a thread for mundane ironists

[b]Murray Gell-Mann

All of modern physics is governed by that magnificent and thoroughly confusing discipline called quantum mechanics … It has survived all tests and there is no reason to believe that there is any flaw in it. We all know how to use it and how to apply it to problems; and so we have learned to live with the fact that nobody can understand it. [/b]

Next up: Is 1 = 0.999?

I would recommend that skeptics devote even more effort than they do now to understanding the reasons why so many people want or need to believe.

You all know my pitch.

Superstitions typically involve seeing order where in fact there is none, and denial amounts to rejecting evidence of regularities, sometimes even ones that are staring us in the face.

But not you, right, Mr Objectivist?

My colleagues in elementary particle theory in many lands and I are driven by the usual insatiable curiosity of the scientist, and our work is a delightful game. I am frequently astonished that it so often results in correct predictions of experimental results. How can it be that writing down a few simple and elegant formulae, like short poems governed by strict rules such as those of the sonnet or the waka, can predict universal regularities of Nature?

No equivalent of that here, is there?

In our work, we are always between Scylla and Charybdis; we may fail to abstract enough, and miss important physics, or we may abstract too much and end up with fictitious objects in our models turning into real monsters that devour us.

Next up: the work of philosophers.

Modern language must be older than the cave paintings and cave engravings and cave sculptures and dance steps in the soft clay in the caves in Western Europe, in the Aurignacian Period some 35,000 years ago, or earlier. I can’t believe they did all those things and didn’t also have a modern language.

Maybe it goes back to the Garden of Eden.

[b]tiny nietzsche

eat drink abyss[/b]

For tomorrow may not be another day.

we can be sad, just for one day

Or more if necessary.

early january is a good time to stop running and let the wolves find you

Next year for sure.

that which does not kill you lingers like cigarette smoke

Though, eventually, that will kill you.

old man and cloud come to an understanding

Among other things, that nothing last forever.

we have to do this for another year? fuck

Well, there’s always suicide.

[b]Camille Paglia

Anti-religious sneers are a hallmark of perpetual adolescents.[/b]

So, sure, steer clear of sneers.

Heterosexual love, is in sync with cosmic forces. Not everyone has the stomach for daily war with nature.

Of course here she’s only paraphrasing Satyr.

Women are not in control of their bodies; nature is.

You know, in a wholly determined world.

It is not male hatred of women but male fear of women that is the great universal.

In other words, not just on our planet.

We must accept our pain, change what we can and laugh at the rest.

Hell, that even makes sense to me.

Modern bodybuilding is ritual, religion, sport, art, and science, awash in Western chemistry and mathematics. Defying nature, it surpasses it.

Yep, that’s how it was for me back then.
Think Dave Draper. Frank Zane. Larry Scott. Sergio Oliva.

[b]Randall Munroe

I can’t remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you’re saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it’s not literally illegal to express.[/b]

So, what do you think of that, Kid?

The scholarly authorities on freezing to death seem to be, unsurprisingly, Canadians.

Any of you here?

Things are rarely just crazy enough to work, but they’re frequently just crazy enough to fail hilariously.

Let’s note some.

The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there’s no good reason to go into space - each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.

We could be next.

If humans escape the solar system and outlive the Sun, our descendants may someday live on one of these planets. Atoms from Times Square, cycled through the heart of the Sun, will form our new bodies. One day, either we will all be dead, or we will all be New Yorkers.

How crazy is this? No, really.

Sometimes I mistake this for a universe that cares.

Never done that before.

[b]so sad today

i would definitely try to impress satan[/b]

On the other hand, what’s the alternative?

you’re damn right the problem is me

Even though we both know it’s you.

a girl and her catastrophic thinking

The musical.

everything happens for a reason and the reason is bad

The musical.

that which does not kill you but makes you slowly retreat from the world

That’s me alright.

“Remember when you wanted what you currently have?” sapere aude

Bingo!

[b]Robert M. Pirsig

To reach him you have to back up and back up, and the further back you go, the further back you see you have to go, until what looked like a small problem of communication turns into a major philosophic inquiry.[/b]

Not to worry, Kid, I’ll never manage to back up that far.

It’s an old split. Like the one between art and art history. One does it and the other talks about how it’s done and the talk about how it’s done never seems to match how one does it.

No split here. Right, Mr. Serious Philosopher?

Caring about what you are doing is considered either unimportant or taken for granted.

Or, for that matter, not caring about what you are doing.

Familiarity can blind you.

Right, Mr. Objectivist?

That’s the way the world keeps on happening. Be interested in it.

At least until it has beaten you to a pulp.

If you can’t define something you have no formal rational way of knowing that it exists. Neither can you really tell anyone else what it is. There is, in fact, no formal difference between inability to define and stupidity.

He’s got me, right?

[b]Tana French

I had always felt that I was an observer, never a participant; that I was watching from behind a thick glass wall as people went about the business of living–and did it with such ease, with a skill that they took for granted and that I had never known.[/b]

I know, I know.

I don’t do that kind of negativity. If you put your energy into thinking about how much the fall would hurt, you’re already halfway down.

You know, if that’s actually an option.

People need a moral code, to help them make decisions. All this bio-yogurt virtue and financial self-righteousness are just filling the gap in the market. But the problem is that it’s all backwards. It’s not that you do the right thing and hope it pays off; the morally right thing is by definition the thing that gives the biggest payoff.

Talk about intellectual gibberish.

Now death is uncool, old-fashioned. To my mind the defining characteristic of our era is spin, everything tailored to vanishing point by market research, brands and bands manufactured to precise specifications; we are so used to things transmuting into whatever we would like them to be that it comes as a profound outrage to encounter death, stubbornly unspinnable, only and immutably itself.

Grim too. But [thank god] always an option.

There was a time when I believed I was the redeemed one, the boy borne safely home on the ebb of whatever freak tide carried Peter and Jamie away. Not any more. In ways too dark and crucial to be called metaphorical, I never left that wood.

Here, of course, so are we.

It took my breath away, that evening. If you’ve ever dreamed that you walked into your best-loved book or film or TV program, then maybe you’ve got some idea how it felt…

The Magus. But not that god-awful movie.

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.” Arthur Schopenhauer[/b]

See! It’s not just me!!

“For there is no defense for a man who, in the excess of his wealth, has kicked the great altar of Justice out of sight.” Aeschylus

Cue [among others] the Bilderbergers?

“There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.” Aeschylus

Yes, that is one way to look at it.

“To the great pharaohs it mattered a great deal to bury their treasures in the pyramids, which they thought they would bring to the other worlds. But obviously it doesn’t matter to them now. They went, the goods stayed.” Frederick Lenz

Or were taken by the grave robbers.

“Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.” Aristotle

On the other hand, what else is there for philosophers to do?

“Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.” Voltaire

Always important to bring this one back.

[b]Heraclitus

It is weariness to keep toiling at the same things so that one becomes ruled by them.[/b]

Tell that to the wage slaves.

Immortal mortals, mortal immortals, one living the others death and dying the others life.

No, seriously, what the fuck does that mean?

Life is a child moving counters in a game.

Among other things, not here it isn’t.

Eternity is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to a child.

Checkers? That far back?

Corpses are more fit to be thrown out than is dung.

Where’s he going with this?

Though wisdom is common, yet the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own.

I know that I do.

[b]Criss Jami

To say that one waits a lifetime for his soulmate to come around is a paradox. People eventually get sick of waiting, take a chance on someone, and by the art of commitment become soulmates, which takes a lifetime to perfect.[/b]

Either that or get divorced.

Just because something isn’t a lie does not mean that it isn’t deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.

Let’s bring that down to earth.

The biggest challenge after success is shutting up about it.

Let alone gloating about it.

Never hide things from hardcore thinkers. They get more aggravated, more provoked by confusion than the most painful truths.

Fierce pedants in particular. Right, Prismatic?

Telling an introvert to go to a party is like telling a saint to go to Hell.

Well, sort of.

When you’re the only sane person, you look like the only insane person.

Me. Here. He concluded.

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“We are all born mad. Some remain so.” Samuel Beckett[/b]

In the words, the lucky ones.

“Dance first. Think later. It’s the natural order.” Samuel Beckett

Or, sure, fuck first.

“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” G.K. Chesterton

Come on, for most soldiers, looking back or going forward, indoctrination is indoctrinbation.

“War is what happens when language fails.” Margaret Atwood

All the way to the bank, as it were.

“How much truth can a spirit bear, how much truth can a spirit dare? That became for me the real measure of value.” Nietzsche

Spirit? Right.

“In logic, there are no morals.” Rudolf Carnap

Except, for countless millions, in their head.

[b]Edward Snowden

The authoritarian one believed that an individual’s rights were basically provided by governments and were determined by states. The other society - ours - tended to believe that a large portion of our rights were inherent and couldn’t be abrogated by governments, even if this seemed necessary.[/b]

And then there are the folks like me.

If you’re not acting on your beliefs, then they probably aren’t real.

First, of course, we’ll need to know what those beliefs are. If you know what I mean.

Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.

So, don’t forget to vote!

The issue is we’re losing leverage. Governments are increasingly getting more power and we are increasingly losing our ability to control that power, and even to be aware of that power.

So, don’t forget to vote!

It’s really hard to take that step—not only do I believe in something, I believe in it enough that I’m willing to set my own life on fire and burn it to the ground.

And how scary is that? After all, “one of them” could be thinking the same thing.

Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we’ve been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it.

My guess: It’s all about the Benjamins.

[b]Norman Mailer

We sail across dominions barely seen, washed by the swells of time. We plow through fields of magnetism. Past and future come together on thunderheads and our dead hearts live with lightning in the wounds of the Gods.[/b]

Dumb things intellectuals say.
Uh, right?

The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people.

Either that or to rip it to shreds.

Madness is locked beneath. It goes into tissues, is swallowed by the cells. The cells go mad. Cancer is their flag. Cancer is the growth of madness denied.

Any biologists here able to confirm this?

No heart is so hard as the timid heart.

Among other things, this makes absolutely no sense.

If a person is not talented enough to be a novelist, not smart enough to be a lawyer, and his hands are too shaky to perform operations, he becomes a journalist.

He means a philosopher of course.

I respect most boxers because they’re violent people who learned to discipline themselves … a good boxer is an artist … Boxing is existential - some fights are better than others.

Next up: the toreador.

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“Logic is the last scientific ingredient of Philosophy; its extraction leaves behind only a confusion of non-scientific, pseudo problems.” Rudolf Carnap[/b]

Cue [among other things] dasein.

“If only we could see in advance all the harm that can come from the good we think we are doing.” Luigi Pirandello

And not just the Communists, right?

“Five or six hundred heads cut off would have assured your repose, freedom and happiness”. Jean-Paul Marat

Talk about a double edged sword.

"It seems that the inevitable fate of man is never to attain complete freedom: princes everywhere tend to despotism and the people to servitude.” Jean-Paul Marat

Just short of determinism as it were.

“Long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family, society and state in which we live” Hans-Georg Gadamer

See, didn’t I tell you?

“It is the tyranny of hidden prejudices that makes us deaf to what speaks to us in tradition.” Hans-Georg Gadamer

See, didn’t I tell you?

[b]Douglas Adams

Ballycumber (ba-li-KUM-ber) n. One of the six half-read books lying somewhere in your bed.[/b]

Of course, like me, you night call it something else.

I don’t go to mythical places with strange men.

Neither do I. Though I insist that the women be strange.

In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn’t cope with, and that terrible listlessness which starts to set in at about 2:55, when you know that you’ve had all the baths you can usefully have that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the papers you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o’clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul.

Probably a British thing.

Sherlock Holmes observed that once you have eliminated the impossible then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.

Well, ever once in a while, I’m forced to.

Lovers of print are simply confusing the plate for the food.

And lovers of zeros and ones…?

A fragrant breeze wandered up from the quiet sea, trailed along the beach, and drifted back to the sea again, wondering where to go next. On a mad impulse it went up to the beach again.

Not much can’t be anthropomorphized these days, right?

[b]Brent Weeks

Do you know what punishments I’ve endured for my crimes, my sins? None. I am proof of the absurdity of men’s most treasured abstractions. A just universe wouldn’t tolerate my existence.[/b]

I wish I could say that.

Why is it, my shadow-striding friend, that we don’t fear dreams? We lose consciousness, lose control, things happen with no apparent logic and abiding by no apparent rules… We don’t fear dreams, but we do fear madness, and death terrifies us.

I know why I don’t fear mine.

Relationships are ropes. Love is a noose. - Durzo Blint

What’s that make divorce then?

Words were another sword for the man who wielded them well.

If a bit repetitively.

A man’s greatest treasures are his illusions - Durzo Blint

In other words, once you’ve sunk that low.

You’d be surprised at what you’d do to stay alive.

Sure, once I was.

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“Nothing contributes so much to the prosperity and happiness of a country as high profits.” David Ricardo[/b]

You know, for some of us.

“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.” Simone Weil

And then this part: dasein.

“When it is useful to them, men can believe a theory of which they know nothing more than its name.” Pareto

And not just value ontology.

“Men follow their sentiments and their self-interest, but it pleases them to imagine that they follow reason.” Pareto

And not just the value ontologists.

"Conscience whispers, but interest screams aloud.” Jean Antoine Petit-Senn

Pick one:
Wall Street
K Street

“The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.” Hannah Arendt

You know, like I do.

[b]Murray Gell-Mann

The persistence of erroneous beliefs exacerbates the widespread anachronistic failure to recognize the urgent problems that face humanity on this planet.[/b]

Their erroneous beliefs for example.

If you know the wavefunction of the universe, why aren’t you rich?

A little help with this one please.

Sometimes the probabilities are very close to certainties, but they’re never really certainties.

Next up: Actual cause and effect.

Bush is a nice fellow who gives very good parties. I just wish someone would find him a better job than running the country.

Next up: …well, you know who that is.

In fact any experiment that measures a quantum effect is one in which the quantum effect is aligned with the behavior of some heavy, macroscopic object; that’s how we measure it.

That explains…what exactly?

While many questions about quantum mechanics are still not fully resolved, there is no point in introducing needless mystification where in fact no problem exists. Yet a great deal of recent writing about quantum mechanics has done just that.

But not here, right?

[b]Camille Paglia

It’s so tiring to make love to women, it takes forever. I’m too lazy to be a lesbian. [/b]

They wouldn’t have her anyway.

Feminism has tried to dismiss the femme fatale as a misogynist libel, a hoary cliche. But the femme fatale expresses woman’s ancient and eternal control of the sexual realm. The specter of the femme fatale stalks all of men’s relationships with women.

Come on, it’s not entirely untrue.

When it defines man as the enemy, feminism is alienating women from their own bodies.

Right, like most feminists do that.

We cannot have a world where everyone is a victim. “I’m this way because my father made me this way. I’m this way because my husband made me this way.” Yes, we are indeed formed by traumas that happen to us. But you must take charge, you must take over, you are responsible.

Let’s pin down the perfect balance here. You pick the context.

Repression is an evolutionary adaptation permitting us to function under the burden of our expanded consciousness. For what we are conscious of could drive us mad.

Some will get this more than others.

Wearisome as it may seem, women must realize that, in making a commitment to a man, they have merged in his unconscious with his mother and have therefore inherited the ambivalence of that relationship.

Okay, but what if it isn’t psychobabble?

[b]Nein

If you plan to quit Twitter in 2020, there’s something you should know. You won’t.[/b]

Let’s make that a challenge.

I was told there’d be meaning.

First of course we’ll need to know who told him.

A gentle reminder that if you let some idiot on Twitter ruin your weekend: it’ll probably be you.

Or: A gentle reminder that if you let some idiot on ILP ruin your weekend: it’ll probably be me.

Friday: ja.
Casual: nein.

And, no, not just in Germany.

Another day. Another failed social experiment.

Fucking liberals, right?

Yes, sir, we found your truth. But it says it never heard of you.

That is actually applicable to me.