Non-sense

I was perusing recently an impertinent and thoroughly engaging text called, On Bullshit, by the Princeton professor emeritus of philosophy, Harry Frankfurt, when I stumbled upon an inspiratory detail: Non-sense. This precious construction was noted as the arch-nemesis of one of the monumental philosophers of the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein.

As you, friend-follower, have undoubtedly noticed, I have a penchant for criticizing the human proclivity for illogic. As I have pontificated prior, we are feeble, defective creatures, with curiously disruptive effects known as emotions. Said overly-simply, reason, logic, and scientific representation of reality were the heroes and obsessions of Mr. Wittgenstein. They are also friends of mine.

Either way, I now have a prominent citation from which to defend my arbitrary outpourings on the theme of illogic (or non-sense). Perhaps Wittgenstein's word outplays my own modest term (which I picked up from Christopher Moore) when it comes to precision. Nevertheless, I do not and never have promised to be profoundly honest, realistic, or scientific in my writings.

What? Say you that this is contradictory with my past and pending statements on the all-importance of reasonable thought and the insidious character of illogic? Nay, I say to you. I turn now to Harry Frankfurt and distance myself from L. Wittgenstein. I promise to bullshit you, sir or madam, when I see fit, in the pursuit of perspicuous thoughts or witty turn of phrase (well, according to me).

This does not negate the possibility of scientific analysis or the promotion of brutal logic, nor does it mean that I am lying to you. I will not deliberately, in fact, attempt to misrepresent my thoughts and beliefs, the contents of my brain. I will strive to entertain you and myself with a diversity of writings and scribblings that will include plenty of bullshit, art, pseudoscience, and invention.

Really, I am planting a devious honesty, professing to use an artistic license, and claiming fidelity to the use of a Borgesian approach to keeping your attention (What can I hold you with?). If my method works well, and you examine my words with microscopic care, maybe you will even learn something real about me.

Brad is thinking

- About delineations and spectra and the middle path that appears to be fundamental.

- About when to speak plain truth and when to deceive, obfuscate, dissimulate, or utter falsifications.

- About enigmas, anomalies, the advancement of thought and science and the consequent and simultaneous waning of ignorance, myth, mysticism, magic, and speculation.

- That there is a lever in the natural construction of the human being which leaves him or her open to outside manipulation, which often induces lamentable illogic, including crowd-rule, wishful-thinking, and fallacious belief.

- Whether or not the hegemony and the progression of the hegemony, of what is fashionably considered science will make humans more or less malleable.

- That Brad knows nothing and nurtures fragile beliefs that may or may not have basis in "reality."

- That memory is fickle and that blatant fiction is as worthy a suitor for our consideration and belief as purported fact.

- That there is but one form to pray to.

- That perceptive skepticism trumps blind faith.

- That there must be an equalization.

- About WWSGD (What Would Siddhartha Guatma Do).

- About what deserves: Respect; approbation; damnation; and, outright eradication.

- That there is a coy, precious quality peculiar to the margins of the day and the night which tends to activate "weird" and pure behavior, ambiguous emotions, and tangential ambitions.