The Ramblings of An Eternal Student of Life

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Religion ... Society ... Spirituality ...

There’s a recent article on the Science20 web site about atheists. The basic premise of the article is that pure atheists may not exist — because deep down in the subconscious, there exists a pre-programmed bias towards the notion that something in the universe is looking over us, something more than what we know thru our normal senses and our logical minds. The author summarized the article quite well up front, saying that “Cognitive scientists are becoming increasingly aware that a metaphysical outlook may be so deeply ingrained in human thought processes that it cannot be expunged.”

Atheism is generally a product of the thinking, rational part of the mind. Yes, the part that gave us science and the Enlightenment, mathematics and the French Revolution, antibiotics and the atom bomb, etc. This is strong stuff, and many people really go head over heels for the atheistic / positivist-rationalist point of view. Still, this point of view may never completely overcome something deep inside the mind and brain. According to the article, an atheist scientist, Graham Lawton, was quoted in New Scientist as saying “atheism is psychologically impossible because of the way humans think . . . even people who claim to be committed atheists tacitly hold religious beliefs, such as the existence of an immortal soul.

So, given that scientists themselves have found atheism to ultimately be psychologically impossible, are they about to give up on it? » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 8:39 pm Read Comments (3) / Leave a Comment

Saturday, July 12, 2014

◊ Cupcakes Going the Way of Spuds?

Food / Drink ... Photo ... Society ...

Here in the affluent suburbs of the United States, we live in a world of social trends — and not all of them wise or useful. Some of these trends are just trends for the sake of . . . well, for the sake of being trends. I.e., for giving people something to read about and then join in on and talk about with others.

One trend from the past 5 years or so has been the renewed popularity of the cupcake. Cupcakes are nice treats for kids, given their cravings for sweet stuff; you get a lot of icing and other sugary stuff (like multi-colored sprinkles) relative to the somewhat less sweet (but still VERY sugary) cake within the peel-off paper lining. Thus a cupcake usually packs more of a sugar-blast than a regular slice of chocolate cake on a plate (unless you get a side piece with plenty of icing). And you don’t need the plate, so you can run around with it and eat it where ever you wish. A very good feature for restless kids. So yeah, cupcakes were the perfect kid’s snack (at least from the perspective of kids themselves and their dentists).

Adults generally don’t crave cupcakes as much, being more reasonable and sedentary. But we reasonable adults are also subject to occasional bouts of nostalgia for the days of our youth, back when » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 11:52 pm Read Comments (3) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, July 6, 2014

◊ Jersey Boys, Corner Boys

Art & Entertainment ... Society ...

I just went to see Jersey Boys at the movies, i.e. the film follow-up to the popular Broadway play about the career of The Four Seasons. For the younger folk out there, the Four Seasons were a popular “hit parade” foursome from New Jersey who spanned the 1960’s, and who had a few more hit tunes in the 70’s and 80’s. They “broke out” in 1963 with a trio of do-wop style hits (Sherrie, Big Girls Don’t Cry, Walk Like a Man); but somehow they kept their finger on the pop-tune pulse for the rest of the decade, even as the “British Invasion” (Beatles, Rolling Stones, the Kinks) and the Woodstock generation (The Who, Jimi Hendrix, CSN&Y) revolutionized the radio waves and conquered the record racks.

The Four Seasons hit pipeline finally went dry after 1968, although they managed a few comeback hits after 1975 by banking towards a more showy “Las Vegas” style, and with slower emotional ballads. Actually, after 1965 the Four Seasons were less of a foursome and increasingly were a changeable back-up act for lead singer Frankie Valli. Valli has to be given a lot credit for being flexible and figuring out how to stay relevant in the big-music world in rapidly changing times.

(And of course, there’s always a quiet man behind someone like Valli. I never knew that much about the Four Seasons, as it was the Beatles that we kids memorized and idolized. So, it was only when I finally saw Jersey Boys that I learned about » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 4:51 pm Read Comments (3) / Leave a Comment

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

◊ Richard Rohr, Homeboy

Psychology ... Society ... Spirituality ...

I recently finished reading Franciscan friar Richard Rohr’s book “Falling Upward”. I’m not exactly within the Roman Catholic fold these days, not even at heart. I still see Jesus in a different way than even the most liberal Catholics try to see him. But nonetheless, having grown up in the Roman tradition and recognizing that is has been a force for much good in the world despite all the bad that it is also responsible for, I still feel some affinity to “groovy Catholic writers” like Rohr. His book tries to cheer up those of us who know that we are “over the hill” and are approaching the final phases of our life here on earth. He tries to say that if we can let go of the things that obsessed us in the early days of youth and young adulthood, and learn about the deeper things, our final years might be the best of all, despite all the decay and inevitable discouragement as we see our bodies fall apart.

But to be honest, much of what Rohr writes doesn’t stick with me. It’s sort of like cotton candy writing. Still, here and there Rohr makes a point that hits home with me. One of those points was about the idea of what “home” means to us. Turns out that “home” means a lot more than the particular place where we usually take shelter for the night. Home is a much bigger idea, and it has inspired various social bromides such as “a house is not a home” and “home is where the heart is”.

So Rohr includes a chapter on home and homesickness in Falling Upward. He claims that the “home idea” is » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 4:59 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, June 29, 2014

◊ How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Retirement (NOT)

Art & Entertainment ... History ... Personal Reflections ...

Not long ago at work, I told someone that I was “on the bomb run” for retirement. What I meant was that if I could get through another handful of years and if my luck really held up somehow, I might possibly be able to retire! Well, I’d probably still have to get a part-time job somewhere to make ends meet (and to get myself out of the house to mingle with people – admittedly, my job is probably 2/3 of my present social life, as I’m not a natural mingler). Nonetheless, I’m at the point where retirement is starting to become “imaginable”. (My cousin, who is my age, is less than 18 months out on his own “retirement bomb run”; he’s closer than me, and I hope he makes it!).

But who knows, a lot could yet go wrong, and I don’t want to jinx it. Nonetheless, the world is changing faster and faster, and my office is also changing; I’m getting tired of running faster and faster all the time just to stay in place. I feel like my best career days are behind me and it’s become less of a rat race and more like a rat inside a running wheel. So, I daydream more and more these days about retirement, and do various back-of-the envelope calculations to see if I could pull it off financially. Finances are a huge hurdle for many baby boomers these days; because of recession, job losses and lack of savings, many face the (grim) prospect of needing to work full time into their seventies.

So, I look at my present career and financial situation as though I’m “on a bomb run”. For those of you who aren’t fans of aerial combat, when a bomber airplane goes out on a mission and starts to get near the target where they will drop the bomb, the crew will initiate a procedure called “the bomb run”. » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 3:09 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

◊ Nuking Your Bread Dough?

Food / Drink ... Practical Advice ...

I will soon post a few thoughts on the 50th anniversary of the Stanley Kubrick’s “black comedy” film “Doctor Strangelove”. In this post, I will contest the notion that there was any real comedy in that film at all. At least not to anyone who ever had to consider the real possibility at some point in their life that they could get nuked! Literally!!! T’ain’t so funny then, McGee!!!

But before we launch the B-52’s, let me talk about a more domestic kind of “nuking”, and how I used a little shortcut over the weekend in a bread-baking project. I like to bake my own bread, especially since my own homebaked bread keeps the salt content low (for health reasons – and it tastes fine to me, a little more sweet and grassy than regular salty bread, but still bread). I make it by hand, as I don’t have a bread machine (no room left in my little apartment!).

Up to now I’ve followed standard bread recipes, where you first dissolve the yeast in a cup of hot water and sugar (around 110 degrees, I use a thermometer to get it right) and let it “proof” in the water for maybe 15 minutes. Then you pour that foamy blend into the flour bowl to start the mixing and kneading process. Or, you mix the yeast in with » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 1:31 pm Read Comments (3) / Leave a Comment

Saturday, June 21, 2014

◊ Hillary Clinton, VP 2016?

Politics ...

Relative to the next Presidential election, we’re still at a point where the conventional wisdom doesn’t mean much, where the unconventional could yet become the convention. Right now, the Democratic nomination is still Hillary Clinton’s for the asking. But some pundits have been doing thought experiments that challenge Hillary’s claim to the crown.

In a recent RCP article, Tom Bevan posed a list of 5 reasons why Hillary won’t (or shouldn’t) run. And to be honest, some of his reasons were pretty compelling. At bottom, Hillary isn’t such a good politician; she still gets uncomfortable in response to GOP carping about Bengazi, she becomes testy in response to challenging questions (such as the recent Diane Sawyer interview) and she has that habit of saying stuff that doesn’t play well (remember “what difference does it make”; a terrorist attack that killed top US diplomats doesn’t matter? Oh, and “we were dead broke”? After years of recession and millions who never got their jobs back?) She is not the skilled political figure that Bill Clinton was, and maybe still is.

(And now, according to a new book about the Clintons and Obamas called “Blood Feud”, Hillary’s health is worse than was thought, in that she is susceptible to blood clotting, fainting and stroke; admittedly, this could be GOP dis-information, but given the brain blood clot she previously experienced, the health question is another Hillary vulnerability.)

But HRC has a lot of assets too. She’s a strong centrist influence in a Democratic party swinging too far to the left to guarantee a plurality in a national election. And if she does NOT run, » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 10:30 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Monday, June 16, 2014

◊ My Viewership — The Sun Never Sets on Britannia

Web Site/Blog ...

I use wordpress.com stats for my blog, and I recently took a look at the worldwide breakdown of where my views originate (and presumably where my viewers live). Here is a partial breakdown covering the past year or so:

USA: 30.8%
United Kingdom: 13.3%
Canada: 11.2%
Australia & New Zealand: 8.0%
India: 5.5%
Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore: 5.0%

Is there any common thread here? Well, at least 72% of my traffic comes from former British Empire colonies (or in case of the Philippines, a former colony of a former colony). So, my blog is a British Empire phenomenon!!!! To the degree that a handful of hits a day could be said to reflect a “phenomenon” . . .

Nonetheless, Hail Britannia!!! Perhaps I should have a gin and tonic, that great British colonial drink, to celebrate!!!!

◊ posted by Jim G @ 4:22 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Friday, June 13, 2014

◊ Nanotech Trashes Human Race? (Or Good Old Fashioned Aggression?)

Science ... Society ...

I was talking about reviews of various things in my last post, so I will make another review tonight. This review involves an article in Real Clear Science, which in itself is a review of a conference report. The conference was about how humanity could go extinct by 2100. It was held in 2008 by the Oxford Future of Humanity Institute.

This report identified 8 main ways of getting rid of us, making estimates of each extinction risk occurring over the next 85 years. These risk estimates range from 0.03% to 5% (which is fairly high, actually; the top four possibilities together combine to 12%, which is more than one chance in 10; although it might be argued that these probabilities are not completely additive). The Institute’s doomsday scenarios can be broken down into three major factors: war (regular war at 4%, nuclear war at 1%, and nuclear terrorism at 0.03%); disease (natural pandemic at 0.05% and the bigger risk of engineered pandemic at 2%); and surprisingly, nanotechnology (nanotechnology accident at 0.5%; nanotechnology non-accident: i.e., weaponized nanoparticles acting as an artificial engineered pandemic, 5%).

Oh, and throw in the risk of some uncontrolled machine-based intelligence taking over » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 6:31 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

◊ A Simple Observation About Complexity

Science ...

Here’s an almost Tweet-able thought that I had while making dinner yesterday evening. I was listening to a CD lecture from the Teaching Company on “Big History”, and the big professor (David Christian, who is definitely a smart cookie) was repeating one of his usual “big themes” from big history. I.e., that since the Big Bang, new forms of stuff seem to emerge over time that have increasing ability to concentrate energy flows, grow larger, interact, and perpetuate themselves or reproduce themselves. This applies (in something of a procession) to molecules, gas clouds, stars, planets, microbes, plants, animals, humans, tribes, villages, and civilizations. As things increase their abilities to concentrate energy and make their mark on reality, they tend to get more and more complex.

Ah yes, complexity!!! Another Teaching Company course subject. It makes me wonder . . . is there something fundamental about complexity, something inherent to it that causes things to be more able to gather more energy and do more stuff . . . or is complexity more of a side-show, more of an incidental thing? I tend now to believe the latter. If you had the talents and tools to build a wristwatch from scratch, you would appreciate how complex a wristwatch is. And yet, with those same tools and materials, you could build something else terribly complex that wouldn’t do anything.

And so, complexity doesn’t necessary bring more functionality. You can have complex things (like works of sculpture art) that can’t » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 3:38 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

TOP PAGE - LATEST BLOG POSTS
« PREVIOUS PAGE -- NEXT PAGE (OLDER POSTS) »