1 gen 1971 anni - T. Galbraith writes "The Parasite Transcendent"

Descrizione:

"8. ON PREHENSILE SIGHT"

"Via our senses, our minds harvest information: distinguishing features, aspects, and contexts (accurate or otherwise) which are used to fabricate what we imagine to be an understanding. In reality, we are only equipped to operate in the shallows of approximation, pre-populated with beliefs and suppositions both uninformed and uninformable. Because of the selfishness intrinsic to and inseparable from our cognition, the human mind is only capable of arguments conducted in bad faith. The external world is immediately contextualized by us to exist in relation to us, regardless of its true aspect---and often in opposition to it. To witness is to pervert. The act of observation is a form of theft. One may say that, in gathering information, the objective is to refine our observations so that a more accurate truth may be arrived at, over time. Again this is wholly dependent on the receiver of these data. The set of information beyond that which we only absorb due to its similarity to that which we have presupposed is not even negligible. This is the impenetrable barrier between observation and knowledge. There is a gulf between what is objectively able to be learned (by some true and invisible north star) and what we believe that we are learning. What the animal mind can comprehend, and thereby learn about, is bounded by the term 'instinct.' Man's pursuit of the diminishing sciences is a cancer of information; an indefinitely contorting puzzle which we believe to be finite and solvable. But despite our progress down these blind roads, we can only conceive of ever more novel ways to destroy ourselves. To find actual truth we must awaken to an objective search for actual truth, with the realization that the mind selfishly emulates only the regions of logic which we align with comfort, safety, pleasure, and other falsehoods. We must devise a practicable rejection of natural, subjective, self-deriving instinct, whose sole function was to keep its carrier alive. In such a world, understanding is a fool's errand, because our inherent biases and limited capacity for comprehension render us incapable of true understanding. We take what we have the facility to do so from the world, impose our own meanings upon it, and accept that our view of it may be fundamentally flawed. We are condemned to rely on our own limited and biased interpretation of reality, which will never be complete or truly accurate. As a result, our ability to shape the world is limited, and our capacity to shape other beings of equally flawed comprehension. We can use our knowledge, our limited capacity for understanding, and our biases to create systems, tools, and technologies that allow us to better interact with the world. We can use these tools to shape our enviroment in ways that make it more comprehensible to us, and to create a world that is more in harmony with our understanding. We can also use these tools to build relationships with other beings that, while still limited by our own biases, are capable of providing insights and perspectives that we lack. In this way, we can create a world that, while still imperfect, is more comprehensible and more in harmony with our own understanding. Let us propose now a hypothetical method for the discernment of actual objective truth, were it is remotely possible for our benighted species. A THOUGHT THAT EMBODIES ANTI-INSTINCT AS ITS SOLE PRINCIPLE. As instruments of observation, we impose biases on the object of observation. Upon being seen, the object yields all claim it may have once held to itself. All that it is irretrievably enters the domain of the Witness. Its complete transmutation into space of false comprehension is unavoidable. The beholder becomes the holder. Only the unwitnessed may remain free. The unknown is the unowned. Language necessitates differentiation between object and subject: tautologically the latter is an object considered subjectively. We act ourselves apart from objects in the same stroke, by defining ourselvesas the only subjects which perform the consideration. Objects are incapable of their own subjectivity. An object does not have an understanding, a belief, or an emotion. Mankind is unique in that it is the only object that lies to itself. It is the only matter that imagines actual truth can be rejected in favor of a preferable lie. The ete is an infinitesimal slit through which reality is forced upon us. Why do we trust the evidence of our eye above all else? We know its operation and its attendant failings. Its lens distorts the images it intends to relay; its retina gathers only a sliver of the spectrum. These errors are not limited to the intake of stimuli: the flaws are systemic. The visual cortex already overwhelmed by the eye's meager offering, must cut corners in order to keep space with reality. Hardwired evolutionary shortcuts misconstrue, miscategorize, or outright ignore outliers and edge cases. Worst of all, such cases make up the exact scenarios in which there is the most need for attention. While a genuine logical awareness of these failures in our physiology could allow us to work around them, we are irrecoverably outspaced by the ceaseless clock of reality; the backlog is infinite. Intellect may steal only the briefest glimpes of an unknowable universe, from the dim keyhole in the door of its wretched prison. If there existed a means to develop an ANTI-INSTINCT to embrace an objective reality and banish this prehensile sight that undermine our cognition at every turn, would we even possess the discipline to enact it? Could we overcome our dependencies on comfort, on safety, on pleasure, and other such illnesses which cripple the pursuit of a true objectivity? While other creatures lack our rote intellect, there is a purity to their flawed nature. An amoeba lives. A wisp of smoke does not. But both are unburdened by fear. Man is the only animal distracted by oblivion before being forced to become oblivion."
-T. Galbraith

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