Greetings, Philosophers

[Kane47]

Hello. My name is Mike. Friends, Roman, philosophers, I salute you! I reside in the sprawling desert wilderness of Albuquerque, New Mexico. I am the dedicated divorced father of an awesome kid who is currently getting straight A s in his freshman year of college. I drive a cab and consider myself a rogue intellectual. I was an Honors English major and contributed an alternative press review column for a local weekly called The Alibi for 4 years under my writing name of Kane S. Latranz. Under that name I have also published fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in such magazines as Philosophy Now, Weird Tales, Gauntlet, Visionary Tongue, and, most recently, Space and Time Magazine, among others. I also have several self published books out, including most recently one called Could a "Heat Death" be Necessary for Life? I sculpt and paint and I do a lot of walking for exercise. Pleased to be here. Mike/Kane. An excerpt from my new book: Could a "Heat Death" be Necesary for Life? Organic cells form, reproduce, and die within complex organisms that are born, reproduce, and die, within species and civilizations that adapt to result in new species and civilizations or simply carry on until they become extinct. All because stars are born, die, and are replaced, some former and current stars facilitating habitable planets and life. As the late Dr. Carl Sagan famously said: “We are star stuff.” https://www.createspace.com/4324969

[The Voice of Time]

Okay Mike, what's so rogue-ish about your intellect?

Welcome by the way, hope to see you engaged in the discussions.

[Kane47]

Thank you. I am largely self educated as my sojourn in America's education system often felt less than transcendent. I also am guilty of questioning what I am told. Additional charges include independent cogitation without a permit and formulating my own ideas.

[The Voice of Time]

Then you don't have to put a "rogue" in front of intellectual. Not much of an intellectual if you don't already have those qualities

[Kane47]

Forgive the seeming redundancy if you can find it within you. Lol. In my experience there are many for whom the notion of being intellectual seems a thing that exists only when it is officially sanctioned by the ministry of smart folks or the like. So there seems a tendency toward a hive mentality where I tend toward misbeehivior in that regard.

[The Voice of Time]

It depends upon the subject and where you live how people will behave. Questioning can be ill-meant also because it can be without an questioning interest and instead an interest in leading up to a form of exclusive look of things.

To question is an art of itself, and a tool that can be abused.

[Kane47]

I would agree with what you are saying in essence, especially in terms of how it applies regionally. In the U.S. we seem to have a lot of people who are good at making money and have degrees to that effect but who are often terribly ignorant of larger issues and/or woefully illiterate. In a positive sense, questioning can have a valid underpinning even if it is not seen by most, and perhaps especially then.

[thedoc]

Education, formal or self, depends entirely on ones attitude towards that education. there were a few courses that I took in college where my attitude was solely to get a grade and be done with it, other courses I approched with the attitude of 'what can I learn here'. Self education usually falls into the lattrer cetigory, and several courses that I took after graduation were of that nature. However if a guy just studies a subject to impress the girls and get laid, it seems pretty shallow to me. Just about everything I study or read now is of the nature of learning what I can from it, I've been married long enough that I don't need to impress my wife, but I do it occasionally just for fun.

[Skip]

I was in Albuquerque New Year's eve, 1992, on our way to LA. It sucked. That probably wasn't your fault.