Seeking Unity Consciousness is like jumping from one wave of experience to another in search of water. And that is why ‘there is neither path nor achievement’. — Ken Wilber
“You can’t just go around bashing the Singularity like that!”
“Well, why not? Isn’t it due the same scrutiny as any other statistical or theoretical extrapolation?”
“No. Just no.”
“Why is that?”
“Don’t you understand?! — the Singularity is a sacred tenant of Nerd-dom, beating out even force-fields and light-sabers in conceptual God-status!…”
“I am not aware of any such thing as conceptual God-status, nor does it lend anything at all to your case this equating it with your Zeus-level memetics or whatever you want to call it. Science doesn’t care if it’s cool or if your world view rests upon its shoulders; all that matters is the truth: Is it going to happen or isn’t it? And your quick-tempered reaction to my by-all-standards-justifiably-dubious approach to the issue is self-defeating to say the least… I mean, would you want people making parody god-concepts out of your precious Singularity, much like the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Invisible Pink Unicorn parody the God of the Old Testament? Give it a rest, please! It’s just another blogger pointing out some obvious fallacies inherent in the meme.”
“I… Ghah! I hate you!!”
“To further my point, consider how unlikely it is that we could properly imagine something so supposedly un-imagineable in the first place! I mean, where do you even start if the extrapolation leads to a wall of un-extrapolatability? ‘It’s like saying God is so mysteriously, incredibly powerful that you’re not even gonna believe it!’ To which me or any other sane, skeptical scientist would respond: ‘Ok, I’ll take your word for it. I don’t believe in it one bit then!’ Don’t waste your energy deifying such a mundane, backwater concept, that’s all I’m saying.”
“It’s not mundane or backwater! It’s brand-spanking new! It’s — it’s.. It’s the most glorious — bad-assest, mega-bajillion-power-plus-infinity concept there is! I mean, the Singularity almost guarantees us Earthly eternal bliss. And you don’t even have to believe in it to get the access-cards to the Mega-Rapture of the Nerds. It’s just gonna happen, what with all the modulation and widgetizing and hackitizing, not to mention the research and development money that’s being poured into the field of recursively self-improving A.I., which is really just the beginn…”
“Stop. Just stop right there. I’ve heard it all before. I’ve seen the wikipedia article on the Technological Singularity. I’ve listened to Ray Kurzweil speak at TED. I’ve read Vernor Vinge’s works. There’s nothing you can say. You’re not gonna convert me. I’m beyond it. I’m post-cyberpunk to your momma’s moldy Nöospheres. I’m post-singularitarian while you’re still in singularitarian infancy. I’m nerd nihilism 2.0. But you, you’re still raving about AOL 2.0!! Go home already!! Just go home!”
The nihilist turns his back and walks away, leaving Mr. S-fan boquiabierta — stunned and without a comeback.
“God I hate these playa-hater’s…” mumbles Mr. S-fan to no-one in particular. Looking off into the distance he ends saying, “Maybe I should make it a religion…. Yea, I’ll call it Singularitarianism… Yeah, I like the sound of that. It just rolllllls off your tongue…” He tromps self-righteous back to the hood, his hood, the neighborhood net-cafe, to make his plans for the future and ensure that nerd-nihilism spreads to not-another-soul…
First buddhism-related post in quite a while. This one a speech from one of my favorite wise people about progressing along the path of spiritual-development. What does it take to grow? Do we need guides along the way? Certainly it doesn’t hurt to be pushed once in a while. I love the story here and how it demonstrates the value of troublemakers in our lives.
I’m a neologist. So I love making new words out of old dried up ones. Take spork for example. This one’s been around for awhile, but people still love to mention it wherever and whenever a controversy over cutlery comes up.
Here I present you my TOP 10 Most Recent Combinovelties. You can try it too. No need to follow my pattern. Just do whatever sounds good. I have to say entry #3 “HUNGRIRED” doesn’t roll off the tongue too smoothly, but if you’re a nerd like me it’s quite polikely you’ll digg a few of these other newfastic words:
#1 – POLIGIOUS
Religious + political = poligious, as in
“Can we create a satirical film that combines all the most poligious movies?”
#2 – SPIROLITICAL
Spiritual + political = spirolitical, as in
“Buddhist anarchists look for spirolitical solutions to amoral systems.”
#3 – HUNGRIRED
Hungry + tired = hungrired, as in
“But coach, I’m so hungrired.”
#4 – FLIERED
Full + tired = fliered, as in
“Food coma.”
“Dido, I’m fliered.”
#5 – POLIKELY
Likely + possible = polikely,
as in “The forecast for Mt. Everest tomorrow: Snow is polikely.”
#6 – POSSUNKELY
Unlikely + possible = possunkely, as in
“Possums wearing pants post-partem is pretty possunkely, pal.”
#7 – LARGITING
Large + exciting = largiting, as in the Burj Dubai.
#8 – EXSMALTING
Small + exciting = exsmalting, as in
“I’m so exsmalted about the new iPhone 4GS. But the thought of jailbreaking it is even more exsmalting.”
#9 – FOLDASTIC
Old + fantastic = foldastic, as in
“Look at this antique origami praying mantis I found. It’s foldastic!”
#10 – NEWFASTIC
New + fantastic = newfastic, as in
“I’m a neologist; all these newfastic words are gonna give me a braingasm!”
###
BONUS #11 – SORRIBLE
Horrible + simple = sorrible, as in
“Pleasing neologists is sorrible work, indeed, but the nerd rapture is coming, so I better get used to it.”
BONUS #12 – GRIMPLE
Great + simple = grimple, as in
“It would really be grimple if you could add a few combinovelties yourself in the comments!!”
The Invisible Pink Unicorn. The brilliant imaginary beast which cannot be seen is manifest. She truly exists and blesses all ye faithful followers. Ever since the day she shone upon me her lovely, photon-free light, I’ve felt stupendously full of fortune. Faith was all that was needed; learning unnecessary. The path was laid out before me in footprints I needed only to believe in – Pink ones. Invisible pink ones. And now I know the way. Blessed be her.
LEARN MORE: The unseen path can here be discovered. She awaits.
Oh, and don’t trust the propaganda below. Contrary to the information in the video, Her Pinkness is not a hallucination. She is real.
1. Which idea is more toxic?
A. We should inoculate ourselves against the most toxic ideas.
B. It’s all subjective; we cannot objectively classify ideas.
2. Which belief would be most convenient were you to believe in it?
A. Chaos and physical laws rule my life.
B. God and fate rule my life.
3. Which idea is more useful?
A. There are a few brown eggs in the fridge.
B. Suffering is inevitable.
4. Which of these most tickles your fancy?
A. Believers get an afterlife.
B. Only non-believers get an afterlife, just to confuse them.
5. Circle the most viral concept.
A. Zeus is the king of heaven.
B. Allah is the king of heaven.
6. Eliminate the most intolerable concept.
A. Islam is a harmful belief system.
B. Astrology is a harmful belief system.
I once tried to write a short story. It was a three-line dialog about a trip a long time ago that these two dudes went on. It went something like this:
“19 miles to midnight.”
“What?”
“Ok, 18.8.”
The only problem was it was too long. I needed a short story, and fast. Two lines would have been nice, but I couldn’t compact the interaction into such a small dialectal space. Surely I had to reverse my thinking and add a line. So I tried it with four:
“How much further, Jim?”
“19 miles.”
“19 miles to midnight…”
“Well, 18.8 to be exact.”
Unfortunately, it lacked a convincing conclusion. How would the story end? Would the passenger fall silent in satisfaction at the respecified 18.8-mile reply, or would there take place some kind of conflict at that? A discreet critique of Jim’s need to speak accurately perhaps? It certainly needed something — either a resolution or dissolution; at this point it was exceedingly flat. But nothing was coming to me…
At some point about a week later on it struck me to limit myself to three lines, as I had originally intended to do, but to sneak in a whole new character as well. So then I had Jim, the driver, the curious cat (to be known as ‘Frederíco’), and another whom I called ‘the old author’, a retired novelist. It went a little something like this:
“Man, I bet it would take you a month if you were gonna hike it.”, said Frederíco, trying with false appreciation to mask what was really impatience.
Jim gave a flat driver’s-grunt and laid out his ETA: “19 more miles to midnight, folks.”
The old author gazed out at the dim rolling dunes and chimed in to keep everyone aware of the stars that would spin and said: “Look!”
At least now the readers could grin knowing that: even outside of his books can the retired novelist write a new fact. And so, from the muse, it was this story I took.
