Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Coincidencias privadas



Consultando una vieja cuenta de correo que apenas visito una o dos veces al mes, me topé con que una amiga del pasado había abierto una cápsula del tiempo y del espacio disperso...

Mi amiga, de la que hace varios años no sabía nada, escribía a lo que en otra época fue un grupo de personas unidas por ciertas circunstancias e intereses en común. Años después, desaparecido ya todo vínculo del antes bien ponderado grupo, me veo enfrentada de pronto a dos sucesos cuya conexión aún no logro entender. El primero, un sueño mío, una mera divagación de la conciencia en su estado más misterioso; una manifestación de mí misma y, al mismo tiempo, la mezcla casual de imágenes ordenadas arbitrariamente por una mente dormida que parece operar indiscriminadamente. Un sueño en el que, además de un sinfín de personajes indistintos, aparece mi amiga, aquella amiga de la que hace años no sabía y que tuvo el tino de escribirme hoy, sólo unos días después de que la había soñado. Esta segunda aparición del personaje, por decirlo de algún modo, en el mundo "real", constituyendo el segundo hecho que, aunado al primero, me tiene perturbada y constituye la causa de las presentes divagaciones.

Todo parece muy extraño. Thania me escribe una carta. Hace años que no sé de ella y, sin embargo, apenas unos días apareció -con aparencia fortuita- en uno de mis sueños... A veces pienso que debe haber algo más en la contigencia que el mero azar; me pregunto si será que las coincidencias existen de verdad, es decir, si tiene sentido decir que dos eventos co-inciden, que confluyen en cierto tiempo y espacio por una razón, y no simplemente por mera casualidad. Porque ahí está la gran diferencia entre lo que me parece es, por un lado, el mundo de la física -disculpen aquellos más versados sobre dicho tema si digo alguna barbaridad al respecto-, es decir, de las cosas que sólo pasan sin ningún por qué o para qué, sino que simplemente ocurren por que sí con cierta regularidad y constancia, y por otro lado, el mundo humano cargado de significación, de sentido, de fines que perseguir. ¿Pues qué otra cosa es el hombre que un ser teleológico que anda tras una u otra estrella, y al desaparecer ésta, corre el peligro de caer en el más oscuro de los abismos?

Piénsese nada más por un momento, ¿qué sería de usted si no tuviera propósito alguno que perseguir? ¿si no hubiese ningún deseo que lo hiciera levantarse por las mañanas, ninguna idea de sí mismo que le permitiera soñar un poco antes de acostarse? Es decir, ¿qué ocurriría si no pensáramos que existen las coincidencias, que el hecho de que las cosas ocurran de determinada manera tiene un sentido, que no es lo mismo enamorarse de Eduardo que de Juan o de Pedro? Y sin embargo, las cosas podrían ser así, podrían no tener ningún sentido, podrían no existir las coincidencias ni ser relevante la diferencia de enamorarse de uno u otro personaje.

Mejor aún, quizás estos precisos pensamientos no tenga en sí mismos ninguna utilidad, quizas mejor no pensarlos, porque el gran problema de una existencia como la nuestra, proyectada hacia el futuro, es que puede llegar el momento en el que creamos haber quemado ya todos los fusibles y no quede nada más que imaginar; una estadía que no deje cupo a ningún deseo posible que pueda iluminar nuestra inútil y minúscula vida. Porque uno de los inconvenientes de tender hacia un fin es que cuando éste se presenta como falso o imposible, se nos cae el tinglado.

Y ahí hay de dos: o nos deprimimos, o nos enojamos.
Pero ya basta,
Voy a parar ahora -si es que no han parado ustedes antes- ustedes, inverosímiles lectores de diarios no íntimos, ustedes, escritores llenos de tristeza, sin fines y sin estrella, vagando perdidos por esta inmensa acera.


Coming next: ¿De quién hablamos cuando hablamos de los otros? ¿de dónde proviene ese afán -¿moderno, acaso?- de generalizar?

Saturday, November 26, 2005

a short argument against physicalism


There is a view according to which all there is is either a physical object or something reducible to it. I won't get into the problems that this claim has concerning explanations. I'll just present a brief argument against what I here have described as physicalism.

(1)If physicalism is true, then there is no object or entity which is not physical or reducible to something physical.

This is just an explication of what it is to be a physicalist, or what physicalism implies. Now, the problem is this: there is a nice amount of things, objects or entities, that are not physical nor reducible to something physical. Here is a list: Borges' 'Ficciones', Beethoven's 'Eroica', Frege's 'On Sense and Nominatum', Newton's 'Principia Naturalis', Einstein's Theories of Relativity, David Lewis' arguments on Metaphysics and the joints of nature, Lull's theory of Universals, basic sciences like Physics and Chemistry, but also special ones like Geology and Geography, together with social ones like Anthropology and Sociology, and of course Lizalde's Tiger and other poems.

Physicalists tend to forget that all these things exist. Maybe there is someone who actually believes that the things I listed don't really exist (as in 'they have no existence of their own'). I won't fight against this. In part because I take that view to be clearly false, in part because this is a short argument against physicalism. Everything in my list is an existent entity. Nothing in that list (poems, short stories, theories, and works of art)is a physical entity. We must ask then, are they reducible to something physical?

Well, it depends. If you take reduction as implying identity, the answer is clearly NO. For we have already said that they were not physical entities, and so that also means they cannot be identical with physical entities. However, if you take reduction as not implying identity but, say, something like Kim's functionalizing of non-physical stuff, then maybe. But how? Kim's proposal works for mental stuff because the mind seems to be closely related to the brain. But what about theories, literature and music? Are they something closely related to brains? I guess not. All brains can disappear from the face of the world and Beethoven's 'Eroica' can still be there, interpreted OR NOT by a machine. The things in my list somehow survive all physical changes of the world. You might take the task of burning all the copies of Newton's 'Principia' and still the intellectual work of Newton will exist. Cut the pie the way you want, theories, literature, poetry, music, and what not, are not in the head or in any other physical object for that matter. How are we going to functionalize that then? Does it make any sense to try?

You cannot reduce something K into something Y unless it makes sense to say that K's are nothing over and above Y's. For all the things in my list it makes NO sense to say that they are nothing over and above physical things. Thus, the things in my list are not reducible to physical things.

(P2)There are some entities (like the ones in my list) that are not physical or reducible to something physical.

It follows by Modus Tollens, that

(C) Physicalism is not true.


So, fanatics of a non black and white world, all of you who like to think that the world is complex as opposed to simple, that it is plural as opposed to singular, can exist with peace. Physicalism is just not true, and something near enough is still not physicalism. More than a proper metaphysical view, physicalism seems to be one more among the utterly failed human projects intended to embrace totality with a finger. Physicalists, however, might find it amusing to be right next to a long list of very intelligent people starting with the Presochratics, and filled up with briliant minds such as Leibniz (e.g. ever heard of monadology?), Spinoza (e.g. theogeometry?) and Berkeley (e.g. pantheism?). Whoever cares to join, here's a recipe for failure: come up with a theory that explains everything! Your theory will most certainly be false.

Friday, November 18, 2005

Tipo de cambio


Los cambios de parecer son sigilosos, ocultos, vergonzosos; para muchos, casi incestuosos. Ocurren sin percatarnos y casi siempre provocan un sentimiento de malestar que no sabemos dónde situar. Por supuesto, nadie negaría por esto que pasarse al otro lado del río sea un hecho infrecuente. Sin embargo -se admite- esto pocas veces ocurre con conciencia. Reconocer que ha sido la opinión de ésta u otra persona la que nos ha llevado a movernos de nuestro suelo fijo hacia otro quizás más atractivo pero mucho menos seguro resulta uno de los acontecimientos más raros en nuestro andar cotidiano. No obstante, a pesar de la vanidad, la antigua costumbre de intercambiar ideas ha logrado colarse con éxito hasta nuestros días. El problema ha residido, quizás, en descifrar en qué consiste dicho éxito.

Si se cree que el fin de ofrecer buenos argumentos es lograr que el adversario muestre signos de reflexión y más aún haga una mueca que implique un pensamiento como el de "bueno, quizás tengas razón, creo que me has convencido...", si uno espera este tipo de respuesta, ya puede sentarse tranquilamente a esperar. Pocas veces se han encontrado tan claros signos de sensatez en las personas. Sin embargo, esto no quiere decir que el diálogo o, en algunos casos, nuestros buenos argumentos, hayan sido inútiles.

A veces ignoramos que, por rápidas que sean puedan ser las réplicas dentro del calor de la discusión, el verdadero rumiar de las ideas es un proceso que toma mucho más tiempo. Aunque espontáneos, generalmente cada argumento, cada respuesta, tienen su historia: han sido coartados con paciencia y digeridos cuidadosamente tras la reflexión. Forman parte de nuestra personalidad más honda; son nuestro nicho, nuestra familia, nuestro hogar.

Así pues, la verdadera discusión nunca se gana in situ. Hay victoria cuando hemos logrado infiltrarnos en el silencio del nocturno cuarto de nuestro testarudo contrincante, que se ha quedado sorprendido por habérsele ocurrido tan brillante idea (la nuestra) y ha quedado entusiasmado por al fin (él mismo, con sus propias manos) haber descubierto dónde se hallaba su error.

No esperes nada más que oír, de lejos, la voz de tu adversario defendiendo con fervor aquella postura que tú mismo trataste alguna vez -aparentemente, sin ningún éxito- de inculcarle.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

why am i not a gold coin?


Grandma' taught me a saying that goes like this: "I'm not a gold coin to fit everyone's pocket". I think the saying is true, apart from my bias, because it must be true. Grandma's lesson intended to show me why I couldn't be cherished or loved by all of them (all of my friends, all of my neighbors, all of my classmates). But I think the lesson goes deeper. I think it shows us why our ideas will never (and can never) be shared by everyone, our arguments will never (and can never) convince everyone and our job and views will never (can never) be appreciated by everyone.

I was thinking today on how easily it is for a student to shift from one view to another, from one writer to another, from one theory to another, and more. Underlying all this shifting there is, suppossedly, a common thread. Something that explains why you keep shifting. If you are a reasonable person, chances are you are shifting from one to the other because there is something common to both which you are chasing (or at least, you think or thought there is or was something like that). Ideally, that common thing or thread will be truth. Ideally - or at least that's what we would say when asked 'why do you now believe in X and not in Y like yesterday?' - we shift because the old view is not as truthful as we thought unlike the new one which (at least for the next couple minutes)is certainly true.

But that's not all there is to this story. There are also cases where you find yourself utterly incapable to believe in something. Perhaps the new theory is not so good, or so convincing, or so atractive. Perhaps the new philosopher in the block, the new argument on the table, the new book in the journals, just doesn't fit your belly. So, it is not true (or at least not always) that we shift so easily from one theory to the next, eating books like crackers.

There are many ways in which you can explain this allegedly anti-evolution measure. One is very simple: you just don't follow because you just don't understand (although, one must accept, a lot of people don't have trouble in following even when they don't understand - this sounds like an oximoron, how can you follow something that you don't understand? what is it that you are following?). Another explanation is a little bit more interesting: you understand but you just have too many fixed beliefs already, so you better stay with the old ones. A third one might be this one: you don't believe in the new theory because you just think it is mistaken, because your guts tell you there is something wrong. More often than not, when this third option is the case you also get the feeling that you are loosing track of something. The thread of proper evolution perhaps. Who knows? Truth is: everyone claims to understand and follow that line and you just can't do it. What is wrong with you?

Today I found myself in a situation pretty much like the third one above. It was one of those cases where no one, except for you obviously, dares to ask such questions, have such doubts, and make such bold claims ase you in the middle of the seminar. And then you, me, ask yourself, myself, what is wrong? My answer: nothing! Even more, it's not only that there is nothing wrong, but there shouldn't be anything wrong. And this is such because you are not a gold coin; and not only, you shouldn't be a gold coin to fit everyone's pocket, or everyone's theoretical pockets.

If it is true that one shifts from view to view because you're keeping track of the underlying thread of truth that moves on in our historical world, then, for the same reason, you should be able to stop the shifting and listen to your guts. And that reason falls under the label: 'to follow a maxim of consistency and responsibility'. I don't know if 'consistency and responsibility' should be read morally, logically, epistemologically or what not. But you should certainly do both, shift and stop shifting, at least for a matter of consistency and even more for responsibility.

And that is why you are not a gold coin. Because if you want to fit everyone's pocket, everyone's theoretical pocket, chances are that you are looking for fame, not for truth; or for friends, not the good.

And even more, you shouldn't be a gold coin. An ideal world would be such that all our theories consistently fit in all our pockets. That is to say, an ideal world is such where we not only get true theories, but where we only get those theories. Our world, let me tell you, is not one of those. Our world is such that it's full of theories, varieties of theories, competing theories and, more importantly, incompatible, mutually excluding theories. I'm sad to say this but, so it is that you can't blindly follow the next theory, the next philosopher, the next argument or book. This given, if you want to be morally or epistemologically correct, you don't want to be a gold coin; because gold coins fit everyones pockets, and those pockets do not fit well into each other at all. And that is why you shouldn't be a gold coin. That is why you shouldn't think there is something wrong with sometimes being the outsider. In such a world where you'll never be certain about the truthfulness of your beliefs, perhaps the best you can do is to be responsible and get some consistency here and there.

The best you can do is to avoid anyone's pocket, and any pocket for that matter; stop being a coin and stick to yourself. Whatever that might be it will certainly be better and more praiseworthy than any shifty coin with no head or tail, and no substance at all. Gold coins are omnidoxastic folks, and that has to be wrong. Because you are not a gold coin, and you shouldn't be one.

[coming soon: "we can't go home"]

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Warum nicht dreisprachig?


Also, ich wollte schon länger her ein Paar Linien für diesen komischen Medium schreiben. Aber was denn? Ich kann mich nicht entscheiden.
Entscheidung, was für ein Begriff. Ein einziges Weg wählen und allen anderen hinter sich zu lassen. "Du musst dich entscheiden" heisst es. Warum man das muss, wozu das auch dienen mag, sind Fragen die scheinbar gar nicht in Frage kommen. Und doch fühlt man sich immer wieder dazu gezwungen, unter diesem Motto der ständingen Entscheidung zu handeln, zu denken und zu schreiben. Denn, wie kann man sich überhaupt etwas vornehmen, ohne erst die Entscheidung getroffen zu haben, sich das vorzunehmen, was man sich vornehmen möchte? Und dann aber, ist es möglich, sich zu entscheiden, eine Entscheidung zu treffen, bevor man sich entschieden hat, zu entscheiden, eine Entscheidung zu treffen?
Deshalb scheint mir die Möglichkeit des Handelns und des Schreibens ohne denken viel besser, als das sogennantes "reflexives" Handeln; denn statt so lange warten, bis jemand die Enscheidung trifft, sich um eine spezifische Entscheidung zu enscheiden, schreibt man lieber selbst irgendwas und hört mit diesem Quatsch schnell wieder auf.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

fading in and fading out


I have this theory of myself according to which I can fade in and out as it pleases me. I also have this empirical evidence according to which if I fade in and out too much I either get lost or get hurt. My theory works perfectly well. It always predicts when and where, even how, should I fade in and out. This however, does not make the fading in and out less dangerous. Right now, for instance, I'm fading out. That is exactly what it takes to be writing about oneself. Even more if one is talking about oneself's theories of oneself. I do not know how many steps towards disappearance am I heading to right now. That is just beyond the reach of my theory; it does not work by degrees. It just works as some sort of threshold detector. It tells me when I cross it back and forth. Right now, for instance, it is pounding so hard that it makes me think I am just under the sensor, under the threshold, right below the 'and' of 'fading in and fading out'.

However, no matter how painful or dangerous the act might be, I've found out my theory and my fading to be completely fruitful. At some point it is also even completely safe. For if, like me now, you manage to stay under the threshold you will see that no wrong or danger can possibly reach you. Not because you start being invincible but because you stop being someone. Actually, according to my theory, there is no you with whom I - or you for that matter - could be talking to. This - fading in and out- happens to me a lot when I let myself fall in love. At some point of the infatuation I literally stop, turn around and laugh at myself: childishly foolished by life once more! No matter how many times this happens to me, it seems, I will just keep falling in the trap. I'll just keep fading in and fading out.

Monday, November 07, 2005

the vanity of ambiguity and its perversity


Today's edition of the NY Times reads, at some point, the following: "Bush, Replying to Chávez, Urges Latin Americans to FollowU.S." And as I read Elisabeth Bumillier's contribution to my knowledge of territories that lie beyond the limits of this little island (the United States, that is) I start wondering about the ambiguity of Bush's words, even more, about their perversity, all among which are given by their vanity.

As you surely know, at some point Latin America in general was ruled by dictartorships. Most of them were simply just military-ruling dictatorships. I'm sure you are also aware that such dictatorships were - as in the case of Allende's Chile - American sponsored, controlled, advised and produced military dictatorships. No one that knows a couple of things about Latin American history would denie this. Even with his infamous stupidity, I'm sure Bush is also aware of this. This should be enough, then for you to realize the gravity of the following claims, taken from Bumillier's contribution to the cited Newspaper:

"The administration worries that the region may slip into the authoritarianism of the past, or that other leaders like Mr. Chávez may emerge. “Only a generation ago, this was a continent plagued by military dictatorship and civil war,” Mr. Bush said. “Yet the people of this continent defied the dictators, and they claimed their liberty.”

The ambiguity: Is Bush telling us - i.e. Latinamericans - that it is the existence of populist presidents such as Chávez which gives place to military dictatorships, the same which we've been fighting so hard against. And, thus, that we should avoid supporting such governments and, instead, follow the libertarian path offered by the US? Or is it more, as I think, Mr. Bush offering a very thoughtful advise. Is he, by any chance,telling us that it isthe existence of populist rullers as Chávez which gives place to America's military, economic and criminal strategies to destroy such governments. Which, as should be expected, easily turns into American sponsored, controlled and produced military dictatorships of Latin America.

Whichever reading you follow, the vanity of the claims arises inevitably for we are forced to thank Bush for the piece of advise since, it seems, he is really trying to help: Latin America should, no matter how, avoid military dictatorships. And if we know they are a product of the United States government's vanity and ambition, why not avoid it? I see this as vain, for there is no more vanity than showing off so publicly the extent of your power and even more to make it so evidently that it may pass as something kind, something normal, as if it should be expected.

And this vanity gives place to perversity. Doing wrong knowingly, willfuly and, as seems to be the case, with premeditation and advantage, strikes me as a paradigm of perverseness. A perversity coming from such vain and arrogant claims has found its pairs in history around the 1930's, when somebody else, just like Bush now, claimed to have a solution and made sure everyone else believed him. Let us not forget, as Herr Göbels used to say: a lie that is told a hundred thousand times becomes truth. And vanity helps repeting contents for hundreds and thousands, and hundreds of thousands of times.

may we be careful enough to avoid this vanity, and perversity

Sunday, November 06, 2005

let's make this bilingual


How can we be justified in claiming that life is difficult, or hard, or a hassle, or just complex, very complex, fairly complex? I've been wondering about this for the last days. On the one hand my dear Shen-Yi has a hard, Nietzchean, hammering answer: life is not hard, or a hassle, or complex at all, it is just that we, humans perhaps, are just too weak for life. Thus, we'll never be justified to claim what I thought could be claimed. On the other hand, my dear Mr. DeVore, thinks (and this is my assumption) that life may scape our epistemic capabilities. Thus, leaving some space for me to offer an argument. I'll try to say why I think Shen-Yi may be right, as well as Mr. DeVore. I'll try to offer, once more, a dilemma.

I was about to offer you premisses and arguments, all the analytical way. But this is my blog, and this is not a paper. And this is not this, if you were wondering. So I'll let myself write down what has to be written. And I'll let my pen go down as it has to go. This is what I believe.

Life is more encompassing than just a biological process. Life includes will, desire, experiences, reflections, doubts, certainties, uncertainties, passions, sensations, infatuations, love, hatred, and all that bunch of beautiful things that we philosophers never dare to talk about. Human weakness, of course, is a part of all this bunch. I just wonder whether this makes life difficult or not.

More than once we - I mean humans, intellectuals, or pedantic people - have argued that this feature of life should be cashed out, scratched off or something like that. It is just like we don't want to deal with it. But this makes weakness a very unnatural, unhuman, uncontrolable thing. If the goal is to reduce it, then pushing it outside life is not going to do the work. Weakness is not beyond life, as much as hassles, obstacles and problems are not beyond either. I believe, following this train of thought, that the claim that life's complexity is just a matter of human weakness is either redundant or misleading.

If human weakness is not supossed to be a part of life, of our all encomapssing notion of life, then how are we supossed to deal with it? If it is part of life then our claim that life is complex should be embraced; although with some restrictions. Of course, it should not be taken as justifying irresponsibility. That life is complex does not offer us an easy way out of our problems. It just helps understanding them. Life is complex, and our weakness (whatever that might be) helps making it more complex, and so we must live. And so, I think, it must be faced.

Thus, as a matter of weakness or not, life is complex. We should start accepting this fact in a very concrete manner. If we want to deal with life, that is.

Friday, November 04, 2005


Este sapo lo sabe todo. Lo tiene en el buche. A punto de croar el mundo decide esperar. Quine tiene algo que decir con respecto al significado. Pronto reventara!

rondas metafísicas

Dos ideas corren juntas por mi cabeza
(1) metafísica
(2) significado

Recientemente me sumergí en el nihilismo Quineano según el cual no hay ontología que no sea relativa a una teoría. En otras palabras, que no hay manera de determinar qué entes, o qué tipo de entes, existen sin contar con una teoría de sustento a dichas preguntas. Más allá de las analogías y estrictas relaciones que de aquí se tienden a la hermenéutica y al historicismo ontológico, me preocupa una de las consecuencias. Junto con la relatividad ontológica dos ideas recorren el pensamiento de Quine:

(3) inescrutabilidad de la referencia
(4) indeterminación del significado

Mucho se ha dicho sobre si el significado incluye, además de la referencia, un segundo nivel. Esto no es claro y tal vez no lo llegue a ser. Pero lo que sí resulta claro es que si hay tal cosa como significados deberá ser al menos una de estas cosas: referencia o significado. El problema es que Quine ataca ambas posibilidades. No en vano Fodor lo tilda de nihilista semántico. Esto es más preocupante aún cuando reflexionamos sobre si esta postura ontológica (i.e. la que rechaza la existencia de significados) es, como dice Quine, también relativa a una teoría. Si el nihilismo semántico es relativo a una teoría, entonces podríamos suponer que dada una teoría particular uno puede dar cuenta del significado. Sin embargo esto no es así, o al menos parece muy difícil que sea así porque los argumentos a favor de (3) y (4) pueden emplearse siempre para el caso de cualquier teoría. Esto tiene como resultado desastrozo que no hay teoría alguna que escape a (3) y (4) y con ellas la conclusión nihilista de que no hay tal cosa como significados.

Por eso pienso en las ideas que rondan mi cabeza, ideas como (1) y (2) que terminan por confundirse con (3) y (4) para fusionarse en (5)

(5) hablar de significado es hacer metafísica

Thursday, November 03, 2005


banda dispersa que me tope en huatulco (el chavo de amarillo es la onda)

conjunto de entes lujuriosos y hambrientos

el novio de Catalina, mientras ella se pregunta por qu� �l piensa en tonter�as y no piensa en ella! Oh mundo!

Catalina en Ann Arbor

xenofobia subconsciente

No pocas veces he insistido en que los estadounidenses blancos están genéticamente programados para desempeñar actitudes xenófobas. Ayer mismo platicaba de ésto con Marco Rigau, amigo puertorriqueño. Algunos números, algo sorprendentes, aparecían en la discusión. Según estudios realizados empleando un mismo texto leído por un gran número de estudiantes, la mitad blancos y la mitad negros, la respuesta en la evaluación de los profesores fue sistemáticamente la misma: asignar un grado menor al estudiante negro en comparación con el estudiante blanco. No sorprende que haya diferencias, o preferencias ni siquiera tendencias. Lo sorprendente, claro, es que la respuesta sea sistemática. Eso es lo que más preocupa, que los actos xenófobos están fuera del control consciente de los blancos de esta patria sin nombre.

Hoy curiosamente fue víctima de uno más de esos actos. Fue muy sutil, muy curioso. La mujer encargada de actualizar la página del departamento de filosofía de UMich, me comentaba que había dudado un poco sobre la dirección de mi página (ésta página) que le había proporcionado. Quizo explicarlo todo en forma de chiste y, como ya es sabido, los estadounidenses son tan malos que uno se ve obligado a burlarse de ellos haciéndoles creer que uno ríe con ellos. La historia es breve, seré breve. Resulta que esta chica, a quien suelo apreciar, estaba dudosa de si mi dirección era la correcta, así que decidió probar. Entró a mi página, ésta que ahora escribo mientras tu lees, pero resultó que estaba en español. Así que no podía reconocer si era la mía o no. Pero de pronto vió una señal distintiva: un texto que lleva entre las palabras del título el nombre 'Descartes'. Inmediatamente pensó: esta página tiene que ser la de Eduardo, pues ningún otro HISPANO tendría una página en Internet en donde escribiría algo con respecto a Descartes.

En cuanto dijo eso no sabía si morir de vergüenza o risa. Acaso piensa la dama que a Descartes sólo lo conocen en Inglés? ¿Acaso cree que todo lo que acaso puedo saber o ignorar de filosofía lo adquirí por ósmosis y en los dos breves meses que llevo en este lugar? ¿Acaso realmente cree que los hispanos sólo se dedican a pelar bananas?

Tristemente la mujer había dado en el blanco. Esa era mi página, pero había acertado por mera fortuna. Porque seguro estoy de que más de mil páginas escritas bajo el asupicio de esta misma lengua discuten, incluyen o mencionan el nombre 'Descartes'.

¡Qué vergüenza! Tener tanto poder y no salir nunca de las cuatro paredes que delimitan a esta pequeña isla en el centro de un mundo completamente desconocido.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

historias

sigue pasando y no deja espacio para mis dudas. cada vez más convencido, me veo forzado a gritarlo a los siete vientos.

nos encantan las historias. vivimos de historias. nos vemos por historias. buscamos completar historias, por eso planeamos, por hacemos, decimos, decidimos y pensamos. porque nos gusta - y quizás más gravemente - necesitamos ser parte de estas historias. así nos gusta pensarnos - o quizás más gravemente - sólo así podemos pensarnos.

ahora mismo estoy por convencerme de una historia. pero no, mejor me convenceré de otra.

eso,

otra más


P.D. Intenté editar esta historia, pero no pude. Las historias son flexibles, pero no son proxenetas.