I want you to look into the content of journal.inner.observer and find any questions that I may be asking myself, especially for a future me.

19 Nov 2013, one week into The book of cataclysm, is a bare page of twelve questions and no answers. It’s the only post in the corpus that is only questions:

What is god to you?

Trying to define it in words would be foolish, and despite this an attempt must be made. I believe God (I capitalize the word now) is not outside us, but that we live in God and God through us. I am a Pantheist in this aspect. The true prophets and saints of all religions were blessed with a particular expression of God (I like to think Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed and Socrates would make great buddies).

I see I’m eluding the question and I hesitate to pin down something ineffable, as is within is without and the universe outside is mirrored by a universe inside.

What is life?

That which self-replicates, though we want to find a binary distinction we find that nature resists such classification, and there are degrees of life of which on one end there is the most simply virus machinery and at the other the most sophisticated expression of life which is the human being. We have not met life outside Earth yet, but it’s very possible that there are more sophisticated forms of life out there.

A follow up question I put for my future self: Is AI alive?

Why is altered experience so interesting?

Because the default mode sucks. But you can change your default mode.

  • Why can’t reason overcome nature?

Because the reason you were thinking about the time is not the reason Socrates was talking about, and honestly the “nature” you had in mind was pleasure, put honestly it should have said “why can’t I stop my compulsions despite knowing in the bones it’s wrong”.

So let’s address the “poetic” question first: Socrates was speaking about the logos the world of ideals produces the most beautiful inventions. Boole also thought he was reaching at the fundamentals of Gods creation while understanding the laws of logic. One finds a pre-existing structure, it’s more of a discovery than an invention.Logos and nature are never at odds and in fact overlap but do not contain each other. There is some nature that is not logos.

As for the second, more honest question, the answer is that we must let go of the grasp, the self hatred and self shaming only deepens the isolation from which those compulsions arise. Let go and it will self-correct.

  • Is there any way of overcoming nature?

Spinoza would like to have a word with you.

  • Is existence pleasurable?

I know the answer at the time was no. The answer at this time is yes. And I feel it in different facets: I sit and look into my body and see I have no pain and it just feels “nice” sitting straight typing. I go into my mind and though it’s true that I continue speaking to myself about myself too much, I’m much more gentle and thus I’m not making my life miserable as before.

  • Is there any reason to exist if you are not exceptional?

Again, the question was meant in the first person, and the answer is yes: we are part of a network of relationships which would experience great stress and loss by dying, except in the most gentle circumstances (there are people who leave this world with class, and we should aim to do so).

  • What is modernity?

Ugh I don’t have enough knowledge to answer accurately, but I’ll pin it to mass production.

  • Is science worth pursuing?

Should be worded as “should I pursue science?” and the answer is no, I’m too sloppy and ignorant to do science. If I made a very big effort I might discover something nobody has discovered before… I just noticed AI changes the answer, indeed if I found a niche in the logos where nobody has sought inspiration before I can turn a super intelligence to look at it and that would make it inteligible to me.

  • What is beautiful?

A part of me still says under his breath “hot chicks” but we observe beauty in all aspects of experience. There’s beautifully written computer code and beautiful waterfalls. And people of beautiful character. These are closer to their “platonic ideals”

(I notice I am tired and I am not thinking it through. I must answer fresh).

  • What is freedom?
  • Can one be free in modern life?
  • What is different from contemporary life as to ancient life?