international barnyard conspiracy:
2004-01-16 - 2:59 a.m.
Revelation: During a casual conversation with lucy between midnightish and 2am, i may have discovered the meanings of life. But this cannot be, because i knew them all along.
idea while putting on shoes #1: a monster builder programme. Like that game mitch has where you build robots and fight them against one another, �cept with poison, claws, tails, wings, ect.
Went diving again, in Jung�s pool. It struck me, upon resurfacing, that this activity of mine may have something to do with my fear of scuba diving equipment, but such would suggest a metaphorical fear. *s* I still have not figured out a way to find things in particular, all I can seem to get is random images. I may try again tonight, for sounds.
The theory of the Two Body System, partis unus. For predicting what an individual in a closed environment is about to do, and for explaining the behaviour of such, behaniourism may be considered an outdated science. But insofar as answering the question of �how does one formulate a response to the question �what did you do yesterday��, it fares very poorly, and can hardly be thought of as a science at all. I say this not because most behaviourists refuse to answer certain questions (specifically, to those pertaining to memory and recalling events or specific data) because of the so-called �black box� method, but because it simply does not have a method by which to analyze such a process. Training is a system of changing likelihood of behaviours, through reinforcement and punishment (or more precisely, through the anticipation of such factors). It is simply stated that it works, experimentally, and little is known of the �why�, because behaviourism does not establish a process of recognizing these stimuli, nor perceiving/evaluating them as either a reinforcement or punishment, nor does it mention a mechanism with which this system of counterweights is documented and catalogued (for later retrieval/behavior). Assuming that Bob has never been asked the question before, if Alice asks Bob, �what did you do yesterday?� Bob will likely respond with a verbal response (having been reinforced to respond to questions with answers), but according to behavourism, there is nothing that would cause Bob�s response to be anything but arbitrary. Since he has never been asked the question, he has no reinforcement by which to make a decision of what he is to say to Alice. Yet (stepping outside the theoretical lab now) anyone who knows the language which is being used, Understands the meaning of each individual word, and from that can deduce the meaning of what it is that is being asked, and answers accordingly. Suppose, instead (back in the lab) Alice asked �what did you do the day before today?�. Bob would be forced, once again, to either answer with an arbitrary response, or generalize the meaning of �the day before yesterday� be reinforced similarly to his now-learned response to answering the prior question. But even supposing that he was able to easily generalize his reinforcement, his strength of response (which of course, effects how likely he is to respond arbitrarily to the second question) is based on the manner in which he is reinforced for the response, and if that were true, he could be reinforced a great deal, and would simply repeat the behavior he arbitrarily produced for the first question. (steps out of the lab for a quick breath) But such is not the case. Any person, asked relatively the same question twice in a row, is most likely to respond with something to the effect of �why, didn�t I just tell you?� and will not, at least at first, be willing to repeat themselves, over such a short span of time, to the same person and question. Ask Bob tomorrow what he did yesterday, and he is likely to respond with either an arbitrary or similar response, but he will likely blink a bit and look around to see if the aliens are watching before he answers the same question in the same five minutes. This is the thing that separates the machines from the critters. The critters have a sense of boredom, a sense of knowing when something has happened before, or at least have a sense of the futility of such repetition. And although this system of processes does not allow us to comprehend infinitely large numbers, we may assign meaning to the idea of infinity, and consider it as a thing unto itself (a finite thing). Also, we must consider Bob�s exact response. Which parts of his day does he �choose� to remember; only the parts that had the greatest effect on him (ie reinforced his behaviour the most) or only those things to which he thinks Alice would like him to have done? And are his reinforcements recalled as words or pictures (how does he experience the reinforcements upon executing the behaviour?) And can bob answer the question without Alice at all? This last question I have no answer to, for I have tried to answer �what are you thinking?� without first asking myself �what are you thinking?�, but always by that time, have I already thought back to the question before I could formulate the answer.
idea while putting on shoes #2: to start a li*rary in the mall, request that the people of albany donate any unused boo*s to the cause of lit*racy. Still don�t know how I could pay the workers, even if we rented out the front table to people doing bake sales. And other similarly unmentionable things.
Sir#1: Sir, are you so foolish to believe in creativity?
Sir#2: By that reasoning Sir, I am the second-biggest fool you�ll ever meet, and you may very well be the first.
Sir#1: If you are so sure of it, then show me a particle of it.
Sir#2: *coughs* Wel, first we must agree that not all things that exist have mass�for example, things related to time, like velocity, and then there�s ideas and other things that exist�
Sir#1: It sounds like a very poor assumption to make, but let us make it, nonetheless. Prove to me that creativity exists. Prove to me that you can perform some behaviour which no person has ever done.
Sir#2: Gladly. First, creativity is not a particle, but a wave. Now, I will �*does a handstand while jiggin� upside-down to la-coo-ka-ra-cha music while attempting to suck his middle right toe*�ha, see?
Sir#1: It proves nothing. You have simply combined a list of behaviours unlikely to occur together.
Sir#2:*falls over* Wel, you have me there. You would suggest then Sir, that every time I want to move my little finger, my brain has to send a message to all of the rest of the muscles in my body telling thet I have chosen, of all the behviours, to do this one single behaviour?
Sir#1: Not in such full detail, Sir. A behaviour is loosely defined; it can be a motorization of any number of muscles, or a single muscle, or utilize no muscle whatsoever, and simply be an urge to produce a behaviour, or it can be a set of behaviours composing a complex pattern or process, or it can include the utilization of things which are outside the person, that cause a chain reaction in anticipation of producing a desired result. Something so complex and dynamic must be intrinsic to the brain, because the spinal chord simply does not have the hardware to do such-
Sir#2: Likewise, something so complex and dynamic as creativity must be intrinsic to-
Sir#1: See, there you are repeating, that�s not creativity!
Sir#2: Wel, what about�because you are able to question it�
Think I�d better go. I don�t feel right sitting *here*, talking so forwardly to your face, and I would find myself quite out of place were I standing up�really, the truth of the matter is, I had an affair with your doorway, and it�s making me uncomfortable, being sort of in the same room�*stubles out*
�Magic Carpet Ride� Artist Unknown (cannot find the proper version)
I like to dream
Yes, yes right between the sound machine
On a cloud of sight I drift in the night
Any place it goes is right
Goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here�
Well you don't know what we could find
Why don't you come with me little girl
On a magic carpet ride
Well you don't know what we could see
Why don't you tell your dreams to me
Fantasy will set you free
Close your eyes girl, look inside girl
Let the sound take you away�
Last night I held Aladdin's lamp
So I wished that I could stay
Before the thing could answer me
Well someone came and took the lamp away
I looked around a lousy can was all I found�
Well you don't know what we could find
Why don't you come with me little girl
On a magic carpet ride
Well you don't know what we could see
Why don't you tell your dreams to me
Fantasy will set you free�
