Thailand

I'm going to Thailand for 3 weeks tomorrow. I'll be gone Jan. 5th to the 25th.

How will you make a living in the post-apocalyptic economy?

I'll peddle massages and try to use my biology knowledge for health, nutrition, and agriculture.

(From Consumating)

Other than the souls of small children, what do you collect?

Other than dust... old shark's teeth, batik cloths, digital cameras, colored pens, erasers, and sea shells.

(From Consumating)

Are you more often the rescued or the rescuer?

More often the rescuer. I always find out that I'm the balm for someone else's sanity, emotional balance, etc. I prefer the interaction to be not of rescued/rescuer, but where both people are independently thriving.

(From Consumating)

Beside what entry in the dictionary would you find your picture?

(My latest topic from Consumating.)

What do you want for your birthday?

I want this for my birthday.

(From Consumating)

What is the worst mistake you ever made?

That fundamenalist Christian thing.

(From Consumating)

Where do you spend more time: the real world or the dream world?



The real world is so strange and wonderful that sometimes it does seem like a psychedelic dream.

(From Consumating)

Pics from my cousin's visit

We sent Henny and Oliver off this morning at dim sum, I watched a movie with Mom, and I just uploaded some pictures from yesterday. This weekend was busy; the week will be busy also…

First we went to the Ontario County Fair, and it took us only an hour to walk through the whole thing. It was tiny, and for a Saturday, deserted. And it was very, very rural.

Next we went to the George Eastman House. They blocked the entire third floor off, but what was shown was pretty.

Art and resistance

Art has always convinced us only by filling the painted plane or the written pages with a life of its own. Whenever precautions are taken to steer art, they merely confirm that it has a mind of its own. The more tightly art is bound, the more people fear the danger of its explosive energy. From this insight it is not far to the suspicion that not everything that claims to be exemplary conforms to the facts.—p. 58

Sometimes a general wisdom can be found from the lessons learned in one domain that is applicable to other domains. After reading this paragraph, it’s not that hard to replace “art” with “thought” and see this observation at work in many different times and places. It is interesting to realize that this paragraph, filled with multi-contextual meaning, begins a solid block of text that discusses the relationship of art and resistance to totalitarianism under the Nazis.

It continues:

Is he the lord over everything he has conquered, the thinking man will ask when he recognizes the skimpy freedom of movement allocated to artistic activity. He is then bound to be distrustful, said Heilmann, toward the icon that, in its edition of ten thousand copies, places itself above all artistic work, constantly referring to a supreme being, an omniscient mustachioed father who guards the totality.—p. 58

from The Aesthetics of Resistance, by Peter Weiss

Pictures of me, March-April 2006. A.k.a. the "the satisfying visual curiosity" post.


I'm probably stressed here.


I use this on forums.


This is the picture I used for the MCAT registration. It looks like I know how to dress, yet also looks like they'd feel bad abusing me.

Okay, now I can slide back into anonymity.

Language evolves

More realistically, words multiply, like ever-splitting ameobas. New meanings creep in alongside the older ones. Typically, a word develops several layers of meaning: ‘Meanings expand their range through the development of various polysemies… these polysemies may be regarded as quite fine-grained. It is only collectively that they may seem like weakening of meaning.’—Language Change, Jean Aitchison

I’ve been enjoying this book and I’m now halfway through it. The author covers the resistance to language changing, then goes into how sound, syntax, and meaning changes through time. There are a lot of quotes from old-time poets and literature, such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and old Irish text. If there is any indication that language has changed, it is to look at the words of Chaucer as he had written them, and to know that language has, is, and will evolve in sound, syntax, and meaning.

Brain Scans Show Depressed Monkeys Have Same Central Nervous System Characteristics as People:

“Brain scans of depressed female monkeys revealed the same underlying neurobiological changes that are found in the brains of depressed people,” said Carol A. Shively, Ph.D., from Wake Forest University School of Medicine. “This is further evidence that these animal models can help researchers understand depression, develop new treatments and test their effectiveness.”

[snip]Positron emission tomography (PET), a test that produces three-dimensional views of the brain, was used to scan 11 areas of the brain. A tracer that binds to this serotonin receptor was injected into a vein of each subject.

Well, this almost doesn’t surprise me. I say almost because of the phenotypic difference, also it wouldn’t surprise me that at a microscopic level there is overlap in nervous system components. What’s that statistic? That we are 98-99.4% genetically similar to chimpanzees?, and that genetically we are 95% similar to monkeys?. However, no need to get your pants tied into a knot—the complex dynamic aspects of our genomes makes the differences in bases number in the millions.

Ahistoricism

Current obssession: Ahistoricism and irrationally applied anachronism.

I came across the word “ahistorical” in my readings of the Churches of Christ. What happened there was the observation that followers oftentimes transplanted themselves back into ~100 A.D., the times when Christianity was “radical” and “under fire”; where small groups felt pressured to 1) advance Christianity aggressively while 2) denouncing as evil all those who denied Christianity and 3) struggling for existence. Obviously, a person living in 1998 thinking of the world in terms of ~100 A.D. is a gross extreme of psychological/cognitive ahistoricism; anyone not an idiot would know that much has happened since 100 A.D. Currently, fundamentalist Islam faces the same analogy of being vastly outdated in terms of ideology versus 2006 A.D. Some people slightly exhibit anachronism by half a century (instead of 19 centuries). Then there are the no-past and no-future people who choose to live only for the moment.

In any case, ahistoricism in humans is an interesting study in that it ties into the psychology and cognitive responses to some kind of fear. (The circadian rhythm functions on a 24 hour basis, of which the suprachiasmatic nucleus is responsible. Ahistoricism in the way I’m addressing doesn’t touch on SN malfunctioning; my interest in this goes far beyond the 24 hour cycle.). It’s often said that humans fear change, but in a statistically normal sense, most humans, for the most part, adapt to changes within their lifetime. My main area of interest here nudges the abnormal psychology aspect in which ahistoricism and irrational anachronism serves more as a impetus to psychological and cognitive health; I’d like to address how ahistoricism is not directly chosen yet a follower’s lack of personal insight expunges historical context within their thought processes. I’m also interested in digging into the study of groups and institutions involved in substituting historical context with ahistoricism. However, I am having trouble finding any psychological or cognitive research into the phenomena. Perhaps this is my chance to stake this claim; I will try to research into this further.

Emerging Diseases and Zoonoses

This reminds me of my microbio class. Before and after every lab, we disinfected everything 3 times. For a few months afterward, I was paranoid about touching anything. I still am, somewhat, especially in public. Time to scrub every surface area in my room!

A basic lesson in Emerging Disease and Zoonoses

I had to do a presentation on hantaviruses. It’s one of those that was found in the Southwestern US. Thankfully, it’s rare, but once infected, there’s a 50% mortality rate.

Chris Sciabarra from Notablog explains dialectics from his essay called Dialectics and Liberty:

What is dialectics? Dialectics is the art of context-keeping. It counsels us to study the object of our inquiry from a variety of perspectives and levels of generality, so as to gain a more comprehensive picture of it. That study often requires that we grasp the object in terms of the larger system within which it is situated, as well as its development across time. Because human beings are not omniscient, because none of us can see the “whole” as if from a “synoptic” godlike perspective, it is only through selective abstraction that we are able to piece together a more integrated understanding of the phenomenon before us—an understanding of its antecedent conditions, interrelationships, and tendencies.

That’s it. There’s a word for this, for all this awful, klutzy groping around of trying to find a word with which I want to look at the whole Objectivism thing. To find some sort of description that engages in what approach I wanted to—am—- using. This seems synonymous to the systems thinking thing I was driving at; where integrated understanding is the goal, where I remain, as Sciabarra points out, nonpartisan; being able to think in terms of a larger system, in multidimensionality, in terms of time (history), in terms of context. To be partisan felt too much to me like it wasn’t objective at all, in fact, it seemed quite the opposite. I wanted to describe my approach, which is one with the least amount of preconceptions as possible so that my sight is as clear as possible.

While he takes this approach to social and cultural theory (as far as I’ve read), I take this to everything I come across and integrate what I find in many scientific fields to integrate with humanistic studies. With a background in media, computers, photography, language, some anthropology, art, and cognitive/psych. neuroscience, the gaps can be slowly, but surely, filled out—- with my own experience and knowledge. Which is a main reason why I am eager for further independent study and much less so into looking at group studies at one institution or another; the dynamics of an instructor, classmates, or an institution, color the experience too much for me. There is something sweeter in doing this solo, on my own time, in my own capacity, for myself. Photographers hate when the lens is smudged or when eyesight is blurry; the world comes clear only when the lens and the eyesight are both free of obstacles.

What the BL$*(#P do we know?

The Disgruntled Chemist gives a scathing review of What the Bleep do we Know?

Finally, a scientist talks about the science behind the movie. I was amused at this post because it afforded me some insight into what the movie shows (apparently bad science via tweaked editing), as well as espousing some sort of transcendental New Age hullaballoo.

What makes me specifically interested is that more than one person has recommended to me to watch this movie. Those recommendations have never really hit me to the extent that I must check it out as a perogative; I’ve hardly thought about it seriously, and definitely not when I come across a moment when I have to pick out my night’s entertainment.

PZ Myers reviews this movie by stating:

A few months ago, I saw the movie, What the bleep do we know? at the library. I checked it out. I thought it might be worth dissecting for a blog post. I watched it. I wanted to lie down afterwards and pour lye in my ear until it dribbled out my eye sockets, just to scour the stupidity out of my brain.

Skeptico also reviews the movie:

They were thinking that if they made a film using the word “quantum” a lot, plus plenty of feel-good drivel they would (a) make a ton of money (not that they are short of the stuff), and (b) gain more recruits to their loony-tunes cult. This is probably one of the few things they got right.

Skeptico offers a lot of links relating to the movie, as well as the film makers’ reactions.

Now, I want to watch it check for this stuff.

The thing about watching film, video, etc. is that most people have no idea how editing is done, and how things can be made—through editing—to look like something when it’s really not.

How we see "moving pictures" is achieved via a certain amount of photographs moving past the eye at a specific rate—a rate that makes it seem as if the photographs depicts "real motion". Each "photograph" is a frame. Editing is done on a group of frames, which—- if less than 24 frames—is less than a second of motion picture. It took me about four hours to edit 5 minutes of video, because of the minutiae of editing small groups of frames—sometimes at the level of one frame (1/24th to 1/30th of a second), where I had to change the direction of the piece.

This is the subtlety of editing, and how in shows, videos, movies, etc. an interview can be twisted via selective context at the frame level.

Therefore I cast my eye critically on any piece of media that can be edited: books, shows, web sites, videos, tapes, movies, cassettes, CDs, DVDs, etc. With the technology that is currently available, movies can go from the obvious special effects of The Matrix to subtler, and subversive, ones like What the Bleep do we Know?

Strange Loops

“The Epimenides paradox is a one-step Strange Loop, like Escher’s Print Gallery. But how does it have to do with mathematics? That is what Godel discovered. His idea was to use mathematical reasoning in exploring mathematical reasoning itself.”—-Douglas Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, and Bach

“You’re using Heidegger against Heidegger!”—- statement to me by my philosophy professor, Feb. 2006

Science uses itself against itself in the pursuit of quality control; through peer-review is science introspective of itself. I wonder how many people notice that, and notice how some fields, with their peer-review, are in effect being introspective (in a gestalt, nonconscious sense). I would imagine that paradox and contradiction only happens when the whole of the matter is used; for my Heidegger critique, I was only using the part of the philosophy when he stresses “context”—- what I did was to use Heidegger’s use of context on Heidegger himself. Instead of paradox, I think of it in terms of using my mind as a mirror, much like Godel’s method.

This, I think, is one of the truest tests I can use to think of philosophy, as most of it is non-empirical. Obviously, taking this route, one can quickly come to conclusions based on the philosophy:

1. Philosophy where everyone is irrational: then the arguer is irrational, thus the philosophy is irrational.

2. Philosophy where nothing exists: then the arguer doesn’t exist, thus the philosophy is nonexistent.

3. Philosophy where nothing has meaning: then your philosophy has no meaning.

4. Philosophy of death, destruction, etc.: then your philosophy must, if taken literally, be the first to die or destroy itself to prove its own point.

5. Philosophy where “we’re just making this up”: well, then you’re just making your philosophy up.

and on and on. If science does this to itself and the result is more scientific progress, then thus I should try the same on philosophy, literature, art, etc.

So right now, I’m studying Objectivism in all shapes, forms, and methods. And I think this post marks the beginning of a private but publicized personal account of one person’s path. [Ah, accidental alliteration!]

Ultimately, what I write and have written on my blog is applicable only to me and my personal tastes and interests. Talking philosophy is just one aspect of the whole and I do not stake my beating heart upon needing to prove anything wrong or right. If I do not consider it a personal issue to see where one of my own biggest role models—- Stephen Jay Gould—- went wrong (not in evolutionary bio of course, but pertaining to the “is-ought/naturalistic fallacy” discussion when dealing with E.O. Wilson), then I will assume that my proving another role model wrong (specifically, Ayn Rand) in some instances will not entail personal nor mass hysteria by any means. I plainly see it as thus: if one’s constitution is so weak that one panics when a role model is critiqued or suggested as wrong, the real situation is that it’s not the role model I should be worried about. My life will not fall apart if any of my role models (heroes, if you call them) were wrong a few times, or even a dozen. I’m way too secure in myself, and in reality, for that.

I also have to address that a critique is not an attack. So often I have come across this that I must state it plainly and clearly: that if I critique something, it is not the same as attacking it. That’s the way it was done in my art classes, in writing science essays, and more than likely, in grad school. Someone is going to critique your work. An attack is personal and hinges on the arguer. I separate the argument from the arguer, as well as I separate the arguer’s shown behavior from the arguer as well. A perfect example of a respectful critique is Stephen Jay Gould’s critique of E.O. Wilson’s argument at the end of The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister’s Pox. The argument (verbal, written, behavior) is what I am after, not the person.

I will also keep in mind rhetorical use, cognitive biases, as well as cognitive distortion, and other cognitive sleights-of-hand that can get in the way of testing Objectivism thoroughly. Not only that, I am a cognitive/psychological neuroscience and complexity/systems thinking geek so my education is definitely going to play a huge role in my scrutiny of language, brains, minds, consciousness, cognition, psychology, general trends, types of reactions, art, and any other interactions of people-to-people, people-to-ideas, people-to-context, people-to-reality, and people-to-me. I can “zoom-in” and “zoom-out” and see things dimensionally so I really notice general “thought trends”. In addition, I’ll be looking at my own reactions, background, etc. Basically, I do what I always do: think about interactions. And I will use my education to apply individually thought-out, rational, contextual, reality-based approaches to a philosophy that supports such thinking.

So my disclaimers are these:

1. I hate groupthink, with a passion. I do not take it lightly when someone tells me how I “should” think, especially when they tell me that I should think “their way”. Herd mentality is appropriate for lemmings, not humans. I think it is up to me (i.e. my responsibility, not others’), reading as widely as I can, to see what Rand meant when she said something.

2. I hate name-calling, and calling me some sort of epithet because I engage with a variety of perspectives only makes me wary of that person’s argument. Name-calling is behavioral and one can bet that I will be scrutinizing that particular behavior and making judgements as I do so.

3. I’m not a solely black-and-white thinker. It’s valuable to me in certain instances, but to apply it to all of life’s complexities is inaccurate. Statistical generalizations apply to populations. I simplify only when appropriate, and sometimes, simplifying is not appropriate—- especially in terms of how humans behave. (See #5 below).

4. I do fuzzy thinking where appropriate. It sounds like I have cotton for a brain, but fuzzy logic is actually used in many ways.

5. I am also a systems thinker, and/or the similar complexity thinker. Therefore, while I think linear thinking is valuable, it is basically a small part of systems thinking.

Thus, if the philosophy of Objectivism stands under my usually intense scrutiny (in which all of above is taken into account), I will applaud it. If it doesn’t, I’m not going to cry. If it needs to be tweaked in light of my knowledge, my life, and my research, so be it. But in essence, I am using a “simpler” form of Objectivism to use against the whole; much like I did with Heidegger’s philosophy. I think that there should be no fear of this, as if it’s as strong as it says, then it will stand up to its own reflection.

Neon arrows or what

Besides horrendous financial aid difficulties (2nd Bachelor’s are expensive, I’ve maxed my Federal Aid amount, I’m going to get a private student loan & bust some scholarship ass [after MCATs] for the next 1.5 years so I can just GRADUATE already)– I’m excited. Talk about being worried, being stressed, and being excited– emotionally, it’s crazy; intellectually, things are just falling into place.

Imagine a path that you’re on, that you’re testing out, that’s fascinating and inviting and dangerous and scary. But, imagine that after a few months on this path, you start integrating 2.5 years of science, from particles all the way up to eco-systems. Then you start integrating that into neuroscience. Then you realize that no one else really thinks that way, and not only that, your thoughts are "weird" because they’re at this crazy level. Then you wonder if you’re just crazy to be able to do that with your mind. But you don’t care, it just so happens that it feels natural to think of things that way. Then you realize that the people who "get you" most think like that too, no matter what field they’re in. And then you get a few ideas in your head, each of which is fueled by information from different fields– explainable by interdisciplinary efforts and can be layered from particulars to nested systems. Then you realize that it’s just hard to do linear thinking. Then you realize that maybe all throughout life, you’ve had trouble with linear thinking. You wonder if you are truly crazy, especially when you come across people that say "Don’t bite off more than you can chew!" (which means "ambitious"– a word that, by now, is losing its meaning due to oft-repeated use). You realize you can see/know/understand both reductionistic and holistic views at the same time.

Then a cool friend shows you this diagram, out of a book called Complexity. Then you find the term "complexity science", and in it is this diagram, the same diagram, that you’ve been carrying in your head for months, but lacked the capacity to explain. The complexity way of thinking is communicable across fields, and offers multiple perspectives, expanded dimensionality, and appreciation of thought at various interconnecting levels. And that more people think this way than you’d have thought. Imagine that.

So I took a trip to the school bookstore. I didn’t buy books (no, really, I didn’t), but I did look up some dissertation-idea information from the Science section. If S. J. Gould, the one person who would show off every nook and cranny of his knowledge, was forced to say "probably", I had to find out if anyone else knew. Michael Shermer devoted a few sentences to my idea by stating what Gould said, with no question into it, not even the "probably". Who wonders? Imagine that.

Then I picked up another book, called 101 Things that You Don’t Know and Science Doesn’t Either (don’t laugh, there’s something here). On the top ten list: "Will we ever understand consciousness?" I flip to the section. The author (I forget his name, I wanted to know so bad) summarizes three views, none of which I agreed with. I was on the road to disappointment until the fourth paragraph. The fourth paragraph startled me– it stated the author’s straightforward inclination that "Consciousness is more than likely to be an emergent property resulting from complex dynamical systems… this will be the exploration of the 21st century".

When several huge, glaring, obvious neon arrows are flashing and blinking above your head and pointing me in a certain direction… the same direction that I’m going anyway… a direction that’s been called "a revolutionary new science" that works off "interdisciplinary efforts" by "pattern recognition in systems"…

I want to see it all. I’m perched and I want to fly.

this exists so I can post on Blogger blogs

I used to have a Blogger blog in 2001. It sucked, as it was down a lot, so I moved my writing elsewhere. Currently you can read what I write here: gonesavage.blogsome.com