Confessions a 20th century ne'er do well: Drinking, fighting, stealing and other things one generally ought not do

Sunday, August 21, 2005

More facts about Bananaman

1. He sometimes hosts a 'McLaughlin Group' style news talk show.
2. He's not gay, but he's not straight.
3. He once thought he had jaundice, but then realized, 'how could I even tell?'
4. Noone knows where he lives, but it could be New York City, even though it's known as 'The Big Apple'. Bananaman is not petty about that sort of thing.
5. He is sometimes found guilty in a court of law, but always has the case overturned on appeal.
6. He once entered the Bananamobile in what he called a Bana-nascar race, but he lost, because it's one of those big inflatable yellow things that needs a boat to tow it in order to move.
7. He sometimes rides a bicycle with a banana seat, of course, and when he's working out, he wears bananadex.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

If Bananaman doesn't exist is he actually less real than you or me?

It’s a pretty basic philosophical exercise to ponder your size relative to the rest of the universe. I never thought it was that mind boggling (well I kind of did once when I was 15, working at the A&P pushing shopping carts from the parking lot back into the store, but I got over it) In my mind, Where I am in the world I actually interact with is what’s important, and as long as I’m bigger than you, that’s all that matters.
But have you ever pondered the size of yourself relative to the size of your own imagination? The world inside your mind? That world might be even bigger than the universe. But are there boundaries between thoughts of yourself and your self’s thoughts of other objects? Are thoughts of yourself comparable to thoughts of others in your mind, or are they an extension of yourself? What are the limits of your knowledge and imagination? Are there parts of your mind you haven’t visited yet? Are those regions infinite? If they are, then we will only experience a negligible part of our own existence by the time we die (since any measured length of time is negligible compared to infinity).
And our only connection to others is in our mind. All we are to each other are ideas. These ideas may come from sensory perception, but the meaning behind them, and even the experience of them comes from your imagination and how you put together and interpret those sensory impulses. And another person’s identity is nothing but a collection of ideas that we hold in our head. If there is really an objective reality, where does it lie?
Although a person’s behavior can be described objectively, that is rarely how we experience that person.
If all we are to each other is an idea, then our essence doesn’t actually exist in the mind of others. And if that’s true, the true limits of understanding of yourself is your own understanding. But does your essence go beyond that? And if so, where does it exist?
Our conscious experience is only a limited amount of our own minds content and potential at any given moment. Given this limitation, if your self only takes up a finite space in your infinite imagination, does your ability to experience this reality depend on your ability to see beyond yourself?