I said the other day I would add the concept of having different selves each day to writing as self-reflection, but what I wrote yesterday instead was a digression to Naruto, Dragon Ball, and Bill Gates.
What I mean to say I guess is that if we are to consider a No answer to the ship of Theseus question, then we could say two things. The obvious one would be that the intended audience for those who write as self-reflection would be the future versions of the self, for whom the artifact would be of little use, except as markers against which to measure differences with respect to the evaluation of it by the future self, which would be, for example, good if met with disgust and bad if met with admiration.
However, what I really want to do is to put forward the idea of somehow having this concept in reverse, by introducing something like writing as a self-projection, that is, considering the written material not as a reflection of the current self but as something a future self would write as a self-reflection, but described by the current self as though acquired through divination, treating the written artifact as if sent from the future, by virtue of the current self holding all the future selves accountable to make the writing actually such.
It’s definitely a stupid idea. In fact I am already looking at it with disgust I have barely even finished writing it, but this entry is already getting too long, so maybe I’d reserve my violent reactions for tomorrow, unless something else comes up.
Enough for today.
Some things I noticed 01/08/2020:
- on wanting to be rich, since I can already delude myself into thinking I already am, I always find it too hard to admit that that’s what I want, even though society seems to impose this as a goal every chance it gets
- Filipinos ascribe number eight’s luck to its upwards stroke when written using Arabic numerals, while the Chinese think the number lucky because of how their character for it sounds like in their language; both fascinating displays of motivated reasoning and people’s unquenchable thirst for certainty
- doubly challenging to descend Child’s Hill in a culture where “trying hard” is a pejorative and insecurity a taboo word
- that guy Ned Hall on the Mindscape podcast used the word ecumenical twice on non-religious contexts
- enjoyed how this interview started really slow but picked up steadily until it climaxed at the end
- writing one’s thoughts is like exfoliating the mind