Existential - Tumblr Posts
Poem: It Rained Today
It rained today, and I wondered
Where I was in the universe,
A speck on a speck on another,
Wishing not to be washed away.
j.p
Poem: We
We are the waiting, the wandering,
The wondering. We are without
A trace, whispers in the wind,
Whistles slipping out from behind
Whiskery wisps of human minds.
We are here and there and wishing
For more. We are the ones who
Hope for worlds beyond, where
No one knows our names and we
Are free to wander and wonder,
And whistle tunes to each other
As we watch the days away.
j.p
Poem: Hope
My heart has hope enough
To rise over mountains
And sweep across oceans,
Never to fall to one’s knees.
My eyes grow wide enough,
As this hope begins to
Rush through me, that
They send a signal
To everyone I meet.
I watch this hope, and
As I rise, I lose my will
To whine and cry.
My mind has come to
Realize that to rise with
Hope is to rise and shine.
j.p
Untitled.
i made a comic in google slides for some ungodly reason
Its a weird feeling and kind of a dilemma bc it’s like. Are people calling things “AI” prematurely due to them tricking people that they have intelligence in a surface level way? And also because it benefits certain groups’ goals to call them AI to make them seem like they have more human qualities and agency? Yes to both of those.
On the other hand it’s. Do we keep just moving the goalposts for what “counts” as AI as our technology progresses? Probably yes? So will we ever truly have AI? Idk. Maybe AI - no matter how complex - will always just be a neural network that uses incredibly complicated algorithms, and is therefore restrained by its own design and nature.
Maybe hoverboards will never really float off the ground. Maybe AI will simply never be sentient in a way that can be completely separated from the data it’s trained on. Maybe we will always be reaching for these futuristic technologies we have imagined, but never quite getting the real deal. It’s always different irl to how we envision.
But then you start to wonder. Don’t we just base what we think. off of all the data we’re trained with our whole lives? Which begs the question: are we any different to AI? And if so… why?
calling chatgpt “AI” feels exactly the same to me as calling those motorized skateboards “hoverboards”
The Ship of Theseus is a story of a ship which, over time, has part after part replaced. By the end, 100% of the original ship's pieces have been replaced. The paradox begs the question of whether it is still the same ship.
The Ship of Theseus is a story of a ship which has its pieces replaced one after another. By the end, every single piece of the original ship has changed. The paradox asks if this is the same ship.
The Ship of Theseus tells the allegory of a ship whose crew are replaced one at a time. Eventually every single crewmate has been swapped for a new one. No one left knows what the carved initials in the mast mean. The paradox wonders whether the ship is still the same ship.
The Ship of Theseus refers to a company which has experienced complete turnover and rebranding. The query wishes to know if it is still the same company. The debtors are asking.
The Ship of Theseus is about a family. The original constituents are dead now, replaced by younger generations which have dispersed, found love, married and gained new names. No one is Theseus anymore. No one remembers the bones. But the genes never forget. Who is the family now?
The Ship of Theseus is you, shed of all the cells which first made you. They're stardust again. You'll be stardust many times over. Who are you?
The Ship of Theseus is me. All my words have changed. Who do I get to be now?
- Evelyn Waugh, from Brideshead Revisited (1945)
May Murad - Je ne suis pas un robot, 2021
instructions for the journey by Pat Schneider
The fact that humans can be killed through physical means is so ridiculous to me
I’ve had almost this exact fantasy for years, probably ever since I was a kid (tho I don’t have it so often I think anymore). I didn’t realise so many other people have also thought the same thing but… in hindsight maybe I should have guessed. That this is something a lot of people would want and could relate to.
I think it kind of evolves from the childhood fantasy of secretly being a superhero or wizard or similar. It feels like it’s driven by a similar desire, and relies on a very reminiscent situation of finding out. And then evolves into this: a more ‘mundane’ more ‘realistic’ version.
I always wanted there to be a reason why I was secretly special or an explanation of why I was different to others and struggled at certain things. More than other people did it seemed sometimes. And turns out there IS a reason actually. Huh. I’m trans and have gender dysphoria and probably neurodivergent of some sort too. And I’m sure many other people who had this fantasy were dealing with similar things too, like maybe a disability or mental health issue. But unfortunately that isn’t something you can just get a vitamin or an operation for and ‘fix’ or make easier overnight (at least not completely). No, it’s something you have to work with and live with your whole life.
Me: You know how when you were a kid and you’d wish that you’d get sick or injured in a way that would justify why you didn’t live up to your potential?
Everybody, apparently: No?
Original
If this isn’t a mood than I don’t know what is:
Nico: at least I will die doing what I love
Will and what is that?
Nico: dying...
what if everything is intentional. what if dancing with your friends matters as much as picking up groceries. what if you put color in your hair and a stranger feels seen. what if someone makes soup for you. what if tears are sacred. what if it’s all love.
A Response to Academic Atheism
You totally misunderstood my position. When I stated that "The difference between a theist and an atheist is the degree to which God has revealed himself to them,” I was not referring to biblical revelation—I was referring to “personal” revelation. Knowledge of God doesn’t come from a philosophical inquiry or from reading the Bible, but from a deep existential experience (in the Heideggerian sense) where a “personal revelation” takes place! Perhaps you’re not familiar with my work. I’m convinced that the Bible is a collection of mythic prophecies, not a record of historical events. For example, I totally agree with you that the story of Noah is a myth. Even the story of Jesus is a myth in a certain sense. Jesus never existed—he is not an established figure in history, and the gospels simply borrow material from the Old Testament to prove that he is the messianic fulfillment of the Jews! So the gospels are mythical: theological. I’ll grant you that. However, the rest of the New Testament gives us a very different account of Jesus, one that is not historical but rather prophetic and apocalyptic:
“For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Revelation 19:10), NOT history!
“God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these LAST DAYS has spoken to us in His Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2, emphasis added).
“Once IN THE END OF THE WORLD hath he [Jesus] appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice [death] of himself” (Hebrews 9:26, emphasis added).
Conclusion: the Bible is a collection of “theologies” or mythic prophecies that point to the messianic age when Jesus Christ will appear once and for all “at the consummation of the ages” (Hebrews 9:26, New American Standard). And this truth is not known by reading the Bible but through a “personal” revelation. Hence I believe!
“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
Drawing by Alexandra Mantzari
Memoriam for Knight Errant
Her honest trembling was the very last straw.
So she shoved him quickly out, bolting it all closed.
He banged at the door in accompaniment as she lit match after match.
His eyes asking, ‘Why--?!’
Through the window, the look of smoke the nerve-ending sizzle of flesh as she sat calmly, casually, busy being consumed.
Glasses melting red; skin curling like autumn paper her frame tensing silently as her nostrils inhaled the flames--
‘--why do you not scream?’
‘Because, I don’t deserve it’, her one bloodshot, dim-seeing eye steadily stared, ‘the screaming.’
Her bones are there, even now.
Her own ruined palace of torment: sculpture of ashes, slagged windows charred wood the bones yearn the bones
beg and beg and beg
to scream.
Caged in dry calcium dust hanging in the air all around that open sky grave the pressure of air built up in lungs no longer there.
But she has had her way. And nothing in all the human world will allow those bones their desperately wanted release.
A knight beyond her very end. Suffer, and rightly so. This, her legacy to no one.