The imaginary eyes here are ruined thanks to some small altruistic act I made the mistake of performing. Shall go private then I guess. Really like the labels feature here though.

Whatever to keep my creativity going provided it doesn't harm others.

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Hofstadter's loop (infinite referencing loop) theory of consciousness is interesting.
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Dividing the mind like Eckhart Tolle into ego, etc as opposed to thinking in terms of a whole that just varies in scope from person to person....

Meaningful relationships

I want more meaningful relationships; people I can be close to; close enough to, to share my feelings/emotions. As opposed to endless relationships where so much must remain hidden; relationships that are somewhat meaningless....

But it's not so easy... I'm married. So I've got that. I've got my parents. If I'm lucky I might have held on to some childhood friendships... but I haven't. Just about impossible when living somewhere where just about everyone leaves to find a job.

So then, there are women. And they/their husbands/everyone else is going to think I'm looking to commit adultery. And there are men. And being emotionally close to other men/trying to, is thought of as gay.

I suppose that leaves me with gay men. Indeed it does. And men who are gay and yet refuse to face the fact. And I guess gay women. Which is all fine with me. Actually I like such people better than average. But the ones who won't face what they are, aren't free thinking enough to really have much in common with me that I've found. And the ones who do... seem to exclude me for being so not gay... it seems.

Also there is the internet. I try to make meaningful relationships with people online. Some people would consider doing so a waste of time. But it can really mean something to me. Of course it ends up being with women. As men it seems just won't confide with other men. That's gay. With a women who lives far away the sense of impropiety isn't so strong.

So I end up being friends with women who live far away. I've done so for a few years. I didn't do it by following this logical chain of reasoning. But this is why I suppose.

A lady at work clearly had the hots for me recently. She was pretty damm honest about it... without basically saying, "Let's get it on!" So I tried to be friends with her... was quite awkward with her husband and all.... Not sure how he felt about it... Would have been better if she hadn't gone on about how hot I was so many times... But I do love honesty... I never pointed out these problems... I withheld. I wasn't honest in return. Didn't dare.

I didn't find her attractive at all once I got to know her. She was a nice person. Pretty unconformed. I was happy to be her friend but as to the rest there wasn't any need to worry as far as I was concerned. The first time I saw her at work I did do a double take as she looked like this sensitive little book worm type. If she had been all sensitive with a fake british accent and into poetry and books I would have been extremely attracted to her.... She never reads. She was a vegetarian for a decade for ethical reasons but now goes on about how great meat tastes everytime we ate together... She's covered in tattoos. (Which is sort of good... although I have none...) She's a true redhead which is good. We have the same favorite movie (dark crsytal...) Ultimately not enough to make anything much of.... But... kind of close. When you've lived your sorry life in WV.

Anyway she moved far away. We can keep in touch by email now but that's pushing her level of literacy a bit. Smart in her way of course and could learn a lot from her...
Anyway the point being it made it seem hopeless though. As it seems I'm just not allowed to be close to any married women... And when it came down to it, when someone else was really honest, then I just withheld; I who've ruminated so about others withholding so much....

Perhaps a super duper intelligent one who seemed like they could just stay away from issues of the flesh (I think I do know one such person online....) . But I... can't recall meeting such a creature in the flesh... But then, again, with the internet there's so many more people to work with. I can find some pretty impressive people online... speaking relative to what is available in WV that is... Very unimpressive relative to my ideal.

But how sorry to spend so much of life staring at a computer.

And I consider expecting my wife to be my everything to be a sick way of looking at the world. There should be at least a few more meaningful connections than what I've managed to put together. Where I live is part of the problem. But surely I'm also part of it? I don't know.

Victim of the Brain

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8576072297424860224&hl=nl
More interesting than most of the internet wasteland...

Bogged down by (the whole thing isn't much more than) religious questions. Free will, souls, etc.

There is the idea in the christian religion that God is absolutely perfect and knows everything... but if that's so why did he create imperfect creatures which commit sin whom he's then going to stick in eternal fire? "Well, Jonnyboy, God gave us free will."

"Gee dad, what's that?"

"A nonsense word designed to win an argument that can't actually be won Jonnyboy. Like if you asked me how a chipmunk can beat an attacking bear. I could say he'd use his special bear killing zap gun; provided it's the chipmunk god of course. The Christian God can do whatever he wants and when obvious holes are pointed out he'll just do whatever to cover up."

The only meaning of the term free will that doesn't make it nonsensical is saying it means god had no idea what he was doing really when he made us. Just randomly mixed some stuff together and he doesn't actually know how we'll turn out.

Which would be fine with me. I'm not the one claiming he's all knowing.

Victim of the Brain hits the same idea with musing if our every action is predetermined. I suppose on a physics level you have some random action but ignoring that it is a nonsense question really as... yes our actions our predetermined, we are "victims of our brains" I suppose... and so what?

Yes, an all knowing creature already knows everything you're going to do. Of course, thus an all knowing creature would find you quite boring.

The attempt to understand intelligence is an attempt to reach that point of being all knowing and is running into the same thing. I don't think it's something to make much of, yet people keep making much of it.

It is somewhat a problem of language. The term 'free will' doesn't quite describe what is going on. It's a devious word made by christian apologetics. Of course you're free to act as you desire. Of course you have your own will. It just so happens an all knowing creature woud be able to predict everything you're going to do. And that you are a "prisoner" or victim of your brain. You're not free from your brain. Mostly a failure in our abilities to think at all that anyone finds this interesting.

..in the nuclear warhead story there is no reason he'd go back to his brain in Tulsa. What follows is just a confusion based on that, and more God stuff.

Basically I'm saying the same thing as Hofstadter. I don't think it's an important thing to spend much time on though... or name the movie after but perhaps that's just the direction the film maker took this. Hopefully this book by Hofstadter (Godel, Escher, Bach) will be better.

85:00: "Emotion and intelligence are inseperable." I suppose I disagree.

Emotions are the side effects of certain thought processes.

Falling in love is a sign of stupidity. There's a couple nice passages in roughly chapter 22 of Imagica concerning the vile Judith character that reminded me of this.

Holding a long term grudge is a sign of intelligence. (well... a halfway point anyway). But then having faith is not really a sign of intelligence. Sometimes we must overcome intelligence (with even more (intelligence)).

Setting vs characters

There's nothing wrong with 2D characters like with Vance or Tolkien I suppose. To be able to have 2D characters and still write well is certainly an accomplishment... These characters serve as archtypes I suppose. Perhaps. Eh. The settings of Vance and Tolkien were "realer" than any others I'm aware of and i wonder if 3D characters take away from the setting...

Perhaps what it is is that relatively 2D characters are such that the reader can flesh out the character by putting themselves into it. And then from that vantage point, a point within the setting/world, they look at the world/setting around them. Whereas with better developed relatively 3D characters the reader may not put themselves into the character as much, they instead look down upon the character and thus their vantage point is farther removed from the setting/world and thus the world doesn't seem as real... although the character may seem realer... Or something along those lines.

Indifference far away

http://thetoofarfuture.blogspot.com/2008/07/two-fundamental-problems-of-this-world.html

The two fundamental problems of this world are indifference to suffering and the misperception of indifference to suffering......

How much of this hell is a result of the former as opposed to the latter?

The two fundamental problems:
1. Indifference
2. Hate (The perception of a level of indifference (correct or not) that is deemed unacceptable and as a kind of evil.)

It may be nice to think about the second far more. It's complex while the first reduces life to 2D and what can be done about it anyway? With the second we can quit miscommunicating, we can quit believing in evil, etc. Still though, indifference is a far, far greater problem than hate. It's not even close.

What ways would reduce indifference?

Environmentally: systematically teaching people to take their mind outside of themselves. Trying to imagine being an animal, another person, a tree, disembodied. Try to imagine infinity/eternity. Force them to not just think happy thoughts. Push them towards the contemplation of suffering...

Of course it has occurred to me the cure could potentially be worse than the sickness.

Writing

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

I've done that certainly but it seemed there was nothing else that could be done. The other way stood a sort of death.

It seems serious fiction writing is a sort of turning away from the world. A giving up on mankind; prefering to just be very alone. It seems an ultimately very negative thing.

But I partially did exactly that long ago. I gave up on "love". I gave up on the idea of expecting another human being to be such an important part of my happiness. But I didn't give up on liking people. I didn't give up on still trying to be gregarious and close to people...

To really be a writer means prefering to spend your evenings truly just with yourself. It's a negative thing. But wasn't giving up on "love" the same? To depend on love seemed an ugly thing. To be that needy, that dependent on another. But to take it all the way, to be a writer, would seem so extreme.

But I'm about there. About done with insanity. It is perhaps quite a bit less negative than the alternative. But I keep expecting a different result.

I should know better. I do know better. But this way lies death I think.

......

Humans are gregarious animals but our ability to do violence upon one another, and some other things we've done... has ruined how we interact; has pulled us apart.

It's time to quit being insane. The people I search for in this world don't really exist. Whatever few that come close are too unstable to rely on at all. Potentially changing completely very suddenly.

I can spend an entire day just trying to compose/record music all by myself but it's not being as alone as writing. Each music note is a symbol for a living creature which my computer is playing outloud for me (from without). The sequencer putting it all together is doing something that is partially beyond my feeble mind and also is coming from outside of me.

Writing OTOH is more completely just from within. It is, I think, the most complete turning away from the world; turning inside of one's self. It relys the most completely on just what is in your head. It takes more intelligence I suppose, ultimately, to sum it up.

Maybe it is just a failure of my intelligence that I haven't managed it yet... as opposed to this turning away from the world idea. But could be a combination.

But lately I have really craved this turning away anyway. Just doubtful it will stick in the long term as I very strongly have the idea in my head that I'm doing a negative thing.