I got this in an email given to be an actual chemistry mid-term exam question from the University of Washington:
Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?
The only A paper for this class contained this answer:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave.
Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.
Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it?
If one accepts the postulate given to me by Teresa M. during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you", and take into account the fact that I did sleep with her reciently, then availble evidence suggests number 2 must be true, and therefore Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. A corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct ... and lacking other evidence, leaves only Heaven ... thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God.""
Sunday, December 12, 2004
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Responsibility
Responsibility:
The trick about responsibility is: who owes. All kinds of authorities claim the debt: the Govt., the church, the military, the mafia, school heavies, a lover, family, your goldfish, anyone who can get between yourself and some ideal state of contentment. I don't specifically owe you this description, because maybe you suck. It's all done for the hormonal rush of self congratulation for doing something of possible value for society, so that in my selfish rush, ... maybe this isn't really g ood! Maybe this tiny bit of advice is a seed of discontent. Maybe it's the point where entropy becomes chaos. Oh doom, Oh woe, alas: the final liberation. Maybe not.
There's some debt-claiming authorities woven into the string that holds the world together. Here's some scissors, be careful, if you must run, let me hold your wallet.
Everybody likes pats. We move toward them & away from stabs & hits. Amoebas do it. It gets complicated though, like there are people who are addicted to war. It makes them feel important & they like that, carrying a gun & all. But they still have to link that importance to something good. Someone they admired did it, or survived a contest, “hey, I want to be like Roy Rogers!” That's a powerful hormone. It's produced by a part of the brain called Battoshki's Cells. They make a person recognize their own people. Kids have more than adults and black people have more than white people. Old white people are typically terrified of black kids. I'm an old white guy but I have a GUN so don't mess with me, because I'm irresponsible enough to be real important. So like, rowdy hip-hop gang punks are more driven to responsibility, than your ordinary hard working, dues-paying drudge, they just get "rightous" confused with "pissed". See: being rightous justifies being pissed, but being pissed doesn't justify rightousness.
We're all radios tuned to the same station, believing the music that comes out is uniquely myself.
Look, responsibility is determined by a persons susceptibility to manipulation. Believe them and it becomes more responsible to support the war on terror, & the war on drugs, & the war on womans rights, & the war on whatever's next, (skatebording?) than it is to look for ways to make peace instead. How come? Duh! It's because we're being taken for suckers by anyone with a motive & who can sound righteous about their cause. (except me of course, George Bush II isn't pleased with me so I'm demolished with guilt). It's how demigods support themselves. It's how primates & other social animals get information, it's called objectivity & it means trusting someone else's opinion over your own. Trusting only your own opinion is called subjectivity, and is by definition, un-proveable.
Ok though, not everyone wants those wars, so it's legal to be objective about it (I mean, you're not the only one). Then we get into the problem of like, what's my involvement with this, since those wars don't affect me personally. I'm not a druggie, not a woman, & not a terrorist, so who cares? Well, if i have any opinion that's not mine, (and I must to be objective) then there's something more than me. Call it society, or the “Bills Universal Field Theory Of Heaven” (yes, I live in Calif.) And it's real if for no other reason than you just read it here, so you can afford to have an opinion, & generate some hormones, be objective about it, & is it crap? Not if you formed an opinion.
Now according to the BUFTH (Bills Universal Field Theory Of Heaven), We all play for survival, so ultimately there's more risk with more strife, and all those forces that make up Heaven/society, ultimately affect us as individuals, the same way that a ripple in the food chain works its way to the top: i.e.
The extinction of some bug in Bolivia affects the balance of available protein in the world & causes the next atomic war. See, the bug supports migrating birds that also feed on sand shrimp in the Caribbean. The birds population declines & the sand shrimp population explodes, shrimp eat up some zooplankton that cleans coral, so the corals get dirty & die, associated fish loose their livelihood, Fish that spawn in the corals become scarce, squid that eat tho se fish and the deep sea fish that live on the squid become scarce, occasional side extinctions along the way propagate to the cost of fish protein additives for animal & dog food. It becomes a class symbol to own a dog because poor people can't afford to feed them. Rich people drive around with big dogs in their SUV's and farmers with trucks can't, class warfare breaks out, farmers buy nukes on the ex soviet block black market, events quickly spiral out of control, etc. etc.
Meanwhile in Bolivia, little José Mamani finds the last bug in his Qunioa patch, knowing he can save the world if he can grow enough bug offspring, he abandons his harvest, sells his ox & invests in arthropod propagation equipment & hostplant cultivation. He saves the world, and goes broke. His neighbors shake their heads, “Should'a let the gringos blow themselves up!”
But he gets a heavenly reward. (I don't know what it is, it depends on his hormones & social contacts, probably not 72 virgins, his wife wouldn't approve. She couldn't divorce him because they're Cath olic, so they had to move to Potosi & sweep streets for a living) The gringos never found out.
Ok so now a question presents it's self: like, after we die, where's the endocrines that produced the hormones and where's the tissue & vessels that support the endocrines, etc.? That stuff ceases to function is what happens, so where do we get hormones in heaven? Can it be that heaven and hormones are either separate or so inextricably linked, that there is no afterlife? (Well heck, I guess, yeah, if that's true ... what?) See he gets a heavenly reward, but how can he appreciate it if he doesn't have hormones that cause the emotions to feel it?
So now in order to justify an afterlife, we have to show that heaven & hormones are separate. To do this we gotta get metaphysical (& I just love that because the terminology is so ambiguous) We have to show that consciousness exists in a recognizable state without supporting tissue. & as a byproduct, show that ghosts exist. (Ohboy, ohboy, this is where California comes into it's own!)
Take ghosts: Genuine Authorities (whoever they are) seem to agree that ghosts don't show much in the way of creativity, I mean they just do the same thing over & over, walking down halls & so forth. If their pituitary was working, they'd be cruising, pinching butts & looking for entertainment, or social alliances. But no, they just keep the same attitude all the time, though different ghosts show different attitudes, each ghost stays within the bounds of it's “personality”, and each personality is associated with a place. So, in my opinion, ghosts don't act like they have hormones of their own. They could be aware of hormones in others however, & use those hormones for interaction, but given this, how does one interact with ghosts? How do we know which is us & which is them? They're notoriously hard to interview.
Perhaps the hormones of the observer overwhelms the communication, but if any response by an observer has to be those of the ghost, then a person would essentially be talking to themselves. In that case ghosts wouldn't recognize us, we would only recognize them.
However, there are people who interact with ghosts. How do they do that, could they be subjective or something? All the people in western culture who make a deal of it are either sedated, locked up, or temporarily homeless till they can be locked up. What happens is (I think) the person just happens to share the same time/space & social fantasy (see below: Feb 1 2002, Todays flash: synchronicity!). Half the population could be ghosts and you'd never know, they'd deny it anyway.
So what? People still see ghosts, boogers, & Angles and corroborate their looks & action without pre-agreement. Therefore one may tentatively conclude that hormones are required for our perception and judgment of ghosts, but not by ghosts for their existence, ergo: Heaven & hormones are separate, and recognition of independent spiritual existence is justified. (you can say I said so on the strength of hearsay).
Ok now we get back to responsibility: If heaven (however idealistic) is better than the War On Whatever, then that's the way.
The trick about responsibility is: who owes. All kinds of authorities claim the debt: the Govt., the church, the military, the mafia, school heavies, a lover, family, your goldfish, anyone who can get between yourself and some ideal state of contentment. I don't specifically owe you this description, because maybe you suck. It's all done for the hormonal rush of self congratulation for doing something of possible value for society, so that in my selfish rush, ... maybe this isn't really g ood! Maybe this tiny bit of advice is a seed of discontent. Maybe it's the point where entropy becomes chaos. Oh doom, Oh woe, alas: the final liberation. Maybe not.
There's some debt-claiming authorities woven into the string that holds the world together. Here's some scissors, be careful, if you must run, let me hold your wallet.
Everybody likes pats. We move toward them & away from stabs & hits. Amoebas do it. It gets complicated though, like there are people who are addicted to war. It makes them feel important & they like that, carrying a gun & all. But they still have to link that importance to something good. Someone they admired did it, or survived a contest, “hey, I want to be like Roy Rogers!” That's a powerful hormone. It's produced by a part of the brain called Battoshki's Cells. They make a person recognize their own people. Kids have more than adults and black people have more than white people. Old white people are typically terrified of black kids. I'm an old white guy but I have a GUN so don't mess with me, because I'm irresponsible enough to be real important. So like, rowdy hip-hop gang punks are more driven to responsibility, than your ordinary hard working, dues-paying drudge, they just get "rightous" confused with "pissed". See: being rightous justifies being pissed, but being pissed doesn't justify rightousness.
We're all radios tuned to the same station, believing the music that comes out is uniquely myself.
Look, responsibility is determined by a persons susceptibility to manipulation. Believe them and it becomes more responsible to support the war on terror, & the war on drugs, & the war on womans rights, & the war on whatever's next, (skatebording?) than it is to look for ways to make peace instead. How come? Duh! It's because we're being taken for suckers by anyone with a motive & who can sound righteous about their cause. (except me of course, George Bush II isn't pleased with me so I'm demolished with guilt). It's how demigods support themselves. It's how primates & other social animals get information, it's called objectivity & it means trusting someone else's opinion over your own. Trusting only your own opinion is called subjectivity, and is by definition, un-proveable.
Ok though, not everyone wants those wars, so it's legal to be objective about it (I mean, you're not the only one). Then we get into the problem of like, what's my involvement with this, since those wars don't affect me personally. I'm not a druggie, not a woman, & not a terrorist, so who cares? Well, if i have any opinion that's not mine, (and I must to be objective) then there's something more than me. Call it society, or the “Bills Universal Field Theory Of Heaven” (yes, I live in Calif.) And it's real if for no other reason than you just read it here, so you can afford to have an opinion, & generate some hormones, be objective about it, & is it crap? Not if you formed an opinion.
Now according to the BUFTH (Bills Universal Field Theory Of Heaven), We all play for survival, so ultimately there's more risk with more strife, and all those forces that make up Heaven/society, ultimately affect us as individuals, the same way that a ripple in the food chain works its way to the top: i.e.
The extinction of some bug in Bolivia affects the balance of available protein in the world & causes the next atomic war. See, the bug supports migrating birds that also feed on sand shrimp in the Caribbean. The birds population declines & the sand shrimp population explodes, shrimp eat up some zooplankton that cleans coral, so the corals get dirty & die, associated fish loose their livelihood, Fish that spawn in the corals become scarce, squid that eat tho se fish and the deep sea fish that live on the squid become scarce, occasional side extinctions along the way propagate to the cost of fish protein additives for animal & dog food. It becomes a class symbol to own a dog because poor people can't afford to feed them. Rich people drive around with big dogs in their SUV's and farmers with trucks can't, class warfare breaks out, farmers buy nukes on the ex soviet block black market, events quickly spiral out of control, etc. etc.
Meanwhile in Bolivia, little José Mamani finds the last bug in his Qunioa patch, knowing he can save the world if he can grow enough bug offspring, he abandons his harvest, sells his ox & invests in arthropod propagation equipment & hostplant cultivation. He saves the world, and goes broke. His neighbors shake their heads, “Should'a let the gringos blow themselves up!”
But he gets a heavenly reward. (I don't know what it is, it depends on his hormones & social contacts, probably not 72 virgins, his wife wouldn't approve. She couldn't divorce him because they're Cath olic, so they had to move to Potosi & sweep streets for a living) The gringos never found out.
Ok so now a question presents it's self: like, after we die, where's the endocrines that produced the hormones and where's the tissue & vessels that support the endocrines, etc.? That stuff ceases to function is what happens, so where do we get hormones in heaven? Can it be that heaven and hormones are either separate or so inextricably linked, that there is no afterlife? (Well heck, I guess, yeah, if that's true ... what?) See he gets a heavenly reward, but how can he appreciate it if he doesn't have hormones that cause the emotions to feel it?
So now in order to justify an afterlife, we have to show that heaven & hormones are separate. To do this we gotta get metaphysical (& I just love that because the terminology is so ambiguous) We have to show that consciousness exists in a recognizable state without supporting tissue. & as a byproduct, show that ghosts exist. (Ohboy, ohboy, this is where California comes into it's own!)
Take ghosts: Genuine Authorities (whoever they are) seem to agree that ghosts don't show much in the way of creativity, I mean they just do the same thing over & over, walking down halls & so forth. If their pituitary was working, they'd be cruising, pinching butts & looking for entertainment, or social alliances. But no, they just keep the same attitude all the time, though different ghosts show different attitudes, each ghost stays within the bounds of it's “personality”, and each personality is associated with a place. So, in my opinion, ghosts don't act like they have hormones of their own. They could be aware of hormones in others however, & use those hormones for interaction, but given this, how does one interact with ghosts? How do we know which is us & which is them? They're notoriously hard to interview.
Perhaps the hormones of the observer overwhelms the communication, but if any response by an observer has to be those of the ghost, then a person would essentially be talking to themselves. In that case ghosts wouldn't recognize us, we would only recognize them.
However, there are people who interact with ghosts. How do they do that, could they be subjective or something? All the people in western culture who make a deal of it are either sedated, locked up, or temporarily homeless till they can be locked up. What happens is (I think) the person just happens to share the same time/space & social fantasy (see below: Feb 1 2002, Todays flash: synchronicity!). Half the population could be ghosts and you'd never know, they'd deny it anyway.
So what? People still see ghosts, boogers, & Angles and corroborate their looks & action without pre-agreement. Therefore one may tentatively conclude that hormones are required for our perception and judgment of ghosts, but not by ghosts for their existence, ergo: Heaven & hormones are separate, and recognition of independent spiritual existence is justified. (you can say I said so on the strength of hearsay).
Ok now we get back to responsibility: If heaven (however idealistic) is better than the War On Whatever, then that's the way.
Thursday, November 28, 2002
There's probably more written justifying gods existence than anyone could read in a lifetime, & there's still nothing to get a grip on. A lot of concepts with special names. This notebook offers a hold on the default definition of deities in general. There's much hype concerning god, and there are many authorities with outspoken opinions, but I would of course never presume to tell those people that they're full of crap. In fact, this blog isn't a denouncement of god, it's more a map to what he is & is not (a notebook). For example to say that since god is everything means that massively self serving religious doctrines are divinely justified, is an insult to reason. Since god is ultimately a personal matter and anyone can hold God up for scrutiny, I'm as much an authority as the next person. This is my Notebook.
(Q) How can there be one god if there are also many gods?
(A) Easy: all the rest are phonies!
(1) There's potentially 2 kinds of Gods: wild & civilized.
Wild Gods are basically an attempt to put a human face on uncontrollable forces and then reason with them. People come preprogrammed to recognize the pattern of a face and to respond to emotional messages that a face might convey. To observe an event as "God produced" requires putting an imaginary face (with continuity implied, or supplied by memory) on the emotions produced by the event. Wild Gods are emotionally perceived forces of nature.
Civilized Gods are a conscious effort of the state to employ basic fear & psychopathology as agents of social manipulation. The Jewish model of one god is/was a political convenience, enforced by the state, till enough people are on the same side that they can form a defensible perimeter for the god. This is like probably before Abraham. The Christian model is pretty much that too. First developed as a state religion by Constantine, he cleverly decided that it's easier to manage a nation under one god than the whole Roman pantheon plus all the gods of the conquered tribes, so he gave tax breaks and preferred employment to pacifist Christians till everyone who was getting ahead was a Christian and folks could see an advantage to finding out how to be that way. This later became known as the Republican Method.
Wild and civilized gods all have a group of people in common and the people have to benefit from the god for the god to survive. Wild gods by definition don't care if their people benefit. Evil gods tend to eat up their believers or piss off the neighbors till they incite a rebellion an then there's no one to make sacrifices. It may be a divine survival of the fittest, but it's the society that fails or prospers (get a copy of Black & White). Claiming divine inspiration in the old days was a cheap way to get rumor exposure (there were no press releases then), and like today, one had to back it up to be taken seriously (Mr. Bush..). The point being that a god needs some kind of continuity, and the social matrix that created the god, has to continue with support. For example: the Native Son hits his head and has a blinding flash: in it, a space alien with a golden hat says "THE TIME HAS COME" & then shows the native many things that cannot be told. The only people who will believe the Native Son, also share the belief in gold hatted aliens that have deadlines & secrets. But then he reveals a way to get rich selling soap using tiered marketing, and everybody converts because he then appeals to a broader social base. (& everyone has to eat). OK, that covers the basic god.
Now the Native Son is rich, famous, and revered, but a new philosophy emerges that interprets "time is money" to mean that if time is money, & time is infinite, then the value of goods & services have to be equal to the supply.. That's serious inflation. (The age of the universe is like 20 billion years & guess were half way, so say 40 billion x 365 (days per yr.) x 24 (hr. per day) : so all goods & services since 72000 BC (beginning of trade +2000 = 74000 yrs) are equal to 175.2 trillion units x minimum wage. Round it off to $200,000,000,000,000,000,000.00 per hr. + overtime) Right away the economy reels. Smirking lawyers march toward his mountaintop retreat. Something must be done! The options are: live in a hole & eat grubs or kill the bastards. What would GW Bush do? Hah!~ the Native Son assumes his mantle and quotes the Gold Hatted One saying that time is NOT infinite or even 100 bn yrs old, for it is written "THE TIME HAS COME" (+ some small print) & anyone caught wasting time will be burned at the stake, so get back to work. And thus the evil destruction is averted.
Mind Police and Souls are an innovative but more insidious form of social control than public burnings, and there is no paper trail. Each has a definition that applies to a recogniseable character of society. Mind Police (what a concept!) = internalized repression & conformity. The soul is a persons fragile vessel of existence that is somehow separate but not independent of the body, and can only be properly protected by representatives of the True God. These were strokes of genius to insure authoritarian control over an individuals wandering aspirations, both enlist the efforts of the individual by promoting self doubt and restricting options. Other innovative forms are conscious evil and conscious good as a force. All of these are products of ones own hormonal plumbing, and together define the ideal social control: an individuals self imposed guilt.
Before we go there however, lets to shake out these two forms of social control: Good & Evil as conscious forces. These are basic conflicts left over from Wild Gods, ie. the "recognition" of some kind of overwhelming situation itself as an emotion. Consider these 3 scenarios as serious business: (#1) we're in Atalan & a troop of Conquistadors have just sacked our town, as survivors, we have an opportunity to become slaves & religious converts. Compared to being hacked to pieces, it seems like a bargain. The Padre claims to be an emissary of God & nobody argues because he's real as can be & his side has the swords. (#2) Ok now you're on a freighter in the Atlantic, in a hurricane at night, The wind is blowing 90 knots and 100 foot waves roar by like freight trains, Your 350 foot ship bobs like a rubber duck. You wonder what it all means and if somebody is out there, do they give a fig for you or not. Prior experience says they do, because you lived this long, and you only have to die once. One quickly considers that perhaps prior events that one took for granted were really divine blessings, just because God doesn't show you his angry side may mean he only tolerates your otherwise completely unacceptable nature. At times like these it seems prudent to make personal commitments of a religious nature. At any other time though, it would be an expression of paranoid schizophrenia to organize ones life around the possibility that an external unseen force is attempting to manipulate ones life. (the Republican Party excepted of course). (#3) Now you were just born and you don't know where you are, you're as terrified as your hormones will allow. It's cold, something is happening, blurry things move, someone is yelling, everything that used to be you is somehow inverted and different. You have no prior experience to go by. Then you get snuggled against something warm, & something covers your head. You raged at it and became "it" again. What a relief (now shut up).
The point here is that nobody's going to believe in an unseen omniscient master unless they feel that survival depends on it. We learned that trick when we were born, it's not inherent in the world, but it is in society, and for all practical purposes we are society because there is no fact that wasn't formulated through discussion, or one opinion on anything that you did NOT get from somebody else. The development and exploitation of unseen threats, provable or not, is the main force of the concept of Conscious Good and Evil. Institutions that admonish one to plan for the hereafter or the second coming or even to pray to an external entity, set the foundation for exploitable insanity.
(2) Social Interaction.
To give gods credit for directing events is wrong. They are themselves a result of (heh-heh) evolution. God works in mysterious ways? Yes indeed: Whatever situation is best adapted to survive, regardless of how cute or massive. This could be a justification for ecumenical excess, but only if the fear-o-god is allowed to wane, or other naturally occurring democratic balances are allowed to proliferate unchecked. "O where is the Grand Inquisitor when you need him? O Who can defend the Bastion of Righteousness against the mocking tongue of the slandering heathen? This lost soul? This..."
"Me! Me! I can do it! Pick me!"
"I ah ....?"
"See, the Church is solid, but it's become preoccupied with loosing social control, it's lack of credibility is the problem, not the civic plan. Fire & brimstone just doesn't cut it (unless you get off on that sort of thing). Some critical percentage of serious church goers are disenfranchised by the requirement that they must not lie, but still claim to believe that stuff in spite of everything, including scientific proof. The social institution of churches is superior, but the notion of "The Faithful" just asks for trouble. There's no exchange rate between faith and reality. Faith is subjective, getting people to say false things as a testament to faith doesn't make it real or objective. It causes the testifiers to distrust the church. So a congregations evolution selects in favor of churchgoing hypocrites, liars, blind followers, and the insane. Hardly a way to appear credible."
"Bailiffs, would you..."
"..and-and someone required to "believe" something obviously false, and who's forgiven for it, will be naturally tolerant of their own social indiscretion, (look at Jerry Falwell) but not necessarily those of others who aren't in on the game, and ... but.. uh... Ok, I'm going!"
Objective, verifiable, "hard" information depends on another persons agreement. We look to other people to see what's true, because the value of information is in its usefulness. Everyone sees UFOs, some see Elvis, a few see the Blessed Virgin, nobody admits seeing J. Edgar Hoover. (I've never seen him!) And the fact remains that no one has ever seen the Boogie Man and lived to tell.
Evil: (an ingenious way to allocate responsibility!) any aversion with an external motivation. A coherent external distructive force, and not necessairly chaotic. evil is assumed to be outside ones self unless the observer is possessed by evil. An evil person exploits evil by infecting others.
------------------------
(Q) How can there be one god if there are also many gods?
(A) Easy: all the rest are phonies!
(1) There's potentially 2 kinds of Gods: wild & civilized.
Wild Gods are basically an attempt to put a human face on uncontrollable forces and then reason with them. People come preprogrammed to recognize the pattern of a face and to respond to emotional messages that a face might convey. To observe an event as "God produced" requires putting an imaginary face (with continuity implied, or supplied by memory) on the emotions produced by the event. Wild Gods are emotionally perceived forces of nature.
Civilized Gods are a conscious effort of the state to employ basic fear & psychopathology as agents of social manipulation. The Jewish model of one god is/was a political convenience, enforced by the state, till enough people are on the same side that they can form a defensible perimeter for the god. This is like probably before Abraham. The Christian model is pretty much that too. First developed as a state religion by Constantine, he cleverly decided that it's easier to manage a nation under one god than the whole Roman pantheon plus all the gods of the conquered tribes, so he gave tax breaks and preferred employment to pacifist Christians till everyone who was getting ahead was a Christian and folks could see an advantage to finding out how to be that way. This later became known as the Republican Method.
Wild and civilized gods all have a group of people in common and the people have to benefit from the god for the god to survive. Wild gods by definition don't care if their people benefit. Evil gods tend to eat up their believers or piss off the neighbors till they incite a rebellion an then there's no one to make sacrifices. It may be a divine survival of the fittest, but it's the society that fails or prospers (get a copy of Black & White). Claiming divine inspiration in the old days was a cheap way to get rumor exposure (there were no press releases then), and like today, one had to back it up to be taken seriously (Mr. Bush..). The point being that a god needs some kind of continuity, and the social matrix that created the god, has to continue with support. For example: the Native Son hits his head and has a blinding flash: in it, a space alien with a golden hat says "THE TIME HAS COME" & then shows the native many things that cannot be told. The only people who will believe the Native Son, also share the belief in gold hatted aliens that have deadlines & secrets. But then he reveals a way to get rich selling soap using tiered marketing, and everybody converts because he then appeals to a broader social base. (& everyone has to eat). OK, that covers the basic god.
Now the Native Son is rich, famous, and revered, but a new philosophy emerges that interprets "time is money" to mean that if time is money, & time is infinite, then the value of goods & services have to be equal to the supply.. That's serious inflation. (The age of the universe is like 20 billion years & guess were half way, so say 40 billion x 365 (days per yr.) x 24 (hr. per day) : so all goods & services since 72000 BC (beginning of trade +2000 = 74000 yrs) are equal to 175.2 trillion units x minimum wage. Round it off to $200,000,000,000,000,000,000.00 per hr. + overtime) Right away the economy reels. Smirking lawyers march toward his mountaintop retreat. Something must be done! The options are: live in a hole & eat grubs or kill the bastards. What would GW Bush do? Hah!~ the Native Son assumes his mantle and quotes the Gold Hatted One saying that time is NOT infinite or even 100 bn yrs old, for it is written "THE TIME HAS COME" (+ some small print) & anyone caught wasting time will be burned at the stake, so get back to work. And thus the evil destruction is averted.
Mind Police and Souls are an innovative but more insidious form of social control than public burnings, and there is no paper trail. Each has a definition that applies to a recogniseable character of society. Mind Police (what a concept!) = internalized repression & conformity. The soul is a persons fragile vessel of existence that is somehow separate but not independent of the body, and can only be properly protected by representatives of the True God. These were strokes of genius to insure authoritarian control over an individuals wandering aspirations, both enlist the efforts of the individual by promoting self doubt and restricting options. Other innovative forms are conscious evil and conscious good as a force. All of these are products of ones own hormonal plumbing, and together define the ideal social control: an individuals self imposed guilt.
Before we go there however, lets to shake out these two forms of social control: Good & Evil as conscious forces. These are basic conflicts left over from Wild Gods, ie. the "recognition" of some kind of overwhelming situation itself as an emotion. Consider these 3 scenarios as serious business: (#1) we're in Atalan & a troop of Conquistadors have just sacked our town, as survivors, we have an opportunity to become slaves & religious converts. Compared to being hacked to pieces, it seems like a bargain. The Padre claims to be an emissary of God & nobody argues because he's real as can be & his side has the swords. (#2) Ok now you're on a freighter in the Atlantic, in a hurricane at night, The wind is blowing 90 knots and 100 foot waves roar by like freight trains, Your 350 foot ship bobs like a rubber duck. You wonder what it all means and if somebody is out there, do they give a fig for you or not. Prior experience says they do, because you lived this long, and you only have to die once. One quickly considers that perhaps prior events that one took for granted were really divine blessings, just because God doesn't show you his angry side may mean he only tolerates your otherwise completely unacceptable nature. At times like these it seems prudent to make personal commitments of a religious nature. At any other time though, it would be an expression of paranoid schizophrenia to organize ones life around the possibility that an external unseen force is attempting to manipulate ones life. (the Republican Party excepted of course). (#3) Now you were just born and you don't know where you are, you're as terrified as your hormones will allow. It's cold, something is happening, blurry things move, someone is yelling, everything that used to be you is somehow inverted and different. You have no prior experience to go by. Then you get snuggled against something warm, & something covers your head. You raged at it and became "it" again. What a relief (now shut up).
The point here is that nobody's going to believe in an unseen omniscient master unless they feel that survival depends on it. We learned that trick when we were born, it's not inherent in the world, but it is in society, and for all practical purposes we are society because there is no fact that wasn't formulated through discussion, or one opinion on anything that you did NOT get from somebody else. The development and exploitation of unseen threats, provable or not, is the main force of the concept of Conscious Good and Evil. Institutions that admonish one to plan for the hereafter or the second coming or even to pray to an external entity, set the foundation for exploitable insanity.
(2) Social Interaction.
To give gods credit for directing events is wrong. They are themselves a result of (heh-heh) evolution. God works in mysterious ways? Yes indeed: Whatever situation is best adapted to survive, regardless of how cute or massive. This could be a justification for ecumenical excess, but only if the fear-o-god is allowed to wane, or other naturally occurring democratic balances are allowed to proliferate unchecked. "O where is the Grand Inquisitor when you need him? O Who can defend the Bastion of Righteousness against the mocking tongue of the slandering heathen? This lost soul? This..."
"Me! Me! I can do it! Pick me!"
"I ah ....?"
"See, the Church is solid, but it's become preoccupied with loosing social control, it's lack of credibility is the problem, not the civic plan. Fire & brimstone just doesn't cut it (unless you get off on that sort of thing). Some critical percentage of serious church goers are disenfranchised by the requirement that they must not lie, but still claim to believe that stuff in spite of everything, including scientific proof. The social institution of churches is superior, but the notion of "The Faithful" just asks for trouble. There's no exchange rate between faith and reality. Faith is subjective, getting people to say false things as a testament to faith doesn't make it real or objective. It causes the testifiers to distrust the church. So a congregations evolution selects in favor of churchgoing hypocrites, liars, blind followers, and the insane. Hardly a way to appear credible."
"Bailiffs, would you..."
"..and-and someone required to "believe" something obviously false, and who's forgiven for it, will be naturally tolerant of their own social indiscretion, (look at Jerry Falwell) but not necessarily those of others who aren't in on the game, and ... but.. uh... Ok, I'm going!"
Objective, verifiable, "hard" information depends on another persons agreement. We look to other people to see what's true, because the value of information is in its usefulness. Everyone sees UFOs, some see Elvis, a few see the Blessed Virgin, nobody admits seeing J. Edgar Hoover. (I've never seen him!) And the fact remains that no one has ever seen the Boogie Man and lived to tell.
Evil: (an ingenious way to allocate responsibility!) any aversion with an external motivation. A coherent external distructive force, and not necessairly chaotic. evil is assumed to be outside ones self unless the observer is possessed by evil. An evil person exploits evil by infecting others.
------------------------
Well OK, so here's a twist (remember we're doing all this on the strength of rumor): How about something that supports the existence of god, the location of heaven, where good vs evil is a workable concept. Since heaven isn't someplace one can point to, it has to be hypothetical, like it's one of those multiple dimensions that are rolled up inside themselves with quantum hinges or something. Since everything we know pretty much exists in a field of social interaction (like finance, it's virtual & not real), that's where god is. eh? eh? sound good? So if the things we wish for maybe are like prayers, in my next life I'll probably have to contend with nasty old men... uh, but I hope not. O, MY SUBJECTS: Objectivity is unproveable by it's own definition.
Every one wants the real world to be like heaven. How does it happen? A person asks someone for a clue to reality. Objectivity is established, social relationships produce hormones, ones friends manipulate the votes and bestow presidency in return for favors, 72 virgins await the martyr in heaven. SO DON'T ASK. If it exists, you're already there. (break a leg, sucker)
Friday, February 01, 2002
Todays flash: synchronicity!
This is my view:
synchronicity is a real thing and depends on the viewer. For it to occur, the following chain of events needs to take place:
1) People or whatever need to share a common association to something in the environment, say an object or the juxtaposition of objects. These things are used by the brain as a memnemonic device, it's an extension of the persons memory, a filing system.
2) This association is defined as a cultural standard of some sort. A dynamic representation is the single mindedness of a group of fighters or players making the score. A child and parent or sibling sharing the same idea. A pack of dogs, A flock of birds.
3) The memory of those involved is triggered by something like the same configuration of brain synapses. Like a group of people seeing the same thing. For this to take place, the neuron transition from sense to interpretation requires a memory input which is taken from the environment. The interpretation is made on a learned standard, but the neuron calling for a standard (some kind of similar previous experience) excites more than just the brain, so that others sharing the association, form the same conclusion or mental imagery. This is the point of this note. It goes beyond-mind (para-noid)*: "Brain Waves" happen. When the previous experience is not exact, one is synthesized from approximate experiences using a creative association. The new association is learning taking place, and may involve someone elses experience.
"Brain waves" between people are, as far as I know, only a theoretical explanation for synchronistic phenomena. However I point to the following evidence: Alpha wave (bio feedback) sensors detect a particular pattern between two people who are mutually a ttracted to each other: a double beep, like a heart beat but missing the third beat (beep-beep, beep-beep, etc.). How come? Possibly to be in contact with the other person?
Situational awareness (the opposite of visualization) still depends on so me kind of feedback. When the environment changes in an unfamiliar manner, like in dreams, one tends to act in a dream manner: fainting, laughing, or standing agog. widdershins etc.
1 Feb 2016:
Continuation of the brain waves hypothesis: The remarkable ways our brains slip into synchrony (MitPress.mit.edu) (23 Jan 2021)
This article about Synchronized brain waves in distant regions combine memories (science daily) says
1. How brain oscillations might respond to teleportation
An extenuation of the same phenomenon could be that a bunch of people doing the same thing might also be sensitive to the theta osculations of those around them amplified by the group, causing them to act in a similar way. please comment if you have any thoughts :)
2. Brain waves synchronize when people interact
*A note on paranoia:
The process of paranoia is common, as described above. But popular definition of paranoia implies that something is wrong, and could just as well be defined as fear. The wrongness is actually a lack of confidence in the cultural standard. Psychologists and Therapists tend to exploit and reinforce the phenomena to make a buck. Any ones compassion can wear thin, but it seems shameless for them to continue, though they are probably unaware and are only supporting their own reality.
This is my view:
synchronicity is a real thing and depends on the viewer. For it to occur, the following chain of events needs to take place:
1) People or whatever need to share a common association to something in the environment, say an object or the juxtaposition of objects. These things are used by the brain as a memnemonic device, it's an extension of the persons memory, a filing system.
2) This association is defined as a cultural standard of some sort. A dynamic representation is the single mindedness of a group of fighters or players making the score. A child and parent or sibling sharing the same idea. A pack of dogs, A flock of birds.
3) The memory of those involved is triggered by something like the same configuration of brain synapses. Like a group of people seeing the same thing. For this to take place, the neuron transition from sense to interpretation requires a memory input which is taken from the environment. The interpretation is made on a learned standard, but the neuron calling for a standard (some kind of similar previous experience) excites more than just the brain, so that others sharing the association, form the same conclusion or mental imagery. This is the point of this note. It goes beyond-mind (para-noid)*: "Brain Waves" happen. When the previous experience is not exact, one is synthesized from approximate experiences using a creative association. The new association is learning taking place, and may involve someone elses experience.
"Brain waves" between people are, as far as I know, only a theoretical explanation for synchronistic phenomena. However I point to the following evidence: Alpha wave (bio feedback) sensors detect a particular pattern between two people who are mutually a ttracted to each other: a double beep, like a heart beat but missing the third beat (beep-beep, beep-beep, etc.). How come? Possibly to be in contact with the other person?
Situational awareness (the opposite of visualization) still depends on so me kind of feedback. When the environment changes in an unfamiliar manner, like in dreams, one tends to act in a dream manner: fainting, laughing, or standing agog. widdershins etc.
1 Feb 2016:
Continuation of the brain waves hypothesis: The remarkable ways our brains slip into synchrony (MitPress.mit.edu) (23 Jan 2021)
This article about Synchronized brain waves in distant regions combine memories (science daily) says
"Humans have the remarkable ability to integrate information from multiple memories and infer indirect relationships. How does our brain support this important function? Neuroscientists have now shown that rhythmic brain waves, called theta oscillations, engage and synchronize the brain regions that support the integration of memories."Also:
1. How brain oscillations might respond to teleportation
An extenuation of the same phenomenon could be that a bunch of people doing the same thing might also be sensitive to the theta osculations of those around them amplified by the group, causing them to act in a similar way. please comment if you have any thoughts :)
2. Brain waves synchronize when people interact
*A note on paranoia:
The process of paranoia is common, as described above. But popular definition of paranoia implies that something is wrong, and could just as well be defined as fear. The wrongness is actually a lack of confidence in the cultural standard. Psychologists and Therapists tend to exploit and reinforce the phenomena to make a buck. Any ones compassion can wear thin, but it seems shameless for them to continue, though they are probably unaware and are only supporting their own reality.
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