I rede you, Loddfafnir! and hear my rede,—
Profit you have if you hear,
Great your gain if you learn:
Exchange of words
with a witless ape
You must not ever make.
- Havamal 122
... nuff said.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Some lessons are learned the hard way ...
... nuff said.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Pandora exists!?
Avatarmania has not subsided.
When the movie Avatar first came out, there were news of people who entered a state of depression after watching the movie because they felt unable to live in a world like Pandora. Now, astronomy and exoplanet enthusiasts are announcing the existence of a Blue Moon light years away similar in size to Pandora.
I don't know if it's a hoax, but from my understanding the mathematical laws of probability dictate that in the vast expanse comprising trillions of galaxies with trillions of stars each, there should be at the very least several thousand Pandoras and several thousand Earths, most of them so far away that our race will never hear from them.
This brings up a current phenomenon that science fiction has made popular: it's a phenomenon where life imitates art. In fact, most of the things that were imagined decades ago by science fiction pioneers like Isaac Asimov sound pretty much like a description of the modern world in which we live: airplanes flying over people every five minutes, boxes where food can be cooked in less than four minutes, cellphones, the beginning of space exploration ... we are today already living in the world that Asimov envisioned! And the world that our contemporary science fiction envisions will be in existance in some form or another within several centuries.
The people that colonize other planets will no doubt derive much of their new folklore from modern science fiction, and much of their mythology from Star Wars, Dune and other classics. Sci-fi will provide terms, ideological and social models, even the cultural and technological ideas that will fuel future life in other planets.
I love the science fiction genre because it contains the seed of prophecy, strange as it sounds. It is the only fictional genre where humans can begin to explore the questions that are mostly unasked because we haven't progressed to that point yet, and where many of the premises it's based on are required to be pre-scientific and ergo they may potentially materialize one day in the far future (otherwise the work is considered fantasy instead of sci-fi).
By prophecy I do not mean any type of supernatural agent or revelation: prophecy is to me another name for a pop conspiracy that is cloaked in mystery and appeals to religion for legitimacy and authority in order to become a living cultural tradition.
I remember reading the Nebula-award winning novel Red Mars, and realizing that the work being done today by the Mars Society, which is attempting to organize the pioneering work of terraforming and colonizing our second home in space, is inspired in many ways by this novel, and the novel also asks the philosophical questions relevant to the expedition and the project of terraforming Mars.
Through this genre, we're beginning to mentally prepare for the next leg in our evolutionary journey: this is a huge and absolutely necessary mental exercise for our generation. Most humans haven't even begun to ponder this. Within the next century, we are about to embark on the first seeding of humans in another world, the first experiment in speciation, the birthing of what will with certaintly become the first post-human race after many generations of isolation and adaptation: the Martian Man, the Homo Martianis.
So maybe Pandora exists after all. And if it doesn't, it won't matter because some day in the far future we'll create it ...
When the movie Avatar first came out, there were news of people who entered a state of depression after watching the movie because they felt unable to live in a world like Pandora. Now, astronomy and exoplanet enthusiasts are announcing the existence of a Blue Moon light years away similar in size to Pandora.
I don't know if it's a hoax, but from my understanding the mathematical laws of probability dictate that in the vast expanse comprising trillions of galaxies with trillions of stars each, there should be at the very least several thousand Pandoras and several thousand Earths, most of them so far away that our race will never hear from them.
This brings up a current phenomenon that science fiction has made popular: it's a phenomenon where life imitates art. In fact, most of the things that were imagined decades ago by science fiction pioneers like Isaac Asimov sound pretty much like a description of the modern world in which we live: airplanes flying over people every five minutes, boxes where food can be cooked in less than four minutes, cellphones, the beginning of space exploration ... we are today already living in the world that Asimov envisioned! And the world that our contemporary science fiction envisions will be in existance in some form or another within several centuries.
The people that colonize other planets will no doubt derive much of their new folklore from modern science fiction, and much of their mythology from Star Wars, Dune and other classics. Sci-fi will provide terms, ideological and social models, even the cultural and technological ideas that will fuel future life in other planets.
I love the science fiction genre because it contains the seed of prophecy, strange as it sounds. It is the only fictional genre where humans can begin to explore the questions that are mostly unasked because we haven't progressed to that point yet, and where many of the premises it's based on are required to be pre-scientific and ergo they may potentially materialize one day in the far future (otherwise the work is considered fantasy instead of sci-fi).
By prophecy I do not mean any type of supernatural agent or revelation: prophecy is to me another name for a pop conspiracy that is cloaked in mystery and appeals to religion for legitimacy and authority in order to become a living cultural tradition.
I remember reading the Nebula-award winning novel Red Mars, and realizing that the work being done today by the Mars Society, which is attempting to organize the pioneering work of terraforming and colonizing our second home in space, is inspired in many ways by this novel, and the novel also asks the philosophical questions relevant to the expedition and the project of terraforming Mars.
Through this genre, we're beginning to mentally prepare for the next leg in our evolutionary journey: this is a huge and absolutely necessary mental exercise for our generation. Most humans haven't even begun to ponder this. Within the next century, we are about to embark on the first seeding of humans in another world, the first experiment in speciation, the birthing of what will with certaintly become the first post-human race after many generations of isolation and adaptation: the Martian Man, the Homo Martianis.
So maybe Pandora exists after all. And if it doesn't, it won't matter because some day in the far future we'll create it ...
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Scans see 'gay brain differences'
There have been previous studies that have shown that gay male brains were different, but the brains of lesbians had not been studied enough. These studies had previously observed the size of the hypothalamus, a gland in the center of the brain, and the fact that the nerves that connect the two hemispheres of the brain are more extended in the brains of gay men. Now, there is a more comprehensive study:
Scans see 'gay brain differences'
The brains of gay men and women look like those found in heterosexual people of the opposite sex, research suggests.
The Swedish study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, compared the size of the brain's halves in 90 adults.
Gay men and heterosexual women had halves of a similar size, while the right side was bigger in lesbian women and heterosexual men.
A UK scientist said this was evidence sexual orientation was set in the womb.
Scientists have noticed for some time that homosexual people of both sexes have differences in certain cognitive abilities, suggesting there may be subtle differences in their brain structure.
This is the first time, however, that scientists have used brain scanners to try to look for the source of those differences.
A group of 90 healthy gay and heterosexual adults, men and women, were scanned by the Karolinska Institute scientists to measure the volume of both sides, or hemispheres, of their brain.
When these results were collected, it was found that lesbians and heterosexual men shared a particular "asymmetry" in their hemisphere size, while heterosexual women and gay men had no difference between the size of the different halves of their brain.
In other words, structurally, at least, the brains of gay men were more like heterosexual women, and gay women more like heterosexual men.
A further experiment found that in one particular area of the brain, the amygdala, there were other significant differences.
In heterosexual men and gay women, there were more nerve "connections" in the right side of the amygdala, compared with the left.
The reverse, with more neural connections in the left amygdala, was the case in homosexual men and heterosexual women.
The Karolinska team said that these differences could not be mainly explained by "learned" effects, but needed another mechanism to set them, either before or after birth.
'Fight, flight or mate'
Dr Qazi Rahman, a lecturer in cognitive biology at Queen Mary, University of London, said that he believed that these brain differences were laid down early in foetal development.
"As far as I'm concerned there is no argument any more - if you are gay, you are born gay," he said.
The amygdala, he said, was important because of its role in "orientating", or directing, the rest of the brain in response to an emotional stimulus - be it during the "fight or flight" response, or the presence of a potential mate.
"In other words, the brain network which determines what sexual orientation actually 'orients' towards is similar between gay men and straight women, and between gay women and straight men.
"This makes sense given that gay men have a sexual preference which is like that of women in general, that is, preferring men, and vice versa for lesbian women."
Scans see 'gay brain differences'
The brains of gay men and women look like those found in heterosexual people of the opposite sex, research suggests.
The Swedish study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, compared the size of the brain's halves in 90 adults.
Gay men and heterosexual women had halves of a similar size, while the right side was bigger in lesbian women and heterosexual men.
A UK scientist said this was evidence sexual orientation was set in the womb.
Scientists have noticed for some time that homosexual people of both sexes have differences in certain cognitive abilities, suggesting there may be subtle differences in their brain structure.
This is the first time, however, that scientists have used brain scanners to try to look for the source of those differences.
A group of 90 healthy gay and heterosexual adults, men and women, were scanned by the Karolinska Institute scientists to measure the volume of both sides, or hemispheres, of their brain.
When these results were collected, it was found that lesbians and heterosexual men shared a particular "asymmetry" in their hemisphere size, while heterosexual women and gay men had no difference between the size of the different halves of their brain.
In other words, structurally, at least, the brains of gay men were more like heterosexual women, and gay women more like heterosexual men.
A further experiment found that in one particular area of the brain, the amygdala, there were other significant differences.
In heterosexual men and gay women, there were more nerve "connections" in the right side of the amygdala, compared with the left.
The reverse, with more neural connections in the left amygdala, was the case in homosexual men and heterosexual women.
The Karolinska team said that these differences could not be mainly explained by "learned" effects, but needed another mechanism to set them, either before or after birth.
'Fight, flight or mate'
Dr Qazi Rahman, a lecturer in cognitive biology at Queen Mary, University of London, said that he believed that these brain differences were laid down early in foetal development.
"As far as I'm concerned there is no argument any more - if you are gay, you are born gay," he said.
The amygdala, he said, was important because of its role in "orientating", or directing, the rest of the brain in response to an emotional stimulus - be it during the "fight or flight" response, or the presence of a potential mate.
"In other words, the brain network which determines what sexual orientation actually 'orients' towards is similar between gay men and straight women, and between gay women and straight men.
"This makes sense given that gay men have a sexual preference which is like that of women in general, that is, preferring men, and vice versa for lesbian women."
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Pope failed to defrock U.S. sex abuse priest
Vatican halted trial after cleric’s plea for leniency to future pontiff
I am hoping that we as a society will soon reach a tipping point and that we will get to a place where priests who commit crimes are treated as criminals and not protected by the authorities.
I am hoping that we as a society will soon reach a tipping point and that we will get to a place where priests who commit crimes are treated as criminals and not protected by the authorities.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
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