Intuitive Science

Faith

2006-09-10T08:39:00.000-07:00

Faith is like dividing by zero, if you divide by zero you can
get any number out of an infinite number of answers.
Likewise, if you use faith, you can justify an infinite
number of beliefs. If by faith you believe in one god,
then there are an infinite number of gods.
The only thing that faith can do, is be one of the memes
in the religious meme complex that is used to avoid the
use of thought and reason.

Last political post

2006-02-23T11:08:00.000-08:00

I've been disgusted lately, yellin' at the T.V. , mumbling to myself,
just plain disgruntled all the time. I'm disgusted with the U.S.
government, disgusted with the media, and disgusted with the
unthinking portion of the American people who support this
administration, no matter what they do.
This administration has been called-out on: torture, selectively
leaking secret material for political purposes, political corruption,
incompetence, and above all, warrantless spying in the U.S. Now,
when we should have the administration on the defensive and
should be working toward impeachment of the president, what
does the media do?, I spends two entire weeks covering totally
meaningless crap. The Dick Cheney accident and the
transfer of port management from one company to another are
not issues of importance. What is important is domestic spying
and the president thumbing his nose at the constitution of the
United States.
The president signed the bill against torture and then promptly
said that he would only follow the law when it suited him. When
he was caught spying in the U.S. with out oversight, he said that,
he would continue to do warentless wire tapes as long as it suited
him. Where is the outcry for impeachment?, It has been covered
up by two weeks of meaningless crap in the news.

Posting on politics is just to aggravating. From now on,
I will do intermittent posts on intuitive science, and leave
the politics to the Rude Pundit.

My next post will be under the category of, the origin of life.

Voice of Reason

2006-02-13T07:59:00.000-08:00

I was watching the coverage of the Olympics, when a news clip
came on about the muslim rioting over the release of the cartoon
with Muhammad wearing a bomb hat, I suddenly had a thought
that the world would be much better off if there was no religion
at all.
Soon after the news clip, when John Lennon's song "imagine" was
played as part of the opening cerimonies, and the thought fresh
on my mind, I became conscious of the anti-religious message
in the lyrics. I would like to post parts here.

Imagine
by John Lennon:

imagine there's no heaven,
it's easy to do,
no hell below us,
above only sky,

imagine there's no countries,
it isn't hard to do,
nothing to kill or die for,
no religion too,

1776

2006-01-27T13:13:00.000-08:00

I was to blog on my topic number four, but the spying case is still in
the news and I have to speak to the obvious.
President Bush during his back-pedaling news conference yesterday,
stated that FISA was an old and obsolete law, made, way back, in
1976. None of the news people had the sense to point out that the
constitution was written in 1776, and did he think that the
constitution was also outdated?
During their justification of torture, the administration said that
the Geneva convention was quaint and outdated. They, the present
administration must think that all laws pre-911 are outdated and
can be ignored or revised in private.
Does president Bush actually believe he can ignor the constitution
because he, "answers to a higher power"?

He must be impeached to stop this obvious power grab

Brain functions & Bush

2006-01-26T10:26:00.000-08:00

"Bush says U.S. policy on Hamas unchanged" ABC News.

When the Isrialites took the city of Jericho, They killed every:
man, woman, child and all their amimals. If Bush can respect
the Isrialites, he can recognize the government elected by the
Palestinian people.

Why is the brain susceptable to religion?

The brain is seperated into three levels: the lower reptilian brain
that we share with the reptiles, the mid level brain that we share
with the mammals, and the higher cortex which, in its full
development, only humans have. The lowest level controls our
basic drives: sex, thirst, and hunger; the mid-brain provides
emotion and rudimentary social behavior; while the higher cortex
provides logic, language and reason, the human qualities. The
brain has developed from the bottom up, each level intern
developing its own emergent properties.

I think, and this is totally conjecture, that people utilize the
different levels of the brain in varying amounts. If a person uses
pridominately the mid-brain, they will tend toward being selfish,
clannish and more susceptible to the influences of religion. If they
use there higher cortex more they will tend to be more logical,
resonable, and altruistic, while being less susceptible to the
religious meme complex. The fact that all arguments for the
existence of God are fallacious, and that the exceptence of religion
takes an unreasonable denial of reality, points to a dominance
of the mid-brain functions. As for fundamentalist religion,
I think that it has its origin also in the reptilian brain. The
evidence is that they seem to be more concerned with embryos
and a brain-dead woman then they are in hungry and abused
children

There is no God

2006-01-25T11:20:00.000-08:00

I know what you are going to say, "you can't say that", "you can't
say that." I hear that all the time. Well, how I can say that there is
no God?, by the fact that I am a reasonable person.
Jurors in the courts don't have absolute knowledge, the courts use
the test of, what would a reasonable person say or do?
So, I am a reasonable person and I say that the sun will come up
tomorrow and I don't have to say, maybe or probably it will rise.
If the goal of the lotto was to be correct instead of guessing a
particular number, the most logical bet would be to bet that you
will lose when you bet one dollar. The average person who bets
a dollar each week will probably never win the top prise. So a
reasonable person can say that they will never win the lotto.
Now, as to there being a God: there is no evidence, prayer doesn't
work, and according to the laws of physics, nothing can control the
entire universe and effect anything with out an equal and opposite
reaction. Therefore, I will say it again, God does not exist.

That was topic 6 on my list. Tomorrow:
We know religion is a dilusional psychosis and the product of a
meme complex, but why is the brain susceptible to a psychosis or a
meme virus?

Bush spying

2006-01-24T13:11:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in about a month, a lot of personal things
have happened. My mother has passed and an other
relationship is ending. I have been thinking of topics but
haven't bothered to develope them.
I have listed eight topics and hope to post a short comment
on one of these topics each day.

Today is Bush and spying:
I've heard in the news that over 40% of the voters think that
the president has the right to spy, and has done nothing wrong.
I'm wonding what the pole results would be if the question
was stated in terms of: do you think the president ( not
Bush the fundamentalist and anti-abortion president, but
any president) has the right to intercept all communications,
enter spy ware on anyones computer, and look at everyones
personal records, with out reporting what they have done to
the judiciary?
President Bush is thumbing this nose at our constitutional
rights, he is endangering our constitutional form of government
and has put all of our freedoms at risk.
Government without oversight is tyranney, president Bush
should be impeached for this arrogance as will as his crimes.

That was topic three on my list.

To the point

2005-12-30T11:32:00.000-08:00

President Bush is absolutely wrong, If the domestic spying
documentation is not shown too the judiciary for oversight,
what is stopping them from spying on; homosexuals, atheists,
abortion doctors and all Democrats. Oversight protects us
all from dictators. Domestic spying without oversight is a
tool of a secret police force.
George Bush has his right too faith-based religion but
not faith-based government.
The current administration wants:
Faith-based religion
Faith-based charity
Faith-based science
Faith-based government

I don't want any of it.

Weight lifting for old folks

2005-12-07T13:04:00.000-08:00

Today I would like to indulge myself a little by talking about
weight lifting, and bench-pressing in particular.

This Christmas will mark the 50th anniversay of receiving my
first 110 lb set of weights, I was 12 years old then and am
now 62 years old. When I was 52 I bench pressed 240 lb after
some moderate training, ( my best ever was 300 lb at the age of
37) more then moderate training is required when someone is
62, so after 3 months of regular training I had some aching in
my shoulders and could do a single with 215 lb.

(I'm, basically, a 165 lb weight lifter who weighs
180 lb, a little out of shape)

I decided that I had to take a weeks rest and redesign my
program to make it a little more age-appropriate. I rested the
week and came up with, what I think is the best bench press
routine that I've ever seen for old people, and maybe anyone.

Here is the routine and a few concepts behind the training:
Warm up with military presses, French presses, and lateral
raises with very light weights, I do sets of 3 with an
empty Olympic bar, 15 lb dumbells, and 5 lb dumbells.
I also do some work on the lat machine to warm up the
whole shoulder.
Here is the heart of the workout:
Do sets of bench presses with a pause of five breaths
between each set. I do 2 sets of 3, 1 set of 4, and 10 sets
of 6 reps with 100 lb. All sets are done at the some time with
5 breath plauses. The set of 4 is to make the reps come out to
an even 70, which is 7000 lb in all. The Idea here, is that work
makes muscle, remember the football players who work
construction in the summer and the stories of strong men who
delivered ice to homes.
This 7000 lb warm up with a light 100 lb will leave you
with a good pump and ready for only 4 remaining reps.
I do 4 single reps with 20 lb jumps, the last is a negative
rep, or what is known as an eccentric contraction. The
negative rep is done with a weight that is over your
maximum, it is held for a short time then lowered as
slowly as possible to the chest.
I have good safety boxes on each side of the bench, they
catch the weight when I move the bar from my chest
to over my neck at the end of the negative rep.
The height of the boxes is adjusted so I can turn my
head to the side and slid out from under the bar,
the weight remains on the safety boxes and has to
be partially unloaded and the bar placed back on the rack.
Recently I improved my best single to 220 lb, here is
the routine I used on that day:
Light shoulder warm up, 7000 lb work with 100 lb,
1 rep with 180 lb, 200 lb, 220 lb, and a 240 lb negitive.
I finished with 24 reps of 100 lb each and no pause, this
pumps the muscles at the end of the workout.

Finally this routine is done on a 10 day cycle.
Two light workouts with below-maximum attempts, after
two days of rest and a maxumum attempt workout after
three days of rest. The rest is important, you must allways
recuperate and give the muscles time to grow before
the next workout. This is even more important
for old-people like me.

Primitive Pleasure

2005-11-04T14:16:00.000-08:00

I started to think of this post while reading in my "tree-house",
it was once a real tree-house, a 8 foot square, 12 feet high deck,
build under a Texas native pecan tree. The tree’s roots grew and
pushed on the gas service so I had to cut it down, now it’s a deck
in the air with out a tree. From the "tree-house", I could see a
pit-bull two yards over. He was on a back yard trampoline enjoying
the beautiful fall day by rolling over and squirming on his back,
letting the sun warm his belly. An obvious primitive pleasure.
I have a hobby who’s appeal are its primitive pleasures, the hobby
is treasure hunting and I do it every Sunday early and when ever
I’m out and about. I tried a metal detector but it isn’t much fun,
I just walk and see what I can find. Where is the primitive pleasure?
It’s in the searching. Have you ever watched a chicken scratching
for insects or a squirrel searching the grass for pecans, they look
like they enjoying the process. Another pleasure, of course is in
the finding, who likes to go fishing and not catch fish? The final
pleasure, like the dog above, is being out early in the fresh air,
listening to birds and other early morning sounds.
I had a job testing a tank at a fiberglass tank company, maybe, 10
years ago. The company was located in the country near a small
town, about 75 miles west of Houston. We arrived at the tank, to
be tested, early in the morning, the sun was shining and there was
a pleasant cool breeze. I climbed a ladder on the far side of the
tank and looked over into an adjacent pasture, where, I saw a
horse standing alert, facing into the breeze, with a big hard-on.
I got my coworkers attention, motioned toward the horse with my
head and said, wouldn’t you love to be a horse on a day like this?

Ability to Learn

2005-10-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

I've noticed a characteristic people have that hinders their
ability to get an education more than any other thing.
Some People who have never graduated form high school
have it in common with, many people with advanced degrees.
The characteristic is the ability to realize or intuit what
they don't know. What is knowable is vast compared to
what can be known by one person, and the variety of the
universe is incomprehensible.

If you have the time, look in the archives for my world view,
reality, time, infinite direction, Big-bang, ......etc.

Big Book

2005-10-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

I like the feel of a big book in my lap, it reminds me of the Andy
Divine T.V. show 50 years ago. Andy would start the show siting
in a chair with a big book open in his lap, His magic frog would,
"plunk his magic twanger", and the story would start.
This summer I read a big book, a bio-chemistry text book that
was copyrighted in 1995, the book I used when I took bio-chem
in the 70's was probably copyrighted in 1975. (I may be the only
person in the world who, two months from retirement, read an
entire bio-chem test, cover to cover). Much of it read like science
fiction, it has been 25 years since I took bio-chem in collage and
much has changed.I did not read it just to catch up on current
science, I also read it to see how it would change my world view,
as stated in the archives of this blog.
One of the changes was in the ultimate complexity of proteins,
20 raised to the power of the number of amino acids is only part
of the total variation in proteins. Variation is increased by: post
translation modifications, as in glycoproteins, and side chain
additions; also the incorporation of organic molecules and
metallic ions increases the complexity of final conformations.
There was also a reduction in complexity because, two proteins
can have similar conformations and functions with only 20% of
there amino acid sequences being similar. The change that I
enjoyed the most in this newer addition were the many
references to evolution, especially the references to an RNA
world which preceded our present DNA world. One striking
example of self-splicing RNA, was a ribosomal RNA precursor
that could prune and splice itself to its final form.

Well, I’ve started another big book, I’m reading,
Stephen Wolfram’s book "A New Kind of Science", again,
1197 pages in all.

Oak Tree

2005-10-20T13:54:00.000-07:00

I like to sit out front and watch my new oak tree grow.
It’s amazing, it’s grown from a one-year-old twig to an eight
foot tree in only eight months. It was planted in a special planter
by squirrels that live in the yard, the planter was
special because it contained mothers-day flowers that were
given to my wife by a friend of her sons, after the son was
arrested for murder. I cared for the flowers over the next two
years while her son waited trial, because the flowers were
special to her and she can not do anything on a regular basis,
they surly would have died if I had not.
In the fall of the third year, after her son was convicted and
sentenced to 40 years, I convinced my wife to let me plant
the flowers and the one-year-old tree in the front yard.
Over the winter it stood as only a twig with one dormant
terminal bud, but when spring arrived the bud exploded
both vertically and horizontally . I have applied miracle-grow
ever two weeks and watered with rain water or air conditioner
condensate most days sense.
The tree now has gone through at least five growth cycles
with only two major problems. First, the terminal bud did not
form at about the third growth cycle and two lateral limbs formed,
when one of these limbs bifurcated in the some way I cut
it off and pulled the other limb into a vertical position
with a five foot tall stake in the ground. The second problem
happened when a caterpillar ate the terminal bud as the
new leaves started to unfold, I quickly trimmed what was
left and pulled the nearest lateral growth vertical with another
stick attached to the first.
The tree is doing fine now, eight feet tall ready to shed its
leaves for winter. Once it becomes dormant I will trim six
lower limbs so that it will eventually have a trunk at least seven
feet high before the first side limb.
What is the moral to this story?
If you raise children with the same care and training as
a tree they will not end up in prison.

Spider

2005-10-11T07:30:00.000-07:00

I have a crab-back spider at the front of my house that came naturally.
If I don't have one I will move one to the front, but this one just showed
up as a tiny spider and will probably stay for a couple months.
It's big and fat now and has been there about three weeks. They spin
beautiful orb webs early in the morning.
But, this is not the spider that started me thinking about posting today.
I was packing some books, because I may move in the next six months,
when I looked in the front of a book called "Fuzzy Logic" by:
Daniel Mcneill and Paul Freiberger and found a thought followed by my
name written in Japanese characters. It alluded to the fact that I kill
cockroaches in the house but not spiders. As a side comment, I did
work in pest control while attending a tech school fifteen years ago.
For what it's worth, here it is:

Spiders I like- but that does them no good, though I let them in the
house, there food I don't.

Intelligent Design

2005-09-30T15:53:00.000-07:00

Well, intelligent design is in the news again.
What is intelligent design?, I say, something that is designed
intelligently. If you design a car intelligently you should be able
to use it for 10 to 20 years safely without a recall, a baby bed
designed intelligently will be used and will not harm babies.
These people who promote intelligent design say that the earth
and life are evidence of intelligent design.
Are: hurricanes, tsunamis, wildfires, earthquakes, volcanos and
killer asteroids evidence of intelligent design? Where is the future
safe use?, I think this world is in need of an eminent recall.
But then life is so complicated that it must be the product of
intelligent design. Here we go again: Thousands of genetic disorders,
viruses, prions, pathogenic bacteria, meltal illness, war, hate,
bigotry, need I say more. Life has as many problems as the earth.
You will probably have design problems your entire life.
( I've had a bad back for 45 years)
Obviously there is no evidence here of intelligent design because
there is no evidence of planning for safe future use, and definitely
no evidence of an infallible super being.

Evolution vs ID and Hurricane

2005-09-16T08:11:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting reductio ad absurdum I thought of while
reading a Bio-chemistry book yesterday:

I once read, in an Ecology book, of a species of fish where the
female of the species had to mate with a male of another species
before it could be receptive to a male of its own species.

In an evolutionary world the explanation would be: At some time
in the past this strategy enhanced the survival of this species and
the practice has survived.

In an Intelligent Design world the explanation would be:
The 11th Commandment; Woman, lie ye with thy neighbor and
return receptive to your husband's seed.

A few comments about the hurricane, more latter about the sorry
news media with there defferential reporting and self importance.

Before talking of rebuilding New Orleans talk of protecting
New Orleans. The probability of a category 4 or 5 storm hitting
the city has not changed, it is still the same as it was when the
storm hit. There is no guarantee that another storm will not hit
latter this month.

Fire the levee board, the political hacks said: that the levee is
world class and only broke in two places. This is like a doctor
saying that my patient is fine, only his heart and lungs have
stopped working. One levee brake that floods the city is total
failure.

Mayor should be fired, he said this is a party town. Well party
people are basically not responsible, they need a responsible
mayor and city.

News media think they make news instead of reporting the
news. They were very disappointed when they pointed there
cameras and no one came. They're very spoiled.

First responders and volunteers were GREAT ,
political hacks should be fired.

Religious Insanity

2005-08-30T08:37:00.000-07:00

During the coverage of the hurricane in New Orleans, A reporter
was directed to the side of a church yard to see something special.
The reporter directed the camera to a view of a very large
tree that had fallen and not touched a white statue of Jesus.
Was this coverage suppose to prove the existence of an evil
miniacal God who does over 25 billion dollars in damage, and
kills over a hundred people while at the same time saving
a satue of his son?

These religious people are insane!

You would think, with all the death and distruction, they would
keep the mouths shut.

What's wrong with this?

2005-08-25T05:47:00.000-07:00

I went to Wal*Mart the other day, eggs were 98 cents for a
dozen and half and Miller lite was 4.76 a six-pack.
That means you can buy 7 and one quarter dozen eggs
for the price of one six-pack of beer.

While you are here, have a look at my early acchives.
This site is all about my world view.

The meaning of life?

2005-05-18T19:41:00.000-07:00

Just because a question is asked, does not mean there is an answer.
There is not a one to one correspondence between questions and
answers, some questions do not have answers and some should not
have been asked in the first place. If you do presently exist and
are alive, you have a probability of one of existing and
you should be here, so enjoy your life!

What if?

2005-05-07T06:29:00.000-07:00

The religious right came out to try and save a brain-dead Terry
schiavo and recently tried to save a terminally ill little girl
with leukemia and flesh-eating bacteria in Houston, but what if?
there was a proposal to finance universal health care and really
same lives, would they come out? Hell no!

Fear!

2005-04-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

I haven't had much time to post, busy renovating the house:
refinished some floors, tile on the kitchen floor, removed two
walls and a counter, painted etc...

This morning I was watching CNN, recently the channel of the
Pope, and a story came on about a stain on the wall of an
underpass in Chicago that looks like the Madonna, I suddenly
had a feeling of fear pass over me. Fear of living in a country
with people that ignorant. Haven't they been watching the news
about likenesses of religious icons being sold on Ebay and all the
other Madonnas and Ladies of Guadalupe that seem to regularly
appear? How can something be a miracle when it happens all
the time? Here is a link to Gestalt Psychology, if anyone is
interested in an explanation of these Madonna sitings.

I'll bet, that if any of these people were handed a dollor that
looked like a dollor, as this stain looks like the
Madonna, they wouldn't take it!

The Pope

2005-04-06T15:59:00.000-07:00

John Paul II, I am sure was sincere, and maybe right for the job.
But I can not help but think of the great good that he could
have done in the world, if he had brought birth control to the poor
of in third-world.

Hitchhiker's guide

2005-04-06T10:32:00.000-07:00

"Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy"- the movie- will be coming to
theaters on April 29th.
Douglas Adams not only writes good humor,
but also good intuitive science. I was first introduced to the ideas
of fractals and complexity while watching the British theatrical version
of "Hitchherker Guide" on PBS. The idea of designing coastlines
(fractals) and running a computer for hundreds of years to get the
answer to complex questions, was enlightening; the earth being
created by the "mice" to answer the question of " life the universe
and everything", was brilliant.
Now what we need is another good "Doctor Who" movie.

Lies

2005-03-31T08:47:00.000-08:00

After following the Terry Schiavo drama play out on TV, I only
have an open question to post today.

How do you reason with the unreasonable, and how do you argue
with liars?

The power? of prayer

2005-03-30T10:59:00.000-08:00

The resent news stories: Terry Schiavo, the young girl
killed in Florida, and the school murders have brought
requests for prayers, and prayers themselves,to
television newscasts in numbers greater then normal.
So, let's ask the obvious questions: what are prayers?
and do they work? Lately, I've been working on a
practical meme map of religion, in general, so at first
I naturally thought of prayer as a meme. A meme in the
religious meme complex, doing several jobs: providing a
means for the faithful to communicate with their deity,
relieving personal anxiety, promoting community among
the faithful, and above all, reinforcing the hold of
the religious meme complex and promoting it's
replication.Then I thought, there is another prayer,
the magic prayer: words uttered around an ancient
campfire to promote the success of an up-coming hunt,
or over a sick child or companion, maybe to control
the weather. This prayer does not have a mediator or
deity, just a wish, like a Las Vegas gambler, wishing
for better luck.
Do all of these prayers and wishes work? No, they never
have and never will work, Why do people believe that
prays do work? In the meme complex, people are
told, by authority that prays do work.
They have faith that this represents the truth.
Now, faith and truth block independent
thought and reason by the faithful while sacred
also prevents outside inquiry. Further, sacred is
protected by, blaspheme and heresy which
implies threat to the faithful; ultimately hell for
the believer and bodily harm for the none-believer. Then
again, if the public-heat becomes to much for prayer,
the faithful can fall back on persecution.

Out side the meme complex people believe prayer works
because they fall victim to antidotal evidence and
fallacious logic. After the fact, when something happens
people will claim that they prayed before it happened,
of course this is lying, which is quite common. Then there
is the case of differential reporting, only the ones that
experience a positive outcome will report that they prayed.
Another example is: there are one hundred people involved
in a train accident and the fifty that survive say that God
saved them, while the other fifty casualties must remain
silent.

Here are three reasons why prayer does not work:
One: there is no force carrier between prayer and effect,
What causes the effect? Photons? or gravity?, what
actually moves the movable and saves the lives?

Two: there is just a lot of inappropriate prayer.
All twelve boxers in a contest pray to win,
prayer works one time and does not work eleven times.
Football teams pray to win, 50% here. People pray for
a hurricane to not hit their city, but refuse to pay
damages when it hits another city.

Three: actuarial tables. Believers and none-believers
have the some mortality rates. Believers do not get
reduced rates on: life insurance, health insurance,
home owners insurance, or car insurance. They are also
not given reduced amounts on social security because
the live longer.

How here is the final rub, If there is a God and a
Christian prays to God to save his life or his child’s
life, and God answers his payers, then God must Kill
another Christian or child for the actuarial tables
to remain unbiased, otherwise God would revel himself
by the change in the actuarial tables.

The Human

2005-03-21T07:57:00.000-08:00

Terry Schiavo, the Human , died 15 years ago. Medical
ethicists judge people by their humanity, how they differ, as
humans, from other animals. Humans: contemplate the future,
contemplate the past, manipulate symbolic logic, use language;
compassionate humans will empathize with another humans
situation. Terry Schiavo is dead and her delusional,
"living in denial family", can not do anything about it. She exhibits
no unique human traits, and no amount of whining to the
religious-right will bring back her abilities.
Terry Schiavo is now being used to further the right-to-life agenda
of the evangelicals in congress. The recent legislation is a good
example of what happens in a theocracy, How do you like living in
Iran? with the congressional mullahs in charge, passing religious
laws when ever they please.

On television people are calling doctors, murderers, and people claim
the ethics committees are executing people. when you make any life
sacred, how do you eat or kill cockroches?

Now I sound mean, well, maybe I am? when a baby bird falls
out of, or is pushed out of the birds nest in my garrage, and I find it
in time, I step on its head with the heel of my foot, why? because
I hate birds, I actually love nature. No, because the fire-ants will eat
it alive, and there is no reason for it to suffer, if I am there.

My mother and I held the hand of my father when he died, he
could have talked if he had not had a breathing tube in his throat;
the conversation was one-sided, How we loved him and how he was
a great father. The other people there where: the hospice nurse and
a Catholic priest, ( I'm not religious, only understanding, If my
mother or father wanted somthing "said") , The cardiac doctors,
who are obligated to an undying positive attitude were gone.
The system worked well, with out outside intervention.
My father spent 3 weeks in the ICU, I had to tell him that an
echocardiogram had shown that he had only 15% usage of his heart,
and we would have to "let him go" ( euphemism for Die). We did not
call the doctors murderers, we did not call the echocardiogram
"junk-science", we did not go whining to politicians. when the
hospice nurse asked, why did we take it so well? I told her, because
it is natural to die. One of my old-sayings is, "the most dangerous
thing that we do in life is to be born, because we will have to die."
All I can finally say, is, get the family some psychotherapy and
and give them privacy.

Crenellated

2005-03-14T07:17:00.000-08:00

While reading an article in the Houston Chronical this morning, I
found a source of complexity that produces beautiful and natural
shapes, Crocheted hyperbolic space. These shapes arise naturally by
mathematical process,not by design. Examples in nature of hyperbolic surfaces are: surfaces in the brain, and some kinds of lettuce and seaweed.

Meme Complex

2005-03-11T14:29:00.000-08:00

While I was doing a search on memes, I ran into a good saying:
"an idea is something you have, a ideology is something that
has you." Morris Berman
I would like to map the religious meme complex, must be
thousands of memes in it, identify each meme and show
it's place in the complex. I don't see any
mapping of memes on the Web, only academic-talk, nothing
practical. Here is a short list of memes, not in any order:
Heaven, Hell, sin, rapture, prayer, hope , faith, trust,
pious, righteous, sacred, blaspheme, and it goes on and on.

Dark-Energy

2005-03-08T19:51:00.000-08:00

I found a good press release about the vacuum, which supports
my intuitive idea that the universe is an emergent property of an
underlying infinite superstring network. The release points out
that: as the universe expands the vacuum does not dilute in the
same way as matter does, but, seems to expand as the universe
expands. Remember that the vacuum is not just empty space, it
contains a continuum of all energies in neutral balance, and is also
an emergent property of the underlying superstring network.
It is this new area of the superstring network, being incorporated into
the universe, that is the source of the dark-energy; and it is this
additional energy that causes the acceleration in the expantion of the
universe, which has recently been discovered.

I think intuitively, in the future as the universe expands and
incorporates more and more of the underlying network, the
vacuum will completely dominate the very dilute matter and
conditions could favor a new Big-Bang.

A few appropriate entries from my archives:

What is real? The active agents (superstrings) that exist in a
network at the level of 10 to the minus 33 centimeters are the
only "real things", every thing above 10 to the minus 33
centimeters is an emergent property of their activity.

What is the extent of the superstring network?
The superstring network always existed and always will, it is also
infinite for the same reasons. Start, finish, beginning, and end,
are human concepts; there is no, significant or logical reason for
a start or a finish, a beginning or an end. Also, "nothing" can not
be demonstrated experimentally or philosophically.

What prevents a Big Bang now? As a matter of conjecture, I
think it could be a feedback relationship with the density of
energy or matter being the salient factor.

Artifical Consciousness

2005-03-08T10:29:00.000-08:00

I received an e-mail from a friend: a discussion between him and
a pantheist. The topic was, " Dust to Dust", What good is it to take
comfort in knowing that our atoms will go on after death, when we
will not have a consciousness to enjoy the experience. The pantheist
said: It is important to take comfort now, while you are alive.
What if you could retain your consciousness?
In my archives, I’ve talked about the impossibility of teleportation
and precognition but, what about artifical consciousness? I think it
could become a reality but, would you actually, ( think about it),
want to be conscious after death?

The human brain has over 100 billion cells, each cell can connect
to as many as one thousand other cells. With nanotechnology, a
network with the same number of agents and connectivity could be
produced, once random activity is applied by a mechanism, much
like our own brain stem, the network would self-organize and limit
cycles would emerge. Training, and or programing, might finish the
process. Sounds very difficult but more probable then Heaven.

This artifical brain could be connected at birth, to remove the
problem of information transfer, and be with you your whole life.
It could be taken out as your body sleeps, come back and share
memories through an artificial corpus callosum. Your mind-double
could have a photographic memory? Perfect memories for that
matter; you stop just short of giving it power-of-attorney. The
perfect assistant, while you are alive. But, what happens when you
die and attend your own funeral? What will you do?, when they play
rap music on new years eve instead of, "Auld Lang Syne", and the
world leaves you farther and farther behind. Finally, you become
irrelevant and someone pulls-the-plug, on you, to save energy.
When you think about it; Heaven and the above scenario have
their problems.

Gorilla's Caretaker

2005-03-02T07:47:00.000-08:00

My intuitive-science bent, on the following newspaper story:

3rd woman sues gorilla’s caretaker over alleged
breast-baring request
From the perspective of the female gorilla, held captive and
naked, who would you bond with? A clothed jailer or a half naked
fellow female. Sex was not required, just compliance with
routines that would make the captive subject more comfortable.

Are they suing for the usual millions of dollars?

Something from my archives:

What is Reality? Reality is that which exists when you and I are
both dead and gone.

More Nightly News

2005-03-01T08:19:00.000-08:00

Looks like I've found a good source of anti-intuitive science.
Tonight on the local news they ask the question?: "Do you
want to know how long you will live, right down to the second?"
They claim that, tonight at ten, they will take you to a place
where you can find out. Again, what kind of message is this
sending children, who need a good intuitive understanding of
science to make it in our technological society.

This is what I have to say, from my archives:

Precognition? No. Why? The universe is made new every instant
by complex processes, the future doesn't exist to send back
information, also there is no means for information to travel
into the past.

Dangerous Death

2005-02-28T08:04:00.000-08:00

What is the nightly news doing to the kids that watch? In a
previous post, I talked about the constant miracales and praying
on the local nightly newcast. This week they are asking: "do you
have demons in your life?", last week they featured three pet
psychics reading the mind of their weather-dog. The other
channel, this evening, is interviewing a local alien-watcher.
In the past, I've told children to watch the nightly news to learn
how the national-language is spoken, I can't do this with the local
news, their constant use of cliches and alliteration make them
poor linguistic role models. Their constant use of alliteration:
Dangerous Downpour, Dangerous Divers, and Furious Fire, lead
to the ridiculous day they used: Dangerous Death

Creationist classics

2005-02-25T11:02:00.000-08:00

Everyone has heard the creationist classics: the airplain, the
improbability of DNA and humans, and the poor maligned
Bumblebee. All three arguments seem so patently wrong, that
I have wondered why they where not "nipped in the bud" by
some sentient being, before they ever reached the national scene.

An airplane being assembled by the wind blowing through a junk
yard of aircraft parts, is a totally absurd example, it's something,
totally and utterly impossible. You might as well talk about doing
a vasectomy on a unicorn, using the wind. An airplain is an
emergent product of human culture: the frame from metallurgy,
the plastics form chemistry, the interior design from custom and
current fashion. Aerodynamics emerged from enginering,
engineering from modern mathematics, modern mathematics
emerged from the renascence, etc... back into time. A physical
airplain is an artifact, it embodies the history of humans and the
earth itself, it could never be assembled by random means and
the probability of it being assembled in this way has no
mathematical meaning what so ever. This argument doesn't
say anything about evoluation because it doesn't say
anything at all.

The creationists say: DNA and humans should not exist, the
probability of them existing are billions and billions to one.
As usual they have no understanding of probability and much
less evolution, they have things completely backwards.
Humans and DNA have a probability of "one" of existing,
because they do exist, anything that exists has a probability
of one of existing. There are two problems with the creationist
argument:
1. Evolution has no goals, the misconception comes from viewing
the end of a process and assuming that the outcome was the goal
of the process.
2. Probability is not additive, processes only have the probability
at the current time, probabilities do not accumulate with out goals.
We can use the lotto as an example.
If you pick one number out of 15,800,750 in the lotto, you have
set a goal and have one chance of winning in 15,800,750. If the
first number picked is one of your numbers, the probability of you
winning goes up because the probability of that number being
picked has become one. It has been picked, and now exists;
you are now in a lotto with five numbers. As each matching
number is picked the probability changes, so when you win you
will have the probability of one of being the winner, because you
are the winner.
Coin tossing is another example. Each time a coin is tossed there
is a .5 probability for both heads and tails, if you toss the coin five
times, and it comes up heads all five times, it has a probability of
one for that series of tosses occuring, because it did occur, and the
next toss has a .5 chance of coming up heads or tails. If you set five
consecutive heads as your goal, and they do occur, then five
consecutive heads is a one in 3,125 event. Religion has made man
the pinnacle of evolution, not science. Man is the end of a process
not the goal of evolution.

The poor bumblebee, If you want to know how a bumblebee flies,
consult a biologist, not and aeronautical engineer.

Immune system and protein

2005-02-23T12:06:00.000-08:00

I've seen estimates, that the immune system can recognize
up to one hundred million chemicals, that is 100,000,000. Not as
large a number as Avagador's number, but, larger then most people
would think. The immune system needs to be this large, because it
has to recognize an immense number of possible chemical
intruders: polypeptides, proteins and polysaccharides, to name
a few.
Let's consider only the polypeptides with a maxium lenght of
10 amino acids: Starting with one amino
acid we would have 20, with two amino acids there would be
20X20 combinations, a total of 400.
Here are the calculations for three through ten amino acids:
20X20X20, 3 amino acids = 8,000
20X20X20X20, 4 amino acids = 160,000
20X20X20X20X20, 5 amino acids = 32,000,000. Get the idea?
6 amino acids = 640,000,000
7 amino acids = 12,800,000,000
8 amino acids = 256,000,000,000
9 amino acids = 5,120,000,000,000
10 amion acids = 10,240,000,000,000
Ten trillion, two hundred and fourty billion; sounds like a
government deficit.
The calculation for all of protien space, up to one thousand is
gigantic! 20 to the 1,000th power, some thing to compare this
number to, which is much smaller, is the number of superstings
in the universe. So, where did the subset of protiens, that now
exist on earth, come from? how were they generated? I think
it is obvious, they could not have been picked at random.
Imagine a lotto where you picked from 20 to the 1,000th power
of numbers, no one would win in billions of years. The proteins
could not have been designed either, they could have only been
produced through complex processes, iterated over billions of
years. Protein shapes are a history of billions of years of chemical
interaction. Proteins have been: cut, chopped, spliced, folded,
added to, and shortened. They've been in the "Bass-O-Matic",
on high speed, for 3 billion years. Don't you think, by now, they
would have developed shape on their own?
Look around, there are beautiful shapes everywhere: beautiful
fractical shaped mountains, beautiful cloud banks, beautiful
river systems, beautiful snowflakes, beautiful protein shapes,
and beautiful people made out of proteins.

A mol of gas

2005-02-20T18:03:00.000-08:00

I doubt that anyone can comprehend the actual variety in one mol
of gas. People treat numbers like Avagadro's number; (Avagadro's
number is the number of molecules in a gram molecular weight of a
substance, It's value is 6.025 times 10 to the 23ed power); like
they do the probability of winning the lotto, they don't think about
them in any practical sense. When the lotto was first legalized in
Texas, I calculated that the odds of winning the big prize at one in
15,800,750. People I talked to said, "fine I'll buy a ticket", then I
calculated how far 15,800,750 inches would be, turns out it's
about equal to the distance between Houston and Dallas. Now, my
new argument was: If I place a diamond ring somewhere on a line
between Dallas and Houston and you start walking blindfolded,
what do you think your chances would be of picking up the diamond
ring, with only one try? Well, They still bought tickets and so did I.
But, I could probably sell some lottery tickets even if the chance of
winning the big prize was only one chance in Avagadro's number.

The properties that make the variety in one mol a gas so large are,
infinite direction and the incredable size of Avagadro's number.
written another way, Avagadro's number is,
602,500,000,000,000,000,000,000. Now, neglecting the speed
and spin of the molecules, that give rise to temperature and
pressure, and considering only the direction and number of
molecules, we have a possible number of states in our gas of,
Infinity raised to the power of Avagadro's number.
How does someone go about comprehending the universe when
just one mole of gas has this amount of freedom of motion?

Goals

2005-02-18T10:43:00.000-08:00

I feel the need for redirection, or at least direction. I also realize
the need for an understanding of HTML and blogging in general,
I bought an idiot's guide to HTML, I was looking for a dummies
guide, but this title seemed to fit. My URL remains omaga-variety,
variety so large that it is incomprehensible, that will not change.
But, there will be a new emphasize on complexity theory and
complexity theory news, whatever I can glean from the Web.
Why? because this last year I was disappointed by a series on PBS.
It was about the formation of the universe, the solar system,
and life. They described processes to account for the Big-Bang
and the formation of the solar system, but there was no process to
account for the origination of life, all they had on their diagram was
a big "?" under processes. They should have had complex chemical
processes, complexity theory is a maturing science and deserves
to be presented to the public. I suspect that it was held back due to
pressure from, or fear of, the creationist lobby. The longer they can
keep the origination of life a mystery the more likely the general
public will buy their fallacious agrument from ignorence, "no one
knows therefor we are right".
Another change in this blog will be, to bring back at least one basic
principle or definition from my archives for each post. They bare
repeating and well go well with explanations of complex systems.

Spelling and Religion

2005-02-16T10:42:00.000-08:00

Why are discussions of spelling and religion so emotionally charged?
The very simple reason is that both subjects are learned at a very
early stage in life, before a child develops an ability to reason
critically. Another reason is that most childhood memories involved
with learning spelling and religion are lost in later life. Do you
remember when religion was first mentioned or the first time that
you tried to spell a word? When ever someone in the academic
community proposes a spelling reform the argument becomes so
emotional the subject is dropped. Here in the United states people
are also becoming more and more resistent to currency changes,
I like the dollar coin but most people don't want to use it. Religion,
spelling, and money will be with us, relatively unchanged, for a long
time.

Mind's eye

2005-02-14T12:09:00.000-08:00

What are your mental images? are they the same as they were
when you first learned them in grade school? In 1969, when I
worked for Bell Telephone Laboratories, I entered the restroom
in the western electric plant, and overheard a discussion of the
pending moon landing. One man was telling another that
they should not land on the moon because God lives there. Does
your mental picture of the universe extend past the moon? I
also heard a man say that, " scientists can make life in a test
tube, all they have to do is mix seawater and shit together",
I'll mention that one again when I talk about the origin of life.
There are three images I remember form grade school:

1. A living cell consisted of a spherical membrane with a few
organelles inside.

2. An electron was a small white dot.

3. A proton was a larger black ball.

The images have changed over the last fourty years, they
are much much more complicated now.

Teleportation and the U.S. Airforce

2005-02-11T11:53:00.000-08:00

Referring to my last post, if people would use their innate
intelligence to think out what they are proposing, they would come
much closer to touching reality. I'm sure that there are intelligent
people in the airforce, I served 4 years myself, but I heard on the
nightly news, the day before last, that the airforce had
commissioned a study of teleportation, as in startrek, for $25,000
dollars.I would have been glad to tell them why it won't work
for 25 bucks.

(1) The teleportation of an tank by the transfer of information is
impossible because the information that describes a tank is infinite.

(2) The positions and momentums the all the subatomic particals
can't be described because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

(3) There is no mechanism, at the other end, that could generate
matter and position it, ie...a "tractor beam".

The only way, that I can see that it could be done, is to go into the
underlying superstring network and "cut and paste" a region of
space at 10 to the minus 33 centimeters. But, anything done at
10 to the minus 33 centimeters takes what seems to be an
infinite amount of energy.
The reason this proposal went through was someone confused
science, quantum entanglment at the microscopic level, and
pseudoscience, quantum entanglment applied to an entire tank.
As I have said before in a previous post, the micro world and the
macro world are separate. Micro quantum mechanical princlples
describing the action of one partical can't be applied to objects
in the macro world.
An other argument is, the "all things are posible" argument,
but that is a religious meme and comes under the area a faith.

Intelligent design revisit

2005-02-09T10:50:00.000-08:00

Thinking of Intelligent design puts me in a bad mood, anyone who
would seriously entertain this idea has the intelligence of a rock,
traveling through space oblivious to its surroundings.
If Mathematicians can't solve the three body problem, three
bodies of different sizes moving about each other under the
influence of gravity, how could any intelligence design the
movements of 200 billion stars in each of 200 billion galaxies?

Given the problem of designing a circular apparatus that depends
on the value of pi, what value of pi do you use? do you use pi with
10 places to the right of the decimal point, in the equation, 100
places to the right, or even one billion. What accuracy do you use?

How do you design the intentions of 6 plus billion persons? when
each person's brain has 100 billion brain cells with up to one
thousand connections to other cells.That gives a state-space for
the brain cells alown of 1000 to the power of 100 billion. Also, the
brain may use every form of communication between the cells
possible.

How do you design for a gamma ray traveling for billions
of years, coming into the vicinity of the earth, and causing a genetic
change by interacting with a DNA molecule? you don't!

The idea of intelligent disign ranks right up there with the idea of
calculating the future by calculating the trajectory of every particle
in the universe. The universe can't be designed, it is wholly natural
and self-organized, period!

Death

2005-02-08T13:46:00.000-08:00

The other night I was trying to think of a new metaphor for life
and death to replace the idea of a lit candle. An electric light
came to mind, it sounds like an old worn out cliche like the candle,
but it works. Turn off the light, unscrew the bulb and smash it on
the floor. The light, of course, is the mind and the bulb is the body,
and there is no afterlife implied because the bulb is destroyed. Even
though I can't visualize smashing a wax candle, I like the metaphor
of the candle because the candle is a natural dissipative system.
When you light a candle the flame self-organizes into a familiar
shape, energy flows from the wax through the active flame and
out as a hot gas of combustion by-products, mostly carbon dioxide
and water. Blow the flame out and you have death, relight it, and
you have the myth of reincarnation.

Nightly religion

2005-02-05T10:04:00.000-08:00

I finally got fed up and changed my nightly news channel, they
were constanly using deferential reporting to pander to their
religious audience, and way to much self-promotion. If there
was an accident, they said the survivors survived by miracles,
and they were strangely silent when it came to the dead. I guess
God saved the righteous and killed the unworthy. The dead never
get their chance to defend themselves, if someone claims that
they won a game or survived due to a miracle and I stand up for
the losers or the dead , my wife uses the sacred meme on me, it
seems that I don't have the right to question their personal
beliefs. Recently on the local news there were two fires, one a
private home, where the peope survived miraculously and the
other an empty church, the station made no editorial comments
about the church, except to pray for the congregation and of
course solicit donations.
All this reminds me of a news story a few years ago. A preacher
was told by a city inspector that the brick work on the front of
the church was separating from the building and could fall at
any time and injure someone, the preacher ignored the warning
and did not repair the building. Later the preacher made the
news, just as the preacher, his wife, and I believe daughter,
entered his van the wall came down the killed all three. The
news story was short with condolences, the detail was in news
week magizine. But as all of you know, if the wall would have
come down a few minutes earlier or just as they drove off, we
would still be hearing about the miracle.

Intelligent design and consequences

2005-02-02T10:36:00.000-08:00

How can someone believe in intelligent design? vary easily, there
are no consequences to believing in intelligent design. If you were a
primative person living in, say, Borneo close to nature, and you
turned your back on what you had learned from nature and the
use of logic, and followed a belief that said that a Supreme Being
would provide food. How long would you last if you sat around the
table waiting to be fed by a Supreme Being? Not very long! That
belief carried severe consequences. What would happen if some
one denied the laws of the state and ran every red-light as if it
were not there? they wouldn't last long either. What would
happen if an intelligent design electritian, denying the
"electron theory" grabbed a live wire while standing in a puddle
of water? he would not last long. The truth is , people who believe
in intelligent design do respect theories and laws that have
consequences, they do not put their fingers in electrical sockets,
they stop at red-lights, they don't jump off buildings while
thumbing their noses at gravity. The only reason they can preach
intelligent design is the fact that they do not suffer any
consequences.
Evolution is a scientific FACT, proven logically by a proof of
preponderance of evidence. To deny evolution you have to deny
logic, you have to deny physics and the laws of nature, you will have
to deny what you see, feel and hear, because evolution comes from
the study of nature and the real world, where there are
consequences.

Protein state space

2005-02-01T11:04:00.000-08:00

How large is the state space of a protein? lets compare the state
space of a protein to the universe. a short time ago I wanted to
see how many superstrings there whould be in the universe, if
each one occupied a cube, 10 to the minus 33 centimeters on
each side. The number of superstrings in a cubic centimeter would
be 1 times 10 to the 99th power, the total number for, a flat
universe, with a radius of 13.7 billion lighy-years, would be 9
times 10 to the 129th power.How look at protein, protein is made
up of 20 different left-handed amino acids, each position along
the molecule can be occupied by one of these 20 amino acids. A
Common large protein could have a primary-structure of 1,000
amino acids, that would give a primary-structure state space of
1 times 20 to the 1,000th power possible proteins. That is much
much larger then the number of superstrings in the universe.
That raises the question of, how did the subset of proteins
involved in life on earth come about? and will we ever discover
the specific proteins involved in the origination of life on the earth?

The extent of variation

2005-01-31T10:16:00.000-08:00

I have a favorite little book , written in a poetic style, called "Dirt",
by William Bryant Logan. In one part, during a discussion of the
composition of humus, the dark organic part of soil, a comment
was made that, there are probably no two molecules of humus
alike on the entire earth. That is how varied soil is, but this amount
of variety is common in the world we live. Crumple up a piece of
paper and spread it out flat on a table, look at the pattern of crease
lines, that exact natural pattern has never existed before in history
and never will again in the future. Use a pencil to blindly scribble a
pattern on a piece of paper, again you have generated a pattern
that has never existed before, measure each line-crossing in degrees,
from 1 to 90 degrees for a perpendicular crossing. If you have 50
line crossings, there will be 90 to the 50th power number
of possible scribbles. That is, 90 multiplied by it's self 50 times.
If you measure more accurately, say, one hundredth of a dregree
then you would have 900 to the 50th power possible scribbles.
Proteins with 20 constituent amino acids are another extremely
varied system.

What do you see with your eyes are closed?

2005-01-28T08:13:00.000-08:00

This is a mixed post; personal history, science, and art.
One of my earliest memories, maybe, two or three years old,
is that of me laying in the bed, in the dark with my eyes open.
I was afraid to open my mouth, because I did not want the white
specks, that were going across my eyes, to drop into my mouth.
What were the specks? Here is the science; because of some
querk in evolution, blood vessels in the eye run in front of the
retina, making it possible to see the white blood cells as they
flow through the vessels. The red blood cells are to small to be
seen, but the white cells are large enough to be seen as small
white dots or bubbles. Don't confuse these small bubbles with
"floaters" they are small damaged areas that are at the edge
of your vision, I have two "floaters" myself.
I've seen articles, where patients are taught to focus on the air
between a clear white light and their eyes, so that they can
estimate their white blood count at home. I am doing that right
now with the white part the the computer screen.

I've always loved to look at the patterns that can be made when
you look into a light, close you eyes, and rub them with your hands.
I can make round, bright yellow donuts with fractal edges, lined
with black, that slowly change shape and fade.The patterns on your
eyes, when they are at rest and have not been stimulated, are a pale
dark red on a slightly faded black background. The texture is like,
the bump texture on the skin of an orange. These patterns are
always moving and changing shape. Now, here comes the art!

Last year, in an issue of news week magazine, that I no longer have,
I saw a picture by a modern artist. I said to myself, He is doing what
I have always said I should do, draw a picture of what I see with my
eyes closed. My best recollection of the painting is an example of, the
yellow black-outlined pattern, described above, on top of the pale red
and faded black textured background.

Amazing DNA

2005-01-26T09:04:00.000-08:00

What is amazing about DNA?, it's the fact that it folds into
chromosomes. The length of the DNA in a chromosome can be up
to 2mm, and the width of DNA is 2 nano meters, that gives, a
ratio of one million to one. An amazing feat of self assembly. The
DNA folds; with the help a proteins called histones, through a series
of layerers: nucleosomes, 30 nm fibers and looped domains; into
chromosomes. I did a little calculating, and found this level of
folding is like, taking the 1/4 inch wide tape out of a music cassette
and putting it back in, when the length of the tape is 3.946 miles.
Looks like a big job to me!

Using intuitive science

2005-01-24T06:51:00.000-08:00

Some time back in the 1970's, I was riding in a car with two other
people. There was a report on the radio, that said microbiologists had
developed a bacterium, that could reduce the amount of radioactive
waste, that had to be disposed of in long term disposal sites. But, the
way the reporter phrased the story made it sound like the bacteria
stoped the radioactive process, and made the waste nonradioactive.
When I heard the report I said; that reporter has the story all wrong,
what he means, is; microbiologists have developed a bactera that is
resistent to radiation and can reduce the volume of waste in a
radioactive environment. The other people said; you think you know
so much, ( the usual ad hominem argument) well, I said; what would
you think if the reporter, reported that a man was startled and
jumped over an office building as a response. I continued; the
bacteria has a metabolism based on chemical processes, the
energies are way below those needed to initiate radioactive
processes. It would be like the person jumping over the office
building if they could convert radioactive waste to none radioactive
waste. Many statements go unchalengened and need to be taken to
their logical conclusion.

Why do "freethinkers" think alike?

2005-01-24T05:19:00.000-08:00

Thanks! Xan Shui, for the comment and topic.

Why do freethinkers think so much alike? Freethinkers think
alike because their perception is closer to reality, they do not
have the freedom to think any way they want, because they
follow rules of thought. The more you respect: the fundamental
forces of nature, the direction of time, knowledge derived from
independent verification, and logic; the closer your thoughts will
be to reality. People who have meme centered emotional
mentalities, will diverge form reality in many ways. Examples
of divergence are, religion, cults, post modernist cultural relitivism,
pseudoscience, paranormal, conspiracy theory, and of cource lairs.
There is only one REALITY: the reality that the sun and earth
knew when the solar system formed, the reality that the bacteria
knew in the early seas, the reality of the dinosaurs, and the reality
that will exist when you and I are both dead and gone. For me
meme centered thought is not an option,
"I would do anything for love, but.... I won't do That" Meatloaf.

The Gray Area

2005-01-21T17:06:00.000-08:00

The gray area is a wonderful source of variety. Look at the
Yin-Yang symbol, two wind swept drops in a circle, with a black
dot in the center of the white drop and white dot in the center of
black, and what looks like a line between them. If you use a
microscope to take a close look at the line, you will find that the
line is actually not a line at all, but a jumbled series of black dots,
and the dots in the center of the drops have fuzzy edges, where
does the white start?, and where does the black end? If you had
to make the decision, what would you decide?, white or black.
That's the gray area. Stand a pencil on it's tip, hold it upright with
your finger lighty on the eraser, release the pencil, which way
will the pencil fall?, that's the gray area. Look at a bar magnet,
where, in the middle, does the north pole end and the south pole
start. I once saw a beautiful micrograph of the domains of a
magnet, and was surprised to see a few red south pole domains
even at the north pole of the magnet. Finally, an s-shell electron
in an atom has a probability of being in the nucleus of the atom,
that's real gray area.

Self-organized criticality- and Earthquakes

2005-01-20T11:11:00.000-08:00

I'm leaving behind the question-answer format, most of the Q&A
statements will be used like axioms later when I talk about
various subjects, eg...time and infinite direction. I've mentioned
complex processes several times in my Q&A statements, now I
will illustrate one of then, Self-organized criticality. The classical
example of self-organized criticality is that of, a pile of sand in an
hourglass. Once the hourglass is rotated, grains of sand fall at a
steady rate, a new pile grows by self-assemby, producing the
familiar cone shape, when the cone rises to a critical height, the
surface of the pile becomes unstable and avalanches of sand fall,
unpredictably, down the sides of the pile. The sizes of these
avalanches follow a power function, a decreasing number of
avalanches as their size increases, many small avalanches and
very few large. In areas of the earth that are prone to earthquakes,
subduction zones, energy builds as the earth's tectonic plates move
producing a critical system, just like the interlocking grains of the
sand pile. The avalanches, in this case, are earthquakes and follow
the same power function, many small earthquakes and very few
large.

Origin of Life

2005-01-19T13:00:00.000-08:00

Origin of Life?
Life originated here on the earth , and any where else it has
arisen, by wholly natural processes. Life is an emergent
property of complex chemical processes, no God was
responsible and no design was ever possible. Life was made
possible by the relatively mild physical conditions that exsited
in the vicinity of the earth. It is no accident that life arose where
there were favorable conditions: temperature, liquid water, a
reliable source of energy, and plentiful chemical precursors. The
best description, of the complex processes that could bring about
a whole working metabolism, that I have read, are in
Stuart Kauffman's book, "At home in the universe" Oxford
University Press, 1995. At home in the universe, because we are
not here by accident, but, are the product of nature.
Stuart Kauffman describes sets of natural chemicals, he calls
Autocatalytic sets, that together catalyze each others replication.
When a set grows to a critical size a phase change occures in
the system producing a whole working metabolism, as an
emergent property. Compartmentalization with lipid spheres,
a billion years of evolutionary development and you have an
organism with and impressive history.

Intuitive Science

2005-01-18T13:37:00.000-08:00

I am moving the definition of intuitive science from the blog
title and placing it in the body because the blog is more about
variety, intuitive science is the tool of the blog, not the subject.

What is intuitive science?
It is a collection of statements about the universe and the
things in it, stripped of the: mathematics, gobbledygook,
obfuscation, as well as political and religious bias, these
statements stand to be refuted by other clear and concise
statements.

God-Creationism-Intelligent design

2005-01-17T10:20:00.000-08:00

Is there a God?
No! why? Requisite variety. He/She would have to have equal
or more variety then the universe to control the universe.

Creationism?
No! why? matter can come out of the vacuum but not
information, information discribes history which is compiled
over time.

Intellignt design?
No! why? The universe is to complex. Physically, it has all the
characteristics of a system developing under the influence of
complex processes. ie...it's fractal structure. Things are designed
to produce a predetermined product, complex systems are not
designed, they have no goals, they are self-assembled by
complex processes. eg...in Douglas Adams's book, "hitchhiker's
guide to the galalaxy", when the people wanted the answer to the
question, what is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?
they thought they could get the answer by using a super-computer,
after several centuries they got the answer, which was 7, not a
useful or accurate answer, because the outcome of complex
systems can not be calculated. The white mice, also wanted the same
question answered, however being more intelligent, they constructed
the earth and waited four billion years to get the answer they
wanted.

Time-Information-Direction-History-precognition

2005-01-16T08:33:00.000-08:00

What is time?
Time is a wave front of matter and energy, changing under the
influence of complex processes. Time produces a constant increase
in variety.

What is infinite direction?
The infinite number of one dimentional lines radiating from the
center of a sphere, an objects direction is only one of these one
dimentaional lines.

Why is time always forward?
With infinite direction nothing can ever go exactly in reverse.

Precognition? No!, Why?
The universe is made new every instant by complex processes,
the future doesn't exist to send back information, also there is
no means for information to travel into the past, information does
however, travel into the future ie...libraries, evolution, and blogs.

What is information?
Out of the total state space of an object, information is a
discription of those states that now exist eg...in, "beem me up
Scotty" the beem would contain my information and
subsequently my history.

What is history?
History is the surviving information acquired by an object, through
self organization and interaction with other objects sense the
object became stable enough to store information eg...a hot gas
has the emergent properties of pressure and average temperature,
a vast amount of instantaneous information, and no history because
of the lack of stability.

What is evolution?
The accumulation of history over time.

Fundamental particles-Variety

2005-01-15T08:46:00.000-08:00

What are the fundamental particles?
The fundamental particles as well as the four forces are emergent
properties in the vacuum, produced by interaction in the
primordial superstring network.

How did the fundamental particles and forces arise?
The first material to enter the universe from the vacuum was at a
very high density and temperature, to high for most of the
particles and forces to exist. As the matter (quark soup) expanded
and cooled the fundamental forces appeared through symmetry
breaking processes, and the particles mass at a phase change.

Why is each subatomic particle indistinguishable from the others
of it's type? As, the temperature at which water freezes is a global
property, and is the same for any water at standard pressure, an
electron or a proton is the same as any other electron or proton
because they themselves are the product of a phase change and
are a global property of the vacuum.

What is variety?
The totaly state space of a system.

What is requisite variety?
a law in the science of cybernetics, a control system must have
equal or more variety then the system under control. eg..try
to type on a two dimentional paper with a one dimentional
typewriter, what do you do when you get to the end of a line?

What is the variety of the universe?
It's equal to large omega, the final infinity of the transfinite
numbers, the infinity that is not in any way comprehensible.
ie..I don't know! The universe we can understand, seems to
increase in variety with time, therefore, the universe we can
understand must be equal to small omega, the infinity that can
still be added to.

Quantum Mechanics- the Universe

2005-01-14T10:10:00.000-08:00

The Huygens probe landed on Titan last night, the news is that
everything went well. I congratulate the scientists! I am sure
they are justifiably proud and relieved after a seven year wait.

Now for more basics- once the basics are over I would like to
try a fun topic, that has been with me a long time. What you see
when your eyes are closed?

Quantum Mechanics?
Just get over it! The micro world is not like the macro world, the
macro world is produced by activity and complex processes in the
micro world. I am SICK of hearing about how one electron or one
photon behave. I do not want to talk about shadow worlds and
multiple universes, based on the activity of one photon or electron.
Who cares about Schrodinger's cat or Einstein's thought problems.
Quantum mechanics and classical mechanics are seperate.

Yes, a tree falling in the woods produces a sound when no human
is around, and quantum processes occured before there was ever
a human to "observe them".

Above all, remember the value of Avagadro's number,the number
of molicules in a Mol of a substance, 6.025 times 10 to the 23ed
power, of course we see averages and probability distributions,
what do you expect with a number like one hundred thousand,
billion, billion.Quantum mechanics doesn't need religion or
fantasies.

Is there experimental evidence for quantum mechanics?
Yes, to quote from Richard Feynman's book "QED", "at this
present time I can proudly say that there is no significant
difference between experiment and theory! the magnetic
moment of an electron has been calculated accurately
to, 1.00115965221 with uncertainty of about 4 in the last digit.
The theory puts it at, 1.00115965246 with 5 times the
uncertainty".

What is the universe?
It is energy and condensed energy, fractal in nature, made of
layer upon layer of emergent properties, it is wholly natural
and self assembled, a product of complex processes in the
vacuum.

How big is the universe?
It has been determined that the universe is flat, not curved,
and that the big bang occurred 13.7 billion years ago. Photons
decoupled from the high energy gas one million years after
the big bang and have been traveling at the speed of light ever
sense. That gives us a flat sphere with a radius of 13.7
billion light years.

Cassimi-Huygens

2005-01-13T07:44:00.000-08:00

The Cassini spacecraft has released it's Huygens probe, Huygens
well encounter the atmosphere of Titan at 3:06 central standard
time tomorrow, January the14th. I hope that we get good pictures,
the variety in the universe is just amazing, from what I've read,
Titan has hydrocarbon in it's atmosphere and we could see
methane rain with lakes of oily ethane. Why turn to mysticism?
when the physical universe is so amazing and varied.

Reality-Vacuum-Big bang

2005-01-12T10:58:00.000-08:00

What is the most common answer to a concise question about
the universe or things in it?
The most common answer is, I don't know.

What is reality?
Reality is that which exists when you and I are both dead and gone.

What is the corner stone of science?
Independent verification.

What is real?
The active agents (superstrings) that exist
in a network at the level of 10 to the minus 33 centimeters,
are the only "real things", every thing above 10 to the minus
33 centimeters is an emergent property of their activity.

What is the extent of the superstring network?
the superstring network always existed and always will, it is
also infinite for the same reasons. Start, finish, beginning,
and end are human concepts, there is no, sufficient
or logical reason for a start or finish, a beginning or an
end. Also, "nothing" can not be demonstrated experimentally
or philosophically.
"always will", is a violation of the rule, that there are no
future facts, but I'm sticking with this one at the superstring
level.

What is the vacuum?
It is an emergent property, at the atomic level of the
primordial superstring network, it is produced by the
superstring network being active.

What is the connection between the underlying superstring
network and the vacuum?
Complex processes produce global and local effects from the
different modes of interaction between the agents of the network.

Is the vacuum infinite?
It is if the underlyling network produces the vacuum as a
global effect or has the vacuum as it's basic emergent property.

What is energy?
It's an effect in the vacuum caused by an imbalance in any one
of the four fundamental forces: electro-magnetic, weak, strong,
and gravitation. It also exists in the form of mass kinetics.

What was the big bang?
The big bang was a quantum mechanical event in the vacuum,
ultimitly it was a superstring network change. Two
membrains colliding in 10 or 11 dimentional space, I guess, is
as good an explanation as any.

Why did the big bang occur?
Because it could! in quantum mechanics if something can
happen, it will given enough time.

Will the big bang happen again?
yes, when the conditions are right. There is no logical reason
for only one of a possable type of quantum mechanical event
to occcur. Also, 13.7 billion years is a very small number of years
compaired to 1,000 or 1,000,000 billion years.

What prevents a big bang now?
As a matter of conjectur, I think that it could be a feedback
relationship with the density of energy and matter being
the salient factor.

What was the size of the initial big bang?
I like the explanation that it was a false vacuum that formed,
"in a region of space" ie..a preexisting vacuum. I also think the
idea of an infinitly small point is a mathematical habgoblin

Pseudo Science

2005-01-12T08:24:00.000-08:00

Before I start with the basics, I would Like to mention that I was
born in 1943. When I started this blog I said, that it would in no
way be mystical, I may discuss things that are considered mystical,
but I do not promote pseudo science or the paranormal in any way.
When I presented a few facts about myself in the blog profile,
I was surprised to see that I was listed as being a "Scorpio". This
shows how pervasive pseudo science and mysticism are in our
culture. As an example, An Atheist will say, "Oh My God! look at
that" and think nothing of it.

Why a Blog?

2005-01-11T10:53:00.000-08:00

Why a Blog? Because my mind will not shut up! When I drive or read,
I am always explaining and thinking of examples for the principles I
read about, Complexity, physics, variety. It's time to write these
muses down, I have lost so many good examples of variety because
I did not write them down. Fifteen years or so ago, when I decided
that I would not be going back to school, and would probably never
further or review my mathematics, I decided to pursue intuitive
science (science with out the mathematics) by reading popular
science books and science magazines. Over the years, I've read
books on: chaos, complexity, fractals, cosmology, evolution,quantum
mechanics, origin of life, fuzzy logic etc......In short, I need an outlet
for my ideas, whether or not anyone reads them. I will feel better
for putting my ideas in writing and posting my thoughts on the ills
of society and the society of science, from time to time. This blog
will in no way be mystical in nature, I will endeavor to make clear,
concise, unproven statements. I feel no burden to prove anything
mathematically, good logic will prevail at all times and every
statement is open to be reviewed and rejected. There is nothing
sacred here, nothing would make me happer then to be disproved
and I learn something in the process. I don't "believe" anything,
this is 0nly what I think could be true. For anyone that reads this
blog and feels that they have wasted their time, I would like
to quote, God's final message to his creation, from
Douglas Adam's book, "So long, and thanks for the fish"
........"we apologize for the inconvenience".