skepticism, Cartesian – Any of a class of skepticalviews against empirical knowledge based on the claim that claims to empirical knowledge are defeated bythe possibility that we might be deceived insofar as we might be, for example, dreaming,hallucinating, deceived by demons, or brains in vats.
Listening to Eminem–”WhoKnew.” Man’s an ass, but you can’t deny talent like that.
My dreams tend to have deep, involved backstories. Last night I had four distinct characters (I’mnot sure if I was one of them) trapped in this twilight world with beat-up cars, dangerous songsand statues. They stole books from abandoned houses where the floors were knee-deep in leaves,disappeared through portals, confronted each other and dealt with selective amnesia and wariness ofpeople they’d once known and trusted. I knew that every image had a symbolism, and I knewthat I knew how these characters got there and how they were related.
But when I half-woke up and tried to remember their origins, I got nothing. Then–this is the weirdpart–I tried to remember what had just happened in the dream, and it hadn’t happened yet.It was all like a preface for a story that was about to take place. No action to it.
So I went back to sleep and it did happen. The whole story played out, and of course I hardlyremember any of it, but it seemed like it was hours long. Also seemed entertaining enough–I didn’treally want to wake up.
Here’s the thing: I looked at the clock when I woke up the first time, and it was around 1:00–liketwenty minutes after I went to bed, maybe five after I fell asleep. I was probably barely in REMwhen all that stuff just appeared in my brain.
The brains-in-vats theory is an old one, but it’s still useful when you need to take a step back.The nature of reality may not be elastic, but our brains are–the only reason our dreams are evenwithin our frame of reference is because of the way language, sight and sound are hardwired intoour neurons.
I dropped my head for five minutes, my nerves fired at random for a little while and this worldpopped out of nowhere. It’s like shaking a Yahtzee tumbler and having the dice spell out a passagefrom Richard III in Morse code. How improbable is that? How fragile are the ties between our brainsand reality?
What if they weren’t there?
… okay, enough of that. I need to talk to Becker about this kind of stuff. For more ways to fuckwith your mind, though, try thinking about this: what if darkness isn’t in fact the absence oflight, but a whole other kind of energy itself?
wasn’t me. slim shady said to do it again
damn! how much damage can you do with a pen?
