...Without Really Trying
Part I is "The World Needs Saving".
Part II is the "How to"
Or maybe vice versa, just to get down to brass tacks.
Half Measures:
Hybrid Shmybrid...
Recycling Shmecycling...
Saving the Planet in the Days of "Terrorism"
-Remarkable Goodness of Humanity (?!)
-Nod to Pattern Theory, Watch that Chaos!
-Still Worth Saving
-Still Savable!
-Save the Planet, Unite Her People!
Note I sent to the BBC have your say 6/26:
A few Earth-saving suggestions... Keep your PC and peripherals until replacement is completely necessary or at least a really big leap forward beyond the abstract numbers. Use your PC (with file backups) to go as paperless as possible. Buy a used PC. Give your old PC to that genius kid building a supercomputer from used parts. Manufacturers, make PCs more easy to upgrade without replacement.
Monday, June 26, 2006
Friday, June 23, 2006
Wake Up!
The world is being torn apart in so many ways, and you should care! Things may be critical!
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Principles of Diplomacy I
Countries should not continuously seek to put other countries into a bad position. Most often it will be far more constructive to find ways to put both countries into a mutually advantageous position. Advantage does not have to be one over the other. "Win-win" is not just business or diplomatic jargon - it is the essence of cooperation.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Patterns of Survival
So patterns that tend to survive do, statistically speaking. As someone pointed out, the apparently fittest do not always survive. That simply means that in a chaotic universe, there is no perfectly fit entity, and no entity is fit for every set of circumstances. But on the whole, those patterns whose continued existences fit in best with the resultant overall pattern will survive and/or propagate. Mutations result as the kaleidoscope wheel turns, and the so the pattern evolves, and so does the nature of what it is to be fit and thus to fit into the pattern.
Given the tautology of survival of the fittest, it seems possible that the intent and struggle to survive and propagate are in some sense emergent properties of the tautological nature of evolution. For example, humans tend to think it is "important" that they themselves, that their families, that their lifestyle, that their ethnic and religious groups and beliefs all continue to thrive, that is to survive, propagate and continue comfortably and with room for error, generally at the expense of some "other".
Since we tend to follow these instincts as though they were handed down on stone tablets -- whatever that is supposed to mean -- we may want to question them when we discover that they may be some sort of emergent property. However, given that they are a fairly instinctive part of our nature, we may instead want to mold our desire to survive and thrive to the most effective models possible.
I believe that some progressive and religious leaders, notably Gandhi and M.L. King, were in a sense offering us a way out of prisoners' dilemma problems by offering us a code of ethics in which we could -- by propagating the patterns they suggest -- essentially know that the other was working in our interests, and we were working in theirs, because all people, despite their diversity, were all unified by working for the "greater good" of all humanity. Further, if we relate their programs to prisoners' dilemmas, they were trying to show that the greater good, with attention to the well-being of each individual as well, would in fact produce the greatest payoff for the most individuals. Even those who sacrificed disproportionate wealth would benefits because of the love and security they would gain in a compassionate and caring world. The beginning of such a world was a set of rules that were not imposed, but accepted because of their compelling nature. Why were they compelling? Perhaps G and MLK would say because they came from God. Perhaps so, indeed, but perhaps such ideas produce a certain level of rapture because they in fact contribute to the survival of the individual AND the species. They are reassuring to the pattern with the emergent property of caring about its place in evolution.
In a mosaic, pieces of rock or glass of many shapes, sizes and colors may be fit together to form a strong, long lasting, and beautiful pattern. The shapes and sizes are not important so much as finding the ways the pieces fit together. The colors are not important at all to the resiliency of the finished product, but each color adds to the beauty of the whole.
Given the tautology of survival of the fittest, it seems possible that the intent and struggle to survive and propagate are in some sense emergent properties of the tautological nature of evolution. For example, humans tend to think it is "important" that they themselves, that their families, that their lifestyle, that their ethnic and religious groups and beliefs all continue to thrive, that is to survive, propagate and continue comfortably and with room for error, generally at the expense of some "other".
Since we tend to follow these instincts as though they were handed down on stone tablets -- whatever that is supposed to mean -- we may want to question them when we discover that they may be some sort of emergent property. However, given that they are a fairly instinctive part of our nature, we may instead want to mold our desire to survive and thrive to the most effective models possible.
I believe that some progressive and religious leaders, notably Gandhi and M.L. King, were in a sense offering us a way out of prisoners' dilemma problems by offering us a code of ethics in which we could -- by propagating the patterns they suggest -- essentially know that the other was working in our interests, and we were working in theirs, because all people, despite their diversity, were all unified by working for the "greater good" of all humanity. Further, if we relate their programs to prisoners' dilemmas, they were trying to show that the greater good, with attention to the well-being of each individual as well, would in fact produce the greatest payoff for the most individuals. Even those who sacrificed disproportionate wealth would benefits because of the love and security they would gain in a compassionate and caring world. The beginning of such a world was a set of rules that were not imposed, but accepted because of their compelling nature. Why were they compelling? Perhaps G and MLK would say because they came from God. Perhaps so, indeed, but perhaps such ideas produce a certain level of rapture because they in fact contribute to the survival of the individual AND the species. They are reassuring to the pattern with the emergent property of caring about its place in evolution.
In a mosaic, pieces of rock or glass of many shapes, sizes and colors may be fit together to form a strong, long lasting, and beautiful pattern. The shapes and sizes are not important so much as finding the ways the pieces fit together. The colors are not important at all to the resiliency of the finished product, but each color adds to the beauty of the whole.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Happy 6/6/6!
Well, I'm going to take all kinds of heat (let's hope not literally) for trying to make a holiday out of today's date 06/06/'06. I grew up reading comic books, occasionally watching TV preachers, and with the Catholic Church on the periphery of my awareness by way of the nearness of the University of Notre Dame (where my father taught and which I eventually attended) and other influences. Frankly, devil stuff scares me. 6/6/6 -- perhaps this will be an especially bad day!
"PISH POSH!" screams the Skeptic side of me. Make that "BU-U-U-L-L-S-H-I-I-I-T-T-T!" as I think, first, that "pish posh" is a really lame scoff, and second, of the tyranny of words and concepts that we live under. Words and concepts are also what get us through life, forming one of the latticeworks that allow us to function as an organized pattern in a universe that is, on the whole, chaotic. Words and concepts are also used in religion and in government to tell the populace as a whole that "a few of us know all the answers and therefore we will guide what you do." But they don't know the answers. Many leaders, particular religious ones and politicians piggybacking on religion, were raised to believe they know the answers, and like any upbringing, they probably came away with a few good ones and some bad ones. But leaders are human beings, who, as youths, were told by other human beings that certain human beings got the answers directly from God. Despite the impolitic screaming of my inner Skeptic, I don't really want to insult anybody's religion. It is just that I trust the intellect that God/the Universe/Whatever You Want to Call It gave me, and it sincerely questions these things. Frankly, I suspect many of the so-called leaders don't believe it either.
Now, this doesn't make me "down" with some counter-deity. Today, I just want to celebrate my freedom from the words and concepts that try to tie God down, and that try to tie us all down. Satanism certainly doesn't come any closer, it just borrows the bad guy character from the Judaeo-Christian tradition, as a target for worship in order to thumb its collective nose at that tradition.
On the other hand, I've been intrigued by a small body of literature that pops up once in a while to personify the Devil as misunderstood. What this says to me is that Satan is the literary personification of all that the churches that created the character feared. Some of what the character personified really should be avoided; other things, perhaps, we just need to get comfortable with, maybe even revel in, because there is beauty even beyond the boundaries of the world of Mayberry so many of us think we are pining for. Forget about the guy with the cape and the horns himself; he is just a literary device.
I don't want chaos in the world. The pattern of our existence is holding to an extent, other disruptions in which the supposedly religious are largely complicit notwithstanding (war, environmental devastation -- and here I'll give some credit to the Catholic Church as an organization for protesting these problems).
On the "shadowy" side of things, the sole commandment "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" has been attributed to Aleister Crowley. Being a proponent of the rights of all people, I never thought that was very suitable, but only because it was too sweeping, for how many people "wilt" wantonly destroy others for their own pleasure or gain. I am also a proponent of great freedom for all people, freedom to do but not to infringe upon the freedom of others. So Crowley's maxim might be modified as a basis for some simple rules from which the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments can also be derived as good rules of thumb, if not absolutes (certainly our mostly Judaeo-Christian government already treats them far less as absolutes than I would):
1. Do what thou wilt,
2. but do your absolute best to do as much good for others, and as little harm to others, as possible;
3. and respect the equal right of others to do the same.
4. It is strongly suggested you take good care of yourself and do not harm yourself, as well.
And that's how I intend to celebrate 6/6/6.
But, due to the side of me that remains a bit brainwashed and nervous, I am definitely not going anywhere near the opening day of the remake of the movie, "The Omen".
"PISH POSH!" screams the Skeptic side of me. Make that "BU-U-U-L-L-S-H-I-I-I-T-T-T!" as I think, first, that "pish posh" is a really lame scoff, and second, of the tyranny of words and concepts that we live under. Words and concepts are also what get us through life, forming one of the latticeworks that allow us to function as an organized pattern in a universe that is, on the whole, chaotic. Words and concepts are also used in religion and in government to tell the populace as a whole that "a few of us know all the answers and therefore we will guide what you do." But they don't know the answers. Many leaders, particular religious ones and politicians piggybacking on religion, were raised to believe they know the answers, and like any upbringing, they probably came away with a few good ones and some bad ones. But leaders are human beings, who, as youths, were told by other human beings that certain human beings got the answers directly from God. Despite the impolitic screaming of my inner Skeptic, I don't really want to insult anybody's religion. It is just that I trust the intellect that God/the Universe/Whatever You Want to Call It gave me, and it sincerely questions these things. Frankly, I suspect many of the so-called leaders don't believe it either.
Now, this doesn't make me "down" with some counter-deity. Today, I just want to celebrate my freedom from the words and concepts that try to tie God down, and that try to tie us all down. Satanism certainly doesn't come any closer, it just borrows the bad guy character from the Judaeo-Christian tradition, as a target for worship in order to thumb its collective nose at that tradition.
On the other hand, I've been intrigued by a small body of literature that pops up once in a while to personify the Devil as misunderstood. What this says to me is that Satan is the literary personification of all that the churches that created the character feared. Some of what the character personified really should be avoided; other things, perhaps, we just need to get comfortable with, maybe even revel in, because there is beauty even beyond the boundaries of the world of Mayberry so many of us think we are pining for. Forget about the guy with the cape and the horns himself; he is just a literary device.
I don't want chaos in the world. The pattern of our existence is holding to an extent, other disruptions in which the supposedly religious are largely complicit notwithstanding (war, environmental devastation -- and here I'll give some credit to the Catholic Church as an organization for protesting these problems).
On the "shadowy" side of things, the sole commandment "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" has been attributed to Aleister Crowley. Being a proponent of the rights of all people, I never thought that was very suitable, but only because it was too sweeping, for how many people "wilt" wantonly destroy others for their own pleasure or gain. I am also a proponent of great freedom for all people, freedom to do but not to infringe upon the freedom of others. So Crowley's maxim might be modified as a basis for some simple rules from which the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments can also be derived as good rules of thumb, if not absolutes (certainly our mostly Judaeo-Christian government already treats them far less as absolutes than I would):
1. Do what thou wilt,
2. but do your absolute best to do as much good for others, and as little harm to others, as possible;
3. and respect the equal right of others to do the same.
4. It is strongly suggested you take good care of yourself and do not harm yourself, as well.
And that's how I intend to celebrate 6/6/6.
But, due to the side of me that remains a bit brainwashed and nervous, I am definitely not going anywhere near the opening day of the remake of the movie, "The Omen".
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