Kicking this back to the top from February of 2007, although the underlying essay is much older than that. This is the shortest statement I have made, so far, of the ontology of human behavior. –GSS
Russell Shaw has mentioned the film The Secret a couple of times. Cathy bought the DVD, and we took the time to watch it tonight. As an expression of the right attitude to take toward life, it was right up my street. As physics, metaphysics, epistemology and ontology, it struck me as babbling word salad. The Law of Attraction commended me to The Eyelid Show, as television often does, so Cathy saw the whole thing, and I saw about half.
What the movie would seek to ascribe to a volitionally-caused physics (this is solipsism, right there), I would argue is simply the secondary consequences of particular habits of mind. Russell wants to freely and very generously share all that he has learned in his career. To do this, he needed me as his amplifier, and the two of us needed Allen Butler for his technological prowess. A great many other very talented people will be involved in this project. Are we drawn to each other by a Law of Attraction, or all we all simply oscillating in our own minds at around the same frequency — birds of a feather?
I wrote a book about the ontology of human social relationships, but it’s dense, tough sledding. Appended below is a easier-reading summary of some of these ideas. I wrote this as a speech for my Toastmaster’s Club in August of 2001. In the weblogging world, I’ll throw out details about our lives, but that’s really just so much plastic fruit, local color. This is the world that I live in, the world I wish everyone lived in…
Shyly’s delight
or
Manifesting the secondary consequences of splendor
I have a Labrador mutt named Shyly. She’s about three years old, but because she’s a Lab, she’ll always be a puppy. Always busy, always involved, always eager to be right in the middle of everything.
Shyly is the world’s greatest master at expressing delight. She Read more