New blog

New blog can be found here: http://titl3s.blogspot.ca/

Feel free to browse this one as I won't be deleting it anytime soon.

I hope you enjoyed these last 4 years as I have.

Cheers, MarkL

Involved

Judging by my frequency of entries this might be my last post before I leave for Ottawa, something tells me that will not happen. I had a moment of clarity some time ago, the sober kind mind you. I realized that throughout life, no matter how long or how short there are varying degrees of being a spectator vs being involved. From the moment of birth we are 100% involved with our surroundings. We are as much a part of them as they are a part of us. And at that point we have little to no independence because we are at mercy of our basic instincts: hunger, comfort, sleep, and attention. As we grow older we become more involved and are able to control these instincts, little by little we chip away and carve out our independence with the guidance, or lack there-of from our care-takers(parents, friends, institutions, etc.) Keep in mind that I am trying to be as general as possible so that this "truth" encompasses as many examples as possible. And then there comes a point of "true" independence when our choices directly impact our lives by our own doing. After that moment passes, no matter how long it lasted, a choice is presented: continue participating or ease off. If participation is chosen, then the person will continue being involved in the life around them. This is often seen in the example of a worker that rejects retirement and dies working. It happens to both young and old. The more hostile the work/living environment the more often this choice is made. In the case of easing off, the person starts to become less active in their work life and becomes more accustomed to a hopefully comfortable set of surroundings. And by "work" I do not simply mean a job. It can mean a number of things depending on the circumstances: travel, family life, student, etc. Simple stated, it is what you choose to occupy most of your time with. And so as you become less involved you turn into a spectator. Drawing upon your past life experience, you watch the world around you continue and comment on it just like anyone else should.

I realized all this sitting outside a Starbucks with an iced coffee in hand and sunflower seeds on the table. It was a pretty cool night, I was longboarding home from Bloor street. And so as I got to my seat, sat down, started chewing on my seeds and saw the moon, I realized that it was as if I was a spectator. Like someone who watches a movie. They find a good seat, bring their popcorn, sit down and enjoy the view. I did something similar, it is just that this time the show was all around me. Now this is only 1 point of view on what life may be like, so take it with a grain of salt. But I do not doubt that this is an interesting point of view. I hope your day is/will be terrific.

Cheers, MarkL

Alan Watts: Episode 1 - Our Image of the World

Recently I've been listening to a series of lectures by Alan Watts, a British philosopher renowned for his ability to adapt Eastern philosophies to Western thought. In the following few posts I'll be dictating and analyzing his series of lectures entitled "Out of Your Mind: The Nature of Consciousness" Why am I doing this exactly? I've learned that it is easier to understand concepts when you explain them to an audience or even yourself. There is a difference between knowing and understanding, knowing them is step 1 and that will lead to understanding through explanation. This will be done chronologically, as the lecture itself is broken up into segments that discuss similar topics in each segment. I will keep doing this until I either give the whole thing up, or finish at some point.......whichever comes first. Also, if you'd like to listen to the lecture yourself first before you read this (which is highly suggested because it'll be easier to understand the discussion afterwards) here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIUTFeE2Trk

The format of these post will be edited as I listen to more and more lectures so that it's easier to understand each of the topics before I get too deep into them. Also, he has the most charming voice you'll ever hear.....or you know that's just me. Ok, let's get to it.


In order to understand the further discussed topics we must first understand the background of the fundamental notions of what life is about. And by this I mean we have to get right down to the stepping stones of what we call this life, what is its makeup? Simply stated, everything is interconnected. There are historical origins for the notions and assumptions and facts that exist today, these connections are stronger than most people realized and are often ignored. Ideas of the world, built into the very same language that we use today, are myth. Myths not in the false sense, but myth in the sense that we use the myth as a symbol in order to make sense of the world. And we at present are living under 2 very powerful myths (symbols). Which are, in the present state of scientific knowledge, inadequate. And one of our major problems today is to find an adequate image of the world.

The 2 images which we have been working under for the past 2 centuries or so is that of the models of the universe: ceramic and fully automatic.

The ceramic model is based on the book of Genesis from which Judaism, Christianity, and Islam derived their basic picture of the world. And the image of the world in the book of Genesis is that the world is an artifact, it was made. As a carpenter takes wood and makes tables out of it, so did God with the universe. Don't forget that Jesus is the son of a carpenter. The image of God and the world is based on the idea of God as a technician, who has in mind a plan and fashions the universe in accordance with that plan.

So in the book of Genesis, God creates Adam out of dust and then breathes into it as the "clay figurine" comes to life. On its own dust has no form of intelligence and therefore it requires an external intelligence and energy to bring it to life. In this way we inherit a conception of ourselves as being made, and it's perfectly natural for a child in our culture to ask "How was I made?". It's a very powerful question, however it is not shared by the Chinese or Hindus. A Chinese child might as its mother "How did I grow?" which is an entirely different process than making.

When you make something you put it together, you work from the outside in as a sculptor works on a stone. But when you watch something grow, it works from the inside to the outside. It expands and it blossoms, the original cell of the growing thing complicates itself. And so because of this there is a fundamental difference from the made to the maker.

P.S. This was simply an intro as to what the talks will entail, as you can see it starts off very generally but that's simply to introduce the next episodes. So yeah, if you feel compelled please share your thoughts in the comments. Also keep in mind that these recordings were compiled in 2004 from a series of lectures ranging from 1960-1972, so if you notice any inconsistencies with language or are somehow offended by his talks then you've been warned. Why am I even bothering to offer this warning? Because if I've learned anything from the internet, it's that people will find a reason to be offended if it's remotely politically incorrect. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the first post and will continue to read on. Oh and yes I'll be making an "update" post as to what I've been up to all this time, it'll be done shortly.

Cheers, MarkL

Keyboard Warriors of Today or Law Abiding Lackeys of Tomorrow?

Keyboard Warriors of Today or Law Abiding Lackeys of Tomorrow?

Can you imagine the battlefield that would unfold if this video had comments?

And this is what happens when you allow comments.

 

 

Now that's just a cheapshot.

                                

In the coming 21^st century the internet is becoming a bigger part of how we communicate. It is increasingly useful as a source of information, both good and bad. Before, to publish your opinion you would need a local newspaper to approve an advertisement/article, but now all it takes is a couple of minutes to set up a blogger account and you have got yourself a platform. And with this growing age of shared opinions tempers tend to clash, so where do we draw the line with what can and cannot be said in a public forum?

Anyone that has ever been on YouTube knows that one way or another, the arguments in the comment section below will eventually boil down to the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s American citizenship or who had intercourse with my mom. The same presence can be felt on sites like Facebook (if people do not care about losing a friend or two in the process) and Tumblr. It seems as though everywhere you go there is a 12 year old keyboard warrior ready to pounce on your opinion at any given moment.

Anyone that regularly visits a forum can understand that all it takes to filter these hateful comments is a good moderator. For some sites like Reddit.com where moderators monitor inappropriate posts based on the ideas that the forum stands for. Subjecting moderators to web-giants like YouTube would be a waste of time simply because of the amount of traffic that it receives, but what about smaller news outlets like Popular Science?

This “cancer” has become so prevalent that it has spread to online newspapers and magazines, causing magazines like Popular Science to disable their comments section on some articles. Their main reason being “Even a fractious minority wields enough power to skew a reader's perception of a story.” This is understandable for a purely scientific journal where there should be no room for opinions to dispute the facts but rather only facts and research. But what does that say for newspapers and other magazines that have a comment section? Don’t their stories reflect bias that has already skewed the public’s opinion on a story? And what kind of power can a comment really have on that? Then again Popular Science is a factual publication and so there isn’t much to dispute there unless you bring religion into the picture or a peer reviewed journal. There is always a small bias towards one thing or the other regardless of what we write, that is just how it works, but is it small enough to be argued against?

It may seem like a smart move for a magazine like Popular Science to discontinue its comments section because of how opinions tend to persuade people’s beliefs in another spectrum. Considering the fact that 1 in 5 Americans believe in pure evolution (Darwinian definition of it) it would make sense why those related articles would retract the commenting option. A survey done by YouGuv (a professional research and consulting organization based in the US) asked a representative 1,000 Americans what they thought about evolution and its theories. When YouGuv asked the same question in 2004 only 13% of those surveyed agreed with Darwinian evolution. So at least we’re making progress, right?

The internet now is becoming a larger part of our social communication than it was ever before. It is now as much of a pedestal as propaganda and radio was way back when. But who is to decide what can and cannot be said in this public medium? Sites like 4chan allow members to post virtually anything about anyone at any given point with no censors, only the backlash of its viewers. This also of course welcomes trolls and keyboard warriors that will stop at nothing but to see you break down as you pound the CAPS LOCK key in frustration. But it also lets everyone be on the same level with the exact same power of reaching the “masses” which the internet as a whole has allowed people to demonstrate.

I frankly do not believe in the idea of censorship simply because if I have the right to share my opinion then so does a Neo-Nazi or a creationist. In fact I share my opinion so often that it became a trend of sorts when I started my blog (baciacalupo.blogspot.com) back in grade 9. At first it started off in the form of rants and “free write’s” as Ms. Wolfe calls them. But as the years went on I developed my opinions and writing style to a somewhat bearable fashion. Go on and see for yourself, I welcome trolls and intellectuals all alike and I don’t censor comments so go at it. Otherwise it would be a ridiculous double standard that would go against what the blog stands for. So go ahead and take a look for yourself what an unfiltered opinion is like, I hardly bother to edit anyways.

It isn’t right to censor someone’s opinion simply because you disagree in a public forum, not on a political or factual side but on a humanist side. However, there is a clear line between opinion and fact which has become blurry for some users of the internet. Which is unfortunate but it also forces those that want to be heard to find other creative means of reaching out to people and share their ideas because of how watered down online opinion pieces have become. That’s what the RAG was all about before, an outlet where students like me and you could share our unfiltered opinions as long as they weren’t malicious. But now we have to find other outlets if we are to truly share our opinions in their unfiltered and natural form.

Cheers, MarkL

P.S. Keep in mind this was written for my school's RAG (a circulated opinion based paper)