"snap! it breaks and you just don't give a damn anymore..."

Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
by Edward Albee

"gave it all away"...

there is life and there is death and in between there is the chaos of existence;

the choice is to keep what is important and that is the now...

god is dead...

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

Also sprach Zarathustra, Fredriech Nietzsche, 1883-85

in three years...

even the chaos has lost its way and become more chaotic, an impossibility by definition, but the world is spiraling into whatever; whether this is a good thing or not, we may never know; however, we should keep this in mind -

"I say unto you; one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star."

- Friedrich Nietzsche, "Also sprach Zarathustra", 1883-85

Pascal's Wager...

..."God is, or He is not."
Blaise Pascal's Pensees

you cannot determine either by reason.

therefore you have to take a leap of faith or place a wager...

what are the possible consequences?

if you believe there is a god and there is, you then reap the rewards that the mythology promises;

if you believe there is no god, and there isn't, you lose nothing;

if you believe there is no god, and you are wrong and there is, you suffer all of the horrors the mythology forecasts;


of course, there is Richard Dawkins' anti-Pascal Wager -

"Suppose we grant that there is indeed some small chance that God exists. Nevertheless, it could be said that you will lead a better, fuller life if you bet on his not existing, than if you bet on his existing and therefore squander your precious time on worshipping him, sacrificing to him, fighting and dying for him, etc."

from The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

however, no one will make any odds available...


now, not to waste Pascal's thinking, it is responsible for four really important things: 1) charted new territory in probability theory; 2) one of the first attempts at using the idea of infinity; 3) the first use of decision theory; and 4) made possible the future philosophy of pragmatism.

not bad for a non-betting man...

my wager?

i prefer playing the ponies...



Pascal's Wager - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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I say unto you; one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

- Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

the end...

This is the end, beautiful friend
This is the end, my only friend
The end of our elaborate plans
The end of ev'rything that stands
The end

No safety or surprise
The end
I'll never look into your eyes again

Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need of
some strangers hand
In a desperate land

Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain
There's danger on the edge of town
Ride the king's highway
Weird scenes inside the goldmine
Ride the highway West baby

Ride the snake
Ride the snake
To the lake
To the lake

The ancient lake baby
The snake is long
Seven miles
Ride the snake

He's old
And his skin is cold
The west is the best
The west is the best
Get here and we'll do the rest

The blue bus is calling us
The blue bus is calling us
Driver, where you taking us?

The killer awoke before dawn
He put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall

He went into the room where his sister lived
And then he paid a visit to his brother
And then he walked on down the hall
And he came to a door
And he looked inside
Father?
Yes son
I want to kill you
Mother, I want to.............

Come on, baby, take a chance with us
Come on, baby, take a chance with us
Come on, baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus

This is the end, beautiful friend
This is the end, my only friend
The end

It hurts to set you free
But you'll never follow me

The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die

This is the end


- - Jim Morrison, The End, Doors

I wouldn't mind dying in a plane crash. It'd be a good way to go. I don't want to die in my sleep, or of old age, or OD... I want to feel what it's like. I want to taste it, hear it, smell it. Death is only going to happen to you once; I don't want to miss it.

- Jim Morrison


...enough said.

...and what do my words create?

The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity.

And in the way our differences combine to create meaning and beauty.

-- Dr. Miranda Jones and Spock, Is There in Truth No Beauty?
stardate 5630.8

...do i need anyone to give me the power to create meaning?
...did i receive this power from someone else?
...or did i give it to myself?

twenty-five days of nothing...

VLADIMIR:
...I'm beginning to come round to that opinion. All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything. And I resumed the struggle. (He broods, musing on the struggle. Turning to Estragon.) So there you are again.
ESTRAGON:
Am I?
VLADIMIR:
I'm glad to see you back. I thought you were gone forever.
ESTRAGON:
Me too.
VLADIMIR:
Together again at last! We'll have to celebrate this. But how? (He reflects.) Get up till I embrace you.
ESTRAGON:
(irritably). Not now, not now.

Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett

the time has come...

to realize that not only lemmings follow in step without question...

"The Walrus and the Carpenter"

... The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, "it WOULD be grand!"

"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The Walrus did beseech.
"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each."

The eldest Oyster looked at him.
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head --
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.

But four young oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat --
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet.

Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more --
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes -- and ships -- and sealing-wax --
Of cabbages -- and kings --
And why the sea is boiling hot --
And whether pigs have wings."

... "It seems a shame," the Walrus said,
"To play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"The butter's spread too thick!"

"I weep for you," the Walrus said.
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size.
Holding his pocket handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter.
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?"
But answer came there none --
And that was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.'

Lewis Carroll, from Alice Through The Looking Glass, Ch. 4


some follow carpenters...

the birth of god...

is only in the utterance of one word...

god

nothing exists until there is a word for it.

nothing...

the death of god...

Martha: Did you, did you have to?
George: Yes.
Martha: ...You had to?
George: Yes.
Martha: I don't know.
George: It was time.
Martha: Was it?
George: Yes.
Martha: I'm cold.
George: It's late.
Martha: Yes.
George: It will be better.
Martha: I don't know.
George: It will be, maybe.
Martha: I'm not sure.
George: No.
Martha: Just us?
George: Yes.
Martha: You don't suppose, maybe...
George: No.
Martha: Yes. No.
George: All right?
Martha: Yes. No.

George (singing softly to her):
Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf

Martha: I am George.
George: Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Martha: I am George, I am.

Albee, Edward: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, 1966

there has long been a cry following publication of Nietzshe's works that he declared that "God is dead!"
i don't believe that that is actually what he meant...
i believe he meant that man killed god...
god did not die of his/her own volition...
if he/she ever existed...

...do you see what i see?

the principle of surroundedness, according to which areas which can be seen as surrounded by others tend to be perceived as figures.*


i don't see anything...
i see something...
i see...

nothing...


*Chandler, Daniel: Codes, Semiotics for Beginners

rien...

Togod [to Faustus]: "Repeat after me. There is ... Nothing! Nothing ... nothing ... No! ... Nothing ... nothing ... That's it ... That's right ... That's the way it is."





Pour qui suis-je ?
J’ai oublié qui je suis!

Faustus, the Last Night, Pascal Dusapin, composer
Enregistré par France Musiques Commande et production de l'Opéra national de Lyon et du Staatsoper de Berlin, 2005

je ne pense pas...

Did you hear about Rene Descartes' visit to England? He went into a pub and the barmaid said "Can I get you something, luv?''

He said, "I think not.'' And disappeared.

anonymous

...et le monde continu ou pas!

a candle briefly out...

Macbeth: To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Shakespeare, William; Macbeth, Act 5, scene 5


...and then nothing?

if nothing, then despair...

I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased....

I was lying when I said just now that I was a spiteful official. I was lying from spite. I was simply amusing myself with the petitioners and with the officer, and in reality I never could become spiteful.

It was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not know how to become anything: neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, niether a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything.... I am forty years old now.... To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honestly. I will tell you who do: fools and worthless fellows.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor; Notes from Underground, I; originally published 1918.

...worthless fellows? ...fools? ...spite? ...honesty? ...amusing?

...words of despair?

and then consistency...

A. - Being - possible limit.
Possible - that which does not imply contradiction.

Existing - compossible with the most perfect.
Compossible - that which does not imply contradiction with another.
More perfect is that which has more of reality or of positive entity.

B. – Being or possible. Existing is that possible series which envelops more of reality, and whatever advances with that.

C. – Existence cannot be defined, no more than being or pure positive, so of course how can any clearer idea be presented to us; but it is known that every possible would exist if it could, but because not every possible can exist, those exist which are more perfect. And so that which is most perfect, it certainly is well known to exist. But there is some most perfect being, i.e. the greatest perfection that is possible, because it is nothing other than pure positive.

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm; DEFINITIONS (1683-94?); from Grua, Gaston (ed); Textes inédits tome 1 pp 324 - 325; Original translation © Maureen Sawbridge 2002; Revised translation © Lloyd Strickland 2003; Leibniz Translation.com

...how can one thing be more perfect than another?

another Koan...

Nothing Exists

Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.

Desiring to show his attainment, he said: "The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness. There is no relaization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received."

Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry.

"If nothing exists," inquired Dokuon, "where did this anger come from?"

Zen Koans


...is misery?

if nothing exists...

The Death of God as the Self-Overcoming of Christianity. What, in all strictness has really conquered the Christian God? The answer may be found in my Gay Science (section 357): "Christian morality itself, the concept of truthfulness taken more and more strictly, the confessional subtlety of the Christian conscience translated and sublimated into the scientific conscience, into intellectual cleanliness at any price. To view nature as if it were a proof of the good and providence of a God; to interpret history to the glory of a divine reason, as the perpetual witness to a moral world order and moral intentions; to interpret one’s own experiences, as pious men long interpreted them, as if everything were preordained, everything a sign, everything sent for the salvation of the soul — that now belongs to the past, that has the conscience against it, that seems to every more sensitive conscience indecent, dishonest, mendacious, feminism, weakness, cowardice: it is this rigor if anything that makes us good Europeans and the heirs of Europe’s longest and bravest self-overcoming.

All great things bring about their own destruction through an act of self-overcoming: thus the law of life will have it, the law of the necessity of "self-overcoming" in the nature of life — the law-giver himself eventually receives the call. . . In this way Christianity as a dogma was destroyed by its own morality; in the same way Christianity as morality must now perish too: we stand on the threshold of this event. After Christian truthfulness has drawn one inference after another, it must end by drawing its most striking inference, its inference against itself.

MSU.org SELECTED NIETZSCHE TEXTS



...then why have this conversation?