Illusions

Illusions as part of Chaos

Something which isn't seen is not there unless it is made aware to us in one of our senses. Chaos plays mind tricks, it captures the imagination. It allows what is KNOWN to be applied to the ideals of what is not known. Illness is perpetuated by the idea of illusions.

The best case and worst case upon which a doctor can perpetuate in a patient gives them hope; and fear. An idea of what could happen pushes the mind, while it takes more to give the good news more thought. For the majority of humans it is a difficult action to kick out the bad ideas, and thus the illustrations being presented to them happen to be of the worst case.

Building

Building is a process becoming aware of something which is not necessarily known too us. Ghosts are not something that is typicaly able to be aware of from a young age. Had not a single individual told of the idea of Ghosts then there would be no imagination to perpetuate the idea of Ghosts.

This idea is built from the ground up into a consistent state in the mind. It is not something that nags, but it sits there; and all the stories associated with the idea are sitting in the same status. Ergo when an individual is in a dark room and hear a creaking noise they may end up thinking about what is associated with that noise; and how they've been built to respond too it.

Without this the idea is nonexistent. With in all items of the mind and universe however it is purely random. The idea is like any other idea, made up of a bunch of stories mixed into one; or randomly thought of. It is built through culture which determines how it will be treated.

Goals

Why perpetuate something which is made up? Most of the time it is just habit and culture perpetuating the ideas which can be considered an Illusions. Without looking at the ideas and reasons behind a so called illusion; we are left at the understanding of having absolutely no path to finding why it existed. For the basis of an illusion must be in its goals.

Goals are the reasons why some kind of illusion is perpetuated. In the most part this is done in order to offset something in the mind. For example; faith knows no name at birth. Instead it is taught for a specific reason. Faith is an illusion with a clear goal.

Life as an Illusion

Reason is supposed to dominate modern life versus faith. However faith and reason are in the end illusions and thus opinionated. We can not look far beyond this idea to gain the fundamental truths with in society. This can only be done through a mathematic principle as both Science and Humanities is unable to answer this in a successful method.

The best path to understanding the universe is through mathematic principles. For life its understanding where illusions come from and identifiying the past and present goals. None of these goals are invalid, and none are correct; instead they are stands, and something solid which can be made out of a young philosopher.

Economics and Reasoning : Entertainment

What does working in a hobby store teach you about the economics of gaming?

Mark-Up

One of the virtues of the board game is simple; you sit face to face with your opponents and get the rouse of personly backstabbing them. It gives you a highly personal expierence over other similar experiences. For example :

1. Playing a video game is almost a solo activity if done over Xbox Live or the sort of items.
2. Watching TV/Movies is pretty much solo IF you want to hear it :).

Video Game Economics
But lets look at the economics of the above. For one a video game costs millions of dollars to produce, they provide an limited gaming expierence and cost $50 when they are first produced. However they are reduced usally down to about $10 after a few months. The COST of the item has been paid for by this situation; thus the logic says it most likely will not sell. At least in the video game industry.

TV/Movie Economics
TV/Movies last about thirty minutes to two hours and are not highly repeatable. Yet they tend to cost $10-80 depending on what one is looking for. They cost millions to produce but are distrubted in a fashion where the cost is easily distrubted.

Boardgame Economics
Yet a boardgame, an object that takes more close design then the above. Is produced for much less, and provides more entertainment in the long term costs more $ to make. A game will be sold from the publisher for almost $25-30 per game; a good price. To the production side this will give them a more or less a double amount back profit wise. The components and royalities on a game will usally not equal a high cost. This has many reasons; for example most games are created in a less formal environment, handed off to a company and then designed. Given the average amount of items on a game board compared to the average items in a video game however, plus the less specific art style shows that most people would spend less time; and thus less money in production. H

The Problem
A solution to our problem is simple; distribution. In a 10 mile area there will most likely be a 4-1 distrubition of board game sellers to other entertainment designers (Wal-Mart/Kmart etc sells boardgames so this makes up for a LOT of this estimate.) Since its harder to find a good deal of these items in the stores they continue to get hidden away. Economies of scale usally walk up on the idea of board games, it also builds upon the idea of the economies of scale being more or less misproportioned to the amount of mechanimes required to send a game from point X to point YU.

-Alex

Faith and Reason : Democracy

Faith and Reason : Look #1 Democracy

In science we are supposed to look at the world in a reasonable way. We take rational evidence for the support of an item, and take a hard look at the suggestions of others in terms of improving experiments or possibly discrediting our own ideas. Yet when faith and reason is applied to governmental systems it seems more and more like people have been living in a faith based government instead of one based on reason.

Foundations
How a democracy forms has some meaning in its future functions. Thats not to say that democracies can not change, this is to mention that democracies are usually formed under some kind of pretense, a revolution, a toppling, or possibly a need of change. For the most part however a small number of individuals will find a larger issue in a government which they currently live in.

• With in the United States this was wealthier individuals, or the ones with higher stakes or money to earn.
• In France it was people losing out to poor economic conditions set forth, having an effect on a higher class of individual pushing them to action.
• Iraq was formed (Democracy and formerly) out of the pretensions of a few people for a large amount.

By looking at this we can find a lot of faith with in the starts of a revolution. For example almost every reason for fighting a war is usually a play on some rational thought. People can look at it, and expierment. There are NO foul proof rational thoughts though, people in the US choose on faith to support the US, British, or None of the above. When this happened it was a subjective understanding of rational thought; this has no position in true science. As its either fact or its not fact, and if its not fact then its simply a act of faith which those who fight put their ideals in.

Advancing from Revolutionary Ideas

Since faith changes with the ideals of the generations do ideas of founders still hold true, or should they be held true? In a simple sense no they shouldn't hold true, the ideas should change to relatively adopt to the times. Nothing is perfect and for the most part due to a faith based government individuals need to live in the ways which it has evolved. In a rational environment this would still hold true. As times advanced individuals could reasonably look at the ideas behind their own government and determine if it was still logical or not. This is a manner of experimenting with laws and other items in order to, 'Get government right.' The line though is drawn at the subjective and objective realm.

Changing core ideals
And or modifying the constitution.

The fact that most constitutions can be modified shows that society is ruled by a concept of rationalism and faith. For one thing a rationalist can see that people are expiernmenting with the ideas of society and fitting them where they need be. Faith wise people are putting ideals where they 'feel' right to their own morals etc. This however becomes clouded and puts the majority of democracies at risk. Modern systems of governments even with checks and balances fail to take a truly rationalist approach to the ruling of a nation. Instead the parties of all major nations look at the world in a manner which is almost purely subjective. "How will this make ME, and my district feel?" "How will this affect MY poll numbers?" Yet even looking at this from a purely rationalistic view point shows that a democratic government is always in transition and can never stop changing. With faith in it however it can never be made into a true rationalist democracy because individuals will still look at it through a tainted perspective.

Pros/Cons of Rationalist Democracy
Pros

• Always changing to fit the logical needs of a society.
• Able to fit practical data into the system in order to meet the need of society, world affairs
• Data as is.

Cons

• A tendency to constantly play with things that may not be broken in order to find little flaws in the system.
• Above leads to faith based problems.
• Repeat!

Pros/Cons of Faith Democracy
Pros

• Ability to adjust the best to the needs of the people.
• Feeling is chief, allowing for a quick response and no need for imperical data, in some means this is good, in wartime etc.
  

Cons

• Unable to adjust to the larger demands of the people, looks only at the personal ramifications.
• No need to take data as is, always looking for ways to spin it towards their causes.

Art Philosophies

Art has been talked about as a function of a number of different aspects of the overall group. For the most part this can be brought back towards a cultural existence with in the society itself; or the overall complete group expierence of history. Some groups disregard their old methods of art and move towards new ones because of different reasons.

Personal Conflict

I do consider myself to be an artist. I do not consider myself a talented artist, however I struggle with questions about WHAT I should draw. For the past four or five months I have been at a stalemate in artistic development. I question where I should move next and why I should move in that direction; and of course why I choose to be creative at all!

My Two Schools of Thought

• Order
• Order is basically chaos but with a recognizable pattern. For the most part all art falls into an orderly form after the first of its type has been made. Drip paintings are orderly once you've seen more then one. Even if you take a paint bucket and throw it at a wall this is order in some minute since of the word. Order is just a way of patternizing objects even if the object seems unpatterned at the start.
• This said Order can also be looked at in a more traditional way. Order is symbolic. Order is simplicity, order is safe, and order gives us ease in design. All of these have been something which I have focused on in the last years. Patterns are interesting to me; I look at chaos in general for patterns and thus beg the question, "Where is the order?" For many years I have worked off a canon of paper models which are in all forms orderly. However I find it hard to sometimes find purpose in this art. Is it merely commercial or am I gaining some higher level of existence from it?
  
• Chaos
• Yet Chaos attracts me. Ignoring patterns is interesting, albeit difficult. Can we combine the two? Yes but it will look like predestined chaos. How can we exemplify the perfect artistic aesthetic of chaos? Is a drip painting chaos, or is it a brand new style of looking at the world even if that happens to turn out looking realistic?

Wondering where I go from the two conflicting aspects brings me to a stall in any drawing. I have done both; deviantart is my source for Chaos; juniorgeneral for order. These two aspects are conflicting and finding the solution on which is best will plauge me for a while.

Functions of the Group : Prayer

Does Prayer Work?
No. That is rather blunt and unappealing isn't it? But examine the idea of a group and you notice that prayer quickly becomes the placebo effect of the saying, 'Everything is going to be all right.'

Prayer is just a function of a group. This being an action a particular group takes part in to identify itself from other groups or to release the stress of any type of pressure. I pick on prayer but this is a lot of things in a lot of different groups. A soccer club may go out and drink after a loss to relave the stress of losing; even if they consider it, 'all fun and bloody games.'

I guess where prayer is different is that it is so heavily tested and usually turns out to be in the same function as I described. Simply put it doesn't work in the way that it is supposed to. And this once again goes back to radical groupism.

When someone prayed to Zues, Juipter or another god they would somehow know that it worked! Of course it worked for they were the GODS! So why wouldn't it? Even if things got worse after praying it would work in a situation in favor or them; 'Thats how the gods wanted it I guess.' 'Can not heed all prayers.' The truth about this is that the group uses this as an affermation of their commitment to the organization as a whole.

This puts everyone in a situation where they follow or be put outside the group; thus forcing the individual to be isolated. This isolated individual will somehow come BACK to the group; or just go form a new group. That said they will most likely use the same methods, prayer in a religious aspect for example, as it has just been passed down and down.

Functions are thus the way in which groups reaffirm their strengths in a large scale society. Today is the 4th of July. Each party is reaffirming the idea of Freedom; false; in the mind of the group of all of us Americans.

Symbology

A look at the pride of a group
If we look at any symbol in the world we can find a specific history or relationship to a group of people behind it. There is no doubt that the massive amount of symbols which are created are attributed to a large group of well groups :).

There is not just one person randomly waving their own flag out in the middle of no where. Instead we gain a lot of people waving a lot of flags. Even when we HAVE an individual standing in a crowd with their own made sign or symbol it usually is due to a counter protest; and as mentioned before this is just an outlook of the sign from the group! :)

Major Importance
Symbology gives a direct reference to the adherence to the idea of Radical Groupism. With a symbol a lot of information can be quickly given with out further explaination. Why? Its because that group already understands the symbol.

Contradiction?
What if you are wearing a Manchester United Jersey in the middle of a bunch of Redskin Fans? Well it is clear you are not being an individual! Even though these redskin fans do not FIND this symbol manful someone does. Ergo the symbol has a group behind it. In order to understand this relationship and mean fullness we must remove a few things from the equation.

First geographic location - It does not matter where someone is located. If a symbol is reminds them of some kind of group pride it is thus an idea of the group. Counter culture of a symbol; a smoking symbol with a ? behind it for example, could demonstrate a clear example of a sub culture which in itself! Is nothing but another group.

A good example is in the photo to the left. Who are the SCREAMING EAGLES? WELL! A D.C. United... wait who the hell are they? A US based pro soccer team fan club. They have their own symbols as they are a group with a prospective goal! Thus if you showed this symbol at say a Redskins game it would not have the same meaning or purpose.

Second subjectivity - People can misinterpret signs. But for simplicity the subjective nature should be removed from the equation. Most people IGNORE the signs around them. A T-Shirt or phrase will be ignored as it does not matter to their group thought. While others may be an important aspect of the group, and thus not ignored. However to understand the whole idea behind symbolical the subjective nature of symbols in a different location or major cultural group must be ignored. Failure to do so will bring about only the thinking of the major group; and thus a poor understanding of symbols.

In Summary
Symbols show the relationship and pride between a piece of art work and a group or organization. This helps secure the idea of Radical groupism by showing how items which mean NOTHING can be brought into a mainstream understanding by the work of a large body (and not an individual.)

A Square Root of life?

Can we find the square root of all life, and does this some how determine it?

Of course we can; but what the hell is the point?

Randomness is key
Nothing really seems to be ordered, things which are are ordered in our minds and our socities. Even the ideas of Radical Groupism tends to be an over justification of dependent social functions. For the most part things seem to be an extension of chaos. As said in the previous post our idea of order is simply a way of organizing the world.

Everything thus sees the world different. A bird will organize the world much differently then a ant; for example ant sees a tree what does it define it as? But an Bird sees a tree and defines it much differently. The group ideal takes over what is to be thought; in this sense it can be considered evolutionary. The Bird is seeing a tree as it should because otherwise they may run in to it; or nest some where poorly. Humans do not come with this same sense as it seems. Some things may be genetic, such as how to feed when young. Yet this too can be considered part of the 'Human Group.'

Finding a Key
There is no one way to find the answer to the square root of life. Each organized item in the world would have a different finite number which it could look too. For this I always like to look at Douglas Adams and his idea of #42 in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. As simple as the number sounds it is as close as we can get to really determining the totality of the universe. Others have tried of course; Descartes tried to assign numbers to things; leading to the Binary system. In the end the task was so enormous that he never completed it in the beginning sense; finding an ethical path. Utilitarianism tries; but where it fails is where any look at happiness fails it works on a subjective path.

So what is the problem? We can never objectively determine a mathematical idea of WHAT we are as we being pack members of different groups will ALWAYS allow our subjective thoughts into the process. Even scientists who are supposed to be objective get bogged down with subjectivity of their background. Early scientists were bogged down with the idea of God. It is not because God may or may not exist it is instead attributed to the prominent position of the church during the time period.

So even those who doubted everything (Descartes) lost sight of the fact that the interior thoughts of our groups make up our thought processes. His conclusion on GOD demonstrates this hypothesis. Even though he doubted EVERYTHING other then that he thinked he could still find the world via god. This begs the question; not to mention that the idea of 'I' comes not from his mind but from the cultural surroundings he was in thus in order to doubt everything one must not start from the process of thinking; but instead the deconstruction of the entire human race! As mentioned before this is quite useless.