Craig's Blog

Faith

Recently Chris sent me the latest http://www.edge.org/ newsletter. It's mostly a newsletter that many scientists contribute too here and there. I recommend it for anyone interested in the current opinions and trends of today's scientific community. Anyway the newsletter posed the question “What do you have faith in but cannot prove?”. I scanned through about a 100 of the responses from scientists. Granted most of them were out to push their latest theories but some of them gave insightful answers. One psychologist claimed that it's been proven that people who have faith are more content, healthier and lead fuller lives than those that don't. That doesn't mean faith in god but faith in anything, goodness of mankind, the sun will come up tommorow, marriage, children are our future, etc. So I asked myself that same question, what do I faith in? Well I don't have faith in a higher power, I think we are physical creatures, live and die slaved to chemical reactions. Nothing “higher” sees us, cares about us or even exists. It was a hard question to answer and I still can't come up with a solid faith that I have. I've never had an urge to have faith in something, I usually get red flags when I find myself in those situations. There was a time when I had faiths but have lost them through the years. Experience usually teaches us that. The older I get the more cautious I get when it comes to believing in something. Chris uses the concept of the push-pull between chaos and stability as the driving force in a lot of self organizing systems such as life (we've named it SOC or Self Organizing Criticality). Maybe faith is something that puts us out in the chaos, exposes us to a predator. The result is personal growth when we find the fine line between faith and proof. It's a question I plan to carry around in my head for awhile. Surely there is something out there I believe in that I have no proof of and as my dad would say “letting my ass hang out there”.

Visions

Just a quick update on the book Visions by Michio Kaku. I didn't get a lot from it, most of what he discussed in upcoming science expected in the 21st century I've read about several times in the past few years. If you're an avid Nova or Discovery channel viewer, you won't get much from it. It's mostly a layman book. Well written for that audience. I was a bit disappointed with Kaku, I was hoping he'd be more like Sagan or Asimov when it comes to science literature. Lay out the facts but extend it somewhat with his own ideas.

Skiing update

Well I made it back in one piece. So I tried skiing, took an hour lesson (there were not half day or full day lessons available), tried and tried the rest of the day to get it right and finally gave up on it. The few times I did stay up and get the skis to move in the direction I wanted them to go was cool but I wasn't getting the rush that I was expecting. I don't know, I guess it was ok, not a big thrill though. Maybe I need to take more lessons next time, get better at it, more confident, I don't know. Kind of disappointing. Everyone else had a great time, even Kenzie figured it out and was on the lift in a hour. Little bugger. They really liked Powder Mountain, lots of greens and blues, good for beginner skiers. The other mountain in the area was Snow Basin, which was where most of the 2002 Olympics skiing was held and had more black runs. All in all they like Utah a lot, less crowded, better snow and much cheaper than Colorado. I turned my skis in and ventured into Salt Lake City on Sunday and toured the Mormon temples. Amazing what religion can buy. They had a visitor's center filled with paintings and dioramas of Biblical stories. They included touchscreens with 42” plasma tvs explaining them. Almost like a Disneyworld for religion. Fascinating stuff. They also had free “tour guides” available. They were 2 pretty young girls with long black wool coats on. I was asked by several of them if they could assist me in a free tour. I declined however, knowing the next thing out of their mouth was “have you accepted Jesus into your life?”.

Spam before skiing

I'm off to Utah with Annette and Kenzie to ski (my first time). Wish me luck, say a prayer to the J man for me. Here's the mountain we'll be skiing on http://www.powdermountain.com/ and the hotel http://theredmooselodge.com/ we'll be staying in. Hopefully I'll have some pics and a story or two to bring back.

Now for some spam (pulled from my favorite time waster blog - http://growabrain.typepad.com/)

What the highways would like after the apocalypse cleanses this planet: 
http://www.jersey.net/~khjc/pa-turnpike.htm

For those who are bored with life:
http://www.brokenoff.com/silver.html

Get drunk, call this phone number, sober up and listen to your ramblings. Just when I think the usefulness of the internet is finished, up pops something like this:
http://www.slackertown.com/drunk_dial.html

Reminds me of an old MTV video (I think the band was A-ha?)
http://www.themanwhofellasleep.com/invisibilia.html

How to survive the a-bomb (sounds like one of those books in Carlin's list, except it's real):
http://foody.org/atomic/atomic00.html

I've always been a propaganda admirer. It's a skill to write propaganda, not everyone can do it (or for that matter sleep at night):
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/posters2.htm
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~pv/pv/courses/posters/posters.html
http://www.poster.s.cz/listy/russ1.htm
http://www.idlewords.com/polskie_plakaty_1.htm

I'm sorry for providing this link:
http://www.compleatsteve.com/essays/apology.htm

Medical disclaimer

I'm still waiting for the next “hard on” pill commercial to say something like this just to test if we're listening --

May cause cirrhosis of the liver, inflammation of the brain, heart damage, pancreatic damage, kidney damage, spleen implosion or explosion, thyroid combustion, severe nasal hair growth, blindness, eruptia, pregnancy, infertility, fecal incontinence, impotence, loss of genitalia and/or hermaphroditism, hair loss, skin blemishes, bone deformity, throat cancer, ulcers, hangnails, bladder leakage, sores, scabs, elephantiasis, hepatitis, conjunctivitis, gingivitis, appendicitis, bronchitis, and/or athlete's foot. Your mileage may vary.