Open Letter to My Fellow Philosophically Minded Sufferers

Actually written DECEMBER 8, 1994 Hi. I’m a person with a split personality. That means I have two separate minds, two separate personalities, sharing this same body. I even have two separate names for each of my personalities. One is called Konrad, the other, Luke. You may have heard of, or even met other people with two or more personalities. Most often we think of multiple personalities as a disease that afflicts its victim without the victim’s knowing what happened. And in the extreme cases, the multiple personalities may not even know about any of the other personalities. On both these points, I am different. First of all, I became multi-personalitied deliberately, by choice. I actually wanted another personality, so I created one, gave it a name, and learned how to become that new person at will, and how to return to my old personality at will also. And second, both of my personalities know about one another, and maintain a complex relationship as if they were partners in life. O...

Actually written AUGUST 7, 2005 Dear Robert Anton Wilson, How Benevolent Are You? For me, it’s an honest and interesting question, ‘cause I really don’t know. And in my wondering I have an excuse to write about your benevolence quotient for my readers, and perhaps get them to wonder as well.  Essentially I’m wondering about the benevolence-value of what I call your “paranoid anti-dogmatism dogmatism.” Of course I need to explain what is “paranoid anti-dogmatism dogmatism”, why you possess this trait, and why its benevolence-value is uncertain, possibly ambivalent. PARANOID ANTI-DOGMATISM DOGMATISM Paranoid anti-dogmatism dogmatism (“PADD” from now on), comprises five basic aspects. First, a self-contradiction: a dogmatic denunciation of dogmatism. Second, a paranoid self-awareness of one’s own dogmatic anti-dogmatism as an instance of dogmatism. Third, a temporary loss of mind from trying to integrate this self-contradiction.  Fourth, a temporary recoiling from this loss of mi...

Actually written AUGUST 20, 2001 (SUSPECTED) Horace says: “Listen here, Captain Beefheart. Listen, Richard Rorty. Listen, Ellsworth Toohey, Terence McKenna, Brian Eno... There is room enough within benevolence for absolutism as well. Millions can play at this game, this life, this last chance we may ever get. Millions can play, including we who wish so much for universal gratification that we cannot reduce our lives to just a collective dream or social construct. The power of such reductions are to us cheap cop-outs for cashing in on the fantasy of mind over existence, a temporary relief from absolute miseries.” < Previous Episto-Compassion writing Next Episto-Compassion writing >

Actually written JULY 28, 2017 [IAOEAAO stands for: Incoherent Adventures of Everything All at Once. This was the title of a zine I once made, and later the title for a movie I hoped to make.]  Homeless person drifts off to sleep in a downtown business doorway. Thus begins their dream, as follows: GAME SHOW HOST: “Good evening, fellow humans and welcome to tonight’s episode of The Competitive Compassion Show! – the show where schools of thought compete to be the most compassionate as judged by our studio audience. “Tonight’s contestants: Elitist Compassion versus Egalitarian Compassion. Who will our studio audience judge more compassionate? “Let’s begin with you, Elitist Compassion. “Elitist Compassion: what does that even mean? It sounds like an oxymoron. Care to explain?” ELITIST COMPASSION: “Gladly. “It’s important to grasp two crucial aspects of elitist compassion. “1. We elitist compassion folk are cautiously prepared to recognize that at least some inequality may be natural...

Actually Written SEPTEMBER 22, 2007 Buddhist enlightenment (among other things) in a pill. For those who can’t manage to meditate long enough to achieve enlightenment, there may be a chemical shortcut known as mescaline. Also: For those philosophers who behold things that exist, yet who simply cannot identify the bare fact of existence, there may be a chemically induced state making it easier to achieve that identification, again, known as mescaline. Yes, here’s what I’m suggesting: Mescaline trip = Buddhist enlightenment = increased awareness of the bare fact of existence = temporary schizophrenia. Well, no. I don’t mean that a mescaline trip is really equivalent to these other things. I just mean that mescaline trip may greatly promote or resemble these other things. Let me digress a bit into a personal reflection. First, I have the capacity to focus on the bare fact of existence. Second, I think this is a very rare capacity. You may find these claims rather absurd. Doesn’t everyone ...

Actually written JANUARY 22, 2010 1. The Name It is called “Objective” because it promotes the changing of physical objects in order to relieve misery. It is called a “Scarcity Presumptive Hypothesis” because it hinges on the presumption that human misery is most fundamentally caused by material scarcity, by resource scarcity, by scarcity of physical gratification objects. 2. Estimation of the Human Condition So here it is: Life is miserable for the vast majority of people, for the vast majority of the time. The fundamental cause of this misery is in our relationship to the material world, (including our own bodies) and not fundamentally caused by our social relations with one another (not caused by any malevolent, elitist conspiracy). This misery is called “fundamental misery” or “original misery” or “first-generation misery”. And again, it’s just random misfortune, not caused by any elitist conspiracy. Those who suffer this first-generation misery, the miserable majority, cope with t...

Actually written JANUARY 26, 2023 I understand that recently there has been a turn away from physicalism and toward panpsychism. Prominent intellectuals are experimenting with it, yer basic David Chalmers and Rupert Sheldrake. My gut reaction: Maybe panpsychism is just a variant of physicalism. But what’s special about panpsychism is how it deals with what I call the “boundary problem”. (And I suppose the boundary problem is a consequence of the “special pleading” fallacy.) From my two previous writings about physicalism, one can see the structure of my argument against physicalism. The flaw I keep trying to point out is this: Physicalists cannot draw a non-arbitrary boundary between what physical stuff is conscious, and what is not. I call this the “boundary problem”. And “complexity mysticism” is just their way of trying to hide this boundary problem. [The boundary problem is not my only objection to physicalism. There is also the “infinite regress of homunculi” problem [aka John Hau...

Actually written FEBRUARY 22, 2015 Rules for proving physicalism (that consciousness is nothing more than matter and energy): Using only physical concepts, show how a group of physical stuff is an instance of consciousness. (Hint: explain why one group of physical stuff is an instance of consciousness while another group is not.) Do not sneak in any concepts of consciousness into the premises of your proof. (Hint 1: don’t use concepts like “representation” or “information” and so on. Strictly use concepts of physical causality.) (Hint 2: don’t reference the brain, as in “It physically functions like a brain, and a brain is conscious, therefore it is an instance of consciousness.” That’s a non sequitur cop-out that proves nothing.) Ready? … Go! < Previous Physicalism/Consciousness writing Next Physicalism/Consciousness writing >

Actually written AUGUST 20, 2011 I don’t get materialism. It seems to me that all the materialist arguments are essentially representationalism – the idea that consciousness is nothing more than a physical representation of the world grasped by said consciousness. To me, trying to prove representationalism is as absurd as trying to prove a piece of paper is aware of the planet earth because it has a circle drawn on it that represents the earth. The materialist objects to this absurd reduction because a piece of paper is not a brain. Of course a piece of paper with a circle on it is not anywhere near as complex as a physical brain. This is true. But I fail to see what complexity adds to the argument. I suspect complexity is just a mystification added to make the argument appear to work. Complexity is the “magical ingredient” that just makes it work, somehow. Materialists claim the piece of paper isn’t aware of the earth because the circle drawn on it isn’t a complex enough representat...

Actually written JULY 4, 2018 The following quotes from anarchist non-moralist Jason McQuinn give me a sense that “ pan-deontic ism” is rampant even among folks who would like to think of themselves as rejecting morality, or at least rejecting “oppressive” morality. The same strategy is usually employed whenever the critique of morality begins to be formulated. Although most dictionary definitions of morality clearly imply it involves the fetishization of values, this implication is lost on most readers. For example, The New Oxford American Dictionary defines morality as “principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.” Obviously, the “right and wrong or good and bad” qualifiers here are most likely to be taken (unself-consciously) as fetishized, transcendental values, rather than as particular, finite choices with no claims to any reality beyond the unique desires of individual human beings. However, the moment the critique of morality is raise...

Actually written AUGUST 30, 2011 I’ve coined a new word to describe some people: pan-deontic. A pan-deontic person is incapable of distinguishing desire from moral obligation, such that they will interpret all expressions of socially relevant desire as expressions of moral obligation. To the pan-deontic, there is no such thing as acting from desire, only acting from obligation. If I say I help the poor because I simply desire to do so, the pan-deontic is convinced that I help the poor from a sense of moral obligation. Somehow, to the pan-deontic, socially relevant desire does not even exist and only obligation exists. The pan-deontic refuses to acknowledge the existence of the non-moralist. To the pan-deontic, everyone is acting from a sense of moral obligation, all the time, and anyone who claims to be a non-moralist is just a confused moralist who won't admit they’re making “should” judgments all the time. The pan-deontic literally has a mental block preventing them from processi...

Actually written NOVEMBER 24, 2020 The Mackie introductory chapter [of Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong ] echoed my own ideas about arguing for moral skepticism. It is as if Mackie and I had learned the same lessons from arguing with moral realists. These lessons are: 1. A thorough argument for moral skepticism will include (and likely must begin with) significant labor in dis-ambiguating and producing a clear understanding of “objective value/categorical imperative”. The premise here is that moral realism rests on a plethora of equivocations, smears and intuition pumps that need untangling. ( Pan-deontics will have this stuff quite tangled.) 2. Simply producing a non-ambiguous grasp of “objective value/categorical imperative” goes a long way toward exposing the logical problems with them. Once clearly understood, “objective value/categorical imperative” will be exposed as a bald, unsupportable idea. 3. We moral skeptics will feel the urge to include psychological evidence (or eve...

Actually written JUNE 10, 2023 I have stressed my worry that moralism can insulate us from the remorse we might feel from harming others, thus allowing us to harm others all the more. One might get the idea that I oppose anything that would insulate us from remorse. This is not so. There’s a point beyond which the intensity of remorse hinders our ability to relieve suffering. If a doctor had to perform surgery without anesthesia to save your life, would you want the doctor to be so overwhelmed by remorse over the pain they inflict upon you during that surgery that they cannot focus on the job? If a police officer or soldier had to save your life by killing someone who was about to deliberately kill you, would you want that cop or soldier to be so overcome with remorse for having preemptively killed the killer that they could not focus on that task? Remorse can destroy the discipline needed to relieve or prevent greater suffering, much in the same way my own chronic sadness destroys th...

Actually written JUNE 9, 2023 When I listened to Peikoff’s lecture “ Life as the Standard of Value ”, I felt a bit like I had entered the Twilight Zone of ironic hypocrisy, which subsequently triggered a sense of woeful tragedy. First let me tell you I really like this lecture and I totally respect and admire Peikoff for his having made it. I think Peikoff did an excellent job pointing out the hazard of unwittingly falling under the spell of rationalism. (He even confesses to falling under rationalism’s spell in years past.) By “rationalism” here, I mean the assumption that definitions exhaust the actual identity of what they define. I’ll now explain this. As a powerful example of this rationalist hazard, Peikoff recounted the dilemma of an actual student of Objectivism who could not understand how value could have a standard, precisely because there was nothing in Rand’s given definition of value that mentioned whether value could have a standard, or what that could even mean. (1:14:2...