Toxoplasmo: Zombies Among Us

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I wonder what these little guys are plotting..

So there’s this pretty funky parasite that some researchers think gets into our brains and subtly manipulates our personality to engage in self-destructive behaviour (see articles in The Atlantic, The Guardian, and another similar example in Scientific American).

Apparently this parasite – Toxoplasmo gondii – might be subtly working on the connections in our brains to change our responses to situations, and possibly be contributing to car crashes, promiscuous behaviour, and certain mental disorders.

In rats for example, the parasite actually compels rats to go play with cats!

Makes one wonder…

Yoga is Scary

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So I tried yoga a few weeks ago.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, you know, get more bendy.  All was going well, until the call for backwards-facing-cobra or something to that effect.  Unfortunately what I heard was something more like upside-down-manatee, or ungulate-grazing-in-reverse. As my neck hasn’t been the same since, evidently I wasn’t either of those two mammals in a past life.

More importantly, has anyone else noticed how grumpy some yoga aficionados look when you spot them doing ‘normal’ stuff like taking out the garbage?  One would think serenity would prevail..

Mark my words, there’s something afoot.

“There is no art except for and by others”

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In his essay What is Literature, Sartre theorizes that literature and other art is a social phenomena, in that an author writes for the reader and needs the reader for a complete performance of his or her work.  As per Stern (1967), “all the words of a book could be read one by one and still the meaning of the work would not emerge, were it not that the reader’s mind gives it meaning”.

Sartre calls this a ‘re-invention’ saying that “it is the conjoint effort of author and reader which brings upon the scene that concrete and imaginary object which is the work of the mind.”  Therefore..  There is no art except for and by others..

On Ortega..

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As per the Spanish philosopher Ortega “una vida en disponibilidad es major negacion de si misma que la muerta..”

Translated:  “A disposable life is a greater negation of itself than death”

Heavy!

In this sense, Ortega (like Sartre) argues that we have a “moral necessity to commitment to a definite project”, that is, our actions define who we are and it’s not so much the action that counts as the commitment to it.

Such philosophy also considers all commitments to be morally equivalent, so long as action is taken.  Huh… Does anyone else see a problem with that?