birds

The starlings are flocking in the trees--that is, in a tree. I was reading Rabit, Run on the steps of the Lohrenz Building and noticed them; thought it was strange they should be flocking at this time of the year since I am so used to seeing them flocking so much during the months of September and October in the milo fields, eating and shitting all over everything the powdery white color of ground grain. Today they were suddenly in the air overhead, then swept into a small tree.

The sun setting, the air cooling from the day, I imagined that it was actually September or October, but particulary October, at the end of which there is a sweet cold smell that begins. I'll have to wait until that time to get a better description of it. But I'll forget to do this.

And the firetrucks went out tonight; they seem to go out more and more than I remember they used to. Another field fire, aparently. Some twenty minutes after I heard the sirens and about the same time the birds began flocking, I noticed one, two, then more pieces of charred grass slipping down out of the sky. Yes, a field fire, most likely. One that was planned but got out of hand.

I have more pictures to post--but no harvest pictures; I took none, in fact. I will leave that to my brother's blog. I have pictures of a bowl of cherries; they are not yet posted anywhere, but will be soon.

Hopefully I will write more here in the comming weeks. Ever since school has got out I have dredded the thought of writing anything--everything sounds wrong to my ear when I read it to myself. Furthermore, there has been an inscesant bitterness, for the most part, hanging upon anything that would be written. I have written nothing, therefore, not even in a personal journal, because they would be worthless words--un-edifying words would be a different way of putitng it.

Finished reading Rabbit at Rest yesterday while in Kansas City taking family members to the airport to go back to their homes. I think it is a good book, not great, but then again I don't think much is great these days, but just good at least. But in making this value judgment it seems rather empty because I lack any idea of what it would mean for this book to be bad, other than the idea of me not liking it, but this would not be nearly enough for me to say it would be bad, nor would me liking it be enough to make it a good book, and as far as I can see that is all the criterion I am using in saying that it is a good book, so perhaps I should say that it is just a book that I like a little bit but not necessarily a lot instead of using the terms good or bad at all. Does it count in favor of believing that there are objective (i.e. absolute, not just the possibility of consensus) values on such matters that a person could say that something is good (truly believing it) but yet not liking it? I mean, does it make sense for someone to say "I don't like this book but it is a good book"? or to say "I like this book but it is a bad book"?

I fully realize that there are entire books and theories and careers developed trying to answer this question. Me pointing myself to them or someone else doing this will not interest me now though. However, being aware that they exist does count for something. So there is some value to having studied these things--I think. I mean, if I hadn't taken at least an introductory course in these things then I would be like someone stumbling into a dark room not having any clue what was inside this room: whether it was large or small, wheter it had windows or none, whether there were objects in it or none, etc.

I'm trying to think of examples where we normally say that we like something but we also say that it is bad. I mean that we truly say (believe) these things: this is different than we like something but it is bad. I mean we like something but we also believe it is bad, and admit this is so. If there are no examples, then this does not by any means serve to refute any idea of objective value, but it does force one to admit that our likes and dislikes always coincide with our beliefs about good and bad. To my thinking that is significant; for, in all our talk of good and bad, if we cannot say "This is bad [observation statement about good and bad], but I think it is good [belief statement]" nor "I think this is bad, but it is good" we can never escape from our beliefs to the reality. This is the important point: our likes and dislikes always coincide with our perceptions of what is good or bad, so that if our likes are ever wrong (i.e. liking something that is objectively bad) we will never become aware of it because they only way to become aware of something is by perceiving it through some phenomenon--i.e. instance of experience, e.g. "this situation now." For example, you cannot be aware that there is a book on that table without perceiving that there is a book over there in some way. Some would counter that it is possible to be aware of something and yet not perceive it, but they are using an overly empirical sense of the word 'perceive' where I am using it to mean anything that ever enters one's stream of consciousness. Again some might say that it is possible to be aware of something in the sub-conscousness, but this cannot be since if you are going to be aware of something in the sub-consoucness, some image of it must be projected into the conscious. Even spiritual experiences must conform to this. I cannot even think I have had a religious experience without being aware of it in some way. Or, at least I cannot imagine how this could be at the present time, which of course may change at any moment when a new thought crosses my mind as brought to my attention by some particular soul out there.

My present point in all of this tangle is this: that you can't get at reality except through perception of it, nor can reality get at you except by way of your perception of it. Stated this way it seems obvious, but really there is lots of explaining to do in order to counter certain spiritual or religious objections. Of course, however, if you think that religious experience is not perception, then you will disagree with me, but this will result from a different understanding of the term 'perception' not because you are right and I am wrong, or vice-versa. I mean, we use the same word with different (mutually exclusive sometimes) meanings but don't say that this person is contradicting him/herself, rather we say that he/she is just a competent user of language--i.e. one who is capable of using all the intricacies of a language--and some will emphasize one meaning sometimes and another at other times.

I might even speak of religious experience sometimes as being somehow beyond perception, but in saying this I am using a less strict notion of 'perception' than when I say that even religious experience is a datum of perception. The latter is a strict use. Both are right, but one must be clear about which sense is being used, or else confusion and stupid argument will result. Which sense I am using at a particular time depends upon what I am doing, and what I want to do. Really it is, almost, or even actually, a different word, even though the symbols (both spoken and written) are the same.

There is an obvious counterexample to my main idea (that we never like something that we believe is bad): food. We often eat things we like and even admit that it is bad for us to do so.

But I think I can counter this counterexample.

When you eat something you like but agree is bad for you, why do you agree that it is bad for you? Because you perceive that it is bad for you, or because you've read it somewhere or heard someone tell you that it is bad for you? Remember, the question is do we ever like something that we perceive is bad for us or vice versa? Hence I should not have used the word 'agree' or 'believe' as I did earlier. So the idea is stated clearly by saying that we do not like something and at the same time perceive that it is bad. Of course someone will still offer the example of addiction (drug or otherwise). But I don't think that the addict likes that which he/she is addicted to once it becomes something perceived to be bad. If I drink, I will not like my drinking if I perceive that it is bad (at that time); however, I may like it until that point. This does not mean that I will not drink of course, because it is obvious that people do things they do not like.

Even if it is refuted that we never like things we perceive are bad, I still hold to my earlier claims about not being able to get to reality save through our perception (conceived strictly as the phenomenal field of anything experienced), but I will have to strive for a different way of explaining these things.

To summarize things: If it is granted that we never like something that we perceive to be bad, nor dislike something we perceive to be good, then our likes and dislikes coincide with what we perceive to be the reality of good and bad, so there can be no, what I would like to describe as, escaping to reality from our perceptions. This does not mean that I think our perceptions are reality, I do believe in objective reality (even objective values), but that our access to this reality is rather limited, more so than what people would like to think.

This does not rule out the aid of a higher power such as some deity in guiding us perception bound creatures to the truth, but that deity, being part of reality, must provide aid through perception whether it be every-day experience or some spiritual/super-natural experience.

Of course this might all seem obvious and therefore be worthless (non-edifying). I don't think so, however. Why? Because before writing this I would have said very casually the main idea contained in it, without any reservations. But now I have thought about it, identified some pitfalls of what I am saying, and become less arrogant in my claim: now that I have thought it through I don't even believe it as heartily as I did before. Some would say this is a bad thing, I would disagree of course, but I won't discuss it now.

Getting back to the book, if you're even still reading, this all means that it's hard to say even what it means for the book to be objectively good or bad; our access to this reality, if it exists, is not something we can claim to have, even indirectly perhaps, and certainly not directly.