Moment of clarity, possibly?

I just finished 'I Don't Want To Kill You', by Dan Wells. Brilliant, but mostly unrelated. Now I'm thinking about why I find mentally-ill people so sympathetic; it's apparently a bit unusual. Mom, at least, has never hesitated to give voice to the fact that she finds it disturbing and wishes I wouldn't; I don't find it disturbing at all, and unlike some of the other things I enjoy or at least don't mind, I'm not even entirely sure why it might be seen as disturbing. Sociopaths, schizophrenics, malignant narcissists, what-have-you are all in basically the same position as the rest of fallen man but even worse off, because their suffering is, I don't know, an intrinsic part of who they are? (This is kind of a part I can't express well, but it gets down to the idea that personality disorders are harder to treat than broken bones.) It frustrates me to have Mom worry that this kind of concern is itself psychologically unhealthy. (Of course this may all just be justificationary reaction on my part, but I'm increasingly unconfident in that and will continue so until I know otherwise.)

This leads me back around to "I Don't Want To Kill You", because of why I love John Cleaver so much as a protagonist. Not only is he suffering from sociopathy, but he is consciously aware of, and fighting, it. Self-awareness is key. It's a meta-recursive strange-loop thingy, which as I concluded from Godel, Escher, Bach is both an intrinsic component of the human intellect and even more intrinsically a divine attribute, and therefore a part of how man is made in God's image. It is, consequently, absolutely and totally mind-boggling to me in a violently facepalming why would you do that screaming kind of way why anyone would consciously do that, yet circumstantial, testimonial, and, yes, internal evidence suggests that it happens all the time. Forgetfulness and apathy, mostly. But even that aside, it often seems people don't even try. Or think that they're already doing it - I know I'm not the only one who's noticed this. This empathy business doesn't seem to be all it's cracked up to be, frankly. Can't people honestly examine and question themselves? Why is 'DOUBT' such a scary word?

This is where my chain of reasoning breaks down, because the moment of clarity has passed, I am falling asleep, and my attention and thoughts have been drifting into other places even since I started writing this. But, it seems to me, I can try to bring this to peoples' attention. Help to complete that particular strange loop, raise self-awareness, whatever. I'm sure conscious rejection is possible, if inexplicable, but I can help prove the choice to more fully resemble the image of God. I need to write about it, because that's what I can do and what I seem to be decent at. And that comes back to casting traditional 'them's in a different light, playing Devil's Advocate in person, writing stories that enable readers to question whether that are themselves mad, or villainous, or absolutely in the right. Pride is pervasive and in need of deflating.

This moment of clarity, of course, is foremost just a restatement of what I already believe, albeit one that has seen multiple pieces of that net suddenly 'click' together, as well as one that demands rather more action from me than I usually give it. (Sloth is definitely my worst vice.) It's not really all that clear, even, considering how often I point out I'm unsure of some bit, which rather lends support to the idea that this is just a rationalization of my own preexisting behavior. That said, I can not think of a single thing that would contradict this and show why it might be wrong, but, of course, "the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it", &c. (Side-question: does the darkness understand the darkness? The light presumably understands both...) ...and there I go fixating on meta-recursion again. Plus I've implied a distinction between those who are self-aware and those who are not, which given my loathing for "Us-vs-Them" categories makes me quite a hypocrite. And that sentence establishes me as a self-aware hypocrite trying not to be, which I happen to think is the best kind of hypocrite to be, placing me back in the "good-guy" slot in my own mind... though the fact that I feel wrong considering myself a "good-guy" could just be showcasing a symptom of depression that I should be trying to avoid... but that statement is itself just a rejection of responsibility on my part...

Given that entire last paragraph, I'm really praying that this note at least started out on the right track.

Worldbuilding Worldview

I like to write stuff.

Actually, strictly speaking, I don't like the actual act of putting words on paper so much as I like coming up with the things that can be turned into words on paper, but that's part of the reason I got this blog in the first place.

Anyway, in either case, this is probably not a huge surprise.

What I was doing recently, while I was writing - or, as the case may be, not writing - that's a well-worn joke by now, I'm sure - was designing a universe. Not from scratch, that's rather beyond me, but starting with our universe and... tweaking things about it. Adding new and interesting particle sets that act in unusual ways, making gravitational fields act perpendicularly to the movement of electrical charges, that sort of thing. But, since none of these worlds are particularly interesting without people in them, I get to worldbuild the people too - and, even more interestingly, how they think. This means some primitive sociology, since to understand how my fictional societies think I need to figure out how normal people think first. Tricky.

The modern world operates on what might simplistically be termed the scientific method - we try different approaches and use the ones that seem to work. Why is that, exactly? Well... we've tried it before, and it seemed to work, so we keep using it.

That's very intuitive, yes?

That's when it occurred to me that this is rather similar to the charge thrown at various religions by ardent scientific humanists - you know the one, that "you only believe that book because it tells you to!" This, in turn, led me to wonder what other kinds of worldviews I can self-justify in this way. Here's my list...

(*NOTE: This is a thinking exercise more than anything else, so it's okay if I'm reductive to absurd lengths.)

- Scientific: Try everything and keep what works. We've done this before, and it seems to work.
- Post-modern: We took a poll among everybody, and we all agreed that we're mostly sane and have an accurate perception of reality. So if we ask each other, we've got a good chance of getting the right answer.
- Separatist: No need to bring in other people. I'M more usually right than wrong. Right? Right.
- Authoritarian: This guy here is really smart/enlightened/powerful/inspired, and he's right most of the time, which indicates a strong connection with the truth. So when he says we can trust him, it makes sense to believe him.
- Intuitive: My very existence can be described as "I am true". I have this in common with everything else that's true, a connection I should notice. The things I know best are those which are most familiar to me, so the things that feel most familiar are most likely to be true - actual familiarity as well as gut instincts, intuitions, and feelings of deja vu. It gets trickier if things don't seem familiar, so I should keep finding more information until it does connect with something familiar.
- Gnostic: Everything I encounter, true or false, has in common that I have encountered it, and is therefore connected to everything else I've encountered. By exploring this inner existence and finding what is true about myself, and following the connections from myself to the world, I can determine truths about the world. Deep inside, you know I'm right.

What this exercise is demonstrating to me, more than anything else, is the importance of paying attention, not to where your theory is right, but to where it is wrong. You can prove anything you like; but you can't disprove the truth, and if you succeed you obviously did something wrong.

It's not Thursday yet, but this is just a tech update

I've added the feedback bar thing. I had wanted a nice number of dichotomies so you could tell me that your impressions are that what I write is kind or cruel, true or false, beautiful or ugly, confusing or clear, justified or unjustified.

Unfortunately, I can fit all those into the little box but they'll only put up a few anyway. Foul technology, curse your surprising but inevitable betrayal!

So now there's just three options - good if you think I was persuasive, bad if you think I was unkind, and ugly if it's just too confusing to tell what just happened. (I expect this one to be quite popular.)

Also, I've gone back and added a bunch of links into Socrates Meets Malacoda for explaining what I had in mind with all the various philosophy/literary/science-y geeky references I made - maybe this will clear things up a bit?

Socrates meets Malacoda

Inspired by Peter Kreeft's Socrates Meets... series, and Dante's Inferno.

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[Setting: A nondescript beach sloping down to the ocean on the right and steeply rising into a high row of rocks on the right. Between them, unhurriedly, paces Socrates, head in the clouds and lost in thought, wandering in no particular direction other than simply down the beach. In front of him and on top of an especially flat part of the rock wall crouches Malacoda, watching and smirking fiendishly. Socrates sees him, appears puzzled, and speaks.]

Socrates: Good day, sir. Where are we… and who are you?

Malacoda: That first is complicated. As for the second, you may call me Malacoda.

Socrates: That is your name?

Malacoda: Indeed.

Socrates: But who are you? That does not actually answer my question.

Malacoda: Hmm. I am generally considered a demon, but not in the way that you understand the term. Consider me one of a number of gods of the afterlife, if you would. A devil.

Socrates: Ah. So I am, in fact, dead, then. I had wondered. This place is part of the afterlife, then?

Malacoda: Quite true. In fact it is the entirety of the afterlife, and a bit more besides.

Socrates: I’m sorry? Could you possibly elaborate?

Malacoda: Certainly. This land, from the shore of the Dirac Sea beside you to infinity behind me is the space where things are kept that do not exist. It is the home of the library of unwritten books, it is where we keep Theseus’ ship now that he has replaced every plank, it is where we hide the square root of infinity, and it is where [picks up a candlestick and ignites it with his breath] the flame of a candle goes after it has been blown out. Some call it Tumbolia, some call it Super-Sargasso Space, but properly it is known as Potentia. Naturally, now that you have ceased to exist, you have arrived here.

Socrates: You have said something very interesting to me. It is my understanding that at death, the body and soul are separated and each goes its separate way. Am I correct so far?

Malacoda: Yesss…

Socrates: And the body slowly returns to the material world.

Malacoda: Yes.

Socrates: Now, it is my understanding that the soul, the essential I, moves onto the spiritual world. But you have just said that I cease to exist and therefore comes here.

Malacoda: You have said it, Socrates.

Socrates: I find there is a rather stark difference between these two statements.

Malacoda: Not really. Since this spiritual world of yours does not exist, either, your essential “you” does in fact go there – it is part of Potentia.

Socrates: I think you’re lying.

Malacoda: That’s possible. We devils do so frequently. Wherein lies the falsehood?

Socrates: If nothing here exists, then what of yourself?

Malacoda: Oh, I do not exist either. I was dreamed up by Dante Alighieri. I am a construct of his mind alone, I never have been real, and I never will be. Thus, I have been made responsible for supervising Potentia on Hell’s behalf.

Socrates: Literary characters are here, too?

Malacoda: Didn’t you know? You yourself are a character of Plato’s invention and have no proper existence either.

Socrates: Don’t be absurd. Of course I exist.

Malacoda: Yes, you exist in Potentia.

Socrates: Very funny. You give this place a sort of twisted sense but it so flagrantly violates basic logic it’s impossible to believe you.

Malacoda: I suppose you cannot really think through the entire thing clearly yet. What can I do to prove it to you?

Socrates: You are going to try to prove empirically that our current location is not empirical?

Malacoda: Very sensible for such a place, isn’t it?

Socrates: Not if the place itself is not very sensible.

Creon: That is the point, I think.

Socrates: Who are you?

Malacoda: My empirical evidence; allow me to present the fictitious Creon of Thebes.

Socrates: Where did you come from? How do you know what we are talking about?

Malacoda: Has he not been here all along?

Socrates: No!

Malacoda: Precisely.

Creon: I have to agree with Socrates.

Malacoda: What?

Creon: You’ve been talking solely about terms so far. That is fine as far as logic goes, but as you both have come close to pointing out, logic is not very practical for talking about inherently self-contradictory things. Well, as far as empirical evidence goes, I can tell that I am currently standing on this beach, and therefore both the beach and I exist.

Malacoda: But I can provide any number of objects that do not exist or cannot possibly exist. Would you like to see an anti-knot?

Creon: I could not say. What is it?

Malacoda: If you tie a knot in a rope, the anti-knot is the knot you'd tie to cancel out all the twists of the first without actually untying it - and, since neither of them exists after they cancel each other out, they end up here. Alternatively, look at this rope with three ends, or this seven-sided cube.

Creon: This is irrelevant. I’m holding it right now. As far as I’m concerned, it must exist and you’re just wrong about it being impossible.

Socrates: I don’t suppose I could trouble you with a few questions?

Malacoda: Oh, not at all. Be my guest.

Socrates: All right. Could I confirm something with you first? I just want to be sure that when I am speaking to you I am speaking.

Malacoda: …what?

Socrates: I am making statements, yes?

Malacoda: That seems to be trivially, even tautologically, the case.

Socrates: And these statements, they are meaningful?

Malacoda: I suppose. Although not very.

Socrates: But they do, in fact, possess meaning.

Malacoda: I am responding to you, am I not?

Socrates: Is that a yes or a no? If you do not exist then some would say you cannot respond.

Malacoda: Clever! But no, I may not exist, but my responses do.

Socrates: How is that possible?

Malacoda: Because someone who exists is recording them.

Socrates: …Oh. Well then, this place Potentia. It is where things are kept that do not exist?

Malacoda: Indeed.

Socrates: And only things that do not exist?

Malacoda: …yes…

Socrates: Do some things exist?

Malacoda: Excellent question. I shall not say.

Socrates: Well. Does Potentia exist?

Malacoda: Umm. Suppose I say yes?

Socrates: Then I ask you how a place can exist when none of its features do.

Malacoda: Then I say no.

Creon: So this place is a part of itself?

Malacoda: Yes. Is this somehow impossible? The place you call Earth contains the entirety of the Earth, doesn't it? Besides, even if you think that there is something inherently impossible with a space containing itself, being impossible is part of the nature of this particular space.

Socrates: Can you show me something that is both nonexistent and indescribable?

Malacoda: [produces such an object] Voila.

Socrates: Impressive.

Malacoda: Thank you.

Socrates: But unsuccessful.

Malacoda: What?

Socrates: That thing there can be described as “something both nonexistent and indescribable”. Since I just described it, it is not indescribable. Moreover, I can say that about anything that “only exists in Potentia” – so if it is indescribable, it cannot not exist.

Malacoda: So?

Socrates: If it does not not exist, then it must exist.

Malacoda: Well! I concede that some things exist, then.

Socrates: But by definition, something both nonexistent and indescribable cannot possibly exist. So now we have an object that neither exists, nor does not exist – a logical impossibility.

Creon: These are just word games. If he cannot produce it for you, then obviously it does not exist, and that’s the end of it.

Socrates: I don’t believe these he’s contributing anything to the discussion. Can we be rid of him?

Malacoda: Of course.

Socrates: How do you do that? Did you make him start existing?

Malacoda: Well, what if I did?

Socrates: Then you’re a creative being and certainly no devil, if as you said a devil is a god of death. It’s as I thought. You have been lying about this entire situation. Potentia cannot exist as such, and neither can any of the things – or people – you have attempted to use as proof. Well, this has been a fascinating diversion, but I have an afterlife to investigate, so if you’ll excuse me…

Malacoda: Sssss! Objective unreality defies your wordplay! Tell me. Did you ever meet Euthyphro?

Socrates: I… hmm. I do seem to recall conversing with him, but I could have sworn he was dead…

Malacoda: Exactly! You remember a fiction Plato wrote about you. You’re sufficiently nonexistent for me to keep you stuck here!

Socrates: Do you mean to say I’m a prisoner of a nonexistent being in an impossible place for no good reason?

Malacoda: Precisely!

Socrates: And, to be clear on this point, there is absolutely no way to escape?

Malacoda: None whatsoever!

Socrates: Ah. Well, if a way to escape doesn't exist, then I'll just go find it, won't I?

Malacoda: Wait, what? That's... umm...

Socrates: Goodbye.