How do you think? Do you think in English, German, or a universal language, such as math? Perhaps you think in code.. we all have a unique way of thinking.. but is there something that makes them unified?
I’m watching an anime by the name of Ergo Proxy. This anime contains enormous amounts of references to everything from religion (both ancient–such as Aztecs–to modern) to literature. The current episode places one of the characters in a book store.. but not so much a book store as an application of his own mind. All the books in this “store” are titled with the character’s name. The idea is relatively easy to grasp–your mind is like a library. Each memory is a book you can pull off the shelf and read. You need to know what you’re looking for before you can get the memory.
But it raises an interesting point.. how do we store those memories? My psychology book says that memory is stored with what you could call associative links.. words that can describe the event or memory are “hooked” into it and so when you retrieve that memory, you get a sometimes vague, sometimes precise representation.. all depends on the level of commitment you associated with it. But it did get me thinking.. do we think using our first language? Is the ability to think a product of language? Do you need to have a language to think?
The references the sub group (Shinsen-subs) placed at the end of the episode made references to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “On the Origin of Languages” and how it traced a hypothetical history of language and how by needing to learn to speak to think, we inherently create a paradox. We must speak to think but we must think to speak. “…speech appears to have been necessary to establish the use of speech.”
It makes one wonder about the origin of our ability to think. Perhaps such is the nature of what one would call instincts. Pure instinct lets you live without the need to develop complex thought patterns. Instinct could be considered a type of “basic” thought–one that does not require speech. But that’s just speculation.
I guess that also makes me wonder about the Tower of Babylon. If we all at one time spoke the same language and tried to build a tower to God, why would he do such a thing as destroy our ability to think? I guess one could say he was enforcing the idea that knowledge is a sin. If you follow that trend than everyone is a sinner, even the Amish.
*shrug* Heaven looked kind of boring anyway.
What is man? What could possibly lead me to ask that question?
Such is the evidence of a doubt of one’s own existence. Do we need to know why we are here in order to be here? Is that something we must fulfill to exist? Some say the nature of existence is to find out why you exist. Do you exist? What justifies existence?
Questions are abound. False idealism attempts to clam them. Bringing ideas like “God” and “Sin” to “right” the majority. But when man succeeds to a new plane of thought, those idealisms are questioned. Only those blind to logic and simple orders continue to follow their “faith.” I guess it makes me wonder if those who are religious are of a lesser kind of man.
That’s bound to start a flame war, but so be it. You do it anyway. Every time someone errs in a way that defies the traditional bounds of the so-called morality, you call them less of a person. Pseudo-friend of mine (not really my friend but though networks of family and so on) got into a situation. He and a few of his “buddies” were drunk and ended up having sexual relations with an underage girl. She was 16 or 17, he and one of his friends were 18. (Of course news from the grape vine insinuated later that she was a whore–like 10+ guys that week) They got arrested and my pseudo-friend was charged with statutory rape. Thus, he has to register as a sexual offender at the police office anywhere he moves.
He was giving me a ride back to college one weekend and we were talking about that. He was saying about how he could go into a police office to register and the secretary at the front desk would be nice and kind at first but the moment you mention sexual offender they automatically assume you are the spawn of the devil and molested a kid… thus making you seem like less of a human.
So it brings me to question… what is a man? What constitutes being human? Following the rules and laws the “majority” assumed were just and fair? I guess that means no one is human.
So then, what are we?
Three things:
1. Pizza
Some premade pizza crust with sauce. Just cover crust with sauce and add toppings. Easy-mode. I put pepperoni, green pepper, onion, and mushrooms on it. Was surprisingly good for being made by a newbie.
2. Stir Fry
Kielbasa sausage, Bird’s Eye Pepper Stir Fry veggie mix (red, green, and yellow peppers and onion), penne noodles, chicken base, and topped with the same cheese I used on the pizza. Smelled good. Tasted.. well, it was good but was lacking in vegetables.
3. Level 70
Daex is now level 70. Onward with the grind to epic flying mount and gear that doesn’t absolutely suck!
That is all. Have a good one!
Okay, so I figure I should update this again. I think earlier I had an idea about what to write about, but now I’ve all but forgotten it.
In any event, Wednesday I made a pizza. I’ll upload a picture of it later. It was… okay. One of those could have been better type things.
As far as World of Warcraft goes, my mage is level 66 (for the last 20 minutes or so). Aside from that, pick-up groups still fail to surprise me in their ability or lack thereof. I guess that’s the way it goes.. apparently this server is 3:1 Alliance to Horde ratio, which explains the lack of any good groups.
With that set, I’ll be off. Have a good one.
So yeah, I’m pretty much fully back into the swing of World of Warcraft. My mage is level 59 at the moment, but current is grinding Ogres in Taranis for Mageweave so I make headbands to disenchant for Greater Nether Essences. (As of edit I didn’t get any essences and just said screw it)
I did say I was planning on doing some rearranging of the site, but still haven’t done it. I’m lazy.
I got bored and edited my site so that the blog page is an actual page rather than a redirect and moved my blog to the same folder the hosted ones are in. Main page is already updated with the change. I’m just that good.
I recently ordered a bottle of that aforementioned Agwa. Also, I added a bottle of Lucid–a bottle of absinthe that looks awesome. (black bottle with green cat eyes–Bottles of joy–sorry for the picture quality, don’t have my camera)
That’s all for now. I’m not dead yet =p
So yet again, I delay. It really isn’t an issue of needing to do it, but rather wanting to do it.
One reason I am delaying updating is due to lack of anything to update. I suppose you could say that is reason enough, but I could just make something up.
Another reason is issues with my internet connection. I’m at home now, though, so I might try to get some minor stuff swapped over since my FTP connection won’t bug out on me every five seconds.
So perhaps I’ll update. Perhaps not. We’ll see in due time, I suppose.
In other news, I’m playing WoW again. Level 44 undead mage on Norgannon. Now that I said that…
Guess I sort of have a Scrubs theme going with this and the last title–just in case Moltzan hasn’t noticed.
I’m hosting blogs for people I know (like James–who in the past I’ve also called Jamie), and perhaps people I don’t know. I’ll soon be editing the main page to replace the blog link to an actual page rather than a redirect to this URL and probably moving this from http://blogs.xfir.net/rick to something like http://blogs.xfir.net/rick or just the root directory of that. But I might have the index of that site as a listing of the blogs I host, and have the style of that page carry from the normal domain. Shouldn’t be too much of an issue.
If you’d like a blog hosted, drop me a line on my email form. Make sure you at least state some sort of topic and I’ll get back to you on it.
In other news, I’m full swing back into WoW. I really have nothing else to do.. well, ‘cept write more code. I’ll be eventually posting a new version of the maze generator as the current one suffers from some minor issues with code format and misplaced variables.
That’s all for today, have a good one.
Well, it wasn’t really death, but I did get to go to the hospital.
Last night I had a nose bleed that started around 9:40. I haven’t had a nose bleed that I could actively recall, so I wasn’t fully sure what to do. At first I shoved a Kleenix up there and hoped it would clot. I ran into one of my roommates who happens to be taking EMT classes. He told me to not use Kleenix as it would rip the clot out. Instead you have to pinch the soft parts of your nose to slow the bleeding.
So I did that. For two hours. Then I called my parents, they gave me a number for a 24-hour nurse help line. I called it. She recommended that I go to the ER as soon as possible. My aunt picked me up around midnight and we headed down to one of the two hospitals in town here. We waited in the outside waiting room for about an hour, then were shuffled back into an actual ER patient room. There we waited another two hours. Finally, the doctor came in–looked like a bald J.D. mixed with a bald Cox from Scrubs–took the thing the had put on my nose in the waiting room off, and checked it. It had finally clotted.
Apparently the air in this apartment is too dry. On the way back we stopped at Walmart and picked up a humidifier.
As I type this I realize how boring it all sounds, heh. Regardless, I’m still alive! =D
I started playing WoW again. (CK9 will frown on that, I’m sure)
That’s pretty much all I have to say. Adios
So I finally got around to debugging and figuring out the issues I had with my maze algorithm and successfully created one.
Initial output was created with a lot of <div> tags. I don’t really recommend doing that though, since I ended up crashing Firefox a few times.
Maze Phase 1.
I went ahead and coded the image format next. Pretty simple code, really. I mainly was using the <div> option due to issues with variables and debugging.
Maze Phase 2.
Then I decided I should do something fancy with it. So I went ahead and did the whole shebang.. you know, colored gradient for the lines, auto-centered background image.. the works.
Maze Phase 3.
Finally, the script. I commented on the initial variables. I should warn you though:
DO NOT USE UNLESS YOU OWN THE SERVER OR HAVE PERMISSION AS IT IS VERY CPU INTENSIVE.
Maze Generator Script (Source)
The outputs you have seen are off my own private server (a simple LAMP install).
Now I find other odd-ball scripts to write.. Whee…!
Is there such a thing as truth? It’d be a wascally wabbit indeed.
Everyone lies. The only parable is about what. So in that sense, I suppose one could say that we could not function without the ability to lie. So it is within one’s nature to lie? Is it embedded so deep within us that we cannot possibly undo it?
That brings to question what a world without lies would be like. Would there be war? Would there be peace? Could we stand each other? I’m sure in some instances lies are used to make things go smoothly. We keep our mouth shut, less we insult another and cause their distrust. But would distrust exist in such a world?
I guess I can relate this to the Matrix. In a sense, perhaps we thrive on deceit and misery. Perhaps that’s exactly what we need. We need to be content rather than happy. We need that degree of suffering and angst. We need something to breed.. in this case hate.
I guess it all boils down to what humans really are.. just a bunch of animals pretending to be civil. Once a disagreement arises, we do what we can to protect or take what we want.
