Let’s pretend there are 100.000.000 blogs. Actually we don’t need to pretend, they actually are. Let’s assume that some of them are active. And that people who make them active write often.
When writing, these people use words. But the number of words is finite. This means that the sum of all possible word-combinations is finite. Which means that, at some point in the future, when all the combinatory possibilities would already have been done, someone will rewrite this text, verbatim. And this person will realize that the literature is dead. And will commit suicide.

Dying literature

The optimistic version of this death of the literature was suggested by Borges, in Ficciones. The person who’ll rewrite this text, will do it in a totally different context. And this text, by the very fact that will be rewritten in a different context, will be another text. And the literature won’t be dead, but a ghost.

Photo by Andrew Mason.

We tend to wrongly believe that philosophy is a footnote to the work of Plato. I really don’t know who said such a stupid thing, but I bet he/she lived before 1905. For it is in 1905 that the new philosophical revolution began.
I won’t say a word about this revolution, otherwise very well known by the readers. I will only show how this idea (that we’ve received from Windelband, tells me one of my students) is stupid.
Knowing that the past is a foreign country (and, when saying that, I stand on the shoulders of authorities such as Lévi-Strauss and his pals), and knowing that Plato lived in the past, it follows that Plato is a stranger for anyone of us. He lived in a world where there weren’t train stations, fountain pens, electricity, or even common things like the coffee and cigarettes or the tomatoes. Not to mention the turkies and the computers.
If Plato came one day in our world, he would certainly be horrified. If we ourselves went in his world, we wouldn’t be less terrified.

The past, in fact, isn’t just any country. like Mexico for instance, but the alterity itself. Living in the past, (almost) unlike living in Mexico, is a logical impossibility. (Like any other logical impossibility, this one too, when taken into account, fathers the comedy. Just remember Mark Twain’s yankee.)
From this logical impossibility, it follows that any conceptual translation from a past language to a present one is impossible. How could we translate the greek “glottopoiein”? How to explain “the invisible hand” concept to an (ancient) greek?
Obviously, we can’t possibly understand a word from Plato’s work. So, writing footnotes to what we don’t understand (although it might be a current practice in the scientific papers) is just stupid.
All in all, philosophy has nothing to do with Plato.

[There is, however, a "theory" stating that beyond the Universe (where "beyeond" is understood in a spatial sense) is God. This "theory" is the consequence of an argumentative string: God is the Supreme Being; He is eternal, omnipotent, infinite, omniscient; He created the world solely by his word and by his will; the world is therefore subjected to laws (God's, nature's, aliens' and humans'); so the world isn't free; but God is perfect; so He is also free; so God is exterior to His creation; He is therefore outside the world, beyond the Universe.]

[There is another "theory" which says that beyond the Universe (where "beyond" is understood in a temporal sense) are the Paradise, the Purgatory and the Hell. This "theory" is also the consequence of an argment: the world is created, so it has a beginning; but what has a beginning is not infinite; so the world will perish; but after the world's distruction, there will be the Doomsday, which will establish who was virtuous, who still has to repent and who was definitely vicious; but these people will go to Heaven, to Purgatory and respectively to Hell; so, beyond the Universe, there is something, namely the Hell, the Purgatory and the Paradise.]
PS Both “theories” conceive space and time as separate entities, which suggest a naive vision of the world. Actually the Universe is everything around us, we ourselves and our theories included. Things only exist in relation whith each other, inside of a time-space continuum, because everything that exists, exists at a given time and in a given space. So there is nothing beyond the Universe.

Beyond Universe

Let M be the actual world. Let “a” be an object of our world, for instance this pen. Let us suppose “a” was a meinongian object (i.e. impossible). But if “a” is impossible, and if “a” belongs to M, then M is also impossible.

But, you will say, this pen is a real object, so M is at least possible.

Let M be the actual world. Let “b” be an object of our world, such as a square circle. Obviously, “b” is a meinongian object “by definition”. But, obviously again, “b” belongs to M. So M is impossible.

Impossible object

But, you will tell me, square circles aren’t real entities; they’re rather rational entities.

There are two very strong arguments against this critique.

1. Firstly, many particles used by the physics are rational entities. Quarks, for example, which are believed to be the fundamental bricks of the (real) material world, are rational entities.
2. Secondly, the dichotomy real / rational only makes sense for a Hegelian.

There is therefore no reason to deny the truth about the world:

THE ACTUAL WORLD, AS WE KNOW IT, IS IMPOSSIBLE.

Consequences

• Since we know this world (as little as we might know it), and since this world is impossible, out knowledge is impossible.
• Given that our knowledge is impossible and that we yet know something, we ourselves are impossible.

I shouldn’t've been twitting about this, nor should I’ve been reding Kant’s Grounding for the metaphysics of Morals. Unfortunately I did them both, for I love twitting and Kant’s book is an every summer lecture. I’m kinda confused, maybe it’s because I’m hungry.

The point was that I thought I would commit suicide for nothing. And I should find a way to do it usefully. And this is the way.

I was walking down the street and past by a fire hydrant and suddenly started laughing in roars, getting a poor old lady scarred. I said to myself

Why should I stupidly commit suicide for nothing? I would better go to the contagious deseases hospital, get to the front desk and say
- Good morning, i’d like to get infected with Ebola, please.

This way, my suicide would be very useful, for the doctors would be able to directly study the evolution of Ebola.

Now I should be eating, I’m starved to death.

Ebola infection

What is magic

Magic is the sum of the operations intended to artificially modify the reality. Depending on the forces invocked by the magician (the witch) to modify the real state of things, the magic is: white and black. White magic deals with the church-related forces (God, his family, the saints), while the black magic deals with the Devil.

In the magical millieux, it is believed that black magic is stronger. Nevertheless, most soecerers dedicated their lives to white magic, fearing the devine punishment.

Watch out now, here comes the demonstration.

The bet of Pascal (inversed)

Let us suppose I was a man. And I suddenly decided to become a magician. When deciding such a thing, I’d necessarily have to opt for a form or another. The first impulse would be to opt for the white magic, making sure I wouldn.t go to Hell. But I don’t really like to follow my first impulses (any more). Consequently, I’ll start thinking:

If I am a man, I’m exposed to a variety of sins. This means that – no matter how white was the magic I’d practice – the Hell’s doors are wide opened for me. And, once I’m in Hell, the Devil won’t miss any opportunity to revenge for I haven’t chosen his form of magic. Then it is preferable to chose the black magic, which is stronger and will help me to eventually get pally with the Devil when I am to meet him in Hell.

Photo by Computationally.intractab.