Born on State Highway 1

I once hopelessly Googled my own name and found a post by Cass Goodwin on a goddam LiveJournal of all things, referring to me as “Ryan Sproull, hopeless Googler of his own name.” Previously, this activity produced about five results, one of them rather severely embarrassing from about 12 years ago. Now I get pages and pages, partly thanks to Kiwiblog, partly thanks to people talking about Kiwiblog on Public Address, and finally thanks to Dad4Justice talking about people harassing him on Ian Wishart’s blog. Ian Wishart is, of course, also a hopeless Googler of his own name.

Hi, Ian. Hope you’re well.
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So, actor Rainn Wilson (you know, the guy from Six Feet Under and that one episode of Darkangel, and yeah, he was in Galaxyquest, and also, yes, he’s Dwight from The Office)… has launched a website trying to make philosophy and discussions of spirituality cool again. Guess he hasn’t been having drinks out back of the Wine Cellar, cos we is well cool, man. Anyway, it’s called Soul Pancake. And also, you should check it out.

So much of my views on so many things is dependent on my views regarding the words “free” and “will” being put together as if it meant something, and the cancerous growth of bullshit it signifies.

I want to write about this, as I always do, but I want to write it right, so I want to make a preliminary observation.

Actions arise out of a combination of values (aka desires), recognised options and beliefs about the world. One chooses (with some other factors) the recognised option that will bring about the most-valued outcome – as predicted by one’s understanding of the world and causality.

For example, someone who sincerely believes that lemons are sweet, who hypothetically has no value besides desiring the taste of sweet things, will choose to eat a lemon, over other options, if eating a lemon is a recognised option. They are not being irrational. They are merely mistaken about the world.

That’s the problem with mistaken ideas of the world. They give rise to actions that bring about undesired results through mistakenly predicting desirable results.

Of course, don’t watch this until after you’ve seen the movie.

Of course, don’t watch the movie until after you’ve read the comic.

Ran into Val N. Tine last night, one of the new co-editors of Craccum. I let him know how impressed I was with their summer-school edition, with the exception of one article. When I mentioned it, he nodded glumly a nod I knew well a few years ago – “yes, well, it was that or two blank pages”. I haven’t seen their O-Week issue yet, but that’s primarily due to the excruciating pain in my ribs.

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