The Overloaded Man

So I've been reading these J.G. Ballard short stories, my buddy Nick got me an anthology of them for Christmas, and I think I'm gonna start blogging about them, and just about everything I read right now. Main reason being, I'm slowing down in the mind book, it's alright but I feel I hit the meat that I was most interested in. Gonna keep rollin' with it, and when I hit the next chapter I will blog about it, but in the meantime, I need to keep writing.

So I just finished The Overloaded Man, and it is a great story revolving around a ton of philosophical concepts I have been interested in recently. Especially philosophy of the mind! So in essence, there's this dude who completely dissociates the connections of the world in his spare time. It's really like a drug, but it's all his own inner reflection kind of shit. It's like experiencing the Cartesian distinction between mind and body as opposed to discussing it.

But essentially it's the idea that the only thing making things the things they are in the world is our minds. This is definitely a topic I've talked about before, and I still believe it. Our minds bring association and distinction to things. "This is a computer", "This is a chair." On their own without a perceiver to distinguish there is no difference. There are magnetic fields that particles and energy fly in and out of, some areas are more dense than others. That's it, that's the material world by itself.

The main character in this story completely sinks into himself and destroys all the associations he makes with objects. They lose their "object-ness" and become formless crap, like he's almost discovering a way to see the noumina. Probably more like he's experiencing Plato's forms actually. Either way the whole story he just cuts himself further and further from reality. The only thing that he ever comes back for is to peep on the neighbors daughter (high five!).

But again if you've ever been in a stage of deep thought it is so like that. The outside world slips away and you enter into an almost trance like state, where everything gets picked and picked apart until it becomes nothing. Sometimes it happens to me with a word, it just suddenly loses it's meaning to me, like "why this word." I feel awkward and almost forget how to use it, it's even happened to me with the word "the" before, believe it or not.

Also a great side line here, this kid runs into this metaphysical problem and asks the guy "The only absolute in space-time is supposed to be the speed of light. But as a matter of fact any estimate of the speed of light involves the component of time, which is subjectively variable." What an amazing question, so much to think about there. Suddenly something we believe as a fact becomes a circular argument. The ground becomes much more shaky. Where do we stand? Stuck in the depths of our mind where we deconstruct the world? Who knows, great short story though, I recommend it to all.