More To Do About Nothing

[amul]

The cats jumped on my face this morning at 7:30am. I refilled their water bowl, turned on the AC, drank some water myself, and then passed out again. I woke up at 2:30.

Times like this, I really would prefer to have some kind of externally-selected daily routine.

Excerpt from a book I'm reading:

Do angels have real bodies? How fast can they move? Will everyone be the same age in heaven? These questions seem pointless, but this response should not prevent us from asking why -- exactly -- they deserve to be treated so lightly....

The simplest reason for dismissing the kind of ["Angels Dancing on A Pin Head"] inquiries that D'Israeli lampooned is because they deal with things that do not exist. An atheist might argue that all speculations about the nature of God, angels, heaven and hell are misplaced: if these things are not real, it is futile to wonder what they may be like....First, empirical science has replaced theology as the normal method for establishing the physical facts of life. Second, there has been a general decline in confidence in the Bible as a source of information.... Finally, the acceptance of religious pluralism means that Christianity is no longer treated as a source of universal knowledge. While scientists can legitimately attempt to establish general principles about the cosmos, the statements of theologians are always matters of opinion. Even if Christian scholars successfully calculated the number of souls in heaven, they would not expect their findings to gain support among their Jewish or Muslim fellows.

....In the very different conditions of the pre-modern world, it was no more absurd for theologians to speculate about the physical dimensions of heaven than it is for modern physicists to contemplate the shape of the universe.

Ah, perspective.

To Do

1. Study some more for ACE exam


2. Upload WordPress 2.0 adjustments to Blue Host


3. Shoot VC assignments


4. Visit parents


5. Finish last year's taxes


6. figure out which of the two friends you've committed to are getting you on Wednesday

Done

1. Clean my desk


2. Finish paying bills


3. Apply for a credit card that has United Frequent Flyer miles


4. Organize my photos


5. Sign up for Blue Host


6. Shop for things you can't afford: Printer - Epson Stylus RX700 = $300


7. Shop for things you can't afford: Scanner - Epson Stylus RX700


8. Shop for things you can't afford: Wacom Intuos3 6x8 = $300 (or bigger)


9. Shop for things you can't afford: Flash : Sunpak Mz-440AF, plus Pentax Hotshoe F adapter, Hotshoe adapter FG and Pentax F5P cord = $175


10. Download my website, so I can upload it to Blue Host


11. Buy stamps & mail bills


12. Pick up View Camera


13. Study for ACE exam


14. Upload website to Blue Host


15. Upgrade to Wordpress 2.0

Comments

TMBG meets Kierkegaard

[chuchotement.livejournal.com]

"When you're following an angel
Does it mean you have to throw your body off a building?
Somewhere they're meeting on a pinhead
Calling you an angel, calling you the nicest things
I heard they had a space program
When they sing you can't hear, there's no air
Sometimes I think I kind of like that and
Other times I think I'm already there

--courtesy of They Might Be Giants

I would also venture that faith is just as important to science as it is to religion. Consider the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, or Schrodinger's Cat: both absurd rationalizations for the role of observable science. One does not know if the cat is dead unless he opens the box. Heisenberg's principle notes the movement of electrons through solid matter, with light as the proof: when someone shoots a photon beam at a single pinpoint of a hole, it appears not as a single dark spot on the paper behind the hole, but as a wave instead. Taking this principle to extremes, Michio Kaku, a noted M-theorist, suggests that it is indeed possible to calculate the likelihood that you will go to sleep in your own bed and wake up on the opposite side of the globe--by traveling through it. Without a certain degree of absurdity, no one would bother to be curious, and science wouldn't be catching up to science fiction, as I type this. Personally, I'm voting for the people who are venturing to build an elevator to Mars and give cyborg motor skills to paraplegics.

Re: TMBG meets Kierkegaard

[amul.livejournal.com]

I hardly think you're venturing into dark territory to suggest this. What's fascinating about this book is not that it suggests that the "pre-modern mind" (as the book so frequently calls such things) was lucid, as its argument that the pre-modern mind was just as rational as the modern mind.

Heisenberg really has the crux of it, though. We cannot measure phenomena without affecting it.

Talk about science catching up with sci-fi, have you seen the computer that works better when it's turned off? Or the video camera that warns you when you're being boring? I like living in the future.

One thought that has always fascinated me is the idea of non-modern science fiction. Surely, the great poets and philosophers of Rome must have dreamt of the future. What of the geeks of the 22nd century? What will they dream about?

Clearly, we are no more slavish in our devotion to the concept of empirical data than the 16th century theologians were to the indisputability of the Bible. Another curious point the book makes: literacy is abnormal. Our millions, perhaps even billions of literate humans are unparalleled in history, and it has had an effect on our world. How far would you have to go to be able to find a spot where there is nothing to read as far as the eye can see?

(Have I mentioned that this is the first piece of non-photography-related writing I've read in nearly three years? Aside from the audiobooks, I mean)