Metaphysics pub quiz

[imomus]

Try my metaphysics pub quiz. It consists of ten questions about your relationship with metaphysics. The respondent with the most anti-metaphysical set of answers wins a shinto phallus and a night with Devon Aoki (or partner of their choice, if not a lesbian). The respondent with the most metaphysical set of answers wins the Metaphysician's Magic Pointy Hat. (Whether it's a magic hat or a dunce's cap depends on the angle it's viewed from, and whether the winner inks out the D or not.)



Here are the questions, followed by my own personal answers:

1. Do you think that 'Reality is elsewhere'?

2. Do you think that 'If my life as I live it were all there is, I'd top myself right now!'?

3. Do you notice yourself downgrading your environment because it's not really where your concerns are?

4. Is your body going to seed because you're off in some other world, for instance a computer world or a TV world?

5. Do you subscribe to the core beliefs of Marxism, Christianity, or Platonism?

6. When was the Golden Age, and when will utopia come?

7. Do you accept personal authorship of your own parallel worlds, or know the names of the people who designed them? Or do you call them 'objective'?

8. Do you find yourself using the word 'timeless' when you praise things?

9. What would a world in which people wholly accepted the present as 'all there is' be like? Better, or worse?

10. How will these questions change if physicists discover the Higgs Boson or 'god particle'? (Beware, trick que-whoooooooooooosh OMG, where am I?

1. Do you think that 'Reality is elsewhere'? I think it's my natural tendency, because I'm a dreamy cerebrotonic ectomorph like the kind Swift describes in Gulliver's Travels inhabiting the flying island of Laputa: 'These dreamy philosophers were so absorbed in their speculations that they employed attendants called "flappers," to flap them on the mouth and ears with a blown bladder when their attention was to be called off from "high things" to vulgar mundane matters.' Nevertheless, the fact that I employ people to flap me out of my reverie shows that my heart is in the right place.

2. Do you think that 'If my life as I live it were all there is, I'd top myself right now!'? No. I like my life.

3. Do you notice yourself downgrading your environment because it's not really where your concerns are? I do, yes. Although I mock Radiohead for that 'I don't belong here' sentiment they're always promoting, I share it a lot. But my ideal, the one I'm working towards, is belonging, and accepting.

4. Is your body going to seed because you're off in some other world, for instance a computer world or a TV world? My legs feel as if they're trying to decide whether to just walk off and leave me. 'He doesn't seem to need us any more, so what the fuck?'

5. Do you subscribe to the core beliefs of Marxism, Christianity, or Platonism? They're all there. I've rebelled against Christianity and Platonism, less so against Marxism. But whether I reject them or not, they've all left tire tracks through me.

6. When was the Golden Age, and when will utopia come? The Golden Age and Utopia are both permanent courts of session.

7. Do you accept personal authorship of your own parallel worlds, or know the names of the people who designed them? Or do you call them 'objective'? I accept authorship for them, or know who authored them, and don't call them objective. I try to make them more like scaffolding than buildings -- quick to assemble and quick to take down.

8. Do you find yourself using the word 'timeless' when you praise things? No, although it might have slipped past the censors occasionally.

9. What would a world in which people wholly accepted the present as 'all there is' be like? Better, or worse? It would depend on the quality of the environment they were in. I think if that happened in a degraded environment, it would be a recipe for hell on earth. If it happened in one that people had cared for and nurtured, it could be paradise on earth.

10. How will these questions change if physicists discover the Higgs Boson or 'god particle'? (Beware, trick que-whoooooooooooosh OMG, where am I? That's a trick que-whooooooooooosh OMG, where am I?

Comments

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

1. Do you think that 'Reality is elsewhere'?
Reality is everywhere is skirting tautology. I'm lead to believe that Unreal Tournament is available for twenty-some dollars at the local Best Buy, though.


2. Do you think that 'If my life as I live it were all there is, I'd top myself right now!'?
Even if I were completely miserable, discovering the kind of flexibility required to top oneself would be an interesting enough event to keep me going a few more years, at least.


3. Do you notice yourself downgrading your environment because it's not really where your concerns are?
With only regular breaks for food and the potty, I've spent more than 24 hours in a stretch writing software.

4. Is your body going to seed because you're off in some other world, for instance a computer world or a TV world?
Not so much my body as my GPA. As it is, a fit body with an absentee landlord is hardly unheard of. Anything more than five minutes on the treadmill requires either the ability to fully evacuate one's mind or a good mix tape.

5. Do you subscribe to the core beliefs of Marxism, Christianity, or Platonism?
Subscribe to Marxism? Lord no, I hate those lad mags.

6. When was the Golden Age, and when will utopia come?
There's no one golden age that anyone shares. My golden age was the time before I started kindergarten: my parents were present but not overbearing and things were peaceful but not boring.

It won't necessarily be a Utopia, but it would be interesting to live in a world where it's become obvious that information (in the abstract sense of difference or quasi-randomness) and matter are as intimately linked as matter and energy.

7. Do you accept personal authorship of your own parallel worlds, or know the names of the people who designed them? Or do you call them 'objective'?
I'd love to, but the worlds I've authored aren't really much to speak of, and they're not so much objective as object-oriented.

8. Do you find yourself using the word 'timeless' when you praise things?
No. Bits of culture, science, etc... are interesting because of their situatedness: what was necessary to bring them into being, and what they made possible.

9. What would a world in which people wholly accepted the present as 'all there is' be like? Better, or worse?
You'd be living as an animal. Take it or leave it as you like.

10. How will these questions change if physicists discover the Higgs Boson or 'god particle'? (Beware, trick que-whoooooooooooosh OMG, where am I?
I dunno about that, but you'd see a slew of books and videos on how to remove the bosons from your candy bars, icecream, and other fattening sweets. And people falling all over themselves to achieve true happiness and beauty through nonexistence.

[w-e-quimby.livejournal.com]

This was an excellent read.

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That's very kind.

[w-e-quimby.livejournal.com]

No problem.