The last of My Three Writers – S. Beckett, d. 1989 & T. Morrison, d. 2019 – has shuffled off this mortal coil today:

Cormac McCarthy 1933-2023

You give up the world line by line. Stoically. And then one day you realize that your courage is farcical. It doesnt mean anything. You've become an accomplice in your own annihilation and there is nothing you can do about it. Everything you do closes a door somewhere ahead of you. And finally there is only one door left. — The Sunset Limited (2006)

:death: :flower:

Sorry to hear it my friend. I like the quote you chose: stoic courage means nothing.

Last year, I had a life-changing experience at 90 years old. I went to space, after decades of playing an iconic science-fiction character who was exploring the universe. I thought I would experience a deep connection with the immensity around us, a deep call for endless exploration.

"I was absolutely wrong. The strongest feeling, that dominated everything else by far, was the deepest grief that I had ever experienced.

"I understood, in the clearest possible way, that we were living on a tiny oasis of life, surrounded by an immensity of death. I didn’t see infinite possibilities of worlds to explore, of adventures to have, or living creatures to connect with. I saw the deepest darkness I could have ever imagined, contrasting so starkly with the welcoming warmth of our nurturing home planet.

"This was an immensely powerful awakening for me. It filled me with sadness. I realized that we had spent decades, if not centuries, being obsessed with looking away, with looking outside. I did my share in popularizing the idea that space was the final frontier. But I had to get to space to understand that Earth is and will stay our only home. And that we have been ravaging it, relentlessly, making it uninhabitable. — William Shatner, actor

*

Man cannot endure his littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level. — Ernest Becker

— William Shatner, actor — 180 Proof

Wow! Amazing quote.

...
"Since the insignificance of all things is our lot, we should not bear it as an affliction but learn to enjoy it."

"'Why don't you ever use your strength on me?' she said.
'Because love means renouncing strength,' said Franz softly."

"The objection to shit is a metaphysical one. The daily defecation session is daily proof of the unacceptability of Creation… The aesthetic ideal of the categorical agreement with being is a world in which shit is denied and everyone acts as though it did not exist. This aesthetic ideal is called kitsch…"

"As you live out your desolation, you can be either unhappy or happy. Having that choice is what constitutes your freedom."

*

"A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the novel's only morality."
~interview, 1984

"The stupidity of people comes from having an answer to everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything."

"These days, when sexuality is no longer taboo, mere description, mere sexual confession, has become noticeably boring. How dated Lawrence seems, or even Henry Miller, with his lyricism of obscenity!" — Milan Kundera, d. 2023

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

Emerson, I think. I like this one.

The contemporary proliferation of bullshit also has deeper sources, in various forms of skepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality, and which therefore reject the possibility of knowing how things truly are. These 'antirealist' doctrines undermine confidence in the value of disinterested efforts to determine what is true and what is false, and even in the intelligibility of the notion of objective inquiry. One response to this loss of confidence has been a retreat from the discipline required by dedication to the ideal of correctness to a quite different sort of discipline, which is imposed by pursuit of an alternative ideal of sincerity. Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial — notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit. — Harry Frankfurt, d.2023

Against stupidity we have no defense. Neither protests nor force can touch it. Reasoning is of no use. Facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be disbelieved — indeed, the fool can counter by criticizing them, and if they are undeniable, they can just be pushed aside as trivial exceptions. So the fool, as distinct from the scoundrel, is completely self-satisfied. In fact, they can easily become dangerous, as it does not take much to make them aggressive. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/622702 :smirk:

To be African American is to be African without any memory and American without any privilege. — James Baldwin

"But as for those other Objects of Cogitation, which we affirmed before to be in themselves neither the Objects of Sense, nor Objects of Fancy, but only things understood, and therefore can have no Natural and Genuine Phantasms properly belonging to them; yet it is true, notwithstanding that the Phantastic Power of the Soul, which would never willingly be altogether idle or quite excluded, will busily intend itself here also.

And therefore many times, when the Intellect or Mind above is Exercised in Abstracted Intellections and Contemplations, the Fancy will at the same time busily employ itself below, in making some kind of Apish Imitations, counterfeit Iconisms, Symbolical Adumbrations and Resemblances of those Intellectual Cogitations of Sensible and Corporeal things.

And hence it comes to pass , that in Speech , Metaphors and Allegories do so exceedingly please , because they highly gratify this Phantastical Power of Passive and Corporeal Cogitation in the Soul, and seem there by also something to raise and refresh the Mind itself, otherwise lazy and ready to faint and be tired by over - long abstracted Cogitations, by taking its old Companion the Body to go along with it, as it were to rest upon, and by affording to it certain crass, palpable, and Corporeal Images, to incorporate those abstracted Cogitations in, that it may be able thereby to see those still more silent and subtle Notions of its own, sensibly reflected to itself from the Corporeal Glass of the Fancy."

- Ralph Cudworth

What matters is the fact that there is existence. Existence is not a property of things. Things are properties of existence. Existence is not a property of God. Existence is God. Existence is that which is. All contingent/created things are properties of existence and are made out of existence. — "EnPassant

I follow Spinoza in thinking that the ideas of extensa and cogitans merely represent two perspectives on things. — Janus

If X is Transcendent AND if X is a Fact, then X belongs to TF-set. The set's okay, there just are not any members (so far) which (can) satisfy both rules  simultaneously. — 180 Proof, c2008

I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing. — William Faulkner

Only the questions are eternal. — Elie Wiesel

"We have the ideas of matter and thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know whether any mere material being thinks or no; it being impossible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover whether Omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter, fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to matter, so disposed, a thinking immaterial substance: it being, in respect of our notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive that GOD can, if he pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking, than that he should superadd to it another substance with a faculty of thinking; since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, which cannot be in any created being, but merely by the good pleasure and bounty of the Creator."

- John Locke

'Spirit' comes from the Latin word 'to breathe.' What we breathe is air, which is certainly matter, however thin. Despite usage to the contrary, there is no necessary implication in the word 'spiritual' that we are talking of anything other than matter (including the matter of which the brain is made), or anything outside the realm of science. On occasion, I will feel free to use the word. Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or of acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both. — Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

40ct23

I will cut adrift—I will sit on pavements and drink coffee—I will dream; I will take my mind out of its iron cage and let it swim—this fine October. — Virginia Woolf, from one of her diaries

Two women with
the same claim
came to the feet of
the wise king. Two women,
but only one baby.
The king knew
someone was lying.
What he said was
Let the child be
cut in half; that way
no one will go
empty-handed. He
drew his sword.
Then, of the two
women, one
renounced her share:
this was
the sign, the lesson.
Suppose
you saw your mother
torn between two daughters:
what could you do
to save her but be
willing to destroy
yourself—she would know
who was the rightful child,
the one who couldn't bear
to divide the mother. — A Fable, Louise Glück

d. 2023

Bible quotes on the TPF, OMG. :lol:

@praxis @Jamal Murakami receives the Princess of Asturias Award today. He had a conversation with fans and journalists yesterday. I want to translate into English the following quote. I think it describes what 'Murakamism' is about.

I write when I accept something and introduce it inside me, without previous analysis. Our consciousness is like a house with its floors and, much more important, its basement. On the top floor, we sleep; on the bottom floor, we interact with family members and eat, and in the basement we are alone with the subconscious. And there is a secret door that leads further down to basement 2. And it is with everything we find there that a novel is made. But you have to be willing to go all the way down there. It's not easy, do any of you have basement 2?
It is there at the bottom where you find the important things that are above religion, language and custom; it is there that the writer finds his readers regardless of the religion they profess, the language they speak or the customs they inhabit. — Murakami

:party:

I see Paul Auster won the prize in 2006.

Does Murakami mean "basement 2" is, more or less, where one is broken (one's breaking points) or one's blindspots (denials-in-order-to-cope) or one's traumas (phobias)?

I think it is all of it altogether. I interpret basement 2 as the space where each of us is ourselves. For this reason, he said that basement 2 is 'above' religion, language and custom. These need a collective or community to exist.

Bemusings ...

And at long last I've finally realized that it's stupid to tell stupid people that they are stupid.

Most people are very stupid but very few actively struggle against this congenital defect.

Un/fortunately sober now, I don't suffer fools who suffer fools or who don't already know they are fools.

Today's 'online' sophistry: pseudo-science rationalized by pseudo-philosophy (i.e. Dunning-Kruger woo woo).

'Less is more' and 'more is less'. Poverty means 'never enough' no matter how much (money) one has.

For the love of God, inspite of His indifference ... for the love of humanity, inspite of our inhumanity ...

To paraphrase JS Mill's quip about conservatives, I'd sum up Old Atheism as 'Theists aren't necessarily  stupid but most stupid people are theists.' Now we have New Atheism  which, more or less, crosses some polite line with 'Theism makes people stupid and makes stupid people dangerous.'

An 'atheist' is someone who says she doesn't believe in God which is just a polite way of saying 'I don't need an invisible crutch'.

It's the slow dying, not the hard living, that kills you.

This life, here and now, is a Purgatory (of lessons maybe learned from losses) where Hell desires meanings which do not exist and Heaven revels without a cause.

People are always trouble. The problem is how to tell who is worth the trouble from those who aren't before it's too late. And it's always later than you think.

Through these veins runs the blood of ancestors who were kidnapped and sold into slavery by other ancestors.

I still don't trust people who've never been drunks or junkies and who believe in magic ... except for my mother.

Inevitably you reach an age when you cannot appreciate the aesthetics or do not understand the morals of generations half your age or less. From this perspective, youths seem neither to feel nor think for themselves. What are they – hedonic drones? blinded moths? defecating skinner boxes?

The latest All You Need is Cash-grab is just old Macca trying to make chicken salad out of chickensh*t. Ain't that a shame...

So much pretty doesn't make up for so little beauty.

For the rest of the earth’s organisms, existence is relatively uncomplicated. Their lives are about three things: survival, reproduction, death—and nothing else. But we know too much to content ourselves with surviving, reproducing, dying—and nothing else. We know we are alive and know we will die. We also know we will suffer during our lives before suffering—slowly or quickly—as we draw near to death. This is the knowledge we “enjoy” as the most intelligent organisms to gush from the womb of nature. And being so, we feel shortchanged if there is nothing else for us than to survive, reproduce, and die. We want there to be more to it than that, or to think there is. This is the tragedy: Consciousness has forced us into the paradoxical position of striving to be unself-conscious of what we are—hunks of spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones. — Thomas Ligotti

:death: :flower:

This is such a neat anti-dualist observation:

According to Strawson, substance dualism is not compatible with our actual conceptual scheme. Everyday language ascribes both psychological and bodily characteristics to the same entity; ‘I’ have arms, legs, thoughts and feelings (1959, p.. 90). Bloom, in contrast, observes that we tend to describe our bodies as our possessions but neglects to mention that we speak in just the same way about our minds and mental states. Strawson argues that Cartesian dualism would require revision of our actual conceptual scheme. The ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘he’ or ‘she’ to which both psychological and physical characteristics are ascribed would turn out to be a ‘linguistic illusion’ (p. 94). If Cartesian dualism is true and ‘I’ am a Cartesian mind, then I do not have the properties of being six feet tall and having two arms — Ratcliffe, Rethinking Commonsense Psychology

When it was announced that I had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, I received a lot of emails and congratulations, and of course I was very pleased, most of the greetings were simple and cheerful, but some people wrote that they were screaming with joy, others that they were moved to tears. That truly touched me. There are many suicides in my writing. More than I like to think about. I have been afraid that I, in this way, may have contributed to legitimising suicide. So what touched me more than anything were those who candidly wrote that my writing had quite simply saved their lives. In a sense I have always known that writing can save lives, perhaps it has even saved my own life. And if my writing also can help to save the lives of others, nothing would make me happier. — Jon Fosse

The goal has never been to defeat the state and claim sovereign authority but rather to change the world without taking power. — Antonio Negri, d. 2023

Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort to understand it. — Flannery O'Connor

I am at the end of a narrow funnel. Weightless. So light it only feels like something to be me. In truth -- perhaps I'm nothing? I certainly do not have a soul. And if I did, it would never ache

Few of us can begin to imagine the horror of you - with all of creation reflected in your forebrain. It must be like the highest of hells, a kaleidoscope of fire and writhing glass. Eternal damnation.

Even when you're sleeping... And when you wake, you carry it around on your neck. With eyes open that cannot help but swallow more behind the mirror. I feel great, mute empathy for you

From the game Disco Elysium, an insect says this to a human.

(Terrence) Deacon talks about the importance of zero, and how it twisted his thinking. — Patterner

Tied him up in nots :rofl: — Wayfarer

Couldn't let this one go by even if it's one of mine.....

For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. — T.S. Elliot

01.01.24