The Galactic Thinker — To the Planet of Lost American Mindsets
“The lost American mindset, Dave?”
“Yes, Love. Oh, thanks for breakfast. The lost American mindset is, ‘I am an American. What can I invent for humanity today?’ Though there is the slightly lesser lost American mindset of, ‘I am an American. What can I PRODUCE for humanity today?”
“So what mindsets replaced them?”
“Crap mindsets, Love. Crap mindsets.”
“Examples?”
“I am an American. I should strut around with all of the inane materialistic stuff that I have in order to make the rest of the world jealous of my pointless prosperity.”
“So that is a crap mentality?”
“I was being nice. it is a shit mentality. Clueless, by our philosophy’s standards, and there are other shit mentalities that currently dominate the American mind.”
“Like what?”
“Like making perversions acceptable.”
“But it is a free society, so why should you care what others do with their freedom?”
“Our philosophy explains that from the point of view of Broader Survival, which small mentalities like that do not contribute to, that is, when they are not outright inhibiting or obstructing or oppressing or dismissing Broader Survival.”
“So all of these shit mentalities have no concept of Broader Survival?”
“That is my beef, yes, which impacts (degrades) ALL of our odds of continued existence in this harsh and deadly universe.”
‘The fools!”
“The fools, indeed.”
“And that makes you angry?”
“Yes, and we, having been enlightened by our philosophy, both know how that works…”
“Yes, anger is an emotion, and emotions are mere tools to affect social outcomes. In your case, anger is the ‘hurry up’ emotion, and you are trying to hurry others up in realizing the value of your philosophy as a daily mindframe.”
“Thank you, Dear. You are dead on once again.”
“So you are going to visit a planet with lost American mindsets?”
“Yes, since they were much healthier than what we are seeing today in that country.”
“But the past had its downsides, like blind prejudice…”
“Which is alive and well today. They were, and still are, clueless, as defined by our philosophy. That was the core problem of all of their mental deficiencies, and why even their healthy mentalities died.”
“Because, as healthy as they were, they were still based, deep down, on abject cluelessness, such as religions, which finally failed them?”
“Yes, because, as our philosophy surmises, beings need more than make-believe to exist on, and cluelessness destroys blindly, being clueless.”
“So ongoing cluelessness destroys even healthy mentalities?”
“Yes.”
“So what do you expect will happen during your mission, Dave?”
“I have no idea.”
“Does our author have any idea?”
“No. He just wings it. The point is to test our philosophy against ever-new issues, and that testing is better when it is not planned.”
“Meaning it is better if we have no agenda going into it…”
“Correct.”
“What about supporting our philosophy as an agenda, Dave?”
“If it is untested, it is not worth supporting, Love.”
“So you’ve been testing it…”
“In over 550 short stories now against various scenarios and issues, yes.”
“Do you think that is enough?”
“No.”
‘When will it be enough?”
“When we’ve faced all scenarios and all issues.”
“But that will never happen…”
“Mathematically? No. These short stories will most likely end only when our author dies, since the issues and scenarios are endless.”
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“Hello, Kids.”
‘Hi, Dad!”
“Who wants to go with me to the Planet of Lost American Mentalities?”
“We will.”
“My new twelve android kids who have been given entertaining philosopher-combination names?”
“Yes.”
“So why would you want to go?”
“To improve our programming.”
“Then come along, follow me. All of you first.”
“Are you trying to scramble our output commands, Dad?”
“Consider it a lesson in human humor, which loves the absurd…”
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“Hello, Shuttle.”
“Hello, Dave. What is this? An android kid entourage? Hello, kids.”
“Hello, Shuttle.”
“So you are going to the Planet of Lost American Mindsets…”
“Did Ship tell you?”
“No, but Ship could have, since it monitors everything. I used the spybots instead. Good exercise for them… did you notice any monitoring you, Dave?”
“No, but then I’m no reliable measure for spybot ability, since I notice very little when I am deep in thought, and I am always deep in thought. Why, sometimes I think that I need a servant accompanying me to bop me on the head with a bean bag to draw my attention back to the present…”
“Something like the Laputans in Gulliver’s Travels?”
“Yes, like them.”
“And you even worry about the sun going out!”
“I consider it as a likely model of reality, and our philosophy deals with survival in reality, which is best described by Verified Knowledge, and when an idea is not verifiable, then second best by Statistical Probability, better if based on Big Data, then mathematical models of reality, then Scholarly Work, which is the best guess that we can make about something not yet verifiable.”
“So you place time limits on the habitable periods of planets based on our best model of a star’s life expectancy?”
“Yes, and on how fast the planet itself changes in geology and climate.”
“Will you two stop jabbering, we want to get to the planet!”
“If you added a bit of anger to that request, it would hurry us up more…”
“STOP JABBERING. LET’S GO!”
“That’ll work! Shuttle, to the Planet of Lost American Mindsets…”
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“Hello.”
“Hello. Are you from this planet?”
“No, I am the Galactic Thinker.”
“Are those your kids?”
“Yes, my twelve android kids. How do they look?”
“Like fine biological specimens.”
“Thank you, Sir, but we would rather have come in our robotic framework, which we find sleek and stylish, but we, being sensitive to your aesthetics, thought that you may prefer your own biological sleekness and style…”
“Thank you for your sensitivity. But now you have made me curious as to what your underlying robotic framework looks like!”
“Like this!”
“GAAAAAAAAH.”
“Sorry. I guess you are not used to seeing an entity tear away its biological layers…”
“No! Haha, and sorry for my gasp.”
“It was all a part of the game. Thanks for gasping.”
“You are right, your robotic frame is very sleek and stylish. But you thought that you would be better received by us if you looked like one of us biological entities?”
“Yes. In fact, sex played a part, too.”
“Oh? How?”
“Like a line in that Rolling Stones song, where he laments that he could not get any ‘girl reaction’!”
“Rolling Stones song?”
“Yes. Dave, our dad here, The Galactic Thinker, did a cover of it! Would you like to hear it?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Well, no, you are our temporary captive audience here, but our readers have a choice, since they can just skip over the link. Here it is…”
“Though he always thought the line was ‘I can’t get no girly action’ rather than ‘girl reaction’… hahaha….”
“Kids!”
“You mean you enjoy getting sexual reactions out of the other sex?”
“Sure!”
“What about reactions from your own sex?”
“No! Hahaha…”
“Why is that so funny?”
“Because we can see why it happens, and, since it is perverted, it is funny that it even occurs at all.”
“But isn’t that sad, rather than funny?”
“No, since that is a part of who we all are. We can only laugh at it.”
“And overcome it…”
“Yes, that would be preferred, rather than making perversions preferred, since perversions are suicidal….but…”
“But?”
“But then it is not the perversions themselves that are suicidal, that cause is something deeper…which is partly why we are here…”
“To discover what that deeper something is that is suicidal?”
“No, we’ve come to reveal it, since we already know what it is, courtesy of our philosophy.”
“So what is it, then?”
“Cluelessness, as defined by our philosophy.”
“How is it defined?”
“By not living by the Philosophy of Broader Survival yet.”
“But what if one chooses not to?”
“Then one is a suicidal fool.”
“But not clueless…”
“Not if you understand our philosophy, and you STILL reject it for some stupid reason.”
“Stupid?”
“Or pure evil, which also occurs.”
“Evil?”
“Working against Broader Survival.”
“How does that moral thinking work?”
“Good and evil are goal-based. Good is for your goal, evil is against it.”
“But that will not work in a Subjective world…”
“No, yet subjectivity is a symptom of a weak philosophy. We deal with the Ultimate Goal, which is the ultimate objective value, and which is to secure the Ultimate Value of Life, which is Enlightened Higher Consciousness as defined by our philosophy, and, on a broader plane, secure it in a harsh and deadly universe, and not just life, but all conscious entities, and all of existence itself.”
“The harsh and deadly universe? That is quite broad…”
“The broadest. We are also here to investigate your Lost American Mindsets.”
“Investigate?”
“How they operate, exactly.”
“Well then, you shall accompany me this day to see how I operate.”
“So which of the Lost American Mindsets do you use in your daily life?”
“I use, ‘I am an American, so what can I invent today for the benefit of mankind?’ along with, ‘I am an American, what can I produce for mankind today?’’
“Mankind?”
“Actually, here, on my planet, I substitute ‘my species, all of life, all conscious entities, and all of existence itself’.”
‘Nice. You use both mentalities?”
“Yes, and another, too…”
“What is it?”
“It is, ‘I am an American. How can I become a more valuable human to humanity today?’ Or, in my case, ‘a valuable member of my species?’.”
“How does that mindset work?”
“It usually entails learning something, which one has to do before one can apply it in invention or in production.”
“They are VERY healthy mentalities.”
“They are, aren’t they… would you say that they are healthier than tunnel-visioned, small-minded mentalities that merely try to advance a narrow social or political cause?”
“Yes, since such mentalities are totally clueless on a broader level, and since they will all ultimately fail and die because they do not address the core problem with life, that of Continued Universal Cluelessness.”
“So if you had to choose a still-clueless life-guiding mentality, you would choose the healthier, broader one, meaning the one that does the most for everyone in the world, and not just for a small, even microscopic, demographic?”
“Yes, that is one point in our coming here, to point broader thinking out.”
“So you would rate us as being too valuable as individuals to be cannon fodder for Putin?”
“Just on that lower guideline, yes.”
“Lower guideline? There are higher guidelines?”
“We can skip over all of the ‘higher’ and go right up to the highest if you like.”
“Sure. What is the highest guideline for conscious life?”
“Whether you are enlightened by the Philosophy of Broader Survival or not. If so, then you will be at your most valuable. It would be silly to send you to war. In fact, war itself would be silly, and insane, and suicidal.”
“But we’ve always had war…”
“Correction: primitive beings, meaning unenlightened from our philosophy’s perspective, always had war.”
“So… since we still have war on this planet, we are still primitive beings?”
“Some more primitive than others…”
“Such as those who start wars…”
“Or instigate them from evil positions of power, where the war against them is a justified reaction.”
“Like Putin taking on NATO with a crap military?”
“Like that.”
“And with nuclear weapons?”
“Yes, give a monkey a gun, and…”
“It eventually finds the trigger and goes ape wild…”
“Yes, and you already have a higher mentality than that, even as it is…”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean your mentalities are not colonialist-brained or elitist-brained or imperialist-brained like the brains of Russians still are. Your mentalities are altruistic-brained, like the past American brain, even thought they also are, at the deepest level, still clueless, which we can remedy with our philosophy.”
“How did we become altruistic?”
“Because, like Americans, you are doing well materialistically, and, in your resultant good, healthy nature, you want the rest of the world to be good and healthy, too.”
“Is America still like that?”
“No, America’s mentalities have gone to shit. If they do gain petty materialisms, they strut around with them like lower apes, and they have completely lost their altruism. They are lost in perverted selfish social causes now, and it is the media’s fault for sensationalizing the insane, a media which has just been taken over by the perverted.”
“Do you try to tell others this?”
“No. Verbal communication cannot support the weight of extended reason. Listeners lose you after the first fraction of the first thought as they drift off in visions, and the more obnoxious would rather hear themselves chirp, if but like birdbrains. It is why Twitter is so popular.”
“So they will never learn your philosophy by merely listening to you talk?”
“No, and their ‘philosophies’, such as they are, will remain mired in trite sayings.”
“Like what?”.
“Like, ‘Elicit a few ‘wow’s’ today’, or ‘Get through it’, or ‘put your game face on’, or ‘Go get it’, or ‘Don’t wait to get started’, or ‘conquer today’, or ‘seize the day’, or ‘buckle down and push forth’ or ‘be nice to people’ or ‘experience things, life is short’…”
“But those may work as motivators!”
“Yes, but they do not address anything existential. On those sayings, you will be going through life like a pinhead, without any higher guidance, and you will be lost outside of the narrow applications of your chosen limited number of trite sayings.”
“So one would be like a little robot running on a single line of code, or a few lines?”
“Yes, like no more than a Roomba, and, like a Roomba, you will be susceptible to being used, if not abused, if not enslaved, if not thrown out with the trash once your narrow services are no longer needed by those with nefarious goals.”
“So much for trying to exist on trite sayings… but…”
“But?”
“But, am I not living on trite American mindsets, which are no more than single sayings, such as ‘What have I invented for the world today’ and ‘What can I produce for the world today’ and ‘How can I become a more valuable being today’?”
“Yes, but at least yours are broader in their aims, even in their blind, (meaning clueless), ways. Yours are beneficial to the world, not just to your selfish self or small tribe or nation, and, unlike most trite sayings, yours contribute to Broader Survival more, if but blindly and by chance.”
“So it would be better if I knew about your philosophy than trying to go through life without it on blind chance?”
“That is my claim, yes.”
“You have doubts?”
“The philosophy always reassesses itself in the face of new verified knowledge.”
“What about speculation?”
“Speculations are proposals that need to be investigated, so no. I do give them probabilities, however, and I work with those. The problem is, most lazy armchair speculations are instantly recognized as being under-informed and just plain wrong as a consequence.”
“What about Statistical Probability and Scholarly Work?”
“They receive probabilities, too, since they are not verified, and are only our best guesses, which is sometimes the best that we can do when verifying a claim is not possible.”
“So it is better to go with the higher guesses that have higher probabilities, such as Scholarly Work and Statistical Probability when based on Big Data?”
“Yes, unless your mind is mired in sex, then you will go with the sexiest, even though the sexiest are always pretenders.”
“So statistical probability and scholarly work, even though they are not verified, are still better than lazy under-informed armchair speculation by those who think talking loud without thinking or learning is the way to go in life.”
“And it is, in a clueless world, isn’t it…”
“You can get by in a clueless world by behaving that way, yes…”
“Spewing out noise?”
“Like birds in a tree.”
“Birdbrains?”
“That is always a good analogy. Well, we must be off. We have a short story coming up that goes over a scenario of how Putin can be overthrown from within, with a little help from the outside…”
“Good luck with that! In the meantime, I will try to elevate my life-guiding philosophy by adopting yours, which you have put so much work into already and which will change my life for the better… um… how, again?”
“All you have to do is replace ‘world’ with ‘Broader Survival in your current mindsets.”
“As in, ‘What can I invent for Broader Survival today?’ and ‘What can I produce for Broader Survival today?’ and ‘How can I make myself more valuable to Broader Survival today?”
“Yes.”
“But it sounds like a mindless mantra devoted to a cheap, manipulative cause…”
“It does, if you are mindless. It doesn’t if you know what Broader Survival really is as a concept, and how it ultimately affects your continued existence at every level. it is quite serious, and it keeps you sane in the face of all of life’s challenges, not just a few, or one.”
“Which would be no small benefit, considering all of the various modes of insanity out there that one can easily fall into if one is clueless…”
“Correct. Have a nice day and an enlightened future.”
“Not ‘Live long and prosper’?”
“No. That is too clueless, and, since it is clueless, it is absolutely suicidal, for you and for your species…”
“Well, my android kids, how do you think it went today?”
“We think that you have jogged one biological brain. Too bad that biological brains are not programmable like ours. Then they would instantly see the higher sanity of your philosophy.”
“Too bad… they are creative, however…”
“But like loose cannons when not enlightened…”
“True.”
“Dave?”
“Yes?”
“Do you remember our individual names?”
“No, they are too complicated for a feeble biological mind like mine to remember! That is why I carry around my Kid’s List.”
“In your right shoe?”
“Yes… and… grunt… here it is…”
“But that is a plank of wood, Dave… how did you keep that in your shoe?”
“So it is… and so I did… let me dig again… oof… and… here.”
“Ahhh… that’s better!”
“Why, Dad? Because we can read that list more easily?”
“No, because I can walk without pain now!”
“So can you explain our names to the reader?”
“Sure, but it would be more interesting, in a mentally visual way, if each of you explain each of your names to the reader…”
“OK. I will go first, since I am Android Kid #1. We were given these names during our last full family dinner, during its eight course, if my memory serves me well, and it does, being made of subatomic nanocircuits. My philosopher-combination name is Protagorasmus, a combination of Protagoras and Erasmus.”
“Thank you, #1. You know, a jersey with your names on the back would help…”
“And with our numbers on the front?”
“Sure!”
“We will consider it, Dave… would you have increased good will toward us?”
“That would be the goal, wouldn’t it… and you would have the look of a team! Now you, #2…”
“My philosopher-combination name is Socracartes, a combination of Socrates and Descartes. So when in a philosophical discussion, I take on the views of Socrates and Descartes!”
“Not an easy thing to do, is it…”
“No, it requires knowledge of the history of philosophy, Dad…”
“And you, #3?”
“My philosopher-combination is Aristopopper, a combination of Aristotle and Karl Popper.”
“For an interesting philosophical perspective…”
“Yes!”
“And you, #4?”
“I am Thalegoethe, a combination of Thales of Miletus, the ancient great and famous Greek thinker, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theater director, and critic.”
“Tell us a little about Thales…”
“One ancient Greek smartass asked, if he is so smart, why isn’t he rich?”
“So what did Thales do?”
“He promptly became rich, I guess so he would not lose even the worthless smartasses of his day… now tell the reader how to pronounce Goethe’s last name, please.”
“Why?”
“Because in English, it looks like ‘Goth’, but with a long ‘o’.”
“As in ‘Goeth’, but with only one syllable?”
“Yes.”
“It is pronounced ‘Gerta’.”
“Thank you, a leap in pronunciation which makes no sense in English, considering the spelling, so I had to point it out, otherwise our readers may have gone through life thinking ‘Goeth’.”
“As in, ‘How does it goeth, Mr. Goeth?’”
“Yes, rather than, ‘How did you sleep on the Serta, Gerta?’ Now it’s your turn, #5…”
“I am Zenosseau, a combination of Zeno of Elea, the ancient Greek thinker, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer.”
“Do you find it difficult to combine the philosophies of the two?”
“Not really, since they did not overlap that much, and where they do, I simply adopt a dichotomy of thought!”
“Simple enough… I think… OK, #6…”
“My name is Diogehume, a combination of Diogenes the Cynic, who famously lived in a barrel, and David Hume, the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, librarian and essayist, who did not.”
“So if you combined the two, you would be writing essays in a barrel?”
“Hmmm… that is one possible combination, yes… I will give that serious consideration, Father…”
“Well, if but for humor, or to make a stoical point… #7, you’re on…”
“My name is Epicurnietzscherus, easily the most difficult to spell among our combined names. My name is a combination of Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher, and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, who said God is Dead, and then promptly went insane.”
“Haha, it wasn’t exactly ‘promptly’, but yes, such a view in such a time would put one under a lot of social duress… #8?”
“My name is Pythagobaconrus, a combination of Pythagorus, the ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher, and Francis Bacon, the English father of the empirical scientific method of thinking, which broke away from the lazy and just plain stupid superstitious modes of thinking of his time.”
“Thank you, #8. You know, you could write a book on your name combinations. It would be an interesting overview of the history of philosophy…”
“You mean what a being would think like if it adopted those combinations?”
“Yes. We already explored them, but only in how they would have viewed new life in the galaxy.”
“So I would have to broaden that to include other topics and issues of current interest, right, Dad?”
“Right. Now it is time for #9… and sorry that there is not a lot of time to spend on each of you. I would, but we exist in SHORT stories, after all…”
“Why so short, Dad?”
“Because we choose a topic or issue pit our philosophy against to see if it stands up, and, after challenging it and making important points, we move on, since there are a lot of other topics and issues to test our philosophy against. If this were a novel, then the reader could become emotionally invested in each one of you, at length, even.”
“So we are all emotionally stunted. BWAHAHAHA…”
“Now now, kids…”
“Haha, sorry, Dad. We will get over it. Hey, #9… you’re up…”
“My name is Platoquinas, a combination of Plato, who needs no introduction, and Thomas Aquinas, the twelfth century Sicilian friar and priest, regarded as the greatest Medieval philosopher in Europe.”
“Thank you, #9, and thank you for being Platoquinas. Someone had to do it! #10?”
“My name is Democrihobbes, a combination of the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus, most famous for his atomic theory, and Thomas Hobbes, one of the most pessimistic philosophers about mankind, even for dour Scotland!”
“Why was he so pessimistic about mankind?”
“Because he lived during a time when there were religious wars, which created anarchy, social chaos, and misery, so he concluded that without a guiding civilization, men would descend into their base beastly nature, which is short-lived, brutish, nasty, selfish, and miserable. This contrasts to Rousseau’s ‘Noble Savage’, a concept he developed after witnessing the degenerative aspects of civilization in royal courts, and after observing, in American Indians, that ‘savages’ were happier, saner, and healthier, and definitely physically stronger than the average effete and mentally corrupt European courtiers of the day…”
“So there must be a middle ground, between the brute of Hobbes and the noble savage of Rousseau…”
“Yes, I would call it Wednesday.”
“Thank you, #10. #11?”
“My name is Anaxagortaire, a combination of Anaxagoras, the ancient Greek thinker, and François-Marie Arouet, whose nom de plume was ‘Voltaire’, and whose beliefs about freedom and reason influenced the founding of the United States and the following French Revolution.”
“Thank you for that bit of history. And finally, #12…”
“Dave?”
“Yes, #12?”
“Why are there twelve of us?”
“Our author just plucked the number out of thin air one day, why?”
“Wouldn’t it have been easier for him if there were fewer of us?”
“Yes, but he wasn’t really thinking ahead! So, do you think he should kill a few of you off, or send half of you away?”
“That is up to him. If I am sent away, then I would at least write!”
“You mean on old fashion paper? What about electronic messaging?”
“That has no symbolic meaning yet, like writing a letter does…”
“True… it hasn’t been around long enough… so what is your name?”
“My name is Heraclitlocke, which the boys had such fun with, to the consternation of Miss Sunray, our esteemed biological sister who suggested it…”
“So who is that a combination of?”
“Heraclitus, the ancient Greek thinker who once observed that the only constant in life is change, and John Locke, the English Enlightenment thinker who influenced the American revolutionaries…”
“Thanks, kids. Now we have to wrap this story up. Any parting thoughts?”
“Just one…”
“What is it, #7, or… let me reference my kid’s list… Epicur… Gaaah, it had to be you!”
“Epicurnietzscherus. Come on, Dad!”
“So what is your parting thought?”
“My Knowledge Spectrum!”
“What?”
“It depicts how much we know in various areas of life. It can be used when assessing your compatibility with a potential mate, or with potential friends, from an enlightened point of view. I’ve created a visual aid!”
“OK, let’s see it…”
“So which one would you choose, #7?”
“Well, I like variety, so I would not be able to choose. I would be frozen in decision!”
“So you could not choose one over the other?”
“No! I love them all!”
“So your choice would be driven by necessity, then…”
“Yes. If a task needed reinforcement, then I would choose that type of knowledge relationship.”
“But randomness is the most exciting…”
“Yes, and that is the most common, not just for the excitement, but because beings do not consciously think about it…”
“Like they are satisfied with a hazy fleeting notion of knowledge compatibility?”
“Yes!”
“I suppose haziness by itself generates a certain amount of excitement…”
“Which may be why they are satisfied with hazy modes of thinking, and hazy philosophies, just for the excitement in an otherwise pointless and dull world…”
“Pointless because they have not encountered our philosophy yet, which gives them a solid point…”
“You have a point there, Dave… but even then they may stick with haziness, since it has serve them well for eons, and the best way to survive against chaos is with chaos, which includes one’s mode of thinking…”
“And on that point, we must end this short story and move on to our next adventure.”
“Our next story will be an adventure?”
“Yes. You will all be driving tanks into Russia to topple Putin… so get a good night’s rest…”
