As long as I remember
I get tired of myself
so I must have
endless energy
Day 3654, energy.
Daily picture, PoetryPoetry
Day 3652, when I.
Daily picture, Poetry
The latest chance
she watches you go
I watch her go
will I take her
or will she take me later
when I miss her
Day 3651, empty.
Daily picture, Poetry
Your eyes tell so much
But mine nothing to you
You have no words
Only endless feelings
Day 3650, your own.
Daily picture, Poetry
You can read a lot
in whoever's eyes
but look closer
and you only see
your own
Day 3649, What do I say?
Daily picture, My thoughts, Poetry
Comunication is.
Am I the only one who knows what I am saying?
I am the only one who knows what I am saying?
Do I know what I am saying?
Can you tell what I am saying?
Can you tell what you think that I am saying?
Can you tell what you think I want to say?
Do you care what I say?
Do you just pretend?
Do I just pretend?
To know what I am saying.
Day 3648, look.
Daily picture, Poetry
I look throught the old window
from outside
and it feels
like I am doing it from the inside
Day 3647, Caged animals.
Poetry, My thoughts, Daily picture
Gekooide dieren
Caged animals
Caged animals
From cage to cage
From institution to institution
From one cage to another I move,
the setting changes, but I do not,
not yet outside where I want to be, outside that cage.
But that world outside might
exist only here inside my head,
as hope without bars.
All those people out there, outside my cage,
I do not despise for their freedom,
but for their carelessness, their lack.
A lack of appreciation for their
cage without bars, their naivety,
their not knowing their own reality.
As a caged being I can say nothing,
I can pace back and forth like an animal,
but I am not able to speak.
As an animal I think in images,
feelings and reactions without words
that teach me, teach me nothing.
People talk and talk and convince
each other, confuse each other that this is so
and that is so, but only with words.
Only with words, hearsay,
from once, from the past, from him or her,
but without feeling.
Feeling that originates from the deepest
of what we all are,
caged animals.
Sunday 25 march 2007
In October 2006, I moved to Norway. It’s been 20 years, so I can be forgiven for not remembering everything so clearly, but aside from that excuse, I had a clear story in my mind about those first few years. This weekend, I read my blog from the first three years in Norway. Well, I didn’t actually read it all; I skimmed over it while I copied the text into a document (103 pages, 80.000 words) and fed it to a chatbot. I asked it all kinds of questions and requested it to show me all the quotes, and I was quite surprised. For the last 10 years, I’ve been writing a lot, and I feel like I know myself pretty well now. Because I think I know myself now, the time before the ten-year mark seems like the dark ages to me. It’s a period where I obviously thought about things. I left many relics behind in the form of books I’ve bought in those dark ages, but in my mind, it all felt pretty trivial.
The blog post was meant for family to read, and for the most part, it’s lighthearted. I talk about the weather, my work, and what I do in my free time. But I was also not afraid to share my feelings about life, myself, and the people around me.
One of my go-to stories when people ask why I moved to Norway is about the book “Nooit Meer Slapen” (Never Sleep Again) by the famous Dutch novelist W.F. Hermans. I read that book around age 16, and I can’t quite explain why it resonated with me, but what it represented stayed with me. I realize more and more how it reflects a part of me, the 16-year-old me, wearing a “Great Pretender” T-shirt, was already more aware than his intellect could put into words. The novel shows that human attempts to find certainty, meaning, and success often fail in an indifferent world where knowledge is unreliable and people are fundamentally alone.
Day 3646, a day.
Daily picture, Poetry
One step after another I walk toward that distant place among the peaks, where tonight the sun will cast its red glow for the millionth time in thousands of fading hues as the earth spins on its path of madness and joy, and I ponder it all the still, crisp air, the next step up and then down, my hand pressed to the earth to feel its reality, not as a dream here, where space widens my happiness and my gaze grows solitary, unburdened by memories of what once was, now both on my way and already arrived, enjoying the company of my past and present, the view of ice shattered into thousands of shards by the tides and the turning of the world, the moon that has watched me for millennia as I seek her before sleep, today’s cold stillness giving me rest before morning’s startled birds and another day in repetition, walking toward the horizon that at dusk bathes my soul in red and steals my breath, resigned to the days ahead and a world that continues without us until the sun reclaims what she gave, and we, as the dust, drift on, perhaps to live again, or next time as a red glow lighting the path of another traveler who does not yet know that the most important thing in life is simply to breathe.
Day 3642, away.
Daily picture, Poetry
I am build strong
shaping whatever was fed to me
still
I am standing outside now
in clear daylight
for everybody to see
weathering away
Day 3642, according to my past individuals.
Daily picture, My thoughts, Poetry
When butterflies don’t fly.
Fading away, overwhelmed in lies.
Wings eager, restricted by weeds.
Cracked mud of the soil grades the time.
When butterflies couldn’t fly.
Day 864
Individuals, according to my past individuals
Definition by Chatbot: The concept of the individual is not as simple as it appears. It is often presented as a single, distinct human being, defined by unique biological, psychological, and social traits. But this definition is superficial. The idea of the individual as an autonomous, self-determining agent is largely an illusion. The mind does not generate ideas in isolation; it is shaped by language, culture, and education. Thoughts are constructed from what we absorb from others, from the environment, from history. The individual is not a self-contained entity but a reflection of inherited ideas and external forces.
Reinterpretations of older work, see the quotes underneath.
Day 3641, to a world.
Daily picture, Poetry, Quotes
A youngling opens up,
to a world in riddles.
I admire Tolstoy, not because of his work, which I have never read, but because of what he stood for. I believe that when people say it is a fantastic read, I can see it after a few pages; I don’t have the time to read the rest. Too many books lie around that I have started reading or are waiting patiently for my attention. I have the idle hope that one day I will take the time. I found this quote online, well, not this quote, but something similar. The quotes you find online are not always correct, but after some digging, I found the source and read the chapter till I found it. Russians are a mysterious folk; I wish they still were, now they are as predictable as the rest.
“I have met him. But he’s a queer fish, and quite without breeding. You know, one of those uncouth new people one’s so often coming across nowadays, one of those free-thinkers you know, who are reared d’emblée in theories of atheism, scepticism, and materialism. In former days,” said Golenishtchev, not observing, or not willing to observe, that both Anna and Vronsky wanted to speak, “in former days the free – thinker was a man who had been brought up in ideas of religion, law, and morality, and only through conflict and struggle came to free – thought; but now there has sprung up a new type of born free – thinkers who grow up without even having heard of principles of morality or of religion, of the existence of authorities, who grow up directly in ideas of negation in everything, that is to say, savages.
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (Part 5, Chapter 9)
You can read the book here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1399
Day 3639, 5 zonnen.
Daily picture, Poetry
I tried out a new AI Chatbot (https://chat.mistral.ai/chat), one that is not US-based and respects your privacy more. I tested it out today, fed it 10 years of short poems, and asked for the 10 best ones. I guess it knows what it’s doing, so here they are. I didn’t specify what the format of the documents was, so it didn’t include the titles, no AI is that smart.
Preparing the day
for another trail of sweets
and bringing it home.
Decomposing leave
returning inhalation
autumn disquiet.
The wind is moving
bending wheat where it settles
in rough ground and sun.
The sun is too late
shrouded in drawn out shadows
it will never bloom.
Waiting for the ground
absorbing time, decisions
and giving it back.
Mother in nature
shining for posterities
yellow panama.
When butterflies don’t fly.
Fading away, overwhelmed in lies.
Wings eager, restricted by weeds.
Cracked mud of the soil grades the time.
When butterflies couldn’t fly.
Red berries in the sun.
The air smells from afternoon rain.
Let me forget and stand still.
And leave me here.
Delicate nature
in a midsummer’s warm wave
elegant white dress.
Alluring symbols
assessed by many facets
in virgin colors.
Day 3634, Causal Models.
Daily picture, Poetry
Some shadows
from memories
are colorized
maybe by the time
past
or the moment
Causal Models (SEP)
Causal models are mathematical models representing causal relationships within an individual system or population. They facilitate inferences about causal relationships from statistical data. They can teach us a good deal about the epistemology of causation, and about the relationship between causation and probability. They have also been applied to topics of interest to philosophers, such as the logic of counterfactuals, decision theory, and the analysis of actual causation.
Causal modeling is an interdisciplinary field that has its origin in the statistical revolution of the 1920s, especially in the work of the American biologist and statistician Sewall Wright (1921). Important contributions have come from computer science, econometrics, epidemiology, philosophy, statistics, and other disciplines. Given the importance of causation to many areas of philosophy, there has been growing philosophical interest in the use of mathematical causal models. Two major works—Spirtes, Glymour, and Scheines 2000 (abbreviated SGS), and Pearl 2009—have been particularly influential.
A causal model makes predictions about the behavior of a system. In particular, a causal model entails the truth value, or the probability, of counterfactual claims about the system; it predicts the effects of interventions; and it entails the probabilistic dependence or independence of variables included in the model. Causal models also facilitate the inverse of these inferences: if we have observed probabilistic correlations among variables, or the outcomes of experimental interventions, we can determine which causal models are consistent with these observations. The discussion will focus on what it is possible to do in “in principle”. For example, we will consider the extent to which we can infer the correct causal structure of a system, given perfect information about the probability distribution over the variables in the system. This ignores the very real problem of inferring the true probabilities from finite sample data. In addition, the entry will discuss the application of causal models to the logic of counterfactuals, the analysis of causation, and decision theory.
Read the rest here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causal-models/
Day 3630, The Capability Approach.
Poetry
The Capability Approach (SEP)
The capability approach is a theoretical framework that entails two normative claims: first, the claim that the freedom to achieve well-being is of primary moral importance and, second, that well-being should be understood in terms of people’s capabilities and functionings. Capabilities are the doings and beings that people can achieve if they so choose – their opportunity to do or be such things as being well-nourished, getting married, being educated, and travelling; functionings are capabilities that have been realized. Whether someone can convert a set of means – resources and public goods – into a functioning (i.e., whether she has a particular capability) crucially depends on certain personal, sociopolitical, and environmental conditions, which, in the capability literature, are called ‘conversion factors.’ Capabilities have also been referred to as real or substantive freedoms as they denote the freedoms that have been cleared of potential obstacles, in contrast to mere formal rights and primary social goods.
Within philosophy, the capability approach has been employed to the development of several conceptual and normative theories within, most prominently, development ethics, political philosophy, public health ethics, environmental ethics and climate justice, and philosophy of education. This proliferation of capability literature has led to questions concerning what kind of framework it is (section 1); how its core concepts should be defined (section 2); how it can be further specified for particular purposes (section 3); what is needed to develop the capability approach into an account of social and distributive justice (section 4); how it relates to non-Western philosophies (section 5); and how it can be and has been applied in practice (section 6).
Read the rest here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/capability-approach/
Day 3627, blame.
Poetry
Blame (SEP)
Blame is a common reaction to something of negative normative significance about someone or their behavior. A paradigm case, perhaps, would be when one person wrongs another, and the latter responds with resentment and a verbal rebuke, but of course we also blame others for their attitudes and characters (Eshleman 2004, Smith 2005, Holroyd 2012). Thus blaming scenarios typically involve a wide range of inward and outward responses to a wrongful or bad action, attitude, or character (such responses include: beliefs, desires, expectations, emotions, sanctions, and so on). In theorizing about blame, then, philosophers have typically asked two questions:
- Which reactions and interactions constitute blame?
- When is it appropriate to respond in these ways?
It is common to approach these questions with a larger theoretical agenda in mind: for example, in an effort to understand the conditions of moral responsibility and the nature of freedom. But the questions are interesting in their own right, especially since blame is such a common feature of our lives. This entry will critically discuss the answers that have been offered in response to the above questions concerning blame, with the aim of shedding some light on blame’s nature, ethics, and significance. (It is blame, rather than praise, that has received the lion’s share of attention from philosophers in recent years, despite the fact that they are a natural pair. Though that is perhaps beginning to change—see King 2023, Lippert-Rasmussen 2024, and Shoemaker 2024 for book-length treatments of blame that also pay serious attention to praise.)
Read the rest here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/blame/
Day 3601, A Priori Justification and Knowledge.
Poetry
At first, this problem was somewhat hard to pinpoint, but after reading the following example on Gettier’s own Wikipage I get it (not proven).
I am watching the men’s Wimbledon Final, and John McEnroe is playing Jimmy Connors, it is match point, and McEnroe wins. I say to myself: “John McEnroe is this year’s men’s champion at Wimbledon”. Unbeknownst to me, however, the BBC were experiencing a broadcasting fault and so had broadcast a tape of last year’s final, when McEnroe also beat Connors. I had been watching last year’s Wimbledon final, so I believed that McEnroe had bested Connors. But at that same time, in real life, McEnroe was repeating last year’s victory and besting Connors! So my belief that McEnroe bested Connors to become this year’s Wimbledon champion is true, and I had good reason to believe so (my belief was justified) — and yet, there is a sense in which I could not really have claimed to “know” that McEnroe had bested Connors because I was only accidentally right that McEnroe beat Connors — my belief was not based on the right kind of justification.
A Priori Justification and Knowledge (SEP)
A priori justification is a type of epistemic justification that is, in some sense, independent of experience. Gettier examples have led most philosophers to think that having a justified true belief is not sufficient for knowledge and the examples there), but many still believe that it is necessary. In this entry, it will be assumed, for the most part, that even though justification is not sufficient for knowledge it is necessary and that a priori knowledge is knowledge based on a priori justification. So much of the discussion will focus on a priori justification.
There are a variety of views about whether a priori justification requires some sort of evidence or whether, instead, some propositions can be “default reasonable”, or that a person can be entitled to accept certain propositions independent of any evidence, perhaps because they are reasonable presuppositions of some area of inquiry. Philosophers who think that a priori justification requires evidence differ about the details. Some think that a priori evidence can be defeated (overridden or undercut) by other evidence, including evidence from sensory observations. There are a variety of views about whether a priori justification, and knowledge, must be only of propositions about what is possible or necessary, and if necessary, only of analytic propositions, that is, propositions that are in some sense “true in virtue of their meaning”. Those who think that a priori justification requires evidence often think that the evidence is provided by rational intuitions or insights, but there is disagreement about the nature of those intuitions or insights, and critics deny that they really do constitute evidence.
Read the rest here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/apriori/
Nochrisis 