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1. Moments of Silence: Many and One. RE: Obituaries .
2. 2004-12-17/21 My Landmark Education Experience. RE: Philosophy (Ethics, Faith, Secular) . Personal (Family, Friends, Self) .
3. 2005-01-14t20:25:05Z. RE: 3D (Architecture, Clothes, Fashion, Sculpture) . Conservation (Environment, Fauna, Flora) . Cyber Tech (Computers, Networking, Programming, Telecommunications) . Food (Diet, Drink, Drugs, Restaurants) . Martial Arts . Measurements . Philosophy (Ethics, Faith, Secular) . Relating (Friendship, Living, Parenting, Socializing) . Words (Literature, Reading, Stories, Writing) .
4. 2005-01-19t17:40:40Z. RE: 2D+time (Activities, Animation, Video) . Cyber Tech (Computers, Networking, Programming, Telecommunications) . Engineering, Function, Technology . Health (Exercise, Healthcare, Medicine, Sports) . Math, Science, Science Fiction, Space . Philosophy (Ethics, Faith, Secular) .
5. 2004-12-12 Pheasant Hunt. RE: Fishing, Hunting, Outdoors . Personal (Family, Friends, Self) .

2005-01-06t19:13:17Z | RE: Obituaries .
Moments of Silence: Many and One

The first thing I want to blog about this New Year is to acknowledge the devastation the tsunamis induced by the earthquake in the Indian Ocean just west of the Aceh province of Indonesia on 2004-12-27. Over 150,000 direct deaths. Many more displaced. Vast economic, social, and environmental damage. One of the top five natural disasters ever recorded. It is almost overwhelming but we must all carry on.

...........................................

The second thing I want to blog about is the death of Remedios Eco Hernandez at 90 years old on 2005-01-01 in Bacon, Sorsogon, Philippines. She was my lola, my father's mother. I am so glad that I made that trip to the Philippines in 2004-05, my first time back in over 30 years. So now my two sets of grandparents have died, thus "officially" putting me at the "parent" level and my folks at the "grandparent" level. The wheel of life spins on. 

.

Speaking of the wheel of life, here is a little exercise I do on occasion: I list the coming years, then I list my age and the age of my family members for each year. (For my kids I also listed their grade in school/high school/college.) It puts things in perspective. This time I did it digitally but it is even more powerful to do it by hand. For me it is sobering but calming. For others such an exercise makes the passage of time too frighteningly evident. (FYI: JH is my wife Julia, CH is my daughter Connie, YH is my son York, and AH is my daughter Amy.)

• 2005. 37. JH 41. CH 7/2. YH 4/-1. AH 1.
• 2006. 38. JH 42. CH 8/3. YH 5/K. AH 2.
• 2007. 39. JH 43. CH 9/4. YH 6/1. AH 3/-2.
• 2008. 40. JH 44. CH 10/5. YH 7/2. AH 4/-1.
• 2009. 41. JH 45. CH 11/6. YH 8/3. AH 5/K.
• 2010. 42. JH 46. CH 12/7. YH 9/4. AH 6/1.
• 2011. 43. JH 47. CH 13/8. YH 10/5. AH 7/2.
• 2012. 44. JH 48. CH 14/9. YH 11/6. AH 8/3.
• 2013. 45. JH 49. CH 15/10. YH 12/7. AH 9/4.
• 2014. 46. JH 50. CH 16/11. YH 13/8. AH 10/5.
• 2015. 47. JH 51. CH 17/12. YH 14/9. AH 11/6.
• 2016. 48. JH 52. CH 18. YH 15/10. AH 12/7.
• 2017. 49. JH 53. CH 19. YH 16/11. AH 13/8.
• 2018. 50. JH 54. CH 20. YH 17/12. AH 14/9.
• 2019. 51. JH 55. CH 21. YH 18. AH 15/10.
• 2020. 52. JH 56. CH 22. YH 19. AH 16/11.
• 2021. 53. JH 57. CH 23. YH 20. AH 17/12.
• 2022. 54. JH 58. CH 24. YH 21. AH 18.
• 2023. 55. JH 59. CH 25. YH 22. AH 19.
• 2024. 56. JH 60. CH 26. YH 23. AH 20.
• 2025. 57. JH 61. CH 27. YH 24. AH 21.
• 2026. 58. JH 62. CH 28. YH 25. AH 22.
• 2027. 59. JH 63. CH 29. YH 26. AH 23.
• 2028. 60. JH 64. CH 30. YH 27. AH 24.
• 2029. 61. JH 65. CH 31. YH 28. AH 25.
• 2030. 62. JH 66. CH 32. YH 29. AH 26.
• 2031. 63. JH 67. CH 33. YH 30. AH 27.
• 2032. 64. JH 68. CH 34. YH 31. AH 28.
• 2033. 65. JH 69. CH 35. YH 32. AH 29.
• 2034. 66. JH 70. CH 36. YH 33. AH 30.
• 2035. 67. JH 71. CH 37. YH 34. AH 31.
• 2036. 68. JH 72. CH 38. YH 35. AH 32.
• 2037. 69. JH 73. CH 39. YH 36. AH 33.
• 2038. 70. JH 74. CH 40. YH 37. AH 34.
• 2039. 71. JH 75. CH 41. YH 38. AH 35.
• 2040. 72. JH 76. CH 42. YH 39. AH 36.
• 2041. 73. JH 77. CH 43. YH 40. AH 37.
• 2042. 74. JH 78. CH 44. YH 41. AH 38.
• 2043. 75. JH 79. CH 45. YH 42. AH 39.
• 2044. 76. JH 80. CH 46. YH 43. AH 40.
• 2045. 77. JH 81. CH 47. YH 44. AH 41.
• 2046. 78. JH 82. CH 48. YH 45. AH 42.
• 2047. 79. JH 83. CH 49. YH 46. AH 43.
• 2048. 80. JH 84. CH 50. YH 47. AH 44.
• 2049. 81. JH 85. CH 51. YH 48. AH 45.
• 2050. 82. JH 86. CH 52. YH 49. AH 46.

2005-01-10t21:05:42Z | RE: Philosophy (Ethics, Faith, Secular) . Personal (Family, Friends, Self) .
2004-12-17/21 My Landmark Education Experience

I took the Landmark Education (LE) "Landmark Forum" seminar on 2004-12-17/21. This post is about about LE in general and my particular experience there.

LE is a company that offers seminar on living fully. They don't just feed you material --instead they coach you through exercises that you do in a group dynamic. Like martial arts: You don't just know it --you do it. The content of LE is an interesting and powerful mix of ideas/tools that are pragmatic and philosophical. In my own words (and in one sentence), here is the essence of LE:

Be authentically inspired into powerful actions.

There are two things that I can't talk about.:

• Their "technology" (methods & terminology). LE has legal and copyright protections.
• The specifics of the "sharing" that people did there. This is for the sake of their privacy.

The seminar I took is their main seminar that they call "Landmark Forum". My LE Landmark Forum experience was difficult but beneficial and entertaining. The person who lead the seminar I took was Jeff Wilmore. He was very powerful, professional, charming, educational, and "enrolling" (inspiring). I met with a lot of wonderful people there and it was very rich to have people in such a revealing way.

The definition of LGAT (Large Group Awareness Training) fits Landmark perfectly. Whether this fact is negative or positive is up to your interpretation. I made sure that I was constantly "present" (aware) of the psychological tactics but I also allowed myself to fully play the game and get into it.

Some "distinctions"

• Make no mistake that LE sells their seminars very hard. However it is important to make the distinction between the LE term "enroll" (touch/move/inspire) versus the usual English usage of "enroll" (register/sign-up). Understanding inspiration is good for anyone. Whether you register is up to you.
• In both LE and MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) the participants are taught to enroll/inspire others to buy the product so that the others can also proselytize. The distinction is that non-LE employees who proselytize LE get no financial gain, but those MLM people who proselytize their product/service expect to make a financial gain from the transactions.
• In both churches, cults, & LE, there is enrolling/inspiring content that "enriches humanity". However the distinction is that churches are usually open about their content (they give it away!) whereas cults and LE are closed about their content.
  • You can see that LE is closed about their content for several reasons: They have no real content on their site, they sell no content besides seminars, they have no publications available, etc.
  • Jeff was asked twice about publications and his explanations of why they don't (basically they couldn't capture the essence of the Forum onto paper, but they're trying) was entirely unconvincing and dissatisfying.
  • LE doesn't give their content away to those who can't afford it --which shows that it is for profit as opposed to for the good of all of humanity. They're a business that sells a good product to those who can afford it --just like many other businesses.
• When you look at the LE site or ask LE staff about their relation to WEA or EST, they usually give an obfuscated answer.

Jeff had us close our eyes and led us with his voice, very late into the day on both Friday (to "disappear" pains) and Saturday (to get in touch with our fears). That was very close to mass hypnosis and I didn't appreciate it: Jeff wasn't a health professional or a researcher; also they didn't state that they would do hypnosis in the literature.

• ' Hypnosis, as defined by the American Psychological Association Division of Psychological Hypnosis, is "a procedure during which a health professional or researcher suggests that a client, patient, or experimental participant experience changes in sensations, perceptions, thoughts, or behavior." ' -Wikipedia on Hypnosis
• I've done lots of meditation before and initially I felt that I was not achieving results on the second night. During the Saturday hypnosis session I quickly surmised that the deep breathing and good posture I was doing was making me non-fixated and centered as per my martial arts training. So I purposely made my breaths shallower and I slumped in my chair. This modification allowed me to reach deep down emotionally.
• On the Saturday hypnosis session it seemed that I was able to get in touch with my emotional state as a four year old.
  • My brother Neil and I were left behind with relatives in the Philippines while my parents and older siblings moved to America to get away from the Marcos regime. When I was rejoined with my parents, I didn't recognize my own mother.
  • I've been aware of these facts forever and I've understood it intellectually. EG: I assumed that it must have been emotionally tough for me. However the hypnosis session on Saturday brought me to a bawling state.
  • I emotionally became the lost child. It was a totally new world and I needed a mom to turn to but I was losing my substitute mom (because the relative who brought me over was going back to the Philippines), and my real mom was only my mom intellectually and not yet my mom emotionally. And to top it off, I was still pining over the blue Tonka toy truck that they made me leave behind in the Philippines!
  • Admittedly I have some resentment for having been brought to such an uncomfortable place. I was very somber for the rest of the evening. The concept that everyone has fear (this is the joke on the "other side" of your fear) was not funny or comforting to me. However becoming so emotionally aware that everyone has fear is quite different from understanding it intellectually. It certainly gives you a lot of empathy for people.

The LE persistently emphasize "being unreasonable". I was very resistant to this but I finally got it. The word "unreasonable" has bad connotations. What LE is actually driving at is "beyond reasoning". Clearly there are times when you have to let go of reasoning, trust your instincts, quit looking for excuses/reasons, live as an emotional being, detach from your history, use the other half of your brain, do instead of try, be courageous, etc. The best moments of my life are all about existing beyond reasoning. What is reasonable about getting married? Having kids? Doing martial arts?

Overall I was greatly enriched by the LE experience and clearly some at the seminar were enriched even more. The content and the coaching were both excellent. LE should be paid coaching, but the concepts they talk about should be freely shared with humanity.

Related:

• LandmarkEducation.com
  • Course Syllabus
• Free-Definition.com/Landmark-Education.html
• http://home.swbell.net/danchase/. Open directory with many links discussing Landmark
  • Landmark Education: Creating Possibilities or pursuing profit.
• RickRoss.com. 'The Rick A. Ross Institute (RRI) of New Jersey is a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization devoted to public education and research. RRI's mission is to study destructive cults, controversial groups and movements and to provide a broad range of information and services easily accessible to the public for assistance and educational purposes.'
  • This site has largely negative comments on Landmark.
  • Landmark Education
  • The Forum
• SkepDic.com/landmark.html
• What's Wrong With Multi-Level Marketing?
• Wikipedia.org/wiki/Landmark_Education

2005-01-14t20:25:05Z | RE: 3D (Architecture, Clothes, Fashion, Sculpture) . Conservation (Environment, Fauna, Flora) . Cyber Tech (Computers, Networking, Programming, Telecommunications) . Food (Diet, Drink, Drugs, Restaurants) . Martial Arts . Measurements . Philosophy (Ethics, Faith, Secular) . Relating (Friendship, Living, Parenting, Socializing) . Words (Literature, Reading, Stories, Writing) .
2005-01-14t20:25:05Z

3D (Architecture, Clothes, Fashion, Sculpture)

• In Praise of the Little Black Dress
  • 'Originally worn as a proper expression of mourning, a young widow in the early 19th wore a gown of bombazine, a fabric that sucked in all available light making a lady's figure dominate a room like a pool of ink. The drama of framing a pale face and a curvy body in rustling ebony provided too strong a temptation, and soon the more daring divas wore black for its own sake.'
  • The LBD is indeed the standard --this I know from working in the fashion model industry. Every woman should have a LBD and this article is essential reading.

Conservation (Environment, Fauna, Flora)

• The End of Oil?
  • I know, I know, I keep hammering away at stuff like this. But the presenting stuff about particular topics does not make it so, I am merely saying "please take this into account because the danger is so great".
  • 'If the actions--rather than the words--of the oil business's major players provide the best gauge of how they see the future, then ponder the following. Crude oil prices have doubled since 2001, but oil companies have increased their budgets for exploring new oil fields by only a small fraction. Likewise, U.S. refineries are working close to capacity, yet no new refinery has been constructed since 1976. And oil tankers are fully booked, but outdated ships are being decommissioned faster than new ones are being built.

    If those clues weren't enough, here's a news item that came out of Saudi Arabia on March 6, 2003. Though it went largely unremarked, the kingdom's announcement that it could not produce more oil in response to the Iraq War was of historic importance. As Kenneth Deffeyes notes in Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak, it meant that as of 2003, there was no major underutilized oil source left on the planet. Even as established oil fields have reached their maximum production capacity, there has been disappointing production from new fields. Globally, according to some geologists' estimates, we have discovered 94 percent of all available oil.'

  • 'The prognosis? Deffeyes has no doubt that by 2019, the year in which Hubbert's theories indicate global oil production will drop to 90 percent of current rates, human ingenuity will have found replacement energy sources (see "What Energy Crisis?", p. 19). But Deffeyes is optimistic about the long term only because he believes that by 2010, pressures will grow so intense that they'll create the resolve necessary to develop a new energy ­economy. In the short term, he foresees continually rising oil prices that force industry after industry closer to the wall. He fears not just escalating resource wars around the world but also mass starvation in some countries, since the 6.4 billion people living on the earth today are fed thanks largely to the successes of the 20th century's "green revolution," which, among other innovations, brought petrochemical-based fertilizers into wide use.'

Cyber Tech (Computers, Networking, Programming, Telecommunications)

• The Command Line in 2004. The classic "In the Beginning was the Command Line" by Neal Stephenson updated with notes by Garrett Birkel. These guys love Linux but in the end they remember that there's work to do and life to live outside of computers.

  Customers come to this crossroads in throngs, day and night. Ninety percent of them go straight to the biggest dealership [Microsoft] and buy station wagons or off-road vehicles. They do not even look at the other dealerships.

  Of the remaining ten percent, most go and buy a sleek Euro-sedan [a Mac], pausing only to turn up their noses at the philistines going to buy the station wagons and ORVs. If they even notice the people on the opposite side of the road, selling the cheaper, technically superior vehicles, these customers deride them cranks and half-wits.

  The Batmobile outlet [BeOS, UNIX] sells a few vehicles to the occasional car nut who wants a second vehicle to go with his station wagon, but seems to accept, at least for now, that it's a fringe player.

  The group giving away the free tanks [Linux] only stays alive because it is staffed by volunteers, who are lined up at the edge of the street with bullhorns, trying to draw customers' attention to this incredible situation. A typical conversation goes something like this:

  Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!"

  Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!"

  Bullhorn: "You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!"

  Buyer: "But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music."

  Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our free tanks we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!"

  Buyer: "Stay away from my house, you freak!"

  Bullhorn: "But..."

  Buyer: "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"

  This is a metaphor with legs. However, it has one flaw that needs addressing: Windows and Linux are software, and Apple is a hardware company. This problem can be solved like many other problems are solved in the computer industry: By adding monkeys.

  No, seriously. It works like this. Computer hardware has changed immeasurably in the last 30 years, and nowadays everything we do must be guided by an operating system. To illustrate that situtation with cars, I could say that all modern cars are so fancy and complicated that each one sold comes with a chauffeur who will do the driving for you.

  For example, if you buy an Apple sedan, you also receive a little monkey in a snappy blue suit. Your personal X-Monkey (as the company calls him) is the ideal driver of your Apple sedan. He knows where everything is, feeds and washes himself, drives defensively, and will even tune up the car for you. X-Monkey will accept precise instructions like, "forward 10 feet, right 20 degrees", but he is smart enough to think on his own, so you can tell him "Drive me to a taco stand, then pick up Uncle Steve". He will also keep you out of trouble, by politely ignoring instructions like, "Run over that jogger", and "Floor it", when you're at a red light. Depending on your temperament, this could actually be a downside.

  The X-Monkey comes from a line of monkeys originally bred by the military for the purpose of driving tanks. It's a good fit, because the modern Apple sedan is actually a tank in a fancy shell. The X-Monkey's only drawback is that he can only drive a car from Apple. Show him any other vehicle, and he won't even know how to operate the door lock.

  Meanwhile, the free-thinking Linux people, displeased with genetic engineering, have created their own smart monkey chauffeurs through a massive international breeding program. Unlike the X-Monkey, the Linux Monkey is capable of driving any car, including the Apple sedan. If you could install a steering wheel on a log splitter, the Linux Monkey could drive it for you. The catch is, you have to train the Linux Monkey yourself. Fortunately there are experts everywhere who will help you out, and the Linux Monkey trains easily.

  The Microsoft Gorilla, on the other hand, cannot be trained. Instead, you must keep rephrasing your directions until the MS Gorilla can comprehend them. He consumes both front seats, lowering the mileage of your car, and blocking most of your view. Though he sounds like a bad deal, MS Gorilla is actually extremely popular, because he looks impressive, drives aggressively, and keeps his mouth shut. If you speak in his limited vocabulary, he will take you Where You Want To Go Today ... especially if he can plow monkeys off the intervening road. However, if you touch anything on the dashboard, or try to haggle with him over the exact route, he may become irritated and casually drive your car into a telephone pole. People learn to not argue.

  The point to this altered metaphor is that the Microsoft dealership, and the Linux collective, do not really make cars at all. All those shiny automobiles sitting on the lot and lined up on the street corner are re-branded vehicles, manufactured by other companies. However, their modern instrument panels are so confusing that they'd be useless without a chauffeur. ... And the Microsoft dealership gets a cut from the price of every vehicle that leaves their lot, piloted by the Microsoft Gorilla.

  If you were so inclined, you could purchase a car from them, drive to the sidewalk, and kick the gorilla out onto the curb. The Linux Monkey can hop right in and start driving for you. Of course, Microsoft already has your money, and what are you going to do with a spare gorilla?

  Contrast this with the Apple dealership, that personally designs and assembles every Apple sedan. When a sedan leaves their lot, they pocket the whole amount. You could still kick out the X-Monkey any time, but why would you? The Linux Monkey is basically the same, without the training.

Food (Diet, Drink, Drugs, Restaurants)

• Investigation reveals slaughter horrors at Agriprocessors [PETA].
  • This story has moved my wife so much that she has decided to practice some form of vegetarianism.
  • 'Kosher slaughter, done correctly, is kinder and quicker than standard slaughter methods in the United States. But AgriProcessors, the world's largest glatt kosher slaughterhouse, has been ignoring the Jewish commitment to compassion and federal law by mutilating fully conscious animals, shocking them in the face, and slaughtering them in a way that has allowed many to stand and attempt to flee, even minutes after their throats had been slit.
  • Related:
    • Town rallies around firm called inhumane
• 2005-01-11t23:45:18Z I'm at Starbucks, blogging while sipping the new "Chantico", a hot chocolate drink in a cute little 10 cm tall cup.

Martial Arts

• Who d'ya think won??. Check out the bend on that shinai.
  
• Notice sur le corps à corps - 1917 [Flash]. Photos of a French manual. Seems to be winter-dressed police doing standing up grappling.
• Press Image of Gun Owner Not Far Off, Except for All Those Women. Lots of nice little stats, so I'm going to quote the whole thing:

  A Gallup Poll released this morning reveals that the average American owns 1.7 guns, with the average gun owner possessing 4.4 of them. The press is quick to promote stereotypes of the average gun owner as a white male, most likely Republican, living in a rural area or the South. But how well does reality match the image? The new Gallup Poll shows that the stereotype is not that far off, but with several twists.

  For one thing, one out of three American women say they own a gun. That's not much below the overall mark of 40% for all American adults.

  As for other elements of the stereotype: More than half (53%) of Republicans own guns, compared with 36% of political independents and 31% of Democrats. Whites are more likely than nonwhites to own (44% and 24%, respectively), according to Gallup.

  Residents of the South are significantly more likely than those living in other regions to report owning a gun. More than half of those living in rural areas (56%) own a gun, compared with 40% of suburbanites and 29% of those living in urban areas.

  From 1959 through 1993, an average of 47% of Americans reported having a gun in their homes. Since that time, household gun ownership has dropped to an average of 40%.

  Gallup also asked those with guns in their households about the total number of guns they have. A majority of gun owners (62%) have more than one gun on their properties, including 29% who say they have five or more guns.

  But do guns make you safer? "Americans are divided on the topic," Gallup reports, with 46% saying that having a gun in the home makes it a more dangerous place to be, and 42% saying guns make households safer.

Measurements

• Novel calendar system creates regular dates
  • It'll never happen in our lifetimes but I love the idea.
  • ' "For many years, I've had to make up a new schedule to tell my class when homework is due," says Dick Henry, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, US. "Here I am putting all this totally unnecessary work in and I decided I better do something about it." So Henry designed a calendar that uses 364 days, which breaks down evenly into 52 weeks. In his so called "Calendar-and-Time" (C&T) plan, each month contains 30 or 31 days. He decided on each month's length by forbidding the new calendar to differ from the old one by more than five days and by setting Christmas Day, 25 December, to always fall on a Sunday. '
  • 'His constraints meant eight months would have different lengths than they do now. March, June, September, and December would each contain 31 days, while the other months would each get 30. To keep the calendar in synchronisation with the seasons, Henry inserted an extra week - which is not part of any month - every five or six years. He named the addition "Newton Week" in honour of his favourite physicist, Isaac Newton.'

Philosophy (Ethics, Faith, Secular)

• Beyond Reason
  • I've been thinking about "unreasonableness" or (more accurately) using more than just reasoning.
  • As I've said before: 'Clearly there are times when you have to let go of reasoning, trust your instincts, quit looking for excuses/reasons, live as an emotional being, detach from your history, use the other half of your brain, do instead of try, be courageous, etc. The best moments of my life are all about existing beyond reasoning. What is reasonable about getting married? Having kids? Doing martial arts?'
  • Physics has grown while Metaphysics has shrunk. Science and Philosophy have been leaning toward Logical Positivism in order to overcome centuries of superstition, manipulation, and unsubstantiated intuitive solutions.
    • Such trends matter not to some: It does not stop explorers from seeking, lovers from loving, or artists from creating.
    • But for those in the field of persuasion and spirit, it matters a great deal. The stereotypical politician, advertiser, or general does not care about the correctness of his direction: he only cares that he can persuade others in that direction. A religious leader KNOWS his model is right: he does not anyone upsetting his model.
  • However we should all be concerned about such things. A holistic mind-body-spirit approach is better than a either a positivist strictly mind-body approach or a spiritualist strictly spirit approach. Positivists deal with things that are objective and are always subject to testing; Spiritualists deal with the subjective and the proofs are by intuition and inspiration. Certainly each side must see the value of the other. Spiritualists enjoy the technology, medicine, etc. made possible by the Positivism; Positivists enjoy music, art, compassion, wonder, children, leaps of genius, superego, etc. made possible by Spiritualism. Whether reality is a type of monoism, dualism, or pluralism is beyond the point --the point is that a restrictive or fixated view of reality is less satisfying than a plurality of perspectives, a non-fixation. A human being is more beautiful when seen as a complex physical system, a thinking mind, a spiritual being, etc.
  • Given this I tend to side with the Positivists since they can embrace the spectrum of spiritual interpretations, whereas most Spiritualists are restricted. Positivists do acknowledge objective restrictions (by testing, etc.), but Spiritualists often struggle with the objective restrictions. Admittedly, there are strange phenomena that some Positivists are don't have the means or patience or creativity, etc. to examine.
• What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?
  • 'The 2005 Edge Question has generated many eye-opening responses from a "who's who" of third culture scientists and science-minded thinkers. The 120 contributions comprise a document of 60,000 words.'
  • Some pretty awesome contributions. A very hopeful discussion. Here are some gems:
    • 'What I believe but cannot prove is that no part of my consciousness will survive my death. I exclude the fact that I will linger, fadingly, in the thoughts of others, or that aspects of my consciousness will survive in writing, or in the positioning of a planted tree or a dent in my old car. I suspect that many contributors to Edge will take this premise as a given--true but not significant. However, it divides the world crucially, and much damage has been done to thought as well as to persons, by those who are certain that there is a life, a better, more important life, elsewhere. That this span is brief, that consciousness is an accidental gift of blind processes, makes our existence all the more precious and our responsibilities for it all the more profound.' -Ian McEwan
    • 'I can't prove it, but I am pretty sure that people gain a selective advantage from believing in things they can't prove. I am dead serious about this. People who are sometimes consumed by false beliefs do better than those who insist on evidence before they believe and act. People who are sometimes swept away by emotions do better in life than those who calculate every move. These advantages have, I believe, shaped mental capacities for intense emotion and passionate beliefs because they give a selective advantage in certain situations.' -Randolph Nesse, M.D.
    • 'I believe in belief--or rather: I have faith in having faith. Yet, I am an atheist (or a "bright" as some would have it). How can that be? It is important to have faith, but not necessarily in God. Faith is important far outside the realm of religion: having faith in other people, in oneself, in the world, in the existence of truth, justice and beauty. There is a continuum of faith, from the basic everyday trust in others to the grand devotion to divine entities.' -Tor Nørretranders
    • 'I believe that we humans, who know so much about cosmology and immunology, lack a framework for thinking about why and how humans cooperate. I believe that part of the reason for this is an old story we tell ourselves about the world: Businesses and nations succeed by competing well. Biology is a war, where only the fit survive. Politics is about winning. Markets grow solely from self-interest. Rooted in the zeitgeist of Adam Smith's and Charles Darwin's eras, the scientific, social, economic, political stories of the 19th and 20th centuries overwhelmingly emphasized the role of competition as a driver of evolution, progress, commerce, society. I believe that the outlines of a new narrative are becoming visible--a story in which cooperative arrangements, interdependencies, and collective action play a more prominent role and the essential (but not all-powerful) story of competition and survival of the fittest shrinks just a bit.' -Howard Rheingold
    • 'The Intelligent Design movement has opened my eyes. I realize that although I believe that evolution explains why the living world is the way it is, I can't actually prove it. At least not to the satisfaction of the ID folk, who seem to require that every example of extraordinary complexity and clever plumbing in nature be fully traced back (not just traceable back) along an evolutionary tree to prove that it wasn't directed by an invisible hand. If the scientific community won't do that, then the arguments goes that they must accept a large red "theory" stamp placed on the evolution textbooks and that alternative theories, such as "guided" evolution and creationism, be taught alongside. So, by this standard, virtually everything I believe in must now fall under the shadow of unproveability. Most importantly, this includes the belief that democracy, capitalism and other market-driven systems (including evolution!) are better than their alternatives. Indeed, I suppose I should now refer to them as the "theory of democracy" and the "theory of capitalism", to join the theory of evolution, and accept the teaching of living Marxism and fascism as alternatives in high schools.' -Chris W. Anderson
    • 'I believe in the creative power of boredom. Or, to put it into the form suggested by the Edge question: I believe that, no matter how relentlessly we overfeed our young with prepackaged interactive entertainments, before long they will break out and invent their own amusements. I know from experience; boredom drove me into mathematics during my preteens. But I cannot prove it, till it actually happens. Probably in less than a generation kids will be amusing themselves and each other in ways that we never dreamt of. Such is my belief in human nature, in the resilience of its good sense. Here is an observation from mathematical practice. By now the concept of an algorithm, well- defined, is widely hailed as the way to solve problems, more precisely sequences of problems labeled by a numerical parameter. The implementation of a specific algorithm may be boring, a task best left to a machine, while the construction of the algorithm together with a rigorous proof that it works is a creative and often laborious enterprise.' -Verena Huber-Dyson
    • 'I believe, but cannot prove, that religious experience and practice is generated and structured largely by a few emotions that evolved for other reasons, particularly awe, moral elevation, disgust, and attachment-related emotions. That's not a prediction likely to raise any eyebrows in this forum. But I further believe (and cannot prove) that hostility toward religion is an obstacle to progress in psychology. Most human beings live in a world full of magic, miracles, saints, and constant commerce with divinity. Psychology at present has little to say about these parts of life; we focus instead on a small set of topics that are fashionable, or that are particularly tractable with our favorite methods. If psychologists took religious experience seriously and tried to understand it from the inside, as anthropologists do with other cultures, I believe it would enrich our science. I have found religious texts and testimonials about purity and pollution essential for understanding the emotion of disgust.' -Jonathan Haidt
    • 'John MacNamara once proposed that children come to learn about right and wrong, good and evil, in much the same way that they learn about geometry and mathematics. Moral development is not merely cultural learning, and it does not arise from innate principles that have evolved through natural selection. It is not like the development of language or sexual preference or taste in food. Instead, moral development involves the construction of a intricate formal system that makes contact with the external world in a significant way. This cannot be entirely right. We know that gut-feelings, such as reactions of empathy or disgust, have a major influence on how children and adults reason about morality. And no serious theory of moral development can ignore the role of natural selection in shaping our moral intuitions. But what I like about Macnamara's proposal is that it allows for moral realism. It allows for the existence of moral truths that people come to discover, just as we come to discover truths of mathematics. We can reject the nihilistic position (help by many researchers) that our moral intuitions are nothing more than accidents of biology or culture.' -Paul Bloom
    • 'We all believe in something and science itself is premised on a whole set of beliefs. Above all, science is founded on the belief that things are comprehensible and that by the ingenuity of our minds and the probing of ever more subtle instruments we will ultimately come to know It All. But is the All inherently knowable? I believe, though I cannot prove it, that there will always be things we do not know--large things, small things, interesting things and important things.' -Margaret Wertheim
      • How funny to think that we live in a Mandelbrot reality.
    • 'My friend, the theoretical physicist, believed so strongly in String Theory, "It must be true!" He was called to testify in a lawsuit, which contested the claims of String Theory against Quantum Loop Gravity. The lawyer was skeptical. "What makes you such an authority?" he asked. "Oh, I am without question the world's most outstanding theoretical physicist", was the startling reply. It was enough to convince the lawyer to change the subject. However, when the witness came off the stand, he was surrounded by protesting colleagues. "How could you make such an outrageous claim?" they asked. The theoretical physicist defended, "Fellows, you just don't understand; I was under oath." To believe without knowing it cannot be proved (yet) is the essence of physics. Guys like Einstein, Dirac, Poincaré, etc. extolled the beauty of concepts, in a bizarre sense, placing truth at a lower level of importance. There are enough examples that I resonated with the arrogance of my theoretical masters who were in effect saying that God, a.k.a. the Master, Der Alte, may have, in her fashioning of the universe, made some errors in favoring of a convenient truth over a breathtakingly wondrous mathematics. This inelegant lack of confidence has heretofore always proved hasty.' -Leon Lederman
    • 'I believe, but cannot prove...that reality exists over and above human and social constructions of that reality. Science as a method, and naturalism as a philosophy, together form the best tool we have for understanding that reality. Because science is cumulative--that is, it builds on itself in a progressive fashion--we can strive to achieve an ever-greater understanding of reality. Our knowledge of nature remains provisional because we can never know if we have final Truth. Because science is a human activity and nature is complex and dynamic, fuzzy logic and fractional probabilities best describe both nature and the estimations of our approximation toward understanding that nature. There is no such thing as the paranormal and the supernatural; there is only the normal and the natural and mysteries we have yet to explain. What separates science from all other human activities is its belief in the provisional nature of all conclusions. In science, knowledge is fluid and certainty fleeting. That is the heart of its limitation. It is also its greatest strength. There are, from this ultimate unprovable assertion, three additional insoluble derivatives. 1. There is no God, intelligent designer, or anything resembling the divinity as proffered by the world's religions (although an extra-terrestrial being of significantly greater intelligence and power than us would be indistinguishable from God). ... 2. The universe is ultimately determined, but we have free will. ... The enormity of this complexity leads us to feel as if we are acting freely as uncaused causers, even though we are actually causally determined. Since no set of causes we select as the determiners of human action can be complete, the feeling of freedom arises out of this ignorance of causes. To that extent we may act as if we are free. There is much to gain, little to lose, and personal responsibility follows. ... 3. Morality is the natural outcome of evolutionary and historical forces, not divine command. ' -Michael Shermer
    • 'I believe that all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all 'design' anywhere in the universe, is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection. It follows that design comes late in the universe, after a period of Darwinian evolution. Design cannot precede evolution and therefore cannot underlie the universe.' -Richard Dawkins
    • 'I always felt, but can't prove outright: Zen is wrong. Then is right. Everything is not about the now, as in the "here and how", "living for the moment" On the contrary: I believe everything is about the before then and the back then. It is about the anticipation of the moment and the memory of the moment, but not the moment. In German there is a beautiful little word for it: "Vorfreude", which still is a shade different from "delight" or "pleasure" or even "anticipation". It is the "Pre-Delight", the "Before-Joy", or as a little linguistic concoction: the "ForeFun"; in a single word trying to express the relationship of time, the pleasure of waiting for the moment to arrive, the can't wait moments of elation, of hoping for some thing, some one, some event to happen.' -Kai Krause
      • I believe that this guy doesn't know what Zen is but I love the word "Vorfreude".
    • 'I believe, first, that all people have the same fundamental concepts, values, concerns, and commitments, despite our diverse languages, religions, social practices, and expressed beliefs. If defenders and opponents of abortion, Israelis and Palestinians, or Cambridge intellectuals and Amazonian jungle dwellers were to get beyond their surface differences, each would discover that the common ground linking them to members of the other group equals that which binds their own group together. Our common conceptual and moral commitments spring from the core cognitive systems that allow an infant to grow rapidly and spontaneously into a competent participant in any human society.' -Elizabeth Spelke
    • 'What I believe, though cannot yet prove, is that belief is a content-independent process. Which is to say that beliefs about God--to the degree that they are really believed--are the same as beliefs about numbers, penguins, tofu, or anything else. This is not to say that all of our representations of the world are acquired through language, or that all linguistic representations are on the same logical footing. And we know that different regions of the brain are involved in judging the truth-value of statements drawn from different content domains. What I do believe, however, is that the neural processes that govern the final acceptance of a statement as "true" rely on more fundamental, reward-related circuitry in our frontal lobes--probably the same regions that judge the pleasantness of tastes and odors. Truth may be beauty, and beauty truth, in more than a metaphorical sense. And false statements may, quite literally, disgust us.' -Sam Harris
    • 'If I were to flip a coin a million times I'd be damn sure I wasn't going to get all heads. I'm not a betting man but I'd be so sure that I'd bet my life or my soul. I'd even go the whole way and bet a year's salary. I'm absolutely certain the laws of large numbers--probability theory--will work and protect me. All of science is based on it. But, I can't prove it and I don't really know why it works. That may be the reason why Einstein said, "God doesn't play dice." It probably is.' -Leonard Susskind
    • 'Mental processes: An out-of-body existence? These days, it seems obvious that the mind arises from the b rain (not the heart, liver, or some other organ). In fact, I personally have gone so far as to claim that "the mind is what the brain does." But this notion does not preclude an unconventional idea: Your mind may arise not simply from your own brain, but in part from the brains of other people. Let me explain. This idea rests on three key observations. The first is that our brains are limited, and so we use crutches to supplement and extend our abilities. ... The second observation is that the major prosthetic system we use is other people. We set up what I call "Social Prosthetic Systems" (SPSs), in which we rely on others to extend our reasoning abilities and to help us regulate and constructively employ our emotions. ... The third observation is that a key element of serving as a SPS is learning how best to help someone. ... In short, parts of other people's brains come to serve as extensions of your own brain. And if the mind is "what the brain does," then your mind in fact arises from the activity of not only your own brain, but those of your SPSs. There are many implications of these ideas, ranging from reasons why we behave in certain ways toward others to foundations of ethics and even to religion. In fact, one could even argue that when your body dies, part of your mind may survive. But before getting into such dark and dusty corners, it would be nice to have firm footing--to collect evidence that these speculations are in fact worth taking seriously.' -Stephen Kosslyn
      • Pretty spooky!
    • 'I believe, but cannot yet prove, that acquiring a human language (an oral or sign language) is a necessary precondition for consciousness--in the strong sense of there being a subject, an I, a 'something it is like something to be.' It would follow that non-human animals and pre-linguistic children, although they can be sensitive, alert, responsive to pain and suffering, and cognitively competent in many remarkable ways--including ways that exceed normal adult human competence--are not really conscious (in this strong sense): there is no organized subject (yet) to be the enjoyer or sufferer, no owner of the experiences as contrasted with a mere cerebral locus of effects.' -Daniel C. Dennet
    • 'What makes humans uniquely smart? Here's my best guess: we alone evolved a simple computational trick with far reaching implications for every aspect of our life, from language and mathematics to art, music and morality. The trick: the capacity to take as input any set of discrete entities and recombine them into an infinite variety of meaningful expressions. Thus, we take meaningless phonemes and combine them into words, words into phrases, and phrases into Shakespeare. We take meaningless strokes of paint and combine them into shapes, shapes into flowers, and flowers into Matisse's water lilies. And we take meaningless actions and combine them into action sequences, sequences into events, and events into homicide and heroic rescues. I'll go one step further: I bet that when we discover life on other planets, that although the materials may be different for running the computation, that they will create open ended systems of expression by means of the same trick, thereby giving birth to the process of universal computation. \' -Marc D. Hauser

Relating (Friendship, Living, Parenting, Socializing)

• "Persistent Key Words" Snapshot
  • Here is a snapshot of my mini-section on "Persistent Key Words" that I have on top of my home page:
    • Explore. Non-Fixation. Self-Integrity. Beauty. Fun. Urgency. Respond. Grace. Joy. Challenge. Kindness. Consequences. Risk.
    • Athens > Sparta. Real Earth > Real Estate. Science > Superstition. Honest Questions > Blind Faith. Philoxenia > Xenophobia. Meter > Yard. Income > Expenses. Problems = Opportunities. Beauty = Truth. Less = More. Do > Try.
    • Everything is Easy. Be Present. Mistakes happen. Do you have X?, or does X have you? Out your Inner World. Respect and Dignity. There is more to Invest & Give than money. Study & Practice, then Instinct. There are worlds just as real as the physical one. Competition to Cooperation to Consolidation. In spite of all the rubbish, make the effort to see the other sides of the elephant. Synergize: Analysis & Synthesis.
  • Of the changes, the most significant, in terms of format, is the change in the order of the "equations" from ">" to "<". Usually we encounter problems and then find solutions, hence "problem < solution" follows chronology as well as increasing preference.
  • Here is the new one:
    • Explore. Integrity. Urgency. Consequences. Respond. Responsibility. Play. Risk. Challenge.
    • Fixation < Change. Ugly < Beauty. Try < Do. Hard < Easy. Fear < Fortitude. Hate < Love. Sadness < Joy. Despair < Hope. Waste < Conservation. Pride < Perspective. Greed < Generosity. Sloth < Diligence. Watching < Doing. Yard < Meter. Expenses < Income. Xenophobia < Philoxenia.
    • Problems = Opportunities. Beauty = Truth. Less = More. Analysis + Synthesis. Respect + Dignity. Positivism --> Faith. (Study + Practice) --> Instinct.
    • Be Present. Shit happens. Do you have X?, or does X have you? Out your Inner World. There is more to Invest & Give than money.  Competition to Cooperation to Consolidation. Crime then Consequences then Forgiveness. In spite of all the rubbish, make the effort to see the other sides of the elephant. Create Closure. Hear everyone --even those that cannot speak. It's a Shared Space. Create Space for Possibilities. Be authentically inspired into powerful actions. Add Value: Do more Positive than Negative.
• Hernandez House Rules.
  • Hernandez House Rules v1.0:
    • Regarding these rules.
      1. We, the parents & kids, agree to follow these rules & other agreed upon rules.
      2. Rules can be changed but all involved must agree to the change.
      3. These rules will get broken. For repeated or extreme violations there will be immediate consequences and then forgiveness.
    • Safety.
      1. Do not hurt each other or yourself. This includes things like hitting, pushing, tripping, smothering, poking, and spanking.
      2. Certain things can only be done with a parent present.
    • Communication.
      1. Use words.
      2. Do not yell (use inside voices).
      3. Do not interrupt.
      4. Respond.
      5. Do not use bad language.
      6. Do not talk with food in your mouth.
      7. Be present. Look at the person you're talking to. Stop what you're doing if necessary.
    • Housekeeping.
      1. Put things where they belong.
      2. You must clean up the first thing before you can do a second thing.
      3. If you make a mess, you have to help clean it up.
    • Other
      1. No stealing.
      2. Respect each other's privacy.
  • Related:
    • Wisdom and Child-Rearing. Not only are these Christian guys are screwed up ("The Rod"), but they quote the Bible like crazy!
    • 12 Tips for Childrearing. This Islamic site is much better.
    • What methods of child rearing do anarchists advocate?. Ha ha! It's like you need a PhD to read this one.
    • Child-Rearing and Educational Practices in the United States and Japan: Comparative Perspectives. 'In contrast, Japanese child-rearing philosophy has been more permissive since its origin in ancient Japanese folkways. In pre-modern Japanese folklore, children were thought to be close to the gods' world. An ancient Japanese saying, "nanatsu made ha kami no uchi [until seven years old, (children are) in the gods' domain]", reveals that the origin of this belief. Iijima (1991) laid out discussion on this theme in reviewing literature of Japanese folklore. According to Iijima (1991), with support of other pieces of literature in the field, the existence of children before seven (actually, before they turn six years old in the Western age counting system) is not regarded as of this side of the world, where living things reside, nor of the other side of the world; rather, children were thought to belong to subspace, or marginal space between the two worlds. Therefore, children were allowed to be free from any social restrictions. Formal initiations have been imposed after these years in the old Japanese folk society, taking the form of formal visit to local Shinto shrines, or being granted a membership of the children's group in the village.'
    • A Comparison of the Child-Rearing Goals of Russian and U.S. University Students. 'Russian and U.S. university students rated the importance of four child-rearing goals. Compared to U.S. students, Russian students placed lower value on rule conformity and higher value on peer orientation and neatness/cleanliness. Russian students rated inquisitiveness as most important, peer orientation as second, neatness/cleanliness as third, and rule conformity as least important. U.S. students also rated inquisitiveness as most important but rated rule conformity and peer orientation equally as second and neatness/cleanliness as least important.'
    • BBC.co.uk/parenting/. A lot of info here.
    • Wikipedia: Parenting. Children.

Words (Literature, Reading, Stories, Writing)

• Sixth Harry Potter Book Due Out in July. 'Get ready for publishing's ultimate blockbuster sequel: Harry Potter VI. Setting the stage for another round of midnight bookstore parties and marathon readings into the morning, the penultimate novel in J.K. Rowling's mega-selling series, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," will go on sale 12:01 a.m. on July 16 in the United States, Britain and four other countries, publishers said Tuesday. '

2005-01-19t17:40:40Z | RE: 2D+time (Activities, Animation, Video) . Cyber Tech (Computers, Networking, Programming, Telecommunications) . Engineering, Function, Technology . Health (Exercise, Healthcare, Medicine, Sports) . Math, Science, Science Fiction, Space . Philosophy (Ethics, Faith, Secular) .
2005-01-19t17:40:40Z

2D+time (Activities, Animation, Video)

• A hard, simple problem and "Quzzle", an online Java version of the game.

Cyber Tech (Computers, Networking, Programming, Telecommunications)

• Securing Microsoft Windows (for Home and Small Business Users). I'm quite familiar with this material already but I'm sure there are lots folks out there who should read this.
  1. 'Don't let computers in kids' rooms, or highly sensitive business locations, have access to the Internet. ...
  2. Make sure everyone has their own user account on shared computers, don't give most of them "admin" (Administrator) privileges, and rename the Administrator account. ...
  3. Choose good passwords, especially for the "Guest" account. ...
  4. When using the web, never type information you really want private (such as the password for a bank account) into a non-SSL encrypted page. ...
  5. Get anti-virus and anti-spyware programs. ...
  6. Make sure you're behind an external firewall, and turn on any built-in firewalls too. ...
  7. Install patches. ...
  8. Stop using Internet Explorer (IE); switch to a different web browser such as Firefox. ...
  9. Turn off third-party web cookies. ...
  10. For email, switch from Outlook or Outlook Express to something else if you can. ...
  11. Disable hidden filename extensions. ...
  12. Never run programs sent via email. ...
  13. Don't just open attachments from strangers. ...
  14. Don't run "pirated" programs. ...
  15. Don't download and run arbitrary programs before checking out their reputation.  ...
  16. Read any program license agreement before installing it. ...
  17. Be wary of phishing attacks; limit information you send, especially if you didn't initiate the interaction.  ...
  18. Make backups. ...
  19. Disconnect from the Internet when you're not using it, and turn off the computer when you're not using it.  ...
  20. Tell your younger kids to never reveal their real name, address, email, or phone number without your permission. ...
  21. If you let your kids have email, configure it so only whitelisted addresses will be received. ...
  22. Change your configuration so it's harder to attack. ...
  23. Configure your wireless setup to be secure, too. ...
  24. Don't forget physical security.'

Engineering, Function, Technology

• Samsung's 102-inch [260 cm] plasma TV. Drool, drool.
  

Health (Exercise, Healthcare, Medicine, Sports)

• Do You Want to Live Forever?
  • 'Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey is convinced that he has formulated the theoretical means by which human beings might live thousands of years--indefinitely, in fact.'
  • 'De Grey began reading the relevant literature in late 1995 and after only a few months had learned so much that he was able to explain previously unidentified ­influences affecting mutations in mitochondria, the intracellular structures that release energy from certain chemical processes necessary to cell function. Having contacted an expert in this area of research who told him that he had indeed made a new discovery, he published his first biological research paper in 1997, in the peer-reviewed journal BioEssays ("A Proposed Refinement of the Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging," de Grey, ADNJ, BioEssays 19(2)161--166, 1997). By July 2000, further assiduous application had brought him to what some have called his "eureka moment," the insight he speaks of as his realization that "aging could be ­described as a reasonably small set of accumulating and eventually pathogenic molecular and cellular changes in our bodies, each of which is potentially amenable to repair." This concept became the theme of all the theoretical investigation he would do from that moment on; it became the leitmotif of his life. He determined to approach longevity as what can only be called a problem in engineering. If it is possible to know all the components of the variety of processes that cause animal tissues to age, he reasoned, it might also be possible to design remedies for each of them.'
  • 'I should declare here that I have no desire to live beyond the life span that nature has granted to our species. For reasons that are pragmatic, scientific, demographic, economic, political, social, emotional, and secularly spiritual, I am committed to the notion that both individual fulfillment and the ecological balance of life on this planet are best served by dying when our inherent biology decrees that we do. I am equally committed to making that age as close to our biologically probable maximum of approximately 120 years as modern biomedicine can achieve, and also to efforts at decreasing and compressing the years of morbidity and disabilities now attendant on extreme old age. But I cannot imagine that the consequences of doing a single thing beyond these efforts will be anything but baleful, not only for each of us as an individual, but for every other living creature in our world. Another action I cannot imagine is enrolling myself--as de Grey has--with Alcor, the cryonics company that will, for a price, preserve a customer's brain or more until that hoped-for day when it can be brought back to some form of life.'
  • 'It must be obvious that, even condensed and simplified as they are here, these seven factors are enormously complex biological problems with even more complex proposed solutions. At least some of those solutions may prove inadequate, and others may be impossible to implement. ... But de Grey is unfazed by this incompleteness. It is his thesis that time is being lost, and nothing is accomplished by pessimism about possibilities. For de Grey, "pie in the sky," as one biogeron­tologist I consulted called his formulations, is a tasty delicacy whose promise already nourishes his soul.'
  • 'I wanted de Grey to justify his conviction that living for thousands of years is a good thing. Certainly, if one can accept such a viewpoint, everything else follows from it: the push to research beyond the elucidation of the aging process; the gigantic investment of talent and money to accomplish and apply such research; the transformation of a culture based on the expectation of a finite and relatively short lifetime to one without horizons; the odd fact that every adult human being would be physiologically the same age (because rejuvenation would be the inevitable result of de Grey's proposals); the effects on family relationships--it goes on and on.'
  • 'And there it is--the ultimate leap of ingenious argumentation that would do a sophist proud: by our inaction in not pursuing the possible opportunity of extending life for thousands of years, we are hastening death. '
  • 'In campaigns that occur across the length of several continents, de Grey's purpose is only secondarily to overcome resistance to his theories. His primary aim is to publicize himself and his formulations as widely as possible, not for the sake of personal glory but as a potential means of raising the considerable funding that will be necessary to carry out the research that needs to be done if his plans are to stand any chance of so much as partial success. He has laid out a schedule projecting the timeline on which he would like to see certain milestones reached.
    
    The first of these milestones would be to rejuvenate mice. De Grey would extend the life span of a two-year-old mouse that might ordinarily live one more year by three years. He believes funding of around $100 million a year will make this feasible "10 years from now; almost certainly not as soon as seven years; but very likely...less than 20 years." Such an accomplishment, de Grey believes, will "kick-start a war on aging" and be "the trigger for enormous social upheaval." In an article for the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences [de Grey et al., 959: 452--462, 2002], which lists seven coauthors after his own name, de Grey writes, "We contend that the impact on public opinion and (inevitably) public policy of unam­bigu­ous aging-reversal in mice would be so great that whatever work remained necessary at that time to achieve adequate somatic gene therapy would be hugely accelerated." Not only that, he asserts, but the public enthusiasm following upon such a feat will cause many people to begin making life choices based on the proba­bility that they, too, will reach a proportional number of years. Moreover, when death from a disease like influenza, for example, is considered premature at the age of 200, the urgent need to solve the problems of infectious disease will massively increase government and drug company funding in that area. '
  • 'De Grey projects that 15 years after we have rejuvenated mice we might begin to reverse aging in humans. Early, limited success in extending the human life span will be followed by successive, more dramatic breakthroughs, so that humans now living could reach what de Grey calls "life extension escape velocity." De Grey concedes that it might be 100 years before we begin to significantly extend human life. What he does not concede is that it is more likely not to happen at all. He cannot seem to imagine that the odds are heavily against him. And he cannot imagine that not only the odds but society itself may be against him. He will provide any listener or reader with a string of reasons that are really rationalizations to explain why most mainstream gerontologists remain so conspicuously absent from the ranks of those cheering him on. He has safeguarded himself against the informed criticism that should give him cause to ­rethink some of his proposals. He has accomplished this self-protection by con­structing a personal worldview in which he is inviolate. He refuses to budge a millimeter; he will not give ground to the possibility that any of the barriers to his success may prove insuperable.'
  • Related: Aubrey de Grey Responds

Math, Science, Science Fiction, Space

• unintelligent design
  • A little write up on evolution v creationism with a few nice sentences.
  • 'Note: one may accept evolution as a scientific theory and still be a creationist.  Evolution does not say anything about the existence of a deity, it says only that the existence of a deity is not necessary to explain the world. '
  • 'People who are anti-evolution try to position creationism as an alternative to evolution, but they are different things entirely.  Evolution is a scientific theory, which attempts to explain observed facts and makes predictions, while creationism is a human belief, sustained by faith.  Be that as it may, creationists nonetheless have invented terms like "creation science" and "intelligent design" to position their beliefs as a theory.  In some sense they feel their beliefs are competitive with evolution, as if the two were mutually exclusive. '
• "Why It's Unconstitutional to Teach "Intelligent Design" in the Public Schools, as an Alternative to Evolution" by Michael C. Dorf

Philosophy (Ethics, Faith, Secular)

• Responsible Thinking [TruthPizza.org]
  • 'An investigation into critical thinking, the methods of science, and the problem of false beliefs.'
  • 'If we want the world to improve, we can't wait for other people to sacrifice their own interests to do it. We cannot count on the rich and powerful to "do the right thing". That's not how they got rich and powerful. The key to change is to look at where these leaders get their power. For the most part they are very dependent on the rest of us in order to do what they do. The politicians need our votes. The media need us as an audience, and they need us to purchase the products of their advertisers. Businesses need us to buy their products and services. Despite this, the powerful often act in ways that are detrimental to the overall good. How can they do this? Because we are misled by their advertising and their propaganda and their sensationalism. We, the consumers and voters, elect people who aren't really working for us, buy products and use media that are not in our best interests, and support other leaders with questionable agendas because they get us to believe things that aren't true. '
  • '1. We should emphasize avoiding false beliefs rather than identifying false arguments. ... 2. We should emphasize applying critical thinking to our own thinking rather than critiquing someone else. ... 3. Critical thinking is often too abstract and boring. ... 4. We need to emphasize the importance of critical thinking much more forcefully.'
  • 'Responsible Thinking Guidelines
    • Seek as accurate an understanding of reality as possible, guarding against false beliefs.
    • Question the claims of authorities and widely held beliefs.
    • Do not become polarized or emotionally attached to any viewpoint.
    • Subjective judgments may seem to be based on our own experience but may in fact be based on what we have been told or on our expectations.
    • Always judge a course of action in comparison to its alternatives.
    • Base opinions on measurements wherever possible.
    • Use calculations rather than intuitive judgments when very large or very small quantities are involved.
    • Vague claims are usually worthless.
    • Never form a strong opinion after hearing only one side of a controversy.
    • A person can be highly intelligent, sane, and honest and still be totally wrong.
    • Correlation does not imply causation.
    • Beware of shortcuts to the truth.'
• Another run in with the law.
  • This morning I was driving my kids to school. I was at the tail end of a several cars moving south on a two way street, past an intersection. Everyone else had passed a man in black, standing at the median facing west, and this roughly ten year old girl waiting to cross on the west side of the street. I figured that they would both continue to wait --after all why would either one suddenly decide to start moving across the street?
  • The answer is if the man in black was actually a cop acting as a traffic guard and he was telling the girl to cross the street! I was able to stop easily --there was no screeching of rubber, no one in the car got thrown into the windshield. The cop didn't pull me over but he did have me pull my window down for a few words: "What's the matter with you?! You have kids, right? You don't want them to get hurt. Next time you'll get a ticket. Get outta here!"
  • Of course I stewed a bit: He wasn't even wearing orange; He had his hands down and hadn't raised his hand up with the universal symbol for 'stop'; I'm just glad no one got hurt; I'm glad I didn't get a ticket; etc. Right now I'm not focused on the incident, but the incident strikes at recent thoughts I've been thinking about.
    • Family rules: Negative pushing. Being berated in front of my kids made me realize how harsh berating is. Psychological hurt can hurt as bad or worse than physical hurt. Any time I berate my kids, I can see the pain in their eyes. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't berate people but that we should be very conscious when we do it and also consider alternatives.
    • Responsibility/Imperfection/Probability/Consequences. Imperfection happens, bad things happen, mistakes happen, accidents happen, shit happens; let's call this stuff "bad" for now. There is always a probability that bad will occur. Assume that we have a good/bad bell curve: You want the good hill, and not the bad tail of the bell curve. Being responsible will increase the volume of the good hill and reduce the bad tail and all its consequences, hence reducing the probability that bad things will happen. However, even if you are very responsible, the bad tail never disappears --there is always a probability that bad things will happen.
    • Hope/Beauty/Nature. Hope however keeps your focus on the good hill and not on the bad tail. Beauty is not the elimination of the bad tail. Nature is not the elimination of the bad tail. Life is not the elimination of the bad tail. Acceptance of the bad tail is essential. Most people have a large good hill. Extremely few people have large bad tails. People who stereotype large groups of people as having large bad tails (racists, dehumanizers, xenophobes, fundamentalists, haters, etc.) are doing something wrong, and yet feel that their vision is correct --hence they are very dangerous.
    •  Academic/proper ethics too often bogs down ethical discussions instead of encouraging them. Different defined ethical systems (Categorical Imperative, Utilitarianism, Religion, Legal, etc.) imply basic laws and subsequent modifying laws. Often there are complex laws even for simple situations. Who can remember the details? EG: Stop signs: We always stop at stop signs, but what if it's 3 a.m. and absolutely no one is around? What if your wife is pregnant? What if you don't know who stopped first at an intersection?
    • Common sense, pragmatism, sentience, etc. hopes that we garner then essence and some good from the defined systems but that we can also think on our feet, modify what we know, create new solutions, etc. This enables us to take into account
      • The psychological reality that moral decisions are affected by proximity, urgency, tribalism, sexuality, etc.
      • The probabilities of people behaving ethically.
      • Responsibility and consequences.
    • I am not saying that a good ethical system (rational or irrational) can't be developed, but that human sentience is so complex that we have a hard time developing "artificial morality" just like we have a hard time developing "artificial intelligence". Religion and ethics philosophy are both works in progress. The danger is when people don't realize the limitations. Honest philosophers realize the limitations of their arguments ("The Conversation" goes on), but those with the hubris to "speak for God" are too often beyond authentic discussion. It is not simply a matter of The Pope making infallible statements, but people who promote ideas, an atmosphere that prevents authentic discussion. The struggle for authenticity persists and it involves being aware of the artificial.
    • Another useful way of thinking of the "artificial morality" v "natural morality" is the "external conscience" v "internal conscience". Your external conscience is your reliance on external sources such as people and systems. Your internal conscience is your instinct based upon your character, personal history, intelligence, wisdom, interpretation of external conscience, judgment, etc. Take for example Bush's decision to invade Iraq:
      • The external conscience of Christianity said "Don't invade Iraq". Christ would not advocate going to war. The Pope was against the invasion.
      • The external conscience of Diplomacy said "Don't invade Iraq". Diplomatic options were not exhausted. Except for Britain, major allies were not secured. No Arab allies were secured.
      • The external conscience of International Conventions said "Don't invade Iraq". The weapons inspectors didn't finish their job. There was no definite U.N. resolution. This was pre-emptive instead of strict self-defense.
      • The external conscience of Public Opinion outside of the U.S. said "Don't invade Iraq". This was evident from most foreign newspapers.
      • The external conscience of NeoConservativism said "Do invade Iraq". NeoCons favor a U.S. hegemony at nearly any cost --even if it puts the U.S. above international laws, the spirit of international agreements, global fairness, etc.
      • The external conscience of revengeful & fearful Reactionists said "Do invade Iraq". Enough said.
      • The external conscience of the U.S. said "I don't know about Iraq". The U.S. people, congress, and media were largely sheep following the Bush machine for the sake of unity.
      • The Bush internal conscience, his instinct, judgment, inner voice, superego, leadership, etc. said "Do invade Iraq". Apparently his conscience was the only one that mattered. BTW: Bush's interpretation of the external consciences mentioned above almost certainly differed from my interpretation.
    • Moral decisions made via internal conscience put responsibility squarely upon the individual's shoulders. Clearly Bush relied almost entirely upon his internal conscience (with a strong NeoCon influence). He did not use external conscience to justify his actions or inactions.
      • The danger of external consciences is that people and organizations can use it to "justify" their actions or inactions of evil. In such a case external conscience is a tool that provides excuses, inspiration, and choices.
      • The good thing of external consciences is that people and organizations can use it to substantiate their actions or inactions of good. In such a case external conscience is a tool that provides reasons, inspiration, and choices.
      • As you can see, the difference is very subtle and very easy to subvert.
  • By the way, my run ins with the law are usually at the level of traffic incidents.
• "Persistent Key Words" Snapshot
  • Here is a snapshot of my mini-section on "Persistent Key Words" that I have on top of my home page:
    • Explore. Integrity. Urgency. Consequences. Respond. Responsibility. Play. Risk. Challenge.
    • Fixation < Change. Ugly < Beauty. Try < Do. Hard < Easy. Fear < Fortitude. Hate < Love. Sadness < Joy. Despair < Hope. Waste < Conservation. Pride < Perspective. Greed < Generosity. Sloth < Diligence. Watching < Doing. Yard < Meter. Expenses < Income. Xenophobia < Philoxenia.
    • Problems = Opportunities. Beauty = Truth. Less = More. Analysis + Synthesis. Respect + Dignity. Positivism --> Faith. (Study + Practice) --> Instinct.
    • Be Present. Shit happens. Do you have X?, or does X have you? Out your Inner World. There is more to Invest & Give than money.  Competition to Cooperation to Consolidation. Crime then Consequences then Forgiveness. In spite of all the rubbish, make the effort to see the other sides of the elephant. Create Closure. Hear everyone --even those that cannot speak. It's a Shared Space. Create Space for Possibilities. Be authentically inspired into powerful actions. Add Value: Do more Positive than Negative.
  • The modifications:
    • Replacing "Shit happens" with "Adjust, Accept the Probability Curve with its Good Hill and Bad Tails".
      • This new phrase is richer and was discussed above. Sort of like a variation of The Serenity Prayer ("God grant me; The Serenity to accept the things I cannot change; The Courage to change those that I can; And the Wisdom to know the difference").
      • This avoids the profanity and the cliche of the old phrase.
    • Added "Past <--> Present <--> Future".
      • The past influences the present.
      • The present influences our interpretation and recording of the past.
      • Our perception of the future influences the present.
      • The present shapes our future.
      • This idea is distinct from "Be Present", which is more concerned about awareness, listening, and living now.
    • Changed "Competition to Cooperation to Consolidation" to "Competition --> Cooperation --> Consolidation" for cosmetic purposes.
    • Changed "Crime then Consequences then Forgiveness" to "Crime --> Consequences --> Forgiveness" for cosmetic purposes.
    • Added "Other Date Formats < ISO 8601" for fun.
    • Changed "Create Space for Possibilities" to "Create Spaces for Possibilities" for grammatical purposes.
    • Changed "Fear < Fortitude" to "Fear < Courage". The alliteration of the former is cute but the latter sounds more positive.
  • Here is the new "Persistent Key Words":
    • Explore. Integrity. Urgency. Consequences. Respond. Responsibility. Play. Risk. Challenge.
    • Fixation < Change. Ugly < Beauty. Try < Do. Hard < Easy. Fear < Courage. Hate < Love. Sadness < Joy. Despair < Hope. Waste < Conservation. Pride < Perspective. Greed < Generosity. Sloth < Diligence. Watching < Doing. Yard < Meter. Expenses < Income. Xenophobia < Philoxenia. Other Date Formats < ISO 8601.
    • Problems = Opportunities. Beauty = Truth. Less = More. Analysis + Synthesis. Respect + Dignity. Positivism --> Faith. (Study + Practice) --> Instinct. Past <--> Present <--> Future. Competition --> Cooperation --> Consolidation. Crime --> Consequences --> Forgiveness
    • Be Present. Adjust, Accept the Probability Curve with its Good Hill and Bad Tails. Do you have X?, or does X have you? Out your Inner World. There is more to Invest & Give than money. In spite of all the rubbish, make the effort to see the other sides of the elephant. Create Closure. Hear everyone --even those that cannot speak. It's a Shared Space. Create Spaces for Possibilities. Be authentically inspired into powerful actions. Add Value: Do more Positive than Negative.

2005-01-27t23:27:55Z | RE: Fishing, Hunting, Outdoors . Personal (Family, Friends, Self) .
2004-12-12 Pheasant Hunt

Last month I went pheasant hunting for the first time with a few buddies and a couple of dogs. Actually, a couple of fine dogs sniffed out pheasants while we mere humans had the privilege of following them with our shotguns.

I was at Nick's house at 05:00 which gave us plenty of time to check-in by 07:00. We took I55 and got off at the Arsenal exit, (around 200 m = 100 yards north of the Kankakee River), then it was quick zip via Frontage Road then North River Road before we got to the Des Plaines State Fish and Wildlife Area (22 square Km = 5400 acres, 24621 N. River Rd., Wilmington, IL 60481, phone 815-423-5326, info dnr.state.il.us, reservations lrsidnrpermits.com).

When we arrived it was a bitter cold and lightly windy with gray wispy skies. The check-in was obviously a ritual that practically everyone there had done it before. Besides the men there were dogs and a few kids being introduced to hunting --but there were no women (obviously because they are sane). Mostly there were a lot of cold, oddly-dressed men lacking of coffee, sleep, and sex. And yet the atmosphere was of gleeful anticipation --the future was bright for it consisted of visions of a glorious hunt, of men roughing it in the wild trying to wake up old instincts. Everyone was civilized and there was no question about manliness because everyone there was armed.

After check-in we went out to a local eatery for breakfast. (I will not disclose the location of said eatery because the fewer that know about it the better.) We were back by 8:30 for the little speech they give about rules and safety. Then everyone packed into their pick up truck, vans, and SUVs to head out to their assigned hunting areas. I had the ignominy of being there in a mini-van with child seats, but I wasn't the only one who had a "non-manly" vehicle. There were some snide remarks about how slowly I went over the dirt roads but, hey the Toyota Sienna wasn't even two months old then.

Nick and his black dog Sam, Steve and his dog Tanner, Rich, and I got to our assigned area (Area 21) before 9:00 but it wasn't early enough. A pair of hunters got there first so they got first dibs on where to start. We got geared up, urinated quite mannishly in the bush, and then the hunt was on!

I had been forewarned that a typical day of pheasant hunting consisted of walking around for many hours and being thankful if you fired even one shot. However, ten minutes later we had fired multiple shots and Steve nailed the first bird: A clean shot that separated the head from the body. It seemed perfectly natural to form lines of approach. It's simply a matter of letting the dogs lead a bit, fanning out to cover an area, and then moving so that we weren't in each other's line of fire. The weather warmed up from being cold to being a comfortable cool.

We went down a line of trees, across a field, and then back through more trees. I got my first bird when we crossed the bird the first time. The dogs were ahead of us and the bird shot up. Much of the shooting on this trip was remarkably close to trap shooting. Two others fired at the bird before I fired. By the time I fired the bird was pretty far --I almost want to say 30 m = 30 yards. The bird gave out a little "explosion" of feathers when it got hit. Sam fetched the bird for me. Actually it was more like Sam found the bird in the field, had a little snack, and then we were able to wrest it away from him after a while. The bird was a beautiful hen and still very much warm when I got it. The feathers were remarkably soft, very very soft. The body sagged very gently as I cradled it in my hands before slipping it into the pouch behind me. I felt proud and guilty at the same time. I felt a keen obligation to respect the bird and honor its death by making sure I hunted with a good spirit and I promised to eat the bird.

After a while we split up. Nick, Sam, and I went into a swampy area while Steve, Tanner, and Rich took a different route. The brambles and rough terrain were no problem. The gun and bird seemed to get heavier as the day wore on but that was no problem. It's odd how we naturally kept shifting our guns around in an effort to be more comfortable. The icy water seeping into my boots was probably the harshest part of the hunt.

Nick and Sam had a nice shot. Sam was actually behind us when Sam drummed up a bird. Nick actually had to turn around and then fire, but it was a good bout. Sam seemed to be particularly proud of himself and took an even greater time "snacking" on the bird first before giving it up. Sam! You naughty dog! But we love you anyway because you're learning how to do this stuff.

We went around the fields and trees. It was very scenic. Now and then you'd hear the shotgun fire of other hunters in the distance. Or now and then you'd see the tiny orange shapes of other hunters far off in the field. Late in the day, Tanner did a great job drumming up the last bird of the day. Tanner slowed to a creep and pointed with his nose to a bushy mound. He then froze into place while we positioned himself. Then Steve gave the signal and then Tanner chased the bird out. Rich got this last bird of the day.

It had gotten colder as the day got on. Tanner had gotten a nick in his foot and had started to limp and bleed. So we called it a day.

Me and Sam with my first bird.

Fairly rare shot of a bird falling down after it got hit.

From left to right, here's Rich, Steve with Tanner, and me.

From left to right, here I am with Nick.

Here is an email I sent Nick about dressing the birds:

O it went better than I thought. Julia had to go right to work when I arrived home and I had to feed Amy and stuff. Then the kids kept me busy for the rest of the evening plus I didn't feel comfortable dressing birds without another adult to watch the kids. So I ended up putting the birds outside.

I finally got to dress the birds the next day. They were cold but not frozen. At first I thought I'd try defeathering them but patches of skin kept coming right out along with the feathers. So I ended up skinning.

I chopped off the feet, wings, and head. Then I peeled the skin off almost like an orange and practically in one piece. Then I cut out the leg quarters and breast meat. I didn't have to gut the first 2 birds. I kept the third bird whole. I cut the belly, removed the guts, rinsed, and dried.

Except for chopping the neck, my blades hardly ever touched bone during the butchering. I didn't notice any terrible smells or anything. Pretty fast and easy stuff.

We ate one bird baked with apples & cinammon. The other two birds are in the freezer.

Thanks for the hunting experience!

-George