2010 « The Ramblings of An Eternal Student of Life

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

◊ Socrates Café, Montclair: May 11 Report

Aspergers ... Socrates Cafe ...

The Socrates Cafe question of the evening – Is Morality Deeply Rooted in Empathy?

The initial impressions were favorable; morality is strongly tied to empathy. But what is empathy? Most of the group appeared to be conflating empathy, the ability to detect and understand another person’s mindset, with sympathy, which is a positive and favorable feeling towards the other person and their mindset. A late-arriving participant cut thru the fog and made the distinction. I finally threw in my .02, that morality is close to sympathy, but would not necessarily emerge from empathy in and of itself.

This question interests me given that I have certain behavioral and cognitive patterns that can be associated with Asperger Syndrome; mostly regarding my lack of EMPATHY. I am clearly not an “empathic” person; I have a hard time picking up clues about what is going on in another person’s mind. Once I get to know someone, I get a general sense; but for strangers or people that I am just starting to know, I am “mind blind”. So does that make me an immoral person? And thus, does that make all Aspies, people who are mostly “mind blind”, immoral?

I’d like to think not. I may not be a saint » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 7:45 pm Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

Monday, May 10, 2010

◊ Mother’s Day Dinner

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My brother decided to take his girlfriend Diane and me out to dinner yesterday, as to celebrate Mother’s Day. It was a dual tribute, both to Diane who has two daughters, and to our own mother who died last October. Yes, it was a table for four, with one empty seat. Sort of a ‘missing (wo)man formation’.

But dinner was nice. I had eggplant parmigana with some veggies, plus that dubious yam mash on the left side (which would have been much better without butter and milk; just a bit of olive oil and brown sugar could have made it ‘sing’). My brother ordered a promising bottle of Stag’s Leap merlot, as seen on the right. However, this wine had a dry, gravely, tannic feel to it; not at all like the big, rich, fruit-driven Napa Valley libations that I’ve come to love.

But we drank it (and my brother paid too much for it). The day still went well. There’s still something good about being at a table with people, food and drink, even if all three possess their imperfections.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 7:25 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Friday, May 7, 2010

◊ Some Cosmological Super-S.W.A.G.

Outer Space ... Science ...

As a fan of cutting-edge physics and cosmology, I look out for quirky little discoveries and speculations by scientists as to what these quirky discoveries MIGHT mean. Most of them turn out not to mean much, but once in a blue moon some odd little thing signals the eventual overthrow of a whole way of looking at – well, looking at the Universe! E.g., back in the mid-19th Century, astronomers knew that something was a bit off with their observations of Mercury. They were still using Newtonian physics, whereby they needed the more sophisticated Einsteinian relativity theories to predict what light and gravity would do on larger scales like solar systems. And those theories eventually came along, and changed the Newtonian world of absolute coordinates and timeframes into the relativistic worldview that Einstein requires.

So, I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow after reading an article about the non-dilation of time in recent quasar observations. Time dilation is the crazy effect of clocks going slower on a system moving at very high speeds (perhaps close to light-speed) relative to the system where the observations are being made. E.g., the example given in many physics books regards twin brothers, one who stays on earth all his life and the other who blasts off in a super-rocket at age 20, loops around the Milky Way at near-light speed, then returns to earth 50 years later. The earth brother is now aged 70; the rocket man brother was subject to time dilation, and thus might only be 10 years older (this varies, depending on just how fast that rocket was cruising); he really does still have the body of a 30 year old!

Well, the astrophysicists now say that something’s not right with quasars; » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 10:19 pm No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

◊ The Love Hormone Cure?

Aspergers ... Brain / Mind ...

As I have noted previously, I share some behavioral characteristics that could be identified with Asperger Syndrome; i.e. relative difficulty and clumsiness in relating with other people. (I.e., it takes more effort for me in dealing with others, as I don’t possess natural grace; but I generally like people so I try to make the effort, nonetheless). Thus, I’ve taken an interest in this condition.

Whether I could be formally diagnosed with Aspergers hasn’t been terribly important to me, however, given that nothing can be done for an adult Aspie other than have some therapist talk you to death while simultaneously bleeding your savings to death. An occasional vacation or spending spree with the money seems to have more “supportive bang for the buck”; for me, anyway.

I see, however, that researchers are experimenting with » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 7:58 pm Read Comments (3) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, May 2, 2010

◊ Visit to Piermont

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I had a nice visit with my friend Marty up in Piermont, NY yesterday. We took an afternoon walk in nearby Tallmans State Park, where I snapped this pic of the river marsh on the edge of town. You can also see the remains of the old New York and Lake Erie Railroad pier jutting out into the Hudson, where train passengers from up-state used to transfer to and from the steamboats south to Manhattan. That was about 150 years ago. Today the pier serves as a popular recreation park, which Marty frequents whenever he needs some peace-of-mind. Which, like most intelligent and socially concerned individuals, is all the time!

◊ posted by Jim G @ 11:25 am Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Friday, April 30, 2010

◊ Some Ethical Crap

Socrates Cafe ...

There was a nice turn-out at Socrates Café last Tuesday evening, with 11 people (including myself) ready for some thoughtful discussion. We had two new faces and nine veterans (or semi-veterans, in my case), and the topic dejure involved ethics and ethical conduct. Specifically, what are the ethics of responding to someone who irks you, who is creating a nuisance in your life. Just how far can you go in responding; just how much do you have to put up with before taking drastic actions to defend your turf and your peace of mind? Just how dramatic can you get?

The group quickly developed three real-life scenarios based upon inconsiderate neighbors. One involved a neighbor who had ten wandering cats; another involved an unchained, unfenced German shepherd; the third involved an apartment parking lot where a rude tenant appropriated another tenant’s space with his boat trailer. Too many people, unfortunately, just don’t seem to care about the misery they impose on those around them. We shared stories regarding angst and frustration in dealing with such people, about how legal remedies and due process seemed to accomplish little when the perpetrator just wants to be obnoxious. So what should be done about such people, from a philosophical perspective regarding government, society and “the good life”?

Actually, we didn’t get into that. After some lamentations » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 10:02 pm No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

◊ Energy Future Not Necessarily Green

Economics/Business ... Public Policy ...

President Obama has repeatedly offered a vision for the future of America’s economy. He talks a lot about “green energy”, i.e. non-fossil fuel energy (or renewable carbon sources) that will take the place of the dirty fossil fuels on which our economy depends (and which cause global warming). He tells us that green energy is the economic sparkplug for the future; in creating a green energy infrastructure, we will create a vast number of new jobs and economic opportunities for American businesses. We can thus avert the crisis envisioned once “peak oil” is reached (perhaps in 20 to 40 years), and save the planet from climate catastrophe to boot. Sounds great!

Unfortunately, it may not work. Most green energy sources have BIG problems and drawbacks attached to them. There was a good article recently in the Washington Post (of all places) about this. It turns out that both wind and solar power will require vast expanses of land and the construction of thousands of miles of transmission lines (since the places where the sun shines the most and the wind blows the most are very far from the population centers where power is needed.) There will be plenty of environmental consequences from that alone. Next, because the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow, we will still need back-up power sources that can run anytime; most likely, good old fossil fuel plants.

Furthermore, both solar and wind power need rare earth elements that are mined in one place – » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 9:08 pm No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

Sunday, April 25, 2010

◊ X-37B . . . W.T.H.?

Outer Space ... Public Policy ...

There’s a lot of buzz amidst the aerospace crowd these days about the X37B, a new satellite system being developed by the US Air Force. The Air Force has been involved in plenty of different military satellites, so what makes the X37B so new and different? Well, actually, it’s that the X37B is NOT so new and different; when you see it, the first thing you say is that ‘I’ve seen this before’. Basically, the X37B looks like a smaller, non-piloted version of the Space Shuttle. Although it is launched a bit differently than the Shuttle was, it will glide back to earth after its mission and land on an airplane runway, and then be re-used, just like the Shuttle.

Many space program analysts regard the Space Shuttle as a failure in both engineering design and in economic realities. It was supposed to make traveling into low earth orbit with humans and cargo both safer and cheaper than the old Apollo, Gemini and Mercury capsules, which were all one-use only. The Shuttle supposedly made more sense by being re-usable. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out to be either safer or cheaper. The Russian space program tried out a shuttle-like ship, but decided to stick with its tried-and-true Soyuz capsule. And the American manned space program has now turned back to the old capsule on top of booster rocket design (even though NASA’s Ares-Orion rocket program has been canceled, its possible replacement for low earth orbit missions, the commercial Dragon / Falcon rocket from SpaceX, is also a classic capsule and booster). So why is the Air Force messing around with an (assumedly) unmanned mini-Shuttle?

They aren’t saying right now. The X37B is sort-of a “dark” project. But it has a lot of money behind it and the first test flight went off last week. » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 8:24 pm No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

◊ Are We Governable In Kind(ness)?

Socrates Cafe ...

At last night’s Socrates Café session in Montclair, we talked about government. The kick-off question regarded China – why did China embrace Communism in the 20th century, given all the cruelties that resulted in Maoist times? Why hadn’t the Chinese people embraced a governing system which more fully integrated the values of the Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist heritage? Why couldn’t there have been a Buddhist governing system in China, a kinder and gentler kind of governing system?

Interesting questions. The group (about 6 people that night) rallied to the intellectual challenge as usual. In the initial volleys, we came to an agreement that Buddhism doesn’t lend itself to governing a billion or so people. Buddhism, at least as we westerners imagine it, is more a philosophy for individual existence than for collective regulation. Perhaps there have been instances of Buddhist government — one member pointed out that the Dali Lama dynasty ruled Tibet until the Chinese Communists (them again!) invaded in 1950. In fact, there are Buddhist monks today who still have an axe to grind with the present Lama (who set up protests in places where he gives talks). Ah, politics.

(Read this article about political Buddhism and civil war in Sri Lanka; it can get just as ugly under Buddhism as under any other -ism.)

We then pondered the notion that Communism, in its pure state » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 8:13 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, April 18, 2010

◊ SPRING and THE CITY

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Nuthin’ much here, just some springtime foliage with Manhattan in the hazy backdrop. I love the reds and yellows of autumn, but to me there’s still nothing like the yellow-green renewal of life in springtime.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 12:31 pm No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

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