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.