They're trying to hold onto all those little details that Jobs insisted on through the design and marketing of his babies. Without his vision, they're just a headless giant wandering around, trying to piece together their origins, refusing to progress into territory that seems in any way distant from the shadows cast by the deeper artistic vision that cannot be conveyed or captured. Expect lots of this sort of thing.
Descartes logic seems inherently fallacious - Cogito ergo sum "I think, therefor I am", is not necessarily the bottom-level proposition people make it out to be. It's first-person nature leads to an assumption that the self, "I/me" is somehow a fundamental necessity for experience..."I think"...But it seems more fundamental to consider the "I" part to be a thought, as well...There are thoughts, and the thinker that is thinking them is one of those thoughts.
The closest thing coming to mind right now is: "Thinking is happening, therefor there are thoughts".
Questions like: "What/who is thinking those thoughts?" are just further thoughts.
An interesting side-effect of this perspective is that it points to a possible 'fundamental fabric' upon which all experience occurs. If a thought/experience is happening, then anything which has any sort of influence on it is also happening on that same fundamental fabric.
In other words:
'An experiencer necessarily shares a causal relationship with that which is experienced. Both must therefor ultimately arise from the same universal mechanism.
An experiencer of something which also experiences necessarily shares a causal relationship with that thing. Both must therefor ultimately arise from the same universal mechanism.
Ergo: Two experiencers must ultimately arise from the same mechanism if either has any experience of any aspect of the other, regardless of any experiences that imply separateness.'
" In the event of some higher power deceiving you, the only proof you have is of your own existence. So even though you and others say that there's no evidence that I'm existing in a dream or simulation there's no way for me to verify their existence."
-"You" don't need to...the mechanism does it automatically, by it's very nature.
So there are two broad categories of people that will read this post:
Roughly speaking: approximately half of us BELIEVE that this is a cultural phenomenon, perpetuated by left-leaning media and left-leaning scientists that has effectively "branded" the idea of "global warming", "global climate change", "etc" and that it is, essentially, a ploy by profiteers and politicians to stage a "moral high-ground" stance on the matter to further their agenda which, generally, has to do with increased regulations and economic sanctions. People who share some semblance of this agenda cite ongoing scientific research by numerous organizations as claim to proof that their view is accurate and that their agenda is justified. Half of us BELIEVE that the scientific research cited, in these cases, is at best a highly biased perspective and at worst has been fabricated to comply with the image and branding necessary to support said agenda.
Roughly speaking: approximately half of us BELIEVE that humanity has somehow reached a level of unmitigated industrialization that is causing "greenhouse gas" emissions to increase, unchecked. Half of us BELIEVE that these emissions CAUSED BY HUMANS are changing atmospheric composition in ways that are, and will continue to, alter the climate of the planet. Half of us BELIEVE that these changes in the climate will have repercussions on things like water supply (rainfall/drought), agriculture, animal habitat dynamics, etc, and that while these repercussions are difficult to predict accurately, they are expected to be generally detrimental in nature. Half of us BELIEVE that these detrimental repercussions are happening now and will continue to compound/increase with further unmitigated greenhouse gas emissions that we, humans, are directly responsible for.
Broadly speaking: Nearly none of us will actually go find out the facts for ourselves. Half of us do not feel the need to verify the facts because the evidence is so overwhelmingly clear and we trust the information to be accurate, we trust the people who claim to have the expertise in these matters of science in the same way we trust the people who designed the airbus A380 enough to board one and let it take us to Japan.
The other half of us do not feel the need to verify the facts because we do not trust the information to be accurate, we do not trust the people who claim to have the expertise in these matters of science.
There are individuals among us who fall somewhere in between:
Some of us BELIEVE that there is scientific consensus on the matter and that there is something happening to the climate but that it is NOT caused by humans.
Some of us BELIEVE that there is scientific consensus on the matter and that there is something happening to the climate which can be directly attributed to human activities, BUT that nothing should be done because it would jeopardize the economy, national security, etc...
Time will ultimately tell:
Of these two major and several minor perspectives on the matter - a consensus has been reached through disagreement, in a manner of speaking:
Those who BELIEVE in the science generally believe that the changes will become ever increasingly apparent within the next 50-100 years - That there is a consensual hypothesis that has been made and is in the process of continuous refinement by the global scientific community. This hypothesis will be proven true or false as time passes and as conditions change, for better or worse...With time, if conditions change for better, diverging from these hypothetical projections, it will be taken less seriously. If conditions change for the worse, converging on these hypothetical projections, it will gain more attention and be taken more seriously by people at large.
Those who BELIEVE only in the political agendas, chocking it up to alarmism and theatrics generally believe that either nothing is changing, or that the climate is changing but that there is nothing we can do about it because we aren't the cause of it or because it would represent unacceptably risky exposure to our economy and national security. These perspectives, too, will be time-tested: If conditions change for the better/not at all, then it's business as usual...they'll see the same alarmism and hijacked science coming from their "opponents".
But if conditions change for the worse, things will get interesting: Maybe you'll explain the changes you're noticing as having been caused by the sun or some other non-human source. As conditions get worse, however, and a hypothesis you've been told is bunk is actually turning out to be the answer to all the drought, famine (not here in the US, just higher prices) mass exodus' from shoreline civilizations, rises in pest-born diseases, higher intensity and longer lasting storms, more Katrinas, etc... How bad do things have to get before you actually start believing that this climate change thing is actually happening? How bad do things have to get before you actually start believing that this climate change thing is actually caused by humanity? How bad to things have to get before you actually start believing that the rules should be changed to stop humanity from causing the changes?
How bad do things have to get for you to actually finish reading that ^
Food for thought:
https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f...
Is that ^ also leftist hockeystick propaganda?
Is it a lie that your grandchildren will live on a planet with 50% fewer species than you do?
If things do get worse and what you thought was just political propaganda and leftist nonsense turns out to have been real moral high ground, don't worry - you're not a bad person, you just rooted for the wrong team and now it's time to pay the piper...but at least give those of us who say "we told you so" the respect we deserve when we're all suffering together.
Juggling has a very long, rich, lineage and a well established community-base. Interestingly, It and many other circus-esque artforms involving "object-manipulation", can now in some ways be considered as paralleling/part of a larger movement/subculture that is quickly evolving and gaining steam - It can be thought of as a festival-culture similar to the jam bands of the 60's and onward crossed with martial arts, dance/jazz improvisation, circue-du-soleil and open-source information paradigms. The community at large has many individuals actively working on theories similar to siteswap that systematically define the dynamics of disciplines similar to, but outside of, conventional juggling.
I've had the great fortune of spending the last 10 years working inside this amazing community as an amateur theoretician, my focus is on another type of object manipulation called Poi.
Other examples of object manipulation include: yo-yo's, Contact Staff, Diablo, Hooping, etc. In each case, the discipline involves the skillful manipulation of instruments. Juggling has many MANY different sub-categories that involve the implementation of things like choreography, fire, multiple performers working in synchronization, etc. and the myriad aforementioned disciplines do as well.
My main focus as an amateur theoretician in this field as of late has been the study of spinning as a complement to the abstract language of music. Acoustic harmonics, melody, etc., have a remarkable ability (as we're all fully aware) to function as a language that communicates abstract geometric concepts to the listener. Spinning, juggling, object-manipulation at large can be adapted to serve as a spatial equivalent to the acoustic, implementing form, line, and motion to communicate the very same abstract geometries to a viewer.
A great way to illustrate how we think about this as a complement to music:
Singing: Bio-acoustic - The body alone produces sound as the carrier of the abstract language.
Dancing: Bio-spatial - The body produces line, form, and movement as the carrier.
Musical instrumentation: Instrumental-acoustic - A tool is used to produce the carrier sounds.
Spinning: Instrumental-Spatial - A tool is used to produce line, form, and movement as the carrier.
Siteswap aside, there are actually many more substantial (albeit terribly disorganized) sets of theories which we have been developing and that are actually beginning to resemble music-theory in many ways - complete with their own variations on spatial harmony, melody, arpeggios, measures, rhythm, landscape and song-structure, inflection, etc. As I mentioned earlier, perhaps the most interesting element is watching what appears to be a new variation on the language of music evolving everyday; and it is certainly a humbling experience as a practitioner of one of its disciplines. I'm pretty sure that the catalyst for this rapid progression comes from the internet, specifically social networks and youtube - The sense of progress has always seemed very intense to me and many others because we are essentially participating in a massive crowdsourcing of the development process. I suppose that's what the internet does for everything. When Jazz started to take off in 1900, the USA was primed for its arrival and it spread like wildfire - I strongly suspect that spinning is following suit now that the concerts and music clubs have started to transform into, or at least share substantial space with raves, music festivals, music videos, and so fourth. Performing arts have never been as visual as they are today and this I feel has primed the entertainment/arts for a turn back toward the spatial. Mix that with innumerable blogs, tutorial videos and enthusiast-forums and you have this giant boiling melting pot of young, creative performers who are constantly producing material that is highly visible to others and which inspires them to partake - like snowboarding or skating.
Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks.
