fractalnavel

i may not like the company much, but this ad really hits the spot for some reason:

"do-do-do do do-do do-do-do doo-do ..."

;-)

it's been long gone from this neighborhood, even though there the nearby slopes are still open.  i just haven't been too enthused about ambient cold rain [sorry, jon!].  in fact, here we are, nearing the end of february, which spells spring in this part of the world, and i've done nothing.

so, although delayed a month or so from the usual schedule, i'll be on my way to my sister's annual shanty creek get away tomorrow.  we'll be in a different part of the resort too.  i'll try and reserve judgement, enjoy the trip for what it is, but it will be hard not to compare with all the prior years.  consider it an experiment, i guess.  if it fails, we will have learned something that we couldn't have claimed knowledge of before.

my other sister was wanting a house sitter / mayhem minder out in maryland as she and hubbie head for a rare weekend get away of their own the following week.  i've procrastinated on that, don't know why.  mostly guilt over the lack of doing anything about the lack of employment ;-)  we shall see.

i guess i should be getting to that practical pre-trip stuff...

an interesting viewpoint:

Remarks to the Commonwealth Club

by Michael Crichton
San Francisco
September 15, 2003



I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.

We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we're told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our perceptions are genuine, and which are false because they are handed down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears.

As an example of this challenge, I want to talk today about environmentalism. ... [more...]

good thoughts.  but i kinda disagree about his conclusion about the need for science.  do what we will, the universe will ultimately persist.  it's immaterial whether that persistent state is “favorable” to humans or not.  this is part of the “religion” of which he speaks, yet he missed that point.

our anthropocentrism is not even truly about humanity, it's focused on mankind as we currently perceive it.  we ignore the fact that both humanity and our perceptions are constantly changing.  not that this really matters, since “humans” are not the point anyway.  there is no point.  why is that a problem ?

fact: the fractalnavel is a moving target.