My Too (Many) Cents

 Life for me has always been suffering interlaced with temporary moments of happiness. If I think back to all the mental states I know, much more of them have been spent in lack. In waiting. Waiting for life to happen to me. A nagging sensation that this is not what my life is supposed to be like. And that possibly, somewhere out there, there is a version of me who is living the best life I could be living. His life is not mine though, yet I constantly use him as an excuse, to devalue my own experience. My friendships are empty, my relationships are empty. Every thought is plagued by the promise of a 'what if(?)' or an 'if only' There have been certain moments that surpass the dissatisfaction inherent in every waking experience. I have felt in those moments that I am underneath the flow of life as it passes over me and refreshes me. I have experienced it in badminton; The absolute, unwavering concentration that carries within it the plethora of expressions and emotions ...

Preface 13.  (4/06/24) Old World - Substantial life - the forms of knowledge here don’t quite work fully yet they still have form and content. Nascent Sciences - seem esoteric and understandable by only few individuals sometimes because it takes away the determinacy the old world has. But this is important for the development. Real Science is OPEN - capable of being learned and apprehended by ALL - this is what science turns towards.  14. (4/6/24) Science as process - Knowledge that can account for itself (get over the epistemic circularity that is fundamental) - and for the historical process through which it emerged. Huge Undertaking. Nascent science  not complete in details (not enough data) = content not complete in articulation = form. real science should be able to articulate in satisfactory terms what its studying and itself as the method of study. i.e. become adequate to the things its studying. One = old world, old science -> intelligible, wealth of the mat...

 Sense Certainty 92.  (3/6/24)If we examine sense certainty and think of its essence then it’s not actually immediate, pure being. To think sense certainty, we must think an example of sense certainty and not its essence itself. And to refer to sense certainty we must implicitly split the experience into two ‘thises’. a ‘this’ which is the ‘I’ which experiences and a ‘this’ which is the object of experience. e.g someone describing an experienc of sense certainty may say it’s like “When you’re in the flow state”.  93. (3/6/24) This mediation described in the previous paragraph is not just a heuristic we need to use to refer to sense certainty, but rather embedded in its essence itself. There is an object which exists independent of our knowing of it and keeps producing sensory information. The relation between the ‘I’ and the object is knowing. This is contingent. It doesn’t NEED to happen. Progress: 16/808

Sense Certainty  90.  (2/6/24) In apprehending we must resist the urge to comprehend ‘what is’. apprehension = Aufassen. comprehension = begreifen. If we try to conceptually comprehend it, that cognition colours the mere sensate qualia. 91. (2/6/24) Sense certainty is an immediate experience of qualia. It seems spatiotemporally infinite due to the fractal nature of qualia. i.e. wherever we focus, it extends infinitely. It is being itself. Lots of religious and mystical metaphors are probably referring to and romanticizing this state. e.g. enlightenment. or the fall of eden. Hegel does not satisfactorily make the case that one cannot remain in sense certainty.  Why is a situation not posible where In a krishnamurtian sense if there is just an experience of the body or e.g. feldenkrais somatic experiencing, where the necessary mechanistic knowledge flows out at the level of determinate knowledge even though you are penetrated into sense certainty. Emotions are somatic quali...

 Preface (Continued) 10. Intuition places itself “above” determinate = extensional  = phenomenal = computationally reliable    knowledge. E.g. creative people saying they’re ‘not linear thinkers'', can’t think with their left brain etc but real creativity is only in determinate forms (content is consciousness). in such a situation spirit pours “forth as finite multiplicity without force”. intution without expression thinks it has acquired depth even though it hasn’t, it is just hazy - the power of spirit is only as great as its expression. Spirit has to take determinate forms otherwise dialectic stops and “hides the truth from itself” Introduction          73. Talks about cognition. Is cognition an instrument or a medium to know the absolute??                      Instrument -> Problems: Its possible that we can choose the wrong category of thought to examine the absolut...

Preface continued  31/05/2024 8. Modernity has a romanticized conception of the mystics and occult of medieval times e.g. Augustine. They talk of the saints and gnostics of previous times as having some otherworldly knowledge, having to be turned to the practical and empirical from their gaze set on heaven. After Kant’s project, a divide has been created between that which is empirical, and knowable in everyday life( from phenomena) as opposed to the noumenal. Because of this, the secularized, modernized spirit is so thirsty for any sense of “spirituality” that it will take without critically grasping anything that reveals itself as spiritual knowledge. 9. Edification can be thought of as ‘upbuilding’. If philosophizing more does not create a system that accounts for more generality, there is no cognitive discomfort or effort extended there y our thought isn’t a creative activity in a Deleuzian sense . People who are okay with mere edification want beliefs to be intentionally a bit...

  30/5/24 6. Hegel is criticizing philosophers like Spinoza and Schlegal here who think that Intuition - direct, unmediated experience is central to experiencing god and truth.Hegel on the other hand thinks that the german word Begriff = Grasping translated as ‘The Notion’ or ‘The Concept’ is the essential nature of the truth. The other philosophers are in some sense afraid of the labour of the whole emergence of truth and pessimistic about Humans’ capability to get there which is why they place direct unmediated experience at a higher level than discursive knowledge. This is a problem because with unmediated knowledge you cannot know whether it is a hallucination e.g 7. Continuing the criticism, Hegel mentions a movement of thought where not only has spirit been displaced from substantial life = NPC lifestyle unaware of finitude, but it has also become aware of its finitude, abusing itself for living in this wickidness. (Kinda like this family guy clip ). Instead of going through ...

 Hello everyone. I've always been meaning to read Hegel and have read a decent bit about him and also read through some of his work randomly from the middle. However, given the density of writing, all these unsystematic readings do not do his work justice and I haven't been able to grasp enough of his work to integrate it into my thinking as I was able to do with Nietzsche.  Since this is something I really want to do, because I think he has some interesting things to say and an interesting way to think, I am starting this new series. The aim is to read and comprehend atleast 1 passage of the phenomenology everyday until I finish the book. at worst this may take me around 800 days, which is around 2 years of my life spending ~15 minutes a day.  The resources I'll be using are as follows: A.V. Miller's Translation of the Phenomenology J.N. Findlay's commentary on the text The Half Hour Hegel Lecture series by Gregory B Sadler The Internet and My own intution wherever...

 This post is about frames.   A frame is a self-consistent representation that accounts for all the observations you have made about life.  We love frames because it allows us to coherently ground our action in the world. We expend a lot of cognitive (in lack of a better word "vital") energy in trying to create and update our frames in a bayesian-like process of updation. We want frames at all levels. You want a frame for your own actions, a story. You want a frame for your relationships, a dynamic. You want a frame for your company, a vision. You want a frame for the world, a utopia.  When we don't have frames, we don't have meaning. We end up confronting life in all its absurdity and unexplainability.  A plausible definition of creativity is an extension of the current frame to account for such observations; it is at the edge of chaos and logos that it plays.  All frames are at their base delusions. The map is not the reality. The more closely you ob...

 I have a newslettter here.  These are a few posts that I wrote for the newsletter but eventually I realised that they didn't fit with the theme of what I want to do with my newsletter. At the same time, they fit in perfectly with the theme of my blog (unrefined creativity that might end up being ranty sometimes). So here I present to you the posts from my newsletter. being human. To the depth allowed by my current perspectives, there are three classes of problems we are confronted with as humans. The problem of livelihood The problem of relationship The problem of health If you may examine your own experience, you see that the things you struggle with, may be approximately categorized as problems relating to health, money or relationships. It is a disservice to the depth of these problems to categorize and express them as easily as I did. A detailed exposition is in order. The problem of livelihood is the problem of a craft. Your craft works on you more than you do on it. It ...

Axiom 1: There is suffering Axiom 2: There is a cessation to suffering  Theorem 1: The cessation to suffering is 'ultimate'.  Proof: suffering is a pattern of activity. If there is not a radical change/phase transition on some parameter then it is the same pattern. Physical world We have systems and goals. Systems: pattern of involuntary behaviour that we go down to when we stop being aware  Goals: Things we are seeking to imbibe as a part of our system currently. This distinction is rather arbitrary because once you become aware you realise that the process is the only thing. The distinction arises because of awareness interspersed with illusion. Goals are a reflection of desire/aversion/fear. You 'want' to do something only because it's not already a part of your living process.  It is your higher self guiding you towards local maxima in the being landscape. They are karmic in the sense that If you already had perfect knowledge (I.e. suffering = 0) then you wouldn...

I looked at my blog today and realised I haven't been posting in a bit. I wrote this post (unfinished on 29th Feb) and I think it had an interesting line of thought, though I didn't really end up completing it. But I will post it anyway Hello everyone to another rant a night before an exam as has become the norm in college. I have learnt better than to compromise with my creativity now - if something wants to express itself through me, I don't really possess the power anymore to stop its spontaneous flow.  So anyway, what I am talking about today is going to be rather personal and I don't know how much it would be useful for you to know but regardlesss I do feel there is a journey I need to express here. Loving children is hard work. I mean I'm not even at the stage of my life yet where I am in the space of thinking about such a task but it still seems intimidating; seeing how screwed up we are as people, it is intimidating to take that much absolute responsibility ...

recently while looking through some of my old writing, I found an essay I wrote for some college applications. I remember writing it from a perspective of what colleges want to see in an applicant; someone curious but not jaded, smart enough to say that the system is screwed up in some ways but not courageous enough to try and do something about it; someone who can generally pretend to be happy about life in a naive 16 year old kind of way. Or maybe that is how most 16 year olds are and I was just weird. Anyway, this essay was funny and refreshing in a nostalgic way to me so hope you have fun reading it too.    My Experiences with Coffee I had always known about coffee- it often incited my curiosity but was relegated to the class of “old people drinks” at that time, far from my reach. One day when some guests were around, I was finally allowed to have this mystical drink. I decided to have some black coffee – which only the cool people had. As I absorbed the cup’s heat and aro...

in several deep metaphysical philosophies, there is an acceptance that all human energy at its core is erotic.The word erotic is used not in a narrow and perverted sense in the form it exists currently; an unholy marriage of excess production, rampant advertisment and consumerism, and just bastardized in every way conceivable. There is however a dimension to it that escapes even all this desecration so to speak.  I was reading Georges Bataille recently and his idea of the accursed share seemed very interesting to me. Especially as someone who engages in creative activity semi-regularly. Again, I enter into philosophizing and intellectualizing when I start writing about these topics, which are ultimately useless to 'The Truth" I must remind myself and also the reader, but here I do so in a controlled environment letting my thought take over to see what beautiful creation can arise out of it.  Aside here on viewing thought as an instrument. I have come to learn that even spiritu...

      Hello everyone,  I haven't posted here in a long time but today again some thoughts brewing in my head have come to a boiling point and hence I believe that I must express them here.  I am infinitely enchanted by metaphysical speculation when its interesting enough (which is why Advaita Vedanta appeals to me so much for example). I have realised that all these things are totally useless when I am concerned with finding the truth however.  In finding the truth, even a statement starting with an 'if' no matter how pure the metaphysical speculation that comes after it becomes utterly useless, an Idea, an abstraction. However, thinking in these ways is still fun and sometimes a guilty pleasure for me. In a Deleuzian sense, it seems to me like the nomad who has just chanced upon a village. It is fun and safe to be there for some time, however you know that you must continue your journey onward. It is with these ideas that I started metaphysically speculati...

Creativity is one of those things that we don't really have a good framework for understanding.  Is it a unique perspective in looking at different things that arises due to the difference in the affirmative deleuzian sense of your experiences from the moment you were born?  Is it an active process that requires effort?  Is it a natural outcome of whatever comes from being in the flow state, a creative state of being? These are things I have been thinking about recently.   Thought can be Trained.  I came upon this line of thought (ironically) when I was analyzing the process of how one of my friends thought about certain math problems. They are the type of person who most people consider a 'genius' but as I analyzed their thinking(while we were solving math problems together), I realised that there is not that much difference in the movements of our thought.  Their thought was more analytical or careful in a sense at some places, examining the assumpti...

Hello everyone, today I'd like to talk about perspectives that I have recently come to on love. It is mostly informed by my reading of the book 'All About Love' by Bell Hooks, and of course, some video essays that I unhealthily binge-watch along with my meals.  It is quite hard to talk about love in an objective manner. One of the primary reasons for this is that most of us are not even talking about the same thing when we use the word, love. When the word is used in a rap song that has been created in today's culture, (though that is probably a rarity) it is referring to or trying to represent quite a different concept from what a spiritual guru uses it for example. Love is Spiritual One connotation I found interesting was something that relates very (seemingly) disparate paradigms of thought; Transgressive literature and Kashmiri Shaivism. I haven't read the primary texts for either of these so my interpretations might be wrong, however, the concept is interesting...

You were just a kid.  Society told you you were smart. You were good at the mathy stuff. The grownups liked it when they told you two numbers and you could add them really fast. They subtly encouraged you, to study more. Feed the machine.  Or maybe you were not smart. You realized that the world goes around smart kids. They compared you, with your siblings, your classmates your relatives. They gave you examples of striking personalities, feeding the tendrils of ambition in your tender mind. I want to be like X when I grow up. I will grow up and become successful. They never defined successful for you. You were implicitly promised that you would be loved and everyone would be nice to you when you finally became "someone".  Maybe like many of us, you fell into their trap. You worked on being good at something you didn't enjoy so that you could be better off than others, and finally they could give you some love. Respect comes with money, status and power they told you. If y...

here's a post that has been languishing in my drafts since last semester. Hello everyone, welcome to another rant. This time you get to see me at my most anxious, as I have an exam in approximately 5 hours and I should be getting to sleep but I got the motivation to write and I have learned better than to fight against the inner voice that rises inside and tells me to regurgitate something onto this editing page.  Of course, another semester of college has started and quiz week already crept up on me as I was involved in a plethora of other things.  Many different things seem beautiful to me and worth pursuing, such as music, fitness (not in a naive superficial aesthetic level which I believe a lot of gym culture (though a net positive in promoting health) has reduced it to), and also most esoteric (read schizophrenic) types of mathematics, physics and computation concepts (Category theory, Trinitarianism and Topology are somethings which I have recently become very interested...