For archiving purposes:
On April 20th 2007, I broke thumb around10pm. I had it checked April 22 (Sunday), even though I didn't think it was broken, only severely swollen.
At Brookhaven, it took 2-3 hours for a doctor to walk in a room for me, look at my bruised, swollen thumb, and tell me nothing. A female came in and splinted me with what I'd call a quarter-cast (plaster cast on thumb side only, bandaged on), then left. Another female came in to get me to sign papers saying I had an x-ray.
I asked her what was up, and she's the one who says, "Oh, the doctor didn't tell you that you've got a fractured thumb?"
No.... thanks ?
Tuesday, I saw an orthopedist, and was casted. I at least saw my x-rays and was told that the fracture wasn't that bad, although I might have arthritis later. This, though, was by the aid/Physicians assistant. I HOPE it was a P.A.
Not once did I speak with a doctor to my content.
30 April 2007
...thier most precious possession.
"That's what real love amounts to — letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending — performing. You get to love your pretence. It's true, we're locked in an image, an act — and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it, they feel like you're trying to steal their most precious possession."
-Jim Morrison
-Jim Morrison
What a book should be...
"What we need are books that hit us like most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than we love ourselves, that make us feel as though we had been banished to the woods, far from any human presense, like a suicide.
A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us."
-Franz Kafka
A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us."
-Franz Kafka
Samuel Adams, (1722-1803) Founding Father
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
Baloney Detector
From http://skepticreport.com/tools/baloney.htm ,
Baloney Detection Kit
In his book, "The Demon-Haunted World", Carl Sagan provides tools for skeptical thinking. This excellent list is a strong tool to weed out the bad seeds in science.
Quoting ad verbatim:
Tools
* Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the "facts".
* Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
* Arguments from authority carry little weight - "authorities" have made mistakes in the past.
They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
* Spin more than one hypothesis.
If there's something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among "multiple working hypotheses," has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you have simply run the with first idea that caught your fancy.
* Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours.
It's only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don't, others will.
* Quantify.
If whatever it is you're explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you'll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are thruths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.
* If there's a chain of argument,everylink in the chain must work (including the premise) - not just most of them.
* Occam's Razor.
This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
* Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified.
Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle - an electron, say - in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result.
Fallacies
* Ad hominem.
Latin for "to the man", attacking the arguer and not the argument. E.g., The Reverend Dr. Smith is a known Biblical fundamentalist, so her objections to evolution need not be taken seriously.
* Argument from authority.
E.g., President Richard Nixon should be re-elected because he has a secret plan to end the war in Southeast Asia - but because it was secret, there was no way for the electorate to evaluate it on its merits; the argument amounted to trusting him because he was President; a mistake, as it turned out.
* Argument from adverse consequences.
E.g., A God meting out punishment and reward must exist, because if He didn't, society would be much more lawless and dangerous - perhaps even ungovernable.
Or: The defendant in a widely publicized murder trial must be found guilty; otherwise, it will be an encouragement for other men to murder their wives.
* Appeal to ignorance.
The claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa. E.g., There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore UFOs exist - and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe.
Or: There may be seventy kazillion other worlds, but not one is known to have the moral advancement of the Earth, so we're still central to the Universe.
This impatience with ambiguity can be critized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
* Special pleading.
Often to rescue a proposition in deep rethorical trouble.
E.g., How can a merciful God condemn future generations to torment because, against orders, one woman induced one man to eat an apple?
Special plead: You don't understand the subtle Doctrine of Free Will.
Or: How can there be an equally godlike Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the same person?
Special plead: You don't understand the Divine Mystery of the Trinity.
Or: How could God permit the followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - each in their own way enjoined to heroic measures of loving kindness and compassion - to have perpetrated so much cruelty for so long?
Special plead: You don't understand Free Will again. And anyway, God moves in mysterious ways.
* Begging the question.
Also called assuming the answer. E.g., We must institute the death penalty to discourage violent crime. But does the violent crime rate in fact fall when the death penalty is imposed?
Or: The stock market fell yesterday because of a technical adjustment and profit-taking by investors. But is there any independent evidence for the causal role of "adjustment" and profit-taking; have we learned anything at all from this purported explanation?
* Observational selection.
Also called the enumeration of favorable circumstances, or as the philosopher Francis Bacon described it, counting the hits and forgetting the misses. E.g., A state boasts of the Presidents it has produced, but is silent on its serial killers.
* Statistics of small numbers.
A close relative of observational selection. E.g., They say 1 out of 5 people is Chinese. How is this possible? I know hundreds of people, and none of them is Chinese.
Or: I've thrown three sevens in a row. Tonight I can't lose.
* Misunderstanding of the nature of statistics.
E.g., President Dwight Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence.
* Inconsistency.
E.g., Prudently plan for the worst of which a potential military adversary is capable, but thriftly ignore scientific projections on environmental dangers because they're not "proved".
Or: Attribute the declining life expenctancy in the former Soviet Union to the failures of communism many years ago, but never attribute the high infant mortality rate in the United States (now highest of the major industrial nations) to the failures of capitalism.
Or: Consider it reasonable for the Universe to continue to exist forever into the future, but judge absurd the possibility that it has infinite duration into the past.
* Non Sequitur.
Latin for "It doesn't follow". E.g., Our nation will prevail because God is great. But nearly every nation pretends this to be true; the German formulation was "Gott mit uns". Often those falling into the non sequitur fallacy have simply failed to recognize alternative possibilities.
* Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
Latin for "It happened after, so it was caused by". E.g., Jaime Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila: "I know of...a 26-year-old who looks 60 because she takes [contraceptive] pills."
Or: Before women got the vote, there were no nuclear weapons.
* Meaningless question.
E.g., What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? But if there is such a thing as an irresistible force there can be no immovable objects, and vice versa.
* Excluded middle, or False Dichotomy.
Considering only the two extremes in a continuum of intermediate possibilities. E.g., Sure, take his side; my husband's perfect; I'm always wrong.
Or: Either you love your country or you hate it.
Or: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
* Short-term vs. long-term.
A subset of the excluded middle, but so important I've pulled it out for special attention. E.g., We can't afford programs to feed malnourished children and educate pre-school kids. We need to urgently deal with crime on the streets.
Or: Why explore space or pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?
* Slippery slope.
Related to excluded middle. E.g., If we allow abortion in the first weeks of pregnancy, it will be impossible to prevent the killing of a full-term infant.
Or, conversely:If the state prohibits abortion even in the ninth month, itwill soon be telling us what to do with our bodies around the time of conception.
* Confusion of correlation and causation.
E.g., A survey shows that more college graduates are homosexual than those with lesser education; therefore education makes people gay.
Or: Andean earthquakes are correlated with closest approaches of the planet Uranus; therefore - despite the absence of any such correlation for the nearer, more massive planet Jupiter - the latter causes the former.
* Straw man.
Caricaturing a position to make it easier to attack. E.g., Scientists suppose that living things simply fell together by chance - a formulation that willfully ignores the central Darwinian insight, that Nature ratches up by saving what works and discarding what doesn't.
Or - this is also a short-term/long-term fallacy - environmentalists care more for snail darters and spotted owls than they do for people.
* Suppressed evidence, or half-truths.
E.g., An amazingly accurate and widely quoted "prophecy" of the assasination attempt on President Reagan is shown on television; but - an important detail - was it recorded before or after the event?
Or: These government abuses demand revolution, even if you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Yes, but is this likely to be a revolution in which for more people are killed than under the previous regime? What does the experience of other revolutions suggest? Are all revolutions against oppressive regimes desirable and in the interests of the people?
* Weasel words.
E.g., The separation of powers of the U.S. Constitution specifies that the United States may not conduct a war without a declaration by Congress. On the other hand, Presidents are given control of foreign policy and the conduct of wars, which are potentially powerful tools for getting themselves re-elected. Presidents of either political party may therefore be tempted to arrange wars while waving the flag and calling the wars something else - "police actions," "armed incursions," "protective reaction strikes," "pacification," "safeguarding American interests," and a wide variety of "operations," such as "Operation Just Cause." Euphemisms for war are on of a broad class of reinventions of language for political purposes. Talleyrand said, "An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public".
Postlude
Carl Sagan, astronomer and storyteller extraordinaire, showed how Nature and science could be explained so everyone could understand it. He was truly one of a kind.
He will be sorely missed.
Baloney Detection Kit
In his book, "The Demon-Haunted World", Carl Sagan provides tools for skeptical thinking. This excellent list is a strong tool to weed out the bad seeds in science.
Quoting ad verbatim:
Tools
* Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the "facts".
* Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
* Arguments from authority carry little weight - "authorities" have made mistakes in the past.
They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
* Spin more than one hypothesis.
If there's something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among "multiple working hypotheses," has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you have simply run the with first idea that caught your fancy.
* Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours.
It's only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don't, others will.
* Quantify.
If whatever it is you're explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you'll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are thruths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.
* If there's a chain of argument,everylink in the chain must work (including the premise) - not just most of them.
* Occam's Razor.
This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
* Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified.
Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle - an electron, say - in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result.
Fallacies
* Ad hominem.
Latin for "to the man", attacking the arguer and not the argument. E.g., The Reverend Dr. Smith is a known Biblical fundamentalist, so her objections to evolution need not be taken seriously.
* Argument from authority.
E.g., President Richard Nixon should be re-elected because he has a secret plan to end the war in Southeast Asia - but because it was secret, there was no way for the electorate to evaluate it on its merits; the argument amounted to trusting him because he was President; a mistake, as it turned out.
* Argument from adverse consequences.
E.g., A God meting out punishment and reward must exist, because if He didn't, society would be much more lawless and dangerous - perhaps even ungovernable.
Or: The defendant in a widely publicized murder trial must be found guilty; otherwise, it will be an encouragement for other men to murder their wives.
* Appeal to ignorance.
The claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa. E.g., There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore UFOs exist - and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe.
Or: There may be seventy kazillion other worlds, but not one is known to have the moral advancement of the Earth, so we're still central to the Universe.
This impatience with ambiguity can be critized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
* Special pleading.
Often to rescue a proposition in deep rethorical trouble.
E.g., How can a merciful God condemn future generations to torment because, against orders, one woman induced one man to eat an apple?
Special plead: You don't understand the subtle Doctrine of Free Will.
Or: How can there be an equally godlike Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the same person?
Special plead: You don't understand the Divine Mystery of the Trinity.
Or: How could God permit the followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - each in their own way enjoined to heroic measures of loving kindness and compassion - to have perpetrated so much cruelty for so long?
Special plead: You don't understand Free Will again. And anyway, God moves in mysterious ways.
* Begging the question.
Also called assuming the answer. E.g., We must institute the death penalty to discourage violent crime. But does the violent crime rate in fact fall when the death penalty is imposed?
Or: The stock market fell yesterday because of a technical adjustment and profit-taking by investors. But is there any independent evidence for the causal role of "adjustment" and profit-taking; have we learned anything at all from this purported explanation?
* Observational selection.
Also called the enumeration of favorable circumstances, or as the philosopher Francis Bacon described it, counting the hits and forgetting the misses. E.g., A state boasts of the Presidents it has produced, but is silent on its serial killers.
* Statistics of small numbers.
A close relative of observational selection. E.g., They say 1 out of 5 people is Chinese. How is this possible? I know hundreds of people, and none of them is Chinese.
Or: I've thrown three sevens in a row. Tonight I can't lose.
* Misunderstanding of the nature of statistics.
E.g., President Dwight Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence.
* Inconsistency.
E.g., Prudently plan for the worst of which a potential military adversary is capable, but thriftly ignore scientific projections on environmental dangers because they're not "proved".
Or: Attribute the declining life expenctancy in the former Soviet Union to the failures of communism many years ago, but never attribute the high infant mortality rate in the United States (now highest of the major industrial nations) to the failures of capitalism.
Or: Consider it reasonable for the Universe to continue to exist forever into the future, but judge absurd the possibility that it has infinite duration into the past.
* Non Sequitur.
Latin for "It doesn't follow". E.g., Our nation will prevail because God is great. But nearly every nation pretends this to be true; the German formulation was "Gott mit uns". Often those falling into the non sequitur fallacy have simply failed to recognize alternative possibilities.
* Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
Latin for "It happened after, so it was caused by". E.g., Jaime Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila: "I know of...a 26-year-old who looks 60 because she takes [contraceptive] pills."
Or: Before women got the vote, there were no nuclear weapons.
* Meaningless question.
E.g., What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? But if there is such a thing as an irresistible force there can be no immovable objects, and vice versa.
* Excluded middle, or False Dichotomy.
Considering only the two extremes in a continuum of intermediate possibilities. E.g., Sure, take his side; my husband's perfect; I'm always wrong.
Or: Either you love your country or you hate it.
Or: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
* Short-term vs. long-term.
A subset of the excluded middle, but so important I've pulled it out for special attention. E.g., We can't afford programs to feed malnourished children and educate pre-school kids. We need to urgently deal with crime on the streets.
Or: Why explore space or pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?
* Slippery slope.
Related to excluded middle. E.g., If we allow abortion in the first weeks of pregnancy, it will be impossible to prevent the killing of a full-term infant.
Or, conversely:If the state prohibits abortion even in the ninth month, itwill soon be telling us what to do with our bodies around the time of conception.
* Confusion of correlation and causation.
E.g., A survey shows that more college graduates are homosexual than those with lesser education; therefore education makes people gay.
Or: Andean earthquakes are correlated with closest approaches of the planet Uranus; therefore - despite the absence of any such correlation for the nearer, more massive planet Jupiter - the latter causes the former.
* Straw man.
Caricaturing a position to make it easier to attack. E.g., Scientists suppose that living things simply fell together by chance - a formulation that willfully ignores the central Darwinian insight, that Nature ratches up by saving what works and discarding what doesn't.
Or - this is also a short-term/long-term fallacy - environmentalists care more for snail darters and spotted owls than they do for people.
* Suppressed evidence, or half-truths.
E.g., An amazingly accurate and widely quoted "prophecy" of the assasination attempt on President Reagan is shown on television; but - an important detail - was it recorded before or after the event?
Or: These government abuses demand revolution, even if you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Yes, but is this likely to be a revolution in which for more people are killed than under the previous regime? What does the experience of other revolutions suggest? Are all revolutions against oppressive regimes desirable and in the interests of the people?
* Weasel words.
E.g., The separation of powers of the U.S. Constitution specifies that the United States may not conduct a war without a declaration by Congress. On the other hand, Presidents are given control of foreign policy and the conduct of wars, which are potentially powerful tools for getting themselves re-elected. Presidents of either political party may therefore be tempted to arrange wars while waving the flag and calling the wars something else - "police actions," "armed incursions," "protective reaction strikes," "pacification," "safeguarding American interests," and a wide variety of "operations," such as "Operation Just Cause." Euphemisms for war are on of a broad class of reinventions of language for political purposes. Talleyrand said, "An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public".
Postlude
Carl Sagan, astronomer and storyteller extraordinaire, showed how Nature and science could be explained so everyone could understand it. He was truly one of a kind.
He will be sorely missed.
Chaos v. Order
"The idea that order and chaos are at odds seems to be an echo of the good/bad, God/Satan, Grinch/Santa dualistic thinking that humans are supremely adapted to, as one might expect of an animal that evolved surrounded by "bad" things like hunger, predators, cold, etc.
The real spiritual challenge for such a thinking being is to overcome such instinctive responses to see that all forces in the universe act in concert. It's not that there are no forces that are "bad" for us; it's that these forces just ARE, regardless of how they affect us, and that we can adapt to, and operate healthfully in, a universe that is a balance of these forces.
We don't have to conquer or eliminate those aspects of ourself that are bad for us (that is, that are "evil"). We just have to see that our limitations include a susceptibility to those forces. If we understand the background of our being, we don't have to fight it by dividing and pigeon-holing our reality into friendly and unfriendly parts.
We can live and work with all of the parts, so long as we understand that some of those parts can burn us. Three year olds get burned by hot stove burners, but we've learned to live with these evil things because we understand them well enough to play it safe."
-"Lightning Joe"
That's the challenge we face, in understanding the universe.
The real spiritual challenge for such a thinking being is to overcome such instinctive responses to see that all forces in the universe act in concert. It's not that there are no forces that are "bad" for us; it's that these forces just ARE, regardless of how they affect us, and that we can adapt to, and operate healthfully in, a universe that is a balance of these forces.
We don't have to conquer or eliminate those aspects of ourself that are bad for us (that is, that are "evil"). We just have to see that our limitations include a susceptibility to those forces. If we understand the background of our being, we don't have to fight it by dividing and pigeon-holing our reality into friendly and unfriendly parts.
We can live and work with all of the parts, so long as we understand that some of those parts can burn us. Three year olds get burned by hot stove burners, but we've learned to live with these evil things because we understand them well enough to play it safe."
-"Lightning Joe"
That's the challenge we face, in understanding the universe.
Bread
Michael Barraco once posted, "Bread is often a 'gateway' food item, leading the user to 'harder' items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts."
Pious Rape
'I will put Chaos into fourteen lines'
I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there; and let him thence escape
If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape
Flood, fire, and demon --- his adroit designs
Will strain to nothing in the strict confines
Of this sweet order, where, in pious rape,
I hold his essence and amorphous shape,
Till he with Order mingles and combines.
Past are the hours, the years of our duress,
His arrogance, our awful servitude:
I have him. He is nothing more nor less
Than something simple not yet understood;
I shall not even force him to confess;
Or answer. I will only make him good.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
I took this poem apart last semester in school, for our poetry analysis requirement. I liked it at first, but after tearing it apart I liked it even more. It helped me realize why good poetry and other forms of communication are also a part of 'the arts'.
I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there; and let him thence escape
If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape
Flood, fire, and demon --- his adroit designs
Will strain to nothing in the strict confines
Of this sweet order, where, in pious rape,
I hold his essence and amorphous shape,
Till he with Order mingles and combines.
Past are the hours, the years of our duress,
His arrogance, our awful servitude:
I have him. He is nothing more nor less
Than something simple not yet understood;
I shall not even force him to confess;
Or answer. I will only make him good.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
I took this poem apart last semester in school, for our poetry analysis requirement. I liked it at first, but after tearing it apart I liked it even more. It helped me realize why good poetry and other forms of communication are also a part of 'the arts'.
The most merciful thing in the world...
H. P. Lovecraft once wrote,
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
True/False/Useful
Seneca the younger once exclaimed, "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."
The same river, twice.
"Other men are unaware of what they do when they are awake just as they are forgetful of what they do when they are asleep."
"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."
-Heraclitus
Freedom is under attack.
"Let them call me a rebel and I welcome it, I feelHenry Rollins - Freedom Is Under Attack
no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery
of demons were I to make a whore of my soul."
-Thomas Paine
Cagliostro the Great
"Theres is no restraint that isn't self-imposed: You are all absolutely free."
"There is no governor anywhere; You are all absolutely free."
"There is no governor anywhere; You are all absolutely free."
Constantin Brancusi
"To create like a God, rule like a king and work like a slave."
Brancusi was a Romanian artist who mythically walked to France to study sculpting there. Upon arrival he was disappointed with the work of Rodin. He felt that Rodin was too keen on the external reality of figures, and that artists should be concerned with internal beauty and reality, what he called essence
"Real is not external, but real is the essence."
You can see this in one of his very popular and well known sculptures, Bird in Space.
Brancusi was a Romanian artist who mythically walked to France to study sculpting there. Upon arrival he was disappointed with the work of Rodin. He felt that Rodin was too keen on the external reality of figures, and that artists should be concerned with internal beauty and reality, what he called essence
"Real is not external, but real is the essence."
You can see this in one of his very popular and well known sculptures, Bird in Space.
Never assume malice when stupidity will suffice.
Finagle's Law - The perversity of the Universe tends to the maximum.
Finagle's 1st fundamental finding - Every string which has one end also has another end.
Finagle's 5th fundamental finding - The variables vary too much and the constants are constant enough.
Hanlon's Razor, a corollary of Finagle's law, is an adage which reads: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Also worded as: Never assume malice when stupidity will suffice.
Hofstadter's Law - It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law. "Behind its whimsical façade, Hofstadter's Law is a profound statement of the difficulty of accurately estimating the amount of time it will take to complete tasks of any substantial complexity."
Finagle's 1st fundamental finding - Every string which has one end also has another end.
Finagle's 5th fundamental finding - The variables vary too much and the constants are constant enough.
Hanlon's Razor, a corollary of Finagle's law, is an adage which reads: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Also worded as: Never assume malice when stupidity will suffice.
Hofstadter's Law - It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law. "Behind its whimsical façade, Hofstadter's Law is a profound statement of the difficulty of accurately estimating the amount of time it will take to complete tasks of any substantial complexity."
Escape your will.
"Escape your will."
This is a snippet of advice that results from my readings of Arthur Schopenhauer. It's a command you may use inspirationally, but it may have no meaning without background information and works of Schopenhauer. (Maybe try Wikipedia for a quickie)
This is a snippet of advice that results from my readings of Arthur Schopenhauer. It's a command you may use inspirationally, but it may have no meaning without background information and works of Schopenhauer. (Maybe try Wikipedia for a quickie)
"Everyone takes the limit of his own vision for the limits of the world."
"If in everyday life, you are asked about continued existence after death by one of those people who would like to know everything but refuse to learn anything, the most appropriate and approximately correct answer is: 'After your death you will be what you were before your birth.' For this answer implies that it is preposterous to demand that a species of existence which had a beginning should not have an end; in addition, however, it contains a hint that there may be two kinds of existence and, correspondingly, two kinds of nothingness."
The universe is in change, life is an opinion.
"When you call someone ‘untrustworthy’ or ‘ungrateful,’ turn the reproach on yourself. It was you who did wrong. By assuming that someone with those traits deserved your trust."
"The universe is in change, life is an opinion."
"The mind in itself wants nothing, unless it creates a want for itself; therefore it is both free from perturbation and unimpeded, if it does not perturb and impede itself."
"If you are distressed by any external thing, it is not this thing which disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now."
"Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear."
"It is in our power to refrain from any opinion about things and not to be disturbed in our souls; for things in themselves have no natural power to force our judgments."
"If you work at that which is before you, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you were bound to give it back immediately; if you hold to this, expecting nothing, but satisfied to live now according to nature, speaking heroic truth in every word which you utter, you will live happy. And there is no man able to prevent this."
"Everywhere and at all times it is in your power to accept reverently your present condition, to behave justly to those about you, and to exert your skill to control your thoughts, that nothing shall steal into them without being well examined."
"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment"
Epictetus
"First, decide who you would be. Then, do what you must do."
"Never call yourself a philosopher, nor talk a great deal among the unlearned about theorems, but act conformably to them. Thus, at an entertainment, don't talk how persons ought to eat, but eat as you ought. For remember that in this manner Socrates also universally avoided all ostentation. And when persons came to him and desired to be recommended by him to philosophers, he took and recommended them, so well did he bear being overlooked. So that if ever any talk should happen among the unlearned concerning philosophic theorems, be you, for the most part, silent. For there is great danger in immediately throwing out what you have not digested. And, if anyone tells you that you know nothing, and you are not nettled at it, then you may be sure that you have begun your business. For sheep don't throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digesting their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk. Thus, therefore, do you likewise not show theorems to the unlearned, but the actions produced by them after they have been digested. "
"Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of one's desires, but by the removal of desire."
"Nothing outside the will can hinder or harm the will; it can only harm itself. If then we accept this, and, when things go amiss, are inclined to blame ourselves, remembering that judgment alone can disturb our peace and constancy, I swear to you by all the gods that we have made progress."
"Man is disturbed not by things, but by the views he takes of them."
"If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone."
"Every person must deal with each thing according to the opinion that he holds about it."
"He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has."
The End of Faith...
The End of Faith, Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason. - A recorded Sam Harris lecture.
Also, I read about half of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, but I got mixed up in finals and other school work. So far, very helpful and well argued. But then again, I wasn't a believer in the first place. I do firmly believe in the powers of science, though, and it seems he uses logic, reasoning, and all those yummy treats of human consciousness to his advantage.
I particularly enjoy the moral/being "good" part.
I still find it hard to explain myself when in the face of religious questioners. I guess I should read the book a few times over so I have got the information in memory banks for future use, and I really understand the reasoning why I un-believe what I do.
Also, I read about half of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, but I got mixed up in finals and other school work. So far, very helpful and well argued. But then again, I wasn't a believer in the first place. I do firmly believe in the powers of science, though, and it seems he uses logic, reasoning, and all those yummy treats of human consciousness to his advantage.
I particularly enjoy the moral/being "good" part.
I still find it hard to explain myself when in the face of religious questioners. I guess I should read the book a few times over so I have got the information in memory banks for future use, and I really understand the reasoning why I un-believe what I do.
Ethnosphere Collapsing
A Talk with Wade Davis - In this stunning talk, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis celebrates the extraordinary diversity of the world’s indigenous cultures, many of which are disappearing, as ancestral land is lost and languages die. (50 percent of the world’s 6000 languages are no longer taught to children.) Against a backdrop of extraordinary photos and stories that ignite the imagination, Davis argues that we should be concerned not only for preserving the biosphere, but also the “ethnosphere,” which he describes as “the sum total of all thoughts and dreams, myths, ideas, inspirations, intuitions brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness.” An anthropologist and botanist by training, Davis has traveled the world, living among indigenous cultures. He’s written several books, including
The Serpent and the Rainbow and Light at the Edge of the World. (Recorded February 2003 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 22:44)
The Serpent and the Rainbow and Light at the Edge of the World. (Recorded February 2003 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 22:44)
Wilde
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person," observed Oscar Wilde. "Give him a mask and he'll tell you the truth."
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