Love this!
“So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in culture that we don’t even question when the control of that property removes our ability, as a people, to develop our culture democratically.”
We have chosen to look at the window and now we will reap what we have sown
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/01/the-facebook-eye/251377/
I have been thinking about ochre pupils this morning. They are so complex!
“if you take any article (in Wikipedia), click on the first link in the article text not in parentheses or italics, and repeat, you will eventually end up in ‘Philosophy’.”
The new logo for confusionism - What do you think?
The world affords us equisite efficiency and unrivalled convenience. Although welcome in this hyper dynamic always on world we live in, is in reinforcing patterns of behavior. I honestly believe that familiarity, wether that be friends, spaces, behaviors, environment, music or any other thing creates a voluntary blindness. I can only speak for myself, but once something is known and certain I begin to lose fascination and fall into an A to Z mentality. This A to Z mentality although productive takes me out of the world. It stops me from seeing my experience and I begin to ignore the irrelevant world around me. I feel that change
The three tenets of Confusionism are
These are behaviours as much as they are ludicrous statements. What are some practical ways to induce a state of confusion and to reconnect with the world around you? Change, think, give new things names.
Be an absolute beginner, this will humble you and force you to realise that you aren’t the greatest in the world. Remaining humble is a key component of confusionism. Your ego is not your friend. Your ego needs control and it will control you through destroying your ability to engage with new behaviours. Embrace evaluative social threats and go with it. Everyone was a beginner at one point. You are no different. Dance like and idiot, make rubbish design, play the violin like a strangled cat. Expand and sty humble.
Imaginary food intolerances will disable parts of the menu and force you to look beyond the top 3 usual food you usually have. Rather than just going for the meat pizza, maybe this time you are allergic to pepperoni and have to get on with something else. This is a great way to expand your realm of expectation. You might not like it, but thats not the point. Experiencing it is the point!
Spending time watching a foreign TV channel will enable you to see the world visually, in disabling your understanding of language you are force to concentrate on visual gestures, Body language, environment, colour. If you do it for long enough, you may even understand the language of the subtext. Which to some is the only thing that matters. I try to do this quite often and I often find that I see things I would never have seen before.
Book surfing is grabbing a random book off of a shelf in a book shop and reading a page. Doing this once has no impact. Try to surf a book store and randomly open books at any place and reading the page or paragraph you first hit. This is a fun way to dive straight into the world of something. You may not understand what is going on, but you can speculate. I do this often. Foyles is a good place for this, as is Waterstones on picadilly.
I am very open to suggestion, if I read a book for too long I become familiar to the idea and sometimes this can be enough to make me think it has value. I break this pattern by reading 4 to 6 books at the same time. These book are often on completely unrelated subjects. I like to do this as I feel that it distorts my understanding of an idea at a subconscious level. I feel that it forces my mind in different directions, causing some strange alchemy. I have a book for bed, the bath, transit, sitting and for fun.
Self control is an application that stops you from visiting the sites you most usually do. By applying this application you are breaking highly entrenched and positively reinforced typs of behaviour. I can’t recommend this enough. Social networking will destroy your ability to see the world as it really is. A computer screen reduces your ability to experience the world more than anything. It’s the ultimate simulation. You can’t can’t get burned by looking at a picture of a fire.
Here are few of the strategies I have for re-seeing. I have gone to extremes to make sure I am challenged all the time. I am quite a lazy person and am least productive when I am certain. Uncertainty forces me into the here and now!
