Having recently ventured into the mystical land known as “the real world,” several ideas and curiosities have come to my attention. I am naïve in this world, distant from my previous home full of obnoxious party goers and dedicated academics. In this world, there are responsibilities and questions of the future. Two subjects keep arising that have grabbed my attention, that of marriage and that of having children. However, the questions are not whether or not to partake in these institutions and obligations. The questions are of when to marry, who to marry, how many kids to have, and what to name them. I started thinking, why would I get married and why would I have kids? Did I consciously decide to marry and have kids or did I simply follow social norms and biological urges? I want questions like that to be answered long before I undertake such dedicated steps in my life. Sure, the challenges are distant still, but why would it ever be too early to question these immense life steps?
Category Archives: 2013
Operant Conditioning: Reshaping the world’s worst dog
My family’s Ruby is a monster bitch. And I don’t mean this is some cutesy, “I secretly love her,” kind of way. I actually really don’t like her. I know this sounds crazy, how could someone not like their cute dog. It’s simple. Ruby’s not cute. She’s not fluffy or cuddly. She has nearly no redeeming qualities beyond being a biological vacuum cleaner for food scraps. So harsh, I know. Let me explain where this blunt frustration stems from. She stares at me while I am eating or watching a movie or hanging out with friends or family and if I don’t tend to her within her designated time frame, she moves closer, proceeding closer and closer until eventually her nose is inches from my face. If at that moment I still do not give her the attention she demands, she lets loose a roaring, deep, menacing rottweiler-mutt bark, threatening to pierce right through my ear drum with her blaring decibels. If then I continue to hold my increasingly forlorn ground, she will not resign and admit defeat. Instead she whips out her third line of attack: untrimmed claws that Lucifer himself would fear.
Continue reading Operant Conditioning: Reshaping the world’s worst dog
They can be beaten
Last week I bought a refrigerator from Lowe’s and have had an enlighteningly difficult experience dealing with them. I have so often heard about the crimes of such superstores on small town living and after my most recent experience, have even more reason to find those claims absolutely hilarious. So many people have such bitterness towards Walmart and other such superstores, citing them as a terror to their town, the customers embarrassed to admit when they are forced through those well lit doors. But why such a taboo around these stores? Most can’t explain it in a logical manner, citing frustration with them ending the reign of local stores and the demise of humanity and still most people find the cheap prices of increased efficiency attractive. The funny thing I find though is that these same people seem to put these corporations on a pedestal of invincibility, essentially admitting that nothing can compete with them other than laws and their silly masqueraded protests. But with my most recent experience, a local store could easily trump the frustration and poor customer service I experienced. Continue reading They can be beaten
“The Universe manifested into self recognition”
“Seeing as we are the Universe manifested into self recognition we have the right to explore itself. Stop thinking of us as earthlings but rather, as how Carl Sagan put it, hydrogen given 15 billion years of evolution”
This was a comment posted on a facebook picture about the question of how to manage our space travels and interactions with alien lifeforms. This is amazing statement, and one that with adequate knowledge is not hard to recognize, but is seemingly impossible to grasp. We are exactly that; we are atoms trying to understand themselves. We are the universe trying to understand itself. That is a mind boggling realization and makes me soooo happy to acknowledge it. Continue reading “The Universe manifested into self recognition”
Cosmological significance
Yesterday I listened to a talk from Sam Harris on the subject of free will. It was a brilliant speech, one that I definitely feel is worth watching and may clarify some elements of my last post. What he is addressing is that not only does free will not exist but that it could not exist, that the concept itself is impossible, that to imagine free will is muddled and intangible. Harris spent a large portion of his speech outlining the benefits to knowing that we do not have free will, how an acknowledgement of this reality could help retain fear but abolish hatred, how it could help inspire a reconstructing of our justice system, and many other reasons for adopting an awareness of our true freedom. I was challenged the other day on my analysis of life and my inspiration in life coming almost purely from a cosmological perspective. While Harris supplied us with an adequate and logical reason for understanding that our thoughts are not our own, I wondered about the benefit of analyzing everything from a cosmological perspective. Continue reading Cosmological significance
Determinism
We live in a deterministic world where every movement is a result of the infinite movements preceding it. I could limit this claim to the 13.8 billion years preceding this temporally measurable moment but then that would give people the idea that there was an initial movement at that time, one created by some impossibly intangible superior being. Why claim though that there was an infinite mover than to simply claim that movement itself is infinite? Thus we acknowledge that it is likely that the movement 13.8 billion years ago was simply a result of a movement that preceded it.
A confused vision of our earth claims misunderstanding or even inability to understand. Continue reading Determinism
Boston manhunt and Fahrenheit 451
I remember I was on the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania when I finished reading Fahrenheit 451. I was at a camp maintained by Boy Scouts, a clean and elegantly designed shelter scarred only with the signatures of many dozens of prepubescent boys. My companions for the night were a diverse group of interesting characters, some out for the night, some making the same journey I had signed up for. For every one of us it seemed it was an escape. My companions remained anonymous until I finished the last bits of the book. They could tell something about it struck me deep. Continue reading Boston manhunt and Fahrenheit 451
Bursting at the seams
I am really happy to be here. I love this planet, I love this species, and I love this universe. Sometimes (often) I get so overwhelmed by this place that I feel like I am going to explode. Tonight my barriers holding the excitement back fell to the jumping, pacing, happy, overwhelmed Grayson within. First it was negligible senescence, then it was multiverse theory, then it was genetics, then neutron stars. I got excited and giddy as hell. I couldn’t even stay seated. I don’t know why it is that this happens. It is like a tick, crippling if held back. Continue reading Bursting at the seams
Biological immortality
Imagine watching nuclear fusion come to be standard as energy on the earth. You stand by as you witness one of the greatest advancements in humankind-the transition to sustainability. Imagine, with the discovery of better methods of space travel, abandoning our terrestrial life to become space-faring, trans-galactic beings. Imagine interacting with beings from another planet, learning their language, their culture, their technology. Imagine studying their biology, making friends on another planet, learning their planet’s history, and having access to information about the universe that we have not yet acquired. Imagine watching our planet develop, new species forming, continents shifting. What if I were to tell you that all of this could potentially happen within your lifetime? Continue reading Biological immortality
Badass pictures
Yesterday I rode for the first time in months. I ventured down south of the James and rode on the beautiful low traffic roads that I remember once believing were hilly. It was an amazing feeling to be mobile and fast again. Despite the occasional tweak in my ankle, the pain couldn’t compare to what I experience when running or swimming. And the pain from my lack of training was an adequate distraction. For the first time in many, many years, if not ever, I was passed on a solo ride by another cyclist. It was awkward as hell and I’ll admit my heart sank when I heard the whir of his spinning chain slip by. I felt broken but I remembered I had vowed to not let my insecurity be my motivation and I continued to enjoy my ride. With my hairy, skinny legs, I was determined to accept the state where I had arrived with acceptance and pride.
I had my MRI yesterday morning. Ever since learning about the basic of an MRI in my organic chemistry class, I have been fascinated with that form of medical imaging. For the twenty-five minutes I lay with the magnets clambering around my leg, all I could think about was the amazing feat of human knowledge and engineering to be able to create such a machine. Continue reading Badass pictures