Death Bed

“Saturday, Donny, is Shabbos, the Jewish day of rest. That means that I don't work, I don't get in a car, I don't f*cking ride in a car, I don't pick up the phone, I don't turn on the oven, and I sure as sh*t don't f*cking roll! Shomer Shabbos!”
-Walter Sobchak

A few hours after reading this article, nodding defeatedly and muttering, "Figures," I decided that it deserved a little more thought than my knee-jerk reaction.

I had taken the easy way out, without bothering to ask myself what exactly “figured.”
After taking some time to think, I was reminded of two things: the Sabbath and my Death Bed.

Shomer Shabbos, as Mr. Sobchak meticulously outlined for Donny, is a day where much is prohibited (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melakha)

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As someone who makes bold and ridiculous attempts at fitting as many activities into my life as possible, I found Shabbos to be a ludicrous, bewildering, and frustrating idea, therefore I had to try it.
For those who haven't tried it, Shabbos is akin to those days when the power goes out and you're forced to spend the entire time waiting until you're allowed to use electricity again.

The morning of my attempt at Shabbos I employed a thought experiment I developed called, "Death Bed".
Here's how it works:
I picture my future self on my deathbed lamenting on the aspects of my life where I could have used time more wisely.
If I find my future self asking why it was so important to watch some poor soul on youtube eat 40 pizza rolls more than once, I should probably stop and go do something else.

My future self had no such regrets about Shabbos, so I continued on with my day, eventually realising how Shabbos was its own thought experiment.
Shabbos broke routine in a way similar to Death Bed. In all its restrictions I was forced to reflect on aspects of my life that had previously gone ignored or become habit.

Marvin Minsky made a similar observation by describing the time one spends with a broken leg.
It isn't until the leg is broken that all the little details of walking become apparent.

Perhaps declaring the use of ethanol as a "sin" could be beneficial to some, I'm not sure, perhaps he was just being difficult.

Not so bone idle

"Never discourage anyone... who continually makes progress, no matter how slow."
-Plato

It does not escape my attention that I have the tendency to become something of a misanthropist from time to time. And just in case I find myself forgetting, thankfully I am surrounded by people who will remind me of my critical tendencies.

One area I am highly critical of, as it has been pointed out to me, is religion.
However, as with anything, it does not help to only point out the negative.
If something positive happens, one must make note of it.

Therefore, I post this:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/02/14/saudi.arabia.woman.minister/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Please, respect the Caviar

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126941.700-born-believers-how-your-brain-creates-god.html

So here it is, another well written document describing the painfully obvious, albeit with a little more insight; that insight being how babies, while observing a box moving on its own, will become confused, because we, as humans, are born with an instinct for what's alive, and therefore supposed to be able to move on its own, and what's not alive, and therefore should stay still until you say, "Robot, bring me that ladle."

Humans also have some innate disposition in reaching daft yet intuitive conclusions about natural phenomenon they don't fully understand, like rain or wind or carjackings.

Tlaloc, Thor, and Hadad thought they had cornered the market on rain, until we humans came along and noticed that when water becomes exposed to air the liquid molecules turn into water vapor which rises up to forms clouds... and so on and so forth, until these Gods were forced to retire.

What drives me up the wall is how thousands of people, who willingly sit inside a MEGA-church watching some maniac communicate with them through a Sony JumboTron about how he chats leisurely with the Creator of the Universe, will look at a group of Scientologists pushing the latest edition of Dianetics from a kiosk at your local Mall, and whisper to each other, "The stuff those people believe in is crazy."

Uh-huh.

Every belief system thinks alternate belief systems are mentally deranged as manifested in a wild or aggressive way. The only time these people choose to become skeptics is when some unfortunate mild mannered person attempts to make a basic conversation about the weather a little more lively by mentioning something they happened to read in an science article, at which point all the believers literally jump down the mild mannered person's throat in an effort to exorcise the demon before it utters anything else that could coarsely brush up against any of their delicate beliefs which they require to murder female TV personalities.

Irritated Flatlanders

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html

I've read this article twice now and so far have taken away the notion that people become quite incredulous at a hypothesis that violates Newton's Clockwork Universe (like the second law of thermodynamics).

People like classical mechanics, the laws of motion, and universal gravitation. These are things that can be observed by the average person and make everything appear to be in order (nevermind how that order does not allow for free will).

Quantum Mechanics becomes incredibly frustrating, what with all its subatomic particles, uncertainty principles, and living-dead cats. Now QM hits us with the possibility of actually being two-dimensional...

"Fermilab scientists have found anomalous "holographic noise" in their GEO600 gravitational-wave detector that suggests the possibility that we live in a hologram."

Chances are offense is really taken at the word "hologram" and not at the articles attack on the reader's perception of physics.
Somehow "hologram" has become synonymous with a falsehood rather than what it actually means.
I blame 80s cartoons for that.

So, instead of questioning what would happen if you dropped a planck length in a dark theatre (and how much planck time it would take to recover it), people instead question whether or not this means they should bother going into work on Monday.

To me, this article explains a lot about gravity.

People walk around with the common misconception that we can freely move about in three-dimensions.
Aside from physically jumping into the air, movement in the third dimension is somewhat limited without the assistance of airplanes, stairs, and trees.

If we actually existed as bits of information being beamed across the Universe from a two-dimensional plane, it's easy to imagine how moving off of this 2D plane would be difficult, but not impossible.

Even though I'm not sure about this holographic space-time I'm not outraged by it.
These ideas and notions don't come out of nowhere. They are based on previous discoveries, theories, and equations found to be true about our Universe.

Caffeine Daydream

"People who drink a lot of coffee or other caffeinated beverages are more likely to report hearing voices or having out-of-body experiences than those who go easy on the strong stuff, according to a new study."

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/113/1?rss=1

This sounds like a marketable feature.
Starbucks could work it into their decor or maybe design a room for people who have had several cups already...then they can stop playing new Paul McCartney cds and just let people listen to the voices in their heads.
Better yet, they could concoct a drink that has the exact amount of caffeine needed for a good hallucination.
Perhaps they have this drink already.

Although I'm not sure if I really believe it all just yet. I am on an even six cups a day now and haven't experienced any of the results listed in the article.
Perhaps I'm not trying hard enough.
In that case I'll drink coffee to the point where sleeping is no longer an option.

Actually, that's something I would like to see in the coming years, sleep as an option.

There's such a fantastic amount of matter, material, articles, or activities of a specified or indeterminate kind to sift through in life that spending any of it indisposed for several hours becomes incredibly frustrating to me.
The average statistic will tell us that we sleep about a third of our life away. This needs to stop. At least, for me it does. I have other things to do.

Perhaps I would be missing out on some interesting dreams, but I could easily make up for that with a caffeine overdose.

The Prime Directive

"Magic is any sufficiently advanced technology."
-Arthur C. Clarke

"As I've said many times, the future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed."
-William Gibson

Using the term “magic,” like using the word “indescribable,” does a better job at describing what a person doesn’t understand rather than it does in giving an account of the characteristics of the object in question.

It is 2009, or it is 1430, depending on what calendar you are using. In fact, I’m sure there are additional calendars out there that give other ways to consider the matter of the billions of years that have actually passed.

But nevermind all that, what am I actually bothered by?
I am bothered by this:
Woman suspected of witchcraft burned alive

In Star Trek there is something called the Prime Directive, and it states:
“There can be no interference with the internal affairs of other civilizations, consistent with the historical real world concept of Westphalian sovereignty.”

It's a nice idea, however I can’t help but think, “That’s bullshit.”

My problem is I don’t believe all cultures or beliefs deserve respect, not really. I may find a culture interesting and worth studying in order to discover more about the human condition, however that does not mean it deserves respect, especially if a culture believes in magic and perceives it to be punishable by death.

I respect Science and the pursuit of the truth of the Universe.
And yes, I realize that the above sentence sounds like something an anime character would proclaim before entering a battle, but I’m very sincere when I say that I am profoundly saddened by events like the one above and place the blame on the lack of scientific knowledge and the abuse of the word ‘respect’ by cultures and beliefs that don’t deserve any.

Odds of Determinism Redux

Picture it, Detroit 1932, something peculiar happened to one Joseph Figlock, who up until that point didn’t think he was the type of person peculiar things happened to.
Especially not the types of things that if one were to come across them in fiction would cause an outburst of ‘that couldn’t happens.’
After all, he was just a street sweeper.
Undoubtedly, during the course of his duties, Joseph Figlock had to have come across a few oddities, things people toss out, things people didn’t want anymore, but that was probably the extent of his encounters with the abstract concepts of probability.
Perhaps it had something to do with exactly that.
Something to do with Joseph Figlock’s constant interaction with things discarded that resulted in it happening the first time.
However, two weeks later when it happened a second time, chances are Joseph Figlock began to seriously question likelihoods and probable events.

The standard definition of probability tells us it is the extent to which an event is likely to occur.
A philosopher would tell us that all things are probable given the unlimited space the Universe provides for us to drift about in.
Quantum Physics tells us it is probable that one day all of my electrons will suddenly jump from where I am to somewhere I’m not, providing I live for billions of years.
When faced with this possibility knowing I won’t live for a billion is a relief, as I’m already something of a nervous person and I don’t want to have to walk around dreading the possibility that I’ll somehow teleport to the Ice Capades.

I know, I know, I’m talking theoretical probability, the analysis of random phenomena, but that’s exactly what happened, so let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet.

I am not Winston Churchill; you are not Andrew Lloyd Webber.
This is something we can be certain of.
There is no chance the opposite is, or can ever be, true, unless you actually are the Broadway composer in question and you are undercover collecting material for "Blog: The Musical," in which case you can go ahead and ignore this example since it is meant for people who are supposed to not be you).

I cannot become the first Queen of America.
There is no chance of that happening.
Strangely enough, there is a larger chance of my becoming the first Queen of America than of you being Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Granted, my becoming the Queen of anything would be curious circumstances indeed.
These are large enough odds, big clunky examples, that, when questioned, the answer becomes obvious.
Odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field are better or worse than Nicholas Cage playing Harry Potter in the next film?
When do chances become less defined?
When do the odds become uncertain?
Is there a way to start with the large and obvious odds and work our down to predicting the smaller stuff such as when we can expect a baby to fall on top of us, which is exactly what happened to Joseph Figlock, twice.
All parties involved survived to tell the tale.

It seems the more we can perceive, or the more we know the less something becomes a probability and the more something becomes certain, which is important for predicting coin tosses and when it’s our turn to have a baby dropped on us.