The Tale of the Ragman (version 2)

The Tale of the Ragman (version 2)
an attempt at a less cliche poem

Mailcars amply filled bring
a most telling import
brides are doomed to weep and die
her death, filled with so many failed strivings
a trained psychiatrist sees through the lies we tell ourselves
reckless abandonment, caring naught for form or function
animated pretending with a thousand guises
blunt miscreants verging into vibrant madness
should follow a line of precast behavior
evolutionary survival disfavors individuality
outcast expression in a wasteland
speaks out in desperation
thought lost in a recursive loop
a sound, a light, an abrupt shove
until the time to play is realized
the delineated scribblings of tattered clothes
coughs out skilled trance stutterings
girls with swagger meet guys with funk
a idea forms, glimmering eruptions
small and large become one
struggling to hold the invisible
but the time was not yet to be
it sang an ensnaring endless music
and those who hid in the darkness gathered
unnoticed attendees
gorging on broken dreams
with sporadic sharp sounds
awaken to light
light adorns you
shadow clings to chaos
the quiet within one speaks
microscopic pointless zeroes
that we fain such attachment for
existence is filled with treasures
and knowledge commands all
indelicate sorrowful cruelties baffle
so slave on, because hopelessness insists

Le Conte des Chiffonnier-Homme

Le Conte des Chiffonnier-Homme
Version française de "The Tale of the Ragman"

Ils viendront, chevaux et hommes
avec un message pressant
chanson doux pleureur mariée abandonnée
une mort, un voile d'intention erronée
le tacticien qualifiés dissèque le mystère d'un mensonge
débile escapades
qui est-ce qui est beaucoup
naïve des déviants, bâtard riche déshonorante
rencontrer le visage d'une lumière dans l'obscurité
que faudrait-il
la beauté dans la simplicité
la voix mourant de monde mourant
appelle à l'obscurité
les yeux perdus dans l'infini
inspiration, regard, peu comment vous portez-vous
jusqu'à ce que nous apportent le thé et le gâteau
Oh, monsieur chiffonnier-homme me raconter votre histoire
récit de souffrance oublié
jolies demoiselles, preux chevaliers, des codes de droit
fatigué, malade, seul, mais pas très intelligent
un enfant est né
un gâchis collant, il est
je l'ai vu
mais j'étais aveugle
à peine chatoya
au milieu de la compagnie des créatures de l'ombre
peu flous obscurcir sa vue
se nourrissant de la misère
il eut un petit rire de joie
avez-vous vus
ils vous voient
ils aiment méfait
chuchotant des petits mots à l'oreille
petite riens insignifiants
qui nous est si chère
le monde est un paradis
et ils sont assis sur un trône
d'attente, en se demandant, qui s'ennuie
la danse, parce ils exigent, tu chantes.

The Tale of the Ragman

The Tale of the Ragman

They will come, horses and men
with a urgent message
Gentle weeping song of the forsaken bride
A death, a veil of misguided intents
the skilled tactician dissects the mystery of a lie
silly escapades
who is it that is many
artless deviants, rich inglorious bastards
meet the face of a light in the darkness
how should things be
beauty in simplicity
the dying voice of a dying world
calls out to the darkness
eyes lost in infinity
a stirring, a glance, a little how do you do
until we take out the teacups and cake
oh, mr. ragman tell me your story
tales of forgotten woe
pretty damsels, gallant knights, codes of right
tired, sick, alone, but not very bright
a child is born
a sticky mess it is
I should have seen it
but I was blind
barely it shimmered
amidst the company of the shadow creatures
little blurs obscuring one's sight
feeding on misery
it giggled with glee
have you seen them
they see you
they love mischief
whispering little words in your ear
tiny insignificant nothings
that we hold so dear
the world is a paradise
and they sit on a throne
waiting, wondering, bored
dance, because they demand, you sing

inspired by The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock a poem by T S Eliot

Explanation of the poem: The Incomprehensible Melody

Explanation of the poem: The Incomprehensible Melody
the frozen rose in a desert is a poetic symbol of our aloneness. the haunted glass reflects, diffracts, and refracts light thus distorting our perception of reality
the haunted part means it almost seem alive. basically we are alone, and though what we experience as reality is a distortion, it seems to be alive and play with us.
white defeat - is basically surrender, peaceful surrender, like waving the white flag. basically it is the true meaning behind the name surrender, which is basically detachment.
mundane Gods are worldly Gods. of the rings means at different levels of perceptual reality, like material reality would be one ring, imaginative reality is another, mental reality is another ring. senseless madness is the struggle of life, of existence. to rest meaning basically just accept your situation.
individuality is basically another word for freedom, and the wicked child is basically a symbol for anyone cannot control themselves. basically what is the value of freedom if we cannot control ourselves.
true love is true sacrifice.
deeper drugs - basically anything we are dependent on to basically live our life. we get deeper into the drugs to basically to try to make ourselves happy, but it only makes things worse.
It burns, it burns - basically to be in pain. then you have fabrication of serious movement - basically you pretend, you put on a show, like acting you are happy for your friends and relatives when inside you scream in pain.
repeated shakes - it can mean actually shaking physically because you have conflicting nerve impulses, like when you are angry or cold or sad, but also it can mean just being uncertain about something. delicate road is basically life. in life we are uncertain in our journey.
cold burn- oxymoron word combo, basically something that is extremely cold causes pain, basically not caring about someone else, and thus we don't control our actions and someone gets hurt.
dust settles - basically things quiet down, like spending time away from the person who offended you, and thus the hurt lessens, and we are not as sensitive.
gather dark motives-making plans to hurt someone. bits of art - basically being creative about it, having a certain style. the question mark is because it is art and it is not art.
prisoner of thought-kinda obvious, but basically the mind-brain is always thinking and we are kinda trapped by its limitations and its desire to never stop thinking.
no formula - basically a method. sadness into happiness - basically trying to find a method or a guaranteed way to go from sadness to happiness, but there isn't one.
spot the rambling soliloquy. basically can you see your brain constantly talking and expressing itself and it goes on and on, almost without any kind of direction at times and often making no sense at all.
haunted visions knock - glimpses of different perceptual realities seen within us. but never expire - i.e. they never end.
worms eat the driftwood - basically consuming the driftwood, the driftwood disappears. of your own forgotten dreams - basically all the hopes and passions and desires we had in the past. basically our memories disappear and we forget what we once were.
permeating emotions - emotions that permeate the way we view things, coloring it. victors - basically the strongest. victors of dark passions - basically the strongest of our dark desires and permeate, i.e. change the way we view things and we don't realize it happening.
the nihilist awakens - basically life because meaningless to it because our viewpoint of life has change due to our dark passions, which have caused us pain.
progressed emigration - emigration is leaving one's country and progressed emigration is an increase in leaving one's country, but in this cause we aren't talking about people leaving but certain things inside of us leaving, basically letting go, ie accepting, detaching. the maker is the one who is causing the progressed emigration.
sick trembling silence - being uncomfortable with silence, which is uncomfortable with being alone, basically uncomfortable with ourselves. the silence is painful because in the silence we see ourselves and we don't like what we see. visiting is basically experiencing the silence.
we are alone- see above, basically trying to make it clear so the reader faces the reality of their aloneness
insistence upon stupid ideas - holding onto incorrect notions of reality. foreshadowed - basically caused bad things to happen. own quiet bedfellows - basically those who agree with us. quiet ie they don't voice opposition. bedfellows - basically one's community, one's family, one's friends. an example of this is like holding onto the idea of a holy war and that God could justify the killing of other people who don't believe like one does. In reality though that kind of thinking results in one's own destruction. We have noone to blame but ourselves.
bones, rocks, little mites - nice little phrase. both rocks and bones are hard. mites feed on humans and other things, causing disease, itch, and pain. bones and rocks are a symbol of death. basically mites feed on the dead things. but basically this is a literary device I use to change the direction of the poem.
teacups filled with sugar and spite: teacups basically means a formality. you drink tea, have pointless chat. the tea is sweet and nice, but in reality we are filled with spite.
observe rays, murky inescapable conflicts: observe rays - basically determine the cause of something, you trace the ray back to its source. inescapable conflicts - basically like having to fight a war we can't avoid or like having problems with one family(even if like a mother in law), but one can't avoid them either because one lives with them or one has to see them at family functions (Christmas, birthdays, etc.). it is murky because it isn't clear why the conflict has to be inescapable.
raging on, many needles pricking the vane of our conscience: raging on -endless conflict, almost the nature of material reality itself. many needles pricking - basically our many guilts, disappointments, regrets in life we feel them via our conscience and we are reminded.
Chinese medicine - as opposed to western medicine which relies on synthetic medicines to cure symptoms. Chinese medicine trying to address the root cause, at least in theory.
eat worms, make fruit - basically for instance like consuming hookworms for their immune boosting benefits, but basically anything which has a surprising beneficial effect on oneself. fruit is sweet. we eat it. a healthy tree makes fruit, which people consume. a healthy person does things which help to benefit society
the science is backwards - addressing cause as opposed to effects. most of science deals with effects, and endless chain of effects, ignoring the causes.
the riddle of the fractal matrix: fractal matrix grows in steps using things like cells and patterns and such. the riddle of the fractal matrix is the riddle of life.
sheeps scream horrors: sheeps - basically people who go along with the crowd, followers, people who don't think for themselves, basically people who aren't awake. they are in terrible pain, but don't realize it.
a death that even sleep cannot forget: basically a pain(death is basically one of the most painful things one can experience) that is always with one, even in dreams and sleep and even in the semi-awake state people call being awake in one's daily life, it is always there.
and I think it is done before it has even begun: seeing from the end. basically you know how things are going to turn out from the start. Like if you have two opponents who are unevenly matched, the much stronger one has a guaranteed win. but basically in life some things are just out of your control.
where are possibilities if there is only one path: complete determinism means there is only one path matter can take. everything in the future is predictable by knowing any previous state. where are possibilities - ie where are the choices if one is given only one choice

The Incomprehensible Melody

The Incomprehensible Melody

Journey of Possibilities is the reality we seek to build
a frozen rose in the desert of the haunted glass
And you will find the true meaning of name behind the white defeat
Lay the mundane Gods of the rings within the senseless madness to rest
Do you value individuality in the eyes of a wicked child
True love, true sacrifice
Deeper drugs fail to calm the hunger in us
It burns, it burns, fabrication of serious movement
Repeated shakes consume the delicate road
and the cold burn envelops us and we lose control
Dust settles upon the offended
Gather dark motives, bits of art?
Prisoner of thought
No Formula to turn sadness into happiness
Can you spot the rambling soliloquy
haunted visions knock, but never expire
the worms eat the driftwood of our own forgotten dreams
permeating emotions, victors of dark passions
the nihilist awakened
the maker of progressed emigration
visits the sick trembling silence
we are alone
insistence upon stupid ideas has foreshadowed our own quiet bedfellows
bones, rocks, little mites
teacups filled with sugar and spite
observe rays, murky inescapable conflicts
raging on, many needles pricking the vane of our conscience
Chinese medicine
eat worms, make fruit
the science is backwards
the riddle of the fractal matrix
sheeps scream horrors
a death that even sleep cannot forget
and I think it is done before it has even begun
where are possibilities if there is only one path

Feminism, a response to BoundlessEyes

Feminism, in a response to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ij5ErG1CM, Feminism: Still Relevant?, by youtube user, http://www.youtube.com/user/BoundlessEyes

I can see many seeing this as a controversial piece and this is partially because everyone has some opinion on gender and sex(m/f) because it is to a degree within their understanding. I have focused more on results than political correctness. For clarification some males are born with a female gender type and they are usually gay. Some females are born with a male gender type and they are usually lesbian. Thus I choose to usually use the term gender rather than using sex(m/f) as gender points more towards their behavior than their physical appearance or degree of sexual dimorphism. Gender is mainly a quality that forms in the infant brain due to their developmental environment. Basically the percent of certain hormones effect what structure the brain will take and thus gay males have female-like brains. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050223144619.htm for instance.

Females should be given equal pay for equal work. A practical solution must exist to the situation that exists. The pay gap causes however vary by country, religion, education, intelligence and social construct. In order to come up with a complete solution all viewpoints have to be considered, even ignorant ones.

The apparent inequality aside, does that mean if a man and a woman are employed at similar jobs and the women gets paid less, does that automatically mean the woman is being paid less simply because she is female - not necessarily. Statistics do not necessarily imply a casual relationship, which is why I don't care much for statistics. Yes, an issue does exist in regards to females being paid less, but is that simply due to their appearance, maybe, but potentially they are being paid less due to not performing the job equally to what a man would perform. To really know if women are being discriminated against for legitimate reasons, i.e. ones other than simply being a woman, specifically job performance issues, you have to look at each case specifically. Woman are getting paid such % less than men for that exact job - evil men oppressing women afraid of gender equality, umm no, well maybe rarely. I don't doubt that in some cases men are discriminating against women solely for their appearance as a female, mainly talking about idiot males in society. But as a general reason among intelligent individuals for the pay disparity between the two genders in educated countries, some other reason must underline this issue.

In general functional differences exists between women and men, even of those of similar intellectual abilities, even if you disregard the issues that revolve around pregnancy and children rearing. If you take children when they are young, you will notice that each gender has quantifiable differences. Girls play will dolls and makeup and hair and cutesy things and in general are more concerned with physical appearance, ie grooming and hygiene, and socializing(gossiping and social hierarchies). Guys are more interested in sports and fighting and playing with cars and blocks and figuring out puzzles and mathematics and science and computers and care less for physical appearance and complex social behaviors. That being said some crossover exists in each gender type and both males and females can find themselves in varying places in their degree of sexual dimorphism as well in their sexual preference.

People's opinions are going to have to be changed about a lot of things. Men are still looked on as the bread winners. They are expected to ask the girl out(an act of aggression vs passivity role typically played by girls) and to provide financial support if the woman has children. In general they are expected not to appear weak, which means they are also less likely to report being beaten up or raped by a female. Certain religions have also served to oppress woman, mainly Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Less educated countries also have stronger sexual discrimination. However people are also going to need to recognize that some issues that are resulting in gender based pay gaps have biological causes and thus any solution must address that biological nature. Women are also going to have to take on traits typically considered solely masculine traits.

Women have to be raised differently from the start of their existence. Any real solution is going to have to address fetal brain development. And from there, early childhood development. The math and sciences need to be more strongly promoted and complex social behaviors and playing with dolls and excessive grooming behaviors need to be discouraged. Exercise and participation in sports starting at the age of 4 or 5 is a necessity. The taking of testosterone and other hormones and stimulation of their production via food intake, exercise or any other means needs to be taken into consideration. Early education at a young age in the math and sciences via extracurricular activities, tutoring, and competitions will also be necessary. In order to bring about any long term changes it will be necessary to do it on a large scale and over a significant time frame, via multiple generations, i.e. at least 50-100 years. It is not something that will necessarily happen overnight. Also giving men the ability to give birth could also help to lighten the load placed on females, though men will also need to be given the desire to want to raise kids via genetic alteration or medicinal means.

I am a strong believer in that behavior characteristics can show themselves via subtle clues in physical appearance/characteristics. Basically the same things that cause a person to look a certain way and shape result in certain structural and dynamic changes in the brain. So women may have to accept appearing what is generally regarded as masculine. Norms will have to be challenged. In general I have noticed some trends in educated countries in the past 100 or so years. People are getting smarter or at least they were. I'm a bit confused in regards to the effect mass entertainment and the internet have had. Also exercise and sports aren't as strongly stressed for both genders/sexes. Females are getting prettier and more imaginative and more "emo" and to a lesser degree overall more intelligent. Males are becoming more reason and mental oriented and becoming more attractive, but not necessarily in the sense of being pretty. It is quite possible with the way things seem to be headed that females could in some sense get the best of both worlds. They could become both more feminine and still achieve the gender equality that they long for. In some areas it seems gender equality has already been achieved or something very close to it. However as far as running big corporations or being elected to political office, at least for now females are going to have to embody what are historically considered masculine traits like aggression, independent thinking, bravery, emotional insensitivity, domination, being authoritative(leading/being bossy). Increasingly though, people are accepting more feminine traits for this roles(ceos, elected office), but still women are going to have to fight to gain accepted.

Edit: October 11, 2009. To be more precise as to my use of the word gender was not completely clear, I was using it in the sense of behavioral traits that have a biological basis. I wasn't equating gender with sexuality, but merely saying they have similar causes, which are hormonal in origin. Some typical gender roles are culturally based, while others are biological based. It is a difficult word to accurately define. It is all how the hormones estrogen and testosterone and I think some others effect the different parts of the brain at different stages in its development. You have the hormones, which being produced by the fetus, plus you have the hormones being provided by the environment and all these factors result in varying gradients in the traits they produce. Plus the female x chromosome is more complicated than the male y chromosome, due to y chromosome deterioration, so the x chromosome codes for a greater variety of behaviors and there is nothing stopping a female x chromosome from acquiring some of the coding that is typically associated with a male. I'd almost say it is necessary for x chromosome to at least have some latent coding for males as y chromosomes suffer erroneous mutations at a higher rate than females due to lack of inability to compare(no double y's) and thus when y chromosome becomes dysfunctional, another one would have to be reformed from a female x chromosome. Also to an extent we choose our gender roles and our sexuality. And hormones can have an effect on our gender identification and sexuality after birth as well.

Solution for the Infinite Regression and what created God

Haha, enjoy! I came up with this after watching a video on youtube, one of the videos in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE5sPAm40gI series, http://www.youtube.com/user/HolonsNetwork . Technically the idea of infinite regression of created beings occurred to me in junior high, though not sure to what degree I thought of a solution at the time. This solution is sorta new, and sorta not.

Note: This is just a hypothetical philosophical argument.

In regards to the nature of the infinite regression of created beings and a solution for the existence of God

After a certain point in the ladder of realities, you reach a point where beings aren't created, they manifest and do not take on a material or created form, but take on a manifestant form, which is the way immortal beings express themselves. Basically instead of being limited to a particular kind of mathematical differentiation, i.e. subject to a particular kind of created laws, limited according to a certain choice of math. As an immortal being you lack subjugation to a singular mathematics expression system. God being basically the biggest boy on the block, albeit having similar qualities to other immortal beings, wouldn't be a created being but a manifestant being governing the universe at large and continuously giving birth to created universes, which eventually take on the characteristics common in a physical material world. And this God would be manifestant by an unmanifestant being, existing on its own level of reality, of which manifestant God is of the same identity as the unmanifestant God, though different. The unmanifestant being would be a differentiant being that was being differentiated by an undifferentiant being. And the undifferentiant being would be given a name essentially by a nameless being of which has no describable qualities and can choose to take on any name that suits it in that current moment and thus ends the chain of infinite regression.

All the manifestant immortal beings would use the same means of coming into expression as the God being would, though in some sense lacking the powers of such. Basically both the immortal beings and God itself are first cause. As a collective whole the immortal beings rival even the power of God. In all likelihood God is chosen to be God by the collective of immortal beings from likely the pool of immortal beings themselves. It is likely a multitude of immortal beings each with particular qualities that make up the essence of God, though they act in unison in that role.

What is life? My thoughts

What is life? My thoughts

As a kind of introduction, this whole thing is more a result of observation. Intelligent lifeforms exhibit a kind of non-linear, non-deterministic movement. I do not claim to know the source of this movement or behavior, except it exhibits a small degree of unpredictability. This unpredictability could simply be due to a deterministic process of which we are unaware. I am not claiming a supernatural source for these events. I am uncertain of the actual source. However from my study of science, it seems scientists have a basic grasp of all the physical forces at work, even if they have yet to acquire the clarity to put all the forces into a unified framework. It is possible another deterministic universe is subtly interacting with our own and thus resulting in the apparent order of the universe and life itself. This other deterministic universe could be acting kinda like a filter which brings out(brightening) certain features, while reducing(darkening, i.e. amplitude reduction) other features, and to a degree coloring(frequency modification) our own universe.

Life is any object which operates partly via non-mechanical law or a non-mechanical based science. We may call non-mechanical events choice, but that may not be an appropriate term, as these non-mechanical events could be spontaneous small amplitude transient events. Non-mechanical events are able to influence normal mechanical events, what may be referred to as the deterministic universe. Basically in our case via complex organic structures small non-mechanical events are able to be multiplied or amplified into large scale events. For instance you have a setup brain potential(ion gateways at a neuron) that is triggered by an event. This starts a cascade of electrical activity in the brain which results in an electrical signal being sent to the muscle causing the hand to move. Life, at least as far as everyday human experience, lives in a deterministic world, even if life itself is not perfectly deterministic. Life is nearly perfectly deterministic though - at least the common experience of life. Temporary violation of some conservation law could give rise to these non-mechanical events. Like a virtual photon for instance could nudge an electron over a few nm and then disappear. Some interpretations of quantum mechanics make such predictions. Virtual particles could be the events by which this thing we call life operates. Virtual particles would have a temporary existence and only result in small effects, but still have enough of an effect to be noticed.

If I were to create a simple definition of life, I would say life observes, and by its observation it modifies the environment around it. The laws under which life is bound have to time space invariant. Basically in all positions in space and for all time that the universe has existed, life had to exist or rather the potential for life had to exist. Mathematics had to exist prior to physical law existing. Physical law is a subset of mathematical law. Basically the same principles which results in a star differentiating from its surroundings, thus becoming an object with which other objects rotate around, likely resulting in the formation of life. The matter-antimatter asymmetry may also potentially be explained as the result of small deterministic events, which like a snowflake forming around a speck of dust resulted in a preference for matter versus antimatter.

Movement and the Art of Projection

Disclaimer: This is somewhat of a speculative piece, albeit short.

Movement and the Art of Projection

Before each movement you project onto your inner mental visual space. When you move in outer visual space you project images onto what may be called physical visual space, which is located in your visual cortex and to a degree your eyes. The act of projection uses directed energy to alter a preexisting space. This shows itself in an increased in brain activity in the visual cortex, for instance. Basically the act of projection allows you to act on what you see or rather allows you to trace a path. People do it all the time but do not realize that is what they are doing. Like when I am typing out a page I can see the words on the white or I could see the words as images in the head space and use that to send images to my hands. When an artist draws a picture they see the shape in their hand before they move their hand. To be precise certain movements of the hand correspond to certain shapes. Their hand just follows the curve that exists inside their head.

Protection works by creating a mental image at a physical location in the body via attention, providing a pathway if you will for future movement to occur. This could be measured via looking at electrical potentials or looking at spontaneous photon emissions at different parts of the body. The ability to project surpasses the abilities of the body to move. You can project certain movements, but often the body can only approximate those movements. Eventually you are trained by observation of the body to only believe it can move in certain moves. This helps to result in a more responsive body, but could also result in you ignoring movements that you body could in fact do.

Poem: Untitled Remedy

Untitled Remedy

Little heat ripples on a street
tiny ants dance in rhythmic beat
to what end does the ladybug fly
so pretty and red and free
can we decode its hieroglyphic mask
we are quite entranced with things anew
hidden corridors open with such kaboom
a tall wine glass flows a river red
a kiss, a glance, a bit of dread
we strive for passion
we desire advance
careful movements, a most delicate confluence
a silent snake encoils the brain
whispering dark temptations
deviant alliteration
emergent evocation of primordial jubilation
extinguish the spark of the magnetic mind
niceness and longing, eternal solace in selfish surrender
echoes of the imagination spring forth like hot metal
on a sweaty summer day
confess one's deep unholy desires
like catching the winds in the Sahara desert
dramatic soliloquy, modern reflection
of sweet chameleon exaltation
so blur, diverging into memories of wanton fickleness
incontinent narcissistic parabiotic rambling
pay the merry piper shinny coin
all worth being in accordance with one's evaluation
do not incite ferocity without expecting ecstatic retort
does effort meet art or do words reads like diary pages
does anyone ever have a clue on what they really need

More Poems, Enjoy

Tired old man

Knock, knock
a dirty old cane hits the pavement floor
step, step, step
feet dragging over cold hard ground
everyone looks but pays little attention
it is all too commonplace
the old are ignored
and considered mostly helpless
and seems all the young want
from the old
is for them to act nice, don't be creepy, and don't get in the way
recalling some comments made by my cousin
society is still segregated
put on shelves like stacks of paper
defined, categorized, and exquisitely illustrated
a kind of art which captures the imagination when one is young
and people live it
from birth until death
in highschool I remember watching people
I thought were sane and educated and far from the
racist generations who lynched black men for dating white girls
apparently, people still define themselves by triviliaties
people don't know who they are, so they let their environment define them
I never quite understood why some people
want to act and be ignorant
and perpetuate negative racial stereotypes
and I watch in amazement as one kind of behavior
is negatively stereotyped, while they act
like they are above another type of stereotyping
and I realize
almost noone thinks for themselves
most people just pick up whatever belief
is the easiest
not what is the truest
and stick with it devotely
like a dog to an old bone
most everyone is really tired and old
can barely find their way around the simple obstacles
that lie in their path, thinking is hard, and understanding, even more so
and I wonder if I even have a point or if there is some truth
that will make this whole enigma unravel
contemplating I can only come to one thing, let all your actions be guided
by love

Being special

The king stands clothed in his regal clothes paraded before all to see
the little boy sings before a crowd of parents aiming only to please
confused as we are to the meaning
define me
consume me
look in the mirror
what do you see
I see disappointment
what is this need to be in the spotlight
noone likes an arrogant fool
but I stand before you naked
what else can I do
baring myself heart and soul
searching deep within
I look inside my own inner vortex
for something special
a spark
a ray perhaps to light up your life
a sparkle of hope
a spoonful of sugar
to sweeten the bitterness of existence
we all want to be liked
do you like me
do you think of me
to want a friend
sometimes seems so wrong
so selfish
while so many millions of people starve
so many millions rot away in prisons
and live a nothing life
we all ask
who am I to complain
who am I to judge
it doesn't make any sense
and all rewards seem like
just pale offerings
adding structure
where only a sea of wet sand exists
I ask you
what price is worth it
to be called
special
by others

Distant lover

I just want to be beautiful for you
all we have is our memories
and they are frail
and stained yellow by the aging light
it feels like eons ago
touch and vision in
a whirlwind of emotions captured by a single remembrance
death is not the ending of love
though some think it is the ending of marriage
the bluejays sing a tired song
the smell of barbeque smoke on a hot summer day
it all comes floating back
those bus rides together
our eyes locked
and all of space melted
into us and we were the sole inhabitants of eternity
distance and time separate true love from simple desire
some things you just cannot let go
some people you cannot forget
and are always within you
and a part of you
sometimes we believe the water is so clear
and a storm appears
and we can see nothing
down...
below
in the depths
and you realize clarity only happens when you are alone
away from friends and family
when you don't have to pretend to be
happy, successful, and as deluded as they are
and you can remember that which you love the most

10 poems to soothe the tired soul

In dedication to ninapoetry (http://www.youtube.com/user/ninapoetry) and her inspiring poetry, so here is some of my own, I just created, today: 10 poems to soothe the tired soul.

Art and Science

Science without art, is lame, unoriginal
a stem without its petals,
a sun without its radiance
a mouse without its tail
one day people will understand
one day they will know
all ways of seeing are connected
nothing stands on its own
without beauty, science is well
pointless
fruitless
anime without color
a hollow vessel looking for water
a homeless child searching for love
we are all monsters
we are all so blind
we do not see
we do not know
we do not hear
noone understands what I mean
the gentle flute plays a melody
of eternal sadness
for its long lost lover
do you know what love is
real love
inside you, deep within
in the silent stirring
it breathes in forever
it breathes out forever
and knows only one thing
the object of its love

On the beautiful child

Beauty, innocence, remember me
the child born knowing
clothed in brilliance it sees clearly
when truth is always on your mind
lies are seen easily
it does not cry
filled with joy
it laughs
filled with love
it knows to cry when touched
by a broken heart
it thirsts for understanding
like a starving man
for a slice of bread
it has no biases
wisdom is on its tongue
and it walks quietly
never seeking to stir attention to itself
it is a friend to all
forgiving all who show it malice
what is beauty
beauty is purposeful
it knows what it wants
and works tireless towards its goal
it is laughter
flowing like a gentle river
around everything
it is creativity
you look at it and you wonder
are you a beautiful child?

Crowd of friends

Talking
crying
living
loving
but alone
they think they know you
but noone enters
you are deep
the ocean swims in you
a thousand thousand voices echo inside
you believe thousands of contradictory things
you don't really have a cliché
you believe
and your mind works in weird angles
and you move unseen
you speak
but noone hears your voice
I am an atheist
the multitude of beliefs in God and the supernatural
are delusional
and scary
and often heartless
yet
I believe in something
in fact I know of something
which I believe I can
prove
and can be tested
and understood
by science
but I have told noone
but when you have an ocean in a cup
like a little black hole in unseen space
water spills out
again and again
but it is all out of order
people don't see
the big picture
the real message
and I am afraid
of how what I know
could be misused
by those seeking
to serve their own causes
and not that
of humanity's
I am in a crowd of friends
but alone.

Drown in words

I drown in words
I drown in you
consumed, confused,
I float in a sea of white
form needs function
or it is just a painting
without imagination
I feel something
I guess you could call
it longing
but for what
I am unsure
life seems so.....
out of order
it is like putting
together a puzzle
made up of all squares
and your only clue
to how they are supposed
to go together
is when you look
at the finished product
the puzzles you get
from the store
the pieces tell you
where they are
supposed to go
kinda like a religion
created by people
might tell you
how to act
what looks like you
figuring out a mystery
is really the mystery
being given to you
in precut pieces
it's just molecules of
paper and color and glue
and nothing really fits
like you are told it does
it is prearranged madness
so you think you know
but you really know
what you are told
I so just want to drown
and leave this world of madness.


Being respectable

The good child is usually not the happy child
if you play ball long enough
according to society's standards
they will make you president
they even give you a cute little
red button
push me
pick country
and have it all end
nuclear winter
you give the unhappiest people
in the world
a red button
of revenge
all that hate
and anger
bottled up
so volatile
people are so illogical
and the world is run by crazies
and people think this is
just the way it is supposed to be
what choice do you really have
is such a thing as free elections
could such a thing exist
true democracy is a delusion
and we are ruled by kings and queens
and nobility
they are just called by a different name
representatives, presidents, and of ministers
to think we have a choice
we elect the rich and the connected
families
trained to rule
to be respectable

Inside someone else's mind

This world feels so unlike me
I touch it, taste it, gaze into its
eyes
its weird
it looks so fake
so pretend
the colors are so gray
people don't know what real colors
is like
what real vision is like
what real beautiful
music
is like
the world feels like
an old
abandoned
town
deserted
lost
hopeless
nothing seems real
feels like living inside someone
else's mind
everything so arbitrary
I wouldn't create
the world
this way
so devoid of passion
of character
of description
of purposeful order
a world filled with
so many contrary
belief systems
like discordant
music
you hold your hands
over your ears
cuz the sound
of it
drives you crazy
so irritating
so yuck
so full of fail
if the world was created
by an intelligence
then it is subpar
lacking
so needing of creativity
of beauty
of understanding
this world feels
like an unfinished painting
random objects
in a half painted scene
waiting for detail
and structure
I could do better

Paranormal

Paranormal is abnormal
wishful thinking
we speculate
and believe our speculations
we believe whatever image our imagination
gives form to
and it is detached
from experience
and we presume we know
so certain of our delusions
they take on a perverse reality
and distort the space around us
into a thing
into a vision
of our inner sickness
we are so full of crap
and have to act like
we are certain
so anyone will listen to us
cardinal rule of debate
and argumentative writing
be certain
be assertive
when doubt
clouds your vision
when certainty of
God
and angels
and life after death
is just a fiction to one
and the prophets
loved the mushrooms
and the opium
and cannabis
the origin of religions
are riddled
with forgotten drug use
hallucinogens
mind altering euphoria
our god came from
a drug
we just don't remember
the intoxication

Gift

Discovering another
little fingers intertwined
atoms dancing
is temptation wrong
not even an atom wants to be alone
it yearns
and it gathers others to it
scientists call it gravity
but it is just a spatial distortion
caused by longing
and it gathers those like it
gravity moves like art
in an unseen way
of fractals
with a most beautiful geometry
scientists call it by other names too
but that is my secret
shhh
don't tell
the universe is held together by an unseen love
from which all morals are born
and die
the conscience is an invention
of the brain
seeing we needed guidance
so it was written
in a language
we have yet to comprehend
but it is there
waiting
for us to listen
the human
is a being
composed
of a multitude of dnas
each with their
own duties
each in service of awareness

Eerie reflection of Me

Swirling
I can feel the
universe
move within me
the universe longs
to find its lover
can you see its
lips
kissing space
so much passion
green hot burning
ecstasy
intoxicating wonder
the universe makes love
to others like it
and world collide
in blues and purples
and reds
and there is this
dance
kinda
showing off
like a peacock
so full of flair
and their passion burns across the stars
swirling
dancing
threads of light
bursting
in bubbles
of radiant ecstasy
can you hear
the sound of the
two lovers
in the stillness of the night
its kinda eerie

Unknown bumps

Corn chips, I remember they tasted different
when I was younger
they have this bitter taste to them now
like the taste of death and dirt
one of the many benefits of
genetic engineering
food has lost its scent
and its taste
food has become stale
we are just unaware
and the world has gotten hotter
the icicles never returned
I miss the cold
silly huh
I feel like I am
slowly
being boiled alive
I love
the cold
it promotes
thinking
the hot
feels like sleep
like relaxing
I treasure every noble
and creative thing
to ever spring forth
from the fabric
of my consciousness
the unknown
takes form
within me
and I craft
wonders out of the invisible
so that others
may see
what their eyes cannot
only the self can see
if you rely
on the eyes
you will forever be blind

Youtube's New Comment System, September 2009, Simple Macro

Ok, here is simple macro I wrote using autoit. In simple terms it automates hitting pagedown and clicking on Show More Comments. Note you will probably have to modify the mouseclick x and y values for your setup. Here is the sourcecode, so to speak. It is autoit v3. Enjoy



; Script Start - Add your code below here
#Include
#include
#include
#include
$sType=4
Opt("WinWaitDelay", 100)
; This needs to be 2 so it will target the window no matter where it is on your screen."Opt("WinTitleMatchMode", 2)"
;This way it doesnt have to be in top left corner.
Opt("WinTitleMatchMode", 2)
Opt("WinDetectHiddenText", 1)
Opt("PixelCoordMode", 2)
Opt("MouseCoordMode", 2)


HotKeySet("{END}", "KillBot");hitting the endkey calls the killbot function

$Windows="YouTube";note be careful nothing else you have opened is named youtube
;note be careful nothing else you have opened is named youtube
;note be careful nothing else you have opened is named youtube
; Sleep(1000)
$x=0
Call ("WindowsTab")
MouseClick ("left", 10, 410, 1, 0); to make sure pagedown works properly
Sleep(100)
Send ("{PGDN}")
Sleep(500)
Send ("{PGDN}")
Sleep(500)


While $x<1000 ;while loop, although stop at given value, the actually effect is proportional and much closer than this.
;100 loops = +650 comments if you start at beginning, but the rate slowed down over time, because loading the comments slowed down
;1000 loops = +1990 comments if you start at beginning (ie 10 comments), takes forever
Call ("WindowsTab"); call function "windowstab"
SLeep(10);wait 10 milliseconds
Send ("{PGDN}");simulates pagedown key being pressed
Sleep(10)
Send ("{PGDN}")
Sleep(10)
Send ("{PGDN}")
;{PGDN}
;MouseMove(600, 610, 0)
;MouseClick ("left", 600, 610, 2, 0)
;MouseClick ("left", 600, 580, 2, 0)
MouseClick ("left", 600, 430, 2, 0); instanting moves mouse to location x=600, y = 610, clicks twice(2)
;location of Show More Comments, note depending on your screen resolution and browser text size, you will probably need to change this.
;MouseClick ( "button" [, x, y [, clicks [, speed ]]] )
Sleep(20)
Send ("{PGDN}")
Sleep(20)
Send ("{PGDN}")

;MouseClick ("left", 930, 732, 1, 10)
$x=$x+1
WEnd




Func WindowsTab()

WinWait($Windows, "")
If Not WinActive($Windows, "") Then WinActivate($Windows, "")
WinWaitActive($Windows, "")
EndFunc

Func KillBot()
$MB_MsgBoxButtons = 5 ;What buttons that show in messagebox 5 = Retry and Cancel
$MB_Cancel = 2 ;What button is pressed to exit the script 2 = Cancel, If Cancel button is pushed the script stops.
If MsgBox($MB_MsgBoxButtons, "You Stopped the Bot!", "Retry or Cancel the bot?") == $MB_Cancel Then
Exit
EndIf
EndFunc ;==>KillBot

;Script End

On the nature of evil, a response to Zomgitscriss

Note this is kinda a mess and I'm lazy, so didn't feel like fixing it. And I don't have enough readers anyway to justify cleaning it up. Note I have not perfectly quoted ZOMGitsCriss either, check her video out. I haven't attempted to misquote and a lot is word for word. This is in response to ZOMGitsCriss's video Evil, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt5J3EEjASs

"Why atheists Not obey the same morals that he or she believes in."
Because in truth they have conflicting beliefs that result from conflicting natures within us. Different parts of the brain compete to control our actions. Some beliefs are inherently a property of our biology, resulting from our genetic code. IN some sense all beliefs we have are the result of our genetics. Some are more forced upon us, others less so. Use of morals to guide our actions suffers from an inherent flaw and that flaw is morals are composed of statements, which cannot hope to cover all circumstances and cannot hope to be true in the end. They also suffer from the flaw in assuming that we have the power/strength in all circumstances to act on our morals in that moment going against other ingrained tendencies. They also assume we in fact remember an applicable moral for the circumstance we are faced with and that isn't always the case. It also assumes we have enough information and understanding to in fact make a moral choice, which is not always the case. Sometimes we are faced with situations that are morally ambiguous and are such because our lack of understand and are lack of information on the situations.

"Problem with a theistic God- Has to be all powerful and all good "
Really problems though with a particular definition of God. What about a nontheistic version of God, well anyways.
Both sides assume that God has to interfere directly with creation to exist. First to make the all powerful and all good argument, first assumes we even know what all powerful or all good means, which we do in fact do not. It also then makes the assumption that an all powerful or all good being being could actually exist. Well for one if it is in fact all powerful, it cannot be all good. It cannot be anything but all powerful. Once it is all of one thing, it cannot be anything else besides that. What would an all powerful being do with its power? We are biased towards our own physical reality and its countless limitations. Logically realities could exist with far more far freedom in expression. There is no logically reason that an all powerful being would directly concern itself with our level of reality. If it were it fact to concern itself with our level of reality how in fact would it make a decesion with which to act in our universe. Any action it would take would likely play favoritism with some one versus the other and would be a rather limited use of its power. Also to assume that a being could in fact be all powerful, is to ultimately assume we are completely powerless. To assume we are in fact powerless removes ourselves from the responsibility of the circumstances in our life. The Christian God is ultimately an illogical conception of God and thus could not in fact exist. As far as being all good, we also are making assumptions about such a being's understanding of good and what are its desires. In the end, we are placing the blame on the wrong thing. The whole Christian God, its ideas, is based on an argument being true by association. Basically you have someone like Moses or Jesus, who has a religious experience, and then you have these people who could after Moses or Jesus, who have had no religious experience whatsoever and they add on to the conception of God and supernatural realities and religious people take on faith that those who have had no religious experience at all could possible know anything at all about God, or heaven, or supernatural reality. Also the whole argument about God being all powerful and all good and such is a straw man argument, as these conception of God is not common to all people. Plus the idea of a thing being all powerful and all good is illogical and easily disproved.

"Evils that are not experienced by humans and not caused by humans, endured by other living things, animals eaten by flies, animals eatten alive by other animals"
We seperate humans from the rest of life. Hindus would say it is because of karma. Basically all these "evils" that animals experienced could or will be possible to be fixed by humans. The reality is you have a number of lifeforms that evolved its basic form varying at different times. And thus some animals end up adapting natures that are parasitic on other types due to an adaption. As far as one animal eating another animal, humans do the same. Such a nature allows a lifeform to spend less time on eating and thus requires a less developed digestive system, thus allowing a better developed nervous system and brain. Humans(mainly intelligence and such) in part came into existence because of eating meat. Our brains were further able to develop because of cooking. Simple fact is a lion for example only has a limited amount of ways to kill an animal and all involve some amount of pain for the victim. Lions are more intelligent than their pray. Humans also inflict a similar amount of pain of cattle that are often slaughtered alive. There isn't much adequate plant protein sources. I do believe via genetic engineering we could get lions and other carnivorous creatures to stop eatting other animals if we could provide them with an adequate plant based protein source. Also as humans encroach on wildlife habitats, less animals will exist to experience these natural sufferings. It may seem like excessive suffering is a kind of evil, but suffering triggers vastly increased controlled genetic mutations and without excessive suffering we wouldn't have the variety of species we have, nor higher intelligence. Simply put, no excessive suffering equals no humans. Also some organisms are needed to break down dead organisms, however sometimes they start feeding on living organisms. This cross over is in part due to lack of hygiene. Without access to a riverbed or some free flowing water source, animals aren't able to clean themselves. Without being clean they attract flies and other things that feed off of the animal even while it is still alive. Humans could clean animals, like cattle, sheep, etc. and if they did they would eliminate alot of the suffering these creatures would experience. As far as fly going into an open wound, it is hardly clean and it smells similar to rotting flesh. The fly is only doing what it knows.

"Free will and moral choices and there has to be evil. The amount of evil in the world and the unequal distribution of it. God should limit the amount of evil we can inflict on others, and therefore God does not exist because "evil" is not limited."
First of all, why is there is evil? Why assume it has to exist? As far as the amount of evil in the world why assume that God has to interfere in creation, why must he? Why do you assume that the amount of evil hasn't already been limited by us being here in the first place. In heaven or whatever we could have had much greater abilities to inflict "evil" on others.

"Angels having free will. Have free will manifest as a struggle vs causing damage to others. pay the price for someone else's free will."
You can't have free will without responsibility. We aren't paying the price for someone's free will. We are paying the price for someone having a weak will and being overalk being controlled by things that are not there will. Without intelligence, the will isn't able to manifest itself in a natural and responsibility manner.

"Addressing Natural evil: Earthquakes, parasites, volcano eruptions, viruses, all that good stuff."
Earthquakes are just the earth adjusting to tensed energy. They are in part caused by gravity from other planets and the sun pulling on earth to varying and non constant degrees. Volcano eruptions are also in part due to that. The gravitational force from other planets and the sun also serve to heat up the earth to a degree. Without volcanic eruptions you wouldn't have a lot of islands and landforms. Plus a lot of plant life is dependent on some kind of regular volcanic erruption. You have some of the most beautiful flowers that grow in volcanic ash. I don't believe we understand enough yet to make a decision on whether a virus is good or evil. However part of our genetic code is in fact made up of an endogenous retrovirus. Some parts are also the remains of former retroviruses.

"No evil = no good. Evil must exist in this world otherwise we would not know what is good or bad. Without knowing sorrow, we could not know what happiness is either. Fails to work on a practical basis experiences a world with only good in it. Saying we can only be happy with misery in our lives is only speculation. On the otherhand, there are some who only experience misery. An infant who is born with severe arlincon's disease, who only gets to live for a couple of weeks and is in constant agonizing pain until he dies. ... even though he never experience non-suffering"
First assuming that one is the opposite of the other. We also fail to experience a world with only evil in it as well. First most of this is just rare stuff. Well if you are saying that some only experience misery in their lives. Then I counter that with some people experience a near perfect life. Some people are born into a rich family. They have good genetics. Their parents are kind and devote time to their children. Those children grow up, go to a good college. They get a good job. They rarely ever get sick. They find a successful, attractive partner. They get married and have one or two kids. Their parents and grandparents die at a rather old age. Really some people just experience a near perfect blissful life. It is just easy from birth till death. For an infant who dies young. They have experienced via little of life and know very little of misery. Also young people are better able to cope with pain than older people. The older you get the more suffering you are capable of experiencing and the different depth are we able to experience misery.

"Someone takes you and performs brain surgery on you and wipes out all your memories. You get total amnesia and remember nothing, prior to this moment. Then he tortures you until you die. Do you think not having recollection of ever being happy will prevent you from feeling the pain the fear the terror of being tortured a I don't think so either. The point is if you can experience misery without knowing what happiness is, it's only logical that you can be able to feel happiness and joy without ever experiencing misery. If you are still not convinced, think Adam and Eve, they were happy in the garden of Eden without knowing what unhappiness is."
To put it simple, you are confusing physical existence with how it is viewed and mentalized. You consider physical pain to be suffering and it is to an extent. However as far as any need to experience both good and evil, it is more about experiencing a diversity of life and using that experience to better understand existence. Some things can only be understood through both pain and joy, like any good song it has both its sad moments and its happy ones. Some individual experience a tiny amount of pain and realize a great lesson, like learning not to insults others because they may insult you back. It may take a less astute individual a greater amount of pain to realize that same truth. Pain triggers a response in a living organism - that response is either a reaction or an action. Reactions tend to result in further pain, while actions can counteract pain. Also the brain has the ability to reduce our physical pain sensitivity. Anyone who has ever experienced some kind of pain like say a wound for instance that seems to be constant knows that the pain can temporarily vanish only to reappear later. This is due in part at least to the brain nulling the pain sensitivity, plus a pain neuron is not as easily excited if it has been recently excited.

"Evil=Justice. Another argument is that all the evil in the world is in fact justice. We are all sinners, therefore we deserve everything that happens to us. And with this I would also like to address the argument that God is testing us because they really aren't all that different. I always here what theists say that we cannot hold God accountable according to our moral standards. But I think we can. In fact God being the supreme morality, he should surpass our human moral standards. Let's take a parent - a father in order to punish his disobedient child or to test him will stop feeding him - will allow a neighbor to rape him - will allow another neighbor to kill his pets he loves in front of his eyes - will do all those terrible things to him. How would we deal with such a parent? We would obviously lock him up for being a sadistic nutcase and if he were to say he did that all out of love for his child we would be even more sickened by the creep. But then you have our father in heaven that allows such things to happen on a daily basis. You have children in third world countries, who get to eat once every 4 days and only water available for them to drink is filty mud water. You see them dying, starving, infected with parasites, losing their parents to aids and you think this is God's will and somehow in your mind you think they deserve it. Hmm. This is beyond disturbing. Any religion who makes people think like that is a sick religion."

I guess because God is posited to have created the universe in all its varying details that it somehow must be responsible for everything. Maybe that is the Christian God. I really don't know. I don't remember that being my conception of God when I was a Christian, not that I had much of a conception of God. A lot of this stuff is just religious philosophy, like St Aquinas, St Augustine, etc. Basically they tried to create a coherent philosophy from Christian doctrine, but I wasn't exposed to them initially. Evil is not really justice for something we have done. Evil is the result of ignorance and sometimes the consequences of that ignorance do not manifest immediately or rather they aren't noticed. Like for instance, a child never learns how to read and thus is not able to get a good job and dies of malnutrition at a young age. All so-called evil is the result of some kind of ignorance. The parent you have mentioned was a sicko. And the things attributed to God in the old testament were just desperate, very ignorant, people trying to understand the world. Basically everything they didn't understand was God or the result of God and thus they anthropomorphized their conception of God giving it emotions and suffering or such was the result of such emotion of God. Yawn. The reasons for why things happen are becoming a lot clearer and they don't have anything to do without supernatural things.

"God's plan-argument that this is God's plan, everything happens for a reason and that the endgame will be worth it to justify all this. Thy will be done is another way of saying the ends justify the means, which might be true if there are no other means to reach that end. Maybe that is just me that God cannot accomplish his plan without starvation and cancer and child rape, if this is the best he came up with, that is a pretty stupid God you are worshiping there. You know I don't believe in his existence. But if I am wrong does in fact exist, he is one fucked up unfit parent, and in no way worthy of praise. Peace."
I believe if there is in fact a plan for this whole mess that we live in it is to master all aspects of physical existence. If diseases or natural disasters are a problem it is our job to fix them. If animals are suffering it is our job to ease that suffering. We are here to take personal responsibility for the world we create. If the world is not in fact what we desire it to be, it is our job to in fact change it until it is. I believe we have the power to make the world into anything we desire it to be.
The argument for hell is weak. I have never heard a good one for hell and I have a hard time seeing how the bible argues for its existence. In fact a lot of Christians don't even believe in it. Mostly the stupid fundamentalist ones are the ones who adhere to such an idea because they need it to forcible convert the masses.
The bible is a collection of scattered writings by differing authors that was organized and to a degree written by the Catholic Church, which itself was a product of the Roman Empire, which partially fell due to the rise of esoteric Christianity, that and unsustainable corruption. Basically the Christianity at the time was turned from esoteric Christianity to exoteric Christianity. To put it more simple, the Catholic Church took the focus off of the individual and put it on an institution, which what Jesus was trying to get rid of, i.e. the use of religion for profit.
I don't believe the ends justify the means, but sometimes we are resistant to any kind of education, and sometimes we end up having to do things the hard way, like a child sticking its finger in a fire after being told not to and that they would be burned. If the child had realized the fire was hot, then it wouldn't have needed to test its hotness via personal experience. Unfortunately most people's education comes from the trials of life rather than a desire to know and thus learn more passively and thus experience more pain.

Thoughts on addiction, religion, and life

The condition of humanity is constant addiction, is inner sadness, and we do not understand. Humans are driven, some unknown, something within, I cannot yet point to the origin, nor say why we are driven or for what purpose. We are driven by oneself, programmed desires and by other things. We are not purely mechanical beings. Just because we have a non-mechanical nature does not mean this non-mechanical nature is the result of God, a soul, or any supernatural thing. To rationally claim our non-mechanical nature is a result of a supernatural thing, one would first need supernatural experience of a supernatural reality(not physical; not to be confused with energies one may experience in the body in the involvement of one's religion), which at best few could claim. Even in the unlikely event you have an actual genuine supernatural experience, anything you see, is not necessarily what you may believe it to be based on your particular religious upbringing.

The non-mechanical nature of life is not governed solely by quantum-mechanical effects as quantum-mechanical effects do not logically lead to the observed behaviors of higher lifeforms. Also when you take the average of a large number of quantum-mechanical effects(a block of iron atoms vs a single iron atom) you approach classical behavior, which is mechanical and predictable in nature. To be clearer some scientists believe that quantum physics can be used as a way to explain the phenomena of life, and sometimes specifically of choice due to small apparently unpredictable fluctuations at the quantum level. No logical argument exists however to suppose that is the case. These unpredictable fluctuations are due however to a number of known causes. One is you cannot completely isolate an atom or proton or electron from the ambient environment. You have gravitational fields, electric fields, radio waves and other light waves(just radio waves are often unusually difficult to block), vibrations, neutrinos, and various other weak interacting matter that can disturb this particle that you are trying to measure. Plus by measuring a particle you are imparting some energy to that particle, thus effecting its motion.

Higher ordered lifeforms express a greater degree of this non-mechanicality, which begs the question why. Higher ordered life is at least partially the result of having a greater degree of specialization within cells, which comes with a larger percent of intron based dna. Most of science is the study of the mechanical nature of physical reality. However a non-mechanical nature exists within lifeforms and may even exist in things we do not consider to be life. However the non-mechanical nature of physical reality is a mostly unstudied science, which is due mainly to its unpredictability, i.e. we cannot find a direct cause. The closest explanation for the non-mechanical nature of physical reality is choice or something that resembles choice.

The physical sciences have advanced much lately in the past hundred years. However the understanding of the mechanical nature of physical reality is incomplete. Physicists have been desperately seeking a unified field theory, but noone has publicly presented one that is acceptable by the scientific community. Unfortunately without a unified field theory, study of the non-mechanical nature of physical reality maybe difficult to impossible. Geneticists are working on how certain dna/rna sequences result in certain traits in an organism. Even though this is a study of life, it is a study of the mechanical part of it.

A lot of human behavior is a response to being driven by forces unknown to us. We experience sadness when we lack new experiences, when we have no goals to which to base our actions and thus we are bored. We are driven to create. So, we turn to drugs. We turn to hateful beliefs blaming others for our problems. We turn to elitist religion, professing they have the sole claim to truth without a shred of proof. We imagine ourselves superheroes via our movies. We kill ourselves. We just want to escape. It seems endless the attempt to satisfy this hunger. And the more intelligent you are, the greater this hunger consumes you. You are driven to create and to understand. We try nearly everything, no matter how insane, often in an attempt to alleviate some unseen hurt. People live in a state of constant inner flux, going from one desire to another, one goal to another, experiencing brief moments of satisfaction, but no lasting calm.

Some religious people have argued that Communism is atheism and a philosophy. Firstly all religions have some elements of philosophy in them. Communists were anti-Christianity, anti-Judaism, basically anti the various religions that had formally been in power in that country, mainly Christianity as that had been the religion that had the strongest grip on the country previously. The Russian Revolution of 1917 resulted in the imprisonment of the previous ruling family and they were later shot to death. The Soviet Union was a country of mandatory reading of Marxist and Leninist philosophy and massive brainwashing of its citizens was implemented at the educational level. Kids were encouraged to spy on their parents. People were killed for suspicions of going against Communist ideology. Marx, Lenin, and Stalin were worshipped almost like gods. It was government sponsored terrorism against its own citizens. Massive spending in military, and decreasing productive due to corruption and increased incentives to work hard resulted in the enviable collapse of the Soviet Union.

Communist socialism is religious hate speech in disguise. It divides people into groups and kills its dissenters. Communists have believed in ideas without proof with extreme fervor and devotion, creating groups and defining who is evil and who is not under the disguise of philosophy. Words are redefined and a younger generation believes in a rewritten history. To accept what one is told without proof and without reason is to not engage in philosophy. Communist advocate the party line with striking parallels to Christian, Jewish and Muslim theories. Party ideology is forced on a desperate people hungry for change, for food, for advancement. The whole society revolves around one book, written by a man, and everyone is forced to live by that. If that is not religion, then I do not know what is. The Little Red Book by Mao Zedong of the People's Republic of China, during 1964-1976, is the most printed book in the twentieth century at around 6.5 billion copies, rivaling even the Bible.

We believe we know, but we don't. Knowing is not impossible but we have yet to attain clarity on the simplest of things. People live in fear of uncertainty. In uncertainty one feels powerless. So we pretend to know so that others may fear us. We advertise our dangerousness so that we may feel safe. Reality is we are powerless and death can come at any time. Before we as a people can arrive at any form of truth we must first be honest with ourselves and admit we know very little and assume things to be true that we have not seen. Both religion and science and philosophy seek to provide answers when often there currently aren't any valid ones available.

Even in science there is a certain degree of faith. Logical arguments aren't always right as they are often built on hidden assumptions they aren't true. And currently science holds onto quite a few incorrect beliefs, but most don't even realize it. People who read about science or even practice it often confuse the interpretation of reality with the actual observation of reality. Scientists often think the interpretation of reality is an observation of reality when it is not. Quarks do not exist. They are a mathematical model with no basis in reality. Multiverse theory is an inference from the uncertainty principle, which is itself a misinterpretation of reality. Uncertainty happens because at the level of individual particle we are dealing with both the quantized nature of matter and the wavelength/frequency nature of matter. Plus the point of contact of two particles can effect where the forces are applied, making measurement a difficult proposition because we are unable to measure without effecting the particle. At least science makes an effort to base their beliefs on observation.

Religious beliefs are notorious for not basing their beliefs on observation, but on personal preference. Despite whether people want to accept it or not, the brain operates via belief. And we act in accordance with our beliefs. Rational as we may try to be, we believe in something. Any sane person would try and match their beliefs to reality as close as possible, whether that reality be physical or something not physical in nature. All humans share the same physical reality and being of similar construction share a very similar human experience or at least the capacity to share a very similar human experience.

Morals are a type of belief, which seeks to label certain behaviors as either right or wrong, which are usually an imitation of behaviors that are deigned acceptable by a particular society/group and an avoidance of those which are not. Since we are talking about behavior in the physical world, morals are a product of the brain. Even if you read the bible and decide to have certain morals because of what you read in the bible does not mean your morality came from the bible. It still came from the brain. A different person reading the bible, still believing it to be true can come up with a different set of morals based on what they read.

The brain has 4 higher functions. The first is to experience/observe the world via the 5 senses and the nervous system. The second is to remember the world, i.e. reflect what we have experienced. The third is to understand the world (pattern finding, drawing conclusions, forming beliefs) done via imagination, emotion, reasoning, or just pure acceptance of an authority. The fourth is to act on our understandings/beliefs. Most people base their beliefs purely on the acceptance of some authority. Sometimes belief is also understood in the narrower sense of a belief based purely on an authority, i.e. without imagination, emotion or reasoning. Most science is done first via observation. Then by remembering. Then they use imagination or reason to come to conclusions. Then they act according to their conclusions. They then try and test their conclusions by further observation and a repeat of the process, strengthening the probability that what they believe is actually true. Real science is a recursive process of further refining our beliefs via continued tests.

As a disclaimer, since these are just ramblings, try not to make too much out of what is written. To be clearer, I am not arguing that a supernatural reality exist just because I have made arguments sortof related to that. However nor am I saying that there isn't a supernatural reality. I am unsure either way. Also since I have wrote it, then added to it after I wrote it, some sentences that were near each other got split apart from each other. Basically don't assume you know what I believe based on what I wrote as for one, unfortunately due to the imprecise nature of language, I may end up saying things that I did not intend to say. Feel free to ask questions if you are unsure about anything I have wrote. As this is just a blog, you pay for what you get.

Another random prophecy: In the future an increasing number of educated, developed countries will create some type of anti-blashempy law due to increased religious violence in the world. Also the chance of a nuclear bomb being denoted by one of the middle east countries(Israel, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon,etc.) will increase drastically.

Big Bang is Epic Fail

Big Bang equals fail. If you check a physics book you can find numerous objections to the big bang theory. Big bang phrase started out as a joke by Fred Hoyle. Big bang is basically universe starts from this very small hot dense area and expands from there. The big bang is sometimes said to come from nothing, which creationist argues is illogical, then they bring out intelligent design. The universe has been around for a very long time and in all likelihood much longer than what we believe it to be. Two ideas are said to support the big bang theory. One is the red shift and two is background microwave radiation.

Red shift of known spectral lines do not lead you automatically to an expanding universe for three reasons. One is many other causes of red shifts exist. Two since we only have been observing the universe for a short period of time, even if what we are observing is it moving away, it could start moving towards us simply because the effects of revolutional periods of that body, of which could last thousands to millions of years, are difficult to observe. And third Hubble's constant is not even constant and can lead to unreal results like faster than light travel.

Ok, on to background microwave radiation, despite the hype, this is not proof of the expanding universe theory. Simply put, the big bang causes background radiation, therefore background microwave radiation is proof of the big bang, but in reality err no. That is circular logic. The actual cause is not what people think it is. Non scientists don't understand the blackbody equation, nor what could give rise to a radiant blackbody. For one to observe a constant microwave background radiation everywhere, the universe would have to be in thermal equilibrium, which it is not. I could go into more details about the red shift and microwave cosmic radiation, but noone reads these posts anyways.

Atheist and theists argue over the whole origin of the universe thing. Atheist will cite big bang. Creationist theist will cite 6000 year old universe/earth theory. Both are epicly wrong. Non scientist atheist don't understand the math and ideas involved, like really understand it. That requires an education in physics to be honest. You can't just check wikipedia and expect to get it. Scientist usually just accepts it because they don't have a real interest in the area and it's the best theory that physical science has. What the creationist argues is much worse though and not even close to being right. Their argument is based on the age of historical records and thus what we have of recorded human history. A primitive culture writes down universe was created by God and therefore people just assume universe must have been created around that time, which is an illogical conclusion.

The actual reality of the universe is that black holes give birth to suns, to solar systems, and we have some actual evidence of such. The energy released from a black hole is under high pressure and high temperatures, so it is big-bang like. The big bang theory cannot explain the origin of universe without considering the most massive objects in the universe. Black holes(the big ones) are actually older than the measured age of the universe, inferred from radioactive isotope measurement. You can't just ignore reality, which the big bang theory does.

Prions, Viroids, Transposons and Strange Things that go bump in the night

If you haven't heard of prions, they are bits of misfolded protein that have the capacity to replicate themselves. Mad cow disease is one well known disease resulting from eating the brains and nervous tissue of cows. However under certain circumstances these proteins can be found in the organs of animals in significant quantities as a result of viral infection. Viral infection can also cause prions to spread to the milk and muscle, however even in such conditions, they are only found in rather small amounts, and should not cause mad cow disease. The naturally forming variation of this protein is also known to cause Alzheimer's disease and gene therapy in rats has been shown to cure the disease by essentially preventing the production of the protein. The prion protein is known to survive cooking and digestion. The mad cow disease in cows is known to have been caused by feeding the brain and nervous tissue of cows to other cows. We then eat these cannibalistic cows. Prions are also known to exist in fungi, but are not currently associated with a disease, well kinda. Some prions of fungus are known to protect one group of genetically similar fungus from another group of non genetically similar fungus by killing the non prion fungus. Kuru disease is a prion disease caused by cannibalism. The logical conclusion for prions is they are a part of the immune system, which is likely shared by all organisms from plant life to animal life. Basically prions protect an organism from foreign proteins.

Viroids are implicated in a number of plant diseases and are known to spread via a number of vectors. Aphids and seed spreading are common methods. Viroids are bits of circular, single-stranded, complementary RNA lacking the protein commonly associated with viruses. They also contain a shorter number of bases than viruses and are smaller in size. They do not code for protein. One such viroid is the potato spindle tuber viroid. It causes stunted growth, altered color, and leaf deformation. You can see the viroids in an electron microscope, however you are unable to see how it works because electron microscopes only take still pictures. A viroid like molecule is also implicated in hepatitis D, however it requires a preexisting infection, Hepatitis B.

Transposons are mobile genetic elements of dna, implicated in evolution. Sometimes they are cut and paste but in other cases they simply replicate. They make a significant portions of eukaryotic organisms. They can also be involved in horizontal gene transfer between different species. One class of transposons is involved in retroviruses. Some diseases that are attributed to transposons are haemophilia, sever combined immunodeficiency, porphyrias, and duchenne muscular dystrophy. Transposons can cause color changes in corn. Mariner construct transposons horizontal gene transfers are known to occur between tapeworms and humans.

Satellite genetic material can also be found in the cell. Satellite genetic material, whether rna or dna, can interfere in the replication machinery.

Thus I am brought to the point of this whole tirade. Infectious agents exist that are very difficult to detect. Increasingly these 3 elements and potentially variations of these will found to be increasingly found to be involved in disease and likely with aging as well. Also in spite of the common propaganda you find with forensics shows, the genome is not static. It changes in the course of an organism's lifetime. This applies to humans. Reproduction is also very active in the use of transposable elements, resulting in the slight variations from parent to child. The effect of a gene depends on where it is located in the genome. Genes are sometimes referenced as exons and code for protein. Introns are considered the non coding portion of the genome. However they code for specialization. They are the instructions for when a certain gene should be turned on or off and in what circumstances. Without introns there would be no cell types, no organs, etc. Also when they say a plant shares 50% of its genes with humans(or 95% with apes) they are referencing a limited set of base pairs and exclude certain genetic material based mainly on base pair substitutions, so contrary to what people have been lead to believe the similarity between humans and other species is not as large. At one time they only looked at the exons for genetic comparison. Currently the effect of introns is only barely understand and was initially considered to be junk dna. That idea is slowly being eroded. The mitochondria also has its own dna and is inherited from the mother. If I were to point to a cause of aging, transposable elements likely result in the genes in the mitochondria becoming dysfunctional until eventually one can do nothing but die.

Gene therapy in the future will likely be used to combat aging. However the human genome will need to be better understand. All species that people eat will increasingly have to be modified to combat the subtle diseases they cause in humans. Researchers in various places are already working on mad cow disease resistant cows. Also animals and plants will need to be modified and immunized against infectious agents. Also humans will also need to be genetically modified. This may not be an idea many like, but once the human genome is understood, a government sponsored human genome modification program should be implemented. The reduction in cost of both healthcare and education would be enormous as well as the huge increase in productive. No good reason exists against it once the technology exists that is both safe and well understood.

I tried to find base pair lengths for different animal species but was unable to find the data online for any except humans and that value was only a rough value. Humans are supposed to have around 3 billion base pairs(seen it listed as 2.9 billion, 3 billion, and 3.2 billion) and chimps have approximately the same. Humans have 46 chromosomes, while the ape species have 48. This is due to chromosome merging. Chimps and humans may have the exact number of base pairs or they may not. If there is a variation, how large is that variation? Chimps are considered to be humans' closest relatives based on genetic and molecular analysis, however orangutans display higher intelligence than chimps and more similar morphological features to humans than chimps. Eventually a greater understanding of genetics will reveal that orangutans possess at least some genetic traits that are closer to humans than chimps. Some genetic length variation(base pairs) may exist among the non-human primate species, however I could not find any data to confer or deny. C-values online(see http://www.genomesize.com/) were unreliable. The methods of gene deactivation logically have an effect on measured weight of dna. C-value among different cell types likely varies. Large variations also were reported for the same species, so I had to discharge that avenue. At least in eukaryotic life, cells divide by the process of mitosis, which involves the chromosomes breaking up and you end up with one extra pair of chromosomes. In meiosis, the number of chromosomes is halved, which then allows the male and female to each contribute genetic material. Various methods exist to alter the genetic code. Transposons, viral infection and plasmid gene swapping are a few. Geneticists have also come up with a few synthetic methods as well like use of zinc finger nuclease.

Basically to the point, potentially small base pair length alterations could exist on individual chromosomes which can give rise to an increase or decrease of the genome length. So potentially two people can have kids even though they don't necessarily possess the same genome length or contribute the same length for their haploids. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120159615/abstract illustrates that y chromosome length can vary among males. It is also possible that these small genetic length variations (coming from chromosome length variations) could result in birth defects even though they don't have an abnormal number of chromosomes. Accumulative genetic length variations could also result in speciation and maybe cause a chromosome to merge with another or to divide itself in two. The method of reproduction could effect this genetic length variation drift rate. Likely organisms that reproduce asexually can experience large drift rates. Maybe amoebas reproducing asexually can help to explain their large genome size. One chromosome could also lose some base pairs to another chromosomes, thus if one chromosome has a high mutation rate it could help to contribute to the changes in the other chromosomes.

Though the other primate species, like gorillas, monkeys, chimps, orangutans, etc. maybe classified as a different species than human, perhaps they should in fact be considered human or a variation of such(subspecies, another race maybe?). With the right challenging environment and selective breeding these non-human primate species could become even more human-like until their intellectual abilities nearly match our own. The main attribute that makes us humans is not necessarily what we eat or how we look, but the intellectual abilities that our brains possess. If such a day happens when other primates can talk like us(learning language), socialize with us, write poetry, participate in science, wonder over religion to the point where the only difference between us and them is our appearance and the fact we couldn't sexually reproduce, should they not appropriately be given the title human and thus afforded the same rights as other humans. As long as we continue to interact with other primates and manage not to kill all its members we will eventually see the day where other primates may be called brothers.

Random prophetic predictions: In the future some people will be born without having a father or a mother.

Nasa

These will start with some random ramblings, various thought bubbles floating in my inner thought space, so there may not be the consistency of a more well thought out post. First topic of discussion - Nasa.

Nasa is a U.S. space origination founded in 1958 in a response to the launch of the Soviet Sputnik into orbit. It has been a military organization from the start. It initially recruited talent from the U.S. airforce. It took over Jet Propulsion Laboratories. It gathers talent from various places, often consulting with local professors or local companies. Increasingly, perhaps due to budget constraints, it has been using getting help from various universities. See http://www.msss.com/(private company in San Diego) and http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/ (European space station), http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/images.php university of Arizona(phoenix probe), california institute of technology(jet propulsion laboratory), university of Houston(various consulting from professors), and http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu (high resolution pics on the mars reconnaissance orbiter). Recently Lockheed won a contract to build a new spaceship for Nasa. Obama is also trying to merge Nasa into the Dept of Defense.

China, Europe, Japan, and Russia have all recently admitted to various space dreams - visit moon and mars - and to an extent have already begun to fulfill such dreams. Nasa has recently sent up a kinetic energy missile(Centaur rocket) to crash into the moon's south pole on October 8, 2009, supposedly as an effort to detect water on the moon in preparation for a moon base, except they have already found water in pebbles returned from the Apollo missions. So I am a bit baffled at what their purpose is.

Officially Nasa is very antagonistic to the idea of life being elsewhere in the universe. They say they are trying to discover signs of life, at least microscopic ones, but supposedly they haven't found anything and maybe there is some truth in that. Various maybes have presented themselves. You have the face on mars, pyramid on mars, a geodesic dome in a crater on Mars, some strange tree-like things and some strange black spots. They have also found signs of recent flowing rivers, like in the past few years and methane source. Some astronauts(mostly the old ones I think) have stated that noticed sentient type ufo/alien phenomena, but really who knows.

To bring a whole long post to a rather conclusive point, I am disappointed in Nasa. So many decades and not a single microbe has been discovered. Either they have found something and they have lied or they haven't found something and are just plain incompetent. However since many who work at Nasa are rather intelligent, I just wonder what is really going on. To turn the coin around, if there really is sentient type life in our galaxy besides us, why haven't they contacted us? It is possible they have and we have just shot at them. In that case I would suggest a large radio signal or perhaps a large light source. Someone would pick that up. Increasingly regular people just think Nasa is a waste and the money they spend could be better spent on more immediate goals. One might site all the technology that has come about as a result of Nasa, but simply put that technology could have come about without the billions spent on rockets, spaceships and probes.

But seriously though, you have Russia, the US, China, Japan, and Europe each with interests in the moon and Mars. I wonder if they know something I don't. A lot of our recent space program activity is in reponse to other countries. Some of the reasons are military based, but I doubt all are. Oh, and some substances can only be created in outer space(low gravity/microgravity- see http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/home96/jul96/lowgrav.html for instance). Perhaps a new industry will be created in the future for substances created in microgravity.