I would lie to someone who demands information I don't want to give and to which they have no right.  Refusing to answer is not a good solution, as then they assume the worst.

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.

Insomnia

There are all sorts of books peddling all sorts of nostrums for insomnia, some of value others questionable.

The best sleep advice is to go to bed and get up at the same time every day, weekends and holidays included, have a dark and quiet and cool place to sleep, don't have a TV or reading lamp in the bedroom, and if you don't get to sleep just tell yourself you are getting rest anyway and that helps and stop worrying.

Nice clean sheets, a comfy quilt, a mattress you are comfortable on, and lots of pillows to wedge here and there (different sizes and shapes and fluffiness) too, but take care you don't end up just rearranging the blankets and sheets and pillows all night.

Finally, find out what foods and drinks contain stimulants and avoid them, and try some warm soup.  Avoid pills and alcohol -- they seem to help but are traitors.  (There are exceptions to this but it is a good general rule).

I understand that one should have a ritual before going to bed -- especially taking a warm shower or bath -- and avoid TV and computer and bright lights and even reading (although personally sometimes certain books put me to sleep).  Sleep also goes better if the room is either pitch black or you wear eye shades; they take getting use to but I carry them with me all the time in case I want to take a nap somewhere.




If you have any sort of chronic pain or cough, get up and deal with it if you can.  That can be a real bitch when you are awake and there are no distractions.

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.

People sometimes kill themselves.

Others are judgmental about it.  Some say if they want to do it they should go ahead and do it and get out of everyone's hair with their self-pity.  Others say it's a sin against God.  Even others say it's caused by demon possession.  Finally, and this is probably most common, there are those who say the suicide had to be insane to do such a thing.

There are many reasons people do this, and a lot depends on the culture.  The Roman aristocrat who fell on his sword rather than be executed in one of the brutal ways Romans tended to execute people was doing the honorable thing.  Many societies see some suicides as honorable.

Most of us can imagine a scenario where we would kill ourselves -- incurable disease combined with unremitting nausea would do it to me (pain I can handle better).  Probably also a disease that promised in the future to render me helpless and a burden.  We all die someday and some things are worse than death.

However, suicides today most often are associated with the set of diseases put together as "depression."  Those who have never experienced it have to remember that this is not "being sad."  It is another thing entirely.  It is a cloud of blackness that pushes you down and doesn't let you think at all clearly but only makes the world hopeless with no escape.

One thing to remember is that depression is not insanity in the usual sense.  It is a mental illness, but not one that involves irrationality (I sometimes think it is a case of being too rational).

Psychiatry has tried all sorts of ideas on how to deal with this, and often can have a temporary effect, at least until the depression passes, but then they lose the patient next time around as the disease figures out the psychiatrists tricks (not unlike the cancer evolving resistance to the treatment).

It is true that how we look at the world is a great part of the problem -- the old "glass half empty or half full" sort of thing, but knowing this does a depressed person little good.  Truth is, one can always think up the negative side of things, as the world is not all that good to people and most young people have their ambitions squashed fairly fast anyway.

It is purposeless to try to find a purpose in life.  The vast majority of us have only one purpose in our existence -- to give life and happiness to our children.  This is something of an evolutionary trick, since usually the children don't turn out as expected and sometimes turn on us, and we have to adapt.

In the end the only real treatment for depression is going to be medical, not psychiatric (psychiatry is seen as a branch of medicine, but its methods and training are different).  The widespread bias against dealing with emotional problems with pills needs to be overcome -- diseases are best treated with pills, although in some cases other forms of intervention can work.

There is no guilt associated with being depressed -- the tendency runs in families and is just part of the baggage we are born with.  It is useless (and in my opinion evil) to tell the depressed to get over it and stop being so self-involved.

Finally, there is no guilt associated with someone who has actually committed suicide.  They should be treated as anyone else who has died of a chronic disease.  The death should be reported as such (not covered over -- society needs to know the reality) but without blame or shame or as a scandal.

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.

Everyone is much nearer death than they imagine.

The life we find on the earth occupies but a vanishingly thin layer near its surface, even when you count deep rock microbes.  It has no effect at all on what goes on through the main mass of the planet.

Distinguish between life (complex molecules with that mechanically reproduce themselves using material from the immediate environment) and sentience (the experience of life and sensory input and emotions and thoughts).  The biosphere is not sentient and is composed mainly of things not sentient.  Anyone who says otherwise needs to prove it.

Russia is getting scary

I did a survey of several Russian newspapers available in English on the internet.  They all take the same line. 

The difference between this and Western reporting, where newspapers are all over the place -- although in the Ukrainian case both leftwing and rightwing papers are similar and the exact opposite of what Russian readers are getting -- is striking.

It is discouraging too.  There is plainly no freedom to publish against the government in Russia -- something that can only be said to be fascist.  That is a strong word and a few have taken me to task for using it to describe Putin, but I think the evidence is strong. 

There is the resurgent militarism and military boasting, the use of nationalism for political purposes, the clamping down on the press and other forms of expression, the use of hoodlums and criminals as enforcers, the close ties with cartels and industrial lords, and of course the anti-gay campaign (pick a disliked minority and persecute them).  It is all too familiar.

Russians in Ukraine

I must say I have a real problem with Russia thinking it has the right to meddle in other countries to "protect" the rights of Russian nationals there.

That was the excuse Hitler used to seize Czechoslovakia, and it was no more valid then than now.  A nation should act as much as possible to protect overseas citizens and nationals, but not nationals of another country, no matter what the cultural links.  The only exception is when human rights are involved, and then it should be without regard to the ethnicity or culture of those being persecuted.

Actually this is nationalism, and the citizens and nationals of any country owe their allegiance to the nation they are part of, not any other country, and so the rebels in Ukraine should be seen as really simply traitors putting ethnicity ahead of nation.  When ethnic groups fail to realize this they bring discrimination and persecution down on their heads, and should not be given foreign assistance.