How Altruistic Are You, Really?
The Ultimate Survey for the Intellectual.
Intro (skip to "survey" if desired):
Technically, according to Max's philosophy, even altruistic acts are selfish, because it is impossible to voluntarily do anything we don't want to do; it's a contradiction, see? "Voluntarily" doing what we "don't want..." is a paradox.
I could give away all of my money and property to charity today; but it would still be, at heart, a selfish act to satisfy my desire to help a lot of people.
I could jump in front of a friend and take a bullet, sacrificing my life; but it would still be, at heart, a selfish desire to save my friend's life out of love.
It therefore follows that every action done on purpose MUST have spawned from our wanting to do it in the first place. So our actions are ALWAYS going to be selfish -- even if that action is helping everyone in the world and making oneself suffer.
But still... Just ignore that for now, and take this survey about altruism.
Survey:
1.
Assume you love a person, who will now be referred to as "Person."
a. Would you still love Person if Person had no hair?
b. Would you still love Person if Person had no hair or face?
c. Would you still love Person if Person had no hair, face, or voice?
d. Would you still love Person if Person lost Person's hair, face, voice, and limbs?
e. Would you still love Person if Person had no body and was simply a brain in a jar with personality and memories?
f. Assume there exists a random ugly person who you hate, who will now be referred to as "Ugly." If Person's brain were to be exchanged with Ugly's brain, would you still love Person, now trapped in Ugly's body?
g.
Assume that Person's brain and Ugly's brain are restored, and all the limbs/face/voices are restored, and Person and Ugly are both normal people just like they were to begin with.
But then a scientist discovers how to isolate "consciousness" from the human brain. You see this evil scientist exchange Person's "consciousness" with Ugly's "consciousness," WITHOUT TOUCHING PERSONALITY AND MEMORIES. Do you now love Ugly, trapped inside Person's body, life, personality, and memories of you; or do you still love Person, trapped inside Ugly's body, life, personality, and lack of memories of you?
Keep in mind that now Ugly loves you and Person does not, since they have switched brains.
2.
The apocalypse is coming. Assume you have met or known about 0.0001% of the people in the world. Choose only ONE of the following (in both cases, you survive):
a. Save only the people that you know, including yourself. Everyone else in the world dies.
b. Save only the people that you don't know, plus yourself. Everyone you know in the world dies.
3.
One fine day, an evil scientist captures you and creates an identical you (who will now be referred to as "Other"), having your same exact cells, brain, memories, and personality -- the only difference is consciousness: You observe the world from your body, and Other observes the world from Other's.
You have a spouse, two kids, a good job, and a good life. If you kill Other, no one will know, the scientist will not tell, and you will continue to live your life normally. If you don't, your spouse and kids will have to love two of you at once, since Other is exactly the same as you.
Would you kill Other?
Results:
If you don't love Person in 1a-1d, you are disgustingly cruel.
If you don't love Person in 1e and/or 1f, you are reasonably cold-hearted.
If you love Person in 1a-1f, you are reasonably altruistic.
If you answered "no" to number 3, you are admirably altruistic.
If you answered "b" for number 2, you are extremely altruistic.
If you love Person's consciousness trapped inside Ugly's brain in 1g, you are... fanatically altruistic.
I could've done some cheesy "points" system but I opted not do since I already spent way too much work on this dumb note.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Shooting vampires with lasers; Sighing Ghost
Dream 1: Being in Band
I had this wonderful ability to fly, that no one else in band had. We were on this band trip, you see, and somewhere along the way I learned that I could simply flap my arms and fly. It wouldn't work all the time; sometimes it would fail and I wouldn't fly at all. But it did work some of the time. No one else could do it, and some people were envious.
So when a bunch of evil people took me as a prisoner and thought they had me tied down as a hostage to ransom me and get money from the Amador band, I simply shot into the air. How wonderful it was! Two long spears were immediately launched at me from ballistas, but I evaded them smoothly. I flew higher than the evil people could shoot. How happy everyone was that I survived, and that we didn't have to pay the ransom.
[Some stuff happened here that I can't remember.]
Then a couple days later I was with the band again and we were exploring a cave. Then suddenly the floor crumbled beneath us and we fell into a lower level, consisting of a large room with an opening on one side, and on the other side, a corridor leading who knows where (all the walls are stone as we are still in a cave).
We had flashlights so we could still see. We saw some vampires coming out of the opening into the large stone room that we were in. They walked slowly, and they looked like bored kids with large fangs. Fortunately, they were relatively weak and we were able to zap them with our green wrist lasers before they got close enough to bite us (plus, they were walking slowly).
But we had to get out, of course. There were more coming, and we couldn't keep up with this. The only other opening was the corridor leading out of the cave. We hussled over to the mouth of the corridor, started down... but about 50 feet in front of us, some large scary brown mass of writhing monster with no defined limbs suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
We turned back, and ran the other way, back into the cave. But now, as we tried to zap the vampires with our lasers, they were unaffected. The brown monster had some sort of aura that imbued the vampires with invincibility! Oh noes. We were screwed. Yeah. We were definitely screwed. No other way out. The band... was doomed.
Execpt me. I could fly. I looked up, and high above in the roof, there was a semi-opening that no one could reach except for me (because I could fly). The vampires were already uncomfortably close; I debated not more than a second before making my decision and shooting up and flying into the opening and ditching all my band friends.
I weaved and wandered, flying through a maze of narrow tunneled rock. This was obviously a man-made (or vampire-made) escape route. At one point I realized that a vampire had followed me and was only 2 feet behind me! But then he was like "whatever, you can go on, i don't care. Just remember to lock the door behind you when you exit the maze." "ok, thanks."
So after a bit more weaving through the maze I found a trap door and I undid the trapdoor, dropping down into a goblin library inside a goblin city. It was nighttime and most people were asleep but there was a goblin librarian working nightshift. I thought if i stood completely still she might not see me, but she did. "Can I help you?" she asked. "Uh... not really, thanks." "Well, take care," she said as I exited the library.
I walked past some goblin houses and came to a large door, the exit of goblin city. I exited, and walked back into normal human civilization. Passing by a shell gas station, I met up with Kevin Sprague and Chris Bowman, in band. I was confused. "How'd you guys get out alive?" I asked.
Kevin said, "It was only a story, remember?"
Oh... it all came back to me... this whole thing was actually a story Mr. Grantham had been reading to us, and I was simply living through it. Outside of this fantasy I had been living, walking and flying through, there was "reality." My ability to fly, those vampires, that brown monster -- that was all just a story. My band friends were still alive; only in the story do they die.
Kevin said, "Yeah, that Max character should've stayed and fought, not ditched and flown away... what a pussy." And I realized that it was indeed selfish of me to ditch my band friends and let them die, instead of fighting those vampires alongside them (even though the vampires were invincible and we were indeed screwed).
The moral of the story: don't ditch your friends, even in the most dire of circumstances.
Dream 2: Sleep Terror
I ran through what seemed like a scene from Spirited Away: Random Japanese shops on the side of a small street. People stood on the sidewalk, yelling, "Watashi wa!" which actually means "my name is" in Japanese. But I didn't know that because I don't take Japanese, so in my dream, it meant "The Sighing Ghost!"
I became frightened with the knowledge that a ghost was roaming the village. But I knew this was a dream. I asked my brain if this dream was a real nightmare, and the brain responded, "no" (usually, I can tell if a sleep terror climax is imminent). So I was safe, for the moment. I could wake up easily, right? Turns out my brain was lying to me.
Opening my eyes was easy. But, like in every other case of sleep terror I have had, waking up was far from easy. I could see my room, my real room in real-life, dimly lit by the faint glow of the nightlight in the hallway. I could see my room, but try as I might, I could not move any part of my body.
To make matters worse, the black chair in my room had morphed into the "Sighing Ghost" -- a shapeless mass of black with two limbs -- and was caressing me, sending cold shivers and spasmic convulsions throughout my spine, neck, and shoulders. My breath became short and quick, and I felt my heartbeat rise... how fast was it now? 3 times a second... 180 beats per minute.
As always, I put faith in my own mental willpower to wake up. But it was taking me such a long time! In most of my "sleep-terror" experiences, it only takes 10 or so seconds to break through the barrier of the dream-state and enter the real world. This time, already 20 seconds had passed, and still my heartrate was rising. And the sighing ghost persisted in its wavelike motions and cold touches, and it would not disappear.
I concentrated on moving... just one tiny muscle movement would do the trick. If I didn't surface soon, I might get a heart attack... or worse, slip back into the dream state. In this limbo between dream and waking, I dwelled for a full 30 seconds... before finally bursting into full consciousness with a deep breath. My chair went back to being a chair.
I had this wonderful ability to fly, that no one else in band had. We were on this band trip, you see, and somewhere along the way I learned that I could simply flap my arms and fly. It wouldn't work all the time; sometimes it would fail and I wouldn't fly at all. But it did work some of the time. No one else could do it, and some people were envious.
So when a bunch of evil people took me as a prisoner and thought they had me tied down as a hostage to ransom me and get money from the Amador band, I simply shot into the air. How wonderful it was! Two long spears were immediately launched at me from ballistas, but I evaded them smoothly. I flew higher than the evil people could shoot. How happy everyone was that I survived, and that we didn't have to pay the ransom.
[Some stuff happened here that I can't remember.]
Then a couple days later I was with the band again and we were exploring a cave. Then suddenly the floor crumbled beneath us and we fell into a lower level, consisting of a large room with an opening on one side, and on the other side, a corridor leading who knows where (all the walls are stone as we are still in a cave).
We had flashlights so we could still see. We saw some vampires coming out of the opening into the large stone room that we were in. They walked slowly, and they looked like bored kids with large fangs. Fortunately, they were relatively weak and we were able to zap them with our green wrist lasers before they got close enough to bite us (plus, they were walking slowly).
But we had to get out, of course. There were more coming, and we couldn't keep up with this. The only other opening was the corridor leading out of the cave. We hussled over to the mouth of the corridor, started down... but about 50 feet in front of us, some large scary brown mass of writhing monster with no defined limbs suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
We turned back, and ran the other way, back into the cave. But now, as we tried to zap the vampires with our lasers, they were unaffected. The brown monster had some sort of aura that imbued the vampires with invincibility! Oh noes. We were screwed. Yeah. We were definitely screwed. No other way out. The band... was doomed.
Execpt me. I could fly. I looked up, and high above in the roof, there was a semi-opening that no one could reach except for me (because I could fly). The vampires were already uncomfortably close; I debated not more than a second before making my decision and shooting up and flying into the opening and ditching all my band friends.
I weaved and wandered, flying through a maze of narrow tunneled rock. This was obviously a man-made (or vampire-made) escape route. At one point I realized that a vampire had followed me and was only 2 feet behind me! But then he was like "whatever, you can go on, i don't care. Just remember to lock the door behind you when you exit the maze." "ok, thanks."
So after a bit more weaving through the maze I found a trap door and I undid the trapdoor, dropping down into a goblin library inside a goblin city. It was nighttime and most people were asleep but there was a goblin librarian working nightshift. I thought if i stood completely still she might not see me, but she did. "Can I help you?" she asked. "Uh... not really, thanks." "Well, take care," she said as I exited the library.
I walked past some goblin houses and came to a large door, the exit of goblin city. I exited, and walked back into normal human civilization. Passing by a shell gas station, I met up with Kevin Sprague and Chris Bowman, in band. I was confused. "How'd you guys get out alive?" I asked.
Kevin said, "It was only a story, remember?"
Oh... it all came back to me... this whole thing was actually a story Mr. Grantham had been reading to us, and I was simply living through it. Outside of this fantasy I had been living, walking and flying through, there was "reality." My ability to fly, those vampires, that brown monster -- that was all just a story. My band friends were still alive; only in the story do they die.
Kevin said, "Yeah, that Max character should've stayed and fought, not ditched and flown away... what a pussy." And I realized that it was indeed selfish of me to ditch my band friends and let them die, instead of fighting those vampires alongside them (even though the vampires were invincible and we were indeed screwed).
The moral of the story: don't ditch your friends, even in the most dire of circumstances.
Dream 2: Sleep Terror
I ran through what seemed like a scene from Spirited Away: Random Japanese shops on the side of a small street. People stood on the sidewalk, yelling, "Watashi wa!" which actually means "my name is" in Japanese. But I didn't know that because I don't take Japanese, so in my dream, it meant "The Sighing Ghost!"
I became frightened with the knowledge that a ghost was roaming the village. But I knew this was a dream. I asked my brain if this dream was a real nightmare, and the brain responded, "no" (usually, I can tell if a sleep terror climax is imminent). So I was safe, for the moment. I could wake up easily, right? Turns out my brain was lying to me.
Opening my eyes was easy. But, like in every other case of sleep terror I have had, waking up was far from easy. I could see my room, my real room in real-life, dimly lit by the faint glow of the nightlight in the hallway. I could see my room, but try as I might, I could not move any part of my body.
To make matters worse, the black chair in my room had morphed into the "Sighing Ghost" -- a shapeless mass of black with two limbs -- and was caressing me, sending cold shivers and spasmic convulsions throughout my spine, neck, and shoulders. My breath became short and quick, and I felt my heartbeat rise... how fast was it now? 3 times a second... 180 beats per minute.
As always, I put faith in my own mental willpower to wake up. But it was taking me such a long time! In most of my "sleep-terror" experiences, it only takes 10 or so seconds to break through the barrier of the dream-state and enter the real world. This time, already 20 seconds had passed, and still my heartrate was rising. And the sighing ghost persisted in its wavelike motions and cold touches, and it would not disappear.
I concentrated on moving... just one tiny muscle movement would do the trick. If I didn't surface soon, I might get a heart attack... or worse, slip back into the dream state. In this limbo between dream and waking, I dwelled for a full 30 seconds... before finally bursting into full consciousness with a deep breath. My chair went back to being a chair.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Thriller Dream (with turret guns)
Many of you who have thriller dreams probably call them "nightmares." Personally, I love thriller dreams; they are fun. Nightmares are not happy; they scare you, make you wake up, make you spasm, make you "sleep terror" when you open your eyes but can't move any other muscle... but thriller dreams? Ultimate action/horror movie!
Which is why I thought it was really funny when I remembered the last (actually the first in my dream's chronological order) detail of my dream: That I rejoined AiR (artists in resonance, acapella group I dropped out of) and was singing "Thriller" by Michael Jackson.
I was inside a crowd of people, dancing along with them to the choreography of Thriller (which I never quite got down). I quickly realized that the people in this crowd were not AiR members.
Looking in front of me, I saw all the actual AiR members across from us, dancing the correct choreography in front of us so that we -- the ignorant crowd -- could learn the moves. I also noticed that there weren't just AiR members teaching us the moves: even the little brothers and sisters of AiR members were dancing to Thriller (though they kept looking backwards to check if they were doing the right moves).
...Somehow, one of the people in my crowd went all crazy and sparked some series of events that led to the following series of events...
We are inside a huge skyscraper on a rather high floor. Some evil woman has managed to gather everyone up inside a dark room -- my friend David is pretty much the only guy I can recognize beside me (the AiR members have disappeared from this scene). The evil woman is going to kill us.
She activates motion sensor laser beams that slowly sweep the room, scanning for any signs of motion. These are accompanied, of course, by machine gun turrets that suddenly pop out of the walls. Everyone cowers in fear and remains still. I am shaking as the laser beam glides across my body in search of movement.
Finally, the gun turrets begin to retract. However, the lasers are still out. Having played too many computer games, I know intuitively that as long as the motion sensor is still out, the gun turrets will magically pop out and shoot at us when any motion is detected. Others do not share my belief, and before I can yell "stay still!" they begin to shuffle restlessly.
Having only seconds to react, I think only for myself (as I always do in my dreams) and RUN THE FUCK OUT OF THE ROOM, which is probably what ACTUALLY triggers the gun turrets. I discover that there are more turrets outside of the room, placed strategically and at regular intervals on the ceiling and walls. Again, having played too many computer games, I intuitively know that gun turrets can take up to 5 seconds to lock on to a target before actually firing. This is probably why I am able to traverse the hall and set off the alarm beeps of several machine guns without actually being shot at even once.
I make my way to the elevator and stairs, but I am met by a closed gate -- similar to the gates one sees in small shops at the mall when they close. Fortunately, the door to my right leads to a side-room that bypasses the gate. I enter this room and exit through the other door, finding myself on the opposite side of the gate. "What an easy puzzle," I think to myself.
The stairs and elevator are right in front of me and I happily run towards -- whoa, what? There's a random hottie running from the OPPOSITE end of the hallway that I came from! She must have escaped, just like me, but from an entirely different room. The elevator reads "G" so we're like "fuck dat shit" and take the stairs.
There are gun turrets on the stairs, too, but we are adept at leaping down stairs quickly, so the guns do not have time to lock on. As we leap down the stairs, I ask, "What's your name?" She says, "Max." "OH REALLY ME TOO!!!!!"
We reach the bottom edge of the stairs and exit the building through a door nearby. It is nighttime. My car is parked in the parking lot. I take out my BMW keys, expecting her to get in the car with me so we can escape (and then have sex), but I am disappointed when she gets out her own key, hops into her Corvette, and zooms away.
I get inside my BMW. Somehow, people are already outside. David calls me a "hjomo," as he often does in real life. One zombie-looking guy lumbers along, sees me through the windshield of my car, and yells "FUCK YOU!" slamming my windshield. Apparently, these people are very mad at me for having ditched them in the dark room scene. Perhaps some people died to the gun turrets after all. I hastily drive away.
While driving, I experience "dream driving" (having to press down the brakes super hard just to stop quickly enough at a red light, overshooting the pedestrian line by almost 10 feet, etc.), and I wonder if I am somehow drunk.
Some very, very interesting shit happens here that I cannot remember. I think it involves people trying to kill me.
Now I am walkin' along, walkin' along Santa Rita Road on the sidewalk adjacent to Amador Valley High School. It is broad daylight, but no time seems to have passed. I ask a passing jogger if he knows anything about my situation, or if he knows why everyone is trying to kill me. He tells me to fuck myself.
Now I am walkin' along, tight walkin' along the top edge of the chain-link black fence that runs across the sidwalk adjacent to Amador Valley High School. I spot my friend in a small group of people hanging out on the sidewalk. He has grungy long white hair, seems stoner-ish, and does not exist in real life. But he is my friend, who shall henceforth by known as "David" (in further interpretation I have concluded that this is the white stoner version of David). I walk along the fence, up to this group of people. Most people hurl insults at me.
I begin to ask David why everyone wants to kill me. As I do this, I lose my balance on the fence and fall towards the ground, but David stabilizes me with a helping hand. This moves me, because he is the only person that would ever do that; everyone else just wants to kill me. I forget my burning question, and simply tell him, "You are my only friend."
Then, freakishly and randomly, David points his finger at the sand on the ground (yes, pretend there is sand on the ground on the sidewalk) and lifts it using telekinetic powers. He draws two large footprints in the sand without ever touching it, and says, "I can curse people like this."
I express my confusion, so he continues, "I am cursing your age, meaning that everyone who is about as old as you will die off. It's already happening; it's making people insane and they're killing each other."
One boy in the group randomly shoots his girlfriend.
"See?" says David. "The only way to stop the effect is by killing yourself. These people want you dead, and my curse is helping them achieve that goal."
I become frightened. The only reason I can think of for all of this madness is that people must be extremely angry that I set off the turret alarms back in that dark room and ditched them. Something tells me the evil woman is also involved in this plot to have me kill myself.
But before I can even react or respond to this, Mr. Hanson (my high school math teacher) walks back to the group with a pistol. He intends to kill everyone in this group to stop the madness and the dying, to stop the effects of David's "cursing someone's age," to stop things from spreading beyond the group -- such as the random boy shooting his girlfriend.
Everyone freaks out and wrestles for the gun, but Mr. Hanson maintains hold of it. He skillfully and quickly begins firing, shooting one person at a time, putting one bullet into each person's body. Everyone runs radially outward, including myself, but most are already dead.
When he aims at me, I hit the deck at a superhuman speed (not as fast as a bullet, but faster than Mr. Hanson's reaction time) and perform the most astonishing dodge ever known to mankind, and Mr. Hanson misses his shot for the first time.
Then he shoots me in the head.
Everything goes dark dark. But at least I can visualize the words "25 degrees Celsius" in my head. I thought: as long as I am thinking, I am not dead. I wake up.
Which is why I thought it was really funny when I remembered the last (actually the first in my dream's chronological order) detail of my dream: That I rejoined AiR (artists in resonance, acapella group I dropped out of) and was singing "Thriller" by Michael Jackson.
I was inside a crowd of people, dancing along with them to the choreography of Thriller (which I never quite got down). I quickly realized that the people in this crowd were not AiR members.
Looking in front of me, I saw all the actual AiR members across from us, dancing the correct choreography in front of us so that we -- the ignorant crowd -- could learn the moves. I also noticed that there weren't just AiR members teaching us the moves: even the little brothers and sisters of AiR members were dancing to Thriller (though they kept looking backwards to check if they were doing the right moves).
...Somehow, one of the people in my crowd went all crazy and sparked some series of events that led to the following series of events...
We are inside a huge skyscraper on a rather high floor. Some evil woman has managed to gather everyone up inside a dark room -- my friend David is pretty much the only guy I can recognize beside me (the AiR members have disappeared from this scene). The evil woman is going to kill us.
She activates motion sensor laser beams that slowly sweep the room, scanning for any signs of motion. These are accompanied, of course, by machine gun turrets that suddenly pop out of the walls. Everyone cowers in fear and remains still. I am shaking as the laser beam glides across my body in search of movement.
Finally, the gun turrets begin to retract. However, the lasers are still out. Having played too many computer games, I know intuitively that as long as the motion sensor is still out, the gun turrets will magically pop out and shoot at us when any motion is detected. Others do not share my belief, and before I can yell "stay still!" they begin to shuffle restlessly.
Having only seconds to react, I think only for myself (as I always do in my dreams) and RUN THE FUCK OUT OF THE ROOM, which is probably what ACTUALLY triggers the gun turrets. I discover that there are more turrets outside of the room, placed strategically and at regular intervals on the ceiling and walls. Again, having played too many computer games, I intuitively know that gun turrets can take up to 5 seconds to lock on to a target before actually firing. This is probably why I am able to traverse the hall and set off the alarm beeps of several machine guns without actually being shot at even once.
I make my way to the elevator and stairs, but I am met by a closed gate -- similar to the gates one sees in small shops at the mall when they close. Fortunately, the door to my right leads to a side-room that bypasses the gate. I enter this room and exit through the other door, finding myself on the opposite side of the gate. "What an easy puzzle," I think to myself.
The stairs and elevator are right in front of me and I happily run towards -- whoa, what? There's a random hottie running from the OPPOSITE end of the hallway that I came from! She must have escaped, just like me, but from an entirely different room. The elevator reads "G" so we're like "fuck dat shit" and take the stairs.
There are gun turrets on the stairs, too, but we are adept at leaping down stairs quickly, so the guns do not have time to lock on. As we leap down the stairs, I ask, "What's your name?" She says, "Max." "OH REALLY ME TOO!!!!!"
We reach the bottom edge of the stairs and exit the building through a door nearby. It is nighttime. My car is parked in the parking lot. I take out my BMW keys, expecting her to get in the car with me so we can escape (and then have sex), but I am disappointed when she gets out her own key, hops into her Corvette, and zooms away.
I get inside my BMW. Somehow, people are already outside. David calls me a "hjomo," as he often does in real life. One zombie-looking guy lumbers along, sees me through the windshield of my car, and yells "FUCK YOU!" slamming my windshield. Apparently, these people are very mad at me for having ditched them in the dark room scene. Perhaps some people died to the gun turrets after all. I hastily drive away.
While driving, I experience "dream driving" (having to press down the brakes super hard just to stop quickly enough at a red light, overshooting the pedestrian line by almost 10 feet, etc.), and I wonder if I am somehow drunk.
Some very, very interesting shit happens here that I cannot remember. I think it involves people trying to kill me.
Now I am walkin' along, walkin' along Santa Rita Road on the sidewalk adjacent to Amador Valley High School. It is broad daylight, but no time seems to have passed. I ask a passing jogger if he knows anything about my situation, or if he knows why everyone is trying to kill me. He tells me to fuck myself.
Now I am walkin' along, tight walkin' along the top edge of the chain-link black fence that runs across the sidwalk adjacent to Amador Valley High School. I spot my friend in a small group of people hanging out on the sidewalk. He has grungy long white hair, seems stoner-ish, and does not exist in real life. But he is my friend, who shall henceforth by known as "David" (in further interpretation I have concluded that this is the white stoner version of David). I walk along the fence, up to this group of people. Most people hurl insults at me.
I begin to ask David why everyone wants to kill me. As I do this, I lose my balance on the fence and fall towards the ground, but David stabilizes me with a helping hand. This moves me, because he is the only person that would ever do that; everyone else just wants to kill me. I forget my burning question, and simply tell him, "You are my only friend."
Then, freakishly and randomly, David points his finger at the sand on the ground (yes, pretend there is sand on the ground on the sidewalk) and lifts it using telekinetic powers. He draws two large footprints in the sand without ever touching it, and says, "I can curse people like this."
I express my confusion, so he continues, "I am cursing your age, meaning that everyone who is about as old as you will die off. It's already happening; it's making people insane and they're killing each other."
One boy in the group randomly shoots his girlfriend.
"See?" says David. "The only way to stop the effect is by killing yourself. These people want you dead, and my curse is helping them achieve that goal."
I become frightened. The only reason I can think of for all of this madness is that people must be extremely angry that I set off the turret alarms back in that dark room and ditched them. Something tells me the evil woman is also involved in this plot to have me kill myself.
But before I can even react or respond to this, Mr. Hanson (my high school math teacher) walks back to the group with a pistol. He intends to kill everyone in this group to stop the madness and the dying, to stop the effects of David's "cursing someone's age," to stop things from spreading beyond the group -- such as the random boy shooting his girlfriend.
Everyone freaks out and wrestles for the gun, but Mr. Hanson maintains hold of it. He skillfully and quickly begins firing, shooting one person at a time, putting one bullet into each person's body. Everyone runs radially outward, including myself, but most are already dead.
When he aims at me, I hit the deck at a superhuman speed (not as fast as a bullet, but faster than Mr. Hanson's reaction time) and perform the most astonishing dodge ever known to mankind, and Mr. Hanson misses his shot for the first time.
Then he shoots me in the head.
Everything goes dark dark. But at least I can visualize the words "25 degrees Celsius" in my head. I thought: as long as I am thinking, I am not dead. I wake up.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
The Semi-Conscious State
Sometimes, on the verge of waking up or falling asleep, one attains semi-consciousness. It is very difficult to sustain this; most of the time that I try to remain half-asleep, my brain activity becomes heightened, and I just end up waking up. However, I have on occasion successfully experimented with the semi-conscious state of mind (although these sessions have never lasted more than a few brief moments).
The next time you find yourself in between waking and dreaming (but closer to dreaming) try the following things:
Make your teeth hurt, without moving or touching them, by believing that they hurt. If done correctly, your teeth will hurt.
Play your favorite song or musical piece in your mind (or compose your own music on the fly). Imagine that the sounds are actually being played by real headphones around your head. If done successfully, you will be startled by the realism of your own mind's audio playback; you will be convinced that the music is issuing from headphones around your head.
Imagine the intellectual benefits we could have with the invention of a dream recorder: any original music conceived during a dream could then be remembered flawlessly! Speaking of which, I highly urge anyone reading this note to pursue the invention of the dream recorder. Then we could store them on DVD's and sell them. Or we could rent dreams at Blockbuster, in order to dream action or comedy or porn at night.
The next time you find yourself in between waking and dreaming (but closer to dreaming) try the following things:
Make your teeth hurt, without moving or touching them, by believing that they hurt. If done correctly, your teeth will hurt.
Play your favorite song or musical piece in your mind (or compose your own music on the fly). Imagine that the sounds are actually being played by real headphones around your head. If done successfully, you will be startled by the realism of your own mind's audio playback; you will be convinced that the music is issuing from headphones around your head.
Imagine the intellectual benefits we could have with the invention of a dream recorder: any original music conceived during a dream could then be remembered flawlessly! Speaking of which, I highly urge anyone reading this note to pursue the invention of the dream recorder. Then we could store them on DVD's and sell them. Or we could rent dreams at Blockbuster, in order to dream action or comedy or porn at night.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Morals Make us Fake
Would you sacrifice your dog to save the lives of 3 other dogs? No! If you were Spiderman and you could only choose one or the other, whom would you save: Girlfriend, or little kids? Girlfriend! Would you rather save your mom's life, or the lives of 5 starving children you have never heard of? YOUR MOM!!
I answered the above three questions for you assuming that you are human, and that you do not follow some higher, rationalized code of ethics. Morals are obtained from society and culture rather than our own instincts. Therefore, when you act upon morals you are not necessarily doing what you really want to do. The less morals you have, the more self-reliant and authentic you are. Don't be made fake by morals!!!! Consider the following:
A weak friend refuses to share his friend's secrets because of his strong sense of morality. A real friend refuses to share his friend's secrets because he cares about his friend.
A weak man stops himself from cheating on his wife with a really sexy woman, because he has morals. A faithful man stops himself from cheating on his wife because he loves her.
I answered the above three questions for you assuming that you are human, and that you do not follow some higher, rationalized code of ethics. Morals are obtained from society and culture rather than our own instincts. Therefore, when you act upon morals you are not necessarily doing what you really want to do. The less morals you have, the more self-reliant and authentic you are. Don't be made fake by morals!!!! Consider the following:
A weak friend refuses to share his friend's secrets because of his strong sense of morality. A real friend refuses to share his friend's secrets because he cares about his friend.
A weak man stops himself from cheating on his wife with a really sexy woman, because he has morals. A faithful man stops himself from cheating on his wife because he loves her.
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