Coherence is overvalued and exists by ignoring a multitude of counter examples, excesses, and idiosyncracies. What I appreciate about Derrida is that he makes explicit what other writers try to hide, or are ignorant of. The desire for coherence is the desire to dominate something completely by knowing it completely, and requires violence to what lies outside of what is already explained. The mass accumulation of facts, treatises legitimating methodology, synthesis of information all disguise that there is never enough accumulation, that methodologies are always built on unjustified assumptions, and that there are a multitude of other ways information could have been synthesized. We are obsessed with truth because we are obsessed with our own selves and our own power!
Coherence ignores its own aphoristic energy by ignoring its gaps, by ignoring the jumps and assumptions between the points that it "connects," by creating a form of logic to be followed, when the form itself has no basis.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
sermon illustrations
Last week I went to a certain coffee shop. I was there for a short time because I had to go to a library before it closed, but also because the coffee shop had a song on loop that played over 7 times in a row, and was still playing when I left. I went there again today, thinking that my experience must have been a fluke. The first hour that I was there, they once again played a song on repeat the entire time. I started to get a headache and become angry, could not concentrate on what I was reading. So I went downstairs to ask them to turn it off and found that the stereo was on the staircase, so I started pushing buttons and accidentally turned it off. Then the manager come to see what was going on, and I told him that I was getting a headache from it being on repeat. So he said he'd get a new CD, and I returned to my seat. But when he put a new CD on, he once again left the song on repeat, for the rest of the time I was there (maybe an hour). I only noticed when I went downstairs that the baristas can't hear the music on their floor, which is the only reason they must not have gone crazy by this time.
Last Friday I was walking to the bus station to go to Edinburgh, when I saw someone drop one of his gloves. I pointed it out to him, he said thank you, I went to the bus station. In Edinburgh at a museum, I lost one of my gloves, and found it at the reception because Brent had lost his hat and went there to look for it. Certainly, the two situations are linked to each other. Perhaps on his way to the bus, Brent saw someone drop a hat, and did not tell them? That is the Christian explanation, or at least a nice sermon illustration.
Last Friday I was walking to the bus station to go to Edinburgh, when I saw someone drop one of his gloves. I pointed it out to him, he said thank you, I went to the bus station. In Edinburgh at a museum, I lost one of my gloves, and found it at the reception because Brent had lost his hat and went there to look for it. Certainly, the two situations are linked to each other. Perhaps on his way to the bus, Brent saw someone drop a hat, and did not tell them? That is the Christian explanation, or at least a nice sermon illustration.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
games
Some of my memories about games:
The night before my ankle got chopped in a hiking accident, my brother and Nathan (whose house we were staying at) played darts for quite sometime. I remember laying on the couch the whole time, but I don't remember if I was doing anything or not, or why I didn't play. I know I didn't want to be there (and had just decided the next morning to enjoy myself anyway when we had our accident).
When I was nine I played lots of ping-pong at Happy Home, the children's home my parents were working at. I remember getting better as time went on, but I can't imagine I was very good.
Before we moved to Thailand, my dad used to go to monthly pinochle parties, and it always seemed very intimidating. After years of good times playing with the Franciscuses, I got to go back to the states and play one of those nights. And I actually played very well, I think the old people were impressed. I felt like a hot shot that night.
Down at the beach, my friends always played Phase 10 in the mornings, and I never wanted to play because it took too long. But in the evenings I was happy to play speed scrabble with everyone.
A few times, my school had field trips where we bussed around Thailand for a week. We played lots of cards in the evening and on the trips. I was annoyed that people always wanted to play speed games rather than good games like hearts.
Sophmore year I would spend most of my Friday evenings playing video games by myself. My friends always asked me to watch movies, but I never wanted to watch movies. It was the time of the week that I could finally be by myself. It was good to have that time to myself, but I wish that I'd done more with them.
There have been many many nights that I was out late with my friends Zac and Caleb playing video games at LAN shops. Typically those were good nights. Strangely, though, the night I remember the most distinctly is the last time that I went out with my brother, Luke Wilcox, and Zac Franciscus (I think?) before Luke left for Australia. I remember it being very cold that night on our motorcycles going home.
The night before my ankle got chopped in a hiking accident, my brother and Nathan (whose house we were staying at) played darts for quite sometime. I remember laying on the couch the whole time, but I don't remember if I was doing anything or not, or why I didn't play. I know I didn't want to be there (and had just decided the next morning to enjoy myself anyway when we had our accident).
When I was nine I played lots of ping-pong at Happy Home, the children's home my parents were working at. I remember getting better as time went on, but I can't imagine I was very good.
Before we moved to Thailand, my dad used to go to monthly pinochle parties, and it always seemed very intimidating. After years of good times playing with the Franciscuses, I got to go back to the states and play one of those nights. And I actually played very well, I think the old people were impressed. I felt like a hot shot that night.
Down at the beach, my friends always played Phase 10 in the mornings, and I never wanted to play because it took too long. But in the evenings I was happy to play speed scrabble with everyone.
A few times, my school had field trips where we bussed around Thailand for a week. We played lots of cards in the evening and on the trips. I was annoyed that people always wanted to play speed games rather than good games like hearts.
Sophmore year I would spend most of my Friday evenings playing video games by myself. My friends always asked me to watch movies, but I never wanted to watch movies. It was the time of the week that I could finally be by myself. It was good to have that time to myself, but I wish that I'd done more with them.
There have been many many nights that I was out late with my friends Zac and Caleb playing video games at LAN shops. Typically those were good nights. Strangely, though, the night I remember the most distinctly is the last time that I went out with my brother, Luke Wilcox, and Zac Franciscus (I think?) before Luke left for Australia. I remember it being very cold that night on our motorcycles going home.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
(non)existence
I recently went to a lecture on Darwin by Pietro Corsi. After the lecture, someone asked Corsi a question about Dawkins, and he responded, "Christians love Dawkins: 'God doesn't exist!' he says. 'Yes he does!' they say. They love him!"
This reminds me of the controversies surrounding the Da Vinci Code a few years back, and the industry that surrounded it. Dan Brown's book provided a huge (if temporary) industry for Christian writers and speakers, and that gap is perhaps being filled now by responses to Dawkins et al.
I have been thinking some about the question, Does God exist? And I'm becoming more and more convinced (by myself) that it's not a meaningful question, or that there isn't much difference between answering 'Yes God exists' or 'No God does not exist.' Both answers provide the illusion that something meaningful has been established, but both answers work into the same logic, and provide answers based on the same criteria (generally evidence). The real winner in any debate over the existence of God isnt which ever argument seems to win (existence; no existence). The real winner is the logic and form of knowing that undergirds their arguments, that is reified even by responding to each others arguments as meaningful arguments. I'm not interested in these arguments over the existence of God precisely because I'm not interested in the logic behind them, or with the binary of existence and nonexistence, or convinced that there is a great deal of difference depending on how you answer that question. Along with this question we could ask if Genesis or the gospels are "historically accurate," or whether miracles really happened, or if Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, or if a band sings Christian music, or whether Muslims go to hell, and in all of these cases those are the wrong questions to ask, and summarily any answer (usually an either/or) is the wrong answer. Answering the question without altering the question is assent to the logic behind it.
Another question to be added to this list is the question of right and wrong, and whether specific actions are/were right or wrong. Questions of right and wrong are always anachronistic, in the sense that the situation doesn't matter (I'm not sure if situational ethics are actually very situational). I want my understanding of the past and present to be much more sophisticated than a belief that history can be written as a history of right and wrong (often the Christian view of history). I'm much more interested in talking about utility: cause, effect, function, forces upon a system, including the forces working upon your system that make it impossible for you to agree with me, or me with you.
Most arguments are empty arguments in the sense that people are secretly agreeing with each other by validating the system of knowledge in use by the involved parties. In the cases where systems dont agree, the other party is written off as absurd or crazy. To this degree, when someone's belief changes because of an argument, they're not convinced by the other person, they're convinced by themselves.
This reminds me of the controversies surrounding the Da Vinci Code a few years back, and the industry that surrounded it. Dan Brown's book provided a huge (if temporary) industry for Christian writers and speakers, and that gap is perhaps being filled now by responses to Dawkins et al.
I have been thinking some about the question, Does God exist? And I'm becoming more and more convinced (by myself) that it's not a meaningful question, or that there isn't much difference between answering 'Yes God exists' or 'No God does not exist.' Both answers provide the illusion that something meaningful has been established, but both answers work into the same logic, and provide answers based on the same criteria (generally evidence). The real winner in any debate over the existence of God isnt which ever argument seems to win (existence; no existence). The real winner is the logic and form of knowing that undergirds their arguments, that is reified even by responding to each others arguments as meaningful arguments. I'm not interested in these arguments over the existence of God precisely because I'm not interested in the logic behind them, or with the binary of existence and nonexistence, or convinced that there is a great deal of difference depending on how you answer that question. Along with this question we could ask if Genesis or the gospels are "historically accurate," or whether miracles really happened, or if Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, or if a band sings Christian music, or whether Muslims go to hell, and in all of these cases those are the wrong questions to ask, and summarily any answer (usually an either/or) is the wrong answer. Answering the question without altering the question is assent to the logic behind it.
Another question to be added to this list is the question of right and wrong, and whether specific actions are/were right or wrong. Questions of right and wrong are always anachronistic, in the sense that the situation doesn't matter (I'm not sure if situational ethics are actually very situational). I want my understanding of the past and present to be much more sophisticated than a belief that history can be written as a history of right and wrong (often the Christian view of history). I'm much more interested in talking about utility: cause, effect, function, forces upon a system, including the forces working upon your system that make it impossible for you to agree with me, or me with you.
Most arguments are empty arguments in the sense that people are secretly agreeing with each other by validating the system of knowledge in use by the involved parties. In the cases where systems dont agree, the other party is written off as absurd or crazy. To this degree, when someone's belief changes because of an argument, they're not convinced by the other person, they're convinced by themselves.
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