“Corporations don’t have values; they have an image…Their main objective is to make money.” —Merry Mahaffey It’s not uncommon for corporations to espouse “corporate values.” We’ve all heard this phrase before. But it should be obvious to anyone that these “values” are little more than meaningless slogans or tag-lines; they’re not meant to be taken…
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Current Events
Computers Cannot Simulate Anything: Pivoting to an Anti-simulation Ontology
“What we see visually is not present inside of the tissue of our brain. It is not a physical phenomenon, or rather physics is actually a subset of a much larger psycho-physical context of nature. Unlike a computer simulation, which relies completely on a physical video screen to accomplish any sense of simulation, the brain…
We Are Surrounded by Possibilities That Are Infinite: Imagination, Freedom, MacGyver, and Creative Ways Forward
“By introducing possibilities of such action that go beyond what the situation would otherwise allow, God expands our freedom. Violence as we ordinarily understand it restricts the freedom of its object.” –John B. Cobb, Jr., process-relational theologian Most of us have a decent understanding of what freedom is, or at least we think we do….
Education Is Not Preparation For Life; Education Is Life Itself: Reflections on Election 2016
“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” —John Dewey I haven’t really written much about the 2016 U.S. presidential election of Donald Trump because it’s been an overall hugely depressing nightmare for me. I have had a lot of in-person chats, Facebook discussions, and have also read a TON of articles, essays,…
The Mother is Chasing You
““The Mother is chasing you,” he said, “and you must surrender to Her…She calls to everyone, and to ignore Her is to ignore the greatest gift you may ever be offered: the passionate embrace of the Mother. She is going to hound you until She has you, and then She is going to strip you…
Thoughts on Things Being “Rigged”
“Conspiracy theory is the ultimate refuge of the powerless. If you cannot change your own life, it must be that some greater force controls the world.” ― Roger Cohen This presidential election has generated TONS of fun (philosophical) things to think and talk about. Among them is this notion of “rigging” that keeps coming up….
Death is The Point: The Walking Dead, The Uncanny, Mourning, and Death Repression
“[If] every affect belonging to an emotional impulse, whatever its kind, is transformed, if it is repressed, into anxiety, then among instances of frightening things there must be one class in which the frightening element can be shown to be something repressed which recurs. This class of frightening things would then constitute the uncanny.” –Sigmund…
Every Process Pushed Far Enough Tends to Reverse: Thoughts on Digital Technology and Distraction Sickness
“Every process pushed far enough tends to reverse or flip suddenly. Chiasmus – the reversal to process caused by increasing its speed, scope or size.” —Marshall McLuhan I finally got to read Andrew Sullivan’s latest article in NY Magazine about technology and distraction sickness. I remember Sullivan for notably becoming one of the first journalists…
Greed Isn’t THE issue
“Too often the debate of economics and religion is reduced to issues of morality—for instance, when greed is identified as the culprit in economics. As a result, individual CEOs and business leaders are condemned as greedy. This approach is doubly problematic, as it neglects the real structures of the economy, and it sets up a…
Laughter has no greater foe than emotion: Trump, Laughter, Bergson, and “Just Joking”
“Here I would point out, as a symptom equally worthy of notice, the ABSENCE OF FEELING which usually accompanies laughter. It seems as though the comic could not produce its disturbing effect unless it fell, so to say, on the surface of a soul that is thoroughly calm and unruffled. Indifference is its natural environment,…