Author Archives: Raph Shirley

About Raph Shirley

I have been creating strange material for the internet for over twenty years. A kind of failed artist yet I refuse to stop.

An Argument in Favour of Hypocrisy

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The well known filthy tramp Jesus Christ famously said that ‘Hypocrites suck’ (Mathew 23:3 Raph Shirley’s 2015 translation). Therein lies the first argument in favour of hypocrisy. The Right is obsessed with hypocrisy for the obvious reason that one cannot argue against one’s current behaviour without committing hypocrisy. Slavery cannot end without someone being a hypocrite. Does the murderer who believes murder is wrong prove murder is right through his otherwise necessary state of hypocrisy? Does the man who once bought something undo himself by arguing against a privatised police force, since he has himself interacted with capital? He who has touched the coin must believe in the coin else he commits the ultimate sin of hypocrisy. And that leads us to the beautiful argument by contradiction at the heart of Christianity:

If the unhypocrite necessarily renounces all worldly possessions then since I have worldly possessions I would be a hypocrite to renounce worldly possessions. Therefore, since I am a hypocrite, I would be a hypocrite to argue in favour of unhypocrisy. Ergo, I must remain a hypocrite otherwise I would have to commit an act of hypocrisy in becoming the unhypocrite. And most of all you are a hypocrite for criticising my hypocrisy. What I preach is not to preach what I don’t practice and therefore all my practice is perfect and must never be changed.

One might think of this like the famous law of special relativity that the speed of light is the same for all observers. Hypocrisy is an equal evil to all observers regardless of the observer’s evil. Therefore since the Hypocrisy as Greatest Sin law of morality permits evil, then unhypocrisy is itself evil.

Finally, since I believe it is important not to practice what you preach, and since I preach that one should practice what one does not preach then I must begin by practicing what I preach in order to not practice what I preach, which is that one should not practice what one preaches. The antichrist has decided to argue against being immoral since otherwise he would have to be an unhypocrite which he disagrees with on moral grounds. Or is it ethical grounds?

Many happy returns,

Some notes on the Central Metaphysical Question

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In which I offer some physical insights into the difference between a physicalist and an idealist metaphysical approach.

One of the most striking aspects of Kant’s Critique to the student of physical sciences is a seeming pre-empting of Einstein’s relativity and other twentieth century advances in theory. In particular I refer to the central thesis that our conceptions of time and space preempt and facilitate experience. It is almost certainly true that Einstein was totally unaware of Kant’s work, but nevertheless his advances might seem to rest upon the key idea that 4 dimensional space-time is a framework with which to interpret sensory data and not built upon sensory data from purely logical principles. Otherwise how could he become convinced of un-common-sense new representations.

Consider the following system: A three dimensional Euclidean space-time in which a two dimensional space develops in time. Point particles evolve continuously over time. In any instant velocities are never infinity. Now let us give each particle an ‘internal coordinate’. Each particle can be defined by two spatial coordinates and a further physical property x. The question I am going to ask here is ‘how do physical theories in this universe differ if x is some physical quantity such as mass compared to if it is a third spatial dimension?’. Regardless of whether or not the latter would essentially be a coordinate transformation leading to a mathematically more complicated set of governing equations (dependent on the forces operating in the universe) this must be accepted as a possible representation. For instance consider a classical gravitation simulation with two bodies. One can consider the two bodies as having 4 coordinates which vary in time (3 spacial and one mass). Obviously mass is fundamentally different from the three spacial coordinates (it is constant for a given body/it plays a very different algebraic role in the governing equations). My claim here is that although the current representation of three spacial dimensions is the simplest in terms of the algebraic size of the governing equations, it is not a unique representation.

If you accept the proposed scheme laid out in the previous paragraph, then will you accept it leads to the following broader statement:

“The common sense descriptions of reality built originally upon forces acting on particles in four dimensional space-time is one of a set of greater than one representations.”

And finally if you would accept the arguments laid forth here, could you accept the following possibility:

The common sense representation of the world which precedes and makes possible experience built on sensory data is determined by the evolutionary principle that the models used to represent the world in consciousness are those models which require the smallest brains (in terms of energy expended in production).

If one can accept that that final un-empirical statement (I know of no experimental evidence for it) is a logical possibility then one has moved some way to a rejection of physicalism.

An Argument Against Logic by Sarah Vine

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If and only if logical arguments are un-logical then and only then I shall here present a short discussion rejecting out right the application of logic in matters of the un-heart. First, consider the kitchen. When one makes toast does not one first think I shall not make toast but instead shall enjoy some good humour and just make some toast, whiching I might describe as ratherable to seeing a ghost? No. Unbuttering done I walk through to my husband whom I love and say ‘if love means affection from the heart and not the mind then if I am in love with you (since it would be logical to kiss you and cuddle you) then in true unlogical fashion would I be better off pouring a bucket of cold water over your head? However, if it is unlogical to do such a thing and since love and cuddles are built on unlogical then might the ununlogical response be instead to kiss and cuddle’. It is jokes like this that keep me and my husband warm while we throw faeces at an image of Milliband on a white horse of logic and howlier than how?

Starting again from the first word in the sentence and building not sensibly from the unlogic in good humour. My kitchen is warm and nice. Now that is what I call entertaining. So Gove comes in and he’s like ‘I decided to crash my car because I didn’t want to’ and to do otherwise intentionally would be logical my dear Watson. That’s logic. Il logicarium in faeces. Yesn’t? Gove is wearing his nakedness to work and his suit to bed because he is an unholy sinner just the way I (don’t) like ’em. Stupid clever idiots on telly say no to my non’t if and only if it is.

And beginning at the beginning with the sage and necessary proposition on which to build the lovegument. Let me introduce the figure Gove. Glowing. Resplendent. Inswarzenegger untemperate. Blowing forth in cruel lowlier then Mao under siege in ancient anti-logics. Swearing in black hell of born under chaos in the kitchen of sewers and the sewer of kitchens in popular culture form and looking through the glass.