A collection of journals that either led me down a new train of thought, expanded upon what I already believed in, or contrasts the metaphysical opinions I hold.
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https://aeon.co/essays/why-aesthetic-value-should-take-priority-over-moral-value
It is widely regarded that morality takes importance over priority when looking at the context of the global society. That pathway ultimately plants seeds of nihilism, where moral evils and tragedies are common house and it'd be ignorant to gaze away from the negatives surrounding our lives. Compassion fatigue weighs the general masses down, but Cochrane argues that aestheticism is a way to find ultimate positive value in the world without naiveté, despite the issues that face us. The beauty of everyday things can help us appreciate the goodness of the natural world, while recognizing the ugliness and moral dilemma of appreciating evil. Aesthetic appreciation does not negate moral condemnation, but places it in a larger context of balance: we cannot appreciate life without death, have light without darkness, to feel happiness without sadness. We exist, and aesthetic value has priority over morality.
"Note in particular how [Augustine] points to flies and worms – creatures that we may find disgusting – pointing out that it is ‘our sins’ (that is, our selfish interests) that make them seem unworthy. A more cosmic perspective finds the beauty in all things."
"There is currently some debate over whether depression cuts one off from appreciating beauty, but the philosopher Tasia Scrutton has plausibly argued that depression may only undermine the enjoyment of cheerful sunny scenes, and not the appreciation of the gothic aspects of nature that resonate with one’s condition while also elevating and dignifying it."
"What the aestheticist resists is the notion that moral value has ultimate priority over aesthetic value. Moral catastrophe tempts us to fall into despair, and to condemn this world, but aesthetic value redeems it. Aesthetic value finds the final value of things both in their quintessential characteristics and in their manifestation of deep natural principles. It allows us to place suffering and evil within a wider context. So it is when we turn our attention to the world as a whole that, I claim, aesthetic value has priority."
The societal shifts of ideology from Nietzsche's “God is dead” declaration in 1882 to Marc Benioff's “Capitalism is dead” statement in 2019 showcase the cycle of human perseverance through the dismantling of identity and the rebirth of another. Religion divides us, and in the modern era, technology fills that role as well. The characteristics of current civilization is the online presence that everyone has, and the gods of the new world are the big corporations that observe, monitor, and control our needs and wants. But we can also take this bleak view on reality as positive growth on humanity's progression: we are no longer confined by the identities given to us at birth or along the way, we are no longer siloed to our local surroundings as our world, we are no longer constrained by fate and can choose our own path through life.
"The ebbs and flows of our fears are being crisply captured by Google searches, Youtube homepage, trending tweets, and Instagram ads in real time."
"Unable to tolerate the randomness and chaos of many worlds, some of us try to restore the order of the past by rebuilding Pantheon by migrating universities, hospitals, and offices to the cloud. If we’ve learned something from past migrations, it is through the creation of new gods, new hopes, and a new faith that anything meaningful gets built. By the end of the day, businesses are the metaphors of what we choose to believe as a collective at that moment in time"
"The line between progression and regression is thin, so is the line between passion and clarity, imagination and escapism, future and present, physical and virtual."
Due to the changing web landscape, there are features and philosophies from the early days of the internet that were lost in translation. Meant for the small number of people to be wealthy and stay wealthy at this point in time, the majority web user base nowadays aren't keen on what they are missing out on: collaborative data sharing between websites, control over your digital self-expression without need of a hosting company, and so much more. The experiences that made the web meaningful have become more hostile and narrow-minded. And though there are still successful websites like Facebook or LinkedIn that do a good job at their respective service, they aren't meant to help users. Their focus has always been about the money, and that's all that remains.
"Because Google hadn’t yet broadly introduced AdWords and AdSense, links weren’t about generating revenue, they were just a tool for expression or editorializing. The web was an interesting and different place before links got monetized, but by 2007 it was clear that Google had changed the web forever, and for the worse, by corrupting links."
"[...] the realization that big sites rise and fall in popularity, but that regular people need an identity that persists longer than those sites do."
"The primary fallacy that underpins many of their mistakes is that user flexibility and control necessarily lead to a user experience complexity that hurts growth. And the second, more grave fallacy, is the thinking that exerting extreme control over users is the best way to maximize the profitability and sustainability of their networks."
https://richarddawkins.net/2016/05/theres-no-such-thing-as-free-will/
The idea of 'free will' is upheld in popular culture and is a basis of society pursuing the good, "instead of merely being compelled by appetites and desires". With the age-old debate of nature versus nurture, its advancements has shown an intertwined mix of hereditary inheritance and environment imprinting. Despite that conclusion, determinism is becoming more widely agreed upon, since our brain chemistry acts before the consciousness decides to. The genes that are given to each of us describes a generational development of our selves, and we are no more tied to that than we are to our ephemeral idea of freedom.
"[Free will] permeates the popular culture and underpins the American dream—the belief that anyone can make something of themselves no matter what their start in life."
"If we have evolved, then mental faculties like intelligence must be hereditary. But we use those faculties—which some people have to a greater degree than others—to make decisions. So our ability to choose our fate is not free, but depends on our biological inheritance."
"[...] there is also agreement in the scientific community that the firing of neurons determines not just some or most but all of our thoughts, hopes, memories, and dreams."
http://ebenalexander.com/your-sense-of-free-will-defies-conventional-science/
Challenging the deterministic standpoint of Stephen Cave, the idea of complete hereditary and environmental control of who you are as a person is unfounded. Cave sides with atomism, where the separation of every piece of reality can be extracted into its elementary component, whereas Alexander believes in holism, where reality is an interconnected system. Freedom is a part of our non-local consciousness instead of originating biologically within us, meaning who we are and who we grow to be is based on how we want to perceive our surroundings rather than how the surroundings influence us. Quantum mechanics can help to illustrate free will as a philosophic means to our individual sense of freedom of choice. The “observer within” concept (interaction with a physical object being measured affects its properties) showcases primordial awareness of existence as being fundamental in the universe. Cultivating this sense of observer awareness as a way to transcend automatic behaviour and approach full capacity for manifestation implies true free will.
"The emerging neuroscience of consciousness and related philosophy of mind suggest that consciousness is fundamental in the universe. The physical brain does not produce consciousness, so much as serve as a filter that allows primordial consciousness to trickle into our awareness in a very limited fashion, which is the “here-and-now” that we experience in normal waking reality."
"[B]ased on many decades of electrically stimulating the brain in awake patients and based on all of his scientific work studying consciousness and the brain, he concluded the brain does not create consciousness or free will."
"The consciousness implied by the measurement problem in quantum mechanics is the “observer within,” the most primordial awareness of existence. By cultivating our sense of that observer self, we are able to transcend the simplistic automatic behavior purported by materialist philosophers as evidence of our lack of free will, and instead approach the full-bore capacity for manifestation implied by fundamental primordial consciousness, to truly actualize the world dreamed by our higher self—the ultimate expression of our free will."
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/free-will-exists-and-is-measurable/623796/
The follow-up response to Eben Alexander, but is unfortunately paywalled. Maybe someday I'll try the free trial and put in my payment info, but that day is not today.
An alluring letter to the readers about the author - Kristoffer - and his idea of bringing a medium for creative expression in a digital space to a community focused annual event called Naive Yearly. As the piece unravels, the flow of the author's words give the impression of a love letter: he provides a scenic description of his surroundings and his experience when interacting with people who he admires. Each one of the speakers he invited to participate at the event brings forth a nurtured perspective on a more experimental internet. A more liberating, self-representing, and protected space on the web for yourself, and shared amongst those that wish to take part. Tied together by the motif of Ukraine's national flower, the sunflower, Kristoffer symbolizes its abstract meaning of turning their heads to the face the sun, and relates it to the audience as they sit in a darkened cinema with their heads facing the speakers. In the moment, with no cameras, no replications: the event took place in a moment of time shared amongst those that partook, and with that fleeting nature came together the community of individuals that travelled to Denmark to be a part of that moment.
"We were in a bubble and grew closer. We forgot about time outside of thirst and hunger, sunrise and sunset."
"We didn't record the talks. I didn't want to distract the speakers with the presence of a video camera, reminding them of a potential audience situated somewhere else, somewhere later. I had asked the speakers to experiment with form and felt it was my responsibility to create a safe environment where sharing was limited to the eyes and ears in the room. At the same time, I wished for their stories to connect beyond the walls of the film school."
A critique on Nietzsche's "Will to Power":
Nietzsche's interpretation of values is based against "Slave Morality", where the weak find solace in the black and white of good and evil. Rooted in Christianity, the Church established a system of values that define what makes a ‘good man’, and that ideology restricted the free wills of those who tried to rise above those limitations. Equality is the utopia that the masses want, and suppression of that value was prime for persecution. Individual needs help define our own value system, thus creating separate paths from the societal norms. Creativity of our minds and soul should be of top precedence, but cowardice and complacency is masked as a virtue.
Ally expresses that though the philosopher has merit to his thoughts, her beliefs align more so on the concept that objective values built the foundations of our society through the collective consciousness. Though there is such thing as subjective truths, there are flaws to Nietzsche's “Will to Power” on a societal level. Axioms that guide our daily interactions with people need to be based on reason, such as judgement on a person's appearance. Subjecting someone to your bias views on attractiveness can be living your "truth", but resemble a cold path through life, lacking in empathy for other's "truths". Carpe Diem needs to be a lived experience, but a united society thrives better when working together, building off of some eternal objective values.
"The “Will to Power” can be understood as one’s personal desire and ability to recreate the world in the image of one’s will, where value is not discovered but self-made."
"Our justice systems and our holier-than-thou morality thus becomes an underhand last defense, after strength and might have failed."
"Nietzsche’s belief that our objective definitions of justice and goodness is just a means to power also spurs him to claim that equality, defined through Christianity as the ultimate virtue of a successful and just society, is simply a means through which the powerless attempt to level the playing field. Everyone longs and strives for power, but the weak disguise it through a call for equality."
"The Spirit of Gravity is also a lack of ownership over our past; we can act in the present to alter our future, but there is nothing we can do to change our past. This thought can enslave us, as the past becomes a permanent, immobile reminder of our seeming powerlessness."
"Nietzsche was right about Carpe Diem, but fundamentally, I think we must still accept that we exist in a society of shared knowledge and a united storyline that thrives on systems built off of objective values."
https://fakepixels.substack.com/p/fkpxls-the-illusions-of-free-to-play
The culture isn't the people, it's the economic reality to getting money. And if you're not a part of that mentality, then you are the product that's being exploited. Tina He dives into the era of “free-to-play” games, where it was once a pastime that allowed people to enjoy a digital world where they can “win” at something. This has in turn evolved into the notion that the price to win isn't always money. As companies started subscribing to the elements of “free” value (such as 3 month free trials to a streaming service, or a free drink with the purchase of a burger), the frictionless world that the general masses see is actually a manipulated view of what people in power want you to experience. Participation in these marketing techniques captivates people's emotional investment, where people are led to think we are getting value from nothing and doing nothing. Tina He further extrapolates the idea into city building, where no matter the meticulousness of the urban design, the common consensus is that the people are the city, making it a symbiotic relationship. That delineates into the digital ecosystem, with Facebook and Google. The idea of “free” is an ignorance that needs to be recognized; otherwise, our digital sense of self can slowly become muddled. Or potentially, invite us to participate in newfound meaning.
"An Atomic Value Swap is the measurement of the sustainability of repeated core transactions in an ecosystem. Payment for goods or services is an example of an atomic value swap, one where cash is exchanged for an item or service. Both parties deem the transaction to be beneficial and therefore the transaction occurs. If the price of a product or service is too high, the buyer will not engage in the transaction."
"The 'free-to-play' game design has been berated as sneaky and manipulative, luring the players to trade “something” for “nothing”. Such assumption implies that real-world currency definitionally warrants more economic value than the virtual one. We all know that this is no longer true."
"The illusion of 'free-to-play' is at its core the illusion of costlessness. As participants in these newfound “free-to-play” games, we are as powerful as we’re powerless. For every action we take, we are either being sold as products or we are facilitating the sale of the product, most of the time without being fairly compensated for it."
"Players no longer 'pay to win', rather the games are 'free to win'. Instead, they 'pay to belong' or 'pay to find themselves'. To be the most skilled at the game is only one dimension of winning. A player can also win by flexing the coolest cosmetics, gaining access to once-in-a-game-time events, and participating and gaining social status in a metagame that emerges outside of Fortnite itself"
"'The DNA of the company', 'the ecology of the marketplace', 'the pulse of a city' and so on are all attempts to understand the unpredictable fluctuations of man-made entities through the lens of nature, who’s familiar with the cycle of birth, maturity, and death."
"The concept of Metaverse might be an ultimate manifestation of a 'free-to-play' driven digital economy, and it’s the first time a complex, adaptive ecosystem such as a city can theoretically be rendered in the virtual world in lossless fidelity. Even companies like Google and Facebook, whose value is driven by the advanced sorting and indexing of digital information, still have to rely heavily on the demand generated from the physical world."
"The cost of participating in the new 'free-to-play' platforms not only denominated in time and money as traditionally economics understood, but also in emotional satisfaction provided by challenges, social recognition, and self-actualization. The deeper a platform can penetrate the player’s identity needs, the stickier the platform becomes and the higher the switching cost."
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/art-books-music/a62568151/kendrick-lamar-sza-interview-2024/
With a recent spotlight beaming on Kendrick Lamar this year, this interview is a dissection on his fears, sense of being, spirituality, and drive for creativity that SZA guides the conversation through. With a personal friendship between the two, the details dive into the personal realms that no interviewer can typically do on a first meeting basis.
Kendrick speaks on his identity and how his reaction to emotions that flow through him in certain moments don't necessarily have to be identified to him. Duality of both extremes is an essential component to life, and to experience one without the other, is like seeing a glass half empty. And to shape that experience is delegated to God. That helps keep him curious and energized, ready for the next strike of inspiration, whatever that may be. His expression through music is only a stepping stone towards a fulfilment that is unbeknownst to him, and Kendrick leaves it to God to decide his end.
KL: "But for what I do, there is certainly no growth without vulnerability. If I understood the power of vulnerability earlier, I could have had more depth and more reach to the guys that was around me in the neighborhood coming up."
SZA: "She never even imagined what her dream [house] could be. So it’s like it scared her. It fucked her up. She was upset and embarrassed, but now she’s, like, freed-by-proxy type shit."
KL: "[...] if my job is to communicate, I need to be able to communicate with everyone. I need to be able to sit in front of SZA and talk to you in a way where you feel comfortable, in a way where it feels authentic from me to you, you to me, and I can’t do that with a wall up. I can’t do that with my full masculinity."
https://aeon.co/essays/free-will-is-back-and-maybe-this-time-we-can-measure-it
https://bewhitespace.com/blog/2016/02/proof-that-your-body-is-a-projection-of-your-consciousness/
https://captainawkward.com/2012/02/13/190-the-sandwich-means-i-love-you-a-valentine/
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.18.517004v2.full.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/01/opinion/facebook-social-media-problems.html
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1550830708000943
https://uxdesign.cc/what-rick-rubins-the-creative-act-reminds-us-about-design-1816af53d2b9
https://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html
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