PacRim Jim's Transitive Logic January 2005
Philosophy is ever so much easier when logic is invoked. To wit, the Pacster has just ripped the shrink-wrap off his newest why-bother idea: Transitive Logic.
Here’s how it works, kiddies:
Time is money.
Money is the root of all evil.
Therefore, time is the root of all evil.
It’s that simple, yet somehow profound. It’s that complex, yet unaccountably unpatented.
Ain’t logic grand?
— PacRim Jim
Life Death July 2004
Asked to speculate on the nature of life and death, PacRim Jim can but oblige the ever-curious reader:
…IFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, Life, Life, Life, LIFE, Life, Life, LIFE, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, Life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, Life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, Life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, Life, LIFE, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, LIFE, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, Life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, death, life, life, life, life, life, Life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, life, death, death, death, death, death, death, death, death, death, death, death, death, death, Death, Death, Death, death, Death, Death, Death, Death, Death, Death, Death, Death, DEATH, DEATH, DEATH, DEATH, DE…
— PacRim Jim
PRJ’s Transitive Law of Courage July 2004
Americans defeated the Japanese,
Who defeated the Mongols,
Who defeated the Chinese,
Who defeated the Vietnamese,
Who defeated the Americans,
Who defeated the Soviets,
Who defeated the Germans,
Who defeated the French,
Thrice.
— PacRim Jim
In Defense of War January 2004
In the transports of stolidity, the Pacster feels compelled to contribute a few thoughts in defense of war, unfashionable though it may be.
We human beings have become accustomed to dominion over the natural world, for better and for worse. Our lack of claws, speed, and strength has been no obstacle to our survival, thanks to our cooperation and language, but mostly to our outsized brains
Whence this gift?
Millennia of savagery have swelled the human brain to such an extent that in another, less familiar species it would be considered monstrous.
To what end?
Large, clever brains tend to survive. Smaller brains don't. It's that simple. We owe our excellent brains—and hence the entirety of human culture—to the struggle for life. In other words, war has midwifed clever survivors. With irony worthy of Faust, death itself has begot life worthy of this world. Not to put too fine a point on it, war has survived that we may survive.
If we were to end war, would not our brains cease evolving?
One hundred thousand years ago, yes. Ten years ago, yes. Now, no.
In its own way, the human brain has obviated evolution by haltingly and painstakingly developing biotechnology. The accumulating information regarding the complement and variety of human genes and proteins as well as their interactions will allow humans of the third millennium to control their own evolution. Ultimately, we shall become capable of redesigning ourselves ad libitum and ad nauseam, which will allow us to say goodbye to the erstwhile mother of big brains: war.
At long last, then, after our children's children have evolved beyond war, they will be able to say, “Good riddance! But thank you, war, for our very lives and for all that makes us human.”
— PacRim Jim
The Facile Philosophy of PacRim Jim
Haste makes France.
Truth is monosyllabic.
Life is a panoramaless summit.
The lucky witness only one death.
I have faith in the scientific method.
The noblest action often is inaction.
One’s life is the fruit of one’s death.
In winter the snowflake needs no god.
Today is yesterday’s peek at tomorrow.
Science transmutes induction to deduction.
The shaded tree dreams of the lumberjack.
The highly educated are highly ungovernable.
Nothing you do will increase your risk of death.
Now > Today > All tomorrows > All yesterdays
Face to face we die at night, safely beyond death.
America is fortunate in the dysergy of its adversaries.
Money doesn’t buy happiness. People buy happiness.
Education is the lifelong discovery of one’s ignorance.
It is my considered opinion that opinions are worthless.
Science: Seeing is believing. Religion: Believing is seeing.
People who finally see the light have had their eyes closed.
Knowledge manifests education. Action manifests wisdom.
Old age, where unsaid words take refuge in forgotten dreams.
Never put off until tomorrow that which can be ignored today.
Collude as they might, slow runners will never catch the leader.
A Star* fan I am. Future history is more fascinating than past history.
Cradle-to-grave social welfare systems empty the former while filling the latter.
Our lives are consumed by ancient instincts diverted by subconscious thoughts.
You’re never too old to learn things that would have helped you when you were young.
Are you to disappoint your ancestral thousands who resisted death itself that you might live?
To gain weight, keep one end open and the other closed. To lose weight, reverse the process.
A million years hence, you’ll be as well known as you were a million years ago, only for less time.
In your genes the sacrifices of all your ancestors are stored as the potentials of all your descendants.
At times I fail to recall something. Yet I know that I know it. More, I know that I know that I know it.
Child: I want that. Teenager: I want more of that. Father: Is that all there is? Grandfather: Is that all there was?
— PacRim Jim —
