I’ve made some progress on my metaphysics; enough to think about writing a monograph.
Today (Sept. 2 ‘08) I tried thinking of a name for this monograph. My thought process was to call it something with metaphysics but I couldn’t think of anything good. First of all the word metaphysics is inherently confused, so it is hard to use well. Its history, so I’ve been instructed, can be traced back to a librarian organizing Aristotle’s books on the shelf. The untitled book that contained what was to become Aristotle’s Metaphysics was sitting in front of Aristotle’s Physics, so the librarian called it ‘before physics’, Metaphysics. I know little of how words come into existence to pass judgment, but I am sure that I want to avoid all the baggage that this word has accumulated since then.
I thought about the Tractatus. ‘Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus’ is sufficiently meaningless such that it would be hard to regret calling it that later. I mean really. Of course it is a treatise, what philosophical text isn’t? And it’s on some logic and philosophy, ooo so descriptive. So even if W. changed his mind about any of the content, the title would still hold up.
So I began to wonder if it is worth it to have a particularly descriptive title at all. Then the hyphenation caught my eye. ’Hypermetaphysical’, ‘Pseudometaphysics’ and other prefixed monstrosities ran through my thoughts but I finally came upon pretermetaphysical. It is just too damn long. Preterphysical is less long, is meaningless though suggestive, and preter- means nearly the exact same thing as meta-.
No baggage either. Google returned 3 results for preterphysical and 0 for preterphysics. Of the 3 that came up for preterphysical, one was a cached reference to one of the other pages and 404ed when I tried to view it and the other 2 used the word one time each and only in passing. That sealed it. I am writing The Preterphysics.
Now no one steal my cool name. I claim it!!!!!!
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[For anyone who wonders why this was filed under SEO and Marketing, one of the goals of this post is to claim the name "The Preterphysics" for myself. In less than 3 days of publishing this post I'll likely be #1 in Google for a search for "Preterphysics" and "Preterphysical". (UPDATE: I am #1 now, only 6 hours after publishing) By having a blog and posting regularly (and no spam) Google and the other search engines regularly scan this site for new content. Granted, these words are made up and so there aren't other people who are using them, so there is no competition for becoming #1. However, this is irrelevant to my purposes: I am trying to claim some intellectual property space and being first counts for something. I am still 3, 4 and 6 in Google searches for "relativity biology" because of these posts months ago. One of the purposes for this blog is to be a record of things I have written and, since I am outside of academia, having a public record of when my work was published goes a long way in establishing a timeline of ideas (showing that the ideas were mine). At this point it would be hard for someone to make a claim to any of my philosophy of biology since it has been public domain for a good while now (and philosophy carnivalled). Sure I could try to get my work into a journal -all considering it would hit my target audience a bit more than this website and provide an even more secure record of my work- but journal publishing is much about being an academic (and takes forever and I'd probably not make the cut anyway). I'm concerned with getting my ideas out there, claiming the intellectual space for myself, and making it available to anyone who is like-minded. This post (even as silly as it is, making fun of Wittgenstein for titling his book as he did, completely deflating any meaning from my own words, and harping on hyphenation) does all of that because of the established internet machinery.]
“What sort of person subjects children as young as 12 to beatings and a life of prostitution? An evidence list submitted in the case of Corey Davis, a Queens man who billed himself as “Magnificent,” might provide some insight. Mr. Davis, 36, is facing a minimum of 23 years in prison after pleading guilty in March to a federal charge of sex trafficking involving a 12-year-old runaway.
“… But then things went dark, weird, and creepy: one girl laughed, but then so did another, and then another, and then another, and then another.
After exposure, the incubation period from nothing to hysteria was short, from a few hours to a couple of days. There was no fever, no physical symptoms, just laughter and occasional crying between short moments of exhausted recuperation. When victims were restrained they sometimes became violent…”
This is a video of a reporter being waterboarded in order to investigate torture and ‘agressive’ interrogation… It is weird stuff. Be sure to check out the accompanying article.
“This map was constructed by sorting roughly 800,000 published papers into 776 different scientific paradigms based on how often the papers were cited together by authors of other papers.”
(they’re all out of free posters now, but the file is available so you can print one for yourself)
Check out this video describing the technology that is going to be used in the new Nintendo Wii Motion Plus. General relativity needs to be accounted for to accurately measure motion in 3D space (true 6 degrees of freedom) by using both accelerometers and gyroscopes. But perhaps the most interesting part of the site is the disclaimer at the bottom (my emphasis):
“InvenSense sensors should not be used or sold in the development, storing, production and utilization of any conventional or mass-destructive weapons or any other weapons or life-threatening applications as well as in any other life-critical applications including but not limited to medical equipment, transportation, aerospace and nuclear instruments, undersea equipment, power plant equipment, disaster prevention and crime prevention equipment.”
Culture
Nadia Comaneci, Montreal 1976 TEN!!! [1:06] (via plump plum)
Last but not least this is what I consider to be a throwback to vintage internet. We are talking a space background repeating image here people; I don’t think I’ve seen that since ‘97. Plus something for nearly everyone: lots of links, e.g. useful information like an up to date guide to SEO, and Women Chess Grandmasters.
Perhaps two people know this about me but I am a design junkie. Notcot.org is my favorite blog of all time. Recently I’ve even contributed a few posts (#7106, #6974). I’m not sure what it is about design that I like so much. There is always that form/function distinction but I don’t think that is exactly what attracts me. It is more along the lines of personal engineering: with the right stuff you can do different things. You have the right tools and you can build a house (or a website); you have a spiffy outfit and you can get into an exclusive club; you have the right ideas and you can change the course of humanity.
Anyway, here’s some links (or slingks as Apartment Therapy calls them) to people with good ideas:
Check out the art galleries here in NYC with this handy printable list of the best galleries.
Wordcount: a visual representation of how often English words are used. ‘Pope’ is one behind ‘Logic’ and four ahead of ‘Discourse’. I couldn’t make this up if I tried. (via DamnIWishI’dThoughtofThat via Spoonbuzz) Surprisingly I found this site through my lesser infatuation with marketing (as compared to design) since it is more a work of art/design. However if you consider Search Engine Optimization choosing words lower on the list will inherently make your site more unique and hence searchable. I think I got lucky by tagging ‘relativity’ (#15559) before ‘biology’ (#6746) or ‘physics’ (#4543) and definitely before ‘philosophy’ (#2821).
Witty and thankfully not brief comic/graphic novel (the only one I have ever liked, so this is high praise): Platinum Grit - and by the same people of wit (though not a comic): Poke the Bunny. You really should. Who Killed Bambi? Art blog finding all those out there pushing the bounds of death and life.
Japan is good for so many things: Trends in Japan is full of products and ideas. Currently #1 on my wishlist for ridiculous things (which is my normal wishlist btw) is a Homestar Pro (no not that homestar) PERSONAL PLANETARIUM. I’m from NY. I have to drive like 4 hours to see stars otherwise.
On the topic of Japan Ping Mag is worth a look. It’s a Tokyo based design magazine.
And because you should always end with a bang, the Superest is my new favorite fun blog. It’s superhero competition with ‘The overprotective parent’ being vanquished by ‘Doug the Slacker Next Door’ who was vanquished by ‘The Charismatic Recruiter’, etc.
Welcome. I'm interested by metaphysics, relativity, philosophy of science & language and women philosophically inclined or not. But there will probably be a bit of everything here, kind of like me.
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