Why Hume Ought to Be Depressed

Ferret
I'm convinced I've discovered the root of depression.

Jay-BC
Yeah?

Ferret
Yeah, it seems to me it's a failure to connect ought and is. I mean that at all levels, not just in terms of psychological meaning or even chemical meaning. For instance, I feel depressed because I have these grandiose expectations for myself. I think I'm capable of much more than I am able in so limited an amount of time, etc. Or, my body has a demand for more seratonin than it is able to release into my mind. Yet I think it goes beyond even that. This idea of depression or melancholy exists at the very core of the universe, there's quite literally the physics of depression. Or to speak at a macro level, societies can be depressed, planets can be depressed, etc.

Jay-BC
How can physics ever be ought? It seems to me that the entire project is based on is. That's what it is. The attempt is to try to eliminate ought from the equation entirely. How could a molecule or a ray of light or falling objects be capable of an ought?

Ferret
I am unfortunately constrained by the fact that I cannot perceive what it's like to be a ray of light, or a molecule. In addition, I'd rather not consider myself a falling body of any magnitude.

Jay-BC
You sure? I mean I'm sure we can find a nice balcony for you to jump from.

Ferret
Perhaps, but I'm afraid that my actions would inevitably be attributed to the wrong kind of depression, and I think that it's pretty clear that my chance of surviving would be inversely proportional to the height of the balcony. But returning to the idea of physics, I would have to argue that physics is only based partly on this question of is. We observe and make notes on what is, but then when we make formulations we rely on mathematics to describe it, to generalize it. Of course, we find deviations everywhere, and we describe them, continually refine them, ad fininitum. It seems to me that mathematics is the ought.

Jay-BC
That sounds delightfully perverse. And to put it bluntly, I'd have to say that you must be shitting me. Are you really trying to suggest that mathematics is on the same level as moral claims about right and wrong? Or human rights? I don't think I understand. 2 is 2. That doesn't change, and it can't change. Pissing in public is sometimes acceptable, sometimes not.

Ferret
I think we can both agree that now isn't one of those times for pissing.

Jay-BC
Yeah, that's probably true.

Ferret
Although, if we keep drinking who knows. I've definitely seen someone I know take a slash on a curtain in some club when he was inebriated.

Jay-BC
He ought not to have done that.

Ferret
True, he ought not to. But it is the case he did. And guess what? He was a little perturbed, maybe even depressed about it the next day.

Jay-BC
Heh. That could've been the alcohol, but let's get back to depressed rays of light or depressed equations.

Ferret
Well, I wanted to say how I think that mathematics is strange because it contains both ought and is. Mathematics gives us ways that things ought to be regulated, and strangely enough, it works. It is a confluence of both ought and is. It can't be debated the way we debate social mores or moral claims. Math is based on the assumption that there is one truth. That being said, it is also the way we make prognostications about the world, how things should function. It is an ought.

Jay-BC
I'm still not clear about this. You think mathematics is both ought and is? I fail to see how it just isn't is.

Ferret
Well, let me put it this way. If math is the most pure description of the universe, wouldn't it necessarily have to be both ought and is? I realize that implies the assumption that ought and is are both facets of the universe. I think that's why Plato was obsessed with mathematics as rooting knowledge, and why he attempts in the Republic to try and make mathematical claims. Those Pythagoreans had something going.

Jay-BC
The Pythagoreans were most likely a strange religious cult who took numbers as their gods and feared eating beans.

Ferret
You're right. Well... shit. I'll leave Plato and the Pythagoreans out of this mess. How about string theory?

Jay-BC
Go ahead, and dig your hole deeper.

Ferret
It's a black hole, indeed. If string theory is right, and there are parallel universes of infinite magnitude as described by the mathematics alone, then it would seem that all the infinite possibilities of the world are contained in mathematics. The ought and the is together.

Jay-BC
That sounds interesting.

Ferret
And here's physics depression. Even if this is the case, as far as we know it's impossible for our reality to live up to this ought, unless we can find someway to cross realities.

Jay-BC
Or get good ass seratonin reuptake inhibitors?

Ferret
Now you see where I'm coming from.

Jay-BC
Well, the analogy is a good one, but can we overcome this ought-is depression?

Ferret
It remains to be seen.

Jay-BC
Man, Hume must've been one depressed son of a bitch. No joining of ought and is.

Ode to Luxury

Inspiration I nabbed in this blurb from SH Magazine, although I couldn't find it on their website:

"Inspired by JIA ("home"), You Qian Life Enhancing Developments took the concept of small, design-led hotels to its absolute end point in terms of bijou, frou-frou, boho, oh-so, boutique, boutique-y-chic-y - oh, darling - cheekiness, and launched... The Apartment. Yes. While some boutique hotels boast of 30 rooms and some swagger with ten, this final word in personal travel only has one, single, exclusive, reclusive, private room. In the suite there is the gratifyingly private restaurant, called The Kitchen. There is an en suite shower and spa facility, called The Bathroom. And of course, the personal concierge service, called The Girlfriend. Guests will also be issued with their own security assistant, The Key. No sooner was The Apartment unveiled than investors went wild, block-booking the room until July 23, 2024..."

-SH Magazine, Friday June 20, 2008; p. 3

Ode to Luxury

Did you hear? Did you know?
The best way to live has found its way to show.
When rich you'll lead chariots of isolate charm--
Feasts with your beckoning by spoke healed alarm,
With pretty faced girls who sigh with your call,
Massaging taut loins with abandon and gall.
And when the day falls with your thoughts by your side
Of swift machinations and enemies who hide,
Remember you're safe and isolate here,
That you command all, there's no one to fear.

In this paradise you hold, you show all the way
How others can come and find this and say:
Did you hear? Did you know?

A Tourist or Why I Don't Like Writing About Shanghai

" The worst blogs about China are written by adoptive parents on a baby run, boozed up immature party animals congregated in Shanghai, and washed up failures teaching English in the PRC because they can't get jobs back in their own countries. These bloggers are usually short-timers in China without a clue and don't have any real insights worth reading. For the most part, their blogs are started upon first arriving in China. Undistinguished, unimaginative, and lacking any originality, the blogs soon die from apathy. "

- The China Tattler

The group was at one of the typical Shanghai patios, drinking ourselves into a stupor before sauntering off to a night of debauchery at some club, leaving nothing but the bitter taste of trite sarcasms and idiocy in our wake. We called for more drinks, prattling our ill-formed Chinese sentences, still too self-conscious about the rise and fall of our voices, sounding like Tourette's cases attacking our wide-eyed hostesses. Someone proudly gave this peroration:

Someone
The Chinese have a lack of creativity. The people have no spirit. It's all but been destroyed by the Communist Party and the Cultural Revolution.

Ferret
Please define what creativity is.

Someone Else
Here comes Ferret playing the devil's advocate again.

Ferret
No, I'd genuinely like to know because as far as I can tell the only thing our "creativity" has given us is more bars and clubs.

And Yet Someone Else
Are you serious? What about democracy and human rights? Individualism?

Ferret
It's unclear if they've been all that productive. I don't want to be entirely skeptical. I'm all for democracy, transparency of government, and individualism, but we, sitting right here, sure as hell don't seem to be taking advantage of it. Being more affluent or having more rights doesn't make you any more interesting or free of a person. In fact, I've met a lot of Chinese people who I think are a lot more authentic than me and a lot of foreigners I know here. Most foreigners I meet in Shanghai are just tourists, whether they are doing business or not. China is not their home, and they have no intention of making it one, lost souls without a purpose, looking to exploit the market, the laborers, the women and yes, all the jiu-ba's.

Somebody
Look, man. We're trying to have a good time. I've been teaching class all day. Let's not get all philosophical here. There's no need.

Somebody Else
Come on, Ferret. Stop trying to be all clever. I can see you posting something like this on your blog, and posting me saying you'd post it.

And Yet Somebody Else
Oh, that's deep shit, going all meta.

Somebody Else
Oh, I know!

Ferret
Of course when I post you saying that you'd say that I'd post it, then where the hell are we?

Somebody Else
So then you're posting that you're saying that you'd post saying that I'd say you'd post this in your blog?

Ferret
I'd say we're at the point of no return.

Somebody
Will you guys please talk about something interesting? You sound like babbling idiots talking about nothing.

Ferret
Drinks?

And Yet Somebody Else
[yelling far too loudly]
服务员!
Waitress!

These Days

These are the days when the trees will sing their windy caterwauls,
And imprism the light in ravenous bloom.

Young men will cock their heads akimbo, prowling like drunken wolves,
Ravenous, yet languidly falling to a feast.

Young women will sway brightly as their steps approximate a dance,
A reel, hurdy-gurdy tuned, like the rise and fall of some giant cylinder,
Pulling you deeper into its core,
A bingo wheel, a threshing stone.

The old will roll their eyes and pucker their mouths inward,
As if trying to taste the memories inside themselves,
Gone too far in space and time to even speak:
"Yes. Yes. You know me well."

Children will scream, if only to hear themselves scream,
Proving conclusively the existence of their vocal chords and the air they vibrate,
A prelude to the future,
The endless task of asserting:
"Yes, I am. Yes, I exist."

The streetbeds will clamor with the sounds of more feet,
The roar of eager cars,
The swish of seasoned bicycles.

The skies will creak and clatter.
They'll moan and wail,
Swirling at a pace tempting wild speculation,
Charts littering the walls,
Machines wracking with hums,
Men who speak in half-truth percentages
And eyes in space.

And though these things all speak their own words,
Their own signs and gasps in the firmament,
Together they call:

"The time is here and now and short,
So love these days in their passing.
The heat will come; the cold will frost,
And bake these days to memory,
To harken their return again."

The Best Use of Technology

I had a dream last night,
About half past three
A goddess spoke:
Sweet Technology.

Her skin was like crystal
In liquid displays,
Fibers for eyes
pulsing cathode rays.

Her lips were both pouted
At binary best
And silicon folds
Arose from her chest.

Her voice started too harsh
All gravel at first,
But smoothed like waters
Intended to burst:

"Darling, will you hold me?
And give me your heart?
I'll give you the keys
To worlds that you'll part.

You'll see into atoms
Make ad-men's lures,
Stealth and wealth weapons,
Lowly cripple's cures.

You'll rise in newfound days,
Learn to beat the sun,
Grow the world white hot,
Cool it down for fun.

And when you're alone and tired,
Visions that you'll see
Will cloud your clocked mind
From mediocrities.

Visions of great houses
And monster truck boobs
Will awe your mind to sleep
With LCD tubes.

So boy give me your answer
I promise you'll have fun
The time to act is now
The race has just begun."

Epigram #2

A girl poses for a picture,
Flushing Chinesely,
Her shoulders of her shirt
Falling by her friend's help
Showing more of her body
Standing in front of a fountain
Thinking herself a Botticelli.
(For a moment, I made her one.)

Thoughts on an Airplane Ride

When I boarded my plane yesterday from Shenzhen to Shanghai, I noticed that when I boarded all the seats up front were occupied quickly, but none of the ones in the back (were I was) were at all. This got me to thinking...

I assume that the tickets were sold from the front to the rear of the plane, and seeing as how I bought my ticket online only days ago, this would make sense. But how come everyone in this first wave of boarding was sitting in front? Perhaps it is indicative of the personalities/preferences of those boarding the plane. The ones who booked their ticket long in advance are adverse to rushing, or to put it another way, play it safe and plan ahead. It would make sense for people of this nature to be present right when the plane opened for boarding. Those who booked later, it would seem , tend to plan less and act more spontaneously. Hence the great rush to the back which ensued. Everyone who was prone to rush ended up with their seat in the back.

A COROLLARY

This reminds me: I've noticed that Southwest Airlines has actually taken this approach in boarding, allowing you to print out your boarding pass at home a certain time before. Those who print their boarding pass at the beginning of this time window are allowed to board first, while those who print it out later, or get it at the terminal have to wait longer to board. I find this strategy ingenious not only because it saves resources for Southwest (i.e. fewer staff to monitor the provision of boarding passes), but it is also relatively painless to their customers. (This is, of course, dependent on the fact that my observations aren't just anecdotal.) Given the connection between preferences and the way in which passengers board, this arrangement would occur anyway. Southwest, by harnessing this insight, has enabled itself to increase efficiency without compromising the all-important specter of service.