I’m not talking about a literal game. I’m talking about literal life. It’s absurd to talk about “life”. Or, as Marvin the android said, “Life? Don’t talk to me about life!” But we do. We can try to talk about life, but it’s like talking about anything, except “life” is not just “anything”; it’s virtually “everything”. Whatever you talk about, it’s as much talking about talking and words as it is... [Read More]

More things. More precisely made. Sometimes. From factories, instead of hands. Things from moulds. The more manufactured stuff we buy and own, the more manufactured we are. Am I more than my purchase history? If we didn’t have factories and factory-made products, we would all be living simpler, more precarious lives. We’d all be doing a lot more hard physical labour, without the machines. There’... [Read More]

In a war of all against all, the outcome is effectively random. I’m haunted by Margaret Thatcher’s assertion: “there is no such thing as society.” I believe that she was mistaken. Except that in some ways, she was right. What did she mean by “society”? What does anyone mean? Does it matter? Society is an idea meant to help us understand the world. It is a model: an approximation—a simplificatio... [Read More]

I don’t usually try to make bold, blunt, philosophical assertions. But I thought that today I would stick my neck out, and accept whatever shame and embarrassment it earns me. I am an empiricist. I privilege observations of physical phenomena over all other means of knowing. I am a mathematical empiricist. I believe—supported by ubiquitous observational evidence—that the universe follows mathemat... [Read More]

Desire breeds conflict. Desire creates scarcity. Scarcity creates conflict. Conflict creates misery. Freedom from misery implies freedom from desire. To eliminate desire, we would have to eliminate organic life. Life is desire. Or at least consciousness: the awareness of pain. We don’t want to eradicate life. And most of us cannot imagine a life free of desire. So we must endure suffering. In ... [Read More]

My post yesterday was really a preface to the hardest question. This post is very rambling. If anyone attempts to read it, it’s probably worth skimming. It’s not that complicated. I am supposed to be creative. When I was young, I was very creative. Even into my 20s. Then I got (back) into computers, as a job and career. I worked in sales, system support, and finally development. Even as a teenag... [Read More]

This is the perpetual question. Every moment of every day, you can decide to do something different. But deciding is itself arduous. And it only gets more arduous every day, as the number of options increases. Though, for many, the high cost of exploring alternatives prohibits their discovery and evaluation. Taking an alternative route itself has pre-conditions that incur a cost. One that is ofte... [Read More]

Is this question easy to answer, or difficult? It seems simple. Knowledge is valuable if it helps you surive and prosper. If you like knowing things for the sake of it, then I suppose all knowledge helps you prosper. I think that is a good way to be. But you still have to navigate the world, both physically and socially. That takes knowledge. Although maybe it takes less knowledge than in the pa... [Read More]

What is common knowledge? A somewhat ambiguous question. Both interpretations are important. What do most people know? What should they know? What do they know about what others know, and what do they believe about what others should know? Knowledge—or ignorance—is a rabbit hole. But maybe it’s worth trying to find the bottom, so that we can start filling it in. There is a war on. Not just now, ... [Read More]

I am not a political scientist. Nor a philosopher. Or anything similar. But I like to consider the state and nature of human society. Or, if “society” is too abstract, simply the behaviour of people in relation to one another—in contrast to their behaviour in relation to objects and nature. Society is a kind of fiction. But so is everything. It’s hard to talk about things, for this reason. For so... [Read More]