Irrationality vs the Unknown

Will and I started talking about this so we had to leave. I actually have to watch a nobel peace speech right now so I'll put my thoughts in on this in a bit.

Anand Mehta [10:30]: I can answer your status question btw

William Sutton [10:30]: if you like

William Sutton [10:30]: last time you answered a question

William Sutton [10:30]: you didnt really answer the question

William Sutton [10:30]: well

William Sutton [10:30]: you did

Anand Mehta [10:30]: Oh I know, I was just putting forth talking points

William Sutton [10:30]: just way literally, hahaha

Anand Mehta [10:30]: hahaha

William Sutton [10:30]: this one is mostly rhetorical

William Sutton [10:30]: and a quote

William Sutton [10:30]: but shoot

Anand Mehta [10:30]: oh okay

Anand Mehta [10:30]: haha

William Sutton [10:30]: i wanna hear what you got

Anand Mehta [10:31]: i hear this argument all the time

Anand Mehta [10:31]: but the concept of "we can never know anything"

Anand Mehta [10:31]: is abstract

Anand Mehta [10:31]: in the sense that

Anand Mehta [10:31]: there is always a .0001% percent chance

Anand Mehta [10:31]: (smaller than that but i'm too lazy to type out zeros)

Anand Mehta [10:31]: that eveyrthing we know is wrong

Anand Mehta [10:31]: which means we can never know anything for certain

Anand Mehta [10:31]: but the reason we can make claims like that is because we are separating the abstract from the reasonable

Anand Mehta [10:32]: although thinking about life through skeptic eyes makes sense from a probability standpoint

Anand Mehta [10:32]: it isn't reasonable to live your life like that

Anand Mehta [10:32]: because you have no incentive to do anything

Anand Mehta [10:32]: therefore, although you understand that you can never know anything for certain

Anand Mehta [10:32]: and that everything you know can be wrong

Anand Mehta [10:33]: you work of the presumption that what we can logically deduce about the world we live in is correct

Anand Mehta [10:33]: because the probability that it is right, is much much much higher than the probability that its wrong

Anand Mehta [10:33]: thats not to say that it can't be wrong, but simply that its more likely to be right than it is to be wrong

William Sutton [10:34]: sure

William Sutton [10:34]: i follow

William Sutton [10:34]: but

William Sutton [10:34]: i think

William Sutton [10:34]: in the context of the song I lifted it from

William Sutton [10:35]: its a matter of people being aggressively antagonistic

William Sutton [10:35]: without being logical

Anand Mehta [10:35]: ah

William Sutton [10:35]: or tolerant

Anand Mehta [10:35]: okay

William Sutton [10:35]: or open

William Sutton [10:35]: like if you affirm so strongly that no one can know anything, your affirmation itself is undermind

William Sutton [10:36]: not knowing is uncertain in itself

William Sutton [10:36]: so it is very reflexive i think

Anand Mehta [10:36]: it definitely is

Anand Mehta [10:36]: but if you seperate the two

Anand Mehta [10:36]: you can live while making that distinction

William Sutton [10:36]: people like to be certain they are right. but i think often we are more concerned with about being certain than being right.

Anand Mehta [10:37]: agreed

William Sutton [10:37]: also

William Sutton [10:37]: i think there is something to be said for reading statements like that from a purely emotional perspective

William Sutton [10:38]: a lot of people hate on that

Anand Mehta [10:38]: hmm

William Sutton [10:38]: and i believe in logic and stats etx

William Sutton [10:38]: etc

William Sutton [10:38]: but i believe that humans have emotions for a reason

Anand Mehta [10:38]: yeah

William Sutton [10:38]: and that there can be beauty and also truth in emotion

Anand Mehta [10:38]: but i think logic can explain emotion

William Sutton [10:38]: even if emotion is not as stable

Anand Mehta [10:38]: like maybe it can't right now, but I think we are getting there scientifically

William Sutton [10:38]: but both logic and emotion can be manipulated

William Sutton [10:39]: one more easily than the other

William Sutton [10:39]: of course

William Sutton [10:39]: but

William Sutton [10:39]: let me finish

Anand Mehta [10:39]: where we are getting glimpses of how logic controls emotion

Anand Mehta [10:39]: yeah

Anand Mehta [10:39]: sure

William Sutton [10:39]: i think that there are some things are irrational and that its being irrational doesnt make it untrue

William Sutton [10:39]: so you can try to reason through the statement

William Sutton [10:39]: but the other half is the feeling

William Sutton [10:39]: the sentiment

William Sutton [10:39]: the liberal arts side

William Sutton [10:39]: and i think we are dual creatures

William Sutton [10:40]: so while we are logical, we are also illogical, irrational, emotional, and that those feelings and meanings are important motivators just like logic

William Sutton [10:40]: ok

William Sutton [10:41]: i just read what you were saying

William Sutton [10:41]: continie

William Sutton [10:41]: continue*

Anand Mehta [10:41]: well i'm going to comment

William Sutton [10:41]: now i am caught up

Anand Mehta [10:41]: I don't believe in irrationality

William Sutton [10:41]: yes you do

William Sutton [10:41]: hahahaha

Anand Mehta [10:41]: I believe in what we can explain, and what we will be able to explain

Anand Mehta [10:41]: no no

Anand Mehta [10:41]: irrationality nad that which we can't explain are two seperate things

William Sutton [10:41]: i have this conversation like 100 times

William Sutton [10:41]: the problem is

William Sutton [10:41]: a matter of definition

Anand Mehta [10:41]: of course

William Sutton [10:41]: until you have a sold definition

William Sutton [10:42]: working between us

William Sutton [10:42]: its pointless

Anand Mehta [10:42]: well lets go by the official definition

Anand Mehta [10:42]: irrational is not endowed with reason or understanding

William Sutton [10:42]: no

William Sutton [10:42]: i am not ok with that definition

Anand Mehta [10:42]: why so?

William Sutton [10:42]: well

William Sutton [10:42]: for one

William Sutton [10:43]: to get kicked out of the library

William Sutton [10:43]: and i have 12 things to do in the next 3 minutes

William Sutton [10:43]: so i dont want you to jump into this

William Sutton [10:43]: or i wont get them done

Why does it matter?

So today at work I ended up helping this really cute girl who had a question about the book "Britain in the Sixties." The topic of the book alone was enough to intrigue me, but when I found out she was a history major, learned she was going to the UK this summer, and saw the totally relaxed and unpretentious manner in which she carried herself, I was legitimately interested. I think it would be fair to say that I sweater, and I talkin' bout Coogi. For those of you who know me, you know it is somewhat rare for me to get excited by the prospect of asking out some BYU girl, but I was legitimately going to do so. You can ask Daniel who was working with me, he saw the excitement in my eyes. Anyway, I was just about to take a deep breath and spit some game when another patron came to the desk. By the time I finished answering his question, the girl was long gone. For a few minutes I was pretty bummed out about this, because I really did feel a vibe with this girl. She was so chill, so natural -- just way cool. As time went by, however, I started to wonder about the constructs we use for dating/meeting people, especially within the church. More specifically, why does it even matter that I thought this girl was so cool? There are lots of girls who I think are cool and lots of girls who I think are pretty. Often my judgments of those attributes change over time. Why is it in my best interest to date or pursue one girl over any other? Obviously, there are doctrinal reasons for getting married, and I not refuting those. I am simply saying that the whole process of going on dates etc or really worrying about one girl that I met seems way illogical since I might have a similar experience every week. There is no way of knowing at that point how one could be any better than another. In some ways it is a benefit that I didn't talk to the girl because if I decided to pursue it and she was lame, it would just confirm all my "hateristic," elitist conceptions of my BYU experience. Since I wasn't able to pursue it (I had to shoo it like a blacksmith) I now have the luxuary/burden? of being able to falsely idealize her and believe that she is way cool and would make me way happy to take out... I had some deeper thoughts on this, but I need to sign off the work computer which has aided me in my time theft (which I am now going to attempt to repay)... I might comment later. But yeah, just thinking about how/why attraction/interest has value, or what its value is? If I see the girl again I will for sure spit it, so I guess that means I attach some sort of value to the intellectual(?) attraction I had to her that is greater than physical attraction? Blah, I don't know. Just FYI, this girl had nothing to do with the previous post.

sex is everything?

why is there a natural reaction to be nicer to attractive girls than unattractive ones? i often break that inclination, but at least at first it is usually there. It kinds of seems like a huge moral failing hardwired into humankind.

Lacanian Theory, Reality, Hyperreality

We have been talking in my Comedy & Satire about some of these ideas lately... I don't know exactly what to say about them other than that they blow my mind. If you are not familiar, read these definitions... I bet they will make you think...

Lacanian Theory - In relation to post-modern identity and the pursuit of meaning or plenitude in the world of texts and entertainment.

Post-modern conceptions of identity construction can be traced, in part, to the psychoanalytic philosopher Jacques Lacan. In the 1960s and 1970s he took Freudian theory into post-structuralist territory by positing that the natural state of the psyche is one of fragmentation and dischord; as a result, it is unfixable and a stable identity cannot be established. According to Lacan, because of complications built into childhood phases of development, we are destined to pursue three main objectives throughout our lives that can never be satisfied: a search for solid identity, a re-creation of the sense of plenitude we experienced when we were with our mothers, and an achievement of idealized sexual gratification. As we move beyond early childhood, these searches are transferred into the "symbolic realm" of language, literature, entertainment, and music. While engaging with these substitute gratifications, we construct temporary, shifting, shallow identities that are borrowed from the culture at large -- often from iconic celebrities and stars who seem to embody more stable, heroic, and beautiful versions of what we aspire to be.

hyperreality

as described by the french philosopher, Jean Baudrillard, hyperreality is a characteristic of postmodern culture in which simulacrums dominate. Simulacrums are slick simulations or copies that have lot a connection to an original/a grounding in reality. Supposedly a cultural style that originated in the United States, it emphasizes visual culture, surface qualities, special effects, and recreations of old world authenticity.