Identity

Less than 24 hours existence in the blogosphere and I've already started refining my thoughts on this phenomenon. I suspect that there will be a fair amount of modification to this blog as it starts out. Already the limits of this web-based entry system are beginning to show. I suspect I'll graduate to a desktop client at some point. Meanwhile, the content continues to slowly fall into focus. Anyway, on to the topic of the moment...

So when I started this blog last night, I set the description field to "Musings of an Astronomer." This wasn't a very thoughtful description, but I hadn't put much thought into it. However, the more I ponder this the less satisfactory it seems. The basic problem is that while I am an Astronomer, it's not a particularly accurate reflection of my own sense of self. "Astronomer" is not really who I am, it's just something I do. Now I do this a fair amount of the time, as it is my job, so from an external perspective this might seem a reasonable description of me. On the other hand, I also spend rather a lot of my time sleeping, so this blog could just as validly be described as "Musings of a Sleeper." Again, neither seem accurate descriptions of my own internal sense of self.

I suspect that Ken Wilber would say my selfsystem has evolved beyond the role-based conventional worldview stage. Hence the current description: "Ponderings of a selfsystem", which I guess is somewhat more accurate by virtue of being less defined. Still it seems lacking. I'm not really a fan of the word "Ponderings." This process seems a bit more deliberate than that. I like Descartes' use of the word "Mediation," (ie, "Meditations on First philosophy"). On the other hand "Meditations of a Selfsystem" sounds entirely too portentous and Philosophical with a capital P. Yuck. Perhaps I could borrow from Hamlet: "Words, Words, Words." Still, that wouldn't be completely accurate either. The thing about existing on the web is that it's not limited to just words.

Hmmm... I suspect this to go on for a while....