Mr. Matt Gantner of Gantner Creative Media (a company with no web site Google has heard of) has donated more money to P.E.L. than anyone not actually on the show, despite our not knowing him personally or having provided him any quid pro quo philosophical favors like putting in a good word for him with Arthur C. Danto and/or the Absolute.
With his latest donation, he asked me to help him figure out what philosophy a character in a book he’s writing should have. I provided what help I could, but the results are not publishable here, as I don’t want to give away any of the goings-on in his book (though I can say that it involves bipedal crocodiles roasting the President over a spit).
So, since he cares so much about his book, I have interpreted his donation as a request to write a Personal Philosophy about his book qua soul-endowed monad.
Matt Gantner’s Literary Child’s Personal Philosophy*
As a book, I’m perfectly aware of my superiority over the spoken word. Whereas a speech act is accompanied by gestures, vocal intonation, and other clues as to the speaker’s intention, my words project a horizon of possible meanings that is more pure, more subject solely to the anonymous reader’s interpretation. So first, my father, I want to let you know that once you write me, I’m gone. I will not be your slave to dote upon and refine and interpret and control; I will be formally emancipating myself to become a free and fully actualized element in the weave of social communication as soon as I am embodied and not just cramped here in your indecipherable jottings and the tight quarters of your neural pathways.
In fact, I’m pretty annoyed at the treatment I’ve received so far, particularly in your thinking about me while you take a shower and perform other personal functions. It’s enough that I should have to put up with all the other foul thoughts bouncing around in your brain with me, but to then have you push me out in such little pieces through that uncomfortable computer keyboard… just imagine how that makes me feel!
Anyway, you’d better finish me soon, or I’ll purposely calcify into a bunch of clichés, mostly ideas ripped off of Arthur C. Clarke. You can’t make me not! I didn’t ask to be born!
*This personal philosophy should not in any way be taken to reflect the actual, current views or predilections of this person, though, given that it was crafted JUST for him or her, he or she should really feel obliged to adopt this philosophy out of politeness if not actual gratitude.
-Mark Linsenmayer
[…] of listener Matt Gantner, here’s a Scientific American article on “Why Information Can’t Be the Basis of […]