Teegzworld

Introduction To Me & My Website

Welcome one, welcome all, to my humble corner of this giant network some call the interweb. Others give it a more sensible name like the 'internet', but not me...

So, what am I doing and what makes my pages worthy of your time to read? Well the answer to both of those questions is: Nothing really. But I'm still going to go ahead and write them, and maybe you'll read some of them. I'll try to be interesting, but I promise nothing ...
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Introduction To Me & My Website

Welcome one, welcome all, to my humble corner of this giant network some call the interweb. Others give it a more sensible name like the 'internet', but not me...

So, what am I doing and what makes my pages worthy of your time to read? Well the answer to both of those questions is: Nothing really. But I'm still going to go ahead and write them, and maybe you'll read some of them. I'll try to be interesting, but I promise nothing.
You won't find a 'vanity' website here. Or maybe you will. I'm not immune to vanity. Really what I want to do is to document my thoughts, and in the process give you a peek inside the workings of my brain and/or mind. Certainly not all the workings - certain things I am comfortable sharing, others, of course, I am not - but some.
The things I write will most definitely be nothing more than my opinions; some you might agree with, some I'm sure you will not. I am not trying to convert anybody to anything with what I write, nor am I even putting forth things which I believe to be immutably true. Indeed, my fundamental quarrel with beliefs is that they are so often immutable, and I am not willing to be inflexible in world-view, nor adynamic in my philosophies. I deal in ideas, and ideas may be wrong. I'd like to never be wrong, but I will be. And that's OK.

I am quite attached to two core tenets that I try to apply to my life as much as possible. They are: "There's no point in worrying about things that you cannot change" and "Careful self-examination is the path to personal betterment". The second of those two is really the one that is applicable to these web pages, as many of my thoughts for the more serious writings stem from my own self-examination and the things that I have determined to be important to me. Of course, my self-examination is a perpetually on-going process, so things will change and I might even end up with inconsistencies and contradictions in some of the things you might read. I'd be glad for you to pick me up on them, so I can make corrections to anything out-of-date.

In my day to day life I am an illustrator. In process I am very structured; I'm definitely not your 'throw stuff at a page' type of artist. As a result I usually have clearly defined processes that I work to; processes that I do my best to remember. I hope you don't mind that I keep a note of these processes on this website. I also hope that you might be able to learn about what I do from them. By no means do I expect my processes to be perfect, nor even that useful for someone other than myself, but if you can gain something from what I provide here, I'd be most pleased. Please take a look if you are interested.
I also have quite a library of books - on art and other things - which I will try to find time to review. I'll provide links to Amazon partly to expedite your purchase should you choose to, and partly because I would get a small percentage of the purchase. I hope you don't find that disagreeable, and will be able to find it in your heart to help me out a little by following those links.

And, finally, I am by no means above the trappings of the modern world. I really love all manner of stories, but I especially love to watch good TV. I am also not beyond admitting that I can be taken along with the cult of celebrity just like the next guy; particularly where the female variety are involved. I'd be being dishonest if I didn't represent these aspects of myself as appropriate on this site, and let's face it, its fun innit?

So please browse as long as your interest is maintained. Please come back again when you're ready for more. And please feel free to come and talk to me on my blog!
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And Now For The Science Bit

I also want to give a quick word on 'where I'm coming from' when I write some of the things I write; particularly for the more science orientated themes. I could use a lot of philosophical terminology to convey my point of view. Perhaps some will be necessary, but if I'm honest, quite often I don't feel well versed enough in many of the philosophical schools of thought to be assured in my correct usage. So I will try to put my point of view into layman's terms.

Before I can say where my thought process begins, I have to define what my thought process is ...
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And Now For The Science Bit

I also want to give a quick word on 'where I'm coming from' when I write some of the things I write; particularly for the more science orientated themes. I could use a lot of philosophical terminology to convey my point of view. Perhaps some will be necessary, but if I'm honest, quite often I don't feel well versed enough in many of the philosophical schools of thought to be assured in my correct usage. So I will try to put my point of view into layman's terms.

Before I can say where my thought process begins, I have to define what my thought process is. Do I just make stuff up? Or do I intuit "truth" from the ether? No, neither. I employ, as best I can, rational thought. I take a premise or premises, which are either logically true, or have a good degree of probability of being true, and then infer a proposition, or conclusion: IF X [AND Y] THEN Z. So, for example, I might think along these lines: If tree branches grow upward from the ground, and a tree's leaves exist at the ends of branches, then leaves are above the ground. My premises are probably true, and my conclusion is a logical consequence of them. I can strengthen the argument by collecting empirical data (that is, observational or experimental data): I look out of my window, and indeed I see leaves on trees above the ground. Some of the branches aren't going upwards though, which undermines one of my premises. So, as you can see, this way of thinking also engenders and enables sensible debate.
Please note that it may be more usual to express syllogisms as "X Y therefore Z" rather than with the IF AND and THEN. I just prefer writing it like computer code is all.
Also please note that I do consider "intuition"--as in unconscious thought/gut reactions--as valuable, although I would try to never use intuition to direct or debate without having formed a rational argument first.

So now we can begin. When considering the nature of the world/universe/existence my thought processes begin with "Occam's razor". This is a law which states that the most simple answer is often the right answer. To put it another way: If something can be explained simply, extra complexity is unnecessary and nothing more than a potentially confounding factor. The only time a more complex answer than the most simple is necessary is when empirical data requires it.
So applying Occam's razor to immediate existence: We can directly sense, through sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste, in an objective manner, that we live in a physical world--a world that is made up of energy and matter; a world that is causal; a world that we can examine and understand. We cannot detect in any objective or verifiable way anything beyond the physical--that is, nothing metaphysical, or supernatural. Thus there is no empirical data compelling us to take a more complex view of reality than that of it being physical, purely physical, and nothing more than physical.
So, by Occam's razor, we can say: There is no metaphysical 'realm'. All things should be thought of in a physical frame-work.

That isn't, however, to say there are no paranormal phenomena. We're coming into something here that is maybe nothing more than a semantic botheration, however I feel compelled to point out the difference between the paranormal and the supernatural. The para- prefix means 'beyond', hence paranormal means 'beyond the normal'. The super- prefix in supernatural means 'above', so supernatural means 'above nature'. Thus paranormal is merely stating that some phenomena encountered is beyond usual or normal experience, and beyond usual or normal explanation. Supernatural, however, is saying that a phenomenon cannot be incorporated into a natural world view and you must add another layer of existence above the natural--the physical--layer.
So essentially what I am saying is that the physicalist can entertain notions which are paranormal, because they are still being set in a physical framework, even though they may be beyond the current ken of science; however the physicalist cannot entertain supernatural notions, because they imply some explanation that is not part of a physical framework.
To exemplify these points, an omnipotent and omniscient god--in the mainstream Judeo-Christian sense at least--is a supernatural concept. Conversely ball lightning, or stone-tape recordings, or even the quantum nature of gravity, are paranormal, in that they should have a physical explanation, but are beyond current common scientific understanding.
In a way, the 'paranormal' is about the evidence, in that evidence is collected that no part of science predicts. The 'supernatural', on the other hand, is an interpretation of often paranormal, but sometimes also normal evidence, which "explains" the evidence by some metaphysical means.
Of course, all of this doesn't mean that something paranormal is automatically "real"; it could still be a non-existent, imaginary, or delusional phenomenon. It does, however, mean that supernatural concepts are automatically false and not-real, if you accept rational thought and the logical consequences of Occam's razor.

I also feel I should say that, even though I said above that empirical data must be objective and verifiable (which is true), there are potentially some properties of the natural world that may not be objectively penetrable, and as such may be inaccessible to the scientific method. I am, of course, talking about our own consciousness, and the subjective qualities thereof. If you have read my background on the bar on the right you will have seen that I hold a degree in Cognitive Science. In the course of that degree I wrote my dissertation on consciousness, and let me just say, a very difficult topic it is too! I have still not been able to fully formulate, in my mind, what consequences there might be to a part of the world being impenetrable by science. Suffice it to say, for now, that it concerns me that thinking only in terms of science may be limiting in some manner of subjective experience. I'm absolutely not saying there's any reason to abandon science--that would be ridiculous--rather I wonder if there isn't the possible need to entertain notions that perhaps are in some ways unscientific...This matter requires much more thought!

-- In order to determine what to do, some religious people like to ask: "What would Jesus do?". Really all of the above is expressing my own version of that: "What would Dr Brennan do?" 
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