Fred’s Cozy Little Nook

I have quite literally been an Autodidact all of my life. It’s been very rewarding and enriching, knowing that I can acquire any knowledge, understanding, training or learning without having to be “spoon-fed” by others.

And I have had good success at it too.  A 30-year career in the computer field, where I’ve worked at some of the biggest hi-tech companies in the world, as well as many startups. I’ve also earned a patent and am working on a new mathematical system that I hope will be the “Theory of Everything” from a Complexity perspective.

But this the road few take. Most will go off to a college and will sit in class after class after class in front of professors in the hopes they will learn something useful. Their entire educational careers are largely controlled and directed by others.

But when it comes right down to it, we are all autodidacts to some degree. If you cook, surely you didn’t go off to cooking school to learn how to do it — you picked up a cookbook. All that are successful in the computer field teach themselves all the time some new API, some new computer language, some new algorithm or programming technique, etc. Those that do not do this will either be making a low wage doing a boring job, or they drop out and become burger flippers. It’s the nature of the beast.

Others will elect not to bother at all, and will choose burger flipping right off the bat.

No one is to be denigrated — we need the burger flippers as much as we need the neurosurgeons. We need the plumbers as much as we need the software engineers. We need the artisans as much as we need the professionals. All have their places in our vast, varied, and complex society of ours.

And of course, I’m deliberately being “politically correct” here. You know it; I know it. Enough said. Moving right along…

My guess it that most of you reading this will have some sort of degree, whether it is an Associate’s, Bachelor’s, or higher. Now be honest. How much did that degree help you in your career, other than getting your foot in the door?

There are many professions that require specific degrees for entry, such as medicine, civil engineering, and the like. The knowledge and skills are highly specialized, and the tasks at hand are critically important, such as if you get it wrong, people die. Or millions of dollars are lost. Or both.

Then there are other “professions” that are very non-specific about the degrees you may have, as long as you have one. Clearly in that case the “degree” is used as a point for weeding out candidates. The actual job itself does not require specialized knowledge. Some aspects of civil service and social-related fields come to mind. I even know of a dog-minding service that requires its applicants to have a degree! Surely it does not take brains to mind a dog!

Most hi-tech government contracts require those doing the work to have degrees, even in the computer field. And many business do as well (though not all). It all depends on the culture. If the operation is being run by someone who loves the academic experience (as opposed to just learning new knowledge), said person will be inclined to surround himself with like-minded individuals.

Others will only care if you can do the task required. They won’t care about what degree you have; they will only care if you can complete the tasks they have for you. That’s where I’ve shined in my career. I know how to get it done. Usually better than most.

Being an autodidact has given me a special edge. I don’t wait around for the company I work for to “train me”. I’ll go out and pick up some books (and even pay for them out-of-pocket), hit specialized web sites, or hang out in college libraries to learn what I need to know to Get It Done.

Those on the academic track want what they’ve learned to be “acknowledged”. They seek the praise of others for “validation” of their efforts. They want that token “pat on the back”. We generally refer to this as “credentialism”. But my question is, just because you have a “credential”, does that mean you can actually do the job?

In my 30-year career as a software engineer/developer/architect, I have come across many I had to make hiring decisions about. I have found that having a degree is no guarantee of success. I am also disgusted by the lack of candidates with broad-spectrum coverage and a “go learn it” attitude. Most expect to be spoon-fed. So in many instances, I have picked the best candidates I could find, and took them under my wing, and spoon-fed them myself! This, actually, has many benefits, as those so lucky to come under my wing are usually very grateful I took the time and patience to “show them the ropes”, and they are now trained in specifically what I need of them. Besides all that, I never grow tired of “professing knowledge”. Major ego boost for me!

 As an Autodidact, I am unbounded by others. I have interests as diverse as Genetics, Quantum Physics, and Cosmology. In Mathematics, I am all over the map. I also have some interests in specific areas of History. And I do have an appreciation for Art and Music.

 The wide breath of knowledge and exposure gives me an unique perspective on our Universe and our World, one that you will almost never come to on the academic track. There is an immense Beauty and Terror to the Universe; a delicate tapestry of wonder about it all. It’s very hard to explain, but it emerges in the mathematical system I am working on: Transcendental Sets. I don’t know where that will go, but the expectation is that it will bring to many my perspective on the Universe, and perhaps lead to new discoveries and inventions that might not otherwise happen.

 Truth being told, I do NOT have a degree to my name. I have never formally attended college, though I have spent countless hours hanging out at the libraries there. Today, so much high-quality knowledge is available on the Internet that I have spent less time at the libraries, though there is still knowledge there in the books and periodicals you’ll never see online.

If you could spend 5 minutes inside of my mind, I could show you many of the limitless wonders that reside there. You’ll also get a glimpse of the many terrors that’s there too – many things you’d probably rather not know about. Things about the human race, for instance. Things about that process we call “life”. Things about human consciousness. Terrible symmetries that run from the smallest quark to entire cluster of galaxies and everything in between.

 Trust me. You don’t want to know these things unless you have a strong love of the Truth above all else. Some of these things will bring you joy, but many will bring you terror, of the kind you don’t just shrug off.

 Maybe it’s better to just be a simple-minded worker-bee. To just hunker down and simply “do as you’re told”. To never lift your eyes up past Flatland.

 Perhaps Ignorance is Bliss.

But then there is the Freedom. The Freedom of thought. The more knowledge you have, the freer you become. The more awake, the more aware, the more ready to respond to “surprises” that may slither your way. The more appreciation of those things that appear trivial on the surface, but belies terrible levels of intertwined complexities.

Anyone can become an Autodidact. Even one of my caliber. And that’s a statement of fact, not bombastic pomposity on my behalf. It is never too late. You are never too old. All you need is one thing: Curiosity.

Not only the willingness to ask probing questions about everything, but also the willingness and desire to “dive in” and find those answers. And dive in deeper and deeper.

The three most important questions you’ll ever ask in your life are:

Why?

How?

What if?

And even more important is the drive and passion to pursue answers to those questions. You will stop at nothing; you will compromise nothing. You will not settle for anything less than the best truth you can acquire.

Or, you can settle for just being an Academic. Expecting praise and validation, expecting a “gold star” for having “learned” something. Hardly fulfilling in my book, but you will be well accepted in a society driven by empty credentialism.

So, comma, the choice is yours. What do you want to be? An Autodidact? Or an Academic? And actually, there is no reason you can’t be both. Or neither if you goals in life don’t advance beyond flipping burgers or digging ditches.

If there is one qualifying thing about humans, it’s one thing: They love to communicate.

Witness the births and rapid development of communication technologies, from smoke signals (well, they did travel at the speed of light!) to the Gutenberg Press to telegraph to telephone to mass media systems like radio and TV to now the Internet.

Now, you can find others that share your interests, no matter how obscure, anywhere and everywhere on the planet.

You can hook up with old high-school and college chums you haven’t seen in 30 years. You can find those local with your common obscure interests and meet them in person. You can sell objects of limited interest — or find them. You can conduct business with others around the world that you have never met in person.

You can even work from home in a “virtual company”. Or you can make money selling ads on your web sites. Or find other creative ways to make money. Even find jobs and the like.

Information abounds from Wikipedia to every college and university that have cared to put up free courseware and research papers  on the web. Or you can get the goods on a person by hitting aggregate data services and track a person’s every address, job, and other activities going back decades.

Governments also have the goods on you, secretly monitoring your communications and bank transactions for whatever purposes they see fit…

My point here is that we now live in an age of hyper-connectivity. Not just instant communication, but for each and every individual being able to reach hundreds if not thousands with ANY information for ANY purpose at low to no cost.

With all this hyper-connectivity, some emergence is inevitable. The question is, of course, can or has that emergence organized itself to be a thinking, throbbing entity all its own? Is this possible? And if so, how would we mere “neurons” know it’s happened?

Keep in mind, as well, that this “mass mind” might operate — and most likely would — on time scales much different from  our human time senses would recognize. What if it took a day to complete a “complete thought”, whatever that would be? A week? A year? How would we know?

I do think this question is answerable — in time. And wouldn’t it be ironic that, in our searching and yearning for discovery of extra-terrestrial intelligence, that is emergent intelligence was with us all along sitting right here under our noses?

Well, what would we call such a thing? What would a neuron call the brain? I’ll leave you with that thought.

I told myself I wouldn’t bother debating with theists anymore because the arguments are usually pointless and the theist still walks away a theist, despite the most cogent, logical, rational presentation I can muster.

But where I think these debates can sometime be useful is in helping others understand the deep issues involved with the proposed questions of whether or not some deity exists.

These issues go straight to epistemological concerns and approaches, and that represents the greatest dividing line between theists and myself. I am a scientist, an empiricist, a skeptic. I want to see the evidence; I want to see reason. Your typical theist, on the other hand — and especially Christian theists — insist on what they call “faith” and internal messages “from God” that no one else can hear but themselves.

This dichotomy in the epistemological approaches are, at best, irreconcilable. Indeed, they are diametrically opposed to the nth degree. One requires hard observations and hard reasoning; the other involves wishful and magical thinking, and self-delusion.

In asking the question of “does God exists?”, the first thing to be settled is “which God?” Why only one? Why not millions?

The next question to be asked is how one defines this “God”. Is there a workable definition that we can all agree on? Or will this definition vary from person to person, from culture to culture, from religion to religion?

Once we can get past that, there is the question of falsifiability.  This is where the theist falls down, because the theist will scream “you gotta have faith!”, and I want to know that there is something there beyond the delusion of humans.

The debate will probably never end, simply because there are people who seem to have a “need” for some sort of deity. Indeed, that “need” seems to have plagued Mankind throughout all of history. I have discussed some of these issues in other blogs, so I won’t repeat them here.

The debate is here at http://urlbit.us/gno (Is belief in God a sign of intellectual impairment?)

This past Sunday, it was my great delight to see Philip Glass perform at The Music Hall in Portsmouth, NH.

I have been a long time enthausaist of Philip Glass and his many symphonies, orchestras, and the like. My introduction to this wonderful composer was  Einstein on the Beach, back in the’80s.

There is something about the music of Glass that defies definition — sort of a deep melancholy timbre overlaying the substrate of all existence, as best as I can describe it in words. Needless to say, his music affects me like no other composer I have ever heard, past or present.  At the danger of sounding like a crazed metaphysical nut, Philip Glass’ music is an audible representation of my very core, my essence.

But you never heard me say that.

His performance with Wendy Sutter and Mick Rossi was superlative, a very delight. It began with Glass doing a solo from Metamorphosis,  an old favorite of mine, followed by solo performance of Wendy Sutter, the cellist, followed by a duets with Philip and Wendy,Philip and Mick, and a wonderful trio performance.

Wendy was very dynamic and passionate in her performance on the cello.  Mick was wonderful with the drums and various other instruments he played.

Along with the nice weather we’ve had here this weekend, it was a wonderful way to round off the evening on Sunday. And quite a delight, a bright point in these otherwise challenging times.

Men have become 2nd-class citizens in our country. We are considered expendable by the media and government and society at large. For instance, in any circumstance where there is tragedy involved, You always hear reference to “the women and children” that were harmed. Almost never THE MEN. Why is this? Are women and children more deserving than men? Is it OK to kill men but not the women and children? Where did this all come from?

Even after all the struggles in this country for “equality” by women, you will note that Selective Services only require boys, not girls to register.  Our male children are considered potential war fodder where our our female children are not? Why is it that the males are always considered more expendable? What is going on with that? And if feminists truly want equal treatment, why have they not fought to be considered equally expendable?

Funny, that.

Personally, I am against war.  The wars the US have been engaging in past WWII have not involved actual attacks on US soil. You may argue that 9-11 is an exception, but 9-11 is not the result of a country looking to invade and take over the US, but a set of individuals who are pissed that the US have come in and meddled around in their countries!

A bit different, indeed.

And yet, our young boys are expected to go to these foreign lands, kill innocents, and be killed themselves. All to serve the military industrial complex, all to serve resource interests, all to serve the corporate dollar.

At the expense of their blood.

Sorry, I’m not buying it.

Men are real people. We are NOT expendable. We can be just as “innocent” as the much vaunted “women and children”. And I will no longer stand for being declared a 2nd-class citizen.

True equality means that we are ALL treated equally. The feminists who only fight when they can get an advantage, but become very quiet when they will get a disadvantage, like with car insurance or the Selective Service, for instance, are being very disingenuous on the claim they want “equality”. They don’t want equality, but want an advantage. I would respect them more if they would just admit the truth.

Ultimately, I hold that “equality” is a mirage concept — it seems good from a distance, but becomes completely unworkable when you examine it up close. The truth of the matter is that we are all individuals, all born with a various admixture of talents and potentials. I firmly hold that individuals should not be hindered in any way from expressing those talents and potentialities. Nor should they be considered “less of a person” due to some of those traits or lack of certain potentialities. They should not be considered “less of a person” due to personal choices, predilections, cultural identifications, orientations, or anything else.

We are Human, after all.

Alas, that’s also the problem.

We humans evolved to favor “tribalism”.  This may have been an important survival characteristic in long times past, before recorded history, when life was very harsh and the food was scarce. Humans had to band together in small functional groups to survive, and fight other small bands of humans that may take their hard-earned resources away.

Yeah, I get that.

But today, we are a gigantic community of 6.5 billion humans. The old ways of tribalism need not apply. Indeed, the old ways get in the way of human progress.  It leads to conflicts at all levels, small and great.

The old ways of tribalism  have given way to mega-tribes and mega-clustering. We now have clusters within clusters within clusters, and groupings of groupings of groupings, many of which overlap in complicated ways. The sheer size of it all would require many lifetimes to crack and understand.

But the downside is, of course, that some of the clusters still fight other clusters in very old-style tribal-like fashion.  Whether or not we are talking about wars and other issues surrounding geopolitics, or gender issues, or gay and lesbian rights, or labor unions, or Democrats vs. Republicans, or Racism, or Religious bigotry, it does not matter.  It’s the old, superannuated tribalistic ways being applied to today’s modern world.

Inefficient and wasteful of the human species.

Somewhere in there, Men have been forced into a type of diaspora,  which are presumed dangerous and dishonest until proven otherwise. We are automatically considered criminalistic power-hungry killers until we can be shown to be something else. Even Hollywood kowtows to these stereotypes, in many subtle and not so subtle ways.

Even the news media is biased as it presents men’s issues vs. women’s issues. And this has been going on for decades.

Feminists expect the young men born today to bear the blame and responsibility of the abuses in the past, where today’s men had nothing to do with.

So we are treated harshly by the police, by family court, and the society at large.

THIS MUST STOP.

Men as dads are very compassionate, love their children as much as the moms do, and are every bit as nurturing, if not more so.

We must get back to considering Individuals as Individuals, not as some member to some tribal mega-group, where all sorts of biases and assumptions are imposed.  We are NOT the expendable money bags that the courts and feminists try to make us out to be.

WE CARE.

And as soon as everyone recognizes this plain fact, the sooner we can achieve parity.

A young man married a beautiful woman who had previously divorced 10 husbands. On their wedding night, he told her new husband to “Please be gentle; I’m still a virgin.”

“What?” said the puzzled groom. “How can that be if you’ve been  married ten times?”
“Well, husband # 1 was a Sales Representative; he kept telling me  how great it was going to be. ”

“Husband # 2 was in Software Services; he was never really sure how it was suppose to function; but he said he’d look into it and get back with me.”

“Husband # 3 was from Field Services; he said that everything checked out diagnostically but he just couldn’t get the system up. ”

“Husband # 4 was in Telemarketing; even though he knew he had the order, he didn’t know when he would be able to deliver.”

“Husband # 5 was an Engineer, he understood the basic process but he wanted three years to research, implement, and design a new state of the-art method. ”

“Husband # 6 was from Administration; he thought he knew how but he wasn’t sure whether it was his job or not.”

“Husband # 7 was in Marketing; although he had a product, he was never sure how to position it.”

“Husband # 8 was a Psychiatrist; all he did was talk about it. ”

“Husband # 9 was a Gynecologist; all he did was look at it. ”

“Husband # 10 was a Stamp Collector; all he ever did was……..
God, I miss him.”

” But now that I’ve married you, I’m so excited.”

“Wonderful!”, said the husband, “But, why?

“You’re with the GOVERNMENT.

This time I KNOW I’M gonna get SCREWED…”

From article: Can the Auto Industry Retool itself to build rails?

1. Today is not anything like the economic system that existed during the last Great Depression. Completely different world. It is almost unhelpful to draw too many parallels between then and now.
2. Today’s economic system is much more global than it was back then.
3. Chaos Theory and Complex System Dynamics needs to be applied to the global picture we have today. For any number of reasons. And I have yet to hear any economist speaking of today’s world in such terms.
4. The principle of Self-Organized Criticality is definitely apropos here. The market organized itself to a critical state, where nearly any shout in the mountains from anyone would bring the whole thing down.
5. I have my own variation of this principle — let’s call it the Evolutionary Humpty-Dumpty Principle. A Complex Dynamical System (CDS), if of the right character, has a tendency to organize itself to a critical state such that your typical control points will simply fail to function. The Feds always attempt to control the market through interest rates and the supply of money; other major governments around the world employ similar controls, and others as well. The details, after a fashion, are not all that important so much as the fact that the market will “build up a tolerance” for such artificial control artifices. Hell, our own bodies do it with drugs constantly taken all the time. Why not the global market?
6. There are many aspects of this economic system that is predicated on the fallacy of “infinite resources, infinite growth”. Yet any 7-year-old can tell you that the system is NOT infinite. So what do we have? Many free-running Ponzi schemes, like Social Security and the Stock Market. Yes, boys and girls, those gaining money out of those systems do so at the expense of others.

When you wrap your mind around all of this — and more — you will begin to understand how truly frelled we really are. Where you should focus your view is not on what the “talking heads” babble to you every day, but on the flow of money and the structure of the system, noting where assumptions are made without basis. Noting the points where the lack of transparency exists. Noting all the zero-sum instruments in finance that is billed as something other than what it really is. Noting that when governments print money, the actual value of the overall picture has a tendency to stay constant. Printing money is a panic reaction to a situation that our leaders have no understanding of. Printing money will only buy a short-term advantage, with a much bigger drop later.

Look for the lie in anything you hear over the major media outlets with regards to the market. They are most likely not telling you the truth so much as they are trying to influence and manage your behavioral dynamics in hopes they can stitch Humpty back together again.

Take what I state here with a grain of salt if you wish. Or do your own research and come up with the same conclusions that I have. And doing the research will not be easy because many of the players in the financial world actually believe the lies they spout on a daily basis. You must reach behind them to see the circuit boards for yourself, and follow the actual layout, not what they tell you what it is.

And most of all, embrace complexity, because the world is far from simple!

It occurred to me this morning that Memes have the greatest successes for existence if they can do two things:

1. Program for their own retransmission (Thought Contagions, Lynchian Memetics)
2. Quell or Obliterate competing memes.

The two above are not new ideas to the field of memetics. However, what interest me is how memetic evolution can influence genetic evolution. That is to say, how can memes direct the biological evolution of their hosts? Those meme sets that can accomplish the above 2 and also improve on the biological reproductive rates of their hosts whilst at the same time leveraging parthenogeneic transmission, will be especially virulent over time and become solidly entrenched.

Such successful meme sets are usually referred to as “culture”.

A principle for memetic success I will put forward is that it also induces “clumping activity” in its hosts. Normally, we refer to this as “clans”, “city-states”, and “countries”. We also refer to this as “race”, “ethnic identity”, “feminism”, etc.

Indeed, any of the “isms” can be construed as a set of memes that strongly induce clumping behavior among its hosts.

The Global Financial Picture and its Antecedents

In these tumultuous times, one looks at the stock market with dread. Titanic shifts in wealth occur on a daily basis as the players in this zero-sum game battle it out for the challenge of a lifetime. What is really sad is that many of the players do not ever understand that this is a zero-sum game; that the stock market is nothing more than a wealth-exchange system. That’s right. Wealth is not created by the stock market, but is exchanged among the players. To be in that market without realizing that very fundamental fact is, in my opinion, rather foolish.

Many have their life’s savings and their retirement tied up in the stock market, and it amuses me even more to hear all of the talking heads giving the exact wrong advice about what to do. They all say “stick it out”, “hang in there”, and “you don’t want to miss that uptick”, etc.

But many of these naieve players have been listening to this very wrong advice as they watched their portfolios cut in half or worse over the past year. Many are actually getting hit by margin calls and thus are seeing their holding sold by their brokers to cover themselves. This is part of the drive in the titantic moves being seen daily in the market right now.

I tell all my friends these days to *be in cash*, but they get so many mixed messages they don’t know if they should listen to me or listen to the idiot financial advisers. And I can fully appreciate the emotions involved. Moreover, many are in complicated financial instruments tied to the market carrying tax consequences and other hits for an early pullout. This is really sad, because it only complicates the picture even further for them.

I still stick to my mantra: BE IN CASH. You can always jump back in when the smoke clears. And so what if you miss the “initial uptick”. At least you would’ve limited your losses.

But where did all of this come from? Where did all of the bad advice on how to deal with the market generate? This is my take on it.

During the 20th century, we saw something incredible — the stock market always seemed to go up in the long run. The thinking of that times was to “be in it for the long haul”, without any thought or consideration as to how a zero-sum game can always keep going up indefinitely, and what was driving it. No one was interested since it seemed to be going up forever.

Now, I invite you to click the following link:

Big Charts of NYSE

Now set the time frame to “All Data”, and the frequency to “Yearly”. Yes, I am too lazy to past a picture of the chart into this blog, but I think it’s better if you play with these charts for yourself.

You will notice that the NYSE, a composite of all the stocks on the New York Stock Exchange, has shown a steady increase from 1970 till 2000 or so. Then you see a very sharp decline. Then you see it rise again from 2003 till now, where you see an even bigger decline knocking its levels back to where it was back in 2002. You will also note that since 1970 where the data starts, there has been no such titanic shocks before on that scale.

Now, look down beneath the price chart to see the volume chart. Look at how the volume increases corresponds with the rise of the NYSE, and look what took place from 2000 till now. This, my friends, tells the true story about the markets. Charts don’t lie, and what you see here is the real truth about the market. But how does one interpret this truth?

Think for a moment. The stock market is a zero-sum game. It does not create money; nor does it destroy it. Money simply shifts hands. Every dollar you make on the stock market *must* come out of someone else’s pocket, and every dollar you loose *must* going into the pockets of another. That is the inherent nature of a zero-sum game.

Now, look back again at the volume chart and you will start to understand what is really happening. Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, there was a big push to get more and more average people involved in the stock market — either directly, or through some derivative instrument, like mutual funds, 401Ks, IRAs, and the like.

My “Greater Fools” theory on the stock market: in order to make money on the stock market, you need greater fools to take the stocks off your hands at a greater price than you paid for it. Therefore, the only way the market can continue that growth curve in the 20th century is to have an ever increasing number of “Greater Fools” to keep flocking into the market, and this is marked by the steady volume increases you see from 1970 till 2000.

The problem is, of course, is that the supply of Greater Fools is limited. You eventually hit exhaustion. Then the prices stop rising. Then panic ensues and everyone starts selling off, generating even more panic which leads to ever more sell-offs. Those fools caught at the top of the market then give up their dollars to those whom they bought from. Yes, my friends. Those fools at the top of the market are left holding the bag for the wealth the rest of us have managed to extract from the market before the fall.

Fun stuff, huh?

What does this mean for the greater financial picture overall?

Implicit in many financial policies and financial instruments is the fallacy of “infinite growth” — that is, the markets will continue to grow forever without bound. Because of the fallacy of that assumption, anything based on that fallacy must fail eventually.

And now to introject some chaos into your understanding of the markets.

In systems that grow beyond a certain “magical rate”, the growth become chaotic. It does not matter what the system is — it could be populations of bacteria or players in the financial world –, it’s almost a “law of the universe” from the standpoint of chaos. Click the next link:

Feigenbaum Logistic Map

You will note the simple recurrence equation for growth listed, and the map of what happens when growth rates are too high. The numbers bounce around chaotically. Why? Because you have growth that depends on finite resources. If you grow faster than your resources does, you hit a ceiling and — well — chaos ensues. No pun intended!

What we see going on in the marketplace is a similar story, though more complicated than this simple formula. Humans with a stake in the game will do whatever they can to keep the party going even when it’s quite evident that the party must end eventually. We see this in the sub-prime mortgage fiasco going on right now. Since the greater fools ran out of their normal market, they kept it going higher artificially by seeking out riskier and riskier investments, which themselves came to a head as we have seen. It merely delayed the inevitable. If you go back to that NYSE chart, you see after the big drop in 2003 the market go even higher, but without the matching concomitant increases in volume. The NYSE figures were pushed up artificially higher by something, and since the markets are so interconnected, my guess is that it was pushed up higher by all the bad loans that were made.

You see, I am as guilty as the next guy here, because not only did I benefit from the financial boom in the 90s, but I also — after the so-called “dot-com” crash — managed to re-fi my home twice without any real income!!! Now admittedly, it helped tremendously in keeping my home and thus a roof over the heads of my family in those times, but really and honestly I should not have received those two loans without a solid financial basis.

Well, these days I am on better financial footing, but many were not able to make that transition and had to default on their loans, and thus began the “shout in the mountains” that lead to the avalanche in the financial markets we see today. Yes, my friends, another aspect of Chaos Theory: Self-Organized Criticality:

SOC Link

The language in this link may be beyond some, but basically what it states is that dynamical systems have a tendency to organized themselves to a critical state that can then undergo a “phase transition” — a drastic change of state — almost spontaneously. Basically, a fancy way of stating that “what goes up, must come down”, at the risk of oversimplification.

I am basically stating that all the current efforts to blame the fall on the last administration, on the CEOs of AIG, Meryl Lynch, and Lehman Bros, etc. is all a wash. Once that critical state was hit, a little girl going “BOO” on Wall Street would’ve triggered the avalanche. And no, I am not kidding.

The Obama Win and what that means

What about the [ast election and the overwhelming win by Obama, who has now become the nation’s “Great Black Hope”? (There are reasons I use that phraseology, but I will go into that in a future blog.) I am not convinced that He nor his team he’s assembling has a clue on how to halt this avalanche. He seems to be picking everyone who is from the “old school” understanding of economics. No one has yet to mention the very plain fact that most of our financial infrastructure is predicated on a fallacy. I suppose to mention that fact would really cause the panic to amplify even more. You don’t want to spook the poor saps left holding the bag too much or they would all want to dump their bags at once driving everything to zero.  And yet, the governments around the world pulling money out of thin air in their vain attempts to “shore up” the banks will only trigger a devaluation of currency that will send the market down even faster.

There is the spectre of deflation which would seem at odds with creating money out of thin air which should trigger inflation. Fun stuff huh? But I have come up with a modification to the self-organized criticality theories with special regards to the financial markets and how governments try to manipulate them:

The dynamical system so conditioned will see to organized itself to a critical state that will thwart any and all of the usual attempts to control said system. Basically, the dynamical system will evolve itself to the point of ignoring the usual control points. Basically, what I am saying is that “all the King’s horses and all the King’s men could not put the financial markets back together again!” Could there be hidden wisdom in a simple tale for kids? Hmmmm….

And yet we see that very thing taking place. Of all the coordinated efforts of many governments to inject money into the broken Humpty-Dumpty market, nothing has really worked. If that doesn’t scare the willy out of your pants, it should.  I am basically saying that we are in for some “interesting times” the likes of which have never been seen before in the history of the world. I dearly hope my prognostication is dead wrong, but I see no reason to assert otherwise. I predicted this 2nd financial shock about 8 or 9 years ago; I just wasn’t sure when it would happen. It’s actually happening earlier than I had anticipated, and we’re just seeing the beginning, folks. Now GM is talking about needing a bailout, and perhaps a couple more US auto manufacturers will be sucked into that downdraft as well. And the cascading cacophony of failures will continue for years to come. No market will be immune. Attempts governments make to stop it will only either make the problem worse or delay the inevitable.

Will when this avalanche stop? I do not know. Will the stock market ever “fully recover?” I don’t think so. I cannot see beyond the current mess because the picture has become chaotic that there is simply no way to know what will emerge “on the other side”.

But I will say this: We are in for one helluva ride!

So what does poor “Joe the Plumber” do?

Well, actually, if you are in the plumbing business, I wouldnt’ worry too much. For starters, your job can’t be outsourced. And as long as people continue to use pipes for their water supply and flush toilets to get rid of their shit, there will be a demand for you. They may pay you a bit less, but you’ll get by.

If you are “Joe the Hedge Fund Manager”, it was nice knowing you. Time to start thinking about a serious career change and possibly relocation. You really don’t want to be in an area with 10s of thousands of out of work people in your field all competing for the same scant handful of alternative jobs available. Do your research well and get the hell out of New York NOW.

If you are “Joe the Software Geek” working in IT, especially on a hot money producing website, stay exactly where you are. If you are thinking about hopping jobs,think carefully about whether or not the company you hop to can weather the impending financial firebomb headed our way. Even think that about the company you are with currently, and make the necessary adjustment in your short-term career goals.

If you are “Joe the Nurse”, stay put. Or better yet, consider relocating to Florida or California, or any place where wealthy seniors like to flock to. There’s still a shortage in the nursing field, so mop it up.

If you are “Joe the Entrepreneur”, think creatively yet realistically about your plans and goals. There may be hidden opportunities to capitalize on the firestorm to come. Drink in information from many sources about the global and local marketplaces, and try to understand how one relates to the other. Then POUNCE.

If you are “Joe about ready to divorce Jane”, this may be a wonderful time to file if you can kick Jane out of the house first. Especially if your mortgage is below water due to no fault of your own. You may be able to get rid of Jane and keep the house too. But be sure you keep the kids as well, because if Jane leave with them you are still screwed.

If you are “Joe the Homeless Beggar”, expect to get a lot of competition in the upcoming years. Expect also your begging clientele to become increasingly tight-waded as this burn-down progresses. You might actually consider this a golden opportunity to do something more meaningful with your life. Hop to it.

If you are “Joe the Civil Servant”, stay where you are. Rest assured that the government you work for will find newer and more creative ways to rip the rest of us off in order to maintain their power-base, of which you are a part.

If you are “Joe the Student”, you’ve got some real issues to think about. You have to do the hard thing of thinking about where the world will be when you graduate and whether or not a market will exist for your hard-won skills. Never-mind whether or not you’ll be able to afford it or not. Coming out with your sheepskin and a $100K debt just to take up a career of taxi driving is worse than skipping the whole affair and just jumping to taxi driving. Or consider the career of being a beach bum. Or leech off your parents for as long as they will let you. Forget joining up with the Armed Forces unless you have a death wish. Talk to some old vets first — especially from the Viet Nam War era — to get a good picture  of what to expect before you do something foolish. Trust me; it’s better to be a beach bum or a continual headache for the old man.

The Upshot of all this?

Unless you pay attention to what is REALLY going on (as opposed to what all the talking heads are babbling) and plan according to your own personal situation, you will be screwed. Plain and simple. It’s going to be tough enough even with the best laid plans of Mice, but really you don’t want to leave your future to “Fate”. Now is NOT the time to be believing in all that “God” hogwash. Now is the time to consider No. 1 your primary importance. Understanding instead of “Faith” is what will save your ass. Let the fools do as they will. Let them burn in their own self-created hells. YOU, on the other hand, must look and think in ways that are extremely non-traditional if you are going to come out of this alive. Don’t take my advice; don’t take anybody’s advice. Understand the situation for yourself and TAKE ACTION. Do this and there’s a good chance you will emerge victorious. Listen to the idiots on CNN, Bloomberg, and your Nice Friendly Government to your own peril. Understand why they say what they do, and what’s in it for them vs. what’s in it for you.

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An interesting thought occurred to me this morning. It’s all about the “teaching a man to fish” aphorism.  I thought about this in context with the way I’ve been homeschooling my kids.

Basically, as you know, the aphorism goes thusly:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

Well, that’s nice and all, and demonstrates the importance of education with regards to self-actualization and a lot of other goodies. But it seems to be lacking something, something that is embrolied in the approaches I have been using to homeschool my kids.

You see, I always thought that the love of knowledge actually more important than the knowledge itself. A person can  be”taught” anything, but if the person has no love for it, no passion, no desire to embrace what has been taught, then the teaching will only go so far.

The goal with the teaching of anything is not only to teach a thing, but to somehow inculcate a love for the thing. When you desire a thing, you are more prone to go out on your own to learn more about the thing. Of course, inculcating desire is not always possible in the typical teaching situations, but as a parent, I have an avenue open to me that few other would be able to travel.

By example, by being passionate myself, by openly showing my own love and thirst for knowledge, I can inculcate that desire for knowledge and understanding in kids, and have done so.  And actually, any good teacher can do much of the same. Though, as a parent, my kids see me everyday, so I can be much more effective.

You don’t even have to be perfect as a parent, either (but you do as a teacher! ) For instance, I have shown a desire and love for learning foreign languages to my kids– and most notably French.  Today,  after 10 years, I still struggle with French and would probably have a hard time asking for where the nearest drugstore is in Paris, but I did learn something, and the kids saw that.

Their young minds are much more able to pick up languages than my 40-something brain is, and so one daughter has taken it upon herself to learn Japanese and German. The other daughter is starting to pick up an interest from her sister and — I estimate — will increase in her interest soon. Perhaps she’ll pick different languages to learn apart from her sister or her dad. Or maybe some of the same. Who knows?

So, getting back to that aphorism, I thought to add an additional line. So now it becomes:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. 
Give a man the desire to fish, and he’ll start a whole fishing industry that will teach and feed thousands.

Yes, that is the distilled essence of my approach to homeschooling, and how I approach life in general. Find a way to create desire, and you have found a way to create something disruptive. Something with the power of changing the world, something that will have a ripple effect that will reach many people in ways you would never have thought of.

A good question to ask is how we can accomplish that small feat in not just the homeschooling environment, but with any teaching establishment in general?

The answer is simple and plainly obvious. Alas, the devil’s in the implementation. The answer is, of course: find those passionate teachers and put them in front of students. But where do you find enough passionate teachers to kick something of this magnitude off? Something that will take the US school system from being ranked 18th in the world back to number 1?

There are those who blame the poor performance in the educational system on the heterogeneous composition of the United States.  To that I say, hogwash. The link above indicates a few possibilities as possible causes, including how subjects are taught here in the US, which tends to focus more on procedure than concepts — something I have personally noted myself, which is part of the reason I elected to homeschool my kids.  But to teach concepts, rather than procedure, the passion of the teacher will have a strong bearing on how well those concepts are taught, and how eager the students will be to learn them and use them.

It is my strongly held opinion that the nature of the bureaucracies surrounding the teaching establishment in the US has a lot to do with how poorly the US ranks in the world. Teachers are not as free as they should be on how they create their lesson plans and chose the materials to be taught. Too many subjects are thrown at the students all at once. And there also seems to be an over-emphasis on homework that eats up more of the kids’ time away from school which takes away from the time the kids have to  just be kids, to explore their own interests, or even to allow their parents to do supplemental schooling.

When I was homeschooling my kids, I only spent 2-3 hours with them on a couple of subjects, and we would focus on different subjects over the year, one or two at a time. I would also incorporate the homeschooling into our general lives, constantly introducing them to new concepts  and ideas in a very informal way.  In many respects what I did — and still do — would not even look like homeschooling to the average person.  Currently, I had to enroll them back in public school and they do very well, so my approach obviously worked.

But I digress. Where I spent 2-3 hours a day, the public school system spends 6 hours, plus they also give the students an additional 1-2 hours of homework every night.

The homework, in my state at least, counts as a major part of the grade, and if you don’t do it, you may be dropped one or two points on your letter grade. Your “A” may become a “B” or even a “C”. In some cases, it could get even worse.

And from the homework I’ve seen, it seems to focus much more on doing rote procedures than learning new concepts. It seems to be much more about  “busywork” than about actual learning and exploration of the subject. It seem to be much more about generating paperwork for the bureaucratic engine than it is about giving the desire and thirst for knowledge to our kids. If anything, it may serve to burn many kids off from the notion that education can be fun and rewarding.

In essence, it would appear the the US school system is geared and design to accomplish the exact opposite of my goals. It would seem that our public schools deliberately set out to destroy the natural and innate curiosity that our precious kids are born with.

If creating the desire to fish could feed nations, what effect would destroying the desire to fish have? Or worse, even creating a resentment of fishing? What effect would destroying the desire to learn have on our individual kids and on the nation as a whole?  In a world of increasing globalization, where would it leave this country financially? From a social standpoint, where would it leave this country? What kind of a future we could possibly hope to have with a nation of today’s knowledge and education-hating youth becomes tomorrow’s adults and the society at large?

We already are beginning to see some signs of this degradation in the overall quality of our nation. Look at what’s been going on with politics for the past couple of decades.  Witness what the media chooses to focus on and report. Note how the strong trend to “dumming down” the details of the coverage is. Or the interest in science and mathematics.  Or appeals to “just believe” rather than “gaining understanding”. Look at the quality of what’s available on the hundreds of channels on Cable and Satellite TV.

When you look at all of these fine elements and put the picture together, you begin to see the “big picture”. You begin to see where society as a whole is already headed, and you can also see what some of the causative factors are. It’s all there in front of your eyes, so look for yourself. Don’t take my word on it.

But before you lapse into  a state of perpetual despair,  ask yourself the question of what can be done to fix it.

It all boils down to individual action. It all boils down to focusing on what’s in your own backyard first. The old adage of “think globally, act locally” is close to the mark, but not quite spot on.  Let me modify that adage a bit:

Watch Globally
Think Locally
Act Locally
Solve Globally

Think about it for a moment. What influence do you have? Most of us only have local influence, so it really does not make much sense to spend too much time and effort on the global situation unless you have the power to affect global change. But if you have that kind of power, you are most likely already part of the problem rather than the solution.

But in thinking locally, you see real things that you can do something about. However, we still have to keep an eye on what’s going on globally, so we stay informed with information that may even effect how we think locally.

Most of us only have the power to act locally. So, if you have local focus with some input of the global situation, you can be much more effective locally.

And finally, the last part — Solve Globally.  This is where the collective effects of our individual local actions results at changing the global landscape. No government can stand against individuals taking local action. Governments typically don’t have a grasp on the whole notion of emergent systems and would be caught off-guard, which is the whole idea. We don’t wait around for the government  to fix the problem for us, because, frankly, it never will. I mean, think for a moment. How many decades has it been where you’ve heard politicians promising a “fix” to  the education problem in the US, yet we’re worse off than ever before? What was the whole “no child left behind” rhetoric all about, besides a sneaky way for the armed forces to get a mailing list on our kids for purposes of turning them into cannon fodder?

I leave it to you, then, to take action locally and solve the mess we are currently in globally.

A good friend of mine sent me this link on an article about how China has taken an interest in Ithaca HOURS. I find it a fascinating subject the possibility of establishing local currencies and economies that are immune to the economic geopolitical hedging, speculation, manipulation and control. Indeed, it would be a good thing to have stable economies free of government control and exploitation. It would be a good thing to have some means of currency backed by something other than fiat.

It is not my intention here to discuss — or even criticize — traditional economic theory, though some of what I state will give that appearance. But for the longest time I have always been curious about currency, instruments of trade, and the human perception of value. What is is that compels so many of us to work long hours and do other things in order to gain a count of “tokens” that we then use in trade for exchange of goods and services? What is the intrinsic basis of “worth?” Why would we do something for, say, a million dollars, but not ten thousand? Just what is this human psychology of value?

Let us begin with the Individual. That would be you, me, any one person of sound mind living in this world. An Individual has needs, wants, and a desire to live. An Individual has a level of self-esteem and a level of self-worth. An Individual has certain talents, skills, traits, and — well, yes — value.

But just what is this “value”? We normally take this and other human concepts for granted, but I find it extremely helpful from time to time to take a critical eye at these default notions in order to try to understand them and what underlies their function in our inter-dependent world.

It is clear to me that “value” occurs at the Individual level. An Individual posses the notion of “value”, and, of course, that notion is relative to the Individual. And let me state this: “value” is the Individual’s perception of the exploitability of a thing. In this discussion I do not use “exploit” in a negative context, but as a neutral way to describe one’s desire to leverage advantage, which is something we all do every day of our lives. We “exploit” our cars to get us from point A to point B. We “exploit” the people we may hire to get useful goods and services out of them. At some level, we even “exploit” our friends so that we can have a sense of community. So I don’t see the concept of exploitation as a negative. Where the negative comes in is when we may exploit other individuals without just compensation. If we exploit the window washer to wash our windows but fail to pay him the agreed-upon compensation, then we have cheated that Individual and that is NOT a good thing. But this is an important issue to my discussion as well, because Governments exploit Individuals all the time without just compensation. Yes, it’s true, and think about it. Every government around the world exploits its Individuals under its rule without just compensation. And the modus operandi of that negative exploitation is based on manipulating the perceived “value” of government-created currency by means of fiat, global politics, controlling financing and debt and the like.

But I digress. But hold that thought. Individuals create the notion of “value”, and Individuals act on that perception of value for reasons of exploitation.

Individuals living in a group is what we call “community”. Each Individual member of that community has distinctive talents and skills, and may also hold various distinctive resources that may be used in trade. Some of those resources may be the result of other trades the individual engaged in in the past; other resources may be due to what the Individual himself created. (And in this discussion, I use the pronouns “him”, “he”, etc. strictly in the epicene and is understood to also mean “her”, “she”, etc.)

It is clear, therefore, that “value” is created due to human effort, and that time is involved in the creation of that “value”. It is also clear that all Individuals possess within themselves the means to create “value” of one form or another, and so to trade in time units of human effort seems all too natural. Because, in effect, we are trading some intrinsic value based on time spent creating these things we value.

But it is also clear that the time of one Individual may be more “valuable” than the time of another Individual. A window washer’s time, for instance, will simply not equate to the time value of say, a neurosurgeon. A brick layer’s time, while a valuable skill to be used, will not be of the same value as, say, a software engineer. 2 hours of a software engineer’s time might be worth 20 hours of a window washer’s time.

So how a thing is valued also has to do with supply vs. demand, which sounds like “old school” economics. Old-school economics is not necessarily a “bad” thing or even a “wrong” thing, but it does represent an incomplete picture, because it does not attempt to describe the human nature and perception of “value”, but takes it as read and creates artificial idealized notions based on some highly idealized assumptions on what “value” is, which, in the opinion of this writer, simply does not represent reality.

But back to my main point, Individuals with diverse skills, talents, and resources live in Communities for the mutual benefit of exploitation. Members of a community exploit each other for mutual gain. The concept of mutual gain is an extremely important one to keep in mind — it means that the net value of the community at large actually increases over time. With every single honest transaction, new value is created where none existed before. That value — unless it is subjected to negative exploitation by externalities — accumulates over time and results in a stronger community overall.

Strong communities are very good things. Strong healthy communities create their own intrinsic safety nets — should a particular Individual member of that community befall “hard times”, that Individual can be — and usually is — helped back on his feet by the strength of the Community and the collective value that has been accumulated over time. And this takes place without taxes, without force, without the usual mistaken “Robin Hood” notions that many in the United States and other socialist countries see as a “necessary” thing to help those “in need”.

Strong healthy communities help to foster good self-worth, self-identity, and self-responsibility. In such a positive atmosphere, Individuals are encouraged to be creative and to find newer and better ways of creating value that all with benefit from. That can only result in the community becoming ever stronger and more resilient. An emergent phenomenon that is truly wonderful is the notion of “value” to the community, which is not to be confused with “community values”, which is a moral, not economic connotation. When an Individual understands what is valuable to the Community he is a member of, he then understands how he can exploit what is value to increase his own worth and wealth, whilst adding even more to the collective value of the Community at the same time!

So if all I have said here is true, why don’t we see more of the same today? Recall, if you will, I mentioned externalities that may get in the way of this wonderful dynamic of Communities creating their own wealth. External agencies that seek to extract wealth from a community and from individuals. External agencies that seek to exploit value without just compensation, and does so by force, removing Individual choice from the equation.

You see, taxes have to be done by force for the plain reason that there is no just compensation for the Individual. If there were, force would not be necessary. If someone were to give me 3 pieces of gold for every 2 pieces I gave away, there would be no reason to hold a gun to my head! But, on the other hand, I only get back one piece of gold for every 2 I give away, I would not do so willingly, so a “gun” would have to be held to my head to force me to do it. That agency looking to give me back less value for my hard-earned wealth could only do so by way of giving me a reason to fear if I did not comply. In effect, they would have to threaten me with stealing even more of my wealth, destroying even more value!

Think about this for a moment. What effects would this have on a Community? The community that has to also deal with being robbed of its collective wealth could never become very strong. It could never create a good intrinsic “safety net” for its individual members. Creativity would not have the payoff it otherwise would. All Individuals would be discourage by the specter of getting less back for hours spent, not more. There would be no incentive for self-improvement, self-innovation, and self-actualization that is so important for growing healthy communities of Individuals.

Now, those in that communities that are less well-off will have to depend on the external agencies — that looted the community wealth in the first place! — for “help”. And that “help” will undoubtedly be of far less quality than what the Community itself could’ve offered would it have been allowed to grow strong on its own. The “help” would not be of a positive variety — one of “teaching one to fish for a lifetime”, but for a lifetime of dependence. This only has the impact of further undermining the community and its collective self-worth and collective self-esteem.

Whenever something “has” to be done “by force”, that is usually a very big warning sign that things have already gone horribly wrong. And that changes must be made. These externalities care nothing for the Individual, but have their own goals in mind for dominance and power. Whenever power and control becomes more important than the Individual, no good can come of that. Whenever the use of force becomes routine rather than the exception, we have already lost the way and freedom is compromised. Whenever we are forced to give up value in exchange for something of less value — or nothing at all, building collective and Individual wealth becomes impossible, and we forever become slaves to those externalities that see to use its negative exploitation tactics on us.

In a world where negative exploitation by powerful externalities have become the rule, how do we deal? One way is to create a system of fair exchange that exists outside of the powers to be negatively exploited. If my friend values my time and I value his time, we have a mutually valuable relationship that would be hard to negatively exploit by some external agency. We have a mutual trust and a mutual expectation that can go a long way to building our collective wealth. And this happens solely on the basis of exchange of time — my time for his time and his time for my time at a mutually agreed-upon exchange rate. And there would be nothing there for some externality to manipulate or force to our mutual disadvantage. We can build our collective strength as a community and get much accomplished.  And we would be immune to the shocks and downfalls of the global economic jungle.

As I stood on the Shores of Infinity, a break in the Serenity occurred, and for an instant the Ocean was replaced by the fiery Tarpits of Flajann. Flajann, the Indestruction; Flajann, the Austere; Flajann, the Giver and Receiver of Infinite Justice with Perfect filamentary tendrils reaching out to all Existence.

Awoke, I stood watching the backdrop of a smoky orange-red extent to the horizon beneath a sinking Sun . I silently contemplated this phase of Existence and its Significance as the Sun became increasingly obscured by the rising black and grey pillars of sadness as far as the eye can see.

I looked down at my hands in despair. The failure of my hands were rather complete, not being able to hold on to the oceanic serenity. For the replacement of the soft crashing of the ocean waves to be replaced by the horrid crackling sound of things burning is quite a loss, indeed.

Somewhere from within a Determination to Not Loose All Hope flashed forward, hands giving off a faint blue-violet glow, which instantly shifted the Shores of Infinity back to the Ocean, with its familiar crashing waves and receding tides.

Even though I now stand amidst the tides again, I stand shaken. For I deal with Universal Forces that are no mean feat to control and guide, and yet I must tunnel though Reality to create a Future despite the Tarpits that always seek dominance at the edge of my perception.

Yet I shall move forward even as I am shaken, because the 2 stars in the distant horizon are worth my while. I therefore fill the present with Future Realities  Serene to combat the Tarpits.

I awoke this morning. That in and of itself is a noteworthy goal.

As I got up, I noticed that I was standing on the Shores. The sand beneath my morning feet, the rocks, the sea gulls, the crashing of the oceanic waves amidst a million years of evolution to be heard by ears fashioned by the ancient need for survival.

I found that I can stop any wave, any whitewater crash, any tidal, any disaster by just waving my hand gently in the air at it. There, done, frozen in space-time.

And then the Shores beneath my feet themselves shift in scope beyond all measurement into a star field, a galaxy slowly turning beneath my feet, or a whole field of galaxies, or a supernova, or a quasar, or the entire universe itself. Like sands on the Shores of Time so are the Stars in the whole of the Universe. Like the rippling of the waves along the Shoreline, so are the Great Cosmic Events throughout all existence. Like the crash of the waves on the rocks, so are the supernovae, the galatic collisions, stars spiraling down great black holes flashed into x-rays.

I stand at the apex of 13 billion years of space-time evolution to contemplate its Path, and wonder at all the details of its Grandeur. I am known to the intricate fabric of Space-Time, and it is known to me.

I AM. I am one with the Universe and everything in it.

I KNOW. I know and understand The Path.

I WAIT. I await my time to take my rightful place in this Universe as a diminutive speck of dust wrapped in billions of light-years of existence.

I LOOK. I look upon the seascape of all existence and see myself staring back at me. The Circuit is now Complete, as it is time for the Next Phase.

And so I stand, thinking.

As you may have guessed, this is my response to The Philosophy of Religion by Hegel. To his credit, Hegel did have some interesting things to say about “truth”, but to this 21st-century brain I must declare his pronouncements metaphoric; he appears to equate “God” with “Absolute Truth”, and a “Unity” that at once attempts to be pure and singular. But given the state of knowledge in the late 1700’s, I feel I must excuse him otherwise; he basically did the best with what he had to work with.

What is “Truth”?

What indeed is “truth”? is it more than just a collection of “facts”? Does it not imply objectivity? Can “truth” be purely subjective? How can we know for sure that we are actually dealing with real “truth”? Can not “truth” be written down as a set of provable predicates?

It would appear that the meaning of “truth” is an ongoing debate among philosophers and mathematicians. Since I tend to sit in three worlds — science, mathematics, and philosophy — I must say that I myself have no firm definition of “truth”. However, I will attempt one here.

“Truth” is the instantiated objective reality, or some part thereof. By “instantiated”, it must require some actual existence in some realm. By “objective”, it must be more than just a thought in our minds. By “reality”, it must have some level of endurance. That is, it must be able to stand up to tests and challenge.

A religionist of the Christian faith would define “truth” differently, of course, and most likely closer to the lines of Hegel, that is, some aspect of “God”, or some sort of “universal absolution” having to do with “God”. I must reject this notion of truth, because it is based upon and assumes a truth of a myth, that is, of this “God” thing itself. It begins with the assumption, for the most part, that this “God” actually exists, and attempts to explain all of actual existence in terms of this unsubstantiated assumption. When pressed on this very issue, the typical religionist of the Christian faith falls back to — well, “faith”. But what is this “faith?” is is clearly nothing more than the belief in unsubstantiated assumptions, made mystique by the word. It is seen as something to “aspire” to, which seems ridiculous to this author. Truly, is casting aside logic and rationality something one should really seek to aspire to?

For those of us not so predisposed to embracing fantasies as a basis for thought, it does make sense that truth should be something measurable, testable in some realm, and amenable to logic. If we can’t agree on anything else, I think we can agree on that as being the starting point.

The Objective Reality of Atheism

Now that we — at least for the sake of this argument — have establish truth as the instantiated objective reality, what now? Is it possible to “objectify” our stand on Atheism? Of course, an Atheist need not objectify his stand on Atheism anymore than a Religionist needs to objectify his stand on religion. But the author deems it helpful to be able to objectify it, if for no other reason than to buttress to memes of Atheism against the overpowering memes of Religion. Most religious memes play to one central point: our emotions. Indeed, our emotions become the “instruction set”, borrowing from computer science, for the religious memes to “execute” — that is to say, the religious memes programs it religious hosts to think in terms of emotions rather than rationality, to not question rather than take a critical edge. The religious memes have a tendency to render its hosts “mindless”, and hence the author has taken to referring to said hosts as “Mindless Vessels of Belief”. This may seem like a harsh criticism, but many years of observation in many venues leads this author to no other logical conclusion. But the discussion of religious memes and “Mindless Vessels of Belief” are beyond the scope of this discussion and will be discussed elsewhere.

To firmly establish our stand on Atheism on the basis of epistemology, we need only ask one question: Which god? Out of a countless number of god-scenarios, of which one are we supposed to choose? Since this fabled “god” cannot be objectified, that opens up the entire panetheon to many, many, god-possibilities, including many that humans never thought of or have yet to consider. If you give credence to one god-notion over another, how can you possibly objectify that selection? This also nullifies Pascal’s Wager, because if you choose to believe in the wrong god, you still loose whilst having giving up something in life, and the chances of getting the choice correct in a set of “infinite” god-scenarios is — well, let us say you’d have much better chances winning the lottery!

But, to entertain Pascal’s Wager a bit more for what it’s worth, why not believe in all god-scenarios? Outside of your head exploding, how can you believe in the many you know nothing of, or can even be expected to know? Some god-scenarios may exclude others, such as is the case with the Christian god-scenario. Of those god-scenarios that are actually known to humans, there are literary thousands, and one could easily spend an entire lifetime learning abou them! Some may require more than just mere belief; some god-scenarios may actually require action of some sort. Quite simply, mere “belief” may not be enough. Also, if you knew for absolute fact that there was only one “valid” god-scenario, you obviously would have a way to objectify the existence of said “god”, so a “wager” would be unnecessary. In lieu of this, the actual expectations, looking at reality and not Pascal’s limited assumptions about “god-scenarios” would be to live your life as you see fit without reference to any deity. In other words, don’t waste your time.

The Actual Reality of the Universe

So now that we’ve stripped away any “justification” for believing in deities, what’s a poor Atheist to do? Is it really true that you must “believe in something”, as many religionist claim? Or is it possible to simply have no belief at all?

The author firmly hold that not only is it possible to have no belief in any deity, but that notion is the true definition of an Atheist — one who simply lacks a belief in any deity, in any of the myriad “god-scenarios”.

But some may still feel that there is “something out there” — basically, that there is more to the Universe than “meets the eye”. For sure, we diminutive humans simply do not posses all the knowledge of the Universe, though our collective understanding grows by leaps and bounds everyday. Our theories of cosmology are constantly being improved; our understanding of quantum realities is always being advanced, and we are growing on a daily basis in our understanding of complex dynamical/self-adaptive systems of all sorts.

And with all of that, the Universe still holds some deep mysteries beyond our grasp. So, there is still plenty of room for new discoveries and enhancements of our understanding. There are still many things to hold our awe and wonder. But because we may have an awe and wonder about the universe, does that obviate Atheism? Absolutely not! Atheism has to do with a lack of belief in deities; as long as we aren’t deifying some aspect of the Universe, we can still remain Atheists and still feel as though “something’s out there” — some deep mystery still left to be found, some profound universal truth yet to be uncovered. As long as we are willing to submit our questions and gleam to the rigors of the process of science, we may remain (and proudly so!) Atheists.

Conclusions

And so, there you have it. Atheism — really, healthy skepticism in disguise — is the natural choice. While beliefs in fantasies may have some limited reward, that “reward” is cheap in comparasion to the awe and wonder of the Universe borne out of understanding, knowledge, logic and reason. For this reason, I do posses an awe and wonder, but it is founded on the firm pillars of Mathematics, Science, Logic and Reason. I personally consider any other foundation to be null and void. Your opinions may differ, of course, and you are certainly welcome to them. But I see no better way of knowing, of ascertaining the truth, of having any certainty at all of making the correct choices in life that will affect myself for the rest of time.

So the choice is yours. My conerstones are Mathematics, Science, Logic and Reason. What are yours?

in the undying glow of the crescent sun
i became one with the wind

howling wind breaking the waves
howling wind in the shimmering shade
howling thoughts in the eve of twilight
howling winds blurring my sight

in the passion of the sunlit sky
the internal sea of shame flows
shall i spill my secrets to the world
or hold them in close proximity?

one hundred billion reasons to hope
two hundred million reasons to cope
three hundred thousand reasons to dive
four hundred reasons to drive

wrapped in the sea of shame i lie
prostrate and exposed to the open sky
vulture picking away my bones
cold, white, and bleached beneath a naked sun

i crawl around along the bottoms of complete fury, lost and cold and stripped of all humanity. i know not where i am or where i am headed. the clouds are grey and very heavy. the clouds are grey and very unforgiving. the stain upon my brain is the strain that i seek to refrain.

alone and running in the sunlight
bones clunking along in the sand
metatarsals cannot grasp the sand
loosing ground upon the land

and in the eve of the known huntings did i run and hide from my shame that streaks out behind me not unlike a cloak of anger in the darkness of the night holding the fright of the twilight insidious to my blight.

upon this i fear and dread
my hair falls upon the dead
as my fears dare to head
to the icy patches that are my bed.

i saw you perched on a tree
as quiet as you can be
peering out o’er the sea
waves breaking thoughts with glee

i came to you and heard your song
all the years can take so long
as i watch you undo your thong
making me feel like King Kong

wings you spread so dear to me
silvery in the eyes of a twilight sun
shafts of joy shining through the tree
as you and i become one

my wing touch your wing
my beak touch your beak
my eye trace your shilouette
in the dawn of the misty twilight

and to infinity we fly as one
chasing naked the golden sun
around and around we fly
for we are the only birds in the sky.

–ily–

Back when I was much, much younger, I veered off the path of my intellect and became “a believer” of Christianity. Not only was this a mistake but a great waste of 4 or 5 years of my life. But it did a lot of damage — all that stuff about heaven and hell and “god’s chosen” and what not. Oh man.

It took me another 3 or 4 years to return to my place of intellect. I had to re-examine all my beliefs, and later I would come to question the very nature of belief itself. I did not leave any stone unturned. I questioned everything and sought answers.

And this was an amazing time, because I did get answers, and I was made better for them. I saw the world — indeed, the entire universe — through new eyes, the eyes of Knowledge and Understanding.

I called this period of my life “The Reconstruction” — but really, it was more of a Renaissance than anything. I mean, there was so much I learned. Fractals opened up my eyes to new possibilities. Indeed, Fractals was very key in helping me understand how complexity can arise out of simplicity. That gave me a very powerful basis for being able to assert — to my own tortured brain — that “god” was not required for the existence of the Universe, contrary to years of the lies I had been fed by the Christians.

I went on to learn more and more — about Complex Dynamical Systems, Artificial Life, Self-Adaptive System, and the like. For the first time in my life, not only could I understand that a “god” was not only not required, but also extremely unlikely.

I then learned about Memes and Thought Contagions from the seminal book published by Aaron Lynch. I began to understand the underlying mechanisms behind “beliefs” and how they are transmitted and themselves evolve to retransmit themselves. This put not only religion in a new light, but politics, the media, and many other things about the human social animal.

This forever changed my perception of the human — basically, human beings are little more than hosts for completing memes, some of which also influence behavior , and the memes that program for their own retransmission tend to crowd out those less successful at doing so.

Wow, most humans are little more than Mindless Vessels of Beliefs. This makes for a very dim view of the human-nodes out there, a very frightening view, one that I wish were not true, but I cannot deny my own reasoning on the matter.

And so, such more or less concluded my First Renaissance. As the Star Child in 2010 said, “I used to be Dave Bowman”.

Many years spun by, many challenges, many attacks, many triumphs, and a couple of darling girls along the way. Both girls make me very proud.

And now, once again, I find myself at the crossroads. But this time it’s entirely different. This time, it’s not a wasted flirtation with religion and other frivolous beliefs, but one of misplaced trust that has betrayed 15-16 years of investing in the emotional and material well-being of another. You know, marriage. But it goes beyond that, really.

I also find that science and mathematics has progressed much in the intervening years, and I’ve fallen behind a bit. There are new sets of “terrible secrets” yet to be uncovered. There are the futures of my kids. There’s my own future, and those I care about. And there’s the future of the entire Human Race to consider, and how I might be an influence there.

And so the need for my “2nd Renaissance” is at hand.

I couldn’t live in a better area for it — Greater Boston — where I have contact and access to some of the finest libraries and minds in this country. I have many Very Big Goals for the future. They will by no means be easy to accomplish. But then, what’s life without a challenge?

And so I go forth into the desert…

It has caught my attention that MySQL is behaving like a tyrant with their Enterprise support policies. Basically, if your company has multiple servers running MySQL but only one is covered under its “Gold” ($2000 per sever per year), or its “Platinum” coverage ($5000 per server per year), MySQL might choose to sue you for the other machines not covered, even though you have never opened up a service request on them.

The details of this are still coming in, so stay tuned. This represents a black mark on MySQL in the eve of the Sun acquisition.  Since this predates the Sun acquisition, Sun Microsystems is “blameless” in all of this.

But this flies totally in the face of the entire notion of the FOSS concepts. If what I’ve heard turns out to be true, this will represent a black mark for the entire OpenSource community.

Alone I stand on the precipice looking out o’er the ocean

What dire unseen consequences lurks beneath the sinking sun

A darkness befalls us never to be had again

For beneath me…

What was blue and wet is now red and hot
What was calm and serene is now agitated and truculent
The Waves…

Like sand to glass the waves make
What was waves of cresting water are now flames licking the shore
What were curious creatures of the ocean are now demons aglow
What were mists are now plumes of smoke
What was a serene paradise is now an ocean of agony

I cry, for the land is barren and bereft of any joy

I try to hold a ray of hope in the face of untrouncable devastation

A face-lit dawn befalls a sea of troubles

The monsters come

The monsters ride the waves of fire

They are interested in you

They are known to you

They become you

They are you.

It would appear as though some people see me as a “threat”, a “danger”, and act out of fear of my presence even though I have done nothing to provoke such reactions. I am at a loss to understand why this happens.

It’s as though my very existence is some sort of “crime” or “threat”. But I don’t get that.

I normally would not care except those so predisposed to such misgivings oftentimes act on those fears, leaving me to deal with the fallout. I get to pay the price and they get to get away with it. I am told a lot of lame excuses, even things like “put yourself in their shoes”, as though there is some justification that I am supposed to be understanding about.

So not only do I “get into trouble” for merely existing, I am also supposed to understand and sympathize for those who would complicate my existence due to no fault of my own.

But such people can be quite devastating and cause a lot of damage. The bitter divorce I am going through right now is an indirect fallout of such behavior.

But these people go without consequence with their own lives. I am the one left holding the bag. They soon forget the trouble they’ve caused me; I tread water just to keep from sinking due to the fallout.

So why does this happen? What is the explanation? Am I truly the “most dangerous man alive” without even knowing it? And what makes me so “dangerous”, anyway?

Some tell me the reason is that I am a “intelligent black man”, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Makes no sense to me. Aside from my supposed intelligence the only other “dangerous” thing about me is my dermal chromatics. But I truly don’t see what’s so dangerous about that, either.

I care about a lot of people. Indeed, I care about the entire world. I attempt to do what little I can to make the world a better place for my kids, so that they may have a hope and a future. That they may grow up in a world that is wonderful and prosperous; that they may grow up in a world that appreciates intellect, accomplishment, and creativity.

But many stand in my way now, and many sit in judgment of me. Why? Why are so many so critical of who and what I am? Why is it that some automatically question me without knowing a darn thing about me, not even my very name? Why is it that I must always be “on alert” for the idiots of the world; that I cannot simply relax and enjoy life, even in my “advance age” of 46? Why, oh why?

All I want to do is look up at the stars at night. Wonder about the mysteries of quantum mechanics and how that couples with the macro world. Explore the deep unknowns of complex evolving systems and how everything in the universe ties into it. Or be astounded at the beauty of a single flower. Or create wonderful algorithms that no one thought of before. Or ponder the inscrutable aspects of number theory. Or get lost all the newest and latest discoveries on DNA and genetics in general. Or…

And yet what I get to put up with is anything but sublime. Some of the things I’ve been falsely accused of would astound you. Everything from “owing” $23,000,000 to the IRS to “kidnapping” my own wife and kids that willingly wanted to come home with me a few years back. Well, long story. And I’ve got a lot of them.

All I ever wanted to do was look up at the sky and see, experience, and understand the majesty of the universe. And share part of that wonder with my kids.

Am I such a bad person? You be the judge!

This is an excerpt from SlashDot, a conversation between myself and someone who refers to himself as ”sqrt(2)”.

Sqrt(2) I have no qualms about calling something what it is.

“being harassed by the police, the IRS, the child “protective” services” is not part of the political philosophy of ANY party, they are problems. We agree that these are problems. Anarchy however (Which libertarianism is a form of), isn’t the solution.

What I hear from Libertarians is that people should be allowed as much freedom to succeed as possible, and government activity (of any kind) can act only to restrict that freedom. The other side of that statement is that someone should be free to fail, to starve, to die. I reject the notion that those are freedoms. Someone with the freedom to starve to death is not more free than someone who collects money from the government, as this person can now buy food. Heartless, isn’t it, that government dependence? Moreover, Libertarian ideology not only says that it’s OK for this to happen, but that it’s the RIGHT outcome because it was the result of a pure and perfect system. Again, I reject that notion outright.

If we transformed overnight into a Libertarian society, the people who would do the best are the ones who are ALREADY doing the best. So of course it ends up being THOSEpeople who want to see such reform. That is why I call it self-serving. And no amount of charity work, although noble an endeavor in itself, will correct that error.

My Response

Well, we can go back and forth forever over semantics and the definition of words, and totally miss the point.

1. The problems of government cannot be ignored. In Libertarianism, government has a specific function — basically, to protect us from each other and to protect the country in general from external aggressors. Outside of that, government should but out of our private lives as long as we are not harming anyone against their will.

2. Yes, I agree, a transition to complete libertarianism overnight would be disastrous for many, but that is not what I am proposing. It would not be any more successful than what the US is doing trying to ram “democracy” down the throats of countries that have never known democracy.

3. Central to success of Libertarianism is self responsibility. You have to agree that if everyone — or at least a good majority — acts responsibly in all things, you’d need far less government than you have today.

4. Another problem with government is it is next to impossible to eliminate a department/ministry/agency once its instituted and firmly entrenched, even if the need for it goes away. Like a cancer, government has this annoying tendency to grow and grow without bound. And if you’ve been paying attention, the US government is probably the worst offender with regards to growing new departments, agencies, and bureaucracies without bound. Not to mention the quality of service goes downhill because the extract tax dollars from you and I at gunpoint.

5. Libertarianism is not anarchy. It is a minimalist approach to government, not the complete elimination of it. There’s a huge difference, and there are those who wish to scare you by trying desperately to muddy up the waters on the distinction.

6. We are all essentially selfish creatures, and we are motivated best by selfish reasons. In all actions that humans choose to do there is always an underlying selfish component, even if it’s nothing more than the satisfaction of helping your fellow humans. I freely admit this is what motivates me to help others.

7. Many fear change and wish to cling to the status quo, because they cannot imagine the alternative. There is a better way, but the better way will never see the light of day because the rank-and-file will fight against it out of fear, clinging even stronger to the status quo, and thus nothing will ever be accomplished.

I propose a solution that I need to work out the details on, but basically it has to do with ending geographic monopolies current governments exerts over us. We must have the freedom to choose association and alligence without having to change our geography. This is a very dangerous idea because nearly all current governments will rail against the notion, but think for a moment of the advantages:

1. Wars would become infeasible because your own citizens may be living in the land.

2. Governments would have to actually compete for our citizenship. Think of how much would improve!

3. Governments all over would have to think more business-like and trim down their bureaucracies to run smoothly and efficiently. No excuses.

4. If you don’t like any of the existing governments, you can always start your own. Or even be stateless.

5. If a government is misbehaving, simply disassociate without having to move anywhere.

Poverty and the Poor

To address your — and mine as well — concerns about the poor and poverty in general, one must look at the root cause of such. Basically, the root problem lies in the very real fact that it is nearly impossible to do subsistence living these days. Everything you own is taxed to death, and even your real estate is taxed annually even after you’ve paid off the loan. This forces you either to continue to work or secure an income by other means, or to be homeless. The elderly are kicked out of the very homes they’ve spent a lifetime in for no other reason than not being able to pay the ever-increasing property tax. Is that fair? And who is doing this to them? Libertarians? I don’t think so. Under the Libertarian approach they would be able to remain in their homes because there would be no frelling property tax.

Well, that’s enough for now. I should put much of this in a blog somewhere, as this is even more off-topic than my original post!!!!

I wish to comment on the blog — or rather the comments added to the blog — about teaching your kid how to program.

 

Being a parent of 3 kids myself, I have quite a bit to say about this, actually.

 

Many of the comments on the “teaching your kid how to program” article were very down on the idea, suggesting it would be better to teach your kid all about sports first.

Now, I though that was rather odd. I mean, why one over the other? What is so damned special about sports? One respondent claimed that it was “imposing your dreams on your kid” to teach the kid programming, but it was “OK” to teach sports instead. How is that any less “imposing your dream?” I hear of many stories how some kids actually dread the whole sports bit, little league and all, but do it anyway because their parents have “high expectations” of them to hit a silly ball across the field.

I have two daughters. Being an ardent hacker myself, I introduced both daughters to the computer early on. One of my daughters took to the computer especially well at the age of 2, where she enjoyed playing around with a painting program to make beautiful patterns and abstract art. I also taught her number theory a year or two later, where I gave her a basic understanding of prime numbers, multiplication, and division. I manage to do this cleverly enough with pennies, and showing her how a prime number of pennies could not be arranged into a rectangle other than 1 x n, where a composite number of pennies could be. Then, the height and with of the rectangle represented multiplication of those two numbers, etc.

Today, that daughter is 15. When she was 7, she built her own robots, and programmed her own websites in PHP around 9 or so. Today, she loves art and can draw at a professional level, as well as still harboring a love for math and science. She plans to go into architecture some day, so I’d better scramble together lots of cash so I can send her off to college!

The younger daughter, now 10, also loves science. It is pure joy to see her curious about the world around her.

Both daughters are wicked intelligent, and that’s not just me saying that. Everyone who knows them say that about them as well. Now, imagine what would’ve happened to their aspiring minds if I had tried to force them into sports. They would’ve been bored and resentful. Sports is just not their thing.

And my point is?

Simple. It’s all a matter of knowing your kids. You expose them to a bit of everything, and see where their interests lie. You then make it possible for them to pursue those interests. Eventually, as they get older, there interests become more refined and individual in nature, and they are almost always never exactly what the parent “hopes for”. But a good parent will continue to support the kids in their pursuit of knowledge and wonder, anyway.

Do I have a problem with my kids being into sports? Not at all. One kid loves to ice skate, which I think is great. The other kid loves martial arts.

So, as you see, I have nothing against sports in general. However, I do think it gets over-emphasized by our culture. I took a visit to my daughter’s high-school and had a look at the news articles they had posted on their billboard. More than half of those articles had to do with sports in some form or fashion. Maybe one or two had anything to do with academics.

This was very telling.

It is clear that there is much anti-intellectualism in our country, even in the schools that are charged to teach our young. This is particularly sad, considering that the rest of the world at large tends to value education more and as a result their students are so much further along than our students in the US.

I don’t know what to do with the problem at large, but I do know what to do for my own kids. Be the right example for them as far as intellectual pursuits go, and make them feel proud for their intellectual and academic accomplishments. They will be able to compete with the rest of the world in the 21st century where many US kids will wind up working a McJob.

Well, I managed to do “the impossible” — go from complete ignorance to an Oracle “guru” in just  a couple of weeks. Well, I don’t count myself a “guru” in Oracle at all, nor do I really want to be. I do consider myself to be a MySQL guru, however. At some point, I should do a more lengthly blog comparing the two databases! Stay tuned!

I sit on top of a vast ocean of knowledge.

Awaiting quietly for the place where the signs come in

O’er the twisty splash of the oceans.

I limp from day to day wishing it was all over

The searing agonizing beam of light

Tearing at my very being

Exposing my heart to the universal Ash of Ages

Lie I in the heat of stars

Cold Fusion to Hot Fission

Ideas swirl about my head to Infinity…

Awake on the peak of time

Strewn out across all space

Unknown to the rest of the Human Race

A pulse beat away from Infinity….

I look with sadness across a sea of Infinity, an endless ocean of ideas, dreams, knowledge, thoughts to tame the raging beast within. I await for a calm notion to profound me; a new spark to burn me; a clear vision to Infinity. Shall it come today or tomorrow I cannot tell and do not know, for it knows its own time in the space that is me.

Where I stand, do I dare to dream?

Silver tendrils enshroud me in complicated ways

Carrying pulses that become me

Knowing the way of the world torn asunder

Silvery pulses enclose the Finger to Forever.

Can a single mathematical expression encompass all that we are? Conventional wisdom says ‘no’, but I beg to differ. I have seen it all — I have peered into the Face of Infinity and witnessed the very equation of Life, the answer to the Universe, and a description for Everything. Whereupon the joke and humor of past times the Answer lies seriously before me. As I look upon the Answer, I am filled at once with intense delight and abject horror. The knowing of a thing is joy; the implication of a thing is foreboding.

As I stand on the threshold of Infinity, I note a rhyme…

Violence is in collusion with Peace, Order is in collusion with Chaos, Life is in collusion with Death. All remains inseparable; all remains deeply intertwined. I can only know a part of it; the knowing of the other part is pure terror and anguish at what must be and what is; intolerable pain and anguish and twisted fears and contortions of the future lines of Humanity to its eventual self-induced destruction.

I cry a billion cries of a trillion souls splayed to the deep oceanic depths of blood so red the photons refuse to bounce; I awalk the shore with my toes stained with blood and my nose filled with the rot of a trillion lost dreams. I cry and weep for the whole of Humanity as I do for the entirety of the Universe; all is lost upon the winds coaxed by the Seas of Change.

I smell my own feet caught in the Hole of Nothingness;

I remain helpless as a dead sacrifice at the top of the peak

I remain lifeless amidst the Infinite Knowledge just beyond my reach

I remain frozen within the fusion of a ton of gravity-crushed dust

I remain thoughtless amidst a wealth of dreams.

I climb out of my hole only to note I just entered it’s bottom; caught in space folding back upon itself endlessly watching my own infinite echoes to nowhere. I tether on the brink of pure unadulterated madness as I seek the geodesic that leads out of this black hole of oblivion of our future dreams and strongly-held beliefs and promises; all is lost to the winds of time and the progress of the end.

And so I take the shovel

And I dig a real hole to the real grave that awaits me

They tell me in a pollyanish way that I should never give up hope, but what is hope but an emotion? I see the encroachment of the Fire Endless and I am supposed to rely on hope to deliver me from the Flames that burns and nips my toes? Smoky toes to the bone.

I lower myself in my self-dug hole and lie myself to rest

It was a good life, fun thinking about the end of the endless stream. It was nice knowing my friends who dared to peer out at Infinity with me; how fortunate for them they could not see the horrors I see, and to experience the reality I experience, and to see the end I see. They are shielded by their ignorance and a delusion of life that will carry them well to their graves.

And so I rest my weary head and close my eyes once more for the last time in the face of Infinity.

I move forward with an idea so simple and yet so profound it could rock the universe itself.

You see, I think I understand — finally — what makes emergence tick. The answer is right in front of our faces and we miss it completely, and we miss it in exactly the same way gravitation was missed before Newton. It’s a very deep symmetry that exists on all scales of the universe and in nearly every possible system. It is there at once hiding from us and also making our world work.

Am I being deliberately evasive? Yes. Because I could be wrong, I want to rigorously check it out first before announcing it to the world. In time, all will know.

All I am saying about it now is that it has to do with the violation of ying-yang.

This morning, I awoke a New Man.

You see, I came to a rather simple realization. For all of those individuals who have tried to make me stumble throughout my life, it was not really due to a fault of my own, but theirs. You see, I simply exist, and as I exist, I seek to be great. I want to explore the universe of knowledge and understanding. I wish to accomplish many things. And indeed I have. As a kid, I educated myself in mathematics and science at a college level, even before reaching high school. While in high school, I kicked off my career as a software engineer without even knowing.

And here, after 30 years or so, I stand with many more notable accomplishments under my belt. And I’ve only just begun. I have my sights set on things far greater than anything I’ve accomplished to date.

In a real sense, I have been a giant among fools. Not that I exalt myself as being “superior”, but at the same time I must recognize that I am qualitatively different from your average bear.

So when others come to beat me down, it is not really due to a fault of my own, but to a fault of theirs. Far too long I have taken the blame for the fault of others. Far too long have I tried to find the flaw within me as an explanation for why others attack me. For too many years have I pointed the finger at myself rather than looking with the eyes of wisdom to recognize that it is not I that is the problem.

You see, we live in a world, a society, that is very good at foisting blame and guilt and shame on the individual. And sometimes the individual is at fault, but not always, you see.

As a giant, I sometimes make the fools tremble without knowing. Perhaps they are afraid of being crushed underfoot. Perhaps they are jealous they are not giants themselves. Perhaps their minds overflow with hatred.

Should I really care why a fool is a fool? It is incumbent upon me to diagnose their woes? Should not a fool take responsibility for her own self and solve her own problems?

If you are wondering why I use “her” instead of “his/her” or some other epicene phraseology, there is a good reason for that, but I’ll get to that later.

Where does my own responsibilities lie? Good question. Simple answer. My responsibilities lie in recognizing the fool for what she is, and for handling any damage the fool has caused, and for ensuring that I don’t become a fool myself.

That is to say, I can’t allow the farm to be lost because fools exist. Fools exist for sure, and fools will always be with us. Like the dust in the air, like the dirt in the sea, like the falling leaves, fools will always be. But the farm, the farm must be guarded at all costs. The farm must not be allowed to slip away to oblivion, to be raided, to be destroyed by pests, to grow with weeds due to despair. No. The farm must be guarded at all costs.

Let me explain my allegorical language above.

“The Farm” represents the body of my life’s accomplishments and the future “crop” they will yield. It is simple enough. The farm represents my life’s work and what great rewards that it may reap in the future.

The activity of fools always threaten that farm. Either directly thorough avarice, or indirectly through attrition. I must stand against the activity of fools, stand firm, stand guard. For my greatness lies in the farm. If I loose the farm, I have lost everything.

Lo, and I look upon the waters that extend to the horizon. The sunrise from the line shimmering the sky in intense hues of gold and blue amidst the cirrus clouds, assent to the apex to give warmth and light to the world. The gulls fly, the sand squeaks, the trees rustle in the oceanic morning breeze blowing in from afar, from thermals borne out of the rays of the sun.

For I am the sun to rise, to offer the world something terribly great and wonderful, that it might give life and enrich many. Including the fools that seek to make me stumble. They shall now flee in terror not due to me, but due to their own shortcomings. For, as I bear no responsibility for their attacks against me, neither shall I bear any responsibility for their own self-induced undoing. Like the leaves that fall to the earth and turn brown and crumble, so shall be the fools that would dare to cross paths with giants!

And now for why I use “her” and “she” when referring to fools.

You see, most of the fools in my life, in one capacity or another, who have crossed my path in their attempts to make me stumble, all tended to be female. This is simply an observation, not a plea for misogyny. I do not know why. Surely, there are equal numbers of fools in both sexes, but for some reason the ones who have tried to trip me up have been largely female. I have no explanation; only observations. Even when the fool is male, usually there was a female fool in the works that initiated the trouble. And oh yes, there are some males involved as well. Oh yes.

Can I stop a fool from being a fool? I don’t think so. But I can and will stand firm against a fool and prevent her from ripping everything away and from turning the farm into a desert.

I’m not feeling particulaly well right now, because I made a major snafu that may have cost me the future. It’s one of those minor things that snowballs into major consequences. But I will learn from this consequence and do better in the future.

Oh, and now I know how it feels to be abjectly stupid. Oh, how the great Fred has fallen.

Hello, world!

Had a bit of a nasty dream this morning, and now I lie awake. Silly, I know, except not. Some good things have transpired in my divorce proceedings, and yet I can’t help but feel a sense of frustration. Perhaps it’s the slow pace of the law — I wish it were over already. Lawyers are getting fat and happy — they are the only winners in a divorce.

But, I’ve been through much worse and have emerged victorious, and this too shall pass. Just got to hang in there for a bit longer and all will be OK.

Don’t know what my “profound thought for the day” will be yet — I usually have one every morning, but this morning started way too early. I really should go back to sleep but, I AWAKE. Yep, you get it.

As far as the politics and horrors that are going on in the world, I have more or less tuned out on them. Hearing more about how the apes are apes has no appeal to me whatsoever. It’s all rather pointless after a a fashion. Same crud, different mud. You know what I mean. The teachings of Transcendental Sets have told me to not worry over such things, and so I won’t. Human-nodes will be human-nodes.

If you are still reading this, now you must be scratching your head going, “what???!” Don’t worry, I will explain all at some future date. You see, I have learned a great and terrible secret about the universe. And you want to know what that secret is?

My god, it’s full of Transcendental Sets!

Now do you understand?

I’m at the MySQL Camp today, and we’re discussing a lot of really interesting and cool things regarding MySQL.

Finally got this back up and running! It’s been a while, but here I am! More later….

Rochelle tried to claim “fault” in the divorce on the basis of “adultery”, which is a wash for two reasons:

1. She agreed with me for a polyamourous relationship
2. She has had an affair herself.

Last year I caught this rare moment at Borders on video!

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I posted this on SlashDot.com today.

Anyone who have read The China Study would know, based on this study, that the biggest factor in our health is diet. According to Campbell, author of this book, a whole plant based diet is the most healthy ever. Animal protein is bad news and one should not consume more than 21 grams of it a day. You are better off not eating it at all.

The processed foods that many of us eat appears to be the culprit for many of our current ills, including obesity and diabetes. And overloading our bodies with too much protein is simply doing all kinds of damage in the long run. We simply do not need that much protein, and we get an adequate amount of it from plant-based foods.

Dairy is bad news as well, and should be avoided.

As a father of a vegetarian household, where we’ve been vegetarian for over 12 years, I must say my kids are healthy as oxes. And it just amazes me how misinformed most people are about diet and nutrition. One of my daughters keeps getting weird questions like, “so where do you get your protein?” Well, duh, every living thing has protein in it!!!!!

All I can say is read the book. This is not a fad book, but a serious scientific study. It does touch on the politics of meat as well, and I happen to agree with some of Campbell’s conclusions. But seriously folks! The science is hard to deny.

Well, folks, I strongly suggest you read The China Study.

Am I nuts? Maybe. But I think I’ve come up with a true Explanation for Everything. Well, maybe not an “explanation” per-se, but a description. Something that would explain the Universe and everything in it, in mathematical terms. The name for it is “Transcendental Sets”, though I may eventually call it “Hypercells”. But here I will refer to it both ways, interchangeably.

Transcendental Sets is a “new” mathematical system I am creating. It hopes to be able do describe Emergence in a general way that has not, to the best of my knowledge, been done before. It encompasses the entire system from the elemental constituents up to the macro levels of ontology.

Let me explain before you decide I am a complete crank!

Consider, if you will, quarks. Quarks interact by exchanging gluons. 3 quarks comprise baryons, and 2 quarks comprise mesons. The grouping of quarks into baryons or mesons is what I refer to as a “hypercell” — which is a type of set in which its constituents interact in some way. Here, the quarks constantly exchange gluons amongst themselves.

Now, the next level of organization — for baryons, at least — is organization into nuclei of atoms as is the case for the neutrons and protons. These bayons do interact via the “strong nuclear force” (really just the quarks and gluons interacting). But clearly the nucleus is a different thing from quarks and from the baryons — nucleons — that constitute them. Thus, the nucleus represents a new order hypercell.

Now, the nucleus forms a hypercell with electrons to make an atom. Thusly, the atom is a hypercell. It is distinct from the electrons and the nucleus that comprises it. It has emergent properties of its own that its constituents does not possess apart.

So, now we have this ascending levels of order — quarks –> nucleons –> nucleus –> atom. Each level represents something distinctly different with emergent properties the parts do not possess alone. Also note that a level of order depends, in part at least, on the emergent properties of the levels beneath it. That is to say, emergence of one level sets the stage for emergence to take place on the higher levels.

And so, let’s continue. Atoms interact to form molecules. The details of those interactions has to do with the way the electrons, bound to the nucleus as a part of the atom hypercell, now has new emergent properties that allows them to interact with other atoms in such a fashion to form what is called “chemical bonds”. The chemical bonds are an emergent phenomenon of atoms — something electrons would not do on their own, and neither would the nuclei. And so now we have molecules — hypercells of a new order.

Needless to say we can continue. molecules can themselves group together to form higher levels of order, as do the amino acids group together to form polypeptide chains. Or the sub-units of DNA group together to form DNA. Polypeptide chains fold in ways that give them unique properties that we call proteins or enzymes. Groupings of these units form organelles. Organelle groupings form the biological cell. Biological cells form organs, and organs form organisms. For the human organism, humans group together to form families and clans/societies, and societies group together to form countries. Atoms and molecules organize in many other ways besides the biological path, such as forming planets and stars, and planets and stars form planetary/star systems, and those group together to form galaxies. Galaxies form galactic clusters, and those, of course, form the whole of the Universe.

And to trace this chain or order, we have quarks –> nucleons –> nucleus –> atoms –> molecules –> molecular chains –> organelles –> biological cells –> tissues –> organs –> organisms –> families –> societies –> countries. Or a different branch: molecules –> planets and stars –> stellar systems –> galaxies –> galactic clusters –> universe. (This is not perfect nor complete, of course, because stars are too hot for individual molecules to make much of a difference, for example. Also, there were many levels left out when we went from molecules to planets.)

At each new level of order, you have new hypercells or transcendental sets forming. The formations are dependent on emergent properties of the levels beneath, yet in most cases the emergence is “unexpected” — one would not be able to directly predict or infer the emergence from the basis of the properties of the lower levels.

More to come later…

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I have much to say, and will eventually get around to saying it. For now, kick your feet back, relax, and enjoy the quietude!