So, I am currently preparing an entry that is gonna be about 20 pages long. It is actually an 'essay' I have been thinking of writing for about the last year and a half. But this blog turned out to be a fantastic forum for it. Mainly because I don't feel obliged to cite anything. Or follow any sort of academic standards of quoting or anything like that at all. So basically it is a big synthesis of a whole lot of things that I have been reading for the last 2-3 years. It has been very exciting writing it so far. I only have a few portions of it left to write. I am not sure if I am gonna edit it.
But moving on...
In preparing this very long post I have been consistently struck with the same thought. Is anyone actually going to read this? I sent this link to my mom, and to my aunt, and they both said they enjoyed watching me write. They know about lots of my ideas because I have talked to them about it. But that it was fun and different to see my follow my mind down certain paths. So, at the very least, I am happy that my family is looking at it and enjoying themselves.
But then I just sorta start fluttering in my own thoughts and i go balahhhahna. Just because it feels weird to be creating these extensive posts and putting them on the internet. It pleases me that it will always be there as a sort of archive for my thoughts that I can look back on whenever I want.
One time I washed two of my paper/pen notebooks within the same month. Funny, it was the notes from August 2009, a pretty insane month by pretty much all standards. Then I washed them and they were smeared and ruined. Some of it is still legible but mostly not. I had actually sorta enjoyed that fact. Seemed fitting. The month was an emotional fire storm and so the fact that the notes were obliterated is somehow appropriate.
Also, sometimes I think about the stacks of paper notebooks that I have filled up. How long they will last. When I will go back and read through them. I read through them every now and then and get re-familiarized with all of the things I was thinking in the past. This is actually what my next long post is going to be about - reenacting/reactivating thoughts that were expressed in the past. When I read what I wrote in the past sometimes I go 'Jesus, I sure was worked up then wasn't I?" or "That sure was a hard month, wasn't it?" But then I'm in a totally new frame of mind and so those past thoughts that were expressed serve as a way to modify my thoughts in that moment.
Cause it's not like I have some coherent identity. It's more like I go through phases of myself. The old versions of myself become encapsulated in the new versions of myself. Or, the old thoughts I express are reactivated and then become encapsulated in my present mind.
This is like R.G. Collingwood's idea. He says that when Plato is talking about 'the state' he is clearly not talking about the same idea that people talk about in the present moment. He is talking about one of the many incarnations that the idea of the state has gone through during history. So, he explains it like this: Say the idea of the state is represented by the letter S. Plato may have been talking about S1, but then history progresses and it becomes S2, S3, S4, S5, S6. So when Locke, or Obama, or whoever is talking about the state, they are talking about different versions of the same concept. They are all talking about S. But it is our task to determine which S they are talking about. Is it S1, S2, S3, S4, S5. Clearly, the numbers, 1-5 or however many, will never be clear, we can't periodize ideas that clearly. This is just a useful way of conceptualizing how it is that concepts evolve over time, and become more complex, yet retain their same general character. They go through phases. So say right now, in this day, we are dealing with S22, that level of development of the idea. When we read Plato we need to determine, which S is he talking about? Turns out he is talking about S5, and it is our task to encapsulate his understanding of S5 within our understanding of S22.
Same goes for my identity. Again, the numbers can never be determined, we can never periodize ourselves. But when I read something I wrote in the past, it as though I am dealing with RP6, or RP26, or RP35, or whatever, while in this moment I am RP55. But, I can bring those old thoughts of RP35 to life within the context of RP55. LOL.
I actually really enjoy thinking of myself in this way. As an ever morphing sort of thing. As a person who possesses continuity within dynamism. But if I had never written on this site, or had never written in my paper notebooks, then those older incarnations of my thought would be lost for good. Unless we can somehow consider memory adequate for reactivating past thoughts. But I am skeptical of that. Memory might be useful in terms of mental exercises, or as a form of fantastic simulation/reenactment (to be discussed in my long post). But, in terms of accurately reactivating thoughts that I had in the past, unreliable. Written evidence is required if I am to have any sort of reliable sense of how I thought in the past.
In conclusion, I have a huge and elaborate post coming up soon. This post is just expressing my giddiness at how not many people will read this, but how it delights me that I will have access to RP34, RP66, Rp77, or however to conceptualize it. I'll read these in the future and it will probably be fascinating. Also, maybe some other people will read them and then conversations could ensue.
I'll finish the long post later tonight hopefully. Over and out.
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