Ranting & Raving

Chick Flicks

2008-02-16T12:47:00.002-05:00

Keno's conjecture (which he so conveniently italicized) can be summed up as follows.

What they (men in general) don’t like (about a romantic comedy) is that it does not mirror their current romantic affiliations.

Hmmm. That’s an interesting conjecture. Let’s explore this a little. Does this statement imply that men have difficulty identifying with the characters in chick flicks, seemingly because the situation these characters find themselves in are much different then the viewers’ current “romantic affiliation”. No, I don’t believe that’s where Keno is going with this, rather, he says that it is the realization that the romantic euphoria dished out on the screen is a sad reminder that the fireworks phase of our own relationship has come and gone, like a ship in the night. What remains is the inevitable safe relationship, satisfying in its own right yet bland as asparagus without hollandaise sauce.

Keno may have stumbled onto to something here. I think it would be hard to dispute that Bill Murray’s character in Ground Day, condemned to repeating the same day in endless repetition, in some small way reflects our own predicament. Recall when Bill Murray’s character is at the bowling alley with two local yokels, saying “what if you were condemned to spend the same day over and over, where nothing ever changes, with no way out …” (or something to that effect) and one of the yokels pipes in forlornly, “That about sums it up for me”.

Speaking from the perspective of a man, the worth of a romantic comedy all comes down to that decisive moment, when after 2 hours or so of struggle and overcoming obstacles the characters are joined together.

In “When Harry Met Sally” it was when Harry is running through the streets of New York shorty before the midnight on New Year’s eve in search of his love. In “Sense and Sensibility”, it is the emotional breakdown of the female protagonist played by Emma Thompson, after Mr. Edward Ferris reveals that he did not marry Miss Steele after all. In “Four Weddings and a Funeral” it is Andie McDowell standing in the English rain. For you Gweneth Paltrow fans, it is the scene on the bridge (again in the rain) in “Sliding Doors”. Other classic moments include …

“I wanted it to be you”
“You had me at hello”
“Oh, is it raining? I didn’t notice”
“That’s very good news”

Simply put, chick flicks can be fun! Along with the perverse enjoyment in watching some poor schlep get caught up in the capricious emotional machinations of romance, there is the ultimate redemption and restoration of faith in romance. Why I think women (and many men, including heterosexual men) enjoy these flicks is that they do not mirror their current romantic affiliations.

Who would want to watch a movie that mirrors their own life anyway? Would you rather watch a scene of a guy sitting in traffic on the way to work or Arnold Swartzenegger liberating a shotgun and clothing from a red neck in a pool hall. Would you rather watch a guy sitting in a meeting with his co-workers or Neo dodging bullets. I could go own, but I think the point has been made. We watch movies to escape from our more-often-than-not hum-drum lives.

Genaro.

Why Men Hate Chick Flicks

2008-02-07T22:04:00.000-05:00

Please let me preface this before starting. First, I can only speak on behalf of men, because I would never, ever be capable of explaining the fantastic reality that is women, nor speaking on their behalf given my lackluster gender.

Secondly, I am primarily referring to 'Romantic Comedies". The term "Chick Flick" covers a broad swath of potential entries (obviously women enjoy all sorts of films with diverse genre), so I am choosing my most familiar territory to use for illustrative purposes.

Lastly, it's merely a theory, and although I guarantee it applies to some percentage of the male public, I can't (without endless polling) determine if it's a significant number or not.

But remember, any number is a percentage, however small. So here goes...

Men do not like chick flicks due to the wonderful welling of emotion, the euphoric glow, that accompanies Tom Hanks & Meg Ryan (T&M) as they go a'courting.

Oh don't be mistaken, men feel it.

Oh yes they feel it equally to their female counterparts; through every fibre of their being, provoked by the filmmakers design, just like emotional clockwork. What they don't like is that it does not mirror their current romantic affiliations.

We have all heard how attraction shifts through time, from infatuation, to love, to comfort (and then for some to apathy), and many levels in between. The T&M effect reminds men of their emotional capacity to feel amazing, and makes them wonder why they don't feel that way most of the time. We think "why don't I feel the T&M euphoria with my girl?" and we get depressed and sullen, and in some cases, resentful.

Now who would want to be reminded that chocolate exists, when all that is left in your diet is asparagus?

I could go on, but now it's YOUR turn.

THINK! - before it's too late.

2007-08-10T23:02:00.000-05:00

Genaro your friend is not far off the mark on this one. I am getting so turned off by popular culture these days I have stopped watching TV, listening to talk radio or reading the newspaper. Who really cares what cloths Paris Hilton wears in prison, or what some singer of a long forgotten "boy band" thinks about US foreign policy.

Last year I read an excellent book on this whole subject, written by Michael LeGault an American currently living in Toronto who is an editor at the National Post.

From the inside flap:

Outraged by the downward spiral of American intellect and culture, Michael R. LeGault offers the flip side of Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling phenomenon, Blink, which theorized that our best decision-making is done on impulse, without factual knowledge or critical analysis.

If bestselling books are advising us to not think, LeGault argues, it comes as no surprise that sharp, incisive reasoning has become a lost art in the daily life of Americans. Somewhere along the line, the Age of Reason morphed into the Age of Emotion; and this systemic erosion is costing time, money, jobs, and lives in the 21st Century, leading to less fulfillment and growing dysfunction.

Among the characteristics LeGault addresses are:

permissive parenting and low standards that have caused an academic crisis among our children;
America's growing political polarization from our reluctance to think outside of comfort zones;
faulty planning and failure to act on information at all levels of society;
a culture of image and instant gratification that has rendered curiosity of the mind and spirit all but obsolete;
and the aversion to taking risks that is replacing the traditional American "can do" mind-set.

All in all an excellent book on the topic and a little scary too!

The End of Literacy?

2007-08-10T22:31:00.000-05:00

The following comments were passed on to me by someone who is genuinely concerned about the impact of electronic media. Do you think his concerns are valid?

But as far as the discussion on the belief of the existence of God: that architectural reference we were looking for is "spandrel." It drives me nuts when someone says "things happen for a reason." This is causal reasoning -- there has to be areason for everything -- that the article referred to. It's no coincidence that the print culture gave way to the enlightenment, to the questioning of the existence of God. The more rational we became, the more we tend not to believe in God. I'm becoming convinced that the result of electronic culture is retro-evolution; we're going backwards. I find it interesting that whenever I'm around young people -- Cathy's kids, Dan's kids on the weekend -- thediscussion revolves around television, movies, My Space, etc. It's a small sample but is their immersion in computers, cell phones, and all other electronic media, to the detriment of reading -- is this producing an uneducated, ignorant populace? McLuhan said the media is the message. The act of reading, regardless of the content, wires the brain differently and produces rational, logical, sequential thought. Like the ancient Romans said: "Give them bread and circuses".

Ode To George

2007-05-26T18:58:00.001-05:00

I am of the Star Wars generation. Good or bad, anyone classified as a late boomer actually is too.

Now before you cast geek snot at me, I don't think it's the greatest filmic effort or cinematic masterpiece ever created. Not even close. But it was fun, and it sure did set a lot of stuff in motion; some good - some not so.

It's 30 years ago yesterday, I think, that the space opera was released. Essentially the brain child of one man, and one man only: George Lucas.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't think the guy is God, or the greatest filmaker in the world (in fact I don't think he can direct very well at all!), but I do have a lot of respect for the man, and thought I might share some.

So here are a couple of things about the guy - that you may or may not know - that warrants my wee 'atta boy' and a pat on the back for the man (correct away if you know better - this is off the cuff):

George Lucas has:

Been the first guy to put credits at the end of the movie - movies just used to end "The End" and that was it.
Been the first person not to put credits at the beginning of a movie - not the same movie as above.
Was a millionaire at 30 after making American Graffiti
Created Pixar, which he sold to Steve Jobs - now we have Toy Story; George, I am sure, still owns a large percentage of it
Financed every Star Wars movie (except the first one), by himself. Hated having the studio telling him what to do, and how to do it... so he removed himself (permanently) from the studio system.
Is apparently the prime silent shareholder in Dreamworks SKG (the threesome that created the new studio and Shrek, needed Georgie for business savvy and some real money; so instead of being run by the studio system - he owns it now too!)
Created THX - the really awesome sound system that movies love (and me too!)
Made Indian Jones a household name! Again, all his own money!
Single handledly created/exploited movie merchandise! The toys make more money than the movies!
Created the summer box office blockbuster! There never was one previously.
Created the blockbuster!
Can make Samuel L. Jackson look like he can't act at all!
Created Industrial Light and Magic - still the premium SFX shop in movieland
Raised a family of 3 adopted kids by himself!
Is probably the most powerful man in Hollywood, but totally low key (I think anyway - that's the way he comes across - he may be a total ass, I dunno.)

Ok this is starting to sound like a geek out - and it wasn't meant to be.

All I meant to say is, one guy started out making a space movie 30 years ago, and wether you like it or not - changed the face of the movie industry forever.

Kudo's George! I wonder if you ever say "really busy man! Busy! Sorry, gotta go! Time is money!"?

Doubt it...

The Self Delusion of Laziness

2007-05-26T18:20:00.000-05:00

I know a person, in fact I know many people. But today, I would like to talk about just one of them. Well, one type of them.

We all know this person. You run into them in some mutual haunt, and you ask how they are, and why they don't call.

"Busy, busy! I am so busy, I am sorry, but just haven't had the time to call, or do anything! Just so so busy... sorry gotta run! Time is money!"

Now precluding the fact that this person may actually dislike me, and is making excuses, I have taken several informal polls, and determined that everyone knows "the busy person".

Personally, no one is that busy. In fact, the people that broadcast their severe lack of time availability are the ones that are likley the most slothful. Yes, Sloth. One of those bad things you aren't supposed to be/do (like Sinatra said).

If you hear the catch all, 'busy busy busy', I virtually guarantee this person is not actually up to much at all. Instead, this is the person who (using the office analogy), is the person with the coffee in hand, who walks fast from spot to spot, producing gasps and exasperations under their breath, and who (surprise!) never actually accomplishes anything.

The phrase of "really busy, sorry, just no time" is in fact a distraction from the fact they have not much to do at all. They just hope you don't catch on.

Let me expand on this, using myself as a comparison.

I own and operate a fairly (luckily!) successful business where I place anywhere between 50 and 70 hours a week in work effort.
I have a young family, with two kids, and my partner works too. No - we don't have a maid.
I am an avid filmaker, and photographer. I am currenlty working on two short films and trying to accomplish a photo essay.
I am in training for a bike marathon, and ride approximately 50~70 km a week (the bike marathon is 50 K in one shot - so I am sure to die).
I consult for two other businesses, am on one advisory council, and meet weekly in a executive breakfast with people I think are smarter than me
I practice Martial Arts
I work out at a gym during my lunch hour
I like to cook, and do it all the time (Indian is my speciality)
I NEED 8 hours of sleep everynight or I am a disaster.
Now one caveat: I don't watch television. Maybe an hour a week. On the other hand, I read generally an hour a day... so it's about the same... however I do miss out on alot of cultural references at the office.

Ok... so that sets the tone... pretty busy guy... but not so BUSY that I go around parading it like it was some badge of honour. I always have something on the go - but I schedule, and I still find times that there is nothing to do. I quite often in a week, take a mental break and play spider solitaire! Heaven forbid!

Simply put... I AM NOT THAT BUSY! I could do more, and occasionally think I should be (i.e charity), but I doubt these self proclaimed martyrs of the work ethic are accomplishing nearly as much!

The person I would like to know better? The one who states, "things are good, enjoying the ride.... how 'bout you?"

____________________________________

Post Point I Couldn't Segue To (PPICST):

There is a great book out there, called something like "Politics and Turf Wars", that a mentor gave me once. It states simply - "if there are politics in your organization - you aren't busy enough."

Wise words - you should have seen the faces of the people when that nugget of wisdom came out once in the boardroom! Hee Hee!

Switching Gears - The Politics of Death

2007-04-07T15:51:00.000-05:00

As medical technology marches inevitably forward the ability to offer a wide range of new and exotic treatments for a myriad of ailments offers the promise of extending life. Increasingly, researchers into this nascent field are looking upon aging as just another disease. New treatments might initially delay the aging process, perhaps offering life spans up to 150 years, but in principle, the more optimistic projections talk in terms of 200 or 500 year life spans and ultimately, the ability to abolish death (other than by accident or homicide) altogether.

On the surface, this seems like a wonderful prospect. Assuming that our later years are vital and healthy, who amongst us wouldn’t want an extra 50 or 100 years? Perhaps it is the fear of the unknown that awaits us at the conclusion of our lives that makes this such a compelling prospect. Paraphrasing Woody Allen, “I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there”.

Typically, it has been the rule that cost of many of the more exotic medical treatments is prohibitive. For example, the cost of implanting an artificial heart has been estimated at somewhere in the neighborhood of $ 1M. Obviously, Canada’s public medical system, as well as the privately insured medical system in the US, is not about to make treatments such as these available to anybody just for the asking. The cost of our medical system(s) already places a substantial burden on those funding our health care system, i.e., you and I.

This is evident in Canada, for example, where provincial medical plans do not cover some specific new (and expensive) drug treatments now available for a variety of medical conditions. The question is - as new medical treatments become available, will the divide between what is available at a price and what is funded by public or private medical plans widen? For example, in past years cosmetic surgery was reserved for those suffering from deformities at birth or disfigured through accident, whereas in more recent years a whole suite of cosmetic surgery procedures are now available at a price.

What will happen when new medical technology enables the ability to increase the human life span? To some extent, this ability is already well-established as many procedures such as heart bypass surgery for example, increases the life span of those with heart disease who would die otherwise. But new technologies currently under investigation hold the promise to increase the lifespan of healthy individuals by delaying or even halting the aging process. What if there was a treatment available that could delay your inevitable death by 50 years, and what if this treatment was expensive, say in excess of $ 1M?

Given that the health care system is not in a position to offer such a treatment to each every citizen, does this imply that only those with sufficiently deep pockets, those who already possess a disproportionate amount of the world’s wealth, would be the beneficiaries of such treatments. Are we in danger of seeing the creation of a long-lived elite whose stranglehold on power and wealth will only become more firm and entrenched?

On the other hand, if the cost of such treatments became cheap enough such as to become accessible to the vast majority of people, would this have even more troubling implications? Would a planet already burdened by 6.5 billion people (projected at 8 – 10 billion by 2050) be able sustain a rapid increase in human numbers due to a dramatic drop in the death rate?

What is the impact on pension plans and social security as a result of increased longevity? What are the ethics underlying the bestowment or denial of longevity treatments to certain social groups, such as those benefiting from social security assistance, the mentally ill, or those that are incarcerated? What about the third world dictator who can maintain his stranglehold on power for decades on end while his citizens suffer in poverty and high mortality rates?

Just wondered if anybody had any thoughts on these issues.

Religion in a Secular Society

2007-04-06T08:21:00.000-05:00

Sorry Terry for just another "cut and paste", but given that today is "Karfreitag" I thought this article in the Toronto Star today was timely. Not quite HappyLand but it is the world in which we live.

Happy Easter !

April 06, 2007
Michael Smith

Religious people should be free to propose public policy alternatives based on the ethics of their faith, provided that their position is rationally defensible, writes Michael Smith

What is a secular society and what is the place of religion in it? In Canada, now among the most multicultural and diverse nations on earth, that question is becoming more and more relevant each day.

The expression "secular society" has more than one meaning. But, also, our society is one in which more than one meaning is being put forward as a paradigm of what constitutes a life well lived.

One way to clarify what constitutes a secular society is to compare it to its opposites.

A secular society is not a theocracy, which is the enshrining in constitutions and laws of teachings based on revelation alone, or held to be based on revelation alone. The insistence on revelation in this definition is important because, as we shall see, there are truths knowable to reason that are also truth-claims shared by various revealed religions.

It is not theocratic, for example, to declare Easter a holiday because a large sector of the population wants it as a holiday. It would be theocratic for a government to recognize officially the resurrection of Jesus.

It is not theocratic for Canada's Constitution to recognize the Judaeo-Christian heritage of the majority of Canadian people. It would be theocratic for our public institutions to profess adherence to the revealed teachings of either Judaism or Christianity.

There are theocracies in the world today. One of the harmful traits of theocracies is that their governments and other public institutions tend to set themselves up as arbiters of religious truth. They usually do a poor job of it, even in those cases where religious freedom has been respected.

This is because the proper realm of governmental competence is the common good, and thus matters pertaining to religious teachings are, or ought to be, of interest to governments only insofar as these teachings touch upon the common good.

A secular society is not an officially atheistic state. In the latter, public institutions set themselves up as arbiters of truth-claims that purportedly transcend the temporal order.

An official avowal of atheism has political consequences, to be sure, but claims about the non-existence of God pertain to a realm beyond the political.

One form of secularity is the aggressively secular state.

This approach to secularity is predicated on the view that the religions of the world are, or ought to be, neither public nor social. In such a state, manifestations of religious belief are kept away from civic functions and places which are under the aegis of the state (e.g., schools).

People are expected to comport themselves as pro forma agnostics in public even when they are religious in private. There are few countries in the world today that are secular in this aggressive sense, although there is a movement in some countries, including Canada, for state-secularity to become more aggressive.

One problem with this approach is that by detracting from the public and social nature of every major world religion, it effectively becomes a form of reductionism.

In trying to enforce its program, an aggressively secular state would attempt to marginalize religious communities into a private realm where it is difficult for them to live.

Paradoxically, when a rationale is given for this aggressiveness, there is usually an appeal for tolerance. It is claimed that society can be deemed tolerant only if religions are kept in the private realm and only if they do not intervene in the public square.

Some distinctions need to be made here. The understandings of "religion in the public square" vary considerably from one group to the next, and I shall argue for one version of it.

A second difficulty with aggressive secularity in general is the false premise that secularity is neutral.

On the contrary, the laws and customs of any society presuppose some account of what constitutes truth and goodness.

The question is not: Can we be neutral with regard to truth and goodness? Rather, the question is: How can we arrive at an account of truth and goodness, given that we come from a multiplicity of traditions?

An alternative approach to aggressive secularity is secularity as pluralism. The idea here is that the state does not pronounce itself on religious matters; not because it is officially atheistic or hostile to religion, but because it recognizes the presence of a multiplicity of views, religious and non-religious, in its midst.

It seeks to provide what could be called "space in the public square" to a wide range of views.

This was the original intent of the separation of Church and state in the United States: to ensure the freedom of many religious groups and not just one, or even none.

In this more benign version, here designated pluralistic secularity, religious persons and groups, as well as those opposed to religion, are understood as having a public and social identity. They are thus free to show their colours in public, to make policy proposals, and to seek to have their ethical values influence public policy.

Such a pluralistic approach is something like the form of secularity that has traditionally characterized Canada, although there have been exceptions. One exception was the theocratizing tendencies throughout Quebec that came to a head in the mid-20th century.

Another exception, in the opposite direction, is the movement to consign all religious expression to the private realm.

How are groups to influence public policy in a pluralistic society?

There must be some kind of common ground, and that common ground is reason. Thus, as a religious person, I am free, and should remain free, to propose public policy alternatives based on the ethics of my religion, provided that my position is also rationally defensible.

For example, the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," is revealed teaching, but it is absurd to suggest that, for this very reason, prohibitions of the killing of the innocent have no place in the laws of a secular society. Instead, good and just laws will recognize, on the basis of reason alone, that it is evil and morally wrong to kill an innocent human being.

Teachings that appeal only to revelation are beyond the pale of political debate (e.g., the resurrection of Jesus). This fact is a protection for the political realm, and it is also a protection for the transcendence of religious truth.

It protects public institutions from the pitfalls of trying to be arbiters of religious truth, and it prevents religious groups from being subject to excessive governmental and juridical control.

Now, even this more benign form of secularity is not without its detractors.

It could be argued, for example, that religious pluralism is inherently tied to relativism – the view that truth and goodness are not absolute but relative to a culture or subculture.

Although relativism abounds in present-day culture, it would be a mistake to identify the secularity of the state as its cause. It is certainly possible to advocate pluralism while personally remaining a moral absolutist.

It is understood that we seek the truth in common and that truth will reveal itself in rational debate, albeit slowly and sometimes painfully, and with many setbacks.

One need fear the absence of truth only with the exclusion of debate. This does not mean that truth will issue from every debate; rather, it conforms with the fact that no one debate ends all debates on an issue, and that truth is more likely to come out in public debate than in a political climate where debate is discouraged.

The trend in our country and elsewhere to consign religious communities to the private realm is, in fact, a drift toward intolerance, despite claims to the contrary.

Religious communities must continue to speak and act in the public realm and to propose policies for the common good.

Non-religious persons and groups have that same freedom. The outcomes of public debate ought to depend on the rationality with which the various sides argue their case.

Happy Land: A World of Tolerable Intolerance

2007-03-23T06:59:00.000-05:00

Because Jawny has taken to copy/paste posts lately, I thought I would offer something original, something more personal, poorly thought out, and likely naive.

I have said to people repeatedly that I wish I could own a continent/country, call it HappyLand or something.

My immigration and cultural mandate would be simple:

'Come one, come all - bring your cultures, religions and beleif systems, language and heritage. Utilize them personally to the highest extent of experience. Argue, debate and explore your beliefs - and keep an open mind.

If your imported feelings in any way hurt someone else, physically or in a matter designed specifically to be hurtful in general, or leading to widespread intolerance - you're out.' (I know there is alot of inherent contradiction in there... my first time writing a declaration!)

I know running a dictatorship would be very difficult - and at times controversial in it's justice, but I think after we dilute a few generations of intolerance out of them - the world would be a better place.

If there was a single thing that I think could provide us with that ancient grail, world peace?

It would be a global dose of amnesia.

Eleven Rules Not Taught in School

2007-03-22T21:01:00.000-05:00

Originally this was credited to Bill Gates who supposedly dished out this advice at a high school speech. He did not give this speech. It's an excerpt from the book "Dumbing Down our Kids" by educator Charles Sykes. It is a list of eleven things you did not learn in school and is directed at high school and college grads. It goes to how feel-good, politically correct teaching has created a full generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept sets them up for failure in the real world.

RULE 1 - Life is not fair - get used to it.

RULE 2 - The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

RULE 3 - You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with car phone, until you earn both.

RULE 4 - If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.

RULE 5 - Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping they called it Opportunity.

RULE 6 - If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

RULE 7 - Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

RULE 8 - Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

RULE 9 - Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

RULE 10 - Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

RULE 11 - Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

Tolerance

2007-03-16T17:05:00.000-05:00

In a previous post - What Comes After God, I argued that it is the human trait of intolerance not the belief in god has caused so much strife in the world. As such I am always on the look out for good thoughts and prose on the subject. Recently I had the good fortune to come across this from Napoleon Hill.

When Ignorance and Superstition shall have left their last footprints on the sands of Time, it will be recorded in the book of man's crimes that his most grievous sin was that of Intolerance. The bitterest Intolerance grows out of racial and religious differences of opinion. How long, O Master of Human Destinies, until we poor mortals shall understand the folly of trying to destroy one another?

Our allotted time on this earth is but a fleeting moment, at most! Like a candle, we are lighted, shine for a few moments, and flicker out!

Why can we not so live during this earthly sojourn that when the Great Caravan called Death draws up and announces this visit about finished we shall be ready to fold our tents, and, like the Arabs of the Desert, silently follow out into the Great Unknown without fear or trembling?

I am hoping that I shall find no Jews or Gentiles, Catholics or Protestants, Germans or English, French or Russians, Whites or Blacks, when I shall have crossed the Bar to the other side.

I am hoping I shall find there only human souls, Brothers and Sisters all; unmarked by race, creed or color, so that I may lie down and rest an aeon or two, undisturbed by the petty strife and chaos and misunderstandings which too often disturb this earthly existence.

Girls will be girls; Boys will be Drugged

2007-03-10T11:17:00.000-05:00

Evolutionary Pharmacology: The school system, and corrupt corrective diagnosis.

Writers note: I am not a psychologist nor a teacher. I may use some hasty generalization, and very slanted perspective - but this is a rant.

I have recently been in discussions with a number of different parents with two children, male and female, and have noted a disturbing collective observation.

The girls are doing well in school, and the boys are 'having difficulty'.

In almost every circumstance, the parents have been called into school to discuss 'methods for correction' in the behavior of their sons.

The normal progression of exclusion occurs, and they ask that the child be moved into a different program, or be offered up for analysis to determine if there isn't a more significant cause for these 'behavioral problems'.

So here we go.

The kids (boys) aren’t doing well, their teachers can’t handle the extra effort to competently support or nurture the ‘below the benchmark’ attention spans, their grades eventually reflect the abandonment, the grade average in the school decreases and the educational board doles it’s funding out to those who ‘earn it’, not ‘need it’. The teachers are asked to make special efforts, or the school will be financially penalized, and teachers refer back to collective bargaining agreements, which created another benchmark of mediocrity; one they are not obligated to rise above. (As an aside – girls too are losing out – it’s just that when they are losing focus, or are becoming frustrated – they don’t generally become disruptive. But assumedly that’s ok, because ‘the introverted idiot girl in the corner doesn’t make enough noise to cause me any extra effort’.)

Instead they ask these parents to go see a psychologist, in the secret hopes that there is a ‘positive diagnosis’, the child can be ‘pharmacologically corrected’, and returned to the school system where the grade statistics will thereby increase, allowing the return of the funding.

Interestingly but not surprisingly, the single largest distributed ‘informational piece’ on ‘your childs behavioral challenges’ doled out by the child psychologists to parents is funded in whole by large pharma, and is as jokingly slanted as you would expect.

There are obvious psychological and characteristic differences between male and female, and different methodologies to interact, teach and nurture them.

The problem is: it’s way easier to drug your boy, than to figure out what those are.

Talpiot Tomb - Changes Everything/Nothing?

2007-03-04T14:40:00.000-05:00

"An incredible archaeological discovery in Israel changes history and shocks the world. Tombs with the names The Virgin Mary, Jesus of Nazareth, Mary Magdalene and Judah, their son, are found and an investigation begins." Follow this link: Jesus Tomb.

If there was proof that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children what would it do to Christianity?

Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and James Cameron no less claimed to have found ossuaries containing the DNA of Jesus and his family! Follow the above link and see how compelling the evidence is, then decide for yourself.

Who would trust scientific discoveries over biblical teaching?

Imagine if Jesus were not divine what would we have left? Would it change how you lived your life? I think not.

One thing is for sure, somebody just added gasoline to the fire!

Social Darwinism & Why Nice Guys Finish Last

2007-03-03T12:35:00.000-05:00

The purpose of this post is two-fold. First, add a little levity to this site and second, try to make a point in 1,000 words or less.

Now that biological Darwinism has been accepted by the mainstream science community and is not just a theory but plain fact … given the overwhelming evidence and the blessing of the Catholic Church (read the last paragraphs of my last post) … Darwinism has been taken up by other disciplines of science to explain everything from the development of the cosmos, technology development, cultural development and my favorite, social behaviour.

Social Darwinism in my view is not really science but rather a type of parlor game where we explain away all types of odd and inappropriate behaviour as a result of an adaption mechanism. For example, men who can’t keep their eyes (and sometimes their hands) off other women is explained as the need to disperse their seeds as wide as possible. “It’s my genome honey, you know I love you”.

How can social Darwinsim account for another observable phenomenon, the “why do nice guys finish last” conundrum? From a woman’s perspective it the common question that can arise over a glass of wine or mint julips, that of “why are guys such a-holes”. From a man’s perspective, its “why do women chose such a-holes” (translate as ‘why didn’t she pick me?”).

Indeed, why are men so aggressive? Why do we still war upon each other, rob & kill, rape and pillage? Not every man of course, is guilty of such outrageous behavior, but it seems that men are responsible for a disproportionate percentage of the world’s ills. How many serial killers turn out to be women?

Christians might claim that these traits are a result of our original fall from grace (read - it was Eve’s fault!) and for once I can’t help but agree with them. After all, with the exception of few situations where women aren’t given a choice, in the overwhelming majority of cases it is the woman who ultimately selects the father of her child. Simply put, it is sexual selection at work.

Just as peacocks have evolved decorative (and rather clumsy) plumage and the poor bower bird busts its butt building elaborate nests, human males have evolved traits to compete in the mating game. I think it is fair to say that given the plasticity of our brains and the slow pace of genetic mutation, evolution works most effectively on our behaviour.

The simple answer to the question of “why are guys such a-holes” boils down to this. It’s because that’s the type guy that woman tend to select. The old adage “nice guys finish last” is much more than simple rationalization for failure, it’s the result of ongoing sexual selection. So the next time some guy has an affair with the secretary that’s young enough to be his daughter or spends the family savings on that flashy bass boat (substitute motorcycle, kick-butt stereo system, large screen TV, etc.) just remember that you women must ultimately assume responsibility for the genomes that get selected.

That was much less than 1,000 words!

Symbiosis and Evolution

2007-03-03T10:52:00.001-05:00

As has been argued in previous posts, co-operation has played an important part in the ability of humans to develop and flourish in the Eco system. Lynn Margulis claims that co-operation, interaction and mutual dependence is key to that development and that Darwin's notion of evolution is in its self incomplete without without these driving forces. She states "life did not take over the globe through combat, but by networking. As in humans, organisms that co-operate with others of their own or different species often out-compete those that do not."

It seems symbiosis is woven into the fabric of life and by default evolution.

Of the several classes of symbiosis, one, artificial symbiosis, will have implications in future of human evolution. Interestingly, the definition states that "artifical symbiosis is the mutually beneficial integration between a live part and an artifact (+,+)." Whereas we know that symbiosis in the natural world can run the gambit from being mutually beneficial for both parties (+,+) to mutual destruction (-,-). I also wonder how an artifact can benefit in any relationship, but I digress.

Of the many questions posed in my post, titled "Ubermensch", the last, "Is the ubermensch within our grasp..." is the most relevant here.

I try to imagine the type of relationship that would develop between humans and intelligent machines. My preponderances have lead me to one conclusion. That which evolution has spawned over the millennium - the nurturing and developmental relationship of parent and child.

The relationship begins with total dependence of one party on the other. While that dependence continues for some time and overlaps, as the child grows, the nurturing strategy turns to a more developmental strategy, slowing bringing out the being within. As time passes dependence and development give way to independence and finding one's own way in the world. A fully functional being emerges, capable of standing on her own merit, giving what she can to the world at large. Ultimately to repeat the process herself with her own offspring, and finally becoming the care giver and nurturing force of those that begot her.

There are many variations in the details of this play, but this is the basic theme that has brought us here. It will continue to play itself out but shortly a new member may be added to the cast of characters.

Reflections on Religion in the Modern World

2007-02-25T17:38:00.000-05:00

Having a brain that conceptualizes and creates a mental model of the world, mankind (myself included) has always wondered about the nature of existence. It is part and parcel of mankind’s innate curiousity that he or she does this. Creating a model of the world requires that explanations be postulated for every aspect of existence – how animals behave, how other human’s behave, how to cleave a stone into a tool or configure your computer for the internet, the nature of weather, when is it a good time to plant crops or reap a harvest, why you always seem to pick the slowest line at the check-out counter, etc. Inevitably, an explanation for our origins becomes part of that mental model and has a corresponding explanation.

Early man, before the invention of agriculture some 10,000 years ago, basically subsisted through hunting animals and gathering edible plants. We were hunter-gathers. Since the best estimates are that mankind arose some 150,000 years ago, we have been hunter-gatherers for the first 140,000 years, or about 95 percent of our existence. The oral culture that arose in the midst of this lifestyle served to support and encompass all aspects of hunting and gathering. Whether mankind had language during the onset of our establishment 150,000 years ago or whether language was acquired some time later, inevitably culture depends on language for the transmission of ideas. Culture, in a sense, is a standardization and institutionalization of ideas, of explanations regarding how the world works.

Early religion was predominately pantheistic. All aspects of nature – animals, water, the wind, trees, etc. were thought to possess spirits. It’s a good an idea as any. Can it be demonstrated that aspects of nature don’t possess spirits, or consciousness on some level for that matter? Thus pantheistic religion served to support and provide an encompassing explanation for man’s activities which involved acquiring sustenance from a wide variety of sources available directly from the natural world. According to archeologists, social organization was typically tribal, with small bands of people cooperating with very little hierarchical organization. A tribe might have a chief and a shaman, but very little in the way of “middle management”.

The development of agriculture and the domestication of animals significantly transformed social organization. With the surpluses available from an agrarian lifestyle a given geographical area could support many more people and not all people were needed directly for the production of food. Civilizations arose around fertile river valleys and with it, hierarchical forms of government including a supreme ruler, priests, a warrior faction, specialization of labour, craftsmen, accountants, tax collectors, markets, etc.

Following the development of agriculture and nascent civilizations, religion transformed itself into monotheism, with a single God replacing the myriad of nature-related spirits in a pantheistic religion. The process of adopting monotheistic religions did not happen overnight but took thousands of years. By two thousand years ago (some 6,000 to 8,000 years after onset of agriculturalism) monotheism was the dominate religious mode being practiced. It is interesting to note that monotheistic religions adopt a hierarchical organization similar to the political institutions in place, with God at the top of the pyramid and archangels, angels, saints, prophets, priests, etc. occupying lower positions.

Try to imagine the life of the average person 3,000 or 4,000 years ago. From sunup to sundown he would be consigned to back-breaking drudgery, with the outcome of his labour – sustenance – subject to the vagarities of natural forces. A drought, flood, blight or even a rampaging rival tribe could destroy his crop and threaten him with starvation. With primitive health care, poor nutrition and illiteracy there is no doubt it was a short, brutish existence. This existence was the mainstay for thousands of years, passed down from father to son, mother to daughter, with no prospect for anything different. How could someone of that age even imagine that life could be any different? With this in mind, it is easy to understand the appeal of a religion that offered an afterlife with a place in heaven for the pious and the faithful. Without the prospect of a glorious afterlife, what would be point of all the suffering in the material life? Naturally, religions also sought to explain mankind’s origins within this framework and it seemed logical that the world was created by an all-powerful God. It’s a good an explanation as any. There was nothing to suggest otherwise – no fossil record, no examination of species variation in different geological niches, no radioactive dating techniques or knowledge of geology.

In this scenario two important observations emerge. First, religion seems to adopt a structure that mirrors the social structure. Pantheistic religions reflected the hunter-gatherer lifestyle while monotheistic religions reflected the hierarchical structure of agrarian civilizations. Second, the creation of religious institutions lags the development of other social institutions. For example, monotheism, although practiced by Jews for thousands of years, was not widespread in Europe until the advent of Christianity, some 6,000 to 8,000 following the development of agriculture.

Let’s fast forward to the present. Industrialization of the “industrialized” world began in earnest some 200 – 300 years ago. Industrialization, which is part and parcel with the development of science, has significantly transformed social structures. Relatively adequate health care, literacy, and the liberation from back-breaking labour are all aspects of industrialization. More importantly, industrial processes are more predictable and less contingent on external factors such as weather. Industrialization has also transformed our political structures, although perhaps not directly, for the democratization of political life was really an outcome of widespread literacy, but nonetheless literacy and industrialization do have a common root – technology.

Why has religion not also been transformed by industrialization? Why do we still cling to agrarian-style religious structures and practices? I would argue that there simply hasn’t been sufficient time. Given perhaps another 500 years of industrial living, religion would inevitably transform to make it more relevant to the milieu in which it is practiced.

However, at this very point in our history the industrialized lifestyle is being abandoned or automated by modern economies. The mass of humanity in the modern world is currently adopting a lifestyle based upon an the information and service economy. Before religion has had sufficient time to absorb and adapt to the changes of industrialization, industrialization is being quickly relegated to an insignificant corner of our collective lives. Where does this leave religion in the modern world, a world which is transforming itself at an exponential rate? Like the blacksmiths and the steam engine enthusiasts at the local country fair, today’s religious institutions are in danger of becoming historical artifacts.

Should I dare to contradict Lord Black, I would suggest that the insistence of the more fundamentalist sects in both Christianity and Islam to promulgate ideas and explanation for our origins that are in obvious conflict with widely accepted scientific notions just serves to underline the increasing irrelevancy of agrarian-style religions in the modern world. Further, their regressive notions on our biological origins simply serves to undermine their main message - that of love, acceptance and peace - a message that need never go out of style. Perhaps it is time for religious institutions and religious leaders to rethink their place in the world. Kudos to the Catholic church, who in the late 90s, quietly issued a proclamation affirming their support in an evolutionary explanation of our origins.

In an October 22, 1996, address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Pope John Paul II updated the Church's position to accept evolution of the human body:

"In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed that there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith regarding man and his vocation, provided that we do not lose sight of certain fixed points....Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis. In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies -- which was neither planned nor sought -- constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory." (John Paul II, Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Evolution)

Further, in the International Theological Commission in a July 2004 statement endorsed by Cardinal Ratzinger, then president of the Commission and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, now Pope Benedict XVI, includes this paragraph:

"According to the widely accepted scientific account, the universe erupted 15 billion years ago in an explosion called the 'Big Bang' and has been expanding and cooling ever since. Later there gradually emerged the conditions necessary for the formation of atoms, still later the condensation of galaxies and stars, and about 10 billion years later the formation of planets. In our own solar system and on earth (formed about 4.5 billion years ago), the conditions have been favorable to the emergence of life. While there is little consensus among scientists about how the origin of this first microscopic life is to be explained, there is general agreement among them that the first organism dwelt on this planet about 3.5 - 4 billion years ago. Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism. Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution. While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage. However it is to be explained, the decisive factor in human origins was a continually increasing brain size, culminating in that of homo sapiens. With the development of the human brain, the nature and rate of evolution were permanently altered: with the introduction of the uniquely human factors of consciousness, intentionality, freedom and creativity, biological evolution was recast as social and cultural evolution." (paragraph 63, from "Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God," plenary sessions held in Rome 2000-2002, published July 2004)

Perhaps there is hope yet!

Divine Vision?

2007-02-17T21:46:00.000-05:00

Alas! I knew it was going to rear it's ugly, tedious and anthropocentric head eventually.

Scarlett, it's depreciating to regurgitate the 'eyeball argument' to qualify intelligent design as a viable hypothesis.

To soften the tone of my next few paragraphs; I personally thought that "Intelligent Design" was a potentially exciting theory by label, when I first heard it named. But, as I investigated, the concepts were obviously too small, or perhaps not small enough, and the same old crap rebranded; not to mention funded and marketed (yes marketed!) by a fundamentalist Christian zillionaire. However, I will expand on that, at a later date.

The 'eyeballs have it' argument is stating that our eyeballs are the height of perfection, otherwise (as we were made in his image) you start to defunct the perfection of God.

However, our eyes aren't perfect, and essentially every living organism with the ability to see (via light transmission) - sees via the same mechanism, at different levels of functionality.

How can evolution not be the root cause for the diversity of visual ability?

Humans have arguably a 65% sight biases (it may have been increasing, until someone invented glasses) vs. that of other animals. Eagles have significantly better telescopic vision (can shift focal lengths of their eyes), star moles have a maximum focal distance of 2 mm (did it used to be further before they decided underground was better?), Cats and Dogs see in a significantly different (more useful for predators?) range of spectrum than we. Some fish can see intensely well underwater, but without the pressure of the surroundings (out of water) they can't focus no matter what they do. Worms don't even have eyes, but can still navigate and 'see' based upon light transmission.

These ARE ADAPTATIONS.

Then you can use the (regrettably often illustrated - particularily in my own life) aspect that men have adapted eyesight that is historically activated by movement, whereas women have sight more sensitive to colour and spacial patterns.

Eyes were developed through a series of different accidents, some animals have them, some don't - some work some won't. They then evolved to make them better for the needs of the species that utilized them.

The real theories of intelligent design (if one needs to have one) shouldn't be based upon these weak arguments and illustrations, but focused on the molecular and atomic levels! That's where the real engineering feat should be considered miraculous.

So please, stop using eyeballs as proof that God exists... it's myopic.

Ubermensch

2007-02-16T18:32:00.000-05:00

"Man is something which ought to be overcome" - Zarathustra 1884.

“We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.” - Marshall McLuhan 1971.

"We need smart robots. There are problems we can't solve. We need to be the architects of our own future, if we don't want our culture to disappear." - Marvin Minsky 2007.

Are we at the point in history where a confluence of wealth, technology, biology, philosophy and some good critical thinking will lead us to the next stage in our "evolutionary development"? Will mankind's crowning achievement be to supplement or supercede itself?

At no time in history have we had such abundance as we do now. In western culture it is everywhere. Funny thing is, as wealth has increased our satisfaction has not. We are no more happy with our "lot in life" today then we were when we started keeping these data some 50 odd years ago, yet wealth has increased substantially. So if wealth doesn't lead to happiness what does?

This wealth and muted satisfaction send people in search of meaning and purpose, hence peoples need and desire for god. "There has to be something more to life, some greater good, doesn't there?".

The Zeitgeist, or spirit of the times, as it is referred too, is that somewhat mysterious consensus of common social mores. It changes over time and has come to encompass more and more. Humankind has changed it's attitudes significantly about what is right and wrong; slavery, child labour, etc.. Less then 100 years ago women were regard as property!

The unintended consequences of current human enterprise and industry is starting to have a profound effect on the planet! As we progress from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy, what unintended consequences await?

Over the last 30 years, as significant computing power was brought to the desktop and instantaneous global communications became reality, the global village finally made it debut. Ideas and philosophies, education and research in all fields has exploded and become available to anyone that is interested. Information and advancement is occurring faster and faster. Because of the complexity, people have become experts in smaller and smaller subsets of their field of study. Who is capable of "seeing the big picture" and being able to "put it all together" to anticipate those unintended consequences?

Computing power is predicted to keep increasing exponentially. At some point in time in the not too distance future, computers will first equal then exceeding the power of the human brain. Can anyone possible understand the ramifications this could have for humanity. Could the people of 1907 even imagine our world today? Can we imagine the world in 2107? Perhaps if all goes well today's millenniums will have a good chance to see it. What will their minds behold?

In Ray Kurzweil's book, The Singularity is Near - When Humans Transcend Biology, he states that "evolutions works through indirection. It creates a capability and then uses that capability to evolve the next stage."

That being said, will a world come to pass where Hans Moravec's robots of the 2040's be our "evolutionary heirs" machines that will "grow from us, learn our skills, share our goals and values...become the children of our minds."

Will humanity become the first species to finally understand that its purpose is to build the next evolutionary step? Can we accept and carry out that feat willingly? Will that satisfy our need for purpose and the greater good? Can that even be call evolution? Certainly not in the Darwinian sense.

Is the Ubermensch within our grasp, a guiding light into the future, or is just another piece of fiction from the 1800's?

God, The Anthropic Principle, and the Wonder of it All

2007-02-15T19:18:00.000-05:00

A recent anonymous comment in my “Thoughts on the Singularity” piece has got me thinking. The comment (in response to my comment that I had made to Jawny’s carbon dating piece) suggested that the story of Noah’s ark may not be as improbable as I suggested. My first inclination was to point out the logistics of gathering together millions of animal species, most of which were not indigenous to the area where the ark would have been constructed.

I wondered how the polar bears would have made the trek to the ark, or the panda bears of Asia, or emu’s, kangaroos, koala bears of Australia. How would the 28 different species of kangaroo rat living in the Americas make it across the ocean? How much food would be needed for this myriad of animals for 40 days? Would the provisions have to be doubled, tripled, or quadrupled? After all, when the waters eventually receded much of the vegetation that these animals would have fed on would have been destroyed, or at least rotted. How would the carnivorous predators be provisioned for?

In thinking about the impossibility of this I realized that an all-powerful God could overcome any obstacle, and that any argument that I might put forth suggesting the improbability of such an event would be made mute. It made me wonder why God bothered with the flood at all. If God wanted to do away with the bulk of mankind, why not just do away with them? One instant mankind would be reveling in their sinning ways and the next instant, POOF!, they would all cease to exist, save for Noah and his family.

It made me realize that God uses the forces of nature to achieve his ends. For example, in freeing the Israelites from Pharoah’s iron grip, he inflicted seemingly natural scourges upon Egypt (locusts, infant mortality, etc.) and parted the sea for the Israelites to escape the wrath of Pharoah (utilizing natural forces in a rather unnatural way). Why did God not simply zap the Israelites to the promised land, or at least to the safety of the Arabian desert where they could wander for 40 years?

In thinking about the way God uses natural forces to achieve his ends I wondered how one might determine whether a natural force had God’s hand behind it. In the past, a goodly portion of natural phenomenona were explained as the work of God. For example, Genesis says that God created the heavens, the Earth and the firmament (a sphere of water encapsulating the Earth) and placed the stars in the firmament. This explanation was accepted for thousands of years by followers of Judaism (and later Christians) and the starry skies were an apparent impenetrable mystery. Ancient sky watchers wondered at the activity in the heavens and attributed the appearance of comets, for example, as the harbinger of great events, as a sign from God.

It wasn’t until relatively recently, say 500 or 600 years ago that sky watchers noticed interesting patterns, subtle though they were. For example, at different times of the year, some stars will shift their position relative to other stars by a minute amount. Eventually it was realized (following the Copernican heliocentric model of the solar system) that as the Earth travels around the sun it has a slightly altered perspective of the heavens, something akin to stereoscopic vision. It’s a phenomenon called parallax.

Imagine yourself walking in the desert and looking over your right shoulder. As you move, the mountains far away in the distance seem to move hardly at all while a nearby rock or cactus plant slips out of your field of vision. The closer you are to an object, the greater apparent motion. In understanding this these astronomers, having an estimate for Earth’s distance from the sun (explaining how they came up with this estimate is another story) could actually calculate the distance of these nearby stars that shifted relative to the far away stars that did not shift at all. The conclusion they came to was that the universe was a much bigger place then ever imagined, much bigger.

To me the lesson here is that when we question and observe things closely, we find out that the universe is a much larger, much more wonderous place that we ever imagined. Although our religious heritage provides meaningful guidance in moral and ethical conduct, the somewhat limited view of our ancient ancestors also diminishes our view of God’s creation, as it were. Adhering to a literal interpretation of scripture (the great flood, a 6,000 year-old Earth) in my view, just serves to diminish. Employing an open yet critical mind reveals the wonder and the grandeur of a universe of almost impossible size and diversity.

Which brings me to the anthropic principle. When scientists examine the forces of nature, they wonder at the sheer improbability of existence. These forces must act together in a precise balance in order to maintain a universe that makes life possible, a precision of which stymies the imagination. Some calculations put the odds of a universe as finely tuned as the one we occupy at one part in ten raised to the power of a thousand. This is a probability so minute as to be essentially zero. How does a scientist explain this without resorting to explaining the universe as the handiwork of God?

That’s where the anthropic principle comes into play. The anthropic principle basically states that if the universe was any different, it wouldn’t support life and conscious beings (such as ourselves) wouldn’t be here to reflect upon it. As an explanation for why the universe is the way it is, this is entirely unsatisfying. It really doesn’t explain anything. It’s like saying the sky is blue because that is the way it appears to us, rather than seeking a deeper explanation such as the scattering of certain wavelengths of light by the atmosphere. I feel a similar disappointment when I hear someone say that the Earth is 6,000 years old as a result of a literal interpretation of scripture. It makes the universe such a small, dreary place. It diminishes.

I feel a secret manic joy when some new aspect of the giant puzzle of existence is revealed and the picture becomes larger and more highly resolved. I am not suggesting that anyone abandon the concept of God, but rather believe in a passive God that created a universe of infinite wonder for us to understand and explore. This requires an open, questioning and critical mindset. Everything must be questioned, even scripture. Once this process is complete there will always be room to re-integrate God into your worldview. Even a universe born during a “big bang” some 12 billion years old, populated by stars, galaxies, galactic clusters and super clusters, has room for God. After all, what force put all this into motion in the first place?

This process of questioning, testing and reformulating one’s worldview must be followed again, again and again. There can be no end to it. It’s like going to the gym. Once you have completed a workout you know that you will have to do it all again in a few days. The rewards, in my view, are definitely worthwhile.

Thoughts on the Singularity

2007-02-11T17:04:00.000-05:00

In Kurzweil’s book “The Singularity Is Near” he describes how the exponential growth in technology will culminate to a point where our ability to predict future events (and exercise some degree of control over these events) will rapidly spin out of control.

While Kurzweil makes a convincing case for the exponential growth in the capabilities of computer hardware technology, he seems to conveniently ignore other aspects of human technology. For example, he never mentions transportation technology in a current historical context.

Although I don't have Kurzweil's research team at my disposal, I thought I would make some off-the-cuff calculations, estimates and observations in this regard.

The major forms of transportation are ground (cars & trucks), rail, water (ships), air (airplanes) and space (rockets). In the first three quarters of the twentieth century, transportation made astounding leaps in progress. Gasoline powered cars replaced the 10,000 odd year reign of the horse as the dominant technology for ground transportation. Rail transportation went from clunky, steam driven engines to high-speed electric trains. Ships progressed quickly from wind-driven wooden vessels to huge, city-sized, diesel-driven (nuclear powered in the case of some military ships) behemoths. In less that 70 some years air transportation went from being an unrealized dream to modern jet travel. Finally, in a few short decades following the second world war, space technology went from lobbing a one ton explosive several hundred miles to putting men on the moon and launching scientific probes to the edge of the solar system.

This was quite remarkable, but what about recent progress in transportation technology? If you were to look back forty years I think it would be difficult to argue the case for exponential progress in transportation technology from the mid-70s to today. What would be an appropriate metric to apply to transportation technology? In “The Singularity Is Near”, Kurzweil applies two metrics to computer hardware performance: Speed and chip density. His measure is basically dollars per GHz-GB.

Applying a similar metric to transportation, one might consider the cost of transporting a given mass a given distance – dollars per kilogram-kilometer, or in the case of air travel, dollars per passenger-mile. Of course, another important metric in transportation is speed so let us consider speed just for a moment. Cars, for example, move at the same speed they did forty years ago. You might argue that ground speed is a limitation of the overall traffic system, but cars (with the possible exception of some experimental jet-powered contraptions that race the salt flats in Utah) basically are capable of the same speeds they were in the ‘70s. Similarly, ships, commercial aircraft and rockets have made only small (if at all) incremental improvements in speed.

What about $ per Kg-km? Although cars get better mileage than they did in the ‘70s, it is only marginally so, and taking inflation into account I think it would be difficult to make the case that there has been any improvement whatsoever in the cost of operating a car. Certainly they are much more expensive. Say the average car cost $ 5,000 in 1975 and the average guy earned about $ 10,000. In this case, the car cost about six months gross annual earnings. What does the average car cost today - $ 25,000?. What does the average guy earn – $ 50,000? Cars may have more gadgets and may be somewhat more reliable, but there has been little or no progress in the automobile in the key metric of $ per Kg-km, either from a capital or operating cost basis.

The situation with other modes of transportation is similar. From the user’s perspective, the cost and speed of trains (in North America anyway) haven’t changed an iota in 40 years. Ship transportation has shown some improvements, driven by the demand to move mountains of cargo, but the airline industry is still flying many of the same planes they were in service in the 1970’s, such as the Boeing 747. The real cost of air travel may be somewhat lower, but far from exponential. With regard to space travel, the lack of political will has actually been retrogressive. The US could launch four times the payload into LEO in the early 70s with the Saturn V rocket as compared to their most powerful launch system today - the shuttle. Today no nation on the planet has the capability of getting people beyond LEO.

The bottom line is that while computing and communications technologies continue their exponential growth, other human technologies such as transportation technologies continue to plod along. I guess the bottom line is that as a species we seem to be going somewhere, just not anywhere very far or very fast. The next massive wave of immigration may be through our servers and routers rather than to the beckoning stars.

14C Radiocarbon Dating - Questions Persist

2007-02-08T18:05:00.000-05:00

The other day at lunch (with one of my coworkers) we were discussing religion, faith and science. Both her and her husband are are university educated, he an engineer, she an architect. I was curious as to how she reconciled her strong Christian faith with her educational background specifically in terms of intelligent design vs evolution.

Without any hesitation at all she landed clearly on the side of intelligent design.

"So" I countered, "You believe that that everything, the universe, the earth, human beings are only 6000 years old?"

"That's right" was her reply. "There is no evidence otherwise".

"What about evolution and the fact that through carbon dating science has proven/shown that life has existed for tens of millions of years" I asked.

"Carbon dating is a crock" she replied.

The conversation obviously continued from there but afterwards it did get me thinking about Carbon Dating. Why would she make a comment like that? She is a smart intelligent woman for whom I have a lot of respect.

I decided to do a little digging and I came across this website, which is probably where most Christians interested in this sort of thing get their information.

What About Carbon Dating

Fair enough I said to myself (you do that a lot more as you get older, I mean talk to yourself, but that is another blog topic) obviously it is a Christian based site so the information may be biased to that point of view.

So I continued on looking for the other side of the argument that carbon dating was a viable tool for the evolution theory. Some of these sites are:

Accuracy of Radiocarbon Dating

Radiocarbon Dating

What I found did make me take pause. At the end of the day there is a lot of inaccuracy with Radiocarbon Dating and it is only good to about 30,000 years, a far cry from tens of millions of years used to date the time of the dinosaurs and evolution in general.

Okay then what else can be used to support the theory of evolution over millions/billions of years? A friend suggested I look into the KT boundary.

The K-T boundary also called the K-T extinction event (now renamed to the K-Pg Event) suggests that it was one of the "Big Five Extinction" events occurring 65 million years ago. Not the biggest extinction but probably the most significant in that scientists attribute this event to the extinction of the dinosaurs paving the way for mammals to become the dominate land species, and hence leading the way for humans to evolve.

The question that still nags at me is how do scientists peg the date to 65 million years ago?

I will keep investigating but the answer does not appear to be readily at hand at least in my research so far.

Those that don't take pictures, sell cameras

2007-02-05T21:35:00.000-05:00

Well this is completely sideways from all of the conversations that have been happening... but I have written this information in various forms for many people, and often suggest I post it somewhere.

With the grace of the great blog admin, I shall.

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Once, long ago, I used to be a photographer (amongst other things). I travelled the world, and took over... well, it has to be almost 100K shots. I worked in all extremes, hot, cold, arid, and underwater, studio, and darkroom. In these days of digital camera's, and a resurgence in photography - people constantly ask me my opinion on what to buy, and all the other gobbledygook (technical term) that people ask.

This is my traditional response (edited to remove regional content):

So you want to learn photography - seriously - therefore you will need a real camera.

There are a couple of specific reasons/things you should look at - if you are serious about learning the craft:

Try not to buy something with proprietary lenses (lots of brands do this (pentax/minolta/sony/fuji... So when you walk into a store - ask "how many lenses in here, right now, will work on my camera - without an adapter?" ) Canon and Nikon are ususally your best bet in that range.
Get something that has manual exposure (all you can learn in auto is composition - and there's more to composition than just where the subject is)
Get something that has depth of field preview (this will help you with focus)
Get something with at least 1/2000 of a second shutter speed (stops action)
These days I wouldn't buy film - regardless of what the purists say - who can afford it?

Things you don't need to worry about:

Pixels (6.0+ Mpixels is tons for someone not shooting for National Geographic and is starting out - 10 MP is standard magazine quality - but you ain't there yet.)
Fancy Lens designations (there are all kinds of lenses, VR, DX, DX-F, AI, AI-S, AIEF etc. etc. (this example is all within the same brand!) - ignore what the sales reps says. Ask this question "will it fit? will it work? What won't it do?". If it works, then it's a good bet it'll serve you well. ( I know hundreds of photographers using old bashed up crap lenses from god knows where (remember - they use primarily manual - need autofocus? You decide.), and they get work, and publish it all over the globe.
Processing Speed (if you aren't into sports shooting - who cares how many pictures it can take a second?)
Only worry about the focal length (or zoom range) ) and get the most range you can to start. My opinion is that two lenses is better than one big zoom - so a good wide angle zoom, and a good telephoto zoom covers all the bases. If you are wealthy, get one with good close-up ability (called Macro).

Things you should buy that most people don't realize:

Tripod, any size or shape will do to start. Deal with it, you need one.
Case (get a cheap bag - to hold your crap, plus the camera)
Lens cleaning kit (the best lens in the world can barf out if it's dirty)
Optional - I have them - but they are expensive - UV or Skylight filter (a good one - they protect the front element in a lens, but try to use good glass... Never plastic.)
Cheap books. Digital and Cellulose cameras all operate the same. The medium is different, and there are differences (won't get into it here) - but the mechanics of photography is media independent. A throwaway book in the library from 30 years ago is still as useful as one printed today - when it comes to the rules and concepts behind learning how to shoot.

And BE WARNED:

Many photog people I know fall into this habit, and it takes years to shake. They buy the latest everything, best of whatever they can find, and then upgrade it again the minute the next one comes out. Then this stuff sits in some back room, and they never actually do anything with it.

Remember: "it's not the gear, it's taking the picture that counts."

If you have a point and shoot, and you aren't shooting, what makes you think you will after you blow oodles of cash? Buyers remorse doesn't create hobbies. Start with basic good equipment, learn how it works. If you like it, and you are taking photos like a wildperson - treat yourself in a couple of years to something better. If you bought well (see above) your original investment will be upgradeable.

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There you have it, another opinionated rant on anything I seem to have an opinion on.

Dangerous Questions

2007-01-31T19:36:00.000-05:00

Keno, before I respond to you latest post (and I am looking forward to doing so) I offer this response to your previous post. You stated, or rather, asked the question:

What if all of the evolution/theological/biological arguments came together at some point in the past? What if Genesis (and Christos) mythology, the emergence of Homo Sapien and, the activation of the "God spot" all coincided? What if all of these events were categorized under one phenomena that made us the masters of the planet?

What if they all coincided - and we called it 'self awareness'?

What if? Be careful what you ask for. Excuse me if kick at your tires but I need the writing exercise.

I’m not sure that is wise to ask those kinds of questions. You are taking chunks of information, separate and disparate, and melding them together. Once they are stuck together, it’s difficult to get them apart again. It’s like a bizzaro world in which humpty dumpty reassembles himself. If humpty dumpty having his great fall and breaking into little pieces is an apt illustration of the second law of thermodynamics, entropy, then humpty dumpty reassembling himself is the diametrical opposite, enthalpy. Enthalpy is information: the measure of the order of a system.

It’s funny to talk about information as some sort of tangible thing, but in our bizzaro world you can buy it, sell it, make it, compress it, transmit it, receive it. You can even engrave it onto a tombstone. We have something called an information economy. An agrarian economy and an industrial economy I can understand. I can see, touch and smell agricultural products and industrial products. They have weight, They have mass. But information products have no mass. They can move at the speed of light.

By asking your questions and drawing what was once separate and disparate into a unified hole you are advocating convergence. Convergence should be a dirty word. It’s going to create all sorts of havoc. Don’t feel bad. I do it too. I am guilty as the next guy. I guess we are both convergenists. Just by having these heretical thoughts, never mind stuffing them down the IP pipe to spread and root like a weed, you are feeding the dreaded information monster!

What if what you are suggesting is true? What if evolution and religion are inextricable bound, like two quarreling brothers, like Cain and Able. Bear with me here. I am trying to come up with something that is orbiting on the edge of my awareness. I suspect you have your own thoughts about the consequences if this were so. I think you are looking for an invitation to share those thoughts. It is sometimes a burden to imagine something so alien that your fellow man looks at you askance, something that you dare not mention in front of polite company. After all, the world is chock full of quacks and the world don’t act kindly to quacks.

So let’s say that what you are saying is true. What if all explanations of our origins have a common root? Does that really have the capacity to surprise anyone? I don’t know about anybody else reading this, but it seems obvious to me, but I’m not sure everybody gets it. I definitely think there is a Jungian thing going on as well. Jung had his collective unconscious. In a way, some people might consider that God, but regardless how you think of it or what you might be tempted to call it, it how we are all linked.

Have you noticed how things seem to be coming to a head? There are so many patterns of culture that have persisted through the eons of history that seem to be cresting, coming to a boil. And all at the same time. Some people call that convergence. I realize that information doesn’t have mass. Information travels at the speed of light and nothing that has mass can do that. Basic special relativity. But information acts like it has mass. It’s like a star accreting out of a stellar gas cloud, attracting more material as it grows larger, heating up, transforming everything within its gravitation grasp.

Physics has their holy grail, The Theory of Everything, which brings together all of the physical forces of nature in a nice neat little packet, nice and neat so you can make it into a logo on a T shirt or merge it with all the data you have ever collected and pack it into a fifty dollar thumb drive. Biologists have successfully melded genetics, molecular biology and neo-Darwinism. Christrians have their apocalypse, environmentalists their gray goo. It’s all linked now. Linked by some analog of gravity. We never realized that all along were all staring at the same thing.

Heck, ever since science lit the candle at the closing of the dark ages, there has been a constant march towards convergence. It starts so slow you don’t even recognize it. Alchemy becomes chemistry, astrology becomes astronomy. These and so many other things, all neatly underlaid by the vast carpet of physics. It wasn’t until Newton that we could really be sure that the force which causes the apple to fall from the tree (there’s that dang apple again!) was in truth, the very same force that coaxed the moon to circle in its mindless orbit around the Earth and caused the waxing and waning of the tides.

Convergence. Even cameras, telephones and record players have converged into a little wee small box you can stuff into your back pocket. The homogenization of everything – culture, religion and science, science and science. It’s like some sort of meltdown going on in the bizzaro world. The stellar mass is getting bigger, hotter. No wonder we all think we are going to hell in a handcart. At this rate, the whole dag-darn human experience, all the forlorn hopes and wildest wishes through the countless millienna since the dawning of self awareness, will shrink in upon itself like a collapsing star in a vast orgy of convergence. When the momentum of history is too strong, the weight too heavy, nothing can forestall its collapse. It will sink in upon itself, faster and faster, everything being jammed together into a single infintessimal point. A black hole – the Singularity, the end of human history.

God wants goodness
God wants light
God wants mayhem
God wants a clean fight

And you gotta love that pale blue Japanese guitar

Show me the proof - not the pudding

2007-01-29T22:22:00.000-05:00

In a recent posting, Genaro said:

"It seems to me that human knowledge comes in two basic flavours: knowledge from observation and experimentation (i.e. science) and knowledge from revelation. The later we have been using the broad brush of "religion". "

I think there is room here to clarify - flesh it out. No - Rant it out.

For the record; Science does not provide imperical knowledge, just increasingly strong theories meant to explain specific questions; and religion does not provide knowledge, just vague and interpretive answers to almost any question you throw at it.

Scientific theory never hopes to be the 'one and only answer' - it just provides (to a highly pre-deterministic level) the outcome of events. So a theory can never be 100% right, just really darn close. That's the best a theory can hope for. This is the model that has been used for the last four hundred plus years. The premise is that people and other critics come along and bash the hell out of the theory, until you can revise it and revise it and revise it, to increase the possibility of a predetermined outcome; and anyone can do it, you don't need to be special, you just need to try it for yourself!

Knowledge from revelation (or let's just say things that are revealed) is in essence, single handed observational experience or interpretation. The problem with single handed anything, is that it can't be tested and can't be corroborated and it doesn't predict anything. (Mr. Striber!) It also fall into the realm of 'I am special and you aren't'.

I would love for all the amazing things people 'say' they have experienced - to be repeatable in controlled environments, and be highly predictive (i.e." dead Grandpa always channels at 11:43 on a Friday night - and tell me where my keys are hidden"), so that I can check it out! Imagine how amazing that would be!

However, dissapointingly, it never happens. When questioned, the usual arguments of 'faith' and 'only if you are open to them' , or as was told to me in a recent situation "you are a jaded soul".

The arena of hocus pocus charlatans have ruined it for me, and probably most others. There is profit in bull, and many people looking to spend.

The realm of science, is to attract criticism, rework theories, test them again, and again until everyone agrees we are on the right track; not slander the person asking the questions. It's a celebration of curiosity and testament to the human spirit.

Show me a person with the ability to revisit and maybe even relinquish their steadfast beliefs, and I'll show you someone who is more aware, more human; and someone who can't - inherently lazy. As my father said to me once "faith is just easier."

There! Now there's a rant.

Religion as an Evolutionary Phase?

2007-01-27T12:05:00.000-05:00

Well we definitely need some 'hard right' capital 'C' Conservative religious contributors on this board JawnyB. It's leaning far too left, and I'm about to make it furtherso.

I have been investigating the following thoughts,and trying to further flesh them out, into something resembling a coherent and illustrative theory. Let me see if I can ease into it...

There's a funny sequence in the out-takes of "An Inconvenient Truth" that caused some reverb amongst the audience and myself - where Gore is mapping the last 200K ~ 400K years of human existence on the planet (to show CO2 Levels) - and remarks that he's "not going to get into it - due to legal battle in his state" when what reads 'homo-sapien emerges' (something like that) - flips between to "adam & eve" and back and forth. So ok - pick an emergent point. Either God steps in, or Sapien shows up. Certainly something happened back then that we can consider a turning point.

Next, about 15,000 years ago - formal religions show up (based upon a zillion generations of story telling)- primarily in Egypt, and Central America - but it's in the nature of cultural fable running through the verbal medium - handed down, telephone wire, until writing is established, and then ultimately wrapped up and consolidated in the current (eastern and western) books of faith. (Yes Genaro/JawnyB- maybe the current spike in atheism is a by-product of fundamentalist stick prodding of the hornet's nest... but maybe not. More about that some other time).

However, what if the telephone wire and Nicaean cencorship screwed up the information? Certainly no one takes the Old Testament verbatim! Why the new? What is we slap them all in the same pile , and try to determine what the parralells are, and generate a new interpretation?

This is my effort (apologies to Conrad).

There's alot of solid argument that Christanity (for the purposes of this article) is really just based on previous Pagan/Egyptian beliefs (telephone-wired intially but written eventually), that have been transmogrified to make it easy for the public to consume - and is nothing like it's real foundations of the 1st century.

Some of these arguments state that the "Christ/Saviour Within" or perhaps even the birth of Christ are all allegory to something else - something else that rings true with all people.

True and familiar with all people.

Here's the theory (smash away):

What if all of the evolution/theological/biological arguments came together at some point in the past? What if Genesis (and Christos) mythology, the emergence of Homo Sapien and, the activation of the "God spot" all coincided? What if all of these events were categorized under one phenomena that made us the masters of the planet?

What if they all coincided - and we called it 'self awareness'?

A solid Jungian flowering - where we knew who we were, and started to wonder why we were here. We can't always have been self aware - we can't always have wondered the big questions - something must have triggered it.

So maybe it was God pressing a button on one man and one woman to 'on', or an evolutionary hiccup that suddenly turned on the biological ability to be self aware? (Current information is now showing substantial solar emissions were in play some 15K years ago - maybe that was the trigger?)

What if this moment - this passing of the baton of thought - was actually what we were trying to get across with Genesis, and the regurgitation of the rebirth story of the saviour in Christianity?

Let me summarize:

Theory: Evolution provided a mechanism (God Spot) that was waiting to be turned on. Once switched on (by who or what TBD), it makes us the rulers over all the beasts and self aware. When the logical next step is to start asking questions, we then develop creationist/deist/polytheist religions (not the guidlines it sanctions - just the God interacting with us stuff) across all global cultures. The whole genesis/rebirth notion is actually based upon the emergence of self awareness, but has been lost, misconstrued or diluted through the ages.

I don't know if I made my illustration well enough - but I think it's an interesting theory that covers alot of ground. Need to think more on it...

Writers note: This article has been sitting in draft for some time - waiting for me to make it more coherent. I knew it would be shot to hell, so I thought I should be able to back some of it up.

In the process of doing so, I have been diverted by studies and investigation into parrallel mythology, cross cultural religion studies, ice core samples in the poles and mountainous regions in the equatorial regions to check solar activity, details of the strengths and weaknesses of Carbon14 dating, our position over the last 25 millenia within the galaxy, geological/volcanic reference materiel, and even revisited Stitchin's 12th planet arguments - to try and provide more evidence to this theory. I thought I would throw it out the way it is... so through the magic of collaboration - you can shoot me down, and I can adjust accordingly.

Maybe I can hire Conrad Black to write it for me next time.

APPLE DAY

2007-01-26T20:57:00.000-05:00

“In the beginning there was the word and the word was made flesh. And then sometime later the word was encoded onto a beam of light”.

CAUTION! The following may offend some readers, particular those with sensitive religious convictions. Proceed at your own risk!

Like most people in the world I suppose, I have wrestled with the meaning behind the concept of God. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that a belief in God is pervasive on this lonely, little planet. Some polls put it at nearly ninety percent. This belief, in its various forms and incarnations, has a long historical as well as a modern context. In the flames of the current culture struggle, fanned by the bracing wind of globalization, religion has once again demonstrated how deeply rooted it is in the core of human experience.

Perhaps unlike most people, however, I have difficulty integrating commonly accepted notions of divinity into my worldview. Yet somehow I suspect that this difficulty in integrating traditional notions of God into a modern, techno-centric worldview may be more common than meets the eye.

I realize that there is a suspension of belief necessary, a leap of faith if you will, but for the life of me I find myself unable to do it. I have tried but every attempt has failed. My failure may be due to a lack of concerted indoctrination in my early development. On the other hand, it may be that I suffer from some form of dyslexic incapacity to hold certain ideas in my mind, or it could even be a result of my technical discipline which demands cold calculation in lieu of wishful thinking. Whatever the reason for this inability to embrace this meme, I refuse to take the easy way out and simply declare that the majority of people in the world are somehow deluded. So the struggle will continue.

What I am about to say is a little tongue-in-cheek, but I do have a serious point to make if you are willing to put in the effort necessary for its discovery. Let me begin in this manner. I always find it interesting, if I am listening to a Christian radio station or watching a Christian show on the television (yes, I do that from time to time), how the speaker (or preacher) inevitably tells us what God wants of us. God want us to be good, to be generous, to plant seeds, to send money, etc, etc.

Being the skeptic that I am, I harbour genuine doubt that these preachers have an exclusive hotline to the Big Kahuna. However, I do not think that it is their intention to make us believe that they possess this exclusive connection, rather, I think they are simply relating to us their interpretation of the scriptures. This is fair and I have no problem with this. I suppose what puts me off is the spoon-feeding nature in which the message is delivered. But then again that is probably just characteristic of medium in which I am receiving the message.

In thinking about this I came to examine the dichotomy between religion and science. Here is what I believe to be the fundamental difference. As a point of explanation I should mention that when I say “religion” I am meaning “theism” – the belief in an external, all powerful, creative force we call God. Anti-theism, or atheism, is another form of theism, following the maxim that all things contain their opposite, but that is a debate for another day.

Both religion and science demand that you accept some basic principles and build the edifice of your belief upon this foundation. The difference between religion and science is source of these basic principles. Religion says “the word was handed down by God”. In other words, revelation. Science says “just peer through this microscope, or look at the tracks of fundamental particles through the detector of an accelerator”. In other words, observation.

Revelation and observation. Are there other others ways of acquiring basic knowledge? What about intuition? We sometimes have the ability to “know” something without following the normal dictums of logic and deduction. You might argue that intuition is distinctly different from revelation or observation but in my mind, intuition and revelation are essentially the same process. The difference, if there is a difference, lies in the supposition that intuition has an internal source whereas revelation has an external source, but it seems to me that the externality of revelation is due to an a priori assumption. If you hear a voice in your head how do you determine its source? You say potayto, I say potahto.

Getting back to the main thrust of my argument, back to the preacher on the radio telling us what God wants of us, let me explain my quandary. I was raised to think for myself and I have difficulty accepting any notion that I can’t somehow grasp in terms of its fundamental principles. If I am presented with a new idea I either integrate it into my worldview (if it fits), reject it (if it doesn’t fit), or hold it in suspension. There is a Darwinian competition for my mental resources that takes place. Even though it doesn’t quite fit, the concept of God is such an important one to our species that I feel compelled to hold it in suspension. In doing so, I try to reshape it in an attempt to find the right fit. The process is sort of like finishing a puzzle by trimming the left over pieces with a pair of scissors. With this in mind, I thought I would relate my own interpretation of what God wants from us, but first, let me lay down a little background.

In the book of Genesis, Judeo-Christian mythology explains how humankind lived in the garden of Eden and walked with God. Mankind had no mind, no logos per se to obscure the raw, primal connection with his spiritual mind. I put my own spin on this, interpreting that perhaps the internal dialogue that accompanies each and every one of through our lives was absent at that stage in our development. There was only raw sensation and a kind of primal consciousness.

God warned Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge and naturally they did. What would you expect? If you told a three year old there were treats in the bottom drawer of the kitchen cupboard and that they shouldn’t go there, where do think is the first place they would go once you had turned your back? It is our nature. We have an irrepressible curiosity.

As Genesis explains, mankind ate from the tree of knowledge, falling from God’s good graces and was subsequently banished from the garden of Eden. I love that metaphor, be it the true word of God handed down to Moses or simply a uncanny insight into the development of human consciousness. In putting my own theological spin on this, I imagine that God knew man’s nature and knew that eventually man would find the temptation overwhelming. An irrepressible curiosity is after all, our nature. Why would God place such a temptation before mankind? To think that it was some sort of test of our obedience asks too much of the imagination. In my mind, it could only be that God wished us to taste of the fruit of knowledge, wanted us to fall from grace. How are we to develop unless we take that fateful plunge?

So in my interpretation of Genesis, we should rejoice in that fateful fall from grace. Paradoxically, rather than estranging us from God, it has put on the true path to God. We should have a religious celebration called “Apple Day” (although I think scholars believe it was actually a tomato rather than an apple, which brings to the fore the old debate as to whether a tomato is a vegetable or a fruit). Apple Day would be a celebration of knowledge and logic. It is only through eating of the fruit that God so generously made available to us that one day we shall be able to return to the garden. It may not be the original garden but perhaps we will be able construct a reasonable simulacrum in virtual reality. Perhaps we shall find God waiting for us there.

Godless? Hardly

2007-01-20T09:58:00.001-05:00

This post is a reproduction of an article which appeared today in the National Post written by Conrad Black. While not entirely on topic with recent posts on this blog, it is relevant. Comments?

Saturday, January 20, 2007

'It is fashionable to claim that western civilization has outgrown religion. This confession of agnosticism, whether smug or contrite, is a fraud'

It is fashionable to consider that we are in a post- Christian era; that as a civilization we have outgrown religion. It has been a truism for decades that religion is in decline, and that the Roman Catholic Church is racked with dissension, starved of clergy and is becoming a mere consolation for the geriatric and the ignorant. Our Islamist enemies routinely revile the West as a godless pigsty of degeneracy and materialist corruption. Because our opinion-leading elites have, unlike most of the greatest cultural icons of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, renounced religion in most forms, this Islamist complaint is largely conceded by most of our cultural leaders, and considered by them a badge of honour.

But this confession of agnosticism, whether smug or contrite, is, in most respects, a fraud. The Roman Catholic Church has as many adherents as all the branches of Islam combined, and probably as many communicants; and they enjoy a higher standard of living and education and influence in all fields, except radical politics and oil production, than the Muslims. The Pope speaks for his co-religionists. What is the telephone number or address of the head of Islam?

When John Paul II died, almost two years ago, the Western media honoured him as a strong and brave (if quaint) man who had faced Nazi and Communist oppression and the ravages of age and illness, all with the same unwavering courage. But his Church was deemed to be in crisis and mortal decline, and infested by perverts. Three million people spontaneously came to Rome for his funeral, with no chance to see much of it, though then-cardinal Joseph Ratzinger held it in St. Peter's Square where more than 500,000 people could witness it. There were in the world twice as many people calling themselves Roman Catholics as there had been when he had become pope, 27 years before, and the ceremony was attended by 75 chiefs of state and heads of government, a higher total than the funerals of John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle combined, (impressive ceremonies though those all were).

Agnostic media commentators point with delight to the alleged decline of the Church in Latin America, but this too, is largely a canard. The performance of the secular leaders throughout South and Central America has been inadequate. And the Church has risen to the challenge of oppressive governments and competitive evangelical recruitment such that it is now enjoying a substantial renaissance.

A widely publicized Latino- Barometro poll of 2005 revealed that 18% of Latin Americans trusted any of the political parties in their countries, 28% their national congresses, 38% private business, 42% trusted the military, and 43% trusted their national presidents. The Roman Catholic Church was trusted by 71%, including leftist-governed countries such as Venezuela (74%), and even Cuba, and including a representative sampling of non-Catholic opinion.

Left-wing "Liberation Theology" has collapsed and been rejected by everyone, laity and clergy. It was an import from Europe that did not put down roots. Evangelical Protestantism has been a spur to more comprehensive pastoral effort by the established church. As in other spheres, competition has been a benefit. The fact is that while Roman Catholicism was unchallenged in Latin America for 500 years, it was not really a Catholic continent. Foreign missionaries provided an inordinate percentage of the clergy and a vast number of local cults and indigenous practices were roughly absorbed and accepted under the Roman umbrella, with little change to pre-colonial practice. Rigorous organizations with serious purposes and structures of belief and work, like Opus Dei, Charismatic Renewal, Communion and Liberation, are now flourishing, and growing more quickly than their reasonably friendly Protestant rivals, like the Jesuits and the Capucines in the Counter-reformation. Even the quasi- Communist, President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, while he persecutes the Church, speaks in Christian images.

There has been a religious decline in much of Europe, but then Europe itself is in decline, and the two trajectories are related. The only prominent public figure in Europe who has long sensibly emphasized the danger of Europe's demographic erosion and dechristianization is Pope Benedict XVI. The Islamic attempt to treat him like the Danish cartoonists failed, after he pointed out the lack of reciprocity in Christian generosity to Muslim minorities, in a speech in Regensburg six months ago. He regretted offending Muslim sensibilities, but retracted nothing and apologized for nothing.

Unless Europe really has a continental death wish, and is not merely suffering from reproductive and cultural dyspepsia, it will resuscitate its birth rate and stop trying to replace the unborn with unassimilated aliens. If Europe revives, the European churches, especially the premier Christian Church, will revive also.

The Roman Catholic Church is in excellent condition in most of English and Spanish-speaking North America. In much of Asia and Africa, the major Christian churches are growing steadily.

This does not mean that the Church leaders have vast secular influence, though the late Pope was instrumental in the collapse of Communismin Poland and Nicaragua, (where even the re-elected Sandinista President, Daniel Ortega, has instituted a startling series of pro-life measures). But it does mean that the Christian perspective is strong and widely embraced, and affronted with peril.

The separation of Church and State is a principle of every sophisticated Western society, and ostentation and fervour in religion, as in most other things, is broadly disliked in the West. However, no Westerner, whether religious practitioner or not, need endure the allegation from Islamist fanatics that ours is a godless and decadent society.

Our religious practice is a good deal more spontaneous, intellectually distinguished, and conducive to productive activity and general civility than all but the most unrepresentatively thoughtful versions of Islam. No Islamic leader has a fraction of the moral or intellectual credibility or mere market share of the Pope. Rome and all the West, secular and ecumenical, have seen off more serious challenges than this

Religion & Evolution

2007-01-15T18:00:00.000-05:00

Recently, two themes have emerged on this blog: evolution and religion. Although sometimes these concepts are in conflict (ala the Scopes Monkey Trials) they are not necessarily so. Many people, if not most, feel quite comfortable embracing both religious and evolutionary ideas and allowing these seeming disparate concepts to co-exist peacefully.

I thought it might be interesting to examine religion from an evolutionary point of view. Does religion have biological origins or is it strictly a cultural affair? Although this question might seem a little odd at first blanch, after all, how could religion possibly have a biological origin, let me point out that recent experiments with MRI brain scans have revealed a “God spot” that resides in most human brains. When this God spot is stimulated electrically, a person will often have a religious experience. That is not to say that religion is exclusively biological in origin, but it might suggest that there may be a biological basis that suggests a proclivity for spirituality.

The question as to the origins of religion, biological or cultural, is really not my point however. Even if religion was a totally cultural phenomenon, we are still able to examine it through the discerning lens of evolution, after, culture evolves, and many social scientists have undertaken the study of culture from an evolutionary standpoint.

When studying cultural evolution, the “neme” is the unit of inheritance, somewhat akin the gene in biological evolution. Nemes are units of culture, an idea or a behavioral practice, that are subject to the “survival of the fittest” in the cruel competition for mental resources. Some ideas are good and spread from mind-to-mind, such the idea of using an umbrella when walking outdoors in the rain. As a result, umbrellas are quite common and have spread into every ecological, or rather, every cerebral niche throughout the world. On the other hand, quadraphonic sound systems introduced in the late 70’s was a rather dismal failure and that nemetic species was relegated to extinction, although mutations in the quadraphonic neme spawned related species (Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound) which subsequently had some moderate success. Dolby Digital and DTS will likely survive until a more successful variant invades their cultural niche.

Like its biological cousin the gene, nemes are subject to Keno’s three rules of genetic mutation. If we are to examine religion from an evolutionary standpoint, be it biological or cultural (the rules apply regardless since these are rules of evolution), the rules would be formulated as follows:

1. Religion is good for survival and therefore the trait will persist.
2. Religion is not good for survival and therefore trait will disappear.
3. Religion has no impact on survival yet it persists anyway.

It is easy to take the view that rule 1 applies and that religion is good for survival. After, religion codifies rules for co-operation and I believe it has been firmly established in a previous blog (at least no one has overtly challenged this assertion) that co-operation is essential for survival of our species.

On the other hand, some might argue that religion has run its course and the current trend towards fundamentalism is in fact a threat to our survival. Certainly this is the underlying, if not overt thesis in Dawkin’s recent book The God Delusion. I believe that the recent rallying of atheists in the media (see JawnyB’s blog … is atheism a fad?) is actually just a knee jerk reaction to fundamentalism. Atheists were quite happy to keep to themselves as long as religion didn’t threaten to sink the boat.

Lastly, it could be argued that religion has no impact on survival and a historical leftover, much like our appendix (is that the correct spelling?).

JawnyB, Kenobisan, what are your thoughts on this? Would you be inclined to make a case for any of the three postulates?

Foliclular Contemplations

2007-01-13T14:31:00.000-05:00

Kenosan, you have me at a marked disadvantage here in that I have been secretly coveting the secret to hair growth for some time now, but to no avail. However, I think I am up to your challenge. In a word (or two) the answer to question (IMHO) as to why our species seems to have such a proclivity for cranial hair growth is simply this: sexual selection.

Why does a cock have its comb, a lion its mane, a peacock its showy display of feathers? Why do bower birds build such elaborate nests? Some of these adaptations, such as a peacock’s feathers seem to put the male peacock at marked disadvantage in avoiding predators, yet this trait persists. Evolutionary biologists have explained these traits in terms of sexual selection. It’s the way in which species demonstrate their superior genetic makeup.

It’s the same reason that human females have such large breasts, or human males have such large penises (as a ratio to body size) as compared to other mammals. Read Jared Diamond’s The Third Chimpanzee for some speculations and insights into why we are the way we are. One of his more interesting speculations concern why humans (particularly male youth) embrace high risk behaviour such at drug use. It’s a way of saying “look at me, I have such great genes that I can take these risks”. For my part, I think I just liked getting high.

When I used to flip through my daughter’s fashion magazines I was amazed (and perhaps somewhat distraught) at the depiction of male virility – practically non-existent body hair and a luxurious cranial mop. These images don’t arise out of a vacuum, they must somehow have been drawn deep out of the female psyche as to what constitutes superior genealogy.

I am looking forward to the day when Hollywood’s depiction of male desirability includes more the likes of Patrick Stewart, et al. Perhaps in another twenty thousand years, should Hollywood make the concerted effort necessary, all men will be sporting a chrome dome.

But seriously, I doubt very much that I will be around in twenty thousand years. Regardless, I am of the opinion the when it comes to the human species, evolution has been put on hold, or is being somewhat distorted. The normal dictums of “survival of the fittest” (pardon me, but some argue that this a misnomer right from the beginning) has been turned on its head. If the “fittest” are the most intelligent and economically successful amongst us, it is easy to see that the fertility rate is much higher amongst those occupying the lower tiers of the socio-economic pyramid. Just look at the population growth in third world countries. Evolution works most effectively when there are environment pressures that delineate the good traits from the bad traits. This pressure seems to be lacking at this juncture in our species odyssey.

Please don’t mistake this sentiment as advocating eugenics. Not at all. It is a mute point regardless. Within our lifetime, we will likely take control of our own evolution through genetic manipulation, either before or after the fact of human gestation.

Who can truly say what patterns will be written on the bottom of the glass as the sands of time, jostled and stirred by the implacable forces of nature, fall headlong through the narrow sluice of the hourglass.

P.S. Isn't atheism just another form of religious belief?

theism
atheism
pantheism
monotheism
polytheism
etc.

Is Athesim Just a Popular Culture Fad?

2007-01-12T20:40:00.000-05:00

Perhaps like the "Pet Rock" it will run its course and disappear into the pop culture dustbin like so many fads before it. The attention span of pop culture is very short. Religion on the other hand has over 2000 years of staying power and seems to be increasingly adopted by the human condition.

Digg and YouTube Powering Atheism 2.0
Written Jan. 3, 2007 in Web 2.0 with 65 Comments

A few months ago, in October 2006, Wired News ran a story titled "The Crusade Against Religion" where the author investigated the re-emergence (or emergence?) of atheism powered by some very brilliant scientists and writers. Many people around the world have been involved with this New Atheism, but the most well-known and recognizable figure is Richard Dawkins who is a professor at Oxford University.

There is no "type" of person who might be an atheist, but if you look at Web 2.0 community sites like Digg and YouTube, you'll see a growing number of users there who display anti-religion or pro-Atheism sentiments. I would go so far as to argue that without large tech-oriented sites like Digg and YouTube, the Atheism 2.0 movement would not have taken off as quickly as it has.

Earlier today, a story hit the Digg frontpage with the title "Murdered for being an atheist" and as of 3:15pm eastern it has over 1100 diggs and nearly 300 comments, easily eclipsing other stories that were made popular today. The first comment in the thread was made by the person who submitted the story:

"It seems like people who are deeply religious are prone to having hallucinations and delusions. This guy was completely insane and is probably better off in jail."

That comment currently has +134 diggs, which for people who aren't familiar with Digg comment threads, is a very large positive reaction to that comment. The second comment alludes to the killer liking God so much, that he should be executed so that he can meet his maker quicker while saving taxpayer dollars, and that comment has +127 diggs.

A few comments further down, Tekrat writes how any belief system can be dangerous if taken word-for-word by a radical, and how in his Christian beliefs he takes a particular view of the Bible as a whole and doesn't just pick and choose. Tekrat is not excusing this person's actions, rather he says "...this guy should never see the light of freedom again...he's a picture of everything that has gone wrong with Christianity", but his comment was immediately dugg down to an impressive -51 diggs. Tekrat also linked to a Christian Science Monitor article titled "Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history", which has a very inflammatory and anti-Atheistic title, probably one of the reasons Tekrat's comment was dugg down.

In the last 2-3 months, seven different stories have made it to the front page of Digg that had to do with Richard Dawkins, with 10-12 more about atheism or atheist-related stories. Would many of these news articles become popular on their own if it hadn't been for the Digg community's promotion? I don't think they would.

Recently Newsweek published an article about how the New Atheists are taking to YouTube with their message, denying the existence of a deity in front of thousands of viewers. A video search on "Dawkins" or "atheism" reveals hundreds of videos about atheism, many with over 100,000 views and thousands of ratings. Without Atheism-related videos on YouTube making it to the Digg frontpage, I don't think many people would be as familiar with Richard Dawkins and Atheism as they are now.

This article isn't analyzing if there is a God or not, or if Richard Dawkins' theories are correct, but that Digg and YouTube are extremely powerful devices to project a message to the masses. If you combine the two, as many people have in regards to Atheism, it becomes a veritable force that can sway public opinion like few other outlets can.

More rules... but it's a sideways jaunt

2007-01-08T20:54:00.000-05:00

So although the concept of natural selection and evolutionary progression make sense to me and are generally well understood (and IMHO our evolutionary lineage theories are inherently flawed - but another day for that), something came up in a dinner conversation, that I wasn't able to properly answer.

"Why do Human's head hair continue to grow?"

Now I obviously scoured the hallowed chunnels of the net to determine the real answer, and can't seem to make myself comfortable with any of them. So I am offering it up to you.

I am aware that there are 3 ish inherent rules to evolutionary mutation:

1. They are good for survival and keep going (there's a great story in my daughter's "evolution for kids" (careful where they bring that puppy to class) ) about moths in a coal town in England that... I digress.
2. They aren't good for survival, and they go away (we were well on the way to a monobrowless Western society - but someone invented tweezers!)
3. They don't do anything and they hang around anyway.

Hair apparently falls into item 3.

Now before you attack that assessment - I know that apparently women are inherently attracted to men and vice versa with lots of mop, because a healthy scalp is a sign of virility - but why does it continue to grow? There is hair on the rest of your body that always grows - but it only grows a couple of inches or so and then presto - away it goes! (There's a word for this kind of hair - but I am too lazy to look it up).

I read about heat protection, I read about disguise, I thought maybe it might be reinvention within a tribal community and, I breifly speculated on clothing manufacture and dental floss. It's been compared to wisdom teeth or the appendix (apparenlty homo-superior (the next wave) won't be born with these - does that mean they will be bald too?) and tried to find other natural comparisons (chimps and apes don't - but yaks do) but nothing seems to make sense.
Why would we essentially lose all our body hair, but continue to grow and grow up top? I don't feel comfortable yet with the answer. Finger nails make sense - but hair?

Any takers?

Lastly, because I can't help myself - if the Golden Rule was the right answer - how would the bald man interact with luxurious Samson? What would he do? Offer up some chest hair... or worse?

On Tolerance, Co-operation and the Golden Rule

2007-01-06T12:28:00.001-05:00

First, welcome Keno to this forum. I enjoyed rendition of "rules of a different colour", golden and otherwise. Ah Jawny, where do I start? I am in the mood for rambling so if you can figure out what I am saying, please explain it to me. You have mentioned the Golden Rule several times in this blog so I thought I might share my thoughts on the subject of tolerance, co-operation and the Golden Rule.

To begin, I ask myself how or where does the urge for co-operation arise? Can we speculate as to its origins? Is the need to co-operate with our fellow man an instinct, a trait hardwired into our genetic makeup honed through eons of evolutionary selection? After all, it would be easy to argue that individual survival (and the passing on of our genes) is greatly enhanced within the protection of a group. Imagine the struggle of our early ancestors, the struggle for survival of a lone individual if he/she should suffer some mishap – a broken leg, a fever, or being injured by a wild animal.

It would seem that co-operation and thereby social behaviour pre-dates culture, suggesting that nature is the victor in the nature-vs-nurture debate in explaining the origins of co-operation. In fact, it can be observed in the animal kingdom that social behaviour is all too common – insects, mammals, birds, fish etc. all exhibit social behavior. Human-level intelligence is not a prerequisite for social behaviour. It is hardwired into their genes as it ours.

The other side of the debate addresses those human behaviours developed and passed down the generations, the software programming as it were, or what we call culture. Of course if we wanted to broaden the discussion we might also consider the possibility that co-operation is innate in humanity, a consequence of divine creation. Nature-vs-nurture-vs-supranature, or would that be ‘supranurture’? However, to keep this discussion within a manageable scope let us limit it to nature-vs-nurture and let us agree that at least some component of co-operation arises out the selective pressures of evolution.

What can we say about competition, which in a sense is the antithesis of co-operation? Like the total warfare of the mid-20th century, unbridled competitors work toward the annihilation of each other by whatever means possible. This would seem to be the ugly underbelly of humanity. On the other hand, co-operation taken to the extreme can also produce negative results, like the rigid, centrally controlled monopolies of the former Soviet Union. Only the arms and space industries of the former Soviet Union had notable achievements (which can be attributed to external competitive pressures – the US, NATO). Otherwise, central economic planning (co-operation in the extreme) was a dismal failure.

As in evolution where species compete for resources (natural selection) and individuals within a species compete for the opportunity to pass on their genes (sexual selection), competition within the human community is the driving force behind progress. Competition and co-operation are the yin and yang of a healthy social organization. An equitable balance between competition and co-operation is called for, providing fertile ground for competition to flourish within the framework of rules. While competition provides the driving impetus for progress and development, the rules of co-operation provide structure. It's what inhibits Apple Computer Corp. for example, from lobbing missiles or dispatching bombers to Redwood, WA.

One of the philosophical cornerstones of co-operation is the Golden Rule, which admonishes one to do unto others as they would have done to themselves. This tenant, for all essential purposes, is a universal cultural artifact, spanning virtually all cultures, religions and philosophies. A modern synthesis of the Golden Rule might go something like this. Mirror neurons in the pre-frontal cortex allow a person to model the behavior of and thereby establish the intentions of others. The existence of mirror neurons has been demonstrated through MRI scans is widely accepted. The ability to determine friend or foe, to establish whether an outstretched hand is a signal for friendship or a threat seems an essential requirement for human survival. Once this ability is established, the ability to model the behaviour and even the thoughts of others that is, it is a simple step to utilize this ability to elicit co-operation.

On the surface, the Gold Rule seems like a reasonable proposition, but I would posit that it has limitations. The Golden Rule is most effective when dealing between persons who thing alike. Let me explain. As an example, in western culture if a man solicits the opinion of a male friend he would prefer honesty in most situations, and thus will attempt to render an honest opinion when a male friend solicits his opinion. A direct application of the Golden Rule. However, if a man’s female partner should ask, “do you think this dress makes me look fat?”, he intuitively (or rather, has learned from experience) that the simple application of the Golden Rule does not suffice and an alternative response may be called for.

In another example, my experiences in China have taught me that the Chinese will often agree with you when really don’t. It would seem that in China, positivity and congeniality take precedence over honesty, what they term “saving face”. Public disagreement is quite unseemly. This is similar to the “white lie” in western culture, where it is thought more important to spare another’s feelings over direct, often brutal honesty. In this situation, they are treating you as they would wish to be treated, applying the Golden Rule, whereas a western might interpret this as bald faced lying. The oriental is applying the Golden Rule differently than the westerner might.

Which brings us to tolerance - that virtue whereby one respects another’s point of view and does not resist or condemn their behaviour, even when the behaviour in question is at odds with one’s own belief system. Quite often, it seems to me, tolerance and the Golden Rule are at loggerheads. How so?

In the second example above, if the westerner is in disagreement with the oriental, the Golden Rule dictates that he would say so as honesty and directness take precedence in western culture, whereas tolerance might dictate that recognizing and respecting the oriental’s sensitivity to “face” would compel the westerner not to say so. Applying the Golden Rule gets complicated in cross-cultural situations.

Tolerance is an interesting quality when examined more closely. Unlike “dead or alive” which is an either / or state (you are either dead or alive, there are no intermediary states), tolerance is a matter of degree. I am purposely overlooking the concept of Shroedinger’s cat which is both dead and alive before the box is opened. In the real world, we have criteria to determine whether a person should be given medical treatment or buried.

There is a smooth continuum between the extremes of tolerance and intolerance, much like the property of “hot and cold”. Something is not necessarily hot or cold. There is an infinity of intermediary states such as warm, mild, tepid, cool, frigid, etc. Where upon that smooth continuum does tolerance transform itself to intolerance? If a child is playing rather than performing an assigned chore, a highly tolerant parent might ignore this; a mildly tolerant parent might remind the child of their chore in a gentle tone but not necessarily insist that they abandon their play. At some point where tolerance weakens, it transforms itself into intolerance. Perhaps the parent will deliver a strong chiding and threaten punishment, or in an extreme case of intolerance, fly off the handle and administer punishment post haste.

Tolerance has an even more interesting quality when reflected upon itself. Let’s imagine, for example, that one comes up against extremely intolerant people. Do they tolerate the intolerant? This seems like an apparent contradiction of terms but bear with me. If the intolerants are expressing a point of view which exhibits intolerance, the tolerant person might tolerate that. But what if the intolerance includes restricting another’s rights, perhaps even another’s right to life? Should the tolerant person tolerate murder of an innocent or genocide of a people? It seems not. When reflected upon itself, extreme tolerance becomes as negative as extreme intolerance. When it comes to the point that it is a virtue to be intolerant of extreme tolerance, the whole thing has turned around upon itself.

I am always mindful of the tendancy to seek simple formulas and absolutes. It is a characteristic of fundamentalism, ‘these are the rules and they apply to everybody’ – an intolerance of other points of view - but we are all prey to it. I can’t help but wonder if mindless application of the Golden Rule and the call for tolerance are just easy fixes and have been co-opted for just another brand of fundamentalism, a brand of laissez fare fundamentalism.

In summary, this appears to me to be a messy, complicated situation. Mixing of cultures complicates interaction in the human sphere as different points of view, norms and expectations substitutes a minefield for the normally tranquil stage of human drama. It is not a wonder that in this era of rapid advances in transportation and communication, and the resulting increase in interaction between different cultures that there is so much discord and conflict.

In our modern era of globalization where the homogenization of different cultures into a single global culture seems all but inevitable, it is not surprising that the less dominant cultures would feel threatened by the more dominate cultures. History provides numerous illuminating examples where the indigenous cultures of North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, etc., have been all but erased and subsumed by Western European culture. I have little doubt that this lesson of history is not lost upon those who resist globalization through the instrument of terror.

What Comes After God?

2007-01-06T11:01:00.000-05:00

Recently there has been a rash of Atheist inspired rants against those that believe in God (The End of Faith; The God Delusion; Letter to a Christian Nation etc.). Their rallying cry: No Heaven, No Hell, Just Science.

Is Atheism the only rational answer to the question of the existence of God? Is there not a strong case to be made that evolution has predisposed humanity to perceive God, making him real and our relationship with him personal? May we have a hardwired need to believe?

Are our values or moral codes, as Daniel Dennett's suggests, arbitrary? I argued in a recent post that it is man's basic goodness and caring for others that has ensured the survival of the species. Moral values and ethics are deeply held beliefs regardless of the existence of god.

I would argue that it is the human trait of intolerance, not belief in God, that has caused so much strife in the world. Choosing to believe the only path to salvation is your conviction and that the beliefs of others are unworthy, there only to test your conviction, to be converted or failing that to be eliminated is the crux of the problem. Not living in harmony, as nature suggests, is the lesson we have yet to learn.

Are the Atheists not guilty of the same intolerance towards those that are God dependant?

Until Atheists are prepared to deal with the reality that humans perceive God, brought on through evolution (the God gene) and the comfort we all receive from those feelings (scientifically, the need for the neuro-chemical cascade produced) they fight an uphill battle.

For me the following unaccredited quote sums it up perfectly:

"Every man should pursue truth with his rational mind and explore the depths of his spiritual and emotional core, without fear that they cannot coexist".

My one disenchantment is a recent statistic that I came across suggesting that in Britain the number one book to be shoplifted - is The Bible!

JawnyB, first off - thanks for the invite.

2007-01-02T22:49:00.000-05:00

There are so many points here that I don't know where to start. I guess one just does.

Therefore, let me throw the 'rules' out for you, as they have been determined and practiced throughout eternity:

1."The Golden Rule" as attributed by Jesus in the gospel of St. Matthew: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Of course I think this is a great credo - but it's just not realistic, and I have yet to meet anyone who follows it wholly.

2. "The Silver Rule" as attributed a century earlier by some Rabbi I can't remember: "Do unto others what you would not have them do unto you" Certainly better, and mostly the credo of Ghandi, and in turn Martin Luther King Jr.. I think an amalgam of both might work, but history tends to show support for the following:

3. "the Brass Rule". This is essentially Confuciusism: "Do unto others as they do unto you." Israelii retributional statemanship at it's most illustrative. Cycle of doom for sure.

There are a couple of others I have heard - breaking down a bit, each time into a slightly more caustic and jaded perspective:

4. "The Iron Rule" - "Do Unto others as you like, before they do unto you."

Enough on those - wait maybe one more.

You mention altruism in evolution; therefore the support of familial ties that bind genetic strands into perpetuity and make the breed stronger should be taken into account. Let's acknowledge one more rule."The Nepotism Rule" (more familar to evolutionary biologists as "Kin Selection"). This one essentially states something like "do everything you can in all things for family, and do as you like to others".

Everyone of these rules has endless examples of follow throughout history.

Lastly, cuz I am tired, you state that Altruism might be genetically embedded... and baby Genaro is hard wired to be nice. I think you forget the basis of children.

There is considerable argument that children are inherently evil (or the lesser - really not nice at all; thankly they are cute), until they are taught differently. I would like to see if brain imaging of children, pre and post birth shows activity in the altrusism section of the brain (the article doesn't state where in the brain they pull the data)and see if it's dormant - until mommy says "no".

Apologies for the rambles here... my first post ever - and so much to question.

G'night.

The Altruistic Creed of Humanity

2006-12-26T16:22:00.000-05:00

Genaro, you raise interesting questions in your post "Socrates Questions" (21dec06).

If I am summarizing your questions correctly you are asking if humanity has a basic and clear moral imperative and where does it come from?

My gut reaction is simply yes, and attribute it to a social/cultural phenomena. But after thinking about it and doing a bit of research clearly evolution has a part to play.

The Dali Lama stated that "Every religion emphasizes human improvement, love, respect for others, sharing other people's suffering. On these lines every religion had more or less the same viewpoint and the same goal."

All of which can be boiled down to the Golden Rule - Treat others as you wish to be treated. Some believe that this rule should be expanded to include "The Rede" which basically translated is - as long as you do no harm, do as you will. They believe that by bringing together the Golden Rule and The Rede it makes for a more effective and complete axiom but you get the point.

So from a social/cultural standpoint most people generally know how to treat other people. Isn't that what politics is all about - the problem between me and you is how I treat you!

The evolutionary argument on first brush seems to oppose this view. A man is basically selfish, narcissistic and interested only in his own dominance. Men enslaving men, no other mammal has ever reached our pinnacle of violent behavior towards each other. Isn't that Jared Diamond's whole treatise? Yet not only have we survived we have come to dominate the planet.

Why, because even through the eons humans cared for each other more then fighting against each other. Darwin stated "Those communities which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring." Through the ages care and co-operation became hardwired into the human brain.

Altruism benefits the species not the individual. And since only species evolve, altruism would be selected for, despite individual aberrations.

"As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races." -- Darwin The Decent of Man

Additionally it has been found through brain imaging that there is a "biologically embedded basis for altruistic behaviour". (www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/07/020718075131.htm).

So it seems that from a evolutionary, social and cultural standpoint little Genaro is programed from the get go to get along with his playmates.

What Would Socrates Say About This?

2006-12-23T10:13:00.000-05:00

Check out the following link …

http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?m=7

In the article the writer, one of those techno-evangelists, states:

“By the end of this decade, we will have full-immersion visual-auditory environments, with images written directly onto our retinas by our eyeglasses and contact lenses. All of the electronics for the computation, image reconstruction, and very- high-bandwidth wireless connection to the Internet will be embedded in our glasses and woven into our clothing, so computers as distinct objects will disappear. We will be able to enter virtual environments that are strikingly realistic recreations of earthly environments (or strikingly fantastic imaginary ones) either by ourselves or with other "real" people.”

I was thumbing through a magazine catering to audio/video enthusiasts recently when I came across a product evaluation of what is essentially being described in the above quotation. There were glasses from three different manufacturers being evaluated that allowed you to watch TV. I believe that these products are only available in the US at present. The glasses looked like trendy visors that skiers might wear and had a pair of LCD displays and ear buds. The prices for these glasses seemed pretty reasonable, ranging from about $400 - $600. At first it sounded like a great idea but as I thought about actually getting a pair I wondered about some things.

First, how would you work the remote control? Although I am pretty good with the old remote I don’t always find the right button without actually looking at the remote. Does this mean I would be continually lifting the glasses up to peer down at my remote during my intense sessions of channel surfing, or would that simply propel me into honing my remote skills to an unprecedented degree of dexterity?

Second, with the visor on and the ear buds plugged in, I would be totally cut off from the “real” world. I can imagine myself watching some movie and suffering through constant attacks of paranoia, as I imagined Revenue Canada agents in tacky polyester suits sneaking around my office looking through my files, or thieves making off with the family china. Would I miss hearing the phone ring and be deprived of verbally abusing some poor, underpaid telemarketer?

Thirdly, I will often have the TV on as a backset to other activities such as preparing dinner, flipping through a newspaper or doing a crossword. It seems to me the TV visor would preclude such benign electronic companionship and be overly demanding of my attention, like being trapped in a boring conversation. It also doesn’t say much for family viewing. Will we all become interned within an electronic prison of our own making?

Don’t get me wrong, I think it is an intriguing product concept. However, I think it needs to be refined by integrating the “real” world in some way, perhaps by shrinking the viewing area or going into a semi-transparent mode under voice command.

The article goes on to say …

“By the 2030s, virtual reality will be totally realistic and compelling and we will spend most of our time in virtual environments. By the 2040s, even people of biological origin are likely to have the vast majority of their thinking processes taking place in nonbiological substrates. We will all become virtual humans.”

… which brings me to the real point. We currently spend most of our lives within constructed artificial physical environments – cars, houses, offices, malls, etc. The article suggests that this will eventually give way to living our lives in artificial electronic environments. Are we ready for that?

Socrates' Questions

2006-12-21T10:21:00.000-05:00

Wasn’t Socrates executed for asking questions of this nature, or was he executed for just being a general pain in the buttinski? In my view little Carlos, a more interesting question concerns the origin of these qualities. When we teach our children values such as not to hit other children, to share with their siblings, to tell the truth, etc., etc. these qualities get passed on from generation to generation, but how did they first arise? Do these qualities have a God-given innateness, were they selected by evolution, were they simply discovered and passed on as cultural artifacts, or is there some other explanation?

Let's Start Here - Six Questions of Socrates

2006-12-19T21:48:00.000-05:00

What is Virture?
What is Moderation?
What is Justice?
What is Good?
What is Courage?
What is Piety?