rattus rattus’ blog

A friend once asked me whether I can explain the fact that my companion was important to me. After some months (to have my mind settle) I replied:

What I love is her contradiction, and her withstanding.

[*]

The following took place in the context of a lecture series on human ecology. One evening, after talks a speaker and friend of mine asked me how I perceive the lectures. I answered that I am thinking about responsibility. Next she wanted to know what were the results of my thinkings. I said: Responsibility.

By then we had reached the building’s exit door. She said bye, and off she was.

[X]

Black-and-white categories will lead us nowhere.

How can we explain explanation? Of course, dictionaries explain explanation. With ease, and without a word about self-reference. Though, implicitly (they explain a lot).

I wonder whether they have to in order to sell. Like scientists need to stick to objectivity in order to get funded. (This explains a hell of a lot.)

So, we can explain explanation (like we can think about thinking). Imagine we cannot. — I can’t. Now explain that you cannot!

I cannot explain why I cannot explain that I cannot explain. This is my explanation.

He: How are you?
Me: I am trying not to answer.

Then, an expression of complete mystery spread over his face.
Well, it startles me too every time i hear myself say these words :-)

How comes that justification is so hard to justify? I doubt self-reference to be the only source of mind boggles. And, who is a barber anyway?

Imagine justification to be some way to separate right from wrong. We might just slip through and fall into nothing, the space of no justifications.

I was wondering if anybody felt the urge to dig us out of such a whole, or do we call that whole ‘home’? — michael, 2006-02-13

The whole hole of nothing is a welcome space to be filled with home. Just don’t try to justify unless you need more room.

Yours truly, liar with an ever growing beard.

I think it is high time to get rid of the concepts of good versus bad and right versus wrong. Tell me, what do you think about this?

Words ought not to be trusted – you can never be sure if they mean what they say.
— Ashleigh Brilliant

Let’s assume that when people say something they generally mean something different. Then, the question “What do you mean?” generally makes no sense at all.

If you think that some people at least sometimes do say what they mean, well, I anyway do understand something different from what they say let alone what they mean.

So, what does it mean when someone says that she or he makes a lot of use of dictionaries and thesauruses searching for word origins? Like Dave Pollard just wrote? Or like half of my own blog?

What does it mean if someone is especially picky about words, if we try to be precise, if we try to avoid obfuscation and ambiguity, and if we moreover foster meaning with references?

Experts of wording driving away from their audience, burying augury of knowledge in wisdom, the paradox of communication, blatant honesty about lying.

Of course, this makes sense to us, anyway.