Unconventional answers to common philosophies

Modern philosophy is boring. Most of it has simply boiled down to mindless questions that people seem to more or less agree on.

By modern I mean what people usually discuss when they wanna feel all philosophical and wise. I will touch on most of these subjects later in this post and try to bring something new and challenging to the table.

The really "big" questions as they call them, honestly pretty dull stuff:
*The meaning of life?
*The size of cosmos?

*What is free will?
*Does "Nothing" exist? paradox

*Time travel paradox

As for the meaning of life, I could be boring and state the obvious that there is no meaning. Meaning is something we seek because many need to believe that there is a purpose for our being.

I could say that the meaning behind life is personal which would lead me to rephrase the question "What is the meaning of my life?".

Both common and totally uninteresting views that bring nothing new to a table that is now overflooded by these cliché ideas. And I already neglected to include religious beliefs because let's face it, religion and philosophy are two very different beasts. They do occasionally overlap, I won't argue against that. It just doesn't feel like the religious quasi logic could really bring anything substantial to the table. I mean you can't argue with logic as "God has a plan"Because you have to assume a belief that might not be your own.

Let's be creative. Let's be smart.

How do we enlighten this question and illuminate a new and fresh perspective?

If we assume it's not god, it's not a personal meaning but definitely a global one. We have ourselves a decent challenge.

Even the most basic form of life has a pattern, doesn't matter if it's random or predestined. Humans are complex beings and we have many patterns. Maslow's hierachy of needs shape some of the most basic reasoning behind the patterns we commonly produce. We seek to fulfill our self actualization, self esteem, belonging - love, safety, and physiological needs. Ask a poor broken man if he would want a better life. And there is your answer. This encompasses everyone. The meaning of life is to fill our meaning with life. How elegant.

Next subject, the size of cosmos? I don't fully understand the charm of discussing something as redundant as this. I think by now everyone knows that either it's finite or it's infinite. Or ever expanding? Can you make a reasonable example of something practical that I can actually view that is infinite? The closest thing I can think of is placing a mirror in front of another mirror. Supposing the placement is perfect the image will continue to iterate into the tiniest form able to reflect. Hence it's only as infinite as strings or particles are small. In similar fashion we can deduce that cosmos is probably only as big as some other to me unknown entity is.

That is one way to think about it. Another way is to let go of conventions as size and shape. Simply because most things we know have a shape does it need to imply that everything has a size and shape? What if cosmos is "shapeless"?

Think about it.

Meanwhile I'll move on to the next subject, I can't be bothered to dabble in these questions too long.

What is free will? Assuming the two popular ideas I've heard are somewhat of the norm I can completely see why. The first theorem is that there is no free will and everything is just more or less the solution to an almost infinitely complex equation. Hence free will is an "illusion" so strong that it more or less has become real.

The other is that god gave us free will. And you should know by now that I don't even want to go there. That idea is just so ridden with plot holes it's scary.

Scientists argue that free will in the form of chance do in fact exist but only at a subatomic particle level. I personally guess it's simply because we hardly fully understand the nature of such small things yet.

It's really difficult for me to think of a fresh perspective which makes this the most interesting of the questions so far. Let's see.

In fuzzy logic there are calculations that do not give exact answers. While a linear explosion would give us predictable results an explosion made with fuzzy logic would give us a "chance" result at the very most basic level. Assuming everything started with an explosion of course. This means that our path is not predestined because we are the result of a random seed. And as long as time is not recursive, free will most definitely exists.

Next subject.

Does "Nothing" exist paradox?

Note that I chose to capitalize "Nothing" as being an entity because I feel the biggest issue is that our language does not allow us to talk about "Nothing" without giving it properties hence rending it's meaning useless. Nothing simply is. You just have to accept if it's worth your effort to argue that if somebody said "Nothing is the absence of anything" that their linguistics are off. Silly. This is hardly philosophical at all, just an oversight in linguistics.

Finally my favorite.

The time travel paradox. THE one subject that has perhaps the most poignant cliché that everyone agrees to because it's the simple way to see it and it seems logical within it's own reasoning. But that is just the problem with time travel, our knowledge of how it works is sketchy at best.

But if we put that aside for a moment to explain this idea. The idea is that if you travel back to before you were born and kill your dad then you would die. This is one argument that is hard as hell to break without introducing parallel timelines/dimensions. And I simply do not believe in either.

Once I find a solution to this I'm going to use it in a unique sci fi story of mine. I have already flushed several ideas down the drain but there are some ideas that are starting to stick.

Last but not least, for the longest time I was baffled by conscience and why I am me and nobody else. And the fact that I will never be again. It was more or less solved by "my grandfather's axe". And understanding that the conscience is constantly changing still retaining aging memory shards that keep the character intact. I still sometimes feel there is more to this existential question but I've been able to put most of it to rest due to the above reasoning.

Keep dreaming, keep believing. If one dream doesn't work out it simply means you were not dreaming big enough.

Signed, Mireneye

Story brilliance

As I lay down yet another sleepless night among many, not in the bad sense, no - not at all. It's silent, only weak white noises and the vibrance of thought passing through my head, mixing into an urban like soundscape.

I sit up, trying to process the plethora of thoughts. They are not heavy, actually my mind rarely feels so empty, so silent.

Then I abruptly disturb the pleasureable soundscape by rapidly tapping out my mind onto the laptop keyboard. It seems the only road tonight is to put my mind to rest through the dance of my fingers.

In harmony the soundscape and the dance blend into what can only be the very essence of my sleeplessness. An idea.

I have told many stories, on paper, by mouth either structured or improvised. And last but not least by action.

And I have been told innumerable stories through my life. Everything from the first children's books read to me as a goodnight saga to Disney on TV or much darker, the lies of grown ups. Some stories have been brilliant, others have served their purpose and some were downright awful.

But we rarely stop and think what components actually make a good story. There's classical ways to write a decent story, but it doesn't teach you how to go beyond and reach your potential and to break the barrier between conventional writing and finding your own style.

So let's do that, let's stop for a brief moment and think.

Conventions such as great characters, a compelling narrative, no huge clichés, sounds very promising don't you think?

While most of those points are valid in most forms of writing. Your way of writing should never have to conform to those, only conform if it is by free will.

One of my most profound pieces is the story of Hexagonica. With Hexagonica I crafted a world to play with freely in which no convention or boundary was needed. I was sleep deprived, probably hadn't eaten correctly in days and been really deep into philosophy and had a decent mixture of odd influences from games and movies when I started to type the first words of the story.

But what is Hexagonica? It is the beginning of a universe. A story meant to portray a certain kind of advent chaos that we really could never begin to understand unless we extracted a chunk of it and present it in chosen pieces. Reading the true "Hexagonica" story would be the equivalent of trying to see a hypercube.

And as you may or may not know, we can only project a hypercube into three dimensional space to approximate it. The same goes with Hexagonica.

Hexagonica doesn't have compelling characters, and the story arch and ending is a mess. It has a few clichés. It's actually trash, from a conventional point of view.

Having read it several times and having it spark numerous philosophical debates I've come to realize that the nature of the story that is Hexagonica transcends that of the paper it's written on. There is almost always somebody pointing out a new reference or a new philosophical point I never intended and as such those people shape the story as they read.

See when I wrote it there were no rules I just wrote whatever came to my mind. In the end it didn't need interesting characters. It was "deep" enough on it's own.

Let's leave Hexagonica and explore more on how to archive "Story brilliance". One of my favorite game companies, Bioware just recently explained in a video how they made the story of Mass Effect.

Anyone who has ever tried making multiple branching storylines where they try to anticipate the choices the player(s) want to make knows it's incredibly difficult. What Bioware did was to create a baseline of characters. At the time the characters were inserted into the world, especially the "team members" they were basically assets.

Whenever they created a "mission" for Mass Effect they created the mission first with it's bare bone basics and then they could at any time call upon the assets if they were avaliable. If not, then another event might transpire or it might not happen at all.

This is a superb way to design an overarching story to a game. The actual lore would be separate of course.

For instance I think it would be interesting to explore this type of writing for books or pen and paper roleplaying scenarios.

But even Mass Effect have clichés which brings me to my next point. Elves and Dwarves are cliché races in fantasy writing. They are so normal now that I'm personally choking everytime I hear about it. But there are settings and ways to give even such an old and over used cliché a small spark of ingenuinity. I'm going to be honest, get off your lazy ass riding the LoTR wave and find your own goldmine.

Elves and Dwarves sure, hey LoTR was not first I know that. But what makes them unique and what are their properties right now that fulfill a part in your story and setting? Unless there's a compelling reason for them to be of a specific "race" then why include them at all?

The answer is simply that people can relate to them. And honestly you are simply looking down upon your readers and your ability to make justice to an entire race of your own making while you should be excited about the fact you can play "god" and shape your creation any way you like

Last but not least. I find sometimes I need to get into a certain mindset to write certain things. These are things you can trigger and control, play with your mindset, write in different situations in life, you might surprise yourself when you see what comes out.

Time to let the tapping fade into the distant unheard echo of the night as I slip into my dreamworld.

Signed, Mireneye

Crafty little lock

Crafty little lock

Encased with treasure

A broken golden clock

Within devils claw

Time lay dormant for a time

until the call

A crackled rash across the wall

Light seeping through

Smashed to smithereens

Crafty little lock

A tick

- A tock

#01 My talented friends!

I've had the great honor to meet a lot of talent and a lot of great and goofy and crazily driven people.

These posts will be dedicated to some of them, in no particular order.

This spot goes to Kari Berg.

I met Kari the first time, I think when I was at Kretsen. I strongly recall our brief talk about picking mushroom in the forest. This was way before I knew she was a model, singer and totally kick-ass!

I'm personally looking forward to a little something she mentioned to me a while back. More on that in a later post.

Her current occupation is singing in CAS. She is also the editor for the news paper QLTR that covers fashion, culture and such in and around Umeå. If you happen to have facebook (like any modern person do!) you can like and share to support her on this link:
http://www.facebook.com/KariBergOfficial

And her webpage is:
http://www.kariberg.com/

Where you can find lots of pictures and links to interviews etc. While I'm at it, I totally recommend checking out the band CAS if you like dark electronic music that will give you some nice eargasms! I mean, who doesn't like eargasms?

Keep on rocking Kari!
I'm proud of you for doing what you love, putting so much energy into it. Every day, even while making funny faces at the table in the pub, hahah.

And thanks!

Signed, Mireneye

The old the habits and the new

The old:
I've come to understand one important thing about my behaviour when me and my old flame's path separated into two as we did. When we broke up I never really processed the emotion fully. I was sad but not devestated, believing fully and foolishly that if I put some effort into it, things would turn in my favor.

But I was completely blind to the fact, where I had always been a part of the solution.. I was now the problem.

It might seem like the easiest thing to understand, not for me, which brings me to my second red herring.

The habit:
I'm most definietly the kind of person who feels good helping somebody, not the greatest listener (I did that all my young life), but I try to juggle the balance of the two. After all, sometimes the great talker is exactly what is neccesary to get somebody in the right mood.

In the habit of always being a positive force, doing positive things for friends. Having that habit turn on me was more or less a mind numbing shock.

And now, many moons later I've come to a new conclusion.

The new:
The new me has dark memories of things I'd rather never had been a part of, but they are overwhelmed by the adventure that was the relationship. In such a way I've grown more mature and more secure in who I am. Those are some of the good things.

There were sacrifices, facing such real situations I never had to work with made me a colder person. I used to spread smiles, I have that inside of me. But for now it lies dormant awaiting something or someone to ignite the spark.

In search of that spark I've learned to become a better planner, a man of more responsibility. I've started to walk the path that I've always felt inferior to archive.

That is a victory!

The most severe sacrifice was the smile of my soul. But I believe it to be waiting for me somewhere on my journey.

Will you come and smile with me?