It’s strange how some things tend to confirm themselves.
It seems I have this predilection for some Nordic music groups and strange, emotional, experimental music.
Stop watching mindless soaps and stupid sitcoms and head over TED.com or the TED channel on youtube.
TED organises regular conferences with speakers from all walks of life, from musicians to scientists, politicians to philosophers.
They each have 20 minutes to express their ideas on the topics they hold dear and man! do they deliver!
Homosexuality may have a strong biological component.
The small amount of research done in the past 15 years suggests that there is a possibility that our genes be somewhat responsible for our sexual orientation.
That’s of course both a good and a bad thing.
Fun and short poll that can be found here.
Here is the result for me.
Debating is a very Anglo-Saxon thing: everything seems subject to debating, schools and universities even have debate clubs.
Being able to present your argument and win your case over your opponent is certainly an admirable skill that anyone should be encouraged to hone.
It’s the foundation of persuasion, of being able to rally people to your cause.
Debating is also at the very core of the justice system, with each side arguing passionately -and equally- about its case.
A few days ago I read an article on the increasing support for the death penalty in cases dealing with child rape.
No-one is going to feel sorry for the people who commit these atrocious crimes, but something makes me feel really uncomfortable about calling for the death penalty: I think it’s wrong to seek it in these cases.
I was listening to the conversation between two people at the office a while back: the lady was explaining how good she felt after a session at a crystal healer she goes to while the other was politely listening to her.
She went on explaining that she bought a few crystals that she displayed, and how powerful some can be, for instance how putting one in a bottle will really purify the water in it, blah blah blah…
If there is something that we should remember to always ask when faced with far fetched theories it that’s simple “what does it mean?”.
You would think that people who train in them would have a particular appreciation for the hard, brutal, facts of reality but it’s not always the case.
Lots of made-up beliefs permeate martial arts and try to emphasise the “drawing of energy” from places where it can’t exist.You would think that people who train in them would have a particular appreciation for the hard, brutal, facts of reality but it’s not always the case.
Lots of made-up beliefs permeate martial arts and try to emphasise the “drawing of energy” from places where it can’t exist.
I tend to over-think things. Not always to try to be clever, mind you, it’s just something I can’t help doing. Some part of me needs reassurance in knowing the reasons behind anything that happens.
It seems that I can’t really understand or make sense of anything if I don’t have a context for it, a sense of where it’s coming from.
This was something that troubled me for a while: why people’s first-hand experiences are so often put aside, especially in science, as not sufficient to prove something?
In other words, why shouldn’t anecdotes be taken as evidence?
I am a bright.
Yes, I wrote that right.
Bright is normally used as an adjective, and if I was saying I’m bright that would seem very immodest.
Being a bright is different though. It simply means that I recognize myself as being free of belief in the upernatural, that I’m a free thinker and I don’t need any form of supernaturalism (read gods, spirits, afterlife) to give meaning to my life.
The Internet is a wonderful thing. In the past few years audio broadcasting -of podcasting, even though Apple is trying to control use of the word- has taken off and offers everyone the means to make their own radio programme.
Even though I’ve always been interested in Science and Technology, had fairly good grades at school and took an engineering degree, I only finally understood what science was really about about five years ago.
I’ve heard the argument many times that people’s beliefs are all valid and should be respected.
That seriously annoys me now. I find that righteous goody two-shoes belief to be nauseating in its lack of criticality and blanket acceptance of “everything is the same” as a fair position to hold, making you think that you’re a bigger person for being so tolerant.
Radiohead songs are like clouds: they can drastically change your mood depending on what kind they are and everybody can see in them what they want.
Like clouds, there are forces within that we don’t suspect but sometimes can see a glimpse of: the formidable energy contained within can be an awe inspiring experience when we get confronted to it.
So the much anticipated (at least for the Radiohead fandom) solo album of Tom Yorke has been leaked recently and is available all over the torrent sites. It was due to be out on 10and 11 July instead and in a way it’s a shame that it got leaked, but I couldn’t pass the opportunity to try it and I broke my personal rule of never downloading music…
I’m a bit annoyed whenever I hear someone declaring that you can’t be moral without religion.
The mere fact that everyone on the globe as some basic sense of morality, regardless of her religious background should be proof to the contrary.
So, no particular religion can pretend to be the sole guide to morality.
Religion may offer individuals some measure of consolation and comfort when confronted to events that are beyond our control or sense of fairness, but in no way does it contributes to explaning or understanding the world we are confronted to, nor does it teaches us how to act and behave responsibly.
It is a desilusion to believe that religion has any real answer whatsoever to our misfortunes and that it can bring us any real solace.
I am the happy master (I don’t know if that is the right word though) of 2 males cats of mixed breeds.
I’m quite fortunate in a sense: I got them already potty trained, well behaved and nutered, so I did not have a choice as to their education and, worse to me, to decide whether or not I should have them sterilized.
Of course, I miss not having had them younger, but you can’t always choose.
The death penalty is institutionalised vengeance. Vengeance is not the aim of Justice. Justice is sought to avoid vengeance.In the eyes of a victim or his or her family and friends, no punishment is strong enough.
They want and may deserve that vengeance, but the role of Justice is to remove the burden of retribution from those who are hurt and to ensure above all that the right culprit gets a punishment in relation with the crime committed.
I resent the belief that free market alone should dictate welfare.
If a cure for a disease isn’t seen a profitable, it isn’t investigated by drug companies.
Governments -all of us- have been hiding our responsibilities behind the belief that free market forces balance our various conflicting interests into a just and fair equilibrium.
Below are some thoughts that occurred to me while thinking about what was wrong with dream interpretation.
I always thought it was funny and interesting to try to unravel dreams and explain their role and significance, but I can’t help thinking that the process of analysing dreams does not stand on very solid grounds and is more of a variation of apophenia.
Whether God exists or not is irrelevant. The only important factor is what we do in his name.
People choose to believe or not to believe. The answer to the question of God’s existence is a personal one. It must be a personal one.
In any case, if God exists, it’s not in the way we conceive the notion of existence as a physical entity, made of matter and energy, atoms and forces.
The natural laws of physics, biology and chemistry give us the answers we need to understand the world we live in. Granted, we know little and there is still much mystery out there but we are too quick to explain that mystery by invoking mysticism and inventing pseudo-explanations that rely on beliefs rather than facts.
In today’s Information age, the battle by some goevernment to control content over radio, television and the most potent medium of all, the Internet, is a losing battle.
As the technical means and quantity of available devices to communicate increase, the overall amount of information stored and transmitted grows exponentially over time.
