Because I wrote the last post so long, I forgot to mention that beating children because of specific actions can be counterproductive – if a person is disallowed something, the more that person wants it (generally; if it is something to be wanted).
As a compensation, you get
[0] <= Because hyperlinks in the heading are not exactly logical.
Some people[1] bug me. They just do.
Sure, having girlish sons or boyish daughters can cause distress for the family. After all, it reduces the probability of continuing the bloodline. For some reason, gay couples tend not to have direct descendants…
But propagating violence towards little children is rather irrational in my oh-so-humble opinion. This is for several reasons.
Firstly, how do you make sure the child understands why he/she has been scolded? Sure, you could explain a single ‘symptom’ of ‘gayness’ or whatever it could be called. But all the other ‘symptoms’ go unexplained so a physical punishment hardly helps. Not to mention that punishment without proper explanation is as good as punching a stranger in the face. Only good for relieving stress, but not really helpful for the stranger.
Secondly, how do you explain the perils of gaydom? You can’t simply say ‘because it is the Devil’s work’. Well, you can, but you cannot explain why it is so. You can’t even prove *that* it is so. Besides, if you’re talking about the Devil, and by that you mean Lucifer, then let’s not forget who he really is – merely a minion of God. And not just a minion, if God was there first and everything was created by God, then Lucifer is a creation of God. If God is absolute good, how could he/she/it create absolute evil? It can’t, or he/she/it would not be absolute good. Hence if Lucifer is not absolute evil (or God is not absolute good), gayness also has to be relative. And to prove that it is on the ‘evil’ side of the scale is quite a challenge. With this point, I reach yet another point.
Thirdly, why punish physically? To ensure the memory remains as a scar for the rest of the child’s life? To increase the probability of the child growing up mentally disturbed? In any case, it hardly seems practical. Logical explanation should be more effective, though teaching logic to children may cause them to doubt faith, and that can’t be allowed, right?
So all in all, some people[2] just bug me. They just do.
So, instead of thinking about beating up little children (or actually doing it), enjoy a little video with an awesome ‘Death Note’ costume.
Why climb the Everest?
Because it is there?
I would say it is a little too expensive to do ‘just because’, really I’d prefer a Porsche[1]. And it is not just climbing up a nice mountain alone, it is walking in like with a few hundred people, all heading for the top[2]. With this much trouble and cost, not to mention the danger, why do it? ‘Just because’ sounds awfully insufficient. And with so many people doing it, climbing the Everest is nothing special in the big picture. Sure, it is a slightly different from the average day, and it sounds like a perfect place for a walkabout, but it also sounds unreasonable unless under influence of strong spiritual reasons. Then again, why listen to the spirit, when you could be listening to the brain?
I have no doubt it would be awesome at the top, but then what?
Come down, return to the daily life?
It is a similar problem with perfection – once it is reached, there really is nowhere further to go…
Enjoy the groovy music and slightly-wtf trailer. Yes, it was a real movie.
Meat pies. Meat pies. Meat pies. Human meat pies.
Why not? Meat pies made of real human meat. Perhaps a possible outcome of human cloning (aside from the obvious breakthroughs in cloning technology, medicine, et cetera), perhaps a side effect of overpopulation. Sure, ‘slightly’ immoral, and a little risky, but otherwise healthy.
Biologically speaking, we get energy from almost anything we eat. What we need besides energy is ‘building blocks’ – chemical compounds that our body can use to build, rebuild and/or restore itself. Most of these compounds come from the food we eat. Some foods lack certain ‘building blocks’ that other foods have, but there is a food that pretty much every single substance we need to survive and develop – common man. He has already synthesized all the substances we would be creating anyways, eating him would basically mean using his body’s work for our own benefit. Since he needed the very same substances we do (before his early demise), we get all the substances we need from a single food – human meat pies. There are naturally a few exceptions where the chemical compounds break down before or during our digestive process, in which case those compounds can be rebuilt, as the materials for it, the results of the breaking down, are still in the food. A very efficient way of eating.
Sure, there is some risk of human diseases (such as the one that made waves killing the Kara tribe, though as much as I understand, that was caused by people eating the brains), but pretty much the same risk exists when eating any other food. Common sense dictates we cook the meat, we boil the eggs. We do that for a reason, and not just to make it easier to digest. Cooking and boiling is a very efficient method of killing bacteria and other ‘evil’ life forms in the food. So the risk of catching an illness from human meat pies should not be any higher than catching a similar disease from pork pies.
The morality of it can be questioned, especially because finding the suitable human meat (it has to volunteer, right?) can be rather difficult. If it tastes bad, add ketchup. Also, I am not saying you should start killing people to make meat of them, I am just stating the obvious – it is not as bad as people think. But it ain’t exactly good either.
And yes, this is because of Sweeney Todd.
So, the news about Eurovision are in. Yes, the terrible, horrible, absolutely dismaying news. Iceland and Denmark hardly got any points, despite their awesome songs. Well, at the very least, I am not the only one who was reminded of Kosh when first shown Albania’s performance.
Yes, I just personalized a country, sue me.
So, on the (semi)existence of God. First of all, who is God?
Let’s say he is the Catholic God that directs our every move and punishes disobedience. One guy that plays The Sims with our planet. One single almighty being that ensures our continued existence until such a time that he grows weary of us because of our sins. In this case, his existence is hardly probable. To think that such a being is all alone is like saying God and Doctor Who share a past (killing off their own species). Not to forget that God exists because of faith. That is why he cannot prove he exists.
A fun sidefact: if Adam and Eve had obeyed God and not eaten from the tree of wisdom, the Bible wouldn’t have been written and Christianity per se would not exist. It would be more like a Nazi containment camp.
Anyways, getting back to the subject, if God really were perfect, then why would he be alone? If he cannot be proven to exist without not existing, could he really exist? If he commands us, how do we tell? If he cannot be certain we get his/her message, why is it justified to punish us with natural catastrophes? If God is unjust, can he, as a perfect being, really exist? I don’t think so.
But it is when a wider approach is taken, where God’s existence can be quite reasonable. God, for an atheist, is indefinable – you cannot deny something you ‘know’ not to exist. (check Gettier problem)
Chinese have a God or patron saint for almost everything. Hardly what we would call a God in the ‘western’ world. Not to mention other Asian religions; Gods of small tribes in Africa and other places. God can be defined differently from how we are used to. Since every religion already does that and those definitions tend to violently conflict with every other religion’s definition, perhaps it is better to compromise.
Well, if God is but one of many, and instead of controlling our every move, they may influence our lives knowingly or unknowingly. Basically the ‘ant’ situation, where the party we talk of is quite beyond our ability to comprehend. It is quite reasonable to assume through induction that if we exist, and we are further developed than other species we are aware of, then there are species further developed than us. I refuse to believe that this resource-hogging planet-burning life-wasting fact-fearing species we call human is the best the Universe has to offer. According to such a definition of God (a group of greater beings we cannot at all or can very hardly comprehend in any way, who may or may not be aware of us), Gods probably exist. Supported by the Gettier problem, I choose to ‘know’ Gods as such exist and Gods as else don’t. I have actual reason to think so and I believe so, hence I know. For all intents and purposes for me, that is a fact.
Naturally one could define God is such a way it would exist, perhaps even equalling it with man. But that is perverting the ‘idea’ of God a little too much. A God is something greater than man, not just common man (otherwise a genius could be considered a God, which perhaps I would not mind, but it does not sound quite right either). God is something or someone that we can look up to in awe, that can give us hope, that can do and be more than us. Something or someone beyond heaven. And that is in compliance with my previously proposed definition.
So, the next time you ask me whether I believe that God exists, be ready to offer a definition. Because God probably exists, depending on the definition at hand. Then again, there are those who do not wish to learn, but only acquire simplified ‘facts’ that may or may not be true, relevant, useful, or significant.
The search for truth must come from ourselves. There are no right answers in certain pseudosciences, for instance philosophy or psychology. There are probably answers, true, but what is true for one is false for another (unless the claim in view is a blunt, basic one). Every person should find his or her own truth, nobody else can dictate the truth. But everyone can share their opinions and create a discussion, through which more and more probable claims can be perfected and developed.
Way better than the people performing for Russia this year:
Disputes are fun, I can protect the side I am not on for a greater purpose – to reach a comprehensive conclusion. Basically if a death that saves more lives than would be lost in the case of the lack of the death is considered a positive event, human cloning maybe perhaps possibly could in some way be moral. Figures.
Anyways, soon I shall write about the existence, or more accurately, semi-existence of God.
As your keen sense of observation may already have noticed, the blog has reverted to the ‘simple’ design format, wherein comments are de facto visible and the side projects thing is not tucked away somewhere. While the previous format was also aesthetically pleasing to the eye, it lacked both snippets and, I’ll be honest here, I like comments.
What still bugs me is the lack of a real dynamic format. Why does the width of the blog and the sidebar have to be defined? Why can’t the width be defined relative to each other (as they together make up the whole width), which would enable the page to be viewed normally (edge-to-edge) on wider screens as well as narrow. I admit, I have a very sweet screen with a width of 1980 pixels, and I would prefer to use the whole screen. And if I am indeed watching something or reading something or doing anything else but reading what I’ve written (yes, I sometimes do that, it is very entertaining to find out what I’ve written), I still want the page to be used maximally. That means when I resize the browser (Opera or IE), I want the page to respond to the change. But it does not.
“Everything that can be interpreted as moral can be interpreted as immoral.
Everything that can be interpreted as immoral can be interpreted as moral.
The interpretation depends on the person in question, his culture, his way of thinking.
Morality, as a whole, is therefore based on the lack of absolute values, there are no zeroes and ones (as per binary), there are always fractions.
As a corollary, morality cannot define any value of any action. If cannot do that, what's the point of it?”
And now, some real entertainment: Dima Bilan showing off his “Waterloo”. To be just, he is not adept at English (as most people are not adept as Russian), and he might not know the exact lyrics, so it is understandable. But funny as hell.
I am no more the mask than the face underneath it, or the muscles underneath the face. Under this mask is not my face, it is the face of another. A person I do not know and probably will never know. It is the face of things that were.
We are what we were, what we experienced, what we learned. We are the past that shapes the future. We are the dreamers, shapers, singers and makers. We are abstract. We are magical.
In continuation of the topic at hand, I must mention that we also lost Remington Steele and James Bond some time ago as well. That was a shame, a real shame.
After Steele ended and Bond went blonde, there were no more stylish pro- or antagonists. Sure, you might think of the guy in Mentalist, but even he isn’t quite the pickle. Nowadays the men with ‘charm’ are similar to the cops in Hawaii Five-O, or basically blonde-Bond. But the depth of those characters is gone.
People don’t ‘get’ the characters so well. We don’t need shallow everyday Americans, we need real characters. People that are more than the average Joe or chav. We need something different. We need something exceptional, something really special.
Also, why did they kill the Bond charm anyways? I understand they got an actor that does not fit the old role well but was it really easier to kill the real Bond and create a new persona than to switch the actor?
And if you still believe that this Bond is supposed to be the same Bond that Brosnan, Connery, Lazenby, Dalton et alii portrayed, think again. The current M was basically an accountant that got promoted during Bond’s good times. Now it is Bond’s beginning and she is already the boss. Time travel or a new character? A new character. Not to mention the absence of Q, who would be a vital ally for any top-notch classy spy (not that Bond was ever doing much espionage except when pumping for information, he has always been more of a hands-on guy, meaning assassinations and sabotage).
Though I must admit, Casino Royale explains it quite well. Universal Exports needed to keep the legend alive. Everyone knows that James Bond is very adept and foiling evil-doers’ plans. So to avoid a crimewave by evil masterminds after Bond’s retirement or death, they created a new James Bond. Then again, that movie also had all this in it:
Though let’s be honest, Woody Allen was not James Bond, he was Jimmy Bond, James’s relative.
“You were looking at gibberish for 20 minutes. Look, you wanna do that, swing by my place some time, and I'll show you some 20th century television.”
The decadence of modern television is remarkably curious. Recently, FOX announced they would stop airing and funding any science fiction or fantasy series. SciFi literally changed its name to distance itself from the genre. There are no more large projects like Stargate, Star Trek or Babylon 5 were. There are no more funny perky shows like ‘I dream of Jeannie’ or ‘Get Smart’. There are no more sharp political satire shows like ‘Yes, (Prime) Minister’. Sure, The Daily Show tries to keep the tip up, but even that suffers from lack of material.
Everything is in small packages now. I mean, what is with the seasons of 6 short episodes? Why not have 24 full-length (45-minute) episodes per season, after all, it takes time to tell a good story. Anyone can create a short story and tell it in a few hours, it takes a creative genius to tell a story that lasts through 16 hours of awesomeness, constant tension and interesting side- and subplots.
I guess perhaps we lack those geniuses nowadays.
Either that or they don’t get the appropriate funding.
And that is probably a fault of overproduction. With so much stuff being produced, a single show cannot hog itself a huge budget. That means tons of low-budget stuff that does not really shine with excellent quality.
I tried watching ‘Game of Thrones’, I really did. It had fantasy, it had violence, it had sexual encounters. Basically everything to make it a success on cable. But I could not find the spark, the great line of inspiration, the vast potential character growth. It was just it, fantasy, violence, and sex. Tons and tons of it. But nothing that would make it stand out from basically any other thing on cable.
Death comes to us all, it is a natural part of life. It is the end of the cycle, the terminate command at the end of a program, it is the shadow that opposes the light.
It is impossible to predict our actions in times of great pressure, a star could cower in the corner, and coward could be the only one with the guts to do what is necessary. It is the moment before death that might be the most significant moment of our lives. And that is rather logical, if our lives were an upward path, leading up to a single big event. They are not.
But should we be concerned about death before that moment? I would say not actively, perhaps passively, if at all.
Let’s be honest, you are going to die. Get used to it. Eventually. All those science projects that claim you will probably live past 100 years say it is a possibility and exclude all possible illnesses and accidents that shorten one’s lifespan. The fact that it is possible does not mean that it is certain, not to mention probable. As you know, “There is no certainty, only opportunity.”. So yes, you will most probably die within 80 years, there is no denying that. Unless you produce a formula that guarantees eternal life. Tiny chance.
So it is an inevitable event that we fear. Sounds ridiculous, and yet reasonable.
Some people say that laziness is a vice that should be avoided. Sure, due diligence has its perks but laziness is not absolutely evil. After all, motivated laziness can be even better than doing everything the usual way.
Motivated laziness is a catalyst for innovation. Being lazy means wanting to do as little as possible. However, since there are things that must be done and things that one wants to get done, laziness might work against that. Being lazy also means wanting to do things with the least amount of effort, hence doing things the most effectively. And it is precisely that wish that is the driving force behind innovation. To do things more effectively than other people, one must change the method of doing things. Finding algorithms to minimize work while maintaining the quality of the result is quite a fascination for me as it allows me just linger while getting everything truly necessary done and then some. It is laziness that keeps me from working too hard and it is motivation that keeps me working. A perfect harmony.
Perhaps you should try it?
I don’t even know what this is or how it got to Eurovision but really, why the hell not?
It strongly reminds me of Israel’s “Push the button” from a few years back. Though that one was a lot more energetic and less comprehendible.
After pondering about ethics, it is nearly impossible to avoid concluding the uselessness and irrationality thereof. After all, the rules of morality don’t give us definite answer for every single action. Case in point, human cloning. Extremely practical in that science needs experiments and research subject. It could help solve genetic mysteries and create cures for syndromes cause by genetic defects. It could help create people with enhanced senses or abilities, once we know what each gene does. It is like copying a piece of program code for personal use and then fiddling with it to see how exactly it is supposed to work. After all, that is what we are, mere organic computers. And yet there are some pesky ‘pro-human’ activists that claim that human cloning and human experimentation are immoral, even if done to benefit the society more than just marginally. Researching the inner workings of DNA-strands is in accordance with categorical imperative, the Golden Rule and utilitarian views – after all, it benefits a lot more people than it harms, it can be considered a rule – everyone who is able should try to find out more about the fundamental workings of organisms such as humans, and I, personally, would like to be cloned if that means getting a chance at using that clone for my and/or others’ benefit. After all, cloning is pretty much harmless to the original organism. Low risk, high reward, small chances. As always, “There is no certainty, only opportunity.” Hence I do not understand the immorality of helping mankind, me included.
Overpopulation is another matter, though even mass murder can be explain morally. The lack of mass murder means the problem becomes bigger, thus causing a decline of living conditions for a huge amount of people (not everyone can be fed or housed, for instance). It could also ultimately lead to the demise of the human race as a whole, or at the very least, reboot the system quite thoroughly. In any case, it will get a lot worse before it can get any better. Mass murder, on the other hand, vacates room and resources to supply the ones still living. I am not talking about killing everyone, just enough to keep overpopulation under control – the fewer dead, the more often it has to be done. This way a large majority of human population benefit from the action while a minority lies down and dies. After death, they probably don’t really care about it anyways. It is also in accordance with the aforementioned categorical imperative as by causing mass murder, it is, in essence, trimming the fat of the human race. Anything that bulges over the edge, or the population limit, gets rid of, abolished, removed, expunged, eliminated, eradicated, exterminated! And keeping overpopulation under strict control can be willed to become a rule. And yet there are pesky ‘pro-human’ activists that claim mass murder is immoral, even if done to benefit the human society as a whole more than a little more than merely marginally.
A third example is the case of drug addicts being paid for not reproducing. It is yet another case of trimming the fat of humankind. The fewer people reproduce, the less the problem of overpopulation grows. Not to mention that this way the children of drug addicts will not become a nuisance for the society. Completely moral in the big picture. And yet there are… you know the drill.
For some reason we ‘know’ that human cloning is immoral, we ‘know’ mass murder is immoral, we ‘know’ that paying drug addicts for basically no work is immoral. But it cannot really be competently explained. Hence morality is an irrational beast that has arbitrary value. It is something we heed, although it is very often illogical and inexplicable. These are the situations where a person has to choose the road he walks, listen to the brain, or listen to the heart. Partly listening to both is extremely hypocritical.
I am not saying morality is bad, I am saying it fogs things up. It always has.
I am also not saying that we should all start killing each other randomly. I mean, an unorganized mass murder will do a lot more harm than an organized one, a strong dictatorship is always better than anarchy. And let’s not forget, the question has not been definitely been solved so no definitive action can be taken.
Seriously, don’t kill random people, especially not me. I’m serious.
Oh I have a great topic[1]. Is it ethical to pay drug addicts to get sterilized?
Well, the obvious pro-argument is the fact that drug addicts are generally a nuisance to the society. They drain resources while not really creating any value. They are vermin, they live on the society’s account. Therefore it would be reasonable to stop them from multiplying. The less vermin, the less stress on the society.
Secondly, they are drug addicts. Drug addicts. They can’t think clearly, they have a necessity. How could they possibly take care of a child? The child would most probably grow up in substandard living conditions, be offered for adoption or in the worst case scenario (possibly the worst in some way) left for dead. That can’t be good, unless one considers the argument of overpopulation.
However, some think it would be unethical somehow. It does not appear to conflict with the Golden Rule, categorical imperative or utilitarian views, which does not really speak for the argument of morality (or the lack thereof). Therefore those people who find it immoral consider the Darwinian perspective – how to preserve as many fellow humans as possible in the present. More on that once I’ve slept on it.
Application is annoying. Just simply annoying.
You can tell them you don’t have Abitur, they will ask for the points of your Abitur.
You can tell them you have yet to graduate, they will ask for the grades of your final exams.
You can tell them you are not German, they won’t ask for language qualifications… yet.
I guess their application portal is still a WIP, though I am puzzled why they wouldn’t just use last year’s stuff. Perhaps they had the same situation last year as well, I don’t have the necessary information to assess that.
Though, if it baffles me, I feel sorry for those who are not as proficient as me, though it is possible that I am overthinking everything and simple thinking is what is expected.
Then again, if they really expect simple thinkers, what would the reason for it be? After all, it is not a field of study where simple thinking can get you very far, analytical and thoroughness are pretty much vital. Perhaps they wish to teach those skills themselves, so that there would be no ‘male logic’ vs. ‘female logic’ conflicts. Ah, who knows?
Also, for some reason I think this year’s Eurovision is going to be fun. You know, LT United and dancing babushka kind of fun. Though Jedward has lost a lot of its charm. No more playfulness. The same tragedy that happened to Lena – after making it really big, they lose what made them big. They lose the fun, the spark, the spunk, the playful, slightly mischievous spirit. And that is sad.
Though some trippy songs try to make up for the playfulness with apparent creativity crisis and bland lyrics. Yay.
First they built the road
Then they built the town
That's why we're still driving around
And around and around and around and around
And around and around and around...
Vicious circles in logic and general thinking are likely to occur when one thinks too much. Circular logic is not so bad, though. However, “it is only the appearance of sanity that is important.”, in that sure, you can build a circular road and go the distance, but as long as you keep it looking like there is a small settlement in the middle of it, nobody will bother you with it. At any rate, I do not believe anyone’s thinking can be quite circular. Perhaps curved, but never quite bent. Rarely broken, but never bent.
This topic is here just because I had to talk about it a few days ago.
Animal experiments are sometimes cruel, they cause uneasiness for several humans. Should they be banned internationally?
No.
Very simply, that is the answer. You might not concur, but let me explain. One can first say that not all experiments on animals are harmful to the animals. That would be enough if there was complete control over the experiments. Officials do not know the details of every experiment, they cannot know whether the experiments are harmful. Not to mention animal welfare is a mystery for all of us as animal psychology is a science that has had little success for absolute definition purposes.
So, for absolute border definition purposes I propose the following: products for animals can be experimented on animals. After all, to experiment dog food, there really is not substitute for a test group other than dogs. Any products meant for humans (such as make-up and drugs) can be tested on humans. Voluntarily and most probably paid, naturally. This would help insure the suitability of these products for the target group. After all, human testing for drugs exists for this purpose. The initial drugs are not tested on humans though. And that is quite unfair.
After all, humans are merely animals, just mammals. “Hurling your bodies into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out there. If you had known anything about the true nature of the Universe, anything at all, you would’ve hidden from it in terror.” (Emperor Ming from “Flash”).
And another thing holds true as well, from Calvin and Hobbes: “Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the Universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.”
It is human nature to destroy. Then let’s give scientists that chance to trim the hedge a little legally.
To stress it, I am not anti-human, I am simply not quite confident in mankind’s supremacy.
The song is rather beautiful, except for a few lyrics. For instance, it seems to me a little exaggerated to call Kenya a ‘hopeless place’. Even more so when the video depicts a completely satisfactory situation.
The lack of all kinds of technology isn’t sufficient grounds for hopelessness, even when we, the ‘developed world’, have people who cannot function properly without technology. The fact that some of us cannot, does not mean that it applies to everyone, especially when those others are not used to using a smartphone or checking the vastness of the Internet every day. They are not hopeless when they can live like they have for decades.
Another thing is using that situation for financial gain. Going there, playing a little violin, making a video of it and then selling it on iTunes?
Sure, it is better than donating a ton of money and then yelling all about it over public media, and it is a sure-fire way to benefit the people living there by giving them a pleasant day or week. After all, donations don’t always reach the people.
“Usually, when there are people going hungry, there’s a guy with a gun making it happen.” – from “Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe”
But at the very least the music is good.
I am Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and and of the end,
I start and I finish
I am inevitable.
Hence my life is a circle
that has been bound together
with the circles of others.
And that goes quoted only when you share it. It is mine, all mine! “Muahahahahahaaa! So, you know, that’s coming along.”
Now that the topic of beauty has been put to bed, other subject can be taken up. Snooker.
A wonderfully entertaining game with lots of sneakiness and accuracy. A game where taking chances in your favour is not sufficient, one must also make sure the opponent(s) shots would be hindered. A (un)lucky shot does not determine the whole game, as opposed to 8-ball or 9-ball. And that makes the game a lot more exciting in my opinion.
One of the many upsides of snooker is the fact that only one ball is allowed entry to any hole at any point, hence requiring sniping skills. Combo shots are irrelevant, luck becomes unimportant.
Smaller pockets and smaller balls mean a lot more difficult shots, every error is amplified, every mistake can cost the few essential points required to win. And every mistake can be corrected by messing with enemy’s possibilities.
It has none of that ‘2 balls in front of the pocket touching each other blocking all other shots into that pocket’, because two balls don’t fit to enter a hole simultaneously.
The next post will have more content, perhaps something about Africa and violins.
It has come to my attention that there was a grave mistake in that essay. Argument ad hominem should be argumentum ad hominem, I hope you can forgive me for this daft, foolish stupidity.
Anyways, continuing on the topic of the subjectivity of beauty, it has now been explained, how beauty depends on opinions and how opinions (world view) depends on outside influences, intentional or not. Therefore beauty is apparently influenced by personal and public manipulation.
This claim is very easily seen every day – the more people consider something beautiful and say it is so, the more people start to think the same way. If something’s beauty is stressed constantly, not calling it pretty becomes hard to resist. One could call it a kind of mass hypnosis. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule due to people being different, but those are minor deviations.
And it makes perfect sense from a Darwinian perspective as well, after all, we all look for the perfect mate to spend our lives with (this includes gay people, though Darwin and Co. might not see it this way). Perfection is different for each of us, but a lot of it is similar. Some say it does not exist in the real world, but I disagree. Perfection is what we make of it, we can influence our thoughts, self-hack our brains, if you will. And by making ourselves think differently, we pervert our own understanding of beauty.
It is us who define beauty by considering our needs, our wants and fears, our present world view and personality, and our understanding of logic.
So all I can say is that beauty depends on everything that has happened, happens, or will happen in the future, it depends on everyone we meet, see, and/or hear, it depends on our moods and emotions, it depends on our existence. As long as we have that, we can change beauty. As long as we have that, we have beauty. And it depends on everything that changes us in any shape or form.
And as we all know, we are what we were.
“I said to Jon
Do you think the girls here
(Ever wonder how they got so pretty?)
Oh, well I do”
Back to the good old philosophical question[1] that someone thinks I waste my mind thinking about. But since most of the things I think about waste my brains, it becomes a poor argument. I prefer to think like J.M.Straczynski: “The Universe is already mad, anything else would be redundant.”
So, what influences beauty?
It is already proven that beauty exists even post-observer and that it is always relative – there is no absolute beauty, no absolute lack of it. It is relative, hence it has to depend on some variable. Upon first glance, one would simply conclude that since beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, it has to depend on the beholder. Let’s check the integrity of this proposed causal link!
Sure, we hold some things more beautiful than others. I find old Porsche 356 and 550 models exquisite, yet some argue that some kind of brickish Lamborghini Countach is prettier which I simply cannot agree with. Some say C is good for coding[2], I think not[3]. Yes, the last example was absurd but c’mon, you can’t resist them!
Back to topic, beauty is evidently dependant on opinion. And opinions are relative to the person in whose mind those opinions exist. But are they?
Opinions are vulnerable to influences from the world. They change through life and can be changed through various means[4]. More on that in a future post, it will be translated in the nearer future. No spoilers yet but it will probably be worth an extra post to wrap the topic up once again. Until next time.
Today I was approached by an older male human.
He asked if it was Friday.
He asked if he was in Pärnu.
Then he asked if there had been a party last night.
And then he had no more questions.
All he needed was what, when and where.
A perfect start for a walkabout.
Let’s talk about something as random as magic.
Wikipedia says: “Magic is the art of purportedly manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of unknown occult laws.”
Google says: “mag·ic/ˈmajik/Noun: The power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.”, which is identical to Oxford Dictionaries.
These definitions are wibbly-wobbly. What should one consider ‘aspects of reality’? It would appear practically everything applies. Reality itself can be questioned. But that is the minor flaw.
The definition of ‘supernatural’ is rather vague. Is it simply something we don’t understand? Not ‘naturally’ occurring? In that case, is science supernatural as, for example, the invention of synthetic materials can hardly be called natural, or is it merely explaining the supernatural, thereby reducing the amount of magic in the known Universe? Also, are Murphy’s laws some of those ‘unknown occult laws’, after all they apply very successfully, they can’t really be explained (unless one believes that psychology is a real science) and they have quite a following. Oxford adds ‘mysterious forces’ that ‘apparently influence the course of events’, which can applies to pretty much every physical force there is. We don’t actually know why Gravitons do what they do or why they even exist. We don’t know why matter exists in the first place, and since every force is in a causative (not just correlative) link with the existence of matter itself, which is mysterious, every force must be as well.
So, by analysing the definitions of ‘magic’, we can surmise that every single action is led by a kind of magic. Sort of awesome, sort of… ordinary.
“If everything is awesome and there is no un-awesome, then awesome by definition is just mediocre.” (From Chuck)
And this applies to magic as well. Magic loses its charm by being everywhere, it is no longer the special kid we all know and love.
From Babylon 5: “When we went back in time a thousand years and tried to explain this place to people, they could only accept it in terms of magic.”
“Then perhaps it is magic. Magic of the human heart, focused and made manifest by technology.”
It compares magic with technology and understanding. Yes, magic is something we don’t understand, but so is a lot of technology we have now and most of what we will have at our disposal in the future. Yet we don’t really usually (there are exceptions) consider our phones working on magic. Then where to draw the line between magic and technology?
By remaining silent, we bottle ourselves.
We seal ourselves up, and hide.
Hide in the darkest corners of our dreams.
Hide in the farthest edges of the world.
By speaking out, we show ourselves.
We demonstrate our existence.
Stand up for what we believe to be true.
Stand up for our wildest dreams.
By showing our emotions, we define ourselves.
Who, what, when, where, and why?
An action speaks louder than a million voices.
We speak the truth by remaining silent.
Why is Windows still called Windows, when it is now focused on tiles and full-screen apps? Sure, windows exist as a ‘feature’ one can choose to use, but the main user interface is all ugly boxes.
“Every day you here create greater miracles than burning bush.”
“Maybe, but God was there first and he didn’t need solar batteries and a fusion reactor to do it.”
Today, I read a long text supplied by the Krishna. One of them tried to coerce me into joining to spread their word. The idea was great, to spread the message of love. Basically saying that happiness comes from the heart and is bound by love, love that is directed towards another person, may that be strangers, parents, siblings, or a significant other. And once a person finds that love, that person can be happy. Avoiding or ignoring love is, on the contrary, a blasphemous action and will lead to reincarnation. This is bad because the soul, the spirit is the truest form of existence and sticking it in a body is simply cruel.
It was doing so well… it is an ideology that allows free interpretation. Right up to the point they started claiming that it is a FACT that God lives through the holy writ and it is a FACT that Krishna (their fluffy god) lives through his/her/its words. Not to mention the awkward chanting that is necessary to live graciously. It makes the religion definable as a religion, but on the other hand, it makes it ridiculous. It is petty. The return on the large investment (sacrificing a large part of one’s life) is spiritual freedom after death (not getting another life). It would appear then, that if one does not believe in spiritual sanctity and thus lives life as one chooses, say to the fullest in one’s opinion, he gets to live it all over again, to the fullest. An endless cycle of joy.
Sure, the problem with being born again and again and again is that one does not recall the events of a previous life (although for some reason it is possible to recall the events of the present life in the future, more on that sometime later) and hence is unable to ignore the temptation of Krishna by using the argument that he chose this way of lives in a previous life. Not only that, recalling the arguments against becoming a follower of Krishna becomes rather impossible as well.
In conclusion, having an enlightening idea is not worth much if one does not know how to put it into practice. And yes, this is a point where the Krishna get compared to Communists. Beautiful ideals does not instantly mean beautiful consequences of those ideals.
“We are the dreamers, shapers, singers and makers. We study the mysteries of laser and circuit, crystal and scanner, holographic demons and invocations of equations. These are the tools we employ and we know many things.”
“Such as?”
“The true secrets, the important things. 14 words to make someone fall in love with you forever, 7 words to make them go without pain or say goodbye to a friend who is dying. How to be poor, how to be rich. How to rediscover dreams when the world has stolen them from you.”
- All quotes belong to the genius of J.M.Straczynski
“What is best, is prologue.”
It is what we believe, it is what we know.
It is the hook that catches us.
It is the justified truth.
The book is never as good as our dreams,
The movie is never as good as the book,
The reality is never as good as the movie,
But reality can surpass our dreams.
It is the title we come for,
it is the prologue that makes us stay,
it is the content that makes us leave.
But perhaps there is more between the lines?
The deepest thoughts go unheard.
The deepest thoughts go unsaid.
“What is best, is sometimes also the future.”
“Evil I can do, but matters of the heart baffle me.”
It is quite difficult to define ‘evil’. It is a word each of us knows, yet none of us know what it really is. It is widely considered a negative adjective (or, at times, noun), but it is not always so. For ‘evil’ people, ‘evil’ is more of a compliment, a statement of work well done. Basically like calling ‘smart’ people ‘smart’ or ‘abnormal’ people ‘weird’.
Let’s go out on a limb and call manipulation ‘evil’. This means the ends do not always justify the means (using manipulation for a ‘good’ cause does not make manipulation a ‘good’ method). So the status of manipulation is a constant and therefore is unaffected by other factors. It is the general consensus that manipulation is evil, so any blames of bias go to the general population, not to me in specific.
Manipulating with other people and situations is an easy task any of us can do. Doing it well, on the other hand, takes some finesse. It is especially straightforward and simple for people that are cold and calculated. People who prefer to analyse every situation before it has had the chance of occurring. People who prefer knowing everything remotely possible about the situation and people involved therein. It is basically determining the outcome of any situation by knowing the current location, direction, speed and influences of every single particle. Sure, while that is as of yet impossible, generalisations based on certain known groups of particles (say, people) can be made. This means the ability to predict the probable, not definite, outcome of any influence of any factor, including the spectator. You could call it playing God, I call it overthinking life (not thinking over life).
Manipulation is easy as 1, 2, 3, or A, B, C, if you prefer. Turning situations into one’s favour is generally not a difficult task as one can benefit in numerous ways. And that is what ‘evil’ is generally all about – profiting the ‘evil-doer’. This is precisely the reason why so many people decide to join the dark side – it gives them great power without great responsibility.
Matters of the heart are a different matter altogether. They are sometimes selfless, sometimes extremely egoistic. Well, they are always egoistic in the sense that selfless actions are motivated by our desire to feel ourselves better about something or alter public opinion, but that is not the point. Acting on those feelings tends to be irrational. Emotions do not obey the rules of logic, and that is seriously bugging. This means that emotions, just like surprises, can throw a cold, calculated person off-balance.
Some say that being cold and calculated is heartless and robotic (as if that was always a bad thing!), some say acting upon emotions is illogical and hence certainly not reasonable (as if that couldn’t be a good thing!). It is a debate with no clear victory for either side. But having both, as a compromise, is kind of contradictory.
“I'm one card short of a full deck
I'm not quite the shilling
One wave short of a shipwreck
I'm not my usual top billing
I'm coming down with a fever
I'm really out to sea
This kettle is boiling over
I think I'm a banana tree”- Queen
Is it ‘more right’ to obey the reasonable transaction rule or should one avoid responsibility at any cost?
In other words, let’s take a popular experiment. There is a train charging down the rails with no brakes. Let’s say you know that the train is unable to decelerate because, say, it is using jet propulsion and all the people on the train have jumped ship and you know for a fact that the jet engine can only be turned off manually from inside the train. Then let’s say you are located at an intersection of railroads, and it is up to you, whether the train is going to continue down its current path, or turn onto an another track. Then let’s push it a little further and say that on the current path of the train are 5 workers, unable to get off the track because of a force field or something, and on the alternative track is a baby, left there for no reason you know. There is nobody else around. Do you switch the junction so that the train would turn and kill the baby (assume that the baby is not simply between the rails, but on top of one rail), or leave it be and let 5 people be slain instead?
The ‘reasonable transaction’ would mean you would rather let one die so that 5 would life (thus preserving more life). The ‘avoiding responsibility’ would mean you would not interfere, as otherwise your action would cause the death of a human being.
Sure, one might argue that by inaction, you would cause the death of five, but it is your preset responsibility to avoid such loss of life. Basically meaning that every single person has a moral responsibility to preserve human life as much as possible (which would comply with categorical imperative, the Golden Rule, utilitarianism and many other moral laws). This, I believe, is called death by negligence.
Then again, one might argue in return that the life of a small child is worth more than five lives of people that have already grown up. Basically meaning that the existence of unreached potential is worth more than potential reached. Besides, the five guys have already had their chance at life, they simply got unlucky that they got pitted against a baby. In this case, where to draw the line? Is 5 lives less worth than a life of a small child? Or is 6 the limit? How about 10, 15, a hundred? Or does it take merely two? In the end we would face the question “How much is the life of one man worth? Millions more?” (The Hire).
This problem is at present time even more current that one might think. This is because one of the strongest arguments for inaction is actually ‘to benefit the world’. Let’s not forget, overpopulation is a growing problem. In fact, perhaps it would be morally correct to let more people die to create more room for the few. It would be wrong to let everyone in the world die but practically every rule of morality, but just a few. Life blooms most after chaos.
And let’s not forget, nobody can actually dictate morality. We do not own a monopoly of truth, we do not know what is right and true, and what is not. It is up to the person, whether it is better to let five die due to inaction, hence saving a single life, or it is better to let one die, hence saving five. Suicide is not an option and both tracks lead to a ravine, so that the train will most certainly not cause any more human deaths than just the ones you know about. What would you do?
Alas, I fear it is, at last, beginning to look a bit more like summertime. Which means, as usual, overheated brains. Neurons shooting signals all over the place. Irrationality Now, if you prefer.
But it does bring some sort of freedom, no more fooling the weatherman using Murphy’s laws, no more skating on the sidewalks, no more constant vigilance of puddles on the roadside where a car might drive through and splash dirt all over the sidewalk.
And let’s not forget, this is the time a lot of people get a large part of their futures’ defined. At this point, I shall apologize, as this will be yet another place where education is a topic at this present time. It is very annoying, I admit it, but one does not simply ignore the topic altogether! It’s better to take the topic up once and have a follow-up in a few weeks and be done with it than to keep it bottled up and let it spray out like Coke and Mentos in those few weeks.
For fairly young people, career options are nearly endless. Sure, some fields of work or study can be crossed off the list by anyone. For instance, I wouldn’t want to take up a field of study where I am accepted to in the best university of the country four times before even graduating. Yet it is pretty much the only uni I would be willing to go to in this country, anything less and I will be feeling that I am wasting myself. Only a couple of possibilities remain. Others have other criteria by which they exclude fields, perhaps some hate maths, blood, sociology, or thinking. Possibilities are endless. I am me, you are you, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri are small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
There is, however, one criterion that, as a rule, cannot be ignored by any one of us. The final exam session. I am going to be frank, the exams are not that difficult, not when you know what to choose and what to study. So getting average results should be pretty much standard for most common folk. After all, that’s why they are called ‘average’ results. In this specific country, a person can choose the exams one has to sit through. The absolute minimum is 3, but it is usually reasonable to take 5 at the very least. This way, with a failure, one can compensate with some other exam. Not taking the maths exam can close a whole lot of doors for one’s future academic future, but for many it does not even matter. But the general rule is that any exams a person chooses, the person should then try to squeeze the lemons out of those exams.
And all this creates a fascinating view for anyone near people having to take exams. Psychology is one of the most awesome pseudosciences around. Emotions run high, stress hits the ceiling, the dark cloud of depression descends on many. And, as I have most probably mentioned before, people’s behaviour is “interestingly curious” to observe, especially when it is out of the ordinary. For many people, this is considered an extreme circumstance, which only makes it more entertaining. As they say, a person’s true face comes out only when he/she is put to the extreme.
It is possible to see the true nature now. It is springtime, nature awakens.
And trust me, I will avoid the extremes whenever possible. Have fun figuring me out.
And now, a quote from Jimmy Fallon:
“I also want to thank Mr Mills, my 10th grade history teacher, who said I would never amount to anything if I kept screwing around in class. I am about to high-five the president of the United States. Eat it, Mills.”
Which shows that even those of us who don’t win in school life, can still win in general life. Winning is relative.
Viva la Karsumm.
