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Tag Archives: god

Leaving Las Vegas (too)

28 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by Bob in myCulture, myLifestyle

≈ Comments Off on Leaving Las Vegas (too)

Tags

1 corinthians 13, 1934, aa, accomplished, acting, actions, afraid, alarming, alcoholic, alcoholics anonymous, alcoholism, angel, anger, article, awakening, baffling, banned, behaviour, being, belongings, ben, big book, bill w., black hole, blog, body, boy, capacity, cheat, choice, claim, cleaned, community, condition, condone, conquers, control, controlled, corrupted, cure, damaged, dangerous, dark, death, decisions, dedicated, degrees, desire, desperate, destruction, deterioration, devastated, diet, direction, discussion, dismembered, disturbing, dr. bob, drink, drinking, edition, eliminated, endure, entertainment, entice, evade, examine, experience, fail, family, fantasies, fight, fire, founder, garbage, gas, god, harsh, hauman, healthy, history, hope, human, impossible, incurable, instances, instinct, internet, intervene, jail, job, kill, lacking, las vegas, leaving las vegas, life, live, living, love, loved, lovenever fails, lurk, magazine, manage, manifest, mind, mission, movie, mutilated, news, numbing, overwhelm, painful, paradoxically, path, people, person, personal, pets, poisoned, post, power, prevail, questions, radio, re-offend, reconsideration, recovering, recovery, relieved, remark, reminders, replies, response, road, saved, scenes, science, segment, self-destruction, self-inflicted, self-plunder, sera, sick, situation, snapped, social media, sought, soul, spirit, spiritual, struggle, subsequent, suffering, survival, survive, tough, tragic, treatment, trigger, uncontrollable, vegas, vortex, watched, weeks, willingness, woman, writing

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In the days following my viewing the movie Leaving Las Vegas and the writing of the article post for this blog, the movie continues to stir my mind. I see Las Vegas as a place that actually condones and even supports those who might wish to throw themselves into the vortex of human self-plunder. I don’t know for sure; I have never been there and have never wished to go. It seems a place I might lose control. Sure I would love to see all the wonderful entertainment, yet I know that Vegas is designed to entice one into what can easily become a black hole for some.

Somethings have peaked my interest in this movie. Almost daily I hear of those tragic human situations where someone is out of control. I hear talk about those dark notions that seem to lurk in us all and surface in some manifesting in disturbing behaviour. Only yesterday was a discussion on the radio about a woman who mutilated and dismembered pets and is now out of jail living somewhere in the community. It is known that her treatment has not worked and that she will likely re-offend. She was banned from using the Internet, yet managed to post some remarks on social media sparking alarming replies from others who have dark fantasies that they would love to experience, but are also afraid of acting on those desires.

I just watched a portion of a news magazine segment about a boy who simply could not control himself or be controlled. There seemed to be no way to keep him from some dangerous behaviour.

What is it about some people that drives them to destruction? Why do some people seem to be incurable and must live with certain conditions somehow contained, but never eliminated?

What seldom seems to be considered as a primary way out is to treat the human spirit—the only place within a human where true hope may be found. In 1934, two desperate alcoholics met, found recovery and discovered: a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our lives; b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism; c) That God could and would if He were sought. —From Alcoholics Anonymous (Third Edition) (The Big Book) page 60.

Alcoholism has devastated lives throughout human history and still does. It is an example of a human condition to which there seems no cure. Even alcoholics in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) refer to themselves as ‘recovering.’ There are other human conditions that seem to evade the human cure.

What the founders of AA discovered is that, where human efforts and science fail, God can prevail. For Ben in Leaving Las Vegas, the desire to live and the willingness to step onto a spiritual road were completely lacking. How could this be? Isn’t it a basic instinct for any life form to survive? It seems that it would be very difficult for any living being to endure a self-inflicted slow death and not have some sort of survival response. How does a human lose all hope and become dedicated to a path of self-destruction?

The seed of human life is corrupted. There is a part of each and every one of us that has the capacity to lead us into self-destruction, whether we realize it or not. Examine your life and you will spot instances of actions that might be less than the best choice. How many people go on a diet and never cheat? Who can claim to have never said anything harsh or in anger? It is impossible. For some people the fight for the soul where one makes the decisions about their actions is a struggle that can sometimes overwhelm. All it take is a certain situation that can trigger an uncontrollable response. For one person, it might bring a harsh word; for another, it might cause them to pick up a drink. If they are an alcoholic, this could kill them.

Obviously, Ben snapped when he lost his family. He snapped and lost control. His mind changed direction 180 degrees. When he was let go from his job, he was told that they sure liked having him around. Instead of involving some sort of reconsideration response and a subsequent change in his behaviour; this only poured gas on the fire. In one of the next scenes, he has cleaned out his house and is pouring gas on garbage bags of personal belongings, reminders of his family. It is then that he heads to Las Vegas—down the road of destruction. Where was the hope he could continue to live without his family?

It is said that love conquers all. 1 Corinthians 13 states, “Love never fails.” So what happened to Ben? Sera loved him and he loved her. He called her his angel. His body, soul and spirit were so damaged that there was little left to save him. Death and a way of drinking, as Ben called his mission, must have been difficult and painful. The body becomes very sick. That he accomplished his mission in weeks probably means, rather than a slow deterioration of his body, mind and soul, that he poisoned himself and his relatively healthy body with the alcohol numbing him.

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Where were those who might intervene? Would it even be possible to intervene? These are tough questions for a situation such as Ben’s. Whether short-termed or long-termed alcoholism is baffling. Still one never knows when a spiritual awakening might occur, so one must always be there for those who struggle and never give up. That the one there for Ben was Sera who was also in a struggle should not have mattered. Often two who are suffering can paradoxically help each other. Bill W. and Dr. Bob are perfect examples and the result not only saved themselves, but countless others through AA.—a true spiritual awakening.

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The Jazz Lifestyle

18 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by Bob in myCulture, myLifestyle, myTech, Technojungle

≈ Comments Off on The Jazz Lifestyle

Tags

african, african-american, america, analog, anxious, authenticity, automobile, baptist, blues, bondages, chicago, chord, chords, classical, communications, compose, creative, dehumanizing, democratic, despair, digital, diverse, emotion, emotional, empathetic, enslaving, european, flappers, gangsters, god, gospel, happiness, harmony, humanity, identity, improvisation, innovative, inspirational, interpretation, intuitive, invent, jazz, jazz age, jazzers, jungle, liberty, lifestyle, maachines, magazines, marching, misery, mississippi, modern, movies, music, musician, new orleans, new york, oppression, peace, phonograph, piano, polymetric, polyrhythmic, prohibition, radio, ragtime, records, rhythm, riverboats, sacred, saxophone, self-expression, shake, slave, slaves, speakeasies, spiritual, spirituals, spontaneous, stress, stressful, survival, swing, syncopation, technobeast, technojungle, technology, telephone, tribal, trumpet, vibrato, victorian, weapon, west indies

wpid-jazz-2014-08-18-19-51.png

What we can learn from the music

Are we following technology more than our humanity? In this age of unceasing change, we can easily fall into a trap of technological routines and over-programming of our lives. We become stressed and anxious about living in this dehumanizing jungle of technology. Can jazz music teach us anything about living; about survival in a technology dominated world where machines may one day out think humans?

A jazz approach to life could be a powerful weapon and solution in the technojungle because of its deep humanizing potential. The technobeasts can’t do jazz because jazz is analog, not readable by digital technology. It is a continuum of infinities that no digital technology can comprehend. The human spirit can.

Jazz is democratic, inclusive, creative, innovative, spontaneous, intuitive, inspirational, emotional, empathetic, diverse, spiritual. Among these, technology can’t flourish, however, humanity can.

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Jazz meanings include, vigour, energy, effervescence of spirit, joy, pep, magnetism, verve, virility, encouragement and happiness. To jazz things up can mean to enliven, liven up, brighten up, make more interesting and exciting, add some colour to, ginger up, spice up, perk up and pep up. It can be enthusiastic or lively talk.

Originally, jazz music came from African and West Indies music containing tribal beats that became slave songs. These blended with some European styles and the musical styles of ragtime, black sacred music, marching-band music, rural blues, spirituals and gospel music mostly from the African-American baptist churches during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Jazz music is polyrhythmic and polymetric. It has some structure, yet allows for improvised cross rhythms combined with a syncopation that anticipates the beat. To many enthusiasts, jazz must be able to swing.

To play jazz one needs four components shared by many other styles of music. These components are: rhythm, melody, harmony and chords. The order doesn’t really matter. One might choose the melody first which usually comes with chords. Harmony is derived from the chords, however, many styles of jazz use versions of chords that provide a more jazz-like feel. The flavour of the music can be changed by the rhythm. To live a jazz lifestyle one must seek the important components in life and find the right rhythm to follow.

One of the key elements of Jazz is improvisation allowing for free expression and interpretation of the music. When playing jazz, musicians must listen carefully to each other and respect the feel and interpretation each player brings to the performance. The music can change at any time and what one player does can be of great influence to others. It is a very democratic process of life that includes equally all those involved.

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Because jazz music is free expression and full of inspiration and emotion, notes may be changed slightly. Certain notes can be added to give a blue texture. Such notes are called blue notes. Some notes may have their tone bent thus creating a different kind of blue note.

There are a variety of ways to make special jazz sounds and some are unique to particular instruments. A piano, for example, can’t really do a vibrato or shake. A saxophone or trumpet can do the vibrato and shake, but can’t play more than one note at a time, so a chord can only be played one note at a time. This is how a melody can be re-composed on the spot following the chord structure of the music. We can each find our own instrument of life to play along with other people and re-compose our world.

While no two performances of any music are exactly the same, jazz performances can differ greatly. Solos are usually never played the same way more than once and all jazz musicians have their own style and sound. There have been many attempts to write down jazz music. Jazz that is written can capture some of the feeling and provide larger groups a structure so they can play together. A jazz band may use an arrangement. However, the arrangement usually allows for individual free self-expression through improvisation, inspiration—even touching the emotions and intuition of the players and the listeners. Many people think jazz music should never, or can’t be written. For them it is all about taking the barest of structure, perhaps only melody and chords, thus allowing the music to come from their spirit.

Jazz is an analog form of communication. Being analog, which unlike digital, is infinite, moving from one note to another can include every pitch in between those notes. Being analog makes music and jazz best suited to the human body and human spirit.

Jazz music has managed to find it’s way into nearly every corner of the human experience. Along the way, it gathered for itself a myriad of stories and perceptions. Many, like tarnished silverware, are dark and depressing. Yet as the definition above shows, jazz is quite the opposite. It is time to de-tarnish jazz and learn what it really is and to make it our life. It can deepen our humanity and free us from the technojungle that surrounds us.

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Flappers doing the Charleston dance.

While jazz music emerged in the late 1800s, the jazz lifestyle was born during the 1920s Jazz Age. It was a post war era that ushered in great technological innovation and cultural change to a world of industry and wealth. Until this era, most children would have a lifestyle similar to that of their parents. New innovations, such as the telephone, phonograph and records, movies, radio, popular magazines and the automobile allowed for a new culture to spread across the country. Young women adopted a rather crude lifestyle and called themselves Flappers. Toward the end of the 1920s though, women were becoming more poised, with correct speech and smarter attire, in other words more respectable.

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Respectable flappers.

Jazz music followed the Mississippi on riverboats from New Orleans up north to Chicago and then East to New York. It was adopted by young people from the African-American slaves of the South. The jazz movement captured the youth who were eager to break away from the stiff Victorian lives that seemed to have trapped their parents. It was a time full of excitement and spontaneity.

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Early New Orleans jazz bands used guitar and string bass instead of louder banjo and tuba used for marching and recording.

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The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, a white band from New Orleans that made the first jazz recording. They were issued on the Victor label.

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“Fine and Mellow” with Billie “Lady Day” Holiday, considered one of the greatest female jazz singers with Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and Gerry Mulligan and others from a 1957 CBS TV show “The Sound of Jazz.”

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Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, considered the greatest jazz musician of all time.

Jazz living got into trouble sometimes, leading its followers into drinking and riotous living during a time when the evils of drinking were being curtailed by prohibition. Jazzers were left to follow the music into private and secret night clubs, called speakeasies, run by gangsters.

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Like a person of youth, the jazz lifestyle, inspired by the music, needed to do some growing up—to mature. Since jazz music has eventually gained world-wide respect as a unique art form, it is time to take a look at what the style of music can teach us about living in a world of anxiety and unrest where humanity can be buried by the demands of technology.

Jazz is a journey of intimate shared experiences, describing the world and telling stories from the perspective of, developing the authenticity and identity of, each participant. It strives to leave behind the world of stress and anxiety by transforming the moment with peace and harmony. Jazz is an adventure of impulsive spontaneity and self-expression with surprises at every turn. Jazzers compose, recompose and instantly invent and reinvent their life by changing their actions. As an inclusive approach to life, the jazz lifestyle can be lived anywhere by anyone.

Jazz music is about freedom and liberty from oppression allowing self-expression, usually lively, that can swing and lift the human spirit. Yet it adheres to certain structures and is true to its history and legacy. The music has gained respect and is considered the classical music of America. As a lifestyle, jazz living should be compatible with most belief systems and world views since it is a way of living and acting that has the goal of allowing people to be more human.

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Jazz music insists that all participants listen and pay attention to each other and to the music, and the music brings life. It draws together in harmony the human body, mind and spirit to function as they were created. One will find that the influences on their life that dehumanize and bring stress and anxiety will become less important. A jazz life should help people to break away from the bondages of modern life and focus on the human experience and the things that God has given them.

Jazz music was born in the depths of human misery and despair. It was given to slave people with nothing and is here now to help us living in an enslaving world of technology. With a jazz lifestyle, we can protect ourselves from becoming absorbed by our machines; to keep technology from replacing humanity.

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This exploration and discussion about a jazz influenced style of living needs to continue. I am not finished, this article is not complete and I welcome the input from readers.

Quotes

“I sincerely believe that jazz is the folk music of the machine age.” — Paul Whiteman, popular 1920s orchestra leader dubbed ‘The King of Jazz’ due to his orchestra having so many famous jazz musicians playing orchestrated jazz.

“There was every reason why this music sprang into being about 1915. The acceleration of the pace of living in this country, the accumulation of social forces under pressure (and long before the war, too), mechanical inventions, methods of rapid communication, all had increased tremendously in the past 100 years— notably in the past quarter century. In this country especially the rhythm of machinery, the overrapid expansion of a great country endowed with tremendous natural energies and wealth have brought about a pace and scale of living unparalleled in history. Is it any wonder that the popular music of this land should reflect these modes of living? Every other art reflects them.” — Paul Whiteman

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Wynton Marsalis, considered to be one of the leading jazz performers and experts.

As long as there is democracy, there will be people wanting to play jazz because nothing else will ever so perfectly capture the democratic process in sound. Jazz means working things out musically with other people. You have to listen to other musicians and play with them even if you don’t agree with what they’re playing. It teaches you the very opposite of racism and anti-Semitism. It teaches you that the world is big enough to accommodate us all. — Wynton Marsalis

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The never to be left out of jazz…

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What does it mean to be human?

04 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by Bob in myCulture, myLifestyle, myNews, myTech, Technojungle

≈ Comments Off on What does it mean to be human?

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2001 a space odyssey, abstractly, activity, adapt, advertising, aliens, android, animals, ape, Apes, automaton, automotive industry, behaviours, belief, body, boomer, brain, change, characteristics, cigarettes, climate, climates, clothes, clothing, communicate, conscious, creatively, cultural, dangers, death, defend, dehumanizing, destructive, diametrically, dichotomy, die, dna, dolphins, economic, economically, electric, emotion, emotional, environment, evolutionists, exercising, faith, family, fashion, fingers, fossil, friend, fuels, gas, generation, god, habit, heal, human, humanity, humanoid, identity, illogical, individual, information, internal combustion engine, irrational, jewelry, kill, knowledge, lifespan, lives, longevity, love, lyrics, machine, manufacturing, memory, military, monolith, music, naked, oil, paradox, petroleum, police, politically, pollution, post traumatic stress disorder, psychological, ptsd, risk, robotics, robots, salt, scholars, science, science fiction, scientists, self-aware, self-defense, sexual, smokers, smoking, socializing, sociologists, soldiers, species, spiritual, sugar, survival, technology, teens, temperature, thoughts, thumb, tool, trauma, TV, unhealthy, uniform, war, whales, world

In a world of information and knowledge such as never seen before in the history of humans, we still struggle to answer the question “What does it mean to be human?” Some scientists say it comes down to our DNA. Other people point out that it is the way that we can walk upright and use our fingers and hands. Perhaps our humanity comes from the fact that we have been able to adapt so well to any condition. Others say it is the way we think about what we think; That we are self-aware. Others wonder if our humanity is contained in our way of socializing.
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And finally, some have concluded that it is our science and technology that makes us human. Anyone who has seen the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey will remember the scene where the ape, after touching the monolith, picks up a bone and uses it as a club, the first tool. It is our use of science and technology that allows us to change the world.

Many people, when asked this question, will focus on what emerges from the use of our brain. We are conscious, communicate in complex ways, think creatively and abstractly. Is it possible to verify that we are the only species with these characteristics? What about whales and dolphins? There are certainly other species that seem to exhibit some complex thought and communication abilities.wpid-images-1-2014-02-4-21-21.jpeg

Is our humanity defined by our doing all these things so well together? Whales and dolphins are among many complex species that seem to be well suited to their environment. One might even argue that humans actually exhibit a variety of negative behaviours. We alter our environment in negative ways. Where do you draw the line between what is a negative behaviour or what are negative changes to our environment? A large city may seem like an advanced activity, that is if you don’t take into consideration that cities produce pollution, traffic jams and other negative harmful and dehumanizing byproducts.

Many scholars, scientists and sociologists have thought deeply about what it means to be human. Here are my ideas from observation and experience.

We are aware that we are going to die eventually. Our lives are a struggle to stay alive, prolong our lives, heal ourselves with some even looking for ways to increase longevity. At the same time we do things that decrease our lifespan. In many ways this is a paradox. Take smoking cigarettes, for example. We know they kill, yet many people can’t stop and others will even start smoking, knowing the dangers. Smokers will defend their smoking habit. High risk behaviour might be another good example. There may be definite dangers, yet people will continue to do the activity and defend their choice. Why are we so often drawn to the over use of sugar or salt, or other foods that are deemed to be unhealthy.

Even though we are aware of our impending death, we work hard to delay it; we also work hard at decreasing our lifespan. Yet it is within the human behaviour to do that which is dangerous or unhealthy and defend the right to do it. That might be something that is uniquely human.

We often act in irrational and illogical ways. Just as we act to prolong our lives, we also do that which might shorten our life. This doesn’t make sense—it is irrational and illogical. We could consider numerous other activities that are diametrically opposed to one another. How often do you find people who are exercising because they ate too much?
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This sort of irrational and illogical behaviour is not done merely on an individual basis; we as a society have many activities that need to be changed. The big one, of course, being our dependence on petroleum, oil—fossil fuels. Burning these fossil fuels creates pollution. These days the contention is that this, along with other activities, contribute to climate change. We don’t actually know if climate change is primarily caused by the activities of humans, or is part of the natural cycle of planet Earth. Likely, it is a combination of both.

In the automotive industry, there have been strides to develop alternatives to the internal combustion engine that uses oil products. Electric cars could have entered the market long before they did. The oil and gas industry is huge and has considerable weight politically and economically. Humans use political and economic issues to steer society away from healthier activities.

Because we human beings walk upright we are able to use our hands, with the unique opposable thumb, to do things that other animals are not able to do. Humans can do fine manipulation of things with their fingers. Evolutionists would say that humans came from an animal that crawled around on all four limbs, like other animals and somehow evolved into walking upright, thus free the hands for special uses. There may not be any actual proof of this in the fossil record, nor do we see any living examples of animals that might be at the in between stage. Apes simply don’t have the dexterity that a human has.
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Like many people of the boomer generation (mid 1940s to mid 1960s), I grew up watching science and science fiction shows on TV. I often heard the term humanoid which referred to human-like beings, perhaps aliens, with human appearance and characteristics. As I recall, these were actual living flesh.

We are living in a world we are increasingly having to share with robots; a sophisticated machine that can perform a human function. I believe they were originally called an automaton. They are not necessarily human-like in appearance or behaviour, however, they can function and move things around in a similar manner to a human. That is called robotics.
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We tend to have a view of robots being more human-like in appearance and striving to become human-like function and characteristics. A robot might be simply an arm that can perform a human function as part of an assembly or manufacturing process. Scientists are building robots that are visually similar in size and appearance to a human being. One might think that the goal is to make an android, or human machine. The reason is actually that, if a robot is to function in the spaces that a human being lives in, it make sense to have a robot that is similar in size.
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To be human is to wear clothes. We don’t walk around naked, at least, not anymore. We may have originally. Clothing hides out nakedness, allowing us to live in colder climates and to adjust our temperature as required. Humans use clothing and jewelry as fashion. Fashion helps to show others part of one’s identity. This is uniquely human.

Clothing is a technology that we use to enhance our lives and to make a statement about ourselves as to who we are as individuals. Some fashions, a uniform for example, identifies a group we belong to, such as military or police. Clothing helps to make us human.

Humans also have a number of emotional and psychological differences from other beings. One reason we have clothing is because we have sexual urges that would otherwise get in the way, although, someone might argue that it is clothing that makes us less comfortable with the human body and unable to control sexual urges. However, clothing is also used to make certain people more sexually appealing. Once again, we have a paradox or dichotomy. We can see advertising aimed convincing teens and pre-teens to dress in an overly sexual manner beyond their age. This is a way of using the technology of clothing to dehumanize.

Humans will argue and fight for a variety of reason other than for survival. They actually experience what we call love. We may not be able to determine if other animals experience love. At least not as humans do. There are three kinds of love. Love for a friend, love for a family member or mate, and a love for God. Love separates us from other beings.

Love tends to drive societies in many directions. Listen to popular music and you will notice that the majority of lyrics are about love. Love is arguably the strongest emotion that humans experience.

If a person is deemed to have thoughts, emotions or behaviours that are not normal or are inappropriate, even destructive, they may undergo procedures to alter and improve them such that they meet with society norms. Some emotional and psychological changes are temporary. Perhaps the result of a trauma, such as a death in the family. Soldiers return home and often have short-termed or long-termed post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They may relive traumatic experiences in their head. This too, when untreated, can dehumanize people and those in their families.

This might be another characteristic of humans. They have long-term memory. Memory that they can recall and often relive, often negative experiences.
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A few humans may actually kill other humans for other reasons than survival or self-defence. Entire societies will go to war. That leaves somebody in charge of ordering another human to kill somebody they know nothing about and have no quarrel with.
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Perhaps, what really makes us most human is that most people have some sort of faith or belief that there is another spiritual side, that there is a God. This seems to exist in all societies. This might be cultural or part of what it means to be human, or both.

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What does it mean to be human?

04 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by Bob in myBooks, myTech, Technojungle

≈ Comments Off on What does it mean to be human?

Tags

2001 a space odyssey, abstractly, activity, adapt, advertising, aliens, android, animals, ape, Apes, automaton, automotive industry, behaviours, belief, body, boomer, brain, change, characteristics, cigarettes, climate, climates, clothes, clothing, communicate, conscious, creatively, cultural, dangers, death, defend, dehumanizing, destructive, diametrically, dichotomy, die, dna, dolphins, economic, economically, electric, emotion, emotional, environment, evolutionists, exercising, faith, family, fashion, fingers, fossil, friend, fuels, gas, generation, god, habit, heal, human, humanity, humanoid, identity, illogical, individual, information, internal combustion engine, irrational, jewelry, kill, knowledge, lifespan, lives, longevity, love, lyrics, machine, manufacturing, memory, military, monolith, music, naked, oil, paradox, petroleum, police, politically, pollution, post traumatic stress disorder, psychological, ptsd, risk, robotics, robots, salt, scholars, science, science fiction, scientists, self-aware, self-defense, sexual, smokers, smoking, socializing, sociologists, soldiers, species, spiritual, sugar, survival, technology, teens, temperature, thoughts, thumb, tool, trauma, TV, unhealthy, uniform, war, whales, world

In a world of information and knowledge such as never seen before in the history of humans, we still struggle to answer the question “What does it mean to be human?” Some scientists say it comes down to our DNA. Other people point out that it is the way that we can walk upright and use our fingers and hands. Perhaps our humanity comes from the fact that we have been able to adapt so well to any condition. Others say it is the way we think about what we think; That we are self-aware. Others wonder if our humanity is contained in our way of socializing.

wpid-technology_evolution-2014-02-4-21-211.jpg
And finally, some have concluded that it is our science and technology that makes us human. Anyone who has seen the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey will remember the scene where the ape, after touching the monolith, picks up a bone and uses it as a club, the first tool. It is our use of science and technology that allows us to change the world.

Many people, when asked this question, will focus on what emerges from the use of our brain. We are conscious, communicate in complex ways, think creatively and abstractly. Is it possible to verify that we are the only species with these characteristics? What about whales and dolphins? There are certainly other species that seem to exhibit some complex thought and communication abilities.

wpid-images-1-2014-02-4-21-211.jpeg

Is our humanity defined by our doing all these things so well together? Whales and dolphins are among many complex species that seem to be well suited to their environment. One might even argue that humans actually exhibit a variety of negative behaviours. We alter our environment in negative ways. Where do you draw the line between what is a negative behaviour or what are negative changes to our environment? A large city may seem like an advanced activity, that is if you don’t take into consideration that cities produce pollution, traffic jams and other negative harmful and dehumanizing byproducts.

Many scholars, scientists and sociologists have thought deeply about what it means to be human. Here are my ideas from observation and experience.

We are aware that we are going to die eventually. Our lives are a struggle to stay alive, prolong our lives, heal ourselves with some even looking for ways to increase longevity. At the same time we do things that decrease our lifespan. In many ways this is a paradox. Take smoking cigarettes, for example. We know they kill, yet many people can’t stop and others will even start smoking, knowing the dangers. Smokers will defend their smoking habit. High risk behaviour might be another good example. There may be definite dangers, yet people will continue to do the activity and defend their choice. Why are we so often drawn to the over use of sugar or salt, or other foods that are deemed to be unhealthy.

Even though we are aware of our impending death, we work hard to delay it; we also work hard at decreasing our lifespan. Yet it is within the human behaviour to do that which is dangerous or unhealthy and defend the right to do it. That might be something that is uniquely human.

We often act in irrational and illogical ways. Just as we act to prolong our lives, we also do that which might shorten our life. This doesn’t make sense—it is irrational and illogical. We could consider numerous other activities that are diametrically opposed to one another. How often do you find people who are exercising because they ate too much?
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This sort of irrational and illogical behaviour is not done merely on an individual basis; we as a society have many activities that need to be changed. The big one, of course, being our dependence on petroleum, oil—fossil fuels. Burning these fossil fuels creates pollution. These days the contention is that this, along with other activities, contribute to climate change. We don’t actually know if climate change is primarily caused by the activities of humans, or is part of the natural cycle of planet Earth. Likely, it is a combination of both.

In the automotive industry, there have been strides to develop alternatives to the internal combustion engine that uses oil products. Electric cars could have entered the market long before they did. The oil and gas industry is huge and has considerable weight politically and economically. Humans use political and economic issues to steer society away from healthier activities.

Because we human beings walk upright we are able to use our hands, with the unique opposable thumb, to do things that other animals are not able to do. Humans can do fine manipulation of things with their fingers. Evolutionists would say that humans came from an animal that crawled around on all four limbs, like other animals and somehow evolved into walking upright, thus free the hands for special uses. There may not be any actual proof of this in the fossil record, nor do we see any living examples of animals that might be at the in between stage. Apes simply don’t have the dexterity that a human has.
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Like many people of the boomer generation (mid 1940s to mid 1960s), I grew up watching science and science fiction shows on TV. I often heard the term humanoid which referred to human-like beings, perhaps aliens, with human appearance and characteristics. As I recall, these were actual living flesh.

We are living in a world we are increasingly having to share with robots; a sophisticated machine that can perform a human function. I believe they were originally called an automaton. They are not necessarily human-like in appearance or behaviour, however, they can function and move things around in a similar manner to a human. That is called robotics.
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We tend to have a view of robots being more human-like in appearance and striving to become human-like function and characteristics. A robot might be simply an arm that can perform a human function as part of an assembly or manufacturing process. Scientists are building robots that are visually similar in size and appearance to a human being. One might think that the goal is to make an android, or human machine. The reason is actually that, if a robot is to function in the spaces that a human being lives in, it make sense to have a robot that is similar in size.
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To be human is to wear clothes. We don’t walk around naked, at least, not anymore. We may have originally. Clothing hides out nakedness, allowing us to live in colder climates and to adjust our temperature as required. Humans use clothing and jewelry as fashion. Fashion helps to show others part of one’s identity. This is uniquely human.

Clothing is a technology that we use to enhance our lives and to make a statement about ourselves as to who we are as individuals. Some fashions, a uniform for example, identifies a group we belong to, such as military or police. Clothing helps to make us human.

Humans also have a number of emotional and psychological differences from other beings. One reason we have clothing is because we have sexual urges that would otherwise get in the way, although, someone might argue that it is clothing that makes us less comfortable with the human body and unable to control sexual urges. However, clothing is also used to make certain people more sexually appealing. Once again, we have a paradox or dichotomy. We can see advertising aimed convincing teens and pre-teens to dress in an overly sexual manner beyond their age. This is a way of using the technology of clothing to dehumanize.

Humans will argue and fight for a variety of reason other than for survival. They actually experience what we call love. We may not be able to determine if other animals experience love. At least not as humans do. There are three kinds of love. Love for a friend, love for a family member or mate, and a love for God. Love separates us from other beings.

Love tends to drive societies in many directions. Listen to popular music and you will notice that the majority of lyrics are about love. Love is arguably the strongest emotion that humans experience.

If a person is deemed to have thoughts, emotions or behaviours that are not normal or are inappropriate, even destructive, they may undergo procedures to alter and improve them such that they meet with society norms. Some emotional and psychological changes are temporary. Perhaps the result of a trauma, such as a death in the family. Soldiers return home and often have short-termed or long-termed post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They may relive traumatic experiences in their head. This too, when untreated, can dehumanize people and those in their families.

This might be another characteristic of humans. They have long-term memory. Memory that they can recall and often relive, often negative experiences.
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A few humans may actually kill other humans for other reasons than survival or self-defence. Entire societies will go to war. That leaves somebody in charge of ordering another human to kill somebody they know nothing about and have no quarrel with.
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Perhaps, what really makes us most human is that most people have some sort of faith or belief that there is another spiritual side, that there is a God. This seems to exist in all societies. This might be cultural or part of what it means to be human, or both.

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What about wisdom

03 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by Bob in myCulture, myTech, myWhys, Technojungle

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There seems to have been a massive shift in an aspect of humans that provides the ability to steer and navigate through life. Throughout human history, we lived together and one would interact and learn from previous generations, through life experiences, the wisdom of life. This was not merely information, but a depth of knowledge and understanding that would produce a solid foundation on which younger generations could construct their living. Have we replaced wisdom with information?

wisdomWisdom provides the ultimate guidance for living and, since it is not just information, we might consider it a much deeper aspect of human experience. Perhaps, even spiritual. Humans learn knowledge and skills through stages. First, is to learn about the subject by learning terminology or observing the performance of a skill. Next, one may use the basic knowledge or skill in simple forms. As they learn more about the subject, they begin to use the knowledge or skill in more complex ways. Eventually, they learn to apply the knowledge or skill on their own, adapting as required. At an even higher level of learning is mastery. Here one is able to somewhat bend or break the rules in ways that may be deemed artistic. They flow and are free from thinking and focusing on the techniques to being able to create and to make judgements. The knowledge and skills become who they are at a very deep level.

That would not seem to be the end of it. On the path to understanding, we employ various forms of what we sometimes call common sense. We seem to sort of pick up common sense as we travel through life. It stands on top of our inherent knowledge of what is right and what is wrong, what is good for us and what is bad.

As I look around at the world and society today, I see what I have just discussed has become so tattered and torn that I can scarcely find a thread of common sense, let alone any wisdom. What went wrong?

We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet known so little about who we are. Look closely at this statement and you will see how it applies to what I have written above. Our society operates only at the basic levels of understanding. Today, information is used interchangeably with knowledge and seems to be considered to be synonymous with understanding. People still get educated, however, they may not end up making the field they are educated in, their life’s work. They may not be able to find a job or they may change jobs several times throughout their life.

For most of human history, who one was could often be established by one’s name. A name might even be changed to suite who a person became in life. One might be known as John the shoe maker. Names often had very deep meanings.

Without a flood of information at one’s fingertips, a person would have to learn from an elder, or wiser person—someone with more experience to pass along, often in the form of stories that would not only pass along wisdom, but would entertain. We sometimes call this mentoring or apprenticing. As books became available, valuable and important information could be published as a permanent record.

Enter mass communications. Suddenly, information is everywhere. More than we can absorb. There is no time to soak in the information to begin the journey to making it knowledge. The message travels through only a glimpse and the mind has no time to determine what it is being fed. The path to wisdom is broken. In addition, since it is so simple to publish or transmit information, anyone can do it and that information may not be accurate.

The question is, can a plethora of surface information at massive levels lead to the outcome of knowledge and even understanding? Can one, bombarded by daily doses of thousands of messages of information become wise with wisdom? Remember, wisdom allows one to make sound judgements. Look around and see if you can observe people making sound judgements.

It seems to me that the lack of wisdom is also tied into education and the need to systematize and mechanize human existence. The education system is designed to indoctrinate people into the current world view and to prepare them for a particular job or field of work. It is less about making human beings that can reason and more about maintaining the status quo. I ask, is it wise to maintain a path of growing consumption? Can we keep producing more and more? Does it make sense to judge the health of our society by the growth of its economy? This is a whole area of discussion that I have written about for years. Hopefully, you can get an idea of the sorts of questions one could be asking.

Our use of technology and its limiting of what full communications consists of, is stripping humankind of wisdom. When we communicate using any other means than face to face, we are missing about eighty percent of the message. I suspect that wisdom is best exchanged through face-to-face communications. As our machines become smarter and more like humans, humans become dumber and more like machines. We don’t seem to understand what is happening.

What exactly is wisdom? I’ll provide a little research. I did the following research after I had written the above.

Google, the reputed source of all knowledge today, yielded a definition of, ‘the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement; the quality of being wise.’

From Merrium-Webster:

: knowledge that is gained by having many experiences in life
: the natural ability to understand things that most other people cannot understand
: knowledge of what is proper or reasonable : good sense or judgment

Full Definition of WISDOM
1
a :  accumulated philosophic or scientific learning :  knowledge

b :  ability to discern inner qualities and relationships :  insight

c :  good sense :  judgment

d :  generally accepted belief <challenges what has become accepted wisdom among many historians — Robert Darnton>
2
:
  a wise attitude, belief, or course of action
3
:
  the teachings of the ancient wise men

From Wikipedia:

Wisdom has, in the Western tradition, been listed as one of four cardinal virtues. As a virtue it is a habit or disposition to perform the action with the highest degree of adequacy under any given circumstance. This implies a possession or seeking of knowledge of the given circumstances. This involves an understanding of people, things, events and situations, and the willingness and the ability to apply perceptions, judgments and actions in keeping with an understanding of what is the right course of actions. It often requires control of one’s emotional reactions (the “passions“) so that universal principles, values, reason and knowledge prevail to determine one’s actions. In short, wisdom is a disposition to find the truth coupled with an optimum judgement as to right actions. Synonyms include: prudence, sagacity, discernment, or insight.

Google lists The Free Dictionary as the second hit after Wikipedia. So…

From The Free Dictionary:

1. The ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting; insight.
2. Common sense; good judgment: “It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things” (Henry David Thoreau).
3.
a. The sum of learning through the ages; knowledge: “In those homely sayings was couched the collective wisdom of generations” (Maya Angelou).
b. Wise teachings of the ancient sages.
4. A wise outlook, plan, or course of action.
5. Wisdom Bible Wisdom of Solomon.

God's Ancient Wisdom-1 lineAh, the Bible. Finally, a source we can take a deeper look at. Notice the above notes Solomon as having wisdom. Solomon was the son of King David and wrote most of the book or Proverbs, the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes. In 1 Kings 3, Solomon asks for wisdom:

5 In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: and God said, Ask what I shall give thee.
6 And Solomon said, Thou hast shewed unto thy servant David my father great mercy, according as he walked before thee in truth, and in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with thee; and thou hast kept for him this great kindness, that thou hast given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day.
7 And now, O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father: and I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in.
8 And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude.
9 Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?
10 And the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing.
11 And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment;
12 Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.
Exodus 31:3
And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship,
Psalm 37:30
The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment.
Psalm 49:3
My mouth shall speak of wisdom; and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding.
Psalm 136:5
To him that by wisdom made the heavens: for his mercy endureth for ever.
Proverbs 1:7
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Proverbs 2:9-11
King James Version (KJV)
9 Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path.
10 When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul;
11 Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee:
Proverbs 3:19
The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.
Proverbs 17:24
Wisdom is before him that hath understanding; but the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth.
Proverbs 23:4
Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom.
Proverbs 24:3
Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established:
Ecclesiastes 2:13
Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness.
Ecclesiastes 2:26
For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation of spirit.
Jeremiah 10:12, Jeremiah 51:15
He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion.
Matthew 12:42, Luke 11:31
The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.
Romans 11:33
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
1 Corinthians 1:20
Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
1 Corinthians 1:24
But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
1 Corinthians 1:30
But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
1 Corinthians 3:19
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
Ephesians 1:17
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
Colossians 1:9
For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
Colossians 2:2-4
King James Version (KJV)
2 That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;
3 In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
4 And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.
Colossians 3:15-17
King James Version (KJV)
15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
17 And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
James 1:5
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
James 3:14-16
King James Version (KJV)
14 But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
15 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
James 3:17
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
Revelation 13:17-18
King James Version (KJV)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

Through the above select passages, the Bible seems to add to what I have already written by stating wisdom comes from the spirit of God, that the righteous speak wisdom. Wisdom made the heavens and the Earth. Only a fool despises wisdom from which deep understanding and judgement comes. Man seems to have his own wisdom, the wisdom of this world, that seeks riches and other earthly things. This is called folly and is vanity and vexation of spirit. This earthly wisdom is sensual and devilish. We are told that, if we lack the wisdom of God, which is pure, peaceable, gentle, full of mercy without partiality or hypocrisy, we should ask for it. With the wisdom of God we have the understanding of the beast of Revelations.

If Solomon was considered the wisest man to live, Jesus claimed to be greater. He is even called the wisdom of God.

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The original bang

04 Sunday Dec 2011

Posted by Bob in myWhys

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Man has a bit of an obsession, and that is the origins of mankind, his world and universe. Scientists are busy working on this quest and, from time to time a bit of news surfaces concerning current thinking and the progress of this quest. When I happen to hear some of this news, my ears perk up and then I get to compare their thinking with my own.

Perhaps, I might have made a good theoretical physicist. I have always had a bit of a fancy for science and space. In my bedroom as a child, I had a rather tattered 1958 Rand & McNalley map of the solar system. I used to lie in bed looking at the planets and the information provided for each one. It always fascinated me how it was possible to provide information, such as temperature and make-up, without having gone there. How do they know this stuff. Later, I watched TV programs like Lost in Space and the original Star Trek series, as well as science fiction movies. Eventually, I graduated to more documentary type programs, such as Nova on PBS. In high school, I particularly liked physics, and can remember the thrill as the topic of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity loomed on the curricular horizon. Most people find even the simplest tenets of this area of physics difficult to grasp, however, we had a sort of unusual teacher with an unusual voice. I remember students making fun of him a bit, but, I always had a stroke of gratitude for this little man who looked like he stepped right out of the 1930s, with his neat shiny suit, knitted vest, hair parted just off the middle and all his immaculate canvas binders of notes written on faded paper, in tiny writing by his vintage mechanical pencil with the pointy eraser added.

Yet, with all his little quirks, when he began his introduction to the Special Theory of Relativity with this story, I got it. “Once upon a time…,” he began, as if to see who might immediately get bored by this most common of fable introductions, “there were two towns of people who were at war with each other.” He continued to tell the story of how there was a mountain separating the towns and what they did was to fire canons over the mountain, the resulting trajectory, an arc created by gravity drawing the canon ball back to Earth, would allow them to hit their target without seeing them. So it was that one night, the people of one town wanted to see the other town to know what their canons had done. So, they took a spotlight and pointed it over the mountain. As he told the story, he drew it on the chalkboard, carefully checking the reaction of the students as he drew the light from the spotlight following the same arc as the canon balls. Of course, the teacher explained, this is impossible. But, wait a minute, in fact though, light can bend by the force of gravity, much like a wave in water will change direction around an object. We learned that light bends from the influence of gravity.

There were other examples. If two spaceships pass each other traveling in opposite directions at nearly the speed of light, a person looking out the window could observe hands on a clock on the other spaceship moving slower than the ones on his own spaceship. A ruler for measuring would similarly look shorter, a round object would look compressed like a vertical oval.

I have never come to understand the the math behind physics, I was scared of academics and did not enjoy school. I went to school at a time when there were less opportunities for learning assistance. Yet, all my life I have enjoyed certain aspects of science.

Science is a field that deals with theories that seek to be compared to what man can observe and or experience. In this most intriguing quest for origins, much simply can not be observed or experienced. When this is the case, scientists looks for indirect proof. For example, phenomenon like black holes could be predicted, but, not observed or experienced, however, some effects may be observed, such as from light and gravity. And, of course, nobody has observed or experienced traveling at the speed of light.

Sir Isaac Newton took up the quest and became the father of modern physics and his laws of physics held strong for years. However, the universe comprises not only what we can observe and experience, it has atomic and sub-atomic activity as well and cosmic activity. Newtonian physics simply can not provide the constructs that can explain behaviors and predict outcomes to these more complex aspects of our universe.

Theories of physics have many forces to reckon with from gravity to electromagnetism. Albert Einstein is one of the most famous physicist who took physics, in a leap, from what is now called classical physics, to the atomic, and later, the nuclear phenomenon. This ushered mankind into the nuclear age. Who has not heard of E=MC2? To Einstein’s horror, his new physics helped create the atom bomb that was dropped by the Americans on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing innocent people and causing such utter pain and destruction. The bomb did cause the Japanese to surrender, thus ending World War II. The world, would never be the same. Man now had, at his very fingertips, a destructive power he could never have imagined. When the Russians also developed the ‘bomb’, as it came to be termed, A new era emerged.

I grew up during the cold war. It wasn’t a war in the traditional sense. There was no actual fighting, just the threat of nuclear destruction. Both the United States and the Soviet Union had the ‘bomb.’ The political differences between the two countries, the U.S.A. being a democracy and the U.S.S.R, communist, made the two enemies. Thus, to prevent one from invading the other, they each aimed nuclear arms at each other. There was a problem, and it was a big one. By the time one side had launched a missile, the other side had the time to detect and retaliate. The result, mutual annihilation, or doomsday, as it became known. Complete foolishness.

Back to Einstein for a moment. Even Einstein realized that his theories did, at best, a poor job of explaining the universe. Quantum physics is another set of theories. Einstein tried in vain to find a unified theory to cover everything, but, could not.

Lately, the theories are getting, well, over the edge in my mind. Perhaps it is because man has had some years of using magnificent technology, like the Hubble telescope to see more than ever imaginable. The ideas are suggesting that it should be possible to look far enough out into space to see back in time to the point of the origin of the universe, thought to be the Big Bang. I have a few questions about this.

Suppose one could look all the way back to the origin. It seems to me that there would be a bit of a dilemma. Looking back far enough would mean that nothing would exist. Could one look beyond the bang to what there was before the bang? I am wondering if there might be something more of a serious problem. What exactly is happening when scientists claim to be looking back into the earlier times of the universe?

If everything began at a particular point and has been expanding out since the beginning of time, is there a way we can imagine what this might look like. I’m thinking of a nozzle spraying water. What you see as the water comes toward you is a spray of small drops. As you look beyond each drop, the spray gets denser until there is simply more water than space to look through. This might be problem one. You simpley could not see through all the matter as you look toward the point of origin. Thus, it would be impossible to see the point of origin. But, perhaps the universe is so huge and the amount of matter, galaxies, stars, planets, etc., is so minute in comparison, that it might be possible to keep seeing onward. We should also remember that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is off center in the spray, so one would be looking across the universe to some degree. Well, I think that at some point, it might get pretty thick anyway.

There might be an even worse problem. The spray of water from the nozzle I proposed above is taking place in normal time and distance. That is to say, quite different to the time and distance involved in looking into the universe. Some peculiarities surface when dealing with things like light, gravity, time and distance on the cosmic scale. For example, light travels at a certain speed. As one nears that speed, gravity, time and distance change. Time slows down. Distances seem to shrink. Gravity increases. Does this mean that, at the speed of light, time ceases to exist altogether? If one could travel faster than light, could one go back in time? If distances shrink, at the speed of light, would there be no distance between anything? What about gravity? It has been proven that gravity can bend light, as I have already mentioned.

All this can seem rather confusing. I just can’t figure how one might look at light that originated way back in time. By the time it gets here, the point of origin might not exist anymore. And, since gravity can bend light, how would one know where the light was coming from or wether it has been altered on it’s journey? Remember, the more matter, stars, planets, etc., the more light can bend. Could one trust what they would be looking at?

I simply can’t get past the notions that one would be able to look some direction in the cosmos and see something that is just beginning to exist, knowing that it was happening so long ago that we did not exist yet. Did you get that? How can we see something that took place before we and the point of our existence in the cosmos, even exists in the first place. How can light get to a point that never existed until after the origin of the light? Our place in the cosmos is moving away from the point of origin, the Big Bang, and somehow light from that Big Bang is supposed to catch up to us in a way that we can see the origin that happened before our place in the cosmos ever existed. Strange, isn’t it?

Here is another idea that comes to mind. We have all probably witnessed fireworks. After shooting into the sky, there is a starburst. As it spreads, it slows down, Could the big bang have some similar characteristics? If the bang indeed happened quickly and has now slowed down, what sort of differences in the laws of physics might come into play in such and event? So much matter bursting away from a point of origin at the speed, or nearly the speed, of light might change the story considerably. Time might be altered. Matter could be quite different than we might expect.

We already know that huge amounts of matter can implode and can even create a situation where there is so much gravity that even light can not escape. We call these phenomenon black holes. What sort of energy could create a situation where all the matter in the universe is gathered in one spot? Perhaps it might be more like a gas. Imagine breathing out into a very cold air. As the warm moist air in your breath hits the cold air, the moisture freezes, gathering more weight and density than when it started.

The above two paragraphs were written last night. Tonight, the news on TV announced that the Nobel Prize went to three men who have discovered that the universe is expanding faster than expected, even speeding up. This also assumes that the expansion speed has been uniform or, if increasing, the increase would be uniform. Uniform speed would be expected under Newtonian physics, however, as I have attempted to outline, Newtonian physics can’t account for all phenomenon at the cosmic level. Also announced tonight is the idea that the universe is cooling as it expands. Thus, the big bang may end with ice. I’m not sure where all the water would come from for the ice to form, considering the search for almost non-existent water in our own solar system is included as the first indicator for life.

Whoops, an expanding universe with increasing speed, now the characteristics might be just the opposite. Scientists have considered the possible results of a slowing universe that, I suppose would stop expanding some point at which time the universe might start to collapse and there might be another big bang. If it is speeding up, will it slow down, or keep expanding faster and faster. Could it reach the speed of light. What would that mean. Now, that really could be peculiar.

I mentioned earlier that physics theories simply could not explain every phenomenon observed or predicted by math at the cosmic or nuclear level. For the past few decades a new theory has been gaining acceptance by the scientific community. According to String Theory, the universe at the very minutest level is made up of tiny vibrating strings. These strings are so small they cannot be seen or detected directly.

What I have been writing about here was sparked last year by an interview on the radio. I have been adding to this slowly for months. These are huge topics, of course. The interview was with Brian Greene who specializes in String Theory has written several books explaining the ideas I have presented and much more. Recently, I have been watching some NOVA programs on PBS hosted by Brian Greene. I have to admit, he does do an excellent job of explaining these complex ideas. It is surprising to me just how much more is known than what was presented only a decade or so ago. I have watched NOVA for a long time. The current program, you should be doing some Googling to find out more, is supposed to be an introduction, however, it takes, what would have been considered years ago, huge leaps into the theories. It can be difficult to keep up and it seems impossible for me to come close to explaining any of these ideas any better that Brian Greene.

At best, I hope that my experiences and thoughts might be of interest to someone who then might become further interested enough to explore on their own. This piece of writing has sat on my computer long enough. I need to get it posted on my blog. I may write a sequel or two someday.

But first, a few of my own ideas.

These days, I have settled on a notion that the universe is held in something that I can only liken to a bubble. The bubble boundaries hold everything we could ever see and know. I think the scientists are correct when they describe a space time continuum. Everything we know exists at a single place at a single point of time. To be somewhere else takes time to move and nothing can exist in more than place at one time. The bubble may be expanding and that could be what contributes to the overall decay of everything. Scientists have a word for this and a more complex description of the decay. They call it entropy. The entropic effect means that, although one might be able to regather energy, one could never get back the the full original amount. Yes you can mop up a spilled bucket of water and theoretically have all the water back, but, there would always be some missing from soaking in and evaporation and other ways of loss. Everything experiences decay.

Thus, everything is winding down. Everything also has mass and exerts a gravitational force on everything else. That must mean that things are energy. That little leap came from my conclusion that a force requires energy. I alway try to simplify things. Will everything wind down completely someday? What would happen? Where would the energy go? Could the bubble pop someday? The answers to these questions are unanswerable as long as we are within the time space continuum of the bubble. We should be satisfied with the limits the bubble confines us to.

I’ll bet you are now wondering what I think is beyond the bubble and what might happen someday with the bubble. Well, Beyond the bubble is eternity. Eternity is the absence of space, time and gravity. There is no need for the substance we now have and are confined to. It is the place, or non-place, for spirit. Without space or time, think about what I said above, one can be everywhere at the same time, or non-time, as spirit. Oh there is another world of a sort, but remember, that is beyond us now. I am describing the eternity of God and God is going to burn everything up in our bubble someday. What happens to us at that time is the real question. The theories that occupy the minds of scientists are certainly interesting. More interesting is the notion that we are more complex and therefore interesting than the universe. God is more interested in us than the whole universe. Someday, I may tell you more. Or, you might explore for yourself.

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Christmas transitions — What about our Christmas 2010

29 Wednesday Dec 2010

Posted by Bob in myNews

≈ Comments Off on Christmas transitions — What about our Christmas 2010

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activities, adjusted, agenda, air, airport, aldergrove, alley, arrive, attend, axford, baking, BBQ, beetled, belgian, birth, blog, border, bowen, bowl, bowling, boxing day, boxing week, bread, brother, brother-in-law, brunch, buy, buying, celebrate, change, chinese, chocolate, chocolaty, christmas, christmas day, christmas eve, church, complicated, connect, cook, cooked, cooking, country, cozy, daughter, decide, describes, different, dinner, discovered, dough, drive, eggs, entry, evening, fail, fairmont, family, fancy, feast, festivities, financially, flesh, flew, fly, food, fridge, garage, gift, gifts, giving, god, grandma, grandpa, grandparents, grow, hands, hawaii, hawed, heat, highway, home, hotel, hours, house, human, hummed, i-5, idea, impossible, independent, injecting, island, item, jesus, kids, kitchen, kitchen aid, kitchenaid, landscape, learned, left-over, lines, list, living, lynden, Lynn Valley Full Gospel Church, machines, marriage, members, mixer, models, money, months, morning, mother, motor, needles, new years day, night, non-stick, norway spruce, notions, o christmas tree, old, ordeal, oregon, pain, pancakes, people, pizza, plans, plate, plentiful, pool, portland, powerful, present, presents, process, rated, reading, recipe, reciprocating, recognized, relatives, replacement, resolve, rink, roles, roller skating, rotisserie, rural, seeking, service, shift, shop, shopping, sister, skate, skateway, skillet, skype, son, Speaking, specials, spent, spit, stage, stainless, steel, stop-over, storage, summer, system, teenagers, think, today, traditional, transitions, tree, tricky, trip, turkeys, u.s., uncle, university, utility, vaporized, visit, vital, waffle, wait, warm, washington, wedding, weeks, west vancouver, wife, wifey, working, write, year

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Just in case you might be wondering, here is an entry that describes what my, our, Christmas has been like. If you read my O Christmas Tree entry of a couple of weeks ago, you will know that we began our Christmas by selecting a living tree. I am looking at it as I write this. The little Norway Spruce still has never really adjusted to being inside the house where it is warm and is, therefore, still dropping needles.

If getting the tree was an ordeal, it was the start of a few that have made our Christmas a bit different. We might give up on some of the gift giving next year. Finding presents for each other is simply getting to be complicated.

Our traditional Christmas activities are changing. I really only have to get one present, the one for my wife. Although, I have often bought a little extra for the kids. This has been impossible and no presents from me. My wife warned that we got our new house, and just spent a lot of money on a storage system for the garage, so, no presents. She was right, despite my resolve to find something.

One item on the list is a KitchenAid Stand Mixer. I have been reading about these machines and they seem to be a vital utility in the kitchen of anyone who wants to do some baking, but, one must get a good powerful one if bread dough is to be attempted. My wifey, however, hummed and hawed over the models and the whole idea to the point that we did not get one, yet. Another possibility is a non-stick skillet. Eggs and pancakes and such, are really a pain to cook in our stainless steel pans that work best on high heat. We have been looking at this for months now.

Part of our Christmas plans this year was a trip to the U.S. on the day after Boxing Day, for a bit of shopping. This plan has been part of the reason we have not been as dedicated to buy before Christmas this year. My son ended up working, so he did not come. During the whole trip, we found very little that we ended up buying. So, the trip became mostly a trip only.

We almost turned back in the morning, on the way down. Seems everybody had the idea of seeking those Boxing Week specials and the lines were nearly impossible. Once we discovered the back up, we beetled cross country, and I mean country, to the very small border at Aldergrove. It was a nice drive and the wait, although still somewhat long, was much better than the other crossings. Once across, we were in Lynden Washington. Some of the rural landscape I recognized because my grandparents and my uncle used to run the Skateway roller skating rink, bowling alley, and pool hall. Lynden was our stop-over when we used to drive from where we lived in Portland Oregon to visit our other relatives on my mother’s side in West Vancouver and later to our summer place on Bowen Island. This was before the I-5 highway and the drive was much longer than it is today. We learned to skate, bowl and play pool there.

If you think that Christmas festivities simply change hands as family members grow up or grow old, think again. There is more to it these days. I remember Christmas as being the time we all could get together. And there were gifts everywhere, and food everywhere. My sister and brother-in-law now spend Christmas in Hawaii. We usually get a short Skype call on Christmas morning from them. This year, our daughter was away at her first year of university and flew home, as it turned out, just hours before my sister was to fly to Hawaii. That meant a fancy brunch at the Airport Fairmont Hotel. Not quite a cozy Christmas visit at home, but, the food was pretty good.

Our gift from my sister is Christmas in Hawaii next year. They will supply the place, we have to get there. That may be financially tricky, but, we’ll see.

Speaking of cozy, we were a bit late on Christmas Eve, so we had to shop a bit for a late church service to attend. We decided to go to the last offering at the Lynn Valley Full Gospel Church. It was warm and cozy and we were able to connect with some people we had not seen for a while. It was really nice, so, not everything is going off track this year.

If you have been following my blog, you will remember that I have cooked a couple of turkeys on my new BBQ rotisserie. This takes some care in doing, as a turkey off center on the rotisserie spit, and they can shift during the cooking process, will cause the motor to fail. I just got my replacement the other day. I plan to get a more powerful motor, one rated for 40 lbs. not 20 lbs. Taking the stage again, I was to cook the Christmas dinner with my wife, but, somehow, the whole idea vaporized and we ended up at my wife’s brother’s family home. We have been there many times over the years, nevertheless, we have a new home, so we wanted to start reciprocating. Perhaps, next year.

Even our traditional Christmas Day brunch had only a small turn-out. Well, the food was plentiful. We just got a new Belgian waffle maker and the recipe that we chose was for chocolate waffles. Wow, so chocolaty. We were so full that I could only manage one plate at Christmas dinner that night. I think there are still a couple of left-over waffles in the fridge.

Christmas family festivities seem to go through transitions these days. Even Grandma Axford’s traditional New Years Day Evening Chinese food feast plans are up in the air. Some do not even like Chinese food and others want pizza, still others do not want to go to Grandma’s, but, want somewhere else. I’ll have to let you know what happens.

Families change. Some members get old, not being able to do what they used to do, some pass away (we lost Grandpa Axford a few months ago) and are no longer present. New members arrive, either through marriage or birth (we had a wedding and a birth this year) and kids become teenagers and decide they are independent and gain their own Christmas agenda. Christmas transitions, with other family members taking on roles and injecting their own notions of how to celebrate. Somehow though, we all get to celebrate and we should never forget what the celebration of Christmas is really about—the birth of God’s Son, in human flesh, Jesus.

Merry Christmas

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So this is Christmas

25 Saturday Dec 2010

Posted by Bob in myNews, myWhys, myZine

≈ 1 Comment

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So this is Christmas, the late, ex-Beatle, John Lennon wrote in Happy Christmas (war is over) and it is clear that Lennon was not only troubled about the Vietnam War, but, Christmas as well. He was right. Most people do miss the point of Christmas, choosing to consider it a time of goodwill and joy, peace, and simply some sort of warm fuzzy activities and feelings. This has become known as the spirit of Christmas. Unless you hibernate during the winter, you are well aware of the commercial side of Christmas and the general stress this time of year brings to most people, nevertheless, most do agree that it is a time for exceptions to the flow of life.

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During World War I, the fighting stopped and both sides met for good cheer and stories. The next day, “I enjoyed your story yesterday, now enjoy my bayonet.” Perhaps it happened. Today, we have a day of the warm fuzzies and then it is back to the war in the malls. It is hard to park during the days and even weeks before Christmas, then one day off, and the panic resumes. Even though Christmas shopping seems to begin shortly after summer. Imagine, several months of shopping and a few days, or maybe hours, of goodwill.

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Ever since Santa became obsolete, or should I say redundant, in my life, I have been troubled too. I often find myself sitting up late Christmas Eve staring at the tree and pondering. Or, this Christmas, I am writing this blog entry. Even with a full understanding of what Christmas is about, I can not shake the disconcerting feelings around the way we as a society approach Christmas. Perhaps it is because I do not do much at Christmas anymore. It did seem to make a bit more sense when I was involved in something, like playing music. I just seem to be too busy for Christmas as society does it and find it is simply a bit too stressful.

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Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about? This question, asked by Charlie Brown, brings the eternal response from Linus:

Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.
Lights, please.
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not: for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.


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Linus replies to the question with a quote directly from the Holy Bible. Linus is almost right. Although the observance of, and the name Christmas, has an origin by Christians in the second century. they did appropriate it from the Romans who celebrated a winter harvest festival marking the winter solstice, called Saturnalia. It was a rowdy festival worshipping Saturn, the God of Sowing. The winter solstice recognized the return of the sun. Christians felt it should be a time to worship the Son (of God).

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Over the centuries, Christmas has had it’s ups and downs such as over indulgence and partying. Linus’ quote sums up a magnificent story, a story that people have taken parts of, just as they pick and choose from the Bible. If you ask anyone on the street what Christmas means, they will probably respond with something that includes some form of good tidings, joy, peace on Earth and good will toward men, from the announcement in the Bible.

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Every Christmas, people sing Christmas carols. Most carols relate some form of the Christmas story. They sing about Jesus, Christ, angels and God. I never really thought about it all until I discovered the real meaning of Christmas. Then, what hypocrisy, I thought. How can people sing about Jesus without embracing Him and all that he stands for? Moreover, they mix it with all the other notions of Christmas, including the commercial ones. I was confused.

The Christmas story, in fact the Bible in whole, is so fantastic that it takes a huge leap of faith to believe. Yet, it is so full of wisdom and historical accuracy it is accepted as a great source of value for society. Jesus is considered to have been a great teacher and good person. But wait! Jesus taught that he and God are one. That he is the way to everlasting life. He has become the most important figure in history, changed and influenced millions of lives and yet was poor, never owning anything. From his birth in a manger to his death as a criminal and burial in a borrowed tomb, Jesus stands unique in comparison to any other historical person. The birth of Jesus fulfilled over 150 prophesies from the Old Testament of the Bible.

What most people know about Jesus and the Bible, they have gathered from other people. Few have made their own exploration of what the Bible states. Many have been turned off by experiences in a church or by religious people, or by others who have turned away from the church. But, for most people, they are too interested in self-indulgence and they are afraid to face their sin. The Christmas story is about love and forgiveness.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. – John 3:16 (KJV).

To me, Christmas seems to have a split personality. On one side is the Christian version, the celebration of the birth of the Son of God. However, nobody knows when that really was. Some calculations have placed it sometime around the month of September. Images and beliefs about the Christmas story have become distorted and are now full of inaccuracies. Look around, try the Internet, and you can find a manger image that contains trees with snow. Or, the one above with Santa visiting the baby Jesus. If you had never heard of Christmas and look around to learn what it was about, I think it would be hard to determine the actual meaning of Christmas.

Actually, there is no record in the Bible or in the traditions of the very early church, prior to the second century, of any sort of celebration of the birth of Jesus. Instead, Christians have always looked to and celebrated Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection.

On the other side, is the non-religious, non-Christian approach to a warm fuzzy time of year. Is it time to split Christmas, or is it fine the way it is? I wonder what Jesus would say. During his life on Earth, Jesus owned nothing himself and shared everything he received. In his resurrected life, everything belongs to him, he is the ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords.’ Jesus is coming back for His church.

So, this is Christmas…
Birth of Jesus on Facebook

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Preamble

I have many interesting activities in my life—so many that I have sometimes neglected my blogs. Since myBobLog is my original and first blog, it is here that I endeavour to continue my blogging journey once again. I started w while back with a new theme.

Then I wrote about a project of growing my hair to donate to cancer patients. I had a fundraising page that I linked to. I was going to write quite a bit about my return to playing music with my cornet and how had a dream come true by acquiring a particular cornet; and was also going to write about the two jazz bands I was running. In fact, I begun websites for them too.

Then my Essential Tremor condition worsened and I have had to resign for the bands.

Next came the great Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. This curtailed my music activities even more—to the point I can barely play me cornet.

Thus I am currently focusing on my books and my  Technojungle Safari website. I suppose I have been blaming my blogging neglect on the writing and editing of my upcoming book. I have even postponed work on my photography.

Don’t worry about the details of all these projects and activities. I will make sure the mud settles as soon as I get a better handle on how I want to set up things here on this blog to start with.

It will take some time, so stay tuned and be patient.

This Preamble hints at only somme of what I hope to write about in the future.

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