Current favorite quote:
"Our ability to create our own reality and
to override instinct is both our curse and
our blessing. It allows us to delude ourselves,
but it also allows us to take appropriate actions
even though we might be scared, injured, hungry, and so on."
Bill Whitcomb
On Language:
The best we can hope for with languange is to circle
the meaning, continously pointing atthe heart of that
we wish to communicate in the hope that the meaning
will somehow emerge. The higher the level of complexity,
the mushier it gets, the harder we circle, jabbing
vigorously towards our intended meaning.
Marik
The best things cannot be told, the second best
are misunderstood.
After that comes civilized conversation; after
that,
mass indoctrination; after that, intercultural exchange. And so,
proceeding,
we come to the problem of communication: the opening, that
is
to say,
of one's own truth and depth to the depth and truth of
another
in
such a way as to establish an authentic community of existence."
Joseph Campbell
*
Words to live by:
If you're bored, you're not paying attention.
If you're not paying attention, you miss most of the jokes.
Any form of creative living bears with it as much unhappiness as happiness.
This is the Law of the Stick: it has two ends.
So, hold both unhappiness and happiness.
They are both irrelevant, other than the degree
to which they may support our aim.
Holding the contradiction, the "friction" generates "heat".
This "heat" fires up the creative life.
This is joyful, and painful.
Robert Fripp, online diary 14 Sept 2000
If you are called a genius by people you think are idiots,
do not decide that they're right for once.
'No' is an appropriate answer, if correct.
*
On Chaos and Chaos Magick:
"Chaos is very good on the how, because it sidesteps the Why
completely. But with no Why, we're just clever monkeys jerking
off in new & more fetishistic ways. And you can quote me
on that one." FireClown
"What we imagine is order is merely the prevailing form of chaos."
Kerry Thornley, Introduction to Principia Discordia, 5th edition
>
"Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds."
George Santayana
*
On Consciousness:
Human consciousness lies somewhere between Pavlov's Dog
and Schrodinger's Cat.
All we have to believe with is our senses,
the tools we use to perceive the world:
our sight, our touch, our memory.
If they lie to us, then nothing can be trusted.
And even if we do not believe, then we still cannot travel
in any other way than the road our senses show us;
and we must walk that road to the end.
Neil Gaiman, American Gods
"The mental experience works well through the Internet,
but the brain life is
blocked off by neurodynamics,
which is God's own firewall preventing philosophers
from accessing brain codes. The way of the hacker is hard."
Walter J. Freeman
"Reality can be carved up in various ways, and surely we are
underestimating its subtlety and overestimating the powers and
significance of our rational modes of thought if we think it can be
neatly packaged up for intellectual consumption in a single parcel
without losing something in the process."
Keith Sutherland
"The old distinctions among emotion, reason, and aesthetics
are like the earth, air, and fire of an ancient alchemy.
We will need much better concepts than these for a working
psychic chemistry."
Marvin Minsky
*
Science and Magick:
"If 'intent' (intelligent action, purpose, free will) is the
'action' of mind on matter, then, 'perception' (experience) is
the 'reaction' of matter on mind." Jack Sarfatti
It's a fine point, but there is a difference between being creative,
being magickal, having a flexible reality system, and
just being a raving loon.
There are two kinds of truths, trivail truths and profound truths.
The opposite of a trivial truth is a falsehood.
The opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth.
Neils Bohr
The first stage of seeingthrough the game can be a shocking
enlightenment that leads either to a weary cynicism or Buddhism.
The second stage of actually applying the insight to oneself
can destroy the illusion of the soul and create a magician.
Peter Carroll
"[Do not] confuse objectivity, which is essential to science,
with
certainty, which is more appropriate to religion.
Scientific objectivity is
not at all the same as certainty. To pursue it
you must give up the
desire/search for certainty."
William Benzon
"When you learn how easy it is to deceive those who
want to believe,
it will show you how easily you might be deceived if you
want to believe." RAW
*
Other Things:
"The difference between false memories and true ones is the
same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the
most real, the most brilliant." Salvador Dali
"I will not cry myself to sleep because there are no golf
courses on the moon." Lawrence Durrell
"One cannot be a sorcerer all the time. How could one live?"
Pablo Picasso
"The law of gravity would be thrown into dispute if there were a
commercial interest involved." Lord Macaulay
"There will never be a nuclear war; there's too much real estate
involved."
Frank Zappa
"War is society thinking out loud -- very loud." -- John Elkington, SustainAbility, London
*
The true message:
Beware the Dancing Sheep, for they have no morals.
"Beware of the fish people, they are the true enemy."
Frank Zappa
*
*
In the beginning there was nothing, and then even that exploded.
