sooo... who wants to go to shotgun certification?

yeah... that's right... I might be going to a shotgun certification class in order to get the job that I want in Alaska... which is just unreal... like, totally, unreal.

I'm making appointments to go hiking and learn about maps and compasses and gators and waders and snowshoeing and first aid and CPR and GIS survey...

I'm an ENGLISH STUDENT for god's sake. this is UN-FREAKING-REAL...

and yet, as with most extraordinary things in my life... it really is happening...

so yeah, I'm off to sleep now, but before I go, here is the quote of the day... it's a poem, but you'll recover...

"I would live in your love" by Sara Teasdale

I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,
Bourne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that recedes;
I would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me,
I would beat with your heart as it beats, I would follow your soul as it leads.

sleep well everyone.

wanderlust_llc

oh god, why am I still awake?

Okay, here is today's fic rec. It's a surprisingly sweet and nuanced j2 that builds off of the premise of Wall-E. I know, I know... it sounds crazy, but I actually adore this story...

more so probably because all of my research right now is on AI and cyborg lit, but there you go, I like it.

So, check it out. Keepsake by indysaur.

Also, philosophy quote for the day coming from Descartes and his Meditations on First Philosophy.

I will remain resolute and steadfast in this meditation, and even if it is not within my power to know anything true, it certainly is within my power to take care resolutely to withhold my assent to what is false, lest this deceiver, however powerful, however clever he may be, have any effect on me. But this understanding is arduous, and a certain laziness brings me back to my customary way of living. I am not unlike a prisoner who enjoyed an imaginary freedom during his sleep, but, when he later begins to suspect that he is dreaming, fears being awakened and nonchalantly conspires with these pleasant illusions (12).

While I enjoy Descartes, I have a hard time separating him from Plato. Both rely on dualism and a fairly consistent conception of the divine (for all that the religious systems are fairly incompatible). Both take exception to mathematics as the basis of pure reason (though on linguistic matters, not logic matters) and both believe that the soul must contemplate itself in isolation from the body, if not isolation from everyone else. There is a sense of retreat in their works, and while I appreciate that (isn't that what we all do when we go off alone to 'study'?) I still find it difficult to understand the logic behind the solitary objective existence.

I guess the crux of it is, at least for me, that within a linguistic system there is no possibility of an entirely objective or isolated existence. Language is a social mechanism, and our deployment of language precludes the possibility of ever merely being "ourselves," or even alone.

Anyway, on the note of isolated consciousness, here is a bit of Emerson before I head off to bed (or, really, grading... then bed).

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events (151).

This is more what I am talking about, the conception of the self within a larger system that structures our own sense of who we are.

I also have a couple of questions that I've been kicking around that I'll leaver here before I forget them.

The first is, what is the relationship of Descartes conception of the self-in-isolation to Hamlet? My professor pointed out today that it seems that Hamlet was written for Descartes, though the opposite would have to be true in terms of history.

The second has to do with the Cartesian consciousness. Would the system of slavery in the United States be in direct opposition to the Cartesian Cogito? Is it possible to maintain an ideal of the rational mind in isolation from the world in a system that contains slavery? Anyway, just an idea that I'm kicking around with Douglas...

So yeah... much rambling... little to say...

Sleep well all.

wanderlust_llc

Sub specie aeternitatis: Lat. Under the aspect of eternity. The expression is Spinoza’s. He uses it in his Ethics to characterize the highest form of knowledge, which he calls intuitive knowledge, in which things are seen from the standpoint of timelessness or eternity.

quote of the day...

While I would love to say that I have been oh-so-productive in the last eight hours or so... all I have is this small offering to the gods of the Internet and a rec for a pretty funny McShep SGA fic by Mallory Klohn called "One Leg at a Time."

and here is your moment of zen for the day...

"Go ahead and storm the city... Rape and plunder to your heart's content, burn it down and salt the ocean, use my toothbrush and sell me into slavery, but for the love of God, let me put my pants on first."

anyway, enjoy... I'm off to actually do work now...

wanderlust_llc


*edit* so, I also have a word of the day, one which has given me a great deal of trouble in classes, and so now I share it with the world...

Ontology, n.

1. a. (philosophy). The science or study of being; that branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature or essence of being or existence. b. As a count noun: a theory or conception relating to the nature of being. Also in extended use. 2. (Logic). Chiefly with reference to the work of Stanislaw Lesniewski (1886-1939): a system similar in scope to modern predicate logic, which attempts to interpret quantifiers without assuming that anything exists beyond written expressions (Oxford English Dictionary Online, "ontology," accessed 22.02.2009)

Cool, huh? Anyway, still not sure what it means when peeps throw it around in class, but now I think I might be able to remember it for today... which is good, since I'm reading about the subject and subjectivity and that's a word that comes up a lot.

And on that note, here is an interesting excerpt from The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy:

"Subjective Idealism: 1. a theory of knowledge: that a subject can know nothing except its own ideas. 2. an ontology: that nothing exists except minds and their ideas" (546).

I find this interesting as its a neat way to sum up a lot of theory/philosophy... the whole, "mind over matter, I am a leaf on the wind," thing neatly summed up in one little phrase, "subjective idealism." cool.

Anyway, for a look at my latest conquest in cyborg lit, E.A. Hoffman's "The Sand-Man," head on over to my LJ for a plot summary and my fairly subjective (in the sense of "mere matter of personal taste or preference" and not in "a subject's direct experience of itself" kind of way) take on the short story.

Cheers!

wanderlust_llc

subjective, adj.: 1. a subjective experience is introspective, i.e. it is a subject's direct experience of itself, in contrast to experience of things and states external to the subject. 2. more generally, subjective is that which belongs to any subject conceived as a self, a mind. 3. in another sense, similar to the above, but more restricted, subjective is that which belongs to no one, or a number of subjects, but not necessarily all. 4. what is subjective is a matter of personal taste or preference; lacking in truth or validity; arbitrary (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy 546).

monadology and the little cyborg that could: an introduction

So, this is perhaps an inauspicious beginning... to be citing a whole bunch of theory that I'm not sure I entirely agree with... but hell...

this is my blog and I'll cite if I want to...

so yeah, here goes nothing. This blog... i guess, just to inform myself and my non-existent audience, will be me working through theory for school, my rather random adventures in this world, and possibly, the angst and humor that comes from having a family as "unique" as mine...

so... yeah... that should be what goes on. For today, I have some info about the "monad" that I'll be working with so that I can begin to read Man a Machine, Man a Plant with some sort of pretense of understanding. If you want to see what I'm doing with Leibniz, or you've read it and want to see how wrong I've gotten it, you can head on over to my LJ (yes, I even have a LJ... which means I have no life) and check it out. I'm trying to do breakdowns of everything I've read in the hopes of actually remembering it (*shock* *gasp*) and also in the hopes of avoiding some work in the future if this is what I end up doing with my dissertation...

so yeah, check it out, here is the link. Yeah, it's boring, but whatever... that's just the way it goes...

in other news... I'm sick, and I don't mean that in the "god I'm sick of Greek philosophy" kind of way... more in the "oh god oh god we're all going to die" sort of way, with the healthy addition of general ickiness...

joy... rapture...

Anyway, movie review: W.

While I'm normally one to leap at the chance to poke fun at our most recent ex-president, this one was a just a little too soon after the fact to be comfortable. You know how when you've been broken up with an ex for a year or two, and you can begin to laugh at the fact that they burned your favorite tee-shirt or killed all your plants in a fit of displaced homicidal rage?

Well, a couple months after the fact you're still a bit sore that you got taken for such a ride, and still coping with the fact that they may have been crazy, but hell, son... you were the one dating her!

So yeah, while I'm sure this is a really great movie (and I am really, really sure of this) I'm not sure that it's one that I'll be renting again anytime soon... I think I need to let it soak in that we've got a new presidential beau and that it's okay... we all make mistakes, and sometimes they destroy our lives, cause us to lose our jobs, gut our economy and send every major institution in the world into a tailspin... but that's over now... and after a year or so of heavy drinking and macking all over our latest, we might just be okay...

so yeah, that's all for now... more later when I've decided whether or not I'm going to keep up with this...

God speed and good luck,

wanderlust_llc