I Know All Knowledge is (only) an Insight

The word knowledge seems to be interpreted as an enduring state of one who is aware of, or understands, a certain proposition. This person seems to do this over time. If one has memorized something, they "know" it.

However, it seems to me, if knowledge requires a certain relation of knower to object of knowledge, then we do not have knowledge which is enduring, for our thoughts erupt and die, they are issued by a thinker and then pass to memory (sometimes), but they do not endure and our memory is NOT certain. Therefore, if we can have knowledge at all, we can only have knowledge as an insight.

In this theory, knowledge exists for only a moment when the conscious mind focuses entirely on the long chain of reasoning (barely perceived by the intuition or unconscious mind) in among the multitude of relations on the logical matrix of Meaning. This is the instant of understanding, or insight. When one "connects all the dots", when one apprehends the Form in the Realm of the Forms, when one "sees" or understands something. Its like a current of electricity running up and down a chain of items in perceived consciousness (content) and unperceived intuition (nebulous form) in the logical matrix of relations. In fact, biologically it is probably exactly that.

And so, I repeat, Knowledge is NOT continuous but instantaneous, because memory is fallible. Therefore, intutition plays as much as a role in knowledge as reason does.
When one rights down a systematic theory they are not writing down knowledge but a map of / too knowledge. The systematic writing (the "theory" is the map of a place, not The place itself).

In essence then, historically we have (2) different classes of knowledge that we have been forever confusing: 1) The old conception that knowledge endures, it (aided by memory) lasts over time. We may forget, but if we don't knowledge is enduring. I know something when I have memorized it. The problem is true knowledge requires certainty, or it's not knowledge. If you must ask someone if they understand something (ie: empirically test them) as your method of determining whether or not they have knowledge of some fact then they do not have knowledge and nor do you, for if it was not certain that knowledge was possessed, then it was not knowledge, and if you have to remember if they proved it, then you still don't know for memory is fallible.


This is contrasted by 2) the knowledge of the insight, when one for a brief moment understands the relation between "I think; I am" and proposition, X, Y, Z, Zprime, etc, to the proposition in question. That only lasts (for mortals such as us who exist in linear time) an instant. We may remember having that thought, we may remember most of the chain of inferences / relations, and rememberring or focusing on it again may cause us to have the insight again (we "see" it, we understand it again for an instant), but we simply do not "know" that object of knowledge over a continued time. Humans don't exist that way. We are finite and our memory is fallible. Our experience is a collection of random events stitched together by our subconciousness. It only SEEMS continuous, when in fact we have no reason to believe it is other than it's consistency, IF it has consistency. For many people experience does not have consistency to some degree, and it is to that degree they are irrational or insane.

Knowledge therefore is like a fluorescent light, which appears to be enduring but really if one is observant enough and paying attention, they notice that there are gaps in the flashes of light, 60 per second, or so I am told - the light is an illusion, it is not enduring but flashing too fast to tell it apart. Similarly, any "certain" proposition which I "know" to be true in the chain of propositions of my beliefs is only so when I perceive its relation to the whole (and all the way down to an indubitable assertion, like "I think; I am") in one perception. The moment after that perception it (or part of it) slips back into the dim recesses of intuition or memory, and I no longer know what I knew. But meditating on that chain of inference may cause another insight to occur, and doing so more often may cause my consciousness to have a proclivity to recognizing that pattern, and such be "close to hand" so to speak in my consciousness. Like english is for me, for example, which I do not know but I can do (intuitively).

Is there life after Death?

I've been thinking allot about linear time, things happening in physical reality in a sequence of perceived events (perceived by me and anyone else I've talked to).

I've been trying to think what it would be like when I'm dead. Don't get me wrong, I do not believe in a heaven or hell, or reincarnation, or anything like that. Why? Because none of it coheres with anything I know about existence and some of those theories conflicts with what I know about existence. In my view they are stories told to keep unreflective (and maybe simpler and better) people on the straight and narrow.

So I figure (right now) that nothing must happen. The physical organization of my brain matter at some point will be sufficiently altered so that rational thought is no longer possible (of which right now I think a certain organization of brain matter is required to generate reflective thought, because evidence sugests it (thought) is hampered by physical things (IE: beer) therefore it must be effected by physical things and reasonably maybe even completely negated by enough of a physical influence), and as such with that loss of possibility of thought so too will end this existence I have been remembering for some time. What will happen to my consciousness then?

Nothing, for it wouldn't exist, if what I think is correct is indeed the case. But, and this may sound funny, but I simply cannot conceive of such a possibility. I don't mean I can't think of dying or the fact that I will die (I am fairly certain that will happen) or I don't want to think of it. Nor do I mean that it would be impossible for me to conceive of not conceiving of anything (ie: the impossibility of thinking of no thoughts, blackness (I guess, I wouldn't really know), no thoughts, no memory of that time passing, kind of like sleep).

No. What I mean is think of when you wake up, and you realize that you have a gap in your memory of some time, a kind of internal chronometer that tells you time has passed but I have no idea how much, of which time you have no recollection at all. You may remember some dreams, you may not. You are only certain you must have slept because you remember being tired before you blacked out and blacking out has happened to you before. But you don't actually remember sleeping itself, that time is lost to you - you remember or realize the absence of thought or reflection for that unknown period of time only. You actually don't remember sleeping at all. That's why, of course, it's called being unconscious.

What's my point? My point is that I was thinking death must be like that - absolutely no thought, including our memory of our mental construction of linear time. And that's what I simply cannot comprehend. That lack of thinking. Not only can I not imagine what that would be like, but I can't even conceive how that state would be possible. The mind is ... "there". It, or ME, I, am always there. The mind cannot conceive of its non-existence. Thought is active, it conceives. Conceiving non-conception seems to be an impossible paradox. Yet, that's what I judge death must be - the lack of the sufficient and necessary conditions required to generate and render a thing capable of making such judgements.

Perhaps this is nothing interesting and I think its quite striking, but this could possibly explain a few things and raises a few (what I think to be) interesting questions. And seeings that this blog is entirely for my reflective purposes, I am going to opine about them:

This could be part of the reason why people need to believe in life after death, because the computer program which is our minds is not capable of conceiving of a state in which it does not exist - that just doesn't make sense.

5 minutes before I am dead what am I? A thinking thing, that remembers, wills, issues thoughts and reflects about some of them. 5 minutes after, and the brain matter which is the computer upon which I run (like software) can no longer sustain me, what am I then? How can I exist one moment and not exist in the next moment? The difference is a certain organization of matter organized in the proper sequence. But if organization and sequence of matter is the only difference between reflective thought and absence of reflective thought, and organization and sequence as concepts exist unto themselves as concepts, then I must exist unto myself as a concept, and therefore maybe I do exist forever. Perhaps I have a soul?

Perhaps this is Nous (Thought itself, of which Logos (or my rational thought) is a copy or a sub-process of, or a running process of in linear time, running which is different than the stored or saved main program in absolute or eternal or non-time where there are no sequences, nothing "happens", and everything just Is)? Perhaps this is what the classical Greeks thought was the Divinity, and why they thought the divinity could only conceive of universals and not particulars. Because the particulars of my life would not, could not live on, because those are just accidents which happened in linear time. They are stored in my memory, which dies when the brain dies.

But I think that line of reasoning is flawed. Just because I cannot conceive of a thing not being so does not make it so. That's ad ignorantum. Just because it is an impossibility for me to conceive of non-thought doesn't mean it's an impossibility for that to happen. Further, the things organization and sequence track and represent in our minds (matter and other things) exist without humans around (as far as the evidence suggests) but organization and sequence themselves don't - they are a human construction, a construct we place on existence in order to exist in it. We evolved (or were created) to automatically consider things in that way, probably at random - although its probably the best way to exist as a thinking thing in linear time in order to serve our biological purpose and pass on our accident (our genes). Just like my extended, continued consciousness - its an idea I have (of myself) that it automatically made in order to consider myself "alive", when in reality I have a broken bunch of disjointed memories and no certain continuity between thoughts, feeling, inferences, and life over time (which is another construct my mind makes up in order to exist) except the idea of a consciousness whihc really isn't the same thing from thought to thought, but only the same because it has a rememberd identity. A remembered form (skills and dispositions) and content (individual memories of things happening to me).

In that line of reasoning its easy to imagine myself dead because I never really existed at all - the illusory constructs of time, consciousness, organization, sequence, etc. mental constructs the likes of which my mind has evolved into a complex program in whcih it generates these concepts by accident aren't really real (do not exist as eternal or particular things unto themselves) but only for a running program (my mind) that functions accidentally, only to allow me to replicate my matter, as if that was important or something. It's all just an accident. Everything. Which reallity is the illusion our psychologies convince ourselves of in order to cover that up (which Nietzsche called the Abyss).

Reality is an illusion, but if it is the basis of all cognition, and I must think to perceive reality, then it is irrelevant if it is not really "real" unto itself because it is the only reality available to me. Much like there is no reason why the principle of contradiction (the rule in logic symbolized as ~(A & ~A)) or the other laws of thought (a misnomer in my opinion) is necessarily true, until one utters an assertion or thinks in terms of an assertion. The nature of an assertion is that it cannot truthfully be true and false simultaneously. But that is necessary only in so far rational thought exists to assert. There is no certain rule why assertions cannot be any other way, or no way at all. It is a necessary rule yes, but only in an arbitrary system - that doesn't "exist" floating out in space somewhere, but only if and when someone asserts something, because that is the way assertion and truth works, ie: in binary. True or False. Nice clean easy concepts. The way our mind needs them to make sense of all the data it perceives.

And that necessary binary of True or False is not just simply because our minds only work in binary, but also because we don't generally observe too many paradoxes in physical reality either - there is a happy correlation between the binary of our thought ("hmmmm, she went up the stairs, better follow her" rather than "hmmmm, she went up the stairs and down the stairs simultaneously without splitting in two but staying as one - this is a mathematical and physical paradox". Humans could never have survived if we had to understand the state of all affairs as they really or truly are, instead of contructing them into the state of all affairs as we do.

Ah, but in that last sentence displays the contradiction in my views. Either there is a real reallity or there is not. Either there is true state of all affairs or there is not. If truth is constructed, then that does no less make it truth. It does not make it any less either the case or not. For it must be the case or not - it cannot be A and not A for that does not make any sense.

And perhaps that's where Nous comes in - like our thought, which is active, it asserts when it asserts. So too does Nous. Or Thought itself. It simply is. And as such, we are simply a part of it - we partake of it. Our temporal thoughts partakes of Thought timeless.

I think; as such I am. As such Thought is and must be. As such thought after death must be. But the particulars of I may not.

josh

Does Absolute Morality have Any Justification?

Absolute Morality

In a nutshell - in my view - there is no permanent, universal, absolute, necessary, certain, apodictic reason why anyone ought to do anything. There is no certain morality that is justifiable to some permanent and certain truth. The Ten Commandments - good guidelines, but not apodictically certain or permanent and universal, at least, I'd need you to prove to me that they are. All that we humans call moral or immoral are that which we feel is moral or immoral, and that which we feel moral or immoral has to do with our personal preferences - are we a caring person or not? In so far as we care for other people then it is immoral to hurt them, because we find that distastefully.

What do we have left then? Can we all then do what we like? No, but we should. Before I continue I would like to mention that I search for the truth. I live to seek only that which I cannot deny. As such, because I can see no absolute truths here I will resign myself to looking merely at the facts.

Let's look at the undeniable biological facts: Most people want to live. Most people want to feel happy. Most people want to live in a community in order to be happy, because humans by nature are social beings. Human beings all have material needs and immaterial (psychological) needs. The community must provide for these needs as best as it can if the humans living in it are to be happy / fulfilled. Therefore, this community works best in a certain moderate / harmonious way. If it has fair laws governing the distribution of material goods and an adequate educational system the humans in it will be as happy as possible, which is the entire purpose of said community. All true so far?

But wait, you say, why must it be fair? Why not a tyranny? Certainly that kind of government can work, and many have worked for many years. Isn't that my moral bias creeping into my examination? No. For as Nietzsche pointed out, it is a permanent and universal fact that all humans everywhere of all time (due to the fact that we all feel pain in the same way and have similar psychologies) view morality and justice in terms of "fairness". We feel morally outraged when something is unfair. We feel morally righteous when we feel we have been wronged unfairly. Feeling righteous means feeling justified. Feeling justified means one feels it is fair the way they act - they are entitled to act that way because they have been wronged, and being wronged is unfair. As such, the humans in the regime cannot be happy if the regime is viewed to be too unfair, and the purpose of the regime is to make as many people as happy as possible, not a select few who rule it as happy as possible while the others are not. Therefore, the laws of the community must be as fair as they can be to account for all the desires and views and necessities of the humans living within it, if it is to accomplish the goal of the community. This may indeed be impossible, but I believe that it all follows based on what we decided above.

Therefore, the most efficient community is one which best provides for the happiness of the humans within it, this community is therefore also the most excellent, the most valued, the most Good, because effective production of happiness is the final goal of said community. A community is an environment in which humans can live with the highest degree of possible happiness. The higher degree of happiness which is possible in that community, the better the community. But life is not solely limited to our community, but many communities, and many other things too.

What other existent entities must humans live in harmony with in order to be as virtuous, and therefore as happy (physically and psychologically) as possible? Which remember, we decided was generally speaking the goal of all human communities, or ought to be, whether or not it is the goal of individual humans.

The Good

Basically, Plato asserted that there were the following relations to humanity that needs to be moderately harmonized in order for the humans to be as excellent and therefore as happy / fulfilled as possible: An internal relation between the psychological drives of one's personality which Plato called Reason, Will and Desire, a relation to one's closest friends and lovers, to one's community, to one's regime or state, to Nature itself, and to the Divine, if such a thing exists.

These relations must be harmonious. What does that mean? That means that each relation must be proportionate to allow for the maximum amount of natural perfection of that thing alone, and in relation to all other things. The correct ration or proportion differs between each thing, and in each thing. One can know what the proportion ought to be by determining what the most excellent essence of the thing is by observing its phenomena and extrapolating what the best example of said thing / property of a thing is.

Does one have to or should one ought to attempt to preserve and perfect the Good? That is an interesting question and perhaps the only place where we may make an absolute moral argument, but again, only as a hypothetical. For if a human or a community of humans wishes to live as happy /fulfilled as possible, then they should wish to be as excellent as possible. If they wish to be as excellent as possible, then they need to maintain and steward the excellence of all things (and their relations to those things) which can effect their happiness (happiness here is NOT mere pleasure satisfaction, but a fulfilled confidence and general loving, pleasant, proud, virtuous state, as all excellent humans feel). For no human exists in a vacuum - observation demonstrates we are not rational egoists (sorry all you economics majors who are studying Hobbes although you don't know this). If so, point to me one human who grew up without a family or human community. We do not spring from the ground and start picking up fruit. Therefore, in so far as one wishes to be happy, they should wish to understand and uphold the Good, as it allows for the best harmony for all living things, which allows for the best communities which allows for the most happiness for the most people most of the time.

Even here then, there is no reason what so ever to believe there is any certain or necessary moral rules to guide our citizens. If someone wishes not to be happy, or doesn't understand how this is attained, there is no certain or ahistorical or transcultural moral reason why they ought to, or should try, not to enforce or uphold their Good or anyone elses. They don't have to value the Good, which is valuing happiness for the most people in their community and all other communities most of the time.

All that is universally true regarding human morality is that 1) all humans view justice in terms of fairness, and 2) all humans have to make a choice of whether or not to be fair to others, or not. They can choose to be kind (or their parents can choose to teach them to be kind) or not. We cannot truthfully say they ought to make that choice one way or another, unless we accept other admittions from them, like they want to be happy, or live in harmony with nature, etc. As such, as far as I can see, there is no logical justification for absolute morality. There simply is no proposition which is always true that we may deduce any other propositions from.

Can any human actually live believing that? Do we need lies in order to run our life without question?

The next topic: The Noble Lie

For more information on this moral outlook please read:

Plato's Republic (Allan Bloom's translation)
Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics
The Analects of Confucius translated by Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont Jr.
The Tao Te Ching
The Attainment of Happiness by Al-Farabi
Emile by Rousseau
Leviathan by Hobbes
Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche
Genealogy of Morals by Nietzsche

Can we Predict the onset of a Philosophical Epoch?

Is there a correlation between common views of existence and morality in art and philosophy? What mytho-poetic preconditions must exist for a philosophical / theory to change the face of morality in a particular time and place and have that change endure and subsist past that regime? Does art come first or philosophy?

Would any philosopher's arguments have as much moral force if they were argued in different times or places? Could a philosopher even come up with their theories unless they are in a certain intellectual climate?

To answer these questions, I have outlined a brief theory below, the genealogy of greco-roman beliefs:

Homeric Era
Aristocracy - rule of the Strong. Many gods to explain that the Good is duty, honor, strength, and virtue as excellence. Heros are venerated. The largest insult is the defacement of a dead enemy, the taking of their women, their possession, their children, and their very memory, if possible. The dead bodies of enemy heros defaced, because the people of that time (despite all of their worshipping of spirits and divinities) know that the only immortality a man truly has is the reputation of him in the memory of those who survive him.

Further, in this time there is no effective system of government due to technological shortcomings - anyone can more easily conjure up an army of formidable warriors, because being a formidable army in this time consists more of raw physical will and strength rather than training and economic resources. And when there is no solid system of government, all men have to judge one another by is their word and their will. With no laws and no powerfully government to enforce them, all a regime has is its heros, and all men have is their reputation. A reputation is what keeps the regime safe - Achilles will save us because he is Achilles. Hence, due to the instability and rareness of true heroes, regimes fall often and tragically.

There is no philosophy per se, there is no need nor leisure time to discover what to do with our lives - there are no options to consider. This is the city of necessity and everyone knows their place and is more or less resigned to their fate. If Homer wrote, or the Trojan War happened, in approximately 1500 BCE (or so I read, although no one knows for sure), then there is about 1000 years of that morality until ancient Athens and I'm assuming this view more or less predominated these kingdoms until that latter time.

Ancient Athens
Democracy - Rule of the Herd. There has been a shift in views of morality, what exists, what is valued ie: The Good and all its relations. Knowledge as Content refines and knowledge as form refines at one point, but only in a tiny, tiny few. The poles become distinct. Everyone is not aware of their place and many try to improve it, or seek to disbelieve that any rational account can be given at all.

The rest are worse off, they are like children (not completely, but partially). There is a growing cancer in their collective virtue, yet it is still venerated and much sought after. The democracy is destroyed from corruption within and enemies without. Yet, 500 years after the first philosophic martyr (Socrates), the platonic pre-conditions of Christianity are born within it (Ancient Greece) and survive philosophically uncontested for another 1000 - 1500 years. So, there is Platonism for 500 years until it morphs into mono-theism (Christianity).

Modernity to Post-modernity
Morality shifts again - into political effectiveness. From one God to no God. All traces of the old regime are swept away despite the attempted "rebirth" of classical ideas. 500 years to formulate with post-modernity at it's end.

Our era.
No gods - except banal physical things and moronic appeals to authority of god-given rights when the majority no longer believe in a God. And whatever succeeds our era will last for another 1000 - 1500 years, if the pattern holds.

This, of course, is highly circumspect and does not include middle eastern views / genealogy or Chinese which may very well usurp us, but what caused the shifts in views or Epochs in Alexandrian culture? What will our shift be? Back to virtue as excellence? Back to humans as "human" as possible, or humans as ape like as possible? Because (as Machiavelli knew) apes are easier to control and predict than humans.

It seems, Philosophy as an endeavor is a self-fulfilling prophecy. A regime only has it if it needs it. It only needs it if it has it. Complicated or consistent rational explanation or questioning was not possible in Homeric times because the a) leisure time to actively pursue it did not exist and the b) technology required to do it (writing, advanced language) did not exist. More importantly, however, it was not required or even desirable. Could Hector really question his place in Troy and its defense? What would have that really meant? He couldn't bare his memory to be spoiled even in the face of Achilles, even knowing what would happen to his wife and child and what is was doing to his father.

Humans did what they did. What they willed to do, because when it comes down to it, a human's will is all that a human has. To Will against the gods is all we can do, for they will win in the end. The lack of effective government and technology merely made this the only dignified option available. Live up to the reputation of your forebears, if possible.

But now that we had philosophy, now we must finish it. Now we exist in spite of nature, not with it. Now we must have the ennobling mytho-poetic accounts AND rational explanation, the rational search, to back it up and underpin it, if this is possible.

...

Is Homosexuality Wrong?

In this entry I'd like to outline my thoughts on homosexuality. Now I'd like to clarify that I am not homosexual - as if that mattered - nor do I, to my knowledge, have any homosexual friends. In other words, I'm not biased in any way for or against the matter, at least, as far as I can tell.

I was arguing about this with an orthodox Christian friend last year, and he is somewhat well educated (as well educated as I) and so he was not pulling the standard "everyone has rights - what is contractually consented to = morally ok and not contractually consented to = immoral" kind of weak argument. We all know of course that rights are not God given (sorry Locke, but Hobbes was right) they are stipulations governed and created by the sovereign and they only exist in so far as the sovereign power of a regime can and will enforce them.

So, is homosexuality moral, immoral, or amoral in that case? Is anything moral, immoral or amoral in that case? Well my interpretation of my teacher's interpretation of Plato's interpretation of morality (The Good) is the substance for another entry, right now I want to examine the monotheistic arguments against homosexuality, because they are the best ones I have ever found.

Before we can judge anything we must try to understand it. To that end, I will attempt to summarize monotheistic arguments against homosexuality. To my understanding, they claim that because it is the case that the logical outcome or "goal" of sexual intercourse is the creation of a child, therefore any sexual intercourse that does not willfully produce an offspring, but is entered into for any other reason (such as pleasure, or in their words, using the other to satisfy your desires) is therefore contra to the order of Being (the order of God and His relation to humans (who are half way between matter and the Divine) and matter, as one may interpret from Genesis). As such, because homosexuality can never produce offspring, it is always someone using the other for pleasure, and using someone to satisfy your unnecessary desires is always immoral, homosexuality is therefore always immoral.

Monotheists please forgive my quick recap, but that is the basic argument. And it is not too shabby. It at least makes much more sense than the common "I just don't like it" or (heavy jock accent) "Fags are just wrong fucker". However, as I found while I was arguing with my monotheistic friend, I don't believe this argument holds under any interpretation. Or to put it another way, I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with homosexuality more so that a good back rub, or any other pleasurable thing.

First off, even if it is true that using another for your own pleasure is always wrong, or even wrong sometimes, that still does not hold that homosexual sex is wrong. For it is not always the case that when one is having sex it is solely or even mostly for their own pleasure. There is obviously giving and receiving. First off, not to be giving a sex lesson here, but just by the mechanics of it, there are different kinds of sexual intercourse some of which are solely intended to please the other and not oneself (not physically anyways). Secondly, it does not stand to reason that the motive for desiring to make love to another is always inherently selfish or using the other to satisfy one's desire unnecessarily. You can (believe it or not) intend to satisfy the other primarily in the act of sexual intercourse, while not gaining any or little satisfaction yourself. I kind of gift, if you will. Shocking. I know.

If that is the case, then one is not always pleasuring themselves but giving something, like say a back rub, and then it is not immoral, homosexual or otherwise.

Further, if it is true that always using another for your own unnecessary pleasure is always wrong, where have the monotheistic arguments against homosexuality proven that love making is not a necessary component to a healthy human relationship, and a healthy human psychology? Granted biologically humans do not need to have sex as they need food to survive. But that argument allows monotheists to ignore the psyche and the humans psychological needs and be crude materialists as it suits them when they are not talking about the Divine or Soul (which for them is immaterial). A fulfilled (ie: non-lonely / happy) psychology and relationship certainly needs sexual relations, and it need not be one dominating the other, so it need not be immoral. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with homosexuality qua homosexuality, but only in the intention of the participants.

A response to this from my interlocutor could be "those men who find they are homosexual should repress it and become a priest, because one does not need sex to live". This may work for (and work solely because there are) some very moral and virtuous people - but they would certainly feel loneliness. And what about the rest who aren't so disciplined, who can't take the temptation? We have numerous examples of what happens when priests who do not have a strong enough moral character in the face of temptation dally in the forbidden.

Lastly, it remains to be examined if it is indeed true that it is always immoral to use another to satisfy your own necessary or unnecessary desires. I will leave this for another post. But suffice to say I think the monotheistic arguments contra homosexuality do not hold. Homosexuality or Hetrosexuality itself isn't wrong, only how and when people engage in it. Or so it seems to me.

Welcome to the Internet - the Glossary for TV

Ever use Google Zeitgeist?

http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html

Google Zeitgeist is a track of the top ten search queries for a week of time. For a number of years now the top ten searches have been (always - without fail) items that have been in the public eye - items that news and entertainment news and movie producers have wanted to us to know about. The top searches are never on anything but top media related items, particularly movie and pop stars.

I find it ironic that, many years ago, people marveled / worried that the internet would usurp or surpass TV - instead it has merely become a glossary reference for the images that hypnotize the public on a regular basis. They want to find out more tidbits from the lives of venerated people - how DOES J Lo really live? - to make up for the emptiness of their own lives. Naively believing that if someone is rich they must be happy / fulfilled -for in our democratic oligarchy, what else matters but pleasure, and what else can bring pleasure other than loads of money. Therefore, the subconscious assumption is that rich people must be happy, and to alleviate the emptiness of one's own life they try to invade the privacy of the stars.

Of course, that assumption (that the rich is happy / satisfied) is largely unwarranted - as evidenced by all the psychological / drug related problems the stars are evidenced to have. Not that the general public is any better, but the fact remains that, as they say, money can't buy love, it can only provide comfortabillity.

The question is what do we do with our leisure time? Look up more info about the stars apparently. Or, listen to ourselves talk on self-righteous web logs.

Of course there is an exception; people do post and read usefull and educational information online, but that has always been so since ancient Greece - the medium has changed, that's all. The internet is no more exceptional a medium than news paper, academic journals, or major media. The Internet IS a fad. And if "zeitgeist" means the spirit of the time, judging by the moronic searches people look for on Google, WE are a fad too.

josh