2006-08-29

photo w some of my pet peeves


No dense prose in this post!


2006-08-28

definitive new solar system mnemonic

How do you remember the names of the planets?
Responding to a Zembla post, I just invented a mnemonic for our newly-8-planet solar system:


'many vegetarians eat meat
 - just show up naked!'

After posting this, I worried it might not be original. So  I Googled to see. The closest I found was:


'Many Vegetarians Eat Meat,
 Just Secretly (Under Nourished)'

Mine is clearly superior, and may even be definitive.  And so I want permanent credit.
Or blame. Whichever.

2006-08-23

what superhero I am, and other quizzes

In comic book terms, when I was a boy I thought of myself as something like a courageous cat who rides a silver surfboard and carries a green lantern. But I haven't thought about that in a long time.

I just took a quiz on the topic and it inaccurately says I "am" now these fictional beings:

Spider-Man 80% Superman 65% The Flash 55% Supergirl 50% Hulk 50% Robin 47% Batman 45% Wonder Woman 45% Catwoman 40% Green Lantern 30% Iron Man 10%

No. Not even close.

Thinking about it, nowadays my mitigated background adult fantasy (in comic book terms) might be: orphaned deconstructo --a being who would have the power to deconstruct all evil if he did not live under the light of earth's yellow sun.

*

The quiz does add:

"you are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility

Yeah, right.

*

Over the years I have taken a lot of online quizzes. Among them:

which 20th century theorist I am: Homi K. Bhabha

which movie do I belong in: Nightmare Before Christmas

which country I am: Mexico

what kind of dog I am: Italian Setter

*

The true me quiz has good questions.

*

I once took an online personality quiz that said I was a 'Sober Rational Constructive Follower', one of its 16 possibilities. This type they nicknamed 'white house staffer', insulting me in more than one way.

It was dubious quiz. Other of its types were; 'golden god', 'enemy of the state', 'hacker', 'mob boss', 'evil genius', 'hippie'. I would give the link but it's defunct.

re-ordered and modified on 2007-10-29

2006-08-14

genius actually explained

I haven't read 'Genius Explained' but a (thumbs-up) review says the book says
genius is the product of environment, personality, and sheer hard work, not a mysterious property that can't be analysed
It sure sounds like the book doesn't explain diddley, and its title is a lie.

That's the kind of thing that happens when you stick to historical figures, all of which you necessarily read about in documents. How can an un-genius figure out what genius is via such indirect evidence?1

As it happens, geniuses are around now, too. One encounters them occasionally.2 There is no need to peer into books and extrapolate from extrapolations of observations made centuries ago.

that gut feeling you get

When someone says something to you two things almost always will occur to you:
  • the mundane content of what they said
  • why the person said it, in the most general way
Let's call the latter the 'the general cause', and abbreviate it 'GC'. In life, you will understand GCs. You may only process these pre-consciously, but nevertheless at some level you will be aware of which category each GC you hear belongs:
  1. rote learning
  2. fight (introjected)
  3. flight (introjected)
To be specific, let's say you are talking to your best friend. He (or she) utters some opinion, let's say they angrily say: 'In high school everyone should be taught to drive'. Whatever.

You can tell (right?) from you friend's anger that their statement is about their underlying introjected fight against the universe (#2 on the list above).

In other words, you will always get the societal subtext of what people say.3 That is ..except for the thinking of geniuses. Some of their statements are exceptions. These expressions have have a free, origin-less quality. This may seem to you like a miracle or blessing, so you may respond: 'man, you are a genius!'

crazy but true - it's about faces!

To actually explain genius, additional terms are needed, which do not appear in psychology textbooks. Specifically 'Prana', 'prana-face', and 'will'.
prana is energy that cells use to relate to each other.

In my opinion, geniuses are the few individuals whose prana-face is not entirely connected to their will. This means, in practice, that they have trouble expressing some societal feelings that are normally expressed by the face.

The profound social nature of the face is in the prana, too - and naturally gets transferred to the genius. This is why these people characteristically have a hopeful, optimistic quality, because the face itself is optimistic.

For two examples, the flaring of the nostrils or the raising of the eyebrows. If - in any person - the myriad entirety of these expressions is not available, then the quasi-facial expressions can remain internal, like memories.

Because, for these individuals, these quasi-thoughts are not in any of the 3 categories above (not fight, flight or rote), but emerge instead from the 'good' aspect of the primate (the human face) these individuals over time can produce not just oddly free statements, but also works of art or craft which can transform the world and sometimes seem to shine with their own light.

To sum up

Genius is real and emerges from a particular minor disability (which cannot be defined without the recognition of prana). It is because they are disabled that geniuses are usually treated as second-class citizens.

one historical example!

A turn-of-the-century postal worker named Albert Einstein is the most famous genius. What characterized the prana of his face was a loose center and solid periphery.

In terms of his animal existence - Albert probably did not produce the full range of expressions with the nose and characteristic of this type of prana had an angelic expression which was reassuring because it held firmly without being at its center dogmatic.

His scientific theory formally matched the prana of his face (and is also - to intellectuals - angelic and reassuring). This theory - relativity - is firmly grounded yet not dogmatic.


notes
  1. Imagine a field-goal kicker in the back of a van is gotten drunk and is blindfolded. He is taken to an empty stadium that has crowd noise piped in. The kicker thinks it's a real game. He is told where the ball is and where the goal posts are (very close, just ten yards away). He makes the kick. Cheers from the piped in crowd noise!! The kicker is told he made the kick. On the way back in the van the kicker feels surges of pride. More drinks!

  2. But it is a mistake to tell someone they are a genius (or what they just thought of was genius). If if you do they might interpret this as an insult. They might get the impression that you are calling them an idiot, that you are really saying: "that moron figured something out I cannot, therefore it must be some attribute, seperate and uncreditable, called: 'genius". ..And you really might be saying that.

  3. unless you are a moron