Review: Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan

Well let me say one thing, if nothing else, Robert Jordan loves the set up. Once again the pace has been a dead crawl for at least 3/4's of the book. Actually in this book its at a pretty steady but slow pace until the last 100 pages really. And this is a loooong book. However, I do like how things happen at the slow pace. Lots of great Forsaken drama going on in this one. There's more character development and chatter at the differences between men and women. There's the battle for power in Rand Al'Thor's head between him and the mad Lews Therin. And there are some other fairly interesting developments that I do not want to spoil.

But by the time you get to the oh, I don't know 800th page, you start to wonder, is this the book where no big huge thing happens at the end? Which is pretty much how all the books have been, though the first 3 had a lot more going on during the bulk of the book then the second 3. But, no disappointment once again Robert Jordan hits you with some pretty nutty occurrences. I won't go into detail, but know that crazy shit happens at the end.

So, just to talk a little about Robert Jordan's writing style, I'd like to bring up his pacing. This is one of the things that has bothered so many people who have read his books. This is the reason many people I know have never made it to the end of the series. I guess the issue is, that to call the climax of Robert Jordan's books a crescendo I think would not be correct. Instead they're more like an abrupt accelerando or tempo change. And the worst part is, by the way the books are written through the beginning, they make you think that it will go on at that pace for the rest of the series. Which is why I understand discouragement. At the same time, for me, the occurrences at the ends of the books are quite jarring. This may have been his intention, but at the same time it almost feels more like he was biding his time. Surely you don't want the important things to happen too quickly, but at the same time, you wonder why there's only one in each book. I guess I'm coming to the question "of are all the books necessary?"

Dangerous grounds surely. And it is his series not mine. Like I said, it may very well have been his intention. And I also admitted to enjoying much of the slow parts, even if some just seem like milling around. They do set up a lot of things and offer flavor and context. But the pacing manages to throw me off every damn time. Anyway, on to the next one "A Crown of Swords." We'll see how this one unfolds.

Book Review: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

This is the story of an evil curse and one man's quest to defeat it through love. This is the story of a family of Dominicans and their immigration to the US. This is the story an obese uber nerd. There's a hundred ways I could summarize this book, and they all happen simultaneously. Couple this with writing that is at times deep like poetry but always fast paced and keeping you turning the pages. The book is epic, the scope impressive, this all coming from a guy who loves multi-volume 900 page fantasy epics.

The language in the book is striking. It is told in a conversational manner but mixes in Spanish expressions (if you don't speak Spanish, you can still get the gist or even figure out what the expressions mean. Junot Diaz is a master of this). Also every page is loaded with nerd references that will make even the slightest nerd go "what! no way Jose!" The book really almost reads too fast. Once I started it, I basically wanted to spend all my time reading it. But because of the pace, it would not be hard to finish it "by accident" in one sitting. Or at least less sittings than I'd rather have. It's a joy to read.

I knew the author was good, I had read his book of short stories Drown. The best part is, the stories of Dominicans in the US and Latin American immigration are a topic that has never really appealed to me. Or at least hadn't ever before. But in Drown I was so captured by the dudes amazing writing style. He pulls you in. When I heard that he had written the novel, and what the premise was, I knew I had to read it. Who else could basically turn a real life, legitimate fucked up Latin American dictator (Trujillo), into basically Sauron. Yeah he does this, but you won't know how until you read the book.

The Finals

The time has come. The forces do clash. Their thunder will be heard around the world.


The Blackhawks and The Flyers

Old heroes be dashed and monsters be slain, the final battle is upon us. There is no tactic the to base for the Flyers and there is no force fiercer than the tribe. It will be violent and hard fought, neither yielding an inch, the only ground to be gained is that which can be taken. Any second of underestimation could turn the battle on a dime. Every move will be a strike for the jugular. They have both fought long and hard to make it to this moment. To the victor, the spoils, to the fallen, bitter loss. Tooth and nail to the bloody end. Let the worthy rise.

Blackhawks in 5.

Stanley Cup Playoffs Conference Championships

Epic battles have been waged in the east, the long drawn out slaying of heroes, and the bizarre surges of the unexpected. All who should be weary, are too late. The damage is done. The odds have been beaten again and again as though the dice thrown have inverted themselves. Those who saw a clear path have seen those paths suddenly erased. There will be a new champion this year.

Eastern Conference Championship: Montreal Canadiens and the Philadelphia Flyers

The ghosts of many winters passed have been rising from the streets of old Montreal. They can feel it. Others saw the odds stacked against them, but they saw opportunity for glory and never missed a beat. They have defeated the Giants and the Heroes as though possessed. Their opponents may be stunned, but Les Habitants are merely looking forward to the next to fall.

The Flying bandits of Philadelphia have accomplished the seeming impossible. With their numbers down, on their last desperate breath, hope all but a memory, they have clawed their way back. Many would have called them mad or dim to even think about this day and yet here they are. They know more than any that it's not over till it's over and they will claw and tear and rip and scrape and do whatever it takes until they have been taken down for good.

Montreal Canadiens in 6.

Western Conference Championship: The San Jose Sharks and The Chicago Blackhawks

Apparently machines do not function very well in water. Corroded by rust and torn apart by vicious fish the winged wheel has sunk for good. But the fish are still hungry. Their sense of blood is stronger than ever, they can feel it in the water. Where will the next meal come from? They circle in anticipation ready to strike.

The tribes prepare for turbulent waters. The Canucks had been an annoying tick, now it is time to go fishing. Boats prepared, spears ready there will be blood in the water, but who's? Can they handle the furious strong fish or will theirs be the next boat to sink? They must bate their hooks carefully and hold on for dear life, spears ready, they will not have many chances and only those who persevere will survive.

Sharks in 6

The NHL Eastern Conference Finals

It seems the eastern conference has been inverted. The arrogant mighty defeated by the solidarity of those underestimated. But who will move on?

The Pittsburgh Penguins and The Montreal Canadiens

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. And an earthquake of fallen giants can be heard throughout the land. Whispers spread like plague, rumors that the mighty Capitals have been defeated. They quickly become stories of old ghosts possessing the leftovers charged with restoring their glory. New legends are born and the hum of hope flows up and down the Saint Lawrence River for the first time in ages. Could the elder gods be coming back to reclaim what is theirs? A legend only the future holds.

Steel in hand wrought from the great Steel City of their origin the flightless birds re-organize in anticipation. Their swords, washed in the blood of nobles, are still quite sharp. The coup in Canada was not as easy as planned, but nothing ever seems to go quite as planned these days. These are odd times. The rumors that travel along the rivers bring word of legendary defeats. Could their new foe be so strong to have defeated the might giants in the Capital? It seems ludicrous, but there has been talk of ghosts. The supernatural always seems to muddle things up. How will these ghosts fair against the edges of cold steel?

Penguins in 5

The Boston Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers

Let it not be said that the old bears are weak. They are not stupid either. The Sabres proved too small to do anything with their speed and the fierce claws of the black and gold made short work of them. Heroes mean nothing when the rest of the company is battered to pieces. And so the Bear turns its face to a new foe. This one notorious for cruelty. The Bruins of Boston will face the Flyers like they always have, with the cold weight of duty and a look in their eye that cannot be distinguished between weary and fury.

To hell and back again, only this group of flying bandits could have done it. Only ones so base that they could match the Devil move for move. As they soon found out, most of the Devil's strength is just a facade. Pulling images from former years trying to ward off the truth, that even Devil's don't live in glory for ever. The losses however were grave. The payment was necessary but felt by all, no one gets out of New Jersey that easily. So now they turn to the old bears. The stalwarts, to stubborn to die. Now it is time to prove that even the stubborn can die.

Flyers in 7

NHL Playoffs Western Conference Semifinals.

The San Jose Sharks vs. The Detroit Red Wings

Almost falling apart at the seams, just barely holding together the big red machine rolls through the desert. The sand had gotten into the joints and the clever coyotes had almost solved its great weakness. On the verge of sputtering out of control it is trying to work out that blasted sand. Trying to become well oiled once more, for its new destination is the sea. And if the dirt is still caught in the gears by then it could stick and become permanent. Its only choice to do what it has always done, work its problems out in its own time, while the hive mind of computers inside send out messages: the winged wheel is coming.

The Sharks look up from their meal to sea an image painted in the sky. A round red thing with feathers shooting out one side, a new meal perhaps? Someone was coming for sure, but who? They begin to swim in circles around the watery grave of the mountain men, brave but not so smart to think that they could have invaded their waters. Everyone who came here was food. The Sharks show their rows and rows of teeth, they are not afraid.

When it turns out there is a machine in their midst, confusion enters their vicious minds. Metal does not sound like a very savory meal. Still this was an invader like any other, could metal break under teeth like any other body? Not to mention can the machine survive underwater, their circles became more intense and the brains racked with both nervousness and excitement. A new kind of meal all together.

The machine had a trick up its sleeve. The hive mind conferring, the joints of the metal beast creaking it did not just roll into the water, it created a long smooth hull. To bring this fight to the fish the machine must be smart and resourceful. Must stay one step ahead least those massive jaws come crashing down and sink it. In the sky, the message of the Winged Wheel remained.

Red Wings in 6

The Chicago Blackhawks and The Vancouver Canucks

The Blackhawks returned from their successful hunting trip. It is one thing to hunt, another to hunt a Predator. The massive carcass had been cut up into many pieces and split up to be carried by horses. They would be not be hungry for a long time. But upon reaching their home, there was an eerie stir in the air, something strangely familiar.

"Oh hey brother remember us?" It was them, the ones who had come last year, the bloody Canucks. The Blackhawks had drove them off with spear and tomahawk. Hadn't they learned their lesson?

"Get off our land you unholy Canadians," The Blackhawks had grim looks on their faces.

The Canucks only smiled, smirked, laughed even. What was so funny? They had been driven off, the Blackhawks had proved their superiority. Those Canadians had run to the hills frightened like a school child running he thought was under his bed. The captured had been scalped. Now they stood here with their smug faces and their laughter, their clever japes and prods. Did they not know the stakes were the same as they had always been? The dangers no different? Maybe they had to learn that lesson again.

"He looks angry eh?" The Canucks looked at each other grinning, "What you think this is the same as last year right? You think we'd stay away right? Think we'd learn our lesson right?" He licked his lips into a sneer, "Well this year eh, this year we're gonna teach you a lesson. We've caused the downfall of empires, deposed Kings, what's a small tribe of stinkin' Injuns to that?"

The Blackhawks clenched their fists. Fury ran through their veins. These insolent punks, what did they have, what the fuck did they have that they thought they could put down legendary warriors. No one escapes this time, scalp them all.

Canucks in 6.

The Subliminal Man

Another fascinating JG Ballard story. This time I realized one of Ballard's best qualities: he is a master of psychological, invisible prisons. Most of his stories seem to involve this theme and there is so much to be learned from it. There are those who have trapped themselves unknowingly in psychological plots, and also those who have been trapped by others. And then even those who were once trapped and see through it and yet decide to give in. It's just fascinating, and for some reason this story in particular elucidated it for me.

This one makes an amazingly realistic prediction of consumerism. Though the premise, that they are secretly bombarded with subliminal consumerism messages, may not be exactly true for us. Though honestly it does seem as though our commercials are incredibly smart and utilize psychology to try and take advantage of people. Just watch commercials with the mute button some time and, if you didn't realize it before, you should be able to break past the veil and see that the images almost always tend to be completely random attempts at association. The best example is big breasted women showing off their bods in beer commercials.

However in JG's world there are just big screens over all the highways that project statements like "BUY NOW BUY NOW" and then when the people realize that they are constantly buying, the actions are backed up by economists insisting that it's necessary for the economy. Every moment of their lives is constantly eaten away by purchasing and working. And something I found interesting, they constantly discard old models for new ones, it being supposedly cheaper to buy new ones instead of fix the old. That certainly reminds me of computers. But in a way this creates a sort of psychological prison where the behaviors become more and more acceptable, and even though the main character seems to notice it for minutes at a time, more subliminal messages suddenly have him back on the manipulated track. Interestingly enough his wife seems to notice, but not really care. The psychological element is truly presented fully forward in this one, like a fascinating scientific study or something.

Overall, the idea, compared with our society is actually very scary and not totally unrealistic. Though I'm not sure if compulsory subliminal messages would work or are possible on a mass scale, in some ways commercials do come close. Again the exaggerated reality of Ballard's worlds is ever present, I really enjoy the way he takes something he sees and pushes it to the Nth degree.

NHL Playoffs Western Conference Picks: The Hunters

The San Jose Sharks and The Colorado Avalanche


From the mountains down to the sea must this new generation of young travelers traverse. There were many who doubted: "They're too young," "Another lost year for Colorado," "Not Enough Talent," but they persevered against all odds. However now they have grown weary from their long journey, and there is still much farther to go. They must be wary not to walk right into the jaws of their new foe. The seas are treacherous and they know not where these sharks might attack.

Down below the depths plagued by years of disappointment there is new hope. The Sharks grow stronger every year, but whenever forced out of their element their gills dry up and their bellies grow hungry and they flail around until someone puts them out of their misery. Now they have been given an early offering, possibly a gift from the gods. A sacrifice. Maybe they had gone about it wrong in previous years, forcing themselves out to strike at ducks and stars. Why not let their prey come to them? Could this be the year of great feeding? Only time will tell.
Sharks in 5.


The Chicago Blackhawks and The Nashville Predators

The tribes of Chicago will not rest. Loose but a little eager, they are ready for the hunt. Still there is a patience a sense of ease. They must remain methodical and fierce, two properties that they balance so well. Their eye is on the prize, their bows are drawn, they remain still, ready to strike.

The Predators will hold their ground. Once the hunters reveal themselves, the beasts will know where they are and be able to strike. Then who becomes the hunted? The stand off begins, each clan strong and intelligent and most of all patient. One wrong move could bring a gruesome end to the Blackhawks. But at the same time, if the Predators wait too long, their heads will become the trophies of Chicago as they move on to bigger and nastier prey. The Blackhawks have the initiative, this is their fight to lose.

Blackhawks in 6.


The Vancouver Canucks and The Los Angeles Kings

Decadent in a town of dreams these Kings remain fierce and territorial. They hold their lands tight and with little yield. There are young Kings and old Kings, but their force is underestimated. And after years of little ambition, content with the playful opulence of the City of Angels, they have grown tired of games. Maybe it's time for some Kings to do some conquering.

But who is this in their way? A cry comes down from the north, "Oh you want to try at winnin' for once eh? Getting a little upitty eh? Tired of your tinsel town eh?" The taunts echoed throughout the land. Who else could it be but a bunch of stinking Canucks? Led by two Nordic twins and a giant to back them all up. The chiding sunk into the Kings' bones and a look of fierce determination took them over, who did these jokers think they were? Treating Kings like babes. It was time to put their skills and hearts to the test, but there was something about the grins on the Canucks faces that caused the Kings unease.

Kings in 7.


The Phoenix Coyotes and The Detroit Red Wings

Scorching winds cut across the desert, carrying sharp wisps of coarse sand. The Coyotes look out into the distance at the machine making its way over the horizon. They stick to the pack, always stronger together never to far from each other. Others who had come to their lands had been picked apart slowly but this was something much different. This would be a test of their minds as much as a test of their team work.

The hive-mind of combined machines rolled smoothly over the desert sands bent for destruction. Many had thought the gears to corroded, the parts too old and hoped that this might be its last days as it sputtered away unnecessary fuel and fell apart. But instead the machine had recently been well oiled, old parts junked for brand new technology. Now the machine seemed just as powerful as ever crawling across the desert sands of phoenix, oblivious of its surroundings, with one goal: to win.

The only chance these Coyotes had was to find the weakest part and exploit it, maybe from there they could cause some sort of malfunction and cause the machine to fall apart, but time was running out. However, these Coyotes were resilient, smart and new how to persevere, can they solve the machine before it is too late?

Red Wings in 6

The NHL Playoffs Round 1 Eastern Conference Picks: The Casualties

The Washington Capitals and Les Montreal Habitants

Oh how the mighty have fallen. The once proud warriors of the St. Lawrence River have become mere shadows of their legends of times past. Barely making it into the big dance, these former yearly favorites are now mere fodder. And worse news for them, they face the giants of Washington.

Led by a madman of incredible power, the Capitals tower over the band of men sent for sacrifice. The only hope for the miss matched Canadiens is to some how slip away and hopefully find a weakness. But the giant's weakness may be to high for the small warriors to find, and these are not slow giants by any means. This is going to be worse than a slaughter, it will be the stepping on of a bug underfoot.

Caps in 4.

The New Jersey Devils and The Philadelphia Flyers

After deposing the Swedish king and leaving the unsleeping realm in ruins, the orange bandits take to their next quarry: the underworld of New Jersey. There are no rules here, no lows that can't be reached, no depths that cannot be traversed. This will be a match of deceit and violence and no tactic will be to base.

The flying bandits are known for twisting a knife in a wound and kicking the fallen while they're down. They're opportunistic speed and offensive power make them much more dangerous than they look. They'll stoop just as low as any Devil.

However, the Devils are not stupid. Their walls appear to be unbreakable, their defenses impenetrable. And every time you attack their legendary backstopping demon will suck the very life from you. As well they have acquired a veritable magician to strike lethal blows against the Flyers when they least expect it. However, the Flyers themselves have a giant mean guard dog who often makes meals of opposing teams forwards. The battle will be hard fought, and despite all the dirty tricks these two teams will throw at each other, it will truly come down to a battle of wits. And in the end, the Flyers will be led in a circling house of mirrors, while the devils drive a hidden dagger deep into their hearts.

Devils in 6.

The Sabres of Buffalo and the Big Bad Boston Bruins

The bear and the buffalo, an age old conflict. They know each other well and have always fought with bravery and valor. But as always only one may prevail and move on.

The bears are proud and strong, always stalwart and unified. However this time they are battered. Plagued with injury they march on to do their duty, but the future looks bleak. They can hold their ground, but can they take any? And that will be the question they need to answer when the time comes.

The buffalo are fast and strong and most importantly hard working. They are diligent and can taste the opportunity they have been given. They are led from the back end by a national hero, but everyone does their part. If they can push the pace they can break the stalwarts line and strike when the bear's weakness is revealed. Their window of time will be small, once they get in they will not let go. And they will claw it wide open. If the Boston defense falters, all is lost.

Buffalo in 6.

The Pittsburgh Penguins and The Ottawa Senators

The heroes return to defend their title and once again they are met with formidable statesmen in the first round. Their matches at these stakes in previous years revealed clear cut winners one way or the other. Will this time around be different?

The Senators have seemed to strike a deal with chaos. They have become two sides of a coin, a dominant powerhouse and frustrated mob. The team that shows up to this battle will determine what kind of match this will be. Their leader is an ever sly veteran, and their defenses are solid. But the turn of tides might as well be decided by a flip of the coin.

The Penguins of steel town know this road well and have traveled it year after year. Their own messiah knows the way and has the help of talented warriors and veteran tactitions. Patient and relentless they can change their attack at a moment's notice. And they will not stop until every last one of them has been accounted for and blunted. There is a fire in their eyes that frightens all who opposes them, it is only those who stand unfafraid that have a fighting chance.

The flip of the Senator's coin will only decide whether the battle is long or short. But the flightless birds ultimately hold their fate in their own hands, they will win.

Penguins in 5

The Eastern Conference is a tale of dominant teams. Those who fought so hard to get in depleted their own forces so much that they will have difficulty competing when it comes to the real battles. They may be brave and fight hard, but the class of the east will prevail.

The Garden of Time

This is an interesting story in that when you think it's about one thing it's about another. And the swells and changes in plot are so subtle, yet clear that they happen, that you don't realize that they are happening when they do happen.
The title implies that the story is about a garden that can turn back time. But towards the end it's almost like it makes time. There is also a huge perspective shift that goes on here. One theme does somewhat prevail in the end: the nightmarish feel of impending doom. In many ways this feels like a horror story. Overall though it's hard to classify. It almost seems like a strange fabled fantasy. People become statues while a painting of hordes of people becomes real. There are so many ways to interpret this, though I almost feel like initially he thought he just had a really neat concept for a story.
General note: One thing I have noticed is that sometimes it is hard to get into J.G.'s stories immediately. They almost always start with something abstract or mundane, where you're really not sure where it's going or what the character's are about. However, all but one of the stories I've read come around in the end with incredible strength. He's very much like H.P. Lovecraft in the way that he will give you details that seem minute and random in the beginning, or maybe there just to give the story flavor, and by the end they become extremely important. I really dig that about both authors actually.
The only problem with that style of writing is like I said earlier, it's harder to get into right away. Even if they have a really engrossing first line, I almost am always lost in the first couple of paragraphs, trying to feel my way around the direction of the story. My best suggestion to the reader: do the whole thing in one sitting, everything fits together better and they're not very long and in the end you'll think "damn that was awesome."

Billennium

This is the second story in this short story collection where Ballard talks about intensely cramped "efficient" spaces and overpopulation. I am a little curious if these are spurned by his experiences of growing up in Japan, considering cities like Tokyo where the living situation is very "efficient" i.e. small.

What is really interesting about this story is this sort of evolution of thought and what certain things mean to certain people. So they have to live in 4 cubic meter cubicles, that's the government standard, but they find this room that 15 cubic feet and it's so huge to them! It's funny because that's only like 5 cubic metersish. But all this extra space for them is intoxicating.

There are actually a bunch of topics that manage to be covered by this including overpopulation and government incentives that are self exacerbating. So like to live in a larger cubicle you need to be married and have 3 kids. But the world is already vastly overpopulated. Encouraging more kids just exacerbates the problem of lack of space and overpopulation. We're dealing with overpopulation in the real world even now. The Chinese government for sure screwed up when they mandated everyone have lots of children, now it's gotten so bad you can only have one! I feel that American religion sometimes causes problems with this too. "No sex till marriage" and "birth control (condoms) are bad" both contribute significantly to unnecessary population growth. With birth control it's easy to see, without birth control your chances of getting pregnant are really good. "No sex till marriage," well it encourages kids to get married really young. Not only is this usually dumb (but not always, sometimes it works out fine but the chances are real slim), but often married couples have kids. And merely having generations closer together contributes to the problem of overpopulation. If you wait longer, you spread out the generation and voila, there are less people on earth at once. (Learned this from reading Richard Dawkins, pretty fascinating tid bit eh?).

Fast food is kind of like this. The cheapest food is that which is worse for you, quality food costs a little more, so economically you are encouraged to eat at MacDonald's. Obesity in America unfolds. Quite the simplification I know, but I think it's a relevant thought. The whole idea is I think the model fits many things that happen in the real world.

Excellently written story, with an interesting twist at the end which is very Ballard.

The Overloaded Man

So I've been reading these J.G. Ballard short stories, my buddy Nick got me an anthology of them for Christmas, and I think I'm gonna start blogging about them, and just about everything I read right now. Main reason being, I'm slowing down in the mind book, it's alright but I feel I hit the meat that I was most interested in. Gonna keep rollin' with it, and when I hit the next chapter I will blog about it, but in the meantime, I need to keep writing.

So I just finished The Overloaded Man, and it is a great story revolving around a ton of philosophical concepts I have been interested in recently. Especially philosophy of the mind! So in essence, there's this dude who completely dissociates the connections of the world in his spare time. It's really like a drug, but it's all his own inner reflection kind of shit. It's like experiencing the Cartesian distinction between mind and body as opposed to discussing it.

But essentially it's the idea that the only thing making things the things they are in the world is our minds. This is definitely a topic I've talked about before, and I still believe it. Our minds bring association and distinction to things. "This is a computer", "This is a chair." On their own without a perceiver to distinguish there is no difference. There are magnetic fields that particles and energy fly in and out of, some areas are more dense than others. That's it, that's the material world by itself.

The main character in this story completely sinks into himself and destroys all the associations he makes with objects. They lose their "object-ness" and become formless crap, like he's almost discovering a way to see the noumina. Probably more like he's experiencing Plato's forms actually. Either way the whole story he just cuts himself further and further from reality. The only thing that he ever comes back for is to peep on the neighbors daughter (high five!).

But again if you've ever been in a stage of deep thought it is so like that. The outside world slips away and you enter into an almost trance like state, where everything gets picked and picked apart until it becomes nothing. Sometimes it happens to me with a word, it just suddenly loses it's meaning to me, like "why this word." I feel awkward and almost forget how to use it, it's even happened to me with the word "the" before, believe it or not.

Also a great side line here, this kid runs into this metaphysical problem and asks the guy "The only absolute in space-time is supposed to be the speed of light. But as a matter of fact any estimate of the speed of light involves the component of time, which is subjectively variable." What an amazing question, so much to think about there. Suddenly something we believe as a fact becomes a circular argument. The ground becomes much more shaky. Where do we stand? Stuck in the depths of our mind where we deconstruct the world? Who knows, great short story though, I recommend it to all.

A bunch of cool stuff

Now before I start my review of the last chapter, I'd just like to say that I applaud Searle for his humbleness. Like he will admit that even though he thinks he's barking up the right tree, he may not be. And in many ways he is trying to represent consciousness as something more understandable, which is a noble task. One thing I really like about this chapter, is it really encourages scientific research into learning about consciousness. If you read some of your average dualist literature, it's attitude that consciousness can't be discovered or comprehensively described physically or with science as we know it may seem very discouraging for scientists. I feel the way Searle puts it he's very encouraging of scientists trying to follow this path, even though it may be difficult or a dead end. But I'm certainly with Searle in the sense that I think Neurobiological research into consciousness will help us learn a lot about the brain. Sometimes the journey is much more fruitful than the end result.

So, Searle begins by making a controversial statement, he says he believes that just because something is ontologically subjective does not mean it can't be studied objectively. This treads the water of contradiction, but on some levels he may be right. However, as far as studying subjectivity all we really have to go on is reportability and relatedness to our own experiences. Initially I want to accuse Searle of being soft, and he is, but I can see why he does it. He's trying to make consciousness less contradictory with the physical world as we know it. Basically more available for the scientific minded I guess. Sometimes he seems very loose with meaning. Mostly about this statement I'll say that on one hand he's right, but on the other I don't think you can get a deep understanding of subjectivity objectively, there's a wall there that can't be crossed.
He talks about intentionality briefly, kind of defining it, but the next chapter is all about it, so I'm gonna wait till then to really discuss it. I'm still kind of confused, I thought it was like decision making, but it's more about things implying other things in the brain. Like I said, next blog entry I'll give a better description.

After this he goes into several different ways people have attacked the problem of consciousness.
He begins with mysterians who he calls pessimists. Essentially the mysterian angle is that with our current system of science there will be no way to truly understand consciousness. They either believe that it is absolutely impossible to explain as human animals or that we will need to completely revolutionize the way we look at the world to be able to explain it. I think I may be in this camp a bit, I have a strong feeling that the physical world is not the be all end all, that it is just it's own closed system. I know I need to explain that more, but I do feel a complete revolution of how we look at the world would probably shed more light on consciousness than physical science. Not that physical science doesn't have a lot to offer, but like I said earlier, it has boundaries.

Second he talks about supervenience, which actually an idea that stems out of ethics. In ethics it is the idea that two identical actions cannot have different moral values. If an action is good or bad it must be supervenient on other features, and therefore isn't the same action. In the mind, consciousness would be supervenient on the physical processes of the brain. The difference Searle says, is that in morality the action constitutes the morality, but in the brain the supervenience is causal, not constituted. And in other words, supervenience says nothing new, and can pretty much be broken down as the exact same as searle's argument just with different words.

After that he talks about Pan-psychism which is another theory that kind of appeals to me. It is the idea that everything is conscious to some degree. So for example, physics can only talk about extrinsic properties of things. It can only talk about what is objectively observable from the outside, how something interacts with something else, it cannot explain anything that could possibly happening intrinsically in whatever it is discussing, or inside or the exact thing in itself. So maybe the intrinsic things that are moved around by physics are consciousness. And groups of them create consciousness fully. Consciousness is everywhere.

I like it, but Searle does have some good points that I don't think are totally debilitating to the argument, but are certainly worthwhile questions that make you think twice about the theory. First, consciousness appears to be unified and centralized. If it was everywhere part of everything then how is it centralized? His next point is, if it is everywhere why should it feel located. Why don't we have consciousness from the perspective of the room we are in, where do the distinctions happen? Why don't I have the conscious experience of the computer when I touch it? Why does it stop at my hands? Why do I feel it in my brain more than anywhere else? It's a damn good question to be honest. If everything is conscious, why do I feel it here and not there?

So for Searle he thinks that the best way to go about cracking consciousness is via neurobiology. This is how most scientists would like it to be and I'm sure we can learn a whole lot by this method, but you know my views, I don't think this is the right method, but his explanations why he likes it are pretty good.

He explains that there are two ways to go about explaining consciousness through neurobiology, "building block" and "unified field" approaches. In building block the idea is that if you break the problem up into smaller problems you will make the problem easier. A lot of scientific questions are answered this way. Essentially they feel if they say, isolate red, and try to find the point where red becomes a conscious experience, it will open the flood gates to finding out about all the rest of the conscious experiences. My immediate thought is, conscious experiences are so different that I don't know how you could really keep aligning this model up with say, having an emotion of grief. But it is an interesting way to go about it.

Searle has problems with it to. When we are conscious of something it occurs when we are already conscious. So different conscious experiences aren't consciousness itself, but ripples and patterns in the field of consciousness. This is actually the "unified field" approach, which I do like. What consciousness is like, I'll agree is probably much more like that than it is like "YOU SEE RED NOW" black "YOU SEE BLUE NOW" et cetera. Of course this would be a much more difficult way to try and interpret the mind and would require some seriously intense technology. Maybe a problem for the future, the scope of it is just insane.

His last paragraph in this chapter is brilliant and really speaks to me. I'll just quote it here:
"One of the weird features of recent intellectual life was the idea that consciousness--in the literal sense of qualitative , subjective states and processes--was not important, that somehow it didn't matter. One reason this is so preposterous is that consciousness is itself the condition of anything having importance. Only to a conscious being can there be any such thing as importance"

I'll end with that but next chapters all on that intentionality stuff, so I'm interested in what he has to say there.

Tada! It's fixed... right?

So here it is, Searle's about to complete the impossible, he's going to reconcile dualism and materialism, two sects that are completely at odds. So let's get right down to it.

Searle asks us to forget history, forget context and try to re-examine the facts. Honestly a very good idea, let's get all the crap and bullshit out of the way. So, after doing that, we take a look at what we know: science and physics appear to be a closed system of cause and effect and this can explain everything in the world, we have subjective first person qualitative perspective it is undeniable, therefore this subjective first person qualitative perspective is a part of the physical natural world. Appeals to common sense eh?

Ultimately his conclusion can be stated as simply as: consciousness is causally reducible, but ontologically non-reducible. So let's clarify what reduction means. So say we wanted to do a reduction on my desk, we can reduce the desk to the molecules and forces that make up the desk, so it really isn't a desk, what it really is is molecules and forces. It only exists as it is because we designate it that way (i.e. a desk, something to put my computer on), but we can describe it by the smaller things that make it up, it is reducible.

Now what's the difference between a a causal reduction and an ontological one right? Well causally means we can reduce something to the points in history that have brought what we are describing to the point where it is. For example, evolution and genes become a causal reduction of species and organisms.

An ontological reduction is more like my reduction of the desk. Ontology is the study of the nature of existence, so an ontological reduction is a reduction of its substance or existence. But it can be more complicated than just the molecules in the desk. For example what you see on the computer screen can be ontologically reduced to the software processing in your computer.

Basically for everything in physical science, it can be reduced causally and ontologically. If you find one the other isn't far behind. In some cases they could even seem one in the same, like the cause of the desk is the ever present forces of the molecules of wood, and ontologically the desk is the forces and molecules of wood.

Well what Searle's trying to say is, that consciousness is the exception. It can be reduced causally, but not ontologically. So let's give examples. We've (or at least I've) already come to terms with the fact that it deffinitely is not ontologically reducible. For we cannot see inside anyone else's experience. There is no way to tell what is going on in someone's first person, you only have what they tell you, but for you that's always third person knowledge. Therefore consciousness' existence is not reducible to physical properties that make it up.

But Searle claims that consciousness can be explained as caused by the brain. So that consciousness is a process of the brain, just not an ontologically reducible process. It can be explained by the brain functions that cause it to happen. And in this he says that arguments like the philosophical zombies, that are identical to us in every physical manner but have no consciousness, though abstractly conceivable, are not physically possible. If they were an exact physical replica, they would necessarily be conscious, even though consciousness is not reducible to smaller physical parts itself. The key he says, is to discard the historical perspective on it and redefine what we think of as the closed loop of physics so that it can include consciousness and it's interesting nature.

So, I think that's about as clear as I can make his argument. I hope it's clear enough for all of you reading it.

Anyway, there are deffinitely appealing things about the theory I think, i.e. the appeal to common sense. The idea that since consciousness exists it would make a lot more sense as part of the closed loop of physics than it would as this random outside attachment looking in that seems to have nothing at all to do with the physical world. However, I think there are some issues with the argument.

My main problem with it is I think it's really a form of ignoring the hard problem of consciousness. It's how I think Searle thinks it should work, and how he wants it to work, but there's a lot of internal wierdness to it. It still doesn't explain how something could be ontologically irreducible in a physical world. Instead it's more like "consiousness is, physics is, I'm tired of it, let's work it in together some how and worry about other stuff, and stop worrying about this problem that refuses to go away!" He wants so badly to be able to explain consciousness biologically and physiologically, but he can really only go so far.

Unfortunately he's really managed to solve nothing, although I'll give him props for putting more effort in than Dan Dennett, who pretty much rejects the idea of consciousness altogether. It's a valiant effort, but even property dualists believe that consciousness is a natural thing. I don't think Searle is even bringing anything new to the table to be honest. It's kind of like he's saying "consciousness is not reducible physically? No big deal!" Basically just accepting consciousness and moving on to brain science. While I think that's totally viable for say a scientist to say, as a philosopher, I don't think he's digging deep enough.

We'll see though, he's got more coming, including arguments about free will and stuff, so maybe that will make his argument stronger. He does say he believes consciousness has a causal role in the world though I'm not sure how. Deffinitely looking forward to that, certainly more to come.

Now it gets interesting.

When I last left you with Searle, I felt disappointed and short changed. It seemed as though he had dropped the ball, and didn't have a firm grasp of the topic, and furthermore wasn't going to take consciousness seriously.
Ah, but there's a twist! The last two chapters have been materialism bashing. First he goes through the history materialism, which is very interesting. Essentially starting with psychology and behaviorism which really brought on the return in popularity of the view, and then moving on to functionalism which is basically just a more in depth view. Essentially the development of the computer, and the idea that the brain is just like a computer, our brain being the hardware and our thoughts being the software, was probably the climax and biggest triumph of the materialists. They now had an explanation for cognition and thought, because they had an example that worked in the real world. Pretty fascinating actually and it makes a lot of sense.
And so materialism has become the dominant philosophy among psychologists, scientists and philosophers and it has become quite the popular world view. Among intellectuals it is considered a guaranteed fact really. And science, and the way it has worked for science, and the way science has unfolded has brought us some extremely convincing evidence towards this theory. However, it ignores one extremely important feature of reality, consciousness. Many dismiss in an Occam's Razor fashion, as useless, and since it doesn't seem to accomplish anything it either a. is an illusion or b. is a waste of time. However both of these are clearly false, a. it is the only guaranteed real thing in existence, b. if it is real it is not a waste of time.
Essentially Searle spends most of these chapters disarming materialism with the normal devices, like the ones I used in the argument with my friend, the Zombies, the Inverted colors, et cetera. But he brings up one new one I kind of like that I'm going to share. This one particularly picks on people who love the computer related to the brain example.
He calls this "the Chinese Room." So say you are like me and you don't speak a lick of Chinese. You are put in a room and given a test in Chinese. You have all these dictionaries and books on how to answer these questions, how Chinese is structured and how to put what symbol where. After however long you finish the test and are able to get all the right answers. You still can't speak a lick of Chinese, but you can get the right answer on tests as though you understand Chinese. You understand all the syntax, but know nothing of the language. This is what computers are like, they need to be given a context, but they do not understand meaning. Anyway it's a really interesting example.
Alright, so Searle has bashed Dualism, he's bashed Materialism, the question is now, what the hell is left? Way to go Searle, you've turned what I thought was a disappointment into a freaking page turner. At the end of this last chapter he said he's going to reconcile Dualism and Materialism, so have at it what's next!

A Recent Discussion

So, I'm real close to writing a blog about the next part of the Mind book, but I gotta talk about something else first. However, to give a preview, I'm starting to like where Searle is suddenly headed, so needless to say it is getting much more interesting!



Anyway I was having a discussion with my friend the other day. And I'd like to begin by saying he's really smart, he understands math and science way better than I do, he got a degree in it. However our discussion was about consciousness and it's existence and the nature of physics and such. So it was somewhere between a logic/science/philosophy discussion, but over all it deffinitely got me thinking.



Essentially my position was consciousness exists and is irreducable by physics. It is essentially not physical. He on the other hand said that this is absolutely impossible, and at one point claimed that this theory would be "magic." So I'll go a little back and forth. I'll begin with mine which is clearly less orthodox and needs more explanation, because science in most cases would certainly be on my friends side.



One of the most important parts about arguing about consciousness is being clear on what it is before you start arguing. Otherwise things can get muddy quickly. Consciousness is the subjective experience. When observation is going on it is the thing that is observing. It is the first person. And furthermore as far as my hypothesis goes, and was a topic of contention in the discussion, consciousness is not synonymous with brain states or the cognitive properties that may give rise to it. I.e. "the experience of red" is not synonymous with "the cognitive interpretation of light recieved by the eye at a certain wavelength," even though the latter may give rise to the former.



So I gave him some classic examples to illustrate what I was trying to say. One was the famous zombie example. Essentially imagine an entity that is an exact replica of yourself, physically, physiologically, everything, going through the exact same life that you do, the only difference is, this replica has no conscious experience, no first person reality. It is in essense a zombie. It is physically on all levels exactly the same, but there is no consciousness. Therefore consciousness would be an additional property, not a physical one.



Secondly, I gave the inverted colors argument. This is the idea that when I look at blue and you look at blue, we both call it blue, we both react to it entirely the same way, and behave the same around it, but it turns out what you call blue, is what I call red. There is no way to know that this is not the case. There is no way that physics could prove one way or another what precisely the color that you or I see is. The only person who knows what blue likes like to me, is me.



So my friend responded to the zombie idea by saying that it was impossible for the zombie not to be conscious. Essentially saying that it was necessary that if it was physiologically precisely the same as him, it would necessarily be conscious. He explained that consciousness is an emergent property. For example, the planet earth has an extremely complex weather system. On other solid planets that are larger, the complexity of the weather system increases exponentially. There are different types of weather that we do not experience at all on earth in addition to those that we get on earth. And essentially, because are brains are large and extremely compact, it allows for tons more neural connections than our closest ancestor, and with this exponential increase in complexity, consciousness becomes an emergent property of this new level of complexity. But it is also necessary physically that it emerge at this level of brain complexity.



As for my second example he explained that either a, if we saw different colors there must be a physical explanation. and b. if the two people were physically and physioligically the same then we would know conclusively that they were seeing the same color.



Essentially, his arguments as far as I can tell, revolved around something like, 1. physics is a closed system, 2. if two things are physically identical they are the same thing, 3. if it doesn't exist inside physics, it doesn't exist, 4. consciousness exists, therefore 5. consciousness must be a physical property.



Ultimately it sounds like a pretty solid argument. And his other arguments are also very interesting and on certain levels persuasive, however there are some deffinite holes and fallacies.

Describing how something has occured does not describe what it is. This is the problem with his emergent property argument. Even if consciousness is an emergent property its other problems, the hard problems as Chalmers puts it, don't go away. Secondly as far as the response to his second argument, it is decidedly not conclusive that two people necessarily see the same thing. There is absolutely nothing to check the experiment with. If you look at all the action in the brain, even with superfuturistic technology, you won't see green in the brain, or more importantly you won't see "them seeing green" in the brian, which is actually what consciousness is. Consciousness is unobservable. Brain states that happen at the same time in the brain as someone seeing red, are not seeing red. Red itself is indiscribable to another person, other than pointing to something that is red and saying "it looks like that."

Ulitmately, both of his responses are just attempts at dodging the issue. The examples themselves are by no means a practical explanation, but more an illustration of how consciousness is not observable objectively. How it can be conceived that there are physical replicas of ourselves that are merely computers or zombies and not conscious. The only way to observe consciousness is through the first person. And if it cannot be observed physically than it is not a physical property. This was the point when my friend said "what you are explaining is magic." But consciousness undeniably exists. There is experience being had. This clashes hard with his assumption that "if it does not exist in the physically it doesn't exist." But if that were true, then consciousness wouldn't exist. But it does necessarily, by the mere axiom a=a. If it exists it exists.

New book!: "Mind a Brief Introduction" by John R. Searle

So I've finished "The Selfish Gene" and after reading it I have to say, it's actually a really awsome book. I recommend it to anybody interested in evolution. It ends up being very tastefully done, only a couple little pot shots here and there (at religion), but mostly he is very thorough scientific with it. Plus he's a very good writer, can put things in a way that's not only easy to understand, but kind of makes everything exciting. Despite my criticisms I may have said before, it is a truly fascinating and well written perspective.

So now we start with John R. Searle's "Mind a Brief Introduction." I got this book for a couple reasons, a. I love philosophy of the mind and kind of wanted a refresher and just a survey of what's big these days, b. I wanted to hear a new perspective, after looking at Dennet and Chalmers it seems, at least by the explanation on the back, come up with some kind of crazy third way to look at it. Figured it should be interesting. I like learning stuff.

After reading the intro and the first chapter I must admit I'm kind of disappointed. I mean it is a book for beginners on the subject, so it kind of glosses over some stuff (even though he gets almost randomly specific about other stuff). But since this book has a thesis, and that was one of the things that drew me to it, it is extremely biased.

Well, let me just get to the point that's really bugging me, no more beating around the bush, he calls Descartes contribution to philosophy of the mind a disaster. All I can say is "you can't be fucking serious right?"

Basically he says Descartes has created more questions than answers. I don't see how this takes away from the profoundness of Descartes work. If the truth has more questions than originally thought so be it. I've found that in my life the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know a lot. In fact in most situations more knowledge has led me to find that I have a lot a lot more questions. If you're looking for easy answers, don't be a philosopher. I mean what the hell is the whole point of Socrates right? Question shit! Granted there are problems with the Cartesian model beyond that of "creating more questions" but ultimately Descartes discovered the way in which we can prove the truth of consciousness.

Ok, got that off my chest. Ultimately, Searle has laid out 12 questions based on the problems he has found with Descartes' dualism: 1. Mind-Body Problem, 2. The Problem of Other Minds, 3. Skepticism about the External World, 4. The correct Analysis of Perception, 5. The Problem of Free Will, 6. The Self and Personal Identity, 7. Animals, 8. Sleep, 9. The Problem of Intentionality, 10. Mental Causation and Epiphenomenalism, 11. The Unconscious, 12. Psychological and Social explanation. These are pretty much going to be the focus of his book he explains. The main topics.

Now I do like his stress on importance of philosophy of the mind, and he does have some interesting comments on it's history and how it's picked up the slack of philosophy of language over the past couple decades. And I'm deffinitely going to give him a chance. But he's got some tell tail signs that we may have some disagreements. Especially because he seems to paint some mind ideas with really broad strokes where he ought to be more careful, at least so far it seems. I'm very interested in seeing what his solutions are for these problems though. How he can some how reconcile Dualism and Materialism without being either, and trying to remain purely scientific about it. All I can say is, I guess we'll see!

Thoughts on Morality

Recently I was perusing a local Borders and came across Nietzche's "Beyond Good and Evil." I've pretty much avoided Nietzche since I attempted to read Thus Spoke Zarathustra (especially after being such a fan of Strauss' piece and the connections between the two). Ultimately I found it very aesthetically interesting but couldn't make a lick of sense out of it. Since it was my first encounter with Nietzche and I never took a course on him, I immediately kind of dismissed his stuff as too difficult or nonsensical. Well it turns out that Beyond Good and Evil is the actual stripped down argument from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I read a couple passages and as it turned out, I've been thinking of some extremely similar topics, especially on ethics, recently. This got me thinking even more, so I'd like to express, hopefully coherently what I've been trying to get at in my head for the past month or months or weeks, I'm not sure how long.

I've always found morals and ethics really difficult. Most Western philosophers come at it way too logically, like "it must be this, or it must be this." De-ontologism or Utilitarianism! Good or Evil! And I feel when you break down morality in this way it turns out to be extremely empty. I'll continue with this in a second.

First we need to consider what ethics or morality is. So we'll keep it simple ethics will be "a code of action" and morality will be "how you should act."

Now one of the most difficult areas of ethics is where do ethics and morality come from? What makes one action better than another? In the case of Abrahamic religion, for example, there are codes given by god. And goodness and morality are dictated by a higher power. Usually this morality revolves around pleasing the god. The only problem I have with this model is, why please the god? It's probably because I do not have a firm grasp of this kind of religious belief, I imagine their best answer would be "because it's God."

For the purposes of my discussion of morality, we are going to bypass that rout, because frankly, I don't believe in God. I'm not ruling out some kind of higher force or whatever, but we'll look at this from a more rationalistic atheistic point of view. Now from this spot we have much more difficulty explaining morality. As far as looking to some kind of observational way to explain morality, you could go the Dawkins rout and obsess over evolution and game theory. But even evolution leads us to something we don't seem to relate to as far as ethics go. Other observational routs could lead you to relativism, but that always leaves controversial questions about Osama Bin Laden and whether his actions could be justified by his culture et cetera.

The other way to go is look to logic and rationality, go internal. There's the Categorical Imperative, considering whether each decision, if everyone did it, would it be good or bad for the world before you decide on it. But ultimately it's absurdly strict. Also it's dependent on "what is good for the world" which is a debatable topic. As well Utilitarianism often makes sense, it's clearly just a numbers game that determines what a moral decision is. But at certain logical ends it too starts to turn somewhat strange.

In essence the problem with all of these ethical systems is that they are too logical. That's right, our rationality seems to call to us to have one blanket mathematical formula to figure out what is a moral decision. It's extremely tempting, to have such a clear cut straight forward answer. But every clear cut straight answer reaches a point where it runs into a wall with our instincts. When it's a formula, there's always a way to twist it into an absurd situation.

So the conclusion I've come to is that there are layers of morality. This is very similar to Buddhist and Hindu layers of knowledge. What is true to you at one point in your life may not be true later. It is said that the Buddha would lie to his pupils often because it would help them reach enlightenment better than telling them the truth. I think that this system can apply to ethics and morality.

It makes sense to have long range guidelines on a society. Common values shared across people. This allows for stability and gives people the opportunity to live moral lives. These are ethical codes, but they should not be followed blindly. Each person is given their own opportunity to discover their own morality. But this is not a formula. As it says in the Tao Te Ching "The way that can be followed is not a true way," true "morality" is coming in tune with the nature and balance of the world. And it is different for each person. There is no clear cut formulaic morality. Common values an ethics serve more for societal stability than they do as actual moral values. Finding the right actions is a personal endeavor and experience. The world will find a way to balance itself anyway. If you push too hard it pushes back twice as hard. There is an innate value in trying to become part of the balance, but there is nothing spelled out. True morality is becoming a part of nature.

I know this may not be very "answerful" but I think too many people are looking for an easy answer. It's not as easy as "act altruistically" or "be nice." It's finding your way.

USA! USA!

It's not often I feel this patriotic, and really there are probably tons of people blogging about this and there's a good likelihood what I have to say is nothing that hasn't been said a million times, literally. But after team USA's performance against the big bad All-Star Hall of Fame Canadian team, I just gotta gush a bit about it.

What a great game, that was a team effort, with the most important component being unending hard work. From start to finish the Americans out worked the Canadians. And Ryan Miller spearheaded the effort. The whole game the Canadians took the path of over passing and almost arrogant, "we know we're better we can score when we want" kind of play. Very relaxed, very confident. The Americans on the other hand, just did not stop. It wasn't confidence one way or the other, it was just concentrating on hard work. Winning the battles, digging deep in the corners, and just skating, skating skating.

Towards the end of the game the Canadians began to panic, they began to feel the pressure, and an insane barrage ensued. At that point both teams were fighting for their lives. Ryan Miller stood on his head and played out of his mind in those last few minutes. Especially after the Crosby tip in. The best part, to me, is that the finishing stroke laid by the US was one of just blue collared hard work effort. That Ryan Kesler goal was just pure busting his ass to get to that puck, and even though Perry had body position on him, Kesler made a last ditch effort to just swat the puck away from Perry, and the puck just happened to go into Canada's empty net. It couldn't have been a better game for the US. A true team effort. Poetic really.

Now as far as the rest of the tournament, I'm deffinitely rooting for the US, and I like our chances, but that game, that was a big game. Historic, and memorable no matter what happens, we beat Canada on their own soil decisively. Go USA.

Olympic Review

So let's take a break from the Dawkins (like I am) to talk some Olympics (reason for break). These are mostly random thoughts I'm not gonna hit everything just stuff I feel like talking about.

First of all I have to pay my respects: rest in peace Nodar Kumaritashvili. It's really a sad story of such a freak accident.

Even with that overshadowing the whole event the luge was still awsome as always. Extremely exciting and fast. Felix Loch just owned the field the entire time. It was interesting that even though the track changes slowed down the speeds, they actually made the starts much more technical. The women had it the worst with the turn right at the beginning, so basically no chance to pull forward before they had to tuck down.


I've been watching curling for the first time. US men's and women's are awful. The men is just painful to watch, and not because their technique is bad. More because it's pretty good. They set up their ends so well and finish so terribly wrong. Imagine a football team that is up 27 to nothing at the half and manages to lose... three times in a row. Yeah that bad.

As expected, Olympic hockey has been nothing short of amazing. First two days went off without a hitch really. Canada dominates NHL-less Norway. Russia creams Latvia. All the favorites win as expected. But day 3, oh how the mighty stumble! Who would have thought Canada's arch nemesis would be.. Switzerland??? The Swiss still have Canada's number after embarrassing them in Torino. And even this time around, with so many precautions taken to make an incredibly solid Canadian team, the Swiss force overtime in a 2-2 game. Unbelievable, what drama! Jonas Hiller stands on his head, making unbelievable saves all over the place. And the Swiss stick to their hard hitting intensity that they showed against the US two days earlier. And suddenly the entire country of Canada is holding their breath. To see an entire country with fear in its eye, thinking "oh no they're going to do it again." But Sid the kid comes through in the shootout and Canada squeaks by the big bad chocolaty cheesy Swiss!

Then later that night, after most people's bed times, Russia, the other favorite for gold, takes on the marginal yet quite talented Slovakian team. Honestly I've thought the Slovakian team has been underrated and the Russian team way overrated, and maybe this game revealed that. Everyone is too excited about Ovechkin and Malkin and Datsyuk and Kovalchuk. But even I wouldn't have predicted that the Slovaks would have kept the Russians to a single goal! That seems ridiculous considering the insane firepower on that Russian team from every angle. But Zdeno "larger than life" Chara, Marion "mystical sniper powers" Gaborik and Marion "I'm good at defense too" Hossa, managed to do just that. And then the unthinkable happened, the Slovaks win in the shootout! Down go the Russians!

Two amazing games in one day, sent all the way to shootout with high drama! Too good to be true, Olympic hockey is great.

One last thing. Figure Skating is bad ass. I said it. So far it has been killer too. The pairs were phenomenal, and the men's singles just downright insane. Lysacek earned that medal for sure, even though Plashenko's quads are filthy. Really even though it's already popular, I think this sport should get more respect for its badassery. Unfortunately I think a lot of people, guys especially, are turned off by the culture, by Johnny Weir's androgynousness, and by the fruity outfits. But really I feel all these things are really irrelavent to the power and beauty of the sport. Just the insanity of the jumps and moves that they do, the speed and technicality of their footwork. The power of their performances. The whole thing is just physically impressive. All the rest is kind of Ad Hominem.

Anyway, I'm gonna keep watching these winter Olympics, because they are fucking awsome, and you should too. Speed, power and grace for the win.

Memes!

Bloody things. Can you believe this damn book spurred a sort of philosophical science area of study known as Memetics?? I'm not kidding. I already read a book by one of the fields leading, um, people called "The Meme Machine" by Susan Blackmore. So I pretty much know a bunch about them already, but here I get to read the chapter, the grandaddy of all these memes!

Essentially memes are ideas that follow the evolutionary pattern. Specifically Richard Dawkins' selfish gene, selfish immortal replicator pattern. Memes are like selfish ideas. So when the human brain was formed it's so goddamn big and powerful that we started to develop things like culture, religion, music, ideas et cetera. Memes are like an evolutionary explanation of this. So memes have a very loose unit, like genes, nothing extremely exact, and can change upon replication. And replication is as simple as: I hum a tune, you hear that tune it gets stuck in your head involuntarily. That's an example of a replicated meme. It's not limited to music, it's more like all ideas. Think of it as viral software for the brain. Like units of software that go from brain to brain to brain to brain. Some much more successful than others. Basically memes, like genes just want to multiply and live on as immortal replicators. But it's really not limited, fashion counts, body language, films, you name it. Culture, et cetera, all this extra stuff caused by our humongously awsome brains.

They are competitive like genes because the human brain only has so much space, and so much attention. So memes compete for attention, and once they are at attention they can be replicated more because say I would be more likely to talk about it. Just think of bands that get popular and your local open mic band. One had a more viral meme. Stuff like that.

Basically once again Dawkins has completely shifted the perspective from the unit of survival being the human, or the brain, to the unit of survival now being these ideas. Our bodies exist as survival machines for our genes, and our brains have evolved to become survival machines for our memes. It is certainly an interesting perspective.

In essence Dawkins has once again ruled out the entity as important, explained it away as a through away tool for something else. We are now truly cogs being ground out by the wheels of genes and memes. But wait! Dawkins hilariously at the end says, ah but we can rebel against our genes and our memes because we have big brains! Particularly he is focused on people becoming truly altruistic.

This last little cry is not just funny, especially considering he just crushed our significance with the rest of the book, it seems really childish and simplistic. First of all, I don't think altruism for the sake of altruism is as virtuous a goal as people make it out to be. Surely give of yourself, but does it make sense for everyone to consider themselves worthless and everyone else worthwhile? It could create an interesting holding up of each other's existence, but it seems really bizarre when you take it to its logical conclusion. Maybe it's my interest in Yoga and Philosophy, but it makes much more sense to me for us to find and accept our own place in nature and the universe and flow with that, instead of pure sacrificing of all for other. I definitely feel like Dawkins is stuck in this weird science limbo of evolution worship and a strange morality that seems to have no rhyme or reason when compared to his beliefs about science.

One last thing, there's some great pot shots he throws at religion here. The funniest is his main example of a meme is the god meme and he keeps coming back to it. Not subtle at all. Also just about all the bad things he mentions that memes cause are related directly to religion. He attributes absolutely zero positive things about memes to the religion meme. His hatred of blind faith without evidence reminds me of a younger more naive me. Laughs all around!

Blurring the line of Distinction

Here's an interesting philosophical thought: where does one organism end and another begin? Dawkins treads this territory in his latest chapter and it is quite fascinating. First he discusses social insects, how bees, ants and termites have infertile drones, that actually work towards the continuation of their genes, in the sense that do everything for the queen, who is the only reproducer. In this sense they almost all work as one organism.

Furthermore he cites lichen which is a symbiotic relationship between a fungi and an alga. They are completely reliant on one another and aren't very far from being a single organism. He then brings up the question, could there be other things that have evolved from being their own organism through a symbiotic relationship into part of another organism. He gives the mitochondria as a possible example. Maybe it was it's own organism in the primordial soup.

And of course he ties this into genes, saying his thesis that they are the true unit of life. As opposed to individual organisms. So far it's hard to disagree with him, even look at rogue DNA, a.k.a. viruses, don't exist on their own, but they are basic.

However, why don't we take this one step further? I have come to the conclusion that distinctions are merely a function of the human brain and do not exist without a consciousness. For example, the only thing that distinguishes sound from other waves is that is the range of waves that our ears and brains detect, they are otherwise indistinguishable. Why wouldn't all matter be this way? Distinction is a product of perception. Light is the exact same way, and in fact as we've seen quantum physics leads to some even more bizarre speculations. Since until light and apparently all matter is determined it is in superposition, a mere probability, it is not distinguished. The only reason a table is different from a frog is because our brains have made that distinction. Otherwise differences seem to become more and more superficial. Could humans working together become an organism, or maybe the internet, or anything? And even organisms themselves are made up of smaller organisms called cells. And those of molecules, as are inanimate objects. Suddenly distinction is truly superficial.

Buddhism and Hinduism have had this insight for thousands of years. The chariot parable is a common example. Is a chariot it's wheels? But wheels are not a chariot. Is a chariot it's chair? But a chair is not a chariot, et cetera. If it's not the parts that make it up, then what is a chariot exactly? Even with this mind problem definition becomes meaningless.

Even Dawkins vaunted genes are admittedly by him hard to describe exactly. They have no exact size or unit. They just seem to have consistencies going from generation to generation. And they can be split up every generation, though only slightly, what once was a gene might be only part of that gene in the next generation. The only thing really holding it together is the fact of consistency through generations. Could this slippery undefined piece really be the central unit of life? Again seems to become another superficial distinction.

This stuff just fascinates me.

Love is a Battleground!

I apologize for the cheesy title. But this last chapter was excellent.

Often we think of relationships between man and woman, or male and female as a mutual effort. That a pair does what is in the best interests of each other to work towards something together. Well according to the bad ass world of genes that's just plain bullshit!

So when it comes to reproduction, cells produced meiotically (half the genes) fuse with other half gened cells to become new organisms. Now a bigger cell would be much more valuable because it would be able to protect and feed this new organism. And therefore would win out genetically over other cells because it could survive and move on the genes better. However, what if there were some really tiny nasty cells that were extremely quick and opportunistic, that say new how to exploit the resources of those larger cells. Wouldn't they be successful eh? Well now we have egg and sperm!

And essentially the male has evolved to exploit the much more valuable female! The thing is though, both want to reproduce and send on their genes, so they need each other. Not because they want to, but because they have to. And in the end each has in a way evolved to exploit the other. Females know that they are more valuable, so they play coy until they can find a male that will not only give sperm, but help raise offspring. And males just want to shoot off in everything that moves, because sperm are extremely expendable. Sound familiar? Well anyway eventually a sort of balance has been struck, but it is a balance of need through conflict. Sounds like a Jane Austin novel right? Different animals balance it in different ways too. But the conflict makes it fascinating.

This gave me some ideas of what harmony truly means in the world as well. And what balance is. Often when people think of balance and harmony, they think of pretty flowers, happiness, world peace, et cetera. I think this is not only boring, but also a misinterpretation. Harmony is a balance of opposing forces, and this can be quite beautiful. And it shows up in things.

For example, musical harmony. Here, different notes clash, but work together in different ways. In a major third for example there is a lot of conflict between the two notes, but it actually ends up sounding nice. Even really dissonant notes in a certain context, when balanced can be beautiful.

Yoga also has some really interesting points in this. For example there are many situations where flexing a muscle, and pulling in will actually help you release other muscles to be more flexible. Because of the strength imposed your muscles now feel comfortable to relax in ways they would not have before. It is a strangely seemingly opposed balance.

This could be a fundamental way in which the world works. True harmony as not a resolution of conflict, but a manifestation of it. As being right in the middle of it. I'm not even close to being prepared to discuss, explain clearly, or back this idea up right now, but I am definitely interested in exploring this pattern further. In many ways it is much more interesting when you feel it and are in the midst of it than if you just explain it. But I still would like to study this more intellectually as well. Just some thoughts. Who knew Dawkins would have me thinking so metaphysically?

Gah, my troubles with blog consistency!

So I'm back from not posting in a while. I've been kind of busy last week or so, been sorting some things out and I've gotten like 4 chapters ahead on the Dawkins. I really plan to make posts more often more consistently, just to keep my writing up. So here we begin.

First things first, Dawkins can wait, let's talk some hockey. The drama that is the impending Ilya Kovalchuk trade is just edge of your seat intensity! I'm frothing with anticipation! (frothing??) Anyway, it turns out Atlanta's GM is the biggest moron on the planet and can't fork out the money to save his franchise. That's right, I said it. Ilya Kovalchuk is the only reason any fans come to the games, and now, it's going to be even worse. They're gonna miss the playoffs and suck. I would do anything to keep him if I were Don Waddell, unfortunately I am not. Kovalchuk wants to stay too, he's said it. He just wants a truck load of money, which he damn well deserves. Possibly the purest goal scorer in the game right now.

Sources including TSN and ESPN have said that Waddell has told Kovalchuk a trade could happen in a couple hours or a couple days. That could be as I'm typing this post, trade could be made as soon as I post this! But thinking about where he's going is kind of exciting.

It looks like the biggest lookers are New Jersey, Philly, and LA. Let's hope he doesn't go to Philly, besides they need someone more responsible defensively anyway. Though their offense would get even more nasty, but yeah, I can't stand the Flyers. Now, if he went to New Jersey, that would be obscenely dangerous. They really only have one guy that can score, Parise, the rest of the guys are good, but they are such a defensive team. With Kovy's absurd hands and impossible sniper skills, they would be lights out, instant cup contenders. Now with LA, he could do some damage there too. Again a strong defensive team, but one that can score. With an elite winger like Kovy, again, instant Cup contender.

There has also been talk about Chicago or Boston being interested. If Chicago gets him, you might as well not even play the rest of the season, they're already cup favorites. Boston could really use Kovy, since they traded Kessel they can't score worth shit. We'll see how this pans out, but I'm really excited to see what happens (please not Philly, please not Philly *crosses fingers*).

Ok, so now that we're done with that, let's move on.

The Dawkins is getting a little tedious. His argument is very clear at this point: genes are the central unit of life, as opposed to individual organisms, and can explain many counter intuitive things that happen in nature like altruism. And now he's just running through examples, giving all the details, and not as much crazy lol statements about worshipping evolution or the epic battle that is gene competition. Honestly it's just been a lot of stuff about how the family works. Like a child is 50% their parent and 50% their sibling and vice versa. Though they're more likely to know for a fact that their parent is actually the same genes as them. And basically he's gone through a lot of examples and play around this kind of thing. Shown some related things that go on in the world of nature. Not compelling like the earlier stuff.

I guess I'll just hit some random stuff that was kind of interesting:

He talks about game theory, which I've never understood fully, but actually seems really fascinating. Essentially it is the study of how games work and how strategies find balances. It is a mathematical field, but is often used when looking at the behavior of animals and why they do the things they do. Like who aggressive strategies work well against, who passive strategies work well against, and then more complex strategies, and it seems like after a while they seem to really balance out, or one becomes more dominant, then fluctuates when another becomes more dominant. Apparently the theory insists that like there is an ultimate strategy that will remain dominant, that is more complex, but honestly I think it is much more likely to have this fluctuation and oscillation. (though like I said I really don't understand this fully how it works).

But what I find fascinating about it, is I wonder if it's ever been applied to sports. If you just look at sports you can watch how the strategies have evolved over the years. In football it was really run and short passes in the 70's and 80's, but now (especially with the rules changes), it's really a pass first game. Then again though, it seems like the rules often change in nature too, consider the world before and after humans. Our ability to construct things changes the playing field entirely, way more than the "no touch" rules on passing in the NFL. You can see the same with hockey, after Wayne Gretzky pretty much broke the stand up goalie style, the new strategy became butterfly. Anyway, I'm very curious if and how game theory could apply to sports, especially considering sports are games.

Meh, I guess that's it, nothing else really made me think. He's currently trying to back up why altruism exists. I don't think it's that far a stretch, but he wants to make sure the details are right.

Alright, I should be back soon. At least for a small Dawkins update, and or some other stuff, for now I'm off.

Genes as computer programmers

Parallels between brains and computers have been very common. Dawkins in this last chapter pretty much explains that genes work as the programmers for the computers. The key distinction here is that genes do not directly control our actions, but instead give our brain parameters like a programmer gives the computer. Still ultimately genes control our actions, just not directly, it's like a deal going on between the brain and the genes. Genes are like "we give you decision-making and simulation, you stay alive for us, and propogate us" and they shake and voila, you have autonomous survival machines. Cool concept.

Best part of this chapter is his recognition of consciousness. I don't know if he's bought into Dan Dennett's crap by now, and I know he doesn't care too much, but he says it does seem bizarre that consciousness arose and it is hard to see a function for it as far as genes and survival goes. He even makes the distinction between computers creating simulations without consciousness, and how we do have consciousness. Though now that I think about it, he probably at least rolls with the Dennett view a little bit because as it turns out consciousness is not physical, and there's no room for a non physical thing in a closed physical world (supposedly). I don't know, this is the only book I've read by Dawkins, so I don't know if he recognizes any view of consciousness at all, or really cares. My bet is he ignores it. Not his field of expertise anyway.

He is extremely focused on behaviorism, though this makes sense because his actual field of study is ethology: the study of behavior in animals (particularly, instead of specific animals, specific behaviors as the occur in different animals). But I'm not convinced something isn't lost when describing something purely in terms of behavior. All I can say right now is that it bothers me, but that's just an intuition. It makes sense that we would describe life by the way it acts and then use that as an explanation. That is pretty much all we can observe, I think right? We'll have to come back to this.

I'd just like to say I've been thinking about perspective a lot recently. One of the things I really like about Dawkins is that he can shift the perspective really well. Particularly from us feeling like we are the main entities on the earth to making genes the central entities of the earth. And then shifting back and explaining how the brain becomes a new secondary perspective. Then again, reading and watching interviews with Dan Dennett, where he will also shift perspectives to give you an interesting (though I believe often circular) argument about whatever he is talking about.

But the one thing this always brings me to, is the difference between first person and third person. Science is done exclusively as a third party. And the common belief is that finding the truth means truth is something objective out there, observable third party. The problem is that all observation is done first person. We assume third party status because we believe we are not involved, but everything we experience is a construction that occurs in our brain. These constructions lead us to believe that it is based on information from the outside garnered by our senses, but no matter what the test is or theory, there will always be a subjective lense to it. We only have what our brain, what our consciousness gives us. Furthermore, "objectivity" is merely an agreement between subjective parties. And this could easily be flawed communication. Ok I'm digressing. What I'm trying to get at is there is this trend of believing that we are observing the absolute truth in the third person. And I believe that this is jumping to conclusions. [/end rant