Status Updates From Chimpanzee

Took a while to get going?

As with reading about nuclear weapons, climate change, a lot of what's going on in Chimpanzee is distressing and so I find myself picking it up infrequently, reading only a few pages at a time.

'There were no ghosts in the machine. Now and then, I could undo everything Descartes fucked us with. Because, he had it backwards. I am; therefore, I think.'

'Conflict follows value follows organization follows capital exchange. Non sequitur. He’s putting the cart before the revolutionary horse. He needs to cite some sources—something his crowd can relate to.'

Aaaand who exactly is it that can relate to that?

not sure what i think of this so far

Whaaaaaaaat

"The heat wave broke like a blister." Can prose be deliberately un-lovely. Or, to quote DA, "as pretty as an airport."

"... the brain gets going with the activities and ideas we think are ours before we even get a clue. WE aren't in charge. The spaces around us, with their threats and opportunities and contextual stimuli are. They react the brain. [...] We can't even properly perceive actions before we're doing something about them." I THINK ABOUT THIS ALL THE TIME! But can never talk about it. Now I understand why this book exists!

"It is the spaces we must be concerned with because PEOPLE don't originate their actions, threatening or otherwise--the contexts around them do. The brain initiates movement, action, cognition long before conscious awareness even gets involved. It's called readiness potential. I still remember. Cynthia hasn't gotten it yet. There are gaps, of hundreds of milliseconds, of non-being, where the brain..."

"... because they were never supposed to be the point. My education was for ME. This was my enlightenment, my debt. This would be my philosophy, and fuck anybody else. They could follow along, if they could keep up." The closest I've ever seen an author come to admitting, "I'm just here for my own amusement; I hate my readers." I should be annoyed but I'm enjoying this. Hmm.