The Psychology of the Philosophy Generator

 Required Reading: The Philosophy Gererator

The reason we are even capable of asking “of what are my thoughts made?” is through our understanding and facility of Superego, Ego and Id. It would be impossible if we weren’t beasts able to “step outside” to examine ourselves. (Incidentally, I believe that this fact alone makes our existence deserving. We have been able to achieve the opportunity for perfection.) 

 

Ego is the mediation between the conscious and the subconscious. It is your perception of reality, both what you experience and think about and what is beyond your understanding, but no less influential. Your ego knows your consciousness and feels your subconsciousness. That means that basically you are your ego, built out of your paradigms. Your Id is your innate primary instincts. Thoughts of fight or flight come from the id, beyond your subconscious, past what you’ve leaned in this life, to what all humans (all creatures) are pre-wired to know. (I know there is an argument for plant life having id, and even ego, but there is also an argument for animals having superego and we don’t have the time, nor the need, to cover everything.) It should be noted that humans add to our id as we go, it is not purely a device of instinct. Paradigms, as we build them, store them and think about them, become part of our consciousness. The memory, (thought) becomes a part of our operations and then is forgotten, an imperceptible piece of the filter through which we view all future paradigm, a place to react from. All additions to the id, however, there are products of our experiences and as such, may or may not be eudaemonic. We of course presume that the exemplars we accept are worthy and that they steer us correctly, but how many of us ever consider the presence of the phenomenon? 

 

Superego is the term used to indicate the conscious determination of ego. It is the little voice in our head that asks us “What do we think we’re doing?” when we’re doing something wrong. Where ego knows our consciousness and only feels our subconscious, the superego knows both. Where the ego can be faulted by a misinterpreted bias hidden in a memory, superego knows that bias already and can compensate for it. By understanding and exploring superego we discover all our secrets, all our “why’s.” Assignee’s Prerogative is a method to appreciating your superego, your “rule construct.” (It has been said that your superego is like your parents, tagging along inside your brain.) When we say, “I am ashamed of myself,” the superego is ashamed of the ego. By deciding the worth of paradigms based on full disclosure of what those paradigm are and why they came to be, we have created the possibility for a Superego type Awareness. The next achievement to strive for after mastering your superego is superconsciousness, the recombination of the conscious and subconscious minds. (Or perhaps with a Universal form.) But I’m digressing to the point of sounding like one of the purveyors of Authentic Self from the non-empirical camp. Let’s agree that it is possible for our determinism to stem from a place of thorough contemplation and that our biology is responsible for us being able to do so.

Id, in the generator falls into the category of experiential norms, or, as “id paradigms” are experienced and expected, they are natural experiential norms. They are unavoidable and therefore, we cannot change them ourselves. They have to be changed biologically within the totality of the species. This is beyond our control and examination of these automations, while perhaps fruitful in creating an understanding of self, will never lead to associations your ego has formed. The examination of naturally occurring experiential norms is pointless, they are always necessary. (With the possible exception of social engineering or some other unknown reprogramming of the id.) Ego and superego, obviously run the gamut the generator has to offer, can equally steer us right or wrong and can be experienced by yourself or shared through the influence of others. Having an understanding of paradigm, knowing the importance of contemplating source and hopefully, beginning to have an appreciation for philosophy, let’s take this opportunity to dive into the philosophy generator. It is through this simple device that our argument becomes evident and by discovering the products of our definitions we are enlightened to its utility.

Sitting on the fence is comfortable.

Today, while "using" facebook, I noticed an add that read something like, "Carl Sagan's dream was a world of rational thinking." Below was a picture of "the DNA fish" (as opposed to "the Jesus fish.")

I clicked it to discover that the DNA fish, is an actual moniker for an organization working toward the dissemination of science to (at least,) the folks on this planet with computers and access to the internet. 


I'm a huge fan of Sagan, his work and what he was able to accomplish in his life, for we mere mortal men and women. I stand firm by my conviction that he was one of the most important men of the twentieth century. Everyone should read "Pale Blue Dot" and "Demon Haunted World."


Obviously, I'm also a fan of reason and understanding, so I wish all the best to "the DNA fish" whatever that might be, and for whatever it is worth. However, I do have my own fish to fry with both Sagan and the DNA fish, same as I do with any extremists.


There are things in this universe that continue to be unexplainable, Sagan leaves no room for the possibility of magic, if I may. It's not that he isn't open, for instance, to the idea of God, he just doesn't pretend to understand what that means. But he also thinks that to believe in nonsense is counterproductive. Why can't we believe our nonsense and not let it interfere with progress? The same complaints could be said of anyone who claims that we all must reside on either side of the following equation: we evolved from monkeys or God created us.


Obviously this is not a balanced statement. There is more room for play between those to options than between any liberal/conservative dichotomy. The fact that there are people existing, firmly entrenched in either of these camps means that we need work, still.


I'd like to suggest that everyone who finds themselves believing anything that they might find classified in one extreme or the other, simply examine why. For instance, why couldn't we just, for instance, believe whatever the hell we want about the religions of our choices and yet work toward our own futures despite those thoughts. 


So many of our problems are produced by our inability or refusal to be forward thinking creatures. If this is true we have no one to blame but ourselves.

A summary of the book

Anti-Social Engineering the Hyper-Manipulated Self by Brian Taylor
When one does philosophy, one dismantles strings of concepts into their respective parts to examine both the parts themselves and the relationships the parts have with each other. This semantic reduction provides us the best possible opportunities for finding truth. This was exactly the type of skill Brian Taylor needed to write his new book Anti-Social Engineering the Hyper-Manipulated Self, postpaper publishing, ISBN: 978-0-557-99909-5http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/postpaper

The book began as a series of blogged essays in a response to the “Authenticity” movement presented by the like of Eckhart Tolle, Andrew Cohen and to a lesser extent, Dr. Phil. These men, and others, were coming to conclusions on the idea of authenticity that were, among other things, subjective fallacies, rife with interpretation and possibly counterproductive. On the other side of the coin we had skeptical guru Michael Shermer or perhaps Richard Dawkins making up one half of the “four horseman of the non-apocalypse.” These men, “scientists,” were and still are guilty of the same faults as their spiritual counterparts, interpretations rather than knowledge. Brian Taylor wanted to know, “Are there any actual answers in the arena of the self and its power?” As it turns out, reality is far stranger than ever before known and we actually know so much less than we think we do, if it can be said that we know anything authentically, at all.

After four years of research into our ideas about the self through the ages, the sciences of the self and what the self is, this book comes to the conclusion that the modern self, you and I today, are not only manipulated, but that manipulation is sought out, required and pre-programmed. This is a book about how we are all being intentionally hyper-manipulated without our knowledge, by whom and to what end.

To “anti-social engineer” is to counter this phenomenon of modernity through critical consciousness, dubbed “assignee's prerogative.” This self direction is aimed toward eudaemonia, which is an Aristotelian idea roughly meaning “happiness and promotion,” and it is further suggested that virtue is found in the mean between excess and deficiency, in these concerns. This sounds rather simple in such a paragraph form, rest assured, chasing the meanings and relationships of these ideas to any philosophical depth requires a maze of rabbit holes and someone to guide you through them. Taylor is nothing if not thorough in this regard.

Entertaining, personal, conversational, exact and profound, this book has a strange undercurrent, almost a charge running through it. Most clearly defined in it's most opinionated moments, there is a subtext, not a call to arms but to a social contract. Taylor says, throughout the book, that it is specifically battling social engineering, the command, hidden or not, “think this about that.” Yet, he too wants us to think a certain way, a centrist “golden mean,” a path of no extremes. Making an argument against his ideas is difficult, regardless of the talking points he uses. (These vary from possible moral objections we may hold for prostitution or murder, to social norms such as supporting the troops or the war on terror.) In his most controversial moments, when objectivity is at its thinnest, the author's existentialism shines through and he suggests it's better to not claim to know something than to suspect something incorrectly. The exception to this rule is when the social engineering is secret, malicious, degenerative or merely in error.

There are things that we can do anti-social engineer our hyper-manipulated selves and Taylor spells these tasks out clearly. Firstly, social engineering, be it delivered by a television commercial, ideology, civility, social construct, etc. is to be expected and recognized. Then Taylor presents us his Philosophy Generator which is described as “a dismantling of paradigm” and a way to determine if any particular social engineering is more persuasive or manipulative. If we are able to first know what it is we are deciding, then do our best possible thinking on the matter, which is what working through the Generator is for, we should be able to be confident in our decision, whatever it may be. Furthermore, given the standardization of awareness, contemplation and centrist philosophy, it should be expected that the same benefit experienced by individuals would transfer to societies.

The book ends with a chapter called “God wears a yellow hat.” It is concluded with a list of 24 interesting intentions, (23 actually, one of them is missing,) this list is not meant to be a complete index of the topics discussed, but rather an indication of the book's scope. The war on terror, the war on drugs, food transportation, consumerism, capitalism, communism, false flags, rehumanization via technology, God, 2012, patriotism, culture, globalization, human rights and religion. There is an entire chapter devoted to a reasonable discussion between the two sides divided over the conspiracies associated with September 11, 2001. This book discusses conspiracy as it dismantles thought, which is a strange dichotomy. Taylor seems to want to convince us that he is a reasonable man, with a reasonable method and if such a man can find a reasonable conspiracy, we can take the suggestion from the fringe to the mainstream. He may be right. However, this is not a conspiracy book, this is a book about thinking.

One comes away from the experience of reading this book enticed to do more and this is the goal. Anti-Social Engineering the Hyper-Manipulated Self is about taking responsibility and looking ahead, prudently. It doesn't want to take anything away from you, you're entitled to have your beliefs as the author has his. We need our beliefs and we even need social engineering, these things are part of a natural, healthy species. The dangers of our beliefs are represented by the lack of awareness of them and the inability to think critically about them. Taylor argues that, if in fact we are not thinking well about the things we believe, we are not living up to the reasonable purpose we have as human beings. This appreciation of hyper-reality and our place in it defines our authenticity and is the promise expressed by the 21^st Century Enlightenment.

Link to Anti-Social Engineering the Hyper-Manipulated Self (free pdf)http://www.lulu.com/items/volume_69/9255000/9255625/2/print/Anti-Social_Engineering_the_Hyper-Manipulated_Self-1.pdf


Relevant and Popular Essays:
America's Nervous Breakdown
On the right to Anonymous Protest
Problems with Patriotism
the War on Reason
Capitalism isn't Evil, it's Stupid
Shame Theory
Conservatism is Unnatural

In Defence of Google

(or "How I learned to stop worrying and love my lack of privacy online.)

Fact is, you have no privacy.
Everybody is freaking out about something that they shouldn't worry about at all, because privacy doesn't exist.

All this new Google feature is going to do, is record your web browsers history, only during the time you are SIGNED IN to GOOGLE.
So, just don't sign in, (if for some reason you have an aversion to properly motivated advertising, which is the worst thing Google's going to "do" to you.)

However, if you must, you can turn this new Google History feature OFF.
No media outlet seems to be talking about this, (because a non-story doesn't sell.)

So here's how to do it.

First, open a new tab (or window) so you can read these instructions while you go to where you need to.

1. Sign into any Google service. (Gmail, blogger, youtube...)
2. Usually, there's a title like "My Account" or some other link that points you to the Google Services page. What we are looking for is your DASHBOARD. So, if you see DASHBOARD click it, if you don't click MY ACCOUNT.
3. If you didn't find DASHBOARD in the previous step, click it now. You may need to click PROFILE AND PRIVACY, depending on what site you're at. Then click DASHBOARD
4. Your Google DASHBOARD has all your google products. Under the main heading at the top is MANAGE ACCOUNT. Click it.
5. Now you're looking at your account settings. Scroll down a bit and you'll see SERVICES. One of these services will say VIEW, ENABLE OR DISABLE WEB HISTORY. Click GOTO WEB HISTORY.
6. Now you'll see whether or not your web history is enabled, disabled, etc. If it's disabled, ENABLE it. Then click REMOVE ALL WEB HISTORY. Then click PAUSE.
7. Now sign out. You just permenantly paused Google from collecting your web history, while signed into Google products.

Enjoy continuing to get innapropriate internet advertising and enjoy being no less safe on the net.

There is no such thing as internet privacy.
Anybody who wants your info can get it, easily.

The News, the real NEWS and how to get it

It has always been difficult to get "the news."
If we were living a thousand years ago, it would be the same.
Story then, had to travel by man on horseback or camel, if it were from a distance, perhaps pigeon if nearby.

Now, our story comes from ourselves, in real time.

Our modern technocracy affords us the luxuries of quantity and speed, but our ability to determine the substance or worth of any news has not really increased.
This is because a polished turd is still a turd.
Our news, if not genuine, is not news at all.
And our news is not genuine, most of the time.

Avid readers of mine know, as does anyone with an appreciation of the peril and promise of Philosophy, that language itself is a slippery slope. The semantic deception of dialectical theses aside, even when we allow ourselves the common sliding scale of understanding, the News is blatantly subjective. So how are we to acheive any real understanding from any real knowledge in a world awash in opinion? By carefully sampling from as many sources as possible and searching out the golden mean.

Here's how I do it:

On TV, I watch whatever channel I want, knowing that any particular channel could have numerous intentionalities, as could any individual or group holding influence over the channel, plus the personalities of producers, anchors, reporters, etc. I use CBCnews and RT CBC is pretty clean, RT is heavily subjective, but they report on stories that the mainstream doesn't, plus theirs is a heavy "northern European" influence. Obviously, it's worth keeping an open mind. (Decide, if you must.)

So I also watch CNN but usually only when I need a "deeper American" coverage than the CBC provides. I never watch FOX because, although it is sometimes funny, keeping an open mind does not include wasting my time. 

But, with the exception of Canadian news, I don't get my "world news" from the TV. I get it all from the net. Here's how I do it:

Above Top Secret  This is the world's foremost conspiracy discussion forum. It's chock full of nutbars. Seriously, I've been a member for a few years now, I know. However, despite having to wade through a bunch of stories about UFOs and Alien Agendas, ATS consistently breaks 90% of my stories to me. This is because ATS members strive to be "the one who breaks it." At abovetopsecret.com, it is required that the breaking news forum provide sources for their articles. These sources, of course, require another evaluation. They vary from the usual alternative sources: RT, the guardian, sky, wired.com, huffington post, etc. to the mainstream. (Any newspaper you'd care to mention.)

-On the ATS main page there is a button that says RECENT POSTS. These are your headlines. Scan through them, right click any that interest you open in a new tab. Then read your newspaper, or skip it.

If there's a story breaking, twitter usually gets jammed up with humans posting it play by play. (Excluding blackouts, for various reasons.) But people often tweet links that lead you to other things. This can be helpful, as can knowing people in various places in the world.

Who should you listen to? Everyone.
Who should you believe? No one.
Try to determine the intentionality of the parties involved in giving you the message, then do the same for the subject(s) of the message.
How do you do that?
You read my book. It's free.