usefulness

i have been thinking on the bus recently about truth, objectivity, usefulness and associated bullshit. I have come to the conclusion that usefuleness is probably the largest single determinant factor in the uptake of any belief across peoples.

i mean usefuleness in it's broadest sense, not just the pain/pleasure utilitarian sense, but any measure, subjectively defined of the usefuleness of a thought to the individual concerned.

So, sitting looking at apples drop from trees, you got to find gravity very very useful. You sit there long enough under a tree you're either going to get enlightened and smile or get hit by an apple and declare your discovery of an innate law.

Our brains only provide one of an infinite number of potential contexts through which to experience the world. And it's basic evolution to suggest we prefer order over chaos at least on a fundamental level. We may dabble with notion of loving death or chaos in our teens (maybe even early twenties) but ultimately, most of us don't really want to die and the big laws of science and more importantly their application are very useful indeed.

So no, i don't think we discover anything, if we were different beings, we would see the impermanance, chaos and instability in everything. You just got a take one look a the quantum physicists scratching their heads looking further and further inside the smallest particles and their strange, am i here, there or both here and there at the same time behaviour to recognise that perhaps, just perhaps, our on/off logic and 3d, time, 5-6 sense reality appreciation system isnt' really all it's cracked up to be.  And if we crack the quantum computer, quantum physics is going to turn out to be very, very useful indeed.

"Have you stopped beating your wife?" is not something most people could answer yes or no to, it contains an implicit assumption which is often false.

"We either exist or we do not" or "the big bang created something out of nothing" may well be similar. Existence is what we need to make everything make sense, but it doesn't mean it's an attribute or state which is workable with how reality (either within or outside of our conception) operates.

So, we all have to be mystics, the brain is a misleading vortex of lies through which we are driven to comprehend illusionary contexts.

Back to usefulness. Complex numbers explaining turbulence in a wind tunnel is more useful, by and large, than the vision of air molecules arguing.

Objectivity therefore becomes only the consensus of all thinking individuals, subjectivity it's democratic component. I like that, which is why it's my construct of choice today. I like the fact that the rules we make are ours alone, that we have the power to forge reality through consensus, that there is nothing, absolutely and unequivicolly nothing that can stand in the way of the absurb human mind.

And so what do we benefit through the awareness of death. The duck in the park with it's little ducks, swimming and eating bread. We work all week to go sit in the park and look at ducks on a sunday, and wonder why we're not ducks. I wish i was a duck sometimes. They can't get to use the internet, but it must be pretty cool.

I was thinking about putting my blog on an interactive gravestone when i die. In fact, that's not a bad idea for a business. Secure, interactive deathplaces offering access to an individual's life. Google could offer these graves for free as long as the mourners were willing to view the tasteful (no porn) and useful advertising links against the blog. And if the person didn't have a blog, google could create one for them automatically by scouring all records held on that person from their entire lifetime.

I have a cold, my "big project" is coming to and end and england are set to get another boring draw against sweden tomorrow morning which i will get up to watch in the middle of the night like some damn fool.