A Most Astounding Fact About the Universe

A lovely video made of Neil deGrasse Tyson's response to what he thinks is the most interesting fact about the universe.

Less Wrong

Hi, I'm James, and I'm also a contributor to this blog.  I don't know how often I'll post anything, though - and no one has posted anything in a while.

Today I'd like to mention my favorite website - another blog - Less Wrong.  On its About Page, Less Wrong describes itself as a "large, active website for people who try to think rationally".  In my opinion, they've discussed almost every interesting thing you can think of there.

My favorite reading on Less Wrong was a "sequence" of posts called "How to Actually Change Your Mind".  This series of blog posts discusses ways that people (including you (and me)) can be biased when evaluating different truth claims, and ways that we can avoid such bias and be in the best possible psychological state to change our minds about something, if that is what the evidence truly dictates we should do.

A quote I recently read there that I found insightful was taken from the post "My Childhood Death Spiral" (discussing the author's reaction to his parents' reaction when he questioned the religion he was brought up in, Judaism):

For a long time, I thought that the moral of this story was that experience was no match for sheer raw native intelligence.  It wasn't until a lot later, in my twenties, that I looked back and realized that I couldn't possibly have been more intelligent than my parents before puberty, with my brain not even fully developed.  At age eleven, when I was already nearly a full-blown atheist, I could not have defeated my parents in any fair contest of mind.  My SAT scores were high for an 11-year-old, but they wouldn't have beaten my parents' SAT scores in full adulthood.  In a fair fight, my parents' intelligence and experience could have stomped any prepubescent child flat.  It was dysrationalia that did them in; they used their intelligence only to defeat itself.

Another one of my favorite Less Wrong posts is "Truly Part of You".

I'm sorry that this blog post wasn't well-written.  I preferred to write a somewhat disjointed blog post over nothing at all.  Less Wrong is such a large site that I didn't really know how to compress it into a single blog post.  If you want to learn more about it, Less Wrong also has a FAQ.

And one more addendum: The primary author of Less Wrong, Eliezer Yudkowsky, wrote a Harry Potter fanfiction (which actually gets good reviews) called "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality".  You might want to take a look at that here, if you are both a fan of Harry Potter and rational thought.

The Sagan Series

     Carl Sagan was a scientific genius. He was a pioneer in space exploration. He was also incredibly articulate (breaking the stereotype that scientists are cold and lack human compassion). He hosted a television program "Cosmos" and wrote an amazing book The Pale Blue Dot.
     His words are beautiful and poetic. There is no way that I can describe what Dr. Sagan's words are really like, so instead I will have you listen to them.
     Reid Gower has compiled quotes from Sagan's audio-book, and placed them along side music and significant pictures. The effect is amazing.

     The video is short, so I think it's is more than reasonable to ask for you to sit and listen intently for the three and a half minutes. If you can, just listen and consider what Dr. Sagan says. If you do this I promise you won't regret it.

     If you enjoy this, there are 8 more videos like it. Also Cosmos is available on Netflix, and The Pale Blue Dot is available pretty much all over the place.

Sunshine and Earthquakes

(The following contains two songs by hardcore/hard rock bands.  If you are not interested in that type of music, it is not necessary to listen to the songs to get the gist of the blog post.  Simply reading the lyrics will be sufficient, but I think listening to the music makes a better and more lasting impression.)

People seeking the "American Dream" rarely reach the goals they set out to achieve.  The following song by the band Scarlet immerses us in the experience of someone stuck in a prison of his own creation.

Scarlet- "Fluorescent Sunshine"

Army ants living a little white lie
A slave to the wage and the nine to five
I want the monotony 
I need the anonymity 
My job defines who I am 
It's my personal Jesus 
It's the evolution of man  
My net worth tells me who I am  
This is something you can't understand ...anymore  
Take it all and beg for more  
We're all drugged monkeys  
Content with our role  
We're all porn junkies  
Looking for a hole

Stuck in the daily grind, many Americans often feel like "army ants" who live the "little white lie" that what they are doing is meaningful.  It's easy to succumb to the "monotony" and "anonymity" of corporate America and its requirements for what it defines as "success."  People who become absorbed in their jobs often try to make their career their salvation from meaninglessness.  This can lead to the neglect of family, an inability to relax, and an overall cynical worldview.

Having been deluded into believing that this is "just the way it is," we in the West often become complacent, accepting that the "9-5" is a role we must fulfill.  We feel that this sort of work schedule is necessary in order to survive.  Because of this, we tend to lack excitement and seek it in things that are less than fulfilling.  Our sex-obsessed culture floods our minds with images, slogans, and products that imply that fulfillment will come from sex with the most attractive member of our species.  When that doesn't work out, we become "porn junkies looking for a hole."  Anything will do, and we seek fulfillment in whatever trivial pleasures (not necessarily sex) will temporarily make us forget about our search for real meaning.  We don't realize we're part of a society that stifles us and disables us from reaching our true potential.

Thrice- "The Earth Will Shake"

We dream of ways to break these iron bars
We dream of black nights without moon or stars
We dream of tunnels and of sleeping guards
We dream of blackouts in the prison yard

Heartbroken, we found a gleam of hope
Harken to the sound, a whistle blows
Heaven sent reply, however small
Evidence of life beyond these walls
Born and bred in this machine
Wardens dread to see us dream
We hold tight to legends of
Real life, the way it was before

We dream of jailers throwing down their arms
We dream of open gates and no alarms

Look to the day the earth will shake
These weathered walls will fall away

In the depths of our subconscious, we hope for something more.  We don't want to be part of a machine that tells us how to live our lives.  We're constantly searching for ways to break free of the prison that holds us, be it merely in our minds, be it the dog-eat-dog environment of the business world, or be it the suffocating walls of an office cubicle.

I recently learned that "The Earth Will Shake" by Thrice is based on a poem written by C.S. Lewis, which can be found here and in the text below.  I don't know if this is the official version, since I do not have a copy of this poem in print, but the following version will suffice to show the similarities between it and the song:

"The Prudent Jailor" - by C.S. Lewis

Always the old nostalgia? Yes.
We still remember times before
We had learned to wear the prison dress
Or steel rings rubbed our ankles sore.

Escapists? Yes. Looking at bars
And chains, we think of files; and then
Of black nights without moon or stars
And luck befriending hunted men.

Still when we hear the trains at night
We envy the free travellers, whirled
In how few moments past the sight
Of the blind wall that bounds our world.

Our Jailer (well may he) prefers
Our thoughts should keep a narrower range.
‘The proper study of prisoners
is prison’, he tells us. Is it strange?

And if old freedom in our glance
Betrays itself, he calls it names
‘Dope’-‘Wishful thinking’-or ‘Romance’,
Till tireless propaganda tames.

All but the strong whose hearts they break,
All but the few whose faith is whole.
Some walls cannot a prison make
Half so secure as rigmarole.

The "tireless propaganda" that tells us that this is the way it has to be, that there is only one way to live and thrive in society, does not have to be heeded.  We don't have to live in a hazy stupor that feels like happiness but is really a sad, tired complacency.  From the time we are young we are told to obey.  We are told that there is a proper way to think and (especially if you were raised in a religious community) believe.  If one veers too far off course from what those above us feel is proper or acceptable, they are punished, shunned, corrected, or rejected.  "The proper study of prisoners / is prison."  If our minds go beyond the confines of that box, those who seek to control us become threatened.

We should hold tightly to the hope that there is more to life than what we are currently entangled in.  We can't know that there is a life of greater meaning, purpose, and fulfillment beyond the confining walls of "society," but we can hope for it.  We can work to make it a reality.

The question to consider is this: How do we find a life that holds more meaning than the daily grind, working to earn a wage that merely allows us to survive, instead of truly live?  Are we willing to do what it takes to live a purposeful, fulfilling life?  How do we free our minds?  Are we content living in a world of false happiness, of fluorescent sunshine, or are we ready and willing to look forward to the day the earth will shake, doing what we can in the meantime to make that day become a reality?

What do you think?  What does "life beyond these walls" look like?  What alternatives are there?  How do you find meaning?

HBO on the state of the USA

     I personally hate political fluff questions, where there's no wrong answer. Even worse is when the question is real, and the answer is not. Both of these things have become extremely common, which is why I think HBO's The Newsroom is so refreshing. True it isn't an actual news show, and everything that they report is old information, BUT it is all accurate.

Here's a bunch of the things that were just mentioned, reported on the CIA World Factbook and more.

Illicit drugs:
world's largest consumer of cocaine (shipped from Colombia through Mexico and the Caribbean), Colombian heroin, and Mexican heroin and marijuana; major consumer of ecstasy and Mexican methamphetamine; minor consumer of high-quality Southeast Asian heroin; illicit producer of cannabis, marijuana, depressants, stimulants, hallucinogens, and methamphetamine; money-laundering center

Exchange rates:

British pounds per US dollar: 0.6176 (2011 est.), 0.6468 (2010 est.), 0.6494 (2009), 0.5302 (2008), 0.4993 (2007) Canadian dollars per US dollar: 0.9801 (2011 est.), 1.0302 (2010 est.), 1.1431 (2009), 1.0364 (2008), 1.0724 (2007) Chinese yuan per US dollar: 6.455 (2011 est.), 6.7703 (2010 est.), 6.8314 (2009), 6.9385 (2008), 7.61 (2007) euros per US dollar: 0.7107 (2011 est.), 0.755 (2010 est.), 0.7198 (2009), 0.6827 (2008), 0.7345 (2007) Japanese yen per US dollar: 79.67 (2011 est.), 87.78 (2010), 93.57 (2009), 103.58 (2008), 117.99 (2007)

Public debt:
67.7% of GDP (2011 est.) country comparison to the world: 35 62.8% of GDP (2010 est.) note: data cover only what the United States Treasury denotes as "Debt Held by the Public," which includes all debt instruments issued by the Treasury that are owned by non-US Government entities; the data include Treasury debt held by foreign entities; the data exclude debt issued by individual US states, as well as intra-governmental debt; intra-governmental debt consists of Treasury borrowings from surpluses in the trusts for Federal Social Security, Federal Employees, Hospital Insurance (Medicare and Medicaid), Disability and Unemployment, and several other smaller trusts; if data for intra-government debt were added, "Gross Debt" would increase by about one-third of GDP
Inflation rate (consumer prices):
3.1% (2011 est.) country comparison to the world: 60 1.6% (2010 est.)

Unemployment rate:
9% (2011 est.) country comparison to the world: 103 9.6% (2010 est.)

GDP (purchasing power parity):
$15.29 trillion (2011 est.) country comparison to the world: 2 $15.03 trillion (2010 est.) $14.58 trillion (2009 est.) note: data are in 2011 US dollars

Maternal mortality rate:
21 deaths/100,000 live births (2010) country comparison to the world: 136

Education expenditures:
5.5% of GDP (2007) country comparison to the world: 44

Obesity - adult prevalence rate:
33.9% (2006) country comparison to the world: 6

Health expenditures:
16.2% of GDP (2009) country comparison to the world: 2

Infant mortality rate:
total: 5.98 deaths/1,000 live births country comparison to the world: 174 male: 6.64 deaths/1,000 live births female: 5.3 deaths/1,000 live births (2012 est.)
Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 78.49 years country comparison to the world: 50 male: 76.05 years female: 81.05 years (2012 est.)

What Slinkys can show us that Newton's laws can't

     What happens when you hold up a solid object and let it go? ...well it falls of coarse. How soon does it start falling? As soon as you release it... sort of. Radiolab and a few YouTube videos can explain and demonstrate what I'm hinting at a lot better than I can.

     See, when you dangle the Slinky you make it so that the only way information can travel from top to bottom is through the coil. Because the path is so long you can see this delay of "knowledge" between what the top of the Slinky "knows" and what the bottom of the Slinky "knows". 

     This is a simple example of how matter can act as a wave. The Slinky is literally falling molecule by molecule. The molecules have small spaces between them, so it takes a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second for the first molecule to effect the next one. If you add up these each individually invisible delays you end up with one visible one.

     Its the same sort of effect as shown by a whip or a pole vault. It occurs in all matter, not only flexible matter. So this means EVERYTHING occurs on some amount of delay. The longer the path the longer the delay, but even short delays can have a large effect.

F=ma

     This might be taken to mean that any two items made of the same material, traveling at the same speed, hitting the same surface will have the same effect. This isn't the case. A ball bearing of mass m will not hit as hard as a metal rod of mass m that strikes on its end. Pretty cool. 

Post 1

FIRST!
     I've been wanting a place to share my discoveries. When I say my discoveries, I don't mean things I myself have actually determined to be true; I mostly mean other people's discoveries that I have stumbled my way into in life.

     I am taking a lot of engineering classes, and a few philosophy ones. SO... most of the things on here will be philosophical or just plane physics. But its all stuff that I think is cool.