Jonathan Charles Wright

But can Possible Worlds Semantics slice fries?

2012-01-09T09:25:00.000-08:00

There is a card (certain kinds of) philosophers sometimes play. They question the "practical" value of some line of argument, some research program, some discipline. "It may be theoretically helpful to talk about X, but what's the practical upshot?"

But, for practitioners of theory, theoretical value is practical value.

i think i've heard this, but tell it again.

2011-12-30T12:32:00.000-08:00

This is the overture from Meredith Wilson's _The Music Man_.

Quotation of the day, today.

2011-12-29T16:21:00.000-08:00

"A model can succeed without it being clear what has been achieved." - Sorensen

Thoughts on The Little Mermaid

2011-12-28T10:40:00.001-08:00

think of ariel, the mermaid, after she has become human. think of her holding the prince, after the shipwreck, in the middle of the broken ship's debris. what did she learn about the ocean, when she realized it would drown her? none of its features will have changed, but its relation to her becomes something foreign and deadly, something unknown. really, she doesn't learn anything new about the ocean. she comes to know it as something new. even where no new information is gained, one can further grasp things.

If a person's heart is sick, the person is probably sick too.

2011-12-28T10:37:00.000-08:00

grant that language is more than purely descriptive, and that to understand it is to understand more than the truth conditions for its sentences and the referents of its words; still, it possesses those features. though it is not exhausted by its descriptive parts, it inherits any problems those parts suffer.

Some commonly unconsidered strategies and moves in chess.

2011-08-28T15:38:00.000-07:00

(1) Begin with the leftmost pawn and move only that piece until it "dies" and then change to the next-left-most pawn and repeat. Keep doing this piece-by-piece until you get to the rightmost rook. (Don't ask questions about the king now.)
(2) When you advance your pawn to the other dude's side, change it to a piece of the other dude's color. DOUBLE AGENT. Don't tell the other dude that the piece that looks like his is really yours. Sneak up on the king in the bathroom.
(3) "explain" the "way the pieces move" to your "unsuspecting opponent" in a way that "makes him lose for sure".
(4) Make outrageous bets with your opponent about whether certain pieces of his will survive the game. Lay enough various desirable conditions on your opponent so that in pursuing them she loses the game. Then pay her, like, dollars and stuff, because you lost all your bets.
(5) Mimic your opponent's moves. Keep the arrangement of pieces on the board as symmetrical as possible. Do it in a graceful way that makes your opponent want not to take any pieces in such a way that it will disrupt the symmetry. The opponent will not want to checkmate you, because then the symmetry would be left forever unaccomplished, because you won't be able to checkmate your opponent back.
(6) Man, fuck chess.
(7) Dance moves. Dance strategies.
(8) Play Max Clark and then play somebody else who is not Max Clark. Play one color against Max and the other color against Not-Max. Copy their moves in such a way that they are in effect playing against each other. When Max complains to you that you are just doing something he thought up in high school, go to the other guy and complain against him that he just doing something you thought of in high school. Whatever he replies with use as a reply to Max. Continue in this way until your identity is obliterated. I haven't worked out how this strategy plays out if you are playing Max in both games. I also haven't worked out how this strategy plays out if the Not-Max opponent is a girl Max would really like to kiss, etc.
(9) Announce your moves in the following way: "Now I am going to move [name of piece] over thisaway" or "Now I am going to move [name of piece] and take [name of taken piece]". The trick is though, you name each piece something other than the piece's name. So, if you take a rook with your bishop you say, "I'm going to move this knight and take your knight" or "Now I'm taking your queen with my king" etc. It will confuse the other person. Trust me. Then. Here's another twist. Once they have internalized your trick, so that they trust whatever you say to be stupidly false, start reporting accurately all your moves. Move quickly. Very quickly. They will be confused more.
(10) Get the transcript from a master chess player doing one of those "I will play 20 players at the same time" show cases. But here's the trick. Take the first move the master makes in his first game as your first move in this. Take the master's second move from the second game as your second move. Etc. Whenever this procedure yields an impossible move on your part, take charge.

Irene

2011-08-28T12:33:00.000-07:00

As I sit here, lying down, in bed, in doors, eating a peanut butter and peanut butter sandwich, I think to myself "didn't some one promise a hurricane?" Well, hurricane I have got, if by hurricane, we mean "hurricane" which is just an eight-letter word (I have here set a trap for you!) which the OED tells me comes to us from a word having to do with hair. Twisty hair that masses up more and more hair in the Caribbean until it barrels into trees and swallows up the shingles from roofs. No, but seriously, I don't read the oed and have no idea. No, but seriously, this hurricane is not a hurricane, it is a tropical storm. And this tropical storm is not a tropical storm, but more like a just-slighlty blustery noise one might hear from an audiobook reading of 'winnie the pooh', indicating to one that one ought to turn the page now. I am not complaining. I wanted the hurricane not only to suck, but to suck and change directions for somewhere not me. I'm just glad my political/religious connections (re: Poseidon) have not gone to waste. I am fine for meteorological flavor from time to time, but am decidedly against soggy drama in the atmosphere.
I am currently focused on not focusing on my work. You might think it dangerous to mention as much, for doesn't mentioning my work risk turning my focus to my work, and maybe even threaten my getting some work done? For a lesser man perhaps. Or even a greater. But when one considers the exact degree of greatness I possess, one realizes that I am best at leaving work out of focus when mentioning just as much as I have. Mentioning it nonstop or all the time would be just to focus on it, and hence bad. Not mentioning it at all however... Nevermind. Mentioning my mentioning and/or not mentioning it as much as I just have risks risking the risk that I was just in the middle of explaining away as something not, for me, risky. So, I am going to stop. I know my limits.

Dream a little dream of me.

2011-07-21T06:35:00.000-07:00

Last night I dreamt, among other things, that it was father's day and that my dad wanted for me to go with him out to some spectacular event in the desert. We began walking across the desert. We came to a big hill of sand that had half-turned to sloshy mud. I tried hiking up the mud path, but kept slipping. Eventually I was crawling instead of walking. Each time I felt I was progressing I would sink again. Soon, streams of water were intermittently pouring down the side of the hill; whenever the water would gush I would slip back farther. I began to feel it was hopeless. I asked my dad how much farther it was, "Is it just over the hill, or what?" Water was pouring down the hill more steadily. The sky grew dark. I wanted to turn back. "Lets go, dad". My dad seemed weak and hurt by my saying it. Just behind the hill now I could see and hear raging waves coming towards us, billowing over the hill, as if from the giving of a dam. My dad was crying, and said "don't you want to be with me?" I said "of course dad, but I can't make it..." then the waves crashed onto us, and we slid away in painful swirls of water and sand.
I woke up immediately and thought whether this was a dream "about" "religious anxiety".

The price of 2 shots.

2011-06-26T21:49:00.000-07:00

Each day for three days in a row I bought two shots of espresso from the same coffee shop, and each day was charged something slightly different. The price changed from day to day within a ~50-cent range. $1.90, $2.20, $1.75; something like that. On the third day, while waiting for my drink, I speculate on why what has happened has happened….

The fluctuating price of coffee? Does this place buy their coffee from a merchant each day, like fancy-dancy restauranteurs buy fresh fish? The coffee merchants change their prices each day, given a host of agricultural and economic factors. My fluctuating espresso price is a result of the merchant's art, which rides the waves of vast untold social and environmental forces. I feel part to something bigger than myself, covarying along with multitudes of variable circumstances, yet confined within my ~50-cent range. Maybe the price of fresh fish even is an economic factor on the price of coffee in the day-to-day food merchant economic world? Does it all come down to the price of fresh fish?

Maybe some baristas here secretly gouge the prices? Do they add a couple cents to each transaction and just pocket it? Maybe there is a bet going between the baristas about who can gouge the price the highest without a customer noticing? They pool the change they get from charging extra, and the winner after a month wins the pool of change? Do they keep the change in a jar? Or maybe each person got the idea to gouge the price independently and so they each steal without knowing the other baristas do, so they aren't coordinating their thefts to make them unnoticeable? Can I discern any obvious signs of confidence and daring in the barista that charged me the most?

Is it all just a meaningless accident? Is it all just a meaningless accident?

What if there is some other really clever and interesting and unique set of circumstances that could account for the price change which I am overlooking? Some set of conditions that change each time I buy espresso, but which I am presently overlooking, which the price could be secretly indexed to for some complicated reason which I am not keen-sighted enough to think of? I must be humble: there are more cute, unnecessarily complicated reasons than I can cook up that explain the fluctuating price.

Should I return to the fresh fish hypothesis? Did it not get enough airtime? Fish. Airtime. In my brain. Brain air time. Air time brain. Brain time air. Air brain time. Time brain air. Time air brain.

2011-06-20T12:38:00.000-07:00

The secret 100 blogs are put on hold because I'm broke!
Must. Not. Starve.
If anybody wants to hire me to write 100 secret blogs let me know. My fee is that amount of money that will get me through until September without my starving/being insolvent. $20/post should more than do it. I'll write them about whatever you want!
Think about it!

2011-06-06T16:03:00.000-07:00

So Buddha is all "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."

And I'm like, "Says who?"
And then I add this nice little "stfu buddha you're not my dad".
And he doesn't say anything back because I don't want to go search wikiquote for possible Buddha replies.

Then Mencken goes "Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt."
I'm like "WHO INVITED YOU."

Some other stuff happens. Exciting stuff. People. Etc. Things embedded in quotation marks. I grit my teeth and squint my eyes.

The Swingrovers.

2011-06-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

Louis: Oh man! X-Men First Class comes out today!
Lindsey: Can you get the lotion, an overnight diaper, and footy pajamas?
Louis: Is that all you can think of at a time like this!?

2011-05-23T20:53:00.000-07:00

I have begun writing 100 blogs in secret, using TextEdit. After they are all finished, I will post them all at once, and you will not know what hit you! You probably won't be able to read them all! You will start to read them, maybe, but after the fifth or so, you will get tired of reading them and you will stop! I'm thinking they'll be finished in ten days, but I could be wrong. They will all be around 400 to 500 words. I have just checked, and that is, like, the length of a novella. If I shoot for 160 blogs or so, that's more like a novel novel. But that would take longer than 10 days!

Oh yeah, I forgot why I started this post. I am taking suggestions for what the folder on my computer with all the secret TextEdit blogs should be called.

In the meantime, listen to this:

2011-05-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

JENNY AND I ARE GOING TO GO BUY BOOKS BY TAO LIN.

LISTEN TO THIS SONG IN THE MEANTIME:

2011-05-13T15:00:00.001-07:00

Growing up, I took piano lessons. I had little to no natural talent, but I practiced lots and became, for a time, good. I loved Debussy. Playing Debussy refined my sensitivity and judgment to register an emotional grain more subtle than I would have otherwise appreciated. Once, I was in a library, reading a book about Debussy. When asked what his favorite virtue was, he said, "Pride". That had an effect on me.

A rushed poem in a rushed moment.

2011-05-10T14:11:00.000-07:00

As I rush to complete a paper on time,
something outside catches my eye, distracting me.
Pink petals float on the wind, passing my window,
reminding me of snowflakes that used to do the same.
Spring and Winter drift by on streams of air,
as I rush to finish papers on time.

2011-04-17T09:29:00.000-07:00

last night i dreamed that i slept through my flight back to australia. (?)

2011-04-14T04:44:00.000-07:00

1. It is Spring. Which means high school seniors are coming to Tufts's campus with their moms and dads. Whenever I see such a prospective incoming student, holding a map, with mom, or dad, or both, lagging behind, I feel a pang of hope that they love each other. I want to urge the student that his or her parents are vastly more important than any of the college freshmen for whom he or she so desperately wants to look cool.
2. Sitting in class, I looked at the back of my hand and saw on it a smear of blood. It occurred to me that I must be bleeding on my face or neck, and that I had grazed the wound with my hand. Not having a mirror available in class, I began covertly stroking my beard and scratching my neck to scan for the bleeding. I would scan in this way for a few seconds, then check my hands, but there seemed to be no regularity to when and where either hand was bloodied. Sometimes I'd scan and there would be no blood at all. Sometimes my hand was marked by a dot of blood, sometimes a thick streak. The apparent location of the blood was haphazard and inconsistent. Was that from the back of my neck? The corner of my mouth? Chin? Forehead? Behind the ear? It was as if the bleeding were a fly in summertime, migrating around my head.

2011-03-31T21:02:00.000-07:00

1. today someone said they think i am a work-a-holic, or at least that i would probably become one. i glowed with pride.
2. last night i played dodgeball. i felt secure and had pure fun. afterwards i drank with johnny and alex at a bar. we discussed life values and reasons for action, and i expressed myself exactly and powerfully. i was honest and flippant. in hefeweizen veritas.
3. i like watching ingmar bergman movies alone. if i were to watch one with someone else, i think i would need for us to understand one another fantastically well. being misunderstood in such a context would for some reason hurt more poignantly than being misunderstood, say, in the context of a marx-brothers-film-viewing.

OH YEAH YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN

2011-03-24T11:08:00.001-07:00

Cults - You Know What I Mean by cultscultscults

2 things today.

2011-03-23T13:02:00.000-07:00

1. At some point today, I tensed in anger at something. Some single event which was representative of a general and regular kind of event made me angry, and reminded me of my contempt and hatred for that general and regular sort of event. More specifically, it was hatred of some sort of regular human decision. I felt the need to announce my feelings about this sort of decision: I thought I'd blog about it. But now I totally forget. I forget the particular decision that made me angry, and the species of decision of which it was a member. And it makes me happy I forget. I am happy that it is so psychologically difficult for me to remember those things which stir in me disgust and contempt. I am critical--but my definite and unflinching criticisms are punctuated, isolated, fleeting.

2. I have started writing down and preserving the good ideas students come up with in their homework. It almost feels like stealing!

A glimpse of momentary sentimentality between brothers.

2011-03-09T18:56:00.000-08:00

During my time in southern California over winter break, many nice things happened. As hoped and expected, I got to spend a good amount of time with the people I love, being silly and being sincere. Many good moments.

The moment I thought was the best was surprising and slight.
The night before I was to catch a flight back to Boston, as I lay falling gently asleep, I was abruptly awoken. I was startled to my core. I freaked out. Jolted from my sleep, I was feverishly gasping "what the hell what the hell what the hell" while frantically grasping at the sheets.
My brother had thrown himself on top of me!! How the turn tables!?? I'm usually the one to throw myself onto him while he sleeps! And here he was, flailed on top of me! Now, Jeff is nowhere close to matching my playful affection (I remain the master at invasive nuzzling, hyper-inane baby talk, etc.,) but Jeff gets full marks for being alarming as all hell. It took a good couple minutes for me to stop huffing from shock, as he laughed on in fraternal schadenfreude.

Jeff was not (just) being malicious in jumping into my bed. He wanted to say goodbye. He expected to be leaving for Seattle within the next couple months, and so thought it might be a long time until we got to see each other again. By his lights, it could have been up to a year if not longer. So he wanted to say bye. Now, my brother's track record does not boast much by way of brotherly displays of affection. It's the kind of the thing I can sometimes vaguely sense, and am always sure of, but which Jeff typically avoids making explicit mention of. So, when he explained to me how we might not see each other for a long time, and that he would miss me, I was surprised anew. I forget the exact words he used, but as we said goodbye I felt he cared for me, and it melted my heart. Faced with his vulnerable expression of love for me and his doubt about the future, I tried to encourage him by chatting with transparent excitement about his plans and by making crafty little verbal jokes with him in the dark. Though, now I wonder how much my enthusiasm and humor were also consolations for my own sadness at parting with him, and for the fear I felt in awareness of my ignorance of our futures and their significance.

Such moments of straightforward emotional communication are probably possible between brothers only after one violently wrests the other from sleep in twisted pleasure at seeing him in helpless terror.

2011-03-06T15:05:00.001-08:00

Brianna asked me today what the happiest day of my life has been.
My provisional answer is flag day, 2008, when Jeremy and Erin Mann got married.
I'll keep you posted.

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T12:59:00.001-08:00

Reflections from walking home in the snow

2011-01-18T12:02:00.000-08:00

Some of these are kinda poems.

1.
We, the walkers through snow,
yeah, we smile at each other.

2.
When light rain falls onto snow, it can be heard but not seen. Just a kind of hum, or a crackle. Static-y. It doesn't patter. It's a consistent sound, that doesn't pulse and doesn't fluctuate in pitch. It's as if silence is actually a noise, but one we normally don't hear because it's played so low, but now the volume has just been turned up: a kind of nothingness noise, all around. It makes me think there is some large spirit suspended in the air, the god of Medford maybe, saying "shhhh", or maybe he's just really tired.

3.
Every now and then
a little abandoned glove.
"How does this happen?"

4. A variation on a theme of Zach Weichbrodt's
Slush, slush, slush, slush, slush, slush, slush, slush, slush, slush, slush, slush, slush, slush, slush, slush, slush, slush, slush, slush, slush, slush.

5.
A person has walked here, going that way.
Several people have walked over there.
A few people walked here a while ago.
Nobody has walked here recently.
A person has walked here.
A car went through here.
Lots and lots of people go that way.
OH SHIT A DOG HAS BEEN HERE. PAW PRINTS. DOGGIE DOGGIE!!!

"SNOW"

2011-01-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

Boston is currently experiencing a "snow storm".

I woke up this morning and looked out my window to see "everything" covered in a "blanket" of snow.
It's "around" 68 degrees in my room, and "around" 30 degrees outside.
My windows "don't know what to do".

Given my lay-observations, there are two "kinds" of snow falling.
The first is what I think are called "snowflakes".
They fall as snow "bits"; you can "make out" individual "flakes" "zipping around".
The second looks like a mist, appearing as a single nebulous "organism" "flowing" on the "current of the wind".
I have a "theory" about where the "misty" snow comes from.
After "flaky" snow "bits" fall onto a surface, such as a tree branch or a roof, "blanketing" it, if this "blankie" is ruffled or dislodged by wind (or something else?), then mist poofs up. And this mist can be "carried off" by the wind in the form of "misty" snow.

Snow "makes" the "belief in" wind easier.
It "makes evident" the wind's "behavior".

Apparently, the police can "declare" in some official way that it is "snowing".
If the police "declare" that it is "snowing", then different snow-specific traffic laws are made operative.
These laws include rules about where people can park their cars.
If you don't know whether it's been "declared", you can call the cops to ask.
I like the "image" of someone calling the cops, looking outside their window at this "blizzard", and asking "Hi: is it snowing?".

'Trouble in Your Mind' in Mandarin Chinese.

2011-01-08T10:45:00.000-08:00

Some old friends of mine. They call it "yellowgrass".

2011-01-06T12:07:00.000-08:00

MY STOMACH WAS GROWLING AGAIN, AND I THOUGHT IT WAS SAYING "RIBBIT!" LIKE A FROG. THEN I LISTENED CLOSER AND IT WAS A LAWN MOWER OUTSIDE REVVING UP. I HAVE LOCATED THE FROG NOISE IN SOMETHING OTHER THAN AN INTERNAL ORGAN.

2011-01-04T11:00:00.000-08:00

I CAN HEAR MY STOMACH GROWLING BUT INSTEAD OF A GROWL IT SOUNDS LIKE A WHEEZY LAUGH.
WHAT'S SO FUNNY, TUMMY? WHAT DO YOU KNOW?

2010-12-31T11:30:00.001-08:00

I've been thinking just now for like 20 seconds.
I was thinking about Aaron, one of Bri's charges.
He's nine I think.
Nine should be the age of adulthood.
He still has to round some developmental curves, but if we culturally instituted nine as the age of adulthood, I think most kids would meet the challenge. He has all the intelligence necessary to get a job, handle adults. He's apparently emotionally volatile, but if there were social expectations that he would be trafficking with the adults and keeping his shit together, he would whip that a little more into shape.
Brianna probably will disagree with me totally about this.
But it just seems to me that much of his good behavior could be harnessed, and it seems that much of his bad behavior is in large part the result of folks allowing him (expecting of him? requiring of him?) that he be childish. I just see a very interesting man in him (and in other kids his age: my cousins whom I saw over christmas--they're _young men_).
Child prodigies have just been given room to be human earlier.

2010-12-30T21:21:00.001-08:00

To answer Max:
The pain started going away gradually once I took the antibiotics. It really started kicking in around 1pm.
When I got the dentist, they shot me up with novocaine, and that was it. Numb. Happy.
When they pulled the tooth I didn't feel it at all.
From then on it was a matter of feeling uncomfortable for having a fat face.
No trace of toothache, since there's no trace of tooth.

Today, the swelling it almost gone. I look normal, but my mouth is just a little constricted. Soon, though, I will be normal again.
I will glow.

Methods for Spelunking through the Abyss.

2010-12-30T21:14:00.001-08:00

After a certain threshold, pain makes you lose it a bit.

Some methods for dealing with pain:
1. Wiggling.
2. Taking drugs.
3. Taking more drugs.
4. Hurting yourself in some unrelated way, to distract from the original pain.
5. Sometimes number 4 takes the form of throwing up because of too much number 3.
6. Rationalizing. Sometimes this is just saying "no pain no gain." When I was a kid, I would rationalize in terms of what pleasures I had experienced which were somehow causing this pain. I imagined there being a kind of pain/pleasure equilibrium being reached whenever I would suffer, thereby somehow justifying my pain. But this doesn't work anymore. Now the rationalization tends to take the form of explaining to myself that this pain is temporary, and that in a matter of time I will not feel the pain and will even have trouble remembering what the pain was like/how long the pain lasted/etc. For instance, now I do not have a toothache. And all I remember about hanging out with Daniel, Max, Laura, Brianna, and Jenny is (a) that I was in pain (Though I Don't Remember The Experience At All Vividly--And It Was Three Days Ago) and (b) Daniel was damn funny. This kind of rationalization does not help much in the moment, but at the very least it is something to do.
7. Hurt yourself more in the very location/manner in which you are already hurting. Spike the pain, so that when it levels back to a steady degree of intense pain, it will feel, for a time, as less.
8. Pray to God. Plead. Demand Reasons. Beg for Mercy. Curse. Weep.
9. Quote Oscar Wilde: "Lord, spare me the physical pain; I can handle the spiritual pain."
10. Search for anything good about the experience of the pain. Sometimes, if the pain is throbbing, it will begin to follow a pattern. Just the pattern of the pain can make it a little more bearable. That it is somehow organized and that expectations can form around it make it itself somehow more manageable. Like a terrible music.
11. Go for walks.
12. I think of this now, wishing I had thought of it before: Get Krunk.
13. At some point, I think the brain starts trying things out itself. It loosens some connections. It simulates getting krunk. You can't reason the same: memories blend, priorities fade, you fail to grasp exactly what's going on. The brain just unplugs a few gizmos here and there to save the whole system, hoping the renegade bit will sort itself out. Cuts the engines and sends power to shields or whatever. This is where you lose it a bit. Categories and objects begins to blur in such a way that the pain has no constant, discernible background to stand out against. All that exists is the pain, but you don't recognize it as pain. It just is what you're doing. It is what is going on. It's the environment. Everything else jars against it, rather than the other way around. Just having to interact in the world hurts, while the pain establishes itself as the steady norm to which you want to return undisturbed.
14. Oh yeah, your face swells up like a balloon.
15. You call your mom. She tells you, in her all-knowing way, cool as cucumber way, what to do and how to do it. She doesn't whimper or pamper you. She just acts as efficiently and directly as possible to get you out of that pain. To fix you. I love you, mom.

2010-12-30T15:04:00.001-08:00

A girl dresses up as a kitty, with like a simple black outfit, ears, and simple face make-up, she gains like 50% cute points.

2010-12-30T14:46:00.001-08:00

Okay, so we've got 4 votes for keeping the blog as is, and 3 votes for changing it.

If we count Louis's vote as void as his better half suggests, it's a tie.

I think it would be cool if I could work out some basic programming for having a few different backgrounds which change at random whenever you refresh. that way, the old could still be appreciated, and maybe a few new spicy options.

I'll look into it.

another dream.

2010-12-30T13:14:00.001-08:00

While we're on the topic of dreams, here's this.
I wrote this like a month ago.

I dreamt about Tara the other night. She lived in a house in Canada, in the wilderness, alone. She was a painter. She asked me to live with her there and I said that yes, I would. We were having fun, enjoying each other, joking around. I saw a buffalo outside and was amazed, shocked by its size. I cried out, "Look at that buffalo!" and she smiled, entertained by my enthusiasm, enjoying and remembering what I was like, and said, "yeah". During all of this I had this understanding that she was going to kill herself soon, but I didn't want to mention it. I'm not sure why I didn't want to mention it. Maybe I doubted it, and didn't want to risk reminding her of it, like maybe she would forget to do it. I just wanted her to be happy and to protect her from that happening. She killed herself in my dream but I didn't see it--I just knew it was happening as it happened, but I was looking at something else, and I woke up. Almost immediately after I woke up, I got out of bed and stood up and got ready. For some reason this seemed the strangest part to me--my immediately rising up from bed.

A dream.

2010-12-30T09:41:00.001-08:00

I had a dream last night that I went through a life-or-death maze with a woman I knew would eventually become a witch. I wondered at what point in the maze it would happen. She helped me through the maze by spending a long time translating clues from some ancient, probably demonic, language.

At one point in the maze there was a tattoo parlor, where I felt obligated to get some piecing. At first they wanted to pierce that part of tissue just below my lower lip and above my chin, right in the middle. Soul patch pierce, or whatever. But I thought that would be too painful, and thought it might look dumb. So then they pierced my ankles. I thought that was so cool. When I woke up I genuinely persisted for a few moments in the belief that I had ankle piercings.

Dept. Of Eagles - In Ear Park

2010-12-29T22:44:00.001-08:00

Here's something to listen to while you read. This video is older, but I like it. I like that at the end ghosts only come out of some people. MAKES YOU THINK, HUH.

2010-12-29T22:38:00.001-08:00

my blog posts have been typo-heavy recently. shows sloppiness. a lack of care. less fastidious blog standards. ennui, even. despair? no, that's too far. that jon has lost a will to blog carefully does not mean jon has lost will to live. let it be know. thank goodness.

2010-12-29T13:00:00.000-08:00

Two days ago was excruciating.
Probably the most pain my face has faced.
Yesterday my face looked like a volleyball.
Or, like I had been bitten by a radioactive volleyball, and was turning into one.
VolleyballMan.
Another interpretation of my face involves a comparison to Marlon Brando.
From that scene: "I coulda been a contenda!"
Today it looks like I'm playing that chubby bunny game.
The one where you stuff your face with marshmallows.
Tomorrow's forecast:
Gaunt and Lithe, like the ladies like it.

It took them a minute to pull my tooth.
Like, 60 seconds. Pullo Whammo.

I will write more about pain, and toothaches later. THERE MAY BE INSIGHTS.

The Long and The Short.

2010-12-27T10:54:00.000-08:00

The longer a Sufjan song, the better you know it's gonna be.

This reminds me of years ago, when Tara told me that I should write novels instead of short stories. This sticks out to me because her reason was that it took a certain skill that I didn't have to write short stories. I don't think she elaborated much at all. But she clearly communicated that it took a special skill to write short stories, and she thought as plain matter of fact that I did not have that skill. I wish I could ask her about it now. I wonder if she thought I would succumb too easily to gimmicks. I bet it was something more fundamental than that. I never read her stories while she was alive, but her mother sent me a book of them a couple months ago. They were mysterious. I liked them a lot, but a couple of them made me queasy: one made me so queasy I skipped a part. Some made me laugh, almost aghast. Some were about me.

I think it's great that her advice wasn't based on some sense she had that I'd be good at long fiction but on some knowledge that I was incapable of good short fiction.

When it comes to a particular use of literature, I trust Tara wholly. But she and I disagreed about what literature was (or, as I would argue, could be) for. Those arguments were nice. We were both so invested!

2010-12-27T10:25:00.000-08:00

Listening to Sufjan some more.

The three songs I first listened to off of Sufjan's new album, which I disliked then, I dislike now. I was justified, but mistaken, for taking these as representative of the whole album.

I think in the future Sufjan should just make one-song albums. One 60 minute song sprawling through different bits, but tying all together. It needs to be a whole narrative. Sufjan is best when he is creating worlds.

Did I write 60? I meant, like, 400.

2010-12-26T20:15:00.000-08:00

Ok.
I'm not saying a materialist and I'm not saying I'm any kind of dualist. When I search my feelings I find both options a little dull. I couldn't tell you why.
But I was daydreaming today.
SORRY I GOTTA GO WATCH SARAH PALIN'S REALITY TV SHOW.

Yes We Can.

2010-12-26T11:55:00.001-08:00

I write this on Brianna's computer.

1. The feel of her keyboard is more pleasant than that on my computer.
2. She tells me that "everyone" hates (or dislikes, or something) my blog's colors/layout/background. Background particularly. Reminds me of when Amy complained "why's it so pink and horsey?" So, ok. Let's hear it: who dislikes this thing, and who wants a change? The following changes are up for grabs.
a. The colors
b. The zebras (THEY ARE ZEBRAS)
c. The title
d. The content
e. The author
f. The medium
g. Other Things suggested

This doesn't mean I'm going to go all changy just because everybody hates it. I'm not Louis, here. But I'm willing to be. Basically, I guess it could use a change, maybe. Dunno. I like the zebras, but I might have some kind of aesthetic blindness in this case. I'm open to feedback. Feed it on back to me, folks.

2010-12-25T10:45:00.001-08:00

ya done good, santa.

2010-12-24T15:36:00.000-08:00

I ate half a cutie.
JEFF STOLE THE OTHER HALF.
I THREATENED HIM AND HE TOOK IT ANYWAY.
Empty threats.

Now we're both blasting our music at each other. Really, I only hear mine, but I can feel his there. Blasting. Within earshot.

In other news, I keep wanting to use the word "modulo", thinking it means one thing, but dubious about what I think. I thought it meant one thing, and now I'm not sure. I haven't looked it up though. I might. May. Maybe. Mightbe.

Huddle up.

2010-12-24T15:07:00.000-08:00

Steam has been lost. I may just be hungry.
Here's what I'm gonna do.
I'm going to eat some food, then I'm going to find some pins and finish my present-wrapping, and I'm going to clean my room. Then, I might read a book, or I might play the guitar, or I might do sit-ups. Possibilities, man.
Then, it will probably be time to get dressed and go to Christmas Eve service at my parents' church.
During all of this, if I think of blog posts I will (a) write them down on a piece of paper OR, if I am near a computer (b) write them for realsies.
I don't think it's ruining my life having a blog. It's kinda fun.
Also, it's optional and I am fickle about it.
During all of this, I will also joke around with my family.
Joking isn't ruining my life either. It, too, is optional and I am fickle about it.
I will probably dance as I do this stuff too. I've just got a wigglebug in me, and I can't shake him!

Note to the Reader on Schizoblogia

2010-12-24T13:42:00.000-08:00

I recommend that, below, you read "1 of 2: Schizoblogia" before you read "2 of 2" (and, SPOILER ALERT: "3 of 2").

It will be more fun (funny) for you, hun (hunny (bunny)).

3 of 2: Schizoblogia

2010-12-24T13:40:00.000-08:00

This is really the last sentence of the schizo-blog--and it raises the problem blog identity-conditions both by its existence and by explicitly mentioning it (How's it work!?)--and it prolongs itself artificially with dashes (!)--I am capable of only making one kind of joke!

pee pee!

2010-12-24T13:26:00.001-08:00

Just thinking of Alec Baldwin makes me happy. And I used to hate him!

2 of 2: Schizoblogia

2010-12-24T13:04:00.001-08:00

I write one sentence in the previous blog, and then another in this one. But not really. The idea was almost inevitable. So, as I was writing something on one open blog and then switching to something on another, even though I was crafting several texts which encode self-contained thought-processes, it felt, somehow, like one big, disconnected blog. If blog posts were women, my blog posts would be my kind of woman! I hate jokes like that. But who am I kidding; Louis's the only person reading this anyway! This one is more fun that the other one. (Obviously I am going to exploit the context-sensitivity of demonstratives in a situation like this! Also, punctuation jokes. This gag can only sustain so much.

1 of 2: Schizoblogia

2010-12-24T13:03:00.000-08:00

I am writing this blog at the same time as I right the next blog. The two sort of constitute one blog. I decided I would do this because I had several tabs open in this window anyway, one tab for each blog-in-progress. I mean, the procession of my thoughts is a continuous thing, even if it "jumps" from topic to topic. It doesn't help, too, that my blog posts tend to be flighty, discursive, easily distracted, but still somehow, taken as a whole, clever and fun. If wishes were horses, beggars would have bizarre propositional attitudes! I realize now I should have numbered these sentences to make reading both posts simultaneously an easier affair. Only just now have I gone back over each each to see what the experience is like. That's what she said. You know me!) Ok, I think I've had enough.

Balla, Holla.

2010-12-24T12:43:00.000-08:00

I am a skinny young man. But sometimes, after I eat, I have a little gut. I can grab my gut. Jiggle it.

I imagined myself as a middle-aged man. Scrawny with a gut. Maybe balding a little. Pathetic to behold.
I imagined myself as a middle-aged man, starting to play pick-up basketball games.
But because I haven't been doing this all along, I am like, really bad. I sweat a lot. Not fast. Don't know the moves.
But I would give it my all. Can you imagine me as a middle-aged man so-described? Someone calling a foul: "Charging!"
And I would be like, huffing and puffing, and ask, "What's that mean, again?"
My gut would bounce, but wouldn't go away.
I would be quietly ridiculed by the basketball players. But would kinda think that it's funny, and so be ok.
It's nice to think of myself so-described, trying my hardest, and one time juking this young guy and making a shot.
Glowing because of this. Glowing forevermore.
Imagine my natty hair in the sun. My laughing at some dumb "trash talk".

Nurses - Technicolor

2010-12-24T12:40:00.000-08:00

Here's a video to listen to while you read my blog.
Press play.
Read on.

Oh yeah: Book Lists.

2010-12-24T11:49:00.001-08:00

Chris suggested I post a blog of book lists.

The lists shall be as follows: Philosophy Books I Think You Should Read (this is what Chris suggested), and Philosophy Books I'm Reading Over Break, and Non-Philosophy Books I Think You Should Read, and Non-Philosophy Books I'm Reading Over Break.

List #1 is what I think somebody-who-is-getting-into-philosophy-but-doesn't-really-know-what-to-read should give a try! I should say that I am not really well read enough to have a good list of this kind. But Chris asked, and he's a friend, so I'll do it. I of course avoid anthologies, which are always helpful but are boring to list. Chris told me he has read The Republic and some other foundational books. So I will focus on books that might be good if one were interested in engaging with contemporary philosophical literature (or, the contemporary stuff I like!).

Philosophy Books I Think You (Chris Thielen!) Should Read
1. An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding - Hume
2. Naming and Necessity - Kripke
3. Word and Object - Quine
4. Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy - Russell

I was going to add more, but then I couldn't think of any I thought would be good. Really, I'm starting to get into epistemology more, but I haven't read any good books on it, so I have nothing to give you (Platinga? Hawthorne? I'm going to be doing a lot of catch-up reading in this area, myself!). I can tell you that Kripke and Quine are influential and have set a lot of debates. And I like them both a lot. They disagree on stuff a lot, too, so it would be good to read both. I agree with almost everything Kripke says and absolutely love the way Quine articulates everything he says.
I haven't read Chalmers's The Conscious Mind but intend to. I hear it's the bees knees of philosophy of mind. Don't read Dennett any time soon, but eventually read something by him.
I don't know about ethics. Ayn Rand? lol XD

Philosophy Books I'm Reading (Or Trying to Read) Over Break
1. Naming & Necessity - Kripke (re-reading)
2. Knowledge & Its Limits - Williamson
3. Convention - Lewis
4. Thought, Language, & Other Biological Categories - Millikan
5. Relativism & Monadic Truth - Cappelen and Hawthorne

I think that's it. Really, the things I'd really like to have read by next semester are the Millikan and the Lewis. They both give very different accounts of convention, but I think both programs could be useful in arguing for the reality of public language (which I am interested in considering the feasibility of; I am not yet convinced). Millikan has work which explicitly tries to tie her work on convention to defending the existence of public language. I want to consider the field and weigh some options. I don't want to fall into an entirely idiolect-based Chomskese without considering the alternatives. I think fundamental questions like these [What are/is languages/language?] should inform the nitty gritty work done on particular phenomena to be accounted for in the philosophy of language.

I'll make the Non-Philosophy Lists its own post.

Cat-Killers.

2010-12-24T11:39:00.000-08:00

I have realized that in the past three days I have looked up and researched, in semi-sincerity:
Enneagrams
Tarot Cards
Zodiac Stuff
Meditation
Chakra stuff.

Who am I?

I tried opening my root chakra, but it's placement just made me uncomfortable like a 13-year old boy. And giggle. I giggled lots. I'm too immature to meditate.

I'm also reading a book about decision theory and game theory, if that puts you at ease. It probably doesn't.

I'm kinda sweaty, and kinda like it. I tried explaining to my mom that being like 1 day out from bad B.O. is strangely-pleasant B.O. I like the way bodies smell! Sue me!
Though, stinky feet are lose-lose. Nothing good about stinky feet.

What else could I look up to continue this trend? Crystals? Auras? What else is there?

2010-12-24T11:26:00.001-08:00

I promise I am not half-assing this blog. 3/4-assing at least.

The Shifting Building that is my Priorities.

2010-12-24T11:16:00.000-08:00

I'm kinda into dancing more than I was. It's just wackily fun. I've always liked it, but I think I have recently been enjoying "priority" "shifts". Dancing is sky-rocketing towards the top. Or, it's launched into some valhalla of priorities I have hovering together oligarchically at the top of my priority-tower. The top is good. The bottom is not constituted by "foundational" priorities. Just things that aren't priorities. Not much of a tower, maybe. I don't know. For a while I was imagining it as shaped like Bespin, my priority-tower. But now I'm not sure. Because in this analogy, all things in existence should constitute a brick somewhere in my priority tower, and I surely put most things towards the bottom. So, it's more like a parking lot, with a totem pole in the middle. Or something. One base level of could-not-possibly-care-less-stuff, then a little pyramid. Who knows. Analogies. They'll sneak up on you! Maybe we could tweak the analogy a little. Only the things that are priorities are bricks in my priority tower. This avoids the parking lot and maintains the tower image. More on this later. Towers can sneak up on you!

Makes you think of this phenomenon differently, huh?:

HAHAHAHAHA I am laughing hard at that video. It is funny on--wait for it--so many levels.

In the Path of my Judgment.

2010-12-24T10:45:00.001-08:00

I remember now. The "judgy" thing reminded me.

I sometimes seem very not opinionated, but I am the opposite of that. It's just that I have meta-opinions, too. I have firm opinions about issues about which I am not competent to have opinions and so don't.
But when I think stuff, I can run the risk of being domineering. If I "care".
Thing is, I have opinions about what constitutes making an argument worth my time. If somebody is smart, and I disagree with them, it's worth it. If somebody is flippantly/fatuously cocky/smug etc., and they are knocking something/someone which I perceive as being too scared/weak/unsure to fend for itself, it's worth it. When somebody is dismissive of something I think is the cats pa-freaking-jamas, it's worth it.

But sometimes, I change. My opinion is overturned. Sometimes, they are overturned by me.
I just had that.
I was daydreaming, listening to indie dance music, judging it for not being indie pop. Daydreaming about tattoos. I used to be categorically against tattoos and in a judgy domineering way. But I've got an argument against that guy. It just makes me sad somebody else didn't push back with it sooner. It's nice to have people fight you out of a position. I think my past self would have moves to make too, but it would be a fun, dynamic argument were he here, and were we to grit our teeth and smirk and finger-wag and shout in disagreement.

Punchy/Inane

2010-12-24T10:31:00.000-08:00

I am daydreaming and listening to indie dance, judging it for not being indie pop. This is me.
My parents bought an electronic coffee machine. It's not as good as french press coffee, but you can make lots.
I think the physical volume I have brought with me of Lydia Davis's collected stories is the prettiest paperback I own. I honestly like looking at it more than I like reading it. This has happened.
What was I thinking about?
I started writing this with a blog-thought in mind.
Blog-thoughts are like thoughts. But they are punchy and inane and turn into blogs.
WHAT WAS THAT THOUGHT.
CAPS LOCK.

It will come. I will build it, and it will come. It.

4 minutes.

2010-12-23T12:15:00.000-08:00

Having Googled "what takes four minutes" I have found that starting up many programs on one's computer can take four minutes, and that math word problems are happy to stipulate that things like filling up the sink or eating eight carrots takes four minutes. But this does not help the search for fun ways to mark four minutes.

It's strange, but I think when I am aware of time limit (as I am now) I undergo this physical sensation of being heavier. Particularly, I think my face feels heavier.
Oh wait, that's all the 4 Loko I just downed. My bad.

Do you not enjoy this blog post because you think it doesn't come from the heart? Would you prefer if I wrote from pure aristocratic leisure, under no guns, just from a unadulterated love of creation and idling speculation? Would you prefer it if I spoke about the world, my beliefs, Things Of Importance, rather than just write blogs about writing blogs and strategies for writing blogs? Do you think these are genuine questions, or do you think they are rhetorical, or do you think both, or neither, or both and neither? Think ye I could easily go on? Can you make yourself read this sentence as a question even though it doesn't have a question mark. What about this one. Or the next one, which won't start with a questiony word. I look attractive today but I didn't yesterday.

One strategy: Keeping tempo with music.

2010-12-23T12:06:00.001-08:00

One fun way that I could successfully write a blog post every 4 minutes until my birthday, would be for me to collect all the 4 minute songs from my itunes, and write a blog for each song. Lets see how many blogs that would knock out.

If I count all songs in my itunes of a length between 3:45 and 4:15, then I have 1720 songs. One post per song gives me 1720 posts. (Some math problems are easy.)

Now, being reasonable, I'd probably skip some songs, because there is music on my itunes I'm not crazy about.

Now, this strategy wouldn't require me to write about the songs. It is just one of many ways to keep time.

That reminds me that in college I kept a document on my computer for a while which was of creative writing blips, each of which was "inspired" by the song I was listening to as I wrote it. I would construct playlists, and then have to write some coherent, self-contained bit of literary prose, which had to be somehow someway related to the song I listened to. So, yeah. This idea isn't original with me, but rather, with past me. Which reminds me of a joke Ben told me. "Ted Sider walks into a bar. Another guy has a drink. Another leaves." Ho ho ho.

If the next 8000 blog posts are of this quality I will surely lose my readership.

COUNTDOWN.

2010-12-23T11:49:00.000-08:00

I think I should mention that I have secretly been a part of NaNoBloPoLi. "Wait" you might say. "I thought it ended in MO". Not as in Montana. Really, I am part of secret and arbitrary group which commits to write a blog post every day for their entire lives. So, yes. I'm behind.

I turn 25 on January 30. Lets calculate.

I will have lived through 6 leap years and 19 non-leap years.

(6*366)+(19*365)=9131

9131 DAYS HAVE I TROD THIS LEAVENED SOIL.

Currently, including this post, I have 347 blog posts published here.

8784 POSTS TO GO!

33 days until my birthday.

So, if I'm to complete my task by my birthday, I will need to blog

8784/33 posts a day.

Rounding down, that's 266 posts a day.

Assuming I am awake 16 hours a day, that's (rounding down) 16 posts an hour.

Like, one blog every 3 3/4 minutes.

2010-12-23T11:47:00.000-08:00

Oh my God: Sufjan Stevens.

P.S. I realize I'm late on this one. But it's not like we're claimjumpers here.

Living the Dream and Driving the Leam.

2010-12-21T08:48:00.000-08:00

I'm back in the Swingrover's living room. I can smell the Christmas tree, I am drinking Swingrover coffee, I am listening to indie dance music. Soon, I shall read books. Later I will mess around with Brianna's kiddos. Things are lookin up.

It's the first time that I have sort-of-wishes (not really wished) that I had a car. It would be nice to go back and forth between my family and friends more easily. I want to see everybody as much as possible.

Also: check out THIS GUY.

The Complete Works.

2010-12-17T10:53:00.000-08:00

I am done.
Wait, no I'm not.
Geez.
This semester has been weird for me.
It's weird to feel myself change.
It's weird to grow.
It's weird to form opinions.
It's weird to suffer emotionally.
It's weird to attend to my own struggling with discipline.
Language is weird and fascinating.
I have decided that I will write a thorough review of my life this semester and then post it here.
This is not that review.
This is me typing whatever pops into my head.
I will also post a set of lists of books, which is a blog post inspired/recommended by Chris Theilen, whose name I hope I have not here misspelled.
It's weird feeling like I know so so so little.
This is not a poem.
But now maybe it is.
Oh snap.
Poems, man.
They can sneak up on you.

2010-12-07T15:44:00.000-08:00

I have found out today that I am going to be a TA next semester. Hooray! Also, I'm TAing for a class I really wanted to TA for: Rational Choice! Double Hooray!

Man. What a relief.

2010-12-05T21:21:00.000-08:00

consider this blog backdated.
consider the month of december backdated. or frontdated. whichever.
today is december 1st in the calendar of jon.

i have a text file on my computer's desktop of like 10 different blog topics.

i am emotional right now, but you couldn't tell to look at me!
not too emotional, though.
just a little.
little waves of emotion cascading about my insides.
like in a gentle, but wavy, lake.
not the ocean against a bluff or anything.
the metaphor here is emotion as water. i don't fully understand it. there's some correlation between emotion and water though.

hmph. this was not one of my blog topics from the text file.

2010-12-05T20:01:00.000-08:00

i'm writing a paper about semantics.
i agree with person A.
i disagree with person B.
A has an argument, X, against B's claim, Y.
at first, i thought X was wrong.
but now i think that A just totally misreads B.
i still agree with person A.
but now i think he can't read.
like, can you not read, A?
in at least two different places A flagrantly misreads B.
i can think of no excuse for A.
but i still think B is wrong, ultimately.
but i can't write a paper that argues just that A can't read.
clearly, A can read--he writs about semantics!

2010-11-21T20:47:00.000-08:00

Max just commented to me that I am "emotional" on my blog.
I will refrain from telling you about my current emotional state.
I am making a sad face.
Now I'm smiling.
Now I'm staring thoughtfully.
Back to the sad face, now.

Old Post about Dogs.

2010-11-19T00:58:00.000-08:00

Another old blog post I was working on that never got finished begins this way:

"I hope that one day I will be within my ethical rights in punching a dog smack dab in the face. Hard."

Old Post About Dead Guys

2010-11-19T00:54:00.000-08:00

I was just looking at old, unfinished and unposted blog posts. I found the following, which I wrote in March of 2009, well over a year ago.

**************************************
I am studying a test of validity for Boolean statement schemata called the "cellular method". This method originates in the work of French logician, Jacques Herbrand. Herbrand was my age, 23, when he fell to his death while mountain-climbing in the French alps. Yet his contribution was still significant enough for me to study some of it now. I am briefly allowing my mood to be oppressed by my dwelling on the tragedy of his untimely death. Though I know little to nothing further about him, and though there is nothing about his work that resonates with me in any personal way, my brief encounter now with his contribution to the world coupled with the thought of a brilliant youth laid low has a heavy effect on me.

It reminds me of the last time I had a bona fide crying session. Maybe I should say "weeping" session. The last time I weeped was in Southern California, waiting in my car for my brother to get out of his class at Citrus College. This was probably six months ago, now. I was reading an essay by Douglas Hofstadter about Alan Turing, the English mathematician and logician, who sometimes is called the father of computer science. His death was ruled a suicide. Hofstadter's brief biography of Turing is moving, both in its description of the significance of Turing's contribution to mathematics and logic, and in its description of Turing's calm and kind personality, along with the manner in which he was personally maltreated by the British government. After reading it I sat quietly and thought about him, and weeped. No gnashing of teeth or elaborate wailing; just earnest and mournful crying. The circumstances and nature of Turing's death, coupled with the abstract knowledge that he probably could have contributed much more to science is what affected me; I do not particularly identify with Turing, and I am only familiar with the broad strokes of his work.

Strange. I am reminded of the time I weeped before that, which was only a few months prior. That weeping session was prompted by my reading a biography of Hector Hugh Munro (Saki), one of my favorite authors. Saki died in the trenches of World War I.

**************************************

That's where it ends. Apparently I was going with it somewhere though and meant to write more.

BMFA, not BAMF

2010-11-18T21:09:00.000-08:00

While in the neighborhood of Northeastern U, I went to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which I am a de facto member of by being a Tufts student. I went alone.

The museum is going to open a new "Art of the Americas" wing in a couple days, which, as a member, I had special access to. I was worried at first it was going to be teepees and dream catchers or something, but it was art art. Like, romanticism, impressionism, post-impressionism-type paintings--only by Americans for Americans.

I was given a commemorative ticket to commemorate my being part of the special members only preview group.

I wore my glasses, which meant I couldn't see very well. They are old glasses. So, I squinted at a lot of art. I stared more liberally at other humans, because only when they got very close could I tell they were looking back. Also, my glasses are loose on me, so they are constantly slipping down my nose.

At one point I wandered into a room where artists were circled around a model, drawing them! A live person, holding some strange pose! Even though nobody was naked, I felt indecent walking in on it. Strange.

There was lots of furniture in the American Art wing. Us practical Americans. Some of the one-armed couches were pretty far-out. Also, the wallpaper was awwwwwwwwwsome.

At one point this lady walked around announcing she was going to be giving a presentation on some mural and said to the crowds, a couple times, word for word, "if you'd like to join the conversation, please do". I thought about sticking around to talk about this mural, asking some thoughtful but ignorant questions. But I decided against it. I don't know why. I totally should have learned about that mural. I am a mediocre human being sometimes.

I was the youngest person there by far. Most people looked very professional and late-middle-aged. There was also a fair showing of older folk--the sort of people you wonder are into the Revolutionary War because they remember it. har har har.

Three paintings really knocked me out. When a painting knocks me out I tend to gawk at it for quite some time. I gawk and gawk and get closer and gawk and get farther away and gawk. Otherwise I just sort of wander around without spending too much time with the art, sometimes making little jokes to myself about this or that painting.

When I make little jokes to myself I sort of wish that somebody were with me. A swingrover, a kid, a member of my immediate family, a date, a world-renowned art historian. Anybody who could take a joke, really.

The whole time I walked around I was eating candy out of my pocket. Red vines.

The three paintings that knocked me out:
1. The first one was of this woman, I forget her name. The look on her face in this painting was mesmerizing. A little haunting. And then I read on the placard that it was a self-portrait! Who would paint themselves that way! I didn't want to meet the woman, but I wanted for us to have grown up together in such a way that I didn't have to meet her, but instead knew her intimately as a matter of course. If she were alive and I just met her--Hello How Are You My Name Is--, the nature of our meeting could not possibly put me in a position to have intimate access to her real perspective on things, but that's what I would want. I want for her to tell me in unweighed words how she's feeling about her day. Or, I want to be close enough so that I could ask her, like an annoying brother during dinner, "Hey, do that freaky stare you did in that self-portrait! Do the stare!"
2. This other painting was called "The Visitor". It was by an American who was born and trained in Germany, which seems like cheating to me. The painting was of this woman apparently waiting in a room with shafts of light coming in from outside, wearing her overcoat. It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly what knocked me out about this picture. Part of it was that it vividly evoked an entire scene along with it, without itself depicting much of a scene. You could tell so much about the demeanor and personality of the woman from just how she was seated and how she was idly holding and examining a paper from the nearby desk. I found myself wanting to "read that part", as if the painting were some paragraph in a story or play. Another thing about the painting was the red of the woman's shoe. Another was how she poised her other hand.
3. The other painting was called "Woman with a sickle"!!!! The thing that caught my eye was how green it was! But then...a sickle!? And the woman's undefined, shaded face. Man, it got me.

Get Lost.

2010-11-18T19:56:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I was in a funk, so I gathered my books, got on the train, and rode downtown, and eventually made my way around NorthEastern University.

I got lost quickly in this neighborhood looking for a coffee shop to study in. I was deliberately not paying rigorous mental attention to my geographical position to other things. Getting lost is actually thrilling to me. Like waking up someplace different than where you fell to sleep! There is a non-intentional tendency within me to maintain orientation to some fixed landmarks, to keep established my position in terms of some wider, more established frame of geographical reference. When this is undermined one way or another, I feel myself enter into a psychological mode of heightened alertness. This mode seems to directly affect the way I perceive my environment--my very perception of buildings and streets seems to change. It is as if each distinctive feature of my environment is given a special, urgent marker in my short-term memory, which I hold on to and deliberately conceive any newly encountered landmarks in terms of. When lost, I begin to rebuild a frame of reference, extending it by experimental wandering, hoping that eventually its periphery will encroach onto some previously met location which will act as a link between my natural system of mental relations between places (the 'established' one?) and my recently constructed network of urgently interdefined landmarks. When this link presents itself--when I "get my bearings"--the two mental maps snap into place. In a flash those deliberately noted buildings and signs, by virtue of their standing in the recent web of place-relations, are assigned absolute (or absolute-[relative to my larger, largely unconscious sense of location]) values. Anyway, it is fun to toy with these natural tendencies--to let myself get lost, so that I can experience that 'aha!' moment, the moment of re-orientation.

This all reminds me of when I was a boy, and Dad explained "north" in terms of the position of one wall in our house: the sliding glass door to the backyard. Whenever I was out and about and wanted to know where north was, I did long mental retracing of my steps from that room in our house to my location, holding in place that wall's orientation the whole time. I remember distinctly being in Chicago when I was a high school senior, realizing that this method, which I was mentally attempting by force of habit, would not work in the circumstances. I remember it so vividly now! I was in a car, turning around a freeway on-ramp, looking at the brush along the side of the road, thinking 'woah'.

Unrelated Photograph-Quotation Pair of the day.

2010-11-18T07:35:00.000-08:00

"The road to knowledge is paved with
acknowledged pinpointed ignorance."
- Sylvain Bromberger

noooblonamona

2010-11-18T06:43:00.000-08:00

I'd like to point out that even though I don't adhere to the law of Napbloamomono, I adhere to its spirit, kinda.
Excluding my compulsory nanablonana blogs, I am ahead of schedule in writing a blog/day.
I take the spirit to be: blog a lot.
But I gotta go now. Because I have lotstado!

some of today's emotions, without further comment.

2010-11-16T21:37:00.000-08:00

My dominating emotions have tended lately to be upset and entertained. Not that I don't have other emotions, too.

Here. I'll give you a breakdown of my day roughly in terms of the emotional/psychological states that stand out, as I recall my day. Each dispositional state listed is associated with a particular remembered event from today. I list them roughly in order.

Today:
bemused
pleased
anxious
attentive
preoccupied
upset
ashamed
reserved
puzzled
motivated
composed
guileful
playful
entertained
eager
entertained
spry
dedicated
apprehensive
playful
bored
entertained
entertaining
playful
upset
reflective
wistful
entertained
careful
tenacious
calm
upset
listless
entertained
upset
listless

a birthday dinner, Part 2

2010-11-16T21:23:00.000-08:00

Max and I eventually ended up at a small 40's-themed diner-looking grill restaurant called "Rosebud". I forget most of what happened.

Things I remember:
* I ordered the Rosebud Combo Something Or Other, not knowing what this entailed exactly. I had read only the first word of the combo's description: "Hungry?"
* The Rosebud Combo Thingy was fries and a mountain of meat: sausage, chicken, steak, ribs. It was a lot.
* I also ordered a cup of chowder.
* Max got "flaming" wings. He mentioned how hot they were.
* For a little stretch during the meal, conversation went like this: Max would repeat whatever the people in the booth behind him had just said, and in response I would repeat whatever the people in the booth behind me had just said. Real mature.
* At one point, Max looked out the window and said "There's a girl."
* Later he looked out the window and said "Another one".
* I saw a professor from the philosophy department at the restaurant, but didn't say anything to her.
* Jokes were made. I know this, only because I remember laughing hard. I can't remember the jokes.
* At one point a Beatles song came on in the restaurant, and Max and I agreed to stop talking and to just listen instead.
* Max and I continued (briefly) a previous disagreement about the ethics of advertising.
* We may have continued a standing disagreement over Michael Scott from The Office, but I doubt that. Also, the disagreement is less about Michael Scott and more about how one should deal with Michael Scott. The disagreement stems from deeper disagreements about humanity. Or vice versa.
* We devised a secret code, just in case we ever need to verify the other's identity.
* Max talked sports.
* They did not have ice cream to go with my apple pie. They did not have milkshakes. They had root beer.
* It was alright.

2010-11-16T21:19:00.000-08:00

Dear Derek,

I have thought more about what we were talking about. Whenever you'd like to pick up the thread again comment on this post, I guess.

Jon

Various

2010-11-14T09:55:00.000-08:00

I know Mencken advises against it, but I am having a beer (i) when it's light out and (ii) while I have work to do and (iii) alone. He says one shouldn't have alcohol under any of those three conditions, and I am committing it under all three simultaneously. This, I think, gives the infraction some warrant. It feels almost licensed because it so knowingly and thoroughly flouts the rule.

I am drinking a Blue Moon and eating clam chowder.

I hate Max, from the bottom of my heart. If he came into my room to do something other than stand behind my back and watch me do homework, with the door open letting cold wind come in, I might hate him a little less. If he came in because he was sad about losing in Starcraft II, as he sometimes does, wracked with girlish despair over losing his silly pointless video game (I know you are reading this, you detestable friend, more fiend than friend!)--if he came in like that, in his usual pathetic way, then I could just pity him, hold him in contempt, and use his coming in as an excuse for a little break. But no--he just stands there, responding like an annoying 12-year-old boy to any question you put to him. He is a warped excuse for a human being, and should and will die alone.

Blue Moon is tasty! numnumnum.

The road to my completed natural deduction homework is paved with sloppy errors.

ACROSTIC.

2010-11-14T08:44:00.000-08:00

J - is for jonathan charles wright.
O - is for the second letter in 'jonathan charles wright'.
N - is for the third letter in 'jonathan charles wright'.
A - etc.
T -
H -
A -
N -

C -
H -
A -
R -
L -
E -
S -

W -
R -
I -
G -
H -
T -

A birthday dinner, Part 1

2010-11-14T07:12:00.001-08:00

Max and I went out to dinner last night in honor of his birthday, which was yesterday.
We were both forlorn at the outset of this outing. I described myself as "upset. livid, maybe." He did not, to my recollection, offer a self-description. He just self-narrated about soccer losses, the dreary romantic state of the world, etc. He has his themes, and he sticks to them. He complained, at one point, of there not being institutions in place when he was a child to rear him into an excellent human being. I told him that you gotta play the hand you're dealt.
As we walked, Max wore a bandana over his face. To keep from cold, not to look like a bandit.
I wore my glasses, which meant I couldn't see anything.
We talked, we laughed, we vented, we joked. We walked through the cold to Davis Square.
Once we got to Davis Square, we wandered, looking for a birthday-dinner location. We walked past a number of restaurants, without comment. My vision was blurry, so I would sometimes squint at the sign.
Jon: "Ti....betan Cuisine."
Max: "They invented Cuisine in Tibet!?"
Jon: "You don't need to invent it to have it."
Max: "Want ti bet?"
Neither of us were making decisions. We argued with each other. If one of us had been a girl and it had been a date, the sort of argument we had would have been something more serious than it was. We joked and argued in turn; or, concurrently.
I thought he was being particularly lock-jawed, not responding to my suggestions or questions. I accused him of this. I said that someday he is going to make some woman very upset with him. I began to accuse him of not having the decision-making ability (in so many words) necessary to pull off a successful date. That got him a bit.
Max: "Look, if I were on a date, I would have already made a decision."
Jon: "Uh huh. Sure. Right."
Max: "Yes, right! I would have said back there, "Lets just go to the..."
Then that knowing smirk of his.
Max: "I see what you're doing here."
And he refused to continue with his counterfactual story. We continued to walk decisionless through the night. We continued in our game of not making moves.

2010-11-12T21:21:00.001-08:00

yesterday my blog was invisible. so will be tomorrow's.

Thanks for this, Gayla.

2010-11-10T06:54:00.000-08:00

I am copying Gayla in posting this! You're supposed to think of 15 authors you really like who have been influential on you, in 15 minutes or less. I think I wrote everything below in less than 15.

1.Sterne
2.Calvino
3.Saki
4.Mencken
5.Salinger
6.Queneau
7.Carroll
8.Chesterton
9.Borges
10.O.W.Holmes
11.E.B.White
12.Wodehouse
13.Hofstadter
14.Perelman
15.Jonathan Charles Wright

A few points.

A. I defend entry 15 as follows. Many people have talked to me about an experience in which they look at their old writing and are appalled, renouncing their past time slices in disgust. Very rarely has this happened to me. More usually, I find old writing of mine inspiring to further writing. I actively enjoy, as if reading someone else, because I can't remember having written it, but think it is clever and fun. This makes me think, "O boy, I'd better write something now, or else all the cleverness and fun that I have in my at present will be lost! I must entertain the future time slices!"

B. I have also, in my academic writing, been massively influenced by certain analytic philosophers. Quine, I think, has had the longest influence. But I have had stints of deliberately trying to imitate Alvin Plantinga (one of my best papers, I think, from my time at Oxford, was written solely with the stylistic agenda of mimicking Plantinga; though I think I argued against him (!) (I believe the paper was defending a nominalism of a kind--(It was the first time I had encountered the view!))), and more recently I have found myself trying to imitate the crystal clear prose (and tendency to abbreviate views and arguments into acronyms) of Cappelen and Lepore.

C. My influence from 14 comes largely through Marx Brothers screenplays. I considered Wed Anderson in this regard, as well, for he has been very influential on my humor.

D. I want to do what these people have done!

E. The other night I told a peer in my department that I like Saki, and she replied "Of course you do". Almost as if I had confessed an obvious sin! I burst out laughing. I could have hugged her.

Very Sporadic Thoughts.

2010-11-09T11:36:00.000-08:00

I am listening to a poor-quality recording of the Millikan lecture I went to a week ago. Listening to it in retrospect, I am struck by how artful, almost poetic, her presentation is of her thesis. Her reading has a lyrical, dramatic quality. I could listen to her lecture about language and direct perception as if it were a lullaby. I want her to explain the world to me, softly, as if in spoken song.

There is a girl sitting at that table over there. My impulse is to ask her to go ice skating with me. Why her? Well, she is well-dressed, has an air of intelligence, and is pretty. Simple enough. I have seen her before. The possibility of seeing her again (made greater by my having seen her before) restrains my behavior, lest I ask her to ice skating with me and she takes this as creepy and turns me down, and in the future I should see her again. Lest she see me, the creepy ice-skater guy. Am I irrational? I realize that my reasons, or--so as not to dignify them--my motivations, are not very good, but they are the governing forces here. Does acting on 'not very good' motivations make me irrational here? Guided by irrational fear? I'm not sure I'm irrational; for, I'm not sure my motivations are really that bad. And the costs and benefits of devoting intentional thought to this question does seem to me worth it. I wonder if my notions of the intellectual costs and benefits of things is too frugal. Am I a cognitive miser? A tightwad of mental exertion? A cheapskate?

What are the differences between intelligence, knowledgeability, rationality, wisdom? They seem simple enough to define away from each other, but implementing them, appropriately weighting them in real time, etc.... ..... This is hard. It is not clear. How should people decide what to do?

I should not have put cinnamon on this Cappuccino. Poor decision. But charming in its own way. A characteristic-of-Jon impulse cinnamonning.

Given a traditional, technical definition of a "language", the empty set is a language. It is an enumerable set of non-logical symbols.

Wouldn't it be nice to love your neighbor as yourself?

2010-11-08T20:51:00.001-08:00

I apologize for everything I write over 300 words. I know it is not fun to read.

Some sounds.

2010-11-08T20:05:00.000-08:00

I am listening to Art Tatum, and have just finished two papers. I am on a roll! I think I'll read another article and write another paper!

----

Listen to these sounds as you read:

In other news,
SOUNDS
There are four kinds of sounds that come out of Max's room (stick with me hear folks): the buzzing of his gd phone, the popping of facebook chat, the typically-good music from his pandora station, and the battle cries and explosions characteristic of the average game of Starcraft II. Usually, it is Starcraft II. Right now, it is the popping of facebook chat. Sometimes I wonder what our neighbors upstairs think of us, given that whenever they walk by our door the one thing I'm sure they hear is the rage of Starcraft II battle. Actually, it isn't too hard to think of what they think of us.

There are two kinds of sounds that come from the ceiling: the creaking sound of steps--this is usually so frequent and constant so as to sound fidgety, and the sounds of some heavy thing. I have heard the people drop this thing, whatever it is, probably around ten times in the past three weeks. It thuds, and then sounds like it rolls a bit. Who knows.

Sometimes I can hear water in the pipes, and it is so soothing. I can't explain it. Like falling asleep in the car. So nice. (Not while driving, of course. That is not nice.)

For you, I realize, there is now (probably) the sound of Art Tatum playing like a madman.

Very very rarely do I hear anything from the floor below me.

Sometimes I can hear Jonathan (who sits in the living room most of the time) as he watches old episodes of House on his computer. The sounds of Hugh Laurie's fake American accent. You can tell when he is making a joke without even being able to make out the words he is uttering.

Outside, I can see the trees wave in the wind, but rarely do I hear it. I can, however, hear the rain.

Pop goes the facebook chat. Creak, creak, go the people above me.

Now that I am being attentive to sound, I am very aware of the sound of my typing. There are different kinds of typing noises. There is a general hum, or buzz, or murmur, of constant typing. This is the usual typing sound I hear. But then sometimes there are harder taps. It gets louder, I think, at the ends and beginnings of a sentence. I tend to smack the periods a bit, apparently. Also, something about holding the shift and tapping a key (to make a capital letter) makes me type just a little louder. The other distinctive typing noise is the machine-gun fire of backspacing. I don't hold the backspace, I rattle on it: taptaptaptaptaptaptap. I would, and do, tap that. Then there are the pauses, when I am waiting to think of what to write. The problem with pauses like that in this case is that the phenomenon I mean to describe in this blog, currently, is the sound I make when I naturally type regular sentences out--but if I pause to think about what to write next, there is no noise of tapping typing, and so no phenomenon to record! But when I am typing, it is hard both to think the thoughts I mean to communicate by typing, and listen to the sound I make in doing so. When I am pausing, there is no sound to analyze, and when I am typing, I am too occupied to analyze the sound I make.

MAN that fidgety creaking upstairs is going wild. Like the person is walking back and forth, or practicing dance steps, or running diagnostics on their rocking chair prototype, or recording sound effects for a haunted-house movie. Man. And there is the popping of Max's facebook chat. And his pandora, and my typing.

...And...faintly....me!
Me!
Exhaling!
Out of my nostrils!

Commentz Plz

2010-11-07T10:41:00.000-08:00

What is the funniest thing you can think of right now?

mood-meister meister-burger

2010-11-07T10:24:00.000-08:00

My phone just buzzed. Someone texted me. I wonder who!?
Oh. It wasn't my phone. It was Max's.
Max's phone buzzes much too loudly. I can hear it from here!

I have not shaved in five days.

I think this is going to happen: I'm going to make myself some more coffee, calculate reading time for a book, read the book according to my calculated timeline, go out and get ice cream as a reward, come back, put the 'final touches' on a thing I am almost finished on but am now too burnt on to finish properly, then I will re-read the article which the to-be-finally-touched-thing is about, then---then, all is shrouded in darkness.

When I make coffee for myself the procedure is as follows: boil water, grind coffee beans, mix them in french press, steep, filter, drink. This procedure changes a little when I have earlier that day used coffee grounds once, in that I grind fewer coffee beans and just poor them in with the used coffee grounds. If I use those grounds themselves, the amount of beans I grind originally in my procedure doesn't change very much. So, there are two portion sizes that are operative in my coffee-making procedure. I'll call them "full portion" and "baby portion". Both portions are determined by a scientific-coffee-bean-measuring-procedure called "eyeballing it". The time it takes to boil a kettle of water is usually enough time for one other thing, where a thing is something that I feel like I should do but always put off until I have 'downtime'. Things include: picking up clutter from my room, doing some dishes.

I saw a picture of Soren the other day in which he finally looks like a Swingrover.

There is at least one Barbarian, and it is I.

2010-11-06T22:24:00.000-07:00

The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know, and the more I realize I don't know the more something else happens which I don't know enough even to describe in meaningful terms. What happens after this thing is also beyond my capacities for knowledge or perception. That anything happens at all the more these unknown things happen is too beyond me. I am left here, learning, faintly, this or that, hardly. Maybe not even learning them. And as these little things happen more, the more these avalanches of things having to do with my lack of knowledge occur. Bar Bar Bar.

If Hamlet were a Barbarian, that part where he says "Words, words, words..." would have gone "Bar, Bar, Bar...". Hamlet would be much easier to write if one were a Barbarian. Also, programming a flawless translator program from any language into Barbarian has got to be simple. I could probably learn to do it by googling some basic programing stuff right now. But of course, the more I would learn this, the more I'd realize I don't know, and the more I would realize I don't know--the more that other, dark, unknown things would happen.

Uncle Walter and Me: Harvard Square

2010-11-06T20:19:00.000-07:00

Today Uncle Walter took me to brunch. It was a Portuguese-owned restaurant, which sent chilly fear-chills down my fear-chiller, but then I realized that french toast on Portuguese sweet-bread is basically just better french toast. France + Portugal + Toast. The family's family name was "Borges", which put me in mind of Borges. Funny, names. Funny Names. I just flipped through like 30 stories by Borges, scanning for good parts, so that I could quote from Borges about something, but nothing felt right. Today, while driving around trying to find Harvard Square, Uncle Walter kept saying this way or that way 'feels right'. We talked briefly about how if all things are equal between two options (that is, one is not an ethically superior choice, one choice does not better accomplish some held goals, etc.) going with what feels good is a good decision procedure. Other things happened, but I am tired and so won't continue.

noooooonanana

2010-11-05T22:03:00.000-07:00

Sure, I'll post a blog each day in November.

Tonight at "Eat at Jumbo's"

2010-11-04T20:03:00.001-07:00

Last week I treated Wang to pizza, so this week he treated me to pizza.

Wang claimed that all the truly great philosophers of the 20th century have been logicians. He cited Russell, Frege, Tarski, Wittgenstein, Quine, Kripke, Lewis. I didn't argue against him. We ate pizza. I outlined the plot of Taming of the Shrew to him and he thinks that Petruchio is a bad man. He said he thinks it would be profitable to learn German, but I shook this believe in him a little. My case against learning German was that the people he wants to read in German write on topics which suffer little in translation. Although, he did say that he has read Nietzsche and would like to read more, but only because he thinks it's beautiful--not because he is interested in such "deep things". He says he likes Lord of the Rings and the Dark Knight. I explained the premise of Inception to him. He asked what "Inception" means, and I did not venture a definition. I totally forget. What does it mean? I refuse to look it up. Something like 'birth' or 'beginning' or something. I told him it doesn't matter. I made some deadpan jokes about how beautiful I thought I was, which made him laugh a little. I tried to make him laugh more by comparing myself, still deadpan, to Helen of Troy, and he made fun of me for comparing myself to a woman. He talked about Chinese dialects. He mentioned a couple times how he was not exaggerating about Chinese dialects. There is some dialect his grandmother speaks which is such that she can understand him but he cannot understand her. Wang and I have started a logic reading group together. He said of my write-up last week that it was "perfect".

Also, the pizza place we went to was called "Eat at Jumbo's". I wish there were a sign out front reading "Eat at Eat at Jumbo's". Or that they would change their name to something like "The La Eat at "Eat at Jumbo's"'s "Eat at Jumbo's"".

nanonanonano

2010-11-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

Sure, I'll post a blog each day in November.

It's the Great Paper, Charlie Brown.

2010-11-02T21:37:00.000-07:00

OH MAN I FEEL GREAT BECAUSE I THINK THAT MY PAPER IS OKAY. I HAVE NEVER FELT SO HAPPY, SO JOYFUL, SO ELATED, SO CHIPPER, ABOUT OKAY-NESS. MEDIOCRITY. SO MUCH BETTER THAN MISERABLY-AND-DEPRESSINGLY-SUCKY-AND-NO-GOOD.

In other news, I realize now that I didn't watch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" this Halloween season. That's like forgetting to put the star on the tree during Christmastime. It just isn't done. Not to be borne. Jason Bourne. Matt Damon. Ocean's Eleven. Woah...got sidetracked there.
Anyway, I am going to treat myself to the Great Pumpkin once I've put the final touches on It's the Great Paper, Charlie Brown.

MY PAPER DOES NOT SUCK.

Still happy about that.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaannd, here's a wacky video of the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

Boyz Nite 'N'

2010-11-02T07:51:00.000-07:00

Last night instead of working on my paper, I did the following.

0. Watched an episode of the office with Max.
1/2. Sang "These Days" by Nico with Max.
1. Walked with Max to play floor hockey.
2. Didn't play floor hockey.
3. Walked home with Max.
4. Looked at facebook over Max's shoulder.
5. Got pizza and ice cream with Max.
6. Watched 'Alien' with Max.
7. Watched 'Aliens' with Max.
8. Put on pants over my shorts, socks over my socks, a hoodie over my bare and manly chest, four blankets on top of me, and slept.

Today, I am going to eat a sandwhich, go to school, work on my paper, go to class, meet with a professor about my paper, work on my paper, come home, eat dinner, work on my paper, and go to bed. Hopefully.

Dear Derek.

2010-11-02T07:45:00.001-07:00

I don't think concepts are words, though I think words that are somehow related to concepts and that we have concepts of words. But I'm sure you don't disagree with that. In any case, I will consider your argument and respond to it, trying to be critical as is appropriate.

I don't like this "should" business about what words mean. I don't think, anyway. It depends on a host of factors, not necessarily excluding the O'reilly Factor. I will consider and respond to your argument about that too.

Basically, I have a fat paper due tomorrow.
After that, I have some more work to do.
But after that, priority number one for me is to read your comment carefully, read Puntam's "Meaning and Reference", Kripke's Naming and Necessity, and then everything else ever written. Then I'll write a blog commenting on your arguments.

Love,
Jon

nanoblomopophomoanthropomorpho

2010-11-02T07:43:00.000-07:00

Sure, I'll post a blog each day in November.

Unrelated Photograph-Quotation Pair of the day.

2010-10-29T11:02:00.000-07:00

"The problem for the philosopher, and one of the most difficult which he has to resolve, is, in retaining the existing phraseology, how best to alleviate its imperfections." - J. S. Mill, from "On Names"

Breakfast for Breakfast.

2010-10-21T06:57:00.000-07:00

This morning, as usual, I am eating breakfast for breakfast. I realize that how topsy-turvy everything was last night might have gotten some of you thinking that I had gone off the deep end--that I was going to eat a big fat steak, with lobster, topped off with a nice room-temperature Cabernet Sauvignon. But no. Just breakfast here.

If by the first token of "breakfast" in "breakfast for breakfast" we mean "tootsie rolls".

Having had, like, 8 of those, I wish I were joking. So, now I'm going to have breakfast for brunch to make up for it.

Breakfast for Dinner

2010-10-20T14:54:00.000-07:00

Tonight I'm eating breakfast for dinner. I made myself some coffee and a breakfast burrito. Not elaborate, but breakfast.

When I was a kid, breakfast for dinner was a big thing. Mom would tell us all extra-ahead of time what we were in for, and really hyped it up. Breakfast for dinner was always more grandiose than any actual breakfast. Each person's plate could have featured in one of those commercials in which an upbeat, authoritative voice announces that the product in question is "Part of This Complete Breakfast!" Waffles, bacon, eggs, fruit, juice, (no coffee, since my parents think it's gross), biscuits, cereal. The whole kit and kaboodle.

Tonight, as I prepared my breakfast for dinner, I realized that my mom usually decided to do breakfast for dinner for the same reason I did tonight. All she had was breakfast stuff.
Now, one might think that I have a right to feel deceived, since my mom would play up this event, which was really just a last resort dinner option. But, on the contrary, I call that good parenting. My mom could have simply thrown together some last resort dinner, but instead, whenever faced with this situation, she turned it into sheer spectacle. And with nothing more than the power of hype. By being excited herself she made everyone else excited. About eggs and bacon.

Just another reason I love my parents.