. Writers will be asked to compose entries of approximately 230 words on events of their choice from our master list, which explain the event itself and intimate why it is a key event in shaping the modern world. Events include everything from key discoveries, inventions, and political events to natural disasters, arts, and culture. Contributors need not be historians; rather, we are looking for talented writers from any discipline that are able to research and describe historical events in an engaging and articulate manner. Contributors will be paid approximately 25 pounds for each entry. If you are interested in becoming a writer for this project, please send the following as soon as possible to the general editors at biancsjackson@yahoo.com or jmorton8@gmail.com:
%u2022 A short biography (approximately 50 words or less)
%u2022 A writing sample of 250 words or less describing a key event in history

Thanks,
The General Editors
Bianca Jackson
Jonathan Morton

posted Aug 23

Comment replies (3)

Where will the book be distributed?

posted Aug 23

Everywhere. The last one we did was in Borders, Chapters etc etc. Will be sold all around the world and translated into a number of different languages.

posted Aug 29

what is the deadline?

posted Sep 1

hello all. Check out the Center For Inquiry forums. I recently signed up at these forums. There are a lot of good discussions.

posted Aug 23

9/9 UNITED FOR TRUTH protest rally says:

Join our demonstration in Brussels, September 9th. We don't want to impeach Bush, we want to support the American Public that knows your next president won't be any different. We are uniting all 9/11 truth movements, monetary reformers, Amnesty, Oxfam, Greenpeace, and many more. It is the sick money system - that makes presidents like this possible - that needs to change! HELP US NOW!!!

posted Jul 14

Do you have philosophical views? What are they? How do they effect your life?

posted Jul 6

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.

- Ludwig Wittgenstein

posted Jul 2

Comment replies (1)

It is interesting that you could read that two ways:
1) That language is bewitching our intelligence and Philosophy fights against that.
2) That Philosophy uses language to fight against the bewitchment of our intelligence.

I don't know that quote though. Is it late or early Witt?

posted Jul 3

My personal approach to discerning between fact and fiction is to use the "socratic method" of inquiry. What is yours?

posted Jun 26

Comment replies (6)

similar really...I tend to try and get as much info on an issue as possible and then consider any opinion of mine as preliminary and subject to change...I tend to make the best decisions I can based on the limited and flawed information I can get hold of. Either that or I go with the famous 'gut instinct' ;-) Oh and I don't make such a huge Kantian distinction between fact and fiction either, as you could guess from the discussion below!

posted Jun 26

annihilation [floating upon little pink pills] says:

i hold multiple lines of what could be possible based off of available information, present theories of reality, and joyous whimsey. navigate through all these with some care.. constantly updating as i go.

i am terrible to make plans with apparently...

posted Jun 26

Scientific method.

posted Jun 27

magic 8 ball !

posted Jun 28

lol

posted Jun 28

echo says:

i first begin with the assumption that everyone is either delusional, a liar, or bent on self-aggrandizement. or all three. i proceed from there, bearing in mind humanity's propensity to be driven by either fear or greed.

posted Jan 19

If I live in a universe created by my interpretations then I am the center of that unique universe and when I die my universe ends...Does that make me God?

posted Jun 17

Comment replies (16)

First have to define god.

Variable which created the universe?

You creator? Itd be your mom.

posted Jun 17

1) God = The fictional being that created the universe and is at its center. As 'I' am a fiction too I thought it was kind of appropriate ;-)
2) Whilst my question was a kind of joke it was also a serious one...There is a sense in which the universe I inhabit as I write this is different from the universe I inhabited this morning. Just as the universe you inhabit as I write does not contain this sentence (and does NOW). String theorists would argue that I am simply describing one of the potential universes contained within the set of all possible universes, that I am being like the flatlander who does not 'see' the other dimensions. Perhaps this sense of the uniqueness of my universe is simply a reflection of my limitations as a sensory being. Nevertheless there is a sense in which a universe dies when I die...
3) My mom IS God. I know this because I have tasted her chocolate cake.

posted Jun 18

Btw. I write poetry as a way to try and understand things, as a kind of poetic-thinking. Here is something I wrote a while ago which is on this topic, about the relationship between the world I am creating through language and interpretation and then reflecting back on itself, and the world that might exist somewhere else, and the relationship of all this to death:

Evening

I step out and become
the self-forgotten world
that I interpret. Words

addressed to a room that
is in me and
is not me,
that is syllable-heavy,
a bending, soporific bough.

This movement
erases memory, leaves nothing
but a trace, a scar in the
wind. It is one

of many,
part of that final gesture
into blindness, into earth.

And the wind that sharpens
the city streets is
not the same one
that leaves
me shivering and
reaching for a coat.

posted Jun 18

One may be master of ones own universe, but not master of THE UNIVERSE. And once again, how much power over our own universe do we really have? Are you not just reacting to the immediate enviroment?

posted Jun 18

The problem here is related more to issues of 'Being'. My brain is creating the world I am reacting to (hence references in poem to 'self-forgotten world that I interpret' etc). I see a triple reflection occurring: Something 'Other' reflects itself onto 'Me', 'I' am then creating an image of that, a reflection of a reflection flung back out into 'The World' that is my perception and experience of the world. Finally the conscious 'I' is experiencing this reflected world as 'Reality' and reacting to it. This ground of our Being is, in fact, thrice-mediated: filtered, shaped and perhaps created, through the action of our own existence. Our own universe is our own creation, just as we (and the shape of our lives) are also a creative act. If one could stand outside the full dimensions of a life it would have a shape and the act of living is the sculpting of that shape...Therefore, in the sense that a sculptor is creator and master of his sculpture, so we are creators and masters of our own unique universe...And just as one cannot see the 'content' or the 'inside' of a statue, an outsider can never see the true content of my life...(I am still working my way through this stuff so any critiques would be greatly appreciated!)

posted Jun 18

sorry, it only makes you the god of "yourself'

posted Jun 18

Possibly. But 1) If there is no point where the 'self' ends and the universe begins (as there is no true point where my skin ends and this keyboard begins) then to be God of myself is to be God of the universe as I 'am' the Universe.
2) The use of the term 'God' was just meant to push things abit. The problem is that being 'God' implies agency whereas, of course, I have very little control (if any?) over the mediation and creation done by my senses and my mind...Maybe my brain is god and my 'self' is the holy ghost ;-)
3)My real point was that we experience a universe created by our own minds and in that sense 'we' are its creators. Clearly there is an 'objective reality' providing the input to my senses but we can never know or experience it. In that sense, therefore, I only live in the universe I have created. Alone and impossible to reach...And the universe i live in will die at the moment of my death...This means I am important ;-)

posted Jun 18

Have you died before? Are you conscious when you're dead? If not, how can you know that the universe you live in will die with your death? And this "death" we speak of, is it really the end? How can we know without having experienced death yet?

posted Jun 18

I just wrote three different answers to this and deleted them all ;-)
One major issue here is that, as an agnostic, I have absolutely no bloomin' idea what happens after death. However I do 'believe' that death is not a part of life, as Wittgenstein said, we do not experience death.
To try and answer each question in turn:
1) 'I' have not died before. I dont even think 'I' exist. Althought at any given moment there is what could best be described as a'cloud-formation' that could be termed 'me'. Therefore even if re-incarnation is true, what is re-born is something wholly Other and NOT me.
2) While something that may be a part of 'me' now could exist afterJonathan (me) has died, it will not be the same, existential creature that is here typing this and the universe that is in me and is not me cannot be there when I am not. (Damn language. Now I see why Heidegger used 'Dasein')
3) If I am not conscious then my universe is not there. Just as when Ileave a city it ceases to exist as a present object in my universe and becomes a potential, memorial, imaginary one...When I sleep the universe goes dark...
4) Is death the end? I cannot answer this question. As a rational creature I look around and see many people have died and yet things are still here. Right now, as I am typing this, many people are dying, many people are in pain and yet they are not contained within my universe.Their pain does not exist. And that is so painfully sad. I can theorize it but it cannot BE as the wind on my skin is...Forgive how confused and rambling this is...I feel as though there is something really important here but I cannot get hold of it...What I am trying to say is that death is the end of 'my' universe, but that is not the same as'THE universe', which is something impossible, unknowable, Other...it is the place where you are reading this but NOT where YOU are reading this...

posted Jun 18

Ummmm.you can play "mirror games" till you are blue in the face if you want to.....you need to really study what you are saying....the answer....YOUR ANSWER......not mine..... is hiding in the words you have posted.......

You say "As you are typing this.....people dying....yada...yada...and their pain does not exist....dude.....their pain is there whether you are here or not.....we could both be dead tomorrow and "reality" would still be going on....we would not be here to register it.....

posted Jun 19

Of course their pain would be there whether I was there or not. My point is to recognize that any attempt by me to recognize that pain and respond to it must be a fictional, creative act. It takes an effort and a leap of faith. I also do not think these discussions are 'mirror games'. Our mode of existence is a mirrored one and any attempt by us to engage with the world must take into account the mediation, often flawed, distorting and limted, that is occuring. To focus on this in an attempt to understand it does not negate the existence of 'reality' but admits we can never see or react to that reality. This is vital because it removes the possibility of both dogma (religious and political) and millinarianism.

posted Jun 19

I just meant that there is danger in "self reflection" sometimes.....or else everything does become "My universe".....your universe ....and so on...this is limiting in scope,and can become like blinders" to the bigger picture.......I used to try to dissect every bit of info and self realized thought....analyzing it till it was just pudding".....but now...as I get older.....life is really not that complicated....we (people) make it so....I find I don't need to know the secrets to the universe any more........and a person will go mad trying to do so....

posted Jun 19

;-) You are right...and many people have gone a little nuts from focusing on all this...It is paralysing and, as I believe we are defined by our actions, that is not a good thing! It is more that I find it interesting I guess and was curious to see what response I got if I tried to express it to people...And thanks for reminding me to spend less time naval-gazing and more time creating and doing!

posted Jun 19

Please know though that I think you are a great explorer of the psyche"....and that discussions such as these are the "nuts and bolts" of these social experiments called "Virb".......and I hope we can exchange more points ....with more people here ( come on...there are 72 people in this club.......!!!)

posted Jun 20

and I want some of your moms chocolate cake!!!!...the answer to all could be in the recipe!!!! LOL

posted Jun 20

lol...it is her 60th birthday this weekend and I am off up to the mountains of north wales(where my parents live in beautiful mountain isolation) on saturday for her party...said chocolate cake will be there too...it will be, quite literally, 'heavenly'...!

posted Jun 20

has monster in the title says:

anybody else get into hakim bey - the taz (temporary autonomous zone), ontological anarchy, poetic terrorism, pockets, pirates, etc...

posted Jun 11

Comment replies (3)

Ive never heard of poetic terrorism but sounds fantastic.

posted Jun 12

sounds dangerous.

posted Jun 12

has monster in the title says:

it can be dangerous, but freedom is.

posted Jun 13

Ive always had the conception that we clearly know what the after life is but most of us are just simply not willing to accept it.

We have already experienced what it is like to not exist, we have existed from the beginning of the universe roughly 13.7 before we were born. This experience just to be covered by the history we learned but we have no feelings for it. The reason is obvious to us; since we did not have any organs to sense the universe, nor brains to store the information or to feel emotion. So that means we couldn't be sad, mad or happy about it we just weren't. Now it seems obvious to me that this experience is exactly like we will feel afterwards. We wont be sad about it, or upset or regretful because we will not have the facility to do so we will just not exist.

So in simple Im trying to say I predict the after-life is like the non-existence of pre-life.

If anything I imagine it to be peaceful because the first thing children do when they enter the earth is cry and cry and cry. However that doesn't mean there isnt the possibility for more - if there is enough dark matter in the universe the universe could go through a big crunch (perhaps time goes in reverse) and after a big crunch into a singularity there perhaps is another big bang and we will be thrown back into the universe to become so completely different we could never begin to fathom the world we can from.

If you have any comments, critique feel free Im always open to intelligent discussion - I just figured Id share an idea I have been working on since I was a kid to make sense of the universe. If there is a better explanation I would not be timid to change.

posted Jun 11

Comment replies (7)

I can always appreciate someone who is able to create and manage theories of their own. I salute you.

Now my questions to what has been proposed:

How could we experience what it was like to not exist if since we didn't exist, there was no "us" or "I" to experience this nonexistence?

Which raises a question raised several times before in such discussions. "Who" or "what" are we?

Also, you say you imagine the after-life to be peaceful. But, once again, will there be an "us" or an "I" to feel this peace?

posted Jun 11

"How could we experience what it was like to not exist if since we didn't exist, there was no "us" or "I" to experience this nonexistence?"

Well you are right there is no "us" or "i" so in a few words we don't experience it, only through our absence of it.

"Which raises a question raised several times before in such discussions. "Who" or "what" are we?"

I enjoy the existential answer to this question, we are what we do. We define who we are through the actions we take through this universe - and our existence/actions define our purpose. In deeper view we are simply condensed energy which has formed complex molecules later under the right pressures creating cells until they go through endless configurations until their window of existence closes.

"Also, you say you imagine the after-life to be peaceful. But, once again, will there be an "us" or an "I" to feel this peace?"

I only say its peaceful because babies cry at birth, sure you can experience this peace as well can you explain away the crying baby. Id imagine its like a Zen Buddhist clearing his mine and letting his thoughts flow through him like a river, where he is no longer his being but he is everything and and everything is him. Sure very speculative - easy answer - there is no peace for there are no way to interpret it and entropy in the universe isnt exaclty peaceful. However I must admit returning to the singularity sounds quite peaceful simply for the change from where we exist now.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read, it is more precious than anything.

posted Jun 11

Omar Blasgen says:

i recently heard an analogy of life as compared to a waterfall. the river is one body of water. when it falls the drops seperate. when the water hits the bottom of the fall they reconverge to form one body of water again. we live are lives as the individual drop of water. before and after life we are not individual drops, but one combined body of water.

posted Jun 12

Thats beautiful and paints a very nice picture of what leaving the singularity and re-entering it would seem like to finite beings.

posted Jun 12

Truth is a river that is always splitting up into arms that reunite. Islanded between the arms, the inhabitants argue for a lifetime as to which is the main river. - Cyril Connolly

posted Jun 12

All of this reminds me of something....follow me....If you break a Hologram of an image of say,...an apple....each piece of the broken hologram will have all the info in each piece....so each piece (broken) will be a small complete image of the apple....our brain works the same way when injured...I suspect other things too!..........

posted Jun 13