on existentialism and the biological pressure against it

when we roll a bunch of dice and they all end up on sixes, or any single number, we perceive it as a rare, special event. yet upon a preponderance of facts, we can also show, albeit tediously, that each possible outcome on each die is just as rare as any other. yet we cant help but wonder of cosmic intention when 'rare' things happen to us, like rolling 3 sixes, jackpotting the lottery, or even miscarrying a child.  we just dont remember nor attribute significance to rolling a 1-3-5 or a 2-2-4, or even the number of times we bought a lottery ticket and thrown it away, or how common miscarriage actually is. but there is a rush to be felt when a triple-6 is rolled--this is usually an awesome thing in a typical dice game. and of course, winning a prize at the lottery is memorable--we only remember the things which matter.

so it is clearly part of the human psychology to seek answers and meanings when there almost always are none. without this awareness of memory bias, one could very easily be tempted into the theories of fate, destiny, deja vu or even synchronicity.

if we gave an infinite number of monkeys each a typewriter and have them bang at the keys, at least one would randomly bash out the entire work of Shakespeare verbatim. maybe in a string of an infinite number of random universes, ours is the one in which the elements were arranged just right, where entropy was low enough on just this region of space called Earth to qualify as life.

the fact that we are alive and made out of the very same elements which form the deadest things in the universe goes to show how special we are. right? are we really? how can we claim we are special compared to 60kg of gasoline which contains so much more extractable energy than our own body?

not only do we think of objectively common events as rare whenever it suits us (such as winning $1000 for a betting on a random number), we also fail to see the importance of rare events whenever it doesnt suit us. it is precisely the ignorance to science that continues to chain so many of our people to the old ways of thinking--it is easier to be this way, say our human biases.

there is an entire universe out there for the scientific method to interpret but if only we could drop the psychological armor and constant need for meaning for a second we could see how things REALLY are--for its incomprehensible beauty that is beyond us.

on history and what it has to offer

why is it that we know there is much to learn from history, yet we also know that we are doomed to repeat it? why do we look back at the past and pat ourselves on the back for our fortune today in individual liberty and accomplishment in social progress, yet fail to see the atrocities we commit today in the name of laws--the same ones the society of the future will pat themselves on the back for no longer having? 

i have found a divide in people--one that separates the conservatives from the progressives and it is from my observation that the social travesties of history have always been perpetrated by the conservatives, compelling revolutions instigated by the progressives, and it is the perpetual wars of these two mental parties of humanity that have resulted in the cyclical nature of human progression and death (read: history) .

in the interest of order, consistency, security, conservatives have held on to rules, mores and laws that served them well in the past, yet grow ever obsolete in the changing times. status quo protectors form the resistance to diffusion and change, both bad words in the perspective of conservation. yet nature sees this differently, as do i: things merely and inevitably come to equilibrium over enough time, and it falls to the path of the progressives to accelerate this procedure, just as it comes under the conservatives to stall it.

but in this day and age of globalisation and the collective way, where should one place efforts in?

lets just say its easier to demolish a dam than to build one, and over time it is far wiser to spend energy on the former, because we all learn from the river of history eventually. perhaps the pessimistic fear inundation--i but wish for humanity to progress with as little hate and death as possible.

i like subtlety

i like subtlety

perhaps it is a subconscious avoidance of direct conflict
that sour taste
yet i am too opionionated to remain silent,
to let this and that reference go to waste
id be satisfied so that only a fraction of people got what i was trying to say
and then id know, "hey, these guys got the joke",
that would make my day
but some people ruin it, they say "i see what you did there!"
there are worse ones though, those that none can compare
they go on to explain my own joke to me to prove they are witty
"how silly"i say, i think they just ruined it for me


id rather people think than ask me, "whats the meaning of that?"
so its not just in words that i prefer to just glance at
so in music and art, i like it unobvious
you yourself can decide--that is the highest purpose
so today i really wonder if i just dont like to argue
or am i just existentialist, now what about you?

on life through the framework of thermodynamics

two days ago the mars rover Curiosity successfully landed on the red planet. couldnt help but feel a warm peace inside..the lengths we as a species go to for the sake of curiosity itself. why mars? well the alternative is venus..and that planet is probably the best example of hell in the solar system. the next best place we could ever run to once we use earth up is probably mars, this in spite of the fact that the atmosphere there is 95% CO2 and there being no liquid water in sight.

yet if some extraterrestrial being were to visit earth, even long after our extinction...there would be something very noticeably different of this world from any other nearby. we would have structures, though derelict, still standing clearly apart from what nature intends. as the pyramids still stand today, so will our skyscrapers continue to break the skyline for the next 10,000 years. on any other planet the most interesting surface features would be craters or sand dunes, but even in the sandy oceans of egypt lie the unmistakable evidence of order against the chaos of nature.

while winds, weather and tectonic movement spread things around, we as intelligent life tend to separate, segregrate and classify. we move rocks from here to there, turn trees into chairs, and stack bricks into huge triangular tombs. while the second law of thermodynamics maintains the inevitable increase of entropy in a closed system, life like us have the nifty ability go against this principle in the local region. look how our earth has such an amazing abundance of free oxygen in the air, and pools of oil deep underground ready to be burnt. the earth itself is a giant battery charged by the sun for billions of years, a wonder only made possible by plants--a spectacular proof that we are the lowest entropic region in the entire solar system. and as men we are simply a small part of life. we build tall structures, and harness energy to store it...be it in the form of canned food or batteries. every single thing we do seems to be about creating a bubble of order in an infinity of chaos.

it is only on the day we die that we exit this bubble and submit to thermodynamics..the laws of the universe. it is a belief of mine, that nature has every intention of killing us--it is just that life itself is a powerful gift that axiomatically trivialises nature. we are born into mastery of it, as long as we call ourselves living, that until the day time claims us, and then we ourselves will become nature, while our structures remain for a tad while longer as the legacy of strange beings who lowered entropy wherever they went.

reason for discipline part deux

in reply to a comment made on an earlier post:

there are two parts to being Godlike: mastery over environment, and mastery over self.

the first speaks of an unstoppable force, while the second speaks of an immovable object. contradictory, but inspirational, for you only know your capabilities through your possessions by conquest, but you only know your strength in the giving up of that power, a release of the crutch you have every right to use. as in the case of all so-called paradoxes, the issue lies in the impossibility of one of the defining premises. in this case that i want to highlight, the supremity of God, only the immovable object exists.

i believe God can rape your soul, as you said, if he wanted to, but the reason why im not Jansenist is simply because i believe God is more defined by the second power. he specifically and repeatedly withholds exercise of the first power in deference to his own gift of free will to us. there are many instances in the bible where God is said to have hardened men's hearts or turned their minds, but i find it much more reasonable and convincing in all of these examples where God is undoubtedly the instigator and influencer rather than the author of the compliant and/or defiant decisions of man. it is through this understanding which i read all cases of God hardening or opening people's hearts.

in essence we are driving at the same point, except that i wanted to draw a much clearer picture of what the first power is--its pervasiveness in my own humanity as well as of that in the reader himself or herself, by extension also that of the many people in high places. it is born of the repeated exercise of free will coupled with a hunger and thirst for things well beyond our mortality. we are definitely in the position to bite more than we can chew.

while the first power is easy, the second is rare. hence the completion of a goal to Godliness must in the end always involve a renunciation of one's own power in deference to the free will of another. it is the ultimate gift, a sacrifice of one's own free will. in religion, the goal here is to make God the recipient, a return of the gift, like the returning of the prodigal son, who says no, i did not need this, but please, let me stay in your house instead.

THAT...is the reason for discipline.