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I don’t know the significance of many, all, of my own thoughts — the bubble up, subside; are replaced with some other, equally arbitrary thought. The notion of free-will seems obsolete to me — with have algorithmic will; we are driven by the mathematical laws which pulse through our phones.
Digital networks influence physical networks. If everyone on the train reads the same news at the same time, there is a behavioral ripple; an epiphenomenal effect.
Just as I say this, Spotify sends me an add for a job — a charter school — I just applied to teach at, through my headphones. I am hooked in; my own information feeds back into the mental amp. My will distorts its own distortion.
I’ve been walking by a complete edition of Montaigne’s Essays at The Strand for a couple of weeks now — I tell myself the price-tag is too high (but I just spent $40 on Jordin Peterson’s book because I was curious), so I avoid the purchase; another part of me is afraid of the honesty of Montaigne’s writing — as if it will see through me: reveal me to be a sad little post-internet automaton.
This is a funny thing I’m writing: higher-level thoughts about lower-level functions; seemingly willed thoughts about unwilled behaviors.
We should think of books as trees and digital information as rain; when trees are cleared, rain is more likely to turn a landscape into a floodplain.
Thinking about thinking — it’s the only way I keep myself thinking.
