A weedy florilegium

First draft, to the right. That’s some kind of strange self-portrait on the left.

Now that dialogue (on its face it looks like diagogue) is beyond me. I distinctly remember not talking to anyone during that class, yet I seem to be responding to something.

The zombie character will be named "Chalmers," and the maggot will take the appellation "Willard." The comic, should it come into existence, will center on the humor in applying conceptual analysis to everyday states of affairs, tragic ironies befalling the protagonist, sucker punches to analytic philosophy, Office Space-esque situation humor, general cynicism, hyperliteralism, debased wordplay, a brand of absurdism/nonsequiturism, and conceptual incoherence. (Pretty heft plate; easier said than done!)

(Nonetheless,) it may become a comic, but that highly depends on my willingness to artistically refine the character drawings, straight-jacket my view on humor, find the time, etc.

A friend (Trey, writer at tofu (poetry) and I originally conceived the idea around summertime. I forget how much of it is his and how much of it is mine. It largely sprouted out of our philosophical banter and snide remarks toward various philosophical theories.

The witty may have their way, but if we wish to speak of truth, will we be so quick to say that its obtainment must follow this procedure? We can say something ignorant while brief or learned and brief. Is being brief, in itself, a criterion for determining “ignorance” or “understanding”? Naturally, there’s a commendable kind of “cleverness” and there’s a crude kind of “clever” that is more akin to a vice than a virtue.

There are many people who will be willing to listen to the full length of the wind. And if no one is willing, then we can still play the game with ourselves.

I need twenty a posteriori necessary truths, stat.

Cats can be robots, in the metaphysical and epistemic sense. Former: well, we “discover” that cats are animals, and thus a natural kind. “But that’s the epistemic sense!”

Scratch: Dammit! The scientist ain’t uncovering necessary truths!

Less funny:

Animals are physical entities arranged in a certain fashion (by God–whoops!). “H2O” refers to something “most basic”?

If we take away one Hydrogen atom, will we have water? If we take away one Y from “XYZ,” will we have water? Modify the “basic” structure, this might be compatible with perceiving that it is red. Can we modify the basic structure? Can we suppose that we can by simply by intuition (non-metaphysic)?

Is there some rule that I’m missing? MI Chess v3.0 is all sorts of bad programming. It might only be a problem when running on Windows XP; beyond that it crashes when you’re beating the computer or playing too confusedly for it to comprehend.

The Creator of the Universe takes an interest in me, approves of me, loves me, and will reward me after death; my current beliefs, drawn from scripture, will remain the best statement of the truth until the end of the world; everyone who disagrees with me will spend an eternity in hell.
—Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation

All the fat has been trimmed, all the obscurity diluted. Take away anymore, and you’ve got yourself a non-Christian. The frightening thing is that although this caricature is arguably strikingly simplified, there is still a large sum of weighty philosophical, moral and numerous other implications. Naturally, the Theologian will argue for what the dissenters mean by “Creator”; because the opposition never understands truly who or what the “Creator” is unless they themselves believe in Him. The belief ticket grants them access to that esoteric knowledge. At least with Scientology, you can buy your way up the ladder.

But can the Theologian downplay “interest,” “approval,” “love” and “reward” from their implications of arrogance? And without turning the discussion into a mess of unintelligible rhetoric and circular reasoning?

“the best statement of the truth” cannot be considered as a jab in the dark about what those Christians believe. But wait! The truth of what exactly? Moral truth? Scientific truth? Metaphysical truth? Maybe Sam Harris stepped into a poor generalization.

But certainly objection to that “truth” cannot twisted about; clearly, it is the case that those who object do in fact object! Unless, of course, they know not what they object, and if they did, bring on the ad hominem stir. Nonetheless, some must object, but not out of necessity. We know that dissent is a possibility for the Bible itself highlights the capability of doubt. The message depends necessarily on that it reaches new ears, those unknowing or those skeptical. So it prepares for doubt, with the likes of Thomas especially. So the believer and the Theologian must agree that some do doubt, and those carrying their disbelief genuinely do so with equal understanding to that of the believer and Theologian.

And be Hell a state of being or a place of existence, nonetheless it carries a heavy moral burden to do the “right thing as right sees right” or certain punishments, whatever they may be, will follow. The concept of rewards and punishments cannot be argued as an inaccurate observance of a first principle of the theology.