One of the things I've been meaning to mention about Houston is that all day long songbirds serenade you. I don't mean that in the morning there is a chorus of small birds screaming at each other. What I mean is that all day long, (and two nights ago, all night as well) virtuoso songbirds run through an entire repertoire of melodies individually or in concert. Sometimes, usually in the early morning or evening cicadas accompany these multi-varied pieces with a solid, rhythmic drone.
If it wasn't for the omnipresent mosquitos that have evolved the ability to disregard mosquito repellent I would spend most of my days in a deckchair, with golden sunlight filtered through green leaves, serenaded by these birds.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Determinism.
Determinism is the philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition and behavior, decision and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences.
From, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism
I am a determinist, at least at the present I hold to the morally difficult, emotionally depressing, bummer of a philosophy of determinism. I think that every meaningful action in the macro-world (anything bigger than a couple of molecules) is determined, it must happen based on prior circumstances. This means that there is no choice about anything that you or anyone else has ever done in their lives throughout all of recorded history. Any action we take must be taken based on the environment. I think there are no random actions beyond the actions of the very, very tiny (and even then I'm not certain). Why do I think this?
I think this for two reasons. The Laws of Physics are universal and effect the very large and the very small and everything in between. These Laws are predictable, in that they occur in the same way every time. If x happens, y must result every time. When the electrical charge and chemical concentration in a synapse reach a certain point the synapse must fire. All thoughts, ideas and actions are electro-chemical events in the brain, and electro-chemical events happen because of the pre-existing conditions. At no point in this change is there an "I" that alters the event separate from the event. If, in a hypothetical world, we understood exactly how the brain works, and we had every single piece of informaton about the conditions of a brain, we could predict with absolute certainty what a person would decide in every situation. There is no actual free will.
A response to this position is often the solace in particle physics, in that the position and speed of very tiny particles can only be known statistically as probablilities. The location of an unimaginably small particle is a random event. This suggests to those wanting free will in the world (almost everybody, including myself) that this doubt is the area where free will comes into play. Somehow our will decides for the particle where it is. The experimental data that demonstrates that observation does actually make a decision for a particle on its location seems to back this up. When a conscious entity views a tiny, tiny particle it changes from having been a random distribution of possibilities to having a location. However, the macro-world, the world in which we live is made up of billions of these tiny particles. And all of these particles have statistical probabilities to them. With things that have very large numbers of actions with fixed probablities we can extremely accurately predict what will happen. If you roll a fair die a billion times you can very accurately predict what the outcome will be overall. One sixth of the time, to a very high degree of certainty, a six will be rolled. Any action in the macro-world is like rolling a fair die a billion times, we know what the result will be.
A further nail in the coffin of free will is that these mathematical equations in physics work just as well in either direction of time. In physics there is no reason to believe any more that causes produce results than results produce causes. If we believe that the past is fixed, that there was a history and nothing can be done to change it, in terms of physics the same can be said about the future. The future is as fixed as the past because it folows identical rules. Everything that happens in the Universe must happen.
What does this mean? In terms of our daily lives it means almost nothing because we never will have adequate data to accurately predict all actions of people. As such, an excellent approximation is the concept of free will. With limited information good estimations are made through application of the concept of free will. So that although we know that people have no choice in their actions, including ourselves, the best way to act is as if they have free will. Acting as if people have free will produces an environment in which people will behave in ways we wish, approximately.
However, it does put a complete end to the silly nonsense that any Creator would create the Universe, and give people free will, not knowing that everything in the Universe was decided by the very act of creation. A Creator that made the Universe decided every action that we will take. Complete proof that Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and any other judgement-based religion is at the core completely false.
From, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism
I am a determinist, at least at the present I hold to the morally difficult, emotionally depressing, bummer of a philosophy of determinism. I think that every meaningful action in the macro-world (anything bigger than a couple of molecules) is determined, it must happen based on prior circumstances. This means that there is no choice about anything that you or anyone else has ever done in their lives throughout all of recorded history. Any action we take must be taken based on the environment. I think there are no random actions beyond the actions of the very, very tiny (and even then I'm not certain). Why do I think this?
I think this for two reasons. The Laws of Physics are universal and effect the very large and the very small and everything in between. These Laws are predictable, in that they occur in the same way every time. If x happens, y must result every time. When the electrical charge and chemical concentration in a synapse reach a certain point the synapse must fire. All thoughts, ideas and actions are electro-chemical events in the brain, and electro-chemical events happen because of the pre-existing conditions. At no point in this change is there an "I" that alters the event separate from the event. If, in a hypothetical world, we understood exactly how the brain works, and we had every single piece of informaton about the conditions of a brain, we could predict with absolute certainty what a person would decide in every situation. There is no actual free will.
A response to this position is often the solace in particle physics, in that the position and speed of very tiny particles can only be known statistically as probablilities. The location of an unimaginably small particle is a random event. This suggests to those wanting free will in the world (almost everybody, including myself) that this doubt is the area where free will comes into play. Somehow our will decides for the particle where it is. The experimental data that demonstrates that observation does actually make a decision for a particle on its location seems to back this up. When a conscious entity views a tiny, tiny particle it changes from having been a random distribution of possibilities to having a location. However, the macro-world, the world in which we live is made up of billions of these tiny particles. And all of these particles have statistical probabilities to them. With things that have very large numbers of actions with fixed probablities we can extremely accurately predict what will happen. If you roll a fair die a billion times you can very accurately predict what the outcome will be overall. One sixth of the time, to a very high degree of certainty, a six will be rolled. Any action in the macro-world is like rolling a fair die a billion times, we know what the result will be.
A further nail in the coffin of free will is that these mathematical equations in physics work just as well in either direction of time. In physics there is no reason to believe any more that causes produce results than results produce causes. If we believe that the past is fixed, that there was a history and nothing can be done to change it, in terms of physics the same can be said about the future. The future is as fixed as the past because it folows identical rules. Everything that happens in the Universe must happen.
What does this mean? In terms of our daily lives it means almost nothing because we never will have adequate data to accurately predict all actions of people. As such, an excellent approximation is the concept of free will. With limited information good estimations are made through application of the concept of free will. So that although we know that people have no choice in their actions, including ourselves, the best way to act is as if they have free will. Acting as if people have free will produces an environment in which people will behave in ways we wish, approximately.
However, it does put a complete end to the silly nonsense that any Creator would create the Universe, and give people free will, not knowing that everything in the Universe was decided by the very act of creation. A Creator that made the Universe decided every action that we will take. Complete proof that Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and any other judgement-based religion is at the core completely false.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Birthday Musings.
Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 39, 3x13, and it was a beautiful day. Pools of golden sunlight, green growing gently, water running laughingly. It lead me to think what heaven might be, and my answer is a single golden day relived over and over, with the past and future muddy distances. A day of love and light, laughter and music, slow and meandering. A day without anything extraordinary but the perfection of ordinary things. Fresh baked bread, a breeze over water, smiles and jokes.
39. Thirty nine. No real meaning, just a number. Older than Alexander the Great or Jesus, younger than Lao-Tsu or Julius Caesar. I have thought more often recently as a result of my increasing age of my memory of my father at the same age that I am presently, because I can for the first time remember him at an age I am. Not to judge or compare, but simply to think about it, to know him better.
While driving in my SUV, stroking my wild red beard, with a black wolf in the back, mexican accordion music playing, on an infinitely wide and sunny Texan boulevard, I wondered, "How did I get here?" It's a ridiculous place to have got to from the painfully shy english boy I was. There's nothing wrong with ridiculous.
I am reading a book recommended to me by my darling wife. A book of India, with stories within stories, attitudes and philosophies changing depending on the situation of the story. I find myself while reading some books, and usually the better ones, becoming immersed in the mood and language of the book. I take the pace of the story, the flavour of the places, the character of the hero with me into the rest of my world. It changes the way I speak, what I notice, the decisions I make. How about you?
39. Thirty nine. No real meaning, just a number. Older than Alexander the Great or Jesus, younger than Lao-Tsu or Julius Caesar. I have thought more often recently as a result of my increasing age of my memory of my father at the same age that I am presently, because I can for the first time remember him at an age I am. Not to judge or compare, but simply to think about it, to know him better.
While driving in my SUV, stroking my wild red beard, with a black wolf in the back, mexican accordion music playing, on an infinitely wide and sunny Texan boulevard, I wondered, "How did I get here?" It's a ridiculous place to have got to from the painfully shy english boy I was. There's nothing wrong with ridiculous.
I am reading a book recommended to me by my darling wife. A book of India, with stories within stories, attitudes and philosophies changing depending on the situation of the story. I find myself while reading some books, and usually the better ones, becoming immersed in the mood and language of the book. I take the pace of the story, the flavour of the places, the character of the hero with me into the rest of my world. It changes the way I speak, what I notice, the decisions I make. How about you?
Friday, May 1, 2009
Decide to be Happy?
I hate affirmations. I hate the cheesy, Stepford wife desperation to be cheerful nature of them. I hate that the point is to trick you into feeling differently about things. But most of all what I hate about affirmations is that they might work. I don't know what it is about me but I hate being tricked into something, and how horrible that I would do it to myself?
In a similar vein I have always disliked those who say that you can choose to be happy. For one thing I think people who say things like that don't know what depression is actually like. But the main thing about it is that I think there's something to the concept of choosing to be happy, in that your happiness depends on how you approach things and how you look at life. It really does matter whether you consciously look for things to be happy about, or whether you are on the hunt for confirmation for your misery.
Yesterday I decided to stop doing things that were frustrating and annoying, tried to find things that I could feel good about, and then made sure to notice that I was feeling good about them. In this effort I then noticed a bunch of what might seem happy accidents that cheered me up too. From being up and about I ran across a number of people, just people in the post office and stores, who smiled and were helpful. I came across nice people who smiled at them, and I smiled back, and two people's days were a little better. After a couple of hours I was deliberately smiling because it made me feel better. By the end of the day I was in a very pleasant mood which remains today.
Smiling is an interesting thing. Most people think that you smile because you are happy, but it's more complicated than that. Smiling and feeling happy are inextricably linked, when we are happy we smile, and smiling makes us happy. It's like pulling on a string, you pull on one end and the far end has to move with it. It sounds ridiculous, but just try smiling for thirty seconds, if you don't feel better I'll be shocked. Frowning has the reverse effect, as does slumping your shoulders and letting your mouth be slack.
It annoys me to no end, but I think that it really does help a person who feels down to buck themselves up, look on the bright side and slap a smile on their face. But if you try telling me to do that when I'm grumpy I will bite your head off all the way to your knees.
In a similar vein I have always disliked those who say that you can choose to be happy. For one thing I think people who say things like that don't know what depression is actually like. But the main thing about it is that I think there's something to the concept of choosing to be happy, in that your happiness depends on how you approach things and how you look at life. It really does matter whether you consciously look for things to be happy about, or whether you are on the hunt for confirmation for your misery.
Yesterday I decided to stop doing things that were frustrating and annoying, tried to find things that I could feel good about, and then made sure to notice that I was feeling good about them. In this effort I then noticed a bunch of what might seem happy accidents that cheered me up too. From being up and about I ran across a number of people, just people in the post office and stores, who smiled and were helpful. I came across nice people who smiled at them, and I smiled back, and two people's days were a little better. After a couple of hours I was deliberately smiling because it made me feel better. By the end of the day I was in a very pleasant mood which remains today.
Smiling is an interesting thing. Most people think that you smile because you are happy, but it's more complicated than that. Smiling and feeling happy are inextricably linked, when we are happy we smile, and smiling makes us happy. It's like pulling on a string, you pull on one end and the far end has to move with it. It sounds ridiculous, but just try smiling for thirty seconds, if you don't feel better I'll be shocked. Frowning has the reverse effect, as does slumping your shoulders and letting your mouth be slack.
It annoys me to no end, but I think that it really does help a person who feels down to buck themselves up, look on the bright side and slap a smile on their face. But if you try telling me to do that when I'm grumpy I will bite your head off all the way to your knees.
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