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Rodrigo Defends Infinity with Existential Overlapping

Actually written JANUARY 21, 2024 A philosophy cohort of mine, Rodrigo Vanegas, presented me with an interesting argument in defense of intrinsic/objective/metaphysically real infinity. So I’ve been thinking about it. Having presented Rodrigo with the problem of how infinity creates self-contradictory gaps in existence, i.e., the problem of metaphysical adjacency , he offered what I here call the “existential overlapping” idea as a way to achieve gapless adjacency and thus “defend” metaphysically real infinity. Rodrigo proposed that two things can be adjacent, without gaps, if we understand the two things as if they occupied ranges on a number-line, wherein Thing-A would occupy locations 0 through 1, and Thing-B would occupy locations 1 through 2. The Things would be adjacent at location-1, and there would be no gaps of self-contradictory nothingness. While I have already considered this idea, Rodrigo’s presentation of the idea prompted me to think about it deeper and to target the ide...
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Example of Equal Footing Phobia: Kelley's circular moral realism presumption on the word "endorse".

Actually written JUNE 7, 2023 Here’s an example of equal footing phobia (defined in this paragraph ) as expressed by David Kelley. He starts by stating what I hold is a non-moralist principle: “… the principle that values are subjective, that values flow from the fact of desire – the fact that people desiring things is what grounds the existence of values.” This principle I take to be non-moralism. Now he expresses equal footing phobia in terms of the consequences of assuming that non-moralist principle: “And if we make that [non-moralist] assumption; then we endorse not only peaceful, innocent, benevolent desires; we also endorse, by the logic of the assumption, the desire for power, for every destructive impulse, the desire for the un-earned, resentment against achievement, and so on.” (Recorded speech by David Kelley, “Objectivism & the Struggle for Liberty, Laissez Faire Supper Club – Nov. 10, 88”, Liberty Audio & Film Service) The idea, again, is that if desires exhaust th...
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Benevolism Test Quiz

Actually written MAY 22, 2006 Message originating from Luke Turner $100.00 reward for information leading to my acquaintance with people who score highly on the enclosed, 10 question quiz. Prize goes to the chronologically first person in a successful chain of leads who supplies fruitful information. If a single lead chain produces my acquaintance with multiple high-scorers, prize increases by half of previous prize increase: $100.00 for 1 high-scorer, $150.00 for 2, $175.00 for 3, and so on. Qualifying scores are by my personal judgment until I become confident in the quiz as a reliable measure. You can help me gain such confidence by taking the quiz yourself. If I happen to know you, your scores will help me measure the predictive accuracy of the quiz. (And be assured that high-scores, although rare, do exist. My sister-in-law is one of them.) Clues: Look for people who are inclined to work in nursing or theraputic professions, and who nurture their intellects. Look for unpopular peo...
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Crypto-Malevolence on Contradiction - Evidence that people at least pretend to embrace contradiction in the name of benevolence

Actually written OCTOBER 17, 2006 This initial statement by “Crypto-Malevolence” is an actual reply to one of the questions on my benevolence survey  [posted on a social media platform in 2006] from a real person. Crypto-Malevolence says: Greetings, As a maelstrom of benevolence I hereby participate in your provocative questionnaire, which is causing a thunderous ringing within the vacuum of my mind (or at least in what of it I might regard as mine). I shall also endeavor to proffer feedback, resisting as much as I can the compulsion to adorn my offerings with any such garish livery as might make me appear great. [Survey question] 1. Easy answer A. I reserve the right to contradict myself at least three hundred and fifty eight times a day. The very word contradiction presumes that we have at some point all agreed to limit ourselves within the framework which regulates our reality, and thus the truth. Perhaps it is a means by which man regulates man’s behavior. In order to categori...
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Lovemaking in the Post-Revolution Era - Speculation on how universal access to physical beauty might change us

Actually written AUGUST 2, 1999 (SUSPECTED) Some will seek changes on a level deeper than mere health and wealth. Some will seek fulfillment in the world of the spirit; though that quest lies beyond the scope of crude material technology, new physical possibilities will provide new starting points and time enough to try. The technology underlying cell repair systems will allow people to change their bodies in ways that range from the trivial to the amazing to bizarre. Such changes have few obvious limits. Some people may shed human form as a caterpillar transforms itself to take to the air; others may bring plain humanity to a new perfection. Some people will simply cure their warts, ignore the new butterflies, and go fishing. (K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, the Coming Era of Nanotechnology , P234) Soon after the final phase of the [super-nano-technology-trans-humanist] revolution, when one’s body could be changed at will, lovemaking had become a new frontier of possibilities. P...
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The Ivory Tower is Fascist Architecture, or is It? -

Actually written APRIL 21, 2023 I apologize in advance if this piece of writing seems pretentiously “over clever”. I hope you can bear with it and glean the general framing it provides for the rest of the book [blog]. I’m sitting on a bench on the campus of The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, USA [home of the 2017 Bret Weinstein drama]. My good “friend” Konrad walks over and sits beside me. We begin a conversation. Konrad: “Greetings, my pompous, grandiose asshole friend. How are ya doin’ today?” Me: “Pretty terrible as usual. I’m still lonely as fuck ‘cause people don’t like pompous, grandiose assholes like me.” Konrad: “Ha ha. What happened to the Luke I used to know, the Luke who would defend himself from my branding him as pompous and all that?” Me: “I’m at a crisis point. I feel like my whole life has been a sham. I feel like some mental disease seized my mind when I was a child and made me a pompous asshole. The disease has ruined my whole life, made me usele...
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The Meaning of Impossible Things

Actually written OCTOBER 09, 2022 We have words for impossible things. One such word is the word “nothing”. The existence of a “nothing” is impossible. A “nothing” would be a “gap” in existence, a place of no existence. It would be the existence of non-existence – a contradiction – and thus impossible. If there’s no such thing as “nothing”, why can we think and talk and write about it? My tentative answer is: minds capable of abstraction can take abstraction to impossible extremes, creating meanings for things that are literally impossible. The abstractions whose meanings are impossible things I call “imaginary-concepts”. Imaginary-concepts are one kind of abstraction. Regular valid concepts are another. Together they comprise the “conceptual level” of consciousness. One way I also think about this is that both kinds of abstractions have meanings, but only valid concepts have actually existing referents. Alternately, maybe both kinds of abstractions have referents, but the referents of...
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