ONT vol 8 contents i. the day they shot the sacrifice ii. Yay or Nay, on Animal Testing iii. an ought is an is / an is is an ought iv. Behaviorism is for zombies v. a finding from the neuro-lab, on empathy vi. i've never had discernible abs vii. a cowardice i'm assenting to perpetually i. the day they shot the sacrifice the day they shot the sacrifice at Pym Lab, the cast & crew had lamb, in the catering. "must have been a guilty lunch."1 1 John Nugent, 13 things we learned from the Ant-Man commentary. empireonline.com [Dec 10 2015] lamb fuels the actors' exhortations. keeps an arm long & taut with the boom mic. see on screen, lofted into light: the living lamb abstracted. Five hundred tons of pig brains had to be shipped from the Chicago stockyards on ice, in order to distill a microgram of TRH. And what was this TRH? It was a substance that passed certain assay tests.2 and what was this substance, at last? In Laboratory Life there was a great deal of emphasis on one type of entity: inscriptions. Indeed we are told that the main products of a laboratory are inscriptions--preprints, graphs, traces, photographs, published papers, and now e-mail.3 2 Ian Hacking, The Social Construction of What? [Harvard, 1999] p 175. 3 Hacking, p 81 Arrival is a framing for a sacrifice: of one scared bird. the day they shot the sacrifice, the bird kept saying: they keep me from my wider flock, my symphony. Arrival is a framing for a sacrifice a gosling's honk evokes his past despondencies. summoned in mnemonic space, they echo and accumulate, they deepen him, inwardly. the bird becomes a self, a worthy sacrifice. ii. Yay or Nay, on Animal Testing the debate so framed, i've lost already. lost before i come to the mic. lost when i say Yes to their e-vite. the thesis i'd defend is their crimes are beyond debate so making my case, i contradict, collapse in self-negation. iii. an ought is an is / an is is an ought iii.i an ought is an is. an ought-claim is existential. i ought to help the animals means it's true i ought to, it's a fact. iii.ii an is is an ought. Reality "is always what we ought to have thought." 4 every fact / all that is: is that which we ought to have thought. at minimum: any claim E implies a reason for action: E ought be asserted / not denied. 'the rat is on the [electrified] mat': asserting this, i'm saying it's true, and thereby say it ought to be asserted / not denied. 4 Gaston Bachelard, The Formation of the Scientific Mind [1938]. trans Mary McAllester Jones [Clinamen Press, 2002]. p 24 iii.iii the good is the true what could Plato mean? this is weak, too easy: iii.iii.i it's true that the good exists, & good that the true exists. weak and too easy, for iii.iii says goodness & truth are the same. iii.iii is a biconditional: [if it's good then it's true] & [ if it's true then it's good]. perhaps he means: iii.iii.ii ['the true' is simply that which is] & [all that is, is good by necessity]. conjunct-L is a truism, Deflationary. conjunct-R implies Augustine's ontology, or this: Strong Axiarchy: ethical necessity determines what is. the ought is [a] productive & [b] constrictive: [a] productive: ethical necessity levers into being a wholly good, on balance good, or finally good [in the Eschaton] World; & [b] constrictive: ethical necessity forbids the bad. the good is the true, the true is the good: the good and true are co-extensive given Strong Axiarchy. iv. Behaviorism is for zombies instead of feeling bad for rats, their mouths espouse a Theory that allows them to persist in their Program. a Theory that would zombify all life. they cauterize paws, cut into the brain-stem. then force, again, the swim test. v. a finding from the neuro-lab, on empathy a finding from the neuro-lab, on empathy: amygdalae co-activate, victim & observer & synch up. a finding from the neuro-lab, confirmed: mine is throbbing raw, when i read what they do to my friends. vi. i've never had discernible abs i've never had discernible abs. my front is flat, but soft as a cable-knit sweater. i never get too strenuous in bedroom yoga, in biking down to campus. i've never had to hold my stance, harden as a man tries to topple me. was always treated well by older sisters. my cousins were my boyhood buds i've never contended with brothers. in late adolescence, had lightly rivalrous friendships. mild runs of envy, often mutual. i'd always thought i stood up straight then yesterday i stood up straighter. a run of lower vertebrae uncurled a bit i gained a couple inches. vii. a cowardice i'm assenting to perpetually a primal Act of lethargy, a cowardice i'm assenting to perpetually. resisted maybe two of three mornings. in the predawn cool i rise & meditate. find some wall, some dependable dark, and slump into a loose half-lotus. soon i'm nodding, hypnagogic. deep within my velour duvet, i say the name of god, in my head. my act of resistance empowers me. rising while exhausted, i'm drawn between these poles of volition: my will to sleep & my will stay awake, so they generate.