My name? hmmm. Well I have so many names these days, but my two favorite among them are Fox and Lucifer.
Why Fox?
Well girls have one reason for naming me this and guys have another. Enuf said me thinkz.
Why Lucifer? Hmm slightly more complex.
Lucifer has no significance to us in the sense of "that which is to be worshipped (or shunned)." I (or anybody else) do not subscribe to the superstitions of the Judeo-Christians or Hindus, thus "Lucifer" has no equivalence for us to "Satan" or "Shaitan" - a name which I would regard equally unemotionally, but which would not offer the same richly rewarding associations that "Lucifer" does - from a number of perspectives.
In the early days of Unix computing, many of those involved named computers Lucifer, Asmodeus, Astoroth, etc. because they hosted "daemons" which performed tasks for us - and geeks being geeks (though not in those days l33t haX0rs), I appreciated the pun. It is also possible that some of the enjoyment was derived from the fact that we knew that it pissed off some classes of believers - and that their annoyance, anger, horror or upset pointed to their inability to consider the world rationally. I know that I have been "guilty" of this. Thus there may have been an element of happenstance which lead to the adoption of this name. I don't know. I was not there. But it seems likely. I have certainly named computers so myself. More than once. But this only describes one possible scenario. I have thought of many others which I find offer me excellent reasons to appreciate the choice of name.
On the face of it, Lucifer means simply, the "Bearer of Light." Which sounds good to me, Light having been equated with "truth" since time immemorial. Please note and comprehend the lower-case "t" - correct English usage - and recognition that this "truth" which we pursue is relative, mutable and falsifiable. After all, "truths" are central to effective reasoning.
However, due to historic myth, the "Lucifer" domain name also serves to establish a certain "stay off the grass" kind of a quality to the more fundamentalist inclined - who tend to stay away from here because of it. As fundamentalist argument has no place on this list, this is generally regarded as a no uncertain good.
Yet this would be to diminish the value to me of the Lucifer name. For a second level of meaning can be ascribed to it and enjoyed. This is the tendency for myths to change, and how delightfully apposite it is, that Judeo-Christianity worships the "gods who dwell in darkness" and turn away from "the light bearer." Lucifer tends to remind us of this, and how the forces of the Judeo-Christian religion have always opposed rationality and reason, and how very many martyrs to reason have been created by religion over the years. It also reminds me that light banishes darkness, just as knowledge banishes fear and reason banishes superstition.
A third level comes into play, when we recognize that Prometheus, the gifter of fire to man can be identified in and as Lucifer. Prometheus, bearer of the greatest gift to man, and tortured by the gods ever since. Prometheus may be mythical, but he represents the advance of man, and reminds us of the heroism and aspirations of our bronze age ancestors who started mankind on the path to the technology we enjoy today.
There is another important purpose which the "Lucifer" name serves. This is the fact that the associations above serve as a recursive reminder to us that all myths may have multiple levels of meaning, all of which may be simultaneously valid, indeed, all of which may be necessary in order to achieve understanding. By projection, this applies to memetics as much as to myth for memetics may in and of itself be mythical, yet it still encompasses and enfolds myth within its area of study.
Hope that sheds some light on the subject.
Lucifer
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