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O.G. Rose Audio Works
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The Conflict of Mind: Major: Epistemological Problems
The True Isn't the Rational (Book 1)
Many of us were taught that if we were intellectually rigorous and honest, we’d approach the truth, but what if it wasn’t so simple? What if we can be wrong because we are intellectually disciplined? The Conflict of Mind will explore this possibility and argue that it is not enough to be a good thinker: we also need the right mental models. But even if our epistemology is advanced, there are problems we cannot escape.
Essays in this collection will explore topics like how what we believe is right is organized by what we believe is true, and yet our capacities to know the truth are essentially limited. We need falsification to think for ourselves without going mad, but not everything true is falsifiable. To avoid repeating history, we need to be motivated to change how we act, but ideas are never as motivational as experiences, and once we begin experiencing a repetition of history, it’s too late. We need philosophy to avoid bigotry and totalitarianism, but philosophy itself can become a source of bigotry and totalitarianism.
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To live with a brain is to live with a problem, and if we solve the problem, we’ll lose our minds. The brain is a challenge that must instead be managed—learning how to manage it will require our very best. The hope of these essays is to help.
The Prolegomena to a New Metaphysics and Phenomenology of Lacks
“A phenomenology of lacks” is an “art-form” that maps out what it’s like to experience something that’s not entirely there or not always around but that was nevertheless apprehended. What kind of world are we in where this kind of mystery unfolds? Hard to say, but the answer will not be found in a purely physical consideration of reality. As hard as we’ve tried to escape it, we must return to metaphysics, but if we do, we might find a freedom there we long forgot that we possessed.
Metaphysics seems to be a study of what is “non-physical,” with a special focus on the “forms” that render matter intelligible. Phenomenology, on the other hand, is primarily an act of apprehension and “moments” versus an act of judgment and systematizing. Metaphysics has a long history of being associated with “systems building,” so what does phenomenology have to do with metaphysics? In this treatise, which arose from the discussions of Thomas Jockin, Javier Rivera, and O.G. Rose, it’s argued that phenomenology is the key methodology for “the new metaphysics.”
Didn’t Derrida deconstruct all metaphysics? Only metaphysics which rely on “ontological gaps,” but there is a whole world to be found in the realm of “metaphysical apprehensions.” Apprehensions are primarily based on the act of perceiving the world versus the act of thinking about it, a distinction the treatise elaborates on. Still, thinking plays a role, because what we can experience in perception are quick moments and “glimmers” that are gone just as soon as we notice them. To keep those moments in mind, we must think about them, which means we must focus on “lacks.” Lacks are not nothing, and how they are distinct is a main concern of the treatise.
“Thoughts" is a collection of a hundred reflections by O.G. Rose, author of "The Conflict of Mind." Readers can enjoy the reflections in conjunction with each other or treat the collection like a box of chocolates, for each reflection is a completed insight. “Thoughts” reveals how our ideas are like eyes, giving perspective on everything in life and that we all see from somewhere. Titles include:
Ideas Are Practically Eyes
Hope Entails Expectations, but Expectation Isn’t Hope
You Couldn’t Have Been Listening…
Market Legitimization
MAD Capitalism and Mixed Market Rationality
Art Is a Source of Mental Models
Reality Handicaps Preventative Measures
Breaking New(s)
Absolute Moral Conditionality
Arguing Hume Through a Wedding Venue
Everyone Is Rational
Feeling Good About School
The Exit of References
Introspection, Empathy, Judgement, and Justice
Call of Design
The Best of All Possible Prisons
Nonrational Responsibility as Ontological Necessity
And many more. A complete table of contents can be found here.
Our identities, religions, nationalities, occupations, life choices, philosophies, political ideologies, political leaders—none of these are “given” anymore: whatever we face, we find ourselves full of questions. “Is this true? Is this best? Is this valid?” We live during what James Joyce in “The Dead” called ‘a thought-tormented age,’ which, as James K.A. Smith put it when writing on Charles Taylor, is to say that our world is a ‘contested, cross-pressured, haunted world [...] [T]raditional definitions of reality which previously provided stable [guides] for living everyday life (in courtship, marriage, child-rearing, religious faith and practice, interpersonal exchange and the like) are increasingly fluid, fragmented, and deprived of plausibility.’ Individuals today have more freedom than ever before, but at the expense of “givens” which would help them determine what they should do with that freedom. Choice has increased while direction has decreased, so where should we go now?
As warned by thinkers like Peter Berger, James Hunter, and Philip Rieff, under these conditions of incredible freedom, humans are likely to become existentially and psychologically anxious, and in this state, everything solid can become liquid and incomprehensible. In order to restore “order,” with increased freedom can come the increased appeal of escaping freedom into totalitarianism. At the same time, “givens” were deconstructed because of what Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil”: sources of order can legitimize force and forcefulness. Have we escaped oppression through a means that makes oppression appealing? Can we change course?
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If we’re not going to seclude ourselves or engage in some exodus, we must find a way to achieve “rest” and “belonging” around others who are very different from us, and this is not “natural,” suggesting we will have to become “super-natural” or something—somehow. Belonging Again (Part I) explored possibilities like science, psychoanalysis, college, activism, religion, etc., and though I by no means want to claim that I exhausted all possibilities and angles, I hope to have at least shown that there are no easy roads left. Without a Transcendent, “God,” or X, it would seem our best hope for “belonging again” is isolationist, hence why we cannot readily claim some nations are “irrational” to have atomized so much. Furthermore, there is wisdom in a Buddhist meditation and practice through which we transcend the question of “belonging” entirely, as there is wisdom in a “benedict option” that seeks limited interaction with society (though what constitutes “too limited” or “overly-limited” might be difficult to determine). However, Part I suggested this could be to give up on Pluralistic, Modern Society, which ultimately might be what we must do, though this book explores ways we might continue pluralistically and forgo atomization. Basically, the question is if it might be possible for the majority to become “Nietzschean Children” and/or “Absolute Knowers” of Hegel through the creation of a socioeconomic system or “field” that increases the probability Children emerge. If Part II fails, we might concede to something more isolationist, and even if we succeed, our address might only last so long as we can prove Christlike, able to lay down our lives, and forgive...
If you are in Europe and Amazon will not let you purchase paper copies of any of our books, try Amazon.de (Germany).
*Thanks to Max Macken for the tip!*
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Enter the Alien: Thinking as 21st Century Hegel:
Thinking as 21st Century Hegel
AN ALIEN WORLD IS EMERGING. The 21st century presents human self-consciousness with a qualitatively different environment, largely as a consequence of scientific thinking and action opening global communications and connectivity. In this anthology, a community of Spirit has meditated on the idea that the great idealist philosopher G.W.F Hegel can be used as a starting point for thinking this alien world. Hegel, of course, could not have predicted this world (and nor would he have tried), however, Hegel was well aware that Spirit found itself in a new Scientific age, and that this age would have disorienting consequences for Spirit’s capacity to inhabit the world at all. Considering that many contemporary intellectuals relate to the present moment with ideas of crises of authority or value and meaning, it makes sense that starting with Hegel could in many ways bring deeper conceptual clarity and orientation. How does “The Hegel Event” help us to sense-make (1) contemporary problems of the theory-practice divide in the sciences, (2) Westerners increasing interest in Eastern spiritual wisdoms, (3) higher and more complex forms of sexual expression, (4) debates on idealism, materialism and realism, (5) human development post-psychoanalysis, (6) the nature of abstraction in the process of becoming, (7) artistic expression beyond religious icons, (8) the philosophical foundations of mathematics, (9) logic of everyday life, and (10) the dominance of contemporary atheism? Through mediations of the immediacy of these dimensions, we hope to show that it is worth starting with Hegel to sense-make in the 21st century.
Abyssal Arrows: Spiritual Leadership
Inspired by Thus Spoke Zarathustra
"I MUST GO DOWN." Zarathustra starts his story as a down-going to human kind, a down-going with a single message: the Overman is the meaning of the Earth. What is often left out of this well-known story is the implicit message of the book as a whole: Zarathustra's own struggles with spiritual mediation. Zarathustra may be a type of enlightened being with a singular message, but he is not an enlightened being sitting in a perfect stillness. He is an enlightened being in deep inner antagonism with his own capacity to give birth. He is pregnant with the meaning of the Earth as the Overman. What does it mean to give spiritual birth? What is involved in such a strange process? And how rare is it to receive such an intimate message, let alone to have it gifted to us in the form of a philosophical fiction? Have we ever received such an intimate message and philosophical form before? Hopefully some of these questions will help guide you through Abyssal Arrows: Spiritual Leadership Inspired by Thus Spoke Zarathustra. What these pages (try to) contain, but what in fact spills off the pages, is precisely the real of a community mind trying to do just that: give spiritual birth. Abyssal Arrows is collective midwifery. It is bloody, messy... it is bloody messy. But as such, it is also represents a real of philosophy that is long overdue. What academic philosophy has not, could not, do with Zarathustra, Abyssal Arrows, in the real of the void, has actualised. Long Live Zarathustra...
Singular Universality as Perfect Opposition
Contemporary philosophy struggles with thinking differentiation as a tense opposition in universality, on the one hand, and singularity, on the other hand. Universality can lead to an abstract general notion of being with no relevance to the differentiation of Singularity, and Singularity can lead to a concrete idiosyncratic concept with no relevance to the differentiation of Universality. Hegel's Science of Logic offers us a way of thinking the differentiation of Universality and Singularity as a perfect opposition. Throughout this anthology, you will find a collection of authors (Singularities) who have wrestled with the Science of Logic, and have committed to thinking the relevance of this logic for contemporary theory and praxis (Universality). This theory and praxis is indispensable for the future of underground philosophers and philosophical communities, as well as artistic and religious projects, that may birth a culture for a truly global world, a world that must reconcile with both Universality and Singularity.
The Daniel L. Garner Pattern Method
A Completely New Approach to Making Music
Whether you’re a beginner or you’re looking for ways to expand your music-making and improvisation skills, the Daniel L. Garner Pattern Method is for you! The method can help you master any type of keys: piano, keyboard, accordion and keys-based controllers for beatmaking and electronic music.
Why this method is different:
-Doesn’t conflate music theory or reading music with making music.
-Uses patterns and shapes instead of numbers and notations.
-Helps you sound good while you learn, not just after you learn.
-Makes music lessons optional.
For beginners, this tool will:
-Erase the fear of failure: it will be like bowling alley bumpers are up on the piano.
-Help you see patterns on a keyboard instead of chaos.
-Provide you with bearings to know where to start.
-Free you to just play.
For those with more experience:
-Improve your improvisation skills.
-Enable to transition between keys instantly.
-Inspire you with new musical possibilities!
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O.G. Rose is a pen name consisting of Michelle’s maiden, middle, and their shared last name. While at the University of Virginia, Rose spent several years working collaboratively with other artists at Eunoia, a creative community Rose helped develop in Charlottesville, Virginia. Rose now lives on a farm, manages a wedding venue named Mead Lake, operates Frozen Glory Photography, and teaches piano using visuals from Rose's Pattern Method.
A finalist for the 2020 UNO Press Lab Prize and 46th Pushcart Nominee, Rose’s creative works appear at The Write Launch, Allegory Ridge, Streetlight Magazine, Ponder Review, Iowa Review online, The William and Mary Review, Assure Press, Toho Journal online, West Trade Review, ellipsis, Poydras Review, O:JA&L, Burningword, and Broken Pencil. Their published books include The Conflict of Mind (2021), Thoughts (2022), Belonging Again: Part I (2023), Second Thought (2023), and Belonging Again: Part II.1 (2024).
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