Zillion is a funnier word for myriad, which happens to be my favorite qualitative number. For me, any exact quantity is only an approximate fraction of zillion. If x is an exact value, x = y zillionths. * Qualitative math. Operations performed on none, some, few, many, myriad… * I suppose I’m still thinking about … Continue reading x = y zillionths
We look for meaning, and all we see is nothing. But this is exactly what meaning always looks like the instant before it irrupts out of nowhere ex nihilo, flooding the world with divine importance. “But this time is different!” Of course it is. This time is always different, and in this respect, it is … Continue reading Exnihilist maxim
This morning, for no reason in particular, I decided to browse my copy of the classic qualmath textbook, Fundamentals of Qualitative Mathematics, and it proved surprisingly relevant: The towering edifice of qualitative mathematics is constructed upon a pair of simple axioms. First: Everything is something divided by nothing. Second: Each thing is a zillionth of … Continue reading From Fundamentals of Qualitative Mathematics
I’ve probably said this a zillion times, but it is worth repeating: Myriad is a pretty way to express indeterminate magnitude — uncountably many. Originally, myriad meant ten-thousand, and in pre-digital times ten-thousand was, for all practical purposes, uncountable. Computers have since blown out the limits of countability. We need something much larger, now. For … Continue reading Infinity versus myriad
Altruism without intuition of transcendence is sentimental idolatry. An intuition of transcendence requires consciousness of being conceived, comprehended, enveloped, embraced by layer upon layer of interlapping, ever-magnifying magnanimity approaching one soul of infinite magnitude, at once both absolutely one and infinitely plural. Chokhmah and Binah proceed from the principle of immanence the possibility of One … Continue reading Quantlocked
I have used the word polycentric to mean two different things. The original meaning, used by Michael Polanyi and later by Elinor Ostrom, referred to things (usually social things) having multiple agential centers. Only by understanding the semi-automous operation of these centers within an irreducible system can a polycentric phenomenon be comprehended. The other, less … Continue reading Polycentric and pluricentric design
An industrialist lived the first half of his life solely for wealth. He worked hard and now he was worth nearly seven zillion dollars. But something was missing. He felt a void in the center of his soul, and he realized that the only thing that could fill it was art. So he devised a … Continue reading The patron
Once we accept the existence of collective beings, and we understand that these beings can suffer the same psychological problems any individual person can have, or isolated complexes within an individual persons can have — the world looks radically different. Nietzsche clearly saw being as scalar in this way, observing: Madness is rare in individuals … Continue reading Scalar being
When children engage in repetitive play, it generates habits of personhood. It is important to be patient and allow them to be repetitive, however tedious it might feel after the zillionth repetition. I find it helpful to meditate on what kind of adulthood might grow from whatever habits form in various kinds of repetitive play. … Continue reading Rambling on about self-formation
“I’m against violence…” “I do not condone murder…” “Killing is unacceptable…” …But maybe… “…he started a much-needed public conversation.” “…he expressed an anger we all share.” “…he has put sociopath executives on notice.” In other words, he did a bad thing, but maybe he also did some good. How much good? So much good that … Continue reading Of course, but maybe
When I first moved to Atlanta, I saw it primarily through the windsheilds of cars and windows of buildings. During my brief but transformative residence in Toronto I learned to rely on my bicycle as my primary mode of transportation. Returning to Atlanta, and experiencing it from my bicycle changed my conception of its space. … Continue reading Voluminosity
After spending one week writing as my pretend full-time job I can say this: Writing is like working on a zillion-sided rubic’s cube, where solving one facet scrambles all the rest 100% of the time.
….it was said that one god, Hermes Trismegistus, had dictated a variously estimited number of books (42, according to Clement of Alexandria; 20,000, according to Iamblichus; 36,525, according to the priests of Thoth, who is also Hermes), on whose pages all things were written. [Anomalogue: From what I’ve read, Hermes Trismegistus was not a god; … Continue reading Meditation on the ten-thousand everythings
Joseph Campbell’s most famous quote, “follow your bliss”, might really have been a careless remark of an old man well past his prime. For years I refused to take Campbell seriously, and even posed him against an antithetical motto, “follow your angst.” But reading The Hero With a Thousand Faces, I do not see any … Continue reading Joseph Campbell (and some weird rambling)
In high school, all my art teachers taught us to draw and paint the shapes our eyes “really” saw. We were discouraged from drawing the things we believed we were depicting — eyes, noses, vases, cow skulls, gourds, drapes — and encouraged instead to draw the shapes that were said to precede our objective interpretations. … Continue reading Drawing on every side of the brain
Here’s what I learned from the Pragmatists (mostly via Richard J. Bernstein, who has probably had a deeper and more practical impact on how I think, work and live than any other author I’ve read): An awful lot of what we do is done under the guidance of tacit know-how. After we complete an action … Continue reading Shhhhhhh
Many people who consider themselves anti-authoritarians seek out oppressed people and try to help them. As always with human behavior, beneath the uniformity of appearance, different spirits are at work seeking different aims. Person A, humiliated by subjugation, takes issue with the character with the subjugation. Perhaps it is exploitative, or cruel, or destructive, or … Continue reading Doppelgangers
Modernity over-ripens into post-modernity and starts rotting as anti-modernity. The most virulent forms of anti-modernity pose as pre-modernity: fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is a form of mass-relativism. It originates in breakdown of tradition. Every fundamentalism is founded on radical, alienated skepticism which dissolves all obligation to maintain ties with the dominant tradition. It no longer wishes to … Continue reading Perennialism is esoteric fundamentalism
I’ve put considerable effort into learning the most fascinating things in the whole world. Therefore, by my own standards I know the most fascinating things in the world, and being someone who prizes knowledge, I have made myself into my own ideal of the most fascinating person in the world. It’s too bad these standards … Continue reading The most fascinating knowledge in the world