This paradox is from Scripture.

"The more words, the less meaning, and how does that profit anyone?"

Every single statement has a value of meaning to it.  Thus, shouldn't adding more statements increase the amount of meaning?  Shouldn't a page of writing mean more than a paragraph, and a novel more than a short story? 

The same truth, that adding more words may drain some meaning away, is also affirmed in Shakespeare's, "Brevity is the soul of wit."  One quick remark can have an impact like a cannonball, while a longer one may be like a feather.   

But I think it makes sense that less words would hold more meaning than many many words.  After all, the New Testament is only a couple hundred pages, and there have probably been millions of pages written on it since. 

Paradox #4.

Magicians are some of the most adored and hated people on the planet.  They vex us beyond the reach of our imagination, dazzling our minds with their legerdemain.  We love them for how amazing their tricks are, but it is frustrating that their methods are obscured from us.

We think their tricks are amazing, and want desperately to know how they are done.  But if we knew how they were done, then they would not be amazing to us anymore.  Therefore we arrive at a species of paradox based on desire.

The hook of magic is that we don't know how it's done.  Therefore, our desire to know how the tricks are done is misplaced.  We think magic is amazing, but want to know how it's done, in which case it wouldn't be amazing anymore.  We want to know, but we don't want to know, since that would ruin it.

I suppose there is a second paradox here, because I really do hate and love magicians.  My reaction to the best tricks is simultaneously, "Wow! Awesome!" and "What?! How did you do that?!?" 

Have a terrific evening!

It's that time again.  The parathon rolls on.

Generally, most people hold the assumption that they are right.  The way people go through life is with the underlying presupposition that they are right in what they think, say, and do.  Who goes through life thinking they are wrong about everything?

At the same time, we also continually learn that we were wrong about things which we had previously thought we were right.  In short, we learn that we were incorrect.  And yet, we also still hold the assumption that we are completely correct. 

Both these statements then emerge as being thought true by people: 'I am right about everything' and 'I continually learn that I am wrong.'  Thus the paradox. 

This particular phenomenon could also possibly be described as an instance of doublethink.  Many times people will (double)think, "It's possible that I'm wrong....but I'm not." 

Wow!  Paradoxes are everywhere.  It seems the world is turning more into paradoxland everyday!

The maradox continues.  Here is a paradox concerning voting. 

It is true that the more people who vote, the less your vote will matter.  Obviously if only three people, including yourself, vote, your vote is tremendously more significant than if fifty million people vote.  Thus, for every person who votes, your vote loses significance.  But that means if you vote, your vote decreases your own vote's significance. 

If you want the most significant vote possible, then you shouldn't vote, since your vote loses significance when you vote.  But that's paradoxical.  One could say that an uncast vote has no significance, and therefore isn't more significant than a cast vote.  Even in this case, however, it remains true that the casting of your vote lessens the significance of itself, since the more votes there are, the less your vote matters. 

Therefore, from the two statements 'You ought to vote' and 'Your vote lessens the significance of your vote' we can derive the paradox 'You ought to lessen the significance of your vote.'

Wow.  That was quite fun.  What do you think, friends?

Paradoxes have been popping up all over the place recently, so I think I'll do a paradox marathon. (Or perhaps it should be called a parathon, or a maradox.)  I'll only do one a day beause paradoxes are a mental delicacy, so it's best to consume them like you would food at a fancy sit down restaurant: nice and slow.  Also, I've heard OD'ing on paradoxes isn't good for your brain.  It could explode or something.

The first paradox is making fun of someone based on their age.  Lots of seniors in high school make fun of the freshmen for all their intellectual and social shortcomings, like they are the parvenus of the school.  Or some make fun of the elderly because of mental deficiencies or physical handicaps they may have acquired, or something of the like.  The paradox arises when you consider that your life is ultimately the timeline of you living from birth 'til death.  Assuming you live to old age, your life will have been you living at every stage of life.  Thus, when you make fun of someone based on age, you are invariably making fun of yourself. 

For a given person, then, based on what they have said about people younger or older than them, certain parts of their life must be condemned.  If they make fun of freshmen, they must condemn themself when they think of themself as a freshmen.  Eventually, because they made many derisive pronouncements at different ages about those younger and older than them, a person's entire life may end up being completely self-condemned. 

See ya tomorrow!

I wonder, is there someone out there who can look up at the stars and not feel overcome with wonder and awe?  All day long we bury our minds in the present matters of our lives, but then we are stopped cold amidst our schedules and thoughts to see how awesome the universe is we live in.  My mind always stops and freezes to think, 'I can't believe I'm in the universe.'  What power and majesty, what breadth and beauty.  I can look at my hand right in front of my face, and then turn and see a star an unfathomable distance away; how curious is this dichotomy of my vision's options. 

Is it not overwhelming to look up at the stars?  When I do, I feel the weight and depth of being a human wash over me.  I am reminded of how singular and momentary life is.  I imagine all the other humans throughout all of history looking to the stars and thinking about the meaning of life and their curious presence in the universe.  But the nature of reactions can vary.  The universe may look cold and dark, or it may look beautiful and amazing.  One can be angry that they have been put here and forced to live a life, or one may be humbled and grateful to be able to take part in the earth's story. 

But no words can sum it up for me.  Looking at the stars makes me feel like words never could.  How humbling they are! 

Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie.

If you were on Jeopardy and were completely and utterly incorrect, you could say, "Give a stupid answer, get asked a stupid question."

In the middle ages Europeans didn't know about sugar.  It also just so happened that life expectancy in the middle ages was extremely low, which obviously must have been from all the splenda consumption. 

What would happen if people stopped using the word archaic?

They really ought to make shaving cream that is also whipped cream.  That way shaving cream doesn't always have to be causing an immediate desire for whipped cream with no way of appeasing it. So then shaving could also be snacking. Or if you get pie'd in the face, and have a razor on you, another convenient situation arises.

Wouldn't it be awesome if life really was a musical?  At random times in public, the lyrics and synchronized choreography to a song would pop into the heads of everyone in the vicinity, who would then sing and dance it out.  Music from who-knows-where would start playing for the song, and afterwards everyone one would simply continue on their way.   

My last post was quite the maze of discursive thoughts, it did not merit being up too long.  So now here have been a few ideas from thoughts along the way, which have now become thoughts along your way.  Now add your 2 eProps...er, I mean, your 2 cents! 

We know that life is something because we cannot sit still.  Imagine a person sitting perfectly still in a chair without thinking.  This is obviously not what we do everyday.  Now think about what your life actually looks like.  Thus, we know that life is something because we cannot sit still, and we know what it is by thinking about sitting still and our actual lives and taking the difference. 

Or take the actual fact of the case, which is that we wake up to start each day.  This means the default state of human beings is being supine and unconscious.  This is the bottom line of the day; your life can be described as what happens after that fact.  Picture your eyes opening slowly at the dawn of day; you are resuming the main event, like diving back into the pool after a break.  We see physical reality, we are drenched with life again. 

From this moment on, we begin smothering life's canvas once more.  As seconds are shoved into the past, we think certain thoughts and say certain words, which then become the content of our lives.  Every day starts blank, then at the end we can look back and see the completed picture that was the day. 

The greatest illustration of life's format of waking and living each day is the movie Groundhog Day.  It seems we have all been thrust into this bizzare recurring theme of waking each day and interacting with the other humans; every day the same thing!  This is what happens to Bill Murray.  Haven't you ever awoken and thought, "I'm here again ... weird."  By watching the movie you can see all the different ways it is possible for each day to be lived based on how we choose to live them.  Our actions and words steer each day toward a certain destination.  And soon enough our days become our lives. 

Life is the ultimate improvisation; we are deciding how to live it every moment.  I experienced this truth with a few friends about a week ago when we were playing Lord of the Rings Risk and I started asking them which movie has the line, 'Never tell me the odds.'  One of them got that it was Star Wars, but they couldn't get that it was The Empire Strikes Back (Han Solo says it to C-3PO).  But then a debate ensued over where it was in the movie, one of the options being when he is about to go look for Luke in the snowstorm, the other being when they begin to fly through an asteroid field.  One of them went into the family room and began looking for the movie to find out while we continued discussing it.  He played the movie and we found out that it was when they enter the asteroid field.

Then suddenly I realized that all the things that were happening were resulting from the fact that I had began asking the question about the movie line.  But I hadn't planned to say it, but then I did, and it became the content of our lives for the next few minutes.  I talked with one of the guys about this phenomenon for the next minute or so, and our minds were quite blowing up.  Thus, we concluded, everything in our lives is here because of all the things that happened before it that people and ourselves might not have done but did.

At any given moment we can say anything, and add to the picture we are seeing the words we have in mind.  But we have the choice to add them or not.  If we add them, they will become a part of the conversation, and enter other people's minds, but if we don't, they won't, and only we will know about them.  What an overwhelming reality this is, where we hold the freedom to say what we will.  But not only what we say matters; what we think is who we are.

What an amazing thing life is!

Hello again, confreres!

Judging from the last few posts, it seems I have been thinking in bullet point format recently.  The nature of the mind is to have a constant inner monologue of thoughts, it seems, and that monologue is essentially who each person is.  Who a person constantly is, then, is the total summation of their internal monologue of meaning all culminating in the next moment. 

But it is nice every now and then to think in strafing run style.   Besides, it seems like we think in dashes anyways—where one thought interrupts the one before.  You see one thing and think about it—but then this thought says "look at me!"—and now someone's talking to you—and now you've rememeberd you're late!  Thoughts arrive like missiles in our minds.  To focus specifically on one thought for a long time, following it to see where it leads, is what I would call a meditation.

We think like slide projectors.  There are many thoughts to get through, and we see the image of the one we are currently thinking about in the forefront of our mind.  But then we flip to the next thought.  That's sort of like these last few posts; slide projectors of thoughts.  And with that, let us begin today's presentation.  *turns out lights, turns on slide projector* 

Want to learn adjectives?  Go to a movie store.  By perusing the aisles of movies you will see adjectives like 'Thrilling!' 'Amazing!' 'Extraordinary!'  I am sure movie critics are avid fans of thesauruses. 

Sometimes when I am out late with friends, near a forest or a park, or some ominous place like that, someone will say, "Guys, let's get out of here! There could be an axe murderer around here!"  But if places like those are where people assume axe murderers would go, wouldn't that also stop the axe murderers from going there?  If everyone has that rationale, I don't see what would stop the axe murderer from thinking it as well.  As far as I know, no one, not even an axe murderer, wants to be muderered. 

It must be weird to be pregnant.  I always want to ask mothers, isn't it weird to grow a person inside of you?  Or you could ask any parent, what's it like to have spawned another creature?  What's it like to be able to actualize another autonomous being?  Looking at a young child you can think, "That thing wasn't here, but now it is here, and it thinks on it's own." Wow!

Retreating is just charging the long way.

I have discovered a grave injustice occurring up and down every city street.  There are parking meters that you put money into to park your car on the street.  But then the people take all the money out of the parking meters, and the parking meters don't get any cut of the profits.  They do all the work, and don't get paid at all.  It's basically slave labor.

*lights come back on*  Well, that's our show.  Have a lovely day! 

Some year when I am older I may think, 'I wonder what life seemed like when I was eighteen, and what I thought about.'  It is an interesting thought to think about since I can answer it immediately.  I can confirm right now what life looks like and what I spend time thinking about.  Similarly, someone in the distant past must have thought, 'I wonder what the future will be like.'  This is what the future is like.

When I am in a public place I often think, 'This is what I would have been ignorant of had I not been here.'  This puts things in percpective because it makes you realize that you have been added to the picture.  You influence the day of everyone who sees you.

Sometimes a person will say, 'That's just the way life is!'  Where is this 'Life' you speak of, so I may go ask him if that's how he is?  'Tis a very weak justification for anything.

Look around you at everything.  Someday it will all be gone. 

I voted for Ron Paul today.  Anyone else vote today?  And for the first time, like me?