tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19556580070560012292024-03-13T13:35:36.905-06:00Genius/Idiot—Journal Entries<b>“The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise.” —Isaac Asimov</b>
<br>
<br>
This is where you will find my old journal entries, in chronological order.
<br>
Posts from all Genius/Idiot blogs are aggregated in the <a href="http://blog.syleria.net">compendium</a>.Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-81249462710719709152010-04-30T00:52:00.001-06:002010-04-30T00:56:54.653-06:00This blog has moved<br /> This blog is now located at http://geniusidiotjournal.blogspot.com/.<br /> You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click <a href='http://geniusidiotjournal.blogspot.com/'>here</a>.<br /><br /> For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to<br /> http://geniusidiotjournal.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.<br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-7257009369949139442007-10-04T11:00:00.000-06:002008-04-19T15:09:30.924-06:00Ishmael (Part 2)<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>p. 139: “‘Every increase in food production is answered by an increase in population <em>somewhere</em>. In other words, <em>someone</em> is consuming Nebraska’s surpluses—and if they weren’t, Nebraska’s farmers would stop producing those surpluses, pronto.’ ‘True,’ I said,…’Are you suggesting that First World farmers are fueling the Third World population explosion?’ ‘Ultimately,’ he said, ‘Who else is there to fuel it?’”<br /> Okay, first off, this doesn’t make much sense on the face of it. Is Quinn honestly trying to tell us that there is some sort of worldwide psychic cooperation between First and Third world peoples, so that the Third World peoples send messages to the First: “Don’t worry about reproducing to match your food supply; we’ll handle that for you, thereby not violating the Law”? Why in the world would this Law apply to entire populaces only, and not to geographical subsets? Can you find a single example in the wild in which this is true? No, of course you can’t, because it’s a law of <em>individual behavior</em>, not some psychic collective force.<br /> But secondly, Ishmael [Quinn] here betrays his profound ignorance of American farm economics. First: It is assuredly <em>not</em> true that Nebraska farmers would stop producing surpluses if no one consumed them. They would produce regardless, because the <em>government</em> purchases the surplus. The government might then (and has) simply destroy it. Or they might send it—for free—to those starving third world countries, whose people might not be able to afford Nebraska corn on the open market. This has several effects. First, free food <em>does</em> increase population among poor peoples—if there is food enough for six kids this year, perhaps two of them will survive next year, when famine returns, whereas if I only had two children, both would likely die. If I have to <em>pay</em> to feed my children, the calculus is entirely different. Second, free imported food drives the price for locally-grown food to zero, driving local farmers out of business and increasing the certainty that famine will continue, increasing their reliance on free Nebraska food, which tends to increase their population still more. And why does the U.S. government do this? To prop up Nebraska food prices! Why? Because food can be produced so cheaply, and there is so much food relative to the paying world population, that only large corporate farms can compete in a free market. To keep smaller farms afloat, government props up prices. There is <em>plenty</em> of food. There is no need for starvation. To end world hunger, only one step need be taken: convert every country in which there are starving people to market capitalism (and stop giving them free food). Modern, wealthy, post-industrial nations have a stable or declining population. Problem solved. Check out <a href='http://isil.org/resources/lit/disaster-foreign-aid.html'>The Disaster of International Foreign Aid Programs</a> for a fascinating overview of the problem.<br /><br />[Go back to pp. 141–2. I feel that there should be something to say here.]<br /><br />p. 143–4:<br /> <em>What</em> extinction? I don’t see a case having been made of a path that will lead to human extinction. Is this just assumed?<br /><br />p. 147–8:<br /> Yes, the Leavers have a great life (and Quinn quotes <a href='http://books.google.com/books?id=_qPSLy9564cC'>Sahlins</a>! Cool). They’re wonderfully happy, and rich with food (although I <em>still</em> say that they are benefiting, food-wise, by our decimation of their brethren). We are miserable by comparison. But that is the price we pay for our increased population, strength, and resilience to disaster and famine. I hope to help remedy the mental diseases (crime, addiction, loneliness, all the things he mentions) created by this situation.<br /><br />p. 165-66: I’ll have to check my Bible, but <a href='http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=IIRC'>IIRC</a>, Man wasn’t <em>made</em> to rule the world, not in a Taker way at least. It was only after he was cast out of the Garden that he got that job. See Asimov & Rand on the subject. The Garden of Eden story is an allegory, from a Taker point of view, of the move from Leaver life to Taker life. The fruit of the tree of Knowledge is an allegory for man’s loss of innocence and his new necessity of rules—of Good and Evil (<em>nothing’s </em>evil to a Leaver—nothing anybody would ever want to do anyway. Emotions are in line with right action. Not so with Takers). See <em><a href='http://books.google.com/books?id=awiWAAAACAAJ'>Asimov’s Guide to the Bible</a> </em>for more details. It’s a racial memory thing. <em>Early</em> agriculturists weren’t so sanguine about the change, and looked back to “the good old days.”<br /><br />p. 166: “The world is at the point of death.”<br /> How so? Is this just assumed? Who says? <em>You?</em><br /><br />p. 167: <br /> I don’t see that Takers deliberately forced neighbors into agriculture. Back this up.<br /><br />p. 169:<br /> Leavers would <em>not</em> have come up with the allegory of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, because the knowledge it gave is that, according to Quinn, <em>the way of life of the Leavers is evil.</em><br /><br />p. 173–4: <br /> He’s likely right about Cain & Abel though. Cf. Asimov again. But this is a <em>separate story</em> from the Eden story. Because the Eden story is about “us,” not “them.” Therefore told by agriculturists. Or something.<br /><br />p. 204–5:<br /> The Takers didn’t <em>forget</em> how to live; they discovered that the old rules didn’t work anymore, so they came up with new ones, and <em>then</em> forgot the old ones. The story didn’t play out the way he says.<br /><br />• Okay, any new rules the Leavers come up with are inventions too. You’re making a false distinction. It’s just that conditions change very slowly among Leavers, and new rules/ideas have a long time to settle out and fly or fail. Not so among Takers; by the time we’ve adjusted to one rule and started to be able to see its long-term consequences, conditions change and new rules are needed.<br /><br />p. 214: Unrelated note: “I don’t think you can start wanting something until you know it exists.” Or know it’s useful, or know a specific use for it, or hear how it can benefit <em>you</em>. Yes. But note how this concept applies to the idea of marketers <em>creating</em> demand by popularizing such things as underarm deodorant. No, people didn’t complain about not having it until it was available. But the change did not occur because of marketing brainwashing, it came because people discovered they wanted something they had only just discovered existed.<br /><br />p. 217: <br /> What’s this about the Plains Indians being agriculturists? Look this up.<br /> P.S. I’d <em>love</em> to be a Leaver. It sounds like a <em>fantastic</em> life. But I can do more good here. Plus: books.<br /><br />p. 218–9: <br /> <strong>Crucial point:</strong> The reason almost nobody rebels against our Taker life is that they realize that they’d almost assuredly die were we to revert to primitivism.<br /><br />p. 220–1:<br /> Okay—the day-to-day life may have been as good as you say—sometimes. But the hard times could be brutally hard—deadly. Twenty good years cannot make up for one bad year (people expand to fit their food supply, right?) for people who cannot store food. The tribe can be killed or mortally wounded by one bad year. This is why agriculture is so attractive. Otherwise—why become agriculturists at all?<br /> P.S. We’re not first on the menu of any <em>remaining</em> predators. Hmm.<br /><br />p. 238: <br /> Stop. Takers aren’t subject to evolutionary forces? Bullshit. All life is. True, we’ve tried to make ourselves rich enough that we’re no longer as susceptible to the mass death that goes along with much evolution (Leaver life is just a bowl of cherries, right? Riiiiight), but we’re not <em>exempt</em>.<br /> No, I can’t leave this like that. Leavers are subject to evolution, he says, right? They’re part of the community of life. They’re subject to the will of the gods. Well, what do the gods of evolution say? They say, “You, and you, and you, and you, and all of you over there, must die so that my approved remnant may thrive.” And that remnant may include humans—and it may not. The gods could kill all humans as surely as they killed all dinosaurs. And even on an ordinary level, they may kill all but one out of twenty in a tribe, or one out of twenty tribes. Are you <em>sure</em> you wish to live subject to the gods’ will? Hello? Wake up! Evolution is <em>harsh</em>. Evolution’s a <em>bitch</em>. The gods of evolution care not one whit whether your family, your tribe, or your entire species lives or dies. Mother Culture—does. This is the most crucial issue of all, and yet Quinn glosses it over while talking out of both sides of his mouth about it. In Leaver life, things <em>are</em> great—until the Grim Reaper comes calling and wipes out your entire genetic line in a blink.<br /><br /> By the way, on the note of lamenting as unspeakable, unjustifiable evil the destruction (by assimilation, competition, or murder) of <em>Homo sapiens leavers</em> by <em>Homo sapiens takers</em>, <span style='text-decoration: underline;'>where are the <em>Homo erectus</em></span>? Hm? Oh? The Leavers killed them? How interesting. So we’re not so unique after all.<br /><br />p. 242:<br /> Oho! Ohoho! So we should go back to hunter-gatherer/agrarian life to wait—and leave room—for the <em>next</em> intelligent creature, who, if we wait long enough, will kill and enslave <em>us</em>?? Thank you, no. Go to Hell.<br /><br />• Oh, that’s precious. “Man? Oh, yes, <em>man</em>! What a wonderful creature he was! He owned the world—and then gave it up so <em>we</em> could arise.”<br /> “Whatever happened to him?”<br /> “Eh? Oh, we killed him, of course. Couldn’t have him around—he might have taken it into his head to try and reclaim his throne and deprive us of <em>our</em> destiny. Couldn’t have that. No, he had to die. Noble creature, though. There might be a few left in zoos and preserves.”<br /> I’m with Heinlein. We have to be the biggest, meanest, roughest, nastiest kid around—so that when somebody <em>else</em> big and mean shows up and wants to take our lunch money (and dinner money, and breakfast money, and every meal forever after), we’ll have a chance to fight him off. This is also why I believe that we should <em>never</em> completely get rid of war.</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-5548513871859038912007-10-03T11:00:00.000-06:002008-04-19T15:09:10.300-06:00Ishmael<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='http://books.google.com/books?id=P4TndJs6qiUC&pgis=1'><img height='60' width='39' alt='ec94225b9da0da45a16fc010.T.jpg' src='http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/images/ec94225b9da0da45a16fc010.T.jpg'/></a> <br />p. 56–7: <br /> I’ve had bits to quibble about before this—such as the idea that the idea of German racial purity and superiority is “nonsense”—it’s <em>not</em> nonsense, not on this level; it’s a major driving force in human history (no, not the Germans, <em>race</em>) from time before writing—but nothing to write about ‘til now. And this isn’t really a disagreement, just a comment (the author is obviously a genius, by the way):<br /> Yes. If evolution is seen as teleological, it is of course a myth. And admittedly, that myth is prevalent throughout our worldwide culture. But it’s merely anthropocentric vanity, which I (and most biologists and other people informed in evolution) am free of.<br /> But anthropocentrism is not inherently wrong. It’s only wrong to be <em>teleologically</em> anthropocentric. The jellyfish was right to end his story with the creation of jellyfish, and man is right to end his with the advent of Man. That does not imply that Man is the end of creation, merely that Man is our primary—sole—interest, so this is where we focus the story. Further, it is not wrong to think the world is there for the taking, any more than a coyote is wrong for thinking a rabbit is there for the eating. It <em>is</em>. It is only an error if the coyote believes that rabbits were made to be eaten by the coyotes, instead of that coyotes were made to eat rabbits, which is true. So the error comes only if man believes that the world was made to be exploited by man, rather than that man was made to exploit the world. The former point of view engenders an erroneous attitude. If coyotes were made to eat rabbits, that says <em>nothing</em> about the sustainability of the rabbit population—in fact, what it says about individual rabbits is that they will be eaten and die! Coyotes could easily eat all the rabbits, and then where would the coyotes, who were made to eat rabbits, be? Dead! Starved!<br /> But—if rabbits were made to be eaten, then it’s not the coyotes’ responsibility to worry about the rabbit population, is it? It is the responsibility of whoever or whatever made the rabbits. Tuck in! Have at it! They exist to be used, so use them! However, since rabbits <em>weren’t</em> made to be eaten, but instead to be rabbits and eat greens, this sort of attitude will ensure the destruction of rabbitdom and the death of the coyotes. It’s an error in teleology.<br /><br />p. 84: “There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world.”<br /> You’re speaking of natural law. But what <em>kind</em> of natural law is being discussed here?<br /><br />p. 85–6: “Millions have been willing to back their choice of prophet with their very lives. What makes them so important?”<br /> Card (in <em><a href='http://www.amazon.com/Xenocide-Ender-Book-Orson-Scott/dp/0812509250/ref=pd_bbs_2/002-3040991-5287245?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191615593&sr=8-2'>Xenocide</a></em>, I believe) answers this. In short: Prophets are civilizers.<br /><br />• “If [drug legalization] ever becomes a serious possibility, people…will…begin combing scriptures to see what their prophets have to say on the subject.”<br /> No. They will comb scriptures to find justification for what they already believe. This is a serious point that’s being ignored.<br /><br />p. 87: “You know how to split atoms…but you don’t know how people ought to live.”<br /> <em>Yes</em>. This is my life’s work. We <em>don’t</em> know how to live in this world we’ve created. Why? Because we weren’t made for this world, nor it for us! We were made for the world of the Leavers, the primitives. I’ve known this—forever, I guess. The goal is to understand ourselves well enough to figure out how to live well in a post-agricultural/post-industrial world. Sociobiology is a path to this understanding.<br /> But it’s not the only path; there are others. Molecular psychology and genetics are two other possible ones. And another which blindsided me—Economics. Economics can largely shortcut the process, starting with common-sense assumptions about human nature, and reach startlingly broad conclusions about human conduct. It’s thrown me off my path, for what I expected to take decades or lifetimes with sociobiology has taken mere years with economics. Economics can solve or address vast swaths of what I wanted to accomplish with sociobiology.<br /> So I’m left at something of a loss. Now what? Where do I go? What problems do I solve? I <em>never</em> set out to solve purely philosophical problems. Philosophy has always been a means to an end for me: a way of honing my ideas, but especially of developing a rigorous method of <em>explaining</em> my ideas, so I could convince some others of my rightness (this bleeds into rhetoric, of course, but that’s later) so they would <em>help</em> me with this sociobiology project. When the prevailing wisdom makes the truth you have make no sense to almost everyone, you must come up with a counter-wisdom, and a way of explicating it that makes clear its truth.<br /> This was my project; this was my plan. But it hit a snag. Sociobiology should still work, up to a point—it will at least let you figure out what sorts of ideas will likely fail—but Economics will get you there much faster, and, presuming sociobiology gives any real answers at all, they will likely read: Economics is the place to look! At least in part. In fact I can dimly see that even now. <br /> So why bother with sociobiology at all? Well, sociobiology can still be valuable. The story of “Why are we the way we are, and how did we come to be that way?” is an incredibly valuable one, worth pursuing. And also, Economics only really answers the question, “How should we structure society?” Not, “How can we, individually, be happy?” a question of tantamount importance, that I am keenly interested in. Sociobiology can certainly help answer this question. But I am also fascinated by another, perhaps bigger question: “How can we figure out the best way to live?” Which combines all of the above, <em>plus</em> a cogent theory of science to help us figure out how best to figure out how to do things better. These are my work.<br /> Thank you, Mike, for reminding me.<br /><br />Epistemology—What is it to know?<br />Metaphysics—What kind of world do we live in?<br />Theory of Evidence—How can we tell what is true?<br />Natural Philosophy—How does the world work? How do <em>we</em> work?<br />Moral Philosophy—Given answers to all of the above, what is the best way to live in the world, both societally and individually?<br /><br />p. 89: “[The Taker philosophy is that] no knowledge about [how to live] is obtainable.”<br /> Every natural law theorist ever, down to and including Rothbard and his followers, disagrees with this. Where did you get this idea? (to p. 91) And I, most vehemently, disagree. I have been striving all my adult life to find the Laws of Humanics (Laws of Aerodynamics do <em>not</em> tell you how to build an aeroplane. They only tell you what sort of designs may work and what may not).<br /><br />p. 127: <br /> Civilized people—“Takers”—exterminate their competition, whereas “Leavers” and other animals do not. He says that this is an invariable rule—a law—of the wild. Why? “If competitors hunted each other down just to make them dead, then there would <em>be</em> no competitors. There would simply be one species at each level of competition: The strongest.”<br /> This is a powerful argument. It threw me for a loop. It is also wrong (worth noting because little has been actually wrong so far).<br /> Let’s see why:<br /> First, civilized humans (“Takers”) do not always exterminate their competitors. They don’t even <em>usually</em> exterminate their competitors. Do we have <em>any </em>record of one race or nation utterly exterminating another? It’s possible, surely, and it’s been tried, but I don’t know if it’s ever been accomplished. In the instances I know of that come closest, the losers were decimated to the point that they were no longer a viable threat, then left alone. Competing races, countries, nations, etc. can live next to each other with only occasional squabbles, if both of them are of nearly equivalent power levels.<br /> And that’s the key: similar power levels. When one competitor has an obvious power advantage over another, the game changes. The actual outcome depends on the degree of discrepancy between the groups. If the difference is small, some ground may be gained. If the disparity is large, conquering or extermination may take place. This is what happens with, say, humans (Takers) vs. wolves, or bears, or cougars. Even one cougar can be a serious threat, so if there’s enough of an advantage to be assured of success, going after cougars is not a hard choice. Primitive humans simply do not have enough advantage for that kind of war to be worth trying. As for the rest—you’re only observing the natural world <em>after</em> it has reached a stable equilibrium. You have no idea how baboons, for instance (or for that matter “leavers”), would behave if you introduced a significantly weaker, but still threatening competitor or predator into their environment. My <em>strong</em> suspicion is that they would try to eliminate or neutralize it.<br /> I imagine this has happened many times throughout prehistory. My point is that this discrepancy between ‘takers’ and ‘leavers’ is more one of power levels than attitude (look what happened when Indians got horses and rifles, and note that there is strong evidence that primitive peoples drove the sabertooth tiger and wooly mammoth to extinction), and that competitors of similar power levels can coexist alongside each other effectively indefinitely.<br /> Or to put in economic terms: real competition keeps everybody honest.<br /><br />p. 132:<br /> Okay, this species diversity thing may have some merit, but we need to remember that things aren’t a bad as they seem—culturally, I mean. I mean that it is only <em>very</em> recently, in terms of human history, that we have gained the power to actually gain the upper hand over our environment. Call it a couple of centuries. And we have not really had that power in spades until—say 1945. Sixty years. Fifty when this book was written. Only since then have we had the ability to rapidly and drastically change our environment. Only in the last 200 or so years have we had the tools to deliberately exterminate other species. So don’t be so harsh. We struggled against long odds against the Earth for a long time. Now, yes, we’ve won—and don’t know what to do with our newfound power. And quickly, we’re trying to adapt. CFC’s, smog, parks, endangered species lists, etc. We’re stumbling forward. But not for 10,000 years—just for 2–300.<br /> Also, if what you’re worried about is <em>the world</em>, rather than humankind, you can stop. The world has survived <em>several</em> catastrophes of the magnitude of anything like what humans are likely to do to it. Mass extinctions are far from uncommon, geologically. So get straight <em>what</em> you’re worried about, over what timeframe. Don’t fall into the trap of considering Nature as one eternal, unchanging <em>status quo</em> that we’re meddling with.<br /> However, the diversity issue (that we’re systematically reducing species diversity in order to eliminate competition for ourselves and our food) is a serious one. I don’t see it solving itself; that is, if population increases indefinitely, this trend could continue to worsen unless we recognize it as a problem. However, if we do, a properly-functioning capitalism should solve it to the limits of our knowledge and ability. That or we get nailed by experience and learn the hard way. I just have a hard time believing that we as a culture are <em>that</em> powerful, <em>that</em> important, <em>that</em> unique. “There’s nothing new under the Sun.”<br /><br />p. 133: “Any species in the wild will invariably expand to the extent that its food supply expands. But, as you know, Mother Culture teaches that such laws do not apply to man.”<br /> That’s right; they don’t. Man is unique in this respect: He can plan. He can, in a limited sense but far better than any other species, foretell the future. And it is this foretelling that exempts him from this law. He is not forced to act on the information about what food supplies are <em>now</em>, but can act on what he believes food supply will be like in the future. <em>This actually happens</em>. Man is exempt from this law. (There are analogous laws, adapted for man, that he is <em>not </em>exempt from.)<br /> (10/4/07) I am, in fact, a case in point that man is not subject to this law. Because of the ZPG and overpopulation scare in the ’70s, my parents decided to have exactly <em>one</em> child—me. Later, they wanted another—and decided to adopt. Was our food in short supply? Hardly! My father <em>ran</em> a corporate ranch! We could easily have afforded food enough for five kids.<br /><br />p. 134: Oho! At last we begin to see the underbelly of the beast. Quinn reveals his socialist leanings. “The biological community is an economy, isn’t it? I mean, if you start taking more for yourself, then there’s got to be less for someone else…”<br /> So for Quinn, economics is a zero-sum game. We’re almost done here.<br /><br />p. 136: “Increasing food production to feed an increased population results in yet another increase in population.”<br /> <strong>Wrong!</strong> Then why is Russia <em>paying</em> people to have babies? <strong>Food production in industrialized nations is outpacing population growth.</strong><br /> Hey, Malthus: give me a food price graph for Britain for the last 300 years, will you?<br /><br />p. 138: You’ve opened a huge can of worms here and don’t know it. “‘…all the same, it’s hard to just sit by and let them starve.’ ‘This is precisely how someone speaks who imagines that he is the world’s divinely appointed ruler. ‘I will not <em>let</em> them starve. I will not <em>let</em> the drought come. I will not <em>let</em> the river flood.’ It is the gods who <em>let</em> these things, not you.’”<br /> True, a ruler may speak this way. But so may a brother, a son, a friend, a neighbor. If you see that a fellow resident of your city is about to be hit by a falling limb, will you take action, or will you <em>let</em> him be hit and perhaps killed? By saying that we do not <em>let</em> people starve, you are saying that we are not part of a global community; that they are not our brothers; that we have no concern, nor <em>should</em> we, about what happens to them. Do you wish to say this? Choose your words carefully. [P.S. He’s still right about the effects of giving free food to a starving populace.]</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-42959547582896296251998-10-29T12:00:00.000-06:002008-07-03T21:05:19.231-06:00The End of the Dream (Part 2)<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'> The crucial question here is <em>why</em>? <em>Why</em> are my feelings self-defeating? That makes no sense. Now that I realize that my emotions aren’t the enemy, how can I believe that they’re simply bad? I can’t. I know that they’re working for me. Time to apply my method.<br /> <em>Your emotions are trying to protect you from the unknown.</em> That’s the first part. I just now called in from work sick, and I feel guilty & scared. I’m not sick; I just feel I have to have this day to myself to hold onto (and possibly advance) whatever gains I’ve made.<br /><br /> Here’s my essential problem: the more I look, the more I learn, the more I understand, the harder it is to convince myself that the systems of morals we are handed are wrong, stupid, pointless and a waste of my life. I see the reasons behind them and realize that there were indeed good reasons for these rules and modes of behavior, and although I still hate them, it becomes harder and harder to convince myself that my way is the “right” way. I must need a new viewpoint.<br /> This all from Phillip Wylie’s <em>The End of the Dream</em>, p. 157: “Too many discoveries had been of sorts that showed the clerical dogmas were unsound, untenable, nothing for sensible people to fool with.”<br /> —Just because it’s <em>wrong</em> doesn’t mean it’s useless, or even bad! Do we have an alternative? A truly better way? How do we know?</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-33050170038529330031998-10-25T12:00:00.000-06:002008-07-03T21:04:38.043-06:00The End of the Dream<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='http://books.google.com/books?id=vt0RAAAAMAAJ&pgis=1'><img height='130' width='78' alt='images.jpg' src='http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/images/images.jpg'/></a><br />From the Preface by John Brunner: <br />“Perhaps, one of these days, archaeologists will come to Earth from another planet and think of erecting a monument to mark our passing. If so, they could choose no better inscription for it than this: ‘Here lies a species capable of thinking, but too lazy to think anything right through.’”<br /><br /> Not lazy. Not <em>lazy</em>. The exact opposite, in fact. Too <em>busy</em>. Frightened, even. Impatient, certainly. But not lazy.</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-47769403732887123751998-10-11T11:02:00.000-06:002008-05-14T20:37:49.456-06:00The Roads Must Roll<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='http://books.google.com/books?id=vtg1AAAACAAJ'><img height='114' width='67' alt='FromClipboard.png' src='http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/images/FromClipboard.png'/></a> <br />I like Heinlein’s “The Roads Must Roll”—How about a tale of a <em>real</em> functionalist revolution? A successful one, I mean? Or an alternative sequel to his story, where Van Kleek wins, not being the simpering weakling Heinlein presumes everyone who disagrees with him to be? Who would be next to revolt? What would the ultimate consequences be?</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-58879895527438524851998-10-11T11:01:00.000-06:002008-05-16T10:32:10.691-06:00Aggravated Vehicular Genocide<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='http://home.fuse.net/ChristopherLBennett/AggVehicGen.htm'><img height='120' width='76' alt='tn_ASF_0829.jpg' src='http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/images/tn_ASF_0829.jpg'/></a><br />The following inspired by “Aggravated Vehicular Genocide,” Christopher L. Bennett, 11/98 <em>Analog.<br /><br /> </em>“What is the purpose of Justice? Is it to punish the guilty? To wreak vengeance upon the perpetrators of unsavory deeds? To somehow rectify and right wrongs, when often the wrong <em>cannot</em> be undone, no matter what anyone desires or what punishment is meted out? No, I say! The purpose of Justice is not to right wrongs or satisfy rage, but to help ensure that the wrong does not reoccur. When a crime is committed unknowingly, when moreover none connected with the perpetrators will ever be aware of the verdict or the consequences, and especially when it is in the interest of all to prevent this sort of incident from ever occurring again, what purpose does it serve to put the perpetrators to death? Do you intend to solve the problem by evolutionary attrition, allowing only those to live that have not committed crimes, in hopes that the genetic capability of performing the forbidden act will be eventually eliminated? Surely this will be as costly to both sides as it is unlikely to succeed. Far better to forgo the illusion of legalities and simply go to war. The purpose of the Court is to serve the people, not to punish the guilty in order to satisfy some feeling of vengeance, fairness, or justice.” </div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-28343149631707468441998-10-11T11:00:00.000-06:002008-05-05T23:59:15.955-06:00Feeling Good (Part 2)<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>• p. 62: “Suppose, for example, you suddenly realize you’re late for a…meeting. Your heart sinks and you’re gripped with panic. Now ask yourself, ‘What thoughts are going through my mind right now? What am I saying to myself? Why is this upsetting me?’”<br /> These are valid questions. I’m not arguing with him anymore. But I do think this is a good time to clarify what I think actually goes on in our minds.<br /> There aren’t necessarily <em>any</em> thoughts going through your mind at that moment. There might be, but there don’t have to be for you to be feeling bad. As I’ve said, feelings don’t come directly from thoughts, and emotions can react directly to stimuli, without any intervening cognitive action. (can≠always do)<br /> Darn. I let the Muse slip. Maybe later.</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-77676977333060834161998-09-30T11:00:00.000-06:002008-05-02T15:09:37.782-06:00Syler Method of Investigation<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>We (I) can find answers to problems by analyzing the problem; more specifically, by analyzing the question. Because there has to be a question. And it has to be in words, as does the answer. If you can’t explain it in words, you don’t understand it. So it’s like I’ve said: <strong>Asking Questions and Getting Answers</strong>. Asking the question–in words—then making sure you understand the question and every word in it. If you don’t, analyze. Be specific and concrete.</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-40255330347869551931998-09-26T11:05:00.010-06:002008-05-01T12:24:56.180-06:00Poem—Understanding<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>You say it because you feel it, and you<br /> know it in your gut<br />But if you can’t explain it, then you don’t<br /> understand it<br />And all you know<br />is how you feel.</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-5954093746625289481998-09-26T11:04:00.000-06:002008-04-19T15:08:19.069-06:00Intelligence and Survival<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'> I don’t know how much sense this makes, but I just thought something that I thought worthy of recording: “It’s no wonder that intelligence doesn’t pass in direct lines; if it did, we’d just band together and kill the others”—or outperform them, or what not.<br /> Could this be true? I mean, you can’t do away with the intelligent ones—you <em>need</em> them. But too many together, especially related, is a danger to everyone else. But why didn’t it happen, then? We are all somewhat intelligent; obviously it’s a survival trait for us. But only a few are <em>very</em> intelligent; this has always been true, and is still true in apes. Why didn’t the smart ones beget more smart ones and become dominant? Are lots of smart people self-destructive? This is very important.</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-6304765735476960521998-09-26T11:03:00.000-06:002008-04-07T19:00:20.568-06:00The Great Ages of Western Philosophy<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='http://books.google.com/books?id=ic8MAAAAIAAJ'><img height='75' width='50' alt='530E8276-012C-11DD-BE05-000A95CCE51A.jpg' src='http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/images/530E8276-012C-11DD-BE05-000A95CCE51A.jpg'/></a><br />Volume I, <em>The Age of Belief</em><br /><br />• Introduction, first page, first sentence, p. ix: ‘“We are like dwarfs seated on the shoulders of giants…”’<br /> Dwarfs? Why dwarfs? The fact that we can do so much and see so far largely because of the proceeding efforts of our forebears <span style='text-shadow: 1pt 2pt 3pt #000000;'>[does not imply that we are somehow doomed to be lesser men than they. Certainly the great philosophers of the past did much, and covered much ground, and we are greatly indebted to them in many ways. But philosophy is unlike science in this way: Progress is not guaranteed. It is not necessarily the case that philosophy tends to get less wrong as time goes on. It can, and we certainly hope it does, but there is less guarantee of that than with science (not that it is absolutely guaranteed there either). What I mean is that it is very possible that the great philosophers of the past can hold us back sometimes, and cause us to look for answers in the wrong directions, and so, giants though they may have been, they are occasionally giants who are actually standing on us, pushing us down.<br /> My point is that to believe that the great philosophers are somehow better or did more than we are or do, is not only a fallacy, it is a dangerous fallacy, because it causes us to look on our own work with trepidation, and causes us to be timid, believing that we could never be as great as our predecessors, so great, bold, new, paradigm-breaking ideas are less likely to come forth, or if they are advanced, to be taken seriously, because it is hubris to presume that your work could be as important as that as that of the great philosophers of history.–4/2/08 10:32 PM]</span></div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-52083225335134503741998-09-10T11:00:00.000-06:002008-05-06T00:03:23.391-06:00Feeling Good<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='http://books.google.com/books?id=oYFSAAAACAAJ'><img height='53' width='31' alt='books.jpg' src='http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/images/books.jpg'/></a> <br />(score:16–19)<br />•p. 28: “…most schools of thought place a strong emphasis on ‘getting in touch’ with your feelings… Depression is not an emotional disorder at all!… Every bad feeling you have is a result of your distorted negative thinking.”<br /> He’s wrong, of course. This is the central problem I have with Cognitive Therapy, both Burns’ and Dyer’s versions. Feelings <em>do not</em> come from thoughts. Feelings and thoughts are two discrete things. Closely interrelated but separate. One does not ‘cause’ the other. Feelings can come from thoughts, surely, but so can thoughts come from feelings—more easily, I believe. They can influence each other strongly, however. Your thoughts can indeed change your feelings—if you believe them. Emotions don’t come from thought, they come from <em>belief</em>, and that belief can change from moment to moment. It is what you believe about the world that colors your emotion, and shapes the way you look at the world you perceive. Those beliefs can be strongly influenced—instantaneously—by your thoughts, which <em>are</em> largely under conscious control. The best way I can describe it now is that feeling and thought react simultaneously to your perception, feeding off of and being modified by each other. But the cardinal fact remains that your emotions are shaped almost solely by your beliefs, and these beliefs are largely shaped by your cognitions. These beliefs aren’t all deep-seated, permanent things, either. Many of them can change from moment to moment, in just the fashion indicated by Feeling Good. So: let’s try this as a preliminary model:<br /><img height='55' width='440' alt='PastedGraphic.tiff' src='http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/images/PastedGraphic.tiff'/><br /><br /> So let me state my specific objection to a particular passage, and let that objection carry for all the other similar passages:<br />•p. 29: “You will learn, as she did, that the negative thoughts that flood your mind are the actual <em>cause</em> of your self-defeating emotions.”<br /> No. They are a strong contributing factor, but they are not the cause. But the practical upshot of his statement is true: you <em>can</em> change your emotions with your thoughts. It’s merely that these thoughts are acting on the beliefs that your emotions immediately stem from, rather than on the emotions themselves. After all, if you really could change your emotions so arbitrarily, who would you be? You’d only have to <em>think</em> happy thoughts and you’d <em>be</em> happy! No. It doesn’t work that way. You must believe it for it to work. Belief is the key here. Your emotions supply a large part of your identity, and all your motivation. (Without emotions, you <em>have</em> no identity!) You can’t control your emotions; not really. You can stop yourself from feeling many of them—almost all—but you can’t <em>control</em> them, because the only real “you” that exists is <em>centered</em> on your emotions!<br /> Besides, where do you think these negative thoughts come from? They originate with your emotions, always, based on your beliefs. Your cognitive center has no will. It merely calculates. You can merely choose, with your mind, based on your <em>deepest</em> emotions, which <em>other</em> emotions are important to you, and which you will not feel, and to what degree.<br /> But people who depend on their minds do not have no will; in fact, it seems that they often have the strongest will of all. How do I explain this? Because the person who relies on their cognitions to tell them what’s right and wrong are acting only on their <em>deepest</em> emotions, not allowing the rest to enter the equation. Or at least not to alter it.<br /><br /> It <em>is</em> true that if you alter your misconceptions, your mood will improve.<br /><br />•p. 32–45: I think I’ve said this elsewhere, but I’m really not sure about his 10-point list. It has some validity, but I’m not sure that the list is either totally necessary or sufficient. Mental filter, for example. Why is it called that, anyway?<br /><br /><span style='text-shadow: 1pt 2pt 3pt #000000;'>3/21/08 10:17 PM I believe I’ve got further notes on this book later in this journal, but I wanted to insert some current comments here, since I coincidentally find myself rereading this book just at the time that I am typing in my 10-year old journal entry on it.<br /> I can’t comment on cognitive therapy in general, or on Beck’s methodology or ideology. All I’ve got to go on is Burns’ book. But it is an excellent example, in small, of a problem I have with the psychological establishment in general: An appalling lack of philosophy. Oh, he’ll throw the <em>word</em> around occasionally, but heaven forbid he should ever actually <em>study</em> the stuff. If he had, he would have discovered that there are volumes upon volumes of rather sophisticated thought on the difference between, and the relationship among, feelings, thoughts, and beliefs. Perhaps he would disagree with it all. But the ridiculously naïve and unsophisticated (not to mention inconsistent; after all his talk about thoughts being the important thing, he’ll throw in an offhand comment about belief once in a while) model he proposes is rather an insult to the philosophers who have spent so much work on precisely these questions, as well as foolish, when all this work has been done that he could have access to to improve his vision. But that’s psychology for you; they’re actually doing jackleg philosophy, but they have to pretend it’s “science,” so they don’t need all those ivory tower “ideas.”</span></div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-51522340861493436221998-09-05T11:00:00.000-06:002008-03-21T09:34:04.654-06:00Gulf<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='http://books.google.com/books?id=zKj-AAAACAAJ'><img height='60' width='39' alt='45ebeb6709a02dff54601110.T.jpg' src='http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/images/45ebeb6709a02dff54601110.T.jpg'/></a> <br /> I have a problem with Gulf. Yes, Man, men, society, culture and language could be improved, but that’s no excuse for calling what went before “superstitious and ignorant.” We—they—did the best they could with what they had. So what if it wasn’t perfect? Newton was wrong; was <em>he</em> superstitious and ignorant? <span style='text-shadow: 1pt 2pt 3pt #000000;'>[In particular, was his scientific work superstitious and ignorant?—3/13/08 10:39 PM]</span> Bah. These sorts of delusions of grandeur will just get you into trouble. Remember, always remember, that just because you don’t understand why something is, doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason. Before you go calling the masses of humanity “stupid,” stop and ask yourself why, then, did they live so long. Everything has a reason. Stupidity—absolute, not relative–simply does not exist in normal humans. Before you go calling yourself a new race, I suggest you understand the old one.</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-39248679382078319091998-09-04T11:00:00.000-06:002008-03-13T22:24:06.665-06:00Seventh Son<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='http://books.google.com/books?id=BOwXQRKQXh0C'><img height='60' width='37' alt='FE8829D5-C612-11DC-AB0E-000A95CCE51A.jpg' src='http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/images/FE8829D5-C612-11DC-AB0E-000A95CCE51A.jpg'/></a> <br />by Orson Scott Card<br /><br />•p. 73:<br /> “…If Mama believes in God and Papa doesn’t, how do I know which is right?”<br />…“How do I know things like that, when Mama says one thing and Papa says another?”<br />…“Al, I got to tell you, I wisht I knew. Sometimes, I figure ain’t nobody knows nothing.”<br /><br /> I can understand a twenty-two-year-old (or anyone) not knowing the answer to this, and I certainly understand a six-year-old not knowing, but <em>I</em> know, and if Card doesn’t, this explains just about everything that bothers me about his work.<br /><br /><span style='text-shadow: 1pt 2pt 3pt #000000;'>[Thursday, March 13, 2008 9:38 PM: I don’t mean anything esoteric by this, just that if you don’t know what the truth is, about religious questions or anything else, you try to figure it out, by gathering evidence, weighing it, and trying to come to a conclusion using your powers of reason. This seems obvious, and it is, but it seems to me that for many people, it simply does not occur to them to use the same method they would use to answer any ordinary question to answer questions of religion or faith.]</span><br /><br />•p. 94: “He thought of writing down that thought, but decided against it. It had no traces on it save the prints of his own soul—neither the marks of heaven, nor of hell. By this he knew that it hadn’t been given to him. He had forced the thought himself. So it couldn’t be prophecy, and couldn’t be true.”<br /> Is this what Card believes? Is he truly that simple in matters of faith, probing and prodding, pushing at the boundaries of his belief but never allowing himself to question the center? Or—gasp—does he not believe at all, and set these traps within his works so only the very intelligent will see the flaws in the logic an begin to question their own beliefs, while anyone else simply sees a believing man asking intelligent, hard questions? He did say that he was strongly influenced by Ayn Rand, after all.<br /> Unfortunately as always, the most likely explanation is also the most mundane: He’s an intelligent believer who has many doubts, and these doubts and questions come out in his work. But I can always hope. He seems too intelligent not to see the flaws in his logic.<br /> Heres a case in point, the best example I’ve seen of him coming so close, then missing:<br /><br /> I’ll do the Wyrms thing later. That’s it, it has to be, the Ayn Rand theory is true. It’s a goddamn puzzle, and he’s done it again, just like in Wyrms: He’ll ask a question, give the wrong answer, and then, several pages later, give the right one! He’s smarter than I ever imagined. <span style='text-shadow: 1pt 2pt 3pt #000000;'>[I don’t think I ever did “the Wyrms thing.” I think I know what I was going to do, but I’ll have to reread the book to lay it out. Sometime. The below is the aforementioned case in point.]</span><br /><br />•p. 132: “Everything possible to be believed is image of truth. If it feels true to me, then there is something true in it, even if it isn’t all true. <em>And if I study it</em> out in my mind, then maybe I can find what parts of it are true and what parts are false, and—” [emphasis added]<br /> Which is the precise answer to the question that started this discussion, umpteen pages back. He goes on:<br />‘…if something just plain didn’t make sense to Alvin, he didn’t believe it, and no amount of quoting from the Bible would convince him.’</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-88831831384657935751998-09-02T11:00:00.000-06:002008-02-17T12:50:28.640-06:00Life<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>The first thing a person must do to gain control of his own life is to develop a view of how the world works and of his place in it.</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-76730551100955653841998-08-15T11:00:00.000-06:002008-01-22T17:43:36.338-06:00Science and Philosophy<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>I have finally decided that science and philosophy are worthless without each other. Science without philosophy—solid philosophy, not a scientist’s philosophy which says he can play with his toys for as long as he likes—is directionless and dangerous. It will provide solutions with no guarantee that the solution is not worse than the problem. Never any real answers. Philosophy without science is not really philosophy at all, because it’s not looking at the real world, only what sounds good or feels right. Only at the confluence can truth and answers be found.</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-79417854838615441941998-08-13T11:00:00.000-06:002008-01-20T12:24:29.321-06:00Insecurity<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Insecurity is a sane and normal reaction when you are changing or doubting your value system. It’s a mark of being true to yourself; your emotions telling you, “just because it makes sense doesn’t mean it’s right, and just because it seems right doesn’t mean it’s best for you!” Don’t deny, cover up or be ashamed of your insecurities. Face them. Understand <em>why</em> you’re insecure, <em>what</em> you’re afraid of, then examine whether that fear is legitimate. You’re not bad to be afraid, because it’s yourself you’re looking after, which is right!</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-66882183980850132521998-08-10T11:00:00.000-06:002008-02-08T09:28:21.843-06:00Science Magazine<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>The ideal science mag: Not much of a change from today, more a change in format.<br /><br />1. A science fiction story. This could flip between new stuff and good oldies, but all will be either <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction'>hard</a> (so the reader learns something about the world) or very speculative (so the reader is exposed to wild, yet not impossible theories). Occasionally you could do something sweet, like “<a href='http://authors.wizards.pro/books/titles/49258/dance-on-a-forgotten-shore'>Dance on a Forgotten Shore</a>,” to capture the emotions of science & discovery, but nothing too weird or convoluted. Clear, straightforward stuff. Length will be standard, not cut short for the format. In fact, you could even run novellas in serial.<br />2. An expository article every month. This would be nothing cutting-edge although it <em>might </em>(naah) be related to another article. Instead, it would explain in layman’s terms some fact or principle of science. The whole purpose would be to explain, not to inform. Asimov’s <a href='http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/Essays/f_and_sf_essays.html'>F&SF</a> articles are <em>exactly</em> what I’m talking about here. <em>Never </em>condescend, or attempt to speak to the common denominator. Presume intelligence but ignorance. Run the gamut, but try to include topics like “What is a Wave?” “What is the Scientific Method?” “What is a Spectroscope?” “How Does a Computer Work?” Also, articles on the history of science and engineering, biographies of historical scientists, mathematicians, etc., and engineering expositories—where the readers learn some principle they could actually use—would be good sometimes. How did <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_problems_solved_by_MacGyver'>MacGuyver’s</a> tricks work? Let’s stay away from current events—Newsweek can do those. Do <em>not</em> just gloss over to give a surface understanding. Don’t get technical, but cover whatever topic you’re discussing thoroughly. Again, Asimov is an excellent example.<br />3. Well-thought-out, in-depth articles. Let’s hire science fiction writers and editors, and real scientists and engineers to write these. Journalists and science writers always seem to have the wrong take. Explain the issues well enough so that the reader can decide for himself if a viewpoint is valid. If the subject is too complex or technical for that, give it a good once-over and refer the reader to more in-depth information either within or immediately following (and in the same size print as) the text. The Web would be an excellent way to do this, either by providing a much more in-depth article (not a replacement, though; I don’t think the current article text should be online) by the same author (preferred) or by posting related info by other people, and always providing links for further reading. Or you could refer them to scholarly journals, etc.</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-36127675628976047421998-07-05T11:00:00.000-06:002008-01-17T01:09:54.906-06:00The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB)<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='http://books.google.com/books?id=FFpYAAAACAAJ'><img height='60' width='38' alt='BE087B84-C259-11DC-9206-000A95CCE51A.jpg' src='http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/images/BE087B84-C259-11DC-9206-000A95CCE51A.jpg'/></a> <br />•p. 7: “…modern study of these books (the Pentateuch [the first five books of the Old Testament]) has revealed variations of style, and repetitions, and contradictions in the narrative, which make it impossible to ascribe the whole work to a single author.”<br /> If this is true, this is a complete killer to the idea of a bible code.<br /><br /><strong>Update: Saturday, January 5, 2008 9:34 PM<br /></strong>•See <a href='http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/journal/1998/06/cracking-bible-code.html'>Cracking the Bible Code</a> for my more recent thoughts on the Bible code subject.</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-20928816460131920571998-07-04T11:00:00.000-06:002008-01-17T01:08:12.488-06:00The Bible Code<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='http://books.google.com/books?id=Xn_zexRcTuwC&pgis=1'><img height='60' width='47' alt='9BCCD142-BC00-11DC-8BDC-000A95CCE51A.jpg' src='http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/images/9BCCD142-BC00-11DC-8BDC-000A95CCE51A.jpg'/></a> <br />•As absolutely astonishing as this letter-skip Bible code is, I am convinced that there is more even underlying that. There are <em>many</em> ways to encode text.<br /><br />•I <em>must</em> know if there are ancient Egyptian texts—the Book of the Dead, perhaps?—that show the same sort of coding.<br /><br />•p. 31: no. No, no way, absolutely not, no. I have had no problem with anything up to this point—there was nothing to have a problem with. It was all facts, no opinion—except with the authors’ opinion that Rabin’s murder could have been averted—which is the same issue I’m addressing here.<br /> Einstein—“The distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent.” Hawking—“Time travel might be within our capabilities in the future.” NO. Time travel is not <em>theoretically</em> impossible like creating matter or energy, it is <em>logically</em> impossible, like Mike (tho’ I disagree) says the sort of prophecy exhibited in the Bible code is, or like, if I understand it properly, Einstein says travelling faster than light is.<br /> No amount of change in our understanding of the Universe changes logic. What we call Time is merely duration, and duration is only change. Time I suppose, is simply the measurement of the rate of change versus some <em>other </em>rate of change (change being relative movement).<br /><br /><strong>Update: Saturday, January 5, 2008 8:51 PM</strong><br />•See <a href='http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/journal/1998/06/cracking-bible-code.html'>Cracking the Bible Code</a> for my more recent thoughts on the Bible code subject.<br /><br />•The discussion on Time is a little confusing. How I would say that now is that Time (or time; I’m not making a big deal about the capital letter) is a measurement of relative change, in the same way that Distance is a measurement of relative position.</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-39222220308938665291998-07-02T11:10:00.000-06:002008-04-19T16:49:05.781-06:00Story Idea<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>I just had an idea which would make an excellent—nay, superb—story. I was thinking about the effectiveness of capital punishment (while reading Brian Aldiss’ “<a href='http://www.brianwaldiss.com/html/saliva_tree1.html'>Danger: Religion!</a><span style='color: #0000EE;'>”</span>) and considering the fact that liberals (not to be denigrating; I was a liberal for many years) claim that statistics show that capital punishment does not deter capital crime. But they never explain <em>why</em> this should be so. I don't think they know. In fact, I don’t think <em>anyone</em> knows what <em>would</em> be a successful deterrent. The problem is that those who make laws for criminals are not criminals themselves and don't know what motivates or deters them. I don’t think anyone knows. I mean, you could ask the criminals what would work, but although this may provide some insight into the criminal mind, the vast majority of criminals are not very smart, and those that are would probably lie to you. So the only real way to find out would be to become a criminal yourself. I imagined myself going out, committing crimes—robberies and such—possibly with a gang of some sort, and coming “home” at night and writing down my feelings and thoughts. I imagined killing a policeman, and writing down my feelings of regret. This, along with notes from speaking to other criminals, would be compiled into a scholarly work of sorts. Of course, a collaboration of some kind would probably have to be established with a mainstream sociologist, who would present the work as his own, compiled from interviews with me and others. Otherwise, it would never be taken seriously. After all, who listens to criminals?<br /><br />Just remember, make this a work of imagination, not of fiction. Imagine what <em>you would do</em> and write it down.</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-68075881261482955301998-07-02T11:00:00.000-06:002008-01-17T01:37:40.976-06:00Historical writings<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'> Histories should be divided into two parts (not necessarily in the same work): narrative history and factual (factal?) or evidential history. The former is normal history: telling a tale, piecing together of facts within a framework of tapestry to weave a coherent and interesting story. <br /> The second or evidential history is a far more rigorous, scientific document. It delineates the facts gathered, the conclusions reached, the connections between, and—most importantly—the entire evidential chain back to its original sources, so that no conclusions are based on others’ data or conclusions without an understanding of how <em>they</em> reached their answers, so as to point up where errors may gave occurred, and to be able to understand not only the lineage and origins of the data (in order that the reader might draw her own conclusions) but also its degree of sureness and veracity <em>at every point</em>, thus giving first an indication of the likely accuracy of the current conclusions, and second a way of making apparent what of the conclusions must be called into question if any of the sources are proven wrong, without invalidating the entire work.<br /><br />I also believe that history writers, after completing their research, should read a book of their favorite fiction, or perhaps <em><a href='http://books.google.com/books?id=uIETEv37kDoC&pgis=1'>Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance</a></em>—which does an excellent job of expository philosophy while reading like a good novel—before writing their narrative history, so that they won’t write sentences like the above.</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-78214241497584179811998-06-23T11:00:00.000-06:002008-01-17T01:08:08.642-06:00Cracking the Bible Code<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='http://books.google.com/books?id=62ywHuwq4uIC&pgis=1'><img height='60' width='49' alt='8FFA9301-BC04-11DC-8BDC-000A95CCE51A.jpg' src='http://homepage.mac.com/calion/blog/images/8FFA9301-BC04-11DC-8BDC-000A95CCE51A.jpg'/></a> <span style='color: #000000;'/><br />• p. 83: This accuracy/inaccuracy in the Jewish Lunar Month is, although this will surely be ignored by everyone, the greatest confirmation—yea, <em>proof</em>—of my theory that the Torah is the product not of myth and mysticism, nor of God, but of an incredibly advanced <em>human</em> culture (the same logic also rules out aliens). The proof is simply this: The Jewish calculation was more accurate than anyone else's—in fact as accurate as theoretically possible without going into space—but it <em>was inaccurate</em>. God—or aliens—would have known the correct value. Unless the decoding was wrong, or the Moon has slowed since then, or the value somehow got changed by this insignificant amount (in God's name, <em>how</em>?), or the satellite data is somehow wrong, this is conclusive unless you are willing to accept God the liar or God the fool. I would very much like to know what the Egyptian values for this are.<br /> Indeed, the very fact that <em>only</em> the first five books of the Bible are encoded in this fashion is strong evidence to support my thesis. Of all the Bible—even of all known religious works—the books written by Moses are the only ones with this sort of coding. Why? Why would God never do this again? I say it is because it was Moses himself, not God, who composed the pentateuch and the code within, based on his great arcane knowledge he learned from the Egyptians (Much thanks to Graham Hancock and his <em><a href='http://books.google.com/books?id=utZWk9IcLwAC&q=sign+and+the+seal&dq=sign+and+the+seal&ei=mM2OR_6PLp7aiQGT8O2qBw&pgis=1'>The Sign and the Seal</a></em>, particularly chapters 12 and 13, for the inspiration for all of this).<br /><br /><br /><strong>Update: Monday, July 25, 2005</strong><br />I have come to the conclusion that the entire Bible Code is fraudulent. Though I haven't made an <em>extremely</em> extensive study of the matter, the very method that is used to find coded material (deciding what you want to find and then looking for it) pretty much shows the entire Code to be spurious. You can (and people have) find any number of things in a complex work like the Bible, but that doesn't mean that they're authentic or prophetic. The Code only tells us what we want to hear. What finally convinced me was a <a href='http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id=71160'>History Channel special</a> that, while it doesn't set out to debunk the Code, lays out far more clearly than the book mentioned above does the incredibly subjective and non-scientific way the Code's messages are "discovered." Too bad. And it fit in so nicely with Hancock too. <br /><br /><a href='http://www.reason.com/news/show/27715.html'>Reason.com</a> has some more information on the subject.</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1955658007056001229.post-85554108244549238631998-05-24T11:40:00.000-06:002008-01-16T23:34:03.151-06:00Slavery<br /> <div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Here is the test of slavery—is your work something you do of your own choice, or do you work for fear of punishment from other people? By this definition, nearly all children are slaves. It is also possible to be in a slavery situation of your own devising, where a simple choice will release you. No, members of the military are not slaves; they are indentured servants. They knew what they were doing when they signed up. Draftees, on the other hand, are slave warriors, unless they were given the choice to renounce their citizenship to avoid being drafted.</div><br /> Calionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11873204494424704333noreply@blogger.com0