2024
● Monday, 1-1-2024: Yesterday, I added sardines (one can) to my usual dinner. Today, I seemed to have much more energy than usual. It’s probably a coincidence. But I’m going to eat sardines again today with my dinner.
● Friday, 1-5-2024: Today, for the first time in over a month and a half, I did two full exercise-walks (in the same day). During that time (the past month and a half), I was cutting the second walk short because it hurt my back. We’ll see whether this has a bad effect.
● Saturday, 1-6-2024: A picture of a little monkey wearing a little saffron cape, with the caption: “Buddhist monkey.”
● Well, I did the two full exercise-walks both yesterday and today; now, Saturday night, my back hurts more. Two full walks was premature.
● Sunday, 1-7-2024: Today, to compensate for the excessive walking yesterday and the day before, I took just one walk.
● One reason I’ve been disinclined to have (my own, biological) children is fear that my child would be superior to me.
● Tuesday, 1-9-2024: I sense that the increasing political upheaval and chaos in the United States is somehow a reaction to the great wealth disparity.
● Wednesday, 1-10-2024: Your going back in time, say, to the 1930s, when you could kill Hitler to avert World War II and the Holocaust, is impossible: you’d be going back to an earlier state of affairs that never existed: you knew what Hitler would do. But no one back then knew (beforehand) what Hitler would do . . .. And your averting the Holocaust would be problematic in two ways: One, you probably wouldn’t have been born. Two, world history would then be different. But there can be just one history. What would happen to the history containing the Holocaust? Would it suddenly change status from the actual history to an imaginary history?
● Friday, 1-12-2024: I just finished the latest read-through of my Journal (it took about a month). The editing was very fruitful. I was pleased with much of the material. But I was a little shocked to find that the year 2023 seems to be another virtual dead zone.
● Sunday, 1-14-2024: Every day, especially when I’m home all day, with no deposition to handle, and when I’m between read-through’s of my Journal, is a battle, not even so much with neighbors, as mainly with myself: to muster the will and the energy, for about six hours’ time (between breakfast and dinner) to do more-or-less productive (or at least constructive) tasks, like reading Robert Graves’s The Reader Over Your Shoulder.
● Wednesday, 1-17-2024: Yesterday I sent this email to LearnDesk (it needs no explanation):
I just got my credit card bill, and was shocked to see a charge of $299.95 by you. I had no intention of renewing my arrangement with you. I got zero benefit from it, and I abandoned it. Please immediately reverse the charge to my credit card, and delete any authorization I may have inadvertently given you for recurrent charges.
Richard J. Eisner
● Thursday, 1-18-2024: I just awoke from a dream in which I was attending a camp with Mozart. I acknowledged that he was a musical genius, but I thought I was a better graphic artist than he was. I don’t know whether that was much consolation.
● Sunday, 1-21-2024: Philosophy Club. Here’s the topic, and my response:
“Does art created by artificial intelligence count as true art?” My first impression is: No, because computers are not creative. On second thought, speaking strictly, I would say the following. Perhaps a better question is whether artificial-intelligence-generated “art” counts as great art. Most artwork that humans produce is not great; artificial intelligence may be able to produce artwork that’s as good as mediocre (or even good) manmade artwork. Perhaps we must answer the question on an ad hoc, case-by-case, basis, the same basis on which we would judge a human’s art. That is, we examine each work generated by artificial intelligence, and decide whether it’s great. If we find one that’s great, we’ll have answered the question: “Yes, artificial intelligence can make great art.” Not finding one doesn’t mean that it can’t happen—it means only that it hasn’t happened yet. (The longer we try without succeeding, though, the more doubtful we may become about its being possible.) The original question should logically be, not does it count as true (or great) art?, but can it? But I think we can at very least conclude that, for creating art, natural intelligence is far superior to artificial intelligence.
● Wednesday, 1-24-2024: Donald Trump’s chronic lying serves another purpose as he grows old: as a cover for senility. When he states a falsehood, he’d rather that people think, “He’s lying again” than, “He’s losing his memory.”
● I recently heard a story about a woman who, in order to safeguard her own health, needed to abort her doomed, brainless fetus, but was prohibited from doing so because of her state, Texas’ abortion ban. I call the right-wing politicians and judges responsible for that policy the Texas Taliban.
● I’ve said that well-being consists of an objective element (namely, happiness) and a subjective element (our wishes, interests, goals, and suchlike). What of the person whose one wish is to be happy? Because happiness cannot be achieved by aiming at it directly, “searching for happiness” is problematic. The happiest people are those who pursue interests or goals besides happiness.
● Saturday, 1-27-2024: Haircut (Brenda).
● When I occasionally remove litter from common areas in this apartment complex, I think of myself as a Good Samaritan. And yet, it’s only the common areas where I live, and usually the areas closest to my own apartment.
● Sunday, 1-28-2024: Desert ride; pleasant. Traffic was lighter than usual. I ate a bean and cheese burrito at Tom’s #25 in West Palmdale. It was good. The trip took 8 hours, including my hour-and-a-quarter nap in the parking lot of Tom’s after the meal.
● Monday, 1-29-2024: I struggle for clarity as a diver struggles up to the surface of the water for breath.
● Thursday, 2-1-2024: I’m beginning another read-through of my Journal. This last break, about two and a half weeks, was unusually long.
● On a neighborhood electronic bulletin board, a person wrote that he needed to find a new home to rent, and would be grateful if someone could “point him in the right direction.” It occurred to me to reply, “Northwest.”
● On that neighborhood electronic bulletin board, a woman recommended getting a dog for protection against theft. Among other things, she said, “You’ll sleep more soundly knowing you’re protected.” I replied with this: “You’ll sleep more soundly” . . . unless you’re woken up by the dog’s barking!
● Sunday, 2-4-2024: For the first time in the many years that I’ve been patronizing them, The Best Nails manicurists missed our usual biweekly appointment. They didn’t open the shop this morning. I hope they’re all right.
● On this read-through of my Journal, I’m making fewer edits than usual—many fewer than the last time . . . but there are enough of them to warrant the effort.
● Many items of women’s clothing, leaving so much skin exposed, strike me as very anti-utilitarian—don’t the women feel cold?!
[Later note (12-1-2024): . . . Whether or not they (the women) are actually cold, it just looks uncomfortable.]
● Monday, 2-5-2024: I got the manicure today. They were all right; they just forgot to calendar my appointment for yesterday (that’s what they said).
● Saturday, 2-10-2024: In response to my request, my physician, Dr. Bhat, M.D., has referred me to an orthopedist for the pain in both of my arms. He also prescribed a week’s regimen of steroids, Prednisone, 20 mg (two tablets a day) which I’ll start taking Monday, 2-12-2024. I know from experience that the Prednisone affects me like a stimulant: it produces energy and euphoria.
● Monday, 2-12-2024: I was right about the Prednisone: I had two depositions today. Very unusually, even uniquely, I was not tired during either of them. And when I got home, I still had enough energy and motivation to read my Journal, for editing. What a day!
● Tuesday, 2-13-2024: It’s been in the news that, sometime in the last several days, the Israelis freed two Israeli hostages, in the course of which they executed a “diversionary” tactic of killing 60 Palestinian civilians! Where is the outcry at the disproportionateness of that action?!
● Thursday, 2-15-2024: Apparently the steroid I’m taking now (Prednisone) is slightly different than the one I took in 2005, which was Methylprednisolone. I found the side effects of the Methylprednisolone even more satisfying.
● Thursday, 2-22-2024: In a television program, the narrator said that whales have such strong emotional bonds with one another that, when one of them is harpooned, other whales come toward it; they don’t swim away, as we humans would do. But I wonder if that behavior is a product, not of strength of bonds, but of lack of understanding. That is, if they understood the danger, they might swim away.
● Saturday, 2-24-2024: Philosophy Club; topic: “The relationship of etiquette to ethics.” My answer: Ethics is a general theory about how we should act, in relation to other sentient beings, especially other people. Etiquette is a body of specific proposed guidelines about socially appropriate behavior. Utilitarianism is one ethical theory, for example. It says that we should aim to bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Rule Utilitarianism is a version of Utilitarianism that holds that the most effective way to bring about the greatest happiness is to follow specific rules of conduct, but without specifying the rules. Etiquette is a set of specific rules, among those that a Rule Utilitarian might mean we should follow.
● Sunday, 2-25-2024: I’m in a sort of crisis with my car. For a year or so, it’s been emitting visible smoke from the tailpipe, when I first start it when the engine is cold. I’ve brought it to my mechanic to repair that, among other problems. But he seems unable or unwilling to fix it. I may have to get a new car, which will be expensive.
● It’s been three and a half months since I last had a headache (bad enough to need medication). That’s the longest headache-free span I can remember.
● Friday, 3-1-2024: Yesterday (3-29-2024) I finally had a headache bad enough to need medication. The last one was on 11-10-2023. That’s a span of 3 months, 19 days: a record!
● Sunday, 3-3-2024: I’ve just finished the latest read-through of the Journal. This one took just over 30 days. I added three pages’ worth of new material at the end. I’ll again take a break of about two weeks before starting another read-through.
● I think, lately, aware that the material in my Journal has become too diluted, and aware that I lack the discipline to delete entries from it or to be selective in adding entries to it, I’ve begun to compensate by being more restrained in writing in the Diary (the source material for the Journal).
● For several years in my early thirties, shortly after that terrible loss of my writing, I suffered from an extreme case of writer’s block. I remember I started to write a summary of my philosophy, but wrote just a few sentences, surely no more than a paragraph or two. I carried that paper with me, always hoping to expand the piece, but nothing more would come. I feel as if I’ve since made up for it. Eventually, the block broke, releasing a huge volume of ink, which has filled up page after page after page . . . though not all of it is philosophy, or even philosophical.
[Later note (12-1-2024): . . . or even worthwhile.]
● Tuesday, 3-5-2024: Religion creates, for the believer, a Disneyland of the mind.
● I didn’t know there were so many boating enthusiasts. It seems every other news item I hear these days is about boating and the boaters.
● Saturday, 3-9-2024: The Prednisone I took for seven days a few weeks ago seems to have had a good effect on my various orthopedic symptoms. I took it for my right forearm, but the most noticeable improvement has been in my lower back, which I think has finally returned to the condition it was in just before that very severe backache in August 2023 (seven months ago). That’s a very good development! I hope it lasts.
[Later note (6-21-2024): It didn’t last.]
● Sunday, 3-10-2024: I drove my rented Nissan Altima car to Tom’s #25, in West Palmdale, this morning and had my lately accustomed bean and cheese burrito for breakfast. As usual, it was good. I took an hour’s nap in the car. Then, as I went to exit the parking lot, I found that my CD player was broken, and so I couldn’t play recorded music. The lack of music would ruin the enjoyment of the trip, so I aborted my intended desert ride, and went back home. I replaced the broken CD player with a working one (I periodically buy—used—replacements, knowing that they don’t last long).
● I’ve said that a fringe benefit of stopping taking naps was the elimination of frequent headaches. I must modify that statement. For many months now I’ve been taking naps almost daily—either in my car with the seat reclined or in my apartment with my head on the desk or table, albeit shorter naps than I used to take lying in bed. But my headaches have been no more frequent during that time. I suspect that what has helped the headaches is, not abstaining from naps, but going to bed at night and getting up in the morning at consistent times.
● Monday, 3-11-2024: I dreamt that I was a matador fighting (a bull) in a bullring atop a few railroad cars, so that either the matador or the bull could be killed by going over the side and plunging to the ground. But in this one fight, I killed the bull in the usual way, by goring him with my spears.
● Tuesday, 3-12-2024: I do my laundry once a week. Some items I wash every week. Others I wash every other week. So I alternate: one week I wash a small batch; the next, a big batch. To aid my memory of which it is this week, I keep a stack of eight quarters on my dresser. To indicate that this is the small-batch week, I divide the coins into two (smaller) stacks; for a big-batch week, I combine the coins in a single stack. Every time I do the laundry, I switch the configuration of the coins.
● Another strange phrase is “more than happy”; as in, “I’d be more than happy to do it.” I know what happy is. I know what extremely happy is. But what are you feeling if you’re “more than happy”?! Are you, then, also happy? Are you feeling something in addition to happiness? Or is it merely an illogical way of saying “happy,” or “glad,” or “willing”?
● Friday, 3-15-2024: Orthopedic update: my back is still good. But my right forearm symptoms have returned, albeit mildly. Last week I did the renewed exercises for my left shoulder too vigorously, which has injured my left arm.
● Saturday, 3-16-2024: I’ve begun another read-through of my Journal.
● Tuesday, 3-19-2024: A true god, as traditionally defined, is logically impossible. A very powerful invisible being masquerading as a true god, is logically possible, but practically impossible. Such a being could make philosophical zombies, which, therefore, are likewise logically possible, but practically impossible.
● Wednesday, 3-20-2024: I got an email from a civics organization, which posed this question: “Why is it important for women to exercise their right to vote?” The email purported to provide an answer. I replied thus: “I agree that it’s important that women vote. But is it important that women vote for a different reason than that it’s important that men vote?”
I then got a message saying that my reply could not be delivered. That’s all right with me; I wrote it, not for their benefit, but for mine (for my Journal).
● Sunday, 3-24-2024: Philosophy Club. Topic: “Would you choose to enter the experience machine?” Brian Gould’s introduction to the topic includes these words: “Consider the experience machine, one of the most famous thought experiments in philosophy.
“You can choose to permanently enter a virtual reality/brain stimulation machine that immerses you in a subjective world you fully believe to be real, one in which you have the experiences you most desire to have and that make you as happy as you can be . . ..
“Once you enter the experience machine, it adjusts your memory so that you won’t realize you are in the machine. The machine will not malfunction or produce any untoward side effects. The real world will be no worse off nor better off if you plug in to the machine.”
My response: The last sentence in the introduction (“The real world will be no worse off nor better off if you plug in to the machine”) is inapposite. A person may indeed have a good or a bad effect on the real world, which effect (further effect) would be nullified by his entering the machine. And in deciding whether to enter it, he might consider that.
● In his essay “The Spoils of Happiness,” David Sosa writes that we, or most of us, would choose not to enter the experience machine because the happiness we get in the real world is somehow superior to the artificially-generated happiness of the machine. I agree that most of us would decline the machine, but not because the happiness it produces is somehow inferior to real-world happiness. There are not different forms or kinds of happiness (some of which might be better than others). Happiness is happiness is happiness. The reason we would decline the experience machine is, rather, that we want desiderata besides (in addition to) happiness.
● We can know relative well-being, but not absolute well-being. That is, while we cannot know a person’s level of well-being, or just what elements constitute it, except perhaps in a very general or broad sense; we may be able to know what will increase or decrease it. For example, we may know that a sick man’s well-being will increase if he recovers from the sickness; or that a poor man’s well-being will increase if he acquires more money; or that anyone’s well-being will increase if he becomes happier or less unhappy.
● Within the experience machine, a person affects the real world, both negatively and positively: negatively, by his absence from the world; and positively, by increasing the world’s happiness (by definition, or by supposition, he’s happier in the machine than out of it).
[Later note (6-21-2024): To clarify, by “positive,” I mean good. But by “negative,” I don’t mean bad; I mean instead absence, as in negative space. A bad person’s absence from the world could be good . . . though we might regret that he is happier.]
● Friday, 3-29-2024: Well, it happened again: I shat myself on my daily walk. That’s bound to happen occasionally. For the last ten years or so, I’ve taken a mineral supplement that counteracts my natural tendency to constipation. It’s impossible to get the dosage exactly right. So, practically, I’ll have either a bit of constipation, or a bit of the opposite problem. I’d rather have the opposite problem, which I manage pretty well. But I have to be careful.
● Tuesday, 4-2-2024: In this read-through of the Journal, I’ve been making many good changes. On one hand, I’m surprised that I’m still finding edits. On the other hand, with nearly 700 pages’ worth of material, it would be even more surprising if I weren’t finding any.
● Wednesday, 4-3-2024: I had another in a series of recurrent dreams in which I was a painter struggling—unsuccessfully—to learn my craft. I felt desperate. I thought I was fast running out of time to learn. I wondered whether I should abandon traditional ways of learning and simply spend my time trying to paint, and hopefully learn by trial and error.
● Friday, 4-5-2024: Economists cheerily speak of the low level of unemployment in the country, and wonder why, despite the “good economy,” people feel so bad. But I’d like to ask them (the economists): “If you had one of those (low-wage, arduous, menial) jobs, how would you feel about it?! It’s like expecting someone in hell to be happy because he’s not in the worst level of hell.
● Good news and bad news: My rent was raised again; but it’s a very modest increase. The rent is still relatively low.
● Saturday, 4-6-2024: I plan to take my desert ride tomorrow. It will probably be the last time it’s cool enough for it until next Fall.
● I have a backache, the first one I’ve had since I took the Prednisone (the steroid) in February 2024. I’ll suspend my stretching and walking exercises until it passes.
● Sunday, 4-7-2024: Desert ride. I drove a rented Chevrolet Malibu; it’s a pretty good car. I got my usual bean and cheese burrito at Tom’s #25 in West Palmdale. This time it was not satisfying. I think it had more to do with my receptivity (for one thing, I wasn’t very hungry) than with the food itself. For the first time in years, perhaps in decades, the stream was flowing at my half-way stopping place, the “Four Oaks.” But I was too uncomfortably cold to be able to enjoy it. I used a brand new (and a new brand) CD player to play country music CDs. It’s not ideal—it’s not as good as the old Sony model I’ve been using (when it works)—but it’s adequate. The approximate first half of the ride was profoundly pleasant (I felt a marvelous sense of accomplishment, in my body of work, even in the portion of it that survives); the second half of the ride was mildly pleasant.
● Mercifully, today the backache is much better, though not fully resolved.
● Monday, 4-8-2024: I got yet another COVID-19 vaccination today.
● My back has almost completely returned to normal (normal for me).
● Wednesday, 4-10-2024: The backache has completely resolved.
● Friday, 4-12-2024: In the last few years, I’ve noticed long stretches of freeway surface damaged by some sort of tractor or tire tread.
● Sunday, 4-14-2024: Here’s the review I wrote of the new portable radio and CD player I recently bought for the car: The GPX Portable CD Player with FM Radio is very badly designed. You cannot preset stations on the radio. The next best thing would be to leave the radio tuned to the station you listen to the most. But you can’t even do that. After turning off the radio, when you turn it on again, it’s not on the station you last listened to. Every time you turn on the radio, you have to search for your station from scratch, and it’s not easy. The CD player isn’t much better. There’s no way to stop or pause the play so that it will resume playing a CD where you left off listening: it starts at the beginning of the CD every time. For example, say you’re listening to a CD with 20 songs, and you’re on song number 15. You stop driving to get a cup of coffee. When you get back in the car and want to continue listening—to song number 15—you have to press the skip button 15 (or 14) times to get there (and you have to either start at the beginning of song 15 or at the start of song 16). All in all, this device is so cumbersome to operate as to be practically unusable. If I didn’t know better, I’d wonder if it was a joke, perhaps a Candid Camera prank.
● Monday, 4-15-2024: Any sublime experience you have while in hospital is probably a result of drugs.
● Wednesday, 4-17-2024: I feel de-energized and vaguely achy—as if I’m sick, but without being sick.
● Thursday, 4-18-2024: The symptoms have gone.
● Sunday, 4-21-2024: Passover is “the Jewish holiday celebrating the Israelites’ liberation from slavery in Egypt.” (Wikipedia.) I think, if I were a religious Jew, I’d have trouble getting into the spirit of Passover, knowing that Israelites (or Israelis), far from being the sympathetic oppressed people they once were, are now evildoers.
● Wednesday, 4-24-2024: Bone density test yesterday.
● Donald Trump’s criminal trial for covering up hush-money payments to a pornography actress has begun. I heard that, in his opening statement, Trump’s lawyer vehemently attacked, as untrustworthy and dishonest, prosecution witness Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer.” That tactic is a double-edged sword: the danger, for Trump, is that it suggests that the substance of Cohen’s testimony, if believed, is harmful to Trump’s case.
● Saturday, 4-27-2024: Haircut (Brenda).
● Philosophy Club tomorrow. Topic: “Free will.” I’ve written much on free will. So I won’t write on it further. But I’ll read the assigned articles.
● The article on Free Will in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that most philosophers agree that causal determinism is a contingent matter, not necessarily true or necessarily false. That means that there are possible worlds not governed by causal determinism. And yet, I can’t imagine a world without causal determinism . . . or with free will. Perhaps my understanding is incomplete. . . . I just remembered that I have an argument proving that free will is impossible, and which argument doesn’t involve causal determinism. It’s my essay titled “The Impossibility of Knowledge, Free Will, and God.”
Here’s the statement I’ll make at the Philosophy Club meeting: All the arguments against free will presented in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article are based on causal determinism. The article says that most philosophers agree that causal determinism is a contingent matter, neither necessarily true nor necessarily false. Which implies that free will is possible, even if it doesn’t exist in this world. I have an argument that free will is impossible, but which doesn’t involve the concept of causal determinism. Here it is: [omitted]
● I had planned to share my arguments on free will with the Philosophy Club group. But I didn’t, because I was afraid that someone would steal my ideas. I’m in the process of applying for copyright protection, which I haven’t yet received.
● In the Philosophy Club discussion this evening, one participant said that she votes, and she thinks everyone should vote. I commented: “I don’t think everyone should vote: I think that right-wingers should stay home and relax.”
● Monday, 4-29-2024: Israel’s name for its military, Israeli Defense Forces, is a euphemism with chutzpah!
● Saturday, 5-4-2024: Yesterday I went to the bank to deposit paychecks totaling $33,000—I’d saved them up for several months (I wanted to wait till my tax-payment checks had cleared my account before depositing more money into it). But I could deposit only $13,000 of it, because Lance had only that much money in the bank account on which the checks were drawn. I’ll call his office on Monday. I’m sure the problem was a result of mere inadvertence on their part.
● Monday, 5-6-2024: I’ve decided not to call them (Lance’s office), but rather to just periodically try to cash those checks. If the omission was indeed inadvertent, I should be able eventually to cash them that way.
● Tuesday, 5-7-2024: I went to the bank today, and was able to deposit all the rest of the checks.
● I fear that Donald Trump may well win the U.S. presidential election again this year. A great many people here are suffering and angry. Unfortunately, it could be that simple.
● Wednesday, 5-8-2024: I just finished the latest read-through of my Journal. This one took a month and three weeks, longer than usual because I did it very leisurely and I was busy with other tasks. I made fewer edits than I usually do, but still enough to have made the effort worthwhile. I added six pages of new entries at the end; the piece is now 674 pages long, in my word processing document.
● Thursday, 5-9-2024: The Jewish people were chosen by God . . . to massacre the Palestinian people.
● A sure sign of Spring: the big aromatic bush that I pass on my walks has begun to emit fragrance.
● I think the climate in my little neighborhood is changing: In the last few years, the very hot part of the year—Spring and Summer—has been significantly shorter. It seems as if it will be so this year as well. It’s almost mid-May, and the weather is still cool.
● Truncated Camarillo drive. Refreshing.
● I got back home at about 2:30 p.m. For the next few hours, it was unusually calm and quiet here. I think all my immediate neighbors (the ones on both sides of me, and the ones above me) were away. It was wonderful. At least I don’t have roommates sharing the same space.
● Friday, 5-10-2024, 12:15 a.m.: In bed for the last five hours or so, I’ve felt headache and slight muscle aches, similar to the symptoms I wrote about a few weeks ago, on 4-17-2024, which I described as feeling “sick, but without being sick.” I know I’m not sick, because the muscle aches are too mild and, more important, I don’t have other symptoms that I always have when I’m ill, like a sore throat, nasal congestion, runny nose, and a cough. I just resorted to taking two tablets of Aleve (a NSAID). I may skip my morning exercises today.
● Since shortly after taking the Aleve, I’ve had not a trace of the discomfort. Of course, I’ll do my usual morning exercises.
● Saturday, 5-11-2024: Desert ride, in my rented Nissan Altima car. I went on Saturday this time, because I have a manicure appointment tomorrow, which would preclude it then. I rarely take the ride on Saturday; it’s usually Sunday. Traffic was even heavier than usual, which is probably why I don’t do it on Saturday. I ate my usual bean and cheese burrito at Tom’s #25 (it was unusually good), and took an hour’s nap in the car after the meal. The vision problem in my left eye (probably cataracts) was a constant vexation. The stream was still flowing at my halfway stopping place, the “Four Oaks.” That new radio/CD player has already begun to malfunction. I’ll buy a new one—a different brand, of course. The trip was not particularly enjoyable; but it was a good diversion. It will probably be too hot for the desert ride again until the Fall.
● Yesterday, my TV stopped working. I had to disconnect it and bring it back to the store (Best Buy) for repair or replacement. I feared that disconnecting it might cause the other television functions (the CD player and the streaming) to stop working, too. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that disconnecting the TV did not affect those other functions. I was planning to bring it back to the store today, but, as a last ditch effort, I reconnected it, and it’s working again!
● Sunday, 5-12-2024: If, in war, God really is on our side—and, remember, God is omnipotent—why do we sometimes lose, and, even when we win, victory is so costly for us in treasure and blood? . . . Or, if God doesn’t actually cause you to win the war, or even help you win, what does it mean for God to “be on your side”?—that He wants you to win, and hopes that you’ll win, but He doesn’t help you? And what implication would that have for the concept of God’s will?
● The United States . . . home of the hippopotamus.
● Monday, 5-13-2024: I just got good health news: my recent bone density test showed no significant bone loss since my last test, two years before. So I can stay off the bone-building medication, at least until my next bone density test, two years hence. I think perhaps drastically reducing my caffeine consumption in 2020 was critical in stopping the bone loss.
● In the last few days, for the first time this year, it’s been too hot to sleep, with my blankets, even with the electric blanket turned off. Now I’ll have to start opening my front door at night to cool the apartment, or sleep without the comforter. As the weather gets hotter and hotter, I’ll have to do both.
● Saturday, 5-18-2024: When I’m watching a movie or television series, and I can’t remember who some of the characters are, or their significance in the story, or how the situation got to where it is, I stop watching it. Occasionally the program is so interesting that I’ll re-watch it from the beginning to reacquaint myself with all its elements, but that’s unusual.
● There’s an old saying: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Here’s a corollary: If the old one works fine, don’t buy a new one.
● Sunday, 5-19-2024: Pedicure, at The Best Nails, in Northridge: $25 and an $8 tip. (I see that they raised their price since my last pedicure, about 7 months ago. It’s still relatively inexpensive, and a good deal for me.) I keep a supply of new two-dollar bills, which I use for tips for the manicurist/pedicurist.
● Next Tuesday will be my seventy-third birthday. (If your first birthday is the day you turn a year old, it means that the actual day of your birth is not considered a “birthday.”) Let’s take stock. My health—that of both body and mind—is still excellent. My financial situation remains good: I work part-time, which gives me enough money to cover all my expenses and even to save some money. I use the rest of the time to work on my writing, and I continue, slowly but steadily, to improve and expand my oeuvre, my main purpose in life. I’m still doing well.
● Philosophy Club; topic: “Social minimum.” The meeting was in-person. I didn’t attend, but I read Brian’s reading on the topic. Here are four thoughts I have on it:
1. I’m for social minimums, the provision to all people of the means to live at least a minimally decent (human) life. But I’m for a higher standard, which is rough equality (of resources among people). In fact, to put it in terms of the social minimum, I think everyone should be able to actualize his highest potential, which requires education and leisure. And if those needs are met, all the more basic other needs, like adequate food, housing, and healthcare, will probably also have been met.
2. It’s significant that arguments against social minimums come by and large from the rich. One suspects that their arguments are not genuine reasons, but glorified rationalizations—for what benefits them, at everyone else’s expense.
3. Libertarians oppose welfare payments to the poor on the grounds that it would entail coercively taking money from the wealthy, which would—impermissibly—infringe their freedom, their liberty. But the rich man’s freedom is always subject to conditions imposed by society. For example, he must pay taxes for various purposes: to fund the military, police, road construction and maintenance, and so forth. Taxation for the welfare of the poor is just another condition we impose. And even with all these conditions, the rich man still has more freedom than most others. He still makes out like a bandit.
4. A similar argument against social minimums is based on the supposed right of “self-ownership”: a person’s ownership of his body and talents, including the economic fruits of those talents. But the upholding or infringement of rights can be seen in terms of benefits and detriments (that is, welfare), so that “rights” and “welfare” are commensurable. Moreover, there are no objectively existing rights; only those “rights” exist that we choose to afford; and the decision as to what rights to afford is subjective. My own preference would be to redistribute wealth in favor of the poor, because, all things considered, the resultant benefit to the poor would greatly outweigh the “detriment”—including the detriment of, or caused by, infringement of the “right of self-ownership”—to the rich.
● Monday, 5-20-2024: Today, when I was returning to my apartment from the laundry room, the neighbors in no. 3 (the man and the woman and their toddler) came out of their apartment just as I was walking near them—to attack me, no doubt. The toddler waved at me and said something like “Hello.” I felt very awkward, but I thought I had to respond in a friendly way, and I waved back at him and said, “Hello.”
● Tuesday, 5-21-2024: Happy Birthday, Richard!
● I just awoke from a long, bizarre, colorful dream, in which many acquaintances were, or I was, undergoing dramatic means of execution, prominently including by fire. It was perhaps prompted by my birthday, which (at least subconsciously) stimulated thoughts about my mortality.
● Friday, 5-24-2024: After a two-week break (that’s becoming the standard length of the break from it now), I’m beginning another read-through of the Journal. Of course, during the breaks, as always, I continue to make new entries in my Diary, as they occur to me.
● Sunday, 5-26-2024: The Philosophy Club will meet today again, this time by Zoom, discussing the same topic (“Social minimum”) as it discussed last Sunday (I didn’t attend that meeting because it was in-person). I’m well prepared. Last week, I read and reread the article on the topic that Brian provided. And I formulated several rebuttals to arguments against social minimums, which arguments (of mine) are posted here, above, among last Sunday’s entries. In the meeting this afternoon I’ll recite numbers 3 and 4. I think they’re good and original arguments. The reason I’m willing to present these arguments but I was unwilling to present my argument on free will last month is that I think the argument on free will is even more important (so it’s more likely to be stolen and—if it were stolen—would be a more significant loss for me).
● In the Philosophy Club discussion, one member said that the harm a rich person does in being rich is limited to the money he spends, that the amount of money he merely has (without spending it) is immaterial. In reply, I said, consider two very rich persons, each with 10 billion dollars. Both live frugally. But one, the owner of Walmart, gives $9 billion by doubling the salary of Walmart employees. Is there no difference between those two men’s effects? The other member acknowledged that there was. I then asked, doesn’t that somewhat vitiate your original point? He didn’t have an answer.
● Another member said that we have a right to heavily tax Jeff Bezos because, in creating his business, he did not make it all by himself, but instead used public assets, like the Internet. I replied that, even if Bezos had somehow created his business all by himself, we still have a right to take the great majority of his wealth.
● Monday, 5-27-2024: I’m watching another Korean television series, The 8 Show. Like Squid Game, it seems to be an allegory for capitalism.
● Friday, 5-31-2024: This year, I’ve been getting a lot of sales calls over the telephone by computer programs masquerading as live persons. My strategy has been to respond to questions it asks me—or to say something—that trips up the program, that exposes it as a computer program and not a person. For example, when it asks me how I am, I may say that my doctor has just diagnosed me with terminal cancer, and then I ask, “How are you?” The program doesn’t respond to the news about my terminal diagnosis, but simply says, “I’m fine. Thank you for asking.” Another time, I said, “I’m a vampire. Did you know that?” I don’t remember the response (but it worked). Or perhaps I go silent. You can’t simply ask whether it’s a computer or a person—it’s prepared for that: it answers that it’s a person. Lately, I’ve taken a different tack: I just hang up. I figure that, since it’s not a person, it won’t be offended . . . and there’s little point in talking to a computer program (it’s not as if anyone else is listening to the “conversation”).
● Sunday, 6-2-2024: If art should not be done for art’s sake, for what sake should it be done?
● Monday, 6-3-2024: I just awoke from a dream in which I was the proprietor of a gambling game. It was set in my old home in West Hills, which house my sister now owns. I had just played someone and had either won or lost under one hundred dollars, and I was getting ready for the next game, by gathering dollar bills. Very soon, however, the stakes began to increase, to include pieces of real estate, and I started to panic, thinking that I hadn’t expected the stakes to be so high. I consulted the game’s rules to try to find a rule against it, but could find no such rule. Resigned to this new development, I was formulating a rule that one player could not lose more than one piece of property, though a player could win more than one property. I think the dream reflects my thinking lately about money. I’d been feeling good about the amount of money I’ve saved. But then it occurred to me that I still don’t have enough money to buy a decent house.
● Tuesday, 6-4-2024: My dental hygienist asked me whether I have any Summer plans. I said, “My Summer plans are the same as my Winter plans.”
● Wednesday, 6-5-2024: I just awoke from a dream in which I had been tangentially involved in the sport of showing or racing thoroughbred horses. My benefactor (possibly my father, but it wasn’t clear) and I were going to buy some horses, and I pleaded with him to pay more, as much as possible, because the more we paid, the better the horses the seller would pick out for us. I was promising my benefactor that I would spend the time to work with our new horses, when I woke up. I don’t know how to interpret that dream.
● Saturday, 6-8-2024: Yesterday I discovered that I’ve lost a year’s worth of emails that I sent (those from about May 2023 to May 2024). I’m chagrined at the loss, but not devastated, because, though they’re part of my written work, they were not a very important part of it. Now I must find a way to back up all my emails, especially the ones I send.
● Monday, 6-10-2024: In response to my hostile neighbors, I’ve recently made yet another adjustment to how I live here in the apartment: I’ve stopped using the radios in my bedroom and on my desk, because I believe the neighbors in no. 3 have found a way to jam them (and are doing so): sometimes I hear only static on them. So I simply leave the radios off, to deprive those people of the satisfaction.
● Friday, 6-14-2024: For the last year or two I’ve worked exclusively for Garrett Law Group (handling workers’ compensation depositions). During most of that time they’ve kept me pretty busy (as busy as I’d want to be). But in the last few months, the work has dwindled considerably, and in the last few weeks, they’ve had as little as one deposition a week. Today, for the first time in several years, I sent a work-solicitation letter to another (workers’ compensation) lawyer. I’m starting slowly, because I don’t want work from very many lawyers, just one or two, which somehow seems more convenient and easy to manage.
● Sunday, 6-16-2024: Desert ride. Pleasant, refreshing. I ate breakfast at Tom’s #25 Restaurant in West Palmdale. I had my usual bean and cheese burrito. It was good. I took an hour’s nap in my car in the parking lot. Again my poor vision in my left eye tormented me, especially during the first half of the ride. I don’t know whether it was because the vision improved during the second half, or I just got used to it, or the views of landscapes during the first half were such as to make the visual defect more noticeable, or perhaps I was more eager during the first half to savor the views. I used another new CD player, Jensen brand. It’s not as good as the old Sony Walkman, but it’s adequate (and it works). I couldn’t figure out how to preset radio stations on it, so I simply use the old Sony device for the radio, and the Jensen for CDs. It was so windy at my halfway stopping place in Mojave that I didn’t even bother to get out of the car and walk to the stream to see whether it was still flowing. Traffic was lighter than usual, which of course made the trip more pleasant. Summer’s heat will probably preclude my taking the drive again until the Fall.
● Thursday, 6-20-2024: Why was the mammoth so named? Because it’s big.
● Friday, 6-21-2024: I just finished the latest read-through of my Journal. This one took 28 days. I added 6 pages of new material at the end; it’s now 681 pages long, as a word processing document. For about a year’s time, I’ve been editing the work by reading the online version. In the next read-through I’ll read the word processing version, to catch mistakes there which are not on the website. In this latest reading, I saw such a mistake—apparently my webmaster, when she posted the work, corrected it in the posting, but didn’t alert me to the mistake, so I never corrected it in the word processing document.
● Saturday, 6-22-2024: The Philosophy Club meets tomorrow, by Zoom. The topic is: “Can purely internal thoughts or beliefs, without words or actions, be unethical?” Here’s my answer:
Thoughts and beliefs, without words or deed, cannot be unethical, for two reasons: One, they don’t affect other people. And, two, while we have some practical control of our words and deeds, we have no practical control of our thoughts or beliefs. As Nietzsche famously (and truly) said: “A thought comes when it will, not when I will.” And, as I said, “Belief [or thought] is a fact, not a choice.”
But if we assumed, for the sake of discussion, that thoughts and beliefs could be unethical, what would an unethical thought or belief be? How would we define it, and what are some examples? If you would say that it’s unethical to think about murdering another person, what if the thinker believes that the person he wants to kill is a bad person?
● In the Maverick Philosopher blog, in a post titled “Can Mere Thoughts be Morally Wrong?,” former philosophy professor Bill Vallicella states four arguments for the proposition that mere thoughts can be morally wrong. Here are those arguments, and my rebuttals:
1. He argues that a thought to do an immoral act might itself be immoral because thinking about the deed raises the probability of the deed. My response: That’s a flawed inference. If there’s a correlation between a person’s thinking about doing a bad act and the likelihood of his doing it, I think a more probable explanation is this: thinking about the act doesn’t cause the act; rather, an underlying urge to do the act causes both his act (if it happens) and his thoughts about doing it. Indeed, his thinking about it might make him less likely to do it, by making him aware of his urge to do it, which might enable him to take some precautions against it, like getting psychotherapy.
A more fundamental problem with Vallicella’s argument is that it fails to address the issue, which is the immorality (or not) of mere thoughts—thoughts unconnected with words or actions. By arguing that thoughts make actions more likely, Vallicella considers thoughts connected with actions. We’re asked to keep action out of consideration; Vallicella brings it in, through the backdoor.
2. Vallicella’s second argument, a variation or elaboration of his first one, goes this way: Both murder and the verbal threat of murder are morally wrong, murder being even worse than the verbal threat. If the verbal threat to murder is morally wrong even though it causes no physical harm to the person threatened, it’s because it causes mental harm. But it wouldn’t cause mental harm if the threat were taken to be idle (not likely to be enacted). So part of what makes the threat harmful, and morally wrong, is its potentiality to be enacted. But a similar potentiality lies in the murderous thought. So if the verbal threat to murder is morally wrong, “then . . . the premeditation is also morally wrong.”
My response: The mental harm caused by a verbally expressed murder threat is not just the fear that the threat might be carried out. It’s also the emotional reaction to any kind of hostile gesture, even just an insult. You’d be upset (perhaps even mentally harmed) if someone angrily said to you, “Go to hell!”—even if you knew that no violence would follow. More to the point, the person who is verbally threatened with murder does not necessarily know how likely or unlikely the threat’s ultimate fulfilment is. The threat’s perceived potentiality to be carried out is a function, not of its actual potentiality therefor, but of the threat itself. It’s the threat’s being communicated that causes the fear, and the consequent mental harm. If the hostile person kept the thought to himself, it would cause no such mental harm to the other person. And, again, how did we get to premeditation, which implies intention and planning . . . from “mere thoughts”?!
3. Vallicella’s third argument, another variation on the first, goes like this: A disposition may manifest itself in thoughts. Dispositions can be morally wrong, and are more fundamental than the thoughts that may manifest them. Therefore, thoughts, too, can be morally wrong. My response: That doesn’t follow. A disposition is a habitual inclination, a tendency. If a man with a disposition to commit murder commits murder, it was his disposition to murder that caused him to murder, not the thoughts (which the disposition also caused). Vallicella’s argument here is like saying: A murderous disposition is morally wrong; if that disposition causes a nervous tic, therefore, the tic, too, is morally wrong.
4. Here’s Vallicella’s fourth argument: Entertaining bad thoughts may harm the thinker himself. He has a moral duty to himself not to harm himself. His entertaining the bad thoughts may violate this moral duty to himself, and therefore may be morally wrong. My response: Moral duties are essentially owed to others, not to oneself. Harming oneself may be foolish, but it’s not immoral.
● Sunday, 6-23-2024: Vallicella argues that we regard the kind-hearted person as praiseworthy and morally valuable for his disposition to speak and act kindly, even when he’s not so speaking or acting. Hence, likewise, we should condemn the ill-disposed person, even when he’s not so speaking or acting. My response: Our praise for the kind person is based on what he says and does. We don’t have a person who’s never in his life said a kind word or done a good deed, take an x-ray of his soul, and, holding the film up to the light, declare: “Mr. Smith, at heart, you’re actually a very generous man!,” and so give him a commendation. Nor would this happen: At the sentencing hearing of a convicted serial murderer, the murderer’s lawyer says that, despite all the evil his client has done, he’s had many kind, loving thoughts, and in fact a recent soul x-ray showed him to be, deep down, a good person . . . and, on that basis, argue for a reduced prison sentence.
Mental states are morally relevant, but only in connection with actions. Consider, for example, a driver who hits a pedestrian with his car. The driver’s mental state (probably, more specifically, his intention) at the time of the collision is relevant to our evaluation of the act: was the collision accidental or deliberate/malicious? This is true at least partly as a matter of practicality: It’s problematic to censure or punish people for bare mental states, without actions. And we need to have an action, to determine a mental state. It seems that what we morally evaluate is mental state-cum-action.
More simply and fundamentally, Vallicella has somehow replaced mere thought with disposition. But mere thought no more implies disposition than it implies “premeditation.” If mere disposition, not reflected in words or deeds, is not immoral, it’s even more nonsensical, so to speak, to so judge mere thought.
● Monday, 6-24-2024: I have a vague impression—perhaps from something my mother once told me about it—that when, in California, as a very young child, my parents sent me to school for the first time . . . I didn’t want to go, I was afraid to go. But, once there, I didn’t want to leave.
● Why are heavenly bodies spherical?
● Tuesday, 6-25-2024: Truncated Camarillo drive. Refreshing.
● For the first time this year, I brought my heavy down jacket and muffler to the car (and left it there). Until next Fall, it will be warm enough in the mornings that I won’t need to wear the jacket going from my apartment to my car. (I don’t wear that jacket in my apartment, even when it’s very cold.)
● Wednesday, 6-26-2024: This week I had one deposition . . . and then it was canceled. And in the last few weeks, the previously almost-daily deposition readbacks have stopped. I’m in an unpleasant two-week hiatus between Journal read-throughs. I tried to do the productive activity I usually resort to during these breaks, reading Robert Graves’s The Reader Over Your Shoulder; but yesterday and today I haven’t had the energy or the concentration to do it, or to do any other productive activity. So both days I’ve gone for short drives. Today I took the full Camarillo drive. I really need a vacation—perhaps drive to another city and stay in a hotel for a few days. But somehow I resist it. I don’t want to spend the money on a hotel; I’m reluctant to be away from the conveniences of home. And my frequent, unpredictable bowel movements and my reliance on urinary catheters to urinate are also significant handicaps. For example, if I went to an amusement park, how would I urinate? I’d have to carry my catheters with me, which would be awkward and uncomfortable . . . combined with my phobia of using dirty or crowded public restrooms. Or I’d have to go back to my car to urinate—but for that I’d have to rent a van. So I take a vacation in bits and pieces, just by suspending work and taking short drives. (For slightly longer drives, the desert is better for me than some other trips I’ve taken, like to Santa Barbara, because, on the desert drive, there are abundant places where I can pull over to the side of the road to urinate or defecate. On my last drive to Santa Barbara, several years ago, I couldn’t find a convenient place to urinate, and so I had to hold it until I got back home. The shorter drives are short enough that, if I urinate just before I leave, I shouldn’t have to do so again until I get back home, or at least I can hold it till then.)
● Thursday, 6-27-2024: White supremacists have plenty of white. But they’re a little deficient in grey.
● I took another full Camarillo drive—the coast variant. I stopped at the beach, but it was too crowded (a TV crew was shooting a commercial), so I drove on. It’s about 83 miles, 3 hours. It was a pleasant outing.
● I’m looking forward to watching the big debate tonight, between President Biden and the Liar in Chief. . . . Well, that’s inaccurate: it’s the former Liar in Chief.
● I watched the debate. Biden needed to show clarity and vigor. As someone who strongly favors Biden over Trump, it was disheartening. Nay, it was a nightmare!
● Friday, 6-28-2024: Another full Camarillo drive. I’m trying to simulate a vacation.
● Well, just one week to go until I start another read-through of the Journal! These breaks from it are tough.
● Saturday, 6-29-2024: Another full Camarillo drive. I came back going through Simi Valley, on Los Angeles Avenue, and through the Santa Susanna Pass. About 77 miles. It was pleasant.
I particularly enjoy driving on curvy canyon roads. I do it very skillfully. I generally prefer to be alone on the road. But sometimes, I don’t mind if another driver is following me in a canyon; I like having an audience; I show off for the other driver. I almost feel as if I’m therein doing art. I drive sportily in canyons only going downhill, where the sole control of my speed is by braking, where gravity will propel me to sporty speeds, those limited only by the configuration of the road. Because of my neurotic phobia about straining the car’s engine, I never drive uphill in a sporty way; uphill canyon driving is painfully slow. In fact, I take some of my drives just in one direction (I never reverse the course), so that I drive the canyon sections only downhill.
When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I rode motorcycles, and I was also a very skillful motorcycle rider, both on the street and in the dirt.
● Sunday, 6-30-2024: I again took my full Camarillo drive. In fact, it was a slightly elongated version: I exited the freeway before my usual exit, so as to be able to drive both segments of curvy road that I sometimes traverse in Camarillo. I returned through Simi Valley, but via the 118 freeway instead of Los Angeles Avenue and the Santa Susanna Pass. For a time I was on Easy Street (literally—that’s the name of a street in Simi Valley . . . of course, Id rather be on East Street figuratively). The ride was about the same total distance as yesterday’s. My menu of available activity-diversions is very small.
● Monday, 7-1-2024: Every year, a few days before July 4th, a real estate company inserts little wooden sticks with little plastic American flags attached (as well as their company information) in the front yard of every house in the neighborhood. Many of them remain there for months. I think it’s an eyesore. I resent it.
● A blurb under a photograph of the animal on an Internet news website read: “A rare white bison calf is missing in Yellowstone. What you need to know.” And I thought . . . I don’t need to know anything about it. I didn’t read the news item. (So, if there was something I needed to know about it, then I’m deficient.)
● I sometimes call Monday, Day of the Moon (Moonday).
● Tuesday, 7-2-2024: In the recent presidential debate, a moderator asked Trump if he’d respect the result of this year’s presidential election. He said something to the effect of “If it’s fair and legal.” In other words, if he wins.
● Wednesday, 7-3-2024: This was a weird day. Three firsts happened: One, when I have a morning deposition in Glendale, as I did today, I often eat breakfast at Porto’s Restaurant. I almost always, in recent years, get the chicken sandwich. Today I tried something different: the Cubano sandwich, something like a glorified ham sandwich. I prefer the chicken sandwich. Two, for the first time ever, I went to the wrong deposition address. When I got to the office, I was immediately informed that the deposition had been cancelled. So I went back home. I then got a call saying that the deponent (the person whose deposition was to be taken) was waiting for me—where was I? I then looked at my calendar and discovered that I’d gone to the wrong address. I was able to salvage the situation, handling the deposition by Zoom. Three, today, for the first time this year, it was hot enough in my apartment that I needed to turn on the electric fans for cooling.
Tomorrow is July 4th, when people will explode firecrackers, which will require that I keep my front door closed at night (because of the resultant noise and air pollution—opening it at night is my only means of cooling the apartment in hot weather). And we’re in the midst of a heat wave that will last through the weekend. It’s going to be hell, for me.
● I just awoke from a dream in which I had written several folk songs. I was particularly proud of one of them, which I thought was a classic. I was surprised that I’d actually written one so good.
● Thursday, 7-4-2024: Biden has a bit of a memory problem. But he’s honest; he’s trying to help the country; and he’s done a pretty good job as president. Trump is a pathological liar, a narcissist, and he tries to advantage himself, at the expense, it usually turns out, of most of the rest of the country. He tried to overthrow the government, and will probably try to do so again if he loses this year’s presidential election as well. So, which of them is mentally unfit to be president?!
● Friday, 7-5-2024: Well, this morning the air is too polluted either to open my front door to cool the apartment or to take my exercise-walks. I just hope that tonight people in the neighborhood don’t shoot off firecrackers again. I fear that they might do so, because, though yesterday was July 4th, today is Friday (a night when working people typically party, or celebrate) . . ..
● I was going to start another read-through of the Journal today, because it’s been two weeks since I finished the last one. But I’ll delay it for a few days, to finish rereading a certain section in Robert Graves’s The Reader Over Your Shoulder.
● I got no response to the ten or so letters I recently sent to attorneys advertising my deposition services. But I just got more work from a firm for whom I handled depositions a few years ago: Accident Defenders. They have three depositions next week. It’s not as lucrative as the work for Lance, because all of their depositions are by Zoom, so there’s no travel. But it’s better than none (or than one). (See my fourth 8-20-2022 entry, above.)
● Sunday, 7-7-2024: Well, today I start another read-through of the Journal. This last break was longer than usual, 15 days. That’s two days longer than usual, not just one day longer. What I call a two-week break is technically 13 days (for example, if my last day of a Journal read-through is a Friday, I’ll start the next read-through about two weeks hence, but on Friday; and the number of days between those two Fridays—the length of the break, the number of days on which I don’t work—is 13).
● Tuesday, 7-9-2024: Yesterday morning I made a blunder in dealing with the neighbors in no. 3: Just as the man was returning to their apartment, just before he got to their door, I got up from my seat at my desk and went into my bedroom. The woman was home at the time, and took note of my action. In retrospect, my action was inexplicable. Did I not learn from when I made the same slip several years ago with the last residents there? We’ll see how this plays out.
● In this latest read-through of the Journal, I’m still making many, many edits.
● Sunday, 7-14-2024: Yesterday there was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, in which a bullet merely grazed his right (outer) ear. I’ll refrain from making the comment I’m tempted to make. That will save me the trouble of deleting it.
● A badly written movie cannot be saved by good acting.
● Monday, 7-15-2024: I’ve heard it said that you learn more from your failures than from your successes. That’s misleading, in these ways. To begin with, you don’t need to outright fail in order to succeed (for example, you don’t need to get shot, to know that getting shot is to be avoided). And you can learn just as well from your lesser degrees of success as you can from your failures. More important, you won’t learn if you only fail. You need some successes. You need to know what works, as well as what doesn’t work. And the point of learning from failure is to get to success, which, of course, doesn’t happen if you only fail. The statement seems to exalt failure. That’s false. What we can say is that, while failure is bad—to be avoided if possible—when it happens, we should at least try to learn from it.
● Wednesday, 7-18-2024: Here’s a reply email I sent to a publisher today:
Hi Nyssa,
I missed you when I called earlier. I’m still in the process of copyrighting my manuscript. It was so voluminous that my copyright attorney suggested submitting it to the copyright office in parts. I got the copyright on the first part she submitted. When I next asked her about the status, she said she’d forgotten that we’d broken it into parts and that she was supposed to get back to me when we got the copyright on the first part. I then asked her a question about it; she said she’d let me know when she had an answer. That was a few weeks ago. To make a long story short (or to keep an already-too-long story from getting much longer), I can’t predict when this will be finished, but I suppose it will be sometime this year.
The delay is not all bad, though. In the interval, I’m editing the manuscript, and continually improving it. When everything is finally ready, you’ll be the first publisher to whom I submit the work.
Thank you again for your interest.
Sincerely,
Richard (Eisner)
● A significant event happened today. I established a new angry-sound against the no. 1 neighbor. A coup!
● Friday, 7-19-2024: I just had an interesting experience. After a deposition in the mid-Wilshire district (Los Angeles) this morning, I left my (two) briefcases, not in the office where the deposition was, but in or near the parking lot. When I got home and saw that they were gone, I immediately drove back to the building. They were nowhere to be seen. I assumed I had left them at the automated parking-payment machine, but the building security person played back a video that showed me paying the parking and, before I walked away, picking up the briefcases. That meant I probably left them where my car was parked. I gave my information to the parking office. I felt devastated. Not only were those very nice briefcases, but I had lots of important stuff in them: my computers, cell phone, fancy pen, my (paper) calendar. When I got home the second time, the parking office called me and told me they had video of a woman at 12:34 p.m. picking up my briefcases, putting them in her car, and driving off. They were going to arrange to give me the license plate number of that car. Then I checked my email messages, and one of them said that the court reporter who reported my deposition this morning had my briefcases. I called her, and she said that she happened to see me drive off without taking my briefcases, and she took them to her office. I’ll retrieve them on Monday. What a relief! . . . In retrospect, the mishap (if I hadn’t recovered them, I’d have said calamity) was caused by my violating my own rule about sequence of tasks: when I got to my car, I should have immediately put the briefcases in the trunk of the car. Instead, I first took off my jacket and stowed it. That was just enough time and activity to cause me to forget about the briefcases . . ..
● Saturday, 7-20-2024: Cigarette-smoke smell in bedroom this morning. Miserable!
● Sunday, 7-21-2024: Philosophy Club meeting, by Zoom. I’ll be unable to attend, because my Zoom device is in my briefcase. The topic is: “Does science make belief in God obsolete?” I’ll set forth some first impressions of mine on the topic, and then read the articles that Brian Gould provided. Then I’ll write further thoughts, if I have any.
Science does not obsolete belief in God, because the idea of God gives different sorts of explanations than science does. The different explanations given by the idea of God are in two categories. One is philosophical. The idea of God is used to explain how the whole universe and all its contents came to be. Science does not explain that (at least it hasn’t yet). Those who believe in God answer that question by saying simply that God created everything. The explanation ultimately fails. Among other problems with it, you’ve merely replaced the original mystery with another one of equal (in fact, greater) difficulty: How did God come to be? The explanation’s failure doesn’t seem to trouble its adherents.
The other category of alternative explanations provided by the idea of God is religious. It allows people to think of themselves as, not arbitrary, surpassable products of random evolution, but unique, ultimately superior beings; and of the universe as, not indifferent, but friendly. It allows them to imagine that their fate is not oblivion, but eternal joy (in Heaven); and that life is, not meaningless, but meaningful.
On second thought, I have shown (through the science of logic, in my short essay “The Impossibility of Knowledge, Free Will, and God”) that God is impossible. Belief in God would become obsolete if my essay were widely read and understood. But I suspect that won’t happen for a long, long time!
● Monday, 7-22-2024: I picked up my briefcases this morning. I presumably ran over them with my car, but there was not a scratch on them.
● I’ve said that, to the extent that my pursuing goals besides happiness makes me less happy, I’m unfortunate, inasmuch as happiness, and only happiness, is inherently good for us. In practice, though, we don’t have that choice. We’re made such that we cannot achieve happiness by seeking it directly. By and large, whatever happiness we get comes indirectly, from fulfilling our other purposes. If you think you’ve not fulfilled your purpose, you’ll feel frustrated. If you experience no purpose (besides acquiring happiness), you’ll feel empty.
● Saturday, 7-27-2024: Reading my Journal (for editing) without making any changes is like sleeping without dreaming.
● Sunday, 7-28-2024: About 15 minutes ago (at about 10:00 a.m.), the electricity in my apartment went out. I had tentatively planned to go for a short pleasure-drive. But the electricity outage prevented me. I wanted to stay at home. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s just that I’d be unable to enjoy the ride, worrying about the electricity. . . . Ten minutes ago, at about 10:40 a.m., the electricity came back on. I could go for the drive. But I think I’d rather stay at home, and work on my Journal.
● Tuesday, 7-30-2024: The last few mornings have been miserable, with the (albeit slight) smell of cigarette smoke drifting into my apartment.
● Wednesday, 7-31-2024: I just awoke from a dream in which endometriosis was defined as “emanating from home.” For example, if you felt inspired to move to a new home, the inspiration came from the place of your new home, not from where you were leaving.
● Thursday, 8-1-2024: I met with Attorney Michael Burgis this morning. He specializes in applicant workers’ compensation cases, and he has a large, impressive practice. He has a lot of clients and a lot of depositions, which I may start handling for him.
● Friday, 8-2-2024: Here’s an email reply I sent to a publisher:
Dear Michael,
Thank you for the information.
I’m not ready to pursue this right now. Among other things, I first want to get my manuscript copyrighted (that’s in process). But I will share with you that I was incensed by your description of your publishing services as including “meticulous line editing.” I wouldn’t let you edit my work—meticulously or any other way! You could make suggestions for edits, and if I think your suggestion is an improvement, I’ll make the change. I’d insist on retaining thorough, ultimate creative control of the published work.
Richard Eisner
● Wednesday, 8-7-2024: On 7 October 2023, Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist political and military organization, attacked Israel, killing 1,200 Israeli civilians. Since then, in it’s nearly year’s-long responsive military campaign, Israel has killed about 40,000 Palestinians, almost all of them civilians. When Israel is criticized for its attack on the Palestinians, it invokes the slogan “Israel has a right to defend itself.” Of course, Israel does have a right to defend itself. And Hamas’ October 7th attack on Israel was indeed a crime. But Israel’s response is not defense—it’s retaliation. And the retaliation is so disproportionate that it’s a crime—of even greater enormity than the one that prompted it. Perhaps retaliation is too charitable. Perhaps it’s opportunistic aggression. In any event, there should be an arms embargo on Israel, and war crimes trials for Israeli government officials. Shame on Israel. And shame on the United States for supporting and enabling Israel’s crimes.
● On recently rereading the 12-17-2020 entry, above, about eating less at dinner possibly helping my sleep at night, I redoubled my effort to eat less at dinner, and, because of that, I definitely sleep better.
● Today, my client was very late for her deposition. The (Spanish) interpreter called her, but was unable to reach her. I emailed Lance’s office about the situation, and they sent me a reply saying that the client was parking her car. When she didn’t show up in ten minutes’ time, I commented to the interpreter that, presumably, the client was parking nearby . . .. I then joked, as if spoken by the client: “Well, there’s good news and bad news: The bad news is that I drove to a different city. The good new is that I found parking.”
● Thursday, 8-8-2024: I’m ambivalent about Donald Trump running for president (again). The negative feeling is that I’m very frightened about the great (further) harm he’ll do to this country if he wins the election. The positive feeling is that I’d really enjoy watching him lose!
● Friday, 8-9-2024: In February 2022, two and a half years ago, Russia invaded its neighbor Uraine, and has been attacking it ever since. In the last few weeks, Ukraine, for the first time, instead of fighting Russia just inside Ukraine, has attacked Russia inside Russia, albeit close to the Russia-Ukraine border. Russian dictator Putin has criticized those attacks as somehow illegitimate. But it’s all right for Russia to invade Ukraine and attack Ukraine in Ukraine? I’d like to hear Putin explain why the one is legitimate but the other isn’t.
● Saturday, 8-10-2024: Haircut (Brenda). She mentioned to me that she’s been cutting my hair for about 15 years now. I didn’t remember how long it had been. I later checked my Diary, and was surprised to find that I had no record of it.
● Sunday, 8-11-2024: On Friday, 8-2-2024, my right upper extremity injury symptoms flared up, probably caused by some awkward movement I made the day before at Attorney Michael Burgis’s office, when I was there for an interview. A few days later I did something very foolish: On my exercise-walk, a tree branch protruded onto the sidewalk; to remove it, I forcefully snapped it—with my right hand. That made the symptoms much worse, worse than ever before. They’re starting to improve, but only very slowly. I hope I haven’t done further permanent injury. The obvious lesson: don’t use an injured body part strenuously, especially during a flare-up.
● This morning, on my first exercise-walk, at about 5:30, in the dark, a man pulling a train of about six shopping carts tied together left three of them (tied together) in the middle of the street. I was a Good Samaritan and moved them to the curb. . . . On my second exercise-walk, at about 7:30 a.m., the carts were gone, probably retrieved by the man who left them. . . . I pulled the carts with my right arm, and I think I thus further aggravated the injury.
● Is there a thought without content? . . . Perhaps this.
● Wednesday, 8-14-2024: I’m in a crisis with my right arm. It’s the worst, by far, that it’s ever been. I think that second aggravation, pulling the carts, was even worse than the first one (breaking the branch)—and the first one was pretty bad. Why I pulled the carts with my right arm instead of my left will forever baffle me. I’m very worried about it. I fear I may have worsened the injury permanently.
● Saturday, 8-17-2024: I just finished the latest read-through of my Journal. This one took about 40 days. It was very productive. I added about 10 pages of new material at the end. It’s now (in the word processing document) 692 pages long.
● Tuesday, 8-20-2024: The 2024 Republican presidential campaign reveals that their candidate, Donald Trump, is not a man of ideas—he’s a man of insults.
● I’ve often criticized Donald Trump. But let’s give him credit where it’s due. I think he could be very helpful—far more helpful than Kamala Harris, or anyone else—in our fight against global climate destruction. We could arrange to have him face a windmill array, and spew insults. The resultant blast of hot air could cause the windmill blades to spin extraordinarily fast and thus generate a huge amount of (otherwise) clean electricity.
● Wednesday, 8-21-2024: I recently heard a political commentator say that nowadays the Republicans are the party of the poor and the poorly educated and the Democrats are the party of the better off and the better educated (whereas it used to be the other way round). I suspect that, if the Republicans are now the party of the poor and the poorly educated, it’s not because the Republicans better represent their interests (they don’t), but rather because, being poorly educated, those people don’t understand that the Republicans are even worse for them than the Democrats; they’re more easily fooled than better educated people. In other words, they vote Republican because they’re ignorant.
● Saturday, 8-24-2024: My right arm seems, for the most part, to have returned to normal (normal for me)—a great relief!
● Truncated Camarillo drive. Refreshing.
● Sunday, 8-25-2024: From when I was about 6 years old through my late twenties, I was usually in psychotherapy. I don’t clearly remember why my parents sent me to therapy in the earlier years. I vaguely remember my mother later telling me that it was because I didn’t get along well with other children and I had no friends. From about 14 or 15 through my late twenties, I wanted to be in therapy, and I remember more clearly why. At that age (14 or 15), I became extremely angry, especially toward my mother, and had seemingly uncontrollable fits of rage, in which I sometimes even broke furniture in the house (I never physically attacked another person). When I was about 16, I became severely depressed; the depression lasted until I was about 30 (the intense anger subsided by my late teens or early twenties). I think the depression was a greater motivation than the anger for me to want therapy; for my parents, it was probably the other way round. Also at about that time (when I was 16), my parents sent me to a new psychiatrist, a Dr. Arthur Sorosky, in Encino, California. I had weekly individual talk therapy sessions with him, and group therapy under his direction. Most of the members of the group were teenage boys with drug problems. I had never used drugs. I formed an acquaintance with one of the boys, Art B, whom I’ve referred to as my friend-foe. He introduced me to marijuana, which began a nearly thirty-year drug habit. When I was 18, my depersonalization / derealization began, during a marijuana-smoking session. That condition, which affects me profoundly, has never ended, or even lifted for a moment. About the same time, Art B tried to induce me to take LSD, which effort, fortunately, I did resist. In retrospect, I think it was malpractice for Sorosky to put me, someone who did not use drugs, in a group of people, about my age, who did use drugs. The risk should have been obvious that I’d start using drugs. In any event, when I was 20 or 21, at the urging of my next psychotherapist, Fred Penrose, I ended my relationship with Art B. Despite the enormous harm the relationship with Art B caused me, there was one positive element in it: I think he genuinely admired my artistic creativity. I once expressed to him my worry that I wouldn’t keep producing good paintings. He said, “There’s more where that came from.” Which strikes me as a beautiful, deeply encouraging, and true statement, about me. Though I’ve switched from painting to writing, I seem to have an inexhaustible supply of creative ideas. Sometimes the flow of them stops, but it eventually resumes. Taking a broader view, I value my creative productivity above all else in my life. And given how pleased I am with my oeuvre, I find it hard to feel much regret about anything in my past. I don’t know whether, had things gone much differently, I would have done the creative work I’ve done.
● Philosophy Club meeting. The topic: “Color.” Here are my thoughts:
Galileo argues that color is in the mind of the observer, not in the outside world, because, if there were no observer, there would be no color. It’s true that there would be no color without an observer. But I think it’s more accurate to say that color is in both: that it’s an interaction between the world and the observer. It can’t be just in the observer. Let’s say I have a card painted red and another one painted blue, and I hold up the blue card for you to look at. You’re seeing blue. If I exchange the blue card for the red one, you’re then seeing a different color. Your seeing a different color is a result, not of a change in you, but of a change in the outside world. To clarify, the cause of the perception of color is an interaction between the outside world and the observer. But, of course, the perception is in the observer. (Essentially, then, Galileo is right: color is subjective; it’s part of the content of perception, not of the outside world.)
Also, the question was asked, “Could my color red be your color blue?” My answer: It could be, but it probably isn’t . . . any more than my A-sharp is your D-flat. If different people saw different colors, or heard different pitches, there would probably be much less agreement than there is about art.
● Tuesday, 8-27-2024: I’ve forgotten the question. But I remember the answer: No.
● Wednesday, 8-28-2024: Nina Simone wrote, in a song: Mississippi Goddam! Well, I write: Israel Goddam!
● Thursday, 8-29-2024: Often I must temper my urge to write with a consideration whether the material is important or interesting enough to record (if it’s not, I feel I should—try to—restrain my urge). It’s like driving. You may like to drive, but you have to consider what trips are worth taking. You wouldn’t, for example, drive round and round the block, just because you like to drive. My need for restraint in this regard, in writing, is necessitated by my lack of selectivity in transferring material from my Diary to my Journal. . . . Alas, sometimes (in writing), when I have no better trip to take, I think I do resort to driving around the block.
● This has been a rough week. I was on call for jury duty. Even though I was not summoned, I had to call in every evening (for 5 days) to find out if I’d have to go to court the following day. As a result, I lost the whole week’s work (attending depositions), since my attorney-clients need to know my availability at least 24 hours in advance of a deposition. If I were in the midst of a read-through of my Journal, being at home for an entire week would have been pleasant. But I’m between read-throughs, with only hard, tedious work to do (reading Robert Graves’s The Reader Over Your Shoulder). I’ve been more depressed than usual. Two days this week I resorted to taking two naps in a day, instead of my usual just-one.
● Saturday, 8-31-2024: I’m starting another read-through of my Journal.
● Sunday, 9-1-2024: Truncated Camarillo drive. Pleasant.
● In the last two days, I covered about 35 pages in my Journal. I’m still making many edits!
● Saturday, 9-7-2024: I had a long, drawn-out dream this morning in which I was trying to change my last name from Eisner to von Hyack. The von Hyack name seemed to be available, and I thought I’d be much better known as an author using that name.
● Sunday, 9-8-2024: As to some of Trump’s false assertions, calling them lies is inaccurate and gives him too much credit. A lie means that the liar knows his utterance is false, which in turn means that he knows the truth. In many instances, Trump likely doesn’t know the truth of the matter on which he speaks. He makes a statement he thinks will somehow benefit him, presumably oblivious of its truth or falsehood. Of course, a sane, reasonably intelligent person would realize that the great majority of such statements will be false. So the statement is a quasi lie.
● In depositions of injured workers (about their workers’ compensation cases), the defense attorney often asks the injured worker whether he liked his job (the one which injured him). The injured worker always answers “Yes.” I’m puzzled about how the question is relevant (how the answer would be relevant to the case), and about why the worker feels compelled to answer “Yes” (I find it hard to believe that all these workers actually liked these awful jobs).
● Tuesday, 9-10-2024: I just watched the first (perhaps only) presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. If I had to pick a winner, I’d say it was Harris. I’m greatly heartened by what I saw there.
● Saturday, 9-14-2024: The surest sign that Harris won the debate: Trump is refusing to have another one with her. (On the other hand, had he won, or thought he won, he might refuse to have another debate, so as to quit while he’s ahead—to deprive Harris of the opportunity to even the score.)
● Yesterday afternoon, I got both flu and COVID-19 vaccinations. I had a rough night and morning. It feels like a mild flu: lethargy (but also insomnia); feeling too hot or too cold; loss of appetite; body aches (especially my arms); headache. I tried to avoid taking medication for it, and to just ride it out. But the headache has now gotten bad enough to require medication. I just took two Aleve tablets, my usual dosage for a headache. . . Now, about an hour later, at about 11:45 a.m., I feel much better. I also drank my first dose of tea.
● Monday, 9-16-2024: Lately it’s occurred to me that my drug-abuse period spanned 28 years (ages 17 – 45). Indeed, I’ve now been abstinent from abusing drugs for exactly as long as I abused them. My impression was that the drug abuse period was much longer than it was (perhaps 50 years) and that it was much longer than the later drug-free span. I’m glad it wasn’t longer than it was.
● Tuesday, 9-17-2024: A lawyer posted this email message: “I am proud to announce that, with God’s help, after years of relentless litigation, I have achieved a groundbreaking judgment of $5,800,837.41 for the nondischargeability of debt . . ..”
I considered leaving either of these two replies (but didn’t reply):
“If you had God’s help, why did you need to litigate?” or “Congratulations to you . . . and congratulations to God.”
● Friday, 9-20-2024: I got this email message:
“Hi,
“My name is Aya, and I’m an account manager at Amazon Business.
“I am contacting you today because I see that your organization is qualified for a business account with Amazon, our buying solution that grows with your business.”
I sent this reply: “Hi. How generous of you—to deem me qualified to give you my money!”
● At an event yesterday designed to highlight antisemitism, Donald Trump said: “I’ll put it to you very simply and as gently as I can: I wasn’t treated properly by the voters who happen to be Jewish. I don’t know. Do they know what the hell is happening if I don’t win this election? And the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happens, because at 40 percent [of Jewish voters who voted for him] that means 60 percent of the people are voting for the enemy.”
There was an immediate strong backlash, many accusing Trump of “fearmongering,” “intimidation,” and even antisemitism. I don’t understand the uproar: as a Jew, I take Trump’s words as a compliment—Jews voting against Trump is a tribute to their intelligence and decency.
● Saturday, 9-21-2024: On second thought, that statement could be interpreted as a signal to Trump’s thuggish supporters to attack Jews if he loses the upcoming election.
● Sunday, 9-22-2024: Philosophy Club meeting. Topic: “The morality of human reproductive cloning.”
● However alike “identical” twins are, they’re still different people: they’re different awarenesses. I would not want to clone myself: doing so would not be to extend or continue myself; rather, it would be to give my talents to someone else. . . .
● The political polls show the presidential election as too close to call. But I’ll venture this prediction: I think Kamala Harris will win. I suspect that Trump has alienated too many Americans, who see him as crazy and out-of-touch with average people. By contrast, Harris seems level-headed and reasonable. (I won’t delete this entry even if Trump wins.) . . . On second thought, I have no idea which candidate will win. The original comment was wishful, not prescient.
● Tuesday, 9-24-2024: It seems to me that in the last year or so my memory has improved.
[Later note (12-1-2024): . . . but apparently not enough to remember that I’d written essentially the same comment just two years before. . . . Had I remembered it, I’d have somehow, here, referenced the earlier statement.]
● Saturday, 9-28-2024: In the 3-7-2022 entry in this Journal, I wrote about buying three pairs of running shoes at Walmart (and returning one pair). Yesterday, the first pair (the left shoe) finally completely fell apart. Today I started using the second pair. And yesterday I bought another pair of the same shoe at Walmart. This time the price was about $16.00 (two dollars more than last time). So I got about two and a half years of use out of that first pair, which is considerable.
● A new technological gadget being advertized nowadays is the “smart speaker,” an audio device controlled by the owner’s voice commands, like “Play PBS” or “Play KPFK.” I’m offended by them, or by their promotion. The advertisements are directed to the common person, but the only persons who would use them are the elite, those rich enough to live in houses or soundproof apartments. The average person lives in an apartment with paper-thin walls, where neighbors can hear practically everything he says and does—including giving instructions to the radio. When I’m using an automated system on the telephone, and I have a choice, in navigating it, between speaking and pressing buttons on the phone, I press the buttons. I hate being forced to speak out loud, because that reveals to the neighbors what I’m doing. It’s an affront to my privacy and my dignity.
● Tuesday, 10-1-2024: Nosebleed, left nostril. Perhaps it was caused by my sanding a door, which I’ve done for three days in a row now—perhaps dust got into my nose.
● Thursday, 10-3-2024: Another nosebleed, also left nostril. I’ve sanded that door every day this week.
● Sunday, 10-6-2024: I just spent over an hour marking my ballot for the November 5th (2024) election. Of numerous items on the ballot, I abstained on only one. I’m getting pretty good at the process. Usually, I can decide how to vote on a proposed law based on the shortcut of seeing who’s for it and who’s against it. I can usually decide on candidates by noting their party affiliation. But of course I didn’t have to do any research to decide for whom to vote for President.
● I just ordered online a copy of The Diary of Anne Frank. Since I’m lavishing so much time and energy on my own Diary (this Journal), I’m curious how it compares with Anne Frank’s Diary, probably (now) the most famous diary in the world. Perhaps, in addition to satisfying my curiosity, it will give me some ideas for editing and restructuring my own piece.
● Monday, 10-7-2024: Israel is a criminal state . . . as is Russia. If the United States were consistent with its support of Ukraine against Russian aggression, it would support Palestine against Israeli aggression.
● I got a supplemental voter information handbook from the government today, and was able to vote on the one item on the ballot that I abstained on yesterday.
● Tuesday, 10-8-2024: Kris Kristofferson died recently. He was a great songwriter, but one of his best-known song lines, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” is not true. If you’re free, you have something to lose: your freedom (you could be imprisoned). (Otherwise, there would be nothing to keep you from robbing banks: you could think, “I might as well do it—I have nothing to lose.”) And a rich man has more than a poor man; yet the rich man has more freedom than the poor man, because he can spend his time as he likes, whereas the poor man must spend most or all of his time working at a tedious, low-wage job in order to survive. Likewise, a healthy person has more (namely, his health) than a sick person has; yet he, too, has more freedom. As I’ve said, songs and dreams are their own creatures. They don’t bear logical scrutiny.
● I just donated $50.00 to Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.
● Sunday, 10-13-2024: I just finished the latest read-through of the Journal. This one took just 4 days less than 2 months. The editing was productive. I also added 5 pages’ worth of new entries at the end of the piece, which brought its number of pages (as a word processing document) to exactly 700! Then I slightly changed the format (in word processing), by starting each new year’s material on a separate page, headed by the year-number in large, bold type. That made the document 17 pages longer, not by adding material, but by adding space (now the last page is numbered 717).
● Monday, 10-14-2024: I just donated another $50.00 to Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.
● Friday, 10-18-2024: A “secret ballot” is not secret in all circumstances. Let’s say you live in a town in which Smith and Jones are running for mayor, and there are 100 eligible voters, including you. If Smith wins by a vote of 100 to zero, everyone knows how you voted. . . . Or if the vote for Smith is 99 to 1, and both you and your friend claim to have voted for Jones, everyone knows that at least one of you is lying.
● To think that computers might “take over the world and replace us” is to misunderstand the nature of computers. That wouldn’t happen, because computers are not conscious entities with interests, motives, and intentions (a “mind”) of their own. Rather, they’re inanimate objects, that do just what we program them to do. It’s of course possible that evil people could take over the world using computers.
● Saturday, 10-19-2024: I had this dream last night or early this morning: I was climbing, on tall buildings, and the public was following my climbing. I was in danger on one climb, but managed to get to the ground safely. The public was cheering my accomplishment therein. I thought that my acclaim would be a good opportunity to get two things I’d always wanted: to learn to sing and to learn to fly (via airplanes and such). Perhaps the dream generally reflects my hope that, at long last (during my lifetime), I’ll achieve recognition for my writing.
● The Philosophy Club meets tomorrow. The topic is “Introspection.” I read the article Brian provided, but understood little of it (which may be merely a less unflattering way of saying that I didn’t understand it). Tomorrow, I’ll read the article once again (before the meeting).
● Sunday, 10-20-2024: I finally bought a new jacket to replace my very old one (which I’ve worn daily for about 20 years); it’s been a virtual rag for many years. The new one is a Tripple F.A.T. Goose brand, Staden model, XL size. Though it was expensive ($800.00), it was a good purchase, which I would have made much earlier if I weren’t a miser. I bought another of this model jacket about a year ago. I need a second one because I keep the other one in my car, during the warm and hot months. The other one is navy blue. I got a red one this time, so that I can tell them apart at a glance.
● Introspection, in the sense of having, or forming, beliefs about your mental state, is not infallible. Many times, perhaps because I expected and wanted to be so, I’ve believed I was feeling good, but I later realized that I was actually feeling bad.
● According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “[Expressivism is] the claim that what appears to be introspective reports of our mental states are in fact not reports at all, but rather mere expressions of those mental states. Saying ‘I am in pain’ is akin to saying ‘ouch.’ As expressions, rather than reports, of one’s pain, neither of these utterances has any propositional content.” I’m not an expressivist about introspection. Happiness and unhappiness are objectively existing entities. Your state of happiness, whether, at a given time, you’re happy, or unhappy, or neither, is a fact. And saying “I am happy” is a proposition, which can be true or false.
● My view of introspection is that we cannot know propositions about our mental states, like “I am happy.” That’s based on my conclusion that we can know no propositions at all. But we can know our mental state itself, directly, intuitively.
● I guess, then, I understood something about the article on introspection, after all. In fact, when I read the article a second time, I thought I understood it better than I did the first time I read it . . . though that’s perhaps not saying much. It occurs to me that perhaps I don’t understand it because it doesn’t make sense. And yet, sometimes I think I understand well what I deem to be nonsensical—I understand it well enough to know that it’s nonsensical, and why. In any event, I’ve learned that often, when I don’t understand something, further efforts to understand it don’t significantly improve my understanding, and I must simply leave the subject and move onto other subjects, where my thinking may be more fruitful.
● When I was younger, I looked better with a beard and mustache; now that I’m older, I look better clean-shaven.
● I see (print) better with my reading glasses. But I see just as well whether the glasses are positioned normally or the opposite way. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the two ways of using them are equally good. The normal way is better because then the frames keep them in position so that I don’t have to hold them with my hands.
● Monday, 10-21-2024: Philosophers who are “skeptical about introspection” are probably not skeptical about introspection per se, but merely about certain definitions or descriptions or accounts of introspection. For it would seem nonsensical to deny the existence of some kind of introspection. Clearly, I have some access to—I can, in some way, to some extent, observe—my own perceptions, thoughts, and feelings; and it’s different from the view I have of the perceptions, thoughts, and feelings of other sentient beings. Indeed, it’s different enough that I can know that I exist, but I can’t know that (what appear to be) other sentient beings exist.
● I heard that a convicted murderer received a prison sentence of “life plus 25 years.” And I wondered: Are they going to keep his body in the prison for 25 years after he dies?!
● Tuesday, 10-22-2024: I got a new laptop computer about a month ago, and yesterday it was finally ready for me to use. It’s an HP EliteBook 640 G10 14″ laptop. It’s much more reliable and much faster than the laptop computer it replaces. I paid about $2,000 for it.
● As you go through life, you accumulate vocabulary words, like you accumulate household goods.
● Thursday, 10-24-2024: I was born in New York City. When I was about 4 years old, my parents moved (with me) to California. They enrolled me in a private school, Eunice Knight Saunders, which was located on the southwest corner of Hazeltine and Riverside Drive, in Sherman Oaks. I was in that school for something called pre-primer and first grade. What prompted me to record this is that I momentarily couldn’t remember the name of the school. I thought I should make a note of it before I no longer remembered it.
● Saturday, 10-26-2024: It’s about 11:30 p.m. The electricity here went off for about an hour (it just came back on). It was an adventure—if it had stayed off longer, I’d have said ordeal. I managed, with the help of a small but powerful flashlight. I worried that if I needed to replace the batteries in it (with the electricity still out), I’d be unable to see to do it. Tomorrow I’ll buy a second flashlight.
● Sunday, 10-27-2024: I’m beginning another read-through of the Journal. This was a painless interregnum, as I had lots of busywork to occupy my time.
● Monday, 10-28-2024: I just awoke from a strange dream. I had died, but I was still conscious, feeling decrepit. I understood that this was part of the phenomenon that the body, after death, continues to change in certain ways, like the hair and fingernails continuing to grow. But I thought this was weird, that consciousness should continue—even many weeks after my death?! The setting seemed to be a version of one of my early childhood homes, the one on Catherine Avenue in Sherman Oaks. I was there alone, and I was moving around in the house, with the light on. I saw my old psychotherapist, Fred Penrose, several houses down the street. And I wondered why he hadn’t come to check on me, since he must have seen that the lights were on (and the front door was open). I seemed to have some say about where my body would go, or be taken. And I had decided that it should be taken to the F.B.I., so that they could determine whether any foul play had been involved in my death. The dream perhaps reflects my anxiety about publication of my Journal. I imagine it being published (as a book), and my becoming famous. But what if no one will publish it . . . and I remain unknown, and just keep getting older?!
● When I briefly worked for Adelson, Testan & Brundo, more than two decades ago, I was instructed to write by dictation—which was supposed to save time. I tried but couldn’t do it. I had some kind of mental block about it.
● Tuesday, 10-29-2024: I had a freak accident this morning. At a deposition in unfamiliar offices, I was waiting for my client. In the room I was in, the walls were white, and the double doors were black. One of the doors was open, the other closed. When I heard that my client had arrived, I hurried to get tea, which was in another room. I stood up and went to leave the room. But I’d forgotten to take off my reading glasses. I walked quickly to the door—but it was the closed door; my glasses broke and I fell to the floor. I think I’m all right. I have no major injuries. It will be a few days before I know whether I have any minor injuries.
● Thursday, 10-31-2024: I think my sole injury from that fall on Tuesday is to my left knee. It’s healing. I was able to take an exercise-walk this morning. But as a precaution I’m limiting myself to one walk today. . . . Given the happening of the accident, I was extremely lucky to have escaped with only a very minor injury.
● My knee felt good after the exercise-walk, so I took the second one. The knee still feels good.
● Sunday, 11-3-2024: Desert ride. I hadn’t taken this drive for four and a half months (because of Summer’s heat). I ate breakfast (a patty melt) at Tom’s #25 in West Lancaster. The little stream at the Four Oaks, where I stop, at about midway through the drive, was flowing, but barely (I got out of the car there just to check that). The first half of the drive was tedious; the second half was enjoyable. Traffic was lighter than usual.
● Bravery is not restricted to conscious entities. An example is certain weather phenomena, like wind, which weather forecasts commonly describe as gutsy: “gutsy winds.”
● Wednesday, 11-6-2024: Oh, no! (That’s my reaction to learning that Donald Trump won the presidential election. I’ll leave it at that, for now.)
● I suppose this means Trump won’t contest the election this time.
● Friday, 11-8-2024: In the aftermath of their devastating defeat in the recent elections, blame and recrimination is flying among Democratic party officials about who did what wrong in their election campaigns. That strikes me as insulting to the American people: to assume that their votes reflect a judgment, not on the politicians’ governance during the last four years, but on the little dance they do for the people in their campaigns.
● Wednesday, 11-13-2024: I’ve decided to try curing my back itch simply by refraining from scratching it. I’ll do that (refrain) for as long as I can manage . . . at least until I sense that it won’t work.
● Thursday, 11-14-2024: What’s a cummerbund? It’s the opposite of a bummercund.
● Friday, 11-15-2024: Zsaap de Zsoop.
● Saturday, 11-16-2024: A thing cannot be smaller than something smaller than it.
● The new occupants in unit 7, a group of elderly Filipinos, have been there for perhaps a year. At least several of them smoke cigarettes. Last Summer was even more miserable than usual for the smell of cigarette smoke in my bedroom at night. Those people go outside the complex to smoke; but yesterday, when I went to get my mail (the mailboxes are next to the double glass front doors to the complex), I saw one of them, a man, standing right next to the front doors, smoking. And the smell of cigarette smoke just inside the doors was strong. When he saw me looking at him, he moved to the sidewalk (about 15 meters to the west). About ten meters east of the glass doors is a grated metal wall and door. Another seven meters east of that is my front door (which, for cooling, I leave open at night during the Summer). Those glass doors at the front provide some resistance to outside fumes coming in. But it’s not perfect: there are gaps. So the closer a smoker stands to them (while smoking), the more smoke gets in. That would explain the worse odor this past Summer. As much as I hate the hot weather, the worst part of Summer for me is the smoke smell in my bedroom, which hurts my sleep.
● Sunday, 11-17-2024: Philosophy Club meeting; topic: “Wisdom.” I’m not attending the meeting, because it’s in-person (I attend just the ones that meet by computer, the “Zoom” program). I nonetheless read the articles Brian sends on the topics. I find this topic particularly interesting because I consider myself wise.
● Here’s a first impression about wisdom (the first impression, that is, since getting this topic and reading Brian’s article on it): Wisdom is having profound, admirable insights on life or living. Our judgment about who is wise may be subjective.
● Wisdom entails intelligence, but intelligence does not entail wisdom.
● Sunday, 11-24-2024: Philosophy Club meeting (by Zoom); topic: “Wisdom.”
● A wise person can be neurotic, but not psychotic. Wisdom is a sort of heightened sanity.
● Intelligence is objective; wisdom is subjective.
● As to whether AI (artificial intelligence) can be wise, I think not, because it’s not conscious and not creative. Remember, it’s called AI, not AW. Whether it could become so in future, I doubt it; but, strictly, we’d have to say, “We’ll see.”
● When you try to define wisdom more specifically, the concept starts to get away from you.
● Monday, 11-25-2024: Observing that many people we’re inclined to call wise held beliefs that eventually proved wrong, some philosophers propose that, in the definition of wisdom, we substitute, for true beliefs, justified beliefs. But how valuable is “justification” for false beliefs?
● Tuesday, 11-26-2024: I attended a deposition today in Fresno, for Michael Burgis’s office. This was the first time I’ve driven to Fresno in my own car (I usually rent one). I was concerned that the car might not make it there and back (215 miles, each way). But it did. It performed splendidly (as did I).
● Wednesday, 11-27-2024: I just noticed something funny: For my EisnersJournal.com website (which uses the WordPress website program), to edit the site, I, as an administrator, first go to a sort of contents page, listing the divisions, or “pages,” of my website, and there I select the “page” of the site I wish to edit. We’ve divided the site into yearly units. So far, there are 29 “pages” (one for each year, 1993 – 2024: two years, 1996 and 1997, are missing). On the administrative contents page, the WordPress program (or someone) evaluates each “page” of the webiste for various qualities, one such quality being “readability.” There are two grades, designated by a red or a green dot. Red means “needs improvement”; green means “good.” For “readability,” every page has a red dot—except one, which has a green dot: the 1995 page. Probably because the material was lost, that year of the Journal contains just two (very short) entries! I suppose the work would be even more “readable” if I simply deleted all the content.
● Saturday, 11-30-2024: Today is the third day of a four-day weekend (the Thanksgiving holiday). This feels like Sunday, because, for many days now, I’ve handled no depositions.
● Sunday, 12-1-2024: I’ve just finished another read-through of my Journal. It was fruitful. This one took me a month and three or four days. I’m skipping the usual final task in it: adding the latest Diary entries to the Journal. I don’t have enough time to do it today (it’s my bedtime now), and tomorrow (Monday) is a convenient time to start the next two-week break from editing the Journal. I’ll add those new Diary entries at the beginning of the next Journal read-through.
● Monday, 12-2-2024: On my way to the laundry room just now, I saw a neighbor’s new doormat, and I thought, “That’s cute.” It had a picture of three birds, and underneath was written: “worm wishes.” Returning to my apartment, I looked at the mat again, and saw that the caption was actually the standard phrasing: “warm wishes.”
● I just added the latest Diary entries to the Journal, about 5 pages worth of material.
● I just awoke from a dream. I was in late college or graduate school, and soon to graduate and start a professional career. I was in a quandary over what to study and to choose as my career. I had been studying law, but turned it down as a career because I found it tedious. Instead, I chose the kind of work involved in the last class I happened to take: studying bird biology. In the last scene in the dream, I was meeting with the professor—alone (it was so late in the school year that she was meeting with me specially, not as part of a regularly scheduled class)—and I was explaining to her my decision about this. At one point in my explanation, I was showing her a scene of a hypothetical legal case, a traffic collision. I said something like, “I find it so boring that I couldn’t even remember the color of the sky, and we both, unsuccessfully, tried to remember the color of the sky. Then the scene zoomed in on the cars involved in the massive gridlock/collision. There were many newish luxury cars; one was a new, white Rolls Royce. I think it was somehow a reference to the potential lucrativeness of a legal career, wealth that I somehow missed. But my point was that law was out of the question because I hated the work. This dream came just a few hours after I added a note in this Journal to an entry of 1-26-2001, wherein I express an insight about the difference between humans and lower animals (and which note I thought was especially good). I interpret the study of bird biology as symbolizing my desire to write: when I write, I fly. . . .