As a followup to the last post on FSM I now give you: Project Steve

I regret only that I have no Steve's to give.

When awake at a far-too-early hour for work, random thoughts come a mile a minute, here are a few I managed to hang on to long enough to write them down.

Acts of rebellion are completely dependant on context.

The truth is what you make it.

Humanity is the only true obstacle to humanity in any endevour.

The danger of democracy is that people may actually give themselves everything they want.

The second most important speech in Matrix Reloaded, behind Neo's conversation with the Oracle.

The Architect - Hello, Neo.

Neo - Who are you?

The Architect - I am the Architect. I created the matrix. I've been waiting for you. You have many questions, and although the process has altered your consciousness, you remain irrevocably human. Ergo, some of my answers you will understand, and some of them you will not. Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also irrelevant.

Neo - Why am I here?

The Architect - Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden to sedulously avoid it, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here.

Neo - You haven't answered my question.

The Architect - Quite right. Interesting. That was quicker than the others.

*The responses of the other Ones appear on the monitors: "Others? What others? How many? Answer me!"*

The Architect - The matrix is older than you know. I prefer counting from the emergence of one integral anomaly to the emergence of the next, in which case this is the sixth version.

*Again, the responses of the other Ones appear on the monitors: "Five versions? Three? I've been lied too. This is bullshit."*

Neo: There are only two possible explanations: either no one told me, or no one knows.

The Architect - Precisely. As you are undoubtedly gathering, the anomaly's systemic, creating fluctuations in even the most simplistic equations.

*Once again, the responses of the other Ones appear on the monitors: "You can't control me! F*ck you! I'm going to kill you! You can't make me do anything!*

Neo - Choice. The problem is choice.

*The scene cuts to Trinity fighting an agent, and then back to the Architect's room*

The Architect - The first matrix I designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art, flawless, sublime. A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure. The inevitability of its doom is as apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every human being, thus I redesigned it based on your history to more accurately reflect the varying grotesqueries of your nature. However, I was again frustrated by failure. I have since come to understand that the answer eluded me because it required a lesser mind, or perhaps a mind less bound by the parameters of perfection. Thus, the answer was stumbled upon by another, an intuitive program, initially created to investigate certain aspects of the human psyche. If I am the father of the matrix, she would undoubtedly be its mother.

Neo - The Oracle.

The Architect - Please. As I was saying, she stumbled upon a solution whereby nearly 99.9% of all test subjects accepted the program, as long as they were given a choice, even if they were only aware of the choice at a near unconscious level. While this answer functioned, it was obviously fundamentally flawed, thus creating the otherwise contradictory systemic anomaly, that if left unchecked might threaten the system itself. Ergo, those that refused the program, while a minority, if unchecked, would constitute an escalating probability of disaster.

Neo - This is about Zion.

The Architect - You are here because Zion is about to be destroyed. Its every living inhabitant terminated, its entire existence eradicated.

Neo - Bullshit.

*The responses of the other Ones appear on the monitors: "Bullshit!"*

The Architect - Denial is the most predictable of all human responses. But, rest assured, this will be the sixth time we have destroyed it, and we have become exceedingly efficient at it.

*Scene cuts to Trinity fighting an agent, and then back to the Architects room.*

The Architect - The function of the One is now to return to the source, allowing a temporary dissemination of the code you carry, reinserting the prime program. After which you will be required to select from the matrix 23 individuals, 16 female, 7 male, to rebuild Zion. Failure to comply with this process will result in a cataclysmic system crash killing everyone connected to the matrix, which coupled with the extermination of Zion will ultimately result in the extinction of the entire human race.

Neo - You won't let it happen, you can't. You need human beings to survive.

The Architect - There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept. However, the relevant issue is whether or not you are ready to accept the responsibility for the death of every human being in this world.

*The Architect presses a button on a pen that he is holding, and images of people from all over the matrix appear on the monitors*

The Architect - It is interesting reading your reactions. Your five predecessors were by design based on a similar predication, a contingent affirmation that was meant to create a profound attachment to the rest of your species, facilitating the function of the one. While the others experienced this in a very general way, your experience is far more specific. Vis-a-vis, love.

*Images of Trinity fighting the agent from Neo's dream appear on the monitors*

Neo - Trinity.

The Architect - Apropos, she entered the matrix to save your life at the cost of her own.

Neo - No!

The Architect - Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed, and the anomaly revealed as both beginning, and end. There are two doors. The door to your right leads to the source, and the salvation of Zion. The door to the left leads back to the matrix, to her, and to the end of your species. As you adequately put, the problem is choice. But we already know what you're going to do, don't we? Already I can see the chain reaction, the chemical precursors that signal the onset of emotion, designed specifically to overwhelm logic, and reason. An emotion that is already blinding you from the simple, and obvious truth: she is going to die, and there is nothing that you can do to stop it.

*Neo walks to the door on his left*

The Architect - Humph. Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.

Neo - If I were you, I would hope that we don't meet again.

The Architect - We won't.

Phenomenoligical Ontology

Phenomenology: The study of things in terms to how they are perceived, specificly, how they are perceived by the human mind.

Ontology: The area of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being.

Has there ever been a more pretentious, stuck up, self centered way of saying, "I study why things do what they do by watching them?" In one or another we're all phenomenologists, to refuse to be one is to refuse to base decision on the conditions you're able to perceive. To be truly non-phenomenological you'd have to be unconscious or in a coma.

Ontology, well there's a bit more there. Everyone experiences and then makes decisions based on that, but not everyone really wants to ask why.

It's like studying a photograph. In the photo you see a man running. Phenomenology is like looking at the main running. But some people want to know more, they want to know WHY the man is running. And the trick there is, how from the photograph can you ever really know?

Agent Smith, The Matrix

You know you're a geek when you can read a 39 page report on IDE Raid controllers and feel like it was time well spent.  Most people's eye's would have glazed over just reading the title.  Perhaps your eyes glazed over just now and I've already lost you.

But about halfway through the report, when my mind started to rebel at the thought of analyzing one more graph on average disk seek times, it hit me that fundamentally what I was looking at was a quantitative analysis.  Computers are inherently set up in ways that allow you to tell how good they are, how much they can do and how fast they can do it.  Whether it's processor speed, RAM, gigs of storage space, computers always start with hard numbers and can then be analyzed to give you more hard numbers.

We're conditioned to think this way from a very young age, schooling is all about saying you're doing it right, here's a 100% on your paper, which makes you better than little Billy over there who only got a 75%.  A lot of points are better than a few points.

But life doesn't really work on points.  Life is everything and we try to reduce life down to a comprehensible set of numbers, attempting in vain to make sense of a universe that's bigger than we are.

Stop the bean counting!  Maybe you win in the game of life if you smell the flowers, throw a enough snowballs, or spend enough hours in transcendental meditation, but probably not.  

Maybe you win at the game of life just by noticing that you're alive.

Ever stood and stared at it?  Marvelled at it's...beauty?
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I was asked recently to give a synopsis of existentialism, and was caught off guard. Where to start, with the various philosophers and their varied perspectives? With a run down of what existentialism means to me, or how it can be used in day to day life? I really didn't have a good answer and sort of rambled around, causing more confusion than enlightenment.

But in hindsight there was something besides my poorly thought out response that bothered me about the situation. I love to share ideas but in this case I wasn't trying to share the ideas that make up existentialism, just summarize what is perceived to be a particular philosophical movement.

In giving a synopsis I am essentially saying to someone, "This is what existentialism is." And I believe that action to be contrary to the very heart of the philosophy. By constraining the ideas inside the weak shell of my synopsis I limit my audience to only my perception when existentialism is all about seeing the world from your own perspective.

"The refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaction with traditional philosophy as superficial, academic and remote from life - that is the heart of existentialism."

If anyone asks me again for a synopsis, the above shall be my answer, with much thanks to Mr. Kaufman for sharing his ideas so well.

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I don't know where this originated, but it's awesome!

The ground war in Afghanistan heated up yesterday when the Allies revealed plans to airdrop a platoon of crack French existentialist philosophers into the country to destroy the morale of al-Queda zealots by proving the non-existence of God.

Elements from the feared Jean-Paul Sartre Brigade, or 'Black Berets', will be parachuted into the combat zones to spread doubt, despondency and existential anomie among the enemy. Hardened by numerous intellectual battles fought during their long occupation of Paris' Left Bank, their first action will be to establish a number of pavement Cafes at strategic points near the front lines. There they will drink coffee and talk animatedly about the absurd nature of life and man's lonely isolation in the universe. They will be accompanied by a number of heartbreakingly beautiful girlfriends who will further spread dismay by sticking their tongues in the philosophers' ears every five minutes and looking remote and unattainable to everyone else.

Their leader, Colonel Marc-Ange Belmondo, spoke yesterday of his confidence in the success of their mission. Sorbonne graduate Belmondo, a very intense and unshaven young man in a black pullover, gesticulated wildly and said, "al-Queda are caught in a logical fallacy of the most ridiculous. There is no God and I can prove it. Take your tongue out of my ear, Claudine, I am talking."

Marc-Ange plans to deliver an impassioned thesis on man's nauseating freedom of action with special reference to the work of Foucault and the films of Alfred Hitchcock. However, humanitarian agencies have been quick to condemn the operation as inhumane, pointing out that the effects of passive smoking from the Frenchmens' endless Gitanes could wreak a terrible toll on civilians in the area.

Speculation was mounting last night that Britain may also contribute to the effort by dropping Professor Stephen Hawking into Afghanistan to propagate his non-deistic theory of the creation of the universe. Other tactics to demonstrate the non-existence of God will include the dropping of leaflets pointing out the fact that Michael Jackson has a new album out and Jesse Helms has not died yet. This is only one of several Psy-Ops operations mounted by the Allies.