live life letter 042 - phantom witness resonance
dear friends,
what is it that I bring to the table?
I'm sure you are hungry, ravenous for a source of something, of percepts of knowledge: on how to live a good life.
Am I really a trustworthy source?
I'm hungry too and often I get so hungry, I grow to become hangry. A hungered anger is not to be poked with: I jest.
What evidence, what proof, what value do I bring?
I cannot help but wonder why. What am I to you? What are you a witness of? What am I a witness of? Why do we witness the world, of all its joys and cruelties: of rebellious violence and of heroic tales. What is the world trying to tell us?
I fear I would be beating a dead-horse to lament on all the problems of the world and of our society. The meta-crisis of many crises converging into one, most notably: (i) the meaning (mental health) crisis, (ii) AI technocratic dominance of work-n-life, (iii) environmental disasters, (iv) political cries, and (v) war to list a few.
This convergence affects us all whether that be emotionally, financially, physically, futurarily. We musn't jest ignore it. We will live it and we are living it- the future is upon us. I don't mean to overwhelm. I hope I make my intent clear on this through line: Too much future.
what makes common (non)sense nowadays?
your fancy(ily),
jakester
TL;GR (too long; go read)
my offering to the world
"life has no meaning" survivorship
what is that AI cannot replace; value of life?
Immersive Music Choice
Here we are.
You and me. I have nothing to sell to you, nothing for you to buy. There is nothing here for which a transaction could transpire except for your time and attention.
I thank you.
A token of your eye(s).
For years, I thought long and hard of this whole dilemma of give-n-take. For years, I noticed the unfairities of this world, within my own life, and within lives afar. To even my distant cousins in the Philippines.
How many would kill to have the life I have?
What could I give that wouldn't take so much from the world?
I confess; I have no riches to give, no secrets that will reveal the hidden glories of life, no fountain of youth. There is nothing here that will give you these gems.
I am limited by the words at your display. So what do I have to offer?
What is it that I have: a riddle, a jest, whatever it may be, that is so alluring?
It's these words I find at the drain of life. The nodes of meaning for which I push, pulling life out the mechanism of nature itself. There is nothing else but these words, these words of mine. These words plundered, pushed through the recesses of my mind to you. These symbols and signals through the glorious noise that is this world. How noisy it is, this world!
I hope in these words you see me as I see you. To reach my hand, to shake yours, as if my presence was truly there. What a fun tragedy to be a phantom witness.
I cross the bridge before you, earnestly I try, a proof of life. A joy I steal each day.
On a tangential not-so-relevant-relevant side-note, I feel the Book is coming to the End, be it, God my witness. I warn, I may be far from publishing the Book itself, but I am anxiously excited to release this world to you.
I accept it may not be understood the way I'd like, but this is what I have to offer. "Amor fati" I say to you from the future.

fate as I see it
Inherent to our human condition, there is a possibility that "life has no meaning" as many well-renown respected thinkers have thought long and hard on.
Some whom see life with such pessimistic eyes and ears. Others see it as a canvastic playground for them to toy (and manipulate) at their will. I see there lines of reason thru the context of their social zeitgeist and frame of mind. I see the steps they took to take on this postulate that "life has no meaning" and I wish I could give them the necessary time and space to verbose their thoughts.
But I'll try to cut to the chase on the tale I am on.
There is a hard distinction between what the Universe is and on what we ought to do as human beings navigating this world, trying to write our own survivorship. Hume's guillotine. This severance may prevent self-righteous evangelists from making faulty claims towards the jest of life on what we ought to do.
However, the implication of this is no laughing manner. Wars are fought over these distinctions we map. Blood is shed. Tears are wept.
If life had no meaning, it then becomes hard to form a praxis, an orientation, a proper ethical frame to live out life. There would be no value to living. This is but one way the marble could slip down to. To say that we are but living mechanisms with no thought of our own. A cold sort of determinism (I'm synthesizing various views of grumpy old thinkers with serious demeanors): to those that question "what is the point" in life if we are not in control of the path we sow?
Now that we have addressed the serious folly of the matter, let's get a bit more playful in our logic: free logic some may say! A-scent of schizophrenia :P
.. / ... . . / -.-- --- ..-
To drain all art and life of all its symbolic meaning?
I have no doubt that a totally reductionistic but incomprehensible explanation of the brain exists; the problem is how to translate it into a language we ourselves can fathom.
To claim this page is blank, my mind is blank- where would these words, these thoughts go?
To give meaning to the meaninglessness: in its frugality when one says "life has no meaning" we create meaning by claiming no meaning. A non-meaning. A non-existence. A non-purpose. A phantom point unfathomable.
Your mind, it conflagrates, burst to flames. Run the tape back.
"Life has no meaning" is like writing "this page is blank" on paper. The act of writing refutes the content. There must be meaning to your words for us to intelligibly understand what you mean by positing that "life has no meaning."
Perhaps I have made a categorical misstep in my logic, mixing linguistic language and the cosmological universe of objective meaning (between semantic value and universally objective value).
i. “To declare ‘life has no meaning’ is already to engage in a meaningful act, thereby undermining the claim.”
ii. “Any statement that denies all meaning must carve out an exception for itself — otherwise it collapses into self-refutation.”
iii. “Language derives its force from lived experience; to ascribe semantic meaning presupposes existential meaning. Thus, if life had no meaning, language itself would be meaningless, and the claim could not even be expressed.”
There is a counter, although faint it may be, to pull life out of the machine! To shorthand these funky thoughts, I summon Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem and Strange Loops.
I think that the process of coming to understand Gödel's proof, with its construction involving arbitrary codes, complex isomorphisms, high and low levels of interpretations, and the capacity for self-mirroring, may inject some rich undercurrents [latent substrates], and flavors into one's set of images about symbols and symbol processing, which may deepen one's intuition for the relationship between mental [meaning] structures on different levels.
…
"G's nontheoremhood does have an explanation—it's not a total mystery! The explanation understanding not just one level at a time, but the way in which one level mirrors its metalevel, and the consequence of this mirroring. If our analogy is to hold, then 'emergent' phenomena would become explicable in terms of a relationship between different levels in a mental [meaning] system
Still, there seems to remain two separate modes of thinking. The proof side and the truth side. What is true could contrast as to what is proven. There exists true statements that cannot be proven within the system. Akin of Buddhist thought.
We slip between different levels and modes of thinking in our witness of existence. A name without reference. A Dragon. A God. What exists within Henkin's sentence, of free logic? A phantom witness?
Translation: "If something exists, give it a name!" I tell you.
will AI replace me?
"'Fancy marbles rolling down fancy hills' following fancy programs with fancy codes and fancy tools."
I say no. In the nicest and friendliest way I can say, "Don't be AI's bitch."
Words are words; numbers are numbers: but what of genuine love, transformation, of true learning and comprehension. If you fear you are to be replaced, learn to read better. If you are well read, write more. Write your survivorship as if life and death depended on it.
Think, how do you value life?
How does AI determine the right choice in the trolley cart dilemma? How will it fair against the stick emotional situations we will inevitably run into? Who will be held accountable? How will it deal with the "pure risk" and uncertainty of life? Who is accountable for your learning?
Think, your mind affects the outcome.
We are all of witness to the world.
two fated paths cross, silver-lining
Think, before you react.
These were the words of a 37-year old homeless, ex-convict I met on the silver-line to the Foggy Bottom in DC. A man down on his luck with nothing to lose but his mind and body, tears in his eyes as he approached me.
We spent an hour together chatting on life and on his wisdom thru his eyes and experience. Eventually, I asked him, "what was the biggest lesson you learned?" as our discussion grew deeper.
"Think, before you react."
A simple lesson learned after 15 years in the penitentiary. He told me in detail of the prison politics, the regrets in his life, the lessons learned. At the age of 21, he was arrested. He was not a bad guy. He carried himself well. I saw him for who he was; earnestly, I listened. He told me he much preferred to be homeless than to be in prison. I respected his drive and tenacity.
Towards the end of the line, the man told me the biggest regret of his life.
Eighteen years ago, Frank was a senior in high school about to graduate with three of his friends, all full of youth. As graduation soon approached, an army recruiter emerged. The four friends together all decided to enlist.
The recruiter gave the four young boys his personal card and told them to meet him at his office the next day. 'Don't waste my time now,' he warned 'if you aren't serious, don't come.'
The four boys came. They needed to pass the ASVAB test in order to enlist, to fulfill their aim. None of the four boys passed.
'Comeback in two hours to try again' said the recruiter. 'I'll give you one more chance.'
Two hours later, the four boys returned. 'You actually came back!'
On the second go, all four boys passed the ASVAB test. The recruiter congratulated them. 'Come back in a month and we will finalize the process.'
Three boys went back.
…
Two weeks ago, after being released from prison, Frank talked to one of those boys, except he was no longer a boy. It's been eighteen years since then.
"You did this to yourself, Frank" his friend gave it to him raw and straight. "why didn't you join with us?"
He had no answer. All he could tell me now was-
Think, before you react.