The Chain

After writing my last post, I started thinking about the way that I think. And once again, I'm just going to write and not edit, because I doubt I'll read through it again and make much sense of it.

My brain tends to get stuck. A thought, as thoughts tend to do, will pop in innocently enough. But then it won't go. And I just keep thinking about it.

Or does the thought "think" about itself?

What I mean by a meaningless statement like that, is that when trying to describe how I think, I find that I can't describe what it even means to think.

I've got an idea. How did it "get there"? Wherever there is?

And even more confusing is trying to think about how a thought develops? What is it that moves an idea and rolls it over and turns it into a new idea? or a conclusion? Well, "I" am the one controlling this thought. But I don't have experience of that. Not really. All I have is experience of thought progression.

Maybe I'll work on a more tangible example. Moving my arm. I think about moving my arm, and my arm moves. But what if what I'm describing, and believe to be an experience of control, is actually just an experience of impulses that I have no control over, but constantly coincide. If "I" am just an awareness that can experience all impulses in my body and mind, then maybe every time I think I am consciously moving my arm, is just a movement of my arm coupled to a thought or belief that I have somehow moved my arm. Meanwhile, I am just aware of these two thoughts, and in the absence of any other evidence, I peace this together into an experience of "me" actually having played a role at all.

What I think I'm trying to say, is that if "I" am just this awareness, and the impulses moving my arm and and the idea that I have moved my arm, are coming from "me" or are being initiated by something besides this apparent consciousness, how would I, in fact, be able to tell? I have no connection I experience between the arm moving, and the thought of the arm. They just coincide every time.

So, if "I" am not magically initiating impulses, what else could it be? Well, nothing, at least in biological or physical terms, seems to happen without a cause. This is a major assumption I'm throwing in here. Causation can be argued separately. But I am assuming, (and I think not too unfairly so) that things don't just happen. something causes something else.

Could it, then, just be a chain of impulses and events more complicated than we could ever imagine or conceive? Maybe. Maybe, since my body was first made, it has functioned based entirely on a cause and effect, stimulus-response, system so complex and intricate that the collection of experiences of this bizarre situation accidentally formed into some sort of awareness that has mistaken itself for a consciousness that is actually controlling the whole thing. Like gloves thinking that they're moving the hands.

And then, if that's the case, there is no such thing as "me" thinking. There is only an awareness of thoughts. Not mine per se. Just thoughts that are there. In which case, I once again arrive at confusion about what this "I" is. Because if all that is plausible. Which I compelled to think it is. (I have no say in the matter, remember?) Then what I believe to be the "I", isn't actually there?

I have a headache.

Existence is Weird

This isn't a complaint. Really more of an obervation. As well as an obervation of an observation. I don't really understand what I'm trying to say, so I'm not editting this. I'm just gonna write non-stop and post, spelling mistakes and all.

Each and every one of us (assuming you all exist) only have the opportunity to experience existence, that is all that is and will ever be and ever was anywhere, from a very specific perspective. Your perspective.

I only get to experience through Jonny's body and Jonny's mind with all the associated limitations, albeit they are few and far between. I only get to observe a very particular point in existence covered in a fairly generous coating of cynicism, and always reflected upon with a sarcastic tilt. My experience of it all is quite different from yours. This difference is a little more profound than the issue of whether or not we both really experience the same thing when you and I both claim to be looking at a green light. I mean that the way in which we assemble everything together to form a semblance of understanding of the world around us is drasticlly, and unavoidably, different.

So, if we approach what we think we understand about existence as very deeply engrained acceptance of the only thing we have ever really believed we have experienced - existence - and we are free to muse about other types of existence that could have occured or could occur in some alternate reallity we don't understand, we can ask the question of what existence would be like if we weren't relegated to a single mind. Existence could have been very different, and much fuller.

Wrapped up in the language that I've been using is the suggestion that the "I" I'm talking about, is, in fact, a separate entity from the mind it uses. "I" am not cynical and sarcastic. "I" am just observing through a cynical and sarcastic mind. I'm not quite sure what to think about this. Really just an obervation about the way that I've been thinking about this particular issue. Can I really think of a good argument to suggest that "I" am separate from my mind? I'm not sure. I am not my body. If I have no arms, I'm still me. But, still, if someone punches me in my attached arm, they've punched me. "MY mind". Does that suggest that the mind is a part of the "me" in the same way that the arm is? Or maybe the confusion I'm having is just a product of language. Maybe if I spoke Chinese, or Icelandic, or Esperanto, I'd have a fuller understanding of the mind-body-me problem. Maybe, thinking in our own language limits the way in which we think and can actually experience the world? There are like 50 words for happy in the English language. And many of them really do have slightly different meanings and connotations, and suggestions of a slightly different emotion. If a person that speaks Esperanto only has a single word for happy (because esperanto is a loser language), how could I ever actually teach them to understand my words if they only have a single conception of what they all represent? If another language has a word for which we have no parallel, does that mean that I actually have no capacity to experience whatever that word represents? Nor could I ever fully come to understand the word - only the situations in which to use it. And all that being the case, if you speak a different language, does your experience of the world broaden or close in with respect to the complexity of the language? We can only experience the four basic dimensions. But there are others. In the same way, my comprehension of the universe stops where my vocabulary stops. Maybe the real issue with existence that I don't have the language to express the issues that I'm trying to understand about it.

The Book

So, three years ago, in first year university, a combination of conversations between Shockwave Dave, Sweet D (Dan), and mein-self spawned an idea for a book. The book was called "Shut-Up", and it's inception alone assumed such a robust quantity of insight and entitlement on our parts that the fabric of the universe almost collapsed.

The concept of the book was that not enough people regularly take a Descartesian step back from themselves to really evaluate the world or themselves. The result being jerks, Western consumer mentality, and everyone wetting themselves over Titanic.

Anyway, we thought ourselves clever enough to be able to tell everyone what their problems were. I think I was the only one of the group that actually went ahead and started writing the thing, so I suppose I was the only one of the group narcicistic and delusional enough. Luckily my acer lap-top, despite being terrible and burning me regularly, must have been equipped with some sort of ego-resistant casing, otherwise I'm sure something cool would have happened to space-time.

But, then I thought about it a bit. Since I've admitted that fact, I have taken that step outside of myself that I was talking about. I re-evaluated my behaviour with as fair an eye as a biased evaluator can have, and I've decided this. If I decide to keep my opinions to myself in order to avoid the inference that I think my point of view is the best, and that I'm super great, then I would have to be of the opinion that no-one should share their opinions because they are all necessarily biased and unfair. Well I certainly don't admit that. In addition to the fact that my expression of an opinion that no opinion ought to be expressed raises a contradiction that would make creationists shudder, I think that the expression or exploration of opinion is the only way that we can really learn anything of value. So, for that reason, I think the expression of strong opinions, with the humbling disclaimer that I very well might be dead wrong, is the most happy medium I can come up with.

So, I'm still gonna tell everyone what I think...but I suppose I could be wrong.

The Black Eyed Peas' new singles are bad, and if you like them, you should feel bad.

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The Problem With Morality

The world would have been much easier to deal with when everyone just had a spear.

Do you ever feel like its too much? Like we’re too smart and can reflect too deeply? It feels sometimes like we’re at a breaking point, where our powers to create and produce, and our analytical capacity have grown so much, but without the capacity to remedy the contradictions we find. We have developed the world to a point where we have no arguments to fully account for it. Everyone is right and everyone is wrong and we are caught in the middle, able to realise this, and able to realise that there is nothing we can do about it.

For example. We can produce a vaccine for a disease, but we test it on mice in order to maximize the benefit experienced by humans. We have to use animal subjects because to use human subjects would be immoral. We have the capacity to perform this experiment, but we also have the analytical powers to see a real problem with this - we have no valid reason to believe that it would be moral to save humans over mice. But we have no capacity to solve the issue. It would be immoral, given our ability, not to produce this life-saving vaccine. All we can do is ignore the moral issue that the moral necessity of the vaccine creates. It really just comes down to the preferences of those in a position of power.

It seems that whoever designed morality did not account for a species either this smart, or this stupid. We’re tinkering in a broken system and ignoring the problems whenever we find it convenient.

I’m reluctant to say that there is really much of a difference in the way that we behave from that of our cave-dwelling precursors. We just have more complicated spears.

The Curse of the Garage Sale

(adapted from my tumblr post. don't tell the blog-police.)


Recognized by Playboy Magazine to be the "Coolest Store", Big Fun is the coolest store.

Situated somewhere between a gas station and a Chipotle in Cleveland, Ohio, Big Fun has all things nostalgic. And I really do mean all things. I walked in and my brain almost had to pre-emptively knock me unconscious to protect me from the explosion of childhood memories you experience when you see a GI Joe circa 1989. There were literally hundreds of transformers, He Man toys, and Garbage Pail Kids.

I recognized a Dinobot named Slag.

A metalic looking triceratops transformer from my childhood which was unfortunately carried away by the excitement of a few garage sale bucks. I was heart-broken to find out that it cost $75. This was a cautionary tale.

Do not get rid of your toys! None of them. My dad got rid of his comic books. Superman number one and the like. Comic books which, today, would be worth tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars collectively. Not joking.

I got rid of boxes and boxes of He-man, Power Rangers, Transformers, and Swamp Thing collectibles (Oh god...The MEGA-ZORD!!!). Not only am I now unable to sell them for sky-high stacks due to the fact that 2009 Jonny does not have these killa toys, but I can't play with them! Unless I want to part with some seriously mad cheddar.

Do not get rid of your toys, and don't let your children get rid of their toys.

I miss you Slag.

So very much.

The Reason Everyone Should Watch Step Brothers

Step Brothers was a terrible movie. It was so bad. It was just further evidence that Will Ferrell is out. While Anchorman was crap-my-pants funny, it later became apparent that he only knows about three jokes because they were repeated throughout his other movies in one form or another. He can eat fecies (pretty much hilarious by itself, and doesn't require much added Ferrell charm), he can make amusing mythological references (to the beard of Zeus and Oden's raven, that type of stuff), and he can really sport fake genitals (boner in Anchorman, awesome fake sack in Step Brothers).

Anyway, I got within five minutes of the ending, primarily because there was nothing else on. Also, I already expended all the effort moving the Lay-Z-Boy really close to the T.V. so that I wouldn't have to expend undue effort focussing my eyes and whatnot. (I work really hard at being lazy). Anyway, I had spent the previous hour and a half working up the energy to grab the remote and turn it off, when suddenly, this piece of garbage movie almost exploded my brain with revelation.

About six or seven years ago, I was in George's restaurant on Eglinton, right around the corner from Devastatin Dave's house, and I heard one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard play. No-one knew what it was called. And I've spent all that time up till now with this mystery slowly gnawing at my mind. Well, for no apparent reason, at the end of the movie, Will Ferrell sang it. So, I was able to find what it was called by referencing the movie using the interweb.

Por Ti Volare.

Wicked song. But more than that, you know the feeling of working so hard to remember where you heard a line, or curing tip-of-the-tongue syndrome? well it was like I had tip-of-the-tongue-syndrome for seven years and then my face exploded after figuring it out.

So, using my deductive powers of logic, I have concluded that this terrible, terrible movie has magical powers and will also solve all of your mysteries. I can't stress enough how terrible it was. But apparently the movie was enchanted by a wizard, and if you have the sticktoitiveness to sit through something like that, you get a wish granted.

Just terrible.

The Problem With What I Just Wrote

The problem with writing so cryptically, is that everyone is self involved and believes that I was actually writing about them.

I assure you, I wasn't. This is all about me. I am the greatest, and am the least self-involved person ever.

The Problem With Writing

Most of the things that I feel I need to write about, also happen to be the things preventing me from writing about them. I don't mean to be overly cryptic, but I've spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how to write about them without writing about them, and that was the most straightforward way of putting it that I could come up with.

For example. Let's say I have a job with a boss about whom I have serious complaints (not the real case, just an example). It also happens, that this boss is the person to whom all complaints go.

The problem is self-incrimination. One of the reasons to write is to be able to put your thoughts outside of yourself for a moment in order to better understand them. Its like having an unshelled peanut (a peanut in its shell) in your mouth. You have a general idea of what the peanut itself is like, but you can't quite access it. So you spit out the whole thing, crack it open, and then eat the peanut.

Writing is pretty much exarctly the same thing.

The thing is, that in that process of spitting out the unshelled peanut, anyone can look in your mouth and see the disorganised and unflattering peanut shell remnants.

Hmmm, I'm not sure if that made any sense.

The Problem with Growing Up

By "problem", I don't necessarily mean to connote a wholly negative perspective. I just mean to say that we encounter an issue. That issue being: What do I do now? Depending on the individual, the decision may be predetermined. It might be based on directions a person has already taken, or capacity, or pressure from family, or perceived expectations for the particular socioeconomic status in which the decision-maker finds him or herself. Ideally the decision is based on personal preference - if you want to be an astronaut, be an astronaut.

Now, it seems like a pretty obvious statement that the latter group is the better group to be in. But now I'm not so sure.

I learn the most at lunch.

Sitting down for a sweaty Harvey's-wich and a 4 dollar bottle of tap-water with Shockwave Dave has, without exception, been the most enlightening part of every day at university. It's at those times that we both unravel the riddles of the universe and muse about what could have made that bottle of water so darn special. One lunch we developed a framework for policing inept professors that would improve both enrollment and the quality of education, while costing the university nothing.


These lunches were really something.

Well, one lunch this past winter, Dave and I were getting into one of our usual critiques of the education system, and it turned into a discussion about the whole life system. The "go to school so I can get a job so I can have a family so I can continue working till I die" system. I'll spare you some of the details, but the crux of it is that we didn't buy it. Basically, a big WHY? Why do we have to spend some of the best years of our life being taught things we don't care about? So we can get a piece of paper that says so?

It doesn't seem like quite enough.

But, the way Western society works (I mean actual Western society, not University of Western Ontario society, which is another post in itself), it is enough. And this is the game you have to play if you want to succeed succeed in it.

But, anyway, out of this discussion, came the decision that we wouldn't buy into it. That we would only follow what we were passionate about following, and screw all the rest.

Before this lunch, I wanted to be a doctor, and I didn't have to question it. By every parameter set out, this was a good decision. I would be financially stable and able to support a family, I would be able to help the rest of society, and so on. But after lunch, its not so much that these reasons disappeared, but only that I was left without an explanation for them. Perhaps I do want a family, but now that I've renounced the rules, I better come up with a damn good reason why.



You see, before, I had a framework in which to fit my decisions, but once I've abstacted away those external pressures, I'm left having to explain my reasons to myself. And I definitely can't bull-shit myself. This is the problem. Without some external pressures to suggest a direction, how could you possibly make that internal decision to be passionate about something you've never done? How does every science student in first year university claim to know that they want to be doctors, and actually believe it?



In 2006, the first science class on the first day of first year university was Biology. There were 800 students. The prof asked, "How many of you want to be doctors?" 800 hands went up.



I was walking home from the library with a friend after a 12 hour study day during February mid-terms this year, and I was pretty burnt out and fed up. I explained my predicament to this friend.



"I think I want to be a doctor. It seems like the right thing for me, but I don't know why. How to I know that it's what I want to do versus years of either real or perceived external pressure from society, or my parents, for example, that have just sort of seeped into this life decision?"



My friend decided to complicate the issue further. He asked, "Just because you're aware that the forces pushing you might not be ones you've chosen, why does that make them bad? Maybe you just need to be content with a direction that seems good from all those angles, because until you've done it, I don't think you'll find your explanation."



And I found myself envying the owners of the other 799 hands.

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The Case of the Mysterious Co-worker

Unfortunately, this post had to be removed. I realised that the person in question, through a roundabout series of friends and acquaintances, could obtain knowledge of this post, and the point of this blog is not to antagonise anyone. That being said, I decided to take it down so as not to potentially upset anyone. But, the point remains the same; Seinfeld is the sheez.

More posts coming soon. I'm working on straightening out some thoughts from the past week into potentially coherent rants, so we'll see how that turns out.

The Green Hornet

There was a car.

It was a dark green 1991 Dodge Spirit, and it lived up to its name. It was alive and kicking for almost two decades. This car was known to man as The Green Hornet. It was my first car, and it was really quite special.

It had two previous owners, one of whom was my brother. The owner before that was a friend that really meant a lot to my family and myself, embiggening the car with heaps of sentimental value.

Anyway, this car got me through third year in style - the caution tape on the trunk, the spike on the hood of the car from when my brother slammed the hood while a headlight-bulb was standing on the engine block, the fickle radio with a heart of gold - it truly was a chariot of kings. But, as with many other 18 year old cars, it was eventually flipped the bird by Father Time and as I write this is being crushed into a small cube.

This car was often one of the only places where I could really organise my thoughts, and think them. But, with the crushing and all, it's a little tougher these days. So, in the absence of several thousand dollars to reconstitute the car into a functioning machine, I have opted for a much cheaper, albeit less driveable, solution - blogging.

So, with any luck, this will help me organise my thoughts about life, God, and sandwiches. So, be prepared for some directionless ramblings.