we need a new pronoun

i spend too much time thinking of personhood, consciousness, agency, and identity. when writing about agency, i like to speak of agents independent of their particular identities. this allows for a conception of agency generalizable to anything that acts rather than confining agency to persons or living things. the problem with this is that we have no pronoun to represent the general category that agency encompasses.

the man reacts to his environment

the dog reacts to its environment

the agent reacts to ___ environment

what word should fill the blank?

if I put the word "his" in the blank, then our template would prevent us from speaking of any gender-neutral agents. using the word "its" in the blank creates a template that doesn't acknowledge the consciousness behind a great deal of agency.

If there is consciousness without gender, then we need a new pronoun. There may not yet be the need for the pronoun because of a lack of apparent gender-free persons, but as computer sentience evolves, it will be silly to continue to arbitrarily assign gender to bots. We should just go ahead and realize that all of this nonsense "he/she" and "his/hers" has been a warning that we need to step back and create a concise pronoun label to encompass the identity of any conscious agent.

that is all.

we are all circles

everythings a circle. everythings a cycle. it's all just movement in loops and spirals.

one of my favorite books is titled, "I am a Strange Loop" - it's basic point is that the concept of the self arises from nothing more than our mind's ability to represent itself and continuously update that representation as it is affected by experience. it serves as an argument for the computational nature of the mind and the possibility to computationalize consciousness. The concept comes so naturally that I had no trouble accepting nearly every point as i quickly turned through the pages.

This account of our conscious awareness won't be the focus of this post, but it will be beneficial to understand the foundation off of which i intend to contemplate the nature of interpersonal love.

to distract myself, i often spend my time on tumblr, usually favoriting and reblogging pictures that resonate with my mindset. about a week ago, a picture (accompanied by some text) on my dashboard caught my eye. i was quick to favorite it and after a few days, when i had time to spend updating my personal page, i reblogged the photo and added a caption similar to what is now the title of this post - "we're all just circles"..here is the photo:

for all of my life and, i assume, the lives of everyone living today, homosexuality has been one of the most culturally controversial topics. I have posted once before about the concept of marriage and the inability of many to accept the transformation of the term - and, in turn, our culture - to account for the union of homosexuals, but i have hardly delved into the topic of homosexual love.

to be clear, i've got a strictly hetero-orientation. I'm just nearly obsessed with the concept of love because, in my opinion, it is an all-encompassing notion that can explain all interaction. not only does it impact our interpersonal relationships, but it really is the driving force behind every interaction a being can have with its environment. beings love beings and that love is what guides them in continuing their existence. everything in existence should be thought of as a being. all of existence is the greatest being of all and that is my concept of god. if there is a word denoting a tangible concept, then in my mind, i would consider that concept as a being. say we have concept x, if we can say x is being x, then x is a being. the sweater i am wearing is a being because the sweater is being a sweater and an item of clothing and whatever else you can think of the sweater being (if i wear it as a turban, then it is being a turban). and i am certainly a being - there should be no qualms with that. there is some degree of love between me and my sweater and that love is what has guided me to wear it today. i love existence, so i choose to continue to exist - to interact with the beings of existence.

so..about the picture..

as you can see, people are represented as circles with protruding shapes representing their gender. sexuality is guided by love. sexual orientation is accounted for by how these different shapes overlap.

while it is important to be aware of the sexual inclinations of others in some instances, for the most sexual orientation should have no bearing on the judgments we make about the people we interact with. i love women..but i also love men..and i love all animals - independent of their gender. it's our expression of love that causes people discomfort.

when in a relationship of mutual love (in an ideal world, this would be a redundant phrase), the best thing to do is learn and be aware of the desires and tendencies of your relationship partner. it's best to express love in such a way that all parties involved are satisfied with the nature of the loving relationship. the only way to have this awareness of desires is to communicate with your partner. it is not enough to signify their sexual orientation with a silly symbol.

we are all just circles. attracted to other circles through our loving tendencies. maybe one day, each person will be expressed by their own unique symbol to allow for computer analysis to determine all orientation and desires of that person - in this hypothetical world, love would not be free. luckily, in this current day, we are all internal. while our bodies are the unique symbols that represent all that we are, there is no computer analysis that can determine exactly what it is that will make us happy. often, not even self-analysis can reveal that.

it takes action and interaction. eventually, through this, we can hopefully find others whose satisfaction and happiness is inversely correlated with our own.

this is easy with simple objects lacking happiness or the ability to feel.. we can project whatever happiness we have held within onto these beings and feel satisfied with the pleasure we receive from these interactions. once the concept of life is introduced, we must have a much more keen awareness of the states of the beings  we interact with. everything that lives has goals. the ability for us to understand those goals and do what we can to assist, or at least not hinder, the being's pursuit of goals is the sole(soul) purpose of love.

man or woman, gay or straight, we should all love each other. we should work to understand where we all stand amongst each other and act accordingly. we love for each other. life would be incomplete without it. we're all circles and none of us wants to be empty.

essentially

how to get at essence..

words have their meaning respective of their uses. the essential meaning behind a word is impossible to ascertain outside of culture. so the essence of a word is completely relative of the circumstance of its use. only the user can understand the essence being expressed, but doesn't understand the full essence behind its use because in communication there is the output and the input. the speaker can only know what's going on with the word on his side of speech. he can only guess how the listener will understand the word. so with words..essence can never be known by an individual.

but can distinct objects be understood essentially?

the essence of a specific dog is different than the essence of the concept of dog. the word dog represents the overall concept of all things in the category of dog - this is the essence described above as being relative to cultural use of the word. but my dog..rex..there's an essence to his being. i can't get at the full essence but I know that there is essential truth to his existence. the only essence i can realize is in my mind with respect to my subjective experiences of his being. nonetheless, outside of human experience, there should be some complete understanding of my dog's being. certainly not solely in Rex's mind..he can hardly form concepts.

are there any concepts that represent things completely essentially? is there a mind that understands all that is as it is?

this is god. this is the goodness that is. essence is goodness and clarity is known only by the whole of existence. the closer we come to understanding existence in essence, the closer we come to knowing goodness and the more suited we are to be good and act as best we can.

acquiring truth and opening the mind to understand multiple viewpoints can prove difficult. every one has only ever known the world from the view of the self..grasping reality from the ultimate perspective of all being requires taking a step back and forgetting about putting the self at the center. we are a part of something bigger and it's important we know our place.

everything has an essence and it can only be understood in its relation to the essence of all other things. to understand the essence of one requires an understanding of the essence of all. we can never attain perfect essential knowledge, but we can realize that there's always more to essence than what meets the eye and that realization can let us always strive to build a more substantial base of knowledge on the essence of reality

boats driftwood and the sea of love

we're all connected through the waters of love. all relationships are governed by our love for each other. this is not only interpersonal, but extends throughout all of existence. i love animals. i love trees. i love nature. i share that love with others and in this, we are related.

we all float in this sea of love - this sea of life - this sea of existence - being drawn to those things that attract us..to those things that harness our hearts and our minds.

we all are born to families so none of us is ever alone. we may feel like driftwood at times, but its always good to remember we never leave the boat on which we were born or the boat in which we were raised. each of us can be thought of as wood and love as the nails that bind us into a substantial floating vessel that can be guided and directed in the vast sea of existence for the good of the boat unit.

what makes this weird is when multiple boats are bound. each boat desires to head in similar yet different directions. when boats are not interested in becoming one, but desire to remain individual. those binding the boats are torn. which direction is best. which provides the most safety and structure.

our love often tears us from the boat in which we are most secure and forces us to embark on our own or with another in hopes of forming a new boat. we must be delicate in breaking the loving ties binding us to the boats that offer security because once the ropes of love are too frayed, it becomes difficult to retie he loving knots that bind.

when a storm comes, we all want to be on the boat most equipped to handle the trouble. i guess its best to set sail in good weather and steer the boat around the storms. sometimes that can't be guaranteed though and nobody wants to be the driftwood getting tossed around and torn apart by the harshness of nature.

basically, we must choose our boats wisely and understand that love is what guides all interaction. we shouldn't take advantage of the love offered, but appreciate it and use it for the good of the boat being bound by it. its necessary to keep in mind the types of love binding the self to other boats and to ensure that your actions are not going to harm your ability to remain on the boats that are important to you. - say you're on a frienship boat with a bunch of pals..a girlfriend is on this boat, tightly bound to one of your friends. you should not make advances on the girlfriend unless you are willing to give up your spot on the boat of friends or at least give up your loving bond with the friend with the girlfriend.

it's important to respect the relationships you establish and to be honest with your desires and actions. if you aren't, you can easily be left as a lonely piece of driftwood being tossed around by the harshness.

definite love

i think i'm in...definite love

what does that meannn?! i guess i'll have to use my faculties of interpretation....

well i know i'm in definite love. but this definite love is encompassing and comes in degrees. i'm just one fella in a sea of people love. just floating around being attracted to and repelled from others through the force of love. The 'others' i'm connected to through love are not all people - for there are certainly animals and even inanimate objects i love, but the relationship between myself and other people is special because of the ideas of mutual and reciprocal love.

* So I guess relationships with animals could involve the back-and-forth love between people, but it lacks the complexity of 'true love'. *

the true love between people is special though because of our capacity to relate. those we can relate and empathize with best should become most closely connected in this sea of people love.

love is definite, but never can the love in a single relationship ever be definite. it can become seemingly static, but experiences always sway that love in varying degrees of compassion and attraction.

i'm in definite love. and i'm definitely in love. i'm certainly connected in loving relationships with people. and these loving relationships don't just go away. they persist. only when communication ceases for great time does the relationship fade. but definite love requires an ability for the love to be defined. and that the definition hold. i don't see that ever happening.

i am one in love. being and loving. definitely in the great realm of love, just relatively unaware of the definition of this love.

Kant's Noumena

Kant's use of the term Noumena is in classification of things in themselves, outside of the view of the perceiver. All that we can know is phenomena - conceptual knowledge of the world formed through experience. Our idea of a dog only consists of what we know about dogs through experience. We learn that a dog has certain physical features through observation and actual physical interaction. We know it's bark through what we hear as it barks. We do not know what dog experiences are like. We can form some idea through experimentation on dogs. Think specifically of Pavlov and his realization of a dog's uncontrollable anticipation for a meal or treat. We've also somehow been able to determine that the visual experiences of dogs lie in a much smaller spectrum of light than humans, leaving them with a dull black and white conception of the world. But all of this we have learned through our own sensory experiences aided by knowledge and prediction. Each of our conceptualizations of the world can be classified as purely phenomenal according to Kant.

i am a strange loop

Douglas Hofstadter's I am a Strange Loop is a follow-up to his original,