The best thing about today

A Bit of Fry and Jay Z from defyingdarwin

The smartest man in the world

1/3
I am closer to absolute truth than any man has been before me

I'm not a tall man, not even up to average, just 165cm in socks. I'm one of those oblivious little men, like a small dog that doesn't understand it's appears ridiculous snapping at heels and trotting fast to keep up, and it's much the same with my limited intelligence and application.

I live in Asia, so often I'll meet a man shorter than me and I'll flash, primate style, he's barely human. A lot less often I'll meet someone who is obviously much dumber than I am, and I'll be amazed at how their mind works / doesn't work, and this is exactly how people who are smarter feel when they meet me.

Now, the next person who is smarter than me is no genius, and nor is the next person smarter than them. The person after the next person after the person after the person after the next person after the person after that, well they might be something special, but Chris Langan is still likely to view them as a mental midget. Mr Langan is billed as the smartest man in the world, with the hook being that he's held a series of blue collar jobs and has no widely recognized achievements commensurate with his high IQ [around 200]. The videos embedded here are the Errol Morris profile, and as usual, he does well. There's a creeping sense of horror as the movie runs on, and whatever it sets out to do I think it does, but I don't want to give away the ending.


2/3
What makes you think I want to be in these environments?


3/3
2+2=4

Why I am so chaste, revisited

December 19th is my last day at work, then a three week vacation in England, then back and working alone in my own time. Down from 3+ hrs a day paid top dog / social exchange with young women to zero, with prediction #1 being that I should see a rapid descent into pathetic lechery, and possibly something of a less glossy coat.

The brain sits enclosed in silence and darkness, but the last thing it'll flash with as I'm hit by a vehicle will be a woman I can't believe.


Prediction #2 is that I make some effort to fill the social gap, although unsure in what form, and possibly I'll find there's no gap to be filled.

I've found my niche, and while a dung beetle has one too, there's no arguing with such things. If it works the only thing to do is embed, but still ready to shift when the time comes and things begin to fall, not apart, but into another place.

Meanwhile, our cat recovers from an illness and continues to grow old gracefully.


Related posts:
Why I am so chaste
Monkey in a man suit top dog = glossy coat

The Onion: I finally figured out how to impress high school girls

The Book of Disquiet, text 30

Mean Squares 3.4

Yesterday they told me that the assistant in the tobacconist's had committed suicide, I couldn't believe it. Poor lad, so he had existed too!
[...]
No, other people don't exist... It is for me alone that the setting sun holds out its heavy wings of harsh, misty colors. It is for me alone, even though I cannot see its waters flowing, that the wide river glitters beneath the sunset. It is for me alone that this open square was built looking out over the river and its turning tide. Was it today that the tobacconist's assistant was buried in a common grave? Today's sunset is not for him. But, even as I'm thinking that, quite against my will I suddenly understand that it's not for me either.

More from Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet.

More than impulse and caprice

Burst 1.0

We think of intelligence as a deliberate, conscious activity guided by the laws of logic. Yet much of our mental life is unconscious, based on processes alien to logic: gut feelings, or intuitions. In his lecture Dr Gigerenzer argues that intuition is more than impulse and caprice; it has its own rationale. This can be described by fast and frugal heuristics, which exploit evolved abilities in our brain. Heuristics ignore information and try to focus on the few important reasons. He shows that biased minds that intuitively rely of heuristics can make better inferences about the world than information-greedy statistical algorithms. More information, more time, even more thinking, are not always better, and less can be more.

Full talk by Dr Gigerenzer at the London School of Economics here.

A good talk, if only [but not only] for explaining how outfielders run and catch the ball.

The Book of Disquiet, text 191

tomato soup by cemedia

It isn't true that life is painful, or that it's painful to think about life. What is true is that our pain is only as serious and important as we pretend it to be. If we lived naturally, it would pass as quickly as it came, it would fade as quickly as it bloomed. Everything is nothing, and our pain is no exception.

More from Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet.

A while ago I was in a restaurant having lunch, and nearby was a table with four American girls in their early twenties, really lively and fun, and there was nothing about them I didn't like. And I realized that it had been a long time since I'd been sitting at table like that, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a long or lively conversation in English with anyone who wasn't a student. But I think that'll change in the new year, because I can feel the current system underlying things starting to give way, and it feels good to be easing into another, as yet unknown, way of being / critical state.

I don't believe in magical thinking, but rather in attention and forgetfulness, things unfolding and then more comes along. There's a certain level of idiocy that comes with this, but I've plenty of down time to dwell on random things. Like the idea that we're closely related to ragworms.

we accept you, one of us

What works at the moment is health, frugality, attention and forgetfulness.

Anonymity

rudy rucker also takes pictures

There's something good about being the secret hero of the story, an unknown agent for your own cause in the world.

Like almost everyone I live in anonymity, one of the supposedly dull masses that everyone - the masses - scorns to a certain degree. And that's cool, it's like how most things seem plain until you look at them with your perception cleansed. Certain people are dull not only because they and we lack imagination, but also because few people see what's actually there.

Guardian sex survey

Details here.

Joe Rogan on Hugh Hefner

The Book of Disquiet, text 151

We are all accustomed to think of ourselves as essentially mental realities and of others as merely physical realities; because of the way others respond to us, we do vaguely think of ourselves as physical beings; we vaguely think of other people as mental beings, but only when we find ourselves in love or conflict with another do we really take in the fact that others have a soul just as we do.

More from Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet.

somewhere in california

"You're strange. I've seen a lot of types - hundreds, maybe - but none like you. Do you know what I think?"

"You think I'm insane," Jason said.

"Yes." Kathy nodded. "Clinically, legally, whatever. You're psychotic; you have a split personality. Mr No One and Mr Everyone. How have you survived up until now?"

He said nothing. It could not be explained.

Philip K. Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, part one

The rules of the game

david bowie mugshot

Within the known rules of the game the individual is free to pursue his personal ends and desires, certain that the powers of government will not be used deliberately to frustrate his efforts.

F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Chapter Six

I was looking for free language mp3s and ended up at audiouniv where there was nothing that really got my eye except The Four-Hour Week, which I remember hearing about when it came out, and then again at Casey Serin's page, and so I thought why not? Stick it on the mp3 player and ride the bicycle around town, expose myself to the self-help / get rich madness.

So I started listening to the book. The guy starts out with the mission statement that you don't have to be rich to live like the rich - you too can have time to pursue your bliss. But then how? Simple...you become rich. At that point the essential sleaziness begins to flow.

There are far more failed than successful entrepreneurs and artists, which is all cool if you're in it for the passion, but it kind of sucks to fail and fail again, even to fail better, if the process itself is no fun, just fixated on the goal of $ rather than the task in hand. It's now when we have to live, not in the past or future. The means become the end.

So I'm a lazy man, I want to relax without a large income, without the necessity of worldly success. A flexible schedule at a job you enjoy, with low / no stress. Spend less than you earn, exercise, eat right, have fun, pay less attention to what others do.

No matter how rich are and how much property you own, you end up with a private quarters where you get things done. Essentially an office with a bathroom, perhaps a kitchen, living room, library and so on either attached or part of the whole. You can live in a mansion or own a skyscraper, but in the end you'll essentially build a small apartment and do everything in that.

And never forget that Elvis had it all - looks, talent, fame, acclaim and wealth - and he died busted on a toilet just after 40.

"All the people that created traditions, that created countries, and created rules.All them fuckers are dead. Why don't you create your own world while you got the chance?"

Bill Hicks says this dressed as Elvis, here.

Iggy Pop, Manchester [U.K], October 1977, Bowie on keyboards and backing vocals

Related posts:
Deception, trickery, vanity, falsehood
The myth of 1,000 true fans

Bill Hicks on his worst gig ever [LSD, guns, knives]

A quiet night

rem: nightswimming, from later with jools holland

In the process of releasing myself from any schedule imposed from outside, so trying to tighten up my own discipline. Finding I already have lots of free time, albeit each day capped with classes, and am due 25 hrs more at the end of the year. It's an odd feeling, and trying to work out how I'll fill them in productive / non-destructive ways, when all I'm really good at is riding my bicycle, napping and cooking.

Which is cool, except I really ought to improve my Chinese and start learning Japanese so I can talk more with my wife, although it's surprising how much can be done with so little.

Crash / burn / repeat

Casey Serin, foreground, with Christ Hippie, his volunteer assistant

Casey Serin's back. He's the 20-something guy who bought a bunch of houses with no $ down and had it all collapse last year, with the fun part being that he blogged about it and remained dementedly optimistic and faithful to his gurus and dreams of massive and almost immediate success.

One total collapse, divorce and disappearance later and he's back. He's living in a hotel, with two more weeks' money, and a 'business plan' that's focused on selling 19 pages a notes for an e-book about his experiences for $50 a copy. He's started doing a call-in show that becomes a podcast on completion, with the call-in parts better than the preamble [and show 2 better than show 1, the only two up so far]. The new site and MP3s are likely to disappear fairly soon, but for the while they offer some grim entertainment of why it pays to face reality.

Wikipedia

Shulgins / Horizons

A Boston-area housewife considers a Buddha statue in 1963 after taking LSD. NY Times

Another good talk from Ann and Sasha Shulgin, this time at the recent [Sept. 2008] Horizons Perspectives on Psychedelics set of talks. Subjects covered include: Bohemian Grove [Sasha's been a member for 50 yrs], the rapid spread of new substances, a definition of true hallucinations and how to stay healthy in such a life, but as ever with the Shulgins the take away is what a good relationship they have with each other, their selves, and the wider community.

Related sites: Horizons and all the talks from the event, and The Psychedelic Salon has a large and growing archive [158 shows to date] of MP3 discussions and talks with all the usual suspects.

Doing what is loathsome

Roy Oxlade

The conclusion I can draw from all these reflections is that I have never been truly suited for civil society where everything is annoyance, obligation, and duty and that my independent natural temperament always made me incapable of the subjection necessary to anyone who wants to live among men. As long as I act freely, I am good and do only good. But as soon as I feel the yoke either of necessity or of men, I become rebellious, or rather, recalcitrant; then I am ineffectual. When it is necessary to what is opposite to my will, I do not do it at all, no matter what; I do not even do what accords with my will, because I am weak. I abstain from acting, for all of my weakness is with regard to action, all of my strength is negative, and all of my sins are of omission, rarely of commission. I have never believed that man's freedom consisted in doing what he wants, but rather in never doing what he does not want to do; and that is the freedom I have always laid claim to, often preserved, and most often scandalized my contemporaries about. Because, as for them - busy, restless, ambitious, detesting freedom in others and not wanting any for themselves, provided that they sometimes do what accords with their will, or rather, that they dominate the will of others - they torment themselves their whole life long by doing what is loathsome to them; they omit nothing servile in order to command.

From the Sixth Walk in Rousseau's The Reveries of a Solitary Walker, p83

Handed in my notice today, although will work up until December 19th, when I leave for my UK vacation. After that, no bosses for as long as possible.

Related posts marked Wilhelm Reich

The Book of Disquiet, text 155

FelipeArte

I have no faith in anything, no hope in anything, no charity for anything. I feel nothing but aversion and disgust fro the sincere adherents of every kind of sincerity and for the mystics of every kind of mysticism or rather for the sincerities of all sincere people and for the mysticism of all mystics. I feel an almost physical nausea when those mysticisms turn evangelical, when they try to convince another intelligence or another will to find the truth or change the world.

More from Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet

Roads to freedom

almost taiwan

When I was a kid I was never around books, but when I was about 16 I met a girl who taught me how to read and rewarded me with sex, and in her circle I played the role of uncultured guy who had culture, the monkey in a man suit.

What I learned then was that the right words and ideas could get you laid a lot. Soon afterward I learned the wrong words and ideas could have exactly the opposite effect, although I stayed faithful to the words and ideas rather than sex, and that was maybe a mistake.

My point is that when I first got into books and was devouring three or four a week [no TV, little homework] a big impression was made by Sartre. Roads to Freedom was intoxicating, reading it starved and dreaming of being a cafe haunting waster / boho / sophisticate, machine-gunning Nazis from the roof a church. Cool stuff, and still some things to aspire to, but the dominant subtext was always the face of the author:

un visage seulement qu'une mère pourrait aimer

At 16 it staggered me that he'd managed to think himself into a supposedly higher state of being, despite looking like that.

Many great pictures of the Sun

There are basically two ways to be free: to be rich or frugal. I lacked the ambition, drive and talent to ever go for the first, but I got the latter down pat as soon as I got my first paycheck. I've always lived within my means, and so that whole field of worry has never given me a moment's concern.

I'm going to hand in my notice tomorrow and stop working on December 20th. The last few months have been proof of concept of having no schedule and just working from home or elsewhere, finally getting the hang of self-discipline a third of a lifetime too late.

The idea is to live off proofreading, with maybe a few entertaining classes picked up to get me out of the house, ideally privates with people who are preparing for tests and focused on that. But am wary of seeking new chains, happy to play the cafe haunting waster / boho for a while.

Sunspot, same source

Related post: The secret of happiness is this...

People are a part of nature

Kurosawa's Dreams - Village of the Water Mills, Part 1

Drunk early in a BBQ restaurant, and the old realization that even if anything isn't possible, at least any feeling and thought is, which is good enough. Plus, the key to drinking early - and at any time - is to know when to stop, and for me that's always when I start to think that maybe it might be a good idea, perhaps, to put my hand up the skirt or down the top of a stranger. Once that thought is entertained, I always move on to water.

Part 2

The Book of Disquiet, text 172

Living mentally on what is not and cannot be, we are, in the end, unable even to ponder what might really be.

More from Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet.

Rear Window

The Book of Disquiet, text 170

Blackpio

I found myself in the world one day, I don't know when, and until then, from birth I presume, I had lived without feeling. If I asked where I was, everyone deceived me, everyone contradicted everyone else. If I asked them to tell me what to do, everyone lied and told me something different. If I became lost and stopped along the road, everyone was shocked that I didn't just continue on to wherever the road led (though no one knew where that was), or simply did not retrace my steps - I, who did not even know whence I came, having only woken up at the crossroads. I realized that I was on a stage and did not know the words that everyone else picked up instantly even though they did not know them either. I saw that though I was dressed as a page they had given me no queen to wait on and blamed me for that. I saw that I had in my hands a message to deliver and when I told them my paper was blank, they laughed at me. I still don't know if they laughed because all such pieces of paper are blank or because all messages are only hypothetical.

More from Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet.

Health and frugality

FelipeArte

The simpler I can make things the better, and I think when I get truly old and my brain starts to melt it'll be a long time before anyone notices.

I was wondering if I should be worried at all about economic collapse, but can't seem to work up any concern. All I do is try and stay healthy [exercise / diet / rest / no stress] and live within my means. That's all I can do, and the rest is up to chance, the collapse of one critical state into another.

Tom the Dancing Bug [click pic for full story]

A continuous network of critical states

Kerplunk! by Leigh Mulley

In a self-organized critical state, the fall of a single grain of sand on to the network may trigger a large-scale rearrangement of the [pile of] sand; but after this rearrangement has occurred there will still be a complex network of critical states, it will just be arranged in a different pattern.

John Gribbin, Deep Simplicity, p163

I think I'll quit my job in December and go full-time freelance and see if I can't ride without a boss until the end of my days [currently aiming for 90+, without a Singularity] .

My only problem with relying on proofreading is the same as its basic appeal - that I can set my own hours. At the moment I keep evening classes as training wheels to ensure that I a) get dressed, leave the house and talk to people I'm not married to / buying things from at least once a day, and b) don't start drinking before 10pm. I took the wheels off in 1997 for one year in China and the results were fun, but somewhat alarming.

Still, I was someone else then.

The part of your brain that makes you funny

Tokyo Undressed

Is there enough comedy in porn?

Seth Rogen: You know, I like it when porn stays as far away from comedy as humanly possible. I went to the AVN Awards maybe five years ago, and one thing I learned is that porn stars are not funny. They're good at a lot of stuff that I'm not good at, but telling jokes isn't one of them. The part of your brain that makes you funny dies the second you bang nine women a day for 10 years straight.

Full interview

In the native quarter

As a child I wanted to be a writer because writers were rich and famous, they lounged around Singapore and Rangoon smoking opium in a yellow pongee silk suit. They sniffed cocaine in Mayfair and they penetrated forbidden swamps with a faithful native boy and lived in the native quarter of Tangier smoking hashish and languidly caressing a pet gazelle.

William S Burroughs

I know three people who've tried to kill themselves, none of them where successful. Only one of them tried when I was in the same house [alcohol and pills], although another was my roommate at the time, and she called me after swallowing her pills [with alcohol]. Two of those people were /are professional writers, in that they made (and continue to make) 100% of their income from what they do at the keyboard. I know a fourth person who's thinking about killing himself, and he's also a professional writer.

The Book of Disquiet, text 152

Picasso's last drawing, a self portrait the day before he died at 91, which looks a lot like me at 38

In order to understand, I destroyed myself.

More from Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet.

Cool adolescent quote, but to what end? Disquiet is full of great things, and passages that don't work today will another time, but I'm curious how much Pessoa had a good life, on his own terms, and if not, why not. I know almost nothing about him. Still, it's the book of disquiet, so naturally it's full of disquieting passages, with other feelings written down or not and kept elsewhere or forgotten. But he is often moping, when Lisbon is a very fun city, with possibilities for any kind of diversion.

There is a short Chinese work that acts as a counterpoint to all this, Ah, is this not happiness?, that I can't seem to find complete online. I could add it here, although I don't remember it as being all that great. Disquiet is so much easier to write about than happiness.

The Book of Disquiet, text 150

Bumble heaven

No problem is soluble. None of us unties the Gordian knot; we either give up or cut it. We brusquely resolve with our feelings problems of the intellect and do so because we are tired of thinking, because we are too timid to draw conclusions, because of an absurd need for support, or because of our gregarious impulse to rejoin others and rejoin life. Since we can never know all the factors involved in an issue, we can never resolve it. To reach the truth we lack both the necessary facts and the intellectual processes that could exhaust all possible interpretations of those facts.

More from Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet.

I'm sure the passage above is about personal problems, but I came to it thinking about chaos in general, and the importance of long practice and then a lack of awareness when engaged in the task at hand. Being prepared and then letting things happen

...the only system that can replicate the behavior of the Universe in every detail is - the Universe itself. Even if...the Universe is entirely deterministic and the whole future is contained within its present state, there is no way at all to predict or know the future, except by watching the universe evolve. Whether or not we have free will, the Universe behaves as if we have free will, which is really all that matters. The Universe is ignorant it's own future, and is its own fastest simulator.

John Gribbin, Deep Simplicity, p69