Continuing this post that our access to reality is limited by our senses and our minds can’t comprehend it all, what then do we have in our minds? We form beliefs or mental models. What is a model? A model is a simplified representation of reality for a purpose. That previous post dealt with the ramifications of models being simplified — that they are all flawed. If they are all[…] Keep reading →
(copying my post to another board where I learned about the movie, slightly out of context) I saw the movie Gasland about fracking last night at Cooper Union and heard Josh Fox, the guy who created it, speak. I don’t recommend many movies, but I recommend this one. If you can talk to Josh Fox, all the better. I’ve since watched and read other web pages and videos. I don’t[…] Keep reading →
Want a liberating concept? Our brains and senses are limited. Our ancestors didn’t evolve minds to understand everything or senses to sense everything. They evolved them to navigate their environments enough to propagate their genes. That’s it. The ones that could had children eventually resulting in us. The ones that couldn’t didn’t. Limited senses mean we have limited access to the universe. The observable universe stretches for tens of billions[…] Keep reading →
People use too much lingo. What do I mean by too much? I mean it when big or out-of-context words confuse more than illuminate or create meaning. Everybody knows it, we still do it more than we mean to. I’m going to examine the issue from a few perspectives. Having a background in science I see a lot of scientific sounding language where it seems people use it more to[…] Keep reading →
Everyone has something to say about the environment, the economy, and ecology. People believe in human caused global warming or they don’t, but they have something to say about it. They believe improving the environment will ruin the economy or save it or something. Everyone has something to say. One major trend I see is based on the interests of the source. If the person speaking comes from the business[…] Keep reading →
An incredibly useful perspective in some half-baked notes to a friend. I’ll develop them more in future posts. Feedback and criticism appreciated. — You wrote about lying as an example of a “bad trait”. I’d like to suggest another perspective (generalizable from just lying to other aspects of apparent lack of empathy): that the reason people communicate is not to convey truths. Evaluating people according to truths and lies holds[…] Keep reading →
Jet lag knocks off more than just your sleep cycles. Since I’ve been jet lagged the past few days I’ve had the chance to notice. Your body temperature is higher during the day and lower at night. When you’re jet lagged, you’ll find yourself lying in bed trying to sleep when your body temperature is high. Everyone I’ve asked about it has remarked that, yes, when they’re jet lagged they[…] Keep reading →