Sunday, September 11, 2011

Category 2 and Category 3

     According to my Philosophy of Reality, which can be found in this blog, there are 3 categories of existence. The first category contains humans, the second category contains things that exist because of humans, and the third category contains things that exist irrespective of whether humans exist or not.
     Many of the things that I dislike or disagree with can be found in category 2. This is part of the reason why I maintain such a low profile in public and make no move to gain a position of power or find a wife. I'm not that interested in the society that humans have made and I do not revel in its wonders as I do with those in category 3. This is also why I do not vote. No candidate has yet shown any interest in improving the well-being of human life.
     These are the things that need to happen in order for me to show a greater interest in category 2 beyond that of science fiction, movies, and music.
  • Health insurance needs to be abolished. All health care should be paid for by taxes, without raising taxes.
  • All prisons need to be destroyed. If a person is so dangerous that they cannot be allowed to roam free, then they should not be a part of our society. 
  • Car insurance needs to be abolished. The tests necessary to grant a driver's license should be far more rigorous than an infantile multiple choice exam and a 15 minute observation by a yawning old person. And, as Robert Heinlein once stated, "If you don't have a gun, then you'll grow eyes in the back of your head." No insurance will create better drivers, as a man lost in the woods with no weapon will make better choices.
  • All professional athletes should be capped at $250,000 per year. Too much money is given to people that play games. The extra money should be re-routed into health care or NASA. $250,000 is an unthinkable amount of money and will still offer a very, very high quality of life. Any athlete that complains about the salary cap should be kicked out immediately and forced to work for minimum wage at a fast food restaurant.
  • Teachers should have a base starting pay of $100,000 per year. The status of teachers should be higher than that of doctors and lawyers, since they influence the future actions of humans. Doctors fix people that have been unlucky or have been stupid. Lawyers are involved in a game that should be handled by scientists. 
  • All U.S. soldiers should be ordered to leave their foreign posts. We have nuclear weapons. Any foreign nation that gives U.S. citizens trouble should be repeatedly tapped with mushroom clouds until they learn how to behave.
  • There should be no penalty for using illegal drugs. None at all. Rather, the people that make and distribute illegal drugs should be executed without hesitation. 
  • Adults should not be defined by age. Why are a 17 year old and an 18 year old classified as two completely different kinds of people? Why isn't the split at age 24? Why not 35? Why not 42? Who the hell decided to declare that 18 year old people are suddenly adults? 
     My last suggestion or veiled complaint is something of interest to me. A guy a know named Brandon (nickname Idolores) once stated in response to a recovery of old forum comments:

Idolores wrote:

Oh God. I so don't want to see how I was back then.
         I stated: 

     Or, more precisely, your semaphoronts. "Semaphoront" is a word I find to be very interesting. I learned about it through my studies of phylogenetic systematics. I would imagine that all graduate students in biology are familiar with that word, and it is probably rarely used outside of that specialty.
     The philosophical implications are never ending, since I can't come to a decisive way of thinking about it. It is clearly defined within biology, but in plain English, it refers to an individual that exhibits life processes during a period of time (not a 'point in time'). The period of time itself is not defined. This is most useful for creatures that have different forms, such as insects. It is easy to see their semaphoronts, since the structural changes are distinct.
     It's more complicated with humans, since we retain the same basic shape throughout our lives. This is why I tend to think of it in terms of psychology. But I have no concern for whatever psychologists have invented, such as 'adolescent' or 'adult', since people of vastly differing ages can act roughly the same or completely dissimilar. The laws we have invented are even less satisfying, since they claim we are adults at age 18. I don't like any of it, so I have to make up my own classifications. I believe the semaphoront is a good start for reclassifying the stages of people since it focuses on individuals and not large groups of people. Each person changes at a different pace and it is wrong to use pre-defined ages to determine what a person is.
     The bottom line is that you don't want to "see" your younger self anymore than a fly wants to see itself as a maggot.


     That's enough of category 2. Onward to category 3, which I enjoy with heartfelt enthusiasm. You got a taste of my love when I was writing about the concept of a semaphoront. The word exists because of humans, but the stages of a life-form are quite real, which makes it category 3. But wait a second...isn't politics real? Isn't health insurance real? Of course they are, but if we humans suddenly disappeared, then politics and health insurance would also disappear. All the category 3 phenomena would be quite content whether we existed or not, such as protons and neutrons.
   

Saturday, September 3, 2011

The Science Fiction of Doris Piserchia

     I have a stack of novels that I'm going to read and it represents the complete works (minus short stories) of Doris Piserchia. I can confirm beyond any doubt that she is similar to R.A. Lafferty. This is marvelous and I am thrilled to the point of busting a few neurons. Piserchia wrote 11 science fiction novels and 2 horror novels, using the name Curt Selby. These were all published from 1973 to 1983.
     I have found an interesting and antiquated website in which Piserchia's fiction is referred to as feminist. I have found other sites that classify it as feminist. I don't know why people usually refer to female writers that create female protagonists as "feminist", when it is nothing but a natural bias. All people have a race and gender bias, in which they are naturally preferential to, and view themselves as, belonging to a certain gender or certain race (skin color). I would expect a black man to create a black male protagonist; it would not be racist for him to do so. It would be his natural bias to do so. I would likewise expect a Korean to create a Korean protagonist, an Eskimo to create an Eskimo protagonist, and a female to create a female protagonist.
     It is thus of no surprise that Piserchia chooses to use a female as her protagonist, at least in the first two novels. I would expect her to do so, as I would expect a male to create a male protagonist. There is nothing in her writing that would conjure the word "feminist" in my mind. It's just really bizarre science fiction in the vein of R.A. Lafferty.
     Honestly, if public schools gave students Mister Justice, then more people would probably read. I remember being bored to the point of madness in high school, due to the required readings of so-called "important" or "classic" novels. Mister Justice is about a man that can travel through time, yet is unable to physically affect anything; he may only take pictures. Thus, he chooses to take pictures of unsolved crimes in progress in the past and apprehends the offender in the future. He ties up the offender and drops him off at a police station, with the pictures attached.
     I also want to mention that her work is OOP (out of print), yet cheap and easy to find on abebooks.com
     Here are her novels:

Mister Justice (1973)


Star Rider (1974)


A Billion Days of Earth (1976)

 
Earth-Child (1977)


Spaceling (1978)


The Spinner (1980)


The Fluger (1980)


Doomtime (1981)


Blood County (1981), using alternate name "Curt Selby"


Earth in Twilight (1981)


The Dimensioneers (1982)


I, Zombie (1982), using alternate name "Curt Selby"


The Deadly Sky (1983)