New Project / Venture

I am planning to start a new project soon. Once I get through some meetings and find some other information I will publish an update that outlines the full project. Hopefully this goes the way I want it to, so far it looks as if it will launch. Fingers crossed....

A Comment on Education by Norbert Wiener

“Lord only knows that there are enough problems yet to be solved, books to be written, and music to be composed! Yet for all but a very few, the path to these lies through the performance of perfunctory tasks which in nine cases out of ten have no compelling reason to be performed. Heaven save us from the first novels which are written because a young man desires the prestige of being a novelist rather than because he has something to say! Heaven save us likewise from the mathematical papers which are correct and elegant but without body or spirit. Heaven save us above all from the snobbery which not only admits the possibility of this thin and perfunctory work, but which cries out in a spirit of shrinking arrogance against the competition of vigor and ideas, wherever these may be found!”

The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society, Norbert Wiener, pp. 134

Quotes From Today's Reading

Below are a few quotes I came across in The Human Use of Human Being: Cybernetics and Society by Norbert Wiener.

"Variety and possibility are inherent in the human sensorium- and are indeed the

 key to man's most noble flights- because variety and possibility belong

 to the very structure of the human organism."

"The human species is strong only insofar as it takes advantage of the innate

adaptive, learning faculties that its physiological structure makes possible."

"Cybernetics takes the view that the structure of the machine or of the organism

is an index of the performance that may be expected from it."

Another Day

Today was day two of my new job. The computer systems were not working so I was only productive in the since that I showed up on time and left only moments after arriving. At which point, I spent a better part of two hours with my mother. After this, I went home where I watched a documentary on the history of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. This was about an hour long, but it was interesting to learn how unknown Einstein was up until his elder years. Following this my brother and his girlfriend wanted to go to the gym, and I myself felt the need to get out of the house for a while. We spent about and hour there, splitting the time between cardio and lifting exercises. We did close grip bench press, dips, and sets of hammer curls. As for cardio they both enjoy running; I however prefer to walk at a fast past. I have always found this to be much more enjoyable and it always feels like I produce some of my most productive thinking as I walk. While walking today, I tuned on a YouTube video produced by Dr. Jordan Peterson. He argues for free speech and in the video I watched he talked to another professor about this topic. I will link the video here. Dr. Peterson is one of a handle full of people that I am constantly watching and listening too. This may in a large part be due to the fact I study psychology and wish to pursue clinical practice. Anyway, I digress. Once I got back to the apartment, I sat outside with a Pepsi and one of my books and read a chapter out of it. This was a new book I just started yesterday, and it talks about the use of cybernetics. The chapter I read today was mainly focused on the concept of Entropy. I went back inside after the sun went down, and read a couple of pages from Beyond Good and Evil. I find this book very hard to read, mostly because I can read one page and it promotes a whole day's worth of thought. The last book I have been reading before I head to bed is always Crime and Punishment. I'm about a hundred pages into it now and I am finding it harder and harder to put down. It has been a long time since I have been this fascinated with a narrative. I have a personality test tomorrow and I have done nothing today to prepare, I am beginning to feel very sluggish when it comes to school. I feel as is I learn and understand more when I study on my own accord. Four months of lazy, busy work is not for me I guess, but what is there to do other than suck it up to receive that magical little paper that states you can now earn a decedent living pay. Anyway, today was overall a good day. Tomorrow I am back at school, and I hope something will interest me....     

A quote I ran across today while doing research:

If modern science is a religion, then one of its presiding deities must be Sherlock
Holmes. To the modern scientist as to the great detective, every mystery is a problem,
and every problem can be solved. A mystery can exist only because of human
ignorance, and human ignorance is always remediable. (Wendell Berry 2001, 27)

No Campus for White Men | Scott Greer and Stefan Molyneux

A Quote from Man and His Symbles

"Thus a rift arose between man's traditional Christianity and his rational or intellectual mind. Since that time, these two sides of modern man have never been brought together. In the course of the centuries, with man's growing insight into nature and its laws, this division has gradually grown wider; and it still splits the psyche of the western Christian in the 20th century." - pg. 273

"His soul has lost its roots and he is threatened by dissociation" - pg. 284 

Renaissance religious art shows a reorientation to the earth and the body: plans for churches based on the body's proportions, drown by the 15-century Italian artist and architect Francesco di Giorgio.

Time & Place

Today in my English course we discussed the idea of time and place while analyzing a short essay. The essay being, "Dwelling: making peace with space and place" by Deborah Tall. We talked mostly about how people identify with the local or more specifically, how our "Self" is made up largely of where we identify as "home". The idea that we associate strongly with a time and place is not a new idea; however, to what extent these factors influence who we are as an individual is something that struck me today.  In Tall's work, she provides us an example of a town which was wiped off the maps, and removed from the earth by the German army during World War II. A Jewish woman returned to the area after the war to find that everything she once knew was gone, and believed it worse than the death of her family.

When we are born the first thing we learn is where we live and our surroundings. As children we explore the woods, alleys, streams, and from these adventures, we begin to define our perception of the world. This is the foundation from which we build our world around. If we think of our personality, or even our belief of what the world contains in a hierarchical structure, it is simple to see how a large part of one's overall  "Self" can be directly rooted in their place of origin. But the question which is persistently eating away at me is, "What happens to the individual's perception when the foundation of all he or she knows is obliterated out of existence?".  Think of the 1900's when the average person was thrust out of their home to fight in a world war or was subjected to horrible governmental abuse of power in such cases as Soviet Russia, or Communism China. It is well documented that those who survived these long ordeals returned to their homes and found them unrecognizable. Even soldiers today sometimes after long deployments find it hard to reconnect with their original homes. This dissociation of place and time leads to great mental anguish. This has lessened in the past 60 years largely due to the fact people have become much more "rootless". The concept of rootless is complex and this post has become rather long so I am going to end my thoughts for now, perhaps I will return to it later with a more refined paper... for now anyway I have to go to class....

Another Day

 

Went to the gym again today. Lifted four out of seven days this week and feel really sore. Probably will recoup and start up again Monday. Got my bench up to 235 lb. this week but plan on getting that much higher. I love lifting weights but I really need to do more cardio. Not a big fan running. I also read some more of Carl Jung's "Man and his Symbols". So far it has been a great book and has a lot to offer. I am also applying to jobs around Lancaster and that is a major pain. Job applications take an eternity to fill out and submit. Online applications where I have to reenter the same info over and over drives me up a wall. Wish I could just upload a simple resume. Probably going to take a shower now and keep working though my current book or jump into a case study for my psychology of personality class. I also have an Organizational and Industrial Psychology Test on Tuesday. I will study for that in the morning. Till tomorrow...

A Statement on the Milo Riots

Milo Yiannopoulos

Last night there were riots at UC Berkeley over a popular public speaker. Milo Yiannopoulos, is a gay, controversial, provocateur who supports the Trump administration, and is a speaker for the political right. He is also an editor for Breitbart News. The fact that his and many other republican's right to free speech was silenced by the violent actions of those leftist who preach one thing, yet act in the complete opposite manner is appalling to say the least. No person's right to communicate their thought, opinion, or belief should ever be repressed. Arguments should be scrutinized and if they hold merit they will only become stronger; if they fail to hold up their integrity, they should be discarded or refined. Free speech is the tool which underpins all of western civilization, and should be treated as such. Universities who have for years become more and more radicalized should be ashamed of what they have created. As a student I am very careful about what classes I take and who they are taught by. Also, by staying off of the main campuses, there is much less radicalization. My time spent on Ohio State's main campus showed me exactly what these places have become. A breeding ground for socialistic, leftist, political ideology, and with the backing of unjustifiable departments, who use spotty if any statistics, transform young malleable students into full fledged "revolutionaries". The majority of these students do not truly understand what they are doing, but rather have been manipulated into actions which will do two things simultaneously. One, their actions are being used to forward the political agenda of the left, and secondly, they are destroying any idea of a successful future for themselves. In my opinion the educational system, and colleges have let down America's youth; in addition to providing them the false idea that they have some superior intelligence. Parents share in this responsibility for their lack of intervention when these problems first began years ago. I support Milo' s freedom to speak freely, just as I would any other speaker. The video below was created by Stefan Molyneux and represents just some of what occurred last night...   

A Thought:

Today I finished reading Unit 731: Testimony by Hal Gold. I was lead to this book by working through the reading list that Dr. Jordan Peterson has published on his website. Other works on the list would include the Gulag Archipelago and The Raping of Nanking. As I read, I was amazed by two revolving ideas which appeared in almost every testimony provided in the book. First, All the atrocities were done in the name of the ruler, for the sake of the country; thereby, placing the weight of their actions onto the country and not upon themselves. Those who did shoulder their actions often could not cop with them and self-destructed. The Second idea I found repeated was that they seamed to justify their actions by arguing that because these events took place during the "War Time" (WWII) that this somehow lessens the crime. Again it can be viewed as a coping mechanism. i.e. what I did is inhuman, but the soviet's are doing X therefore my crime is not as horrible giving me the moral high ground. In summary, this book contextualizes some of the most inhuman, sadistic torture and killing of the past century. I would only recommend this book to a person who is willing to change. Books like this leave lasting impressions and can construe one's view of the society in an everlasting way. 

Update:

In classes all day today, however I am super excited about two books I've ordered. Carl Jung's Four Archetypes, and Modern Man in Search of a Soul. I also picked up The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. Working my way through Dr. Jordan Peterson's reading list. So far it has been a life changing experience. I am also designing my own personalized degree. Lots of work designing a whole program but I feel that it will be worth the work in the end. Ill upload the program outline online once it has been approved by the university.

    

School Schedule for Spring 2017

Junior English Writing and Rhetoric II (3080J)
Psychology of Personality (2720)
Clinical and Counseling Psychology (3710)
Organizational Psychology (3610)
Myth, Ritual, and Symbolism (4810)
Death and Dying Psychology (1900)