Augury

Every once in awhile … Every day or two things end up building to a point where I have trouble keeping track of them all and need to step back and write some of it down. It’s even worse than usual with this so-called blog thing, as I’m reaching out into various media corners that I don’t normally explore.

Spinning is an intriguing website — It seems to be somewhat of a stream of consciousness. When I first looked at it, I couldn’t understand any of it. Now I can see the meaning behind the words. The author mentions philosophy: Longinus and Lucretius. Philosophy is not well-read online.

I search for medieval songs and ballads, partially for my own interest, partially as a D&D related task. I find Chinese literature. Philosophy is not well-read online.

Elijah came there to a cave, and lodged there; and behold, the word of Yahweh came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” … “Go out, and stand on the mountain before Yahweh.” Behold, Yahweh passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before Yahweh; but Yahweh was not in the wind. After the wind an earthquake; but Yahweh was not in the earthquake.

After the earthquake a fire passed; but Yahweh was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. It was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entrance of the cave. Behold, a voice came to him, and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

The Belmont Club speaks of the bicameral mind:

Jaynes asserts that until roughly the times written about in Homer’s Iliad, humans did not generally have the self-awareness characteristic of consciousness as most people experience it today. Rather, Jaynes argued that the bicameral individual was guided by mental commands believed to be issued by external “gods”—the commands which were so often recorded in ancient myths, legends and historical accounts; these commands were however emanating from individuals’ own minds. This is exemplified not only in the commands given to characters in ancient epics but also the very muses of Greek mythology which “sang” the poems: Jaynes argues that while later interpretations see the muses as a simple personification of creative inspiration, the ancients literally heard muses as the direct source of their music and poetry.

Jaynes inferred that these “voices” came from the right brain counterparts of the left brain language centres—specifically, the counterparts to Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area. These regions are somewhat dormant in the right brains of most modern humans, but Jaynes noted that some studies show that auditory hallucinations cause increased activity in these areas of the brain. For example, he asserts that, in The Iliad and sections of the Old Testament in The Bible that no mention is made of any kind of cognitive processes such as introspection, and he argues that there is no apparent indication that the writers were self-aware.

I am reminded of Spinning . I listen to new music, some of it seems to speak, an enveloping experience. I complete some trivial amount of work for the D&D campaign, but which was hanging around like a mosquito. Over at Gene Expression a discussion is started about differing cultural sexual preferences, leading to the excellent vocabulary word callipygian and to this:

The only physical characteristic upon which the love-shy might be construed as being somewhat less demanding than the non-shy is that of breasts. Most of the love-shys in both groups indicated that they were turned off by large breasted women.

They tended to prefer women with small-to-medium sized breasts, comparatively thin legs, and thighs, and trim figure. This finding did not surprise me inasmuch as psychologists have known since the late 1960s that introverts tend to prefer small-breasted women, whereas extroverts tend to prefer those with large breasts. In fact, there appears to be a rather strong statistical relationship between how extroverted (outgoing) a man is, and how large he wants the breasts of his female partner to be.

Whereas extroverts tend to be governed first and foremost by the attractiveness of personality factor, breast size is typically the first specifically physical factor they notice in a woman. In the case of the love-shy the face is invariably the first and foremost physical feature of a woman to receive focused attention. It must be pretty (no make-up), and it must have long (straight or tousled) hair, with no complex or fancy hair styles. When the love-shy do look beyond the face, the second item likely to capture their attention is the legs/thighs (which they like thin), followed by the rear end, which they like small and well-rounded. Very unlike the extroverts, breasts are not noticed by them at all, unless the breasts are viewed as being too large.

Gene Expression leads to Theodore Dalrymple, who must simply be one of the most insightful essayists of our time. Thoughts crystallized:

I take it as axiomatic first that human existence is always to some extent unsatisfactory, and second by that most, or at least many, men desire transcendence in the sense that they want their lives to have some larger purpose than the flux of day-to-day existence. Shopping and going to the pub are all very well in their way, but for people of larger spirit they are not enough.

Radical politics answers the need for transcendence and provides a plausible, though erroneous, explanation for the existential shortcomings of human existence. It kills two birds with one stone. It gives a transcendent purpose to life, by allowing participants the illusion that they are helping to bring about a life that is completely without dissatisfaction.

…

A further two axioms need to be added to explain the rise of monomaniacal fanaticism. The first is that hatred is a much more powerful political emotion than love, and is therefore also a stronger motive for action. It is my guess, for example, that Mr Brown hates the rich much more than he loves the poor, and that anti-racists, for example, hate whites, even when they are white themselves, more than they love members of minorities.

The second additional axiom is that aggressiveness, destruction and violence are their own reward, because they are enjoyable, at least for quite large numbers of people, in themselves. There is also great pleasure to be had from intimidating and striking fear into people. This is no doubt a regrettable feature of human nature, but it is a real one. Anyone who has observed a riot will have been struck not by the misery of the crowd but by its happiness. To feel morally superior while doing evil is one of the most exquisite pleasures known to man.

I have decided that I am going to try a regimen of meditation every day, if I can ever find a few minutes undisturbed by the relentless sound of other people.