No Acting Please

My friend lent me No Acting Please by Eric Morris and Joan Hotchkis. An interesting read, so far. I think this bit of wisdom might refer to me:

Once upon a time in Japan, a young man desirous of learning the art of the Samurai consulted with the oldest and greatest master of Samurai in the world. He said, "Honorable Master, I wish to become the greatest Samurai in the world. I will study diligently. How long will it take me?" The master replied, "Ten years." The student was shocked. "No, no, Honorable Master, you don't understand. I will live, eat, sleep and breathe the Samurai. I will think of nothing else! You see, I must be great. If I live, eat, sleep and breathe the Samurai and think of nothing else, then how long will it take me?" The Master's answer was, "In that case, twenty years."

Are You Worried About the Large Hadron Collider Creating a Black Hole in the Centre of Europe and Swallowing Us All Into Singularity Style Oblivion?

Relax.

If you watched my Quantum Suicide video which I posted earlier, you'll now have complete, unbaffled understanding of the 'multi-verse' theory of quantum mechanics.

'Hey', I hear you cry, 'how am I supposed to digest my crunchy nut cornflakes in the morning, whilst containing the knowledge that at any nano-second I could squished into much less than the size of an atom (and I'm guessing that has to hurt) because some folks with nothing better to do are meddling with the very fabric of the universe, without even asking us if we minded?!'

I see you're all stressed out. You're muscles are tenses. There's a knot right there in the apex of your neck and your right shoulder. Well, let me give you an Uncertainty Principle massage.

Chill out, man - the universe will just split into two: one where there's a black hole which swallows us and everything else in the vicinity, and one where no black hole was created. Of course, we will only be aware of the non-black hole version of history.

This is why we're never going to be made extinct by a large objects from space crashing into our planet. Because we won't be aware of the universe where we all got wiped out. In fact, there must be a universe where highly evolved, brainy Tyrannosaurus Rexes are stomping around earth worrying about the possibility of impending meteor strikes.

Enjoy your immortality... while it lasts.

Is God Simple?

"Evolution is ruled by a beautifully simple and elegant idea called natural selection; those genes that cause their phenotypes to be passed on get replicated and those that don't don't. The variation in genes is caused by random mutation but the environment determines which set of random variants survives in a non-random way. That's basically it.

God is a supernatural being who lives everywhere and nowhere, who created the universe from nothing, who makes man write contradictory books, causes miracles thus defying the laws of physics, can see into our heads, has created heaven and hell, speaks to special people who pass on his message, makes sure there is absolutely no evidence of his existence and after creating man also created evidence of evolution to trick him into believing that He does not exist.

Is evolution more simple than the God idea?

Yes. I'll take the science over the fairy story any day."

A nice clear statement of disbelief in Gods I found here.

'A Confession' by Tolstoy

During a 'spiritual' debate with a friend, Tolstoy's A Confession was recommended to me. Here's the background from here:

From 1875–1878 Tolstoy experienced a period of increasing depression and psychological crisis... The inevitability of death overwhelmed him... Tolstoy found that the uneducated peasants possessed a definite conception of the meaning of a life, a comfort and security derived from "irrational knowledge," from faith in a creator God. This faith rescued them from despair and suffering and infused their life with meaning. Confronted with the choice of irrational faith or meaningless despair, Tolstoy chose faith.

How often do people turn to spiritual solace during an episode depression?

He says, reason can't lead you to meaning (and this is why the humble, uneducated peasant is in a better condition) but he uses reason to work that out.

Tolstoy's conversion, like all god/supernatural belief, is very ego-centric. ie: this is all about mankind and our plight. Specifically in this book: there must be meaning or Tolstoy feels miserable.

He talks about how he feels; and all his philosophy is about how he feels - the universe revolves around him. Remember that old idea? Remember how the destruction of the man-centred universe got up religious folks' noses?

Tolstoy spends a lot of time describing his feelings of suicide - when he didn't have faith he wanted to kill himself. As soon as he had faith, he was rejuvinated again. So his faith is all about him (It makes sense, because my dad is very ego-centric and he believes, pretty much indiscriminately).

Oh, it's painted as some kind of worthy thing. 'Look how happy the poor people are with their simple lives'. Throw away the chains of reason and just believe!

In Polar Express the kid is flawed because he wants evidence. In fact, he's just maturing. Believers never grow up. They never mature in this way. How perfect a representation of human selfishness is Santa? Some magical being here to bring us presents.

To my mind, Tolstoy is a coward, because he took the easy option. He was miserable, wanted to kill himself because he saw no meaning. And believing in some kind of god-force made him happy again. It makes sense to me that a guy heading towards old age and regressing back into his child state would look for a father figure to comfort him.

He talks about this lack of meaning without faith. Because with science we can never know everything. Because if we are to end and turn to dust, what is the point?

Well, even with faith, what is the point? Instead of turning to dust, we turn to spirit. Then what? 'you'll have to wait and see' say the believers. But hang on, that doesn't help me any more than my non-belief. I still don't have a meaning. It just puts out the horror of death; of finality.

Death - I say: death is only of concern to those witnessing it. And you will not be a witness to your own death. Therefore, your own death is not your concern.

Religion/belief in god-forces destroys life, because it looks forward to an after-life. I say create this day, create this second, create this moment (within or without time), because there's nothing else to concern you.

Why is Tolstoy so concerned about his non-existence? Ego. He can't bear the thought that his self will no longer exist. He can't bear the thought that all his great works are just a temporary pattern in a temporary universe.

Contrary to the Jesus thing: if you act unselfishly, you can live forever (if you're unselfish now, you can be selfish in the future), I 'believe' once you give up your obsession with your own existence, only then can you begin to act unselfishly.

If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.

To say I'm a philosophical person would be an understatement. But I don't normally read much philosophy. Apparently, Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein is considered one of the most important philosophical works of the 20th century.

It's amazing how ignorant we can be.

So I'm cheating by reading the wikipedia breakdown of the contents. It's a start, isn't it?

But it highlights the problem with language: it's a poetical thing. Even something as simple as 'buy five red apples' is open to an infinite amount of interpretations.

Then you have a book of rules. Rules which you are encouraged to live your life by. Yet those rules have infinite interpretations. How can they then be useful?

Rules made of words are as useful as rules made of clouds blown by the wind to the infinite corners of the Earth.

The Holy Bible/Qur'an has about as much chance of unifying human ambition as I have of emptying Lake Windermere with a tea strainer.

The claim is - we'll be living in a better world if we have everyone taking moral guidance from a work of religious literature.

The more open-minded believers will claim spiritual enlightenment is an emotion, not to be tied down by words. The words are just a connection - God's hotline to his Bat Cave. The dialogue you have with the Big Man is up to you.

Never mind the meaning, feel the love.

The problems arise when the believers try to intellectualise. That's when it becomes a Python sketch.

But infinity causes all sorts of problems to all sorts of people. A recent Horizon show told us mass becomes infinite at the centre of black holes. And you can't really work with that. The rules of physics no longer apply.

Infinity also causes problems at the quatum level. ie: the atoms which make you are in an infinite amount of places at the same time. Which means you are.

Heard of Quantum Suicide? Here's a short movie I made about it:

Jonathan Miller in 5 Minutes

Jonathan Miller does a 5 minute interview for the BBC and talks about his non-belief in higher beings. Belief in a thing called 'God' hasn't even crossed his mind, and why should it?

Quote of the Day

Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

A. Einstein