Be Wary Of THIS

There are kinds of conspiracies that fit neatly into the theorizing that goes on more and more nowadays – afterawhile they all seem quite banal though.

And then there are those conspiracies that would likely be utterly meaningless to most people, and yet that have huge negative consequences that are hard to undo once they have been exercised.

A conspiracy is what you call it when several people agree to overcome objective fairness or even previously agreed social standards and rules, in order to benefit themselves at the cost of those who are not in their own small group.

The Guardian Newspaper's photo of the BBC iPhone

Society operates on such complicated bases that sociologists and historians and political scientists and economists have been a long time at deciding what really makes it tick; and they still don't all agree. But all the same, society is larger than a few media chief editors and their unseen Svengalis.

I see a conspiracy.

It is the one whereby people make unilateral decisions about terminologies, and unilateral decisions about meanings to words in common usage. I'm not being jocular here. I really mean it.

By 'unilateral' I mean 'not what the common usage or definition already otherwise is.' I mean that the few and the monolithic overcome the many and the diverse by force and not by logic; 'the few' in this instance being the 'unilateral' part of what I was saying above.

This type of conspiracy has existed in the past and it typically occurs when there is some kind of dictatorship in control and where the leadership goes mad. No one is able to challenge the leadership because of overbalanced sheer power, yet virtually everyone realizes the falseness of the dogma that is being decreed.

Now there are a lot of simple words that the public uses which don't require a lingustic scientist to attest to their 'actual' meaning. The english language being what it is, actually ascribes meanings to words that common speakers also ascribe, and any other donation of meaning has traditionally by english teachers and literate people been called the employment of 'jargon.'

This position is changing, or has indeed already changed perhaps, on account of a tribe of leading people insisting, often or most usually through the media, that they alone give imprimatur upon meanings of things, meanings or words, and just plain meanings fullstop.

And so you will at this minute see the BBC deciding to slip in one definition of the word 'beauty' (such an innocuous thing, you would suppose) when offering to the public that a maths formula is where 'true beauty' resides... And in the instance of the radio version of the story – which appears to indeed have about five variations and guises that it appears under on different websites and locations – it is specifically the formula for the dynamic movement of fluids, that is claimed to be one example, attested by a lady scientist, of sheer and utter true beauty (the formula, that is, not the scientist).

I am not sure why there have come to be so many recent examples in the media of the twisting or misinterpreting of Plato and other ancient philosophers... Beauty is many things and not just one; one facet of something may be imbued with a quality of beauty, but it itself is not 'beauty' per se. Thus it is not 'true beauty.' And never can it be. It is a sensible thing seen through the dark glass of the human senses. That is what Plato actually did say – but here in this recent narrative there is this implication by association of 'maths' into things that the argument just given in the media has the weight of traditional and classical academic thinking. And it certainly does not.

A single maths formula may have the quality of beauty but it is not itself 'beauty.' The whole complicated area that the ancient Greeks went into when they explained what they meant by the purity of beauty, is today mashed up with words like 'pure' and 'austere' and 'perfect' and a lot of other 'extreme' or absolutist words to give you a 'sense' rather than a manifest list describing the standard definition. And it is very dangerous to have people in positions of blanket power, especially media power, start this business of working on people's feelings when they claim that they intend to arrive at specific technical meanings. I always get the feeling then of someone trying to play around with the public's sentiments, and I ask myself why? Maybe it's just a mistake and an accident...

Beauty is a very complicated thing indeed.

2014 Zegna Limited Edition Maserati

For example. Zegna is going to have a go at their idea of a beautiful rendering of the interior of the Maserati Quattroporte this year. Well, you see, it's actually not their idea – because if it were just their idea, the risk is the cars would not sell. No indeed, these vehicles will need to find notes of desire within the hearts and minds of the wealthy buyers that they are in harmony with. It is a public idea of beauty that Zegna will work from. And they mean it to be that.

A premium Champagne manufacturer in France is making a Champagne with deliberate hints of Russian caviar in it, and one could think this is a stupid idea. I don't know; I haven't tried this Champagne. But juxtapositions do work when it comes to art and things of beauty, and it's not even as simple as to say that subtlety is the key. It may not be. Many a great building is brutalist and not subtle at all, and some even combine quite outrageously conflicting themes – a pickle, crystal, steel, open office plans, spiralling motifs – and yet they do work together.

Luvienz 'Caviar' Champagne

No I do not fear the accidental or mistaken gestures in print and media, but the deliberate and shameless and highly-sophisticated high quality types of propaganda.

Oh no, when the establishment thinker starts all this nonsense of measuring the unmeasurable, and determining for you by a scientific method what is 'best' for you – there is something actually serious afoot.

Of course you are quite free to think that media time on the BBC is cheap or free and paid for by the altruistic British citizen and taxpayer who thinks that intellectual wheelspinning by highly-qualified academics is just the thing for any dull afternoon when there is absolutely nothing else going on that could capture the attention of the public or requires to be reported to them since they are the very heart and soul of democracy and have to be served.

Is there something about the maths formula for fluid flow dynamics that can be applied to the flows of money in an economy...? And if so, is it a thing of beauty? And to whom?

Why You Are Alive...

A scientific research study ought to be conducted into whatever is able to be known about the lives and the conditions and pressures they are experiencing immediately prior to when one of these bankers leaps off a tall building.

Dead, and yellow-ed...

In a world where the quantity of money available at a particular interest rate is by command decision suddenly increased virtually limitlessly for all intents and purposes, and the time-honoured rational market dynamics of supply and demand are thus altered irrevocably, changing for all time every single economic proposition of logic and reason – it ought at least to be academically studied what, if any, might be the reasons a banker, of all people, should want to kill themselves.

Certainly, there is the common enough legend of a Superbowl champion, waking up the next morning, with that heavy and showy ring on his finger, a new Lamborghini in the garage downstairs, several empty bottles of champagne beside the feathered bed, a blonde bimbo's high heels left tossed onto the thick pile carpet... And then the sports champion thinking to himself: 'is that all there is?'

What is the everything that people aspire to having anyway?

"Starry starry night."

I am a student of popular culture. Always have been. And somewhat of a fan too. 'Pop' is actually not quite the same thing as what the masses 'want.' 'Popular' is what is widely acclaimed; the masses follow what critics say for all their clamour. The superficiality of real 'pop' is only paper thin, and common perceptions about it are reflections of the mediocrity of the mindsets of the viewers, rather than of the art itself.

One ought to try and accept that today's 'special' banks who have benefitted through the program of quantitative easing, may have replenished or re-stocked long lines of previously depleted liquidity (that they were just now freely given), behind various lists or allocations of assets, let's say, that were dear to their hearts.

And this means that certain assets will not just crumble and disappear in spite of their non-performance frankly, from now on ever after, in terms of profits and revenue.

But none of it has been what you would say is art. And so I thought I might spend a little time on art. Art endows even some horrible things with beauty although it takes a certain outlook to be able to see that. The transformative power of great art is what is needed now to take a fresh look at the world – but I see only those with very great gifts being able to 'see' their own individual way out of the morass; the masses will on the whole never get out now, and in the end few will get out before the tides of history themselves turn quite dramatically. And that is not something on the cards very obviously...

"True Skin"

I am a great fan of style. Style will take you sometimes, to places that not even science can.

There is a tremendous short movie out called “True Skin,” written and directed by Stephan Zlotescu of N1ON Productions, an independent movie-maker that usually specializes in music videos. If you haven't seen it yet it's worth taking a look at.

"True Skin" - beautifully made sci-fi movie short.

Warner Inc. currently have the project in development as a full length feature and one never knows where they'll eventually take the basic story idea, which is as derivative as it also is classical too in the category of sci-fi. On the one hand the whole film short is something like a re-visualisation of Blade Runner, but really, the value of the effort lies in the stylishness of the creative visualisation itself – which is distinctly different from what Blade Runner was.

For one thing there is a certain up-to-the-minute reality about “True Skin,” when it comes to the technology of augmented humans. And there is a real moral tale going there about the seeming spiritual tragedies of 'mere' natural humans when they cannot overcome economic dire straits.

The emotionless expression on the face of the main character hides many conflicting and deep-as-the abyss feelings, and, as someone who has a level 3 (worst kind there is) autistic son, there is a perspective that I have about the ideas in the movie short that we have been able to see thus far: with the amazing computer-device interfaced capabilities of autistic people, it seems to me that autism is almost some kind of advancement that has exploded across the modern world exactly at the same time that highly portable, very advanced digital systems that augment the basic human sense channels and increase the rates and pathways and simultaneous access to data and sensory input.

Also look at the Daft Punk music clip of 'Digital Love'

I know that my son has amazingly deep emotions for a seven year old, much more mature and perceptive and balanced than you would ever suspect a seven year old should be able to intellectually process – but he can. Yet, if you go simply by the facial demeanour, you never could tell any of the signs of these things. All the same, it's almost as if these people (autistic people) quickly come to the conclusion that most 'normal' people are emotionally dumb, emotionally disabled if you like, and they refrain from even trying to communicate with people whose emotional sensitivities are simplistic...

There is a sadness on the face of the lead character in the movie short; at least it seems that way to me.

A sad, tragic future for humans?

I asked my son after watching the film what he thought the character was feeling at the scene toward the end (where I thought he was tremendously sad), and he said, 'he's paralysed by the uncertainty of limitless joy.'

Can you see the future, my friends? It doesn't have the people we have been used to, in it.

"Only Until Midnight..."

“Only until midnight...” This is what the fairy tells Ella in the classical tale.

This year, Universal is having 'its people' work on a screenplay development of 'Cinderella,' and Ann Peacock, screenwriter of Narnia fame, has the job of 're-imagining' – as they say about these kinds of things – the story for whoever Universal's marketing consigliere has deemed today's audience is, or is going to be.

Modern Cinderella's coach

I will be going to watch the eventual movie whenever it finally comes out, but mainly for the work of who in my own opinion is today's greatest living cinematographer – Bruno Aveillan.

Aveillan has 'only' ever in the past worked on commercial shorts for huge global brands: Lanvin, Louis Vuitton, Swarovski, Guerlain, among a long long list of film adverts credited to him. Aveillan is from Toulouse and mainly works in France, although his professional reputation extends all over the world. He has not previously made a full length movie, much less a mainstream worldwide release feature film.



Bruno Aveillan

What the 're-imagining' of Cinderella is going to mean I have no idea but if I were a writer, the very last thing I would want to do, not for any amount of money on offer, is have to submit my mind to the drivel which appears to be the main entertainment fare of today's mass audience. Creating, imagining, fantasizing, do not seem naturally fit to the task of conservatism, mediocritization, and propaganda designed to keep the masses as idiotic as they are, and relieve them of any desire to improve themselves or their lot in life. It's a wonder Universal don't just get some radical Mohammedan preacher to work on the screenplay, hand out the full body-and-face covering black gowns to ugly unknowns they won't have to pay as the female leads and otherwise will be able to treat as animals or at minimum second class humans, and stick the premier on in Benghazi as a repentance for past 'offenses.'

“Only until midnight,” says the fairy.

“But why only until then?” Asks Cinders.

I could end with a typical a la mode stock jocular if not, even slightly offensive retort to that question. You know the kind of remark: 'because you're a crossdressing gay boy' or something along those lines.

There is a real answer; a one true, real answer.

“That childhood fantasy endures only until midnight, because soon afterwards you will have grown up. That is the necessary overall effect of a Balenciaga gown and a new Rolls Royce and a bottle of G. H. Mumm. And a very different scene plays out with that lot after the main lights go out!”

Ann Peacock, let me assure you, will not be writing this kind of thing. It will all be very grandly filmed of course however, a real spectacle no doubt. And none will be the wiser about what really transpires with princes and glass-slippered dames beyond any fashionably blackly glittery midnight.

'Theory Of Mind?'

I do not subscribe to most of the ideas to be found in the Wikipedia entry on “Theory Of Mind” that attempt to explain what the human intelligent mind is.

As usual, the Wikipedia scientific folklore in question here starts off once again with some amazing words: “because the (mind) is not directly observable, this understanding is called a 'theory.'”

That is a rather silly assertion because there are numerous things in science and human intellectual endeavours that are in the abstract form as a set of rules or unchanging principles and are also not directly observable – but are far from being regarded as mere 'theory.' I think maths professors and all logicians might be inclined to agree with me on this. I would like to see some mathematicians apologizing that the intangible and unseen principles upon which all physical mathematical phenomena are based and some only observed in reality as quantum physical systems and structures – are merely theory.

The abstract principles and the rules themselves of logic are unable to be actually visually 'seen' outside of their actual practical physical examples, but they are not mere 'theories.'

Too many mediocre notions today are being passed off as 'knowledge' and 'knowns' and 'scientific understandings' with the consequence that real advancements are not being attained. Superficial observations are being promoted as 'high science.'

The self-reflectived person - in Balenciaga

The fallacy being presented quite assertively and confidently as strong 'scientific consensus' if not 'truth' exactly, comes about by the essayists being tricked by the attractively powerful truism that 'no one has direct access to the mind of another...' And that makes it seem as if a thing therefore cannot be known as a scientific fact.

Indeed, no one has direct access to the intangible principles behind all of observed mathematics or the rigorous and unchanging rules of Logic either – but that is far from a reason to call such things 'mere theories.'

There is a lot in modern philosophies of, and scientific discourse about, the mind, that indulges itself in semantics albeit with much strident assertion that such semantic statements are somehow to be taken as scientific knowledge. They are actually jargon emotionally loaded with a lot of professional territoriality.

And there is a lot of laziness and facile argument behind many of the modern approaches to knowledge. Yes, 'Mind' is a very complex thing to get a genuine focus on. But it doesn't make it impossible to come to terms with in a logically consistent and systematically reliable way.

Once you accept that the idea of 'Mind' has clear definitional fundamental rules for its being able to be described as 'Mind' at all, then you can certainly realize that such rules and definitional principles likely also have their 'geometrical' relationships, and their calculus, even their trigonometry and their dynamics. The basis for 'Mind' is mathematical. And there is a great deal of power to be had in comprehending the mathematical relationships behind how 'Mind' functions.

Awareness of the awareness of other people, is a presupposition to the often rhetorical question that is asked about politicial leaders, and leaders of the world of capital and banking: “Are they aware of what they are doing to people...?” And the real questions are more along the lines of “where is their focus since we know that they are aware, and if we know where their focus is we might understand why they are doing what they doing.”

Levels of awareness change depending on the foci of attention and the responses to immediate pressures from neurochemical sensations. Yet the presence of 'Mind' depends on the degree of abstract thinking genuinely available – that is, processing involving neurons not reacting to immediate sense stimuli but nevertheless linked to those stimuli – and the more distantly concertina'd outwards from the sensory stimulations, the more capable the individual is of truly determining their own actions over time.

My question is – are modern leaders genuinely capable of abstract thinking, or is this now the theoretical part; they once did have that capability, but now it is only a theoretical capability.

In theory new Chairman Yellen will slowly taper off... But in practice, not only will the immediate self-gratifications demanded by the banks by too forcefully pressing, but in fact, any immediate reaction to any new incident in the markets or in economies generally will demonstrate how little in control modern leaders really are. The western world has been getting away with the enduring momentum from the initial huge China market influence in the complete absence of coherent growth ideas. This only means that a single flaw in this model's behaviour will show up as a massive crisis to all market economies worldwide. Human beings, being what they are, will prompt those flaws into real present facts that will have to be faced, and coped with using the best of what human 'Mind' is capable of. Richard Dawkins believes in evolution; I believe in devolution. There are clearly rough times ahead. Very clearly.