A post for notes

[anhinga_drafts]

This is a post where I'll write various non-sense (under cut, and I'll keep editing it for a while). Also I am setting a default to screen comments in this post.

:-) Since every post should contain something cool above cut, here is the link to a cool animation blog, which I just learned about:

http://www.mult.ru/blog/ ("Масяньский Мульт-Блог")

(Via http://geshulka.livejournal.com/254666.html. Syndications to LJ does not function right now, because mult.ru exports using a lame encoding, and LJ feed import facility is lame in its lack of ability to process this encoding, see the profiles of mult_blog and mult_blog_atom)

**************

When you read Web and LJ, it seems that every viewpoint is represented, including the most insane, and a huge variety of possible dialogs and arguments is present. It is as if whole purpose of this diversity is to enable parallel processing and parallel exploration of various ideas from the largest possible variety of viewpoints.

However, there is a problem here. On one hand, if you identify yourself firmly with some viewpoint, then even if you don't end up getting involved into religious wars of words, you still get quite annoyed by what you are reading. The essay by Paul Graham, "Keep your identity small", http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html, makes a lot of sense.

However, it turns out that this is not so simple. For example, I don't like it when people systematically attack someone. There might be a cool blog which, however, attacks, say libertarians, or liberals, or conservatives, or greens, or pseudo-science, basically, a blog which has a favorite "enemy" and attacks it often and without much nuance. It turns out that this annoys me a lot in a stronger sense than just a feeling of waste of time. This probably means that this is still an issue of identity for me, that I am too attached to the idea that a systematic attack mode of this kind is wrong.

Another strange effect is that whenever you read too many dialogs between different viewpoints too closely, and see more and more nuances, and try to give as much benefit of the doubt as possible, you see more and more yin inside yang inside yin inside yang and so forth like in the Taoist symbol, and the picture becomes more and more fractal, and whatever identity you have tends to weaken and decohere, and that's not pleasant either.

Basically, I'd like to be able to set various identities aside in such situation, and to have an unattached perception, and also I would be nice if an identity would be better protected from decoherence. Non-attachment to a political or religious identity might be good, but one wants to be able to both set it aside and to retrieve it back intact at will.

**************

Actually, since we have comments, if I want to add more notes to this post, I'll add them as new comment threads.

Comments

[cema.livejournal.com]

I agree (with what is under the cut). But what lessons can we learn from all that?

[anhinga-drafts.livejournal.com]

That's what I'd like to figure out.

[anhinga-drafts.livejournal.com]

Of course, a better reflection and self-control would help.

I even strongly suspect that when an identity is really turned off, it is subject to much less decoherence.

But a better reflection and self-control would solve all kinds of problems, so it's catch-22.

[anhinga-anhinga.livejournal.com]

Among other things I want to focus on various aspects of how to make a computer more useful/less harmful.

One thing I've just done was installing a "Take a break" Firefox plug-in:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/45343

It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing:

"Addicted to the Web? Don't compromise your health! Continuously staring at the computer can cause headaches, blurred vision, neck pain, fatigue, dry eyes. "Take A Break" extension tries to help you avoid or reduce these problems. It reminds you when to take a break while you are surfing the Web.

- A little icon on the status bar will be flashing every 15 minutes to remind you a short break. You should sit back and close your eyes, or look outside the window for a while.

- A pop-up dialog will remind you a big break every hour. You should stand up, get a cup of coffee, do some stretching, or go freshen up.

- You can adjust the timers according to your own needs."

...to both set it aside and to retrieve it back intact

[lena-nek.livejournal.com]

A non-PC reaction:
Fractal vision of the whole is compatible with a specific viewpoint, as long as you see the latter not only in terms of some "objective truth", but also in terms of stuff like your psychological makeup, or culture, or class interests (yea, alas), or familial loyalty. Your viewpoint still has to be grounded both in reason ("objectivity" )and in some notion of fair play ("Hillel's paradigm" :), but it can contain other components as well. As long as you (i) recognize where these other components come from, and (ii) are not ashamed of their source, you are under no danger of decoherence. Or so it seems to me.
I mean, I can envision myself as a youth from Ramalla, viewing israelis as wealthy intruders who, if worst comes to worst, will be sheltered by even wealthier relatives in the west. If I were born in his shoes, I might view the world thru his prism. But I, in addition to having a completely different and no less justifiable (to put it mildly) view on the situation, (i) am an educated ashkenazi with close friends in Israel, and (ii) do not see any serious reason to be ashamed of this fact (i.e. no more than of my education or a home in a relatively prestigious neighborhood)...