A "String" is a Physical Phenomena...

     Or so claim the String Theory dudes. To me, a very casual inquisitor, it look like next level reductionism, in that Strings, vibrating at varing frequencies appear as the elementary particles that we love because they are smaller than quarks, which we love because they are smaller than protons, which we love because they are smaller than atoms, which we love because they are smaller than us.  Interestingly, as I get it, the Strings have two reality as either lines or circles, but manifest as non-phenomena one-dimensional elementary particles which aggregate to make, well.... eventually us. 

     So here is my query.  If we, queer collections of String made things that we are, have imagined these physical entities capable of manifesting as various non-entity points through a spectrum of frequency vibrations......well maybe at some vibrational state a particular kind of String  reads, aggregates, stores, codes, and integrates vibrations from all of the complex phenomena manifest in the String-Universe, including us!

     If this were so, then these Strings would assuredly be dubbed the "God-Strings".  No doubt, then some dude would speculate that these God-Strings were not only receiving information , but in real time resonating derivitive algorithmically processed integrated information accessible at belief/will. 

     OMG....this would be an Optimal Meaning Generator.  It would explain why Sam Harris, et.al., are so  meditation driven, and further, it would give Ezra Klein a prayer target for which he would have genuine pride. 

Kierkegaard's Alternate Reality

     I like Kierkegaard. His "trapped in the infinite/finite" is a life-coach "top shelf" along with the other K's (Krishnamurti) clarifications regarding "expectation/fear loop".  Recently, I read a modern essay by a British aethiest philosopher who, surprisingly is a Kierkegaard scholar.  His Kierkegaard insight was that:

     K suggests a spectrum of evolving consciousness moving from animal self-centeredness to what he described as the Jewish "like for like", as in "an eye for an eye"; evolving further to what K called the "external Christian like for like", as in "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".  According to Critchley, the essayist, K didn't find enough meaning in the Christian "like for like", and wanted to push for a further evolved consciousness. 

    My takeaway was that K was shooting for an ego constrained state of mind.  He offered up "moment to moment faith" to escape the external world in favor of a believer permanently internalizing his/her awareness seeking to apprehend a real time revelation from God setting out the optimal engagement in the phenomenal world.  God in the Middle"...."Be it done for you as you believed"..Mathew 8.

     No doubt we all would showcase a better lifescape with OMG (Oh, My God****Optimal Meaning Generator) being hard wired in our brain.  Here's hoping the downloads would be Siri swift, but not Google embellished. 

“If You Don’t Work You Don’t Eat”

     A "culture blogger" in a recent post observed that.... through paid wages in a market economy our culture allocates the distribution of resources to its population. The follow up opinion was that this system is much dated and flagrantly wasteful, in that many jobs are of nominal value to the society and some are actually counter-productive.  The view meandered toward UBI (universal basic income) as an alternative to the impoverished existence of a "job-holder", but knowing the strong arguments against, concluded that the "jobs/UBI debate" was simply too close to call and too risky to try.

     A blog reader's comment certainly set the tone for the "tough-love/conservative narrative" feedback.  He wrote: .......in the case of the present subject of voluntary work, expending precious energy mentoring low lifes in how to imagine and do rather them letting them go unattended to walk the streets with pants down and face in cell phone to make it through the day.  The blog piece feedback spinning the "enlightened/liberal narrative"  was convinced that insurancing the " no work/no eat" existential dread would soon ignite inspired productivity and usher in the Age of Aquarius.  

    My personal take is that I would like to "go with Rousseau" and take a shot at moving to a higher human expression, but.......since I can think and I have looked at the psychometrics, I vote "Hobbs for Jobs". I just don't think that Thomas Jefferson would, next week after a couple of hours with Murray, Haier, etc.,  not want to update his broad foundational claim...not as the claim relates to individual worth, but as it relates to societal groups and macro-economic policies. I just don't think enabling work free living will, well.....work!   

A Great Orange Whale

     A Herman Melville Moby Dick utterance warned: "If hereafter any high cultured, poetical nation, shall lure back to their birthright, the merry May-day gods of old; and livingly enthrone them again in their egotistical sky; on the now unhaunted hill; then be sure, exalted to Jove's high seat, the great Sperm Whale shall lord it." 

     OMG, I think a modest substituting of "Orange for Sperm" renders this prophecy near come true. Clearly Nietzsche's "God is Dead" pronouncement some years later either didn't gain traction or experienced a major blow-back. We are, at moment, awash in the "May-day" gods of old", at least from St. Augustine to Orange County, and indeed guess who is "lording" this resurrected self-deceiving life.  Yes, it is The Orange Whale, Donald T, the Lord of you and me.  For his faithful, well I guess they have acquired a heightened sense of entitlement while awaiting their promised eternal life.  For those opposed, it has brought what David Foster Wallace called a "stomach-level sadness".  I guess that if Jesus doesn't return pretty soon, we're gonna descend into a final nihilism so deep that the Infinite Wars will consume us all.

Upside-Down Information Age... or Not!

         The Truth is an elusive treasure!