Pearly gates

I would much prefer there were pearly gates awaiting me than either rebirth (which I think likely but does not preserve me, only my "life spirit," whatever that might be) or extinction (a distinct possibility).

However I am too proud to let what my intellect tells me be overcome by what I would like.

When there is no note and no sign (depressive behavior is not really a sign -- unless they talk about killing themselves or the hopelessness of life) then one wonders and hopes the police do their job.

I wish the world were wealthy enough that everyone could talk to a mental health specialist at least once a month.  Absent that maybe they should put anti-depressives in the drinking water (of course that is absurd, but I do know people who are not depressive but still take anti-depressives and they are happier).

There are two things I would say to a suicides survivors:  First, do not judge.  They were depressed, and that is a disease condition -- one should not judge them any more than one would judge someone who dies of some other deadly disease.  Second, do not feel guilty -- even if the suicide note blames you.  Again, it is the disease talking.  Sometimes we think, "If only I had done such and so."  No -- we are not supermen and cannot read minds.




Well, at least that is what I've learned from my counselors (fortunately I have insurance that covers that stuff).

If there is a "God" who has a physical form, they you should get rid of the capital "G."

Pills for sleep, constipation

I'm a believer in not suffering if there is a pill available to fix the problem, but I learned the hard way that this approach should be avoided when it comes to sleep and to constipation.

Abuse takes many forms, and sometimes parents abuse their children and don't know it.  Ignoring the child when it wants attention, or insulting it by telling it it is bad or stupid or some such thing, or teasing the child and embarrassing it in front of others, or relentless tickling or roughhousing when the child gives "enough" signals, or, of course, punishments that involve denial of food and such.  We can even abuse a child by failing to hug it or tell it you love it and will care for it.

That abused children often (more often than we care to admit) do the same to their children is an ongoing disaster.

Everyone is much nearer death than they imagine.

Evidence of God

I would like to respond to the argument that atheists would not accept any evidence that God exists short of personal revelation.


It is not correct.  There is evidence I would accept, such as an asterism in the form of the Tetragrammaton.  I would probably accept the clear occurrence of a miracle done under controlled conditions, but religionists have an excuse for why this doesn't work similar to the one psychics use -- it goes away when you control the conditions.

Or, perhaps, the Bible were really the spiritual book people say it is, and the history of religions were not so bloody and hypocritical, or if religion really did have an uplifting effect on its adherents.  This would not be as persuasive as an asterism, but it would be good evidence.

If you want to claim something so important and so extraordinary as God, you have to realize with intellectually mature adults the default is going to be skepticism.

I should stipulate -- theistic religions.

I must say, also, that personal revelation is probably the last thing I would accept.  I don't have so much ego as to think such a thing would be real instead of my own mind.

Science is not just experiments: it is also observation and thought.  Astronomers, for example, rely on mathematics and thought experiments and coming up with scenarios to explain observations (one cannot experiment on black holes, but one can study them).  Ideally one's scenario should go further than just explain observations but also predict things that observers can then go look for.

Daydreaming

I day-dream for at least a half hour every morning after I wake up but before I get up.  It is very pleasurable, and there is to my mind nothing wrong with pleasure taken in moderation.

Of course after I am up the world comes at me in force and mind wandering like that is subject to so many interruptions it becomes impossible.

Causality as karma

I don't think it's necessary to use the possibility that the universe was once a singularity to say the universe breaks "its own rules."  The rule is that of causality, and we know this rule is constantly broken, that causality may be something of an illusion based on probability and the statistical "law of large numbers" rather than something inherent to existence.

It reminds me a little of the Buddhist and Hindu idea of karma -- what you do has consequences.  We know those consequences are not preordained but just made more likely when you behave certain ways.

Putin says he could take Kiev in two weeks.  Probably true but arrogant and, of course, taking it would be only the beginning.  The Ukrainians will not just fold with the fall of a city.

We seem to have a fascist on our hands.  The world, and especially Europe, would do well to pay close attention.  After what Russia has been through, this isn't too surprising, and nationalism is an easy enough way of thinking for those who are so inclined.  I doubt most Russians would buy what is going on if the actually knew the details.

Russian feet in the door

I appreciate the email last night the explained how Russia had promised to honor Ukraine's sovereignty in return for Ukraine handing over its nuclear weapons.

It would seem once the Russians got that danger out of the way they had no intention of keeping their side of it.  They just needed to wait a decent interval and for something to take place that gave them an excuse.  (I also note an unsettling tendency of Russian authorities here and there casually mentioning that Russia still has nuclear weapons -- lots of them).

Russia seems to be in the business of setting up small enclaves out of parts of former USSR republics.  It has done it in Moldova and Georgia and now apparently will in Ukraine.  They find an area where, because of Stalin's brutality, Russian ethnics predominate, and force the creation there of a separate political entity, controlled, however, by Russia.  These are basically criminal regimes run by criminals with no legitimacy or international legality.

There is a temptation to think the locals should be allowed to make the decision, but this cannot be allowed unless the sovereign country agrees to it (as with Czechoslovakia).  Otherwise the world will end up with no end of ethnic groups and sub-groups, majority or not, clamoring for independence.  One can imagine the Navajo setting up their own state in the U.S. Southwest.  A state, once legally constituted, can decide for itself whether it wants to divide itself up or not, but this cannot be imposed from outside and inhabitants who try to do this on their own can and should be suppressed.  (Of course here in the case of Ukraine they were being suppressed -- we have instead a foreign invasion -- come to think of it, that is what happened in Georgia too).

When one either moves or otherwise comes to be a citizen of another country, it is incumbent on that person to give up their loyalty to the mother country and be patriotic, loyal citizens of the new country.  That doesn't require giving up one's culture, at least right away (it usually happens naturally after a few generations).  People who do not do this but stick to loyalty to a foreign state set themselves up to become traitors.

Still, these enclaves present to Russia an excellent foot in the door for eventually gaining back its empire, although of course now it won't be Communist but more Fascist in nature.

East Ukraine

I begin to think Russia will first set up an East Ukraine rather than emulating Hitler and using nationalism to occupy the whole country.  That is good, but of course it means a hostile Ukraine (much more hostile now) will remain on its western border, so we will see.

Still, this East Ukraine, populated mostly by ethnic Russians, will be subservient, and probably quickly invite the presence of full-time Russian soldiers.

That would mean being, legally at least, an independent country, which has the small benefit of giving Russia another vote everywhere, but otherwise means nothing and can be undone any time with a simple annexation vote.  There is a dollop of hypocrisy here -- Putin can pull back and say he didn't invade and didn't annex, while in fact of course he effectively did.

It is, however, now probably the best possible solution, considering the rabid Russian nationalism we are seeing.  It is interesting that similar attitudes in Serbia gained them nothing -- I guess Russia is a bigger country.

Ukraine should have been left to work out its problems on its own, but Putin saw personal political advantage domestically, and went on to prove that he is without scruple or honor.

Atheism

There are several kinds of definition of what an atheist is, used by different groups to give them a debating advantage.

Probably the worst is that atheism is a religion of no God.  That is as far as I can tell absurd.  Religion, except for a couple of them originating in India, is all about gods, and these two (that I know of that don't have gods or at least don't assert them) are religions on their own -- not a "religion" of atheism.

No.  Atheism is not even a belief to most people, but just an opinion, albeit usually a strongly held opinion.  The way I would put it is that I am as sure that there is no God as I can be sure of anything, the world being such that one is never absolutely sure about anything.

Of course those who are truly on the fence, who doubt there is a God but have strong doubts about that doubt, who are usually called agnostics.  There is an important distinction here.  The agnostic is on the fence; the atheist may admit a remote possibility but is pretty damn sure.  The atheist only sees the fence but is nowhere near it.

There is a sense in which agnostics could be classed as a type of atheist, if one defines atheism as "no God" since the usual off-the-cuff definition is one who does not believe in God, and the agnostic does not believe -- he or she is just more unsure than the more typical atheist.

Back to the really bad definition of atheism as a religion.  The reason religionists like that definition is then they can say it is just a belief, like other beliefs, and one is not more valid than another -- we just choose.  The thing is these people believe because they want to believe, and maybe even cannot imagine not believing, generally because they were taught to believe in childhood and hence are fully indoctrinated (religions like to get the children before the children are mature enough to think for themselves and with full rationality).

The atheist on the other hand takes the view that although one cannot prove a negative, if one wants to assert something important one must have proof, or at least lots and lots of evidence.  It then becomes a matter of looking at the evidence present that God exists and coming to the conclusion that it is all wishful thinking and doesn't hold any water at all and that there is really no persuasive or even slightly convincing evidence.  The heavens do not declare the glory of God, nor does nature.  There are no asterisms spelling out the Tetragrammaton.

Absence of evidence in favor of an important assertion logically requires a negative conclusion.  An honest person does not accept things because one likes them or because one wants to or because one wants to go to Heaven or because one's parents and culture believes it.  The only honest way to think something is true is because one is persuaded by an honest investigation of the arguments (not just reading theist stuff).

Would you believe it, so far I have not tried to define "God," usually the first question in this sort of discussion.  There is God and there are gods.  To me the former has to be, to be God, omni- various things, such as omnipotent and omniscient.  Omnipresent or omnibenificient would count but aren't necessary.  Even a transcendent, spiritual being would be something like an angel or superman, not God.

This leads to the self-referential contradictions we have known about since the Middle Ages, having to do with whether or not God can make a rock so big he can't move it or whether or not we can really have free will, and not just an illusion, if God knows all the future (these are two different issues and theists have differing approaches, but I want to keep this fairly simple).

The way the theist tends to deal with this sort of thing is simply by saying that God can do anything except something impossible for God to do.  Think about that for a minute.  That has got to be one of the great cop-outs of all time.  Besides, I can do anything except something impossible for me to do, so am I God?  No.

What the theists do to get around their logical contradictions is to make God into a god.  Zeus can do a lot of things too, but not those things he can't do.

Trying to fix representative democracy

Yesterday, in the context of how copyright laws have come to be so absurd and hurt the public and defeat the reason they exist, I made a strong attack on the distortions money and press access have on the legislative procedure, to the effect that I have abandoned hope in democracy.

This is largely true, except as Churchill once noted, it is hard to come up with a viable alternative that doesn't risk dictatorship (not that democracies don't generally evolved into dictatorships too, or at least societies where people have little freedom).

Several things.  First, the legal profession has to be prevented from controlling things.  Lawyers are generally disliked everywhere for good reason, although there are good lawyers, there are an awful lot who do much more harm than good, but that is for another blog.

The issue here is that they tend to, as a profession, dominate legislative processes, and their solution to everything is to complicate the law.  Society ends up with more and more regulation and regulators and bureaucrats and litigation and in the end vast amounts of corruption needed to function at all.

They also of course routinely act in their personal interest, so we have laws about things like "practicing law without a license" and an utter inability of legislatures to get litigation under any reasonable control.

So the first thing I think needs doing is to ban any member of the legal profession from politics, or anyone who has been in the past.

Another thing is pork.  One approach might be to let the executive make the budget and the legislature either approve or disapprove, up or down, with no amendments.  A lot of pork can be dealt with by having at-large representation in the legislature, with staggered terms.

That still doesn't eliminate it as the executive will have to make compromises in order to get the budget passed, and the executive itself will probably have its own bits of corruption.  (Yes pork is corruption -- we need to recognize it for what it is.)  This also seems putting a lot of power in the executive's hands, so institutional checks here need to be thought up.

Of course largely the root of the problem is the voter.  They vote for all sorts of silly reasons, although more often in their selfish interest or based on the position of the candidate on a limited range of issues.  So candidates lie or take bad positions just to get elected.  Or, even worse, ideologues get elected, and some really stupid people who don't understand the real world and function from within an ideology or even a religion.

The thing is the voter has little choice.  He or she only can assess the candidate by the campaign and what and how they say things, and this is so easily manipulated.  Negative campaign adds, for example, have been shown to be effective over and over, when in fact it should drive voters into the camp of the person being attacked.

A much more limited voter roll seems needed -- one where stability and education and reasonableness and so on are considered when one applies for the franchise.  Of course such things inevitably get used to keep groups, such as racial minorities, from having a say, so it would have to be much more complicated than just a board reviewing applications and more automated.

Then the voters are a small number who can get to know the candidate personally and who know what is going on.

I suspect my views are just too radical for most people, and smack of Platonic ideas and of course of Leninism, although there are differences.  One thing is I would have the whole thing non-partisan and eliminate political parties (which have the effect of turning elections into sporting events).

Of course no system is perfect, and all can be criticized, but it seems to me we are so badly governed nowadays in most countries that something pretty radical needs to be done.





 

Assessing scientific studies

How does one deal with a "scientific study" that contradicts what you know or that seems improbable or that supports ideas that are usually rejected as pseudo-science?

The fact is a lot of "studies" aren't really and are either outright lies or contrived to "prove" what people want to prove.  The ordinary person is not really able to assess such things, since even "peer reviewed" is more and more becoming meaningless (except for of course certain publications, but getting them and reading the original article is not terribly useful for all the jargon).

Generally even these reputable studies get misused and misinterpreted by both marketers and the press.

So what to do?  I don't really know, except be aware and as informed as possible and generally follow what the scientific consensus seems to be.

Where is Mozart?

One of the problems I perceive with traditional Buddhist (and Hindu) rebirth (mislabeled "reincarnation") teaching is where is Mozart?  He should have been reborn several times now.

The thing is his voice is unique.  From earliest age his compositions are recognizable as his.  This is true of many composers and artists and writers, but Mozart makes the best example.

So why haven't there been several Mozart's in history?  Is all of that lost in the rebirth process -- if so what is the point? 

All sorts of rationalizations are possible, of course, but wouldn't it be nice if there were at least one clear example of the rebirth of an identifiable talent?