While watching the bloopers of an episode of Roseanne, the only television show I ever watch, I found myself laughing with the actors over seemingly nothing. After noticing this, I was overcome with the most poignant emotion. I was sharing emotions with the specter of a fit of laughter from many years ago, thousands of miles away.
Only the impermeability of human empathy could bridge such a large gap. Empathy is most sublime emotion not because it so romanticized, but to the fact that empathy is the emotion that comes to our rescue whenever we are in trouble—in fact, the romanticization is probably due to this. Whenever we toil, and its end is brought about by the assistance of another, we remember the compassion showed to us and, of course, do so fondly. There cannot be compassion without empathy, so we are latently reminded of compassion previously shown to us when experiencing “severe empathy.”
(Empathy making humans different from most other animals has already been discussed. At just about everywhere.)
During our time on this earth (followed by, assuringly, nothing more), life can be separated into several fifteen year periods. In a fifteen-year period, you can move somewhere, become part of the place, feel the need to move, and then, cathartically, move.
It occurred to me that the lifespan of the average dog is a similar period of time.
Like dogs, these periods are accumulated throughout life, accompanying you for an episode of the journey. They provide you with both comfort and pain, but in the end, we remember them fondly and express sorrow at their ends.
This association of time and death in the idea of a cherished pet's passing causes us to pause and consider it in the context of the temporal aspect of our lives—how long, really, do we live?
There are so few furry friends that we become close with during our lifetimes, whose lives seem to end so quickly, that the reply to the question is more solemn that one could hope. In other words, “I have had only three dogs in my life, yet my life is half over!” Implicitly, I only have three more dog lives to go. Due to human tendency to abstract even extended experiences to a single idea, this time seems much shorter than it actually was. Further, humans rarely have a good comparison to make between their time and the actual experience it takes to elapse, as time is usually used to compare time—“midlife-crisis,” “hump day,” etc.
Given these tendencies that encourage the above “dog anxiety” (as I felt before writing this post. ha. i try to present my feelings as though everyone feels that way to make myself feel less lonely. ha.), humans would hope that some way could be devised to live forever. It then occurred to me, however, that only scarcity creates value, at least in things that can be quantified. If humans could live endlessly, would they live any differently? I contemplated this. If humans made feasible the longingly unfeasible, would they make any use of the gift? They would not need to. As shown by excessive television consumption, people already treat their lives as though they have no end. On the occasions this cognitive dissonance dissipates, the church welcomes them with open arms, contingent on their open wallets and easily manipulated minds.
Although, by the same mechanics described in making time seem short, humans naturally fall into the lie of everlasting life, on both counts. There should be greater emphasis in our society, perhaps even in the educational system, on making use of life, precisely because it does not extend continually into the after-life and heaven. Making people aware, but not to the point of worry, about this truest fact of life, would result in a much more stimulating culture and richer society. After all, life is short—especially in dog years.
XOXOXOX,
Well, girl, just look at you.
The digital world is beautifully dichotomized. 1 or 0 or (better yet?) 0 or 1—it reflects reality in the most perfect abstraction. Something either is or is not. Moreover, some things either are or are not. This is still evident in binary, as different dichotomizations can result in overall different effects. 01 is different from 10, as 00 is different from 11. They are both just the result of different process dichotomizations. These series of dichotomizations reflects in reality the different paths of cause and effect leading to different results. For example, I was not born on September 23, 1991 (instead of being born on that day) and was not born African-American (instead of being born African-American). This leads to the result of a non-African American that was not born on September 23, 1991. Beautifully simplistic.
The image that galvanized the above pondering can be found here.
Everything in a modern GUI can be highlighted to one different color: the icons, the text, the backgrounds—everything. This further shows the validity and beauty of cascading abstractions and the universality of logical principals, as something so far from the pure code of binary, but still composed of it, holds its lowest common denominator’s properties.
The invention of the personal computer, the GUI specifically, presents other opportunities of philosophical inquiry and experiment.
For example, in subjective experience, one is not, paradoxically, consciously aware of what they are focusing on. However, with the interceding of computer, one must be aware of what there are focusing on in order to use a computer—in typical computing language, you must “select” it. This enables you do things with it. “I am going to bring this icon into operability by 'selecting' it.” Research on this property will bring knowledge that is more informed on extension of consciousness, human consciousness, focus of consciousness, and philosophy of computer science. This information all comes from the unique experience of the intersection of human consciousness and agency with an interceding console. One reality acting at the bidding of another.
