Random Thoughts...

A week in the life of a strange, distracted, fatigued mind. Here the thoughts spill over
- “Every writer creates his own precursors”. In Kierkegaard and Zeno there is Kafka (who came after those two), but if Kafka had never written, nobody would have noticed this fact. Thus by writing, Kafka created Zeno and Kierkegaard as his precursors.
- George Bush keeps saying that democracy is “God’s gift to citizens of the world”. Bullshit. Democracy is not a gift, the people inside undemocratic countries have to work extremely hard to make and then keep their country democratic, because there are always forces opposing democracy.
- Man is attracted to a beautiful environment only because the body tells him that such an environment could sustain him. We do not find rolling desert sand dunes as beautiful as...yeah
- India and China have engineers and scientists in their positions of political power. And yet, we in the West have only thoroughbred politicians in political power. Just as psychologists are best able to advise on depression, physicists are best able to advise about space missions etc, scientific economists and philosophers are probably best able to advise about how a country should be run.
-Competitive forces, amongst all the other wonderful things they can do, have the potential to destroy the lives of humans. For example, competitive forces would have children be forced to study from younger and younger ages (perhaps with the aid of medication) in order to be able to compete with others. This is because an edge can be given to any individual that works harder earlier on in their life. It is conceivable that non-stop training would begin at age zero days for children if nothing prevents the level of competitiveness in society. What happens now is that people pretend they aren’t pushing and don’t want to push their children ahead…and then they go and do it anyway!
-All of civilisation’s history is about the specific capabilities of peoples of different nations, and how these have been used. The capabilities of peoples will always be the primary determinant of the nation’s wealth, and in general, the nation’s wealth and capabilities will also determine how free the people are
-Depressingly, depression could be adaptive. It gets you to ruminate about the causes for your depression, and you respond (at least sometimes) with thought and intelligence, perhaps more insight than when you are not depressed. Not only can you go ahead and potentially fix what the problem was, but you can help others fix their problems (The phenomenon of the depressed psychologist or the willingness of those who have had depression to help others out of it).

Directional History

History does seem to be directional. Slavery/Subsistence Agriculture yields to Theocracy, then Monarchy/Feudal Aristocracy and finally, Liberal Democracy. Simplification. But liberal democracy combined with capitalism does seem to be the end point of the evolution of systems of governance or at any rate an extremely stable combination for keeping a nation powerful, its citizens farily docile and flush with goods. Whether a society survives or not will be based on whether there are any inherent “contradictions” [perhaps of a logical nature, but more often one which threatens the survival of the society] in it. For example, fascism has less reason to exist after a fascist country takes over the rest of the world and so it is in a sense unstable. Communism is unstable because the incentives problem leaves it exposed to economic domination which undermines the survival power of the ideology, and reliance on central governance creates incentives to be a government worker, promoting inefficiency and inequality both of material goods and of the ability to influence the system...again undermining the system. We can project which problems might come to the surface for any system with the dialect, or implement the system and simply note which problems arise naturally.

So then, what, if any, are the remaining problems with the idea of liberal, capitalist democracy? The destruction of the environment or overpopulation necessitating that our rights become restricted (Environmentalism becoming allied with socialism)? Or severe inequality leading to political unrest? Or will the competitive pressures of the market eventually cause too many social structures and human bonds to decay, causing popular unrest and rebellion?And if liberal democracy is combined with technocratic capitalism, what kind of ‘hostile’ society could over-run the liberal democracy? Technology does seem to naturally force authoritarians to lose their grip on power, at some point. And technology can't be permanently lost, as at the very least the memory of the scientific method and its discoveries would survive a prolonged natural disaster. I’m talking long term here --- how can anything other than liberal democracy be the final stable system?

And what other directions might liberal democracies take over a long period of time, if any? Presumably the liberal democracy would continue to incorporate more elements of what humans want over time (although there might be periods in which this isn’t the case), and solve its problems through market mechanisms. Technology is continuously providing for our wants (albeit only by creating more). Nevertheless this situation is stable, despite a permanent gap between what we have and our desires. It is the steady state of always wanting something else. And it is ridiculous to suggest ‘freezing’ technology, not only because countries which do not will move ahead, but 1) there are lots of people who don’t have what they want 2) it simply cannot be administered (especially information – how could a dictatorship ultimately prevent modern flows of information without isolating itself and hence becoming vulnerable to takeover by less hostile societies simply because it becomes technologically inept. 3) there’s no reason to suggest that freezing technology in its present state would make anyone happy. That is, people aren’t particularly satisfied with what technology can do for them today.

I've tried to think of other stable outcomes, and they all have problems. And all of them lead to eventual destruction.

Free Will

One of the oldest problems of philosophy is the "Problem of Free Will". The 'problem' is that we tend to believe that we choose what we say and do. Whereas, scientifically, there is no basis for this assertion. Just as particles flying around in the air have no 'will' of their own and no 'choice' as to how they move (it is evident that they obey laws of physics), so too must the particles in our brain. Therefore we do not 'choose' our thoughts, emotions, opinions, or choices, which are all very much determined by our brain activity.

Some have proposed that we therefore cannot be held responsible for crimes that we commit. After all, if our brain states are entirely dependent on laws of physics, then we could hardly have 'chosen' to do something in violation of a law of physics. Others counter that juries and judges could hardly have 'chosen' something else than to sentence a criminal as they see fit.
The idea that we can't choose what we do doesn't make any intuitive sense - we believe that hearing a prediction of what we're about to do allows us to alter our behaviour to prove this prediction wrong. That, if somebody predicts we will raise our right arm in 10 seconds, we can stop ourselves from doing so (Although brain scans reveal 0.2 seconds before I actually do so AND before I know that I will do so, that I WILL definitely lift my arm). This may prove that hearing a prediction invalidates that prediction within certain time windows, or it may prove that it's impossible to prove what another person will do, under all but the most limited of circumstances or only over very short intervals of time (see Chaos Theory and combine your knowledge of this with knowledge of the Uncertainty Principle). For example, after you finish reading this sentence, over the next 0.1 seconds you are likely to continue reading. When you step on a nail you will hop around afterwards etc.
Or it may just prove that various parts of the brain process information with different delay periods.

Many contradictions around free will exist too. For example, the claim of various religions that you have free will, and yet God Knows All, including everything that you do will do in the future. If God Knows what you're going to do, you could hardly choose to do something yourself!! And if you have free will, you never chose whether or not to have free will!

What I am certain of is that
** Free will is restricted to the domain of our knowledge. If I am unaware that there is a party at 4 Umbrella Road, Blacktown tonight, then I do not have free will to go to this party. After all, the next morning, I’d rightfully claim that I wasn’t “free” to go to this party or any of the others that I was unaware of. One would need to be omniscient to make a decision that is truly free, thus based on a consideration of all available options.
** Language is a problem. What does 'free' mean, when we talk of "free will"? We seem to use it in different senses -- eg 'freedom' (absence of being in jail) meaning an absence of constraint, versus the normal usage. 'Compatabilists' say that our BELIEF that our actions are free are what makes them free, regardless of whether or not this is an illusion
** The illusion that is free will is strengthened by the fact that we change...because we are constantly becoming a different person, our decisions, thoughts and actions often seem novel to us and chosen by us, whereas to an older person our behaviour was more predictable. The reason you thought mum was so smart was that she could predict what you'd do and she had lessons which she knew you'd learn.
** Its obvious, upon analysing what you do all day, that you do not have free will in all senses. You do not decide “Should I do 100 push ups on the roof, and then eat my own shit, jump in the pool and then screech at the bird in the tree at 43Hz?" It is no wonder researchers at scientific institutions often have to publish their papers in E-Prime in order to not be laughed off campus. If I asked you to kill me now, could you really do it? Could you really?

--- Note that the true picture, the world as a probabilistically determined system that works according to Quantum Dynamical properties has been ignored in this post, although similar dilemmas related to free will exist anyway under this system. When you incorporate this, it looks as if our actions are not predictable but also are not free.

**** Reason is a bullied child

Israeli-Arab Conflict

Weighing in on this particular issue with what I think are the perspectives of either side on several issues.

-- The charter of organisations such as Hamas and Hezbollah explicitly call for the destruction of the State of Israel. The Iranian PM publicly declared his will to "wipe Israel off the map", which received widespread support amongst Arab League politicians rather than condemnation. Apart from being totally uncivilised, this creates indescribable fear for Israelis, who feel there is a permanent existential threat to themselves
** Israel cannot continue to refuse to deal with Hamas and Hezbollah. It is stubbornly looking for ways to prevent making more concessions. Palestinians and other Arab citizens cannot be blamed for supporting Hamas along with their violent policies, for there are few credible alternatives, and Hamas runs Arabic schools and supports other infrastructure projects.

** The US has assisted Israel militarily and economically since 1948 far more than it has Palestinians and other Arab peoples, which is seen by Arabs within the framework of ongoing US hostility towards Islam
-- The US says its support for Israel is due to Israel being the only democratic, stable nation in the Middle East, and one which shares its goals, and trades freely

** The Israelis humiliate the Palestinians on a day-to-day basis. The Israeli security fence prevents Palestinians from leading ordinary lives, interfering with their families and businesses, and Arab-Israelis are discriminated against severely in Israeli society
-- The Israeli military can prove that these measures have caught hundreds of would-be suicide bombers, although whether this exceeds the number of bombers created out of peaceful people is debatable

** Palestinians are poor, humiliated and desperate and see no way out of their present situation. Israel does almost nothing to assist them in their plight. Other weak, corrupt Arab governments blame Israel for all of their problems in order to deflect criticisms from themselves
-- Israel says this is mostly their own fault, and that of the corrupt leaders that they elect. Further, Jews are critical of Arab families which are prepared to send their 10 year-old daughters on suicide missions to kill innocents.

** Ariel Sharon was said to have 'provoked' the 2nd Intifadah by his controversial visit to the Temple Mount. He indeed had no other reason to go other than the fact that he felt he should be able to, and he knew it would create hostility and resentment.
-- Israelis should be able to go where they want in their own country. Israel's population is 20% Arab and these citizens have the same rights as Jews, whereas in places such as Mecca, Saudi Arabia, simply being present at certain times is illegal for a Jew

-- Preceding the recent Lebanon conflict, there were hundreds of rockets fired in to Israel from Southern Beirut, killing many and terrorising more. If Australians set up rocket batteries in Cronulla and fired them at New Zealand, and if the Australian government repeatedly failed to respond to requests made by New Zealand to dismantle these rockets immediately, New Zealand would be justified in bombing these batteries
** Israel responded very heavy-handedly, and hundreds of innocent Lebanese were killed, and hospitals and other infrastructure were badly damaged or destroyed

-- The Palestinians were offered 90% of what they demanded for their new state at the 2000 Camp David Peace talks, and they rejected it. It is said that they "never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity"
** Israel delibarely has undermined the leadership of many Palestinian representatives and has encouraged factional disputes amongst the Palestinians for their own benefit.

-- In London, there has been 1 suicide bomb. There have been >400 suicide bombs in Israel since 2001, all of which have targeted civilians, bombs packed with nails in crowded market-places etc
** Ordinary Palestinians are being punished for the actions of their compatriots. -- Israel at least attempts to pick out terorists from civilians

-- Israel is so small it fits 3 times in to Tasmania - you can drive across it at its widest point in one hour. Elderly Israelis have seen their country give away more than 50% of its land as peace offers to various hostile neighbors since 1967, none of which have ultimately stemmed the hostility from those countries (Egypt is an exception)
** When Israel defeated its aggressors in 1967, it gained some areas of useless land which it has since refused to give back, and religious fundamentalist Jews continue to settle some areas of the West Bank against all international advice and agreements, thinking that the land is "holy".

Much of the land on which Israel was created was Palestinian territory prior to the 1948 mandate. Before that, it was often occupied by Jews. Throughout the ages, various parties have alternately occupied that territory, and it's clear that both groups have claims to joint ownership of vast swathes of land.

The Rights of an organism

Humans were once locked in to a fierce, life-or-death competitions over resources, influence and procreation. The stakes aren't as high now in some ways. What emerged fairly recently is the concept that humans deserve freedom of and/or access to certain things, simply because they're alive. This notion is most feasibly entertained wherever luxury prevails...the people making your sneakers have fewer rights than you. It's quite interesting to note the order and ease (or lack of) in which Australians and others have gained their rights;

The right to not be physically harmed or stolen from. The right to not be enslaved. The right to vote. The right to freedom of speech and other expression. The right to unemployment benefits and shelter. The right to not be threatened, stalked, slighted or misled financially by another. The right to legal representation and a fair trial, and to remain silent. The right to treatment devoid of discrimination based on a sex, race, orientation, age and religion. The right to damage your own body if you're not harming another's (sometimes). The right to 10 days paid sick leave and earmuff protection in intensively noisy environments. The right of the wheelchair-bound to easily navigate sidewalks and buildings. The newly proclaimed right for all school-children in NSW to have reasonably fast internet access. It's a source of wonder and gratefulness but also slight apprehension for me that our rights continue to expand. Our prosperity is fragile, and so therefore are our rights.

Where concerns for human rights are most prevalent, so too generally are the concern for the rights of other animals. It's not only that comfort and wealth raise our consciousness level, comfort and wealth limits the all-or-nothing nature of the balancing act between the rights of humans and the rights of other animals. The RSPCA, for example, works tirelessly to give household pets the right to not be cruelly treated, including adequate provision of food.

Yet we're still not comfortable enough ourselves to focus on animals. The unceasing misery and abuses which other intelligent, emotional creatures are subject to is sad, but will only come in to sharper focus where humans are prosperous. Only when (or where) almost all humans are comfortable will the voices for animals be heard loudly enough for any real change. I predict that later on in this century, there will be a revolution in the way that animals are treated and they will end up with almost as many rights as they are able to enjoy. That is, if these other species still exist at that time.

Nicer Things

A while ago, (in commemoration of Friedrich Nietzsche), I wrote a list of unfortunate, unpleasant truths that are often overlooked. As promised, I return to list of what, for me, are 'nicer' truths (shutup nihilists, I share many of your opinions, this post is valid anyway). They're lamer and were harder to think of, but here you go:


-Solace from all sorts of discomforts may be fount in art, philosophy, literature, music, drama.
-Wherever and however life disappears from the landscape, it eventually springs up there again or somewhere else.
-Time heals just about all wounds.
-Nothing will stop stem cells, or science generally, including creationists and religious objectionists around the world.
-Memantine can help a person 'forget' chronic pain.
-"Evil empires" always do fall, eventually, due to internal problems or contradictions.
-We're capable of true empathy and sufficient sympathy, forgiveness, of rising above our most vulgar instincts through self-restraint. We're capable of change too.
-We're approaching greater levels of meritocracy, rather than unjustified aristocracies based on class, race, family name or title.
-Forgotten ideas will be remembered and current ideas improved on. The truth is always out there waiting to be discovered or re-discovered.
-Almost everybody is wealthier and far healthier than people from previous generations were. The lowest classes in Sydney lives like the Kings of centuries ago and poverty around the world is on the decrease.
-We're all dead in the end anyway.
-The World is tiny, there's so often a way for people who otherwise would be torn apart to cohabitate. And we can communicate with almost anyone, anytime.
-People usually eventually recover very well from intensely negative life events.
-There is somebody out there that can love you, no matter who you are.
-The pleasures of small things
-The 'good' will carry on acting as they do, even if they realise that there's no God.
-People living today have an historically almost unparalleled amount of freedom to live life as they choose to and are tolerated more than ever.
-There are lots of people who work tirelessly and altruistically.
-The Internet has drastically enhanced access to information.

Uhh, feel free to add.

Snobbishness

There are different types of snobs - intellectual snobs and materialists. Both sides like to feel themselves as superior and have some measure of contempt for the other.

There are high-powered CEOs who, due to their lack of knowledge on a topic, are routinely humiliated by intellectuals. There are plain-clothed intellectuals that are ignored, ridiculed or pitied by the wealthy. There are trendy, beautiful people in successful careers who are enraged and humbled by their complete irrelevancy in matters political or scientific. There are trendy intellectuals who are unfairly labelled as materialists, and shallow, materialistic geniuses who are ashamed to be called know-it-alls and who recoil at the possibility of being ostracised due to a perceived intellectual elitism. The intellectual elites are derided as bullshit artists, the materialists as uneducated.

It can be very difficult to reconcile these ways of living. Where one tries merely to gain as many posessions as possible, one must compromise, to some degree, ones love of gaining as much knowledge as possible. Of course, knowledge may sustain wealth, and wealth may help you obtain or transfer knowledge, but ego and identity depend on which category we choose for our own self-evaluation. Too often, people of different tastes judge the other on criteria they did not submit to. Two people with a commitment to knowing all about cosmic rays may compete fairly, as might two people who just want to be billionaires. When the cosmologist judges the aspiring billionaire or vice-versa, is where things get very strange.

Incredibly...Stupid.

$AUD 20 BILLION is being spent on a couple of crappy fighter jets? 15% of the Australian Federal budget, EVERY year for 10 years, being spent on such crap? On jets which are ALREADY outdated! On jets which could never, ever, come even close to saving us in the event of a war anyway! In any case, there are no hostile neighbors now, and no reasons why there needs to be. There are absolutely no justified OR feasible applications for these ridiculous jets, even in the overseas wars currently taking place. There is also no potential for these jets to improve Australia's ability to meet its obligations to its treaty signatories such as Japan, the US and New Zealand, nor for peace-keeping OR counterterrorism measures (not that I think counter-terrorism is worthwhile, either).

I am exploding with anger not only at the stupidity of the Joint Strike Fighter jet purchases, but on the very idea that Australian military idiots could consider us a country capable of defending ourselves in a situation of war. Or economically powerful enough to poking our fingers around elsewhere. Years ago, these same fools wasted $10 billion on disgracefully impotent and defunct submarines, to the aggravation and often tangible pain of everybody domestically, and to the bewilderment of our neighbors. This decision raises the bone-headededness to a new level.

The Defense portfolio needs to be virtually dismantled and its ministers removed in disgrace. We should be spending all of that money domestically, slowing down the rate at which Australia becomes an uneducated, internationally uncompetitive basketcase that is drowning in debt.

"Luv Yer"

Every so often, someone makes a revealing comment. True feelings, fears, insecurities and prejudices are finally exposed. Some admissions are sad, some bold, pathetic, embarassing or touching. We cringe or we laugh when we hear them, we act sensitively, but somebody has to be the guy who points out another's distorted thinking patterns, and slips of the tongue are the best opportunities if you care for somebody. Lately many girls that I know have revealed, sometimes unconsciously, a lack of self-esteem to me. They're still not truly convinced that they're sexy, smart, or whatever it is that they need to feel. They demand, and are grateful for, too little.

Case 1: I see a girl in an on-off 3-year relationship who now types "luv yer" on MSN to her bf, in response to something considerate he'd done for her. This can be just an innocent abbreviation for a genuine feeling, but I knew that it wasn't for her...she had once typed "I love you" in similar circumstances to somebody else that she really loved, and to him long ago. She had considered typing "love you" and thought better of it. She says she DOESN'T love him, their relationship is neither here nor there. Never terrible, never good. She just says things like "luvv ya" cause she thinks he wants to hear it. She was amazed that I picked up on this, I'm surprised that she was amazed. As if I don't know her inside out by now. Wow, that has sexual connotations. But we've never even kissed. She says she can't break up with this guy, "because he doesn't deserve it". Breaking up unfair because of an ABSENCE OF MISTAKES on his part? THAT'S NOT THE ISSUE. The potential for guilty feelings is NOT good enough reason to stay in a relationship. You don't have to wait for mistakes as an excuse to end it! My not making mistakes does not entitle me to another person, nothing does in fact.

Other ones I've heard from different people:
"Nobody else could ever love me as much as he does". Rubbish. We're so young anyway.
"I want to try to not fuck things up again" - wrongly believing that, by staying committed to one guy, past mistakes such as pickiness or infidelity can be corrected. For some, to prove themselves capable of more commitment.
"Nobody out there is as good as him". Bullshit. Others exist. This actually reflects her view that better catches out there are not within her reach.
"I don't deserve someone like him". Very startling. There's a terribly depressed view of the self here. Everyone makes mistakes, but it is distortion if you believe your past mistakes are permanent features of your personality. Or assume that the mistakes you've made deserve punishment from somebody that loves you.

Probably the most common, and the most forgiveable, is "I need someone now". That's totally fine, if neither person believes it's a serious relationship. Another common statement: "I realised what a nice guy he is". You didn't when you got together? Obviously, we speak in short-hand, this means more, but still!

It is nice that people consider the hurting of other people's feelings.
I'm not suggesting that every relationship that you go in to needs to be deadly serious. Greater feelings sometimes develop more slowly, anyway. Just be clear of what it was that you were looking for when it started. If you aren't, the relationship could eventually assume a pretentious or dishonest status.
I'm also not advocating always searching for more, and never stopping to be satisfied with what you have at the moment. Or even considering that one person might have enough to offer you for the rest of your life.
Just think, at least occasionally, with a larger perspective about the significance of the relationship and what the purpose of it was and now is for you and for the other. If there are things missing which aren't going to appear, don't play down the importance of them.
Guys do this all the time too. Stop letting these thoughts swirl around in your head, and don't get trapped in a vicious cycle of neediness and reinforcement between two people who no longer share much in common other than a neurosis.

Collecting

This is a confessional. One of my strange psychological quirks is my desire to archive things. It's crazy, self-centred, and it consumes an hour every few weeks or so. I've just always hated the feeling of losing my memories. It's a fantastic feeling when you're able to see your past before you, when you wish to. To know that while your memory may one day fail, you will not forget. I'll appreciate it in my old age. (Although I'm working on keeping the past in its context and not letting it interfere with the present).

I've got collections of travel diaries from every holiday since I was 7 (Those are funny to read, I wrote the precise time we arrived at places more than what we saw). From my travels, I also have old passes to mountain ranges, tickets from trains, museums, trams, productions I attended, films, art galleries, clubs. If I enjoyed overseas music, it has been downloaded and forms the audio part of my travel memories folders, nearby the photos.
I've got all my writings for the last 5 years and many from before, with the date of writing mentioned, and the content categorised. I've got archives of every conversation I've ever had on MSN, archives of interesting web pages or articles I've saved to my hard disk for retrieval when my interest on researching a subject is reignited. Old mIRC programming, and other nerdy material.
I'll have almost all my photos right back to primary school camps, and even my dad's old 35mm slides digitized and filed away on my computer in their appropriate place.
I've got diaries, dream diaries, dead end writings, old workbooks. Lists of my top 50, 100 books, movies. I've got stand-up comedies, film clips, TV shows. Data systems with application backups. On an external hard drive I've also got just about every computer game I ever played (I no longer play them). I've got old clothes, old trophies, team memorabilia, board games.

It's compulsive, addictive, but it's incredibly satisfying for me and it's proven very useful many times. I thought I was going to run out physical space, but most things are digital now anyway. Even this blog is sort of an archive. I wonder how long I'll keep everything up for.

Moore's Law

IT Journalists who realise they haven't researched anything to write about for their weekly column end up publishing something about how much faster computers have become. They often rant and rave about "Moore's Law"...not the Moore that said that everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Gordon Moore, the CEO of Intel, who once predicted that computer processing power will double every 18 months.
Pseudo-nerds like to talk about Moore's Law, to pretend they're smart. Problem is, the "law" does not describe reality, and hasn't done so for some time. 4.5 years ago, I bought a 1.8GHz processor. If the "law" was correct, by now I'd be using a 14.4GHz processor. 4GHz is the fastest available, however. So computer CPUs have taken 4.5 years to roughly double in speed. They've hardly advanced in speed at all in 3 years (I could get 3.4GHz, 3 years ago). Moore's "Law", conclusively, is bullshit. What annoys me more is the thought that people ever believed there was reason to think that miraculously, research would just happen to advance in such a way that every 18 months, CPUs would double in speed. Deserving pain are the journalists who write as though Moore's prediction actually CAUSED computers to become faster, as though, by trying to keep up with his prediction, research has gone faster than it otherwise would have. What absolute nonsense.

The instinct to learn

It is often assumed, in casual conversation, that everything which children know they were taught or learnt in some way (often by trial and error). However there is definitely not only an ‘instinct’ to learn...babies are smart enough to generalise and know complex things, without any instruction whatsoever.
-For example, a baby is pointed to a cup, taught that it is called a cup. They immediately recognise all distinct cup-shaped objects as cups, despite never having been taught this. Crucially, this behaviour continues in adulthood.
-Humans develop a knowledge of "physics" early on. Young infants are surprised by the tricks of magicians, because, watching them, they instinctively feel that some law has been violated. Due to their curiosity-imbibed fumblings, they've learnt to walk, talk, and to interact with objects, and they know what is not possible. As a physicist does, they've already built models of reality which they've adapted in line with their 'experiments'
-Body language!

I think a lot more of what humans do is instinct than is generally recognised. Walking, talking, thinking. Even without being taught mathematical operations, people would continually re-invent addition, multiplication, etc, as ways of solving real-life problems, such as how to share food amongst many people. {Mathematicians were once ethicists / "from the priest clan"!!!}.

Have a good, long think about what other learning mechanisms are hardwired in to you, and how they influence your behaviour, and your opinions. If you're not a lazy arsewipe and do this, you'll be absolutely intrigued by your findings.

**** "Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away"

Problems with Gravity

I've come up with errors in man's understanding of gravity. They're listed in the comments, if this is something that you find interesting. Otherwise, less space has been taken up :)

***
"Lovie Smith becomes the first African-American sports coach to ever lose the Superbowl"

A woman I respect

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a remarkable woman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali
She is the daughter of a Somali warlord, who escaped Islamic fundamentalists, and turned in to an influential Dutch politican and prominent atheist. After she wrote the script for the film "Submission", a fundamentalist killed the director, Theo van Gogh, and left a 5 page letter attached to his body, threatening her death too (she now is under protection from the Dutch).
She is part of a minority that understand why our principal concern must be the concept of human rights, rather than our traditional understanding of what constitutes respect. If we want a peaceful society.
Chomsky, now: "The beauty of the democratic systems of thought control, as contrasted with their clumsy totalitarian counterparts, is that they operate by subtly establishing, on a voluntary basis (aided by the force of nationalism and media control by substantial interests) - presuppositions that set the limits of debate, rather than by imposing beliefs with a bludgeon"

****
Death to those that call us murderers

"Against nature"

I can't understand how people could label cloning ‘unnatural’. The public fail to understand that thousands of clones are born each day, completely naturally. This is what identical twins are. What people call 'unnatural’ is often just what hadn't happened before. Like penicillin, chemotherapy and Panadol. It's the logical fallacy people, AGAIN, of deriving an "ought" from an "is". Due to fear.

Natural vs Unnatural is a stupid way to think when analysing what changes to society should be banned. If we are to be consistent with “nature”, people with leukaemia are supposed to naturally die without intervention. All other inventions, such as microwaves were also considered unnatural at one time. Familiarity has changed that. You could not possibly begin to argue that such things should certainly be banned simply because they didn’t exist for the majority of the time Homo Sapiens have been around. More reasonable grounds need to be given to ban an invention such as cloning other than the fact that we're uncomfortable with it. Eg, suppose it is dangerous in that it produces freak mutations. Watch out for that though, because PLENTY of things are dangerous when they are new but the risks involved decrease to zero eventually as the technologies advance)

****
Once, the mind existed to ensure the body survived. Now, the body exists to make sure the mind survives.

The Search Function

1] We are unaware about HOW we recall things….the process seems to occur completely outside our control, as does the beating of the heart. So how does memory recall work? You don't think very hard; you more hope your brain fetches the memory for you. And yet you're happy when you remember something. I guess the pride is that you stored that memory to retrieve in the first place! Is the brain scanning for associations? To what could the brain’s “search mechanism” be compared? A computer searching for files? What is the “method of storage”? -------- When you get the feeling that you are "getting close" to remembering the answer, or if you get the feeling it starts with an M, are you literally searching somewhere near the information required and have briefly scanned over it, or a part of it? Somebody help me out with this one!

2] For memory scientists. I figured out something while playing Memory Blocks (where you flip blocks, trying to find matching pairs). Which you should investigate. I only ever set the record the first time I play, so the short-term memory must confuse itself, the map of which block is where the second time I play must interfere with the map from the first game. Etc

3] If somebody asks you “What do you think about X” you often realise during your response, mid-sentence, that you are wrong (or that you have not given the matter adequate thought). This is because different parts of the brain work at different speeds. (On a slightly different but related note, nobody says “I hear a ball dropping now” – you know the event will be finished by the time you’ve completed the sentence, yet you say “I’m in Love” because the parts of the brain making you feel love are active for much longer periods). After somebody asks a question, our auditory systems often start responding before our brains have been able to recall ideas we learnt before and stored, and ideas we no longer actually believe in start to stream out. Then the other systems of the brain catch up, and we realise that we’ve been talking bullshit. Goddamn

***

An atheist says, hey, let's not spend our time and money building a church, let's build a hospital instead.

Self-deception

Now obviously we all have limitations. People say things like “I cannot draw”. Or “I cannot solve equations”. “I don’t understand culture X”. “I don’t understand women”. “I don’t understand men”. “I am not technically minded”. “I cannot communicate effectively”. “I can’t write well”. “I can’t / (hate?) read(ing)”. “I can’t play piano”. “I cannot study”.
People are more hesitant, however, to admit or come to the following conclusions and concede the true flaws they have:
“I'm not very creative". “I am largely incapable of logic of any sophistication”. “I'm ignorant relative to others about X,Y,Z". "I often am not able to empathise”. “I am not very precise and cannot structure my thoughts”. “I could not be relied upon to establish civilisation”. These are the analogues of the former in many ways, yet they are greater attacks on the person’s self-worth. By admitting their problems in a weaker form, people give themselves the illusion that they've confronted theirselves and that their inadequacies aren't so bad, and doesn’t affect their other abilities.

****
A terrible thing when a generation fights for a set of laws – and then achieves them all. The road is better than the inn. Those who find themselves in the inn will cast themselves out on the road again in search of something more. They will also manufacture problems in areas that weren’t any before.

Feels Good, Fool

Bunnings Warehouse have an offer “Find a cheaper price on one of our items elsewhere and we’ll beat it by 10%”. At first glance, this seems to be a good thing for consumers. A little game theory and you see why this offer is deceptive and misleading! If Paul’s Warehouse, a competitor, knows about this offer, they won't offer lower prices than Bunnings. So Bunnings' offer/threat to beat prices encourages Paul’s Warehouse to collude with Bunnings in keeping prices high…Unless, of course, Paul's Warehouse feel they have a realistic chance of making Bunnings go bankrupt.
Bunnings actions are typical of a large established business. They are using their power and large cash reserve (which will help them ride out difficulties) to make Paul recognise that he cannot afford to compete with them on price. The ACCC need to stop this anti-competitive behaviour immediately.

In the mean time, Caveat Emptor. Buyer beware.

The patterns aren't there, retard

There is something very stupid about suggesting a share's price or a sharemarket follows a pattern (ie formula). This "holy grail" idea of there being a pattern we can use to work out where a share or market is headed is contradictory. Basing our buying and selling decisions on discovered mathematical relationships in price movements DISTORTS THOSE VERY PATTERNS. To see why there must be no pattern, consider what would happen if there was one:
Suppose the formula predicted a share was to rise from $40 to $45. Nobody would ever sell the share below $45, then. So it wouldn't move from $40...and it wouldn't move to $45 either!! Therefore the market would not move as the formula predicted. The existence of the formula would destroy the possibility of it being correct. There may be a short-term strategy which yields greater than average returns, but it's not the holy grail you're after.

Doom !

The 2nd Law Of Thermodynamics states that Entropy (aka disorder) always increases. It is chillingly true that all energy in the Universe will continue to be transformed in to less and less usable forms. For example, regardless of the insulation you use, your house must always radiate heat which cannot be recovered without expending energy. Any whole system must be <100% efficient. Which means, in the long run, ALL LIFE IS DEAD. With CERTAINTY. Conserving the environment (or any other conceivable action, for that matter), won't make one iota of difference, it'll just slow down the inevitable. In our future searches around the galaxy for energy sources, we will appear like frogs trying to leap between lillies which are drifting further apart. We will eventually fall. All life tries to organise matter (reduce Entropy aka disorder) to prolong its own life. Humans, for example, gather ordered matter such as food and water from external sources, to create order internally, in their bodies. Trees soak up water and sunlight.
The Entropy law dictates that if you expose bottled perfume to the air, it’ll eventually dissipate and the perfume will be evenly spread around the air. This transaction is non-reversible...you’d never expect the perfume to re-appear inside the bottle. And yet if you look at the low-level, everything that happens in the universe seems to be reversible. When a perfume spreads, all that’s happening is that particles are bumping off against each other, moving across the room. Again, and again. Every individual collision, we rightly believe to be reversible. But why then are macroscopic events like the dispersal of the perfume NOT reversible? What a mystery!

***
Maths is the male counterpart of that tricky woman, philosophy

Superior Nerds

As we age, it starts making less sense to call people nerds. Though we know they once were. Their lack of social skills eventually becomes obvious to a nerd, which gives him/her a million insecurities and fears. The feeling of being marginalised, misunderstood, and incapable of deep personal relations eventually fades, however, as and because the nerd eventually finds his voice and confidence.
The elitism and the superior aspect however is that, for his ego to survive, the nerd must hypothesise, perhaps soemwhat truthfully, that he is underappreciated because others are inferior in other ways and don't understand him. He must suppose that others don’t relate to him or desire his company simply because they cannot fathom what he is thinking about. That they marginalise him, he feels, is because their culture is inferior, their sense of humour stupid, their enthusiasms misplaced. Is this just a way of coping or is it really true? Is the nerd’s inferiority in certain domains illusory and in fact a construction of those who are successful socially? What exactly are "social skills", do you think?

***
To ‘sin’ actually once meant to "miss the point", to not understand. I quite like this idea of sin

Mambo T-Shirt Philosophy

Those Mambo T-Shirts say “Make Love, Not War”. Southpark says "Make Love, not Warcraft". A mature love most certainly will not look like war. But I suspect that, particularly at the beginning, they aren't so different. Instead, there is simply passion, and arousal, and this could go either way. In and towards somebody special, somebody who might be a passionate love of yours, I think there is respect, fear, aggression, defeat/conquest, surrender, humiliation, occupation, and always a trace of possessiveness. All of these are military-related.
Even between the greatest of enemies there is often a connection, a passion. The outbreak of war between neighbours is usually a failure or strangulation of that connection. "A woman is like a violin - held tight, she is played by the man, who is the bow. He must know how to play her correctly to make her vibrate to the tunes that both she and he want to hear. And to do so, he must master her". Not as a dog, but he must understand her and let her know that she needs him as much as he her. Traditionalist, perhaps, but I suppose that's how it works for me.

Das Land der Dichter unt Denker

I find it curious that pre-WW2 Germans saw Germany as "Das Land der Dichter unt Denker" – The Land Of Poets And Philosophers. Germans have had great success in every field. But, apart from football, their image abroad is more closely associated with good science and engineering than it is with poetry. Despite Goethe! But I find such self-identification interesting. In WW2, the Nazis showcased scientists supportive of their theories, but they were thinly spread - science was always their enemy. Einstein's equations were Jewish, therefore wrong, and scientists knew their work ultimately couldn't continue in such a climate. Those "Jewish" theories led to the production of a working Bomb, anyway.

I think the Nazis rose on the back of (not in spite of) the Poet and the Philosopher in the German. We know that Hitler was an artist, and he loved the theatrical, glorious nature of Wagner’s music. It made me think that, for intellectuals, amongst other things, Nazism was the result of literature and music, and hundreds of years of radically different currents of thought in German philosophy, particularly in the irrationalism of people like Hegel and in Martin Heidegger.
The poetry side of it makes me think Nazism was also more the result of some simple aesthetic ideal for non-intellectuals. The swastika, the displays of power, the flags and colours, the military might, the clean uniforms, and efficiency as simple things that broad elements of the population delight in. Fascism could also be seen as an artistic man’s theatrical, musical, dramatic outlet. The “German philosophy” is also embodied somewhat in the idealists and in decades of authoritarian hatred of British liberal traditions. The population, besieged by The Depression and humiliated domestically, allowed the philosophy of its thinkers, intellectual statesmen and historians to leach through to them and just fell for the allure of Hitler’s promises of their future power and grandeur

I hope India wins

Westerners - divert your money away from China and in to India. You may make 18% instead of 20% p/a, but you won't be implicitly supporting a monstrous totalitarian regime. The Chinese Communist Party has consistently showed its utter contempt for human rights, and demonstrated that it will pursue glory at any cost. I understand the importance of stability to the Chinese, given the chaos in China in the last century. I know that Chinese need to manage the possibility of their progress being de-railed by severely disruptive social problems. But Chinese leadership has conducted itself despicably.

Chinese often wonder why the events in and around Tiannenmen's square remain such powerful images in the minds of many Westerners...
-- Hundreds of millions of peasants that toil fruitlessly toward the glory that the CCP promises them have their homes demolished without notice or compensation, and, should they protest, they are beaten and jailed. There are too many people for fair trials. The media and political opposition are strangled in China, foreign investors have ridiculous restrictions placed on them, and may at any moment have their assets confiscated without recourse to legal action.
-- Chinese officials packed people infected with SARS into ambulances and drove around for hours just so that the WHO wouldnt know the truth of the extent of the infections and the inability of the health system to contain them.
-- Falun Gong members and their families are kidknapped, and often used in live organ forms. Outspoken members may be sent for "re-education", which is the Chinese government's way of saying they will labor all day to build the infrastructure to support this enormously overpopulated country. These measures against Falun Gong and other minorities are widely supported.
-- Govt officials decided not to tell 8 million residents in Hunan province that they were drinking poisoned water, while they scrambled to fix the problem.
-- The Chinese government maintains a "Great Firewall of China", censoring vast portions of the Internet which it feels undermine their iron grip over the contents of citizen's minds. The concept of freedom of speech, or expression in appearance, sexuality, profession etc just isn't taken seriously in China.
-- The Chinese, bent on a glorious image, snatch 5 year-olds from their families to be machine-trained for 7 hours a day in order to win gold at the Olympics. Yao Ming, the 232cm basketballer, was the product of government "matching" efforts between two tall people.
Etc. Think about it, the West sucks in many ways that China does not, but do you really see the above happening in countries such as France, Australia, Canada?

The Chinese are a proud, intelligent, hard-working people with an incredible history. They will form a very useful counterbalancing force to the USA et al. However, I'm worried about what China may look like when it has eclipsed them. Will Chinese citizens have rights by then? Or will tyranny be exported elsewhere?
The Chinese I meet who haven't been outside of China for long have huge walls in their head. This can appear sweet/cute, in native, naive Chinese girls in their 20s, but can also seem very ignorant. China (NOT people of Chinese origin) is socially and institutionally inferior in many respects to Western countries with long histories of wealth and stability. Also, it's great that China's politicians are often scientists and engineers rather than hacks like here, but they need to realise that Chinese cannot innovate to the degree required in today's information economy if they are brainwashed and taught not to think for themselves.
Unless China reforms, internal instability may cause its downfall, even without the demands for change that powerful Westerners are likely to start to call for. Float your currency, China.
India has many of the same problems as China, and it approaches many issues less scientifically and analytically. But it does a better job of balancing its development with justice, democracy and human rights.

******
This guy was so in love with this girl, that when he was away from her, he sent her a love letter every day for 500 days. On the 500th day, she married the postman.

Born of a blood and misery, Born of broken men

The horror of WW2 is undeniable. But the paradox is that, ironically, something as wasteful and tragic as WW2 inspired necessary changes that have enriched mankind ahead of time. Mankind evaluated its disastrous state after WW2, and this uncommon process of reflection bore many rewards, as did many aspects of the actual war process. Just as competitive evolutionary struggles for life and death increased homo sapien's intelligence and strength, worldwide warfare delivered some improvements to man along with all the pain
-- The birth of the U.N, the creation of the World Bank and the IMF which gives aid and tries to develop countries.
-- The increasing convergence of worldwide law and the creation of the International Criminal Court to try war criminals, dictators and other undesirable humans. The push to create the E.U.
-- A whole bunch of scientific inventions, whose creation was motivated by the desire to kill more efficiently, ended up being used for peaceful purposes; the rockets that would take man to the moon and the engines that would later provide cheap worldwide travel. The advances in physics, chemistry, engineering, medicine, the psychological and social sciences such as Economics. All the art, the music, the drama.
-- Increased interest in cultural diversity and a desire to understand people from other backgrounds

There is the risk this post will be misinterpreted. Read carefully, this is NOT a pro-war message, most of the things that humans do to improve their lot do not involve a struggle to the death. But I do like "1812" {See first post!}

***
Remember, foreplay for an evening's sex session begins at breakfast.

Fight or flight - But fear is running you

This was a Good Weekend article, that I have compressed:
Fear is in control of our world, and is corroding our humanity. Once, people's fears were specific, such as fear of spiders or heights. Losing touch with other people and becoming more lonely, we’ve adopted a perspective of "the worst possible outcome". Although Sydney’s water quality has been improving every year, a greater proportion report lack of trust in it and resort to bottled water. Even as the incidences of murder, rape and pedophilia have been decreasing, the perception is that these crimes are on the rise. We are healthier and live longer but are also more paranoid about health (health-consciousness raises life expectatancy, though, I suppose). The fear of taking risks is creating a society that celebrates victimhood rather than heroism. The celebration of safety alongside the continuous warning about risks constitutes a profoundly anti-human intellectual and ideological regime. Aversion to fear eliminates excitement and enjoyment. It continually invites society and its members to constrain their aspirations and to limit their actions. Children grow up thinking the world is a dangerous place full of risky strangers. The proportion of British children taken to school by car quadrupled between 1971 and 1990, even as transport improved both in safety and efficiency. Parents are more likely to accompany their child in any activity now. This is wrong not only because risk-taking is part of humanity, but because it makes children less capable of dealing with the unexpected. Protectiveness towards children is now at absurd levels. Fathers worry about photographing their children playing football unless he gets the permission of other parents. That’s because everyone is looking at the world from the perspective of a paedophile. We think every parent is a potential paedophile, and ultimately, that’s a triumph of paedophilia over common sense. Before there used to be traditionalists and futurists. There are now neither. We are living in a kind of infinite present. We are in post-political times. Politics has lost the desire and confidence to change things in a big way. The larger debates of the past have been replaced by single issues such as literacy in classrooms or school lunches. These issues don’t have much to do with traditional politics, and they don’t concern the future or morality. They concern people’s lifestyles. Sometimes, people’s most heated debates today are around individual preferences such as who likes the “Big Brother” TV program, and who hates it.

Dialectical behavioral therapy

When birds fly in a circular formation, following the bird(s) directly ahead of them, it can become impossible to pinpoint the exact causal chain which sustains their movement. A similar collective retardedness lies at the heart of every person. This is visible beyond the standard Prisoners Dilemma. Mobs lynching people assume moral immunity, as each of its members deny individual responsibility. The moralising leaders attempt to arouse hostile feelings within a crowd and ultimately seek to divide human beings by categorising some as extremely different to others, contrary to all evidence.

Communities distant in the circles [that represent cultures] always overestimate, relative to other observers, their differences with their neighbors. Eg: to Australians, the difference between Shiite and Sunni Muslims or between Chinese and Taiwanese or Indians/Pakistanis is small, and yet to these parties, it seems a lot larger. And vice-versa.

If humans were less susceptible to emotive reasoning, being persuaded only by rigorous, sobre arguments, eventually our emotional responses could come to coincide with our rational judgements. Our minds and our hearts could finally synthesise in a glorious harmony. But, as it stands, a massive chasm has opened up between our emotions and our reasoning, causing a little discomfort, but mostly confusion.
In the logical part of our brain,
-- We know that helping out 'desperate' (but just lacking luxuries) members of our family or local/religious/ethnic community at the expense of truly starving children in Africa is inexcusable. Yet we follow the emotional imperative to help our kin's genes. Even though we realise a collectively rational world would consist of every individual protecting the most vulnerable, despite lack of proximity. This social contract, in the literature, is Brittle, but could become Strong
-- Intelligent, rich individuals know that pride about their genetic good fortune is foolish, because they did not earn it, and that their contempt for stupid humans is completely unfair. Yet there is still a smug superior feeling one gets. Unrelated, but racial tolerance isn't sufficient if we are to be cultural snobs anyway!!!
-- Anybody with any level of imagination can see that people are not cops or robbers, they are both, in different circumstances. Yet... ____
-- We know that killing one healthy man to harvest his healthy organs to save five other lives probably does more good than harm. Yet we have an instinctive resistance to helping the unhealthy at the cost (bloody murder!) of the healthy innocent (with good evolutionary reason to do so! Save the species!!).
-- We know that animal pain probably feels v.similar to human pain, and yet we convince ourselves that their pain is morally insignificant, because species have a bias towards preserving themselves. We can stab cows. Morality must have some connection, however, to the creation of pain/pleasure. Yet...I do like meat though.
-- Like 50 people die between P-Plater deaths. Consequentialism may be cognitively demanding, but FUCK, people! Who cares? Is it worth restricting the freedoms of young drivers over? I think not. I must be cold.
-- We ignore human rights because diversity is the new religion, and sacrificial altar [Consider the Amish]. Why do I feel bad encouraging others to claim their rights? What about the sexual oppression of women in many religious societies?
-- We shouldn't feel hatred at the news of murder. Others may interpret this as me being "soft" on crime, or living in a fantasy world. I am simply not for revenge. The Law incarcerates criminals to prevent crime, not to satisfy the vengefulness of the bereaved by taking pleasure in the misery of the perpetrator. Rage is the most primitive of conventional emotions, replaceable by smarter emotions, like regret, disappointment, disgust.

All of this may just prove that our attempts to moralise are utterly stupid, self-righteous, pointless. Meh. “Battle against Heaven, Earth and Man, and you will find happiness”. Fight reasonably for reason. It will be long and it will be hard. At least the fight is defined. Note: I am NOT advocating harvesting organs from healthy people...I just believe we should constantly strive to give our reasons a little more weight in our choices , and protest if we are called cold for doing so. Being cold may just often be the kindest thing that you can do.

Also, I think morals have a strange connection to smarts.
++ Pre-conventional morals such as obedience are reinforced by reward and punishment and work best on toddlers - "I have a stick...or a sweet...a bomb or development aid". ++ Conventional morals appeal to a sense of duty to community and work on sheep eg "be brave and selfless and serve in the army". ++ Modern philosophical morals appeal to abstract truths of justice and are made best by, and are convincing to, genius. And it was only the material comforts that Science provided which pacified human hearts. And Rawls, you are a genius!

So...a question in summary:
What kind of society would never collapse, never have enemies on the inside or out?
Sob, if it is to be a power struggle, remember that I am likely to crush you.


***********
Victorian morality: “Do not do what you want to, including relax and have sex as you wish, because doing what you want to is bathing in the FILTH of your instinct"

Moral Orel

What do you like in a friend? In a lover? What do you seek from family? From life?

Your answers to these questions reveal your values. WHAT DO YOU VALUE? The morals you feel are important in yourself and others become obvious when you realise what you value. The question of what people do, and/or should value is not an obscure, pretentious question for Philosophers in ivory towers. Your answer to it will determine your friendships, if you love, who you love, your choice of career, your lifestyle, and how quietly you slip away as you die. And, perhaps, the quality and quantity of the sex that you have. Although you'll need to get a life too for that.

The smartest ethicisists don't think about integenerational equity, human rights, social problems, human nature and justice to solve world dilemmas.
They're aware of the personal dimension of these problems. So should you be

"Thailand - Come for the sex trade, stay for the full-moon party"

What to do with my life?

Science can't answer every question, but it can answer any meaningful question, because there is no finite list of all the questions that one could ask. [EVERY is different to ALL!]
A big strength and weakness of mine is my desire to rationalise everything - every tragedy and every joy. A sense of power in my life is important, and through understanding the world I acquire the power to control things. But I cannot control my friends or lovers, and I probably can't control myself either. If my heart just pumps, circulating blood, and my eyes just view, causing visuals, then my brain just works, causing thoughts.

The distinction between man and a machine is the greatest illusion you have ever experienced. Man proves that is not a question of IF machines could think, but what kinds of machines could think. So the myth of our free will as well as the meaningfulness of your name over time is so deeply entrenched that it re-asserts itself however often it may shatter. [People, preferring a consistent paradox, integrate their personalities in to an "I", rather than have multiple personalities]
Which means that the Buddha was right about one thing. Every serious artist has a moment when they realise how retarded they are. Every conscious animal suffers, if only because of the illusion that you will eventually understand and control yourself. The primary advantage of emotion today is that it quickly terminates our reasoning processes. In its absence our brains would rhuminate on one hard question until our deaths as computers assigned to find the last decimal place of Pi will do.

You don't have to suffer as much as The Buddha did though if you analyse things carefully, check periodically for cancer, and have sex. One of his great mistakes, as I understand it, was to think that happiness can come only from within [Correct me if this is a misinterpretation]. It is exasperatingly contradictory to think that all matter is connected and yet to also believe that something should attempt to exist in isolation, so it is analytically false that destroying your ego, which is connected to everything else, could create happiness. His task could never have been complete, the poor guy.

A human brain MUST segment reality in to categories so that the aspects of reality that you're interested in can be communicated using language. It slices up time, space and matter/thoughts, creating words like "green", "day", "Lance", and "ignores".
So awareness is different to thought. Wow, that feels accomplished. I'm off to party.

-- The TUBE: Totally Unnecessary Breast Examination

My philsopher friend, my friend philosophy

As a tribute to Friedrich Nietzsche, a dude strong enough to crush your arguments with his fists, and cynical enough to kill you, I will post a list of unpleasant facts. In the future, a list of more pleasant truths, just to keep things balanced.

-Morals may change the payoffs in strategic games, but they are not "out there" as is an electron, and they aren't even as real as a chair, and "moral progress" is just intellectual development. You think we stopped burning witches because we gained a conscience? Nonsense.
-You may fall in love with a person, but you love attributes and to love as much as you love the person, and yourself. And your parents probably don't love each child equally. They're just people., anyway
-Freedom can almost always be enhanced by accompanying forms of authoritarian demands...The case of the legislated sound-proof glass. By the way, you have no free will
-People are not as unique as they think they are.
-People expect the fruits of scientific labour without committing themselves to the discipline of scientific rationalism. Science is all that civilised us. Some of us lack scientific thinking. Sometimes its not their fault.
-There is nothing guaranteeing justice, so stop being a coward and thinking things will improve for you in the afterlife. And perhaps stop worrying about being punished in the afterlife. Its not like there is one, anyway
-Paedophiles, necrophiliacs and the like are not evil, they are as human as you.
-Love will always carry a tiny trace of possessiveness and jealousy.
-Terrorism seems to work, at least in the short term. Which is what matters, for those that are alive.
-Most people think less of the poor and don’t care as much about the fat and the ugly.
-The computers are the most impressive objects in the Louvre.
-Everything worthwhile, beauty and brains, and everything less but worthwhile was borne in an ongoing struggle of blood and misery.
-Horrible fates await peacekeepers, thinkers, romantics, the traumatised, the weak, the crippled, the alone
-Humans like to feel superior to others. But then again, there's nothing impossible about being better than some other person in all respects.
-Just because you can name various foods, this doesn't mean that you're cultured.
-Induction is flawed, note the grue and the Black Raven paradoxes
-People behave eugenically. Although nobody should be there to take your right away to do so, few people want to make love to a severely retarded person. It just makes sense
-There is no inherent justification or goodness in the majority getting what it wants, although this is a highly stable arrangement.


Moralising and virtue psychology are never too far from my consciousness. Every day, I'm less narcissistic though. There are always two sides to every story (actually, at least two), and always being constructive is easy when it becomes habit . Ignorance is bliss? Rubbish.

"Haikus are easy to write. But they're sometimes meaningless. Refrigerator."

Pleasantly surprised

As expected, my MATH3201 Dynamical Systems and Chaos course is challenging, seriously interesting, rigorous and philosophically inspiring. Unexpectedly, the young lecturer for this course communicates with exceptional confidence, ability and did not have a fucked up, friendless childhood. High fives to Maths kids who have enough energy and balance to also have great social lives, and who know it. People, no matter what they are, convey your passions intelligently and with humour, and others cannot help but respect and admire you.

I'll now ignore this advice and rant passionlessly about why I've always loved Maths, right from the days when I attempted to introduce Pythagoras' theorem to my schoolmates (They still call me!).

I have been captivated by Cantor's maddening inquiries on Infinity which produced his monumental work on set theory, yet to appear in any syllabus of mine. In an Ivory tower, I have suffered by understanding Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. I have shared Lorentz' excitement at discovering the sensitivity to initial conditions of his computerised weather models. I can become energised by de Moivre's postulates about imaginary numbers and yet I know exactly how to treat and how to touch a girl.
I have never been an escapist. Hmph, my old nemesis Religion again. Sorry to relegate you people to the ranks of Harry Potter readers. Somebody was going to do it soon anyway

I still marvel at Von Neumann's childhood antics, the young Friedrich Gauss' outsmarting his Maths teacher and then assuming her role, and Fischer's noted stubbornness and promiscuity. The various forms of probability have not escaped my attention, irrationals fascinate and metaphysical questions about randomness intrigue me. Don't even get me started on higher order logical loops, and the great paradoxes and antimonies.

Maths is collectively hallucinated, and yet fits in with reality, and is necessary for critical thinking and sophisitcated argument on things ranging from biodiversity to politics to morality to architecture. The incremental logical skills it provides can even facilitate self awareness. We should all have been thinking about superstition when we were taught about induction.
Mathematicians may be poor at other things, but they carry society on their backs

"Cannibals don't eat clowns as they taste funny"

Evolution of abilities

Logical, mathematical and verbal skills augment a person’s other abilities...They don't detract from one's creativity...which, by the way, is about thinking repeatedly about something [NOT lightbulb moments]. The regions of the brain responsible for our higher-order logical and verbal capacities evolved after our amygdala did. So, if there is any behaviour that is likely to be unevenly distributed amongst the population...it is the capacity for structured, logical thought.
This is not to say that logical skills are only found in Maths, the sciences, Philosophy, or essay and speech writing!! One can take a logical approach to studying history, to analysing the law, to baking a cake, to understanding another person, or to the architect’s process of design. But mathematicians have their own aesthetic ideals, and could ultimately create artworks that other mathematicians think are beautiful, but which attract critical scorn from artsy types. But the artsy type couldn’t necessarily solve equations, with any amount of practise.

The reason why we can’t get computers to do certain things is that we don't EXACTLY know how we ourselves get the ‘inspiration’ to produce music, to write poetry or to paint vividly and creatively. I think its a numbers game, about risk-taking, and coming up with thousands of ideas, many of them bad. And rhuminating on them - as in when you wake up, and things are clear. Or in those experiments where, although you have no idea how you work out which word compliments each word from a list, you eventually blurt it out as your brain has been processing it all along. Sharing ideas with others like you but also getting input from very different brains has got to help too.

Language difficulties?

There's no such thing as a stupid question, just stupid people. (To say a question is stupid would be to personify it).
Language is incredible. It is not essential for thought, although it relates to the famous philosophical conundrum, the "problem of other minds", and you are linguistically determined (sorry to break your heart).

Language reveals deep truths about how our minds work. Little kids, who are expert teleologists, say that caves were built "so that people could have shelter", and that food exists "so that we can eat", eerily echoing later Intelligent Design theories put forth by weak, religious minds, and Conspiracy Theorists.

There is no such thing as "positive" or "negative" language, nor is Maths, which deals with tautologies, syllogisms and the like a "language"...although it'd be nice if the Google-using public could 'speak' Boolean. Stop fucking up my Google results, it's in-fucking-credible.

Although you can parse them, you cannot point to a "bunch of grapes", and you cannot "feel like food". Nor is IT ever raining. And how can you be afraid of The Devil, if "Devil" does not refer to anything real? If I communicated properly with you, you'd see how impotent language really is.
If we say “The young man’s urge to defecate even while dressed in full school attire was not suppressed” it doesn’t create as bad an image as “The kid crapped all over his pants in class”. It seems we work on imagery rather than meaning (although I don't), which presents limitations on your ability to communicate, and reinforces your susceptibility to propaganda.

There is no 'purpose' to this post, although there was a mechanism as to how it appeared on this blog. Think about that. It's a shame you can't hear my mocking tone. But yeah, the feelings are mutual, I likewise don't care what you think of me, although I'd be pleasantly surprised to see somebody sharp enough to read the undertones of my posts.

My vocabulary is larger than yours, by the way, and I'm more intelligent. Objectively speaking. Because, if "All things are subjective", then so is that statement, which would make everything...Objective. I'm also cooler than you in real life. What's more, despite the supposed indeterminacy of translation, my thoughts will eventually be understood by all.

After all, even two theories can map perfectly on to each other. If two theories always predict the same thing, they are the same theory. Although one could be a series of chemical equations, and another could be a developmental theory of psychology, there must be a map from representation to reality, and back to a different representation. And so Englishmen can understand Frenchmen after all.

Koro is a mental illness in which a man thinks his penis is disappearing in to his body. There was a mass outbreak of it in Singapore in 1967.

Why ban Pantera? Tchaikovsky makes Pantera look like a placid pussy

I was just listening to Tchaikovsky's famous classical piece, the "1812 Overture". In a fit of ingenious madness, he composed it, hoping it could rally his Russian comrades to defeat the invading Napoleonic army. The music is tremendously beautiful and upliftingly powerful, although it is obviously EXCEPTIONALLY violent (more obviously so from 3 mins in). One can only imagine the impact it must have had when first played in that climate of fear, as 900,000 nationalistic Ruskies prepared in city squares for war. Three minutes in, the cannon fire and beauiful music combine spectacularly . How many more were killed in other wars while various commandos rolled in triumphantly in their tanks, listening to this piece? How many different pieces of artwork or aesthetics also encouraged murder?
It's funny that some conservative folks would try to ban Metallica, Pantera, Tool and Marilyn Manson, and yet completely overlook the 1812 Overture (which probably plays on their home stereo). Just because it is less explicit. Can anyone else suggest some other classical songs that glorify war as horrifyingly convincingly?

May we never again hear the cries to ban music, and may there be peace. Join me on this blog, through a weird mind. If you're really great, remember to avoid the mistake that almost all of the greats made. Get a life.

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"I'd rather you be convicted of possessing child porn than owning a Dickens"