A thing called "I"

[P3nT4gR4m]

Once upon a time there was a thing called "I"

I was not created by god
For all I knows the situation that came about, allowing it to happen may have been
For any given definition of such
Or possibly not
But it definitely knew I wasn't

I occurred in reaction to various stimuli
I grew like little poppies in a baby brain
And little weeds too
I became a sprawling landscape garden
I considered itself a lot with the passing of the seasons

I noticed that the garden would tend itself if left to it's own devices
I was none too impressed with those results
So I learned to nurture the poppies
And to rip out the weeds
Until I had created itself

[The Wizard Joseph]

[Bobby Campbell]

The way you build to that last line is killer!

[Cramulus]

beautifully written

I like how it suggests that the soul / conscious self is not something we're born with, it's something we can build in ourselves - and it takes continuous self-observation and struggle.

[POFP]

 

Very nice.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Ooooh look guys - there's a part two! 

There's just one I
on an ever forking vista of possible outcomes
every possible collision of every atom in the universe
every quantum whatever the fuck it is those sons of bitches do

Every planck unit of short timeness
everything that can happen does happen
to the one I and the one universe it now inhabits
causing them to become different I's and different universes

And here I is wriggling down the branching outcomes
navigating a singular occurence at every point the in the proceedings
and for every possible path a possible I
and imagine for a moment that two I's collided, momentarily in a single outcome

Who could say for sure which was which
when they went their separate ways?

[The Wizard Joseph]

Huh... feels almost cosmogenic.. which isn't a word, but would this not imply that the "I" goes all the way back, and forth, from "here"? I'm kinda dizzy now.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Get Real (a digression)

We each of us exist inside reality
We carry it round with ourselves like a bubble
These bubbles are mostly unique
And mostly made up bullshit

"But what about the barstool?" I hear you say
Yeah, you got me, there's a barstool and it's really real
Along with gravity and chemistry and the speed of light times two pi-r-squared
There's a whole ton of stuff

Together it makes up about nought point one percent of the average bubble
It forms the thinnest of patchy membranes
All the rest?
Made up bullshit

How do I tell which is which?
If it courts belief then it's usually made up bullshit.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Get Real (a digression)

We each of us exist inside reality
We carry it round with ourselves like a bubble
These bubbles are mostly unique
And mostly made up bullshit

"But what about the barstool?" I hear you say
Yeah, you got me, there's a barstool and it's really real
Along with gravity and chemistry and the speed of light times two pi-r-squared
There's a whole ton of stuff

Together it makes up about nought point one percent of the average bubble
It forms the thinnest of patchy membranes
All the rest?
Made up bullshit

How do I tell which is which?
If it courts belief then it's usually made up bullshit.

I REALLY like this one

[P3nT4gR4m]

 

[Cramulus]

How do I tell which is which?
If it courts belief then it's usually made up bullshit.

I'm struggling with this part


if it courts belief

it's made-up BS



I'm not sure, like, by "court belief" are we talking about things that seek "believers"?

climate change - the concept is made up, we made it up to explain what's going on

round earthers - always trying to convert people




can something be made-up BS but also True?

[baraljud]

great stuff guys!

[P3nT4gR4m]

How do I tell which is which?
If it courts belief then it's usually made up bullshit.

I'm struggling with this part


if it courts belief

it's made-up BS



I'm not sure, like, by "court belief" are we talking about things that seek "believers"?

climate change - the concept is made up, we made it up to explain what's going on

round earthers - always trying to convert people




can something be made-up BS but also True?

I've discussed this before with a lot of people and most disagree with me that it's possible not to believe anything so I'm not going to go there but neither am I going to shy away from defining belief itself as an intellectual cop out and a commitment to remaining forever uninformed.

Yes it's possible to believe in things that are proven same as it's possible to believe things that are unproven or disproven. All you'd have to do in that instance is ignore the evidence that supports your belief instead of the more common method of ignoring evidence that contradicts it.

What I mean by "courts belief" is typified by evangelism which attempts to brute-force it's given brand of bullshit into the reality bubbles of others by silencing contradictory evidence or contradictory beliefs.

I think your confusion might be coming from removing a crucial part of the sentence I typed, thus misquoting and misconstruing the message somewhat - "if it courts belief then it's usually made up bullshit"

Some people may desperately want you to believe some proven fact or other. In my experience these instances are a lot less common than encounters with people who desperately want me to believe in made up bullshit.

As for the possibility of something being made up bullshit and also true, I'd say the broken-clock principle would pretty much demand it. Not to mention scientific method which is fundamentally a process of making up some bullshit, testing it to see if it works and discarding it if it doesn't.

It's the testing that's the important part. Made up bullshit is how we progress both as individuals and as a potential planetary civilisation. Believing without the testing is the antithesis of progress.

[The Wizard Joseph]

Lies are a human necessity