El oceano existencial

Si las personas en realidad navegamos el oceano existencial buscando propósito y
comprehensión. Igual lo hacemos en navíos construidos de nuestras experiencias y
creencias acumuladas durante nuestras vidas. Nos compartimos planos para
embarcaciones gigantes o veleritos ágiles y quizás alguien habrá diseñado algún
submarino espiritual.

Quizás alguíen en algún momento decidió que existimos para procrearnos, el mismo
habrá construido un baco poligamista donde la tribú debe cuidar los niños en
conjunto. Para ellos la infertilidad habrá sido el peor posible fracaso. En
cambio, los 10 mandamientos de Moises restringen el cambio de curso y es un barco
dirigido hacia un destino prescrito por alguna deidad idílica; algún tipo de proa
construida en función de los materiales disponibles y el espíritu que habrá
regido en esa época.

De esa manera entiendo que aquellas construcciones donde la razón no es la pura
substancia del navío que toma forma sobre la autocrítica y la experimentación
contra la realidad del oceano son por construcción ineficientes. El catolicismo,
el Tao y el islám no pueden jamás justificarse intentando evitar el naufrago con
sus parchos de lógica y directivas en conflicto, no sólo entre sí, sino también
con la realidad que navegan, inconscientes de la resistencia que les presenta en
su viaje.

Hurdling Towards The Morrow

The Sun is setting on our backs as we race into the night which swoops like a tidal wave of darkness upon us. At break neck speed, we stumble and fall, chills and unknown shapes streak by as we enter this cold unwelcoming sea calling for head and caution lest we stray,  we pray to see the next day.

In this new night which now engrosses us, we must choose between abandoning our brothers to a base existence, or carry them with us, under the wings of our knowing, as we brave the night of this upcoming social change, where our degrees of interconnectedness span the billions and our bodies and minds are challenged by machines for our ability to contributions through work or labor.

Entitlement vs. autonomy; sloth vs. greed.

As we will soon be swallowed in the dark woods of our own achievements and ambitions, I can still catch the glimmering dawn to which we will rise. Then, we shall find ourselves emancipated from the drudgeries of the mundane; having won ourselves the freedom from laboring for our survival.

La Herida

Al parecer, y como podrán leer, he vuelto a quedar fascinado con el "Espiritú del Vino"...

Siempre he preferido
Un beso prolongado
Aunque sepa que miente
Aunque sepa que es falso

¿Qué demonios ocurre
Cuando miradas no se encuentran?
La pelea de gallos
Se admiten apuestas

¿Quién buscó abrigo
En algún otro lugar?
¿Es posible que el frío
Venga con la edad?

Con cuanta emosión estan cargadas las canciones de este albúm.
Con que versatilidad este artista (Búnbury) niega el altruismo del amor!

Que difícil es ser altruista al amar! Que difícil alcanzar una genuina entrega...

Y te oigo decir:
"Dame tantas rosas como espinas me clavé
no encajo bien tus bromas
¿Por qué serás tan cruel?

Dame tantas rosas como esminas me clavé
Tan fácilmente explotas
¿Qué infierno te posee?"

Nuestros Nombres

Con un grito de esperanza
    te digo adiós.

Anoche soñé que me podría pelar en la Isla sin mucho percance, porque al dormirme, me transportaba allá, solo costaba encontrar la barbería abierta a esas horas; y eso, que a penas tengo 2 semanas fuera.

PD: Una persona extremadamente atenta encontraría contradictorio la canción con lo escrito; pero realmente todo dependerá de quien se despide el cantante! Todos renunciamos a lo no electo! A no renovar los acuerdos ya vencidos, incluso a pesar de encontrar nuestras emociones asediadas. No ignoramos nuestros excesos...

Math and science don't mix?! Really???

I've just read: Maybe the math behind string theory is overrated anyways by John Timmer over at Ars Tecnica, and I am very dissapointed Ars actually let such nonsense through...

It seems the panel as well was just as missguided; I am rather saddened some scientists may actually think such things... I would have assumed scientists, above other profesionals, would appriciate the role of mathematics in human expression, much less insinuate abandoning it as a form of expressing scietific thought.

• Gödel's theorem would suggest: Mathematics is not God.
• Moreover, complexity theory would suggest: Science is not reality.

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So, yes, it seems Mathematics will always be incomplete, and yet, it's own requirement for consistency has led to this very same proof. Science, as well, will never know if any given interpretation is indeed 'reality', but it's very ability to predict / simulate reality is the reason we have come to this realization. I cannot fathom how thinking minds would consider these notions as failures!

Sometimes, we expect too much from this world, which, by the ways seams to seriously prefer consistency over completeness. Given the following examples:

• all knowing parents.
• genies and other wish granters.
• gods
• re-birth, or re-incarnation
• an eternal universe
• perpetual motion machines, or free energy
• winning the lottery
• the tooth fairy, leprecauns and other such beasts

etc. What I see in mathematics and science through these 2 ideas is quite the opposite of failure; it is a sense of purity, self-healing and garuantees of reliability.

This is not to the exclusion of our ability to dream. Quite the contrary, to me, mathematics and science belong at the summit of the human dream; they are our dreams brought to life and tested againt life itself. As we continue to dream, our thoughts in mathematics and science will continue to grow and allow us a truely wider window into this wonder that is existence.

String theorists have never enjoyed Occam's razor, but this is rediculous...

Individualidad.

Ayer conversando con un amigo concluimos que mi definición de vida es sinónima a la ley del mínimo esfuerzo que obedece todo sistema mecánico en física...

Comentó que era un tanto antigua y griega esa definición, porque implicaría que los objetos inanimados tienen vida, yo le dije que sí, que el universo entero esta vivo; me sostengo a esa definición por la facilidad con la cual se llegan a concluisones sobre el como hay vida, y engloba el desarrollo de la misma a partir del big bang.

Más aún sostiene que nociones como la auto-organización, la auto-jerarquización y la emergencia de nuevas entidades (o sistemas si se habla con base en la ciencia de las situaciones caóticas o complejas) es una facultad intrinseca del concepto Vida, que la individualidad es solo una peculiaridad notable en cada peldaño de la jeraquía y que todos trabajamos para una meta común: mantener la vida.

La semana pasada publiqué en inglés que es muy probable que esta meta sea inalcanzable, y dije: aún sea cierto y no se lograra, hay algo de magía en intentarlo, hay disfrute en contemplar la realidad, en la sorpresa de haber vivido.

Todo esto es porque la vida a encontrado utilidad en las emociones, de la misma manera que ha encontrado utilidad en el capitalismo, de la misma manera que ha encontrado utilidad en la vida biológica (encimas), ad infinitum.

Heart Broken

I remember telling someone, on her porch one afternoon: "That's because you have never really had your heart broken, and I will do my best so it never is."

Although I consider the promise was kept, it's easy to falter and maybe believe an impeccable heart to be an unwanted gift. There is a story of an old man whose' wounded, grieving heart he would not trade for that of a boy. A beautifully intact heart which was so naively boasted through the town; the story ends with the boy giving the old man a piece of the suddenly incomplete organ, and is an analogy of giving one's self in love.

In that boys eyes, and specially in these times, Love is a sentiment too often confused with desire, and self-adorement (narcissism), so the phrase: 'you must loose something to understand its real worth' urges one to believe a heart must be broken / given before one can understand its value, yet I believe in empathy. Time has bestowed upon life an infinitely powerful tool of comprehension, of understanding reality not only though our own eyes, but from those around us, of allowing us to share the responsibility of a better world.

It could be argued, that empathy is the root emotion behind the search for Justice (in another post, I quote a French philosopher who state Justice is an invention of man, and as such a responsibility of man unto himself.) So, if Love is a sentiment to be put to good use it must be born though Empathy, Comprehension, Dedication, Patience and Understanding, it must be a sentiment of Sharing, of reciprocal Trust and Cooperative Growth.

I recently heard a song: "What is love without lust" (La Roux - In For The Kill) and its something little short of coming from the black bible and a willingness to over-weigh self-adulation, self-fulfillment above all other things.

In that sense, and living through heart-breaks myself, there will always be choices in life. Choosing to be heart broken, is just as selfish as choosing lust. Evolution has seen to it so that our empathy, and sense of justice, prohibit us from attaining happiness if not through what we have identified as the virtues of life.

Some references:

• LifeScience - Study: People Literally Feel Pain of Others
• Roots of Empathy
• BBC News - Monkeys show sense of justice
• Shareable - Birds do It. Bats do It.
• Love of All Wisdom - Can justice make you happy?
• Suite101 - The Psychopath Antisocial
• Wikipedia - Psycopathy

The Venus Project

Watch live video from Zeitgeist-TV on Justin.tv

It took me a long time to view the Zeitgeist videos, the first one, is a sensationalist exposition of the obvious to me; the second video is rather a critique on the current money system that presents Jacque Fresco and the Venus Project. I find myself agreeing deeply with him, on several fronts, and his ideas far more radical than my own. I'm not sure a 'resource economy' is anywhere close to being achievable. I might believe, we will someday get there, or something very similar to that position, but I see only one serious flaw in his ideas: he gives too much credit to man's intelligence, and seems overly optimistic on man's necesity to advance.

I unfortunately believe that most men, like most other animals, are short sighted brutes who will work for food. This is normal, natural and not meant to be demeaning to our species. This applies to both those who are working for their food, and the elite who does not have to. They are both, as human, too short sighted to understand and care enough for these views. I believe we first need to make every human, at least as smart as him.

Role model

Mom: You came in very drunk last night!
Son: I'm sorry, my friend just split up and we went for drinks, he said he wanted to forget
Mom: Thats no excuse, do you think your brother went to drink when he was left? He went out running. Thats how he handled it.
Brother: When I woke up at 4 or 5 am, with chills and hypertension, I just went running... it worked...
Mom: There is no excuse to come in drunk!

Mugged

So I was mugged last thursday... The damnedest thing, some kids tried to take my wallet

Definition - Balance

Balance: Of equality, or equilibrium between two contrary entities or forces.

Balance is a special case of equilibrium, which is a word used to describe more objects. Most people seek balance or equilibrium amongst the competing interests of their lives; it is regarded as the search for a state of inner peace and complete belonging.

Usually, people seem to feel they are under constant pressure away from balance, that their work/lives are regularly summited to events, accidents, duties that require them to stray from the center of certain personal balancing acts, this particular issue draws a physical analogy:
All, dynamic system, juggles and quickly strays from equilibrium. Although thermodynamics, states equilibrium is eventually inevitable, this juggling between inclinations is what permits actual work within the system.
So, actually, what moves individuals, societies, and life in general is the assurance or ability to do work between a useless chaos and a useless equilibrium.

With all this said; I would add it as an argument as to why the world has not flocked to be Tibetan Monks of harmony and equilibrium. Progress does not lie in pure chaos, nor in full equilibrium. It is found in optimizing our efficiency; because of this, we must never stop trying to obtain balance; and yet, obtaining it would be to our disadvantage.

Definition - Maturity

I'm planning on starting a series of posts in which I'll simply write my personal definition for some words.. followed by some sort of quip.

Maybe this will be fun, lighthearted and profound?.. :D Any words requests you might have, or want to know what thoughts they trigger for me?

First experimental word:

Maturity: A complex landscape of peaks and valleys over the surface of social interaction. Said landscape is a function of net utility rendered to self and society over the area of all possible interaction scenarios.

Personality, foresight and past experience in general allow us to maximize said utility. The perceived mean height of this graph is more commonly used to call a person either mature or immature.

How is maturity related to play?!

Why are we more dishonest now?

Why are we more dishonest in the twentieth century, than the nineteenth?



Because we have oversimplified man's social behavior. Economist's models of the human mind, and the trickling of said model to the rest of our interactions have led to 'incentive systems' that override an older finer grained set of social cooperative regulators that have been genetically embedded in most of us.



This means that: 'Man as a rational beast will cheat or steal in so far as it is worth the risk'. Now thinks our elite, now think all of us. This simplification has been useful in laying a foundation for more elaborate treatise, theory and social-economic policies; but fortunately for us, the flaws are readily visible and as we continue to perfect our theories, these views are changing.



Behavioral economics, led by people like Dan Ariely (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X68dm92HVI&feature=sdig&et=1243083222.49, http://web.mit.edu/ariely/www/MIT/Papers/dishonesty.pdf) are working on fixing this, by bringing more accurate psychological models of human behavior into economic predictions and economic policy making.



So: books like Freakanomics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics), as popular as they may be, still miss a very important point: It's not just about money!!!!

Sobre la muerte de Mario Benedetti

"La humanidad ha perdido alguien increíble"

Eso me parece estar al revés! El egoísmo detrás de eso. De querer sacarle más! De que quizás no lo hallamos aprovechado, de que en la humanidad hubo un talento, que nos pasó desapercibido, y ahora estamos arrepentidos de que no lo hallamos aprovechado!

Sabemos que la entropia siempre aumenta, y que las cosas mueren. Los insectos en dias, las personas en años, las familias en siglos, las civilizaciones en milenios, los planetas y las estrellas en un poco más.

Todo muere; hasta que resolvamos el famoso problema de la entropia, hasta el universo en sí esta condenado a fallecer. A mi entender: sucede que este mismo aspecto de la realidad (la segunda ley) nos provee con una dirección en el tiempo, una flecha constante que en esta realidad separa tan firmemente el futuro del pasado; la vida de la muerte.

Nos empuja a cambiar, a avanzar nuestras vidas; a sentir la firmeza de lo afianzado, de lo ya realizado. De lo que fue escrito; de nuestra historia, que me lleva a opinar que la muerte es tanto una bendición como la maldición que nuestro egoísmo e instintos nos sugieren.

Por eso quizás veo la muerte como un sello; a partir de este evento, todas las influencias del ente en cuestión son indirectas; y el ente a firmado todos sus hechos en el tapiz de la existencia.

Decir que se ha perdido algo cuando esta firma se establece me suena tan tonto, es un menosprecio de todo lo que SI hizo frente lo que hubiera quizás podido hacer a continuación o no.

Siempre debemos enfocar lo que SI fuera realizado y gozar de la continuación de esos hecho en el desencadenamiento de las mismas.

Que maravilla la existencia de Benedetti!
Sent via BlackBerry® device.

Karma, Revenge & Justice

Twice in the last few months I've heard someone ease the precarity of their situation by stating: "that's karma", as if they had just atoned for previous misdeeds with an unfortunate set of events in their present circumstance.

That's something I can readily understand, but subtly conceals issues similar to those of revenge. It is highly doubtful one individual can gauge the negative impact of an action, especially under emotional distress; while revenge is most assuredly a heated over-reaction, karma is an emotionally charged rationalization; a passive self-excusing correlation between unrelated accidents.

If revenge is justice for none, than karma is justice for one (the karma calculator)... a catch phrase of sorts, yes, but it at also points to the possible non-universality, not just non-objectivity, of justice.

Can justice be individually achieved?
What is justice?
What are your definitions?

From the human brain to selfishness

Cognitive Daily (http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2009/04/children_versus_apes_whos_bett.php) comenta sobre un estudio entre monos y niños de diferentes edades y su capacidad de predecir / interpretar el movimiento de objetos no visibles ...

Básicamente es la idea del famoso juego de 'peek-a-boo'... Los monos adultos se quedan por debajo del nivel de un niño de 3 años en esta tarea...

Es divertido confirmar la elasticidad y el avance de la construcción del cerebro humano, nuestra capacidad predictiva, asociativa y por ende de razocinio!

El como fuimos adquiriendo esta capacidad, y hacia donde vamos con ella, son dos temas separados; sobre los que no comentaré aquí. :)

Me iré por una tangente, y hablare sobre el egoísmo o altruismo de nuestras acciones...

Un amigo afirma que no existe acción humana que no es realizada fuera del egoísmo y argumenta con puntos basados en ideas similares a lo confirmado en el artículo anterior para asignarle la búsqueda de beneficios ocultos a actos que de otra manera parecieran altruistas.

El afirma que la motivación es siempre básica y que solo a veces la manera en que se puede encontrar el beneficio obtenido final es lo que se complica.

En fin, el no cree que exista realmente una distinción entre el egoísmo y el altruismo; según él, las acciones son siempre hacia un beneficio personal, ya sea directa o indirectamente.

Yo encuentro un solo error en todo el argumento: la afirmación 'la motivación es siempre básica' no esta sustentada en ninguna otra parte del argumento y es esencial para su conclusión. El comienza con lo que quiere demostrar; lo cual es un problema.

A ver, como nuestro don de la razón nos permite tomar decisiones altruistas? Que opinan? Y que tiene que ver la humildad con el altruismo?
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Paul Sereno: What can fossils teach us?

Self-perception is key! Wow... and you see this all throughout human interaction! You can only be as good as you see yourself to be!
If you have low self-esteem, or you feel lacking in some respects, whether or not you can actually do something because irrelevant, you started yourself out with a handicap.

You have to SEE yourself as such! If you can't, if you don't want to see yourself that way or if you don't believe in yourself: You won't!

I would publicly confess, I've tried to teach that to a couple of people I've known... But, I guess it can be very hard sometimes.... Living is such a fun challenge.

Happiness depends on Freedom

A friend commented on a discussion she had with another friend whether or not freedom was a precondition towards happiness.

She commented on some points of the debate, and we then proceeded to have two other debates on the same subject, in which many opinions from different were presented.

Curiously enough, we all agreed that yes, it seems freedom is indeed required for happiness, at least the our species.

I'll sum up my own opinion, feel free to comment:

1. The human species, through evolutionary accident, developed an innate curiosity and 'un-satisfaction' that requires us to take action.
2. Freedom is the ability to successfully satisfy this "instinct"
3. The level to which we must explore, move about or act in order to satisfy "freedom" is genetically variable between humans, as well as there is evidence that it is physically extirpable, as seen with certain brain traumas
4. And, although the very same brain is moldable or educatable with societal requirements and actions are indeed individually interpreted though culture, the inability to satisfy the underlying physical instinct to explore does cause anxiety, and eventually unhappiness

Privacy....

This is why I think privacy can be reduced in society; it's just a few people who actually benefit from having something to hide... Privacy is anti-social... :p well, in the general sense, i.e. I don't confuse general privacy with intimacy... they are separate.

Dan Gilbert: Exploring the frontiers of happiness

He starts off a little misguided (in my opinion, and as a later commenter points out), but then gets to very important core principals... Foresight its a doosy, ain't it?! :P