Orwell feared surveillance and the control of information, Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity. A society controlled by pleasure, distraction, and consumerism, where people willingly surrender freedom for comfort. (sidenote: see my post on bars from books, for a SOMA holiday.) “But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” ...
Notes from the book I have most gifted to others. That has solidified friendships, and that I am often afraid to admit my liking of. Resentment often disguises itself as morality. This book is divisive. The criticism I received for reading and enjoying this book most often came from those that hadn’t actually read it. I am aware of smart friends that value the philosophy of Objectivism, I am aware of equally smart friends that do not. ...
The Corpus Hermeticum is a collection of philosophical and spiritual texts attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, a syncretic figure that combines elements of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. Written between the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, these writings form the core of Hermeticism, a religious, philosophical, and esoteric tradition that seeks the knowledge of divine truths through mysticism, alchemy, and theurgy. The texts discuss topics like the nature of the divine, the universe, the mind, and the relationship between humanity and the divine. They emphasise the process of spiritual ascent, where the soul rises through different layers of existence to reunite with the divine source. ...
Robert Anton Wilson’s central idea is that the human mind does not passively perceive reality. Instead, it constructs reality through imprints, conditioning, and learned programs. He delivers a deliberately unstable, semi-scientific, occult-comedic, cybernetic model for asking which program we are currently running in ourselves, and how we can tell. The book then, is a manual for becoming aware of one’s own programming. What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves. The “Thinker” generates a belief, hypothesis, fear, identity, or frame. The “Prover” then scans reality for evidence that confirms it. ...
“Man o To” Berlin-based artist “Nu” real name Fabian Lamar sings in Persian. The lyrics from Rumi’s poem, dedicated to his soul mate Shams-i Tabrizi. Despite appearing as two separate people (two forms), the couple shares a single, shared soul. The final line (“bi man o to” - without you and I) refers to transcending the ego to achieve a pure, spiritual union. Feeling something in it long before I understood what it meant. The poem dissolves identity itself. Nation, religion, selfhood, even the distinction between body and soul collapse. ...
Abstraction today is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor survives it. Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory - precession of simulacra - it is the map that engenders the territory and if we were to revive the fable today, it would be the territory whose shreds are slowly rotting across the map. It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges subsist here and there, in the deserts which are no longer those of the Empire, but our own. The desert of the real itself. ...
I came to this book in my first year of university, hearing it referenced many times in Jim O’Shaughnessy’s Infinite Loops podcast, cited as foundational to his worldview, treating it not only as an interesting historical artefact but as working infrastructure for how he thinks about probability, and navigating complex systems. Coming to a 2,500-year-old Taoist classic through a quantitative investor is a rather strange entry point, It’s perfect. “Simplicity, patience, compassion. ...
Picking up The Count of Monte Cristo in a bookshop, someone recommended this alongside it. Both books are about a figure who arrives from outside the normal order, Dantès also turns a corrupt system’s logic against itself. Dumas believes in justice as a recoverable state. Bulgakov isn’t sure? A metaphysical study of power, truth, repression, and psychological freedom under systems that demand ideological conformity. Woland functions more like a force of metaphysical revelation. He exposes vanity, greed, cowardice, performative morality, ideological conformity, and the fragility of supposedly rational systems. Consistently punishes people for what they actually are rather than what they claim to be. ...