Monday, June 29, 2009

In this house called the universe...

 facts are the leaks in the roof and scientific hypothesis are pots that capture the water.  Often when those hypotheses pots overflow, people come and get bigger and better pots.  In some rare cases, a larger pot is exchanged for a smaller pot even before the water has overflown (i.e as in when Einstein comes up with relativity decades before evidence verifies it).  At its worst, religion consists of pots that are overflowing with water, at its best, religion constructs pots where there is no leak.  In other words, religion often makes scientific claims (about the origin of the universe, origin of life, miracles) that given our understanding of the world are unlikely to be true.  To the extent that religion makes claims that are by definition unverifiable (there is an abstract, consciousness that exists beyond our comprehension) they are placing pots where there are no leaks.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Synchronicity

Coincidentally, I'm going to an MJ tribute concert tomorrow in DC, crazyness.

RIP Michael Jackson

You were very messed up, a victim and a perpetrator, but nothing can
ever mar your unbelievably good music.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Isn't Girl talk (the music group) ...

a musical omen? People used to sit down and listen to entire albums straight through. Then people made mix tapes of a related group of 10 songs. Then they had playlists of hundreds of songs on computers. You can probably shuffle through your ipod right now between beethoven, the beatles and notorious BIG. Girl talk takes advantage of our narrowing attention span by mashing 100s of songs into an album in brilliant ways. Will the soundtrack of our future lives be mood sensitive, so based on the galvanic skin response a different tune will pop into the speakers installed into our ears?

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Deja Vu

I was surprised that in a conversation on Deja Vu, 3 different perceptions came out.  One person felt it reflected real past memories to some extent, one person felt it repeats some vision of the future he had experienced vividly in a past dream or thought.  He believes this to such an extent that he claims he can make predictions of the future when deja vu hits him.  I have the consensus view that deja vu reflects the perception of a repeat event, but in reality, that past event did not occur.  
  - The FIRST version is a morphed version of the original concept; as in, someone says "looks like somebody's got a case of the mondays ," and you say "deja vu, you said that last week."  So it's an event that is actually repeated, but I don't think this is deja vu in the original meaning of the word.  
  - The SECOND person reflects a delusional understanding of deja vu, but probably one that many people share.  
  - The THIRD one is the standard interpretation that wikipedia  would provide.