Yes, we cherish memories.  That has an acutely bittersweet aspect to it though.  I also have the benefit of having shrines to my parents where I can sit and talk to them and even do the "worship" rituals (leave flowers and other things, light joss sticks).  The culture here expects that so it is no problem, unlike in the States where one has to go to the tomb and even there is limited by considerations of face as to what one does.  I don't know if they are aware of this, but it is possible and that is helpful.

One is not happy because the world goes as we want it to go.  The world is perverse, sometimes doing what we want but more often in the end not.  One is happy when one decides to be happy, sometimes with a little professional guidance or teaching about how to do it and sometimes with a little chemical help, under medical guidance.  Some people show themselves resilient and happy in the worst conceivable conditions, so although external events have some immediate impact, it is what we are or teach ourselves to be that matters in the end.

I would say that according to some definitions, "religion" has pretty much disappeared (effectively) for more than half the world today.  Europeans take their religion lightly and most ignore the traditions, and more and more Americans (both North and South) are coming to be similar.

In much of the rest of the world the religion listed in the reference books is not really a religion, for one reason or another.  For example in much of Africa, including the Muslim and Christian parts, it is more magic than religion -- ways to get God to do what you want.  This happens in animism and Hinduism and many flavors of Buddhism and other Chinese religions, where you don't have "God," but "Heaven."  I dunno -- is it okay to call belief in spirits inhabiting a local forest glen and giving these spirits a greeting when you come into it a real "religion?"

We have instincts that lead to expression via religion, such as our submission/dominance instincts, our altruistic instincts, our ability to love and to experience awe and of course our instinct to try to survive, leading to beliefs trying to avoid the reality of death, but none of these can be said to be explicitly a religion instinct.  They are just instincts that sometimes find religious ways to come out.

One might say that there are two kinds of atheist -- those who believe there is no God and those who don't believe in God.  I suppose the first could be said to have "atheism" as a sort of religious opinion, but those who are just not convinced there is a God have it as simply an opinion based mainly on lack of good reason to think there is one.  Detailed looks at history and at physics and astronomy and the evolution of life is sufficient to show that the heavens most certainly do not declare the glory of God.

It entertains (and irritates me) no end that theists persist in insisting atheism is a religion.  If they would get over that they would be more persuasive but as it is it just convinces me they are not thinking at all clearly.  I suppose what is going on is they want to see it as some sort of choice we make in religions, but that is not the case at all -- our beliefs are either rational or based on indoctrination from childhood, and some overcome the indoctrination and some don't.

I noticed the comment above that belief in God in many cases is based on fear of death -- either for ourselves or our loved ones.  This is powerful, and I can see where it would create a strong desire to believe, even in spite of there being little evidence.

Everyone keeps telling me I don't look my age.  I use to think it was because I'm fat and so don't show wrinkles as much and I still have my hair.  Trouble is I know my age, and now that I've gone gray and they still say it I think I am being fibbed to.  (A fib is not a lie -- lies are malicious but fibs are not).

That reminds me.  I don't believe in ethics by the rule book -- the "Thou shalt not lie" stuff.  There are times when lying through your teeth is the only honorable and ethical thing to do, if it protects someone from harm.  It is usually not hard to tell when a lie is called for and when it is wrong -- is the lie selfish or not, and does it harm someone else.  Lots of lies are neutral -- they may be a little selfish but do no one else any harm. 

This is not ethical relativity or situational ethics.  If something is wrong it is wrong -- no situational or relativity about it -- but determining right and wrong requires thought and reasoning, not just the blind application of rules.

Sin is an invention of priests who need to have a lever to control us, to get us feeling guilty and fearful, and to get us feeling forgiven with their rituals.  That a god's death could provide forgiveness for sins is illogical and in fact rather dumb.

Suffering is the evil of the world, not people's bad behavior, and to the extent what we do causes suffering there is no cosmic forgiveness and only what forgiveness we can give ourselves or others give us.  One should undo the harm as much as possible and learn what lessons one can and then get on with life -- accepting whatever consequences may follow form what we do.

It can be helpful to distinguish between opinions and beliefs.  Opinions are things we learn intellectually and hold tentatively, although sometimes we are so sure they are true as to be willing to wager on them 

Beliefs, on the other hand, are things we "know" are true but never actually learned, at least in our memory.  They are obtained by being indoctrinated -- usually as children before our skeptical abilities are mature.  We are not really consciously aware of their presence -- we just assume they are true much as we assume the sofa is "there" when we sit on it without looking.

When an opinion is questioned, we ask for the evidence: when a belief is questioned we think the questioner must be nuts or perverted or lacking in some way, to question something so fundamental.

We have a strong desire (it is almost certainly an instinct evolved for group cohesion in primitive situations) to believe what the community believes and what we grew up believing.  This is powerful.  During the "rebellious" phase of young adulthood, when we are establishing our independence, aspects of the cultural environment may bring these beliefs into doubt, and even lead to their being abandoned, but not without a lot of turmoil and angst and fear and guilt.  As often as not after a few years of this sort of emotional pain the person decides "enough" and goes back to believing.  The instinct then rewards the person for doing this with joy and peace (testimonials in religious meetings show what is going on pretty well).

After this the believer is pretty much locked in and will never allow doubts again, no matter how irrational the actual belief may be shown to be.

When "it comes down to it," one would like one's philosophy to be true.  I don't think, then, that one can really say one chooses one's philosophy.  Rather one looks for the truth and then is obliged to go with whatever one finds, whether one likes it or not.

I often get, when describing some teaching or another, an "I don't like that."  My unspoken thought is, "So what? Whether you like it is not relevant, and thinking your likes and dislikes are at all to the point is just arrogance and foolishness."

There was a time in my life when I was impressed by my experiences of deja vu and worked with it to try to outline my most recent past life.  The results were indeterminate and nothing more than frustrating, to the extent that my initial conviction that I was onto something soured.  I don't know and I have to leave it at that, although I must admit I got quite a few clues nothing ever led to anything concrete.

I am pretty sure the center of memory is the physical brain, as we see it destroyed with brain-destroying diseases, and so we have to think the same thing happens when our brain decays at death.  To say we carry some sort of memory to another life, then, would require we posit a second, separate, center of memory that survives our death -- a bit much.  It is plain enough very few if any have access to such memories.

Still, the way our mind seems to be an ongoing process of some sort of unknown phenomena wave providing sentience and sensation and so on would suggest that it is independent of brain and would indeed persist, but at quite a loss when it is stripped of life's memories.  This is similar but not quite the same as traditional Buddhist thought, and quite the same if you take out the superstitious wishful thinking of those who want to turn rebirth into a means for personal immortality, which it ain't.

The younger sister of my life partner died yesterday after an extended battle against cancer after being in a coma for a few days.  She was a warm exciting person but being at a considerable distance from where she lived with her husband (their children were grown and married) I cannot say she was at all close to me.

I have now heard several stories of a clearly mystical or supernatural sort, but not identifiable with Christianity (as I would have expected since they were a strongly Christian family) but instead of a generic sort (temperature changes, restlessness, some sort of glow in a vision/dream, and so on -- the details don't interest me).

I certainly do not reject these reports, even though I'm normally of a skeptical frame of mind.  They are credible to me knowing the individuals and from the fact that it does not seem to be some pious effort to convert others to their beliefs.  Saying that someone has no reason to invent a story is of course not enough -- people invent stories all the time whether or not they have reason (and often the stories go beyond the telling so it is not possible to even question motives).  Thus there is no basis for using this as evidence or any sort of proof of anything.

Still, I really don't think they were fabricated nor imagined out of emotional responses.  It doesn't fit, but I would not rule such an interpretation out either.

The implication is some sort of after-life and efforts by the deceased, immediately after death, to send a signal.  That of course would be a lot to swallow too.  I think most people, including myself, have experienced "feelings" or something more tangible, on learning of someone's death.  I did with the death of my father.  Memories are unreliable and one is never sure whether the feelings preceded the arrival of the news, although that is my memory and that is what is said to be the case here.  Even if the feeling did precede the news, with the knowledge that the person is near death it doesn't mean much.

One need not believe in God or angels or spirits or anything in particular to nevertheless think that there is much more to the phenomenon of mind than electrochemical neurochemistry, especially given the mechanical interpretation usually applied to physical phenomena.  Consciousness and sentience and the experiential rather than mechanical way we exist, and of course things like the conviction most of us have that at least some of the time we are capable of will, leads to the thought that in some way or another something -- maybe not the person but something -- does persist.

Still, skepticism is essential: otherwise we end up with no end of nonsense, some of it dangerous nonsense.  I guess I have to just say not only do I not know but I can see no way of knowing.

What we appear to lose when our brains are damaged seems to have to do mainly with memory -- retrieving and storing them.  The personality seems to remain but of course cannot function well without the ability to remember things, or confusion and partial memories.  Eventually, when even short-term memory is lost,. even the personality seems to go, but it is hard to really make that assertion, and even then the elements of sentient existence -- experience of "qualia" -- the ability, for instance, to discern faces and colors and other sensations, to feel pain and hunger, and all the rest -- seems to remain.

This fits but of course does not imply the South Central Asian (Indian subcontinent) cultural idea of rebirth -- at death memories are lost but the personality goes on, not as a tangible thing but as a process.  The cultures of this area had no problem assigning sentience to animals, but not souls, which to the cultures involved was alien (the ideas are sometimes translated "souls," or "self," but this is a distortion.

Obama is exercising "executive power" much as the Jacobite kings exercised "royal prerogative."  Goes to show that it is impossible to clearly separate executive from legislative power, and as I see the dispute in the States on this issue, it might be that Congress is the one interfering with the president's power make executive decisions.  If the Supreme Court were not today such a political institution we might hope for a clear line that all would accept: I don't think now that is possible.  In the end this is just one more example of the developing constitutional crisis in the States resulting from its having such an obsolete basis of government.

I would add that traditionally amnesties have always been an executive prerogative.

Israel is a legally constituted sovereign nation under constant attack by those who openly declare their intention to eliminate it and if necessary to annihilate the population.  That Israel takes harsh and often preemptive measures against these things is understandable and perfectly moral and legal.  While sometimes its measures may in even my opinion be counterproductive and regrettable, they should not be second-guessed by arm-chair types sitting comfortably at home and not under regular bombardment and terrorist attack.   The propaganda that distorts this ongoing reality should be simply dismissed.  The Palestinians have had many chances for peace and will not accept them.  That is their decision and they have to live with the world they have created.

Sentience and qualia

An objective (scientific) look at the biological world tells us some animals are sentient, others less so to the extent that many animals function entirely by programmed response (reflex).

What is sentience?  Well it is an intervention between an incoming sense experience and its being acted upon via the animal "experiencing" the sensation via a "qualia" and emotional associations.  A phototropic organism moves toward a light source but does not "experience" light -- it just responds that way automatically.  A sentient organism experiences the light and, if it likes it, moves toward it ("likes" -- an emotion).

This is "the great mystery" of neurology -- whence the qualia of experience and the associated emotional qualia?  It is a far better arrangement for reactions than evolved reflexes, which tend to be automatic and hence take a long time to change and are basically inflexible (an ant given a certain pheromone does a certain thing, and other organisms can take advantage and for a while fool the ants).  An emotional reaction is more flexible and permits learning without genetic evolution.

Some work has identified the evolution of certain neurochemicals and their pathways (those associated with emotions such as pleasure for reinforcing a behavior and displeasure for discouraging it) as marking the appearance of sentience in the animal world -- something which, if true, would imply that the dinosaurs, mammals and birds (and probably the "mammal like reptiles" that preceded these) were sentient but that other reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates are not, although similar pathways evolved independently have been identified in some cephalopods.

In the end we are animals, and among many things that means we inherit a bundle of instincts evolved over the ages to enhance survival of our genes into the next generation.  This is not a moral force, nor is it immoral.  It just is what it is, and sometimes it leads to great deeds and sometimes not so great.

For the most part we are not conscious of this.  The instincts work mainly through our emotions -- desires and revulsions, likes and dislikes, wishes and fears, and so on.  Learning to identify them and then step outside them is I think a modern interpretation of the Buddha's insight.

What I don't get is why Satan, supposedly no slouch in the brains department, doesn't realize his goose is cooked and ask for forgiveness.  I wonder what God would do then.  It would kinda make a mess of His plans.

The only really negative thing I have to say about my cats is that they are blood thirsty vicious little things eager to tear to shreds anything smaller than they are.  Otherwise they are charming and affectionate and clean.

To my mind an infinity of "universes" is pretty much a foregone conclusion, based on the idea that if it happened once for us given the laws of probability it has happened over and over and over and over.

The anthropic principle is not to my mind as persuasive -- inference rather than deduction -- and of course any collision between our universe and another strikes me as mis-definition -- another universe would be in its own dimensions and have no way to influence us -- in other words we are better off to define anything we might react to or collide with as part of our universe.

Mockery comes, I think, from hate.  I've been thinking about this business of "hating" Christians or "hating" Islam or whatever.  It is really an absurd idea: one does not hate if one is at all wise since hate only harms the hater and needs therefore to be eliminated if one is to be full and happy.  Therefore no matter how absurd or even harmful a teaching may be, one does not mock.

Still, when you look objectively at the things religions have done and still do to people, it is an emotion one can understand, especially in those who have had to deal with religious belief in family members and so on, or who have discovered the indoctrination that happened to them that they have to live with the rest of their lives.

I am a great one for there being many ways to truth or salvation or happiness or enlightenment or whatever one is seeking -- however, the fact that there may be a great many ways to get there does not mean that all ways get there. 

Constantine's pagan Arian orthodox Christianity

This business of people in history were some particular religion -- in this case Christians -- mainly for political reasons rather than out of deep conviction -- brings to my mind the Emperor Constantine, who as we know "converted" to Christianity and enabled Christianity to later become the state religion.  It so happens I just finished watching a series of lectures on the subject, so my mind is fresh with it and a lot I learned is new to me.

Constantine seems, all his life, both before and after becoming a Christian, to have been a fairly typical Roman "pagan," in that he was mainly superstitious and wanted the favor of any deity who happened to be around, including Jesus.  The Romans had never really denied Jesus as a god of some sort -- they just didn't like the sectarianism (we have the truth and you are going to Hell) attitude of the Christian churches.

There was a small political gain in giving tolerance to Christians and even favoring them in certain ways, but not a huge gain as at the time maybe ten percent were Christians.  However, one of these was his mother, so he no doubt had been influenced by her to some extent.  So the gain may have been more familial than political.  Of course once the lay of the land became clear, ambitious people all over began becoming Christians -- not necessarily hypocritically -- people are great in finding truth in whatever to them is convenient.  I think Augustine was an example of this.

Once he had stopped the anti-Christian laws, he may have regretted it.  He seems never to have understood the niceties of detail the Christians fought and killed each other over, and seems to have favored Arianism (when he finally was baptized it was by an Arian priest in Arian ritual) as more logical, but of course he was not a priest and Christianity did not allow him much of a say except to use his power to force settlements they agreed to.  Standard pagans never had riots over the proper form of some belief statement or the exact nature of some demi-urge's being.  This sort of thing was rather alien to them, and no doubt the cartoon buffoonery of the Alexandrian theatre attacking the hoomousia vs. houmisia (or whatever) really burned the local bishop.

We all have an "absurdity" checker in our minds (well, most of us do), but many have found clever ways to get around it and hence come to believe such absurdities as original sin and a divine/human sacrifice to magically offset a divine curse on all mankind because the supposed first man and woman committed a minor act of disobedience.  The whole thing, no matter how metaphorically one chooses to take it, is patently absurd and worthy or not just rebuke but mocking.  That we refrain is just being polite.

What do I see here?  I see an effort to put absurdities such as I have just mentioned on a level equal to that of reason and objectivity.  Down that road lies superstition and the destruction, in the end, of education and civilization and learning.  Of course we are not in such danger today, I think mainly because the major elites of learning see the reality, but we don't know what may happen in the future and it behooves those who support reason over superstition and faith claims to do whatever reasonably possible to control it.

I have to say I tire of all this, and really can't see how people can be so stupid or blind or whatever one is to call it.  Reason and critical thinking are superior and myth and spiritual superstition and basing beliefs on faith or tradition or authority are clearly not only inferior but worthless.

One's philosophy can be a variety of things, and perhaps before one decides to write it all down one should have an idea of which kind one intends, or of course maybe all of them, a bit of a challenge.

There is the problem of how to be happy.  Then there is the problem of what it means to be and how to be good.  These aren't necessarily the same.  I dare say there exist rather happy but either evil or at least amoral people.

Then there are philosophies of work, of beauty (music, art, literature, poetry, love, food, and whatever we do), as well as the theory or philosophy behind politics and economics and history and law and so on, often tempered by ideas about justice and progress and alleviation of suffering.

Then there are more "analysis" things, such as what is it to know something, how to know something, how to understand something, on what grounds if any to believe, what is science and how to do it, what is sentience and emotion and experience and living, and of course why we die and what happens then if anything.

Finally, it is always useful when one thinks one has a great new insight into some issue to check the literature (mainly the great philosophers of history) to be sure it hasn't already been thought of and either refuted or at least debated.  There is no point going to great mental effort re-inventing the wheel.  I find reading philosophy (mostly commentary or description of the great ones, who tend to be hard to follow and at a minimum need annotation) a considerable joy, as so often I am either forced to abandon some notion or at least modify it, or realize that it is nowhere near the final answer I had thought.

I haven't mentioned God or deities, frankly because they are not relevant and just confuse matters.

I'm not sure what to make of NDE's.  They don't seem to happen in Asia, which tells me it is culturally influenced -- people who report them already know "what" to report.  It might be a trick of the brain and no doubt much of the time it is a fabrication (various motives -- pious fraud, attention, mental disorder, implanted memory (by the questions of others), whatever).

For the reason that there is so much wishful thinking surrounding the subject, I think it is impossible to draw any sort of affirmative conclusion and certainly is not valid evidence of any sort of afterlife (besides, for all we know that tunnel leads to oblivion).  It strikes me that people who latch onto such reports are similar to those who "remember" past lives -- except with different cultural expectations.

The end of the classical period was a tragedy.  It had its pantheon of harmless gods and goddesses for the superstitious and some profound philosophical traditions for the informed and aware.  It was ultimately suppressed by a brutal and arbitrary set of myth based and primitive sectarian dogmatisms, Christianity in its two autocratic forms and later Islam.  I am glad Asia had no similar experience and very much hope the Western infection can be kept at bay.

I'm aware a lot of Westerners don't like being told what their tradition really represents, so maybe I can soften it a little by pointing out that the West produced science, much to the dismay of its clerical class, something that would have happened in China except for the fact that it became insular and devoid of stimulus -- nothing external but barbarians and nothing internal in the end but a stifling bureaucracy, although for awhile there was progress, human fear of change eventually stifled it.

I don't know that we are all entitled to have an opinion about everything; I refrain from forming them about things where I'm ignorant and I think that is the wisest way to go -- at least I try to not form them and certainly don't say them out loud.  Often of course I just follow the experts -- they are useful that way so long as one is aware of possible vested interests.

As far as to whether aliens exist or not and if they do what they might be like, I think we are all ignorant and are therefore better off keeping out mouths shut.  However, since we are all on fairly the same level, I suppose wild-ass guesses don't hurt so long as we don't get too committed to them.

My guess is that they don't exist, at least in any form and distance we are ever likely to understand and actually encounter.  Otherwise they would long since have been here, and they aren't.  There are in addition to that rational difficulties that have been pointed out in the evolution of such beings that would seem to imply they are going to be incredibly rare.  My guess since of course the probability factors are at this point pretty wild-ass and may kick us hard some day.

In a few centuries I trust we will have a much better handle on things.  What if it turns out we really are alone?  What conclusion would it be appropriate for us to draw from such a conclusion?  The conclusion might be, "Oh, wow, we have a deep responsibility here to preserve life and spread it to the rest of the universe."  Nonsense.

The story is told of the blindfolded men who feel parts of the elephant and report back different beasts.  The problem is, all they have to do is (1) either be more methodical in their exploration and not stop until they have felt the entire beast or (2) take off the damn blindfolds.  Christians refuse to do either.  They keep themselves blindfolded and they won't study anything that might conflict with their beliefs -- their knowledge of Buddhism, for example, is limited to what their preachers tell them about it.

I don't know that I accept the idea of "situational" ethics all the time.  Obviously sometimes something is right in one situation and wrong in another, but there is always a deeper ethical principle to be looked for when this happens.   The rule against lying, for example, is sometimes for situational reasons not valid, but a deeper principle, that of not harming someone, is one of the principles that underlies the need for truthfulness (although by no means the only principle -- one could write a book).  So when the truth hurts someone, a falsehood may be appropriate ethical behavior.

When it comes to hiding something from one's spouse -- say an indiscretion -- if it is not going to become a pattern it may be that the lie is the most ethical course, albeit fraught with tar traps.  Both the spouse and the relationship are less hurt and better off long run with the lie.  Problem is it is easy to begin to justify lies with such reasoning and before long one loses track of basic truths.  This leads, guaranteed, to a major train wreck.

One of the worst moral offenses of this world is even encouraged strongly by the self-declared guardians of our morality.  This is the routine and even organized indoctrination of children before they are of a maturity to be able to assess what is going on and make up their own minds.

I think rape is about as accurate to describe this as anything.  To impose something one someone else without their informed permission is rape, and doing it to innocent children is to saddle them with a belief system all their life.  It is an outrageous thing to just contemplate.

Religious questions, such as about death or God, as well as political questions and questions about sexuality, need maturity to handle properly, and children do no have that maturity.  Therefore they should properly be answered with, "When you are mature, you will learn about these things and decide for yourself." 

Perhaps too often we force maturity on children, and they are of course eager to assume it, so they do need to be told that they are not mature, and that maturity comes in time slowly, and they must therefore respect their elders, even though many times even the elders are not mature.  Most importantly, teenage and early twenties years are not years of intellectual and emotional maturity.

It is not necessary to threaten a child with a vengeful God or with some magical karmic cycle to get them to be moral beings.  Indeed, such things interferes with true moral behavior.  Most children (although unfortunately we know that a small fraction of the population are sociopathic and thereby absent this instinct) are born with a desire to do what is right.  All they need to learn is how to figure out what is right.

Rules are not the way to go.  A lie may be generally wrong, but there are exceptions when a lie is even the morally essential way to go, such as to prevent hurting someone.  That is the key -- harm and help.  Acts that harm others are wrong, all else being equal.

Descartes underwhelming

Widely viewed as one of the great philosophers of history, and often as the "founder" of modern philosophy, we have Rene Descartes.

I am underwhelmed.  He is of course famous for "cogito ergo sum," "I think therefore I am."  Anything else?  Well of course he gets there by questioning (doubting) everything -- now what teenager hasn't done that many times?  And then from there he concludes that this thing that thinks is the soul, that others besides ourselves do likewise, and that God exists and God gives us these souls.  (Most of the rest of this is not payed much attention to because it is pretty obvious to even the most determined believer that the argument is flimsy).

I think Descartes proposition is popular because it has an emotional appeal -- at least we can be "certain" that we exist, or something about us that thinks exists, to be more exact.

He doesn't accomplish this.  His thinking, and my thinking, and your thinking, proves nothing exists, not even thinking (what exactly is a "thought" anyway?).  The idea is that if there is an activity then I guess there has to be something doing the activity.  Here the activity is thinking, so something doing the thinking has to exist, and that something is obviously (really?) me.

No, Descartes just thinks he's thinking.  He doesn't know it, nor can we.  We don't even know that thinking is an activity at all or if it is that it needs an agent to be doing it.

One thing science can't prove is that something is endless.  It can prove something is finite by finding its edge or boundary, but if it is endless there is no boundary to be found -- except it could still be over the next hill.

Presented with a being claiming to be infinite, we would have the same problem -- we could prove it false if we found or showed how there had to necessarily be a boundary, but absent doing this we still could not be sure the being was telling the truth, since the boundary could exist but be out or our range.

Mathematical infinities are different.  Irrational numbers, for example, are decimals that go on without end.  The "density" of the number line is infinite.  And, of course, the counting numbers are endless, as well as things like the number of primes -- it isn't that we haven't found a largest prime but that we have a logical proof that such a number would be self-contradictory.  Indeed, in spite of this, we also know that there are "sizes" of infinite sets.  Heaven forbid by getting into that, but it shows to me that mathematics and reality are not the same.

This is an area, then, where I think there is a massive difference between the "real" world and the thing we have invented called mathematics.

It may be gays "coming out of the closet" by telling those around them of their sexual orientation is the main reason gays have come to be much more accepted than before.  When real homosexuals were invisible and all one saw were caricatures created by the press or the lies of some religious groups, it was harder to realize that they are real people.

Zero is not a number in the set of positive integers, which are the counting numbers dating from antiquity.  It had to be invented and is still to my mind something we call a number but isn't quite, since it is not used to count anything but only to indicate absence of anything to count.

It is of course essential for modern mathematics, but mathematics is divorced in many ways from reality and is abstract, maybe and maybe not the basis of existence (one can find quotes on both sides of this).

I try to be non-judgmental and say to myself it's just their background, they can't help it, but I have a tough time dealing with homophobes, racists, sexists, and so on.  I tend to think they are that way only to justify themselves and feel superior to others.  In the modern world though there really is no excuse for such things.

What particularly gets me is people who say they are open minded and not prejudiced and then go on to say prejudiced things.  What gives with such a person?

In Vietnam we find the same sort of thing with Chinese and Cambodians, and with dark skins in general (the standard of beauty here is really stupid -- be as white as possible -- and millions are wasted on whitening creams and such).  And, of course, sexism here is outrageous, in spite of half a century of Communist party indoctrination that men and women are equal, even male party members are too often as sexist as ever, and women in high positions in either government or business are few.

I want to add something, a post script if you will, to what I said above.  We recognize tolerance as a virtue.  The self-referential question is natural: should we be tolerant of the intolerant?

Well I guess we can try to understand where they are coming from, but I fear such understanding will only serve to increase our intolerance of them, as we will recognize that prejudice and intolerance come from ugly, spiteful, selfish, arrogant, etc., personality characteristics.  Cultures that encourage these things, and there are many such cultures in the world, are destructive and harmful.

I guess a certain amount of patience is needed, but dammit I have no intention to listen to slurs and racism and so on without protest, and without telling the speaker where they can go.

What do I "believe?"  Ah that is the problem; I have opinions that change from time to time as I learn things, and some of which I act as though I believed, since I am highly confident of them, but I try very hard to "believe" nothing.  Belief is a pernicious thing -- it is a view of the world deeply embedded in the subconscious that people are not even aware of, but around which they base their lives, and which creates great unhappiness when it comes into doubt (both fear and guilt) as well as anger and resistance.

Opinions are a better thing entirely -- we have them on the surface and can examine them whenever needed and aren't attached to them nearly as much (only ego is involved with opinions while the very basis or our lives is involved with beliefs).

Isn't it known that homophobes are those with strong gay tendencies and who fear them (I figure everyone has a few such tendencies but most people don't worry about it)?  Seems like every time a politician is "outed," he has a history of homophobic stands.

Homosexuality certainly exists in Vietnam (twenty years ago it was officially a Western thing), and I think gay marriage will be "legal" shortly (it already is in a way, since the law makes marriage a strictly civil contract and any church ceremony is irrelevant -- the only thing in the air is what happens in separation to any children -- a proposal to legalize gay marriage was tabled this year, I think because of Catholic objections, but that may go away).  The society has always been tolerant of transsexuals, but the main mass of gays have existed pretty much unnoticed (who would want to do that?) in a society where a couple of guys or couple of girls living together for long periods are just accepted as "good friends."

I observe that monks, like priests, are often gay, I think because it relieves the pressure to marry and have grandchildren for the parents.  In both cases they are supposed to be celibate, but I doubt it.

Anything is possible, but that is no basis for an opinion, let alone a belief.  For the possible to become the probable requires that it fit in with other knowledge, that it have good supporting evidence, and that it be sensible.  A lot of that is judgment.  Way-out things, even with considerable evidence, are not acceptable without huge amounts of evidence and complete refutation of more likely explanations.

Basically whenever I'm presented with a situation where I can see no explanation except something extreme, I don't just assume the extreme.  Instead I assume I don't have enough knowledge and have to put it aside as unexplained.  Therefore argument that consists of nothing more than refuting alternatives is no way to proceed -- positive evidence is needed when the claim is outre.

There are some ways that tend to lead to happiness and fulfillment, there are other ways that don't.  However, the way that leads to these things for me is not necessarily going to be the way for someone else.  I can show them the way I chose if they ask, but not for the purpose of getting them to follow it but only to give it to them as a possibility.

Most people think of Jesus as never having sex.  To me that contradicts the idea that he was fully human.  Did he even ever take matters into his own hand (sorry for the euphemism but I can't use the correct word -- search engines block me if I do)?  It seems he knew what lust was and approved of marital sex, but not otherwise, so to have been fully human (actually have sex) he would have needed to be married.

Marriage to another man (no doubt "the beloved apostle") would solve a lot of problems, including the touchy one of how could a perfect being have sex with a woman and she not conceive, but you don't want baby Holy Trinities -- boggles the mind.

Of course what do I know -- it seems to me far more likely the whole thing is entirely mythical.

God and first cause

Various theoretical constructs about the way the earliest universe evolved have to do with the nature of space-time and I don't think anyone proposes them as an alternative to God.  The point is there is now realized no need to insert a first cause into things, since that is based on philosophical notions that can be shown logically false, much as they appeal to us to be unavoidable, that is just a limit in our thinking, much as the idea of a universal up and down are false.

One could as well attribute the germination of a seed as a divine intervention, and metaphorically many still do, but it is not necessary and gets in the way of actual knowledge.

A thing a man has to be careful about (and I suppose women too but I don't know, not being one) is to avoid projecting one's fantasies onto the woman.  She is not an extension of yourself nor an object to be used for pleasure.  Men seem so often to have this unrecognized notion that women only exist for men.  In many cultures that is even explicit.

It is a disturbing fact that police are largely self-selected.  Society does not go out and find people who would be good cops, but would-be cops choose themselves and apply.  Of course some vetting takes place, but it is pretty obvious that most cops have issues with authority and guns and how they think people should behave and are judgmental about those who don't behave as they think they should.

I once thought belief was a matter of choice -- being of the mind, the mind decides what to believe or not.

Now I realize that can't be so.  There are two things seriously limiting our freedom to choose what to believe -- indoctrination and the reality checker we have that keeps us at least relatively sane.

If my boss tells me I am fired, I can't "choose" to believe otherwise.  Our brain's reality checker can identify such a thought and nip it off.  Problems happen when we already believe things (from education or from indoctrination -- it doesn't matter which).  The reality checker compares a new piece of information with what we "know," and either accepts it or rejects it.  If something doesn't fit in our existing beliefs, the reality checker rejects it -- and then often goes on to figure out rationalizations or excuses for why our existing beliefs should prevail.

To actually choose what to believe would require a level of mindfulness far beyond what any of us are likely to achieve, and would probably not be a good thing as our choices would then become either random or maybe personality driven, and this is tantamount to insanity.

The end conclusion I draw is that beliefs are a bad thing.  They are furniture we sit on without noticing their presence, but they control us a lot -- a hovering presence controlling us, especially when the beliefs came from indoctrination and therefore are either false or at least not properly supported with evidence.

The secret to breaking indoctrination is well known -- "cognitive dissonance."  Unfortunately some people are so rigid and arrogant about their beliefs that no amount of evidence raising doubts is allowed to penetrate.  Further, the memes (mainly religions but also other ideologies) that provide the indoctrination have built into themselves tricks for providing the indoctrinated person with rationalizations to get around even the strongest evidence.  The best example of these tricks is "faith" treated as a virtue and not as the serious vice it really is.

In the end if we want to be spiritually and intellectually mature and honest with ourselves, we need to abandon all beliefs and realize that nothing is certain, that the best we can hope for are reasonable, evidence based opinions.  Some things, of course, we can almost treat as beliefs -- such as the proverbial "the sun will come up tomorrow" -- but even here we cannot be certain, just asymptotically close.

A "modernist" view of "reincarnation" or rebirth is that mind is a process (which is easy enough to confirm by sitting quietly and watching it process thoughts and sensations and so on) that functions independently of the brain, but which inhabits (one might even say parasitizes -- although it is a symbiosis more than a parasitic situation) a sentient being and when that being dies goes and finds another.

One could, as many Hindus and Buddhists do, assert that this is true because they have faith it is true -- on perhaps better evidence than Christians have for their Christ (incidents of deja vu and recalled previous lives), but to me it is not convincing evidence, not reproducible in any sort of scientific sense, so it remains to me an intriguing and maybe even probable afterlife, but not an item of belief.

The problem with Christian ethics is the word "sin."  Look at a person cross eyed and you have sinned no less than if you committed murder.  Look at a woman with lust and the man has sinned just as much as if he had raped her.

There is no sense of proportion in Christian ethics.

A rational ethical system recognizes that almost all if not all acts have good and bad consequences, some known to the person doing it and some not known.  There are therefore degrees -- and there are pluses and minuses to be considered.

Looking at someone and feeling lust can be very pleasurable, a plus (pleasure is a good thing) and, if it is kept private, should harm no one.  The words Jesus is supposed to have said, therefore, are just plain wrong and probably harmful if they generate guilt or fear.

Christian ethics seems to have come from a bunch of extremely judgmental, sex fearing men who almost certainly had their own personal problems.  Jesus said not to judge, but Christians are great at it.

When I think about the things I don't know or don't understand, it boggles my mind.

I don't care when exactly the Gospels and so on were penned.  They contradict each other and geographical reality and known history at many points, and are full of wonder stories that were probably made up on the spot (at least in the one attributed to Matthew), so they are not acceptable texts for historical purposes.  Things written by believers cannot be trusted regardless.

The fact is there is no reliable historian who wrote anywhere near that time of history that mentions either Jesus or a Nazareth.  The closest we have is the Christian fraud called the "Testimonium" of Josephus, and any objective observer can easily dismiss that (that so many Christians keep referring to it is testimony to their lack of real evidence).  Everything else of an objective nature dates from at least a century later.

Now it is true that absence of evidence is not proof of absence, but it is strong evidence of absence.  Mainly the point though is that to compel belief, with the idea of moral turpitude if one does not believe, should require damn strong evidence, not such a huge lack of it.

It is important to not allow believers to put the Bible into a special category of documents.  We do not believe what Homer says for no reason other than that it contains stories of gods and miracles and so on, and the same test should apply to any ancient writing.

People do stupid things all the time, like go to avalanche prone slopes or ignore warnings about floods and drive into a flooded road, or smoke all their lives.  That doesn't mean we can be judgmental and leave them to their fate -- we must nevertheless do whatever can be done.

I think the threat of Ebola to most countries is way overblown -- it has been controlled with little difficulty in Nigeria and is now in full retreat in Senegal.  Any cases in Western countries, or even in a country like Vietnam, will be quickly isolated and contacts traced and the infection stopped.  It is nowhere near as dangerous as Bird Flue would be should it ever mutate into a more easily spread infection, and the Ebola virus is not like flue in the way it mutates.

Still, I approve of the scare tactics -- they provide political cover for spending a lot of money in Liberia that would otherwise be hard to get people to support (America's racism among many groups has shown itself here pretty clearly -- they couldn't care less about Africans except where it might put them at risk).

There is a disturbing fact that would bother me more if I thought the rise of technological civilization were at all likely: the fact that we see no sign of "them" is evidence such societies have short lifespans.

Two possibilities -- maybe technology contains within itself the certainty of self-destruction, or maybe there are things we don't know about (such as other dimensions or time travel or what-have-you) that advanced societies eventually find and disappear into, leaving our cosmos.  Of course it is also possible that everyone sooner or later holes up underground in a virtual reality.

Promiscuity is often denounced.  I don't see it that way.  It may be (actually it certainly is) a waste of time and a manifestation of insecurity (a need for constant reaffirmation that one is desirable) or maybe some other similar psychology, but it in itself is not evil or a sin or even bad karma.  If it is done with the main objective being to give one's partner pleasure, then it is actually good karma.

Where it gets ugly is when it involves infidelity (one is married or engaged and one has promised fidelity), since then it becomes lying and creates the likelihood of hurting someone.  Of course it also becomes ugly when precautions against disease spread and conception are not followed carefully.

The modern college student (especially young man) in the big cities of Vietnam finds himself in a sort of candy shop, and often prudence goes out the window (I never heard of a prudent college student anyway).  Men are safer with multiple partners, but women can produce a danger to themselves since some men are violently jealous after even one tryst.  This is grossly unfair, I know.

Staying in touch with reality is not an easy job for anyone.  It is so easy to get swept up in the moment by a bandwagon propagandist, or come to think something magical has happened by a skilled fraud using magic tricks, or come to believe things because the advocates play with the evidence and don't tell the whole truth (this is what religions do), or come to accept some nostrum from so much hoping it is true (wishful thinking) or even something simple like not wanting to be the odd man out in a group of believers and then have them turn on you with name-calling, such as "skeptic" (a title of honor in my mind).

Maybe one of the easiest ways to get out of touch with reality is to think that there must be truth (if there is smoke there is fire) of some sort in everything -- that the middle way between belief and disbelief is best -- no so, folks.  Belief must not happen and opinion assent happen only with good evidence.

Of course there is also just plain old insanity -- you know -- craziness, lunacy, paranoia out your ear, etc.

Whether Jesus existed or not as an actual person really is a matter of nothing more than historical interest.  Even if such a figure existed as a kernel around which myths evolved, the mythical Jesus never existed, and that is the one of interest.

The same thing can be said about Mohammed, who almost certainly existed as a real person but who did not do many of the things recounted about him, or of the Buddha (about whom there is less certainty).

This is a common thinking error in historiography -- that the existence of a myth tells us anything about history.  It doesn't.  Sometimes there is a historical kernel, but usually there is not, and we have no way to know.  There was no Troy, no Achilles, no Hercules, no Robin Hood, no King Arthur.  Since one cannot prove a negative, one cannot prove this, but one should assume it until there is good evidence otherwise, and the existence of the myth is not good evidence, especially if it contains miraculous or similar stuff.

The problems of interstellar travel can be overcome a few ways, and I think eventually will.  Human life expectancy may be greatly lengthened, or generational ships set out, or hibernation, and so on.  I don't think the light-speed barrier can be fudged, though.

The thing that makes their presence most unlikely is the great number of hurdles life would have to cross in order for "them" to be there -- some of which are almost certainly very unlikely.  Not that "they" don't exist, but they are almost certainly excruciatingly rare -- as rare as only one example in millions or billions of galaxies.

The way intelligent life can become common is for it to spread, and so far in our galaxy that hasn't happened or they would be here.

The historical existence of "Socrates" and of "Jesus" are different questions -- Socrates did not perform miracles and although he had his "voices," it was only his (reportedly) telling us about them that even gives us this idea.  No public miracles, no religious teaching -- just a steady inquiry into what might constitute "the good."  Even here Socrates did not pretend to have any answer -- he seems to have mainly just poked holes into what others thought.

That we have mainly Plato's word for what the man said, and this is really all just Plato's thinking, is understood.  Still there are independent reasons to think he was real, although almost certainly not quite what Plato describes.

The main issue is because there are no extraordinary claims here, the burden of proof is much lower.

We have an instinct to want to submit and worship (as well as to dominate).  It no doubt comes from the need of the group to follow a leader -- often otherwise no decision is made and generally no decision is the worst possible outcome.

We also have an instinct to believe what we were taught as children.  Again this probably evolved for group cohesion.

These instincts work by means of pleasure (joy, peace) and displeasure (fear, guilt) emotions triggered when we do something contrary to the instinct.

We flat-out don't understand what time is, whether past and future are realities or just illusions, what the present might be other than an infinitesimal between two illusions.  We also don't understand why it seems to have a direction forward (maybe it really does) when at the atomic level all events can go either forward or backward in time.

I think therefore it is a bit foolish to make statements like stuff has to exist for there to be time and that time is generated by events, although that seem the common-sense view.  Time is also one of the aspects of the "thing" called space-time, and flows at differing rates according to frame of reference -- stuff that works fine mathematically but the human mind is not built for and takes a good deal of thought to conceptualize.

Lack of belief in anything should be the default if one is rational in their approach to the world.  We are not entitled to "belief," but at best only to strong opinion.

I don't think (I have a strong opinion) that there is no God or gods.  This is based mainly on the weakness of the arguments presented for Him -- I have no need to assume the burden of providing evidence against.  Still, there is lots of evidence against -- from logical arguments to an objective look at the uncaring universe to the existence of suffering.  Theists have to rationalize out the kazoo to get around these problems with their view -- not a basis for sensible opinion forming.

About open borders and allowing immigration.

First, living "on top of each other" is great.  The condo provides all sorts of things and services people otherwise have to get themselves, manage themselves, and drive somewhere to obtain.   It is also ecologically much better.  That said, overcrowding applied to the US is a silly notion -- the States is a big underpopulated country with plenty of room for sprawling suburbs if that is what you really want.

Allowing free immigration is great for foreign relations.  A local population from a given country tends to influence the country back home to be friendly, and the fact that the country allows its nationals in avoids feelings of the receiving country being selfish, racist, what have you.  As things are now a lot of the hate directed toward the States is because of its restrictive immigration -- the US really is seen as racist and selfish and only interested in exploiting the rest of the world by large numbers of people, for just this reason.

There is a well-known tendency for those who immigrate to be more ambitions, more energetic and more intelligent than those who stay home.  If you look at immigrant populations, such as Asians or Jews or Eastern Europeans, within a generation or so they begin to be at the top of the achievement ladder, so long as they are not held down too much by discrimination (which is what holds down African and Mexican Americans).  In other words, with open immigration a country tends to get the "cream of the crop."

-- A side note here about Latin America -- the US cannot afford to have such a large country as Mexico poor and feeling exploited -- allowing them more freely into the States is almost a necessity, as otherwise you have hate brewing in Mexico and a large illegal population in the States who feel no loyalty and also feel exploited.

New arrivals, especially if uneducated, not speaking English, poor, and so on, are a temporary burden on educational and health care systems (both of which in the States are in huge need  of massive overhaul anyway) and in some limited cases add to crime.  This is short term until they become acculturated, and the investment is worth it.

Businesses in a country with unrestricted immigration can freely recruit what they need anywhere without the need to ship the jobs overseas -- not that they get cheap labor as a competitive labor market quickly nips anything like that -- but that they can find the best skill sets and best track records anywhere without a lot of bureaucracy and difficulty.  This helps the economy.

A growing population naturally brings about a growing economy, and the nation stays strong, with a ready pool of people for the military and the economy.  It also stays younger, with a large pool of working people to support the elderly (with present demographic trends services like Social Security are going to have to be steadily limited more and more so as not to be such a huge drain on the economy).  The birth rate in the States, as with most developed countries, is just not enough to sustain the present population, let alone grow the nation.

Without more people the US will soon become like Britain -- important but not dominant.

As Islam is today, I can see where allowing massive numbers of Muslims in would cause fear -- even though the vast majority would acculturate over a couple generations, such a community would tend to produce a certain number of terrorists and other evils, in spite of their parents.  I can't see any good way to manage that, and admit it.

I can also see some restrictions being reasonable -- a sort of point system without a waiting period -- for education and English and family relations and freedom from criminal record, but not numeric limits or quotas.  (Quotas are inherently racist even if not intended as white countries don't fill their quotas and brown and black countries develop long waiting periods).

One final thing -- what other countries do is beside the point -- that one country is stupid doesn't mean the States has to be stupid too.

One of the mistakes in thinking that I see both theists and some non-theists making is the assumption time has always existed, but, logically, that can't be so, since one cannot get from infinitely far away either in distance or time to here in any trip.  Time logically had a beginning.  (See note below).

This is difficult, I know, and caused me a lot of time meditating to come to understand it.  Time itself had a beginning, and not in some "super-time."  To say "before" the beginning of time is a meaningless statement -- there was no before.  Time began and things happen after that, but not "before."  One cannot even meaningfully say there was "nothing" before -- there was no before.  It also follows that the beginning of time was uncaused, since there could be nothing prior to time to cause it.

The oft-repeated mantra that "something cannot come from nothing," when I hear it, merely tells me the speaker lacks intelligence and imagination and cannot think outside a rather juvenile and naive philosophical box, usually motivated by a desire to hold onto childhood beliefs (an interesting psychological issue in itself).  I usually avoid exchange with such people.  Religious belief seems to stifle thinking with an arrogant confidence.

Note: Sometimes people say if time has been traveling forever then in this infinite time it could have gotten from infinitely far away to here.  That has a certain logic, but think about it -- can something travel "forever?"  No matter how old you might become, assuming you live forever -- a million, a billion, whatever years -- your age will always be finite.  "Forever" or "infinite" are not numbers, and the constant fallacy of thinking of them as numbers creates this confusion.

I admit that a singularity -- an object of infinite density and zero size -- is not comprehensible in terms of human experience.  It therefore naturally gets opposition.

I don't really know what to think; my inclination is to suspect that there must be unknown forces that stop the collapse before that happens, but we have to accept that because we cannot imagine something is not reason to say it cannot be.  More likely is a failure of our imagination.

My impression is that most Muslims are what any reasonable non-Muslim would call radical Islamists, and while they may 'tut' at the beheadings and so on as counterproductive, they are ambiguous about it, and don't condemn it.  In other ways almost all Muslims are "fundamentalist" (in the sense that they do believe and don't rationalize or claim metaphor) whereas most Christians are not.

In my mind this makes Islam dangerous, and, while individual Muslims may be good neighbors and all that, the community will constantly produce very dangerous young men.  It's inherent in the meme.

Another thing is that while Muslims practice charity and love, it is reserved for only other Muslims, and generally even only for the same sect.  Some Christians are that way too.  It always gets me when religions broadcast their charities and don't mention this.

There are many ways life on earth could have begun, but we can't really say because the traces have pretty much been wiped out by subsequent biological and geological events.

It's not hard to envision a reducing atmosphere (no free oxygen around to destroy complex chemicals) with several energy sources and an ocean.  We know that such an environment would, within weeks, produce a soup of amino acids and similar chemicals.  Then give it a few million to a few hundred million years.  All you need is one molecule that makes a copy of itself from this soup -- not even an exact copy, just one that perpetuates, and then natural selection happens automatically to build the complex machinery people wonder at now.

Life was of a single-celled nature after that for a couple billion years, no doubt refining the processes, before striking out into organisms we recognize as getting advanced.

"Moderate" Muslims seem to be the minority and get assassinated.

Advertising is interfering seriously with how a competitive economy should work.  Brand names, trade marks, and the efforts thereby people who sell ordinary stuff try to make you think it is not ordinary, so they can charge more.  Also propaganda tactics in advertising -- especially testimonials and bandwagon tactics and glittering generalities and loaded words.  And the stupid music and the appeals to patriotism or the use of cute babies or animals -- I saw one where babies were selling a lubricating oil.


All this "marketing" is really corrupt lying (misrepresentation and deceit are lies).  It is amazing modern societies tolerate it.  This corruption is much more damaging to society than slipping the customs inspector a fiver.

Mammals probably did not evolve from reptiles.  Instead they both evolved from an earlier group.  Birds did evolve from a specific group of dinosaurs and in many ways are still dinosaurs.

The reptiles are a convenient grouping, but they really are several very different and ancient groups -- turtles, crocodilians,  dinosaurs, snakes and lizards (the last two in the same group).

The problem I think some creationists who genuinely have problems with evolution (rather than just stubbornly insisting on their childhood teaching) is that they don't comprehend the time periods involved -- millions and hundreds of millions of years -- in such time periods a lot of things happen.  It is called "deep time."

Vietnamese Buddhism has demons in it, inherited from local beliefs and from Chinese Taoism.  I think though the translation of "demon," like the translation of a lot of this sort of word, misleads.

Taoist demons, because they are so frightening in appearance, are often considered helpful in scaring away other demons and the like.  They are also generally believed to be the spirits (ghosts) of dead people who for some reason (mainly bad karma) reincarnate as demons.  There are a gazillion types you can come back as, depending on what you did wrong during your life.

Now there is an example of a translation that misleads -- dragon -- not at all the beastie of the West.

The best way to protect yourself from demons is with loud noises, such as drums and fireworks.  Statues of certain Chinese worthies and of course lion or dragon demons (especially) in your home are also protective, as long as you do the proper rituals.

The idea of demon possession seems to be a Western idea -- insane people are considered to have a medical problem.

Much of this, of course, is seen as superstition by most of us in Vietnam -- but we do like the Taoist rituals with the dragons and fireworks.

Irritated that someone used the last of the toilet paper and said nothing about it?  Get a little spray device.  It takes a little (very little) practice to use and eliminates any need for toilet paper and running out and the destruction of the trees.  It also leaves you cleaner, is much easier to use if you are overweight or handicapped, and no more skid marks -- ever -- and only takes a few seconds, and is easier on the plumbing.

I feel so virtuous getting up just before dawn, and I love the morning air and the gradual brightening of the sky and the birds and the quiet -- except of course for the birds.

(The sky getting brighter is so optimistic -- the world telling me things will get better.)

Close

I will admit I worry about genetic manipulation technology.  The temptation to "improve" and give the offspring every opportunity, according to the prejudices of the parents, will be huge.  First we will work at eliminating genes that bring about diseases, without considering that nature may have struck a balance here so that removing the gene will have other consequences.  Then we will consider things like height and skin color and of course sexual orientation.  First the blind and deaf communities will disappear, then the gay community.

If most Asians and others too had there way all babies would be boys.  They had better not remove gay orientation is that is the world we are going to create.

What about a world inhabited entirely by geniuses?  I think it might be a nerdy place.

Sometimes outmoded industries with dinosaur management in the habit of caving to unions all the time, or who have no choice and the union is unreasonable and selfish, need to be allowed to go.  A nation is better off buying from foreigners if the foreigners can produce it cheaper -- that way the nation doesn't waste money on subsidies or barriers -- and can concentrate on what it does best.  The economic process is called "creative destruction" and means that it is foolish to try to hold onto old industries when their time has come.

People are starving today because of bad governance and cultural ignorance and things like that.  When a country is well governed and the population is literate and the agricultural industry is not run by corrupt officials and people don't insist on so much meat, there is no problem providing enough food.  I constantly cite Vietnam as an example, but Japan and China and India and Indonesia and of course all of Europe and North America are examples.

Considering what Vietnam exports, it could easily feed three times its present population, and, believe me, the population here is dense.

As far as water, it is true that no one dare touch the water in Vietnam, either in the rivers or from the tap -- but bottled water is abundant and cheap.  The problem in Vietnam with tap water is a prejudice against chlorine inherited from the French -- and I will admit when I'm in the States I let my water sit for an hour or so before drinking it so the chlorine can evaporate out (in my case, though, it's taste, not a conspiracy theory).

It is obvious there has to be some sort of limit on the earth's carrying capacity, and I would agree that from an environmental point of view a steady population can be of help, but the fears are way overdone.  Besides, the way to control population, as we have seen over and over around the world, is to raise living standards.  When living standards reach the level of even less than half that of Vietnam, population growth takes a plunge.  Rigid birth laws are intrusive, autocratic, even fascist.

I want to comment too on the idea of our living in space.  I fully expect that to happen -- not so much colonizing the galaxy (although that could happen too) but building self-sustaining space cities, maybe tethered to the earth or maybe out there on their own.  This stuff, however, is centuries away.

Tomatoes -- not the ones the American markets sell -- they may as well be cardboard (in the States you have to go to a farmer's market or grow your own or know someone who does), is one of life's little but wonderful pleasures.  In Vietnam you also have to avoid the markets and the imported tomatoes and go to one of the ubiquitous outdoor markets.  Since the market tomatoes are cheaper, easier to buy (there is a market one can walk to no matter where you are in the city) and much better tasting, for the life of me I don't see why anyone would want to buy an imported tomato.

I like to steam them a little to release the lycopene.

What about aliens -- good or bad?

Proof of aliens with either no religion or religions different from ours would ultimately spell the end of our religions, except maybe those without deities and a philosophy.  Whether that would do good or harm is a different question, as so many are so dependent on their religious beliefs for their sense of purpose and future.

I'm not terribly concerned about an alien invasion, unless it turns out physics as we now know it is all wrong, which doesn't seem to be likely.  However, I wouldn't want to go off half-cocked building a contraption they send us instructions on how to build, as was done in some movies.

If we ever do meet face to face, the odds are significantly in favor of a peaceful, productive, and helpful relationship.

There is no shame in accepting help, if you need it, from any quarter, including help from the state.  The shame is either when pride prevents accepting help or when one could perfectly well take care of oneself.

Raise people's standard of living and you don't need vicious policy to lower birth rates.  Vietnam's has been radically decreased as the people become more prosperous.  The government has done nothing (of course contraception and abortion are available here, as part of being a secular state, but people who need them pay for them, not the government).

In particular, giving women the ability to decide when and how many children to have, and squashing those men who see it in egoist terms, brings down birth rates remarkably.  Women have more sense about these things and, of course, are the ones who have to go through the pregnancy.

What can happen, though, if population growth slows too fast is that you get an aged population and not enough young people to support them properly.  This is going to happen in China because of its foolishness here, and probably much of Europe and of course is happening in Japan -- that is what is behind its lack of economic growth now.

Power naturally gravitates upward in any federal system.  They can pass laws prohibiting local governments from doing certain things, can hold out carrots of money for compliance, have a much better tax base, control the strings of publicity much better, and so on.  Over time local government institutions become empty shells.

Some time go look at a Federal court house and compare it to a local court house.

In a richer society than exists today, one where most things are automated, everyone will be provided the basics of housing and food and health and education and entertainment and even some luxuries, but must do something that earns extra money if one wants more.

If Scotland had separated itself when nearly half the population was against, it would not have been good for Scotland.  Now the English have to deal with a Scotland where nearly half the population wants to separate.

Satan

It's a bit hard, and I have to bite my lower lip, to avoid ridiculing the Satan idea.  He has, however, over the centuries, gotten a lot more sophisticated -- he no longer has horns and cloven hooves, for example, and in Victorian literature tends to carefully pick out his targets as people of intelligence and talent who appear to be particularly desirable souls, much as we pick out a ripe red cherry.

As a literary device, then, he is great, especially if you want to deal with aspects of human existence and desire and ambition and pride.

Now, though, really -- get real.  Such a figure would long ago have given up, since he knows he is otherwise doomed.  Be rational folks -- and this bit about Satan wanting to convince the world he doesn't exist is just a remarkably stupid rationalization -- conflicting with his supposed pride.  Why should he care to bring others down to perdition?  What would it be to him since he's doomed anyway?  You have to break through the childhood indoctrination and think about things a little.

As I understand it, Satan entered Jewish thinking during the Persian exile under influence of Zoroastrianism, with its two immortal deities in eternal conflict -- one good and the other its opposite (I don't say "evil" because to it the good is evil).

They had already (maybe, depending on when the narrative surrounding the Job poetry was written -- if this was written during or after the exile then they didn't already have even this) had a figure appointed by God to make sycophants honest by pointing out problems with what they say.  In other words he was an angel in good standing doing a job God assigned him.

The identification of the Zoroastrian deity with this Shatan or something was not hard, and it fit with the Jewish monotheist thinking (you can't have a co-eternal deity and be a monotheist even if you follow only one of them).

It was then much, much later that Christians identified Satan with the serpent in Genesis.  As far as the Genesis account has it you only have a talking snake.

The horns and all that also came later, in identification with the Greek god Pan (as described above).

The thing to notice is in the OT you don't see evil acts or idolatry or anything like that blamed on anyone except the perpetrators, not on a devil and his existence is not mentioned (although God himself blames himself a couple times) .

What I really don't get is why doesn't Satan just give it up and beg for mercy?  Would God deny it?  Satan's pride is described in Milton's Paradise Lost, and I remember when I read that (way back) thinking, "This is not real, not believable."

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"Reality tunnel," -- I just was introduced to that word as a modern psychological insight.  It is I think similar to a Buddhist concept dating from way back as to why it is so hard to change people's religion and conscience and even things like thinking the earth is flat and up and down are absolutes.  We are wired to "believe" things we pick up as a child.

I think though that there are complications.  Hard core "beliefs" can be modified with meditation into less rigid opinions, which then become subject to analysis.  (Meditation can also, unfortunately, be used to harden opinions into beliefs).  Also there is a teen period of rebelliousness (so that the individual can establish an independent identity), when much of this can come into question, leading to no end of angst and turmoil, until in most cases the individual returns to the fold, with much joy and peace (all hormones in there doing what they are programmed to do).

The thing about such beliefs is that most people don't even notice they have them.  They sit on them as though they were furniture -- something to be noticed only if attention is drawn to them by someone else, and then the reaction is typically not of the mind but of the instincts, with denial and anger and rationalization and so on.

There are some who break some of these beliefs.  Interestingly when the person does so sometimes the reaction is hate of the original belief and of the organization that imposed it.

Some always are cynical about love of country to the extent of willingness to die for it and say things like, "What has my country done for me."

I really don't know about such people.  The word "selfish" comes to mind, but I think it goes beyond that to a sort of effort to be "sophisticated" and not have emotions -- good emotions -- about one's motherland.

As a rational issue, a country cannot persist without patriots, and that is the way our world now is organized.  It may be that someday the nation-state will disappear, but there will always be one's city, one's culture, one's neighborhood and eventually one's family.

I think the person who scoffs patriotism is the sort who throws trash out onto the road with no compunction so long as no one is watching.  Pride in one's country is just an extension of pride in oneself.

Nationalism, though, is a political disease.  We have seen a lot of that in Scotland (although I am sure many of the yes votes were patriotic and not nationalistic, the campaign was mainly nationalistic, which is what soured me on it).

I'm glad for Scotland that it decided to stay in the Union, although the world would have not changed all that much if things had gone the other way.

Momentous things of this sort should be subject to super-majority whenever one is to change the status quo.

It seems that there was an age differential in the vote -- the young tending to vote yes and the old, no.  This is not surprising -- as you get older you become more cautious -- I think because you have had more experience in life and realize better the perils of change.  At any rate I suspect the radical young people who think they just have to wait until the present older generations die off will find that as they age they develop a different view. 

Patriotism as I understand the word is a high virtue, combining love of one's homeland and willingness to make sacrifices for it.  Don't confuse this with nationalism, the view that one's culture and nation are superior to others, nor with jingoism, the hatred of other nations.

As usual, dictionaries lose these fine distinctions in the process of how the words are sometimes used, which has to include uses by sloppy people.

I can't say there are objective morals in the universe, but I think the Western type of materialism is wrong.  I just don't know what to replace it with -- my inclination is some sort of Tao -- and that would imply objective morals.  So would a universal karmic mechanism as envisioned in India.  I note that neither the Chinese nor the Indian view involve deities -- any deities are as subject to it as we are.

In any case the thing is one can deduce maxims or rules from fundamental principles such as compassion and love.  Do not harm, be of help -- these then lead to the Golden Rule or Kant's categorical imperative (a tighter statement of the same idea) -- which in turn lead to do not kill, steal, lie, enslave, and so on.  It is rational progression.  That religions and cultures don't always follow this progression and teach children incorrect things -- which gets buried in their emotional responses or consciences, is simply a reflection that humanity and its cultures are not always rational.

What society or tradition or religion or our own conscience says is right and wrong are good but not completely accurate guides.  In the end we have to think about it, not letting our emotions and biases get in the way, and deduce right and wrong from more fundamental principles.  One of these is that every person is a "person" with innate rights to not be harmed and to pursue their life so long as they don't infringe on the same rights of others.

I suppose one could take this as a pragmatic necessity for modern living, if there is to be peace in the world.  I tend instead to take it as derived from even more fundamental principles, those of "love" in Western terms and wise compassion in Buddhism.

Militarization of police

Police all over the world tend to have issues with authority and respect.  It's a result of self-selection (those with such issues tend to want to be police) and experience dealing with low-lifes.  That they need civilian control and civilian review boards is obvious, but how to be sure those boards don't have their own agenda is hard, and there is always pressure from groups like police unions to extract such a board's teeth.  (To me the vary idea of a police union is outrageous and an abomination).

I think certain selected police squads should be given military equipment and training in using it -- at least in large cities -- since there are situations where they need it and one does not want to have to call in the army.  However their deployment should be from outside the force itself in civilian hands.

It looks like Putin is going to move Russia toward being economically isolated, "self reliant".

Of all the countries in the world Russia would probably be the best able to pull this off, but it would be bad for Russia and its people would be stuck.

I see where Putin is coming from though -- deny it or not (and all countries subject to embargo deny that there is any effect), the embargo must be biting, and he wants to be free of it.

Still, when a country adopts such a policy, the long-term effect is to gradually, and sometimes not so gradually, weaken the country's economy relative to the rest of the world.  The reason isn't hard to see -- if you can buy something cheaper elsewhere in the world, a country is better off doing so and using the money saved in other ways.

Of course almost everyone puts up trade barriers, and as such they harm themselves, but it is usually in response to special interest agitation.  Sometimes the excuse is to allow domestic industries time to get on their feet, sometimes the excuse is to protect local jobs, sometimes the excuse is to protect the local economy from better technology elsewhere.  Very often the excuse is fairness -- the other country is restricting the country's ability to sell things there.

All these excuses are really special (selfish) interest and in the end do harm.  Of course successes can be pointed to -- a given enterprise was rescued (from a destruction generally caused by bad management and unions that think they can forever get their members better wages than the value they add otherwise permits).  My thought there is that this weak firm will go on being a drain on the country's resources.

Nations are better off letting industries that can't compete internationally go, and concentrating on their unique special advantages.

I see where North Korea has the "most advantageous human rights system."  Advantageous to whom?

The Golden Rule needs qualification before it really works.  If I were on a criminal jury the Golden Rule says I should vote in all cases to acquit because if I were in the defendant's shoes I would want me to vote that way.

How does a company like Gilead get away with charging Americans all told over $100,000 for its hepatitis C treatment and through an agreement with a generic drug company (I presume a limited license agreement) make it possible for Vietnamese to get the same thing for around $6,000?

That the States permits this kind of obvious gouging indicates there is something seriously wrong with its patent and copyright monopoly approach.  A tenth the profit they are taking would still be enough to motivate the risk taking and study expenses.

Christian investment in Bible belief

It occurs to me that one reason some Christians hold on so irrationally to their belief is because they have invested a lot of time in Bible study and they are proud of what they know and they don't want to admit it is useless and they wasted a lot of time.

It's like a woman in an office I once worked in who fiercely resisted giving up her comptometer (an archaic machine with a huge learning curve that used up a third of her desk and was noisy and slow) in favor of one of the early Texas Instruments portable calculators.  She had spent a lot of time learning to use it and was proud of her skill and had thought it would give her job security.

More about America's high cost low quality health care

Insurance companies benefit from higher and higher prices for health care since that enables them to raise rates and profits generally follow as a portion of income.  This however is offset by the fact that they have to compete, so that if another insurance company does its underwriting job or its claim handling job at less cost they have a competitive advantage.  Hence the insurance companies tend to like Obamacare since it almost eliminates meaningful competition.  Rare there is a businessman who does not do everything he can to eliminate competition, which is why governments have to constantly force them to not do it.

I don't think, however, that we can blame anyone's greed for the American situation.  People are greedy everywhere.  No it's something about the system or about the institutions unique to America that is behind the problems, I think mainly the tort legal system, the guns, the fact that employers have traditionally provided insurance, creating a real problem for small businesses and the self employed, and of course the outrageous tax system (other countries pay more as a percent of GNP but without nearly the damage to the economy).  The partisanship is another factor, as well as a corrupt system of holding elections (political contributions and negative campaigns and television ads that are pure propaganda) as well as the gerrymandering and the ridiculous arrangement where every state has the same number of Senators.

I am not being critical or scornful, I am trying to be helpful.  When I'm in the States all I hear is that it is the best of the best, with the best systems and best government.  That this is patently not true is something Americans have to admit -- plus get rid of two thirds of the lawyers.

I fear our minds are isolated ships in the fog going past each other with only horns to let us know others are there.  We communicate but only superficially using words and gestures and expressions.  We are alone and cannot share our experience of life, and when we think we do it is an illusion.

We don't know what is real and what isn't.  In fact our whole experience of the world is an illusion created by our brain to enable us to understand an outside world that would bewilder us.  Colors and odors and sounds are created by the brain, to inform us about light waives hitting our eyes and chemicals in the air and sound waves hitting our ears.

People should not completely trust their senses -- no matter how sane we think we are -- they censor what we get, they alter it and often just outright lie to us.

American medical costs

I found this interesting, and while it doesn't address Obamacare directly it has to have been written with thoughts about it in the background.

"The Commonwealth Fund recently published a report on how the U.S. health care system compares with the industrialized nations of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. Despite having the most expensive health care system, the United States ranked last in measures of quality, efficiency, access to care, equity and healthy lives. The U.S. ranks last on all three indicators of healthy lives — mortality amenable to medical care, infant mortality, and healthy life expectancy at age 60. The data from 2011 also shows that the U.S. spent $8,508 per person on health care, compared with $3,406 in the United Kingdom, which ranked first overall."

http://www.news-lead...nsive/15542343/

Why?  Why is the same true of schools, the military, the postal services, and so on and on and on.  Americans need to get a grip and recognize there is something at root seriously wrong here, and not go off dealing with the symptom (large numbers of people who can't afford insurance) and deal with the real problem.

I think both the political system and the legal system need drastic reworking, or things will continue to get worse.

Vietnam market economy

You don't understand (at least really understand in your gut) what is wrong with socialism until you've been there.  The regime can be benign, as Vietnam's was after the first couple years, or like Castro's Cuba is, and things still slowly deteriorate.  The reason is pretty obvious -- when you fine people for doing business outside the official businesses, there is no entrepreneurship.   Everyone just concentrates on working the system rather than actually taking risks and working hard.  The economy loses the benefit of the incentives to get rich and to see to it one's offspring are better off than you are.

Of course capitalism suffers from greed and exploitation and periodic panics (not that socialist societies don't have that too in different ways) and so the horses have to have reigns and blinders and so on.

When "new thinking" came to Vietnam about twenty years ago (following what had happened in China), there was a sudden boost in agricultural production and everyone (typical Asian mind set) went into business for themselves.  All that the government did then was stop prohibiting small family and neighborhood enterprises -- the big things stayed government owned.  Since then even this has relaxed, especially to draw foreign investment, and a few large enterprises have been spun off to private hand and there is now a Saigon stock exchange.  (Foreigners have no business being in it except maybe through a fund, and even then I would say be very wary).

The present government does seem to be on a course of emulating places like Sweden rather than Cuba (an obvious failure -- in his honest moments when he sheds his massive ego, even Fidel admits this).  The problem of course is what to do with the Party and its favored position -- as of course the ranks of the Party don't want to give this up, and having a selected group of vetted people run things avoids partisanship and elective corruption and stupid voters and even stupider politicians.