Just A Quote

This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'this is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' this is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for'

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On The Importance Of Philosophy

I'm Just An Amateur Philosopher

Philosophy examines and studies existence, as well as knowledge, action, force and the arts. At the root it stems from the need to understand existence and the nature of existence. Life and death, as far as we, conscious and sentient living things are concerned.

Well, as far as I'm concerned. But I'm a real amateur philosopher. A newbie, not because I'm young - I'm not - but because I wasted too much time dabbling with the same fundamental issues that philosophy deals with but without the proper tools. And without a solid framework such as the one presented for instance here, on The Importance Of Philosophy.

It is based on an Objectivist worldview, first laid out by author and philosopher Ayn Rand, who said:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute....

And we, the self-aware, can't escape philosophy. On this other website, Objectivism 101, it says

...that everyone has a philosophy, even if they don't know it. There's no way to avoid it. It's the way you make sense of the world. It's how you put your knowledge together into an understanding of the world. It's how you make choices, weigh costs and benefits, and decide how to live your life.

A statement with which I wholeheartedly agree. For years I developped "a" philosophical point of view without my knowing it. As I was examining the development of my own condition, in itself and within human society, as I was searching for answers and more knowledge on this universe I found myself in, ideas somehow organised themselves around a few pivotal concepts and I slowly became an amateur philosopher...

One who's trying to attain a little more clarity from whithin this chaotic and entropic life he woke up in, fifty eight years ago....

Evolution Is Wrong

via videosift.com

According to the simplistic arguments presented in this clip - based on the ideas of Adnan Oktar, the islamist creationist - because some species have not changed in hundreds of millions of years, all life was created at once. He uses numerous fossil examples and compares them with almost unchanged living species today to prove that evolution did not happen.

We estimate that there are between seven to one hundred million different living species today - numbers vary because of issues categorising species - some of them are bound to not need to evolve. To be so well niched at one point that major changes become unnecessary and the form stabilises.

Of course he doesn't mention the fact that there are no human fossils dating hundreds of millions of years, but oddly, and contrary to Bible-bound American creationists, he admits to those millions of years.

Here's a nice example of propaganda for you. It uses all the tricks in the book to sustain Oktar's fallacious argument that Darwin was wrong. About a third of the program is spent on pseudo-scientific explanations of the process of fossilisation, another third tells without giving any facts that all sciences have proofs against evolution and the last consist of enumeration of species that haven't changed.

All with dramatic music, fast editing, lush 3D animations, quality graphics and diagrams, lies and wide approximations, and a smirk in the narrator's voice.

A Good Sermon

Amazing! What the power of a good sermon can do. And on any subject. This excellent and hilarious demonstration of arguing convincingly against food shows how one can, in more serious fields, with words, intonations and attitude, influence and manipulate other people towards any ideology imaginable. Gain an advantage over siblings.

Good to know about that trick and have a good laugh at the same time.

A Belief

My only faith:

There will be one more day for me.

My only certainty:

And once, there won't!

Status: So far so good.

Momentous Event

The Hate Syndrome

Hatred is many things. But in very general terms it is attention targeted at an idea, an objet or person, with intent to do damage. The foundation of which is usually pain, past or current. Hate features ignorance of all other angle on or concern about its target. It fuels focused imagination and eventually actions to resolve itself.

The picture above was taken in Montreal, Quebec, a few weeks ago during an annual yet impromptu march against police violence. Hatred is often but not always mutual. And it is sometimes caused not by directly by pain, where the object of hate is unrelated to its subject, as in the case of acute mental illness. Or when hatred is directed towards a symbol, an image that incorporates what the subject feels. To hate is to feel intense dislike, or extreme aversion or hostility, always with a reason. Hatred is not evil, it is a syndrome of many emotions, attitudes, views, intentions, and it burns everything it touches. Hatred is animal.

Prayer Is Superstition

A prayer has the same effect as a lucky horseshoe. Statistically none. No effect whatsoever. It does however stimulate the imagination into creating excuses when a demonstration of the effect of prayers (or horseshoes) fails miserably.

The above video is somewhat "not exciting" to watch but it's arguments are rock solid.

Jesus, Good Luck

Someone just rang at the door and offered me to participate in a celebration of Jesus in the neighborhood.  I answered that I wished him good luck.

He didn’t get it and asked if I was interested to learn more about Jesus. I repeated that I wished him good luck in his enterprises, he left.

I’m not sure but I think it was our parish priest.  The Catholics are frenetic with Easter coming…  Here’s a collage I made: The Jesus Of The Age, constantly re-manufactured through time.

Myths, legends and superstitions have incredible long lives, which tends to show that imagination is useful in evolutionary terms.

I heard someone saying that at least, priests don’t reproduce.  It is true, but the really serious problem is that they teach errors, misconceptions, biases and worse.

I find nothing to celebrate here.

The Biological World

When I first saw Carl Sagan's Cosmos, I never thought it would still be necessary, almost thirty years later, to be argueing these points over and over again...

This program (Carl Sagan's Cosmos - Part 2, released in 1981, is posted here) should simply be required viewing for every kid, as soon as she or he can understand half the words Dr. Sagan uses. They all absolutely need to be exposed to these clear explanations on the "stuff of life" and what is the scientific worldview. Not just the bright, curious or scientifically-inclined child, every child should watch Cosmos. Better in an educational curriculum but if not, in all possible contexts.

I agree that "we are a way for the Cosmos to know itself" and I think that fighting ignorance is part of that job, still.

Side Note: At 43 min. he uses as demonstrations of DNA's vital role blood processes that would eventually lead to his death in 1996, of pneumonia caused by myelodysplasia an immune system disease. See also here.

Superstition

Thirteen

ELEVEN PLUS TWO.

When you rearrange the letters:

TWELVE PLUS ONE

Is that confirmation or evidence?

The French certainly don't have to worry about this one!

Counter Measure:

Design Fiction, for a better, more creative use for imagination.

Immaterial Reality

Matter is immaterial, but you can now slow and freeze light.

Better be able to wrap our heads around the idea. Since we must learn to often rely on the unreliable, fundamental concepts on the uncertain nature of reality are of a certain importance.

Better be able to wrap our heads around these experimental ideas than filling them with notions of "invisible forces". Make me a machine like the lady's got in the above video that capture's god's will and I'll gladly reconsider.

Bring me data that shows a soul leaving a body at death - while I'm waiting, I'll keep on thinking there's enough exciting stuff going around in the actual universe without introducing the superfluous "otherly".

Local Reality

There's enough information on our local neighborhood to counter irrational knowledge about its purported created origin.

Humans Still Evolving

To my great surprise, I only recently learned that the consensus among scientists was that humans had ceased evolving more than fifty thousand years ago. They held that natural selection hasd't come into play since then and that our modern skulls houses Stone Age minds.


But closer observation of the genetic material of the last ten thousand years now seem to show that instead, there's rather been a growth, an avalanche of evolutionary changes in the human body during that recent period and apparently the mutations accelerate as we speak.


The brain, digestive system, lifespan, immunity, sperm production and bones, some two thousand mutations have been identified and traced back. We are differenciating under a wide diversity of environments, the variations in social condition, lifestyle, stress levels, pollution, and the intensification of some of these factors that comes with population growth, all at a recently unsuspected speed.

What will we be in five hundred years?


Learn more from DiscoverMagazine.

Converting First Impressions

From PhysOrg.com:

Neuroscientists at New York University and Harvard University have identified the neural systems involved in forming first impressions of others. The findings, which show how we encode social information and then evaluate it in making these initial judgments, are reported in the most recent issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience.

...

The neuroimaging results showed significant activity in two regions of the brain during the encoding of impression-relevant information. The first, the amygdala, is a small structure in the medial temporal lobe that previously has been linked to emotional learning about inanimate objects, as well as social evaluations based on trust or race group. The second, the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), has been linked to economic decision-making and assigning subjective value to rewards. In the Nature Neuroscience study, these parts of the brain, which are implicated in value processing in a number of domains, showed increased activity when encoding information that was consistent with the impression.

Think Fast, A Vital Ability

In the brain, first impressions seem to be linked to multiple functional areas: to an emotional learning enabler, to the system used in building a sense of social rewards and values, and to how we estimate winning compatibility with our peers. The original first few seconds imprint can then initiate a self-confirming loop of likes or dislikes that will usually stick to us. Specially if corroborated by further information.

But then again, these first impressions can be shattered, switched, eroded or mutated. A friendship of forty years, I started with a strong antipathy; another long-time friend I did not really trust for a long while.

More information, intuition, effort, a revelation or even chance can convert a first impression. It happens. Both ways, from right to wrong and from mistaken to pertinent. The relative reliability and success of this arrangement though, seem to show that we are more often right than we are wrong, fast judgement is probably a vital ability.

The success of this strategy however also might explain why some first impression will never be convertible. Why some people will not be able to change their mind, adopt a different view, reconsider a relationship or the nature of some content. With fast (or lazy) jugments the flexibility seems to be lost.

Hence the hard-core devots, irreductible fanatists and even suicide-cultists.