Feeling, thinking and praying? There's an App for that!

A friend of mine who is a philosopher recently gave me an image that fits my present understanding of what traditionally has been called the "soul," that central part of us that animates our body and infuses life, self-understanding, a psyche: software.

The metaphor is an idea that Umberto Eco pioneered in his 1994 essay "The Holy War: Mac vs. DOS," in which he dubbed the Apple computer "Catholic" and the PC, then dominated by DOS "Protestant."

I'd go so far as to say that at the core of us is an human operating system that controls, without our even realizing it, our body and its peripherals, while running application programs such as personality, feelings, thinking and spirituality.

As users, we barely understand the HOS, which explains why marvels such as relatively new psychiatric medication, much less brain surgery, don't quite work as desired. Might they one day? Perhaps, perhaps not. I don't know.

I do realize, however, that there is something a bit beyond our biochemicals and our neurons that decidedly makes us who we are, integrating our inheritance with our experience and our learning, quite distinctly, yet not fully independently of our body.

Here's where matter vs. spirit dualisms collapse: our software and our hardware are inextricably linked. This is why some men engage in spiritual adoration of goddess figures they deem to be near-perfect and some women experience seemingly divine ecstasy in orgasm.

All of which is indicative of a non-material or metamaterial realm, what Aristotle called metaphysics.

My readers' top 10 are a complete puzzle

Who are these people reading my blog? A look at my stats shows that the top pageviews went to essentially humorous and (to my mind) largely trivial posts. I realize that to bloggers who get thousands of hits a day and tend or even hundreds of comments, my numbers are puny. But, still, they provide a sense of priorities.

Here they are, as follows:

1. But She's a Commoner!, Nov 17, 2010: 3 comments; a whopping 5,838 page views!
2. Dulce et Decorum Est?, Sept 11, 2005: 854 page views.
3. The Elephant in the Blog, Sep 21, 2007: 115 comments; 502 page views.
4. Who is an Anglo?, Aug 15, 2007: 11 comments; 480 page views.
5. Why do the heathen rage, July 5, 2009: 4 comments; 346 page views.
6. Felicitous? -- A True Fable, Sep 17, 2007: 254 comments, 293 page views.
   
7. Values vs. Ethics, Sep 7, 2007: 9 comments; 215 page views.
   
8. The Burqa and the Thong, Feb 12, 2010, 7 comments;182 page views.
   
9. Predatory Men, Predatory Women, May 31, 2007: 15 comments; 155 page views.
   
10. Goodbye, Uptown Cathay, Jul 9, 2010: 1 comment; 90 page views.

All right, I get no. 1: everybody was tuned into the royal wedding.

And no. 3 is the sequel to no. 6, both precipitated by an invading swarm of British trolls, scallawags and sundry other nether creatures (note the high number of comments).

No. 2 is one of my personal favorites (see under "Favorite Posts," left), yet it didn't garner any comment. I had no idea that many people were drawn to it.

But no. 4 got hits mostly from Britain before the horde. I guess Brits were experiencing an identity crisis that day.

Then no. 5 was a whimsical think piece that meandered through religion, literature, psychology and I tagged philosophy to cover them all. Didn't expect this.

Nos. 8 and 9: obvious.

No. 7 got many hits from India and the Middle East. Soul searching in distant lands?

Then there's no. 10, about a neighborhood restaurant. Who knew so many people cared?

You people are strange.

Why are people so insincere in email?

I mean, there's signatures such as "In Christ," "Peace" and "Cheers" (and now someone has sent me an email from "[sender]lovesyou@[isp].com") after put downs and insults. Then there's the sarky oblique comment by someone who think's he's being veddy, veddy clever.

One person I have known for 37 years claims she was "offering an olive branch" after unfriending me on Facebook without the slightest leavetaking. Another claims not to be calling me obtuse in the phrase "I won't insult your intelligence by accepting that you're actually as obtuse as you pretend to be"

"This information could make you a celebrity among Biblical theologians; you will be in demand everywhere; and it will be a privilege I will remember all my life to say I was one of the first to hear it," writes another put-down artist, a clergyman I believe. He signs his missive, "In Christ," obviously because when one is "in Christ" one just loves to have a good laugh at other people's expense.

And, oh, if I had a nickle for every time I've received a furious, enraged rant, signed with the irenic (not "ironic," look it up), "Peace."