(concise lists and thoughts)

Academic Interests:

* General: Deconstruction, Postmodernism, (Post) Structuralism, Semiotics, Cybernetics, Network & Systems Theory, Pragmatism, History of Philosophy (esp. modern), Cognitive Science, Natural Language Processing, Emergence, Embodiment, Complexity, Artificial Intelligence, Existentialism, Socio & Psycho Analysis, Aesthetics - & Post-Egoism.

 * Specific areas of interest: Cybernetic Revelation: the history of major western philosophical advances in systematically investigating Revelation, both as unknowably divine expression, and as the point where the unknown implicit becomes consciously explicit and known; focusing on:

 - Anaximander (first western theory of the unknowable and map)
   [1: unknown passes to known];

 - Plato (complete dialectical system culminating in the unknowable final revelation of knowledge)
   [2: journey towards knowledge];

 - Aristotle (disciplined logical science)
   [3: what is known/observed];

 - Augustine (turns towards the self)
   [4: subject as confessor/revealer];

 - Descartes (subjective doubter's perspective on knowable object)
   [5: subject/object focus];

 - Locke, Berkeley, Hume (associational cognitive mechanism)
   [6: subject's mechanism of knowing: observed connections];

 - Kant (from the empirically unknowable implicit to explicit knowledge via necessity and/of cognitive structure)
   [7: subjective structure(ing) of (un)knowable beyond observation];

 - Hegel (historically situated systematic revelation of being)
   [8: subject revealed/shaped through relation to object/world];

 - Nietzsche (nihilistic "non"-systematic embodied prophecy critique)
   [9: subjective debunking of knowledge];

 - Freud (human being as sex-driven animal)
   [10: subject is unconsciously directed];

 - Dewey, Wittgenstein (complex context directs engineer/scientist's description of it)
   [11: subject intertwined in world it engages using strategies];

 - Heidegger (structure and activity of technical and poetic revelation)
   [12: subject rejects en-webbed world for revelation of being]);

 - Adorno, Derrida (deconstruction as rejection/acceptance of the revealed in order to open up new revelations)
   [13: learning how to reveal the unknowable];

and finally,

 - Casten, et. al. (breaks from embodied socio-habitual brain & integrates new found structures)
    [14: unknowable subjectivity reveals itself through knowable brain];

 - 1-14 = journey of socialized subject who breaks with convention to reveal the unknowable;

 * Pragmatism Debate: "Highlighting" theory of perception (between passive and constructive perception) and revealed knowledge occurring when new ideas fall together and pan out (metaphors of pragmatic coherence): how does one notice something new that fits in with the old, when the old is the lens through which we perceive?  Loose analogies that catch fire;

 * Deconstructing Artificial Intelligence (Deconstruction as not knowable/mechanical; always already being artificially intelligent (are we intelligent, if we don't know exactly what intelligence is?)  Robotics as not a copy of original consciousness life, but as the mirroring mechanical aspect of who we already are: the tragic sadness (and relief) of being partly machines); Box-like Strategies of Thinking Outside the Box (outside of our box/robot/mechanical habits); the Phenomenal (sensation) / Genealogical (structure) opposition.

Artistic Interests:

 - Art as Discovering/Creating Meaning (mundane meaning of life and the profoundly common (Wabi Sabi): moments of quality in a mediocre life (the Sublime));

 - Planned Composition vs.& w/ Performance Execution (which comes first?), the Naturally Spontaneous Technically Refined;

 - Artist as Midwife of Living Artwork; Intuition where the Art seems to have it's own Internal Logic out of which it Grows as if from within Itself: Interplay Between Imagination and Actual (material) Artwork;

 - Revealing Art-Therapy/Personal Self-Discovery;

 - Art as State of the Art of Humanities Self-Discovery;

 - Artist Creates/Expresses Worlds for Others to Share;

 -  Motivation and Consciousness Raising; Learning/Teaching how to Perceive; Edutainment; Seduction;

 - Worms that Improve the Soil they Leave Behind; Personal Mementos; a Record of a Time;

 - Taking a Semi-Revolutionary Stance Towards a Canon of Revolutions;

 - the Historical Representation of Hell, Lucifer (the Rebel), and Technology (especially secret knowledge, and creating (art) life forms (Frankenstein, Golem));

 - Outsider's Observing Perspective; De-Familiarization; Experimental Art;

 - Cross-Pollination of Mediums, Schools, etc.; Juxtapositions;

 - Intersection of Symbolic (Language) and Visual (Image);

 - Conceptual/Theoretical Art; Objectifying the Subjective (and vice versa);

 - the Ineffable;  Romanticism; Art Nouveau; Psychedelic Art; Nature photography (especially with sunrise and sunset lighting);

 - Percussion (Buddy Rich was a part of my extended family) and time's rhythmic relation to space (dance, gesture).

Religious Interests:

 - Zen, Taoism, Hinduism, Kabala;

 - Maturing from the Messianic to the Prophetic to the Poetic;

 - Amazement at profundity of Jesus and Buddha, especially considering them as real human beings, and not disappointments relative to some notion of an extrapolated perfection and all-powerful (and hence so obvious as to be known rather than believed) God;

 - Gods in human guise seen not as Anthropomorphic Projections, but as Divine Manifestations in Human Terms, (it's not that thunder as Thor is some deluded wishful thinking that the frightening was familiar, and hence not so threatening, rather, Thor is holy thunder speaking its power to humans (proud loving association being involved, rather than hoping a danger would be a friend)-- seeing ourselves as part of the holy-human-nature continuum, rather than suggesting that we're simply projecting ourselves on our environment: "the sun speaks to me in my language as a divine spirit (Apollo) that I can recognize"; the sun has accepted me into it's family);

 - Ambiguous Constellations interpreted (intuitively understood, or superstitiously assigned?) as signs of powers beyond this world that harmonize with it: not projections, but our deepest felt affinity with the cosmos. Astrology (the great wheel of existence), Arcane Symbols (the Tarot, Jung's Archetypes, Collective Unconscious & Synchronicity), Warlock Witchcraft

 - Paranoia as Mind (& situation) Reading: Symbols Everywhere, Love Referential Signs?;

 - Being and Speaking a part of Pantheism.

 - Multiple Enlightenments, small and large: Gradual (Soto) and Rapid (Rinzai) improvement without end?

 - German Idealism (on our way to the absolute that we already are);

 - Believing in a God that "is beyond me," (I'm not the most important being; do you define God in such a way as to not be able to believe?  Do you question God as a who, what, where, why, when, or how: the question types already limit your approach to God.).

 - God may passively experience everyone's lives: the experiences you have and create, are also for God (and possibly for others to experience in an afterlife).

 - God could be the one and only real subjectivity.  Possibility that God is psychologically troubled in a measure that would be hell for the mortal. Lucifer as archetypical first opposition to God that seeks to be God and reign as God in God's own personal hell, were no other power is as real to God as God, and hence God can not love another as an equal-- Lucifer's dream is actually an insane nightmare where all is gained, but nothing is real.

 - The Middle Way between Yin and Yang and Co-Dependent Origination.

Political Interests:

 - Radical Moderate, Taoist politics: non-partisan, compromise between (two) goods, against political affiliation prejudice, recognizing complexity, uncertainty, and trade-offs.

 - Morality as character that fills out the stick-figure of justice;

 - Justice as respect for individual privacy/property and social commitment to global needs;  Compromise between property rights and limitations through taxation.

 - Democratically Regulated Capitalism: minimally regulated privatization for free technical/technology innovation balanced with perpetual refinement of the social safety net mesh and ecological biodiversity protections.

 - Government as institution of institutions whose policy operates a perpetually self-correcting experimental system (through lessons learned) in an ever-changing environment; Hence, striving for the optimum tax rate (for maximizing employment and benefits) whether lower (reducing slavery), or higher (addressing needs for security); recognizing that often, we can not both grow an economy (and hence address the root of poverty: unemployment), and redistribute money (which is an oft-needed band-aid) simultaneously, since government services are expenditures without return, unless invested in fostering self-sufficient productivity).

 - Labor contracts without exploitation (for a profiteering tax); Ideal: partially employee owned & publicly owned companies (incentive, and ownership of one's own labor balanced with stabilizing diversification of investment security).

 - Recognizing actual decentralization of power with democratic capitalism (investments flow to success (wealthy can only consume so much: for a luxury tax); politics not buyable (intelligent voters); propaganda difficult with multiple competing ideologies);

 -  For campaign finance regulation: democratic decentralization of "megaphone" power, even if only for propriety in appearance (trust in government).  Difficult question of political demographics of donor ability in setting monetary limits (which, like all government financial issues, should have inflation adjustment built in): shouldn't the actual amount of money raised on average reflect the number of people officially affiliated with a competent party:

 - Core issue of popular representation (power to the people) vs. earned (by self, family & friends) power sharing (ant (colony) & grasshopper(s))): Inheritance and gifts as legitimate as long as original money was justly obtained (getting at: why let the masses reclaim a fortune that they deemed justly obtained in the first place; and the whole can of worms of reparations & grandfather clauses).

 - "Passive" consumer demand (for ideas and products) as directing choice suppliers & seducers; Advertising, and PR (& spin)  as adding aesthetic element to product/idea: art value.  Strategies of highlighting products'/ideas' elements associated with predominant consumer tastes (possible short term deception (false association) "successes" exposed through competition and long term results: product/idea must ultimately robustly cohere with public dispositions).

 - Education as crossroad of public and private, childhood and adulthood, information and skill opportunity equalizer that provides a foundation in public integration; questions of national (global?) vs. local curriculum standards; Inclusion of world religious texts (pluralistic history of belief) and philosophical/critical thinking (e.g. skepticism) as crucial for the humanities (and for providing context and "out of the box" thinking strategies for the sciences as well).

 -  Mass media having an important roll in education as well: Edutainment press as having crucial role in integrating a lucid global perspective (the perpetual news "crisis" wake-up call) and the entertainment & art industry's roll with morality: negotiating between public standards of censorship (for children & respecting sensitivities) and allowing for diverse private expression within the bounds of justice (e.g. the more private or selective the "channel" of communication, the more open the standards within limits (no child pornography, snuff-films, etc.)  Question of determination of censorship standards: capitalistic consumer demand vs. governmental intervention (to protect minorities from majorities, or vice versa: e.g. in the event of a semiotically assaulted minority (cp. Nazi propaganda), or morality terrorism (streaking?)).

 - Hot topics: utilitarian sacrifices (war, abortion, taxation, capital punishment, deforestation, etc.) for a perceived greater good: adjudicating a complex of legitimate values that come into conflict: politics itself;

 - The notion of government institution engineering: optimizing government efficiency by recognizing that its structure (laid out by laws), is a sort of machine; and seeing that technical innovation comes through challenging and reforming past governmental techno-mechanical-structures.

 - Question of hierarchical "domination" or "hegemony" in bureaucratic structures: accountability of representatives to constituents and management to consumers, employees &/ owners, yet seeing necessity of "hubs" of responsibility and broader scope, and impossibility of organization without focus/purpose that such hubs facilitate.

 - Questioning of alternative's that judge democratic capitalism relative to a non-existent ideal (would they provide the surplus needed for catastrophic events?), yet open to experimenting with new forms of social organization.

 - International relations: universal declaration of human rights and the international democratic enforcement of those rights.  Investigation of "international bicameral" power representation relative to state sovereignty and population representation (the latter as seeming more significant): autonomy of states (rights), yet population proportional representation for setting global agenda with an eye towards human rights.  Questions of power/resource sharing, and stipulation (e.g. why should the ant support the grasshopper?)  Accountability of international organizations to those financing them (e.g. The World Bank (which does much good), as an autonomous financial institution may have rights in stipulating loan terms; but as an institution funded by democratic states, should be held accountable to those states, to the extent of their funding).

 - Interested in experimentation with erosion of borders, with reduction of tariffs and subsidies, and a freer flow of emigration/immigration (with concerns about international population flows shedding light on concerns about international trade flows: questions of pace of change, power/resource sharing, and maintaining bio and cultural diversity in a global melting pot).

Favorites:

Writing: Plato (Parmenides), Jacques Derrida (Margins of Philosophy), William Blake (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell), e.e. cummings (l(a)), James Joyce (Finnegans Wake), Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power), Marcel Proust (Remembrance of Things Past), Shakespeare (Hamlet), Edgar Alan Poe (Al Aaraaf), T.S. Eliot (Sweeny Among the Nightingales), Sigmund Freud (Interpretation of Dreams), Georges Bataille (The Solar Anus), Theodor Adorno (Minima Moralia), Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation), Marc Maron (The Jerusalem Syndrome: My Life as a Reluctant Messiah), Eugene O'Neil (The Hairy Ape), Isaiah, Holderlin (Hyperion), Washington Irving (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow), Fedor Dostoyevsky (Notes from Underground), Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness), Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita), Ethan Coen (Fargo)

Comedians: Jack Benny, Marc Maron, Sacha Baron Cohen, John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Richard Prior, Dave Chappelle, Conan O'Brian, Bill Murray

Actors: Jack Lemon, Shirley MacLaine, Audrey Hepburn, Sidney Poitier, Roddy McDowall, Bud Cort, Kevin Spacey, Ed Norton, Winona Ryder, Kate Winslet, Kate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Zach Braff

Directors: David Lean, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Wells, Michel Gondry, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Roman Polanski, Billy Wilder, Spike Lee, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Ridley Scott, Francis Ford Coppola, Sophia Coppola, Joel Coen

Movies: Citizen Kane, Psycho, Casablanca, The Last Emperor, Midnight Cowboy, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Apartment, Harold and Maude, American Beauty, A Clockwork Orange, Blade Runner, The Snake Pit, Alpha Ville, Fantasia, Golem, Pinocchio, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, Fight Club, Girl Interrupted, Lord of the Flies (BW), Sunset Boulevard, The President's Analyst, David and Lisa, Sleeper, Yellow Submarine, The Wall, Rear Window, Garden State, American Splendor, Apocalypse Now

Music: The Cure (Pornography), The Rolling Stones (Let It Bleed), Pinback (Offcell), The Police (Zenyatta Mondatta), Talking Heads ('77), Roxy Music (Flesh + Blood), Le Tigre (Le Tigre), Radiohead (Amnesiac), Nine Inch Nails (Pretty Hate Machine), The Beatles (Magical Mystery Tour), Pink Floyd (Piper at the Gates of Dawn), The Kinks (Muswell Hillbillies), Led Zeppelin (Physical Graffiti), Tones on Tail (Night Music), XTC (The Big Express), Jean Michel Jarre (Equinoxe), Sleater-Kinney (All Hands on the Bad One), Big Star (Sister Lovers), Camper Van Beethoven (Key Lime Pie), Dead Can Dance (Dead Can Dance), My Bloody Valentine (Loveless), Public Enemy (Fear of a Black Planet), Elliott Smith (Figure 8), Death Cab for Cutie (The Photo Album), REM (Chronic Town), Beck (Mellow Gold), Subtle (A New White), Mike Ladd (Welcome to the Afterfuture), Wilco (A.M.), Dave Brubeck Quartet (Time Out), Miles Davis (Kind of Blue), Beethoven (Moonlight Sonata), Samuel Barber (Adagio for Strings), Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue), Tchaikovsky (Nutcracker Suite), Pachelbel (Canon), Weber & Rice (Jesus Christ Superstar)

Artists: Hokusai, Blake, Friederich, Sengai, Hiroshige, Arcimboldo, Bosch, Botticelli, Dali, Picasso, Monet, Degas, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Dulac, Escher, Warhol, Matisse, Watteau, Da Vinci, Delecroix, Rubens, Munch, Lichtenstein, Mucha, Grey, Duchamp, Beuys, Koons, Calle, Sherman, Voog, Williams, Crumb, Adami, Johns, Rockwell

Television: The Jack Benny Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Northern Exposure, The Simpsons, The Family Guy, News Radio, Twilight Zone, The Flintstones, Gilligan's Island, Frasier, Saturday Night Live, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The West Wing, Ally McBeal, Charlie Rose, Martin, Dave Chappelle's Show, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Seinfeld, Night Court, The X-Files, Cagney and Lacey, Hill Street Blues, Rocky & Bullwinkle, McLaughlin Group