Pretend I'm Your Friend

 

On Relationships

Most people have two or more "personas". They adapt to their environments by filtering their speech. At work, I have one filter and when I'm at home I have another. Sometimes I omit certain words because they are crass in one environment but perfectly acceptable in another.

My friends and I play a game sometimes. The goal is to shock the other person or people in the group by saying the most offensive, gruesome, or blasphemous thing possible. The more heinous the better. But it also has to be clever and in an attempt at humor. If someone says something stupid they are ridiculed by the others so the horrible things uttered have to be something the others will understand and appreciate as purposely horrible. The idea is to make fun of the easily offended, ourselves, and to challenge and understand each other's perspectives.

I would say that the quality of a friendship is marked by the level of freedom you have to communicate and be honest. The lower the filter the better the friend. This is why some siblings are not friends. Why some husbands and wives are not each other's best friends. People play roles in relationships and being honest can break the role and challenge their place. If someone does challenge their role in the relationship and the relationship can not adapt to this change then it will suffer.

Your best friend is oftentimes the person you can talk about you're family and spouse about in a way you might not be able to with anyone else. This is why high-quality friendships are so valuable. It gives a person a refuge to experiment with their thoughts as we don't always know what we think about something until we verbalize it and doing this with someone who can listen and offer constructive analysis will allow someone to understand their thinking better than just blurting out something in a moment of emotional distress toward someone they usually use a filter for.

Honest communication is about trust because our secrets are only secrets because of the perceived judgment of others. We hold back and filter our thoughts to hedge our bets about how others will respond. We don't use taboo language around people we don't know very well because we know that words can start fights. So we slowly test the "waters" using language. We throw in a lesser curse word like "ass" or "butthole" in an effort to gauge the other's reaction. If we are safe we might throw out a "shit" or "fuck" or a somewhat controversial idea to see what happens. Good communication is a dance with each person reading the others' moves and attempting to engage in a harmonious way. A bad conversation is the opposite, where both try to lead or one isn't paying attention or one is trying to antagonize the other.

As the dance continues the two will start to feel freer as they have created boundaries around what language works. The content of the conversation is only part of the equation of communication. Each person is doing at least two things. One is attempting to understand what the other person is saying. This can take focus and conscious effort. Listening is a skill. Although at times it can take less focus and comprehension can be effortless if the words are familiar and the topics mundane.

The second thing that a speaker is doing, other than listening is watching and reading the other person's body language and tone. Facial expressions, eye gaze, stance, and other factors are all being subconsciously attended to and studied in an effort to discern friend from foe. To see a potential attack coming or to find signs that make it safe to loosen up the filters and become more friendly. Although this instinctual process is far from perfect and we are often lead astray evolution has honed these instincts in the direction of survival so they are more often accurate.

When a person pushes the bounds of common etiquette with harsher words than would normally come out of a stranger people can often be perturbed. The normal behavior of strangers is to tread lightly until rapport is established. By being polite and respectful with their words and physical space they are saying to others that they know how to play the game. When someone treads too hard against these social mores they are testing the boundaries of others. If someone pushes too hard they can be met with any amount of disdain. From a look of contempt to a shot to the head, people don't take kindly to being tested or perceived disrespect.

Friends, on the other hand, can look past the words used and look for the spirit in which they were said. People infer meaning and intent when communicating. Sometimes people do this so much that they try to finish each other's sentences. This is rude in that it breaks up the flow of the speaker's thoughts and can derail a thread of thought. The person who is being interrupted has not established boundaries with the person who keeps interrupting them. This can often be because the speaker is also prone to interrupting and so allows it in others. Hypocritical people who interrupt others often don't like it when you interrupt them. This is due to a lack of self-awareness or some kind of narcissism where rules apply to others and not to the self.

Friends will typically give the benefit of the doubt when someone says something that is either uncharacteristically or surprisingly rude, harsh or offensive. 

People also know how to pretend to be friends. This is oftentimes what is happening between two new coworkers. They have the pressure of filtering themselves correctly in the workplace environment, which is actually at least three environments. The first environment is the one that involves clients. The second is the one that involves peers. The third is the one that involves hierarchies and bosses. And there are more I'm sure. The new coworkers also have the added pressure of trying to get to know their coworkers. They have to be able to pretend to be a stranger's friend. This is usually awkward as real friendship is gained over time and with experience and so the awkwardness that is felt is due to the inauthenticity.

A stranger is not a friend and so pretending someone is a friend in the workplace is a kind of guise. A ruse that if played wrong can be disastrous. Navigating this type of scenario is probably best done by not caring about making friends but instead caring about being a good team member. By volunteering to do jobs and help others one creates the best kind of coworker relationship, one that takes the job seriously. If one never tried to be besties with others they remain neutral and honest. They should have a plan in mind as to why they are working there and part of that plan should be to cooperate with others.

A friend applies their morality to their friends and a friend should be honest about their moral philosophies and stand by them enough to disavow a friend that strikes too hard at the values they uphold. This does not mean that a friend shouldn't be open to new ideas or be challenged but it does mean that there is a certain point at which a person should make a stand. A moral pushover or weakling can not be respected by people being honest.

Pretend I'm Your Friend

When looking at the intellectual work of others it is nearly impossible to not immediately judge the words through a filter of judgment based on current biases. This is an impediment to understanding the content from the perspective of the person communicating it. This means that the meaning and purpose of the content will probably be misinterpreted. In order to learn from others, we must lower our subjective judgemental filter and attempt to ingest the content from a more objective perspective. A great way to do this is to pretend that the other person is already your friend.

This means that you take the stance that the other person most likely thinks of themself as smart enough to have an opinion and morally righteous enough to offer advice. If it were a friend you would at least start from a place of respect and attempt to hear the spirit in which the content is being communicated. Is the person trying to help? Is the person uniquely qualified to know something about the subject? Is the person just hungry or upset or drunk? Suppressing your own instinct to react immediately, especially in a defensive way, can allow the person to express their idea fully. If you allow someone to express their idea fully then you can expect to express your rebuttal or thoughts fully as well. If you interrupt them then you can expect to be interrupted back. Or in reading something contentious or from someone you disagree with, you can better see where the person is coming from by pretending the person is not an evil person but instead just a type of friend. Maybe not your best friend but at least someone you can listen to.

When I hear something or read something that seems on its face to be completely ridiculous and wrong I try to remind myself to pretend that the other person is a friend and see what happens. Sometimes this doesn't change the outcome of the experience but it at least allows me to not immediately create a villain in which to fight. This helps with controlling the emotions that I experience that get in the way of understanding. Many times the result is as dismissive as it would have been but it doesn't take over my mind and allows me to move onto something else without so much energy wasted. Sometimes doing this actually allows me to understand the other person in a way that gives me a glimpse of their perspective, leading me to empathize or relate to them in a way that leads toward a paradigm shift. Even if just a small one. The best-case scenario is you make a new friend. I worst-case scenario is that you understand your enemy better.  

Brief Thoughts on the Ontological Argument

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The ontological argument...

Anselm defined God as "a being that which no greater can be conceived", and argued that this being must exist in the mind, even in the mind of the person who denies the existence of God. He suggested that, if the greatest possible being exists in the mind, it must also exist in reality because if it exists only in the mind, then an even greater being must be possible—one which exists both in the mind and in reality. Therefore, this greatest possible being must exist in reality. 

---- From Wikipedia

The first issue I have with this argument is the use of the word "being". Is a being a conscious creature? Is a being a sentient thing? Is a being a type of person? Is a being an alien? Anyway...

The use of the term "greater" is an issue as well. The term greater makes no sense by itself. Greater than what? Greater just means bigger or better or more, which all require context. There has to be a standard to refer to. Maybe Anselm created this context in his works and defined a standard "being" in which to compare his notion of a greater being and then went so far as to infinitely extend the idea until he just ended with the word God. As in the same God that is the vague term used to describe any unknown or unknowable thing personified as an agent. 

Essentially the argument is...

If I can think about something it can exist outside the mind if I  just ad the word "better" to it. With the word better I can argue that it is better to exist outside the mind and therefore if a thing I think about is the best of its category (for example a "being") then it must exist because it would be better to have that thing in existence outside the mind than limited to just inside the mind. 

This argument is shit. It allows for existence to arise from thoughts alone and for anything thought of to exist in reality. 

Example: If I can think of the best guitar and it exists in my brain then the best guitar must exist in reality because the best guitar is only made the best by existing outside the brain. Because it is better to exist then to simply be imagined. But the concept of better and the concept of existence have little to do with each other. 

Something can exist without being better than anything else. Being better only occurs when comparing two things and not all things require comparison to understand. It can simply have a purpose or a relationship with other things or it might be something that simply exists with no discernable interaction with anything you understand. Maybe you see a cloud a few miles away. It makes no difference to you in any practical way but you see it and it exists. It is not better or worse than anything. It's just a noteworthy cloud. 

Any argument that puts human consciousness as the basis for reality seems needlessly vain. The idea that nothing would exist without humans is ridiculously presumptuous because it presumes that before humans existed there was nothing. This is stupid. Before you existed plenty of things existed. Unless you don't believe that things exist outside of your mind. If you think that the only existence that exists is the existence of thoughts and that you have a singular existential experience and that is what matters seems too insular. The history of life is the history of interaction. From when single cells began to combine with each other all biology has been an interconnected network of communication, metabolism, and other ecological concepts. To distill all of existence to what exists in human minds seems limited. 

Humans attempt to describe reality based on their sensory and communicative capabilities. Because humans observe reality and have the ability to see themselves as a part of that reality they can describe themselves in the same way they describe other things. Just because you exist and your brain exists doesn't mean that something you thought of exists outside your synapses. I would imagine that it would be easier to think of things that don't exist rather than think of things that do exist. Even if you had a complete list of things that actually exist in the universe you could still think of combinations or exaggerations of those things that would exponentially increase the things you can think about. Most of those things would not exist. 

For example: If I know of all the animals that exist I can imagine each of those animals with a chair growing out of their back and I just doubled the amount of bullshit in my head but that doesn't mean that each animal exists with a chair growing out of its back in reality. It makes no sense. Being able to think about something or imagine something has almost no relation to what actually exists in the world. 

It seems like ontological arguments are actually just arguments designed to satisfy an already-held view. It puts too much value on cognitive capacities and conjures up reality out of thin air which is not scientific or rational. If one wants to justify their irrational beliefs one can use the ontological argument.

I'm reminded of the argument, "I think, therefore I am." The problem with this is that in isolation you can't really determine that you exist scientifically. There is nothing to test against. You need others to verify a hypothesis and engaging in experiments. I think that if others think you exist and you can interact with external objects then you probably exist. Or at least exist in some context.

The concept of God exists but that doesn't mean that there is a perfect "being" running around doing things.  

I will always dream of what it would mean to know things.

I will always dream of what it would mean to know things.

If I had all the money and power in the world I would have dreams. These are these dreams:

I would build a time machine that was a huge spaceship and it would hold my collections of things that matter. Information technology would be the most important and possible video equipment as well and it would need food and life support systems, obviously. My spaceship would be able to go back and forth through time and travel throughout the universe evolving and my ship would adapt to new information about reality and interface with my mind and body as if it were part of my body but I could separate from my ship and move about the planets and times that I travel.

I would go back to the Egyptians and see how they moved such large stones and built such mighty structures. I would ask them why they did what they did and how their language came about.  I would ask them about their culture and I would record it all.

I would go the South America and see the Mayans and discover their secrets. I would ask them about the sky and about their mountains villages.

I want to see Pangaea from a satellite view and take a real picture. I want to set up a time lapse film from 20,000ft above the earth spanning the entire lifespan of the earth. I want to show this film to children in schools.

I don’t want to use anthropological theories or archeological evidence or geological timelines to create a digital representation of what the best western minds have to offer on the history of the planet. No, I want to see if happen. I want to watch the world grow and the plants evolve into animals and the animals evolve into oil.

I want to hear what a pterodactyl sounded like.

I want to take my ship into the ocean and watch islands form into continents and then go above the land and watch life grow and change.

I would see what it was like to be entertained by burning witches and fights to the death.

I want to film and record it all and travel in and out of time and throughout the fabric of space discovering the nature of things.

I want to see what things were like before the big bang. See if there was any big bang.

I suppose that with all the money and power in the world I would covet knowledge. I would seek to know everything even if that meant there was really nothing at all to know. I would want to be able to come back to the time I belonged to originally and be able to astound people with the things I know of the universe. 

But for now I have to be content with the theories and the philosophies that I find and research. I am content with the search for impressive knowledge here on earth and in my back yard and on TV. I will listen to interesting things that I find on iTunes or see on Youtube. I will listen to books on things that are informational and entertaining. I will be open to all ideas but I will filter out the things that don’t seem true to me. I will be wrong much of the time about most things but I will continue to learn things about the world. I will learn things about myself through the learning of things about the world and create a biased perspective.