Progress?

I've got to admit, this is probably more work than just doing a new website from scratch.  I mean, with Blogger, you have to fit all of your images into set templates, while when you are designing your own website you have the privilege of complete control.  There's no scrolling through several different lists of predefined settings that completely change what images you must produce.

Of course, all this is beside the point since I also don't want to code my own blog from scratch.  Way too much work.  No, I'm perfectly happy spending the extra time on some images so that I don't have to recode everything.  Although I am going to have to jump into the Blogger code in a second here to see if I can set up a gradient and shadow for this post background.  Quite annoying that you can not replace colored backgrounds with images in the UI.  Or maybe you can and I just can't find it.  Oh well.  We'll see.  But for now, I think the images I've created will do.  I think the most fun I'll have with this blog is simply creating new pictures to throw up in the background and title.

Also, I think I'm going to start going through my essays from years ago and gradually working my way towards the current, posting each one with my commentary as I go.  That way future students can have the guidance that teachers never seem to give.  Who knows, I might as well just post all my work up here.

Speaking of which, I have a nice little Existential thought activity that I came up with while reading through the packets that I received.  Very interesting stuff.  For once I think I can actually appreciate a thought process that I learned in English.

Here is my 'thought activity:'

"Imagine this scenario: You have no sense of self. You are simply a brain. And you are surrounded by wires which feed you a predefined set of impulses. You have been fed these impulses since 'birth,' but since you have no other form of senses to verify these impulses, you must assume that they are accurate. These impulses feed you everything that is going on right now. They tell you that you are staring at a screen, what you are reading, the sensation of your behind on your chair. All of these impulses are predefined. It's like watching a movie, you cannot control the events, only your own interpretation of them. And all of these impulses are being fed to you through wires and they aren't really happening. How would you know?

"You might say, 'Well, I'll think to raise my right arm, and I raise my arm, then nothing is predefined and this scenario cannot exist.' But tell me, how do you KNOW, without a doubt, that you actually tried to raise your arm? It is simply a memory, and a common saying is that 'We remember what we want to remember.' If the input sends us the sensation of raising our arm, we will have the memory of raising our arm, even if we never thought it. There is no present, everything we know is noting but a memory. Since there is no way of verifying our thoughts, or more accurately, memories, how can we perceive truth?

"So let me ask you: if this situation was real, and you were armed with the knowledge that you were nothing more but memory strapped to predefined input, would anything change? Would you do ANYTHING differently? Or would you simply continue on with the same actions and decisions as before, since you are unable to change them? Has the lie become reality?"

This experiment is basically to force one to examine the laws and truths that govern them in an unbiased manner.  It proves that since there is no real evidence, one must accept the 'truth' that is 'most true.'  Since we are never able to act on proof (since it doesn't exist), we must act on a sort of faith in what is most likely.

Here end-eth my first day on Blogger.  At the very least, this is quite interesting.