thom space

Yesterday I was confronted with the statement, .New York is the capital of the world,. and I responded by saying “I disagree!”

No sooner had I made my assertion than was I asked to defend it, but for some reason I was not immediately able to do so. As I hesitated I was kindly reminded, by the person who presented me with the statement, of NYC superior cultural resorces, its size, and all of its otherwise unbelievable characteristics, as well as his opinion that there was really no question as to the correct answer. And yet my intuition was still to disagree. and then it dawned on me why I was unable to elaborate my postion in opostion to NYC being the capitol of the world. I realized that I was basing my opinion upon a notion of post-modernity that I somewhat took for granted, the idea of .the lost center.. The reason I could not accept New York as the capitol of the world, has nothing to do with what the city .is. or .is not. but rather with the fact that I think it is no longer possible to speak meaningfully about the world as though there is a point at which everything radiates. but my uncertainty remains. What does it mean to have .lost the center.?…the lost center: what I think I mean
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Plato was a resident of Greece from 428 -347 bce. he was a close relative to the ruling class and was a firm disbeliver in the

the tenets of Democracy, or as he was oft to refer to it as “mob rule”. the times that plato did manage to get out of his small little

city he voyaged to the singular far off land of Sicily, and he did so a grand total of two times, oh what a world traveler. For the

very fact that he did travel so lightly it is difficult for me to understand how he was able to presume that he had such a firm grasp

on all of reality. but I am sure this is only a side point. and I would hate to digress before I even begin talking about my friend

the MAn who is the man of Philosophy, the one, the only, Plato.

so what did an ancient greek do that would still be of some sort of interest to people in the 21st century?…
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How Bush Took Florida: Mining the Overseas Absentee Vote How Bush Took Florida: Mining the Overseas Absentee Vote

What has happened today that I think is noteworthy, hmm…. I have begun reading Crime and Punishment. I guess that counts. As I was sitting in my apartment last night I realized that I sorely needed to be entertained, and the prospect of television was just not very appealing, it dawned on me that maybe Dolstoyevsky might lighten my day, and what do you know he did. Chirpily Do.
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I feel that it is time that I reassert my intentions for having this silly website. 1. to document my summer. 2. To help with my summer study 3. TO have fun

I do not want to have a site that is just the redundant angsty ramblings of a self indulgent college student. I will save that stuff for the movie. At the same time I will try to make sure that I am not overly self conscious of what I am writing. after all the world does not begin or end with the things that I am choosing to post. Ditto mojo.

Today I am eating leftovers. I have been reading about the Scholastics today and know something that I think I am sure I am not interested in being. A Medieval scholar. The only topic that that I can discern having been spoken about for nearly 1000 years is their silly hang up with God. Boring. I wonder what would have happened had there not been a 1000 year detour from productive thought? Perhaps everywhere would be like Sweden. hehe

SO Here it is July 7th and I have made a number of entries concerning my little project and it has dawned on me that I have not put up any of the information I gathered on Pre Socratic philosophers and for that matter Plato or Aristotle. Now there are a number of reasons for this but mostly it is because I have not gotten around to it. I.E. I have been to busy selling glow sticks.

I was out again last night, and it was really something else. We went to nearly the tip of Cape Cod to a small town named Wellfleet, or something like that. It is so beautiful out there. I can completely understand why people would choose to spend their time vacationing there. the Fire works were quite small, but they were lit very near to the crowd and barely over a very pristine little bay. Between the moon light and the Fireworks reflecting off of the water it was really an optical feast. Unfortunately I did not do as well as I have been doing on the previous nights working. I only made 310$ in sales, which is unfortunate because I only get to keep a 25% cut. I don’t really enjoy the 75% tax rate, but it really ends up being a good deal. The way that I figure it, I would have been completely justified in going to the Cape just to see the fireworks and enjoy the scenery. So by way of the fact that I did that, plus sold glowsticks means, I am experienced the best of both worlds.

So tonight I am off to work Boston’s retarded little brother aka Worchester Mass. I think that it will be a moderately good take. It is a much bigger event than yesterdays, so I might end up getting lucky (but the real reason we are going to Worchester is because I think crew leader is trying to score some Coke, he is such an adict, lol) . Righty O, I am off to work on Plato.

I am not sure about what I am doing this summer. The reason for this is the fact that I have been hard pressed to get any type of work done. It is not because I have not been trying, quite the contrary, I have just had my mind in a multiplicity of places, and I have been in too diffuse a mindset to get anything done. I am not even sure if it is possible to be in a diffuse mindset, but I think you know what I mean. I’m going to give it time.

I have been hawking glowsticks for a few days now and wow> I can not believe how well glowy things sell.

the price: for 1 for 3$, 2 for 5$. Yesterday I sold more than 440$ worth, and that was only in 1 1/2 hours.

earlier this summer I was doing door to door fund raising for the Fund for Public Interest Research (www.ffpir.org) to help win issues that the Sierra Club and other organizations are working on (like making more fuel efficient cars and preserving wilderness areas) and I was lucky to get people to donate a dime let alone 440$.

The only way that I can justify the hugely different experiences that I have had is by thinking of the situations in different terms. On the face of it giving money to the sierra club is a great way for people to help make the world a better place. but in reality, giving money to the Sierra Club only effects change in a very removed and abstract way, that is it does not make the kid down the street any happier.

On the other hand. When purchasing glowsticks, it would appear that you are merely purchasing silly pieces of plastic crap, but in reality that plastic crap serves the purpose of making people happy at a very direct level. so really 5$ for two glowsticks is a bargain because it purchases very concrete satisfaction.

I then as a seller of glowsticks can take pride in the fact that I am providing the means by which people may create satisfaction. got to love moral justification for capitalism. Cheerio Dog.

Todays diet: Anselm of Canterbury, founder of Scholasticism and originator of the ontological proof of God (big G) aka apple head.

So saint Anselm had quite a bit to say, and I guess we can credit him with being somewhat of a nice guy, though there is really no bases for me to say such a thing other than the fact that I have thought about him being a nice guy and there fore he exist as a nice guy by way of the fact that I am thinking of him as such. You see I think that one of Anselms essential qualities is that he be a nice guy, therefore if he existed (which we are sure he did) then he must have been a nice guy. Because if he was not a nice guy he could not have existed. SO because Anselm existed he must have been a nice guy. There is a semi ontological proof for the “nice guyness” of saint Anselm.

Perhaps you have realized that something might not be entirely kosher with how I arrived at the proof of Anselms niceness? Well that is because it is not really a proof of an objectifiable fact but is rather an expression of my own personal belief. let me explain, I simply posited (my belief) that part of Anselm’s being was to be a nice guy. from that subjective position I went on to prove that Anselm must have had that quality of being by way of the fact that he existed. Pretty cool huh.

So how is this at all relevant to what Anselm did for philosophy (or really what he did not do)? Well like I said before Anselm was the originator of the Ontological argument for the proof of God. Whoa. That’s right. SO here is how the ontological argument works: First you have people with minds, then you have these people think about God, then these people decide that one of the essential qualities of God be that nothing can be greater than God, then you have the same people try and think about something that nothing can be greater than, and then because they can think of something that has the Quality of nothing being greater than it, presto… Instant God.

So the ontological proof works extremely well at proving the existence of something based upon a preset definition of essential existential elements. But it is important to remember that this proof does not establish any kind of objective fact. The truth of the proof is only so good as the subjective postion of the people makeing the argument. And that sort of brings us to Anselms other philosophical contribution (if it can be called that) Scholasticism.

Scholasticism was a reaction to a lack of reason and a plethora of mystics in the church. The basic aim of the Scholastics was to make Faith and reason work together. Anslem spent a great deal of his time trying to establish the foundation of the church out side of scriptural authority as evident in much of his work. The benefit of Scholasticism is that it preserved much of antiquities writing, with out the diligent work of the Scholastics there would not have been much in the way of ancient text. See good things do come from blind adherence to dogmatic practices. But on the down side there was not really any type of philosophical development for nearly 1000 years from the time that Plato’s Academy was closed to the entrance of Descartes. Just a little down time. no big deal.