Scripts

It popped into my head that we're all, more or less running off scripts. Depending on your age and circumstance your response to any given situation is predictable.

I was busy with 'morning' and realized that I'd hoed this row before and will no doubt do it again and it's pretty much scripted in our minds our roles, where we ought to be at a given time etc.

If I put some thought into it, I could give a 'rendition' of what the regular commenters on this blog are going to say in response, given that we've all come to know each other's scripts.

I wonder if Pliny has anything interesting to say about artificial intelligence and if an intelligent machine would need to follow 'mental' scripts as we do? I am absolutely positive that he does, it'll be very interesting and it'll call into question the nature of intelligencc itself!

Stacy is going to say, "Hmmm.. you made me think again! (secretly:- Darn you!) ((just kiddin' Stacy!)

I could make up stuff for other commenters like a comedian making up 'Bushisms', but to get to my point, I'm thinking that the ladies realise how scripted and self-scripted our lives are a lot better then men do.

It's just 'there' though and not examined for what it is, more used as a tool, a way of being 'mysterious' and such. I think, where a guy might be trying to make a point, the girl is trying to find out which script is being played, perhaps trying to cut off scripts that she doesn't like, off at the pass, perhaps trying to guide the guy into a script in which he is 'out of his league', that kind of thing.

Brian, with his big brain 'theory', seems to be a script to me. I play my role as the total skeptic and he dodges and weaves, seemingly determined to keep pushing the idea that there's more meaning to this universe than we (want to?) think.

I know that there's been books written about this, "What do you say after, "Hello!"?", which brings up, I wonder what our scripts are about the 'question of scripts'?

Does it interfere with our notion of free-will?
How much scripting is involved with religion?
Is something necessarilly less 'free' if it is TOTALLY scripted?
Isn't a job just a physical manifestation of mental scripting?

Now I can imagine some of you(you know who you are) thinking, "This is totally, totally Ian! That last post was odd, but I 'get' this one!"

Life as a virtual business

Okay, I don't know you guys. I mean I know what you think of the stuff I write here and a bit about your senses of humor and that kind of thing, but I don't know what you do, mostly. (Pliny is a doctor, he writes doctory stuff)

Anyway, what I want to do is explain my idea and see if,

a) you give a poop
b)you have any one time suggestions
c)you'd like to do some contributing
d) add a 'd'?

Here goes. We hear about people making money on the 'net all the time with sites they create, basically selling information, the 'best' thing to sell actually. It's practically like getting people to throw money at you.

Then there are the sites which get advertisers to throw money at you for entertaining people or informing folk. (or is that 'informing people or entertaining folk?(I get 'folk' and 'people' mixed up all the time.))

It all good, either way the money goes 'towards' you, which is a plus, no?

Okay so, "Make a site."(step one) Well it's a virtual step one now, in our minds, right?

Step two is making the site about 'something' interesting to attract 'lookers'.

This is all very basic and I'm sure that it's a 'row' that's been 'hoed' to death, so this part is like the set up steps, and if I'm missing anything and you think it's important you could suggest improvements to this part.

There are several 'aspects' to this proposed site. (or modules if you prefer), the first being 'your life'.

Let's say we have some kind of questionaire asking people what they want, perhaps to lose weight or to organize their affairs better, essentially to get their 'shit' together.

They'd do the questionaire, perhaps find out crap about themselves that they'd like to, let's say, "minimize" and things that they want to bring out in themselves. We could let people log in and find out how they're doing towards self-regulation.(even coming(going) to a site to write out what you had to eat that day(if you're on a 'get fit' thingy) would lend focus to their purported aims, right?

(of course, not just losing weight, but maybe quitting smoking or getting out of debt or .. (suggestions?)

Another module might be virtual modelling of a proposed business. Let's say that you want to start a business. You split the business down into components. Buying the parts that you intend to add value to (that's what a business does, right?), then a 'miracle' happens, then selling the product that you dreamed would make you a profit.

Now I don't mean the usual 'small business tutorial' thing. They want to explain stuff like, "Is your business a limited partnership or an Evil Dick Cheney type conglomerate, and they get way into drivel like this, practically begging you to go to sleep or find an online 'Asteroids' game to play.

The point would be to make the title, "Life as a virtual business." mean that in as many ways as possible, and modularizing(if that's a word) everything, from 'givens'(You ARE breathing) to the processes, (You took that 'one-a-day' vitamin, right?), to summaries(You blithering idiot, keep this up and you're gonna DIE very shortly!(no more plans for you))

I think that there are some business-wise tips and tricks that might benefit most people thinking of their lives AS businesses.(the business of living)

Comment with suggestions, modifications, models to emulate, models to avoid(praying to be thin through a mouthful of cheese-cake), add-ons, add-ins, start-ups, details or generalizations.

Basically, what I'm saying is that if you don't know the rules, you're gonna lose the game, and 'theeee' game seems to be a mish-mash of politics/business/religion and manipulating peoples' ideas concerning that mish-mash.

Knowledge dispels fear.

(please, no comments like, "I read as far as 'X', it was boring, could you summarize so I can get some 'closure' and dismiss the summary as the drivel it surely is?")

Words

I'd like to continue the theme of 'words' here.(maybe I'll get a little more agreement from a certain 'oneblood', who shall remain nameless)

We can see how easy it is to use words to trick each other by using some examples of how religious people trick themselves.

Sometimes it will be a lack of words that is the trickery, an overgeneralzation, meant only to make the comment concise, taken at precise value to undermine the entire meaning of the comment in contention.

Case in point. Someone might go ahead and say, "You're so full of it Ian, I'm a Christian and I NEVER trick others with words or trick myself with words, EVER!" This in itself is a favourite trick of debaters(debators? Looks wrong.), someone makes a general statement and the opposer points to him/herself as an example of how that general statement is false.

Seems we have to be very, very careful to say, some, or , a lot of, but even then, we might expect denial from someone trying to take the legs out from under an argument or point.

The word 'supernatural', I think is misleadin, to say the least, when it is combined with the notion that God created everything. Seems fairly obvious to me that anyone(everyone?) using the argument that God created everything, is dismissing the notion of 'natural' as opposed to 'supernatural' all together, just without 'saying so'.

To say that God created everything out of nothing or out of God-stuff, is to say that everything STILL IS made of God-stuff and we just call that particular God-stuff 'natural' to differentiate it, somehow, from other 'nothing' or 'God-stuff' that hasn't been 'transformed' by God to be 'the world around us'(I guess).

The 'design' argument is implied, and put forward as indisputable, right off the bat, as if THAT is any kind of fair argument to make.

As in, "God made everything. You can see, feel and touch everything. Therefore you must believe that God made everything."

But, of course there MUST be a certain percentage of devout, faithful believers 'out there' who can see that this is a circular argument and therefore no argument at all.

Then there's the other twist that the word 'natural' can simply mean, 'not man-made' which can be used to dither over, because on the one hand that makes all the materials of a man made object still natural, and it's just the manipulation OF these objects, BY people, somehow 'artificial', which we can STILL use as examples of 'creation', and on the other hand a completely DIFFERENT process, supposedly used by God to create everything out of 'nothing' or 'God-stuff'.

We can go on and on, spiraling backwards never admitting that we are just waffling. For example:-

"God made us those beautiful mountains. When I look at them they make me feel so spiritual."

But the mountains are made by the natural process of erosion.

"Why, God invented erosion!"

STFU! Wind and rain, snow and ice act on rock to make the mountains just like that, nothing to do with anything supernatural at all!

"But, God made the wind and the rain, the snow and the ice!"

Rubbish, the wind and rain etc. are caused by the Sun warming the planet during the day and the seasons etc.

"But God made the Sun to shine down on the Earth!"

Etc.

etc.

But this is just a word-game, trickery. If your premise is that, 'God did it!", followed by any argument which concludes that, "God did it!", that's no argument at all.

Of course anyone pointing this out to a believer is likely to be stepped along to the next 'argument' in this chain of 'non-argument', "But you need to have faith!"

Straight out of one set of ill-defined words, and on to the next, keeping in mind that the first 'argument' is taken to be at least a 'draw', if not in fact a 'win' for the religious side, and can be refered back to at any convenient time.

What's in a name?

"Jesus
There are five separate individuals named Jesus in the Bible, which is not such a wonder since Jesus is the Greek version of the Hebrew name Joshua (please revert to that name for etymology). The most famous Jesus, of course, is the semi-biological son of Mary, son-by-law of Joseph and monogenes Son of God (see our article on John 3:16). Other men named Jesus in the NT are an ancestor of Christ (Luke 3:29), Joshua (Acts 7:45 and Heb 4:8), a fellow worker of Paul named Jesus Justus (Col 4:11) and a Jewish magician that Paul and Barnabas meet on Cyprus, named Bar-Jesus (a Greek transliteration of the Aramaic for Son Of Joshua). The name Jesus means Yah Will Save."

Yea, well, they seem to be twisting things a bit here. The name Jesus isn't Greek, the Greeks don't have a, "J". Seems to me that the name Jesus is Latin.

Funny thing about Latin names, they have a 'us' on the end to differentiate between males and females, kind of like the 'the's of Romance languages 'le's and 'la's denoting male and female objects. Julia would be a girl's name and of course Julius would be a dude.

Not only are Christians seemingly confused between Greek and Latin, they refuse to notice the similarity between the words "Deus", "Zeus", and "Jes".

Taking the 'us' ending to mean 'the man', and 'Jes' to be a cognate of the Greek and Latin words for 'God', we come up with 'Jesus' or 'God the man'.

But I think that Christian scholars are deliberately trying to lead us away from idea that the name 'Jesus' is actually just a title, because that would make the 'Christ' part a second title.

Christian scholars might tell us that 'Jesus' is equivalent to 'Joshua', or in Hebrew, 'Yeshua', but some others will say that Jesus' actual name was 'Yehoshua', adding a little more to the 'confusion'.

I think that the reason for this other source of the name Jesus(Yehoshua), is that one meaning of the name Joshua(Yeshua) is "Savior" and harkens back to the Old Testament Joshua and the idea of a warring Messiah who conquered Palestine for the Hebrews we hear.

Seems to me that the derivation of the name Jesus depends on how deep you are into Christianity. If you aren't a Christian you get this semi-confused etymology but if you ARE then it is perfectly reasonable for the name to mean different things depending on the situation.

For example, when talking to a Christian I mentioned that the name Jesus the Nazarene could very well be interpreted as, "The Savior, The Branch!", and I was surprised by the reaction. His eyes lit up as he said, excitedly, "Exactly!", which to me, meant that he 'saw' the hidden meaning of the Hebrew word for 'branch' which is changed to be Nazarene(coming from Nazareth) when THAT suits them.

That Christian and I both knew of the Old Testament prophecy that the Jewish Messiah would come from a 'branch'(i.e. be a decendant of) Jesse!

Jesse? Jesus? Nothing like each other at all, right?

But it is supposed to be a puzzle, hidden in plain sight, for those of 'wisdom' to 'divide correctly'.(which apparently means to see one meaning when that 'works for you' and an entirely different meaning when THAT fits.

I LOVED the "son-by-law" workaround(from the quoted passage), where Joseph 'gets' to be Jesus dad, but only when THAT suits them. What a laugh!

Son of God, well yes. Son of Joseph the Carpenter, well yes. Son of BOTH apparently.

It's all about eating your cake and having it too, all of it.

How unUnChristian of me.

I can't believe that a month has gone by without me writing something unChristian on this blog. My, how time flies.

I want to say what I think should be obvious to everyone, including Christians themselves, but which I don't think IS obvious to them.

As one is growing up, it is obvious that one knows very little and has to be coached by a mentor or two mentors or more, the more the merrier, I guess.

These mentors, mom and dad, grandma and that smelly old guy, mean older brother and/or sister(s), all seem to collude to teach you that you are you in this structured society and they are them. Generally they will teach you that you ought to listen to them because they know more than you, they can beat you up, and they can 'get you back' for knowing more than them.

We can extend that structure back in time or on 'up' through society in general, it doesn't matter, either way we realise that the older one is, the wiser one is/was supposed to be, and that they are supposed to have some tangible evidence of their wisdom, namely money, property, good advice and the ability to punish you for stepping out of line.

Stretching the notion of the structure or heirarchy back through time leads to the notion of gods, or A God, while stretching it up through society does pretty much the same thing, eventually supreme power is delegated to one or more supreme beings.

How can anyone NOT believe in the local religious wisdom when, here you are, stuck within that heirarchy whether you like it or not?

After all, we're told repeatedly, that we want to grow up like US and NOT like THEM!

One very wise Christian once said, "Give me the child until he is seven and I'll show you the man.", implying that our values are instilled in us, become ingrained in us, when we are quite young, by teaching and by example.

I'm not sure if that same Christian realised that HE ALSO had been 'brought up' to be HIM, that HE TOO didn't have ANY choice about how he turned out?

God, the unGodly.

In instance after instance in the so called 'source book' for God, we find God commiting genocide, judging unfairly, being guilty of favouritism etc., pressing home the point that our standards of goodness and fairness pale in comparison to God's.

But with a little smooth talking this can be explained away from every and any point of view that you might take. The stories are not exactly as happened due to mortal influence of misinterpretation, stories being altered to the 'best fit' of a different language and interpretation from language no longer fully understood etc.

We can use double-think. Feeling smug that God, who we praise and worship 'showed them who is boss', while being willing to turn-tables on the gist of the story to allow a benevolent God.

E.g. In the story of Moses, we are encouraged to enjoy the come-uppance of Pharaoah when, powerful as he(as man-god) is, Yahweh, can bring him to his knees. If it's pointed out that this is a cruel story, the emphasis is changed to the benevolent God setting some rules and the evil Pharoah just being evil.

Seems to me that since God can do anything, He could have, instead of hardening Pharoah's heart, instead of getting in a 'cock-measuring contest', he could just as easily have softened Pharoah's heart to just let the Hebrews go. Same result, but hardly the propaganda message, to the Hebrews, that Yahweh was more powerful than even Pharaoh.

We are told that free will is a notion that we cannot live without, if we can only know all our options, a good person(or any intelligent being) would pick the best one.

If I, a lowly human being can see an 'option B' where God sends Pharaoh a dream instead of bullying the Pharoah into 'letting HIS people go', it puts apologists in a position where they have to try to explain God's carnage(as it is written) in human terms while they are trying to explain that God's reasons CAN'T be explained in human terms.

But I think that 'the religious' use the same tactic in politics too, where they, the Godly can excuse themselves of completely lacking goodness either because their example, 'God's Biblical deeds', is a shining example to them, or, because as in their understanding of the Bible, they can switch point-of-views on themselves thereby fooling themselves that their selfish reasoning is, if not 'good', then at least Godly.

E.g.

"Dropping an atomic device on innocent people is evil!" Yes or No?

(If we imagine the hated communist regime of the 20th. Century, we'd have to say 'YES', and that is why we need to have an appropriate, devastating response to this kind of threat.)

"Torturing people is evil and we ought to hunt down perpetrators of such heinous crime and bring them to justice!"

(If we imagine being incarcerated in some backward and/or evil regime for breaking their unjust rules, we would certainly hope that anyone torturing us would get their come-uppance, right?)

But the Godly can agree and disagree. Taking their example from the 'Good Book', they can hold their heads up righteously and say, "YES, dropping an atomic bomb on innocents is evil, unless WE'RE doing it!", and, "YES, torture in inhumane, unless WE'RE doing it!"

... and just as the Bible explains that whatever God does, is Godly, whether it would be unGodly if anyone else did it, then whatever they do is Godly EVEN IF they think that it would be unGodly of someone else to do it.

The POWER... compels you.

One of the things people need to learn as they are growning up is how to manipulate others.

What works for one person may not work for others. We have various tools to manipulate others, brute force, humour, logic etc.

What I think it boils down to, is that we are stuck here, not only in the confines of reality, things are what they are, but also within the confines of our perception of ourselves and others, as in, "Who is the boss of whom?"

You might not ever verbalize, or even run it through your streaming consciousness, "Who is the boss of you and who are you the boss of?", but you know, you have a good bead on what 'kind' of person, what 'category' of person that you're the boss of, and of course what kind of, or category of person is 'the boss of you'.

Never mind the supposed ultimate question, "Why am I here, why am I alive?", the question that we're all trying to answer, all the time, is, "Who is the boss of whom?"

This 'real' question has no answer. Well, it's being 'answered' all the time, but it's all a matter of persuasion, self-image. It IS the spiritual, the unknowable puzzle that we strive to solve from the day we realise it exists until the day we die.

We have the power of money, the power of brute force, the power of guile, which is like 'Rock, Paper, Scissors'.

Is there such a thing as free will, or are you compelled to be you by the powers which you perceive yourself to have, or to lack?

My pet bird gets up in the morning, sings his morning song, which, sadly, sounds like a deafening squeeze toy, then proceeds to acknowledge us and to re-establish his dominance over all the mirror images of himself in the house. He has a couple of favourites, the one he sleeps beside, the bathroom one, and some he loves to hate, the one on the headboard of my bed, the one in his 'basement'(under his cage).

I say that we are just like him, we get up in the morning and play exactly the same games as him, but with our family, our bosses etc.

Short of becoming a hermit or committing suicide, there is no escape from our condition, it's what we 'really' are.