Space

Suddenly I'm out there, in space, and one thing which guided all my movements has gone, I am free but at the same time lost.
Well not quite in space, I can feel a gentle tug of gravity, the flavour of freedom looms. The weakness of the gravity becomes a focus and holds me in suspension.

It's a crap analogy, but it came to mind through the word space. I have space, lots of it, and now this is scary. I somehow think that if I had no commitments I would embrace the space and fill it. The commitments are like the weak gravity holding me back. Maybe they are not so weak really. They represent a fear passed through generations. I don't know.

Let's go direct.

I am sitting at home and want to finish off a lot of boring work things.

I also want to get on with other stuff I'm interested.

My hand touches the mouse tablet and the cursor jumps to the top of the text so it's all messed up. I lose my train of thought. It doesn't piss me off anymore. I know all these geeks are morons. I know them because I am one. But it pisses me off anyway. Why the fuck, it's so unnecessary. Just fix it you fuckers.

My mother ends an email with "I will need your help.." An urgency to fill the space before someone else does comes back. I get up and start writing this blog.

But I don't pray.

That is the one thing that may help.

And asking for help.

Asking questions.

Questions are powerful.

Statements are pants.

Especially ones that start "I need...." or ones that start "Especially ones that..."

Sucked into a whirlpool of want.

Be free.

The Power of Now

Has a beginning and an end, and costs X pounds to buy.

Have someone elses experience and consequence of a crisis.

Judge not, but claim the world is in a mess.

Stay in the now, but think about time for practical things in life.

Have your cake, and eat it.

* * *

He is right, but we are not him.

I am me, and whatever I is, may not be what I is for him.

He sees the world as sick. And I am sick too, else I would not be reading his teaching.

He is the darkness dressed as the light.

But he is right, and the light can fill the darkness and become light.

He becomes the light. But still the darkness comes back through us.

What does this all mean?

It means nothing. There is no need for meaning. There just is.

Transcendent Man

Yesterday I watched the documentary film of the above title, about the life and works of Ray Kurzweil.

Now I am on the next sentence, stuck in the same loop as Ray. Or that's how I see it.

He is right on some level. There will be some kind of event-horizon in technological development that will shortly (within decades) end the nature of human experience as we know it now. Is that a good or bad thing?  Who says what is good or bad?

He uses the term technological singularity, which I'm confused about. Maybe I've not yet understood exactly what he means. There is no mathematical or physical explanation, which I imagine would be fairly easy to apply, so I hope to find it soon and will post when I do.

I am trying to analyse it to death, as if by endless analysis there will be an answer and truth can therefore be avoided. Death can therefore be avoided. I think this is the belief that drives Ray. But I'm not sure what he means by becoming immortal. Does his notion of immortality merge with the spiritual notion? I somehow doubt it.

Areas I want to clarify are: the thermodynamic arrow of time and how this relates to his vision; chaos theory and the notion of life as a perpetual phase transition; and quantum physics and Schrödinger's cat etc.

Is this struggle that of wanting to become God vs surrendering to God? Do the two merge with thermodynamic equilibrium of the mind?

Does God exist? "Not yet?" he answers. I think this summarises his dillusion as well as the missing facets I mention above that I want to clarify. I'm confused, and yet he seems to be clear. Is this because I don't yet understand, or that I do understand but don't yet understand why he doesn't. Does that need to be part of understanding something? No. It's only part of understanding everything.

So God doesn't exist "yet", he says. Very interesting idea. Time is something I think of as illusory, a movement that occurs when my consciousness fails to merge with God and I become "I" during the journey. The journey could be seconds or years, but always the merge with God recurs, and for everyone it occurs at least once in their trajectory of life - at death.

Or does it? Just as a ball thrown hard enough could leave the influence of gravity on earth (ignoring air resistance), so can the soul thrown forward in time hard enough escape its creator and be left in eternal damnation, a perpetual searching forward in time. This is perhaps the same debate as whether or not the universe will suffer a heat death or collapse back into itself. Maybe what happens is our choice and there are parallel universes where both happen - some enter heaven (singularity), others hell (the heat death)

For some, God never departs them and therefore the question of is there a God is irrelevant. A good number of people, and most animals fit this category. How does the notion of God vary with time dimension? We may see a lion trapping and devouring a wilderbeast, whereas a time-reversed view sees a lion giving birth to a fully grown animal through its mouth, and that animal merging with its mother upon death etc until the singularity of the big bang (ok bit of a large jump but you get the drift, if not you're ok)

Ok this is all haphard and obscure, but it's the way it is. A sketch, and scribble, and way of getting stuff out of my mind. So thankyou for reading. Feel free to comment, and any references much appreciated to help in my search for the unknowable.

God bless you.

Angry babies

I enjoyed the riots, it made me feel more at home. It seemed like a lot of babies throwing their toys out of the pram. Annoying to non-babies, but harmless. Expensive, but not really expensive. And messy, but casualties were low.

I'm a big baby. This is how it works, very simple.

Baby wants mummy and daddy. Mummy and daddy not there. Angry baby.

Baby wakes up one day in adult body. Goes "oh shit" what happened? Still no mummy and daddy. F&ck.

Baby has two choices...

Either, baby gets clever and works out how to manipulate others to get what baby wants... security. Many babies get very rich doing this, or at least get by in a crap relationship.

Or... baby just keeps throwing toys out of the pram until someone gives him attention.

There are other options, but you need faith for them.

Back in the rational world it's pretty grim. Living based solely on what you know is hell by definition. There are no answers. There isn't enough room for all the babies to grow up. Anyone can grow up, but not everyone. Only an average of 1 in 500 can, without exploitation [1]. So we fight for our space, or try to manipulate others into giving it to us. e.g. angry calls to support the neglect of other babies. 

To those who say "let's trample the problem down, these rioters are scum" ... I hope you never have babies.

* * *

1. based on a "stable" world population level of 15 million people

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#History

Black Swan events

"Christmas is a Black Swan event for a turkey but not for the butcher, what we need to be is the butcher not the turkey." Jeremy Paxman
http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b0120y0p/?t=24m31s

"Black Swan in Greece, no, a Black Swan would be for not having street riots in London or New York..."  Nassim Nicholas Taleb http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0120y0p/Newsnight_15_06_2011/?t=37m12s

If you stop to think about it, you'll go nuts, so just chill out, and pray.

It's bleak, and it's economics

It costs 2.50 to save a child’s life, less than the cost of a beer it takes to forget that. cheers


http://www.metro.co.uk/news/866095-vaccines-that-could-save-a-child-s-life-cost-just-2-50-says-minister